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ok asshole, I'll bite.

These innocent folks would have liked to have a gun when their baseball bat toting murderers strolled
in (more proof that gun control wont stop sickos) ?

CNN

Or should they have said "please mister baseball murderer, take what you want and leave."

and dont give me this shit about it only being a US thing.

it is ALL OVER the WORLD

Though I couldn't find any breakouts purely for foreign-born, Sweden's foreign-born and first generation immigrant mix is 20 percent. The majority of immigrants appear to be from other Nordic countries, with large numbers of refugess from the former Yugoslavia and a sizeable Iranian/Iraqi population.

Canada currently has the second largest percentage of foreign-born at 18.4 percent. The majority of these are from Asia (56%) and Europe (20%). If the US figures are a guide (and they may not be), Asian and European immigrants tend to have higher educational achievement levels than Latin Americans, which are the majority immigrant group in the US, and would thus tend to depress international standing less than in the US.

Once again, I am not arguing for or against such immigration. Latin American immigration has provided many benefits for the US, but it does have a negative effect on educational achivement levels as a percentage of population.

But those civilians who died in the initial campaign... might it have been reasonable to think that that action, which resulted in Saddam's removal, could/should have resulted in fewer Iraqi's being killed or tortured for holding different religious beliefs or views on the government?

We don't blame "Iraqis" for Muqtada's actions. We blame Muqtada and those who do his dirty work.

Mace, etc. Why use a lethal weapon.

Because when your life is in danger, you don't play around with toys that are not 100% effective at stopping your opponent. Mace is just such a toy (does mace work on people doped-up on crack or meth? No, it does not).

How about tasers? Oh wait, those didn't stop Rodney King. Whoops, what now?

And why would you be enough of a fool to walk through this neighborhood? At night? With jewelry?

WHY SHOULDN'T YOU BE ABLE TO? Since when should you have to live in fear of people in a particular neighborhood? What the hell kind of society is that???

You're an idiot. The law protects your right to walk through such neighborhoods wearing as much jewelry as you can carry. Why should *you* have to go out of *your* way to avoid some neighborhood, just because it has a crime problem? THE CRIME PROBLEM IS NOT YOUR PROBLEM, IT IS THE PROBLEM OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD AND OF THE POLICE'S FAILURE TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM.

But in the meantime, you will require some means of self-defense.

I suggested banning pistols. A knife is a great idea. I never suggested banning them, because you can't massacare with one.

Wrong. (and this is from a Socialist website, no less! So I'm sure you'll love it)

I support knives used for what they should be, I just can't see a pistol a good weapon to be carrying around because of its mass murder potential.

Pistols as a means of mass-murder? That's entirely laughable. Shows what you know about guns... Keep talking, your ignorance will show you for who you really are.

You can kill maybe a dozen people with a pistol, assuming some of the bullets in your 8 or 10 round clip ricochet and kill more people than you intended. That's rather rare though.

Regardless, that's hardly mass-murder when compared to the power of WMD's. Or, for that matter, ruthlessly-dangerous totalitarian politicians, like Hitler (killed 6m Jews), George W. Bush (killed how many Americans by going to war, and how many foreigners have died because of him?), Stalin (killed 20m Soviets), and Chairman Mao (killed 35m Chinese intellectuals during the "Great Leap Forward").

A knife, mace, etc is good. I just cant see the pistol.

Why not? You said it's more-dangerous than a knife (this statement actually depends on your distance from the weapon holder. If you are within trapping range, i.e. you can grab the person, a knife is actually more dangerous, because a gun can only hurt you out of one end; a knife hurts you on 1 or 2 entire edges of the weapon).

When your life is in danger, are you going to play around and hope your annoyance-spray will save you? Or are you going to use your legally-justifiable right to use sufficient and at least equal force to prevent harm to yourself against your attacker in self-defense (and if they're coming at you with a knife, that's a deadly weapon, meaning you have the right to also use a deadly weapon, e.g. a handgun)?

A knife is certainly a deadly weapon, if you're close enough to the person. But if not, it's effectively worthless. I've studied martial arts for years -- believe me, I know my non-firearm weapons very well (and I know firearms well enough).

Given the choice between a 9mm or a .45 and a 6" knife to bring to a life-threatening fight, believe me, I'll happily bring a .45, every time (and my martial arts skills, should the area be too crowded for a gun or knife, or if my opponent is too close or if I get disarmed (if that happens, then I would want the knife - but my scenario asked me to choose between a gun and a knife...)).

It's people like you that prevent the common citizen from defending themselves when the police aren't around. Why you would make innocent people subject to the brutal force of the criminal element defies reason or logic -- then again, defying reason and logic is typical liberal thought (typical conservative thought too, but I digress).

Those figures seem a little low, especially if you consider the Bush family together. But even Bush himself is worth more than that since one deal got him some $13 million. But the Bush family is likely worth a whole lot more. Perhaps it's not as much as the Kerry's (estimated assets of $1 billion), but if you consider the Bush family ties to the Carlyle Group and the many other business relationships from which they benefitted, then their combined wealth would be much more comparable than a paltry $6mill.
And Cheney is definitely on the high end of that range that you stated, especially if you include his continued stock holdings and options in Halliburton.

Quote from news article:

Judge Hilton took a rather different view of the relationship between government secrecy and the rights of the defense in his last involvement in a politically explosive case, when he presided over the 1989 trial of Joseph Fernandez, the CIA station chief in Costa Rica. Fernandez was indicted for perjury in the Iran-Contra affair. He was charged with lying about the illegal arms shipments to the Nicaraguan contras organized by the Reagan administration.

In the run-up to that trial, the Bush administration, Judge Hilton and the attorneys for Fernandez engaged in an elaborate charade: the attorneys demanded classified materials to assist in their defense, the Bush administration refused to divulge it, and Judge Hilton eventually dismissed the case on the grounds that Fernandez would be deprived of his right to an effective defense without it.

The conflict was a prearranged sham--most of the "classified" information had already been made public in the press, such as the fact that Ilopango Air Force Base in El Salvador, the departure point for the illegal airdrops of weapons to the contras, was the location of a CIA station. Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, in his book on the case, observed that some of Hilton's declarations from the bench sounded "like those of a man working toward a predetermined objective."

While Judge Hilton's legal position has shifted dramatically, his rulings in the two cases are consistent politically--they have protected right-wing conspiracies against the democratic rights of the American people, the first spearheaded by Oliver North, the second by Kenneth Starr.

### ends ###

It is certainly most clear to me that they have little regard for democratic rights of the American people.

Mind you - no different to our government having scant regard for democratic rights of the British people.

Most our Members of Parliament are so vacuous of intelligence that they let Tony Blair do anything he wants. They do so believing him the best chance of them winning next election. The MP's that have intelligence to understand, drop their honourable principles for greedy self interest.

Check into what the vast majority of police organizations think of concealed weapons...

It really doesn't matter what police depts collectively think (nevermind that the "vast majority" of cops do not in fact oppose concealed-carry), the fact of the matter is that concealed-carry rights have decreased crime in virtually every case in the U.S.

If somebody feels the need to be able to defend themselves -- however paranoid that may seem to you -- it is not your place to tell him/her he cannot do so anymore than you have the right to take away his or her right to smoke weed or have gay sex or practice some religion, because until he has the gun pointed at you or he has not taken standard gun-safety precautions (like safetying the firearm when not in use), he is of no threat to you.

I suggest you go live in gunless Japan and let your children get slashed to death by some deranged psycho with a knife while the teachers stand unarmed and helpless to do anything.

It wasn't "accidental" at all. In fact, it was a calculated effort to test the affects of nuclear weapons on fully equipped soldiers.

Link Here

Australia and Britain intentionally tested nuclear weapons on their own soldiers.

+ nick

Maybe they had a SAM at that site, the same way they protected the G8 Summit in Genoa...

A 6.5-kilometer no-go zone has been established around Kananaskis Village and three anti-aircraft missile batteries set up, as a last line of defence should a plane evade the CF-18 fighters that are policing a 150-kilometer radius no-fly zone.

Yeah. Um.. Those responsible for the abuses aren't U.S. Troops.

They're independent, private contractors.

So, technically, The Solicitor General wasn't telling a lie. Welcome to politics, where your aversion and misunderstanding of doublespeak is something you'll have to check at the door, but only if you're a Citizen.

I'm going to ignore your accusations that the majority of the protestors hate American troops, because it's not getting us anywhere.

Oh, incidentally, check these out. These are new.

"Solidarity with Iraqi Resistance Against Occupation by all means necessary LEAVE IRAQ ALONE"

"Call for Mutiny of US FORCES in Iraq"

"Support the Iraqi Resistance Movement!"

"Solidarity with the Iraqi Resistance! Solidarity with Anti-Imperialism Everywhere!"

"Support the Iraqi resistance. Australian troops out of Iraq." (Apparently Oz has problems with traitors, too.)

Gee. I wonder where I could have ever gotten the idea that "protesters" advocate the killing of American troops.

Again: invading a country for regime change is NOT ALLOWED in international law.

Wow! That shows just how effective continuous FUD can be. I'd forgotten that and I wrote a piece on this very issue a couple of months ago.

Yes, this is an even greater reason for the mendacity. Just to add to your point, the same applies to Blair. In fact, he si being charged with with war crimes. It's had little attention in the British press however. I'm not aware of anyone proesecuting Bush though.

interesting link
link
link

2. Yes there were plently of excuses aired as to why we should invade Iraq. Apparently the Bush administration, the CIA and the Pentagon argued at great lengths over which excuse to use, and WMD was all they could agree on. The one thing worse than a big lie used to start a war is a collection of big lies used to start a war. I beleive the court at Nuremberg called this type of war the 'ultimate crime' that 'contained all other crimes'.

3. Bullshit. Iraq is a conquest. The war is on everybody who disagrees with the US's wars of conquest. As an antiwar demonstrator, I can personally testify that our local police see me as the enemy, and use the same sort of rough-handling tactics as the US occupying forces to 'keep us in line'.

4. You think you can take anything you don't agree with and slap an 'Al Qaeda' tag on it. That's pretty handy, but very flawed logic. In fact, there is now speculation that the beheading of Nick Berg was arranged and paid for by the US to shift the focus away from the US's war crimes. You have to admit, the US have been taking a beating recently. The timing was remarkable. And even if the above speculation turns out to be untrue, if the US invaded my country and treated my people the way the Iraqis are being treated, I'm sure I'd think about doing the same thing, and I certainly wouldn't be alone. But all this talk al Al Qaeda ignores the fact that it is official policy to systematically toture, rape and execute Iraqi civilians. That heartless bitch that's had her pictures splashed all over the news recently ( you know, the one with the stupid grin who points at the Iraqis in various homosexual poses ) claims ( as do her partners in crime ) that she was merely following orders . Some orders!

6. Resorting to taking quotes from other war criminals? Well done. But your quote is good advice for your fearless leader. Surely Baby Bush is one of the biggest dickheads to ever graze the US's pastures. Is he the best you could do. Really? That's pretty sad. The man doesn't have a fucking clue, and as your wise quote points out, he'd be much better off shutting his mouth and letting people wonder.

Personal experience?

I live in the USA; I cannot comment directly on the state of healthcare in Europe. Rumor has it that France generally has the best healthcare of any of the European countries, and the number of people who leave the UK to go to France for surgery seems to substantiate this rumor, but as I noted earlier, the French still wait roughly a month for attention, whereas I wait roughly a week. So I'm still better off here.

You asked a question that can be easily answered (like most questions, it seems) by Google. If it was an honest question, then I apologize for my intentionally-snide conclusion, but I typically don't get honest responses to my posts, I get responses typically along the lines of "capitalizm sux, communism rulez! Go stuff yourself Mr. Capitalist pig-dude! And give me all your sourcez!!" So then I post a few URLs and either the person asking for sources doesn't bother to read them, or they say "you're biased dude! Find bad articles from the World Socialist Web Site, then I'll believe you!" At that point, I might as well ignore the person.

So Pavlov strikes again -- I've been conditioned to respond to idiots, I suppose, and just figured you were yet-another one of them. Again, I apologize if you were asking an honest question, because most people don't... I do emphasize though that I found all my links via about 3 or 4 Google searches, total...

You're an idiot. You take a section of his post as though it's comical.

Rand was a bitch and not one I take seriously. Friedman, OTOH, has more economic clue in one of his dick-hairs than you have in your whole body.

Show me a successful command economy. Is there one? Prove it.

Here's a list you can research, some better than others:
USSR
Russia
China
North Korea
Vietnam
Argentina
Sweden
Denmark
Norway
Finland
India, 1948-1990
Cuba
Brazil
East Germany
Yugoslavia

Go look them up in the CIA World Factbook. Compare those still-existing nations to the United States or Canada or Switzerland. Pay particular attention to per-capita GDP.

Sweden is going to probably be your best pro-socialist argument.

But even there, they are trying market-oriented ideas that even America is afraid of, such as a school voucher system.

For almost every leftist, there is a corresponding ignorance of economics and even of fundamental recent world history. I know, because I used to be a leftist myself...

But look at the list I've presented above. Every one of those nations has a lower per-capita GDP than market-oriented countries. This is not a coincidence.

Milton Friedman wrote in "Free to Choose" that the starkest example of the problems of command economies could be seen by comparing West Germany and East Germany (the book was written in 1980, 9 years before the fall of the Berlin Wall). West Germany was a thriving market economy, where people were free to do generally as they please and sell what the please. East Germany was a wasteland with buildings which hadn't been rebuilt since their destruction in WWII.

Why else would the East Germans have been so happy to see the wall torn down? Why else would they be the ones tearing it down? If command economies work so well, why are people so unhappy in them?

Don't be an idiot. Go read works besides those on statist websites like Commondreams and the World Socialist Web Site.

The electoral system gives minorities a voice they wouldn't have under a popular vote.

Unfortunately, that's how some company directors run their companies (into the ground).

Not really. Not that I support the approach we are using in Guantanamo Bay precisely, but those people picked up arms against the United States and were captured fighting.

Unlike POWs, they weren't foreign army conscripts who were just sucked into a nation-to-nation conflict, either

preventing and prosecuting cybercrimes is now the FBI's No. 3 priority, behind anti-terrorism efforts and counterintelligence operations.
well, considering that anti-terrorism is what we developed homeland security for, they'll have to wait in line if thats going to be one of their primary goals.

"counterintelligence: The branch of an intelligence service charged with keeping sensitive information from an enemy, deceiving that enemy, preventing subversion and sabotage, and collecting political and military information."
Hmm....sounds like a job for CIA, NSA, SS, and several military agencies. They'll have to step in the back of the line there too. Maybe they meant to say "anti-treason" efforts.

Oh, and then there's prosecuting cybercrimes, which is what LAWYERS do. But speak of the devil, doesn't the DoJ have a...why YES they do! The CCIP, computer crime and intellectial property division of the DoJ. And we all know the FBI and DoJ are always holding hands....wait, wasn't the newly stated Director of FBI one of the DoJ? Why YES he was!

But if the FBI wants to prioritize its resources towards the CCIP, CIA, and Homeland Security, how are we going to keep up with the original FBI chores? Good question. (-thank you) (-your welcome) Unfortunately, bank robberies, serial killings, extortion, rackateering, theft, gangsterism, fighting communist expansion, fugitives, assassination attempts, watergate, hoffa's missing corpse, and the X-files will have to be postponed since the agency needs more money. On one hand, the FBI could try to defend joe schmo and joe tax evader, or they could defend the RIAA and MPAA who have pounds and pounds of money.

Some people don't agree with this and believe Dir. Mueller will run the agency a-fry:
They expect you to tinker with the machinery until you get it whirring along again. They want you to be the total executive who moves in, takes over and puts the place in order. In short, they expect you to do what a new CEO would do when taking over a major business operation that has fallen into disrepair: fix what's broken, shake up the table of organization, get rid of the deadwood, and start making big profits for the stockholders. But the FBI isn't a business. It's the investigative arm of the Justice Department. Its principal job is to go out and dig up the facts to back up whatever litigation DOJ is working on. Its field is interstate crime."

Seriously, I'm not trying to troll, but you could argue one way or the other and come out right: the FBI is doing exactly what it has been doing since its conception. Unfortunately, I think the diversity in crime has expanded past their "business model", and they'll eventually have to decide to split the agency apart -similar to why we should have split MS apart years ago.

How about throwing away $ 100 billion++ although there was no threat that Iraq had any WMD to use against the US? It got rid of Saddam, sure, but it could have been done a lot cheaper, and the rest of the money could've been used to create jobs and educate your dumb children (they're dumb because they're not getting the proper education). Alas, no, Bush isn't doing that. So don't be surprised when in a few years, all Americans are just fat and dumb, and all the jobs are going to India and China. A quick fix solution to that would be to bomb and colonize India, of course. Yay!

And why did Bush bomb Iraq anyway? It's not oil for USA, but oil-drilling-contract-work for Halliburton, yeah let the country hemmorage money and funnel some of it into my pocket, I'd like to be president of a country where I can get away with that too!

Silly me, this is slashdot. Last bastion of Leninist ideology

Let's face it. Bush's new plan is nothing more than militarization of space. Any space mission is to achieve this goal. Everything else is totally worthless. So, it should not come as a surprise that the US govt is ditching its Hubble Telescope, possibly the Station Station in the future, and maybe even the Mars missions (who cares about Mars when putting weapons in space is a higher priority?).

Here is an editorial on the recently announced space plan by Bush. Conservatives might want to stay away since its from a socialist web site but if you are open, check it out.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

I guess you've never traveled to Britain

There are different points of view, depending on political origin or interest. One is that Marinus van der Lubbe is the sole culprit, the other (or perhaps another) is that it was the Nazis (which I myself prefer).

See http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jul2001/reic-j05 .shtml for a review.

CC.

These guys didn't care about the deficit when in one year they gave the Pentagon $74 billion increase, $40 billion ($400 billion/10 years) to create a Medicare senior drug plan, or $12 billion in farm subsidies. Surely we can scrape together $1 billion this year to do some actual science... Incidentally, I happen to be a trickle-down believer, and any money we put towards NASA will only go to help provide jobs for scientists and engineers, something we really need to do to drive off what's left of the Dot-Bomb, and help rekindle the USA's technology drive.

Let's get those free speech loving Democrats such as Tipper Gore back in power again. They LOVE protecting our rights

I believe those issues are more politely called "Social Security privatization" and the "Southern strategy."

Apparently, the war in Afghanistan was largely due to the desire for an oil pipeline to gain access to the Caspian Sea resources, and had been planned as far back as 1992:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/nov2001/afgh-n20 .shtml

This is why the U.S was able to go to war in Afghanistan within weeks - detailed war plans had already been finalized - while it took well over a year to get ready for war in Iraq.

[...] the US didn't attack Afghanistan for any reason OTHER than the destruction of al-Qaeda.

Apparently, the war in Afghanistan was largely due to the desire for an oil pipeline to gain access to the Caspian Sea resources, and had been planned as far back as 1992:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/nov2001/afgh-n20 .shtml

The US could have taken it in 1991, they didn't.

Not committing a crime in the past doesn't absolve you from committing one now. You say that the oil will be sold at market value. Oil was a NATIONAL ASSET for the Iraqi people. It has been PRIVITISED, just like all other NATIONAL ASSETS. And all this is happening before the Iraqi people are being allowed to democratically elect a government to rubber-stamp the 'deals'. All Iraqi's assets that were not bombed are now on the chopping block, and available for a song to any foreign investors with a US security clearance. What utter bullshit! I'll tell you something: if anyone tries that in MY country, they've have some fucking terrorists to deal with, that's for sure.

But that doesn't mean that we just throw up our arms and let that kind of behavior run rampant

What kind of behaviour? He let UN weapons inspectors in. They found nothing. According to international law, the US has no business interfering in the internal affairs of another country. And don't try to bring the 'War on Terrorism' into it. Every intelligence expert I've seen quoted on TV and in the newspaper and on the net have stated that Saddam would be the least likely to have anything to do with Bin Laden and his gang. There is no terrorist link, and there are no weapons of mass destruction.

And yes I was against the Kosovo intervention. I saw a documentary about the revolution there and people were saying that UN ( US ) involvement did not help, and victory was claimed by the local oppressed people. One student was quoted as saying: "If we are ever in a similar situation again, I beg the US and others NOT to try to save us with their bombs. We will do it ourselves".

As for evidence that the US sold WOMD to Iraq, try google, or these:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52241-20 02Dec29?language=printer
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1213-02.ht m
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/apr2003/sanc-a21 .shtml

I know i am going to get modded flamebait here, but i dont care.

What a typical fundamentalist christian statement you have there. "The search for extra-terrestrial life is only a substitute for the search for meaning within one's self and with one's God."

Translation: Dont be searching for ET you sinners, cause if you do find proof of intelligent life out there, it shoots giant fucking holes in our dogma. Thats why the catholic church, ever an institution thats quick to condemn anything that crosses their ideology, burnt
Giordano Bruno at the stake for even suggesting the possibility of intelligent life that was not on earth.

As far as your assertions that ET would of already heard us and visited us if they existed, there are MANY possibilities that can include intelligent life not traveling here for any number of reasons. But that goes into the realm of speculation. Seti is about hard science, and the seti project is extremely cautious about making any sort of claim.

lol hehe That's funny. I'll give you that :)

Moving onto something serious... and an education lession for the right wingers:

The Second International DOES exist. In fact, it is the largest political body in the world (nothing else even comes close, although capitalist bodies based in USA as well as other capitalist bodies like the IMF and WTO are far more powerful).

The only one that was discredited and died off is the 3rd International (this is what USSR controlled). The First International didn't get off anywhere. And the Fourth International still exists.

In case you have no idea what these are, here is a quick summary:

First International (broke into two)->Marxism & Anarchism
Second International->Socialism
Third International (controlled by USSR) ->Communism
Fourth International->Trotskyism

I'm sure you already knew all this since you belonged to the 33rd Congregational Baptist Liberterrainainian ;)

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Strangely enough, there does not seem to be so many european posts about that subject, that is truly interesting.

For my fellow globalized-citizens from America, two things :

• Oh no, those fucking africans are going to invade Europe, because there will be no more control over immigration. Maybe you are not aware of it, but we have something called in here the European Union. And that means that England and France are virtually borderless for the transportation of people. This is not because you red it in the press that the train project will be the same. Why ? Because Morocco is not part of the European Union. It is only applying for a "special relationship". Thus, one can imagine that controls there will be tight, very tight. Spain has been sailing a tight ship so far.
• What happens if an islamist/terrorist is plantin a bomb out there ?Stop being so neurotic about that. People with dark skin don't have bombs in their suitcases. Only people with mad minds have bombs in their suitcases. Morocco suffered a terrorist attack ; Bali suffered a terrorist attack. Don't you have the slightest impression than terrorists are focusing on the shifting of Islam from the inside ? No ? Think about it. There will be no more risk for a bomb here than in every other place in the world.

Tough there have been some funny jokes (I loved the thread about grammar/spelling), people should speak more quietly about issues that they don't know anything about.

Regards,
Jdif

what, exactly, as counter evidence? ... A Reuter's report quoting ``Save the Children'', a left-wing NGO, and Joshua Micah Marshall, a democratic party blogger.

If you can't argue the facts, attack the messengers?

joblessness has dropped from 6.4% to 5.9% in just six months

Are you forgetting that back in March before the Iraq war, the U.S. unemployment rate was 5.8% ?

One point you don't seem to be taking into account, Neocon, is that the "unemployment rate" as reported by the BLS only represents the number of people who are activly looking for work, and disregards those who have given up and gone on food stamps or moved back in with parents to live off eBay or Google Answers. There are 3,000,000 fewer jobs in the U.S. now than there were in 2000. Most of those people are no longer represented in the unemployment rate, but if history is any guide, they will vote against Bush in numbers far above the turnout percentages of the population at large. This against a backdrop of 50% approval ratings for Bush, the lowest since 9/11.

I hope those two quarters of growth with unemployment higher than it was in March keep away your nightmares of terrible, terrible socialism, Neocon.

Bugger McMurdo, we've got our own bases mate!

Being an explorer. An inventive Aussie, he could slide the bird to one of the other gazillion Aussie bases on Antarctica for refuelling, a hit of cricket, a cold beer and a few laughs before heading home to the misses for Christmas. Or he could wait for the drop from the RAAF boys, but he'd have to put up with those dull Americans.

Or perhaps the social rejects that habitat McMurdo, could show some hospitality and give him oily rag. Aussie Jon, with his scandanavian surname, might then just have enough fly to Casey, where I'm sure he can refuel before heading home to a ticket tape parade.

No, fuck you very much.

If teachers REALLY a shit about students, they wouldn't go on strike for retirement benefits when the government trades them in for smaller class sizes (yes, unlike them, I actually read the bill).

I speak as a proud student (at the time) who ended any and all respect for teachers that day.

Whilst the offender might reoffend, (s)he's less likely to go out and butcher the neighbours children than your recently-released pedophile is to abuse them.

Where do you get this idea that sex offenders are likely to abuse random strangers, any more than a murderer is to murder random strangers? I've heard plenty of times that sex offenders are more likely than not to be known to the victim (eg, a quick google finds this and this. In fact, this quotes only 50 out of 100,000 sex offenders are "predatory paedophiles").

So on what basis do we believe that sex offenders are more likely to go after random strangers, compared with murderers? If we really want a list on this basis, perhaps it should only be those who commit crimes (whether it's rape or murder, or whatever else) against random strangers?

There are lots of things you won't see in mainstream American press. What I'm trying to get at is that if the United States wants to pretend it cares about things like Human Rights, they should consider following the spirit of the laws, not just the letter.

The Supreme Court did not appoint him. The Electoral College did, however, through the usual process of election.

And the Supreme Court - acting in violation of federal, state, and international law, as well as judicial rules of procedure - selected Florida's electors.

All the Supreme Court did was refuse to bother with a frivolous appeal filed with them. They in effect did nothing and let the real results of the election stand.

Your recall of events is hazy. If they'd done nothing, the recount would have continued.

The "real results" are that:

• slightly more more people in Florida cast ballots for Gore than for Bush
• if a large number of black voters had not been illegally disenfranchised, the margin would have been higher
• if ballots conforming to Florida law (and to internal consistency) had been used in Palm beach, the margin would have been higher still

What they never tell you is that we feed and house them better than if they weren't prisoners.

I call bullshit. Name any investigation that has determined that. I don't believe you can.

Also, I want to call to your attention the events of nearly two years ago. Not the WTC attack, but our illegal, immoral, and unlawful response to it.

Yeah, they were better off in out death camps. Sure. Maybe you would like to be set on fire with your hands tied, but I don't like that game.

Unfortunately, from past research, I know that the numbers on these things are damn tricky to get. However...

This marks out US budget deficit as 4% of GDP. According to this, there are only three countries in the EU with debts currently exceeding 3% of GDP. France, with 3.9% (though a BBC article puts this now at the same level as the US), Germany at 3.8% and Portugal at 3.3%. Remember, these are the only countries out of all the members of the EU with deficits over 3%.

Unfortunately I couldn't find a source for the overall EU deficit. As I say, such things are nearly impossible to find on good. But we can conclude that the EU's overall budget deficit is probably quite close to 3%, considering the majority of member states are at or below that. And even though Germany and France are big economies in the EU, Britain's not bad for size either, and thus she and the other 11 member states I haven't mentioned yet, probably contribute a greater amount than the France/Germany pair.

Of course, a lot of this is speculation, due to inadequate statistics, but effectively US debt is quite a bit higher; anywhere from 40% to 20% more, when compared to relative GDPs.

I'm not saying it's much different, just that taken the fact that the EU and US trade on equal footing, and the EU has an economy with less debt, then it's not necessarily given that a trade war would be in the US's favour.

Plus, this guy was mentioning hollywood people who actually obtained office as repbulicans. As opposed to your weak observation of some folks who simply vote democrat. So, his example has teeth, yours has, well, nothing.

I suggest that you fuck yourself.

Most links are to info on the y2k election, but I don't think that much has changed since then. If you RTFA, you will note far, far more names that the eight I thought of off the top of my head earlier today. And no, they don't "just vote". They give huge bucks and they lend their celebrity to the causes, which is something that business leaders mostly can't do. Hollywood is money *and* celebrity, and the latter is essentially a circumvention of campaign laws, as it is a significant "in-kind" contribution. Like it or not, people (sadly) care what Oprah thinks. Or Fat Rosie.

GF.

P.S. You'll note that I only linked to "conservative" mouthpieces like Salon, Opensecrets.org, and CNN, but you have to remember that I'm just a sheep who follows the orders of a drug-addled Rush Limbaugh. Sorry I can't meet your high standards.

We have more people in jail now than the USSR under Stalin.

Please. May we assume you have a source for that "insightful" fact? Instead of simply spouting off what you overheard at the last frat party, how about some actual numbers.

US Prison population, Dec 31 2002 - 2,033,331
Most of the increase in recent years has been due to violent offenses.

Stalin's era - Approx 4 million prisoners in the camps for political repression.

I'm not disagreeing that 2 million is a lot of people. But are they all there for "file swapping, pot smoking and wearing trenchcoats"? If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.

Only on /. is blatant ignorance modded as Insightful.

funny you should mention:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/aug2002/bosn-a21 _prn.shtml
http://www.glaa.org/archive/1994/namblaoutofbounds .shtml
http://www.cyberdyaryo.com/features/f2002_0731_05. htm

No big wars, only small ones, and everyone lives happily together. A real land of peace...

Good thing it's safe to live in Europe! Maybe if we don't speak up about terrorists, they'll leave us alone...

Look... there's this guy named Adolph and this company named IBM who made really accurate use of census data in the 40s. If people were to sign their ballots, I'll be the neocons would probably use it in exactly the same way. Except this time, the "undesirables" would be anyone who doesn't support the corruption that passes for free market capitalism in the US.

Yes. Has everyone forgotten 1999?

Some info on the widespread abuse and resulting public anti-nuclear sentiment in Japan.

Some more info on the Tokaimura incedent. There's an interesting bit about 2/3rds of the way down about how they needed to replace a core shroud (this is INSIDE the reactor) at one of the flagship plants. They just hired about 1,000 unskilled laborers, and each one worked inside the reactor for their legally allowable annual dose of 3 minutes. Note: I'm not a socialist - this was just one of the more informative Google hits.

Well, wrt "One would think that after 9/11 we would have a real definition of what a terrorist is and what they do.; I would agree. "we" *should* have a good idea of what a 'terrorist' is. But, according to this well reported reality in America 69% of Americans believe Iraq/Hussein was involved in the WTC Crashes.. Sheesh, if 300Million people can be that mis-informed, and support acts based on this misinformation, can we *really* blame one little Technology writer for not having his crap straight?

In truth, the world of ideas is populated by many who purposely seek to misinform. A group, knowledgable on a topic, (/.ers on LibreSoftware) is *very difficult* to fool, but step back for a momenet, the informed /.er is not the intended audience for this message, it (may) have been very purposely crafted MISINFORMATION meant for a more naive audience. Not 'us'.

keeping down blatently obvious memes is very difficult today, when there is no barrier to entry for spreading information (good, keeps 'repressed memes' a vector opportunity) how do you keep this kind of obvious BS down? Tough question, the public (as BushCo so readily proves) is WAY to easily influenced with propaganda... the best antedote (imho) is to spread the 'tolerance' meme: "If you dont tresspass my Human Rights, I support your pursuit of happiness" - of course, my definition of Human Rights is not the same as yours... ;)

in short, this author, and all further articles by him, should be shunned. He obviously has an 'agenda' against Libre Software, else, he wouldnt so brazenly and carelessly try and create a GNU==Terrorism meme.

He's takling about the United States of America

Futher, the idea that corporations are evil is more BS.

If it was true monopoly laws would be thrown out, corporate taxes would be nullified, companies would have the right to vote, environmental protections would go away and corporations would be protected from lawsuits by the public.

Futher, the idea that corporations are evil is more BS.