No, we did it to save the 6.5 million Kurds out of the kindness of our hearts.


I'd be as surprised as you if Cheney's ever done anything out of the kindness of his heart. I still like the idea of saving those millions of Kurds even if Cheney only did it so he could pad his pockets.


And we only had to kill a million Iraqi's and turn another three million into refugees to do it.

Your wording says more about your world view than about what happened. You say killed, but died is more accurate. That you are content to lay every death since the US invasion on America and totally ignore the role of decades of living under a brutal sectarian dictator says everything. Your wording suggests that Iraqi's were peacefully united in one cause before the invasion, rather than living under the thumb of a vicious dictator that spent his time encouraging and cultivating sectarian hatred to secure his iron fisted rule.


or we won't give them the $120 billion dollars we promised them to help rebuild their country

Yes, the proof of America's evil intent is conditions being placed on billions of dollars of aid that America is offering to just give the Iraqi people?


Oil companies the underdogs?

Your the one that said they controlled less than 40% of the world's oil, not me. If your statements contradict each other look in the mirror.


Keep clutching at straws you racist war monger.

Funny you'd call someone racist while you pretend like Iraq was better off under Saddam.

"While in no danger of outright extinction, the most common edible banana cultivar 'Cavendish' (extremely popular in Europe and the Americas) could become unviable for large-scale cultivation in the next 10–20 years. Its predecessor 'Gros Michel', discovered in the 1820s, has already suffered this fate. Like almost all bananas, it lacks genetic diversity, which makes it vulnerable to diseases, which threaten both commercial cultivation and the small-scale subsistence farming."

oh the irony, evolution kills the very banana he is holding in his hands.

hmmmm,
this can be reversed quite easily.
and if a women is so repugnant as to play on a man's insecurity,she has lost all rights to be treated as a respectable person.
so lets fuck with this type of girl shall we?
1.any woman so shallow as to indulge in this self-absorbed practice has most likely spent a very long time cultivating a alluring image.this hides the underlying insecurity and low self-esteem issues she has.she craves attention to validate that she is a desirable woman.this means you should flirt with her,but also with her friends,her family and everybody else(innocently of course,dont be mean).this will confound her sensibilities,and most likely turn the tables fairly quickly.if she is being stubborn,just ask her "hey,does your friend have a man"?..yeah..that usually does it,no girl of this caliber would ever hang out with a girl they thought prettier than they are,and you inquiring about that friend just put them into a full panic attack and competition with their friend.
end result:you get the nookie.
2.be real.
i cannot stress this enough,be who you are,not what you think might get you laid.women(and this means ALL women) have a built in bullshit detector,and they ALL talk.so do yourself a favor and be real.real responds to real,and bullshit takes maintenance,upholding an image can be a job in itself..so dont bother.
3.have fun.
yeah,you heard me..have fun!
stop obsessing about her being naked,sex,sex,sex.oh..and did i mention sex?
a woman knows in the first 5 seconds if you are gonna get any.why waste time worrying about it?
its not like she is gonna come out and tell you,and the more you sit there panting like a dog,the more she is convinced that you would blow balls as a lover.
so knock that shit off and HAVE FUN!
if a woman has fun with you,you make her laugh and are interesting.
buddy..your gettin laid.
but if your following her around like a sick emo puppy.well..you may get a pity lay..but thats just..eww../shivers.
4.three day rule.
yeah yeah..it seems tacky,and girls say WTF..but it works.
call too soon and they think they "have" you,by the second day you may have them thinking..but not much.
third day is the charm.
why?
because at the start they thought they had you,by day three they want to know WTF is going on?WHY havent you called them?they were so SURE they had you...
tables a turnin grasshopper.
why not 4 days you ask?
well...by day 4 they are now pissed,and in their minds you can go fuck your egotistical self.who do you think you are?not calling them..phhht../shows the hand.
5.its ok to be friends.
let me say that again.
ITS OK TO BE FRIENDS.
its a win-win really.
so nothing really came of what you started.thats cool...
if you real and upfront,you have nothing to be ashamed of.not every women is going to jump your bones,nor you theirs.
here is the really cool thing.
since you were real and upfront,there is no bullshit to master,you can be you.
that means you can be friends..yep..
she will view you as "emergency sex" and you have a pretty hot friend who is better than any of your buddies talking you up.
why?
how many time i have to tell you?
WOMEN TALK!!!
this failed relationship/lover turned friend will introduce you to more women than any family reunion ever will!
*warning* this can backfire sometimes when the woman has developed "feelings" unbeknownst to you.nothing more uncomfortable than having your "best friend" break down in a drunken crying jag about how you slept with her friend knowing how she felt about you.
didnt you KNOW she was secretly in love with you!
heartless bastard!
6.disregard all these steps,for in actuality all women are the unfathominable mystery of the universe.you will never figure them out because THEY cant figure themselves out.
just nod your head,say "yes" often,and realize you have no clue.
but avoid women like this one in the video..they r teh suck.
(for a complete transcript of this lecture,and of enoch's previous lectures.
send a check or money order to:pox 3275 white plains ne 45876)

Puzzling. Isn't that the kind of crazy they are trying to cultivate? Does this mean someone higher up at FOX feels some kind of responsibility for the shooting?

Twats like you that get all supercillious over my opinion on something.

If i didn't trust my own opinion, whose opinion should i trust? Would you like to compile a list so that i can do some background reading and decide what my opinions really are?

Fuck slam poetry, fuck you. Mirror analogy and irony duly noted.

In reply to this comment by RhesusMonk:
I do not have the level of bullshit acceptance that Eric has cultivated. Pompous? Look in the fucking mirror, Holmes. Anyone who trusts his own opinion with authority is, by definition, pompous. Aloofness? Like, you mean they don't know that they're performing on a stage? Like, they're just talking to a friend? You watch Rives or Saul Williams and think, "That guy's pretending like he's just talking to me like his friend"? Dude, I get that you don't like poetry, but don't bullshit me with obviously fabricated, after-the-fact reasoning. What is it that you really don't like?

Well the good news is that you're still young and beautiful. The bad news is that you won't be for long. The path you are on ends you as an old-timer with the boys down at the local, the ladies long gone home. Please understand that I regard this a distinguished path for a certain kind of gentleman. I, for one, have planned it that way. I have cultivated a broad palette for acceptable intoxicants, I live within walking distance of my favorite establishment, and have a collection of fine hats.

I also have a really fine woman and a penchant for inexpensive, time-consuming, yet rewarding pursuits. Do keep your eye open for these.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my question. I truly appreciate it.

In reply to this comment by dannym3141:
Totally reasonable question. I hate the aloofness and pomposity of the whole thing. Which regularly turns out to be a pretty flacid attempt at 'slamming' anything. I hate the term "slam poetry" too. There's something about that combination of words and what it refers to that makes me feel violent towards inanimate objects.

There's also something about the type of person that is drawn to write/perform "slam poetry" that turn my stomach. All of them i've seen so far remind me of the little skinny people that study philosophy and cultivate whispy little beards and put rediculous looking berets on their heads, and aim to talk over the heads of anyone that doesn't look, think and dress like they do.

People like darius daneche(sp) from the first series of pop idol (uk).

I'd rate it as one of the lowest forms of wit.

In reply to this comment by eric3579:
What is it about slam poetry you dislike so much? I'm just curious.

In reply to this comment by dannym3141:
Fuck slam poetry.

Totally reasonable question. I hate the aloofness and pomposity of the whole thing. Which regularly turns out to be a pretty flacid attempt at 'slamming' anything. I hate the term "slam poetry" too. There's something about that combination of words and what it refers to that makes me feel violent towards inanimate objects.

There's also something about the type of person that is drawn to write/perform "slam poetry" that turn my stomach. All of them i've seen so far remind me of the little skinny people that study philosophy and cultivate whispy little beards and put rediculous looking berets on their heads, and aim to talk over the heads of anyone that doesn't look, think and dress like they do.

People like darius daneche(sp) from the first series of pop idol (uk).

I'd rate it as one of the lowest forms of wit.

In reply to this comment by eric3579:
What is it about slam poetry you dislike so much? I'm just curious.

In reply to this comment by dannym3141:
Fuck slam poetry.

That was a promote well spent, my friend.

In reply to this comment by EDD:
*promote

>> ^qualm:
I think you'd have to be a professional contortionist to convince me that Alex Jones video isn't a naked display of racist hate.


To identify oneself with a particular race, with a particular country or with certain ideologies yields security, satisfaction and flattering self-importance. This worship of the part, instead of the whole, cultivates antagonism, conflict and confusion.

— J. Krishnamurti, 4 June 1944.

Do not let us be clouded by words, names or labels which only bring confusion as Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and Mohammedans, or as Americans, Germans, English, Chinese. Religion is above all names, creeds, doctrines. It is the way of the realization of the supreme, and virtue is not of any country, race or of any specialized religion. We must free ourselves from names and labels, from their confusion and antagonism, and try to seek through highest morality that which is. Thus you will become truly religious and so will your State. Then only will there be peace and light in the world. If each one of us can understand that there can be unity only in right thinking, not in mere superficial, economic devices, when we become religious, transcending craving for personal immortality and power, for worldliness and sensuality, only then shall we realize the deep inward wisdom of peace and love.

— J. Krishnamurti, 28 May 1944

I doubt farming is the only reason that made this land arid and infertile. If this site is really that old, it was there even before the end of the last ice age and the beginning of the Holocene. The Younger Dryas before the Holocene was the last cold snap. According to wiki it transformed a lot in the area:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas
"The Younger Dryas is often linked to the adoption of agriculture in the Levant. It is argued that the cold and dry Younger Dryas lowered the carrying capacity of the area and forced the sedentary Early Natufian population into a more mobile subsistence pattern. Further climatic deterioration is thought to have brought about cereal cultivation. While there exists relative consensus regarding the role of the Younger Dryas in the changing subsistence patterns during the Natufian, its connection to the beginning of agriculture at the end of the period is still being debated. See the Neolithic Revolution, when hunter gatherers turned to farming."

Also after the Younger Dryas, the end of the last ice age would have coincided with a ~100m rise in sea level, maybe prompting stories of a great flood, later morphing into Noah's story.

You win the game by cultivating distaste for people and life in general.

I don't really have any negative feelings about you either way, I met alot of troops like you in Kuwait already, they were all pissed they weren't fighting a conventional military force under a very vague mission statement of bringing Freedom and Democracy. Its hard to do anything when you have no definitive objective or exit strategy. Surprisingly to me a lot of them fell in love with the place and went native, but that happened in Vietnam and other conflicts as well.

The drug problem in Afghanistan is economical, when the Taliban took over they banned the drug trade with their usual heavy hand tactics, when chaos began the drug trade began all again. Culturally alot of people cultivated it for medicinal use, which explains my own rather liberal views towards drugs. But now mostly its a cash crop, for most its a means of survival though there are farms that are solely created to feed back funds into the Taliban movement and other warring factions. The old "its okay to grow this because it only destroys the infidel" ignoring the large drug abuse levels in the local population, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and many other nations through which it makes its way.

In terms of imposing culture I think alot of US military and political planners, coming from the top down Bush belief that "democracy will simply flourish given the chance" implemented alot of very silly political and economical ideas. I remember reading about the imposition of democratic elections in Iraq in rural tribal areas, the US civies where then shocked to find that everyone voted by tribal alliances and background. It's again a failure to read the human terrain of the battlefield in the same way we had occur in Vietnam.

This aspect is covered very well in several chapters of Dexter Filkins The Forever War - http://www.amazon.com/Forever-War-Dexter-Filkins/dp/0307266397
Showing the disparity of understanding between coalition forces and the local population, I recommend it as unlike many books it stays politically neutral with no preaching on either side but rather an account of a journalist who went through Afghanistan and Iraq during the opening stages of the war.

In reply to this comment by smooman:
As per our last "discussion" you probably dont like me much but I think i just found some common ground =)

In reply to this comment by Farhad2000:

Given the last 8 years, I believe the Western world needs to engage the Arab world in dialog but it must respect the cultural background of the region and not just think that it can westernize ideas through brute force and seemingly endless criticism of it's religion.

I, for one, absolutely HATE the idea of westernizing Arab and Persian nations (namely Iraq and Trashgan....I mean Afghanistan). One of the platoons in my unit, while we were in Afghanistan, went out on a mission with the objective of demolishing a cannabis field. I was livid when I found out. These are a people who have been a nation far, far longer than we (the USA) and here we are telling them, forcing them even, to be like us while completely disregarding centuries of culture and history. Fuck that!

>> ^vairetube:
the banana thing really explains... evolution and natural selection...
animals preference = most used; propagated seeds in excrement = natural selection of the most used = handy banany!
all he proves is that animals know what they like to eat... he could have made a much more confounding (read: better, to creationists) argument out of the origin of such preferences.


Unfortunately, it doesn't work quite the way you put it. I wish it did, because it would be so much more hilarious.

Cultivated bananas are sterile so the seeds in excrement don't do anything. Banana plants are propagated by offshoots. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana#Cultivation)

What it does demonstrate is evolution by artificial selection, which shares many similarities with evolution by natural selection.

Ray Comfort is right that the banana is intelligently and ingeniously designed. Humans made it.

e.g.
The Breadbasket of South Korea: Madagascar
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1861145,00.html
South Korea's Daewoo Logistics in november 2008 has negotiated a 99-year lease on some 3.2 million acres of farmland (i.e. 40 percent of the best arable land) on the dirt-poor tropical island of Madagascar, off southern Africa's Indian Ocean coast, to cultivate and import corn (3/4) and palm oil (1/4).