LastPommerFan

If you end up not being able to even get in a car, let me know, I'll have turkey, trimmings, veggies, pie etc delivered to your place in Rochester. If I find out that you went without on thanksgiving, I will block you both and habor that hatred and disappointment forever.

Either way, good to see one that other countries in the are helping to ID fake docs.

I don't see the word refugee in the articles, maybe it was a misspeak on air?

I don't think motive has as much to do with the channels. Refugee status, in the USA, is specifically granted to people who are not in the country. You wait in a camp, somewhere else, until the state department vets you and offers you entrance.

sounds good to me.

These are not refugees, but good work by the Hondurans to ID the fake passports.

Doug Flutie had a terrible day: http://m.wcvb.com/news/doug-fluties-parents-die-on-same-day/36526436 My heart goes out to him. I can't even imagine.

With Kim just slightly out of view. just enough so he's certain she's there, but not enough to actually catch a glimpse.

Bonus game: describe the specific circle of hell that Smell will find himself in after his execution.

My point is that if these men practiced an ancient folk religion (Tamils) or Christianity (Lord's Resistance Army) the result would be similar. When they say "we do this because we Islam commands us to", they are simply wrong. _______________________________________________________________________________ Saint-Denis is where I was an exchange student. This whole thing is getting surreal for me.

The viewpoint authorizes a few dozen people to interpret the holy text of a 1500 year old religion and claim absolute authority. And the "you are not true muslims" line isn't a "regressive left" position, it's the position of an actual muslim who you interact with on a regular basis. I don't find this piece to be particularly interesting. I find it to be an attempt to paint Monet's Lilies with an industrial size roller brush.

Even easier just to land at JFK with a Turkish passport.

Turning the Refugees back, or leaving them for Turkey (Full NATO member) to deal with alone, is a huge mistake with massively negative ramifications. These people are our hope. These are the people who chose, at risk of death and the cost of everything they couldn't carry on their backs to NOT join Daesh. These are our friends.

I think step one is for the western world to unequivocally admit that secular liberalism is superior to theocracy in all ways and is an ideal worth defending. That Bill Maher is an ass-hole, but he is at least in part correct about what theocracy is: a tool for the few to control the many. Liberalism (capitalized here only because it starts the sentence) is the idea that all the tools that are used by the few to control the many are bad. Islam is not inherently bad. Theocracy is inherently bad. Militarized religion is a scourge upon our humanity. It has been for 1000 years. Then we need to take a hard look at the key underlying conditions that drive a population to secular democracy, and decide if we can promote those conditions, whether through the sword or the plowshare. I believe the above to be an absolute truth. I worry that we are incapable, in our current state, of accepting and announcing the inherent evil of theocracy. I worry that the Left, in it's worship of pluralism, will strive to allow theocracy as a potentially acceptable government to be "tolerated". I worry that the right, in it's pursuit of the Christian Ideal undermines the fight against theocracy by deploying legislation that can only be justified by religious rule. But more than that, I worry that the middle, with their jobs and families and mortgages and health struggles, will find it easier to occasionally deal with the grief of these violent losses of life than to take a stand against both and actually change the world.

:(

GWB and Colin Powell explicitly stated that they were going to pick up where WJC left off. That the Agreed Framework was a good solution. Then 9/11 happened and they created the Mythical "Axis of Evil" and further isolate North Korea, daring them to abandon the Framework. 2 years later, NK restarts it's reactor that Clinton got shut down, 4 years after that, they have the bomb. Being strong may be part of the solution, being heavy handed probably isn't.

So, in light of North Korea's test in 2006, do we all vote Green Party? Can we get Ross Perot to run again? _________________________________________ I spoke with some members of the family I lived with when I was in Paris this morning. They are French-Armenian. They have an interesting viewpoint in all of this, as they have Family still in Armenia. Armenia is a Christian enclave sandwiched between Georgia, Turkey, Iran, and Azerbaijan. Their instincts were to cut off the refugees until a security solution can be found, but they recognized that they, themselves, immigrated to France to escape the Soviets. They are very conflicted.

What would you do about the Hostile Islamic Theocracy that already has the Bomb? A non-Nuclear Islamic world became a fantasy in 1998.

essentially, but I don't think the region needs to be politically unified, Europe certainly wasn't during their enlightenment.

I'm racking my brain trying to think of new solutions to this problem (on the assumption that all previous solutions have failed, your mileage may very) and I keep coming back to the idea of putting together an honest ME Marshall Plan (Marshall plan would have been $130B in today Dollars, I propose that ME has further to go than post war Europe, so $300B). These regions desperately need liberalism. Liberalism is a direct result of education, economics, and art. It is never a result of war, but war may be necessary to implement the things that do drive liberalism. I would support a US contingent to an international effort only AFTER funds were escrowed to deliver the goods. (I am using liberalism in the sense opposed to feudalism, monarchy, and theocracy, not modern American Liberalism, which is not completely congruent with the former.) Total Foreign Aid Spending the last several years has been around $25B, so we're not messing around here.

Ask anyone you know who's graduated from West Point in the last 25 years what they think about France.

Never thought I'd ever see that.

Interesting point raised by a military friend of mine: Hollande declares this an act of war. SInce 2009, France has been back as a full member of NATO. Will Hollande Invoke Article V?

This becomes less lucrative at $40/bbl. The added funds needed now would be great, but I think the payoff may be greater.

If we want to solve this problem, it's going to be really, really expensive, I think. I don't think there is a low-cost solution.