Why are people crying "conspiracy theory" here? It is public knowledge that the government has already given these docs the once over and determined that translation was a low priority; they mined them for gems already and the Pentagon has already released a study on a few hundred of the documents that were considered worth translating. About the rest they were not going to release them at all until Rep Hoekstra, under the influence of Stephen Hayes, put intense public pressure on Negroponte's office; Negroponte finally relented and allowed them to be put on the internet. This is not a conspiracy theory; it is published in the Congressional Record.
Agreed. But one of the study's conclusions is that the US Administration made many of its operational decisions based on the assumption that Saddam was conspiring to hide WMD, to work with al Qaeda, to prepare for an insurgency after a US invasion, etc., when the evidence shows that Saddam's government was unsure of its own capabilities, that Saddam not only did not plan an insurgency, but actually believed that France and Germany would prevent a US invasion, that Saddam made a lot of contradictory plans that went nowhere, that Saddam was more concerned about Iran than the US, etc. So, yes, I agree with your general principle, but these documents do lay out more specifics that are interesting. Again, not earth-shattering, but nonetheless interesting.
There is no "grand right wing conspiracy." There was an open pressuring of Negroponte's office by Hoekstra. This is a matter of public record. Hoekstra was egged on by Stephen Hayes with incendiary articles in the Weakly Standard. Again, this is all in the public record -- no conspiracy about it. As for Saddam's WMD's, I don't see the need to engage in that conversation; the record is pretty clear that no such weapons were found, and in any case that is not part of my point at all.
These documents won't contain any earth-shattering revelations, though they will be interesting for establishing details of the historical record. The first actual study of some of them has already noted that the documents showed that Saddam's government was far weaker and more confused than we ever thought; that Saddam and his government were living in a dangerous fantasy world. It also noted that the documents established that much of what we interpreted as intent to hide WMD (esp the phone calls from Powell's 2003 speech) turned out to be the opposite -- intent to actually comply with UN inspections. There are other interesting finds here. But of course that is a real study by experts of a limited set of documents, not rampant speculation by some blogger based on a translation posted anonymously to freerepublic.com. More studies like the Pentagon one are definitely in order; I'm not sure how much the blogosphere will contribute to such projects.
That's correct. Intel expert Steven Aftergood called this an attempt by the right wing to find "a retrospective justification for the war in Iraq." The bloggers have made some interesting finds, it's true, but so far the ONDI's warning that "amateur translators won't find any major surprises, such as proof Hussein hid stockpiles of chemical weapons" has turned out to be true. They have also given us some bizarre misinterpretation too, such as some bloggers' belief that one document (CMPC-2003-006430.pdf) is a manual for the Mukhabarat even though it is clearly a printout of a webpage by the Federation of American Scientists from 1997 (complete with FAS logo!). Another supposed "smoking gun" was a document that had pictures of Zarqawi, cited as "proof" that Saddam trained him -- when in fact the documents clearly show that the Saddam regime is on the lookout for Zarqawi and his group, and, according to Associated Press, "Attached were three responses in which agents said there was no evidence al-Zarqawi or the other man were in Iraq." There is a lot more misreading and jumping to conclusions from this document dump. It's interesting, and I think it is good to have these documents made public, for historical reasons mostly, but the idea that these documents are where we should look for justification of Bush's war effort just shows how desperate Pete Hoekstra and other Republicans who pushed forcefully for this move really are.
From the article -- "The court will be treated to a demonstation of an iPod, but it is unlikely to play a Beatles song, as they have not been licensed for download and it would therefore be illegal." How is that true? I checked the iTMS and there are 16 Beatles songs available, including the appropriate-for-this-lawsuit track "Baby You're a Rich Man." Are they just off base or is there something I'm missing here?
In what way is "irhabi" more familiar to Republicans than potential terrorists? Oh, you mean 007... news flash -- this kid is British. And 007 is familiar to people around the world regardless of religion or politics, much less "terrorist" affiliation. Also, the kid was busted for participating in a bomb plot, not for spreading hacking propaganda; it is only after they busted him that they figured out he had anything to do with this 007 character. But the moniker is not surprising at all. A lot of terrorist recruits in western countries -- and even a lot of them from the middle east -- have grown up being exposed to western popular culture, including cowboys and action/adventure movies. And James Bond is a decades-old popular cultural institution who simply rules the world of undercover intrigue -- he was the ultimate spy long before anyone even heard of Iran-Contra. Many terrorists probably see themselves as James Bond type characters, so there is really nothing at all surprising about this.
The twenty year sentence, or any kind of punishment, sort of assumes someone actually reports the rape. It also assumes that the report is taken seriously by the guards rather than ignored. Most victims will not even report it in the first place, especially in prison, where informing on another inmate can get you killed. And many prison administrators routinely ignore and even encourage rape in prisons. The rapist is usually not likely deterred by a theoretical 20-year sentence that he will never have to serve.
Jack Bauer uses one in 24. The best feature it has is that you can program a smart card to blow up when you put it in an enemy intelligence agent's treo. Bones also uses one of these for mapping underground tunnels. Can your blackberry do that? I didn't think so.
Dude this isn't a conspiracy. It's all in the open. Rep Hoekstra has been pressuring for the release of these documents for months. The ODNI has already gone through them and determined there is little of value there. Read the newspapers. I'm not making this up, nor am I getting it out of some conspiracy theory websites. It's in the freakin' New York Times. As you said -- "It's all there." I wasn't suggesting that the gov't had plenty of good translators; what I was suggesting is that they aren't going to trust random bloggers to do their work for them.
I wonder, did the moderator actually read the LATimes article I linked? Or any articles about this, for that matter? I'm not saying anything all that controversial, to be honest; it's pretty well known who was behind the push to publish these documents on the web. Ah well, I suppose there are many people who get mod points and automatically mod down anything that makes their political party look bad, whether it's left or right...
Right, so now the US government is counting on all those unemployed people with the translation skills who are sitting around reading blogs rather than applying for those government jobs? Let's consider the more likely scenario - this is a dump of documents of little intelligence value whatsoever that they're throwing at the public thanks to pressure from certain political forces who are hoping to cherry pick these documents for "evidence" that Bush was right all along about Saddam's WMD.
Would that we were that clever. Unfortunately, this move appears to be purely political. It was instigated by ideologues Stephen F. Hayes and Pete Hoekstra, who have been demanding that the documents be released publicly so that all the brilliant Arabic translators in the right wing blogosphere can mine them for "evidence" that Saddam had WMD and ties to al-Qaeda all along. It's a canard; Negroponte's office has already looked through the documents and found nothing that interesting, and they warn that there won't be much beyond historical interest here. It is doubtful any of the documents have much to say about the current insurgency, since they are mostly older. This is a political move by Republicans desperate to justify the Iraq war in the face of recent evidence; as one intelligence expert pointed out "It looks like an effort to discover a retrospective justification for the war in Iraq." (see the LATimes article). The right wing blogosphere already has its underwear in a bunch about this though - with absurd readings of several documents they are claiming these documents prove everything from WMD to Saddam being behind 9-11. Several sites were really up in arms about one document in particular that they thought was a secret Iraqi Intelligence manual, but actually turned out to be a printout of a web page in English by the Federation of American Scientists from 1997 (the page has the FAS logo and everything on it). It's all pretty silly, actually.
I used to pass that test every weekend in college. Ahh, the good old days... Thanks to a huge bust in Kansas in 2000, most of today's college kids will never know what it feels like to contemplate the phantasmagoric infinities of nothingness... then again, they'll probably get a lot more work done.
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Why are people crying "conspiracy theory" here? It is public knowledge that the government has already given these docs the once over and determined that translation was a low priority; they mined them for gems already and the Pentagon has already released a study on a few hundred of the documents that were considered worth translating. About the rest they were not going to release them at all until Rep Hoekstra, under the influence of Stephen Hayes, put intense public pressure on Negroponte's office; Negroponte finally relented and allowed them to be put on the internet. This is not a conspiracy theory; it is published in the Congressional Record.
Agreed. But one of the study's conclusions is that the US Administration made many of its operational decisions based on the assumption that Saddam was conspiring to hide WMD, to work with al Qaeda, to prepare for an insurgency after a US invasion, etc., when the evidence shows that Saddam's government was unsure of its own capabilities, that Saddam not only did not plan an insurgency, but actually believed that France and Germany would prevent a US invasion, that Saddam made a lot of contradictory plans that went nowhere, that Saddam was more concerned about Iran than the US, etc. So, yes, I agree with your general principle, but these documents do lay out more specifics that are interesting. Again, not earth-shattering, but nonetheless interesting.
There is no "grand right wing conspiracy." There was an open pressuring of Negroponte's office by Hoekstra. This is a matter of public record. Hoekstra was egged on by Stephen Hayes with incendiary articles in the Weakly Standard. Again, this is all in the public record -- no conspiracy about it. As for Saddam's WMD's, I don't see the need to engage in that conversation; the record is pretty clear that no such weapons were found, and in any case that is not part of my point at all.
These documents won't contain any earth-shattering revelations, though they will be interesting for establishing details of the historical record. The first actual study of some of them has already noted that the documents showed that Saddam's government was far weaker and more confused than we ever thought; that Saddam and his government were living in a dangerous fantasy world. It also noted that the documents established that much of what we interpreted as intent to hide WMD (esp the phone calls from Powell's 2003 speech) turned out to be the opposite -- intent to actually comply with UN inspections. There are other interesting finds here. But of course that is a real study by experts of a limited set of documents, not rampant speculation by some blogger based on a translation posted anonymously to freerepublic.com. More studies like the Pentagon one are definitely in order; I'm not sure how much the blogosphere will contribute to such projects.
That's correct. Intel expert Steven Aftergood called this an attempt by the right wing to find "a retrospective justification for the war in Iraq." The bloggers have made some interesting finds, it's true, but so far the ONDI's warning that "amateur translators won't find any major surprises, such as proof Hussein hid stockpiles of chemical weapons" has turned out to be true. They have also given us some bizarre misinterpretation too, such as some bloggers' belief that one document (CMPC-2003-006430.pdf) is a manual for the Mukhabarat even though it is clearly a printout of a webpage by the Federation of American Scientists from 1997 (complete with FAS logo!). Another supposed "smoking gun" was a document that had pictures of Zarqawi, cited as "proof" that Saddam trained him -- when in fact the documents clearly show that the Saddam regime is on the lookout for Zarqawi and his group, and, according to Associated Press, "Attached were three responses in which agents said there was no evidence al-Zarqawi or the other man were in Iraq." There is a lot more misreading and jumping to conclusions from this document dump. It's interesting, and I think it is good to have these documents made public, for historical reasons mostly, but the idea that these documents are where we should look for justification of Bush's war effort just shows how desperate Pete Hoekstra and other Republicans who pushed forcefully for this move really are.
I guess that explains why "Baby You're a Rich Man" is one of the few Beatles songs available on the iTMS.
From the article -- "The court will be treated to a demonstation of an iPod, but it is unlikely to play a Beatles song, as they have not been licensed for download and it would therefore be illegal." How is that true? I checked the iTMS and there are 16 Beatles songs available, including the appropriate-for-this-lawsuit track "Baby You're a Rich Man." Are they just off base or is there something I'm missing here?
Sorry; it had to be said.
In what way is "irhabi" more familiar to Republicans than potential terrorists? Oh, you mean 007... news flash -- this kid is British. And 007 is familiar to people around the world regardless of religion or politics, much less "terrorist" affiliation. Also, the kid was busted for participating in a bomb plot, not for spreading hacking propaganda; it is only after they busted him that they figured out he had anything to do with this 007 character. But the moniker is not surprising at all. A lot of terrorist recruits in western countries -- and even a lot of them from the middle east -- have grown up being exposed to western popular culture, including cowboys and action/adventure movies. And James Bond is a decades-old popular cultural institution who simply rules the world of undercover intrigue -- he was the ultimate spy long before anyone even heard of Iran-Contra. Many terrorists probably see themselves as James Bond type characters, so there is really nothing at all surprising about this.
He meant gum crater, a crater on the moon. The German laws for theft of celestial objects are pretty harsh.
But you *are* a lawyer, right?
The twenty year sentence, or any kind of punishment, sort of assumes someone actually reports the rape. It also assumes that the report is taken seriously by the guards rather than ignored. Most victims will not even report it in the first place, especially in prison, where informing on another inmate can get you killed. And many prison administrators routinely ignore and even encourage rape in prisons. The rapist is usually not likely deterred by a theoretical 20-year sentence that he will never have to serve.
Jack Bauer uses one in 24. The best feature it has is that you can program a smart card to blow up when you put it in an enemy intelligence agent's treo. Bones also uses one of these for mapping underground tunnels. Can your blackberry do that? I didn't think so.
They didn't actually teach them in the classes, but he did learn about them while browsing the web during a lecture.
I thought "V" was for "Vendetta."
He actually meant immanent scientist. This guy is everywhere!
Dude this isn't a conspiracy. It's all in the open. Rep Hoekstra has been pressuring for the release of these documents for months. The ODNI has already gone through them and determined there is little of value there. Read the newspapers. I'm not making this up, nor am I getting it out of some conspiracy theory websites. It's in the freakin' New York Times. As you said -- "It's all there." I wasn't suggesting that the gov't had plenty of good translators; what I was suggesting is that they aren't going to trust random bloggers to do their work for them.
I wonder, did the moderator actually read the LATimes article I linked? Or any articles about this, for that matter? I'm not saying anything all that controversial, to be honest; it's pretty well known who was behind the push to publish these documents on the web. Ah well, I suppose there are many people who get mod points and automatically mod down anything that makes their political party look bad, whether it's left or right...
Right, so now the US government is counting on all those unemployed people with the translation skills who are sitting around reading blogs rather than applying for those government jobs? Let's consider the more likely scenario - this is a dump of documents of little intelligence value whatsoever that they're throwing at the public thanks to pressure from certain political forces who are hoping to cherry pick these documents for "evidence" that Bush was right all along about Saddam's WMD.
Would that we were that clever. Unfortunately, this move appears to be purely political. It was instigated by ideologues Stephen F. Hayes and Pete Hoekstra, who have been demanding that the documents be released publicly so that all the brilliant Arabic translators in the right wing blogosphere can mine them for "evidence" that Saddam had WMD and ties to al-Qaeda all along. It's a canard; Negroponte's office has already looked through the documents and found nothing that interesting, and they warn that there won't be much beyond historical interest here. It is doubtful any of the documents have much to say about the current insurgency, since they are mostly older. This is a political move by Republicans desperate to justify the Iraq war in the face of recent evidence; as one intelligence expert pointed out "It looks like an effort to discover a retrospective justification for the war in Iraq." (see the LATimes article). The right wing blogosphere already has its underwear in a bunch about this though - with absurd readings of several documents they are claiming these documents prove everything from WMD to Saddam being behind 9-11. Several sites were really up in arms about one document in particular that they thought was a secret Iraqi Intelligence manual, but actually turned out to be a printout of a web page in English by the Federation of American Scientists from 1997 (the page has the FAS logo and everything on it). It's all pretty silly, actually.
...but there's some pretty hot stuff there for odonatanists everywhere.
This would guarantee you wouldn't get laid even if you were going home to your wife!
"Many other" applications also include: not getting laid.
Check it out. These are Euros. They haven't even been in circulation very long.
I used to pass that test every weekend in college. Ahh, the good old days... Thanks to a huge bust in Kansas in 2000, most of today's college kids will never know what it feels like to contemplate the phantasmagoric infinities of nothingness... then again, they'll probably get a lot more work done.