Domain: cbsnews.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to cbsnews.com.
Comments · 2,894
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Re:I'm not surprised
the Tea Party has shown Americans know where things are headed
Pardon? The Tea Party has been wrong at every turn. They talk about federal taxes being high, when in fact they are at a 60 year low. They got fired up over "death panels" and "a government takeover of healthcare", both of which are lies.
The Tea Party shows nothing but that Americans are easily led by astroturf campaigns set up by billionaires.
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Re:Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
I'd like to think he's doing it because of near-unanimous Republican pressure
He was doing the same thing with a filibuster-proof (D) congress.
Bush had lobbyists all over his cabinet, while Obama has made official rules against it
Except for the Cornhusker Kickback/Louisiana Purchase / "every American must buy health insurance with no public option" bill (aka: Exactly what insurance companies wanted).
And appointing RIAA lawyers everywhere -- why block lobbyists when you can hire them instead?Now, is he as bad as Bush? Probably not (well, at least not yet)... but he isn't much better either.
Which is pretty bad if you're barely above that bar (arguably one of the worst presidents in history). -
Re:Law of unintended consequences
No child left behind is exactly the kind of counterproductive government program to which I was referring, thus proving the underlying conservative principle that more government involvement is not better.
And who brought us No Child Left Behind? Conservatives, that's who.
The poverty argument proves a third conservative principle: that the best means for improving people's lives is a robust competitive economy where the private sector can provide good paying jobs to allow people to lift themselves out of poverty.
But neither conservatives nor so called liberals (who are really socialists and not liberals), neither Democrats nor Republicans, want to allow a free market in the private sector. All of them want big government, the only difference is what part of government is bigger.
Incidentally, just because it's easy to correlate poverty with poor public school performance doesn't mean that the solution is to throw more money at the problem. Why are they poor and poverty stricken? Is it because they don't value education, hard work and initiative? Another conservative principle: the value of individual responsibility.
A conservative again waves a magic wand and declares an answer. Let me ask, have you ever worked with the homeless? Do you know how they got that way? I have and I do, at least with some. Even as a college student I worked for a day labor pool, and almost all of the people there were homeless. Not all but some of those I actually worked with, those sent to the same work site I was sent to, were some of the hardest working people I met. Another question, have you ever served in the military? Again I have. Well you may be asking what's the relevance of the question. That's easy, a lot of the homeless are vets, disabled and otherwise. Homeless Vets: Does Anyone Care?. Vets sacrificed their lives yet they're treated like garbage, though it's not as bad as the vets who returned from Viet Nam.
You may even say I'm part of the problem, being on disability. As a college student I was riding my bike one day after classes when I was hit. That accident left me with a disability. What did I do wrong? I choice to ride my bike at the wrong tyme on the wrong road. According to witnesses the driver of the van that hit me was weaving all over the road and it only a matter of tyme before he hit something. That was more than 10 years ago and only this past summer did I get any help in trying to start working again.
Falcon
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Americans
A 2010 Harris Poll shows that only 31 percent of Americans believe in astrology. But it's not a science here, yet!
CBS News -
Obama improved white-black cultural harmony.
U.S. President Barack Obama did an enormous amount for fundamental cultural harmony between whites and blacks in the U.S. simply by being a credible presidential candidate. That, I'm guessing, is why he was voted to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
CBS News video interview: WikiLeaks' Julian Assange..
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WikiLeaks video. Yes, Obama deserved the Prize.
See the excellent video interview: WikiLeaks' Julian Assange.
About U.S. President Barack Obama: He did an enormous amount for fundamental peace in the U.S. just by being a credible presidential candidate. That, I'm guessing, is why he was voted to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. -
Re:What does communist have to do with it?
Oh really? Then, explain how Obama went from biracial kid from broken home being raised by his grandparents to "community organizer"/lawyer to senator to president.
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GREAT video interview with Julian Assange
WikiLeaks' Julian Assange, we need you.
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Re:Best story ever. [citation needed]
I'm sure the only place records of text messages are kept are on the recipient's phone.
Doubtful, many government agencies receive the full contents of any text message sent or received by a phone with service paid for with public money. And according to CBS News, it depends on your carrier.
But even if that was the case, billing info would have been collected with the time/date and source of any text messages.
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Re:Oh, I laughed when I read this
Apparently a 1999 Darwin award winning entry, and I found a CBS news article that mentions it. But even stranger is the fact it wasn't one person involved, but two "coordinated" car bombings -- and both of them detonated an hour early.
Combo-fail!
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The "Internet kill switch"?
I suppose Mr. Obama wants an "internet kill switch" so that he can do the same?
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Re:Picture thing
It's going to ruin the Facebook experience for people like Oliver Sacks who suffer from face blindness.
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Re:Poor TiVo
They didn't "wait" for anything; this is in response to Tivo suing ATT
over software Microsoft provides to ATT for their U-Verse product. I dislike software
patents and am no fan of Microsoft but I can't say I have much sympathy for Tivo
with regards to this matter either. -
Re:What? The plane crashed?
If you can walk into a huge fountain while texting, then you can miss critical details if there is an emergency. Put the phone away, wait until you're at 10,000 feet, then open it up and keep playing your game. It's a 10 minute break - get over it.
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Arianna Huffington
Wonder if she threw a teeth-grinding "you are all a bunch of loons" temper tantrum like Governor Rendell did?
Thanks for representing my state.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7220372n &client=seamonkey -
Re:Home of the Free
here's today's news regarding a us citizen who (it would seem) has done nothing wrong but who has been tortured by Kuwaitis and put on the US no-fly list so he can't get home to the US.
Hopefully he wasn't on the same tour group as these other Somali men....
Sixth area Somali man is indicted in probe
A 24-year-old local Somali man has been indicted in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis on charges of conspiring to provide support to terrorists.
Omer Abdi Mohamed, an unemployed employment counselor and father of a 2-month-old boy, was indicted on charges of conspiracy to "kill, kidnap, maim or injure" people in foreign countries, according to an indictment filed Tuesday but made public Thursday.
Mohamed, of Minneapolis, is the sixth Somali man with local ties to be charged in connection with a two-year-old federal counterterrorism investigation aimed at finding out who recruited as many as 20 area men of Somali descent to return to their homeland and train and fight with the terrorist group, Al-Shabaab. The probe is considered to be one of the most sweeping international counterterrorism investigations since Sept. 11, 2001.
So, he traveled to Yemen and Somalia to study....... Arabic and Islam? I'm sure it means nothing.
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I stand corrected
You are right; Cantor's office being shot at had nothing to do with rhetoric.
"A preliminary investigation shows that a bullet was fired into the air and struck the window in a downward direction, landing on the floor about a foot from the window," the Richmond police department said in a statement. "The round struck with enough force to break the windowpane but did not penetrate the window blinds."
Bullet That Hit Eric Cantor's Office From Random Gunfire - http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20001283-503544.html
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Re:Being serious,
Better design would be to use the "dead space" around the Home Key for a Back/HangUp button, or Enter/Confirm/Dial button...
But then again, like I said, Steve Jobs' avoidance of buttons is pathological in nature.
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Re:Being serious,
No, seriously. Steve Jobs' hate/fear of buttons is actually pathological.
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What happened to google?
I seem to remember an old? 60-minutes piece on the culture of Google where execs drove normal cars to work and shopping sprees to shave off excess millions were universally frowned upon.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/30/60minutes/main664063.shtml
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Re:Dude.
>>>>>>Palin put a crosshairs over the congresswoman's face in a political setting.
>>>
>>>Source or it didn't happen. And before you link, how do I know that came from Palin is not just some image made by somebody else?
>>
>> March 23, 2010 4:49 PM on CBSNews.com: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20001021-503544.html [cbsneSo where is it?
I don't see any "crosshairs over
the congresswoman" in your link!
Lying piece of communo-democratic shit. -
Re:Dude.
March 23, 2010 4:49 PM on CBSNews.com:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20001021-503544.htmlso no link to where the crosshairs were on her face right? Here's a link to loony liberal DailyKos that targets her too.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/25/1204/74882/511/541568
Add to the fact that the guy is a loony leftwing
But do keep on. It's amusing to see everything evil (up to and including stubbed toes) is because of the tea party.
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Re:Dude.
Palin put a crosshairs over the congresswoman's face in a political setting.
Source or it didn't happen. And before you link, how do I know that came from Palin is not just some image made by somebody else?
March 23, 2010 4:49 PM on CBSNews.com:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20001021-503544.html -
Re:China the new global superpower, and US decline
The U.S. is in decline because a lot of people think the problem is overspending on the military. It's not.
No less a person than Donald Rumsfield (Secretary of Defense under both Gerald Ford and George W. Bush) would seem to disagree with you:
"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.
$2.3 trillion -- that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million.
"We know it's gone. But we don't know what they spent it on," said Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service.
Here's the source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml
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Re:Rich protecting themselves
Ever hear of someone being charged with a hate crime for hitting a white person?
Yes, actually. May I suggest that next time you have a question about crime statistics, you head over to the FBI's website and scope out the Uniform Crime Reports? There, you could learn that for 2009, there were 668 victims of racially motivated hate crimes against whites, including 3 murders, 2 rapes, 113 aggravated assaults, and 191 simple assaults. I don't know how many of these were solved, charged, or convicted, but appearance in the UCR means the cops labeled it a hate crime.
Or you could use a little Google-fu before you spout off about how "I've never heard about XYZ happening!" You would have quickly found out, for example, about Ronald Taylor, a black man who in 2000 was charged with hate crimes after a murder spree targeting white people. He was convicted and sentenced to death; one of the prosecution's arguments against the insanity defense was that he was "competent" enough to only target whites.
All this hate crime bullshit is nothing but racism, pure and simple. You hit or kill someone, you go to jail. It shouldn't matter what color or sex they are.
The problem is that that wasn't happening. People have been known to get away with beating and killing gays, blacks, Jews, Mexicans, women, etc., because of indifference in broader society. There's also the fact that such crimes are often intended not just as assaults against individuals but as threats against other members of that group: "This'll teach those (gays, blacks, Jews, Mexicans, women, etc.) what happens if they try to (move here, vote, get a job, fall in love with the wrong type of person, etc.)!"
Now, I don't think laws that just increase penalties for crimes against gays, blacks, Jews, Mexicans, women, etc., are the right solution. Assaulting people is a crime; threatening people is a crime; the law ought to be crafted such that assaulting people in a manner that is intended as a threat to a group is prosecuted as both an assault and a threat.
But we have to acknowledge that there is a problem that these laws are trying to solve. And not all hate crime laws are about stiffer penalties based on "protected classes"; some are about enforcement. A law that makes cops arrest assaulters, even if the assaultee was gay, black, Jewish, Mexican, a women, etc., is a good hate crime law. A law that gather statistics on hate crimes is a good hate crime law. A law that calls for different types of rehabilitation efforts for a hate crime perpetrator versus someone needing anger management therapy might, depending on details, be a good hate crime law. (That's pretending, of course, that our prison-industrial complex gave a damn about rehabilitation.)
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Re:Rich protecting themselves
Ever hear of someone being charged with a hate crime for hitting a white person?
Yes, actually. May I suggest that next time you have a question about crime statistics, you head over to the FBI's website and scope out the Uniform Crime Reports? There, you could learn that for 2009, there were 668 victims of racially motivated hate crimes against whites, including 3 murders, 2 rapes, 113 aggravated assaults, and 191 simple assaults. I don't know how many of these were solved, charged, or convicted, but appearance in the UCR means the cops labeled it a hate crime.
Or you could use a little Google-fu before you spout off about how "I've never heard about XYZ happening!" You would have quickly found out, for example, about Ronald Taylor, a black man who in 2000 was charged with hate crimes after a murder spree targeting white people. He was convicted and sentenced to death; one of the prosecution's arguments against the insanity defense was that he was "competent" enough to only target whites.
All this hate crime bullshit is nothing but racism, pure and simple. You hit or kill someone, you go to jail. It shouldn't matter what color or sex they are.
The problem is that that wasn't happening. People have been known to get away with beating and killing gays, blacks, Jews, Mexicans, women, etc., because of indifference in broader society. There's also the fact that such crimes are often intended not just as assaults against individuals but as threats against other members of that group: "This'll teach those (gays, blacks, Jews, Mexicans, women, etc.) what happens if they try to (move here, vote, get a job, fall in love with the wrong type of person, etc.)!"
Now, I don't think laws that just increase penalties for crimes against gays, blacks, Jews, Mexicans, women, etc., are the right solution. Assaulting people is a crime; threatening people is a crime; the law ought to be crafted such that assaulting people in a manner that is intended as a threat to a group is prosecuted as both an assault and a threat.
But we have to acknowledge that there is a problem that these laws are trying to solve. And not all hate crime laws are about stiffer penalties based on "protected classes"; some are about enforcement. A law that makes cops arrest assaulters, even if the assaultee was gay, black, Jewish, Mexican, a women, etc., is a good hate crime law. A law that gather statistics on hate crimes is a good hate crime law. A law that calls for different types of rehabilitation efforts for a hate crime perpetrator versus someone needing anger management therapy might, depending on details, be a good hate crime law. (That's pretending, of course, that our prison-industrial complex gave a damn about rehabilitation.)
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Re:Fallout...
An yet, oddly enough, Wikileaks is providing funds for Mannings defense.... it just happens to fall far short of what was expected, or needed.
So far, Paterson said Manning's American supporters have raised about $50,000, and they had reached an earlier verbal agreement with WikiLeaks to cover the rest after WikiLeaks began publicly soliciting funds on Manning's behalf in July.
However, WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said last week they would be donating only $20,000 to the funds. Late Tuesday, Hrafnsson said in an e-mail to The Washington Post that there had been a misunderstanding about the status of the payment had been "rectified" and the "payment is being processed now." Is WikiLeaks Reneging on its Financial Promise to Bradley Manning?
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Re:Fallout...
Wikileaks protects their sources as much as any journalist does, and for the exact same reason. If you don't protect your sources, you won't have any sources to protect.
Is WikiLeaks Reneging on its Financial Promise to Bradley Manning?
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Re:Magical thinking
And if there is no Monsters from the moon?
Why the TSA fabricates a bomb in an insulated beverage container, and uses that fabricated bomb as justification for more scare tactics.
That's right, they actually built a demo unit to show how it would be done, paraded that before TV cameras.
That't right folks. The only people who have fashioned a beverage container bomb is the TSA.
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Re:hmm
So is he waffling on his long-time insistence that he is not wikileaks, but merely a member?
If he is just a member, he is clearly a member with "benefits".
Julian Assange paid two thirds of WikiLeaks salary budget
That makes for an interesting contrast to the way Assange / Wikileaks has treated the alleged primary source of the classified US government documents they've been so recently leaking:
Is WikiLeaks Reneging on its Financial Promise to Bradley Manning?
As to how he views himself....
Now that shadowy organization Wikileaks has unleashed another wave of military field reports, people want to know more about its founder, Julian Assange. According to a Times profile today, he's running Wikileaks with an iron fist.
Even remotely, his style is imperious. When Herbert Snorrason, a 25-year-old political activist in Iceland, questioned Mr. Assange’s judgment over a number of issues in an online exchange last month, Mr. Assange was uncompromising. “I don’t like your tone,” he said, according to a transcript. “If it continues, you’re out.”
Mr. Assange cast himself as indispensable. “I am the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier, and all the rest,” he said. “If you have a problem with me,” he told Mr. Snorrason, using an expletive, he should quit.
A reported twelve Wikileaks members have left. Julian Assange: On the Run, Even During CNN Interviews
Pied Piper Julian Assange brooks no dissent in land of WikiLeaks
I guess the above also explains: ‘Chaos’ at WikiLeaks Follows Assange Arrest
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Digital Photocopiers Loaded With Secrets
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Re:But Of Course
One possibility is that Wikileaks and Assange are losing public support.
They are.
WikiLeaks: A Document Dump Too Far
WikiLeaks Comes Under Fire from Rights Groups
Reports that Wikileaks released the names of Afghan informants hasn't helped
Sad, but true. Hopefully none are killed. We need as many informants against the Taliban as we can, both to protect the Afghans, and to protect the US from more terrorist attacks.
WikiLeaks Reportedly Outs 100s of Afghan Informants
profiles of Assange (such as the one in the New York Times) don't paint him in a very flattering light.
They aren't the only ones.
10 days in Sweden: the full allegations against Julian Assange
No one gains from this 'rape-rape' defence of Julian Assange
My understanding from the Times article is that even within Wikileaks, there is a lot of controversy about how Assange has acted.
Is WikiLeaks Reneging on its Financial Promise to Bradley Manning?
Former WikiLeaks Activists to Launch New Whistleblowing Site
‘Chaos’ at WikiLeaks Follows Assange Arrest
Although not internal to Wikileaks, thought provoking.
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Re:But Of Course
One possibility is that Wikileaks and Assange are losing public support.
They are.
WikiLeaks: A Document Dump Too Far
WikiLeaks Comes Under Fire from Rights Groups
Reports that Wikileaks released the names of Afghan informants hasn't helped
Sad, but true. Hopefully none are killed. We need as many informants against the Taliban as we can, both to protect the Afghans, and to protect the US from more terrorist attacks.
WikiLeaks Reportedly Outs 100s of Afghan Informants
profiles of Assange (such as the one in the New York Times) don't paint him in a very flattering light.
They aren't the only ones.
10 days in Sweden: the full allegations against Julian Assange
No one gains from this 'rape-rape' defence of Julian Assange
My understanding from the Times article is that even within Wikileaks, there is a lot of controversy about how Assange has acted.
Is WikiLeaks Reneging on its Financial Promise to Bradley Manning?
Former WikiLeaks Activists to Launch New Whistleblowing Site
‘Chaos’ at WikiLeaks Follows Assange Arrest
Although not internal to Wikileaks, thought provoking.
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Re:What a suprise
Because courts say it does not: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/06/tech/main6368331.shtml
Because congress majority says it does not: http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/100487-after-republican-letter-over-240-house-members-oppose-fcc-planBut what does it matter what federal courts and elected representatives say when an unelected five man commission says otherwise with a 3-2 vote, right?
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Re:Color me Stupid
Fire them all. How can we expect 20 and 30 year incumbents to represent anything other than the political elite? After 30 years in office they have no idea what normal life is like. Heck, there's at least one congress critter who admitted that he's never used an ATM!
Honestly we need two major reforms. The first being term limits for both houses of congress. The second would be to repeal the 17th amendment. The reason for repealing the 17th amendment is to give the states some representation in the federal government again. When the states have no representation the Fed over reaches, which is what we have today.
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Re:Cut YouCut
So, a lower income person buys a tv from Walmart for $324. 8% of that is sales tax, resulting in $24 going to the government, $40 goes to store overhead (including wages, utilities, shipping, shrinkage, profit, etc) and $260 is sent to South Korea, Taiwan, China or whatever. We end up with $64 injected into our economy out of $324. Now, lets suppose they bought that tv with stimulus money. So, we went $324 in debt to buy someone a tv in the hopes that it would stimulate the economy, while 80% of that money went toward stimulating a foreign economy rather than our own. And it isn't just tvs, think of all the stuff that is manufacturered elsewhere, processed food, toys, "durable" goods, etc, especially on the low end of things since poorer people can't afford luxury quality goods, and tell me how that isn't a waste.
On the other hand, some rich dude puts $3 million in the bank (about as close as you can come to not investing it short of putting it in your mattress, which almost nobody does), the bank, in turn loans it to someone wanting to start a business. That business then creates jobs, employing some of those poorer people so they aren't getting a handout from the taxpayers, while providing a good or service locally that they need. Oh, wait, we, the government, took his $3 million because he's an evil rich bastard that doesn't deserve it, and gave it to those poor people buying $300 tvs, so the business never got started (opportunity cost) and the money went overseas with nothing to show for it to top it off.
Keynesian economics has never been proven to be successful and it could only be successful if the money went back into the local economy (ignoring the Broken Window Fallacy). In the modern world of foreign production and international trade, it is absolutely guaranteed to fail. Further, it is even easier to renounce Keynesian economics after you realize that in the good times, governments never pay back the debts they created trying to stimulate in the bad times... yet most people blindly champion it today because they've never really thought about it critically. -
Re:Does this mean...
"t long last, the Fox network can successfully document and store (some of) the enormous amounts of spin generated by its commentators.
CNN better not hope this technology is perfected then I guess.
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Re:interesting
Surprised? We don't do anything to stop something until it's already happened *at least* once.
The day after a foreign* terrorist uses a light aircraft in an attack is the day the general aviation industry dies.
*foreign because a US citizen has already done this...that somehow is different -
Re:Seriously?
Here's a 2007 interview of Ron Paul on NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12224561
Here's one from CBS News:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/25/politics/politicalplayers/main3412826.shtml
I stopped bothering to search after that. If Ron Paul was good for ratings, he'd get more coverage. -
Re:Bradley Manning
Related to this, Bradley Manning has been in solitary confinement for 5 months. And there doesn't seem to be an end, or even a trial, in sight.
And the legal defense funding promised by Wikileaks hasn't found its way to Manning's attorney. I wonder if they've found a 'better' use for it.
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Re:The term "Terrorism" is...
Terrorist = "someone opposing any government who should be dead"
Calling someone a terrorist is just a lame excuse to place them outside the law.
So your thinking is that no government in their right mind would label the people who do things like ths terrorists?
Two nearly simultaneous car bombs killed at least eight people in the capital Sunday, and officials said the death toll from a giant suicide truck blast that killed at least 115 a day earlier could be much higher. Iraq Truck Bomb Kills At Least 115
Or this?
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Re:Filed by Ken Cuccinelli
You mean like filing a lawsuit because the words "under God" exist in the Pledge of Allegiance?
http://atheism.about.com/b/2007/11/08/new-hampshire-lawsuit-filed-against-pledge-of-allegiance.htm
How about lawsuits against the Bush adminstration and the Patriot Act?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/29/terror/main614638.shtml
How about lawsuits filed against Bush's "No Child Left Behind" legislation?
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/20/education/20cnd-child.html?hp&ex=1114056000&en=fcbac357dd9bb745&ei=5094&partner=homepage
These lawsuits are no more or less credible than the one suggesting (rightfully) that the Federal govt has no authority to force any private citizen to purchase any good or service from the private sector.
The fact is that there's no shortage of "flaming crazies" on either side of the isle. And as the previous poster suggested, that's a good thing in keeping the flaming crazies who are actually in power, in check. -
Truth is stranger than...
I'm sure one could put a pound of C4 up the ass, model a shaped charge in the toilet against the side of the plane or the floor, depending on where the tanks are.
I know you may think you were joking (or perhaps you read the article last year), but someone has actually managed to attempt an assassination (ass-ination?) using--wait for it--one pound of explosives in their colon. The target was Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, and the assassin managed to fit a pound of PETN inside his posterior.
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Re:Solution
the TSA have already forced a woman with a prosthetic breast to subject herself to intrusive scrutiny: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/19/national/main7070415.shtml
so, no doubt the TSA staff will soon be equipped with endoscopes and be trained in keyhole surgery to prevent terrorists implanting bombs inside their bodies. -
Hmmm
While they're at it, maybe those Arizona State researchers can work on some self-healing rubber too.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/21/national/main6698274.shtml -
Re:oh gee. then they are fools.
Because it's a moral and logical certainty that all the interests of the USA are precisely the same as those of the entire world, and that any "opposing faction" using intelligence against the USA is, by definition, evil?
The "entire world" includes the Taliban and Al Qaeda. When Wikileaks released the names of Afghans who were working with the US against the Taliban, it made them targets. The Taliban formed groups to scour the documents for names and places. When the informants are killed or moved, they can no longer help in the battle against the terrorists of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. That isn't a good thing, especially as the Taliban are extending their reach to attacks in the US, India, possibly Europe, and other places. Now, if you have a plan to inform everybody in the world except the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and their associates, about the names of informants against them, critical sensitive targets, etc., I'm sure a lot of people would love to hear it.
WikiLeaks Reportedly Outs 100s of Afghan Informants
Hundreds of Afghan civilians who worked as informants for the U.S. military have been put at risk by WikiLeaks' publication of more than 90,000 classified intelligence reports which name and in many cases locate the individuals, The Times newspaper reported Wednesday.
The article says, in spite of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's claim that sensitive information had been removed from the leaked documents, that reporters scanning the reports for just a couple hours found hundreds of Afghan names mentioned as aiding the U.S.-led war effort.
One specific example cited by the paper is a report on an interview conducted by military officers of a potential Taliban defector. The militant is named, along with his father and the village in which they live.
"The leaks certainly have put in real risk and danger the lives and integrity of many Afghans," a senior official at the Afghan foreign ministry told The Times on condition of anonymity. "The U.S. is both morally and legally responsible for any harm that the leaks might cause to the individuals, particularly those who have been named. It will further limit the U.S./international access to the uncensored views of Afghans."
One former intelligence official told the paper that the Taliban could launch revenge attacks on "traitors" in the coming days.
Suspect in Times Square bombing attempt was paid by Pakistani Taliban, indictment says
KUNG-FU TERRORISTS TO TARGET WEMBLEY
Now, if you don't think terrorists planning to crash an airplane into a stadium full of people is evil, I think there is something wrong with you.
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Re:That's what's so facepalm-inducing about it all
Considering that they only released a tiny fraction of the cables, and those were redacted by professional journalists from several major newspapers, I don't think there's anything in there that would even remotely qualify it under that description
Not quite.
WikiLeaks Reportedly Outs 100s of Afghan InformantsHundreds of Afghan civilians who worked as informants for the U.S. military have been put at risk by WikiLeaks' publication of more than 90,000 classified intelligence reports which name and in many cases locate the individuals, The Times newspaper reported Wednesday.
The article says, in spite of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's claim that sensitive information had been removed from the leaked documents, that reporters scanning the reports for just a couple hours found hundreds of Afghan names mentioned as aiding the U.S.-led war effort.
One specific example cited by the paper is a report on an interview conducted by military officers of a potential Taliban defector. The militant is named, along with his father and the village in which they live.
"The leaks certainly have put in real risk and danger the lives and integrity of many Afghans," a senior official at the Afghan foreign ministry told The Times on condition of anonymity. "The U.S. is both morally and legally responsible for any harm that the leaks might cause to the individuals, particularly those who have been named. It will further limit the U.S./international access to the uncensored views of Afghans."
One former intelligence official told the paper that the Taliban could launch revenge attacks on "traitors" in the coming days.
Blood Already on Assange's Hands (and the WikiLeaks-Gitmo Connection)
It is especially interesting that Wikileaks has endangered informants against the Taliban since the Taliban are reaching into the United States to train terrorists and fund attacks:
Suspect in Times Square bombing attempt was paid by Pakistani Taliban, indictment says -
Re:I can't believe anyone is surprised
Regardless of whether they've broken a world-changing story so far, they've produced a chilling effect on corruption.
It isn't so much corruption that is shut down, as American diplomatic operations. Dealing with actual corruption would require a scapel, not the blunt object of the Wikileaks releases.
Battered by a scandal which seems to provide a fresh wave of embarrassment with each passing day, the US government is being forced to undertake a major reshuffle of the embassy staff, military personnel and intelligence operatives whose work has been laid bare by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.
The Obama administration was yesterday facing a crisis in its diplomatic service, amid growing evidence that the ongoing publication of a tranche of supposedly-confidential communiqués will make normal work difficult, if not dangerous, for important State Department employees across the world.
"In the short run, we're almost out of business," a senior US diplomat told the Reuters news agency, saying it could take five years to rebuild trust. "It is really, really bad. I cannot exaggerate it. In all honesty, nobody wants to talk to us
... Some people still have to, particularly (in) government but ... they are already asking us things like, 'Are you going to write about this?'""We're going to have to pull out some of our best people – the diplomats who best represented the United States and were the most thoughtful in their analysis – because they dared to report back the truth about the nations in which they serve."
Julian Assange’s EgoLeaks
WikiLeaks’ Selective MoralityWikiLeaks Reportedly Outs 100s of Afghan Informants
... in spite of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's claim that sensitive information had been removed from the leaked documents, that reporters scanning the reports for just a couple hours found hundreds of Afghan names mentioned as aiding the U.S.-led war effort.
One specific example cited by the paper is a report on an interview conducted by military officers of a potential Taliban defector. The militant is named, along with his father and the village in which they live.
"The leaks certainly have put in real risk and danger the lives and integrity of many Afghans," a senior official at the Afghan foreign ministry told The Times on condition of anonymity. "The U.S. is both morally and legally responsible for any harm that the leaks might cause to the individuals, particularly those who have been named. It will further limit the U.S./international access to the uncensored views of Afghans."
One former intelligence official told the paper that the Taliban could launch revenge attacks on "traitors" in the coming days.
Blood Already on Assange’s Hands (and the WikiLeaks-Gitmo Connection)
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Re:I can't believe anyone is surprised
There is no doubt that he violated a US law (can't speak for Australian law).
The US 1917 Espionage Act is the most recent and most relevant law on the books.
However, it is not at all clear that Assange might not prevail at trial in the US. There is this little matter of the First Amendment.
It all hinges on him being a journalist. Therefore I doubt the US would try to extradite him, because the odd of getting a conviction on anything more than receiving stolen property are a toss up at this time.
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Re:why mastercard?
Yet, financially supporting an organization deemed "terrorist" by the government is not a function of free speech.
VERBALLY supporting a terrorist organization is not free speech in the US anymore. The Supreme Court has ruled that even providing advice on completely legal topics counts as "material support" of terrorism.