Welder, Plumber, Sniperman, Thief

High Seas wrote:

The Canton de Vaud is bilingual, Walter

Then you mean Waadt . However:

:wink:

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Anybody German-speaking at that Canton (glad you located it at last, Walter) will disagree with those statistics Smile

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Might be - but their official website even doesn't have a German link.

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Damn, you're right on that one Walter - though on that only:
http://www.parlament.ch/homepage/sv-services-dummy/li-kantone-gemeinden.htm

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From their constitution:

Quote:

Art. 3 Langue officielle

1 La langue officielle du canton est le français.

:wink:

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I just SAID it's bilingual, Walter, but they still have an official language...

In any event lots of the Pope's guards came from there, as well as from the next canton, Valais (Wallis to you).

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In practice, yes, same as Valais.

P.S. I know that Calvin taught patience (yes, even towards Catholics), but you're frequently testing the limits of mine, Walter Smile

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You're doing quite good .... until now, at least :wink:

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So Walter irritates you by pointing out that you've gotten something wrong? If that were my criterion, i'd have murdered Walter long ago.

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Excuse me Setanta - I got nothing wrong, you did. See discussion from beginning - your quote on Swiss guards of the Pope being Protestants.

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Next time you're out shopping, HS, try to find yourself a sense of proportion.

You wrote, and i assumed, tongue in cheek:

High Seas wrote:

P.S. I know that Calvin taught patience (yes, even towards Catholics), but you're frequently testing the limits of mine, Walter

So i responded as i did. As for:

Quote:

. . . I got nothing wrong, you did.

Walter pointed out that the official language of the canton in question is French, and that, officially, at least, it is not bilingual. Nevertheless, the Swiss themselves are usually at least trilingual, speaking French, German and Italian. That i made a wry comment about the Pope's Swiss guard which you were anal retentive enough to make an issue of is not a matter of much concern to me. But your idiotic insistence upon others being wrong, while denying that you could ever make a mistake, is foolish and disgusting.

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I see - mental instability strikes again... Sorry to see you in such a state, Setanta; I sincerely hope you feel better very soon. Goodbye.

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Goodbye Miss Retentive . . . don't let the door hit you in the ass.

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I don't know where that $360,000 number comes from. There are a few sites that come up in a Google search that say Blackwater employees can earn "up tp $360,000.

U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky mentions $180,000/year. "AfterDowningStreet" has an article that claims $250-$650/day ($91,250 to $237,250/yr).

I know they do pay well. I had discussed hiring on with them at one point to run an operations center for them but it would have meant a 3 year commitment in Iraq.

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Setanta wrote:

But your idiotic insistence upon others being wrong, while denying that you could ever make a mistake, is foolish and disgusting.

Thats rich, coming from someone who himself refuses to acknowledge that he made a simple mistake, and then lectures the other at length about his/hers..

High Seas pointed out, in a matter-of-fact one sentence post, that you made a mistake saying Protestants guarded the Pope. Instead of just saying "oh yes, of course", you ridicule him/her as "anal retentive" for pointing it out. And then you proceed to lecture him/her about admitting mistakes?

<shakes head>

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Shake your silly head to your heart's content, Habibi. I didn't even respond to HS's correction of my mistake until it had reached the point that she said i was the one who was wrong, but not her. Otherwise, i ignored her comment for more than a page of exchange between Walter and HS. I only got on HS's case at the point at which she talked about how Walter was annoying her, and then i only commented that if that were my criterion, i'd have murdered Walter a long time ago--and none of that was intended by me to be anything other than a silly comment. HS decided to take it personally, and make a big issue about how i had been wrong. At that point, i figured the gloves had come off.

Whether you know it or not (an immaterial matter to me), i frequently make mistakes and admit them. If you want to pretend that's not true, help yourself.

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fishin wrote:

I don't know where that $360,000 number comes from. There are a few sites that come up in a Google search that say Blackwater employees can earn "up tp $360,000.

U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky mentions $180,000/year. "AfterDowningStreet" has an article that claims $250-$650/day ($91,250 to $237,250/yr).

I know they do pay well. I had discussed hiring on with them at one point to run an operations center for them but it would have meant a 3 year commitment in Iraq.

Just out of curiosity, and i understand you may not wish to answer, but what qualifications did they require? Was prior military service a requirement?

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Setanta wrote:

Just out of curiosity, and i understand you may not wish to answer, but what qualifications did they require? Was prior military service a requirement?

In my case they wanted someone that had run all of the technical side of a Combat Operations Center (aka "Command Post") before - keeping phone (cell and landline), radio (HF, VHF, UHF, satellite) and computer systems (mostly UNIX imagry machines PCs for e-mail) and PCs up and running 24/7. Blackwater took the basic design of the Army's deployable command centers, replicated them and shipped them over to Iraq for their own use. 7 years experience was what they had listed in the job requirement.

They didn't say they specifially wanted someone with miltary experience but I don't know how else someone would get that sort of qualification and I doubt they'd have even talked to me if I hadn't had it. They weren't especially thrilled that my experience was in the AF either.

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Does anyone want to talk about whether this is what the US SHOULD be doing while it is in the process of making war with everyone? The all volunteer army appears to be stretched to it's limits. No one in the administration wants a draft. Do we want "rent-a-soldiers" as a permanent solution?

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Thanks Fishin', that is enlightening.

Swimpy, i don't think there is anything wrong with using mercenaries--it's been done literally for thousands of years. If there were a problem, it would be with oversight. Just as the Congress has a right to know what the executive branch is doing with the military, so they have a right to know what is being done with private contractors hired for military purposes.

Among the powers granted to Congress by the Constitution, there is this:

[Congress shall have the power:] To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

My only comment would be that i would hope Congress would take care to watch the military with more vigilance than is implied by dropping in every two years to see how things are going. I have no problem with mercenaries--i would definitely have a problem with people being employed without the knowledge and consent of the Congress.

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