Walsingham

"USA only care oil" ranks alongside "treat em mean, keep em keen" in the panoply of global theories. It might seem superficially attractive when life has you down, but no serious adult can possibly credit either unless banjoed.

Really nice cover.

KFC is for n00bs. EDIT: Brice f KFC upsets your stomach, then why the hell do you eat there once a month? I eat takeaway nasties maybe every six months when I have no other choice than going hungry, and even then I've been systematically working to ensure I have tinned food available.

Nah. Not nah, as in it isn't the explanation for why, because it certainly is- at least if you have a charitable view of politicians- but nah as it's reasoning you can use to justify granting anything and everything, power wise, and as such I utterly reject it as a justification (as opposed to explanation) for anything. Mandatory DNA samples at birth, mandatory finger prints, 'thought chips' when they become feasible, a domestic informant network that would put the Stasi to shame, nerve stapling, purging the unbelievers, ethnic cleansing, eugenics- there is literally nothing you won't get if you accept "people are frightened of the boogie man and politicians bow to their stupidity" as an argument for stuff. From someone who knew intimately the process and how to manipulate it: Hasn't changed much since 1933, except for the labels, the enemies and the tools. And the PR spin. And the ease with which GCHQ/ NSA/ GCSB etc can listen at every keyhole; Goering, Beria, Himmler etc would wet themselves in ecstacy at the thought. So ultimately that does explain why in one sense, but the other reason why is because politicians are both hungry to accumulate as much power as people can be stampeded into (or kept ignorant of) granting or at best unprincipled and gutless enough to only defend free speech as a convenient PR check box. People are stupid, politicians take advantage of that. Statistically, I not only have far more chance of dying from lightning, drowning, flu, falling branches, suicide, earthquakes, car crashes, meningitis, anything; but if I had died of terrorism, here, then it would be 100% certain I'd been killed by... french spies. So... you accept the point, but refuse to follow it? Why? Because you want to blame politcians? My point is _precisely and entirely_ that the people you are blaming are only behaving according to the rules of the game that we make them play. You could make an enormous status of civil liberties and leave it somewhere everyone could see it, and it would make no damn difference. You can stop individual laws. But it's pointless because the trend is being driven by other factors. You're like a paramedic trying to prevent a chronic smoking obese man from having heart trouble.

Yeah, I have to unerline this in massive black marker. There's no Sunni Muslim orthodoxy. It's one more reason why the jihadis are so wrong to assert their authority, and also why they are so fired up about trying to establish one. As an aside, this is why having an orthodoxy is useful.

Well, you know how they get into the country...

So far it's a take on the movie. So not a continuation. I'm not sold. I thought the movie flirted with interesting, rather than getting into bed with it.

Cold chicken pie, followed by pumpernickel bread. I've never had pumpernickel bread before. It's great.

Is anyone else sick of the narrative the media are pushing about 'moderate muslims' sympathising with the attackers because Mohammed is their role model, like a parent? I grew up with role models. I still have role models. If your role model thinks you should kill innocent people in response to an insult ...then your role model is a ****ing idiot. God, guru, or prairie gopher, they're a ****ing idiot.

I appreciate the detail going into your Gitmo arguments, but you're missing something fundamental which even you allude to: who enforces these 'fundamental laws'? The spirit of the original Geneva conventions as I understand them was that combatants adhere to the conventions because they want the same rights accorded to their own troops. I'm pretty sure that the jihadi ideologues and media don't even _pretend_ to adhere to the conventions. How could they when they specifically and deliberately target civilians?

It's not a fascist conspiracy, any more than opposable thumbs are. Both are a natural evolution dictated by the rules of the game being played out to their conclusions. Has anyone else noticed that the French security services have had been reamed over the attacks? If the public punish the security services for absolutely any deaths which occur then the security services have no option but to ask for every power they can think of. Their only defence when attacks occur is to argue that they should have had more power. Politicians, in turn, have to grant the increased powers or THEY get blamed.

Apologies, but still don't have reliable enough access to the interwebz to join in.

I don't in any way mean to mock your post, but I think you're being naive. Data has value, that can be mined. And that's today, with today's data-mining technology. Who the hell knows what value data is going to have in the next twenty to forty years. Data mining equals prediction of system behaviour - in this case people. Prediction enables control. This is one of the things which annoys me about conspiracy theories. Running around beloowing about how we've already lost all our freedoms undermines doing anything about real threats to those freedoms.

My inflamed spine finally subsided. I'm crediting the mead and laughing with my friends last night. Going to be a busy couple of weeks coming up, though.

So you think there are no terrorists? From my posts with him he falls more into the camp where most terrorists are the creation of Western governments and there threat is exaggerated to give governments more control of our lives *Happy laugh* What a wonderful world he must live in, where man is so peaceful that he must be provoked by governments into doing evil. Carry on, oh happy child.

Take up fencing. Fencing is awesome.

So you think there are no terrorists?

Mead.

Agreed but if they pool resources as far as improved monitoring of Internet communication is concerned it makes there overall effectiveness better and they are more likely to detect suspicious behavior I know some people will see this a "more big brother" but its not. It makes sense So your options are have criminal buffoons spying on your every move by hacking, or have bureaucratic buffoons doing it. I would hope that Mankind would choose neither.

Sara Malakul

Why who does profit from this ? And please don't say that the USA is behind the rise of Islamic extremism so they can money from it It's the lizardmen from Mars. Tjeez. Get with the program. To Neifirst: don't take the posters here too seriously, it's bad for your blood pressure. Does it make your blood pressure worse ... or better?

Sounds like quitting enjoying football because you're annoyed at the NFL.

I don't think you can 'win' this. If the internet continues in its current open form then tiny packets of hackers can always find ways to overmatch specific targets. What this means, kids, is that no entity you give your data to - or who generates data on you - is guaranteed safe. Given that most people I know these days only frequent a tiny handful of the bazillion sites available, I would put money on the internet itself changing.

I agree, but surely this is the point. Man turns the printed word into actions. These men turned it into murder. Others have turned the bible into murder, and still do. But it's not exactly the mainstream interpretation, now is it? There are hundreds of millions of Muslims. Muslims are the majority victims of jihadis. You do the maths.

Seems like I hit a nerve there. The point isn't what I've done to tackle terrorism, but what we all could be doing. You are - I assume - all citizens of free democracies. Your opinions count. _Especially_ the bull**** ones. You talk to other people, you can vote. You can think and learn and form novel and exciting perspectives on what can be done about terrorism. This is what democracy is for. It is what free speech is for. It is why free speech actually matters. Your thoughts, coming out of your mouths and keyboards matter. Jihadis are killing, enslaving, torturing, and corrupting thousands of people right now. Quit pretending it's some sort of post-modern fake moon landing.