Posts Made By: mike welsh

So, what about Israel's role in the current Middle East affair? Are they sitting quietly by and holding their breath? Are they preparing their own surprise for Baghdad (or Amman, or Damascus, or Teheran?) in the case this war effort goes south? Are they prerhaps taking the opportunity, while the world's not watching, to bulldoze more Palestinian homes, build more settlements on the Occupied Territories, and generally consolidate power?

They seem to be as quiet as, say, Lybia, on this war...

Has anyone wondered if a major motivation for whacking Saddam may have more to do with his threat to Israel than the US?

i'm just trying to generate some discussion...

Your thoughts?

Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! -- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen
1893-1918.

My only comment relates to objectivity...

Just what journalist, which news service, which observer is ever "objective?"

i cannot comment extensively on Mr. Arnett's interview, i didn't hear it in its entirety. Indiscreet? Perhaps. Treasonous? Hmmmm... nah. He's no Lord HawHaw or Ezra Pound.

i will say that what TV coverage i've watched (in snatches here and there as i have no TV at home,) has been in large part nauseating cheerleading and not terribly journalistic and certainly NOT objective.

If any reporter on any service were to voice serious doubts and criticisms of the US action in any context, just how long do you think it'd be before he were sacked as well?

Hasn't ever failed me... works every time!

Never underestimate the power of a mom.

One for Brien and John W. (and anyone else who wants to pip in,)

What are your respective doctrines (J.W. & L.D.S.) concerning Jesus' divinity?

Years ago, i spent couple of hours in discourse with a gentleman from the J.W. (who rang my dorbell and woke me up early one saturday,) and i seem to remember that we got into a debate about the that subject. His side being that Jesus was not divine. Is my memory faulty?

John, or anyone else knowlegable in L.D.S. doctrine, what do the Mormons hold?

What about any other flavors of christianity, or even other faiths?

i guess also i'll extend the question to non-believers as well as to:

1) Jesus: human/divine?
2) Jesus: mythical/real? (although i anticipate the answers to that one.)

Thanks,
-mw.

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
-Hanlon's Razor

Okay, i'll start off by saying that i have been as guity as anyone else here of losing my temper and making sardonic remarks. Mea Culpa.

However, one-line remarks and snide flaming does nothing to promote discourse. Admonitions to "grow up," remarks about "*-isms"(fill in your favourite name here...) and "Blah, blah, blahs," are just a waste of time it takes to read them and clutter the threads. They don't help.

There are a couple of angry people here, some not angry all the time, others are angry as a state of being -or so it seems.

IMHO there are people in these postings who suffer from thin skins and thick skulls. They need to -as my daughter might say, 'chill.'

There are others here who like to fire broadsides. They seem to have an agenda. Occasionally they draw out a reasoned response and initiate a dialogue, other times they are simply admonished to "grow up, or "shut up."

Somtimes i read these calls-and-response and giggle. Sometimes i just sigh. Sometimes i get really p'd off.

Sometimes i fire my own broadside back, but, really, most (yes, most,) of my angrier or sarcastic posts get the re-read, ten count, and a prompt delete.

Maybe some of us need to count to ten and learn to let it go.

-just a thought on a saturday morning.

peace,
-mw.

"People who are willing to give up freedom for the sake of short term security, deserve neither freedom nor security." -Benjamin Franklin.

So what's wrong with the attitude "the truly innocent have nothing to fear?"

Who then determines who's "truly innocent?"

a couple of thoughts:

One glitch in all this data and tracking technology is the problem of too much information... how is it stored and recovered? CARNIVORE and similar technologies in use and on the table help, but cast a very wide net indeed. Like a tuna net that catches a lot of other species that aren't wanted, but suffer, die, and wind up tinned with the tuna.

Who will rummage through all this info? How accurate will it be? Call it "sorry about that," or "collateral damage."

The NSA alone tracks millions of 'phone calls world wide daily, just for an example.

The technology will only improve.

If it doesn't bother you that your government can do this, consider: who else can do it?

The government is usually 'way behind the curve compared to private sector, and PS can sell to whomever can pay for it.

Does the current plague of Identity Theft alarm you? Maybe it should. Personally, i'm a light consumer, but what scant data track i have left has been well mined and has been used against me already.

"A Paranoic is just someone who is aware of what's really going on."

"Now, Mrs. Entity, we recovered your lost child through microchip tracking. And we only destroyed the lives of 23 people who happened to have the same name as the perp. It was a dirty job, but we apologised to their next-of-kin."

Gee whiz, a genuine Goverment Apology to my next-of-kin would make ME feel a whole lot better, eh?

Where does it stop?

Okay, help me sort this out... i'm having trouble getting my head around the idea of trinity as it has been bandied about in various posts.

i know that the idea has been and will continued to be debated for ages, but what's your (any of 'you') take on it?

One schematic i got years ago was that God-the-Father acts on Earth through God-the-Son (Jesus,) and the Love expressed between them and bestowed upon man is the Holy Spirit (Ghost.)

Of course, that was many years ago and i may have it wrong.

Thanks,
-mw.

Sorry people, but could we please use a different shorthand for Atheist/Agnostic?

When i see the "AA" i start to think it's something about the Big Book.

Thanks!
Peace,
-mw.