Fallujah children's 'genetic damage'

PrettyVacant’s post links to a report of a “research study” on birth defects and cancers in Fallujah by Busby et al, which appeared in a journal of epidemiology. This report is based entirely on a questionnaire given to a limited sampling of household in Fallujah. The authors make it clear that they did not try to verify the information supplied in the questionnaires (for example, by confirming cases with health authorities).

“Our belief is that those in the present study group gave accurate answers to the questionnaire since in present day Iraq the public would be fearful of giving both misleading data and also at the same time their identities.”

Well! That proves it, for sure. :dubious:

The problem with surveys of this type is well known - the data obtained is unreliable and answers can be easily manipulated by those with an agenda to promote.
A good example is the game played with telephone surveys by people wishing to demonstrate a link between autism and vaccines.

If the Zen Master wishes to convince us of his central thesis, he’ll need better evidence.

An indecipherable Doper named Zanthor
Was concerned about Fallujah’s cases of canther
But his writing was so weak
No-one up for him would speak
And so he ended up getting no anther!

golf clap

[quote=“FoieGrasIsEvil, post:83, topic:547784”]

still sad, still aint got no real answer,
do i have to spell it out? sure looks like it…
Basically,
are we creating more enemies than we have the time and weapons to kill, deform?
I think yes, i think you are psting in the wind thinking the world will love us for our devastation of them,
shower us with flowers, win hearts and minds by deforming, slaughtering them all?
get real.
if you think it does not matter what they think, then just come right out and say so.
after all, we have the guns, the power, no one comes out of here alive ( Jim Morrison ) unless we say so, right?

but that’s just me.
you obviously think different, really curious why you think like this.
is it the size of the tool/s of devastation we lay waste this planets countries with gives us the right to reign supreme?
their suffering irrelevant, of no account>?
what are we? monsters?

what else then, what else excuses us..?
We desire their ultimate good/s, democracy imposed upon them, even as we RAPE them of their resources?
I seriously don’t think you have a valid answer…
but again, that’s just me.
Plz prove me wrong, i beg you…

i think we are killers, Fakirs, we provoke them to hatred., always have, always will.
and then when they quite rightly hate us, then we condemn them for it, slaughter them…

I think in 100 years time we will be laid out to roast, much like the leader of the prison camp in Cambodia was a few days ago.
who finally had to account for his misdeeds, crimes against humanity..

The thing that bothers me, did our wholesale bombing of Cambodia, a country we were not even at war with, cause the rise of the Khemer Rouge?
are we responsible.???
again, i say probably.

we are good at destabilizing foreign Govts, that’s what we do best, well, when we are not bombing and invading them>>
we then invade,
institute puppet Govts.. suitable to us.

do you think i should clap and applaud? or say shame on us…?
i say shame on us, and for this, you try shoot me down.

Did we cause the Khmer rouge to come to power, the Shah in Iran, Saddam in Iraq, etc etc etc.
Are, did we, deform children in foreign countries?
i am still awaiting an honest answer…

i say our track record at meddling in foreign countries smells the big ones.

Without attacking me personally, ( if you can possibly manage it )
as if you are superior to their suffering, or my interpretation of how Holy we are and them all disposable items of humanity, ,
Plz try to convince me how we deform them, slaughter them is honourable…
or continue with, it was not us that did this Inhumanity,
and explain why you think this…

I think,
We should be before the courts, right now. not in 100 years time.
to account for what we are doing.. have done.

but that’s just me…

Zanthor

So, your value system is one which you have no qualms about setting aside when it becomes inconvenient for you?

Can’t say that’s much of a value system.

Okay, I can understand this.

Now, tell me, simply, with cites and factual backing – what have we done that we should be taken to account for?

and here again is the Typified very worst of always being the Vulture, always the Parasite,
seeking always to take, to bleed, rather than give, build up another Soul…

( BTW what you give now is what you will receive, in eternity, i mention this in case you were not aware of this simple fact. always seeking to see the very worst of humanity. breeds hatred, fear, distrust, even more war )

FYI, Zen is a Gift, something you choose to aspire to, understand.

IO choose to set aside what i think is righteous to meet another Soul where he is at.
apparently steeped in aggression and righteousness,
it was not hard.,
Self awareness, like Consciousness, can be turned on or off.
all one has to do is concentrate, or not.
and breath, and pray, etc etc. or not.
its a moment by moment choice…
it is not 24.7, it requires effort, basically. learning how to let go of the here and now,
Frig, its not for me to try to explain it to you, i am not god, you have to want to search for yourselves, understand it as best you are able to.
Whatever level you find yourself at will be OK, it was meant for you.
right here, right now,
but i ask, is it right? How can we possibly justify killing them if we understand they are us, we are one, one planet one ppl?

Question.
if you go into a Butcher shop, buy a slab of dead animal, killed, butchered by someone else, are you then oblivious to the Karma of this animals life and death?, just cos you did not personally slaughter it?
but eat it anyway?
you are oblivious to its death, your hands blood free?

so, just where does the animals life force and blood lie, the Butchers or/and yours?
Where does complicity begin and end, as if there is an ending, lol
Why are we still slaughtering the ME?
in so called ( self ) righteousness

Yeah… You don’t understand zen, buddy.

Zen is kind of like nirvana. It’s a binary thing, you’ve got it or you don’t. You can’t be zen sometimes, and a douche other times. It’s a lifestyle. I could be zen, if I wanted to – I can anything – but I like being an asshole, so I’m not zen, I’m an asshole. You can’t be both, even I can’t be both. And I can do anything. :stuck_out_tongue:

Never pretended to understand Zen, PAL.
what i said was, i respect it. admire it, consider it something worthwhile to aspire to.
buy hey its what ever you want to see it as, i agree.

No, YOU don’t understand Zanthor. I’m going to have to go out on a not-too-long limb here and guess that English is not your first language, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

But, you are trying to post on an English language message board, and whether or not its your lack of command of the English language and its subsequent grammatical formations, or your political/whatever views that stop you from being cohesive, but I think I can speak for a large majority of this messageboard (and many that might be quite sympathetic to your political views, if you would kindly form them coherently so they/we can understand them) that your posts aren’t evocative, they are infuriating.

Really? What have you done to “build up others souls” in this thread? From the beginning, you’ve been aggressive, insulting, dismissive, and generally rude. I’m not religious myself, but this doesn’t seem to be in keeping with what I understand from the teachings of the Buddha. I don’t really see how this attitude does much to encourage spiritual growth in others. Indeed, you’ve come the heavy in this thread, and you’ve gotten responses that are in keeping with the tone you opened with. You seem to be encouraging anger and discord, and not peace and harmony. Now, like I said, I’m not a Buddhist myself, so maybe I’ve had a misread on the whole religion up to this point, but that doesn’t square too well with what I know about your religion.

Well, it seems I might not have been too far off the beam after all, as far as Buddhism goes. In this thread, you’ve been dishing out hate and insults left and right. What sort of reward do you expect to receive in eternity from your actions here?

Yes, that’s the behavior I was commenting on in my previous post. Now, like I said, I’m not religious myself. I’ve noticed that a lot of people who are religious are a lot better at stating their religious convictions than they are at living them. You, unfortunately, appear to be of a kind with them: it’s easy enough to talk about enlightenment, but as soon as you’re faced with a situation in which it’s easier to get down in the mud than to maintain your principles, you waste no time at all in getting in here and rolling around in it. Indeed, you started out from that position in this thread, without even waiting to see what kind of a response you’d get. Which is why I said I wasn’t impressed by your belief system. That wasn’t meant as a judgment on the value of Zen Buddhism itself: I’ve known a Buddhist or two who was able to live up to the ideals of their belief system, even when it was inconvenient. Of course, I’ve known Christians and Jews and all sorts of others who have done the same. It’s fairly rare, but hardly unheard of. You, sad to say, don’t appear to be one of that breed.

Anyway, I’m not going to bother with the rest of your post, as it’s just more of you lecturing on how you think others should behave, while showing no sign of that behavior in yourself. If I need any of that, I can just go over to godhatesfags.com and get my fill there. So why don’t you go off and deal with that beam in your eye, and then come back and tell me what I should do with the mote in mine? Because right now, near as I can tell you don’t have the ethical or moral standing to tell anyone else how to live their lives.

well, simply, don’t read them then.
its apparently a free country.
no one is forcing you to read my comments,
nor forcing you to understand, or NOT.

what i did was try to ask questions,
mainly, are we slaughtering the ME? causing birth defects?
If you want to try to read this thread, how about you address the core issue,
not attack me cos you fail to understand the implications of Pre - Emptive War, imposed by us, throughout this planet.
Why we provoke their hatred is the key issue, not whether you think me literate or not.

Yes, you are right, i responded defensively when being told i was brain dead by linking the attack to one of a Vulture, a Parasite, someone who has nothing to add to the discussion cept ridiculing the messenger.
as in, why not address the Issue posted, Birth defects, not attack me for trying to ask for discussion about it…

was i wrong, or right?, not sure.
What i wrote was meant to ask the attacker to examine where they were coming from.
that’s all. no attack intended, just a general analysis.

What have i done to try build up other souls???,
i think nothing else is as important to me as this, i have done little else but try to cause self awareness. EG.
Why are we slaughtering the ME?
what is it exactly, greed, power, Glory, what else?
Are we individually responsible, even tho we here at home are not killing them, poisoning them?
not actually holding a Gun, shooting them? with God only knows what???

Anyway, I’m not going to bother with the rest of your post, as it’s just more of you lecturing on how you think others should behave,
I agree.

Zanthor

[QUOTE=Zanthor]
…was i wrong, or right?, not sure.
[/quote]

Remember folks, Zanthor is not making accusations while lacking the facts to back them up. He’s just asking questions.

“Pearls” of foolishness
rain from Zanthor’s keyboard – ping!
striking like spring rain.

Okay, so formally, a Haiku requires three things, in order of importance:

  1. a seasonal metaphor
  2. a cut–where things change with a distinct flair
  3. the syllable 5-7-5 thing.

My haiku above is the best one in the thread so far. See, his posts are like spring rain–mostly inconsequential and of little weight.

The ping! is the sound of a raindrop on concrete. Or a DU round magically giving a fetus leprosy, I forget which.

Seriously, is there some way we can just all agree that we’ll ridicule rather than respond to anyone who comes here like **Zanthor **or lurking guest and just posts ill-formatted idiocy? That Zen thing was particularly funny, since I’m an actual goddamn Zen Buddhist and I have never seen the word “sennyu” or the concept described in my ten years of being one.

OP: If you come back with a coherent paragraph that’s not riddled with bad grammar, I might even condescend to addressing your actual point. Granted, it’ll be with a request for cites as to the causes of birth defects increasing, and how they relate to known or possible methods of warmaking by either the Iraqi army or the United States.

Food for thought–the Iraqis have used chemical warfare indiscriminately a lot more often than the US has during history. That’s my pet theory. There’s just no evidence (despite testing) that DU rounds cause anything other than kidney damage, and white phosphorous (while horrific) doesn’t cause anything but severe and deadly burns. …Damn, it’s addicting to set the facts out, even when not two paragraphs ago I decried such as futile.

And how do you think that’s worked for you so far? Do you think you’ve convinced anyone of the correctness of your concerns? Do you think hostility and incoherence is helping change people’s minds?

I’m reading this thread, as I often do, from the bottom up. And in that case, I often read a post w/o seeing who the poster is. Funny thing is, I read certain posts thinking they’re parodies of Zanthor’s posting style, but they turn out to be actual posts by Zan The Man himself!

well, sorry, oh all wise one, you missed finer meaning perhaps?

from, - Sennyū-ji - Wikipedia

heaps of links here to RE Educate yourself with, Oh Master, great and mighty Wise One…

the clue / mistake was in your 1st order of importance,
A haiuku requires a “seasonal” metaphor.

as i stated earlier, a haiuku relates to the planet, nature, the seasons etc,
a Sennyu relates to more human affairs.
sorry, wise one, its just the way it is.

quote.
3) the syllable 5-7-5 thing.
i agree, admire it, the Japanese penchant for perfection, but as i already said, i reject the whole concept of conforming to what is considered acceptable, right, proper.
does not allow me to be what i am, not perfect,
How about you? you been master for so long now, you perfect?
Notice you said,
quote.
My haiku above is the best one in the thread so far.
unquote.
Surely you understand that to be a Master you must be Humble, not self promoting not yourself as being the best, rather, put all others 1st, yourself last, NOT blowing your own trumpet.
As Jesus said, he who wants to be 1st, must be last.
basically, a servant..
Did you do this? plz explain… just curious is all, no personal attack intended…

quote.
I’m an actual goddamn Zen Buddhist
unquote.

Scary stuff actually labeling yourself as ‘something’ esp a GOD DAMMED Buddhist.
Do you think God condemns Buddhists?
Do you think you are God Dammed?
if not,
why then say God dammed?.
sheez

quote.

Food for thought–the Iraqis have used chemical warfare indiscriminately a lot more often than the US has during history.
unquote.
Best you actually understand who supplied Iraq with chemical weapons and why?
I don’t think you do understand.
Prove me wrong, i beg you..

Zanthot

http://search.icq.com/search/results.php?q=Sennyu&tb_ver=2.0.0.2&lng=en-US&ch_id=tb_ff

gives the whole Gamut of what you missed.
enjoy…

Zanthor

strange concepts you introduce.

How as it worked for me? as if i had anything to personally to gain…
Do I personally matter? i think not.
seems to me your comment is founded on self interest, as if self gain should / must be the primary objective…
i do not see it this way.

not my job to convince, just to highlight, what you do with the info is your affair.
Just plz can we stop killing foreign ppl soon please, if that’s OK with you…

quote.
Do you think hostility…
unquote..
amazing, as if i provoked Hostility by saying we have such contemptible methods of world domination, slaughter of innocents.
invasion of foreign countries…
with questionable weapons of WMD, even tho we do not choose to call them WMD…

Why would you think such a thing> ???
me?, provoking hostilities.
no way.
i thought i was acting as a mirror.
of what i think, is mostly beneath contempt in what we do…
worldwide, daily.
but that’s just me

Zanthor