Bush is unwilling to sign FISA without telecom immunity and has actually pocket-vetoed the same bill before because it lacked that immunity.
And yet Bush and most Republicans cry out that FISA is absolutely vital to protecting our country.
Yeah, that's Bush's basic stick-and-another-stick method of forcing Congressional capitulation.
First, make it a huge patriotism/national security/support our troops issue. Congressional Democrats have to pass the bill, or it will mean that they are unpatriotic/pro-terrorist/anti-troops, and oh noes there's an election cycle coming up!
Second, make the side-issue that Bush wants a requirement in order to avoid his veto. Democrats can't get past the veto, so in order to pass the bill that they must pass in order to not be pro-terrorist, they have to cave on the side-issue.
The sad part is that all they have to do to get around this farcical "This bill is vital to the country! But I'll veto it without this unnecessary addendum..." bullshit is simply stand up to it. All they have to do is say "Yes, this bill IS vital to the country, but we will not pass it with the addendum, and thus your veto is hurting the country!" All it would take is a little spine, and the shoe would be on the other foot. They could end the Iraq war any time they wanted simply by refusing to pass a funding bill that didn't include timetables for withdrawal. Let Bush veto it. No funding, no war, the troops come home, and the majority of Americans are happier.
The even sadder part is that the only thing lower that Bush's approval ratings are those of the newly elected Democrats, so you'd think they'd have realized that we want them to do this and are pissed with them for not doing it. They keep caving in before lame "Eat this turd sandwich or you're not a patriot!" trick, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the people who voted them in don't think that way. Stop eating turd sandwiches! It's disgusting, not patriotic!
Not that I'm in any way convinced that it is a universal lack of spine that's causing this behavior; I'm not sure they really don't like the taste and their reluctance isn't just an act. Cowardice is competing with greed, corruption, lack of scruples, and other common political vices as possible explanations that probably vary from seat to seat.
Thank God for people like Feingold, though, for demonstrating what a principled politician looks like.
Can't we just make it so if their popularity goes below a certain amount that an ejection seat in congress launches them somewhere out over the Atlantic?
Well as soon as that happened, in the very next poll everyone would express disapproval of their representatives, not because they actually disapproved but simply to see the spectacle of a few hundred politicians launched out of the capitol into the ocean.
The next batch of politicians that are elected would, too, find themselves immediately disapproved of and launched into the ocean.
Soon, due to the power vacuum, it would be necessary to hold elections every day, as on the start of the next day they'd all be launched into the ocean. Crowds would form around the Capitol Building and it would be D.C.'s top tourist attraction.
Pretty quickly the Capitol Building would become known as the Politician Suicide Booth, and the country would soon be rid of all politicians crazy enough to actually seek election, and the seats would remain empty.
So yeah, this is pretty much the perfect idea. We can call it the Linzeal Solution if you want.
Yeah, and the deadliest wind farm with all these disadvantages -- not the least of which being the old windmill designs which use scaffolding-like towers which birds find nice for perching and nesting as opposed to the single-pole towers used in new windmills -- kills at most about one raptor per windmill per year.
All Altamont Pass shows is that, like pretty much everything else, wind power can be done badly. And even then, in the deadliest wind farm anywhere, it's far, far better than if you'd stuck a three story office building into the pass instead.
Taller towers, towers that can't be perched or nested on, bigger, slower blades that are easier for birds to see and avoid, and then some cursory studies of bird migrations just to make sure you aren't going to be experiencing unusual amounts of traffic, and bird deaths are essentially trivial.
No, I'm saying those are the areas where I've seen the most overt racism. And what I've seen is 100% without a doubt complete racism.
This isn't the 1960s. I highly doubt there are all that many "exclusionary" neighborhoods in America today. Black family move in down the block? "Cool, new neighbors!" is the most likely response.
That's exactly what I meant by the "incursion", i.e. simply black people moving into a predominantly white neighborhood. Not some already progressive and integrated neighborhood in San Francisco. And not some group of black brigands swooping through either. I'm talking about Small Town White Bread USA when a black family with jobs and everything moves in. And "cool, new neighbors" is frequently NOT the response.
You can highly doubt it all you want. You highly doubt that there are racist whites in the first place. You're simply out of touch. The 60s weren't that long ago; only a fool would believe that nothing is the same.
No, the reason people get pissed off by "incursions" is because, in those scenarios, they are incursions - of domestic abuse, lower sanitation standards, robbery and burglary, and whatever else you can think of as falling under the category of "crime".
Nice. You readily admit that you don't know anyone who is racist -- meaning you either don't know them well enough, or just don't know the 'right' people. And then you speculate that these instances of overt and hateful racism that you know nothing about must have necessarily been the result of all the stereotypical criminal tendencies of blacks. Even though, in most cases I'm talking about, that's anything but the case. No criminal inner city gangs are buying ranch houses in the white suburbs, okay?
Please, just stop. If you don't think there's a significant amount of racism in America, you're simply clueless, and your clueless speculation on the hypothetical causes of something you claim to not believe in just makes me question your original assertion that you are not racist yourself.
Just say "Well I don't know any racists, but I'm a sheltered white man so what do I know?" and move on.
He was also head of State during the time State could have salvaged Iraq but instead he let Bremmer and Rumsfeld completely screw the place up leading to a multi year insurgency. Allowing Bremmer to disband the Iraqi Army and de-Bathification were colossally stupid and practically created the insurgency that got thousands of Americans killed and maimed.
Very true, but at the same time, the State Dept. had been almost entirely shut out of Iraq. It was Rummy's and Bremer's game, and they picked who they listened to. At that point in time, Colin Powell, Secretary of State and former General, had less sway in how the situation was handled than Ahmed Chalabi, Iraqi expatriot and Iranian spy. It was Chalabi who insisted that the army be disbanded and the government de-Bathified. Almost as if he knew that this would eliminate any chance of an orderly transition, and that the resulting chaos would strengthen Iran's influence over Iraq. But see unlike Powell, he told the President exactly what he wanted to hear and wanted to believe.
I'm also frequently flabbergasted that Condolezza Rice is often mentioned as both very popular and a leading VP candidate. Because she has also either been malevolent, incompetent or completely outmaneuvered by Cheney and Rumsfeld and was a disaster both at the NSC and State. She has apparently nearly wrecked the State department and she seems to never deliver tangible positive results on her major initiatives.
I watched a documentary about Iraq during Bremer's governorship. After Powell resigned and Condi became Sec. of State, she found it nearly impossible to discover anything that was going on in Iraq, or to have any influence whatsoever. The only way she was able to figure out what happened -- and in the process figure out that Rummy had no idea what was happening -- was to break the established protocol and send her own contingent of diplomats to Iraq. An act for which Rummy was furious. Being one of Bush's bffs, she could get away with this. I doubt Powell could have.
Not to say either of them didn't fall short, far short. I'm just saying that Powell was fighting a nearly impossible up-hill battle against the neo-cons in the administration.
Why not prosecute the government for illegally getting the information in the first place?
Prosecute the government? Who is going to prosecute the executive branch for violating a federal law? The Justice Dept, that's who, except they're part of the executive branch, and have already said they don't think the President broke any law*. So prosecution is right out.
Instead, someone could sue the government for violating their civil liberties, except since nobody knows whether or not the government actually spied on them, nobody has the standing to bring such a case against the government.
Thus the civil suits against the telecoms. The ultimate purpose of these suits, other than to redress their wrongs**, is to cause information on exactly what they did and who they tapped on behalf of the government to be revealed in discovery. Thus those who were spied on can know that this happened, and then have legal standing to sue the government. I don't the legal reason why the telecoms suits don't have the same standing issue, I just know that the suits against the government were blocked by the courts immediately due to standing, while the suits against the telecoms weren't.
So you see, the telecom suits are merely a stepping stone to reaching the real target, which is the federal government. This is also why telecom immunity is not about protecting the telecoms, but protecting the government itself. By preventing lawsuits, they're preventing the discovery that could reveal the government's hand. That's why telecom immunity is so reprehensible.
* Ludicrous on its face, since from the President's only words his program performed warantless wire tapping against parties in the U.S., which is unambiguously against the law. It's another case of the "It's not illegal because the President doesn't have to obey the laws" reasoning, which will never stand up in court, but the goal is not to have it tried in court.
** I can appreciate feeling pressured by the feds, but seriously, if they can't even be bothered to show a trumped up warrant, how can you justify cooperating with an obviously illegal act? Qwest didn't, and what terrible consequences befell them for daring to stand up to the government?
Well, congratulations on yourself, but how do you know nobody you know is racist? You're white, so they aren't going to be racist against you. And if they know you consider yourself to proudly be non-racist, why would they reveal that to you? Or, maybe, you just don't know the right subset of the population, don't live in the right areas. Is where you live mono-cultural? As in nobody says anything bad about blacks because there aren't any around to bother them? Do you live in a truly integrated neighborhood/city? It seems like it's mostly in the conflict areas, white-dominated areas facing a minority 'incursion', where this happens...
Cus I've certainly met some of them. I've had people openly express their racism to me, under the assumption that I'd be sympathetic as another white man (which I mostly am). I've heard people openly slander blacks in their earshot, even store owners talking trash while black customers are in their store. From Chicago to New York to Texas, I've heard some vile, vile racism.
I can't say this nicely, I assure you I mean nothing personal, but it seems to me the only ones who say there is no anti-black racism in America are simply sheltered from it.
Not that this is ultimately a bad thing... I believe racism is learned, and the more people are simply not exposed to it, and grow up wondering how or why anyone could be racist, the better the next generation will be.
White Americans are, by and large, afraid of even being thought of as racist.
That doesn't mean they aren't. It means they're going to be much less likely to be openly racist unless they're safely among their friends. And even then, not always, but those are the worst cases. Your "average" racist is simply going to leave their mouth shut and wield their racism more subtly.
And given what I've seen and heard, I shudder to think of what would be said and done if there weren't such a huge stigma against it.
We can see the same thing, more obviously, with homophobia. It's starting to get less and less acceptable to be openly anti-gay, at least in the more progressive parts of society, while absolutely not the case in the less-progressive. But has this actually made all these people unwilling to gay-bash into non-homophobes, or has it just made them reluctant to express their discomfort and disgust? Isn't that the inherent joke of "not that there's anything wrong with that", a superficial statement of tolerance that immediately follows a vehement rejection of the very concept?
Let's add in some geriatric criminals that conspired with Nixon while we are at it if we really want to mess things up.
Ouch. Even better because it actually happened. T_T
Powell was right at the centre of some dubious actions that have given us a new generation of war profiteers getting public money without oversight, and furthurmore embarrassed the USA in front of the UN by presenting what was even then obvious lies as truth.
Well, on the scale of Americans in general, he was at the center, but on the scale of White House politics, I think it's pretty clear that he was at the periphery. Some of the worst decisions of the Bush administration are ones that Powell had been largely shut out of because of his opposition to those decisions.
When Condoleezza Rice took over the State Dept. after Powell's resignation, she found that State had been walled off from the rest of the administration. In order to find out anything or have any impact on what was happening in Iraq, she had to clandestinely circumvent both Donald Rumsfeld's and Paul Bremer's organizations and send her own unauthorized diplomats to Iraq. And this was Rice, one of Bush's trusted inner cabal (which is also the only reason she could get away with this).
How much more would Powell have been cut out of the loop of the inner workings of the Bush Admin and their desire to start a war which Powell was against? Why would they have shown him all the faults with the intelligence, knowing his opposition to the war and tendency to not be a yes-man (the whole reason he was so isolated) when they could instead just say "We're know you're against this, Powell, but here's our slam-dunk case that Saddam is an immediate threat and we just want you to present these facts to the U.N. as is your job."
I can't prove it. It's just given the obvious exclusion of Powell from the inner circle, Richard Clarke's consistent statements that Powell had argued against the war, the secrecy and readiness of the admins to withhold information, and even Powell's willing admission that regardless the U.N. speech is a permanent blot on his record, that he was in fact a victim of circumstances.
He did choose those circumstances, and stay in them far longer than one would think, for sure, and I think it's fair to hold that against him. War criminal complicit in the conspiracy? I just don't think so.
Powell claims that he didn't know at the time all the caveats and questions and known faults surrounding the intelligence. In other words, that he was as much a recipient of white-washed intel as the U.N. council who received his speech. And of all the officials who were involved, his story is the most plausible by far. Already the Bush Cabal had started blocking him out of their decisions due to his tendency to disagree with them. As Rice later found out, the State Dept. had been fire walled away from Defense and the intelligence agencies. Any caveats that survived to reach the admin would have reached Powell only on the inner circles' say so. And the result is perfectly typical of the administration: Send the one guy who isn't "loyal" enough to agree with everything out to make the phony case and ultimately be the fall-guy for it.
I don't know for sure. It is possible that Colin Powell was a knowing and willing conspirator in the effort to push a war he had been against from the first ('the first' being when Rumsfeld suggested invading Iraq on 9/12/2001, if you believe Richard Clarke). If that's the case, may he burn in hell. On the balance of evidence, though, I simply find it implausible. I think he was a dupe and a patsy, and ultimately this is why he resigned, and called the U.N. speech a 'permanent blot on his record'.
The honorable thing to do in that situation would have been to resign immediately. Either he did what he was told by his boss, against his conscience, or he lied consciously, or he was duped. Neither looks good on his resume.
If I had to speculate on his motives, I think he was still trying to have a positive impact from within the administration. He could resign for the sake of honor, but then he'd be powerless. On the other hand, once it became completely clear that he was powerless in the Bush administration, he did resign, and then called his unfortunate speech to the U.N. what it was: A sham, and a permanent blot on his own personal record.
That blot is why I don't think he is suitable for an elected office, however I still think he could be a valuable public servant, in particular in an administration that values him beyond his ability to say "yes sir", and with the lessons learned from the U.N. speech debacle.
Well the fact is that he told his bosses the truth, and they didn't want to hear it. They told him to go speak a pack of lies, and he did. You can feel free to hold that against him, following orders is no excuse and all that. That doesn't change the fact that in the employ of an administration that wanted to listen to his honest opinions, he would be a tremendous asset.
Powell strikes me as a vastly better civil servant than politician. But if Obama wins, he should definitely ask Powell to be Sec Def or Sec State. Hell, same with McCain for that matter. He was a good Sec. of State in an administration that didn't give two shits about him or his opinions, imagine what he could do if the President actually tried to make use of his experience and expertise.
You may benefit from a patent license if you are distributing implementations of these protocols commercially or if you use an implementation of any of the protocols covered by Microsoft patents. For more information, contact the Microsoft Open Protocols Team.
Ah, well, at least now I know that "Open" in this context means "Open Your Wallet".
There's something odd to me about someone who would use a Dvorak keyboard layout, the benefits of which only exist if you are a touch-typist, and someone who needs to have the key caps printed with the Dvorak layout.
I use a normal keyboard (Model M of course), and it is made Dvorak through key mapping. And since when the computer boots, it's in qwerty not dvorak, I actually need the qwerty keymaps more than I would ever need the dvorak ones!
I have no problem with anyone who wants to sift through endless embryos until you find one that has the markers for mutant super-powers. After all, that's helping usher in the next stage of human evolution. Once you've discovered that, though, I don't think it's right to continue selecting based on the nature of those powers. Just let super-nature take its course. You should be proud just to have an X-Man running around your house, even if it is a crappy one like Dazzler.
It's kind of gamey... like spotted owl and bald eagle....:-D
I knew it! None of the animals on that list are really endangered, it's just another Nanny State program designed to prevent us from eating animals that aren't tasty!
IE5, of course. Why? Because that's what was installed on the machine when we bought it.
Then install Firefox for him. It's what I did for my father. He was complaining his computer was slow, and was worried about spyware and such. So much so he had already figured out how to get and install Adaware and found tons of the stuff on his system. When I visited next Firefox and Thunderbird were installed. I talked to him a couple months later about how the switch was working for him, and he said the only thing that bothered him at all was that his old "Favorites" was now called "Bookmarks", which when he thought about it he said made more since as they weren't necessarily his "Favorite" sites. Also, no more spyware.
Well, the image sensor itself would have to have millions and millions of pixels, just like our eyes have millions and millions of receptors. However what you're saying implies is that it may be possible to have a connector to the optic nerve capable of saturating its bandwidth, and then you could plug in "eyes" of various resolution with the data time multiplexed.
No, it's not difficult at all to say that I would not be completely comfortable with a partial eye replacement, and that it would be a difficult decision to commit to any particular type of implant.
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Bush is unwilling to sign FISA without telecom immunity and has actually pocket-vetoed the same bill before because it lacked that immunity.
And yet Bush and most Republicans cry out that FISA is absolutely vital to protecting our country.
Yeah, that's Bush's basic stick-and-another-stick method of forcing Congressional capitulation.
First, make it a huge patriotism/national security/support our troops issue. Congressional Democrats have to pass the bill, or it will mean that they are unpatriotic/pro-terrorist/anti-troops, and oh noes there's an election cycle coming up!
Second, make the side-issue that Bush wants a requirement in order to avoid his veto. Democrats can't get past the veto, so in order to pass the bill that they must pass in order to not be pro-terrorist, they have to cave on the side-issue.
The sad part is that all they have to do to get around this farcical "This bill is vital to the country! But I'll veto it without this unnecessary addendum..." bullshit is simply stand up to it. All they have to do is say "Yes, this bill IS vital to the country, but we will not pass it with the addendum, and thus your veto is hurting the country!" All it would take is a little spine, and the shoe would be on the other foot. They could end the Iraq war any time they wanted simply by refusing to pass a funding bill that didn't include timetables for withdrawal. Let Bush veto it. No funding, no war, the troops come home, and the majority of Americans are happier.
The even sadder part is that the only thing lower that Bush's approval ratings are those of the newly elected Democrats, so you'd think they'd have realized that we want them to do this and are pissed with them for not doing it. They keep caving in before lame "Eat this turd sandwich or you're not a patriot!" trick, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the people who voted them in don't think that way. Stop eating turd sandwiches! It's disgusting, not patriotic!
Not that I'm in any way convinced that it is a universal lack of spine that's causing this behavior; I'm not sure they really don't like the taste and their reluctance isn't just an act. Cowardice is competing with greed, corruption, lack of scruples, and other common political vices as possible explanations that probably vary from seat to seat.
Thank God for people like Feingold, though, for demonstrating what a principled politician looks like.
Can't we just make it so if their popularity goes below a certain amount that an ejection seat in congress launches them somewhere out over the Atlantic?
Well as soon as that happened, in the very next poll everyone would express disapproval of their representatives, not because they actually disapproved but simply to see the spectacle of a few hundred politicians launched out of the capitol into the ocean.
The next batch of politicians that are elected would, too, find themselves immediately disapproved of and launched into the ocean.
Soon, due to the power vacuum, it would be necessary to hold elections every day, as on the start of the next day they'd all be launched into the ocean. Crowds would form around the Capitol Building and it would be D.C.'s top tourist attraction.
Pretty quickly the Capitol Building would become known as the Politician Suicide Booth, and the country would soon be rid of all politicians crazy enough to actually seek election, and the seats would remain empty.
So yeah, this is pretty much the perfect idea. We can call it the Linzeal Solution if you want.
I would so play in the "Counter Strike / Kick Boxing" league...
Me either, because I just can't wait to be called a "roundhouse whore", and get accused of "camping" the center of the ring.
because in chess, you can think on the opponent time
Aw hell, why didn't anyone tell me this before?
Yeah, and the deadliest wind farm with all these disadvantages -- not the least of which being the old windmill designs which use scaffolding-like towers which birds find nice for perching and nesting as opposed to the single-pole towers used in new windmills -- kills at most about one raptor per windmill per year.
All Altamont Pass shows is that, like pretty much everything else, wind power can be done badly. And even then, in the deadliest wind farm anywhere, it's far, far better than if you'd stuck a three story office building into the pass instead.
Taller towers, towers that can't be perched or nested on, bigger, slower blades that are easier for birds to see and avoid, and then some cursory studies of bird migrations just to make sure you aren't going to be experiencing unusual amounts of traffic, and bird deaths are essentially trivial.
The last time I tapped an Ethernet cable, my buddy was throwing 9-track tapes at the dinosaurs to keep them away!
Look, you take an IT job at Jurassic Park, you gotta expect things like that. Chaos theory and all that.
And you think that's "racism"?
No, I'm saying those are the areas where I've seen the most overt racism. And what I've seen is 100% without a doubt complete racism.
This isn't the 1960s. I highly doubt there are all that many "exclusionary" neighborhoods in America today. Black family move in down the block? "Cool, new neighbors!" is the most likely response.
That's exactly what I meant by the "incursion", i.e. simply black people moving into a predominantly white neighborhood. Not some already progressive and integrated neighborhood in San Francisco. And not some group of black brigands swooping through either. I'm talking about Small Town White Bread USA when a black family with jobs and everything moves in. And "cool, new neighbors" is frequently NOT the response.
You can highly doubt it all you want. You highly doubt that there are racist whites in the first place. You're simply out of touch. The 60s weren't that long ago; only a fool would believe that nothing is the same.
No, the reason people get pissed off by "incursions" is because, in those scenarios, they are incursions - of domestic abuse, lower sanitation standards, robbery and burglary, and whatever else you can think of as falling under the category of "crime".
Nice. You readily admit that you don't know anyone who is racist -- meaning you either don't know them well enough, or just don't know the 'right' people. And then you speculate that these instances of overt and hateful racism that you know nothing about must have necessarily been the result of all the stereotypical criminal tendencies of blacks. Even though, in most cases I'm talking about, that's anything but the case. No criminal inner city gangs are buying ranch houses in the white suburbs, okay?
Please, just stop. If you don't think there's a significant amount of racism in America, you're simply clueless, and your clueless speculation on the hypothetical causes of something you claim to not believe in just makes me question your original assertion that you are not racist yourself.
Just say "Well I don't know any racists, but I'm a sheltered white man so what do I know?" and move on.
He was also head of State during the time State could have salvaged Iraq but instead he let Bremmer and Rumsfeld completely screw the place up leading to a multi year insurgency. Allowing Bremmer to disband the Iraqi Army and de-Bathification were colossally stupid and practically created the insurgency that got thousands of Americans killed and maimed.
Very true, but at the same time, the State Dept. had been almost entirely shut out of Iraq. It was Rummy's and Bremer's game, and they picked who they listened to. At that point in time, Colin Powell, Secretary of State and former General, had less sway in how the situation was handled than Ahmed Chalabi, Iraqi expatriot and Iranian spy. It was Chalabi who insisted that the army be disbanded and the government de-Bathified. Almost as if he knew that this would eliminate any chance of an orderly transition, and that the resulting chaos would strengthen Iran's influence over Iraq. But see unlike Powell, he told the President exactly what he wanted to hear and wanted to believe.
I'm also frequently flabbergasted that Condolezza Rice is often mentioned as both very popular and a leading VP candidate. Because she has also either been malevolent, incompetent or completely outmaneuvered by Cheney and Rumsfeld and was a disaster both at the NSC and State. She has apparently nearly wrecked the State department and she seems to never deliver tangible positive results on her major initiatives.
I watched a documentary about Iraq during Bremer's governorship. After Powell resigned and Condi became Sec. of State, she found it nearly impossible to discover anything that was going on in Iraq, or to have any influence whatsoever. The only way she was able to figure out what happened -- and in the process figure out that Rummy had no idea what was happening -- was to break the established protocol and send her own contingent of diplomats to Iraq. An act for which Rummy was furious. Being one of Bush's bffs, she could get away with this. I doubt Powell could have.
Not to say either of them didn't fall short, far short. I'm just saying that Powell was fighting a nearly impossible up-hill battle against the neo-cons in the administration.
Why not prosecute the government for illegally getting the information in the first place?
Prosecute the government? Who is going to prosecute the executive branch for violating a federal law? The Justice Dept, that's who, except they're part of the executive branch, and have already said they don't think the President broke any law*. So prosecution is right out.
Instead, someone could sue the government for violating their civil liberties, except since nobody knows whether or not the government actually spied on them, nobody has the standing to bring such a case against the government.
Thus the civil suits against the telecoms. The ultimate purpose of these suits, other than to redress their wrongs**, is to cause information on exactly what they did and who they tapped on behalf of the government to be revealed in discovery. Thus those who were spied on can know that this happened, and then have legal standing to sue the government. I don't the legal reason why the telecoms suits don't have the same standing issue, I just know that the suits against the government were blocked by the courts immediately due to standing, while the suits against the telecoms weren't.
So you see, the telecom suits are merely a stepping stone to reaching the real target, which is the federal government. This is also why telecom immunity is not about protecting the telecoms, but protecting the government itself. By preventing lawsuits, they're preventing the discovery that could reveal the government's hand. That's why telecom immunity is so reprehensible.
* Ludicrous on its face, since from the President's only words his program performed warantless wire tapping against parties in the U.S., which is unambiguously against the law. It's another case of the "It's not illegal because the President doesn't have to obey the laws" reasoning, which will never stand up in court, but the goal is not to have it tried in court.
** I can appreciate feeling pressured by the feds, but seriously, if they can't even be bothered to show a trumped up warrant, how can you justify cooperating with an obviously illegal act? Qwest didn't, and what terrible consequences befell them for daring to stand up to the government?
But I, nor any white man I know, is racist.
Well, congratulations on yourself, but how do you know nobody you know is racist? You're white, so they aren't going to be racist against you. And if they know you consider yourself to proudly be non-racist, why would they reveal that to you? Or, maybe, you just don't know the right subset of the population, don't live in the right areas. Is where you live mono-cultural? As in nobody says anything bad about blacks because there aren't any around to bother them? Do you live in a truly integrated neighborhood/city? It seems like it's mostly in the conflict areas, white-dominated areas facing a minority 'incursion', where this happens...
Cus I've certainly met some of them. I've had people openly express their racism to me, under the assumption that I'd be sympathetic as another white man (which I mostly am). I've heard people openly slander blacks in their earshot, even store owners talking trash while black customers are in their store. From Chicago to New York to Texas, I've heard some vile, vile racism.
I can't say this nicely, I assure you I mean nothing personal, but it seems to me the only ones who say there is no anti-black racism in America are simply sheltered from it.
Not that this is ultimately a bad thing... I believe racism is learned, and the more people are simply not exposed to it, and grow up wondering how or why anyone could be racist, the better the next generation will be.
White Americans are, by and large, afraid of even being thought of as racist.
That doesn't mean they aren't. It means they're going to be much less likely to be openly racist unless they're safely among their friends. And even then, not always, but those are the worst cases. Your "average" racist is simply going to leave their mouth shut and wield their racism more subtly.
And given what I've seen and heard, I shudder to think of what would be said and done if there weren't such a huge stigma against it.
We can see the same thing, more obviously, with homophobia. It's starting to get less and less acceptable to be openly anti-gay, at least in the more progressive parts of society, while absolutely not the case in the less-progressive. But has this actually made all these people unwilling to gay-bash into non-homophobes, or has it just made them reluctant to express their discomfort and disgust? Isn't that the inherent joke of "not that there's anything wrong with that", a superficial statement of tolerance that immediately follows a vehement rejection of the very concept?
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Let's add in some geriatric criminals that conspired with Nixon while we are at it if we really want to mess things up.
Ouch. Even better because it actually happened. T_T
Powell was right at the centre of some dubious actions that have given us a new generation of war profiteers getting public money without oversight, and furthurmore embarrassed the USA in front of the UN by presenting what was even then obvious lies as truth.
Well, on the scale of Americans in general, he was at the center, but on the scale of White House politics, I think it's pretty clear that he was at the periphery. Some of the worst decisions of the Bush administration are ones that Powell had been largely shut out of because of his opposition to those decisions.
When Condoleezza Rice took over the State Dept. after Powell's resignation, she found that State had been walled off from the rest of the administration. In order to find out anything or have any impact on what was happening in Iraq, she had to clandestinely circumvent both Donald Rumsfeld's and Paul Bremer's organizations and send her own unauthorized diplomats to Iraq. And this was Rice, one of Bush's trusted inner cabal (which is also the only reason she could get away with this).
How much more would Powell have been cut out of the loop of the inner workings of the Bush Admin and their desire to start a war which Powell was against? Why would they have shown him all the faults with the intelligence, knowing his opposition to the war and tendency to not be a yes-man (the whole reason he was so isolated) when they could instead just say "We're know you're against this, Powell, but here's our slam-dunk case that Saddam is an immediate threat and we just want you to present these facts to the U.N. as is your job."
I can't prove it. It's just given the obvious exclusion of Powell from the inner circle, Richard Clarke's consistent statements that Powell had argued against the war, the secrecy and readiness of the admins to withhold information, and even Powell's willing admission that regardless the U.N. speech is a permanent blot on his record, that he was in fact a victim of circumstances.
He did choose those circumstances, and stay in them far longer than one would think, for sure, and I think it's fair to hold that against him. War criminal complicit in the conspiracy? I just don't think so.
Powell claims that he didn't know at the time all the caveats and questions and known faults surrounding the intelligence. In other words, that he was as much a recipient of white-washed intel as the U.N. council who received his speech. And of all the officials who were involved, his story is the most plausible by far. Already the Bush Cabal had started blocking him out of their decisions due to his tendency to disagree with them. As Rice later found out, the State Dept. had been fire walled away from Defense and the intelligence agencies. Any caveats that survived to reach the admin would have reached Powell only on the inner circles' say so. And the result is perfectly typical of the administration: Send the one guy who isn't "loyal" enough to agree with everything out to make the phony case and ultimately be the fall-guy for it.
I don't know for sure. It is possible that Colin Powell was a knowing and willing conspirator in the effort to push a war he had been against from the first ('the first' being when Rumsfeld suggested invading Iraq on 9/12/2001, if you believe Richard Clarke). If that's the case, may he burn in hell. On the balance of evidence, though, I simply find it implausible. I think he was a dupe and a patsy, and ultimately this is why he resigned, and called the U.N. speech a 'permanent blot on his record'.
The honorable thing to do in that situation would have been to resign immediately. Either he did what he was told by his boss, against his conscience, or he lied consciously, or he was duped. Neither looks good on his resume.
If I had to speculate on his motives, I think he was still trying to have a positive impact from within the administration. He could resign for the sake of honor, but then he'd be powerless. On the other hand, once it became completely clear that he was powerless in the Bush administration, he did resign, and then called his unfortunate speech to the U.N. what it was: A sham, and a permanent blot on his own personal record.
That blot is why I don't think he is suitable for an elected office, however I still think he could be a valuable public servant, in particular in an administration that values him beyond his ability to say "yes sir", and with the lessons learned from the U.N. speech debacle.
Well the fact is that he told his bosses the truth, and they didn't want to hear it. They told him to go speak a pack of lies, and he did. You can feel free to hold that against him, following orders is no excuse and all that. That doesn't change the fact that in the employ of an administration that wanted to listen to his honest opinions, he would be a tremendous asset.
Powell strikes me as a vastly better civil servant than politician. But if Obama wins, he should definitely ask Powell to be Sec Def or Sec State. Hell, same with McCain for that matter. He was a good Sec. of State in an administration that didn't give two shits about him or his opinions, imagine what he could do if the President actually tried to make use of his experience and expertise.
You may benefit from a patent license if you are distributing implementations of these protocols commercially or if you use an implementation of any of the protocols covered by Microsoft patents. For more information, contact the Microsoft Open Protocols Team.
Ah, well, at least now I know that "Open" in this context means "Open Your Wallet".
There's something odd to me about someone who would use a Dvorak keyboard layout, the benefits of which only exist if you are a touch-typist, and someone who needs to have the key caps printed with the Dvorak layout.
I use a normal keyboard (Model M of course), and it is made Dvorak through key mapping. And since when the computer boots, it's in qwerty not dvorak, I actually need the qwerty keymaps more than I would ever need the dvorak ones!
it'll happen when the paperless bathroom does.
Don't you know how to use the Three Sea Shells? *snicker*
And lose the chance to finally keep those fuzzy bastards away from the bird feeder?
I have no problem with anyone who wants to sift through endless embryos until you find one that has the markers for mutant super-powers. After all, that's helping usher in the next stage of human evolution. Once you've discovered that, though, I don't think it's right to continue selecting based on the nature of those powers. Just let super-nature take its course. You should be proud just to have an X-Man running around your house, even if it is a crappy one like Dazzler.
It's kind of gamey... like spotted owl and bald eagle.... :-D
I knew it! None of the animals on that list are really endangered, it's just another Nanny State program designed to prevent us from eating animals that aren't tasty!
IE5, of course. Why? Because that's what was installed on the machine when we bought it.
Then install Firefox for him. It's what I did for my father. He was complaining his computer was slow, and was worried about spyware and such. So much so he had already figured out how to get and install Adaware and found tons of the stuff on his system. When I visited next Firefox and Thunderbird were installed. I talked to him a couple months later about how the switch was working for him, and he said the only thing that bothered him at all was that his old "Favorites" was now called "Bookmarks", which when he thought about it he said made more since as they weren't necessarily his "Favorite" sites. Also, no more spyware.
Do eeeeet.
Well, the image sensor itself would have to have millions and millions of pixels, just like our eyes have millions and millions of receptors. However what you're saying implies is that it may be possible to have a connector to the optic nerve capable of saturating its bandwidth, and then you could plug in "eyes" of various resolution with the data time multiplexed.
No, it's not difficult at all to say that I would not be completely comfortable with a partial eye replacement, and that it would be a difficult decision to commit to any particular type of implant.