winsor

no...you assume too much. may that never be. I was simply suggesting that you get to know someone before you tell them who they are....especially when you can't even explain what it is they are to understand. Aw, shucks, that's easy. When someone makes it glaringly apparent that they understand precious little, "explaining" it is an exercise in futility. It is much more fun to mock stupidity than it is to pretend to take it seriously.

say that same thing face to my shoulders and I'll show you what up... Argumentum ad Baculum (Appeal to Force) - I rest my case. "Duh, I'm right, and if you don't think so I'll hit you in the nose." Wow, a logical masterpiece.

That's the problem...have you ever considered that I'm trying to forget? Not a chance - that would suggest that you ever had a clue.

Why is the search for a faith based reality such a big part of so many peoples lives? The evidence is obvious once one realizes the void in their life and then experiences the fulfillment of God. Repeat your faith based mantra all you like, science will never meet the needs of the spirit, only God can do that. ... Which one? Zeus? Adonai (note: the tetragrammaton yod-heh-vav-heh is not pronounced)? Odin? Gichimanitou? Baal? Ra? "In the beginning, God created man. Man, being a gentleman, returned the favor." Clarence Darrow

By the way Bill Cosby's personal jet's tail number reads: November, India, 6, 6, Echo, Romeo: " NI66ER" I, too, had relatives that were on this continent when the first Europeans showed up. North American natives were not typically afforded the opportunity to live as slaves - they were killed in droves. Of course, another branch of the family was from sub-Saharan Africa, but they came in from Canada. A registration check of NI66ER showed up as a BEECH 65-88 (Queen Air) registered to MINEER JAMES R SR DBA, based at INEZ, KY. N166ER is a North American T-28C registered to CHINO WARBIRDS INC in HOUSTON, TX. BSBD, Winsor

Thanks for the info! I've never heard of the one at Ft. Cambell. I think there was a jump school also in Vietnam for training South Vietnamese soldiers. I remember seeing S.F. soldiers with foreign jump wings during the early 70's.... Wiesbaden, BRD had a jump school that supported the 509th and various units stationed in Europe.

isn't it the whites crying racism here? You can't have it both ways, Sparky.

yes, even the 'God is fixing the test results and that's proof' one There is no proof... Because it is nonsense. Nothing "requires faith" unless it is pure, unadulterated nonsense. Every god out there has its adherents, who believe with every fiber of their being that they are right and that every other system of belief is wrong. I just agree with everybody to the extent that all the others are wrong - and that they are, too. Hearing various people make claims of pentultimate truth, as handed down by various charlatans, pederasts and snake-oil salesmen, wears thin. "Well, I have it on GOOD AUTHORITY that the Hokey Pokey REALLY IS what it is all about!" If one does their homework, it becomes apparent in short order that the fundamental basis of all organized religion is applied ignorance. This harkens back to my thesis that the only inexhaustible natural resource is stupidity, and anyone who can harness it is set for life. The proliferation of religions is proof of the fact that intelligence is vastly overrated. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is not a king - he's a pariah. Not to worry, I have faith that you will forge ahead without the hint of understanding. What's to get over? BSBD, Winsor

Well, to look at or listen to some people, one might wish they could regulate procreation Wendy P. Stupid people shouldn't breed.

Since stupidity has become a virtue on both sides of the aisle, I have no idea where you get the "one." Algore fancies himself as an intellectual, but he does not have one IQ point on GWB (who is somewhere between moron and imbecile). Neither Major Political Party is a great source of intellectual horsepower. Disliking the odious cretins who populate the Republican Party does not make the Democrats anything more than parasitic dullards. The whole "enemy of my enemy is my friend" thing is patent nonsense. If the people who have earned your enmity despise another group, that group is often entirely beneath contempt. Thus, while your revulsion at things Republican is well-earned, the Democrats are at least as bad if not worse. BSBD, Winsor

Doesn't that work AGAINST Americans caring? If everything seems to be going fine, why stop it? Isn't showing the BAD side of war and people getting pissed off about it what stopped Vietnam? I prefer stopping a war the old fashioned way, killing the enemy to the point of annihilation, decimating their homeland, and reducing their infrastructure to the level of a tinker toy set. But, that's just me. When I served in the U.S. Air Force, GEN Curtis LeMay was Chief of Staff. That would be DEVASTATING, not DECIMATING. Decimating is killing one in ten. Curtis LeMay stated the intent to reduce the population of Japan "by half," which goes well beyond decimation and into the realm of devastation. BTW, he was largely successful in his policy of Japanese population reduction. FWIW, the myth of Japan surrendering by dint of atomic bombing has cost us dearly ever since. The Diet chose to capitulate to MacArthur when the Soviet Union declared war against Japan, since territory captured by the US would remain Japanese, but territory captured by the USSR would be Soviet forevermore. The only time annihilation works is when you take a Tanakh ("Old Testament" to you) approach, killing every man, woman, child, dog, cat and canary. This is viewed as being rather bad form in this day and age, and battles fought with surgical skill to win over "hearts and minds" are horrendously expensive. Thus, in a protracted war fought by "civilized" rules of engagement the outcome tends to be bankrupcy - regardless of who wins. Any victory is likely to be Pyhrric at best. Semper Fi, Winsor

Seven million? HA! That's chump change! My relative left me $23,000,000! I can't wait until it shows up.

The current system is fiat, NOT fractional, currency. Cash is specie, i.e. gold or silver. Exchange currency is one where there is a given amount of specie on deposit for every note in circulation, and every note can be redeemed in full by these deposits. Fractional currency is an IOU, which says that the paper relates to gold or silver on deposit, but the same money can be loaned out as much as 10 times, thus there is only a fraction of the face value of the paper actually in existance. If there is a run on the bank, there is still 90% of the paper in circulation when the bank is completely out of specie. Fiat currency says that the paper IS the money. There is no reference to specie, nor may it be redeemed for such by the Treasury or any bank. The reason the supposed fix won't work is that, at the end of the day, it is all paper. The net real worth of the money in circulation is that of the paper on which it's printed - assuming it is printed at all. More often than not, it's just electrons. Either way, the net value is "trust me" (which has a two-word translation). BSBD, Winsor

You continue to blame the victim and ignore the elephant in the room. The biggest single difference between the US with its poor showing and other industrial nations doing far better is the healthcare delivery SYSTEM. Do you even understand the concept of a SYSTEM? The fly in the ointment w.r.t. our health care system is our legal system. As an airplane owner, you should be familar with the overhead introduced by liability. When some numbnuts flies into a granite cloud, there is guaranteed to be a shyster on hand filing suits against anyone who ever came near the airplane - regardless of the fact that the crash was 100% pilot error. Being blameless does not reduce the cost of said event, and the result is that the cost of anything aviation has the decimal point a couple of places to the right of where it should be. On the health care front, any MD with the hope of staying in business will have a platoon of staff to fill out legal paperwork, enough insurance to buy a new house every year, and will focus on populating any patient's file with enough tests that the settlement on resulting lawsuits will be within reason. Oh, and in their free time they will concern themselves with patient care. Thus, you are right that the problem is systemic, but the bulk of this problem lies with our legal, rather than health care, system. BSBD. Winsor

Try Felony Battery.

I reiterate the stupidity is our only inexhaustible natural resource - harness it and you are set for life. This bit of nonsense only serves to reinforce that conclusion.

"Arsenals of Folly" by Richard Rhodes. He got a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize for "The Making of the Atom Bomb," and "Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb" was positively brilliant. His latest opus is a worthy follow-up to the first two.

The average legislator in DC is far more qualified than the average citizen. The JD degree is preceded typically by a social science degree like Political Science, so yes, history is covered. It's at the state level that the caliber can drop off substantially. The depth of knowledge exhibited by our Federal Legislative Branch shows why "social sciences" are more of a bad joke than anything. It seems that chief amongst the job skills developed in the academic careers of our congressional leaders was cheating. It is apparent that people who focus on doing their homework are at a distinct disadvantage when going up against those whose only goal is winning at any cost. Thus, when faced with a situation like we had prior to the incursion in Iraq, the people who made the decisions showed themselves to be those who got the necessary grades without bothering to familiarize themselves with the fundamentals. Anyone who had actually pursued a course of study that covered similar cases could (and did) point out that invasion was ill-considered, ill-advised, and that any "victory" so achieved would be Pyrrhic at best. I reiterate that our Congress has the intellectual acuity of the Short Bus crowd, without any of their endearing qualities. BSBD, Winsor

so, you are trolling me

It might have been relevant in establishing some culture, but I rather doubt it's got much relevance any more. you 'rather doubt' but i 'rather think' that the effects of an enforced slave 'culture' on many millions for several centuries may well have significant relevance on events even at this point in our history. the facts on wealth seem to bear this out. Again, thinking is not one of the skills of which you have demonstrated any particular mastery. are you trolling me? Nope, just pointing out that your demonstrated ability to think is nonexistant. I fully understand that you are unlikely to be able to grasp the concept, but figure that you might be just playing the fool to get people to rise to the bait. I suspect, however, that you are the real deal.

I noticed that you didn't answer the questions I asked. I think Bush had the best intentions in mind. He acted on the information that he had, and the reccomendations of his advisors. He also might have drawn his deceisions from public statements of people like Gore and Clinton and Kerry. It seems that he had quite a few more players, and (heavyweights at that) giving him unreliable information than just the one history prof in hypothetical I presented for you. According to Cornelius Ryan, the Dutch Military Academy posed a problem to potential graduates. If you were to attack Arnhem from the South, would you take the longer route that skirted the treeline or would you make a bold dash across the dikes with the intention of catching the enemy with their pants down? The candidates that chose the approach that offered cover and concealment passed, the ones that made the bold charge failed. Montgomery took the approach that would have kept him from becoming a Dutch 2nd Lieutenant. At issue here is not whether one's motives were pure as much as whether the execution was, in fact, competent. It has been said that one is better served by a competent corrupt politician than an incompetent honest one, and GWB is incompetent by any standard. One of the unfortunate realities of our political system is that someone with finely enough honed administrative skills to do a good job has close to no chance of being elected. We go to the polls humming Fleetwood Mac's "Tell Me Lies" to ourselves, and then take umbrage when it turns out the things we wanted to hear were not necessarily based in reality. Over two thirds of the people we elect to public office have Law degrees. This course of study has no Math, Physics, Chemistry, Economics, Business Administration or even History requirements, and the only use of Logic seen in the legal profession is the application of a long list of fallacies of relevance. Your average lawyer could not assemble a coherent syllogism by anything but accident. Thus, we have people tasked to make momentus decisions who are singularly unsuited to the task. Whose fault is that? Ours. Regardless of percieved justification, the level of incompetence shown by the last administration was appalling. You had a moron surrounded by syncophants, so the results were a foregone conclusion. This administration is different - but no better in the end. I am reminded of the fact that a con man is usually his own first customer, and he typically believes the fantasy he constructs. Thus, we are being led by arithmetic illiterates whose knowledge of History is marginal even by the standards of mediocrity of High Schools, and who have never had to make a payroll of balance a budget for real. I actually find Obama less repellent than GWB, but that does not change the fact that neither of them possess any part of the background or skill set to successfully deal with the realities of our current economic and political situation. They are both entirely clueless, for very different reasons. BSBD, Winsor

It might have been relevant in establishing some culture, but I rather doubt it's got much relevance any more. you 'rather doubt' but i 'rather think' that the effects of an enforced slave 'culture' on many millions for several centuries may well have significant relevance on events even at this point in our history. the facts on wealth seem to bear this out. Again, thinking is not one of the skills of which you have demonstrated any particular mastery.

Let's see, that's a $trillion that we did not have in the first place. I take exception to the idea that the money should have been spent at all; the fact that it was spent on something that ANYONE who had done their homework knew to be a guaranteed disaster is all the more galling. Paying $10,000 per non-governmental taxpayer for the privilege of well-earning the contempt of the world is not my idea of a bargain. If we had dropped the bucks on an interconnected network of electric rail transportation, we might have reduced our dependence on petroleum imports and thus had some justification of the debt incurred. As it stands, we are holding the bag for the costs - with less than nothing to show for it. As a nation, our decision-making skills leave something to be desired. BSBD, Winsor

There were plenty of conservatives that thought the whole thing was a fool's errand from the git-go. Al Gore is an idiot. He fancies himself to be an "intellectual," but is a monumental dullard. Not to worry - GWB is every bit as stupid, and the two of them give imbeciles a bad name. All things considered, neither side of the aisle is burdened with any surfeit of intellectual capacity. BSBD, Winsor

Go tell it to Al Gore: "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." -- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002 "Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." -- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002 Go tell it to Hillary Clinton: "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." -- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002 I do not know whether these people were being disingenuous or displaying an appalling level of stupidity. Probably both. First off, us objecting to another country having WMDs is as absurd as a streetwalker criticizing someone for the suspicion of promiscuity. We have and have had larger and more diverse stocks of WMDs than anyone, anywhere, ever. Sanctuary to al Qaeda? Are you kidding? A secular government in islamic lands is anathema to the devout whackos in that group, and the Baathists were hardly welcoming to any group that might possibly pose a threat to their power base. Our invasion of Iraq was devoid of casus belli. Even the Third Reich had the good taste to FAKE an attack by the Poles before they invaded; all we did was to say that, since we found them scary they must be terrorists, thus we had to attack them and it was their fault anyway. This country has done some truly embarrassing things, and the war in Iraq is certainly in the top three. I forget what the other two are. BSBD, Winsor