New Mars Forums

LAROUCHE! Whoooo! :laugh:

C'mon, I disagree with Ecraz L'Infame (I've probably just murdered your name, but we know who I'm talking about) more or less completely, but buddy, you're *completely* loco.

No one (important) cares about tincan dictators. Nobody. It's a convenient stick to smack America with diplomatically, but trust me, assuming no third parties end up dying (meaning other countries) you could burn whole countries to the ground, and the most that would happen is maybe a crossly worded letter from the UN. Bush and his associates in the White House have made every reasonable effort (and some unreasonable ones) to avoid civilian casualties, which is costing US casualties in the process.

Arguing that World War III is going to happen because we kick a few dictators in the head is insane. You have to ask yourself: is China/India/Russia really going to feel threatened - threatened enough to risk a major, possibly nuclear conflict - over some suicidal maniacs in the Middle East?

Any sane person is going to say "No."

We can beat the crap out of Iran, definitely, shatter their armies, sure. I'm not really sure about putting the pieces back together, though it would be easier than you think (because Iran wouldn't have, well, Iran and Syria running guns and causing trouble, and also because it's more culturally homogenous). Given that Bush is moving troops from South Korea and Germany... we can probably do it.

If I were Bush, though, I'd whack their reactor and enrichment facilites on November 3rd or 4th. Either you've won or you've lost in the election, you're not running for anything again, and the world will find something else to bitch about in a month or so. In the meantime you've wiped out one of the real threats (nukes in Iran's hot hands) in the war on terror.

You smash Iran's reactor, what are they going to do?

A) Run guns into Iraq and generally support terrorism? They're already doing that.
B) Run over the border with their normal troops? ::cue laugh track:: That's just suicide.
C) Sit tight and whine

I'm guessing C, while shouting to the world that they're doing A because of the evil, evil Americans.

:laugh: LaRouche! :laugh:

It'll never get old.

I suppose you can't convince his followers, but c'mon, he's a joke.

Yeah, that more or less is exactly what happens. There are a bunch of reporters with the lousy assignment of following the candidates around. Someone wrote a book about these reporters called 'The Boys On The Bus', which is about the reporters who followed Nixon and McGovern around. I remember there was a reference to a then-mysterious device known as a 'fax machine', which one of the reporters had, and which was the size of a suitcase. :laugh:

It strikes me that Bush will put a bullet in Iran's head. I think the Russians are cynical enough to realize that - they don't need a nuclear armed Islamic fundamentalist state any more than we do (cough BRESLAN cough cough) but probably figure we'll blow up Iran's reactor before anything interesting happens. Having smashed Iraq with only suspicion of WMD possession, invading Iran when they're screaming "WE'RE BUILDING NUUUUUUUUUKES!" at the top of their lungs seems logical and consistent, not that presidents have ever been constrained by such quaint principles.

Besides, we're withdrawing a bunch of troops from Germany and South Korea.... now where could they be headed? It's not like we've got boots in the countries right next to Iran, right? Oh wait...

For those of you who don't know, Lyndon Larouche is a crackpot conspiracy theorist who is noted for his strange notions, such as his belief that the British Royal Family is out to get him, deciding that economic collapse was around the corner (so he formed the "National Committee of Labor Committees", which, in his view, would pick up the pieces afterwards), and so forth.

He's also been convicted of mail fraud.

Needless to say, he's somewhat of a loony, hence my attitude in the post above.

Nah, Bush will trash Kerry in the debates. He's taking on someone even more stiff and fumblemouthed than himself (a miracle!)

Besides, nothing else has gone right for Kerry, why should this?

Righthanded for writing, golf, throwing footballs, etc. Lefthanded for hockey and a few other things. I bat equally well (equally bad is possibly more accurate) from either side of the plate.

I'm right-footed as well.

I believe right/left isn't absolute, based on this and watching other people. There is some sort of sliding scale thing going on. Plus, the times I've tried playing hockey righthanded, I played atrociously, about as bad as my lefthanded handwriting. So somehow things are wired different for different actions.

Frances was a wimpy storm - I went out biking in it yesterday. (Yes, I am crazy. But you already knew that)

The major point of Frances was that it was very, very big, and very very slow moving, so that it's dumped a pile of rain on the state and basically whapped everyone with at least tropical storm force winds for 24 hours. However, it lost a lot of power before coming on land, and damage has been very light, at least in my area.

I'm more worried about Ivan, to be honest.

The problem with peace is that the world is a machine with six billion parts, and you only need one nut to cause a major malfunction.

My standard of "When is war necessary?" is pretty simple, and serves as a rough and ready guide: if it isn't worth fighting door to door and to the knife for, it's not really worth the bloodshed. Sometimes wars meet this standard because they deal with issues of great importance (World War II) and sometimes they reach that level because the other guy insists on an ugly fight (the current war on terrorism), but in general, you shouldn't bother those who aren't bothering you (or planning to bother you after they take care of the neighbors)

That might be... a large interstellar craft is going to have some kind of interaction with the hydrogen gas in its area. I would imagine that they could rule this out with more data.

Why aren't they taking a nice long look at this thing?

Deag, you twit, the media itself went back and recounted the ballots. Bush won anyways. Stop beating the dead donkey.

That butterfly ballot was made by a Democrat, btw, and the confusion of votes was between Gore and Pat Buchanan, not Gore and Bush as you insinuate, though that's an irrelevant issue anyways.