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Just to compliment your post, here's a link to the http://www.csmonitor.com/aboutus/about_the_monitor .htmlCSM's FAQ page where they explain the name and ideologies. I know the first time I came across the CSM, I too thought they were maybe not my cup of tea (religiously speaking). But during my time as a news-junkie, I have constantly come across well written and informative articles from them. OT: Sorry for the crappy html link...I don't know how to embedd the link within the text of my post. I was trying to use a carrot-a-href-equal-URL-carrot tag, but it wasn't working.

when i read the Christian science monitor people glance at the title and knee jerk immediately, 'what the hell are you reading that for?'

Just in case you have not had an encounter with the CSM before, it's not some religious orientated 'intelligent theory' spouting mouth piece of the far right. It's one of the most respected newspapers around, has a league of its own reporters rather than relying on wire services like most other papers, has won many awards for fantastic journalism, often reports on cutting edge science that would make the conservative far right weep, and also often reports on stories that the rest of the press skip over for not being sexy enough.

AND, they're low on cash and have been in the red for some time, how about splashing out on a subscription?

"Of all the sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: 'it might have been' "

Imagine if we'd had a President who asked for everyone to cut their gasoline use by a third. I would have gone for it (though already driving a Prius). I think my countrymen would have made the sacrifice, to get out of the Middle East in the long run and in the short run give the breeders and feeders of the terrorists a kick in the nuts. (Current conservation budget.)

"It's the Jordanian border guards who are preventing tht."

I think you misunderstood what I said. I wasn't saying the Palestinians should move to Jordan, I was saying they ARE living in Jordan, occupied Jordan. Thanks to Israel's seizure of their homes and homeland they are stateless refugees in occupied territory. No one wants them so they are sentenced to an eternity living under Israeli occupation mostly in abject poverty. And you wonder why they are so mad. They are enduring the same fate Jews did when they were scattered to the wind. You would think Jews of all people would have some empathy for this and not do the same thing to another people that was done to them.

"Oh, intentionally blowing up young children, and taking pride in it, constitutes "somewhat extreme views" in your opinion...?"

Uh, Israel's military kills young children too. A 13 year old girl shot multiple times by an Israeli officer in cold blood for example. U.S. Marines murdered young children in Haditha Iraq, for example they executed a one year old girl. Thats what happens in bloody insurgencies stoked by mutual hatred and fear. You see you want to forget Israel and the U.S. kill children and only remember Palestinian suicide bombers kill children. I'm a little more intellectually honest and recognize Hamas is not particularly different from the U.S. or Israel in this regard. U.S. strategic bombing campaigns in Vietnam and World War II killed millions of civilians. Palestinian suicide bombers aren't even in the same ballpark if you want to talk about mass murder.

"is that it failed to prevent those acts"

Don't want to debate the subject since its impossible to sort out exactly what happened in those camps, but Israel invaded Lebanon pretty much in violation of international law, those camps were under Israeli military control, they let Christian militias who they knew had a blood feud with them, go in and slaughter unarmed refugees and did nothing in spite of hours of gunfire. Maybe Sharon and his officers were just ignorant or maybe they wanted the Palestinians slaughtered, we will really never know. There are plenty of other case studies of the Israeli military intentionally killing civilians but you are in denial on the subject so I'm not gonna waste the time recounting them as you rationalize that somehow you are somehow inherently better than your foe. I know full well you think you are inherently superior to Palestinians. They are always wrong and you are always in the right, right? That is in the nature of apartheid states.

" Illegal settlements are harshly evacuated by Israeli armed forces."

Dude all settlements in occupied territories are illegal, its just most of them were given under the table blessing of hard liners in the Israeli government. When you build settlements in occupied territories the only way you can do it is by seizing the land of the people that lived there before the occupation. It is against international law to seize the property of people in occupied territories. It is basically ethnic cleansing since you are ejecting the people who lived there to replace them with people of your race.

"But deciding to commit mass-murder"

Take off the blinders friend. There is no difference between a suicide bomb or an F-16 dropping a 1000 pound bomb in an apartment complex full of innocent women and children to assassinate one Palestinian leader. Again you are claiming some morale superiority that simply isn't there. The women and children end up just as dead in both cases. Your problem is you've rationalized that the two acts are inherently different when they are not.

"No one is asking Hamas to "disarm"."

Well at this point you seem to have no clue what you are talking about. EVERYONE is demanding Hamas disarm and recognize Israel's right to exist as a precondition of even entering negot

You may recall a guy named "Eric Rudolph" who was very wanted in a well populated area of America. Still, after a massive manhunt and being the most wanted man in America, they were unable to locate him for several years and caught him almost by mistake. He was only one man and not part of a general resistance movement.

Also, the people who are arguing that the military could put down a resistance in America need to remember there are only ~480,000 troops of whom nowhere near 100% would agree to wage war here. There are also tens of millions of private gun owners who own over 100 million guns (i.e., enough to share). As a result, the ratio is around 400:1 in favor of the resistance. Only one person from the resistance in 400 would have to kill an oppressing soldier and the enemy would have been completly obliterated.

Finally, it needs to be pointed out that, if soldiers have had a tough time telling the good guys from the bad in places like Vietnam and Iraq, just think how hard it would be in a situation when those people are literally just like you ("you" being the troops).

As much as I respect our military, and I while I agree it would be a very bloody conflict, there is absolutely no way whatsoever that any army in the world could win against the civilian population of America (short of nuking the majority of the country) and the primary weapon on the side of the resistance would likely be .30-06 rifles.

Well... given the choice between squandering at least $400 billion in a bloody quagmire, thats killeds tens of thousands of people, or spending it on ANY worthwhile R&D project the answer is obvious that R&D would be better. Maybe you wont achieve a successful commercial fusion reactor but as long as you insure sound R&D is happening in physics, materials, etc chances are you are going to get something worthwhile out of it.

I saw this illuminating article on what the U.S. has wrought in Iraq. All indications are Iraq is in really no better shape than it was under Saddam. At least then there was order, now there is chaos, with large numbers of people being killed, kidnapped and tortured under both regimes. Sure there are elections now but the government its lead to is just a bunch of factions who are carving up the country as they each try to grab a slice of the power and money. Corruption is rampant, militias are increasingly the only law and order and their brand of law and order is as arbitrary as Saddam's was.

The only people who benefit from the vast sums the U.S. is squandering in Iraq is the host of Republican connected U.S. companies that are profiteering off it, and the Iraqi factions that grabbed the biggest piece of the pie there.

The U.S. used to be the place where a large number of breakthroughs happened. Now the U.S. government doesn't invest in basic research, unless its related to weapons, spying or trying to attain a false sense of homeland security. American corporations increasingly slash research funding in pursuit of better quarters today while they destroy their long term well being, or they move it to places like China where the Chinese are likely to benefit from it more than America ever will.

Get used to a world where all the breakthroughs in science and engineering, outside of weaponry, happen someplace other than the U.S. because thats the road we are going down. Not sure we can even accomplish the weapons breakthroughs if the scientific, engineering and manufacturing base in the U.S. continues to hollow out.

It would be wonderful if the U.S. HAD spent that $400 billion on anything worthwhile versus wasting it which is what was done.

What exactly makes Google less evil than Yahoo? I like Google too, but there's really not that much of a moral difference. Sure, Yahoo caved in to the Chinese thought police, but then again so did Google.

Just a few Pointers: there are Many More

This first cite predates 911:

"CIA worked in tandem with Pak to create Taliban", India Times, March 7, 2001, (Just World Campaign archive)

From LA Times Paid Archives:

Behind a dusty gray wall in the military district here works an organization with secret knowledge that could spell success or doom for U.S. military operations against Osama bin Laden and his ally, the Taliban.

Mysterious and powerful, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency has been called a state within a state. It has been the largely hidden hand in Afghan politics for more than two decades, working with the CIA to defeat occupying Soviet forces and then, on its own, funneling arms and advice to help the Taliban movement become Afghanistan's master in 1996.

John Daniszewski and Tyler Marshall, "Victory Could Hinge On Islamabad's Spy Agency", Los Angeles Times, October 30 2001 (Paid Archives)

Christian Science Momitor - Original URL still active

If Afghanistan is the birthplace of this jihad, Peshawar is its staging ground. This dusty city of intrigue just east of the Khyber Pass is where many of today's Muslims came to pick up both the Koran and the Kalashnikov. Bin Laden and Zawahiri met here. Hasan Ali and Zam Amputan both studied at schools here funded by Saudi money.

When the Soviets attacked Afghanistan in December 1979, the initial prognosis in the West was that the native population lacked the unity to resist. It was felt that the proud ethnic groups in the country would never unify enough to drive out the communists. The answer, agreed to in Washington, the Middle East, and Pakistan was - Islam. The creation of the mujahideen warriors was the result - fighters that would come from around the Muslim world and take up arms in the name of a holy war.

The project succeeded quite well. A "pipeline" of weapons, warriors, and networks of engaged mullahs was established from the Middle East through Peshawar, Pakistan - and into Afghanistan. Money from the Middle East and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) - funneled through the Pakistan Interservices Agency (ISI) - was used to buy food, clothing, supplies, weapons, and intelligence. Local madrassahs became ideological training grounds for those who were termed by everyone from President Carter to President Reagan as "freedom fighters."

Along with the new fervor to fight the Soviet infidels, a new set of insights and pan-Islamic ideals developed, capturing the hearts and minds of young Muslims, along with a powerful new interpretation of an old Islamic idea - jihad. Later, after the war, the Afghan Arabs would take their battle-tested skills and sharp-edged ideology home to Yemen, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Philippines, Kenya, and the United States. "Scratch an Islamic militant group today and you find Afghan Arabs behind it," says a Jakarta-based diplomat.

Robert Marquand, "The tenets of terror: A special report on the ideology of jihad and the rise of Islamic militancy", Christian Science Monitor, October 18, 2001

Care to Proffer Counter Citations? I am awaiting them...

I don't think it's the "last word" on this topic, but it does attempt a short exploration. It's difficult to know if this will help you (or anyone else), but I thought it might be worth a try...

      http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0515/p13s01-stct.htm l

"It's all about me: Why e-mails are so easily misunderstood"

regards,
gerry

This includes things like "we are investigating a known terrorist, and since you just published his face in the paper he went so far underground he won't even be able to find his asshole to wipe it after he takes a dump"...

Do you really think Hussein would have used WMD against us if he'd had them and we'd left him alone? Not a chance - he knew he'd be signing his own death warrant, and was rational enough to not want that.

But Zarqawi? Or bin Laden? Or even Ahmadinejad? I'm a whole lot less sure about that, and hence a whole lot more worried.

Forget that we've made Iraq a terrorist training ground that's even better for that than Afghanistan was. Forget that we've shown the US army can be practically stalemated by determined jihadists with smallarms and IEDs. Forget that we've tied our hands if a real threat comes along that actually requires military attention.

We may have provided the opportunity to turn a non-threatening nation that could be reasoned with into a violent, irrational one that we cannot predict. With radioactive materials that vanished in the wake of the invasion.

You don't have to be a Democrat or a peacenik to be disgusted with the way this Iraq mess has been handled.

I can only assume that your argument is based on the assumption that there are lots of people with bombs on airplanes and that therefore there is a need to give carte blanche to air marshals. The only problem with this argument is that planes are not blowing up all the time nor are there lots of thwarted plots.

Well, your first mistake is making unwarranted assumptions. In fact, my thinking was closer to the opposite. First, I don't think law enforcement officials should ever get carte blanche in any situation. All of their actions should be overseen, scrutinized, and their actions should fit the circumstances (and if their behavior doesn't fit, they get prosecuted to the full extent of the law). Second, if the Air Marshals were seeing this kind of bizarre behavior all the time, then I would expect their training would be different, and the situation would be handled differently.

So what? Do all people travelling from there get shot? No, apparently only people acting crazy.

I'm saying that the chances of smuggling something from Columbia are slightly higher, so I imagine they're already suspicious. When you believe that your life and lives you are sworn to protect are being threatened by a person who is behaving in a crazy way, then what would you do in that officer's place?

A bomb small enough to go undetected would not do a lot of damage on the ground. It might have killed the agents, however, depending on how close they were. Even if he had some really evil explosives, more than a few pounds would be very hard to conceal.

Well, maybe I'm being "creative" (the result of too many bad movies, I'm sure) but a bomb could be elsewhere on the plane, and the detonator was all he had. What if it was near the hundred of gallons of jet fuel that are on planes and at airports? The point is, they did not know at that time. Hindsight is 20-20.

The air marshal program is nothing but a dog-and-pony show to give people a sense of security.

I'll agree that there is a great deal of false security involved in air transportation. However, they were placed in an unfortunate no-win situation, (if nothing, read the last paragraph) and having well-publicized security in place is a deterrent to some people who might attempt something outrageous.

Tell me again how these agents were doing their part to make air travel safer?

Let me flip that around - Tell me how you'd explain to the general population how allowing a mentally ill guy who is making bomb threats run free around an airport is safe or acceptable? I'm not saying that the answer is "shoot him, no questions," but the limited amount of information and the limited amount of time to make a different decision in this case just is not there. (Again, hindsight 20-20, and they are in a no-win situation).

Not so long as journalists keep getting arrested with Yahoo's help.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=31124

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0909/p01s03-woap.htm l

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=17180

Look, if your not earning a "living wage" then adapt.

Basic algebra for you ...

"X" number of ppl in workforce
"Y" number of jobs that pay above poverty level
"Z" number of ppl that will live in poverty because all the good jobs are taken

X - Y = Z

The exact value of the variables is variable, but it is impossible statistically that X = Y
as we know that Z exists in the millions .

Keep in mind also the unemployment rate is not based on the number of ppl out of work
its based on some survey that is not pursued aggressively, and does not have truly
random sampling .

http://www.underreported.com/modules.php?op=modloa d&name=News&file=article&sid=1092&mode=thread&orde r=0&thold=0

In the summer of 2003 it is presumed that the rate was almost 11% of the country had no
job at all and many were working below the level of their education .

Their shirt of choice :

http://www.cafepress.com/overeducated

The stories of ppl qualified to do more, but are losing their homes :

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0930/p09s01-coop.htm l

The so called soft landing, and recovery economy is a load of crap .

Ex-MislTech

Since this statement surprised me a bit I thought a source might be nice:
Sarin, Mustard Gas Discovered Separately in Iraq
Deadly Nerve Agent Sarin Is Found in Roadside Bomb

Finally, a credible writeup as to why this particular piece of evidence shouldn't be viewed as the smoking gun:
Iraq sarin shell is not part of a secret cache

From these descriptions I can't take this as evidence of a stockpile of WMDs. It would take more, even, than an unused crate of these shells since one has to leave the possibility of beaurocratic screwups open. It was known that chemical weapons had been used by this regime in the past, but the stockpiles had theoretically been destroyed. This was not the justification for us going to war.

If they could really change their output levels that quicky, there wouldn't be a "peak price" and "off hours price"

What about in the USA where the per capita rate of incarceration is the highest in the world, what sort of ID should the Americans be carrying????

Can you name even one person who has been "shipped off sans due process to an offshore prison camp" who wasn't captured in a war zone under arms while not wearing a uniform?

Well, there were the 38 detainess who were released in March 2005 because the US government decided that they were not enemy combatants. None of these people received compensation for unjust imprisonment, and none of them have ever been told why they were arrested.

Or how about "Adel" - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/11/13/AR2005111301061.html

Or how about the five Chinese detainees who have been found not to be enemy combatants, but are still sitting in Guantanamo? http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0213/p03s03-usju.htm l

The United States has chosen to put those people into jail rather than execute them. That is a favor that the US is doing out of the kindness of its heart. Your welcome.

"Kindness of its heart"? Fuck off. Guantanamo is a fucking embarassment to the USA, and you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to defend it.

sarcasm This is just old-fashioned pork barrel politics. Except, now they're not even pretending: instead of saying a $2,000,000,000 "bridge to nowhere" serves an actual purpose they are just going to outright spend $73,000,000 with the explicit purpose of making a pile of debris on the moon. I bet they name it after Senator Ted Stevens(R-Alaska) or Bill Frist(R-Tenn). At least Bill Frist has some experience on conducting science at a distance. "Frist Water-Seeking Mission to the Moon" sounds kind of catchy. Kind of. Maybe? Ok, no. /sarcasm

"it takes, on average, 10 years and 1 billion dollars to get a new drug approved in the U.S. ..."

This is simply incorrect. It is likely that this statistic is referring to the time it takes for a drug company to develop and gain approval for a new drug. According to Washington Monthly in May 2000, at that time the FDA approval process was taking about a year, and had decreased from about 2.5 years after so-called "fast track" procedures were implemented in the 90s: (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2000/00 05.pomper.html)

"If you are arguing that the FDA plays down risks in order to allow buisnesses to sell dangerous products, that is just not true."

I am, and I am by no means alone. For evidence and opinions on this side of the question, you might want to check out:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6520630/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/pres cription/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A313 5-2004Dec15.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1126/p02s01-uspo.htm l

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/ a/2004/11/23/MNGSPA04NI1.DTL

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050205/bob10 .asp

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/15/60II/mai n674293.shtml

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0111/p01s03-sten.htm l uses algae to remove 40% of the CO2, 86% of NO2 and produces ethanol as a byproduct!
Plus there's tons of coal about (pun intentded)

The former: resignation, the latter takes a bit longer to explain:
The US is, compared to any other western society, extremely religious (that Bush actually used the word "crusade" to refer to the Iraq War didn't exactly help, either). Granted, there are quite religious countries in Europe, too (Poland, Ireland and Italy), but not to the same extend, and they seem to be more successful separating it from politics.
You can compare survey data of various aspects of life between countries, and you will find that religion is not as important in Europe as it is in the US. For example, if you look at the results of the question "How important is god in your life?" for the US, Iran, and secular European countries like France or Germany ("Old Europe") the US' relative similarity to Iran, compared to Europe, is striking (sorry, no direct link to the graphs is possible, but trust me it's worth the effort).
I also found a poll that said 45% of Americans believe in the biblical creation, 38% in ID creationism, and only 13% that no god had part in it. In a German poll with the same questions the results were 12%/25%/61% (link in German).
The relatively common references to god even by mainstream US politicians, along with the Good/Evil classification, let many things appear religiously motivated, even if not intended. I assume those Americans that don't share the mainstream's religiousity perceive that rhetoric as as frightening as I do.

When there's a culture that believes westerners are the devil, peaceful integration is very difficult to accomplish.

Well, bombing them probably doesn't help making them see us in a more positive light, either.
Peaceful integration is the only way. You can't force somebody to share your believes.

[Bush] had a very difficult decision to make. He could either let things continue to happen organically and knowingly face more 9/11 incidents or he could make a desperate attempt to speed up the integration.

The key to preventing "more 9/11 incidents" lies in understanding the terrorists' motivation. The US' military presence in the Middle East, along with the support for oppressive regimes as in Saudi Arabia and what is seen as agressive Israeli politics/military actions, is a major factor.

I'd like to expand on Iraq in particular because it seems to bring out the most cynical of viewpoints. There are so many people blaming us for the current state of Iraq. I can understand blaming us for Iraq no longer being under Saddam's control and therefore introducing freedoms that the people never had. Nobody seems to want to put any responsibility on the Iraqis themselves.

The US chose to attack Iraq, and as the occupying power carries the responsibility to provide security for the parts of the population not taking part in the fighting. The US created a power vacuum and different factions try to fill it -- that was predicted by many people who opposed the war from the very beginning. You can put some of the blame on Jaafari & Co., on the terrorists, or on the insurgency if you believe resistance was unexpected, but not on the Iraqi people as a whole.

They have many more freedoms that they never had before.

That depends. Actually many women, especially in the Shiite south, probably would point out several freedoms they have lost. Saddam was bad, but he was secular (which, incidently, is why the islamists hated him).
Also, elections are not the same a

Companies use software to weed out candidates, but here are five strategies that help job-seekers get noticed.

  Twenty years ago, software engineer Fred Brooks famously observed that there was no silver bullet that could slay "the monster of missed schedules, blown budgets and flawed products." Today, the creation of software might seem as expensive, trouble-prone and difficult as ever.

And yet progress is being made. While there is still no silver bullet in sight, an array of new techniques promises to further boost programmer productivity, at least in some application domains.

Man vs. machine stories are an old standby in journalism.

Think back to John Henry racing a steam drill and forward to Garry Kasparov trying to outmaneuver IBM's Deep Blue in 1997 to the Onion tweaking the genre with its accountant battles Excel story.

But the latest twist on the meme takes it to the meta-level by raising the question: in the future, will you find your man vs. machine story relying on a human-edited source or from an algorithm?

Standing up for the human intellect, upstart Digg is betting that its formidable legion of users can find better and more interesting news faster than any algorithm Google -- or a number of upstart companies -- can code.

13 billion...BAH! that's nothing. Let's talk about real money. Money that is truly wasted. Better yet, let's not. It'll just piss me off...besides it would be off topic.

The fear is of foreign intelligence applying pressure to Lenovo to equip its PCs so that the U.S. can be spied on."

Should read:

The fear is of the Chinese Trade Gap widening further

Fixed! (Its a joke for the humour impaired)

Here is just the first of many results if you google "small town crime rate". Pick through them and you can get to the FBI stats showing that small towns have on average much higher crime rates than large cities. Unfortunately the conservative media tend to gloss over this fact, but I'm safer now living in DC than I would be if I had stayed in Mississippi where I grew up.

The correct answer is an emphatic, "YES!" When the courts martial refused to examine the possibility that Lynndie England was merely following orders, when the Bush administration's highest-ranking lawyer drafts legal briefs on instructions directly from from the President as to why their abuse of prisoners is perfectly legal despite warnings from the Navy's general counsel that the "legal theories granting the president the right to authorize abuse in spite of the Geneva Conventions were unlawful, dangerous and erroneous" -- how the hell could you NOT conclude that

• the Bush administration knew perfectly well what it was doing
• knew that it was illegal
• wanted a legal smokescreen for the time when such activities leaked out

The question isn't whether Bush and his greasy pals -- Cheney foremost among them -- should be impeached. The question is, how far down does the moral rot go?

Currently, the maximum data rate between Earth and Mars is about 128,000 bits per second.

100 * 10^6 mi / 186 * 10^3 mi/sec = 538 sec

When I hear complacent comments like this one it just makes me sad and it reminds me of a Matthew Good Band song called "advertising on police cars." Which is yet another area that advertising has already invaded, here's an article from 2002 about a city in Florida starting to use police cars with ads on them.

I was bored in an airport and picked up a copy of the Wall Street Journal out of curiosity. I was surprised to find out that it was as good as I'd heard. Expect a decidedly pro-Capitalism bent to the financial stories, of course, but the international coverage was really comprehensive.

The Christian Science Monitor is also very well regarded, but it's weekly instead of daily, and I can't personally vouch for it.

If you want daily local news, though, then I suggest you buy a police scanner and attend town hall meetings - I haven't lived anywhere with decent local reporting in years. An alternative would be to hire a bum as your own personal roving reporter. The writing might not be so hot, but it'd probably be cheaper than buying a local paper and definitely much more interesting.

I think I'll name my hobo Bernstein.

The CIA is changing. Give them time.

The following article explains some of the issues behind the Tribune article
http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/26366

The agency is ... complicated, and often the left hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. Its the nature of the beast it's riding. (well, technically, it's in the belly of the beast, or perhaps the cloaca if you are HQ)

I have no doubt Goss is horrified. He just took over the CIA, and what GS manager would enjoy an outsider showing him a clear look at his department? And Goss hasn't had a chance ot fix things yet. THat is, if that's his goal...with the CIA, who knows?

By the way, didn't Goss inherit an agency that was once run by George Bush? It would explain a lot.

The CIA has other problems as well. The worse is that it facing some competition from private firms like StratFor(sorta like the US Post Office and Federal Express). It can't be much fun to be a world famous secret agency and having to explain to the Intelligence committee why you are being scooped by some small company in Austin,

For those of you who haven't heard of it, StratFor (http://www.stratfor.com/) is a private intelligence firm, with several hundred thousand customers, that is the CIA for multinationals and private individuals. It is considered somewhat more accurate than the CIA. http://seekerblog.com/archives/20050313/is-stratfo r-credible/

Hmm.. if the CIA is getting rid of people, that means they are hiring. I would like to apply as an intelligence analyst, or maybe an In Tel Q VC... (There is a rumor the easiest way to apply for a job with the CIA is write in on your computer and wait for ADVISE to pick it up. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0209/p01s02-uspo.htm l).

If you read the link, they ARE linked to the Christian Science movement

But not the creation science movement, which is one of the main groups lobbying to have creation taught in schools. If you take a look at the site for their biggest outlet, you'll find that they have a little more of an agenda than the Christian Scientists. For example, here's an article written by CSMonitor during the Dover incident: http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1123/p11s02-legn.htm l

Mmm...wanna bet? Happens in Chicago, etc as well. I have heard, anecdotally, from a reporter that anonymous accusations happens about 10,000 time a day in the US and law enforcement resources are being tied up, because these are usually couched as "suspicious activity" reports, and there are rules about handling them when there are enough of them. That "not using a shopping cart" was considered evidence of potential massive shoplifting. and the two officers were not charged with working out too long or spending money on dry cleaning...they were charge with theft of public funds.

If the victim is not in a political or financial position to defend themself, unlike as they were in the New Jersey cases, the result can be that the victim is unemployable at best and homeless or imprisoned at worst.

This was a minor problem, in the days before interlinked databases and federated text mining. Technology has turned this into a major problem, because the unclean data points these sorts of actions generate pollute far more databases than the call records of local police, often ending up in NCLC, Choicepoint, Equifax and Axciom (among others) databases as well.

You can assert it's beside the point, until you have been one of the victims. Then it hits home; its more like identity theft, except its rape, not theft, in a very real sense. Not a minor crime at all.

When you add in the fact it is a weapon used against whistleblowers and others (like law enforcement officers) that attempt to report crimes or enforce laws, it becomes a major issue indeed.

Now lets kick it up a notch. I have heard that the Democrats are setting up a potential voter database for text mining (CSPAN, last week) similar to the ones the Republicans used in 2004.
http://ifk-johnkerry.blogspot.com/2004/12/more-pai nful-lessons-from-2004.html

Which means that, in 2007-2008 Two parties, who, AT EVERY LEVEL, tend to fight as dirty as possible, are going to have microfocused databases on potential swing votors...and swing influencers. The mind boggles what sorts of, umm, interesting, scenarios of innuendos, accusations, blackmail, favors and threats might pop out as the race heats up. I mean, we are two years away from that New Jersey race, the DNC database isn't set up yet, and we are already seeing this.

Now add in potential donors, such as the chinese fundraising scandal (Huang, Ickes, etc) a few years ago,(http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=john+Hua ng+ickes+clinton&btnG=Google+Search) the fact that the CPC/PRC will be about a year away from collapsing internally (http://simonworld.mu.nu/archives/150816.php), rising American protectionism and isolationism like the DPW issue, and the ADVISE system adding blog entries to the suspicous activity database http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0209/p01s02-uspo.htm land we pretty much have a perfect storm brewing both in China and America. The damage to America's reputation frow DPW was bad enough...this could be far worse.

I hope you can come up with a better line of justification of your reasoning than just simply stating your conclusion. If you feel this is the wrong way to approach it (which, incidently, I would agree, except I see no other solution), how would you suggest handling the problem? There is a clear and present danger to both real people and the public welfare.

For people who shuddered when they saw that the paper reporting this had "Christian Science" in the name like I did, it appears that the paper is not linked in any way with the Creation Science movement.

According to their site, the paper is largely secular (except for a single religious article each day). The paper just happens to be published by a church.

The Christian Science Monitor is one of my favorite newspapers. They're one of the very, very few newspapers that does real reporting: they don't just say what others say is going on, they say what people are saying and what the reporter's investigation and experience turns up.

Unfortunately their archive is not available online (well, for free anyways), but here is a good article from them on the different postions within Islamic culture.

The CS Monitor is the most popular newspaper inside the CIA. The only real disappointment about them is that they have so few correspondents. Often times they won't have any coverage on a hot story until a few days later. Wish I could find a copy of their coverage on the whole "Ten Commandments statue in the courthouse" issue (showed it to quite plainly be an election campaign stunt on the part of the judge - but with true believers on both sides).

The "Christian Science" part of their name reflects the fact that they are run by the Christian Scientists - who believe that it is a worship of God to discover accurate information about the world around them. Most of the reporters are not themselves Christian Scientists, and the only place management's religion really comes into play is in a moral questions section they run. It discusses moral problems in modern life, and is not very preachy.

Here's a few more articles to give you an idea of what their reporting is like.

• AT&T Merger
• Recent video released of abducted Christian Peacemakers

I'm putting some effort into this post because so often, when I mention that I read the CS Monitor, people think I'm a nutjob. This might well be the case, but it's not because I read the CS Monitor. They're one of the best papers out there, and I'm sorry they don't get more readership.

The Christian Science Monitor is one of my favorite newspapers. They're one of the very, very few newspapers that does real reporting: they don't just say what others say is going on, they say what people are saying and what the reporter's investigation and experience turns up.

Unfortunately their archive is not available online (well, for free anyways), but here is a good article from them on the different postions within Islamic culture.

The CS Monitor is the most popular newspaper inside the CIA. The only real disappointment about them is that they have so few correspondents. Often times they won't have any coverage on a hot story until a few days later. Wish I could find a copy of their coverage on the whole "Ten Commandments statue in the courthouse" issue (showed it to quite plainly be an election campaign stunt on the part of the judge - but with true believers on both sides).

The "Christian Science" part of their name reflects the fact that they are run by the Christian Scientists - who believe that it is a worship of God to discover accurate information about the world around them. Most of the reporters are not themselves Christian Scientists, and the only place management's religion really comes into play is in a moral questions section they run. It discusses moral problems in modern life, and is not very preachy.

Here's a few more articles to give you an idea of what their reporting is like.

• AT&T Merger
• Recent video released of abducted Christian Peacemakers

I'm putting some effort into this post because so often, when I mention that I read the CS Monitor, people think I'm a nutjob. This might well be the case, but it's not because I read the CS Monitor. They're one of the best papers out there, and I'm sorry they don't get more readership.

The Christian Science Monitor is one of my favorite newspapers. They're one of the very, very few newspapers that does real reporting: they don't just say what others say is going on, they say what people are saying and what the reporter's investigation and experience turns up.

Unfortunately their archive is not available online (well, for free anyways), but here is a good article from them on the different postions within Islamic culture.

The CS Monitor is the most popular newspaper inside the CIA. The only real disappointment about them is that they have so few correspondents. Often times they won't have any coverage on a hot story until a few days later. Wish I could find a copy of their coverage on the whole "Ten Commandments statue in the courthouse" issue (showed it to quite plainly be an election campaign stunt on the part of the judge - but with true believers on both sides).

The "Christian Science" part of their name reflects the fact that they are run by the Christian Scientists - who believe that it is a worship of God to discover accurate information about the world around them. Most of the reporters are not themselves Christian Scientists, and the only place management's religion really comes into play is in a moral questions section they run. It discusses moral problems in modern life, and is not very preachy.

Here's a few more articles to give you an idea of what their reporting is like.

• AT&T Merger
• Recent video released of abducted Christian Peacemakers

I'm putting some effort into this post because so often, when I mention that I read the CS Monitor, people think I'm a nutjob. This might well be the case, but it's not because I read the CS Monitor. They're one of the best papers out there, and I'm sorry they don't get more readership.

The Christian Science Monitor is one of my favorite newspapers. They're one of the very, very few newspapers that does real reporting: they don't just say what others say is going on, they say what people are saying and what the reporter's investigation and experience turns up.

Unfortunately their archive is not available online (well, for free anyways), but here is a good article from them on the different postions within Islamic culture.

The CS Monitor is the most popular newspaper inside the CIA. The only real disappointment about them is that they have so few correspondents. Often times they won't have any coverage on a hot story until a few days later. Wish I could find a copy of their coverage on the whole "Ten Commandments statue in the courthouse" issue (showed it to quite plainly be an election campaign stunt on the part of the judge - but with true believers on both sides).

The "Christian Science" part of their name reflects the fact that they are run by the Christian Scientists - who believe that it is a worship of God to discover accurate information about the world around them. Most of the reporters are not themselves Christian Scientists, and the only place management's religion really comes into play is in a moral questions section they run. It discusses moral problems in modern life, and is not very preachy.

Here's a few more articles to give you an idea of what their reporting is like.

• AT&T Merger
• Recent video released of abducted Christian Peacemakers

I'm putting some effort into this post because so often, when I mention that I read the CS Monitor, people think I'm a nutjob. This might well be the case, but it's not because I read the CS Monitor. They're one of the best papers out there, and I'm sorry they don't get more readership.

He relished the task, launching a reign of terror which was brutal even by the standards of the Baath Party.

According to opposition groups, thousands were murdered.

Victims were made to drink petrol before being set alight or strapped to concrete blocks and tipped into the Shatt-al-Arab waterway.

Bodies were bulldozed into the ground and, according to aid agencies, Al-Majid was filmed selecting Shia prisoners for execution. It was for his earlier atrocities, though, that he gained his nickname. He masterminded chemical attacks on Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s.

On one occasion he rejected suggestions he had killed 182,000 people with the chilling reply: "No, it couldn't have been more than 100,000."

His most infamous outrage was the use of poison gas to kill thousands of Kurds at Halabja in 1988.

Human Rights Watch covers it.

The Telegraph has done a series of stories: here, here, and here:

Like thousands of other Kurds who lived in Halabja he had become inured to the frequent artillery bombardments launched by Baghdad's big guns across the valley.

It was not until he saw a yellow mist settling over the town that he realised this attack was different.

Within hours his five children had died an excruciating death. They were among about 5,000 Kurds killed by Saddam Hussein's poison gas on March 16, 1988, as he exacted a hideous revenge for their support of Iran in the Iran-Iraq war.

The Christian Science Monitor did this story:

The memory of every Iraqi Kurd is seared with vivid images of Baghdad's 1988 genocide against its own ethnic Kurds when troops loyal to the Iraqi strongman were under orders to kill every Kurdish male in northern Iraq between the ages of 18 and 55. During the Anfal campaign, rights groups say more than 100,000 men disappeared, 4,000 villages were destroyed, and 60 more villages were subject to chemical weapons attack.

Some 5,000 Kurds died during the gassing of Halabja alone. The photograph of a man shielding an infant with his body ? both killed by gas ? has become an icon of Kurdish suffering and of Iraqi war crimes.

Although a part of the defense establishment didn't believe it for a time, the State Department apparently didn't get the word even in 2001.

This site has photos.

Why this should be hard to believe when Iraq was actively using chemical weapons against the Iranians at the time, and more and more mass graves with thousands of bodies from simple mass murder each are turning up in Iraq, I'll neven know.

Saddam's government apparently even killed as many as 61,000 just in Baghdad alone.

The survey obtained Monday, which the polling firm planned to release

Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.

The argument could be made that an Iran with nukes would actually make the region more stable. It's certainly done that in every similar case.

Nobody in the US or USSR thought that they would be guaranteed entry into heaven if they were killed in Jihad. I doubt that there was much of anyone in either country who considered it their religous duty to God to destroy the other nation, even exterminating the population. The number of utterances of national leaders in the US and USSR in which they promised to destroy a nation they weren't at war with, and didn't even share a common border are next to zero. The Iranian President thinks he will bring the hidden Imam out to bring in the end of the age if he attacks Israel. He says he saw an aura around himself while giving a UN speech. Oh yes, no disaster brewing there.

Here's the problem with the Koran, vs. the Bible.

In the bible, you can always find an opposing quotation, and therefore, it's a book that spurs discussion and investigation into faith.

In the Koran, the more relaxed and peaceful parts are in the beginning, as Mohammad (pbuh) continued on, he began his wars against Jews and Christians and Polytheists, and the surahs became more and more violent and uncompromising.

Islamic scholars have ruled for some time, that the later surahs abrogate the earlier ones... so when a fundamentalist wants you to agree with him, he'll quote something like:

The Cow

      1. [2.62] Surely those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians, whoever believes in Allah and the Last day and does good, they shall have their reward from their Lord, and there is no fear for them, nor shall they grieve.

and;

The Pilgrimage

      1. [22.17] Surely those who believe and those who are Jews and the Sabeans and the Christians and the Magians and those who associate (others with Allah)-- surely Allah will decide between them on the day of resurrection; surely Allah is a witness over all thing

But then conversely, when they want to tell other Muslims how evil and bad the west is, they will justify their murderous rampages thusly:

Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57:

        Narrated 'Ikrima:

        Some Zanadiqa (atheists) were brought to 'Ali and he burnt them. The news of this event, reached Ibn 'Abbas who said, "If I had been in his place, I would not have burnt them, as Allah's Apostle forbade it, saying, 'Do not punish anybody with Allah's punishment (fire).' I would have killed them according to the statement of Allah's Apostle, 'Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.'"

Volume 9, Book 84, Number 64:

        Narrated 'Ali:

        Whenever I tell you a narration from Allah's Apostle, by Allah, I would rather fall down from the sky than ascribe a false statement to him, but if I tell you something between me and you (not a Hadith) then it was indeed a trick (i.e., I may say things just to cheat my enemy). No doubt I heard Allah's Apostle saying, "During the last days there will appear some young foolish people who will say the best words but their faith will not go beyond their throats (i.e. they will have no faith) and will go out from (leave) their religion as an arrow goes out of the game. So, where-ever you find them, kill them, for who-ever kills them shall have reward on the Day of Resurrection."

Now, with all this in mind, remember that the Koran (The recitations) are supposed to be the unbroken word of God. Interestingly, a German archaeologist found some old versions of the Koran in a Mosque:

http://www.geocities.com/islampencereleri3/queryin g_the_koran.htm
http://www.derafsh-kaviyani.com/english/quran1.htm l

Finally, what I'd like to add is that we need to find more guys like this, who are willing to challenge the "fanatical victim" and actually teach them the reality of a more moderate Islam:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0204/p01s04-wome.htm

Where are the Muslims who will stand up, and LOUDLY protest the hatred and violence amongst those claiming to represent them? Either they are complicit by failing to act - out of either intent, or fear - or they MUST stand up for humanity's sake, and for their own.

If nobody stands up to fanaticism, we will all end up living in an Islamo-fascist state, where religious/thought police monitor our lives.

I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?

Try telling that to Shi Tao http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0909/p01s03-woap.htm l. Perhaps Mr Hurtt would like a camera in his home, given that he seems so enthusiastic about them? Maybe it could be placed in his bedroom, or somewhere equally degrading.

Anyway, doesn't the fourth amendment protect against unreasonable search and seizure? I'm pretty sure this would count as an unreasonable search.

"When was the last time you or any of your friends have been questioned or imprisoned for voicing your opinions."

Well, this article has some examples of people who've been questioned for voicing their opinions.

In the government's defense, though, they are following up on reports from average citizens. And for many, unfortunately, criticizing the government is the same thing as being anti-American.

"It's even more absurd that the US and worse, the United Nations refuse to recognize a soverign nation like Taiwan because China demands it."

This one I'll actually agree with, though I can sort of understand it. Essentially, no one wants to go war with China over Taiwan. From the Chinese point-of-view, it would be somewhat analogous to the State of Oregon seceding from America. Remember, we fought a war once when a bunch of states decided to secede. So in order to keep the peace, nobody makes waves. And as long as nobody starts supporting this whole "Taiwanese independence" thing, China won't start lobbing missiles around.

I admit, I tend to side with "declare Taiwan an independent nation" stance. However, you also have to ask yourself whether you would be willing to support Taiwan militarily, as that would certainly be necessary.

"The Chinese do have one thing that many Americans today lack. That's nationalistic pride. The Chinese are willing to do what it takes to get ahead in the World; the average Chinese citizen is far more likely to defend China's actions than any American would be. Many Americans are far more critical of the US government, and in fact, are quickly to defend foreign nations than they are their own."

And you're saying that's a good thing? I'm kind of confused.

According to you, it's bad that the Chinese government harshly suppresses dissent--to use a euphemism. However, your average Chinese citizen is more likely to defend China's actions (because not doing so would lead to a bullet in the head) and you think this is a good thing? Many Americans are far more critical of the US government because we can without having to worry about spending life in prison.

Consider that the average Chinese citizen gets their news from controlled government sources that are always going to paint the government's actions in the best possible light. Heck, if I got all my news from the US Government's press releases and speeches, I'd be pretty sure that our invasion--excuse me, The Coalition's invasion--of Iraq was completely justified. Of course, you say that the government controlling the media--and censoring things it doesn't like--is bad. But once again, you champion the support of the average Chinese person for their government's actions.

So are you saying that uninformed nationalistic pride is a good thing? And that Americans, with more information about what their government is doing than Chinese citizens and who actually get to hear both sides of the argument from different sources, are wrong to criticize their government?

I agree with you that China is much much worse than the US, and I applaud the senator for trying to make companies try to take responsibility for their actions. However, when it comes to personal freedoms, under the current US administration things have taken a sharp turn for the worse, that is why I feel I have to comment this statement:

When was the last time the FBI showed up at someone's house simply for running a blog criticizing the US government?

Appearently you can get an intimidating visit for having an anti-Bush poster on your wall, or saying something negative about him at the gym.

Is this that kind of games child play that have good and bad prizes. If it is I think a few people already got prizes from Microsoft and Yahoo.

On the "good prizes" side, Google gave China a better firewall.

> I have to wonder, how many people in China are actually unaware of what happened there?

Probably at least as many as there are Americans deluding themselves into thinking they are actually aware of what happened there.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0603/p01s04-woap.htm l

That lasted well into the dot-com boom; in 1999, Outpost.com announced free overnight shipping until midnight (I believe PST!). How did they do it? They kept their inventory AT the Airborne Express hub, and had Airborne do the fulfillment for them.

But there were also weekly articles in Wired, C-Net, etc. talking about how all these companies were losing money on shipping. Most of the companies that offered this either went out of business or got bought out by someone else who didn't share the business model - I remember one "lowest price guarantee" site that was bought out by a major retail chain and, overnight, raised their prices nearly to street level.

I don't think that charging $6 for overnight would have reduced their costs enough to keep them in business, especially now that fuel surcharges have increased so drastically. I'm sure shipping in bulk, and with logistical assistance, costs a fraction of what an individual pays, but FedEx can cost $30 to $40 for a lightweight overnight package. I don't think the software and hardware retailers have high enough margins to absorb that.

At the risk of invoking the Goodwin law, isn't this issue somewhat similar to the moral and ethical considerations of manufacturing Zyklon B, knowning full well how the chemical was being used. Yahoo recently provided information that resulted in the jailing of Chinese Journalist

Read it and weep http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0124/p09s01-coop.htm l