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| Acmlm's Board - I2 Archive - - Posts by Zarathud |
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Zarathud Level: 12  Posts: 1/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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| Rumsfeld is callous, no doubt about it. But all the people calling for his head over this kinda leave me scratching my own, since 1) the soldier who asked the question and the reporter who hand-fed it to him were either uninformed (unlikely) or not being totally honest, and 2) any shortfalls in armour have more to do with congress than the DoD. To wit, the Tennessean reports: 1) "Army Maj. Gen. Stephen Speakes and Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, senior members of the Army's combat systems development and acquisition team at the Pentagon, said protective armor plates were added to the last 20 vehicles of the Tennessee-based 278th Regimental Combat Team's 830 vehicles shortly after the exchange with Rumsfeld." Yeah, that's right. They'd already been up-armoring the regiment's humvees for weeks before the guy even asked the question, and within a day of the press conference the remaining 20 were done. I smell something here and it ain't roses. 2) "The Pentagon is spending $4.1 billion over the next year to add armor to vehicles in Iraq. Sorenson said 35,000 of them need armored protection, of which 29,000 have been funded by Congress." Yeah, that's right. The reason 6,000 Humvees haven't been armoured yet is because the hypocrites in congress haven't coughed up the money for it. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a huge fan of Rummy, I think the man needs to stay away from cameras, and I think he'll be remembered as a mediocre SecDef. But I don't think he's terrible either, and I know this whole thing reeks of dishonest scapegoating (fixing the blame rather than the problem). If you care enough about this stuff to bash Rummy for it, I suggest writing to your representative about funding for army basics like armour and whatnot instead. It'd be more constructive. (edited by Zarathud on 12-27-04 12:28 AM) (edited by Zarathud on 12-27-04 12:29 AM) |
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 2/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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| How come there's no "none" option? Bad poll! Evangelical atheist here, godless and loving it since 2001. Call me nuts, but I don't see the point in believing in things that aren't commensurable by empirical observation. |
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 3/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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| Never done anything more interesting than caffiene and alcohol, and neither one of those to excess. I've thought about trying stuff like weed, salvia, dex, mushrooms, or mescaline, but never really got around to it because of the simple fact that I wasn't interested enough actually buy the stuff. At this point I don't see myself ever bothering. On the other hand, the War on Drugs is more than a waste of time and resources, it actually causes more harm than good. It amazes me that, given the history of prohibition, anybody with half a brain could think this was a good idea (Nixon=worst president ever). Any attempt to ban a substance with any level of popularity merely succeeds in driving the trade underground, thereby making the product more dangerous both to produce and consume, manufacturing criminals, enriching drug lords, ruining people's lives, wasting police and legal resources... and I could go on and on. Not to mention the general creepyness of the idea that you don't have a right to decide what goes into your own body. Wrong wrong wrong on so many levels. |
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 4/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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Awww, I bet you say that to all the girls.  *checks pants* Err, oh shit, wait... |
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 5/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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| This is awful. If anyone is able and should feel like dropping a few dollars their way, here are a few ways you can help. | ||||||||||||||||||
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 6/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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I don't think I have the energy or patience to wade into some of the misconceptions people have about Bush, so I'll just call it how I see it: I understand that he's very inarticulate, and I don't care. The measure of a president is in his actions, and in this area I give Bush a C- overall. He passes, but with much to be desired. I illustrate with this pretty and helpful table, because we all like pretty things:
Of course there's other stuff, but that about covers all the big ones I can think of at the moment. The C- grade is of course tenative and subject to going up or down as his second term progresses. |
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 7/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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Originally posted by geeogree I can read, thanks for the patronizing. Other!=none. I don't have an "other" religion, I have no religion. More than a trivial distinction. (edited by Zarathud on 12-27-04 01:51 PM) |
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 8/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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| Er, no. It's technically possible for atheists to be "religious" in some sense but atheism is not itself a religion. It's just the absence of a belief in a personal deity. I myself really do have no religion. | ||||||||||||||||||
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 9/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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| Just thought I'd pass this along: here are some pictures of what the Tsunami did to the town of Phuket in Thailand. | ||||||||||||||||||
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 10/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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| While I'm not quite as worked up over it as Jesper, I'll second his distaste of regionalism/nationalism. I guess I'm not as angered over it because I understand it as a natural human predisposition to identify more strongly with people who are like yourself. Still, a life is a life no matter what nation it comes from. | ||||||||||||||||||
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 11/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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| Sigh. The truly awful thing about this is that there was something like a one to three hour gap between when the earthquake was detected and when the tsunamis hit the shores. All these people would have had to do was walk/run/ride one mile away from the shore and they'd have nearly all survived. But because there was no infrastructure in place to get the warning out right away, they all walked around on the coast completely unaware until it was too late to get away. This is why natural disasters are always so much more horrific for developing nations, they just haven't got the capital or the infrastructure to deal with it. Terrible. (edited by Zarathud on 12-29-04 04:29 PM) |
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 12/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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| I watched it when someone else rented it a long time ago. It's absolutely a piece of crap, but I have to have some respect for the fact that it was shot on a budget of like $5000 and made 10000x that much. Talk about a profit margin. | ||||||||||||||||||
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 13/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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Originally posted by ZiffskiCare to back that one up? |
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 14/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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| Ziff - I suppose you could make an argument that maquilas are partially the product of US immigration restrictions, but I think it's kind of a tenuous leap to go from that to "Mexico is poor because of rich countries." Does not really follow. Besides, I don't really see what factories in Mexico have to do with poverty in South Asia. F-Zero and Scatterheart - When you're done frothing and trying to contort this into some excuse to bash the US (politicizing tragedy, always charming), you might want to consider the fact that none of the severely affected countries had an effective system in place to warn everyone to get away from the shore. The reason they weren't contacted was precisely because there was nobody to contact for these things, and the few that could be contacted could not have gotten the message out to everyone fast enough. Like I said earlier, it's an infrastructure problem. Kenya got lucky because it took an extra couple of hours for the waves to reach them. (edited by Zarathud on 12-30-04 01:29 PM) |
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 15/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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| Fun fact of the day: "In 1978, the federal government was forced to allow some patients access to medical marijuana after a "medical necessity" defense was recognized and the Investigational New Drug (IND) compassionate access program was created. The IND, which allowed some patients to receive medical marijuana from the government, was closed in 1992 after it was flooded by applications from AIDS patients. Today, eight surviving patients still receive medical marijuana from the federal government." Hmmm, interesting. Even the federal government seems to tacitly acknowledge the value of medicinal marijuana. Fancy that. |
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 16/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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Originally posted by geeogree False. This has been a baldfaced lie that's been peddled for years. Alcohol is far more of a "gateway drug" (whatever that means) than marijuana is. You just don't hear about that because it happens to be a multibilliondollar industry. Oops. But the whole "gateway drug" line is a meaningless canard anyway. It's a buzzword. The vast majority of people who try marijuana never go on to do harder drugs. Thankfully there are people engaged in, you know, actual scientific studies about this that have pretty much totally debunked it. |
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 17/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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Originally posted by Kyouji CrawEr, no. You're nearly an order of magnitude off there. It's closer to 0.002%. |
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 18/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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| I can't be bothered counting but I know I've got over 100 (almost all "real" copies), some of which I'll probably sell to the nearby used CD store when I get around to it. I go for quality rather than quantity. Downloading is how I get most of my music, but I still buy the CDs when I can spare the money because I like to support the artists and because I have an irrational attachment to physically having the CD in my posession. CDs are probably going to become the next vinyls within ten years: a niche market for DJs and nostalgics. |
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 19/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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| Just for the sake of one-upping Abnormal Freak, I've done mine with a quick little rating scheme as well. | ||||||||||||||||||
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Zarathud Level: 12 Posts: 20/55 EXP: 7184 For next: 737 Since: 12-27-04 From: Terra, Sol. Since last post: 294 days Last activity: 294 days |
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| The reason 9/11 was such a big deal was not because of the raw casualty numbers, though those certainly helped. It was a big deal because it was the fourth-generation warfare equivalent of Pearl Harbor -- some foreign entity catching a powerful and normally secure country completely off guard and hitting it somewhere close without declaring war first (yes I know that bin Laden declared jihad against the US in '96, and no it doesn't matter; I'm talking about how the attack was percieved). Natural disasters are not that bad for developed countries because we know how to handle them; a huge earthquake in California would be bad, but not memorable on a nationwide level. But system perturbations like 9/11 reveal glaring problems that we simply were totally unprepared for, and that's why they shock more and are more memorable to us. Same with 3/11 for Spain, Bali for Australia, and Beslan for the Russians. Well, that and the whole regionalism thing. That part of it kinda sucks, but it's natural. |
| Pages: 1 2 3 |
| Acmlm's Board - I2 Archive - - Posts by Zarathud |
