jfields

And when they've absorbed enough salt, they get really tender when cooked.

Whew! It is a good thing that isn't like KKK members "proving" there is no black in their genealogy. That would be racist.

Wendy, The other side of the privilege issue is figuring out what we want to do about it? I see two approaches: 1) Establish the current situation as the standard, with calculated and measured remedies that attempt to right things by intentionally trying to discriminate against an opposite group. 2) Work to the best of our abilities to treat people equally and deal with everyone without regard to their race, religion, etc. Punish the discrimination we find and seek to eliminate it all. Codifying the "remedies" to discrimination only perpetuates the problem by artificially shifting a small amount of the discrimination to another group in a sanctioned manner. Do we want to create a pendulum of problems, always taking turns between groups? Nobody can see the world through through eyes and emotions that aren't born of their life's experiences. But we can attempt to be fair to the best of our ability. Education, openness and equality are the answers, not quotas, entitlements and further discrimination.

Go back to what I said and explain why the IRA are "nicer or better" terrorists than the PLO. You brought up the comparison. Now please carry forward and expound on your reasoning. Using your definitions, how about some of these examples: http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/moh1.htm A fair number of them went and did things they knew would get them killed. But they did them anyway. Terrorists? Patriots? Heroes? The biggest difference between them and those you condemn are which side of the battle they are on. Being a suicide bomber takes more dedication than I'll ever have. I can admit that while still disliking what they do. To a lot of innocent people in other countries (Japan, Iraq, Vietnam, Germany, etc.) we are the people that came in and killed their family members, both military and civilian. To the person whose civilian family member dies in "collateral damage", aren't we the bad guy? The world isn't the good vs. evil, black and white world you portray. We have done things in the world to make people justifiably angry enough to consider killing us. We don't have shining halos on our heads and invincible armor wovem from moral superiority.

Obviously? What is obvious about it? So you are saying there are bad terrorists that kill innocent people and not-so-bad terrorists that kill innocent people? What are you claiming is the difference?

Do you have any idea how repulsive, racist and stupid that sounds? Not to mention that it is pretty much baseless. There are fanatics in almost every religion. Were the Crusades friendly to non-believers? Hitler's attempt to blot out the Jews? Israel blowing up Palestinians? The guy who was just put to death for the religion-based murder of an abortion doctor? Pick a race or religion, and we can probably find an example of them killing people because they disagree or are different.

Another answer is to swap MP3's between individual users that happen to have big libraries of stuff. If it is personal and private (off the big P2P networks), it is still essentially invisible to the RIAA and all the issues relating to them. I'm not saying invisibility equals legality. I'm just not saying anything further at all.

Don't shit in your car.

It bet it is a new pumpkin, but I just hope he has enough sense not to try and carve it while it is on his head.

Sure. I'll try to avoid it, but I can't guarantee I won't stray into politics if the beer starts talking. In that case, please write "Talk guns" on my beer-holding hand and push me in the direction of AggieDave.

I wouldn't say we are giving up, but there is a definite thread of truth in what he is saying. Bush reveled in the easy part. Using high-tech weaponry and overwhelming air dominance made the initial stages pretty lopsided. Now we are in the messy part. More of our soldiers have died in Iraq since the end of "major fighting", as declared by Bush, than in it. Makes me wonder about the definitions. The glory part of the battle is done. That was the tip of the iceberg. There is no effective central goverment in Iraq and we made rubble out of much of the infrastructure. We have an incredibly long, dangerous, expensive and ungrateful process ahead. Now that we are done the "cool" part, and have given the oil and related contracts to US companies, we ask for the international assistance we were too impatient to assemble before. Iraqi resistance won't fight us with equivalent technology. They can't. But neither could the Vietnamese. What they had was more determination and political will that we did. That isn't derrogatory to our soldiers at all. We are headed toward a politically-inspired failure, not one caused by the military. Lots of people asked "Why are we starting this war?" before it happened. There were some answers. Some valid and some invalid. But that is done now. I can understand why a lot of other countries would want to sit on the sidelines and wait this one out. If they don't feel there is a credible threat (as many Americans didn't), why should they invest the money, political capital and blood needed to see the job through. I can understand them saying to us, "You started it, now you finish it."

I had a Metric System lunch box. How 70's is that?

Canada. We'll be invading and selling the country at auction beginning tomorrow. Didn't you get the memo?

He may be vying for the Epitome of Uncoolness, but your claim to being The World's Most Boring Skydiver is probably safe.

Chris, We can agree on that.

I'm not saying the attempt is a bad thing. It just annoys me how the current administration has been trying to shift the focus away from previous promises and priorities. When he was blustering that we had plenty of military might to decisively take out the Taliban, some people believed it. Then Iraq got thrown into the mix, and still, he said we could handle it, because, by God, we are the most powerful nation in the world. I didn't forget that. Bush seems like he did. If he really understood that, perhaps he wouldn't have gotten us comitted to two totally separate wars without a practical plan for either. Maybe if he really understood the magnitude of what he was starting, he wouldn't have been so quick to go it essentially alone (or with the just ever-ready Brits). You're right there too. Talking slow doesn't make one stupid. Consistently saying and doing stupid things, however, is a good indicator of being stupid.

Brandon, Those pics are pretty different. In the old one, he wouldn't have scared small children on sight.

Doh! Good thing Sky[Monkey]One was in the Army for so long. Should be used to be sleeping outside. When Miss returns, prepare for bivoac. Actually, I'm sure the reunion will rock the bago.

Chris, Then tell me which of them are false. I don't know that I believe that. The down-home, middle-America, working-man focus is as much spin as anything else. Yes. Perhaps they believed the campaign-trail lies.

So was Barney Fife, but he wasn't even equipped to deal with the troubles of Mayberry. Being honest and well-intentioned aren't enough. Being president calls for more. So far, he has done a pretty poor job. Let's go over a quick checklist: Kill Saddam Hussein - Not yet. Rout out the Taliban - Not yet. Find the Iraqi WMD - Not yet. Explain the tax cut - Not yet. Piss off Muslims everywhere - CHECK! Piss off Europeans - CHECK! Ask Europeans for help - CHECK! Ignore the economy - CHECK! Give money to the rich - CHECK! Ask for money for war - CHECK! Nice record.

I also think he made a nice touch on the speech, giving a nice 1-2-3 soundbite list of our priorities... without any mention of the weapons of mass destruction that were the original justification he used. Nice bait & switch, huh?

Unlike you, I only meant it figuratively. And at least I was discussing throwing tomatoes.

In that case, I'll just use my Mark III High-Velocity Belt-Fed Auto-Loading Cherry Tomato Thrower with the cyclic rate of 1000 TPM (tomatoes per minute) to go after your ass. You see, it is all about the loopholes.

What are statistics, other than an accumulation of isolated incidents? I was just throwing in some sarcasm earlier, not trying to swing this into yet another endless and futile gun control debate. But I still won't throw any tomatoes at you.

I hereby rescind my comment about knowledgeable moderators. I forgot about you.