Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Yeah, and just see what happens to your car if you leave it there.

Or if you get a haircut.

[SlaveNoMore]

Sidd Finch
Yeah, and just see what happens to your car if you leave it there.

A vagrant will sleep in it? Or perhaps just use it as a toilet and move on?

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
A vagrant will sleep in it? Or perhaps just use it as a toilet and move on?

I pissed into a convertible in the PRB once. My bad if it was yours.

[SlaveNoMore]

AliHajiSheik
I pissed into a convertible in the PRB once. My bad if it was yours.

Lookee what Bonus Season woke up!!!!

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Lookee what Bonus Season woke up!!!!

Hhahahaha, is it really that obvious? Hey, its hard to talk politics or law firm gossip when your employer has so effectively crushed the life from your body. The only question that remains is how much I'll be transferring from my bosses pockets to my local liquor store and some broad's at flashdancers.

How the hell have you been?

[Adder]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
when I said i was just a Troll it was in a context to make clear (in retrospect maybe just to smart people) I'm not. See? well, probably not.

but you do get that I'm the one who actually understands the "science" best, right?

Not only do you not know what "hypothesis" means (I recommend a dictionary), but you also have no sense of sarcasm.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
It wouldn't bother you if an innocent bystander was killed? Seriously?

Leave aside whether it would bother you enough to say that it wasn't worth killing OBL. The death wouldn't bother you at all?

(Extra points if you return with the line from Clerks responding to the critique of Return of the Jedi.)

The roofer made the moral choice to work for OBL- he reaps what he did sow.

[Hank Chinaski]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Sounds like Berkeley.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Yeah, and just see what happens to your car if you leave it there.

It will get turned into a hybrid?

[Adder]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
A Hush Over Hollywood

by Pat Sajak
Posted Nov 30, 2004

Picture this:

Somewhere in the world, a filmmaker creates a short documentary that chronicles what he perceives as the excesses of anti-abortion activists. An anti-abortion zealot reacts to the film by killing the filmmaker in broad daylight and stabbing anti-abortion tracts onto his body. How does the Hollywood community react to this atrocity? Would there be angry protests? Candlelight vigils? Outraged letters and columns and articles? Awards named in honor of their fallen comrade? Demands for justice? Calls for protection of artistic freedom? It’s a pretty safe bet that there would be all of the above and much more. And all of the anger would be absolutely justified.

So I’m trying to understand the nearly universal lack of outrage coming from Hollywood over the brutal murder of Dutch director, Theo van Gogh, who was shot on the morning of November 2, while bicycling through the streets of Amsterdam. The killer then stabbed his chest with one knife and slit his throat with another.

The presumed murderer, a Dutch-born dual Moroccan-Dutch citizen, attached a 5-page note to van Gogh's body with a knife. In it, he threatened jihad against the West in general, and specifically against five prominent Dutch political figures. Van Gogh’s crime? He created a short film highly critical of the treatment of women in Islamic societies. So, again I ask, where is the outrage from Hollywood’s creative community? I mean, talk about a violation of the right of free speech!

Perhaps they are afraid that their protests would put them in danger. That, at least, is a defensible position. If I were Michael Moore, I would much rather rail against George W. Bush, who is much less likely to have me killed, than van Gogh’s murderer and the threat to creative freedom he brings. Besides, a man of Moore’s size would provide a great deal of “bulletin board” space.

Maybe they think it would be intolerant of them to criticize the murder, because it would put them on the side of someone who criticized a segment of the Arab world. And, after all, we are often reminded that we need to be more tolerant of others, especially if they’re not Christians or Jews.

There’s another possibility; one that seems crazy on the surface, but does provide an explanation for the silence, and is also in keeping with the political climate in Hollywood. Is it just possible that there are those who are reluctant to criticize an act of terror because that might somehow align them with President Bush, who stubbornly clings to the notion that these are evil people who need to be defeated? Could the level of hatred for this President be so great that some people are against anything he is for, and for anything he is against?

As nutty as it sounds, how else can you explain such a muted reaction to an act that so directly impacts creative people everywhere? Can you conceive of a filmmaker being assassinated because of any other subject matter without seeing a resulting explosion of reaction from his fellow artists in America and around the world?

As I said, it’s a nutty-sounding explanation, but we live in nutty times.

Um.. what would you (and he) like Hollywood to be doing? Is there some reason to believe that the Dutch government is somehow unmotivated to deal with this?

And is a gratuitous attack on Michael Moore's weight really the best way to get your message across?

[Adder]

Originally posted by baltassoc
Interestingly, I run the IRA analysis the other way: the debacle encountered by the British with the IRA illustrates perfectly why we don't want to have a pseudo-criminal seperate system for handling terrorists. The British did exactly what we are doing: they not only created a series of laws imposing additional penalties for terrorist activities (which I have no problem with), but they also created a special procedural system, that (not coincidentally) did not include many of the protections given criminals in common law countries.

Here's the kicker: it was the (mis)treatment of these prisoners by the British that drove up the popularity of the IRA in Northern Ireland, the Republic and ultimately the US.

The British let their short term fear of allowing a terrorist to go free to undermine their long term safety by convincing Irish Catholics that their worst fears were true, that they were second class citizens subject to a different (and harsher) set of rules. Had the British played it straight from the begining, the Catholic masses would have had less reason to move from their initial opinion of the IRA as hooligans to the IRA as freedom fighters.

Tell me that Gitmo isn't being used right this very second to convince some impressionable Muslim youth that America hates him because he loves Allah.

Exactly.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Adder
you also have no sense of sarcasm.

Do you have evidence; or do you just imagine that this might be true?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Adder
Exactly.

Couple quick questions:

10/01- what was the most popular name for boys born in Pakistan?

6/01- what % of Saudi citizens say they hated the US in polls?

[Adder]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Couple quick questions:

10/01- what was the most popular name for boys born in Pakistan?

6/01- what % of Saudi citizens say they hated the US in polls?

Hmm.... this is fun.....

Blind guess #1. Osama (whether this means anything or not, I have no idea)

Blind gess #2. 70%

What do I win?

And what does this have to do with Balt's point?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Adder
Hmm.... this is fun.....

Blind guess #1. Osama (whether this means anything or not, I have no idea)

Blind gess #2. 70%

What do I win?

And what does this have to do with Balt's point?

I took his point to be what we've done since 9/11 might be making the Islamic world hate us. I was trying to show we haven't made the Islamic world hate us by our actions subsequent to 9/11.

It's called an inference. Lawyers use 'em.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I took his point to be what we've done since 9/11 might be making the Islamic world hate us.

I think his point was that what we have done since 9/11 creates sympathy for the terrorists, making them more popular and us less. This does not imply that he was saying they didn't hate us before.

And those were blind guesses, btw.