SilverNRed

Yeah, either that or it was just a really, really stupid movie trying to cash in on Pulp Fiction's popularity.

I could just as easily criticize the MSM outlets that held out on covering this thing as long as possible. And friggin' Anderson Cooper apologizing to his viewers for even having to talk about it (he didn't have cold feet talking about Romney's Mormonism). AC should really just put an Obama pin on his sportcoat and get it over with.

The best fiction I've read in years was The Terror by Dan Simmons. Link It's about English explorers in the 1840's who attempt to find the Northwest Passage but are trapped in the ice and stalked by a monster. Very tense book; I loved every page.

I'm saying it was terrible.

In your court is one thing. Having your personal pastor for 20+ years (who your praise in your book and even borrowed the title from) turns out to be a paranoid, race-baiting nutjob who hates America, that's another thing. You can't decide who endorses you and you can't chase away everyone you don't completely agree with, but spending the majority of your adult life with a douche like Wright is a big deal. I can't think of a similar situation on this board to compare it to. I don't think we have a shortage of outrage on this board. I remember your thread a few months back where you declared the entire state of Texas terrible based on one woman lying to get Hanna Montana tickets. This isn't the media's fault. What exactly is being sensationalized? We're watching videos of Obama's insane pastor say racist and paranoid things while his congregation cheers him on. And Obama either had no idea for 20 years or just didn't mind for 20 years.

Boondock Saints was one of the most remarkably sh------- movies I've ever seen. Between this and the Transformers sequel, we should maybe consider burning down our movie theatres after this year.

And if Obama starts telling the truth about how government works and the limits of what it can do for people, I might give a crap. I thought the grandmother point was basically useless. It doesn't sound like his grandmother said anything as incendiary as Wright and, even so, he didn't get to pick his grandmother. He DID get to choose what church to go to and decided to check out Wright's paranoid, race-baiting rants for 20+ years (presumably taking his family along with him) and apparently didn't decide to speak out against the things he disagreed with until.....now. That seems exceptionally stupid, nice speech or not. For as nice as the speech was, it didn't do anything to explain what he was doing with someone as ridiculous as Wright for so long. But like I said before, I couldn't really imagine a satisfactory explanation for that anyway.

No, that's different. Republicans are bad!

There's an excellent book on the subject by Michael Oren. Power, Faith, and Fantasy

The strain of radical Islam that we're fighting is much, much younger. Arab nationalism was the root of islamic terrorism until the 1980's, and that's not the case anymore.

Are you !@#$ing kidding me? Already? Would it kill the voters of NYS to just once elect a decent, intelligent human being? With such spectacular judgment, it's a wonder the state is in the toilet.

And you could make a pretty strong argument that OBL is Zawahiri's puppet. OBL changed more from meeting Zawahiri than Zawahiri did from meeting OBL.

I would say no. If Arab nationalism was the issue, you could point to Israel's existence. Islamic extremism is lashing out at just about everything across the world (cartoons in Denmark??). The crux of the matter with the extremists is that they're nuts, they're violent, and there are a lot of them.

I do indeed. To me it doesn't make sense to strap a bomb to a pregnant woman or a kid so that you can blow them up to kill your enemies. To me it doesn't make sense that the only way to prove the superiority of your beliefs is to act violently against people who threaten them. (Certainly these things don't make sense to you either.) Islamic extremists don't make sense. They exist the way the Westboro Baptist Church exists (America tolerates gays so let's protest funerals for U.S. soldiers and Heath Ledger). They're so far out there that any solution we can come up with for their crazy problems probably won't satisfy them, because they aren't rational in the first place. I would absolutely love if the U.S. hadn't made so many mistakes in the Middle East over the past few decades. But there's no practical way to say we could have been uninvolved in the region when we've been tied to it in one way or another since the 18th century. And whatever problems we cause there pale in comparison to the problems caused by their own in-fighting and corrupt rulers. Even the non-extremists in the region give the USA and/or Jews a disproportionate amount of blame for their problems.

They essentially believe in a perverse death cult. I don't believe what they say. I don't even believe them when they're trying to tell me what they believe. I basically think they'll say anything to justify their own sick need to kill people who don't think the way they do. They're pretty famous for spinning defeats into great victories for their cause (not to mention turning OBL's pathetic performance against the Soviets into the birth of a great military leader). If a worldwide caliphate (with Bin Laden's specific brand of Islam, of course) is the best way for all mankind to live, it's hard to reconcile that the fact that the wealthiest, most successful nation in the world is the non-Muslim USA. We're too big to be off their radar and our existence undermines their beliefs. Their screwy beliefs are different from the simple concept of Heaven in that what they believe is strongly tied into what happens here on earth. Doing anything to undermine their beliefs (even inadvertantly) can cause the worst ones to wig out and chop off a head or two. A guy who believes there's a Heaven and Hell probably won't be much affected by meeting a more successful person who doesn't. It's not, but at the same time I wonder if there's any way to placate them. Decades ago, when the issue was nationalism in the Middle East, maybe we could. Now that it's Islamic extremism, I doubt we can get on their good side.

To be fair, the attackers also cited the 72 virgin sex slaves they'd obtain in paradise once they completed their mass murder. Regardless of what the attackers said, I think the main reason for the attack was the twisted idealogy of the people behind it.

Not necessarily. How many of his diatribes were taped? I know they sell his "sermons" on DVD at the church. Do they sell this crap? Why did tapes of these even exist? Is that church really that proud of this? And how many insane diatribes do we really need? There's no context to put this in to make it better. There's no context to make "God Damn America!" sound right. And the guy practically sounds excited in his first post-9/11 rant. His rants are on the the level of the Mel Gibson/Michael Richards meltdowns except we have several of them on video.

I have a tough time coming up with any excuse for Obama on this one. I basically want to like him since I think there's a good chance he's our next president, but there's no way he spent 20+ years with this guy and never noticed that he's a race-baiting lunatic. Wright is seriously effed up. And he's not some "crazy uncle" who occasionally says things you disagree with. You choose what church you go to and what church you want to donate to. Obama also choose to praise the guy in his books. I won't be shocked if this costs him the nomination. He was going to get drilled in Pennsylvania already. (I also think it's funny that Obama is the "Hope" candidate when both his wife and his pastor come across as such bitter, angry people.)

And on the plus side, he'll have access to best the medical care in the world. I'm not super concerned with McCain's age. It might help him with senior voters the way Obama's age helps him with young voters (and the way Hillary's temperment helps her with bitchy, useless people).

They rushed it to publication just before the 2004 elections, IIRC. They've since updated their findings but haven't addressed all the fundamental errors that were present and quickly identified nearly four years ago.

Thanks, buddy. I stopped drinking beer while I've been training, but I'll throw one back for you when I'm done. This is the best thread we've had on this board in ages.

I usually don't like "name jokes" but

I'm amazed you're that confident. Right now all the head to head polls are close, and I think all the fawning praise of Obama will continue to get old over the next few months (Saturday Night Live got the ball rolling on that couple weeks back). I wouldn't want to put any money on any candidate right now. It feels like the roulette table.

Uh Oh.

That is AWESOME news, Campy. Glad to hear you're recovering! (More than a few of us were pulling for you.)