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Voting may already be irrelevant. Many elections are already just bread and circuses.

If Congress doesn't declare war, we are not in a war. (Article I, section 8, clause 11, the U.S. Constitution)

Cape Town Women Give Peace Their Pants

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Cape Town Women Give Peace Their Pants

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This article was originally published on The Times Online

You can read it at Common Dreams website

I am copying and pasting the text here for benefit of /. readers (copyright of The Times, contains some compelling arguments):

Published on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 by the Times/UK
The United States of America Has Gone Mad
by John le Carré

America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War.

The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press.

The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bush junta would still be trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its reckless disregard for the world's poor, the ecology and a raft of unilaterally abrogated international treaties. They might also have to be telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN resolutions.

But bin Laden conveniently swept all that under the carpet. The Bushies are riding high. Now 88 per cent of Americans want the war, we are told. The US defence budget has been raised by another $60 billion to around $360 billion. A splendid new generation of nuclear weapons is in the pipeline, so we can all breathe easy. Quite what war 88 per cent of Americans think they are supporting is a lot less clear. A war for how long, please? At what cost in American lives? At what cost to the American taxpayer's pocket? At what cost -- because most of those 88 per cent are thoroughly decent and humane people -- in Iraqi lives?

How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America's anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre. But the American public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear. The carefully orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next election.

Those who are not with Mr Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I'm dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam's downfall -- just not on Bush's terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.

The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America's Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist.

God also has pretty scary connections. In America, where all men are equal in His sight, if not in one another's, the Bush family numbers one President, one ex-President, one ex-head of the CIA, the Governor of Florida and the ex-Governor of Texas.

Care for a few pointers? George W. Bush, 1978-84: senior executive, Arbusto Energy/Bush Exploration, an oil company; 1986-90: senior executive of the Harken oil company. Dick Cheney, 1995-2000: chief executive of the Halliburton oil company. Condoleezza Rice, 1991-2000: senior executive with the Chevron oil company, which named an oil tanker after her. And so on. But none of these trifling associations affects the integrity of God's work.

In 1993, while ex-President George Bush was visiting the ever-democratic Kingdom of Kuwait to receive thanks for liberating them, somebody tried to kill him. The CIA believes that "somebody" was Saddam. Hence Bush Jr's cry: "That man tried to kill my Daddy." But it's still not personal, this war. It's still necessary. It's still God's work. It's still about bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed Iraqi people.

To be a member of the team you must also believe in Absolute Good and Absolute Evil, and Bush, with a lot of help from his friends, family and God, is there to tell us which is which. What Bush won't tell us is the truth about why we're going to war. What is at stake is not an Axis of Evil -- but oil, money and people's lives. Saddam's misfortune is to sit on the second biggest oilfield in the world. Bush wants it, and who helps him get it will receive a piece of the cake. And who doesn't, won't.

If Saddam didn't have the oil, he could torture his citizens to his heart's content. Other leaders do it every day -- think Saudi Arabia, think Pakistan, think Turkey, think Syria, think Egypt.

Baghdad represents no clear and present danger to its neighbours, and none to the US or Britain. Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, if he's still got them, will be peanuts by comparison with the stuff Israel or America could hurl at him at five minutes' notice. What is at stake is not an imminent military or terrorist threat, but the economic imperative of US growth. What is at stake is America's need to demonstrate its military power to all of us -- to Europe and Russia and China, and poor mad little North Korea, as well as the Middle East; to show who rules America at home, and who is to be ruled by America abroad.

The most charitable interpretation of Tony Blair's part in all this is that he believed that, by riding the tiger, he could steer it. He can't. Instead, he gave it a phoney legitimacy, and a smooth voice. Now I fear, the same tiger has him penned into a corner, and he can't get out.

It is utterly laughable that, at a time when Blair has talked himself against the ropes, neither of Britain's opposition leaders can lay a glove on him. But that's Britain's tragedy, as it is America's: as our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way. Blair's best chance of personal survival must be that, at the eleventh hour, world protest and an improbably emboldened UN will force Bush to put his gun back in his holster unfired. But what happens when the world's greatest cowboy rides back into town without a tyrant's head to wave at the boys?

Blair's worst chance is that, with or without the UN, he will drag us into a war that, if the will to negotiate energetically had ever been there, could have been avoided; a war that has been no more democratically debated in Britain than it has in America or at the UN. By doing so, Blair will have set back our relations with Europe and the Middle East for decades to come. He will have helped to provoke unforeseeable retaliation, great domestic unrest, and regional chaos in the Middle East. Welcome to the party of the ethical foreign policy.

There is a middle way, but it's a tough one: Bush dives in without UN approval and Blair stays on the bank. Goodbye to the special relationship.

I cringe when I hear my Prime Minister lend his head prefect's sophistries to this colonialist adventure. His very real anxieties about terror are shared by all sane men. What he can't explain is how he reconciles a global assault on al-Qaeda with a territorial assault on Iraq. We are in this war, if it takes place, to secure the fig leaf of our special relationship, to grab our share of the oil pot, and because, after all the public hand-holding in Washington and Camp David, Blair has to show up at the altar.

"But will we win, Daddy?"

"Of course, child. It will all be over while you're still in bed."

"Why?"

"Because otherwise Mr Bush's voters will get terribly impatient and may decide not to vote for him."

"But will people be killed, Daddy?"

"Nobody you know, darling. Just foreign people."

"Can I watch it on television?"

"Only if Mr Bush says you can."

"And afterwards, will everything be normal again? Nobody will do anything horrid any more?"

"Hush child, and go to sleep."

Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket with a sticker on his car saying: "Peace is also Patriotic". It was gone by the time he'd finished shopping.

Copyright 2003 Times Newspapers Ltd

This article was originally published on The Times Online

You can read it at Common Dreams website

I am copying and pasting the text here for benefit of /. readers (copyright of The Times, contains some compelling arguments):


Published on Wednesday, January 15, 2003 by the Times/UK
The United States of America Has Gone Mad
by John le Carré

America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War.

The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press.

The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bush junta would still be trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its reckless disregard for the world's poor, the ecology and a raft of unilaterally abrogated international treaties. They might also have to be telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN resolutions.

But bin Laden conveniently swept all that under the carpet. The Bushies are riding high. Now 88 per cent of Americans want the war, we are told. The US defence budget has been raised by another $60 billion to around $360 billion. A splendid new generation of nuclear weapons is in the pipeline, so we can all breathe easy. Quite what war 88 per cent of Americans think they are supporting is a lot less clear. A war for how long, please? At what cost in American lives? At what cost to the American taxpayer's pocket? At what cost -- because most of those 88 per cent are thoroughly decent and humane people -- in Iraqi lives?

How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America's anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre. But the American public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear. The carefully orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next election.

Those who are not with Mr Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I'm dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam's downfall -- just not on Bush's terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.

The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America's Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist.

God also has pretty scary connections. In America, where all men are equal in His sight, if not in one another's, the Bush family numbers one President, one ex-President, one ex-head of the CIA, the Governor of Florida and the ex-Governor of Texas.

Care for a few pointers? George W. Bush, 1978-84: senior executive, Arbusto Energy/Bush Exploration, an oil company; 1986-90: senior executive of the Harken oil company. Dick Cheney, 1995-2000: chief executive of the Halliburton oil company. Condoleezza Rice, 1991-2000: senior executive with the Chevron oil company, which named an oil tanker after her. And so on. But none of these trifling associations affects the integrity of God's work.

In 1993, while ex-President George Bush was visiting the ever-democratic Kingdom of Kuwait to receive thanks for liberating them, somebody tried to kill him. The CIA believes that "somebody" was Saddam. Hence Bush Jr's cry: "That man tried to kill my Daddy." But it's still not personal, this war. It's still necessary. It's still God's work. It's still about bringing freedom and democracy to oppressed Iraqi people.

To be a member of the team you must also believe in Absolute Good and Absolute Evil, and Bush, with a lot of help from his friends, family and God, is there to tell us which is which. What Bush won't tell us is the truth about why we're going to war. What is at stake is not an Axis of Evil -- but oil, money and people's lives. Saddam's misfortune is to sit on the second biggest oilfield in the world. Bush wants it, and who helps him get it will receive a piece of the cake. And who doesn't, won't.

If Saddam didn't have the oil, he could torture his citizens to his heart's content. Other leaders do it every day -- think Saudi Arabia, think Pakistan, think Turkey, think Syria, think Egypt.

Baghdad represents no clear and present danger to its neighbours, and none to the US or Britain. Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, if he's still got them, will be peanuts by comparison with the stuff Israel or America could hurl at him at five minutes' notice. What is at stake is not an imminent military or terrorist threat, but the economic imperative of US growth. What is at stake is America's need to demonstrate its military power to all of us -- to Europe and Russia and China, and poor mad little North Korea, as well as the Middle East; to show who rules America at home, and who is to be ruled by America abroad.

The most charitable interpretation of Tony Blair's part in all this is that he believed that, by riding the tiger, he could steer it. He can't. Instead, he gave it a phoney legitimacy, and a smooth voice. Now I fear, the same tiger has him penned into a corner, and he can't get out.

It is utterly laughable that, at a time when Blair has talked himself against the ropes, neither of Britain's opposition leaders can lay a glove on him. But that's Britain's tragedy, as it is America's: as our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way. Blair's best chance of personal survival must be that, at the eleventh hour, world protest and an improbably emboldened UN will force Bush to put his gun back in his holster unfired. But what happens when the world's greatest cowboy rides back into town without a tyrant's head to wave at the boys?

Blair's worst chance is that, with or without the UN, he will drag us into a war that, if the will to negotiate energetically had ever been there, could have been avoided; a war that has been no more democratically debated in Britain than it has in America or at the UN. By doing so, Blair will have set back our relations with Europe and the Middle East for decades to come. He will have helped to provoke unforeseeable retaliation, great domestic unrest, and regional chaos in the Middle East. Welcome to the party of the ethical foreign policy.

There is a middle way, but it's a tough one: Bush dives in without UN approval and Blair stays on the bank. Goodbye to the special relationship.

I cringe when I hear my Prime Minister lend his head prefect's sophistries to this colonialist adventure. His very real anxieties about terror are shared by all sane men. What he can't explain is how he reconciles a global assault on al-Qaeda with a territorial assault on Iraq. We are in this war, if it takes place, to secure the fig leaf of our special relationship, to grab our share of the oil pot, and because, after all the public hand-holding in Washington and Camp David, Blair has to show up at the altar.

"But will we win, Daddy?"

"Of course, child. It will all be over while you're still in bed."

"Why?"

"Because otherwise Mr Bush's voters will get terribly impatient and may decide not to vote for him."

"But will people be killed, Daddy?"

"Nobody you know, darling. Just foreign people."

"Can I watch it on television?"

"Only if Mr Bush says you can."

"And afterwards, will everything be normal again? Nobody will do anything horrid any more?"

"Hush child, and go to sleep."

Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket with a sticker on his car saying: "Peace is also Patriotic". It was gone by the time he'd finished shopping.

Copyright 2003 Times Newspapers Ltd

What about all of the drugs and pharmaceuticals that make it into the water supply? Antibiotics passed from humans and feed animals have been found in the water supply. Hormones are present in greater concentrations than you'd think and are thought to be disrupting fish reproduction with males having eggs in their testes. Although being able to produce caviar at will could make you quite the party favorite.

They also tried to change the transcript when Ari Fleisher said Americans better "watch what they say."

I couldn't find the original document on the Internet either.
It is quoted on quite a number of news pages, e.g.
commondreams.org
shm.com.au

"has no intention of allowing any foreign power to catch up with the huge lead the United States has opened since the fall of the Soviet Union [..]"

Oh, but it will be soon

"...Instead of refuting Kasky's charge by proving in court that they didn't lie, however, Nike instead chose to argue that corporations should enjoy the same "free speech" right to deceive that individual human citizens have in their personal lives...They took this argument all the way to the California Supreme Court, where they lost. The next stop may be the U.S. Supreme Court in early January"

Neat, ain't it.

Is it right to elect the CEO of a major corporation as president?

How about electing the ex-CEO of a major corporation as Vice-President, and then putting him in charge of negotiating the future of that industry?

Sadly, Dubya has proven once and for all that the more blatent your self-interest is, the more people will praise you for your strong convictions. Do your looting in the daylight!

-pmb

Just in case anyone DIDNT know, one of the major reasons Americans *BUY* SUVs in the first place is because they can then buy a Luxury Vehicle and get a tax break .

Read more about the loop-hole that NEEDS to get plugged here

The good news? This loophole costs the American Tresury close 1 Billion per year (source)

If Nike gets their way in court not only will deception by mindless corporate beings be legal, so will outright lying. Collusion between facisist corporate amerika and it's puppet government becomes less veiled daily.

Jefferson and Madison proposed an 11th Amendment to the Constitution that would "ban monopolies in commerce," making it illegal for corporations to own other corporations, banning them from giving money to politicians or trying to influence elections in any way, restricting corporations to a single business purpose, limiting the lifetime of a corporation to something roughly similar to that of productive humans (20 to 40 years back then), and requiring that the first purpose for which all corporations were created be "to serve the public good."

The amendment didn't pass because many argued it was unnecessary: Virtually all states already had such laws on the books from the founding of this nation until the Age of the Robber Barons.

Even if it is legit, that doesn't mean it's true, or even what Microsoft believes is true.

In other news, Nike is defending their right to lie about shit (as Doc Searls so eloquently put it), and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Exxon/Mobil, Monsanto, Microsoft, Pfizer, and Bank of America are supporting them.

If they win in court, maybe Microsoft can beat Linux once and for all by simply stating that a Linux license costs $100 more than an XP license.

Is this not a great country?

The lightest portable identified in the Brookings survey and your link was the "Davy Crockett" (51 lbs.). It does seem they had a nuke for every occasion. Perhaps there is an undisclosed weapon even more portable.

I wanted to say that the idea of nuclear interceptors for ABM was long dead, but it's not at all true. In April 2002 the WP published this op-ed re the Pentagon's Defense Science Board studying the option. Congress overrode the Pentagon in October and forbade research into the topic. I read somewhere that the Board intends to complete its study nonetheless.

EMP and danger to U.S. satellites are mentioned as hazards, aside from political fallout. So I guess despite misgivings the nuclear interceptor concept is still live, at least in the minds of some planners.

First, I agree with the general point of your post. I am fundamentally opposed to any measures that see marginal improvement with relatively large cost in freedoms and money. (But some things can and sould be done to limit some vulnerabilities without negatively impacting my freedoms ... close the holes that you can). Those new drug commercials raise my ire for their black and white portrayal of drug users and non-users. And I do not want to feel more secure. I want to be free.

But, what countries? What countries see more losses to terrorism than the United States saw in one day? And do you seriously think that the U.S. is otherwise immune to terrorism? Do you think that 9/11 was to only loss of American life to terrorism?

I think you should do some research before you make a statement like that.

For instance, this pro-Israel FAQ regarding the "wave of Palestinian violence and terrorism that began in September 2000".

More looking should turn up other sources (don't take this one source as gospel ... it is biased). This source agrees (Israel statistic-wise) with other figures I've seen.

Based on the above, I am loath to take your statement on marijuana production with anything other than some salt. While, the statement is perhaps popular perception and I did grow up in Washington County, NY (once rumored to be the third weediest county in the nation) I am wary. (Also, in the 'I know someone sense', heroin use is increasing ... this same county recently had a heroin death ... a man who went to my school). However, some sources would support your claim.

This would ensure that the ships are preserved as long as our country.

Or until someone finds oil underneath the national park.

And let's not forget about the 10,000 Military Police beign called up to protect us from the CIA using US Army Anthrax to control the protests which will ulitmately occur when US Soldiers start coming home in body bags.

But do not worry, at least there wont be any open WiFi networks for the terrorists to infiltrate and look at pr0n through.

Now, granted, Fisk has interviewed Bin Laden 3 or 4 times, but if they think a prominent journalist is going to hijack a plane, they've watched Manchurian Candidate too many times.

Which reminds me, where's that deck of cards?

Now, granted, Fisk has interviewed Bin Laden 3 or 4 times, but if they think a prominent journalist is going to hijack a plane, they've watched Manchurian Candidate too many times.

Which reminds me, where's that deck of cards?

can you provide a specific portion of the legislation that would allow the government to come and shoot you, without any recourse?

The part where it says you can be held without access to a lawyer and without any other communication if someone decides you are a "terrorist". This has been widely reported. If you have no recourse, the FOIA has been raped, and what's left Byush has ordered all government agencies to fight tooth and nail. Given this, they can do whatever the hell they want.

While I will grant that a president shoudn't go about stopping investigations for the purposes of profit, I think you are making a leap in logic here that is not really supportable.

This isn't the only piece of information regarding Bush's handling of the situation which logically leads to this conclusion. How about the fact that not a single fighter was scrambled? How about the fact that Bush was told about the first attack *on TV* and did nothing for at least another 20 minutes. This doesn't constitute "absolute proof", but it is certainly clear ythat if he was not acting maliciously then at the very least he was acting with criiminal neglect of his duties. When you throw in the fact that him, his administration and his business partners are the only people who stand to profit from the situation, the rational thing to do is suspect something very shady. You seem to have the attitude that until something is proven absolutely it isn't worth considering.
What has Bush ever done to inspire such blind devotion on your part?
You don't seem to understand your responsibilities as a citizen. Trusting your government is not patriotism. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance". Your job is to question *everything* your government does. Vote for who you believe will do the best job for our country but do not trust them at all. That, my friend, is what it means to be a patriot.

First, the Bin Laden family in Saudi Arabia had already distanced themselves from Osama.

Publicly sure. And you believe them?!? Why?

Second, there is no garantee that continuing the investigation would have stopped the attacks.

There is a guarantee that if Ashcroft had not *refused* to allow the FBI to search Massoui(sp?)'s computer that the attacks would have been known about. What did he know? Why has he prevented any investigation of it? Why, when he is finally being forced into allowing an investigation, did he put Kissinger, a scumbag wanted in several countries for crimes against humanity, in charge of it?

What you are doing is pointing out a maybe and trying to use it to assign blame. You seem otherwise logical, so please, get off the Bush bashing bandwagon, yes he's screwed up a couple of things but this is nothing more than an illogical personal attack.

I'm pointing out many many pieces of evidence and drawing a rational conclusion from them. You are saying that regardless of all the evidence, there isn't any call to suspect him? That is a failure of logic.

I do have to agree with this point. I don't like the way that the government is using the attacks as a way to trample privacy. At this point, we can only hope that in a year or three, when the attacks are further behind, that the Judical branch will re-assert its constitutional powers and duty, and vacate these laws.

So your solution is to wait, allow the draconian power structure to solidify, and hope that it gets fixed at some point? How do you propose getting the SC to even look at this case? They don't just look for bad laws and strike them down. They can't do this. Your optimism is nice among friends and family, but it is always foolish with respect to your government.

As for not mentioning the rider in the Homeland security act (again, I've not had a chance, if you could point me at the specific clause I would appreciate it.) The reporter may not have known about it. This report was probably written by a journalist specializing in medicine, not in law, and so he/she may not have even known about that particular clause.

Here
is one link
This was debated in congress and reported on NPR while it was going on.

As for making informed descions, are you implying that every person should hold a law degree? Because that's what it would truly take for people to know and understand the implications of every law that gets passed.

I'm implying that detailed analysis of all of the implications of the law from all points of view is the job of the news services. They have long since ceased doing anything even close to investigative journalism, and this is a critical problem. I don't think there is a solution to this. Freedom of the press is a two edged sword. The press can't be prevented from printing things, but neither can they be made to perform their role which is (largely) transparancy of the government.

This is one of the advantages of a Republic, the people elect a person who has the time, drive, and education to fully understand a proposal before codifying it into law
And then you watch them like a hawk. This is the part you're forgetting.

Also, if I may interject my opinion, term limits on congressmen would help out a lot, by denying someone the chance to build a powerbase, and getting rid of carrer congressmen.

Abso-freaking-lutely. As well as preventing *all* financial contributions from non-citizens (read corporations).

But, its about as good as we are going to get.

I find your lack of faith disturbing. I still hope and strive for something better. It's sad that you are so accepting of things.

You might try things such as letters to the editor of newspapers,

I do. They certainly won't print anything that might make their advertisers look bad or that might lower their parent corporations profits. This is basic economics. It won't stop me from trying, but given that 7 corporations control 85% of all news, it would be silly to believe this could work.

For an example of how to do this sort of thing, look a Limbaugh, you may not agree with what he has to say (hell, I rarely do and I'm mostly conservative) but he is a good example of how to start and run a sucessful political radio talk program.

Spout out drooling rhetoric, and uninformed opinions demonizing one party and canonizing the other? I don't want to lead a herd of sheep. I want people to start thinking critically and informing themselves.

Though I don't think I would quite call it a totalitarian state yet. The simple fact that we are able to discuss this sort of thing publicly seems to indicate otherwise.

Boiling a frog. The powers are in place. They aren't stupid though. It starts slowly. First you cut off the public from knowledge of what the government is doing. This step is in place.

I agree that we should be worried about where we are headed, but it something that should be approced in a more thoughtful manner than name calling.

Worry in one hand and shit in the other. See which fills up first. I'm not calling names. I'm looking at evidence and drawing a reasoned conclusion. You seem to be saying that without absolute proof of guilt, questioning motives is silly.
That, I find very sad.

Double-edged sword is a metaphor meaning use for an intended purpose or its opposite. Yes, you could do plenty of damage with a single-edge, or an icepick for that matter. :) And I meant to equate gov't and tech in the sense that you can't just say, "Oh, we trust technology to save the day." Humans are in charge, and deserve credit or blame.

As for China versus America, I pick the latter. In a heartbeat. Which I'm likely to have many more of, living here.

I agree that America has a legally superior system, which is why I added a little about how factual deficiencies and corruption can creep in anyway. In the Cruz case, the system did work ... but in a limping way that not many would endorse.

America does do extrajudicial killings, particularly now that the Presidential ban on assassinations has been eased. An example is the recent Predator attack in Yemen, not a war zone, and which killed 6 including an American citizen. Yes, yes, these were presumably bad people, but so much for checks and balances. This is novel.

IWAGP (I was a game producer)

you were? lemme guess why you arent anymore..

you take things too seriously, you were working on a FPS game, and thought murder was wrong so when the player shot a bad guy, the cops would come and arrest your character, and bring the bad guy to the hospital., then the rest of the game would be you sitting in jail for life.

DUMBASS HE WAS MAKING A JOKE, ANYONE WHO THINKS A MOVIE CAN BE RENDERED REALTIME IS A GEORGE W BUSH, I MEAN MORON.

I think most of the opinion magazines operate on profit margins ranging from slim to negative and are at least partially reliant on the kindness of wealthy owners or public grants. National Review has William F. Buckley, The Weekly Standard is the pet project of the Kristol family, The American Prospect got bailed out by Bill Moyers a couple years back, Harper's has had a several near-death experience, Paul Newman and Robert Redford are co-owners of The Nation, and gazillionaire Mort Zuckermain bailed out The Atlantic Monthly from a severe deficit. Even the popular market is awfully tough -- just ask Oprah or Rosie, or the people who used to run Jane and Sassy.

All of the opinion mags above target roughly the same demographic as Salon (if not necessarily the same ideologies), and all have equivalent- or higher-quality writing, established reputations, and an existing subscriber base to draw from. The surprising thing is that anyone ever thought Salon's business model would surpass them.

Hey you ever read any history?
If Israel is free open democracy then I am Cowboy Neal. Those WMD you quote Iraq as having were given mostly by US of A to fight Iran. When Donald Rumsfeld visited Saddam Hussein in 1983 he, for some reason did not shoot him, but instead was improving US-Iraq relations.... despite gassing and stuff.

I admire your tenacity. I promise to think about your position if you'll do the reverse, how's that?

A couple of minor factual points -- Gore didn't seek Supreme Court, because he'd won in the FL SC. In fact, I'm pretty sure Bush was the first to court, federal, seeking an injunction to block recounts requested by Gore. It doesn't matter much who blinked first, except that it was interesting to see the party that frequently touts states' rights go directly to federal court. Ordinarily it should have been up to Florida to decide how its electoral votes would be awarded.

The Jan. 20 "deadline" was mythic. That's just the arbitrary day appointed for the swearing-in. It used to be in March. In the interim, the country was functioning fine under a lame duck President. The only thing really getting messed up was Pres. Bush's transition time.

The Court didn't have a problem with recounts per se; it objected to th emanner of the recounts, as in how many counties and whether all would be held to the same standard. Hence the equal protection question. Recounts are nothing new, and are provided for in FL and TX law among others. At the time people were asking Bush about the TX law and his suggestion that recounts were inherently unfair; he distanced himself from the law.

I expanded on the Nixon thing mostly because I was genuinely horrifed to see him exhumed as an "example" for Gore to follow. There has been an effort to rehabilitate him, but it's ironic to hold him up as a stalwart of the electoral process when it was his efforts to subvert it in 1972 that destroyed him. He was a bright guy who had some moral challenges.

"Political operatives" actually isn't a pejorative term here inside the Beltway. It just sounds like one. And probably should be one. Anyway, Nixon's chances in court were pretty shaky, because Kennedy would have counterstriked over irregularities in places Nixon had won, adn he'd have to sue in multiple states, he'd look like a sore loser, there was already a 100,000 popular vote gap and huge electoral gap (like 2:1) in Kennedy's favor, etc. Florida was a remarkable case in that the electoral and popular votes were both nearly equal, and Florida was the deciding state where it appeared Bush had won by only a lousy 300 votes. They don't get any closer than that.

I think Gore will probably get the nod in 2004, and not because the dems are thrilled with him. He DID get half of the country to vote for him last time. If he had not contested the 2000 election I think the Dems would have been plenty pissed with him for that. His biggest problem would be a strong Bush presidency. Bush's father managed to blow big popularity ratings over Desert Storm in just a couple of short years by failing to respond to the economy, and I'm already hearing people grumbling about the White House's failure to address domestic issues.

Oh, I mentioned the Jews-for-Buchanan phenomenon only because that was one of many things that failed the whiff test. Even Buchanan admitted it was unexplainable, to his credit. To a very high degree of confidence -- not enough to decide a election -- we can be sure this caused a problem. And those were the butterfly ballots that were not recounted, an which likely decided the elections regardless of chads elsewhere. These ballots were tougher to use, one FL newspaper even posted an interactive version showing the problem. Regardless of whether the ballot was easy or hard to mess up, it's a grave error if the ballot is designed so that the errors mostly go to one candidate's benefit. I was sorry to see a lot of elderly people written off as incompetent on stereotype alone.

Voters, not ballots, elect officials. (I know, duh.) Hence the intent standard, not a hole-punching test. There were even further problems, such as the hole-punching apparatus itself. Apparently with use the resilient material under the card would harden, making it more difficult to dislodge the chad (these were cheap imitations of the Votomatic -- they even located the Votomatic inventor to testify!). The material wore out at the top fastest, because the machines were used in every election big or small. Gore ended up on the harder part, with the expected result. After you pull the unmarked card out, it's pretty hard to figure out there's a problem.

We all do boneheaded stuff some days, and I find it gets harder to pay attention the more elections I participate in (I'm 35). You know, it's like an ATM, you think you know what you're doing until whoops! I've had to help people with the ATM every once in a while, but didn't think that because they were a little confused that they didn't deserve their money... Florida designed another dumb ballot for the primary, you have to see it, but the design had be wondering for a minute.

I'm sure I've sparked a burning interest in voting technology; if you'd like to see more look at the RISKS Digest of the usenet group. I subscribe and read a lot of good stuff there on privacy and security risks of all sorts.

An ICBM -- engineer? My best friend is an aero/astro engineer pretty suspicious of the incredible challenges in an ABM program, never mind the political problems and the Maginot Line effect of guarding against high-tech attacks when tinpot dictators will use low-tech. Oh well. My only major peeve is the way, I think, they've misrepresented the tests. I read a lot, yet when I heard about the latest intercept test I just thought, wow, well I guess I underestimated them. I later learned from Doonesbury about the GPS telemetry broadcast by the projectile and was a lot less impressed. Next time I hope they send up the Mylar balloons that are the death knell for an orbital intercept approach. (When they can blow up the rockets on ascent with lasers or whatever, I'll be very impressed, but argue it still doesn't protect us from the bomb-laden freight container.)

Obviously I could run on forever about this stuff -- and I enjoy talking about it! Lawyers like words. I wrote a long paper on redistricting, another hairy problem where how those little lines are drawn can decide who gets elected, or cause problems like two incumbents running against each other. One U.S. Rep had to move to a new house to get back in his district, only to lose. Oops.

doesn't gas its own citizens

Article II of the Genocide Convention also expressly prohibits
involuntary sterilization as means of "preventing births among" a
targeted population. Yet, in 1976, it was conceded by the
U.S. government that its ÒIndian Health ServiceÓ (IHS), then a
subpart of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), was even then
conducting a secret program of involuntary sterilization which had
affected approximately forty percent of all Indian women of
childbearing age. The program was allegedly discontinued, and the IHS
was transferred to the Public Health Service, but no one was
punished. Hence, business as usual has continued in the ÒhealthÓ
sphere: 1990, for example, it came out that the IHS was inoculating
Inuit children in Alaska with Hepatitis-B vaccine. The vaccine had
already been banned by the World Health Organization as having a
demonstrated correlation with the HIV-virus which is itself correlated
to AIDS. As this is being written, a Òfield testÓ of Hepatitis-A
vaccine, also HIV-correlated, is being conducted on Indian
reservations in the northern Plains region.

Speaking of .tv - what happens to that TLD should Tuvalu actually sinks into the ocean?

It's not reported nearly enough that Bush Jr. (Jar Jar Bush) got his breaks through insider loans. The second article is worth reading through.

http://www.american-reporter.com/1954/112.html

Another important provision included in the bill makes it illegal for corporate executives to receive loans from the company coffers. The President has acknowledged he received a loan from Harken in the late 1980s.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0712-06.ht m

In recent days, questions have resurfaced about the way Bush sold $848,000 worth of shares in Harken Energy Corp. just before the stock price slumped, and about Bush's delay in filing the required insider-trading report. The Harken deal helped Bush pay off the loan on his $606,000 investment in the Texas Rangers baseball team, for which he walked away with $14.9 million. In his defense, Bush has repeatedly noted that the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated possible insider trading but took no action against him. The investigation occurred during his father's administration. Bush's critics have sometimes joked - as they did of his father - that he was ''born on third base and thought he hit a triple.'' In fact, the full context of Bush's business dealings provides a somewhat different metaphor: This is the story of a man who struck out numerous times before being bailed out by big hitters who often were family members, friends, or supporters of his father.

yeah . but look at the years.

after som google-ing i found this
both of us must be right

in short it states "Overall, Microsoft and its employees were the country's fifth-largest political donor in the 2000 election -- contributing $4.7 million to politicians and their committees. Republicans received about 53 percent of that money. "

The real problems are in steel tarriffs and agricultural subsidies, that a nation that touts free trade (and the EU is just as bad here) resorts to protectionism and barely-disguised mercantilism at the first sign of trouble. Trouble's when you need your principles the most, not the least.

Sigh...

This has been going on for too long in the USA and the reason is simple. Most voters in the US don't give a rats ass. Two recent situations come to mind.

The whole genetically modified foodstuff debacle. The problem is that the US has granted patents on GM strains of common foodstuffs. Then when GM strains pollute natural crops with patented genes, farmers get sued into oblivion. Then, when third world countries turn down "donations" of GM food , US aid officials criticize them. What everyone seemed to miss (unsurprisingly) is that if Zimbabwe accepted the GM maize and then their local crops "somehow" became polluted with patented GM strains, they would soon be in a position where they would have to pay IP lawyers and US corporations to enable their people to eat locally produced food.

The other issue is protectionism. I won't even touch the steel issue. It reeks too badly. Instead, let's consider the current softwood lumber dispute with Canada. (if you say "What dispute?" my point is made) The protectionism in this dispute is almost as rampant as the corruption. The bottom line being that a select group of southern lumber barons profit while average Americans pay $3000 more for new housing. Oh, don't forget the 50,000 Canadians who were put out of work. The fact that the WTO will eventually overturn this does not negate the impact it has on profits, costs and jobs in the short term. If this is how we treat our closest ally, it's no wonder our enemies hate us.

Look at the big picture, people.

Sorry, looking at the big picture is simply too difficult for most Americans. It requires critical thinking and the ability to look at our own behaviour objectively. Point being, as long as Joe Sixpack has a job and Monday Night Football, most Americans just don't care.

Then, the Saudis (and the other countries as well) executed imperialism by nationalizing the oil fields.

Well, except for one thing. The oil in question isn't being "Acquired by imperialism". It was bought many years ago by free consent.

Think again, my friend. This may be the case for some of the oil we acquire, but our need for oil is much stronger than that...

For instance, our attempt to force a coup in Venezuela earlier this year, over oil. And most visibly, our attempt to construct a pipeline through Afghanistan, which required that we first dismantle its government. (There is evidince that a war in Afghanistan was planned long before 9/11/2001 -- we've wanted to get oil out of Turkmenistan for at least a decade)

Now whatever our disagreement with the Taliban, it is not our business to overthrow governments. (Admittedly, I would have cheered to see them fall, if they had fallen by the action of the Afghani people and not our imperialism) In Venezuela it was purely economic. They were planning an embargo that would have hurt the US economically. In Afghanistan we had a more convenient political excuse involving some airplanes or something. But it appears that the war was successful in its true goals.

Secondly, we should not be enforcing our contracts militarily. It is always in the best interest of small nations to control their resources. "Free trade" generally only helps the larger nation, and keeps the poorer one poor. So I cannot blame the Saudis for nationalizing their oil fields (though I do not know the situation that well). I will not defend the Saudi's too far though because a handful of Saudi princes have become absurdly wealthy off selling US oil, while oppressing the rest of the country. Since this is a situation that benefits the US we let it continue. Do not let the rhetoric about "spreading democracy" or the horrible things the Taliban did sway you, because Saudi Arabia is no better, yet we continue to support them.

-- Bob

I almost trolled.
Here's a link to back myself up a bit
and here's 2500 more

It's the economy stupid.

Ah yes, the campaign slogan of one William Jefferson Clinton. A great view, that resulted in thousands of dead Americans due to lack of foriegn policy. Under Clinton's astute economic watch, we had the first economic bubble in many years that was already bursting by 1999, which had to be covered up by an accounting fiasco that makes Enron look like a lemonade stand. Read some more about Clinton's true contribution to the American economy in the 1990s.

A quote:

A fair assessment of his legacy should therefore begin by asking what, if anything, the President had to do with the economic growth of the last nine and a half years. The answer is: well, nothing really.

Yeah, that slogan is something to be real proud of.

As the Road to Tycho is for intellectual property reform advocates, so should this be for those interested in the environment.

Commondreams.org has written a fictional address; conservatives and non-believers will call it propaganda, but then, as the weather patterns continue to change and the news stories about environmental catastrophes keep coming, they may have some trouble making the charge stick...

Actually, only 53% of Microsoft's political donations went to Republicans. Guess where the other 47% went. They're an equal-opportunity rent-seeker.

"My opinion, I don't care if someone knows where I drive everyday. Why should I? ... what does it matter if Big Brother knows that I had McDonalds last night ... "

How about they decide to start taxing you on every burger you eat. Not so hard to believe if people might be able to get away with this

" ... or I watched LOTR on DVD? ... "

They would love to know you watched that DVD. Although you might be a thief or perhaps they can charge you every time you view the DVD.

Of course you have nothing to fear because "Big Brother" would never give this info to the media conglomerates

" ... whats the problem?"

I'll let you answer that one on your own

Since I remembered the lawsuit by Monsanto, I entered into Google:

farmer sued genetically corn patented

And these articles came forth:

The farmer's page
Article"
Another
Another
Tale of the Absurd
Monsano wins
Commentary
and on...
and on...
Comment
Good ol' Mother Jones

Y'all see, there is a damned good chance that such corn will contaminate the other crops, and then Monsanto or whomever will own their souls. Or GNP, whatever works.

I'm surprised that the Canadian case isn't common knowledge. Then again, it wasn't exactly Evening News material for the U.S. No network news department head wants to seem "liberal" nowadays, which translates to "damned few stories critical of corporations" (balance), which of course is not connected to trying to please conservative corporate owners who have become quite.... proactive in their news departments of late.

The submitter of the item is correct in identifying IP lawsuit threats as an important datum in the decision to decline the food, even if the article cited doesn't make a point of it. An informed person would already know about the enormous lawsuit potential, and add that to the stack.

Just because someone is protesting, that doesn't make their cause newsworthy.

This is fucking great! I wonder if one of the million Stalin-esque informants will help me install this software?

I mean, it's really good that the same government that busts into a house, shoots an elderly black man, and then realizes the grand drug bust was supposed to go down across the street is going to help me secure my homeland. Yeah, I'm enduring my fucking freedom more and more every day!

Dominion

I just had a major realization today. Or at least I think I did.

Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings (D-SC) intensely-disliked-by-Slashdotters bill, the SSSCA/CBDTPA, would require all devices/gizmos to ship with "digital rights management" chips (i.e. the Fritz chip in TCPA). So, then, the SSSCA would be bringing MS Palladium much closer to fruition by making computers and gizmos ship with TCPA! I think that's right, right? holy...

I did an interview with Siva Vaidhyanathan on the SSSCA/CBDTPA, and we talked about how it would really really hurt open source. But it wasn't until today that I realized Palladium, TCPA, and the SSSCA/CBDTPA were intimately connected. Holy fuck! is this stuff tied up together!

Having a plutocratic government is bad enough. This is 1000 times worse. For me anyway. And I suspect it is for you, too.

Green, and not with envy or illness,

-- haaz.

Yes, the freedom of themselves and their people from oppression by the racist American government and people of the time. For an alternative to the propaganda you've been exposed to, you might try reading this, or this (the latter with a good and honest summary of pros and cons). Search Google for plenty more.

Are you saying that in similar circumstances, you would just suck it up? When a people's pride, dignity and survival is at stake, in an unjust society and under unjust laws, conventions and law enforcement, some may claim that they would not choose violence as a solution - and a few might follow through, like King and Gandhi. Others may choose the coward's path, and suffer in silence.

But in these circumstances, violent rhetoric and violence is a very understandable and natural (as in human nature) course of action, and if you condemn the Black Panthers for that, it's only because you've never remotely been in a similar position.

You're probably a white male (as am I), and you probably grew up in an environment in which the closest you ever came to "oppression" was being grounded for not doing your homework.

The Black Panthers originated partly in response to police brutality in Oakland, CA. Police brutality against blacks in American cities is hardly a solved problem, but today, it gets dealt with much more effectively by society and the government. That wasn't the case in 1966. You can thank the Black Panthers directly for the relatively peaceful society you enjoy today, because they clearly demonstrated what can happen if you don't deal with issues such as police brutality and discrimination in a fair and open manner.

Somebody needs to remind DOE that the signs only need to be effective for 600 years or so.

Given that Nuclear Winter may be just around the corner and we could all be killed off, in say 20 minutes from now; 600 years is enough time to spend money on signs. After all, the money we are spending on this is _nothing_ like the money we pay _daily_ for our "defence" spendings.

One of the big ones is that a company can sue a government for enacting a law that is harmful to their business and make up bloated amounts of damamges (DMCA style). like if the U.S. enacted a law banning a chemical for public health concerns and some company made that chemical and now lost money they could sue the U.S. government or the state in which the law is in. Dont beleive me?

That is just one example of how NAFTA stripes away a governments sovreignity. Another is farming. In some areas of Mexico the only way communities survive is to farm their land and sell what they dont eat. Becuase of NAFTA, now cheaper produce can flood into Mexico from the U.S. where there is more advanced farming techniques making competition impossible. Now all of a sudden families arent able to survive so they must one up the competition. They can try to obtain the machinery used by the U.S. farmers but as any business person knows you cant always be laggin behind the competition, you must find a way to go above them. So the only thing these impoverishes farmers have going for them is they are willing to work for less. they put their freedom aside for theiur immediate survival. So now the tables are turned and U.S. farmers are i trouble. They are making the same product but paying more for it. This is not good for the farming economy. The U.S. governmetnt bailed out farmers becuase they need it. As far as im concened thats all our national government should do, take over the jobs too big for any one state to handle. And i dont want to hear any of you say we can live without farming. Farming is a huge business that creates MANY jobs for Americans and without it our entire foundation would be suceptible to collapse.

So my point is this. The U.S. governmetn can and should help out sections of our economy when they are in trouble. Im tired of hearing people say that we should not even protect ourselves especially when they are tlaking about something that seemingly does not affect them. So this is a new economic game we ae all playing, one in whcih the big picture must be veiwed because if not we could easily slipe out of control of our own country.

The world is experiencing global warming. Our planet's ozone layer has holes punched in it. Species are going extinct faster now than at any other time in the earth's history (including that 6 mile wide planet killer a few million years ago). Nuclear waste has nowhere to be stored for the billions of years it will remain toxic and radioactive. Pesticides and chemicals are the your drinking water. Air polltuion and its related sicknesses are endemic. If you eat meat, it is probably laced with antibiotics (chronic exposure causes nacteria to become resistant to them, maybe some nice "super-bugs" will be the result for future generations), hormones, and maybe even steroids, not to mention mad cow disease (the result of the brilliant practice of feeding herbivores the carcasses of dead animals and even road kill). Cancer rates are climbing (all types, cause: unknown). AIDS is currently unstoppable (the new cocktails of drugs developed in the late 90s are now losing the battle as all have before). Governments weaponize anthrax and other toxins and the craziest are planning new nuclear weapons (tactical nukes, which more likely to be used; unfortunately fallout is hardly tactical).

Are you sure it won't be the end of the world? The world, as we know it, has ended many times and will continue to do so as things continuosly change and new "worlds" are born. But what makes you think our short-sightedness will not bring about the end i.e. the end from which there is no coming back, no birth, no creation? THE end?

We are masters of our destiny and the paths we choose determine our destination. Since you believe in science so strongly, you should understand cause and effect. Cloning and other genetic engineering is not very well understood. As you know, they mapped the human genome the other day and it turns out it was much smaller than expected. What does this mean? It means they don't know what other factors besides the bare DNA sequences determine heritable traits. Here is an article expressing this view: http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0209-01.htm. In short, genetic engineering (and cloning) is like brain surgery without fully understanding how the brain works: you may have limited success in crude operations, but you can forget doing anything really useful unless you consider enormous damage useful.

In summary, you are wearing blinkers if you think "its all good" because it is not all good! Science has yet more questions than answers and we don't know half the shit we think we do. Stop because of ethics. Stop because its logical. Stop and think. Or one day we will be on a path with no return.

(see here and
here. )

It seems insurance companies will need to charge higher premiums for buildings that house CIA, US Secret Service, IRS and Securities & Exchange Commission files, now that they have a propensity for spontaneous collapse.

(see here and
here. )

For Microsoft to build a campaign against UNIX would be like Coke or Pepsi promoting a campaign against the evils of water.

In fact, Coca-Cola is fighting tap water:

Just Say No to H2O

Woz

Actually, this article Going Backwards 'Just Say No to H20' (Unless It's Coke's Own Brew) would contest otherwise. There is (or, at least, was) a concerted effort by the soda companies to block water drinking in restaraunts.