shinRaiden

@Denoir: let's keep our little private jihad over rationalization of moral relativism to pm for the sake of keeping this thread open for the others. Your moral is my pragmatic, and vice versa. We've slaughtered enough threads already with it. The peace process was a joke from pre-48. It is a dead corpse of frankenstien that gets drawn out every election time in any country, drawn and quartered for publicity's sake, then carefully put in a box for the next round down the road. Imagine peace... pretty boring, the fundraisers for both sides would all dry up too. I personally think that while the next few weeks things will be tense, in the big picture this will turn down the heat on the pressure cooker by removing one of the chief burners.

@Lee, I respect you desire for a minimum of bloodshed by preferring that he be arrested rather than deep-sixed. But, from a strictly operations/tactical standpoint, do you (or anyone else for that matter) have a suggestion on how that might be done? Those neighborhoods are some of the most potentially dangerous CQB zones that you can imagine. If you even send in a sniper squad so that it's less spectatular, how would you be able to extract them? You can't even extract by helicopter, too many RPG's to turn things into another mogadishu. The alleys are too narrow in many places to bring in armor, and there are machineguns setup in the rest of the places. These are the guys who as kids cut their teeth working Beirut out of the camps, and they do what they are paid to do. Now that Saddam's martyrdom reimburshments are drying up, perhaps Al'Qaeda will pick up the slack. They aren't getting the money from Arafat that the rest of the ME and Europe has paid in protection money. Maybe it's time that all those who caved in and paid off Arafat should put the screws to him and tell him to get his cronies off their backs, so that they will end up getting something for their money.

Shifting sand, shifting winds. Give it a couple of weeks, and it will be old news. I think what the mod's are after here is no calling the Jews "Children of hitler" and in reply no calling the palestinians "spawn of the jinn" for reasons that are invariably subjective and of personal opinion. There's been enough bloodshed that they don't need us desecrating their graves with our petty squables over trying to manipulate them for our own political purposes. While I'm still not sure that Sharon has ever fully come clean about how much they knew about Shabra and Shatila, should we likewise ignore the atrocities ordered by Yassin? Is there anyone here with the gall to argue that life would be better off for the palestinian and israeli mothers deprived prematurely of their children by wackos wearing bombs? If you disagree with assinaination like this because of religious moral reasons against killing or capital punishment, I respect your belief. If however, you believe that Israel should suffer more to compensate for its strength, your arguements will wind up in a philosophical cat fight that will result in this thread and topic being locked down.

Is there a chance that this pack or BAS's down the road will have tanker trucks and wreckers?

I think the eTerror is more up asia/europe's alley, Al'Jazeera took it on the chin pretty good. I heard he asked for half the Homeland security kingdom (#2 chair), got told no, and got all grumpy. Also, the rumor is that he'd move way up the food chain if his new mentor gets elected instead of Bush. Furthermore, his publisher and CBS (60 Minutes) are both 0w3nd by the same uber-corp.

Last time they tried to whack Yassin, they used a small bomb to avoid civilian collateral casualties. He escaped with only minor injuries due to the low damage from the blast, and his heavy bodyguard prescence. That precipitaed a number of bombings in revenge. While there likely was mossad agents or informers spotting the strike, putting a small sniper squad into that kind of area would be just about garaunteed suicide. Remember, they nailed him coming out of the mosque, with however many other thousands of people. Skipping back a bit, way back to the bad old days of Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood based out of Hama, Syria, decided that they would throw out the Hafez Assad regime. The political organization of the M.B. was led by a group of wealthy and influential aristrocrats and their imams. Syria attempted to infiltrate and kidnap the leaders with Mukhabarat hit squads, but were repulsed by heavy weapons fire and snipers in the minarets of the mosques. Heavy casualties, bodies dragged through the streets, calls for jihad and revolution, etc. Hafez had his brother Rifaat mass several armored divisions to support a mukhabarat offensive, which met with mixed results, as there was a significant stock pile of anti-tank weapons, and the irregulars repeated retreated to the alleys and rooftops. Finally, Hama was sealed off and the tank and helicoptor and heavy field artillery divisions ordered to liquidate the resistance. Only after the Al'Kaylani neighborhoods were desolated, the mosques leveled, and the leaders hauled off into the dark places, did resistance begin to die down. The survivors fled to the M.B. factions and their Nassrite brothers in Egypt (remember that alliance?), who were later responsible for the assaination of the Egyptian PM(Sadat?). Because of this, the Queen Hapshepshut's tomb tourist massacure, and other acts of terrorism, the more radical elements of M.B. had the screws put to them by Egypt and again fled, to Gaza, where under Yassin's leadership they became Hamas. The fringe elements, mad that Hamas was being too lenient in its river-to-the-sea demands, joined up with Al'Aqsa and Al'Fatah. Egypt likely is privately pleased with the attack, as it will likely destabilize the M.B. and Hamas. If Israel has suffered loss of tourist money, Egypt has had it far worse. All they have is tourism and Suez fees, and now they have to cover heavy military guard for the few tourist convoys. Arafat also stands to gain, as this destabilizes the forces that would wrest the Gaza camps from mainline PLO/PA control. Yes, a line was crossed, but it is a line in the shifting sands, something that Sharon and Arafat both know well.

Christian Palestinian, son of prominent Palestinian defense mistaken for Jewish settler, capped in drive-by. Fatah claimed responsibility. Father holds PA, Arafat blameless, saying "they have no control over the situation." Whoopsie, wrong palestinian

Perhaps I haven't adequately clarified my viewpoint. Basicly, where I'm commoning from is about as classicly unorthodox as you can possibly get, in coming from a standpoint where there is no significant seperation between the allegedly seperate realms of temporal science and extra-temporal faith. If you choose to write to me, even if it is a pm that others would not neccessarily see, I still have the liberty to choose whether to believe that it originated from a living human being. If I choose to communicate with you privately via phone or email so as to not waste others time with what could be considered to them as irrelevant spam, that doesn't diminish the reality of the conversation. There is also the widespread assumption that deity-being just arbitraily dictates according to whims of fancy. What about a different possiblity, namely that god is God because of what and how he became, rather than because of any self-existant *poof*? The whole core of Bhuddism also reflects this, as Bhudda is regarded as the Tirthanka(?), the 'ford-finder', who discovered the path out of the rat-spinning-wheel-thingy. I can argue all day back and forth with myself whether my phone works or not, and conclude that it doesn't because nothing happens, or that its real purpose is to be a desk ornament only, or prove that it doesn't work by cutting the cable and smashing it with a hammer, but I won't really know until I bother to try calling someone. And if you don't get an answer, wardial down the phonebook list and keep hitting redial. No different, uses the same scientific process. The ultimate result however, is of primarily personal interest, and not specificly of concern to society at large. If god were 'dead' he wouldn't be around to ask questions of, and he certainly wouldn't be giving answers. I don't have your phone number, or email address, or street address. But past experience says if I poke at you enough via the forums, you'll respond one way or another. Likewise, I don't have the Lord's cellphone number or fax number, so I got to go with what's worked for me. I have discussed matters at length with the Man up-stairs, and I knew things long before they were medically possible. Of course my experiences are not any more relevant to you, as your's are to me. I also take a signifcantly different view on hell. I feel that it is more the absence of potential reward, the internal torment of knowing what might have been, but realizing that I sat on my butt and did nothing about it, and refused to ask for help until that help was no longer available. When you go to school, goof off instead of studying, flunk a test, and get told by the dean that you no longer have the option to retake the class, and that grade will be permanently fixed to your transcript for the rest of your educational future, and will have to be declared whereever you attempt to go to school, that's what I'm referring to. I didn't apply my self, so I didn't learn deutsch. As a result, I can't understand or communicate in deutsch, and that transcript will follow me whereever. I think that the original article was hinting at the source of the debate, that in the last couple centuries, with the increased development of scientific processes and reasoning, there has been an increase in the humanistic self-centered belief of reason. Two main divisions of thought seperate into the blob-society and the uber-self, but both come back to a relativistic analysis of the here-and-now, viewed seperate from the past and future. In that sense, you have to continually reinvent the wheel each day and moment, to reason out the most logical and balanced response to events and surroundings. Kharma is given to you, you must deal with it as best as possible. To meddle in someone else's kharma is thus most evil, resulting in 911(119) being evil, but Afganistan justified, Iraq evil, Madrid unfortunate - but rational and potentially justified. The response in Madrid could be considered a reaction of personal introspection, and internal grief at the personal damage allegedly caused by meddling in someone else's kharma. With most religion's perspective of management of the status quo, there has been much difficulty with dealing with 'new' issues, such as new technologies, ideas in diplomatic relationships, changes in social demographics, and cultural shifts in personal lifestyles and society relations at large. This however presumes that these issues are 'new' and have not been dealt with before. That further leads to the assumption that as these are allegedly 'new' issues, they need to be independently evaluated indepentent of any outside factors for proper understanding and removal of bias. If bias is presumably discovered, it is also assumed that there must be a yin-yang opposing bias artificially created to counteract the other bias, to create a 'neutral' state. This IMHO actually accentuates the issue of argumentative bias, and detracts from proper evaluation. But in a progressive stewardship of faith, there is a totally different perspective, one of an obligation to manage and 'interfere' in kharma. Rather than accept it and just deal with it, many believe that they are commanded to go grab the bull by the horns and do something. Thus, many feel that they would be condemned for standing idley by and allowing further 'oppression'. Also, there is a concern to avoid 'condemnation' for 'deriliction of duty' for failing to ensure that others have the same opportunities that we presume to have. However, these positions obviously are diametrecally opposed. Religious people are accused of rocking the boat, and we respond with you refuse to steer. And the result of this is that fanatics on both sides, instead of leaving the vengence part up to their respective deities, take matters into their own hands to terminate people's liberty to decide to determine their fate or not.

Thank you ozanzac, you made a great case, that I believe is echoed by many others who should pipe up more often. I do disagree somewhat with this attitude: Do you allow yourself to be pushed? Do you let other people make up your mind for you? Is there a certain point that you can be 'bought'? If I were somehow able to convey a compelling enough arguement, what wouldn't you do? At basic face value, the original article makes the allegation that many of the crowds of mourners are doing so in a flash-mob mentality for personal emotional masochism, as opposed to proactive sympathy for the bereaved, and commitment to better society's situation from the event. That is, to me, a very interesting arguement. Denoir: I've never seen you, therefore you don't exist. Be careful that the mods don't deactivate the DenoirBOT's auto-reply system. I have a big pink fluffy bunny. It has a tag that says "Made in china". Mao is dead, why should I worship him?

Yhheeeessss, puhlay with their minds we will... It's slowing working on my sisters, first, assist them with noob games, while I'm cooking up OFP stuff. Then, as they get bored, they see muy m4d sk1llz on stunt island. "Ooo, can I try that?" "No, it's too hard, maybe later". They're suckers for 'hard-to-get'. Someday, I will get her as a tank commander, and then we'll see Ivan run.

Perhaps I've just not met enough people yet, but every single professing agnostic or atheist I've met and talked with at length has admitted that their choice of belief is a construct in reaction to either parochial abuses, personal emotional trauma or neglect, or the choice of a lifestyle incompatible with an orthodox lifestyle. That is their choice, but by taking a reactionary stance they deny themselves as much opportunity as they claim we deny ourselves though alleged subservience to faith. The article Acecombat cited was an interesting read, but still limited itself on various possiblities outside of mainstream thinking, such as, if 'God' were to organize pre-existing elements in His own design, that could meet the scientific requirement of continuity of matter and the religious requirement of obligation to divine creation. Science would save itself a great deal of wasted time and effort if they would get off their high horse and ask the man upstairs how he did it. If I want to learn how to fiddle with a config.cpp, I come and ask one of you in the forums here. If I have a question on car maintanence, I ask my parents who have done plenty themselves. If I have a question about why the stars were put where they were, I ask the One who would know such things. The original BBC article did hint in the general direction that the general problem is a selfish "ME ME ME" perspective that people are ingratiating themselves on. There have been similar articles recently as well on the 'philosophy and spirituality' of Tolkien, Harry Potter, and Star Wars as well. The related failings of organized religion worldwide I think could most likely be pinned on 1) existing religions' abandonment of their core foundations of faith and doctrine, and 2) the populace's lack of commitment to living a faith-centered life. How many folks, given the opportunity, would ditch church (or synagogue or friday prayers at the mosque or anthing else) for Football or football? How many scientists make it their life's work to attempt to prove the finality of death? You have one camp saying that faith creates liberty, and the other side saying that it abrogates self-existent liberty. Since both sides are arguing based on mutually exclusive systems of belief, how (or should) the two sides be reconciled? -edit- ps -edit- Also in reference to the original post, my sympathy's as well to the innocents who died in madrid. They are lost only if we chose to lose the memory of them. But the greatest memorial to them should not be mourn-a-thons. If you believe that terrorism should be proactively rooted out, do everything you can to support that. If you feel rather that it needs to be negotiated and reasoned out, support that instead. But don't sit on your arse at home getting high off of your own endorphins watching the tube.

#Toadlife You're right on on that point, "everything made new in Christ" is such a core principle to their belief and preaching. It's ironic how they keep citing as authority material they turn around and declare the source to be rescinded or superceeded. There is an arguement to made however, that these prohibitions were codified versions of previous Noachide or earlier principles. The case cited of Sodom is believed to predate Moses by at least ~500-600 years according to biblical cronology. If Christ were to have suspended anything from Moses as many interpret Paul as saying, they don't speak much on the earlier items. IIRC, the decision in (67?~73?) for Israel to fight on the Shabbat was authorized from a comparison of Noachide and Mosaic law. Argued from this stance, it would give more credibility to their anti-gay arguements, however, their retoric backfires again when the cases they cite were actually handled by divine judgement and action, not by the locals. Furthermore, in the New Testament there is ample command to uphold and sustain the law of the land. If you disagree with the law, fine, go try to fix it in a lawful fashion, to do otherwise is not "rendering unto ceaser".

My mom has a good friend from just outside DC. They went out to a nice local restaurant and my mom recommended the Marionberry pie. The friend said "I don't eat Marion Berry pie". Took my mom a bit to figure that one out. At least that police chief thumped the mayor on the patrol car when he found the crack pipe on him.

My mom was a teenager back then, and she thought they were all potheads. My dad is an engineer, nothing gets through to him. So I really don't know much except that there is this 'never again' "Vietnam" bogeyman in american society. The reason for it lingering I think is it is the same people running the show now. Bill Clinton, GW, John Kerry, Colin Powell, they were all doing something with vietnam as the kids in the streets. Now they're running things, and keep coming back to that era as their defining moment. Today though, I think there is publicly more apathy, but I don't know about actual numeric reality. Political organizations are particularly suspect for inflating numbers and prominence.

Ya'll gotta been around a bit fer this one. The rifles used at that time had significantly more range and accuracy than the more common smoothbore muskets because of their rifling, barrel length, and powder charge. This required significantly different aiming techniques than previous weapons. The cowboys and pioneers on the frontier in the early 1800's prized what where called Kentucky long-rifles, some nearly 5 feet or more in length. I've shot one once, they're a bear if you don't use a stand. The rednecks from that part of the woods tended to drink a bit heavy and liked to stir up fights and earned a bit of a reputation, with Davey Crockett at the head. Andrew Jackson led a regiment from the area (incidently a large number came from Tennesse as well) that made a real mess in New Orleans in 18(14?) in the last battle against the british. Up to that time, most armies used smoothbore muskets that had the accuracy and range of a slingshot. Using the long rifles, the redneck cowboys, french pirates, and freebooters of various reputation were able to engage at several hundred yards, as opposed to the standard europeon tactic of massed volley under 100 yards. One account I read said that the disturbing thing to an observer was how many British officers got head shots at range. Unfortunately (?) Bowie and Crockett and their cohorts were lost to the Mexicans at the Alamo.

Another example: the little town (~12k) that I live outside of was considering one applicant's request to allow modest gambling in a proposed restaurant. Local churches got wind of it through some ringers on the city council, and stacked the hearing. Nobody supporting the ordinance showed up, and it was overwhelmingly defeated. Regardless of your position on the subject, the lack of equal representation is disconcerting. Regarding religious response to this issue, the churches have the right as private organizations to restrict membership, as provided by supreme court rulings. The arguements against Boy Scouts has been primarily surrounding the fact that there is a charter authorized by congress, which is alleged to make them a public organization. If a recognized private organization chooses to deny membership or restrict fellowship to those who do not wish to abide their bylaws, that is their right to do so.

- when you kick/hit a door and the door moves, not you - when you start scouring GIS systems looking for any OFP'ish stuff (hey, what about Limnos in the north Ageaen sea?) - when you start thinking that OFP has more (quantity and quality) of local pundits on foriegn and domestic issues than leading news organizations - when you keep looking around the neighborhood looking for creases every 50m - when you try to reverse-engineer the fog distance level on the morning commute on a foggy day (to keep you awake and on the road) - when you realize you haven't jumped in a while because you kept thinking the function didn't exist

Good side: Very critical part for future cybernetic augmentation. Direct neural taps, although a bit more permanent and invasive, would be more precise though. Bad side: Er, as microphones and speakers are alike, I'd hate to be wearing one of these in an EMP burst. Static cling of your gibs to everything in sight would be the least of your worries. That mecha dream of mine is getting closer and closer...

Just went back to re-read the original article. I missed the part about them asking the county attorney to investigate creating a county ordinance to impose this. I'd really like to see what kind of creativity that conjurs up. There's only two roads that they really could try. The first would be to dehumanize individuals who choose a gay lifestyle. Hitler tried that, and the US has a long history of overturned courtcases treating blacks as subhuman property. Who are they to determine who or what is human? The federal level again would deal with basic rights and liberties to humans designated as citizens and aliens within its territorial jurisdiction. Option two is to declare those practicing or condoning gay lifestyles as an immediate threat to the life and liberty of the citizens of the region within their jurisdiciton. The spiritual impact on communities is not something the courts were established for or have jurisdiction over. That is to be left to the pastors of their congregations. If the natives are an immediate danger to the community's life and liberty, and the courts refuse to address their grievances, gather the wagons and move out. If you have no compassion or sorrow for those you presume to consign to hell, you'll end up being their next door neighbor. For a really long time. Have you noticed that when people of presumed faith thump the pulpits, the good book is generally closed? If they'd open it a bit, they'd find that judgement and vengence and purging are reserved for G-d, and who are they to take matters into their own hands?

Er, no disagreement there, the federal level of course supercedes local actions on national issues. Tennesse has no interest in Washington state school forestry trust accounts, and Washington equally has no relevancy concerning Tennesse educational standards. The reciprocality of marraige licenses issued by state licensing agencies as defined by current statue is obviously a federal issue, and should be debated locally, but legislated federally. I thought I was saying that this county had not actually made any binding ordinance, but had only submitted a resolution/petition to the state legislature requesting that they do so. If the legislature were daft enough to consider and approve it, the attorney general of the state would be legally obliged to defend it in court, and a suit could and should be brought by any member of the state or even a state agency primarily on the grounds of freedoms of religion in speech, assembly, unlawful search and seizure, illegal suspension of habeas corpus, unlawful denial of due process, etc. The county also erred by submitting this resolution to the state legislature. It is not the state's business in this matter, as if the the gay community were somehow guilty of crimes against humanity it would definitely be an issue for the Senate to discuss with the international community at large. Specificly regarding this case however, there are many people with fundamentalist beliefs that maintain that the physical presence of practicing gays or their supporters is an immediate physical and spiritual liability, comparable to old interpretations of "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Rather than reach out and seek to save their souls through normal proselyzation means, they resort to these barbaric and un-christian-like eradication methods to avoid divine wrath. But in reference to Denoir's well argued positioning on the difficulties of fundamentalism, the sad thing is that there will continue to be so much evil bloodshed and tyranny in the name of religion. BTW, there is a case here in Seattle where a Methodist minister(ess) who announced her status of lesbian, and demanded a church court to justify her position and force the church to change their beliefs/policies. 33 protesters were arrested for blocking the entrance to the parking lot in an effort to deny access to designated attendees. The adjacent school set up an Israeli-style fence and installed ~$10,000 worth of security equipment based on assumed security threats with out consulting with the church on planning. I have many friends and aquaintences gay and straight, and of many faiths. But where the rule of law is not upheld, anarchy rules and everybody suffers.

I'm from Seattle, and I certainly don't speak for Utah, it has earned it's 'unique' reputation. Where there are religious or legal abuses, those are grounds for church disciplinary action. There is a major issue with naiveity among the people culturally of course. When I went with a group of students to Israel for four months in 2000, I was tasked as a group lookout/security. I spent far more time watching my group to make sure they didn't do something idiotic than I needed to to ensure our safety. By and far, any negative comments you will find are from people who as former members claim that the church, not them has gone astray. They then seek to impose their personal beliefs on the private group via external means. This is the same with the general gay marraige issue. I oppose the games being played in courts on grounds that they are deliberately avoiding a debate and democratic vote of the populace at large, and also I oppose the constitutional amendment, as that is targeted directly at one specific demographic, instead of a generally written inclusive law. Elegibility for a marraige license is determined iirc by the state legislatures, and reciprocality of those licenses, along with international reciprocality is handled by Congress. The populace and elected officials have the obligation to recieve petitions and hear testimony, and enact legislation that is in legal harmony with the rest of relevant case law, as ultimately defined within the parameters of the consititution. While I disagree with the content of the petition from this county, I am glad to see that they are following the proscribed legal process. Incidently, I also supported the tobacco industry's defense against the federal extortion attempts, as well as the anti-Microsoft litigation. Did I agree with the products and actions of those companies? Of course not, but the greater danger was the legal precedent that was sought to extort companies out of money soley for the money.

Yup. If citizens or elected officials representing their citizens do not have the right to petition their goverment to address their grievences, that is an abrogation of freedom of speech. The legislature is also perfectly within its bounds to pass a non-binding resolution of censure condemning this county for wasting its and the taxpayer's time. Ideally, this would just sit in the legislator's inbasket until it falls into the trash can. Now if the county were to pass a resolution condemning the legislature's lack of action and 'alligence to satan' and call out the sheriff to evict gays from the county, the govenor is authorized to call out state forces as neccessary and with federal support the national guard and declare the county under martial law for sedition, as well they should. When the US invaded Iraq, some cities passed resolutions condemning the invasion, and some passed resolutions supporting it, and much newspaper space was wasted bantering about the whole deal, as if non-binding resolutions representing the majority opinion of the constituency were really a priority matter of general public concern.

I didn't say boo about supporting it or not, all I said was that people are grumbling about this county's legal and public approach, vs other locale's subterfuge. The gov. of Oregon state has warned that state's counties in general that they should not follow Multnomoh (and another, I forget which) county's lead in arbitrarily handing out gay marraige licenses without the state dealing with the needed legislation. Here, you have a case of a county requesting, not imposing a bigoted piece of legislation. And before anybody says anything further, I know what bigotry means. My ancestors were driven out of Missouri at gunpoint under an extermination order signed as an executive order by the govenor of that state in the late 1830's solely for their religion. All I ask is due process. If you wish to be concerned about their bigotry, fine, that's a good thing. But where is the equal concern for the disregard of the legal process by those who want to change another legal process via as much subterfuge as possible?

We can have absolutely no tolerance for intolerance, we must be vigorously prejudiced against bigotry. Hey, at least the county passed a non-binding resolution to the state legislature, which is the actual body authorized to enact legislation, and did so in a legally approved and public process. Members of the legislature have the right to recieve this petition along with any others from consitituents, and decide whether to sponsor the legislation. That's a far cry from Washington state, where a Gay marraige authorization bill was deliberately bottled up to delay it until the early hours on a friday night/saturday morning when nobody would be watching. The County executive of the largest county was exposed by a leading gay rights activist as attempting to secretly set up trial cases to force legalization through the courts instead of through the normal public legislative process. If they want to be reasonable and discuss the issue civily and publicly, fine. But if they continue to subvert the proper legal processes, they deserve all the same vitriole that they heap on GW for his alleged bigotry. When both sides accuse the other of this kind of back-door back-stabbing, there will be no negtiations, and that kind of hate-mongering actually creates more bigotry.

I recommend green tea ice cream, leaf-wrapped matsuzaka beef, and melon soda for the asian audiences. An extra flake of kombu on the miso for the miserly.