catbirdseat

Tom, please do us all a favor and cut out the nested quotes. They are tiresome. Just quote the particular paragraph you are replying to, if you would.

Trash, you think the Cold War is over. Think again. Nothing has changed other than the rate of increase of military spending has slowed somewhat. All the conditions that existed between the USSR and the US for four decades still are in place. Russia still has weapons, China has weapons, Korea. Nothing has changed, except that countries have been talking to one another more and have been trading with one another. A measure of trust has built up. Well, we're not doing much to instill trust in the North Koreans, are we? Bush is refusing to talk with them. Not too smart if you ask me.

Allison, you are so right. It's not about what they have done, but about what they might be able to do to us. Bush assumes that Saddam would forfeit his life and country by attacking us and therefore poses a threat. North Korea poses a much greater potential than does Saddam. They have nukes now AND the means to deliver them, but Bush doesn't seem to worry too much about them. NK knows we'd nuke them back, so they won't attack us. So why wouldn't this same principle apply to Iraq?

Tom, a better word than educated would be INFORMED. A little bit of information is a dangerous thing.

I believe that the hardest thing to objectively get a handle on is the degree of threat posed by Saddam and his weapons of mass distruction. It is this one point that is the source of most of the disagreement. Some people are afraid of Saddam (Tomcat, Trask, GregW, etc.) and others are not afraid of him (myself included). Why am I not afraid? Aren't WMD really bad? Yes, they are, but would he really use them against us? The answer is no. Why? Because we would nuke his ass and he's not crazy- evil yes, but not crazy. He values his life. And even if he did wish to attack us and risk horrible retribution, he doesn't have the means to deliver the weapons. But wait, you say, he can just use a middleman to do the dirty work. He could give the dirty bomb to Al Queda, or some other terrorist organization. Okay, suppose he did. He would have to assume we wouldn't have a way to trace the weapon back to him as the source. How does he know we wouldn't do that and then nuke him just as sure as if he'd delivered the weapon himself? Deterrance is the word. Why didn't the USSR attack us during the Cold War. Deterrance. Mutually Assured Destruction. We're all still here because of MAD.

The term Snafflehound was not of Fred's invention. I too was at the lecture. He mentioned that one of his climbing partners made it up long ago (I can't recall the fellow's name), and Fred sort of promulgated the term by using it a lot. He told a story about how they put in three fixed ropes one day and then next jugged up them, to find that snafflehounds had chewed two-thirds of the way through one of them. I bought Fred's new history of the north cascades and had him sign it, "Watch out for the snafflehounds". There were at least two guys in line who had ancient versions of the Cascade Alpine Guide from a time (1949?) when it was a single volume and a slim one at that. They looked pristine. One guy said he found his copy in a garage sale. I was thoroughly impressed with Mr. Beckey. His mind is as sharp as a tack. He has an amazing ability to recall place names, which I suppose shouldn't suprise anyone who has used his climbing guides. The show had slides spanning a huge geographical area from Alaska to Mexico and from the Olympic Penninsula to the Tetons. I got a kick out of seeing his old 1957 T-Bird in several shots.

The trick to it is this. When you put down the egg, give it a good knock so that just the end is smashed. Then, it will stand up on its own.

Someone's got to say it, "Go ahead, make my day".

The first one is the real Saddam. The second one is the body double.

I think I know who Milosh is. Hint: he only shows up about once a week.

The day will come when there are no longer any more threatening nations like Iraq, but there will instead be what are termed "superempowered individuals" and groups, like Bin Ladin and the FARQ in Columbia that will not be so easy to take out because they lack the structure of a nation. They will have access to all sorts of nasty weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps North Korea will sell them atom bombs, because it needs the cash. The future, as I see it, is very scary.

She didn't hate her country. How can you say that? She hated injustice and arbitrary actions by Isreal against innocents. Fairweather, you are so partisan you have become stone blind. You see everything through some sort of weird prism that twists and distorts everything in front of you.

Nope, I'll vouch for Dalius. I met him at Pub Club. Don't go spreading vicious rumors. Dalius is not DFA.

Even if they did reactivate SA, your GPS would still be more accurate than +/- 300 m. I think more like 100 m. 300 sounds off. I was using GPS before Clinton deactivated SA, and I got pretty good accuracy as I recall.

Sorry Chuck, you are wrong. Roosevelt DID know about the plan to exterminate the jews. I read a recent article that supported this view. Why didn't he do anything about it? That's the hard question. To a certain extent, he was doing all he could do, which was to win the war as quickly as possible. The US Knew About the Holocaust in 1938

There is a big difference between the circumstances present in Bush and Hitler's respective rise to power. In 1933, Germany's economy was a basket case. Unemployment and inflation were out of control. Hitler improved the economy. Bush has done the exact opposite. He took an economy that was humming along in the longest sustained period of growth in decades and brought it all to an end.

Or as Gilligan would say, "Yeah, and because it works, too".

I'm thinking back to conversations I had before the election, "Bush, Gore they're all the same. I'm going to vote my conscience. I'm voting for Nader". I hope all you Naderites are happy NOW. Do you still think there isn't any difference between Bush and Gore?

DFA , DFA , DFA , DFA , DFA It's true that we value the lives of our own way more than those of the enemy. Although, we do assign SOME value to enemy lives. Killing indiscriminantly in time of war has costs. If affects our ability to reconstruct after the war and it affects our relations with neighboring countries. This war cannot be compared to WWII. At the time we were dropping bombs on Germany and firebombing Dresden, Hitler had already invaded most of Western Europe and was trying to defeat our ally Great Britain and dominate the world. We also knew about the Germans efforts to exterminate millions of jews. We were losing thousands of men in combat and we were trying to shut down the German industrial base and sap the German's will to fight. Iraq on the other hand is contained entirely within its own borders. We cannot justify doing to the Iraqis what we did to the Germans in WWII from a military standpoint.

No, you DON'T look fat in that dress.

Blizzard of Lies We must have lunch real soon. Your luggage is checked through. We've got inflation licked. I'll get right back to you. It's just a standard form. Tomorrow without fail. Pleased to meet you. Thanks a lot. Your check is in the mail. Marooned, marooned, marooned in a blizzard of lies. Marooned, marooned, marooned in a blizzard of lies. Your toes and knees aren't all you'll freeze When you're in it up to your thighs. It looks like snow, but you never know When you're marooned in a blizzard of lies. You may have won a prize. Won't wrinkle, shrink or peel. Your secret's safe with me. This is a real good deal. It's finger lickin' good. Strictly by the book. What's fair is fair. I'll be right there. I am not a crook. Marooned, marooned, marooned in a blizzard of lies. Marooned, marooned, marooned in a blizzard of lies. Better watch your step when your old dog Shep Can't even look you in the eyes. You're cold and lost and you're double crossed When you're marooned in a blizzard of lies. We'll send someone right out. Now this won't hurt a bit. He's in a meeting now. The coat's a perfect fit. It's strictly fresh today. Service with a smile. I'll love you darling 'till I die. We'll keep your name on file. Marooned, marooned, marooned in a blizzard of lies. Marooned, marooned, marooned in a blizzard of lies. Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart. And you're in for a big surprise. When you're marooned, marooned, marooned marooned, marooned, marooned, marooned, marooned, marooned in a blizzard of lies. A blizzard of lies. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Written by D & S (Josh) Frishberg Recorded by the Short Sisters on "The Short Sisters Short Tape", copyright 1985 by Black Socks press. DC

This thread is about Bush. Why is it that anytime someone wants to criticise Bush, others come out to side track the discussion by accusing us of "not supporting the troops"? I support our troops, but I think Bush has done a rotten job as president, in almost every measure: jobs, the economy, peace, relations with our neighbors, the deficit, civil rights, and the environment. It's all a disaster. DFA, that piece from the Onion is really clever. So who wrote it? There is no attribution. And was it REALLY written on 18, January, 2001?

It looks as though that Samoyed bitch has just be spayed, so you don't have to worry about having puppies.

Time to celebrate. Here. Smoke this.

I'm with MattP. It was time to pull the plug on that sorry thread. Keep spray in the spray forum.