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1-1-12 Bassnectar NYE SHOW! 1-21-12 G. Love and Special Sauce 3-1-12 Radiohead 3-9-12 Experience Hendrix 5-15-12 Jack White @ The Ryman 6-7-12 Bonnaroo 6-19-12 Roger Waters presents "THE WALL" 7-7-12 Ringo Starr's 72nd Birthday Party Extravaganza at the Ryman
Osama is dead! Woo Hoo! What a testament to American efficiency:
10 Years/One man 4,000+ dead American troops 40,000+ maimed, disfigured, amputated and mentally scarred troops 1,500,000(estimated) dead and injured civilians Well over 1 TRILLION dollars spent—and still growing Patriot Act State-funded torture Full body cavity searches to fly on a plane Growing anger and resentment from every corner of the Middle East Growing support for terrorist groups(Who would have guessed, right?)
Hey, but at least your local Walmart is safe from terrorist attacks. Duhh! WINNING!!
America — where platitudes are like perspective for dumb people.
I served in the US military for over eight years. I'd like to explain this to you. The cost of freedom can never be measured. We will not give in to terrorism or attacks on our country no matter the cost in money or lives. Those of us who serve this country know that when we sign we have volunteered to put our selves in harms way. More than our walmart is terror free, and if our vigulance, determination and freedom make a few more terroists unhappy. Hey there's room for a new number one and we can take care of that too.
Congrats on feeling that way. It's a shame you're wrong. Bu bu bu they hate us because we're free and prosperous!
The War on Terror will never end. One cannot win a war on ideas and/or tactics. But this is a step forward.
My hope is this is the face-saving event that will hasten the end on the war in Afghanistan, bringing our boys home and saving lives and billions(trillions) of $$$.
Post by itrainmonkeys on May 2, 2011 16:10:55 GMT -5
A former Marine's thoughts on Osama's death:
I learned of Osama Bin Laden’s death last night the same way I learn of all deaths: via Twitter. I turned on the TV, gleaned what information was available, and felt — for the first time since I became a writer — a complete and profound loss of words. Twitter and Facebook were exploding, but I closed them without typing a letter. I felt that I should be doing something to make the moment memorable: popping champagne, hugging loved ones, kissing strangers — but it was 11 o’clock on a Sunday night. My roommate was asleep. The only company I had was my dog.
I poured myself a bourbon and called my friends from the Marines, the men who’d commanded tanks with me on the way to Baghdad eight years ago … It was after midnight when I got off the phone and finally watched Obama’s speech. I was drunk and needed sleep but went out to a bar because Bin Laden was dead, goddammit. I was hoping for a party, a collection of firefighters and veterans toasting the fallen and celebrating long-sought closure. But there were no firefighters. No veterans. No closure. Just a handful of people drinking on a Sunday night. My only company was a Vietnam draft dodger. He had a wife, two grown daughters, and a bushy white beard that he’d had since he moved to the neighborhood 40 years ago, back when 7th Avenue was all head shops and dive bars. I asked the bartender for a Baker’s on the rocks but he misheard me and poured a Grey Goose. I drank it.
I stayed and talked to the guy with the white beard until last call because it beat drinking by myself and talking to my dog. It wasn’t fun or memorable, but at least I got drunk. At least I’m still alive. The same can’t be said for the three thousand people who died on 9/11 or the six thousand servicemen who’ve been killed in combat since then or the unfortunate people of Iraq and Afghanistan when war landed on their doorsteps. Not Brian McPhillips, who was shot in the head south of Baghdad in 2003. Not Andy Stern, whose last act was identifying and reporting an IED before it blew up and sent steel through his head. For the last eight years, I’ve been trying to attach some kind of meaning to all the death around me — to the deaths of my friends, and to the deaths that I caused. So much human life snuffed out: thousands upon thousands of dominos knocked over because of the actions of one man.
I'm getting sick of hearing about how "we shouldn't be celebrating a person's death". Bin Laden's death may not change much in the scheme of things in the Middle East. It may not even be justice for the thousands who died on September 11 and, consequently, those in our military who died after being sent over to Afghanistan. But there are certain people who do not deserve to live, and that f ucker was one of them. I will celebrate that a mass murderer is dead. I'm not out in the street running around like all these buffoons chanting "USA! USA!", but I am glad that that piece of s hit is finally dead
that was his 666th post. But then he posted a few more elsewhere
No, I know. It would have been awesome to have locked the account at 666, for all eternity. Start a new one instead.
Sorry to disappoint you . But I've grown attached to my account, I can't just drop it. It was a one time thing to celebrate a very special occasion. Guess you are gonna have to do it when you hit 6,666.
I'm getting sick of hearing about how "we shouldn't be celebrating a person's death". Bin Laden's death may not change much in the scheme of things in the Middle East. It may not even be justice for the thousands who died on September 11 and, consequently, those in our military who died after being sent over to Afghanistan. But there are certain people who do not deserve to live, and that f ucker was one of them. I will celebrate that a mass murderer is dead. I'm not out in the street running around like all these buffoons chanting "USA! USA!", but I am glad that that piece of s hit is finally dead
^^this, more or less. I might not have put it in exactly the same words, but I basically feel the same way. I'm not going to pretend that I am not glad he has been killed - I am. And I'm not going to pretend that it's important in a strategic sense - because I know it isn't. However, I think it is extremely important as a symbol, for both us and them. That said, the people who try to get all high and mighty on me by putting Gandhi quotes as their Facebook status annoy me almost as much as the fratboy douchebags who viewed it as a good excuse to get Leno-faced in the streets on the Sunday night before finals.
I'm getting sick of hearing about how "we shouldn't be celebrating a person's death". Bin Laden's death may not change much in the scheme of things in the Middle East. It may not even be justice for the thousands who died on September 11 and, consequently, those in our military who died after being sent over to Afghanistan. But there are certain people who do not deserve to live, and that f ucker was one of them. I will celebrate that a mass murderer is dead. I'm not out in the street running around like all these buffoons chanting "USA! USA!", but I am glad that that piece of s hit is finally dead
^^this, more or less. I might not have put it in exactly the same words, but I basically feel the same way. I'm not going to pretend that I am not glad he has been killed - I am. And I'm not going to pretend that it's important in a strategic sense - because I know it isn't. However, I think it is extremely important as a symbol, for both us and them. That said, the people who try to get all high and mighty on me by putting Gandhi quotes as their Facebook status annoy me almost as much as the fratboy douchebags who viewed it as a good excuse to get Leno-faced in the streets on the Sunday night before finals.
Actually, it is important in a strategic sense. We need to be on extra guard. His death may inspire idiots.
Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall is taking some heat over some comments he made at his official Twitter account.
“We’ll never know what really happened,” Mendenhall said. “I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style.”
Mendenhall also expresses sympathy for bin Laden. “What kind of person celebrates death?” Mendenhall says. “It’s amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We’ve only heard one side.”
I checked out his feed. Most of what he's saying sounds more like the second of these quotes than the first. Yet I saw quite a bit of vitriol being sent his way from just a brief scan, and he said that stuff yesterday. Not to mention that he deleted the first of those quoted tweets.
At the risk of sounding like part of the tinfoil hat crowd... I don't necessarily disagree with his controversial comment, but I don't wholeheartedly support it, either.
1-1-12 Bassnectar NYE SHOW! 1-21-12 G. Love and Special Sauce 3-1-12 Radiohead 3-9-12 Experience Hendrix 5-15-12 Jack White @ The Ryman 6-7-12 Bonnaroo 6-19-12 Roger Waters presents "THE WALL" 7-7-12 Ringo Starr's 72nd Birthday Party Extravaganza at the Ryman
That said, the people who try to get all high and mighty on me by putting Gandhi quotes as their Facebook status annoy me almost as much as the fratboy douchebags who viewed it as a good excuse to get Leno-faced in the streets on the Sunday night before finals.
9/11 conspiracy theorists are the craziest people on the planet.
I had one of them as a professor in college, and it was actually one of the more enlightening and entertaining courses I took the entire time. He taught Introduction to Islam, and over the course of the whole fifteen-week semester, we had one lecture on Islam & Terrorism and he addressed the possibility for one article taking up 15-20 minutes of that one (twice-weekly, 75min) lecture. The backlash/uproar about this professor going into that class was such that the BBC was outside class on the first day in addition to domestic media, and classmates appeared on O'Reilly and the like. The scope of the hype around that far exceeded the scope of what people were actually hyping. I kind of think the vitriol at Mendenhall is the same thing.
I participated in a nerdy extracurricular called Odyssey of the Mind in junior high and high school, doing several years in the "balsa wood structure" category. So we would build balsa wood towers within specified weight/size restrictions. They would have a platform on top, and we'd see which ones could hold the most weight placed on top of them. I'll concede that it's not as architecturally complex, but I don't believe in three years of doing that I saw one tower - with barbells stacked on top of it, mind you - not one tower fall down on top of itself in such a manner. If my simple balsa wood towers never collapsed straight down onto themselves, you can see why I might be a bit skeptical that an actual professionally-designed skyscraper did the same. I'm not saying the people who call 9/11 an inside job are right, but I don't necessarily think they're crazy either. Certainly some, but not all.
9/11 conspiracy theorists are the craziest people on the planet.
I had one of them as a professor in college, and it was actually one of the more enlightening and entertaining courses I took the entire time. He taught Introduction to Islam, and over the course of the whole fifteen-week semester, we had one lecture on Islam & Terrorism and he addressed the possibility for one article taking up 15-20 minutes of that one (twice-weekly, 75min) lecture. The backlash/uproar about this professor going into that class was such that the BBC was outside class on the first day in addition to domestic media, and classmates appeared on O'Reilly and the like. The scope of the hype around that far exceeded the scope of what people were actually hyping. I kind of think the vitriol at Mendenhall is the same thing.
Kevin Barrett? I'm guessing you probably know this, but he ran as a Libertarian candidate for U.S. Rep of the 3rd district in Wisconsin in 08. Not sure if you've seen this video though.
Unfortunately I can't find the other one where he walks up to Ron Kind's (The Democratic incumbent of the district) office to hand him a "pink slip" like a week before the election. I went to the forum at UW-La Crosse's campus with him Kind and Stark (the Repub challenger.) It was actually pretty funny, Barrett showed up clearly not having shaved in a few days, no tie, etc. No one took him seriously. I think he got like 1 % of the vote.
^^ I like to think the best of people. But when 67% of Americans did not believe Obama was a US citizen. I'm gonna have to agree with Kyle and Stan also.
I had one of them as a professor in college, and it was actually one of the more enlightening and entertaining courses I took the entire time. He taught Introduction to Islam, and over the course of the whole fifteen-week semester, we had one lecture on Islam & Terrorism and he addressed the possibility for one article taking up 15-20 minutes of that one (twice-weekly, 75min) lecture. The backlash/uproar about this professor going into that class was such that the BBC was outside class on the first day in addition to domestic media, and classmates appeared on O'Reilly and the like. The scope of the hype around that far exceeded the scope of what people were actually hyping. I kind of think the vitriol at Mendenhall is the same thing.
Kevin Barrett? I'm guessing you probably know this, but he ran as a Libertarian candidate for U.S. Rep of the 3rd district in Wisconsin in 08. Not sure if you've seen this video though.
Unfortunately I can't find the other one where he walks up to Ron Kind's (The Democratic incumbent of the district) office to hand him a "pink slip" like a week before the election. I went to the forum at UW-La Crosse's campus with him Kind and Stark (the Repub challenger.) It was actually pretty funny, Barrett showed up clearly not having shaved in a few days, no tie, etc. No one took him seriously. I think he got like 1 % of the vote.
Yes, Kevin Barrett. I don't know if I'd say he's the best choice for office either, to be honest. I have no doubt of his competence to lecture at a university, though. He really was one of my more memorable profs during my time at UW-Madison. He's disheveled, yes. (I'm guessing he wore a short-sleeve button up shirt with a single breast pocket, possibly plaid?, when you attended that debate?) But he was also warm, often humorous, and knowledgeable in the subjects he teaches. I wouldn't be surprised if he had five degrees. He definitely had them in folklore, English lit, French, something in the African languages, and maybe another as I remember... something in there was definitely a doctorate, too, and my average professor didn't go by "Doctor" for what that's worth. He also worked a lot of musical references into the class, so that was a bonus. Not every professor starts a lecture by making his class listen to Talking Heads in the dark before commencing. As a tuition-paying student of his at UW, I highly enjoyed him and absolutely would've taken another of his courses had UW not let him go. He's definitely fit to be a professor; I'm sure he got one of the five best end-of-semester student evaluations I wrote in college. I, for one, found no problems with his competence or character which I felt would preclude him from being able to teach at the university level.
So yeah, if you ask me, Kevin Barrett definitely got fired for his political inclinations rather than any measure of his fitness for the job. He was in a position in that class to work his personal views into the material, and resisted. I think that was academically responsible. He actually did put on a 9/11 Truth presentation that semester with one of his associates in the movement. It was held in one of the larger lecture halls, which was nearly at capacity, on a weekend and it had nothing to do with his class. He was a bit of a lightning rod, so he narrowed his introductory portion of the talk to folklore and let his colleague handle the more accusatory aspects. I went, more out of curiosity, and I'm not saying I was swayed.
However, I think the 9/11 Truth people have just as much a right to state their case as, for example, people who didn't buy into the Warren Commission and their magic bullet theory.
As for the V for Vendetta thing... I'm sorry, but that's not necessarily crazy, either. Nor does that speak uniquely to the 9/11 Truthers. I think that's more of a universal tale of resistance at this point. Anonymous, for example.
Or this going on up at your state capitol.
But hey... this is coming from a guy who storms the capitol sporting a cheesehead & armed with a vuvuzela. Take my assessment of "not crazy" as you will.
************************************************************************** "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ***************************************************************************
I know that I risk provoking a firestorm on here and being condemned to a life of eternal Mondays. And admittedly, I'm not pure enough of spirit to be able to wholly walk this walk.
Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall is taking some heat over some comments he made at his official Twitter account.
“We’ll never know what really happened,” Mendenhall said. “I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style.”
Mendenhall also expresses sympathy for bin Laden. “What kind of person celebrates death?” Mendenhall says. “It’s amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We’ve only heard one side.”
I checked out his feed. Most of what he's saying sounds more like the second of these quotes than the first. Yet I saw quite a bit of vitriol being sent his way from just a brief scan, and he said that stuff yesterday. Not to mention that he deleted the first of those quoted tweets.
At the risk of sounding like part of the tinfoil hat crowd... I don't necessarily disagree with his controversial comment, but I don't wholeheartedly support it, either.
Oh Kdogg dont get me started on Mendenhall....less tweeting more working on holding onto the ball.
perhaps I should have researched the origin of the quote more carefully...nonetheless, it is a sentiment worthy of consideration. Again, not saying that I'm totally on board as I am not that "pure".
9/11 conspiracy theorists are the craziest people on the planet.
I'll concede that it's not as architecturally complex, but I don't believe in three years of doing that I saw one tower - with barbells stacked on top of it, mind you - not one tower fall down on top of itself in such a manner. If my simple balsa wood towers never collapsed straight down onto themselves, you can see why I might be a bit skeptical that an actual professionally-designed skyscraper did the same.
There's a big difference between placing a barbel on top of a balsa-wood structure and slamming a plane loaded with gasoline at god knows how many miles per hour into a skyscraper. This is terrible logic. Not to mention the fact that if you're skeptical about the Twin Towers, you must be skeptical about the Pentagon and the plane that was headed toward the Capitol Building. Which just makes the whole conspiracy thing even more absurd.
I'll concede that it's not as architecturally complex, but I don't believe in three years of doing that I saw one tower - with barbells stacked on top of it, mind you - not one tower fall down on top of itself in such a manner. If my simple balsa wood towers never collapsed straight down onto themselves, you can see why I might be a bit skeptical that an actual professionally-designed skyscraper did the same.
There's a big difference between placing a barbel on top of a balsa-wood structure and slamming a plane loaded with gasoline at god knows how many miles per hour into a skyscraper. This is terrible logic. Not to mention the fact that if you're skeptical about the Twin Towers, you must be skeptical about the Pentagon and the plane that was headed toward the Capitol Building. Which just makes the whole conspiracy thing even more absurd.
I'm not saying it's the same thing. I'm just curious why a phenomenon that never once happened in three years of doing that as an adolescent extracurricular occurred in a professionally-designed building costing millions of dollars. I wholeheartedly concede that the twin towers had better design and construction, so I'm wondering why they fell in a fashion with which my puny amateur balsa structures never did. I'm just saying that, from my knowledge, a structure is going to fall toward the direction of its weakness. So yeah, if you ask me, I'm surprised that a building that took a direct hit from an airplane on its side fell straight down on top of itself. That's true. Notice I'm saying "surprised" rather than saying it's absolutely impossible. I already said I'm not all for what the Truthers say, but I did say they have a right to have their suspicions. You completely omitted any response to my Warren Commission comparison; are you going to be logistically consistent against conspiracies here, and tell me Oswalt acted alone? That nobody should question the "magic bullet" theory? People have a right to ask questions and some expectations of a transparent government.
When those towers did collapse on that fateful Tuesday, I'm just saying... I was surprised they fell the way they did. It wasn't what I had been expecting as an observer. I was expecting something more like them falling like dominoes. So yes, I can relate when Rashard Mendenhall says he finds it "hard to believe" that the towers fell as they did.
I'm not so misguided that I don't think bin Laden & co couldn't have done it, either. That same fateful Tuesday morning, when I was having those same thoughts of towers falling like dominoes... there was a stretch of time in there where there hadn't yet been any answer given to the question of who did it. Amidst the confusion and unprecedented nature of what was unfolding before our eyes, when I asked myself that question, I had two guesses at the time: China or bin Laden. One of my guesses was right. When Mullah Omar gave that statement, during what would've normally been the middle of the night in a technologically backwards nation, that pretty much confirmed it. And yes, I did know who Osama bin Laden was on September 10th, 2001... I had represented Taliban Afghanistan in Model UN one year in high school, so I knew a thing or two about the country, and I kept tabs through the Cole bombing and such in following years. I knew enough of the man by then to have him on my suspects list.
I'm not saying the Truthers are absolutely, totally correct or anything like that. I am saying that they have plenty of questions which (at least to them) have been inadequately answered. It's not just the World Trade Center, or the Pentagon, or the plane down in Pennsylvania. It's W refusing to have OBL turned over to a third-party nation when the Taliban offered to arrest him themself upon presentation of evidence. It's smurf Cheney having problems building a pipeline through Afghanistan as a CEO & then having secretive meetings with heads of energy companies as VP. It's how Bushes & bin Ladens were all buddy-buddy, and the treatment W gave them in leaving the country. Not to mention that administration's itchy trigger finger on a reason to go into Iraq - let's not forget how they equivocated bin Laden with Hussein.
So yeah, even assuming that attack was legitimately bin Laden... the Bush administration gave the conspiracy theorists ample reason not to trust them. I don't think it's too far of a stretch to suggest that even you didn't wholeheartedly believe or support everything you heard from W's administration. Am I correct here?
I, for one, cannot fault another citizen for not trusting the Bush administration. Simple as that.
^Well said. I like the way you put things. I feel the same way. No one should believe everything that the government tells them or the conspiracy theorists. It doesn't take much to see that the official 9/11 story is pretty suspicious. One thing that always strikes a chord with me are all of the people at ground zero who who had their testimony omitted from the 9/11 commission report as well as testimony from folks like William Rodriguez and Norman Mineta. I'm not necessarily and avid truther but I do keep my ears, eyes, and mind open all the time.
Say what you will about the Truthers... I bet they're pretty steamed about Obama not releasing the pictures/video, and are in the meantime concocting quite the theories...
Anyone know what the Truther line on OBL's death is, anyway?