Since so many don't give a shit about his New York mob connections in the past why would they care about his funding from Russian banks run by mobsters now?
If somebody had written a novel about this election a few years ago the editor would have thrown it at a wall and told the author never to darken the door again. A million unlikely things before breakfast. At least he's ditched the PR guy who also did the work for Russian fighters in Ukraine - hard to get a positive spin on shooting down civilian airliners.
I also think that Bush didn't even know the intelligence was wrong (more accurately: Bush was not told that he was being lied to and didn't bother to try to find out by other means)
That's some mighty huge wishful thinking there Tex.
I think that Cheney was the architect of the entire thing
As more information comes to light every day it's looking less and less that Bush was some poor sap dragged around by a guy in a position that typically has very little power but that Bush did what he did for his own reasons and needs to take responsibility for his own actions. Cheney certainly said a lot, but without the President on their side a VP can't do much at all. The axis of evil and invading Iraq looks like it was 100% Bush with little or no reference to reality. Bush said Saddam was evil and Bush told those close to him that George W. Bush was God's agent on Earth and had to deal with him. Deluded or using it as an excuse to delude other doesn't really matter - the result was the same when you take the line that anything is allowed when fighting pure evil - torture, invading the wrong country, anything.
He knew. He even went to far as to order others to "find intelligence", which of all things a PR firm provided, to give him an excuse for what he had already decided to do.
Sorry to burst the bubble but it was all very clear at the time and required shitloads of PR and lies to try to make it less clear. Saddam was broke and had killed off the weapons programs and in some cases literally killed off the people running them. The intelligence agencies knew this. Some people quit their intelligence jobs and said so.
Why didn't they produce evidence that Iraq did not have WMDs
Many did. One from Australia quit his intelligence job (preparing reports on Iraq) and ran for the Senate with the argument that Iraq did not have WMDs and the war was based on a lie. He was not just some Snowden but had served for twenty years reached the rank of lieutenant colonel and had also worked for Raytheon. He was in the Australian Senate for a few years and is in now Member of the Australian Parliament for Denison and his name is Andrew Wilkie.
Or else, why did UK, run by a Left wing government run by Tony Blair, back that?
There was an inquiry in the UK into that which published it's findings just a few months ago. It appears that the only reason was to support what Bush was doing whether it was based on truth or not.
Not just wrong but it turned out a PR company was paid a LOT to "fix it up". It was a downright Soviet way to massage information and something to make us all hang our heads in shame.
He was political roadkill the second he fell on his sword for Bush with the obvious WMD lies to the U.N. It's a pity really since he's a better person than most in Washington from both parties, but as it stands his endorsement or not will mean exactly zero for the rest of his life.
I think Dark City from the same time was a far better take on it. Aliens putting people though a lot of simulations so they could get an idea of how those strange human beings thought. That actually made sense instead of looking like a weak excuse, such as the battery thing, or your better idea of processors.
Some years everyone was making an asteroid movie, that year it was artificial reality movies.
The universe being a simultation thing is really just a thought experiment to find things that wouldn't be possible to simulate. They don't actually believe that stuff. It's just a way to look at reality from the "outside" and see if anything new stands out.
When philosophers and physicists do this it's a fun way of pointing out interesting edge cases or stuff that we need better understanding of. In this case it just sounds like these bankers are taking those thought experiments far too seriously and not seeing them for what they are.
It's like assuming that a smooth massless elephant is real instead of just a way to model a great big hairy and heavy thing.
Around that time I met a spammer who used that trick and wanted someone to set up a dozen modems for them. Since he said a few things that indicated he was unlikely to pay (at all) I didn't even have to think about the morality of working for a spammer. There was some shit about seeing how good I was for a few months and then cash in hand after that time. Later I heard he skipped town owing three months rent on his office. So much for government assisted "job matching".
That's the thing that is very obviously not being done with these automated DMCA takedown spam methods so I'm a bit curious as to why none of these perpetrators have ended up in court.
When you are considering millions of people the differences appear to matter.
I'll go with the experts on this one. Consider a situation where a receptionist is insisting she knows how to do your job better than you do despite never attempting to do it. That's the sort of relativism we see in this place. One idiot even linked to some acupuncture certificate trained paleo freak and suggested that such a person was more of an expert than a professor of endocrinology at one of the world's best universities.
The point is that those that did what Snowden is being accused of here (spreading the information to foreigners) are NOT in trouble with the law. Make of that what you will but keep in mind that Snowden DID NOT give it to "other nations and the terrorists".
He told American secrets to Americans. Is that supposed to be treason? If it is then things are seriously fucked up.
Different jobs - a hell of a lot of people used to work as telephone operators but as the world changed there were different jobs to do so there was not mass unemployment due to automated exchanges. The "robots" have been there taking tens of thousands of jobs for decades but it didn't really matter in terms of the unemployment rate.
Fucking Paleo freak versus a Professor of Endocrinology at the University of California San Francisco? I know who is full of shit here. The Paleo freak who can't move his bowels due to a lack of fibre.
AC I suggest you get away from such confidence tricksters before they empty your wallet and leave you with fucking insane health habits, and please stop posting evidence that you have been tricked by those evil pig fuckers here.
BUT, he and so many of his followers, seem to ignore the fact that he told other nations and the terrorists exactly HOW we spy on them
No. He told some AMERICAN journalists. For some reason they are still at large and not taking 2 between the eyes when they are the ones that told other nations and the terrorists exactly HOW we spy on them. Maybe they don't deserve 2 between the eyes. Maybe Snowden who told them and not the other nations and the terrorists doesn't deserve it either.
You've been played by a bunch of toy soldiers in suits who wanted to keep their fuckups secret from their country and their bosses. Snowden's crime was against his managers and not against his country.
Treason being acts against the King despite it being in the interests in the country is something that was supposed to be thrown out centuries ago. Snowden acted for the country against a bunch of employees of the country that were up to unconstitutional acts - country before King.
there's very little (unclassified) evidence that he actually tried to pursue any legal alternatives
However a LOT has come out about several people who tried to blow the whistle within the system in the NSA and ended up in deep shit with absolutely nothing done about the problems they tired to expose. If he wanted anyone outside the NSA to get the news, including the people who are supposed to be running it, there does not appear to have been a way he could do it without breaking the law.
Snowden was an analyst (entry level at that), which I would imagine is a profession that doesn't pay as well in the civilian world.
Snowden WAS in the civilian world working for an expensive external contractor to the NSA. That outsourcing is part of the entire problem (apart from the NSA toy soldiers who are most definitely civilian themselves in what should be a military job with rules of engagement etc) and if Snowden wasn't paid incredibly well we can at least be sure that his boss was.
Hell, he got a Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing
That's a commonly done thing by that bunch. Arafat and Begin got theirs not for what they had done but in the hope that they would sort out a lasting peace and deserve it.
Slashdot Mirror
Since so many don't give a shit about his New York mob connections in the past why would they care about his funding from Russian banks run by mobsters now?
If somebody had written a novel about this election a few years ago the editor would have thrown it at a wall and told the author never to darken the door again. A million unlikely things before breakfast. At least he's ditched the PR guy who also did the work for Russian fighters in Ukraine - hard to get a positive spin on shooting down civilian airliners.
That's some mighty huge wishful thinking there Tex.
As more information comes to light every day it's looking less and less that Bush was some poor sap dragged around by a guy in a position that typically has very little power but that Bush did what he did for his own reasons and needs to take responsibility for his own actions. Cheney certainly said a lot, but without the President on their side a VP can't do much at all.
The axis of evil and invading Iraq looks like it was 100% Bush with little or no reference to reality. Bush said Saddam was evil and Bush told those close to him that George W. Bush was God's agent on Earth and had to deal with him. Deluded or using it as an excuse to delude other doesn't really matter - the result was the same when you take the line that anything is allowed when fighting pure evil - torture, invading the wrong country, anything.
He knew.
He even went to far as to order others to "find intelligence", which of all things a PR firm provided, to give him an excuse for what he had already decided to do.
Sorry to burst the bubble but it was all very clear at the time and required shitloads of PR and lies to try to make it less clear.
Saddam was broke and had killed off the weapons programs and in some cases literally killed off the people running them.
The intelligence agencies knew this. Some people quit their intelligence jobs and said so.
Many did.
One from Australia quit his intelligence job (preparing reports on Iraq) and ran for the Senate with the argument that Iraq did not have WMDs and the war was based on a lie. He was not just some Snowden but had served for twenty years reached the rank of lieutenant colonel and had also worked for Raytheon.
He was in the Australian Senate for a few years and is in now Member of the Australian Parliament for Denison and his name is Andrew Wilkie.
There was an inquiry in the UK into that which published it's findings just a few months ago. It appears that the only reason was to support what Bush was doing whether it was based on truth or not.
Not just wrong but it turned out a PR company was paid a LOT to "fix it up".
It was a downright Soviet way to massage information and something to make us all hang our heads in shame.
He was political roadkill the second he fell on his sword for Bush with the obvious WMD lies to the U.N.
It's a pity really since he's a better person than most in Washington from both parties, but as it stands his endorsement or not will mean exactly zero for the rest of his life.
I think Dark City from the same time was a far better take on it.
Aliens putting people though a lot of simulations so they could get an idea of how those strange human beings thought.
That actually made sense instead of looking like a weak excuse, such as the battery thing, or your better idea of processors.
Some years everyone was making an asteroid movie, that year it was artificial reality movies.
The universe being a simultation thing is really just a thought experiment to find things that wouldn't be possible to simulate. They don't actually believe that stuff.
It's just a way to look at reality from the "outside" and see if anything new stands out.
File it with not actually killing cats in boxes.
When philosophers and physicists do this it's a fun way of pointing out interesting edge cases or stuff that we need better understanding of.
In this case it just sounds like these bankers are taking those thought experiments far too seriously and not seeing them for what they are.
It's like assuming that a smooth massless elephant is real instead of just a way to model a great big hairy and heavy thing.
Around that time I met a spammer who used that trick and wanted someone to set up a dozen modems for them.
Since he said a few things that indicated he was unlikely to pay (at all) I didn't even have to think about the morality of working for a spammer. There was some shit about seeing how good I was for a few months and then cash in hand after that time. Later I heard he skipped town owing three months rent on his office.
So much for government assisted "job matching".
Because he relies on deliberate lies to make a living.
Why bother trying to find some truth in what he says after that?
Should I ask for Uri Geller's opinion as well? Erik von Danikin? Who?
That's the thing that is very obviously not being done with these automated DMCA takedown spam methods so I'm a bit curious as to why none of these perpetrators have ended up in court.
When you are considering millions of people the differences appear to matter.
I'll go with the experts on this one.
Consider a situation where a receptionist is insisting she knows how to do your job better than you do despite never attempting to do it. That's the sort of relativism we see in this place. One idiot even linked to some acupuncture certificate trained paleo freak and suggested that such a person was more of an expert than a professor of endocrinology at one of the world's best universities.
The point is that those that did what Snowden is being accused of here (spreading the information to foreigners) are NOT in trouble with the law.
Make of that what you will but keep in mind that Snowden DID NOT give it to "other nations and the terrorists".
He told American secrets to Americans.
Is that supposed to be treason? If it is then things are seriously fucked up.
Different jobs - a hell of a lot of people used to work as telephone operators but as the world changed there were different jobs to do so there was not mass unemployment due to automated exchanges.
The "robots" have been there taking tens of thousands of jobs for decades but it didn't really matter in terms of the unemployment rate.
Thanks, I'll have to remember that the next time someone inflicts the silly quote on me.
Fucking Paleo freak versus a Professor of Endocrinology at the University of California San Francisco?
I know who is full of shit here. The Paleo freak who can't move his bowels due to a lack of fibre.
AC I suggest you get away from such confidence tricksters before they empty your wallet and leave you with fucking insane health habits, and please stop posting evidence that you have been tricked by those evil pig fuckers here.
Bzzt - wrong. He released a huge dump that has been trickled out over time by journalists.
No.
He told some AMERICAN journalists.
For some reason they are still at large and not taking 2 between the eyes when they are the ones that told other nations and the terrorists exactly HOW we spy on them.
Maybe they don't deserve 2 between the eyes.
Maybe Snowden who told them and not the other nations and the terrorists doesn't deserve it either.
You've been played by a bunch of toy soldiers in suits who wanted to keep their fuckups secret from their country and their bosses. Snowden's crime was against his managers and not against his country.
Treason being acts against the King despite it being in the interests in the country is something that was supposed to be thrown out centuries ago. Snowden acted for the country against a bunch of employees of the country that were up to unconstitutional acts - country before King.
Yes, the nice cuddly casino boss that cares.
America has turned into reality fucking TV.
However a LOT has come out about several people who tried to blow the whistle within the system in the NSA and ended up in deep shit with absolutely nothing done about the problems they tired to expose.
If he wanted anyone outside the NSA to get the news, including the people who are supposed to be running it, there does not appear to have been a way he could do it without breaking the law.
Snowden WAS in the civilian world working for an expensive external contractor to the NSA. That outsourcing is part of the entire problem (apart from the NSA toy soldiers who are most definitely civilian themselves in what should be a military job with rules of engagement etc) and if Snowden wasn't paid incredibly well we can at least be sure that his boss was.
Treason? He leaked to AMERICAN journalists and nobody is calling them treasonous for spreading the news to the world.
That's a commonly done thing by that bunch.
Arafat and Begin got theirs not for what they had done but in the hope that they would sort out a lasting peace and deserve it.