Well, Poindexter doesn't seem to have been disadvantaged by his criminal past.
That's because he's not one of the plebes like you and me. Patricians like him get free passes and more time at the trough. Proles like you and me get anally assaulted in the name of maintaining law, order, and freedom.
Could your political views be considered progressive or radical leftist? Are you an activist? There is at least anecdotal evidence that political activists who tend toward the left and libertarian side of the spectrum are on a search list aside from the 1000-person no-fly list.
Poindexter was one of the people in the Reagan administration who was convicted for taking part in the Iran-Contra affair, though his conviction was overturned due to a technical error.
Not quite.
He was given immunity for his Congressional testimony, which many people believe saved Reagan's ass from the Clinton treatment. Funny thing is, those same people believe Poindexter lied his ass off to save Reagan's ass. Therefore, Poindexter's immunity gave him the power to say practically anything in order to protect his boss, including flat-out lies that no one else would contradict, since they also worked for the same guy.
I'm reading Veil by Bob Woodward right now. It's amazing, some of the legal backflips the Reagan administration and CIA had to perform in order to justify things like the contra war in Nicaragua and arms sales to Iran through Israel. That last pairing alone, which I'd been unaware of until reading the book, made my head spin - Israel participating with Iran in a US plan to fund right-wing death squads in Latin America? Truth is stranger than fiction.
Bad to worse and all -- TIPS was at least simply a formal structure for Americans to report on one another. DoIA, on the other hand, seems more like a full-out spy organization targetted towards the American people.
The best way for a totalitarian regime to maintain power is to involve the population in their own oppression. The people in power have the work of rooting out potential subversives done for them, while the people under control believe they're doing something great for their country by rooting out those subversives who threaten the nation's stability.
This is the relevant section that supposedly eliminated TIPS:
SEC. 880. PROHIBITION OF THE TERRORISM INFORMATION AND PREVENTION SYSTEM. Any and all activities of the Federal Government to implement the proposed component program of the Citizen Corps known as Operation TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) are hereby prohibited.
All it does is prohibit the proposed program under the Citizen Corps known as TIPS. A strict reading of the language could leave a way to revive the program under a different name.
It may seem a bit legalistic and paranoid, but legalities like that are precisely how unpalatable programs are implemented anyway.
I still remember the B5 space combat sim being deep-sixed by Sierra. Too bad, as it looked like a good game in the making with something close to realistic physics.
Excuse me? The pound of dope was more of a threat (well, more newsworthy) than ASSAULT RIFLES?
and promptly went into Gun Defense mode.
A few people pointed out the legality of guns vs. the illegality of weed. That's not what he asked. He asked which was more of a threat.
A few other people pointed out the media's and authority's tendency to exaggerate the nature of weapons found during raids. "Assault rifles" could be, well, anything. However, a person firing a bullet from a rifle is more likely to threaten a person's life than a person lighting up a fatty, which is what RollingThunder was trying to get at.
If there weren't an insane War on (Some) Drugs that turns people who grow plants and brew chemicals to trade with others for personal use into criminals, this raid would never have happened.
I'm disappointed. A lot of people completely failed to answer his (possibly rhetorical) question regarding which is a greater threat to human life, instead falling back on the law or media/police exaggerations to dodge the issue at the root of this.
You can support a person's right to own weaponry and still acknowledge that the availability of weapons poses a greater threat to peace and life than the availability of a plant.
The drugs are illegal (without a tax stamp, which the government won't sell you, if I recall correctly). The guns are, generally, legal.
A couple of posters have said this, and it completely dodges his rhetorical question. He did not ask about the legality of the drugs and guns. He asked which posed more of a threat to the lives of others. The knee-jerk gun defenders saw the words "assault rifle" connected with a negative statement and seemed to miss this. I'm not a wimpy gun-control nanny-state-uber-alles freak, but I know that a bullet fired from a gun has a much higher chance of killing or maiming me than a fatty.
With all the lambasting this thing is taking here on Slashdot, it will likely turn into a huge, and damned annoying, market success somehow.
Actually, if this thing were rigged up with some proximity and motion sensors, it could potentially be a useful assistive device for the completely blind and visually impaired, like yours truly. Then again, maybe nothing can beat the intuition and training of a guide dog. We shall see.
I guess my point is that someone, somewhere, will find a great use for this thing even beyond its original intentions.
But a lot of us are trying anyway. Don't be harsh if it looks like we're not doing anything! The administration control media and they're the ones with armies and police etc. so why would they be telling you that Americans are resisting them?
Oh, I know there's resistance out there. I even know the regime's allied police forces have sometimes resorted to attacking peaceful demonstrators, like in Portland last August. I keep up with Indymedia and other progressive/radical sites (even volunteer time for Indymedia when I can). I sure as hell don't rely on the mainstream corporate media.
I'm asking when the people here at Slashdot, specifically, will move beyond simply complaining, and actually take action against what their government is doing. It can be peaceful signs-n-tired-chants demonstrations, nonviolent civil disobedience, direct action against the implementations of this police state law, whatever. There's no time to be passive anymore, though.
If you're doing something, thank you - more people like you are needed right now.
GPO Acess and THOMAS are both potential targets, but those are so important to general public, as oppose to relativly small number to researchers for DOE's PubScience.
I don't know what GPO Access provides, but I really can't see them going after THOMAS. Trying to force people to pay for access to legislation and law would make the law even less accessible to Joe Citizen. Someone pointed out in another thread on a different subject that ignorance of the law is no defense, yet the law is so complicated and convoluted that it's practically impossible to know what's illegal and what's just fine. The obvious things are illegal, such as murder, rape, theft, and such. What about sex acts like anal action, which is considered "sodomy" in several states? Renting a building could get you in trouble if certain bills going through Congress at the moment pass, making it illegal to "knowingly" rent a building for a party like a rave, where drugs are likely to be traded/sold.
No, it's the responsibility of a government to make the law of the land, and any legislation currently being proposed, available to the citizens in any convenient way possible. I've dug some really disturbing crap from both THOMAS and the Canadian government law database that, if these corps had their way, I couldn't access without coughing up a nice, fat fee - all assuming this is the type of thing they'd like to see ended.
I think going after THOMAS would result in a precedent-setting decision regarding how far private concerns can go in locking away information from public eyes. I know it's already impossible in one city to get the building code without paying a certain corporation a huge fee, and some people have been charged with copyright infringement for posting copies of the code. This was even covered on Slashdot some time ago. So, there's precedent, but trying to do it on a large scale like this... well, it's not out of the realm of possibility, but doing it would almost certainly cause the kind of backlash that leads to hacktivism and the Slashdot Activism effect (where files under ban/lockdown are mirrored to thousands of sites, thus making said ban irrelevant).
So, I'll gather up what knowledge I can, and charge people for it. They have cows. They have cooks. Sounds like to me we can make a good trade on that.
Except in this case, the people with cows and cooks already paid for it with their tax dollars.
As well, once one of them has the information you're selling, what's to stop him/her from writing their own version of the information, basing it purely on the scientific facts contained within what you're selling, and giving it away to his/her friends for free?
But hey, the only system that works is socialism where the greedy elite can simply hoard everything tothemselves and not even allow for it to be charged for.
Actually, I was thinking libertarian socialism - make it available to everyone, and those who can make use of it will continue to produce interesting new ideas and ways to physicall implement those ideas.
Really, if you can't conceive of anything other than private fiefdoms and state dictatorship, you've got one limited imagination.
LeDuc said it is fairer to charge researchers for the articles they use than to charge taxpayers for the cost of running a Web site that makes them available for free.
Yeah, God forbid any old moron be able to access scientific papers and advanced knowledge. That's a commie concept. People should be happy with whatever the ad-supported news media gives them for free.
I would think making such information available would be in the interest of everyone... except those people who see a way to make a buck off it, which probably says a lot in itself.
Two in particular rile SIIA members: "One is law-related, the other has to do with agriculture," LeDuc said. He declined to identify them further.
Anyone care to guess which useful databases are about to be locked off to anyone who can't cough up the required dough?
I could go into a rant about how a "free market" in so-called intellectual property seems to rely heavily on restricting access to existing information instead of increasing access to previously-unpublished information, but I'll leave someone else to get flamed by the mindless defenders of privatization right or wrong.
So, are the Americans here just going to sit and whine about all the crap being rammed through under the guise of "the will of the people", or are you finally going to get fed up and do something to show that many of the people don't want any of this?
Well, my idea goes a bit beyond just using your own gas generator. It relies heavily on using generators that rely on the sun (wind, solar), tidal power, or geothermal power where possible. It doesn't rely on a single form of power, because it's become clear one form of green power alone won't be enough. However, several operating in concert, with individual homes producing their own power when possible, should generate enough electricity to reduce the load on existing central generating plants - thus, reducing the amounut of mined/drilled fuel consumed. As long as a grid is maintained between communities, power-sharing should still be possible when necessary.
There's a guy living just north of Toronto who has a solar array running his house. On very sunny days, he also puts power back into the grid.
Read the stuff on thestar.com from people complaining about their bills - new bills seem to run anywhere from $170 to a mind-boggling $600 per month.
I think it depends on whether you went with a fixed rate, or rolled the dice with the "market rate" back in May. The market rate skyrocketed, and quite frankly I don't see it ever coming down.
I don't pay a cent; I'm subletting from the guy downstairs, and I'm a bit afraid to find out what his bill will look like.
Would you shell out $13,400 now for free electricity for the next 10 year? Or would you be better off putting the $13,400 into a CD and using the interest to pay your electic bill?
I'm going to do some quickie math, based on some of the bills that have appeared here in Ontario recently. The government privatized the system, and prices leaped.
Let's say an average bill, per month, is now $300 for an average home. Probably lowballing it, but stick with me anyway.
$300 x 12 months = $3600.
$3600 x 10 years = $36 000
All in Cdn$, of course, so in US$, figure exchange rate of $0.65, then your ten-year total comes to $23 152.57.
Forget the next ten years, though; this thing could run indefinitely, barring maintenance. That could go a lot farther, and you don't need to keep refueling it:)
300 kWh may not be much on its own, but it may be better in the long run to rely on many smaller forms of energy production than a few large, heavily centralized systems that rely on actively polluting fuel (ie, coal, oil, gas, nuclear). A combination of wind turbines, solar arrays, and hydroelectric generators could be enough to take much of the load away from large fossil/nuclear plants, thus reducing the amount of fuel those facilities need to use.
I have this notion in the back of my head of new homes, and many older homes, being upgraded to include some small form of power generation - a solar array, or more likely a small wind turbine, to supply at least a bit of the home's own needs. Since you can still have a grid power system, homes can supplement each other, cutting part of the grid wouldn't necessarily cut all the power. The expense would be horrid until these devices became more common, and energy companies could make up for losses in pure energy sales by providing maintanence and installation packages - that is, if you're the kind of capitalist that looks for these kind of opportunities.
Think of it as having a network where, instead of one big central server trying to handle everyone's programs and data, each host can handle most of its own data and processing, and the server's just there for the things that the hosts can't handle on their own:)
Opinions and nitpicks about this greatly appreciated...
Why was this series messed around with? Well, the powers that be wanted a spin-off series, too blind to see they were destroying the very thing they wanted to prolong. The spin off was an abysmal failure.
Close.
Warner Bros. sent strong hints about cancelling B5 after its fourth season, so JMS basically packed much of the 5th-season storyline into the final half of the 4th season. WB did, in fact, drop the series, but TNT picked it up, and even ponied up money for some TV movies that ranged from good to wastes of film.
Your statement is, however, accurate in relation to the Crusade spinoff. TNT demanded more sex and violence along with new opening episodes, ordered a costume change, after five episodes were already in the can, JMS resisted, and eventually Turner cancelled the series after seriously screwing with the continuity.
Everything up to "Racing the Night" was TNT-demanded, then the next five were the original episodes. There's a definite difference in the CGI quality, as well. The CGI in the TNT-ordered episodes have a very rushed look, and the jumpgate graphics in the original five are the same as the jumpgate in "A Call to Arms"; the TNT episodes have the old jumpgate effect.
There's been lots of news that Saddam is linked to bin Laden and Palestinian terrorists.
We know envoys from Saddam have given money to the families of dead Palestinians, with more money going to suicide bombers. However, the bin Laden connection is very tenuous; the Czech government disputes claims of a meeting between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi agent, and from what I understand, any al Qaeda camps in Iraq are in the northern region... under Kurdish control.
Slashdot Mirror
RH says they're now following the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, developed in the wake of recent accounting troubles at some companies.
GAAP?
I learned about GAAP in grade 11 accounting. That was over seven years ago.
Nice to see major corporations are finally catching up to public school classes.
Well, Poindexter doesn't seem to have been disadvantaged by his criminal past.
That's because he's not one of the plebes like you and me. Patricians like him get free passes and more time at the trough. Proles like you and me get anally assaulted in the name of maintaining law, order, and freedom.
Another reason to smash hierarchy...
John Poindexter hasn't broken any laws
Sure he has, he just can't be tried and convicted for his criminal acts because Congress handed him immunity.
Could your political views be considered progressive or radical leftist? Are you an activist? There is at least anecdotal evidence that political activists who tend toward the left and libertarian side of the spectrum are on a search list aside from the 1000-person no-fly list.
Poindexter was one of the people in the Reagan administration who was convicted for taking part in the Iran-Contra affair, though his conviction was overturned due to a technical error.
Not quite.
He was given immunity for his Congressional testimony, which many people believe saved Reagan's ass from the Clinton treatment. Funny thing is, those same people believe Poindexter lied his ass off to save Reagan's ass. Therefore, Poindexter's immunity gave him the power to say practically anything in order to protect his boss, including flat-out lies that no one else would contradict, since they also worked for the same guy.
I'm reading Veil by Bob Woodward right now. It's amazing, some of the legal backflips the Reagan administration and CIA had to perform in order to justify things like the contra war in Nicaragua and arms sales to Iran through Israel. That last pairing alone, which I'd been unaware of until reading the book, made my head spin - Israel participating with Iran in a US plan to fund right-wing death squads in Latin America? Truth is stranger than fiction.
Bad to worse and all -- TIPS was at least simply a formal structure for Americans to report on one another. DoIA, on the other hand, seems more like a full-out spy organization targetted towards the American people.
The best way for a totalitarian regime to maintain power is to involve the population in their own oppression. The people in power have the work of rooting out potential subversives done for them, while the people under control believe they're doing something great for their country by rooting out those subversives who threaten the nation's stability.
...only renamed.
This is the relevant section that supposedly eliminated TIPS:
SEC. 880. PROHIBITION OF THE TERRORISM INFORMATION AND PREVENTION SYSTEM.
Any and all activities of the Federal Government to implement the proposed component program of the Citizen Corps known as Operation TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) are hereby prohibited.
All it does is prohibit the proposed program under the Citizen Corps known as TIPS. A strict reading of the language could leave a way to revive the program under a different name.
It may seem a bit legalistic and paranoid, but legalities like that are precisely how unpalatable programs are implemented anyway.
I still remember the B5 space combat sim being deep-sixed by Sierra. Too bad, as it looked like a good game in the making with something close to realistic physics.
I'm blown away.
It appears most people who replied read this:
Excuse me? The pound of dope was more of a threat (well, more newsworthy) than ASSAULT RIFLES?
and promptly went into Gun Defense mode.
A few people pointed out the legality of guns vs. the illegality of weed. That's not what he asked. He asked which was more of a threat.
A few other people pointed out the media's and authority's tendency to exaggerate the nature of weapons found during raids. "Assault rifles" could be, well, anything. However, a person firing a bullet from a rifle is more likely to threaten a person's life than a person lighting up a fatty, which is what RollingThunder was trying to get at.
If there weren't an insane War on (Some) Drugs that turns people who grow plants and brew chemicals to trade with others for personal use into criminals, this raid would never have happened.
I'm disappointed. A lot of people completely failed to answer his (possibly rhetorical) question regarding which is a greater threat to human life, instead falling back on the law or media/police exaggerations to dodge the issue at the root of this.
You can support a person's right to own weaponry and still acknowledge that the availability of weapons poses a greater threat to peace and life than the availability of a plant.
The drugs are illegal (without a tax stamp, which the government won't sell you, if I recall correctly). The guns are, generally, legal.
A couple of posters have said this, and it completely dodges his rhetorical question. He did not ask about the legality of the drugs and guns. He asked which posed more of a threat to the lives of others. The knee-jerk gun defenders saw the words "assault rifle" connected with a negative statement and seemed to miss this. I'm not a wimpy gun-control nanny-state-uber-alles freak, but I know that a bullet fired from a gun has a much higher chance of killing or maiming me than a fatty.
With all the lambasting this thing is taking here on Slashdot, it will likely turn into a huge, and damned annoying, market success somehow.
Actually, if this thing were rigged up with some proximity and motion sensors, it could potentially be a useful assistive device for the completely blind and visually impaired, like yours truly. Then again, maybe nothing can beat the intuition and training of a guide dog. We shall see.
I guess my point is that someone, somewhere, will find a great use for this thing even beyond its original intentions.
But a lot of us are trying anyway. Don't be harsh if it looks like we're not doing anything! The administration control media and they're the ones with armies and police etc. so why would they be telling you that Americans are resisting them?
Oh, I know there's resistance out there. I even know the regime's allied police forces have sometimes resorted to attacking peaceful demonstrators, like in Portland last August. I keep up with Indymedia and other progressive/radical sites (even volunteer time for Indymedia when I can). I sure as hell don't rely on the mainstream corporate media.
I'm asking when the people here at Slashdot, specifically, will move beyond simply complaining, and actually take action against what their government is doing. It can be peaceful signs-n-tired-chants demonstrations, nonviolent civil disobedience, direct action against the implementations of this police state law, whatever. There's no time to be passive anymore, though.
If you're doing something, thank you - more people like you are needed right now.
GPO Acess and THOMAS are both potential targets, but those are so important to general public, as oppose to relativly small number to researchers for DOE's PubScience.
I don't know what GPO Access provides, but I really can't see them going after THOMAS. Trying to force people to pay for access to legislation and law would make the law even less accessible to Joe Citizen. Someone pointed out in another thread on a different subject that ignorance of the law is no defense, yet the law is so complicated and convoluted that it's practically impossible to know what's illegal and what's just fine. The obvious things are illegal, such as murder, rape, theft, and such. What about sex acts like anal action, which is considered "sodomy" in several states? Renting a building could get you in trouble if certain bills going through Congress at the moment pass, making it illegal to "knowingly" rent a building for a party like a rave, where drugs are likely to be traded/sold.
No, it's the responsibility of a government to make the law of the land, and any legislation currently being proposed, available to the citizens in any convenient way possible. I've dug some really disturbing crap from both THOMAS and the Canadian government law database that, if these corps had their way, I couldn't access without coughing up a nice, fat fee - all assuming this is the type of thing they'd like to see ended.
I think going after THOMAS would result in a precedent-setting decision regarding how far private concerns can go in locking away information from public eyes. I know it's already impossible in one city to get the building code without paying a certain corporation a huge fee, and some people have been charged with copyright infringement for posting copies of the code. This was even covered on Slashdot some time ago. So, there's precedent, but trying to do it on a large scale like this... well, it's not out of the realm of possibility, but doing it would almost certainly cause the kind of backlash that leads to hacktivism and the Slashdot Activism effect (where files under ban/lockdown are mirrored to thousands of sites, thus making said ban irrelevant).
Laws, the next hot thing on Gnutella...
So, I'll gather up what knowledge I can, and charge people for it. They have cows. They have cooks. Sounds like to me we can make a good trade on that.
Except in this case, the people with cows and cooks already paid for it with their tax dollars.
As well, once one of them has the information you're selling, what's to stop him/her from writing their own version of the information, basing it purely on the scientific facts contained within what you're selling, and giving it away to his/her friends for free?
But hey, the only system that works is socialism where the greedy elite can simply hoard everything tothemselves and not even allow for it to be charged for.
Actually, I was thinking libertarian socialism - make it available to everyone, and those who can make use of it will continue to produce interesting new ideas and ways to physicall implement those ideas.
Really, if you can't conceive of anything other than private fiefdoms and state dictatorship, you've got one limited imagination.
LeDuc said it is fairer to charge researchers for the articles they use than to charge taxpayers for the cost of running a Web site that makes them available for free.
Yeah, God forbid any old moron be able to access scientific papers and advanced knowledge. That's a commie concept. People should be happy with whatever the ad-supported news media gives them for free.
I would think making such information available would be in the interest of everyone... except those people who see a way to make a buck off it, which probably says a lot in itself.
Two in particular rile SIIA members: "One is law-related, the other has to do with agriculture," LeDuc said. He declined to identify them further.
Anyone care to guess which useful databases are about to be locked off to anyone who can't cough up the required dough?
I could go into a rant about how a "free market" in so-called intellectual property seems to rely heavily on restricting access to existing information instead of increasing access to previously-unpublished information, but I'll leave someone else to get flamed by the mindless defenders of privatization right or wrong.
So, are the Americans here just going to sit and whine about all the crap being rammed through under the guise of "the will of the people", or are you finally going to get fed up and do something to show that many of the people don't want any of this?
Thought that URL looked familiar - I referenced an article from that magazine in an essay I did on this very subject.
I learned a heckuva lot while researching it.
Well, my idea goes a bit beyond just using your own gas generator. It relies heavily on using generators that rely on the sun (wind, solar), tidal power, or geothermal power where possible. It doesn't rely on a single form of power, because it's become clear one form of green power alone won't be enough. However, several operating in concert, with individual homes producing their own power when possible, should generate enough electricity to reduce the load on existing central generating plants - thus, reducing the amounut of mined/drilled fuel consumed. As long as a grid is maintained between communities, power-sharing should still be possible when necessary.
There's a guy living just north of Toronto who has a solar array running his house. On very sunny days, he also puts power back into the grid.
Read the stuff on thestar.com from people complaining about their bills - new bills seem to run anywhere from $170 to a mind-boggling $600 per month.
I think it depends on whether you went with a fixed rate, or rolled the dice with the "market rate" back in May. The market rate skyrocketed, and quite frankly I don't see it ever coming down.
I don't pay a cent; I'm subletting from the guy downstairs, and I'm a bit afraid to find out what his bill will look like.
Would you shell out $13,400 now for free electricity for the next 10 year? Or would you be better off putting the $13,400 into a CD and using the interest to pay your electic bill?
I'm going to do some quickie math, based on some of the bills that have appeared here in Ontario recently. The government privatized the system, and prices leaped.
Let's say an average bill, per month, is now $300 for an average home. Probably lowballing it, but stick with me anyway.
$300 x 12 months = $3600.
$3600 x 10 years = $36 000
All in Cdn$, of course, so in US$, figure exchange rate of $0.65, then your ten-year total comes to $23 152.57.
Forget the next ten years, though; this thing could run indefinitely, barring maintenance. That could go a lot farther, and you don't need to keep refueling it:)
300 kWh may not be much on its own, but it may be better in the long run to rely on many smaller forms of energy production than a few large, heavily centralized systems that rely on actively polluting fuel (ie, coal, oil, gas, nuclear). A combination of wind turbines, solar arrays, and hydroelectric generators could be enough to take much of the load away from large fossil/nuclear plants, thus reducing the amount of fuel those facilities need to use.
I have this notion in the back of my head of new homes, and many older homes, being upgraded to include some small form of power generation - a solar array, or more likely a small wind turbine, to supply at least a bit of the home's own needs. Since you can still have a grid power system, homes can supplement each other, cutting part of the grid wouldn't necessarily cut all the power.
The expense would be horrid until these devices became more common, and energy companies could make up for losses in pure energy sales by providing maintanence and installation packages - that is, if you're the kind of capitalist that looks for these kind of opportunities.
Think of it as having a network where, instead of one big central server trying to handle everyone's programs and data, each host can handle most of its own data and processing, and the server's just there for the things that the hosts can't handle on their own:)
Opinions and nitpicks about this greatly appreciated...
Ironically, I read this post right after reading yours.
The company may be around, but that doesn't guarantee the support will.
Why was this series messed around with? Well, the powers that be wanted a spin-off series, too blind to see they were destroying the very thing they wanted to prolong. The spin off was an abysmal failure.
Close.
Warner Bros. sent strong hints about cancelling B5 after its fourth season, so JMS basically packed much of the 5th-season storyline into the final half of the 4th season. WB did, in fact, drop the series, but TNT picked it up, and even ponied up money for some TV movies that ranged from good to wastes of film.
Your statement is, however, accurate in relation to the Crusade spinoff. TNT demanded more sex and violence along with new opening episodes, ordered a costume change, after five episodes were already in the can, JMS resisted, and eventually Turner cancelled the series after seriously screwing with the continuity.
Everything up to "Racing the Night" was TNT-demanded, then the next five were the original episodes. There's a definite difference in the CGI quality, as well. The CGI in the TNT-ordered episodes have a very rushed look, and the jumpgate graphics in the original five are the same as the jumpgate in "A Call to Arms"; the TNT episodes have the old jumpgate effect.
At least it's not Slashdot math...
There's been lots of news that Saddam is linked to bin Laden and Palestinian terrorists.
We know envoys from Saddam have given money to the families of dead Palestinians, with more money going to suicide bombers. However, the bin Laden connection is very tenuous; the Czech government disputes claims of a meeting between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi agent, and from what I understand, any al Qaeda camps in Iraq are in the northern region... under Kurdish control.
Bizarrely, the one potential smoking gun connecting Iraqis to attacks against US citizens isn't being hauled out. Strange, that.