FMBI

Root: You could probably get in anyway. I forget the exact stats, but I believe something like 15% of all Army recruits are now "undesirable" in terms of drug usage, criminal record, or fitness level. You don't have that many problems, so you probably could get in even if you're a little behind physically at first. Jericho: British Marines are a bit different from American Marines. Our Marines are just the dumb guys that go in and shoot things up. Ail: I don't know you that well, I argue with you all the time, but I still wish you well. Go for USASF (Green Berets) if you're up for a challenge (and a fast-track to long-term career success).

Or something darker and much more The Color Purplish.

Good job Ace, I had a link to the factcheck.org article about that in my sig for like 2 weeks and Aileron never did anything about it. At least someone else smelled something fishy about it.

Not true. My grandparents are leaning towards Ron Paul or not voting. For all the buzz about Hillary's supporters deserting Obama, I honestly think McCain's going to be the one taking the biggest hit from apathy. But alas, this is off-topic, so eh.

That pic made my panties wet.

That's not a valid reason. The fact that there are more men in the US armed forces than there are women does not justify discriminatory policies against women in the armed forces. Actually, it does. If 10% of the Army's getting 25% of the casualties (which tends to happen, whether the minority is determined by ethnicity, gender, or any other factor which definitely sets them apart), then you're going to have a huge backlash. Also, while I am not opposed to women having the opportunity to fight in the front lines, I see no need for the already voracious recruiters to encourage women to go risk their necks in extremely deadly situations, which they would most !@#$%^&*uredly do as soon as they saw the opportunity for "fresh blood." Placing specific soldiers where they are most needed is something that is easily and routinely done in the military, and does not require discriminatory policies against all female soldiers in general. There are also few people of Middle Eastern descent in the US armed forces, for example, and I'm sure they are placed where they are most needed. However, there are no discriminatory policies against all soldiers of Middle Eastern descent in general. You miss my point entirely. Women are generally "more useful" in situations other than the front lines. The average woman would be less useful than the average man in the front lines. Women, simply by being a minority, are more fitted to perform special tasks. The Russians used this to their advantage in WW2 by recruiting large numbers of women for support roles and as snipers. That makes sense. Sending a woman off to "do a man's job," to use a derogatory term, just so they can do it, is pointless in many cases. Uhuh. So you're going to ignore variations between individuals and discriminate against all female soldiers just because they're female? Frankly that sounds stupid. Make no mistake, I'm not attempting to argue that women should be subjected to lower physical/endurance standards than their male counterparts. All soldiers - male or female - should be subjected to the same criteria for fitness and endurance. Sure, it might well turn out that more men than women meet the criteria. But women who meet the criteria should receive the same rights and privileges as their male colleagues. I never said they shouldn't, actually. If you can do the job, then by all means, go do it. But, while I'm for the potential to do that, in most cases, it just isn't gonna happen. And I'd rather know that every person in the military is "doing what they do best," whether they're a gal in the marines or a guy repairing ships in Virginia, than to think that a sudden demographic shift is displacing troops and encouraging military leaders to make stupid choices, such as to increase the number of combat engagements just because they suddenly have a new group of fighters, whether those fighters are ready or not. Again, probably more men than women can do that. But there are definitely women who can do that, and those women should be allowed to do that if they want to. Again, if they can, good luck to them. Actually, sexism can get pretty dehumanizing, too. In world history, women have been barred from attaining higher education, barred from voting, barred from holding office, forced to conform to restrictive dress codes, given away in marriage by men to men against their will, barred from joining the military, barred from owning property, forced to be subservient to their spouses (e.g. husbands could legally rape their wives), etc. just for being female. I dunno, but this sounds quite dehumanizing to me. I do agree that racism has, historically, often seemed worse than sexism, but I would contest any claim that racism is more severe than sexism overall. I said western sexism. Eastern / Arab sexism is an entirely different matter, based on the idea that women are sexual loose cannons who will get into bed with any man they can find, and thus they need to be protected. That is dehumanizing, yes, but I did not mention it in the original post, so I regard that post as a null statement. Unusual situations are irrelevant in our analysis here. The fact that people often come together, set differences aside, and work together in times of duress is not relevant to our general discussion about sexism in modern society. It is not irrelevant, as it demonstrates the true depth of your feeling. If you're willing to overlook the stereotypes and work together in special situations, then it's a good bet your bigotry doesn't cut to the bone. If, however, you are unwilling to work with someone under any cir!@#$%^&*stances, it's probably a lot more serious. Make no mistake, I do not support McCain. And I agree that in light of McCain's record, his experience isn't worth much. But I stand by my previous !@#$%^&*ertions. I personally know quite a few elderly folks who prefer an experienced old candidate to an enthusiastic young candidate. Meh, I disagree, but we'll leave that one stand. My ultimate opinion is that, while men and women are equal, there are certain physical variations built in which, most obviously in the case of sexual organs, tend to complement each other. I get very angry when this is expanded to say "Men are stronger, so women suck," as it has so often been throughout history, but it remains true nonetheless. Also, in this case (unlike the twisted Arab vision of "saving" women), women may need some protection, at least until Iraq finishes up. Both candidates plan to expand the military by up to 100,000 new recruits, and it's a good bet that most of them won't be in for desk jobs. They'll be encouraging people to join the meat grinder of front-line infantry life in a very demoralizing war. This will be very difficult without the addition of women (I'm sure you already know all about the moral waiver issue, so I'll skip it), but I don't see twisted patriotism as a reason for women to subject themselves to a very difficult military experience, especially seeing as how the US seems likely to continue ignoring the majority of psychological illness cases. Could this sound sexist? I suppose so, in my case, but I don't believe men should be going either, so it isn't quite as arrogant as it sounds. Both men and women have a hard time in the military, but as men join expecting to take on the more physically stressful jobs, it seems slightly disingenuous to me to suddenly announce a new wave of anti-sexism, just in time to get more females killed.

TRP's such a pomp!@#$%^&* !@#$%^&*. But we loved him anyway.

edit - ROFL, root, nice edit.

There is a valid reason in the armed forces. Women make up less than 20% of all branches, and most of those are placed in the Air Force and Navy. While there is some residual discrimination against women in the military, it is mostly based on two pieces of logic - first, there are so few women that they need to put them where they're most needed, not just ship them off to the front - second, women actually do fall short of men in long-term endurance. While I'm an advocate of giving women full license to defend themselves in case of an attack, I don't see how your average woman can run six miles with a fifty pound pack, then engage in an hour-long firefight. Obviously, there are a lot of men who can't do that, either, but at least with a man you're more likely to have that strength, and you're using up manpower from the "majority population" of the military. In that sense, it's actually reverse sexism, because men are expected to take higher casualty rates and more difficult jobs. It was quite obvious that I meant a slight feeling of superiority, as when a man extrapolates the above-mentioned physical advantage over women into a feeling of overall superiority. However, in racism, this is generally not a feeling of mere "superiority," it (historically, at least) surfaced in a complete stripping away of that group's respect and recognition. Another problem with your analysis is that, historically, when women and men were in unusual situations (such as during WW1 and WW2, "on the prairie," etc, they learned to cooperate and look upon each other as equals. However, contrary to most "historically accurate" films, this was rarely the case with blacks - they remained inferior, even when it was proven that they were just as good. Finally, the elderly are highly unlikely to vote for someone with more "experience" unless it can be proven that his experience is actually worth something. McCain has made more than a dozen serious foreign policy "slips," though the media has generally skimmed over them or pretended they weren't an issue. They are an issue, because either McCain has no idea what he's talking about (which, honestly, I suspect is true to some extent) or else he's suffering from early stages of dementia - I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want my great grandmother running the world's most powerful country, and I'm sure that most of my older relatives wouldn't want someone their age to take that kind of responsibility on either.

Indeed, NBV has summed it up nicely IMHO. McCain inherently appeals to many older folks the same reason Obama appeals to many African-Americans: because he's one of them. Agreed Lynx. I disagree on both sections. McCain is unlikely to achieve full potential on the elderly demographic, because firstly, a lot of seniors are more liberal (not only because of "handouts," though that is a factor) and secondly, some of the seniors who are more conservative (such as my grandparents) won't vote for him because of his anti-evangelical stance and "liberal" social positions. Basically, he falls between the cracks. Also, racism and sexism are not identical. Racism tends to completely dehumanize a race (though, to skip a debate, the most serious racism has almost always been against blacks, even Indians and Yakuts got more respect than them in many cases), whereas western sexism is merely based on the presumption of male superiority. Also, sexism has eroded much faster than racism - in 20 years, we'll probably have total gender equality, while blacks will still face what I like to call "Subspace discrimination" (where casual joking and insults can cause that "nonexistent" unconscious racism to develop).

Oh, wow, your video of a guy getting hurt by a cop made it to TV! What a way to gain fame! edit - The vid is also on all the far-left blogs now. lol.

They were whining about him for 3 hours straight last night.

Clearly implying that he "Oops'd"

In Russia, emos cut YOU!

Link Now, I might be overreacting, but I don't see how they're going to manage this one, especially with a long-term fall in income because of the housing collapse. There are only going to be four major states that pull out of this without a shortfall, and even those have some debt in the background. What's next? Federal funds from PA and Texas to cover everyone else?

I offer Cheat Engine hacks for the game, and I've never been banned. What's up with the double standards? Spoiler! --Click here to view--I suppose I should point out that I don't really do this, before MTN or someone else gets mad and netbans me.

Having one and emptying it > not having one.

Vegetarians don't know how to moan.

My ignore.txt :

Right back at ya, baby.

Did you know that the CIA repeated the "Meow, meow, meow" commercial over and over as one of its psychological torture methods? Cool, huh? I'd like to listen to that for 16 hours straight.

Keep those cigarettes on hand though, in case someone ever tries to hang you.. you can burn your way out.

If I may derail this topic for a moment, the reason nobody feels "accountable" anymore is because conservatives have been telling people "You need to be responsible for yourself, your neighbor needs to be responsible for himself, don't interfere, don't distract, don't help, don't assist" - odd how you can pin the blame for non-accountability on American liberals who (in every book, on every blog, and in every TV appearance) insist that we bring accountability back to America. Who's more believable on "accountability" - someone that asks you to cooperate and allow designated agencies to do their job (especially when, as in this case, the criminal is not a threat), or someone who says that you have the right to kill a law-breaker, to ensure "justice"? Criminals should be held accountable, but you can't simply label someone a criminal and then "take unilateral action" in punishing them - need I quote Gandhi? The justice system certainly has its flaws (many of which, incidentally, have been promoted by conservatives who believed in "eye-for-an-eye" retribution), but I'd rather see everyone get a legitimate trial than see a reversion to medieval justice. Simply committing a crime does not strip people of basic human rights. And, by the way, nice job on, once again, evading the "in the back" part. Crude hand-to-hand weapons, 15 feet away, with their backs to him.. and he felt threatened by them. The only possible conclusion from your arguments is that you value the integrity of his private property ("No Tresp!@#$%^&*ing") more than you value the lives of two men. And (to take a cheap shot) you say fascism is dead?

Interesting you say that, what health care policies has Bush enacted that have hurt our health care quality? Canada. Ban. Ring a bell? And, as Sever said, his lack of policies was also a major factor. Ignoring the problem for 8 years, while demanding a boost in "same ol', same ol'" spending isn't exactly the best way to do things.

That is exceptionally odd, but now that I think of it, I know why I did that. Had to try it two or three different times, because my browser crashed, and I probably ended up giving him the wrong state somewhere else. Oh well. And, just so you know, #2 is virtually impossible, because, as I said, it !@#$%^&*umes no Independents - basically, if Barr's in, McCain's out. He has no way of winning either the "leave us alone" states or the 50-50 split states unless he takes Obama on without any outside interference. Edit - And, although I still concede my mistake, Iowa is definitely going blue this year. Second edit - The light/dark doesn't really matter this year, because all of the states are going to be very close. I don't think there are any outside of the traditional stomping-grounds that are guaranteed to be big (10%+) wins. So, Lousiana and New York might be dark blue, but not very much else is.