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#1 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri - ...anything political goes. » 2004-11-23 14:29:37

Maybe a better question is, why is god Christian?  big_smile

What makes you so sure theres only one?  ???

Or that he didnt create the dinosaurs and then walk away when it all went wrong.........  yikes

#2 Re: Not So Free Chat » Future news; - that you can use now. . . » 2004-11-11 10:01:28

The problem for the Republicans is who could they possibley come up with to replace Bush? The only real candidates that i can think of are McCain, Giuliani or Schwarzenegar (if he can get the law changed), none of whom are overly religious (and so wont especially attract the religious right) and all three of whom are moderate in their views (they have different stances to Bush on gay marriage, abortion and stem cell research - all of which are still likely to be hot topics in 2008). So Bush wont be able to really campaign in suport of any of them (or shouldnt if he really believes half the cr*p he comes out with) and the religious right arent going to get nearly as worked up about them.

He's managed to change what it is to be a republican and in 2008 i think the real republicans are going to want their party back - which should be a very interesing and messy fight to watch. Basically, Bush may turn out to be one of the worst things to have happened to the Republicans, not the best. Isnt their a saying abouth the price of success?


Of course there could always be.....

CHENEY-WOLFOWITZ 2004!    :laugh:  big_smile  :laugh:

#3 Re: Not So Free Chat » Race and Culture - A Changing Europe - Opening a mighty can of worms... » 2004-10-21 05:50:13

The headscrarf thing in france was really centered around tye wearing of hijabs (burkas). Some children (IIRC) were coming to school wearing the full head-to-toe face-covering traditional islamic dress. Schools were concerend that children werent wearing uniform (suprisingly important in terms of insurance apparently), but more importantly they were declaring themselves more 'islamic' than their headscarf wearing brethren.

The schools found it hard to legislate against the hijabs - there were various appeals based on human rights/freedom of expression/discrimination which only served to highlight the issue and put more presure on other islamic families to adopt the dress-code - so they reinforced the traditional secular rules, hence the ban on ostensibly religious clothing in schools.

#4 Re: Not So Free Chat » TV to rubbish Kerry a 'Traitor' on election Eve - US channels will air Kerry as Traitor » 2004-10-14 10:38:45

No offense but as a non-American, and all non-Americans really should keep out of internal affairs.

If only life for us non-americans was that simple. <sigh>


P.S. Im assuming youre saying non-americans shouldnt interfere/comment with/on whats happenig in the US elections.

#5 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » STOP PRESS: Scaled announce launch date » 2004-09-28 10:01:39

I dont think he meant launch-pads in the traditional sense of the word. Hes obviously refering to launch points (points of departure) - but since he's addressing the general public (who arent as savvy as us) theyll understand the concept of a launch pad better - as well as it envoking the more romantic mental image of a rocket launch.

#6 Re: Not So Free Chat » What would you consider another Vietnam » 2004-09-23 02:53:33

One of the major effects of the vietnam war was the depletion of Americas professional military.

After two tours in vietnam and facing a third, many professional soldiers chose to quit the military altogether rather than risk going back. This lead to a massive shortage of well trained soldiers to lead the fighting on the ground - and was one of the contributing factors to the failiure of the war as a whole. An ever increasing proportion of the fighting men were drafted 'kids' all needing new training, each year those who survived went home (taking their experience and gained abilities with them) and a fresh batch of inexperienced 'drafties' arrived - which is why vietnam is compared to 10 one year wars than 1 ten year war.

America has done alot to rebuild the military since vietnam and is rightly proud with what it has accomplished. However, after a 1 year tour in afghanistan, and their years tour in iraq coming to an end many professional soldiers are once again thinking of leaving the military rather than risk another year. The army is increasingly having to rely on reservists to ease the pressure on the profesionals and patriotic fervour is likely to keep the supply going for a while; but soon we may soon see increasing numbers of professional soldiers choosing their families over their military career...

#7 Re: Not So Free Chat » Iran rejects UN nuclear demands - yep - they're on the run now.... » 2004-09-22 08:02:13

is more likely and 2 is least likely. Those same princes (there are many) help fund the terroist groups and fund the schools that give the terroists their new recruits. I don't think they would so readily slit their own throat.

Iran prescribes to a different form of Islam and are unlikely to shed a tear for the decline of wahabism.

I feel it should be pointed out that Iran and Iraq are very different situations (aside from iran having WMDs  :;): ). Iran has elections, a democracy of sorts, and by many accounts the theocratic government is barely holding onto power ( unfortunately the invasion of iraq and the ensuing anti-american wave of resentment has played well into the hard-liners hands). There is actually a pro-reform opposition party, student protests, and at last count roughly 15'000 political blogs from disaffected citizens - all of these things were not  possible - let alone present - in iraq.


Now, if bush starts gearing up to invade Iran he's going to need to start spitting out the usual 'the war against terrorism' (T.W.A.T) retoric - ironically in many ways easier because of the actual potential development of WMDs. However unlike Iraq there arent that many political exiles, the 'opposition' as it were is already in iran engaged in bringing about change through their own democratic political process are quite likely,frankly, to tell bush to f*ck off if he tries to either ally himself with their cause (the touch of death) or muster support from another coalition fro more 'regime change'.

Question is - how can old bushy invade when the people he is trying to save are telling him to stuff his own mission accomplished banner up his arse and to let them get on with it themselves?

#8 Re: Human missions » ISS Woes & To-Mars » 2004-09-22 03:30:58

well you knwo what they say....

Theres no such thing as bad publicity.

#9 Re: Not So Free Chat » Blair 'was warned of Iraq chaos' - words cant describe how im feeling..... » 2004-09-20 08:55:54

Bush was out there talking about a "long war" and staying the course.

Which is why he dressed up in a flight suit and unfurled a massive banner which read "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" on the deck of an aircraft carrier.  ???

The question is how much of this apparent blundering is sincere incompetence, how much is intentional to draw in terrorist fighters to the new front, and how much just got screwed up on the way to implementation.

But we were already fighting the terrorists on the closest thing they had to a 'home turf'. Thats what Afghanistan was all about. We didnt need a 'new front', we already had a front where we were fighting them. :bars2:

If your ultimate aim is to invade the entire middle east then Iran is just as 'invadeable' from afghanistan as Iraq - if not more so. Invading Iran first would make more sense beacause

a - there are less fronts and borders involved.
b - sadham (irans only significant neighbour) would have been highly unlikely to do anything to help Iran during the invasion. (being secular and a sunni he has little or no incentive, common ground or recourse to significantly affect or help irans population or theocratic leadership)
c - sadham would have been ill placed to do anything to hinder the occupation once invasion was complete (see above) unlike iran affecting iraqs shiite population the other way round.

Iraq could then be invaded, continuing the theme of minimising border issues and obvious lack of iranian interference - continue on to syria and egypt at your leisure/if you are so inclined etc.


Establishing democracy in the middle east is also a non-starter as democracy is (was) close to break-out in iran at the moment anyway. Helping democracy in iran which has a history of democracy, wants democracy and in which the population are interested in politics/student uprisings (its all the same to me  smile ) and which has a homogeneos shiite poulation is far more likely to lead to a break-out of democracy in the rest of the middle east (starting with iraq due to its restless shiite majority) than the other way round. Invading Iraq has strengthened the hand of the religous hard-liners and if anything made democracy less likely and increased the necessity for possible invasion.


Gotta run now - but you get my point  ???

#10 Re: Not So Free Chat » Blair 'was warned of Iraq chaos' - words cant describe how im feeling..... » 2004-09-20 01:39:07

There are hundreds of people in the bowels of the Pentagon who spend all their time looking at the world and its political dynamics. They have access to information we don't, from sensitive sources you and I will never hear about, and they make contingency plans which are never published.

These are the same people who didnt see 9/11 comimg, presumably.

Or are you insinuating they let it happen for an exciuse for war?!?!?

#11 Re: Martian Politics and Economy » Laser Communication-Earth/Mars - Mars/Earth Laser Comunication » 2004-09-20 01:16:22

Imagine that. A small satellie in mars 'geo'-stationary orbit with a live feed of mars - the whole planet, not just a segment of the surface.

Imagine watching dust storms slowly engulf the planet - now that is the way to inspire people!

Theres a whole 'nother planet out there!

#12 Re: Not So Free Chat » Blair 'was warned of Iraq chaos' - words cant describe how im feeling..... » 2004-09-19 04:40:17

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3668016.stm

Tony Blair was warned by Jack Straw there could be post-war problems in Iraq, according to newspaper reports.

From a year before our invasion


Mr Straw wrote: "No-one has satisfactorily answered how there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be any better. Iraq has no history of democracy so no-one has this habit or experience."

Even a democratic government might develop WMD so long as Israel and Iran guarded their own arsenals and Palestinian grievances remained unsolved, it continued.

According the Telegraph, the documents throw doubt on the UK government's reasons for the war.


Mr Blair was reportedly warned he would have to "wrong foot" Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war,"

And he was told British officials believed President Bush wanted to complete his father's "unfinished business" in a "grudge match" against Saddam", the Telegraph said.

One letter from foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, reportedly warned of a "real risk" that the US administration had underestimated these difficulties.

President Bush still had to answer big questions such as "what happens on the morning after", he reportedly warned.

sigh.

#13 Re: Not So Free Chat » Iran rejects UN nuclear demands - yep - they're on the run now.... » 2004-09-19 04:25:59

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3670018.stm]Iran has reacted defiantly to calls from the UN nuclear watchdog to suspend all enrichment activities and said it would not agree to halt them.

Its good thing we invaded Iraq because it definately cowed Iran. They'll definately behave now and theres no way our overly aggressive moves played into the hands of the hardline conservatives such that supporting increased democracy is tantamount to supporting America. And since we invaded Iraq theyll definately not produce nuclear weapons - its not as if we've done anything to make them think they might need them or anything <cough> North Korea <cough>



BTW i think Iran is our best hope for democracy in the middle east - a significant proportion of their population are familiar with the idea <cough> unlike Iraq <cough> and more importatly want it. You'd have though if we were really interested in democracy in the middle east we'd have done something to help them, not hinder them.

#15 Re: Martian Politics and Economy » Laser Communication-Earth/Mars - Mars/Earth Laser Comunication » 2004-09-19 03:42:36

True.

For most internet browsing people tend to stick to certain websites. My PDA automatically downloads my favourite websites so i can browse them at my leisure whilst i travel in the mornings etc. It wouldnt be hard for the astronauts to have a list of favourite websites that automatically update for them to browse. (Even message boards could be effectively used.) The twenty minute-or-so delay would be unnoticeble for most things - except the odd google search obviously  cool

(Even message boards could be effectively used.)

#16 Re: Not So Free Chat » Presidential Candidates interviewed by Nature - Manned Space Exploration mentioned..... » 2004-09-16 01:19:26

Both candidtaes were given 15 questions and asked to keep their response to under 1500 words - the bbc has a synopsisof their answers http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/natu … space]here.


Manned Space Exploration.....


Mr Bush appears to have back-pedalled from his "man on Mars" ambition but he still wants man to go back to the Moon. "America will return to the Moon as early as 2015 and no later than 2020 and use it as a foundation for human missions beyond the Moon." He does not mention Mars.

Mr Kerry is sceptical. "There is little to be gained from a space initiative that throws out lofty goals, but fails to support these goals with realistic funding." However, he and John Edwards, he says, will increase funding for a continuation of space exploration.

#17 Re: Martian Politics and Economy » All of you have it wrong » 2004-09-15 08:54:15

Or you could implement democracy in its truest form - the way the greeks (athens) did it. All officials and jury-men are elected by lot - obvioulsy you wouldnt have a president but a council. It encourages the development of a well educated populace for one thing.

Another interesting thing that they had - which i quite like - was ostracism - from the Greek word for potsherd. In this reverse election to decide which leading politician should be exiled for ten years, voters scratched or painted the name of their preferred candidate on a piece of broken pottery. At least 6000 citizens (which was a lot for back then) had to 'vote' for an ostracism to be valid, and all the biggest political fish risked being fried in this ceremonious way. For almost a hundred years ostracism fulfilled its function of aborting serious civil unrest or even civil war.

#18 Re: Human missions » Kerry's position on space - any one know were Kerry stands » 2004-09-10 07:38:01

I was thinking more along the lines of an emphasis on a ban of further sales and servicing of currently held weapons. Have a voluntary hand in of weapons and the rest will slowly fall into disrepair. No need to particularly run around looking for the guns (although if you find them in routine searches - confiscate and prosecute) - let time do all the hard work for you. Its not pretty - no method will be - but its not excessively painfull and how long will a gun stay servieable without proper care or maintence? Even accounting for gun enthusiasts keeping good care of theirs and maintaing them for a while you're looking at a massive reduction in serviceable weapons in the 5-10 year time frame.


Thinking more along the bullets side of the equation though....
If the sale of bullets were heavily restricted and heavilly taxed such that they became prohibitively expensive (i.e pres. announces bullets will be taxed to cover the cost of all gun related criem in the US etc) then im sure gun related crime would come down. All the nice innocent law abiding people who feel the need to own a gun for personal protection can splash out on a clip of ammunition for that far-less-than once-in-a-lifetime event when you are attacked in your home and your gun is actually to hand (same goes fro the need to rise up against the government) whereas how many kids and street gangs could afford to tool up for school massarcres of drive-by shootings?

Police would obvioulsy buy tax free, as would maybe gun schools/certain firing ranges. Someone else can hammer out the small print. Thoughts?

#19 Re: Human missions » Kerry's position on space - any one know were Kerry stands » 2004-09-10 06:57:05

Just had a though from rqding someones post above. How hard would it be to ban ammunition? How easy is it to make ammunition really? That would be no where near as simple as making a weapon and would likely be a far more time consuming effort probably involving hard to find/illegal materials.


N.B Guns to a lot of people are stutus symbols. How likely is your average street 'gangsta' to walk round with a gun improvised from a piece of plumbing? It would hardly make for a credibility inducing sight. Strikes me you could go a long way to reducing black-on-black / gang crime if their 'pieces' were less shiny and impressive looking.

#20 Re: Human missions » Kerry's position on space - any one know were Kerry stands » 2004-09-10 06:51:43

A ban on weapons would take a generation to kick in - you'd basically have to wait until all the weapons broke down and couldnt be repaired due to lack of servicing. Itd be a long and drawn-out process but maybe if youd banned weapons a generation ago youd all be better of now.

Guns are illegal in the UK - we dont have a massive underground weapons market, but once every few years they catch a guy (different guy each time  :;): ) who has been re-commisioning decommsioned guns - turns out his guns are the ones used in most crimes for last couple of years - point is its much easier to catch the small time guys recommsioning/making guns that stop the criminals 'acquiring' legally bought guns.

America is saturated in weapons and unless youre willing to take some painful steps then you'll never solve the very real problem you have.

Perhaps all you good people will have to go without your guns for a while in order to stop the criminals having theirs at a later date. What sacrifices are you willing to make fro the sake of your children and your childrens children?

#21 Re: Not So Free Chat » Purple Heart "Badges" at RNC » 2004-09-08 06:22:41

Again Cobra, we're arguing two different things. The points you make are valid and i can recognise the idea. You're arguing results and im arguing method.

If your administration cannot even muster the courage to publicly admit its intentions, if it doesnt feel confident enough to even win an argument about what it plans to do, then maybe, just maybe, the administration or the plan needs changing? A wave of anti-american feeling would likely play into the Bush administrations hands anyway.

There will also be issues with Syria and Iran because both sport 'democratically' elected governments. There are no real bad guys for Bush to beat his chest and point at.

#22 Re: Not So Free Chat » Purple Heart "Badges" at RNC » 2004-09-08 01:42:18

But there's the rub, just because the justifications given for the war didn't represent the real deeper reasons doesn't mean they weren't true.

We weren't lied to, we just weren't given the full slate of information, a practice fairly common in wartime and arguably vital if we are to win in this case. Can you seriously imagine a national, even international debate on the best way to culturally and politically reform the entire Middle East? Neo-colonialists they'd scream, imperialist usurpers! End of debate, no action.

It's true - governments need to keep secrets, but reasons for going to war arent some of them. You clearly find it acceptable to watch Bush lie to your face. Your arguments are lucid cobra, but your reasoning isnt.

And you're probably right, regime change in order to politicallly reform an entire region wouldnt have been a good enough reason on its own to attack. Maybe they should have combined the reason with removing terrorism by targetting pretty much any other country in the midle east.


Quote from the Bush convention speech:

"Four years ago, Afghanistan was the home base of al-Qaida, Pakistan was a transit point for terrorist groups, Saudi Arabia was fertile ground for terrorist fundraising, Libya was secretly pursuing nuclear weapons, Iraq was a gathering threat, and al-Qaida was largely unchallenged as it planned attacks"


Iraq was a gathering threat? He couldnt even bring himself to claim Iraq was actually doing anything in his own convention speech. Or maybe hes just not giving the full slate of information?  :laugh:

#23 Re: Not So Free Chat » Purple Heart "Badges" at RNC » 2004-09-07 06:55:29

But it wasn't about WMD, or harboring terrorists, or links to al Quaeda or even that Saddam is a vicious murdering bastard. It was about creating a beachhead, both military and political, in the Middle East. It's about long-term strategy. Whether or not one agrees with the strategy and whether it is the right one is open to question, but to try and simplify the entire war into some quick soundbite issue that you then try to discredit is a pointless exercise that's about nothing more than partisan politics. By all means attack the war, attack the motives, but let's try to look at what's really going on and not what some kook lefties think makes a good argument.

If you truly think that then you have to admit that out both our respective governments lied to us before the war. There is no avoiding that conclusion.

Im not discrediting the idea of removing sadham, or establishing a democratic beachhead in the middleeast (both ideas merit discussion and the latter also represents a sound long term approach) - but thats not what our governments said at the time.

If that was the reason (and once again im not saying it wasnt) then there was plenty of time to build a true coalition instead of splitting the UN and NATO and the particiapnts in the 'war on terror' down the middle, there was no imminent threat and no reason to 'rush in'.

If that was the reason then Bush lied to you to the tune of over 100 billion dollars and the only apology hes given you is his characteristic smirk.

What im saying Cobra is that we can argue ourselves blue about motivations and whether the war was on balance the right or wrong thing to do in terms of results, present and future. But the build-up, execution, aftermath and lessons learnt have been an unmitigated disaster. The coalition/alliance in the war on terror is split with the extremes on both sides unable to trust the motivations behind actions of those on on the other, and the extremists in the middle east have more reasons to hate us than ever before, and have more recruits than they know what to do with.


Thats why the France-US spat was so stupid. (Just because they didnt agree with Bush when he tried to rush the whole Iraq invasion through the UN) After all the America-bashing and the renaming of french-fries to freedom-fries and whining about how you were abandonned after all you did for them in WW2, at the end of the day you have to f**cking grow up and look each other in the eye and remeber that you're allies in the war on terror. That kind of damage is going to take years to repair, years we simply cant afford.

France and America have traditionally been closer than the UK-US special relationship. Where do you think you got the statue of liberty from! Is that going to be renamed too? They were the people who saved you in your own war of independence for christ sakes!

#24 Re: Not So Free Chat » Purple Heart "Badges" at RNC » 2004-09-07 02:26:36

This is what i find most annoying about the iraq fiasco. And this is mostly from the point of view of a brit.

NB im rushing this a bit because im busy.

On septemeber the 11th 2001 the US was attacked directly by al Qaeda. It was an attrocity, article 5 was declared for the first and only time in history, the whole world rallied round to face the threat of international terrorism. We knew where the enemy was, we could see them running around in caves in afghanistan and the taliban made no secret of who they harboured. The world went to war - we invaded afghanistan, removed the taliban and began the process of destroying Al Qaeda itself.

Instead of finishing this job - the only part of afghanistan we secured was kabul and then the US broke away from everybody else dragging along a coalition of the 'willing' to deal with the 'imminent' threat of iraq. We'd been slowly bombing iraq into the stone age for a decade and then suddenly it was an immediate danger and needed to be dealt with even before an international concesus could be found. (Dont even get me started on the pre-texts and thngs that were said and by whom)

The thing is the 'war on terror' is not America versus the World its the WORLD versus TERRORISM. You're not the only country on the target list, you're not the only country to be targeted, and youre not alone - as bush likes to make you think you are. When you went around the UN and dragged us into iraq you shattered the very international effort that legitimised what we were doing (yes cobra there is a legitimacy gained by global consesus) instead of all working together to combat global terrorism we remain a fractured entity unable to move forward until we have repaired the damage. We have litterally lost years of time in the effort.

Im sure removing sadham is good for his people - and nobody is going to advocate that he should stay in power - but thats not what we're doing. We're fighting terrorism not third rate despots.

This is President’s Bush’s vision for the Middle East. He has said that the only way to stop terrorist is to get rid of the environment that breeds them. A suicide bomber has nothing to live for and has nothing to loose. Lets give them something some thing worth living for. Lets give them something to loose. Lets give them freedom.

Except Iraq was the only country in the middle east not to harbour terrosists. Sadham was a secular man (i dont mean that in a positive way) and didnt trust the religous zealotry of the terrorists any more than we would or do.

Also found a few WMD's, not all that much though. No Saddam death rockets with sunbombs on 'em, but a few bon-fide chemical weapons and a pile of "hmm" items. Probably not enough to justify action on its own.

Ironically more WMDs have turned up in the US than in Iraq.


Ok seroiusly, ive a question. Compare Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of the threats they posed against the world (not just the US  smile ) and then compare how much effort has been spent on each one. I think you'll agree the results do not square with what is supposed to be a war on terror

#25 Re: Human missions » China The Dominant Superpower In 20 Years..... - What does this mean for US? » 2004-08-17 01:48:27

I seem to remember reading somewhere that there simply arent the resources available for the 1.4 billion chinese citizens to reach a standard of living on par with america.


Just looking at oil, the world produces roughly 75 million barrels a day, and there really isnt much room for an increase. America consumes 20 million barrels a day, if china was to consume a per capita equivalent theyd need 100 million barrels a day and of course theyd want the associated 700 million cars/SUVs.

The USA has set the bar too high, in order for China to surpass the USA theres gonna need to be some messy wars at the very least.

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