Slashdot Mirror

Trees? Yes, of course we have trees. In fact, you can just send me your carbon credit payments: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/25/AR2009062503028.html

With enough payments coming into the area, maybe we can all get together, and convince the telcos to upgrade to optic fiber.........

Signed an agreement reaffirming the sovereignty of Iraq

Have we abandoned our permanent military bases in Iraq?

Asserted Iraqi ownership over *every* military installation in use by US forces

That's absolute horseshit.

At withdrawal, the U.S. will return all the installations and the agreed upon areas allocated for the use of the U.S. combat forces according to two lists (of inventory) to the Iraqi government.

Translation: we keep our permanent military bases.

Handed control of many of the US Operated facilities over to the Iraqis for control (here, here, and here, for example)

Have we abandoned our permanent military bases in Iraq?

Handed security of the "Green Zone" over to Iraqi control

Have we abandoned our permanent military bases in Iraq?

Removed the vast majority of all combat forces outside of the limits of all major cities

Another lie.

In addition, there are no plans to close the Americans' Camp Victory base complex, which houses more than 20,000 soldiers, many of them combat troops, even though Camp Victory is only a 15-minute drive from the center of Baghdad and sprawls over both sides of the city's boundary. Iraqi officials, who are nervous about maintaining security as the Americans depart, have agreed to consider Camp Victory as outside the city.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/09/world/middleeast/09military.html

Additionally, your assertion that "we own" the oil fields now points to an article explaining how the Iraqi Ministry of Oil is negotiating contracts from companies that lost to nationalization when Saddam was in power. I'm not sure how that means "we own" anything. The Iraqi government is contracting with corporations to extract the oil resources. Sounds like Iraq exercising its own sovereignty to me.

Why were they no bid contracts to American oil companies in 2008? And furthermore, if we have no colonial interest in their resources, why haven't we abandoned our permanent military bases in Iraq? This is the central question. Everything else is political theater.

The globalsecurity article you link has no information later than 2005. In the intervening 4 years - the US Government has:

1. Signed an agreement reaffirming the sovereignty of Iraq
2. Asserted Iraqi ownership over *every* military installation in use by US forces
3. Handed control of many of the US Operated facilities over to the Iraqis for control (here, here, and here, for example)
4. Handed security of the "Green Zone" over to Iraqi control
5. Removed the vast majority of all combat forces outside of the limits of all major cities

Additionally, your assertion that "we own" the oil fields now points to an article explaining how the Iraqi Ministry of Oil is negotiating contracts from companies that lost to nationalization when Saddam was in power. I'm not sure how that means "we own" anything. The Iraqi government is contracting with corporations to extract the oil resources. Sounds like Iraq exercising its own sovereignty to me.

I'm not a libertarian (then again most libertarians don't seem to like having that label either) but I find your post disingenuous. Just as a disclaimer, some of my counterarguments use links from a libertarian website.
#1 The 1st amendment still offers protection, but those protections have been greatly diminished, especially since 9/11. http://sfscope.com/2009/05/comics-artist-mark-sable-detai.html has a story about a man detained by the tsa for a comic book script. And there are plenty of other stories like that. Sure, we may not got shot over it like in other countries, but for me that provides me with very little comfort. As far as the 2nd amendment goes, even after Heller there are plenty of states trying to not recognize the ruling (hell, even DC is trying to get around it).
#2 Abortion, anti-smoking, anti-drug, indecency laws. There are no shortage of people in the US who have no qualms about telling someone how they should live their life.
#3 I voted for Obama, but did so with a bit of wariness. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/26/AR2009062603361.html?hpid=topnews. Not to mention the fact that Bush was reelected.
#4 No offense to /., but bfd.
#5 I don't know about you, but I'm certainly no peer of most of the people in power. I sure as shit didn't get a free portrait of my dog, I won't be getting lifetime benefits when I leave my job, nor would I get a slap on the wrist for beating the shit out of a bar tender doing her job, bursting into a house uninvited, or being shitfaced behind the wheel.

Look, I'm just as cynical as the next guy (read my comment history if you want to verify it), but as a resident of Alaska for 20 years, Palin -- while certainly not perfect -- has in many ways been a breath of fresh air. Under her administration as governor, Alaska has (finally!!!) started cleaning house. The investigations into government corruption in AK have toppled both Dems and Republicans. I would really like to have seen what would have happened had she made it to V.P.

Are you fucking kidding me? Were you just not paying attention during the campaign??

In any case, she couldn't possibly have been worse than the "change" and "hope" that we ended up putting in the White House :(

Well, first of all, she was running for VP, not President, so I gather you're comparing Mr. "bomb bomb bomb Iran" - the guy who didn't know the difference between shiites and sunnis - to the current president, not Sarah Palin. Second, thank goodness neither of them will ever be entrusted with that kind of power in this country. I'm sure that Barbie Spice, like McCain, is well meaning and well intentioned, but neither of them have demonstrated they understand jack shit about relating to people outside a certain (thankfully dwindling) segment of "middle America." That's fine for getting elected governor of Alaska but what a nightmare that would be for dealing with the rest of the world. Obama may be a charming impostor but he at least can speak eloquently and knowledgeably about many of the bigger issues we face in the world today. He may not be a perfect American leader, but for fuck's sake, Palin and McCain can't even hold a candle to him. To McCain's credit, he's at least intelligent enough to understand that.

This bill is so huge, Congress jokingly hired a speed reader to read through the bill after Republicans asked for it to be read aloud (giant waste of time to do in session). But honestly, if our Congressmen and women won't even read the bills they pass why the hell are they signing their names on them in the first place? There's undoubtedly so much pork in this bill it will cause problems above and beyond the things its addressing in the first place.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2009/05/speed_reader_brings_levity_to.html

Shows your prejudice. Not your fault I guess. The many years of brainwashing by Hollywood and the news media are to blame. Before making these sorts of highly inflammatory remarks, perhaps it is worth doing a little bit of your own research first.

This video might help you understand why you think the way you do, even though Iranians are not actually Arabs, but I guess that distinction would be lost on you anyway.

FWIW, it is plausible that the elections were not rigged. Also, rigged or not, it is most probable that Ahmadinijad would have won anyway.

I don't care to see people claim it to be inherently perfectly safe, either.

Nothing is perfectly safe, but pot is a LOT safer than many legal activities, including using stairs - 12,000 people die every year from stairs. Marijuana is not lethal, there are zero deaths per year from pot.

Should we outlaw stairs?

Which is why I support keeping consumption enforcement at the same level as alcohol consumption enforcement. Do all you want at home, but be mindful of the public.

I can't disagree with that.

I'll have to look over that study some time.

From the Washington Post

Earlier work established that marijuana does contain cancer-causing chemicals as potentially harmful as those in tobacco, he said. However, marijuana also contains the chemical THC, which he said may kill aging cells and keep them from becoming cancerous.

Tashkin's study, funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Drug Abuse, involved 1,200 people in Los Angeles who had lung, neck or head cancer and an additional 1,040 people without cancer matched by age, sex and neighborhood.

They were all asked about their lifetime use of marijuana, tobacco and alcohol. The heaviest marijuana smokers had lighted up more than 22,000 times, while moderately heavy usage was defined as smoking 11,000 to 22,000 marijuana cigarettes. Tashkin found that even the very heavy marijuana smokers showed no increased incidence of the three cancers studied.

"This is the largest case-control study ever done, and everyone had to fill out a very extensive questionnaire about marijuana use," he said. "Bias can creep into any research, but we controlled for as many confounding factors as we could, and so I believe these results have real meaning."

Tashkin's group at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA had hypothesized that marijuana would raise the risk of cancer on the basis of earlier small human studies, lab studies of animals, and the fact that marijuana users inhale more deeply and generally hold smoke in their lungs longer than tobacco smokers -- exposing them to the dangerous chemicals for a longer time. In addition, Tashkin said, previous studies found that marijuana tar has 50 percent higher concentrations of chemicals linked to cancer than tobacco cigarette tar.

Actually the summary is Bullshit. And the story ignores a bunch of details. Look at the graphic associated with the study . They study 3 genes - two of which affects skin/hair color and another that affects the eye color. Then they find that these 3 genes mutate into 3 different groups. I don't think this study in anyway shows anything more than show a genetic basis to skin/hair/eye color.

Obama socialist?
Even the head of the America's Socialist Party doesn't think so. Propaganda rule #1: At least get the disinformation believable. Otherwise it just makes Obama haters appear stupid. Just sayin..

When did the White House press corps switch from priding themselves on their freedom and ability to hammer the president with tough, often inconvenient, and equally often inane questions, to racing each other to see who can verbally fellate the president the best? Oh, that's right. When the messiah was chosen.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/23/AR2009062303262.html

and the press rolls over for him like good little lapdogs. Gone are the days when planted questioners solicited media rage:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/23/AR2009062303262.html

Notice how the only hardball question was thrown by Fox News' Major Garret. Also notice Obama's response to that question, essentially, "These are not the droids you're looking for." Somewhere deep inside Russia, the editor of Pravda is having a good laugh...

Good point, but that's regarding countries with an AIDS epidemic where the reduced risk of transmission will actually make a difference, i.e. it is not a general recommendation.

Well Washington DC has a higher AIDS infection rate than Western Africa

And that's where Ahmadinejad got his 60% of the vote. It might be interesting to enable the 'intellectual elite' of Iran living in the big cities to make their displeasure known to the rest of the world. But as long as they have a semblance of a democratic system, their fundies are going to run the place.

It is also where more than 100% of the people voted (you'll have to scroll down on that link, I don't know why I can't get a static link directly to that article), and somehow Ahmadinejad got a lot of new support since the previous election. Seems a bit unlikely, don't you think? If Ahmadinejad does have such huge support, why does he have to photoshop his crowds?

The people in the countryside are religious, but so are the people in the city, and so are the reformists. In fact, the entire basis for this democratic push is based on Islamic religious principles. Notice also that Mousavi is not trying to force himself to become president, he is merely asking for fair elections. This must be something even people in mud huts must want, otherwise they wouldn't have voted. There was a poll taken before the election that confirms this point: nearly 4 out of 5 said they wanted to elect even the supreme leader.

While none of us can go to Iran and ask people what they think, and while it is possible that Ahmadinejad won the election and might possibly even win a revote, it is hard to find a reason to think that most Iranians don't support Mousavi's ideas of fair, honest elections. Who votes and then doesn't want their vote counted?

And of course, you're surely aware that in the weeks following the ruling, every vote was recounted by several teams of people, using every standard advocated by either candidate, and several others, as well. In each recount, regardless of the technique used, Gore lost in Florida. Not to bother you with the facts or anything.

Sorry to drag the conversation even farther from the topic, but your claim is demonstrably false (and as such I can't bear to let it stand uncontradicted). In the study commissioned by the Washington Post and other media organizations, Gore won some of the scenarios (including all of the scenarios involving a full, statewide recount) while Bush won others. Wikipedia has a nice table of the results. You are correct, however, in that Bush won in all of the recount scenarios put forward by Gore.

You answered yourself. His readers liked the previous eight years' material, and were shocked and dismayed that he was a good journalist instead of the biased one they thought he was. Of course, they might actually think he _became_ biased.

FTFY. From the ombudsman blog:

Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt, whose stable of contributors includes Froomkin, said late Thursday: "With the end of the Bush administration, interest in the blog also diminished. His political orientation was not a factor in our decision."

Holy hell, someone modded you Insightful.

Wow.

That's alright, I shouldn't blame you. You're probably just one of the DARE generation. Just so as to avoid misleading others, let's spend some time and fix your post:

• "Enhanced cancer risk" I got some bad news. A 2000+ UCLA study concluded that you're full of shit.
• "Decrease in testosterone levels and lower sperm counts for men"/"Increase in testosterone levels for women and increased risk of infertility". Funny, but I couldn't seem to find any long term, controlled studies across large groups that proved either of these points.
• "Diminished or extinguished sexual pleasure" - Clearly you've never fucked whilst stoned. Anyone who has will tell you how laughably wrong this claim is. And even if it were true, so? A vast array of things can affect one's sexual pleasure.
• Psychological dependence requiring more of the drug to get the same effect. I was about to post and point out that people don't tend to develop a tolerance to any of the cannabinoids in marijuana, but then I realized you said "psychological". Well come on... People can develop a psychological addiction to anything -- surely you've seen the articles about people who play WoW or Starcraft obsessively. Somehow I don't think that anyone's advocating a DEA crackdown on Blizzard....
• Sleepiness Indeed. Marijuana is a useful, safe, non-addictive medication for treating insomnia. Oh. You meant that as a bad thing? Well consider this: reading "Catcher in the Rye" is still legal, and I'll be damned if I didn't sleep like a baby throughout most of middle-school English.
• Difficulty keeping track of time, impaired or reduced short-term memory When under the influence of larger doses, yes. It wears off though, and as far as we can tell, the effect isn't permanent.
• Reduced ability to perform tasks requiring concentration and coordination,such as driving a car. Yes, when under the influence, your coordination is impaired (although to a lesser extent than alcohol.) Driving under the influence is a bad idea, but I don't see how that's a strike against marijuana.
• Increased heart rate/Potential cardiac dangers for those with preexisting heart disease If only this were mentioned in some authoritative government study. Oh wait. It has been. Acute Effects of Marihuana by the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse talks about the cardiovascular effects of marijuana. Their findings? That while the drug causes an increase of +10 to +40 BPM over baseline, but poses no significant acute danger to users' cardiovascular health. Translation: it raises your pulse rate, but it's not dangerous.
• Bloodshot eyes Completely harmless.
• Dry mouth and throat Probably due to the presence of CB1 and CB2 receptors in the salivarly glands. THC's a CB1 agonist, and there are most certainly some (at least partial) CB2 agonists in marijuana. And (in case you haven't spotted the pattern yet) this too is harmless.
• Decreased social inhibitions Highly dependent on the individual.
• Paranoia, hallucinations In very high doses, yes. For patients with a pre-existing history of mental illness, marijuana use is probably a bad idea. In healthy people, there appears to be absolutely no risk of long-term psychological damage.
• Impaired or reduced short-term memory You... er... you listed this earlier in your post. :)
• Impaired or reduced comprehension (and other similar claims.) True, but highly-dose dependent.
• Psychological dependence See above. Executive summary: same goes for everything.
• Intense anxiety or panic attacks Some people experience these when they smoke too much. This is highly user and dose dependent though, and listing

The average aids patient in the US will spend $600k on treatment throughout their lifetime. Assuming the aids infection rate in the US is 50k people per year, that's $30 billion dollars per year being lost to HIV related medical expenses. If this study comes up with some general guidelines that encourage a mere tenth of a percent more people to wear condoms, that's still preventing 50 cases of aids in the US each year. That's a potential savings of 30 million dollars per year on a one-time fixed cost one mid-sized mining truck. That's a 75x ROI in the first year alone.

Heck, if ONE PERSON avoids getting aids due to wearing a condom after reading this slashdot article, the program has recouped. And that's just in raw drugs cost alone, let alone lost work hours / family troubles, giving it to other people, etc. HIV is so hugely expensive that anything we can do to reduce infection rate is basically worth it against our bottom line.

See here. There is of course many ways to dress up the loss as a win. Lets forget about Jeb Bush de-registering 57,000 people, of which 90% were democrats. To be a "good-guy", you'll just have to forget that piece of dissonant information.

the only people they would catch are the most blatant offenders

I see that you misspelled "most hostile to the Obama Administration and its financial backers."

Or did you learn nothing from the firing of Inspector General Gerald Walpin for the "crime" of investigating a high-profile Obama supporter for fraud involving taxpayer funds?

No it, doesn't confirm the elections were a farce. But there is quite a lot of statistical evidence, and even the government admits to some apparent overvoting. Yes, it could all be coincidence (the statistical evidence allows for a less than 1% chance the chance the election results weren't made up), and it is possible that in between 50 and 170 districts, people voted outside their voting districts and therefore produced greater than 100% turnout, but it's extremely suspect all the same.

Perhaps someone like Gartner needs to write a TCO report on outsourced code... only then would the MBAs take notice.

Seriously though, it really sounds like a study of the TCO of MBAs is more in order -- how many outsourcing snafus, and how much of the current financial woes in the US, are due to MBAs with precisely the mentality noted by the GP:

"I cut our expenses by x%. I want a bonus. Now let me find another place to work before this decision catches up with me."

Unfortunately, we find much of this same short-sighted idiotic MBA behaviour in the US government over the past several years:

Amount of money earned by a married U.S. Army sergeant with children per day in Iraq in 2007: $170

Amount of money earned by a Blackwater military contractor per day: $600

"We support our troops," indeed. How bitter. I have good friends in the military, and these Blackwater goons are effectively stealing wages from them. Meh. Another example:

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Baghdad overseeing more than 160,000 U.S. troops, makes roughly $180,000 a year, or about $493 a day. That comes out to less than half the fee charged by Blackwater for its senior manager of a 34-man security team.

By any strict economic definition, there is another word for "profit" -- "inefficiency". Ethically speaking, one might even stretch things a bit and call it "theft". Making a living is one thing, but fleecing your customers simply because you can is a crime in all but name.

Cheers,

I can imagine myself...transported back to pre-civil war America.

"Evn" making impassioned arguments against the norths irritation with having to compete with the cheap goods produced by slaves and indentured servants coming out of the south.

"The masses have spoken, cheap cotton is here to stay! Citizens of the north will just have to compete!"

Are you aware that you're expecting western workers to compete with, in part, factories full of Chinese political prisoners and indentured servants? As quite a few Chinese factories are. So why is government regulation ridiculous? Your expecting the west to compet with Chinese Government factories, not a peep about that, but we should bend over backwards to accomodate them? Try go into China or India and see if they have the same open trade - sell your countrymen out for a few cents per widget policy - as your own country does.

Now given that they protect their borders fairly vigorously and are currently moving most of the real wealth out of the US and into their own, doesn't it stand to reason that *their* policy (which is the same policy that the US grew to power using) is better at enriching a country than the ridiculous "ideal" that almost uncompromisingly white collar middle class westerns espouse is?

When the US has gone the way of Argentina as it rapidly is...or god forbid the USSR, and China and India are booming because of their pragmatic often heavy handed trading policies I wonder if the western "open trade at any cost with anyone..no matter how lopsided" crowd will be proud of themselves? Perhaps, as then they'll be able to have the opportunity to work in a factory for $3 an hour as their ideology comes full circle and the Chinese Government starts opening factories for you to work in.

Oh wait it all ready is http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/27/AR2008012702380.html

Wouldn't it stand to reason to have a trading policy that would demand that *China* operate in a competitive fashion if it wants to sell it's goods in your country? Given that *without* the US they were nothing but a poor struggling agrarian country anyway.

India's a slightly different kettle of fish, but 99% of manufacturing is done in China and you referred to physical goods so...

Which is... what? That when an artist offers something for sale, it's no OK and "modern" to just rip them off and not pay, rather than go somewhere else for your entertainment? So modern! "Of course I just ripped off music that my favorite artist offered for sale! I'm modern, and everybody else is doing it!"

You seem to have read a lot into that post that wasn't there. Don't let the limitations of speculation get in the way of a good rant of course.

Ah, so you've got some case studies of record labels that sue other record labels who give away signed artists' work? Please, do tell.

Let me sidestep that common yet often misattributed fallacy and give you some possible examples of what was actually meant: Pandora UK closes due to increased royalty rates, Russian music site closes due to pressure from US and RIAA sues radio company for providing users with the ability to record from the radio.

Please try harder next time, especially when using selective quoting in responding to an AC.. it would be unfortunate for someone to read your post without reading the parents.

here's no focus on class structure or rich vs. poor or anything of the like. It's about letting people be free to make their own choices in life.

I'll bite. Under the current system, the poor have very few opportunities to make their own choices in life. If you're born poor, odds are that you're going to stay that way.

In fact, the routine costs of living for the poor are often higher than what the rest of us pay, creating a vicious cycle from which there is little chance of escape.

Background -- see other "color" revolutions

Some information I linked from other places. Courtesy of Lew Rockwell, Paul C. Roberts and others. It is just a taste of the evidence. Some skill in reading between the lines is necessary.

At this stage of the game, to not realize what is going on is a mark of foolishness or outright malevolence. People of this ilk always claim to want evidence, but what they really desire is to delay and to destroy the intellectual capacity of those who notice the fraud (as if that word were sufficient to explain this usurious system we live in).

-------------
1) First some reality:
Story lead (Jun 15, 2009): The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people. Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election.

Telling points: The breadth of Ahmadinejad's support was apparent in our preelection survey. During the campaign, for instance, Mousavi emphasized his identity as an Azeri, the second-largest ethnic group in Iran after Persians, to woo Azeri voters. Our survey indicated, though, that Azeris favored Ahmadinejad by 2 to 1 over Mousavi.

Much commentary has portrayed Iranian youth and the Internet as harbingers of change in this election. But our poll found that only a third of Iranians even have access to the Internet, while 18-to-24-year-olds comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all age groups.

The only demographic groups in which our survey found Mousavi leading or competitive with Ahmadinejad were university students and graduates, and the highest-income Iranians. When our poll was taken, almost a third of Iranians were also still undecided. Yet the baseline distributions we found then mirror the results reported by the Iranian authorities, indicating the possibility that the vote is not the product of widespread fraud.

Some might argue that the professed support for Ahmadinejad we found simply reflected fearful respondents' reluctance to provide honest answers to pollsters. Yet the integrity of our results is confirmed by the politically risky responses Iranians were willing to give to a host of questions. For instance, nearly four in five Iranians -- including most Ahmadinejad supporters -- said they wanted to change the political system to give them the right to elect Iran's supreme leader, who is not currently subject to popular vote. Similarly, Iranians chose free elections and a free press as their most important priorities for their government, virtually tied with improving the national economy. These were hardly "politically correct" responses to voice publicly in a largely authoritarian society.
--- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061401757.html

2) Story lead (Jun 29, 2008): The Bush administration told Congress last year of a secret plan to dramatically expand covert operations inside Iran as part of a long-running effort to destabilize the country's ruling regime, according to a report published yesterday.

The plan allowed up to $400 million in covert spending for activities ranging from spying on Iran's nuclear program to supporting rebel groups opposed to the country's ruling clerics, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker magazine.
--- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/29/AR2008062901881_pf.html

3) Neocon Kenneth Timmerman day before elections (Jun 11, 2009):
Quote: And then, there's the talk of a "green revolution" in Tehran, named for the omnipresent green scarves

Background -- see other "color" revolutions

Some information I linked from other places. Courtesy of Lew Rockwell, Paul C. Roberts and others. It is just a taste of the evidence. Some skill in reading between the lines is necessary.

At this stage of the game, to not realize what is going on is a mark of foolishness or outright malevolence. People of this ilk always claim to want evidence, but what they really desire is to delay and to destroy the intellectual capacity of those who notice the fraud (as if that word were sufficient to explain this usurious system we live in).

-------------
1) First some reality:
Story lead (Jun 15, 2009): The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people. Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election.

Telling points: The breadth of Ahmadinejad's support was apparent in our preelection survey. During the campaign, for instance, Mousavi emphasized his identity as an Azeri, the second-largest ethnic group in Iran after Persians, to woo Azeri voters. Our survey indicated, though, that Azeris favored Ahmadinejad by 2 to 1 over Mousavi.

Much commentary has portrayed Iranian youth and the Internet as harbingers of change in this election. But our poll found that only a third of Iranians even have access to the Internet, while 18-to-24-year-olds comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all age groups.

The only demographic groups in which our survey found Mousavi leading or competitive with Ahmadinejad were university students and graduates, and the highest-income Iranians. When our poll was taken, almost a third of Iranians were also still undecided. Yet the baseline distributions we found then mirror the results reported by the Iranian authorities, indicating the possibility that the vote is not the product of widespread fraud.

Some might argue that the professed support for Ahmadinejad we found simply reflected fearful respondents' reluctance to provide honest answers to pollsters. Yet the integrity of our results is confirmed by the politically risky responses Iranians were willing to give to a host of questions. For instance, nearly four in five Iranians -- including most Ahmadinejad supporters -- said they wanted to change the political system to give them the right to elect Iran's supreme leader, who is not currently subject to popular vote. Similarly, Iranians chose free elections and a free press as their most important priorities for their government, virtually tied with improving the national economy. These were hardly "politically correct" responses to voice publicly in a largely authoritarian society.
--- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061401757.html

2) Story lead (Jun 29, 2008): The Bush administration told Congress last year of a secret plan to dramatically expand covert operations inside Iran as part of a long-running effort to destabilize the country's ruling regime, according to a report published yesterday.

The plan allowed up to $400 million in covert spending for activities ranging from spying on Iran's nuclear program to supporting rebel groups opposed to the country's ruling clerics, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker magazine.
--- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/29/AR2008062901881_pf.html

3) Neocon Kenneth Timmerman day before elections (Jun 11, 2009):
Quote: And then, there's the talk of a "green revolution" in Tehran, named for the omnipresent green scarves

Quit being so blind. There are plenty of Democrats who toss healthcare CEOs' salads, too -- most notably Tom Daschle, who is married to one of Washington's most powerful lobbyists and who was Obama's pick to run healthcare until his tax problems came out.

This is not a partisan issue -- it's a lobbyist / special interest issue, but apparently you've been successfully conditioned and duped to wrongly believe that one side is more willing and able to "fix" things than the other. News flash: neither side wants a fix because they're both in the pocket of those who benefit from the current fucked-up system. So things will remain as they are, and our healthcare system will continue to get worse.

If this passes and it makes health care mandatory doesn't that hurt the economy. This bill is going to cost the people about 1.5 trillion dollars. Forcing employers to insure their employees is going to hurt small businesses and may even bankrupt them which in turn will cause a loss in jobs. What about the people that will be forced to get a health care plan that in the governments eyes can afford it but in reality can't and on top of that with 1.5 trillion coming from tax paying citizens they are being hit twice once for paying for their insurance and again for the people who can't.

Most assuredly, no one can be sure. I just posted a news article to another board, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/06/20/ST2009062001342.html

It looks like the shit may well and truly hit the fan in the next few days. I hope the Mousavi faction has things figured out. But, I fear Mousavi and a lot of his supporters are going to be disappeared. It's going to be all or nothing, whatever happens. No one over there is going to compromise.

Hates the Internet, Hates Librarites: MPAA

Even more so the AAP - Association of American Publishers:
"We, have a very serious issue with librarians."
--Pat Schroeder, President Association of American Publishers.

(One of these things doesn't go with the other. )
We can't even get electronic voting.
We need committees elected by people.

Electronic vote tabulation devices do not allow for public oversight. If you don't have public oversight, you are basically counting votes in secret, which isn't good for a supposedly constitutional republic

Why worry about games when we have
Other crackdowns...

Threats by the Chinese government, if they catch ya posting something they don't like.myspace-cn

If we analyze China, ourtreasury notes, current events, perhaps we should prepare for our future to be similar to Iceland.

Well, that "Can you hear me now?" hipster douchebag has finally done it now...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/18/AR2009061802995.html

You jest, but it's actually common to see job postings phishing for all sorts of personal information up to and including SSNs and DOBs. Be careful with any job postings, particularly from companies you don't know/trust. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thecheckout/2007/02/looking_for_a_job_phishers_are.html

Juan Cole politely tells you that you're full of shit here. ... Go read him.

He has a different opinion, yes. Personally I find his analysis far from persuasive.

IMHO he overemphasises the "culture wars" of a decade ago (if they ever existed as he imagines) and completely ignores appeal of A'jad jingositic nationalism, ineed he completely ignores the last 4 years of A'jad. Moreover Cole's assumption that support for Khatami in 2000 is indicative of a the success of moderates against religionists seems a little odd if we remember that Khatami was himself a cleric and indeed a sayad. Nor do can I accept that issues of class (at least if we use that terms in a more expansive sense than an old-school Marxist might) and "culture wars" can neatly be separated.

Cole's greatest failing, however, is that he simply ignores that actual data. He fails to present any statistical evidence of election fraud? He fails to account for the fact that nationwide polling showed A'jad receiving a level of support more or less in the order of the eventual result? Even intelligent and reasonably well informed people can fall victim to believing what they want to believe, rather than what the evidence suggests.

He knows more about this than you do.

I would not dispute that, but nothing in the particular posting you linked to indicates so. I suggest you go back to that article, and read some of the responses, especially those from people with 1st hand knowledge and those citing empirical evidence. These comments pretty much dispose of Cole's analysis.

NOTE: Nothing I have written should be taken to imply that I'm making any assertion that voting fraud did not take place. Rather my point is that in the absence of solid evidence of fraud, and in the light of previous polling we ought not to presume fraud.

more than 70 percent of Iranians also expressed support for providing full access to weapons inspectors and a guarantee that Iran will not develop or possess nuclear weapons, in return for outside aid and investment

That warms my heart. I really don't want Iran to get nuclear weapons (for purely selfish, self-preservation reasons. Don't respond to this saying, 'it is their right' because I don't care). Apparently most people voted for Ahmadinejad not because they agree with his policies, but because they consider him to be a stronger negotiator, and more capable of getting favorable concessions from the US, China, and Russia.

If these results do turn out to be accurate, Obama should call and congratulate Ahmadinejad. After all, there are things we can agree on: we want Iran to be a strong, capable, functioning member of international society, not one that tries to destroy it (of course, our views on how they should reach that goal are different, but we can work on that).

That's really insightful. It brings to mind the movie GATTACA when ethan hawke had to be extremely careful of where he left his dead skin cells, saliva, hair, etc. But this will be the case regardless of whether these tests are direct to consumer.

Imagine a home kit for paternity testing. Someone could get access to some of the british royals saliva or hair and blackmail them with proof that prince harry was diana's lover's son. I know it's blatantly obvious already, the guy is a spitting image of her red headed ex lover and looks nothing like charles but you'd be amazed how many people don't believe it.

In fact, why not high-throughput this stuff? How long before companies install sample collectors on the subway and start storing and cataloging millions of people's DNA? How long before the government decides to do it en masse? I mean they're already expanding their efforts here here and here.

Hopefully people wake up at some point and demand legislation which states that their biological information belongs to them and cannot be used without their express consent.

Except in some questionable cases where it appears the treasury pressured companies to make deals that might not have been in their interest. Or in other cases where it exercised non-controlling pressure to get things it wanted. In the first case, the CEO of Bank of America indicated that the board would be removed if he didn't approve a deal to merge with Merrill Lynch http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124045610029046349.html. In the second case, the White House forced out the CEO of GM by threatening to withhold funding http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/29/AR2009032900708.html. Admittedly a legal action, but the government is leveraging itself a little uncomfortably.

If it wasn't for the simulators and the Japanese men masturbating to them, things like this would never have happened.

Given this and especially this you might want to rethink that statement.

There are only two ways socialized health care can save money:

1) lower availability and quality of care

2) offer the same quality of care for less money through innovation and efficiencies delivered like magic by the Federal bureaucracy.

There are actually a few other options that can happen. Some of them are more likely to happen too.

Right now, the government takes a rolling account of medical costs in different areas, creates an average and a payable amount based on that. When they take control they can just lower the amounts and force nurses, doctors, to take less of the pie, cause hospitals to close down decreasing overhead, and redirect many of the medical research grants to cover expenses.

Alternatively, they could outlaw private insurance coverage and force people into the public system or pay out of pocket then mandate the maximum pay a doctor or nurse or staff can make then limit the maximum profits they can make if they participate in the public system. This right here is how they get around insufficient medicare payments currently. If they accept government medicare-medicaid payments, they have to fit their bill within a list prices they figured for procedure and the area your in. You then have to waive any overages if your bill is more without justification.

That is one reason why medical costs are so expensive. Hospitals, doctors, and everyone in between found out long ago that if the uninsured regular costs were as high as possible, the averages would go up. Most insurance companies also attempt to use this list of approved payments in order to negotiate their costs. I know a guy who broke his ankle recently. They need to install pins to fix it. His original hospital bill was over $15,000. When they found out there was no chance in hell of him ever paying it, they adjusted it to just under $3,000 if he agreed to making payments of a certain amount per month.

It's a racket, one that Obama's wife (and presumably Obama himself) knows all about. When he was a state senator, a hospital created a job position making a over a hundred grand a year in hopes to get Obama's support on some grant money for the hospital to treat the poor. When he became senator, her salary nearly tripled. After it came through, the hospital started rejecting the least profitable patients from it's emergency room care. Of course that job has since been eliminated now that she is the fashion first lady. Most first ladies strive to be more but I guess she didn't have to do much at the old job but stay married to Barrak and keep him happy enough to help the hospital out in free money.

BTW, this administration has a way at hiding the intent of what they are doing. Take the recent GM buyout for instance. They were claiming that everyone should buy a new fuel efficient car and evern pondered the idea of a government payment for the trade in of your older less efficient car. Then the recession hit, the lending crisis, and not to many people can afford a new car right now. So they blamed GM's and Chrysler's woes on building Big SUVs which people were buying instead of the more fuel efficient offering that they still sell today. Now they are going through bankruptcy, the government under Obama's control, purchased controlling interest, they are closing a lot of shops down and guess which ones were the first to be cut, the ones which make replacement parts for older cars and the less efficient newer ones. Now aftermarket vendors make replacement parts too, but less of them on the shelf with little financing availible for expanding operations means they will start costing more as they get rarer. All the sudden, Poof, it's cheaper to buy a new

"in agreement on Global Warming being caused by humans."

Ditto, and I also recognise that organisations like GreenPeace spew political hyperbole. However I do understand why people get upset when the rantings of ex-tabacoo "scientists" are widely published in the mass media as a credible source for climate science.

"we get told all day long that we are heathens if we don't believe the empirical scientific evidence. In fact if we don't tow the scientific line we must be dolts and shoved to the side as nutcases"

Yes but who is telling us this, scientists or opinion columnists? Same goes for the converse argument, we are told everyday that if we don't belive the opinions of fringe dwellers and indusrty shills who cherry-pick evidence and have been thouroughly debunked time and again then we are religious zealots worshiping at the altar of Al Gore.

As you most likely realise, there is plenty of healthy debate in climate science but it's not about the much maligned "consensus", as a general rule the mass media are not interested in the finer points because nutcases sell papers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121601892.html

Essentially Google gave AOL a lifeline so they (Google) could penetrate further into the online advertising market.

The firefighter case example is pretty interesting. One one hand, critics hold that Ms. Sotomayor should have been more sympathetic to the defendants' situation. On the other hand, the same critics promote a view of justice as blind and without regard for matters other than the law. Sometimes these criticisms happen in the same piece.

"The difference between newspapers and random hearsay is (in the best cases) a lot of effort in developing broad and balanced sources, fact checking, having an editorial process for some degree of fairness and accuracy (as much as that's suffered in the past decade) and generally putting out a "report" on a subject (that's why we call them reporters)." What newspaper(s) do you read? I think this description covers a few newspapers. It certainly doesn't have anything to do with the local papers where I lived for the past twenty years. I remember an example of bloggers doing the job you describe above when all mainstream media had failed to do so. Here is a link to a mainstream media report on the incident: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14148-2005Feb10.html I think the few newspapers that produce quality content can switch to on-line models that will allow them to make money. Since most produce nothing of value (they may regurgitate politicians nonsense or AP reports) they will not be able to extract revenue.

Every organizations has some form of corruption; the larger it gets, the worse it is.

And this is acceptable? From an organization that can change or ignore it's own charter at will without any serious repercussions like the effect of penalties of law?

Economic sanctions never work unless the goal is to destroy the general population.

I guess we will never know in this case will we? If they never work, then why were they used? Perhaps your suggestion of their futility relies more on the premise of them being defeated by other countries or actors then you realize.

The world did not have the belief that Saddam had WMDs. That may be a U.S. view. The rest of the world was listening to the experts. True, some states in Europe went along with the U.S. That had more to do with alliances and arm twisting than reality.

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Quit fucking repeating that damn lie. Russia said he had them but they were confined. Germany said the same damn thing and added that it didn't pose a large enough threat for war. France Vetoed the actions or threatened to veto it because it was the primary beneficent of oil contracts made against the sanctions, the EU and the rest of Europe, at least from a political stand believed he had WMDs but wans't sure to the extent. Hell, even the damn UNSCUM quarterly reports questioned if Iraq was honest in their unverified disposals and frequently reported evasion tactics and civilian reports of mobile weapons labs. And most of this was reported under the direction of Hans Blix who later contradicted his own works stating that Iraq had no WMDs. Find a new fucking line but this one is old and tired and has been proven fallacious so many times over it isn't funny anymore.

here has never been a case where economic sanctions worked.

There hasn't? This paper seems to totally disagree with you and even suggested that the threat of sanctions are even more effective then sanctions themselves. Perhaps you could show where our getting your info from?

News flash, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or WMDs. And that was the consensus from credible sources (outside the Bush administration).

Actually, Iraq had much to do with 9/11. Iraq didn't physically participate in it but you have to understand the culture in the middle east. Iraq refused to do what he was required to do under the armistice that ended the first gulf war and even taunted it with impunity. That made the US and allied nations look week which gave Al Qeada the balls to attack. When the number 2 Al Qeada operative was questioned after his capture, he stated that they never thought the response to 9/11 would be the way it was because they got the impression we were all talk from our dealing with Iraq. Now here is a news flash, this is the words of the guy who plotted 9/11 stating that our weak stance in Iraq gave them confidence to pull off 9/11 because they didn't fear serious retaliation.

Now Bush and Cheney put forth some arguments that high level Iraq operatives were in contact with High level operatives for al Qaeda, including Bin laden. I don't believe they ever said Iraq was behind 9/11, rather that they were helping bin laden which was true. There is even convincing evidence that Iraq was harboring some of Al Qeada's operatives which became apparent with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was present in Iraq before the 2003 invasion. Several other Al Qaeda officials received treatments from battlefield wounds and safe harbor in Iraq for injuries sustained in Afghanistan.

If your going to make a comment on the matter, at least underst

Actually, that's not what happened. The previous bill made it illegal for credit card companies to send payments to online gambling sites, so no, it didn't move offshore. The WTO actually ruled it was an illegal when we tried to ban the payments to offshore online gambling parlors, but to my knowledge, we just ignored them.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/5/21/734169/-A-Deeply-Unfair-Cast-of-Mind

Thu May 21, 2009 at 08:22:20 PM PDT

May 21, 2009

At Abu Ghraib, a few sadistic prison guards abused inmates in violation of American law, military regulation, and simple decency. For the harm they did to Iraqi prisoners and to America's cause, they deserved and received Army justice.

And it takes a deeply unfair cast of mind to equate the disgraces of Abu Ghraib with the lawful, skillful, and entirely honorable work of CIA personnel trained to deal with a few malevolent men.

Dick Cheney

• Garrett's diary :: ::

Setting the Conditions

August 31 to September 9, 2003

Major General Geoffrey Miller, commander of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, leads a survey team to plan intelligence, interrogation, and detention operations in Iraq.

September 5, 2003

A JPRA (SERE) training team arrives in Iraq. Their visit includes Abu Ghraib.

September 6, 2003

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld tours Abu Ghraib.

September 9, 2003

General Miller delivers his recommendations. Guantanamo Bay should be used as a baseline. Interrogation in Iraq should be consolidated in one place. MPs should work to set the conditions for interrogation.

Dedicate and train a detention guard force subordinate to the JIDC Commander that sets the conditions for the successful interrogation and exploitation of internees/detainees. This action is now in progress.

General Geoffrey Miller

I had conversations with MG Miller on a couple of occasions.... Specifically, I recall he discussed the implementation of dedicated MP support to MI.

Captain Carolyn Wood

They [MPs] would be the bad guys and MI would be the good guy to gather information.

Colonel Jerry Phillabaum

Training

October 1, 2003

The 372nd MP Company, a reserve unit, moves to Abu Ghraib. It gets two weeks on-the-job training. Nudity, sexual humiliation, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and sensory deprivation are all standard procedures when the 372nd arrives.

This is also the deadline date for centralizing and consolidating interrogation and detention at Abu Ghraib. Most other locations in Iraq are now intended as 72-hour holding sites.

October 3 or 4, 2003

3:00 or 4:00 p.m.

Military police transport a prisoner to the hard site.

One of them whispered in my ear, "today I am going to fuck you", and he said this in Arabic. Whoever was with me experienced the same thing. That's what the American soldiers did.... When they took me to the cell, the translator Abu Hamid came with an American soldier and his rank was sergeant (I believe). And he called told me "faggot" because I was wearing the woman's underwear, and my answer was "no". Then he told me "why are you wearing this underwear", then I told them "because you make me wear it."

Kasim Hilas (#151108)

October 5

Three Guantanamo Tiger Teams arri

May 21, 2009

At Abu Ghraib, a few sadistic prison guards abused inmates in violation of American law, military regulation, and simple decency. For the harm they did to Iraqi prisoners and to America's cause, they deserved and received Army justice.

And it takes a deeply unfair cast of mind to equate the disgraces of Abu Ghraib with the lawful, skillful, and entirely honorable work of CIA personnel trained to deal with a few malevolent men.
Dick Cheney

• Garrett's diary :: ::

Setting the Conditions
August 31 to September 9, 2003
Major General Geoffrey Miller, commander of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, leads a survey team to plan intelligence, interrogation, and detention operations in Iraq.

September 5, 2003
A JPRA (SERE) training team arrives in Iraq. Their visit includes Abu Ghraib.

September 6, 2003
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld tours Abu Ghraib.

September 9, 2003
General Miller delivers his recommendations. Guantanamo Bay should be used as a baseline. Interrogation in Iraq should be consolidated in one place. MPs should work to set the conditions for interrogation.

Dedicate and train a detention guard force subordinate to the JIDC Commander that sets the conditions for the successful interrogation and exploitation of internees/detainees. This action is now in progress.
General Geoffrey Miller

I had conversations with MG Miller on a couple of occasions.... Specifically, I recall he discussed the implementation of dedicated MP support to MI.
Captain Carolyn Wood

They [MPs] would be the bad guys and MI would be the good guy to gather information.
Colonel Jerry Phillabaum

Training

October 1, 2003
The 372nd MP Company, a reserve unit, moves to Abu Ghraib. It gets two weeks on-the-job training. Nudity, sexual humiliation, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and sensory deprivation are all standard procedures when the 372nd arrives.

This is also the deadline date for centralizing and consolidating interrogation and detention at Abu Ghraib. Most other locations in Iraq are now intended as 72-hour holding sites.

October 3 or 4, 2003
3:00 or 4:00 p.m.
Military police transport a prisoner to the hard site.

One of them whispered in my ear, "today I am going to fuck you", and he said this in Arabic. Whoever was with me experienced the same thing. That's what the American soldiers did.... When they took me to the cell, the translator Abu Hamid came with an American soldier and his rank was sergeant (I believe). And he called told me "faggot" because I was wearing the woman's underwear, and my answer was "no". Then he told me "why are you wearing this underwear", then I told them "because you make me wear it."
Kasim Hilas (#151108)

October 5
Three Guantanamo Tiger Teams arrive for duty at Abu Ghraib. Their task is to help set up and develop

You do realize that in the War on Terror it isn't necessary to charge people with crimes, don't you?

We're not at war anymore. We're now in 'Overseas Contingency Operations.'