Jump to content

EKen132

WFG Retired
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    2.036

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by EKen132

    What's in a school?

    in Hall of Intellectuals

    Posted

    education physique... over here in the states it's called gym class or physical education.

    Well my school is still known for it's great academic teams- our science olympiad is always winning some state or national title. Despite me being one of the biggest intellectual/math-science nerds in the class of 2006, I've never joined an academic team. I think senior year I might do the academic bowl or math team though. Science Olympiad is quite a time commitment, and with two varsity sports and enough AP classes to get me through a state college for a semester, I think I'll pass the oppurtunity up :axeman:.

    Kill Bill law

    in Hall of Intellectuals

    Posted

    You mean "bullet", not "ball". :torch:

    Yiuel, you've pretty much summed it up though. To some this would sound insane, but I truly enjoy shooting trap. Not just to build dexterity or whatever, or not because it makes a loud noise and fulfills some masculine drive of mine, but because it's just an enjoyable thing to do-- the same as I like to shoot archery (haven't done that in a while though). Anyhow, I guess my opinions haven't changed too much over the course of this thread, but I have gained more insight, especially into the European perspective on gun control. In Europe, those who had guns were soldiers who have fought many major wars on European soil in the last century, and wars have been a real challenge to recover from. In America, those who had guns were the cowboys and pioneers, the expanders of the nation. The ones that added onto it, rather than detracted from it. Although that's a pretty generalized statement, it more or less sums up my idea of how each side of the Atlantic looks at a gun.

    I am not sure I would be moving to Europe.

    Puerto Rico :axeman: woo woo!

    Whoever gets the last post wins

    in Fun and Games

    Posted

    Hello, world. What's been up with you? Long time no see, ol' buddy ol' pal! It's been a while now, what, sixteen, seventeen years since we've last talked. How is everything? How are the kids? Little Johny's going to middle school now? Wow, how he's grown since I last saw him. And Susy? Straight A's! Well, I'll be darned, I didn't do that good when I was her age. And how have you and Linda been? Oh, that's good. I'm glad to hear it. So are you going for vacation anywhere this summer? Oh yeah, of couse, you are the world. Where would you go haha? Mm, yes, mars is definately a possibility haha... whoo. We haven't talked in so long. Well World, I've got to get going. Yeah, I have a call on the other line. Ok. I'll talk to you later. Bye.

    Language: Nostalgic soccer mom.

  5. Depressing

    in Introductions & Off-Topic Discussion

    Posted

    Come one guys (and girls)! you are all so young and already depressed! Enjoy life! do crazy things!!

    Words to live by. I love my life.

    Last crazy thing done: suprise a relatively unsuspecting party of my friends by throwing waterballoons at them from the sunroof of a car being driven (and co-driven) by a pair of crazy girls who keep circling the block... and that was only the opening battle of the two-and-a-half hour waterfight to ensue!

    Next crazy thing to be done: learn how to rave OR maybe complete my entire US History final with my left hand (I'm right handed, and I've been working on my left handed writing this year) OR take a long run down the Champs Eylsees. I'll be there in a few days :axeman: and I need to get in shape for the next cross country season.

    Kill Bill law

    in Hall of Intellectuals

    Posted

    Nooooo I've been working on a post all day about how we reached the crux of the matter which was the crux of all matters when forming a republican government which was the right to harm yourself and make stupid decision versus that privelage being taken away and it all got deleted!

    I cannot believe it! :axeman:

    Well we need to do some serious chilling here. First of all this

    I said a bloodier war in the 1800's *but of corse a European would forget that...*

    is altogether entirely unnacceptable on our forums.

    and also, what's the big deal with what's the biggest and bloodiest war? I thought we were talking about gun control. Good heavens, Confederate Cavalry, you had better stop all these European insults. Europeans are pretty much just like you except they don't have a long tradition of guns being essential to life (and they don't always wear as much deodarant :torch: no offense meant, of course).

    Oh what the heck. This gun control debate has about worn off. With a confederate die hard on one side and a group of european intellectuals on the other, I don't see too much concession to reach an agreement. Close the thread?

  9. ACT Test

    in Introductions & Off-Topic Discussion

    Posted

    The main problem with the ACT is time. The first two sections manage to lull you into a false sense of security, only to be proceeded by the reading and science sections, each of which require some serious concentration to be finished on time. Since you're just finishing Junior year, you'll probably have taken biology, chemistry and physics, and the science section should sound mostly familiar. Technically, you don't need high school science to do the science section, but it gives you some comfort to know a little bit about you're seeing, and it can come into play if you need to guess. The reading... what can I say? Just start at number one and end at number 40 (there're 40 questions I think). I know a lot of people suggest skipping all around depending on what you're good at and what looks easy, but I prefer to follow the K.I.S.S. method :) (Keep It Simple, Stupid) and go straight through. Just do some quick calculations in the first 20 minutes of the test to make sure your pacing is right, and finishing with 1 or 2 minutes to spare won't be a problem. If you skip any or aren't sure, but could use another minute to re-check, write the question on the top of the page, then as soon as you answer the last question, flip through your test book to find the questions you circled and use your last remaining minutes to answer those.

    Well that's my advice, take it for what you want. Although by most accounts I did pretty well on the ACT :P.

    Kill Bill law

    in Hall of Intellectuals

    Posted

    @Mithrandil

    OK, you can like gun show. Ooooooh yeah, you're sooo cool, you can handle that gun sooo good, you could kill anybody with a great deal of show going with it. You can make that deadly weapon ooooh sooo beautifull, yeah, that's pattriotism, dude.

    Any more crap like that and you're getting a rep down. That's pathetic to see from a forumer here.

    Quran Defilings

    in Hall of Intellectuals

    Posted

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050604/ap_on_...HNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

    WASHINGTON - The    Pentagon on Friday released new details about mishandling of the Quran at the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects, confirming that a soldier deliberately kicked the Muslim holy book and that an interrogator stepped on a Quran and was later fired for "a pattern of unacceptable behavior."

    In other confirmed incidents, a guard's urine came through an air vent and splashed on a detainee and his Quran; water balloons thrown by prison guards caused an unspecified number of Qurans to get wet; and in a confirmed but ambiguous case, a two-word obscenity was written in English on the inside cover of a Quran.

    The findings, released after normal business hours Friday evening, are among the results of an investigation last month by Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, the commander of the detention center in Cuba, that was triggered by a Newsweek magazine report — later retracted — that a U.S. soldier had flushed one Guantanamo Bay detainee's Quran down a toilet.

    The story stirred worldwide controversy and the Bush administration blamed it for deadly demonstrations in Afghanistan.

    Hood said in a written statement released Friday evening, along with the new details, that his investigation "revealed a consistent, documented policy of respectful handling of the Quran dating back almost 2 1/2 years."

    Hood said that of nine mishandling cases that were studied in detail by reviewing thousands of pages of written records, five were confirmed to have happened. He could not determine conclusively whether the four others took place.

    In one of those four unconfirmed cases, a detainee in April 2003 complained to    FBI and other interrogators that guards "constantly defile the Quran." The detainee alleged that in one instance a female military guard threw a Quran into a bag of wet towels to anger another detainee, and he also alleged that another guard said the Quran belonged in the toilet and that guards were ordered to do these things.

    Hood said he found no other record of this detainee mentioning any Quran mishandling. The detainee has since been released.

    In the most recent confirmed case, Hood said a detainee complained on March 25, 2005, of urine splashing on him and his Quran. An unidentified guard admitted at the time that "he was at fault," the Hood report said, although it did not say whether the act was deliberate. The guard's supervisor reprimanded him and assigned him to gate guard duty, where he had no contact with detainees for the remainder of his assignment at Guantanamo Bay.

    As described in the Hood report, the guard had left his observation post and went outside to urinate. He urinated near an air vent and the wind blew his urine through the vent into the cell block. The incident was not further explained.

    In another of the confirmed cases, a contract interrogator stepped on a detainee's Quran in July 2003 and then apologized. "The interrogator was later terminated for a pattern of unacceptable behavior, an inability to follow direct guidance and poor leadership," the Hood report said.

    Hood also said his investigation found 15 cases of detainees mishandling their own Qurans. "These included using a Quran as a pillow, ripping pages out of the Quran, attempting to flush a Quran down the toilet and urinating on the Quran," Hood's report said. It offered no possible explanation for those alleged abuses.

    In the most recent of those 15 cases, a detainee on Feb. 18, 2005, allegedly ripped up his Quran and handed it to a guard, stating that he had given up on being a Muslim. Several of the guards witnessed this, Hood reported.

    Last week, Hood disclosed that he had confirmed five cases of mishandling of the Quran, but he refused to provide details. Allegations of Quran desecration at Guantanamo Bay have led to anti-American passions in many Muslim nations, although Pentagon officials have insisted that the problems were relatively minor and that U.S. commanders have gone to great lengths to enable detainees to practice their religion in captivity.

    Hood said last week that he found no credible evidence that a Quran was ever flushed down a toilet. He said a prisoner who was reported to have complained to an FBI agent in 2002 that a military guard threw a Quran in the toilet has since told Hood's investigators that he never witnessed any form of Quran desecration.

    Other prisoners who were returned to their home countries after serving time at Guantanamo Bay as terror suspects have alleged Quran desecration by U.S. guards, and some have said a Quran was placed in a toilet.

    There are about 540 detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Some have been there more than three years without being charged with a crime. Most were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002 and were sent to Guantanamo Bay in hope of extracting useful intelligence about the al-Qaida terrorist network.

    Both President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have denounced an Amnesty International report that called the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay "the gulag of our time."

    The president told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday that the report by the human-rights group was "absurd."

    On Wednesday, Rumsfeld called the characterization "reprehensible" and said the U.S. military had taken care to ensure that detainees were free to practice their religion. However, he also acknowledged that some detainees had been mistreated, even "grievously" at times.

    This is about as low as it gets. I'm really ashamed to hear that this sort of crap still goes on, especially when it's US soldiers responsible for it. Although I think the gulag of our times comments is sensationalized BS coming from someone who had a pretty unrealistic view of what really happened in the gulags, I'm mad that those who are supposed to be honorable representatives of a great nation, my nation, are over in prison defacing holy books and abusing prisoners. Insulting religion is about as low as it gets, and this touched a nerve of mine.

    Also, it would be nice to not have the habeus corpus problems, even if it is technically legal by US law.

    Kill Bill law

    in Hall of Intellectuals

    Posted

    I think the tempers in here might need to chill for a day or two.

    Also, I find

    What if suddenly, a Muslim girl started converting her fellow schoolmates in the playground ... that is not acceptable

    disturbing. Why is is not acceptable? If your idea of seperation of church and state is not allowing religious discussion on public property, you have a very warped view. Hopefully religious conversion is brought about by conversation of religion. And that is guaranteed to all.

    To add on, the seperation of church and state means "state". For public schools, teachers are representatives of the state, so for them to try and convert someone while on school sponsored business (ie teaching a class) would not be acceptable. But for a student? Honestly, how does that violate some seperation of church and state? I'd ask you to clarify that statement again. And also I'd ask you to start a new topic about this if you plan to reply to this post.

    School sponsored prayer in school is unconstitutional, btw...

    So let's not be pathetic here because I don't want anyone here to turn into one of those whiners who cry like some inherent rights of theirs are violated every time someone tries to talk to them about religion, crying "rights violation" and "seperation of church and state" whenever they hear something about religion. The poor, poor things, they can't stand to hear someone... gasp... discuss RELIGION-- IN A PUBLIC PLACE! Nooo, not that, SAVE US! "seperation of church and state! seperation of church and state! forgive me, o secular government, o secular society, for I have sinned!"

    Rant over. That last part was getting a little Brave New World-esque. Time to have some soma and thank Ford that the madness has subsided.

    Hey, about guns... :)

    This difference in lives here... neither confederatecavalry nor I do any wrong with guns, yet we both have them and are surrounded by them. If everyone lived just as us, things would be absolutely fine with guns. It's always the other cases- the unstable, the criminal- that kill people, whether in America or in Europe, and whether with guns or with other weapons. That's what needs to be taken care of. Believe me, we all live with cars every day- dangerous weapons that can easily kill a person-- but fortunately, people manage to not intentionally kill too many people with them. It's all about the people, not what's in their hands. If you dig up the roots, the weed will go away.

    Now how do you dig up the roots? Oooh...

    Kill Bill law

    in Hall of Intellectuals

    Posted

    Loonis, I know you think America is rampant with mindless killers and gun-nuts, and you can watch and believe all the sensationalized media you want, but don't come here to tell me that. I've lived on earth some 17 years, and not a single person I know has EVER been killed or injured by a gun, except maybe my grandpa who was killed by a hand gernade in Europe while fighting in WW2. Now 17 years isn't a heck of a long time, and I live in a middle class, primarily white, suburban neighborhood where crime is low, but my parents each come from more rural backgrounds, where hunting is tradition, where the opening of deer season is a holiday, and where the grandparents there hunted to survive. But I haven't known a single person killed or injured by a gun. Believe me. I live here. I own a gun (a 20 gauge shotgun, which I love to shoot trap with, and technically my dad owns it), my brother owns a few, and my collective family, like grandparents and cousings and all, owns bunches. I can say that there is more to this wild "gun-mania" in the US then killing people. A lot more. But you can also bet your bottom dollar that if anyone ever broke into my house, I would not hesitate to harm them if they proved to be threatening. But I wouldn't do it with a gun, Loonis. All of those are locked up in my basement with trigger locks, and the keys are upstairs. So let's think a minute here. Unless you live in a poor, inner city slum (which I can't vouch for), you are not living in some b.s. sensational "nation of fear" for your life. So let's get real here, because we're all grown up and because the truth is dying and Michael Moore is one of the people strangling it.

    Book Excerpt

    in Hall of Intellectuals

    Posted

    Great idea Jordan, maybe you will become a storyteller by trade! :)

    Inspired by the intrepid Calvin of "Calvin and Hobbes", who decides one day to write his own autobiography, but with a twist-- he has a flamethrower, I have started writing my own fictional autobiography. I'm only two chapters in but it's pretty funny already, and there's this ridiculous story about a woman who tries to escape from a nursing home and all these funny, but true, quotes from my US history teacher.

    BTW, it's called "The Incredible, Unbelievable, Completely Made-Up Life of Erik Kennedy"

    Kill Bill law

    in Hall of Intellectuals

    Posted

    in local supermarkets you can buy guns without a licence, that people buy bullets like we should buy nails for instance... I seriously wonder why not all people are shocked by this.

    I am indeed shocked by all this. Either we're not thinking about the same US or I am greatly misinformed as to the happenings in my nation. You and your school friends could probably learn quite a bit by coming over to the US, I think.

    ...but as long as Loonis was so kind as to start a thread to critisize America, I will make full use of the oppurtunity. With abortion, this filibuster crap, affirmative action, and of course, people buying bullets like nails, one can begin to doubt that America is truly all it's cracked up to be.

×
×
  • Create New...