Making Baby Jesus Cry

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Uh, the helping the poor thing switched to your side. Did you get the memo? You're the ones with the religious right. Surely they've all read their bibles and the multiple, multiple passages about helping the poor.

We're godless heathens and don't have that handy refrence material to keep us on track. Good luck with it!

You mean actually helping the poor, which is what we do. i meant giving lip service to helping the poor and then putting 1 million dollars into a 1/8 acre lot. The roles have not changed.

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by Spanky
2. Basically an outhouse in the tenderloin.

The realtors list that as "cozy" and "an investment opportunity".

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Not Bob
"Instability in Europe" is the short answer.

would that help us or hurts us?

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
More clarification than comment:

(a) The Freakonomics chapter was a pretty cursory journalistic gloss of an much more involved article on that study.

I just read this about a month ago and was very disappointed with the abridgment. Very unconvincing. They'd rant about correllation vs. causation and then through out some statistic without clear causation. I had high hopes for the book, but was somewhat disappointed. I haven't had a chance to follow up on the underlying papers, but I think I'd find those much more satisfying.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Because this is America, damnit, and it matters. This Republican pragmatic ends-justifying-the-means bullshit has got to stop. I was taught growing up that we are not a country that invades another on a pretense. We don't torture people, or come so close as to make it a question. We don't incarcerate people indefinitely without charging them. So please, Republicans, I'm begging you: STOP FUCKING UP ALL THAT IS AMERICA.

It matters because were the ones who saved the world from Nazis, and did so without torturing them. It matters because it is a mark of shame that we interned the Japanese. It matters because we melded postwar Europe and Japan in our own polical image and they believed what we told them about the fundamental rights of humanity. It matters because we inspired the people in Tianamen square to believe that the world could be better. It matters because we are the peace makers, not the war-mongering imperialists.

It just matters.

We're the Japanese ready for Democracy?

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
We're the Japanese ready for Democracy?

Did we start a war with the Japanese?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Not Bob
"Instability in Europe" is the short answer.

Yes a short and stupid answer. Instability in the Balkins? Like something has changed? We let the massacres occur in Bosnia and did that negatively effect our national security: No. The reason why we bombed Serbia into stopping the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo is because we felt guilty about what happened in Bosnia. It had absolutely nothing to do with national security or even strategic interest. We have no strategic or national security interest in the Balkins. During the cold war maybe, but now they are about as important to us as the Falkland Islands. Don't get me wrong - we did the right thing and I am just sorry we did not do something about Bosnia. But if you think Human rights are not enough reason to commence military action then you should have been outraged over Clintons intervention in Serbia.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Did we start a war with the Japanese?

it was pre-UN so we were on own to decide. or were you making a point about waiting so long that millions more people died than should have?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
If there were fewer evil traitorous Republicans, you wouldn't care at all about the democrats.

That is also true. That is why these bozos need to be taken out in the 2006 primaries. I was on a conference call with a bunch of Silicon Valley CEOs and Thune was brought in as a special guest. I don't know what bozo at the White House thought that was a good idea, but once I pointed out that not only is he a creationist (many Silicon Valley CEOs have education as their primary charitable endeavor) but he voted against CAFTA that was the end of the phone call. In this crowd it would he would have been better off being revealed as a child molester. I don't think Thune is going to be making any more trips out here.

[nononono]

Originally posted by Spanky
We let the massacres occur in Bosnia and did that negatively effect our national security: No.

http://www.balkanpeace.org/wtb/wtb01.html

Human rights and keeping peace are in our national interest, strategic, security and otherwise. To what extent depends on where in the world we're talking about, the current situation, and the relative urgency of the matter.

[baltassoc]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
it was pre-UN so we were on own to decide. or were you making a point about waiting so long that millions more people died than should have?

Screw the UN. The UN is not the issue, and isn't for almost all liberals who are pissed off about Iraq. The failure was not in not convincing the UN, the failure is in not convincing me. Cf. Bush I, Gulf War I.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by ironweed
Exactly the same way everyone stopped complaining about things Clinton did in his first term after he was re-elected, right?

Exactly - save for his lying under oath, all the Republican bitching about his foreign policy maneuvers was pure hot air. The Republicans bitched about his invtervention in Somalia, Serbia, Hait and his bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan. They also complained about his giving China MFT. All these things either a Republican president did or would do. They also wouldn't give him fast track authority. It was all purely partisan B.S. just like the WMD complaining is purely partisan BS.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Spanky
Yes a short and stupid answer. Instability in the Balkins? Like something has changed? We let the massacres occur in Bosnia and did that negatively effect our national security: No. The reason why we bombed Serbia into stopping the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo is because we felt guilty about what happened in Bosnia. It had absolutely nothing to do with national security or even strategic interest. We have no strategic or national security interest in the Balkins. During the cold war maybe, but now they are about as important to us as the Falkland Islands. Don't get me wrong - we did the right thing and I am just sorry we did not do something about Bosnia. But if you think Human rights are not enough reason to commence military action then you should have been outraged over Clintons intervention in Serbia.

Please compare the situation in Serbia with the current situation in Cuba. I don't see it.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Please compare the situation in Serbia with the current situation in Cuba. I don't see it.

Because you see European blood as more valuable than Hispanic blood, but most Republicans don't see it that way.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
it was pre-UN so we were on own to decide. or were you making a point about waiting so long that millions more people died than should have?

Nice shit. Care to translate into Intelligible?