Dancing in the streets? - Page 3

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I thought it was more like:
"انا بغدادي"

It looks better with Baghdad font.


Just so we're clear on this: the people are the Afghans, the Afghani is the national currency.

Don't mention it.

How do you DO that? I've been trying to work out how to do that for DAYS!

And what's the name of the Hebrew letter that looks a bit like an 'x' and has the same sound as the Arabic letter 'kha' (normally spelled with a 'q' as in 'qafr')?

Good news all around. Saddam appears to be dead. The Iraqi people seem to be happy about that (for the most part I'm surprised at the apparent level of celebration and I admit I was wrong). No WOMD were used. No WOMD were found. Geraldo lost even more credibility (if that's at all possible).

Now, best case scenario we finally can impeach Bush and get someone intelligent in the White House who will secretly hire Sheikh Hamad of Qatar's advisers to assist in the redevelopment of Iraq, figure out some sort of fully representative religious round table to rule Iraq, fix our broken friendships with Europe, negotiate peace in Palestine including the creation of an autonomous Palestinian state (and get rid of Sharon in the process, trying both Sharon and Arafat for war crimes), reinitiate talks with North Korea, find Islamic leaders worldwide who will openly advocate a revolution toward peace in Islam, restructure the UN, find an alternative to fossil feul, jump-start the global economy and live happily ever after.

Inarticulate? Bush has been more straight-forward, plain-spoken and honest in two years than I EVER saw the previous President be in eight. He's fumbled over syntax and pronounces "terror" funny and that makes him inarticulate?

Say what you will, but I get the impression that when he talks, he actually means what he says. I don't see him as a "finger in the wind" type (a good thing!), so I'll take his occasional lack of smoothness which contains true content over some slick-talking, say-all-the-right-things-and-be-everything-to-everyone "style" of President Clinton (who I NEVER felt like meant a word he said...too practiced, too lofty, too "speechy", too fake-sounding).

As for "warmongering", you wish.




And an "intellectual midget"? I'm sure Yale is shocked. Are you going to make me trot out the educational achievements of Hollywood and prominent, mouthy liberals that so many seem to look to as "intellectual giants" and so forth?

Just admit it: it's because it's Bush. If Bush - having all the same background, word-mangling habits, plain-spoken style, etc. - was a Democrat, you'd praise him as an "unaffected, plain-spoken man of principle".



Pick another tactic for crying out loud. The "Bush is dumber than a hammer" one is getting really played out.

The folk who were the Taliban are still round and about and look as if they are reorganizing.
http://www.jihadunspun.net/index-sid...ist=/home.php&

Oh look...we just killed another bunch of civilians out there....
http://www.thestar.ca/NASApp/cs/Cont...l=968705899037
The Taliban/al qaeda recruitment drive continues apace.

~

Why don't we just jail *all* the muslims here in America? get Patriot Act II and III up and rolling, and kick some red white and blue WASP ass. Forget trials, they are far too expensive, and for sissies. Round up these unChristian infidels. Lets allay our fears we have about those dreaded middle easterners in our nice whitebread communities with weird satanic religious practises who want to kill our kids and hijack our planes. Once we got them all safely deported, or under lock and key, under the fear of their precious Allah, we can concentrate on those arch-traitors: the communist pinko potsmoking environmental activists who campaign for all those anti-American ideals like clean air and renewable energy. Yuk! While we are at it, lets jail anyone who dares to march in the streets and speak anti-war or anti Bush sentiments...surely they gotta be some kind of terrorist...i mean, just look at them....I actually saw some of them waving United Nations flags the other day....

Look out Syria and Iran!!!!!this is just the start babay....lets roll!

Its fun to venture into Scott/SDW2001 mode from time to time! It feels so good!

Do you mean: what Hebrew letter corresponds to Kaf:
ك ?
It's the letter Khaf:
כ/ך;
on the right is the initial/middle form, on the left is the final form (Khaf being one of the few letters which in Hebrew preserved two forms, reminescent of the four existing in Arabic writing). It is usually transliterated with a c or a k, BTW.
The softer Hebrew sound variant of that letter does sound like the Greek and Cyrillic X.

If you mean the letter Qaf (often transliterated with a q as in al-Qa'eda) corresponding to:
ق,
then it's the letter Quf:
ק.

[I'm getting old, correction here:
If my memory doesn't fail me, then Qafr is spelled thus:
قفر

But then my spelling is horrible and I lack practice these last years.
So, unless mistaken it's the second one.

Then again if you mean the letter Khaa pronounced like the German ch or the Spanish jota and written thus:
خ
Then it's a special case:
'ח

Which doesn't originally exist in Hebrew. It is constituted by the letter Heth:
ח

which corresponds to that Arabic letter:
ح

And an apostrophe to signify the different sound, idnetical to that of the letter Khaf.]

If you have the Arabic keyboard correctly installed on MacOS X v10.2 and later (it doesn't work on v10.1.x) I advise on using Mozilla, as Camino and Safari do have a few glitches when it comes to right-to-left writing systems (but they actually support it quite well).
As for IE, it's quite straightforward, they don't do R-to-L.
That's MS hegemonism for you.

Probably feels better than venturing into overwrought hysterical cynicism mode 24/7.

indeed.

Yes. It does. He can't pronounce common words and his grammar is crap. He is inarticulate.


You find this reassuring. I do not.


Congratulations on your victory in the war in Iraq.


And that's relevant... how? My newsagent is stupid. My Uncle Ismael is not clever. They could both be in a persistant vegetative state and Bush would still be awesomely, shockingly, thick.


No, I wouldn't, I would say he was as thick as fresh pigshit. I don't give a tinker's dick about the Democrats. But with regard to Bill, he was at least a Rhodes scholar in Oxford (or was it Cambridge?) in his 20s while the furthest Shrubbery had been out of the country before he became President was to Mexico. He wouldn't have been made the CEO of a large multinational. He wouldn't be your President if it weren't for priviledge and dynasty.

He is stupid.

Okay, you win. He's stupid. How can I argue with such stellar logic and tactics as those you lay out?

My apologies and congratulations.

I am mighty. But I am cuddly too. Come, nestle here, in the crook of my arm.

Count up the civilians that have died under Saddam. One estimate I read was 5 million since he came to power.

Did you read the report about the children's jail? Add that in too.

Thanks a million.

...stupid enough to hold a Masters in Business Administration.

You're welcome.

Screw it. I'm in a happy, feisty mood today. I'll give it a go:


Funny, I've always been able to get and understand exactly what he's talked about. When I think "inarticulate", I tend to think of mush-mouthed pinheads like Al Sharpton and Eminem.




The fact that I find someone who speaks plainly and honestly "reassuring" while you do not says an awful lot about you. Puts a lot into perspective. Damn right I find it reassuring. Wordy double-takers are a dime a dozen, especially in politics. If nothing else, it's refreshing.




Thank you. Although I had nothing to do with it. It was brave soldiers and a courageous administration. But I did/do support them. It's not over yet, so I don't want to celebrate prematurely, but so far it's been a stunning success. In any case, I don't think we started it or went looking for it. 12 years is plenty of time for someone to get their shit together and do what they agreed to do. I know you probably think U.N. inspections were working just fine. Again, that says more about you and a shaky grasp of the real world.




It's "relevant" because you guys like to use - over and over and over - the "Bush is stupid" thing. Yet, you'll hang on every word out of some bonehead celebrity's mouth...someone who's never served in politics, the military, government, etc. YET knows more about the state of the world than our military, our intelligence sources, the administration, etc. Trust me, it's relevant.




Yes, Clinton was a Rhodes scholar. That's great. He probably is a smart man. No core values or sense of moral clarity, but a smart man, I'm sure. Doesn't impress me. I know more idiots and pinheads with college degrees and lots of letters after their name.

And if "traveling abroad" is some sort of pre-requisite for being president, that's pretty shocking. Was Lincoln and globetrotter and I just missed out? Yeah, probably helps. But I don't think it's a disqualifier.

And yes, he is my President. And it's been YEARS since I've been able to be proud of one.

Doesn't matter Scott, they now blame those deaths on the US as well. Essentially, anything bad that happens in the world, shall be directly blamed on the US.

I'm not a big GWB fan, but dismissing him as stupid just gives him an advantage, one that has served him well against many an opponent. I don't know if he's stupid, though he certainly is, as you say, inarticulate. Don't necessarily confuse the two though.

Ever hear of Karl Rove? This is probably the most political president ever. He is campaigning constantly, and all decisions involve the polling/public perception/election implications. I agree that Clinton set a new standard, but Bush has run further with it than Clinton ever did. You agree with Bush's politics, that's great, but the idea that he's not a finger-in-the-winder is just not consistent with what we know about how his administration is run.

Overwrought and hysterical? Sure, I get hacked off. For me the US media hacks me off more than the US government. If the program is so right and proper, then lets have it the way it really is...I'm so done with being nannied and lied to with bogus reasons. It's beyond insulting.

As I said in a previous post, would the US commit such a huge military and financial effort to a nation whose main natural resources were dates and olives? Why can't they just come clean and say something like: "We here in America have a way of life that revolves around the mass consumption of oil, and we don't currently have the means to replace it in order to maintain our lifestyle. Therefore we need to put an effort into not allowing those supplies to be endangered by a regime we cannt trust any more". Why all the euphemisms and fake moralizing, as if what we are doing is something to be embarrassed by? Why no just tell us the damn truth...we are a mature nation, a democracy....the people can handle it!

Cynicism...definitely..I will admit to that....

However:

I would love to be able to believe all the superficially attractive slogans such as "liberation for Iraq", "dumping Saddam's despotic regime", "disarming Iraq from weapons of mass destruction", "making sure that Iraq's oil wealth ends up benefitting their people" etc etc. It all sounds so attractive, noble and moral, nicely pigeonholed and compartmented, a neat parceled up solution that will ensure peace and freedom for the people of the middle east.

Just from watching the way this thing built up, together with the Wolfowitz/Perle etc model for the future of the middle east (and the rest of the world)...I have no optimism for the longer term. Although there will be some brief infectious celebrations in the days following the demise of Saddam, the next decade and more is going to get extremely ugly, both abroad and at home.

I hope I am wrong, so wrong, totally wrong, 100% wrong.

Fair enough. Maybe it just doesn't rankle me as much because we're on the same page pretty much, unlike the previous President? It's not like I'm looking to Bush for validation...it's just that, after eight long years, I kinda enjoy having an administration that more accurately reflects what I think and believe.

Could be that simple. I'll cop to that.

Remember, I didn't vote for Bush and have never been a huge, rah-rah backer of his.

But I think he's proven himself - in my opinion - to be a good, decent man. He doesn't embarrass me. Character counts, and until stories of his bad behavior and scandal after scandal start coming in, I'll feel comfortable looking at him as my President.

Note: my above post was in reply to BRussell's post, not sammi jo's.

Essentially, anything bad that the U.S. does they should be held responsible for.

Whatever happened to that die hard conservative 'responsibility' I always hear about?

So am I. I only called Bush stupid to wind up Fellowship, but what the hey.


I respect someone who believes what he says: how could I not? It's WHAT the guy says that's worrying. I don't know enough about Al Sharpton to comment, but Eminem is STAGGERINGLY articulate. Not a massive fan of his music, but Hades, that man has an amazing grasp of the English language. He's the very definition of 'articulate'! Rhymes upon rhymes the man has.

Oh, gotta go.

Gotta go. Must meet my ladyfriend.

Fair enough. Have fun.

Although, I tend not to look to rappers for staggering displays of wordsmanship. But that might be where I'm going wrong?

That's a low blow, and I hate to admit it, but it has me laughing out loud. Sorry Fellowship, I mean you no harm.

I'll dance to this.

Perhaps if others were held to their responsibilities as much as the US is, then singling out the US time and again for all the worlds badness wouldn't be as much fun.

Face it, no matter how you try and spin it so that the US is to blame for Iraqi deaths, whether though sanctions, war or Saddam's reign of terror, in the end the truth of the matter is that Saddam hold's the primary and overwhelming responsibility for the deaths.

Oh God that's hilarious.

Those look like tough guys, too.
\

Yes. No matter what the U.S. does, it's Saddam's fault.

How is THAT hilarious? Two Iraqi citizens, who cannot read the Roman alphabet, let alone understand English, are forced, at gunpoint, to wave around a banner given to them by some redneck-asshole Uncle Sam trooper. Haha. I'm having so much fun I actually crapped my pants.

How do you know they can't understand English? And are you saying they'll be shot by Americans unless they hold this sign? Why do you think that?

I admit that it has of less an impact if the banner was provided by US troops, but do you have any information that says that's the case? And BTW, "wankers" is not a common American term, which makes me believe it wasn't provided by American troops.

Iraqis cannot read the Roman alphabet or understand English?

Who is the racist?

what is with Orange?

I know you are, but what am I?

Orange is too middle-diddle for me. 8)

pink?

uh-uh my wrists are way too rigid for that.

so... we'll use red then, don't we?

Now if I had said what der Kopf said about those two Iraqis, you would've strung me up.

But someone made a point: "wanker" is hardly a popular, common American expression.

If U.S. Marines or other American troops made that banner, they wouldn't be able to show it on TV.

In any case, the sign is hilarious. The human shields really did show their pluck, didn't they?

"No, I want to shield a hospital or daycare center. What? A military target? A power plant? I'm outta here! Hello, Mom? Listen, things didn't go quite as planned here in Baghdad...can you and Pop pick me up at the airport tomorrow morning?"

Translation: "I just play lip service to my convictions. Saying I'm a 'human shield' makes me look noble...and could very well get me laid if I play things right. I realize the term 'human shield' implies that I might stand in the way of evil, oppressive U.S. weaponry. However, after truly confronted with that fact, I quickly changed my underwear and hopped the next plane out. I only wanted this gig if it meant I could sit in a hospital lobby and read 'Entertainment Weekly' for a few days. Dying for my supposed beliefs? Haha...yeah, right. Fück no, pal. Bye...I'm London-bound! Classes start back next week."