Re:Trust them
(Score:3, Funny)
by Phattypants (469233) on Sunday November 16, @06:31AM (#7486352)
(Last Journal: Saturday November 29, @12:08AM)
Hell yes! What a feeling of pride I will have when my eight-year old son figures out how to connect his (original) iMac (donated by an aunt) to my LAN (which is on another floor, on the other side of the house, with no existing cabled or unencrypted wireless networking infrastructure) and do it with some level of stealth. That day will be a happy day indeed. You won't be able to slap the smile off my face.

Consider the logistics of building a tamper-prone pipeline through over a thousand miles of Russia and eastern European nations. Or a thousand mile alternative through Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Turkey. Or a bit over a thousand miles through Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. All are through regions that are not "west-friendly." The application of logic will show that none of these schemes are feasible at this time.

The systematic nullification of Palestinian territories is not in an effort to "fight terror". Instead it is to carve out a corridor through which a pipeline can be laid to drain the oil of a defeated Iraq to relatively friendly waters. Saddam is not the target, but the land he presides over is. More accurately the oil beneath the land he presides over is. It has been historically convenient to rely on Kuwait to hold Iraq's oil for sale to the west/US, but the tankers just can't haul enough of it away fast enough plus they must travel through waters that are shared with Iran. Jordan is politically moderate and has had the forsight to ally with the US as they stand to profit immensely in the deal.

The political and commercial manipulation of the people of Israel is palpable. Israel and its Jewish constituency has a state now and will forever if they let the US do this thing. If Palestine is allowed to exist in any meaningful way it just means there will be another government that will need to be paid kickbacks for the use of the land by US oil interests. It is not profitable to aid them, but it is to help eliminate them and that is why the US has not moved to help them.

"Keep America Rolling" is the slogan one sees on so many American bumper stickers. The only way that the US will accept to that end is to keep the ever so lucrative oil flowing. Alternative fuels are not being researched because to do so will not line any pockets with inexhaustable funds in the way oil does.

Nobody wanted to be linked to the destruction of the ecosystem of ANWR. The selfless saints! They solved this little PR inconvenience by supporting the destruction of Palestine and that of Iraq. Now they can build a shorter pipeline. Since it is all in the name of fighting "terror" the ignorance of the American public will do the rest.

God bless America...

The field of jagged black rock stretched out before me. Steam rose from rifts in the ground, dotting the landscape with tufts of white. Kilauea's summit seemed so impossibly distant. Only meters away, one skylight glowed of fast-moving molten stone. It was the only glowing point on the decades-old pahoehoe flow. The skylight should have been cool and dark by now, but it didn't matter since it was a dream carrying me there. Suddenly the inferno that was the lava tube was now the setting for the dream. A river of racing lava dominated the cavern and sulfur permeated the air. The air itself had a liquid appearance in the heat. The flow slowed and grew quiet.
A woman was suddenly at the bank of the flow with her back to me. She crouched as though looking at her reflection in a pond. She was beautiful beyond words and as though listening to my very thoughts, she stood and spun on her bare heel with violent rapidity. Piercing black eyes held voluminous rage. Her very form erupted into flames; her flesh had taken on a lava composition. Orbs of fire replaced her black eyes. My thoughts were replaced by sheer terror.
"WHY HAVE YOU INVADED MY HOME!?!" she raged, her voice was the embodiment of fury. I found then that I had control of my body, but was filled with such fear that I shrank from her, unable to speak, transfixed by her fiery magnificence. A whimper of helplessness escaped my lips. Then I saw a truly bizarre thing. Her face, smoldering and bubbling, seemed to soften and actually allow a tiny smile to be revealed. Her fires disappeared and she became her human form, but the flames still burned in her eyes.
"Don't you know the pain you have caused?" I did not comprehend her meaning so I shook my head timidly. "No I see that you are young. I will tell you. The moment your people set foot on these lands, they polluted, contaminated, and doomed my people, to say nothing of the other creatures and plants that were utterly wiped from the earth. Vermin overran the land and sickness decimated the people, who until that time had not known of such horrors. Your warriors then came, against whom our warriors could not hope to emerge victorious. They told us that we were now their people and when we tried to correct the obvious mistake we were met with threats of violence. My people were not treated as people at all. The land that belonged to no one was carved up and TAKEN when it was not ANYONE's to take." Her eyes no longer pulsed with fire, but down her cheeks now streamed tears of lava. I was stunned and overcome with sorrow having heard her words.
She continued, "For thousands of years our culture existed unadulterated and pure. Your people ended the symbiotic self-sufficiency of the islands and disrupted the cohesion of the people. Only one hundred years later did you even admit to yourselves that you were wrong and a great many of you still do not care? There is no end to the greed of your people and each day the weed that is your culture tightens its roots in my soil. I reacted to your presence with such fury because your kind represents the nightmare that is the doom of these magical islands. My people dream of freedom as they have for one hundred years. Pleas fall on ears that refuse to truly listen. I can do nothing but weep into the ocean for the people who are not your people, but are forced to be."
She then combusted brightly back to her molten state, her voice was once again rage. "You must leave now, you are not safe. My rage is not a force that can be caged or withstood. I am Pele and am free to express my outrage! IN THE MOST PRIMAL OF WAYS!!!"
I found myself being lifted as a leaf on a hot air current. Compelled by Pele's sheer will, I was shot high into the sky from the lava tube where I had just been. Gently, I was set down among many ferns on Kilauea to behold an eruption of vast proportion that could only have been the direct result of Pele's fury.