tvashtarkatena

There has been much hezbollahloo written about the New Crusade in the Middle East. Frankly, the influence of religion seems to be a bit overblown and unnecessary in explaining the lack of love lost between the Arab world and their American occupiers. The vast cultural gap between these two worlds coupled with a recent history of senseless violence perpetrated by both sides is more than enough to explain why our current shotgun marriage isn't going quite as smoothly as it might. For proof of this, do a search for stories about the tidal wave of Islam to Christian converts in the Middle East and Central Asia since our invasions. Either our massive, conspiratorial evangelistic program has been soundly thwarted, or....

that's not true. You get rid of the long term pension liability and the current state budgets will still be as much in the hole and the same cuts would have to take place since taxes aren't going up. Is there a cryptologist in the house?

Folo da po bo-aht, mon!

You think they'd trust the dufus Army with the Ark? Come on. The CIA wouldn't dream of it.

Iv'e heard the US Army has kept the Holy Grail in reserve for just the right moment...

Funny how a shitty screenplay can sex up a sleepy organization for a certain audience.

WOW. THESE ANTI-MUSLIM CRUSADERS ARE REALLY NUTZ: OpusDei in the USA Similarly, the Knights of Malta (it's official name is much longer) have been involved primarily in charitable hospital work during the past century. They're mostly really old guys with awesome costumes. My ex's dad was a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre - pretty much another group of old guys with great costumes that did charitable work. Hersch has made many outrageous, unsubstantiated claims. His Mai Lai story doesn't absolve him of any later creative license with his journalism. But hey, Bill, keep sounding the alarm and stockpiling that ammo.

Better snap in those high capacity clips for the albino monk that's comin' for ya Bill...before they're banned.

It's interesting to note that the actions of America's Evangelicals, who have historically been the stalwart defenders of slavery, inequality for women, and the persecution of gays in America, often have have deadly consequences elsewhere as well. Ugandan gay activist beaten to death

Has anyone else noticed that our invasion of Iraq was followed not by this kind of liberal revolution, often predicted by the war's cheerleaders, but by a hardening of reactionary, right wing policies throughout the middle east? Enter the students and women of Tunisia, armed with twitter accounts. Hopefully, our 'paternal' period is coming to an end, if for no other reason than we can simply no longer pay the bills.

I favor the idea of a Nuclear Gun Club - wherein the wealthy purchase expensive vacation packages to fly to the arctic to dine on exotic endangered animals while watching surplus nukes detonate from the safety of an elaborate ice hotel outfitting with martini fountains.

Wow. A whopping 3% per year cut in our $700 billion military budget is actually controversial? Why even bother? HELLOOOOOO NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY!

I vote for a tiger boning kev mommy style.

You think a lot of things that turn out to be wrong. Why should this be any different?

Hail Freedonia! Only pussies vote against going to war. Or at least, that's the usual argument.

Who's Tvrash?

Weeelllll, it's kind of midway between the two views. Congress did authorize Bush to use military force in 2001, but, for his part, the Bush Admin took that very brief authorization and ran with it to create illegal enemy combatant status, Guantanamo Bay prison, extraordinary rendition, secret CIA prisons, interrogation by torture, and a then illegal wiretapping program of enormous scale, to name a few. Oh, and the invasion of Iraq - which really had fuck all to do with any war on terror. The popularized idea that Bush and other presidents are puppets is complete crap, of course. Yes, Cheney was strongly behind these actions, but then, so were the rest of Bush's cabinet for the most part, as well as the president himself. Cheney did hide certain things from Bush - an unfavorable legal review of his wiretapping program, for example, but only for a few weeks. It does matter who is president, and our president, in particular, has a tremendous amount of power. Not unlimited power, of course - any elected official is extremely politically constrained, but, compared to most presidents and prime ministers in similar countries, our president is practically a king. Moreover, our presidents are either revered or hated by the public in a way that can only stem from a deep fascination for the office. After watching Obama in action for 2 years, I've come to the conclusion that he truly is an amazing politician - given his productivity and performance during what has been, by any measure, an extremely difficult period.

You made it sound like you pretty much couldn't stand her. I'll admit, I don't have a lot of patience for guys who complain about their SOs for years and fail to do anything about it. For what its worth, research shows that 18 months is about the outer limit for a go/no go decision on a new relationship. You pretty much know what you need to know to continue versus end it by that point, whether or not you admit it to yourself. Hanging on to an unhappy situation is wasted life you could be spending with a person that's actually right for you. The wild card is the booze. If she's a drunk, you're not going to get anywhere until she quits. After that it's still a long haul until you can figure out whether you two can make it together without the booze. If that's too long a haul for you, there are plenty of fish in the sea. Meeting awesome women has never been easier, regardless of your age.

Actually, in many cases, you're right. Movements can go viral, at which point the only thing that travels between the group's leadership and its soldiers is a broadcast meme - an grievance and call to action. Individuals take it from there, sometimes with central funding, more often with local. This makes for a much more difficult enemy to detect and counter - if less strategic in effect. It also pits security against freedom of speech and religion, a divisive issue for free societies.

Our Technology and Liberty Project (WA staff of 3) keeps very close track of what the FBI and other law enforcement are doing for their surveillance practices. Our National Director for the same project was an FBI agent for 20 years. The domestic arm of DHS puts a lot of resources, far more than for foreign terrorism, into domestic terrorism enforcement. As you might expect, the McVeigh bombing pumped that budget way up.

Foreign invasion/terrorism, all other things being equal, probably is a bigger story than domestic, for a lot of reasons. One: how did they GET IN through all our expensive security? A big question that simply isn't part of domestic terrorism. In the end, law enforcement (FBI, etc) treats domestic terrorism with as much or more priority as any other form.

If we had a DNA sample we could clone Thomas Paine to make the speech, but the Tea Baggerz would probably shoot him.

Work is slower than KKK trying to come up with a fresh reply....

The Evil runs strong today

Is it FAIR that a tower is not a tower is not a tower?