Re: Making money from Java

"James J. Gavan" <jgavandeletethis@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> Peter Lacey wrote:
>>
>> And unless US citizens watch or otherwise get their news from other
>> countries' news services, particularly the BBC, they won't get truthful
>> reporting. That long-necked blonde woman - Barbara someone? - who
>> appears on Fox - perfectly happy making things up and stating them as
>> news. Ask her the names of the 10,000 Canadians who (according to her)
>> served in Vietnam. If Fox is neutral - how is it that people
>> interviewed who don't agree with that bombastic idiot (can't remember
>> his name) who is the most famous Fox interviewer get told to shut up or
>> actually have their mike switched off? Judson, you yourself need to get
>> out and hear it from other sources.
>
> Oh Peter. Don't watch it often, but obviously you were tuned into the same
> one as me on the 'Passionae Eye'. I'm with Peter on this one Judson, said
> blonde bitch made such a statement about VN (not sure about the numbers
> though). Interviewer was up on his history, said "No, I don't think
> so...". She promised to get back to him - never did. Similarly the ***
> Peter is talking about, and an American-Irish *** at that, refused to
> be interviewed for the program, although from clips from Fox his style is
> to tell 'guests' "SHUT UP !". Wouldn't be interviewed on camera but took
> accusing shots on Fox at the 'Passionate Eye' that wanted to interview
> him.

I didn't mean to imply that I thought Fox News was perfect, I only said they
had a balance of liberal and conservative opinion. What you both to fail to
understand is that you have been exposed to extreme liberal bias in the
media so consistently and for so long, that you don't even have a correct
mental picture of what conservatives are really about. All you ever see
portrayed is distorted caricatures. You receive no balancing conservative
viewpoints, because they were simply not out there until Fox News came
along, imperfect as it is. And by then, your mental images were so
influenced by liberal bias, that every conservative viewpoint you hear seems
biased to you.

I was exposed to this liberal bias all my life. My parents were "yellow dog"
Democrats. It was only when I got older and had a chance to see both sides
with a more balanced eye that I became a conservative. I have seen both
sides, I have been on both sides of this argument. I really doubt either of
you can claim this. :-)

I respectfully insist it is you two who need to see more clearly. You should
read "Bias" by Bernard Goldberg, if you don't believe there is profound
liberal media bias. Bernard Goldberg documents it very clearly, and he *is*
a liberal, who has never voted Republican in his life. Or read "Useful
Idiots" by Mona Charen. You should definitely read at least one of
"Slander", "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)", "Treason", or "High
Crimes and Misdemeanors" all by Ann Coulter, a truly brilliant and clear
thinking conservative. :-)

> You are severely duped about Fox. Peter mentioned BBC World News - you
> really should tune in - even if you don't want to believe them. Roughly a
> couple of weeks back, up came the American myth, "God, country and the
> flag. Everybody can become a Rockefeller'. A survey was done by some
> European-based economic think-tank. I know you aren't going to believe it,
> and the statement has no political content. 'You stand more chance in the
> rest of the world, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps from the guttter
> and making something of yourself, than you could ever hope to do in the
> U.S. of A.". Well I suppose Sudan and Darfur might not rank as high as USA
> in the league table.

Pardon me, but the distortions in the paragraph above are really serious.
First off, no one that I ever heard has said anything like "everybody can
become a Rockefeller." I don't know how easy it is to become wealthy in
other places, but whoever made the statement "You stand more chance in the
rest of the world, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps from the guttter
and making something of yourself, than you could ever hope to do in the U.S.
of A" must have come from another planet, because they couldn't possibly
have actually looked at the situation here in the US. Just in the 90's
alone, there were tens of thousands of regular production line laborers here
who became millionaires from stock options. I write computer programs for a
living and live in a near-rural suburb of a moderate city, and I live in a
4600 sq ft house, valued at $300,000 here, but would go for very much more
in a large city. I am by no means out of the ordinary here, and I grew up on
a farm. My dad grew up in a family of 10 kids and only had shoes in the
winter, and on Christmas they got maybe an orange and an apple. But before
he died he owned several hundred acres of farmland and was very successful,
though not 'wealthy'. My mom's dad only went through the third grade, but he
hed several hundred acres of farmland before he died. Colin Powell grew up
dirt poor in a large family. Condelesa Rice had a very modest beginning,
right here in Birmingham. But all of us worked very hard for what we have,
it doesn't fall off threes. :-) The American Dream is not, and never was,
everyone becoming a Rockefeller, but everyone having a fair opportunity to
make a good life with hard work. And that dream is very much alive and well
here. The last time I checked, there were more millionaires in the US than
anywhere else. And very, very many of those millionaires started out
modestly. Sure, there are poor here. But there are many other reasons than
lack of opportunity for that, for example "poverty mentality". Liberal
programs for welfare and such have actually exacerbated the situation,
rather than helped, in part because they enable failure and encourage poor
women to stay single and pregnant. Welfare programs were made more
restrictive a number of years ago, and the poverty situation has improved
somewhat.

>>>Then he's been listening too much to the left wing liberal media, or he's
>>>a
>>>pacifist. In this area, he is poorly informed. :-)
>>
>> Well, if you truly believe that, then there is no point in discussing
>> anything with you. The right-wing media have completely taken over your
>> thought processes.
>
> Amen to very last comment.
>
> Get this real straight Judson. We Canucks don't hate you; in fact many
> look kindly towards the States. But we do despair of your political
> thinking as a nation. And we really aren't thrilled about NAFTA - which is
> a set of initials for 'Play it the American way, or don't play at all'.

I was opposed to and hate NAFTA myself. :-)

Jimmy, are you aware of the fact that during the 20th century over 90% of
the patents granted worldwide were for processes developed in the US, even
though the US is only about 5% of the world's population? Why do you think
that is? Are we US citizens that stupid when all the rest of the world is so
smart? Could it be possible that we here in the US are not quite as ignorant
and dumb as everybody seems to think we are? It was the US that put men on
the Moon, the US who mainly resisted and contained the USSR until it fell,
and the US that created the Internet and countless other things that have
been of great benefit to the whole world. Why are you and others so
convinced it is the US who is wrong here? Did you know that when a disaster
strikes somewhere, the US contributes more food and other relief then the
rest of the world combined? The US has done more good than any other country
in modern times, and rarely gets credit for it. And the US seems to be
constantly vilified around the world. I realize that this is often directed
against the US government rather than US citizens, but that is not always
obvious when the epithets fly. Whether it is realized or not, Americans like
other peoples and want to be friends with the rest of the world, and can be
resentful when they are constantly lambasted as bad guys.

The US has its faults, like every other country. And believe me, the
American people do not want the US to be the world's policeman. But one
thing makes Americans get deadly serious, and that is when our homeland is
physically attacked and our innocent families murdered. Nothing so inflames
the American people as an unprovoked attack. (As an aside, I personally
believe that the primary reason the American Indians were virtually wiped
out was the fact that they started attacking the white man's families
directly.) The worst thing the Japanese could have done in 1941 was to
attack the US directly without warning (yes, I know they intended to give a
token warning just before the attack). The US population went nuts, and the
immediate, virtually unanimous sentiment was to get Japan at all costs.
There was much sentiment at the time to let the Brits and Russians deal with
Hitler, but Germany declared war on the US a few days later. (I always
wondered why Hitler did that. In retrospect, it seems a particularly dumb
move, but Hitler made a lot of those.) Even the World Trade Center bombing
in 1993 and the embassy bombings didn't provoke the American people to such
a degree. But 9/11 was like another Pearl Harbor. I was born after WWII, and
in my lifetime I have never seen such widespread rage, and such unanimity of
resolve against a common enemy, as there was after 9/11. The US began to
gird itself for war, and if history is any guide, it won't be over until the
enemy's ability to threaten us is eliminated, no matter what it costs or how
long it takes. I can assure you that most Americans do not understand why so
many people in the international community do not understand our motive and
resolve on this issue. Americans would be highly sympathetic and supportive
of anyone else in our situation.

This is not the way I would express my personal feelings, but many Americans
I know would probably express it succinctly like this: "A lot of American
blood has been spilled defeating tyranny in Europe and many other places
around the world, but it looks like that didn't earn us much of a break when
our homeland came under attack." Though my sentiments come from a different
direction, I can't say I am entirely unsympathetic to that viewpoint. :-)
--
Judson McClendon judmc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (remove zero)
Sun Valley Systems http://sunvaley.com
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."


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