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#451 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VII - The Seventh Seal? » 2005-07-16 09:12:51
Appeasement is a strawman, a slander used by the Right as a weapon against the Left.
Read my post. Appeasement? No.
Extermination of al Qaeda. Quickly and efficiently.
#452 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VII - The Seventh Seal? » 2005-07-16 09:08:50
Appeasement is your issue not mine. I never advocated appeasement.
Please apologize for saying I ever did.
#453 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VII - The Seventh Seal? » 2005-07-16 08:17:51
Fie! I say - - a plague on both houses.
I renounce BOTH the Islamo-fascist 13th century nut-jobs like bin Laden AND Western fascism-lite wannabes that people like Cindy and Shaun cheerlead for.
Cindy, Shaun WHY do you seek to empower al Qaeda? Do you hate America?
Appease? No! - -al Qaeda is exterminated easily if we do it smart.
But once al Qaeda is gone, the Right loses its cudgel to pound liberals with, therefore you inflate bin Laden into something bigger than he is.
#454 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VII - The Seventh Seal? » 2005-07-15 14:55:33
*Whatever.
It's all our fault. Okay...
(Can't be any of that "it takes two" business going on, nope)
And your aliens and Las Cruces comparison?...I don't think so.
--Cindy
Who ever said it was either / or ?
#455 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VII - The Seventh Seal? » 2005-07-15 14:27:00
Anger combined with a sense of helplessness. Just stomping on 'em increases both.
*Okay, I'll ask again:
Why didn't we wring our hands over how ANGRY Timothy McVeigh might have been? Or Terry Nichols? Or is hand-wringing only for non-white, non-Christian terrorists? Can't stop all the anger in the world, nor the countless ways in which a person might become angry and later do something foolish. :-\ At what point do we get sick and tired of "oh their poor, poor hurt feelings" and start concerning ourselves more with their victims -and- means of protecting future potential victims?
And also: I'm not advocating "stomping" anyone.
--Cindy
Hand wringing is 100% beside the point. Its not about morality. Its about prudence.
Do you taunt or tease an angry dog, or bait a bear? No, not unless you are an idiot.
We treat Muslims ike dogs (chains on their necks, doing tricks) and then whine when they bite.
= = =
Humilate the young males of a society (any society) and they will bite back. Increase their sense of powerlessness and they will find clever ways to bite back - - human smart bombs.
If humanity were invaded by "benevolent" space aliens and boys from Las Cruces became suicide bombers you would cheer them on.
Edited By BWhite on 1121459411
#457 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VII - The Seventh Seal? » 2005-07-15 13:20:37
Anger combined with a sense of helplessness. Just stomping on 'em increases both.
#458 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VII - The Seventh Seal? » 2005-07-15 11:54:27
University graduates are not stupid, by definition
*So only under-educated persons can be stupid?
Okay, how's this: They're educated fools.
Intelligence and wisdom aren't synonymous. [I've worked in the medical profession long enough to know that...
]
--Cindy
Blinded by anger. . .
#459 Re: Human missions » STS-114 Mission Coverage and Discussion » 2005-07-15 07:53:19
Prior to watching the John Glenn shuttle launch in person (and thereafter buying Case for Mars at the Kennedy gift shop) I had almost zero interest in the space program.
Thereafter I started reading everything I could as fast as I could.
Anyway, my very first internet post about space was to draw an analogy about the shuttle orbiter. I said using orbiter was like using a minivan to move, while living in San Francisco.
Park the minivan at the bottom of a hill, by your old apartment. Fill with furniture. Then, gather 12 strong men to push it up the hill.
Unload the furniture, turn on the engine and drive back down for another load.
Not quite exactly accurate, but its still close, IMHO. :;):
= = =
Send up as little dead weight (dry mass) as possible. Only bring back that which is essential to bring back.
#460 Re: Human missions » Early retirement for orbiter? » 2005-07-14 21:10:49
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2005/ … .html]NASA Authorization passes committee. First time in a long time!
NO rules about CEV must fly before orbiter retirement. Talk to Kay Bailey and Bill Nelson about that.
Still, if we fulfill the full plate of ISS/STS - - we are on hold until 2011 doing essentially zippo.
#461 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VII - The Seventh Seal? » 2005-07-14 20:22:47
Again, HOW do we identify potential terrorists?
Identifying potential terrorists isn't the issue. Every human being on the planet is a potential terrorist.
Not revealing potential double agents is a start. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_N … n]Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/LondonBlasts/ … e=1]London bombers tied to Pakistan
Officials tell ABC News the London bombers have been connected to an al Qaeda plot planned two years ago in the Pakistani city of Lahore.
The laptop computer of Naeem Noor Khan, a captured al Qaeda leader, contained plans for a coordinated series of attacks on the London subway system, as well as on financial buildings in both New York and Washington.
"There's absolutely no doubt he was part of an al Qaeda operation aimed at not only the United States but Great Britain," explained Alexis Debat, a former official in the French Defense Ministry who is now a senior terrorism consultant for ABC News.
At the time, authorities thought they had foiled the London subway plot by arresting more than a dozen young Britons of Pakistani descent last August in Luton, a city known for its ties to terrorism.
"For some time, the locus of terrorism in Britain has been around the Luton area and in some of the northern cities," said Michael Clark, professor of defense at King's College in London.
Security officials tell ABC News they have discovered links between the eldest of the London bombers, Mohammed Sadique Khan, 30, and the original group in Luton. Officials also believe it was not a coincidence the subway bombers all met at the Luton train station last week.
"It is very likely this group was activated last year after the other group was arrested," Debat said.
From an article http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0809/dailyUpdate.html]in Christian Science Monitor:
MSNBC reported Monday that the early exposure of Khan not only ended the sting that Pakistani intelligence was conducting, but it also forced Britain's intelligence service to move faster than it wanted to last Tuesday to apprehend terror suspects in England that had been e-mailed by Khan. Five other suspects were able to escape before British authorities could arrest them. (The Associated Press reports Monday that 13 men were arrested in the original raid, but only nine are still being held.) Kevin Rosser, a security expert at the London-based consultancy Control Risks Group, said such a disclosure was "a risk that came with staging public alerts but that authorities were supposed to take special care not to ruin ongoing operations."
Edited By BWhite on 1121394395
#462 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VII - The Seventh Seal? » 2005-07-14 13:21:47
My one problem with the situation in Iraq is that it appears to be building to a very nasty civil war when the international forces leave. Sure we have the Iraqi security forces but im sure you will find they think of themselves as more Shi'te or Sunni or even Kurd than Iraqi. And even these groups have factions like the Marsh Arabs etc. Im sorry to say I really see Iraq as a patch work of ethnic groups who hate each other.
Then there are the influences of Iran and Saudi Arabia to add as well.
A Yugoslavia waiting to happen.
Apparently this is why Saddam believed we would never overthrow his regime. Holding Iraq together as one nation is hard and who knew that reality better than Saddam himself?
#463 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VII - The Seventh Seal? » 2005-07-14 10:06:15
On "turning the other cheek"
=IF= we hit the terrorists accurately then to hit VERY HARD is 100% appropriate. If we miss, the collateral damage we inflict on innocents will allow terror to grow.
Our good intentions are 100% irrelevant. Being more careful than any military in history is 100% irrelevant. Results matter. Good intentions are meaningless.
Any excuse making for collateral damage empowers bin Laden.
Unfair? Absolutely. But it's true.
= = =
All terror has two audiences. Those attacked and those supposedly advocated.
To provoke the US into lashing out blindly is EXACTLY what bin Laden intends.
Edited By BWhite on 1121357341
#464 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VII - The Seventh Seal? » 2005-07-14 10:03:00
As for a question of mine you seem to have dodged before: What about all those terrorist incidents in the 1970s and 1980s, i.e. Western airplane hijackings by Islamic terrorists -- cold-blooded murders of civilian pilots, rapes of stewardesses, innocent passengers terrorized and sometimes murdered?
All this stuff didn't start in January 2001. The Islamic terrorists have been targeting Westerners for a very long time. But no, it's only because of Bush and Blair -- and just very recently. (Not).
?
We were supposed to continue turning the other cheek indefinitely?
I'm -not- referring to Iraq here. I'm referring to the problem of Islamofundie terrorism overall.
*Bill, maybe you've already answered this previously and I forgot?
--Cindy
In my opinion, bin Laden launched 9/11 precisely because he was having trouble drumming up support for his agenda among ordinary Muslims. His objective was to provoke a US response that would anger ordinary Muslims thereby adding fertilizer and water to potential recruits.
I believe the current al Qaeda style movement began with the Islamic reaction to the Soviet invaiosn of Afghanistan when Jimmy Carter was President and when Ronald Reagan was President. The Wahabi sect that bin Laden is part of has existed in Saudi Arabia for decades if not centuries.
Saudis like bin Laden were rallied by clerics to go to Afghanistan and fight the evil atheistic Soviets. They won and started thinking about who to fight next. When Saddam invaded Kuwait, in 1990, bin Laden and his buddies offered to attack Saddam (who was a secular anti-Islamic leader) but the Saudis turned to George Bush instead, which infuriated bin Laden.
The underlying problem is how to get Islam into the 21st century which is not unlike the problem of how to get fundie Christians not to go ballistic over evolution.
= = =
Also, Israel. Islamic anger over Israel (whether legitimate anger or bull$hit anger) fuels terror. The major Islamic governments have been shameless in exploiting the Palestinians to deflect anger at their own tyrannies.
Al Qaeda has its roots in Eggypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Never in Iraq.
Edited By BWhite on 1121370396
#465 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VII - The Seventh Seal? » 2005-07-14 09:40:09
But what is the objective for being in Iraq in the first place?
*What difference does it make now? We've been in for approximately 2 years, 4 months.
Can't undo it, can't just walk away now.
Dicktice mentioned something (this thread or another) about dispensing with continued incriminations, picking up the pieces and moving forward.
Isn't that our only option now?
--Cindy
Agreed, up to a point - - but to decide on where to go now, we need to agree on where we are.
Going forward in Iraq, badly, harms our efforts against al Qaeda.
Going forward in Iraq, well, will require increased commitment and a willingness to acknowledge to the other participants that significant mistakes were made. If a stockbroker sells you a bad stock and asks for more money to salvage the situation, an explanation of the earlier error seems appropriate.
Frankly, I would support the appropriation of many billions of US taxpayer dollars to support real reconstruction of Iraqi infrastructure. But if we are to stay we need more soldiers.
I saw one report asserting we have 16 battalions now but only 9 will be available, for rotation by the summer of 2006.
#466 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VII - The Seventh Seal? » 2005-07-14 09:07:30
Again, HOW do we identify potential terrorists?
Identifying potential terrorists isn't the issue. Every human being on the planet is a potential terrorist.
The problem is that when faced with full-on, out of the terrorist closet rocket launching bomb toting active terrorists we have a tendency to not hit them as hard or as quickly as is warranted.
Examples?
If this is true, why is it true?
So how do we find them? We need the two pronged "Roman" approach I've talked about before. Don't humiliate the locals, don't give them reason to hate us. Reward those who help us, protect them from retribution. Kill with swift brutality those who oppose us and our collaborators. They may never love us, but if we can keep them from hating us while making them respect us we'll have all we need. This has been done numerous times before, we are not undertaking anything unprecedented here.
If we do it this way, the average Iraqi will be more inclined to give us information about the terrorists because they'll know that we can protect them, we will reward them, and we're even nastier than the "bad guys" are if crossed. The fact that these insurgents run around blowing up Iraqis and are fighting not only us but an elected Iraqi government makes it that much easier to turn the people against them.
Greet with a smile but carry a rifle.
Again, agreed.
But what is the objective for being in Iraq in the first place?
#467 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VII - The Seventh Seal? » 2005-07-14 08:32:09
The kid gloves sometimes and the mailed gauntlet at other times.
Agreed,
BUT without the wisdom to know when to use which, and on who this advice is woefully incomplete.
#468 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VII - The Seventh Seal? » 2005-07-14 08:29:46
Nice dodge of the question. 
Measure twice (cut once).
Edited By BWhite on 1121351427
#469 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VII - The Seventh Seal? » 2005-07-14 08:21:32
The problem is that the heart of AL Qaeda lies within Saudi Arabia and we DARE NOT go in there. (Oil)
Therefore, we stomp others to compensate.
= = =
Porter Goss (head of CIA) says he knows where bin Laden is. The mountains of Pakistan - - but we DARE NOT go get him because the Pakistanis haven't given permission and they have A-bombs.
So, lets go stomp some Iraqis instead.
Edited By BWhite on 1121351040
#470 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VII - The Seventh Seal? » 2005-07-14 08:17:51
Measure (preferably twice) then cut. Spraying weapons fire randomly might feel good, but. . .
Again, HOW do we identify potential terrorists?
= = =
How many of the Baath insurgents are global al Qaeda terror-types and how many are "Abdul the Mope" types pissed that we have elevated the Shia and Kurd to social equality with the Baath?
Answer? Cindy and Cobra, we just DO NOT KNOW yet you still advocate stomping and stomping and more stomping.
= = =
The need to just do something, anything may salve our emotional wounds but is not helpful to the big picture.
Edited By BWhite on 1121351307
#471 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VII - The Seventh Seal? » 2005-07-14 08:07:24
Bolsheviks! Our foreign policy is being run by Bolsheviks!
Only Ayn Rand (and John Wayne movies) are the text of choice rather than Marx or Lenin. Or maybe Sylvester Stallone. John Wayne had more class.
Just shoot the bad guys? Sure, fine no problem.
Uh, who are the bad guys?
THe MOTHER of one of the British bombers had no effing clue her son was on his way to martyrdom.
#472 Re: Human missions » Early retirement for orbiter? » 2005-07-13 19:28:24
I really don't see how the ISS could be curtailed beyond 15 flights to even feign to call it "finished"
I never said that was a showstopper about the SRB launcher Bill, actually you said it was. It just didn't like it since I thought it was risky... infact, it probobly will still have the same high G-loading, or at least a high-G mode, in case the booster puncture fails.
"using launchers other than orbiter"
Ya huh. How?
Legitimate concerns. Lets see what happens.
And yeah, you are right about the SRB comments.
#473 Re: Human missions » Early retirement for orbiter? » 2005-07-13 19:27:16
Getting Discovery into the Air & Space Museum at Dulles by 2007 (ISDC had a COOL dinner party there) best assures whoever is President in 2009 doesn't try to extend the 2010 retirement date.
It also opens the door to spending the next 15 years trying to get humans back into space.
Remember the doom and gloom and worry involved with a 4 year absence of humans to space?
Without ISS, we no longer have the same compelling reason to keep funding NASA as is (at least as far as human exploration is concerned).
I didn't see this one coming, and I think it will change things...
IMHO, Griffin wants CEV flying before the last orbiter is retired precisely to avoid this issue.
#474 Re: Human missions » Early retirement for orbiter? » 2005-07-13 18:38:03
RobertDyck & GCNRevenger,
I predict that soon after Discovery radios "wheels stopped" Griffin will announce a plan to either finish or shrink ISS.
The SRB CEV was deemed "impossible" because of high-gee escape tower issues until we realized you just blow a hole in the side. We at NewMars didn't see that.
I have a hunch Mike Griffin has an ISS plan up his sleeve using launchers other than orbiter. I may be wrong but it is my hunch. The Planetary Society report does drop hints of this, by the way.
= = =
Orbiter is like a vampire. The sooner it is dead, dead, dead, the better.
#475 Re: Human missions » Early retirement for orbiter? » 2005-07-13 18:27:42
Like I said, I don't want to get into it here about the merits of ISS. The fact remains that this plan is about ending ISS. It is about ensuring that the Shuttle goes to the grave.
Well maybe okay. So what?
Getting Discovery into the Air & Space Museum at Dulles by 2007 (ISDC had a COOL dinner party there) best assures whoever is President in 2009 doesn't try to extend the 2010 retirement date.
That January 2004 plan to go FULL SPEED with STS/ISS until 2010 and then just STOP, walk away and change direction was just goofy, from the beginning.