Yes, good point, rep is a good indicator when there are a lot of data points to be had. I should have clarified that I was thinking about those with a past conviction and no relapses (Mitnick or Morris, for example).
Well, no one knows except Rumsfeld et al, because there has been little accounting oversight.
What's the difference anyway? The US is largely responsible for both security and reconstruction. Reconstruction costs defrayed by Iraqi oil revenue represent money that can be allocated to the defense budget. And if I remember correctly, both revenue streams go through the DoD anyway (reconstruction and security/defense).
It's like child support. Someone receiving child support is just getting money that otherwise would have come out of their own coffers. They essentially have less expenses and more money to spend on other things. It effectively increases income by eliminating an expense. So if you're paying your ex, say $1500/month in child support, you might not be surprised to find out that he/she can suddenly afford two cars and a house on a poverty-line income. Who's paying for it, you... or the ex?
> That fund isn't growing as quickly as it ought as local terrorists are intent on > cutting the volumes.
In addition to sabotage, there is a much more general problem - an oil infrastructure in decay due to the long-standing UN sanctions. The Bush administration probably overstated the productive capacity of the Iraqi oil industry in its post-sanctions state - and they had already assumed the worst with regard to sabotage.
Bottom line, it's going to take a while to get the revenue needed to recoup post-war reconstruction costs, sabotage or no.
> if this ruling stands and a new precedent is set, any customer of any > carrier would be allowed to take their IP space with them when they leave > just because it is not convenient for them to renumber.
Umm... isn't this alarmist? If this were established as a precedent (which it's not) it is a state court ruling... aren't state courts reluctant to accept other states' courts rulings as precedent?
> others refuse, saying that anyone with that bad seed can't every be trusted
I've always seen this argument (the Spafford argument, if you will) as weak. You can't really trust anyone absolutely. A past offense doesn't guarantee a future offense any more than a lack of past offense guarantees future ones.
Any system should have a set of checks and balances for the admins & security guys as well. You don't want anyone holding all the keys on principle. That way, you're mitigating any risk by hiring someone who you know has trust issues.
To those who don't get this, parent is referring to the Nazi's rallies, not just in Munich but all over 30's Germany. "Populist" is basically a fancy way of saying that somebody is advocating an alternative to an entrenched, established government by using rhetoric that has broad appeal. George Bush ran using populist rhetoric, since he was challenging an extension to a 2-term Democratic administration. Eg lowering taxes, reducing government, bringing dignity back to the office of the presidency, etc. These are all things people don't neccessarily disagree with, prima facie. Currently, he also uses it to maintain popular support for his policies - e.g. fighting terror, spreading democracy, destroying evil, etc. These are all popular notions.
Populism becomes demagoguery when the rhetoric is based on lies or the absence of fact. If someone thinks Moore is an outright demagogue, they can always critique him and make citations, debunk his claims, etc. instead of making vague implications.
Incidentally, aren't you being a tad alarmist? Assuming Moore's movie is pure propaganda, does it have the potential to cause an liberal or even anarchist revolution? I doubt it. The tenor of US government politics is still anchored in the waters of the right. This movie doesn't have the power to change that. It's more like group therapy for anti-war, anti-corporate, anti-government, or anti-Bush folks.
> He blindly pulls the Dems' party line and never questions it.
Moore is much more liberal than the "Democratic" party and its presidential candidates. The dem party is shifted right because the country has been a polyarchy for a while, and as such, the "parties" are just different degrees of the right wing.
> He has not problem living a lavish Hollywood lifestyle while at the same time > calling for higher taxes on the common man.
What is Moore worth? What kind of digs does he have? Cars? What proof is there to substantiate the claim that he is living like P Diddy?
> Are these the values that I want represented in Washington?
Some of them: vigorous scrutiny of government, basic moral principles applied in foreign policy (what's wrong for them is wrong for me), de-coupling industry from government, de-militarizing the economy, retreat from the Bush doctrine, opposition to Patriot Act.
> Could I afford the lifestyle that I have now if my payroll taxes were 50% > higher then they are now?
Whatever the rate, I'd rather that 51% of my tax money were not spent on offensive weaponry (to call it defense is a laughable euphemism).
> If Saddam isn't a threat to the US, then why didn't the last President pull > US troops home?
> Moore is a genius in the way Joseph Goebbels, Hitlers propagandist was.
At least give credit when you're parroting someone else.
I thought the statement was really ironic, since Goebbels was the mouthpiece of a totalitarian government and Moore is really just a more-or-less independently wealthy filmmaker with relatively anarchist leanings. The comparison to Goebbels is much more accurately applied to the right-wing propagandist who uttered it.
Also, there is the matter of viewer interpretation - well-earned golf break or not, I saw that clip (and the clip of the pre-press conference makeup work) as an underscore to the superficial nature of the business of politics at the top. The people are emotionally detached and focused on sound bytes and photo ops. This, to me, is more a critique of the state of politics. Sure, Moore probably enjoyed the personal shot at this spin on a "lazy" Bush, especially when you read in his SWM book that he was flustered by GW's dismissal of him in person (one such incident was also shown in the film). Ignore that, and the observation about the superficiality of the interface between government and its populace remains, and it is probably more poignant without the ad hominem element mucking things up.
Otherwise, I agree - Moore's, and any other viewpoint, is biased and no one should take someone's word for it. Clever editing and glossing over official-looking photocopies without clear citations is meaningless on its own. Network news analysts (who we like to call journalists) pull this crap all the time. Anyone who doesn't want to be a dupe should check their sources... no one is going to do it for you without putting their own spin on it. What's the old admonishment? - don't believe everything you hear.
I've always tried to teach my kids that word is, indeed, bond. And that the correct term for an interracial person of black and white descent is "dalmatian." And finally, the ODB/BBJ creation theorem: God made Dirt, and Dirt bust y'ass.
I was just joking about the scissors - I just didn't understand your haircut analogy.
I understand that you're willing to make a sacrifice for the greater good, and that's admirable, but my original point was that lost freedoms have a way of staying that way. Example - after the 2nd world war, the executive branch basically took over powers that used to be legislative (as close to yours and mine as we're going to get) by creating the CIA, which doesn't have to submit its budget to the people's representatives - and the national security council, which is a closed-door council that essentially runs the country in secret, out of public view. Trillions of dollars were subsequently poured into maintaining a standing conventional and nuclear arsenal.
The excuse for these changes was the Communist threat. Well, now the Soviet Union has collapsed... almost 15 years ago. We still have a huge defense budget (that's our tax money), we still have the unconstitutional CIA (also our tax money), and we still have the NSC running the country without any real oversight. The point is that we never got those dollars, power, or information back because the executive administrations (lib and con alike) are used to having them and don't want to give them up. They just keep finding new reasons to keep it all going, and since we can't see what they supposedly see (all this intelligence, for instance, that Dick Cheney is privy to and we are not, for - you guessed it - national security reasons) we are scared, coerced, or frustrated into trusting that they are acting in our best interests.
Then when you want to know, for example, why we're in a third world country already rendered impotent and impoverished by sanctions, fighting off rebel insurgents and homocidal extremist nutjobs (which we just lump together and call "terrorists") at a cost of billions in taxes and debt, we're told that they know stuff we don't. Hey you, stop asking questions! It's for your own good, and we can't tell you why.
They should just come out and say it - they think rejuvenating the economy is important, and they think that war is an acceptable means to enter new markets, and that blood spilled on the enemy side is no loss to us as long as only a relatively small number of US troops die. They really believe this will help us, but they are willing to take our rights and take foreign lives in order to get there. If they give us our rights back and come out of the secret executive closet, we might see that terrorism can be easily stopped without war, and that there are ways to make money without killing people. They don't like those other ways, for personal reasons (we usually like to call these "shareholder interests") so they are hanging on to whatever powers we give them.
> during World War II. No sugar, no new > cars, rations, etc, they made sacrifices.
Yeah, but you can get all that stuff back after. The legal/governmental repercussions of WWII are still with us, namely, the CIA, the NSC, and the mammoth defense budget. Yet I have never wanted for a cup of sugar because of WWII.
> everything a man does is right in one eye and wrong in another.
Some things are just wrong. Like what you just said, for example.
> The Patriot Act has a purpose, just like your kid trying to cut his own hair.
I never let my kid play with scissors, and G HW Bush should never have let his kid play with rubber stamps:)
to stand there and say that our country is heading for crapper is an insult to every man, woman, and child that have died in the name of America.
Or maybe the fact that some people have steered it into the crapper is an insult to every man, woman, and child that have died in the name of America.
In conclusion if you aren't happy you were born here, and at peace waving the flag that allows you to bring your highly educated, liberal arse on this website and spout such nonsense, then I would suggest you take the first plane outta here.
Or maybe we can welcome dissent and participate in meaningful discourse. Did it ever occur to you that you can simultaneously dislike your government and love your country?
It's interesting why Europe doesn't have the same appetite for destruction as the US. Primarily, I think, it's because they've had war on their soil fairly recently in the public memory, and they have lost their fervor for diplomacy at the end of a gun.
Anyway, one thing is true whether we like it or not - an evolution of the UN to a more democratic structure can't peacefully occur without a paradigm change sweeping over all security council member states, especially the US. Again, this reduces to an internal, mostly moral debate for the member nations, and the structure of the UN isn't really relevant - it might be a good indicator of where we stand, but it's not representative of the core issues that led us here.
> UN will not be an effective operation of any sort until there is a sweeping > reform abolishing the "permanent members" and their vetos and making the > security council a democratically elected body.
The UN is effective against non-SC members who aren't protectorates, which is not a bad start.
Even if someone wanted to, they couldn't bring forceful regime change to Israel legally, since all of the actual UNSC resolutions Israel has defied invoke Chapter VI of the UN charter. This means they don't carry the threat of force, as do the mostly Chapter VII resolutions aimed at Iraq.
Why Israel is immune to Chapter VII is that the US, as everyone knows, has long been a staunch ally of Israel, and we use our permanent security council member status to veto any draft resolution which directly threatens the interests of our close allies.
This illustrates a practical consquence of the structure of the UN - it is very effective at dealing with violations of its principles from a non-permanent member of the security council, while it is powerless to deal with violations of its principles from permanent members of the security council and their proxies.
So the UN is far from irrelevant to world affairs in general, but it is indeed quite irrelevant when it comes to the actions of a permanent member and its close proxies.
It is also irrelevant to a moral discussion of "why." The UNSC is merely a political apparatus that frees us to act however we want as a nation, given the means. It constitutes immunity from international cabals or any real sort of international law - an inalienable sort of sovereignty, in stark contrast to the non-permanent members who don't have the benefit of being de-facto protectorates of the permanent members.
Of course, the ability to act freely can't logically serve as a justification; otherwise, anything is permissible. So the whole debate about security council resolutions is very interesting as a technical international legal issue, but bogus in the context of Americans trying to collectively steer our nation as a moral agent.
That debate doesn't show signs of ending anytime soon, and relies in part on some reconciliation or resolution of the conflict between Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. It's probably not even that simple, but that would be a good start. As the above thread indicates, stuffing all of the seemingly related issues into a crucible and getting to what is relevant is one of the problems. All of us are guilty at one time or another of chasing something that ultimately doesn't affect the issue.
"The independence of the judiciary and the authority of the courts were seriously undermined by government officials and police in a number of cases. The security forces continued to enforce long-standing restrictions on freedom of assembly and association. Journalists were ill-treated and harassed when reporting on gatherings viewed by the authorities as political. Women were denied access to social and economic rights through discriminatory laws and practices. Asylum-seekers, including children, were detained in harsh conditions."
These are the conditions that were evoked to gain support for the overthrow of the Taliban.
Maybe sarin gas is classified as a potential WMD, but this crude IUD made from an old shell certainly was not capable of mass destruction.
It was expected that Iraq would be an archaelogical site for WMDs, since they admitted to having them and claimed to dispose of them... the case for war was based on a claim that Iraq had an active stockpile and/or weapons program - neither claim has panned out, and one shell containing pre-formed binary sarin doesn't constitute a stockpile or weapons program by any stretch of the imagination, especially considering that we now have a backstage pass to the entire country and we've only encountered one. Hardly a big deal. This was even stated by our own weapons inspectors. And the administration isn't bleating too loudly about this either. Bush said we'd find a smoking cannon, and he knows as well as anybody that this isn't it.
> Seventeen UN resolutions (of which ANY member could enforce)
The US mostly regards the UN as irrelevant - isn't it hypocritical to be using resolutions as an excuse for aggression?
> unwillingness to destroy or show records of destruction of WMD's
> (which are well documented, and are beginnning to be discovered)
Can you cite sufficient references to weapons that were not destroyed, and those records beginning to be discovered?
> hostility towards neighboring countries (Iran, Kuwait, Israel)
Again, since we have been quite hostile toward countries, isn't it a bit hypocritical to cry foul? Israel has also been the aggressor against Iraq (Osirak reactor bombing). The US ambassador implicitly allowed the invasion of Kuwait. clicky. The US backed Iraq in its agression against Iran and tried to spin Iraqi civil rights atrocities against Iran because it was convenient. clicky.
> The man was rightly deposed by the international community (sans France,
> Germany, and Russia -- whom we discover later had lucrative, possible illegal,
> contracts with Iraq).
So Germany, France, and Russia maintained trade ties, possibly illegally (again we suddenly care about "International Law" when it suits us), and we busted in and introduced our trade ties from behind a gun barrel (possibly illegally). Economic interests are always in the background, and no one is disputing that. The difference is that France and Germany, in particular, haven't been using military means to accomplish their strategic and economic objectives. To do so is reprehensible.
> Would you prefer Saddam was back in power?
To do so while pretending there is another reason is also reprehensible. If the US cared primarily about deposing dictators and stopping humanitarian crises, there are many other countries with worse situations than pre-Bushite Iraq. Why not them:
The answer is that it's not in our interest at this time. Even Syria and the DPRK are in the background now. Besides, we don't have a good track record when intervening militarily. The poorest countries in the Western hemisphere are those we've messed with (Nicaragua, Haiti) and Afghanistan is in the middle of a humanitarian crisis. Iraq has been even since the US and UN got involved in Gulf War part I.
So would I feel good with Saddam in power? No. Would I feel better than now? Yes. When Saddam ordered gas attacks under the then-unflinching eye of the US, he killed 7000 of his own people. We have killed maybe 20,000-50,000 of his people, and about 600 of our own, and the ensuing humanitarian crises have affected (read: shortened) the lives of millions of Iraqis. Millions. That's hardly an improvement.
One thing that is cool about/. is that if you're willing to dig for a bit, there are some crazy-smart people who know the material. There are plenty sympathetic to your lament also.
There are alternatives to BIND, though the hyperbole about its complexity is a bit extreme... and none of the BIND boxes that I've set up so far have been rooted (knock, knock).
Someday the utility of the DNS as a distributed name resolver will probably wane. Why not toy with alternative uses and recycle all that code and/or infrastructure?
The presentation is intriguing, but like any typical slideshow, lacking in specifics (things like "stuff=cool" aren't terribly telling). Unless you already know the DNS pretty well, it would be hard to infer the nitty-gritty of the talk from this ppt without thinking pretty hard about it, and you shouldn't fault a diverse group of geeks from different nerd realms for not being DNS power users.
> Yes, but in the moral analogy they are supposed to be like terrorists.
Maybe this is one of those things that is colored by perspective. I always saw Archer's plight as that of those who are commonly referred to as terrorists - he has basically no military or diplomatic resources with which to combat the Xindi (they have superior firepower and aren't likely to listen)... so he resorts to whatever he feels is neccessary to save his way of life.
Regarding whether or not they adequately deal with the consequences in the long term - up until now, I guess you're right - they seem to wrap each dilemma up in every episode, and it doesn't (so far) show any accumulated wear on Archer's morale. Hopefully they'll devote an episode to the moral consequences later on... maybe the Vulcans accuse Archer of being a war criminal in a further attempt to discredit the Enterprise's mission.
The idea of conflict happening as often as it does in Trek is ludicrous anyway, given the amount of space, apparent number of habitable systems and bases, and speed of ships, ignoring the causal paradoxes and relativistic-time effects of FTL travel. Everyone would be hippies living in communes and becoming one with the cosmos, almost never coming into contact with anyone. Space is really, really big.
> This last season's arc was about what was essentially a terrorist act that > destroyed half of Florida.
The Xindi are open aggressors, not terrorists. Their attack is a preemptive strike agains a species they believe will destroy theirs. In any case, Archer still has the same dilemma.
> The ethical debate on the use of torture is even more important now, and that > debate was simply missing.
The idea of having to cross the line when the stakes are high, including the use of torture, is central to the whole 3rd season. I think you just missed it:
302 - Anomaly - is torture acceptable when the stakes are high? Send moral care of Alan Dershowitz:)
307 - The Shipment - plan to bomb a weapons factory. kidnap, interrogate, mull over killing unwitting arms supplier.
315 - Harbinger - denying the sick pain meds so interrogation is possible
317 - Hatchery - is saving an insectoid hatchery giving aid to the enemy?
318 - Azati Prime - Archer destroys a defenseless manned listening post in order to avoid detection
319 - Damage - Enterprise commits piracy for the cause
320 - The Forgotten - How far do you go, how many people do you order to their deaths in the name of a cause? When is it no longer worth it?
321 - E^2 - Explores cognitive dissonance - abandoning your own ethics to complete a mission - forgetting your roots (the metaphor in this episode is obvious)
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Yes, good point, rep is a good indicator when there are a lot of data points to be had. I should have clarified that I was thinking about those with a past conviction and no relapses (Mitnick or Morris, for example).
Well, no one knows except Rumsfeld et al, because there has been little accounting oversight.
What's the difference anyway? The US is largely responsible for both security and reconstruction. Reconstruction costs defrayed by Iraqi oil revenue represent money that can be allocated to the defense budget. And if I remember correctly, both revenue streams go through the DoD anyway (reconstruction and security/defense).
It's like child support. Someone receiving child support is just getting money that otherwise would have come out of their own coffers. They essentially have less expenses and more money to spend on other things. It effectively increases income by eliminating an expense. So if you're paying your ex, say $1500/month in child support, you might not be surprised to find out that he/she can suddenly afford two cars and a house on a poverty-line income. Who's paying for it, you... or the ex?
> That fund isn't growing as quickly as it ought as local terrorists are intent on
> cutting the volumes.
In addition to sabotage, there is a much more general problem - an oil infrastructure in decay due to the long-standing UN sanctions. The Bush administration probably overstated the productive capacity of the Iraqi oil industry in its post-sanctions state - and they had already assumed the worst with regard to sabotage.
Bottom line, it's going to take a while to get the revenue needed to recoup post-war reconstruction costs, sabotage or no.
> if this ruling stands and a new precedent is set, any customer of any
> carrier would be allowed to take their IP space with them when they leave
> just because it is not convenient for them to renumber.
Umm... isn't this alarmist? If this were established as a precedent (which it's not) it is a state court ruling... aren't state courts reluctant to accept other states' courts rulings as precedent?
> others refuse, saying that anyone with that bad seed can't every be trusted
I've always seen this argument (the Spafford argument, if you will) as weak. You can't really trust anyone absolutely. A past offense doesn't guarantee a future offense any more than a lack of past offense guarantees future ones.
Any system should have a set of checks and balances for the admins & security guys as well. You don't want anyone holding all the keys on principle. That way, you're mitigating any risk by hiring someone who you know has trust issues.
To those who don't get this, parent is referring to the Nazi's rallies, not just in Munich but all over 30's Germany. "Populist" is basically a fancy way of saying that somebody is advocating an alternative to an entrenched, established government by using rhetoric that has broad appeal. George Bush ran using populist rhetoric, since he was challenging an extension to a 2-term Democratic administration. Eg lowering taxes, reducing government, bringing dignity back to the office of the presidency, etc. These are all things people don't neccessarily disagree with, prima facie. Currently, he also uses it to maintain popular support for his policies - e.g. fighting terror, spreading democracy, destroying evil, etc. These are all popular notions.
Populism becomes demagoguery when the rhetoric is based on lies or the absence of fact. If someone thinks Moore is an outright demagogue, they can always critique him and make citations, debunk his claims, etc. instead of making vague implications.
Incidentally, aren't you being a tad alarmist? Assuming Moore's movie is pure propaganda, does it have the potential to cause an liberal or even anarchist revolution? I doubt it. The tenor of US government politics is still anchored in the waters of the right. This movie doesn't have the power to change that. It's more like group therapy for anti-war, anti-corporate, anti-government, or anti-Bush folks.
> He always supports the Democrat no matter who's on the ticket.
Except when he's not.
> He blindly pulls the Dems' party line and never questions it.
Moore is much more liberal than the "Democratic" party and its presidential candidates. The dem party is shifted right because the country has been a polyarchy for a while, and as such, the "parties" are just different degrees of the right wing.
> He has not problem living a lavish Hollywood lifestyle while at the same time
> calling for higher taxes on the common man.
What is Moore worth? What kind of digs does he have? Cars? What proof is there to substantiate the claim that he is living like P Diddy?
> Are these the values that I want represented in Washington?
Some of them: vigorous scrutiny of government, basic moral principles applied in foreign policy (what's wrong for them is wrong for me), de-coupling industry from government, de-militarizing the economy, retreat from the Bush doctrine, opposition to Patriot Act.
> Could I afford the lifestyle that I have now if my payroll taxes were 50%
> higher then they are now?
Whatever the rate, I'd rather that 51% of my tax money were not spent on offensive weaponry (to call it defense is a laughable euphemism).
> If Saddam isn't a threat to the US, then why didn't the last President pull
> US troops home?
Because there was a policy of containment.
> Moore is a genius in the way Joseph Goebbels, Hitlers propagandist was.
At least give credit when you're parroting someone else.
I thought the statement was really ironic, since Goebbels was the mouthpiece of a totalitarian government and Moore is really just a more-or-less independently wealthy filmmaker with relatively anarchist leanings. The comparison to Goebbels is much more accurately applied to the right-wing propagandist who uttered it.
Also, there is the matter of viewer interpretation - well-earned golf break or not, I saw that clip (and the clip of the pre-press conference makeup work) as an underscore to the superficial nature of the business of politics at the top. The people are emotionally detached and focused on sound bytes and photo ops. This, to me, is more a critique of the state of politics. Sure, Moore probably enjoyed the personal shot at this spin on a "lazy" Bush, especially when you read in his SWM book that he was flustered by GW's dismissal of him in person (one such incident was also shown in the film). Ignore that, and the observation about the superficiality of the interface between government and its populace remains, and it is probably more poignant without the ad hominem element mucking things up.
Otherwise, I agree - Moore's, and any other viewpoint, is biased and no one should take someone's word for it. Clever editing and glossing over official-looking photocopies without clear citations is meaningless on its own. Network news analysts (who we like to call journalists) pull this crap all the time. Anyone who doesn't want to be a dupe should check their sources... no one is going to do it for you without putting their own spin on it. What's the old admonishment? - don't believe everything you hear.
+5 Insightful.
I've always tried to teach my kids that word is, indeed, bond. And that the correct term for an interracial person of black and white descent is "dalmatian." And finally, the ODB/BBJ creation theorem: God made Dirt, and Dirt bust y'ass.
Quite.
and believe me later.
I was just joking about the scissors - I just didn't understand your haircut analogy.
I understand that you're willing to make a sacrifice for the greater good, and that's admirable, but my original point was that lost freedoms have a way of staying that way. Example - after the 2nd world war, the executive branch basically took over powers that used to be legislative (as close to yours and mine as we're going to get) by creating the CIA, which doesn't have to submit its budget to the people's representatives - and the national security council, which is a closed-door council that essentially runs the country in secret, out of public view. Trillions of dollars were subsequently poured into maintaining a standing conventional and nuclear arsenal.
The excuse for these changes was the Communist threat. Well, now the Soviet Union has collapsed... almost 15 years ago. We still have a huge defense budget (that's our tax money), we still have the unconstitutional CIA (also our tax money), and we still have the NSC running the country without any real oversight. The point is that we never got those dollars, power, or information back because the executive administrations (lib and con alike) are used to having them and don't want to give them up. They just keep finding new reasons to keep it all going, and since we can't see what they supposedly see (all this intelligence, for instance, that Dick Cheney is privy to and we are not, for - you guessed it - national security reasons) we are scared, coerced, or frustrated into trusting that they are acting in our best interests.
Then when you want to know, for example, why we're in a third world country already rendered impotent and impoverished by sanctions, fighting off rebel insurgents and homocidal extremist nutjobs (which we just lump together and call "terrorists") at a cost of billions in taxes and debt, we're told that they know stuff we don't. Hey you, stop asking questions! It's for your own good, and we can't tell you why.
They should just come out and say it - they think rejuvenating the economy is important, and they think that war is an acceptable means to enter new markets, and that blood spilled on the enemy side is no loss to us as long as only a relatively small number of US troops die. They really believe this will help us, but they are willing to take our rights and take foreign lives in order to get there. If they give us our rights back and come out of the secret executive closet, we might see that terrorism can be easily stopped without war, and that there are ways to make money without killing people. They don't like those other ways, for personal reasons (we usually like to call these "shareholder interests") so they are hanging on to whatever powers we give them.
> during World War II. No sugar, no new
:)
> cars, rations, etc, they made sacrifices.
Yeah, but you can get all that stuff back after. The legal/governmental repercussions of WWII are still with us, namely, the CIA, the NSC, and the mammoth defense budget. Yet I have never wanted for a cup of sugar because of WWII.
> everything a man does is right in one eye and wrong in another.
Some things are just wrong. Like what you just said, for example.
> The Patriot Act has a purpose, just like your kid trying to cut his own hair.
I never let my kid play with scissors, and G HW Bush should never have let his kid play with rubber stamps
to stand there and say that our country is heading for crapper is an insult to every man, woman, and child that have died in the name of America.
Or maybe the fact that some people have steered it into the crapper is an insult to every man, woman, and child that have died in the name of America.
In conclusion if you aren't happy you were born here, and at peace waving the flag that allows you to bring your highly educated, liberal arse on this website and spout such nonsense, then I would suggest you take the first plane outta here.
Or maybe we can welcome dissent and participate in meaningful discourse. Did it ever occur to you that you can simultaneously dislike your government and love your country?
It's interesting why Europe doesn't have the same appetite for destruction as the US. Primarily, I think, it's because they've had war on their soil fairly recently in the public memory, and they have lost their fervor for diplomacy at the end of a gun.
Anyway, one thing is true whether we like it or not - an evolution of the UN to a more democratic structure can't peacefully occur without a paradigm change sweeping over all security council member states, especially the US. Again, this reduces to an internal, mostly moral debate for the member nations, and the structure of the UN isn't really relevant - it might be a good indicator of where we stand, but it's not representative of the core issues that led us here.
> UN will not be an effective operation of any sort until there is a sweeping
> reform abolishing the "permanent members" and their vetos and making the
> security council a democratically elected body.
The UN is effective against non-SC members who aren't protectorates, which is not a bad start.
Even if someone wanted to, they couldn't bring forceful regime change to Israel legally, since all of the actual UNSC resolutions Israel has defied invoke Chapter VI of the UN charter. This means they don't carry the threat of force, as do the mostly Chapter VII resolutions aimed at Iraq.
Why Israel is immune to Chapter VII is that the US, as everyone knows, has long been a staunch ally of Israel, and we use our permanent security council member status to veto any draft resolution which directly threatens the interests of our close allies.
This illustrates a practical consquence of the structure of the UN - it is very effective at dealing with violations of its principles from a non-permanent member of the security council, while it is powerless to deal with violations of its principles from permanent members of the security council and their proxies.
So the UN is far from irrelevant to world affairs in general, but it is indeed quite irrelevant when it comes to the actions of a permanent member and its close proxies.
It is also irrelevant to a moral discussion of "why." The UNSC is merely a political apparatus that frees us to act however we want as a nation, given the means. It constitutes immunity from international cabals or any real sort of international law - an inalienable sort of sovereignty, in stark contrast to the non-permanent members who don't have the benefit of being de-facto protectorates of the permanent members.
Of course, the ability to act freely can't logically serve as a justification; otherwise, anything is permissible. So the whole debate about security council resolutions is very interesting as a technical international legal issue, but bogus in the context of Americans trying to collectively steer our nation as a moral agent.
That debate doesn't show signs of ending anytime soon, and relies in part on some reconciliation or resolution of the conflict between Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. It's probably not even that simple, but that would be a good start. As the above thread indicates, stuffing all of the seemingly related issues into a crucible and getting to what is relevant is one of the problems. All of us are guilty at one time or another of chasing something that ultimately doesn't affect the issue.
amnesty int'l summary for 2003:
"The independence of the judiciary and the authority of the courts were seriously undermined by government officials and police in a number of cases. The security forces continued to enforce long-standing restrictions on freedom of assembly and association. Journalists were ill-treated and harassed when reporting on gatherings viewed by the authorities as political. Women were denied access to social and economic rights through discriminatory laws and practices. Asylum-seekers, including children, were detained in harsh conditions."
These are the conditions that were evoked to gain support for the overthrow of the Taliban.
Maybe sarin gas is classified as a potential WMD, but this crude IUD made from an old shell certainly was not capable of mass destruction.
It was expected that Iraq would be an archaelogical site for WMDs, since they admitted to having them and claimed to dispose of them... the case for war was based on a claim that Iraq had an active stockpile and/or weapons program - neither claim has panned out, and one shell containing pre-formed binary sarin doesn't constitute a stockpile or weapons program by any stretch of the imagination, especially considering that we now have a backstage pass to the entire country and we've only encountered one. Hardly a big deal. This was even stated by our own weapons inspectors. And the administration isn't bleating too loudly about this either. Bush said we'd find a smoking cannon, and he knows as well as anybody that this isn't it.
> Seventeen UN resolutions (of which ANY member could enforce)
The US mostly regards the UN as irrelevant - isn't it hypocritical to be using resolutions as an excuse for aggression?
> unwillingness to destroy or show records of destruction of WMD's > (which are well documented, and are beginnning to be discovered)
Can you cite sufficient references to weapons that were not destroyed, and those records beginning to be discovered?
> hostility towards neighboring countries (Iran, Kuwait, Israel)
Again, since we have been quite hostile toward countries, isn't it a bit hypocritical to cry foul? Israel has also been the aggressor against Iraq (Osirak reactor bombing). The US ambassador implicitly allowed the invasion of Kuwait. clicky. The US backed Iraq in its agression against Iran and tried to spin Iraqi civil rights atrocities against Iran because it was convenient. clicky.
> The man was rightly deposed by the international community (sans France, > Germany, and Russia -- whom we discover later had lucrative, possible illegal, > contracts with Iraq).
So Germany, France, and Russia maintained trade ties, possibly illegally (again we suddenly care about "International Law" when it suits us), and we busted in and introduced our trade ties from behind a gun barrel (possibly illegally). Economic interests are always in the background, and no one is disputing that. The difference is that France and Germany, in particular, haven't been using military means to accomplish their strategic and economic objectives. To do so is reprehensible.
> Would you prefer Saddam was back in power?
To do so while pretending there is another reason is also reprehensible. If the US cared primarily about deposing dictators and stopping humanitarian crises, there are many other countries with worse situations than pre-Bushite Iraq. Why not them:
China, Pakistan, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, Congo, Colombia, Indonesia
The answer is that it's not in our interest at this time. Even Syria and the DPRK are in the background now. Besides, we don't have a good track record when intervening militarily. The poorest countries in the Western hemisphere are those we've messed with (Nicaragua, Haiti) and Afghanistan is in the middle of a humanitarian crisis. Iraq has been even since the US and UN got involved in Gulf War part I.
So would I feel good with Saddam in power? No. Would I feel better than now? Yes. When Saddam ordered gas attacks under the then-unflinching eye of the US, he killed 7000 of his own people. We have killed maybe 20,000-50,000 of his people, and about 600 of our own, and the ensuing humanitarian crises have affected (read: shortened) the lives of millions of Iraqis. Millions. That's hardly an improvement.
So now that's why we invaded? Took us a while to act on that one...
One thing that is cool about /. is that if you're willing to dig for a bit, there are some crazy-smart people who know the material. There are plenty sympathetic to your lament also.
There are alternatives to BIND, though the hyperbole about its complexity is a bit extreme... and none of the BIND boxes that I've set up so far have been rooted (knock, knock).
Someday the utility of the DNS as a distributed name resolver will probably wane. Why not toy with alternative uses and recycle all that code and/or infrastructure?
The presentation is intriguing, but like any typical slideshow, lacking in specifics (things like "stuff=cool" aren't terribly telling). Unless you already know the DNS pretty well, it would be hard to infer the nitty-gritty of the talk from this ppt without thinking pretty hard about it, and you shouldn't fault a diverse group of geeks from different nerd realms for not being DNS power users.
> Yes, but in the moral analogy they are supposed to be like terrorists.
Maybe this is one of those things that is colored by perspective. I always saw Archer's plight as that of those who are commonly referred to as terrorists - he has basically no military or diplomatic resources with which to combat the Xindi (they have superior firepower and aren't likely to listen)... so he resorts to whatever he feels is neccessary to save his way of life.
Regarding whether or not they adequately deal with the consequences in the long term - up until now, I guess you're right - they seem to wrap each dilemma up in every episode, and it doesn't (so far) show any accumulated wear on Archer's morale. Hopefully they'll devote an episode to the moral consequences later on... maybe the Vulcans accuse Archer of being a war criminal in a further attempt to discredit the Enterprise's mission.
The idea of conflict happening as often as it does in Trek is ludicrous anyway, given the amount of space, apparent number of habitable systems and bases, and speed of ships, ignoring the causal paradoxes and relativistic-time effects of FTL travel. Everyone would be hippies living in communes and becoming one with the cosmos, almost never coming into contact with anyone. Space is really, really big.
> This last season's arc was about what was essentially a terrorist act that
:)
> destroyed half of Florida.
The Xindi are open aggressors, not terrorists. Their attack is a preemptive strike agains a species they believe will destroy theirs. In any case, Archer still has the same dilemma.
> The ethical debate on the use of torture is even more important now, and that
> debate was simply missing.
The idea of having to cross the line when the stakes are high, including the use of torture, is central to the whole 3rd season. I think you just missed it:
302 - Anomaly - is torture acceptable when the stakes are high? Send moral care of Alan Dershowitz
307 - The Shipment - plan to bomb a weapons factory. kidnap, interrogate, mull over killing unwitting arms supplier.
315 - Harbinger - denying the sick pain meds so interrogation is possible
317 - Hatchery - is saving an insectoid hatchery giving aid to the enemy?
318 - Azati Prime - Archer destroys a defenseless manned listening post in order to avoid detection
319 - Damage - Enterprise commits piracy for the cause
320 - The Forgotten - How far do you go, how many people do you order to their deaths in the name of a cause? When is it no longer worth it?
321 - E^2 - Explores cognitive dissonance - abandoning your own ethics to complete a mission - forgetting your roots (the metaphor in this episode is obvious)