Actually, the 500 shells contained quite deadly Sarin gas, despite David Kay's insistence that they were less dangerous that what "under his kitchen sink". I saw his testimony before the Senate Science Committee, and he looked and acted like a partisan hack -- And was laughed at and mocked for his insistence that liquid drano is more dangerous than 12 year old sarin warheads. He even refused to achnowledge that Sarin Gas is a WMD, which is exactly what he said it was on a Frontline interview that aired just a few days before the CIA report was released. This was partisan dishonesty at its finest.
"It doesn't make it right, but there was no credible link between Saddam and *Al Qaeda.*" You mean "Aside from the Captured documents detailing thier relationship with Al Queada". Just avoid all of the evidence, and boom it there is no relationship. But then again, we didn't go to war with Iraq becuase it had a relationship with Al Queada. We went to war with Iraq because it was run by a man crazy and stupid enough to help them out.
"Also, it is not the Iraqis will to hang Saddam. The trial was pre-rigged and you know it. I'm not saying what he did was right, but if you're going to accuse a man of crimes against humanity, do it in the Hague where he at least has a fair trial." Let me guess like OJ, he didn't do it RIGHT? It was someone else who terrorized his people for decades. Even though he was the absolute dictator of Iraq, he was jsut an innocent helpless bystandard? RIGHT? Look sometimes someone who is so guilty is just guility. There is no amount of impartiality can overcome it. Besides the Crime was commited in Iraq, and the victims were by and large iraqi's. I can't see how the Hauge has more jurisdiction over Saddam then the duly elected Government of Iraq.
"The fatality rate is something along the lines of thousands a month for both US and Iraqis. Not to mention the number of attacks are being scrubbed before they go out to press. Because of this, in the 3 years we've been in Iraq, we've caused more deaths than Saddam has combined." By this time in the Civil War we lost 500,000 soldiers, not including civilians. By this time in WW2 we had lost 200,000 soldiers. We have lost about 2,000 soldiers so far in this war due to combat. (the rest were a mix of accidents and suicides). If we bring in Civilian figures, by this time in WW2, 26 million were lost, and that was a much larger percentage of the population since we have more than doubled our size in 70 years. As the total number kiled in this war, the worst estimate I have ever seen is 200,000, though that figure is generally considered egregiously wrong, and even it falls short of the Million minimun figure for Saddam, and I say minimum, because the iraqi government beleives its more like 8 million form its sampling of the iraqi secret police's death squad logs. But onto your figures, you are still more like to die in Detriot than in a random place in Iraq, as the overall mortality rate is far lower across the country that it is there.
No it only proves liberals make up stuff as they go along. FACTS- WMD's -Over 500 WMD Chemical Warheads have been uncovered. More are found every week. -The rivers in Iraq have the highest concentration of Sarin and other WMD chemcials from extensive dumping than any other major metropolitan area in the world -Saddam's Own Air Force Commander confirmed that prior to the war, they started shipping thier WMD's to Syria for safe keeping -Saddam's Own General's beleived that they had WMD's, and would be issued them -- AS THEY HAD BEEN BEFORE IN RECENT PRIOR CONFLICTS (though you expect Bush to have a better knowledge of Saddam's capibilities than Saddam's own military) -Saddam held on to all his Nuclear Weapon's research despite the Ceasefire accord, and incidently were published on the web and uncovered despite his obligation to destroy it. -Under the Cease Fire Accords of 91, Saddam had to PROVE he destroyed all his WMD. He never produced evidence that he did destroy the weapons he claimed he had. Therefore you would have us beleive that he destroyed them in secret for some reason unbwknownst to any rational person -Saddam used Chemical weapons to murder innocent people, HIS OWN PEOPLE CONNECTIONS TO TERRORISM -Saddam openly supported terrorist organizations -He paid Palestinian mothers to strap bombs onto thier own children to blow up Isreali civilians, and even started a PR campaign to advertize it. -Saddam setup terrorist training camps -Saddam created the equivilient of a "Department of Terrorism" to fund, train, and use terrorists to acheive his sick goals. -Iraqi Government documents obtained after the invasion and published on the web, uncovered an extensive relationship with Iraq going over 5 years pror to the invasion CREDIBLE THREAT -Saddam is crazy -Saddam controlled a Big Country -Saddam invaded other countries to rape them of ther fortunes -Saddam Gassed his OWN people -Saddam is responsible for over a million deaths -Saddam tried to assianate a former President of the United States -If Saddam died, his even crazier kids would have been worse
IN CLOSING -Despite Lberals insisting that the iraqi's were far better off under Saddam, there has been no "Draft Saddam" movement in Iraq. Instead they have decided to hang him -The Iraq war was one of the most successful in the history of warfare. -The fatality rate caused by the insurgency and intercine fighting, is so low that you are still far more likely to die in any major metropolitan city such as Detriot, Chicago, Washington DC, New Orleans than actually being a soldier in iraq! Myabe we should withdraw from Detriot! As a matter of fact, the fatality rate from combat is so low that the overall mortality rate in teh military is virtually indistinguishable from peace time.
So much for liberals living in a "Fact based community"
Not true at all. Egypt has come under a great deal of pressure from the Bush Administration, the first Administration that has actually done something about promoting democracy in Egypt. Perhaps you don't read enough about such things since there is so much going on these days, but Egypt is much more democratic now, than say 6 years ago, even though it is still flawed. At least the mass kidnappings and forced conversions have stopped by and large.
There is nothing the WTO can do. The US has an inherent right to demand whatever information we want from anyone who desires to come to our country whether you like it or not. I don't care if its intrusive or degrading. I don't care if they deem it necessary for you to prance in your underware to Richard Simmon's "Sweating to the Oldies". It is OUR country, not yours, and you have no God given right to enter it - So get over it or go somewhere else. It is Highly arrogent of you f'ng Europeans demanding our Country change because you don't like it. We have a right to live the way we want to. Our elected government which may be inept or incompetent at times is doing the best it can to protect us, and if they demand this information then its not your position to say that they can't have it or don't need it. You can't argue facts, there have been no terrorist attacks in America for the past 5 years, so they must be doing something right, and rightly deserves the credit.
Science tells us how the world works, NOT how we should live our lives or the choices we should make. Science helps us make decisions that afdfect the Values and objectives we have when we make choices.
Take the "morning after pill", and I hear you say,
"sicence tells us the morning after pill is both safe and effective in 99% of cases",
and I say "You are full of crap, Science tells us that the morning After Pill is nearly 100% leathal",
You reply, "How can that be, All those women in those studies certainly didn't die!!"
To my final point, "But All those babies did"
In truth What science tells us is both contradictory (aas outlined above depending on your frame of refernece) and devoid of meaning upon which we use our perspectives, values and experiences to fil in the rest.
Weather and Climate are two very different things. No one close to responsible is claiming they can predict the weather 20 years out, that's a straw man. Sure they do, Its what the Kyoto Protocol was all about. If they weren't saying that could predict to some degree climate change, they wouldn't have the impetus to propose radical reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. As matter of fact this debate would not be occuring at all if one side was not predicting catestrophic climate change ranging from drowing cities to desertification to a new ice age.
I can't predict accurately when any given person will die. I can stlll show that various diseases have various mortality rates, or make money if I own an insurance company, or state that the population explosion is a fact.
while that is true, its a bit of comparing apples to oranges. A more accurate comparison would be claiming to be able to predict the mortality rate of any illness, dieseases, etc in the future, or more comparibly human overall human mortality say in 20 years over the entire globe. We all know that would be absurd because humans die in greately differing numbers every year from a wide variety of reasons, such as war, famine, plauge, etc.
Its alos interesting that you bring in Insurance and Actularial science in on this. recentely there has been a great deal of blows to long term perdicitons, even mid term predictions that insurance companies have been making. Its becoming increasingly apparent that predicting the future is a much harder science than previously thought, even when when we think we have a firm grasp on a subject; which is not the case with climate studies.
the problem is, is that the weather, or the enviroment is highly complex system of which we don't fully understand or even know what we need to know ot model it properly. there is no way you can predict the weather 20 years out when we only have a 40% chance of getting it right 3 days out. To say that we can have some sort of definitive answer anytime within our lifetime is absurd, there are too many variables we haven't even begun to account for.
Regardless of how much merit the Pirate Pary may have about copyrights, I think that making a party just about abolisihing the copyright may have been a strategic mistake. as a voter, I would never vote for a party that basically just did away with copyrights, because of all the things the government does that affects my life, copyrights are only a small part of it. I am more concerned about taxes, jobs the crime rate. If I felt all this was being taken care of, then I might vote for a "pirate party", but as clearly demonstrated in the election, most sweeds have a bigger problem with the socialists than the copyright laws.
The only known, and time tested way to fight carbon emissions is by stopping consumption. (well that our switching to nuclear power) And since our population gets getting bigger and bigger, that means that every year we would keep getting poorer and poorer.
I'm not required to do anything for you. I'm not about to give a free education to someone who so clearly doesn't actually want the information. If you wanted it, you'd seek it out.
You know, all you are doing is admitting you don't know what you are talking about. If you knew what you are talking about, and this was indeed a proven theory and not some crackpot kooky religion, you would have been able to easily provide evidence instead of referring to some mythical (non exsistent) studies showing how each point I riased was consireded and dismissed. In fact it is you who are diliberately ignorant and are in dire need of an education. You would do yourself a great service if you started your education by learning about the scientific method (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method) and seeing how it applies to relgious theories like the greenhouse effect and ID. Of course because you object to free education just paypal me $50 for this education.
You place it on me to give you all the information you want,
First of all, you are the one with a positive proposition, hence you are the one required to substantiate your argument. I know, science is hard because it requires evidence, something you don't have -- So you decide to attack with religous arguments and demand others who don't buy into your religion of the Greenhouse Effect being the root cause of temprature change to accept your "god given" commandments not to release CO2 into the air.
Actually as far as the flow of information has gone in this argument, it has gone from me to you.
Now I would like to point out an equally valid (perhaps even more valid) non-sun based global warming based theory. It is called The Flying Spaghetti Monster theory http://www.venganza.org/
I would like to point out that this theory has more serious standing scientificially because it can show a correlation between Piracy and Global Warming as well as a cost effective solution such as encouraging Pircay as an occupation to High School dropouts as a way to fight both Global Warming and getting the kids to move out of the house.
when the greenhouse gas proponents show at least that level of critical thinking and analysis, I'll start giving what they are saying some creedence.
blah blah blah, global warming needs to be taken on faith so we can destory our economy without regards to our standard of living.
I know science is to hard for you religous types, but just try a little harder to grasp science requires those maeking propositions to prove thier points and not accept thier assertions on blind faith. If everything you saying were true, you would have been able to:
-Point to a working climate model or
-the revolutionairy new theory which lets us predict the output of the sun 20 years out into the future or
-explain how we are able to to detect how human activity is responsible for climate change when we are well within historical climate norms with the past 200 million years, while discounting all other possibilities and arriving at this one. and
- show direct correlations between global temprature and.001 variances in carbon dioxide levels.
Now that would be undeniable science if you could do that. right now there is nothing to debate because there is no tangilbe scienctific evidence to support these claims.
It isn't unknown. How do you think they correlated global temperature changes with solar output? Sheesh.
they have been able to correlate temperature change to the output of the sun in the past but they have never been able to predict output , and thats the point. If you do not know what the output of the Sun will be in the future, how can you possibly predict the heat retained after the fact by your greenhouse effect?! You can't!! There is no way in hell you can make ascertion about a future tempertaure that is largely driven by an unkown variable. And even when we have known the variable by it being in the past as a matter of record, these "greenhouse gas" models have yet to come up with a correct answer for these largely trivial differences in CO2 amounts. Under what logic would we base economically disaterous policies on something they is in all likelyhood out of our control. Its like complaining about how much sneezing is contributing to a hurricane. Is this too complicated for your retarded brain to grasp?
When "crapping out" means disaster for the human race, most sane people would place their bets rather differently.
maybe its just me, but I sure as hell don't place my livilihood on the line on a inkling that something bad may happen in the future, and I sure don;t think we should destroy our economy on this inkling. Quite frankly, I think warmer tempratures would be great for human race overall, far from being a disaster.
Let me guess: you assumed a linear relationship and no feedback. That's some rigorous science you got there.
I am sure you have a detailed statisical model backed up with rigorious sampling and testing at various atmospheric densities, CO2 concentrations as well as heat disapation tracks.... oh no wait, you can't even subtract properly. granted further studies would be needed. but the again the changes in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are negliable.
Well to know that you would have to actually read up on the research that has been done on historic global temperature change (not some global-warming-denier's blog's summary of the research), but that would be like education and you might read something that goes against your pre-conceived notions. Continue wallowing in ignorance, you'll be happier that way.
No the problems with "global warming" are obvious. its not they have a smoking gun, or even a gun at all. They have a hunch, and no working model.
trust me on this, if I thought that by leaving SUV's on all day would make the winters in the northeast more bareable, I would be all for it. I would find every spray can of CO2 and help the cause. I am not denying it because I don't want it to happen, I just haven't seen anything that would lead me to beleive that evern if it were happening, that we are the cause of it. All I see is normal variances in global temprature.
But anyways, thanking for conceeding on this other critical point as well, because without a workign model of solar output or an ability to show tempratures worlwide are out of normal temprature ranges you can't prove anything.
but this doesn't stop Globabl warming advocates. that's why global warming is just as bad as ID, you can't ever prove it wrong, because it predicts everything.
considering the substance of your reply, I will consider this as a concession that the greenhouse effect" is indeed junk science.
In your replay you failed to demonstrate:
-How by your own admission make predictions and models with a third of the input in your equations being unknown (the engry received from the sun)
-Demonstrate why anyone should accept a theory that has no known working model with an acceptable error margin and high confidence. I do, and I think most sane people would agree with me, that you should have at least better odds at making a prediction with your hypothesis than randomly placing your money down at a craps table
-It's amazing how you missed that there was over a 500 degree celcius difference between the differnet sides of the planet venus when it was listed right there in front of you on the summary bar. Anyways if you do the math, if earth were venus, we would need something like 426x more CO2 to get 1 degree more heat (if of course venus were just like earth in every respect), not this peddly.0001 percent increase that enviro whacky scienctists are complaining about.
-How your predictions take into accout the natural flux in global temprature, instead of irrationally assuming that any current trend up or down in globabl temprature is part of some man made catastrophe.
clearly the greenhouse effect hypothesis is right up there with ID in scienctific merit.
Microsoft Management techniques.... does that mean its perfectly acceptable to hand in projects 6 years late (vista) with meeting none of the requirements and makeing no sense (Standards) and in the end just doing a poor copy of someone eles's work? (OS X)
Actually, studies of just this have indicated that changes in the sun's output account for about 30% of the changes in global temperature. That's significant to be sure, but still leaves 60% to be accounted for from other sources.
I would say that if someone tried to tell me that a study said 60% + 30% = 100%, I would say they were pulling numbers out of their ass. Now if you are going to also tell me that "heat radiated" and "heat retained" are in fact direct functions of the out put of the sun, I would also say you were full of it. Not to be brutual, but let's face it, what other sources of heat are we talking about? Are you going to tell me that if the sun disappeared tomorrow that the earth would be at least 60% as warm as it is today when in fact during winter where I live in NYC the tempature fluctuates by 100 degrees in a normal year just by chainging the angle the sun's radiation hits my city? Even if we accepted your absurd assumption that the sun is only responsible for 30% of our temptures, how in the world would you ever be able to accuraretly model the influence of "greenhouse gasses" without an effective model that could predict the output of the sun? The simple answer is that you can't and this is junk science at best and easily dismissed.
I find that those advocating the "Greenhouse Gas Theory" overlook basic science. The first rule about when some half assed hypothesis becomes a theory or even accepeted is when you make predictions with 95% confidence within an acceptable range of error ussually somewhere around 5%. Sure they make predictions with 95% confidence, but their error margin is ussually around 10 - 20x the predicted change. Helll these "atmospheric scienctists" have yet to make thier models work backwards let alonee forwards wheras the results are already known. Given such creedence to such an unproven and tested and failed theory is abominable. Thirdly, because of all the gaps in predictions and leaveing admitted (at least) 30% unpredictable radiant effect of the sun, you would have to be able to prove that the earth's tempature was going to be outside the normal range of tempature of the planet, which has been historically both warmer and cooler by 10's of degrees.
Finnally lets put the final nail in this "theory" by making a simple comparison to venus, which is currently composed of 97% carbon dioxide, at an amospheric density 90x of our own but despite its atmosphere almost entirely compossed of greenhouse gases, its tempature varies from 775 Kelvins to 228 Kelvins. You wouldd think that if Venus's Greenhouse effect would be as pronouced if the applied the same math they applied to earth which only has an atmospheric concentration of CO2 of 0.038% and that even the coolest part of Venus would sweltering by earth's standards, but its actually freezing during the Venian nights. Of course you could object by saying venian nights are 246 days longer, but you would forget that it also has 213000x as much Carbon Dioxide. Thus you can discount heat retention as the other "60%" on earth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus
I personally have had enough of this "theory" and want to see it stripped from our schools until it has some serious science to back it up instead of all this hogwash about it causing everything from "desertification" to a new ice age.
Look, very few people are saying that Humans cannot contribute or produce very minor fluctuations in global tempature. Sure we can, just fire off all our nukes at once and you'll see our temprature change. the big point is, is that after all that is said and done, the 1 and only major contributor to the average global temprature is the amount of energry radiated by the sun, by about 99.999999%. Any minor change in its output level greatly affects output. Hell even changing the angle at which we are exposed to the sun turns the northeast into a hot box during the summer and freezer in the winter. This carbon dioxide "greenhouse" theory is a just a bunch of scare mongering to fundraise for greenpeace and the rest of those kooky green corps.
Talk about rediculous objections and orders of magnitude and look at your post. You state as a matter of fact that all of sudden people would start all acorss the country attacking people for whom they voted for including murder and extorition. Yah I have heard of the cutting room floor, but what does that have to do with a live stream? Kinda hard to cut a live event. kinda of hard to extort all the witnesses to an open event. In the end your screed holds no water.
So in the end why should people have to suffer a government they did not elect and may not be able to unelect becuase the ones in power count all the votes? It's like Stalin said, "it is not who you vote for, it's who counts the votes". that is several orders of magnitude worse.
You didn't say explicitly that you wanted him to suffer for his political views, but he did outline a clear and likely situation resutling from your suggestion where that is exactly what would happen.
thats like me saying "becuase you don't support open voting, you want the election stolen". Sure anything can happen, but I didn't advocate him suffering anymore than he advocates stealing election. the point of the post is to point out that the problem with coming up with a secure and verifiable vote tally is because in our current system is it is structually impossible to do so becuase the only method that can produce such a tally is DIRECT OBSERVATION and that is prohibitied.
Yes, there are problems with a closed voting system, but those problems are smaller, and more easily protected against than those of an open voting system. The problem lies in the fact that Diebold apparently isn't interested in taking the fairly easy steps nessisary to deal with those problems.
That is a matter of opinion, and as for the voting machines, the problem isn't diebold or thier methods, it is the inherent nature of secret balloting itself which makes it prone to corruption. If we were to bring up texas in 1960 or florida in 2000 or Ohio in 2004 or Detriot in any election, we could make a pretty good argument on the merits of open voting vs secret balloting. But you discount it because in certain instances it may link personal responsibility to the way one votes.
That is true, but beleive it or not, it still happens today. Governor Corizine of NJ was alledged to have sent out campaign workers on election day for his first senatorial bid with packets of $75 to hand out to anyone on the street who would vote his way in heavily democratic districts. while its not implausable that any individual voted differently, it was more likely a prodding to do what they would have done if they cared enough to vote in the first place. Others it would be a matter of honor to vote the way they agreed to in exchange for the money
Another scenerio where this occurred during the 2000 election where Hillary Clinton amnanged to sell the freedom of an Orthordox Jew to his congregation in exchange for thier votes. It was verified through vote counts and durign the wee morning hours of Clinton's last day in office the crook was freed via presidential pardon. No one was ever brought up on charges, even though it was obvious what had happened.
The problem with the scenerio you came up with is that, it already happens and for all intents and purposes its too expensive to bribe enough people to make it happen. the only practical way to bribe people these days is with official acts of government, and that is not illegal. you know "vote for me and will give you a new 'drug benefit'" or "a new highway" and the list goes on and on.
Like I said before, this is an overstated problem
"Do you want me to suffer for my political views?"
I am trying to see where I said I want you to suffer for your political views Perhaps you could point out to the place where I said that. Needless to say besides your sophistry, I was simply pointing out you are always going to have these kinds of problems in a closed balloting system but one where you go before a comittee and verify your vote while the tapes are rolling can be simply verified by anyone, we could even stream it over the internet
Again, not to advocate open voting, but to simply point out the problems you stated aren't really all that bac. You can get another job with someone who doesn't care who you vote for, as oppossed to working for some bastard you don't like. And if your friends or family know who you voted for, and you can't look them in the face afterwards and defend your position, maybe just maybe you voted the wrong way.
I would also like to point out, this was how democracy used to be. Every citizen stood up in a crowded hall or outside depending on where you were, and your name was called from a roster and you stated vote in front of everyone. It used to be a day for celebration and parting as the various poltical parties would bring out tons of alchool and food.
So the question really What bothers you more, an Unelected Government who stole power from the people, or everyone knowing who you voted for?
You know the problem of voter fraud/rigging machines could be greatly simplified if we just did away with the ballot being secret. If we had an open process where you had to announce your vote before and review by a bipartisan comittee who could then tally and report the vote in an official count. Then all these probelms would be resolved. If again, you are willing to make voting a matter of public record.
thats not really an issue. Isreal cannot repeat the 1981 strike against iran. It has no long range bombers. They would have to:
-fly through syrian or jordanian airspace undetected (because they will tip off iran)
- then convince the US government to resupply them for the strike
- somehow slip through Iran's state of the art missile netowrk (su300m's) and mig 27 flankers
- as well as any point defenses around the 50 or so scattered sites
-slip back through iran's defenses yet again
- have the us government resupply them yet again
-get through syrian airspace again
In case you didn't notice, this is a suicide mission, which no conventional force in the planet could do (though the US could do it with its most advanced stealth fighter the f22 and the b2 bomber)
that leaves isreal with 2 options
convetional weapons strike by using its 3 dolphin class submarines
-not enough missiles to do the job, and not enough range to ddo it
And the really only choice isreal has
Nuclear Strike with its unkown class of Ballisttic Missiles. It should have enough of these to do it, but it is a nuclear strike.
So to sum it up, the only nation that can really do anything is the United States, and that means war with iran, cause you know the iranians aren't going to take this lieing down, especially with a hilterite on the throne off iran
i think you will find, actually, that there are accepted codes, both national and international, as to how one may justly engage an enemy of the state. it is not a no-man's land of "might makes right." ironically, it is in fact this idea of, you know, "rule of law" which separates "us" from "them." careful you don't ally yourself too readily with "their" kind of methods and rationales.
Accepted international codes. "justly engaging". interesting concept. What does Justice have to with War? War is by its very nature unjust and horrible. But alright lets see about your complaints
You contend that Survailence of our enemy is somehow "illegal". Its not. Congress proscribes the laws of wars in how they should be conducted (as defined in the US Constitution), and they have not made monitoring or analyzing phone calls to detect enemy activity illegal. In fact non-uniformed agents of a foriegn power or terrorist group are customarily subject to summary execution - unless you are contending that George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, and many other War time US Presidents were "uncivilized" and like the terrorists.
Furthermore Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and FDR used far more pervasive wiretapping and call intercepts, and none of their programs were questioned. Is it your contention that they were "criminals" as well?
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the 500 shells contained quite deadly Sarin gas, despite David Kay's insistence that they were less dangerous that what "under his kitchen sink". I saw his testimony before the Senate Science Committee, and he looked and acted like a partisan hack -- And was laughed at and mocked for his insistence that liquid drano is more dangerous than 12 year old sarin warheads. He even refused to achnowledge that Sarin Gas is a WMD, which is exactly what he said it was on a Frontline interview that aired just a few days before the CIA report was released. This was partisan dishonesty at its finest.
"It doesn't make it right, but there was no credible link between Saddam and *Al Qaeda.*"
You mean "Aside from the Captured documents detailing thier relationship with Al Queada". Just avoid all of the evidence, and boom it there is no relationship. But then again, we didn't go to war with Iraq becuase it had a relationship with Al Queada. We went to war with Iraq because it was run by a man crazy and stupid enough to help them out.
"Also, it is not the Iraqis will to hang Saddam. The trial was pre-rigged and you know it. I'm not saying what he did was right, but if you're going to accuse a man of crimes against humanity, do it in the Hague where he at least has a fair trial."
Let me guess like OJ, he didn't do it RIGHT? It was someone else who terrorized his people for decades. Even though he was the absolute dictator of Iraq, he was jsut an innocent helpless bystandard? RIGHT? Look sometimes someone who is so guilty is just guility. There is no amount of impartiality can overcome it. Besides the Crime was commited in Iraq, and the victims were by and large iraqi's. I can't see how the Hauge has more jurisdiction over Saddam then the duly elected Government of Iraq.
"The fatality rate is something along the lines of thousands a month for both US and Iraqis. Not to mention the number of attacks are being scrubbed before they go out to press. Because of this, in the 3 years we've been in Iraq, we've caused more deaths than Saddam has combined."
By this time in the Civil War we lost 500,000 soldiers, not including civilians. By this time in WW2 we had lost 200,000 soldiers. We have lost about 2,000 soldiers so far in this war due to combat. (the rest were a mix of accidents and suicides). If we bring in Civilian figures, by this time in WW2, 26 million were lost, and that was a much larger percentage of the population since we have more than doubled our size in 70 years. As the total number kiled in this war, the worst estimate I have ever seen is 200,000, though that figure is generally considered egregiously wrong, and even it falls short of the Million minimun figure for Saddam, and I say minimum, because the iraqi government beleives its more like 8 million form its sampling of the iraqi secret police's death squad logs. But onto your figures, you are still more like to die in Detriot than in a random place in Iraq, as the overall mortality rate is far lower across the country that it is there.
No it only proves liberals make up stuff as they go along.
FACTS-
WMD's
-Over 500 WMD Chemical Warheads have been uncovered. More are found every week.
-The rivers in Iraq have the highest concentration of Sarin and other WMD chemcials from extensive dumping than any other major metropolitan area in the world
-Saddam's Own Air Force Commander confirmed that prior to the war, they started shipping thier WMD's to Syria for safe keeping
-Saddam's Own General's beleived that they had WMD's, and would be issued them -- AS THEY HAD BEEN BEFORE IN RECENT PRIOR CONFLICTS (though you expect Bush to have a better knowledge of Saddam's capibilities than Saddam's own military)
-Saddam held on to all his Nuclear Weapon's research despite the Ceasefire accord, and incidently were published on the web and uncovered despite his obligation to destroy it.
-Under the Cease Fire Accords of 91, Saddam had to PROVE he destroyed all his WMD. He never produced evidence that he did destroy the weapons he claimed he had. Therefore you would have us beleive that he destroyed them in secret for some reason unbwknownst to any rational person
-Saddam used Chemical weapons to murder innocent people, HIS OWN PEOPLE
CONNECTIONS TO TERRORISM
-Saddam openly supported terrorist organizations
-He paid Palestinian mothers to strap bombs onto thier own children to blow up Isreali civilians, and even started a PR campaign to advertize it.
-Saddam setup terrorist training camps
-Saddam created the equivilient of a "Department of Terrorism" to fund, train, and use terrorists to acheive his sick goals.
-Iraqi Government documents obtained after the invasion and published on the web, uncovered an extensive relationship with Iraq going over 5 years pror to the invasion
CREDIBLE THREAT
-Saddam is crazy
-Saddam controlled a Big Country
-Saddam invaded other countries to rape them of ther fortunes
-Saddam Gassed his OWN people
-Saddam is responsible for over a million deaths
-Saddam tried to assianate a former President of the United States
-If Saddam died, his even crazier kids would have been worse
IN CLOSING
-Despite Lberals insisting that the iraqi's were far better off under Saddam, there has been no "Draft Saddam" movement in Iraq. Instead they have decided to hang him
-The Iraq war was one of the most successful in the history of warfare.
-The fatality rate caused by the insurgency and intercine fighting, is so low that you are still far more likely to die in any major metropolitan city such as Detriot, Chicago, Washington DC, New Orleans than actually being a soldier in iraq! Myabe we should withdraw from Detriot! As a matter of fact, the fatality rate from combat is so low that the overall mortality rate in teh military is virtually indistinguishable from peace time.
So much for liberals living in a "Fact based community"
Not true at all. Egypt has come under a great deal of pressure from the Bush Administration, the first Administration that has actually done something about promoting democracy in Egypt. Perhaps you don't read enough about such things since there is so much going on these days, but Egypt is much more democratic now, than say 6 years ago, even though it is still flawed. At least the mass kidnappings and forced conversions have stopped by and large.
There is nothing the WTO can do. The US has an inherent right to demand whatever information we want from anyone who desires to come to our country whether you like it or not. I don't care if its intrusive or degrading. I don't care if they deem it necessary for you to prance in your underware to Richard Simmon's "Sweating to the Oldies". It is OUR country, not yours, and you have no God given right to enter it - So get over it or go somewhere else. It is Highly arrogent of you f'ng Europeans demanding our Country change because you don't like it. We have a right to live the way we want to. Our elected government which may be inept or incompetent at times is doing the best it can to protect us, and if they demand this information then its not your position to say that they can't have it or don't need it. You can't argue facts, there have been no terrorist attacks in America for the past 5 years, so they must be doing something right, and rightly deserves the credit.
Science tells us how the world works, NOT how we should live our lives or the choices we should make. Science helps us make decisions that afdfect the Values and objectives we have when we make choices.
Take the "morning after pill", and I hear you say,
"sicence tells us the morning after pill is both safe and effective in 99% of cases",
and I say "You are full of crap, Science tells us that the morning After Pill is nearly 100% leathal",
You reply, "How can that be, All those women in those studies certainly didn't die!!"
To my final point, "But All those babies did"
In truth What science tells us is both contradictory (aas outlined above depending on your frame of refernece) and devoid of meaning upon which we use our perspectives, values and experiences to fil in the rest.
Of course we used that equipment for its intended purpose, Avoiding War. Who the hell wants 2 super powers duking it out with nukes?
Weather and Climate are two very different things. No one close to responsible is claiming they can predict the weather 20 years out, that's a straw man.
Sure they do, Its what the Kyoto Protocol was all about. If they weren't saying that could predict to some degree climate change, they wouldn't have the impetus to propose radical reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. As matter of fact this debate would not be occuring at all if one side was not predicting catestrophic climate change ranging from drowing cities to desertification to a new ice age.
I can't predict accurately when any given person will die. I can stlll show that various diseases have various mortality rates, or make money if I own an insurance company, or state that the population explosion is a fact.
while that is true, its a bit of comparing apples to oranges. A more accurate comparison would be claiming to be able to predict the mortality rate of any illness, dieseases, etc in the future, or more comparibly human overall human mortality say in 20 years over the entire globe. We all know that would be absurd because humans die in greately differing numbers every year from a wide variety of reasons, such as war, famine, plauge, etc.
Its alos interesting that you bring in Insurance and Actularial science in on this. recentely there has been a great deal of blows to long term perdicitons, even mid term predictions that insurance companies have been making. Its becoming increasingly apparent that predicting the future is a much harder science than previously thought, even when when we think we have a firm grasp on a subject; which is not the case with climate studies.
the problem is, is that the weather, or the enviroment is highly complex system of which we don't fully understand or even know what we need to know ot model it properly. there is no way you can predict the weather 20 years out when we only have a 40% chance of getting it right 3 days out. To say that we can have some sort of definitive answer anytime within our lifetime is absurd, there are too many variables we haven't even begun to account for.
Regardless of how much merit the Pirate Pary may have about copyrights, I think that making a party just about abolisihing the copyright may have been a strategic mistake. as a voter, I would never vote for a party that basically just did away with copyrights, because of all the things the government does that affects my life, copyrights are only a small part of it. I am more concerned about taxes, jobs the crime rate. If I felt all this was being taken care of, then I might vote for a "pirate party", but as clearly demonstrated in the election, most sweeds have a bigger problem with the socialists than the copyright laws.
The only known, and time tested way to fight carbon emissions is by stopping consumption. (well that our switching to nuclear power) And since our population gets getting bigger and bigger, that means that every year we would keep getting poorer and poorer.
I'm not required to do anything for you. I'm not about to give a free education to someone who so clearly doesn't actually want the information. If you wanted it, you'd seek it out.
You know, all you are doing is admitting you don't know what you are talking about. If you knew what you are talking about, and this was indeed a proven theory and not some crackpot kooky religion, you would have been able to easily provide evidence instead of referring to some mythical (non exsistent) studies showing how each point I riased was consireded and dismissed. In fact it is you who are diliberately ignorant and are in dire need of an education. You would do yourself a great service if you started your education by learning about the scientific method (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method) and seeing how it applies to relgious theories like the greenhouse effect and ID. Of course because you object to free education just paypal me $50 for this education.
You place it on me to give you all the information you want,
First of all, you are the one with a positive proposition, hence you are the one required to substantiate your argument. I know, science is hard because it requires evidence, something you don't have -- So you decide to attack with religous arguments and demand others who don't buy into your religion of the Greenhouse Effect being the root cause of temprature change to accept your "god given" commandments not to release CO2 into the air.
Actually as far as the flow of information has gone in this argument, it has gone from me to you.
Now I would like to point out an equally valid (perhaps even more valid) non-sun based global warming based theory. It is called The Flying Spaghetti Monster theory
http://www.venganza.org/
I would like to point out that this theory has more serious standing scientificially because it can show a correlation between Piracy and Global Warming as well as a cost effective solution such as encouraging Pircay as an occupation to High School dropouts as a way to fight both Global Warming and getting the kids to move out of the house.
when the greenhouse gas proponents show at least that level of critical thinking and analysis, I'll start giving what they are saying some creedence.
blah blah blah, global warming needs to be taken on faith so we can destory our economy without regards to our standard of living.
: .001 variances in carbon dioxide levels.
I know science is to hard for you religous types, but just try a little harder to grasp science requires those maeking propositions to prove thier points and not accept thier assertions on blind faith. If everything you saying were true, you would have been able to
-Point to a working climate model or
-the revolutionairy new theory which lets us predict the output of the sun 20 years out into the future or
-explain how we are able to to detect how human activity is responsible for climate change when we are well within historical climate norms with the past 200 million years, while discounting all other possibilities and arriving at this one. and
- show direct correlations between global temprature and
Now that would be undeniable science if you could do that. right now there is nothing to debate because there is no tangilbe scienctific evidence to support these claims.
It isn't unknown. How do you think they correlated global temperature changes with solar output? Sheesh.
they have been able to correlate temperature change to the output of the sun in the past but they have never been able to predict output , and thats the point. If you do not know what the output of the Sun will be in the future, how can you possibly predict the heat retained after the fact by your greenhouse effect?! You can't!! There is no way in hell you can make ascertion about a future tempertaure that is largely driven by an unkown variable. And even when we have known the variable by it being in the past as a matter of record, these "greenhouse gas" models have yet to come up with a correct answer for these largely trivial differences in CO2 amounts. Under what logic would we base economically disaterous policies on something they is in all likelyhood out of our control. Its like complaining about how much sneezing is contributing to a hurricane. Is this too complicated for your retarded brain to grasp?
When "crapping out" means disaster for the human race, most sane people would place their bets rather differently.
maybe its just me, but I sure as hell don't place my livilihood on the line on a inkling that something bad may happen in the future, and I sure don;t think we should destroy our economy on this inkling. Quite frankly, I think warmer tempratures would be great for human race overall, far from being a disaster.
Let me guess: you assumed a linear relationship and no feedback. That's some rigorous science you got there.
I am sure you have a detailed statisical model backed up with rigorious sampling and testing at various atmospheric densities, CO2 concentrations as well as heat disapation tracks.... oh no wait, you can't even subtract properly. granted further studies would be needed. but the again the changes in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are negliable.
Well to know that you would have to actually read up on the research that has been done on historic global temperature change (not some global-warming-denier's blog's summary of the research), but that would be like education and you might read something that goes against your pre-conceived notions. Continue wallowing in ignorance, you'll be happier that way.
No the problems with "global warming" are obvious. its not they have a smoking gun, or even a gun at all. They have a hunch, and no working model.
trust me on this, if I thought that by leaving SUV's on all day would make the winters in the northeast more bareable, I would be all for it. I would find every spray can of CO2 and help the cause. I am not denying it because I don't want it to happen, I just haven't seen anything that would lead me to beleive that evern if it were happening, that we are the cause of it. All I see is normal variances in global temprature.
But anyways, thanking for conceeding on this other critical point as well, because without a workign model of solar output or an ability to show tempratures worlwide are out of normal temprature ranges you can't prove anything.
but this doesn't stop Globabl warming advocates. that's why global warming is just as bad as ID, you can't ever prove it wrong, because it predicts everything.
considering the substance of your reply, I will consider this as a concession that the greenhouse effect" is indeed junk science.
.0001 percent increase that enviro whacky scienctists are complaining about.
In your replay you failed to demonstrate:
-How by your own admission make predictions and models with a third of the input in your equations being unknown (the engry received from the sun)
-Demonstrate why anyone should accept a theory that has no known working model with an acceptable error margin and high confidence. I do, and I think most sane people would agree with me, that you should have at least better odds at making a prediction with your hypothesis than randomly placing your money down at a craps table
-It's amazing how you missed that there was over a 500 degree celcius difference between the differnet sides of the planet venus when it was listed right there in front of you on the summary bar. Anyways if you do the math, if earth were venus, we would need something like 426x more CO2 to get 1 degree more heat (if of course venus were just like earth in every respect), not this peddly
-How your predictions take into accout the natural flux in global temprature, instead of irrationally assuming that any current trend up or down in globabl temprature is part of some man made catastrophe.
clearly the greenhouse effect hypothesis is right up there with ID in scienctific merit.
Microsoft Management techniques.... does that mean its perfectly acceptable to hand in projects 6 years late (vista) with meeting none of the requirements and makeing no sense (Standards) and in the end just doing a poor copy of someone eles's work? (OS X)
Actually, studies of just this have indicated that changes in the sun's output account for about 30% of the changes in global temperature. That's significant to be sure, but still leaves 60% to be accounted for from other sources.
I would say that if someone tried to tell me that a study said 60% + 30% = 100%, I would say they were pulling numbers out of their ass. Now if you are going to also tell me that "heat radiated" and "heat retained" are in fact direct functions of the out put of the sun, I would also say you were full of it. Not to be brutual, but let's face it, what other sources of heat are we talking about? Are you going to tell me that if the sun disappeared tomorrow that the earth would be at least 60% as warm as it is today when in fact during winter where I live in NYC the tempature fluctuates by 100 degrees in a normal year just by chainging the angle the sun's radiation hits my city? Even if we accepted your absurd assumption that the sun is only responsible for 30% of our temptures, how in the world would you ever be able to accuraretly model the influence of "greenhouse gasses" without an effective model that could predict the output of the sun? The simple answer is that you can't and this is junk science at best and easily dismissed.
I find that those advocating the "Greenhouse Gas Theory" overlook basic science. The first rule about when some half assed hypothesis becomes a theory or even accepeted is when you make predictions with 95% confidence within an acceptable range of error ussually somewhere around 5%. Sure they make predictions with 95% confidence, but their error margin is ussually around 10 - 20x the predicted change. Helll these "atmospheric scienctists" have yet to make thier models work backwards let alonee forwards wheras the results are already known. Given such creedence to such an unproven and tested and failed theory is abominable. Thirdly, because of all the gaps in predictions and leaveing admitted (at least) 30% unpredictable radiant effect of the sun, you would have to be able to prove that the earth's tempature was going to be outside the normal range of tempature of the planet, which has been historically both warmer and cooler by 10's of degrees.
Finnally lets put the final nail in this "theory" by making a simple comparison to venus, which is currently composed of 97% carbon dioxide, at an amospheric density 90x of our own but despite its atmosphere almost entirely compossed of greenhouse gases, its tempature varies from 775 Kelvins to 228 Kelvins. You wouldd think that if Venus's Greenhouse effect would be as pronouced if the applied the same math they applied to earth which only has an atmospheric concentration of CO2 of 0.038% and that even the coolest part of Venus would sweltering by earth's standards, but its actually freezing during the Venian nights. Of course you could object by saying venian nights are 246 days longer, but you would forget that it also has 213000x as much Carbon Dioxide. Thus you can discount heat retention as the other "60%" on earth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus
I personally have had enough of this "theory" and want to see it stripped from our schools until it has some serious science to back it up instead of all this hogwash about it causing everything from "desertification" to a new ice age.
Look, very few people are saying that Humans cannot contribute or produce very minor fluctuations in global tempature. Sure we can, just fire off all our nukes at once and you'll see our temprature change. the big point is, is that after all that is said and done, the 1 and only major contributor to the average global temprature is the amount of energry radiated by the sun, by about 99.999999%. Any minor change in its output level greatly affects output. Hell even changing the angle at which we are exposed to the sun turns the northeast into a hot box during the summer and freezer in the winter. This carbon dioxide "greenhouse" theory is a just a bunch of scare mongering to fundraise for greenpeace and the rest of those kooky green corps.
Talk about rediculous objections and orders of magnitude and look at your post. You state as a matter of fact that all of sudden people would start all acorss the country attacking people for whom they voted for including murder and extorition. Yah I have heard of the cutting room floor, but what does that have to do with a live stream? Kinda hard to cut a live event. kinda of hard to extort all the witnesses to an open event. In the end your screed holds no water.
So in the end why should people have to suffer a government they did not elect and may not be able to unelect becuase the ones in power count all the votes? It's like Stalin said, "it is not who you vote for, it's who counts the votes". that is several orders of magnitude worse.
You didn't say explicitly that you wanted him to suffer for his political views, but he did outline a clear and likely situation resutling from your suggestion where that is exactly what would happen.
thats like me saying "becuase you don't support open voting, you want the election stolen". Sure anything can happen, but I didn't advocate him suffering anymore than he advocates stealing election. the point of the post is to point out that the problem with coming up with a secure and verifiable vote tally is because in our current system is it is structually impossible to do so becuase the only method that can produce such a tally is DIRECT OBSERVATION and that is prohibitied.
Yes, there are problems with a closed voting system, but those problems are smaller, and more easily protected against than those of an open voting system. The problem lies in the fact that Diebold apparently isn't interested in taking the fairly easy steps nessisary to deal with those problems.
That is a matter of opinion, and as for the voting machines, the problem isn't diebold or thier methods, it is the inherent nature of secret balloting itself which makes it prone to corruption. If we were to bring up texas in 1960 or florida in 2000 or Ohio in 2004 or Detriot in any election, we could make a pretty good argument on the merits of open voting vs secret balloting. But you discount it because in certain instances it may link personal responsibility to the way one votes.
That is true, but beleive it or not, it still happens today. Governor Corizine of NJ was alledged to have sent out campaign workers on election day for his first senatorial bid with packets of $75 to hand out to anyone on the street who would vote his way in heavily democratic districts. while its not implausable that any individual voted differently, it was more likely a prodding to do what they would have done if they cared enough to vote in the first place. Others it would be a matter of honor to vote the way they agreed to in exchange for the money
Another scenerio where this occurred during the 2000 election where Hillary Clinton amnanged to sell the freedom of an Orthordox Jew to his congregation in exchange for thier votes. It was verified through vote counts and durign the wee morning hours of Clinton's last day in office the crook was freed via presidential pardon. No one was ever brought up on charges, even though it was obvious what had happened.
The problem with the scenerio you came up with is that, it already happens and for all intents and purposes its too expensive to bribe enough people to make it happen. the only practical way to bribe people these days is with official acts of government, and that is not illegal. you know "vote for me and will give you a new 'drug benefit'" or "a new highway" and the list goes on and on.
Like I said before, this is an overstated problem
"Do you want me to suffer for my political views?"
I am trying to see where I said I want you to suffer for your political views
Perhaps you could point out to the place where I said that.
Needless to say besides your sophistry, I was simply pointing out you are always going to have these kinds of problems in a closed balloting system but one where you go before a comittee and verify your vote while the tapes are rolling can be simply verified by anyone, we could even stream it over the internet
Again, not to advocate open voting, but to simply point out the problems you stated aren't really all that bac. You can get another job with someone who doesn't care who you vote for, as oppossed to working for some bastard you don't like. And if your friends or family know who you voted for, and you can't look them in the face afterwards and defend your position, maybe just maybe you voted the wrong way.
I would also like to point out, this was how democracy used to be. Every citizen stood up in a crowded hall or outside depending on where you were, and your name was called from a roster and you stated vote in front of everyone. It used to be a day for celebration and parting as the various poltical parties would bring out tons of alchool and food.
So the question really What bothers you more, an Unelected Government who stole power from the people, or everyone knowing who you voted for?
You know the problem of voter fraud/rigging machines could be greatly simplified if we just did away with the ballot being secret. If we had an open process where you had to announce your vote before and review by a bipartisan comittee who could then tally and report the vote in an official count. Then all these probelms would be resolved. If again, you are willing to make voting a matter of public record.
thats not really an issue. Isreal cannot repeat the 1981 strike against iran. It has no long range bombers. They would have to:
-fly through syrian or jordanian airspace undetected (because they will tip off iran)
- then convince the US government to resupply them for the strike - somehow slip through Iran's state of the art missile netowrk (su300m's) and mig 27 flankers
- as well as any point defenses around the 50 or so scattered sites
-slip back through iran's defenses yet again - have the us government resupply them yet again
-get through syrian airspace again
In case you didn't notice, this is a suicide mission, which no conventional force in the planet could do (though the US could do it with its most advanced stealth fighter the f22 and the b2 bomber)
that leaves isreal with 2 options
convetional weapons strike by using its 3 dolphin class submarines
-not enough missiles to do the job, and not enough range to ddo it
And the really only choice isreal has
Nuclear Strike with its unkown class of Ballisttic Missiles. It should have enough of these to do it, but it is a nuclear strike.
So to sum it up, the only nation that can really do anything is the United States, and that means war with iran, cause you know the iranians aren't going to take this lieing down, especially with a hilterite on the throne off iran
i think you will find, actually, that there are accepted codes, both national and international, as to how one may justly engage an enemy of the state. it is not a no-man's land of "might makes right." ironically, it is in fact this idea of, you know, "rule of law" which separates "us" from "them." careful you don't ally yourself too readily with "their" kind of methods and rationales.
Accepted international codes. "justly engaging". interesting concept. What does Justice have to with War? War is by its very nature unjust and horrible. But alright lets see about your complaints
You contend that Survailence of our enemy is somehow "illegal". Its not. Congress proscribes the laws of wars in how they should be conducted (as defined in the US Constitution), and they have not made monitoring or analyzing phone calls to detect enemy activity illegal.
In fact non-uniformed agents of a foriegn power or terrorist group are customarily subject to summary execution - unless you are contending that George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, and many other War time US Presidents were "uncivilized" and like the terrorists.
Furthermore Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and FDR used far more pervasive wiretapping and call intercepts, and none of their programs were questioned. Is it your contention that they were "criminals" as well?