Heh, I think you quoted the wrong one. And something I’ve been getting sick of lately is calling Satanists like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and George W. Bush Christian. They are far from it, Christianity is a very specific thing that speaks of Love and Charity as some of the highest virtues. When I hear them all I see is hate and indifference. That is hardly Christian.
I’m also tired of Muslims all getting painted with the same brush. Not all of them are terrorists, just as not all Christians are war profiteers like Bush, just like not all Jews are Mossad agents.
All I could think off throughout this thread, and as I nodded in agreement to your rebuttal, was the typification of many Conservatives in the movie Team America:
“America… FUCK YEAH!!!”
“Freedom is the only way!”
Interestingly enough, the makers of that movie are quite conservative. But in the end, I think they just see through all of the bullshit and hyprocrisy on both sides.
So, I guess it will suffice to say that I hate all the misrepresentations on both sides of the political spectrum.
'Scuse vous, monseuir. I was out of line. I gave the impression that I don’t like you and I think you’re stupid. That’s not that case at all. I rather enjoy your posts and think highly of you. As long as – and this is a huge exception – we don’t discuss politics. On that we are of such polar opposites that we can’t help but come to blows. I often wonder how you come to the wonky and insane conclusions you do, and you probably wonder the same about me.
So when I call you on what you say, remember it’s nothing personal. And all of that goes for duffer as well. No hard feelings and all that.
But I do think that to paint all Muslims (or even the extremists) with a broad brush and to not even consider if our own policies have provoked them – justly or not – is the height of folly. I’m sure you could agree with that, at least in part.
Not always. In some ways it involves sitting in a chair for 30 minutes at a time, 3-5 times per day, 7 days per week, hooked up to some pretty low-tech stuff. I had a girlfriend that did that, may she RIP.
But it does involve some pretty bulky medical supplies and a sterile environment. And the occasional trip to a hospital. I wonder how ObL manages that.
For that matter, how do we know he has kidney malfunction? We got an operative in the cave with him? How do we know that’s not just a rumor?
Let me try responding to the right person here…
Let me ask you a question… if you meet a person who is Islamic, and after chatting with that person for a while, you realize that person is NOT racist, sexist, xenophobic, or determined to destroy democracy, do you still continue to think poorly of that person because of his or her faith? If so, why? And if not, how can you say that you’re opposed to Islam as a whole?
If you’re opposed to certain bad characteristics of Islam, go for it. If you claim that they are overrepresented in the brand of Islam that is practiced in Holland, you may be right. But that’s different from being opposed to the religion as a whole.
For instance, I think that one of the greatest threats to the US right now, far more likely than Islamic terrorism to destroy the country we really should be, is the Christian religious right. I consider myself strongly opposed to them and everything they stand for. Does that make me opposed to Christianity?
I’m sorry you lost your girlfriend to kidney failure.
Yes, you’re right, I was assuming he underwent hemodialysis as opposed to peritoneal dialysis, as it is less time consuming as you pointed out. Peritoneal dialysis also requires pretty much round the clock help; even in the middle of the night it’s necessary to self dialyze. And yes, monthly visits are necessary, although the dialysis unit doesn’t necessarily have to be in the hospital.
But yes, to date all we have is hearsay thus far, and Snopes is calling it “undetermined”.
The thing I find amusing about the quote from al-Zarqawi is that he is worried about people choosing the wrong religion. If there is truly only one God, then I guess one would only be fooling themselves into thinking they had another religion. That kind of fear toward what other people believe belies and extreme lack of faith in my opinion. I get the impression that Allah loves cheerleaders, but that he’s probably a much more effective killer than any of them could possibly hope to be. If there is no God but God, then what’s the fuss about?
I have obviously upset you and for that I apologise. Other then what I have read in the news I know nothing about the situation in the Netherlands.
When I said scapegoat, I meant the ills of the world are often blamed on the newest immigrants. Polynesians were seen as evil incarnate down here in the 70’s and 80’s. They were all machete weilding maniacs. More recently it was “bloody Asians”. During the pre-lim to our recent election a particularly repellent party leader began a campaign of “outing” Iraqis, according to him Sadam’s miltary elite were around every corner, that lead to mosques being vandalised after the London bombs.
Auckland is a very diverse city (I taught a class of 28 children, who came from 12 different countries) being involved with children I HAVE to be tolerant but beyond that I want to be tolerant. Tolerance is not a meaningless word, it about accepting our changing societies. For everyone Polynesian who macheted someone in a market there are 1000’s who never did, never will. For every Muslim terrorist there are MILLIONS who just want to hold down a job and take care of their families.
(If I remember the news story right??) When that Dutch loon tortured little girls in his basement for months/years (?) was that a comment about the character of Dutch people?
Christians ran rampant over cultures and human rights for centuries. That was official policy. What is happening now is a FEW (and it is a FEW considering Islam is the biggest religion in the world) LOONS reacting to their lot in life.
Oh and they are not “MY precious Muslims”, personally I think all religion is NUTS. I just chose to try and live with those who live alongside me with as much tolerance as is possible.
Tolerance is not a meaningless word. Tolerance is an attitude that tries to accept the world we once knew has changed and it isn’t ever going back. We either learn to cope with our diverse societies, learn to accept we have Chinese people next door, Eygptians 2 doors down, Koreans on the otherside and Samoan, South African, British and Indian workmates but more then accept them we have to make sure that as a society we include them.
What breeds terroism is not religion, or culture or skin colour, it’s being marginalised. Feeling cut off from society leads to anger.
I’m sorry I attacked you gum. I am suffering from post-election-snipey-bullshit syndrome.
I’d like to echo everything Calm Kiwi has said, and I’m glad you posted first before I hit post on my initial reply to gum’s post, because you are a lot calmer than me.
I had a bit more to say, but you took the wind out of my sail.
Thanks for the links. Notice that the snopes link was last updated years ago, and it states that rumors of the renal failure dates back to 2000. I find it unlikely that ObL would still be alive today if the rumors were true.
My ex-girlfriend lived in pretty sanitary conditions, and got the finest care in one of the best hospitals in New England, which means one of the best in the world. Even doing peritoneal exchanges on a regular schedule, every now and then she’d have to go to the ER because of some unforseen complication, and the usual result was a 7-day hospital stay followed by a good 2-4 weeks of hemodialysis. There was never a period of smooth sailing. And she never lived in a cave.
Yes, Obl Is rich beyond imagining, but I can’t imagine how far his money would go in a country filled with such squalor. If he had renal failure 5 years ago, I find it unlikely that he’d be alive today.
I hear you. MotherSilver1 was a teacher for more than thirty years in a poor school district. She spent a good wad of her own money over the years on things like extra clothes, shoes, food, holiday gifts and whatnot for the children in her classes. Most of their parents were very poor and she took up where they just could not. She kept snacks in her classroom for those kids who were going to go home and maybe or maybe not have something adequate to eat that night.
She rarely made it home before 6 - 6:30 - she’d been doing those things that need to be done but can’t be done during class time because that time is devoted to teaching. Sometimes I’d feel jealous because in my selfish kid mind, I wanted her to myself more often. But as I got older I shed the jealousy because I realized just how important she was to a lot of these kids. I had it pretty good, and she was a supporting force in the lives of these kids who didn’t have it so good.
I’ve known two teachers pretty intimately (one each at the high school and university levels), and while they came home during daylight, they usually didn’t stop working until 11pm or midnight. And all weekend. And that was all just to get a little further behind.
Possibly, but not necessarily. Some dialysis patients live upward of 10-12 years on dialysis without receiving a kidney transplant, although the average is 5 years.
I’d say she was not indicative of the normal ESRD patient.
Yes, Obl Is rich beyond imagining, but I can’t imagine how far his money would go in a country filled with such squalor. If he had renal failure 5 years ago, I find it unlikely that he’d be alive today.
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Short of a kidney transplant, which may or may not have been obtained, I would agree.
If by rolling the tape, you mean a few seconds of it, then yeah, he said that.
However, you neglected to provide the context: that he was talking about the impending Iraqi National Asembly elections, which he was attempting to disrupt. From Iraq.
I’ve never said anything about Islamist opposition to the imposition of “Western values” in Islamic states. Of course they’re opposed to them. And that imposition is one of the foreign policy goals of the United States - which only goes to prove my point that they’re attacking us for our actions, not our internal freedoms or values.
But they most emphatically did not attack the US because they hate our freedom, our democracy, or our sexual licentiousness, no matter what the chauvanist idiots would like you to believe.
Find me a statement from anybody in the Islamist movement that rationalizes any of the attacks against the United States in anything other than policy terms. Really. Try me.
I’m sure if you really looked hard (which I’m too lazy to do), you could find radical Muslims who would decry our freedom to watch porn, our freedom to drink, and our freedom to wear Levis. But I would chalk this up to little more than an after-the-fact “Oh yeah, and your mom dresses you funny, too.”
Can someone give me a quick history lesson? Did the Middle East start hating us on 7/4/1776, or was it more recently? When did the idea of America the Great Satan first begin?
Ahem, Islam is NOT the world’s biggest religion, and probably will not be for another century, and a lot can change in a century, like a new prophet appearing for instance.
Christianity: 2.1 billion
Islam: 1.3 billion
Christianity outnumbers Islam by more than half again.
I watched Real Time with Bill Maher and he had Christopher Hitchens on. Now, I don’t really care what people say about Hitchens, but he brought up an interesting point.
Before invading Tripoli Jefferson asked why Americans were being taken hostage when America never attacked the Muslim world. The answer was “Because the Koran tells us it is ok because you are all infidels.”
An interesting point, but is it true? Not saying it isn’t, but I’d be interested in seeing a cite on that.
Be that as it may, I know that Christians and Muslims have a history that stretches way back. But is the modern conflict a continuation of the old one? I thought it had its genesis in the post-war (WWII) world.
