More on the War

There were a number of reasons why George Bush Sr. didn't "finish" Saddam.
Number one: The president wanted a "clear" goal and plan, which they stuck to. Instead of taking Saddam out of power and entering a possible Vietnam, they picked a shorter war with more limited goals, mainly to get Saddam out of Kuwait. They suceeded and left.

Number Two: The international community was against a bigger war. Even if Bush had wanted to extend the conflict, he would have lost lots of support, just like his son has.

Number Three: Just about everyone expected Saddam to fall from revolutions in his own country. These revolutions took place, but because of Bush's decision, and the consensus of the rest of the world, little was done to help the revolutionaries, and they were mercilessly crushed.

The current conflict can't be blamed on Bush Sr., it can only really be blamed on Saddam, and maybe the UN or Clinton. Saddam defied sanctions and resultions and the UN and Clinton did very little to stop him. It took a president with principles to stand up to Saddam and do what the UN's own resolutions advocated, punish Saddam for lying and decieving.

While i don't agree with Bush's extreme pro-life position, i strongly doubt that he will attempt to overthrow Roe vs. Wade, but if he does, it is his constitutional right to try to. If it is overthrown, it won't be an illegal act, but a completely legal one, since the Courts interpret the law. But i strongly agree with the attempts to ban partial birth abortions, because it is basically sucking the brains out of fetuses which are almost ready, or sometimes even able, to live on their own.


There are hundreds of thousands, (millions?), of miles of "pristine wilderness" in Alaska, and only 1% of ANWR would be drilled, and it is only one of hundreds of such refuges in Alaska. It wouldn't affect the wildlife that much, and the benefit in oil is worth it. Alaskans are all for it, and its really their land anyway.

Have you really looked at the tax cuts? Everyone gets a tax cut. The rich get a slightly larger one, but that's because they already pay so much more, and the economic theory Bush works on is the Laffer curve, which states that above a certain tax rate, revenue decreases with percentage rate, due to less incentive to work and more fraud. This theory was proven during hte 80's, when government revenue increased, and the economy prospered. The problem was that Congress and the president far outspent the budgetary increase, leading to deficits.

Malpractice suits and "ambulence chasers" are horrendous and should be limited, i'm just not sure how. The genuienly injured or abused should be able to sue, but not someone who blames mental illness in their child on the doctor who delivered it, or in an off topic example, people shouldn't sue McDonalds for having fatty foods.

And reporting suspiscious activity could just save your life. For the thousands of false alarms, there could be one or two genuine threats that are stopped. I would rather not die because the government didn't try hard enough. This is much better than making a police state having cameras everywhere.

 

Roe vs. Wade IS was legalized abortion in America. Before then, it was back roads abortions that killed many women.

What we really should be concentrating on is alternate energy. I don't believe that oil is "worth it." It's not a good energy source. In emergency simulations, 70% of the oil valves in a drill did not shut off. This is potentially disastrous for wildlife there. Not all Alaskans are all for it, and it isn't really their land, since it's owned by the government.

His proposed tax cut doesn't make any sense. Give the richest people the biggest tax cut? The people with the most money should be taxed the most, not the least. Besides, any tax cuts at this time would be tremendously stupid. Wars cost trillions of dollars. Who pays for wars? The taxpayers. This is just one huge mess, methinks.

That's true. Fat people who claim that McDonalds is like a drug need to get a good kick in the butt. However, I was involved in an awful car accident, then, the hospital first off ignored me when I said I was in pain in my arm (I had a broken arm that they didn't bother to check for), and committed horrible malpractice on my sister. That's why I'm not in favor of setting a limit. I think that people should have good enough sense to throw bullshit cases out the window.

 

I, myself, wasn't blaming it on bush sr. I was just pointing out that Clinton had nothing to do with Gulf War v. 1.0

I'd love to get a hold of the projections. Last I heard, they were talking about drilling for what is the equivalent of about 6 months worth of oil. Hardly worth the loss of irreplacable landscape, no matter how small.

And then of course, there's the problem of what happens when one of those nice big pipes break, and spill countless gallons of crude oil everywhere.

Short of human nature and fundamental religious indoctrination, oil and oil corporations are the biggest evils in the world.

Mass transit was crushed by...guess who..the oil and auto industry. Now there's so much traffic one can't even get to the cities without agonizing waits in line whilst choking on all those tasty gas fumes. That is provided one can afford fuel, insurance, and a car for that metter.

There are plenty of alternative methods out there just waiting to be found. Propane, and hydrogen for example. I could be mistaken, but I'm fairly certain both can be synthesized. Now I realize there are some safety issues with propane, but is it really any more risky than gasoline? The oil industry would have us believe so. However, I will say this about propane and natural gas type mateials: Is it better to have one big fireaball that burns out in a second or two, or a huge, smoudering gasoline fire that could smoke and burn for days, sticking to everything in sight? Having had a gas grill blow up in my face, I'd say yes to the former. If it had been gasoline, the house, the yard, and of course myself would've been wreathed in flame. As it was, there was a 2 second fireball that singed my hair, but did little else than instill a very healthy respect for the power of gas, and fire. But I digress.
And of course, projects that could push fossil fuels into obselescense often have funding troubles.

In general, the country, the corps, and the world have to stop thinking solely in terms of profit and power, and start thinking in the long term. We only have one planet, with a finite amount of resources. Oil may be the 'only' solution now, but one day, that will run out.

Or serve someone's petty vendetta, and get an innocent person locked up indefinately 'under suspicion of terrorism'

Or, for that matter, serve a criminal. The criminal calls the police to report 'suspcious activity' somewhere down the road to keep the cops busy while he goes out criminaling.

And furthermore, what defines 'suspicious activity' in the first place? Standing on a street corner? Admiring and photographing architecture? Buying fertilizer for your lawn? Digging in the garbage? Taking money out of your bank? Renting a car or van? Checking a book out of the library?

I don't smoke in my house, so I go outside. My father doesn't smoke. The smoke bothers him. So when I go outside, I stand in my driveway near the cars, to keep the smoke from getting inside, often facing the house across the street. Well, thanks to 'profiling', I'm sure someone could consider a big guy with long hair standing by some cars in a driveway smoking 'suspicious activity'. I could be mistaken for someone casing the house across the street, or the cars in the driveway. Good thing I'm on good terms with those neighbors. I hope.

Another case in point: The Smoak family. You know, the ones who got hassled by the cops, and ultimately had their dog shot by said cops. Why? Because someone reported 'suspicious activity' in the form of the poor bastard left his wallet on top of the car and drove away. As if losing his wallet wasn't bad enough.

 

ERhh bush has actuallt invested 4 billion dollars into reasearch on hydrogen as an alternative to gasoline.

I think that anyone trying to sue Mcdoanlds for making them fat, in norway would have been laughed at tremendously, same thing that happened with this guy trying to sue the smoking companies.

If your dad don't like you smoking, start using snus instead, much more addictive, but less dangerous.

Another reason Bush sr did not finnish saddam was that by keeping saddam in power he would be a threat to all of the middle east, making it possibole for the US to sell huge amounts of weapons to the surrrounding countries.

YEah good thing of the coalition to stop saddam he has not followed, was it four un resolutions?
When are we going to take israel? They have only falied to comply 69 un reasoultions.
Buut ofcourse they are a democrasy so they can not be stopped. (A democrasy that use an apartheid policy against the palistians)

 

Didja read my whole post? I explained why the rich get larger tax cuts. Reaganomics economic theory states with the use of the Laffer curve, that cutting taxes increases revenue since it makes more of an incentive to make money, since the government takes less. Due to more investment and capital availible, new jobs adn businesses open up and wages increase in prosperous times.

This is a theory, i'll admit, but it worked during the 80's, which were very prosperous times, largely due to the tax cuts. Though the government far outspent the increase in revenue generated.

Bush's similar plan would stimulate the economy in the same way that Reagan's tax cuts did, while also increasing government revenue. And the poor would benefit from lower taxes and also better wages or employment.

 

And here I thought it was the hairspray and spandex sales...:wink:

I hadn't heard anything about that. Unless of course that was the Enron company.

Interesting point there. I wasn't aware that Israel violated any US resolutions. You know where to find info on that?

I can't argue that. If one is worried about McDonald's food making one fat, then stop eating McDonald's. It's not like the crap has any real nutritional value to begin with.

I don't. He's allready halfway to religious fanatic. Overturning Roe vs. Wade would certainly punish all those sinners. By killing them in back alley abortion clinics.

 

Well you can take a look here.
You will have to read alot but it clearly states that un resolutions is broken.

 

1. Yes, wouldn't you much rather that we didn't drill and completely put our lives at stake by fully relying on countries like Iraq? Not to mention raising gas prices due to importing tax.

2. Oh, you would rather that we have abortions and all 13-year-olds have sex in secret?

3. What's wrong with tax cuts?

4. Ahem, doctors help us, baseball players don't, but the latter gets more. Is that fair?

5. Oh, you would rather everyone would keep quiet when you get jumped on your way home, beaten, and shot in the legs, eh? Or someone blows up your home.

You know, if people didn't have such horrible practices, there would be no NEED for abortion.

Like Fission that everyone agrees will destroy the enviroment, or wind, solar, or water energy that we just can't harvest properly, causing most of us to be powerless?

Then let the government do with it what they please.

They DO pay the most. Now, if you paid $100,000 per month, do you think a $1,000 tax cut that is for everyone would help much? And Bush didn't know that the war was going to happen when he made those cuts.

Sorry about your sister, but not all hospitals use the proper care that should be used. It's not the government's fault, it's the hospital administrator's fault.

Propane IS a fossil fuel!
And we ARE using hydrogen. They are called FUEL CELLS. They just aren't powerful enough to run a car for long, let alone a power plant. If we ever DO run out of fossil fuels, we would quickly invent an alternative, as long as the enviromental agencies would leave us alone.
Oh! Precious landscape! What about volcanos? They destroy millions of acres. Are you going to go and start a group to do something about them? Nature will grow back. Oil kills very little animals, and the ones it does kill aren't fit to be alive, anyway. Survival of the fittest, after all.

And you would prefer we let all murderers, rapers, terrorists, robbers, etc. out free? They aren't going to admit it. How else will we know, until we find evidence? If we let them out, they will book it.

We sold weapons to them so this wouldn't happen again, but it just so happens it did.
Isreal is a much better allie than the UN. It has stayed with us no matter what. Besides, if you would read the BIBLE, you would know that those who oppose Isreal will be destroyed. I would rather stay on their good sided, wouldn't you?
I don't. He's allready halfway to religious fanatic. Overturning Roe vs.

Mentioned above. Besides, would you rather have a religious leader like Bush who at least TRIES to do things right, or a totally unreligious man like Clinton in office who doesn't give a dime about the people and their needs?

 

If we relied on alternate energy sources more than we do, we wouldn't be having this problem.

Thirteen year olds are not going to be having sex. Maybe you want to, but when I was thirteen, I was just trying to get along with my friends. 8th grade sucked a lot. Obviously super religious people are not going to be having abortions, so don't worry, we'll still have a large number of children out of wedlock.

They won't help the economy at this point in time.

No, athletes are widly overpaid. I don't see what that has to do with anything though.

Those are not what the tip lines are for. The tip lines are for "terrorist" activities. You know, like your neighbor having a bonfire, or a guy buying some condoms. Big Brother is watching you.

Sadly, some women don't carry other's children willingly. Also, would you tell some teenager that they can't have an abortion, that they've screwed up and have to live with it? It's a dumb mistake, but it's unfair to ruin their life like that. What about women whos pregnancies will kill them? Would you tell them that they had to die? That you cared about cells more than them?

Solar, wind, and hydroelectric energy are all considered very efficent. Plutonium is an excellent energy source, and can be used for years on end. The problem with that is where to put it.

We are living in America. Voices of dissention are allowed.

That's true, but Bush wants to limit the amount of money a person can get from a malpractice suit. That's not the hospitals, that's the government. (Not that the hospitals would mind.)

Volcanoes errupting is a natural cycle. Spilling oil is not. Your statement, "Oil kills very little animals..." is not only bullshit, but it's also grammatically incorrect. :roll: Survival of the fittest is what occurs naturally, weak animals die, and strong animals survive to breed. However, oil is an indiscriminate killer. This is not survival of the fittest. It's "who's in the wrong place at the wrong time when humans screw up." That has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

Perhaps some of us don't want a super religious leader who forces his religion onto us. Anyway, I liked Clinton.

 

And what horrible practices are those? Rape? Most assuredly. Having sex? Laughable. Sex is part of life, sex is natural. Just because religious doctrines tend to condition us to think sex is dirty, doesn't mean it is. Religious doctrines also tend to condone the slaughter of others, simply for having a different opinion than they do. Or a different religion.

Right, and I suppose we should've let the third reich do 'what it please' as well. And the hussein regime..(If I'm not mistaken you support the present conflict, correct?) And the taliban, and mussolini.

Funny I don't recall saying that. The question I put forth is "what defines 'suspicious activity'"

I would hope that rape, murder, getting jumped on the way home, would fall into that category.

A resounding "NO". Religion has no place in politics. Perhaps you didn't hear me. Or don't want to. Religious fanatics do things like...oh attempt to control large quantities of people. Shape their thinking. Keep knowledge out of the hands of the common people. Burn people at the stake, lynch people, burn crosses on people's lawns. Start holy wars and crusades. Bomb world trade centers. I hear Saddam Hussein is a religious man. The taliban is/was a religious sect.

Now ethics, on the other hand, is something that should be in politics. Too bad it's a rarity at best..

I've read the bible. Several versions of the one true word of god. Don't get me started. I don't want to offend anyone who respects religion, and respectfully keeps it to themself.

When we run out. Finite resources. That means there's only so much to go around. I'm sorry, if the environmental agencies leave us alone? What does that mean? That things polluting our air, our soil, our water, shouldn't be monitored? If a method is too toxic, I would think stopping it would be a good thing.

Actually, they are powerful enough to run buses for quite some time. They simply aren't very cost-effective yet. More time needs to be spent perfecting it, instead of building bigger highways, bigger SUVs, or drilling for a puddle of oil. In the meantime, better mass transit should be explored.

I'd think Chernobyl proves the destroying the environment(and people) part well enough. However, a good portion of fission's danger is greed, human error, and lowest bidder contracts. Anything more I say would be just echoing Snowmane's comments.(except for the part about liking clinton, while he had a few good points, he was yet another crooked politician, IMO)

 

1)About the UN resolutions:
The UN distinguishes between two sorts of Security Council resolution. Those passed under Chapter Six deal with the peaceful resolution of disputes and entitle the council to make non-binding recommendations. Those under Chapter Seven give the council broad powers to take action, including warlike action, to deal with “threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, or acts of aggressionâ€?. None of the resolutions relating to the Israeli-Arab conflict comes under Chapter Seven. By imposing sanctionsâ€â€￾including military onesâ€â€￾against Iraq but not against Israel, the UN is merely acting in accordance with its own rules.
2)About the "apartheid policy"- please elaborate. This time I do feel like debating on the subject.

 

I don't feel like elobareting but that is how i see it.

The bible says that? Ohh i'm so afraid. :lol:

Xento is thirteen years old last i heard, he is also religious and from what i have seen so far he is a dumb "deadshit" wich might explain all the stupidity in the above posts.

Xento you should try to connect to reality, put away the bible, go out, get drunk.

 

Alright then, each to their own. But throwing accusations against one's country and "not feeling like elaborating" is a bit rude.
Oh and "each to their own" also applies to Xento. If you believe that Israel is an apartheid state, he has a right to believe that people of Israel are God's messengers. Honestly speaking, I like his version better, even if I kinda forgot my message :lol:

 

Just to let everyone know, Nick didn't come up with that massive post on his own, it's obvious his father had a big hand in that brain-fart. Xento, do all of us a favor, keep dad and slug bug away from HoL.


Solaris, thank you for clarifying to the ignorant the difference between UN resolutions that carry the potential for military action and those that don't, I was sick to death of hearing that arguement.

 

Nope. I wrote it all myself out of my own mind.

And you have a right to call me stupid, or an idiot, or whatever, but are you saying I should compare myself to the rest of you?

You will be... You will be...

Nope, fourteen.

Two things:

1. I don't read the Bible nearly at all. I know this from what I have read, mostly in church. On normal days, I go to school, come home and go one the computer, eat, go to bed, and then wake up to do it again. I only have time for stuff like that on Sundays, which is a big fault of mine.

2. I promised my dad that I would never drink on purpous. He also told me he would give me $1,000 if I didn't drink before I graduated high school. Not that I would want to, anyway. Why spoil my mind with toxins and whatnot? I will live longer, and happier, without, thank you.

... Or kill a perfectly innocent child that has never had a chance in life, and has just as much, if not more, reason to live than his/her mother.

Would you think the same if your mother had decided to abort you? I know, you will just say that if she had, you wouldn't be here, but say she did, and you were conscious of the idea before it happened. Would you be happy about it?

We shall see...

 

I suppose we shall. Not that your mostly unfounded, naive and disjointed, and poorly argued posts haven't allready proven it.

No, I won't. You see the bible is man's, most likely a few men's interpretation of the word of god. It is littered with inconsistencies, and hypocracies. And there's how many versions?
I'm more afraid of the preachers and zealots who interpret the book, then go about killing in god's name, than what the book says. Overall, it's not much more than a collection of longwinded stories, and fancy poetry.

Two things:
1. You obviously don't study your grammar either.

2. You have the audacity to spout unfounded statements from the bible, then say you've HARDLY or BARELY(the proper grammatical statement) read it. And then tell us to 'read the bible'.

So instead, allow your mind to be poisoned with the indoctrination of patriarchal double-standards. Much better.

Here's a vocabulary word for you, to aid in your grammtical studies:

Hypocrite. Look it up.

Or abort a pregnancy brought on by an act of violence such as rape, or a child conceived by a young girl's deranged and abusive father, brother, or uncle?

Or sacrifice a woman's life because a pregnancy will kill her?

You see that word 'hypocrite' comes into play here as well. If a young girl gets pregnant, and because abortion is illegal, she can't have an abortion. So she carries the child full term. Now her parents, peers and community shun her. On top of that she has to deal with the rigors of raising a child.
The same people shunning her, are usually the same people spouting anti-abortion slogans. And they're usually 'good christian folk' too.

And the same girl, angry that she's been robbed of her chance to be a young girl, and having been shunned by those around her displaces that anger. She begins to take it out on the child, becoming abusive and neglectful, thus robbing that innocent child of its chance at a normal life.

Or better yet, dumps the child into a garbage can to starve, or get eaten by rats.

Hypocracy.

See section 1.

I don't care how old you are; if you want to play with the big boys and girls, try at the very least, a thoughtful argument. You might actually get a little respect then.

 

Personally, I believe that the government should not be allowed to make abortions illegal, however, there is no reason they cannot be shunned. One should be responsible enough not to get knocked up, but if you are, then an out should exist. However, partial birth abortions and other late term abortions are kinda stretching it, since they are killing fetuses that by many people's standards, are already children. However, aborting in the first trimester or early second trimester is just as cruel using a condom, and condemning millions of sperm to death, which is just ridiculous to oppose. Life doesn't begin at conception, but neither does it begin at birth, it's somewhere's in between.

I believe America and the world would be better if abortions were not necessary, and good morals should still be advocated, but abortions are sometimes justified, and are much better than infanticide or forcing more strain on the already overwhelmed foster care system.

 

Not going to enter the abortion debate on the level of when the fetus can or cannot be considered a child, its quite pointless. But the attitude of many anti-abortionists is extremely hypocritical and cruel to women. Those who oppose abortions on religious basis should first change their attitude towards girls who got pregnant out of wedlock. If those girls weren't put under such pressure and wouldn't be treated with such contempt by their own religious family members, it would greatly reduce the number of girls willing to abort pregnancy. Could be a much more effective and moral way to reduce the number of abortions.

 

Some flamebait for thelottaya:

A fetus is, pretty much, what I see as "potential life". A fetus has (virtually) no awareness, and is what you could bluntly regard as a "potential" human being. Anti-abortionists usually say that potential conscious human beings deserve a chance at life. Does this mean that I have a right to rape whichever woman I please to give a real chance at life to all the potential human beings in my nutsack and their ovaries?

Something else I want to bring up is Xento's stance on booze, which annoys me to no end. Mainly because, when I was 12 or 13 years old, I believed much of the same crap. I thought I knew all about stuff I had never experienced, and brought up the "health/happiness" issue a lot. I now know that that was very, very wrong. (and I got over it soon after.)

While it's true that you shouldn't experiment with booze, tobacco or drugs because of peer pressure, it's even worse to lead a sheltered life because you believe all the doomsday propaganda that parents, school and the government try to force on you.

The only piece of advice I have for you, Xento, is this:
Move out of your parents' house when you go to college. Don't go overboard, but don't be afraid to move around in new groups and try new things, either. You don't have to turn into a pothead or boozemonkey, but I think a change of perspective will screw you up far, far less than staying under the influence of controlling forces like parents and school, because that will make you end up like your parents, with ideas that were applicable to society 25 years ago, and will turn you into a socially handicapped person. I wouldn't like to see that happen. Really.

 

Could be fun .















the orginal slaggirl 8) . -koff- inside joke .