Profile for Najosz Thjsza Kjras

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Displayed name	Najosz Thjsza Kjras
Member number	6388
Title	Lifecrafter
Postcount	794
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Registered	Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00

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Order of the Stick in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Sunday, June 17 2007 02:13 Profile #12 It's worth checking every few days, but then again so are most webcomics. OOTS's audience, mind you, is among the worst ever. It's even worse than you'd expect from the niche it's pitching to: in addition to your normal assortment of creepy old men and self-diagnosed Aspies, a cursory search through their boards will turn up a Goddamn animated GIF of a halfling and a samurai making out within the hour. Reminds me of the topic for it on Tyran's dumb satellite board: there was a bunch of indignance about how awful the latest comic was because it was just a long string of 'junk' puns. If you're not devoted heart and soul to pretending to be a sexless prepubescent, it's hilarious, of course - but then, if you're not then chances are you're not representative of OOTS's audience. Congratulations, I guess. [ Sunday, June 17, 2007 02:13: Message edited by: Najosz Thjsza Kjras ] Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Being Errorized! in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Saturday, June 16 2007 02:57 Profile #45 quote: Originally written by jg.faust: Also, Nalyd and IFM are kind of funny. I do find it kind of amusing that the average age of the board is steadily climbing and yet the average post just keeps on getting dumber and dumber. It's amusing in the way that, say, Halliburton actually getting away with what they do is amusing. This is part of why I don't like SW. I have a highly active sense of humor and apparently have some of the sharpest comic timing a lot of people have seen, but what I do is actually absurdist instead of "random" - which is to say, not nice big fat softballs lobbed at single-digit speeds, i.e. 'jokes' everyone's already heard twelve times and which don't actually bother to take a swing at anything. So I have a choice to make. I can go for broke and get banned. I'd piss a lot of humorless people off, but I never cared much about them. I can join the rocket-tard brigade and knee-slappingly quote Foamy cartoons or whatever the hell passes for 'quirky' nowadays - no. The only thing that leaves me, and the choice I wind up taking most of the time, is to swat you people down as hard and as mean as I possibly can. The hope is that if I do it for long enough, some of you might learn and become productive members of society. Start joking, god damn it! Quit with the freaking references and grow a God-damn sense of humor! I'm too young to be a cranky old man and it's only a matter of time before I have to go with #1 and go out in a TM-style blaze of glory. Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Elitist? in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Saturday, June 16 2007 02:45 Profile #75 quote: Originally written by Kelandon: quote: Originally written by WiKiSpidweb: Is there any chance of bringing her back? Seriously. There are only about two or three people I miss from these boards, and Rosycat is one of them. Come to think of it, what I miss most about Rosycat is her more entertaining acerbic comments, and we have at least one girl who is holding up the tradition of those. You realize that Thuryl's just claiming to be pregnant, right? Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Elitist? in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Saturday, June 16 2007 02:43 Profile #74 quote: Originally written by Thoughts in Chaos: Nalyd, who is also thirteen, thinks you're older than thirteen, mentally. Himself. . . sometimes. But he's more often ten. ;) Pederast. Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Lame in Richard White Games
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Thursday, June 14 2007 06:18 Profile #0 Can anyone explain to me what's so funny about this entire RWG thing? I'm not even being condescending. It gives dozens of you people cramps laughing at it (or why would you even have put up with all the references to its peripheral nonsense?) - and don't assume I 'don't get it', either. (Me and inside jokes go way back.) Why is it that something so apparently bland has become so popular as humor? It's not randomness-appeal - random stopped being subversive long before most of you even showed up, and subversive is why things are funny. So what is it, exactly? I'm open to the idea that I'm missing something here, but people are already mourning RWG like chummy newbies mourn Misc: showily and without much purpose. Why? Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
{o} AM WATCHING YOU in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Wednesday, June 13 2007 20:09 Profile #2 Sweetheart, it's not like the comments are gonna be any more inane than everything else you people post noawadays. Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
We spoiled Americans in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Wednesday, June 13 2007 20:03 Profile #64 quote: Originally written by Ornk Peel: arguing on the internet is like competing in the special olympics, even if u win, ur still retarded. Good show, chap. I suppose for an encore you'll link us to some kind of web-site with hamsters dancing!!!! Sales tax as a replacement for income tax is an inherently fraudulent and regressive scheme. While adding a fixed income of $20,000/yr would prevent it from being murderously regressive, just think about it. Sales taxes can't reliably be levied against services; black markets are extremely efficient for services (to the point that loan-sharking was viable until the advent of mass credit in spite of stern government disapproval, and that prostitution remains a serious avenue for personal survival) compared to goods. (And for the record, no FairTax advocate will touch a GST with a ten-foot pole.) In other words, sales tax won't hit services particularly hard and probably won't even bother trying. Why is this important, you ask? Goods are what you need to live. Some services are, too, but those are few and far between, and except for a small number of extremely marginal people everyone has access to them. My fiancee and I make $20,000 a year between the two of us. Factor out college (paid for with loans which we'll be able to handle later) and more than 75% of our income goes towards goods. Rent, the phone, the Internet, and all that make up a minority of our expenses when compared to food, drink, and pharmaceuticals. My father makes $80,000 a year and it supports his entire family. That puts him around the middle class (even though if you take his debt into account you could more or less accurately number him among the poor). He's had to contend with legal expenses, mortgage, and stuff like that, but he still has to buy groceries. But you can only buy so much more in groceries. My family's per-person goods expenditure is only slightly more than ours - let's be generous and call it 150% more per person, so they spend 3 times more than we do. That's 3 times more taxable income under the FairTax scheme - at 4 times the income level. That's a comparison of apples and slightly bigger apples; considering our marginal income, these two households are basically similar. But have a look at the oranges, too. Bill Gates has a family of four. Unless he's routinely buying groceries from the Pentagon, he can only spend so much more in goods - most of his discretionary income will go to services (which includes imports - sales tax won't cover those, and if it does you have every free-trade wonk in the world clubbing you in the throat). Let's be PROFOUNDLY generous to FairTax here - call his taxable expenditures one thousand per cent what my family pays. In other words, he's paying 30 times the tax - at HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF TIMES THE INCOME. Now, think about that for a second. Under the current tax system, he's paying about ten thousand times what I am in tax. Under FairTax, hypothetically speaking, I'd pay about twice what I'm paying now - and they'd give me $20,000 a year, too, no less. So where's the multiple trillions the government needs a year just to meet its entitlements coming from? In other words, 'FairTax' is not just an Orwellism but a rank absurdity; it is neither fair nor a functional tax system. Giving it a name like that is like calling the Mafia the Department of the Interior; even if the methodology were anywhere near acceptable, it falls flat on simple concerns of scale. This is just napkin math. Work it out on paper and it comes out looking a hell of a lot worse - unless you just so happen to be one of those cranks who wants the government so small it can be drowned in a bathtub. (Except when it comes to bombing brown people, I guess.) FairTax or anything like FairTax would so profoundly burden the tenth through seventieth income percentile that the American standard of life would look more like China's under it. On the plus side, it works out great for you if you happen to be making more than $200,000 a year - the 90th percentile and above. So it ruins the lives of five people for every one person it moderately increases the income of. I like those odds! ... If you want a serious solution to the way the government works? If we had a military budget closer in proportions to that of, say, Germany, we'd have enough money to cut every man, woman, and child in the United States a monthly check for $500. And that isn't even cutting our military to the bone. (That'd produce something closer to $1500.) We'd remain the strongest military power on earth, still be stronger than any two other countries put together, and would retain cutting-edge military technology. The only difference is that we wouldn't have the budget to pay $500 for hammers, $8000 for toilets, and $2.2 billion for no-bid contracts whose board of directors just happens to be friends with the Vice President. If we weren't shelling out so much in corporate welfare, social welfare wouldn't even look like a problem. And yet this is what everyone talks about - ten years ago it was Flat Tax and Forbes and now it's FairTax and in twenty years it'll have some other asinine catchy name and all the media buzz on it. We're feeding our children dog food so our rich neighbors can buy a second Hummer. 'Ridiculous' would be the understatement of the century. [ Wednesday, June 13, 2007 20:05: Message edited by: Najosz Thjsza Kjras ] Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
{o} AM WATCHING YOU in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Wednesday, June 13 2007 19:26 Profile #0 Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
It's About Time in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Monday, May 21 2007 10:23 Profile #31 [Edit: Link not safe for puppies. Click at your own risk of trenchant language.] KAORU'S SLACKS ARE PRESSED AND READY [ Tuesday, May 22, 2007 15:33: Message edited by: Dr. Alorael ] Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Dolph Lundgren - who knew? in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Tuesday, April 10 2007 23:42 Profile #3 If you call beating off to Rocky IV 'culture', sure. You wacky Democrats. Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Plato vs. Aristotle in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Tuesday, April 10 2007 23:36 Profile #32 quote: Originally written by Kelandon: quote: Originally written by Najosz Thjsza Kjras: All parties concerned suck. By providing answers about the nature of reality rooted in supposition, they changed learning from a process of experience to a process of acculturation, a trend which continues to this day in the wank-fests that pass for philosophy and literature departments. They didn't change any such thing. The pre-Socratic philosophers were not in any way concerned with experiment or even "experience," whatever your definition of that vague term is. They were concerned with theories of everything, just like Plato and Aristotle. They're as much to be execrated as Plato and Aristotle, for what it's worth. I'm simply proposing that as far as the sciences, and with them any meaningful measure of human progress, are concerned, SPA were a step backwards, not a step forwards. quote: *I'm not sure what your problem is with modern-day philosophy and literature* departments, but I doubt you could come up with anything better than what they regularly do. This line of rebuttal is ill-concieved to the point of offense and merits nothing but scorn. You are not a child, Watts; do not argue like one. quote: quote: Similarly, by learning enough that you could quote Aristotle (for the sciences) or Plato (for the arts) on anything ipse had dixit*, you could fly by without learning anything in the academic circles of Europe. Your Latin is terrible. :P Also, if you try to be a scientist solely on the basis of Aristotle, I don't think you'll get very far in the academic circles of Europe. I think you're being a more terrible wanker with this statement than any department of philosophy ever was. You'd get plenty far in the academic circles of Europe before the Enlightenment, and that was what I meant. This was not clear from my syntax, and I apologize. quote: quote: The long and short of it is, until a society develops the scientific method, philosophy is useless at best and at worst an impediment to progress. Once you've got enough of it, you don't even have to learn anything. You'd be surprised to know, then, I suppose, that ancient natural philosophers did* discover things about the world. Hipparchus discovered the precession of the equinoxes, for example. Science in the ancient world was a strange thing and not very recognizable to us, but then, science as we know it is only about three or four hundred years old, and people still were able to figure things out for several millenia before that. It wasn't the incredible rush of expansion of knowledge that we've experienced since, say, Galileo, but there was technological progress nonetheless. The gains made by natural philosophy were largely coincidences: people thinking to find a solution to problems that were largely thought unsolvable. But those weird, unconventional-thinking advances were not what Plato and Aristotle were known for; in fact, if anything, they were regarded as formidable intellects because not a thing they had to say came from left field. Which makes a sort of sense for a society without a sense of historical place like Greece's, or really any pre-modern country; the great Greek natural philosophers were not free-thinkers but astoundingly able at extending out the system at hand to its logical conclusion. Which is great if the system at hand was handed down as-is from on high, but not so much if it isn't. That the system at hand wasn't handed down from on high was pretty much a later understanding, and it was at that point that the reliable spread of progress you mentioned occured. quote: quote: While Plato and Aristotle did the best they could with what they had, they retarded scientific progress by centuries, maybe millenia, by providing easy answers that meant nothing. It's interesting to note that Plato's actual answers are often far less definitive than your dismissive treatment would suggest. Socrates goes around trying to figure out what makes a man virtuous and wise, and he comes to some conclusions, but not much. It's the question that matters, because apparently people had not done very effective or systematic probes of the issue before. Some of the moral and ethical questions posed in Plato's work are still debated today, even when Plato did give answers, because there's no reason we have to accept his answers, and people didn't, even in the ancient world. (Indeed, his dialogues may be in part for the purpose of discussion and debate, not to give final answers to things, because his predecessor Gorgias wrote similar works for that very purpose.) The problem is that, once Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were removed from the context in which they wrote, they wound up doing more damage than good. If modern society had evolved from ancient Greek society, you could count them as provocative forces for human understanding, but as the ancient Greek flourishing of inquiry was ultimately not to last, what the provokers of debate and askers of questions became was discussion-stiflers and producers of stock answers. That is the context in which they are the most immediately relevant to any of us. quote: It's worth noting, too, that Plato's influence was not merely by his ideas, which are the most easily accessible of his contributions in today's world. His writing style was of utmost importance in the history of Greek prose, because he was an unparalleled master. Ask any classicist who the greatest prose stylist of Greek was, and Plato's name is invariably on the short list. Also, their contributions to oratory and various other area of the humanities were enormous. I'll accept that Plato has an extreme aesthetic importance without even making my usual contemptuous disclaimer about your fixation on the classics; he certainly did. However, going back to my previous parallel to China, during the same period SPA lived and worked, the Chinese underwent a similar flourishing of philosophy and inquiry; however, the same process inevitably occurred. While the region was far from politically stable, it enjoyed a degree of social stability; incursions from steppe raiders more or less ended that, and for centuries China became increasingly dependent on the classics for both their understanding of the world and their literature. The great natural philosophers of any classic age inevitably produce a wide array of procrustean beds in the arts and humanities. In the case of Chinese scholarship, they produced stuff like the spider essay as the prerequisite for public service; these octopartite (thus 'spider') essays served little purpose but to show the writer's clear understanding of the rigid expository format and archaic language of the classics. This continued well into the modern day; I'm not entirely sure who did away with them, but it's either Sun Yat-Sen or the Communists - if anyone did at all, that is. (I'd have to look them up more closely to be entirely sure; I've never studied Chinese literature at great length.) Similarly, the Church did not clear Gallileo of heresy until John Paul II. Even though in and of themselves SPA were fairly admirable for their devotion to human understanding, their legacy is worthy of execration far outweighing their original intent. And yes, we must consider that legacy - after all, there is little exonerating the romantic Volkisch movement for what it produced. Just because the intellectual stagnation of the Dark Ages didn't cause anyone swift death doesn't mean it isn't bad too. Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Plato vs. Aristotle in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Saturday, April 7 2007 23:48 Profile #22 All parties concerned suck. By providing answers about the nature of reality rooted in supposition, they changed learning from a process of experience to a process of acculturation, a trend which continues to this day in the wank-fests that pass for philosophy and literature departments. You could literally find a decent existentialist or postmodernist encyclopedia of terms and fly by composing papers on nothing substantial for the rest of your career. Do it for long enough and you'll become a minor figure in the Goddamn canon. Similarly, by learning enough that you could quote Aristotle (for the sciences) or Plato (for the arts) on anything ipse had dixit, you could fly by without learning anything in the academic circles of Europe. I don't know the situation with Indian or Chinese philosophy, but I can't help but wonder if it's somewhat similar. The long and short of it is, until a society develops the scientific method, philosophy is useless at best and at worst an impediment to progress. Once you've got enough of it, you don't even have to learn anything. While Plato and Aristotle did the best they could with what they had, they retarded scientific progress by centuries, maybe millenia, by providing easy answers that meant nothing. Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Now is the time ... in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Friday, March 30 2007 18:04 Profile #60 quote: Originally written by Ceylon: Protcol- Please, call me Alec. quote: 1. Do you then contend that socialists have a good history when dealing with racial issues? How about human rights issues? I have no answer for the past bad acts of individuals who would claim to be libertarians. (Just like I imagine you can't explain away the grave atrocities committed by socialists in the last century.) I only submit that inherently, the theory of libertarianism is not racist. I agree the theory itself is not racist. In fact, you could well do what I do in response to your question and claim that those people aren't 'libertarian' at all. I distinguish libertarians (small-l, the philosophy) and Libertarians (big-L, the party), largely in the former's favor. American socialism has long been an opponent of the Soviet state. Eugene Debs was actually notable among his contemporaries for disdaining Lenin's experiment in the USSR before the popular (and well-funded) historiography got the better of it. Decrying statist Marxism and calling its evils those of socialism is no more fair than would be decrying North Korea and calling its evils those of the republic. (Remember - the official designation of NK is, in fact, the Democratic Republic of Korea.) The term used by the left for the USSR's ideology is 'state capitalism'; the same excesses and vices that characterize any capitalist system existed in the USSR, it's just that the exploiters belonged to a class of investors in the polity rather than investors in the economy. Given long enough, the two become the same thing: witness China, where the businessmen are increasingly running the so-called 'socialist' country. I have nothing but respect for the basic principles of libertarianism - except its veneration of property, which I consider the mother of its errors in disdaining the importance of a utilitarian calculus. While in terms of American politics 'libertarian socialism' is an oxymoron, it is probably the easiest way to categorize what I and in fact most of the American far-left believe. The only purpose of the state is an instrument for the improvement of the human condition; using it to restrict people's legal rights is repugnant. quote: 2. Do you think affirmative action is a racist policy? I base this question on the definition of racism - "Discrimination or prejudice based on race." It would seem that affirmative action treats people differently based on their race, aka racial discrimination. I think Affirmative Action is slightly flawed in its methodology - favoring the few wealthy blacks there are over poor whites - but it's not racist. The aim behind it is to open doors to racial minorities that society has shut, and to level a playing field that systematic biases in the scoring/testing/grading system has tilted. The 'preferential treatment' it gives is in fact an effort to make the treatment equal. If you look through Kelandon (Makalos the Freshly Plowed)'s posts recently, you'll find his complaints about test prep - test prep is the bane of meritocracy in that it allows children of wealth to increase their apparent capabilities. Estimates on the systematic advantage of native-born American whites on the SAT range from around 50 to 200; this advantage is basically the product of test prep, both privately and in the better schools whites have access to. In other words, the goal of Affirmative Action is to make sure that the slight advantage the wealthy members of the cultural majority have in standardized measurements of aptitude isn't overrepresented. This is why, by the way, AA only affects (relatively) mediocre students; if you have a 1600 (or, in the new system, whatever a perfect score is) on your SAT, chances are you'd get a profoundly good grade with or without the extra 200 points being born into the right family can net you. On the other hand, at 1300 points, that 200 points extra one would get from going to a better school or having access to private tutors is the difference between a decent school and community college. While AA might seem racist, it only is racist if you accept the conclusion that the difference in score between white and black students is the product of some kind of inborn racial inferiority. AA isn't perfect; it should ideally exist to compensate for the deviation on standard test averages wherever they exist. (The poor get far lower standardized scores than the rich, to the point that a poor student has to be near-genius to keep up with a just above-average wealthy student.) But where it is now is a good start. To use a simple analogy: affirmative action is as racist as women's suffrage is sexist. I hope that answers your question. It stems from a pretty common misconception. quote: I again reject the idea that there is anything inherently racist about the political theory of libertarianism. Nothing's racist about small-l libertarianism; to a large extent I subscribe to the philosophy. But the Libertarian Party, on a small level party-wide and especially at the candidate level, has a lot of serious race issues. [ Friday, March 30, 2007 18:08: Message edited by: Protocols of the Elders of Zion ] Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
(10:12:57 PM) AlecKyras: BHHHHHH in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Thursday, March 29 2007 16:26 Profile #4 quote: Originally written by Scorpius: quote: Originally written by Protocols of the Elders of Zion: BHHHHH Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
(10:12:57 PM) AlecKyras: BHHHHHH in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Thursday, March 29 2007 16:22 Profile #1 BHHHHH Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Transhumanism? in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Thursday, March 29 2007 11:37 Profile #4 Isn't it a little silly to throw your hopes into the newest gadgets and treatments for the super-rich when half of the planet has never received a phone call? Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Now is the time ... in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Thursday, March 29 2007 11:17 Profile #49 quote: Originally written by Ceylon: quote: and unless you're a Libertarian-voting cretin who honestly believes that all black people are functionally retarded, that's a fairly clear indicator the test is useless in measuring intelligence. How does being Libertarian have anything to do with believing black people are functionally retarded? No aspect of Libertarianism suggests any belief similar to that which you have suggested. Assuming that people vote for those who are aligned with what they believe, Libertarian voters do not believe as you have stated. You'd think that, but there's a long tradition of soi-disant Libertarians being against advances in civil rights long after they become ubiqutously lauded. Among them: anti-Jim Crow legislation (they claim the market should have taken care of it), affirmative action, anti-discrimination legislation, and so on. Maybe the movement itself has no particular problem with minorities (even though their policies, which affect the poor negatively, tend to also disproportionately harm minorities as a result), but nearly every Libertarian I've spoken to or read about has serious race issues. One of the most repugnant spectacles in recent memory was a so-called Libertarian who played in blackface and drag, acting out a grotesque 'mammy' stereotype, trying to break out of his largely southern support base into Californian clubs. It's not as if he was marginal among Libertarians, either - he was, IIRC, a candidate for the House in Texas - something that would tend to require the Party itself to vet him. The few critics of Lincoln whose primary political credentials aren't being baying Southern reactionaries are Libertarians. (I can point out the literature there if you'd like; even the modern Republicans, who have little to agree with for Lincoln, like him.) quote: Libertarianism is basically a political philosophy. Libertarians believe that people are the owners of their own lives and people should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as they allow others the same liberty. Further, all interaction should be consensual and voluntary. This is fine and good, and why my early statement about libertarians was prefaced with 'nearly'. I'm aware what the movement ostensibly believes, but there's a lot of people who use that as a screen for reactionary behavior. quote: You clearly know nothing about Libertarianism. In fact, I would say Libertarians in generally believe that all people are intelligent and will make the right decisions if given the freedom to do so and if the societal system of rewards and punishments is aligned with the true free market value of things, accounting for all externalities. 'The societal system of rewards and punishments is aligned with the true free market value of things' is where you go wrong: it's basically endorsing the current situation as 'aligned with the free market'. While you do acknowledge there are externalities, those externalities are so powerful as to make the question of whether the market is free an open one. When one percent of infants are born with enough wealth to survive their entire lives comfortably and twenty percent of infants are born into debt, you can hardly call the lives they lead compared to one another the product of their own choices. That Paris Hilton is still richer than either of us is a pretty clear sign that society is so strongly governed by externalities that a market theory for it is more or less useless. quote: I will not attempt to guess your political affiliation. However, I will comment that from the conduct of two major political parties in the US, one could reach the conclusion that they believe exactly that which you have ascribed to Libertarians. You're right in that the two major parties are pretty bad when it comes to race relations. This is one reason of many why I do not support them; I am a Socialist. [ Friday, March 30, 2007 17:47: Message edited by: Protocols of the Elders of Zion ] Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Alorael for Admin in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Thursday, March 29 2007 10:53 Profile #77 quote: Originally written by LF: quote: Originally written by Imban: quote: Originally written by Spent Salmon: Dad-gum-it!! Who in tarna, I say, who in tarnation told LF that his signature could be so long it obscures the page? Fix that hornery contraption afor I come over and do it myself! You know, I have to agree with Salmon here. Could you try and have a shorter signature, Lone Flame? As a general rule of thumb, your signature should not regularly be longer than your posts. Um, so does that mean my posts aren't long enough? I... could.... add.... more.... dots.... at..... the..... end...... of... every....... word..... to..... lengthen... it.... for... you..................... Maybe if you didn't feel the need to make every topic about you you wouldn't stay canned so long. Just sayin'. Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
The U.S. and Iraq in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Wednesday, March 28 2007 23:14 Profile #120 Disregarding his capacity to think critically is rude, Thuryl. We all come to incorrect conclusions; what matters is whether we are willing to reverse them. :P Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
The U.S. and Iraq in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Wednesday, March 28 2007 19:54 Profile #118 quote: Originally written by Excalibur: If Waco was just an accident, how come the FBI used incineary bombs? They didn't. A tear agent was used. An unusually violent tear agent, but just a tear agent. While that would usually be somewhat implausible, do bear in mind the Branch Davidians had several tons of ammunition lying around the place, along with large amounts of fuel and other inflammables. Given the situation, in fact, an incindiary would have been implausible: using one would have resulted in a tremendous explosion as most of the ammunition and flammables went off at once, not a gradual burn as a small fire gradually spread as ammo cooked and gas flashed. quote: quote: chances are a cult as heavily-armed and basically evil in their beliefs That's what the government wants you to believe, and they've done that well. It's sad to see how people are so easily brainwashed. The Branch Davidians had strange theology, but they weren't white-supremeists nor were they heavily armed (but the FBI was). Waco was a failed attempt by the government to cover things up. The BDs weren't heavily armed? Bull: They opened fire when the ATF came knocking, taking four lives. Records exist, as reliable as any that exist for anything, that almost $200,000 worth of weapons were purchased by the BDs - numbering 131 in total. The source I've referred to also documents tapes recording Kopesh discussing using fire as a defensive tactic, along with 'spreading fuel'. quote: quote: You read them personally? If so, whose exactly, and where did you get them? I haven't actually seen them myself, but I know people who have. I'd like to read them someday, but it's hard to get into government records. My father knows a guy who has photocopies, but can't remeber his name (I'll post it as soon as I get his name from my father). Read the Snopes link. Also, there was a cottage industry for producing extremely tenuous 'evidence' that Clinton presided over a massive conspiracy to butcher a million people or whatever during the 90s. He couldn't cover up half a dozen blow jobs with an intern, who all but sign a contract to be discreet walking orifices; how exactly was he supposed to orchestrate what would have been the single biggest coverup in human history? Exercise a little more skepticism. The 'Clinton murdered X people', unless you have a very flexible definition of 'murdered' and are referring to either Kosovo or Iraq (or his massive cut in welfare benefits, although Ginrich can claim partial credit for that), is an extremely bold claim that requires extremely good evidence. An affadavit a friend of your father swears up and down to have seen from someone who swears up and down that Clinton did something nasty doesn't cut it. The public record is pretty consistent on what Clinton did and didn't do, because he was President and the President can barely fart without it going on seven forms of documentation. Ken Starr, who spent most of the 90s trying to ruin Clinton on the flimsiest evidence imaginable, acknowledges he didn't kill anyone. And first and foremost, think of Nixon. Spywork hasn't advanced by a whole hell of a lot since then, and he couldn't redact 13 minutes of videotape without creating suspicion big enough to virtually impeach him - and that's over something as small as a videotape. Kill a hundred people over the course of eight years and hide it? In any modern beaureaucratic state, absolutely impossible. Like sneaking a nuke into Fort Knox. I don't like Clinton either, but I have more solid reasons for not liking him than conspiracy theories. He sold the Democrats out, and as a consequence of that we have an idiot like the Shrub running the country with an iron fist. quote: quote: Wow. Is there a test range for nuclear devices out near where you live in Nevada, Excalibur? That test site is many miles away in southern Nevada; I live in northern Nevada. He's right; technically, the test site is closer to me than to him. :P [ Wednesday, March 28, 2007 19:56: Message edited by: Protocols of the Elders of Zion ] Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
The U.S. and Iraq in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Wednesday, March 28 2007 11:12 Profile #113 quote: Originally written by Excalibur: owever, I have found illegal activities Clinton did that are backed up by actual evidence and not just rumors. Here is the following: 1. Witnesses stated that while visiting Reno, Nevada, they heard him discuss planting a bomb in Oklahoma City. Not long after, the Oklahoma City bombing occured. 2. Well over a hundred of Clinton's own agents "mysteriously vanished" during his presidency. There isn't actually evidence for this, but that is very suspicious. http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/bodycount.asp quote: The only rumor that I somewhat believe is that Clinton was involved in the Waco incident. Even though the FBI murdered the Branch Davidians there, the president is the head of the executive branch, and the FBI is part of the executive branch. Clinton was involved in the Waco incident in exactly the capacity you describe: head of the executive branch, which presided over the FBI efforts to arrest the leader - a white supremacist cult leader sitting on a stockpile of small arms large enough to arm a small division. For the record, the decision that lead to the accidental fire was Janet Reno's, not Bill Clinton's. But she was right to make that decision, tragic as the consequences of it might have been. The problem with Clinton-mania is lacuna like that in the public memory. Waco wasn't FBI oppression and murder; Waco was a bunch of extremely well-armed white-supremacist lunatics being so intransigent in refusing to cooperate with the authorities that force was required. There was a fire - by accident - because of that use of force. While it's unfortunate a fire broke out and people were killed, chances are a cult as heavily-armed and basically evil in their beliefs as the Branch Davidians holed up in an area of Texas basically surrounded by potential victims - the Mexican-American citizens of backwater Texas - would have been extremely dangerous if force hadn't been used to dislodge them. It's one of those unfortunate cases where the government really didn't have any good choices and simply went with the best of the bad ones. [ Wednesday, March 28, 2007 11:13: Message edited by: Protocols of the Elders of Zion ] Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Now is the time ... in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Wednesday, March 28 2007 11:03 Profile #36 quote: Originally written by Spent Salmon: There is no empirical evidence that human nature is capable of change. Because there's no empirical evidence human nature exists. :P quote: Originally written by LF: And yet no one complains about IQ tests or for that matter written psychiatric evaluation exams... Yes they do. Read 'The Mismeasure of Man' sometime - it's a classic in the genre of critique of standardized testing. IQ is basically meaningless as a measurement of what it's supposed to measure, because it's skewed in favor of white upper-class males. The average scores for inner-city black children on IQ tests is between 80 and 90, and unless you're a Libertarian-voting cretin who honestly believes that all black people are functionally retarded, that's a fairly clear indicator the test is useless in measuring intelligence. [ Wednesday, March 28, 2007 11:05: Message edited by: Protocols of the Elders of Zion ] Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Alorael for Admin in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Tuesday, March 27 2007 19:13 Profile #37 quote: Originally written by i: Just because I do not post, does not mean I do not watch. While I am busy, I usually check over the boards. I generally leave things up to the mods to handle the day to day affairs of locking topics, yelling at people, etc. If I see one that is particularly bad, I'll close it myself. Usually things have to be fairly serious to merit administrative action. Realistically all an admin does is ban people and take similar decisive action. Over the past couple months, there hasn't been anything really serious enough for an admin to get involved. You're right, and I really don't think you guys deserve reproach for inaction. On the other hand, another admin certainly couldn't hurt - and Alorael's unusual activity, level-headedness, and amiability would be an asset in the position. Posts: 794* \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Alorael for Admin in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Tuesday, March 27 2007 16:25 Profile #30 Oh, Zeviz, I'm so sorry. I suggested that a universally popular figure be put in a position of power he's unlikely to abuse and an election broke out. This must be all of your nightmares come true at once. Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00
Now is the time ... in General
Najosz Thjsza Kjras Lifecrafter Member # 6388	written Tuesday, March 27 2007 14:22 Profile #18 quote: Originally written by Ktgsvgnfgn: Yes, no thug work at all. Voter intimidation never happened at all. Nope. Not at all. The bosses got their votes solely by being really nice to everyone. Yep. That must be how it went down. Why risk having the law come down on your head by using the stick instead of the carrot? Intimidation did occur, but was a pretty minor part of the political boss's arsenal. Bosses spent 20 to 23 hours a day shipping around gladhandling their consistuents - going to weddings, funerals, the occasional bris, what have you. They tried to be among the first people present at home fires, during rehabilitation from accidents and diseases, and generally whenever they were in need. Beat some dude up and his family will probably vote against you. Make nice with him when he needs nice-making and people who've never even heard of you will start liking you better. Look up the history here. It's actually quite fascinating to look into the tactics typically used by the bosses; they made themselves extremely visible, and their time was pretty regimentedly documented. Intimidation existed, yeah, but it was a risky move for minimal payoff. [ Tuesday, March 27, 2007 14:26: Message edited by: Protocols of the Elders of Zion ] Posts: 794 \| Registered: Tuesday, October 11 2005 07:00

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