Not to mention that the entirety of Kuwait was under Bush I's watch. Its not like the Democrats had been trying to get the Iraqi's out of Kuwait for 8 years and campaigned on how the Republicans were soft on it. The Republicans have tied a good deal of their aspirations to being the party of defense, but it was Obama who pulled the trigger.

What a fantastic tribute. I've never actually had a desire to go tehre ever, but now, if I end up there, I know exactly what I have to check out.

I still have a fantastic quote from Artifex saved: Wright, rightly righting waiting wights' weighty writing rights writ white, writes right. -- artifex2004

In all honesty I've been thinking of leaving, too. The group that made everything so great about the dot has dispersed, and the dot itself is doing all it can to kill the rest. I hit 8,000 comments recently, still only half of SamTheButcher, and he's been gone 5 years. If I do leave, at least I'll doa closing JE...

Indeed. I would say that, "Grim staisfaction," just about covers it.

Don't forget the 360 and Kinect as well. The one thing always lacking for videophones was the infrastructure. Now, you have it.

How do you differentiate a troll from someone just drinking the derpaide?

XBox has strict cops, but they're honest. If you cheat or priate they boot you. Sony boots everyone, promises features and then takes them away. It's not the honest cop that the Mob goes after int he movies, it's the dirty cop who double-crossed them. They may not like XBox Live, but they hate Sony.

Is that a record for Godwin'ing? :-)

Well played, sir, well played!

That... That is a whole lotta derp right there, I tell you what.

The Defendant made multiple, public videos claiming responsibility. What Would you like to cross-exam on that? What proof are you looking for?

Odds wise, I think you're probably right. In all honesty though, even if and when that technology becomes available, I don't think as many people will use it as you fear. I'm guessing even one is too many for you, but I don't think it will be as rampant as is envisioned. But, that's just my own hunch.

For starters, as I said, I'm not buying any of the conspiracy theories, or making it any more than it is. As for what is shown in court... I have been participating in trials for a decade. What the facts actually are, and what gets shown in court are very different. You assume that the reason the facts aren't shown is because they are damaging to our side. The reason the facts aren't always shown in court is because they can be construed as too prejudicial. I have worked on trials that were "close" only because so many of the facts were excluded.

My preference would have been for him to have been taken alive and put on trial. But I'm not going to feel bad because that didn't happen.

As for whther or not he was actually the mastermind, he took credit for it. Many, many times. He suffered the consequences of that decision. Again, I'm not going to lose any sleep over that. Especially not if your rationale is that he is just a pawn in a larger conspiracy.

Indeed. The analogy I was initially going with was that the US is the High School Freshman who ends up Quarterbacking the varisty team to the championship and then becomes an insufferable ass.

The problem with the analogy, and with simply calling the US arseholes, is that it is both very true, and very untrue. The US is far more conflicted than that.

We are self-centered, assholes, bullies, and ignorant hate mongers. We also really, honestly, want the world to be a better place. We want things like democracy in places that are ruled by tyrants. When disasters strike we donate our time and resources to help. We have good and bad, but, for the most part, we are more good than bad.

I also don't think you can have it both ways. The rest of the world looks at us and our rose-colored glasses and wants to slap us for being so naively unrealistic. But if we behave like any other country, suddenly we're help to that same standard we were previously being mocked over.

It is far, far more complicated than that.