bakerstreet

bakerstreet

Joined Member # 217
0 Posts 163 Replies 7,083 Reputation
Reply to US is going to war tomarrow... dang... in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Baghdad Bob, as he is referred to now, hasn't been seen since that last press conference. Brief hiatus or air-strike? Time will tell. One blankety-blank I would like to see sit for a long, painful interview is the Iraqi ambassador to the UN. He made a lot of outrageous statements throughout this affair that I would like to see fed back to him in slow monotone. Granted, all these guys were doing what they were told to do, but the ambassador frequented 4-star restaurants and

1,697 Replies 251,783 Views
Reply to Over 3 million dead in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

paxx: the situation wasn't much different in Somalia when we went there. We were not 'welcomed'. Black Hawk Down doesn't need a sequel. If anyone goes to help they should go fully prepared to cause a great deal of damage before they can help anyone. P.S. the estimated number of people 'purged' by Stalin is around 40 million. Some say a lot more were killed in China. 'Millions' isn't all that odd, anymore. Try and tell that to people blocking traffic to protest what amounts to a po

47 Replies 12,685 Views
Reply to US is going to war tomarrow... dang... in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

SA and the rest said that they would increase production during the war to prevent a shortage of oil. They did, and in addition there were stern warnings about price gouging to retailers. Not only did the price not go up, it dropped. Now that oil is cheap, the oil producing nations in the middle east are worried about an oil glut and they are discussing dropping production. At least that was the talk on CNBC yesterday. I'm sure there are more scary, clandestine reasons floating arou

1,697 Replies 251,783 Views
Reply to Who do you think is responsable? in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

depends on what the 'problems' are, and what you mean by 'vendor'. My understanding of the law goes like this. The retailer (vendor) wouldn't be liable for a product if it exploded and killed someone, that would be on the head of the original manufacturer. If a subcontractor (vendor) made a problem part for the product that killed someone, the decision would have to be made whether it was a design flaw in the product as a whole, or a defect in the part made. Usually both would be hel

7 Replies 2,636 Views
Reply to Over 3 million dead in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

moshi: /nod I think the goal is a weak or virtually non-existent secular government that can be substituted by Taliban style rule given years or decades as the population is converted or beaten into submission. Heck, the better part of Afghanistan hated the rules they lived under, but they tolerated it because the Taliban had enough muscle to enforce rule. I wonder how quickly places like Congo would fall into line if they considered it the only alternative to these roving militias.

47 Replies 12,685 Views
Reply to Over 3 million dead in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

moshi: it is pretty much common knowledge that we were fighting Al Queda in Somalia. Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia have active terrorist populations connected with the government opposition. Unrest breeds chaos, chaos begs order, radical Islam provides order. It worked in Afghanistan. You mention the Sudan yourself, though like you say it is more a question of 'chicken or the egg'... I have no doubt that you can fan out from there and find numerous states with active rebel populatio

47 Replies 12,685 Views
Reply to Over 3 million dead in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

I dunno. Look at what it took to have something done in Yugoslavia. The UN is still in charge in Kosovo, if i am not mistaken. In cases like the democratic republic of Congo, UN intervention would simply unite both warring factions against the incoming peacekeepers. It should be done, of course, and as soon as possible, but I don't think the world could stomach the bloodbath. If I am wrong, and they accepted the peacekeepers, how long would we stay? What would we use as proof of an

47 Replies 12,685 Views
Reply to US is going to war tomarrow... dang... in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

" It's known to cause cancer and birth defects " oddly, the last few times those claims have been made, no subsequent studies could find a link. Now of course, you'll say that those studies were rigged, so why am i posting. Do you often wonder who ate your strawberries? ** As for education, how are you impose upon them *what* to study, and who will teach them? How would a radical madrassa education compare to a US public school education, as far as tolerance and un

1,697 Replies 251,783 Views
Reply to US is going to war tomarrow... dang... in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

I am all for progress, but if others lag behind you can't just trust that they will bow to your superior ethics. More likely they will see your ethics as a weakness. There isn't really less war now, anyway, it is just more often waged economically. Later, maybe we'll find more and more benign ways to wage it until it no longer resembles its progenitor. Nice thought. Africa is a golden example of what happens when part of the world evolves past a primitive practice (colonialism) an

1,697 Replies 251,783 Views
Reply to US is going to war tomarrow... dang... in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

no, crea, 'Peace and Coexistence' exist in my world, but they are the product of stewardship, not accidental occurrences. If it were we wouldn't need police or law. Go to any demilitarized zone, go to any nation with no law, and see if the natural order is 'Peace and Coexistence'. Take a look at the Ivory Coast, for instance. France expected peace and coexistence just to happen on its own? There is always someone there to beat you up and take your lunch money, that is nature

1,697 Replies 251,783 Views
Reply to Skinz.org Fate Lies In Your Hands in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

I hope no one thinks my post too uppity. Reading it again, I think it might seem so. As I said, I wish skinz the best, and hope that its owners insist on its continued existence, even if it is at a drastically reduced level of operation. That kind of commitment would rally a great deal of support, imho.

4 Replies 4,661 Views
Reply to US is going to war tomarrow... dang... in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Please, David, please clue me in on this thousand years of peace... Where? I'd bet dimes to donuts it never existed, and if it did it is a fragile anomaly in all of human history. " So why fight their wars and feed their greed and lust for power?" Because their nations, too, are ruled by "corporate execs, sleazy influence peddlers and marketing people" and they will behave as such whether we do or not. If we try to behave in a way outside the natural order, we'll find oursel

1,697 Replies 251,783 Views
Reply to US is going to war tomarrow... dang... in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

DavidK: I have a deep respect for you and Paxx, and I know I give you hell. Thing it, it isn't so much that I disagree with your beliefs, it is that I don't think they are functional. There is a reason Plato reserved his Ideals, his perfect prototypes, as untouchable... somewhere other than here. Machiavelli is on the other end of the scale, accepting only failure as a guide for morality. I see myself as Stoic, tending toward Marcus Auralius' description of such. Natural

1,697 Replies 251,783 Views
Reply to Skinz.org Fate Lies In Your Hands in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

The problem isn't features or content, it is user-confidence. It already has that 'please click my ads' feel. I have visited skinz a couple of times in the recent past, and it feels like instead of going back the the old skinz, it started back at the efront era; i.e. the beginning of the end. During the Efront era, and after, many of us would have much rather seen the site fall back to an affordable level of operation instead of straining for ways to pay for its unstoppable

4 Replies 4,661 Views
Reply to US is going to war tomarrow... dang... in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

They laughed at Carter, and it was a lot more sour when we just left the special ops smoldering in the sand. Wanna talk about Clinton? A hummer was not a mode of transit during his administration. 'Black Hawk Down' is now a training video. What the world really laughs at are people who talk big, get manhandled, and go home crying. If anything will be snickered-at this time it will be our 'Woody Allen'-esque introspection and self doubt. Give the West enough sad-eyed kids and you ca

1,697 Replies 251,783 Views
Reply to US is going to war tomarrow... dang... in WinCustomize Talk WinCustomize Forums

Xerraire : don't bother. *If* whatever we found ends up being WMD, anyone here who is against the war is gonna just claim we planted it. Anyone who can say we supplied the explosives for the WTC bombing and attacked Afghanistan so we could put in an oil pipeline is not gonna believe we found anything there. That's why DavidK has already predicted the WMD 'excuse' has fallen on its face, even before the fighting stops and we have a chance to look. He's not gonna believe them if we *DO*

1,697 Replies 251,783 Views