ivan

it made the evil-doers respect our right to shop?

do you wanna see the most beautiful thing in the world dc? I saw the most beautiful thing in the world ten days ago at my youngest daughter's wedding. must...not...ruin....moment...with...crass....comments.... congrats dude - i can't conceive of it meself - 2night, upon questioning my 5 yeard old girl why she was running all over the house w/ a pink leopard plush toy clamped between her thighs, she replied "that's just my 'gina cat - i looooove her" so i might be marrying her off at 13 i'm reckoning

it's difficult to envision a world that doesn't include me

i've learned that instead of getting drunk 2morrow i will instead be escorting the fam to some sorta high-faluting open-house night for a school that will teach my daughter to teach the language of chinamen instead

shit, why didn't i make this a t.r.? that little foppish bastard tvash seems to have thrown the guantlet down w/ his last one no doubt!

do you wanna see the most beautiful thing in the world dc?

...and all a day early...yummmmmmm....burp. and to top it all off, the daughter n' i set leprechaun traps throughout the house this evening so we ougha be rich beyond the dreams of minas tomorrow!

pretty simple, no? - we become the opposite of what our parents want - which is why i take my kids to snake-handling church every sunday and then encourage the use of hard core drugs the whole way home!

well, him being an army colonel, i pretty much learned from an early stage in life to stand up strait when he lit into me and not pay a damn bit of attention to a single word oh, and after that, to go upstairs and clean my room and await an inspection....

ding dong who's there? it's god! hide the bong!

my last year of college i needed a final 400 level history class - i felt like i knew everything and wanted something totally bananas that i didn't have a clue about - the first offering of "the history of homosexuality" was that semester - what a trip - the whole class could easily be spent looking at my class-mates going "nope - yup - yup - deeeeefintely yup - both?" an enlightened prof firsure though - one fine day he moved the class outside onto The Lawn (spectacular scenery if you've ever been to the u of va) and he let me smoke during class! pissed my father off no end when he found out what his dime was helping pay for

reminds me of the joke: what do you get when you mix castor oil with holy water? a religious movement

i note you did not answer the question - to your mind, is there room to criticize the land you live in w/o being a self-loathing liberal idiot? as to your # of questions for tvash's article - i agree - all good questions - and the need to ask and answer them all exactly why basic rights like habeaus corpus have existed since before the dawn of the modern state how magnaniamus though that you're willing to grant this man a boon of constitutional protection by virtue of where he was standing when we black-bagged him - but again, why should you have rights that 90% of the rest of the world shouldn't? what was it that was unclear about the founding-assertion that "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men...(have the right) to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" did jefferson, locke, rousseau, montesquie or any of those cum-gargling knee-jerk liberal-pansy fucks say those rights should just exist for englishmen or frenchmen? that they should go away if the state was in danger?

check out the constitution - amendment #16: "the congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states and without regard to any census or enumeration"

You are good at managing the land and the climbers? he must be - b/b i have it on good authority from all girlfriends, past n' present, that he can't....fix cable.

"mother of god, i thought, here it comes!"

i always get that one confused w/: "name the purpose of star fleet and the united federation of planets"

b/c i don't like being distracted from drinking my coffee and reading the sports page for that long?

Perhaps, all schoolchildren should be required to pass the Naturalization citizen test. Current USCIS Test Questions (Click on the question to see the answer.) 1. What are the colors of our flag? 2. How many stars are there in our flag? 3. What color are the stars on our flag? 4. What do the stars on the flag mean? 5. How many stripes are there in the flag? 6. What color are the stripes? 7. What do the stripes on the flag mean? 8. How many states are there in the Union? 9. What is the 4th of July? 10. What is the date of Independence Day? 11. Independence from whom? 12. What country did we fight during the Revolutionary War? 13. Who was the first President of the United States? 14. Who is the President of the United States today? 15. Who is the vice-president of the United States today? 16. Who elects the President of the United States? 17. Who becomes President of the United States if the President should die? 18. For how long do we elect the President? 19. What is the Constitution? 20. Can the Constitution be changed? 21. What do we call a change to the Constitution? 22. How many changes or amendments are there to the Constitution? 23. How many branches are there in our government? 24. What are the three branches of our government? 25. What is the legislative branch of our government? 26. Who makes the laws in the United States? 27. What is the Congress? 28. What are the duties of Congress? 29. Who elects the Congress? 30. How many senators are there in Congress? 31. Can you name the two senators from your state? 32. For how long do we elect each senator? 33. How many representatives are there in Congress? 34. For how long do we elect the representatives? 35. What is the executive branch of our government? 36. What is the judiciary branch of our government? 37. What are the duties of the Supreme Court? 38. What is the supreme court law of the United States? 39. What is the Bill of Rights? 40. What is the capital of your state? 41. Who is the current governor of your state? 42. Who becomes President of the United States if the President and the vice-president should die? 43. Who is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? 44. Can you name thirteen original states? 45. Who said, "Give me liberty or give me death."? 46. Which countries were our enemies during World War II? 47. What are the 49th and 50th states of the Union? 48. How many terms can the President serve? 49. Who was Martin Luther King, Jr.? 50. Who is the head of your local government? 51. According to the Constitution, a person must meet certain requirements in order to be eligible to become President. Name one of these requirements. 52. Why are there 100 Senators in the Senate? 53. Who selects the Supreme Court justice? 54. How many Supreme Court justice are there? 55. Why did the Pilgrims come to America? 56. What is the head executive of a state government called? 57. What is the head executive of a city government called? 58. What holiday was celebrated for the first time by the Americans colonists? 59. Who was the main writer of the Declaration of Independence? 60. When was the Declaration of Independence adopted? 61. What is the basic belief of the Declaration of Independence? 62. What is the national anthem of the United States? 63. Who wrote the Star-Spangled Banner? 64. Where does freedom of speech come from? 65. What is a minimum voting age in the United States? 66. Who signs bills into law? 67. What is the highest court in the United States? 68. Who was the President during the Civil War? 69. What did the Emancipation Declaration do? 70. What special group advises the President? 71. Which President is called the "Father of our country"? 72. What Immigration and Naturalization Service form is used to apply to become a naturalized citizen? 73. Who helped the Pilgrims in America? 74. What is the name of the ship that brought the Pilgrims to America? 75. What are the 13 original states of the U.S. called? 76. Name 3 rights of freedom guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. 77. Who has the power to declare the war? 78. What kind of government does the United States have? 79. Which President freed the slaves? 80. In what year was the Constitution written? 81. What are the first 10 amendments to the Constitution called? 82. Name one purpose of the United Nations? 83. Where does Congress meet? 84. Whose rights are guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? 85. What is the introduction to the Constitution called? 86. Name one benefit of being citizen of the United States. 87. What is the most important right granted to U.S. citizens? 88. What is the United States Capitol? 89. What is the White House? 90. Where is the White House located? 91. What is the name of the President's official home? 92. Name the right guaranteed by the first amendment. 93. Who is the Commander in Chief of the U.S. military? 94. Which President was the first Commander in Chief of the U.S. military? 95. In what month do we vote for the President? 96. In what month is the new President inaugurated? 97. How many times may a Senator be re-elected? 98. How many times may a Congressman be re-elected? 99. What are the 2 major political parties in the U.S. today? 100. How many states are there in the United States today? i give an (abbreviated) version of that test every year!

x3 relying on teachers to educate your kids is like trusting only to a doctor to keep you healthy - they're of great assistance to be certain, but much of the responsibilty remains your own

so, you and i living in the same neighborhood, were i to give you a gun and say, hey, neither of us like the guy across the street very much, now, if you were to go and do whatever you liked to him, i'd have no problem with it, in fact would be sure to continue making presents to you - you'd say in this situation i'd have no responsibility for the grisly scene that followed? you like to pull the self-loathing tack - is it loathing your wife to notice she's got a big fat zit on her face? that her breath stinks in the morning? or are you actually capable of making honest observations like those and still loving her?

so, not suprisingly, it's your view that it's reasonable for an administration to conceal and outright lie to the masses regarding its actions in foreign lands, even in cases where such behavior could bring the whole house down on top of everyone's head? as for the semantic game regarding "puppet regime" - the original topic of the thread was gitmo. an argument was called to justify the stain it made on our name. none was provided, but it was suggested that, hey, it ain't so bad, and we've built up such good credit on our name that we can be a little naughty for awhile and it'll be okay. to contradict that, a general pattern of our nation acting like an asshole was constructed, including our behavior towards iran and use of iraq. does it matter what exactly the defintion of "puppet regime" is between us and wether iraq fit it at the time? the bottomline was we took the country under our wing, so to speak, and in the process assumed for our national shame the crimes of that regime, including the one that today marks the anniversary of, the massive use of chemical/nerve agents on a civilian population in halabja, which killed thousands (and which we did not let us distract from our "special relationship") pix speak a thousand words, here's some to make the fruit of our foreign policy, and the need for improving it by not building future gitmos, clearer:

nah, my heart's not in it - i'm planning on giving the kids a bath and then retiring to my boudior w/ my comely wife, a quart of madeira, and the final 100 pages of "the far side of the world" after i finish this here snitzel and fried onions and 'taters n' spargel feast i'm fixing up for the in-laws...

can't i accuse you of the same thing? from the link you posted: "The United States did not supply any arms to Iraq until 1982, when Iran's growing military success alarmed American policymakers. It then did so every year until 1988. Although most other countries never hesitated to sell military hardware directly to Saddam Hussein's regime, the United States, equally keen to protect its interests in the region, adopted a more subtle approach. Howard Teicher served on the United States National Security Council as director of Political-Military Affairs. According to his 1995 affidavit and other interviews with former Regan and Bush administration officials, the Central Intelligence Agency secretly directed armaments and high-tech components to Iraq through false fronts and friendly third parties such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait, and they quietly encouraged rogue arms dealers and other private military companies to do the same: "The CIA, including both CIA Director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Iraq. My notes, memoranda and other documents in my NSC files show or tend to show that the CIA knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, munitions and vehicles to Iraq." "

i did - you cherry-pick and the one fact you select above presents a distorted picture, ignoring the so called "dual use" sales and the general fact that we used iraq against iran - consider the below from the article: "The full extent of these covert transfers is not yet known. Teicher's files on the subject are held securely at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and many other Reagan era documents that could help shine new light on the subject remain classified. Teicher refused to discuss details of the affidavit with the Washington Post shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[11] About two of every seven licenses for the export of "dual use" technology items approved between 1985 and 1990 by the US Department of Commerce "went either directly to the Iraqi armed forces, to Iraqi end-users engaged in weapons production, or to Iraqi enterprises suspected of diverting technology" to weapons of mass destruction according to an investigation by House Banking Committee Chairman Henry B. Gonzalez. According to the investigation, confidential Commerce Department files also reveal that the Reagan and Bush administrations approved at least 80 direct exports to the Iraqi military. These included computers, communications equipment, and aircraft navigation and radar equipment. Many of these exports were made before Iraq's eight-year war with Iran ended in 1988, a period in which Washington maintained an official policy of neutrality toward the combatants but vigorously worked to block foreign military purchases by Iran." hmm..my schnitzel is burning!