Post #123,723
11/2/03 5:43:25 PM
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That's not the inspectors' problem.
That's the problem of the merchants. Either they make it workable somehow, or they don't get into the harbor. I'm giving them the entire ocean voyage in which to make a thorough inspection happen. If that's not good enough, fuck `em.
Think it through. We don't have to accomodate others to the detriment of our own security. They can't make us.
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DEAL WITH IT.
Compromise is for suckers. Seeking a middle ground is what led to 9/11.
"I do not want to be admired by scumbags and liars and wife beaters. I want to be admired by good and decent, intelligent and just people, and in order to achieve this I need to do things that make me despised by their opposites." - Bill Whittle
Never mind all the mass graves. Where's the nerve gas?
[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfire...arlowe/index.html]
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Post #123,730
11/2/03 6:23:35 PM
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marlowe in wonderland
My own work has brought me into daily contact with international trade, freight containers and the artists formerly known as the U.S. Customs Service (now "Customs and Border Protection") from the mid-1970s forward--since your salad days at the Charles Colson Middle School in South Boston, I should judge--and I am obliged to tell you, Little Phil, that in your hilarious expostulations on the mechanics and economics of global sea transport you have actually exceeded your previous personal best of cluelessness, set earlier this year in your incisive remarks on British parliamentary procedure. Well done, old son! We'd love you less if that cuckoo didn't periodically emerge twittering from beneath your fedora for a bit of badly-needed comic relief.
cordially,
Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.
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Post #123,763
11/3/03 1:28:37 AM
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Probelem of the merchents?
I rather doubt that since the bulk of these containers contain stuff American corporations have had manufactured in China, Malaysia and other low wage areas. Ths U.S. economy would take a major hit and risk recession or worse if these containers didn't arrive - because the facilities to manufacture all that stuff in the U.S. were dismantled for scrap long ago.
There would definitely be a consumer rebellion caused by shortages and skyrocketing prices.
You're the one that needs to think this through.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #123,792
11/3/03 8:46:39 AM
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As opposed to what?
We've already got chronic trade imbalances. And what would be the effect on the economy of a successful terrorist attack? Better to swallow the bitter pill now than to die of the disease later.
And shouldn't we be building up local industry anyway? Or at least industry in the free world? If this ill-considered economic adventure in Red China were to come to a screeching halt, that would be by far a lesser evil. Our corporations have been blinded by greed on this issue for far too long. They want everyone to forget Tienanmen Square, just like they're trying to forget it.
And even if our economy is being held hostage by Beijing, how does playing along help us in the long run? They're only going to shoot the hostages later, anyway. It's like doing business with Microsoft. Or Hitler. You're hoping to be eaten last.
If what you say is true, then we're addicted to products that come from nondemocratic regimes. Arab oil, Red Chinese fashion accessories. And all you can think of is where's the next fix coming from? You should be thinking of how to get off the junk.
And don't go bitching about the pain of withdrawal. We're at war, dammit. You have to expect economic discomfort. And you can't avoid it by surrendering. That never works, unless it's the US you're surrendering to.
Everything's impossible until you're willing to do what it takes.
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DEAL WITH IT.
Compromise is for suckers. Seeking a middle ground is what led to 9/11.
"I do not want to be admired by scumbags and liars and wife beaters. I want to be admired by good and decent, intelligent and just people, and in order to achieve this I need to do things that make me despised by their opposites." - Bill Whittle
Never mind all the mass graves. Where's the nerve gas?
[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfire...arlowe/index.html]
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Post #123,862
11/3/03 2:04:00 PM
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Who sez?
We're at war, dammit. who sez? You? Don't make me laugh. No declaration by Congress, no war. That simple (even for you, Mr. Don't-Bother-Me-With-Details-I-Know-the-TRUTH...). jb4
"There are two ways for you to have lower Prescription-drug costs. One is you could hire Rush Limbaugh's housekeeper ... or you can elect me President."
John Kerry
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Post #123,995
11/4/03 4:04:31 AM
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Non sequitur
It just isn't like you .. to suddenly say some things about the self-causation of much of our discontent. Shocking! - why it's decidedly unMurican to gore so many sacred oxen in one \ufffd as, And shouldn't we be building up local industry anyway? Or at least industry in the free world? If this ill-considered economic adventure in Red China were to come to a screeching halt, that would be by far a lesser evil. Our corporations have been blinded by greed on this issue for far too long. They want everyone to forget Tienanmen Square, just like they're trying to forget it.
At war? certainly - with our selves, with personal greed and with our daily reinforced fantasies of unlimited growth and production (by peons elsewhere) .. products to be 'sold' to us and paid for via our forever renewed foreign loans (since so many of our billions of credit cards are MAXed out individually). Can the National credit card be far behind? Oh.. and do this-all, as jobs are exported wholesale and Corp funds (from that short-term 'profit') are moved offshore. That's all we need to do to Keep the Fantasy Alive (while intensifying the two-class increasingly-Rich /increasingly-Poor trend of recent decades). As for a Real War - well, that's the long-running disagreement with many of your definitions. Still - a nice change of pace in the Kultur Warz. But one conundrum at a time.
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Post #125,313
11/12/03 9:58:02 AM
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Who's "ourselves?"
I'm not at war with myself. Are you at war with yourself?
I'm at war with those who threaten all that is good and true. I'm quite consistent about this. I play no favorites, and never spare anyone save temporarily, for reasons of tactical focus. But to you it seems a non sequitir, because something this straightforward and honest just doesn't fit into any of your neat ideologically constructed categories. Truth and reason go against the grain of your concept space.
The fault is with yourself. Your logic analyzer is wired wrong.
It's not that you're unsophisticated. You're so sophisticated you proudly spurn any simplistic dichotomy between your ass and a hole in the ground. While you're outsmarting yourself, my simplisme is cruising under your radar and hitting all the right targets.
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DEAL WITH IT.
Compromise is for suckers. Seeking a middle ground is what led to 9/11.
"I do not want to be admired by scumbags and liars and wife beaters. I want to be admired by good and decent, intelligent and just people, and in order to achieve this I need to do things that make me despised by their opposites." - Bill Whittle
Never mind all the mass graves. Where's the nerve gas?
[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfire...arlowe/index.html]
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Post #125,357
11/12/03 2:00:44 PM
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Kewl! That means:
I'm at war with those who threaten all that is good and true. Lessee, tht would put you at war with: George W Bush (the "true" part), Dick Cheney (the "good" part, and the true part), Rush Limbaugh (the true part), Karl Rove (both parts), Paul Wolfowitz (both parts), Donald Rumsfeld (the true part), just about every Multinational Corporation that does business in the US (The good part or the true part; that is an inclusive 'or')... Gad, you'll be busy for the next year, fer sher! jb4
"There are two ways for you to have lower Prescription-drug costs. One is you could hire Rush Limbaugh's housekeeper ... or you can elect me President."
John Kerry
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Post #124,132
11/4/03 4:43:06 PM
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Too late. The bombs are already here and in place.
[link|http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2001/11/6/161937|COL. LUNEV] (former Soviet military intelligence officer): So unfortunately, some of these devices are still located on American soil.
BOWEN: Stanislav Lunev is a former Soviet military intelligence officer, a defector who's now in the federal Witness Protection Program. He claims that before the Cold War ended a decade ago, Soviet agents planted so-called suitcase nuclear bombs - similar to this mock-up - in the United States and other Western countries, nuclear bombs that could be triggered if war broke out.
LUNEV: They were designed to destroy extremely highly protected American targets. All Osama need do is offer the Russian Mafia sufficient funds. Alex
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." - Henry Kissinger
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Post #124,188
11/4/03 9:30:54 PM
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Deja vu all over again.
As a kid, I remember tearing out the pages of a serial story in "Saturday Evening Post", called The Smuggled Atomic Bomb". (Was interested in physics, science n'stuff - being of the misapprehension that Science must. be. Good. [For Us], and chemistry I Knew was fun..)
In this story, they had the diameter of the Pu ball juust about Right (I knew about 4/3 pi R\ufffd, bein a little smartass). Guess I have to see if that collection survived the n-moves since. 'Twas an entirely plausible story, eliding only the focus upon the fact of how very-much harder it is to initiate a Pu implosion than - the child's play of U235. (This detail I was then unaware of; they weren't telling us shit about the Good Stuff, in those days.)
So then, back to '03:
the only time-dependent matters I can think of have to do with the Supers, and the most-modern little artifacts (as used by the God-licensed Powers) as need some fresh Tritium.. but you can do lots with less or with slightly decayed.. and then there's all the Li6 clever things you can achieve, as an acolyte of Wholesale Death.
Suitcase bombs? All fission and not very efficiently - last I heard were ~70 TONS TNT-equiv. Doubt you can eke out a hell of a lot more, even with Ted Taylor being clever (dunno if the Russ HAD a miniaturization fetishist of Ted's er calibre). Still, it's pretty hard to schlep 140 Kpounds of TNT blocks around in the dark; after your 41st trip, someone might wonder. Surely would be handy for the depraved; and we make lots of New Depraved every day; all those families of a deceased.
So.. ever Thus; and the Fact of a presence -???- remains, as then: deliciously UnKnowable. IMhO.
Never mind your clever scintillation counters in helicopters and other such pizzazz. If one is Here: there's only One Way we'll find out - except for the comforting hope of omnipresent human stupidity or oversight.
Bon appetit. Run with the hyenas - expect a bite.
A good spot for your quote (?)
Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.
Henry Brooks Adams
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