likearock

>I asked you to cite where Haliburton was convicted of a criminal offense. > Apparently you were unable to do it. I have no idea where you get this from what I've said. Didn't you say: Wayne

There is no reason to believe that this religion is not correct, any more than there is reason to claim Christianity is not correct, or that Islam is not correct, or that Judaism is not correct, etc. I doubt anyone could find the time in their life to meet all 6.2 billion people in the world twice (they would still be a stranger the first time). The point is that, if everyone in the world followed the philosophy of relying on the kindness of strangers (shades of Blanche duBois), there wouldn't be any strangers to rely on! Wayne

Let's not forget the Latin word for left, "sinister". Wayne

Wouldn't that only be a personal attack if given in reply to one of God's posts? Or if replying to someone who's confused themself with God. Wayne

So you don't see any difference between and Forget about abstractions and think of how you'd feel if either of those was directed at you. Wayne

Thanks for answering - I'm just looking for parameters. So it is acceptable to state that a person essentially has no clue in regard to an issue, topic or interpretation? As I said, I'm not hurt, but my reaction would be as nice as his and then snowball into a messy situation. I was suspended for 2 weeks for a comment about like that one, so I'm looking for guidlines. Either it's appropriate or not..... Lemme give it a shot with two examples: That's not a personal attack but it isn't helpful unless followed up by some reasonings as to how those events were misunderstood. While essentially expressing the same sentiment as the first case but in stronger terms, this one is most definitely a personal attack. Even following it up with an explanation would not mitigate the fact that it is a personal attack. Note that both of the above statements can be reasonably seen as ad hominem (defined by M/W as marked by an attack on an opponent's character rather than by an answer to the contentions made). They just differ in terms of degree. Which, among other things, is why it's so difficult to provide a precise definition of what is and is not a personal attack. And without a precise definition, we're basically left with an "I know one when I see one" caculation. Wayne

How Nixonian to blame it on the journalists. If Sri Lanka wasn't forthcoming in providing an explanation who's fault is that? At any rate, this BBC article may be more to your liking. For one thing, it points out that Sri Lanka has established diplomatic ties with Israel. It still not clear what the real reason was for the refusal though. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4130599.stm Sri Lanka rejects Israel rescuers Israel has cancelled plans to send a 150-person rescue mission to Sri Lanka after the devastated island objected to the military composition of the team. The delegation - including 60 soldiers - had been due to set off on Tuesday to help after Sunday's tsunami disaster. Instead, a smaller team will escort a convoy carrying emergency supplies, Israeli officials said. Sri Lanka restored diplomatic ties with Israel in 2000, despite objections from the island's Muslim minority. Neither side has officially explained the change of plan, although some reports say the objection came from Sri Lanka's military. Sri Lanka Ambassador Diffa Digeratna is quoted by Jerusalem Post as saying that the change was due to the "the lack of accommodations in Colombo". Israel's army had planned to send staff to set up field hospitals, including internal medicine and paediatric clinics, an Israeli army spokesman said. Other Israeli agencies have sent emergency relief to Sri Lanka and other tsunami-hit countries. Humanitarian organisation Latet sent a jumbo jet carrying 18 metric tons of supplies to Colombo, medical teams have been dispatched to Thailand and help offered to India, Haaretz reported. A rescue-and-recovery team from the Jewish ultra-Orthodox organisation Zaka left for the region on Monday with equipment used for identifying bodies, as well as body bags. Israel's foreign ministry has set up a situation room for relatives to track down hundreds of Israelis on holiday in the tsunami zone, who have not yet made contact. No one from the country has yet been confirmed dead in the disaster.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-israel01.html Perhaps there's a different kind of "xenophobic lies" at play here. Wayne

And that's different from the other polls found here, how? Wayne

I don't know. Seems kind of minor to me: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=1409645;page=2;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;#1409935 Wayne

Many on the right along with GWB insist that individual charity rather than government support is the way to go. In the mid-19th century the only real hope for the poor was from individual contributions to charity. The government gave them the bare minimum and sometimes not even that. So when Scrooge insisted that he didn't need to personally contribute since the government was providing workhouses, did that make him more of a right-winger or left-winger by today's standards? Merry Christmas! Wayne

Actually, according to those stats, his comment would have been correct had he said "60% of all men with AIDS in the US and UK contracted the disease through homosexual sex." Not that it has any bearing on adoption rights for gays, though. Wayne

Rumsfeld had the same question. Still unanswered. I think you're right on the money with that, Bill. If we had limited the WOT to Afghanistan, where the rest of the world (including many Moslem states) saw us as justified in fighting, it would've been very different. To use your analogy, that'd be like the brother going to one bar to kick someone's ass who did something bad to our family. Iraq's a totally different matter. Even when you're a superpower, you've got to pick your fights carefully. Wayne

Really stretching to get to that conclusion. Here's the full quote in context: Only the Bush supporters would try to spin this as some sort of support for Kerry. Wayne

Really? So I guess the capture of Saddam Hussein was equally or even more unimportant? Wayne

Electoral-vote - who clearly is Kerry leaning based on their humor section, but nonetheless... Today has Kerry at 283 - 246, thanks to Oct 30 polling from Zogby giving him Florida, Penn, Michigan, and Minnesota. As it writes, all within the margin of error, but the trend line has gone towards Kerry. Thankfully I managed to mail my ballot out in time to avoid a drive to Berkeley on Tuesday. If you look more closely at that 283 - 246, it includes 87 votes from "Barely Kerry" but only 17 points from "Barely Bush". Which means there a many more borderline states that have to break in Kerry's favor in order to achieve that vote. However, nobody knows how the increased turnout and cell-phone factor will tend to change the election's outcome. Wayne

[Mr Bill voice]OH NO!! [/Mr Bill Voice] The world is going to hell in a hen basket, the Weekly Reader and the Redskins are saying opposite. What's a superstitious , tea leave reading kinda guy to do? Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. What we need is some kind of tie-breaker - a third dumb superstition to settle the score. Wayne

I agree that the organizers had a perfect right to exclude those ladies from their gathering. The question remains, however, as to why the Republicans found the slogan "Protect our civil liberties" to be objectionable. Wayne

Then why was the WTC bombed the first time uner Clinton? Good point. I think it's much more likely that bin Laden is just yanking our chain, dangling the terrorism carrot, which is politically just as important as the stick. Not so complicated really. OBL hates GWB, that's clear from the video. He also wants to continue to engage him because he knows that's the ultimate fight. We believe in that kind of thing when we see it in John Wayne and Clint Eastwood (or Rudolph Guiliani as a young prosecutor if you need a real life example). Why is it so hard to believe it in bin Laden? BTW, I'm not a Democrat. Wayne

I think you're right. It's hard to see how a video where he comes out bashing Bush the way he does won't hurt Kerry since the much of the electorate will not want to support the choice of our most hated enemy. But bin Laden seems to understand our psychology quite well and you've got to think he was deliberate in his actions. Sure, if his goal is to deal with us, he would favor Kerry in spite of Kerry's insistence on hunting him down. But if his real goal is to foment the second Crusades as soon as possible (and let's not forget who we're dealing with here), wouldn't Bush be the better choice? He wants four more years as badly as the Republicans do. Wayne

I can't believe I let this pass. I must have been asleep! January 1, 2000. Are you sure about that? http://www.timeanddate.com/counters/mil2000.html Smart move. Wayne

Hey, I thought he was our ally! Wayne http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2004/s1228929.htm Allawi blames coalition forces for army recruit deaths The World Today - Wednesday, 27 October , 2004 12:30:00 Reporter: Alison Caldwell ELEANOR HALL: Iraq's interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, has blamed what he calls "major neglect by multinational forces" for the deaths of the 49 Iraqi army recruits over the weekend. Speaking to Iraq's national assembly, Mr Allawi gave no further details but said an investigation into the massacre was due to begin today in Iraq. Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the ambush, and today this group also claimed responsibility for kidnapping a Japanese man, and threatening to behead him unless the Japanese Government withdraws its troops from Iraq within 48 hours. Alison Caldwell reports. ALISON CALDWELL: Iraq's interim government is under increasing pressure to explain the circumstances surrounding the massacre of the 49 army recruits. Iraqis are demanding to know why the soldiers had no weapons with them and no armed escort when they were stopped at a fake roadblock by gunmen dressed in police uniforms. An investigation has begun, but the interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, today accused the US-led military of neglecting to protect the recruits. IYAD ALLAWI (translated): There was an ugly crime in which a large group of national guards were martyred. We believe this issue was the outcome of major neglect by some parts of the multinational forces, and it reflected a determination to harm Iraq and the Iraqi people. ALISON CALDWELL: Those sentiments were echoed by the country's Vice President, Roj Nouri Shawis. Following a meeting with the US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in Washington, Mr Shawis said there should have been enough forces to protect the recruits. Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for the killings. Today his group also claimed to have kidnapped a Japanese hostage. Videotape posted on an Islamic website shows a young Japanese man, identified only as someone connected to the Japanese armed forces. Dressed in a white t-shirt, he speaks in English and Japanese and calls on the Japanese Government to pull its troops out of Iraq. JAPANESE HOSTAGE: They want to withdraw the Japanese troops from Iraq or cut my head. ALISON CALDWELL: A masked militant then threatens to behead the hostage if Tokyo doesn't withdraw its forces within 48 hours. The video's authenticity hasn't been independently confirmed, but the Japanese Government says none of its army personnel in Iraq are missing. The video bears the logo of the group formerly known as Tawhid wal Jihad, which is now believed to be formally aligned with Al Qaeda. Over the weekend, the group's leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi formally declared his allegiance to Osama Bin Laden and renamed his movement as the Iraqi arm of al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda expert Peter Bergin says Zarqawi's new allegiances undermine earlier claims by the Bush administration. PETER BERGIN: I think what this underlines to me is the fact that Zarqawi has been independent from al-Qaeda for a long time, and if he's finally swearing allegiance to Bin Laden it's relatively late in the game, and this only goes quite contrary to was said by Secretary Powell in the United Nations about Zarqawi's links to al-Qaeda and what the Bush administration has been saying repeatedly, that Zarqawi is the best evidence for the links between al-Qaeda and Iraq. Clearly those links have only become true in the past week or so. Maybe he's feeling the heat inside Iraq and thinks this is a way to kind of increase his position by bringing out… becoming part of a larger movement. ELEANOR HALL: Author Peter Bergin, ending that report from Alison Caldwell.

http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=10544&cid=1&cname=Media Not only out of line but stupid as well. Does that guy really prefer a pissed off Cheney over Bush? Wayne

I agree. Gore would have been a stronger choice since he comes without all that anti-war baggage and is much harder to tag as "the most liberal". I also think McCain would have been a stronger choice than Bush for the Republicans. As far as I can see, both sides are going with their B teams. Wayne

I doubt it. Ralph Nader has name recognition, Badnarik doesn't. I don't think he'll get any more or any less votes than previous Libertarian candidates. - Jim Then again, name recognition can work both for and against Nader this time around. Also Badnarik is on the ballot in at least 13 states that Nader is not (48 vs. 35). Look, if the election's turns out to be as close as they're predicting, even someone with a small amount of the vote could make a difference. Wayne