bleeding heart

It's interesting to watch the same people who decry the "leftwing, driveby, msm" suddenly assume it is the perfect authority for every important fact. So long as it aligns with preconceived notions and the "correct" political stance......

So...they attend "for free now" and "in the future"...and that this "free tuition" will be possibly "expanded?" Is Charest promising to pay poor students to attend university? Or are these questions insulting, demanding you be my "googlebitch"?

So everyone who is tortured belongs to this "subhuman" category? And you know this because...they are tortured at the behest of (or by) civilized Westerners? At any rate, do you support the torture of Western leaders when they involve themselves in terrorism and the murder of innocent people? Because it's quite a rogues' gallery of perpetrators, as you doubtless know. Or is it that Muslim terrorism is simply bad, always unacceptable...whereas our terrorism is more...nuanced, and more defensible? (Some shivering little knuckledraggers have actually tried to make that case to me, undeterred by elementary morality.)

At any rate, a few genuine well-wishers aside, "Support the troops" is more often than not a transparent code for "support this international political policy."

The mental and emotional aspect of torture is crucial to it, inseparable from torture in the larger sense. But I've ceased being surprised at the defense of it. Many of us understood, back in the spring of 2004 (when torture became part of the public conversation, following the Abu Ghraib mess), that by doctrinal neccessity, sycophancy-to-power would win out among broad swaths of the public...and among the Establishment intellectual culture generally. People who immediately before would have stentorially denounced the practice (correctly) as barbaric and unacceptable, suddenly started saying "Oh, boo hoo hoo about the poor little terrorists [sic]."

Exactly. This was Bertrand Russell's argument: (Just incidentally, I love the little bit of throwaway humour in the introduction: "Whenever I go into a foreign country or a prison or any similar place......) They're all about the same, yeah.

It would appear that Israeli Intelligence fears it isn't that simple. And (much weaker) Iraq was a "cakewalk," I remember well. Apparently that's a synonym for "catastrophe."

He was bought by Tristar Pictures (conglomerate: Sony) in '96 or '97, and has remained passively obedient ever since.

I've been called many things, some of them not even accurate! I'm a communist, an anarchist, a socialist, an imperial "left-gatekeeper," an Establishment liberal (now them's fighting words! )...but, to my knowledge, I have never quite been accused of being a Right Wing apologist (though I think "imperial left gatekeeper" is somewhat close). Awesome.

Because if anyone acts violently or in an illegal manner, it is the responsibility of the law-abiding protesters to stop them. Sure, the police remain unable or unwilling to do this, or to even separate the wheat from the chaff in their (highly politicized) rhetoric; the politicians are not expected to address the issue, except through blanket condemnations that display their contempt for democratic principles. But the protesters must and should solve every problem in which they're even perceived to be involved. It's quite rational, actually, within the lunatic framework of these discussions.

OK...but if we're going to diuscuss this matter in terms of Iranian belligerance, rather than on the belligerance of its enemies, led by Israel and the United States, the matter still remains far from clear. Plenty of Israeli political, military and intelligence officials, from the hawkish end of the spectrum yet, have been cautioning that an attack on Iran could increase the possibility of its push for nuclear capabilities, rather than diminish the threat. That is, an attack could have the direct opposite of the stated desired effect.

And an undesired result--or, morte accurately, a "we couldn't care less aside from bad PR" result--would be plenty of Iranians whose grand sin is...well, roughly speaking, nothing at all. I hear that, brother.

No, you, personally, have stated plainly that you hope it doesn't come down to a war. You make a mistake if you take it for granted that everyone else is as rational and humane as you are. But Iran is not 1930s Germany. Not even close. Domestic horrors aside, internationally they have behaved as minor thugs....certainly not at the virulent level of their primary antagonists of the moment.

Bonam's attitude, for better or worse, seems no different to me than most of the posters here. Of course; since I just told you why I posted it, and since you quoted me in your reply, I take it for granted that you understood.

OK...to "punk know-it-alls," which I assume is distinct somehow from middle-aged know-it-alls." Maybe. I didn't post it to please or to displease him; I only said what I thought.

I'm only pointing out the uncontroversial truth that your formulation--"[t]here is simply no way to get an unbiased result from a study based on subjective evaluations by a human observer"--must apply to your own observation here. By definition.

There's also the matter of, oh, you know, the possibility of lots of dead Iranians....hopefully it's not some kind of blasphemy to suggest that this, too, might be a bad thing. You're being too generous.

Leaving aside the notion of "fact," it is anything but "contrarian." It could scarcely be more conventional.

Except when the observer is TimG citing Occam's Razor, and calling out biases...in this case, the methodology is inherently sound, inherently unbiased, and is not a subjective evaluation by a human observer. Up to and including the self-evident answer of "biological reasons" (the primary answer, according to you), presumably a thoroughly unproblematic and non-complex matter.

His wife said the trial was unfair. And his personal friend Mark Steyn said the trial was unfair. So obviously it was.

This seems pretty unfair to young poster Bonam, who for my money holds his own, no problem, with all the doddering old opionators here, including myself. (And Bonam and I disagree as often as not...at least as often as not.) The disrespect shown to the young is pretty evident, however.

Yep. Didn't, couldn't [sic], wouldn't.

His is a lone voice on a couple of important topics, granted, especially now that Kucinich is gone. So, sure, credit where it's due.

Nevertheless, because mothers deserve to be honoured on this day, I feel forced to be temporarily kind. Have a happy one!

Sure, I get what youy're saying. But I was referring specifically to the racist newsletters, or whatever the heck they were, and which Paul claims had his official imprint, so to speak, but that he was unaware of the offending content. Could well be true, as i also said; but he should be aware of any content that bears his name and signature. Very true, and all this gets pretty ugly, i agree. But we're talking about something that did happen; Paul isn't denying it, but only his personal culpability in it. Even if his enemies are responsible for it coming to light (and this seems likely) it in fact is a true allegation. Fair enough; like I said, part of his platform is an elitist medical system, profoundly different from the good system the Americans have now, and in which the impoverished and financially insecure can go screw themseselves, thank you very much. In short, the often inaccurate caricature we hear about the American system is the one Paul really does want to implement.