Aileron

Sorry folks, but I seriously doubt Kerry will be elected. If I was the Democratic leadership, I would probably want to put all effort to putting Hillary Clinton in the White House in 2008. If Kerry gets elected in 2004, this cannot happen. Thus, I think what the Democrats are going to do is not fund Kerry's election, but put more funding in all the Democratic congressional races. They will want to publicize a lot of anti-Bush messages to fake out the Republicans into focusing money on the presidential election. The Democrats don't really want Bush out of the White house, they want the Republicans out of Congress.

Well, Bush was good with military technology - he stopped the Crusader project. The Crusader, if you recall, was this huge artillery piece they propossed adding to the armed forces. The problems with it was that the design was so big, you couldn't airlift it and you had to be picky where you set the goliath up. Definetely, that type of weapon is a Cold War idea proposed for the War on Terror. We need agile quick artillery, that can be set up wherever we want quickly with the aid of transport helicopters. We need to be researching LIGHT artillery, not heavy unwieldy stuff. Bush was smart enough to realise this. The point is when discussing weapons, you have to ask youself if the weapon would be good in a Cold War, or it would be good to attack a cell of terrorists.

I forgot to thank you for firing that employee. There are enough differences between the US and Europe without idiots like that guy adding to it. This point can be made in a simple fashion. Since the breakdown in US/European relations, the US has tried to get everyone involved again, and France has tried to make the breakdown permanent. And no, attendance to Reagen's funeral wasn't mandatory. However, its a matter of politeness. Most other European leaders went through much greater effort to stop by. It was clear that Chirac wasn't so busy that he couldn't attend, or that it was too difficult for him to do so. Chirac didn't attend because he didn't want to pay respect to an American. How can somebody expect the US to be friendly to a government that refuses to even respect us? Admitingly, there may be a difference between France and Chirac. While maybe not the rest of the world, Bush can be excused for giving up on France.

I don't think Continuum 3d will suck, once they get the bugs fixed. Continuum has two and only two things going for it. Its massively multiplayer and free. As long as a game has those two features, it will do fine. Yeah, both ideas are not allowed in Continuum settings. Creative bot work MIGHT get the shrapnel idea to work, but it simply isn't worth it.

I'm only being patriotic to balance out the forums. The reason why I defend the US so strongly is because a lot of people here attack her so much. If this forum was the opposite, I'd probably be taking the liberal side. It isn't xenophobia, its just trying to get a second opinion in. Well, we have come to something here. The real reason for all the outcry against the US about Iraq has nothing to do with the justification itself, but rather the going against the UN. It doesn't seem to farfetched, even if there are no WMDs in Iraq, that only means Bush picked the one bad justification of about 37 good ones. Hussein's regime was evil enough that no matter what the reasons taking him out was at very least morally nuetral. The real reason is because of the breakdown in helping each other out. For starters, I would like to point out that France is much worse than the US. The US is trying to reconcile the differences by trying to getting other nations to help in Iraq now. France seems to be interested in making the breakdown permanent. But France is one nation out of many. However, it is enough to make getting UN approval impossible. They, for some strange reason, get a permanent security council vote. If it was only Germany and Russia standing in our way back then, it would have been much more difficult for Bush to gain the 70% aprroval rating he had at the start of the war. Germany and Russia could have been persuaded, France could not. Thus, it really wasn't worth the effort. Given the current state of the UN, Bush can easily be excused for wanting to go around it. The real bungling of the war simply is the failure to rally general world opinion around us. Now, some of the more despotic nations had no desire to see the US release herself from the UN leash. However, respectable nations could be persuaded. I'm Monday Morning quarterbacking - but here is what Bush should have done. He should have tried to persuade the UN a little longer, not in hopes of getting UN approval, but in order to prove how nutcase the French government is. Then, the rest of the world would have forgiven us a lot more for going around the UN. The media isn't helping. People naturally distrust large powers. The world media is using this opportunity to sell anti-americanism. Thus, they make the war out worse than it is, and go out of their way to attack the Bush administration. What the Bush administration should do now is make up for what they didn't do at the UN - confirm that the French government is nutcase. Its easy to do, Chiracs approval rating is 35%, they aren't doing anything to help in Iraq, Chirac didn't even go an hour out of his way to attend Reagen's funeral.

While I can defend Hiroshima, it was a different world back then, I'll simply point out that I didn't bomb Hiroshima either. I'm about as responsable as Hiroshima as you are, both of us being born a little less than 40 years after the event. So, you are saying if a handfull of Americans bomb a city, that all Americans share the same mindset? Your comment only points out your anti-American racism. You think all Americans are ignorant, arrogant, violent, and greedy, mostly because the European Media tells you we are. That comment is no better than those who judge all muslims by September 11th. I don't use God in all my sentences either - picking up a bible does not automatically turn you into Reverend Lovejoy. Even most clergy I have met do not act like so, and many share a watered down version of your idealogies. I know for a fact that the Vatican (I knew this before the post in the other topic) didn't support the operation in Iraq either. I didn't accuse you of being a terrorist. Rest !@#$%^&*ured, you are about as far away from terrorists as it is possible. I accused you of being extremist. So what? Being extreme is dangerous, but it isn't really wrong. You probably pushed your answers for a more liberal result anyway.

I do understand how it works. I said that Bacchus was more liberal than Stalin, not that he was like Stalin. I can see that they are on the oppostie side of the libertarian/statist scale. In actuality, Bacchus is more like Karl Marx, because theorhetical communism was highly libertarian as well. Whether I'm right or wrong, the facts prove that he is still a radical extremist. I couldn't take the test everyone else took, but the test I did took placed me in the center. I'm tired of this -*BAD WORD*-ing "American arrogance" being spread around like this. The US tried diplomacy with the UN for almost a year before the invasion, and now we are asking for it again. We've been practically on our knees for the last 10 years and you call us arrogant just to get us to sink lower. For the longest amount of time, we have been the UN's lap dog, going into places like Bosnia and Kosovo for no reason other than to please our allies. -*BAD WORD*-, we went into Iraq the first time, when it probably was in our best interest to let them invade Kuwait. How do our allies repay us? When we need a situation that had been going on for ten years resolved quickly, they try to make it take forever to get resolved. When there is one possible flaw in our justifcation for toppling the most evil dictatorship left on earth, they stick it to us - over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. I've said it before and I'll say it again - the US needs new allies.

Well, it really wasn't a campaign detail as much as a reporting one. I attended a Bush speech. In it, he discussed about ten things he was going to do with the next four years. A week later, Live posts an article written for the Washington Post. It basically said that Bush had set no policy during the same speech I heard. That article wasn't even advertising, it was flat-out wrong. If that's what I can expect from "unbiased" reporting, I'm willing to take my chances with this article. (Besides, I'm not a right-wing American. The last political comp!@#$%^&* I took placed me only one tick to the right, which was well within the center.)

Being like Ghandi is only good if you happen to live in India in the early 1900's

One can tell that the author is conservative minded from the article itself, so it doesn't really matter if he is conservative with official ties or conservative without official ties. Most of the stuff that gets printed comes from members of such clubs anyway. Usually, people get in these clubs AFTER they have proven themselves by writing good arguements. I will agree that it is right wing, and teetering on the brink of illogic, but it still is an interpretation, and more sound than quite a few leftist articles I have seen. I'd say one needs to take this article with a grain of salt, but one should still read it. Shultz's biggest point is that the UN was very anti-Iraq, and made a string of resolutions against Iraq, for very good reason. It could be interpreted that the US was the one who actually acted in accord with the resolutions. The bigger question that can be derived from this is - Why the sudden change in opinion in this matter? Whatever the reason, it can't be a good one - because Hussein made no action to merit such faith. Oh, btw, the last time Live posted an article, it was a Washington Post article which described rallies made by President Bush. I attended one of the rallies in question, and can confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that the reporter was either biased, bribed, drunk, high, stupid, didn't attend the rallies, or for another reason written such a factually flawed article. To say it mildly, the article's information was incorrect. If that is what we get from "unbiased" information, I don't think there is much additional risk reading biased stuff.

I seem to have a little free time on my hands. Are there any maps for the subarenas that need to be redone? I can even do settings if you guys want.

Logic is logic, whether it is reasoned or rationalized. Please, after we had to argue with so many liberal articles, you don't have the mus-*BAD WORD*- to argue with a conservative one?

Bacchus, I think you are right around where Karl Marx would be. That's the same quiz I took last time. Personal Issues: 60% Economic Issues: 70% I'm considered a centrist on this site, although I am on the Libertarian-Centrist border. Centrist Centrists favor selective government intervention and emphasize what they commonly describe as "practical solutions" to current problems. They tend to keep an open mind on political issues. Many centrists feel that government serves as a check on excessive liberty.

2) Islamics were fanatical before. Invading Iraq really didn't increase it. Well, if you don't like invasion, lets look at the alternatives: 1) !@#$%^&*!@#$%^&*inate Hussein and Sons. Probably a good option, but it was somehow deamed unethical and illegal. Also, if there were WMDs, this would be a good way to ensure that they never get found and wound up in the hands of terrorists. 2) Hope the Kurdish rebels take him out. Clearly wishfull thinking. Rebellions without foreign support rarely work, and if they do it is usually by lucky means that create problems for the new government. 3) assist the Kurdish Rebels. At first glance this appears to be a good option. However, it is really irresponsable from a moral perspective. There would likely have been more civilian and military casualties this way, because the Kurds have nowhere near the training and technology the US does. Thus, they would be more prone to missed shots instead of hits, m!@#$%^&* bombings instead of precision guided, etc. Also, the conflict would have taken longer. Giving them training and technology would mitigate this, but not to the point that they get the same low figures as the US. The resulting government would still be seen as a US-puppet, so islamics would probably still be attacking after the military conflict was over. There was however something France could have done. It was clear that Hussein was eventually beginning to cave as US forces piled up over Iraq's border. Then, Bush asked that NATO allies be stationed in Turkey. If France was really interested in peace, they would have accepted this idea rather than veto it. If a larger force was threatening Iraq, perhaps Hussein would have "voluntarily" caved in a greater degree. France has the Foreign Legion, that never is allowed to be stationed in France. If they stationed the Foreign Legion in Turkey, it would have cost them NOTHING more than usual. France could have stopped this thing with no cost to them, and what did they do? Opt to use the opportunity to make another emotional !@#$%^&*ualt on the US. More important things are going on to justify this. Thousands are dying, yet France refuses to lift a finger. They just sit and find ways to pin the suffering as US responsability. This is both childish and sick. If France really cared about the suffering of the civilians, they would be helping in Iraq now. We likely will never find out who was right and wrong in the question of whether or not to go in in the first place, likely the action will probably end up in the grey area anyway. What we do know is that French support in Iraq now would help. Remember, this help would cost France nothing, because they still have that Foreign Legion. However, France refuses to help in Iraq. They take the side of the Islamic thugs, because the more innocents that are killed by Islamic thugs, the more suffering they have to try to pin on the US.,

Hey, I support Bush for logical reasons. Unlike you liberals, I attempt to completely remove emotion from my opinions. I've had enough of this. Go to the political comp!@#$%^&* topic. Note that I am only slightly to the right. Note that Bacchus is more liberal than Stalin, and that the rest of you aren't exactly centralists either. How, exactly do I qualify as a radical lemming? I'm sick of having Marxists tell us how to run our country in these forums.

No, Clinton was pretty -*BAD WORD*-ed up. Every topic turns into a "US in the bad guy" arguement, because a lot of posters here have given up logic, and the only thing remaining is Anti-US hatred. They are kinda like lemmings. No matter what happens, they just want to move in one direction. It doesn't matter if terrorists win or if the world get nuked. If those event happens, they will likely make an effort to make a post blaming the US for the recent catastrophe and then turn over and die happy.

Well, it does point out how liberals are trying to rewrite history. Look, before we went into Iraq - ALL of us were convinced Iraq had WMDs. This was not something made up by the Bush administration in 2002. You guys were convinced Hussein had WMDs before Bush even took office.

You don't even really want to fight terrorism! The wall does hold Israel back a lot, mostly for political reasons. You see, they didn't just make a wall, they made a boundary. In making it, they really made the message: "Okay, we get everything to the west of this wall, you get everything to the east." Look, its not the wall itself thats the real issue. The real issue is that we have an option that debatably could or could not bring peace here. However, before the construction dust settled, the UN already made a decision that they did not support it. What happened to the logical debate? What about the carefull planning, or the attempts to see what this action could spell for the future? The real issue is that the UN didn't debate this at all - they just obeyed their pre-concieved biases and made a decision before thinking it through. Otherwise, the vote would have been more compe!@#$%^&*ive and would have taken a longer time to decide.

Crud, my dial up connection doesn't have the mus-*BAD WORD*- to connect to your site, even on Suse's browser. To translate my last comment, I am about a couple ticks above and maybe a tick to the left of where Manus is.

My browser isn't that good, and I haven't finished Suse's download yet. I went to this site while I am waiting: http://www.self-gov.org/quiz I was ranked as 60% personal issues and 70% economic issues, which they describe as a centralist, although I'm on the libertarian/centralist border. I'll post later when I can go to your site.

ugh - a Dominican, a Brit, and a Canadian are discussing what "average American values" are on the DOMESTIC side. This should be be interesting. Face it, Bush's only major flaw is Iraq. His domestic policy is pretty good for the situation, hence why nintendo64 couldn't criticise him without using the terms "imperialism" and "diplomacy". Both words are exclusive to foreign policy. Oh, and "average American values" are good for Americans, and you can't dispute that. Whether or not they are good for the rest of the world is outside the scope of this topic. I would just like to point out the sub!@#$%^&*le to this topic one more time: NO FOREIGN POLITICS!!!

I know there is a repression issue, and I thought I mentioned it, Bacchus. My point is that before that can be helped, the blood feud has to stop. A wall is a good way to do that. If the wall is up, Hamas has a ton of difficulty getting in Israel, and Israel would have a ton of difficulty rallying an advance. Yes, it would be nice to be able to sit down and decide who is right here. We have that luxery, but the people who count don't - they need to worry about the mutual daily attacks. In order for them to decide how to live next to each other, they need a little time to breath. The wall could possibly give them this. It may render both sides from being able to attack each other, especially if the Palestinians play things smart and fortify THEIR side of the wall with what military they have. I'd like to compare this to the situation between North and South Korea. This wall probably won't bring true peace, but it will probably bring atleast some kind of truce.

Recently, the UN general !@#$%^&*embly has voted 150 to 6 that Israel should tear down the wall they just constructed. I think the UN needs to wake up a little. Israel has already tried a handfull of things. We have tried peace plan after peace plan, and none of them made any effective progress. Now, the Israelis decided to build a big concrete wall. I don't like this idea more than anyone else, but I view it as the best alternative available - certainly better than invading Palestine. I think the problem with this wall is that people !@#$%^&*ociate it to the Berlin wall and then to the Cold War. The problem with that reasoning is that we WANT the situation between Israel and Palestine to be a cold war. A cold war is an improvement upon a hot war. The Berlin War did made bad things - but one good thing it did do was prevent an eventual border dispute between the Democracies and the Soviets. Some people also to to !@#$%^&*ociate, by thinking what would happen if they set up a wall between the upper and lower class sections of their city. They view this as putting the wall around the ghetto so that the rich snobs don't have to look at it. The only difference is that in this city, a few members of the ghetto come out and kill a dozen of the rich snobs every other day. Rich people have as much a right to life as poor people. Thus, we need to save the lives of the Israelis, whether or not they are richer than the Palestinians. Being classist is wrong, but is in not also wrong to condemn a bunch of civilians to dealth so that we can pat ourselves on the back and say "we are not classist"? I mean, I can see how this is going to create problems. Walls are bad for economies, freedoms, and have good way of making people on one side isolate themselves from the other. However, what you must remember is that it is a warzone down there, and there aren't a lot of options left. Putting up this wall is going to do a lot more to end this conflict than the innumeral peace talks that never historically worked. Well, Israel isn't going to listen to the UN for sure. If the UN meant anything, they would have destroyed Hamas long ago. If the UN is incapable of dealing with one terrorist organization, why should Israel make the effort to please them? I previously mentioned the US' needs for allies better suited to the War on Terror. Israel is in a similar situation. They could get European support if they tried, but why bother? Europe only has conventional armies, and Israel has more conventional forces than they need. They need allies who have more in the way of anti-terrorist forces. Maybe they would tear down their wall to gain an ally such as that. However, they really of no reason to vie for UN support.

Finally, a good source of information. But, still, I need website to start a boycott.

[OOC-Exis fleet headed for TERRAN space? What's the fun in that? I was under the impression they would head towards Kanatis space.] The Marathon headed for a station in deep space which had been abandoned for centuries. It was far too remote to make a profitable scavenging operation, so it sat untouched for centuries. It was here the Marathon unloaded her bionanobots. Slowly, they spread through the station, reactivating and repairing the long inactive systems. The bots eventually found means to harvest the surrounding space junk, and use them to construct their own fighters. It was their plan to build their own fleet here, the Marathon as the flagship, and the station as the port. They sent a ridiculoustly encoded message to the SE, who they had come to alsmot worship at this point. On the message was a general status report, as well as the schematics of the Marathon's weapons. Ailius just returned from his latest operation. On his way to the core of the hidden SE station, he saw something he only imagined before. Before him was a sizeable fleet of SE Wyvern class corvettes and Dragon class destroyers. It was the biggest fleet the SE ever had by far, though it was still much smaller than conventional military fleets. Ailius landed his Spider at the dock, only to see the man he wanted to talk to. An Exis ship production General stood at the docks, accomplanied by several bodyguards. He turned to Ailius. "Alright, I constructed and delivered your fleet as promised. Now, do you have the money?" Ailius grabbed a nearby briefcase that had been prepared, and gave it to the General. "Here you go, Sir. If I don't mind, I have a better offer though." "This better be good - and you better not try anything funny." "Don't worry General, I have no interest in confronting the Exis fleet. As you know, part of our bargain was to paralze the Kanatis fleet so that they can't interfere with your little attack. In the process of doing so, we managed to get our hands upon the schematices Kanatis' Secret cruiser weapon." "You lie!" "See for yourself." Ailius handed the General a schematic. The General had a nueral link with his ship building engineers, so it only took a few minutes to verify the schematics' authenticity. It was obvious that this weapon could be placed on Exis ships without too much difficulty. "You have yourself a deal!" The General gave the briefcase of money back to Ailius and left the base. The SE crewman began work on refitting the ships, adding smaller versions of the new weapon to all of their new destroyers. SE engineers noticed, to no suprise, that the Exis rigged the new SE ships to selfdestruct upon receiving a certain transmission, just in case. The SE removed all such devices. In the meantime, Ailius and a team of commandoes headed back to a warehouse on 17th Parallel station, where he, disguised as Vaxmillion Sanders, waited for Harper's delivery.