Meshugger

Meh, the swedes are out. Now the tournament got a lot more boring. Oh well.

^The norwegians played an incredible hockey in that game though. They could've been mistaken for USA even.

Could you please make up a story that muhammed ascended to the heavens in one end of the desert and another one that tells that the residues of the old jewish temple, and subsequently its old wall, is on the other end of the same desert? Convincingly enough, and they will move there like flies gather around sh*t. They even give people Nobel's peace price for that kind of stuff! You'll become a hero!

By about 2040, the US will be majority Hispanic. Which I guess is still European but it's not Anglo-Saxon! Or have they by then been completely assimilated by then, just as the irish and the italians before them? Time will tell

There has never have been a true multicultural society. Even the US, which has no official language and is completely secular, is predominantly Anglo-saxon. Litterature, music, laws, langauge, holidays, everything. The rest of the cultures are there as a flavour. Hijabs will always be considered non-french. At least within this generation or two.

The whole document can be read here.

^Pretty much my idea too. Some people simply break badly when they are treated, in their opinion, wrongly.

IIRC, that happened to me back in Civilization I. The enemy had a spearman fortified in a town, i on the other hand, had feckin' NUKE. The spearman won.

Link. Terrorist scum!

Yup. That sounds about right.

Finished "The Catcher in the Rye" (great book, btw) and started on "Ulysses". Christ, that book is difficult, every sentence seems to have a hidden meaning or symbolism. But it seems to have a certain flow in the writing that i would probably like if i wasn't a literary retard. The thing is, i have to complete it. It is a gift from my dad that happens to be a reprint of only 1000 copies of the Sylvia Beach-version from 1922, made in handmade paper to boot. It looks classy when being on the shelf in my personal library though.

That hinges on the circumstance that torture is illegal and therefore must be carried out without supervision and in secret. Nobody wants to be fined, imprisoned, conscripted, have their property confiscated, lose custody over their children, etc. And yet, those are apparently acceptable, by most standards. Isn't that for all intents and purposes institutionalized "tyranny"? Is it better or worse than torture? Now you're getting difficult. Neither you or me can objectively quantify on whose suffering is worse than the other. Maybe we should go back to define what torture really is. Maybe i am a bit too idealistic in this case of realpolitik, but the state cannot exists without its people. The balances of power have to be check, there has to be line drawn in the sand where the individual is protected against the majority. If the people are rotten and corrupt, then the state is corrupt. Corruption is heavily fueled by the search of greater power, thus, the state have to have as little power as possible. Now look what you have done, now i sound like I was a member of the Tea Party or something

Ok, now i have some time. The "morally right" thing to do is not to torture. My reasoning comes as follows: You have to choose which life is more worth than the other. The possibility lies in the persons saved are people who have murdered, or will murder/cause harm to others. And what if the person to be tortured is only the provider of information, but nothing else? It hasn't killed anyone or harmed anyone before or even actively supported terrorists. What if the subject is the little sister of the mastermind that withholds information because it would risk her brothers life? In the end, the morality of torture becomes like f*****g for virginity. Of course, if we are talking about an actual scenario in active warfare, things become quite different.

Not really. I'm waiting for the hockey tournament to get going (tonight for Sweden). But the Finns ruined cross country skiing for me with their systematic doping. Stupid Finns! Keep beating the dead horse I do remember that one swedish commentator mentioned the reason on why the finns got caught. It was due to that the finnish team wasn't aware that that type of doping had just been forbidden. The austrian, norwegian and russian teams had been informed about it in beforehand though (i dunno about the swedish team). Anyhoo, see ya in the hockey-finals!

True, i discarded the machinewashing completely without providing alternative measures.

Thank you, i'll ponder on my answers and get back to you tomorrow.

I see. Well that falls on the morality side of things and thats a lot stickier. Is it moral to torture someone? Is it moral to let people die that otherwise would have been saved by the information torture supplied? How big is that number, is it ok to let 10 people die to protect your morality but not 100 people? You assume that the information is only available through torture of the subject(s). Is the torture the only method, or is it just the easiest? I can make it even stickier for you: what if the people saved by conducting torture are the worst kind of people that you could ever imagine, if you are aware of them is of no matter. Is it ok to torture a terrorist in order to save 100 potential child-rapists?

As an owner of two cats, i do not approve of washing your cats that way. Even if neither of them happen to be afraid of water to begin with. You DO NOT need to wash your cat unless it has fleas or if it has dipped its whole coat in toxic wastes or excessive dirt. Washing your cat is NOT a weekly pleasure that you can have as a pet-date with your friends. Washing your cat is a kin of you taking shots against Polio, TBC and other deceases. Only done when absolutely necessary.

I watch, since it the only thing worth watching on TV at the moment. What i am looking forward to though, is to watch is the mens Hockey of course. I do not care about women's Hockey with results such as these.

1. Only by my children 2. According to high government officials, they got highly valuable information by waterboarding Khalid Sheik Muhammed. Did they waterboard you? Nasty rascals What information are we talking about here? Remember that a lot of politics surrounded the issue, it was not in the best interest of the previous government that it was "bad" intel that he gave them.

*sigh* Its like Ive become the mayor of Crazytown. 1) Of course Ive never been tortured. Whats that have to do with anything? Ive also never been lit on fire but I dont need to to know it hurts. 2) What? Prove an improvable wasnt provable by other means? Again, whats that have to do with anything? Whats being debated is "torture doesnt work". I dont care if there are other ways (debatable), Im disputing how all you experts in the matter *know* that "torture doesnt work". Its utterly ridiculous for those words to even leave your fingertips when 100% of the people reading this would cave to torture and provide every last detail asked of them. I actually debated whether a western society should accept torture as a means of getting information. Torture is the easiest way, just as total tyranny is the easiest platform to run a state. We do not have democracies as a means to simplify the decision process.

Bah, Walsh beat me to it.

You do understand that most people are hardwired to greet others in a friendly manner? Humans are social creatures, and thus any form of guard or mental resistance can be lowered by a clever orator. Even the most hardened terrorist comes from social pack that they would consider as family, people that they treat well and wish no harm upon, and for whom they will fight with every strength to protect. Unless you confuse them with mentally impaired people such as extreme narcissists, sociopaths or full blown psychos. Should they be tortured?