The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Feb 6, 2011 22:48:14 GMT -5
It may have been the worst halftime show ever, but it was nowhere near as bad as the National Anthem performance.
Best versions of the National Anthem:
Best Super Bowl performance (beating out Whitney Houston):
Best live version ever (beating out Hendrix):
Best cover ever:
If you don't think you can get totally amped from listening to the National Anthem, listen to that last version. We HAVE to use that over the PA when Cuse comes to the Phone Booth.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Feb 6, 2011 22:37:54 GMT -5
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Post by The Stig on Feb 5, 2011 12:52:01 GMT -5
We're playing excellent defense - against 4 of their guys on the floor.
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Post by The Stig on Feb 2, 2011 19:29:29 GMT -5
El Baradei is a technocrat. He's an able administrator and a very intelligent man. But he'll never be a popular politician. He makes John Kerry look charismatic.
Also, one of the protesters' main problems with Mubarak is that he's out of touch. Mubarak is indeed out of touch, but at least he's been in Egypt for the past 30 years. El Baradei has spent most of that time in Vienna at the IAEA. He's not the solution the protesters are looking for.
The Brotherhood isn't the solution either, for reasons I mentioned before. Who is the solution? Nobody, right now, which is exactly how Mubarak wants it. He's spent the last 30 years doing everything he can to ensure that the opposition can't unite behind any one leader, and now we're seeing just how successful he's been.
I think today's brutality made it clear that Mubarak isn't going lightly, despite what he said last night. I still think he might ride this out.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Feb 1, 2011 19:37:26 GMT -5
If the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt entered politics, it would probably fragment pretty quickly. There's huge divides between different parts of the party. Most of them are fairly moderate, though. They wouldn't be friendly to the US, but I doubt they'd be overtly hostile.
I don't think there's much risk of Egypt turning into Iran. For starters, Egyptians are Sunni, Iran is Shia. Shia Islam, with its well-established hierarchy, is much more appropriate for a theocracy.
Second, most Egyptians aren't Islamists. The leaders of the current protests certainly aren't. If anything, they're more secular than Egyptian society as a whole. This revolt is being led by the youth, the intellectuals, and the liberals. All three of those are like oil and water with the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood may have the support of a plurality of Egyptians (mostly because of their charitable work), but I highly doubt that they have the support of the majority.
Finally, you've got the military, who are largely secular and pro-Western. Most of them have been trained by Americans and have a very high opinion of the US. They also see themselves as the guardians of the people, and won't hesitate to intervene if they think the people are being oppressed by an Islamist government. Given the respect most Egyptians have for the military, I doubt they'd be strongly opposed if they did this. This may be the strongest link to the Turkish example. The Turkish military is extremely secular, professional, and well-respected domestically. They have overthrown several governments that have strayed too far from the country's democratic and secular ideals.
In Iran, you had the Islamists leading the revolution with a charismatic leader. The Iranian military in 1979 was secular, but they were also despised by the people. The initial revolution raised the Islamists' profile in a huge way, to the point that they were able to take over the government in the second revolution.
In Egypt, a successful revolution won't do much to raise the Muslim Brotherhood's profile, since the revolution is being led by groups that certainly don't like the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood also lacks a Khomeini-like figure to lead them. Finally, the Egyptian military has the power and respect to prevent any swing towards a theocracy.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Jan 31, 2011 22:15:26 GMT -5
I believe elections have been scheduled for some time and are to take place in September. WHy can't they just keep to that schedule, but this time have REAL elections? Let Baradei and/or the new VP run the country via the Army for the next 7-8 months, then hold elections as scheduled. That would give everyone a chance to make their case before the Egyptian people as to whey they should be elected. Meanwhile, the Army is the real power in Egypt and has been for decades. So let it get back to work. Why can't they do that? Because Mubarak doesn't want to. Simple as that. Mubarak isn't gone yet. While the military has said it won't shoot the protesters, it's still unlikely that they'll step in and remove Mubarak. He's been one of them, he's been good to them, and his new cabinet is mostly well-respected military officers. Will the military really turn on their own like that? Tunisia made this all look deceptively easy. The reality is that Ben Ali gave up very quickly. Mubarak has made it clear that he's not going to do that. Tunisia made people forget how difficult it is to remove a dictator who refuses to leave and who has the support of the military. If he refuses to resign and the military refuses to remove him, he's not going anywhere. I still think that Mubarak has about a 50/50 chance of being in power at this time next year.
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Post by The Stig on Jan 29, 2011 17:55:39 GMT -5
The BBC's liveblog is also quite good: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/9380534.stmSounds like things have become more violent, with bands of looters taking advantage of the chaos. The police are doing nothing to stop the looters, which may be a deliberate plan to enable the government to portray the protesters as looters and criminals, thus turning the Egyptian populace against them. Al Jazeera was even speculating that the government would turn loose its own bands of looters in order to sabotage the protests.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Jan 29, 2011 0:09:15 GMT -5
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Post by The Stig on Jan 28, 2011 21:05:34 GMT -5
The problem with supporting Mubarak is the risk of blowback. These protests certainly were NOT anti-American to start. But the riot police throw tear gas at the protesters, the protesters pick up the tear gas canisters and read "MADE IN THE USA" written on the canisters. Suddenly the protesters who had no beef with the US suddenly start shouting anti-American slogans.
Are there risks with turning on Mubarak? Absolutely. Suddenly a US promise of support to a foreign leader doesn't mean nearly as much. Friendly foreign leaders who would otherwise give us unconditional support slowly start hedging their bets, hoping to get in the good graces of other countries (like China) who will support them no matter what, even when they shoot their own people.
I think the US's lay low attitude is probably the best (i.e. least bad) choice right now.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Jan 28, 2011 19:41:26 GMT -5
SSHoya - Glad to hear you're OK. Drop a note in hear when you're out of the country, so we all know you got out safely!
Mubarak's speech made it clear he doesn't intend to go anywhere. We'll see tomorrow if he has any choice.
The US is in a very awkward position here, just like we were in an awkward position with Tunisia. If Syria (for example) cracked down on its protesters like this, we'd hammer them for it. But Mubarak is a guy we've propped up for a long time, and frankly it's hard to fault the logic behind doing so. He was predictable, he kept the Islamists in check, and he didn't cause trouble with Israel.
Furthermore, it's not exactly clear who would succeed Mubarak, and that instability is dangerous in that part of the world. El-Baradei is well-respected abroad, but his base of support in Egypt is generally the well-educated middle class, which is a tiny portion of the Egyptian population. The Muslim Brotherhood has a broad base of support, but not among the younger educated types who were leading the protests. There's almost nothing in terms of Islamist messages in these protests. Ultimately the protesters want somebody who can deliver jobs and progress. The Brotherhood doesn't have much of a record on either of those.
Ultimately the fate of Egypt lies with the military. The forces cracking down on the protesters today were NOT the Egyptian military - they were the police and the security forces. The Egyptian military is strong, pro-American, and widely respected in the country. When the tanks showed up on the streets tonight, the protesters cheered them. At the same time, Mubarak came from the military, as did the two Presidents who preceded him.
Ultimately, I think Mubarak will have to order the military to shoot the protesters. Whether the military follows that order is far from certain. In Tunisia Ben Ali supposedly gave the same order, and the military refused to do it. They military eventually turned on Ben Ali and likely played a major role in forcing him from power. There's a chance that the Egyptian military could do the same.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Jan 27, 2011 22:27:54 GMT -5
I think the Boz Doctrine applies to the Hitler-Obama/Bush comparisons.
But defending Joe McCarthy? That's just absurd. Were there a few Communists in the US government in the early 50s? Yes. Did McCarthy use the right methods to eliminate them? Absolutely not. The Communist problem was akin to a small tumor - something you remove carefully with a scalpel. McCarhty's solution was to use a car bomb. Was Hiss a spy? Maybe - the Venona files are far from conclusive on that issue. But there were many other people McCarthy attacked (with little or no evidence) that were 100% innocent. Had he said the things he said outside the legal protection of his Senate office, he'd have been found guilty of slander many times over.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Jan 17, 2011 10:03:41 GMT -5
Amazingly, this will only be the 2nd time that the Packers and Bears have met in the playoffs (the other came in 1941). It's only the 4th time in history that both teams have even made the playoffs in the same year.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Jan 17, 2011 9:57:22 GMT -5
Also anecdotal, but a friend of mind who worked in the housing off said everyone (that is probably a slight exaggeration) who wants to live on campus does. meaning when seniors ask to live on campus they end up getting housing on campus. And I can remember that sophomore year there were two empty rooms on my floor in Copley, RA said it was because no one had requested them so they were just extras. As a student who screwed up his housing plans senior year and had to go on-campus at the last second, I can sort of confirm this. The housing office told me the same thing (everybody who wants on-campus housing gets it), and sure enough I had a (quite nice) place to live on campus senior year. As far as Rusky's point about the current student townhouses becoming single family homes, I don't think the neighborhood folks realize just how much work those houses need. Most of them are fine for students for a year, but a family who's paying Georgetown real estate prices is going to have significantly higher standards. Pretty much every one of them will have to be gutted and rebuilt from the inside out. Anyways, if a few hundred new single family homes are suddenly dropped on the market, the value of the current homes there will drop quite a bit. It's simple supply and demand.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Jan 16, 2011 21:25:17 GMT -5
One need only look as far as Palin, Santorum, and Biden, among others, labeling Julian Assange a terrorist to observe the leeching of meaning from the term. And in the same vein, the now ex-president of Tunisia called the protesters "terrorists" in the hope that the West would see them as a threat and support his attempts to crack down on them. In the end, terrorism is simply a tactic, not a movement. Sometimes people we like us it, sometimes people we don't like use it.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Jan 16, 2011 9:44:17 GMT -5
There are also a lot of Americans, including some in the government, who have a long record of supporting terrorist groups. Peter King and Ted Kennedy, for example, were both ardent supporters of the IRA (a terrorist group by any definition).
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Post by The Stig on Jan 9, 2011 21:26:32 GMT -5
This is evident from the postings on this thread that accuse conservatives of fostering an atmosphere leading to the shooting without accusing liberals in any way of using much the same language. Several liberals in this thread have explicitly denounced violent political rhetoric from liberals as well as conservatives
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Jan 9, 2011 15:51:21 GMT -5
I agree with TBird - Hinckley is probably more relevant than the Ft. Hood shooter here. An even better comparison might be Mark David Chapman (the guy who shot John Lennon). Hinckley just went after Reagan because he was famous. Chapman had some issues with Lennon, just the way this shooter apparently had some issues with Giffords, although they weren't mainstream issues.
Did the violent rhetoric from Palin et al cause this? I highly doubt it. Is that sort of rhetoric still dangerously irresponsible? Yes. The same is true for examples of violent rhetoric on the left. It should have no place in American democracy.
More than anything else, this guy sounds like one of those crazy people you find all over the internet in Youtube comments and such. They think they're some genius philosophers and thinkers and get angry at society when nobody listens to their deranged rantings. They get some bizarre ideas in their heads that may have been rational thoughts when they came out of somebody else's mouth, but become incomprehensible, senseless garbage in this sort of person's head. They become attacked to these now-deranged ideas and preach them as the unquestionable gospel, and attack the rest of society for not believing what they believe.
So far most of these people stick to the internet, because they can't actually comprehend how to actually implement these ideas. It looks like this one got out into the real world, and this was the tragic result.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Jan 9, 2011 10:37:58 GMT -5
The locals should just come out and say what they actually think: They want the University to be gone.
These people remind me of the folks who move in next to an airport and then complain about the noise.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Jan 8, 2011 16:32:49 GMT -5
Life as the starting QB at Stanford ain't that bad, especially if you're not struggling to make ends meet. Good on Luck for recognizing that the grass isn't always greener on the other side.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Jan 8, 2011 16:20:52 GMT -5
Still absolutely tragic that there were any fatalities, especially such a young child. But Congresswoman Giffords' prognosis is very welcome news.
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