Mother tongue: English Joined: April 30, 2007 Location: Germany
RE: OT
Originally written by Shiong-Fong Lew on July 1, 2009 7:40 PM The video (Warning: not for the weak-hearted): Dog Saves Dog
I see that nobody is talking about Iran any more so this thread could presumably be closed out. The whole thing appears to have been a combination of a set of bad losers plus the media not having any other news to break - but then Michael Jackson died and the Iranian elections disappeared from view.
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1804 Joined: February 1, 2008 Location: United States
RE: OT
You don't think that the Iran story was big ? Iran lost, according to this week's "Economist" magazine, a lot of respect, both internally and externally. The regime has been shown to be weaker than we thought, and fraught with internal divisions. The regime has lost the initiative and the status quo will no longer be the same. In the region, I think that many will no longer view Iran as some kind of "defender" of their interests, because it obviously has too much to deal with internally. For a country on the way to getting nukes and which also denies both the Holocaust, and Israel's right to exist, this was a major, major development.
Mother tongue: English Joined: April 30, 2007 Location: Germany
RE: OT
Originally written by John Bunch on July 1, 2009 10:01 PM You don't think that the Iran story was big ?
It was probably the biggest news item available at the time. But it all fizzled out in the end, a damp squib. Who really cares which of those guys is president of Iran? It would not have had any substantial effect on their policy towards the rest of the world.
But the western news media cannot carry that kind of story for very long - there weren't enough fatalities, not enough fires and shop windows broken, it was all mostly non-breaking news.
Originally written by John Bunch on July 1, 2009 10:01 PM Iran lost, according to this week's "Economist" magazine, a lot of respect, both internally and externally. The regime has been shown to be weaker than we thought, and fraught with internal divisions. The regime has lost the initiative and the status quo will no longer be the same. In the region, I think that many will no longer view Iran as some kind of "defender" of their interests, because it obviously has too much to deal with internally. For a country on the way to getting nukes and which also denies both the Holocaust, and Israel's right to exist, this was a major, major development.
OK, if you like to believe all that stuff, go ahead. To me it looks like they handled the whole thing remarkably well. They have nothing "to deal with internally" that they didn't always have and they know their own people and how to handle them. Everything went quite smoothly so far as I could tell, certainly much smoother than Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board and the whole Florida debacle which made the US a laughing stock and lost the US the right for all time to criticize the way other countries run their presidential elections.
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1804 Joined: February 1, 2008 Location: United States
RE: OT
Riiiight. You are comparing a legal challenge (the whole Bush Florida thing) in a democracy with youths risking their lives on the streets against a theocracy, which is of course a ridiculous comparison. It is funny how Bush is blamed for everything in the world. Riots in Teheran, well, that must be linked somehow back to Bush...
Much more recent, if you want to discuss bogus election results, is Al Franken (a comedian, but no one who said that Reagan was "just an actor" will now mention that Franken is "just a comedian") who won the Senate seat in Minnesota by having various people thrown off the electoral eligiblity roles, much like Obama did when he won his first office in Chicago (* see below). The modern Democrat Way to Power appears to be: wait until after the election, and then show up with a truckload of lawyers and have people thrown off the rolls. But of course, you won't mention that...
The difference here (getting back to the topic) is that this was the FIRST big demo against the mullahs since 1979, and also one carried out by young people and women. The mullahs promoted a policy since 1980 of women having lots and lots of kids, and they did. And now those kids listen to MP3s and twitter each other and listen to Snoop Dogg (there is justice in the universe !!) and like western things and the U.S.
If I were president of the U.S., I would say to Amajinedad, behind closed doors, the following: "If you fire a WMD, we will begin dropping crate-loads of assault rifles, anti-tank weapons, and body armor into your country and into those areas of Teheran that are against you, and into those areas of Iran where ethnic minorities live, and then we will see how long you last). The only reason that Amajinedad is still in power is because the average Iranian doesn't have a gun.
------------
(*) How Obama won his first race in Chicago (note: this happened on the South Side of Chicago. I would venture to guess that had a Republican done this, (s)he would have been accused of being tremendously unfair to people who printed their name, rather than sign it):
"But Obama had one card up his sleeve. He could not envision how [rival Alice] Palmer's supporters, even as solidified as they seemed to be, had gathered the necessary number of voter signatures on her nominating petitions in such a short time. Palmer herself confessed at her press conference that the nearly sixteen hundred petitions she had filed with the state elections board had been accumulated in just ten days. So a volunteer for Obama challenged the legality of her petitions, as well as the legality of petitions from several other candidates in the race. As an elections board hearing on the petitions neared, Palmer realized that Obama had called her hand, and she acknowledged that she had not properly acquired the necessary number of signatures. Many of the voters had printed their names, rather than signing them as the law required. Palmer said she was desperately trying to get affidavits from those who had printed their names, but time was running out. She had no choice but to withdraw from the race. The other opponents were also knocked off the ballot, leaving Obama running unopposed in the primary."
Imagine if a Republican had done that. The New York Times would have run stories on how heartless it is to disenfranchise poor people whose only mistake was to not use enough cursive when writing their names on the ballot rolls.
Mother tongue: English Joined: March 28, 2004 Location: Malaysia
RE: OT
Originally written by John Bunch on July 2, 2009 7:05 AM
If I were president of the U.S., I would say to Amajinedad, behind closed doors, the following: "If you fire a WMD, we will begin dropping crate-loads of assault rifles, anti-tank weapons, and body armor into your country and into those areas of Teheran that are against you, and into those areas of Iran where ethnic minorities live, and then we will see how long you last).
reported that there were 81 deaths from gunfire in the United States every day in 2004 with 176 injured every day. A total of 29,569 people were killed that year and 64,389 were injured. Gun rights, from cowboys to SUVs.
It was just announced that the Queen would be awarding a few thousand medals to the families of WWII deaths. The western casualtiy numbers made WWII look cheap compared to the current gun deaths in the US.
Mother tongue: English Joined: April 30, 2007 Location: Germany
RE: Situation in Iran
Originally written by John Bunch on July 1, 2009 11:05 PM The difference here (getting back to the topic) is that this was the FIRST big demo against the mullahs since 1979, and also one carried out by young people and women. The mullahs promoted a policy since 1980 of women having lots and lots of kids, and they did. And now those kids listen to MP3s and twitter each other and listen to Snoop Dogg (there is justice in the universe !!) and like western things and the U.S.
You are referring to the behavior of a certain class of people in a certain district in Tehran, the capital (and maybe similar districts in 2 or 3 other large cities). They are not at all typical of the majority of the population of Iran, the country. That is like taking the folks in Greenwich Village as being typical of the population of the USA and extrapolating to suggest that the population of Independence, Missouri, or Crawford, Texas, would act and think the same way that they do.
If you are putting forward kids listening to MP3s, twittering and listening to Snoop Dogg (for me, all symbols of the total decadence into which the USA has fallen) as representing the cultural best that the USA has to offer the world then I knew that already. Your image of the technological and cultural garbage that the US is at present dumping on the world and your praise of it as a worthy replacement for the continuity of the 8000 year old Iranian culture is no more than I would have expected.
I lived in Iran for only 3 years, mostly in the desert or in the mountains but sometimes in the cities, admittedly a long time ago but since life in the country in some respects appeared hardly to have changed since the Stone Age, I wouldn't expect there to have been very great changes between the time that I was there and now. One thing I am sure about is that there is no way for an outsider to understand the Iranians without having lived there for a while.
Originally written by John Bunch on July 1, 2009 11:05 PM If I were president of the U.S., I would say to Amajinedad, behind closed doors, the following: "If you fire a WMD, we will begin dropping crate-loads of assault rifles, anti-tank weapons, and body armor into your country and into those areas of Teheran that are against you, and into those areas of Iran where ethnic minorities live, and then we will see how long you last). The only reason that Amajinedad is still in power is because the average Iranian doesn't have a gun.
Sorry, but that to me is a really sick notion. US soldiers are dying in Afghanistan to this day from weapons that the US delivered there in the same way. You don't happen to be a paid-up member of the NRA, do you?
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1804 Joined: February 1, 2008 Location: United States
RE: OT
Shiong, 1.3 million violent crimes are deterred every year in the U.S., by citizens with guns (source: Professor John Lott).
Ok, I agree that 29,000 gun deaths are 29,000 deaths too many. Of course we can agree on that. But where did those deaths take place in the U.S. ? In counties in New Hampshire, where anyone can carry a gun ? No. In counties in Utah where gun carry is legal ? Again: no. Those deaths occurred in cities like Chicago, Detroit, D.C., New York, and New Orleans and L.A., which have "gun control" laws which are just as strict or stricter than any European country (if you doubt me, try to own a gun in Chicago). So the notion that American gun laws = deaths is just not backed up by the statistics. There is no correlation between allowing the average citizen to have a gun and violent gun crime, and indeed, the most strict "gun control" cities in the U.S. have the highest gun crime.
Just as: Britain's gun crime today is higher than it was before the so-called "gun control" laws came into effect. When Britain allowed its citizens to have guns, its violent crime rate was fraction of what it is now (in the UK, not only are guns illegal, but knives, and even pepper spray; at the same time, violent crime has skyrocketed since 1990).
how many people are killed by knives in Malaysia or the UK every year ? (if your answer is "I don't know", you are no doubt right, because there probably are not very reliable statistics on that).
Expert Mother tongue: English Posts: 1804 Joined: February 1, 2008 Location: United States
RE: OT
Derek, MP3 was a German invention...
BTW, you think that arming people to allow them to defend themselves against dictators is "sick" ? Was it "sick" to airdrop arms to the French resistance in World War II ?
The notion that U.S. soldiers are dying in Afghanistan due to U.S. arms really is not true. America does not make roadside bombs, and last I checked, we also don't make AK-47s. You need to really check your sources. Yes, the U.S. supplied the mujahadeen in the 1980s with Stinger missiles, but that was a long, long time ago. I dare say that the taliban and Al Quida have found other sources of arms since then, and particularly since 2001.
Of course, if you want to take the "Chomsky" line that anything bad that happens anywhere in the world is ultimately the CIA's fault (and "the corporations"), I of course can't stop you. But I just happen to believe that the U.S. is not nearly as strong as Chomsky thinks.
Expert Mother tongues: Polish, English Posts: 2904 Joined: September 13, 2008 Location: United States
RE: OT
Originally written by John Bunch on July 2, 2009 1:59 AM Derek,
Of course, if you want to take the "Chomsky" line that anything bad that happens anywhere in the world is ultimately the CIA's fault (and "the corporations"), I of course can't stop you. But I just happen to believe that the U.S. is not nearly as strong as Chomsky thinks.
I think it might be as strong, but I agree with you that it is absolutely not true that most bad things happen because of the US: in fact I think more good things haappened because of the US, than bad, if you take it as a whole.
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