Rex Kickass

Almost as funny as this. http://www.combat4christ.com

QUOTE(YASNY @ Feb 11, 2006 -> 08:07 PM) Why are people not understand the concept of first response? Did anyone notice that 'beyond New Orleans' was handled pretty damn well in Alabama and Mississippi? Yes, handled quite well on a state and local level. There are a lot of folk in Mississippi that would disagree with you.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Feb 11, 2006 -> 05:15 PM) I love how both parties play the fear card, yet neither has an actual plan to make things better. There is a reason I purposely didn't vote in 2004, and why that trend will continue; both parties name call and mud sling, but neither has anything resembling an actual plan. With all due respect, did you actually get to know who was running in your district? I can understand why you might feel that way with the President's election - but your Congressman, your Senator, your state legislator? They aren't all the same.

From the scenario you've painted, if the options don't work. We've lost. If an invasion fails, it's alright to assasinate the leader? Chances are if we invade a leader's country that any real threat would have already been fulfilled before we have the chance to "take him out." Further, if we did - it doesn't make the problem solved. "Taking him out" doesn't take the machinery away. One man governments aren't that common. North Korea survived Kim Il Sung's passing. And very little changed regarding the threat they posed. If Hugo Chavez were "taken out," it would only reinforce the legitimacy of his place - especially in situations where the leader was democratically elected to begin with and fairly popular. The only way that can even work is if the government is fully overthrown. And if we're a nation that believes in human rights and the idea of self-determination, we shouldn't believe in violent overthrows of foreign governments solely to bring one person to "justice."

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Feb 11, 2006 -> 12:12 PM) And the quotes that started this thread aren't Democratic "talking points"? Politics are so screwed up. How about those clowns in Congress? What a bunch of clowns.

QUOTE(minors @ Feb 11, 2006 -> 01:40 AM) Less Safe??? Now that is a good laugh mainly because of all the money Clinton took from the military. And it seems funny that after both 9/11 and the beginning of the Iraq war the liberals all said Bush was doing a solid job, and now just because the war has lost popularity the liberals are now saying that Bush is keeping us less safe? I guess we could always use the John Kerry line: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.” Could you imagine somebody like him being president, now that is scary. Is that sort of like George Bush being against DHS before he was for it?

QUOTE(YASNY @ Feb 11, 2006 -> 03:23 AM) Thank you. That's what I've been trying to say. The Feds, of course, have to shoulder their share of the blame. However, it seems like Blanco and Nagin are getting a free pass on this, when the ball started in their court. Blanco and Nagin won't get a free pass. They don't stand a chance at re-election. And there's a paper trail from Blanco asking FEMA and the Feds for assistance days before the hurricane by the way. I won't say she's blameless - but she did some things. Not enough, but some things.

QUOTE(minors @ Feb 11, 2006 -> 12:28 AM) I think the law is solid. I know the many of the southern states considering a law that limits abortions and outlaws gay marriage. But unfortunately the Supreme Court will not allow laws like this to stand There have been lots of laws limiting abortion that have been allowed to stand. DOMA has been allowed to stand too. Only when laws conflict with a state or federal constitution and with someone's rights are they usually overturned. And now for your entertainment pages of Republicans saying that liberals that run the courts don't let that happen followed by pages of Democrats saying that this is wrong and that the most activist judges are Republican and blah blah blah blah.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Feb 10, 2006 -> 02:25 PM) Don't tell me what's realistic. I worked for an airline and spent countless hours around jet airliners of all types. A 'shoe bomb' depending on how it is (for lack of a better word) calibrated would work just about right. Those doors are not made to withstand much at all, they're not reinforced. I don't care what deadbolts or locks have been put in place - those doors are extremely thin and can be taken out rather easily without causing much other damage. From what I gather is that in most planes, the cockpit doors have been replaced with something much more secure than was in the past. But I could be wrong.

Something this big had happened before. In New Orleans, historically. I don't buy that argument. Because the government had ample time to make plans and when the hurricane appeared headed there, to enact those plans. But for whatever reason, they didn't. Period. It's not like they started rescue efforts right away that failed, it's that nothing happened for days. Do I think there was intentional bigotry here? Of course not. Unintentional bigotry? Possibly. But it wasn't a white/black thing - because people in rural LA and MS got hit just as bad and there were plenty of white folk left in the lurch as well. I think it was a poverty thing. I think it was a rich/poor thing. If this had been a well off city, or area, that got hit, you would have seen relief come much faster. And btw, I don't find that to be a Republican or Democrat thing, it just seems to be the way we've traditionally acted as a country sadly.

And a two hour season finale means they're squashing four episodes into one night too. Great, more room for "The War At Home" or some other lame ass future Michael Rappaport project.

QUOTE(WCSox @ Feb 9, 2006 -> 09:42 PM) Yes, after Saddam killed 5,000 Kurds with sarin and mustard gas three years earlier, they were hostile towards him. The nerve of those insurgents! Well, let's start right in Iraq, where Saddam's regime ruthlessly murdered tens of thousands of Kurds, Shiites, and pretty much anybody else that he didn't like. Do you think that those atrocities suddenly ceased after the Gulf War? In addition, Saddam still possessed the technology for (and perhaps a stockpile of) nerve agents and missiles that could easily reach Israel. Given that he went out of his way to act like he was hiding such warheads from UN weapons inspectors, one had to at least consider him a threat to the region. Hell, he opened fire on Israel unprovoked back in '91. What was to stop him from playing the Islamafascist/anti-Israel/anti-American card and doing it again to drum up support in the Arab world? He was already giving $10,000 "rewards" to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. It seems to me that an attack on Israel (or a terrorist attack financed by him) would be the next logical step. I can understand why some people are not fans of the current war in Iraq, but taking out a guy like Saddam is justice long-overdue. All I'm saying is that there are legitimate explanations to why Saddam Hussein might have wanted to create the appearance of having WMD. And by the way, sending money to Palestinian families does not constitute a serious threat to Israel. And repressing his own people does not qualify as an act of aggression against another state. You said he was a threat to the region. And unless "the region" means ground entirely within the state of Iraq, he was not a threat to the region after 1991. His removal, in all actuality is doing more to destabilize the region than stabilize it.

QUOTE(WCSox @ Feb 9, 2006 -> 07:37 PM) Would that be the same Kurdish region that he gassed in the late '80s and the same Shia population that he'd been terrorizing throughout his tenure? :rolly I agree with your main point, but let's be honest about who the "hostile" person is here. I'm looking at this, or at least trying to, from what his point of view would be. The Kurds were hostile to his power and almost help to dislodge him in late 1991. This doesn't make Saddam Hussein any less of a terrible person, but it does make the freedom fighters in Iraq hostile to Saddam Hussein by definition. How was he a threat to the region? He couldn't even get any military close to any border he had. He didn't control the north of Iraq, he didn't have the military to challenge Iran, he couldn't get his military anywhere near Saudi Arabia or Kuwait without facing bombing on a daily basis and he was friends with Syria. Exactly what part of the region did he pose a threat to again?

Don't forget the inauguaration riot.

I'd agree. I think that Buchanan was indeed the worst president in US history.

QUOTE(WCSox @ Feb 9, 2006 -> 01:23 PM) That's pretty much the way I see it. If Saddam was going to blatantly stone-wall UN weapons inspectors and risk military retaliation, there's no way in hell he was going to hand over WMDs to the UN. WMDs gave him power and leverage in the Middle East. And given that everyone pretty much knew that we were going to overthrow him back in 2002, Saddam would've had ample time to move them to a friendly nation. After the first Gulf War, he knew that he couldn't stand up to the US. So, if invasion was inevitable, why not ship off the weapons and make Bush look like an ass? It's also just possible that Saddam Hussein was poor at brinkmanship games. Perhaps Hussein thought that the appearance of having WMD during this period of containment was a method of defense against other aggressive countries in the region, as well as a Kurdish regime that wanted independence, a hostile Shia population in the South and a United States that he hope would think twice before toppling him with WMD as a consideration. The U.S. was never really fooled about Hussein's military capacity I don't think. Although public language may have been different, the regime that they had placed on Iraq following the 1991 war seemed to stay relatively constant and successful.

Hans Blix had nothing to do with UNSCOM in 1998.

What I don't honestly understand is that it seems the number of jobs in my local paper doesn't grow day to day. Is the labor market really this tight? Or is it because a large number of people have left the workforce? I'm honestly confused. There are so many statistics regarding employment and some seem to be a direct contradiction of the others.

I always understood the idea of keeping all options open, but it seems to me that responsible countries never regard this as a viable option. In fact, it seems to be the option of the people we're currently fighting against. Mr Wong, what makes it acceptable to kill a foreign leader? What is the last resort?

Every day when I wake up, I thank God that I live in America. I live in a country that has a rich tradition since its beginnings of respecting human rights and respecting freedom. Our country has had its issues with it, in the past, but on the whole has found itself with more good on its side than bad. Part of the reasoning is a core belief that all people are created equal and deserve equal treatment. As such, our country does not advocate the assassination of anyone. Period. Why? Because we believe in the rule of law, and the idea of assasinating someone intentionally is contrary to the nature of justice itself. If we believe that a foreign leader is guilty of crimes against humanity, we do have a duty as a free people to work to bring that leader to justice. The act of doing so is a difficult one, a difficult balancing act between protecting the lives of our own citizenry with protecting the greater good of other people who may be unable to act on their own behalf. Simply "taking out" a foreign leader throws that balance completely away. It throws away the right that nations have to self-determination. If that leader does not agree with our interests, but is otherwise not a harm to our national security, what right do we have as a country to take away their nation's right to determine their own leadership? The answer is we don't. If that leader is a dictator and ruling his people with an iron fist, what right do we have to "take him out" without allowing the leader to be accountable to his own people for the sins he has committed? The answer is we don't. And the why is simple. We fight for a world where people can be free. And that includes being free from the worry of a government killing anyone in cold blood without due process or a system of justice. If, to acheive these goals, we violate the spirit of these goals - we acheive nothing.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Feb 8, 2006 -> 10:15 PM) Of course it has. If anyone speaks out against Bush, you love them. Any dips*** that says we need to continue to fund Hamas has it wrong. "We can't resist the temptation to forget that we all serve the Prince of Peace." Jimmy Carter.

Actually, my respect for Carter has grown tremendously in the last year.

Um from 1991 to 1998, UNSCOM did the disarming. And their 1998 assessment says that Iraq was 90-95% disarmed.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Feb 8, 2006 -> 08:26 PM) -President Bush is going to take away your student loans and your kids wont be able to go to college -President Bush is going to take away your Medicare -President Bush is trying to destroy Social Security HYPOCRITES!!!! President Bush has presided over a cut in the Pell Grant program and in his new budget seeks to slash it further. Medicare Part D is a disaster and is a handout to prescription drug companies and will ultimately cost Seniors more than before. In his new budget, the President proposes cutting 41 billion dollars out of Medicare and Medicaid. President Bush tried to destroy Social Security. Or was 2005 a blur to you?

By UNSCOM's own assessment Iraq was 90-95% disarmed by the time the 1998 incident happened.