COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Friday, June 18, 2010

Turkey Worried About Israeli Brutality to Palestinians. Turkey Invades Iraq and Kills 100 Kurds.

The Turks were very very vexed by the Israeli raid on a Turkish vessel in international waters. The Israelis argued that they had the right to attack the ship as it had open intentions of supplying Palestinian terrorists. "Palestinian" is the Israeli adjective for terrorist.

The Turks not be outdone have their own pet phrase for Kurds, "Kurdish rebels". Today Turkey raided Northern Iraq and killed 100 Kurds, rebels all of course. This will certainly enrage public opinion across Europe and most of the free world.


Turkish Raid May Have Killed 100 Kurdish Rebels
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS NY Times
Published: June 18, 2010

Filed at 6:28 a.m. ET

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey's military said Friday it killed as many as 120 Kurdish rebels in an air raid on rebel hideouts in northern Iraq last month and a daylong incursion by elite commandos into Iraq this week.

Kurdish rebels have dramatically stepped up attacks in Turkey in recent months in an escalation that poses a dire threat to a remarkable attempt at ending one of the world's longest guerrilla wars. The Turkish military responded to the rebels by sending its warplanes across the Iraqi border to bomb Kurdish rebel positions after acquiring intelligence, apparently from the United States and recently purchased drones from Israel.

The rebels have long used northern Iraq as a springboard for hit-and-run attacks on Turkish targets in a campaign for autonomy in Turkey's Kurdish-dominated southeast. Several past Turkish air raids and incursions have failed to stop rebel infiltration through the mountainous border.

Maj. Gen. Fahri Kir, the head of the military's internal security operations, said another 30 Kurdish rebels were killed inside Turkey since March in anti-rebel operations. He said the Turkish losses were 43 in the same period. It was not possible to independently verify the figures, which the military says are based on intelligence reports, including interception of radio communication between the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK.

''We anticipate (PKK attacks) to continue incrementally,'' Kir told a news conference at the military headquarters.

The PKK declared an expanded war on June 1, a day after imprisoned Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan said in a message communicated by his lawyers from the prison island of Imrali, near Istanbul, that his calls for rebel dialogue with Turkey had been ignored, so he was abandoning them and giving his consent to the rebel command in northern Iraq to determine the course of action.

Kir said the PKK aims to expand its attacks throughout Turkey in an attempt to create ''fear and chaos.'' The escalation of violence followed the major air assault on May 20 on rebel positions in Hakurk region of the northern Iraq in which several warplanes bombed a large area to kill about 100 rebels.

It was the largest air assault on the rebels since a 2008 ground operation into Iraq that saw many guerrillas return to bases along the border after Turkish units withdrew. The Turkish military says around 4,000 rebels are based just across the border in Iraq and that about 2,500 operate inside Turkey.

Hundreds of elite commandos crossed into Iraq for a daylong operation to hunt down a group of rebels who were escaping after an attack near the border town of Uludere. Kir said the commandos, who returned to their bases on the same day, killed five rebels but later intelligence reports suggested that the rebel casualties, also in a coordinated air strike, were about 20.

Kir said 545 rebels were believed to have defected from PKK last year as a result of Turkish operations and difficult living conditions on the mountains. He put the number of PKK deserters this year at 148.

Maj. Gen. Ferit Guler, the secretary-general of the Turkish military, stressed on Friday that while the military chased Kurdish guerrillas, ''the state should use economic, socio-cultural and propaganda measures in coordination at the international level for an effective struggle against terrorism.''

Turkey has waged a harsh crackdown during the grinding 26-year insurgency by the Marxist group PKK, which has been labeled a terrorist organization by the West for killing civilians in urban bombings and arson attacks and slaying government teachers, engineers and clergymen.

The government, however, has tried to distinguish its Kurdish citizens from those who support the rebel group and extended greater cultural rights to the Kurds such as broadcasts in Kurdish language on television, to try to win their hearts.

Turkey, however, rejects calls from the Kurdish rebels and politicians to allow education in schools in Kurdish. The language is also barred in parliament and other official settings on the grounds that its use would divide the country along ethnic lines.

The conflict has killed as many as 40,000 people and allegations of Turkish brutality and restrictions of Kurdish rights have stained the country's human rights record and hampered its bid to join the European Union. The military offensive has also cost hundreds of millions of dollars in defense spending and slowed construction of schools, hospitals and irrigation projects.

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67 comments:

  1. Nikos Kazantzakis said life is a process of transforming matter into spirit.

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  2. But, you shouldn't impregnate and then leave a woman to her own devices, as Zorba did.

    Attaturk's solution didn't take, and we should take a real lesson from this. It never does. Put Jihad Watch on your reading list. The muz is our forever enemy.

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  3. "Attaturk's solution didn't take, and we should take a real lesson from this. It never does. Put Jihad Watch on your reading list. The muz is our forever enemy."

    Dittos
    Nuke em all!

    Signed,
    Son of Habu

    Motto:

    "The only Good Muslim is a Dead Muslim"

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  4. Where are the defenders of the Iraqi people, the US military?

    Another border that the Federals are responsible for, and that they will not secure nor defend.

    Par for the course.

    But then, we did not defend the Kurds from the Turks, when GW Bush was President, either. In fact ...

    25 December, 2007
    ISTANBUL, Turkey: U.S. President George W. Bush promised Monday to continue helping Turkey fight separatist Kurdish rebels, after the third air attack in a week inside Iraq by the U.S.'s NATO ally, a Turkish official said.

    Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan talked with Bush by telephone Monday after Turkey's latest attack on rebel bases in northern Iraq and the two men agreed to continue sharing intelligence about the rebels, said an official from the prime minister's office who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.

    Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House, said the leaders discussed the "importance of the United States, Turkey and Iraq working together to confront" the rebels.


    Team Obama, maintaining course and speed.

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  5. So, the Turks, by attacking the PKK Kurds, are working as a long term, trans-Administrational US ally and proxy, in the Kurdish region of Iraq.

    Good on Turkey!

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  6. "But then, we did not defend the Kurds from the Turks, when GW Bush was President, either. In fact ..."

    ---

    Trish joined W on this account, following military PC Dogma.

    Good Soldier Trish.

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  7. Why the fuck should we care about the Kurds?

    Just because they are the only non-900 AD folks in the area, and the only folks that actually helped the (purported) mission of the US Military.

    ...and maintained a non-900 AD society when surronded by those who didn't

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  8. General Garner knows where the Kurds stand wrt the interests of the USA.

    Then again, he knew how to avoid the GWB clusterfuck in Iraq.

    What the fuck does HE know?

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  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  10. AHHHH ....

    But the PKK is not representative of the Kurdish people, or so it is said, by US.

    So, by attacking the PKK, the Turks are really supporting the Kurds that the US supports, too.

    The Turks assisting US in taking down that criminal and communist inspired trans-national terror network.

    Securing a better future for freedom loving Kurds, everywhere.

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  11. 25 December, 2007

    Turkey, the United States and the European Union deem the PKK a terrorist organization.


    At a Nov. 5 meeting with Erdogan, Bush said the PKK was an enemy of the U.S., Turkey and Iraq and promised to share American intelligence to help Turkey fight the rebels.

    The Turkish official said both leaders expressed "desire and determination" to continue cooperating against the PKK.

    A "coordination center" has been set up in Ankara so Turks, Iraqis and Americans can share information. It was not clear if the latest Turkish attacks used U.S. intelligence

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  12. The War on Terror
    is still alive and well.

    US water now being carried by our long time ally, Turkey.

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  13. Good that we fought and died for an Islamic Iraq.

    We don't need no stinking secular Iraq.

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  14. The PKK, being a secular, political organization and not an authentic Muslim front organization further exemplifies how the US is allied with Islamic regimes, all across the Arc.

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  15. " mee'mi said...
    As far as I'm concerned, I'm for Francisco Franco, there was a MAN.

    mee'mi

    Pronounced me-me

    I am the image you want in your mirror.

    O Quirk, can't you see me. Me-me?"



    Actually, Mee,mi I took your advice, looked in the mirror, and frankly, was quite impressed.

    On the other hand, my query regarding the “quickie” was a momentary lapse in my spiritual journey upward. (The word “quickie” always has that effect on me though I try to fight it.) And while I appreciate your kind comments, as I have done on innumerable occasions before (with all manner of sexes, races, and species) I must decline.

    As Bob will attest, I must continue my upward journey (although with occasional side trips on certain Friday nights).

    With regard to Francisco Franco, are you sure it was not just the uniform?


    .

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  16. Off Oil,

    Out of the Mideast.

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  17. There is absolutely no reason in the world why we should have to care what that crazy bunch of goat******s do.

    Let's recap:

    1) Cars coming out in the fall that get the same mileage on E85 as on gasoline.

    2) Advances in Enzymes that give us $2.00 Cellulosic Ethanol from local non-food feedstocks (switchgrass, miscanthus, sorghum, etc.)

    3) The Cost of the Spill would have paid for 10 Billion Gallons/Yr to 30 Billion Gallons/Yr, maybe more.

    4) The Cost of One Year in the Mideast would put the U.S. Off of ALL Imported Oil, Forever.

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  18. We are being played for Suckers.

    Big Time.


    Really, Big Time.

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  19. Among his other activities, Trish's husband worked on the trilateral committee. And, as has been the case in the past, was impressed with his Turkish counterparts.

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  20. I figured that would add to your day, Doug.

    Don't think I never think of you.

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  21. I figured also that I better get that in before the succeeding 50 comments on crash ethanol conversion, among which it would be lost.

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  22. It's incredibly important that your husband was impressed with the Turks, Trish.

    I can feel the Republic healing, already.

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  23. You, and your husband are part of the problem, Trish. The establishment.

    Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.

    BTW, how's that "Good Guy Stan" plan working out in Afpakistan?

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  24. I understand "Good Guy, Stan" is still paying $400.00 a Gallon for Diesel Fuel in Afghanistan.

    But, at least, your husband, and his cadre didn't upset the Poppy Harvest.

    Small Victory, I guess.

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  25. I understand Halliburton, and the other drug pushers are pleased.

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  26. And, of course, if Halliburton is pleased Dick Cheney is pleased.


    And, I'm so happy I could just s**t.

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  27. Not to be outdone by Quirk, I continue my spiritual journey upward to that highest level of attainment: Liberal Democrat.

    It may take years yet, but I am determined.

    Granted, it's an easier stretch for me than for some others, having already achieved the level of purity and awareness of federal socialist.

    Doesn't mean it's not, like, challenging and shit.

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  28. "It's incredibly important that your husband was impressed with the Turks, Trish.

    "I can feel the Republic healing, already."

    It was meant to be doug bait, not rufus bait.

    But that's okay.

    There's something strangely bracing about being the Obstacle to Everything. Or the personification thereof.

    If I work hard enough, I may insinuate myself into a beloved conspiracy theory.

    In fact, that may be a rung on the ladder on my spiritual journey.

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  29. "Not to be outdone by Quirk, I continue my spiritual journey upward to that highest level of attainment: Liberal Democrat.

    It may take years yet, but I am determined."





    Not necessarily so, child.

    I feel you would be an excellent candidate for regression analysis.

    I firmly believe that if I could get you on the couch for an hour or so, I could do wonders for assisting and expediting your spiritual journey.


    .

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  30. Turn on the TV, Trish. Look at the Gulf. Then, go buy some gasoline.

    No "Conspiracy Theories" needed.

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  31. Trish,

    I might add that you're sounding very... French.

    (last time I was over there that raven hair color was much in evidence... Been a while now though, and styles do change...)

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  32. A very frustrating couple of days.

    My wife bought a new computer.

    (The old one died. Seems she was having trouble getting out of Windows so she started shutting down by turning off the power. A couple months ago.

    Without telling me. Finally, the computer said "Bullshit. I don't need this crap." Luckily, it was an old desktop and had nothing important on it.)

    Anyway, I have been talking to my friends in India since last night trying to get the new computer to accept my wireless system. Just got it working and the system decided my computer wasn't set up right. Had to start over with that one.

    I think they are both working now.

    I hate computers.

    Much knashing of teeth.

    Required much recitation of my secret mantra to get me thru the experience.


    .

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  33. "I might add that you're sounding very... French."

    I take it you mean that in a bad way?

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  34. The spiritual journey is two steps forward, Quirk, and one step back, forever, kinda like a dance, that's what my friends in Hindustan tell me. It's a forever dance.

    With many dry washed out rocky bad places.

    The darkness of G-D is forever receding, and we fly through that darkness, like doves, to we know not where, mounting up, higher and higher, to the glory that we know not the meaning of, just like Greg of Nyssa said.

    But I wax poetic, a bad habit of mine.

    Here, today, the blessed clouds that I love so well, are welling up over the Wallowas, to thirty thousand feet. It's only a couple of weeks now, till the streams are down, and the fishing is good.

    I'm never, ever ever ever going to ask Trish, if she actually, actually voted for the usurping Kenyan. Some things you just don't talk about. And she is her own woman.

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  35. Quirk, you don't the half of it, bout computers. I'm using my wife's, and does she get pissed, me messing with her computer. My daughter is here now, and I tell her, I'll give you money, if you fix my Toshiba laptop.

    But nothing ever ever happens, other than I give her money.

    It's a bummer.

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  36. http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/obama_and_the_rising_mob_again.html

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  37. Thoughtless, ill read criminal assholes like rat, can read that article, and get a tingle in the leg.

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  38. I think latent tendencies are coming to the surface.

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  39. Just go buy a new computer, bob. They're cheap enough and you'll be doing your bit for the economy.

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  40. highest level of attainment: Liberal Democrat.

    It may take years yet, but I am determined.


    I hear that it's an acquired taste.

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  41. With the likes of Reid, Pelosi and Waxman et al, I don't recommend swallowing.

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  42. Trish remarks:

    "I take it you mean that in a bad way?"

    No, not at all.

    In my experience I find the French to be, at times, aloof, frustrating, but almost always interesting.


    And, almost always, looking out for their best interests.


    I've come to feel that we could learn a lot from them.

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  43. whit said...
    "Just go buy a new computer, bob. They're cheap enough and you'll be doing your bit for the economy."

    ---

    He already tried that...
    The problem is not the computer,
    the problem is...

    ...or maybe the Porn Sites he visits that feature "erotic poetry."

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  44. "If I work hard enough,"

    You're too modest -
    we all know it comes naturally.

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  45. Ruf's got my back!

    ...after all the unwarrented shit I've shoveled on him.

    Feel the love!

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  46. "unwarrented"

    ate up my artistic license allotment for the week

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  47. 'When I went to the doctor he took a look and then laughed.

    'He said I'd ruptured my throat by blowing too hard, and that perhaps I had been doing it all wrong.


    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1287631/The-dreaded-vuvuzela-claims-victim-Woman-bursts-windpipe-blowing-hard.html#ixzz0rFNPeOxt

    ---

    Hope Trish doesn't get carpal tunnel from pounding out PC Garbage on her keyboard.

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  48. Vuvuzela horn claims its first victim: Woman bursts her windpipe 'by blowing too hard'...

    Deja VUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU all over again.

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  49. He already tried that...
    The problem is not the computer,
    the problem is...

    ...or maybe the Porn Sites he visits that feature "erotic poetry."---

    Right, whenever I can sneak in.

    She'd take the whip to me.

    Damn Methodists.

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  50. Peggy Noonan ends her current column with:
    But it's also true that among Democrats—and others—when the talk turns to the presidency it turns more and more to Hillary Clinton. "We may have made a mistake. She would have been better." Sooner or later the secretary of state is going to come under fairly consistent pressure to begin to consider 2012. A hunch: She won't really want to. Because she has enjoyed being loyal. She didn't only prove to others she could be loyal, a team player. She proved it to herself. And it has only added to her luster.

    Uh huh. Barack's star is dimming and in the wings quietly working is Hillary. She'll have to quit the Administration sometime this year if she's going to oppose him for '12. She'll have to look at his polling numbers this fall and decide whether she wants to roll the dice.

    In the meantime, Carville has provided cover for the Clinton people to come out against the One.

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  51. From a link at Drudge:
    Medvedev sees chance for new world order

    By Catherine Belton, Charles Clover and Courtney Weaver in St Petersburg

    Published: June 18 2010 12:11 | Last updated: June 18 2010 12:11

    Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, said Moscow was bidding to help lead efforts to build a new world economic order after the old system collapsed in the global financial crisis.

    Opening Russia’s annual economic forum in St Petersburg where hundreds of global chief executives have flocked, Mr Medvedev said the renewed interest in Russia this year was a sign of a changing world in which the institutions of the western-dominated world order had had their day amid thousands of corporate defaults and the threat of sovereign defaults.

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  52. The New and Improved Russia: Open for Business:

    “Russia needs a real investment boom”, in order to achieve its modernisation goals, he said. To stimulate that, Mr Medvedev announced Moscow would introduce zero taxation on capital gains for companies working on long-term investments starting from January next year and said Russia was improving the legal system to provide better protection for businesses against the long arm of bureaucracy.

    He added Russia had already simplified migration procedures to help attract “highly-qualified specialists” working in investment and high-tech sectors into the country.

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  53. Remember when Pakistan was making its move to become an international banking center?

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  54. How was the beach, Melody?

    You still got that football head?

    With all those unnatural ingrediants?

    You still got your purse?

    It's about 70 degees here, and if my daughter wasn't so inept, I wouldn't be here at all.

    bob

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  55. No small irony that China and Russia are embracing big business capitalism while the United States of America slides toward big government socialism.

    The whirled turned upside down.

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  56. I have to tell this funny story.

    We decided to put the family desk top in my son's room last year because we had the laptop and then we could use the extra room for other things. Anyhoot, my son is 19 and back in the winter my husband needed to go into that computer to get some documents. As he sat there and looked at the screen he notice a small spec, so he decided to click on it and it got bigger so he clicked on again and again and again and again until, before his very eyes there was a folder. Oh and what do you think was in that folder? Bingo...naked women galore. We did what any smart parent would do, we took the paint and painted over every naked part there was and zipped up the folder and didn't say a word. When my son came home from school all we could here at the top of his lungs was, "What the eff?"

    Always remember the parent is one step, if not two, ahead of any child no matter what the age.

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  57. The beach is tomorrow and Sunday. It will be 92 here and the shorecast is 82. The weather man said this will be the perfect weekend for the beach. Which is unusual for me because no matter where I go or when I plan it it always rains or is cold.

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  58. heh, that's funny as hell, I haven't had that experience, but close to it.

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  59. In ten days or so, the Tucannon will be down, and I'm goin', fish a Royal Coachman, the daughter, who I am waiting for, to give the yes, on heading to Vegas, can go to hell, then.

    I have no control over anything, anymore.

    I just wait around.

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  60. She's taking Buddhism, but I think they should have started with Hinduism.

    All this shit gets in the way of a trip through the Desert, and costs me money.

    But, what can I do?

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  61. Control your own destiny, cricket.

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  62. Obama is screwing up big time.

    Watch the ABC News Video

    Hey, this is ABC News and Diane Sawyer....

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  63. The Patriot Post is reporting:
    Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) has introduced an amendment that would essentially force diversity appointments on the Federal Reserve Board and its 12 regional banks. These appointments would be made by a diversity officer who would be appointed by the president. Diversity officers would also be charged with forcing more "diversity" on mortgage lending -- virtually the same idiotic scheme used by Fannie and Freddie that produced the housing bubble that triggered this recession in the first place.

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  64. Control your own destiny, cricket

    heh, well, yes, I have the option of writing the check, today, or, tomorrow, it seems.

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  65. Saturday, 19 June 2010 09:56 UK

    Eight Turkish soldiers have been killed and 14 others wounded in an attack by Kurdish rebels near the Iraqi border, the Turkish military says.

    Members of the separatist Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) launched a raid on an outpost near the city of Semdinli in Hakkari province, officials said.

    Twelve rebels were killed in subsequent clashes, they added. Turkish aircraft have also bombed PKK positions in Iraq.

    The PKK has been fighting for a Kurdish homeland within Turkey since 1984.

    More than 40,000 people have been killed in the resulting conflict.

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