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As far as John Walker Lindh, yes a traitor, and yes the death penalty...

Since the Taliban was not our enemy when Lindh joined up with them to fight the Northern Alliance (in fact, U.S. relations with the Taiban were quite cozy until a few years ago), claims that he is a traitor have no basis in reason. He never took any action against the United States.

No, he insisted that they were developing them. This was based on the same sort of intelligence that others, including France, had, and they had the same belief.

No, he actually did claim that Saddam had WMDs and could use them against the US and our allies at any time. It's absolutely surreal to me that you would even claim otherwise. Here's a good collection of quotes on the issue.

And the "sort of intelligence" to which you refer turned out to be one British report of which everyone else was, rightly, skeptical. The rest of the world wanted to wait until we had, you know, actual evidence, but Bush and Blair blazed ahead.

He never insisted any such connection other than that Saddam and Al Quaeda were both terrorists.

No, this had been one of the administration's official arguments for war up until recently. Look at news from two years ago, and earlier this year. Contrast with the story a few weeks ago.

Please, support the president all you want, but do not allow the administration and media to erase the past.

Just go here:

CommonDreams
CounterPunch
Bad News: Noam Chomksy Archive
AlterNet

Or read a book.

Any good and honest right-wing folk (if you want to set up such a arbitrary left/right binary) should reply with their favorite truth-speaking resources.

When Diplomacy Fails ...

Guess which company secretly did major business with Saddam during the same UN sanctions? That's right -- Halliburton, whose CEO at the time was none other than Dick Cheney, who is now the Vice President of the United States. What's worse is that Cheney proceeded to lie about his company's participation.

Let's face it, the sanctions were leaking all over, not least because U.S. corporations were violating them with impunity.

I ran into the post limit yesterday so I'm posting this now...

...people tend to expect their governments to actually work for their good.

Such belief is nothing more than the govt propaganda at work. The govt hardly ever works for the good of the citizens. Since you seem to support the status-quo, I guess you won't see why the system is pretty bad. Just remember: the peasents/workers in aristocratic socities claimed the same thing. They were so confident that the system was actually for their good that they allowed themselves to be sentenced to death for adultery while kings were committing adultery on a daily basis. I don't think my words will have much impact but all I can say is that, your belief in the system is misplaced.

You advocate change for the sake of change alone.

No. I'm not proposing the alternate system simply for the sake of it. There is more to it. I believe that humans are dynamic, organic beings. We change over time. Therefore, it is best if we build a society where the system is just as dynamic. Ther modern "justice" system is nothing more than a revenge system, created by the elites several thousand years ago. It was simply to keep the masses in line and let the elites carry out abuses. The same system has stuck since then. It is different; it's more egalitarian; it's more fairer; but the system is a weakness.

You misuse the word when you say that laws can be "circumvented" by passing new laws when this is in fact the Constitutional method of implementing the change you advocate.

I'm not really sure what your point is. My position is that everything should be dynamic. My point had nothing to do with my system. I was simply pointing out that the "Constitutional method of implementing change" can also lead to circumvension towards bad deeds. In other words, the system that you hold dear is not so dear. *I* can take over USA tomorrow and run it as a dictatorship simply by passing a few laws here and there. Consider the recent cases with the Guantanomo Bay prisoners. USA has classified them as "enemy combatants" which really doesn't fit any category. With a simple stroke of the pen, or more like passing a 200+ page law that no one read, USA just introduced a whole new notion that did not exist before. USA has been able to jail without trial a bunch of people that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. If someone said that a person can be jailed without trial (by USA of all countries) how many would have believed it? Even totalitarian regimes like USSR and Nazi Germany charged people with bogus crimes (although it is not clear whether being jailed without a charge or being jailed with a bogus charge is worse). Furthermore, USA has classified Jose Padilla, a US citizen, as an "enemy combatant". How many would have thought that an American can be held in a jail perpetually without allowing any contact with family, lawyers etc?

Now, I'm not saying it is easy or that I am a dictator (I'm not :) ). In fact, people realize the mistake and are trying to undo it. BUT your perceived strength in the system is nonexistent.

Libertarians, for example, will blather on about laissez-faire capitalism as if it had never been tried. It has been tried of course; in England during the Industrial Revolution. It was disastrous economically, environmentally, and in terms of human rights. You owe it to yourself to examine past anarchic societies and see why they went wrong.

I'm neither a liberatarian nor an anarchist. I am a leftist, a socialist, with anarchist tendencies :) I don't come across as that because I'm arguing for an anarchist system. I am totally against capitalism so your Industrial Revolution

If however, you are like most people, and you do draw a line between public and private information about yourself, then Google's innovative strategies combined with its overwhelming market share make it a privacy time bomb just waiting to explode. If Microsoft were behind Google, much of the world would be up in arms (Remember NT's supposed NSA Backdoor?) No so with Google. Strangely, perhaps because Google actually works pretty well and isn't laced with bugs that allow viruses to damage your home computer, no one makes a fuss.

In the recent years the public has sometimes been shocked to learn about some of the side effects that our technological progress has brought. Organizations combining data from multiple databases (for 'marketing' purposes) and technologies such as license plate recognition make possible a 'technical utopia' that Big Brother could only have dreamed about.

This combined with the hightened fear of terrorism and the corresponding (over-)reaction by governments has led to a information gathering infrastructure that is unique in world history. In the post 9/11 world there has been increasing pressure from the American government on organizations and companies (from your local library to European airlines) to forward all types to information to 'the authorities'. Google is most likely just one more intelligence source, though in all probablilty a highly valuable one, in the war against terrorism.

Suspicions that Google has 'ties' with the NSA was published in Slashdot (Should You Fear Google?) last Febuary. After reading some of the comments associated with that article, one begins to wonder if Goggle is just the Internet arm of the Echelon project.

While each tenticle pulling at our privacy is relatively harmless by itself, the combined affect of the multiple attacks on our personal privacy is large and disturbing. Worse still, is that we have only ourselves blame. Our very own democratic governments encourage and protect the individuals and organizations that are attempting to implement these policies. And largely because of own our ignorance and apathy, we don't raise our voices against it.

It's like comparing the public's reaction to a government proposal to mandate the installation of ID chips in its citizens, which causes a massive outcry, vs. parents desire to install the same chips in their children, because of their fear of abductions. The end result may be the same, but in the second case we did it to ourselves.

I guess the moral is that we should just be a bit more aware of what we're doing, and a bit more willing to say 'no'. While the current western decomcratic governments probably do 'have our best interests at heart', what happens when some unsavory character sells or gives this information to our enemies, or worse our government is no longer domocratic and becomes our enemy?

I've got to agree with this. In this interview Brandt (director of GoogleWatch) admits to spending two years optimising namebase.org for Google.

One of Brandt's major problems with Google is PageRank, which he believes is tyrannical rather than democratic. This shows a fundamental lack of understanding of democracy. The modern concept of "democracy" does not say that everyone is equal or has an equal say. It does say that everyone is equal before the Law, and that democracy is founded on the premise of citizens who are knowledgeable and capable of understanding complex concepts. It also says that common people (collectively) hold power.

So PageRank doesn't give an equal say to every web page out there. Web pages that are widely references are assumed to be "more knowledgable" regarding the topic(s) they cover, and thus a more likely source of information. Not a completely unreasonable assumption.

Brandt's concerns about privacy are, mostly, founded. But then, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Google is a massively valuable resource, and you get it gratis. So far Google has disclosed its privacy policies and not broken any promises, so users have agreed to their terms. If they don't like that ... don't use Google.

Incidentally I find it really interesting that everyone seems to assume from the start that any ballot tampering would be directed by the GOP.

Maybe that's because all the voting machines are manufactured and marketed by Republican-controlled businesses.

Electronic voting machines, without paper audit trails and control of exit polls would go a long way in letting those in power control close elections. The only check against widespread election rigging is that races where independent polls show a clear winner can't be rigged without danger of exposing the conspiracy. It just happens a lot of races in recent elections are very close, for some reason, and rigging a few has been enough to tip the balance of power in the Senate and presidential races in particular.

Its just conjecture but its quite possible that the Republican administration, with their heads bent by 9/11, are acting in concert with elements in intelligence or defence to keep the Democrats out of power in Congress because the Democrats are perceived as too weak to defend America from its enemies which are now behind every bush. They might well have rationalized to themselves that it was OK to destroy the most fundemental underpinning of freedom in America in order to defend America.

During these tumultuous times its quite possible the Bush administartion and its allies have decided to do whatever it takes to maintain control of the Presidency and Congress, which will eventually lead to control of the judiciary. We could well be witnessing the end of the last pretense of Democracy in America. If the Reuplicans maintain control of the congress and the presidency in 2004, you may as well stop wasting your time voting after that.

It also quite suspicious Democratic senatorial candidates keep dying in plane crashes. Mel Carnahan in 2000 and Paul Goldstone in 2002 whose seat was subsequently won by a Republican tipping in the balance of power in the Senate.

Just look at the string of disturbing visible Republican power plays, the Clinton impeachment, the Florida debacle, redistricting in Texas and Colorado, the California recall and the possibility the California energy crisis was rigged by Enron and its allies in the White house to create turmoil in one of the last remaining Democratic strongholds. You can easily envision the possibility the Republicans are engaged in a no holds barred campaign to seize and hold power.

Thank Heaven that Michael Powell is there to ensure diversity in the horrid liberal media .. :/

Or did you want a reference to the original 'no first use' doctrine? I'm sure many of my fellow Merkins weren't aware of it in the first place!

Michael Neumann addresses this very issue.

Unless you are the recipient of a C&D letter from SCO, there isn't a whole lot you can do civily against them. Criminally, however, a case can be made against SCO on two counts:

Fraud
Every time SCO comes out and makes a statement such as this, it is commercial speech (speech for commercial business/profit) and must be truthful. The current case against Nike has been allowed to proceed and would be very relevant here. Even without the Nike case, there is enough evidence to file charges.

Extortion
In most DMCA cases, the copyright owner files a suit against the supposed infringer and settles out of court; this is underhanded but legal. In this case, SCO is not filing suit but is asking for a "settlement" anyway, IOW, "pay your protection money or I'll sue you and put you out of business". This is extortion, and might also fall under the RICO statutes.

You wanna get rid of the SCO monster? Write your attorney general, write the U.S. attorney general, and write your Congressmen and state legislators and make them clean this mess up. The reason SCO can get away with FUD like this is that the Legislature hasn't put in place proper protections and the Executive won't enforce the protections that exist.

They put you in prison for linking to bomb making websites. FREE SHERMAN AUSTIN!

Break the Corporate Media's Stranglehold on the Free Flow of Information, News, Artistic Expression and Cultural Creativity http://www.counterpunch.org/dunifer07252003.html

Forget about those forged Iraq documents, just move on.

Yee-hah, we are now witnessing the beginning of
the impeachment of George W. Bush et al.

Cheers,
W00t

Don't put words in my mouth. I never said that bin Laden and al Q'aida didn't actually carry out the attack. They probably had a half dozen different attacks planned and 9/11 just happened to be the one that came along with the right timing.

It wasn't necessary to implement the attack to get it to happen. All that was necessary was to commit a little strategic head-turning at the right moments to let something succeed that could have been stopped. Then we have a rallying cry to focus peoples' anger and get them to support atrocities that further the interests of the powerful elite.

And if you think it's "poppycock" to believe that the US government would use an event like this to further a geopolitical goal then you just don't know much about US history. Read up on the incident with the USS Maine that was used as a pretext for the Spanish-American war or the Gulf of Tonkin incident that Johnson used to escalate the Vietnam war. It's not at all far-fetched to believe something that has multiple precedents in our history and I resent your arrogant implication that my intellect is suspect.

Another interesting precedent is the Reichstag fire in 1933 which Hitler used to consolidate his power and round up his enemies. It's even more interesting when you discover the well-documented cooperation between the Bush family and, not only the Nazi regime, but also the bin Laden family. These guys have been players for a long time and it's intellectually dishonest to discount the fact that they're not working for the freedom of US citizens but for the furtherance of their elitist Straussian agenda.

Sometimes I wonder who's more kooky -- people who see conspiracies everywhere or people who refuse to see them at all. You can take the intellectually safe route and just repeat what you're told or you can seek out the truth that some would rather keep hidden for obvious reasons. Take your choice.

It's also a happy coincidence that I'm posting this on Independence Day. The day when we celebrate our independence from tyranny. Those must have been heady days when our forefathers fought against tyranny instead of for it as we do now.

I love this country and I want to see it put back on the course that The Constitution set it on. Psychopatriots and lazy "intellectuals" notwithstanding.

We the People!

Don't put words in my mouth. I never said that bin Laden and al Q'aida didn't actually carry out the attack. They probably had a half dozen different attacks planned and 9/11 just happened to be the one that came along with the right timing.

It wasn't necessary to implement the attack to get it to happen. All that was necessary was to commit a little strategic head-turning at the right moments to let something succeed that could have been stopped. Then we have a rallying cry to focus peoples' anger and get them to support atrocities that further the interests of the powerful elite.

And if you think it's "poppycock" to believe that the US government would use an event like this to further a geopolitical goal then you just don't know much about US history. Read up on the incident with the USS Maine that was used as a pretext for the Spanish-American war or the Gulf of Tonkin incident that Johnson used to escalate the Vietnam war. It's not at all far-fetched to believe something that has multiple precedents in our history and I resent your arrogant implication that my intellect is suspect.

Another interesting precedent is the Reichstag fire in 1933 which Hitler used to consolidate his power and round up his enemies. It's even more interesting when you discover the well-documented cooperation between the Bush family and, not only the Nazi regime, but also the bin Laden family. These guys have been players for a long time and it's intellectually dishonest to discount the fact that they're not working for the freedom of US citizens but for the furtherance of their elitist Straussian agenda.

Sometimes I wonder who's more kooky -- people who see conspiracies everywhere or people who refuse to see them at all. You can take the intellectually safe route and just repeat what you're told or you can seek out the truth that some would rather keep hidden for obvious reasons. Take your choice.

It's also a happy coincidence that I'm posting this on Independence Day. The day when we celebrate our independence from tyranny. Those must have been heady days when our forefathers fought against tyranny instead of for it as we do now.

I love this country and I want to see it put back on the course that The Constitution set it on. Psychopatriots and lazy "intellectuals" notwithstanding.

We the People!

you are never going to grow too much and have jaw dropping increases from year to year.

Tell that to Volvo, Ikea, and Ericsson.

you can lower the tax rate and hopefully spur the economy to boil up

Yeah, right. You supply siders never fail to amuse me. Perhaps you would be credible if Mitch Daniels wasn't thinking of the economy of Tahiti rather than that of the U.S. right now.

Try fighting the Highway Lobby here in the states. There's a reason why mass trans is so backwards here.

...are still terrorists.

Whereas George Bush says: "Iraqis, we are not out to get you. We want Saddam.", Osama Bin Laden says: "We will kill you all indiscriminately to frighten you into doing what we want." i.e. TO CAUSE WIDESPREAD FEAR.

Bin Laden never said that. He's not out to "kill us all". He has defined several political goals, and has expressed a willingness to export death and violence to achieve them, in what he sees as defense of his community.

But then, so has Bush. "We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of this great nation.", quoth he. This, from a man who considers himself a devout Christian.

As far as I can tell both of these men are terrorists. To hell with both of them.

Interesting commentary. I googled for "IRA training bogs in Tipperary" and found lots of links.

and that Saddam Hussein is an innocent victim in all of this.

I'm not saying that. He's a nasty piece of work. I don't support him in any way. However, this is not the reason that the U.S. is invading. The plans for invading Iraq were written up many years ago, by the people who are currently in power, and not once in those plans does it talk about 'regime change', how saddam is oppressing his people, and not a word about terrorism.

it's an exaggeration for you to claim that Bush is a fascist

I agree, it is an exaggeration, and I didnt mean it entirely seriously.

The fascist is the one whose armed forces hide weapons in elementary schools and hospitals and have them attack the enemy while wearing civilian clothing and while pretending to surrender.

Can I remind you that this is what the U.S. did during the Vietnam war? They deliberately set up their defensive positions in and around villages with the same intention.

Saddam Hussein is personally responsible than the deaths of more Iraqi civilians than will be killed in this war.

So how responsible is the U.S. in all of this, seeing that they sold them the Chemical weapons? Furthur, it was Rumsfeld himself who did the bidding. How responsible was he? It's not as though he sold them to Saddam on the condition that he wouldn't use them. Enough nerve gas to kill 1m people is enough nerve gas to kill 1m people.

When photographs of George Bush line every street

Where does the distinction come between actual photos of the leader and little obnoxious U.S. flags stapled to everything in sight?

it's also not an act of fascism

I agree. Here, fascism is a misnomer, I just started talking about it because it was in the original sig. Let's just drop the f-word.

The fascist is the one who refuses to cooperate with a 12 year UN inspection program despite the fact that his failure of cooperation results in continued UN sanctions that cause widespread malnutrition and a horrifying infant mortality rate.

I'm confused here. Whose fault are you saying this is? The U.N.'s? Or Iraq's? It is Iraq's fault for not immediately agreeing to do whatever some random countries tell him to do otherwise they'll beat him up? If someone said this to the U.S.(not that anyone would ever be in the position to), the U.S. would definitely not conform, using it as an act of solidarity and defiance.

I've been discussing (arguing about:) this with friends for months now, and we've basically agreed it comes down to this.

You believe it is more dangerous to allow people like Saddam to continue ruling unchallenged.

However, I believe that it is more dangerous to allow the U.S. to believe it can continue getting away with this kind of stuff. Running around thinking it has the right to invade any country it likes, not conform to international law, hold prisioners in a legal black hole indefinitely, be immune to war crimes charges and hold its companies and citizens goals above anyone else's is not the sign of an advanced society.
Meanwhile at home trying to silence dissenters from the academic community.

George Bush's stats from "stupid white men" by michael moore
George
arrested for drunk driving
arrested for stealing a Christmas Wreath
arrested for disorderly conduct at a football match
AWOL from Texas Air National Guard, skipped out for a year and a half
Official Biography is missing 3 years
sequence of failed businesses
more at Dry Drunk and the awful truth
I think he should go to jail first for copying his speeches from Caeser and Goering.

Funny how we will use open source software for war but not for our own voting system

But it's much more useful than that - if they're able to collect all that information, they can correlate it with people who give money to the Green Party or peace groups or environmental groups (some of whom are already on the TSA's not-allowed-to-fly lists because of their political incorrectness.) Also, the increased "information sharing" between the US civilian police agencies, spook agencies, and military, plus the redefinitions of lots of forms of vice as "national security" issues means that they can use those hotel bills from Humboldt County, California to decide to give your luggage a lot of extra attention when you're flying back from Amsterdam, or ask the Internal Revenue Service to check out your tax returns after that trip to Las Vegas just in case you might have been "money laundering" or passing some cash to that suspicious Penn fellow.

> So you slashbots should come down from your high horse.

Yeah... it's an fallacy to think that someone has to commit a crime to actually be guilty and punished.

>And "profiling" is a much better way of stopping terrorists instead of stripping down some 80 year old grandma from Kansas City all in the name of political correctness.

Instead, they deny some 74 year old catholic nun from Wisonsin from flying, based on their participation in the pacifist movement. This is, of course, much better.

Be aware of those militant pacifist.

Or those pesky tree-huggers. They cannot be allowed to fly either. Surely, they just want to fly to do some terroristic act. For what other reason should they want to fly? It is against their believe.

So, building up a list of people, who are not allowed to fly, based on their political, social and cultural background is not dubious?

By the way, book stores are also required to tell the FBI about who has bought which books and diving-schools have to inform them about their students. But they are not allowed to make this public.

This is, of course, not the slightest bit disturbing.

Especially since they are either reading books, Muslims, politically active....

Well, let's turn in around, they are not democrats or republicans or policitally uninterested, and white.

I will avoid the obligatory cites:
1,2

Ok, so far we're talking about either Charles Perrow-type normal accidents here, or we're trying to build a high reliability system and failing. However, since large, catastrophic events in unusual areas (such as space travel) draw a lot of attention, public risk perception may be higher than the actual risk. I don't know. Personally, even a catastrophic 2% "normal accident" rate is too high for my taste when it comes to space travel.

Unfortunately, as everyone who works in occupational health and safety (as I do) knows, good safety practice is expensive, and requires a lot of good safety theory and research behind it, which is also expensive. NASA has a history of having funding taken away from it, and according to recent press statements, NASA has been having trouble (of one variety or other) retaining safety personnel.

The upshot is, of course, that unless anyone doing space is willing to pay the extraordinary overhead costs of space safety, people, both on the ground and in the air, are going to keep dying.

Is It Time to Move to Canada?

What a real mate would tell Bush

Beating the drums for justice: Calls for Bush's impeachment for 9-11

USA Oui! Bush Non!

Between Bush, Bin Laden & Hitler

German leader links Bush's 'style' to Hitler's

Judging war crimes, then and now

Is It Time to Move to Canada?

What a real mate would tell Bush

Beating the drums for justice: Calls for Bush's impeachment for 9-11

USA Oui! Bush Non!

Between Bush, Bin Laden & Hitler

German leader links Bush's 'style' to Hitler's

Judging war crimes, then and now

Steinski : Nothing to Fear : A Rough Mix

Highly recomended sample-heavy mix-tape from one of the originators of the style. See also the classic Lessons 1, 2 and 3, "And the motorcade sped on", and "It's up to you".

More here here and here.

Prove that or shut your liberal ass up.

Is this what you were looking for? No? Let me spell it out for you:

More than a million and a half people died in Iraq as a direct result of those sanctions. The great majority of the victims were infants, children, elderly and chronically ill persons. UNICEF reported in 1997 that 4,500 children under the age of five were dying each month from hunger and disease, making 500,000 the number of small children killed by the blockade.

What do you think of your almight US republic now? Like killing children, don't you? Ignorant fool.

What this basically suggests is that the United States is not the bastion of freedom that is often held up to the world. If you piss off a policeman, he can drop a baggy in your car and say "Oh look, what's this?" and bust you for drug possession even if you've never done anything stronger than aspirin. The only difference between the United States and, say, Mexico, is that our cops generally do believe they work for the people rather than for, say, drug traffickers, so they tend to use their mojo on scumbags who, in their opinion, need to be in jail. But that doesn't make the system any fairer if a cop just doesn't like the way you look (e.g., you're a black man driving alone in a ritzy white neighborhood and thus guilty of driving while black) and concocts some lie to justify stopping you ("he was weaving in and out of traffic and slowing suspiciously in front of houses as if scoping them out for a robbery").

"Many of my worst alcoholics tend to be sociopathic (though not necessarily outright sociopaths), noticeably more selfish than average, unable to take/admit responsibility, lack real insight into their own condition, and often have coexistant personality disorders. They often refuse to even consider stopping their drinking."

• Polarized thinking (Bush's "you are either with us or against us" is an example. Another example is his statement, "Look my job isn't to try to nuance. I think moral clarity is important... this is evil versus good.")
• Rigid thinking
• Overreaction. Tendency to become imbalanced, to go to extremes (Bush's terms, "crusade", and "infinite justice" are examples. He was forced to retract these words. See the October 11, 2002 CounterPunch article, Addiction, Brain Damage and the President -- "Dry Drunk" Syndrome and George W. Bush )
• Obsessive repetition (On August 7, during his "working vacation" at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, Bush used the word "home" six times in a minute of conversation with reporters: "It's nice to be home ... This is my home ... It's good to be home ... This is where you come home ... This is my home," etc. In a five-minute speech later in the month, Bush mentioned values at least seven times and "neighbor" or "neighborliness" or "neighborly" six times. In a twenty-minute speech the next day he used "character" eleven times. -- Some of the examples here are drawn from a September 6, 2001 article in The Atlantic magazine, The Bumbling Communicator. Not only was Bush repetitive, he was lying. The article says, "Bush lived in the Texas governor's mansion and vacationed in swank resorts and at Kennebunkport before the campaign began.")
• Lying (A June 18, 2002 article in Salon says, Losing the "trifecta" says, "It takes a brazen politician to make up a story that can be proven false and then to keep lying about it after being busted repeatedly." Also see the October 8, 2002 CounterPunch article, Bush's Leaps of Illogic Don't Answer People's Questions About War.
• Anger ("... why is Bush so eager to engage in violence and so incapable of explaining why?" See the Sept. 24, 2002 American Politics Journal article Dry Drunk.)
• Inability to perceive the needs of others, inability to understand someone different from oneself
• Grandiosity, believing that one's own ideas are all-important. (Bush, and the oil and weapons people who support him, say the U.S. has the right to take military action before the adversary even has the capacity to attack.)
• Impatience ("If we wait for threats to fully materialize," President Bush said in a speech he gave at West Point, "we will have waited too long.")
• Incoherence. Things don't make sense in the mind of an alcoholic. An alcoholic's pattern of speech sometimes reflects his or her inner chaos.

"Many of my worst alcoholics tend to be sociopathic (though not necessarily outright sociopaths), noticeably more selfish than average, unable to take/admit responsibility, lack real insight into their own condition, and often have coexistant personality disorders. They often refuse to even consider stopping their drinking."

• Polarized thinking (Bush's "you are either with us or against us" is an example. Another example is his statement, "Look my job isn't to try to nuance. I think moral clarity is important... this is evil versus good.")
• Rigid thinking
• Overreaction. Tendency to become imbalanced, to go to extremes (Bush's terms, "crusade", and "infinite justice" are examples. He was forced to retract these words. See the October 11, 2002 CounterPunch article, Addiction, Brain Damage and the President -- "Dry Drunk" Syndrome and George W. Bush )
• Obsessive repetition (On August 7, during his "working vacation" at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, Bush used the word "home" six times in a minute of conversation with reporters: "It's nice to be home ... This is my home ... It's good to be home ... This is where you come home ... This is my home," etc. In a five-minute speech later in the month, Bush mentioned values at least seven times and "neighbor" or "neighborliness" or "neighborly" six times. In a twenty-minute speech the next day he used "character" eleven times. -- Some of the examples here are drawn from a September 6, 2001 article in The Atlantic magazine, The Bumbling Communicator. Not only was Bush repetitive, he was lying. The article says, "Bush lived in the Texas governor's mansion and vacationed in swank resorts and at Kennebunkport before the campaign began.")
• Lying (A June 18, 2002 article in Salon says, Losing the "trifecta" says, "It takes a brazen politician to make up a story that can be proven false and then to keep lying about it after being busted repeatedly." Also see the October 8, 2002 CounterPunch article, Bush's Leaps of Illogic Don't Answer People's Questions About War.
• Anger ("... why is Bush so eager to engage in violence and so incapable of explaining why?" See the Sept. 24, 2002 American Politics Journal article Dry Drunk.)
• Inability to perceive the needs of others, inability to understand someone different from oneself
• Grandiosity, believing that one's own ideas are all-important. (Bush, and the oil and weapons people who support him, say the U.S. has the right to take military action before the adversary even has the capacity to attack.)
• Impatience ("If we wait for threats to fully materialize," President Bush said in a speech he gave at West Point, "we will have waited too long.")
• Incoherence. Things don't make sense in the mind of an alcoholic. An alcoholic's pattern of speech sometimes reflects his or her inner chaos.

No! In fact, death is only a threat if the Content Cabals get their way. In that case, they will in all likelihood kill off (severely reduce) both Tech Sector profits and their own. On the other hand, if by some miracle they give up and grant their customers fair use rights to digital content, they will (contrarily) end up making more money than ever before.

Demonstrating this point is as easy as looking back at the last few distribution revolutions. VCRs? We've already got Valenti's famous serial-killer quote, but thank goodness he didn't get his way - video rentals have been big business for the studios ever since the Supreme Court ruled the VCR legit.

Going back further: Were audio cassettes the bane that the music industry feared, way back in the age of disco when Home taping was killing music? I didn't think so.

And prior even to that: Think television, think radio, think... the printing press. Did publishers make more money before, or after, Gutenberg?

Returning to the present age, is it even clear that Napster, that glorious window onto the world of music as a whole, undivided and beautiful and ever-surprising - was it indeed a bad thing, or was it perhaps free-marketing the music itself? And at the same time, oh look, those copy-protected CDs don't seem to be selling so good.

What I'm getting at here is that discussions of this issue often degenerate rapidly into an us-vs-them mentality. Which in a way makes sense, since the --AA's are a bunch of raving lunatics, who want to lock people up for sharing music after first DOS'ing their computers. But looked at from a different perspective, they're just lost sheep in need of some direction - a little guidance from those of us who actually live with, embrace, and explore the technological frontiers.

In other words, people paint the conflict as win-lose. But it's not: it's a choice we have, as a society: win-win, or lose-lose.

-Renard

Spiderman v. Pentagon

is here

The author is an academic and lawyer who had a hand in drafting US anti-biowarfare laws - he knows the history, the players, and the reasons related to US biowar activities, the Gulf War Syndrome, strangely convenient anthrax attacks on the US Congress, and well-founded suspicions about what's going on here. It's authoritative and frightening.

By the way, have you read this interview with Ariel Sharon in 1982? He knew what he was talking about...

If you want to make your book open, give it away on the Internet. It will even increase your book sales (must read).

Oh, wow. Thank you for pointing that out for me. I feel enlightened now. I think I will spend the rest of the day reading leftist conspiracy rags.

You sound absolutely gleeful that your country's leaders are planning death and destruction for many of the world's people who have done nothing more than work an honest job and try to feed their children. Its no wonder people love America.

For your viewing pleasure: http://www.counterpunch.org/du.html. Don't you just love all the shitty evil things the US military has done and plans to do again?

More of the above from google: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22depleted+u ranium%22+%2Biraq+%2Bcancer&btnG=Google+Search

Try to learn something while having fun.

Afghanistan is just the fall guy, and a convenient site for a new oil pipeline. How many Afghanis were on the planes in 9/11?

It's a good thing that the Bush Gang have frozen many "suspect" international bank accounts... but they specifically excluded those with ties directly to Bush or his dodgy family oil company, Harken. That banks in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia are not being investigated, where most of the Al Qaeda funding must have come from, is ludicrous and abdurd and patently dishonest.

http://www.counterpunch.org/presspatriot.html

The RIAA's approach to Gnutella thus far has been actively discovering copyright offenders and sending DMCA complaints to their ISP

I was a bit worried about this so I did some research. The only case of someone actually losing access was covered in an article on Salon. News.com reported about pressure on ISPs, but mentioned only one subscriber being cut off.

I checked the dslreports message boards expecting to find howls of protests by those cut off from their monopoly broadband providers. Silence....

I think the RIAA and MPAA are doing a great job at scaring people away from file sharing without actually paying many bounty hunters because the idea of a secret copyright police force is so juicy.

Similarly, there seems to be hysteria about people being denied boarding on aircraft for being dissidents. The Bangor, Maine Green Party member turns out to have been pretty uncooperative. Yes, the guard was an overbearing oaf, but she admits to provoking him in an interview . The Green's press release doesn't mention any of this.

The guy detained in Germany for having "unconventional" views and the guy denied flying for having a copy of Hayduke Lives look like the result of hysterical untrained guards, not a plot to deny everyone's civil rights. More hysteria won't help.

The guy who was harassed for taking pictures of National Guardsmen at a security checkpoint probably should have asked first (it's supposedly not illegal, but photography at customs is so he should have thought a bit), but he was another victim of a freakazoid with a chip on his shoulder.

I don't think we should have to turn into loyal plastic robots, but I'm not going to wear my Circumvention Device t-shirt through airport security. No need to get the wheels of teeny minds spinning.

There's certainly an epidemic of ineptitude (that's not new since Sept. 11), but I don't believe there's an epidemic of harrassment. Likewise of ISPs and their customers.

Chomsky spoke at MIT about The War on Terror. He points out that the USA is the biggest terrorist state, and has been for years. This is very clear to those living outside the US of A. (like me)
The US is the rogue state. Millions of Afgani's are about to starve and freeze to death, because the US wants to prove its "Credibility" and seize control of Central Asian oil.
Most likely India and Pakistan will be exchanging some mushroom clouds pretty soon. And USA boys will be bogged down for a decade with their high tech toys. Did ya hear Lockheed won the billions to make more death machines... can anyone say "Military-Industrial Complex"

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

Arafat may be the "Chairman" of the PA now, but how do you think he began his "illustrious career"..

You're trying to make a distinction here, but either you're ignorant or misleading others 'cuz Sharon's "illustrious career" included unarguably terrorist actions. Check them out here. Here's a sample:

Sharon's history offers a monochromatic record of moral corruption, with a documented record of war crimes going back to the early 1950s. He was born in 1928 and as a young man joined the Haganah, the underground military organization of Israel in its pre-state days. In 1953 he was given command of Unit 101, whose mission is often described as that of retaliation against Arab attacks on Jewish villages. In fact, as can be seen from two terrible onslaughts, one of them very well known, Unit 101's purpose was that of instilling terror by the infliction of discriminate, murderous violence not only on able bodied fighters but on the young, the old, the helpless.

Sharon's first documented sortie in this role was in August of 1953 on the refugee camp of El-Bureig, south of Gaza. An Israeli history of the 101 unit records 50 refugees as having been killed; other sources allege 15 or 20. Major-General Vagn Bennike, the UN commander, reported that "bombs were thrown" by Sharon's men "through the windows of huts in which the refugees were sleeping and, as they fled, they were attacked by small arms and automatic weapons".

And it gets worse, lots worse...

As defense minister in Menachem Begin's second government, Sharon was the commander who led the full dress 1982 assault on Lebanon, with the express design of destroying the PLO, driving as many Palestinians as possible to Jordan and making Lebanon a client state of Israel. It was a war plan that cost untold suffering, around 20,000 Palestinian and Lebanese lives, and also the deaths of over one thousand Israeli soldiers. The Israelis bombed civilian populations at will. Sharon also oversaw the infamous massacres at Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps. The Lebanese government counted 762 bodies recovered and a further 1,200 buried privately by relatives. However, the Middle East may have been spared worse, thanks to Menachem Begin. Just as the '82 war was getting under way, Sharon approached Begin, then Prime Minister, and suggested that Begin cede control over Israel's nuclear trigger to him. Begin had just enough sense to refuse.

The slaughter in the two contiguous camps at Sabra and Shatilla took place from 6:00 at night on September 16, 1982 until 8:00 in the morning on September 18, 1982, in an area under the control of the Israel Defense Forces. The perpetrators were members of the Phalange militia, the Lebanese force that was armed by and closely allied with Israel since the onset of Lebanon's civil war in 1975. The victims during the 62-hour rampage included infants, children, women (including pregnant women), and the elderly, some of whom were mutilated or disemboweled before or after they were killed.

I'm no fan of Arafat, but I can't countenance spreading false information.

Afghanistan is in the middle of a famine. It's bombing has severely impeded the efforts of aid agencies to get food in to the country. It is estimated that as a result 3-4 million people will starve this winter.

This is because two of the wealthiest, most powerful nations on earth are attacking one of the poorest, because they choose not to extradite someone from within their borders without proof. It should be noted that the west so far has not managed to come up with any definite proof that is was Osama that did it. But hell, go ahead anyway - kill a load of Afghans. They're only muslims after all.

It should be noted that the US doesn't exactly have a good record of extrafiting terrorsts itself, Haiti, for eaxmple has been trying to get the US to extradite a known terrorist for some time, and they have a great deal of proof of his guilt. By the way, he played a large part in the killing of 4-5000 people. That figure sound familiar?

Sorry, on this war, I'm with Chomsky.

We spend millions on an action like this one. For every enemy killed the cost is hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why don't we bomb them with money?

Or, to be realistic, can't the U.S. find a better way to spend those tax dollars: medicine, food, education, infrastructure development instead of weapons.

Perhaps you've heard of the military-industrial complex ...

There's some good alternative points of view available on counterpunch.org -- including on-the-ground information about Afghanistan and the building of an airstrip in Northern Alliance territory.

I keep my info in a house.