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Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine [/71]

Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

Tell me do you know from experiencing it, or did you just look it up?

No the best I could do was a degree with honors. What difference does it make whether I was Magna Cum Laude or not? Didn't help I was a lead singer in a rock band during my last year in college.

But most people that know anything about academics know what Magna Cum Laude is. Apparently you don't or you wouldn't be asking about his grades.
 
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Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

To be fair now, each university makes it's own rules on what constitutes Latin honors. And no, Magna Cum Laude is not only given to the students with the highest grades. That may be Columbia's structure, but each makes their own. Basically it means their work was considered exceptional.

Still pretty dumb to be asking for someone's grades that graduted Magna Cum Laude as if to doubt they made good grades. But I understand there are still those that doubt a black man is capable of it, as are those that can't believe he's not a muslim, or he is a U.S. citizen. You can't fix stupid.
 
Some of the images of today



and from Dutch television



At the airport you can only see the dignitaries, our King and Queen, Prime minister, representatives of the governments and or royal families from the countries the other victims came from, Dutch politicians, etc. The other really obvious ones there are the soldiers (from all branches of the armed forces, marines, air force, army and the military police) and the hearses and their drivers who drove off the landing strip behind 4 motor cyclists from the Military Police. When the motorcade of hearses left in earnest, there was an honor guard at the front of 8 motor cyclists of the Military Police (the branch of the armed forces my brother in law currently serves with) but also there was an escort of police vehicles as well as police motor cyclists who cleared roads and crossings so that the motorcade had no problems in getting to their destination in Hilversum. A lot of Dutch people amassed on motor overpasses, on and off ramps of the freeway as well as on the roads the motorcade was driving along.

It has been an emotional days today and with several more of these days going to come, it was good to see the respect the victims received from the Dutch military in a serene manner of loading the coffins onto the hearses. The poor victims have been defiled enough by the separatist scum in the past few days.
 
Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

But most people that know anything about academics know what Magna Cum Laude is. Apparently you don't or you wouldn't be asking about his grades.

What a brilliant deduction. Seems to me you are not comprehending my posts, unless there is another problem.
 
Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

No, seriously, are you even a college graduate? Because you seem to be quite clueless about it. Let me break it down for you, slowly:

Magna. Cum. Laude. Is. Only. Given. To. Students. With. The. Highest. Grades.
It. Has. Nothing. To. Do. With. Affirmative. Action. Blah, blah, blah...
(that's me helping you, it's called editing)

So, be stupid and continue to sustain your impossible point which only proves how ignorant you are.

...but to pretend he didn't have good grades while we know for a fact that he graduated Magna cum Laude is just PLAIN STUPID AND IGNORANT.
(I highlighted your best work)

Ah, thank you. See, you have abandoned a logical debate and decided to start calling me names. Oh, and let's not forget the condescension for the name caller. More verification of the level of intelligence. Thanks for the confirmation.

When you call names, I take that as your concession, because you are just telling everyone that you've got nothing. I don't even know why you did that, I didn't call you names, so you basically just gave up. God, I was barely paying attention, certainly not my best stuff. Oh well, sometimes you hit a homer with your eyes closed.

You didn't seem to read my last post, since you just keep responding as if it wasn't there. I guess you just didn't get it, since it wasn't anything to call names over.

And. You've. Even. Mimicked. The. Cadence. Of our. Great Leader. Not to beat a dead horse, but not exactly putting your best foot forward with that, are you? (Jeez I hope not!)
 
Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

Trust me. At Columbia, only the students with the highest grades *and* exceptional work get Magna cum Laude. I personally know all who got it in my class (unfortunately, I didn't) and know what their grades were. OK, to be fair, a handful of people went even higher (summa cum laude), but just a few, very few. Magna cum laude was still at least 95th percentile, with summa at 99th. Me, I merely graduated cum laude.

Not doubting you, just saying it's not the same at every university and it may very well have been different at the university Anthony60 attended.
 
Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

Still pretty dumb to be asking for someone's grades that graduted Magna Cum Laude as if to doubt they made good grades. But I understand there are still those that doubt a black man is capable of it, as are those that can't believe he's not a muslim, or he is a U.S. citizen. You can't fix stupid.

You should read my last post, since it applies to you too. But, you get extra points for plain' the race card! You know, since you have all the evidence to back that one up, LOL!
 
Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

Still pretty dumb to be asking for someone's grades that graduted Magna Cum Laude as if to doubt they made good grades. But I understand there are still those that doubt a black man is capable of it, as are those that can't believe he's not a muslim, or he is a U.S. citizen. You can't fix stupid.

Not really. Though law schools generally have a different standard for Magna Cum Laude that's more stringent than even most universities. And I don't think Anthony has anything going on the race card front, so you can probably put that back in your deck.

And I've read your arguments. You better hope that last is not true.
 
Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

You should read my last post, since it applies to you too. But, you get extra points for plain' the race card! You know, since you have all the evidence to back that one up, LOL!

When people play the race card, it means they don't have a case.
 
Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

What a brilliant deduction. Seems to me you are not comprehending my posts, unless there is another problem.

Not brilliant. Just obvious. You don't have a clue about what graduating with distinction means.
 
Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

You should read my last post, since it applies to you too. But, you get extra points for plain' the race card! You know, since you have all the evidence to back that one up, LOL!

Calling it like it is doesn't always mean someone is pulling the race card. Do you really deny there are those that despise the man because he's black? Seriously after all we've heard from some in the past six years? You know comments like it's the Blackhouse now, parading around a picture of him as an African tribesman complete with a nose ring, and on and on?
 
Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

Not really. Though law schools generally have a different standard for Magna Cum Laude that's more stringent than even most universities. And I don't think Anthony has anything going on the race card front, so you can probably put that back in your deck.

And I've read your arguments. You better hope that last is not true.

Yes really really dumb to ask for his grades with his credentials. Have I told you how dumb it is? :)

And don't tell me you're one of those birthers? That's the epitome of dumb.
 
Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

When people play the race card, it means they don't have a case.

No what's dumb is accusing someone of it when race is mentioned -- not even allowing the possibilty there is some truth to it.
 
Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

Calling it like it is doesn't always mean someone is pulling the race card. Do you really deny there are those that despise the man because he's black? Seriously after all we've heard from some in the past six years? You know comments like it's the Blackhouse now, parading around a picture of him as an African tribesman complete with a nose ring, and on and on?

Oh, come on. Despite your declarations, we are not stupid. That's not at all the accusation you were making. Tsk, tsk.
 
Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

(that's me helping you, it's called editing)

(I highlighted your best work)

Ah, thank you. See, you have abandoned a logical debate and decided to start calling me names. Oh, and let's not forget the condescension for the name caller. More verification of the level of intelligence. Thanks for the confirmation.

When you call names, I take that as your concession, because you are just telling everyone that you've got nothing. I don't even know why you did that, I didn't call you names, so you basically just gave up. God, I was barely paying attention, certainly not my best stuff. Oh well, sometimes you hit a homer with your eyes closed.

You didn't seem to read my last post, since you just keep responding as if it wasn't there. I guess you just didn't get it, since it wasn't anything to call names over.

And. You've. Even. Mimicked. The. Cadence. Of our. Great Leader. Not to beat a dead horse, but not exactly putting your best foot forward with that, are you? (Jeez I hope not!)

I grant you that name-calling you was, well, uncalled for, and apologize for that part of the argument. Not that it is justified, but it happened because at one point I grew very frustrated with your inability to grasp the notion, which, sorry, you did display. I also got frustrated because your implication was indirectly damaging my Alma Mater, and you know that people can get passionate about that.

You call the president a liar and then assume that his graduation with distinctions from two of the top five universities in the world must have been due to affirmative action (which can play a role in admissions but not in grades and graduation distinctions). You made of *his* lying a reason to suspect the integrity of these major, traditional universities that are proud of their standards and not about to deviate from them to somehow beef up the credentials of a virtually unknown student at the time he was there, unless you embark in some sort of crazy conspiracy like the Manchurian candidate.

There is a simple fact that you are willingly not taking into account - that unknown Barack Obama as a young men, someone who wasn't giving any indication that one day he would be the POTUS, graduated from Columbia Magna cum Laude and from Harvard Law, as a member of Law Review. It just doesn't happen to students with lousy grades. Therefore, the fact that he hasn't published his transcripts necessarily doesn't have anything to do with lousy grades.

It has everything to do with not caving to this kind of pressure. There is no obligation for a POTUS to disclose his transcript, nobody has ever done it, and it is obvious that this insistence is something that is done by the very people who doubt that he was born in Hawaii. It does reek of "he is black, he can't be that smart, it must be affirmative action." This is not playing the race card on our end. It's merely the obvious recognition that the race card is being played by your side, otherwise you wouldn't have introduced affirmative action in this discussion. If anybody brought up race in the first place to this argument, it was you.

No, the president is a smart man, and he necessarily got good college and law school grades otherwise he wouldn't have earned his distinctions. It doesn't make of him a good president, unfortunately. I don't think he is a good president and I see drastic and severe shortcomings in his administration. They are, however, totally unrelated to his school grades. Someone can be smart and a lousy president because being a good and strong leader takes more than smarts.

I hope this clarifies my position in this debate, and I again apologize for having name-called you.
 
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Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

The number of dutch victims has risen by 1 victim. There were 193 victims but as now has transpired, a Dutch woman with double nationality who lives in the Netherlands had used her German passport for the trip.

Prime minister Rutte, who is now giving a press conference has presented some more news:

- today 74 coffins have come back
- in the train that has travelled to Charkov contained 203 bodybags but that this says nothing about the number of found victims
- in the next few days 40 members of the Dutch Military Police will join the investigators to look for bodies and possessions of the victims of flight MH17
- there are more than 200 forensic specialists working to identify the bodies, 120 Dutch experts and more than 80 foreign experts
- due to the state of the bodies, identifying the bodies may take weeks up to months

The same procedure that was in place yesterday for the reception of the bodies was followed today. After the landing, which was observed by members of the Dutch government, the last post was played, a minute of silence was observed after which members of the military removed the coffins in the same manner as yesterday, the coffins were placed in 74 hearses after which the motorcade departed from Eindhoven to Hilversum. On the route again people watched the passing coffins, several stretches of the freeway were closed for other vehicles and the speed on the freeway going in the other way there was limited to 70kmh (about 43 miles an hour). This was done to prevent traffic jams and possible accidents when people would see the motorcade pass and would be distracted from paying attention to driving.
 
Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

I'm happy to hear the Dutch government is taking such an active role. Hopefully there will be a proper investigation that will inform the international public.
 
Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

I grant you that name-calling you was, well, uncalled for, and apologize for that part of the argument. Not that it is justified
Damn, I had more snarky remarks to make and now I can't. Well, I have to give you credit there, most people don't have the guts to apologize, especially when frustrated.

I grew very frustrated with your inability to grasp the notion, which, sorry, you did display. I also got frustrated because your implication was indirectly damaging my Alma Mater, and you know that people can get passionate about that.

I think I have already addressed this, but to be clear, I got your point the first time. My point is that I don't put anything past these people, they are "the ends justifies the means" type.

You call the president a liar and then assume that his graduation with distinctions from two of the top five universities in the world must have been due to affirmative action (which can play a role in admissions but not in grades and graduation distinctions). You made of *his* lying a reason to suspect the integrity of these major, traditional universities that are proud of their standards and not about to deviate from them to somehow beef up the credentials of a virtually unknown student at the time he was there, unless you embark in some sort of crazy conspiracy like the Manchurian candidate.

Well, he is a liar, that's just a fact, don't blame me. I think they are capable of anything. Interesting that you bring up the "Manchurian Candidate", that is for another thread, but one could make a very, very good case on that subject.

It does reek of "he is black, he can't be that smart, it must be affirmative action." This is not playing the race card on our end. It's merely the obvious recognition that the race card is being played by your side, otherwise you wouldn't have introduced affirmative action in this discussion. If anybody brought up race in the first place to this argument, it was you.

Oh, that is playing the race card, and is offensive. If you want to do that, try to have some kind of bias, bigoted, race-hating evidence to support it. Right now you have exactly zero with me.

No, the president is a smart man, and he necessarily got good college and law school grades otherwise he wouldn't have earned his distinctions. It doesn't make of him a good president, unfortunately.
I hope this clarifies my position in this debate, and I again apologize for having name-called you.
Listen, he just isn't a smart man. He seems to be very mediocre at everything, and horrible as a president.
 
Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

Oh, that is playing the race card, and is offensive. If you want to do that, try to have some kind of bias, bigoted, race-hating evidence to support it. Right now you have exactly zero with me.
Well, you did bring up affirmative action when addressing his college and graduate school degrees, right? Therefore you brought up race, because affirmative action is a program for racial minorities.
Listen, he just isn't a smart man. He seems to be very mediocre at everything, and horrible as a president.
Again, being smart and being horrible as a president are not incompatible. Gee, the man was a professor at the University of Chicago Law School even before he became a politician. Do you seriously think such a prestigious institution as the U of Chicago Law School, the fourth ranked law school in the nation (only behind Harvard, Stanford, and Yale) is about to hire mediocre people to teach there?

There are many reasons to criticize the president other than his intelligence. For one, I simply hate his indecisiveness in regards to foreign policy. I do separate things, though, and acknowledge that given his academic accomplishments as a college student, graduate student, and law school faculty, he must be smart. You just don't get to graduate with distinctions from Columbia and Harvard and teach at the University of Chicago without being smart.
 
Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

Well, you did bring up affirmative action when addressing his college and graduate school degrees, right? Therefore you brought up race, because affirmative action is a program for racial minorities.
It is not racism to bring up affirmative action.
Again, being smart and being horrible as a president are not incompatible. Gee, the man was a professor at the University of Chicago Law School even before he became a politician. Do you seriously think such a prestigious institution as the U of Chicago Law School, the fourth ranked law school in the nation (only behind Harvard, Stanford, and Yale) is about to hire mediocre people to teach there?

It's also not incompatible to be an idiot and be a law professor, or a senior lecturer, which was Obama's title.
There are many reasons to criticize the president other than his intelligence. For one, I simply hate his indecisiveness in regards to foreign policy. I do separate things, though, and acknowledge that given his academic accomplishments as a college student, graduate student, and law school faculty, he must be smart. You just don't get to graduate with distinctions from Columbia and Harvard and teach at the University of Chicago without being smart.
His intelligence, or lack there of, isn't that important to me. Although I'll disagree when people claim he is so smart, after giving no sign whatsoever of that being the case.
Some people, for whatever reason, just get whisked along. I am sure that there are many people on these boards that have witnessed people in jobs of some importance, and wonder how the hell an idiot like that was able to get that job. I can think of several people that I've seen along the way that are a complete mystery.

Doing the job effectively and with fidelity to the Constitution and the founding of this country, that is of utmost importance. And that is where his greatest failures lie. In fact, I would classify him as an enemy of the Constitution.

When he got elected, I decided I wouldn't prejudge him. Although with his background, lack of qualifications, and affiliations, I had solid doubts about his ability to rise up to the task of being POTUS. And he is certainly and overall failure as a president, smart or not.

And, I just must apologize, as I look at the thread topic, since this has drifted a bit away from it.
 
Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

On top of the 40 unarmed military police sent to support the forensic specialists from the Netherlands (and other countries), red and green berets from the Dutch armed forces will be going as an armed guard of the military police/forensic experts. These are battle hardened troops who were previously stationed in Uruzgan. The Australians have also decided to send troops to guard the OVSE and forensic experts.

The troops sent will be from the 11 Luchtmobiele Brigade (Versatile Rapid Response Unit) who wear the red berets and the Korps Commandotroepen, aka the Netherlands army special forces troops, they wear red berets. They will be patrolling the crash site and the area around the crash site. The army special forces troops (some are already in the area) will be doing reconnaissance in order to neutralize possible attacks by the separatists.

Our country has agreed with the Ukrainian government that our country is allowed to do "whatever is needed" to achieve the Dutch goals of repatriating all the remains, collecting the properties of the passengers of MH17 and to investigate without intrusions by the separatists to find evidence of what happened to flight MH17.

The Ukrainian minister of foreign affairs has stated that a renewed United Nations permission is not needed for that.

The Netherlands was officially given total control from the Ukrainian authorities regarding the process of the identification of the human remains and has also been given free reign in what happened to the downed MH17 plane. The negotiations took some time because the Netherlands wanted to make sure that they were given an absolute guarantee that nobody (read Ukraine I would assume) would disagree or doubt the results of the investigation would be.

An anti-Putin newspaper has printed this newspaper

vergeefons.jpg

Which says in Dutch (and Russian) "Netherlands, forgive us".

If anyone is interested, this speech by minister of foreign affairs Frans Timmermans was given by our minister last week in front of the US security council

 
Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

It is not racism to bring up affirmative action.
I didn't say it was racism. I said it was playing the race card. One can focus on race without being a racist. I was accused of playing the race card and I replied that I was responding to someone - you - who brought up race first.
It's also not incompatible to be an idiot and be a law professor, or a senior lecturer, which was Obama's title.

The University of Chicago itself has a note on their website (since it became such a Frequently Asked Question) explaining that Obama's title of Senior Lecture is a full equivalent to a professor. Here, don't take my word for it; take theirs:
UC Law School statement: The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as "Senior Lecturer." From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School’s Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.
His intelligence, or lack there of, isn't that important to me. Although I'll disagree when people claim he is so smart, after giving no sign whatsoever of that being the case.

I disagree with that. Even though his verbal output is full of verbal ticks, I think he has good argumentation and good logical analysis when he is talking about something, which are, according to psychologists, indirect ways to gauge someone's verbal IQ. I do think he is smart, not just because it is so unlikely to achieve his honors and his position at the U of C without being smart, but due to direct observation.
Some people, for whatever reason, just get whisked along. I am sure that there are many people on these boards that have witnessed people in jobs of some importance, and wonder how the hell an idiot like that was able to get that job. I can think of several people that I've seen along the way that are a complete mystery.

This is a lot less common in high level academics in institutions such as the Ivy League universities and the U of Chicago. Seriously, during my time at Columbia University, I was often in awe of how homogeneously smart the faculty was. Again, Barack Obama was just another unknown student when he earned his distinctions. I can't fathom Columbia University and Harvard University thinking "huh, we got this mediocre student here, Barack Obama, a nobody by the way, coming from some mixed family, an immigrant father who left the country and a mother who died, raised by his middle-class grand parents. Huh, out of the blue, let's just pretend his work is outstanding and give him our highest grades. Who cares for our standards we've been upholding strictly for more than a century? We just feel like whisking along the mediocre kid." My friend, this is HIGHLY unlikely. If he earned the distinctions, it's because his grades and work were outstanding, and if he got hired by the U of C and offered tenured track full professorship in one of the top 5 law schools in the nation, it's because they were very pleased with his work. Remember, this all happened way before any political ambition.
Doing the job effectively and with fidelity to the Constitution and the founding of this country, that is of utmost importance. And that is where his greatest failures lie. In fact, I would classify him as an enemy of the Constitution.

No doubt about it. I entirely agree with this part. I think the constitutional part has a lot to do with trying to get out of the paralysis in Congress but still, it's no justification. I don't like it either.
When he got elected, I decided I wouldn't prejudge him. Although with his background, lack of qualifications, and affiliations, I had solid doubts about his ability to rise up to the task of being POTUS. And he is certainly and overall failure as a president, smart or not.

There's been people even less qualified who got offered senior positions - the most blatant example being Sarah Palin, a barely literate woman who failed college four consecutive times and was only able to land a soft degree when transferred to a fifth, low level college, and couldn't even quote an important national newspaper. Vice-President candidate? Give me a break! But yes, Barack Obama did disappoint and has been a very weak president. Again, it has NOTHING to do with his intelligence.
And, I just must apologize, as I look at the thread topic, since this has drifted a bit away from it.

True.
 
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Re: Report: Malaysia Airlines flight crashes in Ukraine

Talk about going the extra mile, the Dutch government has stated that even the 2 dogs that died on board of flight MH17 will be repatriated to the Netherlands so that the remains of the dogs can be handed back to their families.

media_l_2390707.jpg

One of the 2 dogs, the above shown Costa had been seen on photo's of the crash site (by their owners) next to the body of a mangled female passenger.

media_xll_2390580.jpg

The other dog Quinta was the family dog of a Dutch expat family who just moved to Malaysia. The owners are very happy with this gesture.

Among the live animals on board there was also a consignment of 28 bird (among them pigeons) who also perished but they will not be repatriated according to a spokesperson of the ministry of Justice and Safety.
 
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