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No Googling -- but the answers are below.
1) How many US soldiers have died in Operation Attack Iraq Because Bush II Has A Vendetta?
2) How many Iraqi civilians?
3) How many US soldiers have died in the war in Afghanistan?
4) How may Afghan civilians?
5) How many Osama bin Ladens?
6) How many angels can dance on the point of a needle?
ANSWER KEY:
1) About 4,000. (There have been 4,242 confirmed deaths among the Coalition of Nations Dumb Or Asshole Enough To Send Their People To War Based On the Bush II Administration's Word. And I naturally estimate that the vast majority of those killed were US soldiers.)
2) Between about 91,000 and 99,000.
3) 651 US soldiers killed . Forty-nine were killed in 2002. 155 were killed in 2008, more than any other year. More than in 2002, 2003 and 2004 combined.
The total losses among all invading countries: 1,077.
4) Short answer: No one knows. Which seems fine because the vast majority of the Western World doesn't want to know.
"Estimates of civilian deaths based on media reports since the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 range from 4,800 to 7,000 killed by US and NATO forces, with another 3,000 deaths caused by insurgent actions. As in Iraq, figures derived from media estimates must be considered an under-estimation due to the lack of reportage of many incidents and the unknown numbers of wounded who died later of their injuries.
"The figure does not include the tens of thousands of alleged 'Taliban' deaths. In the past three years, media accounts based on US and NATO body counts add up to well over 10,000 fatalities among the insurgents. On a number of occasions, it has been subsequently established that the victims were innocent Afghan civilians." (World Socialist Web Site )
5) Zero. However, the US secretly launched Operation Natural Death years ago. Therefore, the number is expected to go up at any time.
6) Only one, and only if it's a gifted dancer. Thomas Aquinas holds that angels cannot occupy the same space -- or, as he has it, "contain" the same space. ("God and Reason In the Middle Ages," Edward Grant -- see the subsection Angels and Natural Philosophy, page 255.)
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Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Monday, February 16, 2009
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Cold fusion is possible. No one bothered to tell me.
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A breakthrough like that, and I had to hear about it from a teevee show instead of from a family member, a friend, or even a newspaper. For years, fusion reactors have been up and running.
Fusion.
Humans can create energy the same way stars do.
If humanity can hang on through World War Three, aka Crusade IX, fusion reactors will provide the world's electricity. That's right: Hang on to your Christianity, because eventually sea water-powered fusion reactors will be supplying our zapping juice.
Of course, the Western World will enjoy fusion's benefits first and be an asshole about sharing with the other kids. Humans will be fusing atoms, but not getting rid of massive-scale poverty, hunger, and disease. The cherry on the sundae: The world will use the whole fusion-thing as an excuse:
"Yeah, we still haven't gotten around to the 'ending world hunger' thing. 'Next year,' we always say!
"But come on now: Fucking. Fusion. The world [the speaker knows the audience will understand the "world" to be only the countries on it with strong, interdependent, economies] makes energy the same way the god damned stars do! This city -- this country -- is running on the energy provided by a cup of freaking sea water!"
Of course, for fusion to be viable, it will have to be cheaper than other means of creating electricity, which is likely to make it the juice-generator of last resort.
Still, given enough time, humans will be using plasma power. And these generators' worst byproducts will be nonradioactive only three hundred years after their creation.
...We may be in another ice age by then.
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A breakthrough like that, and I had to hear about it from a teevee show instead of from a family member, a friend, or even a newspaper. For years, fusion reactors have been up and running.
Fusion.
Humans can create energy the same way stars do.
If humanity can hang on through World War Three, aka Crusade IX, fusion reactors will provide the world's electricity. That's right: Hang on to your Christianity, because eventually sea water-powered fusion reactors will be supplying our zapping juice.
Of course, the Western World will enjoy fusion's benefits first and be an asshole about sharing with the other kids. Humans will be fusing atoms, but not getting rid of massive-scale poverty, hunger, and disease. The cherry on the sundae: The world will use the whole fusion-thing as an excuse:
"Yeah, we still haven't gotten around to the 'ending world hunger' thing. 'Next year,' we always say!
"But come on now: Fucking. Fusion. The world [the speaker knows the audience will understand the "world" to be only the countries on it with strong, interdependent, economies] makes energy the same way the god damned stars do! This city -- this country -- is running on the energy provided by a cup of freaking sea water!"
Of course, for fusion to be viable, it will have to be cheaper than other means of creating electricity, which is likely to make it the juice-generator of last resort.
Still, given enough time, humans will be using plasma power. And these generators' worst byproducts will be nonradioactive only three hundred years after their creation.
...We may be in another ice age by then.
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Thursday, November 6, 2008
Killing an Arab.
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It's as likely as not that bin Laden is dead, and has been for maybe a year or two.
However, his life as a dead person will be as long as Elvis's because if the West isn't fighting Osama and his ideas, then we're killing Arabs for the purpose of maintaining military bases and embassies in oil-rich countries.
And the US wouldn't have cause to creep into Pakistan.
And Americans would have to think about the fact that our real war is with hundreds of groups or Muslim radicals who want to kill Westerners -- hundreds of thousands of people everywhere, in every country.
We would get very bad headaches as we thought about that. And we would be even more terror-filled. And I would need a MacBook Pro more than ever.
So it's preferable for the West to have a single face to hate. It prevents headaches and, quite likely, hate crimes against Muslims from becoming as common as blinking.
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It's as likely as not that bin Laden is dead, and has been for maybe a year or two.
However, his life as a dead person will be as long as Elvis's because if the West isn't fighting Osama and his ideas, then we're killing Arabs for the purpose of maintaining military bases and embassies in oil-rich countries.
And the US wouldn't have cause to creep into Pakistan.
And Americans would have to think about the fact that our real war is with hundreds of groups or Muslim radicals who want to kill Westerners -- hundreds of thousands of people everywhere, in every country.
We would get very bad headaches as we thought about that. And we would be even more terror-filled. And I would need a MacBook Pro more than ever.
So it's preferable for the West to have a single face to hate. It prevents headaches and, quite likely, hate crimes against Muslims from becoming as common as blinking.
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Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Conservative/Republican pundits will say:
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Certainly it can't be denied that the W. Administration's current handling of the Existential* War On Terror made it easier for Obama to win because, had there been a terrorist attack -- especially in the US -- voters would have been more inclined to vote for McCain. That there wasn't is a credit to the current president, who we haven't talked about for months and has done a lot of important things for the country when we weren't paying attention.
(Person making comment, and likely the host or anchor of whatever show this is said on, takes it as no-need-to-even-speak-about-it-obvious that United States-ians vote for Republicans when they're scared.)
*Existential: (1) Of, relating to, or affirming existence. (2) a: Grounded in existence or the experience of existence: empirical. b: Having being in time and space. (3) [translation of Danish eksistentiel & German existential] : existentialist.
Existentialism: A chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad.
Calling the War On Terror "Existential": "Existential" is a hard word to understand, and does OK in the speeches it is made to be part of. And calling terrorism an existential threat, strictly, is true: Terrorism exists and it is a threat.
But I don't think Republicans in DC and governors' mansions go in for the "analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad."
Existentialism recognizes moral relativism, and the GOP mocks moral relativism.
All of which makes everything perfect: The Bush Administration's Existential War On Terror is entirely contradictory.
Which is icing when your war is against terror: a state of intense fear. An idea! A feeling! A state of mind!
--Back on track (well, back to the one I switched to after the first paragraph): No matter what we call whatever conflict we're in, if we are, it must be won.
How?
Since universal health care was an idea cooked up by socialists and would help all US citizens and not only corporations (though it would help them immensely) or people who have so much money that they hire other people to tell them how to spend it, I will not ask for universal health care. Instead, I would like the government to know that my state of terror -- intense fear -- would almost entirely be eradicated if I was bought a new MacBook.
This war is about winning hearts and minds. The above is how to write me off as a big Mission Accomplished.
Well... Since the US is spending $5,000 per second waging its Existential War On Terror for Hearts and Minds, I'm going to get greedy and ask for a completely geeked-out MacBook Pro. Still cheaper than a second in Iraq.
...But shit. I'm already on our side. No heart or mind to win.
(In retrospect, it's nice to have written the above -- and for it to be the truth -- since the PATRIOT Act -- which was made law for the purpose of Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism -- has taken away at least one of my liberties: the freedom to know what freedoms have been taken away by acts of Congress and the White House.)
So, then, here's how to win our existential war existentially: Let's get our soldiers out of Iraq, where it is very easy for them to get very hurt and/or very dead, let Iraq take care of its own shit with, in part, its budget surplus--
Aside: How many times does Iraq's government have to implore us to remove our soldiers, and how many times do we have to steadfastly, resolutely, rebuke them? We have an easy out we refuse to take because, in part, idiocy has become a virtue and the White House sets the standard. And damned high.
--and give the soldiers kick-ass MacBooks?
Throw in new iPhones too.
Which would be cool but, of course, still too little. But at minimum (which it would be close to) it would be a nice addition to what our returned soldiers have received since 2002: the denial of proper health care, horrible pay, horrible name it.
Christ. Let's teach the world to sing al-fucking-ready.
(This post: with thanks to m-w.com.)
>
Certainly it can't be denied that the W. Administration's current handling of the Existential* War On Terror made it easier for Obama to win because, had there been a terrorist attack -- especially in the US -- voters would have been more inclined to vote for McCain. That there wasn't is a credit to the current president, who we haven't talked about for months and has done a lot of important things for the country when we weren't paying attention.
(Person making comment, and likely the host or anchor of whatever show this is said on, takes it as no-need-to-even-speak-about-it-obvious that United States-ians vote for Republicans when they're scared.)
*Existential: (1) Of, relating to, or affirming existence. (2) a: Grounded in existence or the experience of existence: empirical. b: Having being in time and space. (3) [translation of Danish eksistentiel & German existential] : existentialist.
Existentialism: A chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad.
Calling the War On Terror "Existential": "Existential" is a hard word to understand, and does OK in the speeches it is made to be part of. And calling terrorism an existential threat, strictly, is true: Terrorism exists and it is a threat.
But I don't think Republicans in DC and governors' mansions go in for the "analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad."
Existentialism recognizes moral relativism, and the GOP mocks moral relativism.
All of which makes everything perfect: The Bush Administration's Existential War On Terror is entirely contradictory.
Which is icing when your war is against terror: a state of intense fear. An idea! A feeling! A state of mind!
--Back on track (well, back to the one I switched to after the first paragraph): No matter what we call whatever conflict we're in, if we are, it must be won.
How?
Since universal health care was an idea cooked up by socialists and would help all US citizens and not only corporations (though it would help them immensely) or people who have so much money that they hire other people to tell them how to spend it, I will not ask for universal health care. Instead, I would like the government to know that my state of terror -- intense fear -- would almost entirely be eradicated if I was bought a new MacBook.
This war is about winning hearts and minds. The above is how to write me off as a big Mission Accomplished.
Well... Since the US is spending $5,000 per second waging its Existential War On Terror for Hearts and Minds, I'm going to get greedy and ask for a completely geeked-out MacBook Pro. Still cheaper than a second in Iraq.
...But shit. I'm already on our side. No heart or mind to win.
(In retrospect, it's nice to have written the above -- and for it to be the truth -- since the PATRIOT Act -- which was made law for the purpose of Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism -- has taken away at least one of my liberties: the freedom to know what freedoms have been taken away by acts of Congress and the White House.)
So, then, here's how to win our existential war existentially: Let's get our soldiers out of Iraq, where it is very easy for them to get very hurt and/or very dead, let Iraq take care of its own shit with, in part, its budget surplus--
Aside: How many times does Iraq's government have to implore us to remove our soldiers, and how many times do we have to steadfastly, resolutely, rebuke them? We have an easy out we refuse to take because, in part, idiocy has become a virtue and the White House sets the standard. And damned high.
--and give the soldiers kick-ass MacBooks?
Throw in new iPhones too.
Which would be cool but, of course, still too little. But at minimum (which it would be close to) it would be a nice addition to what our returned soldiers have received since 2002: the denial of proper health care, horrible pay, horrible name it.
Christ. Let's teach the world to sing al-fucking-ready.
(This post: with thanks to m-w.com.)
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