[OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.

[PvK]

Don't confuse the book, and the words of a character inside the book, unless it's written by someone a lot denser than Kurt Vonnegut!

Sometimes writers use half-truths, or un-truths in various ways, to induce readers to actually question and think about what they are reading.

PvK

[Geckomlis]

Originally posted by PvK:
Don't confuse the book, and the words of a character inside the book, unless it's written by someone a lot denser than Kurt Vonnegut!

Sometimes writers use half-truths, or un-truths in various ways, to induce readers to actually question and think about what they are reading.

PvK

I could not agree more. And that was my point also – some of those quotes from The Economist are caricatures or half-truths. Polls and statistics are not value-neutral. Question what you read and evaluate it critically – always!

*sigh*, now if I could just get my students to practice that habit of mind…


By the way, for anyone that is interested:
The character of Howard W. Campbell, Jr. first appeared in Vonnegut's book “Mother Night”. He is a young American playwright living in Nazi Germany in the late '30s, recruited as a spy. “He becomes the Tokyo Rose of the Third Reich, the voice of a passionate anti-Semite mocking the Allies while reaffirming Aryan supremacy, all the time passing along coded Messages edited into his copy to the American Command.

Fifteen years after the war, he's living in a run-down Greenwich Village apartment, an icon of American White Supremacists, being pursued for different reasons by both Israeli and Soviet agents, and unable to prove his true role in the war because, as he was forewarned, the U.S. government will never acknowledge it.”
http://www.duke.edu/~crh4/vonnegut/m...t/latimes.html

Gecko

[deccan]

Originally posted by Loser:
Thanks, deccan. How are things in the Solomon Islands?

The good: the streets are safe, the economy is picking up due to greater security, crooks and corrupt cops are in jail.

The bad: despite RAMSI's (Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands) claims that they will do something about the big fish, i.e. corrupt policians and senior government officials, no one really high profile has been arrested. A few weeks ago, a scandal at the Ministry of Mines and Energy about civil servants making huge claims from public funds emerged and a Permanent Secretary at the office was suspended, but nothing else, no criminal charges, no politicians handcuffed.

The ugly: after years of neglect, the Australian-reformed government is getting around to properly running the country, including gathering proper statistics, getting the courts and various government agencies working properly, and auditing companies. It's ugly because it means lots and lots of extra work for me.

[Loser]

Bringing back the love!

An amusing read.

[tesco samoa]

i like the fact that libya is good again.

a country that has been proven to support 'terrorists'
been proven to use chemical weapons on other countries.


and the fact that sanctions worked

[Atrocities]

Associated Link

I say we elect her Queen of Libia

[Fyron]

Originally posted by tesco samoa:
and the fact that sanctions worked

That would be a first.

[DavidG]

Originally posted by tesco samoa:
i like the fact that libya is good again.

a country that has been proven to support 'terrorists'

just out of curiosity why did you put terrorists in quotes? Was it not proven beyond a shadow of a doubt the Libya was behind the bombing of the flight that crashed in Lockerbie?

[tesco samoa]

hmm strange... I did not mean to put it in single quotes

[Loser]

Iraq in LEGOS!!!