Islaam really isn't as violent as you think

@Canuck12:

As offensive as the costume may be, it’s actually pretty clever. And well done…

Offensive LOL?  Really? ;)

I hope every would-be suicide bomber, or family member of one of these clowns is deeply offended.  Better file a human rights complaint!

lol

New York ‘lone wolf’ was one hour away from finishing his bomb
She also praised the New York Police Department, saying, “I think they handled it well.”
Officials with the NYPD, which conducted the undercover investigation using a confidential informant and a bugged apartment, said the department had to move quickly because Pimentel was about to test a pipe bomb made out of match heads, nails and other ingredients bought at neighborhood hardware and discount stores.
Two law enforcement officials said Monday that the NYPD’s Intelligence Division had sought to get the FBI involved at least twice as the investigation unfolded. Both times, the FBI concluded that Pimentel lacked the mental capacity to act on his own, they said.
The FBI thought Pimentel “didn’t have the predisposition or the ability to do anything on his own,” one of the officials said.
The officials were not authorized to speak about the case and spoke on condition of anonymity. The FBI’s New York office and the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan both declined to comment on Monday.
Pimentel’s lawyer, Joseph Zablocki, said his client was never a true threat.
“If the goal here is to be stopping terror … I’m not sure that this is where we should be spending our resources,” he said.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly defended the handling of the case Monday, saying the NYPD kept federal authorities in the loop “all along” before circumstances forced investigators to take swift measures using state charges.
“No question in my mind that we had to take this case down,” Kelly said. “There was an imminent threat.”
Added Kelly: “This is a classic case of what we’ve been talking about �� the lone wolf, an individual, self-radicalized. This is the needle in the haystack problem we face as a country and as a city.”
Authorities described Pimentel as an unemployed U.S. citizen and “al-Qaida sympathizer” who was born in the Dominican Republic. He had lived most of his life in Manhattan, aside from about five years in the upstate city of Schenectady, where authorities say he had an arrested for credit card fraud.
His mother said he was raised Roman Catholic. But he converted to Islam in 2004 and went by the name Muhammad Yusuf, authorities said.
Using a tip from police in Albany, the NYPD had been watching Pimentel using a confidential informant for the past year. Investigators learned that he was energized and motivated to carry out his plan by the Sept. 30 killing of al-Qaida’s U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, police said.
Pimentel was under constant surveillance as he shopped for the pipe bombmaterials. He also was overheard talking about attacking police patrol cars and postal facilities, killing soldiers returning home from abroad andbombing a police station in Bayonne, N.J., authorizes said.

I meant before you took the 4 year break or whatever…

@Cmdr:

bump for the new year.

Merry Christmas everyone (or your respective holiday season.)

Thank you.

Yes water is useful because it has a neutral pH, and also due to its continued dissociation between hydroxyl and hydrate ions

I was hoping someone would open a thread about this.  Here’s a piece I wrote while exchanging e-mails with a friend on Lost in Translation.  Hope it doesn’t give anything away.
–----------
Hmm…I am wondering if my comments right now are influenced by seeing Munich over the weekend.  I felt Spielberg was reaching for a particular audience, specifically the hard conservative Israelis.  While the movie isn’t sympathetic to the Palestinians, it’s not unsympathetic to them either.  But really, it creates very thin Palestinian characters without really exploring what it is they are doing.  I believe Spielberg chose this route because he wanted to appeal to those conservatives, who really don’t give a damn what the Palestinians feel or want or need.  Rather, the movie showed everything a right-wing Israeli would see:  murders, terror, etc.  It also expressed the rage, anger, and frustration of the conservatives as well.  But then it showed what the logical extension of all those feelings, what those ideas would lead to, and not on a social level, but a deeply personal one, especially how loving Israel can make you less Jewish.

As such, I don’t think this is an Israel-Palestine movie.  It’s something that has been done rarely:  an Israel-Israel movie.  It’s an attempt in my mind to bridge the gap between the deep divisions in Israeli society.  Or maybe not bridge, but convince the other side.  Hence, its appeal and its focus are tightly played on the self-destructive nature of revenge, typical in some ways of many revenge movies recently (with the notable exception of Quentin Tarrantino), but also elevating that sensibility and relating it to a concrete social dilemma.

Ok, I admit, your right on the arrogant superiority complex.

No. DS. It’s in case your dog is sick, or you and your life partner adopt, or you need time to recuperate from your sex correction operation. Currently(since 1998?), they can have it without pay, I believe. But, last summer or fall, the CA legislature was considering Gov. Davis’ request to make it PAID @ 55% of salary :roll: . This opens the door for increasing it to 100% later, of course.