winsor

Oh, I dunno. I seem to recall a act of pretty serious friendliness being behind it all.

You don't. Well, if it wasn't Rogers it was likely Sam Clemens. I doubt if it was Karl Marx.

but these all refer to homicides, not murder, right? So wouldn't these numbers also include self defense and police shootings? Wasn't their some famous person who said there are liers, damn liers and statistics? Jan Will Rogers, IIRC.

I think there is a lot more to PTSD than a feeling of guilt. I think that may me a small part of it, but the experience of living through something truly horrifying is the main component. It sounds to me as if Copeland is also suggesting that if the war is "Just" than any conduct during the war is justified and not feel any guilt. although it's difficult to imagine what would constitute a war-crime in the OT. I think Copeland is trying to again dismiss a complex medical/science issue with a Biblical answer. He also the nut who dismissed vaccines for true believers. Those who are unlucky enough to subscribe to his BS, will now blame themselves instead of seeking medical help. One of the reasons I am leery about volunteering as a first responder is the significant likelihood of encountering scenes that will be part of my dreams for years to come. A cop friend of mine had a two year old daughter when he was called to a house where a two year old girl had fallen into the pool. He got her out and was attempting CPR when she shuddered her last and died. It was months before he was anything similar to his former self. A guy with whom I worked was on the volunteer ambulance squad until he responded to an accident where a car carrying an entire family was hit by a gravel truck. The Technicolor memories of that event haunted his dreams for years, and sleeping the whole night through was a challenge thereafter. A woman with whom I worked was a Paramedic, and she had no problem with many gory incidents, but the line was crossed by a man who caught a glove compartment door with his mouth with such force that his eyes came out of the sockets. He lived, but she could not rid herself of the image of this person with his cheeks cut back into a garish "Joker" grin with his eyes hanging out. Shock is a real and debilitating phenomenon. When hospitalized for massive trauma upon occasion, I have been pumped full of narcotics which serve to lessen the effects of shock. Things I witnessed and was able to handle without a problem at the time, I am not sure I would want to see without being so benumbed. Everyone has a breaking point. I hope to live to a ripe old age without knowing where mine is. BSBD, Winsor

Accomplishments need not be positive. He's definitely ordered the murder of more American citizens than any other president that I can name. Compared to Honest Abe Lincoln, BHO is a rank amateur when it comes to killing Americans. Of course, Lincoln arranged the deaths of citizens of the CSA, though he viewed the secessionist states to have entered into a union that was by-god-indivisible, so I can only guess what he was thinking. BHO is as brilliant in some ways as he is incompetent in others, but that is life.

Very amusing, but upping the ante to lethal force is generally a bad plan. The change has to come from within the community from which the problem arises. Respected role models have to make it crystal clear that this kind of behavior is entirely disgraceful. So long as you have encouragement from peers and silence from those who should be setting an example, this behavior will persist. BSBD, Winsor

"Forgive and remember." Anon.

Having spent time in various Socialist Workers' Paradises in my youth, I find the slant suspect. Had he thrown in Vermont vs. New Hampshire as a control I suspect his results would not look the same, but I may be underestimating his capacity for spin.

How many? I count seven

The problem was that the Japanese congress needed 100% agreement to surender and they were never going to get that because of a few war hawks. IIRC, they actually had votes and could not get the 100%. ***Japan would not agree to an unconstitutional surrender so we did not do an example drop. We had two bombs, we didn't even know if they would work. We could not set up a demonstration and have it fail - We would have looked worse. Also while the destruction was massive... The firebombing of Tokyo killed more people, again IIRC. The massive destruction from ONE bomb (and the lie that we had many more of them) forced the Emperor to ask the Congress to agree to the surrender. You will note the Diet took the destruction of another couple of cities by USAAF bombers very much in stride. When the Soviet Union declared war and invaded territory held by Imperial Japanese forces, however, the decision was made to surrender to the U.S.. The point is valid that Curtis W. LeMay's had already gone a long way toward his stated goal of reducing the Japanese populaton "by half" by the time we used nukes, and that no new benchmark of atrocity was set by using one bomb vs. the waves of H.E. and incendiaries that was the norm. As Richard Rhodes pointed out, nukes serve better as a threat than as a military tool. In practice, most WMDs have had limited use more because of the difficulties associated with their application than because they are overly effective. A review of statistics from the Great War show that high explosive artillery was much more effective in producing lasting casualties than any chemical weapons turned out to be. If you survived a gas attack, you were in much better shape than if you had parts blown off and survived (see "Johnny Got His Gun"). The Geneva Accords, like the previous Hague accords related to types of munitions, were all about emotion and politics, rather than a serious attempt to reduce the horrors of war. Per the Hague Accords, the abolition of expanding projectiles (like the Mk. II .303 cartridges as modified at the Dum Dum Arsenal) was more to provide advantage to the various Mauser cartridges, whose terminal ballistics at 2,700+ fps were vastly superior the Lee-Metford offering at 1,800 some-odd fps if both were in hardball form. Needless to say, the forces using Mausers delighted in portraying the Brits as brutal, and the U.K. yielded to public opinion on the issue. The Mk VI .303 cartridge as used in the SMLE reduced the advantage of the German high velocity cartridge, and there was nothing to be gained by revisiting the nonsense contained in the Hague Accords. In a sense the greatest damage caused by nukes is economic. The cost of producing said devices is so horrendous that it puts a huge dent in the economy of any country that sees fit to produce them. If, instead of manufacturing all the various devices we did, we had saved the resources and put the cash into interest-producing accounts, we would be in much better fincancial shape than we now are. As I understand it, maintaining such a wonderful military system was the primary reason the Evil Empire filed Chapter 7 bankrupcy, and we seem to be unavoidably on the same path. Back to Truman: if he had honored the agrement with the Viet Minh that had existed under FDR, and not left the Japanese in charge of French Indochina until de Gaulle could get enough former SS troops (who do you think the Legion Etrangere was at the time?) to reoccupy, we would have had Vietnam as a strong ally, unlike the way it turned out. Nobody bats 1000, but he whiffed a couple of big ones. BSBD, Winsor

There is a huge difference between a great place to visit and a great place to live. I have been to very many places that were a hoot to pass through, but I would not dream of trying to live and work there. In addition, there are quite a few places in which it is wonderful to live if you are a 'have,' and suck out loud if you are a 'have not.' Bombay (Mumbai) and Chicago are on that list. Since you pull down almost as much as the manager of a McDonalds does with overtime, your perception of the Windy City is somewhat more favorable than would be the case for folks on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. Money may not buy happiness, but poverty and misery are rather closely coupled. BSBD, Winsor

With that I agree. My point is that one does not pronounce "the Name" (haShem), at least from the standpoint of Jewish practice and traditions. Wherever it crops up in print, one says "Adonai," and makes no attempt to pronounce the tetragrammaton in practice. I strongly agree that the activities in the OP's article are revolting, wherever they may occur, and I find it incomprehensible that they could be defended by anyone, anywhere. Reading Plato always tested my gag reflex. BSBD, Winsor

Actually, one does not. The tetragrammaton yod-heh-vav-heh is never pronounced. There is an exception for the High Priest, once a year, in The Temple - which was destroyed by the Romans in CE 66, so that is moot. The pronunciation popular among Christians is irrelevant. Absent nikkudot, how it should sound is but a guess. In any event, rather a few Mitzvot preclude the use to which the Mikvah was put, and I know of nobody who would not be horrified. I suspect even NAMBLA would have a hard time with it. BSBD, Winsor

What's special about Iraq is that they pledged to give them up as part of their terms of surrender in 1991, in order to avoid an even more thorough destruction in war by the US lead UN forces. Which biological and chemical uses by the US are you referring to? Agent Orange, imo, doesn't count, and the Indian wars were nearly 150 years ago now. Even if they had stocks of CBR weaponry, it did not constitute a casus belli on our part - regardless of what Dick Cheney says. CLAIMING to have them was simply good politics in a part of the world where being seen as weak is but an invitation to attack by a host of opponents, foreign and domestic. From Wikipedia: In World War I, the U.S. produced its own munitions as well as deploying weapons produced by the French. The U.S. produced 5,770 metric tons of these weapons, including 1,400 metric tons of phosgene and 175 metric tons of mustard gas. Entire tribes were wiped out by the intentional use of smallpox-infected blankets (the Sheep-eaters of the Shoshone come to mind), and I do not think the passage of time makes that okay. YMMV. In the same sense that people who got rich by breaking a variety of laws are big proponents of law and order once they have it made, our holier-than-thou stance on WMDs rings rather hollow. I can give you a reading list that makes it clear that our aversion to the use of WMDs is very much in keeping with the fact that they are poor tools for achieving our purposes. BSBD, Winsor

+1 Funny so many people here were SURE - I mean completely SURE that Bush knew there were no WMD I Iraq. The same people seem to be sure that Obama - a law prof - didn't know what was in his signature law. He knew it, he lied to get the bill passed (that not surprising for any party) and now he is dealing with the problem of his lie. The only problem (they think) is that the web page didn't work - if that is correct they will fix it and things will be great. Time will tell. The whole WMD thing amazes me. You want Weapons of Mass Destruction? The USA is WMD Central! We are the ONLY country that has used Chemical, Nuclear and Biological weapons in anger, and we have stockpiles that can turn this planet into a cinder with the push of a button. The idea that we should summarily attack any other country that has WMDs is and was laughable. What makes Iraq so special? What about South Africa, Korea, Great Britain, Syria, France, Russia, Libya, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and anyone else I forgot to mention? The outcome of our adventure in the sandbox was clear at the outset, as is the ultimate efficacy of the ACA. Which is the greater exercise in stupidity is debatable, though I personally consider starting wars to be an order of magnitude more serious. Given my druthers, I would much prefer be dealing with the legislative clusterfuck that is the ACA and never have attacked Iraq than to have Mission Accomplished! (tm) in Iraq and no ACA. BSBD, Winsor

Yuck. I do not have much interaction with Haredim, so I can only guess what gives here. It sounds all too much like the Jerry Sandusky case, and about as charming. It's a pity the law was changed. In any event I know of no Rabbis who would defend this sort of vile activity for any reason, and think perpetrators should be surgically removed from society. BSBD, Winsor

But acquitted. Only one had to resign in disgrace. Didn't Jimmy Carter give a presidential pardon to Bill Clinton, the draft dodger? I believe he was the first Federal Felon to be elected President of the United States. No. No, he didn't and no he wasn't. You have got to sort out this gullibility thing dude. Clinton received an induction notice once but did not go. I beleive he was in England at the time. Was going into the guard or reserves and then the lottery started. He had a high number and would not be drafted. He then told the guard/reserve to KMA. He was never an official draft dodger. Carter did pardon all official draft dodgers.Never an "official" draft dodger. Ok, but Clinton did everything he could to avoid the draft including getting political help from Arkansas Senator Fulbright and pretending to enroll in ROTC at the University of Arkansas.http://www.1stcavmedic.com/bill-clinton-draft.htm The chronological order of Clinton's determination to avoid the draft are listed here. No....it's not CBS or NBC. Let's see. There is some gov't organization or another, based in Langley, that is effectively a Yale shop. Back during the Cold War/Southeast Asian War Games, they had a policy of using very bright students as intelligence sources. It seems they would position said students as dissidents and place them in "vulnerable" locations (GRU policy, for example, forbade recruiting anyone in their home country). In return for their eyes and ears, these students got a free pass regarding the risk of traumatic amputation in the rice paddies, Central Highlands, DMZ and what have you. WJC was an Eli, was overseas (to include time in Moscow), and was never bothered about the draft (no kma necessary). He also had an unusual number of contacts in the gov't agency in question early in his career, at a level that precludes mere social familiarity. I have known rather a few of these guys, and our dealings have NEVER included business. In any event, there is no indication that WJC was a draft dodger in the legal sense; draft AVOIDANCE is perfectly legal. As an aside, he was lucky that the Pentagon did not take him up on his claim to be subject to the UCMJ during the Paula Jones proceedings. His activities with Ms. Lewinsky ('come in here dear boy, have a cigar, you're gonna go far...'), while in violation of his vows and all that were no great shakes in the civilian world. In the military, however, it is SERIOUSLY BAD NEWS. Meriting at least an Article 15 offense for an E-1, it is General Court Martial time for O-7s and above, typically resulting to a reduction in rank, significant penalties, and becoming a civilian STAT. Think General Petraeus (though he was working for the aforementioned gov't organization when it all came apart). Anyhow, underwhelmed though I am by WJC, I do not think he holds a candle to Lincoln or FDR for violation of the Constitution and Oath of Office. Jackson gets high marks for taking down Biddle, and should be reviled for the Trail of Tears. Grant was an evil sonofabitch. Wilson was terminally naive. Harding was incompetent, and his administration was a study in corruption. Hoover got a bad rap. Truman would have done better to keep nukes as a threat instead of fait accompli, and his treatment of the Viet Minh, who fought alongside us against the Japanese, resulted in Dien Bien Phu and our role in that morass. Eisenhower was better than average. Jack ('the zipper') Kennedy's legacy was greatly improved by his beatification following Oswald's actions. LBJ was personally evil. Nixon was a mixed bag - he well deserved to be admired and hated. Ford provided necessary comic relief. Like BHO, Carter was incompetent (for different reasons, but to no lesser extent). Reagan's finest role was playing a President. Bush the Elder was an effective administrator. Bush the Younger was/is a complete embarrassment. If stupidity was a crime, he would draw Natural Life. BSBD, Winsor

"Gimme that old time religion..."

Gee, a multi-thousand page piece of legislation whereby attorneys intend to correct the failings of the medical profession - what could possibly go wrong? Let me get this straight - a service that is simply unaffordable, and is required by everyone, was covered by insurance for those with the most limited costs. Those with prohibitively expensive existing conditions were uninsurable, and those without insurance either did without said hideously expensive care or were ruined financially if they sought it. The solution boils down to everyone giving an affordable amount of money to a massively inefficient bureaucracy, which will then see to it that they receive care that they could in no way pay for on their own. Right. The fact that the ACA is, and will continue to be, a complete goat-rope is anything but surprising. Anyone who was unable to predict what a disaster it was guaranteed to be is unlikely to find fault with it when it is a disaster in practice. The level of denial necessary to get it passed is sufficient to find it acceptable now that it is fait accompli. If the war on drugs is any indication, we are capable of living with policies wherein the cure is orders of magnitude worse than the disease for untold decades on end, and the worse the failure the more we redouble our efforts. I again state that our only inexhaustible resource we have at our disposal is stupidity. The ACA is a case in point. BSBD, Winsor

Highest winds I saw cited were 199 mph sustained, gusting to 235. In some areas there was 80% destruction of man made structures. Seriously bad juju.

Good point.

Automatic transmissions are for pussies. Okay, so one of my cars has an auto tranny, but it was a freebie so I couldn't object too loudly. However, anything I paid for - the truck, the Alfas, the motorcycles (and even my wife's Subaru) - are all manuals.

The problem with this theory is that it assumes that you could, say, deal with an out-of-control gambling problem by taking extra shifts at McDonalds and backing off on the double or nothing bets. The fundamentals are so badly skewed at this point that a paradigm shift akin to every economy that has followed this path is inevitable. The only reason our economy is still afloat is that when we go down, we will take a huge part of the global economy down with us. If a paramedic comes across a patient with arterial bleeding, reducing said bleeding by 50% over time is not what we call an ideal solution. Government, by its very nature, is an exercise in brute force and ignorance. We have let ours metastasize into a malignancy that is, unfortunately, inoperable. Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think.

***I don't denigrate anyone's military service, except those who served dishonorably. I also don't denigrate people who didn't serve. Military service is, and should be, voluntary. The only civilians I have no respect for are those who claim service they didn't do. Exactly. Tell that to the OP. Ok, so I overlooked the title of the thread when concocting that response. A couple of people who consider themselves 'liberal' come to mind, both of whom know more about the whys and wherefores of integrity in the armed services: my thesis adviser and my father. Both of them served in the Pacific during the Great War, Part II, and you would be hard pressed to find someone more honorable than either of them. Meeting Marine standards EVER puts one into a different league than basic combat-ready standards of the other services, just as acing Advanced Mathematics puts one into a different category than someone whose limit was Arithmetic 101, regardless of currency. I have seen people in uniform who were as combat-ready as your average third grade teacher, but all of the Marines of my acquaintance were most certainly Marines, any of whom could go into combat mode bumplessly. If I had to rely on a group of military types to back me up when things went bang, drawn from the ranks of 'non-combat arms personnel,' I would take Marines over any other group. I flew with a guy who had been a Marine Colonel, and he seemed like the most personable and polite person you could ever meet. He was very religious, never drank, swore, and so forth. However, when things went to hell and conditions got dicey, he was in his element. The cheerful look he got when the issue was in doubt made it clear - this guy is a Marine! When you get to the elite groups (Rangers, SEALs, Force Recon and what have you), they are pretty much cut from the same cloth. However, my experience is that this is NOT true of the lowest common denominator in each branch. BSBD, Winsor

I take exception with any service member criticizing another's service. It shows a profound lack of professionalism. I also take great exception at trying to characterize military service in a "liberal" vs. "conservative" light. It's bullshit on the highest order. In a sense I agree with the earned respect part of service, but the reality is that there are elements of any organization with so many members in which the highest standards are not reflected. Putting black berets on everyone in uniform is an example of an inappropriate attempt to achieve "equality." Anyone who has been in the service can tell you how much of a difference a good or bad cook or clerk can make in the operation of a unit, but there is still no interchangeability between Combat Arms and Support. The Marines are an example of a unit where EVERYONE who wears the uniform is fully qualified in Combat Arms. Army, Navy and Air Force, not so much. I am afraid I totally miss the "liberal" vs. "conservative" issue. Since I define these terms in light of 'application of government' (i.e., addressing issues by either liberal or conservative application of governmental resources), you have lost me as to how one would 'characterize military service in a "liberal" vs. "conservative" light.' BSBD, Winsor