The spectre of terrorism still stalks the world. Are we paying attention here in Fortress America?
In the United States we've now gone for seven years without a significant terror attack within our borders, and even our forces in Iraq are facing fewer and fewer threats as the Sadrists look for a way out and al Qaeda becomes increasingly marginalized. We hardly even see reports on our news about our forces in Iraq, much less about violence in other parts of the world. East Africa and Israel are old news and hardly attract even the most cursory coverage. The sad truth is that unless it's happening right here at home, our media and our complacent population just don't pay a great deal of attention.…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments126 - Clavos
Dave,
The County Line On Wurzbach Rd. (IH-10) in San Antonio and Tom's Ribs on Nacogdoches = heaven.
I miss that Texas BBQ; it's not the same here...
But on the other hand, you can't get a good lechón asado or palomilla or ropa vieja in San Antonio, either.
127 - STM
Thanks Zedd, we love you too! I've always thought I had a shocker of a melon, but there you go :)
No accounting for taste, but I did tell you I looked like Hazell. They purposely had me looking grumpy in the pic, as the column was originally to be a GOM - Grumpy Old Man.
That's what I am ... they just called it something else.
128 - Ruvy
The silver surfer has made his views on this very plain here.
Stan,
I left a small memento at your site. Nothing hateful or extreme, mind you, but a bit more specific. I can't see how you surf at all. With a mug like yours, I'd imagine the wave splitting to get out of your way.
129 - Ruvy
Glenn,
s it racist to say that it often seems like many whites don't have rhythm (like me), and that blacks do seem to have a talent for singing and rhythm that is generally greater than that found in other races as a whole?
LOL,
You've never seen native Israelis dance here, Glenn. And I'm not talking about something stupid like the hora and other "folk" dances copied from the Slavs, either, the stuff that the Hassidim do.
There is no moderating white Christian culture here to filter (as in distort) the American black culture that is imitated on the dance floor. So Israelis watch American blacks and copy exactly.
130 - STM
Lol. Thanks Ruve. I'm out of the office now without access to that function as I have to put all posted comments up myself. I will post it tomorrow. Depending on what you've said, I may have to be careful ... we have very specific anti-vilification laws administered by community tribunals in various states that appear to go directly against High Court federal rulings on both the actual meaning and the spirit of free speech.
The problem is that if it can be seen in one state where it's OK to make such statements, and seen in another where it's not based on the past record of such tribunals, I may have to edit slightly. I usually put in an explanation, however, and will be guided by someone here who generally lets most of them go through.
Bear in mind that much of this protects your mob from vilification too, which is partlyb how it came about, of course.
The only ones who are exempt are the Poms, who recently complained that use of the term Pom was vilification (British People Against Racial Vilification). The courts have ruled that it is perfectly OK, depending on the context.
For instance, to call someone a "Pommy bastard" in Australia isn't neccessarily vilification. It all depends on how it's delivered, as bastard is a term used to describe Australians too. When my son played rugby, he was a halfback and an English touring team actually asked him to say it louder as they hadn't heard it much on tour, and kept giggling every time. So that's it ... the law makes it official: It's against the law in Australia NOT to rev up Pommies.
I will get to it in the morning old boy and see how we go. Cheers mate.
Cheers mate.
131 - Mark Eden
Glen - ...BUT THE CAVEAT IS that one's personal preferences are to play no part outside one's home - for when found in the workplace or in public, those preferences certainly do become racism.
The separation is not so simple. When one employs a nanny or a maid his home is the workplace. Racism runs deep in our 'family'.
Mark
132 - Dave Nalle
So, based on the last I believe that between them two of our more left-leaning commenters have just admitted that it's racist to be preferential in hiring african americans in the home or in any other workplace. Bravo!
Dave
133 - Clavos
I guess I'll have to fire the half dozen Black guys who work for me maintaining my clients' boats, I certainly don't want to be considered racist. The three white guys will get to keep their jobs, but obviously will have to work a lot harder to get the job done.
134 - Mark Eden
I fear that Dave 'misses' the point. As Zedd has argued convincingly elsewhere, racism is systemic and is not so much based on personal choice.
Bottom line - hire who you want to.
Mark
135 - Cindy D
Dave,
"Dorothy Bolden, who was a maid in Georgia during the 1880s told an interviewer: 'White folks didn't have no feelin' for you. They pretended they did. They had nannies to give their child comfort. That was my name: 'Nanny.' They would teach their children they was better than you. You was givin' them all that love and you'd hear them say, 'You're not supposed to love Nanny, Nanny's a 'nigger.' And they could say it so nasty. Til it would cut your heart out almost and you couldn't say a mumblin' word.'" (Quoted from: The N Word Jabari Asim, p.96)
Dave says: ...you might give them some credit for the progress which they did make and perhaps acknowledge that in context hiring black servants and treating them decently was a step forward.
The word (and the sentiment it reflected) was accepted in 1880. I suppose we should give credit and not damn the people of, say, 1970s Georgia. Who were still wont to call their house cleaners and nannies "niggers." My husband's sister moved to the Atlanta area of Georgia in the early 70s. "Well you do have a 'nigger' don't you?" Ah, those lovely, delicate, white, socially-conscious, southern ladies--we should give them credit. Black nannies says nothing about waning racism. Some racists are pleased to have someone they can look down on around the home.
Cheers to your one grandmother Dave. But it says nothing about racism that every single solitary human being in the whole country wasn't/isn't racist--or blatantly so.
136 - Baronius
I've got a bad feeling about the next four years. The hypersensitivity about race is going to get worse. If you think the racists were racist, wait till you see the anti-racists.
137 - Dave Nalle
Cindy, I'm not sure one anecdotal comment from 20 years after the Civil War applies to the people I was discussing from the 1950s and 1960s. Obviously the situation had changed enormously in the 2 or 3 generations which passed between the era you reference and what I'm talking about.
Hell, they had black nannies during slavery. Perhaps you'd like to set them up as exactly equivalent to black women working in a daycare center in 2008? Don't be ridiculous.
Dave
138 - Glenn Contrarian
Dave -
No, I admitted no such thing. If you'll remember, Dave, I DEFENDED your viewpoint...and I think 'thanks' would have been more apropos than veiled scorn. Of course, I defended you not because I like you or want to 'butter you up', but because that's what I believe.
For those who think my viewpoint is racist, my household currently consists of two Filipinos, one half-Filipino/half-white, one black, one Thai...and me. For five years (up to three years ago) this also included a full-blood Native American. Anyone who wonders about the lack of Hispanic representation should familiarize themselves with the Hispanic influence upon Filipino culture and language. My niece was president of the Spanish National Honor Society.
For the nurses and caregivers who work within my household, this includes two blacks, two whites, and two Filipinos.
I was raised a few miles from a one-time family friend who was the most powerful racist in America for a generation. I've attended an all-white school, and then the very next year attended one that was more than 96% black (the year when 'Roots' came out).
I think I can safely speak with authority when it comes to race...and very, very few people can TRULY say they have no racial preferences for ANY situation, personal, familial, or professional. IMO almost anyone who makes such a naive claim either has never had to make such a decision or is physically blind...or is a liar.
Everyone has personal preferences, and I say such preferences are NOT wrong, so long as it does not concern the workplace or the world outside of one's home.
139 - Zedd
Dave,
You don't know. Ask questions and you will learn.
You are abysmally ignorant about this topic. It's so bad that it's not worth a reply. You are so in a fog and its much too embarrassing to try and get you caught up. Much like trying to explain a basic idea to a teen who is adamant about some dumb notion that is based on their short lifespan, one tends to ignore feeling marginally annoyed about having to converse with the idiot.
My grandmother was a nannie. I know multitudes of nannies. Many of whom have gone on. I really know them, not in a "smile or you wont get paid" sort of way. You are ignorant and sadly naive for a man your age. I keep telling you that you don't know your world. And it's quite clear that you don't want to know it. Have at it. Our reality is immense and you are not equipped to deal with it. A tantrum wouldn't help you cope with it. So yes do live your shallow existence and move on, when the time comes, to the beyond none the wiser. Do continue to spout your childish opinions about, regarding matters of which you have no ability to understand- because you've never asked anyone. Like a teen, you believe you know because you should know. Only that's not enough.
Clavos,
You are off topic. Who said anything about you firing anyone? No one cares.
140 - Zedd
Guys,
Lets forgive Hitler because he is from another era. Really dumb right?
Evil is evil. Compassion and humanity has always been the same. Saying "I gave in to the evil because it was the fad of the day" isn't good enough. IT IS EVIL.
I would have loved to have had a one on one with Dave's grandmother's nannie; the one whose kids got sent to college. Different worlds folks.
141 - Dave Nalle
Zedd, assuming things about other people, their experiences and their beliefs just makes you look foolish. Almost as foolish as suggesting that whether we forgive people from another era or not is meaningful in any way. You can't punish Hitler. He's dead. You can't make up for the racial injustices of other eras. They are over and gone and that's the end of it.
You're too enmired in the assumptions of race and ideology and incapable of looking at these issues in a realistic way. So when challenged you get defensive and throw out insults and get angry at those who challenge your assumptions and demonstrate that you have no real credibility.
Dave
142 - Zedd
Glenn,
Not sure what your point is. You seem to be all over the place. Did you just want to say something about race?
Dave,
Your mean grandma was odd. Blacks have been nannies since they arrived on these shores. Don't talk about history... "professor". Just shush. Black women have been wet nurses let alone nannies. Freed women, slave women.... Next.
143 - Zedd
Dave,
You are a child. Let it go.
144 - Cindy D
Dave,
I'm not sure one anecdotal comment from 20 years after the Civil War applies to the people I was discussing from the 1950s and 1960s. Obviously the situation had changed enormously in the 2 or 3 generations which passed between the era you reference and what I'm talking about.
Had you noticed I went to the trouble of noting the the typical 1970s attitude in the Atlanta area? The 1880 quote was meant to describe the personal anguish of an experience. The later quote was meant to date the same thinking that caused that anguished experience through the 1970s.
145 - Clavos
You are off topic.
And?
Who said anything about you firing anyone?
I did.
No one cares.
How many people did you poll?
146 - Tom deSabla
"I know the names, birth and death dates and locations of every one of my ancestors, direct and indirect, back to the early 1500s."
Maybe you do Clavos, but if instead you were, shall we say, "willfully misrepresenting the truth," it sure wouldn't be the first time. You'll forgive me if I don't risk too much betting on the accuracy of your comments eh?
Nalle, you and your merry band of sycophants are just as irrelevant as ever, and just as wrong.
How about that financial crisis that you all said didn't exist?
And the recession that you said didn't exist?
How about that GM situation? Remember you all said that GM was fine, and its overseas operations would see it through any imagined difficulties?
Ha ha ha
and ole Clavy used non-inflation-adjusted data to claim that U.S. exports were booming?
Ha ha ha.
And when caught, he wouldn't admit it hadn't been adjusted for inflation?
AN "EXPORT FACT SHEET"?
SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO MAKE EXPORTS LOOK BIG?
Please, I'm laughing my rear off here!
Remember how you all said that Ron Paul was an economic ignoramus who didn't know what he was talking about?
Yeah, how's that insult looking now?
Yeah, how are Paul and his lead economic advisor Peter Schiff looking now?
You know Schiff don't you? The guy who wiped the floor with Art Laffer?
Ha ha ha.
Oh, and before I forget, remember how you said that central banking was fine, and how it was really much more "libertarian" than people realized?
Still happy with your "libertarian" people up at the Fed, Dave?
Ha ha ha.
You're all killing me.
***
Hey Pablo!
147 - Tom deSabla
By the way, I don't know why anyone would think Dave Nalle is a terrorism expert, especially given his obvious demonstrated lack of expertise on economic or political matters.
So if I were looking for professional analysis of the Mumbai attacks, I certainly wouldn't turn to Dave Nalle.
I just dropped by to see if anything had changed here at BC. It obviously hasn't. Same idiots, different day.
148 - Ruvy
Told ya Stan,
What I wrote was not extreme at all. I read that long statement from your paper about villification and all that rot, and actually it didn't affect what I wrote.
I know how to watch me pees 'n' queues, yer know. It's what yer do on line in the office for national insurance....
149 - STM
Yeah thanks, Ruve ... ya did good mate.
It's a real issue for us at the moment, although I'm not sure when you weigh it all up that it's all that bad.
But the High Court continually rules on the side of free speech (taking it to be implied under the constitution, where it wasn't written in because it was taken to have always existed under the British laws we inherited), and then these commissions and tribunals mainly administered by the states go the other way.
You can say things, for instance just about anything about lawless jihadists you like, but you have to careful about inciting to violence/hatred - and generalising I find is always dangerous because some of the comments that come in are pretty over the top.
150 - Dave Nalle
I see Tom the Paulbot is back, and just as busy spinning and smearing as ever.
And the recession that you said didn't exist?
Technically we still haven't met the traditional definition of a recession, but that doesn''t mean we don't have economic problems. You're still hampered by simplistic thinking.
How about that GM situation? Remember you all said that GM was fine, and its overseas operations would see it through any imagined difficulties?
I actually said Ford, not GM. And if you bothered to do any research you'd see that Ford's international operations are doing relatively well. If they decide to go bankrupt in the US their overseas operations will carry on unhampered. It's all part of the scam which this bailout represents.
As for the Fed, as I've said before - but I guess it's too complex for your one-dimensional worldview - the problem is no the basic concept of the fed, but how it has been managed. Anything can be mismanaged. It doesn't mean that it's conceptually flawed.
But go on believing that all our problems come from shadowy international conspiracies if that's what keeps you from facing up to the real problems and their real causes. Live in denial in your Alex Jones fantasy world and leave the rest of us to discuss things on the basis of reality.
Dave
151 - Ruvy
Stan,
the High Court continually rules on the side of free speech (taking it to be implied under the constitution, where it wasn't written in because it was taken to have always existed under the British laws we inherited), and then these commissions and tribunals mainly administered by the states go the other way.
Not to change th topic any, but maybe a written amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech in the federal constitution is what you guys down there need. I know that sticks in your craw, but pencil-pushing bureaucrats just don't think like judges and lawyers do. That is the precise problem you describe, mate. For a pencil-pusher, if it ain't written in the rule-book, it ain't there.
152 - Zedd
Clav,
What is wrong with you hijo I mean pops? I hate to admit it but you are funny (sometimes).
153 - STM
I agree Ruvy. They were going to put it up as an amendment to the constitution in 1942. They put a whole lot of other stuff up but not that, once again believing that the right to free speech already existed under law and therefore wasn't needed.
Generally, the high court's rulings have been the final word but we do need a facsimile of the 1st amendment. Nevertheless, I can only think of one case - in Victoria - where people have got into trouble for vilification.
What they said was fairly innocuous too, even if it was a gross generalisation, so it's one too many.
We have a campaign going here at the moment to stop governments and bureaucracies trying to snow the media by withholding facts (by various means).
154 - Marcia Neil
One article listed with the Topix.net website had a comment provided by one of the hotel users, who reported that a sauna had caught fire. References to Muslims can thereby be asertained to be satirical, indicating that either someone did not stoop to make the required safety inspections, or did stoop to dislodge heating components that burned the sauna and other places in the hotel, too. How similar is this hotel fire to other apartment/hotel fires in Paris, France, during past years and do cigarette-smookers figure at all in the destructive scenarios?
155 - Dr Dreadful
Okaaay, Marcia... not really getting the big picture, are you?
Fixating on how the fire started in this situation is a bit like running for cover during the London Blitz and worrying about which particular room of your house the 500lb bomb just landed on.
156 - Dan(Miller)
Doc,
Most respectfully, I think you missed the point. We are unkind to fires, and speak ill of those which cause trivial damage to humanity. They are not like us, and we are grossly prejudiced against them. I don't have the exact figures, but understand that the resources devoted to fighting innocent forest fires in California this year alone could have made a very significant dent in solving serious problems -- the slaughter of innocent cows, pigs and chickens for meat, the sawing off of the heads of helpless broccoli plants; cultivation of the worst carcinogen known to man, tobacco*; the list is endless.
Fires are not inherently bad, and we depend upon them for all sorts of comforts. On the other hand, if innocent fires were the culprit in India, well then we should provide funding to reeducate them.
Dan(Miller)
*puffs enthusiastically on his pipe
157 - Dave Nalle
I have to speak up in defense of Tobacco. It is far from the worst carcinogen known to man and it's getting an unfair rap solely because it is more popular to smoke than things like plywood and fiberglass, both of which would be far more harmful if they were smoked in numbers comparable to cigarettes. You're just jealous.
Dave
158 - Dr Dreadful
Having lived with someone who availed themselves of both substances in truly alarming quantities, give me a heavy smoker over an alcoholic any day.
159 - Cindy D
Technically we still haven't met the traditional definition of a recession, but that doesn''t mean we don't have economic problems. You're still hampered by simplistic thinking.
Dave, watching the curtains aflame, waits until all the exits are blocked before noticing the house is on fire.
Greenspan announced we are in a recession April 2008. Perhaps Dave has a better definition of recession?
160 - Zedd
I think there is one way that we can impact terrorists as individuals.
We know that these guys are not really in the business of holding hostages for demands. They want attention and they mean to die before the day is out. If there is a terrorist attack, it would be better, knowing that if you do nothing you will most likely die (because killing you is the goal), to attack, lash out and insure that at least a portion of you live. Terrorist attacks have been carried out by relatively few people. If it could be understood by all, internationally that the proper protocol when dealing with a terrorist is to jump him, wup him, and then keep him alive so that he wont be martyred.
Not the best answer but it's important to take away the appeal and bullying away from these guys. Kick their butts and humiliate them. - Just a thought. Off course Zulus think a good xxs wuppin is a cure for all illnesses.
161 - Zedd
Except tobacco stinks.
I have to stand in support of all of the powerful ignoramuses of the world. While they cause exponential mounds of destruction all over the globe generation after generation, bless them, they don't know. I think everyone wants to be an ignoramus because they are adorable deep deep down and we all want to be adorable.
Oh I almost forgot a plural for of the word ignoramus could also be spelled i g n o r a m i - a gift for our very own Clav lest he goes climbing into the attic again for his Special Important Big Rare Book of the Wanna be Aristocracy.
Don't tell him we can all google if we want162 - handyguy
The attackers achieved their main goal -- ratcheting up the tension enormously between India and Pakistan.
Why do governments so often play into the hands of terrorists, by doing exactly what the terrorists want them to?
It seems farfetched that anyone in India's government actually believes Pakistan's government backed the attacks. Yet they're fully willing to risk a war over it. [The timing, right before an election, plays into the hands of nationalist Hindu parties as well as the formulaic jingoism of the current government.]
Similarly, bin Laden wanted to goad us into attacking Afghanistan in 2001. He may not have gotten exactly the consequences he wanted, but we're still there, and we're not winning, and our presence continues to provide a very effective recruiting poster for new young jihadists.
I hope the Obama foreign policy team will bring more to the table than answering terrorism with military action, the simple-minded Bush approach that has caused more problems than it has solved. But I will believe it when I see it.
163 - lLumpy
I spell naive H A N D Y G U Y. I find it hard to imagine that there could have nit been some pakistani government involvement in or awareness of the attack. but then I don't live in the fact free zone called obamaland.
164 - handyguy
My point, Lumpy, was that al Qaeda plays us like a violin. Our responses are all too predictable.
Listen in fact to yourself, singing the tune that they composed.
165 - Dr Dreadful
Except tobacco stinks.
Agreed, Zedd, but then so does booze breath...
Seriously, though, as much as I despise the habit of smoking and the smell of cigarettes (although I do enjoy that of cigars and pipe tobacco), alcohol abuse is far worse.
Smokers may be sad tragic bastards, but at least cigarette smoking doesn't produce personality alterations and destructive behavior.
166 - Dave Nalle
Greenspan announced we are in a recession April 2008. Perhaps Dave has a better definition of recession?
Zedd, there is and has until now only been one accepted definition of a recession - two quarters of negative growth in a row. In declaring this situation to be a recession that long-standing definition had to be set aside and new criteria - which I have yet to see defined - used instead.
The reason Greenspan said it in April and the official announcement didn't come until this week is that no one really knows what the new definition of a recession is.
And I'm not saying we're not in a recession. But I will say that the economy is complex enough that it often defines overly generalized concepts like recession.
Dave
167 - Cindy D
Wow,
Zedd, we have to stop dressing alike!
168 - STM
Dave writes: "Smokers may be sad tragic bastards, but at least cigarette smoking doesn't produce personality alterations and destructive behavior."
Hit the nail on the head Dave, except you left the U out of behaviour :)
He's right though, and I'm a sad, tragic bastard who's struggled on and off for years with smoking.
But I don't drink and I hate the smell of booze (especially stale booze). Yet I never tell people they stink of piss, nor histrionically break into fake coughing fits when I'm 2 metres UPWIND of a stinker drinker.
169 - STM
Zedd: "Of course Zulus think a good xxs wuppin is a cure for all illnesses".
The Poms will attest to that. The Zulus gave 'em their very own version of Custer's last stand.
170 - STM
Actually, Doc said that. Sorry Doc ... and how come your not using the Queen's English, old boy.
You've been over there in that central valley WAAAAAAY too long, and as someone else once famously said on this site, "I see no reason why you should stay".
He was right.
Get back to the civilised world, mate.
London, Sydney, Auckland, Toronto ... one of those joints.
171 - Zedd
Doc,
You'll get no argument from me. Whew alcohol can be a bugger bear. I have encountered some intense experiences with very close and dear people in my life. I find it strange that most people are touched by an alcoholic but no one talks about it that much. Having an alcoholic in ones life can be one of the most surreal experiences. The displaced guilt, the vacuous attempts to help, the patching up, the embarrassment, the WORK to fix the endless destruction, the jumbled up lies and trying too make sense of what is real, it's all just much to much for the psyche. No one really talks about it yet this "thing" plays a huge role in a lot of our lives and has since the beginning of time. I've learned that there are very few weird things that happen out of the blue. When someone is off, I don't waist time trying to figure things out because most of the time it's substance abuse (when mental illness is not suspect). What I find REALLY annoying is how shrinks will tell these people that they drink because of a chemical imbalance, end up pushing drugs on to them and causing them to be drug addicts and crazier. I personally think the entire psychiatric industry need STRONG regulation. They are like witch doctors of centuries past. They think they know everything. They realize that the public is not informed about their field so they take on this guru like stance, and most of the time it is quackery. But that's a rant for another day.
172 - Zedd
Hi Cindy,
Just wanted to shout out to my twin.
173 - pablo
146 tom
HEY TOM glad to see ya back buddy. :)
174 - Cindy D
Hiya there Zedd :-)
175 - Ruvy
Now that this comment thread has degenerated to "twins" calling each other out, we can safely say that Americans are not paying attention. The Christmas carols have their brains turned to mincemeat pie, and they couldn't give two shakes of a lamb's tail.
Nobody else (from the States) has written a single peep except to whine that the Moslems in Dearborn were not having prayer vigils.
Darn!
"White" people didn't die in Mumbai, except for a few tourists and a few Jews. Nobody gives a damn about Jews dying and tourists? Americans certainly don't give a damn about Indians dying. And the American vanilla white media doesn't give a damn either.
So, it's as if the whole thing didn't happen.
You don't need biblical prophecies of doom to figure out the fate of a bunch of contented cattle and sheep....