Slashdot Mirror

Penrose never sued anybody

This blog cites a story from The Wall Street Journal from April, 1997 that appears to be genuine.

LONDON -- Sir Roger Penrose has seen his work on quantum physics and relativity theory celebrated in countless papers. But it was toilet paper that really got the renowned mathematician's attention.

When Sir Roger examined the "Kleenex quilted toilet tissue," made by the British unit of Kimberly-Clark Corp., what he saw was no ordinary piece of toilet paper. Embossed on the surface he discovered a series of interlocking diamonds. They bore an uncanny resemblance to "the Penrose Pattern," a highly complex geometric formula he devised in the 1970s to prove that a nonrepeating pattern could exist, solving one of the great conundrums of the natural world.

"He wasn't pleased," says Sir Roger's lawyer, Richard Kempner a partner at Addleshaw Booth & Co in Leeds, England. So, Sir Roger and Pentaplex Ltd., the Yorkshire, England, company that owns the licensing rights to his work, are going after the toilet paper with court papers, having sued Kimberly-Clark Ltd. for breach of copyright in the High Court in London.

This story says the dispute was resolved amicably shortly afterwards.

Sir Roger Penrose and Pentaplex Limited have resolved their differences with SCA Hygiene Products UK, current holders of the Kleenex toilet tissue and kitchen roll brands.

Pentaplex Ltd and SCA Hygiene Products UK have now developed a working relationship, described by both sides as "cordial and constructive." Pentaplex Limited is undertaking technical consultancy work for SCA Hygiene Products UK.

The point is not Giuliana Sgrena. She is not a weapons expert and I don't expect her tale to be accurate to the last technical detail, as the whole episode lasted only a few seconds and during these she probably thought of otherwise than writing the next story.
The point is an hostage being retrieved through a paid ransom.

1. Insurgents kidnap Italian
2. Italian government pays ransom
3. Hostage is freed, resistance gets money
4. Insurgents kidnap another Italian since the Italian government pays, go back to 1

It would otherwise be interesting to actually see those satellite pictures, not just a link by an American to an American news site quoting an American TV station about an American satellite.

And no, she did not like the US, nor did the experience much to improve her views. Same can be said for the majority of Italians.

Linkage to documents obtained by FOIA (which is up there with civil rights acts in the Steps Towards Democracy department). The upshot: The Contras ran drugs into the U.S. to fund their war against the Sandanistas, and the CIA was cool with that.

Just the fact the US was holding FIVE military exercises on the morning of 9/11, when the planes hit the WTC, and the fact that some of these EXERCISES involved terrorists crashing planes into buildings, should be enough to prove to you that, at the least, the US government had prior knowledge:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2004 /080904wargamescover.htm

Also the US government has at least made plans, in the past, to attack its own forces, i.e. blow up a plane, bomb a ship, etc., in order to justify going to war. This has been revealed in declassified government documents. The plan was called "Operation Northwoods":
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/

Oh, and here is a short documentary "movie" on the 9/11 Pentagon hit: http://www.elchulo.net/files/pentagon.swf

Brazil: A country that uses proprietary software with hidden file formats is not an independent country. This is particularly true when considering software from the United States. The U.S. government spends a huge amount on spying on other countries. Some of the spying is done to benefit U.S. companies to allow them to compete with foreign companies.

Brazil: Do you want to be a partner of a company that has broken the laws of its own country? If that company has in the past shown little respect for the laws of its own country, would it respect the laws of Brazil?

Brazil: Remember that hidden elements of the U.S. government supported the military coup against democracy in Brazil, without the knowledge of most U.S. citizens.

Maybe its because I expect more of people and am simply fed up with all the lies this particular administration throws about and then tries to justify that it seems like I'm a leftist.

For example, five days into his first term, Bush was told by Richard Clarke that an immediate meeting was needed to discuss the Al Qaeda threat. Clarke told both Bush and Rice about this meeting and gave them memos stating the urgency of the meeting.

Both Bush and Rice denied ever having been informed of such a meeting. Too bad the memo was released on February 10th of this year proving that Clarke was correct when he said during Congressional hearing that Bush was warned about the threat.

Am I giving Clinton a pass? No way. The dingbat had his own issues. I am merely harping on the current officeholder because he's the one doing the stupidity. When the next person comes into office, I'll rail against them as well.

Don't automatically assume that because I or anyone rails against Bush that they are leftists. You'd be surprised how many Republicans are just as disgusted by his antics as the Democrats are.

As a side note, your final comments echo almost exactly what the morons in the Florida legislature were saying about leftists. I guess when people can't back up their arguments it's easier to shoot the messenger than disprove the message.

Where's that wealth of information about the secret US wars in Central America in the 1980s? Or in Angola in the 1970s? Or in Chile in the 1970s? Or in Cambodia and Laos in the 1960s? Iran in the 1950s?

I don't know how much of a 'wealth' you want, but there's actually a surprising amount of FOIA material at the National Security Archive about Central America, Iran, etc.

Ever wonder if the CIA knew and allowed the Contras to run drugs into the States to fund their war against the Sandanistas? Wonder no more.

Where's that wealth of information about the secret US wars in Central America in the 1980s? Or in Angola in the 1970s? Or in Chile in the 1970s? Or in Cambodia and Laos in the 1960s? Iran in the 1950s?

I don't know how much of a 'wealth' you want, but there's actually a surprising amount of FOIA material at the National Security Archive about Central America, Iran, etc.

Ever wonder if the CIA knew and allowed the Contras to run drugs into the States to fund their war against the Sandanistas? Wonder no more.

Basically the government might give with one clenched fist, and take back with a team of mules pulling. The National Security Archives are one group of folks constantly struggling with the layers of governmental coverups. It's ongoing and pretty telling. They are having mixed results, some good finds, then a lot of what they are calling "over classification and pseudo classification" still existing. And then the problem becomes getting the information out to joey and janey citizen and voter, the "news" only mostly covers current, people have just been conditioned to accept todays fairy tales as "data and fact", over and over again. Then years later the real story comes out, by then it's too late to influence elections, etc. Look at the finally revealed data on the "Tonkin Gulf attack" that was the primary "lawful" reason for the Viet Nam war. They have (relatively historically recently)finally and quietly admitted it was an invention, but years too late to make it matter for most purposes.

So, in part I agree, some of what the government does needs to be kept secret, but it appears quite a bit is still overzealously kept hidden, primarily to protect the guilty-of-corruption-and-malfeasance aspects of government.

[Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq] We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
[Secretary of State Madeleine Albright] I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.
--60 Minutes (5/12/96)

Seems to me you are deluding yourself with the good old "we-are-the-good-guys" rethorics. About the Iran-Iraq war, it was started by Saddam Hussein (guess who backed him), not by the fundamentalists. And no, you won't find a (reasonable) islamic minister that cheers at the sight of gruesome civilian deaths either, but it's the unreasonable ones that make it into the news.

The current morale that forbids religious leaders from cheering to the sight of dead enemies is only recent, and maybe temporary. Only few decades ago, it was common for religious leaders to support racial segregation, discrimination and persecution; many WW2 criminals fled to South America with the help of the Vatican, and even current high-ranking cardinals have been in good terms with bloody dictators as Pinochet of Chile or Videla of Argentina. The Vatican excommunicated communists, but I never heard such a staunch opposition of South African apartheid.

In short, you seem to look only at what reassures you that "we are the good guys". I say that no matter what religion you pick, it's always an Inherently Evil Thing(tm) to ideologically assume that proposition X is true.

Reading the rest of the website, it would seem as though there is a pro-Administration political bent: therefore, in the author's opinion, the government says there's not a problem, and that's fine with him. When you're done reading that, you can go read his attempts to prove an evil college professor (the new "communist-liberal threat") called Bush a war criminal, and a brave soul challenged him.

If the government is willing to share with us such detail, maybe you can explain why some FOIA requests have gone unanswered for 18 years. There's a reason why we have a free press. And these debates lend even more credence to a concern that we are indeed a nationalistic state, complete with loyalists and apologists. We have become everything we were raised to hate.

Seeing as how Kerr's biography states that he clerked for Justice Kennnedy (a big supporter of "anti-crime" measures) and is both a former Justice Dept. attorney and an attorney with the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. This is not exactly a guy who is going to look at the Patriot Act with an unbiased eye.

I work there. You've got it backwards.

The rules for access to data are extremely strict and the NSA takes the 4th Amendment very seriously.

The governing directive is USSID 18 (here is an older declassifed version). Anyone requiring access to certain types of data is thoroughly briefed on this (even if you're a developer and just need data to work with).

If you're an analyst requiring an account on one of the search tools you get the above mentioned briefing and a more tailored briefing. In addition, before an account is granted two auditors at a supervisory level must be identified. Those auditors get a weekly report of every search you conduct.

People have lost their clearances over misusing the databases (which also means the loss of the job). No one at the NSA is cavalier with the data and access is tightly controlled. The NSA definitely works hard to remain within the law, and any violations are incidental, not some sort of secret big brother program.

Besides, anything found through the illegal use of data couldn't be used in court, and the loss of the public trust would hurt the NSA far more than catching you downloading "The Family Guy". The real bad guys (legitimate and lawful targets) though, we work very hard to take down.

But it was The New York Times the most famously published the Pentagon Papers leaked to them by Daniel Ellsberg. Daniel Ellsberg had signed an NDA with The Rand Corporation (his employer at the time) concerning the non-disclosure of classified government information that he came into contact with. History contradicts you.

You may perhaps have heard the old saw that "ignorance of the law is no excuse", a concept which implies that it is the duty of all citizens to know all the laws, or at least, understand what kind of behavior is in violation. You would find it hard to plead with a judge that you didn't know that it was illegal to steal a car or beat somebody up, just because you didn't read the laws prohibiting such actions.

Secret laws remove any possibility of knowing what is illegal, and will lead to a situation where every citizen can be charged for criminal acts, if the authorities find it convenient to do so. This is known as a "police state", examples of which can be found in Communist Russia, and the military juntas of the 70's in South America. This is what is the really big deal- the possibility that members of the government may have you arrested for breaking laws of which you know nothing. Let's not get into the possibilty that they might enforce laws which don't exist. We all know that our government's belief in the habeas corpus is shaky and we're already talking about just how hard it is to challenge "secret laws" which might exist, as that's the gist of the report to which this article refers.

This is fundamental change in the balance of power in the government, and potentially, a fundamental change in the form of our government. I am very glad that there are some citizens and organizations which realize this and are fighting to prevent such changes. I submit to you that showing an ID to board an airplane is exactly, exactly, the state of affairs that we were warned against by Benjamin Franklin when said "Those who would trade liberty for security, deserve neither."

If you believe that concerns about abuse of power are strawmen arguements, let me provide a few links for your perusal: Air Marshall Abuse and Public Indigity . These are the tip of the iceberg, as these events are not directed with purpose or malice, but a simple outgrowth of conditions. I have no wish to experience the horror the Argentinian people did when they were subject to secret laws.

"Ramon Barquin, President, Barquin International, Bethesda, MD"

This guy sounds pretty qualified though he is a big advocate of data warehousing, especially by the government:

"President and CEO of Barquin International. He is a former IBM executive and an internationally known expert in the field of knowledge management. Dr. Barquin co-founded and was the first President of the Data Warehousing Institute, the leading professional organization in the field. He also founded and heads the Computer Ethics Institute.

An electrical engineer and mathematician by training, Dr. Barquin has taught at MIT, the University of Maryland, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He edited the Prentice Hall series on Data Warehousing, co-edited two books on Knowledge Management in the public sector, and has published over 100 technical and management articles on information technology. He organized and chaired the E-Gov Knowledge Management conferences in 2000 and 2001, and has conducted executive seminars in electronic government and knowledge management for the Brookings Institution."

"J. Howard Beales, Associate Professor, The George Washington University, Arlington, VA"

Beale, sounds like a good choice. He headed the Consumer protection bureau of the FTC and blessed us with the "Do Not Call" list which rates him high in my book. Also is pretty keen on fighting spam.

Lance Hoffman, an academic, seems like a good choice though you would have to read some of his work to be sure.

It's true that direct sales of conventional weapons were relatively small, but US support for Saddam was enormous. Take a look at this excellent page from the national security archive.

The only thing that Richard Clark [sic] ever did was approve flights for members of Osama bin LAden's family in the US out of the US and into Saudi Arabia shortly after the attacks.

Clarke's memo to Condoleezza Rice dated January 25, 2001 shows quite plainly that Clarke was urgently asking the White House to start moving on al Qaeda eight months before 9/11. Now that it has been declassified, you can see the actual memo here. [PDF link]

That doesn't look like "BS" to me. In fact, it suggests that "his record" shows a true concern in getting the Bush administration up to speed on what he felt was a huge threat. In the memo, he says "We urgently need such a Principals level review..." Rice finally held his requested meeting on September 4, 2001.

So what's the "only thing" he ever did, again?

One of the criticisms, perhaps justifiable, of Clarke pre-9/11 is that he was too obsessed with cyber terrorism and computer security.

No, nobody could say that. Such a claim would not only be unjustifiable, but blatantly ignorant. In the 2nd Bush administration, if Clarke had any "obsession" at all, it was with al Quaeda.

Indeed, he irritated Bush's political appointees with his emphasis on something that contradicted their pre-concieved notions of foreign policy threats. He kept on pushing them to look at Islamic terrorism as a real danger, such as by creating the infamous "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the US" briefing.

He left in disgust because the Bush administration is criminally incompetent to protect us, though it will instantly blame people like Clarke for its failures. The administration is very competent at media manipulation and killing the messenger. Look at Clarke's recently declassified 1/25/2001 memo warning Rice about al "Qida". He documented (for internal, secret consumption) the steps taken in the 1990s to stop bin Laden, and the steps necessary to stop him permanently. The month before al Qaeda had been documented as attacking the USS Cole, but even that escalation wasn't enough to keep them on anyone else's radar at Bush HQ. Clarke "covered his ass" because his ass was right, and everyone else ignored him. You're just repeating the neocon spin, blaming Clarke with a smokescreen designed to cover the rest of the "team's" failure to protect us, or even admit we'd failed.

We were still his ally during the time that he was using chemical weapons against Iran and his own people. Note the photo there of Rumsfeld (Reagon special envoy) shaking hands with Saddam occured after those incidents. We probably would have preferred if he stopped, but we weren't about to do anything to stop it, because it was politically inconvenient. Now, whether or not you think that was the right action, let's not pretend that the US only supported him before he was a mass murdering war criminal, because that's simply not true.

Incidentally, I'm an American, and no I don't hate the US; I only recognize that we are not perfect, and I don't wish to view history through rose colored glasses.

Right. And that's why one of the leaders of the insurgents in Iraq declared his opposition to the elections by telling people that anyone who supported democracy was an enemy of Islam. Nope, they don't hate freedom or liberty. No way!

Right, because that's exactly what they said, and they speak for everyone!

Why don't you ask the French, who supplied his nuclear hardware, and the Germans, who supplied many of his now-missing biological agents, and the Soviets and Russians, who supplied anything he wanted to buy? It wasn't F16s in the Iraqi airforce, it was Mirages.

Right, because those damn frenchies were the only ones to cozy up to Saddam.

You are nuts. I say "no" and in the next of your replies I get "so you said yes!". This is some sort of comprehension disorder on display here on your part. I suspect that it does not matter at all what is being said, you will just come back with "aha! I was right!" to absolutely everything.

You claim that the USSR was forced to place missiles in Cuba because of US missiles in Turkey. This is, simply, ludicrous. ... [subsequent fantastic flights of fancy ommited for brevity]....

From George Washington University Cuban Missile Crisis site:

The new documentation, combined with recent testimony by Soviet and Cuban officials, also sheds light on what is perhaps the most important puzzle of the missile crisis, namely, what motivated the Soviets to deploy nuclear weapons in Cuba. The declassified record shows that U.S. officials were well aware that their deployment of Jupiter missiles near Soviet borders in Turkey and Italy in 1959 would be deeply resented by Soviet officials; even President Eisenhower noted that it would be a "provocative" step analogous to the deployment of Soviet missiles in "Mexico or Cuba.(9) A declassified military history of the Jupiter system reveals that the rockets became operational in April 1962 - an event that may have contributed to Khrushchev's proposal, made the very same month, to deploy similar weapons in Cuba.(10)

In addition, the documents lend credence to Khrushchev's claim that a primary Soviet motivation was the defense of Cuba against a U.S. invasion. For years, U.S. analysts have dismissed this as a face-saving, after-the-fact rationale that enabled the Soviets to declare victory in the confrontation rather than admit defeat. But formerly top-secret documents, released to the National Security Archive in January 1989, provide a detailed description of a 1962 U.S. covert action program known as OPERATION MONGOOSE, which combined sabotage, infiltration, and psychological warfare activities with military exercises and contingency operations for a possible invasion to overthrow the Castro government. Guidelines for OPERATION MONGOOSE, tacitly approved by President Kennedy in March 1962, noted that the "final success" of the program would "require decisive U.S. military intervention." Although Kennedy never formally authorized an invasion, former administration officials acknowledge that Cuban intelligence had infiltrated the CIA's exile groups and learned of plans for a potential invasion - which, ironically, was scheduled for October 1962.

You will forgive me if I take their analysis over your incomprehensible, unsubstantiated, delusional fabrications.

It's actually an expression of anti-Semitism, largely because so many of the UN member countries have large Islamic communities. Israel cannot be erased, it was created and has a right to exist - no matter how much you anti-Semites want to destroy it or enact your "final solution".

Yup. You are nuts. First they create the state of Israel, the anti-semitic bunch, and then in a fit of anti-semitism, they give it to the Jews! And all that so they can pass resolutions against Israel when it goes berserk later! Talk about sneaky!! Why, those clever anti-semites! They created it in order to destroy it! Oh, by the way, "semite" is a member of "group of people using semitic language", which includes Palestinians as well as most Arabs and some North Africans. Your head will probably explode upon discovering that.

You don't even know how many people were killed in Vietnam after we finally withdrew (estimates are 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 killed by Pol Pot's regime after we withdrew; war deaths were lower than that)

It would be funny if it wasnt so pathetic watching you whine. Pol Pot came to power

But from where did Saddam get his WMDs?

Is it possible that we gave him the weapons?

Also, I doubt very seriously that Iraq approached us, and said "Hey, we'd like to make some biological weapons so we can really stick it to the Iranians, with whom we are at war. Waddya say?"

Actually, that's almost exactly what happened...

Iraq approached the US about acquiring weapons, conventional, biological, and chemical so that it could finish off Iran, whom we were also opposed to (due to the whole Islamic revolution deal). The US agreed, and we sent Donald Rumsfeld over to consumate the deal.

More information

Lets check these 'facts':

So the Chinese Army did not send in tanks to stop students protesting?
- The US Govt has used the army against its own population. Check the protests in the 60's. The US regularly uses its army both overtly (iraq, grenada) and covertly (cambodia, iran, south america) against other countries.

So those executions I saw where they had the people kneel and put a bullet in their brain never happened?
- The US executes a truck-load of people. In fact, this is a problem highlighted by both Amnesty International and the US Supreme Court.

So there really is freedom of religion and speech in China?
- Freedom on religion and speech? No problem (as long as you are not a muslim). Yes, I will conceded that on this point, the US does provide significantly more freedoms.

And the Chinese did not lob missiles over an island full of people to keep them in line?
- The US government regularly lobs missiles into cities and towns (iraq, afghanistan). Dont be fooled into thinking these 'smart bombs' are really that smart - 17,000 iraqis can't be wrong (but they are dead).

- TV does propogate myths in both directions - dont believe everything your overlords tell you.

you forgot some.... more recent and older...

radiation

this one
human rights timeline

there are coutless more.

even one of the evil hitler aides that was on trial at nuremburg asked why the americans were outraged, they learned how to do what they did from american histroy and what was done with the American indians and Slaves.

When you have free market, people complain, when you don't have a free market, people complain. Make up your minds.

P.S. I don't like linux. *Shrug*

Popular Science had an article about super-sonic torpedoes. They ride a shock wave through the water and can actually use less fuel then ICBMs. Only trick is trying to steer them.

But this missile defense will only be good against one or two missiles from a known source. Like the parent post pointed out--only good for last desperate attempts by a "liberated" country.

The point here about Cocaine doesn't make sense. Most of the Cocaine arrives in this country at landing strips designated "no inspection" by the CIA. One of these places was used by the 9/11 terrorists for training how to fly a plane but not land it.

Yeah, I know, sounds like another conspiracy theory. But you can look at the Kerry Commission Senate probe into the issue. They found that the CIA was smuggling cocaine into California. Its the same investigation that found a link with Iran-Contra and the BCCI bank in Florida. This is all on a record you could read, if you want. HERE or this link. The original source may be hard to find, since the past is fading into mist these days.

Note, that if the CIA didn't control drug shipments, you would have had a lot more assasinations purchased by foreign countries like we've seen in the USSR and other countries that did not control drug trade. There is a consistent steam of arrests of smugglers, but they only represent the upstarts and competition to those blessed with government support so long as they support the government. Pretty tidy, huh?

In the 9/11 case, one person in the government had information that an attack was planned by Islamic terrorists...

That one person was George W. Bush, President of the United States of American and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. On August 6, 2001, he received an intelligence brief entitled Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States . On September 11, 2001, the President and the armed forces which he directly and absolutely commands had 1 hour's warning (from 8:40, when they first learned of the hijacking of AA Flight 11, to 9:37 when AA Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon) to use the Air Force to protect command installations in Washington. He did not. Instead he read a story about a pet goat. 9/11 is not an example of organizational breakdown, it is an example of the gross and absolute malfeasance of one single person.

Wrong.

US support of Saddam was primarily limited to satellite intelligence data during the Iran/Iraq war.

"Shaking Hands: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein greets Donald Rumsfeld, then special envoy of President Ronald Reagan, in Baghdad on December 20, 1983."

Betcha that's one photo op Rumsfeld wish he had skipped. The site even has video of the meeting.

You are missing some very crucial facts here.

Saddam used chemical weapons against the Kurds in 1983, our government knew this, and yet we still sent Donald Rumsfeld over there to shake his hand and make nice because he was fighting against Iran. You know that infamous picture of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Hussein and smiling? Understand that at that very moment Saddam was using chemical weapons on Kurds and Donald Rumsfeld knew it .

Seven years later, Operation Desert Storm was launched in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, a reason which is completely unrelated to the previous use of chemical weapons. Your argument that this invasion means we could not have supported Saddam during his attacks on the Kurds is baseless and ignorant. Have a nice day.

Wow! I was starting to believe Moosebyte, but when you called him a "dumbass" and a "F-ing morron", you totally convinced me! Saddam had ties to Al-Qaeda and the US never had any ties to Saddam. I mean, it's SO OBVIOUS to me now! That picture of Rummy and Saddam shaking hands is an obvious forgery (it's all grainy and shit -- cameras in 1984 couldn't do that). And MooseByte must be one of those liberal commie pinko faggots. I bet he has a poster of Saddam over his bed.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair puts the remains in mass graves at 400,000 so far."

Ok. And Saddam had been in power for how long? Two years?

Furthermore, I would expect the majority of those executions happened during the war with Iran [1] and in the aftermath of the Kuwait invasion [2].

All things considered, I'm would be very surprised if the Iraqi people considered the US to be their liberators and champions of freedom.

[1] When Saddam & Rumsfeld were chums
[2] When the US called the Iraqi people to rebel, and then promptly abandoned them to Saddam's mercy, or lack thereof.

"At least three times that many, plus about 900,000,000 Iranian soldiers in the gratuitous war he started."

Don't forget that we provided intelligence TO
Saddam during that war

Well, that assumes old granmama isn't too senile to check her ballot, but that's neither here not there.

There is a (somewhat complicated) human-readable system that allows you to check that your individual ballot was cast and not lost after the election. It also prevents anyone from being able to link your vote to you, and detects fraud at all levels of the vote-counting machine.

It was on /. a year or less back, and is supposed to be at vreciept.com but that host seems dead. I found another summary of it here.

If you'd checked the facts with Cheney's alternate reality shield turned off, you'd seen that Poppy Bush and Cheney were the ones that started the slide by letting NK off the hook and leaving the whole mess for the Chinese to sort out back in November 1991 after having decided to withdraw all US nukes from South Korea in October the same year. This in spite of persistent reports since 1985 that they were up to no good.

Clinton at least got the North to sign the treaty and dismantle their plutonium program by threatening to bomb their Pu reactor off the peninsula and together with the South Korean government made the North go with a more easily controlled uranium-based power generation program, delaying their bomb program by ten years. There were no indications at the time that they were breaking the deal until 2002 and last year when they openly admitted it. George W. Bush then took strong, resolute and decisive action by doing jack shit about it.

Neither Reagan, Bush or Bush has done anything except defer to the Chinese in this matter. Fact is, if it wasn't for Clinton and his credible threat of airstrikes, North Korea could have had plutonium bombs ready to go some time around 1995.

I really can't tell how they did the research for the article. With so many basic wrong answers for GW, I can't imagine that they surveyed the schools themselves. Some of the questions that were wrong were the first things they tell you about on the tours when you visit; I can't imagine that GW wouldn't tell Forbes what they tell high school seniors. If the writer did the research himself, he needs to think about another career. The same can be said if they had interns doing the work, which is probably the case. But I still don't understand, many of these questions could have been answered by simple searches from GW's homepage.

Simply said, this article has no founding whatsoever. If other school's information is as wrong as GW's, then this article can't even be taken with a grain of salt.

odveausly

hmm, devious and odious at the same time? Quite a good word for Saddam. Still, it would be sensible to admit, if you'd like to talk about chemical weapons, that Saddam was supported by the US (and many countries in Europe) in the 80s, while he was torturing his people and sending millions off to die in the Iran/Iraq war, which was by far the most genocidal, dirty conflict in the region for many years. Millions died in that war, and we backed both sides and sold them arms. It's only when he turned his attention to Kuwait (ie obedient oil-bearing regime) that we got worried, and started to attempt to kill off the Frankenstein child we'd created.

Some of the same people (Rumsfeld other Republicans) were involved in Iraq at the time. Here's a little video Rumsfeld would rather you forgot

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

So we (the west) created and helped nurture the regime in Iraq for many years, then we act surprised when it went sour. You'd think we'd have learned from all the previous mistakes (Chile on Sept.11, Iran, Afghanistan (pre-Taliban)). The real answer to this kind of problem is to stop selling arms to everyone round the world, discourage others from doing so, and treat regimes *consistently* with respect according to how they act, not according to their perceived 'strategic interest'.

I don't think the federal Government could make deals with Saddam Hussein.

We don't dictate who should become President of [...]

A friend of mine just returned from a trip to China where he was working for 3 months. He said that nobody there had ever heard of the Tiananmen Square massacre. When he explained what he knew about it, the Chinese people he was talking to just said, "Anyone could make up stories about our government." He tried going back to his hotel room and searching for the information, but he couldn't get any results.

What bothered me more was a conversation I was recently having with an American friend of mine (I'm Canadian) over a beer. He said that 9/11 was the first time that the U.S. had been the subject of an unprovoked attack on its own soil since the British attacked the U.S. in the war of 1812. I was sitting in stunned silence after he said that. I know for a fact that the U.S. burned Toronto (then called York) to the ground before the British attacked Washington. How could that be considered unprovoked? So, given that we're both products of our respective country's state funded education system, it gave me a queasy feeling to say the least.

"Installing democracies" has yet to work for us, and we've been trying all over the place for the past 50 years. Nevermind the fact that the United States helped put Saddam in power in the first place, and we we gave him the weapons.

Your example of the AIDS help that America gives to Africa is just one small example of the terrible hypocrisy that plagues the American hating world. No other country has sacrificed so much and given so much for complete strangers and yet you only see protestors in NYC protesting Bush's 15 billion dollar AIDs policy but you never see them protesting Europe's 0 dollar AIDs policy.

That's all well and good that americans are generous, but why should anyone be forced (as in if you don't you go to jail) to help pay for programs which they do not support? I'd donate money if I had more after taxes to helping Africa's AIDS epidemic, but I wouldn't let my dogma get wrapped up in it. And you miss the crucial point of living in a "free" democracy: that you can say what you want. By expressing an opposing opinion they are well within their rights withing the constituion. People don't hate america, they love it, and that's why they don't want it to go down the shitter.

I believe the only candidate which can offer the security the world needs at this vital point in history is Bush.

Bush by the numbers

JFK didn't avoid "meddling in the lives of citizens of other countries". Cuba and Vietnam come to mind. Anticommunist meddling is still meddling.

As for his religion, he kept that as quiet as possible due to the widespread fear at the time that he would be taking orders from the Pope. There used to be a lot of anti-Catholic sentiment in this country.

If you read books about the issues, you may come to the conclusion that by far the biggest underlying issue in the present political campaign is U.S. government violence. You probably won't know this unless you read books.

The present system of violence in the U.S. and Britain started in the 1940s. In the 1940s, it was decided that the U.S. government could act in secret in foreign countries to preserve the profits of U.S. and British companies. It was decided that the U.S. government could not only act in secret, it could break the laws of the foreign country. It was decided the the U.S. government could even arrange the murder of the leaders of foreign countries. Agencies like the CIA were created for secret accomplishment of largely secret foreign policy.

Only an estimated 2% read non-fiction books not connected with work. The system of violence works partly by keeping U.S. citizens ignorant. It is not necessary that all citizens be ignorant, just a large percentage of the voters. Actually, there is plenty of information freely available in books, but only an estimated 2% of American citizens read non-fiction books not connected with their work. It is easy to understand why. United States citizens are the hardest-working in the world, with the exception of the Japanese. Many U.S. citizens have only two weeks of vacation every year, and they need that to rest. They simply don't have time to read books.

However, the only way to understand something as complicated as politics is to read books extensively. The issues are too complicated to express in a few words.

By far the biggest issue in the present political campaign is this fundamental one, about which former Supreme Commander of Allied Forces and former Republican U.S. President General Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us in a famous speech. He said that we should beware of the "military-industrial complex". Here are quotes:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."

The problem he warned us about has been a major influence on both the politics and quality of life of the United States. The U.S. government has engaged in 24 wars since World War II. The system of violence works by creating fear so rich people can profit.

Very few U.S. citizens know the full history of the war against Iraq. This short article is a summary: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories.

The events leading up to the present "war on terror" and the two wars against Iraq began in the 1950s, when hidden elements of the U.S. government overthrew a democratically elected president of Iran (Mossadegh) because he wanted to reduce the profits of U.S. and British oil companies doing business in Iran.

The U.S. government supported a very weak man, 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. The U.S. government supported Iraq against Iran, supplying weapons to Saddam Hussein at a very high profit for the rich owners of U.S. weapons companies. To give a present example, the Bu

No partisan interest here. It's been going on a long time: 24 wars since WW2. Creating fear so rich people can profit.

However, you seem to say that the 3 movies and 35 recently published books in this article are all wrong, even though they written by all kinds of people, Republicans, Democrats, generals, former government leaders, a Pulitzer Prize winner, political commentators, editorial writers, environmental organizations, and members of the public: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

Name ONE statement that is in error. I'll investigate (again), and if you are correct, I will change it.

Most people don't know that the situation in Iraq began in the 50's, when hidden elements of the U.S. government overthrew a democratically elected president of Iran (Mossadegh) because he wanted to reduce the profits of U.S. and British oil companies doing business in Iran. The U.S. government supported a very weak man, 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. The U.S. government supported Iraq against Iran, supplying weapons to Saddam Hussein at a very high profit for the rich owners of U.S. weapons companies. The Bush family has long owned part of a company that owns weapons companies. Cheney was head of Halliburton, a company that profits when there is war, especially since Halliburton was able to arrange a secret, no competitive bid contract.

What do you say about that? Is the university that hosts the documents all wrong?

Obviously, there is too much material for any one article. Should I not discuss the corruption of today because there was corruption in the past?

Um, you want to go back a step or two. Because of course, the relationship between Saddam and Reagan's foreign policy dated back before that, and the U.S. was instrumental in bringing about Iraq's possession of those same weapons.

Here's Donny Rumsfeld, as Reagan's Special Envoy, shaking Saddam's hand.

The "Saddam was a changed man" argument is what you'd call a "straw man." You're doing an excellent job refuting a sham argument nobody's making against you. Keep it up and your arguments will gradually lose any bearing on reality.

Yes, the question is where are the WMD, and it's a question that scares the hell out of me, because he had them and they're not there now, and that means they are somewhere else, and that somewhere else may be the lovely utopian paradise called Syria.

All of which proves the resounding success of Mr. Bush's elective war against Iraq how, exactly? I've run into this many times -- backers of the policy who claim those WMDs must be elsewhere and say how very scary it is. Bizarre: you've just completely dished the very foreign policy you're trying to advocate, and "if you actually had a single brain cell" you'd be seeing that. The war was supposed to be about preventing the proliferation of WMDs, and about preventing their use by terrorists. Now you don't know where the WMDs are, and you say how scary it is. Golly, they could be in the hands of terrorists!

"Scary" doesn't start to describe the level of your post, there.

Bin Ladin is said to have asked for space to establish training camps, as well as assistance procuring weapons, but there is no evidence that Iraq responded to this request.

Both of them have the same strengths and weaknesses, that is both of them are willing to take positions that are unpopular (with corporations and officials) on the subjects in current affairs and history that affect our lives, but both of them are a bit lacking on the homework end.

When someone takes a popularized apprpoach to current history and issues that is as rigorousle researched as the work done by Peter Kornbluh does at the National Security Archive, then maybe I'll start following every word. Until then, I'll continue to skim the headlines (including those of messr.'s Jones and Moore) and apply my knowledge of history in order to determine how much is factual and how much is simply another garden path waiting to lead us astray.