Commissar

Yeah. Pleasant. Thanks for contributing. I, sadly, don't have much of a memory for specific passages, only quotes that particularly stand out. I'll tell you that I pretty much devour anything by Hemingway, Umberto Eco, or Patrick O'Brian, though. All very different styles of writing, all very much engaging.

Goths annoy me. You want to call yourself a Goth, put some trousers on and sack Rome. Wearing black lipstick and listening to Trent Reznor moan isn't Goth.

Star Wars had nerd antics alright, but the normal people standing in line either laughed at or pitied the guys walking around in costume and saber-fighting in the lobby. They also didn't go see it opening night. I sure as hell didn't, because I knew it'd be a mad house. Star Wars succeeded because the originals, which most people remember very fondly, allowed people to get into the story a normal amount; a lot of people took it way too far, but the average person simply saw the movies, liked them, and figured they'd see the new ones.

I appreciate what a phenomenon Pastafarianism has become. I might even get me a Pirate Fish car magnet.

I argue for the sake of winning an argument. Does that count?

You mendicants need a good punch of the bracket.

It's Joss Whedon, I'm telling you.

I have friends who smoke and I don't particularly whine about smokers; I whine about people how fail to show some respect. People smoking at a bus-stop do just that, and therefore end up on my pet peeve list. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Do you have indoor bus stops in your area or something?

I'm annoyed with people who whine about smokers.

Phantom thread? On what topic? Dealing with this one...is it just me, or did this seem like a filler episode?

Does Hurley have Down Syndrome or something?

It's much better watching this without commercials, on the DVD or via usenet. That way I'm not interrupted in my imaginings of what things would be like if they'd all been to SERE school.

Twelve minutes, in fact. Something damn well better happen tonight, too.

I'm only happy because I like being right. And because I hate this Joss Whedon freak.

1. A single instance of torture is just torture, as I said. Torture is just the administration of physical or psychological punishment. But a policy of a) conducting torture on persons of some type, and b) publicizing that practice to the audience of that type goes beyond just torture (done on an individual for the sake of extracting information or coercing individual performance) and becomes terrorism (done to a group in order to achieve a state of fear. When these elements are combined by a government like Saddam's or by our forces then they constitute terrorism. The US practice of torture and publicizing of it is terrorism. You didn't think that all of that publicity was a mistake did you? - for example: dental tools in Sadams mouth, pictures of captives with bags over their heads which restrict breathing as well as sight, with blindfolds and earmufs on, the odd picture of captives with a US soldiers foot on their face - and that's just a small part of what we see and hear about . 2. The shock and awe campaign went beyond the needs of military killing into the realm of inducing terror. Terrorism has often been practiced in war. German Stuka dive bomb attacks on fleeing civilians to induce terror and block roads for example. But not all elements of war involve terrorism. Also, just as torture isn't always terrorism war isn't always terrorism but it can be. 3. If you look into the details of the US campaign against Falluja you will find that the US commander did in fact issue and ultimatum against the threat of decapitation (my word - not his) of the city. Perhaps you haven't been paying close attention. 4 and 5. You seem to recognize terrorism when the folks doing it are wearing sandals. Your arbitrary - presumably politicaly motivated - restriction of the concept of terrorism to groups who are less powerful is just the kind of BS I was talking about. See the origin ofthe word for a counter example to your spin. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Your number three point is ridiculously ironic. Ridiculously, ridiculously, ridiculously ironic. Four and five are, too, especially given my track record on discussions of this type. It's really not fair to be called a terrorist sympathizer in one thread, and a right-wing despot in another. Point two just isn't correct, because I don't validate any definition of terrorism that would include strikes on only military targets legitimately engaged in an armed struggle. That's a military conflict, not a terror campaign. As for point one...if you think getting blindfolded and earmuffed is torture, you must have it pretty easy. And the military tries to keep photos of detainees unpublished as much as possible, but that pesky little freedom of the press stuff occasionally gets in the way. Like I said before, if you want to include anything and everything designed to make an opponent quit the battlefield rather than fight under your umbrella definition of terrorism, then yes, all wartime acts are indeed terrorism. A tank battle is terrorism; if one side wins it, maybe guys on the other side will decide not to engage in the next one. There is a decided difference between demoralizing an enemy through legitimate military strikes on legitimate military targets and random attacks on anyone associated with the other side, no matter how loosely.

Welcome to the world circa 2005. Believe it or not, we're not the only ones doing that. If you think Chinese intelligence services aren't actively working inside the US, you're nots. I'd say every intelligence service in the world has something going on inside our borders, and we likewise have thumbs in a lot of pies. What's the big deal?

1. Torture isn't terrorism. Torture is torture. A torturee might be induced to speak out of terror of what's going to happen, but torture itself seeks to induce compliance out of pain. And while we're on the subject, I heard Alan Dershowitz on NPR a couple of weeks ago, and he made an interesting point; if something is vital to the national security of the United States, we're going to torture people to get answers. For example, if we know that a nuclear bomb has been planted in a major city, and we catch the guys responsible before it goes off but don't know in which city, we're obviously going to torture those guys. What we're not going to do is tell anyone about it. He suggested that we do the exact opposite; torture them, but have some sort of mechanism in place, something like an oversight committee in Congress. 2. If the shock and awe campaign was terrorism, then you're essentially saying that all war is terrorism. Attacking military targets in wartime can't really be defined as terrorism, can it? 3. I'm going to assume you're talking about Grozny, because I don't believe the US or coalition forces have done this in Iraq. The Russians really have gone over the line multiple times in their campaign against the Chechens, but I wonder if they don't have a more realistic appraisal of the situation than we do with ours. After all, the Caucasus isn't exactly a new region for unrelenting violence. This is a fight that's been going on for centuries, with a couple of breaks. 4. Yep. 5. Yep. And I disagree with your last statement. I think terrorism has to be conducted by a non-governmental organization or individual, in pursuit of goals contrary to the wishes of the society in which it operates, utilizing random or targeted killings to induce fear to bring about political goals.

Tell me how many British civilians - or even soldiers - the American revolutionaries killed before the formal outbreak of hostilities. Throwing tea into Boston Harbor doesn't match up with flying planes into a building. In all honesty I used to make this argument myself, since in some things I'm a moral relativist, but it just doesn't hold up.

Well, isn't that a revelation? So what? That only proves my point even more. Bin Laden, Al-Quaida, Al-Zarqawi, they're all the same. They claim they are fighting for their own freedom. The only thing they're fighting for is to help their own selfish cause of killing others. The only thing they care about is removing all outside influence from their country so they can remain a power in the Middle East. The insurgents in Iraq aren't freedom fighters. They are murderers. These people deliberately target other Iraqis, and yet claim they are freedom fighters? Killing others isn't their cause, it's their method. You've really drunk the Kool-Aid if you believe killing people is the primary goal of anybody over there. Terrorism is a tool, a method. And you've essentially stated that; you said that they want to remain in power. Nevermind that none of the three people/organizations you mentioned are actually in power in a governmental sense, but I get your point. You're exactly right - there are many members of the insurgency fighting for control of Iraq. Self-interest. We're there out of self-interest too, don't forget; you admitted that by granting my premise. It's incredibly naive to think everyone who hates America in the world is motivated by anti-American propaganda. A lot of Western Europe thinks we're absolutely nuts, too, don't forget. Maybe they hate us for our freedom, too? No matter how you spin it, a significant portion of the Middle Eastern population is never going to like us due to establishment and continued support of Israel, among numerous other reasons. Furthermore, a completely democratic Middle East will most likely result in even higher oil prices. The tacit agreement has always been that we don't go in and kick around despotic regimes, and in return we get our oil at low prices from those same regimes. Reagan didn't do anything about Islamic fundamentalists hitting U.S. targets back in '83, and I don't hear you pitching a fit about that. Furthermore, the attacks during Clinton's administration weren't nearly on the scale of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks; I very strongly doubt that the American public would've supported a full-scale invasion of Afghanistan as a result of the USS Cole, for example. There was widespread dissent about the decision to help out with Kosovo, for example. Wasn't related to terrorism, of course, but it does help make my point that we're not the selfless world-helpers you seem to think we are.

Oh, get over yourself already. I meant that they had no reason they had to do it other than to SECURE THEIR OWN SELFISH INTERESTS. They have goals, but it's not the noble goals they want the rest of the Middle East to think they have. Clinton didn't do crap to stop Bin Laden. He launches a few missiles, and that's it. The reason I even bother to mention Clinton is that he had 8 years to do something about Bin Laden and didn't, even after the WTC was bombed. And then, the idiot starts criticizing Bush for not doing enough to prevent 9/11, when he mostly just sat back on his fat ass turning a blind eye toward Bin Laden. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Poland, as I said earlier, has a higher percentage of Christians than the US, and a lot of other countries, and yet I don't recall any Polish Sept. 11 to date. Maybe radical Islamists are acting against the supposed Christians who are actually, you know, in their countries? And don't forget that FSM is gaining converts every day, so your initial statement might not prove true down the road. As far as being motivated by self-interest...name one country that doesn't act based on self-interest? How long did we sit around before joining in on World War II? Remind me what we did during the slaughtering in Rwanda? And tick off the units sent into Darfur recently. Self-interest is the name of the game in any international move, you know. Even if you buy the propaganda that we went into Iraq solely to spread freedom dust, why there and not elsewhere? Perhaps because a democratic Middle East would have great benefit for us? (I'm actually not sold on that idea.) Bush didn't "do crap" to stop Bin Laden before Sept. 11, either - perhaps a massive attack on American soil spurred him on to finally address the problem?

My woman actually really liked it, too, which I still can't figure out. I thought it was trash. Maybe it's all the strong female characters and the fact that the guys can't take care of themselves? I don't know. Don't remember much of it, except that the non-Milla Jovavich woman wore a short black skirt and combat boots throughout the entire thing, which I thought was ridiculous.

We're not all Christian. In fact, our profile as a "Christian" country has only been raised in the past five years - I don't recall Clinton wandering around randomly inserting God into speeches on tax hikes, to tell you the truth. Secular countries like Britain and Spain have gotten attacked on a smaller scale, don't forget. You just made my point about why bringing religion into this on our side is such a bad idea. Millions of uninformed, highly religious nuts in this country think that we were attacked just because they like to go around talking about Jesus. We support Israel and we had guys in Saudi Arabia. We did and still do a lot more in the Middle East than that, but that was their basic motivation. They didn't hit us because we're supposedly Christian, man. By that logic, they should've gone after Poland. Believe it or not, they do have certain goals. I love the rhetoric from the chickenhawks that claims they're indiscriminately killing just for the love of it. That's not the case, and you'd be better off informing yourself about the aims of aQ and its allies than spouting complete tripe. Know your enemy, ever heard that? You serve your argument better if you're not buying into specious claims. You contradict yourself several times in that paragraph - "There is no reason they had to do what they did. What they did was motivated by a religious fanaticism and bloodthirsty quest to secure their own interests in the Middle East." So they had no reason to do it, but the reason they did it was to secure their interests in the Middle East? They have goals. And knock off the "Clinton wouldn't have done anything" rhetoric. 220 Marines, 18 sailors, and 3 soldiers got killed back in 1983, and if I recall correctly, Clinton wasn't in power back then, and yet we didn't overthrow any terrorist-supporting governments. We didn't do anything at all, save throw a few shells from the New Jersey into Lebanon. In point of fact, the French did more by way of response than we did in that particular incident.

Tough loner chick, that's what her character looks like. Which also looks like every other character she's ever played, in the everlong history of ever.

Okay. So is "Station 3 - The Swan" the latest aired episode? I'm doing a lot of catch-up here, and Season 2 Episode 3 is the most recent episode I can find. Want to make sure I'm up to date.

And I hate Michelle Rodriguez, for the record. I hope she doesn't feature prominently in the second season, which I will now be acquiring.