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What? no? Well if you don't agree then I have to consider you to be one of them, so I'll have to kill you too.

So, you'll hand them over only if we show you proof...Hmm, no that's unreasonable, I think I'd rather just kill you too rather than risk any problems for myself. You'll put him on trial? No, that's a charade of a trial you mean, not like our well run justice system that is *only* asking to take your countrymen and kill them without showing you any proof of guilt.

p.s. I hope your happy when there are 100,000 more dead American civilians because in all honesty, that's a minimum of estimate of what's going to happen. I would guess that one of our nuclear plants or waste sites is going to be "opened to the sky". Though they're now planning to add a few soldiers to some of them, I'll give you even odds one of them is blown up within the next 5 years. And hey, if it's Calvert Cliffs in good 'ole Lusby, Md then there won't be any president Bush or Cheney or most any of congress or the Supreme Court. And all it takes is one person inside the plant. What fun!

Unlike skyscrapers, Nuclear Containment Vessels are designed to survive a jumbo jet impact at upwards of 500mph without loss of containment.

Apparantly, the NRC doesn't agree that they're that safe. At least, as of last Friday. Of course, terrorists would probably be better off with a ground assault, given the rent-a-cops on dope some facilities seem to be using.

You can't really win if the election is never allowed to proceed.

From what I have heard, every possible Democrat group went down to Florida and did their own recount and guess what..... GWB really won.

That's funny. From what I heard, the exact opposite is true.

Considering that former FCC chairman Kennard says that NPR's opposition before Congress was what killed his initiative to legalize micro-broadcasting, should we be urging contributions to NPR stations? True, NPR is a bit to the left, and sometimes entertaining; true, many of the micro-broadcasters would have been evangelical churches on the far right. Still the principle seems all wrong: NPR has helped prevent the emergence of real, local, community-based radio. What with Pacifica Radio in flames, that means no voices more radical than NPR's pleasant liberals will be heard in most of the country.

We should ask, who is the real constituency of freedom, and how do we, if we are members of that group, preserve the good name of freedom from being co-opted by essentially fascist forces selling the idea that true freedom is just the freedom to be entertained by their media (Berlusconi, the richest man in Italy, owns television networks and a soccer team), while burning their oil (Bush's biggest contributor has been Enron) and eating their GM food?

First, we should recognize who the real constituency is. For example, trades which require personal freedom in order to be performed well produce more than their share of true advocates - music, visual arts, some varieties of programming, and even once-upon-a-time cattle ranching (which is why Bush baby poses as a rancher) - "don't fence me in." And we should add to this group the other staple of the frontier, the dance hall woman/sex worker.

Now, it's not hard to see that, even in our most sophisticated cities, it's easy for politicians to get a significant section of the population worked up about the danger of all these libertine sorts, trying to lure their children into museums and libraries and other places of idleness, off the assembly line of birth-school-marriage-work-death. And it's not too hard to find examples of, for instance, artists with destroyed lives attributable to their flirtation with serious freedoms - their sometimes desparate hunger for degrees of freedom and inspiration which can be fleeting and evasive.

To prevent freedom, it's technologies - particularly the psychotropic - are severely restricted. Back when radio was briefly free, in the late 60's, the broad public fears of such technologies were eased by the great and obvious beauty of the musics produced by artists whose minds were made freer by, and whose work celebrated, these means. Hoping for a revival of free and inspired musics seems polyannish at this point, after even mp3.com has gone down in cynical grovelling.

It's easy to see how Brand and Barlow, producers of the 60s psychotropic culture, fastened on the liberatory potential of computers and networking. And how programmers, being for the most part young, dependent on their creativity, and with one unfortunate exception without real power, appreciated what freedom could do for them.

But where do we go now? The fascists, having co-opted "freedom" to their ideology, can't easily disown the positive valuation of the term - if we can but wrest its meaning back it can be a powerful trojan. But how do we define freedom with such care that the concept doesn't seem to sanction a corrupt mobster like Berlusconi or Gates??

We should ask, who is the real constituency of freedom, and how do we, if we are members of that group, preserve the good name of freedom from being co-opted by essentially fascist forces selling the idea that true freedom is just the freedom to be entertained by their media (Berlusconi, the richest man in Italy, owns television networks and a soccer team), while burning their oil (Bush's biggest contributor has been Enron) and eating their GM food?

First, we should recognize who the real constituency is. For example, trades which require personal freedom in order to be performed well produce more than their share of true advocates - music, visual arts, some varieties of programming, and even once-upon-a-time cattle ranching (which is why Bush baby poses as a rancher) - "don't fence me in." And we should add to this group the other staple of the frontier, the dance hall woman/sex worker.

Now, it's not hard to see that, even in our most sophisticated cities, it's easy for politicians to get a significant section of the population worked up about the danger of all these libertine sorts, trying to lure their children into museums and libraries and other places of idleness, off the assembly line of birth-school-marriage-work-death. And it's not too hard to find examples of, for instance, artists with destroyed lives attributable to their flirtation with serious freedoms - their sometimes desparate hunger for degrees of freedom and inspiration which can be fleeting and evasive.

To prevent freedom, it's technologies - particularly the psychotropic - are severely restricted. Back when radio was briefly free, in the late 60's, the broad public fears of such technologies were eased by the great and obvious beauty of the musics produced by artists whose minds were made freer by, and whose work celebrated, these means. Hoping for a revival of free and inspired musics seems polyannish at this point, after even mp3.com has gone down in cynical grovelling.

It's easy to see how Brand and Barlow, producers of the 60s psychotropic culture, fastened on the liberatory potential of computers and networking. And how programmers, being for the most part young, dependent on their creativity, and with one unfortunate exception without real power, appreciated what freedom could do for them.

But where do we go now? The fascists, having co-opted "freedom" to their ideology, can't easily disown the positive valuation of the term - if we can but wrest its meaning back it can be a powerful trojan. But how do we define freedom with such care that the concept doesn't seem to sanction a corrupt mobster like Berlusconi or Gates??

• Packinghouse workers returned to the jungle
• The Heartland's Raw Deal

He also defeated a sitting vice-President during times of peace and prosperity,

unified a diversified "big tent" political party (which was hardly enamoured with his father)

and became the chief proponent of a new branch of American conservatism.

He managed to achieve a 60%+ approval rating (despite election controversy)

and pass a 1.35 trillion dollar tax cut (despite an opposition who wanted a ZERO dollar tax cut only 6 months ago.)

He will likely succeed in getting a national missile defense shield built,

and is on track for the most massive education reform package in American history

Beyond all this, it's hard to believe that any tangible ideas coming out of the White House are not the products of Bush's handlers and cronies rather than Bush himself. Any time that the man is left alone with an interviewer, he utterly makes a fool of himself. He is the spoiled, visionless product of monied privilege. Perhaps it doesn't matter how smart or dumb he is; for all of his life, the world has been handed to him on a plate, and for most people, I guess that's just fine.

Mostly true, but don't make the mistake of thinking it's entirely true.

Firstly, through their own criminal corruption and stupidity, they except the travesty of democracy that was the election, and end up with the candidate that lost.

Yep, we got the candidate that lost and he is also proving very obtuse about his lack of a mandate. But a lot of us are very pissed off and I'm pretty sure Dubya is gonna be a one-term prez, just like his dad.

Then, their new president, a man who is renowned for being insanely stupid decides to throw bombs at Iraq to deflect growing concerns about his mental capabilities and lack of foreign policy.

Noticed that, did you? I was wondering if anyone else did.

And the American people do nothing.

Ummmmm... it's obvious you don't live here because a lot of people are up in arms. But it doesn't get reported because, bzzzt, the global media (including those based outside of the US) are mostly owned by the very people who benefit from our stolen election. Why don't you see what these folks have to say about it?

The economy takes a huge nosedive because faith and trust in the country is plummeting.

It didn't help that Greenspan cringed when dubya patted him on the back.

Star Wars is reinstated to "protect" this foolish president and his foolish people.

bzzzt, wrong. Star wars is reinstated to "protect" the pocketbooks of some of the folks who benefitted from our stolen election, in this case the aerospace industry. Nobody seriously thinks Star Wars can protect us from anything military because quite a few of us have enough brains to realize you could just ship the bombs over here via parcel post.

Then a spy plane (a plane used to SPY on possible targets and threats in foreign countries) crashes into a Chinese plane while SPYING on Cina, a country that is know to be hostile toward Americans and who's huge growing strength and might is not something you want to fuck with.

bzzzzt, wrong. You must have missed that part about how our plane was flying straight and level on autopilot when the hot-dogging Chinese pilot crashed into it.

The Americans then proceed to handle the situation as badly as possible, insisting on NOT apologising, and rattling sabres at the Chinese because they feel that their national honour is at stake.

Actually, one of Dubya's rare moments of actual backbone. They should have apologized to us. And they should give us the goddamn plane back right now.

(News: You have no national honour left. We laugh at you while feeling pity.)

Fine, we will take back all the things we have given to the world and build a wall around the country so we won't bother you. We can start with this computer network you're using to bash us -- you do have two tin cans and some string so you'll have a fallback when it's gone?

And you still pay this man, and his criminally corrupt aids and coworkers, and you defend him and his xenophobic policies.

Not sure where you're going with this chumly. He's in office, so he gets paid, and a lot of us are very vocal about not liking it.

Have fun with your recession Americans - this is one financial crisis that you have engineered yourselves, and this time you truly deserve it.

It's been in the works for at least a decade. Hell, I'm looking forward to it. I got my house in the last recession and I'm sure I'll be able to get a good deal on a beemer once a few more twentysomething snotnoses get their reality check.

Open source isn't culture imperialism, or, to acknowledge those who speak of the "GNU virus", at least not the kind I'm referring to. I was referring generally to the practice of buying a country's media infrastructure or overwhelming its native culture by flooding distribution channels with US memes (that are usually materialistic in nature). Specifically in this case, AOL/TW is getting a leg up on local competition and establishing itself as the dominant Internet player, thus being in a position to impose its hypercommercialized vision of the internet on another society.

I should have been a bit more clear to drop something like that on the discussion. Here's an
article from The Nation by Robert McChesney. Choice quote from an analyst at PaineWebber :

"What you are seeing," says Christopher Dixon, media analyst for the investment firm PaineWebber, "is the creation of a global oligopoly. It happened to the oil and automotive industries earlier this century; now it is happening to the entertainment industry."

So, I'm glad that they aren't running CE, but as rgmoore points out elsewhere in this thread, its an appliance so it doesn't really matter. I guess one of the goals of free software is to make software a commodity, so I guess this is a sign of success in that area, which is great and that I don't want to detract from. AOL/TW could turn out to be a bigger fish to fry than M$.

Open source isn't culture imperialism, or, to acknowledge those who speak of the "GNU virus", at least not the kind I'm referring to. I was referring generally to the practice of buying a country's media infrastructure or overwhelming its native culture by flooding distribution channels with US memes (that are usually materialistic in nature). Specifically in this case, AOL/TW is getting a leg up on local competition and establishing itself as the dominant Internet player, thus being in a position to impose its hypercommercialized vision of the internet on another society.

I should have been a bit more clear to drop something like that on the discussion. Here's an
article from The Nation by Robert McChesney. Choice quote from an analyst at PaineWebber :

"What you are seeing," says Christopher Dixon, media analyst for the investment firm PaineWebber, "is the creation of a global oligopoly. It happened to the oil and automotive industries earlier this century; now it is happening to the entertainment industry."

So, I'm glad that they aren't running CE, but as rgmoore points out elsewhere in this thread, its an appliance so it doesn't really matter. I guess one of the goals of free software is to make software a commodity, so I guess this is a sign of success in that area, which is great and that I don't want to detract from. AOL/TW could turn out to be a bigger fish to fry than M$.

Eben Moglen sure doesn't waste his time, or ours - the article will be written in ten days from now...
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The California House and Senate have passed legislation to deregulate the state's electric industry and to force California ratepayers and taxpayers to pay $27 billion to bail out the state's three investor-owned utilities. The measure represents a major victory for the utility industry and Wall Street, and a major setback for consumers and local communities, who face a decade of utility bill surcharges and restrictions that will prevent most Californians from getting access to competitively priced power.

The bill passed unanimously in both the Assembly and Senate. But many parties feel blindsided after expeting the bill to die. Although the $27 billion bailout made in the bill bill compares to the Savings and Loan crisis in sheer dollar volume, it received little press coverage the following day other than reports of a promised ten percent rate reduction for residents and small businesses.

The Bill, allegedly giving customers a "choice" about electricity suppliers, contains provisions which lock residents and small businesses with the monopoly utilities until 2002. Beyond 2002 the Bill adds hurdles that customers must jump before leaving the monopoly, making it likely that only a few will benefit even then.

The California law requiring competition for electric service by January 1998 will lead to little meaningful competition for the small business or residential customer during 1998.

The report, compiled after a 26-day survey of 132 electric service providers registered with California Public Utilities Commission, will serve as the first of an on-going evaluation of the electric market.

Of the 132 companies contacted:

- 20% of the registered companies are not providing service at all;
- 17% of the companies plan to provide service exclusively to business customers;
- 34% of the companies are difficult to contact and did not return UCAN's' phone calls (we called each provider at least two times).
- 21% (28 in total) companies are offering electric service to residential customers in California.

Of the 28 companies that are providing service to residential customers:

- 32% of the companies have no information on planned rates;
- 26% of the companies have viable service offers;
- 74% of the companies have questionable or extremely questionable service offers;
- 18% of the companies are offering "green" power only

But in California, Pennsylvania, Illinois and other state legislatures, consumer and environmental interests have so far been routed by utility lobbyists.

What galls California consumer groups most is AB1890's $28.5 billion stranded-cost bailout, much of which is for PG&E's Diablo Canyon reactors and Southern California Edison's San Onofre nuclear plant. "The manufacturers cut a backroom deal granting themselves preferential rates and giving the utilities a massive nuclear bailout, plus all sorts of corporate welfare, before the public had the slightest idea of what was going on," says Dan Berman, an energy expert and co-author of Who Owns the Sun?

The legislature's package contains no funding for consumer advocacy groups, but it does allow a staggering $89 million for industry advertising.

With California as a model, the pro-utility tide at the state level has thus far been overwhelming. "AB1890 was a mugging," says Charlie Higley, a senior energy analyst with Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project. "Then Pennsylvania was a mugging. Massachusetts was a mugging. The industry just owns too many state legislatures."

Representative Tom DeLay of Texas last year [1997?] proposed what some call the "Enron Bill," which would ban stranded costs from being passed along altogether, a position shared by the right-wing, "free market" Heritage Foundation. Enron had bitterly opposed stranded costs as a barrier to competition in California. But then it bought Oregon's Portland Gas & Electric, which wants a bailout for its failed Trojan reactor. Demonstrating the complexity of cross-interests, observers note that "suddenly Enron's attack on stranded costs has been muted."

An epic $30 million-plus California electoral war over billions in utility subsidies has bitterly divided the national environmental community.

It also handed the state's three dominant utilities -- Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric -- some $28.5 billion to subsidize capitalinvestments in generators unable to produce electricity cheap enough to sell competitively in a market increasingly dominated by inexpensive natural gas. In the California market, the investments were concentrated in two nuclear reactors at San Onofre, between San Diego and Los Angeles, and two more at Diablo Canyon, outside San Luis Obispo. According to their owners, these plants would almost certainly shut down in the face of cheaper juice coming from generators powered by methane.

[Q: What is the current status of these generators?]

"Prop. 9 voids the bond sale on which the phony rebate is based," says Gunther. "It ends the stranded cost rip-off. It demands the utilities compete on an even playing field, which they obviously don't want to do." Prop. 9 also has the support of the Sierra Club, Consumer's Union and the League of Women Voters.

According to campaign filings, the utilities have already raised almost $30 million to defeat Prop. 9, and have lined up some 2,000 organizations, including industrial and retail trade organizations, chambers of commerce, both major parties, most elected officials, the state's major unions and many of its civic and ethnic coalitions as well as certain environmental groups. "They've called in every favor they've bought over many years of carefully giving out donations," says Gunther. "They've gone all out."

Prop. 9's supporters have raised well under $500,000, and Gunther predicts the utilities will "outspend us 100 to 1, maybe more. It shows how much they stand to gain."

"The utilities have spent so much now the only thing they might prove is you can buy a referendum with unlimited money," says Hauter.

I am a Republican, and voted for Bush, so obviously I'm biased.

Tell me about it!

However, I clearly think that if Gore continues to go ahead with his lawyers in front of Democrat judges (who already have rewritten the law, in effect changing the rules of the game after the ball has been put in play), he's going to destroy his party.

I'm not sure of how clearly you think but this sure isn't an example of clarity in though. While the majority of the judges in the Florida supreme court were appointed by the democrats (6 out of 7) the court ruled unanymously in favor of extending the recounts. This means that the republican appointed judge voted for it too.
Bush has also been to court. In fact he was the first one to go to court. He even went to the federal district court in Gergia which is very much a republican leaning district court.
The reson gore has won the majority of the court decissions is that he has much firmer legal ground than Bush and what he is asking for as a general rule is more level headed than what Bush asks for.

I believe that at this point he doesn't stand much of a chance of succeding... Surprisingly, weeks of recounts being done in Democrat counties that voted OVERWEALMINGLY for him, using hand recount rules made and remade on the fly by DEMOCRATS didn't change the results.

This is clearly not true. From one county alone Gore gained over 500 votes placing him within 400 votes of Bush. If the Miami-Dade and Palm Beach recounts were allowed and counted Gore would probably win the election by 600-1000 votes.

Gore going any further proves that Gore thinks more of himself than the country to continue to be the cause of damaging faith in the Constitution, law, and fairness. And he is the SOLE cause of all this. Some day, when less biased historians write of this era will paint this election and Gore's actions as the final chapter of the corrupt Clinton machine.

Are you serious? Please do some reading so you know what is actually happening in Florida. I think these articles are pretty interesting maybe you should check them out and broaden your mind:
Winning by intimidation
Patriot missile
Raising the Stakes

BTW, Gore's lawyer, Boyd, is the lead government lawyer in the Microsoft case, don't know if anyone's mentioned that yet. This shakes my faith in the Reno case against them, IMO, he has damaged his credibility severely by arguing specious cases on Gore's behalf.

BTW, David Boies, Gore's Lawyer, was the lead government lawyer in the M$ case. He left the DOJ months ago. He is Napster's lawyer now. Why would any of this "shake your faith" on what you call "Reno's" case? First of all the M$ case isn't Reno's case. She just happens to be the Attorney General but it isn't as if this is some sort of vendetta that she has embarked upon. There was a findings of fact an M$ didn't come out so well. The judge was not compromised in any way and he still sided with the DOJ. Just because a legal decission isn't what you would like it to be it doesn't mean that the ruling is a bad one.

Niches exist, but they're far more prevalent in markets where the audience has a lot of money. ("Why The Free Market is Not a Democracy," point 1.) Look at the tremendous number of phonebook-sized New Economy magazines -- Business 2.0, Wired, Industry Standard, etc., etc. Then look at the flimsy page count and non-glossy paper of a little lefty magazine like The Nation -- that's not just a circulation question. It's also a question of who the readership is and how much disposable income they have. DeBeers isn't knocking down The Nation's doors to buy ads for diamonds in the next issue.

There's a lot of valuable content that has nothing to do with mindlessly buying shit. Which is the fundamental flaw with ad-supported journalism.

Pat Paulsen died sometime in the past couple of years.

Alfred E Neuman is already running. See this link if you're so inclined.

wow, you can regurgitate content.

fo llow this link for cross-postational goodness, evidence, and a reply.

I'm not sure why you think Gore is a champion of the people, afterall Bush says "unity" just as often.

Nader doesn't have a chance not because of two party monopoly, but because his platform is one that few Americans support.

So it's not because people haven't heard his platform, it's because they don't support it. riiiight.

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But it would seem to be better to goto alcohol for legacy vehicle that are on the road now. Would that not have a better effect in the short term than slowly selling electric vehicles. Henry Ford himself wanted to use alcohol. Would help farmers.

Alcohol could be used on existing vehicles with some engine modification. As for some of the reasons why alcohol was not used originally (especially as a fuel additive, when it looked like petroleum was the way to go for the primary fuel source), read here about the secret move to get lead used instead.

The following essay provides more reasons why the choice does matter, without speaking approvingly of either candidate: http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20001016&s=ea lterman

For the 1992 Games in Barcelona, the IOC decreed that athletes from the breakaway nations of the former USSR were not in fact entitled to be recognized as such. They were forced to play for the "Commonwealth of Independent States". Just another throwback to the glorious days of Soviet domination and a slap in the face to athletes who were robbed of the opportunity to represent their native countries.

Why was this permitted to happen? Because the IOC is the epitome of a greedy, self-serving, multinational corporation.

For the link impaired, here is just a brief summary of the article:

• NBC has paid $3 570 000 000 for rights to the Games through to 2008
• Juan Antonio Samaranch
  • Joined the Youth Fascists in Spain during his teenage years
  • Later went on to become a member of Franco's rubber-stamp government
• While the IOC's 106 members have only 7 women among their ranks, they do manage to find room for:
  • a former operative of Korea's brutal intelligence service
  • a onetime ally of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin
  • an Italian businessman who presided over medal rigging at the 1987 track and field world championships in Rome, and
  • a reputed arms dealer
• the IOC is in no way accountable to the athletes or to national Olympic committees worldwide for how it disposes of the $2 billion in receipts it pulls in every four years

These are the people who proclaim to represent the ideal of amateur sport: of fair play and of the innocence of honest competition.

These back-stabbing, power-hungry bastards.

Considering this, that the IOC is making another power grab and shutting out the Internet, is not surprising in the least.

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Check out The Secret History of Lead for a study in corporate greed.

People like you said it's just your case, get on with your life.

People like you said, it's just your bitching.

A bully is a bully. They should not be rewarded for a bully. People should not forget what they have done.

I am not the first employee that Mattel abused! Read Barbie's Betrayal.

Ford's contribution to the Nazi effort

The Nation had a special issue about it in 1999, I think.

This is off the original topic but I'm responding to this one post.
Check out Cato's opinions, but be aware that Cato represents corporate-style libertarianism.
In this article by the media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, you'll see that Cato is funded by big oil, pharmaceutical, tobacco, and other big corporations including .... MICROSOFT!!! (check out the list in the article).
I recommend the foreign policy sections of Z Magazine's web page for analysis of defense matters and to learn what ordinary people are doing for peace.
Still, when people say that it is good to cut defense spending and stop imperialist military actions, I will agree with them, right or left.
These conservative think-tanks get quoted all the time in the media, without mentioning who their funding comes from. One of their latest projects is to "reform" Social Security. This means to convince people that Social Security won't be there for them when they retire and that we need to be able to invest the money in the stock market instead. The major funding comes from ... surprise, surprise ... brokerage groups, who want to cash in on the increased commissions. Here is a great article from The Nation about this issue.

Because unfortunately, most of the stories your paper runs from outside the local area are probably from one source (the AP collective). And because, like it or not, if the NYT or the WSJ or the Washington Post prints it, most reporters think something is true. And because if a newspaper prints it, the TeeVee drones dutifully put it on the air, minus 99 percent of the content and analysis. And because most of the media (probably including yours) is owned by gigantic evil mega-corporations obsessed with increasing shareholder value at the expense of their viewers'/readers' minds.

More importantly, though, your average local reporter knows a little about a lot, but a lot about only a little, of what she or he covers. That means we rely on experts, and I think too often, we anoint experts without really knowing too much about how much they actually know.

And I think using the Nexis-Lexis database to find experts is just about the WORST thing a reporter can do. Because that leads to the kinds of vicious spirals that turn idiots like Vranesevich into spokesmen for things they know little or nothing about. We should spend a little extra time and find our own experts by researching the field we report on, talking to the relevant players, and figuring out who they respect.

This is an interesting discussion, so don't be offended by my self righteous tone. I sometimes rely on these anointed experts too, but I wish I didn't.

[ps-this was already posted once, but somehow ended up in a completely different article]

The public does get involved. Who do the pollsters call? The public. All 1139 of them. The Nielsen Families of this 24/7 TV show called American Politics and Policy.

Actually, people spend good money to filter damn near everything for public consumption, so we (the public) are left with the wide center-right "spectrum" of opinions when we turn on the TV or read the Op-Ed pages.

A couple of recent magazine articles: "$1 Billion for Conservatives" and "Anti-Feminists Money Can Buy". Marketing has triumphed over ideas, independent thought, and enlightening discourse; everything has been reduced to a media war, even when there's no war at all.

Has CNN and its peers even mentioned how this bombing campaign (which I support, BTW) pretty much trashes international law? If we're not bringing that into public (or talking-head) debate, something is seriously wrong. If the rule of law can be ignored, what prevents some country (or alliance) from launching missiles and smart bombs on the US the next time there's trouble in Los Angeles? I would probably have to support that too. I think I would, in fact.

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