At 5/8/08 02:59 PM, BeFell wrote:
I've started to notice that i almost never goes before e despite the presence or absence of c. "Their?" maybe I should have learned the whole poem.

It's almost foreign this english language isn't it.

ps. /wH3RE RUL3Z R MAD3 2B BROK3n\

lO)

At 4/30/08 12:01 PM, Elfer wrote:

At 4/30/08 11:17 AM, SolInvictus wrote:

At 4/30/08 04:34 AM, JudgeDredd wrote: The group hacked its way through fences around the [secret base] and using comon garden tools deflated one of two 30-meter rubberized domes covering satellite interception dishes, officials said.

how hard is it to defend a secret base from peasants? i mean honestly.

Note that the part about garden tools isn't in the original article that he linked to.

Lol.. They used sickles. :O)

It's highly symbolic. The group's goal is to turn all weapons of war into useful garden implements. But in this case, popping the bubble (veil or shroud) of secrecy surrounding global spy-networks is also a highly symbolic gesture.

Ooh.. fotos!!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/multimedia/ima ge.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10507033
.

At 3/31/08 01:30 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: To who?

Hate to pop everyones bubble.. lol.

To whom? To the Pro-War Machine obviously!

Anti-war group raids NZ spy base

"This War will have no end until citizens of the world refuse to let it continue,"

"The Echelon spy network, including Waihopai, is an important part of the US government's global spy network, and we have come in the name of the Prince of Peace to close it down," the statement said.

The group hacked its way through fences around the [secret base] and using comon garden tools deflated one of two 30-meter rubberized domes covering satellite interception dishes, officials said.

.

At 3/30/08 12:42 AM, Christopherr wrote: Which means that their beliefs resemble those of earlier times.

By which you mean constant wars and imperialistic attempts at world domination.

At 3/11/08 07:03 PM, Skeik-Sprite wrote: WHAT I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

How can people say that drugs are dangerous, as dangerous as the already legal alcohol, yet say they should be legalized. If alcohol feels as good as the other drugs, as other people have said, why not drink alcohol instead of complaining about the other non legal drugs?

Simply because some people loath alcohol, but like marijuana.

Alcohol is worse than marijuana in the majority of cases. If marijuana was decriminalised then less alcohol would be consumed in many instances, especially since there is no alternative drug that is so widely available (like in Supermarkets).

Giving people no option but alcohol as their only available recreational drug is simply very bad policy.

At 3/13/08 03:14 AM, EKublai wrote: of course i would never be able to take to the streets again knowing that the guy next to me is possibly high and as a result gonna swerve into me.

Right. Better that he or she is drunk then?

Tabacco doesn't affect others (like through car crashes) like marijuana does. you're usually just killing yourself and no one else.

Smoking marijuana doesn't kill anyone either. Where are you getting your "facts".

study up on the hard drugs man.

H... hard drugs. Leik WTF are you talking about??

At 3/13/08 05:43 PM, ThePretenders wrote: The [nuclear] bombing of Japan was justified. What they did to China, Korea, South-East Asia and POWs was just evil and they needed to be taught a lesson.

^See, what you're proposing is no different than perhaps if Osama said 9-11 was justified as minor payback for all the women and children who got raped, shot, and carpet bombed in Vietnam by the American military.

So I'll say it again. You cannot justify slaughtering in a moment 100,000 women and children in Japan, simply because the rape, pillage, torture, and slaying the Japanese military had done in China and Korea. There's not even a hint of eye-for-an-eye in such logic. However, if China had the bomb, and decided it was by some measure justified, then that's their decision! However, America doing that to Japan (essentially on behalf of another country by your own admission) was in no way justified.

There's a multitude of better ways to 'teach a lesson' (as you put it) to a defeated nation than nuking whole cities of innocent people.

.

Like, can someone tell us how much money the Fed has pumped into the US banking system to eleviate the "credit crunch" this year already?

At 3/9/08 11:16 PM, MobilnaReakcija wrote: I am not seeing an energy policy that will work in the near future and which will curb America's thirst for oil.

Take it from a sci-fi visionary..

At 3/8/08 07:19 PM, gunner-564 wrote: well drugs like meth are highly toixic.

Well, the drug laws could include a minor clemency for including "safe use" and "health warning" instructions or "quit service" and "help line" contact details with street drugs. Say a 10% discount on sentencing if found packaged within yer standard "deal".

Life saving measures like this are almost never considered, even thou they could have benefitial side-effects in the levels of safe drug use, as well as saving lives. Just another example of how "doing the right thing" is not the objective of the current War On Drugs.

At 3/8/08 01:48 PM, TheMason wrote: What are we thinking?

The economy is going into the shitter, so we're going to give a sweet defense deal to [UROP].

You're right. Why have a tendering process at all?! Boeing should just write a whole bunch of zeros with a 1 in front of it on a paper plane and call it a defence contract = )

Bush vetos anti-torture Bill.

reaction..

"President Bush will go down in history as the torture president. He has now defied a majority of Congress to allow the use of interrogation techniques that any reasonable observer would call torture." - Jennifer Daskal, Human Rights Watch.

"I have heard nothing to suggest that information obtained from enhanced interrogation techniques has prevented an imminent terrorist attack. And I have heard nothing that makes me think the information obtained from these techniques could not have been obtained through traditional interrogation methods used by military and law enforcement interrogators." - Senator Jay Rockefeller.

- - -

"It is shameful that George Bush and John McCain lack the courage to
ban torture," said Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. "And
it is reprehensible that McCain changed his position on torture just to win
an election. That's not the kind of leadership Americans want, and it's
exactly the reason why voters will reject John McCain in November. The last
thing we need is another president who will put politics over principle."

At 3/7/08 11:03 PM, puddinN64 wrote: Drugs=Bad.

Right. So how many people have died taking prescription drugs?

(like Heath Ledger for example)

But let's clear on 1 thing thou, am i right in thinking [crack] cocaine is now generally cheaper or easier to score than weed in US larger cities? And if so, isn't the War on Drugs having the result of raising the occurance of more serious drug users, with a higher reward system for dealers, which in-turn, heightens the need for an increased War on Drugs.

At 3/1/08 07:22 PM, Sp10x wrote: It isn't a FOSSIL FUEL seeing as it's not made from the remains of decomposed dinosaurs.

Neither is coal. But it's still called fossil fuel. It's a generic term.

The amount of oil that we know about would take ridiculous amounts of dinosaurs to produce.

Listen, oil, as it exists today is not made of dinosaur fossils at all (at least, not the land based ones).

The layers that contain oil were layed down in the world's oceans, not on land. Dinosaurs that die on land get eaten by microbs and other insects and animals right down to the bone, which turn to dust, except the rare case of being swallowed in a marshy swamp, or even rarer case of being buried in landslide etc, and creating actual fossils, which is a petrification process (ie. turning organic material into stone, etc).

The reason oil is made in the oceans is because the dead matter (mainly brine, krill, plankton, and other microsopic species, but including larger fish, and the odd Mosasaur - which for what it's worth, are not actually dinosaurs, but marine reptiles {confused yet?!} ) ..all dead matter falls to the bottom of the ocean where lack of light and oxygen keep it from decaying in fast order, or being eaten by other spieces. Over millions of years this accumulation gets buried and so on and so forth..

PRESSURE + VAST AMOUNTS OF TIME = OIL

teh edn.

At 3/1/08 07:10 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote: Japan invaded Australia.

LOL. And they're still invading Australia 'til today.

Invasion is a bit strong. They invaded China and Korea wickedly. But only people in Darwin were really put directly at risk on Australian soil (that actually died from bombing i mean). Let's face it, from Darwin to next major city is perhaps few thousand kms, though pretty arid terrain.

Plenty of distance for Australian "dad's army" and "boy's brigade" conscripts to ambush them. Technically Japan was overstretched going down to Australia. Equally doubtful that the American mainland was ever likely to be a target for Japanese ground invasion as some people seem to suggest.

COAL, METHANE, ...

"Fossil Fuel" is a term given to age-old non-renewable energy deposits. Just because there arn't any actual fossil or prehistoric animal remains in some fuel or other doesn't remove it from fossil fuel grouping.

..unless ofcourse you have a much better label to suggest?

At 3/1/08 11:37 AM, morefngdbs wrote: But I find comparing the 9/11 attack with the bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki to be similar to comparing grapes with coconuts...

Dissimilar as they are, the sobering comparison was the whole point of the discussion via OP's LINK.

That point was raised in an effort to explain to a new "political generation" of 13 to 18 y/o's (arcansi stepping in as classic case ;-) ..that War is Hell, ..War has Targets, ..Targeting Civilans isn't the exclusive providence of Terrorists, and ..America pretty much set the standard for using Terror Weapons (WMD) to achive Victory.

Historical thou it is, it's relevant enough and recent enough to put some perspective into the whole "outrage and hate" felt by these young Patriots who think of 9-11 as the only crime against civilians in their short existence.

..by dropping nuclear bombs [on Japanese cities], the U.S. actually saved lives.

..or by dropping 1 nuke within sight of Tokyo (out to sea) with 1 days warning for reporters and cameras to witness it, could have saved even more.

9/11 was a terror attack.
but they chose to attack [WTC] a symbol of American Pride.

Symbol of Pride in American eyes, or a Symbol of Domination in the eyes of those who did it? That's the question.

Iraqi's used to feel great Pride, even under Saddam. For all the bad he did, he stood up to America's rhetoric by voicing Iraq's opinion on the world stage, he built Palaces of great elegance and displayed them on TV, he oversaw Iraq raise it's standard of living to one of the highest in the middle east, and on the whole he put down dissent and stopped rival factions slaughtering each other (albeit, by torture and fear of death). Sure, he had the occasional war against it's his neighbours (Iran, Kuwait), but heck, even America fully supported one of those.

Pride (ofcourse combined with propaganda) is a powerful tool for good OR bad. For every country it raises up the spirits of it's own people, it tears another apart.

Judging by subsequent events (the provocation of 2 as yet unfinished Wars.. a growing sense of chaos in middle east) ..then as you say, Pride could well have been the target.

The question remains; how should you then respond when someone attacks (mainly) your Pride, if only in order to provoke an overzealous or misguided retaliation?

.

At 3/1/08 03:44 AM, arcansi wrote: sanctions are not attacks,

You're quite right, sanctions only affect the young, poor, and elderly, who can't fight wars.

they are punishments that dont nessecarily kill,

O..kay.

we dont cut off food in case if youve read about our sanctions.

I thought it was called "food for oil" program.. thank god they had something you needed so bad.

We mostly cut off luxuries, (eg entertainment goods, electronics, american goods, toys etc., cloth)

but we do not cut off food. That would violate international law, established by the un.

No, you traded with the Iraqi establishment.

And u cannot put sanctions on a country without the UNs approval.

Pardon?

We have not fought the middle east for decades and decades, theyve been killing eachother since biblical times. We havnt attacked them, that would go against the UN,

The whole war in Iraq is against the U.N's founding Charter; "prohibits any nation from using force against another. The charter allows for only two exceptions to this rule: when force is required in self-defense (Article 51) or when the Security Council authorizes the use of force to protect international peace and security ...nethier of which we're observed.

which if u didnt know WE established the [UN].

Oh, i see. ^That explains it.

America fights for peace, the Middle East fights for fanatacism.

War for Peace. Yeah, i got that part already.

.

At 3/1/08 03:24 AM, arcansi wrote: ... But anyways, the USA had never attacked the middle east once before 9/11.

No, not once. A shit load of times.

Directly, and indirectly.

Not to mention crazy ass food and medicine sanctions...

What sort of attacks are we talking about? A bullet in Saddam's head for 30 Mil. or decade upon decade upon decade of war?

At 3/1/08 03:11 AM, arcansi wrote:
u think 9/11 is justified right? No, there arent words to describe how unjustified it was. America had never fired a single missle into the middle east before 9/11..

And you were like 5 years old when 9-11 happened, right?!

At 3/1/08 02:02 AM, arcansi wrote: boming in Pearl Harbour (US Military Pacific Stronghold) = start of war.
2 nukes on japanese cities = end of war

bombing in 9/11 = start of war
America's retaliation = start of World War 3

Fixed x 2.

At 3/1/08 01:54 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: Japanese women and children deserved it, America's yuppy business district (and Pentagon) did not.

Fixed!

At 2/29/08 10:14 PM, AdamRice wrote: Most charismatic prof. I've ever met, real great guy.

Oh well, i'm convinced then. Fuck the science.

At 2/28/08 10:42 PM, AdamRice wrote: That's real, from the DOE. No bullshit here, I promise.

Wholy Shit!

So DOE expects production to double in next 20 years, then collapse 80 or 90% within 20 years from peak??

Forgive my saying so, but that's the most ludicrous "offical" graph i've seen in my life.

At 2/28/08 09:48 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 2/28/08 09:44 PM, JudgeDredd wrote:

At 2/28/08 09:36 PM, Noolie wrote: I mean why can't we just drill deeper to get more oil?

If we drill any deeper we'd tap into the Earth's core. That's why.

logical leap: core = steam = free energy.

My car actually runs on magma

Pah!

My car runs off flux with the Earth's magnetic core. According to the blurb from the brochure, "Earth's iron core spins faster than the Earth itself, floating within a liquid iron ocean. The resulting excess speed differential creates a massive flux (causing the Earth's own magnetic field infact) and resulting in free energy within stationary magnets".

Don't quite understand it myself, but it works great!

At 2/28/08 09:36 PM, Noolie wrote: I mean why can't we just drill deeper to get more oil?

If we drill any deeper we'd tap into the Earth's core. That's why.

logical leap: core = stream = free enregy.

Darn it, i thought this was an announcement for a new micro-currency for NG trade & exchange between members.. pah! >: (

At 2/27/08 02:30 PM, FUNKbrs wrote: Modern humanism is the basic belief in the human good, the idea that all humans are born as things of positive social and moral value, and only exposure to negative external elements causes corruption in the individual. This belief is predicated upon a logical scientific history in which humans are basically a type of animal evolved from other animals throughout a period of time that makes a single human lifetime inconsequential. Furthermore, it commonly assumes on faith that human cooperation can overcome any obstacle and presents itself as a message of hope.

As Al suggests, this is Standard Humanism, not Modern Humanism. However extending the concept into it's modern context certainly has merit. In essence, we all possess pre-programed survival mechanisms which include human traits such as tribalism, moralism, and trust or faith. Subverting these are our animal survival instincts such as distrust, indulging our pleasure centers, or our "kill or be killed" reflex, aka Survior-Island mentality.

..humans are naturally limited in their mental capacity to deal with the stress of social interraction. In short, that humans are not naturally social or benevolent at all, and that altruism is at best a limited tribal phenomenon.

The limitation is not an evolutionary mental one, or at least, not a higher-function mental limitation. If you examine an individual who lacks social skills (Autism for example) you find trust and decency are innate, but the ability to dissern trust and decency in others is perhaps totally lacking. The so-called higher-functions we possess (however detrimental of our natural benevolence) are our ability to finely attune to likelyhood and probability, in particular, with respect to social interaction.

Studies suggest that our greatest mental capacity therefore is mostly harnessed unconciously pre-evaluating scenarios, not the least, including the third of our lives spent in sleep. A big chunk of our down time, quiet introspection, or whatever you wish to call it, is also spent on this unconcious social pre-evaluation. Our need to be alone, or to "be in our own space", is tied to our ability to reason things out on an unconcious level, and thus allowing us to traverse our social lives in a more efficient manner. In a busy modern setting, our survial (job, etc) still heavily depend upon it.

In comes a theology that admits to the existence of intrinsic human flaw. Human beings are insufficient to the task of living in civilization and need laws to maintain stability.

Here, then, is the quest for solitude.

.

At 2/21/08 06:48 PM, morefngdbs wrote: This topic reminded me of a rumor/story that U.S. currency ,like 4 out of every 5 bills checked had trace amounts of cocain on them.

Then explain why they use drug dogs to "detect if money is drug money" and confiscate it if dog barks (..saw it on COPS)