Translation: the government is not currently acting as a civilian government.
Your translation is wrong. We have a civilian government, but the country is at war, and the President is exercising his powers, granted by the Constitution and Law, to prosecute the war. For the benefit of others, I've provided a more inclusive and meaningful extract from the original below:
To fight the war on terror, I am using authority vested in me by Congress, including the Joint Authorization for Use of Military Force, which passed overwhelmingly in the first week after September the 11th. I'm also using constitutional authority vested in me as Commander-in-Chief.
In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. Before we intercept these communications, the government must have information that establishes a clear link to these terrorist networks.
This is a highly classified program that is crucial to our national security. Its purpose is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, our friends and allies. Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports, after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have, and the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies, and endangers our country.
See, nothing about secret declarations of martial law as you speculate here. We still have a civilian government. The Congress & the Courts still operate. Americans still vote to change their government. President Bush is in his 2nd and final term as the Constitution requires. The Army is still subject to the Posse Comitatus Act.
It would be a pity if you confused or misled people.
...how would anybody know if martial law was declared in secret?
You're kidding,... right?
Declaring Martial Law in secret is about as useful as declaring yourself Emperor of France in secret. It is only useful if people know about it and obey your wishes. That isn't happening any time soon. Besides, the question of the Military controling the civilian population in the United States is settled law from the Civil War and the Posse Comitatus Act.
You're letting your imagination run away with you.
It doesn't seem to be commonly known, but starting gratuitous wars accounted for two of the four charges against a number of German politicians, generals, and industrialists at the Nuremburg war trials....
.... Notice that you could easily put names on the holders of some of those same positions in the USA in 2003. It's small wonder that the Bush administration has been so adamantly against the creation of the World Court.
Apparently the whole boring history of UN Security Council actions against Iraq, the sorry saga of the weapons inspectors, the Oil for Food scandal, and the regular firing on US planes by Iraq (AKA "Act of War") is apparently still unknown by you. Minus 10-12 years of history and collective action by the UN against Iraq, I can almost see confusing the Iraq situation with that of German aggression*.... almost. Of couse, if it lets you slam the US or Bush, well... facts be damned!!
*Rhineland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Africa, Russia, the whole genocide / concentration camp thing, etc.
There's a difference between being accused of a crime and convicted of one; no matter what the crime, it is never sensible to treat the former group as the latter.
I'm aghast. Are you bloody serious? By you, arresting and holding someone with neither charges nor a warrant is just a paperwork problem?
Yes, there is a difference between being accused and convicted of a crime. There is also a difference between surveillance and arrest and detention and trial and conviction and punishment. Nothing has changed. The uproar over the NSA article is about surveillance, not arrest, detention, trials, conviction, or punishment. That is what the article was about. (You did read it, right?) From my reading of that article, and related prior material, there is both oversight, if somewhat spotty, and what is being done is arguabley legal, even if hair-splittingly so.
You may be aghast, but you're also apparently confusing the NSA / surveillence issue with the Padilla matter. They are completely separate. Maybe you should read those links too. His case was controversial, but understandable.
Some people are alarmed and confused because they do not recognize or understand the difference between criminal law, military law, and the Law of War, or for that matter, the President's powers to prosecute the war as Commander in Chief. The US is not in any immediate, meaningful danger of becoming a dictatorship, or even a.... "theocracy".
Apparently the United States has a hell of a fringe
There is a difference between "being less popular than you were", and being "a clear enemy to the people of the United States," who should be imprisoned or killed... or is that too fine of a distinction? I rather doubt the "clear enemy" camp is even as high as 6%, although the "unpopular or bad President" group could reach up to 65%, depending on the date & poll. President Bush's popularity will no doubt continue to rise and fall for the next several years, but the percentage of people in the US who seriously consider him an enemy who should be imprisoned for life or killed will likely remain small, at the fringes of American society, and deserving scrutiny as to their sanity. History may ultimately jundge him to be a terrible President, or possibly a great one, but almost certainly not an "enemy of the people."
The poster wasn't alleging any actual capital crime carrying the death sentence, but was suggesting the President should be killed because of policies he disagreed with, as an example.
Do you really think the President could / would / should be impeached and imprisoned for LIFE, or even EXECUTED, because somewhere between 500 and a couple of thousand people with possible / likely connections to terrorists didn't (allegedly) have all of the needed paperwork for proper surveillance filled out by the government? Life imprisonment or execution for a violation of privacy, even if it is 2,000 people? That view seems extreme. That sort of thing is normally handled by throwing out illegally gained evidence in court.
As a clear enemy to the people of the United States, upon Bush's indictment for war crimes, he should be held in prison before seeing trial for the exact number of days that he has held Jose Padilla (who is on his third year and counting).
Don't be troubled. Now that he has been indicted, Mr. Padilla will finally get the justice he deserves. I doubt that the likely outcome of that will leave you any happier.
As far as "war crimes" go... you're kidding yourself.
"...a clear enemy to the people of the United States.."
It would be far more accurate to refer to President Bush as "an object of obsession and hatred to the moon bats of the looney left fringe."
Who are they following? When did HP open the source to HP/UX, True 64 (Digital) Unix, and Openview? Or did IBM open AIX, Tivoli,and the Rational tools?
Since Chrichton isn't a scientist I don't think we should mix his opinion piece with the work of scientists
Michael Crichton, the author who graduated summa cum laude in anthropology from Harvard, taught anthropology at Cambridge, and then went on to get his MD from Harvard Medical School after which served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Sciences? He might have heard of this "science" thing you mention.
I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.
and later
I studied anthropology in college, and one of the things I learned was that certain human social structures always reappear. They can't be eliminated from society. One of those structures is religion. Today it is said we live in a secular society in which many people---the best people, the most enlightened people---do not believe in any religion. But I think that you cannot eliminate religion from the psyche of mankind. If you suppress it in one form, it merely re-emerges in another form. You can not believe in God, but you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.
Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.
There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.
Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday---these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I certainly don't want to talk anybody out of them, as I don't want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don't want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can't talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith.
And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism. Increasingly it seems facts aren't necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them.
Oddly enough, in one of the papers (Who you gonna believe? on the pages you link to, the author who is taking Crichton to task over his views on global warming states:
I'm not a scientist. I know more about science generally
The New York Times appeared to try a new tactic in its campaign to convince the public that global warming is real. But don't let the Times' Oct. 10 report on the economic upside of Arctic melting confuse you -- there still isn't any evidence that human activity is melting the polar regions.
In its article entitled, "As Polar Ice Turns to Water, Dreams of Treasure Abound," the Times reported that a shrinking summer time Arctic ice cap is spurring "nothing less than a great rush for virgin territory and natural resources worth hundreds of billions of dollars."
The Times spotlighted, for example, a Denver entrepreneur who purchased a "derelict Hudson Bay port from the Canadian government in 1997" for $7. The entrepreneur, who estimates the port could bring in as much as $100 million per year, "is no more to blame than anyone else for a meltdown at the top of the world that threatens Arctic mammals and ancient traditions and lends credibility to dark visions about global warming," reported the Times.
"It's the positive side of global warming, if there is a positive side," the transportation minister of Manitoba told the Times.
Now, I'm not sure what the Times' shift in thinking is with the article -- and after more than a decade of consistent gloom-and-doom reporting and editorializing on global warming, I would imagine that the Green-leaning newspaper does not intend to rethink its position on the scare -- but it's going to take more than the mere economic exploitation of a shrinking polar ice cap to establish human activity as the cause of the melting.
At JunkScience.com, we analyzed surface temperature data collected by NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies and prepared temperature graphs to underscore this point.
If you look at the temperature trends for the Arctic region since 1880, it appears that the Arctic generally warmed somewhat until about 1938. From 1938 until about 1966, the Arctic cooled to about its 1918 temperature level. Then, between 1966 and 2003, the Arctic warmed up to just shy of its 1938 temperature. But in 2004, the Arctic temperature again spiked downward.
Now if the 1880-1938 warming trend had continued up until this day, there certainly would be some significant warming in the Arctic region to talk about. From 1918 to 1938, alone, the Arctic warmed by 2.5 degrees Centigrade. But the actual temperature trend is much different, showing that there's been hardly any overall temperature change in the Arctic since 1938.
Not only does the temperature data contradict the claim that global warming is overtaking the Arctic, but data on greenhouse gas concentrations ought to drive a spike through the heart of the claim.
During the warming period from 1880 to 1938, it's estimated that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide - the bugbear of greenhouse gases to global warming worriers - increased by an estimated 20 parts per million. But from 1938 to 2003 - a period of essentially no increase in Arctic warming - the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide increased another 60 parts per million. It doesn't seem plausible, then, that Arctic temperatures are significantly influenced by atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases.
And even when the Arctic re-warmed between 1966 and 2003, the warming occurred much less aggressively (about 50 percent less) than the 1918-1938 warming and at about the same rate as the period 1880-1938, despite much higher greenhouse gas levels in the 1966-2003 time frame.
Global warming worriers can take no comfort from South Pole data either.
Over the last 30 years, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide increased by about 15 percent, from about 328 parts per million to about 372 parts per million. But the Antarctic temperature trend for that period indicates a slight cooling. This observation contrasts sharply with the relatively steep Antarctic warming observed from 1949 to 1974, which was accompanied by a much more modest increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.
I think that you exhibit remarkable candor. Many people sharing your disposition feel the need to wear a mask of open-mindedness, professing a willingness to be persuaded by argument & evidence. You, on the other hand, freely dismiss the possibility of learning something about happiness, learning to enjoy more from life, from someone because you disagree with his views about such things as the effect of anti-terrorism legislation, and no doubt, trade policy. And yet, you apparently have no meaningful ideas on how to be happier yourself.
Have fun in China. (The PRC?) For the sake of your health I wouldn't ask around about how many tens of millions of people were killed as part of the "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution" under Chairman Mao, or how many Chinese soldiers were killed when the PRC tried to invade Communist Viet Nam (they were repulsed) to stop the Viet Namese invasion of Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge (Cambodian Communists) killed about 1/4 of their own countrymen. The secret police in Communist China might not take kindly to it and pronounce you a spy. You will be much better off protesting the "Neo Cons" in the US. Assuming you make it to the US any time soon, Prager will still be around to either protest or for listening. (That assumes you don't partake of the growing strain of anti-Semitism on the Left, some of which use "Neo Con" as a code word for Jew.)
He devotes an hour a week (called the "Happiness Hour") on his radio program to the question of happiness.
Agree or disagree, he is thought provoking. His approach is also interesting in that he values clarity over agreement and has callers and guests from across the ideological / political spectrum.
That's true. No matter how long human civilization lasts, the Bible will always hold an accurate record of God's chosen disciple, Lot, fucking his daughters. Nice choice, God - you picked a winner there!
Lot's daughters grew up in Sodom, and it seems to have had an effect. Lot took his family and fled Sodom before it was destroyed, as he was warned to do. After it was destroyed, his his daughters got him drunk and slept with him. If they were spared as the only "good" people in Sodom, maybe there was something to its destruction?
Since Lot was afraid to stay in Zoar, he and his two daughters went up from Zoar and settled in the hill country, where he lived with his two daughters in a cave. The older one said to the younger: "Our father is getting old, and there is not a man on earth to unite with us as was the custom everywhere. Come, let us ply our father with wine and then lie with him, that we may have offspring by our father." So that night they plied their father with wine, and the older one went in and lay with her father; but he was not aware of her lying down or her getting up. Next day the older one said to the younger: "Last night it was I who lay with my father. Let us ply him with wine again tonight, and then you go in and lie with him, that we may both have offspring by our father." So that night, too, they plied their father with wine, and then the younger one went in and lay with him; but again he was not aware of her lying down or her getting up. Thus both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father.
So, what are your chances of being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan? The Department of Defense recently released deployment data,
from 11 December 2001, to 31 October 2004 for Iraq and Afghanistan.
955,609 (about 36%) of our total Active Duty/Reserve/National Guard forces of 2,656,300 have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan during this period. 651,622 (24.5%) have one deployment during this period, and 303,987 (11.4%) have deployed more than once.
For active duty, 708,428 (48.2%) of the force has deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. 494,482 (33.6%) have deployed once, while 213.946 (14.6%) have deployed more than once.
For the National Guard and Reserves, 247,181 (20.8%) have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.
157,140 (13.3%) have one deployment and 90,041 (7.5%) have multiple deployments.
So over a three year period (2001-2004) that percentage of foces rotated through Iraq (A third of the family went to the store sometime in the last 3 years.) Less than 10% of the total active duty armed forces are there at any time. (Mom is at the store now.)
The IRR (Individual Ready Reserve) has nothing to do with recruiting, it would effect end strength though. (The IRR is full of senior enlisted and offices, not new privates, which is what recruiting is about.) Retention is running up to 30% above goals, so the soldiers currently serving want to continue to serve. Recruiting is doing OK. Congress jacked up authorized end strenth (total bodies) against the wishes of the military.
Strawman argument. I clearly mentioned ALL levels of government. Here's my quote again, in case you misread it:
I didn't miss it, I was making a point: the city and state governments screwed up badly in resisting evacuation, and in not executing their existing plans. Instead of arriving to find the orderly execution of prior plans the Feds were confronting a basket case... several of them, actually. As a result they had to modify and adjust their plans, such as flying in an unplanned ~ 5,000 military police to prop up the New Orleans police, which were in shambles. The Federal government has long told the states they have to hold up for 72-96 hours. The Feds could have done better, but the city and state were practically total basket cases.
The nation's business does not necessarily include nomination of a Chief Justice less than 48 hours after his death. check the timeline here. Not saying it will affect relief efforts, just that it's the wrong time.
Presidentail succession is defined in the Constitution and happens immediately. Succession of leadership in the Congress is determined by rules, and maybe a vote. For the Court it takes the President and Congress working together. No sense in waiting, the Court starts a new session soon, and the Senate should be ready for Roberts confirmation hearings now having been previously nominated. As a co-equal branch of government, the courts are due their head as much as the legislature or executive branch.
I doubt if there will be "an inevitable flood of lawsuits" that even make it to the High Court.
I agree that few lawsuites from this are likely to make it to the Supreme Court. I also think that there will be a lot of lawsuits filed. It is almost inevitable regardless of their merit.
955,609 (about 36%) of our total Active Duty/Reserve/National Guard forces of 2,656,300 have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan during this period. 651,622 (24.5%) have one deployment during this period, and 303,987 (11.4%) have deployed more than once.
For active duty, 708,428 (48.2%) of the force has deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. 494,482 (33.6%) have deployed once, while 213.946 (14.6%) have deployed more than once.
For the National Guard and Reserves, 247,181 (20.8%) have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.
Sound like 10% to you? No. We're at 40% commitment over the next 3 years (including rotations). Start using a more reliable source.
If you have a family of 10, and over a period of 3 years all of them make a trip to the store, then 100% of the family has gone to the store. If I ask you, "Who went to the store," and you say "Everybody", it might be correct in one sense, but useless if you want to know who is at the store now, which is what is normally meant by the question, "Who went to the store?" The normal answer is mom went to the store (is at the store now). In the same sense you deployment numbers don't reflect who is deployed now.
The Army has been doing excellent in retention (Soldiers believe in and support the mission) and recruiting is picking up.
Schoomaker also pointed out, for example, that the 3rd Infantry Division, the first Army division to return for a second tour in Iraq, has re-enlisted 117 percent of its goal this year, and 1st Cavalry Division retention is at 136 percent of its goal.
"This is important to us because this helps offset the shortfall in new recruits entering the ranks," he said.
Schoomaker said Army recruiting, which exceeded its monthly goals in June and July after falling short from February though May, is looking relatively strong this month. He added that the commander of the Army organization in charge of recruiting and initial military training told him recently that he thinks the Army will fall only "a couple of thousand" soldiers short of the 80,000 recruits it hoped to have by Sept. 30.
Yes, the bumbling by all levels of government was the deciding factor, not Iraq. Had the mayor/governor/president/FEMA done more, it would have made a world of difference.
We have a Federal government. If the States don't request help in certain matters, the hands of the Feds are tied. The Mayor of New Orleans even resisted ordering a mandatory evacuation despite President Bush's urging.
That being said, now is not the time to nominate the asshat for Chief Justice. During a national disaster, and before Rehnquist is even buried.
The United States is a nation of 300 million people in 50 states. Although the events in New Orleans are unfortunate, a week has passed and the nation's business has to go on. By nominating Rhenquist's replacement now, the Supreme Court could have a full bench when the Court starts its term in October. The issue of the Court won't interfere with relief efforts. If anything it will help get the court ready for the inevitable flood of lawsuits that will follow this disaster.
Nice tap dancing and misdirection, but irrelevant.
How many, what percentage, are there NOW, not over the next 4 years, not in 3 years, right NOW?
Iraq had little to do with this. The bumbling by the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana in simply not executing existing plans was a much bigger factor.
Lets just add in some of the details from the article so that nobody is confused by your shorthand:
Accustomed to being a rich donor rather than on the receiving end of charity, the United States initially seemed reticent about accepting foreign aid, but later said it would take up any offers. The hurricane devastated New Orleans and other parts of the U.S. Gulf Coast, killing hundreds and possibly thousands.
"Anything that can be of help to alleviate the tragic situation of the area affected by Hurricane Katrina will be accepted," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
"America should be heartened by the fact that the world is reaching out to America at a time of need," he added.
Earlier, President George W. Bush said in a television interview that the United States could take care of itself.
"I'm not expecting much from foreign nations because we hadn't asked for it. I do expect a lot of sympathy and perhaps some will send cash dollars. But this country's going to rise up and take care of it," Bush told ABC's "Good Morning America."
McCormack said there had not been a change of position over accepting foreign aid and White House spokesman Scott McClellan also said later the United States would take up offers of help.
The State Department said offers so far had come from Canada, Russia, Japan, France, Germany, Britain, China, Australia, Jamaica, Honduras, Greece, Venezuela, the Organization of American States, NATO, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, South Korea, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
Assistance ranged from medical teams, boats, aircraft, tents, blankets, generators and cash donations.
State Department officials said it was likely some of the offers would not materialize and, as a wealthy nation, the United States would be uncomfortable taking funds from poorer countries.
She was nothing but a vegtable. I feel sorry for her husband who had to be dragged through the mud by GWB, Jeb, Frist, Focus on the Family, etc. Even after it was over, Jeb tried anything that he could to make him look bad for simply doing what his wife wanted in the first place.
Doing what his wife wanted in the first place? Hardly.
Terri Schiavo collapsed from unknown causes in 1990 and experienced a devastating brain injury. Michael brought a medical malpractice case in which he promised the jury that he would provide Terri with rehabilitation and care for her for the rest of his life. The jury in 1993 awarded $1.3 million in damages, approximately $750,000 of which was set aside to pay for her care and rehabilitation. But once the money was in the bank, Michael refused to provide Terri with any rehab. Moreover, within months, he had a do-not-resuscitate order placed on her chart.
How many hundreds of thousands of dollars does it take to pull the plug immediately, if that was really her wish?
Of course, the family had an interest in her welfare as well, but that does complicate the whole "GWB, Jeb, Frist, Focus.." story, eh?
Had she died then, Michael would have inherited all the money. But he denies having a venal motive, claiming that the trust fund money is now exhausted. If true, this is bitterly ironic. For the past three years he has been in litigation, opposed by Terri's parents and her other relatives. Rather than the funds going to pay for medical therapists to help her, as the jury intended, much of it instead paid lawyers that Michael retained to obtain the court order to end her care.
Michael's second conflict of interest is deeply personal. He is engaged to be married and has had a baby with his fiancée, with another one on the way. The couple would like to marry, but Michael's wife, inconveniently, is still alive.
If it really was her wish, he should have done it immediately, not after suing to get money for her rehabilitation and support, and before shacking up with another woman.
Brewster, Jennings was a great CIA asset, with close ties to ARAMCO and other major oil companies and ministries. Now it is useless as a front for US intelligence.......Wouldn't it be nice if at this time of uncertainty, the USA had some kind of asset capable of investigating these things from up close? Too bad a political vendetta destroyed major intelligence assets that could have helped with just that.
Indeed. Certainly there is no possibility that they might have other front companies in that vital economic sector now, or could possibly form them in the future. I guess we're just screwed.
A provocative view of how to deal with Rove and his deeds is pondered here.
Well,... let me help you catch up on your reading about Iraq's ties to terrorists. There is plenty more that isn't hard to find if you really care to be informed.
It's the same tactic as repeating the phrase "Liberal Media bias" over and over and hope that people start to believe it. The sad thing is that it works and we see a gradual shifting of the media from the center to the right to compensate for this percieved imbalance. The whole position that the media is liberal and activist is rediculous when you realize that they're just parroting GOP talking points and prepackaged news reports without even offering countering views so much of the time.
That is a bunch of malarkey. The facts are practically the opposite of what you stated, and not hard to find.
But study after study shows that Rather, Jennings and Brokaw are wrong: the newsrooms of major media outlets are not filled with non-ideological "common sense moderates," nor do they reflect a diverse range of ideological viewpoints. Surveys over the past 25 years have consistently found journalists are much more liberal than rest of America. Their voting habits are disproportionately Democratic, their views on issues such as abortion and gay rights are well to the left of most Americans and they are less likely to attend church or synagogue. When it comes to the free market, journalists have become increasingly pro-regulation over the past 20 years, with majorities endorsing activist government efforts to guarantee everyone a job and to reduce the income gap between rich and poor Americans.
Theft is taking something (normally of value) without permission (normally obtained by paying for it). You can steal service as well, such as electricity. Pirated software and music certainly have value of some sort, otherwise you wouldn't want it. Just because there is no cost in making it or taking it (a copy) doesn't make it OK. Would you claim that stealing someones pet rock wasn't really stealing?
I've never believed this sentiment to be anything other than a self-serving lie spoken by bullies.
Your views are entirely understandable. In this post you disavow any meaningful knowledge history. That would explain why it seems to escape you that Blacks were freed in the South due to the North winning the Civil War after paying a terrible price in human lives. And that also explains why you don't know that the Germans really did pose a threat to the US in WW2 since they were specifically building long range aircraft, missiles, and submarines to attack the US. (Oh yes, they were also trying to build those atomic bomb thingies.) (And for your benefit: the US sent massive amounts of food, weapons, supplies, and fuel to the Soviet Union to help prop it up during the war, not to mention helping to split the German Army so it couldn't concentrate entirely against the USSR.)
And yet, despite your self-professed ignorance you do seem to have some very strong opinions about these matters.
I also find it amazing that you try to reduce the cost of freedom to an economic model (as if that was the only measure) and then profess ignorance of any model that could explain it. Even insurance companies can figure out how to attach a value to human life, like the lives of the soldiers who have been killed while fighting to keep us free. (Wow, life insurance value on lives of soldiers + cost of weapons and material... that might be the start of an economic model that you could understand.)
Well, why leave this as a thought experiment... if you hurry you could take a trip to Europe and talk to some of the rapidly diminishing number of living Frenchmen who lived in France before and after the Nazis conquered them. Maybe they could help you figure out if losing that war resulted in any change in their freedom. You could also ask them if the liberation of Western Europe, paid for by a couple of hundred thousand American lives made for any difference in their freedom. Maybe you could also get a Eurorail pass and go visit a few concentration camps or extermination camps and find out what real butchering bullies are like.
If you can't make it to Europe, and make no more effort to educate yourself, then you will remain as you seem now: ignorant, opinionated, unimaginative, intellectually lazy. I feel pretty comfortable in asserting that you will only be kept free by the efforts of your betters.... or is that "bullies" to you?
This is one of the areas of damage done by the Bush administration that I think doesn't get nearly enough attention. With the current state of affairs, there is arguably no way for a conscientious American to serve their country through the military.
What nonsense. The number of people whose mind's have been changed by the Bush administration are few and far between. To the extent that anyone's minds have been changed they have largely changed to be closer to the views of the Bush administration by the attacks of Al Qaeda and company.
Your list of ways to serve is rather anemic, and a bit revealing. Here is an entire page of links to organizations and programs for patriotic Americans to aid their country and the service members defending us from the butchers who have stated they have the right to kill four million Americans. This isn't Vietnam where we can just pack up and leave and nothing bad happens to us, they came to our country and intend to destroy us. How many remember that Bin Laden's first demand (Q2) to America was that if we want his organization to stop attempting mass murder against Americans that we become a Muslim nation, which for him would be a Muslim of a very specific extremist, intolerant sect? (I can already hear the pathetic, deranged howls about the "right wing Christian theocracy we live under" now.) Well, just keep donating to the ACLU, I'm sure they will be keeping us safe from suicide bombers in our shopping malls with all that they do.
Slashdot Mirror
Your translation is wrong. We have a civilian government, but the country is at war, and the President is exercising his powers, granted by the Constitution and Law, to prosecute the war. For the benefit of others, I've provided a more inclusive and meaningful extract from the original below:
See, nothing about secret declarations of martial law as you speculate here. We still have a civilian government. The Congress & the Courts still operate. Americans still vote to change their government. President Bush is in his 2nd and final term as the Constitution requires. The Army is still subject to the Posse Comitatus Act.
It would be a pity if you confused or misled people.
...how would anybody know if martial law was declared in secret?
You're kidding,... right?
Declaring Martial Law in secret is about as useful as declaring yourself Emperor of France in secret. It is only useful if people know about it and obey your wishes. That isn't happening any time soon. Besides, the question of the Military controling the civilian population in the United States is settled law from the Civil War and the Posse Comitatus Act.
You're letting your imagination run away with you.
It doesn't seem to be commonly known, but starting gratuitous wars accounted for two of the four charges against a number of German politicians, generals, and industrialists at the Nuremburg war trials....
... Notice that you could easily put names on the holders of some of those same positions in the USA in 2003. It's small wonder that the Bush administration has been so adamantly against the creation of the World Court.
.... almost. Of couse, if it lets you slam the US or Bush, well... facts be damned!!
.
Apparently the whole boring history of UN Security Council actions against Iraq, the sorry saga of the weapons inspectors, the Oil for Food scandal, and the regular firing on US planes by Iraq (AKA "Act of War") is apparently still unknown by you. Minus 10-12 years of history and collective action by the UN against Iraq, I can almost see confusing the Iraq situation with that of German aggression*
*Rhineland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Africa, Russia, the whole genocide / concentration camp thing, etc.
There's a difference between being accused of a crime and convicted of one; no matter what the crime, it is never sensible to treat the former group as the latter.
.... "theocracy".
I'm aghast. Are you bloody serious? By you, arresting and holding someone with neither charges nor a warrant is just a paperwork problem?
Yes, there is a difference between being accused and convicted of a crime. There is also a difference between surveillance and arrest and detention and trial and conviction and punishment. Nothing has changed. The uproar over the NSA article is about surveillance, not arrest, detention, trials, conviction, or punishment. That is what the article was about. (You did read it, right?) From my reading of that article, and related prior material, there is both oversight, if somewhat spotty, and what is being done is arguabley legal, even if hair-splittingly so.
You may be aghast, but you're also apparently confusing the NSA / surveillence issue with the Padilla matter. They are completely separate. Maybe you should read those links too. His case was controversial, but understandable.
Some people are alarmed and confused because they do not recognize or understand the difference between criminal law, military law, and the Law of War, or for that matter, the President's powers to prosecute the war as Commander in Chief. The US is not in any immediate, meaningful danger of becoming a dictatorship, or even a
Apparently the United States has a hell of a fringe
... or is that too fine of a distinction? I rather doubt the "clear enemy" camp is even as high as 6%, although the "unpopular or bad President" group could reach up to 65%, depending on the date & poll. President Bush's popularity will no doubt continue to rise and fall for the next several years, but the percentage of people in the US who seriously consider him an enemy who should be imprisoned for life or killed will likely remain small, at the fringes of American society, and deserving scrutiny as to their sanity. History may ultimately jundge him to be a terrible President, or possibly a great one, but almost certainly not an "enemy of the people."
There is a difference between "being less popular than you were", and being "a clear enemy to the people of the United States," who should be imprisoned or killed
The poster wasn't alleging any actual capital crime carrying the death sentence, but was suggesting the President should be killed because of policies he disagreed with, as an example.
Do you really think the President could / would / should be impeached and imprisoned for LIFE, or even EXECUTED, because somewhere between 500 and a couple of thousand people with possible / likely connections to terrorists didn't (allegedly) have all of the needed paperwork for proper surveillance filled out by the government? Life imprisonment or execution for a violation of privacy, even if it is 2,000 people? That view seems extreme. That sort of thing is normally handled by throwing out illegally gained evidence in court.
As a clear enemy to the people of the United States, upon Bush's indictment for war crimes, he should be held in prison before seeing trial for the exact number of days that he has held Jose Padilla (who is on his third year and counting).
Don't be troubled. Now that he has been indicted, Mr. Padilla will finally get the justice he deserves. I doubt that the likely outcome of that will leave you any happier.
As far as "war crimes" go... you're kidding yourself.
"...a clear enemy to the people of the United States.."
It would be far more accurate to refer to President Bush as "an object of obsession and hatred to the moon bats of the looney left fringe."
Who are they following? When did HP open the source to HP/UX, True 64 (Digital) Unix, and Openview? Or did IBM open AIX, Tivoli,and the Rational tools?
Michael Crichton, the author who graduated summa cum laude in anthropology from Harvard, taught anthropology at Cambridge, and then went on to get his MD from Harvard Medical School after which served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Sciences? He might have heard of this "science" thing you mention.
You give a certain force to a quote of his I came across from his "Remarks to the Commonwealth Club":
and later
Oddly enough, in one of the papers (Who you gonna believe? on the pages you link to, the author who is taking Crichton to task over his views on global warming states:
The New York Times appeared to try a new tactic in its campaign to convince the public that global warming is real. But don't let the Times' Oct. 10 report on the economic upside of Arctic melting confuse you -- there still isn't any evidence that human activity is melting the polar regions.
In its article entitled, "As Polar Ice Turns to Water, Dreams of Treasure Abound," the Times reported that a shrinking summer time Arctic ice cap is spurring "nothing less than a great rush for virgin territory and natural resources worth hundreds of billions of dollars."
The Times spotlighted, for example, a Denver entrepreneur who purchased a "derelict Hudson Bay port from the Canadian government in 1997" for $7. The entrepreneur, who estimates the port could bring in as much as $100 million per year, "is no more to blame than anyone else for a meltdown at the top of the world that threatens Arctic mammals and ancient traditions and lends credibility to dark visions about global warming," reported the Times.
"It's the positive side of global warming, if there is a positive side," the transportation minister of Manitoba told the Times.
Now, I'm not sure what the Times' shift in thinking is with the article -- and after more than a decade of consistent gloom-and-doom reporting and editorializing on global warming, I would imagine that the Green-leaning newspaper does not intend to rethink its position on the scare -- but it's going to take more than the mere economic exploitation of a shrinking polar ice cap to establish human activity as the cause of the melting.
At JunkScience.com, we analyzed surface temperature data collected by NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies and prepared temperature graphs to underscore this point.
If you look at the temperature trends for the Arctic region since 1880, it appears that the Arctic generally warmed somewhat until about 1938. From 1938 until about 1966, the Arctic cooled to about its 1918 temperature level. Then, between 1966 and 2003, the Arctic warmed up to just shy of its 1938 temperature. But in 2004, the Arctic temperature again spiked downward.
Now if the 1880-1938 warming trend had continued up until this day, there certainly would be some significant warming in the Arctic region to talk about. From 1918 to 1938, alone, the Arctic warmed by 2.5 degrees Centigrade. But the actual temperature trend is much different, showing that there's been hardly any overall temperature change in the Arctic since 1938.
Not only does the temperature data contradict the claim that global warming is overtaking the Arctic, but data on greenhouse gas concentrations ought to drive a spike through the heart of the claim.
During the warming period from 1880 to 1938, it's estimated that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide - the bugbear of greenhouse gases to global warming worriers - increased by an estimated 20 parts per million. But from 1938 to 2003 - a period of essentially no increase in Arctic warming - the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide increased another 60 parts per million. It doesn't seem plausible, then, that Arctic temperatures are significantly influenced by atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases.
And even when the Arctic re-warmed between 1966 and 2003, the warming occurred much less aggressively (about 50 percent less) than the 1918-1938 warming and at about the same rate as the period 1880-1938, despite much higher greenhouse gas levels in the 1966-2003 time frame.
Global warming worriers can take no comfort from South Pole data either.
Over the last 30 years, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide increased by about 15 percent, from about 328 parts per million to about 372 parts per million. But the Antarctic temperature trend for that period indicates a slight cooling. This observation contrasts sharply with the relatively steep Antarctic warming observed from 1949 to 1974, which was accompanied by a much more modest increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.
The hypoth
I think that you exhibit remarkable candor. Many people sharing your disposition feel the need to wear a mask of open-mindedness, professing a willingness to be persuaded by argument & evidence. You, on the other hand, freely dismiss the possibility of learning something about happiness, learning to enjoy more from life, from someone because you disagree with his views about such things as the effect of anti-terrorism legislation, and no doubt, trade policy. And yet, you apparently have no meaningful ideas on how to be happier yourself.
Have fun in China. (The PRC?) For the sake of your health I wouldn't ask around about how many tens of millions of people were killed as part of the "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution" under Chairman Mao, or how many Chinese soldiers were killed when the PRC tried to invade Communist Viet Nam (they were repulsed) to stop the Viet Namese invasion of Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge (Cambodian Communists) killed about 1/4 of their own countrymen. The secret police in Communist China might not take kindly to it and pronounce you a spy. You will be much better off protesting the "Neo Cons" in the US. Assuming you make it to the US any time soon, Prager will still be around to either protest or for listening. (That assumes you don't partake of the growing strain of anti-Semitism on the Left, some of which use "Neo Con" as a code word for Jew.)
Anyone concerned with happiness might want to consider reading Happiness is a Serious Problem by Dennis Prager.
He devotes an hour a week (called the "Happiness Hour") on his radio program to the question of happiness.
Agree or disagree, he is thought provoking. His approach is also interesting in that he values clarity over agreement and has callers and guests from across the ideological / political spectrum.
Lot's daughters grew up in Sodom, and it seems to have had an effect. Lot took his family and fled Sodom before it was destroyed, as he was warned to do. After it was destroyed, his his daughters got him drunk and slept with him. If they were spared as the only "good" people in Sodom, maybe there was something to its destruction?
Genesis 19: 30-36
So over a three year period (2001-2004) that percentage of foces rotated through Iraq (A third of the family went to the store sometime in the last 3 years.) Less than 10% of the total active duty armed forces are there at any time. (Mom is at the store now.)
The IRR (Individual Ready Reserve) has nothing to do with recruiting, it would effect end strength though. (The IRR is full of senior enlisted and offices, not new privates, which is what recruiting is about.) Retention is running up to 30% above goals, so the soldiers currently serving want to continue to serve. Recruiting is doing OK. Congress jacked up authorized end strenth (total bodies) against the wishes of the military.
Strawman argument. I clearly mentioned ALL levels of government. Here's my quote again, in case you misread it:
I didn't miss it, I was making a point: the city and state governments screwed up badly in resisting evacuation, and in not executing their existing plans. Instead of arriving to find the orderly execution of prior plans the Feds were confronting a basket case... several of them, actually. As a result they had to modify and adjust their plans, such as flying in an unplanned ~ 5,000 military police to prop up the New Orleans police, which were in shambles. The Federal government has long told the states they have to hold up for 72-96 hours. The Feds could have done better, but the city and state were practically total basket cases.
The nation's business does not necessarily include nomination of a Chief Justice less than 48 hours after his death. check the timeline here. Not saying it will affect relief efforts, just that it's the wrong time.
Presidentail succession is defined in the Constitution and happens immediately. Succession of leadership in the Congress is determined by rules, and maybe a vote. For the Court it takes the President and Congress working together. No sense in waiting, the Court starts a new session soon, and the Senate should be ready for Roberts confirmation hearings now having been previously nominated. As a co-equal branch of government, the courts are due their head as much as the legislature or executive branch.
I doubt if there will be "an inevitable flood of lawsuits" that even make it to the High Court.
I agree that few lawsuites from this are likely to make it to the Supreme Court. I also think that there will be a lot of lawsuits filed. It is almost inevitable regardless of their merit.
For active duty, 708,428 (48.2%) of the force has deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. 494,482 (33.6%) have deployed once, while 213.946 (14.6%) have deployed more than once.
For the National Guard and Reserves, 247,181 (20.8%) have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.
Sound like 10% to you? No. We're at 40% commitment over the next 3 years (including rotations). Start using a more reliable source.
If you have a family of 10, and over a period of 3 years all of them make a trip to the store, then 100% of the family has gone to the store. If I ask you, "Who went to the store," and you say "Everybody", it might be correct in one sense, but useless if you want to know who is at the store now, which is what is normally meant by the question, "Who went to the store?" The normal answer is mom went to the store (is at the store now). In the same sense you deployment numbers don't reflect who is deployed now.
The Army has been doing excellent in retention (Soldiers believe in and support the mission) and recruiting is picking up.
Yes, the bumbling by all levels of government was the deciding factor, not Iraq. Had the mayor/governor/president/FEMA done more, it would have made a world of difference.
We have a Federal government. If the States don't request help in certain matters, the hands of the Feds are tied. The Mayor of New Orleans even resisted ordering a mandatory evacuation despite President Bush's urging.
That being said, now is not the time to nominate the asshat for Chief Justice. During a national disaster, and before Rehnquist is even buried.
The United States is a nation of 300 million people in 50 states. Although the events in New Orleans are unfortunate, a week has passed and the nation's business has to go on. By nominating Rhenquist's replacement now, the Supreme Court could have a full bench when the Court starts its term in October. The issue of the Court won't interfere with relief efforts. If anything it will help get the court ready for the inevitable flood of lawsuits that will follow this disaster.
Nice tap dancing and misdirection, but irrelevant.
How many, what percentage, are there NOW, not over the next 4 years, not in 3 years, right NOW?
Iraq had little to do with this. The bumbling by the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana in simply not executing existing plans was a much bigger factor.
Doing what his wife wanted in the first place? Hardly.
How many hundreds of thousands of dollars does it take to pull the plug immediately, if that was really her wish?
Of course, the family had an interest in her welfare as well, but that does complicate the whole "GWB, Jeb, Frist, Focus.." story, eh?
If it really was her wish, he should have done it immediately, not after suing to get money for her rehabilitation and support, and before shacking up with another woman.
Brewster, Jennings was a great CIA asset, with close ties to ARAMCO and other major oil companies and ministries. Now it is useless as a front for US intelligence.... ...Wouldn't it be nice if at this time of uncertainty, the USA had some kind of asset capable of investigating these things from up close? Too bad a political vendetta destroyed major intelligence assets that could have helped with just that.
Indeed. Certainly there is no possibility that they might have other front companies in that vital economic sector now, or could possibly form them in the future. I guess we're just screwed.
A provocative view of how to deal with Rove and his deeds is pondered here.
Well,... let me help you catch up on your reading about Iraq's ties to terrorists. There is plenty more that isn't hard to find if you really care to be informed.
That is a bunch of malarkey. The facts are practically the opposite of what you stated, and not hard to find.
Solaris tar sucks for many reasons, the biggest of which is it's long standing problems with long filenames.
/usr/bin/tar cEf
Try the "E" switch with Sun tar, as in:
Theft is taking something (normally of value) without permission (normally obtained by paying for it). You can steal service as well, such as electricity. Pirated software and music certainly have value of some sort, otherwise you wouldn't want it. Just because there is no cost in making it or taking it (a copy) doesn't make it OK. Would you claim that stealing someones pet rock wasn't really stealing?
I've never believed this sentiment to be anything other than a self-serving lie spoken by bullies.
Your views are entirely understandable. In this post you disavow any meaningful knowledge history. That would explain why it seems to escape you that Blacks were freed in the South due to the North winning the Civil War after paying a terrible price in human lives. And that also explains why you don't know that the Germans really did pose a threat to the US in WW2 since they were specifically building long range aircraft, missiles, and submarines to attack the US. (Oh yes, they were also trying to build those atomic bomb thingies.) (And for your benefit: the US sent massive amounts of food, weapons, supplies, and fuel to the Soviet Union to help prop it up during the war, not to mention helping to split the German Army so it couldn't concentrate entirely against the USSR.)
And yet, despite your self-professed ignorance you do seem to have some very strong opinions about these matters.
I also find it amazing that you try to reduce the cost of freedom to an economic model (as if that was the only measure) and then profess ignorance of any model that could explain it. Even insurance companies can figure out how to attach a value to human life, like the lives of the soldiers who have been killed while fighting to keep us free. (Wow, life insurance value on lives of soldiers + cost of weapons and material... that might be the start of an economic model that you could understand.)
Well, why leave this as a thought experiment... if you hurry you could take a trip to Europe and talk to some of the rapidly diminishing number of living Frenchmen who lived in France before and after the Nazis conquered them. Maybe they could help you figure out if losing that war resulted in any change in their freedom. You could also ask them if the liberation of Western Europe, paid for by a couple of hundred thousand American lives made for any difference in their freedom. Maybe you could also get a Eurorail pass and go visit a few concentration camps or extermination camps and find out what real butchering bullies are like.
If you can't make it to Europe, and make no more effort to educate yourself, then you will remain as you seem now: ignorant, opinionated, unimaginative, intellectually lazy. I feel pretty comfortable in asserting that you will only be kept free by the efforts of your betters.... or is that "bullies" to you?
This is one of the areas of damage done by the Bush administration that I think doesn't get nearly
enough attention. With the current state of affairs, there is arguably no way for a conscientious American to serve their country through the military.
What nonsense. The number of people whose mind's have been changed by the Bush administration are few and far between. To the extent that anyone's minds have been changed they have largely changed to be closer to the views of the Bush administration by the attacks of Al Qaeda and company.
Your list of ways to serve is rather anemic, and a bit revealing. Here is an entire page of links to organizations and programs for patriotic Americans to aid their country and the service members defending us from the butchers who have stated they have the right to kill four million Americans. This isn't Vietnam where we can just pack up and leave and nothing bad happens to us, they came to our country and intend to destroy us. How many remember that Bin Laden's first demand (Q2) to America was that if we want his organization to stop attempting mass murder against Americans that we become a Muslim nation, which for him would be a Muslim of a very specific extremist, intolerant sect? (I can already hear the pathetic, deranged howls about the "right wing Christian theocracy we live under" now.) Well, just keep donating to the ACLU, I'm sure they will be keeping us safe from suicide bombers in our shopping malls with all that they do.
At my high school, which was in a relatively wealthy county, ... and very few students went into the military.
.. "well".
No doubt their parents taught them