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And ofcourse according to the Bush administration those people didn't have any freedom and couldn't enjoy the things we had here. Amazing how much of the official stories turn into pure falsified information whenever you're coming into contact with information residing from someone who actually lives in the region itself...

Well said. As many on Slashdot know, there are few things more important, or a greater demonstration of freedom, than playing games like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty, unless it is playing soccer or other sports. It is difficult to call Iraq during Saddam's rule anything but a "paradise" for everyone, from children to those of privilege, and even to Saddam's own family, like son-in-law Hussein Kamel . I don't know why everyone on Slashdot doesn't understand that. Maybe with a bit more education....

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/dodnews.html

Why bother when you're allowed to torture people?

Given enough time, you get these guys to say anything you want.
Why waste all that effort to find the guilty, when you can just pick someone and beat them until they admit their guilt or agree to testify to someone else's guilt?

Why you clever fellow, that is an interesting solution: just manufacture it all with torture. There is a minor problem in that real torture isn't legal. It also has the disadvantage of getting you absolutely no useful information about real terrorists if you are just picking innocent victims to torture to confession, doesn't it? That could be a problem if there really are terrorists in the world, because they will be making plots, blowing up things, and getting away while you are working over some poor innocent bastard you picked up off the street. If there really is a terrorist problem in the world, you are doing worse than nothing about it.

So what if the actual terrorists blow up a few more things, it only confrims that you need even more power to persue them!

Well, until the voters figure out you are a bunch of knobs and put the other party in power. Democracies tend to be rather practical in that way. And when the other party comes into power, your problems are just beginning. If you've been wasting the governments efforts on torturing the innocent, instead of performing real counterterrorist investigations, the terrorists will be likely be worse off as well. See how long you are out of power then.

I'm not necessarily saying that's what happened here, but when you look at the big picture, it sure looks really bad.

Then what the hell did you write this crap for? "Why bother when you're allowed to torture people?"

How about this for an answer: Because there are real terrorists and screwing around is only going to get people killed!

Well, don't worry your pretty head too much. If we don't win, there are some folks, our would be overlords, so to speak, who will straighten out society. We may not care for it so much, but at least the rules will be clear. Torture will definitely be in the new OK list, along with beheading, stoning, amputations, crucifixion, whipping, and all of that. The underpinnings of it, Sharia, is already getting some traction in Britain: Sharia law is spreading as authority wanes. We'll have to see how the whole Londonisan thing works out.

By the way, for your edification, here are a few incidents from the last couple of weeks from all over the world where the good guys won in some fashion (I know some of you are snickering) (Note that I didn't list the ones in which the bad guys won.). What do you think this means for the question of the existence of terrorists?

11 suspected Islamic radicals arrested in Spanish African enclave
Spain arrests Chechen rebel suspect wanted in Russia
Turkey Arrests Suspected Regional Al Qaeda Leader
Turkey arrests 10 with suspected links to al-Qaeda
Pakistan arrests 47 suspected Taliban
13 foreign nationals

When Great Britain and Argentina clashed over the Falkland Islands, off the southern coast of Argentina, Weinberger early on involved himself strongly on the British side..... Weinberger supported Thatcher's decision-he saw Argentina as the aggressor, and Great Britain as a principal U.S. ally. ... Reagan agreed with Weinberger on the need to assist Britain; the United States provided missiles, aircraft fuel, military equipment, and intelligence information to the British government. In a little over two months, British forces defeated the Argentines, who surrendered on 14 June 1982. A new Argentine government, not hostile to the United States, came to power. Proud of U.S. aid to Great Britain in this crisis, Weinberger felt it brought beneficial results.

UK The battle over the Falklands

Most of the Argentine settlers were expelled by a US warship in 1831 and a British expedition took control of the territory in 1832. British sovereignty was declared in 1833, although Argentina has always disputed this.

April 8
US Secretary of State Alexander Haig begins shuttle mediation. Two days later the EEC issues trade sanctions against Argentina while Mr Haig holds talks with Argentine junta. After further meetings the talks break down on April 17.

April 26
Mrs Thatcher says time for diplomacy is running out. President Ronald Reagan declares US support for Britain and economic sanctions against Argentina.

1982 FALKLANDS WAR TIMELINE

29th May
Argentines surrender Goose Green, British take 1,400 prisoners, and the Islanders imprisoned at Goose Green by the Argentines are released; Organisation of American States condemns Britain's military action and calls on the US to stop helping Britain - only the US, Chile, Columbia and Trinidad & Tobago abstain

4th June
Britain and US veto Panamanian-Spanish immediate ceasefire resolution in UN Security Council;
Spain criticises Britain's military action, becoming the only NATO country not to support Britain

12th July
USA ends trade sanctions against Argentina

Your treatment of the Suez Crisis is facile. While you pan the United States, I don't see that the Commonwealth was particularly warm to the UK action in the Suez Crisis either. In fact, a Canadian won a Nobel prize for inventing the peacekeeping force to help put an end to the crisis. Politically, Suez came at about as awkward of a time as it could have. The Soviets were intervening in Hungary, and the US was trying to garner support against that. Opposing the Soviet invasion while backing the UK/France/Israel invasion was at best a very awkward political problem. The US Presidential elections were a week away. You also neglect to mention that the Soviets threatened intervene on behalf of Egypt, and to attack London and Paris with rockets over Suez. The US's actions probably kept the Suez Crisis from spiraling out of control into WW3.

The entire US/UK Special relationship is pretty much a myth anyway

That is indeed a silly statement. To how many countries do you think the US sells Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons, specifically Trident missiles? One: The United Kingdom. Who does the US share nuclear weapons secrets with? The UK. Who did the United Kingdom share the greatest breakthrough in armor technology in the last century, the Chobham armor that made the M1 and Challenger tanks practically invulnerable to most shaped charge attacks for a generation? The United States. Who did the US pic

Sure ...Come into my country and torture me with experimental technology, I'll be forgiving.

I'll bet you think that Iraqis preferred Saddam's methods of dealing with dissent, and even the way he ran Abu Ghraib, don't you?

When you give people a hand, they tend to be grateful.

As someone who is a bit of a 3d graphics geek you should know that realism is quite a way off. Lighting is hard, especially in realtime. And we're talking games here, something that looks real in a still won't necessarily be good in terms of interactivity. Games are currently terribly unrealistic - how many games let you shoot up a tree with your chaingun and realistically model the pulp flying, the vibration moving up the tree, the leaves falling and the terrified squirrels.... that is many decades off.

Realistic graphics mean looking at these two images and not being able to tell which is CGI.

http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/ 718/718873/gears-of-war-20060714024932572.jpg

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2005/2005061615 3033_050616-a-5930c-006.jpg

George W. Bush a bookworm? White House aides say it's so. The born-again president's literary interests start with the predictable, such as his daily readings from the Bible. But he also enjoys books about Abraham Lincoln, his political hero, and, of course, yarns about baseball-in a past life, he was, after all, the managing partner of the Texas Rangers. Staffers say the president is actually engaged in an informal contest with White House senior adviser Karl Rove to see who can read more books this year. The latest score card has Bush ahead 60-50.A sampling of the president's reading list so far this year, according to White House aides:

Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar by Edvard Radzinsky
American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin (a biography of Robert Oppenheimer, an inventor of the atomic bomb)
Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero by David Maraniss
Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power by Richard Carwardine
Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural by Ronald C. White Jr.
Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday
Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women by Geraldine Brooks
Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky (discussing how polio affected the United States in the mid-20th century)
The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth by Leigh Montville
The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M. Barry
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
The Stranger by Albert Camus

Donald H. Rumsfeld was sworn in as the 21st Secretary of Defense on January 20, 2001. Before assuming his present post, the former Navy pilot had also served as the 13th Secretary of Defense, White House Chief of Staff, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, U.S. Congressman and chief executive officer of two Fortune 500 companies.

That's no different to http://www.defenselink.mil/

The Times declined to issue a correction, noting that "the phrase in question was meant to be somewhat lighthearted in tone and not literal."

"I get most of my news from the web now, as I'm not that impressed with any of the news networks. I don't watch Fox News at all anymore, though I used to watch it every day. I knew then that they were biased. It wasn't until later that I realized how misinformed their viewers are [mediamatters.org]"

I watch them very little anymore. Everyone has bias, but in terms of political bias Fox tended to be neither left or right. I also had the "pleasure" of watching CNN Headline News yesterday. There was a guy on there for a few hours talking about how great conservative Republicans are. It looks like "Headline News" has gone to that place on the right where Fox News never really was... However, can't you come up with a better source than a biased editorial from Media Matters, which is one branch of the George Soros political campaign industry?

(quoted) "Some of the misperceptions Fox News viewers have are that they are statistically more likely to believe WMDs were found in Iraq, and to believe Saddam Hussein is tied to Bin Laden, than viewers of any other network or newspaper."

On the first issue, that makes them more informed. According to actual data, many WMD have been found. As for the second one, there were ties, but how deep and close were they?

"Fox News isn't just biased. They spread false information."

No more or no less than any organization. I did watch the documentary. It was a perfect example of a partisan piece, sort of like a campaign ad, designed to selectively build a case.

Wanting to censor Fox News? Not you personally. However cooked editorial pieces by outfits that basically hate Fox News for not having their preferred bias are used as fodder by those who actually push to censor it.

"Meanwhile I'm going to enjoy sharing these films, articles, links, etc. with others whom are interested, as I have just done."

By all means. You have as much right to misinform as Rupert Murdoch does :)

That year -- 1919 -- turned out to be one of the pivotal junctures in modern history with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, the creation of the League of Nations, a treaty and an organization intended to make future wars unnecessary and obsolete. Indeed, 1919 was the beginning of a period where, over time, a very different set of views would come to dominate public discourse and thinking in the West.

Over the next decades, a sentiment took root that contended that if only the growing threats that had begun to emerge in Europe and Asia could be accommodated, then the carnage and the destruction of then-recent memory of World War I could be avoided.

It was a time when a certain amount of cynicism and moral confusion set in among Western democracies. When those who warned about a coming crisis, the rise of fascism and nazism, they were ridiculed or ignored. Indeed, in the decades before World War II, a great many argued that the fascist threat was exaggerated or that it was someone else's problem. Some nations tried to negotiate a separate peace, even as the enemy made its deadly ambitions crystal clear. It was, as Winston Churchill observed, a bit like feeding a crocodile, hoping it would eat you last.

There was a strange innocence about the world. Someone recently recalled one U.S. senator's reaction in September of 1939 upon hearing that Hitler had invaded Poland to start World War II. He exclaimed:

"Lord, if only I had talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided!"

I recount that history because once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism. Today -- another enemy, a different kind of enemy -- has made clear its intentions with attacks in places like New York and Washington, D.C., Bali, London, Madrid, Moscow and so many other places. But some seem not to have learned history's lessons.

We need to consider the following questions, I would submit:

* With the growing lethality and the increasing availability of weapons, can we truly afford to believe that somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?

Starting wars under false pretense to keep the military growing at a rate that is able to sustain a police state.

I note the plural - wars. Apparently you include Afghanistan in that. Wow. A multinational Islamist extremist terrorist organization essentially takes over a country, forming a state within a state, trains tens of thousands of terrorists who spread death and destruction around the world, attacks the US multiple times leading up the 9/11, and it is a false pretense when the US strikes back?! The minority of people that belive that is pretty small.

And by the way, the the US military is hardly growing at all, it is a mere shadow of what it was 15 years ago. The army is only about 2/3 the size. The other services are also greatly reduced

"The fricking CIA say no WMDs. End of story"

"End of story" only if the story ends 2 years ago. The more more recent DoD report takes into account all of the findings.

Everyone agrees with me that there were WMD. There's just invalid qualifications such as "there were WMD, but they don't count because Saddam forgot to list them", or "yeah, but they dated to the first Gulf War" or "yeah, they existed but they were hard to launch (the "unmaintained" argument) or the most preposterous one where someone said that the WMD were not WMD at all WMD because they were found in ones and twos.

Not to completely rely on my "opponents" who end up destroying their own arguments, here's another link: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2006/20060629_5 547.html

Not according to the official report of the CIA. (as linked)

They did find some 500 badly degraded chemical rounds, several years later than that report, that 'could not currently be used as originally intended' http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2006/20060629_5 547.html

I don't really consider that as a sufficient risk to warrant an invasion...

I'm kinda bummed I didn't get a response on the whole Hitler angle. heh...

The United States already deploys self-destructing and self-deactivating land mines. In fact by 2010, all landmines used by the United States will be SD/SDA. The mines can be be set to self-destruct from anywhere from 48 hours to 15 days. If they fail to self-destruct, they will automatically deactivate after 90 days.

The U.S. Army also offers free laser eye surgery to soldiers. Preference is given to combat troops. "The bottom line is that if you're in the middle of a fight and you can't see the enemy before they see you, you're dead". The Army has been doing this since 2001. Combat troops with glasses are now considered obsolete.

Sometimes I'm jittery and cannot focus. At times I think and work so fast that I make many carless errors that end up taking me more time to fix than if I had done the work slower and did it right the first time.

Rumsfeld didn't say those specific words, it is misleading for you to put them within quotes as though he had. And if you want to get into semantics, an airplane IS a missile: something thrown or otherwise propelled through the air.

Actually, it was pretty well paraphrased. What he said according the DOD's website (emphasis mine):

Here we're talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filed with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center.

And the getting into semantics about an airplane being a missile doesn't jive either since he specifically mentions the American Airlines flight directly. It would stand to reason that he wouldn't then refer to a plane as a missile in the next sentence.

I certainly don't subscribe to all of this conspiracy theory, but nor do I fully subscribe to the official version. There are some oddities. But to say that the previous poster was lying for his representation of Rumsfeld's words is false.

Here's a picture of the gas station

And here's a story in National Geographic about the gas station and the owner and the Fed's actions on that day.

-FL

Would a .mil reference be enough ? Ctrl-f to "missile"

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2001/t11182 001_t1012pm.html

I cannot find a .gov or .mil link stating the "terrorists" identities are not known and we only know the name of the person from whom they stole passports, I saw that in "9/11 Loose changes", free download anywhere google can find it.

[The] Comanche was a wonderful idea up until about 1989. [...] We started seeing that kind of threat disappear, and then it continued to disappear over the last decade." Commenting on the Schoomaker statement, Defense News wrote on 1 March: "Army officials say the move reflects the more elusive enemies and weapons that have emerged since Comanche was conceived in 1983 to find and fight Soviet tank formations. Stealth, once the RAH-66's biggest selling point, is now deemed unnecessary and expensive.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

It is two finely equipped hospitals.

It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/index.html

Please give me good karma, or a Bentley!

http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/index.html

mms:wmworldmii-streamingnetmediadefenseflight77fl7 7-111094135WMV

mms:wmworldmii-streamingnetmediadefenseflight77fl7 7-211094237WMV

Documented in an Army Inspector General's report obtained by Salon. Here's a link to the official report (sorry, PDF).

If the methods used at Guantanamo disturbed the FBI agents who visited (another source of problem reports early on), then the rest of us should be disturbed too.

OK. This is NASA. Aeronautics and Spaceflight. We are burning ~$400 billion a year on a whole different department of the government whose job description very roughly includes taking care of "madmen and dictators." Not that they're any more capable of it than if we armed them with trash-can lids and wooden swords, but I think technically it's already covered.

How, exactly, does that preclude torture? If somebody gave his kid three squares a day, let him pray whenever he wanted, and kicked him in the head with steel-toed boots every time the kid talked back to him, would you hold the guy up as a paragon of good parenting?

OK, there has been some sleep depravation and one prisoner there did flush a Koran.

There's more. One detainee had his head and mouth duct-taped. Another was "short-shackled" to the eye-bolt in the floor of the interrogation room. Detainees were subject to 16-20 hour interrogations plus sleep deprivation and isolation for up to 54 consecutive days. Strip searches were used as an interrogation technique. Detainees would be locked in a refrigerated room known as the "freezer" for extended periods of time. In the course of interrogation, a detainee was told that his family had been captured by the United States and that they were "in danger". Barking, growling, teeth-baring military dogs were used in interrogations.

Go read the declassified FBI report. Note how many things were authorized by SECDEF after the fact; note, too, how the report finds that nothing they found rises to the level of "torture or inhumane treatment".

This is but one investigation, and it turns my stomach to read about some of the behavior in which my country is engaged. This is simply not how a nation built on the rule of law and respect for fundamental human rights should act. Three squares and five prayers is an empty defense of this truly reprehensible behavior.

To those who are pooh-poohing this story, there have been congressional white papers that document China's widespread efforts to acquire technology and intelligence. The one I read in 1998 detailed how they're using non-intelligence service channels (ie. industrial espionage, etc) to collect that information. But why is that surprising? The CIA's done similar things in the past, so thinking that China, which is expressly expansionist, would not use every means they can think of to strengthen their hand in the looming showdown over Taiwan, is pretty naive.

Check out page 39 in this: http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/20030730chinaex.pd f

You're correct. The Iraqi surrender apparently resulted in a cease-fire agreement, not a peace treaty.

What is in dispute here? That Iraq surrendered and agreed to a cease-fire?
That Iraq subsequently violated the cease-fire? (Note that the coalition commanders claimed that the squashing of the Kurdish uprising was also a violation of the cease-fire agreements.)
It's a pity I'm not easily finding any good, detailed reports of Iraq's actions against US/UK aircraft patrolling the designated "no fly" zones, but I highly doubt that was ever in question.

Or is it the fact that the US grabbed the UK and went off to clean up its mess without the agreement of the toothless UN (reminds me of the League of Nations, honestly)? I'll admit that could be an issue for the lawyers - I don't know.

If anything, the real item the disgruntled folks should be focussing on is the reason the war was sold to the general public: that Iraq had or was going to have nukes/WMD, and we need to do something now-now-now! Then again, since "intelligence" is, by nature, uncertain, that ultimately wouldn't get you very far, either.

Al-Qaeda goes through #2s faster than the Enterprise went through red-shirted ensigns, apparently:
Nov. 16, 2001 -- Air strikes in Afghanistan may have killed Mohammed Atef, the No. 2 man in the Al Qaeda terrorist network, Pentagon officials said today.
(http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Nov2001/n11162001 _200111168.html)
March 18, 2004 - Pakistani officials believe they have the No. 2 man in al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, cornered.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2004/n03182004_ 2004031811.html
September 28, 2005 - Gen. Richard Myers, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon that the U.S. military considered Abu Azzam the "No. 2 Al Qaeda operative in Iraq, next to Zarqawi."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9518556/site/newsweek/ from/RL.5/
Spreading this information to would-be terrorists could be _THE_ key to defeating terrorism globally. "If I work hard for the cause... I may get promoted... if I get promoted enough, I might be second only to bin Laden himself... wait a minute..."

Al-Qaeda goes through #2s faster than the Enterprise went through red-shirted ensigns, apparently:
Nov. 16, 2001 -- Air strikes in Afghanistan may have killed Mohammed Atef, the No. 2 man in the Al Qaeda terrorist network, Pentagon officials said today.
(http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Nov2001/n11162001 _200111168.html)
March 18, 2004 - Pakistani officials believe they have the No. 2 man in al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, cornered.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2004/n03182004_ 2004031811.html
September 28, 2005 - Gen. Richard Myers, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon that the U.S. military considered Abu Azzam the "No. 2 Al Qaeda operative in Iraq, next to Zarqawi."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9518556/site/newsweek/ from/RL.5/
Spreading this information to would-be terrorists could be _THE_ key to defeating terrorism globally. "If I work hard for the cause... I may get promoted... if I get promoted enough, I might be second only to bin Laden himself... wait a minute..."

You don't get to see these then:

http://www.defenselink.mil/photos/Sep2004/040901-C -4938N-077.html

I work in downtown Seattle and often see these things zipping about. And yes, those are forward and rear mounted machine guns!

From memory I think they have twin 350hp Honda outboards, so they are quick little suckers too!

Why is the company that is at the forefront of intelligent vehicles collaborating with the U.S. army!?

Umm... the US Army is part of the Department of Defense , and DARPA stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Perhaps the parent post refers to this: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jan2006/20060103_3 822.html.

Assuming they can get all 20 of them to launch in the first place.

http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/ptr20010110.pdf

Department Of Defence

Check the list of stuff:

http://www.defenselink.mil/sites/

Homeland Security is a part of DoD

If you want a good chuckle, read Rumsfeld's bio at http://www.defenselink.mil/bios/secdef_bio.html
particularly with respect to his time at GD Searle.

GEN. STROCK: The other question is, in general is the civil works budget of the Army Corps of Engineers suffering because of the war in Iraq? Not in my opinion. And the reason I say that is that if you look at the funding levels of the corps from pre-war days of 2001 and 2002, it has been a fairly steady level. We are spending a lot of money and the Corps of Engineers is involved in the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, but we're able to balance that with our human resources and it is not directly affecting our budget. ...

Q Two questions. Wasn't that study to look at upgrading the levees delayed for funding reasons?

GEN. STROCK: You know, I talked to the study manager about that now, and again, it's a tough thing to talk about. He feels that he has had an adequate level of funding to move that study ahead. The nature of the work we do in both the studies and the engineering, some of it is not a question of throwing money at it, there is just analysis that must be done, coordination that must occur. And so I would prefer to let the people at the level really talk about that from their perspective. But it's my understanding that that was not a significant issue in this. And even if that study had been finished three years ago, it would not have made a difference in this event.

I suppose it's a sign of the times that I now have to endure this sort of remark and thread everytime a science article is raised on slashdot *sigh* Don't get me started on the creationist "arguments".

I guess I see it as a deliberate noise-generator by the religious so that most attempts at discussion of science becomes embroilled in discussions about science rather than the science at hand. There's not much of an indepth discussion on slashdot; these arseholes are determined to sink what little there is on these topics.

I know I've just done it...but don't feed the trolls again, please. It only satisfies their cravings and, in this case, their larger purpose.

Maybe persistent trolls should be ejected from slashdot? At least it would inconvenience them into getting a new account and fragmenting (i.e. inserting noise into their work).

FTR, the poster incriminates himself with every sentence. Science isn't a set of morals; it's a set of explanations. Science changes because that's the way it works. The poster was shit at science, so he's being persecuted. The economics bit is interesting. Is he saying that all factory owners are atheists? Step forward

* Dick Cheney, ex-head of Halliburton, devout christian, chickenhawk and, oh, boss.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney

Cheney joined the American Enterprise Institute after leaving office in 1993. From 1995 until 2000, he served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton, a Fortune 500 company and market leader in the energy sector. He also sat on the Board of Directors of Procter & Gamble, Union Pacific, and EDS.

* Donald Rumsfeld

http://www.defenselink.mil/bios/rumsfeld.html

From 1977 to 1985 he served as Chief Executive Officer, President, and then Chairman of G.D. Searle & Co., a worldwide pharmaceutical company. The successful turnaround there earned him awards as the Outstanding Chief Executive Officer in the Pharmaceutical Industry from the Wall Street Transcript (1980) and Financial World (1981). From 1985 to 1990 he was in private business.

Mr. Rumsfeld served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of General Instrument Corporation from 1990 to 1993. General Instrument Corporation was a leader in broadband transmission, distribution, and access control technologies. Until being sworn in as the 21st Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld served as Chairman of the Board of Gilead Sciences, Inc., a pharmaceutical company.

* George Bush. Weeell, this guy is pretty much a loser but it seems that he's employed people in oil and gas and "managed" a baseball team. Uh, that's it. Industries not exactly renowned for their ethical practices.

I guess the common factor in all these companies is that none of these companies are particularly ethical in the way they employ people and the way they do business. Or maybe you think christians make better bosses? I cannot say for certain if all slaveowners - on both sides of the Atlantic - were christian but I'm pretty certain that it was the case. In fact, christians profited from the slave-trade as much as anyone else.

Facts never get in the way of a good troll, do they now?

The most harmful website on the web.

And in fact, work done at MAYA Viz has already being tested and has already been deployed by the army. ...I wonder what patent application they're going to try to file if there's already this prior art on this research dating back to 2001.

-kevin

Obviously you have no clue. The U-2 may have been a spy plane, but anyone can tell you that the EP-3 is just a maritime patrol aircraft. Besides, it's over 40 years old. If it was a secret spy plane, I don't think you'd be able to google so much information on the subject.

I'm not going to say anything about the "smart versus stupid bit" (though, many studies show a correlation between family income and academic performance), but the "military recruits are poor" point is quite accurate.

From a DoD press briefing:

"Now, in terms of median income, for whites -- now again, this is enlisted versus -- and this is against the entire civilian population, so it's not quite the right comparison. But for whites, the median total gross household income in 1999 for our enlisted population was about $33,500, versus $44,400 for the civilian population. Again, that omits officers from the DOD numbers --"

The situation is similar for blacks:

"For African Americans, however, the total gross household income of our active duty personnel, their parents, that is, was $32,000 versus $27,900 for the population at large".

The guy kinda spins it by saying that the family of the average black recruit is richer than the average black family, but that's a weird way to look at it. A total household income of $32,000 is low-income, whether you're black or white. It's a full $10,000 less than the median income of the average American family in 1999 (the year the statistics in the press briefing were taken from).

visit http://www.defenselink.mil/ and view the source code.

in one hefty comment tag

so it MUST be true!

Crusader wasn't cancelled as far as I know. They decreased the order from the original projection of 1100 to 480. The contract was still worth 11 billion dollars. They took a "big hit," of cash.

Check again. This link says that the program was terminated completely.

By the way, I also found it strange that we get paid by Uncle Sam, and then he takes some of it right back. I agree that it would be nice to just make our base pay non-taxable as well, just to simplify things... But then again, I'd also like to see income tax done away with entirely, or at least vastly simplified.

Here is a link that describes the Talon robot and the SWORDS project a little more.

The gentleman who sold it to me, never did catch his name, said he could also get me a deal on a famous bridge.

Yes...I would hate to think the Government would have to spend billions on something as unimportant as securing their computer systems. Couldn't they just do it as a supplemental request?

First of all, I'm interested to know why the U.S. has high-resolution images of important buildings and their surroundings while they force others to pull photos and blueprints of said buildings.

That said, the Pentagon (nevermind all the other buildings used by DoD/US) is a huge building to renovate IT-wise. 9/11 didn't help either (though some believe the attack on the defense nerve center was planned).

Would you go back to your office after an attack? No. And then they'd raze the building and put up a monument.

You're absolutely correct. I think this bombed office building is scheduled for demolition next week