I'll give you the word "threat". However, let's talk about the level of "threat". Was it severe, dire, imminent (which would have warranted an immediate military strike)? Absolutely not, and the actual reporting that Bush saw (not the heavily-doctored stuff that Rumsfeld's illegal Pentagon espionage office produced) was FAR from concrete in terminology and opinion regarding the existence of WMDs in Iraq past 1995.
The level of threat which existed was that Saddam, left unchecked, would undoubtedly reconstitute his weapons programs and use them to exert his influence throughout the Middle East (thereby lending a destabilizing effect on the region). It was necessary to recognize this threat in order to keep international political and economic sanctions going against Saddam until he submitted to verifiable dismantling of his WMD stocks and programs.
I'll reiterate that only BushCo told us that they knew what, how much, and exactly where all these materials were. It turns out that they were wrongabouteverything they claimed as a justification for this war.
I find it especially curious now, after having engaged in unilateral invasion and occupation based on intelligence which has been unequivocally proven vague, that the Bush Administration would now soft-peddle an outright admission of having WMDs (in the form of nuclear weapons), while still putting intense pressure on Iran where the level of doubt is much higher.
That said, I'll apologize for the name calling and insults. However, it is very tiring to constantly see people trying to use those out-of-context quotes as though they somehow rose to the level of justifying Bush's illegal and immoral actions in Iraq (and inside the US, for that matter).
The terrorists can, for instance, just go fuck themselves if they are fighting for the "freedom" to repress women, which is indeed one of the many things they are fighting for; this is essentially empirical truth. They may be fighting for "freedom" but that is not enough to be noble, or worth rooting for.
However, BushCo is the self-appointed "terrorist fighters" (although it is historically proven that the Clinton Administration did more to fight terrorism than Reagan and both Bush's combined). BushCo is also the self-appointed "warden of God's word" in that they are very actively trying to remove a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body while at the same time trying to stifle sexual education among young people (read: information about birth control methods).
So while you may have a rather thin point about "repressing women", please bear in mind that our current government is also intent on repressing women as well.
Oh fuck you and your worthless out-of-context sound bites. Kindly explain to the audience here exactly which one (or the aggregate) of those sentences said "We should immediately and unilaterally invade and occupy Iraq no matter what the consequences".
In short, you can't. There was always the suspicion that Saddam still possessed a limited amount of WMD material (based on his not having fully divulged information and allowed complete inspections). But NOBODY but Bush and the NeoCon ass-masters ever said we should use our standing as the world's sole superpower to enforce a Pax Americana on the world, starting with Iraq and continuing on to the rest of the Middle East.
You fail it, and all your ignorant ilk fail it too.
You want a fascinating read on Iraq, read Tricky Dick Cheney's own words about it (back in 1991, when he was defending Chimp Senior's decision not to engage in nation-building).
No, somebody did a crude cut-n-paste from the RNC website.
Perhaps you or the parent can tell me exactly where in those quotes was the intent and authorization to unilaterally invade and occupy a sovereign nation?
Bush told us he had proof, incontrovertible proof, of the existence of thousands of tons of various biochem weapons. Moreover, Bush told us he had incontrovertible proof of an alliance with terrorists and the transfer of these biochem weapons to them ("..don't let the smoking gun be a mushroom cloud!").
So far, Bush has turned up bupkis and has relied on instant revisionist history to justify a failing attempt at Imperialism.
Uh.. I think you're forgetting a lezbo scene with Katee Sackhoff and Tricia Helfer... Or just a "space-toy" scene with Tricia Helfer.
Or just 60 minutes of Tricia Helfer doing naked yoga.
Cleaning out the magazine rack the other day I found an old Vickie's catalog that had fallen in featuring Ms. Helfer (I like her better in the newer, straighter, hair style).
Sirtis is/was a slowly-inflating bag of pus with a hairy back. She was hips-n-tits in the first few seasons, but she joined Frakes in the "expanda-belly" club about the middle of the run. It was pathetic seeing her cinched into ever-tighter belts in a vain attempt to control the spread, only to see the skin bubble around the edges.
Some of us old pharts still like to plan to sit around the big-screen, turn up the stereo, pull a cork, and enjoy our 60 minutes of space-borne fantasy escape.
I once asked Gene Simmons about a problem I was having integrating a sound card. He didn't know shit, and then started trying to tell how many women he boned at one time.
That sort of reminds me of the last time I went through Charles de Gaulle in Paris. I was a bit late for the plane, hurrying to get through security. The guard looks at my bag and notices the 7 bottles of wine and the corkpuller I had packed together (accidentally with the corkpuller). He looked at the bag, at the wine, and at me, then asked if the wine was all French. I replied, in my best "Grey-Poupon" voice, "But of course!". He smiled and shrugged and sent me on my way.
Boston Logan happened to be my point of entry to the US. Upon switching terminals to catch my domestic connection, the security personnel absolutely FREAKED at the corkpuller. They were not impressed by my comparison of the (high) security in Paris to the (shitty) security at Logan (the departure point for the 9/11 hijackers).
At least they let me keep the wine (I would have killed people to hold onto that 1981 Chateau Haut Brion).
That's hilarious.. record peace and prosperity (all while pursuing sound fiscal policy which actually managed to finally net a surplus from the inherited then-record deficit) and you call Clinton's tenure "dark days".
That pretty much means we can safely ignore your opinion (especially about decades of NeoCon rule.. your Reich is already crumbling, friend).
Yeah, that's really funny. I'm old enough to remember what Reagan did when he was Governor of California. Thanks to his closing down many mental institutions, the legion of people living on the streets increased dramatically overnight. How many homeless shelters have you funded to help take care of the problem? How many homeless people have you given a job which pays enough for them to afford basic housing? Care to venture a guess how many working homeless there are? How about the net-minus of a million jobs since 2000?
Oh, and the "War on Drugs" was another bit of hysteria launched by the Republicans which spent many millions of Taxpayer dollars with little or nothing to show for it. Didn't Ashcroft say that the "war on crime" was won in his farewell speech?
Your last statement was ludicrous, but I couldn't let it go lest you think you had made anything close to a valid point.
You actually have an abundantly ignorant viewpoint that discounts the suffering of the Great Depression caused by just such armchair-libertarian thinking. It was that suffering that caused the US Government to realize the shortcomings of your train of thought and work to ensure it never happens again.
"Opt-in" will not receive enough to ensure the solvency of the system. If it did, then the oft-touted "solution" of private charities would already have taken care of the problem.
I see nothing in the constitution that says, take money away from every working person, stick it into an account, spend the interest earned off of it, and try to pay them back when they get older.
Let's start with this one, first paragraph, first sentence: " promote the general Welfare".
If that's not enough for you, let's try: The entirety of Article 1, Section 7.
Going further we find in Section 8: "Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States . . . Clause 18: To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.".
So there are two clear references to the general welfare (of which Social Security was deemed by Congress to be a crucial part beginning in the 1930s), and I haven't even gotten into Articles 2 or 3 or any Amendments.
What were you saying about studying the Constitution before sinking to ad-hominem attacks?
That's funny, so am I. I'm glad that both of us are able to enjoy professions where we are able to afford comfortable livings as well as put aside extra money for our retirement years.
The sad fact is that the vast majority of Americans CAN NOT. I, enjoying my wealth, have no problem making sure that others around me are also well cared-for.
You sound like that type that kicks crutches out from underneath orphans standing on a snowy streetcorner selling apples.
Then I want every last cent which came out of my paychecks for the last four years which went into the approximately $200 Billion which we're spending on Iraq.
Doesn't quite work that way, does it?
Now be a good boy and give Mommy back her AOL account.
I wish you armchair libertarians would get a fucking education before they open their mouths.
Let me be blunt: You pay into this program so you can benefit from it when you retire or reach an age where your earning capacity dimishes by a sizable margin. Because the program was originally set up to assist people *immediately*, the ones deemed to be the immediate beneficiaries recieved the money that the then-earners put in.
As another poster said, this isn't Welfare but rather an insurance program (and a pretty damned good one at that). It is not our fault that your lack of critical thinking skills means you can't understand the negatives of suddenly doing away with this program (think of the Great Depression, which was created by idiot Libertarian ideals such as yours).
Better yet, why don't you go tell your Grandparents what you think of Social Security, and wait for them to team up with your parents to:
A) kick your ass
B) specifically deny you any benefit in their wills.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the orbiters are a waste.. but you have to admit that we can get much more detailed information from actually touching a rock than by photographing it at high altitude.
The best part of the story is it seems that both the rovers will be continuing on for quite some time. Talk about a huge vat of gravy for this mission. It's really nice to see our taxpayer dollars repaid so handsomely.
With the initial "water" find complete, these little critters are free to give us so much more information about Mars than we could have gotten with 50 Viking probes or any manner of orbiting system.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll give you the word "threat". However, let's talk about the level of "threat". Was it severe, dire, imminent (which would have warranted an immediate military strike)? Absolutely not, and the actual reporting that Bush saw (not the heavily-doctored stuff that Rumsfeld's illegal Pentagon espionage office produced) was FAR from concrete in terminology and opinion regarding the existence of WMDs in Iraq past 1995.
The level of threat which existed was that Saddam, left unchecked, would undoubtedly reconstitute his weapons programs and use them to exert his influence throughout the Middle East (thereby lending a destabilizing effect on the region). It was necessary to recognize this threat in order to keep international political and economic sanctions going against Saddam until he submitted to verifiable dismantling of his WMD stocks and programs.
I'll reiterate that only BushCo told us that they knew what, how much, and exactly where all these materials were. It turns out that they were wrong about everything they claimed as a justification for this war.
I find it especially curious now, after having engaged in unilateral invasion and occupation based on intelligence which has been unequivocally proven vague, that the Bush Administration would now soft-peddle an outright admission of having WMDs (in the form of nuclear weapons), while still putting intense pressure on Iran where the level of doubt is much higher.
That said, I'll apologize for the name calling and insults. However, it is very tiring to constantly see people trying to use those out-of-context quotes as though they somehow rose to the level of justifying Bush's illegal and immoral actions in Iraq (and inside the US, for that matter).
And you claim that Osama has the lock on mis-use of religion?
To that I humbly submit the entirety of the Bush Administration and its pandering to the evangelical extreme right-wing.
The terrorists can, for instance, just go fuck themselves if they are fighting for the "freedom" to repress women, which is indeed one of the many things they are fighting for; this is essentially empirical truth. They may be fighting for "freedom" but that is not enough to be noble, or worth rooting for.
However, BushCo is the self-appointed "terrorist fighters" (although it is historically proven that the Clinton Administration did more to fight terrorism than Reagan and both Bush's combined). BushCo is also the self-appointed "warden of God's word" in that they are very actively trying to remove a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body while at the same time trying to stifle sexual education among young people (read: information about birth control methods).
So while you may have a rather thin point about "repressing women", please bear in mind that our current government is also intent on repressing women as well.
Oh fuck you and your worthless out-of-context sound bites. Kindly explain to the audience here exactly which one (or the aggregate) of those sentences said "We should immediately and unilaterally invade and occupy Iraq no matter what the consequences".
In short, you can't. There was always the suspicion that Saddam still possessed a limited amount of WMD material (based on his not having fully divulged information and allowed complete inspections). But NOBODY but Bush and the NeoCon ass-masters ever said we should use our standing as the world's sole superpower to enforce a Pax Americana on the world, starting with Iraq and continuing on to the rest of the Middle East.
You fail it, and all your ignorant ilk fail it too.
You want a fascinating read on Iraq, read Tricky Dick Cheney's own words about it (back in 1991, when he was defending Chimp Senior's decision not to engage in nation-building).
No, somebody did a crude cut-n-paste from the RNC website.
Perhaps you or the parent can tell me exactly where in those quotes was the intent and authorization to unilaterally invade and occupy a sovereign nation?
Bush told us he had proof, incontrovertible proof, of the existence of thousands of tons of various biochem weapons. Moreover, Bush told us he had incontrovertible proof of an alliance with terrorists and the transfer of these biochem weapons to them ("..don't let the smoking gun be a mushroom cloud!").
So far, Bush has turned up bupkis and has relied on instant revisionist history to justify a failing attempt at Imperialism.
Uh.. I think you're forgetting a lezbo scene with Katee Sackhoff and Tricia Helfer... Or just a "space-toy" scene with Tricia Helfer.
Or just 60 minutes of Tricia Helfer doing naked yoga.
Cleaning out the magazine rack the other day I found an old Vickie's catalog that had fallen in featuring Ms. Helfer (I like her better in the newer, straighter, hair style).
Sirtis is/was a slowly-inflating bag of pus with a hairy back. She was hips-n-tits in the first few seasons, but she joined Frakes in the "expanda-belly" club about the middle of the run. It was pathetic seeing her cinched into ever-tighter belts in a vain attempt to control the spread, only to see the skin bubble around the edges.
Some of us old pharts still like to plan to sit around the big-screen, turn up the stereo, pull a cork, and enjoy our 60 minutes of space-borne fantasy escape.
Ah yes, the good ol' days of suffering from Intellithumb...
Netcraft confirms it...
I once asked Gene Simmons about a problem I was having integrating a sound card. He didn't know shit, and then started trying to tell how many women he boned at one time.
Dude, if you spent more than 30 seconds there... well...
D'oh!
That sort of reminds me of the last time I went through Charles de Gaulle in Paris. I was a bit late for the plane, hurrying to get through security. The guard looks at my bag and notices the 7 bottles of wine and the corkpuller I had packed together (accidentally with the corkpuller). He looked at the bag, at the wine, and at me, then asked if the wine was all French. I replied, in my best "Grey-Poupon" voice, "But of course!". He smiled and shrugged and sent me on my way.
Boston Logan happened to be my point of entry to the US. Upon switching terminals to catch my domestic connection, the security personnel absolutely FREAKED at the corkpuller. They were not impressed by my comparison of the (high) security in Paris to the (shitty) security at Logan (the departure point for the 9/11 hijackers).
At least they let me keep the wine (I would have killed people to hold onto that 1981 Chateau Haut Brion).
That's hilarious.. record peace and prosperity (all while pursuing sound fiscal policy which actually managed to finally net a surplus from the inherited then-record deficit) and you call Clinton's tenure "dark days".
That pretty much means we can safely ignore your opinion (especially about decades of NeoCon rule.. your Reich is already crumbling, friend).
Yeah, that's really funny. I'm old enough to remember what Reagan did when he was Governor of California. Thanks to his closing down many mental institutions, the legion of people living on the streets increased dramatically overnight. How many homeless shelters have you funded to help take care of the problem? How many homeless people have you given a job which pays enough for them to afford basic housing? Care to venture a guess how many working homeless there are? How about the net-minus of a million jobs since 2000?
Oh, and the "War on Drugs" was another bit of hysteria launched by the Republicans which spent many millions of Taxpayer dollars with little or nothing to show for it. Didn't Ashcroft say that the "war on crime" was won in his farewell speech?
Your last statement was ludicrous, but I couldn't let it go lest you think you had made anything close to a valid point.
You actually have an abundantly ignorant viewpoint that discounts the suffering of the Great Depression caused by just such armchair-libertarian thinking. It was that suffering that caused the US Government to realize the shortcomings of your train of thought and work to ensure it never happens again.
"Opt-in" will not receive enough to ensure the solvency of the system. If it did, then the oft-touted "solution" of private charities would already have taken care of the problem.
I see nothing in the constitution that says, take money away from every working person, stick it into an account, spend the interest earned off of it, and try to pay them back when they get older.
Let's start with this one, first paragraph, first sentence: " promote the general Welfare".
If that's not enough for you, let's try: The entirety of Article 1, Section 7.
Going further we find in Section 8: "Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States . . . Clause 18: To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.".
So there are two clear references to the general welfare (of which Social Security was deemed by Congress to be a crucial part beginning in the 1930s), and I haven't even gotten into Articles 2 or 3 or any Amendments.
What were you saying about studying the Constitution before sinking to ad-hominem attacks?
That's funny, so am I. I'm glad that both of us are able to enjoy professions where we are able to afford comfortable livings as well as put aside extra money for our retirement years.
The sad fact is that the vast majority of Americans CAN NOT. I, enjoying my wealth, have no problem making sure that others around me are also well cared-for.
You sound like that type that kicks crutches out from underneath orphans standing on a snowy streetcorner selling apples.
Then I want every last cent which came out of my paychecks for the last four years which went into the approximately $200 Billion which we're spending on Iraq.
Doesn't quite work that way, does it?
Now be a good boy and give Mommy back her AOL account.
That's why guillotines were invented.
I wish you armchair libertarians would get a fucking education before they open their mouths.
Let me be blunt: You pay into this program so you can benefit from it when you retire or reach an age where your earning capacity dimishes by a sizable margin. Because the program was originally set up to assist people *immediately*, the ones deemed to be the immediate beneficiaries recieved the money that the then-earners put in.
As another poster said, this isn't Welfare but rather an insurance program (and a pretty damned good one at that). It is not our fault that your lack of critical thinking skills means you can't understand the negatives of suddenly doing away with this program (think of the Great Depression, which was created by idiot Libertarian ideals such as yours).
Better yet, why don't you go tell your Grandparents what you think of Social Security, and wait for them to team up with your parents to:
A) kick your ass
B) specifically deny you any benefit in their wills.
You selfish, ignorant, little prick.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the orbiters are a waste.. but you have to admit that we can get much more detailed information from actually touching a rock than by photographing it at high altitude.
That explains why one arm is much stronger than the other...
The best part of the story is it seems that both the rovers will be continuing on for quite some time. Talk about a huge vat of gravy for this mission. It's really nice to see our taxpayer dollars repaid so handsomely.
With the initial "water" find complete, these little critters are free to give us so much more information about Mars than we could have gotten with 50 Viking probes or any manner of orbiting system.
Funny.. I always figured the inside of my computer would look like a rabid dust-bunny version of "Escape from New York".
Perhaps I should get on the case-mod bandwagon and give my bits a happier, more Neo-Tokyo-esque home...