DogOnPorch

I agree with you at this point. Several points of history would no doubt make excellent examples. All it takes is one fellow making a basic error in history then somebody quoting him/her to get it all started. Say a history report that said Barbarossa started in June 1942...or June 1940...etc. Just to be fair to potential 'neocons', could you provide an example of Robert Spencer telling only one side of the story for us to mull over? I don't mean to be a jerk either. Just so often I hear this fellow or that being discarded out-of-hand as being a 'neocon stooge', or whatever, without any real support as to why they are a stooge other than yours or someone else's say-so. Depends on how "uppity" the Muslims get in this process of 'finding-one's-self'...lol. I seriously doubt Saudi Arabia is becoming Christian...or that anyone is seriously trying to convert it. But I'll agree, some Muslims get upset about leaves changing colour in the fall and feel it is a personal insult. Then another car bomb goes off. ------------------------------------------------------- In the cool cool cool of the evening Tell 'em I'll be there In the cool cool cool of the evening You better save a chair When the party's getting a glow on Singing fills the air In the shank of the night when the doings are right You can tell 'em I'll be there! ---Dean Martin

Yeah...the Varyag. Sort of like a '71 Duster without an engine or interior. Canada found out first hand how expensive big navies were to maintain properly. We even had two fairly large aircraft carriers. Gasp...lol. Here's trivia...if you know BC-2004...hold off for a bit: What was the name of Canada's first aircraft carrier? -------------------------------------- Eternal Father, strong to save, Whose arm hath bound the restless wave, Who biddest the mighty ocean deep Its own appointed limits keep; Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, For those in peril on the sea... --- Will­iam Whit­ing & John B. Dykes

Well at least it isn't going to become a floating casino or part of some other attraction (see Minsk World). I guess the Chinese figured out that jump carriers are of limited military use. -------------------------------------------------- Sounds like the buggers mean it. ---Governor Sir Rex Hunt, Falklands Islands

That's for sure. I think they'd also need a few AEGIS cruisers to stop crazed Rerpuplican Guards in cigarette boats. Sad to see the old Kitty Hawk go...there's some history. Is it really going up for sale? --------------------------------------------------------- After a battle is over, people talk a lot about how decisions were methodically reached, but actually there's always a hell of a lot of groping around. ---Admiral Jack Fletcher

I agree that there isn't a real threat on the ground for the moment. Other than Hamas and Hezbollah which like the Viet-Cong would be pretty much impossible to really deal with without killing a lot of civilians. If/when the US/UK et al pull out of Iraq and NATO out of Afghanistan...all bets are off in my books. I wouldn't give Iraq or Afghanistan 2 minutes after the last soldier left before they become Islamic theocracies. Then Israel will have some real trouble on the ground...Iran has a BIG army. Just my prediction. --------------------------------------------------------- A powerful Iran is the best friend of the neighboring states and the best guarantor of regional security... ---Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Tricky but not nearly as hard as Entebbe. Don't underestimate the IAF. It's really is one of, if not the best, in the world in terms of pilots. Ninty-five percent of Arab pilots are literally jokes next to them...flaming, crashing jokes. The last large fighter vs fighter engagement vs Syria underscored this. Eighty dead Syrian MiGs vs ZERO IAF. Any attempts by Arab main force armies to take on Israel will end up in a Yom Kippur situation before they know it. The Arabs are keenly aware of this at heart...and treat ground combat w/ Israel accordingly. It's far better to let Hezbollah and Hamas conduct continuous partisan warfare from behind civilian cover. No real way for Israel to strike back without looking like the bad guy. Out in the open, though...different story. During Yom Kippur, the Egyptians and Syrians hid under their blanket of SAMs like frightened children, unable to move without their support. I find that many people (perhaps not sharkman...seems to know a thing 'er two) may have forgotten the details re: the Arab Israeli Wars. The common misconception I find is that the Israelis had massive military strength vs small, third rate Arab forces. You can have a devil of a time showing that the opposite was actually the truth. As I like to point out, the tank that saved the day during the Yom Kippur War wasn't some high tech modern machine. It was the trusty M4/50 (Super) Sherman from WW2. Just driven by some rather competent fellows. They were bought surplus and brought up to snuff in Israel. Wise move, it seems. --------------------------------------------- Once you get them running, you stay right on top of them, and that way a small force can defeat a large one every time... ---General Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson CSA

I have to take issue with this and I should have caught it long back. Islam...no matter what some Muslims/reporters/etc might wish us to think...isn't a race, it's a religion. Plenty of 'white people' are Muslims. ------------------------------ Objects in mirror are, no doubt, closer than they appear. ---National Lampoon/Heavy Metal

... So just to be clear here...are you against HRCs for them as means for 'the oppressed' to take free speech to task? I'm, at least for the present time, against them. We all kinda get the idea that you all and BC-2004 do not see eye to eye. -------------------------------------------------------- I must have killed more men than Cecil B. DeMille. ---Blazing Saddles

The blue berets would show up well. Chances are 6 Nations already has a land claim. Right up our alley. ------------------------------- My life, and by extension everyone else's is meaningless. ---Bender, Futurama

I'm actually surprised Canadian media hasn't ran with this football right to the goal line. They mentioned 'the Canadian weather station' but paid little notice to that amazing photo. Oh well...we saw it...lol. ------------------------------------------------ Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. ---Arthur C. Clarke

I was a huge Zappa fan, too...I even owed 'Sleep Dirt'...lol. "Titties and Beer" would be my favorite..."Billy the Mountain" was another good one. 'Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch' had "Valley Girl"...Frank's only co-"hit" song. -------------------------------- Billy was a mountain...Ethel was a tree growing out of his shoulder... ---Frank Zappa

I agree hunter gatherers...successful ones...were said to have quite a lot of leisure time...just no stimulus to do anything with that time. I suppose it was due to the world of the hunter gatherer already being explained and anything that might interfere with that balance being frowned upon. A young member of a tribe might come up with an inovation only to have it spurned by elder members because it might upset this balance. The two points you bring up...cities and accumulated wealth are indeed the two huge pay-offs that made it all worth while. That was a push, indeed...rising population...because you're right that hunting and gathering takes much more room than farming and is often horribly inefficient. Driving a thousand buffalo off of a cliff to feed a tribe of one hundred being a possible example. There are many different ideas on this one. As you mention, boats might have been used for short coastal hops which would have greatly sped up the colonization of N andd S America. During the Ice Age, in particular, where walls of ice were, no doubt, quite the major problem in terms of travel. It is also thought that areas like the Amazon probably had a lot less tree cover allowing humans to pass through with less effort. I still believe that these moves would have to have been by large enough population bases to survive from a genetic pov before recessive traits took over the population. -------------------------------------------------------------- The coming of the printing press must have seemed as if it would turn the world upside down in the way it spread and, above all, democratized knowledge. Provide you could pay and read, what was on the shelves in the new bookshops was yours for the taking. The speed with which printing presses and their operators fanned out across Europe is extraordinary. From the single Mainz press of 1457, it took only twenty-three years to establish presses in 110 towns: 50 in Itay, 10 in Germany, 9 in France, 8 in Spain, 8 in Holland, 4 in England, and so on. ---James Burke

Case in point...lol. ----------------------------- Mee so solly. ---Krusty the Klown

My exact thoughts re: you. It's always fun to watch morally superior people talk down to the rest of us. What was the old news group term? Oh yeah..."Internet Jesus". Arrives and solves all our mortal problems by the pure will of his god-like intelligence. If you listen closely you can hear the flip-flop of his sandled feet. Thank goodness you're around to set us all straight...and don't let me keep you from your important work. ---------------------------------------------- Its really sad (valley girl) Like my english teacher Hes like... (valley girl) Hes like mr. bu-fu (valley girl) Were talking lord God king bu-fu (valley girl) I am so sure ---Frank/Moon Unit Zappa

It would be getting to the end of a VERY long day on the beaches of Normandy. June 6, 1944. -------------------------------------------------- A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. ---General/President Dwight D. Eisenhower

How about the Aztecs, Mayans, Toltecs, et al? They developed advanced bronze age civilizations with astronomy and engineering. They were really only about 1000 years 'behind' the crest of the 'wave of civilization'...and they had to walk a lot further than Canadian tribes. I suspect it was the poor climate and pressure from stronger tribes/nations from the south that kept some groups from leaving the late stone age. No doubt, that wouldn't be the only hypothesis, but I think it it holds more water than folks prefering to live a marginal hunter/gatherer existance by choice. As for human's arrival in the Western hemisphere, it is generally thought that it happened during the last ice age when sea levels were lower rather than hundreds of thousands of years ago. There is some evidence to suggest this number might have been much earlier...some chance arrivals blown in from this place or that via the oceans. However, I believe there is a certain critcal level in terms of population numbers needed in order to provide a deep enough gene pool to last beyond a dozen generations or so. This is why science still tends to think we walked to North America in fairly large groups from Asia rather than random chance toe-holds blooming into full blown civilizations...like the Aztecs. -------------------------------------------- We think that groups of between 30 and 40 early men would have settled in an area measuring a hundred square kilometers. ---Dr Richard Leakey (re: early man in Africa)

Anyone else getting PM's from Danger Mouse? ------------------------ It's dead, Jim. ---Star Trek

That makes zero sense. Perhaps you should add me to your ignore list as well. Eventually you'll be left with only opinions you agree with. What a perfect world... -------------------------------------- Here's Johnny!! ---The Shining

Pretty much. --------------------------------- Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work we go... ---Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

In your world, perhaps. ----------- T-minus ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five...

So some people are special? You see...I don't go for that...at all. People are people judged by their individual merits. Not their skin colour. ------------------------------- I claim for Canada this, that in future Canada shall be at liberty to act or not act, to interfere or not interfere, to do just as she pleases, and that she shall reserve to herself the right to judge whether or not there is cause for her to act. ---Sir Wilfred Laurier

Curious, HisSelf...were you born in Canada? If so, do you think of yourself as a "Native Canadian"? This I guess in opposition to moving here from somewhere else. If not...why not?? Why wouldn't one born here be a "Native Canadian"? ------------------------------------------------- Your door is a jar...your window, a carrot.

It's sort of like riding a bike in heavy winter conditions. You might know it's possible because you do it...others think it impossible because they've never tried. Most people can't even describe what happens when one 'orbits'. The idea of applying the brakes to go faster, for example...an alien concept. Going to the Moon??....oooooooo...brain hurts. ----------------------------------------- Let's go!! ---Yuri Gagarin

Perhaps that's true these days, but it is also in conjunction with digital data arriving from space. So unless one wants to disregard the entire space program as fake, best fight a fight one could win if one wants to be a Moon...errr...Mars Hoaxer. ----------------------------- I'm moving to Mars next week, so if you have any boxes... ---Stephen Wright

MacLeans' blog on the tribunal.... ----------------------------------- I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK... ---Monty Python