Community > Posts By > philosopher

 
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Thu 08/23/07 03:03 PM
2 ts Canola oil
2 oz Coarsely chopped walnuts
1 tb Curry powder
1 tb flour
1 ts ginger
1/2 ts allspice
1 c chicken broth
5 oz Chicken breast; cubed
1 c Unsweetened applesauce
4 oz rice
1/2 c Plain yogurt

In medium skillet, heat oil. Add next 5 ingredients and stir-fry 2 minutes. Add chicken broth, stirring until smooth. Add chicken and applesauce; cook 3 minutes more. Add rice and 1 cup water, simmer, covered, 15 minutes; stir 2-3 times, until rice is cooked. Remove from heat; stir in yogurt.

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Thu 08/23/07 02:57 PM
Try strawberry yogurt on top instead of whipping cream and sugar.

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Thu 08/23/07 09:51 AM
OK here is an issue about getting married I think everyone will love.

When you propose to someone should you propose to someone you think will say yes or should you set your standards impossibly high and only propose to someone you expect will say no, on the off chance that you will win a really excellent wife?

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Thu 08/23/07 08:09 AM
Somebody's been out for a girls night out at the bars?

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Thu 08/23/07 07:29 AM
For some more insight into the Vietnam story I recommend Nelson DeMille's book "Up Country". Its an anecdotal reflection on many of the battles and the chronology of the war, with a fine measure of sarcastic wit and some good old fashioned adventure.

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Thu 08/23/07 07:26 AM
From Australia this time.

The Christian Democrats are pushing for a halt to Muslim immigration because there has been no serious study of the effects of Muslims on Australia.

They say the 10-year measure would give some breathing space to assess the situation.

The party today officially introduced pastor Paul Green as its number-one candidate for the Senate at a media conference in Sydney.

Mr Green says he believes Australian people are very concerned about Muslim immigration and would support an immediate moratorium.

"If there was bird flu coming from a people's groups across the nation, would we not stop to assess the risk management of what it means to Australia and then assess the factors, and say, 'Is it safe to continue that or withhold it until it is dealt with?'" he said.

"We are saying there's cracks in the foundation."

I just thought this was interesting. For one thing some people in Australia are not on the equanimity bandwagon like Ted Kennedy here leads the popular support for here in the US. For another I find it remarkable that someone is immune to the politically correct malaise enough to take a national stand on the issue.


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Wed 08/22/07 06:02 PM
Just keep your names to yourself. I don't actually give a da mn what you think anyway, and I don't make assumptions your support for the ayatollah, I just read your words.

Your point about what happens when you go to a country waving guns around killing hundreds of thousands is lost on this topic. Americans did not go to Iran waving guns and killing hundreds of thousands to get the Shah in power, neither did they Americans instill the ayatollah in that manner.


I'll remind you one more time that the ayatollah took power in Iran in a coup. Furthermore the coup was extremely regressive for the country. Effectively putting all the oil revenues, not in the hands of the country, but in the hands of a very small number of zealots for their own purposes, which were horrible for the most part anyway.

With the control of the oil revenues and the military and their own internal police force, Iran's new government essentially seized all wealth from around the country and placed it in the hands of the religious leaders, who then used it to bully and kill and imprison the people who built influence over the previous 50 years. Then they began exporting anarchy and terror around the world and in the middle east in particular.

Supporting the Shah was not a mistake. Failing to get rid of the Ayatollah early and fast was the mistake. It was a mistake for world peace. It was a mistake in terms of the harm to the Iranian people. It was a mistake in terms of overall international relations for the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and even the far East and Russia.

No business nor peace can flourish under corrupt governments with evil intent such as exist in Iran.

Unfortunately there is no end to the fools who will support the underdog, just because they resent the success of hard working creative individuals. And unfortunately there is no limit on their foolishness when they overlook the deficiencies of those they support in the name of fairness.




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Wed 08/22/07 05:16 PM
I think, CBX, you neglected to give a balanced statement by neglecting to mention the sources of support given the Ayatollah in his coup. Could it be that you only consider influence by foreign governments being unreasonable when the United States benefits?

In this country there are a lot of really fine people who work hard and support families and build things. They invent new technologies and produce new products and bring them to the rest of the world. They contribute to charities all around the world and pay taxes at home. They make a fine effort at maintaining fair relations around the world based on contracts and law.

For some countries this is not good enough. When it is not good enough they cheat and steal and whatever they can do to gain advantage. In the US there are some who try to take advantage of the system for their own gain, but we have a system of laws that helps to keep them in check, under control.

If this model of behavior is not reasonable to you, then you're not being realistic or perhaps you are not being honest. YOU. You want better but all you're doing is supporting worse. That is foolish. Humanity can not advance with such folly at the forefront of political discussion.

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Wed 08/22/07 05:06 PM
Read it for yourself and if you want to call me genius, mean it. I'm only taking exception to your tone after all. Gardner had some points to make and you want to come here acting like the authority of the middle east, calling everyone Einstein. What do you THINK people are going to do when you want to come in here and malign the CIA and support the Ayatollah in the same breath?

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Wed 08/22/07 05:03 PM
So basically Mosaddeq was a spit on the landscape of Iranian history, Having marginal influence for about 3 years. The Shah on the other hand had been established a dynasty going back to 1921. His Father Reza Khan, built the country out of his long fought reforms and through coalitions of honorable men supporting his actions.

The fall of Mossadeq was more like a nudge than a battleground. His popular support was not there ever and strong pro Khan support had remained in effect throughout.

Iran was highly multinational going back to before WW1, with strong Soviet influence and British influence as well. Besides all that, BP was the major beneficiary or the oil industry in Iran at the time of the Mossadeq's failure and flight from the country in ignominy, not the United States.


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Wed 08/22/07 04:56 PM
Prior to Mosaddeq

Between 1921 and 1925 Reza Khan—first as war minister and later as prime minister under Ahmad Shah—built an army that was loyal solely to him. He also managed to forge political order in a country that for years had known nothing but turmoil. Initially Reza Khan wished to declare himself president in the style of Turkey's secular nationalist president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk—a move fiercely opposed by the Shi'ite 'ulama'—but instead he deposed the weak Ahmad Shah in 1925 and had himself crowned Reza Shah Pahlavi.

During the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi, educational and judicial reforms were effected that laid the basis of a modern state and reduced the influence of the religious classes. A wide range of legal affairs that had previously been the purview of Shi'ite religious courts were now either administered by secular courts or overseen by state bureaucracies, and, as a result, the status of women improved. The custom of women wearing veils was banned, the minimum age for marriage was raised, and strict religious divorce laws (which invariably favoured the husband) were made more equitable. The number and availability of secular schools increased for both boys and girls, and the University of Tehran was established in 1934, further eroding what had once been a clerical monopoly on education. Nonetheless, Reza Shah was selective on what forms of modernization and secularization he would adopt. He banned trade unions and political parties and firmly muzzled the press. Oil concessions were first granted in 1901, during the Qajar period, and the first commercially exploitable petroleum deposits were found in 1908. Reza Shah renegotiated a number of these concessions, despite the ire these agreements raised among the Iranian people. The concessions were to remain a violent point of contention in Iran for decades to come.

Reza Shah's need to expand trade, his fear of Soviet control over Iran's overland routes to Europe, and his apprehension at renewed Soviet and continued British presence in Iran drove him to expand trade with Nazi Germany in the 1930s. His refusal to abandon what he considered to be obligations to numerous Germans in Iran served as a pretext for an Anglo-Soviet invasion of his country in 1941. Intent on ensuring the safe passage of U.S. war matériel to the Soviet Union through Iran, the Allies forced Reza Shah to abdicate, placing his young son Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi on the throne


Mohammad Reza Shah succeeded to the throne in a country occupied by foreign powers, crippled by wartime inflation, and politically fragmented. Paradoxically, however, the war and occupation had brought a greater degree of economic activity, freedom of the press, and political openness than had been possible under Reza Shah. Many political parties were formed in this period, including the pro-British National Will and the pro-Soviet Tudeh (“Masses”) parties. These, along with a fledgling trade union movement, challenged the power of the young shah, who did not wield the absolute authority of his father.

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Wed 08/22/07 04:53 PM


Prior to the Shah,

Within Iran, Mosaddeq's social democratic policies, as well as the growth of the communist Tudeh Party, weakened the always-tenuous support of his few allies among Iran's religious class, whose ability to generate public support was important to Mosaddeq's government. In August 1953, following a round of political skirmishing, Mosaddeq's quarrels with the shah came to a head, and the Iranian monarch fled the country.

Iam not contesting your statement that the CIA had some influence in the fall of Mosaddeq. However Reza Shah had some history of authority in Iran


Within a week of his departure, Mohammad Reza Shah returned to Iran and appointed a new prime minister.

Resa Shah was the predecessor to Mosaddeq.


In 1961 the shah dissolved the 20th Majles and cleared the way for the land reform law of 1962. Under this program, the landed minority was forced to give up ownership of vast tracts of land for redistribution to small-scale cultivators. The former landlords were compensated for their loss in the form of shares of state-owned Iranian industries. Cultivators and workers were also given a share in industrial and agricultural profits, and cooperatives began to replace the large landowners in rural areas as sources of capital for irrigation, agrarian maintenance, and development.

The land reforms were a mere prelude to the shah's “White Revolution,” a far more ambitious program of social, political, and economic reform. Put to a plebiscite and ratified in 1963, these reforms eventually redistributed land to some 2.5 million families, established literacy and health corps to benefit Iran's rural areas, further reduced the autonomy of tribal groups, and advanced social and legal reforms that furthered the emancipation and enfranchisement of women. In subsequent decades, per capita income for Iranians skyrocketed, and oil revenue fueled an enormous increase in state funding for industrial development projects.

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Wed 08/22/07 04:35 PM
I'm really glad you are such an expert on Iran CBX, so you can put us all straight. Whatever you like to say about The Shah being a US puppet, he supported the US while he was in power. The US in turn supported his government. His government was much better than the one that followed it. Did you happen to know the previous leader personally so you can tell us something about how he was superior to the shah? Because I'm thinking, maybe you just like to shout out loud that the US is evil. And what do you THINK would happen if you supported the governments that supported your own government?

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Wed 08/22/07 03:32 PM
I have heard that any man and woman can get along if they both want to, so it might not matter who I marry.

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Wed 08/22/07 01:48 PM
So far I might not have actually met the bride. As for the bridesmaids, its kind of fuzzy with all that dancing going on. Might have been 6 or 8, but none of them were too clear so I didn't get to hone in on one as a potential bride yet.

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Wed 08/22/07 01:23 PM
Am I married yet? Did I miss something? I might have had a nap and missed the whole thing. Seems like the Bridesmaids were all dancing through my dreams like so many sugar plum fairies.

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Wed 08/22/07 01:21 PM
Have all the dueling banjos gone home now so I can have a private audience with the queen?


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Wed 08/22/07 10:32 AM
WW3 has not started yet. I disagree that the cold war was the start of WW3 and I disagree that Iran takeover by the fanatics was the start of WW3.

I do agree that Iran was mismanaged by Carter, but then he had other things on his mind, including Salt talks with Russia.

Didn't somebody once say that whatever weapons WW3 is fought with WW4 would be fought with stones and spears? Well we didn't get to that point.

Regional conflicts and terrorist acts are not world wars.

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Tue 08/21/07 05:42 PM
When you grow a beard the girls say, oh you look so young with the beard, then when you shave it off they say oh you look so young without the beard.

Mostly women seem to like them. I'm clean shaven because I like that. Once I grew a full beard, big bush like I got lost from civilization. Certain women seemed to like that a whole lot. I took a picture of it for the record and scraped it off forever.

So basically if you want the chicks to swarm you then you have to grow some scruffy fuzz.

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Tue 08/21/07 05:35 PM
Thia sounds like a job for a Las Vegas chapel.