Slashdot Mirror
White House Obfuscates Email
markgo2k writes "Do you want to email the president? This John Markoff, New York Times story (reprinted here in the non-subscription Seattle PI) details how the White House no longer promises to read anything you send to president@whitehouse.gov. Instead, you must navigate a multi-page website AND confirm your submission via email. Oh, and they only want to talk about subjects that are of interest to them." The web-form system appears to be a bit overloaded at the moment.
He said he particularly disliked being forced to specify whether he was offering a "supporting comment" or a "differing opinion" to Bush.
So when those emails come in, I guess they go in either one of two mailboxes. "With us" or "Against Us".
The "Against Us" email automatically get forwarded to Ashcroft.
Mike
And now instead of being a little overloaded it will just be completely unavailable. :-)
Go Illini!!!
"When it comes to a Web site, it's a bit like a movie," Mr. Orr said. "Some will say it's a tour de force; some will say it fell flat."
This website must be "Cabin Boy."
I don't find it very encouraging that the government doesn't promise to read anything we have to say anymore. Isn't it their job to listen to what the public has to say to make informed decisions for the good of the country? What are we paying them for?
KappaStone
I can't imagine why anyone would think the president of the United States would bother to read unsolicited email.
Head over to the real whitehouse alternative, much more fun.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
The web-form system appears to be a bit overloaded at the moment.
*spooky music*
And then slashdot linked to it....
This is probably because emailing is 1000x easier than:
a) Mailing
b) Phoneing (being on hold for hours then talking to a nobody)
c) It gives you a warm happy feeling.
So why shouldn't they filter out their most popular form of communication given that most of it is crap anyway?
That, and my second point:
You shouldn't be emailing your most important concerns to the president - do your congressman, your senator, and your local government, they can probably help you more specifically.
Sig & Below
Yuck Fou
What do you want, a personal response from the Prez? Jeez, I think he's just a bit too busy for YOU.
It is really convenient to have the political opinions of your citizens stored in a database together with name, (e-mail-)address and the like!
No wonder I got so many replies!
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
I think I'll set up a similar digital "moat" to my email - sounds like a great way to keep out spam. My allowed topics of conversation would be jokes, interesting news stories, personal news, and of course sorority babes promoting their FREE webcams...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
given the grammatical skills of the semi-literate currently in the white house, i rather thought obfuscated emails were coming in the other direction...
Your elected representive is too busy to listen to your opinion right now. Please leave $10,000 after the tone......*BEEP*
...it's not like we had any reason to believe they were actually reading any of that e-mail anyway.
At least they're being honest about it now.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
It's a pain to use that thing, too... wife actually broke out the pen to mail the president about the redesignation of overtime for professional occupations. She heard back from our congressman within a week but hasn't heard squat back from G.W.
Considering G.W. runs a press conference once every six months, before an invasion, or after he beats up on some third world country, you expect better treatment?
Security through obfuscation, just like the ports.
Bah.
This space for rent.
"Oh, and they only want to talk about subjects that are of interest to them"
Well, I can remember phoning the White House during the Clinton Administration. Before getting to an actual person I was presented with a survey of some sort. I can't remember what it was about, but I do remember thinking that I preferred NONE of the possible choices for each survey question.
My point is that it appears every administration does this. It's not simply the current one.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I can appriciate the need for them to implement a "confirmation" action (Did you send this?), to stop spoofing, spamming, etc. However, the "pre-email questionaire" seems a little extreme. I suppose the goal is to ask "are you an insightful commentator or a raving lunatic?", but it takes a "are you a patriot or a terrorist?" tone about it.
Of course, it's now harder to complain to them about it, as well.
they won't talk about anything they don't want to, why should the listen to anything they don't want to either.
//comments are for suckers
//coders read code
We're ruled, "By the People, For the People"... Just without the People.
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
Putting stuff like this into the "Your rights" category dilutes issues that actually have to do with rights...
Rights are things like free speech, bearing arms, and freedom from false imprisonment.
Having to use a web form instead of an e-mail address is NOT a violation of your rights.
This is not a big deal. In fact this was a good thing. Before, they had some poor secretary who had to sit there getting a vague idea of what the emails were about. Let's face it, they almost NEVER made it's way up to the top anyway.
Now with the new system they can have some DBA write script to pump out statistics on what kind of feedback/problems/etc most people are writing about. They can actually get a real number and say "we got 10,000 emails this week and 67% of them disagreed with such and such policy." Plus, they can weed out the junk mail. Can you imagine how much spam he must've gotten. Do you think the Pres was using SpamAssassin?
Cire
Looks like they have set the title tag to be
>
<title>Please go to https://sawho14.eop.gov/PERSdata/intro.htm</title
"Once the message is sent, the writer must wait for an automated response to the e-mail address listed, asking whether the addressee intended to send the message."
Maybe president@whitehouse.gov was just getting too much spam and they decided something needed to be done after GW lost too much money to that poor Nigerian widow.
I'm just waiting for the security level to get bumped a color because the Whitehouse[.gov] is under a coordinated attack by people from around the world!
Click the link! Change the Color!
Bush declared early on that he would not be "doing" email as President, mostly to avoid ANY messages that would or could be construed as incriminating to himself or others.
Chances are, he won't be reading what you send anyway. Frankly, I suspect the concept of "mail your representative/elected official" is largely a thing of the past. Lobbyist's and big politcal money have largely ended any sort of grassroots effect.
It actually looks like they're trying to see whether the people mailing them have an IQ higher than a lab rat.
A good idea, IMHO. Filters out the drunk, drugged, and pure loony.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I knew a girl who, about 5 years ago, worked in Bill Gates office as the person (one of the people? Not sure) who would look after his inbox. According to her, 5 years ago he was getting in the ballpark of 3000 emails/day. I would guess now with the increased internet population and the increased spam levels he'd be getting at least double that, but I bet president@whitehouse.gov gets even more.
Not commenting for or against the post, just though it's an interesting perspective & an interesting management problem.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
Instead of firing off that e-mail, why not click "print" and mail it using the regular postal service?
In Canada at least, sending a letter via regular post to any Member of Parliament, including the Prime Minister, is free. Your letter is also far more likely to be read.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
The president never really read e-mail anyway. It was just a lot of paid interns who went through it. But because the e-mail address is made public on a very popular site, I'm sure they got a lot of spam and such. In these times of economic concerns, do we really need to be paying people to go through George Bush's e-mail?
... you can't expect him to read messages from everyone either. Instead, if you want to make a difference in government, start with your local representatives and senators. They are there to specifically represent the people in your district/state. You can get a message to the president much more easily through them than if you try directly via e-mail. This is how representative democracy works.
I agree with "representing the people" and such, but going through George Bush is just a bit too unfair. He has to look over 300 million people
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
"...government of the people, by the people, for the people..."
What with the general assaults on personal freedoms, Abraham Lincoln and the other Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves. Democracy isn't dead, but it isn't exactly at its zenith right now, least of all in the USA.
Can anyone think of a time when the freedoms of the average American were more at threat from their own government?
Like I've said before, the ideal of America is beautiful, it's just the reality that's becoming fubar.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
This bogus story (does any of you "promise to read" anything emailed to you?) reminds me of the following Clinton-era joke.
Q: If Bill Clinton is now president@whitehouse.gov, then where do I send email to Hillary?
A: root@whitehouse.gov.
I think most spammers are going to be very careful about spamming any .gov domains.
They don't promise to answer each and every letter, either. And the President certainly must get even more spam than we do, as widespread as that address is. What makes Slashdot or it's readers so special? God at the whining here.
"He doesn't promise to answer our emails! But we're Slashdot readers! We're Important, damnit!"
We're not any more important than anyone else.
And as far as the bitching about the "pro" and "complaint" mails, that's just to make it easier to sort them. Again, so what? I'm already reading comments on here about the complaints going directly to Ashcroft so *gasp!* all Slashdot readers will be shipped off to Cuba for daring to criticize the President!
Here's a tissue. Shut the fuck up, and step back into the real world.
It's a poorly designed process for mail, but it's not an X-Files conspiracy. Sometimes I think when you sign up for a Slashdot account now, you get your first aluminum foil hat free.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Any Paypal customer with a problem typically has an impossible time calling and talking to a real live person, and personal attention to electronic mail is virtually non-existent. According to Vince Sollitto (PayPal spokesman), Paypal intentionally makes the phone number very difficult to find in order to save costs. This is fine, except their Email "customer service" also leaves a lot to be desired. Many times you will get a canned response that doesn't address your initial Email message, if you get a reply at all. It doesn't do any good to complain anyway. When asked about customer complaints, Sollitto said the company reads them, but takes them with a grain of salt...
Just reminded me of the White House. Congress hardly responds to what the people want (file sharing, etc) why should the President be any different?
On a side note, for what it's worth, the daily press briefings contain more 'hard' news than I see in the average evening news broadcast. (On a politically snider note, it's also much easier to understand how bad off things are when you can actually read the daily obfuscations with your own eyes, and in most cases, watch them in streaming video sans interepretation by talking heads.)
Also, say what you will about Clinton, but he was the first president to really make an effort at utilizing the internet to diseminate information regarding the executive branch, though granted he was the first president of the 'internet era.' There are several cool innovations he made and several excellent articles over at Slate regarding the White House web (Article #1 and Article #2) historically.
Pretty amusing, when you consider that once, long, long ago, in an America far, far away, the President was an accessible private citizen.
Once, the President of the United States recieved visitors who just walked up to the White House. Once, the President used to walk out to Pennsylvania Avenue and hail a passing buggy for a ride.
My, how times change...
HenryJamesFeltus.com
talk to your LOCAL Representative.. not the president. and stop with the chicken little bullshit.
Do you think one person could respond to everything? Give the guy a break, he's not on slashdot the whole night and day waiting for something good. Try fighting yourself, and see if your comments change. Someone has to fight, can you do it?
If you find that person, you put them back on their medication.
Come on, it isn't impossible to set up intelligent filters for sorting emails. Set up filters that keep track of common words in messages. Show word frequency statistics to White House staff. Staff rates keywords, emails get sorted, web forms get generated that allow people to easily select the issues they're interested in and whether they're for, against, or somewhere in between.
I'm impressed with Howard Dean's web savviness. I'll vote for him partly because he promises to use web-related means to get back in touch with common people instead of big corporate contributors.
Many years ago, my mother wrote to a former President, protesting a policy. She got back an elegant card thanking her for her "support." The next day, that President addressed the nation from the Oval Office and said that 90% of the mail he was receiving was in support of the policy.
Maybe that button isn't such a bad idea.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Contacting the President should be a process simple enough that anyone in the USA, even those with limited technical, communication, and cognitive abilities could perform.
There's no excuse for a confusing system like this reaching the public, as the White House has someone "in-house", so to speak, who is a great benchmark for the lowest common denominator in those three areas. From the description, I believe there is no chance this procedure would have passed the "Dubya" test.
Step 1: contribute a 7-figure sum to his campaign fund.
That's pretty much it. And he's completely blatant about it. It worked for Microsoft (read: "get out of jail free") and it'll work for you. We have the best President money can buy.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
This government will read anything you have to say if you're
a) rich
b) white
c) male
d) Christian
e) You've donated $100,000 to the Republican party
So stop your whining.
Don't ask the Americans about Israel's nukes -- ask the French. They sold and built the reactor and processing plant for them.
The White House is /.'d. The irony is unbearable!
Analysis: opposed to Faith-Based Initiatives
Faith-Based Initiatives (four phrases)
opposition phrases (80%)
support phrases (20%)
reading level (10th grade)
geographical analysis (rural Iowa)
non-invective (no phrases found).
[
Obviously, he's not a fan of breast enlargement or viagra, but instead of creating a process to keep him from getting those offers, why doesn't he just support legislation which forces spammers to user correct return addresses and accurate subject lines? This simply puts him more out of touch with the problems of his constituents.
Folks, this story is from the NY Times. Better check out what snopes.com has to say about it.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
I recall back in middle school when one my friend's and his brother emailed president@whitehouse.gov with a threat letter (as a joke of course) and the next day FBI agents went to thier house, got their parents, came to school, and got all 3 of the kids. They sat them all down in a room at school talked to them for almost 2 hours. So at least we know SOMEONE is reading the email (:
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
... in favor of Bush enlarging his penis. That's gotta count as a refferendum or somthing.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Why don't we email the Vice President or First Lady? His email is still up on a direct link vice.president@whitehouse.gov, and her email is first.lady@whitehouse.gov.
C:\>
"Ok, Mr. President, here's the breakdown today:"
23% of emails on Iraq, 43% positive.
18% of emails on the tax cuts, 57% positive.
11% of emails on the economy, 32% positive.
6% of emails on the environment, 22% positive.
42% of emails on pleasing FLOTUS longer. Oh, and 34% of those were from Mrs. Bush herself. Should I schedule some time at Camp David, Sir?
Mod parent down? Disagreeing with you is not a concern of the moderation system.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
>"are you an insightful commentator or a raving >lunatic?",
When the folks in the White House think a holy war in the mideast will bring back Jesus, it's getting pretty hard to tell the crazies.
KnowatImean?
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
C:\>
You'd better damn well, with everyone setting up cantennas aimed at the john.
Yes, they're phallic because that's aerodynamic*.
*You should SEE my "Mr. Happy" cut through the air. It FLIES! =)
[SIG] It's like putting a moose in the blender -- a recipe for disaster!
But I would strongly suspect that current elected officials couldn't give a $*(@#*() about what individuals say. Local officials are too powerless for most people to communicate with, and state and national officials are only looking at statistics and polls, (ok and lobbiests) to worry about what Joe Schmoe is ranting about.
They're willing to waive the rest if you can find your way to e).
Of course a) certainly facilitates e).
Well, I had no hopes he might have listened to wat I had to say anyway.
president@whitehouse.com instead.
I always liked whitehouse.com better than whitehouse.gov...
Insufficient excuse. Despite having a tiny penis, I am a good neighbor, peaceful and kind.
Okay, maybe it's not *quite* as tiny as his. But, still.
how he can get rich quick while enlarging his penis and getting high legally.
http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe Better a smartass than a dumbass.
nah, that wouldn't be authentic :)
(but thanks for the hint)
Probably the best way to send a message to George W is to wait til Nov. 2004 and then go to your local voting booth and express your opinion...he's sure to get the message that way.
- Put up a nicer message. This page is typically only going to be seen for a few seconds, if at all, but when the destination is down, would you want your visitors to be looking at that?
- A link would have been nice, to accomodate those who have turned off javascript. Yeah, I know this doesn't apply to many, but it's not difficult to do. In addition, instead of making users refresh (thereby burdening this server), users can just keep clicking the link if the destination page doesn't load.
- PERSdata??? What the hell is up with that? First, use all lowercase. Second, don't give your directories scary names like that. It scares the children.
- I think we're beyond the 8.3 filename conventions now. mv intro.htm index.html
If this is my first impression of a site, you can be sure I won't be trusting it to deal with my personal information.I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
I would suspect that current pols don't give a $*()@*#)( about their e-mail or messages anyway. Local officials are too powerless for most people to communicate with. State and National pols are too busy talking to lobbyists and paying attention to the polls and statistics to worry about what Joe Schmoe is ranting about today.
talk to your LOCAL Representative.. not the president. and stop with the chicken little bullshit.
Mmm..... chicken littles. I prefer buffalo sauce on the side, if not applied directly to the spicy little nuggets. Politics are tasty with the right sauces........
Your expectations are unreasonable and unrealistic. What you suggest may have worked before SPAM and trolls, but there's an awful high noise:signal ratio in today's e-mail. And paying people to sort it all out would be yet another waste of our tax dollars.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I don't think the White House should be expected to read every email that comes in. Email is too easy. In fact, if you talk to people who work in political offices, they will tell you that it takes many (sometimes hundreds) emails to have the effect of a single letter.
If you've really got something to say, print it out, put it in an envelope addressed to the President, put a stamp on it and send it off. You won't change the world that way but it will have a much greater effect than an email. I know it pains some of you that you'd actually have to do such a thing.
How did you know my Indian name? I thought I had mangaged to obfuscate everything.
This posted on a site where the majority of readers believe the lowest common denominator should be able to recompile their computer's kernel.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Contacting the President should be a process simple enough that anyone in the USA, even those with limited technical, communication, and cognitive abilities could perform.
There's no excuse for a confusing system like this reaching the public, as the White House has someone "in-house", so to speak, who is a great benchmark for the lowest common denominator in those three areas. From the description, I believe there is no chance this procedure would have passed the "Dubya" test.
Why do you believe that? Do you really believe that Saturday Night Live parodies are reality?
I never thought much of Clinton's wisdom, morality, choices, etc. but I never deluded myself into thinking he lacked cognitive ability. Nobody gets to positions like that without it.
How much can we all complain about spam and junk mail, but put a negative spin on the government weeding out junk from its own inbox? Considering that this actually allows a staff to continue reading mail, as opposed to wasting more tax dollars on going through spam and mail bombs, I think this is a pretty sane idea.
You can get a message to the president much more easily through them than if you try directly via e-mail. This is how representative democracy works.
If you are truly interested in contacting your congressman/woman or sentor, the best way is through fax. I called my senator's regional office, and the intern said that most faxes are actually read by the senators because someone took the effort to fax directly. Try http://www.senate.gov/ or http://www.house.gov/, and find a fax number if you really want to say something. But I have a feeling this is too much effort in our representative McDonalds/Wal-Mart/MTV democracy.
The IRS is a great agency for exacting revenge on people idiotic enough to declare themselves your enemy.
;-)
(OK, it's not really worse than internment, but it is slightly more likely
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Fav quote: "When it comes to a Web site, it's a bit like a movie," Orr said. "Some will say it's a tour de force, some will say it fell flat."
OK, so it was probably a secretary they have specifically for this type of item, but...
When my Dad graduated Law School, my mom suggested I e-mail Pres. Clinton and explain how he was a big inspiration to my dad etc etc and ask if he would write my dad a congratulatory letter. (My family must be the last Liberals left in the mid-west...) Apparently my mom had heard of this being done for friends of hers. Well, I didn't think so much of the idea, but I fired off the e-mail to president@whitehouse.gov, and forgot about it. Like 2 months later, my dad got a letter from Clinton that actually mentioned specifics (the name of his school and home town, stuff like that) from the e-mail I sent. He's got it framed in his office to the annoyance of his more conservitive partners.
OK, so cynics can tear this appart (it was "good news", probably a easily changed form letter, machine made sig that Clinton never touched, etc) but SOMEONE read the e-mail, and responded. This new system is just a way to make it harder for people to express their opinions to the pres. Interesting that they implemented this at a time when more and more people have something negitive to say...
BoB
It starts with when we go to the polls. Just stop voting for Democrats or Republicans. Both parties have created an entrenched power structure that needs to be replaced. Vote for third-party candidates, especially Greens and Libertarians. If enough of them trickle into the State legislatures and Congress, things will start to change. I'm increasingly appalled at how inaccessible our leaders are - we can't even tour the White House as individuals anymore - something that I believe is unprecedented. I'm sure the few groups that are permitted to visit are screened rigorously - why can't individuals be screened and brought around in groups as they form up at the Visitors Center?
When a government doesn't have time to listen to the people it's supposed to govern, you know that it's grown too large.
I think it's a tad ironic that a complaint about the conservative, Republican Bush administration's white house ends up being a rallying cry against Big Government. These guys are supposed to be all about small government! (Could it be that it's all just a rhetorical smoke screen used by conservatives to prevent discussion of real issues?)
Or have we forgotten the lesson we learned from being a colony of Britain?
I think we should pay a little more attention to the large corps and other big money interests that are running the country rather than hearkening back to the revolutionary war. Even if that runs counter to the "unrestricted, unregulated captialism is the answer / government is evil" sentiments so popular among pseudo-Libertarian slashdotters.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
Who is number one?
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
....send a message to the Whitehouse Web dev team, and let them know what you think.
"The Web Team does not answer or forward e-mail, but all messages pertaining to the technical operation and usability of the White House web site are read."
Why would you do this? Because given the overwhelming number of e-mails that come in, you can't process it and get it into a database with any "meta"-info attached. This way you let your users organize it for you, would be how the IT people sold the change. Then you really do have a better sense of the layout of all the mail you're getting, and you really do know more about what people think.
Not to say that this isn't incompetence on the part of the Bush folks. Anyone with a clue about PR would know the multi-page form that starts with stuff like "Do you Agree or Disagree with our beloved Kim Jong Il?" or "Are you a donor?" would be a mistake. Even if the Web guys told them they needed to use a revised front end to sort stuff, they should've realized how that form would read. In particular, they really needed to maintain the perception that every note got read -- to blow that off in any way just looks awful. The IT people had the same blindspot for that one -- ever decide to call an 800-line instead of using a tech support form you weren't sure would ever get responded to?
So this speaks to the blinders of both IT people and the Bush regime, sure -- but it probably was an honest try to address the volume of mail that comes in. I worked at the Ford Presidential Library for a while, and they've still got boxes and boxes, and shelves and shelves, of letters people sent abot pardoning Nixon -- categorized as pro and con, and that's about it.
(What they need is the text grinders to do the sorting automagically -- but wait, wouldn't that cost serious tax dollars?)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
The President of the United States does not have the time or interest to read every single email that comes into the Inbox. Every Federal Government Official and even some State and Local Officials have staff that handles those types of communications. I mean look at some the posts on /.'s comments. If these seem weird to you imagine what the President receives on a daily basis. Probably enough Spam and crackpot email to circle the earth 10 times over. Personally I think the email should be filtered and scanned for threats vs. legitimate gripes. I am sure the FBI and CIA have full access to what comes in on those email submission forms.
For your information, the Microsoft investigation and trial took place ENTIRELY during the Clinton administration.
As if you would ever expect _anyone to even read your mail (like a lottery). I mean, there probably _are people reading the emails that people send, but it's probably so heavily filtered by several levels of people _and electronic filters, not to mention the usual "we can't be bothered reading half of today's emails, truncate". I bet the president reads about 10 emails a year after all the filter process, if it's anything important I'm sure he'd find about it another way.
--
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
> Now with the new system they can have some DBA
> write script to pump out statistics on what kind
> of feedback/problems/etc most people are writing
> about.
I think somethink like that is commonly called a poll.
There's nothing wrong with a poll - but why disguise it
as an e-mail exchange?
...I'm not sure Bush can read at all anyway.
I never send anything to president@whitehouse.gov, but I do use that email address when any software or websites require me to enter an email to download or register something. I wonder what the amount of porn sent to that email address is? Pity the poor bastard who has to sort through that shit.
Spread the RC luvin'
Why should you be able to email the President? You can't call him, you can't pop round for a cup of tea and a chat, why should he have to read email from complete strangers on whatever pops into heir head. More importantly, why should I as a taxpayer have to fund the staff it takes to read all the email that he gets sent just so you get a cozy feeling about the democratic process?
You want to communicate with the President? Vote.
If spammers are forced to use correct return addresses, then you would be too.
Kenshiro70&hotmail,com is not a valid address.
"The web-form system appears to be a bit overloaded at the moment."
In other news today, OSDN joined North Korea and Iran in the Axis of Evil, as popular internet site^H^H^H^terrorist meeting group Slashdot.org launched a cyber-attack, temporarily disbaling the White House comments form.
"This senseless destruction of government property will not go unpunished. An open, communicative government is good. These "hack-ors" stopped this, therefore they are bad. Terrorists are also bad. Therefore, Slashdot is obviously a terrorist training camp and must be dealt with accordingly," said the Government Minister for Fear-Infliction earlier today.
Can't "Dubba ya", just run popfile like everyone else?
I can see his buckets now...
Republicans
Liberals
Kooks
Minions
Deaththreats
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
So it's a web page form instead of an email address. No big deal, and probably a great thing. I don't publish my own email address on my site. I have an easy-to-use email form instead. Granted, it's a single page and not needlessly complex like the White House's, but it's cut down on a lot of spam. Oh, yeah, the president@whitehouse.gov probably receives a butt-load of spam -- I know I got into the habit of using that address as my fake spam address back during the Clinton administration -- (1) I couldn't have been the only one and (2) based on the amount of spam I get at my secret, valid email address the poor presidential staff must get a hell of a lot more. Now my only problem is I haven't been able to use daschle@senate.gov as my spam address, since Tommy seems to have nothing but a web form, too. Too be fair, it's a lot simpler than the prez's form.
--Jim (me)
It really is just an obfuscated email address. He can now be reached at "marie.antoinette@ivorytower.com".
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
It is not stamped. Instead it is "Franked", or signed by the congressman (or stamped, really, with his signature). But it is not free... Congress pays the Postal Service for this, and it comes from each Member's budget.
Check out this C-span link.
And for the record, the economic downturn began in early-mid 2000, during Clinton's administration. I should know, I worked for Lucent at the time when their stock tanked.
All part of Bush's War on Criticism
I'm pretty sure that if you write your message in the 'memo' line on a us$100,000 check, they'll listen a bit better. The new US 'democracy': one dollar, one vote?
Or do you not remember the CDA ?
The public cotact numbers and addresses for the White House are readily available here.
~Idarubicin
The "Against Us" email automatically get forwarded to Ashcroft.
Why bother with the web-form at all?
In a couple years (if they all get their wishes) any email you send will end up in their hands anyway, so there'll be no real need to send mail directly to them.
The Bush administration chose to settle on very favorable terms with Microsoft.
sulli
RTFJ.
I suspect they get no spam at all. Few, if any, spammers would be so stupid as to NOT automatically delete *.gov, or even *@whitehouse.gov from their lists. That is, if their webcrawlers didn't simply avoid those web pages altogether.
This is pretty obvious based on how the government is handling the spam issue: They're sort of waffling on the issue, leaving anything that's the remotest bit effective to languish in favour of legislation that gets paid for by ambulance chasers. If everyone in the government got anywhere near as much spam as us little people did, then legislation would be pushed through in record time to televise the executions of spammers.
Think about that for one second. How do you think conservative congresscritters from the bible belt would react to getting getting a single unsolicited message advertising gay porn and farmyard sex?
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
So, I'm refraining from my usual punch out comment. Why? Basically: it's early, I'm slightly hungover, and I sit at my computer. ... and it's just like blah. As if whatever they do I'm not capable of understanding , as if I'm not alive, as if my actions are not worth anything ... hence patronizing, alienation, and humiliation.
It seems very frustrating lately at how unnecessary this administration is making people feel. In a way it's alienating, patronizing, and slightly humiliating.
I for one protested the Iraq War. On February 15th I was in a march in Seattle that was mimicked around the world with more than several million protesters. Just in the US there were hundreds of thousands.
Now I don't want to sound bitter, but to spend an afternoon trying to get the Presidents attention with 20 thousand other individuals walking the streets of Seattle, and to have him say, in effect: "I'm not listening to you because you are a special interest" is complete crap. All he did to make a case for that war was to state his "evidence" that didn't persuade anyone, then repeat this "evidence", until it seemed like common knowledge.
Back to this article. I feel this webpage, however effecient it might make mail handling, seems like its designed simply to pidgeonhole people and their opinions. I for one don't want my e-mails tagged as "not in support of the white house" after seeing the way Bush handles dissent; I bet I would get a "think straight, vote bush" button in the mail or some crap.
Personally, I think this system is designed to dehumanize people. The same thing this web interface requires is the same thing a script could do (I know because I can watch resumes being scanned/recieved and keywords being checked...). But they want to force people to deal with the interface? I don't want to mess around with some supposed "tour de force" of a website. I certainly don't want my letter to be reduced to "yay" or "nay". (maybe I'm just a grandstander, and want to be listened to) but the way this administration is run, it doesn't seem like anyone is getting heard... people's protests aren't even addressed
I'm amazed they even have a webmail form page.
The administration said at the very beginning of his term that the President would not be dealing with email. Spin it for the + or - as you will, but you will hear of no requests for the President's emails from any investigating agencies for anything... There isn't any.
I had a sucky sig.
Im my experience, snail mail is far more effective in getting your point heard and something done about it. I ALWAYS write a letter if I have a problem, and 90% of the time, the situation is adequatly dealt with.
I have never had any luck with email complaints, and only marginal success with phone complaints.
Just last night in fact, I heard back from AT&T wireless because I sent the CEO a letter about how his company was attempting to defraud me on my bill. Fixed, no problem. And a free month to boot. I had previously called 5 times and had been told that is was "impossible" to fix.
So use email for normal communications, but when you need something done, write a letter and fork over 37 cents for a stamp. The results are well worth the cost. I imagine that a letter to the president has a much higher chance of actually being read by someone than an email does, especially now.
T
The real address for the president is:
al.gore@whitehouse.gov
"A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
If the president really wanted to sort through countless messages from dim-witted lunatics, he'd just read slashdot. :-p
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
Apparently you could actually make some money (read "intern") for the previous president and still get in some "face time". :-}
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
If all you want is 5 seconds for a handshake and a picture, youre good to go if you can cath him in the office. You want to talk about issues, forget it, wont happen unless your a lobbyist.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Or are they RFC ignorant. It would be a tragedy if we had to join the terrorists by blacklisting whitehouse.gov.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
>>Kenshiro70&hotmail,com is not a valid address.
No shit sherlock. It's a slashdot special obfusication.
RTFM
In other news, an unnamed source in the Bush Administration revealed that the White House had recently outsourced a portion their new email system to a Nigerian company.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Why not email him at president@whitehouse.com?
0xfeedface
I always e-mail the president at president@whitehouse.com ... I never seem to get a response. But I sure do get a lot of spam these days... about naked ladies. I just don't get it.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
my response
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Funny that the president would refuse to hear the grievances of the people.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Obligatory South Park:
Japaneese men have small penis. Americans have huge penis.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
Great idea! Just [ab]use Carnivore by sending seditious messages in your email, knowing that they'll then be read by the government... particularly if you use the words 'kill' and '[insert government figure here]'.
Oh, and if this gets modded 'insightful', I'm scared. ;)
-T
Let us not forget who wrote this article. Are we to belive John Marcoff? After watching Feedom Downtime I find that highly inpossible. Lie after lie.
peace be with you.
Jimmy: "I just want to tell Mr. President that he's my role model and I look up to him."
Teacher: "Well, then you support his policies Jimmy!"
Janey: "I wanted to tell Mr. President he's funny looking."
Teacher: "That's pointless. Everyone already knows that. In any case, you disagree with his policies!"
Muffin: "Uh... I dunno if I agree with his policy or not..."
Teacher: "Well, in that case, don't even bother writing him anything."
I regularly e-mail my representatives from the county board up to the Senate and House. I frequently get responses, especially from those who disagree with what I am writing about. If fewer people agreed with your viewpoint, the political value in messages from constituents would increase.
They needed to revamp how they handled e-mail after this little incident.
As the quality of the president decreases the amount of money it costs to get face time with him increases.
Please register to vote.
Please vote
I don't care who you vote for, but I'd like the next presidential election decided through the normal system and not by the Judicial system. Thank you.
I don't find it very encouraging that the government doesn't promise to read anything we have to say anymore. Isn't it their job to listen to what the public has to say to make informed decisions for the good of the country?
Of course they should. There's no question the leaders of a country several hundred million strong should take the time to personally review every emailed opinion, petition, threat, newsletter and spamvertisement that arrives in the president's emailbox daily. It's their moral obligation, and it's specifically written into the Constitution that they ought to do so.
Of course, such a process would mean that either (a) our tax dollars would need to provide a few million dollars a year just to employ people to read and sort those emails before they reach the president himself, or (b) said president and his staff would never get anything else done. This being the case, it's far better that (c) a few web-based forms be employed to sort the emails first and reduce the amount of automail (petitions, repeat submissions, and spam) that can get through.
The government never promised to read anything you had to say. They do it because it helps them understand their constituents' wants and needs, but they never promised it. And now that technology becomes so widespread that email actually slows that process down instead of speeding it up, there's good reason to add a layer of complexity and shift some of the burden of communication back on the citizens.
Way back when, the Roman Republic was overthrown, and became an Empire, with an Emperor. The average person did not know for about a century after that occurrence that the Republic was dead, and they were now in fact subjects of an Empire.
Likewise in the USA. The two-party system is a shame. The USA is no longer a republic, or a democracy for that matter, but more like an empire. It's professional wrestling; all is fake, phoney, and scripted. They're all in bed together, your vote does NOT count, your voice does NOT matter, it's all a sham.
Bread and circuses, people. Eat your friggin' Big Macs and watch the war on TV, and wave, wave that flag.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
This is partially what caused us to revolt against Britain and what formed this country, and it seems we are fast approaching this sad state once again.
Its time for a 2nd revolution people. No, its past time.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's going to suck when slashdot.org ends up on the US's "known terrorist" list for sending all this traffic to whitehouse.gov to take it down. Ownz0red!
I understand that the President can't answer zillions of questions all the time, but what if instead of sending emails, the preferred way of communicating with the country's leadership was through Slashdot-like discussion forums?
Only the highest moderated posts would be answered by the chief himself, and it would pointless to send in boilerplate mail because it would just get moderated down as redundant.
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
How many years have you been reading Slashdot? You must have noticed the rise of the Astroturfers and other robot trolls around here. If people go through all that trouble just to spoof a news site, what do you think they would do to someone who's been dropping bombs on them? I can only imagine the kinds of crap they get.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Will slashdot make it to the terrorist organization list?
Life ain't that simple, and "states rights" is largely a principle of convenience for parties that aren't in power at the federal level, if you look back at our history.
As far as the U.S. revolution goes, there's an element of truth to the comparison -- but I suggest you read something like "The First American" to get a sense of the complexity of the real confict there. There were political conflicts over the role of the Pennsylvania assembly that don't fall into your neat categories at all, not at all. (Had to do with the Royal charters given the Penn family.) And, of course, the whole idea of "taxation without representation" is exactly about the Americans not having a say in the national parliament.
Another response mentions civil rights, during which "States Rights" became a pro-segregation stance. That had roots in the Civil War. The wishful idea that the Civil War was about states trying to defend themselves against the odious power of the federal government has been established in the South for a while now. Hardly true. Under Buchanan, a much more sympathetic President, they objected to the other states' right to not cooperate with their runaway slave laws; how does that agree with the states rights position, again? National policy toward new states, and the resulting future balance of power at the federal level, was where the action was at. The reason the South took up the "states rights" banner -- the reason people buy this story even today -- was because they'd lost the battle at the federal level, not out of any great principle to do with local rule.
Again -- if the other guys are in power in the white house or both federal legislative bodies, you want to protect your ability to resist them locally. Has more to do with checks and balances than with any grand principle. Our current Republicans supposedly loved this "local rule" principle of yours, but now that they're a majority in both federal houses are they doing anything about it for states with Democratic governors?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
No - just REALLY liberal - as are most of the comments on this toppic.
Oh well...
Have you compiled your kernel today??
I'm sure you've read this already, but for those who haven't, there is an excellent history of the Israeli nuclear program available here:f arr.htm
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/
Considering all the "Find Weapons of Mass Destruction FAST!!!" spam the White House must get on a regular basis, this doesn't surprise me one bit.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Actually getting in touch with the leaders of any country is really getting difficult.
My last letter to Bill Clinton was also completely ignored, though followed closely by that Simpsons episode were he calls himself a "pretty bad president" and Lisa says "No I do not want to speak to Al Gore." Both of which are quite funny. This has alot to do with the executive branch of the government (all branches of every government) being unable to here everyones opinion regardless of current technology. The best answer I have seen to this is the blogs being used by menbers of the House and Senete here in the States and by two members of the House of Commons in England.
Of course all else held true politicians in S. Korea probably have fully avantar staffed political offices on a number of online worlds. If not they should, "Player: Excuse me could I meet with Mr. Sun. Secretary: It'll be about 15 minutes. He is in with a amazon warrior at the moment then has a 5:00 with a Mr. Zarac the Conquerer of Pleblaqz IIV, then a short informative speech by..." Damn if only that were the US. We could lobby them with online currency..
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
...but what the hell? I visited the www.whitehouse.org site and on the right hand side there's one interesting link to "Majorly Patriotic Thongs". Some of the text on those thongs seems pretty strange to me , 'europe is for h0m0s' , 'Jesus votes Republican' , 'Democrat lsut' , etc. Only in America...
they'll probably just put a check in the "supporters" comment and throw the text away. Then they can say the measure has overwhelming support.
By that logic, the US should arm all the Arab nations with nuclear weapons too and give billions of dollars in military hardware to them. Because they "deserve" them just as much as the Israelis do. The reason why Israel shouldn't have nuclear weapons is because they are sitting in the most religously charged spot on earth, and because it hurts US interests to allow such an imbalanced foreign policy. And because nuclear weapons are bad and inhumane and we want to stop their proliferation. I can't even imagine the consequences of what would happen if the crazies in Israel used the Bomb on all their pesky neighbors.
The IRS is a great agency for exacting revenge on people idiotic enough to declare themselves your enemy.
That's no joke. Just ask the Christic Institute. The Christic Institute is a government watchdog agency that has been a thorne in the side of Uncle Sam for a great many years.
I first hear about Christic during the Iran Contra "guns for drugs" scandle in the mid 1980s. They were the ones who actually brought the suit against the government.
An apt description of the Christic Institute (as appearing in this article)"The institute has won several landmark civil lawsuits, including the "Greensboro massacre" case against members of the American Nazi Party and Ku Klux Klan who assassinated demonstrators in 1979, and the "Silkwood" case against the nuclear industry. The institute does not charge legal fees and depends entirely on contributions from churches, Jewish philanthropies, private foundations and individual supporters."
Another decent (and slightly more in-depth) history of the organization can be found here. The sad truth is that the IRS is likely to revoke their not for profit status making them liabel for back taxes for all of the years they have been in operation. Many feel that this is in direct retaliation to the Avrigan vs. Hull lawsuit. The government is alredy quite fond of issuing hefty fines to the institute for what it deems to be "frivolous lawsuits" (I'll let you judge that one for yourselves) as a means of intimidating them into not persuing their just causes. But if this IRS thing the IRS has in mind at the prompting of ultra conservative members of the house, it could mean the final curtain call for a heroic agency that has done much to keep america free.
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
He was simply talking about spam.
If they were forced to read EVERYTHING they probably got a lot of it from angry individuals and spam bots. I bet they weren't even legally allowed to try to block spam.
Now you have to spend a little more time thinking about what you're writing. The form stops some of the spam and thoughtless junk and the "we don't have to read everything" gives them access to a delete button so they don't have to read about how they can make their breasts bigger 100 times a day.
Can it be abused? Yes. Will it? Probably. So instead of using their web-form, type up your e-mail in a word processor, print it out and mail it. People who really want to be heard often do letter writting campaigns. I can just imagine how many people flooded the presidents e-mail address in an attempt to get noticed. Read it once you might forget. Read it a thousand times and you never will.
We constantly are looking for ways to reduce the amount of crap that comes in our own e-mailboxes. It's not surprising the US Government finally had enough of it.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Politicians are, like virtually anyone else, interested in advancing their own agendas and the agendas of their allies. They see their constituents in three groups...
- People who will support them no matter what.
- People who will oppose them no matter what.
- People who can be persuaded one way or the other.
Politicians will play enough to the first group to keep their "base" support strong. They'll completely ignore the second group, if they are not outright working against them.The key to effectively communicating with a politician is to appear to be in that third "swing" group.
Think about it. If you were the president and received two letters criticizing policies on "domestic spying" - the first called you a "fascist pig" - and the second acknowledged "you efforts to provide safety and security to the American people", then asked you to "reevaluate the balance between security and the civil liberty that we all cherish" - which would be more likely to make an impact?
And just another comment... Many of the "/." community talk about terrorism in their posts as if the threat is made up hysteria. I live in the NYC area. My wife watched the second plane impact and the collapse of the towers from her car on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Later that morning at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge she picked up refugees fleeing from lower Manhattan and ferried them out of the area. We know 4 fire fighters who gave their lives in the rescue effort.
It is not a hysterical witch hunt.
It actually looks like the Bush administration is (ironically enough) spam-savvy. I was sent the following piece of presidential spam a few months back.
(Received: from gop8.rnc.org (gop8.rnc.org [65.172.162.138]) by smtp.albany.edu (8.12.5/8.12.5) with SMTP id h4O8jRAG007365)
President George W. Bush
May 16, 2003
Dear C,
I am honored to be your President during this time of opportunity
and challenge for our country. Our country has faced many tests and accomplished a great deal.
But we still have so much to do to make our world more peaceful
and America more compassionate that I intend to seek a second
term as your President.
Today, I authorized the creation of a campaign committee to build
the grassroots team and collect the resources needed for victory.
Will you let me know if you will be a part of my campaign in New York?
And will you help get my campaign off to a strong start by
contributing $1,000 or $750 today at www.GeorgeWBush.com/Donate ?
The new Federal election law allows donations of up to $2,000 a
person or $4,000 a couple.
It will be months before Democrats settle on a candidate, but the
election could be close. The strength of our grassroots effort
will determine the outcome. I need the help of friends now. My
responsibilities as President will require me to focus primarily
on our nation's business for most of the next year. I'll depend
on friends and supporters like you to get my campaign organized
and operating across our country.
Abroad, we have a duty to protect America by working for peace,
opportunity and stability. We have no more urgent and important
duty than to wage and win the War on Terrorism. We must make use
of the moment history has given us to extend liberty to others
around the world, because in the long term, freedom and hope are
the best weapons against terror. And, we have a unique
opportunity to harness American ingenuity and compassion to save
tens of thousands of lives by defeating the scourge of AIDS.
At home, our most urgent mission is to strengthen our economy and
create jobs. To provide economic security and opportunity to
every American, we must improve health care, give senior citizens
long-promised prescription drug benefits, provide a quality
education for every child, and insist on safe neighborhoods and
schools.
My goal is to build an ownership society where American families
own their own homes, their own health coverage, their own
retirement accounts and, if they want, their own businesses.
And we are working to change the culture from one that too often
said, "if it feels good, do it," to a responsibility society
where people know they are accountable for what they do, for the
children they bring into the world, and for loving a neighbor
like they'd like to be loved themselves.
A great country strives for great objectives. The two big goals
at the center of my agenda are expanding peace and freedom
throughout the world, and helping our country become a more
compassionate and prosperous nation where everyone has an
opportunity to work and succeed and realize the promise of
America.
To achieve these goals, America must be united. I have worked to
bring dignity and honor to the White House and to change the tone
in Washington. I have asked Democrats and Republicans to join
with me in achieving great purposes.
One of the paintings I have selected for the Oval Office portrays
a man on horseback, leading a charge up a steep hill. His face is
full of purpose and determination, and it is clear he expects to
get the job done. The painting is called "A Charge to Keep,"
based on a Methodist hymn that's a favorite of mine, "A Charge to
Keep I Have."
I love the painting because it speaks to serving a cause that is
greater than yourself. The picture reminds me every day that my
most important job is to unite our country and provide leadership
to overcome America's toughest challenge
In the hierarchy of power things get escelated until they get handled. The congressman handled your wife's issue so it didn't need to go any higher.
You wouldn't have gotten a letter from Clinton either. It's not like the congressman brought the letter to Bush and Bush told him to write you back himself.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Clue in a non american here.
I know what democrats are, they are similar to our labour party (but much more right wing as is par for the course in the US).
Libertarians I struggled with for a while but eventually figured they are more or less out for personal choice and control.
Republicans are beholden to big business.
Liberals on the other hand is something I have only ever heard from the kind of people who not long ago would have been complaining about "commies" or about "niggers".
So.. my question is what is your definition of a liberal?
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
If you can write an e-mail you can print it up and snail mail it. People who are computer illiterate can still send snail mail.
The President doesn't have time to talk to millions of people. That's why we have a representative government.
"even those with limited technical, communication, and cognitive abilities could perform."
That's why we have lawyers called "Senators" and "Representatives." People who aren't able to communicate their desires effectivly go to people who can.
Little Johnny writes the senator stating he wants a pony. The senator takes the time to consider it and gets the town a petting zoo with a pony for the kids to ride. The president would be way too busy and just say "that's nice." But if he got a proposal for a petting zoo he'd actually have something to consider.
Not that the president would consider such localized issues but it conveys the general idea of the point.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
the site has an invalid SSL cert - could be anyone - certainly not someone who has all the might of the US security apparatus behind it (said of course rather tounge in cheek)
Well, I think they're more likely to just add all recieved addresses to their catalogue.
After e-mailing various republican lawmakers to express my own differing views on certain issues, I found myself subscribed to the Republican National Commitee mailing list.
Now I get lots of big, chunky GOP spam.
Anyone else seeing this when they attempt to go to the link in the article?
Website Certified by an Unknown Authority
Issued To
Common Name sawho14.eop.gov
Issued By
Common Name <Not Part Of Certificate>
Organization VeriSign Trust Network
Organizational Unit VeriSign, Inc.
Validity
Issued On 3/7/2003
Expires On 3/7/2004
Is it a completely realistic expectation that the white house is going to read and consider every single piece of mail it receives daily?
No, not really
Is this something that we want to know about?
No
Until there is a way to paper clip bribes, er I mean campaign contributions to e-mails, it's not like they are going to carry any weight anyway.
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Muslim countries like Persia and Southern Spain preserved the science and literature of the greek, roman, and egyptian civilizations while the holy roman empire was burning books and people.
Don't judge an entire region by the acts of a few zealots.
This web mail thing is not-uncommon. I absolutely hate it.
I once wrote to Joe Lieberman, my Senator, via e-mail. Now, while he did reply, eventually, as part of the reply I was told that in order to get better attention I should use the web form on his web site. When I tried that, the web site refused to accept my brower, IE only. I still get hot over that.
It seems to me that if you can now file your mortgage and other documents (see ESIGN, First Online Refi and probably others) that the President's office should be able to accept comments, and letters via regular e-mail.
Why is regular (read "real") e-mail important? If I am fired up enough to write the President, it is likely that I'll want to include my congressman, senator or the OP-Ed of a newspaper, along with a copy back to myself. Not possible with this "tool." Beside's, websites are vulnerable to the Slashdot effect. E-mail may not be perfect, but I don't have to sit and wait for the compose window to render.
Technically, I'm not sure if PGP or GPG meet any necessary standards, and the technique is far too obscure to casual e-mail users. I submit that all e-mail software should be delivered with a signing tool. That should go for web-mail too. I do not know of any that are. (Check that, Mozilla does, although I cannot see how to use it, yet.) Maybe that would be a start in the right direction.
True friends are hard to come by... I need more money. - Calvin
My understanding is that the Christic Institute was bankrupted several years ago by Judge King's "frivolous lawsuit" ruling.
. asp
There were also extra-judicial pressures: break-ins, car-bombings, and shootings.
I've compiled some notes about Christic, here:
http://www.karljones.com/history/america/christic
-kgj
You know, it's only a matter of time before Slashdot is categorized as a weapon of mass destruction. Linking like this is just asking for a liberation.
The Register has a nice blurb on this.
/. crowd that bogged their servers?
However, was it the Times as they state, or more likely the
DONT PANIC
Woo woo, a conspiracy nut who doesn't know what he's talking about.
Structural steel begins to soften significantly at 500 degrees celsius, and has lost 90% of its strength at 800 degrees celsius.
Estimates of the temperature inside the WTC range from 600 celsius to 800 degrees celsius.
Incidentally, the simplistic "beams melted" is not the probable cause of the structural failure discussed in the FEMA Building Failure Report and in the civil engineer community-- rather, softening of beams and floor joist clips, as well as nonuniform expansion of the structure from the heat, allowed the structure to buckle outwards, and once one floor fell, the floor beneath could never have taken that much of a dynamic load.
Read a summary written for the metals and civil engineering community.
So someone dares support their point with facts and they are modded down as flamebait???
This is the political climate of the day. Dare to make constructive criticism of the actions of the current presidency and they are labeled unpatriotic. Absolutely pathetic.
Any government that refuses to evaluate itself objectively or learn from its mistake deserves to fail.
Happy people make bad consumers.
Instead, you must navigate a multi-page website AND confirm your submission via email.
Kind of like subscribing to slashdot.
Seriously, you're making it sound like it's a bad thing. How much spam do you think president@whitehouse.gov gets? This isn't obfuscation, it's replacing a system with zero accountability with one with a bit more accountability. Considering it's the government doing this it borders on genius compared to solution I'd expect.
I think the term is relative.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Well I get spam all the time from the whitehouse (www.whitehouse.com). If they are sending me spam, I think it is great they are getting it in return. And strangely enough, Bush is one horny individual. I guess this is why he is a "passionate conservative".
But in all seriousness, I wonder how many people accidently send things to the president (www.whitehouse.gov) that are intended to go to the aptly placed porn server (www.whitehouse.com). Or for that matter, how many emails for GW are actually being received by the porn server (www.whitehouse.com). Does slashdot want to interview Dan Parisi about this?
I can't even imagine the consequences of what would happen if the crazies in Israel used the Bomb on all their pesky neighbors.
Huh? They already have enough conventional firepower to take over all their neighbors, if they so choose.
Although the proliferation of nuclear weapons is always bad, it's kinda redundant in Israel's case right now.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
The Other Whitehouse. It's easier, and you can guarantee someone in the government will read it. ;-)
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Ever think that the reason so many people in the Middle East dislike Israel might have something to do with the huge nuclear arsenal pointed at each and every one of their cities? Or the fact that the US has been selectively supporting Israel through direct aid and diplomacy for decades?
It's amazing to me that anyone can dismiss Israel's WMD as inconsequential or justified. The US is tacitly approving of Israel's development of those weapons, and yet we invade and topple the government of an Arab nation that was merely suspected of possessing nuclear technology. That just might have something to do with the hatred for Israel.
Like it or not, suicide bombing is what got the Palestinians whatever weak bargaining position they have today. They can't fight against a modern military supported by billions in US aid and armed with nuclear weapons, so they do the only thing they can do to preserve the very existance of their own rights and freedoms. Palestinians support suicide bombing because without it Israelis would totally and completely smash their hopes for a state. It's their only bargaining chip and one that they can't give up if they don't want to see all their homes bulldozed for "settlements".
The ultimate goal of the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security isn't security, it's power. But not political power; it's electrical power.
By placing an electomagnetic induction coil and a pickup coil on the graves of the founding fathers, the oil industry can generate enough power to eliminate the energy trade defecit.
Disclaimer: I'm not an american, I just like the joke
(sorry if you've heard the joke before)
So this is how they celebrate the ten year anniversary of president@whitehouse.gov and vice.president@whitehouse.gov?
He seems to like the look, but he can't hack the walk.
He even went AWOL from his Reserve unit, which he was placed in so he wouldn't have to face real combat.
No, I don't think he'd fight in this war, or any war. He seems to like to talk tough when surrounded by security. But he's had plenty of chances go active military and he's never done so.
*prepares a nice fruit salad for the troll*
"split the clouds and divide the sea and show those evil guys how nasty the Tiki gods can be."
They provide a mailing address and fax number, and everyone knows that they'll consider a letter more important than an email anyways. If you have something important to say, use a stamp.
Addlepated - punk & metal
There is plenty of good US national debt related information available at the Dept. of Treasury's web site. In particular the Bureau of Public Debt is a great starting point, with things like debt history from 1950-2000, which does indeed show that the national debt was never reduced during Clinton's presidency.
These numbers are an aggregate of public debt, and intragovernmental holdings. Apparently, the public debt was actually reduced during Clinton's presidency as shown in the recent statistics page here , but the intragovernmental holdings increased enough to still put the country in the red. So then you ask, what are intragovernmental holdings? Hey! They'll tell you that, too!
Intra Governmental Holdings
Debt Held By the Public
If that's hopeful paper pushing to make the Dems look good, or not, I don't know. Conclusions sure are easy to come by here, though.
Wow, that's some fancy logic!
Reasons why Israel should have WMD:
1. Maybe it's because Israel is the only democracy in the middle east.
2. Or because Israel has had WMD for more than 20 years now and never even thought about initiating an assault (unlike the US, mind you). In fact Israel doesn't even declare officially that it has these weapons, unlike many arab nations that declare how much they can't wait to use them on the Infindels (that's you!). The fact that these weapons are quasi-secret just goes to show that they're there for intimidation - in order to keep the arms balance between then Billion arabs surrounding Israel and it's 6 mil. population.
3. Maybe it's because Israel protects the interests of the US in the middle east, provides intelligence for example - the only worthwhile intelligence the US has about the middle east, IMO.
4. Maybe it's because Israel isn't run by "crazies" - at least not more than the US is run by a war mongering illiterate. Such claims are prejudice.
Get your facts straight. The fact of the matter is that Israel has the same right to bare nuclear arms as the US has. Israel hasn't started any of the wars it was engaged in. Israel hasn't sponsered any military coos in south america or east asia. Israel didn't give the Taliban billions of dollars and training to fight the soviets. Israel's foreign policy is much more peacefull than the US's. You might not agree with it's current internal security policy - with regards to the palestinians - but that's a very complicated issue and peace isn't going to come in two years just because Bush decided to draw a RoadMap-To-Peace. It's going to take seperation from the palestinians. It's going to take generations of healing and trust-building. It's going to take a sane palestinian government that would put an end to suicide-summer camps for 6 year olds and fanatic islamic religious text books in the schools. Palenstine needs to be built on a stonrg democratic foundation and not on Jihad. The area in Israel has no natural resources like Saudy Arabia or Kuwait and if a palenstinian state is to rise it has to have a free market, an educated working market that could support it financially. Otherwise, what's stopping it from becoming another Syria? Nothing.
The worst thing you can do is fulfill the stereotype of the ingnorant american cowboy by oversimplifying a painful and serious situation and thinking every problem can be solved by using power and money. Take the time to really study the issue and don't post your Israel-bashing opinions until you read at least a few books about 20 century middle easy history.
The power of Christ compiles you!
The government sends disapproval email to you!
"Trust in haste. Repent at leisure"
Yes, I agree with you on that. They certainly could take over all their neighbors without resorting to the nuclear option. I don't think Israel is going to be using nuclear weapons anytime soon, and I don't think the current Israeli government is too inclined towards expansionism beyond the West Bank. But it's a fact that many Israelis hate Arabs just as much as the Arabs hate them. That makes the situation dangerous IMHO.
The other thing that worries me about Israeli nuclear weapons is the element of religious involvment in the region's politics. Israel currently controls a lot of small, concentrated sites that have a lot of emotion and religious sentiment wrapped up in them (like the Dome of the Rock/Wailing Wall area). Incidents involving those sorts of places make people behave in irrational ways. It's scary to me to think that some fanatic on either side could go demolish either of those sites with a homemade bomb and touch off a nuclear war.
Moral: religious fanatics of any religion scare me, and nuclear-armed states that are strongly influenced by religion scare me even more. I'm not against Jews or Muslims or Christians or anybody else, but I'm against any of those groups having the power to use nuclear weapons against those with clashing views. I don't care if you're Syria or Israel or whoever - no one in the Middle East should be playing with that fire.
at least a few books about 20 century middle easy history.
:)
heh, i couldnt resist!
no need to read books if its so easy.
Mod me down for being stupid!
As for "evil", who do you think you are to judge? The United States is directly responsible for many dictators all over the world, brutalizing their people and plundering their economies. It has assassinated leaders it doesn't like, and toppled elected governments that was opposed to US influence. Who the hell do you think you are?
When slave states had the preponderance of federal power, they were mostly in favor of strong central government. It was only when they started losing that preponderance of power (1830's? 1840's?) that States Rights became so important to them. It was not a principled thing at all, merely expedient.
Dear Mr. President,
You, Sir, are a 'tard.
-Citizen
The thing that gets me is that I've never gotten a reply. I've written Clinton, Gore, Sen. Clinton when she was first lady and Pres. Bush. I've never gotten a reply from Bush. No, I did not send the above message to Bush. I wanted to but I'm betting his "darn good intelligence" wouldn't understand anyway.
-
So you believe Bush would fight in the military if he did not have a chance at re-election?
But then he went AWOL from his Reserve unit. And he was in the Reserves so he wouldn't go to war.
But you still believe that he'd fight in the military if he didn't have something better to do?
That same reasoning can be applied to any draft-dodger. They just value their own life and such more than they want to fight in the military.
Clinton was also the Commander in Chief.
Maybe he was also skipping out on military service so he'd be around to be President.
First off, I don't think I disagree with you on this issue as much as you think I do. I don't deny that Israel is easily the most democratic country in the Middle East or that they have long been aligned with US interests. I'm not really arguing that Israel is evil or has acted badly with regard to their foreign policy. I don't have a serious problem with the Israeli government other than the nuclear weapons issue, and I certainly don't have a problem with Jews. I just think that it's unnecessary and dangerous for Israel to have such inhumane weapons.
Of course Israel will be aligned with the US and provide us with intelligence assistance. They are on the receiving end of a huge amount of US aid. Countries that we give large amounts of aid to generally like us. My question is, why can't that policy be extended beyond Israel? Why can't we give equal amounts of aid and protection to everyone involved and thus foster more good will rather than just one-sided anger and jealousy?
I don't consider the US to be any better than Israel on any of these issues and I certainly don't support the US deployment of nuclear weapons throughout the world. My problem is not so much with Israel as it is with US policy towards Israel and its neighbors.
Not knowing you, I don't know whether I'm more or less informed about the history of the Middle East in the twentieth century than you, so I won't argue that with you. I wouldn't consider myself too uninformed to talk about it or form opinions about it. I'm not getting my information just from the media - I've personally known several people from Israel, both Israeli and Palestinian. I based most of what I said on conversations with those people and things I've read. If you want to correct my facts feel free - I'm open to changing my mind. My father visited the West Bank several years ago as part of an international medical aid organization and told me quite a bit about his first hand experiences. For the most part he saw incredible poverty and heavily armed, arrogant Israelis. He actually changed his opinion to become more anti-Israel after returning from there. Comments from Israeli soldiers like "Why are you helping that scum?" didn't help.
Telling China that their /8 blocks will be blocked at the US border if they don't make their spammers vanish. We (well, unless you are Chinese) as taxpayers don't care if the Chinese government has to spend a few thousand dollars on more bullets for executing spammers.
Why hasn't it been done? Maybe Clinton isn't the only President who's been getting illegal foriegn campaign contributions.
Tech Public Policy stuff
I guess we're just ignoring the thousands of Japanese Americans during WWII, right? That was a far more extensive violation of civil liberties based on pure racism.
Some have been released after months of psychological torture (and in some cases, physical torture)
Please post references, especially to those about physical torture.
and don't see how that could be a problem?
It is a problem and I think the Patriot Act should go away. What I disagree with is the claim that we no longer have civil rights and that average Americans are at risk. Is the Patriot Act a bad thing? Yes. Am I worried that I'm going to be pulled over by a police, accused of being a terrorist, and thrown in jail forever? No, I'm not.
Last year, Bush said that the Patriot Act gives him the right to order any American citizen be arrested and jailed forever without charge.
Reference? Link? Did he say that, or is that your interpretation and spin on what he said?
Shortly afterwards, he said that his Constitutional role as Commander in Chief of the armed forces gives him the right to order any American citizen be executed whether on foreign or U.S. soil.
Reference? Link? Did he say that, or is that your interpretation and spin on what he said?
It is people like you who do nothing and even gloat about it that are causing the downfall of our country faster than Osama could have ever dreamed.
It is extremists that misrepresent the views of others that give liberals and Democrats a bad name. Please provide me with the links I asked for above, then we'll talk.
That's what he should have done....
Also, has anyone ever sent email to president@whitehouse.COM? I wonder if you get porn spam in reply....
Eat at Joe's.
To tell the truth, I saw the typo in the preview but it was too good to correct. :)
The power of Christ compiles you!
You're disputing the word "targeted", and that's a reasonable criticism. In the context of the article, however, it is not really relevant. The salient point is that the US knew there were plenty of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but chose to drop the bombs anyway. Knowledge plus choice I simplified as "targeted", but I respect your objection.
There is an international border between China and Taiwan.
Unfortunately, there isn't. China claims that Taiwan is Chinese territory, and therefore no international borders can exist. When a major earthquake hit Taiwan a couple of years ago, the Chinese Red Cross insisted (and was ignored) that international relief efforts and donations be routed through them. When the SARS epidemic reached Taiwan, China insisted that they can take care of Taiwan, which therefore doesn't need a seat at the WHO. Basically, if you have diplomatic relations with China, you cannot publicly consider Taiwan to be an independent country.
That's probably all they did with em anyway, they prolly had folders for the same list of issues you see in the drop down list and all the 'readers' did was read enough to mark em for or against. Really just a poll of people who feel strongly enough to write an email. If your subject was not on the list, then you prolly just got filed under Other with the Viagara ads and the Penis Enlarger Solicitations.
Eat at Joe's.
Hail to the ^new chief!
Eat at Joe's.
Amen Hendrix69!
Not to mention how unbelievably ludicrous it is when people bring up Israel's nukes in relation to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Like Israel would even CONSIDER using nukes on any of the people inhabiting its Rhode-Island sized country. The palestinians are much too close to the Israelis to ever worry about nuclear weapons.
------
"Will the highways on the Internet become more few?" --George W. Bush, in Jan. 2000
Your new mail system is all set up and ready, mister President. No, of course you won't be bothered any more by emails flagged as tainted with 'opposing viewpoint', they will instead be routed directly to Admiral Poindexter, and a bunch of three-letter agencies.
Would prolly send the mail to president@whitehouse.com anyways...
Eat at Joe's.
I would like to second Lexta2000's response to this. Links please! And not some ranting Chomsky fanboy's site either -- I would prefer NYT or WP (they both chronicle the government's every move, so finding these should be no problem), but will also accept CNN, The New Republic, National Review, the LA Times or some other such respectable mid-level source. Policy journals would also be acceptable, since they usually include the actual source of the quotes.
I was trying to go through this service to write to the president about the separation of church and state. It would have been a disagree, but the issue doesn't exist under this service. Does this mean that the administration has the right to just define a problem out of existance (or a bill of rights clause as the case may be). If the issue doesn't officially exist, I guess I can't complain though -- it's nice to know that the faith-based initiative that bush passed this morning was the only opinion possible on the subject.
**When craziness is bliss, 'tis folly to be sane**
Sounds like typical Republican/Conservative name calling. You can say the same thing two ways.... 1) Liberals what move government control, 2) Liberals believe that a progressive (active) government can make a better life for the general population... Generally the Liberal tag these days is applied in the number 1 way with a more negative connotation, vs a more positive way of thinking.
Just like saying Conservatives what to force religion in to everyone's lives and to screw the individual in favor of the business elite fatcats
Have you heard about the UN's recent efforts to outlaw ALL personal ownership of small arms and light weapons WORLDWIDE? Lock and load, because here come the Black Helicopters...
"U.N. seeking global gun control? Conference moving toward plan that would regulate U.S. arms"
cpeterso
The first requirement is that you must obtain an Officer Communication Number, or OCN. This is accomplished by filing form 88249-OCN with the Official Communication Request Service (OCRS) office of the Department of Justice. Include a check for $493.77 with your request. This request is then "processed" as follows: It arrives at the mail room of the Department of Justice, where all items destined for the OCRS are placed in a special pile. When 10,000 items have accumulated, they are taken on a cart to another office in another building on the other side of the state, where one person is responsible for sorting them by the last name of the officer to whom you are writing. When 10,000 items addressed to a single individual have accumulated, they are delivered to another building 1,000 miles away. There, a single individual is responsible for scanning each item separately in a special machine that tests the envelope for traces of germ warfare or something. After each item has been scanned, it is delivered to another office, where the name of the sender is copied from the return address on the envelope. If a file exists for this person, the letter is filed in this file. If a file does not exist for this person, the person is mailed a letter, printed on blue paper and with an orange signature, telling them that they must file form 88250-OCN, along with a check for $184.38, at the nearest County Controller's office. This form cannot even be obtained without showing the blue paper with the orange signature. For your convenience, this letter is sometimes printed on white paper, if they're out of blue paper on that particular day, and just signed with any color ink. You're not told this until you go to the County Controller's office, of course, so you must at that point try to call the OCRS and request a copy on blue paper. Of course, all the lines are always busy because all calls are directed to an answering service where one person answers the phone, and is not allowed to answer more than one call in an hour or six calls in any given three day period. You're not told this on the phone. Instead, you're simply told that your business is important to us and please wait on the line for just a minute until the next customer service representative is available. If by chance, you manage to get a hold of someone, you can ask for the paper, and they'll tell you to mail a form 827741-OCN-D, to request this paper, which you must do at your nearest state capital. The state capital will request to see the paper you have, which is the wrong color, and they'll take the form 827741-OCN-D and process it for you using whichever method they happen to use. The time taken to do this varies. Oh yeah, and your letter, which could not be filed for lack of a file, has been placed in a pile of letters that could not be filed for lack of a file. When the OCRS receives your form 827741-OCN-D, they'll send someone to sift through the letters to see if there really is a letter from you in there. If there is, it is taken from the pile and sent back to the Department of Justice mailroom to restart the process. You may or may not receive the correct color form this time. When you finally do, you will be able to file form 88250-OCN, Request for a File Folder. This request is routed through the same Department of Justice mailroom to a different OCRS office, where a file folder has your name placed on it. This is then mailed to the OCRS office where your letter is waiting in a pile of letters. Someone is sent to find the letter, which is sent back to the Department of Justice mailroom, where the process starts over, only you have a file this time. When the letter arrives at the appropriate OCRS office, it is placed in the file. At this point, someone at the OCRS office goes through the file folders in alphabetical order, up to 80 folders in a day, and checks if there is a letter pending. If there is, a letter is m
So then the good ol' U. S. of A. should be scaring you something fierce.
Hopelessly pedantic since 1963.
You have a strange lapse in your argument. My assertion is that the US is responsible for many dictators. The fact that it has deposed some (or possibly more than it has installed, I don't really know or care) has no bearing to whether it was responsible for many.
It's like getting arrested for murdering 10 people, and saying you didn't kill anybody because you saved 12 people the other day.
The only ones that were toppled were foreign-controlled despots which typically won an election and then did away with the election process. Not democracies at all.
"In 1944, the people of Guatemala overthrew the right-wing dictator then in power, Jorge Ubico. Guatemala held its first true elections in history. They elected Dr. Juan Jose Arevalo Bermej to the presidency. A new constitution was drawn up, based on the U.S. Constitution. Arevalo was a socialist and an educator who built over 6,000 schools in Guatemala and made great progress in education and health care." In 1954 the CIA helped topple this government and replaced it with another right-wing dictator. Here's the source.
You need to start looking at real history
You want real history? I lived in the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos, who oppressed his people and received aid from the US. I also lived in Taiwan, where Chiang Kai-Shek oppressed his people (so much so that he lost most of China to the popular communist revolution) and received aid from the US. How much more real do you want it to get?
Let the facts judge.
Great. So tell Bush to stop judging others.
comparing Israel to the US isn't really making your case. Its like comparing Stalin to Hitler. While Stalin may be better than Hitler, they are both very bad.
----> 1. Maybe it's because Israel is the only democracy in the middle east.
what does being a democracy have anything to do with nuclear weapons ? last time I checked the US was a (so called) demoracy, and it is the one launching preemptive strikes, propping up corrupt dictators, etc.
----> 2. Or because Israel has had WMD for more than 20 years now and never even thought about initiating an assault (unlike the US, mind you).
Israel has initiated may assaults, just not nuclear (yet). the six day war comes to mind. not mention the continuing settlements.
----> 4. Maybe it's because Israel isn't run by "crazies" -
sure it is. Sharon is a nutcase, who doesn't want peace any more that Arafat does.
----> at least not more than the US is run by a war mongering illiterate.
you do know that bush is the president, right ?
----> The fact of the matter is that Israel has the same right to bare nuclear arms as the US has.
as does any other country which wants to defent itself for preemptive strikes from the likes of the US.
----> Israel's foreign policy is much more peacefull than the US's. You might not agree with it's current internal security policy - with regards to the palestinians
I don't think Israel's foreign policy is peaceful at all. Assaginations of leaders, bulldozing peoples homes, ignoring UN resolutions. And its not internal security policy, as the palestinians are not internal to israel.
----> The worst thing you can do is fulfill the stereotype of the ingnorant american cowboy
ah, but the sad thing is that the majority of the people here do fit the description. just look at the approval rating for bush. Most people here are very intelligent, but very ignorant of things outside their own little sphere. sad but true.
In the early nineties I worked for the Alaska State Legislature. That was in the early days of e-mail, so we didn't get e-mail messages very often. However, we did have something that sort of worked the same way.
Alaska's capitol is in Juneau, which is not accessible by road. During the legislative session, it is simply not possible for the average citizen to "pop in" to his or her legislators' offices (unless that citizen is a resident of Juneau, of course). So the legislature put up Legislative Information Offices (LIOs) all around the state. One thing people could do at these LIOs was compose and send Public Opinion Messages (POMs) using an LIO computer. These messages were then compiled and sent to the various offices.
One of the problems is that the senders could choose who they wanted their POMs to go to. They could send POMs to their own representatives, or to legislators working on a particular issue, or anyone else. So usually, they'd just send them to *every* legislator.
The problem is this: It quickly became apparent that, if we were going to read all the POMs people sent in, that's all we would ever have time to do. And this was in the second-least-populated state in the Union! We eventually settled on a system where we at least *read* all the POMs from our home district, and even managed to respond to a few. The ones that came in from LIOs outside our district? We didn't even read them. I feel guilty about it to this day--after all, these people had taken the time and energy to go down to their local LIO and compose a message -- but there just wasn't the time or manpower!
A couple of lessons:
1. Want to get a message to a legislator? I know a way that practically guarantees it will be read. Get a pen and piece of paper. Handwrite a short, polite and thoughtful note, using correct grammar and good handwriting. It's always a good idea to work a compliment in there somewhere.
2. I think I share with most /. readers a desire for small, limited government. However, I usually disagree with those who want to slash legislative staff (in all three senses of the word!). In our complex world, a legislator needs a good staff to be effective. In monetary terms it's just a drop in the bucket anyway, and it's money well spent.
3. Finally, let me clear up one misconception -- that legislators neglect their constituents to do ... well, something else. This is rarely true. Elected officials know where their bread is buttered. It's far more common for them to focus so much on trying to please their constituents that other matters get neglected.
You've clearly made my point. Liberal depends on how you spin it.
You also make the assumption that the increased government would be run by conservatives vs people who care about the people they work for (vs the businesses that they work for). Conservatives (and most of the main stream candiates) want Power, which is why the run for office. We really need to get in the people who want to serve.
Hi!
Actually, it would not be an "ethics" issue. It would be a violation of federal election law. Any federal employee (up to the president, because he lives on federal property) is barred from soliciting or accepting contributions on federal government property. (That's why both major political parties maintain offices near the Capitol, in commercial office buildings, where members of either house can make phone solicitations.)
One of the early flaps in the Clinton administration was just what was suggested: people who had emailed the White House were spammed with solicitations for contributions. The Federal Election Commission stepped in, and I think (don't remember) that everybody realized that this was new legal ground--but the practice was stopped.
I guess President Bush was sick of all criticism about his last bad decision.
--
Adobe's anti-counterfeiting softw
The web-form system appears to be a bit overloaded at the moment. ...
:D
You mean, like
Slashdotted ?
I think the drugs part came in because Congress decided not to support the Contras partially because of ties to cocaine production/producers. Cocaine producers supported the Contras against the communists because they stood to lose all their land and wealth under communist rule (which puts ownership of property and businesses [thus income] under state control). I don't know if that's enough to say the Christics supported Soviet imperialism - just that they, like Congress, viewed the Soviets as a lesser evil to the drug trade (a view the Reagan administration apparently disagreed with). I honestly know next to nothing about the Christics themselves, though, so I could be wrong.
Technically Guns for Drugs is wrong, since the CIA had been illegally giving weapons, money, and training to the Contras secretly and no drugs were being directly 'bought' with the monies, but it was subsidizing drug producers with the monies, so in a way it was supporting the drug trade.
A little background for the young 'uns - the Iran/Contra affair was something like US sells arms to Iran to improve relations, a slew of hostages were released by extremist groups (so it basically was viewed as arms for hostages), money from sales of arms was then diverted to support the Contras, which Congress had prohibited the support of, partially due to drug ties (among other things).
Here Here! I wish I had modpoints!
Mod this guy up.
Patent: from Latin patere, to be open
Nobody supported the contras against the communists because Nicaragua was not in fact run by communists. They were a moderate-left government, about as far left as, say, Sweden, or Lula's Workers' party in Brazil. They were also elected. Cocaine producers may well have supported the contras against the moderate-leftist elected government, yes. Meanwhile, the real reason that many perceive drugs to have been closely involved in Iran-Contra is that many believe that, since the contras were a creation of the United States and many saw the South American cocaine trade as closely entangled with the CIA at the time, it was the CIA's drug money that was being used to pay for the contras' guns (and salaries--most of them were mercenaries, after all) as a replacement for official government financing which was not forthcoming. The contras certainly were an essentially mercenary force supported solely by the American government. Whether the CIA was using drug trade profits to help finance them, or indeed how deeply the CIA was or is involved in the South American cocaine trade, I can't say; I have the vague recollection that I've seen good evidence, but it's all long enough ago that it's gone somewhat fuzzy, so I could be wrong. But this was certainly a widespread perception, and when perceptions that run counter to the government's interests become widespread there is often something behind them.
1. Maybe it's because Israel is the only democracy in the middle east.
Problem: Israel is a theocracy, not a democracy. The laws of that nation afford certain privileges to members of a specific religion, including things like citizenship rights. This is not a 'democratic republic' in the western style.
2. Or because Israel has had WMD for more than 20 years now and never even thought about initiating an assault (unlike the US, mind you).
How can you make this claim? Are you intimitely involved in the internal workings of the Israeli government, a most secretive organization? If not, what is your basis for making this claim?
3. Maybe it's because Israel protects the interests of the US in the middle east, provides intelligence for example - the only worthwhile intelligence the US has about the middle east, IMO.
In my personal opinion, Israel has become a liability for the US in the middle east, and is in fact one of the reasons why our public image is so bad there. We've blatantly supported one side in a fight spurred on by hatred on/from/for both sides.
4. Maybe it's because Israel isn't run by "crazies" - at least not more than the US is run by a war mongering illiterate. Such claims are prejudice.
If it wasn't "crazy" of Israel to sink a US military ship flying a US flag, what was it?
Israel hasn't started any of the wars it was engaged in.
If you define "starting a war" as most people would interpret it, he who fires the first shot, this is not true. Using that definition, Israel started the 1967 war. Egypt had massed troops on their border (intentionally provocative, yes. act of war? no.) so Israel responded with a preemptive strike.
You might not agree with it's current internal security policy - with regards to the palestinians - but that's a very complicated issue
Bullshit. There's nothing complicated about "if you are the immediate family member of a suicide bomber, we're going to bulldoze your house". There's nothing complicated about "we're going to build civilian settlements on the front lines of occupied territory".
It's going to take seperation from the palestinians. It's going to take generations of healing and trust-building.
Everyone knows that trust-building starts with wall-building, right?
The area in Israel has no natural resources like Saudy Arabia or Kuwait
What about water? Especially in a desert, isn't that also a natural resource?
The worst thing you can do is fulfill the stereotype of the ingnorant american cowboy by oversimplifying a painful and serious situation and thinking every problem can be solved by using power and money.
Isn't that exactly what Israel is trying to do?
The unfortunately obligatory disclaimer: I am anything but antisemetic. I am marrying a lovely New York Jew, under a chuppa. I am criticizing the actions of a national government, not a race or a religion. This disclaimer exists because all too often anyone who criticizes Israel faces accusations of bigotry, which is the precise antithesis of all that I believe in.
Except that Oswald didn't shoot JFK.
(1) The evidence says otherwise; and (2) Oswald himself said he was a patsy, and denied shooting Kennedy.
Furthermore, we now have good reason to believe that Oswald was with US military intelligence. (Of course, military intelligence operators do sometimes commit assassinations. But Oswals didn't.)
-kgj
I thought the exact same thing. I agree with the President on a handful of issues and I'll send him a supporting letter on one of those. I expect several requests for money from the RNC thereafter which I will promptly throw away smiling and knowing that I have fined the RNC bulk postage for their stupidity.
Your point's well taken, but I didn't say "mid-line", as in: "Neutral between liberal and conservative." I said "mid-level," as in: "Perhaps not the Washington Post, but not the Weekly World News either; i.e., a respectable news source not known for making things up."
I probably wasn't clear on that.
Also, may I quibble with one of your terms? Neither TNR or NR are *-wing, which I take to mean extremist. They are publications of the mainstream left and right, respectively. I would use the term "left wing" to describe Mother Jones or The Nation. Finding an example of a "right wing" U.S. magazine is a little more problematic, because, though I'm sure there are many, they are mostly little-known rags. I've heard Pat Buchanan's new magazine described as right-wing, but I haven't read it, so I wouldn't know.
(And please, don't anyone respond by listing off the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, or anything like that. Those are all solid mainstream conservative publications, and not right-wing [unless you consider all conservatives to be right wing, which is a whole 'nother matter altogether].)
If the issue were spam or forged email addresses, for a heck of a lot less money, they could have installed an email confirmation system that would ask email senders to confirm their submission. C'mon, Majordomo can do that out of the box (not that the Bush administration would have heard of it :-)
Forcing people to declare whether they support the president? Trying to control the topics they comment on? They might as well just say they won't take electronic feedback at all.
I would encourage /.'ers who would like to complain about this system to actually use it to "write a differing opinion" complaining about both being forced to delare whether you are any enemy of of the state AND being restricted as to the subjects on which you may voice an opinion.
Just go to White House Webmail and since their topic choices create no obvious category for complaining about their Webmail system, I would suggest using:
Subject: Foreign Policy / Human Rights.
That's about as close as you can get, which should tell you how interested they are in hearing feedback.
Complain early. Complain often.
--MarkGo
You mean "the president went into exile and the rebel movement declared Castillo as interim President. He claimed regularized status after a plebiscite in which only oral votes were counted, and a constituent assembly convoked to draft a new constitution fixed a term of office. With parties of the left banned and those of the right blocked, his National Democratic Movement Party won the election in December 1955." Source
Was that so bad? The US tried to help Taiwan defend itself against threatened mainland invasion. Would you have rather lived on the mainland at the time? Or would you have rather had the US topple Chiang and replace him with a better guy?
Why did you snip out the part about the Philippines? Who were you protecting the Filipinos from while supporting Marcos?
Anyway, you are using an entirely fallacious line of reasoning. In retrospect, Chiang was probably the lesser of evils. However, that's just like saying that the African Americans are better off today because their ancestors were kidnapped a hundred years ago.
Point is, it is pretty clear that the African slaves generally did not want to come to America. They could not have known that their great grandchildren might live better lives, and may not have cared anyway. With data available at the time the decision was made, Chiang is a ruthless dictator with plenty of blood on his hands, and the US chose to support him. You need to live with that decision, and not justify it to yourself with information (eventual democracy in Taiwan) that the US decisionmakers could not possibly have had.
With all due respect, what you father told you about his experience in Israel is not an objective or even a well-informed account of Israel-Palestinians relations. Remember that only the worst behaviors are the ones that get into the media or that people remember. I'm sure your father never told you about the vast majority of soldiers and reserve forces men that do the best they can to treat the palestinian population with diginity - while at the same time making sure nobody explodes on them. Whenever you hear about a palestinian ambulande being delayed at a road block just remember that the palestinian are those who had used such means (wiring ambulances with bombs) in the past. They have tried every conceivable sick and twisted method of terrorism, including using their children as human shield, so don't be suprised if the interaction with the Israeli forces isn't pleasent for everyone. Until you understand the incredible difficulty of dealing with a population that predominantely believes in "Shahidism" you cannot fully asses the situation. You cannot deal with a population whos teenagers are brain washed to believe that there are 72 virgins waiting for them in heaven if they kill Isralies with velvet gloves. And Arafat - the nobel piece prize winner - who started this latest intifada after the failure of the talks in egypt - is making sure the flames are high all the time. He's raging his people on in the media and glorifies martyrdom... you just have to open the arabs channels on TV and know a little arabic to get the facts straight. While the Israeli government is right-winged it has shown termendous restraint. You cannot possibly argue that it should not be allowed WMD. That's rediculous. It is a moral country just like the US and it will never use those weapons unless attacked first by WMD.
Why can't we give equal amounts of aid and protection to everyone involved...
You are. You've been giving an enourmos amount of money to Egypt, the Palestinians, heck even to the Iranian and the Iraqies at some points. Israel is the only country who occasionaly pays back the aid money. But in any case this money is used to buy US exports and is spent on a government that is alligned with the US - it's money well spent. Perhaps instead of funding revolutions all over the world and getting involved in almost any conflict in the 20th century the US needs to put money into educating the third world and modernizing it - not just giving everyone more money as "aid". No matter how much Aid egypt and Jordan and other countries have received they are still fragile dictatorships that might collapse on any given day if some religious cleriks decide so.
If anything, the US foreign policy needs to get more involved in the peace negotiations. Look at the current Hudna (ceasefire). The palestinians have broken it several times since it came into effect a few weeks ago by murdering Israeli civilians. But Israel hasn't retliated, not even once. The Israeli government is doing what it's predecessors have done in the past - it's giving peace a chance even at the cost of Israeli lives. But again and again the terrorism continues and there's only so much that government can afford to accept lying down. Soon the violence will erupt again as the next bus will explode and the IDF will occupy the palestinians cities again. The US needs to stand by Israel until a sane government is installed in the palestinian terrotories. It's already began with Abu-Mazen - but he's still very far form being in control over the various terrorist oragnizations inside the PO. With time that will happen and what everyone needs is patience. Comments about unfair treatment of the palestinians by the US are false. There's no humanitarian crisis in the territories. It's shit, that's true, but it's not WW2 and it's not Sumalia or south africa and it will only get better once the palestinian population decides that it won't support it's corrupt government and stops sending it's young men to suicide training. No more palestinias died in the last 20 years by the IDF than Iraqies or Aphganistanians dies by the hands of the US forces in the last two years. These are all fact - you are invited to check them out.
The power of Christ compiles you!
It turns out that the real reason for the White House no longer accepting email to president@whitehouse.gov is that Bush's aides began noticing some worrying things about their charge.
It seems he'd been spending quite a bit of time reading all his email and had been receiving a large number of packages delivered in plain brown wrapping.
Turns out that the Prez now has a 32-foot-long penis, breasts the size of Dolly Parton's, has lost 399lbs of weight without exercising or dieting and is now awaiting the delivery of TWENTY FIVE MILLION US DOLLARS in unclaimed bullion from a secret fund in Nigeria.
Not only that, but he's also talking about quitting the presidency because he's been told that you can make more money stuffing envelopes just a few hours a day from home.
Such claims are usually from anti-semites that hide their hatred of the jews as "criticism of the Israeli security policy" and that's why I usually don't even bother to reply. However, it seems that in this case the comment was made by an individial who is just uninformed.
The power of Christ compiles you!
How can you make the opposite claim?? Are you seriously suggesting that Israel considered using nuclear weapons on it's neighbor countries or on the palestinians? God... use your brain.
Saying Israel is a liability for the US is one step away from claiming that the 911 attacks where planned by the Mosad. Get real. Israle is an island of democracy in a fanatically islamic religious part of the world and if you can't see the benefit to the US by siding with Democracy then you're out of touch.
If it wasn't "crazy" of Israel to sink a US military ship flying a US flag, what was it?
This comment right here is what convinced me you're not here for the serious debate. Taking any particular incident and generilizing from it a foreign policy is childish sophism. I can name to you a hunder injustices - horrible ones - done by the US, by accident or on purpose, to other countries. So what? Does that mean that the US is run by crazies? (btw, I didn't bother to check you link and I'm not confirming anything it might say as I think it is totally irrelevant to the discussion).
Israel started the 1967 war
That's like saying the US started WW2 because it drew first blood against the germans. The US was dragged into the war by the japanese. Israel was under siege by the forces of the surrounding arab nations and that's what caused it to finally react. Read your history books. The day Israel was founded it was attacked by 4 arab countries. It doesn't get any simpler than that. They fucking started it. In 67, it was the only occasion where you could technically say that Israeli drew first blood - but that's a blatant distortion of the true. The fact of the matter is that Israel was under siege and had to attack.
Anyway, I think I'll stop here. Every point you make is completely and intentionaly false and you know it. "Nothing complicated about the Israeli PO conflict" ?? Either you're a complete moron or just flamebaiting. Either way I'm done reading or responding to your posts. Get well soon.
The power of Christ compiles you!
Quite so. In fact every country has the same right to bear nuclear arms that the USA has. Which makes me rather uncertain as to what sort of moral ground Bush thinks he is standing on when he demands that Iran and North Korea renounce nuclear weapons, while at the same time he is restarting US nuclear weapons development. Looks like a bit of a double standard to me.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Isreal is most asuredly run by "crazies" Such claims are no prejudice, such claims can be seen by looking at Israels long history of human rights violations and terrorism. The only reason that Israel isn't considered on the axis of evil is guilt, and the fact that they are already and established good-guy, so what ever they do is legitimate, and what ever the oppressed do fight back is terrorism. But don't claim me biased here, since I fully acknowledge that both sides are bad guys, I just think the side so announced holy (isreal) should get its share of the blaim, they are someplace where no one wants them, they are an occupying nations, forcing themselves on the indigenous population. They are invaders.
And to address your point, THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE WMD, no body SHOULD have WMD. They do, that is all, no RIGHT to have it. And why have it unless your willing to use it? Do you buy a microwave just to sit there, no you buy it to NUKE things.
I personally think, in a perfect world, that Israel should be disolved, just go away. After all they have absolutely no right to that land, historically they slaughtered the people of that territory (i.e. in the Bible), and they continue to do so today, and I find it a shame that some how they have become good guys because of it. At least good guys according to the one world superpower and the U.S. media, not according to the rest of the world.
Screw democracy, if the people of the middle east don't want democracy, then they don't need it. They never have been democratic, so why start now?I guess you can say that they democratically decided against democracy.
If Palestine wants to be another Syria, great. At least they'd have the balls to kick the Israelis out.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
So a 'white people's state' would be merely a state that protected white people? But who from?
The problem with this 'oh its just a special state for us' story is that in the process of making special laws for one group of people everyone else automatically gets pushed down.
The Israeli treatment of the Palestinians is very much like that of the native americans by the US. First land would be taken from the Indians using force. Then the inevitable violent response would be used to justify the original theft.
When special privileges start to include who can live where, who can buy what and who can get planning permission and who cannot they cease to be 'privileges' and start to be human rights that are systematically withheld from the arab population.
Of course the Iraeli Apartheid does not justify terrorism, but it goes a long way to explain it.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Well having worked on the original Whitehouse email system I seem to recall discussing this at length.
Some people did want to simply register approval or disapproval of some issue, which is completely OK. But in many cases people wanted to do something different, like bring to attention some problem that they did not feel was being addressed. Very often the emails would be questions about policy, in particular how a policy would be applied in a particular circumstance.
Sorting into 'for' and 'against' is absolutely the last thing the Clinton people wanted to do. You certainly don't want to force someone to make up their mind like that, they will probably go the opposite way to the one you want.
There seems to be a very different philosophy behind today's WH site and the Clinton site. In the Clinton era the whole site was about empowerment and giving people their information. The idea was that the press had become privilleged filters of the news and that the people had an equal the right to see press releases and all the other information given to the media. The current site is a product of standard corporate PR think, it is all about controlling the information flow - yuk!
If you want to know what happened to the people behind the original Whitehouse site look at the Dean campaign.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
isn't even listed! How can I comment on the pending legislation to define marriage as containing a 'man and woman' only? It wasn't a choice! I thought about choosing Pornography (which would reflect the administration's view), but give me a break! Is that just a sign showing that they shall allow no debate about gay marriage?
Just follow the day, and reach fo
Or perhaps they are from people who don't think of people as jew vs gentile, and just think madmen like Sharon (whose past and present actions are just as bad as any other two bit, murderous dictator) should be just as deserving of being subject to "regime change" and be "disarmed", like his Islamic counterparts. A killer, who justifies his violence with religous fanaticism, is still a blight to the world, whether he kills under "orders" of Allah or Yahweh.
If there weren't so many damn idiots in this world, I'd just be average.
Israel is no more a Theocracy than the US. The US is a democracy yet at some stage it had slavery, women couldn't vote and the idea of a female or non-white president is still a joke. Israel is the only jewish country in a sense that it protects the jewish people. If you don't think that the jews have a right to their own country then have the guts to make that claim.
I care what other nations do only on a philosophical level, since I don't live there, although I do hold the idea that a nation based on extending privileges to certain races and religions is inferior on a moral level.
Yes, the US had slavery at some point in its history. Guess what, we don't now. That we as a nation did wrong at some point in our past does not mean we cannot point out the current wrongs of another nation.
In order to do that Israel has to have laws that would prevent millions of, for example muslim, immigrants from entering it and wiping it's jewish character in one year.
Sounds like the same fear put forth in the US at any number of times to justify ill treatment of its minorities, be they black, irish, italian, mexican, etc.
How can you make the opposite claim?? Are you seriously suggesting that Israel considered using nuclear weapons on it's neighbor countries or on the palestinians? God... use your brain.
Lack of proof is not proof of lack. I'd say Israel, as much as the US or any other country, has had contingency plans upon contingency plans. More to the point, I was just pointing out the absurdity of the previous poster stating an absolute when they had utterly no reason for doing so except their own bias.
Saying Israel is a liability for the US is one step away from claiming that the 911 attacks where planned by the Mosad.
No it isn't. Not in the least. But keep spouting crap like that, it discredits you more thoroughly than I could with pages of refutation.
Get real. Israle is an island of democracy in a fanatically islamic religious part of the world and if you can't see the benefit to the US by siding with Democracy then you're out of touch.
A democracy does not tilt the scales of the law to ensure that one contingent of its population always remains in power. Not every country that holds elections is a true, western-style democracy. See South Africa.
This comment right here is what convinced me you're not here for the serious debate. Taking any particular incident and generilizing from it a foreign policy is childish sophism. I can name to you a hunder injustices - horrible ones - done by the US, by accident or on purpose, to other countries. So what? Does that mean that the US is run by crazies?
My suggestion was that perhaps Israel isn't as much of an ally as we think. I can't recall a recent example of any other ally of ours intentionally sinking one of our clearly identified military ships. Typically that's an act of war, not friendship. It certainly doesn't engender my trust. How did this order make it through the Israeli command and control structure without someone stopping it? Where are our assurances that this cannot happen again?
Ariel Sharon is, to my knowledge, the only convicted war criminal to ever be formally invited to the White House, at least after his conviction. Perhaps being a war criminal doesn't make you crazy, but it also doesn't make inclined to trust you.
(btw, I didn't bother to check you link and I'm not confirming anything it might say as I think it is totally irrelevant to the discussion).
Thanks for just coming out and stating that you're closed minded, it saves me a lot of work.
That's like saying the US started WW2 because it drew first blood against the germans. The US was dragged into the war by the japanese. Israel was under siege by the forces of the surrounding arab nations and that's what caused it to finally react.
Under siege? My dictionary defines a siege as:
Senator Exon may have run as a Democrat, but he is anything but liberal. He is a member of the Christian right.
From THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT AND INTERNET CENSORSHIP
by Jonathan WallaceNeed more evidence that Exon was not liberal? His votes were only in line with the ACLU only 17% of the time.
This is the prayer that Exon used to open the Senate debate on the CDA:
"Almighty God, Lord of all life, we praise You for the advancements in computerized communications that we enjoy in our time. Sadly, however, there are those who are littering this information superhighway with obscene, indecent, and destructive pornography. Virtual but virtueless reality is projected in the most twisted, sick misuse of sexuality. Violent people with sexual pathology are able to stalk and harass the innocent. Cyber solicitation of teenagers reveals the dark side of online victimization."
Now are you satisfied the Exon is a member of the Christian right?
Not necessarily a double standard. It all depends on your meta-ethical standpoint. If you're a moral universalist then you believe that there is a set of universal rules of ethics which apply to everyone, for example God's rules. A universalist might say that God is on his side - he is the rightous and therefore he can be allowed to have all the power. A universalist might also take your position, that there's a double standard invovled - it all depends on the choice of the moral authority.
Another approach is a relativist one. A relativist might say that the US has to abide by it's own rules but since there is no universal constitution it can do no wrong to other countries. Just an example. A relativist approach can also lead you to a totaly different conclusion, for example a relativist might say that since these countries are not democratic they are basically prisoners of their own government. Their governments don't represent them and so there's no problem enforcing all kinds of restrictions on them, until of course democarcy is instituted in those countries.
And then there's the nihilist approach. An approach whos earliest advocates date back to Pre-Socratic philosophy. Morality is not a universal rule - it's just a made up rule of people. The people decide what moral and what's not, not the gods or Nature, etc. This takes the sting out of morality. Morality, one might say is only a means to and end - the best way to keep a country stable and law abiding. An act is moral if it is in the interest of the country, even if it is war on another country.
Where I stand is somewhere in between I guess. I think democracy should be a prerequisite for any country to join the UN. I think that every dictatorship is a bad dictatorship (I don't believe in the idea of a benevolant dictator) and that the only immoral thing the US can do, with regards to north korea for example, is not get involved. The US must, for it's own sake and the sake of the democratic world, insure that north korea is taken out of the hands of it's psychotic leader and handed back to the people. Until that happens the only true sufferes are the north korean people and everyone else is a culprit. I believe in the idea of a covenant based democratic society as a pre-condition for morality - morality doesn't exist otherwise, for me at least.
The power of Christ compiles you!
It's far from apartheid. Humand rights aren't "systematically withheld" from anyone accept terrorists. First, you have to remember that the jews didn't enter Israel as occupiers and they didn't steal it from the arabs. It was under the British control and it was split by the UN into two countries for each nation. from 48 and on the arabs could not agree with the idea of the jews having their own country and so they launched several wars against Isreal and lost every one, until finally in 67 they even lost a bit of land (the west bank). Granted, it was probably a good idea to give the land back sometime after the war but occupying it is hardly immoral - the arabs shouldn't have attacked Israel repeatedly, Israel was the one defending itself. Anyway, the terrotories are in the process of being given back these days and everyone agrees it's only a matter of time.
The idea of a jewish democracy is not impossible. Of course judaism contradicts democracy in some cases, that's the bleeding obvious, but that doens't mean that the democractic nature of this country is non-existant. No democracy is a perfect one, and believe me Israel would love to be able to have "church" and state seperated from each other. It's vast majority of seculars are very much fed up with religious parties controlling many aspect of their lives (marriges, business in Saturday, even citizenship to some extent). But Israel just can't afford it. It has to have some laws that would keep it jewish by nature. The slippery slope argument doesn't hold water in this case. Everyone else gets pushed down, true, but only a little. You have to live in Israel or know it's legal system in order to understand I guess. Non-jews are not opressed in Israel by any authority, it's just harded for them to get citizenship for obvious reasons but once they have it they are totaly equal. The Israeli arabs suffer poor conditions in Israel only because of their historic affiliation with the enemy arab states and the palestinians. But even that doesn't apply to Beduwin and Druzic arabs which even serve in the Army. Every sector has representation in the Israely parliament and it is quite possible that within 20-30 years there would not be a jewish majority anymore and the country would lose it's character. That's considered a probable scenario, mind you, given the demographics. Let's just hope peace is brought to the area by that time.
Also, don't forget Israel is at war and in wars people get killed and injustices happen. This war is waged against Israel, not by Israel. More people died recently in Iraq then in this whole conflict over the last 20 years. So why is noone shouting about the human rights violations by the US? Every anti-Israeli argument about human rights violations, massacres and ethnic clensing is either a front for anti-semitism or just total ignorance of the situation. These views are advocated by arabs across the world and european countries that have arab interests (like france and germany) and are clearly biased and untrue.
The power of Christ compiles you!
Tired? It is very true. The donations result in political speech that many want censored.
Donations as speech and donations funding speech are two very different things. The anti-reform people claim that the size of the donation is a form of expression unto itself. In other words, they want the wealthy and large corporations to be able to speak with a bullhorn while the rest of us are, at best, speaking with a whisper.
The campaign finance "reformers" are using the means of stopping donations as a way to the end of stifling political speech.
The pro-reform people are trying to take us back to a time when large corporations and wealthy individuals did not buy legislation. People like you think that it's just fine that Microsoft made $4.7 million in campaign donations in 2000 in order to make the Department of Justice to stop the anti-trust prosecution. I don't. I don't think that it's okay for R.J. Reynolds to donate money so that Congressmen will oppose legislation regulating tobacco. I don't think that it's okay for Disney, the RIAA, and the MPAA to be able to buy legislation extending copyrights over and over.
I have read so many arguments in favor of "campaign finance reform" by limiting spending that begin with something about the reason we have to do this is to get rid of campaign ads.
No, you just don't want a level playing field. You think that candidates with the backing of huge corporations should be able to monopolize the airwaves while those who won't sell their souls to the corporate giants should be kept silent. You want rates for campaign ads to remain high so that only candidates with huge war chests can afford them. Well, I don't.
This shows how deluded you are. It was the ACLU that fought against Exon's CDA because the ACLU felt that it was censorship. They subsequently fought against mandatory filtering of library Internet access because that was censorship. I won't even dignify you comment about racism with a reply.
Let's look at some of Exon's other right-wing votes:
Voted in favor of Constitutional Amendment banning flag "desecration"
Voted in favor of a bill denying federal recognition of gay marriages
Voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 1996, which would have outlawed discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation.
Voted in favor of increased wiretapping without a court order
You forgot that he was strongly in favor of abortion as well.
He voted in favor of limiting late-term abortions (H.R. 1833).
By the way, quit posting anonymously. It's a chicken-shit, cowardly thing to do. Be a man and at least own up to the stuff you post.
The gun deaths have to do with lack of enforcement of laws against criminals, not the gun ownership by law-abiding individuals.
Right... You know, I'm fairly sure the US has not just the highest death rate from hardened criminals, but also the highest rate of gun suicides, gun accidents (e.g. kids playing with their parents' guns), and gun murders by teen-agers.
Once an amendment is added, it becomes part of the Constitution. The part protecting free speech is the same way.
That's not the point. The fact that the constitution has amendments means that it can change. Just because the right to bear arms is a constitutional right doesn't mean we couldn't repeal that right.
Huh? He's [Bush] quite smart. You have no idea what you are talking about.
Hehe... He has people to write his speeches for him and he still comes off as dumb and ignorant.
We are not responsible for the appaling ignorance of those who see things as they are not.
You don't think the US is theocratic? Interesting how Pat Robertson is praying for 3 judges to die so that Bush can install replacements who will continue to enforce religious rule.
Huh? No one has censored or censured these individuals, even though they have uttered hateful lies. Their free speech has not been abridged at all.
Double huh? Susan Sarandon was prevented from speaking at the baseball hall of fame just because she opposed the war. What does baseball have to do with politics?
The other 3 points you didn't even try to contest.
-a
There are cases where it opposes censorship (you named one). However, this does not excuse them for all the times they side with the intolerant and sue to censor expression that they want banned.
Not that you've actually provided any examples of that.
As for Exon, thanks for giving some of his voting record, which includes some left-wing votes such as against gay marriage and wiretaps (same as Clinton, another left-winger)
He voted in favor of expanded wiretaps, not against. So you believe that the right-wing is in favor of gay marriage? That the left wing wants the FBI to have broad wiretap powers? News to me. As to Clinton, he was elected because he was a centrist, not someone in the far left.
Maybe if you quit posting items without thinking about the content.
I think very carefully about what I post because it's attributed to me. Posting anonymously, you obviously feel no such need.
And just what were they?
Ad hominems are fun for you, right?
That was not an ad hominem attack. It was an accurate portrayal of your character.
If he had done nothing wrong, it would have easily and quickly come out in court. Settling out of court is something done by the guilty to blunt justice.
Utter guilty-until-proven-innocent bullshit. It would have been her word against his. She could have made up anything that she wanted, called Monica Lewinsky to the stand and questioned her at length about her sexual contact with Clinton, and done the same thing Starr did on Whitewater -- drag it out for years as a fishing expedition.
First, there was no fishing expedition. Don't make things up: refer to things as they are.
Yes, it was a fishing expedition. Senator Charles Schumer addressed Ken Starr, saying:A brighter man than you recognized it as a fishing expedition.
Yes he did: he forced them to drag it out for years. You don't go commit crimes, and then block investigation. Both are wrong.
As part of my investigation of you, I want you to turn over a list of all of the pornography on your computer, tell me when you picked your nose last, provide me with all of your medical records, give me a complete list of all of your sexual partners and all sexual activities in which you engaged, provide me with copies of all of your financial records for the past 20 years, and I'll think of some other things. If you don't cooperate fully, then you must be guilty of some crime.
It should have taken place.The crook had the audacity to ask the government to pay for the legal bills he racked up lying and obfuscating his crimes.
Had he been found guilty of crimes, he would not have asked for the government to pay his legal bills, but since their fishing expedition came up empty-handed, he had every right to. The closest thing they could get to wrongdoing was misleading, and maybe perjurous, testimony he gave regarding his sex life, but a crime, if one was committed, during the investigation does not justify the investigation.
The "other words" are made up by you
Yes, they are. The other words are a succinct and rational explanation of the motivations of those who want the wealthy and large corporations to be able to donate huge sums of money to political candidates, campaigns, and parties.
as wealthy and large corporations have nothing to do with these pro-free-speech arguments.
They have everything to do with them. If campaign donations were limited to, say, $100 per person/business, then RJ Reynolds, Disney, the RIAA, the MPAA, Microsoft, and other wealthy interests couldn't buy legislation. A politician could not dominate the airwaves by selling his vote to the highest bidders.
No, my argument has nothing to do with leveling the playing field.
No, just the opposite. You want to twist the Bill of Rights into a justification to let the wealthy buy legislation and control who does, and does not, have a chance of being elected.
The Bill of Rights says nothing about censoring anyone to "level the playing field".
Nor does it say that corporations should be able to buy influence, legislation, and votes -- yet that is what is happening. I don't see anything in the Bill of Rights stating that there will be no limits on the amount that a business can donate to a political campaign.
If the limit were $100 per contributer, you could freely express your full support of a candidate by giving his campaign $100. Limitations to the dollar amount don't limit your ability to freely express your support for a candidate.
NYT reports actual mail still looked at and was there in the FAQ all along.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Where did anyone state that it wasn't the case. The constitution has always been represented to me as a living document, flexable enough to change as the times needed it, static enough to be useful as a reference (Only the 18th amendment was repealed, and a few things from the main document changed to reflect the times, but overall I think the founders would recignise it today). It (though amendments) gives me rights, such as the right to own guns, that you see no need for. I however see it differently. Like most private gun owners in the US (and likely the world) none of my guns have been used to kill a person.
He has people to write his speeches for him and he still comes off as dumb and ignorant.
Every other poltitions has someone to write speachs for them too. Some are better than others at giving them. Then again I'm better at programing than I am at writing say english, I'm sure that you consider my ignoriant to because I have a difficult time writing, yet most people considerly me smart. (Not brilliant, but smart) I wonder how much of your impression is clouded because you don't stand for the same ideas as he does. That is you say "Bush stands for things I don't stand for so he is an idiot", and then find examples to prove that. Those who like his ideals find examples to prove he is smart. In fact he isn't stupid, (as his grades have shown), but he isn't Einstien. Start looking at hime objectivly, and you will see a good leader of people, one you may disagree with, (and perhaps not the best) but still a good leader.
ou don't think the US is theocratic? Interesting how Pat Robertson is praying for 3 judges to die so that Bush can install replacements who will continue to enforce religious rule. And you think Pat Robertson speaks for all americans? He has never been elected to any district where I have the ability to vote. He has run for president a few times, but then so has kooks like Ralph naider. (I worded it like that on a guess that you like Naider better than Bush, and perhaps such wording will help you to understand that people don't always agree). As for religion, I belive that Pat Robertson is one of the many preachers who seem to do good work, all the while leading their followers to hell. Some Christians follow him and disagee, some don't follow him and agree. Most don't follow him, and don't care enough to think about it, but would be offended by your claim that he speaks for them.
Susan Sarandon was prevented from speaking at the baseball hall of fame just because she opposed the war. What does baseball have to do with politics?
Everything has to do with politics. You can't get around it. Byond that though, freedom of speach doesn't mean I have to listen. Baseball is a privte orginization (I disagree with their monopoly status BTW) and has the right to exclude anyone they want to. The orginizers either were so offended by her that they personally refused to allow her to comment, At their events; or the orginizers recignized that their target marget was offended enoguh that they just might stop watching baseball if she was allowed, and made the buiseness decision not to allow it. Figgure it either way you want to, the fact is most people in the US were offended by such comments and privately choose to do something to those who made it. The goverment passed no laws, and made no arrest connected with such statements, the people individually (including congressmen - freedom fries) choose to do what they could privately to punish those who made them.
Your statement sound close to an arguement that I should have been forced to buy a Dixie Chicks album because they opposed the way and made statements about it, regaurdless about how I feel about either their music, or their state
President Clinton was a leftist who campaigned as a centrist but governed as a leftist.
President Clinton signed welfare reform that ended the federal guarantee of benefits for poor Americans. His administration's major initiative, health care reform, was founded on the industry-friendly "managed competition" model rather than the progressive single-payer plan. Clinton got his budget passed by dropping provisions that various industries objected to, like the energy tax and grazing fee hikes. He got NAFTA passed by including lots of of breaks for business interests -- and more Republicans than Democrats voted for the bill. To get the crime bill passed, Clinton cut the social programs that were supposed to balance the "law and order" provisions like increased death penalties. President Clinton spoke out about the virtue of school uniforms and spoke out against violent rap lyrics. One of his bills that was enacted into law guts the rights that Thomas Jefferson insisted be included in the Constitution: A state prisoner on death row now has only a year to petition a federal court to review the constitutionality of his trial or sentence. The ACLU's Laura Murphy referred to the Clinton administration as "the most wire-tap-friendly administration in history."
Those are not the acts of a "leftist."
Where did anyone state that it wasn't the case.
I hear it all the time. People use the fact that something *is* legal as justification that it *should be* legal.
I'm sure that you consider my ignoriant to because I have a difficult time writing
If English is indeed your first language and you're not dyslexic or something, then I would tend to assume that, yes. Most of the truly smart people I know have learned to speak & write their native language.
I wonder how much of your impression is clouded because you don't stand for the same ideas as he does. That is you say "Bush stands for things I don't stand for so he is an idiot", and then find examples to prove that.
Here is a guy that had no particular qualification to be president (or governor) except for who his daddy was. He's not Forrest Gump stupid, but he's definitely not particular smart either. Personally, I think it's appropriate to hold the guy who runs your country to a higher standard.
I don't think everyone who disagrees with me is stupid. I think Bush is dumb because he tries to apply a kind of ninth grade logic to some very complex situations. He's also ignorant. Here's a guy who never even travelled abroad before he became president (despite no lack of opportunity) and now he is responsible for diplomacy?!? This lack of curiosity in the world around him confirms my opinion that he is narrow-minded.
I condemn Bush because he has created some mind-numbingly dumb policies, such as tactical nukes and curtailing stem cell research, that may have profound effects on my future, even though I am not an American.
Start looking at hime objectivly, and you will see a good leader of people, one you may disagree with, (and perhaps not the best) but still a good leader.
I agree that he is a leader -- a much better leader than Al Gore. But maybe, like Pat Robertson, he is leading his followers to hell.
And you think Pat Robertson speaks for all americans?
No, but it shows to what degree religion permeates American politics. In Canada, most people vote Liberal or Conservative based on how they will run the country. Our political affiliations are mostly about economic issues, not abortion, family values, and stem cell research. If I was an American, I could never possibly vote Republican, because the risk is too great that one of the supreme court justices would die while they were in power and be replaced with a religious zealot.
Figgure it either way you want to, the fact is most people in the US were offended by such comments and privately choose to do something to those who made it.
Exactly. I never claimed that there were any laws passed preventing free speech. The problem is, a large percentage of Americans are so closed minded that they refuse to listen to anyone who disagrees with them (even if that person is only planning to talk about baseball). Given that America trumpets itself as the land of the free, it should be considered patriotic to express your opinion, not patriotic to blindly follow the leader.
Your statement sound close to an arguement that I should have been forced to buy a Dixie Chicks album because they opposed the way and made statements about it, regaurdless about how I feel about either their music, or their statements.
Now that's ridiculous. I never said anything of the sort. I don't personally like the Dixie Chicks' music, but apparently they were quite popular until they made those statements and had their music yanked from almost every radio station. Another good example is Bill Maher, who had his show cancelled just because he stated one politically incorrect opinion (on a show called Politically Incorrect).
I don't see why Homosexuals don't have equal rights.
The problem is that prejudice is widespread in the US (as it is in many countries) and the government doesn't force people to treat them equally. As to slavery, I just th
I faxed Bush a letter about the proposed SSSCA/CBDTPA, asking him to lobby against it and veto it if it passed.
I used fax because I had heard that whitehouse.gov pretty much ignored email, and I didn't want to send a snailmail letter because it was still in anthrax scare mode.
A few weeks later, I got a letter back thanking me for my input -- didn't really address the issue though. Mrs. red floyd was so bloody worried that I would be in trouble with the Feds...
I also wrote (via email from his site) to my Rep. (Waxman (D-CA)) about the Freedom To Read Protection Act, and got an email back directly on topic (pointing out that he had sponsored the thing).
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
"but since their fishing expedition came up empty-handed"
A dozen or so of his close associates ended up in prison as a result of this 'fishing expedition'.
A dozen or so of his close associates ended up in prison as a result of this 'fishing expedition'.
You exaggerate, but what is this? Guilt by association?
You're saying that Clinton should not have asked for reimbursement of his legal expenses because Starr found other people guilty of crimes?
"Guilt by association?"
Hell yeah.
It is not like Clinton had nothing to do with these shady deals.
He got away cause he was smart enough not to leave anything that could be traced back to him.
I don't think we will get anywhere responding further on most points, so I'm going to drop it. However some points I can't resist making anyway.
Oh is that what you call it? Not joining the war to fight Hitler is considered pacifism, but funding rebels and dictators (e.g. Sadam, Osama) who are anti-Russia is pragmatic.
Like I said, Hitler and the like proved that we won't be left alone. (and if you look at Eurpoe before WWI you will notice that Hitler was a result of the way most of the contenent felt then, he is the most prominate case, but most of Europe was itching for a war. (Even now many Eurpoians think that WWI was a good thing, something most Americans/Canadians don't understand)) So the way the US looks at the world changed to fit the situation, and attempts were made to prevent such things before they became bad. Russia was a real threat, though not nessicarly in the way the mdeia and government portraied them.
Canada has pleny of problems, you are blind if you refuse to recignise them. Solve your problems back home, and leave us alone.
D'oh... suckered into writing a long reply for naught.
Like I said, Hitler and the like proved that we won't be left alone. (and if you look at Eurpoe before WWI you will notice that Hitler was a result of the way most of the contenent felt then, he is the most prominate case, but most of Europe was itching for a war.
I can't figure out what you're talking about. For one thing, you seem to be confusing elements of WW1 and WW2.
-a
WWII and WWI are exactly the same thing, just there was a 10 (more or less) year cease fire. Once you start looking at WWII is a correction for all the things done wrong after WWI things start making more sense. Considering the destruction after WWI, who would have thought that Europe's major powers would be ready and willing for war so soon after.
That is I'm intentionaly confusing them because I find it a lot more convient to think of them as one thing and not seperate wars - which they were not.
Guilt by association?"
Hell yeah.
You don't live in the United states, do you? In the United States we have a long-standing, Constitutionally protected concept known as "innocent until proven guilty." That says that a person must be assumed by the judicial system to be innocent unless it can be shown beyond a reasonable doubt that the person did commit a crime. It's a good principle and one that I would hope you would pressure your country's government to adopt.
It is not like Clinton had nothing to do with these shady deals.
By the time that the Clinton's sold their share in the Whitewater property, they had lost $46,000. This hardly sounds like some clever financial scam cooked up by the Clintons.
He got away cause he was smart enough not to leave anything that could be traced back to him.
Really? What information do you have that was not turned up during a six year, $65 million dollar investigation of Bill Clinton? It sounds like you have some personal knowledge and, if so, I urge you to come forward with it.
Again, if you have some personal knowledge that was not uncovered during the 6 year, $65 million investigation, then I urge you to turn it over. Otherwise STFU.
You have to admit, if there is a shady business deal that results in a dozen convictions, and one central figure who avoids conviction happens to be the one who has special priviledges to avoid such prosecution, something does not look right.
But we don't judge guilt by appearances.
Besides, even if he was involved in a shady land deal *and* he broke laws, so what? That doesn't justify a $65 million, six-year investigation nor does it have anything to do with his fitness for office. He was elected President, not Pope.
I'm amazed that the same people that think Clinton should have been removed from office for Whitewater think that it's fine that we sent troops over to Iraq, launched a war, killed over two hundred Americans (and still counting), countless Iraqis, spent billions of taxpayer dollars, and that it was all based on lies, distortions, and fabrications by Bush and his senior staff. How about some perspective here?
I read your retort and did not find it convincing or compelling. But thank you for sharing your thoughts.
WWII and WWI are exactly the same thing, just there was a 10 (more or less) year cease fire. Once you start looking at WWII is a correction for all the things done wrong after WWI things start making more sense. Considering the destruction after WWI, who would have thought that Europe's major powers would be ready and willing for war so soon after. That is I'm intentionaly confusing them because I find it a lot more convient to think of them as one thing and not seperate wars - which they were not.
I'm aware of the fact that support for Hitler in Germany was partly derived from the crushing war reparations after WW1, however to call them the same war is silly. In regards to WW1, I agree with your earlier statement about most Europeans wanting war. But to say that about WW2 doesn't make sense!!
France clearly was unprepared for war, as they surrendered in about 5 minutes. Russia had a non-aggression pact with Germany, so I assume they didn't want war. England initially followed a policy of appeasement, so clearly they didn't want war. The only ones who really wanted war were the Germans (and Churchill). England only declared war on Germany once it became clear that there was no possible alternative.
-a
"STFU"
In the United States we have a long-standing, Constitutionally protected concept known as free speech.
I think Clinton was a crook , one that was smart enough to avoid conviction.
Just like I think you are a fucking idiot pissing off his uninformed and pseudo-intellectual opinions all over this board.
Your points are mostly correct. However I call them details, and still consider WWII part two of WWI, because WWII only makes sense in context with WWI (which makes no sense at all)
By all acounts Russia saw WWII coming, but early on had no ability to fight it. (Remember in WWI russia put something like 3 men on the front line for every gun, not counting all the behind the scenes men) Stalin signed a non-agression pact iwth Germany to gain time to prepare.
France was appearently blinded to the world conditions. Many would consider them blind yet. I've heard stories of why they did so poorly (mostly preparing for a less technially advanced war), but that doesn't excuse them for not doing anything. For that matter France had specifc mutual defense treaties with some of the early countries Germany took, and did nothing to help their allies.
I'm not sure what England was thinking, but at least when they (re)entered the war they were prepared as best they could be.
Germany wasn't the only country that wanted war after WWI, just the most obvious and powerful. Italy was a major part of the Axis powers, and several other countries were with them. And don't forget Japan that wanted war so bad they attacked the US on our own soil.
Spain is the only country of note to not be involved (the swiss are not worth anyone's time to take more for geographical reasons, though they so a good job of encouraging neturality). The reasons for that are worth studing if you want to understand the situation.
I agree that WW1 makes no sense at all, however your statement that WW2 only makes sense in context with WW1 is a bit of a tautology. Doesn't all of history only make sense in the context of what came before? Isn't all history predicated on prehistoric man coming out of the caves.
In WW1, I think most of Europe did want war. There was this ridiculous attitude of "The men will look good in uniform. The war will be jolly good fun for a few months and it'll all be over by Christmas." (At least this is based on the recruitment posters I have seen and my memory of grade 11 history.) Your claim was that most Europeans wanted WW2. Sounds to me like only Germany and Italy (the aggressors) did.
England didn't want to fight WW2. They didn't participate in the Spanish Civil War and they were prepared to let Hitler keep Czechoslovakia. However, when he invaded Poland they recognized that Hitler could not be left unchecked and they were forced to act. Australia and Canada (excluding Quebec) agreed. The US government wanted to join the war, but they couldn't get the support of the American people. That's why they allowed Japan to attack them and used this as a pretense for fighting Germany.
-a
I'm sorry to say but the Vietnamese(at least the ones I know) still hold Ho Chi Minh (sorry bout sp) in high regard( or at least not hating). The US did far more damage to the Vietnamese then the N.V.
Thanks for the correction, I was confused by the Congressional Post Office scandal in which some members of Congress were accused of using their franking privilege for personal use. The impression I got from the press reports at that time, was that such mail (franked) was free so that Members of Congress could communicate with the people they represent, but that personal mail was to be paid and that some Memebers of Congress were franking all their mail and thus cheating the public. Trust the press to get the basics of it wrong.
Looks like someone slept through this thread.
First, someone posted that the president was an accessible citizen until one got shot, and then another. Next, someone said something a long the lines of if another gets shot, and I said one was.
Jackson was accosted, the assailant attempted to fire two rounds, and both misfired, never even leaving the gun. Lincoln was the first shot and killed, Garfield was the second (both within the scope of the original parent's thread). McKinley was third (which is where I picked up) to be killed, and neither Roosevelt I counted, as the former continued his speech after being moderately injured by the bullet (which was slowed by a manuscript he was holding), and the latter was never hit. Ford was never shot either, the first attempt stopped by secret service before a shot was fired, and the second was deflected by a bystander. Teddy Roosevelt would be the only one I would concede, as he was the only one actually shot.
http://www.usatrivia.com/pasnatt.html
--- What
Yes, but Teddy Roosevelt was not President when he was shot. He was a 3d party (Bull Moose) candidate running against President WH Taft (R) and T. Woodrow Wilson (D). If we are going to include assassinations and attempts of important politicians who were not actually President at the time, we can't ignore Huey Long, Senator of Louisiana, a/k/a "The Kingfish."
None of it was based on lies, etc. by Bush and his senior staff. The one lie involved (the "16" words) was true as Bush said it: He did report what British intelligence reported on the Niger deal.
... attacking nearby countries (including Israel and Kuwait),
Open your eyes and quit distorting things! The documents in question had been discredited by our own intelligence officials long before Bush said anything about British intelligence. You right-wingers bitched about Clinton playing word games and then you let Bush off the hook when he gives grave warnings about supposed British intelligence that has already been discredited.
Do you even know anything about the forged Nigerian documents? One of the documents was a letter discussing the uranium deal supposedly signed by Niger President Tandja Mamadou. Expert sources described the signature as "childlike" and said that it clearly was not Mamadou's. Another document, written on letterhead from a 1980s military government in Niger, bears the date of October 2000 and the signature of a man who, by then, had not been the foreign minister of Niger in 14 years.
Bush lied about the reasons for war over and over. Bush repeatedly told reporters that one of the main reasons the U.S. invaded Iraq was that Saddam Hussein had refused to admit U.N. weapons inspectors. "We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in." The truth, of course, Hussein had given inspectors complete access to Iraq and that their inspections were proceeding vigorously when the Bush administration ordered the inspectors to leave so that bombing could begin.
The White House claimed that Iraq was trying to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes in which to process uranium. But leading scientists and former weapons inspectors seriously questioned the administration's analysis and pointed out that the tubes were more likely intended for common artillery rockets.
In a May 1 speech aboard the USS Lincoln, Bush said: "We have removed an ally of al-Qaeda." Although the alleged connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda was one of the administration's earliest justifications for going to war, there is still NO evidence to support it and plenty of evidence against it.
Bush cited a report from the United Nations International Atomic Energy Commission alleging that Iraq was "six months away" from developing a nuclear weapon, yet no such report exists.
Bush claimed that Iraq maintained a growing fleet of unmanned aircraft that, in his words, could be used "for missions targeting the United States." But Iraq has NEVER had a delivery system capable of reaching our shores.
And stop with the "16 words" bullshit. The magnitude of the lie/deception/misleading has nothing to do with the number of words. If I said "you raped a goat", that's only four words. Does that mean that it's not as bad a lie as if I said, in 22 words, "you went to the store to buy a soda, got ten cents too much in change, and did not tell the cashier"?
Any word on those Weapons Of Mass Destruction yet?
Bush did not launch this war. Saddam Hussein did.
More Bullshit. Saddam Hussein did not attack the U.S. The U.S. attacked Iraq while Iraq was cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors.
Saddam Hussein had been
So, please tell me when Saddam attacked Israel and Kuwait. I was under the impression that the U.N. action against Saddam when Bush's daddy was President was due to Saddam's incursion into Kuwait. Has it happened again? If not, are you going to tell me that Pearl Harbor is a valid justification for attacking Japan next month?
Still feeling frisky?
Have you got Bush's fecal matter off of your lips yet? Now Bush
As long as we agree it is not a lie, fine.
It was a lie. It was a bald-faced lie. The words were: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The British government could not "learn" something that we knew to be false. They didn't "learn" anything. A few misquided persons might have believed it, but none had learned it.
Discredited? British officials still insist it is true.
What British officials? All of them? Most of them? Or do you mean a handful of them who are making a last ditch attempt to avoid admitting that they lied? Blair is about to lose his job because the vast majority of those in Parliament know that it's a bunch of crap. Have you even seen a TV in recent weeks?
There has always been overwhelming proof.
Then present it. Osama Bin Laden has disapproved of Saddam Hussein's regime because it was not a fundamentalist Islamic regime.
At a press conference with UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, which took place in the White House on 31 January 2003:
[Adam Boulton, Sky News (London):] One question for you both. Do you believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?
THE PRESIDENT: I can't make that claim.
THE PRIME MINISTER: That answers your question.
Gee, that doesn't sound like a connection, does it?
Huh? Such things can be launched from nearby by Saddam's terrorist allies.
You are just getting pitiful now. Bush said that Saddam had unmanned aircraft with which to attack the United States. Now you are saying that someone else has them that's closer than Iraq so that means Iraq has them?
No, he did not. He violated US resolution 1441 in many ways, and was throwing roadblocks (sometimes literally) in the way of the inspectors, making a capital case every time they wanted to look someplace that looked suspicious.
According to a report by Hans Blix, Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector in January: "Access has been provided to all sites we have requested to inspect."
A former UN arms inspector Scott Ritter (a card-carrying Republican, by the way) said "the rhetoric of fear that is disseminated by my government, has not, to date, been backed by hard facts that substantiate any allegations that Iraq is today in possession of weapons of mass destruction.... Iraq, during nearly seven years of continuous inspection activity by the United Nations, has been certified as being disarmed to a 90-95 percent level."
Yeah, what do they know compared to you?
Yes, he has attacked Americans many times. He killed an American diplomat last year, and has many times attacked US peacekeepers in the "no fly" zones despite being told to knock it off.
Did he kill the diplomat using his bare hands or did he shoot him with a rifle? "US peacekeepers"? What a craptacular phrase. The "peacekeepers" wouldn't happen to be flying around in supersonic killing machines loaded with air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, would they? Tell me, if Iraq started flying aircraft over U.S. airspace to keep tabs on our weapons development, would you be terribly offended if we shot at one of those planes?
No, the US retaliated partially because Iraq was refusing to coopreate
The people doing the inspections said that they were cooperating and that the inspections needed to continue. Bush was unwilling to wait, probably because he knew that they would find nothing.
Ask France. ask Hillary. Ask many others who know that they existed and said they existed before Bush's retaliation forced Saddam to hide them elsewhere. You are duped by Saddam.
I have a lot more respect for Hillary Clinton than George W. Bush, I'll grant you that. So you're telling me that we hav
How do you know what's "true"? Have you been to Iraq and seen chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons? You just believe what you want to believe. Bush claimed all of these weapons existed and yet all of Iraq, all of the way to Baghdad, fell to U.S. troops and not one of these weapons was launched. If they weren't going to use them then, when would they have used them?
What a great source! He was on Saddam Hussein's payroll when he made these statements.
What about Hans Blix? Ignoring that source because you can't come up with an easy ad-hominem attack?
They have listed numerous violations.
None of any seriousness. They found paperwork which was not up to spec. They found missiles with too long a range and Saddam was destroying them in the presence of TV cameras and U.N. observers. You've exceeded the speed limit and turned right on red without coming to a complete stop. Perhaps Bush should try to assasinate you, too?
Yes, since they would have no right and reason to, unlike the peacekeepers who were enforcing the cease fire after Saddam's first Gulf War.
The original stated intent of these zones was to protect the rebellious Iraqi minorities (Kurds and Shiite Muslims) in northern and southern Iraq, respectively. The Coalition was permitted to fly warplanes over these zones to prevent Saddam Hussein's government from using military aircraft to attack these minorities. The Coalition started using the No-Fly Zones for spying to force Iraq to comply with UN and Coalition demands, often related to the status of the weapons inspectors. Since that was not the purpose of the no-fly zones, the U.N. had no "right" to have planes there doing that work.
Ask her why she still has not turned over the evidence in the Whitewater case, which was required to be turned over by subpeona.
I don't care about Whitewater or the subpeona. It was a witch hunt and I'm glad she defied the subpeona.
Ask her why she fired without cause the Travel Office staff
I don't care to know about petty office politics and gossip. You act like someone needs a court order to fire someone. People get fired all of the time. Get over it.
Ask her why she sold nights in the Lincoln Bedroom during her Senate campaign.
Ask Bush why he did. From an article by Helen Thomas in September of 2002:
Back in 1941 all kinds of half-truths and outright lies were used to justify support for UK.
And in that same period, all kinds of half-truths and outright lies were used by the Nazis to justify their invasion of other nations. The problem you have is that you don't know if the appropriate analog to our present-day situation is America or Germany in 1941.
And just like you are doing now, there were hordes of shortsighted idiots screaming, "bloody murder" every time Roosevelt did anything that even remotely violated supposed US neutrality.
Let's sum this up: If Clinton lies about who sucked his dick, then he should be impeached and driven from the Whitehouse by an angry torch-wielding mob. But if Bush lies in order to get support to attack another nation, against the wishes of the U.N. and many of the countries that were our traditional allies, we should just assume that there is some deep wisdom behind it because another President lied 60 years ago for good reasons. We should just accept the deaths of hundreds of Americans, the wounding of many more, and hundreds of billions of dollars of our tax money being spent to keep troops in that country for what many in the Bush administration are now estimating to be a period of five years.
Isn't it time for you to be sheared yet?
1. I could just grant you all this, because it obviously has nothing to do with my overall point. I was simply using McKinney as one example of a lone Democrat spouting off loony views. I could just as easily have chosen another example. The larger point of the post remains the same.
3 .h tml
n ne y/news/pr020412.htm
2. However, I don't grant you this. You noted Palast's "diatribic style." That's because he's a left-wing BBC reporter who's never sniffed an anti-American or anti-Israeli angle he didn't like. (For those who don't follow the media, the BBC is under unprecedented scrutiny in England for having fallen under the control of left-wing, bureaucratic hacks who use the tax-supported corporation to push their own views.) This site:
http://brian.carnell.com/articles/2003/06/00003
has a pretty good takedown of the Palast-McKinney thing. Also, here's a press release sent out by McKinney's own office:
http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/CynthiaMcKi
Finally, one must ask this: Why, after these charges surfaced in the media, didn't McKinney simply point out she never said all that stuff? That would seem to have been the logical course of action. But she didn't do that, because she couldn't -- everyone (except Greg Palast) would have called her on it.
It is not ad-hominem to report that someone is being paid to make statements about someone.
Yes, it is, when you attack the person's motive rather than address his statements. I'm still waiting for you comments on Hans Blix's statements.
So much for your earlier implication that they had no business being there.
They did have no business being there for the purposes of spying.
Necessary for spying? What happene to your earlier statement about satellites seeing a gnat's ass?
Since you chose not to address that point, neither will I. You can't simply choose to ignore my arguments when they do you harm and then try to turn those same arguments against me later.
She didn't need a court order: she needed the FBI with fake charges.
The OIC's allegations included no allegation of wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton related to the White House travel office firings.
You are glad she withheld evidence?
Yes. It was a witch hunt. No two-bit land deal like that has ever gotten the attention of the Congress. The sole purpose of the witch hunt was to embarass and harass the Clintons and I am glad that they fought the right-wing dirty politicians behind the muckraking.
Google it.
Screw you! If you want to debate, then do your own research to support your claims. You made the statement. The burden of proof is on you.
No, I have not. Thanks to Bush.
Have you seen a photo of one? Have you seen one captured by our troops? Are you going to tell me that Bush is also protecting you from the Boogie Man? By the way, it is only through my hard work that killer robots have not broken into your home and killed you and your family. Send me $10,000 to help me continue my work. You can tell that I am effective because you've never even seen a killer robot, have you?
Where in his speech did he lie about ICBMs?
I did not say "ICBMs." I said "intercontinental weapons delivery systems", referring to the (imaginary?) pilotless aircraft we were discussing (see above).
It depends on what the meaning of Is is, I guess!
I will take that as an admission that Bush's comments about British intelligence were lies.
Just a few years ago, Clinton said that Saddam DID have a nuclear program (at the time clinton said it). Was Clinton also such a liar?
You have said that Clinton was a liar so you cannot cite something he said as proof that Bush was telling the truth. Either Clinton can be trusted or he cannot.
But since you bring it up, Clinton launched an attack against Iraq on December 16, 1998, targeting suspected nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons production facilities. He cited the refusal of Saddam to cooperate with the inspections process as the basis for the attack. And what was the result? A complete lack of support from Republicans in Congress who claimed that it was just an attempt to draw attention away from the then upcoming impeachment vote. Maybe the Democrats should have been equally skeptical and claimed that GWB's attack was motivated by a desire to distract people from the deficit spending, ballooning national debt, high unemployment, skyrocketing gas prices, and recession.
Do you see me quoting Limbaugh or Will here? Why do you quote a pundit from the left? Pundits are not news sources.
Helen Thomas is commonly referred to as "The First Lady of the Press" and may be the most respected woman in journalism. She is a former White House Bureau Chief and a trailblazer, having broken through barriers for women reporters while covering every President since John F. Kennedy. For 57 years, she served as White House correspondent for United Press International.
Ms. Thomas was the only female print journalist to travel with then President Nixon to China during his breakthrough trip in 1972. She has traveled around the world with Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush, Jr. That hardly sounds like a "pundit from the left" to me.
Damn, it must suck being bitch-slapped that hard in a debate!
I did the research: the proof came up quickly. The burden of proof is on you. Go ahead and try.
I'm not playing that game. I provide sources and documentation for my claims. If you won't provide them for yours, I'm not going to wade around from one right-wing zealot site to the next trying to prove your point for you. Sorry, you lose this one.
Nothing you said of her travels contradict her being a pundit. In fact, it is totally irrelevant, like saying "He can't be a pastry chef! He's been to Cleveland". Non-sequitur.
Wrong. She would not have been allowed to accompany all of those Presidents if she was the partisan pundit you make her out to be. Given her credentials, awards, years of service, and respect from both fellow journalists and the public, I'll simply state that you are wrong.
Where is his speech did he refer to these then? We are still waiting.
Well wait no more: "We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We are concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] for missions targeting the United States."--President Bush, Oct. 7, 2002 in a speech given in Cincinatti.
I guess I should have just been a dick about it and said "Google it."
Checking for violations of the UN sanctions was very legitimate.
Only if that's what the planes were authorized to do there, which it was not. The planes were solely authorized to prevent Saddam from launching air attacks against the minorities in those reasons. Any other activity undertaken in those fly-overs was not legitimate.
No, it was not. It was an investigation into an operation that included a dozen felons.
But the person being investigated was not found to have committed any crimes, thus it was not legitimate. The reason for an Independent Counsel is to investigate the President, not his associates.
Two bits? That's 50 cents.
No, it's worth 25 cents. It also has the meanings petty and/or insignificant, which is how I was using the term.
The Whitewater scam involved millions of dollars.
Not before Starr got involved. Whitewater was the purchase of 220 acres of land in Arkansas in 1978 with the intent of developing it with homes. The initial investment was under $250,000 or just over a dollar an acre. Subsequent investments were small, such as $30K to build a model home. The Clinton's sold their share of Whitewater to the McDougals for $1,000 in 1992. How is that "millions of dollars"?
Nice bazillion-percent margin of error you are running with.
"Bazillion"? My, you are the math whiz.
I really don't know why he has chosen to lie about the situation in Iraq. No explanation.
But you assert that he lied based on what? Your personal experiences in Iraq? Your time creating weapons of mass destruction for Saddam? A Christmas card from the Husseins that showed their stockpile of weapons? Just how have you come to the conclusion that Hans Blix lied?
So, Saddam Hussein is like a made-up killer robot. Hope you are having fun there.
No. Bush said that Saddam had unmanned planes capable of delivering chemical and biological weapons. You said that the reason that you had never seen one of these planes was because of Bush's fine job in protecting us from them. I countered that I've been doing an equally fine job of protecting you and your family from killer robots and offered as proof the fact that you had not seen any killer robots. Nice try.
I've seen the actual words in the speeches from then. He referred to the nuclear facilities as a fact.
So what's your point? That you trust Clinton implicitly? Or that our incompetent military could not have possibly been successful in destroying said facilitie
Watching your pseudo-intellectual nonsense I can only rejoice in the fact that your influence is limited to bitching on some third rate board.
... while Bush machine moves forward.
Whine, bitch , complain
Not a good time for a looser like you , is it ?
PS.
2000+ comments ?
You must be one of these fat,ugly motherfuckers who are afraid to live their lifes.
Tell me you are pulling our collective leg here ...
You can't be that stupid ?
Watching your pseudo-intellectual nonsense I can only rejoice in the fact that your influence is limited to bitching on some third rate board.
... while Bush machine moves forward.
You passing judgement on my intellect is like Roseanne Barr saying that Pamela Anderson is ugly.
Whine, bitch , complain
Yep. Now I know how Germans who opposed Hitler felt when he came to power.
Not a good time for a looser[sic] like you , is it ?
It's not a good time for anyone in the U.S. -- except wealthy CEOs who are firing Americans and sending the jobs overseas.
2000+ comments ?
You must be one of these fat,ugly motherfuckers who are afraid to live their lifes.
Better to have over 2000 comments that are, in general, well-regarded than to have a bunch of 0 and -1 troll postings like you do. As for my life, I'm probably taking my motorcycle to the beach again today and might be headed up to Connecticut in a few days. If not, I'll be out in my boat fishing. What will you be doing, you bitter little man?
Put away the Democrat Party playbook. Only a minority of the tax cuts go to the "wealthy". In fact, most go to "working families" (a favorite playbook phrase). Stop trying to mislead, it is not working, most Americans are not buying it.
Use some real numbers instead of quoting White House bullshit:
Nearly two-thirds of the most recent tax cuts will go to the wealthiest 10% of taxpayers, and almost half of the benefits will go to the richest 5%. Meanwhile, the bottom 60% will see roughly eight percent of the total tax cut.
In 2003, the 8.6% of taxpayers who earn at lest $100,000 annually will get nearly 60% total cuts, and the 54% of taxpayers who earn $30,000 or less would get less than 5% of the total (sourse: Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center).
The aforementioned analysis also shows that the average taxpayer earning above $1,000,000 annually would see more than $93,000 in tax relief in 2003, but the average filer earning $40,000-$50,000 would get a tax cut of about $450.
$450 is not a tax cut. It's chump change. It's a way that Bush and his supporters (like you) can say "we gave a tax cut to working families" while only providing meaningful tax cuts to the wealthy.
How much has he "given out" in tax cuts? It's an astounding total: $0. Yes, $0. No money has been "given out". A tax cut is not a gift.
Yes, it is a gift -- and a stolen one at that. Bush is giving gifts (actually bribes for voting for him) -- and he's doing it by stealing the money from future generations. He is funding the tax cut by borrowing money and running up the national debt. For decades to come, taxpayers will pay interest on the debt he is accruing -- all to give unsound tax cuts to rich people.
Did the government provide military defense of the country? Did they wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan? Did the government provide funding for social programs? Did they fund education? Did they fund NASA, the Department of Agriculture, the FDA, CIA, NSA, and FBI? Did they provide funding for road construction and maintenance? Did they send ambassadors to foreign countries? If so, your taxes have already been spent.
It's analogous to going into Walmart, buying $500 worth of merchandise and then coming back in a week to demand a portion of that money back because, as Bush says, "it's your money." If Bush ran Walmart, he'd give you $100 back. In four years, Walmart would be mired in debt, Bush would be replaced as the head of Walmart, and his successor would have to raise prices to pay for Bush's reckless spending. Then Bush's supporters would say that his successor was evil for raising prices.
There are two kinds of Republicans: Those who don't understand economics and those who understand economics, know that they are screwing the country and future administrations, and don't have the scruples to give a damn.
Tell me you are pulling our collective leg here ...
If you can counter my arguments, do so. If you are just going to continue with your idiotic and immature trolling, just go away. I've provided logic, respected sources, quotes, and facts to back up my position. All you've done is engage in name calling.
You can't be that stupid ?
You calling someone "stupid" is like Michael Jackson calling someone "weird."
You think you have provided all that. In reality, your stuff is factually not much better then his name calling.
In other words, you are a right-winger who disagrees with my position but who does not have any logical basis for that disagreement. You probably just "like" tax cuts but do not like to think about where they come from and how the affect the economy. Whatever makes you happy.
I am just fucking with you.
Whatever floats your boat.
Do you always respond to every post ?
I try to, unless the post is just absurd. If someone speaks to me in person, I don't just turn away and ignore them, so it seems impolite to do so online.
As far as right-winger stuff ? What's wrong with that?
I dislike the entire value set the right-wing holds dear. I think that the right wing is far more concerned with businesses than people. I believe that their understanding of economics is screwed up to the point of endangering our entire economy. I am tired of their dirty tricks -- such as trying to embarass Clinton about his sex life rather than facing him on the issues. They are hypocrites. They attacked Clinton for not having served in the military while they supported Bush despite the fact that he joined the National Guard to avoid the draft and then went AWOL for a year ('72-'73). I get tired of the claims that they are against government interference when they pass laws limiting abortion, outlawing forms of consensual sex between adults, forcing libraries to install filtering software, etc. They yell about "state's rights" until a state passes a law that they don't like -- such as medical marijuana laws and then they are at work trying to undermine the state's authority.
I could go on and on, but I think that you see my position.
Despite what you think , you are not some middle of the road, objective observer but a hardcode left-winger yourself.
I've considered myself a liberal for years and am proud of it. I feel that it's the moral high ground. Pushing for a tax cut that lines your own pockets requires no moral courage. Pushing for social programs that will probably never directly help you but that you will fund with your tax dollars is much more noble.
Makes fucking perfect sense. If you pay more you will get more back.
It is not supposed to be another entitlement program but a fucking tax cut.
It is an entitlement program for the rich. I have a better idea: Don't cut taxes for the rich at all or, if you insist on cutting their taxes, cut them less. Cut the tax rates for the lower income people that need the money (and will spend it) rather than cutting Dick Cheney's yearly taxes by several hundred thousand dollars per year. But why should there be a tax cut at all when the government isn't bringing in nearly enough money to cover the Bush budget?
Cut the fucking waste, pork and all this nonsense, and there will be enough money for another 4 fucking tax cuts.
Want to know where 25% of your federal tax dollars go? They pay interest on the debt accrued under the Reagan and Bush (Sr.) administrations. That's right. 25% of all tax dollars buy nothing. They don't pay for social programs, defense, education, roads, or anything else. It pays interest on the debt accrued in the 12 years of Reagan/Bush. Now Dubya is running up the debt more with record deficit spending on top of huge tax cuts. You want a tax cut? Pay down the debt and taxes can be cut by 25% without cutting any government services or programs.
You people want to cut taxes and then have the government spend money that isn't coming in -- to the tune of $455 billion dollars this year alone. Cut expenses first and then adjust the tax rates to match government expenditures.
After all, these days US government takes more in taxes than ever and you
are still whining we are not being taxed enough ?
That is simply untrue. Here are the average federal tax rates (percentage of adjusted gross income paid in federal income taxes):
1980 15.31%
1981 15.76%
1982 14.72%
1983 13.79%
1984 13.68%
1985 13.73%
1986 14.54%
1987 13.12%
1988 13.21%
1989 13.12%
1990 12.95%
1991 12.75%
1992 12.94%
1993 13.32%
1994 13.50%
1995 13.86%
1996 14.34%
1997 14.48%
1998 14.42%
1999 14.85%
2000 15.26%
Yeah, well, where did read that one ?
I didn't read it. I discerned it from keeping current on politics and economic policy.
What is your fucking experience in these matters ?
I am educated, intelligent, and have a good understanding of economics.
What kind of enterprise are you running ?
I am not running an "enterprise" nor does one need to in order to understand economics. In fact, running a large business often means that one is concerned with the business's quarterly profit statements, not the health of the economy as a whole for the next few decades.
Why am I even talking to a clueless maniac like you.
Ad hominem attacks reflect poorly on those making them.
For all I you could be 17 years old idiot who just got his first erection after reading "Capital".
I am a 42 year old professional software engineer. I have worked as a W2 employee and as an independent contractor (1099 income). I have investments in mutual funds, individual stocks, and have invested in, and made money from, grain futures. I own my own home which has appreciated in value by 73% in the last five years. And what is your background so that I know who I am talking to?