1. Blog question: How does the time stamp work? That is, it occured to me that it doesn't make sense to report the local time; so maybe it is always set to Pacific Time. But then again, why would it offer the chance to change time and date anyway? For some reason I was assuming an integrity to the time; that is it was not possible to post-date entries like to before a game started, or some other event happened. Oh well, I was being silly. I'm going to post this one with my actual local time for when I finish it, so that it follows my previous message. After that, until I feel there is some sort of group decision, I shall just leave it alone.
2. I wrote "Also, no, this "war" did not start on American soil. Terrorism has been around as long as there have been nations/governments/leaders to terrorize."
3. Possibly the most clear response to this: the attacks on September 11, 2001 were not the first terrorist attacks against the U.S;, they were not the first ever acts of terorism. They were the first that really hit home for Americans but that's because Americans are collectively relatively isolated and ignorant.
4. But even there I'm using an odd definition of terrorism. Here, Terrorism: "1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes. 2. the state of fear or submission so produced. 3. government or resistance to government by means of terror." (from Random House Webster's College Dictionary [1991])
5. I was responding to this statement: "Inside the United States, where the war began," (this is at the start of what CNN called section 2, "War on Terror", it was about 14 minutes in.)
6. Bush's statement could be said to make sense (in my mind) if he was merely referring to his own, self-declared "War on Terrorism", that is if he is referring to his declaring of this "war" as the start of the war.
7. I use "war" in quotes because war is between nations, between entities. Thus "War on Drugs" is a ridiculous name (along with, ehh, too easy/involved), as is "War on Terror" or "War on Terrorism." Governments and individuals have been fighting dissenters and ....
8. My point was probably best re-expressed in 3.
9. [Note: this was a horrible sentence to organize, I'm not sure how to do so better. I used order of operations parentheses to help the reader parse it, more elegant suggestions are sought] Or, again: Someone (ignorant of, ignoring, or trying to hide/minimalize) (the world outside the United States and the history of the United States) would say such a thing.
