Machinations

http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?o2...o3=&s=assertion Meh. I write fast, and 'Google' is a word. C'est la vie. Assertions would be correct. Of course, that being said, did anyone bother to read my cite? Israel does have the 4th most powerful military in the world. End of story.

Point conceeded.

Do you really believe this? Honestly, thats rather naive. It seems to many, including myself, that Israel is engaged in a collective punishment of Lebanese for allowing Hezbollah to become invested in the political process. The idea here is to make Lebanese fear Hezbollah as much as they do Israel - make them fear the results of their own elections. I mean, they are targeting medical convoys - this seems like state-sponsored terrorism to me. They have also been dropping pamphlets from warplanes depicting Hezbollah as a cobra threatening to destroy Lebanon.

Um, BS? The Israelis dont want them - I would assume you dont want Canada to take them either. Where should we put them? As to definitions of concentration camps - maybe you should look a little harder at the conditions in the Warsaw ghettos and how they parallel the experience of people in the West Bank and Gaza. I stand by my assertation. These are concentration camps. You'll notice I responded in your other thread, the one where you didnt bother to verify my easily checked fact. I offered you some links, so you can actually do some research for once. FYI, its true, and remains so. If you can't rebut me, get sarcastic. So effective. Fact is, its still kids throwing stones vs. tanks. An unequal conflict, I suggest. Thats because you don't read enough. If you did, you would find out that Israel has consistently opposed the deployment of a peacekeeping force in the occupied territories. Because the US has a veto, they have been successful. Because of course any anti-Israeli UN resolution must be anti-Semetic, right? Also your logic here is curious, are you saying that Muslim and African nations deserve more censure than Israel, with its religious based discrimination and 38 year illegal occupation? Is this because they are Muslim or because of something they did? Please, clarify. Your snide comment belies the bigotry within. I am sure you take great interest in matters of 'ethnicity'.

Careful. He might report you. Of course that might bring attention to his own behaviour. I am just terrified, can't you tell? In all honesty, it is probably his only option left - shoot the messenger.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/wor...rael/index.html You'd do well by a little research, private. This is what I allude to - your absolute lack of learning and your seeming disinterest in seeking it out. I have actually provided citations for my posts, unlike your diatribes and assertations. This will also help: https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/is.html (check military section) From the CIA World Factbook:

To be honest, Argus, your opinions deserve the put downs, since you would be ridiculed out of any university setting. The anti-intellectual stance of your 'positions' - which are unsupported by facts - reflect the dogmatic position of an ideologue. You deserve every ounce of my sneering, you shoddy excuse for a human being.

Is the fact that Lebanon is their home not good enough? Perhaps they are unable to leave? Have you ever been an international refugee? How long did you think about this? 5 minutes? 15? The civil war started in 1975 after Lebanon absorbed huge numbers of Palestinian refugees expelled from Israel. Israel invaded in 1982 and ignited a full-scale conflict. The war ended in 1990. Now stop talking and start reading you have some catching up to do I'd say.

Crybaby. See if you see my cross-check coming. The ref wont see, trust me. On the subject of a peacekeeping deployment - this is the last thing Israel wants, and you will see the US bend over backwards to prevent it from happening. Israel is afraid a peacekeeping operation will 'impunge its sovereignty' - in other words, prevent it from bombing Beirut to score domestic political points. Also, a prolonged operation in the area might draw increased media coverage and a change in Western, and critically, American attitudes - if regular TV images of Israeli 'collateral damage' are widely aired. Further, it is seen as opening the door to a UN deployment in Gaza and the West Bank which, depite being the obvious and debatably correct solution, is political anethema in Israel.

You know what disgusts me most about you? You get more worked up about a woman complaining about the heat than babies getting blown to pieces by F-16s.

The only raving nutjobs I meet are generally of the religious variety. I believe this remains constant, for the most part, throughout the globe. Could it be that an irrational belief in an invisible superman leads to irrational thought and actions? On topic, this is just an excuse to rant about Liberals from the conservative machine down south. If this was about a valedictorian talking about the war in Iraq, you would be on the opposite side of the issue. Ann Coulter would be screaming about 'anti-Americuns and Libruls (sic)' and who knows what else. She would infer then, that the high school class or at least the valedictorian, is a traitor to her country. Partisans, you're so transparent. I prefer thinking moderates with no political ideology who vote their conscience and do so with learning.

Essentially yes. If anywhere in the world there is a Vichy government its in Seoul. The South Koreans are ion a dangerous situation. Kim Jong-Il is a madman, of that there is little doubt, and yes, he has a relatively modern military. Complicating matters is the terrain - North Korea is mountainous and heavily forested, meaning any war would likely lead to heavy casualties. Yeah, I would have agreed with the North Korea intervention, years ago - this is a problem we have inherited that needs to be dealt with before it comes to an unpleasant head.

Hardly. I hope that you are young enough to live to admit you were wrong.

No, I saw the elections. I also saw the capture of a female MP and her bodyguard and the general breakdown of government since. Or did your brain shut off after the election? 'Ok, alls well now Alice, they done voted!' You do have much to learn, padawan. The good news is that you have the capacity to do so.

Since this statement is so important to you that you've made the effort to bold it, I'll write a seperate post for it specifically. Name one (1) democracy that didn't come into being as a result of war. Athens. And to clarify, forcing democracy on another people does not work. Revolutionary wars are often successful, but not wars initiated by a foreign power with the intention of installing democracy. Thats called 'colonialism'.

They never mentioned it. I asked the father about it, and he seemed composed when he told me the story, but for a usually jovial and convivant man, he was sullen and nervous looking. He was not trying to get my attention - he was more interested in trying to lighten the mood, and kept trying to change the subject. I persisted, because I have known him long enough and I see him every day, usually joke with him. Not lately, I'll tell you. The biggest lie in that article is that Saudi Arabia is a 'moderate'. The regime, a monarchy, are American lapdogs with huge personal assets. The people of Saudi are poor and Wahhabism has been encouraged by the monarchy in order to curb perceptions that they are pro-American. It is a disaster waiting to happen. Right now, the Saudis are quaking in their boots that Israel will start a broader war. If they do, and the monarchy does nothing, the people might revolt.

What I am asking, I guess I should have spelled out. What exactly could they be arrested for? You make vague references to ideas 'against the State' - but you fail to give any examples. If I homeschooled my child and taught him to, say, hate Britain and to join the IRA - would that not be a crime here? Please give me an idea of what exactly it is these children will be taught that their parents fear arrest. I think the argument could be made that since your children are a captive audience, and you a role model, privately espousing racist views could be 'spreading' hatred - 'preaching' is not the necessary legalese, if you will. In fact, I'm quite sure a childrens aid society would take said children from the home - but please, correct me if I am wrong. The entire purpose of lawyers is to figure out the best way to exploit the law for their clients. Legislation MUST be composed so that clever people cannot weasel their way into unintended applications of the law. Because, yes, believe it or not, lawyers have an impact on judges legal thinking. Hey, they were lawyers too once, right? Something more substantial? Try Psych 101. I could haul a hundred psych PhD's in the door to make that case - its not far fetched my friend.

Yes, but the supercomputers are estimating the probability of this event occuring as 0.0000000000000000001% with a margin of error of +/- 0.0000000000000000001%. If you read some other threads, I suggest Israel is not trying to avoid civilian casualties nearly as much as CNN would have you believe. I further posit that this war is intended to remind Lebanese of the consequences of allowing Hezbollah to become invested in the political process. I can only hope the supercomputers of the Mossad have already calculated the chance of igniting a broader religious conflict as insignificant.

Are you a scientist? Did'nt think so. http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/...ce/Skeptics.asp Sit down, shut up. The debate on whether its happening is over - only sycophants and paid corporate shrills persist.

He could have a complete lame duck final two years in power if her loses Congress. Apparently, they are dusting off the 9/11 films to show that Bush is still in a war to secure the United States. It is the one thing that unites people behind him. What will it work for Representatives and Senators as it does individually for Bush? That is the big question. We can pray for this, because if it happens, guess who would hold the keys to certain important investigative committees? Impeachment, and possible criminal prosecution, in my view - and thats knowing just what we know from the press. This man has committed unprecedented constitutional violations of Congressional power. Getting oversight back into Washington will be a good thing.

Hey - did I somehow get interpreted as being 'RAH-RAH!' Putin? I'm no Putin fanboy, if I can use the expression. I'm pointing out that Russia, unlike Iraq, is not on the verge of a religious civil war. The war in Chechyna was primarily a war of seperation, with Islamists wanting to create an Islamic republic. This differs from Iraq in many ways, including the fact that there is little or nothing we can do about it without going to war with Russia. Unlike, say, Iraq, or Lebanon, where we have choices.

Explain to me how Bush has brought democracy anywhere. Cmon, just ONE place. Anywhere? At all? I mean, I know he has made grandiose speeches, and proposed all sorts of schemes, and told us any number of wonderful things would happen - that we would be greeted with flowers, that Iraq would rebuild - I half expected Iraq to suddenly sprout gigantic vegatables and for the cure for cancer to be found in the microorganisms inside an Iraqi oil aquifier. Sadly, all of this talk turned out to be just that - talk. What has Bush DONE? Give me some examples - other than a vague ' he fought dem liberuls and the New Yawk Times'. Because frankly, they gave carte blanche - they have no majorities and as a party look more emasculated than our own Liberals. The Moral of the Story: Democracy at the barrel of a gun does'nt work.

Because its better to kill civilians with tanks, bullets and cruise missiles? The man whose house collapsed on his family, killing all - is he immoral - did he get what he deserved? Clarify your comments for me. I fail to see this 'moral edge' of which you speak.

Im not talking moral equivalence here. I'm mostly speaking to the vast gulf between how Westerners see the conflict and how scholars and others do. There is little to no understanding here of the history, unlike in Israel. Many Israelis are against the actions in Lebanon and know the only route to peace is giving the Palestinians some land. They suggest it - because that is what it is - are they not ghettos? Do the Palestinians not have loudspeakers erected by Israelis blasting orders in the middle of their streets? Is the Occupied Territory not a mish-mash of checkpoints? Are there not Israeli watchtowers with snipers posted around each Palestinian area? As you know, the other Arab nations, and the rest of the world, would only accept so many of the several million refugees. Call us racist if you will, but it appears Israel does not wish to absorb them either. Many, many displaced Palestinians DO live in Lebanon, Oman, Syria, Kuwait, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Yemen and, yes, Canada and many other places. But we're talking A LOT of displaced people. Millions. No, Israel chose to keep the Occupied Territories in contradiction of a standing UN resolution. The intention is a gradual process of envelopment into Greater Israel. If you lived there, you know this. Read Haa'retz? I'm comparing the conditions in the Polish ghettos of Warsaw (created by the Nazis) to the conditions in the Palestinian ghettos of Gaza and the West Bank. We agree on one thing. Now if only Israel would let the rest of the world learn about this without calling anyone who should mention it an 'anti-semite'. Because that charge is patently absurd, the way it is lobbied about - it dilutes the real meaning of anti-semitism, which is a real and vile threat. Conflating honest criticism and education with hatred allows the real bad guys to come into their own, so to speak.

to guarantee that teachers have jobs and that parents have cheap day-care. What else does public education manage to do? Maintain a set of standards by which our children can be given a balanced education. The system provides for intervention at an early age by analysis of a child's grades and attendance. Children are given opportunites when needed to help in certain areas, furthering their intellectual development. This ultimately contributes to society as a whole by maintaining a standard - if you will, of education and knowledge. It was not long ago that many adults were illiterate in Canada, unless part of the economic elite. Also worth nothing is that often, it is a teacher who first notices signs of abuse by a parent or relation. Homeschooling looks good on paper, sadly most parents are more interested in sheltering their child from what they see as 'dangerous' or 'immoral' influences in the world. By doing this, the parents often engender what they attempt to avoid - the inclination of the child to seek out and experiment with actually dangerous or immoral activites. I am for strengthening the system, making it more like France, with paid University for the top students. The system is dangerously underfunded and, truth be told, teachers are getting too much - as are just about all civil servants in this country. We need a drastic reduction in the size of the civil service - but I would hire more teachers, and pay them less after 20 years, when under our current system they are making, say, 100,000$ a year as a high school teacher. This scale needs to be cut back, and more resources introduced for children, particularly an emphasis on language (not just English and French), math and emergine technologies. Edit: If we had a plebiscite today on reducing politicans pay, is there any wonder what the results would be? Easily 95%+ of Canadians want to see the mandatory pensions afforded MPs after 4 years - and collectable before 65 - removed, and its not a stretch to imagine they feel the pay is too much considering how little work they actually do. However - without sudden active involvement by Canadians in government we're going to continue to be sucked dry - we're some of the most apathetic people in terms of democratic involvement worldwide.