Your Right To Be An Idiot
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"In April 2002, the guerrillas placed a bomb in a bus along the route Mr Uribe's campaign convoy was using in the Caribbean city of Barranquilla.
The bomb went off, but the armour of Mr Uribe's vehicle saved him from harm. Sixteen passers-by were not so lucky. Three were killed and 13 wounded in the blast." BBC UK
I agree that leader makes a passing grade; sadly though South America has as you said go so far left politically, those rebel forces I would suppose are really from those other countries.
But on a positive note there doesnt appear to be much in the way of hatred from the jihadi's
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I remember that incident well as it happened right before the last presidential elections. We were actually in Bogota in May of that year during the elections and the security was extremely tight. Uribe has actually survived several attempts on his life and has lost both his father and (I believe) at least one brother to rebel attacks that happened in the 80's.
Still, the attempt that you mention was 2002 and things really are better since then. Rebel bombings had almost become a thing of the past until Uribe received a constitutional change that allowed him to run for a second term this year. So now the rebels have stepped up their campaign of violence somewhat (mostly in remote areas) as they do not want to see him serve a second term.
But the Paramilitaries and both rebel groups are now finally negotiating with the government. About half of the Para's have already disarmed and talks have at least started with the rebels. Everyone there knows that most of the leaders of these groups have long since abandoned their social and political goals, and they are now little more than fronts for narco/arms-traffic and extortion. Let's hope that their days are indeed numbered as they appear to be. It's much too beautiful a country to be held hostage by a mere 40 or so thousand people who are bent on living lives of violence and corruption.
My hovercraft is full of eels.
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coming back full circle to "freedom of speech"..
So much for free speech...."Anger has been spreading over the 12 caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that were first published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten in September and recently reprinted in European media and elsewhere in what the newspapers say is a statement of free speech."
4 killed over cartoon protests
I think it was Pete (??) however who said that freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences....
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
I was wondering when/if someone would post about this whole issue and it certainly is germain to the discussion.
One fundamental problem I see is that IIRC, depiction of any prophetic figure in any way is patently offensive according to Islamic law. Yet there have been numerous depictions of Christ in the media and the art world over the last several years that were highly offensive to me. Where was all of this protesting and ire then? IMHO, a double standard is in play here to a certain degree.
That said, given the current political climate and knowing what I do about how all of this developed, I don't know that it was a good idea to publish things in the name of Freedom of Speech just because you have the ability to do so. Any freedom brings with it a corresponding amount of responsibility as we have all said, and I don't think that publishing these images was the correct or even the responsible thing to do. It's almost like they were taunting followers of Islam by saying "Hey, we're free. Look what we can do. Nyah, nyah!". That's not responsible journalism in any way and its consequences are being played out now.
On the flip side, perhaps some of these people can now empathize with how we feel when we hear "Death to America" chanted over an over at a fever pitch, or when we see our flag, or even worse, our soldier's bodies being burned and desecrated in their streets and then broadcast for all of the world to see. Respect is a two way street, and extremism on either side of the fence is wrong.
It will be very interesting to see how all of this all plays out.
My hovercraft is full of eels.
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Just saw this on the subject on BBC:
"They want to test our feelings," protester Mawli Abdul Qahar Abu Israra told the BBC.
"They want to know whether Muslims are extremists or not. Death to them and to their newspapers," he said.
Now, I'm not one to jump to conclusions. But I think it would be safe to say that his last statement pretty much puts him somewhere in the extremist camp.
My hovercraft is full of eels.
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>...I think just wants a vegan / vegatarian in the White House and we all know those people dont have enough energy or mental faculties to form two words into a sentence let alone defend our respective countries.
Gee, now Im really bummed... No White House for me... Ive been a veggie since 1981... Im 42 now with a total blood cholesterol of 106... Remember than while eatting another Vytorin.
>it just kind of annoys me when people rant about terrorists and their evil religion, when our own president is the other side of the same coin (both osama and gwb talk to god (presumably the same god that both their religions stole from the jews) and therefore have unrestricted access to the "truth" and "rightiousness"
Seems if both Usama and GWB talked to the same God, the message would be the same... Ooops, I gotta take that back, as the Qu'ran (you should read it some time) clear says that Allah leads astray those he chooses.
<Idiot Rant>
Einstein said, "God does not play dice with the universe."
Tabari I:305 “Then Allah rubbed Adam’s back and brought forth his progeny. And every living being to be created by Allah to the Day of Resurrection came forth. He scattered them in front of him like tiny ants. He took two handfuls and said to those on the right, ‘Enter Paradise! And He said to the others, ‘Enter the Fire! I do not care.’”
Tabari's Hadith claims Allah says, "I do not care."
Yep the same God, how could I have missed that, I better get a BigMac and some fries fast...
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Remember the interview article that Sean wrote and the ensuing furore it caused...there were many "christians" who were gravely offended and have since unsubscribed from this site based on that one article alone...
my point...those that're ultra-sensitive and are quick to get offended do so regardless of religion...religion just happens to be the leading cause of dissent and violence amongst people...this, of course, is closely followed by politics - if you take these away it'll very quickly be replaced with something else...if nothing else then the colour of your skin perhaps...or like it was (is ?!?!) in India - introduce a caste system and declare the "lower classes" as untouchables...
Gulp - I think I just "talked myself" into a depression about what a sorry place the world is...
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
I want to be a tiny ant.
These people have problems.
They are in the same league as the... 'holy warrior' woman.. of recent tv fame. They let pride and religeous fervour supercede reason and tolerance.
The
BelgiansDutch made a joke... when did they become "comedy europe"...Don't be depressed Shushy... the "world is a fine place and worth fighting for."
If the Muslums are that gullible and care so much what others say... don't worry we have all those orcs and demons in New Zealand to keep them off of our backs....
I will be riding in on winged unicorn... leading an army of dragons and trolls to vanquish the 'evil' muslums... you see in my religeon is populated with little figurines which I worship and it's my right to call upon them for aid when people theathen my friends the ever so nice
belgiansdutch..Luckily my bullshit o meter will not let me fall into such a tit-for-tat sort religeous war.... the logistics of feeding scores of dragons and trolls on
belgian wafflesdanishes is hard to account for.But I will turn my back on the issue and move on to more important things like starvation and gender inequality... maybe one day people won't always fall for the bait.... sadly I though think some people just cant get along....
now where is my crown royal bag....
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"... maybe one day people won't always fall for the bait.... sadly I though think some people just cant get along...."
'swhat I was getting depressed about...but then nothing quite like a "sense of humour" to battle all evils - specially depression right ?!
Now do you want your crown royal bag to drown your sorrows or just to cover your face or to celebrate the joy of being in a world worth fighting for?!
**ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI !!!** -
A crown royal bag was where I keep my D&D dice.
And I'm sorry it was danish not belgian.
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Totally off-topic, but....
Shouldn't you have written some sort of stored procedure or function in SQL to handle the number of dice, number of sides, and possible extra rolls for high numbers? Output would be the total for each die rolled and/or the grand total. All of that running on something like SQL CE/Mobile.
Of course, if you have a PPC in the first place, there are some pretty good freeware "dice" programs for just such situations. Not as attractive as some of the dice out there, but practical.
-Pete
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The random number generator class in C++/ C# has been shown not to meet chi squared tests for randomness.
I'd need to hook up a white noise generator to a server and query it periodically
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