Traders in the the patch have never really behaved in a rational manner, every year since Katrina, nat-gas prices spike 10-20% when hurricane season starts whether there are any storm brewing or not. Commodities traders make a lot more $$ off of speculative fear than they do from actual market conditions. This fact is one of the cards that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez like to play. They can make a few threats and spike prices in 24 hours. They then dump some stored product on the market at the higher price and - viola! Time to buy some more outdated Russian surplus rocket launchers.

qzjul said:

"have some patience"

Is she aware that you are offering her out like a complimentary plate of cookies? If so then I am fixing to fire up mah pay pal for you guys!

Wow daga, even I, who does not give a flying fluff at a fluffing fluffnut knows that your tirade was full of fluff. Rage (of the 10k hit FS) and LaF (wrote the book on game politics) are irrelevant underacheivers? But Sof (ooh, another big war clan) merits a 95% 'clean'? Bias much?

My guess would be a backroom campaign promise . . .

http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm

TAN you are essentially 100% right about Iraq (and I almost never disagree with NOW3), the US government was the entitiy that completely disregarded 40 years of history when they decided to invade Iraq. 8 years in, everybody in the US, even the hard core red-staters all pretty much agree that invading Iraq was one of the stupidest things the US has done since Vietnam. The only people that liked the Iraq war were the folks that put Bush into power in the first place - the oil companies. I once had access to how much 'Big Oil' profited from each dead US soldier in Iraq, I lost it but it was in the ballpark of $12M per dead GI.

You said (paraphrased):

"It was America that routinely kills people and alls it "tragic". . . The fact of the matter is, they should be *certain* that the people they are attacking are "combatants" (<---America doesn't recognize this in Iraq or Afghanistan, by the way, which made the helicopter pilot's decision rather easy since there is no defined enemy). How can you be certain when you're in a helicopter and you only *think* they are passing weapons and are guilty (guilty of defending their homeland against an occupying power)? . . . War is for stupid children stuck in adult bodies who get a kick out of exercising absolute power over the lives of other human beings. Simply being in the military is sadistic."

Are you saying that we were not justified entering Afghanistan?

So what should we do then after the African Embassies, after the USS Cole, after 9-11, after London, etc. (and there are a LOT of etc.). Should we send flowers? Should we pull out of the middle east completely and make Osama happy? Some day we will, but we cannot yet. In an unrelated thread you joked that "the Qataris here are spoon-fed affluence and actually believe they own the world". Guess where that affluence came from, us. For decades the gulf states have gladly taken our money and our F-15s and then turned a blind eye when their own disaffected population that doesn't get to share that affluence became rdicalized and started blowing fluff up. After decades everybody just smiling and cashing the checks, now suddenly, all of this rightous indignation when the US showed up with F-15s that were not for sale and started blowing fluff up after somebody decided to take the jihad to New York.

When the sleeping dog was poked enough, it finally woke up and started lashing out, sadly as is usually the case when something very large and very angry starts lashing out blindly, a lot more innocent hands got bitten then guilty. Permissive regimes in Tehran, Cairo, Riyadh, Islamabad, and Damascus all share as much of the blame for this war as Washington and London.

I've heard that TAN makes your palms hairy.

War brings out the best in us all - remember when the Al Quaeda in Iraq caught that British woman that was working for Dr.s without borders - treating injured Iraqi's - and they made a spectacle of her public execution? Yeah, your right some people are just assholes.

I never said I was defending anybody, I simply said that trying to paint all of the American soldiers as kill crazed animals (as portrayed by AoS) shows very little grasp of war. The decision making process for a soldier that is being shot at every day is not the same as the process used sitting at a monitor eating cheez-its. US soldiers wear uniforms, their enemy does not. Guerilla warfare entails a great deal of collateral damage, if they don't want their civillians killed - put on a fluffing uniform and buy some tanks. If they want to use suicide bombers as a main battle tactic, we will be forced to shoot first and ask questions later. That is the way it is.

As I clearly stated, the Bush administration (IM not so Humble Opinion) purpatrated a war crime. Soldiers just did their jobs, some did it well and some not so well. The US certainly does noy hold a monopoly on brutality.

Its war, people die. When people rutiely use civillians as shields - tolerance thresholds increase and civillians get killed. To the best of my knowledge the US military never strapped explosive vests on a couple of young retarded girls, sent them into a crowded market, and blew up 70+ civillians.

Going into Iraq was a criminal act and GW ought to be prosecuted for it. A couple of whirlybird pilots splashing a van full of armed men who were unfortunately probably not combatants . . . its war, people die.

Forgotten - Whether or not the school had success before doesn't make this team better. Players come and go, people talk as if each school keeps all their players every year.

Yes, thats why Kentucky and Kansas will suck next year and Tulsa and Central Florida will be playing in the final . . . you don't actually watch much basketball do you?

People don't realize that Butler has been in four of the last eight sweet-16s. They are a quality team. One big thing for them will be if the refs allow dukes lumbering giant to go over the back on every rebound like he did to WVU. But most important if Sheyer and Smith are shooting uncontested threes like they did on Saturday - it will be a short easy night for Duke.

hereby christen this forum . . . or was it piss in this forum? Meh, either way I was first in one of them.