"It's one of the few things left that's keep the States from slipping into a dictatorship."
Well, that, and you know... ELECTIONS!!! Sheesh, take off the tinfoil hat; evil GOP mind rays are not out to get you.
Anyways, according to ten billion surveys, the press is about 90% Democrat, 10% GOP. So, just keep in mind that your "watchdog" is functionally blind in one eye, deaf in one ear, and lame in two legs (that's why it hardly ever barked at Communism; snuck up on its left!).
Is tiered service really so awful that we need laws against it?
2 million people killed by SH is pretty conservative, given the below. Over 24 years, that works out to 228 people killed by Saddam per day. How many days have 228 people been killed in this war/occupation?
The bloody eight-year war ended in a stalemate. There were hundreds of thousands of casualties. Perhaps upwards of 1.7 million died on both sides. Both economies, previously healthy and expanding, were left in ruins.
UN organizations (such as UNICEF and the WHO) have estimated between 500,000 and 1.2 million deaths were caused by the sanctions, mostly in the under-5 age group [15]. Skeptics have estimated that only 350,000 excess deaths occurred between 1991 and 2000 [16], and that many deaths were actually due to the bombing of Iraqi infrastructure. Some object to the accusation that these deaths were caused by the sanctions. They argue that Saddam's hoarding his country's resources was the true cause of the crisis [either way, the war ended the sanctions]
However, Hans Blix said in late January 2003 that Iraq had "not genuinely accepted U.N. resolutions demanding that it disarm." [19]. He claimed there were some materials which had not been accounted for. Since sites had been found which evidenced the destruction of chemical weaponry, UNSCOM was actively working with Iraq on methods to ascertain for certain whether the amounts destroyed matched up with the amounts that Iraq had produced.
So you have the world's intel agencies vs. Scott Ritter:
More details are emerging on the arrest of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter. The Delmar resident was arrested by Colonie police in June of 2001 on a misdemeanor charge. And Channel 6 News has learned that Ritter had been issued a warning after being caught by police once before. Colonie police will not confirm any of this, but Channel 6 News learned that Ritter was caught in a sex sting early in 2001. He was issued a warning then, but eventually arrested for the same thing three months later. Ritter, who has made national headlines for speaking out against going to war with Iraq is keeping silent on this issue. He has been unavailable for comment since details of his arrest were made public. In June of 2001, Ritter was accused of engaging in a sexual discussion, on the Internet with a person who he thought, was a 14 year old girl. It was actually an undercover investigator who agreed to meet with Ritter. When Ritter arrived at the location, expecting to meet the girl, police warned him that he had been set up. Three months later Ritter allegedly fell into the same trap, only this time he was arrested.
Yeah, Ritter sounds credible. Or, maybe he conned some gullible people (like yourself) into giving him speaking fees.
Sigh... so sad to see victims of BDS flailing about this way. Perhaps you could follow Sean Penn's lead and torment a Bush doll for comfort. Really, I'm concerned about your sanity.
"WMDs were cited by the Bush administration as the primary reason for invasion."
Find me where they call it the "primary" reason. Doesn't make sense; after all, France has WMD too. The primary reason was always the nature and actions of the Hussein regime.
"Bush and Cheney also insinuated that Iraq caused 9/11"
No, they said Iraq had terrorist connections. Which Iraq certainly did.
Well, on the one hand you had Scott Ritter, (accused child molester, iirc?), and on the other you had the consensus of the world's intel agencies. Sorry, I like Marines too, but even Saddam's generals thought he had WMD.
But I see you've succumbed to BDS so I doubt any of that matters to you.
Of course, this was mostly Carter's people's fault for being stupid enough to accept a rigged random number generator (did it never occur to them WHY Chavez' people wanted to use their own? Sheesh.), but the fact this has received so little scrutiny internationally should be very frightening.
The new study was released this week by economists Ricardo Hausmann of Harvard and Roberto Rigobon of MIT. They zeroed in on a key problem with the August 18 vote audit that was run by the government's electoral council (CNE): In choosing which polling stations would be audited, the CNE refused to use the random number generator recommended by the Carter Center. Instead, the CNE insisted on its own program, run on its own computer. Mr. Carter's team acquiesced, and Messrs. Hausmann and Rigobon conclude that, in controlling this software, the government had the means to cheat.
"This result opens the possibility that the fraud was committed only in a subset of the 4,580 automated centers, say 3,000, and that the audit was successful because it directed the search to the 1,580 unaltered centers. That is why it was so important not to use the Carter Center number generator. If this was the case, Carter could never have figured it out."
Mr. Hausmann told us that he and Mr. Rigoban also "found very clear trails of fraud in the statistical record" and a probability of less than 1% that the anomalies observed could be pure chance. To put it another way, they think the chance is 99% that there was electoral fraud.
The whole point of electronics is to MAKE IT EASIER TO MANIPULATE INFORMATION.
This is wonderful for telecommunications, computing, etc., but it's not a plus for election integrity.
Hugo Chavez already rigged one election right under Jimmy Carter's nose using electronic voting; MIT mathematicians using Benford's Law found a 99% probability the vote tallies were fraudulent.
Funding an Al Qaeda arm would seem to be relevant information.
I'm not sure why the press is making this about WMD; strikes me as a strawman. I haven't seen much on righty blogs indicating they expect to find proof of WMDs, even with some Iraqi regime members claiming they were flown to Syria. Besides, even if they did, what difference would it make? It's not like anyone was claiming Saddam didn't have WMD before the war. Sure, it would deflate the "BUSH LIED!!" crowd a bit, but their case has never held any water anyway.
The big info has so far been about the Russians leaking (amusingly, inaccurate) battle information to the Hussein regime during the invasion.
I'm guessing the stuff gleaned will be that type of thing: mostly embarassing info, nothing earthshaking.
But they need to post them faster. At this rate it will take longer for the documents to be posted than it took to overthrow Saddam, hold elections, and install a democratic Iraqi gov't.
On the other hand, I'm not sure why anyone cares. The liberal case for removing Saddam was always the strongest case. And we did bring a measure of freedom to Iraqis.
As messy as things are, remember: every day that fewer than 100 Iraqis die, it's a better day than the average day under Saddam, even before you consider the political freedoms and free press they have now.
After all WOW is just like Grand Theft Auto, except the hookers are called "night elves."
(Seriously. I've seen people create a female night elf, take off all her clothes, and pimp her out as a naked dancer for money.)
I would have liked to see them spend less.
But I don't see how I'm being obtuse. I don't think anyone can seriously claim the Dems would have done better on spending than Repubs, whether now, 25 years ago, or in the future. They'd have smaller deficits, but because taxes were higher.
Ah yes, the doomsday defense. Apparently you're conceding that he wanted to spend less, and you're now arguing more spending was the better plan.
And only the Republicans could think you can balance a budget by increasing spending and cutting revenues. Simple damn math.
I don't think they claimed to be doing anything but cutting revenues and limiting spending growth. Ideally, they'd cut spending, but I'd rather have their plan than more taxes and even MORE spending, which is generally what Dems offer.
Re:Strawman much? You certainly do
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Iraq's war spending, not defense. It's seprate from the rest of the budget.
Go back and look at the proposed Dem and GOP budgets for the last 25 years. Even with defense spending figured in, the proposed Dem budgets are larger in every single case.
There are issues the Dems can legitimately claim to be better on, spending restraint just isn't one of them. It's like Republicans claiming to be the party that wants to give more money to the poor.
I think drinking green tea while you code is the best advice.
Google it, there's a lot of studies showing anti-cancer effects./greentearant
Re:Strawman much? You certainly do
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Netroots Politics
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· Score: 1
As opposed to the very substantive comment you just left?
It's sort of amazing the Dems even pretend to have any claim on fiscal discipline, when every time the GOP proposes spending cuts they claim Republicans want to push widows and orphans into the street to starve/freeze to death.
Remember when Newt Gingrich shut down the government to try to force Clinton to reduce spending? Now they claim Clinton deserves credit for balancing the budget. The mind boggles.
The funniest canard is the one about the deficits. Only the Dems could use "fiscal responsibility" as a euphemism for raising taxes.
Re:Strawman much? You certainly do
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Netroots Politics
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I wasn't assuming that, and in fact I think a lot of defense spending, perhaps even most of it, is wasteful (although OTOH, it should perhaps be pointed out the Internet itself, and by entension Slashdot itself, is a DARPA invention).
I was simply leaving defense out of the equation because it's generally not what people complain about when they say the federal gov't spends too much.
I noted something about Republican campaigners being better paid.
A big difference in the 1004 GOTV efforts was that Dems were paid while the GOPs were volunteers. By all accounts, this dichotomy worked to the GOPs favor: they were true believers intent on spreading their glorious message of truth, justice, and the Republican way, while the Dems were just showing up to make a buck.
Re:Strawman much? You certainly do
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Netroots Politics
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I hope you're just spinning and don't really believe that tripe; else, I fear for your sanity. The GOP hasn't been great, but the Dems are always, always, always worse on non-defense spending. And which party tried to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment and which party killed it?
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, and you might want to check the political leanings of media management. (Hint: 92% of Washington bureau chiefs voted for Clinton).
Blinded, indeed!
Its management that is in control... So, your argument of the personal views of the people at the very bottom of the organization aren't really valid.
Precisely! And that's why unions like the UAW are so pro-Republican!
just watch some john stewart
Hey, doesn't Jon work for one of those evil corporations too?? Why don't they fire him?
Liberal media in an of itself is a neo-con talking point.
Yeah, just like gravity and the speed of light. The GOP wants you to be slow and not realize they are making the Earth suck!
CEOs don't write or edit stories.
By your Chomskyish logic, the unions are all Republican too. (They work for corporations, don't they??? QED)
I think this comment had it right:
"Let's go even more abstract: the entire history of the Internet has been one that prohibited the prioritization of network traffic. What what?"
Is tiered service really so awful we need laws against it? I don't see that as justified; my Vonage phone works great (I know, small sample).
I'll go abstract too. Which is more likely to kill the Internet, too much regulation or not enough?
"It's one of the few things left that's keep the States from slipping into a dictatorship."
Well, that, and you know... ELECTIONS!!! Sheesh, take off the tinfoil hat; evil GOP mind rays are not out to get you.
Anyways, according to ten billion surveys, the press is about 90% Democrat, 10% GOP. So, just keep in mind that your "watchdog" is functionally blind in one eye, deaf in one ear, and lame in two legs (that's why it hardly ever barked at Communism; snuck up on its left!).
Is tiered service really so awful that we need laws against it?
Don't make me Tomahawk your spam.
2 million people killed by SH is pretty conservative, given the below. Over 24 years, that works out to 228 people killed by Saddam per day. How many days have 228 people been killed in this war/occupation?
The bloody eight-year war ended in a stalemate. There were hundreds of thousands of casualties. Perhaps upwards of 1.7 million died on both sides. Both economies, previously healthy and expanding, were left in ruins.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_hussein
UN organizations (such as UNICEF and the WHO) have estimated between 500,000 and 1.2 million deaths were caused by the sanctions, mostly in the under-5 age group [15]. Skeptics have estimated that only 350,000 excess deaths occurred between 1991 and 2000 [16], and that many deaths were actually due to the bombing of Iraqi infrastructure. Some object to the accusation that these deaths were caused by the sanctions. They argue that Saddam's hoarding his country's resources was the true cause of the crisis [either way, the war ended the sanctions]
Uhhh, no. The Iran-Iraq war alone was oer a million.
"Hans Blix did not think they were"
m ass_destruction
However, Hans Blix said in late January 2003 that Iraq had "not genuinely accepted U.N. resolutions demanding that it disarm." [19]. He claimed there were some materials which had not been accounted for. Since sites had been found which evidenced the destruction of chemical weaponry, UNSCOM was actively working with Iraq on methods to ascertain for certain whether the amounts destroyed matched up with the amounts that Iraq had produced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_
So you have the world's intel agencies vs. Scott Ritter:
More details are emerging on the arrest of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter. The Delmar resident was arrested by Colonie police in June of 2001 on a misdemeanor charge. And Channel 6 News has learned that Ritter had been issued a warning after being caught by police once before. Colonie police will not confirm any of this, but Channel 6 News learned that Ritter was caught in a sex sting early in 2001. He was issued a warning then, but eventually arrested for the same thing three months later. Ritter, who has made national headlines for speaking out against going to war with Iraq is keeping silent on this issue. He has been unavailable for comment since details of his arrest were made public. In June of 2001, Ritter was accused of engaging in a sexual discussion, on the Internet with a person who he thought, was a 14 year old girl. It was actually an undercover investigator who agreed to meet with Ritter. When Ritter arrived at the location, expecting to meet the girl, police warned him that he had been set up. Three months later Ritter allegedly fell into the same trap, only this time he was arrested.
Yeah, Ritter sounds credible. Or, maybe he conned some gullible people (like yourself) into giving him speaking fees.
Sigh... so sad to see victims of BDS flailing about this way. Perhaps you could follow Sean Penn's lead and torment a Bush doll for comfort. Really, I'm concerned about your sanity.
"WMDs were cited by the Bush administration as the primary reason for invasion." Find me where they call it the "primary" reason. Doesn't make sense; after all, France has WMD too. The primary reason was always the nature and actions of the Hussein regime. "Bush and Cheney also insinuated that Iraq caused 9/11" No, they said Iraq had terrorist connections. Which Iraq certainly did.
Well, on the one hand you had Scott Ritter, (accused child molester, iirc?), and on the other you had the consensus of the world's intel agencies. Sorry, I like Marines too, but even Saddam's generals thought he had WMD.
But I see you've succumbed to BDS so I doubt any of that matters to you.
Of course, this was mostly Carter's people's fault for being stupid enough to accept a rigged random number generator (did it never occur to them WHY Chavez' people wanted to use their own? Sheesh.), but the fact this has received so little scrutiny internationally should be very frightening.
http://marccooper.com/chavez-again-did-uncle-jimmy -get-duped/
t ml?id=110005586
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.h
The new study was released this week by economists Ricardo Hausmann of Harvard and Roberto Rigobon of MIT. They zeroed in on a key problem with the August 18 vote audit that was run by the government's electoral council (CNE): In choosing which polling stations would be audited, the CNE refused to use the random number generator recommended by the Carter Center. Instead, the CNE insisted on its own program, run on its own computer. Mr. Carter's team acquiesced, and Messrs. Hausmann and Rigobon conclude that, in controlling this software, the government had the means to cheat.
"This result opens the possibility that the fraud was committed only in a subset of the 4,580 automated centers, say 3,000, and that the audit was successful because it directed the search to the 1,580 unaltered centers. That is why it was so important not to use the Carter Center number generator. If this was the case, Carter could never have figured it out."
Mr. Hausmann told us that he and Mr. Rigoban also "found very clear trails of fraud in the statistical record" and a probability of less than 1% that the anomalies observed could be pure chance. To put it another way, they think the chance is 99% that there was electoral fraud.
The whole point of electronics is to MAKE IT EASIER TO MANIPULATE INFORMATION.
This is wonderful for telecommunications, computing, etc., but it's not a plus for election integrity.
Hugo Chavez already rigged one election right under Jimmy Carter's nose using electronic voting; MIT mathematicians using Benford's Law found a 99% probability the vote tallies were fraudulent.
Funding an Al Qaeda arm would seem to be relevant information.
I'm not sure why the press is making this about WMD; strikes me as a strawman. I haven't seen much on righty blogs indicating they expect to find proof of WMDs, even with some Iraqi regime members claiming they were flown to Syria. Besides, even if they did, what difference would it make? It's not like anyone was claiming Saddam didn't have WMD before the war. Sure, it would deflate the "BUSH LIED!!" crowd a bit, but their case has never held any water anyway.
The big info has so far been about the Russians leaking (amusingly, inaccurate) battle information to the Hussein regime during the invasion.
I'm guessing the stuff gleaned will be that type of thing: mostly embarassing info, nothing earthshaking.
But they need to post them faster. At this rate it will take longer for the documents to be posted than it took to overthrow Saddam, hold elections, and install a democratic Iraqi gov't. On the other hand, I'm not sure why anyone cares. The liberal case for removing Saddam was always the strongest case. And we did bring a measure of freedom to Iraqis. As messy as things are, remember: every day that fewer than 100 Iraqis die, it's a better day than the average day under Saddam, even before you consider the political freedoms and free press they have now.
After all WOW is just like Grand Theft Auto, except the hookers are called "night elves." (Seriously. I've seen people create a female night elf, take off all her clothes, and pimp her out as a naked dancer for money.)
I would have liked to see them spend less. But I don't see how I'm being obtuse. I don't think anyone can seriously claim the Dems would have done better on spending than Repubs, whether now, 25 years ago, or in the future. They'd have smaller deficits, but because taxes were higher.
Gingich's plan would have destroyed the economy.
Ah yes, the doomsday defense. Apparently you're conceding that he wanted to spend less, and you're now arguing more spending was the better plan.
And only the Republicans could think you can balance a budget by increasing spending and cutting revenues. Simple damn math.
I don't think they claimed to be doing anything but cutting revenues and limiting spending growth. Ideally, they'd cut spending, but I'd rather have their plan than more taxes and even MORE spending, which is generally what Dems offer.
Iraq's war spending, not defense. It's seprate from the rest of the budget. Go back and look at the proposed Dem and GOP budgets for the last 25 years. Even with defense spending figured in, the proposed Dem budgets are larger in every single case. There are issues the Dems can legitimately claim to be better on, spending restraint just isn't one of them. It's like Republicans claiming to be the party that wants to give more money to the poor.
I think drinking green tea while you code is the best advice.
/greentearant
Google it, there's a lot of studies showing anti-cancer effects.
As opposed to the very substantive comment you just left? It's sort of amazing the Dems even pretend to have any claim on fiscal discipline, when every time the GOP proposes spending cuts they claim Republicans want to push widows and orphans into the street to starve/freeze to death. Remember when Newt Gingrich shut down the government to try to force Clinton to reduce spending? Now they claim Clinton deserves credit for balancing the budget. The mind boggles. The funniest canard is the one about the deficits. Only the Dems could use "fiscal responsibility" as a euphemism for raising taxes.
I wasn't assuming that, and in fact I think a lot of defense spending, perhaps even most of it, is wasteful (although OTOH, it should perhaps be pointed out the Internet itself, and by entension Slashdot itself, is a DARPA invention). I was simply leaving defense out of the equation because it's generally not what people complain about when they say the federal gov't spends too much.
I noted something about Republican campaigners being better paid. A big difference in the 1004 GOTV efforts was that Dems were paid while the GOPs were volunteers. By all accounts, this dichotomy worked to the GOPs favor: they were true believers intent on spreading their glorious message of truth, justice, and the Republican way, while the Dems were just showing up to make a buck.
I hope you're just spinning and don't really believe that tripe; else, I fear for your sanity. The GOP hasn't been great, but the Dems are always, always, always worse on non-defense spending. And which party tried to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment and which party killed it?