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Jul 24, 2007 2:16 pm

[quote=Oldproducer] [quote=Dust Bunny]

I live in California, between two volcanoes and near an earth quake fault.  It was my choice.  If all he&& breaks lose should I expect that the government should rush to rescue my stupid a$$ and spend tax payer dollars when I knew I was putting myself in danger.  NO!!


Governments have 3 functions and 3 only. 


1. Protect us from foreign invaders and secure the borders with a standing army and maintain a military  pretty crappy job on the borders so far, I must say.


2.  Protect us from each other. Prosecute crimes against persons and property.   This doesn't include telling us what to eat, to wear seat belts, where to smoke cigarettes, what kind of light bulbs we can use, when to spay our pets or who to marry.


3. Finance public works that are too burdensome for local groups that benefit the whole.  For example communities can't build Hoover Dam or create an interstate highway system.  BUT we can take care of our own local schools and determine if we want to allow people to fish, farm or ....ahem.. in the wilderness.


That's i!!.   Otherwise the government is intrusive into our day to day life and impedes our freedoms. 


So....back to New Orleans.   People there are living below sea level and you expect the federal government to wipe their noses when the inevitable happens; instead of holding the population and (more to the point) the local government accountable for their lack of preparedness and prevention.   Sorry.... you live on the slopes of a volcano don't be surprised when you get burned.

[/quote]

Yeah! Right now, we need to pull all of those federal fire fighters out of CA and let those homes burn! Arny needs to deal with the fires, not my tax dollars!

Whew, talk about whining if that happened! Ha![/quote]

Those fall under item #3 for extenisive wild land fires. Projects athat are more than any single community could fund.  The local fires for houses etc are able to be funded and handled by the local volunteer fire depts (which is all we have) and small municipal controlled departments.  CDF  California Forestry Department, (which has just changed its name to Cal Fire) is othewise known locally around here as Can't Deal with Fire

Try again.

Jul 24, 2007 2:52 pm

[quote=Devil’sAdvocate]

[quote=BondGuy]

A few years ago Hurricane Charley missed my west coast Florida house by thirty miles. That is, my house was 30 miles south from the ground zero U.S. Landfall of a cat three hurricane. Houses at ground zero were ripped off the planet. Houses 20 miles from GZ were total loses. My house? A ripped screen. My east coast Florida house sustained a direct hit from Hurricane Frances later that same summer, again with almost no damage. That's the advantage of not being directly on the water. Then in 2005 Wilma made landfall 30 miles south of the west coast house and again we escaped unscathed.

My point: Don't tell me stories about hurricanes.

[/quote]

Let me see if I have this right. 

You were almost affected by hurricanes three times and that makes you knowledgable about what happened in New Orleans?

One day I was almost hit by a Ford pickup truck, and on another occasion I was almost run over by a NYC cab, and one time in San Francisco I barely got out of the way of a cable car.

Does that make me an expert on the Department of Transportation?

[/quote]

You don't have it right. You answer my defense of Nagin with anecdotal stories about a waffle house that was up and running as soon as the wind died. So, I answered with an antecdotal story of my own. My point was and is, so what! That proves nothing.

Maybe in your world Mississippi was up and running the day after the Hurricane, but here on planet earth the Mississippi that the rest of us know and love was just as screwed as the big easy.

For an intellectually honest guy you're having trouble keeping up.

Jul 24, 2007 3:01 pm

[quote=BondGuy]

.......my defense of Nagin

[/quote]

Strutting stupidity like a peacock

Jul 24, 2007 3:05 pm

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

I like the way they say it better.

And as to the wild fire argument, well the same could and should be said about the Katrina issue. "Commuity" is a 4 dimensional construct, it includes the dimension of "Time".

But time is a most slippery character. I love playing with the concept of time. But in this case the issue is that the community of NOLA that needed help was a sliver of the 4D community. The need was far beyond what the "single community could fund".

Now I totally agree that NOLA had no business existing in the first place and it was through centuries of misplaced government funds that the place existed at all. The community could not and would not provide for itself, and so the country as a whole subsidized it's existence. But that is not this communities fault. This community is living in an area that has been declared habitable by all agencies that are paid to be expert in these matters.

Is it Bush's fault the levees gave way? Heck no. Is it Bush's fault that  "You're doin a heckuvajob Brownie" was in charge of FEMA?" Yes.

What was the worst thing about NOLA wasn't the idea that NOLA drowned, it was that we supposedly had spent billions of dollars on a disaster preparedness plan and implementation against the idea that there was an imminent threat of surprise terrorist attack, and then when there was a natural disaster that was well anticipated, we all saw the Keystone Kops bunking into each other slapping each other on the back and pointing fingers, and sending snarky e-mails to each other and generally not doing anything to help anyone.

Where did our money go? What are we ready for? BUPKISS! That's what we've done, that's what we're ready for. We keep hearing people tell us that attack is imminent, and yetwhat have they done to close the huge security gaps in this nation? And so the question is asked again...Where did our money go? When you send a cocaine abuser to the grocery store with a $100 and all he comes back with is a quart of milk, you ask, "Where's the rest of the money?"

That's all I'm asking, "What did you waste the money on? It's obvious you didn't spend it on preparedness!"

Jul 24, 2007 3:18 pm

[quote=mikebutler222][quote=BondGuy][quote=mikebutler222][quote=BondGuy][quote=mikebutler222]

No one said "blame Islam". We've all been pretty clear that we're talking about Islamic extremists. Those would be the people who believe their religion calls them to establish the dominance of their religion over all others, to kill non-believers and to fly planes into buildings.<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

[/quote]

You call them Islamic extremist yet you don't blame Islam? That's a contradiction. [/quote]

Not in the least. I blame RADICAL Islam. For all I know mainstream Islam doesn't advocate killing non-believers and doesn't favor flying planes into buildings.

Again, your burning desire to play down the fantical religious nature of their motivation makes no sense.

[/quote]

Ok, I'd buy that if there was a such thing as radical Islam. There isn't.[/quote]

As I said in the beginning, and you denied, you don't think these people exist.

[/quote]

Mike are you being purposely contrary or do you have a reading comprehension problem?

You in a racist prejudiced way have attached a religion to terrorism. A religion that has been hijacked by madmen to forward their goal of world domination.  The religion radical islam doesn't exist just as the religion radical catholicism doesn't exist. There is Islam and there is catholicism.

That madmen have grabbed ahold of the Quran and are using it to murder people is no fault of Islam or any of its millions of followers. What's interesting is that the madmen leaders of the terrorist want their followers to believe it's about religion. As I've said, those followers are illiterate. Yet, as you continue to prove, the well educated have bought their propaganda as well.

If we accept their terms and make this a religious war, we will lose.  

Do I think these people exist? I know they exist. I'm just calling them what they are. The terrorist are madmen. Just as Hitler was a madman.

Jul 24, 2007 3:29 pm

[quote=Devil’sAdvocate]

[quote=BondGuy]

.......my defense of Nagin

[/quote]

Strutting stupidity like a peacock

[/quote]

DA, I really missed you while you were gone. But I gotta say, is the best you can do? Was the wait for stinging barbs and sharp jabs  that only DA could deliver for nothing?

Dig deep and give me something to bath me in that good old DA aura.

OK, enough. Welcome back. It's been fun sparing with you.

We disagree. Nothing new there right?

Jul 24, 2007 3:37 pm

BTW, I would like to use Katrina to diffuse the "Terror Hysteria" that the powers that be use to distract the public from their other, more nefarious, objectives.

We are Russia in the historical perspective. By this I refer to the admonition that "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it." which was reference to the folly of trying to defeat Russia by invading it. Russia is much too large to engage in a land war.

China is much too big in terms of geography and population to defeat in a land war (see Korea as an example, and then see Vietnam as another example).

There is nothing that the terrorists could probably do (which is to say that it is possible but the probability is that by the time they got to a size that would be effective, we would know about it. Which is to say, I'm not advocating dismantling the intelligence community.) that would be more than a disruption of our day. The forces of nature as much much more powerful than anything man has devised and those powers pound our nation annually (a hurricane here, an Earthquake there, a tornado the other place, a flood destroying more farmland than hundreds of crop dusters of anthrax, a drought shutting down entire regions of agriculture).

The point being that (under any president other than the one we have) the world is aware that the United States of America has the power to completely destroy the entire planet, and so an attack on the United States is a futile gesture in anticipation of one's own suicide.

With the US army in Afghanistan, what were the possibilities that Saddam would have even looked like he was going to launch an attack on the US (by our most aggressive estimates, he had enough firepower to destroy an are 8 time the areas of NYC, that's a bite, but it's not the knockout punch!)? ZERO! Why? Because then we'd have had justification to completely obliterate them, and Saddam didn't want to be obliterated. 

The terrorist threat is way overblown. It is being used in the way the Commie threat (and on their side, the Imperialist Capitalist schweinhund threat) is used to rally around a central, common enemy. It's an old trick, as old as religion, perhaps even older. ( http://youtube.com/watch?v=KmnB3T00ZuU )

Jul 24, 2007 3:38 pm

You in a racist prejudiced way have attached a religion to terrorism. A religion that has been hijacked by madmen to forward their goal of world domination.  The religion radical islam doesn't exist just as the religion radical catholicism doesn't exist. There is Islam and there is catholicism.

Until the members of Islam show that they don't approve of or condone the actions of the jihadists/terrorists the religion of Islam is not hijacked and is complicit in the actions of the terrorists.   So far, except for a very few people, they have not shown any inclination to distance themselves from or denounce the terrorists.

Walk like a duck, quack like a duck...

Catholicism (needs to be capitalized) was just as complicit and as much of a terrorist organization during the Inquisition.  Trying to shuffle responsibility is a weak excuse  and a cover up for the real agenda of Islam as a religion.

Jul 24, 2007 3:45 pm

[quote=Whomitmayconcer]

The terrorist threat is way overblown.

[/quote]

So, how many deaths are acceptable?  Apparently 9/11 did not bother you.  Would it bother you if a dirty bomb went off in a major city and killed, say, 50,000?

Is that enough to fight about?

What motivates you coward types to stand up and fight?

Jul 24, 2007 3:53 pm

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Despite years of work aimed at changing Saudi Arabia’s public school curriculum, the country’s latest textbooks continue to promote intolerance of other religions, a new study said.

 A first-grade student is taught that "every religion other than Islam is false" - the teacher is instructed to "give examples of false religions, like Judaism, Christianity, paganism, etc."  

Fifth graders learn "it is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in God and his prophet, or someone who fights the religion of Islam."

That's from the International Herald Tribune, 5/24/06, and it illustrates the real problem. Money rules. DA is on to something, all this liberal crap will be out the window when the ugly face of Islam on the march shows its face again, thanks to institutionalized radical Islam, led by our good Arab friends.

Jul 24, 2007 4:08 pm

[quote=coolshoos]

That's from the International Herald Tribune, 5/24/06,

[/quote]

The reality is that Islam teaches three things when dealing with you and me.

1.  They are to convert us to Islam--that may appeal to you but not to me.

2.  They are to tax us--that too may appeal to you but not to me.

3.  They are to kill us--does that appeal to you?

That's it.  Nothing else is acceptable.

Now, they are out here wandering around.  They smile at you and you think that means that they like you.

Nazis smiled at Jews getting off the trains--but they were envisioning their skin being used as lamp shades.

The only sane thing to do is to fight them everywhere on earth--and to avoid fighting them on our soil as long as we possibly can.

We'll probably be in Iraq for years, decades, even longer.  Consider how long we have been in South Korea.  Why are you whiners not wailing and gnashing your teeth about that?

Jul 24, 2007 4:20 pm

[quote=BondGuy][quote=mikebutler222][quote=BondGuy][quote=mikebutler222][quote=BondGuy][quote=mikebutler222] <?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

No one said "blame Islam". We've all been pretty clear that we're talking about Islamic extremists. Those would be the people who believe their religion calls them to establish the dominance of their religion over all others, to kill non-believers and to fly planes into buildings.

 

 

[/quote]

You call them Islamic extremist yet you don't blame Islam? That's a contradiction. [/quote]

Not in the least. I blame RADICAL Islam. For all I know mainstream Islam doesn't advocate killing non-believers and doesn't favor flying planes into buildings.

Again, your burning desire to play down the fanatical religious nature of their motivation makes no sense.

[/quote]

Ok, I'd buy that if there was a such thing as radical Islam. There isn't.[/quote]

As I said in the beginning, and you denied, you don't think these people exist.

[/quote]

Mike are you being purposely contrary or do you have a reading comprehension problem? [/quote]

Neither, I’m being perfectly accurate.

[quote=BondGuy]You in a racist prejudiced way have attached a religion to terrorism. [/quote]

Talk about out-of-the-blue silliness. I haven’t “attached a religion to terrorism”, I’ve accurately stated what  the terrorists THEMSELVES say their motivation is. Why you insist they you’re more accurate than they are about their own motivation remains a mystery.

 

 

 [quote=BondGuy]  The religion radical islam doesn't exist just as the religion radical catholicism doesn't exist. [/quote]

Again, why you refuse to acknowledge the Wahhabist strain of Islam, their lust for Shir’a law, the Taliban and Al Qaeda outgrowths of it is simply bizarre.

BTW, there are anti-abortion people who stand outside clinics, and there are anti-abortion people who bomb clinics. You figure there’s no difference there?

[quote=BondGuy]That madmen have grabbed ahold of the Quran and are using it to murder people is no fault of Islam or any of its millions of followers.[/quote]

I never said it was. You see, I’m the one saying there’s a difference between mainstream Islam and the Taliban/Al Qaeda. You’re the one denying it.

[quote=BondGuy]If we accept their terms and make this a religious war, we will lose.  [/quote]

If you refuse to see the religious underpinnings of their fight, you’re refusing to see the extreme from of fanaticism that can only come with religious fervor.  These aren’t common criminals motivated by greed or lust, these aren’t WWII era fascists driven solely by a thirst for power. These are followers of a perverted form of a religion that hold their agenda much, much deeper than the types of threats mentioned above.

They’ll happily die in the process of furthering their agenda, which includes killing you, because you’re a non-believer. Better still, they believe they get to jump to the head of the line to get to heaven, and they’ll get special favors there BECAUSE they killed you. They’ll happily kill your children. Is that a perversion of Islam? Well, I sure think so, but what you and I think doesn’t matter to them. They “see” the way and all your talk that they’re being used or that UBL isn’t “really” all about religion is pointless to them.

You refuse to acknowledge that, and that’s a serious error of judgment. It leads you to minimize the danger they present, to see them as nothing special in terms of the threat they pose, simply people who are misguided, misused, and whom we can find middle ground with, if only a Democrat were elected president and the magical “diplomacy” were instituted.

Jul 24, 2007 4:23 pm

[quote=Whomitmayconcer]

There is nothing that the terrorists could probably do ...... that would be more than a disruption of our day.

[/quote]

Incredible, simply incredible....

Jul 24, 2007 4:26 pm

[quote=Dust Bunny]

You in a racist prejudiced way have attached a religion to terrorism. A religion that has been hijacked by madmen to forward their goal of world domination.  The religion radical islam doesn't exist just as the religion radical catholicism doesn't exist. There is Islam and there is catholicism.

Until the members of Islam show that they don't approve of or condone the actions of the jihadists/terrorists the religion of Islam is not hijacked and is complicit in the actions of the terrorists.   So far, except for a very few people, they have not shown any inclination to distance themselves from or denounce the terrorists.

Walk like a duck, quack like a duck...

Catholicism (needs to be capitalized) was just as complicit and as much of a terrorist organization during the Inquisition.  Trying to shuffle responsibility is a weak excuse  and a cover up for the real agenda of Islam as a religion.

[/quote]

Gee i didn't capitalize Catholicism. At least i spelled it correctly. Ops i didn't capitalize I.

As for your thoughts, scary stuff!

Jul 24, 2007 4:26 pm

[quote=Devil’sAdvocate][quote=Whomitmayconcer]

The terrorist threat is way overblown.

[/quote]

So, how many deaths are acceptable?  Apparently 9/11 did not bother you.  Would it bother you if a dirty bomb went off in a major city and killed, say, 50,000?

Is that enough to fight about?

What motivates you coward types to stand up and fight?

[/quote]

It's overblown and will remain overblown, until a Democrat is in the Whitehouse, then it will be accurately described (until there's a repeat of 9/11 somewhere, in which case it will be some Republican's fault. We've already been told it will be Bush's fault, right?).

Jul 24, 2007 4:31 pm

[quote=mikebutler222]

It's overblown and will remain overblown, until a Democrat is in the Whitehouse, then it will be accurately described (until there's a repeat of 9/11 somewhere, in which case it will be some Republican's fault. We've already been told it will be Bush's fault, right?).

[/quote]

One of the things that amuses me is the whiner's insistance that we're not fighting a war, we're fighting some sort of rogue crime.

From where I sit, if your opposition considers itself to be at war with you it's best to consider yourself to be at war.

It's going to take more than writing angry memos to the United Nations or asking Interpol for help.

We need to kill them faster than they're killing us--one of the major problems is they see dying as a reward.

Jul 24, 2007 4:33 pm

[quote=Devil’sAdvocate][quote=mikebutler222]

It's overblown and will remain overblown, until a Democrat is in the Whitehouse, then it will be accurately described (until there's a repeat of 9/11 somewhere, in which case it will be some Republican's fault. We've already been told it will be Bush's fault, right?).

[/quote]

One of the things that amuses me is the whiner's insistance that we're not fighting a war, we're fighting some sort of rogue crime.

[/quote]

That's why they have to hold on to the fiction that there's no religious fervor involved. If they admit the reality of the enemy we face their entire world collapses and the "it's all because of Bush" mantra with it.

Jul 24, 2007 4:36 pm

[quote=Devil’sAdvocate][quote=Whomitmayconcer]

The terrorist threat is way overblown.

[/quote]

So, how many deaths are acceptable?  Apparently 9/11 did not bother you.  Would it bother you if a dirty bomb went off in a major city and killed, say, 50,000?

Is that enough to fight about?

What motivates you coward types to stand up and fight?

[/quote]

Quien no sabe! You dont get it or you don't want to get it? Which is it?

If a dirty bomb went off in a major city and killed 50,000, 20 clean A-bombs would go off in the country responsible and the entire country would be dead. Every country knows that. Every terrorist organization knows that.

Aside from this, what courage of yours is it that sends others off to a foreign land to shoot and be shot at?

Aside from that. Who is the coward, the one who strides through the darkness or the one who shouts at the darkness for someone else to turn on a light? I don't fear the darkness, you are afraid that your own shadow is involved in a terrorist plot. You are the coward, not me.

I take comfort in the fact that the United States of America will survive even if I have died (which, eventually, I will). I take comfort in the fact that we are a nation that will even survive this administration, which is by far the worst administration of all time (Including Hoover's which was pretty damned bad!).

Jul 24, 2007 4:36 pm

[quote=Devil’sAdvocate][quote=coolshoos]

That's from the International Herald Tribune, 5/24/06,

[/quote]

The reality is that Islam teaches three things when dealing with you and me.

1.  They are to convert us to Islam--that may appeal to you but not to me.

2.  They are to tax us--that too may appeal to you but not to me.

3.  They are to kill us--does that appeal to you?

That's it.  Nothing else is acceptable.

Now, they are out here wandering around.  They smile at you and you think that means that they like you.

Nazis smiled at Jews getting off the trains--but they were envisioning their skin being used as lamp shades.

The only sane thing to do is to fight them everywhere on earth--and to avoid fighting them on our soil as long as we possibly can.

We'll probably be in Iraq for years, decades, even longer.  Consider how long we have been in South Korea.  Why are you whiners not wailing and gnashing your teeth about that?

[/quote]

Truth is never complicated. Thinking about how money and power corrupt, the Saudi Wahhabist indoctrination of children into the socio political culture of hatred for outsiders is "logical" - how else can repressive dictatorships stay in power?

Your reference to South Korea, with regard to patience and the eventual "opening" of China, is spot-on.

Money can be liberal, but capitalists must never lose sight of basic economic truths, or lose their (economic) freedom. The next time the world is thrown into recession through an act of fear and terror, it will just be a reminder. Every single one of us still wakes up every day and checks the internet to see if we have another 9/11, if we were managing money back then. How quickly we forget how the sons of our Saudi friends blew up Wall Street, and how the resulting recession caused heightened economic suffering for millions of marginalized people all over the world.

Jul 24, 2007 4:39 pm

If a dirty bomb went off in a major city and killed 50,000, 20 clean A-bombs would go off in the country responsible and the entire country would be dead. Every country knows that. Every terrorist organization knows that.

Huh? This is a joke, or very naiive?