why not just have a permanent board where the anonymous posters can rant against the Jews and their evil treatment of the blameless Palestinians? then the rest of us can discuss the real and messy world.

"The Israelis insisted on becoming a cruel and draconian colonial nation in the aftermath of the six day war, falesly deceiving themselves into the notion that occupying Palestinian land and civilians is absoliutely indispensable to their security and exsistence."

How interesting. In our world, Israel expected to return the Golan to Syria, the West Bank to Jordan and the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for a treaty, and was faced by the Khartoum Resolutions, wherein the policy of no treaty, no peace, no Israel was spelled out. Not exactly what I'd call "Israelis insisting on becoming a cruel and draconian colonial nation". Particularly in view of the advances in Palestinian life expectancy and standard of living since 1967, after 20 years of stagnation under the Jordanian regime, presumably more benign?

But I won't eliminate the possibility of being blinded by bias to the obvious humane solution Israel rejected with their "insistence on becoming a cruel and draconian colonial nation". So, what would that be? Actually annexing the West Bank as part of Israel, and giving the residents full Israeli citizenship, like the Arab residents of Israel proper have? Would that not count as colonialism, and be welcomed by Jordan and Egypt? Founding a new nation out of the territory they captured? Again, something that neither Jordan, nor Egypt, nor anyone else would complain about?

What was the benign and humane solution Israel avoided in their colonial determination, when left holding the sobbing baby, as the saying goes?

you have a hot date that night? or a tee-time in the later afternoon? and that terrorist refuses to spill the beans? are you supposed to give up the pleasures of life just because the liberals don't want to make some terrorist uncomforable? in that case, the terrorists have won!!

we can punish the american public for their complicity in letting this travesty go on. right.

just how drunk were you guys? (makes a difference.)

you could run this ad along with Red Dawn.

it's pretty obvious to most people that in this country, we rarely let people just die in the street without an attempt, particularly if they are not penniless (ironically) so despite Obama's belief, it's tempting for young and healthy to run without insurance, assuming if it ever comes down to it, their lives will be saved. it seems unlikely that we will decide to let the uninsured die. so, i suggest that folks who do not wish insurance should be able to opt out, but only if they can post a bond to cover the cost of any medical treatments they may need unexpectedly. A few million ought to do it. The govt could keep it in escrow and earn interest for the owner. That oughta satisfy everybody.

i read obama has a black baby!

"building up the Iraq war as unwinnable"

Remind me again... how do you "win" an occupation?

Heh heh. I guess, by staying there forever. "You want us to leave? we'll show you".

i live in the northern us. i don't mind that incandescents give off heat. right now, i crave heat, there is no such thing as waste heat. i realize it costs me more to acquire heat from the electric outlet than the oil tanker, but on the other hand the oil is probably burned more efficiently in the power plant than my furnace. at very least, any calculations of how much money I save with fluorescents should subtract out the cost of replacing the heat.

now in the summer, i don't need the heat, and have to air condition the house. but at that time, the lights aren't on much except at night, when the need for AC is less. and of course, i can swap out to fluoresecnts and back in the winter.

which, is basically, what i do. i use both incandescents, and fluorescents based on a number of criteria, including energy efficiency/cost, but net efficiency including whether the heat is wasted or not.

so, a couple of days ago, salon writes about a beef processor that torments dying cows and ends up shipping probably contaminated beef to the schoolchildren of america.

and today, salon writes about the show where the kid who was setting a cat on fire blows the head off one of the major characters.

we are so screwed. again.

"I rely more on the teachings of the Bible than the teachings of a church"

evangelicals, eh? back when I was a college boy, we'd all sit around passing the pipe and somebody would say 'Like, I'm totally spiritual; but like, I'm just not into organized religion' and we would all nod enthusiastically at his wisdom.

responsible scientists are conservative in their estimates; give us predictions of most likely changes without taking into account hypotheticals, minimum predicted values, etc. in order NOT to be seen as making a big deal out of nothing. then, when it comes to light inevitably that some of the hypotheticals are in fact real, so that those minimum estimates are in fact lower than reality, what do the skeptics say? "see, the estimates are worthless"