Waiting for Fitzgerald

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Cindy Sheehan on GWB:

• George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cindy-...or_b_7433.html

Well, excuuuuse me!

Geez.

S_A_M

P.S. FREE NEW ORLEANS!

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Germany back in line. North Korea lining up, although I'm sure someone here will post some blog that shows we would have been better off if we had followed the Carter plan. The only rouge nation left is Iran, oh and France.

And Aphganistan elected legislatures.

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
rouge nation . . . France.

This is your best material.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Spanky
I have two questions (1 and 2a or 1 and 2b) for the people that supported the war in Afghanistan but not the war in Iraq.


1) If the Taliban were not connected with Al Queda would it have been morally justifiable for the United States to invade and take over Afghanistan?

2a) If no, how badly does a government have to abuse its people before another country has the moral right to invade and take it over?

2b) If yes, what makes Afghanistan under the Taliban so much worse than Iraq under Saddam Hussein?

Not that I fall into this category -- because I supported the invasion of Iraq until it became clear that the administration was dead wrong about WMDs -- but here are my answers. Keep in mind that any answers to your questions are pretty subjective:

(1) Nope.

(2) About the level of Pol Pot in Cambodia; Idi Amin in Uganda; the Tutsis in Rwanda; and/or Hitler in Germany.

In my view -- we really don't generally have a "moral right" to invade a nation, and in so doing kill many people -- on the premise that we are probably saving more lives from a largely different set of the population.

In my view, a "moral right" to invade kicks in as the situation approaches genocide.


So, much as I dislike Penske's pal Chavez, and disliked Hussein -- I would not have assigned us a "moral right" to invade those countries. Now, that doesn't mean I wouldn't try to knock the governments over -- but I wouldn't claim I had a "moral right" to do so.

S_A_M

P.S. Did y'all see the Broder column and the WaPo editorial yesterday -- both urging a swift confirmation for Roberts? Both said he's as good a candidate as the Dems could possibly hope for from Bush, and ridiculously well-qualified.

Efs and to add:

P.P.S. Hank -- tell me how this proposed deal with N. Korea is all that much different from what Clinton did in 1993?

[notcasesensitive]

Ok. I'll play. Though I don't have all day to debate you on this. I feel this disclaimer is a prerequisite to entering into any sort of Spanky-driven discussion.

Originally posted by Spanky
1) If the Taliban were not connected with Al Queda would it have been morally justifiable for the United States to invade and take over Afghanistan?

no.

2a) If no, how badly does a government have to abuse its people before another country has the moral right to invade and take it over?

"moral right"? I don't even know what this means. is it worth the loss of a lot of American lives to educate people in far off lands about how much better our system of handling things is and why they should want to be like us? I don't think that our role is to be policeman to the world. you do. what's to discuss?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
Ok. I'll play. Though I don't have all day to debate you on this. I feel this disclaimer is a prerequisite to entering into any sort of Spanky-driven discussion.

no.

"moral right"? I don't even know what this means. is it worth the loss of a lot of American lives to educate people in far off lands about how much better our system of handling things is and why they should want to be like us? I don't think that our role is to be policeman to the world. you do. what's to discuss?

I don't think he wanted girls to answer.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man

So, much as I dislike Penske's pal Chavez,

the babyjesus was not beloved in his day either.

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man

P.S. Did y'all see the Broder column and the WaPo editorial yesterday -- both urging a swift confirmation for Roberts? Both said he's as good a candidate as the Dems could possibly hope for from Bush, and ridiculously well-qualified.

And the NYTimes, in an effourt to maintain its position as the paper of record of the delusionally looney left, gave him a thumbs down. I'm sure Schumer, Kennedy and Biden had a little circle jerk-off while reading that one to each other.

In fairness, perhaps the Times outsourced that editorial to Jayson Blair.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
I've been in revolt for years against ignominy, against injustice, against inequality, against immorality, against the exploitation of human beings.

One of the greatest rebels, who I really admire: the babyjesusChrist. He was a rebel. He ended up being crucified.....He rebelled against the established power that subjugated. That is what rebellion is; it's rebellion out of love for human beings. In truth, that is the cause, the cause of love..........–Hugo Chavez, September 16, 2005

Please fix this so I am not forced to turn off signatures altogether.

[SlaveNoMore]

while



The Associated Press caption accompanying the image with a black person says he's just finished "looting" a grocery store. The AFP/Getty Images caption describes lighter skinned people "finding" bread and soda from a grocery store. No stores are open to sell these goods.



New Orleans, Sept. 1, 2005 - It's criminal. From what you're hearing, the people trapped in New Orleans are nothing but looters. We're told we should be more "neighborly." But nobody talked about being neighborly until after the people who could afford to leave … left


There are gangs of white vigilantes near here riding around in pickup trucks, all of them armed, and any young Black they see who they figure doesn't belong in their community, they shoot him.


But nobody cares. They're just lawless looters ... dangerous


The hurricane hit at the end of the month, the time when poor people are most vulnerable. Food stamps don't buy enough but for about three weeks of the month, and by the end of the month everyone runs out. Now they have no way to get their food stamps or any money, so they just have to take what they can to survive.


Every day countless volunteers are trying to help, but they're turned back. Almost all the rescue that's been done has been done by volunteers anyway.


here is the real truth, they were watching our in need of help Americans die and suffer because they are afraid of us African Americans and other poor races & it make me mad because these scum just are sitting around while people die and it is sick.


they can't even take care of our affairs here in America, how are they going to help other country's when this place is a hell hole. It made me sick to see Veterans dying and they fault for this country like my dad, & my step brother is now fighting in Iraq & even he called me & said that he feels ashamed & appalled at what he has saw this week from our fake country


I moved this post from the Texas board to here, where it is more appropriate. RT

These photos and captions have been tossed about for weeks. Here's what Snopes has to say on it:

"Origins: Looting is an unfortunate and largely inevitable result of large-scale disasters. Many property owners have to evacuate their homes and businesses ahead of the coming disaster (or flee the area in its aftermath) without leaving behind anyone to protect their property, and law enforcement and other emergency services are generally so overwhelmed dealing with life-and-death issues that they can't spare the manpower to protect private property. People who are caught unprepared (or remain in the disaster area for other reasons) often have to shift into survival mode and take whatever supplies they can get wherever they can find them, and there are always a few who will take advantage of confusion and chaos to make off with other people's property for their own enrichment.

The onslaught of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast in late August 2005 brought the phenomenon of looting into the national spotlight once again, including the two new service photographs shown above, both of which were carried by Yahoo! News and other Internet news outlets and showed persons wading through chest-deep water in the New Orleans area with supplies taken from grocery stores. Many viewers noticed the seeming disparity of the darker-skinned subject's being described in the accompanying caption as "looting a grocery store," while the lighter-skinned subjects were described as "finding bread and soda from a local grocery store."

Are these captions evidence of a subtle (or overt) racial prejudice in the news media?

It's difficult to draw any substantiated conclusions from these photographs' captions. Although they were both carried by many news outlets, they were taken by two different photographers and came from two different services, Associated Press (AP) and Getty Images via Agence France-Presse (AFP). These services may have different stylistic standards for how they caption photographs, or the dissimilar wordings may have been due to nothing more than the preferences of different photographers and editors, or the difference might be the coincidental result of a desire to avoid repetitive wording (similar photographs from the same news services variously describe the depicted actions as "looting," "raiding," "taking," "finding," and "making off"). The viewer also isn't privy to the contexts in which the photographs were taken — it's possible that in one case the photographer actually saw his subject exiting an unattended grocery store with an armful of goods, while in the other case the photographer came upon his subjects with supplies in hand and could only make assumptions about how they obtained them.

A Salon article on the photographs by Aaron Kinney suggests the captions were a result of a combination of contexual and stylistic differences:

Jack Stokes, AP's director of media relations, confirmed today that [photographer Dave] Martin says he witnessed the people in his images looting a grocery store. "He saw the person go into the shop and take the goods," Stokes said, "and that's why he wrote 'looting' in the caption."

Regarding the AFP/Getty "finding" photo by [photographer Chris] Graythen, Getty spokeswoman Bridget Russel said, "This is obviously a big tragedy down there, so we're being careful with how we credit these photos." Russel said that Graythen had discussed the image in question with his editor and that if Graythen didn't witness the two people in the image in the act of looting, then he couldn't say they were looting.

The photographer who took the Getty/AFP picture, Chris Graythen, also posted the reasons behind his caption:
I wrote the caption about the two people who 'found' the items. I believed in my opinion, that they did simply find them, and not 'looted' them in the definition of the word. The people were swimming in chest deep water, and there were other people in the water, both white and black. I looked for the best picture. there were a million items floating in the water — we were right near a grocery store that had 5+ feet of water in it. it had no doors. the water was moving, and the stuff was floating away. These people were not ducking into a store and busting down windows to get electronics. They picked up bread and cokes that were floating in the water. They would have floated away anyhow"

http://www.snopes.com/katrina/photos/looters.asp

ETA - this post should be debunked, too. It can be found here, here, here, here, here [you get the idea]

[Ty@50]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Please fix this so I am not forced to turn off signatures altogether.

Unless I'm mistaken, and off a few months, Penske gets kicked off the board in late January. Can't you just gut it out?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Ty@50
Unless I'm mistaken, and off a few months, Penske gets kicked off the board in late January. Can't you just gut it out?

If I've learned anything from this sock, it's that I grow old after a while.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
P.P.S. Hank -- tell me how this proposed deal with N. Korea is all that much different from what Clinton did in 1993?

clinton gave NK two light water reactors, current deal explicitely refuses to do so.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
If I've learned anything from this sock, it's that I grow old after a while.

Often we're the last to know when we've become tired. Maybe you and @50 can both take a break?

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Please fix this so I am not forced to turn off signatures altogether.

I will call Chavez and pray to the babyjesus and let you our decision.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Often we're the last to know when we've become tired. Maybe you and @50 can both take a break?

If you'll retire that sock, I'll disappear for a while.