Letters to the Editor
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"Intellectuals start all the trouble in the world" - Noonan
Here, Peggy is Plagiarizing the thrust of one of Adolph Hitler's main arguments
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Ms. Peggy
manifests an exquisite combination of ignorance and arrogance. Without peer, she is the most pretentious person ever to walk this planet.
Unction thy name is Noonan.
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Denning
I'd be interested to see how Peggy Noonan would respond if someone were to point out to her what you pointed out about her statement about intellectuals. I'd have to say that you have made an indisputable point.
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Ghengis Khan - Intellectual
Pol Pot - Intellectual
Josef Stalin - Intellectual
Adolf Hitler - Intellectual
Osama bin Laden - Intellectual
Yep, intellectuals start all the trouble in the world.
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Thanks, Beth
The video clip that CNN embeds in their article (the article is linked at my sig) is the same one that Teeth Maestro had in his comments last night. CNN has slowed the film so it's easier to see what is happening. It really does look like a gunman went over the back of Bhutto's SUV and then "folds" himself. Whether that's from someone shooting the shooter, or from the SUV moving out from underneath him is hard to say - and maybe can't be said from the film. It does make one wonder. If the shooter was shot, there's another bullet wound victim out there. And, of course, the obvious question is, If Bhutto was shot, where is the gun that shot her?
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Re: Changing story on the Bhutto Assassination
The changes in the story -- that she hit her head while ducking from the bomb blast, and there were no gunshot wounds -- seem straightforward enough to me.
This is routine ass-covering by Musharraf and his minions, who have been loudly and repeatedly accused of Not Doing Enough to protect Benazir.
It's Blame the Victim on Steroids, the only thing Autocracies know when facing yet another disaster on their watch.
The regime will only survive if it is able to convince the local population -- first -- and the international skeptics -- second -- that it did All It Could to protect Benazir, and that they prevented the gunman from killing her, but, you know, it's just too tough to do anything about Determined Suicide Bombers, and well, if she hadn't Stood Up, she would have survived. Pity.
Etc.
Our media has been uncritically reporting the New Line on Benazir's death, because it is all they know how to do. Official Stories are the only authoritative stories; critics may complain or dispute them, but that doesn't change the Official Story.
The Problem, of course, is that Pervez is the Problem; and we can expect to hear calls for an invasion of Pakistan shortly after the New Year.
Holidays first.
No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up. -- Jane Wagner for Lily Tomlin, The Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe.
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*sigh*, forest for the trees
Except, of course, the shooter, presumably, is the one who detonated himself with the suicide bomb. A bullet wound, if there were one, would not be easily discerned in the resulting carnage.
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@ Coug444
Priceless, thanks. Once we're done laughing, though -- or crying, depending on where we are at particular moments -- it's not hard to see the fault lines of modern Republicanism in Starkman's summary. These can be exploited, and should be, if we want our country back. Even when heavily reinforced by embalmed cheerleaders like Ms. Noonan, doublethink has its limits.
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Peggy and Mel are both wrong!
Jewish intellectuals start all the troubles in the world!
You gave Noonan credit for having brains? Why?
Baye's Rule is highly questionable here because the true seroprevalence of HIV is unknown in the US. The headline of your article
This is a lie! I read about it on Lew Rockwell.com!
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Lack of education showing
Pol Pot - Intellectual
Josef Stalin - Intellectual
Adolf Hitler - Intellectual
Osama bin Laden - Intellectual
Yep, intellectuals start all the trouble in the world.
-- Aycharaych
Mr. Aycharaych, first you left Lenin off the list. And you apparently forgot (or more likely never knew) that history's greatest mass murderers, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, were all motivated by the intellectual writings of Hegel and Marx and in fact justified their action precisely because of these men's ideas. Hitler was motivated greatly by the writings of Nietzsche.
No, that doesn't make intellectuals bad, but it makes idiots like you look all the stupider when you spout off.
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WT
...embalmed cheerleaders like Ms. Noonan, doublethink has its limits.
-- William Timberman
I'd be proud to have penned that zinger.
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Shooter
This is what you wrote:
It is in fact the inability to know before having sex that leads to it's spread.
Nowhere did you state that sex was the statistically most common means of transmission. You are the one who ignored other means, not me. I was simply refuting your one-track over-simplification on transmission.
while completely ignoring the entire premise that one can't tell by looking at someone, who has HIV or not.
Certainly you can't tell by looking at everyone, but anyone who has seen pictures of AIDS victims in third world countries and those who are familiar with long-term survivors here in the US, would dispute that there are no physical manifestations apparent with this disease. Did you honestly not know what was killing Rock Hudson when you saw pictures of him?
My claim was that I have experience dealing with this disease, Shooter, and that is true. I have never claimed to be an expert. I also never claimed that sex wasn't the primary mode of transmission (see above). Statistics on transmission vary depending on the population you are considering, just as they do with other diseases.
Here's a good primer for you so you can educate yourself in hopes you'll stop sounding so ignorant in the future. The table with statistics is on page 5 of this UNAIDS report:
http://data.unaids.org/pub/Manual/2007/mot_manual_2007_en.pdf
The prevalence of HIV in injection drug users is 20%, the same as in MSM. The prevalence in those who have casual heterosexual sex is 13.1%. In sex workers it was 40%. So your point that sex is the main transmission risk factor is well-documented and understood by those who work in the field, but my point that IDU is also a significant factor is also well-documented.
As for your insults, since I do provide cites to back up my 'bitching' (as you would have known if you'd actually read my initial reply to Bucky), then I guess I'm an uncommon scold. Better to be an informed scold than an ignorant asshole.