Afrikaans - Geseknde Kersfees en 'n gelukkige nuwe jaar Argentine - Feliz Navidad y Feliz Año Nuevo Bohemian - Vesele Vanoce Brazilian - Boas Festas e Feliz Ano Novo Bulgarian - Vesela Koleda i chestita nova godina! Catalan - Bon Nadal i un Bon Any Nou! Chinese - Sing Dan Fae Lok. Gung Hai Fat Choi (Cantonese) Chinese - Shen Dan Kuai Le Xin Nian Yu Kuai (Mandarin) Chinese - Shen tan jie kuai le. Hsin Nien Kuaile Croatian - Sretan Bozic Czech - Stastne a vesele vanoce a stastny novy rok! Danish - Glaedelig Jul og godt nyter Dutch - Vrolijk Kerstfeest en een Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar Dutch - Prettige kerstdagen en een gelukkig nieuw jaar English - Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Eskimo - (inupik) Jutdlime pivdluarit ukiortame pivdluaritlo! Esperanto - Felican Kristnaskon kaj Bonan Novjaron! Estonian - Rõõmusaid jõulupühi ja head uut aastat! Faeroese - Gledhilig jol og eydnurikt nyggjar! Filipinos - Maligayang Pasko Finnish - Hyvää joulua ja onnellista uutta vuotta! Flemish - Zalig Kerstfeest en Gelukkig nieuw jaar French - Joyeux Noel et Bonne Année! Scots Gaelic - Nollaig chridheil agus Bliadhna mhath yr! Galician - Bo Nadal German - Frohe Weihnachten und ein gl|ckliches Neues Jahr! Greek - Hronia polla kai eytyhismenos o kainourios hronos Greek - Hronia polla ke eftihismenos o kenourios hronos Hausa - Barka da Kirsimatikuma Barka da Sabuwar Shekara! Hawaian - Mele Kalikimaka ame Hauoli Makahiki Hou! Hungarian - Kellemes karacsonyi uennepeket es boldog ujevet! Icelandic - Gledhileg jsl og farsflt komandi ar! Indonesian - Selamat Hari Natal dan Selamat Tahun Baru! Iraqi - Idah Saidan Wa Sanah Jadidah Irish Gaelic - Nollaig Shona duit Irish Gaelic - Nollaig Shona Irish Gaelic - Nollaig faoi shean agus faoi shonas duit agus bliain nua faoi mhaise dhuit! Italian - Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo! Japanese - Meri Kurisumasu soshite Akemashite Omedeto! Latin - Natale hilare et Annum Faustum! Latvian - Priecigus Ziemsvetkus un Laimigu Jaungadu! Lithuanian - Linksmu Kaledu Maltese - Nixtieklek Milied tajjeb u is-sena t-tabja! Modern Greek - Kala Christougenna kai evtichismenos o kainourios chronos! Norwegian - God Jul Og Godt Nytt Aar Pennsylvania German - En frehlicher Grischtdaag un en hallich Nei Yaahr! Polish - Vesowe Boze Narodzenie Polish - Wesolych Swiat i Szczesliwego Nowego Roku Portuguese - Boas Festas Portuguese - Feliz Natal e um Prospero Ano Novo Romanian - Craciun fericit si un an nou fericit Russian - S nastupaiushchim Novym godom i s Rozhdestvom Khristovym! Romanche - (sursilvan dialect): Legreivlas fiastas da Nadal e bien niev onn! Serbian - Hristos se rodi Slovakian - Sretan Bozic or Vesele vianoce Slovak - Vesele Vianoce i na zdravie v novom roku! Slovenian - Vesele bozicne praznike in srecno novo leto Spanish - Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo Swedish - God Jul Och Ett Gott Nytt Ar Thai - Suk san wan Christmas Thai - Suk san wan pee mai - Happy New Year Trukeese - (Micronesian) Neekiriisimas annim oo iyer seefe feyiyeech! Turkish - Noeliniz kutlu olsun ve yeni yilinis kutlu olsun! Turkish - Noeliniz Ve Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun Ukrainian - Srozhdestvom Kristovym Ukrainan - Z novym rokom i s rizdvom Hrystovym! Ukrainan - Khrystos Rodevsia Vietnamese - Chuc mung nam moi va Giang Sinh vui ve Welsh - Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Da!" Yoruba - E ku odun, e ku iye'dun!

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), December 21, 2003

Answers

FELIZ NAVIDAD Y PROSPERO AÑO NUEVO

Enrique

-- Enrique Ortiz (eaortiz@yahoo.com), December 21, 2003.

It's a bit premature, this being the Fourth Sunday in Advent, but ... to Enrique and all:

I'll use Slovak (from above), my four grandparents' language --
Vesele Vianoce i na zdravie v novom roku! [Happy Christmas and good health in the New Year!]

JFG

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@Hotmail.com), December 21, 2003.

Indeed, happy Christmas dear Bush, the 1,000,000 souls Saddam Hussein took from this earth are undoubtedly happy he is no longer in power to take any more of their kin. Thank you for stopping Saddam's funding of terrorists and exporting terrorism via Hammas.

Thank you for pressuring evil powers in this world. Pressure that led Libya into getting rid of the WMDs that even the all knowing UN didn't know they had. Thank you for keeping the pressure up when the New York Times and liberal press said you should lift sanctions on them.

Afganistan is no longer a terrorist factory.

Indeed, thank you Mr. Bush. We know this war will be long and hard fought, and will be fought at home and abroad. We are not all fat and weak as our enemies think we are. We also don't want to ignore the problem as so many others have in the past only to find out after the bombings come that we made the wrong decision and look around for someone other than ourselves to blame. And we especially don’t want to hand down terrorism to our children.

The long hard slog has only just begun, you all should not be so fast to give up. Those in the UK remember Churchill. Had he given up so easily you would be goose-stepping now (or would be a bar of soap).

-bill

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45@hotmail.com), December 23, 2003.

putting 250.000.000 under the protection of our national guard at Christmas. Yours thanksfull - 250.000.000 living souls

I guess we should be doing like Clinton and pretending the threat doesn't exist? Maybe ignore the fact that 9/11 happened?

I still don't see a solution coming from you. We have to deal with where we are NOW.

In Christ, bill

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45@hotmail.com), December 23, 2003.

Thank you Haliburton Oil, for without you, Bush wouldn't have given a damn about Saddam.

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), December 26, 2003.

Thank you Haliburton Oil, for without you, Bush wouldn't have given a damn about Saddam.

Your missing the point here. The central tenant of the president's Midde East policy has nothing to do with oil. It is that the people of the United States will be made safe only when the people in the Middle East are made free. If you hate neocons, this is the reason you should hate them, that they believe this, and that they have gotten the President to believe this, is the whole reason why they are called neocons. Maybe you sould actually read what the neocons are writing. A lot of the neocons who greatly influence the President on this issue write articles for this website: http://www.aei.org

America had just reasons for war with Iraq far more important than Iraqi oil.

Firstly, the president actually thought that Iraq was producing WMDs and would get them to the US or Israel and kill people. He also knew Saddam was helping the Palistinian terrorists and did not erraticate Al-Quada camps in Iraq. To his credit, it is starting to look like, in a lot of areas he was correct.

Secondly, the neocons have convinced Bush that a democratic Middle East would be a peaceful Middle East who instead of aiding the terrorists would be aiding us in finding them. A free Palistine would not be at war with Israel and would not be breeding terrorists.

Thirdly, by showing force to dictators supporting terrorists, other dictators would get the message and start cooperating. We are seeing that bare fruit with Lybia and Iran. North Korea is even starting to come around.

It is interesting to note that before the war, oil companies from France, Russia, and China had contracts to help develop Iraqi oil fields. Europe depended far more upon oil from Iraq than America (only a tiny fraction of U.S. oil came from Iraq, about six percent). Oil from Iraq, indeed oil from the entire Middle East, ranked higher among European national interests than American. That is why France, Russia and China didn't want us liberating Iraq. Did you think it was for humanitarian reasons?

For many years now, the United States has been moving to draw the preponderance of our oil from our own hemisphere, mostly from Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela, and to cut back steadily on its use of Middle Eastern oil, to the level now of 26 percent of its annual supply.

Europe is far more dependent on Iraqi oil, and far more involved with the Iraqi oil industry.

Within 15 years the United States hopes to be running a significant proportion of its automobiles and its heating appliances on hydrogen power. Experimental models are already in fairly wide use, and President Bush announced a major research program to support this effort. You should hear a lot about this in 2004 as well (even though we went into Iraq). The goal of the United States is energy independence and, in the shorter term, continuing reductions in reliance on Middle Eastern oil.

Did Haliburton profit from all this? Certainly, just as Kyser Cement profited from WWII. Were the profits the reason for the war? Certainly not.

The central tenet of the president's Middle East policy is that the people of the United States will be made safe only when the people in the Middle East are made free.

In Christ,
Bill

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45@hotmail.com), December 27, 2003.

Bill, I know it's easier to pretend that everything is ok and that the people in charge actualy care about us, but at some point you just have to wake up and smell the napalm, buddy. We've got an unelected President who cares more about filling his own pockets than serving the people of America. He lied to get us into the war and now he's having a great big laugh, because while he will eventualy retire and wipe his ass with hundred dollar bills, my generation will have to pay off the $87 million dollar bill he is leaving us.

"The central tenant of the president's Midde East policy has nothing to do with oil."

The world would be a much better place if that were true. But it's not.

"It is that the people of the United States will be made safe only when the people in the Middle East are made free. If you hate neocons, this is the reason you should hate them, that they believe this, and that they have gotten the President to believe this, is the whole reason why they are called neocons."

Never mind the fact that those same neocons who are advising Bush now GAVE Saddam all those weapons back in the 80's KNOWING that he would use them on civilians. Never mind the fact that when the Kurds rebelled against Saddam for the first time, it was the CIA that helped put down the rebellion (and the CIA director was (drumroll please)...George Bush Sr.!). I find it hard to beleive that anyone in the White House genuinely cares about the people in Iraq.

"America had just reasons for war with Iraq far more important than Iraqi oil."

Yes because the American people are so threatened by a tiny, obscure country in the middle east ruled by a guy who married his cousin and thinks he's the reincarnation of Nebbuchadnezzer. I'm shaking in my boots to think of what Iraq could do.

"Firstly, the president actually thought that Iraq was producing WMDs"

Except that the evidence he said he had has since been proven to NOT EXIST! He lied, and now every time he gets called on it, he either hides behind the people in he Adminstration or he tries to weasel his way out of it with statements like "Our claims aren't neccessarily false..they just haven't been proven true yet." Oh, here's another quote, straight from Donald Rumsfeld:

"I can't think of anything funnier than a handful of congressmen walking around (in Iraq). They'd have to be there for the next 50 years trying to find something. It's a joke.""

"He also knew Saddam was helping the Palistinian terrorists and did not erraticate Al-Quada camps in Iraq."

Please. There hasn't been ANY evidence to support the idea that Saddam was helping Al Qeada. Saddam and Osama hated each other. Osama was an ally of Iran (because it was a fundamentalist Islamic state, just like Osama advocated), so don't you think he would be a little angry at Saddam for killing 30,000 Iranians? Saddam's was a secular regime, which Osama hated.

"It is interesting to note that before the war, oil companies from France, Russia, and China had contracts to help develop Iraqi oil fields. Europe depended far more upon oil from Iraq than America (only a tiny fraction of U.S. oil came from Iraq, about six percent). Oil from Iraq, indeed oil from the entire Middle East, ranked higher among European national interests than American. That is why France, Russia and China didn't want us liberating Iraq. Did you think it was for humanitarian reasons?"

Of course not. Oil makes the world go round, my friend. Oil has been the driving factor in politics for the last century. You'd have to be a fool not to see that. Why did the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor? The U.S. wouldn't give them oil. But you can't have it both ways. You can't say that everybody is driven only by oil except the United States, because we care so deeply for freedom. That's just stupid.

Did you know that back in 2002, while Bush was trying to win support for the war by saying that Iraq should have a democracy, America was aiding group in Venezuela to overthrow the democratic government there? Probably not. Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez Frias, had stopped catering to American corporations, and chose to attempt to improve the standard of living in his country instead. He improved housing, education, and healthcare for the poor in his country. Chavez's Venezuela was a testament to the idea that a nation can survive without the IMF, Worldbank, and American corporations. For this reason, the State Department labeled him a "threat to democracy". Luckily, the coup failed. But don't you just feel a swell of national pride in your heart? Land of free indeed.

"Within 15 years the United States hopes to be running a significant proportion of its automobiles and its heating appliances on hydrogen power.

I hope so, but it won't happen if big oil has anything to say about it. They are the most powerful industry in America and they won't give up without a fight.

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), December 29, 2003.

Bill, why in the hell did you want to deflect this thread from its opening topic -- MERRY CHRISTMAS -- into Iraq-related junk? You made an opening for the maniacal Anti-Bush take the thread even farther into oblivion. How do you think the thread's originator, Enrique Ortiz, feels about this?

I suggest that the moderator do some radical surgery on this mess.

-- (Stay@On.Topic!), December 29, 2003.

Oh, because "Merry Christmas" certainly was prompting a lot of discussion. I'm sure Enrigue will get over it.

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), January 02, 2004.