I agree, but although I don't care about this document as much as some here seem to (I have to refuse to join the scorn party), I also have to point out that this was done using people's money without their permission (assuming, of course, that the whole thing isn't just a joke, which is my first assumption).
I think this sort of research should be done at private expense, not at public.
I wouldn't mind dropping the electoral college; but anything that replaces it would have to have the same effect, so it's kind of pointless.
The second most beautiful thing about our republic -- second to the fact that it's constitutional -- is that it's federal. This means that it's composed not of the people, but rather of the states. The federal government is arranged to have a minimum of power over the people directly, and more power over the states.
But this means that the states should elect the federal government, not the people.
I guess I'm not motivated enough right now to explain *why* this is such a good thing. I certainly don't claim that we live up to the ideal; the income tax was a HUGE diversion from it, and the changes in the Senate elections was another. Neither of those is bad in and of themselves, but there is a problem in that people aren't taught about the foundational ideas of our government, so people start making major changes that result only in chaos.
Do you really think that Saddam had that much control over the US Government?
You're reaching. You're really reaching. You're trying to say that assassination (illegal under all circumstances) would have been preferable to a breaking of the ceasefire (legal); you're trying to say that Saddam wanted the invasion somehow and manipulated the US into it... No, Saddam didn't want the invasion; he was trying to split the world community so that the ceasefire would dribble off uselessly. Of COURSE the US had a choice; they had more reasons to invade Iraq than the bare fact that it was flouting the ceasefire.
"Does "blattant" mean "alleged"? If so, I agree. And true or not, this has precisely NOTHING to do with the war."
No I mean blattant. I think the case is clear for that, we are not in court of law but I suspect they soon will be. No-bid, connected closely with the Vice President, Overcharges in fuel and other un-ethical practices. I think we have a smoking gun here.
The no-bid was justified and ruled on (no wrongdoing). That's over. The overcharges are being examined now. We'll see.
"And THIS is bullshit. It's not close to true."
I think the recent reports about the depot that lost the 380 tons of explosives was clear. We did not guard important stategic sites like this. Eventually we did but things were missing.
Um... No. The 3rd infantry division was in Al Qaqaa even while the 101st was running through. The 3rd was busy destroying explosives; that was their assigned mission (in addition to hunting for WMDs). There were actually articles about them being in Al Qaqaa at the time (CBS reported on them finding vials of a white powder in cases with instructions for carrying out chemical warfare).
We could have guarded the valuable cultural treasures of the Iraqy people, if they had a plan to win the peace, they would have had different priorities.
How were they going to win ANYTHING by forming a cordon around museums and hospitals? What are you envisioning?
You clearly know nothing of the size of Iraq. It's BIG. We were set up for trouble from the start, and everyone knew it. The level of competent planning that went into this was HUGE.
Yes, I saw that -- you claimed that it was saying that UN sanctions were working. I DO agree that it's pie in the face of people who trusted in the world's (including the US's) intelligence community, but it definitely does NOT say that sanctions were working. It says that:
1. The first war initially worked (by forcing Iraq to destroy its WMDs). 2. Saddam was (so far) not able to work on WMDs. 3. Saddam was getting around the sanctions. 4. Saddam planned to build more WMDs.
That's a mixed bag of results; it's not pretty on anyone's report card. The entire world's intelligence services were dead wrong on WMDs, for example. But it's one thing to be wrong on WMDs; it's another thing to be actively colluding to help Iraq evade sanctions.
Most of the countries who hate us "because" of this war hated us before it as well.
You're kidding, aren't you? When, previously, has France EVER failed to come to the aid of the United States? EVER? Ferchrissakes, the French sent us the Statue of Liberty! They've been one of our strongest allies for CENTURIES!
Um... I know you're supposed to set your clock back in the fall for DST, but you're not supposed to set it THAT far back. Public opinion, and government opinion, in France has changed dramatically many times, driven by events such as WWII and the resulting reconstruction (and the huge debts they owe). It's currently strongly anti-american, continuing a trend that's been there for a long time. Germany is less so, but still very noticible.
Even if that's true (and the article I referenced above seems to indicate that the CIA disagrees with you),
You have selective deafness. That article says the CIA agrees with me -- Saddam WAS flouting UN sanctions. The article doesn't mention what was perfectly obvious: Saddam was also playing games with the UN inspectors.
I repeat that that's nothing that can't be solved by a targetted attack on the one man who was causing the problem.
You DO know that this is illegal, right? No matter who does it, no matter why, no matter the international consensus, assassination is frowned upon. You may agree that this is silly, but it's the facts.
Amazing. And here I was thinking that Bush spent two entire years thumping the table about WMDs, and that that was the reason we invaded. How stupid of me.
No, not stupid of you. It makes perfect sense, because Saddam's hiding of WMDs was the justification of the invasion. The fact that there were other reasons as well shouldn't be a surprise; but the WMD issue was the one that had a clearly developed legal case behind it. The unmistakable fact is that Saddam failed to submit to inspections for WMDs; he flouted the procedures he was given as part of his ceasefire, and was doing so continuously.
You're engaging in historical revisionism.
No, I'm looking at history. History is clear on that. The amazing discovery was that in spite of all the blocking of inspections, Saddam had no WMDs to hide.
Afghanistan was invaded to protect America against terrorism, and the world approved, it was a just war, and nobody is criticizing Dubya for sending soldiers there.
I've heard a LOT of criticism.
Iraq is a basket case. It didn't need to be a basket-case. But it's ours now, and we're stuck with it.
Yes, we are.
Now, you might think that it's all very well for people like me to say this in hindsight, and claim that nobody had the information we have now a year ago.... except that people like me were saying all this a year ago, and we were ignored.
For good reason -- you disagreed with the intelligence services of all the civilized nations in t
So someone has some facts that indicate that Saddam was attempting to cooperate? I'm sorry, NO. Saddam was stonewalling incredibly well, and was profiting from the delay.
In hindsight you can claim that he wasn't cooperating, but we also need to remember that his standard of cooperation was a non-issue for over a decade.
That's not true; *you* just didn't worry about it for all that time. He didn't just start stonewalling; he didn't just start corrupting the aid programs.
Even the CIA admits that the UN Sanctions were working
I can't find any reports of that using a Google search for "CIA UN sanctions iraq". What I do find is the CIA's 2002 report indicating (incorrectly, but in agreement with other nation's judgements) that Iraq was still attempting to develop WMDs; I find page after page detailing the circumventions of the UN's sanctions by its own member states, both as part of oil-for-food and elsewhere...
Really? What bad things would have happened if the president didn't do anything?
Saddam would have continued to do what he was doing -- subverting UN sanctions, playing Europe against the US via bribes, and struggling to develop more offensive weapons to do what he's always wanted to do. Play the game long enough, and people like you forget why it's being played.
Applying 20-20 hindsight, it's difficult to conclude anything other than the fact that the war was a big mistake.
I disagree. Obviously:-). Let me rebut:
It's going to cost trillions.
I can't rebut that. The cost will be astronomical; all wars cost much more than they can ever repay. The only question is what it costs to not fight -- and that is definitely open to debate.
Thousands of American troops are dead, tens of thousands more are maimed for life.
I don't see how this is a valid argument.
These are troops who signed up to fight; troops who hurt the enemy in active combat in massive disproportion to their casualties. These are not incompetent troops; and their tactical leadership did not squander them. This is not arguable.
What IS arguable is the strategic ends to which they were directed. But the validity of those ends is not affected by these casualties.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead.
Not due to us -- due to arrogant and self-defeating terrorists. (I don't believe that number, by the way. Look at the size of it. But your point is worthy regardless of the specific size of the number.)
Other countries have lost respect for America.
Nonsense. France? Russia? North Korea? Most of the countries who hate us "because" of this war hated us before it as well.
What about Pakistan, Libya, and many of the other borderline countries that were sponsoring terrorism and even in one case exporting nukes illegally, and immediately after this war's result became clear, turned their courses around? These are nations that are now showing respect for America in the most plausible way!
And there's now going to be a terrorism problem for decades:
Have you been sleeping? These has been a terrorist problem for decades. That's the entire reason we invaded.
Every Iraqi child mourning the death of his or her parents in the rubble of their homes,
This is why the Iraqi security force is getting so many brave volunteers in spite of the huge danger, and why we have so much information about the terrorists (they're being informed on by their neighbors). The terrorists are shooting themselves in the foot.
You clearly do NOT understand the nature of suicide terrorism. It's a new invention, just in the past century, and it requires surprising sophistication to carry off; tons of PR, a decent amount of money, a huge repressed populace, and a lot of deception.
He spent an entire decade cooperating with them, and all it got him was an escalating cycle of aggressive posturing from the US.
What he was doing was NOT cooperation. It was aggressive postponement of cooperation, at best, and definitely fracturing the international program to keep him in line; all mixed with a good deal of deliberate saber-rattling and corruption of international programs. He delayed inspectors, and conducted large-scale movements of weapons before allowing them into his buildings.
He was running a nuclear research program -- it was hollow, but evidence indicates that he didn't know that (the administrators were corrupt). Even if he knew that the research program was hollow, the question remains why he'd want to make it LOOK like he was attempting to develop weapons explicitly prohibited by the ceasefire.
Resumption of the war was inevitable, yes; but not because of Bush. Any president who wasn't determined to do _nothing_ would have to act.
If Hussain had really been in violation of UN resolutions, the war wouldn't have been illegal.
Excellent reasoning; you're correct. The war wasn't illegal.
It seems that way because you most strongly notice the ones that get people most offended. Also, when the "centrist" IDers push for inclusion, they're usually painted as six-day creationists. Neither view is accurate.
We are less secure there than just after we invaded a soveriegn nation without provocation.
Without provocation? What on EARTH are you talking about? Iraq was in flagrant violation of their ceasefire (and don't forget -- a ceasefire is NOT the same thing as the end of a war!). You may not LIKE the invasion, but that's no excuse for lying about it.
Now tons of explosive are missing,
From where? Oh, yes. Saddam's ammo dumps. I'm sure they did us a LOT more good there.
I'm not going to defend the argument that the 380 tons of HE were already missing when we got there; the evidence does strongly show that, but I believe it doesn't matter to this argument, because to one degree or another it's unknown. That specific stuff MAY have been stolen after we got there; tracing any specific stuff gives some degree of uncertainty. For example, we have the person in charge of destroying the explosives at that base, and he claims to have destroyed a lot; but he may have missed some.
What DOES matter to this argument is what's _known_. And that's Saddam's strategy before the war: he opened his stockpiles of explosives and weapons, and spread them out. He did the same with his army, and also released criminals from his prisons. We KNOW that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tons of explosives are distributed throughout the country -- because he put them there. THIS is the danger in Iraq, and it's a known danger, and was known before we went in.
You could accuse Bush of giving him the time to do that. You'd be right; he did. But he did it attempting to build a large coalition with UN support.
What would you argue? Did Bush err by seeking approval?
people Iraqies and foreginers alike daily and the pace of death is steadily increasing.
The pace of death is increasing as the less-trained Iraqis finally take their country into their own hands, and as the US elections get closer. If Kerry wins, the pace will continue to increase, as enemy strategists attempt to test the resolve of an unknown; if Bush wins, they'll decrease, and the insurgents will attempt to settle in for a longer struggle (and possibly re-evaluate a struggle which is mainly killing their own countrymen).
The price of death is being paid by Iraqis fighting for their own freedom, and by Iraqi civilians dying at the hands of terrorists from next door. More and more of them are not tolerating it, and are serving as informers against the terrorists.
More and more Iraqies are getting tageted by their own people,
And this causes the terrorists to become more and more unpopular.
fundementalist Muslum organizations are getting more and more recruits,
Anti-terrorists are getting more and more passive informers, as well as active police volunteers.
more fundementalists are streaming in from other countries.
And this increases the unpopularity of the terrorists still more. (This, however, is something that our military must help with.)
We have lost several cities where we can not even venture in.
We have been stably gaining cities that we could not previously have done more than ventured into, because now we have the Iraqis on our side, and they have the means and resolution to STAY.
The international community of nations is against our actions.
The members most strongly against it -- the bulk of the motion against it -- were the nations that were selling the "missing" high explosives to Iraq in the first place (France and Russia being the biggest ones), and the ones profiting richly from the bribes and corruption in the Oil-for-Food program.
We have been caught torturing prisoners,
We caught our own soldiers torturing prisoners. We exposed them, we are trying them, and we will punish them. "We" did not do the torture.
May I suggest you think about why the ID folk only want *their* Intelligent Designs taught in schools?
That's not true -- the ID folks are incredibly diverse. I've seen types ranging from Christian six-day creationists, to new-age Panspermia advocates, to atheists who weren't clear about what was driving evolution, but saw that something was. The six-day creationists are not very influential.
And all that's to say nothing of Bush's really miserable record on the environment and science. Stifling stem cell research?
By which you mean being the first president to fund embryonic stem cell research (and what else could you mean by "stem cell research" -- you DO know that adult stem cell research is getting _great_ results, right?).
Ignoring global warming? Overruling EPA guidelines on arsenic and air quality?
These two, Kyoto and the old EPA guidelines, are cut out of the same cloth -- destructive hyperreactions to conclusions reached as a result of shoddy science.
Unfortunately, they're points that I feel you understand better than our president does.
Fortunately, our president is smarter than his critics like to paint him as.
The critical part of rebuilding Iraq is NOT pulling in help from other foreigners like ourselves (in the eyes of the Iraqis); it's enlisting help from natives. Only Iraqis can hold Iraq, and only Iraqis SHOULD hold Iraq. In order to do this, we have to hold the country stable for long enough to train a reliable Iraqi security force, recruited from and accountable to the populace. This means that we have to make it clear that we're staying in there, a message that Bush has been unequivocal about sending (and Kerry has not). If we hold the course, they will take over from us. If we falter, the destabilizers will be encouraged and will pick up their operations (murdering Iraqi civilians and killing American soldiers), attempting to make progress toward a free nation even harder.
And Bush's strategy is working. The murders have been utterly failing to keep Iraqis away from volunteering, and have perhaps driven an increase, as people realize that failing to act will only decrease their safety; the native security strength is increasing. We would NOT have been able to hold many of the recent victories had it not been for them; they can go where we cannot, and they can hold it reliably once we're gone.
[When talking about WMDs being the justification for the war:]
Apparently, you are less concerned about what a candidate/president _says_ his reasons are for doing a thing than you are concerned about what those reasons actually are.
I know what you mean -- I asked the same question right after the war started and I saw the strategic strength of the invasion, which made me certain that the WMDs were actually one of the weakest arguments for the war.
Thus, I had to question Bush's honesty. No, I don't think he lied about WMDs; there was FAR too much evidence, with every major country, including France, agreeing (incorrectly, it turns out) that Saddam had them and was hiding them from inspectors. I had to question whether he was being honest about the reason for invading; whether he was just using the WMDs as a cover for deeper, more strategic reasons.
But the answer to that question is just too simple. Yes, WMDs were a cover; much like "tax evasion" is a cover for taking out a mobster. Yes, there are reasons OTHER than a violation of ceasefire for attacking Saddam; but the WMDs were the single legal technicality which allowed the attack. More accurately, the violation of the ceasefire allowed the attack. Bush could NOT have legally started this war on any other grounds.
I further believe that Bush was justified in this. Saddam got a ceasefire, and was violating it. Our worst fears were not true, but the violation was nonetheless real.
I've worked at a company running a project designing a system to allow inspection of more than we currently inspect. The problem is the cost, direct and indirect. It would, of course, cost a lot to train enough people to inspect everything that comes in, to the point of making much shipping unprofitable. Much worse, though, it would slow down shipping immensely, and that alone would cost us a HUGE chunk of our GNP.
Something is being done, of course. There are some possible solutions being examined by a number of eager gov't contractors (some at their own expense, others at gov't expense). We'll never be able to have a human look at anything close to 100%, but we'll probably wind up with a better system to classify stuff based on diverse characteristics and test results, thus allowing human review of questionable cases.
My jaw dropped when Kerry used that 95% line. It was utter fearmongering, pure and simple; he offers no better improvement than Bush. Honestly, backing off a bit, it's frustrating to see how similar the two candidates are in their actions (not in their rhetoric). Yes, Bush invaded Iraq; and Kerry keeps saying that he might have done the same (yet, somehow, "better").
Whatever.
I know who I'm voting for, but I certainly respect the people who remain undecided.
Uh oh. Ease of use begins with ease of installation.
Well... I'm in a "defending Jef" mode, but I'll cut out of it a second to say that you're right; if their product doesn't improve a LOT I'll be very disappointed. For a while they only ran on Mac; then they added a Windows version that didn't run for me, then I got a Mac, and immediately they took down all the downloads and I've never seen them since.
But with that said, I don't expect as much from a development project as I do from a completed product.
You're being silly. He only hates all current interfaces, and he states very clearly why. And yes, he likes zooming user interfaces, but simply supporting Display PDF and Expose doesn't magically change OS X into a zooming user interface. By the way, the features of Display PDF are insufficient and unneccesary to support a zooming UI. It's handy to have OS help in scaling, but a zooming UI needs program involvement as well.
Jef didn't like the old MacOS either, so your argument is beside the point. His problem with it was user interface, not technology. His complaint about the new interface is that it's more of the same, with a few inconsistencies thrown in just for good measure.
You don't have to rely on your impression of him, or consider a *possibility* that his ideal machine might be different than what we have now. You could instead read what he's written, but for free on his website and in his book; you could download his "The Humane Editor" and play with the second draft of his ideal interface.
And your claim that Jef designs interfaces for novices is purely ignorant. Jef designs interfaces almost completely without regard for novices; all of his calculations are designed to ensure ease of use, NOT ease of learning. He does give lip service (and work) to ease of learning, but all the math calculates and optimizes actual ongoing ease of _use_.
and is capable of DNA self-repair, unlike every other organism in the world.
Pardon, but every organism in the world does DNA self-repair. If they didn't there would be almost NO succesful reproduction. von Neumann considered self-repair to be one of the three crucial elements of a self-preproducing machine (the other two are reproduction and self-diagnosis).
And I'm not sure what you meant, but this virus doesn't replicate its own proteins -- it simply has the instructions for its own proteins encoded in it. Most viruses just depend on the cell having some that are close enough.
Your wording is a little ambiguous. This virus carries information to produce these protiens, so it doesn't depend on the host cell's protiens; however, it can't produce them itself.
It's NOT metabolism by any definition; it's just more information than is common.
Here's the problem with your argument: Many (though certainly not all) people assume that sharing information about themselves is fine, because it's too difficult for malicious persons to collect, organize and analyze that data.
This is arguing from ignorance. Yes, those people do argue that way; but they're wrong, and have been wrong for a long time. The problem you cite is not with my argument; it's with those people.
And the only way to keep the data private is to become a hermit.
Incorrect.
1. The only way to keep a data item private is to not give it out unprotected. Once it's unprotected, it's not private anymore.
2. There's no way to keep ALL of your data private; we all share the same physical world, so SOME information is going to leak out:-).
3. Interacting with people requires giving information out. You can choose for each interaction whether the information is worth the interaction.
4. Some interactions are worth so much that you want to give out some information you consider private. You must either consider that information public, OR protect the information with an agreement of privacy.
The conclusion is obvious: with every interaction, if you want to protect your privacy you need to consider wisely what information you release and under what terms.
The only other solution is to slow the process of analysis.
This is obviously impossible. You can't even know when the analysis is taking place.
I'd rather take part in EFF Action Alerts to slow the passage of legislation that makes data about me easier to analyze.
This is prudent. Inasmuch as this legislation affects the government, it's essentially one of the policy agreements that I mentioned (between you and the government). Inasmuch as it affects non-governmental entities, you need to consider how it affects the agreements you've established to protect your private information, and you need to consider whether it can be enforced.
And my point is that your point doesn't make sense to me. I can do all of that if I really wanted to, and you couldn't stop me (nor could the government). The reason? All that information is public, not private. If you want it private, keep it that way. If you need to work with someone who wants your data, make sure you get them to contract to keep your data private.
This points out a very severe recent problem, by the way. A judge recently decided that an airline's privacy policy didn't matter because "few people even read it, and most people don't care". If this is upheld, this sort of contract will become impossible to enforce, and privacy will become very hard to guard.
Right! We demand to NOT be told about collections of our public data, including leaks of our private data into the public.
Your approach is all wrong. It DOES matter that your data is available; that _by definition_ transforms your data from "private" to "public". That's the end of your privacy with respect to that data. And you have yourself to blame. Don't use your credit card on a public computer.
I don't know of any editors that work that way. Most will gladly allow you to configure them to use emulated tabs: any line beginning only with whitespaces acts as though that whitespace consisted only of tabs.
It's a pretty fundamental feature, thanks to all the disputes about the One True Indentation:-).
Slashdot Mirror
I agree, but although I don't care about this document as much as some here seem to (I have to refuse to join the scorn party), I also have to point out that this was done using people's money without their permission (assuming, of course, that the whole thing isn't just a joke, which is my first assumption).
I think this sort of research should be done at private expense, not at public.
-Billy
I wouldn't mind dropping the electoral college; but anything that replaces it would have to have the same effect, so it's kind of pointless.
The second most beautiful thing about our republic -- second to the fact that it's constitutional -- is that it's federal. This means that it's composed not of the people, but rather of the states. The federal government is arranged to have a minimum of power over the people directly, and more power over the states.
But this means that the states should elect the federal government, not the people.
I guess I'm not motivated enough right now to explain *why* this is such a good thing. I certainly don't claim that we live up to the ideal; the income tax was a HUGE diversion from it, and the changes in the Senate elections was another. Neither of those is bad in and of themselves, but there is a problem in that people aren't taught about the foundational ideas of our government, so people start making major changes that result only in chaos.
-Billy
Do you really think that Saddam had that much control over the US Government?
You're reaching. You're really reaching. You're trying to say that assassination (illegal under all circumstances) would have been preferable to a breaking of the ceasefire (legal); you're trying to say that Saddam wanted the invasion somehow and manipulated the US into it... No, Saddam didn't want the invasion; he was trying to split the world community so that the ceasefire would dribble off uselessly. Of COURSE the US had a choice; they had more reasons to invade Iraq than the bare fact that it was flouting the ceasefire.
-Billy
"Does "blattant" mean "alleged"? If so, I agree. And true or not, this has precisely NOTHING to do with the war."
No I mean blattant. I think the case is clear for that, we are not in court of law but I suspect they soon will be. No-bid, connected closely with the Vice President, Overcharges in fuel and other un-ethical practices. I think we have a smoking gun here.
The no-bid was justified and ruled on (no wrongdoing). That's over. The overcharges are being examined now. We'll see.
"And THIS is bullshit. It's not close to true."
I think the recent reports about the depot that lost the 380 tons of explosives was clear. We did not guard important stategic sites like this. Eventually we did but things were missing.
Um... No. The 3rd infantry division was in Al Qaqaa even while the 101st was running through. The 3rd was busy destroying explosives; that was their assigned mission (in addition to hunting for WMDs). There were actually articles about them being in Al Qaqaa at the time (CBS reported on them finding vials of a white powder in cases with instructions for carrying out chemical warfare).
We could have guarded the valuable cultural treasures of the Iraqy people, if they had a plan to win the peace, they would have had different priorities.
How were they going to win ANYTHING by forming a cordon around museums and hospitals? What are you envisioning?
You clearly know nothing of the size of Iraq. It's BIG. We were set up for trouble from the start, and everyone knew it. The level of competent planning that went into this was HUGE.
-Billy
I can't find any reports of that using a Google search for "CIA UN sanctions iraq".
... except that people like me were saying all this a year ago, and we were ignored.
[This] is what you're looking for.
Yes, I saw that -- you claimed that it was saying that UN sanctions were working. I DO agree that it's pie in the face of people who trusted in the world's (including the US's) intelligence community, but it definitely does NOT say that sanctions were working. It says that:
1. The first war initially worked (by forcing Iraq to destroy its WMDs).
2. Saddam was (so far) not able to work on WMDs.
3. Saddam was getting around the sanctions.
4. Saddam planned to build more WMDs.
That's a mixed bag of results; it's not pretty on anyone's report card. The entire world's intelligence services were dead wrong on WMDs, for example. But it's one thing to be wrong on WMDs; it's another thing to be actively colluding to help Iraq evade sanctions.
Most of the countries who hate us "because" of this war hated us before it as well.
You're kidding, aren't you? When, previously, has France EVER failed to come to the aid of the United States? EVER? Ferchrissakes, the French sent us the Statue of Liberty! They've been one of our strongest allies for CENTURIES!
Um... I know you're supposed to set your clock back in the fall for DST, but you're not supposed to set it THAT far back. Public opinion, and government opinion, in France has changed dramatically many times, driven by events such as WWII and the resulting reconstruction (and the huge debts they owe). It's currently strongly anti-american, continuing a trend that's been there for a long time. Germany is less so, but still very noticible.
Even if that's true (and the article I referenced above seems to indicate that the CIA disagrees with you),
You have selective deafness. That article says the CIA agrees with me -- Saddam WAS flouting UN sanctions. The article doesn't mention what was perfectly obvious: Saddam was also playing games with the UN inspectors.
I repeat that that's nothing that can't be solved by a targetted attack on the one man who was causing the problem.
You DO know that this is illegal, right? No matter who does it, no matter why, no matter the international consensus, assassination is frowned upon. You may agree that this is silly, but it's the facts.
Amazing. And here I was thinking that Bush spent two entire years thumping the table about WMDs, and that that was the reason we invaded. How stupid of me.
No, not stupid of you. It makes perfect sense, because Saddam's hiding of WMDs was the justification of the invasion. The fact that there were other reasons as well shouldn't be a surprise; but the WMD issue was the one that had a clearly developed legal case behind it. The unmistakable fact is that Saddam failed to submit to inspections for WMDs; he flouted the procedures he was given as part of his ceasefire, and was doing so continuously.
You're engaging in historical revisionism.
No, I'm looking at history. History is clear on that. The amazing discovery was that in spite of all the blocking of inspections, Saddam had no WMDs to hide.
Afghanistan was invaded to protect America against terrorism, and the world approved, it was a just war, and nobody is criticizing Dubya for sending soldiers there.
I've heard a LOT of criticism.
Iraq is a basket case. It didn't need to be a basket-case. But it's ours now, and we're stuck with it.
Yes, we are.
Now, you might think that it's all very well for people like me to say this in hindsight, and claim that nobody had the information we have now a year ago.
For good reason -- you disagreed with the intelligence services of all the civilized nations in t
Whether or not that's the case is debatable.
:-). Let me rebut:
So someone has some facts that indicate that Saddam was attempting to cooperate? I'm sorry, NO. Saddam was stonewalling incredibly well, and was profiting from the delay.
In hindsight you can claim that he wasn't cooperating, but we also need to remember that his standard of cooperation was a non-issue for over a decade.
That's not true; *you* just didn't worry about it for all that time. He didn't just start stonewalling; he didn't just start corrupting the aid programs.
Even the CIA admits that the UN Sanctions were working
I can't find any reports of that using a Google search for "CIA UN sanctions iraq". What I do find is the CIA's 2002 report indicating (incorrectly, but in agreement with other nation's judgements) that Iraq was still attempting to develop WMDs; I find page after page detailing the circumventions of the UN's sanctions by its own member states, both as part of oil-for-food and elsewhere...
Really? What bad things would have happened if the president didn't do anything?
Saddam would have continued to do what he was doing -- subverting UN sanctions, playing Europe against the US via bribes, and struggling to develop more offensive weapons to do what he's always wanted to do. Play the game long enough, and people like you forget why it's being played.
Applying 20-20 hindsight, it's difficult to conclude anything other than the fact that the war was a big mistake.
I disagree. Obviously
It's going to cost trillions.
I can't rebut that. The cost will be astronomical; all wars cost much more than they can ever repay. The only question is what it costs to not fight -- and that is definitely open to debate.
Thousands of American troops are dead, tens of thousands more are maimed for life.
I don't see how this is a valid argument.
These are troops who signed up to fight; troops who hurt the enemy in active combat in massive disproportion to their casualties. These are not incompetent troops; and their tactical leadership did not squander them. This is not arguable.
What IS arguable is the strategic ends to which they were directed. But the validity of those ends is not affected by these casualties.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead.
Not due to us -- due to arrogant and self-defeating terrorists. (I don't believe that number, by the way. Look at the size of it. But your point is worthy regardless of the specific size of the number.)
Other countries have lost respect for America.
Nonsense. France? Russia? North Korea? Most of the countries who hate us "because" of this war hated us before it as well.
What about Pakistan, Libya, and many of the other borderline countries that were sponsoring terrorism and even in one case exporting nukes illegally, and immediately after this war's result became clear, turned their courses around? These are nations that are now showing respect for America in the most plausible way!
And there's now going to be a terrorism problem for decades:
Have you been sleeping? These has been a terrorist problem for decades. That's the entire reason we invaded.
Every Iraqi child mourning the death of his or her parents in the rubble of their homes,
This is why the Iraqi security force is getting so many brave volunteers in spite of the huge danger, and why we have so much information about the terrorists (they're being informed on by their neighbors). The terrorists are shooting themselves in the foot.
You clearly do NOT understand the nature of suicide terrorism. It's a new invention, just in the past century, and it requires surprising sophistication to carry off; tons of PR, a decent amount of money, a huge repressed populace, and a lot of deception.
or every innocent Iraqi who was tortured a
He spent an entire decade cooperating with them, and all it got him was an escalating cycle of aggressive posturing from the US.
What he was doing was NOT cooperation. It was aggressive postponement of cooperation, at best, and definitely fracturing the international program to keep him in line; all mixed with a good deal of deliberate saber-rattling and corruption of international programs. He delayed inspectors, and conducted large-scale movements of weapons before allowing them into his buildings.
He was running a nuclear research program -- it was hollow, but evidence indicates that he didn't know that (the administrators were corrupt). Even if he knew that the research program was hollow, the question remains why he'd want to make it LOOK like he was attempting to develop weapons explicitly prohibited by the ceasefire.
Resumption of the war was inevitable, yes; but not because of Bush. Any president who wasn't determined to do _nothing_ would have to act.
If Hussain had really been in violation of UN resolutions, the war wouldn't have been illegal.
Excellent reasoning; you're correct. The war wasn't illegal.
-Billy
It seems that way because you most strongly notice the ones that get people most offended. Also, when the "centrist" IDers push for inclusion, they're usually painted as six-day creationists. Neither view is accurate.
-Billy
Bush's strategy is not working.
Let's see.
We are less secure there than just after we invaded a soveriegn nation without provocation.
Without provocation? What on EARTH are you talking about? Iraq was in flagrant violation of their ceasefire (and don't forget -- a ceasefire is NOT the same thing as the end of a war!). You may not LIKE the invasion, but that's no excuse for lying about it.
Now tons of explosive are missing,
From where? Oh, yes. Saddam's ammo dumps. I'm sure they did us a LOT more good there.
I'm not going to defend the argument that the 380 tons of HE were already missing when we got there; the evidence does strongly show that, but I believe it doesn't matter to this argument, because to one degree or another it's unknown. That specific stuff MAY have been stolen after we got there; tracing any specific stuff gives some degree of uncertainty. For example, we have the person in charge of destroying the explosives at that base, and he claims to have destroyed a lot; but he may have missed some.
What DOES matter to this argument is what's _known_. And that's Saddam's strategy before the war: he opened his stockpiles of explosives and weapons, and spread them out. He did the same with his army, and also released criminals from his prisons. We KNOW that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tons of explosives are distributed throughout the country -- because he put them there. THIS is the danger in Iraq, and it's a known danger, and was known before we went in.
You could accuse Bush of giving him the time to do that. You'd be right; he did. But he did it attempting to build a large coalition with UN support.
What would you argue? Did Bush err by seeking approval?
people Iraqies and foreginers alike daily and the pace of death is steadily increasing.
The pace of death is increasing as the less-trained Iraqis finally take their country into their own hands, and as the US elections get closer. If Kerry wins, the pace will continue to increase, as enemy strategists attempt to test the resolve of an unknown; if Bush wins, they'll decrease, and the insurgents will attempt to settle in for a longer struggle (and possibly re-evaluate a struggle which is mainly killing their own countrymen).
The price of death is being paid by Iraqis fighting for their own freedom, and by Iraqi civilians dying at the hands of terrorists from next door. More and more of them are not tolerating it, and are serving as informers against the terrorists.
More and more Iraqies are getting tageted by their own people,
And this causes the terrorists to become more and more unpopular.
fundementalist Muslum organizations are getting more and more recruits,
Anti-terrorists are getting more and more passive informers, as well as active police volunteers.
more fundementalists are streaming in from other countries.
And this increases the unpopularity of the terrorists still more. (This, however, is something that our military must help with.)
We have lost several cities where we can not even venture in.
We have been stably gaining cities that we could not previously have done more than ventured into, because now we have the Iraqis on our side, and they have the means and resolution to STAY.
The international community of nations is against our actions.
The members most strongly against it -- the bulk of the motion against it -- were the nations that were selling the "missing" high explosives to Iraq in the first place (France and Russia being the biggest ones), and the ones profiting richly from the bribes and corruption in the Oil-for-Food program.
We have been caught torturing prisoners,
We caught our own soldiers torturing prisoners. We exposed them, we are trying them, and we will punish them. "We" did not do the torture.
we have held people without trial inside a
May I suggest you think about why the ID folk only want *their* Intelligent Designs taught in schools?
That's not true -- the ID folks are incredibly diverse. I've seen types ranging from Christian six-day creationists, to new-age Panspermia advocates, to atheists who weren't clear about what was driving evolution, but saw that something was. The six-day creationists are not very influential.
-Billy
And all that's to say nothing of Bush's really miserable record on the environment and science. Stifling stem cell research?
By which you mean being the first president to fund embryonic stem cell research (and what else could you mean by "stem cell research" -- you DO know that adult stem cell research is getting _great_ results, right?).
Ignoring global warming? Overruling EPA guidelines on arsenic and air quality?
These two, Kyoto and the old EPA guidelines, are cut out of the same cloth -- destructive hyperreactions to conclusions reached as a result of shoddy science.
-Billy
Unfortunately, they're points that I feel you understand better than our president does.
Fortunately, our president is smarter than his critics like to paint him as.
The critical part of rebuilding Iraq is NOT pulling in help from other foreigners like ourselves (in the eyes of the Iraqis); it's enlisting help from natives. Only Iraqis can hold Iraq, and only Iraqis SHOULD hold Iraq. In order to do this, we have to hold the country stable for long enough to train a reliable Iraqi security force, recruited from and accountable to the populace. This means that we have to make it clear that we're staying in there, a message that Bush has been unequivocal about sending (and Kerry has not). If we hold the course, they will take over from us. If we falter, the destabilizers will be encouraged and will pick up their operations (murdering Iraqi civilians and killing American soldiers), attempting to make progress toward a free nation even harder.
And Bush's strategy is working. The murders have been utterly failing to keep Iraqis away from volunteering, and have perhaps driven an increase, as people realize that failing to act will only decrease their safety; the native security strength is increasing. We would NOT have been able to hold many of the recent victories had it not been for them; they can go where we cannot, and they can hold it reliably once we're gone.
-Billy
[When talking about WMDs being the justification for the war:]
Apparently, you are less concerned about what a candidate/president _says_ his reasons are for doing a thing than you are concerned about what those reasons actually are.
I know what you mean -- I asked the same question right after the war started and I saw the strategic strength of the invasion, which made me certain that the WMDs were actually one of the weakest arguments for the war.
Thus, I had to question Bush's honesty. No, I don't think he lied about WMDs; there was FAR too much evidence, with every major country, including France, agreeing (incorrectly, it turns out) that Saddam had them and was hiding them from inspectors. I had to question whether he was being honest about the reason for invading; whether he was just using the WMDs as a cover for deeper, more strategic reasons.
But the answer to that question is just too simple. Yes, WMDs were a cover; much like "tax evasion" is a cover for taking out a mobster. Yes, there are reasons OTHER than a violation of ceasefire for attacking Saddam; but the WMDs were the single legal technicality which allowed the attack. More accurately, the violation of the ceasefire allowed the attack. Bush could NOT have legally started this war on any other grounds.
I further believe that Bush was justified in this. Saddam got a ceasefire, and was violating it. Our worst fears were not true, but the violation was nonetheless real.
-Billy
I've worked at a company running a project designing a system to allow inspection of more than we currently inspect. The problem is the cost, direct and indirect. It would, of course, cost a lot to train enough people to inspect everything that comes in, to the point of making much shipping unprofitable. Much worse, though, it would slow down shipping immensely, and that alone would cost us a HUGE chunk of our GNP.
Something is being done, of course. There are some possible solutions being examined by a number of eager gov't contractors (some at their own expense, others at gov't expense). We'll never be able to have a human look at anything close to 100%, but we'll probably wind up with a better system to classify stuff based on diverse characteristics and test results, thus allowing human review of questionable cases.
My jaw dropped when Kerry used that 95% line. It was utter fearmongering, pure and simple; he offers no better improvement than Bush. Honestly, backing off a bit, it's frustrating to see how similar the two candidates are in their actions (not in their rhetoric). Yes, Bush invaded Iraq; and Kerry keeps saying that he might have done the same (yet, somehow, "better").
Whatever.
I know who I'm voting for, but I certainly respect the people who remain undecided.
-Billy
Yes -- because it's part of the ongoing merging of the POWER line with the PowerPC line of chips.
-Billy
Uh oh. Ease of use begins with ease of installation.
Well... I'm in a "defending Jef" mode, but I'll cut out of it a second to say that you're right; if their product doesn't improve a LOT I'll be very disappointed. For a while they only ran on Mac; then they added a Windows version that didn't run for me, then I got a Mac, and immediately they took down all the downloads and I've never seen them since.
But with that said, I don't expect as much from a development project as I do from a completed product.
-Billy
You're being silly. He only hates all current interfaces, and he states very clearly why. And yes, he likes zooming user interfaces, but simply supporting Display PDF and Expose doesn't magically change OS X into a zooming user interface. By the way, the features of Display PDF are insufficient and unneccesary to support a zooming UI. It's handy to have OS help in scaling, but a zooming UI needs program involvement as well.
-Billy
Jef didn't like the old MacOS either, so your argument is beside the point. His problem with it was user interface, not technology. His complaint about the new interface is that it's more of the same, with a few inconsistencies thrown in just for good measure.
-Billy
You don't have to rely on your impression of him, or consider a *possibility* that his ideal machine might be different than what we have now. You could instead read what he's written, but for free on his website and in his book; you could download his "The Humane Editor" and play with the second draft of his ideal interface.
And your claim that Jef designs interfaces for novices is purely ignorant. Jef designs interfaces almost completely without regard for novices; all of his calculations are designed to ensure ease of use, NOT ease of learning. He does give lip service (and work) to ease of learning, but all the math calculates and optimizes actual ongoing ease of _use_.
-Billy
and is capable of DNA self-repair, unlike every other organism in the world.
Pardon, but every organism in the world does DNA self-repair. If they didn't there would be almost NO succesful reproduction. von Neumann considered self-repair to be one of the three crucial elements of a self-preproducing machine (the other two are reproduction and self-diagnosis).
And I'm not sure what you meant, but this virus doesn't replicate its own proteins -- it simply has the instructions for its own proteins encoded in it. Most viruses just depend on the cell having some that are close enough.
-Billy
Your wording is a little ambiguous. This virus carries information to produce these protiens, so it doesn't depend on the host cell's protiens; however, it can't produce them itself.
It's NOT metabolism by any definition; it's just more information than is common.
-Billy
Here's the problem with your argument:
:-).
Many (though certainly not all) people assume that sharing information about themselves is fine, because it's too difficult for malicious persons to collect, organize and analyze that data.
This is arguing from ignorance. Yes, those people do argue that way; but they're wrong, and have been wrong for a long time. The problem you cite is not with my argument; it's with those people.
And the only way to keep the data private is to become a hermit.
Incorrect.
1. The only way to keep a data item private is to not give it out unprotected. Once it's unprotected, it's not private anymore.
2. There's no way to keep ALL of your data private; we all share the same physical world, so SOME information is going to leak out
3. Interacting with people requires giving information out. You can choose for each interaction whether the information is worth the interaction.
4. Some interactions are worth so much that you want to give out some information you consider private. You must either consider that information public, OR protect the information with an agreement of privacy.
The conclusion is obvious: with every interaction, if you want to protect your privacy you need to consider wisely what information you release and under what terms.
The only other solution is to slow the process of analysis.
This is obviously impossible. You can't even know when the analysis is taking place.
I'd rather take part in EFF Action Alerts to slow the passage of legislation that makes data about me easier to analyze.
This is prudent. Inasmuch as this legislation affects the government, it's essentially one of the policy agreements that I mentioned (between you and the government). Inasmuch as it affects non-governmental entities, you need to consider how it affects the agreements you've established to protect your private information, and you need to consider whether it can be enforced.
-Billy
And my point is that your point doesn't make sense to me. I can do all of that if I really wanted to, and you couldn't stop me (nor could the government). The reason? All that information is public, not private. If you want it private, keep it that way. If you need to work with someone who wants your data, make sure you get them to contract to keep your data private.
This points out a very severe recent problem, by the way. A judge recently decided that an airline's privacy policy didn't matter because "few people even read it, and most people don't care". If this is upheld, this sort of contract will become impossible to enforce, and privacy will become very hard to guard.
-Billy
Right! We demand to NOT be told about collections of our public data, including leaks of our private data into the public.
Your approach is all wrong. It DOES matter that your data is available; that _by definition_ transforms your data from "private" to "public". That's the end of your privacy with respect to that data. And you have yourself to blame. Don't use your credit card on a public computer.
-Billy
I don't know of any editors that work that way. Most will gladly allow you to configure them to use emulated tabs: any line beginning only with whitespaces acts as though that whitespace consisted only of tabs.
:-).
It's a pretty fundamental feature, thanks to all the disputes about the One True Indentation
-Billy