Gleep.
More of the usual from our pal George T. at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler:
There isn’t a “constant stream of casualties in Iraq”. Iraq fatalities are less than the rate of total military deaths under Bill Clinton, which averaged almost a thousand a year, and well below the rates of the 1980’s.
Oh, that one again. They should assign numbers to them, like that old joke about the convicts telling jokes. “Ha ha!” the convict says, “Number 42!” The blockhouse cracks up. “Ooh, ooh!” another one says, “109!” Everyone cracks up. “I got one,” the littlest convict says. “Number 87!” He’s greeted by silence. “What? Number 87! What’s not funny?” An old hand speaks up: “…It’s not the joke, George; it’s how you tell it.”
Here’s our quote once again — just one of the usual parade of boners in almost any of their posts:
There isn’t a “constant stream of casualties in Iraq”. Iraq fatalities are less than the rate of total military deaths under Bill Clinton, which averaged almost a thousand a year, and well below the rates of the 1980’s.
This looks like it’s saying that more military personnel died each year under Clinton than now die with wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. How could this be?
Well, if almost a thousand soldiers die every year in training accidents, from illness, homicide, and suicide, then (watch this) if you COUNT those deaths for the period before the Iraq war, but then OMIT those deaths for the period since the Iraq war began, it looks like there are NO SIGNIFICANT US CASUALTIES in Iraq.
That’s a smart one, albeit a repellent misuse of the human intelligence.
How about this: Somebody blats a pie in George T.’s face every day for years. Then one day, somebody starts blatting a pie in George T.’s face every day AND ALSO chasing him around spraying him with a can of whipped cream. But, see, luckily, the rate of whipped-cream sprayings alone is less than the rate of whipped-cream sprayings and pie-blattings combined under Bill Clinton. So there’s really no increasing trend toward dessert objects being flung onto George T. at all. It’s all a fantasy dreamed up by liberals.
I know, it makes your brain hurt reading this stuff and trying to figure out where the trick is hidden — while wingnuts seem to think it up effortlessly, and not to care whether or not it even makes sense.
Say I have two apples, and I give you one of the apples. Then I’m like, “Wah! That makes them oranges.” and you’re like, “No it doesn’t — what are you talking about?” And I’m like, “Oranges! Oranges! Woo woo! Because I gave you one and they’re round and they’re fruits.” And you carefully frame an argument to prove that apples and oranges can both be round and fruits, yet can be totally distinct. Apples, oranges. Distinct. And then I’m like “Oranges. Because they’re square and I gave you one, and they’re made of aluminum.” And you’re searching Google to define ‘square’ and ‘aluminum’ and getting a headache, and I’m sitting back with my feet up, whistling.
It’s a sad fact of life that as we spend time parsing this one passage from a George T., he and hundreds of other George T.s are effortlessly coming up with more illogical nonsense. I admit I envy them at times. How nice it must be, assuming there’s no final reckoning before God or anything like that — when God screens your life and thoughts like a sky-wide IMAX presentation and says, “You know, being wrong is one thing, but not caring whether you’re right or wrong really kind of crosses a line, doesn’t it?” Because then you have to think of something to say, and while you’re standing there reflexively feeling out ways to bullshit God, He knows exactly what you’re thinking. Leave me out of that, man.
In 1983 alone the military suffered 2,465 deaths,
Yes, and according to the official stats, the Reagan years had a much larger number of military personnel than
under Clinton or G.W. Bush. 1983 had 2.27 million, while 2002 (the last year for which full data on military deaths is available) (cough cough cough) had 1.56 million. Also, check the columns in 1983 for ‘hostile action’ and ‘terrorist attack.’ Something happened in Beirut that year, for instance.
yet the press didn’t prostitute itself to the extent of calling it a “constant stream”. This “constant stream” spin is also at odds with the left’s other favorite image of a slow “drip, drip”. Now I know a thing or two about faucets, and a “drip, drip” is not a constant stream.
And a thing or two about gushing fluencies of Redi-Whip as well. Here’s a cherry for-a-toppa your head.
PS: …”I know a thing or two about faucets”? What is this, the Charles Nelson Reilly der-her-her school of comeback humor? It’s funny when he does it because he’s an old-school New York queen.
Holy Toledo. And God is also going to be like, “Well, you said and did the most appalling things. …And so poorly.”
pardom, je suis stupide.
so is he counting a total number of casualties, regardless of cause or location, versus just the number of casualties coming out of iraq?
or is it somethin else. i just am not so smart (plus, early early early inna morning) and want to know whats up
He’s counting everyone in the military, pre-Iraq, versus only soldiers killed in Iraq.
The figures for 2003 and 2004 would be much higher (perhaps doubled) with the ‘normal’ yearly deaths added.
You missed this:
“That’s all the Times piece says, and though true on the face, it commits a horrible sin of omission. Thankfully much of the rest of the Nation listened to the speech live, and the commentary afterwards, which specifically mentioned at quite some length that the soldiers were under orders to stand at attention and stay quiet, lest the speech look too much like a rally.”
OH.MY.GOD. Read the Times piece and tell me if that’s a lie.
Lies…I’ll show you lies!
So are we back in another round of the chickenhawks spouting the “not THAT many people have died, pssh” meme? Because the local neocon on this morning radio show I listen to was saying this too.
slow “drip, drip”.
An eargasm?
Y’know, the way you described how they do this, it almost sounds like fun. Someone should start a blog where they do nothing but misrepresent facts (or make them up) about Bush and his administration and right-wingers, and every time you get a comment from one of them to tell you how full of shit you are, you bring up some other bs, just to keep them hopping.
Wow….just Wow.
OK, it’s guys like this that make me wonder for the umpteenth time if free speech is all it’s cracked up to be. Can somebody just break this guy’s fingers so he can be on leave from the 101st keyboarders?
George does this all the time. I had posted the results of the CNN online poll right after the speech and he dismissed it as being *gasp* an online poll. He said he got HIS data from another CNN poll, but never provided a link.
From their website (the dogshit place or whatever):
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(LOL eh Ashcroft?)
They don’t even have the trust to take anonymous comments. What are they afraid of, truth?
This seems to be the difference between conservative and liberal. If ya can’t stand the heat, get outta the kitchen!
Piece of shit website; but I won’t tell anyone…………promise!
OK, I followed the link, and then looked at their comments section. Found this query to George from Pastormaker:
“George, why is it that you’re comparing “overall” military deaths during the Clinton administration to military deaths that occured specifically in Iraq under the Bush administration?
Are you claiming that no military deaths have occured outside Iraq under the Bush administratuion, or are you deliberataly [sic] not comparing apples to apples?
I’d wager that you find a very large spike in overall military deaths since 2003.”
And this reply came back, not from George, but from Gunshot74:
“Pastormaker: Take your blinders off and see the point. While there may have been
a very large spike in overall military deaths since 2003 there still was a baseline. You never hear about that baseline. Why all of a sudden they care so much about military deaths? Probably because those deaths serve a purpose in their minds, to serve as political fodder in swaying the populate to their opinion of the war.
And to be honest, of course the numbers since 2003 would go up; we have Reservists and National Guardsmen on active duty, don’t we? What kind of accurate reading are you going to get off of comparing apples to apples when you really have a peach?”
Please tell me that you’re having fun over there, and this isn’t a real reply. Please? It’s satire, right?
“This “constant stream” spin is also at odds with the left’s other favorite image of a slow “drip, drip”. Now I know a thing or two about faucets, and a “drip, drip” is not a constant stream.”
Nice bit of cognitive dissonance there. Maybe, just maybe, the press isn’t the left.
Here’s that CNN poll link, Political Pulpit.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/06/28/poll.bush.speech.iraq/index.html.
The anti-war activists are trying to use arguments designed for wars like WW-I, where 200 military deaths a day meant “all was quiet”. That was the “drip, drip” back then, as opposed to the bad days when they lost 20,000 or so.
In comparison, our current casualties are comparable to peacetime, and in total, including accidents in the US (which will be running a little less than a thousand a year), are still lower than 1980’s peacetime fatality rates.
Actually, lensman, Pandagon and Feministing use TypeKey too. But they started using TK because of the conservative trolls. I believe Steve Gilliard had a recent post on how few big conservative blogs allow comments, though, and what that meant.
The anti-war activists are trying to use arguments designed for wars like WW-I, where 200 military deaths a day meant “all was quiet”. That was the “drip, drip” back then, as opposed to the bad days when they lost 20,000 or so.
In comparison, our current casualties are comparable to peacetime, and in total, including accidents in the US (which will be running a little less than a thousand a year), are still lower than 1980’s peacetime fatality rates.
Sure, compare Iraq with a war that tore the fabric of European civilization and killed off a generation of young men, and it starts to look pretty okay.
But if we’re going to be consistent, shouldn’t we compare the roughly 3,000 victims of 9/11 to the vastly, incomparably higher death tolls of other 20th Century atrocities? By that logic, isn’t 9/11 ‘comparable to peacetime’ as well?
Except, of course, that’s disgusting — and inter alia, the term for this kind of thinking is ‘moral relativism.’
Anne,
Thanx. I had read Steve’s post and the juxt of my position was that the majority of the right wingnut trolls won’t allow unmoderated comments for fear of embarrassment.
The article just irrigated me, that’s all.
But if we’re going to be consistent, shouldn’t we compare the roughly 3,000 victims of 9/11 to the vastly, incomparably higher death tolls of other 20th Century atrocities? By that logic, isn’t 9/11 ‘comparable to peacetime’ as well?
Except, of course, that’s disgusting — and inter alia, the term for this kind of thinking is ‘moral relativism.’
Not to mention the fact that WW’s I and II were battles to save Western Civilization. The war in Iraq is a battle to… well shit, I just don’t know.
I think George’s point is that it’s out patriotic duty to accept any level of casualties in a war, even if the war was waged on false pretenses.
I thought he was attacking our troops, smearing muck on their sacrifices.
Well, maybe we’re both right.
No, I’m merely pointing out that our total casaulties in freeing over 40 million people from a fanatical religious theocracy in Afghanistan and genocidal National Socialism in Iraq are less than a single bad month of Vietnam, which was itself considered a brushfire war.
In a real war casualties this bad would occur on the right flank of a feint that was executed as part of a strategic deception, during a battle that was part of a campaign in a theatre of an actual war.
But maybe you’re right. The Iraqi government should be overthrown by the jihadis, so their women and children can bask in the joy of being shot in the head by teenage males who make Charles Manson look like a girlscout. Oddly enough, before we invaded that was their lot if they dared speak a word against their exalted leader.
“Since pacifists have more freedom of action in countries where traces of democracy survive, pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it. Objectively the pacifist is pro-Nazi.” – George Orwell.
But maybe you’re right. The Iraqi government should be overthrown by the jihadis, so their women and children can bask in the joy of being shot in the head by teenage males who make Charles Manson look like a girlscout.
What a crappy strawman.
I personally believe that we broke Iraq, and it’s our responsibility to fix it.
What I’m more annoyed about is the absurd BS that was used to justify this unnecessary war, and the flowery predictions made by our leaders.
actually, the real bait and switch here is using the numbers of dead while ignoring the wounded. since many injuries that would have been fatal in vietnam, not to mention ww1, are no longer so thanks to improved medical science, numbers of dead are fairly low in this war. what george t. doesn’t want you to think about is the many, many thousands of wounded (i believe approximately 20,000 thus far). now, it may be that in normal peacetime 10,000 people or so are wounded, many quite seriously, every year, but somehow i doubt it.
Oh, he dropped the Orwell bomb.
No, I’m merely pointing out that our total casaulties in freeing over 40 million people from a fanatical religious theocracy in Afghanistan and genocidal National Socialism in Iraq are less than a single bad month of Vietnam, which was itself considered a brushfire war.
Well, that’s a valid argument, with significant caveats. Saying that x number of military personnel died under Clinton, therefore casualties in Iraq don’t count, isn’t one.
Caveats: Afghanistan has been a war-torn hell-pit for decades, since the Soviets invaded. The Taliban rose to power with a single agenda: To bring order to the country. They succeeded. You might not like their methods, and indeed they’re bad guys, but the notion of democracy in Afghanistan is beyond laughable — you might as well try to bring democracy to a supermax prison. Afghanistan, thanks to the Soviets and US funding of insane guerilla leaders, is full of battle-hardened sociopaths with automatic weapons. It’s not a democracy in the making. Saying it is, is absurd.
We invaded Afghanistan to bring Bin Laden to justice. That objective was not reached, and now, the country is back in the hands of the Taliban except for a small area around Kabul. That isn’t good either — nothing having to do with Afghanistan is ever good. If the US were to try to hold the country the way the Soviets did, we’d have quite a Vietnam-scale problem — like the Soviets did. Therefore, we pretend that we’ve won a war of democracy in Afghanistan, when we really intended no such thing, and did no such thing.
I see statements like, ‘We’re bringing democracy to Afghanistan,’ and it’s like, Jesus, don’t be eating those mushrooms you find growing in the yard. Hell kind of thinking is that?
In a real war casualties this bad would occur on the right flank of a feint that was executed as part of a strategic deception, during a battle that was part of a campaign in a theatre of an actual war.
True. However, if we’re going to play the game of invidious comparison, the total number of American troops killed in battle in the Revolutionary War was, I believe, under 4,000. So are we at war now, or not? If it’s war, then it’s war. If not, it isn’t. At some point, the pro-war folks need to choose.
But maybe you’re right. The Iraqi government should be overthrown by the jihadis, so their women and children can bask in the joy of being shot in the head by teenage males who make Charles Manson look like a girlscout. Oddly enough, before we invaded that was their lot if they dared speak a word against their exalted leader.
You want democracy in Iraq, you have to cope with the fact that the country would likely elect an Islamist government. Why? To provide order. Order is the prime currency of Mideastern governments — not freedom, not civil liberties. If you understand what’s happening in Iraq currently, with daily horrific violence and a non-functioning civil infrastructure, you might be able to understand the alternative, which is ‘chaos.’
Of course, another tactic is to disbelieve bad news from Iraq as coming from the ‘liberal media,’ while claiming that good news goes unreported. In which case you’ve got an unfalsifiable hypothesis, and you’re in the realm of a faith-based belief system.
A reminder: Currently, there’s no elected government in Iraq. The election was to choose delegates to draft a constitution. Another reminder: The US invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein was supposedly planning attacks on the US, including robot drone planes spraying nerve gas. Then after the invasion, when that turned out not to be true, there was another reason. And then another. And then another. And now it’s the old ‘flypaper theory’ again — which states that we use our troops in Iraq as bait so that terrorists will attack them and not innocent civilians in the US.
Next month it’ll be something else, and you guys will fall for that one too. Question: Why did we invade Iraq? Like, what’s the real reason?
No, really. I mean the real, ‘that’s my final answer and I’m sticking with it’ reason.
“Since pacifists have more freedom of action in countries where traces of democracy survive, pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it. Objectively the pacifist is pro-Nazi.” – George Orwell.
That’s one of those lazy right-wing assumptions — that if someone doesn’t support a crackpot war drummed up under false pretenses, one must be a pacifist. Orwell fought against the Nationalists in Spain — he’s one of our guys.
George Turner:
Brushfire War!!! You fuckin’ dipshit! Dead is dead!
“There isn’t a “constant stream of casualties in Iraq”. Iraq fatalities are less than the rate of total military deaths under Bill Clinton, which averaged almost a thousand a year, and well below the rates of the 1980’s.”
Wow that justifies American deaths. ‘My war was worse than your war so don’t complain about it’?!
What the hell kind of attitude is that? Idiot!
So 1700 KIAs in your skirmish doesn’t count or rather isn’t as important because there were more in other wars?
I don’t give a damn whether you get killed in a traffic accident or by your wife after she catches you screwin’ around or you fall in a damn poison pit; you’re dead! I don’t give a shit about statistics or polls. 50,000 G.I.s shouldn’t have died in Vietnam; 250,000 shouldn’t have been maimed.
The trouble with you holier-than-thou conservative types is you never have to face the “reality” your kind starts. Go on a junket somewhere and write postcards to our troops. Gawd that really helps.. (sarcasm intended in case you’re too stupid to see it).
“In a real war”… you dick! I hope you never see a “real war”! Then again, I’d love to have had flag wavers like you with me in one. Stick your pomposity up your ass!
Brushfire war! Dick!
Apologies to the rest of the group.
Ok that’s the second funniest thing I’ve ever read.
Comparing raw death tolls between Iraq and WWII is not quite as simple as looking at numbers of dead. If nothing else, the extensive advances in battlefield medicine have saved thousands of soldiers compared to what would have been occured in WWII, or even Vietnam.
Let’s also remember, that not only deaths happen in war. There’s thousands of American soldiers who are coming back from Iraq permanently disabled – missing legs, arms, and eyes, etc. Is George saying that the injury rate among soldiers is lower than during the Clinton years, as well?
Yeah, support the troops. You dishonest scat muncher.
In response to my Manson comment, Brad said, “What a crappy strawman.”
That’s the reality of what could happen, exactly as had occurred in Fallujah, but then whining pacifists always did think reality was a “strawman”.
Willie said, “actually, the real bait and switch here is using the numbers of dead while ignoring the wounded.”
Oh, I guess you’re right, oh bait and switcher. There are no non-fatal accidents in the US military in peacetime, only fatalities? *cough*
Gavin M said
Oh, he dropped the Orwell bomb.
If the bomb will hit, use it.
The modern American pacifist movement was founded in WW-II by Hitler supporters who used to stage anti-LendLease rallies in San Francisco. When Hitler invaded Russia they sided with Stalin, since Hitler was the aggressor, and then they later went on to found the Pacifica Radio Network. After that, the Stalinist pacifists at Pacifica were pushed out by the Maoist pacifists, and they were the ones who ran the Vietnam protests. I used to have lunch with one of the Berkeley protest leaders, an avowed communist who reveled in his glory days. Moving forward, the head of International ANSWER, Brian Becker, is an officer of the Worker’s World Party and a staunch supporter of Kim Jong-il in North Korea. Noam Chomsky, dean of anti-Imperialist anti-Americans, was a wild supporter of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, and to this day he hasn’t changed his tune, except for admitting that they may have committed a few excesses.
There is a reason that many people loathe our domestic pacifists as much as Nazis. They bend over backwards to argue that it’s wrong to topple a dictator who’s blamed for about a million deaths, with 400,000 found in his mass graves, who took shots at US aircraft just about every week, and had horribly corrupted the United Nations with illegal kickbacks and bribes.
Gavin continues with the notion of democracy in Afghanistan is beyond laughable and calls them sociopaths with automatic weapons.
Yepper, you libs have great faith in little brown people. Oops. Afghans aren’t brown?
Wow, that’s more territory than they held before we invaded. Maybe you should consult better sources.
However, if we’re going to play the game of invidious comparison, the total number of American troops killed in battle in the Revolutionary War was, I believe, under 4,000. So are we at war now, or not?
Adjusted for the 2.2 million population at the time, 4,000 then equates to over 500,000 fatalities now. Or going the other way, you’d be arguing that George Washington should’ve surrendered when US casualties reached a grand total of fourteen. Feel silly yet?
Orwell fought against the Nationalists in Spain — he’s one of our guys.
More famously, he ranted against the German National Socialist Workers Party and the Fascists under Mussolini, a man whose only prior job had been a communist agitator/propagandist, union organizer, and editor of a string of socialist magazines like “Populo d’Italia” and “Avanti!” Unfortunately, the socialist party stiffed him out of their leadership position, so he sat on the right side of the Italian parliament to stay as far from them as possible, and plotted his revenge.
Yeah, we don’t want fanatical theocrats to take over the government of Iraq. Far better to have Badr members, trained under Khomenei in the 80s, whose first act was to apologize to Iran for the Iraq-Iran war (remember, the one where Reagan shot down Iranian planes and such, protecting Iraqi shipping).
The pathetic nature of Bush zombie crowd is a never failing wonder.
…But one thing the President got right — in the seventies. He didn’t sign up to go to Vietnam, because he knew that was a screwed up war. Discourage anybody who is considering going to Iraq with the Prez’s nifty example. Squeeze the military recruitment numbers until the criminals running the place say ouch.
That’s the reality of what could happen, exactly as had occurred in Fallujah, but then whining pacifists always did think reality was a “strawman”.
Ahem. Awful reasoning.
The “strawman” I pointed out was that you suggested:
a.) I was a pacifist
b.) I wanted to let Iraq sink into a tribal hellhole.
If we just pulled up our stakes right now and left, yes, that could really happen. But I do not advocate pulling up our stakes and leaving.
I’d rather we set a list of specific goals that, after met, we could begin to draw down our troops levels. That is not a “time-table for withdrawal,” it is an “exit strategy.”
There is a reason that many people loathe our domestic pacifists as much as Nazis. They bend over backwards to argue that it’s wrong to topple a dictator who’s blamed for about a million deaths, with 400,000 found in his mass graves, who took shots at US aircraft just about every week, and had horribly corrupted the United Nations with illegal kickbacks and bribes.
OK, then let’s go to Iran next. Or North Korea. Heck, pick just about any tin-pot hell-hole in the world that’s slaughtering people. See, I’m one of those crazy people who doesn’t think you should go to war except:
a.) In self-defense
b.) To stop a real genocide (see: Sudan, Rwanda)
Just being oppressive doesn’t cut it. If you really, really wanted to find a country that:
a.) Is an active supporter of al-Qaeda
b.) Is close to developing nuclear weapons
c.) Is just as nasty and repressive as Saddam’s regime (and has much, much closer ties to radical Islam)
I’d reccommend Iran.
After that, the Stalinist pacifists at Pacifica were pushed out by the Maoist pacifists, and they were the ones who ran the Vietnam protests. I used to have lunch with one of the Berkeley protest leaders, an avowed communist who reveled in his glory days. Moving forward, the head of International ANSWER, Brian Becker, is an officer of the Worker’s World Party and a staunch supporter of Kim Jong-il in North Korea. Noam Chomsky, dean of anti-Imperialist anti-Americans, was a wild supporter of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, and to this day he hasn’t changed his tune, except for admitting that they may have committed a few excesses.
I love being told who my personal heroes are. If I am against the war in Iraq, then I am apparently in the same league as Chomsky and and the loons at ANSWER. It can never be that I didn’t buy Bush’s claim that Saddam Hussein wasn’t as big a threat to national security as he’d claimed, no, it must be because I’m a Chomskyite pacifist…
Typo: “I didn’t buy Bush’s claim that Saddam Hussein WAS as big a threat to national security as he’d claimed.”
George,
If your working definition of “pacifist” = “someone who did not support the Iraqi War”? It certainly sounds like it.
If so, you may be interested to learn that this is not the actual definition of the word. Right-wingers are so fond of redefining words, I know, but if you’re going to play with the folks outside of your little sandbox, you need to use the accetped definitions of words.
If you think you’re using the accepted definition, you’re not- opposition to one war on non-pacificistic grounds does not make one a pacifist. For example, I would oppose an invasion of Mexico, because I think it’s a really stupid idea.
Is that confusing? The Orwell bomb only works against *actual pacifists*, not just people who happen to disagree with you about any given war decision.
“with 400,000 found in his mass graves” – if only the heroes of the right wing hadn’t been shaking his hand & selling him weapons while this was occuirring… or, maybe you’d like to offer a condemnation of Reagan and Rummy for not just failing to overthrow Saddam, but actually playing nice with him?
I love the last paragraph of your response btw, it’s like a window into your pathology- doesn’t matter what the subject is, once you get stumped you end up on a non sequitur rant against socialists &/or pacifists. It’s like 6-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon…
(Why, Orwell *was* a socialist! What am I to do? Wait, Orwell once wrote something bad about the fascist Mussolini, who had been a *Socialist* at one time. Point for me!)
Carleton-
Yeah, but Noam Chomsky! Ramsey Clark!!! 😉
I know I’m late, but.. And you’re searching Google to define ‘square’ and ‘aluminum’ and getting a headache, and I’m sitting back with my feet up, whistling.
I just had to tell you that I love you.
I’m trying to understand George’s latest exegesis, but the arguments are even wilder than the last one. Perhaps one passage can stand in for the whole.
Gavin continues with the notion of democracy in Afghanistan is beyond laughable and calls them sociopaths with automatic weapons.
Sure, like you’d invite a crew of battle-hardened, opium-trafficking, slave-trading Afghan Muslims over for a 4th of July barbecue. Just your kind of guys.
Yepper, you libs have great faith in little brown people. Oops. Afghans aren’t brown?
[???]
I think he means ‘Afghanis,’ anyway. Not the dog or the blanket-type object.
Honey, you’re the Balm of Gilead.
Yeah, you should be careful who you invite to your BBQ, Gavin, because you might have a crack-running gangsta pimp show up…
Stereotype much?
An Afghan is not only a native of Afghanistan, aka an Afghanistani, but also one of the languages there.
An Afghani is what an Afghan puts in his wallet, currently trading at 43 Afghani to the US Dollar.
Use Google.
Yeah, you should be careful who you invite to your BBQ, Gavin, because you might have a crack-running gangsta pimp show up…
Stereotype much?
This is like one of those primitive 1993 Usenet discussions, where you’d be all like, “Dude, if you’d stop twisting what I originally said…” And the other guy would be like, “You are trying to change the subject. You have proven with your own words that you are a Stalinist Nazi Collectivist.”
An Afghan is not only a native of Afghanistan, aka an Afghanistani, but also one of the languages there.
…And as we know, those vintage Usenet discussions were liable to collapse into sematics.
An Afghani is what an Afghan puts in his wallet, currently trading at 43 Afghani to the US Dollar.
Use Google.
If I do, will I find that you’re more correct, or that I am?
To be fair, I am the one who wrote that Typekey statement. Since the owner of THIS site has an older version of Movable Type, you don’t get to “experience” the security features of the newer version.
There is a reason why Misha went to registered comments through Typekey. The main reason is that it blocks all attempts at comment-SPAM. But there were other problems with people “spoofing” other commenters to the point that it was getting out of hand to control any other way.
I work on all sorts of Movable Type blogs — Liberal, Conservative, foreign, — it doesn’t matter to me that I might disagree with 90 percent of the comments on a particular site. I just enjoy the discussion.
Oops, I mispoke in my last comment. This IS the new version with the Typekey tags either stripped out or deactivated. My bad.
BTW: You really could use some text formatting buttons here. I could send you the script if you want them. It is a simple install.
Actually, we rarely get trolls. Occasionally a big site will link to one of our posts and there’ll be a Dumbo Drop, but the regulars here beat the shit out of them and they never come back.
The only Typekey-guarded lefty site that I know of is Pandagon, and as far as I know, they put up that wall because of one or two super-persistent needlers.
I think formatting buttons would be great. Thanks!
Seb is the site owner here; Brad and I just play drums and bass, as it were. He also has a new baby, so the time he spends on Sadly biz is quite limited for the time being.
Honestly, I don’t know a whole lot about Orwell, but from reading that comment of his about pacifists, one phrase stands out to me: “pro-Nazi.” What this says to me is he was talking about a specific situation and time period. WWII needed to be fought, and once the majority of the people realized that, people who objected were the pacifists to which Orwell refers (with the exception of certain religious groups such as Quakers where one of the tenets, I believe, is to be pacifist.) So that statement by Orwell actually has no relevance in the current debate.
My Site has Typekey enabled, but not required yet. Another site that I administer, Liberaltopia, had to go to Typekey because it was constantly getting hit with SPAM, regardless of Blacklist.
If you are interested, you can contact my through my site. I can also install Gravatars if you want them.
I know it’s petty to just pick out one tangent from George’s shower of horseshit, but:
Noam Chomsky, dean of anti-Imperialist anti-Americans, was a wild supporter of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge,
That’s utter crap, unless George has access to a special dictionary with definitions for “wild” and “supporter” that I’ve never before seen.
Thoughts on Chomsky’s pro-Khmer apologetics.
From Keith Windshuttle writing in Policy Magazine we have
Here’s an interesting chronology of Chomsky’s Cambodian views.
Or just check the Wikipedia entry on Noam Chomsky’s views on Cambodia.
You could just try Google. Chomsky’s support for the Khmer Rouge is a rather famous position.