Wiki Editor Helps Reveal Pre-9/11 CIA Mistakes

An anonymous reader writes "Kevin Fenton was reading the Department of Justice's 2004 Inspector General report on pre-9/11 intelligence failures. Parts of it didn't make sense to him, so he decided to add the information in the report to Paul Thompson's 9/11 timeline at the wiki-style website History Commons. Eventually, Fenton's work led him to uncover the identity of a CIA manager who ran the Bin Ladin unit before 9/11, when agents there deliberately withheld information about two 9/11 hijackers from the FBI. That manager was named Richard Earl Blee and he is now the subject of a documentary by Ray Nowosielski and John Duffy, of secrecykills.org, who confirmed his identity using techniques right out of the 70s film All the President's Men. Blee, along with Cofer Black and George Tenet, have found the work disturbing enough to release a joint statement denying some of the allegations."

Comments

So what is new?

[JoshuaZ]

As far as I can tell, this is just one more example of how turf wars between the different agencies caused severe information gaps before 9/11. That was obviously a problem. However, after the last decade of the Patriot Act, I'm sufficiently worried by the government information sharing as part of a wider pattern, that part of me wants to go back to the silly turf wars as a de facto restraint on various government agencies becoming too powerful or having access to things they shouldn't.

But there's no real evidence of any sort of high-level conspiracy. This is just low-level bureaucratic infighting at its finest. You can see lots of examples of this in the 9/11 Report which details the many intelligence failures leading up to 9/11. Some of them seem like intelligence failures mainly due to hindsight bias where what the evidence meant became obvious only if you knew what happened, but others are genuine failures. There's really not that much new here.

Re:So what is new?

[bhcompy]

Exactly, but this won't stop the truther derp brigade from donning their tinfoil hats, regardless.

Re:So what is new?

[n5vb]

And if it were a conspiracy, it would still look like low-level bureaucratic infighting at its best. What better cover?

I'm sure someone in the chain recognized the credibility of the threat they were analyzing, and given how compartmentalized info is in the intelligence community, it was probably only a handful of people at most. A tacit standing agreement here and there, no phone calls or emails on the record, just an understanding and a recognition of the value of such an event in certain circles, and information just .. doesn't make it where it needs to go in time.

Bush II had just made it into office in an election a fair chunk of the country still believed he'd flat out stolen, and the legitimacy of his presidency was being debated way too openly by way too many people for people cliose to him (like Cheney) not to have been sorely tempted to arrange a major disaster very much like 9/11. I just can't see those guys not having at least some desire for something to come along to scare the hell out of the population and provide the right climate to intimidate the critics into silence.

You're right, there's no real evidence of it. There won't be, if they did it right. But look at the situation the administration was in, and look at their possible motives. A few face to face conversations off the record with a few key people most likely to have the right scope of "need to know", setting the pieces in place for the right kind of event and the right kind of calculated tactical delay at the right time, and oops! Sorry, we should have caught that, boy, that's terrible, isn't it?

If it hadn't also conveniently provided the justification for passing the USA PATRIOT Act (and what Congresscritter in his/her right mind would vote against America and patriotism, the day after a bunch of scary swarthy foreign people attacked us, right?), it wouldn't resonate this way with me. But I've come to believe it because it's the only coherent story I can make of it. Yeah, that marks me as crazy in some circles. But it's just too convenient in too many ways ..

Re:So what is new?

[Runaway1956]

"no real evidence of any sort of high-level conspiracy"

The CIA made lots of mistakes. The single worst mistake they made, was when they allowed the White House to influence their reports, and even to edit the data to support political agendas. The CIA could well have denied some of the bullshit gushing from the White House. While they couldn't get away with using the direct language that I tend to use, there are many ways to tell the world that the White House is lying, while making it sound like you really respect the wisdom of the Pres, VP, etc.

I can forgive everything the CIA did and did not do - except for allowing Bush and Cheney to hijack the CIA's intelligence. They should have found a way to assert themselves, and to assert the real information.

Re:So what is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to raise taxes on the job killers and the wealthy people that drive our economy off a cliff .

FTFY

Re:So what is new?

[joebagodonuts]

But there's no real evidence of any sort of high-level conspiracy. This is just low-level bureaucratic infighting at its finest.

Doesn't that make it even more tragic?

We really screwed up. We panicked and essentially said "Bureaucracy is inefficient - lets add more!"

Re:So what is new?

[countertrolling]

When evidence is withheld from the public, that usually indicates a cover-up. But you did a very nice job of labeling any and all challenges to the official conspiracy theory as a bunch of loons. Good show!

Re:So what is new?

[sarhjinian]

Just so's you know, the problem isn't taxes, it's demand. Pumping money into the coffers of the wealthy---who are already doing quite well and hoarding almost unprecedented levels of cash---won't help. We've tried tax cuts for the wealthy (what, you didn't know that the rounds of stimulus were, depending on the country, 30-60% tax cuts?) and they aren't working: all it does is cut the revenue to the very programs that would help us get out of recession.

The "job creators" are the disenfranchised middle and lower classes. They're the ones who buy stuff, keeping stores open and others gainfully employed. They're the ones who need TARP programs for underwater mortgages, stable employment and a sense of stability. Not the rentiers who are doing quite well, thank you very much.

Re:So what is new?

[DurendalMac]

All video content confiscated except four frames from the many surrounding the pentagon?

Actually, more has been released. There's really not much to see. You have some low fps cameras trying to catch a fast-moving object. The Pentagon missile theory breaks down under its own weight. I mean, if the evil conspiracy had already lobbed two planes at the WTC, why would they bother doing so much to make it look like a plane at the Pentagon instead of just lobbing another plane at the Pentagon?

All evidenciary building materials confiscated and destroyed at the crime scene around the trade center plaza?

There was plenty of debris that was later taken back and tested. NYC was in a bit of a hurry to get that massive pile of rubble cleared out.

First steel framed high rise buildings in history to collapse due to fire (and a near free fall collapse I may add)

First steel-framed high-rise building (with a rather unique design) to have massive jumbo jets filled with fuel slammed into them, too.

WTC Tower #7 reported as collapsed 20 minutes prior to actual collapse.

DERP because the media was in on it DERP! The BBC knew, right? No. Misinformation as the fire chief had pulled everyone out of WTC7 and said there was a collapse zone around it. This is one of the more idiotic conspiracy bits because it makes no sense to tout it. It was miscommunication and nothing more. Claiming that BBC an/or the NYC fire department was somehow in on it is absurd, but that doesn't stop conspiracy nuts from flinging every piece of dookie they can find at the wall, now does it?

NORAD rendered useless due to coincidentally occurring training exercises.

And training exercises happen all the time.

Bush remaining in publicly known location despite the, "attack on the nation"

No shit, Sherlock. Cheney went to a secret location just in case, but Bush damned well knew he needed to be visible. People wanted a firm leader at that point. They wanted to hear what he had to say and they wanted to know that he was leading and not hiding. Elementary politics, you idiot.

Extremely challenging maneuvers from terrorists with severely handicapped flying skills.

Oh, bullshit! Lobbing a plane into a building is not challenging. They didn't need to know how to do anything but basic navigation and they didn't do much more than that, either. The maneuvers weren't "challenging" when the plane went for the Pentagon. They were sloppy and haphazard.

I think you've watched enough X-Files.

Re:So what is new?

[elrous0]

We need to cut taxes on the job creators

That might work if the jobs they were creating were in the U.S., and not in China and India.

Re:So what is new?

[Gilmoure]

But, but, rich people drive nice cars and wear nice suits. They must know what they're talking about, when they say their too scared to hire people right now because their taxes and business taxes are at the lowest levels since 1926. How can they possible think of expanding business if things might change? They really need the government to lock down things so that nothing ever changes again and then turn over control of everything to them. Then they'll finally feel safe enough to start hiring more people. Mostly for private armies.

Re:So what is new?

[JasterBobaMereel]

No conspiracy needed - The CIA and FBI are not very good at sharing information, they are better at it now they have been shown to be not very good at it deliberately - now they just do it by accident

15 people organised the hijacking of 4 planes, this is was difficult or complicated or expensive, and the CIA and FBI missed the connections needed to stop it mostly through minor incompetence ..

Afterwards there was massive sympathy towards the USA, even in a few country with reasons to dislike ... and in under 2 years Bush managed to make the USA a pariah in the global community find the conspiracy there ...

Re:So what is new?

[Splab]

All evidenciary building materials confiscated and destroyed at the crime scene around the trade center plaza?

There was plenty of debris that was later taken back and tested. NYC was in a bit of a hurry to get that massive pile of rubble cleared out.

Got any documents on this? For me this was the only really smelly thing about 9/11, there is no way you could cover up the logistics of blowing up a building like that, but to cover up a building not build to code is somewhat easier, only have to lose a memo, bribe a couple of engineers and make the steel go away. But according to early documentaries about the nut jobs claiming the building to be a controlled demolition, the steel was shipped to the far east for reprocessesing before investigaters got to look at it...

Re:So what is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

The word "coincidence" exists for a reason. Because coincidences happen often enough that we needed a word for it.

Re:So what is new?

[roman_mir]

Just so's you know, the problem isn't taxes, it's demand.

- Just so you know, the problem is not demand, it's supply.

You see, when 2 people trade they are not trading for money, they are trading for things they want. If 1 produces food and another produces fuel, they are trading food for fuel. They are doing so because they both benefit from the comparative advantage of each doing something better - more efficiently than the other.

Money is introduced into the system so it's easy to trade for things that are of not equal value, so a kitchen food processor is not the same value as one eggplant for example.

Money always begins as something valuable, scarce, recognizable, easy to test, easy to measure, not poisonous, not explosive, not radioactive, easy to mint coins out of and something that does not go bad over time, so we've used gold for ages. Eventually people always try to counterfeit the money to be able to BUY stuff but produce NOTHING for it. They invent all sorts of scams, which can be even benign at first - introduce paper bank notes to signify amount of actual gold that a person has, trade with notes, but go to a bank and get your actual money out of it.

Eventually the government hijacks the system and figures out a way to steal everybody's money and start counterfeiting just the paper itself, thus stealing everybody's purchasing power and stealing products without creating anything back into the system. So this is wealth stolen and goods underproduced.

USA is running a scam like that upon the rest of the world because its currency is so called 'reserve' and other productive people give it things, products for the fake currency USA is printing, but nothing can be gotten from USA for this fake currency.

53Billion USD/month and 40% of all gov't money borrowed that is spent is the indicator that USA as a country and the government itself cannot pay for what it consumes, but there is plenty of demand. ALL of the counterfeit money, ALL of the borrowing, ALL of the taxing - it's all demand.

But those who want to consume are not producing. But the reason that production capacity isn't present in the system is the very government that PRICED OUT the US worker from the labor market with all of the regulations, taxes, subsidies, labor laws, everything that makes US worker unproductive, uncompetitive, not worth hiring and thus in reality useless to those, who actually produce for living, and even worse - dead weight, that is consuming but not producing to balance the trade.

Balancing of the trade is not just an esoteric abstract concept, it's very obvious from the monthly imbalance of trade that is easy to show in exact amount of money that is sent abroad minus the money that is sent into USA. The difference is what USA is underproducing.

Those who create jobs - the 'rich', (and no, poor do not create jobs, with any sort of subsidy they only consume wealth, they don't produce it), they now are under a constant attack from all fronts, which is set up by the government that hijacked the economy and is now ruling it into a total collapse.

What is needed is complete stop of all government spending except for bare minimum border protection and the court system. EVERYTHING else needs to stop, all spending needs to stop, all borrowing, debts need to be restructured, millions of unproductive people need to LOSE their jobs. TENS of millions, of people need to lose their jobs. The consumption must stop. People will have to work in order to save real investment capital and restart production and then people can be rehired to do useful, trade imbalance reducing jobs.

NOBODY should be getting any QE, any TARP, any counterfeit money from any government, it all must be balanced within the economy without government intervention.

Economies are created by private individuals who work to live better, that's all there is to it. When economies become strong and rich, governments - the parasites of the economy - become stronger b

Re:So what is new?

[LibRT]

The current level of demand is likely to be close to the "new normal", because the level of demand that previously existed was predicated largely upon homeowners withdrawing equity from their homes, which itself was predicated upon house prices always rising, which itself was predicated upon the federal government backstopping mortgages via Fannie and Freddie, for politically-motivated purposes (ie the federal government's odd notion that one of its jobs is to facilitate home ownership, and to particularly dictate that less qualified applicants should have their mortgage applications accepted, with defaults paid by the taxpayer, and both parties are guilty of this).

The current problem is the continuing notion that the demonstrably unsustainable level of demand must be returned to by getting housing prices to rise again via sustained low interest rates. It's dumb luck that the EU is having such problems with Greece et al that currency is fleeing to the US dollar despite the US dollar's inherent devaluation (hidden, as it is, by the influx of capital from the EU).

But taking money from one group of people and giving it to another group of people (that happen to be more favorable to your view of the world) by way of a massive bureaucracy is particularly inefficient. The current tax revenues exist to support the 1 in 7 people in the US who work directly for government of one level or another (which is higher than Spain, Germany, Italy, France and Portugal, and just behind Greece, which is just above 1 in 5). The fundamental and structural part of the problem is there are too many people working for government (requiring, of course, tax dollars to pay for them) and that number consistently grows faster than inflation or the economy. At some point that number simply becomes unsustainable (which Portugal and Italy are learning and which Greece already has learned). It's like Social Security: when it was established, there were 30 workers paying for each retiree; currently it's 3 workers to each retiree, and getting close to 2 workers to each retiree. It cannot be sustained long term.

The other fundamental and structural problem is that government borrowing is massively crowding out investment in the private sector (which is the sector which, you know, actually creates jobs). When about $16.6 trillion of investment capital goes to US government bonds to prop up the government, that is, of course, $16.6 trillion not going to private sector investment and in turn not creating private sector jobs.

It is going to take quite some time for the amount of demand to pick up to match the supply of labor available, and that equilibrium point isn't going to resemble the prior equilibrium point, the demand portion of which was subsidized by government policy (see above). But if you think taking even more money from one segment of the population to "bail out" another segment of the population will speed things along or be sustainable long-term, you're most certainly mistaken. I can see the populist appeal of the proposition among the economically unsophisticated, but it will not work.

As an aside, other than putting their money under a mattress, it is impossible for the wealthy (or anyone else) to "hoard" money: as soon as their money is placed in a bank, or on a stock market, or purchases bonds, or is used to purchase something, or start a business, it's back in the economy. And also, it is a decidely different thing to tax people less than it is to give them so-called "government money" (there's no such thing as "government money" - there is only that portion of your money, and your neighbors' money, which the government appropriates), although the current debate does not seem to distinguish between the two (ie people continually claim the government needs to "pay for" tax reductions). When you tax people less, you are forcibly taking less from them, you are not redistributing money. When people claim the government needs to "pay for" a tax reduction, what they are saying is government spending exceeds revenue, and the only option is to increase government revenue. That's a false conclusion - there's obviously one other option available.

Re:So what is new?

[DavidTC]

The thing to ask about any conspiracy is to take each individual claim and ask 'Did this actually further any claimed aim of the conspiracy?'.

Let's pretend for a second that the government was behind 9/11?

Firstly, no, people don't get to combine conspiracy theories. You don't get to have a theory saying 'It was the most massive false flag operation in existence' and at the same time claim it was an attempt to make a few billion dollars by the owners of the WTC. If the government wanted to fly airplanes into the WTC, it's hardly going to ask permission, nor participate in a conspiracy to make some money.

Same with airplanes. Why would the government not use the actual airplanes? That introduces an incredible layer of complexity and it's worth pointing out that every airframe is incredibly well documented and accounted for, so it's not like reuse of the airplanes is actually possible.

Same with blowing up WTC 7. Why on earth would the government participate in that? If the purpose of taking down the WTC was have a 'terrorist attack', I think it was pretty damn successful when the twin towers went down. The WTC 7 is utterly pointless to worry about.

There really only _one_ sane 'piece of evidence' that truthers have. The whole 'The WTC should not have collapsed like that, so there were explosives.'. I don't mean that's true, I mean that's the only thing that if it was true would actually advance their conspiracy.

Re:So what is new?

[Synerg1y]

So...

we are to believe that a bunch of arabs with intense jihad beliefs sat around in a cave thousands of miles away for two decades contemplating the doom of America by blowing up a few buildings with a few airplanes?

Then a few years later we have Gulf War II, with I being started by daddy?

Think about why the IRA committed their terrorist actions, or why the taliban commit theirs. For somebody to go die to kill you, they must really really have a good motive, and I don't think our elegant lifestyles and cocky denouement are the full picture.

It would more be along the lines of us abandoning Bin Laden years ago during the cold war, but still... a very long time to hold a grudge.

Re:So what is new?

[WillDraven]

A lot of what you are saying used to make sense. Then we had to go and invent robots. Now a small percentage of people CAN produce everything everybody else needs to live. Economics is long overdue for a major rethinking. We have more people than work to go around, and its just going to keep getting worse. You can whine about it not being fair that poor people get stuff for free all you want, but eventually we are going to have to give a whole lot of people free stuff. If we don't, they are going to get real real hungry and decide to come take your stuff, and probably kill you while they do it.

As a species we can either accept this and build a wonderful world where everybody can live a decent life without working if they want, or keep fighting it and end up living in a post apocalyptic hellscape with people killing each other for scarce resources after civilization collapses.

Re:So what is new?

[cdrguru]

The problem is the only way to rescue homeowners is to hand the banks a big bill. These are the folks that pretty much financed 70-80% of Mr. Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. He is going to need another billion dollars in 2012 in order to get his second term, so he can't do anything to the people picking up the tab.

A much bigger problem today is that over the last couple of years the lower levels of sales and production have pretty much become structural. The folks that were laid off might get jobs again - if somehow levels of sales increased significantly. But we have proven that everything can function at this new lower level. So things are very likely to just stay they way they are. This means that the 20% unemployed that are out there are just going to stay unemployed. We can either decide to put these people on some kind of government program, like resurrecting Welfare but at a federal level or we can just keep extending state unemployment benefits forever with the federal government picking up the tab. Neither are going to be very popular right now because it is going to be very expensive - 60 million people getting $10,000 a year is 600 billion dollars a year, every year, from now on.

So what can we expect? First off, unless Obama is defeated there will be nothing done for homeowners because he can't afford to do that to the banks. Secondly, we can expect the resurrection of a permanent welfare class that are paid to sit at home and not cause trouble. Will there be a new WPA? Probably not, because many people (somewhat correctly) associate that with turning these people into government slaves. But what about the deficit? As long as China is content to not use the control they are being given, we are likely to just keep running up the tab and getting more and more support from them. What happens if they pull the plug and let most, if not all, the bathwater out? The US will be left high and dry with a lot of commitments and absolutely no way to meet them. That by itself would be justification for a war. Which would handily turn the economy around.

Re:So what is new?

[roman_mir]

Resources are scarce. You can go ahead and create a new device, say an 'iCrap' or whatever, and all of a sudden it IS a scarce device, because only you have it.

Somebody else goes and creates another device 'iShit' and they also are the only ones who have it now.

Anything that any person organizes and creates is a scarce resource, and the pricing model depends on what markets will bear.

As to robots creating everything - once you have your super stuff printers and once you figure out the infinite energy, then you will get your wish. Everybody will be sitting there, printing apples and egg salads and shoes and flying cars and new windows for their sea-houses, etc.

As long as energy is not that easy to get, as long as there are no element trans-mutating, molecule bond and long carbon chain printers, etc., that can produce whatever you want for you immediately, there will be scarcity.

Even when you get all of that, somebody will figure out a way to have your body go on for a longer period of time, all of a sudden THAT is a scarce thing - scarce information. Probably a scarce set of machines and procedures are needed, this becomes the new power - being able to prolong your life.

In a place where things are basically free, the power will be then transfered into other realms, like being able to prolong your life, but what will people be paying with? Because nobody wants to GIVE UP such a thing that they own. If you can prolong your life indefinitely and others cannot, you become an interesting outsider with more and more power of some sort over others.

Free stuff does not really come for free. This will modify the humans if not necessarily immediately physically, then mentally and emotionally, they will become something else and there will be a way to get power over them and some people will seek it, as people always do.

---

Anyway, until that time that all physical things are easy to multiply at no cost, normal rules of scarcity and economics will continue be applicable.

You invent your 'iShit' and somebody else invents 'iCrap' and you want to exchange the 'iShit' for 'iCrap' and thus this type of relationship will continue and those who invent this stuff and organize capital, land and labor to produce this more efficiently than others will gain market share and will be rich.

But to answer your unwarranted question about 'whining' and 'fairness' - AFAIC people don't want to work, but they will have to, because again, the system we have now is NOT the system that you are describing, with everything being 'free'.

It's NOT free. Somebody has to do WORK. Thus your jabs do not reach their destination - the market will continue as it does, and the only people who will suffer are those, who will participate in market destruction via gov't regulations and taxes and subsidies.

They don't DESERVE your 'iCrap' if they don't produce their 'iShit' that you can get from them by exchange. So you'll produce your 'iCrap' in China and they will stay without anything, any 'iCraps' and 'iShits', they won't have any of it, they'll keep being poor. Since they are also ignorant and quite dumb, they will likely try to build what was tried a number of times and failed as many times - some sort of a communist regime to try and avoid the personal responsibility of running their own lives and economies. This only leads to total loss of all rights and total loss of all wealth.

Re:So what is new?

[Nadaka]

The problem with defeating Obama is that you will get a fucking Tea Party endorsed candidate in the white house. While we can certainly do better than Obama, the tea party aint that. I would rather have 4 more years of pain under Obama than face the end of America as we know it that could happen if a tea party traitor becomes president.

On the plus side, Obama's political career will be over when he gets out of office. This means that if he does get reelected, he may not be beholden to the corporate interests that got him the election. There is a sliver of a chance that he could stand up and lead the country in the right direction. I don't expect that to happen, but almost anything is better than the tea party.

Re:So what is new?

[Synerg1y]

Might be wise to wear your tinfoil hat when we have millions of Americans capable of voting for someone like Bush through his front facing campaign alone. There is no friction against the government in the states, and they do whatever they want as a result. Why no blow up a couple of towers, or release a new flu strain, or make up some laws? wtf are you going to do about it? exactly... nothing.

Re:So what is new?

[rjstanford]

Just so you know, all job-creating activities (investigating business opportunities, hiring people, et cetera) are already tax deductible. Lowering taxes on the money extracted from a business into a personal account decreases the chance that jobs will be created, by reducing the tax advantages of doing so.

Re:So what is new?

[roman_mir]

Well this is BS, somebody is moderating the comments 'off-topic', then they should moderate the entire THREAD off-topic.

These comments are ON topic in this THREAD.

Somebody just doesn't like the real economic message, now that's more like it.

Re:So what is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, America probably didn't vote for Bush.

Re:So what is new?

[dgatwood]

As an aside, other than putting their money under a mattress, it is impossible for the wealthy (or anyone else) to "hoard" money: as soon as their money is placed in a bank, or on a stock market, or purchases bonds, or is used to purchase something, or start a business, it's back in the economy.

That used to be at least ostensibly true back before the banks became so terrified of the high default rate that they stopped lending it out.

These days, putting money in the bank is effectively taking money out of circulation; it's tantamount to burning the bills in your fireplace except that burning money takes it out of circulation permanently, and thus increases the value of the currency as a whole, where banking the money doesn't because in theory it might someday be used.

Re:So what is new?

[Schlacht]

-All video content confiscated except four frames from the many surrounding the pentagon?
---Actually, more has been released. There's really not much to see. You have some low fps cameras trying to catch a fast-moving object. The Pentagon missile theory breaks down under its own weight. I mean, if the evil conspiracy had already lobbed two planes at the WTC, why would they bother doing so much to make it look like a plane at the Pentagon instead of just lobbing another plane at the Pentagon? // Oh, you mean ALL of four frames released in 2006? What about the other dozen or more cameras that could certainly show an approach or something? We have been shown nothing of significance, so why hide the rest? No idea why they do what they do in regard to plane/missle/fighters ... but I do know there is not good reason to deny access to the hundreds of frames confiscated by the FBI.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-05-16-pentagon-video_x.htm

-All evidenciary building materials confiscated and destroyed at the crime scene around the trade center plaza?
---There was plenty of debris that was later taken back and tested. NYC was in a bit of a hurry to get that massive pile of rubble cleared out. // As if they expected to rebuild immediately so we could forget our loss? That hole sat ages before they really cleaned it up. Additionally they decided to make a new battleship to help us forget. The whole remove it to forget it argument does not hold up.

-First steel framed high rise buildings in history to collapse due to fire (and a near free fall collapse I may add)
---First steel-framed high-rise building (with a rather unique design) to have massive jumbo jets filled with fuel slammed into them, too. // So, you have looked at the floor plans and still think it was a "hollow box" design? First of all the building was designed to take a hit from an even heavier plane, with four engines not just two. The fuel burned off and is not capable of enough heat to generate the molten steel found in the wreckage, and remaining fires were oxygen starved mostly (See smoke for this). You can't really believe that a building with a core of steel girders running vertically could just collapse straight down into itself, do you? Almost 50 columns of steel 52"x22" and the upper ones still 36"x12".
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/groundzero/docs/jfk_column_s.jpg

-WTC Tower #7 reported as collapsed 20 minutes prior to actual collapse.
----DERP because the media was in on it DERP! The BBC knew, right? No. Misinformation as the fire chief had pulled everyone out of WTC7 and said there was a collapse zone around it. This is one of the more idiotic conspiracy bits because it makes no sense to tout it. It was miscommunication and nothing more. Claiming that BBC an/or the NYC fire department was somehow in on it is absurd, but that doesn't stop conspiracy nuts from flinging every piece of dookie they can find at the wall, now does it? // "BBC in on it?" No, but they were given information to report from someone. They had a source for that and just like the whole farce with NORAD and FAA, you can't just say, "Oh, we're sorry ... that is just a misunderstanding." Too many coincidental misunderstandings in one day I would say.

-NORAD rendered useless due to coincidentally occurring training exercises.
----And training exercises happen all the time. // Yes, and the most well equipt and best trained air force on the planet is bourght to it's knees (Once again coincidentally) because on this specific day nearly EVERYONE is playing wargames and not on duty? You are a real piece of work, slashdotters used to be thinkers ... go back to your xbox.

-Bush remaining in publicly known location despite the, "attac

Re:So what is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

Collapse was also following path of maximum resistance (take off YOUR tin hat and put on thinking cap for that)

You missed this one...

Re:So what is new?

[Synerg1y]

Yep, I keep forgetting about the Florida elections... that put Bush in office w a convenient consensual resignation of the democratic candidate.

Re:So what is new?

[Schlacht]

yep, that's my point... And the real frustration starts when you see how the Commission Report just disregards this.

I don't claim to have answers to the mysteries, I just demand a proper investigation by a party that isn't so partial to the white house.

Re:So what is new?

[g4b]

> Economies are created by private individuals who work to live better, that's all there is to it.

By using any means neccessary. Not controling the market too much actually made all the mess. You see, it's some of those private individuals who used government to make themselves richer. You have connections, you create lobbies, and it's mostly not even malevolent initially. Even with Terry Pratchett's insights about gold and money, you still have to remember, the most fraudulent thing about it is, that it happens in babysteps. As it happened the last 100 years.

Government spendings on unneeded things is one problem.
The evolution of money is also one problem.
The brainwash of a broken concept, that every human can become rich if he just works right and the market makes us all happy, because human demand for more will make them work, is another.

If you build a market system based on greed, it will be greed which leads the market. And only the greedy will write positive numbers.

What government needs is a clean separation from external moneyfloods, realizing, that we formed governments only, so that we can govern ourselves instead of giving it to some people who just give the power to their children. We formed democracy to prevent human greed from abusing the majority.

We need to control markets and stop people using their wealth to influence politics for them to get wealthier. Because thats why we created governments.

Re:So what is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or it could be your own beliefs working:

"The only way to do this meaningfully is to allow the market sort out what is needed by market and what is not."

The /. community has its own economy in its comments/moderation system, and thus its own market. And this market has spoken.

If I had the mod points I'd give it to you and many of your posts (and I've been following), but alas in this /. economy I'm just an AC and my comments aren't worth anything, just like your comments in this thread. In other words, neither of us are producing anything people want in the /. economy, and thus we can't make any meaningful demands in return (such as not being modded down, or better yet being modded up)

Re:So what is new?

[The Phantom Mensch]

The most unlikely part of the planted explosives theory is that the demolition charges could've survived the plane crashes and ensuing fires without any malfunctions. Remote controlled, wired or wireless demolition charges don't do very well in really hot fires. The wires lose their insulation and short. The explosives themselves melt and/or catch fire. If there are wireless receivers involved they are susceptible to all kinds of fire damage and radio transmission interference problems. And videos of the collapse of WTC 1 and 2 show very clearly that the collapses started exactly where the airplanes struck, so the hijackers would have to have aimed exactly where those indestructible demolition charges were planted, on different floors on each tower, for some reason. It just strains credulity way too far.

Re:So what is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

look closely...

Re:So what is new?

[WindBourne]

Wish that I had my mod points. I would have bumped you up. All the crap about cutting taxes, but then ignoring the fact that other tax breaks ENCOURAGES sending the jobs to China is just insane.

CONgress is America's enemy far more than the taliban. Talban kills individuals. CONgress is killing America.

Re:So what is new?

[AJH16]

"As a species we can either accept this and build a wonderful world where everybody can live a decent life without working if they want"

This is perhaps the most idiotic thing I have read all day. If everyone can live a decent life without working, then why would anyone want to work? Economics never have been and never will be a guaranteed thing that what you put in is what you get out. For every 1 person who works hard and succeeds, another 99 work hard and just make minor progress. If you extend those useful workers to now also have to carry the burden of many others, those chances of success will become 1 in 100,000. Why the hell would anyone try to work hard at such longshot odds if they could simply have an almost identical quality of life doing jack shit?

Automation has increased efficiency, but innovation has also increased the number of products available and has increased the quality of life. Automation is about using resources more efficiently. Workers producing more product means higher profit and more production and thus more resources. More resources means the ability to produce more products and more jobs. Automation and gains in efficiency should never cost jobs, but rather increase the number of high paying jobs as efficiencies grow.

To explain it more simply, if automation allows 1 person to do the work of 100, then the savings of the 99 who aren't paid to make the same product can, atleast in part, go to that 1. That one can now afford to buy far more so there is now more demand for different products from that person. The 99 who no longer are needed can then be used to make other products. The only way that the system could break is if those who were working all had everything they wanted and had no need for anything else. Efficiency can only cause a loss of jobs when demand goes away. The only other possible problem is when resources become to scarce to support the population, but in that case, you are screwed whatever way you go and your best hope is to reward those who make most effective use of resources. (Which will be those who are most efficient.)

Re:So what is new?

[sgt_doom]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuC_4mGTs98

Re:So what is new?

[WillDraven]

I'm at work so I'm not going to take the time to dig up sources, but I remember reading about studies where they found that most humans are happiest when they feel like they've accomplished something. Contrary to popular belief not everybody wants to just goof off all the time. The whole world wouldn't grind to a halt if you were able to have a decent life without working.

  I think instead what would happen is we would see a huge resurgence in art and creativity. How many people do you know that have ideas for books, music, or movies but never do anything about it because they have to spend all their time doing busywork they hate just so they don't starve to death? And there are plenty of philanthropic people who would love designing systems to feed/house/teach everybody on the planet if the resources were allocated for it.

You said yourself most people who work hard don't get shit for it. Why are we allowing a system to continue where 1% of the population gets to hold on to 90% of the resources? We keep telling our kids to work hard and they might win the billionaire lottery, even though we all know it is exceedingly unlikely.

Re:So what is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

Same with blowing up WTC 7. Why on earth would the government participate in that?

WTC7 contained mostly federal government offices, including the SEC, and all of their files on the stock market crash / insider trading investigations which the new Republican administration was probably not eager to pursue. Lucky for them WTC7 collapsed mysteriously and the evidence was all destroyed.

Oh, and speaking of insider trading.

Re:So what is new?

[repvik]

Seriously? There's not enough facepalms to cover the stupidity of truthers. I had a hope that slashdot would be one site with few. I was wrong.

I personally know three airline pilots. They all confirm that once the plane is airborne, there's not much skill needed to fly it. A few hours of training i FlightSim really does get you most of the way.
(Yeah, I'm just addressing that one issue. The rest is so beyond moronic that I don't need spending time debunking the crap. A simple google search suffices for most people with an IQ higher than George W. Bush dog)

Re:So what is new?

[AJH16]

"You said yourself most people who work hard don't get shit for it. Why are we allowing a system to continue where 1% of the population gets to hold on to 90% of the resources? We keep telling our kids to work hard and they might win the billionaire lottery, even though we all know it is exceedingly unlikely."

Don't get me wrong, I don't like the system the way it is either, but the answer isn't to support those who do nothing, but to support those who want to contribute in non-conventional ways. Everything you said about those who don't have the opportunity to pursue things because they have to work to get by doesn't require that you give anyone something for nothing to correct it. I don't think at the moment our economy can support it, but in good times, I am all for the support of the arts and helping to make sure that people have the opportunity to pursue their dreams if they are willing to work for them.

Also, in response to your partial citation that people are happiest when they feel like they are accomplishing something, that is 110% correct in comparison to doing work that they do not feel is beneficial. However, what it fails to see is that what people want to do and what is necessary for the world to work rarely match up. How many people want to be garbage collectors or assembly line workers? How well would the world hold together if nobody had to do those jobs to get by tomorrow? Not everyone can have their dream job, some people are not good enough at doing what they really want to do to be able to do it as well as how ever many of that job can be supported. It is a harsh reality of life that not everyone gets to do what they want, and nothing other than an end of scarcity of resources will ever change that (which means either killing off a majority of the worlds population or managing to colonize other worlds or at least harvest their resources.) Even then, it would require a level of automation we do not currently, and likely will not possess for several centuries or more at a minimum.

It isn't at all fair that 1% get 90% of the resources, particularly when that 1% are propped up by government regulation, but the idea of giving everyone something for nothing is neither better, nor possible.

Re:So what is new?

[AJH16]

Another thought which I got distracted from mentioning is that many would still either have no dream or feel that they couldn't do it even if they felt that they could survive while pursuing it. Many of those people will fall back to the secondary position of hedonism as an approach to finding happiness. Hedonism in the context of a society that provides for people's needs without question is a recipe for abuse and waste. "Eat, drink and be marry for tomorrow you may die." would be the rallying cry for many in such a society, even if it doesn't bring them happiness, simply because it is easier.

Re:So what is new?

[korean.ian]

The problem you have here is that you're working with an extremely simple model - 2 goods, one factor of production. The world is an exceedingly complex place.

You say "it cannot be that a small minority produce most of everything and then the large majority just consumes it." - but you are neglecting the effects of technology. In terms of consumer goods, production has become very efficient either due to technology (think robotics in the automotive plant) or cost-effective due to low wages. Using the H-O model as a base (which you seem to be doing since you're basing many assumptions on comparative advantage) one would assume that the US exports more capital intensive goods, but in fact the US exports more labor intensive goods and imports more capital intensive goods (for the US, the Leontief paradox still holds true).
Now if you're working in a Ricardian model - then sure you can include human labor as part of the US's capital, but because of skill-biased technological change, the demand for unskilled labor has decreased.
I find it interesting that you use China as your whipping boy - you might be interested to know that China and the US have very similar GINI coefficients. Now sure, the US currently has a higher GDP than China, but if you look at growth rates, the US has gone through negative growth over the last couple of years. Additionally, China's political economy hasn't been communist for about 20 years, just a little FYI.

Re:So what is new?

[DavidTC]

Hey, idjit, the stock trading thing is exactly the sort of nonsense I was talking about. Why the fuck would the government try to make a few billion in stock trades during 9/11? They obviously wouldn't, so now you're got to bring extra people that the US has inexplicably informed in advance, and who jeopardize the entire conspiracy.

Of course, such trading did happen, and it's entirely possible that the people who did it knew enough about the attacks...but that does not, in any way, point to the US government, which is usually a good deal more secret about black ops that murder thousands of Americans. All that means is that terrorists have access to the stock market.

As for the SEC, I think it's been very well demonstrated that they didn't bother to investigate anything under Bush anyway, and, again, you're trying to dilute the plot in ways that make no sense: Not only is the US government committing mass murder in an attempt to mislead people into a war...but it's decided it, for some reason, can't just ignore criminal cases (like it did all the time under Bush) and can't just have a 'fire' or something to destroy evidence...no, it needs to blow up a fucking building to...hide evidence that only it has access to anyway.

Re:So what is new?

[DavidTC]

Yeah, I know.

I was just pointing out that a lot of the 'evidence' doesn't even make sense to actually accomplish the goals of the supposed conspiracy. Why hit the Pentagon with a missile instead of airplane? Why, as the other poster claim, risk the entire conspiracy with fricking stock trades? And, no, they didn't need to blow up the incredibly ineffectual SEC.

If the US government was going to hijack airplanes as a pretense for war, they would, you know, actually hijack them. Or, even better, cut off communication with them, and then remote control them. Swapping out the airplanes for fakes is utterly nonsensical...now you have to do that, and get rid of the planes and kill everyone on board. (And while you can easily find a sociopath who will remote-control a plane into a building, if instead you're landing the plane, now you need an actual security force willing to commit cold-blooded murder, in person, of hundreds of people. Just because those are both the same amount of murders does not make them equal difficulty.)

Conspiracies happen. Some conspiracies are real.

The easiest way to see if they are or not is to look at the 'evidence', and try to figure out it's just every single random 'anomaly' that people can invent, regardless of whether or not those would advance the actual story about what they proport happen.

Something like 80% of the 'anomaly' that the Truther leap up and down pointing at do not even slightly appear to advance the actual goals of the supposed conspiracy.

For example, why would the government steal the identities of Saudis if they wanted a reason to go to war in Iraq? (Why would they steal the identities of anyway alive? Wouldn't it be easy enough to just make up some Iraqis, and then build a 'headquarters' in Iraq for the invasion force to discover, with messages from Bin Laden and uncashed checks from Saddam?)

There are so many holes in their theories that they have to being in random third parties, like the WTC owner and some random stock traders and stuff. Hey, here's a fun question: When you're about to commit mass murder, do you go around looking for people to help commit insurance fraud with?

'Hey, I'm going to kill some people, and I know your restaurant isn't going so well, so can I drug them and put them in there, and then burn it down?' 'Why, sure, that sounds like a great idea, and there's no way that could backfire on me if this agreement ever came out. And no way that, after killing thousands of people, you might want to later kill me, either.'

I'll at least listen to the 'let it happen on purpose' people who assert that various people in the government managed to piece together what was going to happen and then deliberately ignored it. Those people are wrong, at least they are not sprouting such utter nonsense as the 'false flag' people.

Re:So what is new?

[WorBlux]

Right nonvoters have won every presidential election in history. :)

Re:So what is new?

[roman_mir]

Not controling the market too much actually made all the mess.

- Not controlling the GOVERNMENT made all the mess.

Market is controlled by the veto and vote of an individual. One buys iPad because he likes it, another person buys Samsung Galaxy because they like it. Somebody is selling more, somebody is selling less.

Then you have gov't intervention, it protects companies with limited liability, with patents, copyrights, you name it. All of a sudden you are a consumer (in Germany) who cannot BUY a Samsung Galaxy pad because government said so.

How is that beneficial to the market? It's not. But it's beneficial to the power of politics, which gets to decide who wins and who loses and destroys the market.

--

Gov't got itself this 'authority' to counterfeit money. Well it does NOT have that authority. It sets prices for money - short and now long (TWIST) term interest rates.

It does NOT have that authority!

Gov't decided to guarantee mortgage loans. It never had that authority!

Gov't decided to guarantee people giving loans to banks (so called deposits, but those are loans). FDIC. Gov't did not have that authority.

Gov't decided to guarantee SS and Medicare and minimum wage and the so called 'civil rights', which in reality are entitlements and obligations. It never had that authority.

Gov't decides everything, from your education to your health and insurance, to your roads and your wars, and your money cost and your money worth, and what goes into your food etc.etc.etc.

None of this is authorized to the federal government. Instead of completely misunderstanding the issue, you should look at the facts that before 1913 the US economy was growing steadily and there was deflation of money supply, while quality of life was going up.

Henry Ford was not regulated by gov't. He was regulated by markets when he decided to pay twice as much as others and to cut week to 5 days and day to 8 hours. He was paying an equivalent of 120K today based on gold cost (and people didn't pay income tax). A guy with just reading/writing/arithmetic skills was able to have a family with a stay at home wife, 5-6 kids, his own hose, paid for his own retirement and his kids studied privately and he paid for his own (and his family's) health insurance and care.

And it was all done without debt. And he could buy a Ford automobile he was producing with only 4 months of salary (and of-course people didn't do that, but they could save for a few years and actually buy with cash.)

All of this was possible NOT because of gov't regulations but because gov't was NOT regulating the way it does now.

---

It's not about every human becoming rich in terms of money. It's about every human becoming rich in terms of what he can afford to buy.

The industrial revolution and capitalism allowed the poorest of people to start gaining purchasing power with little money that used to belong only to the richest.

Doing your own dishes? Not if you are a rich person prior to 19 century. But within 19 century? Anybody could have a washing machine (unless they lived in formers USSR or Soviet China).

The point is that government can only destroy wealth by taking it away from those who create it. People create wealth to live better.

Those with money can afford to be more enterprising, and that's what economy needs - not more gov't but instead more enterprising people.

But you can't have more enterprising people AND more government SIMULTANEOUSLY.

Re:So what is new?

[DavidTC]

Oh, and I forgot to address the 'explosives' nonsense in the other post.

There is absolutely no reason for the US government to destroy the WTC. If they were trying to create a 'national emergency', that does not require the collapse of the WTC at all.

Just flying airplanes into it was enough. Nothing in their supposed plan required it to go down. The buildings were frickin unusable either way, and planting explosives is incredibly risky for a dozen reasons. (In fact, if you're going to plant explosive, there's, you know, the parking deck, where we would all assume it was bin Laden. You can just leave the planes out of it.)

In fact, the WTC is a somewhat stupid thing to attack, considering how much finance goes through it and how much it hurt the economy. (Well, and how much it hurt the banks, which, as we have later learned, the government will do anything for, even after they've carefully blown their own legs off.) That is why it was attacked by bin Laden in actual real life.

Compare that to, for example, the Statue of Liberty. That would have been a nice symbolic attack and gotten everyone really upset...and done no actual harm to the country, and the vast majority of the dead would be from the airplane passengers. Sure, some people would go 'All in all, that was a dumb target, all it did was piss us off', but whatever.

This is why the conspiracy theories invent the idea that somehow the WTC owner was in on it, and that part of this was the equivalent of burning it down for insurance money. Which, as I pointed out in my other post, is idiotic on the face of it...no one going to be an accessory to the murder of thousands of people for the frickin insurance money, nor do mass murderers need or want 'permission' to destroy a building, nor would mass murderers let such people live with such knowledge afterward.

Re:So what is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, don't let facts stand in the way of your conspiracy theory. It's already been investigated. The "planes operation" of 9-11 took far more than 8 months for AQ to plan and execute. It was not a conspiracy dreamed up by your favorite scapegoats. I love how Bush critics go on about how stupid he is, and then they turn around and give him "credit" for pulling off something like this with no evidence left behind. Which is it?
If something appears to be too simple, it often is not; just as those things that appear to be too good to be true usually aren't.

Re:So what is new?

[roman_mir]

The problem you have here is that you're working with an extremely simple model - 2 goods, one factor of production. The world is an exceedingly complex place.

- I am trying to bring a point across.

Of-course world is complex, but the basic interaction in trade remains the same: I want YOU to produce something that is valuable in trade between YOU and ANY market participant.

It does not have to be me. But if I produce something and everybody else produces something, then by using money we just allow ourselves to exchange the goods we produce.

If HALF of the people produce and HALF of the people don't produce, I don't want to SHARE the SAME MONEY with them.

Do you understand? Sharing currency with people who use it by borrowing/printing, but who do not produce anything useful in the market is like giving your stuff away for free, and why would I want to do that? I just want to go to a vacation then instead of keeping up the work.

--
This idiot - Roseanne Barr wants to kill anybody who makes over $100,000,000/year if they don't GIVE UP anything over that.

First she'd put them into 'reeducation camps' of-course. My great-grandfather went through a system like that. He was a farmer in Ukraine and had a bunch of kids (many kids) and he was 'raskulachen' - his farm was stolen from him by the Soviet gov't in 1930s. They were sent in a train (where they had to stand all the way, because there was no space in it) to Kazakhstan from Ukraine. His wife and half of the kids died in the road. In Kazakhstan he restarted the farm again, and it was taken away from him AGAIN in fifties! Because he was AGAIN doing BETTER than the collective farms around him in Kazakhstan. That's just one story. He didn't get shot by the way, I don't know why. Millions did.

She wants guillotine for those who won't give up more than $100,000,000/year. WHY WORK then once you already have the $100,000,000/year? OK, anybody who owns a company that can make him that money should shut down the factory once he reaches the yearly goal that Roseanne before him and then go to a vacation for the rest of the year. What would that do to the economy?

But that's just a STUPID person talking. Bet she makes just a little under that, but the point is that her message - it's designed to incite VIOLENCE and it will hurt the economy.

If those idiots protesters wanted to do something REAL, they should have gone to all the Federal Reserve Banks in all the cities.

THAT'S where shit is really happening. That's who is instrumental in destroying the economy and currency and financing all these wars and all these banks and making the people poor in the process.

----

The rest of your remarks are way off target, you may want to check my journal. I KNOW that Asia and China in particular are way more capitalist than anybody else on the planet today.

I KNOW that US GDP is cooked, especially given how cooked the CPI numbers are, so the deflater is fake. The GDP has been falling by 10% annually for 15 years at least now.

The ONLY reason that US labor force is so expensive is GOVERNMENT intervention into the economy:

Wars, SS, Medicare, minimum wage, civil rights (in reality entitlements and obligations, not rights), all the labor laws. Dep't of energy, education, agriculture, small business, transportation, FDIC, FDA, EPA, FAA, FCC, FHA, Freddie/Fannie, CIA, FBI etc.etc., these are all the reasons that US labor is uncompetitive and too expensive.

It's not about wages, it's about all of the expensive litigation that is forced upon the employers that lose their rights at the moment they hire anybody in USA. Nobody should hire in USA, this is the stupidest thing to do - to hire in USA. You lose all of your rights if you do this. They will take you through the court system, you'll pay huge fines and lawyer fees, everything, because you do not

Re:So what is new?

[MechaStreisand]

Wow, you're a nutcase.

Re:So what is new?

[blueg3]

the level of demand that previously existed was predicated largely upon homeowners withdrawing equity from their homes

Do you have anything other than assertion to back that up?

Re:So what is new?

[Red Flayer]

No, someone is sick of you taking any pretext at all to post a wall of text with your economic and political ideas that have little to nothing to do with the articles the rest of us are commenting on.

Your shit-splattering posts are making slashdot a less enjoyable place for a lot of people.

It's not that some moderators don't like your "real economic message", it's that you're unable to limit yourself to talking about it in suitable stories. Also, it might have something to do with the fact that you have shown yourself to be unable to have reasonable discourse on the subject, as you employ all kinds of logical and rhetorical fallacies to make your points.

The truth is, anyone who disagrees with you learns quickly to ignore you -- it's a waste of time discussing economics with you. Anyone who might agree with you has either heard it all before, or is put off by your writing style. Even if they like reading your posts, it amounts to a circlejerk if you already all agree.

So why bother dragging your personal economic and political ideas into every damn article discussion? Are you really making anything better, or are you just tilting at windmills?

Re:So what is new?

[roman_mir]

I am pretty sure nobody is forcing to read my comments, but I am also pretty sure that this thread is very appropriate for them. I don't know what you think /. is for, AFAIC it's a discussion forum. Anything that is discussed has multiple facets to it, economy and politics are at least as important as technology when talking about events. My reply in this thread is on topic IN THIS THREAD.

Re:So what is new?

[korean.ian]

The problem is this: the basic interaction in trade doesn't work in the real world, even if you don't have a medium of exchange like currency. Factors of production are not equal, transportation costs make some goods non-tradeable, and economies of scale increase efficiency meaning labor/capital requirements change (land is considered part of capital in economics by the way). This has been shown by empirical studies.
Nowhere near half of the people don't produce - unemployment is at 9% in the US. Unless you're counting children and the elderly in your rant. Are you really hoping for a return to the era when children could work to help support the family?
The market does correct in time - but that's the issue - time. Wages could be too low for certain sectors of the economy for years because of the tendency for demand in the sector to decrease, as an example. Additionally, in a totally free market, when companies acquire enough market share, they can create barriers to entry.

I'm not going to argue you with you because you see civil rights as entitlements rather than rights, so I know this will be futile. Since civil rights are meant to ensure that an individual can pursue economic happiness free from discrimination, I would think that you and your great-grandfather would appreciate them more than the average person (see articles 12 and 17 of the UN declaration of human rights).
We've seen what happens when there are no effective bureaucratic agencies in place - it's called Somalia.

Re:So what is new?

[slew]

Although the general business activities expenses are mostly deductible, there are many issues that still prevent job sitmulus (as opposed to natural job creation that results when demand goes up, which isn't happening currently in this economy).

First of all, lowering the cost of new entry-level employees (when they are the least productive), is something that would stimulate job creation. Unfortunatly, this is kept artificially high by higher "living-wage" laws. Not that the jobs that are created are all of low wages and are directly affected by this, but this causes wage inflation at the entry level of the economy. If someone can flip burgers at McD's for $10-$12/hour, that might push up the hourly rate of an entry level receptionist to $15/hour. Since entry level employees aren't as productive as their peers, then at some rate level, it makes more sense to pay the more senior person more (or give them more hours), than take the risk on an entry level employee. That's because new employees must overcome the Tax threshold (in addition to their own wages). Unemployment insurance, workers comp, employee training tax, are all working against this new entry level employee as well as their own lack of initial productivity. There's also the risk of having to let that employee go (because of lack of productivity) that will risk higher UI premiums. That tends to keep new-employment lower on average.

Of course we can't go w/o UI or Worker's Comp or ETT, or various other employee oriented (vs worker-hour oriented) infrastructure in a civilized society, so what can be done to reduce the marginal cost of a new employee to a business? Well for one, we can credit these cost against other taxes that are paid by businesses. But wait, we can't do that because nobody wants businesses to pay any lower taxes (even if they are a credit) and no matter what we design, there's bound to be loopholes.

Admittedly nobody has (seriously) suggested these things yet, but in reality any reduction on taxes on businesses is such political poison to the current administration that I doubt it will be looked at. Basically people just have their fingers crossed that somehow demand will pickup and the natural demand forces that result in new job creation will somehow save the day... With the current unemployment overhang, I don't really see how demand will pickup anytime in the near future.

Ironically, when you look at the typical liberal attitude of having government assistance available to all even if some take advantage or abuse it (a classic example is cars for klunkers, earned income credits, or somewhat more controversial food stamps), isn't really transferable to small businesses that create jobs. For example, the latest "job" bill wants to create a new protected class of workers: the long-term unemployed. Why? Because somehow people feel that the long term unemployed may be discriminated against and all things being equal, need to be considered for jobs before folks who currently have jobs (ignoring of course that if the a currently employee person got the job, that creates a vacancy that perhaps a different unemployed person can fill). This is just insanity. Why would a small business even take the chance of opening up a job position given all the liability associated until demand really picks up and they absolutely need to hire someone. No wonder everything is just stalled: nobody wants to take any chances at all. Not the liberals, not the conservatives.

Re:So what is new?

[roman_mir]

First: market is a price discovery mechanism, it's a discounting mechanism, it takes all of those issues into account (absent gov't bullshit.)

Second: unemployment in USA is over 20%, CPI is over 11% and GDP has been falling for over 15 years at 10% per year based on the wrong CPI deflater. 50 million people are on SS (some of them are working), near 30 million are working for governments in various capacities, including contractors and mercs. 40% of the economy is so called 'financial sector'.

The actual PRODUCTIVE part of US economy is about 7%. That's all of the production.

90% of US seafood is imported from Asia, did you know that? USA is surrounded with oceans and it has lakes and rivers, yet 90% of seafood is imported.

The 53Billion USD/month shows that USA under-produces and under-exports by 53Billion USD/month. That's all that matters, whatever you do inside the country doesn't matter if you import by 53Billion USD/month more than you export.

Third: there is no such thing as 'civil rights'.

For example: 1964 - civil rights act. What did it do? Today unemployment among blacks is higher than for other groups, 50% of young blacks before age 24 are unemployed. Before 1964 that number was 15%.

That's right, so what changed? A few things, beside China:
1. Minimum wage kept creeping up.
2. All of these entitlement laws, that put obligations upon employers and make employers liable and drive costs of hiring those, who are covered with special protections of the "civil rights act" up.

Why would anybody hire an American? But DOUBLY why would anybody hire an American, who has special privileges, entitlements protected by government that put obligations upon the employers, which in reality means that employers often face lawsuits and various fines and who knows how much money it ends up costing?

Also of-course the loan guarantees that went into the education system and all of the money thrown at medical insurance and care and SS. All of this nonsense, never mind the wars, unemployment in USA is direct response of the market to the rising costs of employment, and this is not even about wages.

AFAIC if Obama wants to direct a specific jobs plan at blacks, he should immediately repeal all of the special protections granted to blacks and he should abolish the minimum tax.

To make everybody more employable they should abolish SS, Medicare, stop all wars and spending and stop abolish all business regulations and income taxes.

Only government harakiri can fix the economy at this point. Like they did in 1921.

Last thing: no. Neither I, nor my predecessors wanted ANY government privileges, the only important thing is RIGHTS.

Individual rights and those are the only important protections that must be provided and that's why people even agree upon governments in the first place. Of-course there are few places where people actually get to AGREE on what a government is, it's just imposed upon them, and that's all there is to it. That's what made USA special - people came up with government on their own, threw out the old system, the kings, and came up with a Constitution that LIMITED government. Gov't was set up to protect individual liberties, so that was a good set up.

USSR on the other hand also threw away the tzar (king), but what it did instead was total oppression of individual by the collective, and this destroys the people and economy, it cannot be allowed. Somalia went through a civil war just to remove a communist type of government. They set up what works for them, there are parts of it that are governed by what people agree (local law) and there are parts that still have fighting going on between clans, but it has nothing to do with protecting anybody's individual rights.

Re:So what is new?

[roman_mir]

Oh, and by the way, it's quite stupid to say that a person who was persecuted by government would want MORE government. It's just a retarded way of thinking. Trust me, one thing my great-grandfather hated more than anything in his life was that government system and he wanted nothing to do with it. Use your brains for once.

Re:So what is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeez, calm down for a minute and just try to pay attention.

No one said the government was shorting stocks on 9/11. But, as you say, someone was. Lots of people, actually. Because if it were just a handful, certainly they would have been investigated by now, right? It's clear that more people knew about it than just a few terrorists in caves. And they didn't end up in Gitmo. Ask yourself "why".

There are a dozen power centers in the US government. No one but you is pretending they all act as a monolithic entity. It's entirely possible that some faction could have orchestrated or carried out the attack independently. There is ample evidence that several of them at least had foreknowledge.

As for the SEC, look up "plausible deniability". It's easier to ignore current criminal wrongdoing than past cases for which you have a mountain of evidence and victims at your door demanding action. And remember, the US gov't is not a monolithic entity. It's a giant bureaucracy of competing interests. Many members of the Bush administration had been there for 40 years, knew this all too well, and knew exactly how to manipulate it to their advantage.

Re:So what is new?

[Falconhell]

Yawn, I guess the govenment interference in the Australian economy, which prevented even a recession in our country has no relevance.

Its really boring finding the same falacious economic theories repeated endlessly you know.

Re:So what is new?

[transami]

There's plenty, if you know where to look and how to interpret the information. Probably the most important thing to understand is that there are always two sides to a coin.

Re:So what is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought bureaucracy was like XML? If it isn't solving your problems, you're not using enough?

Re:So what is new?

[tehcyder]

We need to cut taxes on the job creators and the wealthy people that drive our economy. We need to slash funding to effectively kill off those branches of government that are bad, and they will be neutered and die on the "vine".

The wealthy people are the ones destroying your economy and freedoms, you fuckard. Or do you think all the bankers, CEOs and politicians are poor die-hard communists?

Re:So what is new?

[DavidTC]

People were investigated for stock trades made pre-9/11. It was determined to be a coincidence. The excessive trading on America Airlines on Sept 6 was due to a weird strategy that had the same people buying a shitload of their stock on Sept 10, which was hardly a way to make money. The United stock trades were due to a newsletter the previous day.

As for the SEC, look up "plausible deniability". It's easier to ignore current criminal wrongdoing than past cases for which you have a mountain of evidence and victims at your door demanding action.

You do know that the SEC has recently been called out for destroying evidence from previous cases, right? Since 1992? Illegally destroying it, mind you. So all investigators had to start from scratch?

So that means, to destroy all these 'evidence' you think they had...all they had to do was close whatever investigation they were using it for, and, poof, they destroyed it as part of procedure. (According to the National Archives this is illegal, sure, but hardly as illegal as being accessories to mass murder. And considering they're done it thousands of times, I can't imagine they got cold feet just that once.)

Maybe they just wanted those records really destroyed.

Re:So what is new?

[Red Flayer]

but I am also pretty sure that this thread is very appropriate for them.

Obviously, some mods disagree.

Sure, the whole thread may be off-topic. But I'd say it's human nature to preferentially downmod the ones that take up all the screen real-estate and make the rest of the (on-topic) article discussion harder to find.

Re:So what is new?

[mergez]

You're right, there's no real evidence of it.

This is quite wrong. There is a massive amount of evidence proving the false flag hypothesis, as well as disproving the official story, a conspiracy theory for which there is in fact no solid evidence. Start at www.ae911truth.org. It's frustrating to watch truthers portrayed as the side extrapolating from poor data and contradicting established facts when in reality the exact opposite is true. Many extremely intelligent and heroic Americans have risked their entire reputation to communicate this to the American people, however apparently if it's not coming from the corporate media or NIST then nobody wants to hear it. Here at Slashdot I would expect better, but I won't hold my breath. This country has been owned and dominated for many years by those who control the money supply, and those folks have done many terrible things to us. If 9/11 isn't your preference for coming to terms with this, so be it. There will be other opportunities to come to terms with how this country really works.

Re:So what is new?

[LibRT]

Sorry for the delay - getting my car ready for sale...

I haven't had time to dig up the direct stats, but will later today - but it isn't speculation on my part. Here's at least some data: between 2001 and Sept 2007, over $350 billion worth of credit card debt was transferred to home equity loans (which, interestingly, gets the borrower a tax break, because mortgage interest in the US is deductible). That's according to the Rochester Institute of Technology, altho I could only find it quoted, not the direct data yet. Home equity loans rose from $153 billion in 1990 to $317 billion in 1998 http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/812_estimated_home_equity_debt_outstanding_by.html - I'll find data that takes us up to 2011. See too this link: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ALSREACB?cid=100 courtesy the St. Louis Fed, for loans secured by real estate - obviously this doesn't distinguish between mortgages and home equity loans, but it serves to give you a sense of the trending leading up to the economic downturn.

Sorry for not being more thorough - lots on the go at the moment!

Re:So what is new?

[LibRT]

I don't think you could burn it more quickly than they're printing it from thin air! :)

Interesting point tho. If I ran a bank, and if the government was giving me money for free by way of an effective zero percent lending rate, I think I'd take as much as I could get, and sit on it (by way of investing in Treasury Bonds) until interest rates went up. I'm of the mind that the interest rate is way too low to stimulate any meaningful economic activity, because a low interest rate stimulates demand for loans (which already exists) while a high interest rate stimulates supply of loans (or, more properly, the spread between borrowing and lending costs, however they're sitting on money which they got for zero effective interest). It doesn't seem to me that the problem is not enough people wishing to borrow - far from it! The problem is not enough people willing to lend. Give them an attractive spread between what they can lend money for versus what they paid for it, and it seems to me it would come back into circulation.

In all cases, though, government, or central banks with obfuscated dealings, shouldn't be the ones manipulating the interest rate - that's something the market can do quite efficiently and with fewer side effects.

Re:So what is new?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's referring to Florida and the Supreme Court decision you fucking ignorant twat. Take that smiley face and shove it up your asshole nigger

So

[SlippyToad]

Deliberately screwing something up is still called a "mistake" when it leads to thousands of easily-prevented deaths?

I guess if I intentionally sabotage a project I'm working on I can claim a mistake was made too. I am just as sure that I will get fired regardless.

If just ONE person gets fired or becomes unemployable due to this it would be a sign that some kind of credibility still exists in our federal law enforcement/security agencies. But, I doubt it's ever going to happen.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

Deliberately screwing something up is still called a "mistake" when it leads to thousands of easily-prevented deaths?

It is quite common when dealing with secret information to restrict access on a need-to-know basis.

This kind of policy has one big upside - the risk of leaking is greatly reduced.

This kind of policy has one big downside - you are denying information to people who could really use it.

Now it's not clear from the summary or the linked articles (still reading) whether the CIA guy was following policy in not passing the info along to the FBI.

Re:So

[poity]

I believe CIA were tracking al-Mihdha and buddies both inside and outside of the US in the months leading up to the attacks. FBI had other pieces of the puzzle, but since they were foreign nationals, they were the primary responsibility of the CIA, even when they were on US soil. Perhaps CIA thought they were on to something bigger and didn't want to compromise their surveillance op too soon, thus the rules on operational secrecy would demand continued compartmentalization.

So it seems the failure here was an agency that played too closely by the book when it should have been bending the rules. But imagine the howling on Slashdot on 9/10/2011 if things had happened differently, and the CIA and FBI stepped out of bounds of their rules and regulations in order to prevent this.

Re:So

[Dan Dankleton]

The thing is, there are a whole bunch of people around the world who think that this is government conspiracy to cause those thousands of easily prevented deaths. Yes, it was deliberate screwing up. No, it wasn't government conspiracy, it was just humans being short-sited idiots. We as a race are pretty good at that.

Re:So

[billcopc]

The problem is finding the source of that mistake. Either you accept the possibility that a series of individually inane omissions added up to a giant clusterfuck, or you choose to believe the theory that a handful of people acted strategically to trigger the "right mistakes", which sent the remaining players along a predictable path toward the desired outcome. Like a big meat-powered Rube Goldberg machine of doom...

Given the level of stupidity inherent in any large enough organisation, I'm not quite ready to dismiss theory #2.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

Deliberately screwing something up is still called a "mistake" when it leads to thousands of easily-prevented deaths?

I guess if I intentionally sabotage a project I'm working on I can claim a mistake was made too. I am just as sure that I will get fired regardless.

If just ONE person gets fired or becomes unemployable due to this it would be a sign that some kind of credibility still exists in our federal law enforcement/security agencies. But, I doubt it's ever going to happen.

Not only did Jamie Gorelick not get fired, afterward she moved on to working on the board of Fannie Mae (making some $800,000/year). It seems like world-wide catastrophes follow her wherever she goes...

Re:So

[TangoMargarine]

Dictionary.com defines mistake as "an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc." So yes.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

Valerie Plame was fired. /just saying.

Re:So

[dbIII]

I agree, not even treason is enough to keep you can getting another job in the system once you are in as Poindexter could tell you. I wonder how he deals with anyone in the US Marines since he sold weapons to Hezbolla via Iran? They must hate him enough to want to shoot him on sight.

"well, back in my day we didn't eat babies..."

[Thud457]

Get with the times grandpa! Accountability is for little people!

Re:"well, back in my day we didn't eat babies..."

[hedwards]

Which is the problem. Rather than focusing on increasing the quality of the information that they're processing, they've focused on increasing the volume hoping that something will rise to the surface. The problem is that even as they get more and more materials the number of people available to analyse it hasn't increased by a similar amount. Leading to the unfortunate situation where there's a lot of intelligence information out there that isn't analysed, and a lot of people losing privacy needlessly.

Accountability for torture and various violations of the law don't seem to ever materialise at the levels necessary to prevent the abuses of power.

credibility?

[rjejr]

I think you mean culpability. Nobody gets fired anymore. Colin Powell's huge WMD speech before the UN is still my favorite example. Oh sure, Clinton got impeached for getting a bj from a fat chick, but "Brownie" destroying New Orleans? Heckuva job there. Mission Accomplished in Iraq. On the bright side, cover-ups will soon be a thing of the past, all the evils of the world exposed and the perpetrators will simply say - "there ya go, do something about it", but nobody can, or will.

Re:credibility?

[w_dragon]

Clinton almost got impeached for lying under oath about getting a bj, not for the bj itself.

Re:credibility?

[corbettw]

Clinton was impeached, he just wasn't convicted. Same with Andrew Johnson.

Re:credibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

Clinton got impeached, not "almost".

Re:credibility?

[LoyalOpposition]

Clinton got impeached for getting a bj from a fat chick,

That's not true. Clinton was impeached for two things, neither of which was the physical encounter with Monica Lewinsky. The first thing he was impeached for was Perjury before a Grand Jury. The act that spawned this article of impeachment was when he claimed under oath in Judge Susan Webber Wright's grand jury that he had never had intimate relations with any person who was subordinate to him. The second thing he was impeached for was Obstruction of Justice. That acts that spawned this article of impeachment was when he encouraged Lewinsky to file a false affidavit, when he encouraged her to lie under oath, when he plotted with his secretary to hide a box of gifts he had given to Lewinsky, when he attempted to get Lewinsky a job so that she would not provide truthful testimony, when he lied to White House staff, and when he allowed his attorney to make false statements on his behalf.

~Loyal

Re:credibility?

[Mister Whirly]

Yeah, remember when lying about a bj was this nation's biggest problem? How do we get back to those times?

Re:credibility?

[cwgmpls]

How stupid do you think we are? Everybody knows exactly what happened to Clinton. So edit the statement to read "Clinton got impeached for lying about getting a bj from a fat chick" and it still carries the same meaning. Clinton was impeached for an act that was of no consequence to the nation. Yet we have leaders destroy cities and nations through lies and incompetence and yet they face no consequences.

Re:credibility?

[Microlith]

Yup, and they didn't convict because they're all damned hypocrites, and they had to hound the man and burn millions of dollars only to try and get him for something that occurred during the investigation and not something revealed as a result of the investigation.

tl;dr: the Republican witch hunt was worthless, and so was the impeachment.

Re:credibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

your story doesn't make sense. why would he be telling a judge if he has had intimate relations with any person who was subordinate to him? If you are are being asked that question, you don't have to answer it, you can say whatever you want.

Now, if he had been asked if he had raped a woman -- subordinate or otherwise -- that would be a different question. You can't tell a judge whatever you want about whether you raped someone.

Obviously I am simplifying somewhat, but what you've written simply doesn't make any sense. It would be like a judge asking you, "Have you used your office to gain private influence or influence for after you're done with office?" Obviously you don't have to answer that. That's not even a question in the realm of anything anyone has to answer.

Re:credibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that's much worse than starting two never-ending wars and setting up your buddy's "former" oil companies on the smouldering ruins. That stain on Lewinsky's dress is far worse than the hundreds of THOUSANDS of CIVILIANS that have lost their lives in Iraq to American soldiers who have been driven insane by the realization that every generation after them might still be fighting the same, pointless war.

There's nothing "loyal" about you, fucking traitor.

Re:credibility?

[rjh]

Clinton was impeached for an act that was of no consequence to the nation.

President Clinton took an oath of office. In that oath of office, he swore that he would see to it each and every American received the full protections of law without respect to position or privilege. It was his job to respect the civil rights of the mentally ill homeless guy who lives under the bridge, the schoolteacher, the dockworker, the farmer, the banker, the lawyer, and the priest. It was his job to do this without the slightest regard for who they were.

Gennifer Flowers had the right to the due process of law. The President deliberately and willfully subverted this.

If you say that's "of no consequence to the nation," that's your lookout. As for me, if he'll throw Gennifer Flowers' civil rights under the bus in order to avoid telling his wife he's having an affair then he'll do the same thing to me the instant I become inconvenient. I find that to be of immense consequence, and his conduct to be worthy of impeachment.

YMMV, and apparently does. Welcome to America, where we have the right to hold different opinions -- but only so long as we're wise enough to elect administrations that will defend our rights.

Re:credibility?

[Cl1mh4224rd]

How stupid do you think we are?

I had only suspicions before, but after reading your latest comment I'm pretty confident that you are quite stupid.

Everybody knows exactly what happened to Clinton. So edit the statement to read "Clinton got impeached for lying about getting a bj from a fat chick" and it still carries the same meaning.

To idiots, perhaps, but not in law. When some poor, hungry schmuck steals food and gets caught, he's not charged with "being poor"; he's charged with theft.

Clinton was impeached for an act that was of no consequence to the nation.

He was impeached for lying to a Grand Jury about "an act that was of no consequence to the nation." That was his own damn fault.

Re:credibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

His impeachment had nothing whatsoever to do with Gennifer Flowers.

Re:credibility?

[Bucky24]

Bill Clinton WAS in fact impeached (which actually I didn't know myself until I looked it up just now), but was not convicted.

Re:credibility?

[sjames]

In other words, the first count was for lying about a bj and the second was for asking someone to back up his lie about a bj.

Re:credibility?

[Nimey]

Wrong. He was impeached because he made the Republicans look bad during the government shutdowns, so they found an excuse to hurt him back.

It was never about whether Clinton broke the law or not, it was simply low politics.

Re:credibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

Three points:
1. You'll need to go back further, as part of why we're in the situation we're in is that particular president. (China, mortgage crisis, USS Cole, first WTC bombing, etc. etc. etc.).
2. You can go back to Eisenhower, but then someone will complain how about this group or that was mistreated back then, so we're better off now.
3. There is no going back, unfortunately.

Re:credibility?

[Nimey]

Clinton got impeached because he helped the Republicans make themselves look bad when they were having the government shutdowns. The BJ and perjury were merely excuses to hurt him back and thereby get more Republicans elected.

A BJ is certainly worse than torture, illegal wiretapping, and starting a war on false pretenses, gods know.

It was simply politics, as anyone with half a brain knows.

Re:credibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too far. The moral outrage at the inconsistency between a sex scandal witch-hunt and botching international war is understandable. But, everything he said is true. Factual but somewhat ignoring the cultural pressures of the affair.

The point you go overboard is calling him a traitor. While he kind of comes off as an ass for ignoring the obvious lesson from political history and the horrible injustice of it all, I have to stand up for him FOR TELLING THE TRUTH. I'm a little funny about the truth. If telling the truth would label me a traitor, then there's some serious problems with the group I belong to.

And honestly, the fact that I think he's an ass, and agreed with you up until you call him a traitor is a cause for concern. Just why the hell are we doing this again?

Re:credibility?

[Rich0]

So, obviously the situation was exploited a bit politically. However, the fact was that he did break the law.

He was sued for sexual harassment. He offered testimony that he did not have a pattern of doing this. Clearly a pattern of sexual harassment is COMPLETELY relevant in a sexual harassment lawsuit. Then it became apparent that he had lied under oath.

The issue wasn't that he slept with somebody. The issue was that he denied sexually harassing somebody in court, and relied in his defense on not having slept with anybody else who worked for him.

If the president were accused of robbing a store, and were asked if he had robbed any other stores, and he said no, and then it turns out he did rob another store, wouldn't that be grounds for a perjury charge?

Re:credibility?

[LoyalOpposition]

Clinton was impeached for an act that was of no consequence to the nation.

That's not true. The president is the head of the executive branch of the government. The job of the executive is to carry out the laws of the United States. Instead of seeing to it that the laws were carried out, President Clinton violated those laws and suborned others to do so as well. This is the same level of consequences if the judiciary were to find for whomever paid them the most bribe money.

~Loyal

Re:credibility?

[LoyalOpposition]

your story doesn't make sense. why would he be telling a judge if he has had intimate relations with any person who was subordinate to him?

It happened because someone, probably Hillary Clinton, attempted to destroy the reputation of Paula Jones. Ms. Jones brought suit against President Clinton for violation of her civil rights. She claimed that, as governor, she had her brought to his hotel room, dropped his pants, and told her to "kiss it". Ms. Jones attorneys attempted to bolster her claim by proving that he had a history of sexual activity with women who were subordinate to him. President Clinton tried to rebut her claim by stating, under oath, that he had never had intimate activity with any such person.

If you are are being asked that question, you don't have to answer it, you can say whatever you want.

Normally that would be true. Not, however, when a judge has order you to answer under oath. Not when you have sworn to tell the truth.

Now, if he had been asked if he had raped a woman -- subordinate or otherwise -- that would be a different question. You can't tell a judge whatever you want about whether you raped someone.

What a curious statement! So, is there a list somewhere of all the lies you can tell under oath? Why would you even swear to tell the truth?

Obviously I am simplifying somewhat, but what you've written simply doesn't make any sense. It would be like a judge asking you, "Have you used your office to gain private influence or influence for after you're done with office?" Obviously you don't have to answer that. That's not even a question in the realm of anything anyone has to answer.

The only thing remotely similar to what you're saying that I can think of is material claims. A material claim is one that has a bearing on the case. In the Jones v. Clinton case whether President Clinton had a history of intimate activity with subordinates was a material claim. Now, something like your favorite cereal, assuming that the case didn't involve your favorite cereal, would not be a material claim, and you would not be guilty of perjury. President Clinton was guilty of perjury.

~Loyal

Re:credibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

And he wasn't convicted because he didn't lie under oath. The definition of the words he used was explicitly changed by the prosecutor for the purpose of the hearing to exclude fellatio.

Re:credibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

So...... why arent you yelling and screaming for Bush to be arrested for a far, far, far, far worse crime?

Re:credibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on your definition of the word was.

Re:credibility?

[Nimey]

Because it wouldn't do any good. Obama's decided that nobody from the Bush Administration gets prosecuted. Not for torture, not for lying us into a war, not for extraordinary rendition, not for illegal wiretapping.

Re:credibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

THAT'S RIGHT. There's a list somewhere of all the lies you can tell under oath. If the judge asks me, "Do you like me? Do you like being here" I will look him in the eye and say "Sure I like you. There might be other places I'd rather be, but I like being here and given a chance to defend myself against charges of wrongdoing." Is that true: obviously not. Obviously I wouldn't like the judge, and would not like being there. But I don't have to say that, because it is literally on the list somewhere.

I thought this would be obvious. Would you deny the above?

Re:credibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, remember when lying about a bj was this nation's biggest problem? How do we get back to those times?

That's the entire point- it was far from the nation's biggest problem. Clinton was trying to do something about a genocide going on in Serbia, and was also attempting to deal with some upstart revolutionary group called "Al - Qaeda" who had recently bombed the USS Cole.

The GOP was pissed off because Clinton went and blew up some training camps with cruise missiles, and didn't want to fund any kind of operation in Bosnia/Serbia. So instead of trying to find a way to refuse him without appearing to support Genocide and attacks on US military craft, they spent several months pissing and moaning about Monica Lewinsky.

Hell, to this day most people still only remember the blue dress.

The fact of the matter is that Clinton was actively trying to do something about Al Quada, but the GOP didn't want to have anything to do with it... especially if it made old Bill look good. And Bush just continued to ignore the situation when he came into office. Although it's not a popular sentiment at all, the real truth is that the reason the hijackers slid 'under the radar' and 9/11 happened was because the GOP was doing everything they could to drag Clinton through the mud, even if it meant putting the entire nation at risk. If they'd actually done their jobs instead of trying to find ways to get rid of Clinton, we would have had that entire group rendered ineffective long before the plot was ever even hatched. And I say that as a long-time Conservative.

Re:credibility?

[LoyalOpposition]

THAT'S RIGHT. There's a list somewhere of all the lies you can tell under oath.

I would like to see it. Where can I find it?

If the judge asks me, "Do you like me? Do you like being here" I will look him in the eye and say "Sure I like you. There might be other places I'd rather be, but I like being here and given a chance to defend myself against charges of wrongdoing." Is that true: obviously not. Obviously I wouldn't like the judge, and would not like being there.

The judge wouldn't ask you any such question. Things are handled differently in civil and criminal trials, and Jones v. Clinton was a civil trial. In those, the people asking the questions are either the plaintiff's attorneys or the defense attorneys. In this case the plaintiff's attorneys were working for Ms. Jones. Ms. Jones's attorneys asked President Clinton whether he had ever had intimate relations with any subordinate. President Clinton was the defendant. At that point the defense attorneys had the opportunity to object to the question. Objections to questions have to be of particular types. Valid types of objections include ambiguous, argumentative, asked and answered, assumes facts not in evidence, badgering, best evidence rule, and others. The the judge rules that the witness doesn't have to answer the question by saying "sustained", or rules that he does by saying "overruled". One of two things happened. Either President Clinton's attorneys didn't object to the question, or the judge overruled whatever objections they voiced. That means that President Clinton was legally obligated to answer the question.

But I don't have to say that, because it is literally on the list somewhere.

You have to answer if the judge says you do.

I thought this would be obvious. Would you deny the above?

Because it's not true.

~Loyal

Re:credibility?

[rjstanford]

And yet, actions by others which fall far deeper on the spectrum of rights violations are not prosecuted. When there's only one recent example of impeachment, and its for such an absolutely reasonable yet relatively trivial reason, its not too much of a stretch to wonder why that particular act deserved to be singled out.

Re:credibility?

[LoyalOpposition]

In other words, the first count was for lying about a bj

The first count was not about lying about a bj. In fact President Clinton went on national television and stated, "I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky." Were you aware that he was not impeached for doing that? The reason that he wasn't impeached for that is because it's probably not an impeachable offense. The impeachment was for lying about a material fact while under oath. In other words: Perjury. The president was impeached for perjury. The president was not impeached for lying about a bj.

and the second was for asking someone to back up his lie about a bj.

The second count was not for asking someone to back up his lie about a bj. In that same television appearance President Clinton also stated, "I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never." Again, probably not an impeachable offense. The impeachment was for going to his secretary, after he was specifically instructed by the judge not to speak with anyone involved in the case about it, and trying to influence her testimony and get her help hiding the box of gifts. The president was impeached for obstruction of justice. The president was not impeached for asking someone to back up his lie about a bj.

~Loyal

Re:credibility?

[LoyalOpposition]

While he kind of comes off as an ass for ignoring the obvious lesson from political history and the horrible injustice of it all, I have to stand up for him FOR TELLING THE TRUTH. I'm a little funny about the truth.

By contrast, I think you're probably an upstanding person, and someone with whom I could enjoy a beer or three. My treat. Assuming we can work out the logistics. And assuming you're willing to drink with an ass.

~Loyal

Re:credibility?

[sjames]

The impeachment was for lying about a material fact while under oath. In other words: Perjury.

Right, he lied about a bj.

The impeachment was for going to his secretary, after he was specifically instructed by the judge not to speak with anyone involved in the case about it, and trying to influence her testimony and get her help hiding the box of gifts.

Right again, he asked someone to back up his lie about a bj.

I'm not saying he was perfect by any means, he should have just kept it in his pants. At the end of the day though, he lied about a bj and got impeached. Since then, we've had a president lie about WMD's in Iraq in order to drag us into an expensive and pointless war (that we're STILL in) and as a result, nothing.

At least he didn't conspire to lie about WMDs in order to drag us into a war somewhere.

Re:credibility?

[rjh]

If I lived in a community where there were a great many murders and only occasionally one was solved, I wouldn't ask, "gee, why is this particular murderer being singled out?" The answer there is obvious: because he murdered someone. The question I'd ask instead is, "gee, why is everyone else getting away with it?"

I don't wonder at all why Clinton was impeached. I wonder why other Presidents haven't been.

Re:credibility?

[rjh]

I usually don't respond to ACs, but in this case: yes, I was yelling and screaming for Bush to be impeached.

Re:credibility?

[LoyalOpposition]

Right, he lied about a bj. Right again, he asked someone to back up his lie about a bj.

I see. And Nixon resigned rather than be impeached for a third-rate burglary attempt he didn't even know about and a simple lapse of memory?

~Loyal

Re:credibility?

[sjames]

Nixon resigned rather than be impeached and then tried for lying about multiple criminal acts involving the break-in and wiretapping of the opposing party for the purpose of political gain. The lot of it was somewhat more serious than lying about getting a bj.

I absolutely believe that Clinton should have kept it in his pants. I would have preferred that he had been more forthcoming once he was caught. What he did was wrong. However, in the scheme of things it was a personal failing dragged into public for political purposes. It was all nothing compared to Watergate, which in turn was nothing compared to dragging us into a war in Iraq (at a cost of many thousand lives and billions of dollars) with big fat lies about WMD.

Re:credibility?

[LoyalOpposition]

Clinton lied under oath about a material fact in a case rather than let Paula Jones have justice. Justice, by the way, that was owed to her according to American law. That same law that Clinton swore to execute. Do you know what Jones asked for as a pre-trial settlement? An apology. No money, no resignation, no gifts, no promotions. All Clinton would have had to do to satisfy Ms. Jones's demands was to sign and send her a written apology for what he did to her in that hotel room. In the scheme of things--President Clinton was impeached for Perjury and Obstruction of Justice.

Articles of Impeachment for Obstruction of Justice had also passed committee against President Nixon. The other pending articles were Abuse of Power and Contempt of Congress. Sound familiar? Do you know what I hear you saying? It's okay when our guys do it.

~Loyal

All the President's Men

[schlesinm]

That manager was named Richard Earl Blee and he is now the subject of a documentary by Ray Nowosielski and John Duffy, of secrecykills.org, who confirmed his identity using techniques right out of the 70s film All the President's Men.

They had an FBI Associate Director feed them information?

Re:All the President's Men

[Pope]

I didn't say he looked like Alex Trebek, I said he was Alex Trebek!

Re:All the President's Men

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't play D&D for years without learning a few things about courage.

Re:All the President's Men

[Heretic2]

That manager was named Richard Earl Blee and he is now the subject of a documentary by Ray Nowosielski and John Duffy, of secrecykills.org, who confirmed his identity using techniques right out of the 70s film All the President's Men.

They had an FBI Associate Director feed them information?

Well, if you listen to the interview @ http://secrecy-kills.s3.amazonaws.com/BleePodcast1.m4a George Tenet--former CIA director--slipped up and gave the information necessary to identify Richard Earl Blee: His last initial and the fact he was a controversial son of former CIA officers. The last initial and the other information was enough to narrow it down to one person. So drop the "Associate," an "ex-" and change the acronym, and yes, exactly.

What's new?

[tramp]

It is easy in hindsight to say something about pre 9/11 intelligence. Of course they made mistakes as human beings there will always be someone making mistakes. But has the multi billions costing secret agencies fighting World War IV against terrorism made the world somehow better? I seriously doubt that.

Re:What's new?

[Anonymous Coward]

What happened to WWIII?

Re:What's new?

[mla_anderson]

AKA The War on Drugs

Re:Conspiracy theories of 9/11

[Schlacht]

Well...

Theories about no planes? NO

Theories about punishment from god? NO

Theories about 19 little skinny guys with box cutters implementing a hail-Mary (or Allah) plan like this? NO

A conspiracy to execute a false flag attack on our own citizens in order to justify taking control of some of the largest oil reserves on the planet?

That doesn't sound like a theory, just a conspiracy.

Wrong

[sycodon]

This was not an example of turf wars.

This was a deliberate policy established during the Clinton Administration by Jamie Gorelick to wall off information between the CIA/other foreign intelligence sources and the FBI/Local law enforcement.

Re:Wrong

[DriedClexler]

Right, and isn't this what most civil liberties advocates (who I count myself among) want? That is, the more that government agencies can cooperate with each other, the easier it is to arrest any one person.

I'm not trying to blame anyone, just predict that future news will cycle between:

"OMG! They missed the 9/11 attack because of stupid rules about info-sharing between agencies?"

and

"OMG! A totalitarian bill going through the Senate is going to let government agencies share their files on us, giving them unlimited power to raid your privacy."

Folks, there are tradeoffs.

Re:Wrong

[gfxguy]

Good posts by both sycodon and DriedClexler. I was looking for it before posting, it's sad I had to go so far before finding somebody pointing out that it was policy not to "share."

There are tradeoffs. The word is an imperfect place, and it will never be a perfect place. If you want freedoms and personal liberties, not only do you have to accept the fact that people will do things you don't want them to do (so long as they don't violate your rights), but there will be security risks, as it will necessarily allow people more freedom to do bad things.

Personally, I think we've crossed the line. I prefer freedom with the chance of security problems than totalitarian security (still with a chance of problems).

I mean, think about it... one guy tries a shoe bomb, and now EVERYBODY, practically worldwide(*) has to remove their shoes to go through security. One guy brings a banned liquid and now you can't bring your own beverage through security (I suspect this has more to do with protectionism of airport businesses than it does with security), one guy puts a bomb in his underwear, and now we've got these invasive scanners and pat-downs.

(*) As little as I've traveled abroad, many places are now adopting U.S. policy if they want flights to be able to travel to the U.S. from their airports

Re:Wrong

[Bucky24]

On that vein I wonder what would happen if someone surgically implanted a bomb inside themselves, or swallowed it. X-rays for every single passenger? There's only so far they can go before it just becomes too ridiculous to fly anymore.

Re:Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically, I think the pat-downs were implemented primarily as a way of punishing people who opted out of the cancer-box scanners. Also, I'm not entirely sure that the scanners were implemented as a response to the underwear bomber; the timing suggests that they were already in the works, and the underwear bomber provided a convenient excuse for the rollout.

Re:Wrong

[sjames]

I almost want someone to try it so we can finally make the TSA admit that they can't protect us without obviously doing more harm than any potential terrorists.

Re:Wrong

[gfxguy]

Technically, I think the pat-downs were implemented primarily as a way of punishing people who opted out of the cancer-box scanners. Also, I'm not entirely sure that the scanners were implemented as a response to the underwear bomber; the timing suggests that they were already in the works, and the underwear bomber provided a convenient excuse for the rollout.

Either way... a convenient way to justify it. I'm sure the government has a lot of things they've already been working on they'd love to implement given some scaremongering to gain public acceptance.

Re:Wrong

[Tommy Bologna]

I believe you are incorrect. Gorelick was merely complying with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA), which erected a firewall between domestic and overseas intelligence gathering services. FISA was itself the result of the Church Commission's investigation into US sponsored political assassinations of the early 1970s.

Congress demonstrated tremendous wisdom in the establishment of that firewall, and an embarrassing dearth of wisdom in allowing the administration to breech it.

Re:Wrong

[sycodon]

Well, we all see how well that worked out eh?

Re:Wrong

[TheSync]

"OMG! A totalitarian bill going through the Senate...Folks, there are tradeoffs."

Totalitarian governments kill millions of people (USSR, China, Germany, etc.)

Terrorists so far only seem to be able to kill a few thousand at a pop...

Put me down for prefers missing the occasional terrorist over totalitarian government.

Now if the government was more open and actually publicized the fact that terrorists were planning on hijacking planes as missiles (which we knew years before), it is possible 9/11 may have only lead to a few hundred deaths, if that. Instead, we got security through obscurity...

Re:Wrong

[DaleSwanson]

I almost want someone to try it so we can finally make the TSA admit that they can't protect us without obviously doing more harm than any potential terrorists.

That will never happen. They will do some more theater, and that will be the end of it.

Re:Wrong

[sjames]

There's not much theater they can do if a terrorist body packs a bomb. Theyd have to use strong penetrating x-rays on travelers and the operators would necessarily be unqualified.

Ultrasound is right out since it requires actual skill to use that at all.

Re:Wrong

[DaleSwanson]

There's not much theater they can do if a terrorist body packs a bomb.

The beauty of theater is that doesn't have to be effective. It just has to look good and nothing more. I have no doubt they'd come up with something to do.

Re:Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Clinton also rejected the first Patriot Act attempt....

Re:Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

"Totalitarian governments kill millions of people (USSR, China, Germany, etc.)"

I think you find that in the past decade, USA is winning this competition - by a long way. Funny how things work out, eh?

The problem is naming them.

[khasim]

As far as I can tell, this is just one more example of how turf wars between the different agencies caused severe information gaps before 9/11.

The difference is that the people RESPONSIBLE for those turf wars are now being IDENTIFIED by NAME.

Look at how many "mistakes" were made on critical issues ... without anyone being identified or fired.

Secrecy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Details Classified "Top Secret" even when the truth is obvious.

Thank you slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

For covering this extremely important issue.

Re:Conspiracy theories of 9/11

[countertrolling]

I agree with the conspiracy theories of 9/11.

All of them? Or just the government's?

Re:Conspiracy theories of 9/11

[Internetuser1248]

That doesn't sound like a theory, just a conspiracy.

No it is a theory, or a collection of theories. Mostly the theories deal with specific details rather than just "A conspiracy to execute a false flag attack on our own citizens in order to justify taking control of some of the largest oil reserves on the planet?", just like gravity is fairly evident but a theory about the specifics from a major physicist can still be highly valuable and informative. Perhaps gravity is a bad example. I still wouldn't totally discard the box cutters theory either. While it may be obvious that the US government are very keen on oil and the Iraq war was based on lies, it is equally clear that they are incompetent with security and foreign policy, and that intelligence sharing is a shambles.

The only thing that is clear to me is that no one is telling the whole story, whether it be because they don't know it, or for other reasons.

Pre 9/11 mistakes

[Anonymous Coward]

At that time it was illegal for the CIA and the FBI to share information.
Congress wanted to keep the CIA from dabbling into domestic issues.
CIA was created for foreign intelligence and FBI on domestic crime.

Re:Pre 9/11 mistakes

[Anonymous Coward]

At that time it was illegal for the CIA and the FBI to share information.
Congress wanted to keep the CIA from dabbling into domestic issues.
CIA was created for foreign intelligence and FBI on domestic crime.

No, it wasn't. This was deliberate. When Michael Anne Casey (CIA) told Doug Miller (FBI) that he couldn't tell his co-workers at the FBI that Khalid Almihdhar had a US Visa and intended on travelling to the US AFTER the terrorist summit that had been recently monitored, Michael THEN immediately sent an internal CIA memo that the FBI had been notified.

Hindsight = 20/20

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject.

Guys guys guys...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thou doth protest too much.

Many Problems I See Here

[LifesABeach]

Everyone in the C.I.A., and the F.B.I. knows who failed, and why; it is a classic case of, "for all the right reasons, being wrong." I do not believe for a moment that those that deal with the worlds bad guys have an easy task. But it painfully appears that Proto-Islam, when it drew up its plans, factored in the frustration levels of the C.I.A.. Proto-Islam incorrectly factored in pack mentality when it planned for kicking a sleeping dog; it appears that the rest of the pack did not ignore the event. Proto-Islam can not alter itself, but something more devious may have occurred. Did Proto-Islam, allow themselves to be "Ghost Dancers", and indirectly help assist Neo-Islam to be born? Because the end result, today, is a Neo-Islam emerging where decisions by all contributing has begun.

Re:Many Problems I See Here

[Anonymous Coward]

What in the fuck are you babbling about? You're losing it.

Go take your meds, self-medicate, meditate, go to your happy place, or whatever the fuck it is you do to get your shit together.

Re:Many Problems I See Here

[Bucky24]

While I hate to agree with an obviously trolling AC, I too am very confused as to what on earth you're talking about.

Re:Many Problems I See Here

[LifesABeach]

Basically, I disagree with the parent article. The average person that makes a career working in government accepts a large amount of Mediocrity as part of the job. It has been my experience that only American Combat Soldiers ignore Mediocrity. I believe that there is not a single person one can point to, and state, "that person was wrong", and prove it. Instead, I believe it was the system used by the C.I.A.. And, I'm inclined to believe that bin Laden's group knew this system, and used it.

I do not believe for a minute that bin Laden's group to be foolish. Instead, I see a group of people noticing that their culture is dying out. I call this dying culture, "Proto-Islam." It would be very naive to think that Islam is dying out. Instead, I have observed a new Islamic culture that is spreading, I call this culture "Neo-Islam". This culture is more cosmopolitan, and aware of other cultures.

I make reference to the North American Indian's that called themselves, "Ghost Dancers". Because these people recognized their culture was dying out; and challenged the culture that was taking its place. The Ghost Dancers were not fools, just not accepting of the changes that were happening. Google it.

Islamic culture referrers to Western Culture as Dogs. It is a negative term. I used the analogy of an Islamist walking into a pack of sleeping dogs and kicking one of them, a reference to the 9/11 event. I have encountered no documentation that supports that the same person having enough working body parts left to go into that same dog pack and kick another dog.

I believe that who ever the C.I.A. person it was that was handling the Al-Qida group had the wrong job at the wrong time. I believe that Al-Qida to be acting like Ghost Dancers, they have realized that their way of life is dying. This is Al-Qida's last Hurrah, and it is a bloody one at that.

These are just my personal observations. But so far, I see no definitive evidence that counterdicks my observations.

Re:Many Problems I See Here

[Bucky24]

Ah, that makes more sense. Thank you for taking the time to explain.

Re:Many Problems I See Here

[dbIII]

He's talking about something mushrooming out of control.
The problem is he's describing it in terms of the red ones with yellow spots.

5 Who's Instead of 5 Why's

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, the 5-who's method. Someone is to blame so start at the top, and work your way down till you find the person who may be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and may not be trained or qualified to make a decision that s/he was expected to make anyway.

To paraphrase Deming: only 15% of an organization's performance is affected by the people operating in that organization. 85% is influenced by the training, policies, procedures and culture of the organization. The latter, of course, being influenced by leaders within an organization. Organizations rot from the top down, not the bottom up.

Very few people intentionally sabotage anything. There are millions of poor decisions every day, and a number of those have to add up before someone dies. For example, say you read "a mechanic working on a plane made an error and an engine gave out and the plane crashed and people died." Dig a little deeper and you find that the pilot was inexperienced and could not recover, or the plane was over designed to take the controls away from the pilot when something failed and did not let the pilot recover, or the mechanic was working under severe time constraints, or stressed due to a family issue.

People make mistakes, but the only ones who should be held accountable are those who had the power to design a resilient *system* but did not do so.

whoops

[Anonymous Coward]

It's far easier to look back and see something coming than as it is happening. Years ago at my high school there were bomb threats all the time. A majority of them were just kids thinking it'd get them out of a test; however, after the first few, they stopped evacuating and had to weigh the significance of each one. I'm sure they have plenty to sift though; things slipping though is a reality. It's just the statistics of randomness at work more than anything else.
The same sort of thing happened before Pearl Harbor. Why, so long after the fact, are people still trying to play the blame game?

You're right

[ThatsNotPudding]

lying about a beej is far worse than lying about a war and torture.

Where's the beef?

[SEWilco]

Which link in the /. story points at the detailed story which is being summarized? Are we supposed to read all of the government report?

Re:Where's the beef?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check the secrecykills.com link. It points to the full transcript of the Who Is Rich Blee? documentary.

Re:Conspiracy theories of 9/11

[Anonymous Coward]

they are incompetent with security and foreign policy

CIA seems to be perfectly capable of orchestrating attacks on other regimes...

Timely

[garosenb]

I found the Secrecy Kills podcast very timely having just watched the piece on Frontline interviewing Ali Soufan. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/iraq-war-on-terror/the-interrogator/inside-the-interrogation-room-ali-soufans-tactics/

you are assuming there is evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

that 'anti sharing rules' where what kept the CIA from sharing the information.

Simple - didn't do their job

[dbIII]

The CIA failed to be a central source for intelligence. To save egos the head of the CIA was retained and an entirely new group was set up to do what the CIA was supposed to have been doing.
It wasn't "minor incompetance" - it was a complete and utter failure to be the sort of organisation it was supposed to be. Playing James Bond and acting like 19th century Austrian nobility is far more fun than actually working, and successive Presidents appeared to have a lot of trouble trying to get the CIA to do anything other than what they wanted to do.

clinton impeached from whitewater inquiry

[Anonymous Coward]

The killer about the clinton impeachment was, wasn't it from the special prosecutor initially charged with investigating whitewater? ya'll remember that one, that far back, eh? talk about a fishing expedition.... Which is why special prosecutors kind of have gone by the wayside..... with cheney/bush, you don't really need a special prosecutor, heck an disbarred attorney..... all before 9/11... look into illegal wiretaps, the private 'energy committee', how all that brush got on bushie's ranch.... etc etc

Bureaucracy or not ...

[Schlacht]

Mistakes were made, big, ugly, glaring, in-your-face kind of mistakes yet no punishments. On the contrary, many, MANY of the officers and agents in charge have been promoted.

Where is the accountability?

Why did WTC7 fall down

[MWYankee]

This is all just subterfuge. If someone goes after why WTC7 fell down they will easily see this business of airplane hijackers is a smokescreen.