theloniusfleabag

Dear Krusty Kid, I'll have to disagree here, 'might makes right' or 'might makes rights' is something I know to be true, but believe humans should choose otherwise. 'Wiping Israel off the map' could be done with an eraser, I think only the fringe of Arabic fanatics are calling for murder. Mind you, the 'fringe' there is much larger and louder. There would be much more support for Israel, worldwide, if they only did what you infer. I doubt very much that you will hear any world leader, least of all a western one, say "Hey, we should be following Israel's example!"

Dear PocketRocket, Well done, a jolly good wheeze. The last one makes me wonder if cameramen, especially wartime ones, are actually twisted voyeurs who found their niche. I though France was that angry province that wants to separate from Canada, located somewhere between Newfoundland and Winnipeg.

Dear scriblett, This is true. It is also exactly the philosophy they used on the Russians, who had invested much larger and more capable forces than Canada has. When asked why the Afghanis were still fighting even when the Russians announced their intention to withdraw, one mujahideen leader (Abdul Haq, I believe, but I will check the source) replied, "The Russians are leaving because we keep killing them, so we will keep killing them until they leave." For better or worse, no one has been able to impose an outside gov't, (or an 'inside one', for that matter) for some 500 years. How much time and effort should we spend trying to deliver an unwanted gift?

Dear August1991 and geoffrey, Playing 'god' without seeking to become god. The killing of, or denial of life to, those that do not to conform to arbitrary or dogmatic ideals.

Dear August1991, from... http://www.crystalinks.com/confucius.html 'Reciprocity' could be taken as 'an eye for an eye', but in conjunction with one's other 'moral gudielines', it could easily also lead one to forgiveness.

Dear geoffrey, We all shall die in our turn until values dictate otherwise. Your life or mine, saved or lost, will not rate above 'statistic' or 'human interest story' (in the media) unlesss it happens to affect affect masses, and/or you happen to do something of biblical proportions.Eugenics contains, equally, the same horror that people now equate with 'Islamism'. The guiding of action to an arbitrary, rather than deduced, end. We need to believe in that which is.

Dear geoffrey, That is a question that would best befit an astrophysicist. In layman's terms, as I understand it, into Halley's tail. And other places.

Dear Mr. Hardner, Confucius put the 'golden rule' down on paper long before Jesus. In fact, I believe it is 'the oldest rule', the foundation for society and morality. However, Jesus' influence in 'respreading' the message is no doubt gigantic. Riverwind's comment is common to all religions, if you don't believe in 'x', then you go to hell. Only a portion of zealots in each religion believe it is such a hard and fast rule.August1991, I have the original LP. Brilliant, groovy and irreverent. The story wouldn't be so compelling if Judas were some shady, also-ran apostle, would it? Some of Rice's lyrics do allude to the fact that both Jesus and Judas knew that they were both acting out a play, that fate had written the outcome, and they were both only doing what was neccesary to bring about the final act.

Rubbish. Generate a computer model of the earth with no foliage, ozone layer, or water. And our spelling is bad too.

Dear newbie, You are into the world of legal semantics here. I see no words of denial, so you would have to proce 'a sin of omission' (of responsibility) in court. Mr. Hardner, The following quote was from the Plame investigation...

Dear geoffrey, Birth control is a band-aid method that does not address the main issue. The earth is in jeopardy because of our lifestyle, not primarily because of our numbers.margrace, I think I read about this in "Eugenics for Dummies 101". I have a friend that is a firm believer in eugenics, but I tend to disagree with the notion. I have no desire to see that kind of 'Brave New World'.

Dear Leafless, Well said, and I agree. I agree here too, apart from the unlikely aspect of global war, viruses are the ones that could possibly kill half or more (possibly but highly unlikely all) of the human population. And we don't seem the least bit concerned.

Dear August1991, Actually, I think that there would be two equally logical ones, as long as my personal 'faith' isn't involved. Those being, kill as many others as possible, (cull the herd) or kill myself. However, given my belief on the 'meaning of life', it is more consistent to try to spread the message that change is needed, rather than resort to killing.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2...f-20060405.html Is the earth overpopulated? Is it going to be? I would answer yes to both, but with an explanitory note...the Earth could be in way better shape with the same population if our lifestyles were different. Consumerism makes humans act as cancer does, upon the host, earth.

Though I am not a fan of Ralphie, I think Lyle Oberg spoke the truth when he said 2 more years is too long for a leadership race and it could damage the party. That is why Klein shouldn't be too concerned about the 55% support on his confidence vote, because I believe the party would think this way no matter who the leader was. Now that he has announced his impending retirement, the sooner the better (within reason, of course. say, 6 months) Or even September.

Dear Argus, This is in part why I am a socialist. Costs are the central feature deciding all things in our lives, up to and including 'right & wrong'. I have previously espoused the idea of the Army taking over incarceration/the justice system. For cases like this, the budget would be national, and responsibility for prisoner transfer costs wouldn't be regional.

Dear GostHacked, This is similar to the argument Robespierre used when arguing that deposing the King of France was a trial and verdict in and of itself, and similar to Saddam's trial. If there is a fair trial, there should be a chance he would be found innocent, and, if found innocent, then he should be returned to power. Or so the argument ran. King Louis lost his head over the matter.

An interesting tidbit I found while re-reading the 9/11 Commission Report, (First Edition, and oddly, undated),pg 302. Keep in mind that the collapse of WTC 7 was extremely unususal, or, shall we say, unusuallly perfect. Video of the collapse of 7 WTC can be seen through some previous links posted earlier in the thread, I believe.

Dear Mr. Hardner, Yes, you are correct, I won't dispute this. But, risky, yes, a bit, but the planning would have taken hours, possibly minutes, not 'an inconceivable amount'. Given the go-ahead, most operations are formulaic. All that need have happened, was for say, Rumsfeld to turn to the CIA director and say, "The Twin Towers are due to be attacked by suicide Jumbo jets in six month's time, can you get them rigged so that they fall after the attack?" Any CIA director worth a piss in the wind should be able to make this happen, with a minimum of fanfare.

Dear RB, An excellent post. I agree 100%. I applaud your sense of responsibility, and belive that you are passing along something very valuable to the next generation. Well said, but sadly, Television ans 'pop culture' have become today's surrogate parents, and they glorify (and instill) the worst set of morals known to man, most of the time.

Dear Mr. Hardner, No, keep in mind these 'plans' were mutually exclusive. One doesn't affect the other, (though 2 could not have happened without 1) that is, IF the US knew about the impending attacks, they simply had to not interfere. This is where conspiracy theories get wacky. According to the conspiracy theory I laid out, the main purpose of 'pulling the buildings' was to complete the visual, and the 'terror'. For example, do Hollywood writers expect someone like Jackie Chan or Sly Stallone to go on an action-packed revenge rampage if his best friend, cop-partner/wife merely got wounded by bad guys? Again, IF the US had foreknowledge, the towers were doomed anyway, and ensuring their destruction at the 'hands of terrorists' would be both the most 'value-able, psy-ops scenario' as well as the most cost efficient way to do it.

Dear Mr. Hardner, Again, bear in mind, this is 'the poetic license of liturgy'...the conspiracy theory I put forward includes the fact that the US gov't (or some few in it, perhaps a handful) knew beforehand, the exact nature of the coming attack. Demolition charges could then have been rigged first. The only way to guarantee that thetowers would fall would be to compromise all of the support beams, not just 'some one one side to tip it over', but a symmetrical collapse would be more of a sure thing than anything else. If it was rigged, it would have been rigged properly, and that means straight down. The second event (the collapse) could not have happened without the first event. The buildings falling without clear, dramatic visual attack would have left doubt as to whom was responsible. Even a letter claiming responsibility broadcast on al-Jazeera wouldn't have had the same effect. And, further, the theory isn't that the US planned or aided the attacks, just that they may have had foreknowledge and rigged the buildings 'just to be sure'.

Dear Mr. Hardner Ok, this part isn't fiction...The psychological impact was the whole point of the exercise. It was not to kill the greatest number of people, for there would have been a myriad of other ways to kill more than 3-4000 people. Osama claimed that he targeted the towers because they were a symbol of wealth (read: greed) and power in the US, as was the Pentagon and presumably the White House. Krusty, this is why the hijackers wanted as few people as possible on the planes. True, a short line-up at security probably means more and closer scrutiny than if there is a muttering line-up of disgruntled passengers, but the deaths of the passengers was incidental to the operation. It wasn't about maximizing the killing, it was about the dramatic effect, the horror (or 'terror') of such an attack, not the numbers. I would suspect that 8:00-9:00 am, on a Tuesday morning, would have the least amount of passengers, (mostly business travellers, and the smallest percentage of holiday/family-visit travellers) and a bleary-eyed, possibly hung-over airport staff. Back to the fiction bit, the Mossad may have been the ones to discover the information in the 6 months prior to the attack, and made a bargain with the US. They could have said, "We'll give you information about an upcoming terrorist attack, an incredibly dramatic one, and you could use it as a legitimate excuse to invade the ME, (getting Iraq, and most of the Muslims hostile to Israel, off Israel's back...after all, there was a mass exodus of would be suicide bombers that left Palestine, Syria and Jordan to Iraq instead of Israel) and all you have to do is let it happen".

Dear KrustyKidd, Indeed, they picked trans-continental domestic flights to have the maximum fuel load. I don't believe that the passenger load was something they could influence. I think the date (9/11) was a bigger factor than the season, but I could be wrong. Absolutely, the Muslim world aflame would be in Israel's interests, especially if the anger is directed elsewhere, either internally or against the US. The Mossad is the most unscrupulous organization in the world, I do not think that anything is 'immoral' to them if they think Israel would benefit. Again, in this fictional account, there was no guarantee that the buildings would fall. In fact, most of the engineering references say that it is possible that the planes caused the collapse, but none of them ay it would have been likely. The one that collapsed crooked, for example, should have had the top sheared off and the rest should have remained, as there would have been no uniform downward pressure to collapse the rest of the building. WTC 7 falling was highly suspicious. I read "Bush At War", by Bob Woodward, and I believe him to be slightly biased in favour of the gov't. However, he did indicate thatWolfowitz was 'gung-ho' on attacking Iraq immediately, but Afghanistan was the choice of Bush. In the book, "Future:Tense", by Gwynne Dyer, it is more evident that Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others started planning to attack Iraq Sept. 12/01. So, the 'end game' wasn't Afghanistan, though they may have felt it a neccesity to go there first. No question that the Taliban was the 'state sponsor' of the terrorism. The actual 'end game' of Rummy was to militarily invade the Middle East, with the 'domino theory' of democratization (and US hegemony) by the sword.I do not wholly support all of this theory, but I don't think it as impossible, either.

Dear Mr. Hardner, Yes, there was a tremendous psychological impact associated with the entire 'visual' of the attack. The buildings were pretty much screwed from the initial jet impact, repair would have been formidable, if not impossible. Why not get maximum mileage from it? The number of deaths in this scenario would have been irrelevant. The social and political impact was predictable, that would have been the point. Outrage, cries for revenge, and pretty much carte blanche for the US military industrial complex to get rolling.Again, bear in mind, the scenario I put forth is pure fiction.