Ooo, it's tempting to say, "yours certainly are". ;-)
Personally, I tend to find the opinions of experts interesting and valuable. For instance, when it comes to metalworking, I am only an egg, so in on topic threads I find interesting, I make it a point to read carefully the opinions of people I can tell are experts. You're on that list, along with a growing number of other contributors.
-tih
But of course! Then too..I dont try to pass off my opinons as fact. Facts are what I provide cites for.
Im only a beginner at metalworking. About another 50 yrs and I, hopefuly, will have attained the expertise others here exhibit. In fact, Im a relative newcomer, having only taken up the hobby in the last 8 yrs. I repair/service/setup/program machine tools in industrial settings, so basicly living and breathing the trade, a tiny bit of knowledge has been absorbed, likely by osmosis, and not by any great ability on my part.
As to opinions, some are good, some are bad, some based on false data, some based on changing data. In fact, even my own opinions change from time to time, based on new data and new experiences. Shrug. They shouldnt be immutable.
Gunner
"Gun Control, the theory that a 110lb grandmother should fist fight a 250lb 19yr old criminal"
Ah..no..the lying sack of shit part covers his observations. The fat part was only discriptive.
Gunner
"Gun Control, the theory that a 110lb grandmother should fist fight a 250lb 19yr old criminal"
Now stop that Gunner. You are starting to sound altogether too reasonable.
The requirement for that goes into effect in October of this year. Then we issue you a Flash Gordon Decoder Ring, which helps us to track you by satellite.
I wouldn't be comfortable with it, either, if I were in your shoes.
Ed Huntress
That's why we keep you around. You're a laugh a minute.
Ed Huntress
Umm. Every url does not have 'fact' imprinted on it. Just cause it's a cite does not make it fact. Fact requires a real search, through more than one kind of source. Often one 'fact' can be the outcome of an entire dissertation.
Yep. It's a journy, not a destination. I like to tell folks that I like working here, because I'm the stupidest one here. Lots of smart folks to learn from.
Jim
================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================
Unlike you, I certainly am not going to dig up a chapter or two from some history book, and post it here. WWII was won by the Allied side, in cooperation. American troops certainly helped, as did many others. If the Americans hadn't been involved, it would have taken longer, and the Russians would have had to do more, and suffer further losses.
Can we stop this now? I have no quarrel with you, and discussing this is rather pointless. Getting back to the origin: American foreign policy is not very popular around the world, because it primarily relies on strong-arm tactics. Who did what to whom during WWII, and why, has no bearing on that.
-tih
No, I did not.
-tih
Amen to that!
-tih
Careful with the jokes! One of the ideas floating around is for a passport that contains a small transponder that uniquely identifies the bearer. Close range only, of course, but think of the possibilities for an assassination! :-)
-tih
Tom has good reason to be uneasy about it, if not necessarily paranoid. CAPPS-II goes into effect this year. That involves doing an electronic background check on ALL non-US nationals boarding airline flights to the US.
Don't start asking for cites. You can look up CAPPS-II for yourself. As for the data that may be in US government databases about Tom, it can be considerable and, if he's used certain key words and phrases in his public postings, or if he has any transaction records with US banks or other financial institutions from the time he lived here, it probably is.
Ed Huntress
Yeah, someone emailed me a copy of his Feb. SF Chronicle article.
Ed Huntress
Umm. Those two sentences seem to be a bit at odds with each other. Granted I've snipped a bit, but still they kind of raise the questions, who was the real strong-arm tactic expert in ww2, and how did the US respond to this? How did the rest of the allies feel about this?
Sure Montgomery thought he was all that and a bag of chips, but he really was a pompous turd-in-the-punchbowl.
I'm a firm believer in doing what one does well. At one time the US was a pretty good strong-arm player. I'm not sure this is true now, but even given this point, it seems like the US is one of those relatives that can do one thing well, so they're nice to have around when that thing needs doing.
Otherwise they get the carpets dirty, eat all the food in the icebox, and screw the local womenfolk.
Jim
================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================
On 5 Mar 2004 05:20:14 -0800, jim rozen vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:
Soggy brown chips, huh!
**************************************************** sorry.........no I'm not! remove ns from my header address to reply via email
Spike....Spike? Hello?
On 5 Mar 2004 05:20:14 -0800, jim rozen vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:
IIRC I have seen a few exposes about McCarthur's arrogance and egomania. AKA Churchill, Rommel, Montgomery, BTW
**************************************************** sorry.........no I'm not! remove ns from my header address to reply via email
Spike....Spike? Hello?
Yeah, I kind of regretted that as soon as I posted it. Of course it is germaine to the issue, as well as being, as history has a tendency to be, a caster of light on subsequent occurrences. I guess I meant to say that what happened back then did not confer any subsequent rights on anyone, except insofar as reparations were in order.
Or something like that. Am I making sense? I have scarlet fever, and an appallingly high body temperature right now. [Can I claim that as an excuse for the unnecessarily sharp tone of some of my responses to Gunner today, I wonder...? ;-)]
-tih
Understood. Your comment was that the US does foreign policy via military, which is to some large degree true - although over they years there have been deviations from this.
During a way by definition this is the way things are done, it's a war. I think that ww2 was a significant defining moment for the US and that the lessons learned there, stuck to some very very large degree. So it's not suprising that we do interact with other countries via mililtary. This is fine if you really *need* to have a war going on. Are the present conflicts really needed? Not clear. Could we have gotten by without waging a war? All good questions.
Not good, eh? If that goes on for very long, your doctor will want to hospitalize you.
Jim
================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================
You're making sense. Chalk it up to empire-denial. Talk to anyone outside of the US, or read any international policy journal, and it's clear that the whole world sees what's going on...except for us.
Firstly, we don't get out enough. Secondly, empire looks different from opposite ends of the telescope. And thirdly, we don't want to believe it. The idea is repulsive to many of us and we don't want to get into that empire stuff. The Brits had a very benign empire, really, but it still looks ugly, even in retrospect, from where we sit.
There's a good article about the realities of it in the Nov./Dec. 2003 issue of _Foreign Affairs_, titled "America's Imperial Dilemma," by Dimitri Simes.
Ed Huntress Reluctant Imperialist
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