I'm Pleased
 

I guess old Muhammad was pretty happy that contingency-fee plaintiff's attorneys weren't invented back in the day he was fucking 9 year olds.

Michael Barone on the Duelfer Report
 

This is brilliant. It was right to invade Iraq rather than continue sanctions and inspections because we would have found out that the inspections and sanctions had worked, thus leaving us with no excuse to invade.

Yes. That would indeed have been tragic. Think of the soldiers who wouldn't have died and people we wouldn't have killed.

I'm Pleased
 

So you're saying if you say most Catholics aren't Catholic your guy has a shot at the Catholic vote?

I tell you what, let me exclude from the ranks of Conservatives everyone who isn't bullshit about the Bush administration's spending. Then my guy has a shot at the conservative vote - assuming they vote on principal.

G^3 (mass attendee today)

Michael Barone on the Duelfer Report
 

2

I think if we're just cool they'll be cool too. War is not healthy for children and other living things! You should post more often!

I'm Pleased
 

I say a lot of people call themselves Catholic by default, because its as close as they can come to describing their belief system and upbringing in terms of a recognizable religion. I'm a Catholic (and as y'all know, I'm hard-core law-and-order and in favor of fairly imposing burdens on all and demanding recompense from the recipients of all gov't aid), and there are things about the Catholic church that I absolutely disagree with (banning priests from marriage and women from the priesthood). But I live with it, I like/love the current Pope, and I think most people generally and most self-proclaimed American Catholics are hypocrites. They know the Pope has spoken entirely and unequivocally against abortion. Yet, they (as Sebby pointed out) have and sometimes-support abortions in absolutely indefensible situations with healthy mothers etc. inconvenient pregnancies. The Pope has already promised that his and their God considers this murder for which they had better beg, beg, beg for forgiveness. Instead of praying, they go on to excuse Kerry for his defense of partial-birth. Twist it as some here might try, but that in particular is a corner that one couldn't one's way out of if they had two years to do it. The great majority of Americans will simply not support it once given the facts.

Which is to say, I think a lot of self-proclaimed Catholics only consider themselves Catholics because they don't have access to all the feel-good California new-age cults. Hey, y'all want to tell yourselves (not you GGG) that what you do here on Earth does not have an eternal effect on your soul (or some such concept), have at it.

Finally, I'll note that Atticus and I and someone else here all came up as Jews (Reformed) I think on that online test last year. Our fundamental belief systems appear to be similar. Strangely, several of the other conservative Catholics at my firm also came up as Jews as some sort or another. Except for that Christ thing, I guess I'm really a Jew.

Hello

Michael Barone on the Duelfer Report
 

Did you read the post? He is arguing that we would have been under tremendous pressure from the Frogs and Russians to END THE SANCTIONS.

Current reading:
 

And on that note, I got a book they are spreading around in law-enforcement and military circles for awhile now. "On Killing" by a guy named Grossman from the University of Arkansas.

Basically, he starts with the proposition that historical evidence uniformly points to the unwillingness of soldiers (volunteers and concripts) to fire their weapons direcly at their enemies during battle. Some would just keep loading their weapons, time after time, without firing. Others would fire over their enemies heads. Just as an example, after the Battle of Gettysburg, 85% of the weapons that were collected from the battlefield were loaded (muzzle loading rifles), despite the fact that 95% of a soldier's time in battle should have been spent in the process of loading, and a gun should only have been loaded 5% of the time. Other military historians appear to accept the premise, particularly because there is a vast historical record of evidence to support him. The exception is artillery and other crew-served weapons.

Anyway, he goes on to explain how the military appears to have picked up on this after WWII, and started completely desensitizing our soldiers during training. By Vietnam, the evidence suggests that the vast majority of our soldiers were willing to fire their weapons at an enemy. Anyway, he suggests that this was also adopted by the media, popular culture etc. etc.... He's a psychology type, so he then is using the premise, in part, to propose that the desensitization to this sort of violence (a lowering of a defense barrier in our middle brain that supposedly inhibits our ability to pull the trigger on another human) has spread here and almost everywhere else in the west. One of his conclusions is that murder and other types of violence have uniformly increased by about 400% in all western nations since WWII, though its obviously higher here than elsewhere.

He's been hired now as an expert by a lot of police departments and is being widely read in the officers corp of the military. Specifically, for the police departments they are trying to make sure that their officers are willing to fire back or fire in the first place when called upon to do so.

I can't say I totally agree that he's supported his conclusions, but his coverage of the evidence that supports his premise (that people are inherently unwilling to shoot each other, and have to be trained to do so) is pretty compelling reading.

Anyway, I'd imagine you can buy it through the Amazon link here.

Hello

I'm Pleased
 

Um, wrong. Exhibit A: All of Slave's aunts and uncles on the Italian side

Don Pardo, what do we have for Atticus for playing?

Michael Barone on the Duelfer Report
 

Mean people suck!!!!

I'm Pleased
 

That's a lovely little diatribe. But it still doesn't address Bilmore's hyperbole in a credible way. I appreciate how delightful it is to offer up your one-sided version of your brilliance in dealing with the masses. But you still sound like a jackass if you are seriously arguing that Kerry's election would mean massive death and destruction in the US and our eventual overthrow by Islamic radicals.

I'm Pleased
 

It's cool. So was he. And he was alright with it.

I'm Pleased
 

Well, look at a bar chart of the deaths if you need a pretty picture of how dangerious the world just became for us. I understand that math is hard, but just bear me out and use your crayons to draw a bar chart here. Label the Y axis "dead Americans at the hands of Islamicists". Label the X axis "Time". Then, plot 250 American deaths in Lebanon in 1983. 250 deaths over Scotland in 1989??. Plot smaller events for WTC I, Mogadishu, Aden, Tanzania, Kenya numerous shootings and bombings against civilians in Israel where Americans were killed.

OK, now add in 3000 on 9/11 and plot that out for 20 years. Then jump it up by another factor of 12 (the same as the jump from 250 to 3000). Maybe it happens sooner, maybe later. Either way, if you don't accept that we are at war and the trajectory is not friendly for American civilians, then you deserve Chicago. I won't argue that it means our eventual overthrow by Islamic radicals. It does mean we are at a war we didn't start, and that we have to win. As you yourself recently stated here (maybe I'm paraphrasing) with regard to an Israeli assassination in Syria "terrorists should be killed wherever they are". Why is that again? Its because we are at war. Has Kerry even mouthed those words once in this race? His base at the wedding would probably sit out the election if he did.

Its really as simple as that. Plot that massive death, which already started, out over another 20 or 50 years. How the hell is that not massive death?

Now picture your boy Kerry, knowing his base was at that wedding (trust me, I understand that most of y'all aren't "his base", you are more just choosing him over Bush), and tell me one thing that he's said that indicates he understands that we are in a wide war could last generations and that will require the continued committment of U.S. political leadership.

Don't get me wrong, I disagree with the prosecution in Iraq and I've stated numerous times the basis of my disagreement, but you put Kerry in, and we are going to need another Bush in 4 or 8 years to actually start fighting again. Meantime, it should be just about time for 3000 more American civilians to die on their own soil while he's taken us on a breather. Fuck that. Or maybe he really is willing to go after Iran and Syria, and keep the pressure on 20 other nations. Mmm hmm, cuz that's just what we've been hearing from him. Right.

On a personal note, can you or another Democrat in the Chicago area please hold a press conference tomorrow announcing that you or another Democrat is running for mayor etc.... Or have you and the rest of the city not had enough yet? Its amazing. Not one word outside of the media. No credible contender. Nada. Its like the city Is. Dead.

Hello

I'm Pleased
 

No, dumbshit, He was just alright with the Doobie Brothers. As for you, He thinks you suck.

I'm Pleased
 

Sorry, unless you can tell me what a randomly selected Spaniard has to say, I'm calling this one.

47-6.

I'm Pleased
 

Little too much wine at your service this weekend, eh Jewb*, er Atty?


Hello

*My apologies to all whose hair-trigger PC sensibilities were set off by this religiously-insensitive joke. You fucking liberals still deserve to be shot.