A WWII veteran in Greenville took his own life in front of the VA not too long ago. If you want to show your support to our troops, stay on your congressmen to ensure that those troops get the supplies, money and rest between campaigns so they can continue to do their job and to ensure that when they do return home they're not shoved into a system that denies them what they're country promised them for their service.
A WWII veteran in Greenville took his own life in front of the VA not too long ago. If you want to show your support to our troops, stay on your congressmen to ensure that those troops get the supplies, money and rest between campaigns so they can continue to do their job and to ensure that when they do return home they're not shoved into a system that denies them what they're country promised them for their service.
Should everyone on CBS SPORTSline be forced to send a "care package" as part of our membership...
Whose "forcing" you SP? Are my jedi mind powers too much for your feeble brain? Or do you think I'm going to send out jackbooted thugs to come and get you in the night? Get real, this is a forum, how can I force anything?
Look SB, I know it's a sportsboard, but most of the threads during the football off season have little to nothing to do with sports. I'm perplexed as to why you would criticize this thread, but are happy to leave alone clown punching, supermodel, or sulfuric acid threads. There all irrelavent to sports, but at least the support one is more relavent in general.
Nobody was asking you to worship anything, I was just trying to raise awareness for the troops and thank them for their efforts. I am ex-Army myself 89-92 a Gulf War 1 era vet, and was just trying to help keep the country from treating our troops like the Nam vets had it.
And last of all, whether you want it or not, I thank you for YOUR service.
Well, in the "right wing looneyland", war and killing is supposed to be a SIN
The precise translation of "Thou shall not kill" is "Thou shall not MURDER" killing as in war is justified by God and the Bible on numerous occasions, even merciless killing of thine enemies.
they are over there "getting injured and dying", so that Exxon-Mobile and BP can buy out Iraq's oil,
BS, not even worth responding to.
(and last I checked, ethyl alcohol is one of the cheapest substances on the earth to produce).
Again more proof you don't know what you are talking about. The cost of making ETOH in expense is not the issue, the fact that you need more energy to make it than what you get out is.
The cost of producing ethanol varies with the cost of the feedstock used and the scale of production. Approximately 85 percent of ethanol production capacity in the United States relies on corn feedstock. The cost of producing ethanol from corn is estimated to be about $1.10 per gallon. Although there is currently no commercial production of ethanol from cellulosic feedstocks such as agricultural wastes, grasses and wood, the estimated production cost using these feedstocks is $1.15 to $1.43 per gallon.
Because a gallon of ethanol contains less energy than a gallon of gasoline, the production cost of ethanol must be multiplied by a factor of 1.5 to make an energy-cost comparison with gasoline. This means that if ethanol costs $1.10 per gallon to produce, then the effective cost per gallon to equal the energy contained in a gallon of gasoline is $1.65. In contrast, the current wholesale price of gasoline is about 90 cents per gallon.
The federal motor fuel excise tax on gasohol, a blended fuel of 10-percent ethanol and 90-percent gasoline, is 5.4 cents less per gallon than the tax on straight gasoline. In other words, the federal subsidy is 54 cents per gallon of ethanol when the ethanol is blended with gasoline. The subsidy makes ethanol-blended fuel competitive in the marketplace and stimulates the growth of an ethanol production and distribution infrastructure.
Whose "forcing" you SP? Are my jedi mind powers too much for your feeble brain? Or do you think I'm going to send out jackbooted thugs to come and get you in the night? Get real, this is a forum, how can I force anything?
You may not be forcing anyone to do anything, but your post was a bit "forward" and came across as a scolding, rather than a reminder.
I am immune to your Jedi mind tricks because I have no brain-- I traded it in for $30 at a clinic a couple years ago since I wasn't using it at all (j/k)....lame joke.
Look SB, I know it's a sportsboard, but most of the threads during the football off season have little to nothing to do with sports.
Very true, but the people participating in those threads aren't bombasting the other members for not participating in their non-sports threads like you did.
I'm perplexed as to why you would criticize this thread, but are happy to leave alone clown punching, supermodel, or sulfuric acid threads.
I didn't criticize this thread for being non-sports (if you go through some of the other non-sports ones, I post in them plenty), only because even though it is non-sports, you made it sound as if everyone was "messing up" because they were posting in sports-related threads, instead of in your non-sports thread.
Nobody was asking you to worship anything, I was just trying to raise awareness for the troops and thank them for their efforts.
No prob. I was just moody and pxxsed off because I had just started my shift (I work graveyard shift), so sorry, if I flew off the handle in my earlier posts.
I am ex-Army myself 89-92 a Gulf War 1 era vet, and was just trying to help keep the country from treating our troops like the Nam vets had it.
Very cool, and I can agree with you here. I myself am a pretty liberal guy at times, but I have never understood some of the far-left's capacity to criticize our own troops (who are all our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, friends). Attack our government for putting us at war, but don't blame the troops for doing their job!
And last of all, whether you want it or not, I thank you for YOUR service.
they are over there "getting injured and dying", so that Exxon-Mobile and BP can buy out Iraq's oil,
BS, not even worth responding to.
Well, actually it isn't B.S. If you are logical at all, you should ask yourself why we would be spending so much time in a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, while claiming all kinds of propaganda about "defending America" and whatnot. Al-Queda and the Baath party were known enemies in the Arab world, indeed, Saddam Hussein prohibited Al-Queda from operating in his borders because he feared they would try to assasinate him.
So, we put 300,000 troops in the wrong country and a paltry 30,000 in the right country (Afghanistan/Pakistan); are you sure that "defending America" was our reason for going there? Couple that with some other facts:
Iraq has the world's second largest oil reserve-- a commodity that was untouchable by the western world's oil moguls while Hussein was in power (under his regime, Iraq's oil wealth was a state-controlled asset). Exxon-Mobile, BP, and a host of other petroleum companies had their people on the ground negotiating for the purchase of that wealth since day 1 of our invasion of Iraq.
Is it no coincidence that both our President and Vice President are both oil moguls themselves, and that this invasion was started during their term?
So tell me again, what were our priorities when we invaded Iraq? Have you actually ever read the 9/11 Commission's findings on the whole matter? What were the first words out of Dubya's mouth when the defense secretary informed him that we were under attack by middle eastern terrorists (I'll tell you; he responded with: "What did Saddam Hussein have to do with this?.....Find the connection..." as per the 9/11 Commission's Findings) Don't try to tell me that we invaded Iraq because Saddam was a "bad guy"-- it is far easier to count the world rulers who are "good guys" than to count the tyrants in this world. If we really cared about other people, we would be invading China, or Somalia again, or Libya, or...well the list goes on and on.
We singled out Saddam because he had something we wanted: OIL. But even though the common man like you and I are the cannon fodder keeping this war going, we will never see the benefits at the pump.
I was getting a little cranky too, sorry. I'm sure the strategic resource oil was factored into all war plans, but I think that you have to go back to the original reasons and situations when you consider troop deployment in both theaters.
Afghanistan: Why? To get Bin Laden and shut down the Taliban. Situation: third world style military resistance. The major part of the military Ops have been over and were over pretty quickly. The rest has just been dealing with fragmented guerilla style containment. Therefore low numbers of troop commitment.
Iraq: Why? To get Saddam and his WMDs (before you say "well where are they?" remember, everyone thought he had them, Bushies, anti-Bushies, foreign powers etc.) Situation: one of the world's top 20 armies in situ, and the possibility of gas/bio/nuke warfare. Therefore the higher number troop committment.
we will never see the benefits at the pump.
That's because we are not getting this oil. I think it was more keeping the strategic resource out of loony hands than getting it for ourselves. If we just wanted oil, we'd invade Suadi Arabia, no military to speak of and even more oil. As far as it being principle, well of course it's not that way, the overriding factor is what is in the USA's best interest. Most gain, least pain, of course we won't invade China, it's too expensive.
You may not be forcing anyone to do anything, but your post was a bit "forward" and came across as a scolding, rather than a reminder.
I was getting frustrated, and trying to lay some guilt on those with a conscience, maybe not the best approach, but I knew it would get noticed.
and lastly:
You aren't one of my favs, nor are you likely to be anytime soon.
Oh well, you won't be the 1st person I've rubbed the wrong way. BTW I've had you on mine a while. Always looking for what Black n Gold fans have to say. Which brings me to at least one thing we can agree on for sure:
I was getting a little cranky too, sorry. I'm sure the strategic resource oil was factored into all war plans, but I think that you have to go back to the original reasons and situations when you consider troop deployment in both theaters.
True.
Afghanistan: Why? To get Bin Laden and shut down the Taliban. Situation: third world style military resistance. The major part of the military Ops have been over and were over pretty quickly. The rest has just been dealing with fragmented guerilla style containment. Therefore low numbers of troop commitment.
Very low numbers of troop commitment. We let Bin Laden slip right through our fingers and the Taliban is still alive and well in Afghanistan's northern provinces. Our total lack of committment to this action tells me that (we) weren't really interested in capturing him (Bush's ties with the Bin Laden family? Who knows at this point) or maybe that was a very low priority when we started messing with the middle east again.
I do find it funny, that now that it looks like my boy McCain is almost surely gonna win this November, Bin Laden's brother has been over here trying to talk peace and whatnot-- he knows that when McCain gets in office, Osama is as good as cooked.
Iraq: Why? To get Saddam and his WMDs (before you say "well where are they?" remember, everyone thought he had them, Bushies, anti-Bushies, foreign powers etc.) Situation: one of the world's top 20 armies in situ, and the possibility of gas/bio/nuke warfare. Therefore the higher number troop committment.
Yeah, it's not like Congress tried to stop Bush from taking us there. I know of a certain female Presidential candidate who also needs to watch what she says when she criticizes this war-- she supported it at first.
What bothers me is not that we didn't find any WMDs, it is that we decided to go look for them, when neither Iraq, nor Hussein did anything (beyond what we were already aware of and had imposed sanctions for) further to suggest that WMDs could be found in Iraq-- there was no new intelligence, no admissions of guilt by Saddam, no more complaints of him using WMDs by anyone (again, besides the instances that we are already aware of and had already imposed punishment for).
I am not ticked off about this war for the standard reasons. Yeah, lots of our troops have died, but that happens in war, and that is why we need to be very careful about how we pick our battles and how the rest of the world views us based on those choices. If we would have landed 300,000 troops in Afghanistan after 9/11 and bombed the place back into the dark ages, I don't think much of the world would be blaming us for anything today, or at the very least, they would have held the opinion that 'well, you mess with a sleeping giant, and you get what you deserved'.
Instead, we concocted a reason to invade another country that had nothing to do with 9/11, renigging on the sanctions we had placed, and decided, 'No, we changed our minds; even though Iraq has done no further offense, we are doing away with sanctions and we are going to invade you instead'.
While I am sure that Saddam wasn't exactly having amoment of silence on our behalf when 9/11 happened, he definitely had nothing to do with it.
What we have done is akin to a schoolyard bully getting punched in the mouth by some particularly brave kid who has had enough of being bullied, and then , instead of hitting him back, we hit some bystander who happened to be laughing at us.
The only thing worse than being a bully, is being a bully that has no stomach for a real fight or real resistance.
That said, no, we should not pull out of Iraq, even if it takes a century to re-stablize that region. I don't agree with why we went there in the first place, but now that we picked a fight, we absolutely have to finish it, or we will never be safe again in this country.
You aren't one of my favs, nor are you likely to be anytime soon.
That was just more of my ill-founded moodiness...
Which brings me to at least one thing we can agree on for sure:
There already have been posts on here thanking the soldiers, so I figured they spoke for all of us who think the same way. Yes, those brave people do an amazing job. They were not drafted into the military, but joined anyway because that's the kind of people they are.
You often hear people thanking American soldiers for their efforts, and rightfully so. But no one in this country ever mentions the soldiers of other countries who are on our side. I also respect the troops from England, Canada, Australia, Iraq, Pakistan, and whoever else is helping in the fight for freedom.
