[blackshoe]

Al_U_Card, on May 24 2008, 06:52 PM, said:

And Pearl Harbor was a sneak-attack too, I suppose?

Admiral Yamamoto, Admiral Kimmel, General Short, the soldiers, sailors and marines stationed in Hawaii and the entire Japanese fleet certainly thought so.

[Winstonm]

Here are the facts as are known. The planes hit the towers. Something hit the Pentagon. Something left a crater in the ground in Pennylvania.

We can concede planes hit the towers as these were observed and filmed. We cannot make that claim about the Pentagon or the crater in Pennsylvania - in those cases all we have are observable damage.

[Winstonm]

blackshoe, on May 24 2008, 07:04 PM, said:

Winstonm, on May 24 2008, 04:17 PM, said:

blackshoe, on May 24 2008, 02:53 PM, said:

what, exactly, do you mean by "legitimately" here, Winston?

I use legitimately in this context: the dust of the WTC collapse was examined and found to hold evidence of thermate use - that evidence has not been addressed or explained as something other than thermate by the NIST.

To question if thermate were actually used when evidence for it has been found and this evidence is not even addressed by the NIST would be a legitimate concern.

If by "thermate" you mean "thermite" I submit that your "context" is flawed - it implies that thermite was "used" in some way. The evidence supports only that it was (possibly) there. Not the same thing at all.

No, I don't use thermite because what was found was evidence of thermate - a cousin of thermite which contains sulphur - this particular discovery also contained berillium in the quantities associated with military-grade thermate.

The fact that these elements were found does indeed indicate that thermate was there in the form it takes after use - and that would make an inquiry a legitimate concern to find out if it were indeed used in the collapses or if another cause could be shown to duplicate those results. It would have been simple enough to look for evidence on the steel inner support structures and then if a suspicious cut was found to test if that cut had been caused by thermite or one of its derivatives.

[Al_U_Card]

blackshoe, on May 24 2008, 07:10 PM, said:

Al_U_Card, on May 24 2008, 06:52 PM, said:

And Pearl Harbor was a sneak-attack too, I suppose?

Admiral Yamamoto, Admiral Kimmel, General Short, the soldiers, sailors and marines stationed in Hawaii and the entire Japanese fleet certainly thought so.

And myself as well, until I scratched the surface and did some looking.....too many factors, too many actions, too many exceptions to explain them away as coincidence.....They wanted into the war so they dumped the mothball fleet in Hawaii and sacrificed a pawn (a certain number of men) to get the gun making machinery into high gear etc.

Gulf of Tonkin incident anyone?

And the list continues with every "need" to feed the "war" machine.

[luke warm]

Al_U_Card, on May 24 2008, 08:58 PM, said:

blackshoe, on May 24 2008, 07:10 PM, said:

Al_U_Card, on May 24 2008, 06:52 PM, said:

And Pearl Harbor was a sneak-attack too, I suppose?

Admiral Yamamoto, Admiral Kimmel, General Short, the soldiers, sailors and marines stationed in Hawaii and the entire Japanese fleet certainly thought so.

And myself as well, until I scratched the surface and did some looking.....too many factors, too many actions, too many exceptions to explain them away as coincidence.....They wanted into the war so they dumped the mothball fleet in Hawaii and sacrificed a pawn (a certain number of men) to get the gun making machinery into high gear etc.

had the japanese, after pearl harbor, sailed east toward california what would have stopped them? was there a back-up non-mothball fleet waiting to defend the mainland?

[Al_U_Card]

Only all the real warships in San Diego and in Manilla....(and all the ships at sea that left Pearl Harbor in the weeks leading up to the attack) that took the war on full throttle while the shipyards around the US went into wartime high gear.

You think that the Japs would have not attacked if they could have? What war were you watching?

Seriously, take a good look at the events and the info that came up from the FOI requests....it is crystal clear. FDR even baited the Japs into thinking that the US was ripe for an ass-kicking in the pacific....

[mike777]

I did not read this thread but is this another
Blame usa for all wars after 1938?

bad usa bad usa

I can only assume some large minority has the "propensity" towards violence and not silly:


DUTY...HONOR ...COUNTRY

Where officers learn that service to lower ranks is the greatest honor and duty.
NOT A DUTY TO BLIND OBEISANCE

forget service....just kill.....

no kill...kill ..kill.

[Al_U_Card]

Interesting counter argument you have there, Mike.

Not.

[Al_U_Card]

mike777, on May 25 2008, 03:26 AM, said:

I did not read this thread but is this another
Blame usa for all wars after 1938?

bad usa bad usa

I can only assume some large minority has the "propensity" towards violence and not silly:


DUTY...HONOR ...COUNTRY

Where officers learn that service to lower ranks is the greatest honor and duty.
NOT A DUTY TO BLIND OBEISANCE

forget service....just kill.....

no kill...kill ..kill.

Your duty is to humanity.

Your honor comes from how well you protect life.

Country is a made up illusion so that you will not remember the above.

If attacked, defend. No more is needed.

[mike777]

Al I always get lost in your logic, is our first duty to humanity or to the selfish gene? At times you seem to argue for humanity at other times for the selfish gene.

At the very least you seem very lucky to live in a world where you or your loved ones never had to struggle for food or water. Or at the very least where your family were actually never attacked.

I do not live in that world.

If you and your family's duty is to protect humanity when it is attacked then ty for your families service in defending darfur, iraq, tibet, afghanistan or wherever your family is doing its duty, protecting humans when they are attacked, ty.

In any event is your first duty to humanity or your loved ones or something even greater or have you never faced that choice?

As for honor coming from protecting life, well humanity often does not protect life...just by existing we seem to kill all kinds of life. So you say you do not believe in honor?

In any event however your logic defines your duty and your honor if you are fullfilling it God Bless you. ty.

[han]

mike777, on May 25 2008, 03:26 AM, said:

I did not read this thread but is this another
Blame usa for all wars after 1938?

bad usa bad usa

I can only assume some large minority has the "propensity" towards violence and not silly:


DUTY...HONOR ...COUNTRY

Where officers learn that service to lower ranks is the greatest honor and duty.
NOT A DUTY TO BLIND OBEISANCE

forget service....just kill.....

no kill...kill ..kill.

No it's not one of those threads.

[blackshoe]

What is "duty"?

[Al_U_Card]

Based on his usual rantings, I believe it is pronounced "doodie"

[Al_U_Card]

mike777, on May 25 2008, 03:19 PM, said:

Al I always get lost in your logic, is our first duty to humanity or to the selfish gene? At times you seem to argue for humanity at other times for the selfish gene.

At the very least you seem very lucky to live in a world where you or your loved ones never had to struggle for food or water. Or at the very least where your family were actually never attacked.

I do not live in that world.

If you and your family's duty is to protect humanity when it is attacked then ty for your families service in defending darfur, iraq, tibet, afghanistan or wherever your family is doing its duty, protecting humans when they are attacked, ty.

In any event is your first duty to humanity or your loved ones or something even greater or have you never faced that choice?

As for honor coming from protecting life, well humanity often does not protect life...just by existing we seem to kill all kinds of life. So you say you do not believe in honor?

In any event however your logic defines your duty and your honor if you are fullfilling it God Bless you. ty.

Not unusual, getting lost, when your eyes are closed. But that explains the references to the dream state....

If you are in trouble, try to fix the cause.

If you are troubled, try to find the source.

Where you are, now, and what you are to do depends on circumstance and opportunity. Crusades are for christian soldiers led by zealots. Jihads are for muslim soldiers led by fanatics. Note the common elements and if you are smart and lucky, stay the hell as far away as you can from them. And once you are in that far away place, do the best you can to keep them from infringing on that most inalienable right that you possess (for now, at least, but that appears to be slipping away too).

[luke warm]

al, i think mike asked some valid questions... it's no shame to say you have no answers to them, but if you do it might benefit our understanding if you'd share them

[Al_U_Card]

I kind of liked Han's response to that field of inquiry....and as much as I like to extemporize....Mike's questions seemed pretty rhetorical to me.

[luke warm]

well i suppose that's as good a reason to refuse to answer them as any

[Al_U_Card]

I love a challenge, so here we go (no guarantee of satisfaction, however)

is our first duty to humanity or to the selfish gene?

Duty implies a structure and order to follow. If we are talking survival, then self-preservation is the first duty of man.

is your first duty to humanity or your loved ones or something even greater or have you never faced that choice?

Answered above. The result also benefits humanity and our loved ones so it applies reasonably well. I face that choice with every breath.

So you say you do not believe in honor?

I did not say that expressly but it is quite possible that Mike inferred that.

Honor is an illusion sponsored by an external imposition. Integrity is my preference.

That's it for his "questions". Do you have some too, Jimmy?

[luke warm]

just a couple of clarifications... in your 1st answer, when you use "man" do you mean individually or collectively? the answer impacts whether or not question #2 was indeed answered, but can possibly invite the "inconsistent" criticism

as for #3, you did say "Your honor [integrity] comes from how well you protect life." which implies you think such a thing as honor exists... so i don't think mike inferred it so much as he read it in your post... but if you prefer integrity to honor, that's fine... i would like to know what you mean by "life" though, and i think that gets to what mike was really asking re: the selfish gene... life as it applies to you and yours, or to humanity in general?

[Al_U_Card]

Looks like someone has some serious time on their hands....

1) Of the humans that make up mankind.

2) Nope. Honor is illusory. Integrity is a aspect of our existence.

3) Life, the process by which we experience and improve our conscious level of evolution. (The physical part (ie genetics) is beyond my scope for this discussion.)

Interesting subject though.