*Claire Wolfe*! likes Firefly!
POSTED BY: justme
UPDATED: Saturday, April 24, 2004 17:14
VIEWED: 8481
PAGE 2 of 4
Quote:
Originally posted by BlazingBug:Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Here's my plan to make the world safer: Islamic studies in every school.
I got a question too. Do they have to have Christianity studies in their schools?
Sorry to be a bit sarcastic, but it's not Americans who need fixing. And despite what you think the next statement will be, it's not Arabs either. It's the human race.
We're tribal; we define ourselves by our differences. We've been that way for millenia, and it has never changed.
And it never will.
"Wacky fun..."
BlazingBug is right, sadly so.
It is the entire human race that needs fixing, not just one nationality, religion or political party.
Since the beginning of history man has been tribal, separating himself by geography, rituals, customs, religion, politics, color, appearance, goals, etc. In all the time man has walked the earth this has not changed, and I agree w/ SouthernMerc that it will take an outside influence to make us set aside our differences and work for the common good.
"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."
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Quote:
Originally posted by BlazingBug:Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Here's my plan to make the world safer: Islamic studies in every school.
I got a question too. Do they have to have Christianity studies in their schools?
Sorry to be a bit sarcastic, but it's not Americans who need fixing. And despite what you think the next statement will be, it's not Arabs either. It's the human race.
We're tribal; we define ourselves by our differences. We've been that way for millenia, and it has never changed.
And it never will.
"Wacky fun..."
It's not Americans who need fixing its AMERICA. The fact is we should be worrying about all our own problems before we try fixing others. Yes everybody needs to learn tolerance and its not just us. The fact is, even if all those classes talked above would be allowed at schools, how would schools afford them? it would require lots of money to have correct teachers involved in those classes, money that our schools just don't have. And it doesn't matter what "Friendly Arab" country somebody comes from, it doesn't define just how "friendly" the individual is, if everybody acted like the country would want the KKK would never have existed, which just goes to show we live in a scary world and there isn't any one thing we can do to fix it,
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Did I hear something about black market beagles? They have smallish droppings."
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I'm more and more the Libertarian as I grow older and wiser ( laugh ). While I'm all for more folks looking into the Libertarian party, and I see MANY similarities with Mal and his contempt for big Gov't., I'm currently at odds w/ the platform the L.P. here in the US when it comes to foreign policy. Regardless, more positive Firefly exposure and Pub.Relations , the better.
Remember, you are a member of the largest minority group on the planet - the INDIVIDUAL.
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. Worked that out myself. "
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howdyrockerbaby1 (in response to various others) wrote:
Quote:
The fact is we should be worrying about all our own problems before we try fixing others.
Agreed, wholeheartedly.
Here's an alternative solution: take a tip from history, for a change. Emulate the British. As the Brits did in the American War of Independence, declare the war in Iraq lost. Simple as that. Just declare, "We lost, and we'll be toddling off now. Enjoy your hard-won victory. We salute you, and will stay out of your affairs."
Immediately remove all American troops and other representatives of the US government from Iraq -- maybe Saudi Arabia, too.
Take the taxpayer dollars saved from supporting a standing military presence in those countries... And invest it in development and infrastructure retooling for hydrogen fuel cell-powered automobiles and other transportation. Explain this to the American taxpayer as "Fighting the Fuel War at Home" or something suitably catchy, but not directly attributable to foreign policy. The published goal: to be totally free of dependence on foreign fuel sources within ten years. Place an emphasis on this national goal on par with WWII's rationing/recycling and JFK's Moon mission efforts. Ad campaign, "You Are Doing Your Part" and government subsidies for fuel cell car buyers.
Cultivate a pseudo-isolationist stance from the rest of the world and its problems. Remain at a safe distance from destructive and hateful entities. Expel destructive and hateful entities from our borders. Gladly extend a helping hand to those who request it; bugger off as soon as they bite it, and never return. Invest money and own businesses in the Middle East, hire no Americans to work there.
After a successful conversion to a benign and renewable fuel policy, freely share the technology with the rest of the world, while turning full attention to poverty in America. Sadly watch the news media reports as the entire Middle East switches to a diet of sand and petroleum-based foods (see 'bugger off and never return', above)...
Mournfully,
zoid
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"River and me was best friends, back then. I named my first-born daughter after her. 'Course, you can't swing a dead cat 'round here on I-Day without hittin' a River..."
- Kaywinnit Tam, wife and mother of 6, A Child Shall Lead Them: A History of the Second War of Independence Wilkins, Richard
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Quote:
Originally posted by SamuraiX47:
I would have to take issue with her about Kaylee's girlishness and her ability to handle engineering.
Quoting from her blog:Quote:
The only element that didn't ring true to me was this little gamin girly they made the ship's mechanic. She sort of "intuits" the machinery of the ship -- not with alien powers, but just with a loveable girliness. I didn't believe it for one second, and pictured real mechanics groaning at the idiocy. The actress herself is completely charming. But really -- as an engineer? Bring back Scottie! But otherwise, don't change a thing.
I know at least a dozen female engineers from a reputable engineering college in upstate NY, many of them are just as cute and feminine as Kaylee. Women are quite capable of comprehending engineering and mechanics.
Jaymes
Her problem is exactly that Kaylee _didn't_ go to any reputable engineering college (or any kind of formal training about ships at all, as implied in OOG). Whether you believe someone can "intuit" the workings of a fairly complex ship is up to you, but she certainly wasn't implying anything about the ability of women to be engineers.
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Quote:
Originally posted by zoid:
Immediately remove all American troops and other representatives of the US government from Iraq -- maybe Saudi Arabia, too.
I agree we need to pull out, but I'm not convinced that an immediate cold-turkey withdrawl won't cause more problems than a phased approach.
Quote:
Take the taxpayer dollars saved from supporting a standing military presence in those countries... And invest it in development and infrastructure retooling for hydrogen fuel cell-powered automobiles and other transportation. Explain this to the American taxpayer as "Fighting the Fuel War at Home" or something suitably catchy, but not directly attributable to foreign policy. The published goal: to be totally free of dependence on foreign fuel sources within ten years. Place an emphasis on this national goal on par with WWII's rationing/recycling and JFK's Moon mission efforts. Ad campaign, "You Are Doing Your Part" and government subsidies for fuel cell car buyers.
Now *that* I can whole-heartedly agree with!!! "Screw the Saudis -- Support Solar!", "No War for Oil! Buy Hybrid Electrics!", "Undercut terrorist funding! Build a home windmill!" :)
Please help Haken keep this site running by occasionally clicking on some of the sponsored ad links on the side of the page!
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Quote:
Originally posted by KernelM:
Her problem is exactly that Kaylee _didn't_ go to any reputable engineering college (or any kind of formal training about ships at all, as implied in OOG). Whether you believe someone can "intuit" the workings of a fairly complex ship is up to you, but she certainly wasn't implying anything about the ability of women to be engineers.
i cant talk for mechanics but dare to say that hardware and the workings of computers a halfway complex, too. and its sad to realize that you learned more in 10 years of just intensively using it and getting to know it than in 6 years of university. sure, you dont know all the fancy academic terms, but you develop a feeling for it. if my machine is acting strange im not digging out old and scripts (usually too abstract and theoretical to be of any use anyway) about operating systems or computers. you just feel where the problem probably is. so i have no problem believing that someone growing up around engines and mechanics also develops that kind of intuition.
at least i learned a lot by doing in my spare time and wasted tons of time with studies at university (but hey, now can i use fancy terminology to describe the complexity of an algorithm. instead of "forget it, do it that way and we will wait for the result til christmas" i can say "ohh.. but its np complete and has a complexity of O(n^10)".. guess what mal wouldnt want to hear ,-) )
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Quote:
Cultivate a pseudo-isolationist stance from the rest of the world and its problems. Remain at a safe distance from destructive and hateful entities. Expel destructive and hateful entities from our borders. Gladly extend a helping hand to those who request it; bugger off as soon as they bite it, and never return. Invest money and own businesses in the Middle East, hire no Americans to work there.
If I'm not very much mistaken the US adopted a similar policy during the '20s (it's a while back we learned this in school), they quit the UN's predecessor (can't remember what it was called) and became totally desinterested in the rest of the world, and remained so until Pearl Harbour. This gave one Adolf Hitler an excellent opportuninity to conduct his warmongering (he could have easily been stopped in 1935-37).
I am not saying the US should continue on it's current course of foreign policy, the war on Iraq and to a lesser extent the war on Afghanistan were unjustified. But withdrawing their troups from Iraq now (like Spain and Honduras did) is just simply unacceptable. I stood on the streets and demonstrated against this war, simply because I predicted that America (especially on her own) would not be able to instate a stable government in Iraq after the war. They weren't, and now now that they are realizing it, it's too late. Saddam may have ruled with an iron fist, but even that is better than complete Anarchy or an radical Islamistic state. What the world needs is more understanding and respect. It would have been perfectly possible to remove Saddam without military action, it would have been possible to make the Iraqi people like the US.
Now you've made your mistakes it's time to correct them, and running away isn't going to solve anything.
Coward
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Coward:
I wrote many parts of this in ironic fashion, in an attempt to point out that while many people vehemently disapprove of the war effort, those same people still want 'peacekeepers' dying there. Having served 14 years of active military duty, I believe the US military has no business being policemen(persons?). It is a misuse of military power; and an abuse of the citizens who volunteer to risks their lives for their country, who now must sit around with targets painted on them when there is no organized government left to defeat.
This job should be turned over to the UN immediately (if they want it or have the nerve for it), but we should be bringing our men and women home for good, in any case. I know some people want to brace up the area and provide stability, ya-da, ya-da; but the US is clearly too hated for that job, and the US soldier is wrong for any job other than killing enemies. It's a job they do better than anyone else in the world (and I couldn't be prouder of the fact). As policemen and 'peacekeepers', they are forced to stand in the open, in broken ranks, and not fire on suspected enemies until fired on first. We're sending them to the slaughter.
Others fear that if we pull out, Germany, France and Russia in particular will rush in and snatch up all the oil in the region. Please see my stance on hydrogen fuel cell cars. How many millions of dollars per day are we spending on the war effort? Put that into weaning ourselves from petrochemicals for the next ten years, rather than having a standing army in the Middle East. Let the French, Germans and Russians -- or the entire UN for that matter -- try their hand stabilizing the area. I seriously doubt they'll have substantially more luck.
The Middle East has been crazy, if not downright murderous and evil, since at least the 1940's. I don't suspect it will get any better, and I always believe it's the best thing for everyone involved to distance yourself from crazy, destructive people and countries.
Oh, and if they attack us again, we go in lickety-split and whack 'em again; then pack up quietly and come back home. Do that enough times -- no rhetoric, just action -- and they'll start picking on weaker Westerners. I don't go for full isolationism: I like T. Roosevelt's "Speak softly and carry a big stick" policy.
Respectfully,
zoid
_________________________________________________
"River and me was best friends, back then. I named my first-born daughter after her. 'Course, you can't swing a dead cat 'round here on I-Day without hittin' a River..."
- Kaywinnit Tam, wife and mother of 6, A Child Shall Lead Them: A History of the Second War of Independence Wilkins, Richard
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Zoid:
I agree with most of what you said in your most recent post. Sorry I didn't get the irony in your first post. The UN should indeed take over the job (it should have in the first place (and it would have if the US had been more patient)). As it is you might be right and the US may be doing more harm than good, in which case they should withdraw. We just don't know, and it's probably a decision the people on ste should take.
Quote:
Oh, and if they attack us again, we go in lickety-split and whack 'em again; then pack up quietly and come back home. Do that enough times -- no rhetoric, just action -- and they'll start picking on weaker Westerners. I don't go for full isolationism: I like T. Roosevelt's "Speak softly and carry a big stick" policy.
Not so sure whether you're being serious here, but shouldn't "we westeners" be working together? After all we still are in a strong military alliance. I also don't think terrorism will decrease because of military action, quite the opposite in fact, the more the US demonstrates its superiority the more pissed of everyone else will become. Terrorists aren't envious of your freedom, they're envious of your power, and terrorism is the only way they can still spite you.
Coward
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