dorbie

Neither will I, but is that's how someone gets their jollies good luck. Once somethings in your blood.... Some people fish and get excited about that, that's doing something but frankly I'd rather watch a something, then again I'd rather be skydiving or paragliding.

The point is it's easy to belittle other people's choices, but they're not that different from you or me. Skydivers would squeal like a stuck pigs if they couldn't skydive for a season over an issue like this. There are many sports fans who get as much out of watching their game as we do out of jumping. If you're going to critique the human condition then smug condescention might not be the best tone to adopt, given your membership in the club.

Are you kidding - there would still be plenty of tandem mills out there! Just when you think an analogy has been taken too far & too literally soemone comes along and......

*** But you ARE aware there is a thing called TV...and on that TV they have a thing called 'shows'.... -Jules Actually watching TV would only detract from his web surfing time.

They don't play hockey they watch hockey recreationally. Without them there would be no professional hockey league. In my analogy you don't fly a plane you jump recreationally. Without you there would be no DZs. Bill, it's OK you're a hockey fan whuffo, you're not expected to get it.

Why assume others should take their recreation less passionately than you do yours? What if they cancelled skydiving in the US for a year because the DZOs couldn't agree with their celebrity pilot's (invenitng a couple of collective bargaining organizations for the sake of argument)? Then as you spent the jump year on the ground those highly paid pilots went abroad and flew at foreign DZs for far less than they ever earned here in the USA. Finally a pilot turns around and tells you to "kiss my ass" because you didn't take their side in the dispute, saying "When we get back to flying we don't want you on the DZ, stay home" as if it's his call. Damn, I hate those fucking pilots

http://www.freestarmedia.com/hotellostliberty2.html Story says it all really.

This is perhaps a better feature summary: http://google.blognewschannel.com/index.php/archives/2005/06/28/google-earth-lunching-for-free/

The basic version is now free, the client will of course give you 3D terrain unlike the web page: http://earth.google.com/ They have better global coverage at moderate resolution, the very high res AirPhotoUSA stuff is gone but they have other sources for mid resolution stuff. They've also added features like 3D building extrusions in some urban areas.

Ah yes, flying frogs; http://www.aubreyturner.org/archives/001405.html

Sounds like the son was a bit more willing than the mom.

After each war the British Army has made a habit of adopting some headdress belonging to its allies or the enemy. The bearskin of the Guards came from Napoleon's Imperial Guard; . . In May 1918 General Elles and Colonel Fuller, when dining together at Bermicourt, discussed the future of the Tank Corps and its uniform. The 70th Chasseurs Alpines were billeted in the area at this time and General Elles tried on one of their Beret. Of the various proposals put forward he strongly favoured the Black Beret. . . Black was selected because it was least likely to show oil stains. See attached image.

Don't mess with Christopher Hitchens:

You have an unspoken goal, but it's so horrible I daren't mention it, shame on you.

Nah, that's just his Gandalf impression, place the attached image side by side with him, you'll see.

What actual evidence do you have of that goal? I mean you admit that they never told the public this (AFAIK Cheney actually did once ). You place such a premium on evidence, yet you throw sweeping assertions out there against the administration based on nothing.

The wager was about Saddam's links to Al Qaida not to the 9-11 attack and so was the discussion, trace it back to a post by boudy. The wording is absolutely unambiguous, so is the evidence of a link. w.r.t. It's a truism and a scientific principal that you can never prove anything, especially in politics. Evidence is there even if you don't see it as proof. Moreover the contemporary comments from the administration talked of a "War on Terror", with lots of talk of shadowy overlapping networks.

Where did I say you said? It's not my fault you keep pounding a single issue you just do and the record shows it.

You keep banging on the same single issue, it's like a broken record. If Saddam hadn't played brinkmanship to breaking point the changed environment post 9-11 wouldn't have prompted the invasion. Once again, this was not just about WMD, it was about a pattern of behavior where he sought them and used them, you haven't denied this you just pound on a single issue. You can single issues out with hindsight and say it's insufficient justification, but ultimately it wasn't about any single issue. This isn't about dumbing down the justification post facto to a single issue soundbite. This thread started with a quote that directly contradicts the revisionist claim that this was about WMD. What I said is clear you even quoted it so don't misrepresent it. Despite the histrionics, Iraqis are selecting their own leaders and they are drawing up their constitution. It's not about imposed freedom at all.

Update on brain simulation: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7470

If you dismiss all reports to the contrary then sure you'll find no evidence. America has every right to with deal emerging situations it sees as a threat. Your original thesis claimed America was unreasonably imposing it's brand of freedom implying Iraqis had freedom before, they did not.

No, you've chosen to focus on a single aspect and resent the intrusion of conterpoints. A rambling incoherent screed about America, freedom and the administration is related how? I guess it's time to watch another thread degenerate into an hysterical diatribe by the frustrated minority railing against the evil oppressors. There were many reasons for the war and most troubling was the convergence of; the historical proven pattern of seeking and using WMD, the ties to terrorism, the hindering of inspectors, the non conformance with the UN resolutions and the ceasefire agreement and the opening of the pandoras box of terrorists using unprecedented scale of violence in attacks against the American homeland. Longer term the geopolitical advantages of promoting democracy in a region of despots and dogma gives some hope of genuine reform rather than relentless hopelessness. Like boiling a frog, we all got used to Saddam's escallating defiance. Unfortunately for Saddam the frog lept out of the pot. Get over it.

Well I do, it's being used to impugn Rhino by some revisionists. There are two points in my post, the point you ignored is that the OP demonstrates that the war was not exclusively about the WMDs and that goes to the heart of your issues. You're hyperbole about "big brother" doesn't impact the evidence connecting Saddam to Al Qaeda. It's refreshing that you want to debate the discovery of WMD's in the context of a discussion that proves that the war was not just about WMDs, despite a revisionist ploy by the Bush bashers.

One more time, the wager was about links to terror, these have been found, see URL posted. The very existence of the wager also demonstrates that the attempt to characterize the justification for war as solely based on WMD is a revisionist fabrication.