Posts by Hojon

some friends would say "hey, we're having a get together" and i would say sure we'll be there, then they'd say "oh, be sure and bring your watchtower!

I don't really remember pre-81 JW-dom in regard to parties (I was 10 in 1981) but I can say a swim party would certainly have been quite a scandal when I was in. The mid-80s were my horny teenage years and I would have LOVED to have been able to hang out with some of the girls from the hall. Unfortunately that was forbidden. I even got a stern talking to for going to a door with a girl my own age (we were about 18 at the time) that was hidden from the view of the others in the car. As if we'd strip naked and have sex on someone's door step.

Our Hall was extremely anal retentive and cold. I hated it from the moment I realized that I was missing out on being a normal kid, around age 6 or so, to the second I finally decided I was done with that religion at 19.

35

On behalf of Europe:

by TheOldHippie in

.

god damn the us cowboy president bush and those following him in his unprovoked attack against another nation.

i can understand that he, because of his obviously very limited intellectual capacity, does not understand what he has started, how he has turned the moslem world against the us and everything western and how he has alienated europe from the us and set himself up as the king of the north, the follower of stalin and hitler, but how it can be that he has no advisors or politicians around him that can tell him the realities of the world, is beyond my comprehension.. poor, poor americans, who must live under such a regime, under such a man!

Hojon

Are you serious? It's a pretty well documented fact that Saddam uses the rape of people's wives and daughters as punishment. He had his own sons-in-law murdered for speaking against him when they fled to Pakistan.

I'm curious how you know so much more than this woman about what living in Iraq is like. This sounds like a smartass question, but it's not. I am serious- why should I believe you over the several first hand accounts from people like her?

35

On behalf of Europe:

by TheOldHippie in

.

god damn the us cowboy president bush and those following him in his unprovoked attack against another nation.

i can understand that he, because of his obviously very limited intellectual capacity, does not understand what he has started, how he has turned the moslem world against the us and everything western and how he has alienated europe from the us and set himself up as the king of the north, the follower of stalin and hitler, but how it can be that he has no advisors or politicians around him that can tell him the realities of the world, is beyond my comprehension.. poor, poor americans, who must live under such a regime, under such a man!

Hojon

Whoops, just realized that the author of that article above didn't live in Iraq, but her parents did. There are some good articles written by other Iraqis here -> http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/issue-2-73.jsp

35

On behalf of Europe:

by TheOldHippie in

.

god damn the us cowboy president bush and those following him in his unprovoked attack against another nation.

i can understand that he, because of his obviously very limited intellectual capacity, does not understand what he has started, how he has turned the moslem world against the us and everything western and how he has alienated europe from the us and set himself up as the king of the north, the follower of stalin and hitler, but how it can be that he has no advisors or politicians around him that can tell him the realities of the world, is beyond my comprehension.. poor, poor americans, who must live under such a regime, under such a man!

Hojon

Let's see what people that actually have lived in Iraq think:

http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-2-73-983.jsp

The anti-“war” feeling prevalent among most people I speak to seems to me totally misjudged and misplaced. (Incidentally, the quotation marks here are deliberate: in truth it will be no war, but an invasion. A war presumes relatively equal forces battling against each other, with resistance on both sides. A US-led force will encounter no resistance from the Iraqi people nor the army).
I have to be honest here and say that, to me, this feeling is based partly on a great misunderstanding of the situation in Iraq, and partly on people’s desire to seem “politically rebellious” against the big, bad Americans.

Lest you think this was written by someone that loves the US, here is more from the same author

Let me say also, that I agree the American government is indeed big and bad; I have no illusions about its true intentions behind an attack on Iraq. The Iraqis have long known the ignorant and truly atrocious attitude of the American government towards most of the world’s population....

Iraqis also felt the effect of this attitude when America and the west ignored, supplied even, Saddam’s use of biological weapons on the people of Halabja in 1998, killing 5,000 people immediately, and causing the deformed births of children in the area to this day.
Iraqis knew well the untrustworthy nature of western governments when the coalition gave Saddam permission, a few days after the end of the Gulf war of 1991, to massacre the rising people after they had wrested control from him of most of Iraq’s cities.
In short, the people inside Iraq know the realities of American and western policy towards their country far better even than Iraqis outside – for they live with its realities every day.

So this is not some American shill here. Note the rest:

Questions to the protestors
I now want to invite those who support the anti-“war” movement (apart from pacifists – that is a totally different situation) to ask themselves some hard questions about their motives and reasoning.
You may feel that America is trying to blind you from seeing the truth about its real reasons for an invasion. I must argue that in fact, it is you who are still blind to the bigger truths in Iraq. I must ask you to consider the following questions:
Saddam has murdered more than a million Iraqis over the past thirty years; are you willing to allow him to kill another million?
Out of a population of 20 million, 4 million Iraqis have been forced to flee their country during Saddam’s reign. Are you willing to ignore the real and present danger that caused so many people to leave their homes and families?
Saddam rules Iraq using fear; he regularly imprisons, executes and tortures large numbers of people for no reason whatsoever. This may be hard to believe, and you may not even appreciate the extent of such barbaric acts, but believe me you will be hard-pressed to find a single family in Iraq which has not had a son/father/brother killed, imprisoned, tortured and/or ‘‘disappeared” due to Saddam’s regime. What then has been stopping you from taking to the streets to protest against such blatant crimes against humanity in the past?
Saddam gassed thousands of political prisoners in one of his campaigns to ‘‘cleanse” prisons; why are you not protesting against this barbaric act?
This is an example of the dictator’s policy you are trying to save. Saddam has made a law excusing any man who rapes a female relative and then murders her in the name of adultery. Do you still want to march to keep him in power?
Throughout my life, my father and many other Iraqis have attended constant meetings, protests and exhibitions that call for the end of Saddam’s reign. I remember when I was around 8 years old, I went along with him to a demonstration at the French embassy, protesting against the French sale of weapons to Saddam. I have attended the permanent rally against Saddam that has been held every Saturday in Trafalgar Square for the past five years. The Iraqi people have been protesting for years against the war: the war that Saddam has waged against them. Where have you been?
Why is it now – at the very time that the Iraqi people are being given real hope, however slight and however precarious, that they can live in an Iraq that is free of the horrors partly described in this email – that you deem it appropriate to voice your disillusions with America’s policy in Iraq?

When this whole business started, I really was against it. I thought that the Iraqis would fight tooth and nail to keep the Americans out, that this would make the VC attacks in Vietnam look minor in comparison. I now believe that the Iraqi people will welcome anyone that can get Saddam out of power. While they probably have no great love of the US, they recognize that this is their chance to end the oppression they have lived with (due to the US and Europe's actions in the past, that is true) for 25 years.

29

What do the elders do to a

by berylblue in

jw
friends

...severely emotionally injured witness suffering from bi-polar illness as well as a severe dissociative disorder (multiple personalities) whose husband left her and has no friends in the congregation, who starts smoking?.

disfellowship her.. just thought you'd like to know.. .

beryl

Hojon

Hi Beryl-

My mother's name is Beryl too. When I saw your name, I thought for a second you might be her (until I read the thread) due to the rarity of the name.

Yes, the WTS is an emotionally abusive group. It brings out the worst in people, and encourages them to continue to act that way.

34

Origin of Hydrogen

by Satanus in

most elements on this earth were made inside stars.

stars fuse the lighter elements into heavier ones.

stars, in turn, are born from hydrogen clouds, generally called nebulae.

Hojon

hojon..I read somewhere years ago that they found large deposit of encapsulated exceptionally pure uranium in Africa and there was evidence of self catalysing or whatever the word is. In other words the large mass of very pure uranium 2?? had begun a fission cascade right in the ground many thousands of years earlier. This of course left tell tale evidence in the surrounding rock and the body itself. The odds against this happening are astronomical according to the article. What do you think did aliens bury it there to nuke us off the planet? (joking)

Yes this it true. 3 million or so years ago, the ratio of U235 to U238 (?? It's been a while, I believe "normal" Uranium is 238 right?) was right at about the same ratio that we shoot for when we enrich it for our reactors today. Something like 3%, it's at less than 1% naturally today. Add some water and it's basically a reactor set up like we have now.

Note: My numbers above may be off, it's been a while.

Xander- what I was getting at is that fission is easier to make in the sense that the amounts of materials required and the technology to build a small fission bomb is within the grasp of many third world countries. To build a fusion bomb requires a little more engineering and precision. Essentially a fission bomb can be built to much lower tolerances than a fusion bomb.

34

Origin of Hydrogen

by Satanus in

most elements on this earth were made inside stars.

stars fuse the lighter elements into heavier ones.

stars, in turn, are born from hydrogen clouds, generally called nebulae.

Hojon

Fusion bombs are quite a bit harder to make. A country like Iraq probably doesn't have quite the technology to build one, but N Korea might. Fission bombs ("atom bombs") are easier to make as they are sort of a naturally occuring event. Just put enough material in one spot (or compact it together enough) and it just kind of happens.

Fusion bombs take a little more engineering to put together and HOPEFULLY Iraq and NK aren't quite there yet.

32

SEX, monogamy, baboons, etc.

by DanTheMan in

jw
friends

ok, there's this (supposedly married but sometimes that doesn't mean much)guy at work that the girls are sooo into, they just fall at his feet.

and yes, he is very good looking, one in a thousand maybe.

you should have seen the way they did up his work area for his birthday today.

Hojon

Why on EARTH would you want that, though? If the female had doubts that offspring from an illicit relationship would be cared for, they would not occur.
Evidence to date is that such pairing are fairly necessary for our genetic good. A large number of children from the same genetic pairing is a very bad thing for a local gene pool (unless, of course, the resulting offpsring all take off to different parts of the world - which usually is not the case).

That's exactly the reason I would want to do that. If those numbers are right (and I think they are too high) then men have a right to know that the kid is theirs. Not only that, if women knew that they would be caught, then I suspect it would not happen as much, or they would get an abortion.

I do NOT want to raise another man's child, talk about a slap in the face. Not only is your wife stepping out on you, but you are forced to look at the result of that infidelity every day.

Genetically you are right, which was my point above. However, that doesn't mean I have to accept it or like it. I got married, despite my belief that we are not biologically driven to mate for life. We humans have culture and social norms that at times override our biology, nothing wrong with that.

In general, though, I think the point stands, that most people end up with someone who's about as good as they can get. It's usually more than just looks, and in our life choices, we are not completely restricted by our genes, so it's not a hard-and-fast rule.

Yup. There are several things that go into it, but in general we get about the best that we can.

Edited by - Hojon on 12 February 2003 13:55:57