The Proceedings of the Friesian School

This Kant/Fries philosophy website is, in my opinion, one of the best archives ever created. Here are a few articles from over 90 MB of material:

Table of Contents

http://www.friesian.com/#contents

Philosophy of History

http://www.friesian.com/philhist.htm

Decadence, Rome and Romania, and the Emperors Who Weren’t

http://www.friesian.com/decdenc1.htm

Egyptian Tombs of the New Kingdom (I used a lot of these for dungeons in D&D)

http://www.friesian.com/tombs.htm

Presidents and States of the U.S.

http://www.friesian.com/presiden.htm

Egypt and Sumer

http://www.friesian.com/notes/oldking.htm#sumer

Review of “The Gnostic Gospels”

http://www.friesian.com/pagels.htm

Fascist Ideology in Star Trek

http://www.friesian.com/trek.htm

Review of Star Wars Episode I

http://www.friesian.com/starwars.htm

Review of Passion of the Christ

http://www.friesian.com/passion.htm

Why I am Not a Christian

http://www.friesian.com/why.htm#why

Islamic Fascism

http://www.friesian.com/afghan.htm#fascism

Scientific Naturalism and Intelligent Design

http://www.friesian.com/design.htm

Bin Laden’s 6th

Well, there’s a new video soon to be out of Bin Laden celebrating his 6th year anniversary of U.S. incompetance, and he’s dyed his beard for the occasion.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jF-I3mpEsoYVjKQpyZgEH-BxV5Qw

Of course, we found out soon after the 9/11 attacks that when the administration said they had no prior warning of the attacks, that was a lie. On August 6, 2001, there was a presidential daily briefing titled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike the U.S.” In it it said:

“We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a —- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.”

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/10/august6.memo/index.html

And according to the Washington Post, the U.S. government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the U.S. to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the U.S. in the war against al Qaeda. Intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan’s mountainous eastern border.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62618-2002Apr16

However, the ironic thing is, Bin Laden has never been formally charged with any crimes linked to 9/11. Even the F.B.I. Wanted Posters of him fail to say anything about 9/11 but only link him to the 1998 African Embassy bombings. Of course we know he was involved because the World Trade Center towers were hit at the same time. He was first inspired to bring down the towers after watching some towers in Lebanon fall in it’s 1982 war with U.S.-backed Israel. But the truth is we never gained any hard evidence for it.

But what I would really like explained to me is the details behind why we can’t get Bin Laden without setting off a nuclear war with Pakistan.

Three More Years, and some time off

“Four more years” is a bit of a misnomer. Notwithstanding the question as to whether he’s really “the Decider” when he is actually in the White House, Bush has spent over a year on vacation. At 418 days, he’s set to beat Regean’s vacation time record of 436 days in the next year. One might think that excess vacation would be a trait of a non-wartime president, but Clinton took 152 days off and Carter, “the worst president ever,” took only 79 days off, about 1 week per year longer than the average American’s paid time off.

I’ve heard it been said that even when the president is “on vacation” he’s still working. That may be so, but was Bush elected President in order to work on clearing brush out of his ranch? But seriously, I think it would be truthful to question whether he is really working as president when he’s not on vacation. I take it as indicative of our never-ending campaign culture that Bush was reading to kindegardners when America were attacked on 9/11. Setting aside the fact that he continued to sit there and do nothing for 7 minutes even after he heard the words, “The country is under attack,” can it really be said he was “working” as “president” that day? Of course not, he was campaigning for women’s votes that day.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/mason/5042364.html

Jimmy Carter: Worst President?

Carter is normally seen my the Republcians as the worst president in modern history. Why? Because Radical Islam suppossedly “began” with the ousting of the Shah and the hostage crisis and this happened on his watch. Funny how the Bush Administration failing to act on reports before 9/11 allowed him to reap a second term rather than receiving any blame for that Islamic plot unfolding “on his watch.” Or was it that Carter didn’t “back the Shah.”? Actually, he did allow that brutal dictator to come to the U.S. to receive the best medical treatment that money can buy. That’s actually what caused the hostage crisis in the first place. There was also the failed mission to rescue the hostages in which 8 servicemen died, but one failed mission hardly compares to a failed war. It seems more like the real reason was Carter didn’t declare war on Iran for daring to overthrow the tyrannical dictator than the U.S. had installed over their Prime Minister because he had nationalized the Anglo-Iranian oil company (which today we call BP). Sure, the Shah was dying, but maybe Carter should have continued the suppression of Democracy in Iran and install another Big Oil puppet with the title of an ancient Persian dictator. Or maybe Eisenhower should not have allowed anti-Communist sentiment to ally with British to bring about the deposition of a democratically elected official of a foreign country for the sake of western oil companies?

My Anti-Clinton Bias

I voted Libertarian in 2000. I’ve never much liked the two party system that America has caught itself up into, but in 2004 I felt that Bush had so polarized the nation that voting for NotBush was an absolute necessity. When Conservatives started talking about Hilary running some a couple of years ago, I didn’t believe them. How could Democrats even think about running under the name Clinton after the absolute hell the media had put them through with his sex scandal? Clinton killed 16 civilians when he destroyed the headquarters of Radio Television Serbia in central Belgrade for distributing propaganda. He also killed 6 Iraqi civilians, including a famous artist, in a “retaliation” attack after the suppossed assassination attempt of Bush Sr. in Kuwait. He destroyed an important pharmaseutical plant in the Sudan that had meant the deaths of thousands of innocent people. He had been accussed by multiple women of being a rapist. Then there was the questionable last-minute pardon of Mark Rich and the disgraceful exit from the White House. Although none of these had any direct tie to Hillary, I always pictured them as a single political unit, and her re-entry into White House reflected a kind of tag-team mentality reminiscent of the Bush Dynasty. There are a lot of good, smart people out there who aren’t related to the former bad presidents we have had.

The YouTube debates were absolute crap and the snowman asking about global warming did not exactly help Conservatives take the issue more seriously. The AFL-CIO debate was a little better, but one person stood out as a question dodger and slogan beater and that was Hilary. And all the news comentators absolutely loved her for it. Chris Matthews referred to her “I’m your girl” comment as “post-feminist.” The other candidates made the usual number of bloopers and disputable claims. But by comparing the two using FactCheck.org, one can see that they rise the kind of lies and exaggerations normally found in a Republican debate.

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/afl-cio_democratic_forum.html

http://www.factcheck.org/sunday_morning_missteps.html

I am just as determined to vote NotBush in 2008 as I was in 2004, but I’m not sure the complete catastrophe that was these last 7 years would make me want to vote for Clinton as the lesser of two evils.