What happened to the WMDs?

[brakada]

I just love your loooong posts. :wink:

Rome did whatever it wanted to for over 400 years. Egypt did whatever it
wanted to for 1000+ years; the Chinese for 500+; the British for 50 years.
And all of them were stopped either by some else becoming more powerful
or from internal corruption and insolence.

Yes, but always somebody "chewed" more than they could handle and IMHO this can happen to the States, looking at the rate of military interventions under Bush's presideny. Even America does not have unlimited funds and such interventions, which are not at all that cheap can weaken American reserves. Did you ever think how could all the money for the Iraq campaign be spent to improve or boost American economy? It surprises me that you never criticize the high costs of the campaign, being the capitalist you are. History has proven that no world reign can last forever, no matter how great or clever the superpower is. If you think differently, you are wrong.

Where the hell did you go to school? The reason Americans are moving
production overseas is because of wage competition. In the United States
we have raised minimum wage continually in order to compensate workers
for the rise in cost of living. During this time we have helped bring minimum
wage workers out of poverty but we have also cause millions of jobs to be
exported to India and China, etc. because we can pay them far less, get the
same productivity, and the money we give them will buy them even more
than it could in the states. It has nothing to do with how hard the average
American works.

I am well aware of wage competition. I just don't understand where did you get the idea that Americans are one of the most hard working people in the world. :? And where'd you get the idea that Europeans don't work. IMO there is not too much difference in the way Americans or Europeans work... And you are treating the Europe as a whole, which is definitely not right. Europe is a community of many nations and countries, which all have a much longer history than the USA (and please don't start talking about native Indians :wink: ) and each nation has different "working habits". While the Germans are probably one of the hardest workers on the globe (I think they work a lot harder than the Americans), the Italians tend to work less and their work is usually o lesser quality. I could mention other European good and "lousy" working nations, but I won't cause I hope I made my case (Saying that there are 400 millions of people in Europe who don't work is just wrong and stupid). I would have to say that the Japanese are the hardest world workers, though.

I agree completely, I don't like it when people say that Europe is
jealous, because people who have learned about the ways of Europe know
they are proud and happy to be different than we are. That's fine
by me.

It's nice to see that we agree on something once again. It's just that I thought you made a couple of posts on the old MS, that Europeans defy American actions just because they are jealus of the American super power status, but I probably misunderstood you. :wink:

Thank you for proving my point. Europe has been sitting on the sidelines
refusing to participate in any of the controversy occuring overseas.

Europe is not sitting on sidelines in my point of view. They never supported terrorism, and they have always acted against Al-quaeda in its own territory. I understand why some of the EU did not want to support the current American campaign in Iraq. It is not reasonable to fight terrorism or whatever the US are fighting by invading countries which do not pose any serious current threats (to the western world). As it is clearly evident in Iraq, the American campaign has only enflamed terrorists from all parts of the middle east. International terrorists were not weakened at all, in fact they seem to be stronger than ever. But I am glad too, that the EU didn't participate in overthrowing of Sadams regime, although that WAS a GOOD thing. Because being the greatest of friends with some dictators (Saudis, Musharaf,...) while acting against those who don't "cooperate" is simply hypocritical. I even wouldn't have such a problem with this hypocrisy as long as Bush wouldn't claim that his causes are righteous and sincere. I mean, WTF? There are a lot of dictators who would have deserved to be removed first (just couldn't think of a better structure of the sentence, so nevermind my English :wink.

Obviously, if Al-Qaeda is trying to stop the West

:? Stop the West? From doing what? I don't get it... What are they trying to stop us from doing? I always thought they are "rebelling"/opposing US troops being stationed in the Arab countries (Quatar, Saudi Arabia,...).

they are not going to attack the bench warmer before they attack the players on the field. You should be both flattered and appalled that the terrorists offered you peace. You should be flattered because they see you sitting on the bench and they know that you are the key to their destruction. As long as they keep you on the sidelines it hurts America more, which is what they want. You should be appalled becuase it shows that they don't see you as a current threat to their cause.
They don't think that Europe poses any current/immediate threat as long as
they just sit there idle.

I am flattered because the EU gave Al Quaeda very few reasons to be hated for. They never (in the last decades to be more precise) stationed their troops in Arab countries, they were always trying to find the peaceful solution (although most if not all of the times they failed ), they voted against Israel in a couple of UN resolutions. They did not support the mujaheddines, Sadam and they did not turn their back on them afterwards. They at least tried to remain quite neutral (there may have been some exceptions but I am talking about most of the EU... please correct me if I am wrong). I understand why Arabs think the US are using them, after all America has been friends with a lot of muslim countries / leaders / groups, but mostly they turned their back on them, so no wonder they feel exploited, while on the other hand friendship with the greatest Arab "enemy", Israel seems eternal.

Look the entire world is like one giant nuclear family, okay? The U.S. is the dad, the
EU is the mom, and all the other nations are the children. At some point
neither of us will be on top of the heap, but we have a responsiblity to
teach (not indoctrinate) what we have learned about creating the most powerful
and wealthiest nations on earth; and obviously we are obliged to learn from
our children.

It would be a kind of a "Jerry Springer family" then, because the dad would be kind of a mother's son (more of a bastard, actually :wink. (Jerry! Jerry!) No, I get your point and a couple of nice skits, there. :Crackup:

I won't quote them all to save some server space (I am saying this after I've written 100s of words @me ) :wink:.

The choice is yours. I hope you put your suit back on and start kicking some
ass so that we can be equals again, and enjoy the rest of the time we have
left as leaders of the globe. :wink:

I agree that "mom" should start kicking some ass, but not the way dad does (he only kicks the asses of the children he dislikes ) and that dad will calm down a bit and he will try to be a bit more fair with his ass-kicking... So that in the end mom and dad would meet somewhere in between and they would leave happily ever after. Sound to good to be true, but, maybe someday our greatgreatgreatgreat...greatgrandchildren will live in a world like that... :wink:

If you actually read this whole thing i'm gonna give you some karma, when
we get it back

no need for karma the pleasure was all mine... Actually I didn't see this in the end before I've written all my other replies.

[mylexicon]

I am well aware of wage competition. I just don't understand where did you get the idea that Americans are one of the most hard working people in the world. And where'd you get the idea that Europeans don't work. IMO there is not too much difference in the way Americans or Europeans work...

Fine, make me go to google. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/439595.stm
This is one of many recorded instances of the average American worker.
BTW it gets far worse the more money you make; especially in white-collar
jobs. For instance, my dad works in excess of 80 hrs per week. And he
frequently works on Saturday if necessary. Futhermore, America is the only
country in the world where work follows you home and on vacation, and those
hours worked off the clock aren't even reflected in the statistics.

I got the idea that Europeans don't work from all the legislation they have
written to prohibit people from working to long. In france for instance they
have a law that prohibits people from working over 35 hrs per week. LAZY!!!!

Europe is not sitting on sidelines in my point of view. They never supported terrorism, and they have always acted against Al-quaeda in its own territory.

I am flattered because the EU gave Al Quaeda very few reasons to be hated for.

So lame. Terrorists like you and smoke the peace pipe with you.
*clap* you must be proud; you attack them vigorously but never make them mad.

I agree that "mom" should start kicking some ass, but not the way dad does (he only kicks the asses of the children he dislikes ) and that dad will calm down a bit and he will try to be a bit more fair with his ass-kicking...

I know what would make things fair, let's start attacking the people we like too.
That would make everything fair :o Of course we only pimp slap the
dumbfuck children. Who is gonna smack their kid when they are behaving?

Little Johnny Iraq ----> <-------- Me

"Put your fuckin WMD back in the toy box, Johnny, and quit talking back!!!!!

[brakada]

Fine, make me go to google. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/439595.stm
This is one of many recorded instances of the average American worker.

Well, I guess I should thank you for proving my point. If you had read the article, then you probably noticed these statements:

Working long hours does not necessarily mean improved productivity, a report on world-wide labour trends suggests.

But while US workers still lead the world in terms of productivity, European workers are closing the gap, despite working fewer hours.

But despite working shorter hours, European countries show similar rates of economic growth over the past decade to the US.

So, thanks again, for proving my point. I hope that we would agree, that the harder worker is the one who achieves more in less time, and not simply the one who works the most hours and achieves similar or worse production results.

Futhermore, America is the only
country in the world where work follows you home and on vacation, and those
hours worked off the clock aren't even reflected in the statistics.

Yeah right. Look my father is a doctor, with a Ph. D. in medicine. He's at work every day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. or 7 p.m. plus that he works a lot of saturdays or sundays, as well. And he's doing some extra work for his job at home, too.

I got the idea that Europeans don't work from all the legislation they have
written to prohibit people from working to long. In france for instance they
have a law that prohibits people from working over 35 hrs per week. LAZY!!!!

So do you really think, people in France do not work more than 35 hours a week. well, you're obviously not as clever as I thought. In Slovenia people shouldn't be working more than 40 hours a week, but if you add up my father's work hours, he's working a lot more than that. It's not like people are prohibited and forced not to to work longer. Most of the people in fact do work longer. I don't really know how's this law implemented in practise, but I think it's just meant to protect the workers from being overexploited (probably refers to minimum wage workers or something like that). And as legislation differs from one European country to another, so do the working habits and it's just idiotic to claim that all Europeans don't work... Read the link you posted or my quotes from the article once again...

So lame. Terrorists like you and smoke the peace pipe with you.
*clap* you must be proud; you attack them vigorously but never make them mad.

According to your statement you probably never read my entire post, but anyway...
Yeah, Osama has just paid me a visit and we smoked a couple of doobies together. Too bad Bush turned down his invitation. Hmm, it's better not to attack, than to attack and achieve no evident results.

What has the Coallition Campaign in Iraq improved regarding the issue of international terrorism?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!

In fact, now there are more terrorists in Iraq, than there ever were. So why join a futile campaign, which has no connection with terrorism? Sadam was a worthless puny dictator and not a terrorist.

IMO if Bush would really want to "cleanse" the world of terrorism, he would have stayed in Afganistan a bit longer and he would have finished his work there. Even Hanson claimed in one of his articles, that things in Afganistan are the same they were, and are possibly going to get even worse. And then, he would move to Iraq, Iran or whatever his fictional enemy may be next. So, I seriously doubt his motives. What is the Bush Administration doing in Iraq. They overthrew Sadam, they captured a lot of Sadam's people from their "Most Wanted" list, but didn't do shit to stop terrorism. No, they even let is spread.

I know what would make things fair, let's start attacking the people we like too.
That would make everything fair :o Of course we only pimp slap the
dumbfuck children. Who is gonna smack their kid when they are behaving?

OK, so you claim little Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel and a bunch of other "children" are behaving.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! They're just kissing daddy's ass. So, excuse mom for not being as hypocritical as dad is.


Daddy: Oh, little Israel. I love you so much.
Little Israel: I know daddy. I love you to.
Daddy: Can you promise that you will behave well?
Little Israel: Sure dad, why wouldn't I.
[The next day Israel misbehaves]
Daddy: Why did you misbehave
Little Israel: Daddy, Daddy, but the brothers/sisters started it.
Daddy: Sure, I knew it wasn't you, and since you are my favourite, you are forgiven...

[Daddy then sends little Palestine to her room while Israel's misbehaviour goes on and on and on forever. Well daddy's never gonna get tough on him, so he's safe]

IMO, that's not fair. Both should be sent to their rooms for not listening to daddy...