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True, and perhaps with a smaller military, Saddam Hussein would've kept his tanks rolling into Saudi Arabia in 1991 because there would've been no one in a position to oppose him. ... Iraq was "stable" because of tyranny and brutal oppression, ethnic and religious.

Iraq invaded Kuwait for (allegedly) drilling into their oil field.
As you said, that region of the world probably isn't ready for democracy, but rather needs tyranny and brutal oppression to keep all the fundies in line and not killing each other. So now we're over there trying to convert them all to democracy while they're dying in record number, and fleeing the country en masse (some 100,000 per month, according to http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1966333,00 .html). These people need 'tough love' to keep them in line and return them to the closest thing to stability that they're going to be able to have in the foreseeable future.

The development time for the project now called iPlayer has exceeded five years. Not being able to provide an ETA for other platform versions does not sync with the idea of creating content with public money, to the wider public benefit. Oh, the BBC's content may be for free (but is not free), your access to it may not be. Besides another OS license you may have to pay for data traffic as well http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,2 160454,00.html.

"...since 2001 it's actually been part of Pepsico."

In fact, that is a FAR better reason to boycott it than being associated with a religion.
After all, Pepsi was a prime instigator in the invasion of Chile.

(There's tons of other stuff out there of course, but I wanted to stick to reliable and relatively neutral sources.)

The Vatican ratlines are well documented by many sources that have nothing to do with evangelicals or Jack Chick.
Nothing _I_ linked is sourced from Bible Thumpers. Google "Vatican ratlines" if you wish.

How about some links documenting YOUR assertions, AC?

Ratzinger can certainly favor Church over flock when expedient. DO note that the settlements of hundreds of millions of dollars were a CHOICE, and essentially an admission of guilt. That much money would have bought lawyers enough to put up quite a fight if there was something viable to fight for instead of more to expose:

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Apr05/Whitney0426.ht m

  Pedophilia Scandal: What of Ratzinger's role in the Vatican's much-delayed response to reports of massive sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, a scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church in the US? In 2002, sounding almost Tom DeLayish, Ratzinger told the Catholic News Service that he thought that the pedophile priest scandal was being driven by a media set on making the Catholic Church look bad:

"I am personally convinced that the constant presence in the press of the sins of Catholic priests, especially in the United States, is a planned campaign, as the percentage of these offences among priests is not higher than in other categories, and perhaps it is even lower.

"In the United States, there is constant news on this topic, but less than 1% of priests are guilty of acts of this type. The constant presence of these news items does not correspond to the objectivity of the information nor to the statistical objectivity of the facts.

"Therefore, one comes to the conclusion that it is intentional, manipulated, that there is a desire to discredit the Church. It is a logical and well-founded conclusion."

So much for secular law:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story /0,6903,1469055,00.html

"Ratzinger's letter states that the church can claim jurisdiction in cases where abuse has been 'perpetrated with a minor by a cleric'.

'In my opinion, the demand that a bishop be obligated to contact the police in order to denounce a priest who has admitted the offence of paedophilia is unfounded,' Bertone said.

Shea criticised the order that abuse allegations should be investigated only in secret tribunals. 'They are imposing procedures and secrecy on these cases. If law enforcement agencies find out about the case, they can deal with it. But you can't investigate a case if you never find out about it. If you can manage to keep it secret for 18 years plus 10 the priest will get away with it,' Shea added. "

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cf aith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexu al-persons_en.html

Yeah. You'd never catch republics or democracies losing millions and millions of dollars. And do you really think the Federal Reserve wanted to cut lending rates to bail out all those NINJA mortgages? That cost them a load of money they're never getting back. Similarly for the European Central Bank, which spent billions artificially propping up share markets.

Oh, and socialism is not communism. Communism is totalitarian, socialism is not necessarily.

I've been following the Wikileaks idea for a bit, every since Cryptome published a bunch of info about it.

I'm in two minds about Wikileaks. On the one hand, the idea is kind of cool - I'm all for whistle-blowers, and think they perform a vital function. It's sometimes important for the public to see information that could be blocked from public release due to legal pressures.

But on the other hand, maybe that information should not be in the public domain, as it could put lives at risk (as was argued in the previous link).

Also, it's ultimately flawed in the same way that business Web 2.0 review-type sites are flawed: you can't trust the information worth a damn. People have a terrible habit of trying to set up someone they feel disgruntled about, or wish to slander a company that they feel treated them unfairly. Or, of course, they could just be out to rubbish a competitor.

Wikileaks is likely to become a stomping ground of disinformation, misinformation, and vendettas, and if they think the wisdom of the crowds is going to be able to judge that a piece of information is, in fact, a forgery, they're fools.

Also, who exactly will be held accountable when it's used, say, to swing an election, only for us to discover that the information in question was bogus? Wikileaks? Will they hand over the leaker?

I can't help but feel that Wikileaks may, in fact, do more harm than good. A few bad incidents at Wikileaks, and it's highly likely that the law (and government, business etc.) is going to come down hard to silence legitimate whistle-blowers under the pretext of protecting themselves from slander and libel.

What's really needed is a system of legal mechanisms to encourage and protect leakers in the real world, as well as allow a system of accountability. The incidents described by leakers who stepped forward regarding corruption in Iraq indicates that there are simply not enough legal avenues open to help and protect whistle-blowers.

Not sure what you point is, but did you know that some theories suggest that global warming could trigger the next ice age. Here are some links:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12 374,1083419,00.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8398.html
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0130-11.htm

While one Superbowl ad may cost 2.4million, an average TV spot during primetime is bound to be considerably lower-priced. Secondly, NBC is averaging 5.6 million viewers, a far cry from the Superbowl's 90 million. Another factor is that overall TV viewership is dropping. One could put all that together and consider that this may not be directly a per-episode or per-viewer cost consideration.

NBC might be concerned that affordable access to ad-free versions of their shows will harm something they've worked very hard to program into their viewers: The concept of watching ads to get shows. A glimmer of that danger shows up in this article. Apparently, NBC is already finding it difficult to gain enough advertising to put on good drama during primetime. If the advertising money dries up entirely, NBC--and others--as a company will need to do something very different. The move they've tried to pull is likely to have been an attempt at preserving their business model.

Really, the notion that the US funded bin Laden is ridiculous on the face of it, as bin Laden is fucking loaded. Seriously, the man's a billionaire.

Here, you're wrong. The bin Laden family may be worth more than a billion dollars, barely if at all, but Osama isn't worth that much. When he left Saudi Arabia Osama bin Laden was worth $250 million. As for the Taliban, shortly after taking office pres Bush in 2001 gave the Taliban $43 million of taxpayer money, ostensibly for fighting opium. However while the Taliban did fight some farmers and others dealing with opium the Taliban also militarily supported others who then paid the Taliban. As it is now the Taliban is benefiting from a Record-breaking opium crop .

2) Have said that they want to wipe Isreal from the map

False. Read Lost in translation: Experts confirm that Iran's president did not call for Israel to be 'wiped off the map'."

3) Seem to be spreading fear through their military and covert actions

False. Again, from Wikipedia: Abbas Araghchi, Iran's deputy foreign minister, said "For the sake of peace and stability in Iraq we need a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces. Violence in Iraq is good for no country in the region. Security of Iraq is our security and stability in Iraq is a necessity for peace and security in the region." Iran has strong ties with Iraq Shia political groups, and would rather see the Shia dominated government remain in power than have Iraq splinter. Iraqi prime minister Nouri Maliki has praised Iran for its positive and constructive stance on Iraq, including providing security and fighting terrorism.

Afghan president Karzai has also praised Iran for its help, and pubically stated that he believes the US position is intended to divide the nations rather than bring them together.

TROLL ALERT

It is unbelievable propaganda to equate Iran to Nazi Germany. Israeli disinfo and psyops (MEMRI) deliberately mis-translate stories, and the lapdog media in the US and UK eat it up.

Here is the country, and the people, that you smear as "enemy".

Many posters seem to think this is a US-only problem. This issue is much bigger. For example, the EU has a large trade deficit with China. Since the EU and US economies are about the same order of magnitude, and their trade deficits with China are similarly sized. I would argue that their economies have similar issues. All this discussion about exporting jobs, exporting factories, etc. needs to consider this.

Two problems with this. One: that isn't quite true. THough they indeed have similiar sized economies the EU's deficit with Chine, while quite large at almost 170bn, is much smaller than the US one of more than $ 700 bn.

Second: while the EU has a significant deficit with Chine, overall it has a quite small one of some $10 billion. Thanks to surplussed with other trading partners such as: the US.

Terrorism Act 2000 Section 44 gives officers the power to stop and search for articles that could be used in terrorism. No reasonable suspicion is required. Authorisation for stops in a defined area must be given by an officer of the rank of commander or above and last for up to 28 days. The whole of London is an authorised area all the time, with ministers renewing the power every 28 days. Under section 43 an officer may stop and search someone whom he or she reasonably suspects to be a terrorist.

(as seen here)

This may not be true in all cases, but people who actually know what they're talking about don't usually need the law to back up what they say.

The other case of this was "Dr" Gillian McKeith a "nutritionist" who sells a lot of books about how you should eat less chips and more salad. This is all very well, but of course it also includes a bunch of quakery about eating leaves so that their photosynthesis can oxegenate your gut. As the article I link points out, that wouldn't work too well unless you had a torch up your arse.

Naturally, McKeith is mighty litigious at people who point out that she bought her doctorate from the web.

Peter

Of course postal voting on demand has made things much worse. http://society.guardian.co.uk/localgovelections/st ory/0,,946291,00.html

BTW: There are plenty of other open source and distributed search engines. For example this one.

I'm talking about the world going through temperature cycles, and that we haven't left the expected range yet.

I don't feel that there's a great risk of polar caps melting away in my lifetime, and I expect to have a good long lifetime ahead of me.

I'm pretty sure that China is a bigger polluter than America.

I'm a certified lifeguard. Do you know how to get someone who is likely to drown but still conscious out of the water? You get close enough to them that they'll start to come after you, then you make them chase you back to the shore. If you get close enough for them to grab you, they will grab you, and hold you there just to have more time.

Of course Israel is worse than its racist laws. It is a country that declares itself to be for one type of people. Would you object if America decleard itself to be a country only for white christians?

This is a good illustration of the reality of Israel; http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/nimer_sultany/ 2007/04/dont_call_it_discrimination.html.printer.f riendly

Apart from when you said this...

Just listen to them bleating about how Muslim people don't 'integrate' and how the Muslim community doesn't denounce terrorist attacks loudly enough.

I wasn't complaining about them making generalisations, I was complaining that the generalisations were incorrect. There is a big difference. Saying that the majority of people in the UK are right-wing is a fact, as I have shown above. When Rupert--right wing--Murdoch says jump, the Labour Party asks: 'how high would you like Mr Murdoch?'

who voted for a Left Wing government

Wow, you think Labour are a left-wing government?! No. They're more right-wing than the Conservatives. Tony Blair privatises more than most Tory governments have done. Look at how the real left-wing gets along with him.

While that makes it the biggest "newspaper" it still doesn't let it reach the majority of the population. I'd like to see the Sun's sales numbers if it actually reaches the majority of the UK population.

True, the UK population is ~60million people, whilst the daily circulation of The Sun is 3,107,412 (Wikipedia's not a great resource, but will do for these purposes). But the majority of people cannot be arsed to buy a newspaper every day, but what we can do is get a ratio of right-wing bastards Vs. lefty-woofters by comparing the circulation of The Sun with its left-wing counterpart: The Guardian. So, The Sun has a daily circulation of 3,107,412 and The Guardian has 378,228 that's over eight right-wing Sun readers to every left-wing Guardian reader. We're not even taking into account the circulations of other right-wing papers like The Mirror or The Times.

Really all the proof one needs is the special relationship between Rupert Murdoch and the British Government, those who get the support of Murdoch have the support of the people (and in case you didn't notice: Murdoch is right-wing). Look at who won on the issue of the Euro, Tony Blair wanted the UK in but Murdoch said no and the whole nation is now brainwashed into hating Europe.

Given the sheer amount of petty editing wars and defacing that constantly plague Wikipedia, you would likely be better off just reading an Encyclopedia when you want some knowledge and an internet connection isn't available.

Seriously, I know wikipedia is the darling of open source, but the more I learn about it, the more I realize it's pure garbage.

Why? Educate yourself.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2005/oct/24/c omment.newmedia
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/24/wikipedia_ letters/
http://homepage.univie.ac.at/horst.prillinger/blog /archives/2004/06/000623.html
http://www.kapitalism.net/thoughts/wikipedia.htm

And there's more, but you get the idea. Collusion to ruin people's lives when they run afoul of admins, corrupt editors doing and getting favors from the head honcho himself, pet pages that end up with incorrect information, speculation, or specious reasoning, and a general air of arrogance and groupthink reinforcing an internal idea that they can do no wrong.

Why bother, seriously?

I can't be bothered RTFA, but has anyone linked this to prices for metals? Of course it's probably only worth a few roubles, refined...

The closest correlate in recent news was the theft of a bronze sculpture from Henry Moore's estate in London (in reality, priceless; but worth about five million pounds on the art market, worth a few thousand on the metals market. It's been melted down by now, for a certainty).

Metal road signs, street fittings, even fire engine nozzles are being stolen in the UK and US for the same market. Unless something cools China's demand for raw material to build crap for Western markets, it can be guaranteed that manhole covers, electric wires, train rails, and all other metal objects will not remain unsecured in public places.

Another nail in the coffin of a civilised way of life. Thanks, free market capitalism!

Those formats failed because people didn't want that high quality music. The niche market is for high-quality music. Will there be a similar process behind the adoption of HD movies? Who knows. Hollywood has assumed that people want hd movies; well, that's what they want to deliver. I think most people will settle for less.

So does that mean bloggers will have to apply for a "journalist's visa" or face deportation on enterting the US?
(The US being one of a handful of countries requiring it, the others being Iran, North Korea, Zimbabwe, and Cube)
Source: Guardian

5,000 of the world's rarest animals have been found drifting in a deserted boat near the coast of China.

The pangolins, Asian giant turtles and lizards were crushed inside crates on a rickety wooden vessel that had lost engine power off Qingzhou island in the southern province of Guangdong. Most were alive, though the cargo also contained 21 bear paws wrapped in newspaper.

According to conservation groups, the haul was discovered on one of the world's most lucrative and destructive smuggling routes: from the threatened jungles of south-east Asia to the restaurant tables of southern China. ...

Despite the ban on pangolins, many restaurants offer their meat. The Chaoxing restaurant in Shenzhen said yesterday that pangolin was available but was only suitable for large dining parties.

"The animal is very big - about 10kg," said a waitress contacted by telephone. "We serve it in hotpot. That is the tastiest way." ...

A Guangdong chef ... described how to cook a pangolin. "We keep them alive in cages until the customer makes an order. Then we hammer them unconscious, cut their throats and drain the blood. It is a slow death. We then boil them to remove the scales."

Oh? Really? Well, here are some responses then.

From New analysis counters claims that solar activity is linked to global warming:

The data shows that even though the sun's activity has been decreasing since 1985, global temperatures have continued to rise at an accelerating rate.

The solar hypothesis was championed publicly in March by the controversial Channel 4 documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle. [...] "The temperature record is simply not consistent with any of the solar forcings that people are talking about," said lead author Mike Lockwood at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire.

"They changed direction in 1985, the climate did not ... [the temperature] increase should be slowing down but in fact it is speeding up." [...] Nir Shaviv, an astrophysicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a proponent of the solar hypothesis, has tried to rescue the idea by invoking a time lag between changes in the sun and its effect on the Earth's climate. But Prof Lockwood dismissed this as "disingenuous".

"Nobody has invoked that kind of lag before. It's only been invoked now as a way out," he said. Even if the lag were 50 years then he believes we would begin to see the rise in global temperatures slowing down.

When asked to comment on this later finding, the show's producer, Martin Durkin, refused.

A statement from the British Antarctic Survey says:

Much of the programme was based around a diagram, shown several times, that purported to be world temperature for the last 120 years. This showed a curve, labelled "NASA", extending to the year 2003. The curve was produced by NASA nearly twenty years ago. Although it showed data only until 1987, it had been stretched and relabelled to suggest it showed the temperature record to 2003. The resulting distortion excludes the significant warming that has occurred since 1987. Other figures similarly misrepresented the current state of knowledge, especially as regards the influence of the Sun on climate, and the strength of the recent climate warming

Further evidence is presented here that the show intentionally mislabelled and distorted data. In addition to the "NASA" distortion above (which the producer admitted was "a fluff") there are others:

Other graphs used in the film contained known errors, notably the graph of sunspot activity. Mr Durkin used data on solar cycle lengths which were first published in 1991 despite a corrected version being available - but again the corrected version would not have supported his argument. Mr Durkin also used a schematic graph of temperatures over the past 1,000 years that was at least 16 years old, which gave the impression that today's temperatures are cooler than during the medieval warm period. If he had used a more recent, and widely available, composite graph it would have shown average temperatures far exceed the past 1,000 years.

The 1991 data comes from Friis-Christensen who has tried, several times, to prove the solar theory, but each time the theories have been debunked. For example, the journal Eos noted that Friis-Christensen's 1991 theories were based on "incorrect handling of the physical data". Later work seems to suffer from the same problems. Regardless, Friis-Christensen released a statement noting his concerns with usage of data, stating:

We have concerns regarding the use of a graph featured in the documentary titled 'Temp & Solar Activity 400 Years'. Firstly, we ha

Oh? Really? Well, here are some responses then.

From New analysis counters claims that solar activity is linked to global warming:

The data shows that even though the sun's activity has been decreasing since 1985, global temperatures have continued to rise at an accelerating rate.

The solar hypothesis was championed publicly in March by the controversial Channel 4 documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle. [...] "The temperature record is simply not consistent with any of the solar forcings that people are talking about," said lead author Mike Lockwood at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire.

"They changed direction in 1985, the climate did not ... [the temperature] increase should be slowing down but in fact it is speeding up." [...] Nir Shaviv, an astrophysicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a proponent of the solar hypothesis, has tried to rescue the idea by invoking a time lag between changes in the sun and its effect on the Earth's climate. But Prof Lockwood dismissed this as "disingenuous".

"Nobody has invoked that kind of lag before. It's only been invoked now as a way out," he said. Even if the lag were 50 years then he believes we would begin to see the rise in global temperatures slowing down.

When asked to comment on this later finding, the show's producer, Martin Durkin, refused.

A statement from the British Antarctic Survey says:

Much of the programme was based around a diagram, shown several times, that purported to be world temperature for the last 120 years. This showed a curve, labelled "NASA", extending to the year 2003. The curve was produced by NASA nearly twenty years ago. Although it showed data only until 1987, it had been stretched and relabelled to suggest it showed the temperature record to 2003. The resulting distortion excludes the significant warming that has occurred since 1987. Other figures similarly misrepresented the current state of knowledge, especially as regards the influence of the Sun on climate, and the strength of the recent climate warming

Further evidence is presented here that the show intentionally mislabelled and distorted data. In addition to the "NASA" distortion above (which the producer admitted was "a fluff") there are others:

Other graphs used in the film contained known errors, notably the graph of sunspot activity. Mr Durkin used data on solar cycle lengths which were first published in 1991 despite a corrected version being available - but again the corrected version would not have supported his argument. Mr Durkin also used a schematic graph of temperatures over the past 1,000 years that was at least 16 years old, which gave the impression that today's temperatures are cooler than during the medieval warm period. If he had used a more recent, and widely available, composite graph it would have shown average temperatures far exceed the past 1,000 years.

The 1991 data comes from Friis-Christensen who has tried, several times, to prove the solar theory, but each time the theories have been debunked. For example, the journal Eos noted that Friis-Christensen's 1991 theories were based on "incorrect handling of the physical data". Later work seems to suffer from the same problems. Regardless, Friis-Christensen released a statement noting his concerns with usage of data, stating:

We have concerns regarding the use of a graph featured in the documentary titled 'Temp & Solar Activity 400 Years'. Firstly, we ha

And his restaurant. He has become notorious for his creations such as smoked bacon flavoured ice cream and snail porridge (which is actually supposed to be a snail risotto made with oats). He also says that Molecular gastronomy is dead, so who do we believe?

We've just finished with 40 years of the IRA blowing up chunks of our country and killing rather a lot of people and nobody felt the need to issue "most critical" warnings then.

Yes, but the IRA were sane, and had no access to nuclear weapons.

Unlike the islam-o-nuts of today, living in Londonistan, with many contacts in Pakistan's nuclear bomb program, and Iran's nuclear bomb program.

And before you claim that Iran isn't trying to build nuclear bombs, even the left-wing kooks at the Guardian concede that is exactly what Iran has been doing.

"There was a report several years ago that the US had used the rock outcroppings behind Osama in one of his videos to attempt to locate him. I wonder if some of these modifications are made to make locating them more difficult?"

He could have been taken when the CIA met with Bin Landin at the American Hospital two months before 9/11 or when the FBI met with Bin Landin in California in 1986.

was: Re:Done for their safety?

Britney is arguably an odd example, as she's not particularly talented... she just has that groupthink thing going.

However, it's not hard to find a good example, as there are truly talented artists who are using the digital music world to their benefit. Prince is, right now, famously doing so by giving away copies of his new album (on physical media no less!) on the front of a newspaper, and also as a complementary bonus for buying a ticket to one of his live performances. Apparently he makes most of his money from live performances anyway, which is understandable as he's a hell of a performer.

Now, 2 things to justify my Insightful points:-

1) The digital music revolution weakens the profitability of studio music and big expensive distribution, yet increases the profitability of performance-based music - more people have easy access to your music, more people become fans, more people want to see you perform live (I have everything Fleetwood Mac have ever released on MP3 and CD, and yet I paid the equivalent of several CDs just to see them perform a few songs live, once). In other words, technology is making people more likely to get together in the physical realm and listen to music actually being performed for them in the flesh. That's a shit in the eye for luddites if ever there was one. You cannot beat actually being there, this experiential instinct is ingrained into our being at a fundamental level and it's what sane creative business models should be based on.

2) How much money did Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms etc make from selling recorded copies of their performances? None, and yet they all made a living off of it and were famous, well-connected and generally rewarded for their work. The music industry should get off their high horse and stop pretending that recorded sales of performances are the natural means of earning money and recognition from music. It wouldn't hurt musicians to realise this too, and stop expecting to be multi-millionaires from music - if ten times as many musicians could just be comfortably rich and somewhat famous from their performance-based careers as now, the music world would be a kinder place and potentially encourage more creativity. How many musicians have been put off the career completely by the "you either make it huge or not at all" nature of the industry?

On a final note, it really may be that the OP's brother's band just isn't that good. They should try setting up a begging bowl on their website, people who aren't prepared to pay $15 for a CD or ticket may be prepared to throw them $2 to patronise their efforts and "legitimise" their personal MP3s. I've always been amazed, given the general willingness of the average decent person to give small amounts of money away that more software doesn't work on this model. Certainly, if I ever release anything worth releasing, it's the model I'll use.

From http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2125135,00 .html
It's a left-wing newspaper. If that's enough for you to discount the article, more fool you.

Convoys
Two dozen soldiers interviewed said that this callousness toward Iraqi civilians was particularly evident in the operation of supply convoys--operations in which they participated. These convoys are the arteries that sustain the occupation, ferrying items such as water, mail, maintenance parts, sewage, food and fuel across Iraq. And these strings of tractor-trailers, operated by KBR (formerly Kellogg, Brown & Root) and other private contractors, required daily protection by the US military. Typically, according to these interviewees, supply convoys consisted of twenty to thirty trucks stretching half a mile down the road, with a Humvee military escort in front and back and at least one more in the center. Soldiers and marines also sometimes accompanied the drivers in the cabs of the tractor-trailers.

These convoys, ubiquitous in Iraq, were also, to many Iraqis, sources of wanton destruction.

According to descriptions culled from interviews with thirty-eight veterans who rode in convoys--guarding such runs as Kuwait to Nasiriya, Nasiriya to Baghdad and Balad to Kirkuk--when these columns of vehicles left their heavily fortified compounds they usually roared down the main supply routes, which often cut through densely populated areas, reaching speeds over sixty miles an hour. Governed by the rule that stagnation increases the likelihood of attack, convoys leapt meridians in traffic jams, ignored traffic signals, swerved without warning onto sidewalks, scattering pedestrians, and slammed into civilian vehicles, shoving them off the road. Iraqi civilians, including children, were frequently run over and killed. Veterans said they sometimes shot drivers of civilian cars that moved into convoy formations or attempted to pass convoys as a warning to other drivers to get out of the way.

"A moving target is harder to hit than a stationary one," said Sgt. Ben Flanders, 28, a National Guardsman from Concord, New Hampshire, who served in Balad with the 172nd Mountain Infantry for eleven months beginning in March 2004. Flanders ran convoy routes out of Camp Anaconda, about thirty miles north of Baghdad. "So speed was your friend. And certainly in terms of IED detonation, absolutely, speed and spacing were the two things that could really determine whether or not you were going to get injured or killed or if they just completely missed, which happened."

Following an explosion or ambush, soldiers in the heavily armed escort vehicles often fired indiscriminately in a furious effort to suppress further attacks, according to three veterans. The rapid bursts from belt-fed .50-caliber machine guns and SAWs (Squad Automatic Weapons, which can fire as many as 1,000 rounds per minute) left many civilians wounded or dead.

"One example I can give you, you know, we'd be cruising down the road in a convoy and all of the sudden, an IED blows up," said Spc. Ben Schrader, 27, of Grand Junction, Colorado. He served in Baquba with the 263rd Armor Battalion, First Infantry Division, from February 2004 to February 2005. "And, you know, you've got these scared kids on these guns, and they just start opening fire. And there could be innocent people everywhere. And I've seen this, I mean, on numerous occasions where innocent people died because we're cruising down and a bomb goes off."

Several veterans said that IEDs, the preferred weapon of the Iraqi insurgency, were one of their greatest fears. Since the invasion in March 2003, IEDs have been responsible for killing more US troops--39.2 percent of the more than 3,500 killed--than any other method, according to the Brookings Institution, which monitors deaths in Iraq. This past May, IED attacks claimed ninety lives, the highest number of fatalities from roadside bombs since the beginn

Actually, it makes so much sense to use night vision equipment that some movie theaters have been doing it for years.
Watching the crowd during an advanced screening using night vision has been pretty standard for some time now. The use of such technology is spreading to more widespread releases as well. Military-style night-sights have been sent to every outlet in the country showing the new Harry Potter film, The Prisoner of Azkaban.

Sideways slippage? WTF??? The first person to take a pratfall is going to be a bazillionaire. Seems to me that they would do better to make something that, oh, say, GEEZERS could walk on without falling down and breaking a hip. Like, I dunno, maybe have the damned things depress a quarter inch wnem stepped on? Something anyone who's ever walked on carpet can be comfortable with?

Who came up with this idea, Rube Goldberg? Get back to the drawing board, fellows, only this time stay away from the astronauts before you design the damned things.

-mcgrew (get off my lawn!)

Too bad that the Dems dropped the provision to enable collective bargaining rights for TSA employees because Bush threatened to veto any bill, even the antiterrorism bill responding to the 9/11 commission if it was tagged on there.

Nor could we destroy one of their cities in just a few minutes...

So?

Definitely too late to hide anything so trivial as Saturn V blueprints from them.

Maybe. Maybe not — I'm not an expert on the rocket design, but others on this board have mentioned, that Saturn V is, pretty much, an ICBM (and this is the reason it sucked for manned flight). The point was, trying to make getting to its blueprints harder is a legitimate part of making it harder for our enemies to harm us (whether we "deserve it" or not).

What else do you call attempting to hide behind a giant wall of technology from enemies who lack the ability to really harm you even without it? I'd say that fear of a fair fight is the very definition of cowardice.

Nope, it is a smart use of one's advantages (in our case — technology). You would not expect a boxer with equal command of both hands to limit himself to using only the right one, would you?

Or do you want us to begin outfitting our youth with suicide belts to fight our enemies's "fairly" (preferably — in their houses of worship and during the funeral processions)? Or would you rather we have leveled Iraqi cities the way we did German and Japanese ones 60 years ago?

Sensors indicate the phenomena is a form of information reference, however, scanners are unable to ascertain just what that information may be.

Spock, have you tried using Google News to find a link to the story that doesn't require registration? :::raises eyebrow not to convey fascination, but annoyance:::

Doh! The message is coming on the viewscreen now Captain.

--
Censored by Technorati and now, Blogger too!

Don't dismiss the risks of cannabis! It's a highly dangerous drug, just a few spliffs could ruin a kids life, they could end up as a paranoid, psychotic jelly-brain, don't let kids end up like this gibbering lunatic.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,447 700,00.html

Thorougly (and ironically) muddying the waters is this piece, making everyone's point for him. And check out that first footnote!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,985 375,00.html

>>The specific charge Bush used to get our panties in a wad was nuclear weapons.

>Sorry to do this, but you're wrong. I distinctly remember Powell holding a vial of something when
>speaking to the UN, and I don't think it was radioactive....

There were other lies told then as well. See below:

Fresh evidence emerged last night that Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, was so disturbed about questionable American intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that he assembled a secret team to review the information he was given before he made a crucial speech to the UN security council on February 5.

Mr Powell's team removed dozens of pages of alleged evidence about Iraq's banned weapons and ties to terrorists from a draft of his speech, US News and World Report says today. At one point, he became so angry at the lack of adequate sourcing to intelligence claims that he declared: "I'm not reading this. This is bullshit," according to the magazine.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,968581 ,00.html

Apparently you didn't notice estimates for 2006, which the National Autistic Society verifies as being 1:100 - somewhat higher than your 36:10000. In fact, how the hell did you get that number from the NAS, when the NAS' own figures (Estimated prevalence rate in the UK, given in the paper linked to above) are stated as being current and a replacement for the 1997 figures you cite.

However, you also managed to miss this little gem from the Autism Research Center at Cambridge University.

Sorry if I sound a little annoyed, but if you're going to question my figures, you need to do better than decade-old discredited reports. I don't mind people challenging my views - I enjoy the intellectual challenge - but I do object to put-downs that are out-of-date, based on flawed methods and demonstrate a lack of site-searching skills. Please! Even in D&D, I'm at a high enough level that the DM has to give the monsters PhDs in physics and advanced library science. (Ever been attacked by a goblin wielding a +20 Shakespere of Doom?)

Which are filled with woodland creatures.

Ok, maybe it'll be safer where I am...

It's called abstinence.

But it only works properly if you wear a special magic ring.