Letters to the Editor
ondelette
Published Letters: 1988 Editor's Choice: 19
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I hate to be cynical...
[Read the article: George Tenet cashes in on Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...but if a ball player can sign a contract for tens of millions of dollars on the excuse that he isn't going to be able to work at playing ball more than a few years, how much compensation should a guy get for being to blame for just about everything the right, left, and center in America thinks is wrong with the world?
To date, he is an asshole because:
1) He didn't warn the President about 9/11 loud enough
2) He didn't warn the President about Iraq loud enough
3) He didn't warn the President about Niger loud enough
4) He didn't quit when the President was about to lie
5) He didn't quit when the President was about to kill
6) He waited too long to write his book
7) He didn't wait long enough to cash in on lucrative contracts
8) You name it
9) He did it
10) He did everything no one else wants to be blamed for, including:
11) the press, the people, the government, the blogs, the religious nuts, the atheists, the scientists, the scientologists, the NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, NPR, CBS, ABC, CNN, TIA, CVA, FLA, TLA, SNAFU, FUBAR, PNAC,...
He's getting, by my count, about $10M for that, how much does Roger Clements get?
A warning to the Right: blame the CIA too many times and they won't do your dirty work.
A warning to the Left: blame the CIA too many times and the neocons will get off scot free.
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OT -- Kurdistan
[Read the article: Nude car washes, presidential vetoes and more]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This story is at http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20070505-065859-7931r
BAGHDAD -- Cellphone videos have appeared on the Internet showing an Iraqi mob stoning and kicking to death a 17-year-old girl after she offended her minority community by eloping with a Muslim man.
Doaa Khalil Aswad was a member of northern Iraq's Yazidi minority and, according to reports in the Kurdish media, she was murdered last month by her own family after she fell in love with a Muslim.
In the video, Aswad is shown lying on a road as men kick her and throw a large lump of rock or concrete at her head. Her face is drenched in blood.
Uniformed and armed officers of the Iraqi police stand by as a crowd storms her home and do nothing to prevent the attack.
The slim, dark-haired girl is wearing a red tracksuit top and black underwear and during the beating, someone drapes a jacket over her to cover her bare legs.
At one point she struggles to sit up and cover herself, but a man kicks her in the face knocking her violently back to the ground.
The assault continues for several minutes and she does not appear to cry out or resist her attackers.
Members of a large crowd can be seen filming the murder on their cellphones, some of them shouting or kicking out at the cowering victim.
Nobody tries to help her.
"Oh look outside the window there's a woman being grabbed
They've dragged her to the bushes and now she's being stabbed
Maybe we should call the cops and try to stop the pain
But Monopoly is so much fun, I'd hate to spoil the game..."
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Interesting Kurtz video
[Read the article: Brit Hume is a "journalist"; Keith Olbermann is "partisan"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But why is Howard Kurtz giving us pundit expertise from Amy Holmes, someone who is so expert she is still too young to serve as president? Can we at least have our so-called pundits be as expert as the basic level required by the Constitution for the office?
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@Mona
[Read the article: Brit Hume is a "journalist"; Keith Olbermann is "partisan"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't agree that the "government" has no business "saving" you against your will. That would depend on you being alert, oriented, and informed. Otherwise, the emergency medical system in this country does not accept your consent or rejection of medical procedure.
That is as it should be. If you think the market and private enterprise will swoop down on a diabetic in insulin shock, miraculously battle their hypoglycemic combativeness and get them the glucose they need, rather than just let them run aground and die, you are living in a very strange bubble.
On a lighter note, how could you possibly sort of like Tang?
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And another thing, piling on...
[Read the article: Brit Hume is a "journalist"; Keith Olbermann is "partisan"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...to what William Timberman just said, the obligations of the medical system outweigh the libertarian needs of individuals in any MCI, or in any epidemic situation. The government has always had, and has in the past used, its right to quarantine, and its right to keep order in medical situations.
The alternative is that anyone can exercise their right to believe in any rumor or miracle cure that comes along. That sounds alright and you can get plenty of libertarian adherence when you deal with non-communicable disease, like cancer or drug addiction.
Did you know that they almost wiped out polio last year? Here is where your right to believe in medical rumor runs aground. The rumor went around many Muslim countries, and Muslim areas of countries, that the polio vaccine was actually a plot by the West to harm Muslims, and so many refused to be vaccinated. Polio flared in those countries, particularly in the Sahel and India, and when the infected people went to Mecca during the Hajj, it spread worldwide again.
The WHO abandoned the initiative, the possibility of success having slipped permanently from their grasp for the forseeable future.
Do you know what the herd effect is? It is why river blindness is coming back in Africa. You need to cure the "herd" to stop endemic disease. In that case, you need to stop the symptoms (the disease is incurable) so the disease can't be transmitted. War caused a break in the import of the medicine that stops the symptoms. Another generation got infected. Where was your free market to rush in with it's shining sword and cure all ills? Or, like usual, didn't it give a damn?
Does your right to do what you want to yourself medically preclude my right to remain healthy? At what point is libertarianism just an excuse for ignorance and selfishness?