Partially agree - I agree perfectly with the latter half of the quoted sentence.

The former half? Well, if the guy is shouting "Allahu Ackbar!" and expressing desires to die a martyr while attacking unarmed civilians? It's gonna fall under the definition of terrorism.

The politicians' grab for power is a grab at opportunity, not a construct.

It was a Tesla vest.

Worship of and total allegiance to the State is not Christianity.
A leadership who actively pushed a pseudo-norse mythology based on ubermenchen and "racial purity" is not Christianity.

Nice try and all, but your argument fails. It fails twice over in the face of the fact that activity from the Vatican itself managed to directly rescue an estimated 800,000+ Jews and similarly-targeted folks throughout WWII (and indirectly rescued far more) - in spite of it being unarmed and surrounded.

Yes and no.

They had *just enough* training to be comfortable with the weapons and have a plan, but consider that they went up against newspaper editors in an office, and not a hardened military squad. And yes, judging by my radio on the way in, it is being discussed (albeit on the more right-leaning shows... the left-leaning ones are too busy trying to loudly restate the obvious, as in "OMG islam is a peaceful religion and these guys are not representatives of it and OMG they're no different from Jerry Falwell when he sued Hustler!**

I mean, c'mon - we're used to bumbling fools like the frickin' underwear bomber, so any terrorist with even a small modicum of military training is going to look like a 'SEAL-Delta-Para-Ranger-Force-Space-Shuttle-Door-Gunner(!)' to the masses.

TBH, at most they probably have about the same skill and training as, say, the typical Army boot half way through OSUT training. In other words, they know and are skilled enough to pull off the stunt they did, but would most likely collapse/die/fail if they faced anything stronger than a gaggle of cops (which is pretty much the most that they'd had to go up against so far).

** No shit - some idiot commentator on MSNBC made that comparison yesterday. And they wonder why no one takes that damned channel seriously these days...

It is a logical reason, but it only means that the patching itself will be delayed in many cases, as testing by the end-users (well, the professional ones) won't have advanced notice to work up potential courses of action to take.

What I mean is, if a sysadmin knows there's a patch for IIS coming out, he would have a few days to at least work out a quick plan for CAB/Change-Control in order to test and implement it - now he gets to wait until Patch Tuesday to even work up a plan, because he's not going to know what's coming out and what components will be affected.

No skin offa mine (I work in the *nix world, and even my workstation is a Mac), but I can certainly see where this change would cause a bit of an inconvenience, and it wouldn't really do much more than shift the timetable over for the 0-day exploit crowd.

Actually...

"According to Rear Admiral D.P. Mannix, who fought the Moros as a young lieutenant from 1907–1908, the Americans exploited Muslim taboos by wrapping dead Moros in pig's skin and "stuffing [their] mouth[s] with pork", thereby deterring the Moros from continuing with their suicide attacks."

"Moros" = Filipino muslim rebels.

Not saying it was a good move or a bad one, and I can't say for certain how effective it was, but you can't argue with the results.

No problem.

I can easily agree with your points, and you're right - immigrants are treated like shit in the EU (though more out of fear of what happens to the local culture/economy/etc than out of any generic racism or hatred). Compounding this is the fact that most of the EU member nations do not guarantee many of the basic protections that we enjoy here (well they do, but such protections are not as inviolable and enshrined-from-the-start as they are here - e.g. freedom of speech, religion, etc.)

Compounding things further, there is still the issue of non-integration. To be fair, each EU nation has a specific culture, which is generally held in higher regard than the desires of newly-minted citizens (unlike the US, where we generally don't have a 'culture' per se, let alone give it primacy.) Thing is, if you want to *stay* in France, Germany, the UK, etc, one would think that integration would be a top priority, if only for success and stature within your local society.

To be fair again, the US has a bit of a problem with integration, specifically with Latino populations. But again, a Latino enclave doesn't use religion as a basis to set their own laws or to kill anyone who mocks them in the public arena... France on the other hand...

You confuse instinct with circumstance. Most single mothers go out there and work because circumstances say that they have to. Most two-job families see both parents working because financial circumstance demands it.

...usually because they have to, not because they want to. I was raised by a single mother who would have vastly preferred to have not had to hold a full-time job.

You've only proven that religion can be co-opted to justify barbarism... yay? Now show me where Christianity itself justifies such acts (hint: it doesn't.)

The Q'uran on the other hand not only condones, but encourages such acts. Therein lies the difference.

Turkey... barely.

Marxism is a religion in a way - it requires faith (in humanity) to operate without corruption or brutality, since it requires folks to always live and work with society's greater good in mind. The very phrase "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" requires a lack of greed, sloth, or lust (for power) to operate. History has shown that it is just as prone to failure as most other human endeavors, including religion.

Capitalism on the other hand? It doesn't require any faith to work... in fact it specifically relies on the basest elements of humanity (namely, self-interest) to operate at all.

That's the thing - it isn't that they put their careers "over" their families - they do it because of their families. That woolly mammoth isn't gonna kill itself, you know (or the modern equivalent? 'That mortgage ain't gonna pay itself.')

Most guys would love to stay home all day and help raise the kids, enjoying every moment - instead they have to get out there and make double-damned certain that the wife and kids were provided for, and kept secure, safe, fed, and warm. That's the hard-wiring I'm talking about. Some guys manage to do it (e.g. stay-at-home dads) - good for them! (no, really - I'd be totally envious of such a situation.) Most guys however don't get to do that - they have to get out there and work for the long haul, for the family.

That's why I specifically wrote "sucking it up" - not because they want to, but because they have to.

Actually, France has been dealing with a growing problem; namely, radical Islamists who have been busy turning entire neighborhoods within France into Sharia-run enclaves. No desire to integrate into society, and indeed, they'd prefer France become a caliphate.

Moderate voices, or efforts by moderate muslims to clamp down on this mess? Nowhere to be found.

The UK has been seeing a rise of this as well, and Germany has recently seen backlashes by neo-nationalist elements against similar problems found there.

Long story short, this is a hell of a lot more complex than you make it out to be, and points to a growing problem throughout the EU. The US sees only a small fraction of this issue (see also the town of Dearborn, MI) by comparison.