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degenerated into the Crazy Olympics

Degenerated? "Crazy Olympics?"

It isn't even a contest. South Korea is left setting on the bench, consoled by its modern economy and democracy. The field is North Korea all the way.

North Korea has the:
Gold
Silver
Bronze
Runner Up
and "Miss Congeniality"

With the recently added events, they could be in an even better medal position next year.

I think that North Korea's official motto must be the inverse of Google's.

The junior Kim has vowed 'complete liberation of the peninsula', a task left 'half-done' by Kim Il-sung. He is apparently determined to become 'the president of a unified Korea' through armed force.-- Hwang Jang-yop (former Worker's Party Secretary) Speaks

I suggest a multi-thousand dollar prize for the first hacker who can open up their servers so the N.K. citizens can see the whole web.

I can't say there is much to recommend it. It is likely that there would be no meaningful payoff that would last more than minutes. Even if you were successful in creating temporary access to a wider range of internet sites, it is likely that the few North Koreas who use the web would be too terrified to make use of it, assuming they even knew about it. Given the nature of the regime, you can assume that their secret police record, monitor, review, and act on the traffic in ways that far exceed the most lurid fantasies about the NSA. Surfing unauthorized web sites would likely constitute a punishable act, especially if an unauthorized site was visited that contained unvetted political, economic, or religious information. If you've stepped over the line in North Korea, you could easily fall prey to the "heredity rule", developed the Dear Leader's father. Under that rule, the North Korean secret police arrest and imprison three generations of a family for the misdeeds of one of them, often for life, which can be short in a North Korean "prison camp" AKA death camp.

Besides, the international incident with the paranoid, now nuclear armed, barbaric regime which is starving its people wouldn't be worth it.

If anyone still insists on it, I suggest you stay away from at least the Koreas and Japan as North Korea has a long history of kidnapping people from those countries for various reasons. Given their ties to organized crime, due to their many criminal enterprises, they could reach even further. Life there is tough even when you are useful to them.

No. A progressive is much worse than a liberal. A progressive means a fascist but that phrase is not too popular with voters. Hell, they want more centralized power and they go out of their way to demonize opposing views and the people that have those views. Not only that, many go out of their way to censor those with alternative views.

Two examples:
http://www.nysun.com/article/41020
http://www.campusreportonline.net/main/articles.ph p?id=364

Try to be a counter protester. The protesters "security" will put an end to you. I leave the google searches to you.

You grossly oversimplify; actually, the situation was a lot more complex than that. Saddam was selling oil way too cheap, in euros, to the French. So we didn't like him.

Right.... and the reason that Enron's executives are liable for repaying $183 million, and probably jail time, is that their stock "under-performed" the market.

Saddam used the wholly corrupt "Oil for Food" program to bribe all manner of foreign officials, buy influence in the Security Council, undermine UN sanctions, buy weapons, and fund terrorists, all the while skimming billions of dollars off the top. Even UN Secretary General Koffi Annan's son took bribes, and the Deputy Secretary General was eye deep as well. So, it was that, his refusal to fully and voluntarily comply with the weapons inspections, his record of genocide, aggression against pretty much every country around him, the abysmal human rights record, his military regularly fired on US aircraft (act of war), his support for international terrorists, well.... you get the picture, .... that is why we "didn't like him".

Personally, I think you want to let President Saddam "I grind my opponents alive, and my sons are worse" Hussein off the hook a little too easily.

Dude, they didn't just declassify some insider information, the government case is charging that the two reporters from the NYT tipped off two Islamic charities to impending FBI raids -- charities that were under suspicion of funneling money over-seas to terrorist groups. How do we know they were doing that, well it turns out that the Bush Administration was monitoring overseas money transactions (you may have heard about this when it was leaked last December by the NYT).

One of the reporters involved, Ms. Miller, was the same one sent to jail for refusing to divulge her source who leaked that Valera Plame was employed in secret by the CIA. The reason that is important is she may have recommended her husband Willson for the assignment (on behalf of the CIA) of investigating a Saddam nuclear material deal prior to the US-Iraq war, a study that concluded inconclusively that Saddam was not persuing nuclear material.

Not +5, funny anymore, I am afraid its insightfull.

ICANN controls DNS, just like *if* .XXX would have been enacted (though, it wasn't cause it would legitimize porn) they would force every porn company with a .com to switch. Doesn't matter if they are in the US or not. Same could happen here, with the US in control of ICANN, everyone has to play by the US's rules, no matter if they are in or out of the country. This would be (one of the reasons) why other countries want DNS to be truly international. I just hope the EU grows some balls and stands up to the US, at the very least Russia, seeing we pissed em off recently and are headed toward a new cold war...

We found some bombs with traces of cyclo sarin in them, but not much.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3861197.stm

Two Iraqi generals just came out with details on how they moved stuff to Syria.

http://www.nysun.com/article/26514

And Iraq may have been working toward getting uranium, although some of the evidence was bogus.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5458642

Or you can use a Virgin Islands tax loophole http://www.nysun.com/article/8885 and only be taxed on $5,000,000 rather than the $50,000,000. Total taxes on that 50 Million dollars would be about $1.75 Mil

How else to spread sensitive information?
At least this way, no president needs to leak anything himself

Given the findings here, can we have a do-over?

No liberal bias on this site. It should have been edited out for flaimbait. Wouldn't it be better to focus your energies on improving the voting problems some states are having? Or perhaps look inward as a democrat and figure out why the party 5 of the last 7 presidential elections.

Here are two reasons for no do-over: John Kerry and Al Gore

The illegal WMD programs that were discovered in Iraq after our invasion were very real. The ISG report makes it very clear that Iraq was in blatant violation of its disarmament obligations.

True, we didn't find the old decaying stockpiles that we thought we would find. Instead we found illegal infrastructure, precursor elements, and research programs to make brand new weapons- all of which was hidden from the UN inspectors prior to the invasion. If you hadn't already made your mind up about this, you would see that this is actually worse.

And by the way, the story of what actually happened to Saddam's WMD stockpiles isn't over yet.

I think it will be a long time before we will be able to view these events with any clarity or impartiality. But just to provide a counter point for the discussions here are three articles that site sources that support the claim the contraband weapons did exist and explains what happened to them.

NY Sun article
http://www.nysun.com/article/26514

Middle East Forum
http://www.meforum.org/article/755

Washington Post
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20041028-1 22637-6257r.htm

You can't possibly be serious. The conservative-hating members of the media such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, ABC, NBC, CBS, etc. ad nauseum would be all over this story if there were something to it. The fact they aren't speaks volumes about the story's credibility.

Face it, nutty conspiracy theories don't wash with normal people. Only on sites like Dailykos, DU, and Slashdot are such tales lapped up.

Here an inconvenient question for the tinfoil hat crowd: if the Bush administration lied, then didn't all the major governments of Europe, and many Clinton administation officials, all of whom said Saddam had WMDs and posed a threat?

(Actually, Saddam may in fact have had WMDs which were moved to Syria right before the war, at least according to the #2 man in the Iraqi Air Force. Not enough evidence to say yet.)

Getzen

I don't really understand why the American public looks down at the UN.

Most Americans don't like the idea of a huge corrupt overpowered beauracracy that seems to do nothing but hold month long conferences at 5 star hotels to discuss the idea of having a conference to set the guidelines for a meeting.

The UN is a cesspool of ineptitude and it, at the very least, needs an enema of biblical proportions.

Or maybe we find it curious as to why countries like Libya should be appointed to head the UN Human Rights commission? Or why the only UN employee that has been fired for the Oil for Food scandal was just rehired so he could receive his full retirement benefits! That poor corrupt bastard was going to have to get a new job but now he can retire and live comfortably with money paid by you and me.

Or how the wonderful former head of the U.N. oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, had a mysterious $160,000 deposit into one of his accounts. When asked where it came from, he stated his aunt had just given it to him as a gift. But before they could ask the aunt in question, she miraculously fell down an elevator shaft. I mean, for fucks sake, that's a scene straight out of a f'en movie.

They were against the use of force without convincing evidence. Turns out they were right.

About the WMDs? Perhaps, yes.

Over the years it has done a great job in many places.

Where and when? Korea? That war is still going on and you've got the worlds most insane dictator running half of it. Sending strongly worded letters don't count, nor does trying to pass resolutions condemning Israel. ...in a bid to limit Saddam's power, and save hundreds of thousands of innocent lives

Yes, they tried to, and failed. Saddam made billions during that time period in kickbacks and illegal oil deals. The only thing the sanctions hurt were the Iraqi people.

It's not perfect, of course, but it's always ready to take on the dirty jobs that no one else wants.

What would those be exactly? I think you're confusing the UN with NATO and/or the US.

That sadly is the case in much of the Middle East. They either believe that suicide bombers are justified in what they do OR they believe that, in fact, it's secretly the Jews and the US pretending to be suicide bombers who are doing the killing, as is the case in Egypt. When people like the new President of Iran (one of the terrorists who held the American embassy workers hostage) stop being looked up to as leaders in the Middle East, you might have a chance of convincing me otherwise.

While Wahabiism is the problem we face, until Islam as a whole is willing to deal with it like Christianity excised the Inquisition from its ranks so long ago it will be part of the problem. As long as every Imam follows every proclamation 'condemning' terrorism as 'anti-Islamic' with a 'But...' they'll be part of the problem.

I will have to disagree with you on the best way to stop terrorism.

Dead terrorists don't kill people. This is irrefutable.

As far as I can see, the events of the last two years have massively increased the danger from terrorism, recruited thousands to the 'cause' and done nothing whatsoever to reduce the problem.

Then you've got blinders on. A populace that is aware that it is under attack is much less likely to be caught off guard and much more likely to deal with the problem. That if nothing else reduces the danger of terrorism today. The war hasn't recruited anyone to the 'cause' that didn't already believe in it. It just gave them a convenient drive-in location to be killed, instead of leaving them to plot and plan and come to the US to kill us.

What it has done is brought thousands of Iraqis around to the point that they're actively killing the Saudis, Syrians, and Iranians that are crossing the borders to blow them up. What it has done is kicked off efforts for democratic reform in surrounding nations. What it has done is put despots on notice, so that even old hard-liners like Gadafhi are giving up their ways and Syria has pulled out of Lebanon after decades of control, abuse, and assassination of their political rivals giving the Lebanese people a real chance at self government. Has it cooled the flames of seething hatred that already existed in the Middle East? Of course not. We're not in the business of befriending those who would kill us--we're there to destroy them.

although it appears the US public is wising up.

As if you're 'co.uk' domain were not enough indication, this is an excellent indication of the fact that not only do you not live in the US, but you've obviously not been here recently, and get all your information about US public opinion in the echo chamber of the media. Where in God's name would you get that idea? The only thing the US public is "wising up" about is who our friends are and who's actually looking out for us. If you think that the average American's opinion is turning against the war, you don't know many average Americans.

OK you dipshit

Heh. OK, I lied in my last one, I'm back, but this is a bit too funny.

Point 1: Your idea of reasoned discourse is to include gratuitous vulgarity, unlike your opponent? This, friend, demonstrates a lot about you. And it's not something that any objective observer would find pleasant ... or useful.

I'll call your bluff ... If you Google for recent news about Karl Rove every single article will show this exact quote and none (that I could find, anyway) will reference your quote that you pulled out of your ass.

My source is the New York Sun: http://www.nysun.com/article/16003

Here's the first full transcript I found in Google: http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/rove.php

Point 2: What I said was -- in fact -- completely correct, as you would know if you had bothered to actually find the complete text which is under discussion. You did not, you found it easier to throw around baseless blather and vulgarity. Now, let's see. I have links to the full unedited source; you have "nyaa nyaa nyaa pulled out of your ass".

Good work there, son.

Truthfully, I guess I overestimated your intelligence by some magnitude.

Well, one of us is demonstrating a lack of intelligence, that's quite true. If I knew any objective observers that could be bothered to give a flying hoot, I'd ask them: "Here's my statements of fact, with links to the full unedited source. Here's topper24hours, with no facts and throwing vulgarities right and left. Which of these demonstrates more intelligence to you?"

Somehow, I suspect the results would displease you.

A sheep like you will follow your president

Point of fact: I don't have a president. I have a Prime Minister. As you'd know if you followed the URL under my name, but I suppose there's no reason to assume you'd bother to actually do any research to verify your assumptions, given how embarrassingly poor your research skills on the exact facts the debate turns on are.

So, keep sticking up for Karl and George all you want and wedging your head tightly up your own ass - in the end you are the only one the worse for it!

How so? Granted I've probably lost a good 45 minutes of work time in these exchanges, but hey, it's been reasonably entertaining for free, probably more so than _War of the Worlds_ last night and I paid $12 for that. I'll be in a rather better mood laughing whenever I think about the dumbass on Slashdot who descended into incoherent vulgarity when I conclusively demonstrated him wrong for oh probably most of the day now, so I think I'm rather the better for it!

Spitzer isn't perfect. Check out his now dismissed lawsuits against the gun industry.

http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Sty le=OliveXLib:ArticleToMail&Type=text/html&Path=NYS /2003/06/30&ID=Ar00601

He is what I view as the embodiment of what it means to be a TRUE American. A genuine good-guy who isn't afraid to stand up for what's right...

Ah, yes. So, say, attempting to use lawsuits to enforce policy you can't pass legislatively (probably because it infringes upon fundamental human rights) is what a TRUE American does? Hint: check out http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Sty le=OliveXLib:ArticleToMail&Type=text/html&Path=NYS /2003/06/30&ID=Ar00601 for the story.)

...and fuck everyone who doesn't like it.

Including the legislature, and, presumably, the constituency that elected them, right? In fact, the legislature is so appalled at his idea that they're considering legislation to make what he did illegal.

He is what I view as the embodiment of what it means to be a TRUE American. A genuine good-guy who isn't afraid to stand up for what's right...

Ah, yes. So, say, attempting to use lawsuits to enforce policy you can't pass legislatively (probably because it infringes upon fundamental human rights) is what a TRUE American does? Hint: check out http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Sty le=OliveXLib:ArticleToMail&Type=text/html&Path=NYS /2003/06/30&ID=Ar00601 for the story.)

...and fuck everyone who doesn't like it.

Including the legislature, and, presumably, the constituency that elected them, right? In fact, the legislature is so appalled at his idea that they're considering legislation to make what he did illegal.

How can we get our Iranian friends back in the Web?

Hey Dan, Michael, let me give you a little hint: You can't. Or, as Stalin once said of the Pope, "How many divisions does Slashdot have?"

The Islamofascist Mmullahs ruling Iran have made it quite clear they're immune to such chimeras as "international pressure." What are you going to do, impose sanction? Yeah, that worked so well with Saddam.

Given a regime where critics of the regime have to flee for their lives, and where they executed retarded rape victims for the "crime" of having sex, what makes you think any actions short of armed revolution will get their Internet access back? Who are they going to listen to? Kofi Annan? Get real.

There are only two things which might actually allow Iranians to get back their Internet freedoms:

1. A full-scale liberation invasion by U.S./coalition troops, a very difficult and probably quite bloody task, or
2. A "decapitation" strike that takes out the Islamist religious leadership, possibly some high level military assets, and probably as much of their illegal nuclear weapons infrastructure as we can locate.

The chances of either being undertaken right now are slim, and the chances of the majority of Slashdot digirati support such a move are close to zero.

Can you give any examples of similer things happening in the past?


Yes.

The Secertary General's son worked for a Swiss company that was monitoring the Iraq oil-for-food program. The old-for-food program was corrupt, and could be better descriped as an oil-for-palaces program.

more info

Oh? Well, that certainly clears things up, no privacy concerns then, its not like anyone bribeable will have access to it...

You mean, like Kojo Annan?

article about Kerry's "other than honorable" discharge in the NY Sun.

Kerry's Discharge Is Questioned by an Ex-JAG Officer
BY THOMAS LIPSCOMB - Special to the Sun
November 1, 2004

A former officer in the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps Reserve has built a case that Senator Kerry was other than honorably discharged from the Navy by 1975, The New York Sun has learned.

The "honorable discharge" on the Kerry Web site appears to be a Carter administration substitute for an original action expunged from Mr. Kerry's record, according to Mark Sullivan, who retired as a captain in the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps Reserve in 2003 after 33 years of service as a judge advocate. Mr. Sullivan served in the office of the Secretary of the Navy between 1975 and 1977.

On behalf of the Kerry campaign, Michael Meehan and others have repeatedly insisted that all of Mr. Kerry's military records are on his Web site atjohnkerry.com, except for his medical records.

"If that is the case," Mr. Sullivan said, "the true story isn't what was on the Web site. It's what's missing. There should have been an honorable discharge certificate issued to Kerry in 1975,if not earlier, three years after his transfer to the Standby Reserve-Inactive."

Another retired Navy Reserve officer, who served three tours in the Navy's Bureau of Personnel, points out that there should also have been a certified letter giving Mr. Kerry a choice of a reserve reaffiliation or separation and discharge. If Mr. Meehan is correct and all the documents are indeed on the Web site, the absence of any documents from 1972 to 1978 in the posted Kerry files is a glaring hole in the record.

The applicable U.S. Navy regulation, now found at MILPERSMAN 1920-210 "Types of Discharge for Officers," lists five examples of conditions required to receive an honorable discharge certificate, four required to receive a general discharge "not of such a nature as to require discharge under conditions other than honorable," and seven for "the lowest type of separation from the naval service. It is now officially in all respects equivalent to a dishonorable discharge."

Kerry spokesmen have also repeatedly said that the senator has an honorable discharge. And there is indeed a cover letter to an honorable discharge dated February 16,1978,on the Kerry Web site. It is in form and reference to regulation exactly the same as one granted Swiftboat Veterans for Truth member Robert Shirley on March 12, 1971, during a periodic "reduction in force (RIF)" by the Naval Reserve. The only significant difference between Mr. Kerry's and Mr. Shirley's is the signature information and the dates. In a RIF, officers who no longer have skills or are of an age group the Navy wishes to keep in reserve are involuntarily separated by the Navy and given their appropriate discharge. This is a normal and ongoing activity and there is no stigma attached to it.

Kerry spokesman David Wade did not reply when asked if Mr. Kerry was other than honorably discharged before he was honorably discharged.

"Mr. Meehan may well be right and all Mr. Kerry's military records are on his Web site," Mr. Sullivan said. "Unlike en listed members, officers do not receive other than honorable, or dishonorable, certificates of discharge. To the contrary, the rule is that no certificate will be awarded to an officer separated wherever the circumstances prompting separation are not deemed consonant with traditional naval concepts of honor. The absence of an honorable discharge certificate for a separated naval officer is, therefore, a harsh and severe sanction and is, in fact, the treatment given officers who are dismissed after a general court-martial."

With the only discharge document cited by Mr. Kerry issued in 1978, three years after the last date it should have been issued, the absence of a certificate from 1975 leaves only two possibilities. Either Mr. Kerry received an "other than honorable" certificate that has been removed in a review purging it from his records, or even

The New York Sun is running an informative story on the case.

Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly are doing the people of New York and the people of Iraq a great service by delaying and obstructing the anti-war protest planned for February 15. The longer they delay in granting the protesters a permit, the less time the organizers have to get their turnout organized, and the smaller the crowd is likely to be. And we wouldn't want to overstate the matter, but, at some level, the smaller the crowd, the more likely that President Bush will proceed with his plans to liberate Iraq. And the more likely, in that case, that the Iraqi people will be freed and the citizens of New York will be rescued from the threat of an Iraqi-aided terrorist attack.
In a federal court action filed yesterday, the New York Civil Liberties Union, representing the anti-war protesters, cites the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The court action seeks a court injunction that would allow the protesters to march down First Avenue near the United Nations. "A central part of the February 15 event is to convey a message to the United Nations about opposition to any war against Iraq," the complaint filed yesterday says. But the right of peaceable assembly in the Constitution refers to the right "to petition the government for a redress of grievances." The protesters would be on stronger ground if they wanted to convey a message to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations -- if, in other words, if they were petitioning the government, not the U.N.
The protesters probably do have a claim under the right to free speech. Never mind that it's not the speech that the city is objecting to -- it's the marching in the streets, blocking traffic, and requiring massive police protection.
So long as the protesters are invoking the Constitution, they might have a look at Article III. That says, "Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court."
There can be no question at this point that Saddam Hussein is an enemy of America. Iraq was the only Arab-Muslim country that did not condemn the September 11 attacks against the United States. A commentary of the official Iraqi station on September 11 stated that America was "...reaping the fruits of [its] crimes against humanity." A government employee in Iraq reacted to the loss this month of the space shuttle Columbia by telling Reuters, "God is avenging us."
And there is no reason to doubt that the "anti-war" protesters -- we prefer to call them protesters against freeing Iraq -- are giving, at the very least, comfort to Saddam Hussein. In a television interview aired this week, Saddam said, "First of all we admire the development of the peace movement around the world in the last few years. We pray to God to empower all those working against war and for the cause of peace and security based on just peace for all." After the last big anti-war protest, the one in Washington last month, Saddam hailed the anti-war protests as proof that Americans back Iraq rather than President Bush. "They are supporting you because they know that evildoers target Iraq to silence and dissenting voice to their evil and destructive policies," Saddam told senior officers, including his son Qusay, commander of the Republican Guard.
So the New York City police could do worse, in the end, than to allow the protest and send two witnesses along for each participant, with an eye toward preserving at least the possibility of an eventual treason prosecution. Thus fully respecting not just some, but all of the constitutional principles at stake.
To those concerned about civil liberties, we'd cite the pragmatic argument made last night by, of all people, the New York Times's three-time Pulitzer-Prize winning foreign affairs columnist, Thos. Friedman. "I believe we are one more 9/11 away from the end of the open society," Mr. Friedman told an American Jewish Committee dinner honoring the chief executive of the New York Times Company, Russell Lewis. His point was that if terrorists strike again at America and kill large numbers of Americans, the pressure to curb civil liberties and civil rights will be "enormous and unstoppable." What we took from that was that the more successful the protesters are in making their case in New York, the less chance they'll have the precious constitutional freedom to protest here the next time around.