Posts by MorpheuzX

135

Victory for Terrorism

by Yerusalyim in

the terrorists won a great victory in spain.

mind you, i'm all for the democratic process...it's great...and had the spanish decided to part ways with the us of it's own volition, great!...however, the socialists were project to not win a majority in this weekends election...that is until the terrorist attack.

now, with the socialist coming into power...and the promise to both withdraw the 1300 spanish soldiers from iraq and to part ways with the us on foriegn policy we can look for more such attacks in other countries.

MorpheuzX

Some people on this board seem to be blissfully ignorant of US history and seem to be trying to make the point that the US stands up to dictators? Well let's just examine that point -- on this thread that's gotten totally off topic.

Pakistan: One of the United States' closest allies in the "war or terror" is run by a military dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf. In October of 1999, Musharraf deposed the democratically elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and imprisoned him. Then in June 2001 he dissolved Pakistan's parliament, because they elected Rafiq Tarar to be President. After that in 2002 he staged a bogus referendum, giving him another five years in office. So, if the United States cares so passionately about democracy, why do we support a military dictator in Pakistan?

Saudi Arabia: King Fahd has been the head of state since 1982. His family the Sa'ud dynasty has ruled since 1932. How many elections has Saudi Arabia conducted in that time: zero. In 1992 King Fahd created what he called the majlis al-shura or the Consultative Council -- they're now a 90 member body appointed by the King and possessing no power. The Fahd royal family is hated in Saudi Arabia and only exists because the United States government props it up. If we ever took our aircraft carriers off their shorelines, that government would fall overnight. Let's also remember that 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11th, were from Saudi Arabia, as is Osama Bin Laden. (whom the US secretly trained, armed and funded in the 1980s during the USSR-Afghani war.)

Iran: In 1950 the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq assumes power. On August 22, 1953 the Shah of Iran, with lots of help from the CIA, stages a coup d'etat. The US installed Shah goes on a campaign of "modernization" throughout the 50s and 60s, which greatly increases the profits of US and British oil companies and totally impoverishes the people of Iran. So, the Shah establishes the SAVAK, a secret police organization, particularly handy at slaughtering people who oppose him or who advocate democracy. In 1979 after completely losing control of the country he flees and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini assumes power and turns Iran into an Islamic fundamentalist state. Ironically enough, although the US publicly opposes the Ayatollah, in 1985 we sell him missile systems he can use in his war against Iraq (who by the way we were also selling weapons to at the time.)

Iraq: July 16, 1979 Baathist dictator Suddam Hussein assumes the Presidency of Iraq. September 4, 1980, the Iran/Iraq war begins. After a trip to Iraq from Donald Rumsfeld, the US begins selling weapons systems to Saddam Hussien's Iraq in 1985. March 16, 1988 Hussein uses chemical weapons against the town of Halabjah. August 2, 1990 Iraq invades Kuwait, deposing the Emir -- another dictator. March 3, 1991 after running Iraq out of Kuwait the US re-instates the Emir. George Bush decides to leave Saddam Hussein in power, even though Hussein's started two offensive wars in the last decade and is clearly a threat to the entire region. April 14, 1995, under UN resolution 986, Iraq again begins to export oil, supposedly to buy food and medicine for the people of Iraq. Although the UN and US know this is a sham it continues until March of 2003 when Hussein is finally removed from power.

And if you think this behavior is unique to the region, it's not.

Chile: in 1970 Dr. Salvador Allende is democratically elected President of Chile and starts a program of socialist reform. September 11, 1973 the United States CIA working under the express orders of Richard Nixon assassinates Dr. Allende and installs Augusto Pinochet as the country's military leader. It's estimated that Pinochet kills roughly 3,000 Allende supporters in the months after the coup. Chile has a population of roughly 5.3 million people, in the three years after the US orchestrated coup, roughly 130,000 of those people are detained.

If you think I'm making this stuff up, I suggest you go to the CIA's own website and read for yourself:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/chile/#5

Pinochet's military regime brutally ruled Chile until 1990.

I could go on and on, but I'm kind of sick of typing. The US not only supports dictators, the US empowers and sustains them.

Oh by the way, as a post-script the US government gave the Taliban regime that ruled Afghanistan 124.2 million USD in 2001 alone. And they gave us back 9/11.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/05/17/us.afghanistan.aid/index.html

39

Do you have a favorite piece of music?

by MorpheuzX in

i don't know if this thread has been covered before; do you have a favorite song or piece of music or performer?

i know the question seems juvenile.

but, i'm curious.. mine, i think, is a tie between wladyslaw szpilman's performance of chopin's nocturne in c-sharp minor and angela hewitt's version of bach's goldberg variations -- the aria is divine!.

MorpheuzX

I don't know if this thread has been covered before; do you have a favorite song or piece of music or performer? I know the question seems juvenile. But, I'm curious.

Mine, I think, is a tie between Wladyslaw Szpilman's performance of Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp minor and Angela Hewitt's version of Bach's Goldberg Variations -- the Aria is divine!

I don't mean for this thread to be just about baroque or classical music, anything. For instance no. 3 for me would probaby be Blind Melon's Mouthful of Cavities.

So what are some of your favorites?

44

Cast your vote: Is Jehovah a Myth?

by frankiespeakin in

thanks to many fine posters i think we can make an intelligent choice.

cast your vote and debate if you like.

MorpheuzX

I don't know. I don't even know how to start knowing.

It would certainly be nice, however, if there was a god.

15

Baseball!!!

by logansrun in

ahh, spring is in the air!

the newly unveiled grass freed from it's snowy blanket.

the first buds of leaves barely containing their excitement at the beaconing of all the birds of heaven.

MorpheuzX

Just don't let Steve Bartman in the stadium next time and maybe the Cubbies can win it all!

Seriously, it must be horrible for that guy.

L_A_Big_Dawg, you must have been thrilled about that Kevin Brown for Jeff Weaver trade.

23

God or Goddess, does the supreme have a gender?

by Sirius Dogma in

some people say the supreme being is male, some say it is female.. some call it goddess, some call it god.. of course this all pre-supposes one exists in the first place, but that aside, what do you think?

does god have a gender, what is that gender and what do you call it god or goddess?.

for me, i don't think god has a gender, if one exists.

MorpheuzX

I think this is a great example of anthropomorphism.

35

"You're an apostate!"

by Swan in

jw
friends

what would you do in a situation like this?.

you're in a hurry, so want to just grab something quick for lunch in a nearby fast food restaurant and then eat back at your desk while you work.

there was a woman standing in front of the condiments area.

MorpheuzX

I would have politely recommended she get some prozac and left.

135

Victory for Terrorism

by Yerusalyim in

the terrorists won a great victory in spain.

mind you, i'm all for the democratic process...it's great...and had the spanish decided to part ways with the us of it's own volition, great!...however, the socialists were project to not win a majority in this weekends election...that is until the terrorist attack.

now, with the socialist coming into power...and the promise to both withdraw the 1300 spanish soldiers from iraq and to part ways with the us on foriegn policy we can look for more such attacks in other countries.

MorpheuzX

Avishai, I personally think your comment was disgusting, especially coming from you. Have some dignity.

There seems to be this idea out there that democrats, liberals, whatever you want to label them, are cowardly -- just because they don't believe in doing the shoot first and ask questions later thing. And let me remind you it was a conservative President Bush who dared Al-Queda to on July 2, 2003 to, "Bring them on!" Since Bush's dare, 358 US boys have been killed in Iraq.

In case some of you don't know or don't care, according to Centcom, the current official body count of the Iraq invasion is 564 US dead, 59 UK dead, 11 Spainish dead. The total number of dead soldiers is 665, including boys from Italy, Poland, Bulgaria. The number of US soldiers wounded is 2,814. The total number of soldiers wounded is 3,241. What's the Iraqi body count? Well nobody bothered to keep those numbers.

And yet as even people like Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, George Tenet and Colin Powell have admitted, in retrospect, there were no WMD in Iraq and there was no connection between 9/11 and the Iraqi government.

Let me make this perfectly clear: YOU DO NOT KNOW WHO CARRIED OUT THE ATTACKS IN SPAIN! And yet a lot of people's response is let's send more troops and go kill some Iraqis. Or let's blame it on Al-Queda, even if there's no proof. Right now nobody knows if it was Salafia Jihadia, Al-Queda or the Basque separatist ETA. All we know is the Spanish government has arrested five Moroccans.

Most of the responses I see on this thread remind me of the first reaction of a scared person -- lash out in anger. Or the reaction of a cornered animal -- attack!

Let me further ask this question, how many of you big, brave, tough guys out there that are so gung ho to send more troops and "kill those bastards" have ever served in the military? Do any of you have any combat experience? Have any of you actually had to kill somebody? How about we give you a rucksack and an M-16 and ship you off to Iraq, sound fun? Or is all your big just talk carried out by the blood and sacrifice of others?

15

Baseball!!!

by logansrun in

ahh, spring is in the air!

the newly unveiled grass freed from it's snowy blanket.

the first buds of leaves barely containing their excitement at the beaconing of all the birds of heaven.

MorpheuzX

I don't know. I think some of you must be half nuts. The Tigers are obviously going to win the Series! They added Jason Johnson to a rotation that already included Mike Maroth, Jeremy Bonderman and Nate Cornejo. Now I realize that those pitchers finished last season a combined 31-67; I'm sure they'll be much better this year. Plus they went out and signed Pudge Rodriguez to be the new backstop for the bargain basement price of 40 million USD -- for a catcher whose played one full season in the last four. Good idea.

Jeepers, it must totally suck to be a Tigers fan!

Actually I think I concur with just about everyone else, Cubs vs. Red Sox in October 2004.

Even with all the money the Yankees spent in the off-season, I think too many of their key players are too old and prone to injury: Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Bernie Williams, Kevin Brown. In addition to that it appears that Jon Lieber, the Yank's reclamation project in their rotation has broken down again, meaning Donovan Osbourne is now the number five starter! (That's right the same Donovan Osbourne who last started for the St. Louis Cardinals back in 1993 or something.)

With a few more injuries, this might be the year the evil empire collapses. The Sox have so much more depth than the Yanks. And the Cubbies are just going to be smoking teams this year.

My pick for the series, Cubs in six.

As a post-script: I'm sure my Phils will find a way to lose again.

135

Victory for Terrorism

by Yerusalyim in

the terrorists won a great victory in spain.

mind you, i'm all for the democratic process...it's great...and had the spanish decided to part ways with the us of it's own volition, great!...however, the socialists were project to not win a majority in this weekends election...that is until the terrorist attack.

now, with the socialist coming into power...and the promise to both withdraw the 1300 spanish soldiers from iraq and to part ways with the us on foriegn policy we can look for more such attacks in other countries.

MorpheuzX

Yeru, in Spain they have this thing called DEMOCRACY. Here let me define it for you:

Main Entry: de·moc·ra·cy
Pronunciation: di-'mä-kr&-sE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -cies
Etymology: Middle French democratie, from Late Latin democratia, from Greek dEmokratia, from dEmos + -kratia -cracy
1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
2 : a political unit that has a democratic government
3 capitalized : the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the U.S.
4 : the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
5 : the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges

The people of Spain are free to pick their own leaders, based on their own ideas about the direction of their government, without regard for your farcical assumption that this is a victory for terrorism. Obviously if the Spanish people thought Jose Maria Aznar was doing an acceptable job as prime minister he'd still have the job; instead they've installed Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in the post.

I can only hope that our country has a similar "regime change" this fall.

11

Anybody watch the Sopranos?

by MorpheuzX in

this is totally unrelated to jwism, but does anybody here watch the sopranos?

apparently 12 million households tuned in for their season premiere last sunday night.

who's getting whacked?

MorpheuzX

My thoughts on tonight's episode:

Ok so Carmine is officially dead. Johnny Sack is non-officially the boss of NY. Carmine Jr. wants in but isn't going to have the muscle to get himself anything but whacked.

Adriana is drinking her self into oblivion; tonight's Judas' hanging himself remark might forebod her suicide later in the season.

Meanwhile the FBI closes the noose on Tony without him even knowing it. And Coronado Soprano, getting more and more senile is about to lose it.

And from the preview from next week it looks like Robert Loggia's character is starting to move in on Paulie Walnuts' sports book territory -- a show down in the making.