07:43 – Ignoring the First Amendment, the federal government is now focusing its efforts on determining who made the short video that islamists used as an excuse to attack the US embassy in Libya and murder US diplomatic personnel. I haven’t seen the video, but reportedly it is “insulting” to islam, accusing its “prophet” of child molesting, womanizing, and murder. All of those charges are true, so I don’t understand what all the fuss is about.
It seems to me that it’s long past time for the US and all other civilized countries to break off diplomatic relations with islamic regimes, withdraw their embassies to such countries, and expel the embassies of those countries. There is no point to talking with such people. There has never been a point to talking with such people. I don’t care what they do in their own countries, as long as they keep it there. Let them murder and enslave their own citizens. It’s not our business. We should shun them and their hateful so-called religion. Nor is it our business if, say, Israel decides to turn one of those islamic countries into a smoking pile of radioactive rubble.
I can understand people in a foreign country not understanding the principles of free speech and the First Amendment, but I am shocked that United States citizens can be so unfamiliar with the concept. The rioters in the Middle East have only given a film they hate some free publicity. Before Tuesday, I never heard of it.
The film is mediocre at best, and the audio most offensive to muslims is clearly a voiceover. I only watched half the trailer and decided to stop. I suspect there is an interesting story behind the film. For all I know, the after the fact audio could have been added by Muslims looking to provoke violence.
I’m a Christian, and I would probably find The Last Temptation of Christ offensive. The production of that film, however reprehensible I may find it, is clearly protected by the First Amendment. I get the fact that the solution to offensive speech is more speech, not censorship. I have every right to boycott the studio if I want. I choose not to, simply because I have better things to do and protesting it would only give the film more attention.
That foreigners don’t get this is no surprise to me. That the first instinct of our government and academic elites was not to make statements defending free speech is far more troubling to me than anything the foreigners have done.
My words, exactly, for a long time. Why, collectively, can’t we GET IT in this country- the USSA?
I have every right to boycott the studio if I want. I choose not to, simply because I have better things to do and protesting it would only give the film more attention.
mulsims have nothing better to do. They don’t have jobs, contribute nothing to any society. All that is is left to occupy their time is to find something to protest.
I have seen a lot of things I find offensive, especially in the art world. I just chose to ignore it, don’t support it and move on. Such a concept is completely lost on muslims.
I heard the story of the Libyan deaths at 05:30 from the BBC, while I was showering to get ready for a long day of video shooting. I always listen to the BBC news stream in the morning, same as I did for nearly 10 years in Berlin, where they have a 24-hour FM transmitter for their World Service. When I went into the office at 07:55, US news sources still did not have the story, although I am told Charlie Rose got it on CBS at 08:30.
Anyway, BBC was implying that the video had been created by a US teenager. Not sure where they got that info, and I have not heard it elsewhere
Boy, this website is slow today. Almost 2 minutes to post the last comment.
If you send me your credit card information, then I’ll make sure you get bumped to the platinum access level. It’s only $99.95 per year and you’ll be able to access our high speed servers.
“It seems to me that it’s long past time for the US and all other civilized countries to break off diplomatic relations with islamic regimes, withdraw their embassies to such countries, and expel the embassies of those countries. There is no point to talking with such people. There has never been a point to talking with such people. I don’t care what they do in their own countries, as long as they keep it there. Let them murder and enslave their own citizens. It’s not our business. We should shun them and their hateful so-called religion. Nor is it our business if, say, Israel decides to turn one of those islamic countries into a smoking pile of radioactive rubble.”
Funny. I don’t remember writing that.
🙂
Looks like we’re in general agreement here; shocking.
Yeah, the site has been wicked slow for two days now; wot’s the uptime on them servers, mate? Maybe a little kick….
Don’t use those mealy mouthed, wimpish euphemisms. Tell us what you *really* think.
To speed up the servers, I’m willing to send you a .exe that will improve performance by 40%. Install on the servers, your computers, Barb’s computers (home and work). Just ignore the prompts for your credit card details – that’s just to verify that you’re an adult.
I’ve done something I swore I’d never do – entered Apple’s Walled Garden. I bought an iPad a couple of days ago after prompting from a friend who thinks they’re marvelous.
My favourite online game, City of Heroes/Villains, is being shut down on 30/11, which has annoyed and saddened me and others. I’m going to get involved in World of Warcraft more seriously, and I just bought Diablo 3 and Skyrim. I won’t be buying anything from NCSoft, who pulled the plug on Co* any time soon.
I’ve done something I swore I’d never do – entered Apple’s Walled Garden. I bought an iPad a couple of days ago after prompting from a friend who thinks they’re marvelous.
I bought an IPAD back in January of this year. I now carry it with almost everywhere. I have several apps that I use a lot. One app is used to access my word and excel documents, a notepad app that allows drawing, a calculator, several news applications, applications to access my credit card and bank accounts, an app to control my comcast DVR, an app to access my comcast email, google earth, some photo editing apps and many others.
The photo apps along with the Ipad allow me to download images from my cameras on location for quick preview. Color balance is sometimes not correct as I use RAW and just leave the WB on the camera a daylight. WB can be easily corrected later. I can do some editing but it is tedious and I only do it when I really have a need.
At one time I swore I would never get Apple. But after having the Ipad for several months I have grown to like the thing. The size and weight is excellent. I like it enough to consider getting an IPhone when my contract with Verizon is up. I am torn between an IPhone 5 or Galaxy S3. The tipping point may be the synchronization between the IPad and IPhone. Also the apps that I have paid for to use on my Ipad will transfer to my Iphone and I don’t have to pay again.
Problem with the S3 is that it is not the same from country to country. In Europe, it is a quad core; only dual core in the US, with no LTE support, as yet. Korea has the best of all worlds: quad core, GSM (which I need for Europe), and LTE. Samsung drives me crazy. To get an unlocked quad core phone, I have to do what I did with my current Motorola PEBL (which is fading out fast): order a foreign version for over $1,000 and have it shipped here. Could not get an unlocked GSM PEBL anywhere in the US. Cost was around $400. I needed it badly, because the Ericsson I had, broke completely almost immediately when I arrived to clean up things at Tiny House after my mom passed.
I really like Dwight Silverman’s insights, and he prefers the iPhone over the S3.
http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2012/09/iphone-vs-android-my-mind-is-made-up/
The PEBL is going berserk. It randomly does not ring for some phone calls (or even log them)—even though it tells me I have a voicemail message, which it is impossble to dial directly. Cannot put up with that when it is my business phone, too. It is the true Star Trek communicator, though. With a magnet, springs, and the ability for the hinge to slide, it pops up effortlessly, exactly like the communicators of long ago did.
May the Prophet Mohammed be damned,
along with the swine that rode him in.
Re cutting off relations with the Middle East, I like the question posed by Reginald Bretnor, in one of Jerry Pournelle’s anthologies: “just what would happen even today if [the United States], the British and Germans and French and Scandanavians and all other non-totalitarian nations everywhere (if anyone could get them to agree) were to withdraw from the UN, … take over those of its agencies we support already and form our own private club, functioning according to more civilized rules? And what would happen were we to confine our massive aid to those nations that chose to join us under these rules…?”
Could you get agreement from all other non-totalitarian nations to do that? I would favor it, if possible, but I doubt it could be done. History has demonstrated that there WILL be some international organization of cooperation. I am not in favor of withdrawing from the world by not participating and influencing the world by not participating. But I am diametrically opposed to the UN’s moving into the space of a world government. A new institution would be better, IMO, but not unilateral withdrawal by the US from the UN.
So which WOW realm are you on? I have several toons on Tanaris. I suppose you’re probably on one of the Oceanic realms though…
BTW, when my son was evaluating staying in the US Marine Corps three years ago, he looked at EOD, Embassy Guards or the Okinawa occupation.
He dismissed the Embassy Guards when he found out that he would have to serve a minimum of a year at Kenya, Egypt, Sudan or any one of the troubled African areas where the Marines stand guard in full battle dress. He almost stayed in for EOD (Marines own the Carrier nuclear weapons) but decided to get out altogether (thank goodness!).
I had no idea that some of those Embassy Marines stand there with empty rifles. That is just wrong.
I rather favor the Roman’s solution to Carthage.
Dwight Silverman came out choosing the iPhone 5 and using AT&T. His reasoning is because only with the iPhone and AT&T can he surf and talk at the same time, without going to great lengths to self-install another antenna on an Android, or waiting for Verizon to work out their issues with Apple to be capable of doing the same.
http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2012/09/decision-time-2-wanting-verizon-but-choosing-att/
I am not going to go through the hoops necessary to get a quad-core Galaxy S3 with GSM, so I am going to be following Silverman’s lead and join my daughter on her AT&T account with an iPhone 5. All the people I work around (mostly attorneys and court reporters) have iPhones. Actually, I am shocked at how many of the lawyers have dropped Blackberries for iPhones since the first of this year. From my perspective, the future for RIM looks bleak. Apparently, the Blackberries dealt with privacy encoding perfectly for super-secret lawyer types, but interfacing with iPhones was easier for IT, so they have made the switch. I have not seen a Blackberry in months.
That’s okay, because Blackberries caused considerable interference problems in the audio (that “galloping” sound that Jerry P. used to talk about), but with no Blackberries in the room, I have not had a single problem in months. My GSM PEBL ended up as the sole remaining issue, but I’m looking forward to an iPhone that I will not have to shut off during recording sessions.
Lyn wrote:
“I had no idea that some of those Embassy Marines stand there with empty rifles. That is just wrong.”
There’s nothing so useless as an empty gun. Let politicians, senior bureaucrats, generals and admirals stand guard with empty guns…
During the Tet Offensive in Vietnam in 1968 some VC got inside the US embassy in Saigon. Marines with live ammo in their guns filled ’em with lead. That’s the way it should be done.
We should have done the Roman solution to Carthage a long time ago. And as suggested by Jerry Pournelle, built 1000 new nuclear power plants.
One of the Cringe’s predictions for 2012 is that Rim is going down:
http://www.cringely.com/2011/12/20/for-mobile-oss-threes-a-crowd/
Seems to be taking a while due to their cash hoard but RIM is dead meat.
No Marines at all for our ambassador, and the other Marines had no ammo in their guns per order of yet another dipshit broad that somebody put in charge there. But hey, full security detail for Valerie Jarrett on her vay-cay. This country is so fucked it beggars belief.
Who is Valerie Jarrett? Google her image and you will invariably find her gazing up at her lord and master in rapt adoration. Another fugly leftist witch like HILLARY! and The Mooch. Where do the Dems get these pigs, anyway?
You know OFD, if you keep talking like that, people are going to suspect you of being a speciesist. I mean, what do you have against pigs, to be comparing them to Valerie Jizzmet?
I sorry. Shouldna used pigs. They is delightful creatures. Jizzmet is not. Pigs more smart. Can be trained. Eat venomous snakes wid aplomb. Jizzmet be a venomous snake. Tiny one, banded krait most like.
I swear these bastards just do this shit to show they CAN do it and to rub all our noses in it every chance they get. Withhold ammo from our Marines and put the Praetorians on Jizzmet. Totally wack. Mirror World. Bizzarro World. You can’t make this shit up.
As a frequent poster here sez: What a country!
Well, as I just commented elsewhere,
I hate to criticize when I wasn’t there, but I’ll tell you what I did as the most junior Second Lieutenant in the Army in a somewhat analogous (but much less dire) situation. The local boss, a Colonel, gave stupid orders, leaving us peons to hold the bag when (not if) something went wrong. Naturally, his orders were verbal, and deniable. CYA all the way, Bird Boy. So I gave my senior NCO written orders over my signature to (analogously) make sure a dozen filled magazines were available to the guards, but keep it quiet. And keep the orders quiet from the brass hat. Yes, I was fully aware that at best I’d be facing an inquiry if my orders got out, but that’s part of what you sign up for when you put the bars on your shoulders.
It seems that in the case of the embassy, there must have been some way for an enterprising NCO to hide a few magazines. Inside a hollowed-out book. In a small box hidden in plain site near the front entrance. Something. And it seems that a competent officer-in-charge would have made sure the enterprising NCO knew he’d have cover when he did it.
You would think. I was never more than a junior NCO, a buck sergeant at nineteen, thanks in part to KIAs in ranks above mine, but I like to think I would have mos def been that enterprising NCO. No fucking way am I gonna stand up out there with my guys with our dicks hanging out. This is a goddamned disgrace and outrage, but only the latest in a very long list of them.
OFD wrote:
“Who is Valerie Jarrett? Google her image and you will invariably find her gazing up at her lord and master in rapt adoration. Another fugly leftist witch like HILLARY! and The Mooch. Where do the Dems get these pigs, anyway?”
Where indeed? I’m revising my plans to move to the US, just too many ugly sheilas there.
Greg; pick any half-dozen or so well-known political lefty celeb womyn; then do the same with the righties.
Oh wait–if memory serves, you think HILLARY! is hot.
I USED to think that.
I still think Sandra Bullock is hot though… 🙂
Dave B wrote:
“So which WOW realm are you on? I have several toons on Tanaris. I suppose you’re probably on one of the Oceanic realms though…”
I have two Level 2s on Saurfang, which I think is Oceanic. In an hour or two I’m going to learn a bit more about WoW from a friend who’ll be communicating via Skype.