These ads tend to be tailored to your specific IP's browser, email, and search histories.  Given that fact, I think people on this thread may be inadvertently disclosing some seedy facets of their internet activities by relaying what advertisers think they will find enticing (Mama Toad excepted of course!  No doubt she was merely searching for a verse from Romans in the very high 60s).

Needless to say, I only receive ads requesting that I join MENSA, begin my career in modeling, and provide my ten secrets for attracting the opposite sex.  Truly, the experts hate THIS guy.

"I've been following a series on Aljazeera about the Nakba..."

Well I've been following a series on DPRK State TV about life in America.

It's a broad-ranging and thought-provoking piece that covers issues of housing, economic struggles, and the day-to-day hardships of average Americans.

It's difficult to find good investigative journalism these days but, in this case, I think Zafar and I have media sources with uncommon credibility.

Exquisite.

Phase one: Alienate our allies and make halfhearted, empty threats to belligerent tyrants

Phase two:

Phase three: Peace!

http://youtu.be/tO5sxLapAts

Aaron beat me to the punch, but my runner-up would be Charles Krauthammer.  The reasons should be obvious to all but Rush Limbaugh.

But if this is a *real* magic wand, why not WFB, Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater (from 1962), etc.

Relax, pal.  So he posted some innocuous yet interesting remarks on central planning vs. diffuse planning exemplified by Caribbean traffic.  Can't you appreciate the common ground?

How about a handshake in the big tent and congratulatory back-slap for someone who had a nice vacation?  You can't object to anything he said in that post.   May I posit: WWJD?   FC was building bridges.  Let's focus on what we agree about for now.

BTW, if you don't read the debate to the finale, you won't be able to understand him as the dishonest broker that he is. I do believe that we have an agitprop in our midst.  He wears the clothing of a social conservative in order to deflect criticism from his malign security recommendations.

Would that it were so simple, Mama Toad.  Unfortunately, Zafar and I have a long history of discussing his predilection for using verbal virtuosity* to excuse and support evil while defending barbarism. 

I have not yet divined whether he is a mere useful idiot or if he believes himself to be smart enough to attempt to mimic Ellsworth Toohey.  Regardless, the function of his contributions amount to the same defense of evil.

Please Ricochetti, do not take his arguments pertaining to security matters in good faith.  Judge him by his words in our debate.   Please pay particular attention to the questions he does not address.

*How apt a term.  Thanks, Dr. Sowell.

How dare you draw an analogy to the Israel/Palestine conflict!

It strikes me as the perfect microcosm of the Israeli-Palestinian debate.  Someone who is clearly unbalanced initiates violence against a symbol of the protectors of western civilization and your concern is that the latter party's behavior be restrained. 

In a sane world, we wouldn't think twice about the officer laying out the violent loon.  However, in this brave new bureaucratic world, the officer needs to risk his own safety by trying to be reasonable and measured with his unreasoning attacker, lest he be punished by the military bureaucracy (read "international community").

It's sad that he might have hesitated to defend himself because of concern that he could be punished for exercising that core human right. 

The fact that you don't instinctively err on the side of the soldier's safety, and in fact, your primary concern is that he not defend himself decisively, is just one more (consistent) data point to help others  decipher your true world view.  Though you do dress it up in all the "right words" of the new vocabulary.

However you try to disguise it in "reasonable" terms, you have picked a side and it's the wrong one.

Too true.  Clearly the "assailant" was merely a freedom fighter striking back against an agent of oppression in thrall to [insert false historical narrative of an unjust hegemon here]. 

The civilized world's protectors against barbarism must always take life-threatening foolish risks to demonstrate their restraint.   Are you listening, Israel?!

Of course, were it a soldier of Hamas who found out a defenseless civilian was a homosexual, and he beat him to death for it, my dear Zafar, I doubt it would elicit your condemnation, nor even your passing interest. 

A nice education gives one the opportunity to present his arguments as nuanced for a while, but after he's developed a record of always backing one side in defiance of the facts, that affectation of subtle thoughtfulness wears down to little more than cheap window dressing for an ideologue trying to undermine the other side with rhetorical feigns.

It appears the soldier survived the attack.  Sorry.  Perhaps the next time a US or Israeli soldier practices such exquisite restraint, you'll see a more agreeable outcome.

-My moral self-satisfaction is more important than stopping rapes!  Ban guns!

-People can't be trusted to run their own lives so people in DC should run the lives of 300 million.

-Stop racism!  Give hiring preference to people from the right races!

-End capitalist greed!  Let's take their stuff for ourselves!

-De-fund Defense! Bullies don't hassle the weak.

That's my output from 10 minutes of extemporaneous spit-balling.  We can have good bumper sticker slogans but we need to employ a bit of pithiness and wit.  It works great when arguing in person too.  We have the intellectual substance to backup any quip we deliver, so think of that as freeing you to be audaciously curt in your hook statement.

Very true.  The problem with yesterday's satire is that it becomes today's reality.

I can't tell you how much easier inspections were after the switch to ACUs in the army.  No longer having to polish boots or iron uniforms helped troops focus on things that matter, like memorizing the answers to questions about things that are equally irrelevant.

I wish that half the time I spent memorizing tedious mottoes, making hospital corners, learning the SMA's name, memorizing the Army's birthday, and all the various bits of nonsense I wasted my time on had gone to learning first aid and combatives.

I understand the value in teaching attention to detail in the minor things, but you're dealing with the finite commodities of training time and grey matter.  Why not be less fastidious about the perfection of  a cravat knot and instead drill them on thing that will actually save lives?

It's a question for Big Army and Navy, but one well worth asking.

I hope you enjoy it.  It also incorporates a good geopolitical lesson about taking at face value soothing, PR department-approved statements from a manifest threat.

What a beautiful illustration of firearms illiteracy.  And this elder statesman, Biden, is one of the people who gets to use force to make us accede to his enlightened vision.  Well, I guess they know better than we...

I'll be passing that video around.  Thanks-