-tl

Been wrestling with a thorny tech problem for some time I still haven’t solved. Now I’ve got another idea to test.

Hahaha. I have that page saved, and have sent it to many others. Terrific.

Christoph on September 16, 2007 at 10:30 AM

Haven’t read what you linked to yet, but will.

And I don’t really disagree with what you are essentially saying, but I have some problems with it around the edges.

The 9-11 attackers more rightly were committing suicide, with victims they didn’t really have to face. However, if you feel that bravery is one of the attributes necessary for successful suicide, then I will understand your point better, but I still wouldn’t agree.

In certain circumstances, great bravery may be necessary for suicide, but never if you’re taking someone else with you.

Muslim military tactics are, as I mentioned, different than Western tactics (Mark Victor Hansen had a great article about this, which I can’t find this morning) and it is barbaric by European/Western standards… but frankly, our standards allow for a lot of death and carnage too.

We will always have a bias for our way of waging war. I am, frankly, okay with not targeting an enemies’ civilians specifically because that’s abhorrent for me too.

But, JD, I am reluctantly forced to conclude that going to your enemies’ country, the most powerful in the world, to train and learn how to take over airliners with piddling little knives, then to knowingly fly those same planes into your enemies’ buildings, one or even two if the second had been successful of which was a valid military target by Western standards, however monstrous, takes discipline and courage:

cour·age (kûrj, kr-)
n.
The state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or vicissitudes with self-possession, confidence, and resolution; bravery.

It meets this test.

I’m not saying it’s good: Courage, in the pursuit of evil, is still evil.

Hence the dividing line is indeed morality.

If you’re going to save something to your hard drive and print it off, which I highly recommend, then make it the article I linked to. It is profound.

JiangxiDad on September 16, 2007 at 9:48 AM

Half-nonsense, half-right.

Terrorists are brave….Yet courage is not the dividing line between the two. Morality is.
Berating their manhood and attacking their courage as a tactic makes sense. But don’t you believe it.

Christoph on September 15, 2007 at 6:18 PM

Courage isn’t necessarily, or perhaps even usually the dividing line between the two. But in the case of 9-11 it is. Don’t confuse fighting soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan with hijacking civilian airliners full of innocents and flying them into buildings, full of innocents. Same applies to the Beslan, Russia school killings. The first takes courage, the second is cowardice. The 9-11 hijackers were not courageous or moral,and therefore not manly. Maher draws no distinction. But wasn’t expecting you to say that.

It was very wierd and afterward I tried to find the story on their website, but was unsucessful. It was almost like they were insinuating that something wasn’t quite right with this phatom airplane.

I was really surprised to see a segment like this on Fox News. I just wasn’t sure what they were trying to put out there or what kind of ideas they were trying to plant in the viewer’s mind. They went as far as saying that the FBI and the CIA have never been able to identify it, it was freaky.

JiangxiDad, I generally agree with your comments but on the one, above, I don’t. Some of you might be disappointed but I like his dry humor and his delivery. I don’t always agree with all he says but he’s one of a kind and his independence is inspiring.

Most of the time there is a kernel of truth in what he says, even if we don’t agree with him. I’m also puzzled by the inability to rebuild the towers sooner. I would have had them rebuilt in the first two years, exactly the same they used to be. Alas, they never asked me…

Loved the entire video. I used to watch him all the time but now only when on business trips and happen to wake up in the middle of the night, due to time differences…He’s an equal opportunity insulter. Maybe he doesn’t write this stuff but he can deliver it.

Entelechy on September 15, 2007 at 2:58 PM

True that….

you want us to listen to them again , and clap them on the back, because they just happen to be right once??

I think it’s more a matter of “Even Bill Maher thinks you’re nucking futs, and he hates Bush as much as you do. Take off the tinfoil hat and come back to reality.”

And the sheep/wolves/sheepdogs metaphor is a great one, but so is Team America’s p***ies/a**holes/d**ks metaphor.

AP didn’t even mention the iPhone segment immediately after the Truther piece…guess he’s given up.

That’s because it hurt so bad… the nerd tax is true by default… that’s why it hurt.

And for those who wait even longer to buy the I-Phone? Well we are called the I-phoneys…. we just flat out don’t even care.

Maher was the male lead in Cannibal Women in the Avacado Jungle of Death, and therefore has absolute moral authority as far as I’m concerned.

If making bad movies disqualified you from serious thought we wouldn’t have had the benefit of Ronald Reagan’s career. Also, people can decide for themselves if Fred has what it takes, but shouldn’t consider his appearance on Roseanne Barr’s show.

Maher is probably more a mix of libertarian and liberal viewpoints. He voted for Dole against Clinton and has often spoken very highly of John McCain.

The big news on last night’s show was the interview with Chuck Hagel, who, Bernstein thought, sounded like he was angling for a third party run. Whoever gets the Republican nod is going to have to do a balancing act to avoid a run from either the conservative or moderate side of the party.

1 chuckle and 1 snicker. The funniest Maher has been in years, but he still has NO political credibility due to the sheer vastness of the number of issues in which his positions are 180 degrees from correct.

Awareness is a long, drawn-out process for libs. Like a rock absorbing water.

Though his show was much, much better when he actually had some conservatives on the panel.

SouthernDem on September 15, 2007 at 7:01 PM

Hear, hear.

Christoph on September 15, 2007 at 6:18 PM

Well done. I’ve come to his defense on that a few times in looking at it in the correct context, which was though it was pretty brave, it doesn’t excuse the monstrosity of the act. Yes, he’s still a leftist, but he can be pretty damn funny too. Though his show was much, much better when he actually had some conservatives on the panel.

“Activism has become narcissism.” You were kinda ‘dennis miller-esque’ there for a few minutes.

But no tax is ever repealed. Nerd or otherwise.

Other than that – you’re still a dipstick.