(null)Created 27 May 2002 at 20:38 UTC by blvdgirl, last modified 27 May 2002 at 20:39 UTC by blvdgirl.
URL: http://www.cnn.comNotes: There's some big scary stuff going on in the world. Thought we might want to talk about it.
Surprisingly I wasn't that scared by the teaser headline "NATO formally recognized the end of the Cold War today by welcoming Russia into an enhanced cooperative role with the alliance." Maybe I'm just being optimistic. I believe it's an old Hungarian proverb that states "The believer is happy, the doubter is wise."
Speaking of scary... I was scared of this view out my bedroom window Monday moring. I figured the guns only had blanks (I didn't notice any dead birds fall during the 21 gun salute), but the people firing them didn't exactly put me at ease. I guess you just have to sit back and enjoy memorial day in small town Maine.
smax
Which would you rather be? Happy or wise?
I think that I'd want to go with happy on that one... Solomon asked for wisdom and that didn't get him very far; I mean, Ecclesiates isn't too cheerful. To be blissfully ignorant and happy would not be a bad thing...
I never really thought of happiness or wisdom being an either/or situation. That may be the most depressing concept I've heard lately.
I prefer the concept of the happy doubter. Even the melencholy can be (usually are) very witty and even funny... think about the the Mat Klemp.
Obviously, I don't think that happiness and wisdom is an either or... But when you had mentioned the believer's happiness and the doubter's wisdom (which does present happiness and wisdom as a duality- opposite ends of a spectrum, if you will) I put the question to myself, that if I could only have one or the other, which would I prefer? I certainly didn't mean to depress you with the concept. To answer myself, I said that I would prefer happiness. However, just because I would prefer happiness to wisdom in this isolated scenario (which is totally unpractical considering my naturally critical, inquisitive, and increasingly cynical nature, by the way) does not mean that I would say that in the real world (real being contrary to the theoretical question) doubters don't have happiness. In truth, in the real world I am predisposed to associate happiness without wisdom as vapidness...
I don't know why I am getting defensive and arguing. I may as well be misunderstood as not. Maybe the defensiveness is what you were expecting in response to your reply, my friend, knowing me as you do. If that be the case, consider yourself gratified as I am flustered and annoyed at present...
Acknowledgement- It was probably a stupid question.
Seriously folks. I'm dealing a lot with right now, how those kind of bad habits come back to really bite you in the booty. Being cynical and critical might be able to protect you from some hurt or mistakes, but often at someone else's expense. And being overly, and espeicially hastily, critical just ends up pigeonholing yourself.I'm not saying this to point fingers at all... like I said, I'm dealing with this now, particularly in dealing with close relationships -- roommates and girlfriends -- because it's so easy to lash out with my own knee-jerk view, rather than try to think about it from all sides, or even to just think, "I really don't need to feel that way, much less SAY that."
But it's a lot harder, at this point in my life, to try and back off, and say, "I dont' really need to rip that to shreds", or "maybe I don't know enough about this to slam it", or "maybe I'd be a kinder, more gracious person to let X slide even though I could flex my brain and say something sharp..."
Yeah, I've been dealing with that too. And I want to be a nice, forgiving, loving person... then I have relapses and I think, I am not a nice person at all. And the sad bit is that ripping something to shred gives me so much immediate pleasure and a weak sense of power- but it is not a pleasure that I relish afterwards... I usually walk away thinking that I didn't like the person that I was when I was doing it...sort of a bitter aftertaste...
What did Paul say? I do the evil I do not want to do....
god, i hope not. expressions of happiness are not very entertaining - see: entertainment of most any entertaining kind. pedro, i hope you are at least in some part unsuccessful in your quest for goodness and happiness, or are at least willing to fake some miserableness once in a while for the un-edification of the rest of us, 'cause dammit, [i] loves company. hope you don't hate me for wishing you ill. or wait - hope you do. bygones.
Knowing the few folks I do on this tasty digital distraction, I doubt anything could turn this into a vessel of nothing but expressions of happiness. Have no fear Moonboots... Maybe I should have given the original answer of "yes." I don't think it was a stupid question, it was good enough to spur a lot of thought.
As for the the correct answer...
Yesterday I watched some reporter who probably thrives on name recognition but whose name I can in no way recollect interview Colin Powell about the increasing threat of war in India and Pakistan. Powell's answers to every question was "I can't really answer that but..." and then he would skirt around the fact that once the ball gets rolling over there it will in effect not stop to gather any moss. I guess he didn't want to incite panic among the masses or he can't say that the leaders of both sides were acting like spoiled kids because that might effect his diplomatic efforts. But, Powell assures us that the reason Rumsfield is going over there to reallocated troops to the area around Kashmir is purely a diplomatic one... I'm sure we'll all agree that's good news.
When I was a kid, I was more afraid of anything, next to maybe bees. But bees are an acute, immediate fear, so I feel sort of justified in that. Especially for an 8 year old.Why do we still have these weapons? Can't we humans draw any lines?
or at least not to be the FIRST to do so. i can kind of understand that. i mean, if WE give up ours, we might look bad, and we will be weakened militarily. at least as far as apocalyptic-bargaining chips go.
... many times, Peter. Why can't we draw the line? Fight your battles with bayonettes again, if you have to fight at all.It's a frightening thing to be bringing new humans into this world that sometimes has such little respect for the planet and for itself. I get freaked out living so close to the pentagon sometimes. Jay works in federal buildings and in news outlets. Sometimes, it's stressful and hard. As to the happy or wise question, blvd, I will admit that during the anthrax thing (my husband worked for Fox, CNN at the time. He's a freelancer, tv graphic artist) I wouldn't read the news or turn it on. Jay told me what I needed to know - filtered it for me. I would honestly threaten to go home to Lake Nebagamon where this kind of thing doesn't happen. So I chose limited ignorance and a far higher level of happiness ... only after I'd controlled my fear did I go back and find out what actually happened.
Word on the street is that George and Helen are retiring this July and have sold the business (but not the building) to a family who is going to clean up the place some (not sure what that means) and will be adding some mexican food although they intend to keep the menu largely intact.
post 9/11 airport security measures get relaxed today.woo hoo!
That's right Ladies and Gentlemen... sit back, relax... in the comfort of YELLOW!
So I think that this news story is funny Santa is Dead <obligatory joke about how this is what happens when you don't cooperate with clergy....anyway speaking of vicars there is a pretty funny english television show (which means it's NOT!) about a women who happens to be one...kindof like that whole woman pope thing...i hope you're happy that i'm flunking out of college to write this post...wasn't it like, pope john I that ended up being pope Joan I after they figure out that "whoops! he just had a baby" whatever. shutup tom
SANTA IS DEAD, LIKE A DOORNAIL, LIKE FRICKIN' WHATEVER
just incase i screwed that up too.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2562109.stm
i gonna write a paper
so there's this guy Strom Thurmond (or, thuringer or, something. formerly he was all about the segregation) and it was his birthday last week and he's been in congress longer that i've been alive. There is this other guy Trent Lott...well, trent made an ASS out of himself last week saying "America would have been better off if the now veteran Senator Strom Thurmond had won on a segregationist ticket in the 1948 presidential elections." Whatever, I didn't vote for them so they can go ahead making stupid asses of themselves.read the full story===> trent lott is an ass
Some people are horrible. What the hell is up with things like this happening? What are people THINKING?! I'm really frightened of the kind of people who are lurking in the world my Anna's going to grow up in. This is just... terrible.
try here.
i found this in my rarely used "favorites" folder on MIE.if you've got a spare hour to read and get mad, or at least re-think some things... some very big things, you should read it.
or, if spooky "JFK and ABE LINCOLN" similarities are your cup of tea, this might be a bit more interesting.
This poor guy.
Thinking about world events and the scary stuff going on everyday got me thinking about how much does happen all of the time, all the stuff that we, young as we mostly are, have lived through. maybe this should be another entree...holidays make for reflection-what, for example, do you remember of the gulf war? Or the fall of the Soviet Union? Iran- Contra? The question that we'll answer for our grandchildren, where were you when you found out about the WTC? Or all of the wars that have been going on all over this planet since humans decided that they didnt like to share. Strange to think about how easy it could have been for the world to have been blown up several times over by now...
Who are these people? brave new world
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_365440.html
I bet he really loves Frosted Flakes.
I see great opportunities for him as an animal safari host.Seriously, what's next, will he alter his voice so he actually sounds like a tiger?
No, he'll probably start peppering his code with savannaisms. Like $antelope = "eaten"; and my $pecking_order++; Ok, actually he probably already does that.
And don't let anyone know who you are. Or you won't be able to fly.
(re: flying) What's next in Bush's benevolent line of civil rights infringement? I feel like there are FBI cameras on me 24-7, nowadays.
but I'd rather be one the list and have a hefty file for speaking my mind about ignorance and abuse of power than to sit on the sidelines afraid of getting onto their list. Not that I've ever done anything radical enough to get on a list like that... but a part of me wishes I had.
I'm not sure why everyone feels the need to blame G.W. for the latest round of civil liberties infringement. This wouldn't bother me, except for the fact that these infringements are the result of a legislative action, not an executive one, so any animosity would be better directed at our Senators and Representatives. After all, the bill establishing the TSA, and therefore giving them the power to create the blacklist in question, passed in the House with only nine opposing votes (410 - 9) and in the Senate without any opposition (100 - 0). None of the Senators, and only nine Representatives thought the infringement was bad enough to vote against the bill. In case anyone is curious, here are the voting records for the Senate and House.
As far as being watched by FBI cameras is concerned, it got a lot easier for them with passage of the Homeland Security bill, opposed by a scant 9 votes in the Senate (90 - 9), and a somewhat more respectable 132 votes in the House (295 - 132). Voting records for the Senate and House.
I guess my point is just that it's really easy to blame the President because he's in the public eye and he pushed for passage of both bills, when consideration is hardly ever given to the fact that a bill could never make it to his desk without the affirmative votes of hundreds of other elected officials.
that the president has a whole lot less power than people think. i mean, sure bills go past his desk, and that whole commander-in-chief thing, but those are checked and balanced by a distribution of power to OTHER corrupt evil politicians. i have to say that im impressed with Bush, personally. i mean, this guy had EVERYONE hating him from the get go, and his approval rating is still quite respectable, and he really hasn't done any worse than the other men who have held the position. then again, i hate politics, and try to keep my head in the sand as much as possible.
I still want to get a shirt with a picture GW on it that reads in arabic "it's not my fault, i didn't vote for him" because i didn't, i voted for that other guy...no, not the one that was running the green party campaign (even though he owns the petrol company's stock), I mean the "real" third party candidate, Harry Brown.
I'm not even saying this to defend GW, because I really don't feel the need to do that... but I wonder how much better the recen loss of civil liberties would have been had Gore won. To be fair, I'm sure some of the racial profiling kind of stuff would have been better, and Arab-Americans would undoubtedly have been treated at least somewhat better by the government... but to you think that PATRIOT or Homeland Security or those things wouldn't have passed under Gore? As Jack said, feel free to examine the voting record if you want to continue to stand by your party.And this isn't even to discuss the fact that other laws, like the DMCA or the CTEA (different kinds of civil liberties) were passed under Clinton and that Congress... I think that people have largely lost sight of the spirit of civil liberty that was, at least originally, such a foundational aspect of American government and society.
And, yes, I know, in a lot of ways, we're still a freer society than many... but that's not really the point.
Nader owns stock in some Petrol company? I wonder if Jello Biafra will get nominated for the Green Party ticket next time around. Check out this former NPC graduate's column. He's got some interesting points
Alaric has a good point, but that shouldn't allow GW to abdicate all responsibility for the agenda he has pushed. Pedro, may be right the things under Gore after 9/11 would have been quite similar. We could play what-if games all day long but I would like to think that we wouldn't be holding american citizens without trial or access to a laywer; that we wouldn't be pushing so hard for a war with Iraq when I feel like we stopped caring about the war on terror; that we wouldn't be dismantling environmental policy and pushing to drill in AK and CO and UT and CA; that we wouldn't have a return to 'reaganomics'.... The problem with all this is that there is probably more merit to Jim's argument than I would want to believe.
Lukas, you're totally right about Iraq, and also totally right about the enviro stuff. (But those things are not specifically about the loss of U.S. citizen's civil rights.)On that subject, I'm pretty upset at the way that GW just seems to be inexorably pushing the country to war with Saddam... don't get me wrong; I think Saddam is a pretty bad guy, and probably *is* a menace to the west... but this whole game just makes me uncomfortable. You'd think if there was a smoking gun, we could have shown the world what it was by now.
It's such a cliche, but I think people are willing to give up their civil liberties to feel safe. Congress will vote on it and a president will sign these items because they see it as an easy way to gain political capital and they don't see it as affecting them personally. That's my thirty second deskchair analysis.
I s'pose I did fly off the handle a bit by blaming this all on G.W., as his power is minimal with checks and balances and so on. But, I staunchly believe that he & his cohorts cheated to win his position, and even as far as typically sleazy politicians go, that is REALLY an infringement upon the 19th ammendment and our privilege to vote. It makes me personally indignant that I took two busses in the cold to vote when it apparently made no difference, since it was all pre- ordainedly fixed by the powers that be. Both he and his father are quite the war-happy fellows, especially when it comes to the Middle East, and war typically boosts popularity ratings. War is always bad, but I don't understand the point behind this potential one at ALL. Like the Gulf War.Maybe this isn't the place to bare such personal opinions, but I gotta say it--I just don't trust the guy. Even less so that most politicians. In any case, Alaric, thank you for the interesting voting records for the House & Senate. I had an idea but was not aware of the actual numbers.
I think we should be free to discuss politics... after all, that was never verboten at George's.
Maybe I shouldn't be given that license, because who knows what things will spew, unchecked, from my mouth. But it's nice to know there is a free forum for expression still left in the world.
lets emember how supportive the democrats were in august of 1998 of clinton dropping bombs on iraq. at least then it was for a good reason- to divert attention away from... MONICA, MONICA, MONICA!both parties can eat it.
Look on the bright side, GWB has no son named George. So much for 3rd time's the charm.On the other hand I see this country as fairly out of control and amazed at the choices that our politicians make. I'm also amazed at the the choices that the american people have made about our politicians.
I myself have never voted because I have never seen a politician on a ballot that I thought deserved to be elected... well maybe one, but I was not a legal resident of NY at the time. I also would have felt funny voting for a friend.
YOU'RE FRIENDS WITH HILLARY?
It is submitting to evil, yes. But, I also feel that it is my responsibility as a moderately thinking individual to vote so that I could use my vote to effect change in the long run--translation: politicians don't care about what our generations care about because we never show up to vote for or against them. But, it is difficult to find a politician you want to support... Also, I do think that voting on local referendums and bond issues is important and meaningful...
I don't know why I read this little menu item, I had decided long ago that I would stay out of it, these things just piss me off and make me ill... But I just read a little news update on some of the goings on in Palestine, demolitions, walls being built between homes and agricultural areas... As I understand it Israel is building, with US aid, a wall around palestine to protect themselves, however, the wall isn't being built on any official boarders and thus usurps 10% the palestinian authoraties total ammount of land. Suposidly it is some of the most arable land as well. all the canned questions are comming to mind, why doesn't the media talk about this, Why can't we do something about it, why why why? I got no answers that aren't verging on racist or apocalyptic... I am really sick of being the little fish feeding off the bottom of this most repugnant cess pool some people proudly call America.oh, yeah, ulyssess, I aggree, the only difference between republicans and democrats is who they lie to to get in power, once they get there it's fuck the world and give me and my pals money.
ake-- the average "good" american doesn't want to hear what their tax dollars are paying for...Sometimes I think that if the apocalypse is coming it would be better sooner than later.
pretty much every generation who was waiting for an apocalypse thought it was going to be Real Soon Now...
if my understanding of the New Testament is clear at all than things aren't nearly bad enough for it to be the end of the world.... But, wouldn't it be nice if we could skip all of the really scary stuff, I mean what we have now seems quite bad enough... but that is because I am a frightened little child
Which brings us to the interpretation question regarding if John's prophesy was really about Rome, the Left Behind(r) series, or a little of both.
please direct any responses to the apocalyptic babble to "Theology Fried Rice."
i was watching a R.A.T.M. video the other day and they showed GW and in the next frame, a Rhesus Monkey. I swear they must be cousins. I suppose thought that if the documentary that my roomie (ulyssess00) watched the other night and we are all descended from africa then it kindof makes sense though, huh?whatever, i'm just being stupid.
my aunt just sent me this:"500 Employees
Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 500 employees and has the following statistics:
* 29 have been accused of spousal abuse * 7 have been arrested for fraud * 19 have been accused of writing bad checks * 117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses * 3 have done time for assault * 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit * 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges * 8 have been arrested for shoplifting * 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits * 84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year
Can you guess which organization this is?
It's the 535 members of the United States Congress. The same group of Idiots that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line."
i like that the word idiots is capitalized.
capitoized?heh heh me funny
It'd be funnier with the l.
okay, you got me...jeeze, and i thought my comp professor (3rd time around) was going to be difficult. yeah, capitolized.are you happy now, my blvd?
:-)
UpIn A Mug: holy smokes jay-z got murdered.
bo BoB187: what?
bo BoB187: when?
UpIn A Mug: tonite.
bo BoB187: sweet, beyonce is single
...that story is a hoax.
Reading that article should make you suspect its legitimacy within about 6 words.
i mean, the syntax is imcomprehensible. news articles are usually written to avoid any stumbling in reading, even erring on the side of ambiguity... hifuckinglarious...
I like that most of this forum has disappeared (of course it cold just be my computer). But the ways it's showing now, it looks like pedro and baggins are just talking crap about CNN, which of course is acceptable.
Is this the same computer that uly was complaining about? I haven't had any of these problems that you guys are recently talking about, but I have had weird issues in the past.
I gotsta love some conspiracy theory stuff. After all, it seems that the media is pretty much interested in feeding the ratings, not what is necessariy going on. Or maybe thats conspiracy talk, hehe. Speaking of the capitalized Idiots in power, how bout some Kissinger-Bush-Saudi connection stuff. /<why the war?> Plucked from a tabloid, all the way.
election polling in israel started an hour ago.THE LIKUD PARTY IS GOING DOWN!!!!!!
(yeah... right... and the democrats totally held congress in november...)
so....if you AREN'T planning on watching the state of the union adress...
check THIS out and you may want to re-think it.
ulyssess00, I feel like very few people that are so cynical ever make it past the realm of radio (i.e. Rush Limbaugh) or the internet (the drudge report, which is actually a bad example because he's on tv sometimes, although, it's just so he can look stupid).I really don't like it when our president says "We caught many Al Qaeda leaders...some though we didn't catch, but lets just say, they aren't a threat to the U.S. or our allies anymore". See, in spanish there is a verb "desaparacerse", to disappear oneself, or when a gov't thinks that someone is a threat they "disappear". Like when someone that a drug cartel doesn't like looks like he'll win an election in Colombia, he disappears, I really think that is a form of terrorism. But whatever, i know that i misunderstood him.
why does he speak as though he is a hero ready and capable of defending us himself? i don't even trust him to get through this speech without fucking something up. and those morons in the audience who continue to stand up and sit down when they want to applaud? they are liars.is anyone else watching this?
apparently he's been rehearsing his speech for several days. just to make sure he doesn't accidentally tell us the truth about what he's doing maybe.
okay, here's a question i'm curious about. bush wants to make tax cuts left and right, but he also wants to improve medical care and benefits. where does he want the funds to come from for those benefits? he seems to be stating a lot of generalities that any humane person could agree with: "people should not die of AIDS" "children should be able to read."
does anyone get the whole tax cut thing?
i'm skeptical.
he just doesn't come across as the most intelligent man, but you have to remember that very few people show their whole intellect when they speak in public. I mean, you can't blame everything that he's accomplished on his father. BTW, I'm only watching because i can't decide which movie to watch, and i'm too lazy to put a cd in the changer.
is that the "democratic response" was on right afterwards, like, chill the fuck out, the elections isn't for another year at least
ariel sharon got re-elected tonight, so here's to a few more years of killing palestinians. Fricking israel, i want my damn money back!
ariel sharon wasnt running for re-election. but his LIKUD party kicked some serious ass.ATTENTION ALL WEST BANK AND GAZA STRIP PALESTINIANS: LIFE IS STILL GOING TO TOTALLY SUCK REALLY REALLY BAD FOR A FEW MORE YEARS.
in other news, pakistan has announced that they're really pissed off that the US state department is making them look bad. so they're totally fighting fire with fire and requiring all americans travelling into pakistan to be fingerprinted and TESTED FOR AIDS.
TESTED FOR AIDS!?!?
way to go, lets piss off ANOTHER foreign country with a nuclear weapons program.
neoacerbitas, I'm with you on the democratic response. It seems to me that it'd be smarter for them to wait at least until the next day before issuing an official statement, so that they can actually hear the speech first. I understand the draw of putting your message out while all of the major networks have taken time out of regular programming, but it just comes across as silly and pointless when you listen to a person refuting statements that were never made.
when what we get in return is a Committee on Disarmament chaired by Iraq, and the Commission on Human Rights chaired by Libya?
I missed it??? I didn't even know about it...shows how connected I am to the world. I always try to watch G.W. speak because it is high comedy indeed.This leads me to the disclaimer that anything I express on here about politics is mostly personal opinion. I am poorly informed, largely by choice. I don't read the paper, I don't watch television at ALL, except for Joe Millionaire, which will soon be over for the season--trag--so I never even saw a news commercial about it. Damn.
yo cinnamongirlare your bosses down with sharon and the likud's or are they more labor party or one of the other parties kind of guys?
in other news...
an ONASIS turned 18 and got a few bil.
I will talk to them about it because I am curious to know myself, but most of the office is out on Weds. However, I will keep you posted. I know that when Sharon initially got elected even some of the more hard-cores around here were a little wary of his heavy handed-ness and apparent lack of remorse in regards to violence. But now that's he's in and doing what's "best" for Israel, as many people think (regardless of those who get trampled in the process), I think most American Jews think of him favorably...apparently Israelis do too as they re-elected him. It's a scary situation...no peaceful negotiations are going to be able to be made until the Palestinians feel with a sense of security that they are given a chance to create a state, and the terrorist attacks are something they feel is one of few options available in the face of a much larger army. I sympathize with both sides, but I must say it gets tiresome to hear only one side of the conflict all day at work. And no way could I speak honestly on my opinions--I'd probably get fired, or at least everyone in the office hating me.
a guy thats not even from my country is congratulating the president on how he's spending money on other countries. Admittedly it is for a good cause, but it's sill funny to me. BONO, a man from the land of eire, is happy with us, good. Why the hell does he get face time with the president (for free i'm sure) when i have to cough up a couple grand just to go to some god damned presidential dinner just so that i can be in the same room with the nitwit?not to stereotype but, i hear he has a tendancy to show up drunk to the whitehouse, but i can't remember where i heard that so i'm just going to go ahead a start a rumor.
European leaders rally behind U.S.Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, Denmark and the Czech Republic have all signed a declaration of solidarity with the U.S. Which is great, I guess?
War
Huh!
What iiiiis it good for?
An RAF Nimrod also took part in the operation.not only was that the best out of context line i found, it was an entire paragraph, all by itself. The article was about a ferry that was drifting between ireland and wales, a nimrod is a helicopter or something (RAF means Royal Air Force).
I hate politics, and that's that.
cause politics are everywhere wether you like it or not.bono is a citizen of the world, who has been a lot more succesful with capturing the hearts and minds of people world wide than GW will ever be.
bono realizes the unique position he is in. bono has decided to use this unique position for some good.
AIDS kills a shitload of people every day. like five or six world slave trade towers full. americans and non-americans. when these people die from AIDS, you have to keep in mind that THESE PEOPLE DIE.
american money comes from american taxes, yes. and while we have quite an AIDS problem here, its nowhere near the size of the problem in africa. but lets not pretend that we dont have our dick in the pudding here.
we owe africa big and we are the RICHEST AND MOST POWERFUL NATION IN THE WORLD.
tom, the next time you write joshua tree, i'm sure you'll be invited to the white house.
to show up drunk too.ulyssess00 you just don't get me, it's the whole you do dishes to get them done, i do dishes to get them clean thing. See, you weren't understanding me, i wasn't criticizing bush's actions, they're very good, I would even vote for someone that would help the world like this. My problem is that I'm a citizen of the United States of America, I have to pay money to get to meet my president. I realise that we are the RICHEST AND MOST POWERFUL NATION IN THE WORLD and i didn't say we weren't, but what does this make us? Why should we be everybody's sugar daddy, if we can't even keep the guy down the street from coming and smoking his crack in our living room?
I'm not even going to talk about AIDS in this post because I didn't in my first. So, lets hear what you have to say about foreign nationals getting to meet the prez before we do and your post will make some sense.
That Bono has a larger political impact and relevance than I do, and that the President of the United States of America is free to associate with whomever he pleases. Be it known therefore that I, Peter A. Peterson II of sound mind and body do hereby relinquish my right as a 'Merkin Citizen to stand infront of furrin' nationals such as this Sonny Bono fellow on the grounds of my birthright.
you and personal taste for defusing things
com ed printed up their bills, unbeknownst to them the website they posted wasn't their own, but that of a porn site. i couldn't find a link though, so i grant you permission to ignore this.
So, just so everyone knows, the animal was a victim of abuse, and i am not condoning that abuse nor abuse towards any animal. I simply think it's funny that someone absconded with an elephant, they say there a very few left in wilds of germany...So, basically the gist of this is that this circus owner in germany wasn't taking care of his elephants, one had to be put down and then he ran away with the other. The site says that a police spokesperson said "she could be transported in an unmarked lorry or hidden in any large stable". Another stated "if they could not find such a large animal it would not say much for their powers of detection." Apparently the police have had no luck in their search, I'm sure this is a conspiracy, they may be able to turn something up if they scour jimmy carter's travel records in their nation.
NELSON MANDELA is calling GW out!!!he doesnt have all his facts straight, but like i said... we americans have got our collective dick in the pudding when it comes to africa. and mandela knows it.
this is a man who was serving a life sentance for saying "black people should be able to serve office in a black country," while GW was railing fat lines of coke off the bar in his YALE frat house.
get the BBC version, too.
The NYTimes has a poignant editorial on Iraq written by a former senior policy analyst at the CIA. A little light on the details perhaps, but it raises some interesting points. Stupid free registration required.
...that when Bush entered the House chamber for the State of the Union, Bombs Over Baghdad should have been blasting on a loudspeaker system. It might just have been the straw the broke the camel's back and scared Saddam into coming clean on his weapeons programs. It's what I would have done, and I wouldn't have given a rat's ass what the intellectuals thought of me, because the public would have loved me.Mandela needs to get the facts straight before he opens his mouth. One power?
Why the hell is the most common argument against war on Irag "becasue France doesn't think it's a good idea"? Can someone explain that to me?
north korea launched a new anti-US propaganda campaign.check out a very interesting slideshow of the posters starting here.
what npr tells me is that france is a major reason not to go to war because they have placed themselves in a very similar position [though it was vague what that specific situation was - someone here probably knows] and it turned out pretty fucked up for everyone. plus, france being a major ally of the u.s. within the u.n. it would be much more diplomatic if we had the support of our allies. but pretty much the u.s. is forcing our allies to agree on war. actually, i'm not even sure it's in question anymore [or rather, i'm not sure g.w. views it as a question of if, but rather, how soon, ma?].that might be totally off base, but i think it makes a little sense at least. hey, it's a start.
vietnam? I don't know. I'm just asking.
Okay, I've been to Paris, I've worked with French diplomats and French troops . . .and I here must obey the Ma Dictum that if one has nothing nice to say . . .I tend to stay out of this entree, though I read it, for reasons that should be obvious to those of you who know what I do now, what I came from recently, and what I'm working toward.
But France makes good burgundy and killer apple brandy, and pretty much should be ignored on global affairs.
Having read NPR, I think they are making the comparison with Vietnam for the U.S, and the French role in losing the conflict a decade earlier when it was still Indochina. It's not a valid comparison, trust me. France lost because of colonialism--the last piece of the puzzle in Southwest Asia, formerly dominated by Britain and France, falling into place. The equation with us as 1950's France and Iraq as Indochina is not valid.
I also tend to think that NPR has it's rose-colored glasses and stenciled hiphuggers out from the drawer where they've been resting for thirty years. Ok, we've had demonstrations, sure--but the country has not yet been fused by casualties, the draft, and a clear program of disinformation aimed at our own people.
just as americans tend to differ from the american government, it probably isn't a stretch to believe that the french are not the french government. so if you don't like the french people, that doesn't necessarily mean much about their government.
This is not meant so much as a rebuttal, but an observation: I think the American government tends to reflect the citizenry a little more than we want to admit. I would never do such a thing!
and he could roll a joint soooo fast it wasn't even funny, and well too.
Evidently French DIPLOMATS ( and troops) i.e. Representatives of Their Government? . . . .France tends to listen to its people as well as America does; sometimes in my opinion a little too much more than the USA does.
So does Germany. Witness the brilliant reverse-field political move their Chancellor pulled off by switching from a hawk to a dove on the eve of the election, and winning the election thereby on the strength of realizing his people's overwhelming sentiment of avoiding war.
the diffuser around?
...not that France (or for that matter, the French) is necessarily wrong, it was that no one in the anti-war movement seems to be able to put the argument into their own words and present a viable alternative, so they're reduced to pointing at France and Germany and saying, "yeah, what they said." I suppose exile has been mentioned a couple of times (in my opinion, the only viable non-war option), but I don't think there's any chance of Saddam relinquishing power, he's got too much to lose by doing so.lieutenant, is correct in pointing out that France's experience in Indochina is not really useful in examining the current situation. For anyone interested in learning more about it, I recommend this book.
bush and hussein should play a game of poker. no limit hold em freeze-out.
If Bush's poker face is anything like that dog-face (sincerity?) that he often makes... I don't want to see it. Also, I don't know that I want to test Bush's intelligence in that fashion...
However, I do have one positive thing to say about Bush, I thought that his speech after the Columbia disaster (stupid sincere face aside- I closed my eyes) was pretty nice.
The New Republic has an editorial questioning Stephen Pelletiere's revisionist history. It was written in response to this editorial that lukas posted last friday.
that's why instead of Bush, it would be ME playing against Hussein for all the chips. i'd bust his ass in a heartbeat. (or maybe just on a heart flush)
I'm inclined to agree with The New Republic on that issue. Thanks for posting that Jack, even if I did have to finally break down and register there.
Here's a good editorial on Bush that I think pretty much everyone can enjoy, or at least think about:
Tenet: North Korea has ballistic missile capable of hitting U.S.
North Korea scares me A LOT more than Iraq. A close second is India/Pakistan where we are one short coup away from nuclear war. North Korea scares me because if they continue to process nuclear material to stick in missiles then japan is going to want to have some nukes for deterrent and china won't want to be left out and all of a sudden you've got a arms race in southeast asia featuring two governments we know very little about. I'm skeptical about the capabilities of an untested 3-stage Taepo Dong 2. But the 2 stage could easily reach targets in SE asia and possibly HI or AK. As I read furthur down in an article on Tenet's remarks I find that he is probably talking from 2001 intelligence so I wonder if it's a move to shore up support for Star Wars 2.
India/Pakistan also freaks me out because they expelled each other's diplomats AGAIN and I don't think it would take much to spark all out war in that region. Imagine what would hapen if there wasa coup in Paksitan and suddenly their government was run by hard-line islamic millitants. Probably won't happen but there are people in both governments who don't appear to be afraid of pushing the proverbial button. There's my 2 minute armchair analysis...
both india and pakistan have huge collective boners just thinking about being nucler superpowers.funny that the only time this issue was covered somewhat extensivly by the US media was right after the ENRON story broke...
hmmmm....
They prosecute people for war crimes. I supposed you could not care because, well, it's belgium, home of ale, but they have brought war crimes charges against: Yasser Arafat, Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, and Laurent Gbagbo. In a ruling by their supreme court, belgium has now "paved to way" to prosecute Ariel Sharon for war crimes, specifically a massacre in the Lebanon. Israeli FM Binjamin Netanyahu is quoted as saying that belgium is "helping to harm not only Israel but also the entire free world" to which he (they? Israel?) will "respond with severity" suggesting that maybe the belgians shouldn't go to israel for vacation lest they want to put into camps. Shimon Peres made the statement "Belgium cannot be Israel's judge. It has not gone through [the same things] as Israel and cannot judge history" Maybe suggesting that two wrongs make a right.
390,000 people from England and Wales selected "Jedi" as their religion. I wonder if lucas gets royalties for that? A petition circulated prior to the 2001 census urging people to "Do it because you love Star Wars... or just to annoy people,".
Maybe it's just me, but i think they should spend more time, say, at the dentist then at home thinking they're jedis>
here's the story
A correction in today's New York Times reads...Because of an editing error, a front-page article yesterday about diplomatic developments in the Iraq crisis misidentified the Bush administration official who said about the weapons inspectors in Iraq, "At some point it will become obvious that it's time for them to go." It was an administration official speaking on condition of anonymity, not Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser.
Yeah, that's the ticket.
that's an awesome oopsie! No really it wasn't her! It was this anonymous person! REally!!
BREAKING NEWS ON POSSIBLE TERROR ATTACKS
...so little Tommy always cried "wolf" even when there weren't any wolves around, and sometimes when he only thought that maybe there could be a wolf, or sometimes when one of his friends said that he heard there was a wolf coming. Eventually people stopped listening to Tommy, because his predictions and fearmongering never amounted to anything, and they figured he must just be looking for attention or trying to be important.And then one night two packs of hungry, rabid wolves descended on the town and ate all the sheep and several children of various colors and economic statuses. And then the people of the town naturally banished Tommy for not paying attention and warning them. (Some of them even suspected that Tommy knew the wolves were coming and let them come!)
The End.
that part is inevitable.
ulyssess00: your post seems to suggest that when the federal government tells the public the latest intelligence on possible terrorist attacks is "the most specific we have seen", they are just crying wolf. Bullshit. If another terrorist attack were to happen tomorrow and the government had failed to raise the warning level and notify the public of this intelligence, the ensuing outcry would be deafening. And if nothing happens tomorrow or the next day? Great! That only means more innocent people are still alive. I, for one, would rather have the government encourage me to prepare for the worst-case scenario at the risk of never making use of the preparations, than to lull me into a false sense of security, risking the lives of thousands.
i'm not saying the federal government is doing anything wrong in this case. they're doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing prior to 9/11. i am just making the point that post-9/11 america is a weird fucking place to live, and no matter how good a job the government does, the effectivness on the american public wares off each time. so what? the public are idiots, right?but most of all, i was just making a stupid joke. nothing more.
laugh you bastards.
my dad can beat up your dad!
Now that we've all laughed, I'd like to point out three things:
- "The public" includes you, me, and everyone else. Don't get all high and mighty with me, mister.
- World events are no laughing matter
- neoacerbitas, yeah? well...well...you're dumb!
ok i really dont want a flame war ensuing....1. i DO include myslef in the public, and i love my country.
2. sorry, but anything can be a laughing matter... just as long as you keep what is factual straight and what is jest, in jest.
3. i will refrain from further "jokes" on this entree.
Did you even see what point two was linked to? Give me a fucking break.
a failure to recognize that not every "tommy" cries wolf, this is a generalization, and a god damned one at that. More to the point is that we shouldn't use the wolf analogy because if anyone is the boy crying wolf in this situation it would be us...or maybe japan. You know that if the gov't didn't tell us about 99% of every threat they knew about, they'd be kennedy'd (you know, killed or at least put in a position of disrespect by all citizens) real fast. Although, i do feel like they can only tell us so much like, if they knew that every transamerica building in the u.s. was a target for later today, could they tell us something that specific, i mean, huge riots would ensue. I don't know, but if someone doesn't take the initiative to just chill the fuck out, we'll all be fucked, except for new zealand.
i awoke this morning with two phone messages from people back in arizona regading some people dying in a night club.quite a tragedy.
Someone cleaned out 123 of the 160 vaults in the diamond district of Antwerp, Belgium. Certainly no small feat considering the security measures. Link
that "britons have been told to leave iraq"?
first off, NO SHIT! why haven't they left already?
second off here's the link
That diamond heist is nuts! It's a movie script just waiting to be written!
I was talking the other day about post-saddam iraq and how things could get real ugly and today I ran across an article in London's Observer written by an exiled iraqi opposition leader on the very subject jack and I were discussing. I haven't read it all yet, but it appears to be worth reading.
CNN reports that four teachers were stoned to death for casting an "evil spell" that has killed 68 people so far.
Neal Pollack vents some steam and tells war writers and poets to Just Shut Up.This isn't really an event per se, but it pertains to the discussion of world events, so I'll put it here. Besides, I think it's just me, Tom, Grady, and Lukas who read this entree, and I figured you guys might find it funny.
don't always have something to post though.
did you guys hear about the Great White show on the east coast? a pyrotechnic in their first song of the set went awry, and the whole place went up in flames, and over 80 people have died from the resulting chaos that resulted from this panicked flee. casualties include Great White guitarist... whatever-his-name-was.
on a flight from saudi arabia, on quatar airlines somehow thought there was a bomb onboard the plane, so the plane made and emergency landing...if it hadn't for the fact that she was "european" i would suggest that maybe she got worried about seeing arabs on the flight, you know, like how it happens here...anyway, i though that was kindof funny just cause i'm an asshole and stupid american shit compared to almost stupid european shit is funny to me
a;ldkja;lsdkjfa; so you can read the story about the "female european passenger"
but it's ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING about this nine year old girl that got raped, and got pregnant from being raped.....she was quoted as saying that she didn't want to have the baby because she didn't want to have to share her toys...my god, what is wrong with this world? Well, she had and abortion,which i think is a good thing, just don't tell anyone okay?
THAT HE'S BLACK, NOT MAORI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
bluhbluh, gurgle gurgle
THAT HE'S BLACK, NOT MAORI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
bluhbluh, gurgle gurgle
What are you on this morning?
fine malt liquor...still...somehow from last night...i'm on windows too...crashes more than mac os ever did
I guess there's no hunting on church property.
I also read this entree. And I agree with alaric. Everyone needs to shut up. For or against, it ain't stoppin' now, barring some sort of divine intervention.
to quote alaric: "Don't get all high and mighty with me, mister."i am fortunate enough to live in a country where i don't have to be TOLD to shut up. sure, i'll be the first to admit it, pro- or anti- war protesters sure as hell can be annoying, and if i had $0.02 for each person's two cents i had to hear on the topic i'd be able to fill my gas tank for once. but annoyance is one of the prices you pay for freedom. so buck up.
statements like "For or against, it ain't stoppin' now, barring some sort of divine intervention," ring grossly ignorant and unamerican in my ears. fuck that. i'm every bit as american as donald rumsfeld is. if war is going to waged in the name of america, and i see such a war as uneeded and unjust, i have every fucking right to scream at the top of my lungs, "NOT IN MY NAME!!!" regardless of who it annoys.
don't get me wrong, the article jack posted was great. very well done. nothing irks me more than over-argued points and bad op-ed peices. but if you can sift through all that dribble, you mind find there is important dialogue beneath it all. wether you're pro- or anti- war, you have to realize that shit is a little kooky right now. there are about a billion elements to it all, and we as a country need to take the time to sort it out and let that dialogue occur.
and damn it, dont forget how many totally fucking rad things happened in this country because people refused to shut up. people in china get told to shut up and its a sad, sad country as a result.
also- bad poetry will always exist, regardless of political climate.
said the little bird who reads this entree faithfully, but gets too flustered to make any sane contribution....
First off, I'd like to point out that I never actually told anyone to shut up. That said, I do agree with a lot of Neal's points, specifically that there are far too many editorials out there on both ends of the spectrum that say nothing. Yes, after sifting through the crap a dialog becomes discernable, but a new point hasn't been raised since Powell's speech to the UN, so they're basically just talking to hear their own voices. This practice is exactly what I alluded to in an earlier post, asking why war critics can't come up with a reason other than "France doesn't think it's a good idea."
ulysses00, you do have the right to stand up and scream "not in my name", just as Neal Pollack has to right to stand up and tell writers of bad war related editorials and poems to "just shut up." There is a gigantic difference between someone telling you to shut up in America and someone telling you to shut up in China, and that is in China the sentiment is punctuated with the threat of prison and/or a gun to your head, something that doesn't happen in America.
There is still one chance of the war not happening. If Saddam steps down from power and goes into exile, war won't be necessary. Short of that or divine intervention, nothing will stop it.
Lastly, yes, bad poetry would still exist without the current political climate, but that crap would not garner the same national recognition it now enjoys if it wasn't for the subject matter playing on people's uncertainty and fear.
well said, jack.i am in agreement with you on pretty much all points.
yet, you can call me an idealist, but i still maintain that war can be stopped if enough americans (screw the french) stand up and say "we dont have to kill people here to get oil, put an illigally-elected president down as a hero in the history books, satisfy the damnds of a severely corrupt israel, continue the way out-dated imperalist adgenda, and further the downward spiral of angry muslim nations vs. hawkish westerners."
war kills innocent people. that totally sucks, dude.
idealist, i know. i await my scolding.
i don't have problems with people protesting and stuff, that's a wonderful part about living in a country where people don't vote, and have to make up for it later (not that it's the case here, I'M NOT SAYING THAT ABOUT THE CURRENT PROTESTS BECAUSE I KNOW THAT WE HAD NO IDEA THAT SOME EFFER WAS GONNA EFF WITH OUR EFFING SHIZZNIT SO DON'T PREACH TO ME ABOUT IT please), but if we really want to make a change we'll have to get hella more people to protest, we'd have to get like, a seventy million anti-war protester march in washington before we (they) make any headway. That's the thing, itwon't change until the majority of the people will it too. (full stop)
Just also to clarify, I should have said I agree with the sentiments that caused alaric to post the article by someone else. That being said, Jack's right. The only way that war will be averted is if a dictator steps down, or his people rise and remove him, the very possibility of which he has committed most of his human rights abuses since 1979 to prevent, and expended such terror that his tiny minority controls the masses. Which at this point is divine intervention.I defy anyone on this ole BBS to find me an example of where a dictator comparable to Hussein has stepped down. I also throw down a general challenge to anyone to read up on the 10 years immediately preceding the outbreak of hostilities in Pre-War I Europe and tell me if they don't see parallels.
And also, I move we ban the use of the word ignorant as a knee-jerk reaction to opinions. Say you disagree, say I don't agree, don't insult. (See pedro's diary entry for his vision on how this should work.) That was probably unintentional--at least I hope so , especially considering the nature of what field and what position in which I've spent the last three years. I have no actual foreknowledge of events--if I did, I would not be trumpeting it about on this board--innocent lives--but in general experience, to use a metaphor, the rip in the cord of the sword of Damocles is just about finished.
What I am sick of is bleating. Unceasing, innumerable bleating from both sides. "No war, Yes war, I will not send them/In a boat with green eggs and ham, Bush is a dictator too, Nuke Florida--They Started This Whole Mess" That's why I agree with the article that everybody needs to shut up. I need to shut up. I need to pray for peace, and if anyone--ANYONE--finds inappropriateness in a career soldier praying for peace, then you can come to Kosovo or Bosnia or Macedonia with me, and spend some time in orphanages and health clinics manned by soldiers from a variety of nations, all of whom desperately want peace. It is the soldier's fervent wish not to be needed and to train passionately against the fear that someday they will indeed be needed.
Lives already have changed; 125,000 of them away from home, family, and loved ones, with more to come. Some of them will never come home. Most of them, if not all, if I read the country right, will find that home has changed in their absence, while they were out serving those who don't support them, hate their very existence, don't exercise their blood-soaked right to vote in democratic elections, or even take the ultimate stand for principle and go live somewhere else.
I had five messages on my voice mail this week and three emails. All were from friends. One's wife had been verbally abused in a parking lot--she had been told "I hope your husband dies". One was from a good friend and squad mate. One was from our platoon sergeant. All ended with asking for a call and asking for prayer. They are all afraid, but they will go. I am afraid as well. I am afraid for the future of this country and I am afraid that I will be making the first official visits of my career as part of a notification team.
So . .. there is no summary here. Just some thoughts with a bitter pickle and burnt chips.
i apologize for using the word "ignorant."but that's how i react when i hear sentiments like "THIS WAR IS INEVITABLE." i pray right along side you that it is not.
assholes who say things like "i hope your husband dies" to the wife of a servicemen need to get their shit straight.
shut up indeed.
iraqi children or american soldiers, i dont want anyone to die. and so i am against any invasion of iraq.
In regards to war, I agree with Matt. It's going to take Hussein stepping down to avert the war. That, at this point, may take divine intervention. It certainly takes prayer, from people on both sides - those who support the war and those against it. Matt, I cannot beleive someone said they hope your friend's husband dies. You know, if/when the war begins, I will have no respect for people who abuse members of the armed forces in such a way. They deserve all the love, prayers, and support they can get. The decision to fight is not theirs, though it was their decision to serve, and it really upsets me when people act agressively to those who are not in charge of making the decisions. The best thing anti-war people can do is pray. The best thing pro-war people can do is pray. And I think the power of that, and the power of God, shouldn't be underestimated. Gosh, I sound like such a prude, but I am completely serious.Though, my own opinion about war is to go in there, go in there quickly, and do it as fast as possible with as much backing from the rest of the world as possible. That will accomplish the objective - getting rid of a horrible dictator who is at this moment probably selling the stuff that was supposed to be destroyed to terrorists to use against civilians everywhere - and if it's done fast, it will minimize the loss of civilian life, in the long run. Remember: this is the man who had his own SON executed. I can't even comprehend the evil that lies within him. Then humanitarian aid can be restarted to the Iraqui (is that how you spell that?) people, and their country can begin to be rebuilt without the dictatorship.
with lieutenant we should nuke florida because either
1)they aren't smart enough to figure out the ballot
or
2) they're too old to read the thing clearly...so we can just save my ass some social security huh?
anyway, gore conceded the election so it's his own damn fault anyway.
Nuking Florida was a joke, in case any of my bosses are reading this
so, what i can muster really isn't what lieutenant was looking for, but it's possibly the closest in existence...after Francisco Franco (dic. of spain) died, king Juan Carlos regained power and chose a higher up in franco's regime to be the PM, so the first thing he did was hold elections in their senate or whatever as to what to do with themselves...they then voted franco's government out of existence, which was okay because technically there was a king around to "rule", so, that's as close as it gets
the bbc site is unreachable since last night so i can't tell you the stupid happenings of the world...i can't send email either but, that's not important
before i forget they're testing and AIDS vaccine, it's only had limited success, though more success than before, and much more success with asian and black people.
neoacerbitas, I see that the bbc is back up now, but during future outages you might find solace in the International Herald Tribune. Also, Google News picks up articles from a lot foreign sources.
the story shows a picture of the petronas towers, world tallest building, from the worlds largest slum...slightliy ironic, but it goes with the story
Tom, you get bonus points for that. I had indeed forgotten that one, which was a good sign for the world in general, clearing up one of the last remaining bad ill effects of the rise and fall of fascism and totalinarian states from the 1930's. Good for you.
is that i wouldn't have remembered that except that i'm trying to finish up a class from last YEAR so that i can graduate and stuff...let's see now, in other news...
- alligator rips off womans arm
- the america's cup yacht race has beenthretened by terrorists. I find this troubling because the race isn't like, high profile or anything, you have to be really rich or snooty (that's my excuse) to know about it, it's not like it's on the tele.
- N. Korea's hole is getting bigger
- condom gem theft foiled
i guess that's about all so far today, some of that stuff is pretty funny too...
It is on Tv, but usually somehwere around 4 a.m.
Wasn't that about the America's cup? (That's about as close to the sport as I've been.)
broadcasts the americas cup, but that's cable.blvdgirl yes, wind is about the america's cup
not me.
so, since you know about america's cup being on the tele, do you have cable? If you do, do you have espn, and espn speedvision? and perhaps would you not mind say, me and my buddy caseofbeer coming over to watch yachting and/or formula one racing? My friends is extremely giving... :-)
caseofbeer always tends to catch a ride with me to parties, then disappears at the party before i have a chance to enjoy his company.
thats probably my fault.(does anyone remember how Hemingstein and Dave C-son used to affectionalty refer to their friend Dennis?)
no
i do have a few uncles from kentucky: jack, mark etc. and an old grand-dad
finally, someone found a use for a washing machine
i put some shit up in worldweird interwerble hobomatic stewer
I would not mind at all if you cam over, but unfortunately I am moving to Naperville in three weeks, and that kind of puts a damper on things. But me, my cable, my HDTV, and sports galore, will only be 45 minutes away, or 1.5 hours by metra (that includes CTA travel time to get to the metra). So feel free. I don't know what channels I have because I have a black box, get them all, and still watch mostly network TV, bizarre how that works.
D'oh
Ulysses brought back some good memories with his reference to Hemingstein and Dave's friend, Dennis.Aaron and I also had a running joke which referred to Dennis as Riding the White Van. One night when we were studying in England these unknown guys stopped and asked me where St. Hilda's college was. It turns out they were some random Canadian band and were playing at a dance at St. Hilda's. That is an all girls' college in Oxford. I told them I couldn't really describe how to get there, but I took a class there and would show them the way if they'd give me a ride to town. Yes, I know I am extremely stupid to get in a van with strange men, but they were young and seemed nice. They also had North American accents, which I missed. In a town as small as Oxford, it is hard to get lost, but I got all of us VERY lost, and they were late for their gig. It may have had something to do with the fact that Dennis was in the van with us.
Immediately after Riding the White Van, I showed up for High Table (no pun intended), which is what they call supper in the stuck-up Oxford system. It's this very solemn occasion and you even have to don a black gown before you come into the dining hall. Oldpossums and Hemingstein had to baby-sit me throughout the meal so I wouldn't do anything inappropriate in my state. I wish those basts were on here more often, as no one else has any idea what this story is about, but that was a fun meal. English food is so awful, even with the aid of Dennis I only enjoyed the ice cream they had for dessert.
My days with Dennis are long over, but sometimes I miss him a little.
Does this count as a World Event, since I was in England when it happened?
My problem is that Dennis has long term effects on me, he has a tendency to not leave me alone for hours at a time after I only talked to him once or twice, and let me tell you when you are zoned out hardcore wandering around the red light district in Amsterdam and have no idea how long you've been doing so, it gets a little alarming.
The Big One
no not THAT al-queda guy, the other.
british gas company bills man 2.3 trillion pounds sterling.
It was a bill for electricity.
...that's the problem with space heaters.
why is british gas in the electricity business? it must be a yankee thing... ;-)
a yankee thing to not understand... (then the wink) ;-)
gas prices
at his laptopdude! you shot a dell!
I know that WorldNetDaily is a very conservative media outlet, but this was an interesting article: Saddam Saved from Abortion by Jews. This could obviously be a pro-israel/anti-saddam/pro-life fabrication... but it's interesting to read about recent history of Jews in Iraq. I'd be interested in seeing some other accounts of this story, or refutations.
John Walker Lindh got jumped by a neo-nazi.
so, all the major networks just interrupted their usual programming to beam us live footage of today's UN briefing.i find it interesting (on a number of levels) that NBC and CBC are showing the russian and french replies, but that FOX cut back to jerry springer after colon powell was done....
Fidel Castro got re-elected the other day. He, of course, stood unopposed.
the possible upcoming war in Iraq, it is important to support the service men and women who don't make the decisions, but go where they are sent. In that spirit, here is a way to show support to them.
I'm not sure if this is the appropriate entree in which to post this, but at any rate, it needs to be read.
As I read that, I hoped I had been linked to The Onion and hadn't noticed. Je ne peut pas le croire!
french fries are belgian and french toast was invented by an american whose last name was french
Far be it from me to question the accuracy of information that has been formally posted on the internet, but I think French toast is, in fact, French. The culinary tome The Joy of Cooking notes that the French do serve the same dish, only they call it pain perdu (i.e. "lost bread") and eat it for dessert.Now, since the French have a name that is so logical--whereas the English name is pretty arbitrary--it seems awfully likely that some Brit or American got the idea for French toast in France and did not ascribe his own surname to the dish. The reason the name makes so much sense en francais is that French toast is best made with stale bread. (NB: This suggests that the website given above not only got the story wrong, but got the recipe wrong, too!) Also, the fact that the French usually eat bread with every meal makes it plausble that a Frenchman (or woman) would be inspired to create a recipe for salvaging the leftovers. Necessity, after all, is the mother of invention.
If you've been living your whole life with the sorry Americanized version that calls for slices of white bread, you owe it to yourself to buy a baguette (or a loaf of real French bread, i.e. white bread from the bakery with a thick crust), let it sit for a couple of days and get real hard and dry, then cut slices about an inch or an inch and a half thick and substitute that for the Wonder bread you normally use. Just make sure the egg mixture soaks all the way in, or else it will be dry in the middle. Cook it on medium-low heat so the center isn't runny and the edges don't burn. Also, use the fattiest milk you have, and strike the pepper from the recipe in question. That guy must be on crack.
can you boycott a country? if there is someone we should boycott it is anna nicole smith.
it's 12:50... do you know where your mother is?
great article, pedro.
Husbands lose things more often than wives. It's my SuperPower - the ability to find lost keys, socks, phones, etc faster than anyone else in the house.
I would resent that if I knew where I put my resentment . .dammit, it's around here somewhere . . .
Don't you just hate how it's always in the last place you look?
now children can build bombs too...always in the last place that you look.
he must have seen The Manhattan Project a few too many times, which, incidentally is a great movie, or at least I thought so in junior high.
That is actually a true story.
i hope he at least got his merit badge.
- aliens (maybe)
- gefilte fish professes apocalypse (do you spell it like that, or is that just a comic book name?)
Yes, that's how it's really spelled.
Since this is an entree to express one's opinion, I must say that gefilte fish is the nastiest thing I have ever eaten.
i like how he "injured himself while killing the fish." that and the fact they sold it after killing it. THEY SOLD THE FISH THAT THE VOICE OF GOD CAME FROM.
I was on the wrong entree in my head. This is World Events. Anyway, gefilte fish is still nasty.As for that article, which is hilarious, I will have to discuss it with the rabbi. Ha ha. Yeah Grady, I too was like, "Oh, okay. Magical prophetic fish, we're still going to make you into gefilte barf." Like they wouldn't have kept a fricking talking, reincarnated God fish. None of the facts in that article made any sense to me, but it cracked me up.
I think, even if it was kosher, if i believed that fish had the souls of my dead relatives, i wouldnt be killing and eating them. Sort of like hindus and cows..Could an animal that had a human soul be kosher?
The voice that came from the fish wasn't God's voice; it was the voice of a Hasidic guy who was reincarnated as a fish. Now, I'm not sure that makes it okay to kill and sell the fish, but at least we can rest easy that the incarnate (inpiscatus?) Lord was not sold as food.What I find odd is the suggestion that someone who was so bad that he was, evidently, reincarnated as a fish--and not just any fish, mind you, but a fish destined for a rather nasty end--would be a reliable source of information about the end of the world.
gefilte fish is pretty gross, i suggest copius use of the horseradish to make it go down better. Oh yeah, i actually meant the spelling of the word ?apocalypse? because there was a comic book character by that name, and i wasn't sure if it was supposed to be cutely spelled incorrectly. yeah, gefilte fish, you can but gefilte fish balls at jewel.
Don't know if this has been brought up yet...but what about that Elizabeth Smart case?I have some strong opinions on Brian "Emmanuel" Mitchell.
Yeah, I don't know if I've ever felt this much anger and malice towards another human being before... I'm not really comfortable with those feelings... I can't even think about it or I just get more shaky, angry, and sick to my stomach so I just have to put it out of my mind.Ultimately, I hope that Elizabeth gets all the help she needs to try and restore her life and herself as much as that is possible... and I guess i hope for Mitchell that a.) he is never allowed to hurt anyone else again, and b.) that he gets some psychological help.
But yeah. I can't even think much more about it, or it makes me want to drive out there and do something awful. I'm sure there are plenty of people in Utah who feel that way though, so I should probably pray for everybody, and just go back to work.
It's really hard for me to hear about crimes of this nature (well, pretty much anything against children) without getting deeply disturbed and angry. There are so many specific points that infuriate me about this that it's almost impossible to pick a place to start describing those feelings. It seems to me Elizabeth needs our prayers, as she's had everything in her life twisted and spun around so much that I doubt whether or not she can distinguish between thoughts born in her own head and ideas planted there by this prick.I've said it before, but I'm not a righteous person, and I knowingly carry with me unrighteous anger. These are the kinds of things that push those thoughts to the top. I have no compassion for Mitchell. I do not hope that he turn his life around, or that he find comfort. I hope for him torment and anguish.
I don't want justification for this kind of anger. I don't feel like it should be justified. On an academic level, I don't believe it is right for me to ever write somebody off, no matter what their crime or sins. But I don't feel motivated to work on a desire to feel compassion for him, or to even hope that he find a new begining.
I just get sick when I see his photos. If our military ever needed some target practice...or a dummy for hand-to-hand combat I have some suggestions.Yahoo.com reported on the charges today, and the hot one of course is the rape allegations. I didn't want to read it, but my evil ways lead me to details. The guy is a sick f***. Sludge of the earth that needs to be eliminated.
I feel awful for Elizabeth Smart. I can't even imagine what she went through. Justice will prevail. Most kidnappers are never found or exposed to the public/media like Brian Mitchell has. This man has no where to run and the Smart family now has closure unlike most victims. That makes me rest easy if anything.
yeah, i dont know how they ever found that guy... he really blends in...
Another difference between this situation and most kidnapping situations is that Elizabeth is lucky enough, or blessed enough, or whatever... to live through it. But that's going to be hard.For myself anyway, I have to keep an avenue of compassion for Mitchell -- one part of me wants to see him fry for this (even though kidnapping isn't a capital offense), but punishing him isn't going to fix anything. That's the problem with the "justice" system.
Clearly he needs to be removed from society so that he will not be a threat to anyone else. But I also have to hope that somehow he can find help there (although I seriously doubt that he will). It's like, as long as he's going to be in jail for a long time, we should hope that he find his way out of where he is.
Frankly, I think his father should also be held accountable for some of this. I realize that's not how our justice system works... but have you read his statements? Dude, hitting him with that garden hose was not your biggest mistake!
It's easy for us to sit here and say hateful stuff... and I know that I needed a place to just put it out there for people that I trust to hear... but I also feel like ultimately we should try to make our lives or feelings be constructive... even if you don't think you could "forgive" mitchell or have compassion for him. But I'm obviously really sruggling with that.
I feel like I should feel the way you do, Pedro. But it isn't in me. The desire to be compassionate isn't in me. Neither is the desire to desire. Maybe the desire to desire to desire is, but that's really stretching things.
Well, we take what we can get.
i don't this he realises that when God told Joseph smith to take several wives, He didn't mean ?take? several.
well, you know i must agree that his father needs some help too. part of me thinks that she's extremely lucky because she wasn't killed and that her abducter ?cared? that much for her, but then there's all the mental shit. I must say though that this is where religion has one of it's problems. But that article points out some good things like, ?he was probably abused in daycare?...does his father have a job? 'Cause then i could believe it...
teh violence continues... and its not just on palestineans and israelis. its on people's homes and american activists.
Pedro, you mentioned "forgiving" this guy. You didn't say that we need to do so, but it's worth noting that you can't forgive someone who hasn't admitted that he did something wrong and hasn't asked for forgiveness. A friend and mentor of mine pointed this out to me a few months ago; Christians (especially) bring a lot of unnecessary guilt into their lives with a wrong-headed notion of forgiveness. It struck me recently that even though the Lord's Prayer says "Father, forgive us as we forgive others," there is no suggestion anywhere in Scripture that God forgives people who refuse to admit their own wrongdoing, indeed, just the opposite. Now, maybe we should try hard to be compassionate towards everyone, even the real sickos out there. But I'm just not sure that there's something wrong with a deep desire to see justice served, and to see him punished as fully as his crime warrants.Then again, I've been reading the Pslams lately. Maybe I have one too many phrases like "Lord, destroy my enemies" fresh in my mind.
neoacerbitas, can you elaborate on what "problems of religion" you're talking about? If this Emmanuel person is a super-fundamentalist Mormon (i.e. if he believes, among other things, that the practice of polygamy is necessary for salvation), then it seems like the problem is with his religion, not religion in general. And it highlights the currently unpopular fact that beliefs really do matter, and that we should all be striving to make sure our theology maps onto reality.
...and ive been reading ecclesiasties.pedro, that father sounds just about as effed up as the immanuel guy, but how can we hold him responsible? i'd say that the mormon church is just as responsible for the father. instead of ministering to this guy and showing him compassion, they excommunicated him, which is probably just as much the beginning of a path towards the lunatic life this guy led as misguided parenting was.
if you want to try the father, try the church too.
The Mormon church's responsibility isn't to protect this guys feelings or mental well-being as much as it is to protect their own theological integrity. If he was excommunicated for teachings that went against their doctrine they were doing their job and protecting their own organization. The father, on the other hand, does have a responsibility to protect the mental well-being and development of his son. I don't think it's at all possible to try the father for the actions of his son even if he was the worst father in the world. That to be is passing the buck a little too much. What's to stop Mitchell Sr. from blaming his father and his father's father? The buck has to stop with Mitchell- he's the one who crossed the line between bad guy and small time criminal to felon. That said, the Mitchell Sr. has certainly contributed to this sickness. He should feel significantly responsible for the suffering that has taken place. His punishment, at least on planet Earth, will be knowing his son will never walk free again and that a family- especially a little girl- has suffered immeasurably.
I'm not sure that we can hold the father responsible. I feel like he is somewhat responsible... and I imagine the Smarts could probably pull a wacky civil suit on him... I'm not saying that's right, but inside I wish there was a reasonable means to do so that, as filosofer put it, "mapped into reality," but all I can see there is vigilante justice (which is not justice). And if you want to try Mormonism, then you might as well try Islam, and Christianity, and Judaism... what methods would you use to try Mormonism for the Elizabeth Smart situation that wouldn't find Christianity guilty for the things done in the name of the Church? How would you be able to determine what "true Mormonism" or "true Christianity" is? Is "true Mormonism" fundamentalist? Is it more liberal? Lots of breath has been spent in the last year and a half trying to convince people about what "true Islam" is, and usually because one opinion serves some specific purposes over the others.I'm not sure if there is a way to answer those questions. (Which is not to say that I don't have feelings about those questions or their answers...)
You're right that you can't put a religion on trial. But when a religious tradition has a recognized authority--as Christianity (in all its forms), Judaism, Islam, and Mormonism all do--then one thing you can do is attempt to determine whether some particular adherent of that religion was acting in a manner consistent with his or her religion. Of course, it gets pretty fuzzy in real life; competing interpretations of the same text are problematic, as is the fact that people choose to self-identify as "X" when they have no interest in acually being a faithful practitioner of X. But at least this gives us something of a model for establishing what "true such-and-such" is and/or whether so-and-so is a good example of a such-and-sucher.If recognized Mormon authorities give strong support to the belief that men must be polygamists, then perhaps Mitchell was being a better Mormon than most so-called Mormons. I'm not saying that's the case; I don't have a Book of Mormon or a Pearl of Great Price handy, but I expect they wouldn't condone abduction. If they do, though, then that may give good reason to reject Mormonism as a satisfactory worldview.
i'm moving this discussion to "theology fried rice"
"WAR" motherfuckers.
sorry about that, i totally accidently erased a line there
in mormonism, they say that you can take more than one wife, and so my really tasteless joke was that you can't actually ¨take¨ one. and so i was meaning that taking things out of scripture, out of context leads to many problems in religions. the example that i used, and erased, was that of islam, in the Qu'ran it says that you can take a second, third, or whatever...the problem is that you can only take them if the husband was killed in war, or died, or whatever. if you take this out of context though, and abuse it you can use it to just have multiple wives. I do apologise, i did not mean to say that all religion is flawed, or even that mormonism is, even though i think it is. i was trying to make a statement about context only. i apologise for any confusion
I once read that war will only end if it is seen as vile. I wish more people saw it as vile and not as a way to keep peace. More opinions... although I think the magazine is better than the site.
although i do find it somewhat humorous that it costs five bucks a pop. Though for clarification i do understand that they have little to no actual advertising in it, their website is good and the subvertisements are great. My only problem is that I love advertising, so i'm stuck inbetween, and can't choose between the anti-corporate world and the completely globalised world (which of course, wins).
I wish they wouldn't do that; it seems kind of humiliating to me.
whoops.
there's a conspiracy in ireland that's pro-iraqi...it's in county monaghan to be specific.by the way, i want you guy to know that html is really, really difficult and a european, spanish keyboard.
but this damn war will be. THE WAR WILL BE LIVE!
That was a really dumb move as that act signifies conquest and occupation. I'm sure the video of that will play well in the Arab "street". I think they took the flag down and replaced it with an Iraqi flag, but that was after the video was made and seen worldwide.
And the army is made out of people.Regardless of if you support them or not.
not cool. not cool at all. Makes me very sad. I imagine the local Iraqis (the ones we're 'rescuing') looking at that, but feeling too defeated and weak to be angry. I'd imagine they just feel sad.
ok, i am really against this "war"...but i truly believe that they are doing EVERYTHING they can to make sure the guns-n-bombs part of it lasts as briefly as possible, with a minimum of destruction and casualties.
that being said, the violence is not why people should be against this "war". the term "destabalize the reigon" is not a poor excuse to and hold off "war," it is a serious consideration, and i would go so far as to say, an inevitability.
i think it is WONDERFUL that sadam will most likely be out of power by the end of the next few days. the iraqi people HATE him, but if there's anyone they hate more, its america. and that is not a character flaw, it is not poor judgement, it is legitimate emotion.
bombs over baghdad is pretty bad news, casualties on both sides are bad news. but (i'm try not to sound pretentiously prophetic here) the worst is yet to come. wait till the caese-fire, wait till a new regieme is put in place...
I have yet to see any evidence that the majority of the Iraqi people actually HATE Saddam, let alone HATE him enough that he be deposed in such a messy manner. Yes, the Baath party regime is not democratic and appears oppressive and so is almost certainly disliked by most Iraqis. But HATEd enough to allow people into your country to break things and kill people? I doubt it. The U.S. government seems to be trying to persuade people to make an association between this war and the earlier conflict in the area but that was clear liberation at the request of those that had been invaded. This time around the coalition forces are the ones doing the invading (even though media are using terms like "entering the country" or "crossing the border"). I hope the tacit assumption that most of the Iraqi people will be happy with the result (or the long-term result) is correct.
I really think that after the conflict is over there should be protests (if need be... and the need will be) to make sure that America really does some decent reconstruction in Iraq. Think how long it took to clean up after 9-11 -- how long do you suppose it's going to take to clean up Baghdad alone?I realize what's wrong with what I'm about to say, but most of the time I'm more angry about our inevitable half- or even quarter-*ssed efforts at truly making Iraq a better place. I don't care if it costs trillions of dollars -- if America really is committed to improving the world, we need to put our time and money where our mouth is, if the Iraqi people want it or would accept our help.
right on... I feel you Pedro- we can't just watch the Dow and throw nickles and dimes at their country... we have to commit for real.
Summary of the last hour on CNN: A Tomahawk may have hit Iran, Turkey is sending 1,500 troops into Northern Iraq, oil-well firefighting units from Halliburton Corp (no kidding, folks, Cheney's former company) standing by to be called in, and George W. Bush quoted as saying it may take "more time than previously thought" to finish the war, but we should all remain committed (for the record, I never was)."Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower (R), 1953
Last night the British networks showed some of the Al-Jazeera footage that ulyssess00 just mentioned, and just now on the news they said that the Pentagon had "strongly advised" the US networks not to show the footage. I'm not implying that the British government is above such things, but I would be interested to hear if you guys get to see the pictures, or if they are kept from you to, er, keep your morale up or anything like that.Oh, and you may be horrified at "One Iraqi man is captured smiling over dead Americans." but I'm equally disgusted by scenes of US and British troops cheering when they blow up tanks and buildings. With people in.
they just showed a few clips of it on TODAY on NBC. (a morning news/variety show).it was only a few non-graphic clips though.
I think most of us here anyway are not happy to see buildings blow up with people in them... and I think that none of us would be happy standing over the dead bodies of Iraqi (or any) soldiers.It's an interesting question though -- how should the soldiers feel about their fight? It would be hard to keep spirits and morale up if they didn't distance themselves from the people that they were fighting. That goes for the Iraqis, too. Somehow, for better or for worse, I think that's what makes soldiers cheer when they blow up a tank... but probably not cheer when they shoot a man in the head across a battlefield.
Of course, I know nothing about soldiering, so I'm talking out of my butt.
Fox News isn't so much pro-war as it is pro-explosion.
March 23, 2003 I Am Iraq By MICHAEL IGNATIEFFBack in the 60's, when I marched against the war in Vietnam, I learned that it is a mistake to judge a cause by the company it makes you keep. I slogged through the streets with Trotskyites who thought America was an evil empire, and I chanted slogans under banners that called for socialist revolution in Brooklyn. I stood arm in arm with pacifists, who made me wonder whether they would have fought Hitler. Since I was anti-Communist, I actually had more in common with the liberal hawks who thought they were defending South Vietnam against advancing Communist tyranny. But I believed nothing could save the weak and corrupt South Vietnamese government. This time, over Iraq, I don't like the company I am keeping, but I think they're right on the issue. I much prefer the company on the other side, but I believe they're mistaken.
I don't like the president's domestic policies. He should be helping state and local governments maintain jobs and services, especially for the poor. His attack on affirmative action turns back decades of racial progress. The tax breaks for the rich are unjust. His deficits are mortgaging the future. It's wrong to lock up so-called unlawful combatants on Guantanamo and in military brigs, denying them due process. The president's attorney general is dangerously cavalier about the civil liberties he is supposed to protect. The bullying tone the president adopted in his diplomacy at the United Nations diminished his chances of U.N. support. But I still think the president is right when he says that Iraq and the world will be better off with Saddam disarmed, even, if necessary, through force.
A lot of my friends think that supporting the president on this issue is naive. The company you keep, they argue, matters in politics. If you can't trust him on other issues, you have no reason to trust him on this one. If he treats freedom at home so lightly, what makes you believe that he will say what he means about staying the course to create freedom in Iraq?
My friends also imply that the company I am keeping on this war is a definition of what kind of person I am. So where we all stand has become a litmus test of our moral identities. But this shouldn't be the case. Opposing the war doesn't make you an antiglobalist, an anti-Semite or an anti-American, any more than supporting the war makes you a Cheney conservative or an apologist for American imperialism.
In fact, the debate over war is not so much a clash of competing moral identities as a battle within each of us to balance competing moral arguments. Sometimes it is easier to see this in the positions of the other side than in your own.
Recently, 14,000 ''writers, academics and other intellectuals'' -- many of them my friends -- published a petition against the war, at the same time condemning the Iraqi regime for its human rights violations and supporting ''efforts by the Iraqi opposition to create a democratic, multiethnic and multireligious Iraq.'' But since they say that ''the decision to wage war at this time is morally unacceptable,'' I wonder what their support for the Iraqi opposition amounts to. One colleague refused to sign the petition because he said it was guilty of confusion. The problem is not that overthrowing Saddam by force is ''morally unjustified.'' Who seriously believes 25 million Iraqis would not be better off if Saddam were overthrown? The issue is whether it is prudent to do so, whether the risks are worth running.
Evaluating risks is not the same thing as making moral choices. It is impossible to be certain that improving the human rights of 25 million people is worth the cost because no one knows what the cost will be. Besides, even if the cost could be known, what the philosophers call ''consequential'' justifications -- that 25 million people will live better -- run smack against ''deontological'' objections, namely that good consequences cannot justify killing people. I think the consequential justifications can override the deontological ones, but only if the gains in human freedom are large and the human costs are low. But let's admit it, the risks are large: the war may be bloody, the peace may be chaotic and what might be good in the long run for Iraqis might not be so good for Americans. Success in Iraq might win America friends or it might increase the anger much of the Muslim world feels toward this country.
It would be great if moral certainty made risk assessment easier, but it doesn't actually do so. What may be desirable from a moral point of view may be so risky that we would be foolish to try. So what do we do? Isaiah Berlin used to say that we just have to ''plump'' for one option or the other in the absence of moral certainty or perfect knowledge of the future. We should also try to decide for ourselves, regardless of the company we keep, and that may include our friends, our family and our loved ones.
During Vietnam, I marched with people who thought America was the incarnation of imperial wickedness, and I marched against people who thought America was the last best hope of mankind. Just as in Vietnam, the debate over Iraq has become a referendum on American power, and what you think about Saddam seems to matter much less than what you think about America. Such positions, now as then, seem hopelessly ideological and, at the same time, narcissistic. The fact is that America is neither the redeemer nation nor the evil empire. Ideology cannot help us here.
In the weeks and years ahead, the choices are not going to be about who we are or whose company we keep, or even about what we think America is or should be. The choices are about what risks are worth running when our safety depends on the answer. The real choices are going to be tougher than most of us could have ever imagined.
Michael Ignatieff is a contributing writer for The Times Magazine.
In response to ulysses00's post in Eggs Over Oscar, where he questions why the administration won't tell us why we're killing people with huge fucking bombs, (not wanting to bring the war discussion to that room) I'll put my comments here. The reason goes something like this..."What if [Saddam] fails to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction? ... Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal."High marks to the first person who can guess who gave that quote.
In regards to the Michael Ignatieff article, I found it very interesting and found myself agreeing with a lot of it, until I got to the end. Moral certainty does make risk assessment easier, and ideology is not something to shy away from at a time like this. When the founders of America decided to fight for freedom from England, they did so because, in the face of a moral dilemma, they became more ideological and more radical, and so were willing to assume a tremendous amount of risk. When Lincoln made the decision to issue the emancipation proclamation he became more ideological, not less so. By making the civil war officially about liberating others, not so unlike the current conflict, Lincoln essentially bet the farm. His moral decision allowed him to take the risk of completely destroying his own country in the process, but even that wasn't so risky as to prevent him from drawing the line in the sand. The important choices are about what we think America should be. We can't take back the bad choices of yesterday, we can only make the correct ones today, while acknowledging and assuming the great risks involved.
P.S. Sorry to get so preachy.
Bill Clinton.
Correct.
i just get a little chaffed when people start saying "theres a time and a place for comment like that."
i've finally found my reason for loving it.
You can't sell 'drinkable' ethanol in the UK without paying duty on it (it makes pure lab alcohol very expensive so I understand). They'd have to find a way to poison what they sell without killing the enzymes...
(spot the engineer)
Yes, 100% "grain alcohol" is much more expensive than that slightly (e.g. < 0.5%) denatured with methanol or isopropanol. Actually super-duper pure ethanol is a little less expensive as it is purified by redistillation from a mixture containing benzene so although the contaminants are at a much lower level (ppm or less) they contain something rather nasty.
every time i hear about denatured alcohol, i get freaked out and think that someone is going to go and drink it. Guys, make sure not to drink that stuff. It´s bad for you.
north korea
pakistan v. india
spiders under my bed
Spiders under Lukas' bed Pakistanis under my bed Pakistanis under spiders
packers vs. vikings
vikings vs. augustana
kansas city t-bones vs. lincoln salt dogs
So there are reports of iraqi citizens holding protests against Sadaam Hussain's government in Basra (which is already somewhat surrounded by coalition troops). Apparently Iraqi military has started shelling the iraqi protestors. If this is the case, it sure makes me feel like there will be good times ahead for the iraqi people, and that there has indeed been a silent desire for liberation. I certainly hope so, anyway.
from the moonie times: iraqi opposition gives warning. What are we getting into?
Yeah, this is going to be touchy. Nobody wants an occupation, not the US, not the UN, no Arab state. But what's the alternative? Let whichever warlord has bought the biggest army take over the country? It seems reasonable to let the differing ethnics groups in the different regions form their own nations, and I agree with Iran and the other local Arab states that only a national government is appropriate. But how do you get a stable government off the ground without stepping on everyone's toes? It's certainly going to be difficult. Whomever tries to organize the mad scramble for power will be looked at as a threatening, dominating force in the region, whether it's the US, the UN, a coalition of Arab states, certainly if it is any Iranian backed organization. It's going to be crazy.
According to my limited understanding (via my wife), our invasion of Iraq is illegal under the standards of international law. So it pretty much destroys our credibility when we talk about Iraq violating the geneva convention and/or international law.
Not to mention the fact that the kurds might not be too hot on a shiite government, or the Turks invading "kurdistan" for that matter.
Nobody wants that kind of insane conflict. I really think that of all things, the UN should handle creating the new state, and the US should stay out.
i thought that our plan was very heavy handed in the UN doing a lot of the dirty work. I'm probably wrong though, AND THAT'S FINE. you don'thave to prove me wrong, i've already admitted it.btw pakistan v. india, they can't even play cricket peacefully, what the heck, there are some things i'll just never understand.
why don't we just let the warlords take over iraq after saddam is gone, then we can come back in another ten years...
ps some of my punctuation my seem silly but it looks correct when i put it in, there just a difference of when it's drawn, something about using a european spanish keyboard...
Re: Iraqi opposition(s) -- Regarding the article Lukas posted, I got news for the Ayatollah: you will be disappointed, because the US is simply not about to leave as soon as Saddam is ousted. At first, control will go to a different iron-fisted dictator, one named Tommy Franks.
The Kurds certainly would not like the Turkish army marching into Iraq (for now the US is keeping them out), and probably won't immediately like a Shiite government either, but that's just gonna have to be too bad for a little while. It's very unlikely that once Saddam has been overthrown Iraq will be split into three countries, or even autonomous regions. Essentially that would hang the Sunni out to dry, as has been done to the kurds in the past. We're trying to fix past mistakes, not repeat them. The name of the game right now is "territorial integrity". People need to learn how to live together; accordingly, it would be a very dangerous precedent for the UN or US to simply create a country for whatever group wants one, whether they have been wronged in the past or not. My guess is that all three groups (the Kurds, Sunni, and Shi'a) will just have to play nice for a certain period of time, perhaps with the possibility of a democratically negotiated independent kurdish state if that is still their wish in, say, five years. However, that state would have to be confined to the kurdish region within the bounds of present-day Iraq, moving the borders currently shared with either Iran or Turkey is not an option.
Re: int'l law --Yeah, it's too bad the UN can't send in American troops to enforce international law this time. Also, the thing that destroys our credibility about the Geneva conventions is not the war in Iraq, it's a place in Cuba called Camp X-ray.
Re: isn't that the plan though? -- The plan hasn't really been spelled out yet, that's what Blair and Bush will be discussing for the next two days at Camp David. I'm sure that Tony Blair will do everything in his power to make Bush turn control over to the UN at a fairly early stage, who will then supervise the new Iraqi government. Of course, at first Gen. Franks will run the country while working with Iraqi civilians and military to restore order and work out the logistics of providing needed humanitarian relief.
--
I saw Thomas Friedman interviewed on the Charlie Rose show tonight, and thought he had some interesting things to say. A number of my views correspond with his, basically that the Bush administration has not done a good job of explaining their position, however, that does not mean some really good things can't come from the current situation, and that we should put our focus on making those good things happen. I'd like to share two things he said that I especially liked. The quotes are not perfect, but are as accurate as I can remember them. (1) To detractors who say he is just living in a dream world of ideals: "I'll go down as a failed idealist, but I will not go down as a cynic." (2) In response to a question asking if the UN should be in charge of rebuilding efforts: "Nation-building can't be done by committee; nation-building is done by something called Douglas MacArthur."
Some perspective, from an Israeli newspaper.
Nice article, Gary.alaric: are you saying that we are free to break international law because we are the ones normally called upon to enforce it? Or are you pointing out that we have violated international law (for better or for worse) for a long time?
What is "Camp X-ray?"
And yes, our Japan plan has worked pretty good... sometimes, too good... (hah) but the different groups in Iraq are really going to make that much, much harder to pull off. What if our new Iraqi state crumbles the moment the US or the UN leaves?
We don't exactly have the best track record for fabricated middle eastern states. And think how much better things could be if we supported a Palestinian state! We'd have something with the Arab world that we don't have now: a shred of credibility.
i just found this, but havent had a chance to look through it yet, so i dont know its credibility.
Camp X-Ray is the detainment camp in Cuba where we keep ~700 prisoners we captured in the war in Afghanistan. We refused to grant them POW status and will apparently keep them there indefinitely. Alaric is right when he says this destroys our crediblity in regards to the Genevea Convention. We were talking about this last night after Karna got back from a forum at WCL on the current war and international law. I should get her to type up her notes.
International law isn't law so much as it a set of standards countries agree to follow based on treaties, agreements, UN resolutions, etc. Enforcement is done by the Security Council. In 1991 when Iraq violated int'l law by invading Kuwait, the UN responded and the US led a large coalition of troops to get him out of Kuwait. The enforcement also included sanctions and inspections. Without a vote authorizing military action, the invasion of Iraq violates international law. Our diplomats are begging State to give them talking points on why it would be acceptable. The problem is they can't give our diplomats anything because there are no strong arguments that our invasion of Iraq is legal.
The invasion of Iraq also sets a dangerous precedent. Other conutries may see this as an opportunity to further their aims. We've got North Korea getting more belligerent and preparing to test fire some long range missiles. China is getting bolder and might aid North Korea. India and Pakistan both test fired nuclear capable missiles wednesday, and Indian officials are already questioning our calls for peaceful talks. The US played a key role in averting a war between the two countries last year, but I fear we may have lost some of our credibility and persuasive power this time around. I'm not saying that the items I just listed are the result of our ill-advised invasion, but I do think there will be serious consequences both expected and unexpected.
"Camp X-Ray is the detainment camp in Cuba where we keep ~700 prisoners we captured in the war in Afghanistan. We refused to grant them POW status..."...or, indeed, any rights at all, which is why they are in Cuba and not on US soil.
D. RUMSFELD: Mr. Castro, can we store a bunch of degenerate terrorists on your soil?F. CASTRO: Is there any, how you Americans say, money involved?
D. RUMSFELD: (passing over a wad of cash) What happens if we're cruel to these people?
F. CASTRO: I'm sorry, what? I stopped listening when I saw the moeny.
D. RUMSFELD: How do you feel about torture?
F. CASTRO: What? torture? Who told you that?!! I don't torture anybody! Honest!
D. RUMSFELD: No, no. I'm asking if you pay special attention to torture within your borders.
F. CASTRO: I'm not paying anything! You torture them yourself!!!
D. RUMSFELD: Finally.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAoh... thats really fucked up.....
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
sigh.
Oh, those heady days of staunch isolationism...
ok.
pedro: No, I'm not saying it's fine if we break international law becasue we're the ones who enforce it, I'm saying that given the current definition of international law, every country on the planet is probably breaking it as we speak. Unforunately, even when we can get people to agree that the breach is grevious enough, the burden of responsibility to do something about it falls squarely on our shoulders. This works fine under normal circumstances, as we are normally willing to assume that responsibility being the superpower in the world. However, it also means that when America gets a bug up its ass, almost nothing can stop it from taking whatever action it deems necessary.
No, we haven't formally declared war, and maybe our actions do not jive with international law, but Bush is currently acting under powers given to him by Congress in this law. Relevant section 3(b)(1), which is probably the closest thing to a war declaration from Congress in the last fifty years.
I realize that we're setting a dangerous precedent, but what's important in judging future cases citing our precedent is context. Supposing we find WMD, other coutries will only be able to use our actions in a few, limited circumstances.
it's not really a thing about just putting people in cuba because then they don't have any rights, there has been a base in cuba, at Guantanamo for years and years, they just had to build new facilities for these peeps. They have also started to release some of those people as well. Also they are being held indefinitely because there are only so many people that are ?qualified? enogh to interrogate them.My main problem is when we say that we put them there because then they don't get our rights, I don't understand how if we take someone prisoner and bring them here, all of a sudden our rights are applicatble to them, they are not Americans, when they get citizenship, or a green card, or a student visa, sure but i am absolutley not in favor of some kind of ?rights by association? thing where everyone that we take prisoner gets our rights, i can understand if they are here on vacation and they get busted for whatever, but military prisoners, no way, that's so not cool. aanndd, i totally can see why they aren't ?POWs?, how can the be classified as such if they didn't have uniforms, or whatever else someone has to have say, a commanding officer or a general, or a president...these people weren't even fighting for a country, so they can't be considered part of an army, it makes complete sense to me that they are not listed as POWs.
and by the way, i just realised this tonight, but the last time the the U.S. thought we were going to be fighting a war for a month, it ended up being three years, and the bloodiest conflict in the history of our nation.
God bless the U.S.A....and joing the peace corps just in case
also, remember that my quotes show up as question marks
trolllllllllaaaaaa!
that was about five years...those damn keys are so close together
Neo, go read the geneva convention on POW's again. It seems pretty clear that the captured Taliban qualify for POW status.
A few points about Camp X-ray and Guantanamo Bay:
(1) For the last 100 years, the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base has been under the "complete jurisdiction and control" of the United States according to an open-ended lease with Cuba.
(2) The US flag flys over it, it is serviced by a US post office, and money transactions take place using US Dollars.
(3) No one gets into GBNB without the US government's permission.
(4) The "illegal combatants" housed in Camp X-ray are there only because the US brought them there.
Now, tell me again how Guantanamo Bay is not sovereign US soil, and why anyone forcibly brought to that place is not subject to US law and protection under the US constitution. That's what the present administration is arguing. Granted, the above-mentioned lease contains a sentence stating that the US recognizes the "ultimate sovereignty of the Republic of Cuba", but the United States surely exercises de facto sovereignty over the area.
I guess the real question is: what the is the difference between "complete jurisdiction and control" and sovereignty? All I'm saying is, let's call it what it is.
Any U.S. military installation in a foreign country is established by a SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement)--that's the "lease" or a cocurrent part of it, a standard clause of which makes the base U.S soil, same as an embassy or legation.
I knew that was true of embassies, but I wasn't sure if the same thing applied to military bases. Also, interestingly, under the terms the US is supposed to pay $40,235 to rent the base, however, it hasn't been paid since Castro took office. Accordingly, I would think that bolsters the argument that it is American sovereign territory.
what rights?how about human rights?
i just want to weigh in with my thoughts about media coverage. i try to watch as little television as possible. and i rarely read the news in print or online. this saves me the headache of thinking about the poor people dying in a war i can't stop. it's pretty escapist of me, admittedly. and possibly irresponsible, as it renders me completely out of step with anything newsworthy happening in the world, thus uninformed. but i don't mind that. in fact, it makes my life a lot easier.
but, i have seen bits and pieces of news coverage of This War. and i've seen coverage of The President.
the news media's bias is pulled off so well that some people don't recognize it. Bias? What? in the MEDIA? Noooo. You've got to be kidding me.
of course we all know that bias exists in news media. but i will submit to you that mainstream news media in america (excluding radical right- and left-wing talk shows, etc.) has such a clever slant to the left, and they're duping millions of bleeding heart americans to believe that the slant is to the right, and are giving those americans all the more subtle, emotional nudge to react against the more conservative points of view out there.
"how is this being done?", you ask? by making the war look so outrageously buffoonish, and making the president out to be even more so. granted, its pretty easy to make him look bad. but i think they're doing all they can to make him look like the biggest cheeseball, even more of a cheeseball than he already is, and making the war coverage so surreal and head-thumpingly absurd that level-headed but naive americans have almost no choice but to react with fury and a feeling of conviction and justification against this evil war and its evil perpetrator.
im sorry. i don't have specific examples to support this theory. and i refuse to watch television purposely just to get more. but just watch and see what subtle tricks the news media is employing to tweak the scumbag-money-hungry-lying-politician aspect of our president. see if the way he is presented is manipulated by the media to make him look like more of a scumbag than he already is.
that is all.
That the media right now is being pretty supportive of the war. Much moreso than I expected.
Human rights? We put people to death in this country, so what about human rights? What about my human rights, what about the human rights of women under Islamist regimes? What about the rights of North Korea to sell nuclear weapons to whomever they wish? What about the right to go on vacation with out getting blown up because someone doesn't like the Coca-Cola Corporation? What about Castro's right to lead a communist "regime" with the best public healthcare system in the western hemisphere? There are no rights, express or implied by being born in this world. If someone takes away my right to live freely, I'll surely support someone taking away their rights.
I can admit that the U.S. has pulled some pretty stupid shit, but what happened? People organised peaceful protests against those things i.e. sit-ins, boycotts. The people that didn't organise peacefully went to jail. We do not have the right to go and commercialise ever country, but no-one forces anyone else to let us do it.Do you even know what goes on at camp X-Ray? Aside from the journey to camp x-ray, it honestly doesn't look like they are being treated to poorly, they are issued standard army kit, save the orange "boiler suit", and from what I can read, the only problem we might have is that their beards have been shaved, "to deal with lice", but they are allowed to re-grow them at the camp. If you ever get a chance to go to x-ray, let me know what's going on there, obviously we don't know everything, but from what we do know, can you honestly say that it is that bad?
From the Geneva convention re: POWs
"1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfill the following conditions:
(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war."
3. Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.
4. Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.
5. Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.
6. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.
Emphasis added to reflect what the U.S. uses as their excuse. Lukas, I disagree with you, although i will admit that there is some discrepancy as to their status at capture, but I don't think we'll know about it for sure, we weren't there, and they weren't beaming it to us live by videophone (I think that might be a little bit of why they are now).
also, i'm not arguing the sovereignty of Guantanamo.
My question is why do we need to give people our rights? Even if we gave them "our" rights, what are the lawyers going to be defend these people against, what laws do we have that pertain to these circumstances, are we going to charge them with treason? association with dicks? being dicks? poor taste? as far as anyone knows, we are just getting information from these people (right now) nobody has been charged with anything. They obviously couldn't hire a lawyer; they wouldn't know whom to call. A lawyer can't voluntarily defend them, because the lawyers don't even know who they are, the lawyers that get involved with this just want to make a name for themselves, nothing more. That's my opinion, chew on it, if you don't like it, spit it out and move on. We know we aren't going to agree on any of this, i think that it's okay to take away one person's rights to secure those of the masses, most people don't, it's understandable.
boxing gloves are 30-40 bucks a this store i know, we could just go a couple of rounds, maybe a free for all or something, a little bit of thai boxing...and i promise...no rear naked chokes...and that not a "reacharound" joke...sidenote, has anyone been subjected to that? It's really not cool is it? Make sure to tap out while you still can...i've got a good story as to why if anyone cares...ok...back to fighting about the "armed conflict"
It's not about giving them our rights, it's about giving them the rights afforded to prisoner's of war as granted by the Third Geneva Convention. I'm not sure what the emphasis on (a) was supposed to convey since there was clearly a heirarchy of command in the taliban. And it's not they there are being treated unfairly, although there are some questions in that matter. Further down, the same document you quoted states that any combatant that falls into enemy hands shall be considered a POW until their status is determined by a competent (and therefore independent) tribunal. There was no tribunal, there was only Rumsfeld. My basic understanding is that most international law scholars believe that they should have been granted POW status under Article IV, and I would agree with them. But, even if they are not technically POW's we still didn't follow the Geneva Convention in determining their status. This is why the US government comes of sounding just a tad hypocritical when we talk about violations of the Geneva Convention.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA -- International standards for allOn 23 March 2003, following the news that US soldiers had been captured by Iraqi forces during the US-led attack on Iraq, President George Bush said that "we expect them to be treated humanely, just like we'll treat any prisoners of theirs that we capture humanely... If not, the people who mistreat the prisoners will be treated as war criminals."The full statement.Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld added that "the Geneva Convention indicates that it's not permitted to photograph and embarrass or humiliate prisoners of war, and if they do happen to be American or coalition ground forces that have been captured, the Geneva Convention indicates how they should be treated." His statement came after interviews with five captured US soldiers had been broadcast on Iraqi television.
On the same day, about 30 more detainees were flown from Afghanistan to the US Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. This brought to about 660 the number of foreign nationals held in the base. They come from more than 40 countries. Most were taken into custody during the international armed conflict in Afghanistan. Some have been held in Guantánamo, without charge or trial, and without access to lawyers, relatives or the courts, for more than a year. Their treatment has flouted international standards.
...
The USA's selective approach to the Geneva Conventions has been widely noted. For example, with US soldiers captured in Iraq and shown on Iraqi television to the anger of US officials, a Saudi Arabian newspaper, claiming to be receiving one million visitors a day on its website, wrote: "Rumsfeld's newfound affection for the Geneva Convention is remarkable... The US does not believe that the prisoners now being held at Guantánamo Bay are prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. Pictures of the men there, shackled and living in cages, were distributed by the Bush administration to the world's media."
...CAMP X-RAY!
...that they are prisoners of war. I believe that they are probably being treated with enough respect, unless it is just totally disrespectful that they are in a POW camp to begin with (which is another question entirely). They have been allowed to regrow their beards, and they have a Muslim chaplin, which is pretty cool. That being said, I'm sure that some awful things have happened there too, in the interrogation process, because we are a scared country that wants the information we feel we need.It also seems a fairly obvious breach of the Geneva conventions that their pictures are being shown, etc, because they are obviously prisoners of war and we should at the very least stop doing that. (And obviously, be treating the prisoners compassionatley.)
They are basically being treated as POWs because no tribunal has been convened to officially decide their status yet, and the US doesn't want to be guilty of war crimes if they are found to be POWs. They are not, however, considered to be POWs. POWs cannot be tried, except for war crimes. They need only to provide name, rank, and serial number during interrogation. And, POWs must be repatriated after hostilities end.
Even if you are not a US citizen, when you are on sovereign US soil the constitution applies to you, and you are subject to American laws. This means they have the right to know what crimes they are charged with, and access to lawyers. If we don't have a crime to charge them with, then no, we can't hold them indefinitely. Yes, you can take away one person's rights to secure those of the masses. Congress is free to suspend habeus corpus for those considered unlawful combatants. Why haven't they?
"The use of tobacco shall be permitted." -- The Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Article 26
"Even if you are not a US citizen, when you are on sovereign US soil the constitution applies to you..."Which is why they are being held in Cuba and not on sovereign US soil...
Gitmo is U.S. soil. That is definite. I looked at the SOFA for Guantanamo Bay. Since I really can't say any more to take sides here, I direct you to history. Case in point: the Wehrmacht and any member of any underground organized Resistance in the War Two years. (And all countries involved had signed the Geneva Convention.)But I'm just a former Category I converted over to a Category II noncombatant, what do I know?
One point I'd like to make to muddy the waters (damn, it's murky in here) that on bases in Germany, while U.S. soil, if major crimes are committed on them, before U.S. military justice gets the offenders, the German Polizei has the right to examine them to determine whether or not to waive jurisdiction over to the American armed forces. Italy, too, I believe.
This can get particularly tricky if the crime in question involves a German national. Confessions to sexual assaults, in particular, have been obtained with just the threat of a German court and a German jail. The Polizei does not mess around.
I bet it's deeply buried in diplomatic and legal wrangling, so you could have a conversation like:Then, when you want to give or deny the prisoners something, you just delete as applicable.
- "It's US soil for these reasons $FOO"
- "Ah, but it's Cuban soil for these reasons $BAR"
- "Ah, but it's US soil for these reasons $FOO"
- ...ad infinitum
As evidenced by the case in South Korea where a U.S. soldier ran over and killed two Korean girls and was cleared by a military court. To make matters worse the military never apologised for the incident. How would that case have held up in a civilian court? or if they had run over American girls?
Well, I was interested in having that conversation in the hopes of enlightening myself and others, but so far no one has presented any reasons why it should be considered Cuban soil. I'm not even that interested in the legal wrangling part of it. I'd settle for a straight answer to my first question asking what the difference is between "complete jurisdiction and control" and sovereignty?<rant>This should be important to people. Here is literally what's at stake... should the US government be able to arrest me, send me off to Guantanamo Bay, and hold me there without telling me why or giving me access to a lawyer for an indeterminate amount of time because, "well, that's Cuban soil, we just have complete jurisdiction and control over it"?</rant>
<rant>Or should that be okay because while I'm there they give me shelter, three meals a day, and let me pray when I want to?</rant>
gary: I just want to clarify, I'm not mad at you, or even your cynical argument. However, I am mad:Dammit, thinking about it makes me even more mad.
- that people seriously say things such as "I bet it's deeply buried in diplomatic and legal wrangling" as an excuse to not have to think about how laws affect them. Whether people love, hate, or don't understand a law, it applies to them.
- that people all over the world protest in the streets at the outbreak of a war, but there is only silence when the most powerful country in the world sets the precedent that they can go into a foreign country, take its citizens away, and put them in an offshore detention facility without giving them a reason.
- that if people wouldn't let their freedoms get taken away in the first place, it wouldn't be such a struggle to maintain the ones we have left.
Believe me, the emotions I feel when I say "I bet it's deeply buried in diplomatic and legal wrangling" are far from apathetic. I am totally against this current war in Iraq, just as I was totally against the war in Afghanistan and just as I am against this whole asinine concept of the continuing war against terrorism that we are fighting. You can't fight a war against terrorism, the British government proved that when they tried to take on the IRA by force in what, the 50's or 60's (I don't quite remember when). The result: we are just, maybe, about to resolve the problem, diplomatically. The only thing that declaring a war on terrorism does is allow every tin-pot dictator around the world to legitemize their own conflicts: memorable ones include the Indians in Kashmir fighting against "Pakistani terrorism" just after September 11, Slobodan Misosevic testifying that he did not sanction genocide merely a fight against "Kosovan terrorism" in his trial in the Hague, and the bloody Israelis fighting "Palestinian terrorism".I live in a country that is supposedly pro-US but when I see what the US does it is sometimes difficult to remember that the hatred I feel for the US is actually directed at America (the politicians) and not America (the everyday folks, you guys). Whaling treaties? Pshaw. Carbon dioxide reductions? Fuck 'em. Last October I spent a couple of days deep in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador and the 'scenery' for the entire trip was filthy US oil company stuff in ripped out clearings in the middle of a national park. Ecuador is just a small country, so when the US government leans on them for trying to enforce their national park laws they can't really fight it. They know that the oil will run out and they hope they'll have some country left to attract tourists when it does, but they are forced to live for the now. When I think how much even a tiny fraction of the US's current war budget could do for places like Ecuador, it makes me so angry I could hit someone. It pains me greatly that my own government hand-in-hand with the US, fighting in Iraq in my name, spending billions of pounds on death on the one hand. When I think what they could have done with that money, but, well, being a nice guy never got anyone into the history books.
If you still don't believe how impassioned I feel then you should see and read what did the other Saturday. Words are not enough to describe what it is like to stand on Passendale ridge know that if you turn in a circle that nearly two million soldiers died in just the land you can see to the horizon. When George Bush and Tony Blair make their proud announcements about how well the war is going, that's what I'm thinking of, and I don't know whether to cry or vomit.
Wow, I only meant to check my email before going to bed ;)
Part of the pain is having it pointed out graphically how little the opinion of the person-in-the-street is worth these days when it comes to making decisions. This is knowledge that will live on long after the war is proclaimed over and the feel-good afterglow is dying away. Normally you can ignore being walked on by the gubbermint but now they're just rubbing our noses in it.
Although, to put it in an onion-ey kind of headline:249 Million Americans Avoid War Protest
... I think part of the problem is that certain communities tend to me much more unified in being against it.
That's to say nothing over whether it's good or bad...
I'm changing the world. Who's with me?
My uncle used to work for maxis in Indonesia, he's a dick. There is a good book called "savages" by Joe Kane, it's about the natives down there, it's a God damned shame what our corporations do to others
iraq body count
101 way to jam the waroh, and here's a a couple about the amazon
amazonwatch.org
rainforest action networkand this is why we can't do anything to stop corporations and what we can do to change that.
of course, now i must state that i don't agree with everything said in those sites, one of them thinks that the election in FL was a scam, and you all should know that I disagree with that.
you all know i'm an asshole, this is just going to prove it.Steven Wilson, the man found guilty last week of murdering his two young sons to death, has been found dead in his prison cell. I don't think that the story itself is funny, in any way. I do however think that the wording is a little off.
for PFC Lynch. From the early reports it sounds like she totally keep herself together and fought ferociously for her life... I've often wondered if I would crack under that kind of intense situation- I don't think you'd really know until you were in one. My prayers are with her and her family (who won't see her for months still) and with the families of all those who fell beside her who won't be returning to their families.
who's pfc lynch?
she is an army private who was rescued from iraqi captivity tuesday.
Otherwise people will notice that her rescue involved coalition forces attacking an Iraqi hospital (where she was undergoing treatment for her wounds) and killing some of the occupants.Today's new word, boys and girls, is 'SPIN'.
I have yet to see a single report of the SEALs "killing some of the occupants". Do you have a link?
I'll first fully admit that my previous message was deliberately inflammatory and I am, of course, very glad that someone will be able to return to their family.NPR's story yesterday evening mentioned the raid, that military intelligence thought there was a military post within the hospital and mentioned that Iraqis were killed in the attack (did not specify military, hospital staff or patients).
The only time I've since seen this at least hinted to in text form is at CNN where they say the rescue party encountered "moderate resistance from within the hospital". How that resistance was dealt with is not specified. MSNBC describes a firefight and that there were no coalition casualties.
The Joint SpecOps Team recovered weapons, intelligence, and munitions enough to definitely prove that they were using it as a military command post. Also, PFC Lynch's testimony so far is that they were using it as a headquarters, not a hospital, and the Iraqi doctor who supposedly tended her was brought in from outside, not a member of that hospital's support staff.This team was chosen specifically for their ability to avoid civilian casualties. It seems to me that this was a textbook hostage rescue strike on a military target. There was resistance (something that should not happen if it was a true hospital), more resistance than expected.
Here is the link: <html>http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/02/sprj.irq.lynch.rescue/index.html</html>
Clicking around CNN will get you most of the story.
Although most stories refer to her being held in a hospital, if it was not actually a hospital as such then this was definitely a praiseworthy rescue. We've already had the "treatment of POWs" debate in the diner with the U.S. looking hypocritical while holding the combatants at Camp X-Ray. If coalition forces are accused of shooting up a hospital this looks even worse. I hope the journalists have an opportunity to revise their stories as facts become available and are careful in their choices of terms in the future.As many have said, we may only know the real truth after it is all over.
Is written by the winners.
Hospitals cannot have armed troops quartered in them. You can guard the hospital but you don't get to fortify it or take any steps that might be construed as improving its defense or being able to fight from it. If you do guard it, you must mark it with Red Crosses/Crescents so it is clearly identifiable as a noncombatant/wounded facility, hoping if you must abandon it and its wounded, that the enemy will treat it as such.Structures of historical or cultural significance are also given special treatment. In other words, mosques and churches are not fair game to garrison, and should not be. However, if native forces garrison one of their buildings, and use it as a fighting position then all bets are off. However, you must still consider the value of the mosque (I'm using a specific example you may or may not have seen on the news.) In Kosovo and Bosnia, most have erred on the side of caution and respect by contaning the problem, and moving on to the objective without destroying the structure in question. It's a delicate balance.
Re; History is written by people,, not by winners or losers.
That's an excuse for not wanting to take the time involved to engage the subject or the question.
If you honestly believe history is written by winners, then why are Irish Republican Army actions or any sort of Irish "independence" group still hailed as heroes? Or why the Confederate States of America still enjoy a popular romantic groundswell in this country?
Show me an example. Who do you define as winners and losers in this conflict?
i.e. the great depression. all i ever learned about it was that there were ?runs? on the banks and then it all went to shit. Then i was at a british school and i learned that the U.S. had shut itself off from everyone else (isolationism) and so the economy couldn't function anymore...nobody ever tells you that it was our own darn fault...or at least, that was my experience. So the problem is that there are three or more histories, always. The U.S./U.K. has one, Iraq has another, and then there is france, germany, etc. etc. I find history extremely interesting, but i also find it one of the most subjective things ever ?created? by man.
in a bizarre turn of events a U.S. missle has gone astray in baghdad hitting arab news network al jazeera television. Of course, a U.S. central command spokesperson told BBC News Online, laughing, that it ?was not and never had been a target?...uh huh, anything you say buddy. Al Jazeera correspondent Maher Abdullah was quoted as saying ?We were caught by surprise, we didn't know that there was a war going on, we just figured that CNN stopped broadcasting over here because nobody understood what was going on?
Just before someone quotes Tom on that, note that the bbc article does not say "laughing."
He may not have been laughing, but he probably had a hard time keeping a straight face. Two missiles hit the offices and another missle hit Abu Dhabi's offices. Three stray missles that all happen to hit Arab satellite TV offices? Pretty hefty coincidence if the reports are correct. Al Jazeera's offices in Kabul was also one of the first targets we bombed in Afghanistan. UPI story
I wasn't trying to say that we didn't target them.... we no doubt did target them... but that it's not accurate to go around saying that the spokesperson was laughing while being interviewed, that's all.
i almost tried to copy that page to my webspace, and bullshit the article so that it looked like the guy actually did say all that, laughing, but 1) i know you guys well enough to know that y'all wouldn't fall for it. 2) ms frontpage.you have to admit that it's a little funny though, i mean, come on
Generally speaking I try not to read the New York Times, but the corrections page usually provides a good laugh, here are two from today:
"A Public Lives profile on Friday about Roland W. Betts, chairman of Chelsea Piers and a director of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, omitted the context for a phrase he used about President Bush, his longtime friend. When Mr. Betts was asked if he had 'his ear' regarding the development of downtown Manhattan, Mr. Betts said, 'Oh, you mean "the big ear."' It is not a nickname he uses for the president."
"An article in Business Day yesterday about the influence of Rupert Murdoch on the News Corporation's properties misidentified the Fox News Channel commentator who accused competitors of dwelling on casualties in Iraq and misstated the term he used for them. He was Fred Barnes, not Bill O'Reilly; he called the competitors 'weenies,' not 'liberal weenies.'"
sigh.
i'm fighting back tears reading that story.
I started crying in my classroom. That is devastating. What is the point of calling ourselves civilised?
No, no. I'm not bothering fighting either. What the hell were the parents doing when they were raising those malignant monsters?
troops are in Baghdad. i 've been watching the civilians trying to take down a statue of Saddam for over an hour now. why are they U.S. tanks helping them?
neoacerbitas:
I know lots of tricks. Check the url/address.
On NPR yesterday they were talking to on of the commanders there and they played audio from his radio communiations where he got orders from higher up to topple the statue and make sure the embeds got lots of pictures. Or maybe that was a different statue from yesterday. If I was an embed, I would feel like a total tool right about now.
smax, i need to figure something out like that.
I just wanted to say that I'm so happy I know all of you people. I read the article about the mentally challenged man who was beaten this morning, and I cried. So much was I affected, that I worte a story about in my diary, and then added it here i nthe fiction section. Just when I though nobody cared about anyone, any longer you people really see that this is a fucked up place we are in...Maybe we can do something to make it better and safe, and nicer, and greener, and all that good stuff I never used to give a shit about. As I write this in the middle of a computer lab at Columbia college I am in tears. the indie rockers are looking at me funny, and I couldn't be more proud, because now I know I have a heart.
they look really happy, i hope we can do good for them, i mean, i know we can but i hope we do
I'm glad you're here. And I promise your mix will be in the mail TODAY.
i always knew you had a heart.
This is insane.http://henrydarger.tripod.com/index.htm
Sorry I don't know how to create a proper link.
That article is yet the best example why in certain cases, juveniles should be tried as adults. I can't even . . .I can not find the words for that.
Concorde grounded for good
to ever have taken the concorde.
How long is the flight from NY to London normally? That Darger story is wild. It would be interesting to know more information about his life. What was his childhood like? How did he pay his landlord? Where was his family? Did they know him at the art supply shop he went to? Etc. Fascinating story.
about seven hours.
Darger's father died when he was really young and he was raised in an orphanage, finally running away at 16. So maybe the orphange accounts for why his story/creation revolves around all these harrowing things happening to children...or maybe that basic info. was in the story and you mean more like, the details of life at the orphanage. It fascinated me, too, which is why I posted it here. I first heard of him due to a Natalie Merchant song called "Henry Darger," and she was writing about him on her website. It's cool that he was from Chicago, too.
My wife bought Motherland awhile back and I listened to it once but now I'll listen to it again between these posts here on Henry D and the posts in the Jukebox on Natalie. Karen from the Innocense Mission sings on a Natalie Merchant song. I like the Innocense Mission.
and I saw them opening up for Natalie back in Denver years ago, and it was great.Although my sister says Karen Perris sings like "an elf on acid," I think she has a very pretty voice. Sorry, this shoulda been moved to the Jukebox section.
girls gone wild producer to be charged as an adult. It seems as though he asked people to lie about their age on the video, and the parents didn't like seen their young, ignorant, drunk offspring on the video that they shouldn't have watched anyway. btw, don't ask why i was at the LA times site. Also, use the same login as the tribune.
sounds too stupid to be true, but again, it's in the LA times. Apple is trying to buy Univeral music. link. maybe it's time to switch after all, helloooooooooooo sun.
I think that Apple would probably be more 21st century friendly -- hello iPod!
it's going to cost them five or six bill, which is all of their cash reserves. I have heard rumors of and apple p2p scheme, and this would fit into that pretty well, but i still don't think it would be wise.
It's always heartening to hear an elected representative say what we're all thinking. Especially when it comes to wasting our money. Rep Voinovich had this to say:"We've spent money like drunken sailors. This place does not set priorities. This place does not make hard decisions. This place just continues to say 'yes' without any consideration to the next generation." -- George Voinovich, R-Ohio
....because i'm referencing information learned in my NPU Mass Communication course. :)It kinda makes sense, sort of. Microsoft is doing MSNBC, AOL/TW is trying to integrate ITself into a super, digital media, vertically-integrated shop, Disney bought ABC (and buys all the Pixar movies... in that light, Apple's one of the last major technology companies to embrace an entertainment company. I just hope Apple doesn't make U2 hawk a new one-button mouse or something. :)
I'm just trying to do the math and figure out why Universal wants to sell a branch of the company (that makes $7bn/year) for $6bn total. If it's a fire sale at MCA, lets all pool some money together and buy a sound stage or something.
someone help me talk about the war or something! I'm afraid I'll be drawn into an argument about processor speeds and pretty vs. post-industrial windowing environments! :)
I find it very very ironic that the estimated cost of the was, 75 billion dollars, is just barely more than the amount of tax revenue lost by american companies with off-shore tax shelters, 70 billion tax dollars lost.
The Bermuda Project
NOW with Bill Moyers, of course, Bill Moyers is a buddy with O'Reilly, so maybe i shouldn't listen to him
There's an interesting article in today's Slate about the economic consequences of looting in Iraq. I'm not sure how many people on the diner are very interested in economics, but I am, so I thought I'd share. The author sums it up like this:
But in the scheme of things, this is small potatoes. Iraq has been systematically looted for two decades. This is, one dares to believe, the beginning of the end.If you'd like to know how he reaches this conclusion, you can read the article here.
Another fun article by the same author, on why people enjoy spending other people's money.
Interesting article. My brief reading gave me the impression that his reasons for okaying looting are that one, since they don't have anything better to do, they might as well loot; and two, that since the stuff probably was ill-gotten to begin with, they might as well take it for their own gain. This might apply to the presidential palaces, which for all their hyped up glitziness were apparently pretty cheaply made. But when the people are looting the hospitals, veterinary clinics, the uN food bank, the antiquities museum, and so on, it would seem that their time would be better spent protecting those institutions.
re: bill moyers--I read an interview with him last week and he took a couple jabs at faux news and I didn't get the imperssion that he was a buddy of o'reilly's, at least he didn't read like he shared that blowhards views.
Hit that post button too soon. The argument seemed to be that looting resulted in a net economic wash or even gain. But it seems to me that it will result in a net loss in both economic terms and cultural terms. Although maybe ti will result in an economic gain for the firms that are vying for the no-bid rebuilding contracts.
I think the idea, lukas, was more that since Iraqis aren't exactly in a productive state the looting has neither a net gain or loss. Sure the balance of wealth is shifting from point A to point B, but since the looting isn't taking the place of creating wealth, nothing is wholly lost.On the moral side, the author seems inclined to look the other way since he questions the legitimacy of the wealth in the first place. Certainly the looters aren't taking the high road, but it's not as though they haven't been taken gross advantage of for decades. Are the looters in the right? Probably not. Would it be fair to preserve the wealth in the name of former supporters of the dictatorship? No. Would it be feasible to redistribute the wealth in a way that preserves order? Probably not.
I understand the 0 gain argument, but my counter is that when the supplies of a hospital are moved from point A to point B, you are incurring costs that are not immediately apparent. The moral argument also assumes that much of the looted goods belonged to the old regime, which might be true, but I'm not sure. In answer to your closing question, as the occupying power, we are required to provide basic things like law and order etc. Not that we put a whole lot of stock in the geneva convetions...
Unfortunately they are having a net loss because the act of looting is taking time and energy away from many people who could be doing PRODUCTIVE things, and thus they are losing something.
BigJ, I think one of the points of the article is that it's not business as usual in most of Iraq right now, so the productive things people would be doing would not be getting done with or without looting.Good point Lukas about the hospitals. I'm not sure myself what types of places are getting looted etc. While it does seem to be the coalition's job, both by signed agreement and reasonable moral obligation, to restore and maintain order, I just don't see that as a poundable nail. We're talking about a severely oppressed people. they're poor, desperate and they've been stolen from, murdered and otherwise stepped on for the entire recent past. People were going to act out against old grudges, people were going to steal what they could and lawlessness was always going to linger as long as the people had use for it. That's the power of the populace. I'm just afraid of what coalition troops enforcing some sort of order would look like. Instead of talking about looting right now, we might be having a discussion about an American or Brittish platoon that shot 400 people to try to keep a riot from happening.
Pretty much everything that had anything has been looted, including the hospitals, universities, libraries (they burned one of them), museums, etc. As far as I know, only one hospital in bagdhad was protected by locals. US trops protected the Ministries of oil, irrigation, and the interior without incident so we could have protected the hospitals. British troops already shot 5 men robbing a bank in Basra and are slowly bringing order to the city. We just don't have enough soldier's no the ground to fulfill our obligations as an occupying power. It's a hard task and something we should have planned for. Sure would be nice to have some blue helmets on the ground right now.
lukas, as someone who has firsthand experienced the Presence of (Kosovo 2001),(and worn) the Dreaded Blue Beret, I have to believe that every stone of Baghdad would have been carried off, had they been there. UN troops in the Balkans get no respect---as a result no one wears the blue beret anymore because it's such a laughingstock.However, when troops wearing their national insignia, such as Russian Spetsnaz backed by Guards Mountain infantry come into a town patrolling for weapons, or U.S. Green Berets backed by paratroopers, diehards who would openly shoot up a UN convoy seem to vanish into the hills . . .as the Brits in Basra are proving, slowly but surely.
...had a really good commentary on Fox News in this morning's paper. I really wish the BBC was easier to get over here.....(i think this link will work after today, we'll see)
http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.cfm?uc_full_date=20030414&uc_comic=db&uc_daction=X
lord...
he was on death row and now he might really be on death row.
... i get it.
pedro: I must say, I'm suprised at that response....I'll write a post tomorrow on my views of looting, Fox News, and the BBC. I'm too tired right now. Stay tuned...
That I was disgusted by those articles? We must have our wires crossed or something.
of some of the world's evils would be bliss... I don't like to read those posts. I don't feel better informed after. I just feel sort of dirty and deflated. (Dirty cause my mind was cleaner before those images.) I'm not saying you guys shouldn't post em. And I'm not saying that it would be ok for me to stick my head in the sand (singing the theme from Overland over and over)... I guess I don't know what I'm saying.
Yuck.
Is that we gravitate towards stories like that. but for what? Because we like being shocked? Because we didn't realize the world was messed up?I know the world is messed up... and there is that sick, morbid side that likes reading those articles -- that can't stop reading the sordid details.
So I guess what they always make me wonder is, "why?" Why do we like that kind of stuff so much... we don't discuss it in order to be informed, so there must be another reason. I mean, does news like that inspire you to make the world a better place? I hope so, because putting it in my head (like so much Mr. Pibb) isn't worthwhile all by itself.
Like blvd, I'm not even saying that people shouldn't post that kind of stuff... I -- as one who has read countless disgusting reports on the Internet -- am just asking questions about why we do?
Okay, so maybe the blue helmets wouldn't do much good in Iraq. I think they need a new color or something. Like when a sports team changes uniforms to earn some new respect. I'm still just disappointed in our lack of respect as to the geneva conventions with regards to being an occupying power. We knew looting was going to happen because somebody ordered troops to protect the oil ministry. When russert asked rumsfeld about why the museum wasn't protected he shurgged of the question, called it a "wonderful, amazing statement" and said basically, looting happens. But hey, it's time to install the exile gov't that two-thirds of the population will hate, tidy up the oil wells and pipelines, hand out a few more rebuilding contracts (like $7bil no-compete to a Haliburton subsidary to fight oil well fires--what oil well fires), and pack-up our things and move on to syria. (Sorry, my wife's cynicism toward this situation is starting to rub off)
That the whole Death Row story is truly valuable in discussing and showing the lengths that a record company might go to in either trying to create a rapper or how people crack under the pressure and excesses of "stardom."
I wonder why this story isn't getting more play.In short: we bombed some camps of the Mujahedeen Khalq, an Iranian opposition group based in Iraq near the Iranian border, who seemingly went out of their way to show they had no intentions of interfering with the US efforts. This sends an odd message to the current Iranian government, essentially that we support them, though that doesn't sound like a message one would send to a nation comprising one-third of the axis of evil. Either way, I'd expect this story to be a little more prominent.
I suppose that with Saddam out of power, Iran would comprise a full one-half of the axis of evil now, not the scant one-third I previously pegged them at.
mass grave found in iraq, now, it's not even the mass grave that they found, i even have doubts about it because who's going to kill thousands of folks, and then mark the graves, that's like leaving a thank you note at the robbery. My thing is in the third paragraph where it says "During that period at least 100,000 Kurds were killed in Saddam Hussein's policy of ethnic cleansing in Iraq." referring to the 80's, now, maybe that was a long time ago, but still, fuck him for no other reason, that's the only reason we, or anyone else needs.
The New Republic's Hassan Fattah wrote an excellent column on the Palestinian reaction to Saddam's quick demise and what it means for Arab nations in the future.Money quote from Mahdi Abdul-Hadi, head of the Palestinian Academic Society:
"This has been a lesson to every Arab regime that they need to look to their people. If a storm comes from outside, the only way to stand is to have a constituency supporting you."
Apparently, we have children there. The line that gets me is "The children are still being interrogated..."
Charlton Heston has finally stepped down from his presidency of the NRA because of his signs of alheimers, he's also in remission, he's also alcoholic (from what i hear)
so now in sub-saharan africa you can get GSKs Combivir treatment for 90 cents a day, compared with 18 dollars a day in the U.S. The thing that we have in common with people in sub-saharan africa is now that, neither we, nor they can afford the drug.
...but still pretty fucked.
I feel bad for our president. I think he knows a lot more than it seems, and that his job has proven to be quite a thankless one quite often. reading newsarticles about him and other newsworthy topics, i just feeld bad for the guy. he's very inarticulate, which is a HUGE sticking point of way too many half-assed pundits, hecklers, and naysayers. reading his comments, _I_ know what he means, but he just doesn't always choose the right words to convey his meaning. and its sad that the worst of his utterances always seem to be the ones quoted. so much is lost re: public opinion and general respect when he opens his mouth. unfortunately, a man under such scrutiny almost deserves as much attention as he gets for this stuff.i don't like his war. and i don't agree with a lot of his politics. and i certainly don't trust him very much. but he could still be a respectable president if he wasn't tripping over his own words and putting his foot in his mouth all the time.
...supporting gun-control. and pissing off the NRA in the process. yeah, that same NRA who said if bush was elected they'd "practically have a seat in the white house."WHO THE FUCK NEEDS TO OWN SEMIAUTOMATIC WEAPONS IN AMERICA????
GO FUCK YOURSELF WITH YOUR SECOND AMENDMENT.
*whew* i feel a bit better now....
off to take my last final EVER.
there's the police, the army, navy, air force etc. the national guard, security guards, air marshals, pilots, rosie odonnell's security force, i mean seriously. 95 percent of all guns in the world are semi-auto. Guns bought your freedom, when we don't have guns and the gov't starts putting the free thinkers in camps and gassing them, then you'll understand.
semiautomatic just means you don't have to cock it every time.
In New Mexico it is legal to carry concealed weapons... What's the point of a concealed weapon unless you are up to no good? I mean, why shouldn't everyone see that you're packing if it's for self-defense? And, really, what woman in her right mind wants to keep a loaded gun in her purse? (mommy, can I have some gun? sure, honey, it's in my purse. just don't shoot yourself.)
well, if this ban is already in effect... how would upholding it change things?(i read the article, but admit i know little of what i am talking about.)
(and i wasnt for one second trying to say no one should have guns.)
(alaric, i was really hoping you wouldn't take that bait.)
if everyone thinks everyone is carrying a gun, chances are you won't get mugged.
Gun control talks... this should be a lively discussion where both sides learn a lot!
if people don't see it my way then they can go ahead and live life like a fool. I just don't see how "control" is going to help anything. Remember prohibition, abortion, now youth drinking laws and controlled substances...all things that the gov't was trying to control that were uncontrollable (in my opinion). Oh well.
Thanks for brightening my day, Tom.
On your housing form, did you say, "rural white guy with expensive tastes looking for similarly loose living but politically conservative roommate for parties, movie watching, and gun control debates"?Because I think it's amazing that you guys were roommates!
we had to look for each other. I'm not necessarily rural first off, and second off, when i first got here i lived with one Jake U (sounds like you lass itch). But yeah, it was cool.
well, im jumping after the storm has died down, it looks like.
we have plenty of gun laws, in my opinion. if we'd start enforcing the laws we have in place already, things would change for the better (in all legal areas, not just gun control...). if people got punished for breaking the laws by using guns illegally (i.e. armed robbery, murder in general, <insert violent gun-based crime here>) there would be a deterrent to breaking those laws. im not talking about light sentencing that goes on now. im talking about 20-life for _ANY_ illegal use of a gun. it would not completely solve the problem. but stiffer bans certainly aren't going to keep people from obtaining and using illegal guns. more laws are only going to keep honest people honest.
I just copied this because it was short and easier to do than linking it, but I think it's funny, and good that it happened in another country because if it was in the States then there would probably have been a big media terd dropped about it.(AP)COPENHAGEN, Denmark - A Danish art museum director was acquitted of animal cruelty charges Monday after a court ruled that a display featuring goldfish inside working blenders was not cruel.
The display at the Trapholt Art Museum in Kolding featured 10 blenders and invited visitors to blend the fish if they wanted to. Somebody did in early 2000 -- and two goldfish were ground up.
Animals right activists complained that the exhibit was cruel. Museum director Peter Meyer was fined $315 by police, but he refused to pay and went on trial in Kolding, 125 miles west of the capital, Copenhagen.
Judge Preben Bagger ruled Monday that Meyer did not have to pay the fine because the fish were killed "instantly" and "humanely."
During the two-day trial, a zoologist and a representative of blender manufacturer Moulinex said the fish likely died within a second after the blender started.
It was not known who turned the blenders on.
The installation was the work of Chilean-born Danish artist Marco Evaristti.
The Trapholt Art Museum draws about 80,000 visitors annually
LONDON (Reuters) - After intensive research, scientists have concluded that politicians lie. Read more.
The BBC details the methods used by coalition forces to break Iraqi POWs. It may not be torture, but I wouldn't consider being forced to listen to Barney songs for hours at a time humane. Full ArticleThe Smoking Gun reports -- MAY 19--It's not easy being followed around the clock by the FBI. Ask Steven Hatfill, the scientist whom federal investigators have described as a "person of interest" in the government probe of the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks. Seems that Hatfill got dinged Saturday in a traffic accident that apparently involved one of the government cars tailing him. According to this Washington, D.C. police report, Hatfill (referred to in the report as "P1," for pedestrian one) told cops that the other driver had been "recording his movements all day" when Hatfill decided to "take a picture back" of the surveillance agent ("D1" for driver one). But when Hatfill pulled over his Dodge Durango on Wisconsin Avenue and walked into the street to snap the trailing car, the vehicle, a green SUV, drove off, running over Hatfill's right foot. Adding insult to injury, cops issued Hatfill--who refused treatment from medics--a ticket for "walking to create hazard." See the police report.
Here's a good one.
after ten days of testing, I and my colleagues (aka, north park university choir) have determined that contiental breakfast is the biggest piece of shit ever dumped on the earth.
At Heathrow Airport today, an individual, later discovered to be a public school teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a compass, a protractor, and a graphical calculator.Authorities believe he is a member of the notorious al-Gebra movement.
He is being charged with carrying weapons of math instruction.
I'm scared of al-Gebra.
that the hussein bros decorated their rooms with pics of the bush girls?
Bull in a China shop
that's a funny
doubleplusungood
weapons of mass whatnow?
our ally in the war on terror
ethernet is thirty this year, happy 30th.
doubledoubleplusungood.
i mean, link
I'm not sure this belongs on the World Events page, but I don't know where else to put it. It's a letter to the Editor published in the New York Times on Sunday.
To the Editor:"The Tax Bill's Final Indignity" (editorial, May 30) has motivated me to write on behalf of my housekeeper. She is not highly educated or comfortable with speaking out about her feelings on the tax refund issue, except to express to me her feeling of depression that she will not receive $800 in child tax credits this summer for her two young girls.
She is a hard-working immigrant who proudly acquired her American citizenship two years ago, loyally pays her taxes, is a dedicated single mother. She is a distinguished example of what President Bush would like to see all across our country: motivated, honest, patriotic. She would have spent the $800 on violin lessons for her daughter or a summer camp education program, clothes for the 2-year-old and maybe a pair of shoes for herself.
Mr. Bush should be ashamed to have signed a bill that has challenged her dignity and left people like her wondering, "Why?" REGINA RODWELL-BELL Valley Cottage, N.Y., May 30, 2003
Link. It's the fourth letter on the page.
but yeah, what's the deal with this tax thing -- he's eliminating child credits or somethign?
no, the tax credit for children was increased, but only if you make more than $26,000 or so. I think originally the increase was for everyone, but they cut out low income families to make way for the dividend tax decrease. article
Paul Wolfowitz received multiple standing ovations during a speech at the first national convention of Shia Muslims from the United States and Canada. Wolfowitz is the Deputy Defense Secretary, and was one of the main planners of the Iraq invasion. Funny, I don't remember seeing this story reported in the New York Times.
it wasn't reported as "news" anywhere as far as I can tell, even the moonie times or the post or anywhere on google news, including the nypost. The post ran an article about the event in contrast with a muslim rally in freedom plaza. The article focuses on the rally and briefly mentions the small convention. The only other place i see the ovations reported is on frontpagemag. So what I can tell is that it's not a story, it's another strawman liberal media argument, and a poor excuse to take a jab at the nytimes.
lukas: you're exactly right, there was almost no reporting of it anywhere, but just because no major media outlets reported it, it ceases to be a story? Given the media spotlight on Wolfowitz as of late, it would seem to me that any public statements he makes are newsworthy.
A statement from Senate Financce Committee chair Charles Grassley on why they left the Child Tax Credit off of the final bill.And...
An article about why we don't need to lower taxes for people who don't have to pay them anyway.
didn't he just introduce legislation extending it to the families excluded?
Yeah, after taking tremendous amounts of flak, two bills were proposed on Monday. One by Grassley, and one by Blanche Lincoln and Olympia Snowe. Link.Best quote comes from Grassley: "Maybe I'm trying to take advantage of a political uproar to get as much permanence as I can and be as expansive as I can"
great quote
Raines finally resigns.
Also, in response to lukas and pedro's diary discussion, the Guardian has taken the Wolfowitz story off of it's website, and will supposedly print a full correction in Friday's edition.
I just realized I made it sound like The Guardian retracted their story in response to lukas and pedro's discussion. Influential as lukas and pedro may be, that was not the case. They retracted because the quotes they printed were obviously distorted and taken out of context, and backed down after realizing their title is The Guardian, not The New York Times.**Okay, I'm weak and had to get one parting shot in at the NYT. I'll stop now.
i wouldn't put it past the pentagon to "scrub" the transcript. not saying they did, but my inner conspiracy theorist woudn't be surprised.
What he said: "The primary difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options in Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil,"Now, Wolfy probably should be shying away from phrases such as "sea of oil" given the current scrutiny he's under. But I have no idea how The Guardian took that to mean "Oil was the main reason for military action against Iraq, a leading White House hawk has claimed, confirming the worst fears of those opposed to the US-led war." Which was their headline for the story.
apparently, the quote the guardian used was from a german paper which had been translated back into english. That's just sloppy.
i don't know about you, but I think Neal Pollack is a very funny man. When it Raines
Love is in the air...
Is this monkeypox mini-epidemic near you guys? The post article says the prarie dogs were purchased in Milwaukee, if I recall correctly, and three of the sicknesses were in Marshfield, WI...The Pox (please excuse if Washpost does a moronic pop up ad. Gosh I hate those)
Missing Weapons Of Mass Destruction:
Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense?
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20030606.html
by John Dean, former counsel to NixonThe paragraphs that made me say woah follow:
To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose."It's important to recall that when Richard Nixon resigned, he was about to be impeached by the House of Representatives for misusing the CIA and FBI. After Watergate, all presidents are on notice that manipulating or misusing any agency of the executive branch improperly is a serious abuse of presidential power.
This troubles me (from Dean's article): "Recent statements by one of the high-level officials privy to the decisionmaking process that lead to the Iraqi war also strongly suggests manipulation, if not misuse of the intelligence agencies. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, during an interview with Sam Tannenhaus of Vanity Fair magazine, said: "The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason." The only way this could be seen as "manipulation, if not misuse" is if you read 'bureaucracy' to mean 'dishonesty', which it doesn't. It means that even people who disagreed with the war still believed that Saddam had WMD.Also this: "More recently, Wolfowitz added what most have believed all along, that the reason we went after Iraq is that "[t]he country swims on a sea of oil." Will somebody please bother to do a little fact checking before repeating gross errors that have since been corrected? Please?
I'd like to point out that Nixon's misuse of the CIA and FBI was much, much different from any possible misuse by Bush. That being said, I'm not entirely clear how Bush asking the CIA to provide him with intelligence on Iraq's WMD production equates to 'misuse' of a government agency, considering that the stated misssion of the CIA is to "support the President, the National Security Council, and all who make and execute US national security policy by providing accurate, evidence-based, comprehensive, and timely foreign intelligence related to national security." Now, it's certainly possible that the Bush administration overstated the case or was acting on less than perfect information, but I still fail to see any instance of gross misuse.
There are a lot of unanswered questions about WMD. There are also thousands more places to search, and considering the lead time Saddam had to hide, conceal, or destroy whatever he had left, I don't find it particularily surprising that not much has turned up yet. I want to see them found as much as anyone else, and believe that they will be, but I'm willing to be patient for a little while longer before going so far as saying that they never existed and that Bush should be shot in the streets for lying to Americans.
Also, Robert Kagan's column on the subject is definitely worth reading.
Finally, I would encourage everyone to reread Hans Blix's January 27th statement to the UN Security Coucil, and decide for yourselves whether you believe there was credible evidence of WMD in Iraq.
The final tally of looting at the Iraq's National Museum of Antiquities. It's not nearly as bad as previously thought (in all, 33 priceless antiques are missing), but still shouldn't have happened at all.
brief because i've got a budget to finalize and i'm a weaselso let's say i'm not un-american and i support bush and believe his administration unequivocally. According the bush et al, there was some pretty rock solid evidence that iraq had WMD, was perpared to use them, and was a serious threat. One admin official even said they knew where the goods were. So here we are now many weeks after the so-called end of hostilites and nothing to be found. As a devotee of the prez I was convinced that they knew exactly where these weapons were. So I want to know how come we've searched hundreds of places and not a single weapon was found. I'm sure we were jerking that pansy hans blix around and giving he and his cronies fake evidence so we could laugh at them as they drove in circles out in the desert. But I'd think that we'd send our troops to the site the we knew stored weapons because a. we'd want to shut those pansy liberals up and b. we wouldn't want al qaeda to get them since we all know that saddam and bin laden are kissing cousins. We've got the best and smarterest military in the whole world so surely they are searching from the most likely place to find weapons to the least likely place. And considering the staggering amount of wepaons we knew they had, statistically you would think we'd have some by now. I guess they are in Iran or Syria, or whoever Bush get's a gut feeling about next. No matter what happens though, it's clear that Bush didn't lie. Bill Clinton lied about iraq and should be impeached.
alaric: you don't happen to read instapundit perchance?
I do read him.
I never said Bush didn't lie. My point was that we've yet to see if he did or not (and even if he did, he wasn't under oath at the time). I'm sure Bush wants to find weapons even more than you do, for both of the reasons you stated, but just because we don't know exactly where they are right now doesn't mean they don't exist, or necessarily that we didn't have a very good idea of where they were six months ago. Even so, I don't recall anyone ever claiming to know exactly where WMD were. Depending on your definition of staggering, I also don't think the amounts in question were so great that we expected to find them around every corner. 6,500 bombs scattered around a country the size of California over a period of five years are not going to be easy to find.Regardless of statements prior to the war, a lot of new evidence of Saddam's atrocities have been uncovered (mass graves full of children) that in my opinion justify the war without ever finding WMD. That however, does not exempt the Bushies from telling the truth about their previous statements.
MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, weapons of mass destruction. Key goal of the military campaign is finding those weapons of mass destruction. None have been found yet. There was a raid on the Answar Al-Islam Camp up in the north last night. A lot of people expected to find ricin there. None was found. How big of a problem is that? And is it curious to you that given how much control U.S. and coalition forces now have in the country, they haven't found any weapons of mass destruction?SEC. RUMSFELD: Not at all. If you think -- let me take that, both pieces -- the area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat. (em added)
Okay, so Rummy said he knew where they were, and then went on to say they were in an area of undefined size east, west, south, or north of the center of the country. I guess all we have to do is send troops to the area east, west, south, and north of Baghdad and Tikrit, and we'll find 'em all. What are we waiting for!?!
most people are not "under oath" when they commit acts of fraud, misappropriation, murder, rape, theft, or most other acts of villainy. in fact, there is only one crime that ever occurs under oath, and that's perjury, which is not what's at issue here. if we assume for a moment that bush and other dignitaries knowingly made false statements, or that white house aids knowingly authored false statements which were later publicly spoken, or that executive branch agencies knowingly produced false data as source material for public statements under pressure from the white house, then the fact that the resulting statements were not spoken under oath does not make it any less of an offense.
In the post previous to mine, it was insinuated that Bush's 'lie' about WMD was equal to Bill Clinton's lies (which occurred while under oath), and were therefore worthy of impeachment. Sorry if that one got by you.
so lying about a blow job is worse than lying about intelligence which ultimately gets american's killed?
U.S. Hunt for Iraqi Banned Weapons SlowsSo now we are going to a UN style weapons inspection team. We really exhausted all options before going to war didn't we?
We're talking about context here, not severity.Good! Finally! I'd rather have a large team of intelligence experts looking for weapons than soldiers. As you pointed out, "We've got the best and smarterest military in the whole world." The problem is that they're the best and smarterest at killing people, not searching for hidden weapons.
my reference to clinton was in regards to kagan's article and the general blame clinton baloney you read all over the conweb and I was not comparing or equating the two.
We already had weapons inspectors in the country. We kicked them out to invade the country because of the severe and immediate threat iraq posed to us based on intelligence that has come uo short. Why didn't we share the intelligence we had with weapons in spectors back in january or february? Why aren't we inviting them back in now?
But one that I don't know the answer to. I wouldn't be opposed to a joint search with UNMOVIC.
do I see Kagan's article blaming Clinton. He's using Clinton to support his case. How is that contributing to the "general blame Clinton baloney?"
I think a common misconception that runs through both the left and the right plays directly into how the government wants us to see them: omniscient and omnipresent.Yes, we probably have alien technology, and yes, some lance corporal is probably scanning my words on this page right now, but I think the fact of the matter is that in real world, practical terms, our government knows a lot less for certain than we want to believe.
It's somehow more comforting to blame a conspiracy to allow the WTC to be destroyed than it is to believe that evidence slips by, or threats are not taken credibly. Likewise, I believe it's completely possible that the Bush Administration truly believed that they would find mass stockpiles of WMD. Were they acting on poor intelligence? Probably. Did they really want it to be true? Probably.
The difference in severity in this case is that we went to war under the pretense of finding WMD, and up until now, they haven't shown up. Is it more probable that Bush was knowingly making stuff up (and somehow thinking he wouldn't pay for it later), or is it more probable that he took a bet that they'd find stuff becuase he didn't trust Saddam (or because he trusted his intelligence reports), and he may have lost the bet. Or he may have just been outsmarted by a dictator who managed to stay in power for a gazillion years even though he was hated by his own people.
But the flipside is just as true. There's a half of the nation that is just absolutely convinced this whole thing was a lie, because their intelligence has "shown" it. We haven't found WMD. Wolfowitz "admitted" the war was about oil. Bush allowed the WTC to be destroyed. If you take any one side and swallow it hook line and sinker, the "evidence" seems clear. If you give both sides a shred of credibility, it doesn't make any sense at all, because nothing adds up.
History is chock full of incorrect intelligence and plain old human error. Things that never should have worked but did, or definitely should have worked but didn't. Sometimes this is because of dishonesty or deception, and sometimes it's because people are fallible, and moreso than we want to admit. And sometimes it's because people want to seem more sure, or more bullet-proof than they actually are. Journalists, Entertainers and Presidents on both sides know this tactic pretty well.
I don't necessarily trust GWB. But I don't necessarily think that the whole war was a complete sham. And regardless of what you think of this particular situation, I think we can all use a healthy dose of skepticism towards whatever suppositions we think are undeniable.
Once we start finding mass graves I don't give a shit what our initial reasons were!
Thanks to the war the country has forgotten all about;
The economy (it is now officially slow because of the war)
ENRON and other corporate scandals
Cheney's investigation
etc.
Those are now no longer viable stories for the media. Thank goodness for the war! We no longer have to worry about the economy!
My cynicism is fueled by previously watching another dictatorial head of government ignore UN requests for peaceful mediation and choose a military campaign resulting in inexcusable loss of life (the opinion of many seniors in the military), with the main aim of achieving re-election through the Feel-Good factor. It worked. (Thatcher, Falklands, 1983 elections).
In that case the choice AT THE START should have been to pick the country with poorest human rights record and/or with a known tendency to suppress resistance in a violent manner. At the moment this is just convenient restrospective justification. "Here, look at the monkey. Look at the silly monkey.".
Actually, I'd support such a foriegn policy; thus my almost total lack of interest in politics.
the home town team (tell me if this doesn't sounds sissy) morelia's monarchs won the semi final last saturday, it was kinda like the the cops got away with beating up rodney king, exept everybody was happy. the final is this wed and a sat, i can't wait, hopefully i can get tickets (the stadium might be the safest part of town when the shit goes down).
Further lowering the bar, GWB talked yesterday about how we were sure Iraq had a weapons program and how we woud be vindicated by finding Iraq's weapons program. And weapons program is a pretty loose term. If we are supremely confident that WMD are in the country, why lower the bar? At what point does the bar get so low that we acknowledge that maybe iraq wasn't an imminent threat to national security?I have trouble believing that the Bush Administration would take our country to war based on lies and false evidence because I just can't believe that they are that stupid. But, in my eyes, there has been a pattern of deceipt regarding our build-up to war. One of the major pieces of evidence cited multiple times by the president was the aluminum tubes that were supposed delivery vehicles for chemical agents. This turned out to be untrue. Another major piece of evidence cited by the administration were the documents that showed Iraq purchasing nuclear material. Documents which were shown to be quite obvious forgeries. Much of our intelligence came from iraqi exiles which hasn't been corroborrated. At what point do we start asking why this intelligence was showcased before being verified and how much of the other evidence used might not be accurate?
Was this war based on evidence that was manipulated and exaggerated? Did the administration know that the evidence was inconclusive? If so, then why did they continue to use it as a cause for invasion? And if the desire for war was so great that specious evidence was used, what were the real motives for invasion? If we sent troops to invade Iraq because Saddam "tried to kill my daddy" and we did so based on ginned up intelligence to create the illusion of a threat then someone should be held responsible. If we do end up finding weapons we need to fire some people in the CIA because our intelligence was not so good.
hs had a series of documentaries on that talk about the first and second Gulf Wars, and the tie of people that have linked them and been given power by both Bushes and it basically seems like we went back in becuase it was unfinished business, and that to me is completely unacceptable. If we can get real proof that there was merit to go in then I'll accept it, but what we've been given so far is unproven evidence and lots of "oh don't worry we'll find it."
with pedro and captain here. i don't necessarily disagree with the rest of you. but they've covered 2 points i think are important.
1) There is so much we don't know, and our government doesn't know, and so much depends on human function that shit is bound to hit the proverbial fan sooner or later, and things will go awry, and we won't always be right, and things will look shady, and people will point fingers, and nobody will do much to SOLVE THE ACTUAL PROBLEM because they're all worried about covering their own asses. it's sad, but we are all human and all fallible, fallen creatures. i can no more point my fingers at any one person and assign them fault when i know my own shortcomings and know that i didn't do one dang thing to influence any of this whatsoever. and i don't have the power to make the top decisions, so i can't say what i would have done in their situation, given that i can't exactly assess their situation. people need to breathe and figure shit out and stop being so pig-headed and corrupt and power-hungry. but that kinda thing is bred in our society. it's a tenet of nationalism/capitalism as the system in which we navigate and negotiate. anyway, enough ranting on point 1...
2) Mass graves. on one hand, i myself am a pacifist. i could never personally take another human life under any circumstances where this was a choice. however, i understand the need for military action, and can only pray that those in power to wield such a weapon are using it in the best interests of, well, humanity, i guess. so, ultimately, there was justice in this war. there were innocent lives being taken on perhaps genocidal scales, and stopping the dictator perpetrating these atrocities is a good thing. i agree with captain, though, that we should go further. that stopping just on Iraq is lame. that if we are going to start going to war for the cause of ending atrocities and human suffering carried out by tyrants and dictators, we can't stop there. we need to go after the rest of them. obviously that's a big task, and obviously it would never end, to some extent. but if we don't, then citing mass graves as justification for war is a bullshit, double standard-type excuse for going to war with an oil-rich middle eastern country to get our foot in the door over there.
anyway, one more thing kinda related to point 1:
going to war based on incomplete information, and gut feelings about bloody tyrants is akin to having the cojones to make a big bluff in poker. some of you will stop reading here, assuming i've already discredited myself by mentioning gambling of all things. but hear me out on this simple analogy. poker is a game of incomplete information. the factors that go into making decisions in the game are based on many things, including probability, incomplete-but-substantial evidence, and gut instinct on other human beings. i believe the situation facing the Powers That Be was similar to this. so you have 2 poker players playing heads-up against each other. you suspect your opponent is weak, but has a hand more powerful than yours. you believe a strong move here (a bluff, essentially) could make him/her lay down their hand. but you don't know what they have for sure. you assess the situation, judge just how powerful of a hand you think they have, and just how willing they would be to lay it down in the face of a big bet. (assigning probabilities to each variable is a must, though can never be exact) if you figure the percentage of times he will concede the pot to you is greater than or equal to the ratio of risk/reward (amount in the pot vs. size of the bet) then you are getting good odds to make this bet. the thing is, if you are right, you must be consoled only by the fact that you won the pot. but you aren't necessarily going to see what hand your opponent folded. so you'll know with enough degree of certainty that you were *right* but you won't be able to know exactly how right your estimates were. anyway, the point of all of this is that sometimes you have to make decisions on incomplete information and gut instincts about people. and sometimes you are shown evidence that you were right. and sometimes you were right but there was no evidence shown afterward. </convoluted ranting>
A person in the position of POTUS makes decisions based on incomplete information on a daily basis. There is no possible way the a president can know everything about a situation because he has to cram his head with so much other stuff. Taking the country to war is possibly the gravest decision a president can make. It's a deicision that should not be made lightly and it certainly should not be made under false pretenses for reasons unknown. Let me quote the first paragraph of a piece be gary kamiya that appeared in salon:The decision to go to war is the most momentous one a leader can make. National security, relations with the rest of the world, vast sums of money and the lives of troops and civilians are all at stake. Intentionally misleading one's country about why a war is necessary is perhaps the gravest offense a president can commit -- an act of betrayal that potentially warrants removal from office, and could even be considered treasonous.Now, he certainly goes way overboard with the treason part and Bush will never be removed from office. I guess my point is that the stakes are a little higher. In poker, lives are not lost. In poker, your accountability is only to yourself (and maybe the ugly guy with the scar you got a loan from).The mass graves in Basra are a terrible stain on history. Whether or not their discovery provides justification for the war after the fact is debatable. Human Rights Watch published a report entitled The Mass Graves of al-Mahawil: The Truth Uncovered. The survivor's story is chilling. And for a real human right's crisis that needs some intervention, look no further than DR Congo.
(copied and pasted from another entree, written by me) I don't want to start anything, but it looks as though they might build a death chamber at camp xray. Of course remember that this is not final until the prez sez so. They just want to be ready so that they're not starting from "scratch".
(and then from captain)
This is one of those moments when I wish I was familiar with the Geneva Conventions and how something like this measures up. Neoacerbitas, perhaps you could parse this out on a more appropriate entree; or maybe I could just get off my ass and look. got off my ass, if only for a moment,
I could be wrong, but I've got one of those uneasy feelings that 'enemy combatant' does not mean the same thing as 'prisoner of war'.
Captain, you had mentioned the geneva conventions in relation to the people chilling on the beach in Cuba. Well they don't mean squat since we never awarded them POW status. They are in legal limbo that I don't quite understand. There was quite a bit of discussion about this several months ago. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to look at previous posts in entrees. If you log out, or use another web browsing app you can use this link to see the discussion.
they "aren't" pows, lukas and i had a lenghty argument about this in one of the specials i think?? But it's kindof scary to me, cause we'll be official about our mass graves. the link.
The discussion pertaining to Guantanamo took place around March 26th. If you click on "Account" at the bottom of the page and change the "Number of old messages to display" property to around 225 or so, you will be able to see the discussion.Just one missile: A letter to the editor in Bangkok's english-language newspaper.
Just one missile could help BurmeseLink. It's the second to last letter.A letter to US President Bush and British Prime Minister Blair: Many people accused you of waging the war over Iraq mainly because of your own benefits (oil).
However, I (a Burmese girl) strongly believe that the main purpose of this war was to eradicate "the dictator" Saddam Hussein.
If you wish to prove that the Iraq war was just for "the liberation of the Iraqi people" not for "your own benefits", please eliminate the Burmese dictators immediately. We need only one missile. Help us, please.
Thank you very much.
Konmari (exiled Burmese)
BANGKOK
Poorly constructed headline from the Arab News: Democrats target Bush with WMDs -- US soldier killed.
After receiving death threats, two UN workers in a remote area of Congo asked headquarters every day for six days to send a helicopter to fly them out. Ten days later when the helicopter arrived, this is what they found:Their corpses had been tossed into a canal and covered with dirt, according to those who saw the bodies. They were shot in the eyes. Their stomachs were split open and their hearts and livers were missing. One man's brain was gone.And what, you ask, did the UN have to say about it?
Col. Daniel Vollot, the U.N. Congo mission's sector commander in Bunia, said that all U.N. employees here worked in dangerous, unpredictable conditions and that the U.N. mission was not responsible for the deaths of Banda and Oran."We can't feel guilty," Vollot said. "Certainly, if we had arrived two or three days before, they would be alive. It's difficult, but I don't feel guilty about that."
Like I said, un-fuckin'-believable. Full Story.
at least it wasn't one of those UN missions that was comprised completely of americans...
That is just...heinous. It's sad to me that life has become such a devalued thing, from Congo-ites to us supposedly civilized citizens of first-world countries.
yeah if you've got the time to figure this out, what the fuck can you know about happiness? At least now i have a goal though....
someone found out the price of happiness, i posted it once but it didn't work.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/926241.asp
seriously lame. don't they get it?
that homer came out on top of martin luther king jr. or that mr. t made the list after all these years.
ten most popular americans poll taken on the bbc.
for Homer.
I voted for Kodos.
Al Bundy didn't make the finals.
From an article covering the constitutional Convention on the Future of Europe:
As president of the constitutional Convention on the Future of Europe, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing at first resists the impulse to compare himself to one of the founding fathers of the American Constitutional Convention."I won't compare myself because you will make irony about me, humor," he said in an hourlong interview on Wednesday in English.
But Mr. Giscard d'Estaing, the 77-year-old former French president, has already confessed his fascination with American constitutional history. So the temptation to analogize is irresistible.
He is Thomas Jefferson.
"I tried to play a little bit the role that Jefferson played, which was to instill leading ideas into the system," he said of his 16-month adventure in producing the first draft of a constitution for Europe. "Jefferson was a man who wrote and produced elements that consolidated the Constitution."
It's too bad that Mr. d'Estaing's facination with American constitutional history failed to impart him with the knowledge that Jefferson wasn't even at the Constitutional Convention, he was in France as an ambassador. Not to mention that after receiving a copy of the document, Jefferson wrote on November 13, 1787:
There are very good articles in it: & very bad. I do not know which preponderate.
cause why compromise with someone else when we can just cold cock 'em?
north korea promises to continue strengthening their nuclear weapons program, unless "concessions" are made by washington. WHAT THE FUCK!!!! make some goddamned concessions, it's not like we aren't going to move our fucking nike factories in their once they give up and force them into a horrible existence of making high school kids rich.Let me apologise, it's ok cause bush is anti-abortion...(that's out of context from a conversation i had with a girl yesterday about why clinton was a bad president) sorry.
I know this man does not represent Iran as a whole... but I must admit I have lost respect for the whole country afer seeing this. You can't tell me he couldn't think of a better way to protest?
if i was gonna set myself on fire, i think i would go for something other than the 'business casual' look. who wants to go out wearing an oxford and khakis? not me...
otherwise i would still be worried that i'm mental and nobody has the decency to tell me.
orin hatch.
i'm sure it's old news to everyone, but still
What an amazing moron. Apparently he doesn't know that you don't need a computer to copy and share mp3s. Also by destroying my computer you would only take out about 6 albums... I have downloaded so much more that sits archived far away from any computer or internet connection.Fool.
Maybe he should see my previous post... the look might work for him.
THAT WOULD BE TOTALLY ILLEGAL!
that's why they're going to amend the law to make it not illegal.
...is so fascist it isn't even funny. That's not a seatbelt law, that's a car that drives itself off a cliff just to show you what happens when you don't wear your seatbelt.
sorry boss, i accidently let someone steal a boeing 727!!!I think the best part is the name of the pilot who was sent to angola to test to see if it was "airworthy"....benjamin padilla...looks like josé padilla won't be getting out of gitmo any time soon....
i swear, it's at the bbc website somewhere.
Here's a link to an ABC News story about the missing plane. Link.
for the chinese cops that left the baby to starve when they arrested it's mother. [clap clap clap] if only they could've kept that under wraps like SARS...
The Selling of the Iraq Warwarning: long
well, maybe not like that, but pretty close.
it seems that nike ran an ad campaign trying to convince people that they don't run sweatshops, so they're getting sued for false advertising, and they claimed that they're campaign was protected by the bill of rights. nike smells.
Now, this being said, i must say that there isn't a need to pay people ten, five or even two or three dollars an hour if they don't need it to live where they do, for instance, people in mexico make between one and five dollars an hour (five dollars an hour if you have a masters degree, sometimes) which is fine, because rent in 100 dollars a month, if you're white) but, I'm sure that the ceo of nike is banking small indonesian islands left and right, so they could afford fifty cents or so, don't ya think?(all suggestions of what nike actually pays their slaves is completely made up, and probably way, way too much)
strom thurmond died.
Britney Spears Says She's Not a Virgin -- ReutersHere's a link to the article (not that it's worth reading). Link.
If it's not worth reading then it was hardly worth posting.
that the article was pointless. I posted it because I thought the headline was the funniest thing I had read all day.
someone wrote a letter to the editor expressing disdain over the fact that only seven senators attended the funeral/memorial service for thurmond.
of course, that's at Stalin's favorite retreat, in Abkhazia. They say the beds are short though.The newest medical crock, for 10-15,000$ a day you can get counseling for Affluenza, a dysfunction that only really, really rich people have. I'm personally wondering about insurance but, i guess if you can't pay for it yourself, your aren't really rich enough are you? Fuck that.
Rubber ducky you're the one. this is just a funny story that's over ten years in the making.
dude, the Affluenza thing has got to be a joke. 'sure, for $10,000 a day i'll counsel you until you are more comfortable with how much money you have'. of course, by the time you are comfortable with it, I will have it and you won't - at least at that rate you won't. and the guy disagreeing with the poll results? 'no. people are lying. we are all envious of rich people and that's that.' like this guy is more capable of answering for 10,000 humans than 10,000 humans.
now there's a man with some stones.President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan warned Pakistan yesterday that his country would no longer condone Pakistani aggression.Here's a man who is the leader of a country with no military to speak of and a conutry still being rebuilt from the ground up and he's laying down the law to Pakistan. Certainly having a cadre of CIA bodyguards helps in the bravado department, but still, that's just a bit crazy....
But he added: "Pakistan must avoid acts of aggression against Afghanistan and attacks across the border by extremists must stop. We will not remain a silent spectator."
lukas, see also: United States vs. England, 1776 and 1812.
Nice try but not exactly. The colonies had resources and infrastructure, and were at the end of a 3000+ mile sea line of supply and reinforcement. Plus, they had homegrown militia and the beginnings of a respectable army trained in its opponents' strategies and equipment due to the augmentation of British forces by local militia in the French and Indian War (which, BTW, is not the "official" name for it anymore, but I can't remember it offhand. They could also successfully yield territory for time.Pakistan and Afghanistan have a history of mutual hatred, share a border, and what remains of the Afghani infrastructure has been literally turned into chunks of rubble. Plus, Pakistan is most likely, if they do not have them already, close to developing nuclear and chemical weapons solely because India has already done so.
If the Pakistanis, whose aggressive military buildup against that of India's is likely to be one of the major factors of continuing violence in Asia, respond to Afghan aggression by deciding to annex the country, I feel sorry for the boys and girls in the 82nd Airborne and the 10th Mountain, because they're going to be in a three-cornered war.
pakistan scares me.
i think it's awesome that bill clinton told his fellow liberal ass democrats shitheads to back the fuck off of bush today. not in such terms of course.
Not guilty by reason of intoxication
who is his lawyer?...just kidding, it's "alaric do you go to that site often for news? it's a little, foreign.
volkswagen ceased production of the "old-style" beetle in mexico last wed. I think that it was one of, if not the, car with the longest ever production, i think that second is the porsche 911. The artcile says that VW's "flagship" is the golf, which i have to dispute.here's the link
here's a little history about the beetle (that's a lot of cars). another link
This is great:
"Bus driver Mats Lundgren, in the northern town of Umea, asked for permission to drive his vehicle in shorts as temperatures reached 25 degrees Celsius (77 Fahrenheit), but was told by his company that he could not. Determined to cool his legs in the inordinate temperatures for northern Sweden, he then decided to show up in a skirt, which is allowed by the transport company's dress code.
"In Germany state workers in the capital Berlin were given the right to leave their desks once temperatures hit 29 degrees -- which they have -- on the grounds that working conditions are too difficult. It was unclear how many were taking advantage of the rule."29 degrees. That's 84 degrees Farenheit. No wonder Europeans are so concerned about global warming, they're all sissies!
84 degrees? that aint shit.
Yoorpeans make do without all these sissy building coolers they use over here. No cooling in cars nor on public transportation (that's what windows are for).Having said that, the humidity doesn't reach what it does over here (especially that in the D.C. area).
Even without a sissy building cooler, 84 isn't that hot. I never lived in a domicile that had air conditioning until I got out of college, and I made do. I think that most Americans tend to overuse it when they have it. But then I did grow up in northern Minnesota, so maybe I'm more predisposed to enjoy any and all warmth than other people.
Yeah, persons, Europe is really really really a nice place to be in the summer.When I left Germania a year ago exactly, Bavaria had just had three days of 100+ heat with 80% humidity. No Germans or dogs were out on the streets. They were all holed up in rooms with blinds drawn and cold pilsner close at hand. Some of them were in Mass, seeing heat waves as a sign of the Apocalypse.
We did gunnery ranges with a British tanker unit on the next range; the temp hit 101F on the range, and we thought the Brits were literally going to melt. They were hauling three cases of heat illnesses and dehydration off the range per day.
They're used to scorching days being like 75F over there. They don't get heat anywhere near what we get. Even on the prairie in Minnesota, it can still get hot.
So cut them a break. Especially since bad agricultural conditions in Europe mean bad things for the economy over here, since we start going in farm bust cycles due to crop prices starting to fluctuate, especially grain.
brasileiros denied entrance to UK. just for failing a quiz about the beatles.
Although that sounds like it could be a band name, it's actually a very real tragedy.
today is the 40th anniversary of the march on washington.
this guy wants to be let out of the institution that he's been in for the last twenty years. I mean, he only shot the president, he only continues to look we tall did. I want to know what you guys think about this. I don't think that people should be allowed to get off like this, i don't think that you should be able to cop out of you crimes by "insanity". I think that if you're too crazy to go about life without shooting the president, you should fuck off and die anyhow?
so tell me what.
I don't think someone who has acted like that can ever really be completely free from supervision. It doesn't seem safe to me, because a lot of those problems are recurring tendencies that, if not carefully and regularly treated, can turn into dangerous outbursts. I'd like to see him given more freedoms if he is truly rehabilitated... isn't that what our justice system should do -- punish and rehabilitate -- but I don't think he should ever be out from the watchful eye of law enforcement and/or especially psychiatric doctors. I don't think that those kind of problems just "go away".
Homesick
Gitmo Detainees to Be Detained IndefinitelyMost suspected terrorists at a U.S. prison camp in Cuba could expect to be held for the duration of the global war on terrorism rather than face trial, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Wednesday.
baghdad?Despite problems in restoring and repairing Iraq's electrical system, Baghdad at night glows with light, he said: "For a city that's not supposed to have power, there's lights all over the place. It's like Chicago."
I thought this was funny. Communist and Anarchist groups at Berkely held a soccer game to "bring people together from across the political spectrum to build a community around the values they share -- and to have fun, of course." Read about it here.For anyone who's curious, the anarchists won 4-2.
I can't imagine the Anarchists following the rules of the game.
Wasn't sure where to put this, so World Events will have to do. I ran across this yesterday, and thought it was really interesting and amazing. It's a commentary piece from the Wall Street Journal written by Ion Mihai Pacepa. Mr. Pacepa is the highest ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc. In the piece, he recounts how the KGB groomed Yassir Arafat to be the PLO leader. It's pretty cool as an insider's account of how intelligence agencies operate, and the almost mind-blowing breadth of their influence.An excerpt:
Arafat was an important undercover operative for the KGB. Right after the 1967 Six Day Arab-Israeli war, Moscow got him appointed to chairman of the PLO. Egyptian ruler Gamal Abdel Nasser, a Soviet puppet, proposed the appointment. In 1969 the KGB asked Arafat to declare war on American "imperial-Zionism" during the first summit of the Black Terrorist International, a neo-Fascist pro-Palestine organization financed by the KGB and Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. It appealed to him so much, Arafat later claimed to have invented the imperial-Zionist battle cry. But in fact, "imperial-Zionism" was a Moscow invention, a modern adaptation of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," and long a favorite tool of Russian intelligence to foment ethnic hatred. The KGB always regarded anti-Semitism plus anti-imperialism as a rich source of anti-Americanism.
i wasn't sure where to put this, but it works well enough here. a thread started on TFT's off-topic forum is quoted below:"http://money.cnn.com/2003/09/24/technology/ftc_donotcall/index.htm?cnn=yes
>NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A federal court has blocked
>the national "do not call" list -- meant to allow
>consumers to stop unwanted telephone sales calls --
>just days before it was scheduled to take effect.
>Workers at a telemarketing firm place calls to
>consumers. The ruling Tuesday by the U.S. District
>Court in Oklahoma was a victory for the Direct
>Marketing Association and telemarketers who said
>the registry violated their rights under the First
>and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution.
>Judge Lee West ruled that the Federal Trade Commission
>cannot enforce the do-not-call registry. The FTC has
>signed up some 50 million phone numbers for the list,
>which was due to become effective Oct. 1.
>In response to the ruling, the FTC said it had asked
>a court to stay the decision blocking its popular
>"do not call" anti-telemarketing list while it appeals the case. [edit]
OK. So what's the first response? Call (or fax) the judge yourself and let him know what you think of his ruling:
The Honorable Lee R. West
Senior United States District Judge
Western District of Oklahoma
U.S. Courthouse
200 N.W. Fourth St. Oklahoma City, OK 73102
Rm 3001, Courtroom 303, Third Floor
Chambers Telephone: 405-609-5140
Chambers Facsimile: 405-609-5151
source: http://www.okwd.uscourts.gov/west.htm"i think it's a wonderful solution...
the do not call list will still be around. he ruled that the ftc had no authority to regulate the list but that the fcc has the authority to regulate such a list. to which i say 'huh?' Basically, the fcc already has the power to create a do not call list per a 1991 law and they declined to create one. And because the ftc's authority to instate such a list is not "unambiguous" they do not have the authority to regulate such list. Congress will probably have a bill on the president's desk by lunchtime explicity granting the authority to the ftc. So I seriously doubt the list is going anywhere.
our washington insider!
From an Associated Press article posted on CNN:
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- Belgium's highest court dismissed war crimes complaints Wednesday against former U.S. President George W. Bush, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, ruling the country no longer has a legal basis to charge them. [Emph. added]Former!?! Do they know something I don't? I know the media hates the Bush Administration, but delusion isn't going to help anything.
the article says the charges stem from the 1st gulf war.
But it's a pretty big mistake when you think about it. How did that get by the editors?
lots of things get missed by copy editors, they see so many damn things a day that their brains get fogged up.
must be insiduous media bias (although I note the NYTimes got it right). also there were other cases that were thrown out the involved W for the more recent invasion as far as I can tell. The AP story was corrected elsewhere and the story is gone from CNN. seems more like a simple typo to me. but yeah the editors should catch that before it goes out. I also would quibble with the assertation that "the media" hates the Bush Administration.
I bet copy editors are so used to seeing Bush and changing it to adding the George W that it's really easy to mess it up and get it out on the wire before your competitor. I can't type Chico, CA (which I do often for work...don't ask) without first tying Chicago before deleting that and starting over.
a separate federal court ruled on the 1st amendment issue that was brought by the plaintiffs and blocked the list. I figured the plaintiffs didn't have a chance so it's good that i'm not a gambling man. The decision in this case seems to hinge on the fact that the law passed by congress distuingishes between commerical speech and non-commercial speech. Under the law a for-profit company couldn't solicit you for a magazine subscription but a not-for-profit could. Polling calls and political calls were also still allowed. Congress could remedy this and pass a law blocking ALL unsolicited calls but they won't do that because they need their cash money to stay in power. So maybe the supremes will take it on and overturn the ruling. If they don't, I highly doubt congress will bite the bullet and reformulate the law to include ALL unsolicited calls.a piece of the ruling (warning, bad OCR):
Based on the forgoing, the court finds that the FrC's do-not-call registry does not materially advance its interest in protecting privacy or curbing abusive telemarketing practices. The registry creates a burden on one type of speech based solely on its content, without a logical, coherent privacy-based or prevention-of-abuse-based reason supporting the disparate treatment of different categories of speech. See Pearson v. Edgar, 153 F.3d 397.404 (7th Cir. 1998). Were the do-not-call registry to apply without regard to the content of the speech, or to leave autonomy in the hands of the individual, as in Rowan, it might be a different matter. As the amended Rules are currently fonnulated, however, the FTC has chosen to entangle itself too much in the consumer's decision by manipulating consumer choice and favoring speech by charitable over commercial speech. The First Amendment prohibits the government from enacting laws creating a preference for certain types of speech based on content, without asserting a valid interest, premised on content, to justify its discrimination. Because the do-not-call registry distinguishes between the indistinct, it is unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Having held that the amended Rules fail the second part of the Central Hudson test, the court chooses not to address the fmal part of the test or to detemline the now-moot issue of whether the FrC may charge a fee for obtaining the do-not-<:all registry.also I didn't know this:
The use of predictive dialers, however, often results in calls being "abandoned," when a sales agent is not available to transfer to the new call and the customer answering the telephone hears "dead air."I get these every once and now it makes sense.
Is to hang up in that 2 seconds between when you pick up the phone and the telemarketer clicks in.Interesting though, about the ruling. It does make sense from a legal standpoint... if they do reformulate the law though, and I think they should, you should be able to choose whether you want commercial and/or noncommercial. I'd like to be able to say yes to "charity" calls, but not to commercial calls.
I pay a little extra for caller id and I just don't answered the phone for "unknown" or "private" numbers. If it's someone I know, they can leave a message....
As per the commercial vs noncommercial speech, I am amazed at how we, meaning the current US govt & pop, interpret the Bill of Rights. The first ammendment protects an individual's right to free speech. No organization, commercial or noncommercial, is really protected by that ammendment... In fact, I believe that Congress has the right under Article 2 to draft whatever laws it wants to regulate commerce... But, whatever...
the supreme court has held that commercial speech is protected from undue governmental regulation. so it's not afforded the same protections as an individuals freedom of expression, but there is still a right to protection. whether it applies in the do-not-call case is a matter for the legal scholars.
...but they can also vote people out of office. People really want this thing... it will be interesting to watch!
This story found in The Hindustan Times (though the byline is Associated Press) may be something to keep an eye on. I'll post the full story since the link is loading really slow at the moment.
Kuwait foils smuggling of chemicals, bio warheads from Iraq
Associated Press
Kuwait City, October 2Kuwaiti security authorities have foiled an attempt to smuggle $60 million worth of chemical weapons and biological warheads from Iraq to an unnamed European country, a Kuwaiti newspaper said on Wednesday. The pro-Government Al-Siyassah, quoting an unnamed security source, said the suspects had been watched by security since they arrived in Kuwait and were arrested "in due time." It did not say when or how the smugglers entered Kuwait or when they were arrested.
The paper said the smugglers might have had accomplices inside Kuwait. It said Interior Minister Sheik Nawwaf Al Ahmed Al Sabah would hand over the smuggled weapons to an FBI agent at a news conference, but did not say when.
Government officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
Iraqi Interior Minister Nouri Al-Badran met on Tuesday with Sheik Nawwaf and discussed cooperation between the two countries in security matters. His visit is the first by an Iraqi interior minister to Kuwait since 1990.
I haven't seen anyone else pick it up yet though, so I'm being cautiously optimistic about it. Not to mention that I have no idea how big of a pile "$60 million worth of chemical weapons and biological warheads" would make. It may not be very much. Hopefully there is some more reporting on this soon.
the best part of that is how they source a kuwaiti newspaper without giving the name and then say that kuwaiti authorities will hand over the chemicals "at a press conference." Hi, we caught these guys, and here's some white poweder in a jar. Whoa, careful with that anthrax eugene...Lemme guess, drudge or instapundit...
Low expections for Iraq WMD reportcould be they are just lowering expectations, but my guess is that if they had anything they would be shouting from the rooftops about it.
I first saw it on Instapundit, though I see Drudge has a link to it as well. WorldNetDaily also has an account of it, but the only source appears to be the AP blurb, so who knows. Like I said, I'm being cautiously optimistic, and it may be that other media sources are trying to follow up on it and get few more facts before making a big deal of it.
The article does give the name of the newspaper: The pro-Government Al-Siyassah. No word on whether "pro-Government" means it's run by the government, or if it just means "resembling Fox News."
my bad. still highly skeptical though...
"careful with that anthrax eugene" Nice reference lukas. It's all a saucerful of secrets if you ask me.
nothing yet, but give me $600million and an infinite amount of monkeys and I'll write shakespeare for you
Here is a link to Kay's report. It hardly says "nothing yet."
That's just the public report. Who knows what was in the classified one.
THEY FOUND BO-TOX!
Search in Iraq Fails to Find Nuclear Threat - No Evidence Uncovered Of Reconstituted ProgramThe Stovepipe - How conflicts between the Bush Administration and the intelligence community marred the reporting on Iraq's weapons.
We are starting to demolish homes of suspected militants in Iraq. The whole collective punishment thing is working great for Israel...
News Story
So, Turkey has arrested suspects on the bombing already... it's hardly been 24 hours... definitely not 48. If we had a terrorist bombing here in the Good Old U. S. of A., (whether from domestic or foreign terrorists), if people were arrested within that short of a time span, people would immediately be asking, "How could we possibly know so quickly who was responsible -- and if we knew this so quickly, how did we not know beforehand?"Perhaps the terrorists left behind some obvious clues, or someone made a mistake somewhere along the line, but I think it's interesting because, from an international perspective, people usually think, "Oh wow, it's great they caught people so quickly," and don't put themselves into the scenario.
DOn't get me wrong -- I hope they got the right guys. But I'd be just as skeptical about Turkey capturing people for show as I would be of our own govermnent doing it... if not moreso.
Whoever is doing this stuff is definitely not endearing themselves to the rest of the world.
One of the perpetrators probably dropped their ID at the scene of the crime or something. Geez, Pedro, use your freakin' noodle. That's why the good Lord gave you one!
Walter: You know, these Israeli doctors just determined that, uh, Lenin died of Syphylis.The Dude: Yeah, man... I heard that, man.....
Donny: Lennon got shot.
Walter: Yeah, I guess they had suspected it for years, but they say they now have definitive proof...
The Dude: Wow... a little late huh? So, uh, do you think he was that permiscuous?
Donny: Lennon was asasinated.
Walter: Well, they're saying it was Neuro-syphylis... and that it may have caused dementia.. which may have lead to Stalin's takeover.
The Dude: Wow... The guy gets the clap and loses his empire to a madman.
Donny: Chlamydia is the clap.
Walter: Leave it to the Israeli doctors.
The Dude: That's a... that's a bummer for Lenin, man.
Donny: Lennon was assasinated.
Walter: V. I. LENIN, DONNNY! VLADMIR ILYICH ULYINACH!
sheesh.and now i have to go home and watch that tonight.
"The Chinaman is not the issue!"And friends of insectaphile might want to remember her experiences in Turkey re; justice and the Turkish state's legal code and enforcement thereof....
for someone who really liked turkey, she was never able to paint me a very nice picture of it.
That she saw the possibility and hope inherent in the people of Turkey might be a better description.
that is a much more optomistic way of taking it. I've been trying to be moreso, but it hasn't worked to much.
...i never knew that this happened 59 years ago today.
how about a new jaw
but there´s a new conspiracy theory.
what really hit the pentagon?
flash movie unavailable at said site.
i don't know if y'all have talked about this before...my question is, what happened to the 757 then?
There are pictures of airplane debris, like this one. It's just easier for some people to ignore anything that damages their case.Also, check out this Snopes page.
you've talked about it. I was just wondering
they sent a thing to the sun to capture wind. they trained stunt helicopters to catch this fiery object as it returned to earth. the parachute did not open. the helicopters missed it. this is all very strange.
the genesis probe, robbing a bank with a pitchfork, expelling students for last years riots (surely the school keeps the tuition at this point), a girl dying in a fraternity house a CSU and of course, marijuan found growing at greenbay courthouse. The best part of the article is when the cop says "It's a good thing it was brought to our attention because someone may have realized what it was and could've taken it and used it". I like that, because pot grows in the ditch out here, and that shit gets big, i've seen it up to seven or so feet high, so if these geniuses didn't notice pot plants growing at least three or four feet high, with baggies covering up the flower (cause you don't want them pollinated, or else it the plant uses it's energy to make seeds, instead of the goods) they'd be shit out of luck, and i'd high five the guys that had the nuts to harvest it. It seems that i know a lot about cultivating weed.
have made that post, it makes me seem really shady
There's either a roper conspiracy to plant cannabis in courthouse gardens and hedges, or, as you said, it grows naturally in these parts and sometimes it just happens to grow on the Man's land, which always makes for much humorous irony. My guess is the plant didn't have baggies on it for blocking pollination.
I know some people that think it's pretty funny to plant seeds in public places, especially courhouses and police stations. Back in rural IL I used to find plans everwhere in the woods, i had always figued people in there area were just unusually stoned. That was until I started finding the same was true here in Maine, SD, WY, MT, NY and almost every other state I've wandered in the woods.oh, and Neo.. I've seen the mover 7 ft. No plastic baggies, people must just kill off the males.
i hope J is OK.
bullet in your head
pictures from fallujah you probably won't see on your television
i do not doubt my countrymen's decency, and neither should you. i don't know what to do about this mess, but I know the answer is not more violence. if you look at these pictures and want more war you are not looking hard enough.
is he dead or what? I've read two reports that the N. Koreans have been taking down his portraits. So I think that mean he's either dead, and whoever took over after him is being real shady, or they are, in fact, getting new frames or whatever. there are articles at bbc and nyt about this.
that was cnn
I heard he was distraught over the death of his former consort and was in seclusion. it sonuded like experts were worried that hard liners would use this opportunity to take power from kim. hardliners in n. korea with nukes. one brief coup away from hard liners in pakistan with nukes. new nukes in russia. welcome to the new cold war.
Happy Birthday Princess
Search for Banned Arms In Iraq Ended Last Month
Critical September Report to Be Final Word
Four months after Charles A. Duelfer, who led the weapons hunt in 2004, submitted an interim report to Congress that contradicted nearly every prewar assertion about Iraq made by top Bush administration officials, a senior intelligence official said the findings will stand as the ISG's final conclusions and will be published this spring.President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other top administration officials asserted before the U.S. invasion in March 2003 that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, had chemical and biological weapons, and maintained links to al Qaeda affiliates to whom it might give such weapons to use against the United States.
Bush has expressed disappointment that no weapons or weapons programs were found, but the White House has been reluctant to call off the hunt, holding out the possibility that weapons were moved out of Iraq before the war or are well hidden somewhere inside the country. But the intelligence official said that possibility is very small.
The first thing to note in this article is that not only does it say no weapons, it also says no weapons programs were found. Now all they've got left is that innate desire in Sadamm's black heart to someday in the future obtain some weapons. These people have been proven to be wrong time and time again and yet they hold out for some inane scenario where they were all trucked off to syria in some secret underground railway. It's like the desparate attorney grasping at straws "Isn't it possible that the weapons were shipped to Iran? Well, it's highly unlikely. But isn't it possible? Yes, anything's possible." I also am somewhat disturbed by the subtle shifting of focus from Iraq to Syria and Iran. I wouldn't be worried if it wasn't for this administration's ability to seriously botch things up. Which reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw yesterday: I'm Bored. Who do we invade next.
Three people involved with the ISG said the weapons teams made several pleas to the Pentagon to release the scientists, who have been interviewed extensively. All three officials specifically mentioned Gen. Amir Saadi, who was a liaison between Hussein's government and U.N. inspectors; Rihab Taha, a biologist nicknamed "Dr. Germ" years ago by U.N. inspectors; her husband, Amir Rashid, the former oil minister; and Huda Amash, a biologist whose extensive dealings with U.N. inspectors earned her the nickname "Mrs. Anthrax."None of the scientists has been involved in weapons programs since the 1991 Gulf War, the ISG determined more than a year ago, and all have cooperated with investigators despite nearly two years of jail time without charges. U.S. officials previously said they were being held because their denials of ongoing weapons programs were presumed to be lies; now, they say the scientists are being held in connection with the possible war crimes trials of Iraqis.
It has been more than a year since any Iraqi scientist was arrested in connection with weapons of mass destruction. Many of those questioned and cleared have since left Iraq, one senior official said, acknowledging for the first time that the "brain drain" that has long been feared "is well underway."
Okay so if they are up for Iraqi war crimes and we've not got a sovereign Iraqi government, why the hell are these people still in US custody? Hand them over the Iraqis and allow them to be charged with a crime or set free.
surprise
I'm fond of Lewis Black's comment that if they had just gone to Kinko's and made about a zillion copies of a camel with a huge missile strapped to its back, even that would have been better than what we received as information . . ..
ahmed chalabi is possibly the world's greatest con-man
He was interviewed on NPR this morning and will likely be a member of the new parliament and from the other quotes I've read is pushing to be speaker of the parliament. He's finally getting his spoils. Chalabi also talked about the new governent laying down a timetable for US withdrawal and daring up a status of forces agerement. Personally I'm torn on US withdrawal. The best way to protect our troops is to bring them home now but we broke it we bought it (and boy was it expensive). I would love to see an agressive campaign to train Iraqi police forces and then begin a rapid withdrawal of US troops.But how realistic is withdrawal really? Contained in Bush's most recent $80bil request for money for the war was a line item for a US Embassy in Iraq to cost $1.5 BILLION dollars. That's the same pricetag as the new world trade center in NYC. It's going to be a fortress and will contain many many people. The Chicago Tribune reported a while back that US military engineers are working on 14 'enduring bases' in Iraq to house troops for the long term. I wonder if Iraq isn't the new Germany. What a great way to get new land for bases and embassies though. Shock and awe real estate acquisitions. Anyway, I'm just so sick of being misled by this administration.
I would be willing to bet any amount that the US remains a large presence (read controlling) in Iraq for the remainder of our lifetimes. Or until the oil reserve is gone. Saw this movie last night. Pretty good. From what I understand it's like F-9/11 only more historical. More anti "war machine" and a little less anti-Bush. It still made me want to drink heavily and move to Canada.
oh god, that's gross
Well, we're still in Germany, most of Europe, and Korea, so why should Iraq be any different?
I never saw this reported anywhere but salon and a paper in Bangor, ME.Some alarmist excerpts from the salon article:
Biological alarm in WashingtonUnknown to the crowd, biological-weapons sensors, scattered for miles across Washington by the Department of Homeland Security, were quietly doing their work. The machines are designed to detect killer pathogens. Sometime between 10 a.m. on Sept. 24 and 10 a.m. on Sept. 25, six of those machines sucked in trace amounts of deadly bacteria called Francisella tularensis. The government fears it is one of six biological weapons most likely to be used against the United States.
It was an alarming reading. The biological-weapons detection system in Washington had never set off any alarms before. There are more than 150 sensors spread across 30 of the most populated cities in America. But this was the first time that six sensors in any one place had detected a toxin at the same time. The sensors are also located miles from one another, suggesting that the pathogen was airborne and probably not limited to a local environmental source.
William Stanhope, associate director for special projects at the St. Louis University School of Public Health's Institute for Biosecurity, has been closely following scattered government and news reports about the incident. He's convinced it was a botched terrorist attack. "I think we were lucky and the terrorists were not good," he says. "I am stunned that this has not been more of a story."
....
Although insects mostly transmit the disease, there have been cases where the bacteria appears to have become aerosolized in the natural environment. Bacteria from a dead animal could contaminate some soil. In the right conditions, the bacteria might stay viable in the environment for weeks. The soil might then get stirred up and cause the bacteria to be airborne. Fifteen cases of tularemia were reported in Martha's Vineyard in 2000, apparently after lawn mowers or brush cutters stirred up contaminated material into the air. One person died. Public officials have theorized something similar happened in Washington: The bacteria got into the soil on the mall and it was the marchers themselves who kicked it up into the air.
It is unclear if such a scenario explains what happened on Sept. 24. "The fact that it happened in six locations would have supported an attack scenario," says Hinrichs from the University of Nebraska Center for Biosecurity. Hinrichs has not seen any test results proving that what was in the air that day was a deadly pathogen. Still, he says that government officials would have to consider the incident as more than a natural event. "To have found it in all six would have raised their level of suspicion," says Hinrichs. "It could be a failed attack."
....
"One sensor, I'd say maybe," says biosecurity expert Stanhope of the dust theory. "Two sensors is a stretch. Six sensors? I'm sorry, you don't have enough money to buy enough martinis to make me believe that it is naturally occurring at six different sites. I don't think you could get me that drunk to believe that."
As for how the bacteria may have erupted through natural processes, says Hinrichs of the University of Nebraska Center, "I can't imagine how it could have happened." Asked if he could imagine a scenario whereby F. tularensis could float around the Mall in the dust, Bender, an infectious disease epidemiologist, says, "Theoretically, it is possible." Asked if it could have been an attack, he says, "The question you are asking, 'Was this real or not?' That is a very valid question."
but not exactly world going to pot, or not.16 run from van after it rolled on the highway...three stayed with the van, it's funny.
So, i think saddam was guilty and blah blah, but some part of me, a significant part really, thinks that we don't know much about him. It sounds stupid, but, I feel that there were serious flaws in his trial. Admittedly, he wasn't quiet during it, but I feel like someone should have been there and like, i don't know, made his biography or something. I just feel weird now that he's dead.
The really interesting part of Saddam's trial and execution is that, for the most part, the crimes he was convicted and executed for were among the lesser crimes that he actually committed. Unfortunately, pursuing several of his truly worst crimes, gassing large numbers of kurds for example, would involve bringing out evidence of our nation's long involvment with Saddam's government, including providing most of the weapons he used to commit most of those worst crimes. One of these days we really need to stop giving weapons to psychos.
But that's what the US government does best, and then wonders why long term it never works well. Huh funny that.
USA!!! USA!!!
i agree with amy
a true success or not....
Apparently Italy was pretty slow to give up the lira.It's interesting to look into what exactly money is and where it came from. I've only really been exposed to the issue from reading Neal Stephenson's books, but I'll have to get a reading list together one of these days.
After I'm done with Smog... I had to leeee-eeee-eeeeave the country...
anyone want to discuss this?
There is such a thing as free speech, but it doesn't mean that a national media conglomerate should pay you to say things like "nappy headed ho".
I support his constitutional right to free speech. But I also support the right of his EMPLOYERS to decide what is appropriate and what is (clearly) offensive. I also realize he's a shock jock, but clearly he crossed a line and it is his employers right to do as they see fit.
i still think it's too bad, he can be entertaining without being a dick like that. I'd watched his show a few times and enjoyed it, but I never knew about the controversy that has surrounded him.
i agree with pedro. you have every right to be a douchebag. and your boss has every right to not pay you to be a douchebag.
I'm fine with his firing. I think he's a jerk. But his employers only fired him b/c of public opinion. Not b/c they object to things he said per se. My understanding is that he's said plenty of offensive things in the past (that indirectly made his employers lots of money) and wasn't fired over those.
To me it's just one more opportunity for the Reverend Al Sharpton to force someone to publicly kiss his fat ass. I'm sure it smarted Jesse to have been beaten to the punch and left only to hold placards in the street.My interest ceases the moment I spot either of these media whores.
pretty much like you say cap'n. I had some paragraph about how i thought about this, but that was during the outage, and I lost it...that's probably ok.
mental health care in the US
I think it's a good point that more focus should be put on mental health care being as important as physical health care. But I don't think we can stop the isolated incidences of terrible violence that we experience periodically. We can and should stop systematic violence when we can however. Crime related deaths in poverty stricken areas are something we can do something about with community programs and education. As for his writings, he was an English major at a university. Regular writers write very controversial things all the time. And they don't go on shooting rampages. We really need to be careful when balancing freedom and security. Kind of a tie in with the Patriot Act discussion that's been happening here about Tron, etc.
That's what alhp said; she was a writing tutor and she read some of his stuff and said that she didn't think it was that bad. I think the more compelling mental health questions arose from his writings and the totality of his life. But the issue of freedom and objectivity really are key questions when you start making suggestions that certain (non-criminal) people should be put away from society. Who decides that?
Thought about putting this in the going to pot entree...This is what I really find scary about incidents like this. It's scary that a single man can go on a rampage and kill 32 people, but it's scarier that this, and not the other thousands of people dieing in our country make the news. Never mind those in the various wars and military actions in other countries around the world.
And then to rub some lemony salt in the wound.
should the guy the police were chasing really face charges for the crash? I don't think so. what do you guys think?
the guy the police were chasing probably committed several crimes. causing two helicopters to crash into each other was not one of them. that was the pilots' fault. that anyone would try to blame a guy in a car on the ground for two helicopters colliding in the sky is just ludicrous.let's look at this another way... let's say those helicopters collided with each other and crashed while filming something else - a fireworks show, a politician's stump speech, the ribbon-cutting ceremony at some bridge - would anyone try to blame the crash on the people on the ground? i don't think so.
exactly my thoughts. It sucks that it happened but, i don't think it's his fault.
crazy
God Save the Pint
I don't know if this is good or bads news (being that it's one of cnn's top stories today), but cheers mates!
Next thing you know some crazy Americans are going to start suggesting that we should use that cockamamie scheme!"Hey everyone, .473 litres all around!!!"
No more rumors in St. Petersburg, no more tzars or tzarinas, Anna Anderson was a big fat liar (but I guess we already knew that), and all the romantics in Russia can shed their tears tonight
