samclemens

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Aug 7, 2006 -> 03:11 PM) Seriously, you never source. Ever. So I'd even trust his crap sources before I trust your non-sources. So stop with the sourcing crap already. what are you talking about? off the top of my head, why dont you go look at the last page of the "gaza, israel" thread. i dont cite stuff that is widely known or that ive seen in the news a bunch of times. AND when i do source, it's from breitbart, foxnews, other widely read stuff that at least has a shred of credibility (as opposed to iggy, who cites either the above garbage or a youtube video). the most biased site ive ever cited here would have to be "ynet", a pro-israeli newspaper. so maybe you could explain to me where you are coming from? i do cite all the time, do you have me mixed up with someone else? you would trust a site called electronicintifada.net over those? good for you. see what you want to, i guess.

QUOTE(Cerbaho-WG @ Aug 7, 2006 -> 01:56 PM) I don't want to defend Reuters at all, but the person who photographed the original Beirut photo has also had some pathetic photo ops of a dead kid being carried around...for like an hour. I'll try and dig up the link. It's quite pathetic/laughable that one of the largest news companis in the world could be so stupid. Damn, I think people are going to get the point if there's a huge tower of smoke coming from a building. You don't need to clone it so it looks World War II for us to understand some horrible stuff is going on in Lebanon. What's even better is that a lot of dolts are going to use this as an excuse that the liberal run jew hating f** loving media are blah blah blah blah. Islamofascist islamofascist I swear to God if I say islamofascist one more time I'm going to turn into David Horowitz and have tree roots coming out of my ass. Put the tinfoil down and go back to LittleGreenFootballs where you can fraternize with your racist brethren. uh...who are you responding to here?

QUOTE(IggyD @ Aug 7, 2006 -> 10:56 AM) I do not think Israel is wrong to protect its self or exisist. However many forget what happened the day before the soldiers were taken. http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4793.shtml Prior to this happening there was a cease fire that held for almost a full year. perhaps, since you are so fair and unbiased, you should include the reason for israel shelling that beach. nice source, by the way (so credible- electronic intifada). not to mention the fact that hezbollah has released numerous statements which said they had been planning the abductions of the soldiers for months in advance. therefore, the shellings the day before in GAZA had NOTHING to with the abductions on the LEBANESE BORDER, which is on a complete different side of the country. hezbollah is only in southern lebanon, chief. of course, if you respond to my post, be sure not to respond to any of my counterpoints and to cite more crap websites as your "sources".

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ Aug 7, 2006 -> 11:41 AM) I remember when I first got my license, it was a little over a $1.00. And people thought that was bad. yeah when i was 17, i remember gas being $0.89 a gallon. My friend filled up his sable for 12 or 13 dollars that summer.

and more...its getting shameless now. what the hell is reuters doing??

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Aug 7, 2006 -> 11:59 AM) But here's the problem...if North Korea were to actually ship Iran a bomb or two, what exactly is there that we can do about it? We can't bomb the Hell out of Korea, because South Korea and Tokyo will cease to exist. We can't bomb Iran to tell them not to buy things from Korea, because all that us striking them will do is strengthen their government and give them even more reason to deal rapidly with the Koreans. And 2/3 of the U.S. army is currently not in any way, shape, or form ready for deployment, with a decent chunk of the rest tied up in Iraq. you are pretty much right, I think. but the israelis could do it, thats what i am hoping for. they certainly have the justification in my opinion.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Aug 7, 2006 -> 11:56 AM) But the other side of that token is that it's not necessarily possible for Israel to do so. Their attacks have barely made a dent in that organization, they're still firing as many missiles into Israel as they were on day one of this campaign, the Israelis have been unable to push very far at all into Lebanon, and the added support gained by Hezbollah through this campaign, the damage its done to Lebanon's infrastructure, and the added prestige it has brought Hezbollah throughout the Muslim world is going to far offset the loss of a few hundred fighters. well, if you step into israel's shoes, there is no other option for them. and i think they have made more progress than you give them credit for here. hezbollah has been stockpiling these missiles since i was a baby, so its kinda misleading to flatly say that the israeli attacks havent dented hezbollah. i thought that the israeli strikes to sever roads to syria in the last couple of days was a big step. this thing isnt going to happen overnight, and it is impossible to literally kill every hezbollah member, mostly because they hide among the civilian population.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Aug 7, 2006 -> 11:27 AM) Unless you're seeing the internal polls, that 54-41 13 point Lamont lead was the worst poll for Joe that I've seen. The most recent Q-Poll, from this morning, is 51-45 in favor of Lamont. And that article you posted...well, the phrase "Fish in a barrel" comes to mind. Vs. 2005 and im not picking sides or anything, im just giving lieberman his fair shake. he made the statements that are relevant to the subject matter here, so i thought they were worth posting. interesting, though, i didnt know these are the worst #s for lieberman yet. i swear i remember seeing way worse #s for him but i must be wrong.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Aug 7, 2006 -> 11:34 AM) I doubt there's very many people who would actually oppose a genuine peacekeeping force in that area, I just don't think it's going to be feasible at all. Who out there actually has a few tens of thousand troops available to be sent into this area to actually fight against Hezbollah? And make no mistake, the only way a peacekeeping force is going to work is if it goes in to actually fight and forceably disarm that organization. I just don't see any way that anyone is going to do it, especially now that Hezbollah has been emboldened by the Israeli attack and has gained the full support of the Lebanese government. i totally agree. also, for me, this is why israel has every justification to wipe hezbollah out, and they should continue what they are doing now.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Aug 7, 2006 -> 11:29 AM) Actually, while no one knows Exactly how close they are, plenty of people have very very good guesses, and all of those guesses say around 10 years. they are in contact with north korea as we speak. you cant say definitively that we have at least 10 years before iran does something nuclear and something horrible. its making huge assumptions that could lead to devastating opportunities for iran and/or north korea.

Lieberman Confronts Anti-War Criticism This is an interesting article. According to this article, Lieberman is no longer getting completely killed at the polls, they say he is only down 54% to 41%. I know, thats a substantial margin, but its better than the last #s i saw, which had lieberman in the 30's.

not one of you critics responding to my post adressed my comments on the UN (the main point of the post). what you all are advocating is a foolish way to go about things. a literal madman running iran is "easily predictable" and "very predictable". just take a step back and say it out loud. we all know the old saying that describes what happens when we assume. you all can say with a straight face iran wont attack israel tomorrow for sure? that they wouldnt give terrorists nuclear weapons if they developed them (and no one knows how close they are)? well, apparently we have nothing to worry about, since one of the most dangerous juntas currently in power is "easily" and "very" predictable. phew, i was actually worried about islamofacist dictators for a minute there!

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/...5A?OpenDocument this isnt the first time ive heard of AOL doing this sort of stuff. does anyone have a link to that audio file where the guy cant get the AOL person to cancel his account? that one is outgrageou too.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Aug 6, 2006 -> 03:27 PM) See, here's the thing though...if Ahmadinejad actually does do exactly what you say he's going to do...then when we do wind up having to strike them, we will be doing so with at least a few allies behind it. Why? Because we've done this the right way. We have plenty of time, we still have years before they succeed at anything, and we've avoided making ourselves into the bad guy, just by taking our time. You can say the U.N. is as useless as you want, doesn't make it true. the current islamofacists in power in iran are impossible to predict, except for their support of anyone and anything anti-israel. thats why I have to disagree with you when you say that we have "plenty of time". iran is openly defying UN resolutions like its their job. and what has the UN done? issue a couple resolutions and extend iran's deadlines. when the UN actually does something besides demand ceasefires and (especially maddening) even suggest that hezbollah should not be defined as a terrorist organization, i will give them credit. i guess i would ask you why you consider the UN an effective organization. I just dont see it.

i see we have our latest addition to the terror-apologist crowd. dont you have some youtube video made by college students to post about this too, iggy?

well, its a good thing the UN passed another resolution condemning this. how many times have they extended this deadline now? the UN is the most worthless organization in the world.

[/u] Olmert tells Europe to stop preaching to Israel BERLIN (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told European leaders to stop preaching to him about civilian war casualties in an interview published on Sunday in German newspaper Welt am Sonntag. Olmert also said it would not be possible to completely destroy Hizbollah and insisted he did not underestimate them, saying they had fired just 3,000 of their arsenal of 15,000 rockets so far. "Where do they get the right to preach to Israel?" Olmert said when asked about criticism from European capitals of Israeli military operations that have led to a heavy civilian toll. "European countries attacked Kosovo and killed ten thousand civilians. Ten thousand! And none of these countries had to suffer before that from a single rocket. "I'm not saying it was wrong to intervene in Kosovo. But please: Don't preach to us about the treatment of civilians." Kosovo became a U.N. protectorate in June 1999 after a 78-day NATO bombing campaign forced out Serb security forces accused of atrocities against Albanian civilians during a rebel insurgency by separatist Albanian guerrillas. The New York-based Human Rights Watch estimates about 500 civilians were killed in the NATO bombing in Kosovo. Some 10,000 Albanians died in Serbia's 1998-99 counter-insurgency war and there were allegations of random brutality by both sides. In the Welt am Sonntag interview, Olmert was asked if he had underestimated Hizbollah. "No, we know that they have only fired 3,000 rockets so far and that they have 15,000," he said. "The question is more: If Hizbollah knew what the consequences of their attack would be, would they nevertheless have done it? I don't think so." Olmert said Hizbollah was being defeated but it was not possible to eradicate a grass-roots guerrilla movement. "They are beaten but it is not possible to completely destroy they. Israel has nevertheless been more successful than any other country in the battle against a guerrilla organization."

say "aye" if you are suprised at reuters. *saying nothing*

thats an amazing story. all i can say is wow, thats one hell of a soldier.

QUOTE(Rex Kickass @ Aug 5, 2006 -> 11:38 PM) I really think that this is a situation where most major powers didn't step up fast enough to create a small avenue of opportunity that existed within the first 48 hours of the conflict. I think had a country with enough worldwide clout like the US stepped up quickly and met with Lebanese government officials and Israeli government officials soon enough, a temporary cease fire could have taken place that would have brought the Lebanese government on the side of the Israelis. I'm more and more convinced about that based on what I have heard from analysts in Lebanon. The sentiment seemed to be "we're becoming a democracy, the US will help us." That didn't happen. Not from the US, not from Canada, the UK, Russia or anywhere with any real world wide importance. As a result, you quickly saw opinion in Lebanon shift allegiances behind Hezbollah which to the on the ground observer would probably rather quickly come off as freedom fighters once again - even though that handle is totally false. The only country which took the lead on creating peace in the region here is France, and it took over two weeks to get acceptable language through the UN Security Council - mostly with the hang-ups being on our part. In situations where war breaks out, world leadership should be looking for a way to find a positive outcome that ends in peace. That's world leadership. And sadly, the only ones seeming to want that these days are the French. At least in Lebanon. i just dont know what we could have done. any kind of peacekeeping intervention would have been condemned by the world and the left in the US. and what can you say to opposite sides in a (frankly) religion war? both sides have made it known they are not interested in negotiating, period. also, i dont know where you are getting that its the US's fault for the delay in a UN resolution. france is no better than us (cough- oil for food- cough- dealings with an embargoed saddam hussien- cough). and for what it's worth, lebanon has already rejected the UN proposal, along with syria, who is preparing for war with israel. lebanon is at fault for letting a terrorist organization to control areas in the south of it's country. they could have asked for help a long time ago from the world on that one. have you forgotten that hezbollah was the group that bombed the marine barracks in the 80's? not to mention that hezbollah is the provacatuer here. they have made more public statements than i can count that the only way they will agree to a ceasefire is if hundreds of convicted terrorists are released from israeli prisons. thats no solution. the US is the world's policeman, its undeniable, like it or not. but we cant send troops in there to enforce peace in this situation, and neither side is listening. all we can do is sit on the sidelines and complain, like france does in every situation. hence the jointly-written UN resolution with them.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Aug 5, 2006 -> 05:14 PM) Santorum's people even did the signature collecting for the green party. and

QUOTE(EvilMonkey @ Aug 5, 2006 -> 02:45 PM) He is also getting beat because in primaries, you generally have the more extremists of each party out voting. They tend to be the ones most agitated, most worked up, and vote the most in the primaries. That's why you see alot of politicians tone thier message down a bit once they get the nomination. very true, only people that really care seem to vote in primaries. way more will vote in the actual election.

QUOTE(LowerCaseRepublican @ Aug 4, 2006 -> 07:00 PM) Simply -- PR and 'truthiness'. He's on TV stump-speaking on local TV, talk shows, TV shows, etc. damn near every day. That's quite a PR machine. It's a brilliant bait and switch. He pulls out the dog and pony show to amaze you but if you move the curtain aside, the facts show it's just the tiny little man working lots of controls to make himself look so amazing. and thats different from 99% of all politicians how?

iran now admits supplying hezbollah. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Aug 4, 2006 -> 01:04 AM) You made a mistake earlier in the thread that you conceded, and now you've made anoter. I haven't cited any studies. I think you're confusing me for another poster. I think it was more mature for me to let WCSox know that I don't care for his patronizing comments about my age, especially when he knows that I call everyone "son" or "dear boy" out of habit, and he knows that because we talked about it in private and I told him that I meant no harm by it. I refuse to be baited by someone who's going to be taunting me about my age over a comment I made that they're all-too-aware of and all-too-okay of, and so I'm ignoring him. I'm sure his feelings aren't hurt by it. dude, you are clearly on the ropes. i'll take my leave at this point in time. peace out.