Mike's Rants

General Mailbag

I had expected to receive more criticism of my rant pages than I have. To my pleasant surprise, more than 90% of the mail I get is very positive, with some ambiguous and only a very small number upset, offended, or otherwise in opposition. This page will contain a random selection of those E-mails:

Name: Mark A. Berger
E-Mail: maberger9590@webmail.winona.edu

Comments: Re: rant on things you hate

I would like to politely inform you that "Prince" *is* in fact the given first name of that particular performer. His full birth name, which is available on such websites as www.imdb.com, is "Prince Rogers Nelson," which causes me to question the sense and good taste of his parents.

Really? That's one of the scariest goddamned things I've heard all day.

Name: Jordan D. Greer
E-Mail: aurora_@mac.com

Comments: Mr. Wong, I fail to understand how you can demonstrate military logic when debating Star Wars versus Star Trek, but throw it out the window when it comes to disucussing the Middle East. Take this snippet of text taken from your Middle East rants page for example: "1967 (Israel occupies 100% of Palestinian territory, attacks and annexes parts of neighbouring countries)

The Six Day War. Israel attacks Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, swiftly conquering large regions of new territory." This is true, but it is TOTALLY out of context. You conveniently fail to note that the Arabs were massing on ALL of Israel's borders. You also fail to note the fact that Egypt began a blockade of the Strait of Tiran on May 15, cutting off Israeli shipping. Enacting a blockade is an act of war, as you should well know. Consider these words: "The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy, which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear-to wipe Israel off the map" (President Aref of Iraq, May 31, 1967). Do you still persist in your belief that the Arabs were savagely attacked by the Evil Militaristic Israelis without provocation? The Israelis were about to be jumped by Syria, Egypt, and Jordan on all of their borders. The Israelis did exactly what any other nation on the planet would have done, they launched a pre-emptive strike. What would YOU have Israel do, wait for the Arabs to seize the initiative and execute their plan of attack? This strategy is known as "bending over and taking it." There are numerous other factors that contributed to the Israeli victory, and to the beginning of hostilities, but they are too numerous to list. If you wish to debate the Middle East in detail, please feel free to email me.

[Editor's note: I was wondering if someone would bring up some factoid which I hadn't thought of which might force me to change my position, but I didn't think this one qualified. I knew about the "massing on the borders" excuse, but to be honest, I thought it so flimsy that I never bothered mentioning it. My response was as follows:]

On Sunday 28 April 2002 03:48 am, you wrote:

Mr. Wong, I fail to understand how you can demonstrate military logic when debating Star Wars versus Star Trek, but throw it out the window when it comes to disucussing the Middle East. Take this snippet of text taken from your Middle East rants page for example: "1967 (Israel occupies 100% of Palestinian territory, attacks and annexes parts of neighbouring countries) The Six Day War. Israel attacks Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, swiftly conquering large regions of new territory." This is true, but it is TOTALLY out of context. You conveniently fail to note that the Arabs were massing on ALL of Israel's borders.

Just as the Americans massed on Iraq's borders after its perfectly reasonable annexing of Kuwait? Just as Israel's armies are constantly massed on its own borders, and often beyond those borders and into the territory of neighbouring countries? Those countries would have been idiots not to mass whatever forces they had on the borders they had with a known aggressor state.

[Editor's note: I'm not a leading military expert by any means, but the Israelis have never hidden the fact that they had been conducting a massive military buildup in preparation for this kind of "defensive" action ever since the 1950s. The numerical superiority of the Arab armies was more than offset by the strategic and technological superiority of the Israeli army, thus placing the Israelis firmly in the driver's seat. Many historians now feel that they would have won the war comfortably even if they had not destroyed most of their enemies' air forces on the ground with lightning strikes in the opening hours of the war. The "Israel was alone and outnumbered by a sea of powerful enemies" sob story is a bit like portraying the Americans as the underdogs in Desert Storm because of the Iraqis' superior numbers]

You also fail to note the fact that Egypt began a blockade of the Strait of Tiran on May 15, cutting off Israeli shipping. Enacting a blockade is an act of war, as you should well know.

Nonsense. Trade and aid embargoes are constantly used as a form of non-military pressure by various countries today (including the United States) and are not treated as acts of war, even when massive civilian casualties result directly from these embargoes (as in the case of Iraq). Why the double standard? Arabs had (and have) every reason to try to punish Israel through economic means, since A) the USA is feeding them with billions of dollars of aid and B) most of Israel's territory was created through ethnic cleansing, and all sane observers recognize that the Palestinians should have the "right of return".

Israel doesn't just want to "exist"; it wants to remain ethnically dominated by Jews, and it wants to keep undesirable races out of the country. That's why the right of return is a brick wall in negotiations; they refuse to let ethnic Palestinians move back, even if they retain government control over those lands. Their behaviour is totally unacceptable.

Consider these words: "The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy, which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear-to wipe Israel off the map" (President Aref of Iraq, May 31, 1967).

Perfectly understandable. The existence of Israel is a blight upon humanity. It is explicitly defined as a racial and religious apartheid state, which is completely unacceptable in any civilized world. It exists because it ruthlessly butchered Palestinian civilians in order to ethnically cleanse a region for itself. If anyone but Israel did any of these things, they would have been promptly attacked by a multi-national coalition which included the United States, as we saw in the cases of both Iraq and Serbia.

And what about direct violations of the Geneva Convention? Are they not considered aggressive? Every one of the hundreds of settlements which dot the occupied territory is such a violation. Don't you ever wonder why the UN has issued hundreds of condemnations of Israeli actions over the decades? Do you figure they're just being blinded by Arab sentiment?

Do you still persist in your belief that the Arabs were savagely attacked by the Evil Militaristic Israelis without provocation?

Absolutely. Who fired the first shot? Who had superior forces massed on the borders? Did it not occur to you that the Israelis also had forces massed on the borders?

The Israelis were about to be jumped by Syria, Egypt, and Jordan on all of their borders. The Israelis did exactly what any other nation on the planet would have done, they launched a pre-emptive strike.

With the forces that they just happened to have fully armed and equipped and in place for just such an action, with overwhelming military superiority. And you wonder why the Arabs put all of their military forces on their borders? What would you do, if you were an Arab nation? The fact remains that the Israelis fired first, and none of the Arab states had military forces on their borders with Israel which represented a serious threat to Israel's security.

Your double standard is breath-taking. In WW2, the Japanese were under an oil embargo from the United States which was choking off their industry. The Americans were busily building up a huge fleet in the Pacific ocean, which is analogous to massing on Japan's borders. If we go by your standards, the Americans started the Pacific war! But no rational person goes by that standard, so it is universally understood that by shooting first, the Japanese started that war. But when we shift to the Middle East, the situation suddenly changes, and the party which unilaterally attacks without warning becomes the victim!

What would YOU have Israel do, wait for the Arabs to seize the initiative and execute their plan of attack? This strategy is known as "bending over and taking it." There are numerous other factors that contributed to the Israeli victory, and to the beginning of hostilities, but they are too numerous to list. If you wish to debate the Middle East in detail, please feel free to email me.

The biggest single factor which knee-jerk Israel-supporters refuse to discuss, however, is the fact that Israel was formed out of a desire to ethnically cleanse a region of the world in order to make way for a Jewish nation-state, in defiance of all racial and religious freedom and equality principles. It does not deserve to exist, and it was formed through conquest. Any action which took place after its formation was an attempt to rectify an injustice, Jordan. If we do it, it's Operation Desert Storm or Enduring Freedom, but if Arabs do it, it's evil, right?

"In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him." Menahem Begin (from "The Fateful Triangle", Noam Chomsky)

"I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to The Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it."- Yitzhak Rabin (Israel's Chief of Staff during the Six Day War), February 28, 1968

"We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot ... And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was...The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us."- Moshe Dayan, the Defense Minister who gave the order to conquer the Golan Heights, quoted from the NY Times, May 11, 1997.

"[Israel] must see the sword as the main, if not the only, instrument with which to keep its morale high and to retain its moral tension. Toward this end it may, no - it must - invent dangers, and to do this it must adopt the method of provocation-and-revenge ... And above all - let us hope for a new war with the Arab countries, so that we may finally get rid of our troubles and acquire our space."- from Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharatt's personal diaries in 1955.

Nice, eh?

On April 29, 2002, Marina O'Leary sent an E-mail, also on the Israel issue. Her message was so large that I put it on a separate page. Click here to see it.

Name: Jeff
E-Mail: westsider4@hotmail.com

Comments: I just wanted to tell you that you are wrong with your comments about the rally car wannabes. I own a Honda Civic and I guarantee that it would walk all over most of the "muscle cars" today. I have it running at 332 hp. With my nitrous boost I have no idea how fast my car is. Most imports with about $10 000 to the engine can out perform any american made sports car. I agree that some kids just put little work into the engine and just make the outer of the car look good. In closing I just want say that import cars are a superior product. Feel free to e-mail me back.

Lighter is usually better, but you go too far when you say they are "superior" in general, since there are many criteria to think about when comparing automobiles for anything other than nimbleness. However, I don't really care to argue about the import vs domestic issue. Having worked for the American auto industry in the past, I have a somewhat biased outlook on that particular issue, and I'd rather not get into yet another flamewar on yet another subject.

My rant about rally-car wannabes does not deny that there is such a thing as a legitimate rally car, but the vast majority of the little hopped-up subcompacts on the road are nothing of the sort. I'm a little tired of having my left ear blown out by the open pipes of a car which is still running the stock engine despite its vast array of cosmetic treatments, and which can't even outrun my big-ass luxury sedan despite its howling engine scream, oversized spoiler, and ridiculous hood scoop.

Name: John Ertz
E-Mail: ertzjohn@mchsi.com

Comments: Dear Mike,

First, let me thank you for your prompt and kind reply to my e-mail regarding the Ewok rocks in RotJ. Second, regarding your take on the situation in the Mid-East...oh, those poor Palestinians. Oh, those poor Arabs. You claim Israel is racist, yet they have Muslim Arab members of their Parliment. You seem to think the Palestinians have some sort of 'right' to live where they do. Please explain that. Is there any real 'Palestinian' territory at all? After all, the Israelies move through it at will, so can they not be said to control it?

As for Israeli victories in the various wars of the Middle East, what greater claim to territory can there be than the right of conquest? I look forward to your reply, and send my regards,

John S. Ertz

[Editor's note: another complaint about this whole Middle East thing? I really don't understand why people feel so compelled to defend Israel (you may notice that they never propose an idea which could conceivably ever lead to peace, no matter how far-fetched; they simply want to prove that their side is better). I'm not saying their enemies are angels (far from it; read the rant in question), but to put it bluntly, they are racists. The right to vote sounds good on paper, but out of a million Arabs in Israel's official borders, less than half, ie- 400,000, are actually registered to vote, and the occupied territories are filled with hundreds of little voting pockets which just happen to coincide with Jewish settlements, all surrounded by Arab communities barred from democratic participation. Worse yet, these communities pay taxes to Israel. Does the phrase "no taxation without representation" ring a bell? There is a twisted irony in American support for Israel, since America itself once went to war over precisely that which Israel foists upon Palestinians in the occupied territories. Moreover, Israel started all of this by waging aggressive warfare to seize territory that didn't belong to them (but of course, the Bible says otherwise, so millions of idiot right-wing Christian fundamentalists think it does belong to them)]

On Wed, 01 May 2002, you wrote:

First, let me thank you for your prompt and kind reply to my e-mail regarding the Ewok rocks in RotJ. Second, regarding your take on the situation in the Mid-East...oh, those poor Palestinians. Oh, those poor Arabs. You claim Israel is racist, yet they have Muslim Arab members of their Parliment.

Which is actually proof of their racism, since no [Jewish] Israelis voted for them. This means that they could only have won seats in regions where virtually all of the voters were Arab. Their presence in the Knesset merely shows that Israel is racially segregated, and their numbers are pitifully inadequate considering the sheer number of Arabs who live in Israeli-held territory (but of course, most of them are in "occupied territory" so they have no rights).

You seem to think the Palestinians have some sort of 'right' to live where they do. Please explain that.

They were living there before aggressive warfare drove them off the land. You find this difficult to understand?

Is there any real 'Palestinian' territory at all? After all, the Israelies move through it at will, so can they not be said to control it?

Of course they control it. This means that all of the Palestinians in the occupied territories are de facto Israelis now, so they should be given voting rights. Yet they are not; the "borders" of Israel functionally surround all of the occupied territories, but for the purposes of voting and human rights, they are carefully drawn so that the vast majority of Arabs in the territories they control have no rights at all.

As for Israeli victories in the various wars of the Middle East, what greater claim to territory can there be than the right of conquest?

Right of conquest as a result of aggressive warfare is not a legitimate means of territorial expansion. This is one of the principles upon which the UN was founded, and which has been repeatedly enforced ... in places other than Israel. Moreover, if they have taken the territory by conquest, then all of its inhabitants are now Israelis, and their treatment (no rights in the occupied territories) constitutes a massive human rights violation.

You see, Israelis want to have it both ways. They want to consider themselves at war with an enemy state, so they feel free to conduct military operations which create collateral damage (ie- civilian casualties), disregarding the impact on civilians despite the Geneva Convention's stipulation that the safety and welfare of an occupied people are the responsibility of the occupiers. But they refuse to accept that if they are truly at war, then the enemy may conduct aggressive operations against Israelis if it sees fit, including civilians. So all of a sudden, when an Israeli civilian dies, it's not a war. Now they're policing the region for criminals and terrorists, so they can round people up without treating them as POW's. But terrorism implies a pre-existing state of peace, and criminality implies jurisdiction. In other words, for the purposes of classifying Palestinian behaviour, they are merely policing Israel's own territory! You see the problem? They behave as if they are war with an external state, while simultaneously expecting the enemy to behave as Israeli residents. They can't decide whether this is a war or a police action, so they try to have it both ways, and they hope no one notices (and amazingly, the United States is full of people who don't).

The Israelis refuse to leave the occupied territories or even to slow down their pace of settlement, yet they act as though there is no provocation for Palestinian terror attacks. These actions constitute a de facto invasion in defiance of the Geneva Convention's provisions for the treatment of occupied territories, ie- an undeclared act of war. But when Palestinians respond in kind, it's unprovoked terrorism? The Israelis did the same thing in 1967: expanding forward into Syrian territory until the Syrians started shooting at them, pretending that the attack was unprovoked, and then retaliating with massive force.

[Editor's note: see Moshe Sharatt's personal diary entries quoted earlier, specifically the passage regarding Dayan's idea of using "provocation-and-revenge" in order to "invent dangers" so as to "acquire our space"]

Name: Carl Thronson
E-Mail: carlthronson@bigfoot.com

Comments: Mike,

I like Windows because I don't need to know everything about it to be productive and earn a living. I live in a multi-million dollar home in a very expensive neighborhood close to Standford University in Silicon Valley. And I got rich using Windows. It was easy.

Wow, you claim to have used Windows to make tons of money without doing any work, thus disproving my claim that Windows is a rip-off? Hmmm ... you don't see what's wrong with that picture?

By the way, there are drug dealers who could say the same thing about cocaine.

[Editor's note: in case you share his particular form of dementia, nobody makes money in this world without doing any work unless somebody somewhere is getting ripped off. Economics is about exchanges of goods and services, and when one party gets a ton of money without having to give something proportional in return, the other party is getting fucked. Consider the example of the lottery; one guy gets tons of money without doing anything, but millions of people pay money and get nothing in return (in some cases, I have observed that people can piss away a lot of money on the lottery, which is probably why some like to refer to lotteries as a tax on stupid people). Similarly, if somebody makes an overnight killing in the stock market by buying low and selling high, it means that others must have sold low and bought high, thus losing out. In any case, "appeal to personal wealth" is a horrendous and on some levels, rather offensive logical fallacy]

A. It has taken you almost a month to respond so you already lose.

Looking for a flimsy excuse to claim easy victory, eh? Classic sophistry.

B. You are obviously trying to twist the argument to something you can win. That's the right idea; but, you aren't being subtle enough to make it work.

And interestingly enough, you make no attempt whatsoever to address the point I make, since you prefer sophistry.

C. Personal attacks will be your downfall every time. There's just no reason for it unless you don't have any other good arguments. So, as soon as the personal attacks come out, everyone knows you have nothing real to say.

Yet another excuse you use to evade the point I made. You make three points here, none of which address the point I made, and all of which focus on me, rather than the point. That is classic ad hominem debating technique, and it does not suggest intelligence on your part. But hey, if you think "appeal to personal wealth" is a good way of proving an argument, then a lack of intelligence is a given.

You're probably just jealous of my success; but, since you're begging for a fight, I will oblige you.

Jealous of your success? I'll bet that's the way you try to deal with everyone who disagrees with you, isn't it? How convenient for you; the world is either in awe of you or jealous of you. But remember: we wouldn't be having this conversation at all if you hadn't bothered me out of the blue, so don't start whining now.

B. And what is your point? You think Microsoft is bad. It's not bad, because it's been very good for me.

That is an inexcusably imbecilic argument. It is possible for an organization to be bad for society even if it's good for an individual. By your moronic "logic", communism was good because it was good to Stalin.

You should be happy for me; but, instead you're probably jealous and you must somehow ruin my success by perverting it into something evil.

Again, I remind you that you started this little discussion. Don't whine now just because you're obviously incapable of holding your end up, and don't try to blame everything on the fact that your opponent isn't rich.

I am not an evil person.

I beg to differ. By automatically dismissing my criticisms based solely on the fact that I'm not rich (ie- "you're just jealous"), you show yourself to be a classist amd elitist of the highest order. That may not be as evil as, say, rape or murder, but it still makes you an asshole.

Microsoft is not evil.

Yes they are. I have made very detailed arguments explaining why they are evil, and you have not even attempted to discuss any of them. Your only argument is that you are rich, therefore Microsoft is good, and that's no argument at all.

I am willing to accept Microsoft and that has made me successful. You aren't willing to accept Microsoft and well... that's too bad for you.

I use Microsoft when I have to (as at work), but unlike you, I'm smart enough to know what's wrong with them. So far, you have not made a single technical or logical argument in favour of your position; everything is supposedly justified by your (claimed) bank account.

Frankly, I think you're full of shit. I highly doubt that you are actually a highly successful software developer, otherwise you would have probably gone into some technical detail about why you feel Windows is good. Software developers who support Microsoft have a lot of points they like to trot out in its favour, and you made none of them. Hell, you made no points at all. Your only argument is "I'm rich, so Microsoft is good", and frankly, that's so idiotic that I strongly suspect you're just a troll with nothing better to do.

C. People don't like personal attacks. Come on. Don't make me say that again. You know it's true. They certainly don't make you look smarter.

No, I look smarter because I make numerous technical points in support of my position, while you have nothing except for "I'm rich, therefore Microsoft is good". It is you who are relying exclusively on personal attacks, by tying everything to your claims of vast personal wealth and my lack thereof.

Morons such as yourself often use an insulting tone as an excuse to ignore the underlying argument, but you are guilty of the "style over substance" fallacy (which is all too popular in a politically correct age).

Maybe you can demoralize people and gain a temporary advantage in an argument; but, I think you will live a much fuller and happier life if you try to avoid it.

What makes you think I don't live a full and happy life? I have a beautiful, devoted wife and two beautiful children. It says a lot about your state of mind that you assume I must be unhappy, unfulfilled, and jealous of the wealthy, simply because I'm not rich.

If you don't like being called an asshole, then stop tying everything to wealth or lack thereof. And if you don't like being called a moron, then make a logical point. After three E-mails, you have yet to do so.

Name: Philip Edward Roberts
E-Mail: scan_elite@hotmail.com

I don't neccessarily disagree with any of your points on your rants page, however, have you ever thought of being more construction. Rather than spending your time making a website about this why not use these as opportunities. Fat women wear tight clothes bercause they have no market for there size, why not try giving them it? It's called a niche market, high cost good quality lard arse clothes you'd make a mint.

Obviously, you haven't been to a shopping mall lately. There are plenty of "clothes for fat women" stores out there, such as "Addition-Elle" and other "plus-sized" clothing specialists. The problem is that fat women don't want to admit they're fat, so they buy clothes that are too small for them.

Anyway what I really wanted to say was however special you feel you are still another piece of crap infesting the world so don't be so self important look at the stars once in a while and then shoot yourself for the reason that even god in his divinity is decaying.

It sounds like you haven't gotten laid in a very long time. My condolences.

Last changed: 2004/11/24

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