Iraq's infrastructure was completely in the dumps long before 2003. And now it is worse.
Yes, the US-initiated sanctions did not do any service to the people of Iraq. Neither did the US-initiated bombing of the poorly-maintained water treatment plants, swewage treatment plants, bridges, power stations, roads and airports. Then posting tanks and armed personnel outside, and allowing the looting of hospitals to go on undisturbed did not help the under-funded health care of the country.
Then clamoring loudly that billions were being spent to rebuild that infrastructure, but actually giving those billions to friends of the administration who went about embezzling it and only doing a show of rebuilding anything did not help the matter. Letting those incompetent nepotist lose countless arms and ammunitions in Iraq did not help the security of the country.
Losing billions of dollars in cash must have helped whoever got their hands on it, but it helped no nation.
And now saying that country next to it against which the US supported a coup to remove their democracy in the 50's, then giving chemical weapons to Saddam to use against Iran's troops did not help. And moving on to the next scapegoat is not helping anything.
UN sanctions + dictator = A rather bad situation. At least with the US it will get better over time. In 10 to 20 years it'll be far better. On November 1 1983, the secretary of state, George Shultz, was passed intelligence reports of "almost daily use of CW [chemical weapons]" by Iraq. However, 25 days later, Ronald Reagan signed a secret order instructing the administration to do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent Iraq losing the war. In December Mr Rumsfeld, hired by President Reagan to serve as a Middle East troubleshooter, met Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and passed on the US willingness to help his regime and restore full diplomatic relations.
Sorry... sorry... WTF!!!! Sorry isn't gonna cut it... try mass resignations! A government organization went on national TV and intentionally tried to fool millions of Americans into believing a lie so that they didn't look bad. Oh wait... never mind... I forgot, this is the USA. Indeed: Whitman also announced that EPA has been given up to $83 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to support EPA's involvement in cleanup activities and ongoing monitoring of environmental conditions in both the New York City and Washington metropolitan areas following last week's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "We are very encouraged that the results from our monitoring of air quality and drinking water conditions in both New York and near the Pentagon show that the public in these areas is not being exposed to excessive levels of asbestos or other harmful substances," Whitman said. "Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C. that their air is safe to breath and their water is safe to drink," she added.
That giant cloud of asbestos powder? Harmless. Why do you ask? Move along, citizen.
a country that is being actively destabilized by Iran Yes, because it was Iran that destroyed that country's infrastructure (water, sewers, roads, bridges, airports, hospitals, museums, everything except the oil infrastructure), disbanded its military and police, and wrote their new constitution so its mercenary army is above the law and no court in the country can touch them.
It's all Iran's fault. They were the one! Get them! Boo the current boogyman! Boo!
How the fuck does the creator of The Sims have any right to accuse people of rehashing the same old crap over again? How the fuck can you not know the difference between "creator" and "publisher"?
Stop attacking the source and think about the concepts, you authority-appealing ignoramus. Flaming someone for their stupid comment isn't trolling. ESPECIALLY if he started with the four letter words.
You really picked the wrong spot on the treadmill. Sure, if you want to be able to play every game on its maximum settings, you're going to have to upgrade $2500 worth of computer equipment every year. But if you're willing to "settle" for playing those same games, but waiting until you upgrade your computer to experience the best graphics, you realize that you don't have to have the very best equipment available. In other words, if you wait to upgrade until you upgrade, you'll realize you don't need to upgrade.
How the fuck does the creator of The Sims have any right to accuse people of rehashing the same old crap over again? How the fuck can you not know the difference between "creator" and "publisher"?
Stop attacking the source and think about the concepts, you authority-appealing ignoramus.
We will never know why MS truly did this, stupid blunder, evil plot, insanity? I'll take "evil wiretapping plot". They saw AT&T making a cool grand off their unsuspecting clients, and they thought "I want a thousand dollars too! Gimme!".
"Our communication with the Canadian government about this was by no means perfect. In fact, it was quite imperfect," Condoleezza Rice told the congressional foreign-relations committee on Wednesday.
She didn't apologize for shipping Maher Arar to his native country of Syria in the fall of 2002, where he was imprisoned for almost a year and tortured as a terror suspect, instead of returning him to Canada.
Rice said she was aware of "allegations of torture."
"Originally from New York City, Schneier currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Schneier has a Master's degree in computer science from American University and a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from the University of Rochester. Before Counterpane, he worked at the United States Department of Defense and then AT&T Bell Labs."
I don't see anything about "behavioral psychology" or "evolutionary biology" in there. So, sorry Bruce, but you're not qualified to make that statement with any authority Your appeal to authority is duly noted.
A fundamental reason why the Appeal to Authority can be a fallacy is that a proposition can be well supported only by facts and logically valid inferences. But by using an authority, the argument is relying upon testimony, not facts.
Plane crashes are scary because planes aren't familiar to most people; Actually, plane crashes are scary because once you're on the plane, there is nothing you can do about them. Car crashes are less scary because of familiarity, has you said, but also because you can grab the wheel, yell "look out!", or otherwise act upon your own destiny. And because of vertigo phobia. In a car, you're already on the ground: you aren't going to accelerate towards it inexorably, as planes will if they stall/run out of gas/break/hit another plane/etc.
"The brain is still in beta mode, it's got all sorts of patches and workarounds. It's not perfectly created, it's clearly evolved up." Wow, just... wow. I'm not even a biologist but I know that's a terrible analogy. You can't compare the brain to software. We can control software and decide when it 'goes live,' there are no prototypes in nature or evolution. Every attempt is an iteration of the process and the process is never ending. Not even a biologist? Are you not even a programmer either? Every attempt of a stable build is an iteration of the process and the process is never ending!
Sexual reproduction decides when the organism goes live, and marketing decides when the product goes live.
finding a causal relationship between lowered crime and more people spending more time in prison is easier than finding it between lowered crime and lowered lead. *sigh*... VIOLENT crime. More potheads in prison has -1 to do with a reduction in violent crime.
The graph he refers to is here And as someone else as stated already, actual number of pirates is on the rise, and metaphorical pirates are in exponential growth, as any *AA chart will show obese filesharers counted as 2.3 pirates.
...Freakonomics correlated the drop in crime rates with the legalization of abortion. Which sounds more sound of a theory to you? Let's see, fewer sons of bitches and fewer of those left are hoped-up on lead. Sounds about right.
But man, that bit about 'agnostic' being a religion because people put that in the forms that ask for their religion is seriously lacking in brain meats. And so for my grievous quoting of that site, I do say, to borrow a phrase made popular by a *certain* religion:
Ingemisco, tamquam reus: culpa rubet vultus meus: supplicanti parce Deus.
There, I hope that fixes it.:-) te absolvo a peccatis tuis:-)
There were astronomical clockwork computers thousands of years ago that no one knew about until one was found, and later x-rayed. If the guy had a secret weapon, and he didn't want anyone to shoot him, there is no way we'd know about it, except through the quasi-coherent legends that grew around him. He'd have kept his thunder weapon's workings secret, and we don't know what people successfully kept secret.
(Huxley) himself applied the phrase "agnostic atheist" to mean what many people today refer to simply as an "atheist." You're right that atheism means "without god"; and "agnostic" means "without knowledge." You're right, the bit about Agnosticism being a religion was pretty far off the mark.
Nevertheless, "agnostic atheist" seems to make perfect sense to me. One can have an atheistic view, whilst still not being certain thereof. I'd posit that believers are "agnostic theists" and unbelievers are "agnostic atheists" EXCEPT for those who positively maintain (though I would disagree with them) that they can PROVE the existence, or non-existence, of god(s), respectively. Oh yeah, sure, you can use them next to each other as modifiers. I'm an agnostic atheist, I don't know for a fact that there are no gods, but in the absence of compelling evidence, I believe there are none. It's possible to be an agnostic deist, you don't know there are gods, but you feel that there is something to the claims.
But man, that bit about 'agnostic' being a religion because people put that in the forms that ask for their religion is seriously lacking in brain meats.
Slashdot Mirror
As hundreds of thousands of their countrymen/women were killed Killed by gas paid for and provided by the Reagan administration.
Yes, the US-initiated sanctions did not do any service to the people of Iraq.
Neither did the US-initiated bombing of the poorly-maintained water treatment plants, swewage treatment plants, bridges, power stations, roads and airports.
Then posting tanks and armed personnel outside, and allowing the looting of hospitals to go on undisturbed did not help the under-funded health care of the country.
Then clamoring loudly that billions were being spent to rebuild that infrastructure, but actually giving those billions to friends of the administration who went about embezzling it and only doing a show of rebuilding anything did not help the matter.
Letting those incompetent nepotist lose countless arms and ammunitions in Iraq did not help the security of the country.
Losing billions of dollars in cash must have helped whoever got their hands on it, but it helped no nation.
And now saying that country next to it against which the US supported a coup to remove their democracy in the 50's, then giving chemical weapons to Saddam to use against Iran's troops did not help. And moving on to the next scapegoat is not helping anything.
The right to have real journalist ask real questions.
At least with the US it will get better over time. In 10 to 20 years it'll be far better. On November 1 1983, the secretary of state, George Shultz, was passed intelligence reports of "almost daily use of CW [chemical weapons]" by Iraq.
However, 25 days later, Ronald Reagan signed a secret order instructing the administration to do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent Iraq losing the war.
In December Mr Rumsfeld, hired by President Reagan to serve as a Middle East troubleshooter, met Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and passed on the US willingness to help his regime and restore full diplomatic relations.
The United Nations economic sanctions were imposed in 1990 at the urging of the U.S. .
Sorry isn't gonna cut it... try mass resignations!
A government organization went on national TV and intentionally tried to fool millions of Americans into believing a lie so that they didn't look bad.
Oh wait... never mind... I forgot, this is the USA. Indeed:
Whitman also announced that EPA has been given up to $83 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to support EPA's involvement in cleanup activities and ongoing monitoring of environmental conditions in both the New York City and Washington metropolitan areas following last week's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"We are very encouraged that the results from our monitoring of air quality and drinking water conditions in both New York and near the Pentagon show that the public in these areas is not being exposed to excessive levels of asbestos or other harmful substances," Whitman said. "Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C. that their air is safe to breath and their water is safe to drink," she added.
That giant cloud of asbestos powder? Harmless. Why do you ask? Move along, citizen.
Such as hiring a man whore to pose as a journalist.The government has managed the news for quite some time, in all manner of creative ways.
It's all Iran's fault. They were the one! Get them! Boo the current boogyman! Boo!
Stop attacking the source and think about the concepts, you authority-appealing ignoramus. Flaming someone for their stupid comment isn't trolling. ESPECIALLY if he started with the four letter words.
Stop attacking the source and think about the concepts, you authority-appealing ignoramus.
Glad you could join us
"Our communication with the Canadian government about this was by no means perfect. In fact, it was quite imperfect," Condoleezza Rice told the congressional foreign-relations committee on Wednesday.
She didn't apologize for shipping Maher Arar to his native country of Syria in the fall of 2002, where he was imprisoned for almost a year and tortured as a terror suspect, instead of returning him to Canada.
Rice said she was aware of "allegations of torture."
I don't see anything about "behavioral psychology" or "evolutionary biology" in there.
So, sorry Bruce, but you're not qualified to make that statement with any authority Your appeal to authority is duly noted.
A fundamental reason why the Appeal to Authority can be a fallacy is that a proposition can be well supported only by facts and logically valid inferences. But by using an authority, the argument is relying upon testimony, not facts.
Car crashes are less scary because of familiarity, has you said, but also because you can grab the wheel, yell "look out!", or otherwise act upon your own destiny. And because of vertigo phobia. In a car, you're already on the ground: you aren't going to accelerate towards it inexorably, as planes will if they stall/run out of gas/break/hit another plane/etc.
Familiarity and statistics are just part of it.
Sexual reproduction decides when the organism goes live, and marketing decides when the product goes live.
On slashdot, yes.
I blame FOX.It's Microsoft's fault.
Or do all things in this world HAVE to be simplified to a singular cause?
...Freakonomics correlated the drop in crime rates with the legalization of abortion. Which sounds more sound of a theory to you? Let's see, fewer sons of bitches and fewer of those left are hoped-up on lead.Sounds about right.
Ingemisco, tamquam reus:
culpa rubet vultus meus:
supplicanti parce Deus.
There, I hope that fixes it.
Maybe there was a guy a long time ago with a metal weapon that looked like a small war hammer and made a noise like thunder and a flash like lightning.
There were astronomical clockwork computers thousands of years ago that no one knew about until one was found, and later x-rayed. If the guy had a secret weapon, and he didn't want anyone to shoot him, there is no way we'd know about it, except through the quasi-coherent legends that grew around him. He'd have kept his thunder weapon's workings secret, and we don't know what people successfully kept secret.
Nevertheless, "agnostic atheist" seems to make perfect sense to me. One can have an atheistic view, whilst still not being certain thereof. I'd posit that believers are "agnostic theists" and unbelievers are "agnostic atheists" EXCEPT for those who positively maintain (though I would disagree with them) that they can PROVE the existence, or non-existence, of god(s), respectively. Oh yeah, sure, you can use them next to each other as modifiers.
I'm an agnostic atheist, I don't know for a fact that there are no gods, but in the absence of compelling evidence, I believe there are none.
It's possible to be an agnostic deist, you don't know there are gods, but you feel that there is something to the claims.
But man, that bit about 'agnostic' being a religion because people put that in the forms that ask for their religion is seriously lacking in brain meats.