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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I am a big fan of the threaded structure because it is self organizing and allows many more people to participate. It also encourages the shy posters, who have much to contribute, to speak up in corner conversations and gain valuable experience. It can be intimidating to demand the floor.
I think about it like a party. Every good party has many different sub conversations, but there are always a few people that can pull disparate conversations together by pure will. Streams that connect to rivers that diverge again.
Your point about community is a very good one. User ranking of posts can help highlight good posts, but also can encourage inbreeding and retribution.
Ultimately, single thread discussions can only scale so far. A pond can only hold so many turtles. The limits of food and living space keep new turtles out and old ones seeking new ponds. Threaded discussions are a way to make the pond deeper.
While a threaded system does not discourage insults, it does encourage complements.
Glenn Greenwald extrapolates from president-elect's words after paying lip-service to waiting to see what the actual policies are, criticizes resulting conclusions about non-actual future policies, achieving the staggering result of a leak confirming that the president-elect intends to make policy a promise that he made a major plank of is platform. Greenwald then crows about the importance of criticizing politicians who nominally share one's ideological orientation, suggesting the incident as a rebuke to 'defenders' he imagines to have suggested otherwise, but who in fact have done little maore than agree with Greenwald's own admonition to wait for the actual policies! Read all about it!
Not mentioned in Mr. Greenwald's statement of his own importance in the fight for restoration of the rule of law was the fact that the president-elect's aides, despite pinpointing a date of January 20 for the executive action ordering the closure of Guantanamo, did not back away from or qualify their warnings that the process is complicated and may take up to a year to accomplish, raising questions about the actual value of the concession. Greenwald had earlier written that "[t]here's absolutely no good reason for Obama not to close Guantanamo immediately."
Sartre is quite germane to the discussion here, and some of us saw that bringing up elements from "Huis Clos" (No Exit) might add something profound or maybe not so profound to the overall discussion about captives, torture, existential threats, the utter absurdity and complete tragedy of it all and what the fuck to do about it or not. Sartre wrote in French; French may be a foreign language but it's not an alien one, and those to whom I addressed my (or Sartre's) words French without translation understood what I wrote. At least I think they did. (Hope?)
Others might not have understood it (though I'm sure you did, my French being as rusty and unused for at least as many years as yours, so I can't exactly prate in French these days) but it should hardly a capital offense. Really.
Don't be such a spoilsport.
Live a little.
Vive la Revolution!
"I somehow doubt if the Palestinians enter into his calculations much."
Exactly.
I say go, Britney! I dig your curves, and I hope you and your kids can emerge from the cesspool that is Hollywood and the modern music industry.Britney made much more of herself in 25 years than Sarah has in 40. And she gave the world much more creative and enjoyable art.
Oh yeah, we were talking about music, weren't we..
Heard any lately?
Steele the First
Tuesday, September 11, 2007 07:06 PM
Doesn't like Jews, likes Britney! Go figure!
OK, I just limned a prolix paean to the principle that the moderator who moderates least, moderates best.
Nevertheless: since you had to put all those automated checks and balances in there anyway, Glenn-- is there a way to tweak the force field to block anyone with "NY" in their nym?
If they were not terrorists before they went to Guantanamo, they will surely have the proper motivation to be terrorists if and when we set them free. -- Steele The First
No doubt, but the MSM will have a different take on the blowback:
Military reports rise in Gitmo detainees rejoining terror fight as Obama eyes closing prison
By LARA JAKES | Associated Press Writer
4:49 PM EST, January 13, 2009
"WASHINGTON (AP) — Terror suspects who have been held but released from Guantanamo Bay are increasingly returning to the fight against the United States and its allies [emphasis added], the Pentagon said Tuesday.
Sixty-one detainees released from the U.S. Navy base prison in Cuba are believed to have rejoined the fight, said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell, citing data from December. That's up from 37 as of March 2008, he said..."
http://www.newsday.com/topic/sns-ap-guantanamo-detainees,0,820068.story?track=rss-topicgallery
There's no question, as far as Ms Lakes and the AP are concerned, that they were terrorists before they got to Gitmo. No one need question whether these men, after years of illegal detention and torture, joined the fight because of their ordeal.
Well... pages 28 - 31 were pretty funny. Erm, there was an obvious shift by page 33. I miss Art, too, as I simultaneously respect the responsibilities of the blog's owner. Jebbie, yours is a most generous offer. Thank you. Sometimes, I think I need mood moderators to deal with this thread. Seems I can go from happy to sad within a page or two. And, have my rusty French polished in between. Better than going to the hairdresser's.
Ondelette, I would ask if you've seen this report on Tetris and PTSD?
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004153
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090108151700.htm
And, have my rusty French polished in between.
______________________________________
I've never heard this particular euphemism before, and I'm still not sure if it means what I think it means.
But, anyway, um... vive la France!
"That happens for one clear reason: because one side of the debate (the AIPAC faction) is strong and aggressive in its criticisms and pressure tactics and the other side (the faction wanting an even-handed U.S. approach) is not."
This is incredible. You post an article and get a THOUSAND replies, most of them vehemently against Israel's violent carnage.
Yet no one can organize the kind of pressure that Obama bowed to on the Guantanamo issue?
Let's take a self-critical look at our inaction, especially by we Americans. At least in Europe they marched. What are we doing over here besides complaining and huffing and puffing: Oh, it's so horrible what's happening to the Palestinians..what's on TV tonight?
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
