OK, so now you've established that you're able to use Google to examine posting history. This is a skill held by most technologically savvy 12 year olds and is: a) Not an impressive skill and b) Not germane to your argument (that all of us who annoy or disagree with you should slink quietly into the night).
I am in an excellent mood, BTW. I just watched W's SOTN speech rerun. While I both agreed and disagreed with some of what he said, it brought joy to my heart knowing that it certainly annoyed the Usual Suspects On The Wreck to the point of Chappackidick Ted levels of apoplexy...
There's another adage... "Tis better to be silent and thought a fool..."
Daresay? Damn, you're pullin out all the stops here.
Hey, contribution is a wonderful thing. But who cares if you prove or disprove consent? Just speak your mind and leave it at that.
Pat who? You mean that TV preacher guy that tried for the Republican nomination for President once? That guy that finds his wobbly old ass on TV apologizing for clumsy statements that he made the previous week? That Pat Robertson? Do YOU listen to him? I sure don't.
And here I thought you were just a twit getting his jollies by telling someone you "plonked" them. I'll consider myself straightened out.
Heard part of it on the way home, so I didn't get to see the facial expressions. Bet the swimmer just about burst a blood vessel with the comment indicating that while debate and criticism are valid exercises in our system, second guessing and application of hindsight are not.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough
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Well, there is a very large LVL beam sitting in my driveway right now. It's
3 1/2" thick, 14" deep, and about 19 feet long waiting to start holding the second floor of my home addition so it doesn't become part of the first floor.
Let me be the first to congratulate you on the fact that that beam is not in your eye.
I find those LVL beams much more elegant than the steel I have used in the past. I recently saw a hallway table made from a beam like that. About 8 feet long...about 14" wide maybe, but nice and thick. The vertical pieces were just a continuation of the beam, but attached at either end of the horizontal piece with large box joints. Very attractive.. just clear poly as a finish.
When I was a carpenter we used to set those things all the time. Was actually pretty dangerous. Imagine joist hangers nailed every 16" on each side while it's still on a pair of sawhorses (and 14" is small). Two guys on one end and two on the other. You then proceed to hoist this thing on your collective shoulders and up a pair of step ladders into position. Being a big and tall guy, I was always one of the main shoulders. I used to have nightmares of those things starting to slide or fall and those joist hangers taking out chunks of shoulder or neck flesh before breaking a few bones. The Gods must have been smiling because never once did we lose control of one.
I agree completely. The fall of the iron curtain in Europe was largely due to the access to uncensored information to its population. This is a huge crack in China's wall... TWS
No problem, I just wanted to be sure we were talking about the same person. I had thought it was James Carville who was responsible for much of the Democratic Party Platform in the recent past and Howard Dean today.
On the surface it looks like George Soros provides more funding than policy--quite a contrast with Pat Robertson who dictates much of the Republican policy. However maybe Mr Soros is just more subtle.
Of course, "Silence implies consent." is not a put-down.
Google cooperating with the communist regime in China is actually subverting the communist regime in China?
Wow! Who knew?
Thanks for enlightening me! I will go forthwith and see if I can participate with censorsing information in other repressive regimes so I can subvert them while making fistfulls of cash!
OK, so what is *your* answer to getting the repressive policies of the Chinese abated. More cultural exchanges? Folk dancing? Asking them "pretty please"? Cutting off trade?
We have two very good lab experiments going on in post-Communist societies, Russia and China. In Russia, ideological "Freedom" was declared by the stroke of a pen without regards to any of the other economic, cultural, and historic realities. (Kind of like listening to a speech by Ted Kennedy, actually.) In China, ideological Communism remains the official position of the state, but Capitalism has been allowed to flourish. Now, let's review what we've learned. Russia is sliding back into the totalitarian abyss because it could not "afford" its freedom. China is incrementally inching away from being a totalitarian state towards something more closely resembling a democracy. In the long haul, Communism in China is doomed as long as they practice Capitalist economics. No middle-class person (of which China has more and more with tons more on the way) can be oppressed politically - they have too much to lose. The point is that political freedom is a "luxury" that can only be enjoyed by people with sufficient wealth, and wealth is produced by Capitalists.
Google's entre' into China involves an uncomfortable compromise, but to the extent they can further Capitalism and a *more* free exchange of information, they will effectively be accelerating the demise of the totalitarian Communists. Is the pace fast enough? No. Would we all like to see more human rights sensibilities. Of course. But the world operates as it is, not as we wish it did. Incremental improvement is better than *no* improvement.
P.S. If the West really wants to see democracy flourish in the Middle East, one of the many pressures that ought to be brought to bear there is an emphasis on free economics and an elimination of the Thugocracies that keep the wealth all to themselves. One of the noteable *failures* of the Bush administration has been to not put massive pressure on the Saudis in this regard, for example.
You are looking at this through the most narrow of viewports.
Try to see that the world is a messy place and the ideal is not always possible. Also try to see how the Google-China compromise, while not exactly what we would like, is as good as we can get FOR NOW... and it can be a step in a good direction.
IMHO no, but *I* do not ascribe to the adage, though I do note that many others do.
Howver, suppose you find a two threads that I did participate in. I exited one with a 'plonk' and the plonked party followed up with a number of statements that did not previously appear in the thread.
In the other thread, I simply went away.
In the second case, it is unclear is I assented to what was written after my exit. In the first case it appears probable that I never read the comments.
Irrelevent.
The distinction between starting off-topic threads and replying in them is like the distinction between punching somebody in the nose and punching somebody in the nose after he hits you first.
Some of us regard that to be a distinction without a difference, some of us do not.
Well I didn't think that up all by myself. That is basicly what I remember from the UseNet FAQ. Yes, at one time there was only one.
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