subject: Guns will go when NED/CIA money stops flowing to Da Lama, Liu Xiaobo, et al Re: CCTV Says Lhasa People Are Happiest - by Woeser for Radio Free Asia

text:
In article <[email]>,
[email] <[email]> wrote:

Nobody should have to go to an ornate contraption, aka a temple, to
pray, just ask any protestant Christian!

Guns will disappear in Lhasa when NED/CIA money stops flowing to
people like Da Lama, Liu Xiaobo, et al.

For the rest of my comments (with as many typos removed as possible),
please read below.

In article <2039739.0xQCEvomIN@Dharma>,
Peter Terpstra<[email]> wrote:

A poll is in general skewed by the set of criteria the pollster uses
to measure where the members of a sample stand over a certain issue.

Satisfaction, happiness, and other feelings are subjective elements
which render questions concerning them impossible to make precise or
absolute.

So, depending on who you ask, you receive one from a variety of
possibly vastly different answers.  And if there were enough happy or
satisfied people were asked the happiness question, then the pollster
had no choice but to report this finding.

True, two suicides means two losses of life and to me, life is
sacrosanct, so it is sad.  But a survey does not measure the
happiness of one human being.

It looks at the entire society through a sample of its members.

I don't see why it is not possible for the people of Lhasa today to
give that answer, given that every city in China has its own problems
like people are forced to move away from their ancestral homes to make
room for the public transit or for an industrial development project.

It's also true that how you feel about your current happiness is
always measured your own experience from the past.  If the people who
have been forced to move away from their ancestral homes in Beijing
were happier before, then they would likely grumble now.  Likewise, if
the people from Lhasa used to be serfs and lived like any serfs of any
time and any country, they they may find their newly found freedom and
increasing longevity and growing wealth more satisfying,

Woeser asked:

 "if Lhasa people were all this "happy", why would they protest?"

Remember that the guns Ms. Woeser talked about are seen only in public
places where troublemakers are likely to perform their stunts.  And
remember that a lot of money are coming from western sources like the
CIA and the NED.  Like what happened during the latest presidential
election in Iran, crispy USDs were likely handed out during the 2008
Olympics season for some Tibetan youths to make trouble and provide
material for the media to talk about human rights for them.

And of course, the "temples" have been politicized by NED money.  If
you go to a temple to pray, you may not be doing so with the intention
to pray only.  You may be talking to someone and you may be receiving
crisp USD and some verbal instructions in return.

It is known that all the color-coded revolutions in the past decades
have seen USD in the protesters' hands whether it was in Kiev or in
Tehran.

Many people go to protest when they have nothing better to do and are
given money if they agree to go.

If you think seeing guns and soldiers around where protesters tend to
hang out is bad, see what you'd get if you politicize Mosques and
churches in the US.

Besides, Jesus has told us that our heart is our true temple.  He was
trying to tell us to beware of institutionalized religion.  You don't
need to go an ornate building to pray.  Can you imagine that the all
powerful God is not everywhere?  Can you imagine that the all powerful
and all omniscient God will confine himself or herself in that ornate
contraption to hear your prayer?  That's why any time someone tells
you that freedom of religion must include the freedom to worship and
pray in some temple, you know that he doesn't know what he's talking
about.

Consequently freedom of religion is an oxymoron.

And as many have said, the guns would not be necessary in Lhasa once
external funding ceases going to Da Lama and his cohorts.

People should always remember these three things when they talk about
China.

1) China, like any other government, especially of a size comparable
to or bigger than that of the US, is not perfect just as no other
government with vastly vested power is perfect.

It's an impossibility!

But there are improvements to be made, all the time!

2) The well-being of a country is always measured by the well-being of
the society as a whole rather than of a few individuals.  That means
that the more people are benefited from a given government, the less
the unhappiness and suffering of a few individuals count, no matter
how unfortunate the case may be.

Of course, the government and the society should work to eliminate
these individual tragedies.  But before they can be achieved, their
sufferings will not be enough ground to overturn the social order.

By the same token, if the government ignores the tragedies of the
individuals, then at some point, the sum of the tragedies may achieve
a critical mass to overturn the social order.  It's just logic.

3) The principle of causality should never be forgotten when you talk
about why China is what it is today and why Da Lama is going nowhere.

That is, if you read modern Chinese history to understand how the
"evil" CCP came to power, you see that the people who made up of the
CCP were extremely disciplined and dedicated people.  They thought
hard about how to win and worked hard toward winning that struggle
against the government which they regarded as corrupt and tried to
overthrow, even as countless of their comrades died by the enemy's
hand.

Lazy people never get anything significant accomplished except to make
some noise for some anti-Chinese propaganda machine working as a
stooge for a buck, like Da Lama and "writer" Liu Xiaobo who hasn't had
any writing of value to show for.

Unlike the CCP, Da Lama is a symbol of iniquity, privilege, and
self-indulgence.  Da Lama still lorded over his serfs and made them
build and build his oversized palaces in Lhasa as the CCP was working
hard to liberate China.  Nobulingka, the golden stupas, the mummies in
those stupas, are some of the relics of decadence of the feudal
theocracy which served no one except the lamas.

In simple terms, Da Lama lost because he neglected his people and did
not "lead" them.

lo yeeOn
========

And a typical stooge who has worked against China is Liu Xiaobo who
advocated 300 years of colonization of China by the West way back in
1988 and then in 2004 wrote in praise of all the wars of aggression
the US has fought, including the Iraq war and the Vietnam war.  Note
that the NED (itself funded by the US Congress), as it turns out, has
been paying Liu handsomely for hundreds of thousands of USD in recent
years:

So in 2004 Liu Xiaobo wrote:

 In human history, there was never a war to remove a tyranny like the
 war to topple Saddam, launched so rapidly, fought in such a civilized
 manner, and won so neatly!

Haha!

 . . .

 There is no free lunch anywhere in the world.  The success of any
 righteous enterprise demands lots of suffering, even at a tragic
 price.  This is especially true when law-abiding and civilized free
 countries are confronted with immoral and unreasonable authoritarian
 regimes, evil forces of terrorism and fundamentalism and the like and
 must enter into a contest, it is necessary to pay a huge price to win
 the final victory.  The horrible catastrophe of 9/11 is the price for
 the US to promote freedom, the anti-terror war after 9/11 is only the
 beginning of an open contest between the forces of freedom and
 terrorism, NATO soldiers and civilian casualties are the price we must
 pay to fight terrorism, to overthrow Saddam's tyranny, and to build a
 democratic Iraq.

If two suicide deaths in a year in Lhasa is a tragedy, which I
agree. then consider the 4000+ violent deaths Iraq continues to
sustain year after year and the dozen deaths each time a drone killed
in Pakistan and Afghanistan, week after week, and year after year.
But this is apparently what Liu Xiaobo believes is a necessary price
to pay for freedom and democracy!

 . . .

[excerpts from my translation of Liu's 2004 article on the Iraq War
and the US Presidential Election published in Chinese in China Observer]

bmoore wrote:

What is up is that for as long as there are people allegedly doing the
hard-yards to blow nothing but hard noise about right and wrong, then
I have the obligation to point out the illogic in the assertions.  I
try to avoid pomposity but can't help the length of my analysis which
is determined by the amount of confusion and inaccuracies I feel I
have to deal with, even though it may appear to you as self-indulgent!
It's due diligence on my part, actually.

Furthermore I would say that if Ms Woeser could make so much out of
the Lhasa situation for Radio Free Asia, then it's not unreasonable
for any response to be as lengthy.

Finally, Liu Xiaobo's 2004 analysis of the 2004 US Presidential
Election against the backdrop of the Iraq War is a masterpiece of
self-indulgence whose equal I have yet to see elsewhere.

lo yeeOn
========

For reference value, I'm reposting the translation below:

Subject: Year 2011:complete translation of NED grantee and Nobel "Peace" Prize winner Liu Xiaobo's Iraq War and the US Presidential Election (2004)

The evil Saddam regime was just like the evil Taliban regime . . . All
leftists of the West are the same: they don't think the Iraqi people
should enjoy democracy and freedom, praising the Iraq war and all the
wars of aggression the US waged in the past 60+ years

Liu Xiaobo wrote (my translation to English):

[Senator and former presidential candidate] Kerry [sic, no comma] like
all the leftists of the West, views the unprincipled application of
peaceful-coexistence as the main "national benefit", treats tolerance
of evil regimes as the best policy for allowing different nations to
coexist and for defending world peace.  Therefore, he accused Bush's
Middle East policy as a fantasy, advocated that the US should focus on
taking care of its own security, but not export democracy to the
Middle East, the question of whether the Iraqi people should enjoy
freedom should not concern the US.  Because "democracy does not suit
the Iraqi people", carries the subtext "the Iraqi people do not
deserve to enjoy freedom and democracy".

. . .

The evil Saddam regime was just like the evil Taliban regime,
internally they oppressed their people, externally, they exhausted
their troops on militaristic adventures, not only threatening the US,
but also world peace.  In response to such an evil regime, the people
who struggle under the rule of terror, they either become
fundamentalist fanatics through brainwashing, or resign to doing
nothing as they're powerless to do anything; the UN being increasingly
under the control of rogue states, is doomed to be impotent as it has
all the properties of being a place for empty chats, in the ten plus
years since the first Gulf War, the UN had become Saddam's play thing
and hiding place, the solutions submitted to the UN by countries like
Germany and France one by one, were shelved due to the constraint of
not having enough military backing; various Arab countries, though
holding grudges against Iraq, had never been able to defeat Saddam
alone; and Russia and China had both held close relationships with
Iraq, had sided with Iraq ever since the first Gulf War . . . in a
situation in which the UN was in shortage of courage to face reality
and the ability to effectively adopt coordinated actions, it was
finally left to the US which met the tragedy of 9/11 and which not
only possessed the real strength to topple Saddam, but also the
momentum to topple Saddam.

. . .

In human history, there was never a war to remove a tyranny like the
war to topple Saddam, launched so rapidly, fought in such a civilized
manner, and won so neatly!

(For more of the entire translation of Liu Xiaobo's 2004 article on
the Iraq War and the US presidental election, please see below.)

. . .

There is no free lunch anywhere in the world.  The success of any
righteous enterprise demands lots of suffering, even at a tragic
price.  This is especially true when law-abiding and civilized free
countries are confronted with immoral and unreasonable authoritarian
regimes, evil forces of terrorism and fundamentalism and the like and
must enter into a contest, it is necessary to pay a huge price to win
the final victory.  The horrible catastrophe of 9/11 is the price for
the US to promote freedom, the anti-terror war after 9/11 is only the
beginning of an open contest between the forces of freedom and
terrorism, NATO soldiers and civilian casualties are the price we must
pay to fight terrorism, to overthrow Saddam's tyranny, and to build a
democratic Iraq.

. . .

-----

My post will first report the link between Liu Xiaobo and the NED
(National Endowment for Democracy, a successor organization to the
CIA), then provide an expanded translation of all (whew!) of Liu's
2004 article in praise of the Iraq War and all the wars of aggression
the US waged in the past 60+ years, and finally a discussion of the
fear, the insecurity, and the lack of freedom the Iraqi people
experience today, more than seven years after the US's forced regime
change on the country.

1) The following is an excerpt from a report by Xah Lee, 2010-10-12
entitled "Liu Xiaobo, NED, CIA, USA Support":

(http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/Liu-Xiaobo_NED_CIA.html)

 It's widely reported on the web that Liu Xiaobo received funding from
 National Endowment for Democracy (NED). This is acknowledged on the
 NED site:

    * The National Endowment for Democracy Extends Its Warmest
      Congratulations to Grantee Liu Xiaobo on Receiving the Nobel
      Peace Prize (2010-10-08) At: ned.org

 Quote:

  Among his many contributions to the advance of democratic ideas and
  values in China have been his work as editor of Democratic China
  magazine (English via GoogleTranslate) for several years until his
  arrest in 2008, and serving two terms as President of the
  Independent Chinese PEN Center, from 2003 to 2007. NED is pleased to
  have been able to provide grant support to both organizations for
  their activities supporting free inquiry and freedom of expression
  over the years.

[Note: Liu was cited as president of the Independent Chinese PEN
Center where he posted his 2004 article which I have been trying to
translate.  The above NED announcement indicates that it has provided
grant support for this organization over the years as well as perhaps
Liu himself in at the year of 2004 when he wrote his article, and of
course this year by virtue of the opening congratulatory remark.  So,
by western standards at least, his sentiment expressed in the 2004
article on the Iraq war and the sitting president at the time can
hardly be viewed as his own personal, independent opinion.]

 How Much?

  How much? The article didn't say, but from online info the figure may
  be over 1M USD, perhaps from 2004 to 2007. It's very time consuming
  to gather correct info on the web, but on this site: <Source>,
  there's this info:

        * ICPC received $135,000 from the NED in 2007:

  http://www.ned.org/grants/07programs/grants-asia07.html

        * $135,000 from the NED in 2006:

  http://www.ned.org/grants/06programs/grants-asia06.html

      * $85,000 from the NED in 2004:

  http://www.ned.org/grants/04programs/grants-asia04.html

      * $145,000 in 2007:

  http://www.ned.org/grants/07programs/grants-asia07.html

      * $136,000 in 2005:

  http://www.ned.org/grants/05programs/grants-asia05.html

      * $135,000 in 2004:

  http://www.ned.org/grants/04programs/grants-asia04.html

 All the links's content are gone as of 2010-10-12, but they are
 currently available at the archive.org:

 http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.ned.org/grants/04programs/grants-asia04.html

 http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.ned.org/grants/04programs/grants-asia04.html

 http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.ned.org/grants/05programs/grants-asia05.html

 http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.ned.org/grants/06programs/grants-asia06.html

 http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.ned.org/grants/07programs/grants-asia07.html (not available)

 (Be sure to save the document on your computer because it might get
 removed)

 Looking at these doc is quite scary. Usually they have a big section
 China, listing lots of money to all sort of organizations that seems
 to be politically disruptive for Chinese goverment, e.g. Tibet,
 Uyghur, and all with names like "freedom", "human rights", "democracy"
 ....

2) Translation of Liu Xiaobo's exuberant ruminations on

 "The Iraq War and the US presidential Election" (2004)

It is a florid, politically opinionated piece that is extremely
difficult to translate, imho.  (I have tried to be faithful to the
sense of the original, even when it does not seem to make much sense.)

In view of NED's substantial financial support of Liu as well as the
organizations he headed, Liu Xiaobo's expressed opinions during this
period cannot be thought of as a genuinely personal view.  Nor does
the content of his 2004 article contradict this suspicion.

In the 2004 article Liu Xiaobo wrote about the Iraq War and George
Bush, he gave enthusiastic support of what nearly every intellectual
in the world today recognizes as blatant US hegemony, and he gave this
in language eerily reminiscent of what the world has repeatedly heard
the Bush anti-terror regime speak.

http://www.observechina.net/info/artshow.asp?ID=33140

For the purpose of broadening the world's awareness of Liu Xiaobo's
view on war and peace, I decided to translate this article into
English a little at a time and published my translation as a work in
progress, as I'm not aware of one already existing.

I think it is reasonable to be concerned about the world's awareness
of what this man thinks on the subject of war and peace (or a lack of
this awareness) because by sheer will, the Nobel Peace Committee has
rushed to anoint Liu instead of many others this year, despite the
fact that the Iraqi war was such an abominable war of aggression that
even the Nobel entity itself could not wait to anoint Obama as its
next peace message bearer in year 2009, as soon as he ascended to the
US presidency, based on the premise that Obama had vocally opposed the
Iraq war or its justification as he ran for office.

One cannot easily dismiss Liu's enthusiastic endorsement of the Iraq
war as a minor lapse on his part because of the length he went to to
discredit the points critics of the war were making at the time and
because of his endorsement of the Vietnam war, a war the scars of
which continue to linger on and the ethics of which Liu himself should
have had plenty of time to learn about and reflect over.

Liu's cavalier attitude toward the large number of excess civilian
deaths reported as a result of each war contradicts the values of a
genuine human rights advocate, a label for Liu on which the Nobel
entity anchored its justification.

So Liu Xiaobo thought that the mere fact that Saddam was removed and a
"democratic" Iraq was established was sufficient reason to go to war
(see translation below).  But whatever happened to the human rights of
the Iraqis who wanted to live, just as every living creature under the
sun instinctively wants to do, and be with their families but couldn't
because of the war and violence Liu Xiaobo insisted that they must be
inflicted upon by the US?  Where is the analysis which attempts to
weigh a human being's right to live against his or her right to vote
in some kind of election?  This is something an intellectual would
naturally do: to reflect, compare, reconcile, and conclude about
something he or she values or views as important.

But there was no trace of it in Liu's black and white view of all the
wars the US launched since WWII.  There was no trace of aesthetics,
logic, or introspection in anything he said.  Liu's 2004 article on
the Iraq war could conceivably be the view of some 16-year old from
Arkansas who was brought up by post-war propaganda alone or it could
be a memo distributed by the NED signed off by Ms. Condoleezza Rice's
office in the White House at the time.

But it is not a piece worthy of a Chinese "intellectual" unless either
the Chinese people today in China are largely more ignorant and more
ill-informed than Liu himself or Liu himself was writing it on behalf
of his western sponsor, namely the Bush administration which was in
power at the time and which was engulfed by the fiery, fanatic dogma
of the Project of the New American Century or PNAC.

As repugnant as I found Liu's piece to be, I've finally completed the
translatioin.  And I believe that it ought to provide some educational
value to the public at large since the pompous Norwegian politicians
have stubbornly refused to do their homework before they made their
ignorant choice.

Published in Chinese on observechina.net - a website with the Chinese
name which could be translated as Laogai Foundation Observes - the
article was entitled the Iraq war and the ``Big'' US election (i.e.,
the 2004 presidential election).  Laogai is a phonetic spelling for
the Chinese term for reform through hard labor.

Thus wrote Liu:

The Iraq War and the US Presidential Election (2004/10/30)

In this US presidential election, the question of whether the Iraq war
should have been fought has been a major topic of debate between the
Democratic party candidate Kerry and the incumbent president Bush.
Kerry seized on the US's current difficulty in Iraq to make his case,
But Bush's superior anti-terror performance, is not something Kerry's
disparaging remarks can easily erase.

Historically and in reality, the US is not a perfect nation,
nevertheless, at the minimum, it is the most idealistic and most
mission-driven free country, it led the Allies to win the fight
against fascism in WWII, helped put in motion the realization of the
rebuilding of a democratic system for each of the two most criminally
evil nations Germany and Japan, led the opposition fight against
communism/totalitarianism in the Korean war and the Vietnam war, and
in the end won the half-century long cold war between the free world
and totalitarianism; the US also helped Egypt win its independence, it
has continued to protect Israel which is surrounded by Arab countries,
without the protection, the Jews who suffered race-based genocide in
WWII could have been pushed under by the hatred of the Islamic world,
Arab hatred toward the US and the repeated violent attacks on the US
by Islamic terrorism clearly are highly connected with the enduring
American support for Israel.

[A long sentence composed of sub-sentences separated by many commas
and one semicolon.]

All these, have historically pushed the US into a position of
leadership in the free world.  The fact that it has the power to draw
worldwide attention to its presidential elections, is also proof of
the US's leadership role in the world.

[Commas in the original text are preserved.]

In the short 12 years between 1989 and September 11, 2001, in a world
which was witnessing a transition from the old century to the new,
suddenly caught between two kinds of entirely opposite experiences
with a dramatic character---a scene depicting a future filled with
bright light and a great tragedy completely covered by dark clouds,
waiting to happen.  The end of the old century and the beginning of
the new both possess a very strong dramatic character: As the 50 years
of East-West Cold War tense confrontation ended unexpectedly with the
sudden collapse of the Soviet East Empire, almost overnight we saw the
fall of the Berlin Wall, the elimination of East-West confrontation,
the gradual transformation of the various Eastern European countries
as well as their former archenemy Russia into democracies and
integration into the western civilization, becoming a part of the
West's freedom camp, surrendering without a fight, about which I could
no longer contain my emotion except to give cheer to "the end of
History", as well as the victories of the Gulf War and the war of
Kosovo.  As a result, the US and NATO became the unchallenged world
leaders in economic, military, as well as moral terms, and the world
seems to be entering what may be closest to that which Kant called the
"Perpetual Peace".

[another long Liu sentence!]

Yet, the post-cold-war optimism and the prospect of peace merely
lasted 10 years --- and 10 years is but the blink of an eye in history
--- and suddenly ended beneath the white clouds and bright blue sky on
the morning of September 11, 2001.  Though unable, for a Chinese, to
personally experience the terror which shakes one's soul to the core,
or the sorrow which rends one's heart and tears up one's lungs, being
far away and separated by the ocean, the impact of the TV images is
already enough!  The terrorist sneak attack against the innocent
people and [sic, not "in"] the United States' trademark buildings, the
complete lack of scruples in its evil, the enormous tragedy it
created, and the far-reaching impact it had on the future, all went
far beyond anyone's imagination.  In only a blink of the eye, the
world changed its complexion.  The happy drama of universal
brotherhood now suddenly became a tragedy which made everyone
dumbfounded and speechless.

The tragedy of 9/11 forced Bush to use the occasion to once again
assume leadership in the mission of global anti-terror war: in today's
world, as the Free World's leader, the US has become the principal
target of all the evil forces, unless the US from now on relinquishes
the leadership duty of establishing a new international order, and
returns to the doctrine of isolationism, the US must take the
initiative to attack, shoulder the leaderhsip responsibility to
eradicate evil and defend freedom, to maintain peace and expand
democracy.

This kind of responsibility's immediate goal is to lead the world to
fight the anti-terror war; its long-term goal is to wholeheartedly
promote worldwide democratization, especially demanding
democratization of the Arab world and the other totalitarian countries,
to establish a new order, and tolerating no more errors of
opportunistic behavior which allow evil totalitarian rule for the sake
of mere profits.

[IOW: "China watch out!  I'm gunning for you."  This sounds like a
call for a foreign power to attack China.  Isn't it some form of
subversion then?]

On October 30th, right before the presidential election, Terror-Devil
Bin Laden again surfaced in a video, and admitted for the first time
that he masterminded 9/11.  He also declared that he had seen the
radical anti-Bush film Fahrenheit 9/11.  Bin Laden's appearance has
suddenly taken the impending US presidential election back to the time
of that tragedy three years ago.

Yes, 9/11 changed everything, a completely new force which overwhelms
all threats suddenly appeared.  The state of the world, especially in
regards to the war plans of the US and its allies, necessarily
underwent drastic changes.  In order to respond to a global terrorist
threat which would not stop at anything, Bush, Jr.'s administration's
"pre-emptive" war strategy is the correct choice.  True, we cannot
view Islamic-Fundamentalist terrorism as a challenge in the sense that
it's the third most powerful totalitarian force after fascism and
communism.  Yet, one point is clear: the cultural and systemic root
which engendered this kind of threat, is necessarily extremely
intolerant and blood-thirsty, and is actually the means of carrying
out evil aims, which are entirely different from WWII and the Cold
war, and carries an entirely new barbaric quality:

1. The totalitarian evil of fascism and communism is clearly marked by
national boundaries, yet the evil of terrorism is hidden and
transcends national boundaries; [Note: the singular use of ";" among
the five enumerated paragraphs here is Liu's own.]

2. The former kinds arose in time of wars and the Cold War, they're
the result of wars between nations or the struggle between two
systems, whereas the latter kind arises in peace time, and gives rise
to a war between nations and a global terrorist organization, and is a
result of conflicts between different religious and cultural systems.

3.  The aim of the former is to attack national sovereignty, armies,
and systems; yet the aim of the latter is to attack the innocent poor
and public facilities.

4. The means used by the former is military hardware, with the aim to
destroy the adversary and preserve the self, whereas the principal
means of the latter is the human body, with the aim of creating a
sensational terrorizing effect when both the target and the self
perish together.

5. During the Cold War period, even though both sides of the
confrontation held enough nukes to destroy the entire world, yet both
sides avoided resorting to any means to achieve their goal, without
regard to the results, because of the parity in military strength
between opposing sides, further because of the tragic prospect in
which the fish net also breaks even as the fish die in it, yielding no
winner, and also because of a minimum of rationality both sides
possessed.  Yet, terrorism does not care about comparing the actual
strengths of the parties, only about achieving the aim, it doesn't
care about the means, it just wants to adopt the role of the weak and
launch an all-out attack, when a terrorist commits a suicide attack,
valuing not even his own life, he would just as soon completely
dismiss compassion and proportion in his judgment, and at the same
time resort to the cruelest, the most deracinating means to kill a
large number of civilians, and causing fear and panic among people.
Therefore, it is not aiming at defeating and conquering the party of
strength, rather it merely attempts to destroy for the sake of
destroying, to terminate for the sake of terminating.  If they possess
weapons of mass destruction, in addition to the desperados who
volunteer themselves as suicide bombers, then the tragedy of the
result would be unimaginable.

Against such terrorist policy as to arbitrarily trample on the
baseline of civilization in inflicting extreme harm to its citizens,
the use of force by the US should not raise doubts in anyone's mind.
Only resolute decisiveness can prevent a repeat of the tragedy similar
to 9/11, and reduce the threat of an increasingly internationalized
brand of terrorism and its weapons of mass destruction.  This choice,
in contrast with the doctrine of appeasement and reactive military
strategy, should require a relatively smaller investment and cost.  It
is not only for the greatest national interest of the US, because its
national security and the survival of its freedom depends on it, but
also for the long-term benefit of all mankind, because it is needed to
sustain world peace and progress in global democratization.

Kerry [sic, no comma here] like all the leftists of the West, views
the unprincipled application of peaceful-coexistence as the main "national
benefit", treats tolerance of evil regimes as the best policy for
allowing different nations to coexist and for defending world peace.
Therefore, he accused Bush's Middle East policy as a fantasy,
advocated that the US should focus on taking care of its own security,
but not export democracy to the Middle East, the question of whether
the Iraqi people should enjoy freedom should not concern the US.
Because "democracy does not suit the Iraqi people", carries the
subtext "the Iraqi people do not deserve to enjoy freedom and
democracy".

Bush, like all responsible leaders of large Western countries regards
promoting worldwide "freedom and democracy" as an important component
of "national interests", and eradicating evil regimes as principal
means to promote freedom and democracy and defend world peace.
Because "freedom and democracy" possesses universal value, every
person in the world---regardless of race, culture, nationality,
religion, etc.---is entitled to live a life of freedom and in a
democratic system.  So, the re-election-seeking Bush made the correct
decision by insisting on going to war to topple Saddam, even though no
weapons of mass destruction were found, eradicating Saddam's tyrannic
rule and establishing a free Iraq, and then promoting freedom and
democracy in the entire Middle East, provide a sufficient reason for
going to war to topple Saddam.

Kerry accused Bush's "axis of evil" allegation as arrogant and
reckless, yet in reality, just as President Reagon during his time
referred to the Soviet Union as an Evil Empire, Bush's allegation
against Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, were just a statement of fact.
Particularly in the case of Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il, they are
the two worst tyrants in the world.  Wasn't Saddam's regime evil
enough?  Hadn't Saddam fooled the UN enough?  Did Saddam's threat
concern only the US but not the entire world, especially the many
European countries?  Did the Europeans have to wait until they were
personally the victims of terrorist attacks before they would take the
initiative to fight back and to ask for the help of the militarily
superior US?  Did the US's Western allies in the free world have to
wait until the time when Saddam launched a more damaging terrorist
attack to reunite them?  Most importantly, the most fertile breeding
ground for terrorism being the dictatorship and fundamentalist
fanaticism in the Arab region, did the free world and the whole world,
despite their being repeatedly subjected to the harm of terrorism,
have to continue to adopt the attitude of appeasement to protect and
support the evil regimes, and as result helplessly watch terrorism
turn into tragedy?  What we need are responsible politicians from the
free world who are willing to come courageously forward and declare
war against terrorism and its breeding ground!

Kerry seized on the failure to find weapons of mass destruction to
criticize Bush for launching the war to topple Saddam, yet the
important meaning of pre-emption is to prevent what is yet to come.
The US's official declaration of war in WWII was counter-attack, the
Afghan anti-terror war was also counter attack, though both achieved
victory, this kind of counter-attack victory, even more brilliantly
achieved, can only serve as a remedy, like sacrificing a lamb to avoid
going to jail.  The US and the whole world have already paid a huge
comprehensive price for this kind of counter-attack, and the general
negative effect of this kind of price is huge, so much so that even a
final victory cannot remedy.  So, in view of the fact that terrorism
has been put in action, the anti-human, anti-civilization, and
anti-freedom atrocities already caused to happen and those being
prepared to happen, in view of the fact that terrorist attacks are
difficult to prevent, in view of Saddam's propensity to go to war and
support terrorism, his continuing pursuit of weapons of mass
destruction, his repeated violations of UN resolutions on nuclear
weapons inspection, his evil was clearly no less than Bin Laden's.
Saddam repeatedly went to war and had ruled his country as a dictator,
so he would far exceed Bin Laden in terms of their capacities to
create terrorist disasters.  Did we then have to wait until the time
when Saddam already produced weapons of mass destruction and deployed
them before we would respond?  The war of toppling Saddam at the
minimum eliminated the one tyrant most likely to produce and also
deploy weapons of mass destruction, since Saddam was not only thirsty
for war, but was also a tyrant who had deployed biological weapons of
mass destruction against the Kurdish Iraqis.  If we continue to
condone evil until we're attacked by weapons of mass destruction
launched in a terrorist attack before we counterattack, then the
consequence will not be imaginable.

Kerry accused Bush for committing the error of abandoning the UN and
bypassing the UN in favor of unilateralism, leaving the US in a kind
of international isolation.  Yet in reality, this kind of accusation
is specious: are Germany and France the only countries which can
represent Europe, and Britian, Italy, and various Eastern European
countries cannot?  Moreover, most of the traditional Asian allies of
the US (such as Japan and South Korea) all support anti-terrorism.  As
for the question of UN authorization, due to obstruction by Germany,
France, and China which formed a majority, under the impossible
situation in which the US and the UK had done all they could but
without success, they had no choice but to act.

In today's world where dealing with global and local crisis,
especially in regards to evil, irresponsible countries, no tangible
result can be obtained without US participation.  The evil Saddam
regime was just like the evil Taliban regime, internally they
oppressed their people, externally, they exhausted their troops on
militaristic adventures, not only threatening the US, but also world
peace.  In response to such an evil regime, the people who struggle
under the rule of terror, they either become fundamentalist fanatics
through brainwashing, or resign to doing nothing as they're powerless
to do anything; the UN being increasingly under the control of rogue
states, is doomed to be impotent as it has all the properties of being
a place for empty chats, in the ten plus years since the first Gulf
War, the UN had become Saddam's play thing and hiding place, the
solutions submitted to the UN by countries like Germany and France one
by one, were shelved due to the constraint of not having enough
military backing; various Arab countries, though held grudges with
Iraq, had never been able to defeat Saddam alone; and Russia and China
had both held close relationship with Iraq, had sided with Iraq ever
since the first Gulf War . . . in a situation in which the UN was in
shortage of courage to face reality and the ability to effectively
adopt coordinated actions, it was finally left to the US which met the
tragedy of 9/11 and which not only possessed the real strength to
topple Saddam, but also the momentum to topple Saddam.

In human history, there was never a war to remove a tyranny like the
war to topple Saddam, launched so rapidly, fought in such a civilized
manner, and won so neatly!  Although, the current security situation
in Iraq is not stable, local violence and hostage-taking continue to
occur, so there are some who call this a "tragic victory", and there
are others who rejoice in others' misery and stand on the sidelines
and call it "the second Vietnam".  Yet, the Saddam's threat against
world peace and his tyrannic rule against his own people is now gone,
the Iraqi people are now free, and the general election scheduled for
next January will be held.  Regardleses of how the anti-US media
discredits the Bush administration, most Iraqi people still think: an
Iraq without Saddam will be better.  Just as Mainland Media <<Fa Zhi
Wan Bao (http://fzwb.ynet.com/)>> October 25th reported on Iraq
<<Interview with the Iraqi people: children do not hate American
soldiers but feared Saddam>>.

There is no free lunch anywhere in the world.  The success of any
righteous enterprise demands lots of suffering, even at a tragic
price.  This is especially true when law-abiding and civilized free
countries are confronted with immoral and unreasonable authoritarian
regimes, evil forces of terrorism and fundamentalism and the like and
must enter into a contest, it is necessary to pay a huge price to win
the final victory.  The horrible catastrophe of 9/11 is the price for
the US to promote freedom, the anti-terror war after 9/11 is only the
beginning of an open contest between the forces of freedom and
terrorism, NATO soldiers and civilian casualties are the price we must
pay to fight terrorism, to overthrow Saddam's tyranny, and to build a
democratic Iraq.

Whether it is anti-terror wars or foreign relations, Bush isn't a
perfect president, nevertheless after all he won the reactive war in
Afghanistan and then the pre-emptive war in Iraq in succession.
Leftists in the West can seize on temporary setbacks to make a big
deal about them, yet in history many years must transpire before
people can talk about what Bush has done the way we talk about
Churchill of the early years of WWII or about Reagan of the cold war,
both of whom are now regarded as great strategists with great wisdom.

Regardless of how much danger the war to topple Saddam will entail,
the danger of inaction will be even greater, WWII and 9/11 are our
proof!

Therefore, no matter what, the Iraq war is righteous!  And President
Bush's decision was correct!
-------------------------------------------------------------------

So said Liu Xiaobo!  What a complete lack of nuance, what a distorted,
one-sided view of modern world history!  Did Condi ghost-write this
piece for him when she was still ghosting every foreign policy line
George Bush spoke in 2004?

And for the western media and propaganda instruments to ignore his
views on the colonialization of China by the West and on the neocon
wars can mean only one thing: he is promoted and propped up precisely
because he is working for US government foreign policy interests.

3) The immensely sad story of the Iraqi people who find neither
freedom nor security in their own country today, more than seven years
after the US made a forced regime change in that country.

BBC report 30 August 2010:

Bittersweet memories of life in Iraq during invasion

. . .

Zeinab Mayouf's husband was killed in 2005. She says he was shot by
the Americans when the car he was travelling in failed to stop when
ordered to.

"When the Americans came, we thought things would get better," she
said, as her eight-year-old daughter clung to her arm.

"When Saddam was overthrown, we thought everything would change. But
it didn't. After they killed my husband, I couldn't stand them."

The US military disputes her claim, and has rejected her application
for compensation. Whatever the truth, Zeinab is one of many thousands
of widows created by this conflict.  Uncertain future

Back in Laith's garden, the heavy metal fan says he is planning to
move to Texas. His visa application has been approved and he is hoping
that a new life in America will offer him a brighter future. But he is
also nostalgic - for a past before US troops invaded his country.

"For me and my friends, [under Saddam] we were really more
free. Because we could go out any time we wanted, listen to any type
of music that we wanted."

Today, he says, he no longer feels free and secure wearing his heavy
metal clothes in public, or indeed going openly to certain parts of
the city.

"Now you cannot go wherever you want, because you are afraid. Before,
the situation was secure.

"[It was a life] where if you went out and came back in the morning,
you were not afraid that someone would attack you, you were not afraid
that someone would kidnap you, or blow themselves up in a coffee shop
or whatever."

Life in Iraq is much more secure than it was three years ago, when
sectarian violence nearly plunged the country into a full-scale civil
war.

. . .

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11128747

 [So, the BBC tried to close this immensely sad story about the lack
 of freedom and security for the Iraqi people in a more cheerful light.

 Yet, in an article published 30 December 2010,  the BBC reported that
 violent deaths in Iraq may be hitting a hard lower limit: i.e., the
 violent death rate is not going below this limit of about 4K per year.
 So, whatever happened to the human rights of these 4,000 Iraqis who
 wanted to live and be with their families but couldn't because of
 the war and violence Liu Xiaobo insisted that the US as the world's
 sole superpower should export to that poor and defenseless country?

 Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace laureate thought that casualties such as
 what the Iraqis are now forced to absorb are simply the "price" to pay
 for their "freedom" because there was, to him, no "free lunch" in this
 world.  Liu used the term "casualties" in his 2004 article as if it
 was an abstract concept in some kind of rhetorical argument.

 If a similar regime-change war were to be exported to China as Liu
 has argued that it should happen as a global democratization effort,
 the million excess deaths that accompanied the Iraq war would most
 likely be translated to 50 million deaths for the Chinese people, as
 the Chinese population is 50 times greater.  What, then, does he or
 any of his Nobel Peace prize supporters, make of these 50 million
 people's human rights, their rights to want to be alive and be with
 their loved ones but unable to?

 So, BBC reported 30 December 2010:

 Iraq Body Count (IBC), which collates casualty reports, said deaths
 dropped by 15% from 2009 to just under 4,000.

 It said two bombs exploded each day on average, each killing four
 people.

 But the group warned the number may have reached an "impassable
 minimum", and that civilians were likely to die at a similar rate for
 years to come.

 . . .

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12091385

 ]

A floor of 4,000 deaths annually because of a wound the neocons opened
that cannot heal.  Think about that!  So much for the human rights for
the Iraqi people whose lives were snuffed out against their wishes!
So much for the human rights for Iraq's million orphans, widows, and
grieving mothers, who had Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo's brand of
"democracy and freedom" shoved down their throats!

Liu Xiaobo will go down the history in disgrace if he's not completely
forgotten already!

lo yeeOn
========


subject:
Re: Guns will disappear when NED/CIA money stops flowing to Da Lama,
 Liu Xiaobo, et al Re: CCTV Says Lhasa People Are Happiest - by Woeser for
 Radio Free Asia

text:
On Feb 14, 10:18 pm, "[email]" <[email]> wrote:

In order to understand China, Tibet, Xinjiang, Dalai Lama,...
You must have an understanding of China, the Chinese people, and
Chinese history.  I wholeheartedly support lo yeeOn's posts and his
position.


author: Peter Terpstra (獅心彼得

subject: Re: Guns will disappear when NED/CIA money stops flowing to Da Lama, Liu Xiaobo, et al Re: CCTV Says Lhasa People Are Happiest - by Woeser for Radio Free Asia

text:
You have not any ground to stand on, only CCP speculations, but off they course now better, they know their
hateful propaganda machine and they have the right information and so do you mister Loon.

Hope you can find your way out of this and have mercy with your pity hearth.

LOVE,

   Peter


author: Jonathan Ball

subject: Extra!  ~~Illweed~~ states that humans have a physiological adaptation to eating meat!

text:
From: lilweed ([email])
Subject: Re: It is unethical to eat animals
Newsgroups: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian,
talk.politics.animals
View this article only
Date: 2000/08/13

Ward M. Clark <[email]> wrote in message
news:Aqml5.77425$[email]...
{..}
an anthropology or
frugivores, and I've looked
source I've seen listed
are some lemurs and
[...]

There are indeed differing viewpoints.

 From the study in the second post of mine, above, it
would seem
that it actually would not be incorrect to state that
humans are
frugivores, with faunivorous adaptations possible,
which enables
us to adapt to eating larger amounts of animal than would a
frugivore naturally. It is the ability to adapt that
allows man to
utilize animals for food in times of necessity. But, at
this time
man eats flesh for different reasons, in the main,
because that is
what we were brought up to believe as being the way it
is...
The question now remains as to whether man can regain
enough
flexibility to re-learn and re-adopt a healthy, natural
diet.

lilweed.

In the "second post" of ~~illweed's~~ to which she
refers, she described Tom Billings's BeyondVeg site
this way:

    From: lilweed ([email])
    Subject: Re: It is unethical to eat animals
    Newsgroups: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian,
    talk.politics.animals
    View: Complete Thread (204 articles) | Original Format
    Date: 2000/08/12
    [...]
    From a fav' site;
    http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/
    comp-anat-6e.shtml

Later, of course, after I pointed out that most of the
citations on Billings's site dispute her contention
that humans are "frugivores", she turned on Billings
savagely:

    From: lys ([email])
    Subject: Re: Are these people loonies ?
    Newsgroups: alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian,
    free.uk.politics.animal-rights,
    talk.politics.animals, uk.politics.animals
    View: Complete Thread (134 articles) | Original Format
    Date: 2001-06-03 11:54:26 PST
    [...]

    Your bullshit site did help my 'cause' and that site
    is now most deservedly trashed.

~~Illweed~~ earlier thought that she agreed with
Billings's conclusion about humans' anatomical
classification...back when she misunderstood him.  She
wrote,

    Even the author of the site concedes that we are
    unspecialised frugivores.

That's why she thought she agreed with him.  I pointed
out that the author concedes no such thing, and in fact
concludes, from his lengthy review of the literature,
that humans are omnivores:

     Comparative anatomy of the human gut. The best
scientific evidence
     available to date on gut morphology--analyzed
using two different
     statistical approaches--shows evidence of
adaptations for which the
     best explanation is the practice of faunivory.
(Faunivory as an
     explanation is also supported by optimal foraging
theory in
     hunter-gatherer tribes.) Further, the human gut
morphology is not
     what might be expected for a strict
vegetarian/fruit diet.

http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-9a.shtml


author: Camcompany

subject: Re: Extra!  ~~Illweed~~ states that humans have a physiological adaptation to eating meat!

text:
"Jonathan Ball" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...
Jonathan, only you are interested in this type of utterly boring post. Are
you semi-retired with nothing better to occupy your mind? Try a holiday or
something, really you are getting seriously tedious. As a diversion answer
this:- Are there any postings on this group with which you agree -other than
your own?
Chumpcompany.


text:
"Jonathan Ball" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...
Are
or
answer
Is that a Yes to that fact that you are utterly boring or that you agree to
other postings - if it is the latter, please name a few. Personally I think
you are a misguided genius whose obvious talents and foresight are
completely wasted on this newsgroup. The main problem you have is that you
fail to convert the ignorant to your way of thinking. We have in our midst a
latter day Einstein and we are all too ignorant to give you the recognition
you obviously deserve.Please guide us to the path we should follow.


text:
Camcompany wrote:

Try to figure *something* out for yourself, just this once.

You're right about the wastage.  "Misguided" doesn't
apply in general, only to my time management skills.

Oh, I wouldn't go that far.  Maybe Max Planck.

You're going to have to fend for yourself.  I may be
brilliant, but I'm not arrogant.


author: Zakhar

text:
...I may be

I don't know whether to laugh, be shocked, feel sad or what!

It can't be irony, it just can't be; can it?

No; arrogance is your middle name.


subject: Re: Bush's October surprise - it's coming

text:
"Shmaryahu b. Chanoch" <[email]> copied and pasted in message
news:[email]...

Hahahahahaha!!! Two years ago I wrote that Kerry would  lose, and the
dumbocrats would whine for four more years. And he did and they are.


author: Jennie

text:
The GOP has pissed so many different folks off bombing will not affect the
downfall of the GOP in November.

The GOP still has no campaign reform in sight.  The start of their problems.
No immigration policies with any meat in sight...


author: XTS

text:
"Jennie" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...

Starting another war will bring them down more. Anyone who cant see the
pattern of the bush/republicans failures and the blowback is either blind or
stupid. Americans are on to them The days of fear are over. No more crying
wolf.

problems.

All they had to win on was fear. That does not work anymore.  They have to
answer to Americans for the border problems, the deficits, the failure in
Itaq, the failure over Katrina, the failures of honesty & decency in
governemnt. They have more than one problem, and starting another war will
only make it worse. There is only one thing that will redeem  bush & the
republicans, full disclousre of all their lies. We know thats not going to
happen.  They are going to jail now, they cant admit to more lies.

snipers.
watching
Groups."
message
but


author: Zigler

text:
"XTS" <[email]> wrote in message
news:r7j1g.6380$[email]...

Right. Bush starting another (unnecessary or insane) war to save political
face would make as much sense as Clinton having screwed another whore in
light of his impeachment... sort of. At least Clinton had the sense to know
when the gig was over.

But since the insane fool Bush seems to be incapable of normal, reasonable
introspection and self-correction, where else can he turn but more failure?
Like the pathological liar (no analogy intended), he needs to either abandon
ship altogether or keep spinning the same web of shit.


text:
"Zigler" <[email]> wrote in message
news:0Ej1g.44$[email]...
blind
crying
know

Bill Clinton also admitted to his mistakes. That alone makes him tenfold
more of a man that the coward bush who runs and hides untill someone else
takes the heat for him. He just did it again, he knifed his long time friend
Andy Card in the back to bring in the new hatchet man, Bolten, to fire
people because bush is to much of a coward to fire anyone himself.  Bush is
the biggest coward, sissy whining little punk I have seen in public
government. He has no shame, no decency and no courage.

failure?

I agree. He will do something stupid again instead of admitting to a
mistake. Instaed of cleaning up a mess, he will create 10 more. he is not
capable og logic, sanity or reason. He is a sociopath, an avowed liar and so
deep in corruption, he will never be anything but a criminal. He cannot
reverse his life at this point. You are also correct about introspection, he
has live a life of blaming, accusing, finger pointing and getting bailed out
by his father or infleuntial benefactors, he can't look into himself.

A man who cant look into himself should not be in charge of this Country we
love.  A man who cannot look into himself, will always put himself above
This nation, as we have seen time and time again from bush.

Katrina is a sterling example.

abandon

Those are his only two choices. I think it's even to late for a full
accountablity moment now. Harry reid asked him twice to come clean, and he
refuses, he just keep digging a deeper hole. Now he is known as the "mute
button president" meaning nobody would listen to him, or even give a damn.

Now as far as he goes, I dont care how deep he digs, but he is also burying
Our nation with him. And that is an unpardonable offense.  Impeachment would
be a simple process if the republicans want to save their party. They could
form an inquiry panal ASAP and show America they put "Our" Nation above
"their" party.

But they will not, they walk hand in hand with bush down the road to ruin.

to
in
will
to
a


author: fresh~horses

subject: Re: cancer drug warrants healthy skepticism

text:
Sbharris[atsign]ix.netcom.com wrote:

I wasn't disputing there were amateurs in business, just wondering if
those were your amateurs.

No. They don't. But those in the medical profession and science, who
did have ideals, shouldn't be so willing to hand it over. I don't know
too many physicians who said screw this and walked. (Graham, Olivieri,
Healy, and some few others excepted). I've given up counting the
journalists who walked.

Youth enters the

No. Few do. Just the upper middle class (and some who read Steinbeck).

Disillusionment is synonymous with learning,

Old news to a 5 year old who's been beaten by her parents, or the 6
year old who dies of starvations weighing 21 pounds. Maybe the former
makes it to 14, and dies covered in her own excrement in an alley, or
... . They weren't part of your creation parable.

Ouch--- a fall from a state of

You're the one paraphrasing the rule book for some ethic that is
foreign to me. And doesn't work for the majority of the world by the
way. Do get out more.

The fifth took over when the fourth bit it.

fifth estate
n. A class or group in society other than the nobility, the clergy, the
middle class, and the press.

The Ancien Régime had the clergy, the nobility, and

You do live in a quaint protected world. Please stop resisting not only
knowing that Rome is burning, but why.

Well for the American media, and now the Canadian that seems to be
following and owned by it; I grant you yes. But it's not the way of it
here until recently. In my adulthood. Sorry you don't have the
privilege of it. Please do all you can to deep six the crap that keeps
leaking across the border.

Another American entertainer. You really have to do something about the
sorry state of your national culture Steve.

Vida supra. But you're talking to someone who doesn't have anything to
do with that. What's the saying, again? Him who owns the house cleans
it?


author: Herman Rubin

text:
In article <[email]>,
fresh~horses <fresh~[email]> wrote:

			..................

I know what poverty is.  There is much in how the people
handle it; my parents kept their ideal, and so did I keep
mine.  Ability on the part of the poor who strive to
achieve was usually recognized; less so now, because of
the miserable public schools.  In fact, one thing which
annoys me is that our poverty was instrumental in getting
me scholarships; I did not need or want any such "help".
Academic scholarships are even more rare now.


author: Happy Dog

text:
"fresh~horses" <fresh~[email]>
Sbharris[atsign]ix.netcom.com wrote:The Ancien Rï¿½gime had the clergy, the
nobility, and

You do live in a quaint protected world. Please stop resisting not only
knowing that Rome is burning, but why.

You live in a protected world.  And you whine the moment you feel your
protection insufficient.  Rome burned because they stopped bashing heads and
started holding meetings.   They were conquered by a bunch of lessers with
more lethal focus and some weapons that their generals could have had if
they'd never listened to the proselytizing of christ-besotted idiots.  The
great spirit watches and laughs.  Test of faith for idiots.

Well for the American media, and now the Canadian that seems to be
following and owned by it; I grant you yes. But it's not the way of it
here until recently. In my adulthood.

It's been that way since Hearst.  Perhaps you should have a look at the
media under Mao.

Another American entertainer. You really have to do something about the
sorry state of your national culture Steve.

And we, ours.  A good start would be shipping you to Guatemala.  Who are
your favourite Indian (First Nations, whatever) comics?

moo


author: The Virgin Connie Swells

subject: "tholen@antispam.ham" <tholen@ifa.hawaii.edu> wrote:

text:
"[email]" <[email]> wrote:

Hey, shitstain, if you don't like Usenet, leave.

---
No offense intended, I'm quite sure.


author: [redacted]

subject: Re: "tholen@antispam.ham" <tholen@ifa.hawaii.edu> wrote:

text:
[email] (The Virgin Connie Swells) writes:

1> Newsgroups:
alt.atheism,alt.politics.democrats,talk.politics.guns,alt.religion.christian,comp.os.os2.advocacy

1> Hey, shitstain, if you don't like Usenet, leave.

Who is "shitstain", chelsea?  There is nobody in this newsgroup
using that alias.


author: 2Smart 2Vote

text:
"[email]" <[email]> wrote:

Looks like the shitting Christian dog fucker has the IQ of a Sarah Palin.

---
No offense intended, I'm quite sure.


author: Sock-Puppet'ullah

subject:
Re: Tahirih Justice Center-Association with Anti-NGO/anti-environmentalist
	corporations

text:
On Nov 24, 12:59 am, PaulHammond <[email]> wrote:

You mean you have provided more of your regular plausible denials.

As a KKKunt, indeed!

Whereas we know you very well for your unassailable AO-hole meat-
puppetry...

W

Paul Hammond <pahammond@...>
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005  3:18 am
Subject: More on Shoghification (was Re: To Larry/Karen)  paulhammond2
 Offline
 Send Email

I recall hearing a serious conversation on whether it was breaking the
fast to swallow
a bit of toothpaste if you were cleaning your teeth after the sun came
up - that was
years ago when I used to read soc.religion.bahai, back when I'd first
discovered how
fascinating the internet was back in 1994. ***I was still fasting
myself
in those days...***

Anyway - this links back into the conversation we were having about
Shoghi,
because I think this micro-management goes back to his days. It was
back in
his time that people used to write to him asking him to pronounce on
the
"Baha'iness" of every little minor detail of their lives - which I
guess
was when
he started to get his secretaries to write replies to all these people
who
wanted reassurance from the top that Baha'u'llah thought everything
they
did
was AOK.

Now, as to whether Shoghi really wanted to be spending his time
offering
this kind of guidance or not is a moot point - but if he didn't, he
should
have been much more clear about telling everyone that these sort of
minor things were "between the believer and God", and he couldn't
tell them much, except that God didn't particularly care about these
piddling little details. But he didn't do that, he set people to
pronouncing
about whether the tiny amount of alcohol in vanilla cake flavourings
broke the Baha'i non-drinking law or not.

So, the people at the top of the top-down faith today are really
following
in the precedent set by Shoghi, and those believers that are
petitioning
the UHJ to pronounce on the correct Baha'i angle of adjustment to
their TV screens just think that if Shoghi would tell people about
these things then so should the UHJ.

Paul


subject:
Re: Palu provides us with a sample (was re:Tahirih Justice
	Center-Association with Anti-NGO/anti-environmentalist corporations)

text:
On Nov 26, 11:50 am, PaulHammond <[email]> wrote:

And thanks for proving mine on Karen Bacquet's ex-bahai.

Paul Hammond <pahammond@...>
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005  3:18 am
Subject: More on Shoghification (was Re: To Larry/Karen)  paulhammond2
 Offline
 Send Email

I recall hearing a serious conversation on whether it was breaking the
fast to swallow
a bit of toothpaste if you were cleaning your teeth after the sun came
up - that was
years ago when I used to read soc.religion.bahai, back when I'd first
discovered how
fascinating the internet was back in 1994. ***I was still fasting
myself
in those days...***

Anyway - this links back into the conversation we were having about
Shoghi,
because I think this micro-management goes back to his days. It was
back in
his time that people used to write to him asking him to pronounce on
the
"Baha'iness" of every little minor detail of their lives - which I
guess
was when
he started to get his secretaries to write replies to all these people
who
wanted reassurance from the top that Baha'u'llah thought everything
they
did
was AOK.

Now, as to whether Shoghi really wanted to be spending his time
offering
this kind of guidance or not is a moot point - but if he didn't, he
should
have been much more clear about telling everyone that these sort of
minor things were "between the believer and God", and he couldn't
tell them much, except that God didn't particularly care about these
piddling little details. But he didn't do that, he set people to
pronouncing
about whether the tiny amount of alcohol in vanilla cake flavourings
broke the Baha'i non-drinking law or not.

So, the people at the top of the top-down faith today are really
following
in the precedent set by Shoghi, and those believers that are
petitioning
the UHJ to pronounce on the correct Baha'i angle of adjustment to
their TV screens just think that if Shoghi would tell people about
these things then so should the UHJ.

Paul


author: PaulHammond

text:
On 21 Nov, 05:28, [email] wrote:

That's EXACTLY what you are doing!

The only piece of actual fact you've cast at the TJC is "hey - they
take donations from these people, and I say these people are dodgy"

To be honest, I find it difficult to take seriously that you REALLY
think that Sony is evil, and we should all stop buying their
electronic products right now.  Electronics is hardly the dirtiest
industry in the world.  Your evidence from this thread suggests to me
that they are a firm which takes their image with environmentalists
seriously.  I mean, they seem to really care what rating they get in
the Greenpeace poll of good guys that you're talking about.

If they were *really* Evil as you try to suggest, surely they wouldn't
care how many rivers they polluted, how many children in China worked
in their factories, or what people at Greenpeace think of them.

Paul


text:
On 21 Nov, 05:28, [email] wrote:

Sorry, that doesn't follow.  What does this place have to do with
scrutiny of charities?  We're an internet chat group - if you convince
us that the donations are dodgy, we have no power to change
anything.

You're here because Nima asked you to come.  You're here supporting
Nima's latest spam-fest.

To many around here things that Nima spams about are automatically
suspect.


text:
On Nov 22, 9:16 am, PaulHammond <[email]> wrote:

Notice in the post of mine you quoted (which maybe I should have
highlighted for you) I said PARTICULAR TYPES OF ASSOCIATION. That's
really the key here. Friendship/casual personal association is one
type. Business/monetary, political association is another, especially
when particular representations are made to the public about the
nature of an organization's activities. Exactly what a person/company/
NGO/'religious body' is 'guilty' of because of that association is
another. Maybe  absolutely nothing. Maybe, as I said, they have no
idea what the OTHER ASSOCIATIONS within a corporate body mean in terms
of the POWER AND INFLUENCE they wield. Notice that I emphasized that I
do not believe that personal association (for example, being a
volunteer/working for the TJC) NECESSARILY makes you 'guilty' of
anything, or is evidence of malicious intent (though it may lead you
to other, more significant connections). It depends how much you know,
what your role is in an organization, and to whom you answer (ie if
you answer to a board, a political party or the hierarchy of a
religious organization) That is POWER AND INFLUENCE  defined by the
TYPE of association.  If it's your job to disclose your political
affiliations to the tax department, you better be damn sure you do it.
If you don't, you're guilty of breaking the law. And no matter how
good to look, how righteous you seem, you deserve to be held
accountable by law.

I'm saying more than that. But I won't bore with what you so loosely
term 'spam'. Don't forget, a lot of what you/numerous other posters
here are saying about many of the critics who have come here or spoken
up anywhere else in similar ways, is that they're insane, or liars, or
worse.

As I've said before, corruption is corruption, corporate malpractice
is corporate malpractice. This is as much about the law,  the way a
company/NGO/religious organization conducts its business, and the
protection of a community's rights and interests as it is about moral
judgments, though these are possible if you're not a total moral
relatavist.

Electronics is hardly the dirtiest

Oh yes, I'm sure they do. Seriously enough to monitor the interests of
critics and devote a task-force to systematically determining means of
silencing them.  Sound familiar? Are you saying that these kinds of
activities are acceptable?  If you do, it would be a shame to find out
that the organization you defend here (or whose critics you constantly
attempt to take to task, and have done so for the past 8 years)  is
involved in anything similar.

Caring what people think about you because of deeply held moral
conviction or a system of values is one thing. Caring what people
think because it's in the interests of your corporation to look good,
and not have people boycotting your products (for environmental issues
perhaps, as many corporations now realize consumers care about this
and shape their buying habits accordingly) or bringing legal action to
bear against a group for corporate malpractice is another. Simple
marketing and protection of corporate interests, and the raison de'tre
of corporate decision making, which overrides personal/group moral
codes.


text:
On Nov 22, 9:19 am, PaulHammond <[email]> wrote:

It was merely a response clarifying the nature of what is meant by
'association' (so also above , and the right to fairly scrutinize an
'association', be it in a charity/NGO or member of a political body.
What does this place have to do with scrutiny of charities? Let's just
say it's nice to get a bit of a picture of how certain people/groups
react.

 We're an internet chat group - if you convince

You can change your minds, can't you? It would make it more difficult
to write-off critics as insane and paranoid delusional, wouldn't it?

Aww, bless. If only it were that simple. And who's 'spam fest' (I just
love how you attempt to use that term) are you supporting, Paul?

You know what? To people observing the behavior of certain parties on
this board (and the organizations it discusses), that behavior seems
far more suspect than Wahid's. And if they're so suspicious, why don't
you just ignore them and get on with something different? Surely you
don't have to come and attack all these suspicious 'wild and crazy'
items of 'spam'?


text:
On Nov 20, 9:59 pm, "All Bad" <[email]>
wrote:

No, maybeiam, is like something between Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Johnny
Cochran, Naomi Wolfe and Susan Faludi merged into one person. How's
that for a combination?

BTW quite interesting how now that the election is over, Pat KKKohli
begins to regurgitate the propaganda of the ultra-rightwing
Repuglinazi establishment spewed against President-Elect Barack
HUSSEIN Obama during the campaign. Bill Ayers & the Weatherman =
Counter-Establishment heroes with cajones!

Isn't your cult's suck-up-to-politicians-we-canvassed-against-during-
the-campaign tactic (like with Rudd down here whom the bahaim were
actively told here to vote against in 2007) not effective at the
moment? Not to worry. Hillary Clinton is taking State. You will have
an ear again, albeit no longer in the White House ;-)

W


text:
On Nov 23, 12:53 am, "All Bad" <[email]>
wrote:

No, it doesn't, because there is a world of moral difference between
the corruption and orchestrated corporate genocide of Big Money in the
Global South and what the Weathermen were up to.

W


text:
On Nov 23, 10:20 am, "Finnegan's Wake"
<[email]> wrote:

No problem, as your acceptance of my critique is entirely irrelevant
in the broader scheme of things. It is also worth noting that I fully
understand the difference between preliminary evidence, and further
evidence which arises from such preliminary evidence, once thorough
investigations are undertaken. Sometimes, the way people react to
preliminary evidence (and those presenting it) is very illuminating in
itself.

He is a noted merchant of something though- as I have seen for
myself.

I wouldn't worry about that. I conduct all my research very, very
carefully, and illumined I have been, and will continue to be. And
ultimately, it may not matter that certain posters round here regard
this person in the manner you have described above.

I'm sure he'll be devastated.


subject:
bahaim tactics & techniques Re: Tahirih Justice Center-Association
	with Anti-NGO/anti-environmentalist corporations

text:
On Nov 23, 10:20 am, "Finnegan's Wake"
<[email]> wrote:

5. Next they relate mental instability and insanity to the exposer
[i.e. shoot the messenger]

BAHAIM Tactics & Techniques

"Slanderous Vilification" = The Baha'i Technique - Ad Hominem, Libel,
Slander, Demonize, Scapegoat, Ostracize, Shun, Banish, Backbite,
Defame, Vilify, Discredit, Smear, Revile, Suppress, Attack, Bully,
Intimidate, Threaten, Malign, Blackball, Deceive, Coerce, Silence,
Harass... etc., etc....  CAUTION NON-BAHAIS

1. As far as possible they hold back from responding
2. Then they claim no knowledge [of the given issue] by feigning
ignorance
3. After the exposer has exposed they will try to divert to secondary
and totally peripheral and irrelevent side-issues
4. The exposer is then painted as someone with an axe to grind,
biased, deluded (while they, the bahaim, still have not responded to
the main issue exposed)
5. Next they relate mental instability and insanity to the exposer
[i.e. shoot the messenger]
6. Then, the last tactic, is to wheel out several dubious personas on
the scene who claim to be neutral non-bahai observers who then begin
attacking the exposer as well as the issue exposed and supporting the
bahais and their issues as so-called non-bahais


text:
[email] wrote:

You'd have to do something more convincing than support Nima's spam
because he asked you to to convince me.

My friends don't operate that way.  How many people can you see around
here whose response to criticism of their long, hardly-digested
messages is to repost exactly the same message without comment or
meaningful response?

I've given a response to Jim's message regarding "why I post here" on
another thread.  The folks around here know me.

We don't know YOU yet, beyond your Nima meat-puppeting tendency.


text:
On Nov 24, 12:59 am, PaulHammond <[email]> wrote:

LOL! That is hillarious! Truly.

BAHAIM Tactics & Techniques

"Slanderous Vilification" = The Baha'i Technique - Ad Hominem, Libel,
Slander, Demonize, Scapegoat, Ostracize, Shun, Banish, Backbite,
Defame, Vilify, Discredit, Smear, Revile, Suppress, Attack, Bully,
Intimidate, Threaten, Malign, Blackball, Deceive, Coerce, Silence,
Harass... etc., etc....  CAUTION NON-BAHAIS

1. As far as possible they hold back from responding
2. Then they claim no knowledge [of the given issue] by feigning
ignorance
3. After the exposer has exposed they will try to divert to secondary
and totally peripheral and irrelevent side-issues
4. The exposer is then painted as someone with an axe to grind,
biased, deluded (while they, the bahaim, still have not responded to
the main issue exposed)
5. Next they relate mental instability and insanity to the exposer
[i.e. shoot the messenger]
6. Then, the last tactic, is to wheel out several dubious personas on
the scene who claim to be neutral non-bahai observers who then begin
attacking the exposer as well as the issue exposed and supporting the
bahais and their issues as so-called non-bahais


text:
On Nov 24, 1:03 am, PaulHammond <[email]> wrote:

I'll do it.

Paul Hammond <pahammond@...>
Date: Sun Apr 3, 2005  3:18 am
Subject: More on Shoghification (was Re: To Larry/Karen)  paulhammond2
 Offline
 Send Email

I recall hearing a serious conversation on whether it was breaking the
fast to swallow
a bit of toothpaste if you were cleaning your teeth after the sun came
up - that was
years ago when I used to read soc.religion.bahai, back when I'd first
discovered how
fascinating the internet was back in 1994. ***I was still fasting
myself
in those days...***

Anyway - this links back into the conversation we were having about
Shoghi,
because I think this micro-management goes back to his days. It was
back in
his time that people used to write to him asking him to pronounce on
the
"Baha'iness" of every little minor detail of their lives - which I
guess
was when
he started to get his secretaries to write replies to all these people
who
wanted reassurance from the top that Baha'u'llah thought everything
they
did
was AOK.

Now, as to whether Shoghi really wanted to be spending his time
offering
this kind of guidance or not is a moot point - but if he didn't, he
should
have been much more clear about telling everyone that these sort of
minor things were "between the believer and God", and he couldn't
tell them much, except that God didn't particularly care about these
piddling little details. But he didn't do that, he set people to
pronouncing
about whether the tiny amount of alcohol in vanilla cake flavourings
broke the Baha'i non-drinking law or not.

So, the people at the top of the top-down faith today are really
following
in the precedent set by Shoghi, and those believers that are
petitioning
the UHJ to pronounce on the correct Baha'i angle of adjustment to
their TV screens just think that if Shoghi would tell people about
these things then so should the UHJ.

Paul


author: All Bad

subject: Re: Tahirih Justice Center-Association with Anti-NGO/anti-environmentalist corporations

text:
"PaulHammond" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...
On 21 Nov, 05:28, [email] wrote:

PH:
That's EXACTLY what you are doing!

PH:
The only piece of actual fact you've cast at the TJC is "hey - they
take donations from these people, and I say these people are dodgy"

PH:
To be honest, I find it difficult to take seriously that you REALLY
think that Sony is evil, and we should all stop buying their
electronic products right now.  Electronics is hardly the dirtiest
industry in the world.  Your evidence from this thread suggests to me
that they are a firm which takes their image with environmentalists
seriously.  I mean, they seem to really care what rating they get in
the Greenpeace poll of good guys that you're talking about.

Ah, come on!  Anyone giving money to a bahhoooooveyeyeyeyeyey is dirty as
the millenium is long.  That is axiomatic.  Right? What else do you need to
know?

- All Bad

PH:
If they were *really* Evil as you try to suggest, surely they wouldn't
care how many rivers they polluted, how many children in China worked
in their factories, or what people at Greenpeace think of them.

Paul


author: Finnegan's Wake

text:
<[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...
We're an internet chat group - if you convince

You can change your minds, can't you? It would make it more difficult
to write-off critics as insane and paranoid delusional, wouldn't it?

FW

I haven't made my mind up about the TJC.  I will however describe "critics
as insane and paranoid delusional" if they fail to be accurate in their
accusations and fail to provide evidence by way of substantiation.  To date
you have not provided satisfactory evidence that would allow of my accepting
your crtique of TJC as being valid.

Aww, bless. If only it were that simple. And who's 'spam fest' (I just
love how you attempt to use that term) are you supporting, Paul?

FW

Paul is not a noted merchant or dispenser of spam whereas the individual,
that he has named, is.

You know what? To people observing the behavior of certain parties on
this board (and the organizations it discusses), that behavior seems
far more suspect than Wahid's. And if they're so suspicious, why don't
you just ignore them and get on with something different? Surely you
don't have to come and attack all these suspicious 'wild and crazy'
items of 'spam'?

FW

There is no compulsion but this is an open newsgroup to which anybody can
contribute.  It is rather difficult to ignore the individual that you have
identified by a pseudonym that he claims is a name adopted by him in an
appropriate legal exercise, when his posts, on occasion, have been highly
insulting, mendacious and replete with crude, subtle and not so-subtle
threats of violence against persons who have dared express disagreement with
his views.

It would illumine your mind were you to research his posting history under
the many pseudonyms that he utilises.  Perhaps then you might understand the
fact that most regular posters around here regard him as being both nasty
and entirely devoid of credibility.

FYI I have now consigned that individual to the plonk tank - I no longer
respond to his posts.


text:
"Sock-Puppet'ullah" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...

I did not intend to seriously suggest that MaybeIAm101 was Barack Obama.  I
intended to suggest that a) baseless accusations were easy, and should not
be confused with evidence of the thesis being asserted, and b) even so, the
associations are often independent of other attributes - Exxon Mobile does
what it does regardless of whether or not charities accept its checks, just
as Senator Obama worked with Ayers on eduction in Chicago, regardless of
Ayers prior Wetherman activities from 25 to 35 years prior.  Does that help?

Here is an accusation that you might try parrotting as you google various
names with "Baha'i":
http://2164th.blogspot.com/2008/07/citizen-of-world-barack-obama-bahaist.html

- All Bad


text:
"Sock-Puppet'ullah" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...

It was not about the Weathermen.

- All Bad


text:
<[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...
On Nov 23, 10:20 am, "Finnegan's Wake"
<[email]> wrote:

No problem, as your acceptance of my critique is entirely irrelevant
in the broader scheme of things.

FW
But not if it is symptomatic of a broader approach - in other words, more
accept my approach than your blanket condemnation of the TJC on a paltry
evidence base.  Supposing the IRS declined to mount an investigation or if
it did mount an investigation yet found nothing blameworthy, would not that
leave you looking like right pillocks .... or would it just be another part
of the great conspiracy?

It is also worth noting that I fully
understand the difference between preliminary evidence, and further
evidence which arises from such preliminary evidence, once thorough
investigations are undertaken. Sometimes, the way people react to
preliminary evidence (and those presenting it) is very illuminating in
itself.

FW
Of course it is.  Some people approach a situation in a fair fashion - they
assume innocence unless or until guilt is proven and they sift evidence so
as to differentiate between it and assertion.

He is a noted merchant of something though- as I have seen for
myself.

FW

Yet another of those things that illiminati such as you see but which are
hidden from we mere mortals.

I wouldn't worry about that. I conduct all my research very, very
carefully,

FW
I shall take your word for that even though I have seen no evidence with
which to underpin your claim

and illumined I have been, and will continue to be.

FW
So long as you pay your electricity bill

And
ultimately, it may not matter that certain posters round here regard
this person in the manner you have described above.

FW
It certainly does not matter to him.  In my view, however, if he is trying
to enlist support or build a constituency that accepts and promulgates his
viewpoint, he's going the wrong way about it.  I really cannot see how he
hopes to destroy Bahaism unless he gets a lot of support.  The only thing he
does is make Bahaism look good ... and that really pisses off people who
don't like it and would like to see it radically altered.

I'm sure he'll be devastated.

FW
Oh surely not!  Such as I would not or could not dent his arrogance ... or
even his ignorance.


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On Thu, 9 Sep 2010 16:51:48 -0700, "Mike Painter"
<[email]> wrote:

So does my cat.


author: Jared

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On Sep 9, 9:13ï¿½pm, raven1 <[email]> wrote:

People claim that wolves do too.


author: bpuharic

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On Thu, 09 Sep 2010 21:13:57 -0400, raven1
<[email]> wrote:

my cat's worse. she doesn't use her litter box


author: J. J. Lodder

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
raven1 <[email]> wrote:

Nothing wrong with kiling off surplus prey.
It's only human puritanism that everthing must be of some use,
and that waste is sinful.

Jan


author: Cory Albrecht

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
Jared wrote, on 2010-09-10 04:38:

House cats do that, but wild ones don't and I don't believe the feral
ones do it very much, either. Naïvely, it appears to correlate with how
well fed the cat is so as to play with the prey rather than eat it.

As such I am skeptical of wolves leaving prey uneaten.


author: Will in New Haven

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On Sep 10, 4:38ï¿½am, Jared <[email]> wrote:

Killing more prey than they can eat isn't _common_ among wolves but
you have to remember that they do some killing that isn't prey. The
general rule when they encounter coyotes, for instance, is complete
and utter slaughter of any that they can catch and they are faster and
have more endurance, so they catch lots of them. Some wolf packs or
family groups are comparably lax about this but it's pretty common and
they don't eat coyotes much. Then there were the bears on Denali that
kept getting too close to a den where some wolves were raising puppies
(calling them "cubs" is silly) and the wolves killed the bears or at
least one of them and didn't eat them. And they will kill dogs and not
eat them as well.


author: William Morse

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
J. J. Lodder wrote:

Most of the examples in response to this have to do with either cats
practicing hunting when their population has been enhanced beyond the
natural carrying capacity by human feeding. or animals eliminating close
  competitors.

But regarding your point on waste, Lotka pointed out a long time ago
that the optimum production occurred when 50% of the potential energy
was wasted. In natural ecosystems this creates a situation in which the
energy wasted by the organisms at a high level gets utilized as an input
for organisms at a lower level, which in turn produce a waste that can
be used as a further input at a lower level.

Humans have proven quite good at occupying diverse niches. One wonders
if the caste system in India developed out of humans creating a way to
take advantage of Lotka's law to occupy a number of different niches and
thereby increase their population density.

Yours,

Bill Morse


author: Paul J Gans

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
J. J. Lodder <[email]> wrote:

Animals that expend hard-won energy for no purpose are not
nearly the most fit for their environment.

Cats and some other animals appear to do that, but what they
do has survival value.  They are keeping in hunting practice.


author: Kermit

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On Sep 10, 5:52ï¿½am, [email] (J. J. Lodder) wrote:

Waste is sinful for anyone who's ever been truly hungry.

"Killing off surplus prey" might be actually killing off a prey
species to extinction. Humans nearly did this with American bison when
we showed up with guns. The shrimp may have a behavior that was
advantageous where they came from but will be detrimental to them in
their (possibly temporary) new home.

When we killed by running our prey down in packs while carrying spears
there was little danger in overhunting, so there was no pressure to
evolve any checks on that behavior.

Kermit


author: SkyEyes

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On Sep 12, 9:23ï¿½pm, Cory Albrecht <[email]> wrote:

And it happens alot when a mother cat has a litter of kittens
beginning to wean away from her and eat solid food.  She'll bring home
live prey - a mousie, for instance - and when she has the kittens'
undivided attention, she'll bat the poor wee thing around quite a bit
before dispatching it.  Humans tend to think of that as "playing with"
or "torturing" prey, but it's actually Mom teaching the fuzzballs
their mouse-moves.

As am I.  I've seen a number of wolf kills; they strip the bones
mighty damn clean.

Brenda Nelson, A.A.#34
BAAWA Knight
EAC Professor of Feline Thermometrics and Cat-Herding
skyeyes [email]


author: Vend

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On 13 Set, 06:23, Cory Albrecht <[email]> wrote:

House cats have been artificially selected to act as pest control.


author: Dick C.

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
Will in New Haven <[email]> wrote in
news:[email]:

Lions kill Cheetahs whenever they find them, without eating them.


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
Paul J Gans <[email]> wrote:

What gives you the strange idea that animals
need to be 'the most fit' for their environment?

Jan


author: Free Lunch

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On Fri, 10 Sep 2010 16:31:45 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans <[email]>
wrote in talk.origins:

And while cats are not hunting, they can outnap anything.


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
Kermit <[email]> wrote:

And no need to.
In general, predators can't kill off
a prey species they are dependent upon.
They'll starve themselves first.
Hunting to extinction (by accident)
is possible only for unimportant species
that the predator doesn't depend on,

Jan


author: cassandra

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On Sep 10, 10:24ï¿½am, Kermit <[email]> wrote:

Driving a prey species to local extinction is selectively
disadvantageous, and so is a temporary phenomenon.  Ultimately a
balance must be struck between predator and prey otherwise both will
perish.  That's part of survival of the fittest vs. survival of the
strongest.


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
Vend <[email]> wrote:

Not really. The cats selected themselves.
Controlled cat breeding
(for colours etc., not for pest control)
is a recent phenomenon,

Jan


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On Sep 11, 10:49ï¿½am, "Dick C." <[email]> wrote:

And Lions and Hyenas kill each other, generally the Lions don't eat
the Hyenas. And both of them kill Leopards when they can, and the
Lions don't eat them. And every major predator kills Cheetahs and only
the Hyenas eat them. I suppose one could add that a big Leopard who
catches a Hyena alone would kill it and not eat it.


author: Steven L.

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
"J. J. Lodder" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]:

As far as we know,
Only Homo Sapiens worries about the long term survival of his species.
IOW, only Homo Sapiens is truly neurotic.

-- Steven L.


author: Christopher Denney

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On Sep 11, 4:34ï¿½am, [email] (J. J. Lodder) wrote:

What gives you the strange idea that it's a strange idea?


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
Free Lunch <[email]> wrote:

Up to 20 out of 24 hours.
Good practice, saves energy.

Why has humankind never learned to do the same?

Jan


author: Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
J. J. Lodder wrote:

Which for us would be... most, or all.  We can get by on fruit, roots,
nuts, etc.  (I suppose we ultimately wipe those out too, or nearly...)

<http://www.mathscareers.org.uk/viewItem.cfm?cit_id=382963>
includes a description of the classic model of rabbits and foxes:
effectively the foxes run out of rabbits before the last rabbits are
actually killed, so the foxes mostly starve, then the rabbits recover.

But this topic reminds me of a story from the _QI_ programme which
seems to be yet another one one rebutted, as here:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephens_Island_Wren>

"The Stephens Island Wren was long remembered in local mythos as the
only known species to be entirely wiped out by a single living being,
namely the lighthouse keeper's cat. However, this belief was
erroneous; while this cat did kill one of the last birds seen, a few
more specimens were obtained in the following years, by which time the
island also hosted numerous feral cats."

The whole of Australia seems to be liable to go the same way, we hear.


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On Sep 11, 8:43ï¿½am, [email] (J. J. Lodder) wrote:

So you disagree with Malthus?


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
cassandra <[email]> wrote:

Not both.
The predators will go extict
before the last prey animals have been caught.

In particular, big predators at the end of a food chain
(such as Megalodon) are very vulnerable to fluctuations
which drive down the numbers of their prey, temporarily,

Jan


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On 13 Set, 11:35, [email] (J. J. Lodder) wrote:

But cats which were better at killing rodents, and showing off with
humans, received food and care, increasing their fitness.


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On 11 Set, 18:48, Will in New Haven <[email]>
wrote:

Lions also kill, but usually don't eat, each others.
(I suppose Leopards do the same).


author: Burkhard

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On 11/09/2010 17:48, Will in New Haven wrote:

Mmmmmh, Hyena steak


author: Ernest Major

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
In message
<[email]>,
Christopher Denney <[email]> writes
They only have to be fit enough - evolution is meliorising process, not
an optimising process.

On the other hand one expects that animals that expend hard-won energy
for no purpose will be outcompeted by their conspecifics that don't do
that.

On the gripping hand one should be cautious of concluding that animals
are expending hard-won energy for no purpose.


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
Christopher Denney <[email]> wrote:

It's a leftover from the days of belief in progress.
There is no need at all to be most fit.
It suffices to be not less fit that the competition.

Jan


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
J. J. Lodder wrote:

I tried, my boss complained.  "Personal development policy", my ass.


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On Sep 11, 5:34ï¿½am, [email] (J. J. Lodder) wrote:

Because we don't have some insane other species catering to our every
whim?


author: Mark Isaak

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On Sat, 11 Sep 2010 20:29:05 +0200, J. J. Lodder wrote:

Not necessarily.  The prey might be killed first by another predator.  Or
the predator might survive on other prey.  Or the reduced numbers of prey
might make them vulnerable to extinction from any of a variety of other
environmental impacts.


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On Sep 11, 2:29ï¿½pm, [email] (J. J. Lodder) wrote:

You are quite correct.  I overstated my case and used extinction in a
confusing way.  What I have in mind is what happens with several
species whose numbers fluctuate dramatically and episodically, such as
with the canadian lynx.  I understand it happens most commonly with
predators specialized to specific prey, or when the ecology lacks
diversity.  In these cases, there are times when the number of prey
become so low, that it takes more energy for the predator to find prey
than it gets from hunting them.  At that point, as far as the predator
is concerned, the prey might as well be extinct, even though there
remain a few lucky individuals left undiscovered.  Perhaps you know of
a word that better fits what I mean.


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On Sep 13, 2:20ï¿½am, Vend <[email]> wrote:

When lions kill each other, it's usually outside males taking over a
pride.  First, the succeeding male(s) kill the patriarch.  Then they
kill his offspring in order to bring the the pride females into
estrus.  Such behavior is echoed in feral housecats.


author: ed wolf

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On 11 Sep., 16:04, Ernest Major wrote:

That wasteful behavior could have at least two reasons:
in its native habitat prey is so scarce killing any possible
prey is reasonable, and will rarely be too much to stomach.
It does not feel hunger, it just hunts and does not eat
because its full already, independently.
Or- as a foreigner to these parts- the shrimp does
not know yet what is tasty. I wonder if the uneaten prey and
the actual food somehow differ. The above mentioned cats
do just that, many of the "mice" they bring home are actually
shrews, something a well fed cat does not eat. If either of
these reasons are valid, evolution will put an end to that
waste of energy , I wonder how fast.
regards
ed


author: J. J. Lodder

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc [email]
<[email]> wrote:

Asimov wrote that going to sleep with your forehead on the keys
(and having to see your boss with the imprint still fresh)
does help to convince him,

Jan


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
cassandra <[email]> wrote:

No need to. For hunter gatherers 4 hours a day
is more than enough to gather all the necessary food.

Jan


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On Sep 11, 2:29ï¿½pm, [email] (J. J. Lodder) wrote:

I am responding to your statement that there is no need to evolve
checks on the behavior of hunting out a prey species.  Certainly you
consider as one kind of check the extinction of a predator species as
a result of a Mathusian increase in their population beyond the
carrying capacity of their environment?  But extinction by definition
leaves nothing for natural selection to work with.  OTOH a predator
species that evolves a way to live within an environment's capacity is
a better fit than one that overbreeds to extinction.


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
Mark Isaak <[email]> wrote:

All possibe in theory.
Given that the prey animals must outnumber their predators,
they have the odds with them,

Jan


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
cassandra <[email]> wrote:

Hunting herd animals makes it even worse.
Suppose there are only one herd left in all of Europe.
The poor predator is quite unlikely to keep track of them,
or even find them.

Some like it happened in WW II.
Herding ships into convoys was a great succes,
not because convoy could be well defended, (at first)
but because many U-boots came back from patrol
without ever having seen something to shoot at.

Jan


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
cassandra <[email]> wrote:

The females will kill stray females too.

There usually is more than one of them.

Really?
I don't think cats have the ability to kill each other,
usually,

Jan


author: Geode

subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On Sep 11, 7:29ï¿½pm, [email] (J. J. Lodder) wrote:

This can be true in the best season of the year.
Geode
.


subject: Re: We are not alone

text:
On Mon, 13 Sep 2010 11:35:48 +0200, J. J. Lodder wrote:

My recollection is that it is uncommon for either predator or prey to
drive themselves or each other to extinction without something else going
on.  Typically predators (as distinct from parasites; see below) have
several species of prey.  As the numbers of the favorite prey species
declines, other species become relatively easier for the predator to
hunt, so the predatory pressure on a species drops as their population
drops.  The predators have to work harder, so their population drops too,
but not to zero.

If, however, you get a drought or severe winter or somesuch when the
populations are already low, that could be enough to push any of the
species, predator or prey, to extinction.  Some disturbances, such as an
invasive weed that crowds out an herbivore's normal food, might act
selectively against just one of the species.  It is common for a species'
post-mortem to read something like "habitat fragmentation followed by
drought coupled with disease followed by introduced predators."  Most
species can deal with any one insult; it's when you pile them on that
they succumb.

Parasites tend to be more host-specific, so they are more likely to drive
themselves to extinction (especially local extinction) by decreasing
their prey (i.e. host) population.  However, the parasites that survive
have faced this issue before and found ways of dealing with it, such as
dormancy, not killing the host, alternate hosts, and/or ease of spread.