Sunday, March 31st, 2002
Happy Easter
Archive for March, 2002
Friday, March 29th, 2002
Pssst Guess what?
It’s this week’s Friday Five!
1. If you could eat dinner with and “get to know” one famous person (living or dead), who would you choose? Hmmm….that’s a tough one. Jesus. Just to say I sat and ate with Jesus. That would be cool. Also I could probably try and straighten out a lot of the mess done in his name.
2. Has the death of a famous person ever had an effect on you? Who was it and how did you feel? I don’t think so. I mean, when George Harrison died, that sucked. Same with Mother Teresa. Princess Di or JFK Jr. didn’t bother me all that much, I mean, it sucked, but I didn’t cry over it. Harrison sucked because he’s one of the Beatles and as a music fan and a musician you have to respect the group and what they’ve done. He’s part of the foundation of modern music and much of our culture. His death was a great loss. Mother Teresa was horrible because she was such a good person and did so much for those around her. I can’t think of many other public figures who were able to be so wonderful. And that her passing was overshadowed by Princess Di’s really bugged me too.
3. If you could BE a famous person for 24 hours, who would you choose? Wow, that’s a toughy. Probably the President so I could fix a lot of the wrongs I see in the world. Yeah, I’d only have 24 hours, but I’d do what I could.
4. Do people ever tell you that you look like someone famous? Who? Nope, unless shit is famous.
5. Have you ever met anyone famous? A couple folks, I work in DC so I meet politicians all the time. No one really stands out in my head, but there ya go.
Friday, March 29th, 2002
Once again, the shit has hit the fan and is being slung all over the place.
Israeli tanks fire on Arafat headquarters
Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s Ramallah headquarters came under “heavy tank fire” by Israel on Friday. Meanwhile, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades — the military wing of Arafat’s Fatah movement — claimed responsibility for a Friday suicide bombing that killed a supermarket security guard in Jerusalem.
Arafat: ‘I hope I will be a martyr’
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, his headquarters surrounded by Israeli tanks, said Friday that he hopes the ongoing Israeli operation will make him into a martyr.
“They either want to kill me, or capture me, or expel me,” Arafat said, speaking by telephone to Al Jazeera television from his Ramallah headquarters. “I hope I will be a martyr in the Holy Land. I have chosen this path and if I fall, one day a Palestinian child will raise the Palestinian flag above our mosques and churches.”
Bomb carnage in Jerusalem mall
A Palestinian suicide bomber has carried out an attack on a Jewish neighbourhood of West Jerusalem, as Israeli forces launch an attack on Yasser Arafat’s compound in the West Bank.
Mideast conflict on the brink
Hopes for peace in the 18-month-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict were all but extinguished Friday as violence engulfed the region and the two sides stood on the brink of all-out war. Israel declared Yasser Arafat “an enemy” and sent troops into the Palestinian leader’s West Bank headquarters, triggering gunbattles that killed five people. In Jerusalem, dozens were injured when a female suicide bomber blew herself up in a supermarket.
Israeli Police Storm Temple Mount
Israeli police on Friday stormed into the most sensitive religious site in the Holy Land, throwing stun grenades at Palestinian rock-throwers, police said.
Text of Israeli Cabinet’s Statement
Here is the text of the Israeli Cabinet decision released Friday morning after an all-night session to decide on a response to a string of Palestinian attacks:
“The Cabinet convened in special session tonight against the background of a serious escalation in Palestinian terrorism.“The Cabinet approved the principles of a wide-ranging plan of action against Palestinian terrorism.
“Israel will work to defeat the Palestinian terror infrastructure in all its parts and ingredients, and to that end it will conduct a wide-ranging operation to achieve that goal.
“[Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat, who set up a coalition of terror against Israel, is an enemy and at this stage will be isolated.
“The Cabinet approved mobilization of army reserves as a result of the operational requirements.”
And now back to the fun stuff to help you forget…
Drugs Now Legal If User Is Employed
Seeking to “narrow the focus of the drug war to the true enemy,” Congress passed a bill legalizing drug use for the gainfully employed Monday.
“Stockbrokers, lawyers, English professors… you’re not the problem here,” said DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson at a White House press conference. “If you are paying taxes and keeping your yard tidy, we’re not going to hassle you if you come home from a hard day of work and want to enjoy a little pot or blow. But if, on the other hand, you’re one of these lazy, shiftless types hanging out on the street all day looking for your next high, we’re coming after you.”
And what better thing could you be doing this Easter weekend than smiting your subjects?
Another Punch for Copy Protection
A political brawl over mandatory copy protection is about to spread to the U.S. House of Representatives.
A Democratic legislator from the home of the Walt Disney and Warner Bros. studios is drafting a bill to reduce online piracy by implanting strict copy controls in digital devices.
But wait, there’s hope yet!
Ruling bolsters file-traders’ prospects
In a surprise decision, an appeals court in the Netherlands overturned a lower court ruling that had held file-trading company Kazaa BV liable for copyright infringement, saying Kazaa is not responsible for the illegal actions of people using its software. That decision–which still can be appealed to a higher court–was the first anywhere to protect a file-swapping company against copyright liability.
Lecturer takes hammer to corpse exhibit
A university lecturer was so outraged by an exhibition featuring preserved human corpses that he smashed one of the exhibits with a claw hammer.
Geoff Lee, 51, repeatedly hit the exhibit, The Organ Donor, which shows a man holding a liver, after seeing a father showing his five-year-old daughter around the Body Worlds show at the Atlantis Gallery in East London.
The attack follows another on Saturday, just a few hours after the exhibition opened, when a man threw paint on the floor of the gallery and put a blanket over the preserved body of a pregnant woman whose open womb shows an eight-month-old foetus.
Don’t Confuse Fans With Pirates
This year, Universal’s music division plans to use a new copy-protection scheme that excludes its discs from being played at all on “Macs, DVD players, and CD-compatible video game consoles.” This according to Peter Cohen of MacCentral, who also reports that the plan will block discs from being copied to other CDs or being saved to the hard drives of most PCs in the MP3 format. The first disc to get this treatment is More Fast and Furious: Music From and Inspired by the Motion Picture, a title that will live in infamy.
HR256
Encourage the purchase of a submarine to patrol the waters of the Commonwealth and search and destroy all casino riverboats.
Eric Weisstein’s World of Mathematics
The Pimp Institute from Harvard?
Taleban ‘preparing for spring attacks’
The Taleban are reportedly preparing a spring offensive against American forces in Afghanistan, with 300 suicide bombers ready to attack installations.
Among the Reasons God May Temporarily Be Unavailable to Bless America
It does not seem to occur to our suddenly devout nation that the universal prayer for blessing appearing on lawn signs, bumper stickers and shop windows might be theologically offensive, and offensive not just to thoughtful believers but to the One who is being addressed. Herewith, then, some reasons why God may not choose to grant America’s petition…
Thursday, March 28th, 2002
Laxtime looks like a new blog that linked to me off the bat. Rule! Thanks! Go visit this site and help it get started with lots of hits, folks (well, not that I get all that many hits myself, but I do my best).
Thursday, March 28th, 2002
I thought I posted this yesterday but I guess I didn’t.
update - two minutes later I look and realize I did, only I didn’t put a whole lot of story with it. I’m gonna leave both posts, though, just to emphasize that you all need to read this.
In the late morning of March 16, 1988, an Iraqi Air Force helicopter appeared over the city of Halabja, which is about fifteen miles from the border with Iran. The Iran-Iraq War was then in its eighth year, and Halabja was near the front lines. At the time, the city was home to roughly eighty thousand Kurds, who were well accustomed to the proximity of violence to ordinary life. Like most of Iraqi Kurdistan, Halabja was in perpetual revolt against the regime of Saddam Hussein, and its inhabitants were supporters of the peshmerga, the Kurdish fighters whose name means “those who face death.”
A young woman named Nasreen Abdel Qadir Muhammad was outside her family’s house, preparing food, when she saw the helicopter. The Iranians and the peshmerga had just attacked Iraqi military outposts around Halabja, forcing Saddam’s soldiers to retreat. Iranian Revolutionary Guards then infiltrated the city, and the residents assumed that an Iraqi counterattack was imminent. Nasreen and her family expected to spend yet another day in their cellar, which was crude and dark but solid enough to withstand artillery shelling, and even napalm.
“At about ten o’clock, maybe closer to ten-thirty, I saw the helicopter,” Nasreen told me. “It was not attacking, though. There were men inside it, taking pictures. One had a regular camera, and the other held what looked like a video camera. They were coming very close. Then they went away.”
Nasreen thought that the sight was strange, but she was preoccupied with lunch; she and her sister Rangeen were preparing rice, bread, and beans for the thirty or forty relatives who were taking shelter in the cellar. Rangeen was fifteen at the time. Nasreen was just sixteen, but her father had married her off several months earlier, to a cousin, a thirty-year-old physician’s assistant named Bakhtiar Abdul Aziz. Halabja is a conservative place, and many more women wear the veil than in the more cosmopolitan Kurdish cities to the northwest and the Arab cities to the south.
The bombardment began shortly before eleven. The Iraqi Army, positioned on the main road from the nearby town of Sayid Sadiq, fired artillery shells into Halabja, and the Air Force began dropping what is thought to have been napalm on the town, especially the northern area. Nasreen and Rangeen rushed to the cellar. Nasreen prayed that Bakhtiar, who was then outside the city, would find shelter.
Thursday, March 28th, 2002
Testing this neat option from w.bloggar that lets me post to multiple blogs so I can post to J’s Notes and Blog of Doom at the same time! Let’s see if it works.
Thursday, March 28th, 2002
What Is It?
I’ve seen this plaque embedded in road intersections all over Philadelphia and NYC while others have reported seeing it in other states. I had originally thought them to be constructed from some kind of thick metal but Jared E Danziger wrote with another idea:
These plaques are, I think, made of plastic which is somehow baked onto the street. Either that or they are painted on with the paint that is used for roads (to make dividing lines). I think they are plastic though because of the fact that it is a negative image that is left (what would suspend the letters in space if it were an ordinary stencil) (although there are fine lines sometime between lines of text). Unfortunately whatever they are made of is delicate, especially around the edges of the letters and tends to break apart after a while.
But what is it? What does it mean?
–From an email message dated February 17, 1996
Yeah, there’s one of these on the corner of 15th and I right outside my work and I’ve always wondered what the hell it was…
Militant Palestinian group rejects Arab peace overture to Israel, vows to continue attacks
Hamas, one of the militant groups at the vanguard of the Palestinian uprising, on Thursday rejected the Arab peace initiative to Israel and vowed to continue “all kinds of resistance.”
GI Photo Joe
World War II Combat Photographer
Lyle Lovett trampled by bull
Country singer Lyle Lovett was in good condition after surgery to repair his right leg, broken when he was trampled by a bull while trying to help an uncle who had just been flipped by the animal.
Oh and now it was aliens that zapped the Pentagon. Suuuuuuuure….
Guess the Name
Here are the rules: Think of the name of a TV Show or Movie. I’ll try to guess which one you are thinking of using simple yes/no questions. If you’re not sure of the answer to a question, answer “No”.
Mmmmm… Milla
Murder Incorporated
Denver Sculptor’s Serial Killer Action Figures Bringing in Profits and Raising Ire
Welcome to the Wacky Packages web universe.
Authorities halt car dealer’s ‘peep show’
Authorities pulled the plug on a car dealership?s ?peep show? after they discovered its owners were letting people pick up chicks.
It’s not really as cool as it sounds.
By the way go check out Random Drivel’s new kick ass look!
Pooh Goes Apeshit
Everything was rather quiet in the hundred acre wood. The trees whispered to each other as the wind rustled their leaves. Under a large oak tree, there lived Pooh bear. From inside Pooh’s house, there came a steady bang…bang… bang!, that was making his honey jars rattle on the sideboard. The light came through the window, and in the evening sun Pooh raised the axe once more and brought it down on the tattered remains of Christopher Robin.
Make your own Ninja Mask In 7 easy steps!
Where can you find Free Jesus Flash Animations for your Site? Funny you should ask…
Stone The Ducks WOO as of 8:50am EST I have the day’s highest score!
WAAAAAY back when I linked to a site about these guys who were conducting the wholeSchrödinger?s Cat experiment. Well, it seems they had to close up shop thanks to a pending lawsuit. Wow.
And speaking of old posts I’m sure I linked to this before, but just incase or as a reminder, you must visit the Captain Safety Site. It could very well save your life.
And remember to visit Lee’s Useless Super-Hero Generator to get your super dooper hero name!
And visit the Illuminated Site of the Week.
take free enneagram test
Wednesday, March 27th, 2002
Oh no… Actor Dudley Moore Dies at 66
Actor Dudley Moore, an unlikely Hollywood heart-throb in “10″ and “Arthur” as a cuddly pipsqueak whose charm melted female hearts, died Wednesday at his home in New Jersey, a spokeswoman said. He was 66.
WOO! The Civic Hybrid will be in show rooms VERY soon. I’m all over that like stink on rice. Or is it white on poop? Anyways, I want, I will get, I don’t have much of a choice, my car’s quickly dying on me and will leave me stranded if I don’t act quickly. It’s out to get me. Damn Ford…
Watered down piss is beaten out by even more water downed piss to be the official hangover of the Super Bowl (says the guy who drinks Miller Light)
COMMENT & ANALYSIS: Abe Lincoln and the internet pirates: The Great Emancipator’s forthright defence of intellectual property rights holds true today, argues Michael Eisner
Abraham Lincoln would have loved the internet. But he would have hated the internet pirates who commandeer its high-speed circuits to steal.
Lincoln’s affection for the internet would have stemmed from its power to unite. America’s 16th president fought to hold the United States together. Nearly a century and a half later, he would have been thrilled to see the web make it possible for citizens from Key West to Kauai to share an enormous range of news, information and knowledge. But he undoubtedly would have disdained those who go to sites with names such as Gnutella, Madster, BearShare, Limewire, Swaptor, Morpheus or Rapigator to pilfer the intellectual property of others.
Uh-huh, sure, Mike.
Rip-Off Report
Victim of a consumer Rip-off? Want justice! The Rip-off Report is the nationwide consumer reporting web site to enter complaints about companies and individuals who are ripping people off. Unlike the Better Business Bureau, the bad business bureau’s Rip Off Report does not hide stories of “satisfied” complaints. All complaints remain public to create a working history for that company, unedited.
America’s e-bombs are killing innocent people in the Third World
Just think how bad it would be if people in wealthier, more developed parts of the world exported their garbage to Virginia.
Oh, yeah, that already happens. (Thanks, New York.)
But just think how terrible it would be if that garbage were laden with toxic substances such as lead, mercury, and cancer-causing cadmium–and all of it were dumped in fields, ponds, wetlands, irrigation ditches, and along riverbanks, where it then contaminated local soil and water.
If you were living in Guilu, China, you wouldn’t have to imagine this scenario–it would be reality for you. And like many people in that impoverished village, you might be eking out an existence scavenging components from thousands of discarded electronic machines in ways that cause lead poisoning in your children and an increased risk of cancer for you, your loved ones, and your neighbors.
Credit card company rejects application of man ? 3,000 times
If they?ve told him ?no? once, they?ve told him 3,000 times.
A credit card company sent nearly 3,000 pieces of mail to a Telford man last week, apparently all copies of the same letter denying him an account.
Label This
A new citizens’ labelling movement is exposing the genetic experiment in our food.
Did you know that over 70% of processed foods in North America contain untested genetically engineered (GE) ingredients? None of these are even labelled. While governments from China and Russia to Japan and Europe require mandatory labelling of GE food American consumers are left unprotected and are eating in the dark.
In this site you will find practical tools and advice to help you take action. You will be able to identify and expose these risky foods and label them yourself, exercising the consumer’s right to know.
Past Due
Everyone In Silico is set in a world even more corporatized than our own, and so I’ve mentioned a lot of brands. I felt silly about giving companies free advertising, so I invoiced ten of them them for product placement. I got a few responses (though none with enclosed cheques) so once the invoices were past due, I wrote follow-up letters.
The father of modern spam speaks
On April 12, 1994, Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, two immigration lawyers from Arizona, flooded the Internet with a mass mailing promoting their law firm’s advisory services.
In doing so, this unknown husband and wife team changed the Internet with one keystroke.
The Great Terror
In northern Iraq, there is new evidence of Saddam Hussein’s genocidal war on the Kurds?and of his possible ties to Al Qaeda.
Wednesday, March 27th, 2002
Google Persuader In response to Mike Sanders’s challenge on Keep Trying:
At the Oscars, Halle Berry decided to get into some bizzar three way with Elin Nordegren and Jennifer Connelly while Alex Baroni had to go and ruin the whole thing by shouting “OSTERN!” and thuroughly confusing everyone through passover, except for Ali G and Celine Dion who were busy doing other things and missed the whole fiasco.
Wednesday, March 27th, 2002
You’d never guess the author of this one…
Keep Big Brother’s Hands Off The Internet
The… administration would like the Federal government to have the capability to read any international or domestic computer communications. The FBI wants access to decode, digest, and discuss financial transactions, personal e-mail, and proprietary information sent abroad — all in the name of national security. To accomplish this, President Clinton would like government agencies to have the keys for decoding all exported U.S. software and Internet communications.
This proposed policy raises obvious concerns about Americans’ privacy, in addition to tampering with the competitive advantage that our U.S. software companies currently enjoy in the field of encryption technology. Not only would Big Brother be looming over the shoulders of international cyber-surfers, but the administration threatens to render our state-of-the-art computer software engineers obsolete and unemployed.
Is he just ASKING for us to bomb the crap out of him?
- Saddam Pays 25K for Palestinian Bombers
Saddam Hussein is paying $25,000 to the relatives of Palestinian suicide bombers ? a $15,000 raise much welcomed by the bombers’ families.
- Saddam stokes war with suicide bomber cash
The hall was packed and the intake of breath was audible as a special announcement was made to the war widows of the West Bank - Saddam Hussein would pay $US25,000 ($47,000) to the family of each suicide bomber as an enticement for others to volunteer for martyrdom in the name of the Palestinian people.
The men at the top table then opened Saddam’s chequebook and, as the names of 47 martyrs were called, family representatives went up to sign for cheques written in US dollars.
Those of two suicide bombers were the first to be paid the new rate of $US25,000 and those whose relatives had died in other clashes with the Israeli military were given $US10,000 each.
The $US500,000 doled out in this impoverished community yesterday means that the besieged Iraqi leader now has contributed more than $US10 million to grieving Palestinian families since the new intifada began 18 months ago.
The diary of Iseema bin Laden
18 September 2001: We are at one of Osama’s hidden camps. I’ve found out why I’m here. Osama is surrounding himself with look-alikes in case the Americans catch up with him. I curse the day I was born! Why couldn’t I look like my mother? May the fleas of a thousand camels infest his beard and the Patriarch’s.
The Cultural Warfare Information Center
Hitman Online
In 1993, a triple murder was committed in Montgomery County by a man who was alleged to have used this book, Hit Man, as his guide. He was caught and convicted and sentenced to death. Wanting to profit from their loved one’s murder, and realizing that the murderer himself was too poor to be worth suing, the family of those killed by the hit man sued Paladin Press, the publisher of the book Hit Man, saying Paladin Press “aided and abetted” the murder.
The Tale of Sockpuppetta, Sock Jedi
Tuesday, March 26th, 2002
Write your congressman and stop the CBDTPA (the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act) before it’s too late.
Reparations Sought From U.S. Firms for Slavery
Three large U.S. companies were named in a lawsuit on Tuesday filed on behalf of black Americans descended from slaves, the first-ever class action seeking reparations from firms for profiting from slavery.
Web radio’s last stand
A new ruling involving the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is set to wipe out independent online music stations.
Ali G Poster Off Da Streets
The poster for Ali G’s debut movie - featuring the spoof rapper fondling a naked woman - has been banned for being too lewd.
Scientists find Prozac ‘link’ to brain tumours
Scientists have discovered that Prozac, the antidepressant taken by millions of people around the world, may stimulate the growth of brain tumours by blocking the body’s natural ability to kill cancer cells.
FDA: Kava may link to liver damage
The popular herbal supplement kava may be linked to serious liver injury, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned, urging consumers to see a doctor at the first sign of symptoms.
Napster to Remain Offline, Court Says
As Napster continues to take it in the teeth from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the San Francisco 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling this week that will keep the popular file-swapping music service offline until it rids its service of all copyright-protected material.
Tuesday, March 26th, 2002
Currently reading:
The Last Cop Out features a new super virile and violent Mickey Spillane hero - Gillian burke, known as the Gill, a good tough cop thrown off the force in a frame-up, and looking to even a blood score with the Mob. He’s out to plow his way through a maze of gorgeous women and blasting guns, and take apart a secret army of assassins - man by man and limb by limb - until he can get his hands on his ultimate enemy for an orgy of blistering destruction.
Now I ask you, who wouldnt’ want to read this book with a description like THAT on the back cover? WOO!
Tuesday, March 26th, 2002
Anti-Copy Bill Slams Coders
America’s programmers, engineers and sundry bit-heads have not yet figured out how much a new copyright bill will affect their livelihood.
When they do, watch for an angry Million Geek March to storm Capitol Hill.
Knight Rider The Movie!
Playboy seeks “Women of Enron”
Playboy is hoping to entice some of the women who lost their shirts in the Enron scandal to reveal a little bit more.
Computer crackers attempted to access Air Force base
Hackers operating outside the United States tried unsuccessfully to enter the computer network at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, officials said.
The Balkanization of the Web
The day Netscape Communications went public, the Web officially changed from a student-driven, informational enterprise to a true mass medium for the use and enjoyment of many groups. In this essay, I want to show how the Web has broken into three very distinct markets, and what those markets mean for future site designers and surfers alike.
Child soldiers to swap guns for PCs
Child soldiers in Sierra Leone are to be offered the chance to hand in their guns for computers.
Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants
This sillyness was inspired by the children’s book written by Dav Pilkey. In it, the evil Professor forces everyone to assume new names. I’m Poopsie Pottybrains.
Build the best. Destroy the rest. In Robocode, you’ll program a robotic battletank in Javatm for a fight to the finish. The game is designed to help you learn Java, and have fun doing it… from a simple 10 line robot to a very sophisticated, intelligent robot that destroys the competition!
“Saaayy,” says Benevolent Editor, “have you heard of Web logs ? you know, ‘blogs?’ They’re really hot. I’m doing a story about new software that makes blogs ridiculously easy to publish. You should do a story about bloggers ? people who blog.”
Monday, March 25th, 2002
Mike Sanders wrote today at Keep Trying:
Safire is right and makes other valid points in his column. Unfortunately some of my fellow bloggers understand and/or support both the Palestinian terrorist reign against Israel and terrorism against the US. I can longer in good conscious include those people on my blogroll list and I respectfully request anybody who understands or supports Palestinian terrorism or Islamic terrorism to please remove my name from your blogroll list as well.
How can anyone begin to comprehend or understand why people would blow themselves and tens or hundreds of civilians up thinking that will solve all of their people’s problems? How can anyone support an action that purposefully targets civilians without remorse, unarmed uninvolved civilians, ignoring their individual views or opinions?
Eek, that is bad. How can one openly support violence as the first step towards solving any problem? I will admit that part of me says that American foreign policy over the past 30-40 years has created the environment that brings about this violence and these acts of terror, but that is not purely our fault and their reaction is too extreme. Direct attacks on civilians can not be tolerated as a way of war or a way of getting ones point across.
But that people would say they understand or support this stuff, man, what are they thinking?
American foreign policy in the region has been flawed in the past, but that is not because of ill intentions. I firmly believe that many of our missions in the middle east have been noble in cause. Yes, I will also admit that money and oil has been a huge factor in our motivations as well, but we do not enter these places with the intent of converting or subverting their religion or ways of life. The change is an unfortunate byproduct of our attempts to help.
You see, we enter these places with the American and Western mindset without taking into serious consideration their society structure or way of life. We think we’re helping and in our eyes we are, but in their eyes and in the eyes of their society we’re intruding. But we REALLY want to help. So we keep helping, and they start to change. By accepting this assistance, we start to westernize them, even if that wasn’t our initial intent.
So, some radical elements of the old society see this and thrown a bitch fit.
But they go too far.
There are better ways to go about showing your displeasure. Sure, trying to sink the USS Cole and crashing passenger planes into buildings gets you attention, but do you really want that kind of attention? Wouldn’t a greater statement be to create an organization that would step in and help those that needed it and tell America “we don’t need your help”? You solve all of your problems right there, keeping the people happy and safe and your society from being westernized.
But, no, we are a species of conflict. If we feel threatened it’s fight or flight, and it’s a small world so we can only flee so far before we feel forced to fight.
But what can we do? America’s hands are practically tied. Do we pull out of the region, hell, the world completely, become isolationist and continue to consume 60-80% of the world’s resources while the rest of it goes to hell in a handbasket? Or do we continue upon our missions and allow the vicious cycle to continue?
Or, do those we attempt to help stand up and help themselves before we get in too deep?
Actions speak louder than words. And while a terrorist attack may speak very loudly, taking the time and effort to help your own people and save them from the evil you think is hovering on the horizon would speak just as loud and a little more favorably towards your goal.
