winsor

If you expect the population in general to "wake up," you are quite the optimist. We live in a world where most of the population adheres to one set of verifiably false fairy tales or another, and they never bat an eye at the patent nonsense they embrace. The fact that a politician behaves in a repellent manner consistently from day one will not dissuade those who follow blindly from their commitment to fawning adoration. There is nothing in the video that I find surprising, and I do not expect anyone's mind to change because of its content. BSBD, Winsor

I've had the opportunity to talk with several DEA agents and their response to the question about the 'war on drugs' was... 'it's a joke!' I've often wondered, how many politicians and those in authority, are in the 'pockets' of the drug cartels. Chuck You need not assume there is any actual corruption in order to have a conflict of interest at work. In this case, having drugs illegal is pivotal to quite a variety of industries: the Apprehension Industry, the Prosecution Industry, the Defense Industry, the Incarceration Industry and so forth. If I have been on the Force for the last 23 years and things are precisely as bad as they were when I joined, my response is not going to be "Gee, what I do does not seem to make much difference. They should just legalize the stuff and make my job go away." More likely, I will focus on how horrible things would obviously have been if I had not been out there in the trenches fighting the evil menace. When I retire in a couple of years, one can only hope that there will be some dedicated person to take my place, otherwise all is lost.... After agreeing that marijuana is a "bad" thing, I have asked cops the following: would you rather arrest someone who has been smoking pot all night, or someone who has a half a bottle of Jack Daniels in them? The overwhelming response is they'd rather bust the pothead ("I'm under arrest? Bummer. You gonna finish that donut?") than the boozer ("Y'wanna 'rest me?! You sumbitch, I'm g'na kill you! [retch]"). Prohibition is job security for those charged with its enforcement every bit as much as for the illegal drug trade itself. When the Volstead Act was repealed, the murder rate in the US of A went down by 2/3. Why? Because there were no longer obscene, illegal profits over which to battle. Executives from Miller and Anheuser Busch now meet at industry conventions where gang members would shoot and throw bombs at each other previously. I do not approve of booze, dope or tobacco, but have concluded that the prohibition on any of these is a cure that is infinitely worse than the disease. BSBD, Winsor

From what I have witnessed, "black america's" biggest problem is "black america." This is a case in point of being one's own worst enemy. so your thoughts on communism have nothing really to do with black america? Okay, I will try to address the implied question here. Not directly, no. My observations of things "communist" is the result of decades spent traveling to and living in various countries with claims of "Socialism," "Communism," "People's Democracy," "Capitalism" and "Other." How "black america" relates to "communism" is entirely tangential to my "thoughts on communism." BSBD, Winsor

From what I have witnessed, "black america's" biggest problem is "black america." This is a case in point of being one's own worst enemy. so your thoughts on communism have nothing really to do with black america? Either your level of comprehension is abysmal or you are pretending to be stupid. Either way, your comment/question is so entirely moronic as to defy a direct response - which is, I suspect, intentional. BSBD, Winsor

Furthermore, I am not convinced that marijuana should remain illegal. I am on the fence with that issue. If Alcohol and Tobacco are legal, Marijuana should be as well. Compared to booze and cigarettes, pot is a gift from God. FWIW, I don't touch any of it - ever - but think the "War on Drugs" is one of the single dumbest concepts ever concocted. It is based on the kind of "good intentions" with which the road to hell is paved. BSBD, Winsor

It is certainly a disease of denial. The biggest difference I see is that, while consumptive disorders tend to endanger those afflicted, believers tend to endanger others. The difference between The Inquisition and the imposition of Sharia is minor from the standpoint of those unwillingly subjected to one version of "The Truth" (tm) or another. BSBD, Winsor

From what I have witnessed, "black america's" biggest problem is "black america." This is a case in point of being one's own worst enemy.

I have no problem with Megrahi's release - conditional upon receipt of the services of a taxidermist first. BSBD, Winsor

Are you sure it doesn't mean kittens? To me, the correlation is crystal clear. I assert that black liberation theology is communist. Do you dispute that? Or do you dispute that the group is associated with black liberation? I think most Americans wouldn't know a fucking Communist if they tripped over one; and I doubt you're any exception. As usual, you need to define your terms before they have any meaning at all. The term "Communist" has rather a broad range of definitions, and depends upon the audience. Someone who adheres to the principles set forth in "The Communist Manifesto" is viewed in some circles as a "Marxist," but meets the definition of "fucking Communist" quite nicely by other standards. There are people who describe themselves as "Socialist," but cleave tightly to Communist dogma. The old "Soviet" model was popular, where the worldwide orthodoxy was pretty much whatever was sanctioned by the Central Committee. I always found it darkly amusing when people would rail incessantly by excesses of, say, Berlin, but would have not one iota of criticism of identical actions authored by Moscow. The Tailgunner Joe version of Communism includes pretty much anyone who ever came within three feet of someone who could be described as a Communist. FWIW, the Senator from Wisconsin, by engaging in wholesale unamerican activities in order to root out the unamerican, did more to garner sympathy for his perceived opponents than anything. "Gee, I would have said these guys really suck, but if McCarthy doesn't like them they can't be all bad." A wide spectrum of regimes do or did harken to some variant of "Communism" in their official planks, most of which bear little resemblance to any defined model. Any resemblance between Evner Hoxa's Albania, Kim Il Sung's Korea, Pol Pot's Kampuchia, Mao Tse Tung's China and Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam was superficial at best. As far as violent whackos hanging out in the weeds go, the Shining Path or Sandanistas had more in common with the Taliban than with the Bolsheviks. Then you have the Kibbutzim, where the elements of the Shtetl lifestyle that evolved into Marxism/Communism gelled into a defined communal lifestyle. It is not generally termed "Communist," but a rose by any other name.... Having spent an awful lot of time in the company of people that fancied themselves to be "Socialists" or "Communists" of one stripe or another, I use the term "Communist" only as a rich and encompassing insult. As anything other than an epithet, the term borders on meaningless. Of course, being an American, I suppose I wouldn't know a "fucking Communist" if I tripped over one (though, as an aside, it was someone who fit anyone's description of "Communist" that made it clear to me that NOBODY is that good in bed). BSBD, Winsor

I would say that most of those who post here with "conservative" values... do indeed know what right wing is. They only need look in the mirror this morning while shaving, or washing their faces.Quote If you cannot define your terms, that renders meaningless anything you state. If, however, you are capable of defining your terms, please do so. Copy and paste of the lexical definition is acceptable - if those are the definitions you choose. BSBD. Winsor

and everyone stops reading at this point... Who started?

?? Since you won't or can't answer the question, I suppose it will. Come on.... you should know what qualifies as right wing. How much of this do you agree with? These people call themselves "Conservatives," so that makes them conservative and what they say characterizes "the Right?" So - by that standard - if some other group calls itself "Socialist," whatever it claims defines "the Left?" Well, a lifelong Socialist from impeccable Progressive roots was none other than Benito Mussolini. The name he chose for his personal party was "Fascist," and he made it quite clear that Fascism, being his personal invention, was nothing more or less than whatever he claimed it was. Then you have Socialism as a National Institution. The "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" forseen by Marx was never so clearly typified as in the National Socialist German Workers Party - whose leader was a Prole if there ever was one. I see a lot more similarity amongst extremists of any stripe than I do differences, and think the labels they choose are largely arbitrary. Whether the claimed basis of a totalitarian regime is racial, religious, nationalistic or whatever is a matter of indifference in the long run. If you are being worked to death in a camp, I doubt if it would matter in the least if the organization that built it paid lip service to one political, religious or racial ideal or another - the net result is the same. In any event, you have a problem with definitions. When you have a multi-dimensional system characterized by a one-dimensional descriptor, it is not just ambiguous but entirely meaningless. When someone demonstrates the inability to define their terms ("Come on.... you should know what qualifies as right wing"), I call bullshit. BSBD, Winsor

Nobody seems to get it .... What? That it's sick?

Just posting this as he may have missed it. Does this equate to Tandem Masters boning their young tandem students??? At least at Al Gramondo's DZ it was a firing offense. He was clear that he was running a business, not a dating service. Blue skies, Winsor

Certainly there are 6 year olds who could drive an F1 car. Unfortunately, it is not likely that they could do so well - or for very long.

Washington Post

Mazel tov - l'chaim!

Define right wing hate group and left wing hate group for us. That is what brain cells are for.. rub a few together and VOILA. Unless of course they have the same goals and creed as a certain Party that see EVERYONE as a liberal if you do not goose step the way they do Let me get this straight - it is not okay for someone to want to kill me and my children because I am Jewish, but it is fine with you if someone wants to kill me and my children because I am White? I must be kind of slow, but somehow I have missed the rationale whereby the murderous intentions stated by one group are acceptable but the identical intentions stated by another are not. The biggest problem I have with this whole thing is that there seems to be just the slightest double-standard at work. Looking at the era around the middle of the 20th Century, you had Group A, Group B and Group C (which I will leave generic in order to avoid invoking Godwin's Law), each of which systematically murdered millions of civilians for a variety of reasons. Though it strikes closer to home from one group than the others, I can not see why any one group is the tiniest bit more or less evil than another. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are easily as racist as David Duke - if not more so, since their entire careers are 100% dependent on racism, whether real or imagined (think Tawana Brawley et al). If you can respond with a coherent syllogism for once, I will be pleasantly surprised. If not, your vitriol is rather a given. BSBD, Winsor

I don't charge for my services. The Lord provides. Philippians 4:19 And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. I thought the topic here was "spiritual/mental illness"....Not you. Either way, "spiritual illness" is bullshit. Oh, I don't know. I once drank some stuff that was labeled "neutral grain spirits," and it made me really sick. Don't touch the stuff anymore. Blue skies, Winsor

Really? Just in this thread: posting about the comparison between the experience of Kagan and other justices. DaVinci mentioned how the Libs were up in arms about the experience of Miers. YOU then made it about Kagan's supposed sexual orientation and then claimed you were attacked. Looks like that proves MY point about you starting it most of the time, than your victim scenario. I can continue, if you like. By all means.. this is funny to watch.... and I am bored I think "sorry" is more accurate.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/07/07/climategate.email.review/index.html?hpt=T2&fbid=z0NU05I1SWK But good show from the right-wing spin machine. Next up, "why oil in the Gulf is really good for the marine wildlife." Nice try. WSJ

From your arguments so far I get the impression that you believe that modern military ground combat consists of (or should consist of) lines of marksmen from either side engaging each other with benchrested sniper rifles as though they were on opposite sides of a prepared shooting range. A typical military engagement on the ground does not work like that. Do you suspect that it is just Germans that are lousy marksmen? ...or do you concede the possibility that the average infantry grunt is a lousy marksman? This is one of the reasons why an army cannot field entire companies of marksmen with heavy calibers. Modern ground engagements, and the tactics employed, include a substantial amount of suppressing fire, and the ability for a unit to be able to sustain the attack while operating as light as possible (in terms of ordnance gear) is important. Why else would so much body armor and small arms steel be replaced by kevlar and polymer composites nowadays? There have been a tremendous number of respected veterans and marksmen over many years expressing opinions on various firearms and calibers, in many cases without concurring on many subjects. I am sure I could look up names of prominent figures past and present to support my viewpoint aswell. You should therefore forgive people like me for not accepting Brigadier James M. Gavin, Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock or even yourself as having the last definitive word on matters pertaining to modern military ground combat. It is worth noting that it was not just the U.S.A. that switched to 5.56x45 but also the Israelis (with the Galil), South Africa (the R4 and R5), the British (SA80) and quite probably several others. Could they all have been denied the gift of winsor wisdom when making that decision ? Yes. As General Douglas MacArthur said, "Old soldiers never die. Young ones do." A lot of getting youngsters to go into battle involves getting them pumped up - which often includes plying them with large doses of bullshit. The average age of a bomber pilot in WWII was something on the order of 21 years. They found that older pilots were more skillful, but they tended to be aware of their mortality. The vaunted "Flying Fortress" was good for another 100 knots if cleaned up and largely stripped of defensive armaments, which would allow it to outrun most fighters of the day. It would also be able to operate quite nicely with a crew of 4. The problem with that approach was that there was no illusion left to the crew that it was anything but the luck of the draw as to whether they got shot down or not. Slowing the planes down by having them bristling with .50 caliber machine guns gave the crew of 10 the impression (at least initially) that they were a force with which to be reckoned. Damn near everything against which they flew was armed with at least 20mm cannon, but no scenario is perfect. Then you have the US Navy's approach to finding the Naval guns the Japanese were given to installing and camouflaging on a variety of islands we wished to attack. Since they found that 20 feet of coconut logs and crushed bamboo protected these installations from anything but a direct hit from a 14 incher or better, the brass decided that they needed to get the Japanese to tip their hand. They thus equipped a number of LCIs with a variety of noisemakers and sent them in close enough to annoy the shore defenses into popping off a shot or two, bringing them under fire from the guns of the battlewagons waiting for their cue. Of course, it only took one round from an 18.1 inch Naval gun to leave a hole in the water where there had previously been an annoying US Naval vessel, which the Japanese demonstrated repeatedly. My father manned a Bofors 40mm (popgun) on the deck of an LCIG (gunship) and, when that one got sunk (by "friendly" fire), an LCIR (rocket ship) (that was decommissioned by a kamikaze boat). He was told that his mission was to clear defenses for the approaching Marines (go get 'em, Tiger!), but the armament was about as effective as harsh words; at least the Navy had the good taste to hold off on painting a bullseye on his boat. The point to all this is that training troops in the tactic of putting an excessive amount of unaimed fire downrange is another example of the kind of feelgood bullshit at which we excel. That you imply that lousy marksmanship is a given embraces a level of mediocrity that I find unacceptable. The military has "drivers" who cannot operate a stick shift, and "riflemen" whose skill with aimed fire is nothing short of abysmal. I have instructed enough of them, teaching them to do more with a single shot than most troops can do with a full magazine, that I have come to a few conclusions on the subject. One of my students, a Colonel, wrote in his course evaluation that he learned more from me in a weekend than he did during 20 years in the Corps. The AR-15 has a number of saving graces (linear recoil, balanced cartridge lockup and a well situated selector lever among them), but its limitations (cartridge selection for "survival rifle" application, direct impingement gas system, etc.) make it a poor choice as an infantry arm. The effectiveness of troops armed with the AR offering is despite its use, rather that because of it. BSBD, Winsor

Inasmuch as I can keep my Type 56S on a 1" TargDot at 100 metres all day long with ChiCom ammo, it does not seem that there is anything fundamentally wrong with the system from where I sit (not to worry, I am Expert with the poodle-shooter as well). I suspect your prejudices against stem from a lack of familiarity, just as my postjudices against the Armalite offering stem from an excess of familiarity. The ascendancy of the 5.56 in the AR-15 is a case in point of mediocrity becoming a virtue. BSBD, Winsor Not lack of familiarity, when guys were shooting at me with AKs, I noticed quickly that they either had to walk rounds in to even be near me or when I saw Iraqi Special Police shooting we could see erratic firing even on "near" targets (

After the 7.62 was adopted, people using the 7.62 at Camp Perry were routinely outscoring higher-ranked shooters. While the 30-06 was grouping around 1 MOA, the 308/7.62 was grouping 0.5-0.75 MOA. There are many reasons why the 5.56 was adopted, but inaccuracy of the 7.62 *wasn't* one of them. I wasn't talking about the accuracy of the round, I was talking about the equipment used to fire them. It all depends on the choice of equipment doesn't it. I'll take the iron sights on an M4 or M16A4 versus the iron sights on any AK-47 variant out there any time, anywhere. Inasmuch as I can keep my Type 56S on a 1" TargDot at 100 metres all day long with ChiCom ammo, it does not seem that there is anything fundamentally wrong with the system from where I sit (not to worry, I am Expert with the poodle-shooter as well). I suspect your prejudices against stem from a lack of familiarity, just as my postjudices against the Armalite offering stem from an excess of familiarity. The ascendancy of the 5.56 in the AR-15 is a case in point of mediocrity becoming a virtue. BSBD, Winsor

A variety of jurisdictions have listed ANY sex, with the sole exception of missionary position between husband and wife, as Class 1 Felonies. Up until relatively recently (and maybe yet), oral sex was a hanging offense in Virginia. It is a serious Felony to put prescription drugs in a container other than the one provided by the pharmacy, such as those used to arrange doses for seriously ill patients. Prosecution is often simply a matter of being able to get convictions. As John Edgar Hoover noted, "Justice is incidental to law and order." How true. BSBD, Winsor