Happy 4th to USA

I guess Jim would have excluded weenies here ;-)

It sure is a great country!

Thanks, same to you.

Enjoy it while it lasts!

On a peripherally related subject, I was asking myself this morning, what the hell's going on with those M.D.'s in London and Glasglow with their amateurish fire-bombs? Suddenly it all made sense:

These guys are obviously not trained terrorists. They started out as intelligent, compassionate folks who, having made it through med school, decided to set up shop in the west and pursue satisfying careers while adhering to Islam. But then the reality of western civilization hit them like a ton of bricks: teenage girls demanding the pill, the obese attributing their health problems to everything except their own behaviour, rampant STD's, alcoholism, drug abuse, neglected kids. Who sees this stuff more clearly than the medical profession? It's sickening enough for us westerners. To Muslims it must look like hell on earth.

Do you think maybe we should clean up our act?

-- Joe

Yes, but they most likely started out as Islamists (with no idea about our form of freedom) ... med school had no real impact on their political zeal. Zealots are the tungsten carbide of human behavior. Zealots are mostly impervious to external evidence.

They were primed, as to our flaws. Being fat-asses and boozers and druggies might be despicable, but not exclusive on a global scale.

Yes.

In the mean time, we have the right to stay our course as a viable nation so that we can "clean up our act" and then accomplish much more.

The 4th fireworks tell it all. The USA has a very strong survival instinct and is a diamond culture, which is harder than tungsten carbide.

The USA is all about freedom. We love it and we will defend it. Fireworks!

Yes. Of course we should ! But ... it's not up to muslim (or any) doctors to start playing god. They've come here from wealthy foreign backgrounds, will be on £120k a year and see our western degeneracy's only during their working day. They then drive home to an insulated, middle class lifestyle. What damned right do they think they have to pronounce on the rest of us?. Us plebs have to put up with 'people' 24/7 but aren't in the habit of wasting those we have a moral distaste for. (must admit though, apart from the religious nuts, to having one or two 'merely' obnoxious people on my personal hit list :).

Do the droves of Iraqis fleeing to Syria kind of prove that it's a great country?

My Muslim friend thinks it was triggered by Rushdie getting knighted.

He considered that a slap in the face, although he's equally against the extremists who wanted to kill the blasphemer Rushdie (blasphemy is still a capital offense in his native Pakistan). BTW, I notice his trophy wife dumped him (Rushdie that is, this other guy's wife seems nice enough, and whips up a mean briyani, but she's not in the trophy class).

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

That's true, and they don't like having it ("our form of freedom") shoved down their throat at gunpoint.

If the US really believed in Freedom, it would let the Islamists do whatever it is Islamists do, and quit trying to change their ways by force.

The last soldier/marine/guardsman/reservist out can say, "OK, here ya go! Freedom! Have fun!"

And, of course, I'd take the 140,000 s/m/g/rs and put them to patrolling the Mexico border.

Defending the US is supposed to be their job, isn't it? Rather than go on personal crusades for the lunatic commander-in-chief?

Thanks! Rich

I guess The Hippocratic Oath meant nothing to those men.

Peripheral it is, but I've been wondering as well:

From what I heard on the news, they loaded up cars with lots of gasoline, some propane bottles, and packets of nails. The logic was that the gasoline would light up, generating enough heat to make the gas bottles explode and send the nails flying, shredding everything in the vicinity (the same type of device was found in German commuter trains some months ago).

It's more than obvious to anybody with the faintest idea about exploding things (that is, everybody who grew up as a boy in a place where pharmacies were happy to supply the necessary substances) that this could have never worked. Yet the authorities claim that these bombs could have killed hundreds of people.

I wonder if they say that to encourage would-be terrorists to keep making these utterly harmless "bombs", or if really there were high explosives or other elements involved that they won't say anything about. And of course they perpetually need to instill the population with more fear of terrorism to sustain support for their pointless war against it.

robert

The 4th has become just one more excuse to indulge in substance abuse and party, it means nothing to the uneducated majority. And as for the freedom part, freedom for who? The US track record in human rights is not looking so good. Are we celebrating our recent record of financing murderous despots and their death squads in central America who terrorized the rural Amerindian population with mass murder? Maybe it's our more recent establishment of an international torture network you're especially proud of? Or perhaps it's the current misintervention in the middle east and the corruption, mismanagement, and cost of unbelievably massive proportions that tingles your spine?

You can crowd hundreds of people around a car if you pack them tightly enough. Its like the last bunch they arrested for a plot to take over aircraft over the atlantic. They had no passports or tickets etc.

I suspect it more the latter than the former. It is all about getting people to "ignore that man behind the curtain". The terrorists are much less of a threat than they have been made out as Russia is slowly turning back into a threat.

Even great men get cancer. The 4th is about the great man not the cancer. With luck the cancer is not terminal and the US will once again become beacon of hope to world.

Marijuana - chemotherapy for the cancer of big government. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Are you trying to suggest that they write these laws while straight?

For me, one of the more important parts is people here who can see such issues...

... and can speak of them.

Thanks Fred.

Robert

a bit like this?

martin

Don't forget to water down the front and back lawns so the pyromaniacs don't accidentally start a grass fire on your property.

Happened to my neighbor two years ago... pyromaniacs setting off fireworks over the fence...

Happy 4th

Michael

Well despite the rest of the political hijacking in this thread, I got out and burned some shit. Take that, terrorists and CPSC!

Some of these shots looked real spooky and artsy, I have the full size (2048x1536) originals saved this time.

FWIW, that's not-quite-powdered charcoal giving the fine orange sparks, and magnalium +20-100 mesh burning white hot for the much thicker, smokier, and extremely incendiary (take THAT, Aridzona lawns!) sparks. I like how the camera thought some even looked blue to purple!

Tim

-- Deep Fryer: A very philosophical monk. Website @

More likely drunk. >:-[

Thanks, Rich