> Exactly, secret arrest are counter to everything a free and open society stands for. Secret arrests and detention without charge both erode seriously at the basic foundations of what makes this country work.
> A bunch of cows die and nobody claims responsibility, so it MUST be aliens? Please.
I'll bet you're a curmudgeon who doesn't think aliens make crop circles, either!
BTW, I read somewhere that in the USA cattle mutilations follow county lines. If a sheriff writes them up as insurable losses they continue in that county, otherwise they stop after the first couple of incidents. Funny behavior for aliens, if true.
Maybe aliens want to wreck the insurance industry before their assault troops land.
> How can a person with the title of "Space Analyst" use terms like "glitches" and "funnies" in referencing reports specific to the technology for the behavior of the shuttle's flight navigation system?
How do 1337 k3rn3l h4ck4rs refer to strange behavior in their code?
> I heard one of the pilots in the USAF with the most air time comment something like "Landing is easy. Landing without dying is a bit more tricky. Landing without damage is tricker still."
Someone also described it as "like flying a brick".
> Yes, that's right. It's all about oil. We want the oil, must have the oil. Got to have the oil.
> Let me ask you a question, though. This war, including the postwar reconstruction, is probably going to cost us around 200 billion dollars, and that doesn't count the cost of the munitions we're using. We've used over a billion and a half dollars' worth of cruise missiles alone so far, and the war's only a week old. Two hundred billion dollars plus would have bought us practically all the Iraqi oil we could have hauled off. Why didn't we just buy it, and save everybody a lot of time, money, and trouble?
Ah, but the war is being paid for by US taxpayers, but the oil profits will go into the hands of US energy companies. It's a sweet deal for the people who matter to the Bush Administration, not for the US public at large.
We shall not spend a large expense of time Before we reckon with your several loves, And make us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen, Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland In such an honour named. What's more to do, Which would be planted newly with the time, As calling home our exiled friends abroad That fled the snares of watchful tyranny; Producing forth the cruel ministers Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen, Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands Took off her life; this, and what needful else That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace, We will perform in measure, time and place: So, thanks to all at once and to each one, Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.
> You're right; unfortunately, I think the real test of American gullibility is yet to come. Assuming that Bush actually finds WoMD in Iraq, it "justifies" whatever military action is being taken in Iraq, and it will essentially guarantee him re-election. If not, I think the odds of him being re-elected are pretty high.
Recall, however, that Pappy Bush had stratospheric approval ratings at the end of Gulf War I, yet lost the election to an unknown hick from Arkansas anyway.
And unless this war is still hot for most of next year, it looks like it's going to be the economy, stupid, again in the next election. It would take some real drama to get the US public to vote for something other than fatter wallets.
> Most people support the war now (according to popular polls, certainly my personal experience doesn't agree with those).
For several weeks before the action started most polls were showing about 60% support with a UN stamp of approval and about 50% without (with some variation in individual polls). That's not a heck of a lot of support for a war. The support is rising now, which was an easily predicted patriotic support-our-boys reaction. Equally easily predictable is a drop when the casualty counts start coming in. So the support level that matters - the post hoc level - is going to depend on how things go. If Saddam surrenders over the weekend, or launches WMD, then bush could easily pull out with a 75-80% approval on it. If lots of our soldiers or their civilians get killed, or if Baghdad turns into an interminal low-level shoot-out, then approval could drop as low as 30% (or lower, if something really nasty happens).
At any rate, the current level of support doesn't seem to have much bearing on the 2004 elections. The end game levels of support will be more relevant, but as with 91/92 even that could turn out to be irrelevant to an election during economic hard times.
> Also, recall what happened after the Afganistan conflict -- nothing. We didn't take really any effort to rebuild their government, other than reinstating the Northern Alliance, who's history was even shadier than the Taliban's. Also, we never accomplished our secondary objective, which was the elimination of bin Laden. Yet, nobody really seemed to mind at all.
Americans seem to have a short attention span. If we hear promises to build schools and hospitals it soothes our consciences, and then we forget about it so long as the trains run on time and Brittany keeps releasing new albums. Not many will bother to ask how those schools and hospitals are coming along. (After all, education and healthcare sux for most Americans; who gives a shit if people half way around the world have to do without?)
> Come on. There are only two other countries putting troops on the ground. The U.S. government has to make it look like we have a lot of support, but if that was the case, getting UN support should have been easy.
Salon called it "Operation Inflate the Alliance". I think one of the Bush Administration's lists included France as a 'supporter', because they were honoring a fly-over treaty!
> If you were Hussein, wouldn't you use your WMD early in the war, just in a case of "use it or lose it"?
Hussein is probably smart enough to know that his only slim chance of "winning" is to draw out street fighting in Baghdad until the bodies stack up high enough that domestic and international opinion forces the USA to call the offensive off. He isn't likely to screw the pooch by using WMD.
OTOH, if he ever despairs of "winning" even by that weak definition he may well try to take as many people with him as he can when he goes.
Apropos of all that, I can't help but wonder whether the incremental start of the campaign (vs. the much touted "shock & awe" that it was supposed to start with) was a ploy by the US, a way of saying "look Saddam, the war has started - you can fire off your WMD now". That would give the Bush regime a face-saving stance of saying that Saddam attacked with WMD before the war had "really" even started.
> The whole of your argument becomes: "Do you trust Bush or Saddam more?" I think that there's only one sensical(sp?) answer.
Not everyone agrees. There was a poll in the UK earlier this year asking which fellow was more dangerous, and they each got 45% of the votes.
If you want "trust" rather than "danger", and don't think Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney, and Powell have lied while trying to make their case for war, then you need to start getting some of your news from sources other than FOX.
> The reason people have a problem, amazing that you haven't deduced this yet, is that the US is acting without any agreement in the international community.
Also, the Bush Administration have marshalled a steady stream of lies and lame rhetoric in their attempts to justify the war, leaving lots of us convinced that they have an ulterior motive that they would rather not state plainly.
If Saddam were gassing Kurds today, and if Bush offered that as a need for intervention, and if he had worked to build an international consensus instead of trying to bribe and bully everyone into supporting him in something he said he was going to do anyway, then protests probably would be at about the "background level" seen during the Kosovo affair and other recent events.
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> I think they're off by,
Maybe they forgot to factor in the quality of the music they've been publishing.
> (20% of the Iraqi population is estimated to be a paid informant for a secret police agency)
The job security can't be so great: the average informant would be out of a job after four reports!
>
Which ones are left on your list?
> Exactly, secret arrest are counter to everything a free and open society stands for. Secret arrests and detention without charge both erode seriously at the basic foundations of what makes this country work.
Don't forget the secret trials.
> A bunch of cows die and nobody claims responsibility, so it MUST be aliens? Please.
I'll bet you're a curmudgeon who doesn't think aliens make crop circles, either!
BTW, I read somewhere that in the USA cattle mutilations follow county lines. If a sheriff writes them up as insurable losses they continue in that county, otherwise they stop after the first couple of incidents. Funny behavior for aliens, if true.
Maybe aliens want to wreck the insurance industry before their assault troops land.
> You can brag to all your non-rock friends that those stupid rocks have high entropy.
Mama always said Rock Music was just noise.
That's ironic, coming right after a story about yet another Sendmail security update.
> 1. A turkey that grows with a stomach full of stuffing.
Natural turkeys already do that
> The idea of embedding code in XML is a perverse distortion of what XML is really about. XML would suck if one uses it for unintended purposes.
Or you could just use s-expressions, getting a more general syntax than XML with less unnecessary sugar, and the ability to embed code for free.
(What's the old saying about what those who don't know Lisp are doomed to do? And by how many decades does that saying predate XML?)
> > Even Bill "I didn't have sex with that woman" Clinton would have a tough time with this one.
> "That depends on what the definition of 'sucks' is..."
I suspect Wild Bill is pretty clear on that one.
> How can a person with the title of "Space Analyst" use terms like "glitches" and "funnies" in referencing reports specific to the technology for the behavior of the shuttle's flight navigation system?
How do 1337 k3rn3l h4ck4rs refer to strange behavior in their code?
> I heard one of the pilots in the USAF with the most air time comment something like "Landing is easy. Landing without dying is a bit more tricky. Landing without damage is tricker still."
Someone also described it as "like flying a brick".
> Yes, that's right. It's all about oil. We want the oil, must have the oil. Got to have the oil.
> Let me ask you a question, though. This war, including the postwar reconstruction, is probably going to cost us around 200 billion dollars, and that doesn't count the cost of the munitions we're using. We've used over a billion and a half dollars' worth of cruise missiles alone so far, and the war's only a week old. Two hundred billion dollars plus would have bought us practically all the Iraqi oil we could have hauled off. Why didn't we just buy it, and save everybody a lot of time, money, and trouble?
Ah, but the war is being paid for by US taxpayers, but the oil profits will go into the hands of US energy companies. It's a sweet deal for the people who matter to the Bush Administration, not for the US public at large.
A measly 5.8 at IMDB, but such a wonderful movie.
> The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a great film (get it on DVD).
Kind of silly, but well worth watching.
> starring Eric Idle, Uma Thurman, and Robin Williams
And Oliver Reed, whose cameo alone makes it worth renting.
> What concerns me is that one of the vlunerability reports released by this guy wasnt schedualed to be released until June... JUNE???
Don't panic, it's June 2005.
> So there's a limit / "max throughput" to how much matter a black hole can suck in? Very interesting.
Yep, there's bandwidth problems everywhere.
OK, what about aweproof?
> You're right; unfortunately, I think the real test of American gullibility is yet to come. Assuming that Bush actually finds WoMD in Iraq, it "justifies" whatever military action is being taken in Iraq, and it will essentially guarantee him re-election. If not, I think the odds of him being re-elected are pretty high.
Recall, however, that Pappy Bush had stratospheric approval ratings at the end of Gulf War I, yet lost the election to an unknown hick from Arkansas anyway.
And unless this war is still hot for most of next year, it looks like it's going to be the economy, stupid, again in the next election. It would take some real drama to get the US public to vote for something other than fatter wallets.
> Most people support the war now (according to popular polls, certainly my personal experience doesn't agree with those).
For several weeks before the action started most polls were showing about 60% support with a UN stamp of approval and about 50% without (with some variation in individual polls). That's not a heck of a lot of support for a war. The support is rising now, which was an easily predicted patriotic support-our-boys reaction. Equally easily predictable is a drop when the casualty counts start coming in. So the support level that matters - the post hoc level - is going to depend on how things go. If Saddam surrenders over the weekend, or launches WMD, then bush could easily pull out with a 75-80% approval on it. If lots of our soldiers or their civilians get killed, or if Baghdad turns into an interminal low-level shoot-out, then approval could drop as low as 30% (or lower, if something really nasty happens).
At any rate, the current level of support doesn't seem to have much bearing on the 2004 elections. The end game levels of support will be more relevant, but as with 91/92 even that could turn out to be irrelevant to an election during economic hard times.
> Also, recall what happened after the Afganistan conflict -- nothing. We didn't take really any effort to rebuild their government, other than reinstating the Northern Alliance, who's history was even shadier than the Taliban's. Also, we never accomplished our secondary objective, which was the elimination of bin Laden. Yet, nobody really seemed to mind at all.
Americans seem to have a short attention span. If we hear promises to build schools and hospitals it soothes our consciences, and then we forget about it so long as the trains run on time and Brittany keeps releasing new albums. Not many will bother to ask how those schools and hospitals are coming along. (After all, education and healthcare sux for most Americans; who gives a shit if people half way around the world have to do without?)
> Come on. There are only two other countries putting troops on the ground. The U.S. government has to make it look like we have a lot of support, but if that was the case, getting UN support should have been easy.
Salon called it "Operation Inflate the Alliance". I think one of the Bush Administration's lists included France as a 'supporter', because they were honoring a fly-over treaty!
> I may or may not agree with the foreign policy of my government, but the soldier who volunteers to take a bullet for my freedom deserves my respect.
What about the soldier who volunteers to take a bullet for your energy company's share prices?
> If you were Hussein, wouldn't you use your WMD early in the war, just in a case of "use it or lose it"?
Hussein is probably smart enough to know that his only slim chance of "winning" is to draw out street fighting in Baghdad until the bodies stack up high enough that domestic and international opinion forces the USA to call the offensive off. He isn't likely to screw the pooch by using WMD.
OTOH, if he ever despairs of "winning" even by that weak definition he may well try to take as many people with him as he can when he goes.
Apropos of all that, I can't help but wonder whether the incremental start of the campaign (vs. the much touted "shock & awe" that it was supposed to start with) was a ploy by the US, a way of saying "look Saddam, the war has started - you can fire off your WMD now". That would give the Bush regime a face-saving stance of saying that Saddam attacked with WMD before the war had "really" even started.
> The whole of your argument becomes: "Do you trust Bush or Saddam more?" I think that there's only one sensical(sp?) answer.
Not everyone agrees. There was a poll in the UK earlier this year asking which fellow was more dangerous, and they each got 45% of the votes.
If you want "trust" rather than "danger", and don't think Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney, and Powell have lied while trying to make their case for war, then you need to start getting some of your news from sources other than FOX.
> The reason people have a problem, amazing that you haven't deduced this yet, is that the US is acting without any agreement in the international community.
Also, the Bush Administration have marshalled a steady stream of lies and lame rhetoric in their attempts to justify the war, leaving lots of us convinced that they have an ulterior motive that they would rather not state plainly.
If Saddam were gassing Kurds today, and if Bush offered that as a need for intervention, and if he had worked to build an international consensus instead of trying to bribe and bully everyone into supporting him in something he said he was going to do anyway, then protests probably would be at about the "background level" seen during the Kosovo affair and other recent events.