MonteZuma

Nice post. Good points.

Yes. Does anyone really need to be persuaded? Seriously though....your passionate support for your brother is understandable. If you think that he has some valuable insights, please share them with us so that we can be enlightened. Thanks in advance.

You obviously haven't seen my member. I do and I do. The truth of the matter is that you know Jack !@#$%^&* about me. You don't have the analytical capability to challenge my views, so you attack my avatar. Cute. But it makes you look dumb. It seems to me that you are too scared to tackle the issues, so you are making a lame attempt to tackle the man. Save it for the schoolyard.

Cute attempt at wit. I !@#$%^&*umed nothing. What I did was proffer a theory that might explain why the US seems so interested in Venezuala. Here is my !@#$%^&*umption: The US government's main interest in the affairs of Venezuala is related to the US's economic interests in that country. In other words, the US is concerned about what impact a Venezualan government that is unfriendly to the US would have on the US economy. I challenge you and Aileron to demostrate that it isn't. Why else would the US give a !@#$%^&* about the socialist ambitions of a democratically elected government in Venezuala? Sheesh.

So? The threat from Saddam had already been contained. We had all the time in the world.

Is anyone suggesting that Venezuala is a real and serious threat to US national security or the stability of the free world? The US government should lobby the UN (ie the whole world) to do something about it and otherwise butt out. Perhaps the US government is more worried about self interest, and in particular the price of oil? Yet another oil war in the offing?

Teehee. The media was hardly in Kerry's pocket. Fwiw, I think the media tries to to be balanced, but what they end up doing is reporting the easy stuff the easy way. The government of the day will always be able to manipulate the media more than the opposition. The oil for food program was a good idea in principle. I doubt that Iraq will ever be self sufficient in food, and the embargo obviously put strain on Iraqi infrastructure - that was the intention. Bush had the US government, the military and all the scare-tactics he could dream up to play with. I think that is worth more in an election campaign than donation funds. A slight exageration? Because they are militaristic and try to solve difficult problems through the barrel of a US-made gun? Hmmm. A pattern emerges. There are still no WMDs and the threat of terror still looms as large as it ever did. I think that is what most anti-Bush people were preaching. Nothing has changed.

I'm not sure that I agree with this logic. The acid test will be whether or not the world is safer - and whether or not the Iraqi people will be better off. At this time, I'm thinking that the world is more dangerous and most Iraqis are no better off. Only time will tell if we look back on Iraq as a successful campaign or a waste of human life.

Sure. What does he do over there? Does your bro feel like he is making a difference? Are his letters/calls censored or can he say what he likes? Does he like the Iraqi people? I reckon it'd make an interesting topic of discussion. But do you really think he knows any more about the politics of the situation than an analyst in North America or anywhere else? He might be too close to the action to have a balanced view of what is going on? And he might be too busy avoiding sniper fire or peeling potatoes to think much about it. Maybe he can't even point Iraq out on a map of the world? The above is said tongue in cheek. I think anybody putting their life at risk for their government (if that is what he is doing) deserves utmost respect, but I doubt that most people doing a tour of duty in Iraq know much more about the big picture than you or I. Although some probably know more than we ever will about how lucky we are to live where we do.

Why do some people think it is unpatriotic to question your own government's policies? That is shaky ground. If the same thing happend in the US, and blacks boycotted the election, or southerners, then nobody would say that the election resulted in a fair or democratic outcome for everybody. Only time will tell. But I don't think the US government will hand over sovereignty to anyone that might eventually become as bad, or worse, than Saddam - even if the Iraqi people voted that way. That is BS. Most people in this forum and everywhere else in the world aren't anti US. But most people outside the US do think that US foreign policy sucks. The day the US government understands this will be the day that the "war on terror" can be declared fought and won.

I guess it was an approximation. You don't really need to count ballots to have a handle on voter turnout because you can count the names off the rolls. When it comes to Iraq, I think we are being drip fed glossy good news stories (the next one will be the drafting of the cons!@#$%^&*ution), but the deep, underlying problems in Iraq are being ignored by US and allied governments and an ignorant and unthinking press. There seems to me to be no less death and mayhem in Iraq now than there has ever been. My feeling is just that it is being reported less. Maybe I'm wrong. I think the Iraqi people need security more than they need democracy. Could it be that introducing political debate into a country filled with so much unrest could actually be counter-productive?

By most accounts, the Iraqi election was successful. Time will tell on that score I guess. But how bloody was it? One thing that I found weird was that there were practically no reports of violence on the news services that I listened to. However, one news report said that there were 10 suicide bombings on polling day alone. The newsreader seemed to gloss over this. A bloodstained shirt flashed on the screen for about a quarter of a second, and the remainder of the footage and discussion showed old Iraqi ladies giving victory signs with big smiles, and other Iraqis being scanned or whatever before casting their vote. This leads me to think that either there are a lot more regular daily suicide bombings than I realise,and 10 in one day isn't so special(wtf?), or else the media was distracted by election day hubris or coerced or something and chose not to report the violent incidences that did occur. Perhaps many news reporters and cameramen decided to take the safe option and stay in secure areas on a day that was expected to be filled with violence and danger?? What happened on election day and was it reported in an unbiased way?

Certainly. At school, they taught me that the abacus was the first computer. Oxford dictionary says a computer is a calculating machine, and I guess that is what an abacus is. Perhaps the fingers on your own hand might be a computer too? Or notches on a piece of wood? The O dictionary says the word was first used in 1897 in reference to the slide rule. Perhaps an American company invented the first microcomputer? A quick Internet search shows that even that question isn't clear cut. Acorn Apple Olivetti Intel IBM? Probably Intel in the early 70s, but I guess it depends on how you define microcomputer.

http://robertandtim.topcities.com/quiz/minority/intellectual.jpg EDIT - stumbled across this and thought it'd be appropriate: http://www.extraugly.com/images/designs/0021_WHT.gif

I don't think it is possible to say exactly when or where the computer was invented. Development of computers has been evolutionary.

If violence is your indicator, I think we can only conclude that Iraq was more peaceful before the invasion. Saddam might have been a butcher, but more innocent people are being killed in Iraq now than in the few years prior. The elections should only be held at the end of January if they will be *perceived* as free and fair by Iraqis. At this stage, I doubt that they will. Iraq is a !@#$%^&*-hole.

Domestic politics is like that. International politics needn't be.

The US has the biggest economy, so I think it is virtually a duty for the US to contribute more aid to the world's poor than other nations. A problem with aid, in general - but especially from the US, are the strings that are attached. And I think we all realise that military aid is often a problem rather than good thing. The US gave military aid to Iraq that helped them gas Iranians, and to the Taliban to keep the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Look where that got us. The level of violence in the US is not a reflection on the country's wealth. It is more a reflection of a tear in the social fabric. I've noticed that many people in the US underestimate the wealth of many European countries. The fact that many are very wealthy and have very low rates of crime and violence should be a lesson. You can't wipe that away by saying "oh well, but our GDP is bigger so nya nya". I don't think that supported your argument.

There are as many or more terrorists now than ever before.

No. If you have a budget that allows you to survey 25 people to gauge voting habits of blacks and whites, and your population is 500 (25 black voters and 475 white voters), you would normally survey more white people than black people to get a representative result. For a truly random survey, you might survey 1 out of every 50 voters. If you picked and choosed until you had equal numbers of blacks and whites you might screw up the random design of your survey. A statistician could explain this better than me, but I think you get the drift.

25% of respondents to the survey were from rural areas. That is more than enough to get some statistically significant results. It is interesting that you trust the Book of Revelation to give you guidance on the issue of a national ID card, but you don't trust exit polls to identify voting trends. Heh.

Nice. But every m!@#$%^&* emailer should download Text Cleaner. http://www.download.com/3000-2381-10148056.html

All polling is flawed. But the polls clearly show differences in voting patterns between different groups of people.

A technicality. He may have ordered the invasion to protect the American people, but it didn't work. He hasn't protected anyone from anything. Pol Pot (Cambodia, 1975-79)Kim Il Sung (North Korea, 1948-94) Menghitsu (Ethiopia, 1975-78) Jean Kambanda (Rwanda, 1994) Here are some. All of these rulers killed more people than Hussein. There are quite a few more I would consider worse than Saddam.