It might not have been, but you can't really take 9/11 as given under a Gore. There's a lot about Bush that made 9/11 more likely, from his downgrading of bin Laden as a threat to his willingness to let the Saudi's slide on their complicity.
While it's true that the CIA and the FBI would have jumped at the chance no matter what, but without the excited backing of the administration, they couldn't have got as far.
Military production is the el primo example of work that has little economic value... except that it redistributes wealth and consumes resources, two things that are good for jump starting economies.
MCell is a great cellular automaton simulator (like Biome) that's highly customizable. You can even write your own DLLs to link into it if their extensive rules customization options aren't enough for you. More fun and more accessible than Biome.
One thing that Biome's got that MCell doesn't are these spiral CAs. What is the Spore team trying to do here? Graphics effects for space?
Oh, all high and mighty on your high horse, aren't you eh? Quoting python not good enough for you? Oooh look at me, I'm xkcd, I can turn a bloody brilliant line into a sick joke.
You think you're soooo superior, don't you, with your stick figures prancing about with your fake humanity and your fake romance. And all those pasty inexperience chubby little geeks just eat it right up don't they? They think the sun rises and sets right our of your arse, don't they?
Well let me tell you something. Those pythons worked their fingers to the bone to make a home in this unforgiving world for absurdist satire. They gave up their lives, their families, their careers in science so that you can have a nice laugh in front of the telly.
And this is what you do. You git. You stupid, bloody, heartless git.
Responsibility for the Iraqi people was ever a key motivator for these guys. The Bush administration's position on the proposed status of forces agreement is much closer to the reason that we continue to spend so much money in Iraq.
A majority of Democrats voted against the war in Iraq, and for both the PATRIOT act and the War resolution, almost every Republican voted for it. So on those two votes, the Democrats are at most half-evil, compared to the totally evil Republicans.
If whites are so overtly racist, then why are groups like the KKK almost universally reviled amongst whites (yes, even out in the sticks),
I live out in the sticks and pretty much everyone here is racists and hates the KKK for being racist. Part of the deal with racism is that it's not really logical.
You should see how people laugh when they tell an off color joke about how expendable Mexicans are, or recite that old chestnut "Pontiac stands for Poor Old Ni--er Thinks Its A Cadillac" or implore you "don't be such a Jew", and how offended they get if you call them on it.
Whites are still pretty racist. In my experience, a fair percentage of people from any population anywhere are racist.
Meanwhile in the real universe, the same corporate media whores that give a far right wing Republican pulling these kind of stunts were busy 10 years ago hammering a conservative corporate friendly Dem for a blowjob and are going to pass judgement on the next admin.
Also of interest: The democrats just nominated the guy who mad rolling back of recent illegal actions one of the main points of his primary run. What do the Republicans have to fear?
Second, it is impossible for any entity to find every person someone has interacted with over the course of 15 years in free societies.
Some spies who knew Valerie Plame were able to avoid exposure. This is probably true of every blown cover in the history of the world, so it doesn't really win Bush any points.
By definition, that means exposure to someone other than their own association. What does this mean?
It's not possible for the general public to know if President Bush "lied" when he said he'd fire anyone involved in revealing a covert agent. First, you'd need inside knowledge to ascertain at what point the administration knew Valerie's actual status. Second, since she wasn't covert, nobody could reveal her as being covert. You refuse to admit the claims have prerequisited which were not met. It is just as valid to say President Bush did indeed fire everyone involved in leaking Valerie Plame's name as a covert operataive. She did not have the legal status of being covert. That's all there is to it.
First point we now know that Armitage, Libby, and Rove were behind the leak and attempted earlier leaks, by their own admission. Second, she was covert and under an unofficial cover which means that merely revealing her as CIA blew her cover. Her cover, BTW, doesn't become useless just because she wasn't in the field. Anyone with intel experience would know. You're also putting words into the Whitehouse's mouth. They pledged to fire "anyone involved in it." There wasn't always your careful parsing about "covert agents".
No, the forged document was widely acknowledge to be forged. That wasn't the only evidence. President Bush stated that the British intel believed Saddam was pursuing Uranium purchase. That statement of fact was followed by Joe Wilson's strawman "article" which has been totally debunked. (Again, Congressional Record to read the investigation testimony and evidence.)
"British Intel" is not evidence, a point which becomes crystal clear when you research the source of their belief, which was the same poorly forged documents, and which lead to Bush's tortured phrasing, since they didn't have any evidence that could convince American Intel.
You don't have access to intel information of the sort which would be required to state, with any surety, wether or not nuke materials were found. All you have is free market information.
This is nothing more than deluded authoritarianism. Consider that they paraded around every piece of crap "evidence" that they could find, then try to convince anyone that they withheld the good stuff.
Try to remove your bias and read what I typed. The facts are the facts.
No, it's very naive to think ANYONE a person who was supposedly an undercover agent 15 years prior has dealt with is "potentially exposed."
What's your position here, that everyone else's cover must have already been blown in 15 years or that intelligence services are too lazy to trace back 15 years to uncover other agents?
No, my "argument" does not rest on "the fact that Bush OK'd the leak." By definition, the President can't "leak" anything because "leaking" would involve unauthorized disclosure which, by definition, the President cannot do. It is impossible for the pre-requisite to exist. The President has the authority to declassify, at will, either explicitly or implicitly.
You're argument rests on the fact that Bush must have given the OK to tell the press Plame was CIA. This is exactly opposite to what Bush has publicly maintained. We already know he lied when he said he'd fire anyone involved, did he also lie when he said he had nothing to do with it?
You say "Abuse of power" is a phrase with no legal definition. I say blowing the cover of an agent who worked to stop nuclear proliferation to get back at an op-ed writer is an impeachable offense.
As as aside, the legal basis for action against Saddam Hussein's Iraq was laid years ago. The first Gulf War was never officially ended according to the U.N. conditions and Saddam's troops kept violating the cease fire agreement.
Which is up to the UN security council to enforce, if they feel is necessary. The passed a tough resolution, found violations, and forced Saddam to comply. Consequently, they refused to authorize the use of force. The history of 2002-2003 seems to be completely missing from the thinking of most Bush defenders.
WRT "a campaign to make sure the secret is as widely heard as possible", it was Valerie Plame and her husband in conjunction with Vanity Fair and the traditional news media who were proclaiming a "secret" had been revealed.
Let's see, you're leaving out Libby and Rove's successful efforts to get prominent newspapers to publish Plame's CIA role which led to saturation news coverage then months later Vanity Fair did it's bit. Where do you get these talking points?
Joe Wilson was a paid staffer for John Kerry's Presidential campaign before he wrote the article in which he claimed the VP sent him on a secret mission to gather intel in Niger.
By the time Wilson wrote the op-ed, he'd already warned the administration repeatedly that it's Niger claims were false, but they refused to drop the claims.
What you are promoting fits the structure of a halfway decent conspiracy theory but only with "a willing suspension of disbelief" given the facts.
Let's see: the administration claims that Iraq was buying Uranium from Niger, their sole evidence is a amateurishly forged document that didn't even have the right fake signatures, but *just to be sure*, Joe Wilson is sent to Niger, and finds that no, there's nothing to the story, writes an article to that affect. And you believe the administration and doubt Wilson even though Saddam already had a stockpile of yellow cake, and he didn't have a nuclear program, and not a single piece of real evidence of a Uranium deal has ever been found anywhere in 5 years since. Now that's what I call "a willing suspension of disbelief".
Not necessarily. You arrange it so that Cheney is impeached first, then Bush has the option of appointing a Republican veep that suits the Senate Democrats or letting Pelosi take the helm.
"[Iraq] has uniformly defied Security Council resolutions demanding full disarmament."
"Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime have failed again and again"
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
"And [The Iraqi Regime] has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda."
"The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other."
"Recognizing the threat to our country, the United States Congress voted overwhelmingly last year to support the use of force against Iraq." (this is only a small lie: the authorization was conditional)
"Today, no nation can possibly claim that Iraq has disarmed. And it will not disarm so long as Saddam Hussein holds power." (a twofer)
"These [permanent members of the security council] share our assessment of the danger, but not our resolve to meet it. "
And this is just from the first half of one speech made to the world on the eve of war, conveniently saved on the president's own website, whitehouse.gov.
Now that you've learned that the president proudly incriminates himself on his own website, are you ready to support impeachment? I know there's no blow jobs...yet. Jeff Gannon's secret Whitehouse lover is yet to be revealed.
That would indeed be going somewhere. If there truly are 33 Republicans so corrupt that they wouldn't vote to boot Bush it would great to find out who they are.
Nixon got pardoned, the Iran-Contra guys got pardoned, and in many cases these are the same guys. You don't deal with them soon, they will be back, they will screw America and they will fuck up big time. Dealing harshly (finally!) with these world class criminals is the most important task facing America. I seriously doubt we have the heart for it.
First, to be "outed", Valerie Plame would have had to be a covert operative. She wasn't at that time. You can check the Congressional Record to read the testimony of the author of the governing regulations.
Even if she weren't, and I've seen noone but Bush defenders saying she wasn't, any other agent, front, or contact she'd dealt with in her career is now potentially exposed.
Second, the ultimate classification authority is the President. This has a long history of precedent. If the President wishes to reveal something which is classified, that's his prerogative. The Soviet nuke missile sites in Cuba were classified information and JFK didn't need anyone's permission to reveal that.
Ever hear of abuse of power? Was JFK giving up secret spy plane specs so that he could get revenge on an op/ed writer? In any case, your argument rests on the notion that Bush ok'd the leak. Did he do that?
Third, it was Richard Armitage who revealed the information about Valerie Plame. Even the special prosecutor knew that before investigating.
This is very hard for Bushies to understand, but if one person in the administration reveals a secret, that doesn't make it ok for the rest of the administration to launch a campaign to make sure the secret is as widely heard as possible.
This is a country of laws, It's the usA, not the usSR.
It sure is! There are laws against abusing presidential powers, against lying to congress to start wars, against trying to force US attorneys to prosecute people for political reasons, against torture, against arrest without trial. We've got a lot of laws, but no guts to enforce them.
The West End system was more fun...and so simple that you can easily play it with out the books. You can also find those books around. No reason to trash what works just because WoTC releases something.
Three strikes rules are great, because the system is infallible and finding the guilty party, and if there's one thing we need it's a lot of people in prison for life for minor offenses.
3 strikes on crime on the outside they are sent to labor camps
Another good idea: give the government an economic incentive to throw your ass in jail.
or can volunteer for EXILE and leave this country FOREVER.
What are you going to do, dump them in international waters?
I am tired of paying for ppl to sit in jail and watch cable TV and eat food and not work and I get to pay for it all.
The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Is that because we're just really bad people?
Slashdot Mirror
Scantron machines are easily verified because the ballot is produced by the voter, not the machine, and can be hand counted.
It might not have been, but you can't really take 9/11 as given under a Gore. There's a lot about Bush that made 9/11 more likely, from his downgrading of bin Laden as a threat to his willingness to let the Saudi's slide on their complicity.
While it's true that the CIA and the FBI would have jumped at the chance no matter what, but without the excited backing of the administration, they couldn't have got as far.
Military production is the el primo example of work that has little economic value ... except that it redistributes wealth and consumes resources, two things that are good for jump starting economies.
MCell is a great cellular automaton simulator (like Biome) that's highly customizable. You can even write your own DLLs to link into it if their extensive rules customization options aren't enough for you. More fun and more accessible than Biome.
One thing that Biome's got that MCell doesn't are these spiral CAs. What is the Spore team trying to do here? Graphics effects for space?
Oh, all high and mighty on your high horse, aren't you eh? Quoting python not good enough for you? Oooh look at me, I'm xkcd, I can turn a bloody brilliant line into a sick joke.
You think you're soooo superior, don't you, with your stick figures prancing about with your fake humanity and your fake romance. And all those pasty inexperience chubby little geeks just eat it right up don't they? They think the sun rises and sets right our of your arse, don't they?
Well let me tell you something. Those pythons worked their fingers to the bone to make a home in this unforgiving world for absurdist satire. They gave up their lives, their families, their careers in science so that you can have a nice laugh in front of the telly.
And this is what you do. You git. You stupid, bloody, heartless git.
Responsibility for the Iraqi people was ever a key motivator for these guys. The Bush administration's position on the proposed status of forces agreement is much closer to the reason that we continue to spend so much money in Iraq.
"This is the highest wave that has ever been known."
That's really weird wording and how the heck could they possibly know that?
A majority of Democrats voted against the war in Iraq, and for both the PATRIOT act and the War resolution, almost every Republican voted for it. So on those two votes, the Democrats are at most half-evil, compared to the totally evil Republicans.
Einstein was a patent clerk, so he probably just slipped a patent or two in there when his boss wasn't looking.
If whites are so overtly racist, then why are groups like the KKK almost universally reviled amongst whites (yes, even out in the sticks),
I live out in the sticks and pretty much everyone here is racists and hates the KKK for being racist. Part of the deal with racism is that it's not really logical.
You should see how people laugh when they tell an off color joke about how expendable Mexicans are, or recite that old chestnut "Pontiac stands for Poor Old Ni--er Thinks Its A Cadillac" or implore you "don't be such a Jew", and how offended they get if you call them on it.
Whites are still pretty racist. In my experience, a fair percentage of people from any population anywhere are racist.
No, they don't. They stay focused on the tank.
IIRC, someone asked Bush what he was feeling when as he ordered young Americans into combat. He pumped his fist and said, "Feels Good."
Meanwhile in the real universe, the same corporate media whores that give a far right wing Republican pulling these kind of stunts were busy 10 years ago hammering a conservative corporate friendly Dem for a blowjob and are going to pass judgement on the next admin.
Also of interest: The democrats just nominated the guy who mad rolling back of recent illegal actions one of the main points of his primary run. What do the Republicans have to fear?
Second, it is impossible for any entity to find every person someone has interacted with over the course of 15 years in free societies.
Some spies who knew Valerie Plame were able to avoid exposure. This is probably true of every blown cover in the history of the world, so it doesn't really win Bush any points.
By definition, that means exposure to someone other than their own association. What does this mean?
It's not possible for the general public to know if President Bush "lied" when he said he'd fire anyone involved in revealing a covert agent. First, you'd need inside knowledge to ascertain at what point the administration knew Valerie's actual status. Second, since she wasn't covert, nobody could reveal her as being covert. You refuse to admit the claims have prerequisited which were not met. It is just as valid to say President Bush did indeed fire everyone involved in leaking Valerie Plame's name as a covert operataive. She did not have the legal status of being covert. That's all there is to it.
First point we now know that Armitage, Libby, and Rove were behind the leak and attempted earlier leaks, by their own admission. Second, she was covert and under an unofficial cover which means that merely revealing her as CIA blew her cover. Her cover, BTW, doesn't become useless just because she wasn't in the field. Anyone with intel experience would know. You're also putting words into the Whitehouse's mouth. They pledged to fire "anyone involved in it." There wasn't always your careful parsing about "covert agents".
No, the forged document was widely acknowledge to be forged. That wasn't the only evidence. President Bush stated that the British intel believed Saddam was pursuing Uranium purchase. That statement of fact was followed by Joe Wilson's strawman "article" which has been totally debunked. (Again, Congressional Record to read the investigation testimony and evidence.)
"British Intel" is not evidence, a point which becomes crystal clear when you research the source of their belief, which was the same poorly forged documents, and which lead to Bush's tortured phrasing, since they didn't have any evidence that could convince American Intel.
You don't have access to intel information of the sort which would be required to state, with any surety, wether or not nuke materials were found. All you have is free market information.
This is nothing more than deluded authoritarianism. Consider that they paraded around every piece of crap "evidence" that they could find, then try to convince anyone that they withheld the good stuff.
Try to remove your bias and read what I typed. The facts are the facts.
No, it's very naive to think ANYONE a person who was supposedly an undercover agent 15 years prior has dealt with is "potentially exposed."
What's your position here, that everyone else's cover must have already been blown in 15 years or that intelligence services are too lazy to trace back 15 years to uncover other agents?
No, my "argument" does not rest on "the fact that Bush OK'd the leak." By definition, the President can't "leak" anything because "leaking" would involve unauthorized disclosure which, by definition, the President cannot do. It is impossible for the pre-requisite to exist. The President has the authority to declassify, at will, either explicitly or implicitly.
You're argument rests on the fact that Bush must have given the OK to tell the press Plame was CIA. This is exactly opposite to what Bush has publicly maintained. We already know he lied when he said he'd fire anyone involved, did he also lie when he said he had nothing to do with it?
You say "Abuse of power" is a phrase with no legal definition. I say blowing the cover of an agent who worked to stop nuclear proliferation to get back at an op-ed writer is an impeachable offense.
As as aside, the legal basis for action against Saddam Hussein's Iraq was laid years ago. The first Gulf War was never officially ended according to the U.N. conditions and Saddam's troops kept violating the cease fire agreement.
Which is up to the UN security council to enforce, if they feel is necessary. The passed a tough resolution, found violations, and forced Saddam to comply. Consequently, they refused to authorize the use of force. The history of 2002-2003 seems to be completely missing from the thinking of most Bush defenders.
WRT "a campaign to make sure the secret is as widely heard as possible", it was Valerie Plame and her husband in conjunction with Vanity Fair and the traditional news media who were proclaiming a "secret" had been revealed.
Let's see, you're leaving out Libby and Rove's successful efforts to get prominent newspapers to publish Plame's CIA role which led to saturation news coverage then months later Vanity Fair did it's bit. Where do you get these talking points?
Joe Wilson was a paid staffer for John Kerry's Presidential campaign before he wrote the article in which he claimed the VP sent him on a secret mission to gather intel in Niger.
By the time Wilson wrote the op-ed, he'd already warned the administration repeatedly that it's Niger claims were false, but they refused to drop the claims.
What you are promoting fits the structure of a halfway decent conspiracy theory but only with "a willing suspension of disbelief" given the facts.
Let's see: the administration claims that Iraq was buying Uranium from Niger, their sole evidence is a amateurishly forged document that didn't even have the right fake signatures, but *just to be sure*, Joe Wilson is sent to Niger, and finds that no, there's nothing to the story, writes an article to that affect.
And you believe the administration and doubt Wilson even though Saddam already had a stockpile of yellow cake, and he didn't have a nuclear program, and not a single piece of real evidence of a Uranium deal has ever been found anywhere in 5 years since. Now that's what I call "a willing suspension of disbelief".
You can impeach a president after he leaves office. In addition to canceling his pension and his secret service detail, it would set a good precedent.
Not necessarily. You arrange it so that Cheney is impeached first, then Bush has the option of appointing a Republican veep that suits the Senate Democrats or letting Pelosi take the helm.
"[Iraq] has uniformly defied Security Council resolutions demanding full disarmament."
"Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime have failed again and again"
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
"And [The Iraqi Regime] has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda."
"The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other."
"Recognizing the threat to our country, the United States Congress voted overwhelmingly last year to support the use of force against Iraq." (this is only a small lie: the authorization was conditional)
"Today, no nation can possibly claim that Iraq has disarmed. And it will not disarm so long as Saddam Hussein holds power." (a twofer)
"These [permanent members of the security council] share our assessment of the danger, but not our resolve to meet it. "
And this is just from the first half of one speech made to the world on the eve of war, conveniently saved on the president's own website, whitehouse.gov.
Now that you've learned that the president proudly incriminates himself on his own website, are you ready to support impeachment? I know there's no blow jobs...yet. Jeff Gannon's secret Whitehouse lover is yet to be revealed.
Wait, Clinton could have lost a harassment case if he'd admitted to consensual sex?
That would indeed be going somewhere. If there truly are 33 Republicans so corrupt that they wouldn't vote to boot Bush it would great to find out who they are.
Nixon got pardoned, the Iran-Contra guys got pardoned, and in many cases these are the same guys. You don't deal with them soon, they will be back, they will screw America and they will fuck up big time. Dealing harshly (finally!) with these world class criminals is the most important task facing America. I seriously doubt we have the heart for it.
First, to be "outed", Valerie Plame would have had to be a covert operative. She wasn't at that time. You can check the Congressional Record to read the testimony of the author of the governing regulations.
Even if she weren't, and I've seen noone but Bush defenders saying she wasn't, any other agent, front, or contact she'd dealt with in her career is now potentially exposed.
Second, the ultimate classification authority is the President. This has a long history of precedent. If the President wishes to reveal something which is classified, that's his prerogative. The Soviet nuke missile sites in Cuba were classified information and JFK didn't need anyone's permission to reveal that.
Ever hear of abuse of power? Was JFK giving up secret spy plane specs so that he could get revenge on an op/ed writer? In any case, your argument rests on the notion that Bush ok'd the leak. Did he do that?
Third, it was Richard Armitage who revealed the information about Valerie Plame. Even the special prosecutor knew that before investigating.
This is very hard for Bushies to understand, but if one person in the administration reveals a secret, that doesn't make it ok for the rest of the administration to launch a campaign to make sure the secret is as widely heard as possible.
This is a country of laws, It's the usA, not the usSR.
It sure is! There are laws against abusing presidential powers, against lying to congress to start wars, against trying to force US attorneys to prosecute people for political reasons, against torture, against arrest without trial. We've got a lot of laws, but no guts to enforce them.
I wonder if this has anything to do with Bush running up trillions in debt and making everyone hate us?
The West End system was more fun...and so simple that you can easily play it with out the books. You can also find those books around. No reason to trash what works just because WoTC releases something.
The Three strikes rule would work well here.
Three strikes rules are great, because the system is infallible and finding the guilty party, and if there's one thing we need it's a lot of people in prison for life for minor offenses.
3 strikes on crime on the outside they are sent to labor camps
Another good idea: give the government an economic incentive to throw your ass in jail.
or can volunteer for EXILE and leave this country FOREVER.
What are you going to do, dump them in international waters?
I am tired of paying for ppl to sit in jail and watch cable TV
and eat food and not work and I get to pay for it all.
The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Is that because we're just really bad people?