Firestarter

I was looking over the bar because I couldn't see the Scotch and you always have to have Black Label for your shots, you fucking princess. Don't blame me for trying to cater to your finicky airs. And if you're talking about the red we had in the private room at Morton's, I didn't pick it out. It was the damn sommelier and it was YOUR bright idea to ask her for a recommendation. Come to think of it, I think the way you phrased it was, "Oh, just bring us anything! I'm sure it'll be luhvlee!" <trilling twitter> If you weren't so intent on flirting with everything with a cunt maybe you wouldn't have had to SUFFER SUCH UNIMAGINABLE DEPRIVATIONS as drinking bad wine. The horror! But did I bitch at you about it? No. I let it go. And you have the nerve to bring it up now?! Brazen slut. And what the fuck is wrong with my hair?! At least I didn't come up with the pot-addled idea to cut it into a frizzy bob... unlike a CERTAIN SOMEONE. And don't talk to me about Pam Grier. Don't you ever talk to me about anyone else again. Whore.

"Staring at her ass?" What, through the fucking bar? Hate to break this to you - I know you love it when I dress up in the Supergirl outfit with the red pleated miniskirt - but I really don't have X-ray vision, toots. As for not having had sex in 6 hours, I wasn't the one who was too busy jilling off to Shakira videos. Sandra Bernhard my cute little ass. If I hear that "Whenever, Wherever" crap one more time I'm going to kill you.

I'm not having this conversation in public. Especially not since you hit on that damn bartender at Cafe Citron. "Yes, I'm a natural blonde... would you like to see?" <twitter> Stupid faithless airhead bimbo slut. And then you have the nerve to tell me that you only flirted with her because she looked like me?! Like I'm supposed to believe that? I give you the best years of my life, and this is how you repay me?! Go to hell! And Christ Jesus, that "natural blonde" shit is older than you are. Can't you do better than that anymore? Clumsy bitch.

That's what happened to our "spark," you unfeeling bitch. Dragging out your fucking toys all the time... isn't my body enough for you anymore? My lips? My tongue? My heart? You love that damn dildo more than you love me. Admit it. Just admit it!

My wife and I recently spent two and a half months in Thailand, and without exception it was the Germans and the French who were rude, loud, obnoxious, disrespectful, and arrogant. Every American we saw was soft-spoken and polite; not one sunbathed topless in deference to Thai customs (whereas European women with sagging breasts were in abundant supply), and they always took their shoes off whenever a sign asked them to do so. A German couple, on the other hand, was observed having a loud argument with a diffident monk about the matter. Your evidence is purely anecdotal - as is mine. I've seen counterexamples to both our posts countless times in countless countries. If you're going to ask us not to stereotype the Europeans, kindly return the favour. "Ugly Americans" abroad are an old and very tired cliche which never really existed. As for the French, I've spent almost three months in Paris and two in Geneva, and my personal experiences with them were mostly pleasant. The only sweeping generalisation I'm willing to make is that they tend to be sniffy and unpleasant if your French is less than perfect, rather than flattered that you're making an attempt. But then, I was in Paris - and Paris, as Methos said, is full of Parisians. Even the French don't like Paris.

Accepted.

She looks like a pretty hot skank. Since you two broke up, can I have her phone number?

It is indeed, which is why I don't subscribe to the dangerously complacent idea that Clinton "caused" 9/11 in any way. It was a combination of a lot of factors, but simple institutional inertia was the biggest one.

All your criticisms of President Clinton are on target. However, that doesn't change the fact that intelligence in the past had never been used to contain terrorist threats - only to deal with them afterwards. The impetus to predict and prevent did not exist. Anywhere. Our policy was one of reaction and reaction alone. Of course Clinton's presidency and his half-assed military actions, coupled with his defense and intelligence cuts, enabled or at least encouraged bin Laden to go ahead with 9/11. But practically any president would have done the same. Perhaps for less sordid reasons, but the end result would have been the same. Clinton didn't establish a reactionary policy towards terrorism. He just didn't change it.

JMA is correct. (Please put a paper bag over your head if you have begun to hyperventilate.) President Clinton was in no way directly responsible for 9/11. However, he did preside over crippling intelligence and defense budget cuts, and he did issue the order to withdraw from Somalia, which indirectly contributed to bin Laden's confidence pertaining to the presumed effectiveness of 9/11. One must also remember that despite individual warnings (however prescient in hindsight), prior to 9/11, terrorism was still institutionally regarded as a small-scale threat which could be addressed by small-scale measures. It galls me to admit this, but even if we had been given the funding we requested, our intelligence services would (probably) not have been able to prevent 9/11. The institutional impetus simply did not exist, and (again, individual warnings aside) we did not admit the broader state-based origin of terrorist activities. Broadly, defense activities were focused in the wrong direction, and no President could have changed that in the amount of time it turned out we had. In sum, it is my professional opinion that 9/11 would have occurred sooner or later, regardless of anything President Clinton might have done differently. That doesn't mean I don't consider many of his decisions ill-advised; I simply don't think that revisiting history teaches us much in this particular case.

Good show.

(emphasis added) Another lie, as we can see in one of your own posts: (emphasis added) Either you're a liar or you're a subliterate idiot, and you don't understand that when you refer to US citizens being tried, add a conjunction, and then say "executed," your sentence structure clearly points to the execution of US citizens. There is no other subject in the clause. You said that US citizens were being executed. So which is it, Tyler? Are you an idiot or a liar? Jose Padilla is being held at the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina. He has never been tried by a military tribunal, and according to the Department of Justice, he never will be. This is a matter of public record. So, once more, you're lying. The President, the House, the Senate, and the Department of Justice have all explicitly stated that US citizens will not be tried by military tribunals in the war against terrorism. Again, are you a subliterate idiot or a liar? HR 3564, SR 1941, and the President's Military Order clearly specify that the tribunals will try non-citizens exclusively. What's the matter? Can't you read? Are you having trouble with all the big words? Or is it just easier for you to lie in order to manufacture your phony outrage at anything and everything the President does? First there are "some reports" that US citizens are being executed, now your argument has nothing to do with that, because such executions cannot be substantiated. And for a very good reason: they are not occurring. They have not occurred and they are not going to occur. No one has ever said otherwise. Except you. Until you were called on the carpet to answer for your barefaced lie. And then you backed down like the whining cur you are. Why did you lie, Tyler? Don't answer that. We all know why, don't we? Because you hate the President. Yet another lie. I've lost count of them by now. Not one US citizen has yet been tried before a military tribunal. Not one. No pending legislation provides for such tribunals to try a US citizen. None. In fact, as I've stated over and over again, all existing Presidential orders and all pending legislation clearly and specifically exclude US citizens from trial by military tribunals. So, again, why did you lie, Tyler? Because you hate the President? I'm sure you do. You've proven your hatred countless times in countless threads. However, that's not an argument. That's simply your personal petty spite coming into play as you continue to act out your ungrateful, one-sided, and utterly ineffective farce of a vendetta against a very great man whose resolve, vision, intelligence, courage, skill, leadership, and wisdom are pretty much the only things keeping your worthless skin in one piece. Still, summa petit livor, perflant altissima venti; I expect little more from your kind. But I'm tired of the psychodrama, Tyler. Go act it out somewhere else.

You know perfectly well you've fantasised about teaming up with me for years.

It sure is, and that, again, isn't my argument. I'm arguing that they're being put up in front of military tribunals and being denied a trial by jury of their peers. I've said that at least five times in this thread. You've ignored it every time. Instead, you proceed with pointless, stupid, and hateful ad hominem attacks against me and then argue other points in an effort to change the subject from what I'm trying to argue. Case in point: asking me to back up sources when you KNOW what I'm saying is true. You've simply got a massive fucking ego and you can't admit that you're wrong. No; what you're saying is simply not true. Name one American citizen who has in fact been judged and executed by a military tribunal. That is your "issue," right? Well, it seems you're arguing a hypothetical, because I still haven't heard of even one actual person to whom this has happened. Extended pretrial detentions HAVE occurred, but these violate no law in the specific case of terrorism - as you yourself admitted. You can't be talking about Walker, because he's in jail after having been tried in a federal court. You can't be talking about Padilla - you can't really, can you? - because I remember perfectly clearly that the Department of Justice told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he would never be brought before a tribunal. Both HR 3564 and SR 1941 (currently before the House and Senate Committees on Armed Services, and the House Committee on the Judiciary) clearly specify that the tribunals are to be used for non-citizens only. The President's Military Order of 11/13/01 clearly specifies that the tribunals are to be used for non-citizens only. Even the title of the order itself makes that explicit assurance: "Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism." So whose case are you pleading? Give me a name. Don't say "some reports say this" and then try to dismiss your own claims as irrelevant. Maybe I do have a "massive ego," but at least I'm not a liar. I don't make up shit and then pass it off as an "aspect of my rhetoric." And your lies are central to this argument, Tyler, because without your lies you don't have even a rhetorical leg to stand on. I don't "KNOW what [you're] saying is true" at all. Quite the opposite. I KNOW what you're saying is a lie. Stop lying. Give me a name. One US citizen who has been tried by a military tribunal without having been found guilty of treason first. Just one. It isn't that hard, Tyler. Give me a name. Just one name. One.

Old laws which were never repealed, mostly dating from Prohibition.

Your hysteria aside, allow me to suggest that you examine the Bail Reform Act of 1984 (United States Code, Title 18, 3141–50 and 3156). In the case of capital crimes committed by persons whom no combination of factors can prevent from flight or the endangerment of others, pretrial detention is perfectly constitutional. I'd rather be called "reprehensible" by a left-wing lunatic who wants to let all the good little terrorists out of their cages than be suicidally and homicidally ignorant.

Stall? Whose constitutional rights have been violated as of this time? Who has been executed? Congratulations; you've proven you can reproduce a newspaper article. A Xerox machine can do the same thing, and it's an open question as to which of the two is more worth debating. If this is the extent of your lexicological prowess, I sincerely hope you never reproduce in a more biological sense. That would require a rapid rechlorination of the gene pool, and frankly I'm having too much fun watching Howard Dean's campaign to let God kill him now. What was the issue again?

Interestingly, not once in the entire article does the word "citizen" crop up. Are you lying again? Or "speculating?" Or is this another "aspect of [your] rhetoric?"

So now "some (presumably plausible, independently confirmed or government issued) reports" have been reduced to nothing more than "little aspects of [your] rhetoric." In other words, when you said that such reports existed, you lied. And your grand crusade against the real and present undermining of the Constitution has been reduced to a crusade against actions that you presume will be committed at some unspecified time in the future. What was your point again, Nostradamus?

Well, can we see some substantiation for this claim? I haven't heard of a single citizen who's been executed under the orders of a military tribunal for committing or conspiring to commit an act of terrorism. Where did you get these "reports?"

49. If you feel like flaming someone, make sure you're intellectually capable of doing so in a manner that's at least entertaining, if not decisive. 50. See this page for examples of flames that meet the minimum requirements, as well as those that go above and beyond.

Moussaoui isn't a citizen of the United States. He doesn't need to be convicted of anything to be brought before a tribunal.

Mike is correct. An act of terrorism, or conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism, more than meets the constitutional definition of high treason: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court." - Article III, section 3 And anyone convicted of treason can be stripped of citizenship (United States v. Schiffer, 1993). All extant judicial precedence clearly establishes that a defendant can be penalised under more than one statutory instrument for the same offense, so there's no question of an ex post facto penalty. QED

Most people don't. They never try to become more informed, they refuse to learn, they disregard information that contradicts their biases, and they don't change, because they are dishonest and cowardly. You changed, not because anyone forced you to, but because you were willing to learn. And that speaks for itself.

... I suppose the fact that I came in here looking for links to an NHB thread containing pictures of Natalia Imbruglia, Linda Hamilton, and Claudia Schiffer caressing each other half-naked in the middle of a waterfall means there's something wrong with me.