Colrom

Also, disabled people are so much easier to kill.

That's insane! Do you have to buy your own guns and tanks and planes and ships and ammo and stuff too?

Paint buildings like that and whole cities might get lost in a fog.

Burma Oil Myanmar is one of the world's oldest oil producers, exporting its first barrel in 1853. Rangoon Oil Company, the first foreign oil company to drill in the country, was created in 1871. Between 1886 and 1963, the country's oil industry was dominated by Burmah Oil Company (BOC), which discovered the Ychaugyaung field in 1887 and the Chauk field in 1902. Both are still in production. The oil and gas industry was nationalized after a socialist-leaning military regime seized power in 1962. As in many other countries, the State assumed ownership of the resources, either operating them itself or delegating this task to private operators, who were paid for their outlay and work in oil or gas under production sharing contracts (PSCs). In 2007, nine foreign oil companies (Myanmar Petroleum Resources Ltd, Focus Energy Ltd, Westburne, China National Offshore Oil Corporation, China National Petrochemical Corporation, Sinopec, Essar, Goldpetrol and a representative of the Kalmik republic) are involved in 16 onshore blocks to explore new areas (EP blocks), to enhance recovery from existing fields (IOR blocks), to reactivate fields where production has been suspended (RFS blocks) and to produce (PSCs). For the offshore area, Total, Petronas Carigali Myanmar, Daewoo, PTT-EP, China National Offshore Oil Corporation, China National Petrochemical Corporation, Essar, Gail and Rimbunam (Malaysia) are exploring and/or developing 29 blocks. It should be noted that Myanmar authorities intensified the opening of blocks to foreign companies since the end of 2004. Myanmar

I see. You did OK explaining. Thanks. I try to avoid the Simpsons and Family Guy. I don't hate them or anything. I just don't get much from them. Even less than that it seems. Rats. My younger son likes them though.

"Jebus" is a way to get around committing blasphemy. There are lots of other examples. "Jeez." "Gosh Darn." There is a word for those type of expressions - but I don't remember what it is. It's kinda cute. Do people really believe they are fooling God? Does it mean they don't agree with the commandment or that they don't take it seriously or that they really don't believe in God or what?

It is my impression that most successful assassinations are carried out by capable and experienced killers working under the guidance or influence of powerful political people. Also, treachery seems to be a common element. A trusted person clears the way for the killing. One of Hitler's generals tried to kill Hitler. Some people believe that the CIA may have played a role in the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. I haven't seen or read anything that makes me think that assassinations of that type are likely to be detered by public awareness of the risk to the victim. There is reason to believe, however, that assassinations may be detered by fear and expectation of retribution - the more so if the retribution is likely to be of a type that will not be easy to avoid. So - if you want to deter assassination - you would probably do best develop fear of retribution in the minds of those you expect are most likely to be doing the evil deed. It is not clear if we have been doing a good job of that lately. Our political police seem to be too easily distracted from their assigned task by the gold coins they find lying about. Is that better?

Come now. I don't think language is the problem. How about we don't talk about or bet on the prospects of assassination of Obama or the Queen or anybody else. That should be clear enough. Add On Edit - I guess that was uncalled for on my part. I apologize. More reasoned response in next post.

You can raise awareness without seeking to profit. I think many people are aware of the risk. The biggest risk is probably assassination by capable professional killers - like those who work for the CIA or aligned groups. I don't think security is the issue. One thing that deters profession political assassination is the prospect of discovery and horrendous consequences. If you can make it clear that someone will find any bastards who do such a thing and destroy them and all of their friends that will help. You can see though, that even murder/assassination by bin Laden did not result in effective retribution against the perpetrators but instead in efforts to profit from the deaths by perpetrating other wars of opportunity to achieve other objectives (political control of the Middle East). It's like gang fights. Even the good guys are skum. You can hope that there really are a few good men and because of that it won't happen.

It's not nice to seek to profit from such an event.

Lots of communication and gift stuff is the main thing. Help keep 'em plugged in and feeling connected.

You don't need no stupid Kraut wars - You got Yanks wars now. Wargames Forever!

The kid clearly hates American's freedoms and is aiding the Terrorists. Is he a Muslim?

"If present trends continue, the chief economist at the OECD argues, in 20 years the average U.S. citizen will be twice as rich as the average Frenchman or German. (Britain is an exception on most of these measures, lying somewhere between Continental Europe and the United States.)" Zakaria's "average U.S. citizen" is a fantasy construct - the idea has the same relevance as the idea of the "average person working on an U.S. antibellum plantation" - the average of 1 master and 99 slaves. The average EU citizen may be less of a fantasy construct. There are MANY other problems with his analysis but it isn't worth the effort really.

How about Hubris? Hubris fairly typifies the behavior of the religious organizations - especially the Catholic Church.

You win the thread!

If you think I'm hard to understand you should have heard Casey Stengel (manager of the New York Yankees for quite a while - when they were actaully winning alot of penants and championships).

I'm sorry you don't understand. What I am saying is: 1) The US is just the latest leader of the Christian world (derived from the Roman world). 2) That world has been engaged in conquering and stealing stuff from outsiders and sometimes raping them and sometimes enslaving them and sometimes exterminating them for some time. Think of us a Pirates with advanced degrees and religious rationalizations. For the history please refer to the last 2000 years or so of western history. Ignore the family food fights which sometimes were quite ugly and look at the outside conquests and rich booty we have accumulated! 3. In view of all that, and recognizing that many companies that influence US policy are officially based in other countries these days, I think that it is only fair to accept input from our fellow pirates. I hope that makes it clearer. By the way, "Constantine's Sword" by James Carrol is a nice little read on the 2000 year history of the relationship between "The Church" and "The Jews". Gunga Din wrote something about wounded knee I think.

It's OK. I think of us over here as just the temporary leaders of the nefarious western civilization pirate ship. All of us in the west have a stake in the booty and the infamy. Give us input. No problem. Just don't poison the water. That's nasty.

It may be at least partly true. I think the suicide bombers were identified - worked at the market and were known - and known to be mentally defective in some way - although it is not clear that they had a clear diagnosis. I do wonder if the diagnosis of Downs Syndrom is a propaganda bit. The specificity of the characterization raises my eyebrows. The story just says that some people called one of the bombers a "crazy lady". Of course translation is always an opportunity for mistakes. Over all though, the idea that a military or other terrorist group would use psychologically or mentally challenged people - while disgusting - is not at all out of the ordinary. The US has reduced education and intelligence standards for recruitment of foot soldiers quite a bit over the last few years. Standards have also been greatly reduced regarding accepting recruits with criminal records. Alot of these soldiers are not so savvy. But then we don't have them blow themselves up. I do think that we could use better methods for remote detonation of IEDs - but my iderstanding is we don't because they conflict with our CCC systems (so it is cheaper to use soldiers to find them?). Debates about the fine points of the morality of murders and murderers are bizarro - although maybe sorta valid - but they cause me to feel very sad.

Here's a link to MSNBC's story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22116784/ I suspect the links to this news will change as the story develops. Seems like an angry young man went completely crazy. Too bad.

I like to know a bit about the sources of news, so I did a quick search. This news service appears to produce alot of critical reports about Iran. I couldn't find out much about them in a short time other than that they are based in Italy but do considerable reporting on the middle east. I might need to read italian to really figure them out. It is interesting that their web sites are .com rather than something european. Here's what they say about themselves ADNKRONOS GROUP - GMC GIUSEPPE MARRA COMMUNICATIONS S.p.A. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The AdnKronos Group - which operates in the field of information and communication in Italy - is developed around the News Agency which still represents its core business. By diversifying the activities, other structures have been added that successfully operate in the publishing and communications sectors. The AdnKronos Group has 350 employees and numerous outside contributors. The central structures (Head Office, Finance & Control, Sales & Marketing, Technical Services) as well as the operating structures (News Agency, Communications, Audiovisuals, Publishing House - traditional and new media, Health News Agency, Press Release Distribution Company, AKI-AdnKronos International) are characterized by a high professionalism and great operating flexibility. Special attention is focused on technological innovation and international topics. Teams of professionals in the specific sectors study, evaluate and test new interactive and relational communication techniques, in cooperation with major Italian and foreign companies. AdnKronos has always stood out for its international collaboration efforts. All its structures dialogue and interact with prestigious partners in the information, communications and commercial sectors in every continent of the world. The AdnKronos products and services mirror the business strategy of integrated communications that is sparked by news but then goes through all the information and communications processes all the way to the most advanced techniques of consensus aggregation. This has enabled AdnKronos to establish itself as the reliable point of reference within the framework of multimedia information, publishing and communications systems. The AdnKronos Group is on the Internet with its site ITALY GLOBAL NATION, providing real-time information, among the others, to the Italian media and communities abroad. The site, that counts an average of more than one million hits per day, is at the address http://www.adnkronos.com/ The last company created in the AdnKronos Group in 2003, AKI-AdnKronos International, is an international multimedial news agency that provides text, audio and video news in the Italian, English and Arab languages, focused on the Middle and Far East areas. AKI's site is at the address www.adnki.com and www.akicrisestoday.com exec.: MARRA Giuseppe Pasquale , chmn. and editor-in-chief AdnKronos S.p.A. (News Agency), chmn. AdnKronos Salute S.p.A., AdnKronos International S.r.l., Mak Multimedia S.p.A., AdnKronos Libri, and GMC Giuseppe Marra Communications S.p.A. CICATIELLO Massimo (Dott.), executive dir. AdnKronos Comunicazione S.p.A. (Communications and Audiovisuals services and products), CEO of AdnKronos Cultura, and chmn. AdnKronos Nord-Est S.r.l. MARCOZZI Massimo (Dott.), CEO of AdnKronos Comunicazione S.p.A. and GMC Giuseppe Marra Communications S.p.A. CASTELLI Giulio , CEO of MAK - Multimedia AdnKronos (Multimedia Company) REPETTO Daniele , editorial mgr. AdnKronos Group a.: Piazza Mastai 9, I-00153 Roma tel.: (+39) 0658071 fax: (+39) 065807815 Internet: http://www.adnkronos.com/ http://www.museionline.com/ http://www.immedia.it/ http://www.adnki.com/ http://www.akicrisestoday.com/

It is strange to me that comments about the history of the first world war are being viewed by some through a nationalistic lense as either pro American or anti American.

You know, I have read posts blaming America for a lot of things but that is a first. Hmmm. Interesting that you see it that way. I don't. In the end, a simple virus may have had a more significant impact than many of the puffed up self important people and groups who sought to control the events of the day.

I like my family and even like some of my friends and my childrens friends families who are sorta family too. A small group though, since my wife and I are only children, and we only have 2 children of our own - like most folks of our generation. Been married a long time and like it alot. I recommend it.