Jihad needs scientists

[Eeyore]

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote:

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

The article I read pointed out that the soldiers explicitly were under
a Euro command and that if they were ordered _into_ their own country
for some reason, that they must have already sworn to uphold the Euro
command and not obey those in command in their own home country.

What happens when they are ordered to attack their own country?

How do you think that would happen ?

Is Oregon likely to declare war on California ?

Graham

 

[Jonathan Kirwan]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 00:36:21 GMT, "Michael A. Terrell"
<mike.terrell@earthlink.net> wrote:

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

The article I read pointed out that the soldiers explicitly were under
a Euro command and that if they were ordered _into_ their own country
for some reason, that they must have already sworn to uphold the Euro
command and not obey those in command in their own home country.

What happens when they are ordered to attack their own country?

How hard is it for you to imagine the case here in the US, for gosh
sake?

Let's say, hypothetically speaking, that on May 17, 1954, the US
Supreme Court rules in some case called Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka, Kansas, unanimously agreeing that segregation in public
schools is unconstitutional. Just hypothetically, of course,
overturning the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, sanctioning "separate
but equal" segregation of the races and now ruling that "separate
educational facilities are inherently unequal."

Let's also say that, just hypothetically speaking, that in order to
comply with this Brown v. Board decision, a place called Central High
School in Little Rock, Arkansas made plans to integrate blacks around
the hypothetical time of September, 1957. Let's also say, just
hypothetically, that when nine black high school students arrived to
attend, that they were met by angry crowds and that the governor of
the great State of Arkansas, a hypothetically named Mr. Orval Faubus
in fact, just happened to order his own Arkansas National Guard to
keep the black students out of the school.

Just hypothetically, you know.

So let's say that faced with such defiance, a US President named --
oh, let's just say named Dwight Eisenhower -- responded by sending
troops from the 101st Airborne to Little Rock with orders to protect
the nine students.

Just hypothetically, you know.

Now, suppose you happened to come from Arkansas and you were in the
101st Airborne and ordered to disobey the Arkansas governor and to go
against the state's own Arkansas National Guard.

What do you do? Just hypothetically, you know.

Come off it, Mike. The US has already answered this question. Europe
can just look here for the problems and some answers.

Jon

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Frank Bemelman wrote:

"John Fields" <jfields@austininstruments.com> schreef in bericht
news:bc77j2911rjokocse2qt39dr9brbjktce6@4ax.com...
Just one more thing worth mentioning is that all those lost lives
are deliberately attributable to Saddam Hussein's refusal to accept
the UN's mandates and sanctions without question, which was part of
the deal he never intended to follow in the first place.

And Bush didn't bother about the UN either, or the opinion
of the UN inspectors. Seems he was all to scared about the
outcome of the final report, which was due in weeks.

And you're defending that pig? Shame on you.

The US are the swines in this case, and it is a shame
that you defend your government. A bloody disgrace it
is. Look at yourself.

And you are the slop we feed to the hogs.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 18:37:22 +0100, "T Wake"
<usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

"Jonathan Kirwan" <jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote in message
news:jul5j2tkh6tg8nptqgn390urkanmgjbng9@4ax.com...
On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 23:24:51 +0100, "T Wake"
usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4532B1D6.86F08520@hotmail.com...

T Wake wrote:

MAD only works when the parties are sane

LOL ! What a brilliant concept.

It was good while it lasted. At least with the US and USSR being governed
by
reasonably sane people, the prospect of nuking another country was almost
zero. Now, people are suggesting the US will go to war with a country
which
will have no way of properly defending itself without resorting to nukes.
If
NK does detonate any type of nuclear weapon against America, will the US
restrain its response? Will the American public allow the nations military
to continue to fight a conventional war? If I thought the US would invade,
I
would hope they would. (If that makes any sense).

Actually, President Bush has explicitly kept the "nuclear option" on
the table -- particularly, their tactical use.

Sad really, isn't it. I was hoping I would be able to see my great
grandchildren. But it gets less likely.

Well, if you survive the next two years, you're over the hump.

John

 

[MooseFET]

JoeBloe wrote:

On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 08:05:58 -0300, YD <ydtechHAT@techie.com> Gave us:

And possibly due to domestic production currently being at a
stand-still due to a lack of infra-structure.


The books I read in school were several years old.

If they had books when we got there, they would still have them,
idiot.

Unless they got looted or destroyed that is.

 

[Eeyore]

MooseFET wrote:

JoeBloe wrote:
On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 08:05:58 -0300, YD <ydtechHAT@techie.com> Gave us:

And possibly due to domestic production currently being at a
stand-still due to a lack of infra-structure.

The books I read in school were several years old.

If they had books when we got there, they would still have them,
idiot.

Unless they got looted or destroyed that is.

Or fell apart.

School text books have a hard time.

Graham

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 18:43:41 GMT, Jonathan Kirwan
<jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote:

And politically potent, right now. Keep that clearly in mind as you
see US Republican political platforms playing out. They need this
base, desperately.

With things as closely balanced as they are, each party needs every
vote desperately. The Dems need the black vote and the urban liberal
vote and the farm vote and the NRA vote. Watch Hilary triangulate.

John

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 17:38:14 +0100, Eeyore
<rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:

Lloyd Parker wrote:

JoeBloe <joebloe@thebarattheendoftheuniverse.org> wrote:

All of Islam (read the moslems) believe that all others that are not
moslem are "infidels" and that killing them is not, nor should not be
a crime.

You are lying.

I suspect it's what he learnt at Church.

American Christian fundamentalists are as dangerous if not more so than their
Muslim counterparts.

Yeah, all those Southern Baptist suicide bombers.

John

 

[Eeyore]

John Larkin wrote:

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 18:43:41 GMT, Jonathan Kirwan
jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote:

And politically potent, right now. Keep that clearly in mind as you
see US Republican political platforms playing out. They need this
base, desperately.


With things as closely balanced as they are, each party needs every
vote desperately. The Dems need the black vote and the urban liberal
vote and the farm vote and the NRA vote. Watch Hilary triangulate.

What the Dems really need is proof that Bush is Satan.

Graham

 

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
newsv08j299338u1a8v6bvp4t4djj4u40csbs@4ax.com...

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 21:28:58 +0100, Eeyore
rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:



John Larkin wrote:

Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:
John Larkin wrote:

Ah, your concern is not about peace. It's not about democracy, or
human rights, or the health or nutrition or safety of the poorest
people in the world.

And the USA'a *IS* ?????

Graham

I think the theory is that a democratic world, with free people and
free trade, will be better for everybody, us included. I've heard lots
worse theories.

What's your version of utopia?

Ceertainly one where you don't go to war to change ppls minds.


Not to change Saddam's mind, when he wanted Kuwait? Not to change Pol
Pot's mind, to end the killing fields?

But you addressed what you don't want the world to look like, or
rather what you're not willing to do to change the world. But what do
you want the world to be like? I mean aside from silly stuff, like "a
world without arrogant Americans"?

OK, how about "a world where the US government wasn't so arrogant and
oblivious to the negative effect that some of its actions have"?

Eric Lucas

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 19:50:08 GMT, Jonathan Kirwan
<jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote:

American Christian fundamentalists are as dangerous if not more so than their
Muslim counterparts.

More so, because they (through political influence over the power of
US action) have so much greater power by which they can act. (They
are a very large, very well funded, and highly-catered minority here
and they often pass around internal lists of who to vote for, as
well.)

And you think the Mother Jones crowd doesn't have their own lists? You
seem to imply that there's something wrong with political organizing
among people you don't agree with. Stalin thought that, too.

John

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 23:39:25 +0100, "T Wake"
<usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

Sorry, I didn't realise any countries had upped and moved to the US lately.
You are talking about migrations of population which rarely (in modern times
at least) has anything to do with a love of the new country.

Also, you are presenting a strawman based on the very unrepresentative
population samples. To make matters worse it largely supports the claim
because the people left behind in those countries will continue to dislike
the US and feed of each other even more.

Excellent. We really only want the good ones.

As I said, the majority of the countries in the world have a low opinion of
the America an entity.

Sorry, I didn't realize that countries could have opinions; I thought
only people had opinions.

John

 

[MooseFET]

mmeron@cars3.uchicago.edu wrote:

In article <45205022.CCB68B6B@hotmail.com>, Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> writes:

[....]
It is a war. Refusing to recognize it as such will not make it go
away.

It's not a meaningful war since the 'enemy' isn't an identifiable entity but a 'view'.

That just makes it a far worse and more dangerous war.

What we really need is a war on the incorrect use of the term "a war
on". Right now people are talking of a "war on terror" as though
somehow the emotion "terror" was an external threat. Once the "war on
terror" is over, I expect they will start the "war on ennui" or "a war
on limerence".

 

"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote in message
news:Fd-dnRQAmrcYlKnYRVnyiQ@pipex.net...

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in
message news:65s7j2l1evion61o96itfes4sjgabjh499@4ax.com...
On a radio program this morning, the subject being gender roles and
specifically transgender issues, a couple of biologists agreed that
Darwin's description of sex roles was totally wrong.

They may well be, I am not a biologist. I know very little in the way of
scientific theory survives for ever. Darwin's theories were in place long
before modern advances so not changing them would be strange.

Certainly a lot of the details of Darwin's theories have been subject to
question and modification over the years. What has not changed is the basic
idea of evolution. It is amazing that, after 150 years of collecting data
and trying to fill in those details, everything we have learned does bear
out his basic ideas.

And in a book I'm reading about string theory, it seems out that there
are about 10^500 different possible universes, and as few as one may
support life, so some theorists are invoking Intelligent Design to
explain why the particular constants were chosen which allow us to
exist.

The normal ID-like version of the many worlds theory holds that the
universe _must_ be the way it is because we exist. If it was any different
we wouldn't exist and the question would be meaningless. As you can see,
this carries none of the normal scientific method with it so (IMHO
obviously) it is fundamentally flawed.

I've never been especially uncomfortable with the "anthropic principle".
However, I think a better way to look at it is that all of those 10^500
universes probably do exist in parallel. We just happen to be in one of the
ones (the few? who knows--it's a bit hard to enumerate googol^5 universes,
to know how many have characteristics hospitable to life) that have
constants appropriate for the formation of life, and therefore we're here to
talk/write about it.

Intelligent design is a dead end as far as science goes because it defeats
the quest for knowledge. Comparing a scientific theory to creationism (or
ID or what ever you want to call it) is a basic fallacy.

One of the ways the Religious Right sells ID/Creationism is by calling it a
"theory". However, it fails to meet several of the fundamental
characteristics of a theory. It fails to make predictions, it is not
falsifiable...or even testable.

Eric Lucas

 

"Jonathan Kirwan" <jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote in message
news:hra8j25plmkagerobeimflqgo6p6q9j3cg@4ax.com...

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 00:36:21 GMT, "Michael A. Terrell"
mike.terrell@earthlink.net> wrote:

Jonathan Kirwan wrote:

The article I read pointed out that the soldiers explicitly were under
a Euro command and that if they were ordered _into_ their own country
for some reason, that they must have already sworn to uphold the Euro
command and not obey those in command in their own home country.

What happens when they are ordered to attack their own country?

How hard is it for you to imagine the case here in the US, for gosh
sake?

Let's say, hypothetically speaking, that on May 17, 1954, the US
Supreme Court rules in some case called Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka, Kansas, unanimously agreeing that segregation in public
schools is unconstitutional. Just hypothetically, of course,
overturning the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, sanctioning "separate
but equal" segregation of the races and now ruling that "separate
educational facilities are inherently unequal."

Let's also say that, just hypothetically speaking, that in order to
comply with this Brown v. Board decision, a place called Central High
School in Little Rock, Arkansas made plans to integrate blacks around
the hypothetical time of September, 1957. Let's also say, just
hypothetically, that when nine black high school students arrived to
attend, that they were met by angry crowds and that the governor of
the great State of Arkansas, a hypothetically named Mr. Orval Faubus
in fact, just happened to order his own Arkansas National Guard to
keep the black students out of the school.

Just hypothetically, you know.

So let's say that faced with such defiance, a US President named --
oh, let's just say named Dwight Eisenhower -- responded by sending
troops from the 101st Airborne to Little Rock with orders to protect
the nine students.

Just hypothetically, you know.

Now, suppose you happened to come from Arkansas and you were in the
101st Airborne and ordered to disobey the Arkansas governor and to go
against the state's own Arkansas National Guard.

What do you do? Just hypothetically, you know.

Come off it, Mike. The US has already answered this question. Europe
can just look here for the problems and some answers.

Nicely written.

Ever heard of a dinky, crappy little liberal arts college called Kent State?

Eric Lucas

 

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:hmg8j2d5e66hed8b2afqgd8t6lstbflj99@4ax.com...

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 18:37:22 +0100, "T Wake"
usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

"Jonathan Kirwan" <jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote in message
news:jul5j2tkh6tg8nptqgn390urkanmgjbng9@4ax.com...

Actually, President Bush has explicitly kept the "nuclear option" on
the table -- particularly, their tactical use.

Sad really, isn't it. I was hoping I would be able to see my great
grandchildren. But it gets less likely.

Well, if you survive the next two years, you're over the hump.

Good lord yes, let's hope saner minds take office in 2009.

Eric Lucas

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 03:13:08 GMT, <lucasea@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

I think the theory is that a democratic world, with free people and
free trade, will be better for everybody, us included. I've heard lots
worse theories.

What's your version of utopia?

Ceertainly one where you don't go to war to change ppls minds.


Not to change Saddam's mind, when he wanted Kuwait? Not to change Pol
Pot's mind, to end the killing fields?

But you addressed what you don't want the world to look like, or
rather what you're not willing to do to change the world. But what do
you want the world to be like? I mean aside from silly stuff, like "a
world without arrogant Americans"?

OK, how about "a world where the US government wasn't so arrogant and
oblivious to the negative effect that some of its actions have"?

Eric Lucas

You're still talking about what you don't like, and not even
explaining why. What's interesting to me about this discussion -
actually, I'm learning a lot - is that nobody here except me seems to
have a vision of a better world, other than that the US should do
less. Nobody seems to care about poor or abused people, or have any
recognition of a concept of human rights, they just don't like
arrogant Americans and want to see them fail. Lots of people here want
to see Iraq dissolve into chaos and civil war so that they can say
"told ya so!"

No wonder I don't get along with a lot of people here. I'm way too
liberal.

John

 

[MooseFET]

jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:

In article <bnPVg.11984$6S3.8593@newssvr25.news.prodigy.net>,
lucasea@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

[....]
Evidence, please. This is revisionist history, filtered through a desire to
exalt Bush and excoriate Clinton. How about a little more balanced view of
the facts, please.

You have forgotten that 9/11 was the second attempt to destroy
the World Trade Towers?

The Clinton admin rounded up many people charged them had trials and
they are still in jail from then.

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 04:12:10 +0100, Eeyore
<rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 18:43:41 GMT, Jonathan Kirwan
jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote:

And politically potent, right now. Keep that clearly in mind as you
see US Republican political platforms playing out. They need this
base, desperately.


With things as closely balanced as they are, each party needs every
vote desperately. The Dems need the black vote and the urban liberal
vote and the farm vote and the NRA vote. Watch Hilary triangulate.

What the Dems really need is proof that Bush is Satan.

Which is inconsistant with their belief that he's dumb.

John

 

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:igi8j2tmonmnsklrgqsh5dds73npt22g6m@4ax.com...

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 19:50:08 GMT, Jonathan Kirwan
jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote:


American Christian fundamentalists are as dangerous if not more so than
their
Muslim counterparts.

More so, because they (through political influence over the power of
US action) have so much greater power by which they can act. (They
are a very large, very well funded, and highly-catered minority here
and they often pass around internal lists of who to vote for, as
well.)


And you think the Mother Jones crowd doesn't have their own lists? You
seem to imply that there's something wrong with political organizing
among people you don't agree with. Stalin thought that, too.

Yeah, but the fundamental difference is that a religious organization, which
gets special tax breaks because of the special protected position that
religion holds in the Constitution, is supposed to stay out of the business
of governing the country. Mother Jones, and the liberal organizations
associated therewith enjoy no such special protection. Any church that
dabbles in politics by telling their congregation how to vote should have
their tax-exempt status revoked.

Eric Lucas