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I'm going to break my response into multiple posts because the first one is so long.

The US doesn't torture prisoners. What you're doing is changing the meaning of the word "torture" to cover anything other than keeping them in a 5 star hotel and saying "please" and "thank you" every 5 seconds.

An interesting assertion. This flies flat in the face of pretty much all evidence that's come to light so far. You know, I've stayed in some pretty crappy motels, but I've never had the kind of "service" detainees have had in the care of US forces.

On August 1st 2002, Alberto Gonzalez sent a memo to the President about the use of torture in interrogation of prisoners. In this document, torture defined extremely narrowly. Physical torture is defined as physical punishments that would result in severe physical impairment, organ failure, or death and psychological torture is defined as only acts with threaten the above to the interogated or to a third party and the use of drugs to alter the senses or the personality of the detainee. (You can find more torture documents here.)

This, interestingly, does not cover many of the acts that went on at Abu Ghraib. Beatings that don't cause organ failure, severe impairment, or death don't count as torture under this. Electric shocks don't count as torture under this. Sexual humilation and rape doesn't count as torture under this. Hanging people in stress positions for hours doesn't count as torture under this. Having a prisoner parade around nude and covered in feces doesn't count as torture under this. You can find many images of the abuse on the Wikimedia Commons. Be warned, due to the sexual molestation involved, most of these images are not really safe for work.

Any sane person would consider these acts as having stepped beyond interrogation techniques and into torture.

Of course, even by these harsh and extremist standards, torture went on under US forces. Manadel al-Jamadi was beaten to death in the hands of soldiers at Abu Ghraib. That certainly counts as an interrogation method that leads to "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."

Prisoner abuse by US forces in the "War on Terror" didn't start in Iraq, though. There were actually several deaths of detainees under US control in Bagram in Afghanistan.

Beyond that, you have Guantanamo Bay prison. The abuses of detainees at Guantanamo either haven't been as severe as those at Bagram and Abu Ghraib, or they've been kept a better secret. There have been numerous prisoners beaten (though not to death), and there is a lot of use of stress positions to cause pain and suffering to coerce prisoners as reports of treats that violated even Gozalez's standards to the family members of detainees. The tactics there that are publicly known are a lot softer than those at other facilities, but are certainly harsher than what's tolerated at prisons in US land, but there are a few things that have gotten out that suggest that some of the accusations of former inmates have some substance.

In one chilling account, Sean Baker, a soldier who served in the 438th Military Police was asked to pretend to be a resistant detainee in a training exercise in 2003. Other guards who were not aware he wasn't a detainee came in a began suffocating and beating him. The beatings did not stop with the codeword for the exercise and only stopped when he yelled that he was a soldier and they found his fatigues under the orange prisoner jumpsuit. Unfortunately, by then the head trauma led to traumatic brain injury and a discharge f

I'm going to break my response into multiple posts because the first one is so long.

The US doesn't torture prisoners. What you're doing is changing the meaning of the word "torture" to cover anything other than keeping them in a 5 star hotel and saying "please" and "thank you" every 5 seconds.

An interesting assertion. This flies flat in the face of pretty much all evidence that's come to light so far. You know, I've stayed in some pretty crappy motels, but I've never had the kind of "service" detainees have had in the care of US forces.

On August 1st 2002, Alberto Gonzalez sent a memo to the President about the use of torture in interrogation of prisoners. In this document, torture defined extremely narrowly. Physical torture is defined as physical punishments that would result in severe physical impairment, organ failure, or death and psychological torture is defined as only acts with threaten the above to the interogated or to a third party and the use of drugs to alter the senses or the personality of the detainee. (You can find more torture documents here.)

This, interestingly, does not cover many of the acts that went on at Abu Ghraib. Beatings that don't cause organ failure, severe impairment, or death don't count as torture under this. Electric shocks don't count as torture under this. Sexual humilation and rape doesn't count as torture under this. Hanging people in stress positions for hours doesn't count as torture under this. Having a prisoner parade around nude and covered in feces doesn't count as torture under this. You can find many images of the abuse on the Wikimedia Commons. Be warned, due to the sexual molestation involved, most of these images are not really safe for work.

Any sane person would consider these acts as having stepped beyond interrogation techniques and into torture.

Of course, even by these harsh and extremist standards, torture went on under US forces. Manadel al-Jamadi was beaten to death in the hands of soldiers at Abu Ghraib. That certainly counts as an interrogation method that leads to "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."

Prisoner abuse by US forces in the "War on Terror" didn't start in Iraq, though. There were actually several deaths of detainees under US control in Bagram in Afghanistan.

Beyond that, you have Guantanamo Bay prison. The abuses of detainees at Guantanamo either haven't been as severe as those at Bagram and Abu Ghraib, or they've been kept a better secret. There have been numerous prisoners beaten (though not to death), and there is a lot of use of stress positions to cause pain and suffering to coerce prisoners as reports of treats that violated even Gozalez's standards to the family members of detainees. The tactics there that are publicly known are a lot softer than those at other facilities, but are certainly harsher than what's tolerated at prisons in US land, but there are a few things that have gotten out that suggest that some of the accusations of former inmates have some substance.

In one chilling account, Sean Baker, a soldier who served in the 438th Military Police was asked to pretend to be a resistant detainee in a training exercise in 2003. Other guards who were not aware he wasn't a detainee came in a began suffocating and beating him. The beatings did not stop with the codeword for the exercise and only stopped when he yelled that he was a soldier and they found his fatigues under the orange prisoner jumpsuit. Unfortunately, by then the head trauma led to traumatic brain injury and a discharge f

The GPL did one thing very right. It said that companies that "improve" software have to give those improvements back to the community.

Actually this is incorrect. See "Does the GPL require that source code of modified versions be posted to the public?".

The GPL does not require you to release your modified version. You are free to make modifications and use them privately, without ever releasing them. This applies to organizations (including companies), too; an organization can make a modified version and use it internally without ever releasing it outside the organization.

Also take a look at the following whitepaper (PDF), it dispels some of the myths surrounding the GPL (it's dated 2002, but these myths/misunderstandings are still around today).

What the hell did 9/11 change? There has always been a threat from this group or that group. The threat has always been relatively small, but the groups do what they do to instill fear that however small the risk, it could happen to you. That's why they're called "terrorists". The only difference is that the attack on 9/11 claimed more lives than those before it or since. There is no moral or ethical difference in the world today from that on 10 September, and there should be no difference in the judgements and responses of a rational, objective person.

What happened on 9/11 only claimed more lives than any other terrorist act? The US killed far more American Indians than died in the WTC. Four thousand Cherokee died when Andrew Jackson broke a treaty and forced them to march from the Carolinas and northern Georgia on the Trail of Tears. More recent then? How about the thousands of Chileans who were killed and the tens of thjousands who "disappeared" when Pres Ford and Kissinger supported Gen. Penochet and his coup against the democratically elected president of Chile? Do you know that September 11 has another meaning to Chileans? That's when the military launched it's attack on the civilian government. And what about the approximately 200,000 who were killed after Ford and Kissinger supported Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in 1975? Falcon

"Nothing that I know of that is relevent to the current situation, but it is still a fantastic archive"
Operation Northwoods is listed in that archive and here and here Northwoods was a plan by the pentagon to hijack planes to incite war with Cuba. I'd say that's relevant and a very dark hour in our history.

"I'm shocked, shocked there is gambling going on here!"
"Your winnings sir..."
"Oh thank you!"

If the U.S. gov't tried to do something like this, thousands of people would of have to known about it.

The plot has been on the table for over forty years. You're not one of those that believe that our government would never do such a thing, are you?

US foreign policy has nothing to do with foreigners disliking and hating the US? There's another meaning for 11 September, try 11 September 1973 in Chile. Or how about a couple of years later when then Pres Ford and Kissinger supported, gave the green light to Indonesia's invasion of newly independent East Timor. Said invasion then led to the death of up to 200,000 East Timorese, 1/3 the population. All just because the East Timorese had the balls to elect a socialist government.

Depending on what your current degree is in, you might want to follow it up with a degree in Computer Science with a heavy emphasis on Computer Security and Information. A while back, when I was applying to graduate schools, I found that there were very few universities, on the list that I had created, that specialized in Computer Security; albeit, I was more concerned with their EE/Computer Engineering than Computer Science.

With that said, I do know that there are a variety of courses available at places like Johns Hopkins University (http://www.cs.jhu.edu/academics_catalog_grad_cour ses.html), New York University (http://www.cs.nyu.edu/web/Academic/Graduate/cours es.html), George Washington University (http://cs.seas.gwu.edu/academics/graduate/courses /), Virginia Tech (http://www.cs.vt.edu/site_pages/courses/), and the University of Florida (http://www.cise.ufl.edu/student_services/grad/cou rses/) that might suit your needs. While computer forensics is useful for a variety of agencies and institutions, the fundamentals behind those methods are important, as it governs how new tools can be created. MIT (http://student.mit.edu/@5675354.9107/catalog/m6a. html) also has a very interesting course selection, and the techniques and research coming out of there are very top-notch. If I had the time, I'd attend more lectures there, as the content is very diverse and alluring, especially when a grade is not on the line.

A summary with a bit more information (and without horrible formatting errors), including a link to the actual document, can be found here. Apparently it's been declassified for a couple months now...but better to get this info out a little late then never I suppose.

> You haven't lived long enough.

Maybe you're just too old to care about the future?

Since you invaded Iraq there is no "bright idea"-way left. You fucked it up. You invaded your buddies (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/) country although you knew that there were no WMD (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593 607,00.html).
You lied to everyone and nobody trusts you anymore. You did this purely for economical reasons (Enron et al.).
Now you're spending your childrens educational and healthcare future and consitutional rights on a war you cannot win.
Meanwhile educating every other evil empire that they a) neeeeed nuclead wapons b) haaaate the US and will support any stupid suicide bomber.

Obese bunker busters are the last thing that will help your country but the hammer that makes you see everything as a nail.

And no, there really is no bright solution to the problems left. And no, you are not really bright.

k2r

It's a multifaceted problem, and no solution is readily available.

The way I see it, the problem is by design. It's well known that there's been a lot of "media consolidation" over the past few decades, so that the major outlets are controlled in the hands of a few corporations (e.g. Clearchannel).

John Taylor Gatto tells us in his books & presentations that the government's schools were set up to provide workers for industry. Before government schools, the American dream was an independant livelihood. After government schools, the expectation shifted to finding employment with a good company with good benefits.

The problem is that the same group of people are behind both efforts. Is it really so odd to propose that a small, dedicated group of families has been steadily concentrating wealth in their own pockets for centuries?

Furthermore, why is it that the same group of rotten scoundrels install themselves in government? George H. W. Bush was in the CIA at least as far back as the 60's. Head of the CIA, Vice President for 8 years, president for another 4.

Donald Rumsfeld was in the Nixon, Ford & Reagan administrations, according to Wikipedia. He even got his picture taken with Saddam Hussein back in 1983. Now he's secretary of defense. Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense under Papa Bush, and before that he got himself elected as representative from Wyoming.

I'm sure there are more examples. The problem, as I see it, is that the same rotten bastards keep getting recycled through the political system. Watch for the keywords: Project for the New American Century, Bilderburg Group, Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, etc... And that's not even mentioning the more secretive enclaves. See The Controllers: Secret Rulers of the World for a timeline of the consolidation of power over the last 100+ years.

What's more, anytime this sort of observation comes up, the masses have been conditioned to just snicker and dismiss the messenger as a "conspiracy theorist". But how do said masses know that there is no conspiracy? They don't "know", but social conditioning has implanted a nearly impervious belief.

Expose the so-called "illuminati" and their plots, and the problem will begin to go away.

NASA does collect money from technology it produces and distributes, but its real ROI is in the general US economy (and beyond). Its US ROI is well documented, ever since the big investments of the 1960s. One sample reports only NASA Life Sciences R&D ROI on $64M 1972-1997 is $1.5B. That's a better than 20-fold ROI, unheard of in other industries, especially at that scale. And that's not even including military returns from rocketry/telemetry R&D and actual launches/deployment. Plus the diplomacy and science recruitment growth, which is hard to measure, but has a dollar cost by other means.

NASA is cheap, and hugely beneficial. Not to mention the various strategic benefits from staying ahead of our foreign propaganda competitors like Russia, China, India and Japan.

Senator Proxmire, is that you?

If there's such a word as "blackwashing", Slashdot is addicted to it. Why don't you check out the references for yourself.

The documents released after the fact are a rather interesting read as well. Especially interesting is how most of the casualties were caused by one unit, the 27th, and that other units actually started fighting with the 27th before the army was withdrawn.

You are of course, correct in my lumping the National Security Agency with members of the National Security Council. My trying to be cute, and some contemporary reading subjects are to blame.

Recently I have been reading the Walsh Iran/Contra Report, as well as some other related reading, and it seems that I confused the president's Naional security Advisor (NSA - a the time of the Reagan ongoing criminal enterprise it was Robert McFarlane) as someone who is a part of, and holds great policy control over the NSA.

It didn't help that some of the other reading I've been doing are transcripts of the NSA archive's interviews for the CNN series: The Cold War Experience. The direct Iran/Contra link being Duane Clarridge's Interview.

If you visit, don't just read Dewey's silly condensed history of the Monroe Doctrine and run. Ziggy Brzezinski's interview is quite illuminating, especially when taken in context with his Le Nouvel Observateur Interview in Paris, January 15-21, 1998, which has been translated and published by that incorrigible lefty for life muckraking journo, Alexander Cockburn. For a more contemporary flavoring of the ties that grind there are also interviews by: Condi Rice, Richard Perle, and the long-term Machinator of US policy, John Negroponte; Part One and Part Two.

You are of course, correct in my lumping the National Security Agency with members of the National Security Council. My trying to be cute, and some contemporary reading subjects are to blame.

Recently I have been reading the Walsh Iran/Contra Report, as well as some other related reading, and it seems that I confused the president's Naional security Advisor (NSA - a the time of the Reagan ongoing criminal enterprise it was Robert McFarlane) as someone who is a part of, and holds great policy control over the NSA.

It didn't help that some of the other reading I've been doing are transcripts of the NSA archive's interviews for the CNN series: The Cold War Experience. The direct Iran/Contra link being Duane Clarridge's Interview.

If you visit, don't just read Dewey's silly condensed history of the Monroe Doctrine and run. Ziggy Brzezinski's interview is quite illuminating, especially when taken in context with his Le Nouvel Observateur Interview in Paris, January 15-21, 1998, which has been translated and published by that incorrigible lefty for life muckraking journo, Alexander Cockburn. For a more contemporary flavoring of the ties that grind there are also interviews by: Condi Rice, Richard Perle, and the long-term Machinator of US policy, John Negroponte; Part One and Part Two.

You are of course, correct in my lumping the National Security Agency with members of the National Security Council. My trying to be cute, and some contemporary reading subjects are to blame.

Recently I have been reading the Walsh Iran/Contra Report, as well as some other related reading, and it seems that I confused the president's Naional security Advisor (NSA - a the time of the Reagan ongoing criminal enterprise it was Robert McFarlane) as someone who is a part of, and holds great policy control over the NSA.

It didn't help that some of the other reading I've been doing are transcripts of the NSA archive's interviews for the CNN series: The Cold War Experience. The direct Iran/Contra link being Duane Clarridge's Interview.

If you visit, don't just read Dewey's silly condensed history of the Monroe Doctrine and run. Ziggy Brzezinski's interview is quite illuminating, especially when taken in context with his Le Nouvel Observateur Interview in Paris, January 15-21, 1998, which has been translated and published by that incorrigible lefty for life muckraking journo, Alexander Cockburn. For a more contemporary flavoring of the ties that grind there are also interviews by: Condi Rice, Richard Perle, and the long-term Machinator of US policy, John Negroponte; Part One and Part Two.

You are of course, correct in my lumping the National Security Agency with members of the National Security Council. My trying to be cute, and some contemporary reading subjects are to blame.

Recently I have been reading the Walsh Iran/Contra Report, as well as some other related reading, and it seems that I confused the president's Naional security Advisor (NSA - a the time of the Reagan ongoing criminal enterprise it was Robert McFarlane) as someone who is a part of, and holds great policy control over the NSA.

It didn't help that some of the other reading I've been doing are transcripts of the NSA archive's interviews for the CNN series: The Cold War Experience. The direct Iran/Contra link being Duane Clarridge's Interview.

If you visit, don't just read Dewey's silly condensed history of the Monroe Doctrine and run. Ziggy Brzezinski's interview is quite illuminating, especially when taken in context with his Le Nouvel Observateur Interview in Paris, January 15-21, 1998, which has been translated and published by that incorrigible lefty for life muckraking journo, Alexander Cockburn. For a more contemporary flavoring of the ties that grind there are also interviews by: Condi Rice, Richard Perle, and the long-term Machinator of US policy, John Negroponte; Part One and Part Two.

You are of course, correct in my lumping the National Security Agency with members of the National Security Council. My trying to be cute, and some contemporary reading subjects are to blame.

Recently I have been reading the Walsh Iran/Contra Report, as well as some other related reading, and it seems that I confused the president's Naional security Advisor (NSA - a the time of the Reagan ongoing criminal enterprise it was Robert McFarlane) as someone who is a part of, and holds great policy control over the NSA.

It didn't help that some of the other reading I've been doing are transcripts of the NSA archive's interviews for the CNN series: The Cold War Experience. The direct Iran/Contra link being Duane Clarridge's Interview.

If you visit, don't just read Dewey's silly condensed history of the Monroe Doctrine and run. Ziggy Brzezinski's interview is quite illuminating, especially when taken in context with his Le Nouvel Observateur Interview in Paris, January 15-21, 1998, which has been translated and published by that incorrigible lefty for life muckraking journo, Alexander Cockburn. For a more contemporary flavoring of the ties that grind there are also interviews by: Condi Rice, Richard Perle, and the long-term Machinator of US policy, John Negroponte; Part One and Part Two.

You are of course, correct in my lumping the National Security Agency with members of the National Security Council. My trying to be cute, and some contemporary reading subjects are to blame.

Recently I have been reading the Walsh Iran/Contra Report, as well as some other related reading, and it seems that I confused the president's Naional security Advisor (NSA - a the time of the Reagan ongoing criminal enterprise it was Robert McFarlane) as someone who is a part of, and holds great policy control over the NSA.

It didn't help that some of the other reading I've been doing are transcripts of the NSA archive's interviews for the CNN series: The Cold War Experience. The direct Iran/Contra link being Duane Clarridge's Interview.

If you visit, don't just read Dewey's silly condensed history of the Monroe Doctrine and run. Ziggy Brzezinski's interview is quite illuminating, especially when taken in context with his Le Nouvel Observateur Interview in Paris, January 15-21, 1998, which has been translated and published by that incorrigible lefty for life muckraking journo, Alexander Cockburn. For a more contemporary flavoring of the ties that grind there are also interviews by: Condi Rice, Richard Perle, and the long-term Machinator of US policy, John Negroponte; Part One and Part Two.

You are of course, correct in my lumping the National Security Agency with members of the National Security Council. My trying to be cute, and some contemporary reading subjects are to blame.

Recently I have been reading the Walsh Iran/Contra Report, as well as some other related reading, and it seems that I confused the president's Naional security Advisor (NSA - a the time of the Reagan ongoing criminal enterprise it was Robert McFarlane) as someone who is a part of, and holds great policy control over the NSA.

It didn't help that some of the other reading I've been doing are transcripts of the NSA archive's interviews for the CNN series: The Cold War Experience. The direct Iran/Contra link being Duane Clarridge's Interview.

If you visit, don't just read Dewey's silly condensed history of the Monroe Doctrine and run. Ziggy Brzezinski's interview is quite illuminating, especially when taken in context with his Le Nouvel Observateur Interview in Paris, January 15-21, 1998, which has been translated and published by that incorrigible lefty for life muckraking journo, Alexander Cockburn. For a more contemporary flavoring of the ties that grind there are also interviews by: Condi Rice, Richard Perle, and the long-term Machinator of US policy, John Negroponte; Part One and Part Two.

Were you aware of the (fewer) connections that were known before we invaded Iraq, including the trips Zarqawi made to Baghdad during the Saddam regime?

Oh, for fuck's sake, Donald Rumsfeld travelled to Baghdad during the Saddam regime! He shook hands with the man!

The White House has admitted that the Iraq-Al Qaeda connection is tenuous at best. Give it up.

I assume you mean the Kurd slaughterings. You speak as if the US hadn't sanctioned the use of chemical weapons while ignoring the fact that it was used on Iraqis by Saddam in 1983 just before, and I'm sure you have seen the picture, Rumsfeld and Saddam shook hands. "The U.S.[...]had intelligence confirming Iran's accusations, and describing Iraq's "almost daily" use of chemical weapons, concurrent with its policy review and decision to support Iraq in the war. The intelligence indicated that Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces, and, according to a November 1983 memo, against "Kurdish insurgents" as well." http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/ Unless of course you are suggesting that after its done with Iraq the US should attacks itself for being an accomplice of Saddam.

Pretty sure they wont find this.

When there is a congressional election. If democrats can take back the house, they could possibly impeach the president; no Republican controlled house would ever betray their parties president (especially after he was re(s)elected). The angle that I don't think has been stressed enough is how Bush acted. If he really thought that having to go through a court that has approved 18,742 wiretap warrants and denied 5 was such an unconstitutional restraint of his power, he should have spoken up when he started doing it. Bush is asking for huge increases in executive power during a war he started under false premises.

According to a recent Zogby poll, 52% of Americans approve of impeaching Bush if he wiretapped an American citizen without a judges approval.

This wiretapping scandal can only get bigger as more and more layers get exposed. It appears Bush may have been wiretapping Americans before 9/11.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB23/07-01 .htm

I guess we wait for another Tiananmen Square to happen again. It kind of makes one wonder what exactly was accomplished in 1989 when 100,000 protesters marched in Beijing. Appearantly not much.

While the U.S. is concerned with this, maybe we should instead be concerned with that?

Either way, if you're interested in what the U.S. is concerned about, maybe you should read documents made available by the Freedom of Information Act.

What are people supposed to do if they cannot free themselves from a suppressive government? It's not worth violence to be able to read wikipedia but it's clear that non-violent protests in the past did very little.

I guess we wait for another Tiananmen Square to happen again. It kind of makes one wonder what exactly was accomplished in 1989 when 100,000 protesters marched in Beijing. Appearantly not much.

While the U.S. is concerned with this, maybe we should instead be concerned with that?

Either way, if you're interested in what the U.S. is concerned about, maybe you should read documents made available by the Freedom of Information Act.

What are people supposed to do if they cannot free themselves from a suppressive government? It's not worth violence to be able to read wikipedia but it's clear that non-violent protests in the past did very little.

(With apologies to The Barenaked Ladies)

It seems like every few years, some tech company does a "home of the future." AOL's version was the "Home of the 21st Century" http://www.h21c.seas.gwu.edu/ done in conjunction with The George Washington University http://www.gwu.edu/ at the Virginia Campus. The technologies on display are always either *very* nice and high-end, or kludged together from off-the-shelf stuff. I'll be interested to see what the cool-factor on this is, though.

(With apologies to The Barenaked Ladies)

It seems like every few years, some tech company does a "home of the future." AOL's version was the "Home of the 21st Century" http://www.h21c.seas.gwu.edu/ done in conjunction with The George Washington University http://www.gwu.edu/ at the Virginia Campus. The technologies on display are always either *very* nice and high-end, or kludged together from off-the-shelf stuff. I'll be interested to see what the cool-factor on this is, though.

"I'm glad this country finally took a stance against an oppressor instead of waiting for millions more to be gassed or burnt alive like when the US and others waited for a long time before taking Hitler out...at least we saved some lives by going in early."

Hmmm. I seem to recall the US supporting Iraq through the gassing of the Kurds. Maybe you would have been more glad if we had gone against them at that point in time. Hear that? It was the sound of your argument deflating.

Me 1. You 0.

*No roads
And what do you call what we have now? I call it "rocks, holes, and unofficial speedbumps". I'm considering throwing in the towel on trying to maintain an SUV, for gods sake, because I can't drive regularly without something getting screwed up on it: shock absorbers, electrical problems, etc.

*No police protection
Good. The last instance of "police protection" I received was being pulled over and ticketed $20 for not wearing a seatbelt. I'd pay not to get that kind of "protection".

*No fire departments
We've had three cases here recently of firemen getting caught starting fires. Two weeks ago there were twelve mysterious grassfires all over the state in one day. And guess who put them out? Volunteer fire departments.

*No primary or secondary education
        *As a result of which, 90% of our middle class would be being paid substinance level wages, working 12-16 hour days to be able to eat. You know, like we did before we enacted regulations to stop that shit.
You can get an education without the help of the government. And if you're too dumb to do so, you're better off working 12 hours a day, because it would be wasted on you. By the way, my mother has a college degree, and works 10 hours a day in a factory, so let's not pretend that education has much to do with working conditions or job availability.

*No military, so we'd likely be part of China by now
If I had back the taxes that I pay and freedoms that I sacrifice to support all the ridiculous US military excursions around the globe, I'd do just fine defending my country the way it was intended to be defended: by citizens, not by mercenaries. As it is, the US government more often attacks US citizens and creates terrorists and dictators than protects us from foreign threats. And the Chinese nuclear arsenal was built by a man educated through the generosity of the US taxpayer. So, no, I don't exactly see how my taxes are being used to protect us from China, or anyone else.

*No social security, so we'd have elderly people competing for jobs in order to live
I don't give a shit. Young people compete for jobs in order to live. There's nothing magical about the elderly that makes them immune to the decisions they have made in their lifetime, good and bad. Life sucks, you have 70 years to learn to deal with it. If you haven't done so by then, tough. Don't expect to impose your stupidity on future generations.

*A large homeless problem, as elderly people will frequently lose the competition
Elderly people can live with their families, like they have done for thousands of years. Those without families should have that much more retirement money to live off of.

*A much lower expected lifespan, due to the above and lack of medicaid
Yeah well everybody dies. Get over yourself. And lifespan is more affected by improvements in healthcare for the young than by using the elderly as an excuse to ruin the economy.

*Garbage all over, since we wouldn't have garbage pickup and people would refuse to pay
I have (private) garbage pickup. And I pay for it. And if I didn't, it would get burnt in an incinerator or buried in the backyard, which is exactly what the garbage people do with it anyways.

Your opinion is, in fact, very popular among some of our worst citizens. Here's the thing:

Reagan/Bush's campaign team paid the Iranians to keep the American hostages through the 1980 election against Carter. Then Reagan/Bush's Iran/Contra team sold Iran weapons while also sending Iraq chemical weapons during their war against each other, which Bush followed with a war against Iraq. Then Bush's son started a war against Iraq that's turning it over to Iran.

Weigh all that against Carter failing to stop a Soviet invasion of their neighboring Afghanistan, which undid Russian confidence in their government's invincibility. Throw in Reagan/Bush's creation of the Afghan jihad, including bin Laden, which eventually destroyed the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon. Which Bush's son used to justify invading Iraq, which we're now turning over to Iran (see paragraph 1).

I'll take Carter, thank you, even if he couldn't do much to rescue an economy destroyed by Nixon/Ford's disastrous war in Vietnam, defeat by OPEC (see paragraphs 1 & 2), and general implosion of American confidence after Watergate. To say nothing of the SEC chaired by Bush/Reagan's campaign manager, Bill Casey (see paragraph one).

Certainly better than the current Bush residue: Worst. President. Ever.

This is a case study of the intersection between Common Law and Statutory law. The notion of a "Journalistic Shield" has existed for some time. To the mind of the general public and many lawmakers, police officers, even special prosecutors 'journalists' serve a special function and are thus entitled to protection under the law. In the past this principle has been followed even at the Federal Level. Daniel Ellsberg the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers was punished, indeed someone nearly beat him to death on the steps of the Supreme Court building, but he was never convicted of treason nor was publication stopped. The Supreme Court, in its ruling, bowed to the common law notion that the information in the papers should have been available and that Ellsberg performed a public service by sharing it.

All of law is about principles and definitions. We do not wish to be murdered, and we think such acts are wrong so we enact a law saying that "(Murder -> Guilty) & (Guitly -> Punished)". The catch is that we then get to define "Murder". Murder itself is what is known as an open textured concept. Loosly speaking anytime I kill anyone it is murder. But! there are exemptions for cases where it was war, I was executing the person at the behest of the state, etc. For normative reasons the same act may or may not be 'murder'.

The fundamental challenge in law is in processing these concepts and dealing with them. Loosly speaking there are two approaches to this: Common Law and Statutory Law. The two are not incompatable, indeed most legal systems use both in different domains.

Common Law is that which is defined by general practice (public perceptions, the courts, and so on). A primary example of this (near to most /.'rs hearts is Fair Use). The concept of fair use has not been enshrined directly in any legal document (save obliquely in the Constitution). It has, however been defined over a number of years by caselaw. When asked about it people (even lawyers) describe it in terms of the open-textured concepts such as "educational purpose", or "personal use". In the past the coursts have happily ruled that playing a video for a class is an "educational use" but using an unlicenced copy of Photoshop to teach yourself is not. Similarly loaning a backup CD to your spouse is, to my knowledge, different than loaning it to a random stranger.

Statutory Law is that which is encoded by rulemaking bodies (Parliments, Congresses, etc.) The classic American example of this is the Tax Code which spells out in exacting detail what each and every thing is. A classic British example is the Nationality Act which defines who is, and is not a British Subject vis-a-vuis colonies, mixed parentege, etc. In statutory law it is necessary to spell things out explicitly as is being done here. A nice article at Lawmeme describes this as programming in the language Legal.

The point in which these two intersect is the definitions. In this case the goal is to define a 'journalist' or those who deserve the protection. What the authors are trying to do is to encode a common-law practice (that has yet to be set to paper) in a formal statutory way. The practical upshot of this is that they get to (if they want) to formalize the concept of a journalist. At present they seem to be tending towards the "someone who practices journalism" route, which is good. If they don't wish to overly specitfy things they could just punt (as they did with thje DMCA, and much biotech law) and write deliberately vague laws that are then up to the courts to decide.

The latter is not (in my opinion) entirely bad. In the case of the DMCA it has been bad but then the law was bad from the get-go. In the case of Biotech it is a cop-out by a congress too afraid of losing their jobs. In this case it might be good. When things are left up to

There have been many studies, but like geese, fish also take advantage of swimming in groups:

Scientists show how fish save energy by swimming in schools

And there have been many studies into dolphin and whale motion.

Hydrodynamic study into whale flippers

The use of rotary motors only seems to occur at the bacterial level (flagella bacteria)

As a side benefit, the people of Iraq have a chance at self-rule

Well, the 100,000+ dead don't have any chance at self rule, no...and those left have more chance of falling into civil war that, at best, ends up in a theocracy, than of ending up with a stable democracy.

After the way the neocons have fucked things up over there, the very very best we can hope for over there is that in 50 years or so, after a few hundred thousand more people have been killed in the fighting, things will be as nice and stable in Iraq as they are in Northern Ireland now.

...affect your belief that continued power by the gentle, peace-loving Saddamites would have been the better answer for both the (fractured) Iraqi people and the rest of the world.

The best course would have been for the U.S. to not help bring the Baathists to power in the first place. Having screwed that up, the next best thing would have been to not have supported Hussein in the 1980s.

Having screwed that up, the next next best thing would have been a long-term process of supporting reform in Iraq with diplomatic and economic sanctions and rewards, with the definite threat of military force if Iraq again attacked its neighbors. (With a corresponding promise to defend Iraq if its neighbors attacked it.) Yes, it would have taken years, decades even, to bring about change, and Saddam's brtual rule would have killed people in that time. But fewer than have already died, and orders of magnitude less than those who will die before stable democracy comes to Iraq.

• First, I appreciate your understanding that my post wasn't "flame bait", but fervent dissent. That has been an unusual response to me in many places, both web and real over the last few years. Generally, people would rather pass me off as a "leftist" than respond rationally, which confuses and bemuses me, since my views are often what once was defined as "conservative", and now the politiquechic call paleoconservative.
• Second, I did a bit of light browsing of links you graciously provided. Based on this, I am now making many assumptions about your personal knowledge.
• Third, my past experiences with wikipedia have caused me to be very distrustful of any topic current, political or socially divisive. Maybe we can discuss the whys another time.
• Fourth, The modding down of my previous post could be viewed as favourable, since it decreases the noise to signal.

The USA's desire to affect the leadership of other countries does predate the Cold War. Most notably in the willingness to overthrow Central and South American leaders that were viewed as antithetical to the wishes of American business which had interests in the region. It wasn't a lack of will that kept the government form acting this way before that, it was a lack of ability. Duane Clarridge's take on the History of the Monroe Doctrine is illustrative from multiple viewpoints. The whole interview of Clarridge is brightly illuminative upon the dangers and ills of covert action. Here is a man who still arrogantly believes that America's secret services have a right and a duty to act extra-constitutionally to effectuate a US President's unlawful desires.

I am an absolutist when it comes to the constitution's delineation of the rights of humans, and the limitations placed upon the government. Anything else is tyranny. This is not hyperbole, nor is it negotiable. "No person shall be held", and "In all criminal prosecutions" are not rights the government has conferred upon its citizens. They are rights all humans naturally possess, and a just government will not infringe upon these rights. The concept; "Unlawful Combatants" , is an unconstitutional obscenity. This practise needs to be terminated with extreme predjudice. Once again, I will never negotiate this, for to do so is to betray the Dreamtime, and means the end of what little faith I still posess.

In almost all instances, when a country picks a leftist as a leader in a verifiably fair democratic process, America would be much better off not trying to upset the result, and instead look to the next election, helping insure that there will be one. It is a blatant lack of faith in America to think that, over the long run, citizenry in other countries will not see the truth, and choose properly in the elections of their leaders. All too often American intervention has either cemented the power of leaders the US government opposed or led to an undemocratic and brutal right-wing military regime. I believe a very good example of the first case is Cuba and Castro. His power has been greatly aided by our providing causes he could point a finger of blame at, when it was his failures of policy which were truly to blame. Cuba is definitely a case where the Christian path recommended by Paul should have been chosen:

"if thine enemy hunger, feed him;
if he thirst, give him drink:
for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head"
--Romans 12:20

The problem would have been solved years ago this way.

In the case of Karimov, there be no equivocations. Our alliance, for whatever reasons offered, was wrong. Former UK Uzbek Ambassaor Murray is correct in his analysis, and it is shameful that mainstream American media has for the most part ignored what he has said about Karimov and Uzbekistan. He clearly stated the issues

This is slightly more serious I think... at least from the "Slashdot" perspective:

cough cough

Saw this.

http://www.cspri.seas.gwu.edu/library/current_news /20021205.php

Here it says he started working at GW's Cyber Security Policy and Research Institute (CSPRI) in 2002.

He also has a long background in Unix internals. There aren't many people that know Unix internals and are totally clueless about security.

and the Soviet sphere didn't gain a permanent nuclear strike base just off our coast

Let us discuss the Cuban Missile Crisis. The REAL reason why the Soviets went ahead to put nuclear missiles into Cuba was that the Soviet Union was merely returning a favor.

You see, the USA had already planted nuclear missiles into Turkey. Did you know that? And the location of Turkey happens to be just outside the Russian border.

So the Soviet Union was merely extending the courtesy of hauling nuclear missiles next to the other guy's border, and then having had a taste of their own medicine, USA freaked out. When the missile crisis ended, USA agreed to pull out their missiles in Turkey (a little bit delayed though, so that it wouldn't seem that it was the real reason).

The key to international security is really just common sense and respect from all parties. Hauling up nukes to someones backyard and expecting them to accept it is not common sense. Crying wolf when they do the same to you is also not common sense (since you sort of asked for it)?

For more information, have a read.

I agree he supported terrorists in other parts of the world, used gas on his own (Kurdish) people, and deserved no better treatment than we gave him. In short, he was a very, very bad man.

However, it would behoove us to remember what has happened in the past when we've taken it upon ourselves to "encourage" regime change.

Short version:

• In 1953, the CIA ousted Iranian President Mohammad Mossadegh. This resulted in the US-friendly Shah (Mohammed Reza Pahlavi), followed by the not-so-friendly Ayatollah Khomeini.
• In 1954, the CIA ousted Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. Result: civil war lasting until 1996.
• In 1960, the US and Belgium organized a coup resulting in the assassination of a democratically elected prime minister (backed by the USSR), who was replaced by the oh-so-lovable Joseph Sese Seko Mobuto.
• In 1973, we helped bring Pinochet to power.

Ignoring our history, it seems like things can only get better in Iraq with Saddam out of the way, and I sincerely hope that in 5-10 years you can tell me that you told me so.

Of course, I can't finish this comment without pointing out this gem. By your logic, it would seem that those who supported Saddam can also be blamed for 9/11.

It took me 4 months to get my alma mater to update their computer system to reflect that I had graduated 7 years previously. Of course, the fact they had sent me a diploma didn't seem to be a factor, but lots of employers want a transcript, and it didn't show up there. Of course, they didn't keep paper records that long, so all they had t go on was one field in a computer system.

In the end, after threatening to bring in lawyers, and having to get the curriculum committee to meet and decide I had passed, the dean finally apologized -- for having 'incorrectly given me a diploma'.

Besides, all that certificates prove is that you're willing to waste the time and money to get a piece of paper ... even if it's 4+ years and many thousands of dollars. (in the case of Brainbench, however, my company paid for me to take the tests, but I'd have to shell out for the paper to show I passed them, which can add up, if you do well at tests.)

I always like a good joke. But your joke wasn't very funny, and I feel uncomfortable with so many jokes about something that should be taken seriously. It seems to me that there is too much joking about this subject and not enough seriousness.

If you want the violence and the degradation of the U.S. lifestyle to stop, study the situation carefully. Below is background information you need to know to understand the Washington Post article referenced in the Slashdot story. You could gather this information yourself, but people who joke easily about this kind of thing generally don't take the time:

The SITE Institute supplied information for the Washington Post article. SITE stands for "Search for International Terrorist Entities". SITE Institute provides examples of terrorist web sites. One of them, PalestinianInfo.net, published this photograph: Photo of the day. The caption says, "Palestinian children walk on the rubble of a Palestinian house that was demolished by Israeli occupation authorities, in the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of A-tur July 5, 2005. According to the Israeli authorities, the house was demolished due to a lack of permits." It seems that the issue might not be completely one-sided.

The Arab "terrorists" believe they are fighting a war, and that violence is a solution to social problems. The U.S. government believes it is fighting a war, and that violence is a solution to social problems. I'm not saying those groups have anything else in common, just that they share two beliefs in common.

If your government chooses killing as policy, expect others to choose the same. The U.S. government began killing Arabs and Muslims and corrupting their governments long before most Arabs and Muslims thought about the United States. None of the violence was secret. It was in the newspapers and in magazines and on TV, but not in enough detail that U.S. citizens could understand the implications. I remember reading that the U.S. government overthrew a democratically elected president of Iran (Mossadegh) because he wanted his country to share more of the profits of U.S. and British oil companies doing business in Iran. The U.S. government put a weak man in power, the Shah of Iran, who became very violent toward his own citizens. Eventually, people in Iran overthrew the Shah. The U.S. government's actions de-stabilized the country and encouraged the violence that came after. For more information, see the short article, To understand the present conflict, consider the past.

As of 2005-08-08, 04:24 AM PDT, the SITE Institute says these are other terrorist web sites: http://www.kataebaqsa1.com/, http://www.moqawama.net/, and http://www.qudsway.com/. The only way you can know directly what they say in Arabic is to read Arabic. Be careful about accepting what someone else says they say. You need to be able to trust that the translator is not politically involved.

The Washington Post article says, "Hampered by the nature of the Internet itself, the government has proven ineffective at blocking or even hindering significantly this vast online presence." This sentence worries me. It seems to justify U.S. government interference with free speech. It's not clear that preventing open speech for those who disagree with the policies of the U.S. government is a sensible idea. It seems likely that knowing what they are saying is important; we don't want

The Al Queda #2 was Zawahiri, and if you do some googling you'll find reports that he met with Saddam Hussein in 1992

yeah. Donald Rumsfeld met with Saddam in 1983. Maybe you would like to expand upon the United States' relationship with Saddam?

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

by the way,the article you posted showing a link between Al-Queda and Saddam Hussein was 2 years old, and COMPLETELY disproved by the republican appointed 9/11 Comission.

you're pretty much an idiot at this point.

Professor Grier is also a part of the Computer Science department at the George Washington University

http://cs.seas.gwu.edu/people/facultyinfo.php?id=1 07

http://www.gwu.edu/~elliott/facultystaff/grier.cfm

China is really big and really powerful. They're so big and powerful they can tell MS to shove it. And they can tell the US to shove it. If or when China changes, it will be because Chinese people do it. No one is going to push them into doing anything they don't want to do.

And would they go to such great lengths to suppress the concepts of things like "freedom" and "democracy" if those in power didn't fear that a sizable amount of their people wanted to decide what was best for China? I hate to sound like the old codger, but some of us still remember Tiananmen Square.

And if you think that foreign corporations can't have any influence on wealthy nations that chose to subjugate their people history disagrees.

Iraq built and used WMDs with American support during Reagan's 1980s term. They were done after 1991, part of their surrender to America's first (counter)invasion. What was nearly unanimous in Bush's 2000s term was the opinion that Iraq did not have WMD. With the exception of Bush and his neocon advisors, who were determined to invade Iraq regardless of reasons. Who were lying for a pretext to invade Iraq, instead of stopping the Qaeda in Afghanistan an Pakistan.

It may be a nice (if strange) ideal to think that lawyers only have the opinions they are paid to have, but it simply isn't true.

How much political dissent is allowed?

Actually I forgot to mention that when I was in Cuba, it was a month or two after national elections. The system there is similar to California's: you can vote Yes to confirm those in power, or No and specify whom you would prefer to take power.

Now, of course you may quote Grampa Josip about "it's not the people who vote that matter, it's the people who count the votes". I have no sources on whether elections are rigged and if the case to what extent. Yet, whereas I saw many more ads for Yes, the largest ad I saw was a roadside No, roughly the canonical 3×6 meters.

European socialists (you know, the type with taxes > 50%)

I live in Norway, considered to have the highest tax level on earth. My tax percent is about 25%. Those myths about 50% tax rate are (sometimes deliberate) misconceptions about marginal tax rate. For instance, in Norway, income beyond about 60,000 dollars is taxed at an higher percent.

The US gov't's problem with Cuba is narrowly limited to its practice of oppression.

Given the record of support for Saddam Hussein, most southern-american dictatorships, the organization of the Escola de las Americas, arming the Contras in Nicaragua, frienship with the house of Saud, collaboration with the regime of Francisco Franco, and countless others (and I've kept myself to only a few over the last 50 years), your statement is laughable and is the result of overexposure to propaganda.

The US are pissed at Castro because he nationalized US-owned cuban industries, that US businessmen had bought or started by doing business with the corrupt regime of Batista. The same way, the UK was pissed at Iraq since a long time, since Iraq had nationalized assets of BP a few decades ago. Formerly-rich cubans in Florida are a resource of votes in a swing state. Cuba is a former ally of the Soviet Union and therefore adversary to the US, and its leadership is unwilling to let US interests in. Talking about freedom of speech in Cuba takes away the focus from the freedom of speech at home. Really, it's all about the money.

If there's a problem with US foreign policy, today as well as during the cold war, is that they rather protect American economic interests instead of what should be the American values (freedom of speech and the like, as you find them in the Constitution).

One of the nasty side effects is that economic or strategic short-term gain is often to the detriment of the long-term: the US financed Mujahedeens in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, only to find them bringing down the WTC in New York. They knew they were fundies, they only cared they were shooting Russians and local Communists; it should be obvious that if he's a wacko, you should not hand him guns.

Now, to take a leap: what is an example of a dictatorial regime currently sponsored by the US, that is full of fundie nuts? Well, that's Pakistan. Contrary to all previous situations, however, Pakistan has got nukes. If Musharraf ends like the Shah, we're in for some creepy times.

people like to proclaim bush's lack of a popular vote as meaning he is illegitimate. happens all the time unfortunately. there really needs to be a run-off so that someone has to get over 50%.