Re: a comment on Journey To The Centre Of The Loom by -=Dark_Angel=-, P.I.	Ranger 62.252.32.15	31-Jan-07/4:46 AM
Ugh, a stop away from Camden; just about the most deplorable place in Hades.
Re: a comment on Journey To The Centre Of The Loom by -=Dark_Angel=-, P.I.	Stephen Robins 213.146.148.199	31-Jan-07/12:46 AM
That of course puts me in luddite purgatory, however, the use of the "re-vamped" spinning mule gambit outflanks the power loom in any of its formats and that, I believe, places me one station closer to Mornington Crescent.
Re: a comment on Alternatives by Dovina	-=Dark_Angel=-, P.I. 75.215.178.77	30-Jan-07/6:29 PM
I saw it a couple of weeks back in NYC. Thought it was ace.
Re: a comment on Alternatives by Dovina	Dovina 75.82.94.71	30-Jan-07/5:17 PM
Neither of us know the Islamic mindset. We talk from modernity of which they accept virtually nothing.
Re: a comment on Alternatives by Dovina	Ranger 62.252.32.15	30-Jan-07/5:13 PM
Yes, but they're less likely to adhere to those clerics who preach against the literacy-promoting, disease-eliminating, smile-and-hand-shaking Americans than they are right now.
Re: a comment on Alternatives by Dovina	Dovina 75.82.94.71	30-Jan-07/5:08 PM
I agree that providing these things will make them happier. But if the reports of their committment to Allah are correct, few of them would sacrifice Isalm, as interpreted by whichever cleric they adhere to.
Re: a comment on Alternatives by Dovina	Ranger 62.252.32.15	30-Jan-07/5:05 PM
Offer them schools, hospitals and clean water in place of bombs and cholera, and I'll bet you anything that Allah suddenly takes a more relaxed view of life.
Re: a comment on Alternatives by Dovina	Dovina 75.82.94.71	30-Jan-07/4:59 PM
You assume the people in Iraq think beyond their Islamic teachings. I hear they do not. Our worst misjudgement has been that they want freedom, democracy, a better life - when they want the approving glance of Allah, as understood by their clerics.
Re: a comment on Alternatives by Dovina	Ranger 62.252.32.15	30-Jan-07/4:54 PM
Do you really think that the average Muslim on the streets of Baghdad really cares that much about what's going on in America? It doesn't matter about one's religious leanings; once you make peoples' lives comfortable, the majority are not going to want to get off their backsides because another bunch of people are decadent. You might still get a zealot or two, but in a world of billions that is totally unavoidable. Besides, we used to say* that the Irish would never be reconciled, and look at the progress there. *okay, so *I* never actually said that, but the people who were alive and fighting then did.
Re: a comment on Alternatives by Dovina	Dovina 75.82.94.71	30-Jan-07/4:47 PM
It makes sense in a Western sort of way. But an upbringing in Islam saw the collapse of a great Infadel, the Soviet Union as a result of their defeat of Russia in Afghanistan. Today, they see America as weak and fearful, the one remainder of a formerly two-infidel world. They have dealt triumphantly with one of them, now it’s the turn of the other. The United States has become degenerate, in their minds, debouched, and easily frightened and defeated. Decadence and decay within America have made it ready to be toppled. Such signs of concilliation might simply reinforce these ingrained beliefs.
Re: a comment on Alternatives by Dovina	Ranger 62.252.32.15	30-Jan-07/4:36 PM
Maybe not, but it might persuade people to stop signing up to the gang ethos. I mean, if you're a small Iraqi child and you see a bunch of Americans come into town and leave you with a nice shiny school, you're surely going to be less likely to grow up wanting to bomb the shit out of anything unbrown. Unite the population behind your cause, and the rebels are going to find themselves swiftly running out of people willing to strap dynamite to their faces.
Re: a comment on Alternatives by Dovina	Dovina 75.82.94.71	30-Jan-07/4:27 PM
Some hospital help has been sent, so I hear on NPR. And some help with road repair. More could be done, but do you really think it would prsuade some cleric gang leader to give in to a rival cleric gang leader?
Re: a comment on Alternatives by Dovina	Ranger 62.252.32.15	30-Jan-07/4:18 PM
Why even bother with sending them packages of aid (or even AIDS. Actually, spreading AIDS through the Middle East might liven things up a little)? They don't need freebie food, they need reliable sources of energy and water, and working hospitals and other social focal points. It doesn't take a genius to work this out, so why don't we seem to have even started actually trying to make life better for the natives? Image is nothing, which is good news for me because if I keep on coming out with this pimply logic I'm going to need some super-industrial facewash. Admittedly, it's not as though the English can talk about having effective hospitals.
Re: a comment on Alternatives by Dovina	Dovina 75.82.94.71	30-Jan-07/4:11 PM
Humanitarian aid, while it has done in many ways, if done in some huge way, might have helped with our image. I hardly think that's a good reason to do it. The radicals would probably be unphased by such "nonsense."
Re: a comment on Alternatives by Dovina	Ranger 62.252.32.15	30-Jan-07/4:07 PM
I call it an almighty administrative cock-up. If we'd genuinely committed to repairing and building the infrastructure of resources and social amenities in the more secure regions of Iraq (Afghanistan is, I think, a different bottle of whiskey altogether), do you really think the world of Islams would direct so many of their woes against us?
Re: a comment on Alternatives by Dovina	Dovina 75.82.94.71	30-Jan-07/4:03 PM
Call it "police action" as we did in Korea, then. Hopefully, it ends better.
Re: a comment on Alternatives by Dovina	Ranger 62.252.32.15	30-Jan-07/3:57 PM
'The war' was won in weeks, if you assume that a war has to be fought between two definable forces. We took out Saddam's military pretty quickly. I think this is Dark Angel's point (in a very simplistic way of saying it). What we're fighting can't, I don't think, be called a war. At best it's a fight between one visible form of idiocy and multiple other forms.
Re: a comment on Alternatives by Dovina	Ranger 62.252.32.15	30-Jan-07/3:49 PM
Did you ever read/see Children of Men?
Re: a comment on Alternatives by Dovina	Dovina 75.82.94.71	30-Jan-07/2:02 PM
It sounds like you’re saying that because technological/scientific efforts have failed, we should not support them as much as we have. Because they have failed, anyone from the Ranker who suggests those methods might be our best hope is bonkers, is that it? You surely don’t mean that. Some of these people might have in their minds at this moment the seed of a breakthrough, the only good way out of this. It seems we should support them.
Re: a voice poem by richa	Ranger 62.252.32.15	30-Jan-07/12:33 PM
'The' happens far too much for me; excellent otherwise.