But my point is that they WILL fight us, whether we want them to or not, regardless of our policies, because they know that we are the main defender of democracy in the world. Their goal is a theocracy, one that will span the entire Muslim world, and maybe as much of the rest of it that they can grab, based upon the Koran.
We stand in their way, so we will be a target. If we reverse our policies, they will then be free to use some invented attack against the Muslim world to incite their population against us. What is the dictator's best technique to stay in power? Invent an outside threat. We are the biggest around, with us gone, the rest would be cannon fodder.
It does NOT take two to make a war, just one side that's armed and willing to use it. If we give in, to them it just shows weakness. Seriously, it would be the worst thing we could do.
I cannot agree more with the "war within Islam" statement.
As I have been trying to explain to people for several years, the terrorists, while claiming to be fundamentalist Muslim, are really using the religion to shield their actual intent from exposure. The vast majority of Muslim people around the world live in countries that do not believe in universal literacy, so many of them depend upon the word of clerics to tell them what their holy book, the Koran, says. Since Islam has no central authority, like the Vatican in Catholicism, there is nobody that can definitively settle a dispute about what a passage means. This makes it easy for their friendly clerics to sway large numbers of Muslims to their support with relative ease.
The Koran, like the Bible, has entire sections that have been nullified by the passage of time, and the affect of different teachings and traditions over the centuries. Like the Bible has passages that condone slavery, the Koran has passages that require Muslims to attack and kill infidels. We don't condone slavery, and have finessed those passages so that we don't take them seriously anymore. So have most of the clerics in Islam glossed over and don't teach the anti-infidel passages, either.
But these newly-minted fundamentalists have taken these passages, which are still there in black and white, and are making them relavent again, using friendly clerics. Remember, within certain bounds, one cleric's fatwa is as good as another's, certainly to the unwashed, illiterate masses of Muslim people.
Combine that with the terrorists' use of US policies that are msotly unpopular in the Arab world anyway, and they have a ready-made platform for general mayhem.
The majority of moderate Muslim clerics around the world that do not condone the terrorists' actions have not yet recognized the terrorists threat to their way of life, and those that do are slow to react. It'll be a long, hard road, and it's a fight that will happen whether the US is involved or not.
Well, a start would be to come up with a real vision for where they want this country to go. One that is based upon common American values, not religiously based ones (whether pro or anti).
Ronald Reagan, whether you liked him or not, had a clear vision for this country that he was uniquely capable of articulating to the public. That ability, and that vision, got him elected. He wasn't called "The Great Communicator" for nothing.
If the Dems could find a leader that had an ability to communicate anything near like RR had, and they bothered to come up with a vision that he could then clearly articulate to the country (and one that had NOTHING to do with hating Bush - we know you do, and we're tired of hearing about it), then he could give the Republican Party a good run for their money.
I don't disagree so much with your second paragraph, altho it's a bit more strongly worded than I would make it...
However, I do disagree with your first. The terrorism we are fighting isn't there because of our policies - they exist in large part because, originally, of the way the UN created Israel without a parallel concern for the rights of the people that lived in the areas they carved the new country out of. Not that we're helping matters any.
But look at my other posts above. They wouldn't just go away if we quit. Things, internationally, would only get worse. Do you think they would suddenly stop being terrorists? Techniques that would have worked to defeat us, and don't think for a minute that they wouldn't call it a defeat, they would be able to use to defeat others they would call their enemies, until they have the Islamic Caliphate they really want. Then Katey, bar the door!
Don't forget, their version of Islam reads the Koran to say that they are supposed to make war upon infidels (that's us). There's nothing more dangerous than a religious nut, whether Christian or Islamic. Doesn't matter how many of them there are, they are the ones with guns and the willingness to use them, as well as the organization to make it work. And do you think they'll stop when they have the resources of entire countries at their disposal?
Don't think, read the Koran for enlightenment - it'll scare you.
I didn't say it was a large number - just that GWB's low poll numbers indicate that he's got a problem this time.
And, yes, he was able to increase his numbers, you'll notice I mentioned that twice in the last hundred years the rule was broken. What made you think I wasn't referring to that? And, also note that, at the time, his poll numbers were higher than ever, something over 60%. Good reason for the increase, according to articles I've read about it recently. His poll humbers now are as low as they were high then! So, yeah, he's got a problem. There is speculation he could lose control of at least one half of Congress.
Sorry, but I have to disagree with your assertion.
If this country reversed its policies and abandoned Israel, brought our troops home from all over the world, and stopped "interferring" in world affairs, in fairly short order, we would face a cutoff of our sources of oil in the middle east, as current totalitarian governments we depend on for oil were overthrown by fundamentalist Islamic groups. Our economic interests would be decimated as nations hostile to us took advantage of our isolation and threw us out of markets all over the world (nations like Russia, China, the new Caliphate the fundamentalists would form, even traditionally friendly nations like Japan).
Our economy would tank, our status as a superpower would also tank, and within fifty years, or sooner, we would face some form of invasion, probably based from the newly formed Muslim caliphate, which would have had plenty of time to solidify its hold on the Muslim world without our "interferance" in their ability to conquer as much of the Muslim world as possible.
Read about it - there have been plenty of books published about the terrorists' real motives, and knowedgeable people have been warning about them for at least thirty years.
Previous posts were right that said we cannot deal with, negotiate with, nor allow the world to get the idea that we will in any way cave into the demands of the terrorists.
The US has the reputation of being a superpower because until now, we've acted like it, and used our power to promote American interests all over the world. With international power, the name of the game is "use it or lose it". As soon as other nations get the idea you are weak and maleable by force of arms, you are toast!
Doesn't mean that we shouldn't use negotiation when we can, we should; but that diplomacy should always be backed up with the very real threat of the use of American force of arms in order to enforce our interests. That won't make us popular, but it will enable us to survive.
Being nice on the world stage never works - just ask Neville Chamberlain, former British Prime Minister, how far nice got him in Munich. Then read about WWII.
Your premise depends upon the terrorists being nice people that are just defending themselves - it's what they want you to think. In reality, these people are thugs - most of them grew up in the era of the Soviet invasion of Afganistan, and never learned how to be anything but mujahadeen. Its their worldview - that everybody's out to get them, so they must always be prepared to attack. It is, after all, what the Koran tells them about infidels. (That's us, by the way.)
After all, when your only tool is a hammer, most problems begin to look like nails!
You may consider it a tired accusation, but until people actually see ideas from strong Democratic leaders that don't revolve around hating Bush, you will keep hearing it!
I style myself as largely independant - although I have voted Republican since Reagan - mainly since I haven't seen a Democratic leader with a real, strongly articulated vision that didn't involve turning the country so sharply left it scared me as much as the Republican right does now.
As I mentioned in my post above, what this country needs is a strong moderate leader that is capable of bringing this country together, based upon a strongly articulated vision that doesn't call half the country stupid names. Nobody has a problem with strengthening this country's values - but the one thing that has escaped the Republican right is that we don't all want those values to be labeled with a religious name.
Personally, I don't really care which party this leader comes from, as long as he focuses on bringing us together, by emphasizing commonly held values that don't have labels attached to them. There are enough values we can call American that we all can agree on; the more devisive ones can be put on the back burner until we can settle the major international problems we have today.
If the majority of Americans in the middle had a leader that truly attracted moderate voters, he would walk away with the next election, regardless of his party. I think most of us are getting very tired of the far right and the far left both!
Carefully crafted they may be, but even loyal party pundits are admitting that a certain number of Reps are in for a real fight this time around. When dissatisfaction, even among the incumbant's own party, hits a certain level, that incumbant is in trouble, no matter how carefully crafted his position is supposed to be.
The Republicans are also up against a very real general rule - the one that notes that the party in the White House almost always looses Congressional seats in the off year - that hasn't happened only twice in the last hundred years. Add to that the amount of opposition Bush faces among not only independants, but the dissaffected in his own party, and the Grand Ole Party has its work cut out for it before November.
There are a lot of moderate Republicans that are not comfortable with the far right wing bent to the Pres's policies. I am one of them. I voted for Bush because I thought maybe he'd shake things up. He did, but not in the way I had hoped. Fortunately, there has been just enough resistance form those of us moderates that don't like religious interference in government to at least slow things down.
Don't get me wrong - I don't think Dems are capable of the kind of hard decisions that will be required to get this country through this "War on Terror" we are involved in. I know that it is now considered Bush's war, but that is a huge mistake. Like it or not, we are really and truly at war with people who style themselves as fundamentalist Muslims. They have very real issues that they are successfully using to incite opposition to the US, and support for them, in the world at large, not just the Muslim world. The US policies that they object to are policies that are not specific to the Republicans - the Democrats have supported Israel strongly, too. Fighting our way out of this one will take not just diplomacy (and certainly more than Bush has managed) but strength of will and purpose. So far, I don't see many American politicians with those particular strengths on the public stage.
What America needs today is a government that can populate itself with moderates. People that believe in the things that most Americans value - not the far right or left of either major party. Someone that really will try to bring us together for the hard times we are going to go through in the next twenty years. Someone that will provide a strong leadership without making half of us feel like he thinks we are going to hell because we don't worship his way.
It's kinda different, but they don't really share the same button. Right side of the scrollball = right button. Left side of the scrooball = left button. Like any other two button mouse, you can program them to be either right or left click depending on your left- or right-handedness. The touch sensitive technology allows them to make the body of the mouse remain solid but still allowing the mouse to know which side you clicked on.
I'm not sure what you mean by "rocker gestures", tho I have several mental images...;-)
If you like two buttons, then buy this one. Its touch technology allows it to be used as either a one or two button mouse, and the twin buttons on the sides are programmable, too. The scroll ball is just nirvana in how well it works.
There are more businesses than McDonald's that use drive through customer windows. And I am sure that there are other businesses that would or could use this technology, especially if it's cheap.
You are right - I was visiting Germany a few years ago, and in their heavily agricultural areas, they have a lot of very big windmills (very big - you can see them for MILES) and they move very slowly. The design was modern, slick, and not at all displeasing. My wife noted to me (she's German, and this is in her home area) that not all area residents were delighted with the view, tho.
This is standard marketing stuff. If a company knows what you like, they can target you for advertising of products you would be more likely to buy. It makes their advertising dollars more effective. If they know you like big Macs, cause that's all you ever buy, why would they send you an ad for a new salad? Or a breakfast meal? Waste of money.
I could see it - as you drive into the drive in lane, your license tag is identified as a previous customer - the computer sees from your previous history that you order big meals. (and note that they don't need to access a database to know who you are - it's enough to know that your car has been there before!) So it puts an ad up on a light box in front of you for those items currently on sale that it knows you've ordered before.
To you, the process is transparant, it takes just a second or two. But to the business, it has the opportunity to target their advertising to a customer that is more likely to respond to it and buy, therefore increasing their revenue.
Nobody said that. My statement was a bald faced explanation of an economic axiom about the marginal value of money, or for that matter any commodity, NOT any kind of moral judgement as to the goodness or not of that axiom.
What the axiom means is that, as you accumulate more of anything, each additional unit of that commodity becomes less valuable. If you have ten bucks to your name, five more dollars is an increase of 1/3 of your net worth. If you have $100,000.00 its less than pocket change. The same thing is true if you replace the unit "dollar" for any commodity, say, gallons of gas.
Economic theory is not designed to teach or explain morality, merely economic facts.
You didn't mention self-sufficiency, nor did you mention inflation, which, by the way is NOT everybody getting paid more. See this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation, where wikipedia gives a more proper definition, that's not so self serving as yours. Strictly speaking, inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. I guess your mentioning money loosing its value is the closest you came to being right, but that's not because everybody gets paid more. Everybody getting paid more is only a symptom of inflation, and your original post didn't seem to mean inflation was a cause of that, in that context.
Sorry, as to the original statement you made, you still got it wrong, no matter how you try to explain yourself through obfuscation.
Actually, the value of any commodity is based upon the quantity of that commodity you have. The more of a commodity you have, the less value it has to you. The less of it you have, the more each unit is worth. You've got it backwards.
In this case, it IS intended to have a chilling affect, and rightly so. (By the way the gov't didn't fire her - her employer did. All the CIA did was pull her clearance.)
This woman was working for a CIA contractor as a programmer. Her job was programming CIA computers. Her job had nothing to do with setting, debating, advising on, nor reviewing, agency policy on field techniques. Yet, she took advantage of an official blog to make comments about that policy in a way that revealed her dissatisfaction with established policy.
Ok so far? Yes, she has a right to her opinion, nobody is disputing that. But she revealed, in a very public way (within that community) a dissatisfaction with that policy - that revealed, in turn, a possible discomfort with working for the CIA.
In the intelligence world, that is a red flag. It means that person may be unhappy, or bothered enough by something, to possibly reveal secret information to an adversary. Doesn't mean SHE will, but you don't take chances with national security information that could mean lives lost. So they did what the rules say they are supposed to do. They pulled her clearance.
Since the terms of her employment most likely stated that she had to be able to hold such a clearance to hold her job, when she lost the clearance, she lost her job. Simple, clear, legal... and something that she KNEW was possible.
She did not loose her job because of her opinion, she lost her job because she had become a security risk. and THAT was a lesson that was intended to send a message to all other contract employees: Keep your mind on your own business, do your job. "Loose lips sink ships." Remember that?
"In particular, I don't agree that the best policy is whatever the brass decide is in their personal best interest."
What universe do you live in? In mine, government managers are doing a JOB. You know, for a paycheck? I don't know what you mean by that statement. The CIA is a small part of the US government, and managers there are professionals, trained to manage intelligence personnel in collecting information in the interests of the United States. Period. A manager's personal interest, whatever you mean by that, does not enter into it.
What I meant by my statement is that, in a beauracracy, the managers develop and set organizational policy. That is what they are hired and paid to do. There are employees that, as subject matter experts, advise managers on what issues affect the policy-making process, but generally, IT programmers, and contractors, at that, are NOT part of that process. As a matter of fact, I am certain that CIA employees have discussions about this kind of thing on a regular basis. After all, it is their job to worry about these things, especially the people that debate and set policy. However, the place for that debate is NOT in a CIA blog authored by a contractor whose job it is to program CIA computers. That is why they pulled her clearance. She was showing an interest, and one at odds with the official policy, in matters of agancy procedures that were none of her business. In the intelligence field, that is a red flag indicating that someone is not comfortable with the organization he/she is working with. That means he/she may be tempted/invited to betray secret material to an enemy. So the simple thing to do in order to keep that from happening is to remove them from temptation.
Yes, the CIA has been accused, and rightly so, in my opinion, of being too monolithic in their thinking. A number of top managers have been appointed by a succession of Presidents to try to change that. Eventually, that effort may pay off. But believe me, the last way you are going to see that is through CIA field employees refusing to take orders in field operations. Those folk ARE, after all career gov't employees, and have pensions to worry about. But take heart, there HAVE been the occasional brave souls that have taken stands before... and they usually make a difference.
Not applicable in this case. The woman TFA was about is a CIA CONTRACTOR. That means she works for a company that holds a contract with the CIA for certain work, in this case, programming.
So she WASN'T a gov't employee. The terms of her employment would have included a clause that in order to remain employed, she would have to be able to hold a certain level clearance. As soon as the CIA pulled her clearance, she was no longer able to perform her job - so she lost it. Plenty of legal precidence on this in the courts, too! She could have been working in a non right to work state and it would still be legal.
There is a lot of controversy over this, even in gov't circles, believe it or not. On one hand, you are right, the intelligence field is a world that operates in a very murky, semi-legal, dirty world. Sometimes, the only way to get information from a determined enemy is to do bad things to good people to get them to provide info. That could mean deliberately compromising an individual in an influencial position using drugs, sex, money, gambling or other shady vices, it could mean finding people with a grudge and plying them with money, drugs, sex, or all three.
The use of interrogation to obtain information from an enemy prisoner is always touchy. You have to know the person's attitudes about his employer. Is he patriotic? Has he a weak spot in his feelings? Can we expand on that? If he is a strong supporter or a fanatic, then the problem is compounded and made more difficult. The use of environental factors to reduce a person's resistance to interrogation does not necessarily have to include what the law would call torture. That could include such things as sleep deprivation, disturbance of the sleep/wake cycle, isolation from fellow prisoners or outside news, etc.
The use of such techniques as waterboarding are controversial because they do not necessarily include the deliberate infliction of pain - but DO inflict mental anguish through inciting a fear of what one's captors may do to you next. Remember - many of the people we have kept prisoner are from cultures where torture is a common method of interrogation. The CIA uses the fear this incites in their prisoners to influence them to talk, and in the heat of the overall conflict, it is remarkably easy to convince oneself that taking just that one small step further won't hurt.
There are those that would argue that subjecting these people to harsher methods of interrogation are necessary because the people we are holding are trained to withstand the legal methods we are allowed to use. That is the heart of the controversy, and there are arguments on both sides.
Myself, I tend to come down on the side of more civilized conventions. Not over how effective it may or may not be, but as soon as we gave up the high ground, we lose any protections we may have been able to claim from holding that high ground. That may put us at a disadvantage, but we've overcome such disadvantages before and come out on top.
Fact is, an intranet that belongs to, and is controlled by, either a corporation or a government, IS a "private" intranet. "Private" in this case refers to a meaning of "NOT public". the corporation or government, by virtue of owning the equipment upon which the intranet operates, has the right to control the content of that intranet.
Anybody that has any experience at working in a bureaucracy like the CIA would (or should) KNOW not to critisize the upper management about such a sensitive subject. Cafeteria food is one thing - even gov't managers realize that such things are harmless, and let employees blow off steam and gives them a feeling of some "empowerment" (to use a politically correct term in use today) over their work environment. But being empowered over your work environment is NOT the same thing as POLICY.
The brass, and only the brass, have a say in that. Employees can get in trouble, and get moved to non-critical or even boring, umimportant jobs, over such things. CONTRACTORS, on the other hand, are expendable, and WILL get fired - do not pass go, do not collect $200. Don't even pack yer things, we'll send 'em to ya!
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong: "Navigator MSRP starts at $50,145*."
See: http://www.lincoln.com/navigator/home.asp
And that's the starting price, not the fully loaded price!
"Please ensure brain is engaged before putting mouth in gear!"
But my point is that they WILL fight us, whether we want them to or not, regardless of our policies, because they know that we are the main defender of democracy in the world. Their goal is a theocracy, one that will span the entire Muslim world, and maybe as much of the rest of it that they can grab, based upon the Koran.
We stand in their way, so we will be a target. If we reverse our policies, they will then be free to use some invented attack against the Muslim world to incite their population against us. What is the dictator's best technique to stay in power? Invent an outside threat. We are the biggest around, with us gone, the rest would be cannon fodder.
It does NOT take two to make a war, just one side that's armed and willing to use it. If we give in, to them it just shows weakness. Seriously, it would be the worst thing we could do.
I cannot agree more with the "war within Islam" statement.
As I have been trying to explain to people for several years, the terrorists, while claiming to be fundamentalist Muslim, are really using the religion to shield their actual intent from exposure. The vast majority of Muslim people around the world live in countries that do not believe in universal literacy, so many of them depend upon the word of clerics to tell them what their holy book, the Koran, says. Since Islam has no central authority, like the Vatican in Catholicism, there is nobody that can definitively settle a dispute about what a passage means. This makes it easy for their friendly clerics to sway large numbers of Muslims to their support with relative ease.
The Koran, like the Bible, has entire sections that have been nullified by the passage of time, and the affect of different teachings and traditions over the centuries. Like the Bible has passages that condone slavery, the Koran has passages that require Muslims to attack and kill infidels. We don't condone slavery, and have finessed those passages so that we don't take them seriously anymore. So have most of the clerics in Islam glossed over and don't teach the anti-infidel passages, either.
But these newly-minted fundamentalists have taken these passages, which are still there in black and white, and are making them relavent again, using friendly clerics. Remember, within certain bounds, one cleric's fatwa is as good as another's, certainly to the unwashed, illiterate masses of Muslim people.
Combine that with the terrorists' use of US policies that are msotly unpopular in the Arab world anyway, and they have a ready-made platform for general mayhem.
The majority of moderate Muslim clerics around the world that do not condone the terrorists' actions have not yet recognized the terrorists threat to their way of life, and those that do are slow to react. It'll be a long, hard road, and it's a fight that will happen whether the US is involved or not.
Well, a start would be to come up with a real vision for where they want this country to go. One that is based upon common American values, not religiously based ones (whether pro or anti).
Ronald Reagan, whether you liked him or not, had a clear vision for this country that he was uniquely capable of articulating to the public. That ability, and that vision, got him elected. He wasn't called "The Great Communicator" for nothing.
If the Dems could find a leader that had an ability to communicate anything near like RR had, and they bothered to come up with a vision that he could then clearly articulate to the country (and one that had NOTHING to do with hating Bush - we know you do, and we're tired of hearing about it), then he could give the Republican Party a good run for their money.
I don't disagree so much with your second paragraph, altho it's a bit more strongly worded than I would make it...
However, I do disagree with your first. The terrorism we are fighting isn't there because of our policies - they exist in large part because, originally, of the way the UN created Israel without a parallel concern for the rights of the people that lived in the areas they carved the new country out of. Not that we're helping matters any.
But look at my other posts above. They wouldn't just go away if we quit. Things, internationally, would only get worse. Do you think they would suddenly stop being terrorists? Techniques that would have worked to defeat us, and don't think for a minute that they wouldn't call it a defeat, they would be able to use to defeat others they would call their enemies, until they have the Islamic Caliphate they really want. Then Katey, bar the door!
Don't forget, their version of Islam reads the Koran to say that they are supposed to make war upon infidels (that's us). There's nothing more dangerous than a religious nut, whether Christian or Islamic. Doesn't matter how many of them there are, they are the ones with guns and the willingness to use them, as well as the organization to make it work. And do you think they'll stop when they have the resources of entire countries at their disposal?
Don't think, read the Koran for enlightenment - it'll scare you.
I didn't say it was a large number - just that GWB's low poll numbers indicate that he's got a problem this time.
And, yes, he was able to increase his numbers, you'll notice I mentioned that twice in the last hundred years the rule was broken. What made you think I wasn't referring to that? And, also note that, at the time, his poll numbers were higher than ever, something over 60%. Good reason for the increase, according to articles I've read about it recently. His poll humbers now are as low as they were high then! So, yeah, he's got a problem. There is speculation he could lose control of at least one half of Congress.
Sorry, but I have to disagree with your assertion.
If this country reversed its policies and abandoned Israel, brought our troops home from all over the world, and stopped "interferring" in world affairs, in fairly short order, we would face a cutoff of our sources of oil in the middle east, as current totalitarian governments we depend on for oil were overthrown by fundamentalist Islamic groups. Our economic interests would be decimated as nations hostile to us took advantage of our isolation and threw us out of markets all over the world (nations like Russia, China, the new Caliphate the fundamentalists would form, even traditionally friendly nations like Japan).
Our economy would tank, our status as a superpower would also tank, and within fifty years, or sooner, we would face some form of invasion, probably based from the newly formed Muslim caliphate, which would have had plenty of time to solidify its hold on the Muslim world without our "interferance" in their ability to conquer as much of the Muslim world as possible.
Read about it - there have been plenty of books published about the terrorists' real motives, and knowedgeable people have been warning about them for at least thirty years.
Previous posts were right that said we cannot deal with, negotiate with, nor allow the world to get the idea that we will in any way cave into the demands of the terrorists.
The US has the reputation of being a superpower because until now, we've acted like it, and used our power to promote American interests all over the world. With international power, the name of the game is "use it or lose it". As soon as other nations get the idea you are weak and maleable by force of arms, you are toast!
Doesn't mean that we shouldn't use negotiation when we can, we should; but that diplomacy should always be backed up with the very real threat of the use of American force of arms in order to enforce our interests. That won't make us popular, but it will enable us to survive.
Being nice on the world stage never works - just ask Neville Chamberlain, former British Prime Minister, how far nice got him in Munich. Then read about WWII.
Your premise depends upon the terrorists being nice people that are just defending themselves - it's what they want you to think. In reality, these people are thugs - most of them grew up in the era of the Soviet invasion of Afganistan, and never learned how to be anything but mujahadeen. Its their worldview - that everybody's out to get them, so they must always be prepared to attack. It is, after all, what the Koran tells them about infidels. (That's us, by the way.)
After all, when your only tool is a hammer, most problems begin to look like nails!
Sorry, I'm not usually a grammer or spelling nazi, but I think the word you wanted may be "umbrage"... see: http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=umbrage - meaning No. 4.
You may consider it a tired accusation, but until people actually see ideas from strong Democratic leaders that don't revolve around hating Bush, you will keep hearing it!
I style myself as largely independant - although I have voted Republican since Reagan - mainly since I haven't seen a Democratic leader with a real, strongly articulated vision that didn't involve turning the country so sharply left it scared me as much as the Republican right does now.
As I mentioned in my post above, what this country needs is a strong moderate leader that is capable of bringing this country together, based upon a strongly articulated vision that doesn't call half the country stupid names. Nobody has a problem with strengthening this country's values - but the one thing that has escaped the Republican right is that we don't all want those values to be labeled with a religious name.
Personally, I don't really care which party this leader comes from, as long as he focuses on bringing us together, by emphasizing commonly held values that don't have labels attached to them. There are enough values we can call American that we all can agree on; the more devisive ones can be put on the back burner until we can settle the major international problems we have today.
If the majority of Americans in the middle had a leader that truly attracted moderate voters, he would walk away with the next election, regardless of his party. I think most of us are getting very tired of the far right and the far left both!
Carefully crafted they may be, but even loyal party pundits are admitting that a certain number of Reps are in for a real fight this time around. When dissatisfaction, even among the incumbant's own party, hits a certain level, that incumbant is in trouble, no matter how carefully crafted his position is supposed to be.
The Republicans are also up against a very real general rule - the one that notes that the party in the White House almost always looses Congressional seats in the off year - that hasn't happened only twice in the last hundred years. Add to that the amount of opposition Bush faces among not only independants, but the dissaffected in his own party, and the Grand Ole Party has its work cut out for it before November.
There are a lot of moderate Republicans that are not comfortable with the far right wing bent to the Pres's policies. I am one of them. I voted for Bush because I thought maybe he'd shake things up. He did, but not in the way I had hoped. Fortunately, there has been just enough resistance form those of us moderates that don't like religious interference in government to at least slow things down.
Don't get me wrong - I don't think Dems are capable of the kind of hard decisions that will be required to get this country through this "War on Terror" we are involved in. I know that it is now considered Bush's war, but that is a huge mistake. Like it or not, we are really and truly at war with people who style themselves as fundamentalist Muslims. They have very real issues that they are successfully using to incite opposition to the US, and support for them, in the world at large, not just the Muslim world. The US policies that they object to are policies that are not specific to the Republicans - the Democrats have supported Israel strongly, too. Fighting our way out of this one will take not just diplomacy (and certainly more than Bush has managed) but strength of will and purpose. So far, I don't see many American politicians with those particular strengths on the public stage.
What America needs today is a government that can populate itself with moderates. People that believe in the things that most Americans value - not the far right or left of either major party. Someone that really will try to bring us together for the hard times we are going to go through in the next twenty years. Someone that will provide a strong leadership without making half of us feel like he thinks we are going to hell because we don't worship his way.
It's kinda different, but they don't really share the same button. Right side of the scrollball = right button. Left side of the scrooball = left button. Like any other two button mouse, you can program them to be either right or left click depending on your left- or right-handedness. The touch sensitive technology allows them to make the body of the mouse remain solid but still allowing the mouse to know which side you clicked on.
I'm not sure what you mean by "rocker gestures", tho I have several mental images...;-)
If you like two buttons, then buy this one. Its touch technology allows it to be used as either a one or two button mouse, and the twin buttons on the sides are programmable, too. The scroll ball is just nirvana in how well it works.
There are more businesses than McDonald's that use drive through customer windows. And I am sure that there are other businesses that would or could use this technology, especially if it's cheap.
You are right - I was visiting Germany a few years ago, and in their heavily agricultural areas, they have a lot of very big windmills (very big - you can see them for MILES) and they move very slowly. The design was modern, slick, and not at all displeasing. My wife noted to me (she's German, and this is in her home area) that not all area residents were delighted with the view, tho.
This is standard marketing stuff. If a company knows what you like, they can target you for advertising of products you would be more likely to buy. It makes their advertising dollars more effective. If they know you like big Macs, cause that's all you ever buy, why would they send you an ad for a new salad? Or a breakfast meal? Waste of money.
I could see it - as you drive into the drive in lane, your license tag is identified as a previous customer - the computer sees from your previous history that you order big meals. (and note that they don't need to access a database to know who you are - it's enough to know that your car has been there before!) So it puts an ad up on a light box in front of you for those items currently on sale that it knows you've ordered before.
To you, the process is transparant, it takes just a second or two. But to the business, it has the opportunity to target their advertising to a customer that is more likely to respond to it and buy, therefore increasing their revenue.
Smarter advertising, smarter dollars.
Your post is a better explanation of what you meant. Sorry, but it sounded a bit off at first.
Nobody said that. My statement was a bald faced explanation of an economic axiom about the marginal value of money, or for that matter any commodity, NOT any kind of moral judgement as to the goodness or not of that axiom.
What the axiom means is that, as you accumulate more of anything, each additional unit of that commodity becomes less valuable. If you have ten bucks to your name, five more dollars is an increase of 1/3 of your net worth. If you have $100,000.00 its less than pocket change. The same thing is true if you replace the unit "dollar" for any commodity, say, gallons of gas.
Economic theory is not designed to teach or explain morality, merely economic facts.
You didn't mention self-sufficiency, nor did you mention inflation, which, by the way is NOT everybody getting paid more. See this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation, where wikipedia gives a more proper definition, that's not so self serving as yours. Strictly speaking, inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. I guess your mentioning money loosing its value is the closest you came to being right, but that's not because everybody gets paid more. Everybody getting paid more is only a symptom of inflation, and your original post didn't seem to mean inflation was a cause of that, in that context.
Sorry, as to the original statement you made, you still got it wrong, no matter how you try to explain yourself through obfuscation.
Actually, the value of any commodity is based upon the quantity of that commodity you have. The more of a commodity you have, the less value it has to you. The less of it you have, the more each unit is worth. You've got it backwards.
Economics 101...
Ahhh! the uprising of the undead nerds!
Sounds like a cheap B grade movie... Where's Schwartzenager when we need him?
In this case, it IS intended to have a chilling affect, and rightly so. (By the way the gov't didn't fire her - her employer did. All the CIA did was pull her clearance.)
This woman was working for a CIA contractor as a programmer. Her job was programming CIA computers. Her job had nothing to do with setting, debating, advising on, nor reviewing, agency policy on field techniques. Yet, she took advantage of an official blog to make comments about that policy in a way that revealed her dissatisfaction with established policy.
Ok so far? Yes, she has a right to her opinion, nobody is disputing that. But she revealed, in a very public way (within that community) a dissatisfaction with that policy - that revealed, in turn, a possible discomfort with working for the CIA.
In the intelligence world, that is a red flag. It means that person may be unhappy, or bothered enough by something, to possibly reveal secret information to an adversary. Doesn't mean SHE will, but you don't take chances with national security information that could mean lives lost. So they did what the rules say they are supposed to do. They pulled her clearance.
Since the terms of her employment most likely stated that she had to be able to hold such a clearance to hold her job, when she lost the clearance, she lost her job. Simple, clear, legal... and something that she KNEW was possible.
She did not loose her job because of her opinion, she lost her job because she had become a security risk. and THAT was a lesson that was intended to send a message to all other contract employees: Keep your mind on your own business, do your job. "Loose lips sink ships." Remember that?
The CIA does.
"In particular, I don't agree that the best policy is whatever the brass decide is in their personal best interest."
What universe do you live in? In mine, government managers are doing a JOB. You know, for a paycheck? I don't know what you mean by that statement. The CIA is a small part of the US government, and managers there are professionals, trained to manage intelligence personnel in collecting information in the interests of the United States. Period. A manager's personal interest, whatever you mean by that, does not enter into it.
What I meant by my statement is that, in a beauracracy, the managers develop and set organizational policy. That is what they are hired and paid to do. There are employees that, as subject matter experts, advise managers on what issues affect the policy-making process, but generally, IT programmers, and contractors, at that, are NOT part of that process. As a matter of fact, I am certain that CIA employees have discussions about this kind of thing on a regular basis. After all, it is their job to worry about these things, especially the people that debate and set policy. However, the place for that debate is NOT in a CIA blog authored by a contractor whose job it is to program CIA computers. That is why they pulled her clearance. She was showing an interest, and one at odds with the official policy, in matters of agancy procedures that were none of her business. In the intelligence field, that is a red flag indicating that someone is not comfortable with the organization he/she is working with. That means he/she may be tempted/invited to betray secret material to an enemy. So the simple thing to do in order to keep that from happening is to remove them from temptation.
Yes, the CIA has been accused, and rightly so, in my opinion, of being too monolithic in their thinking. A number of top managers have been appointed by a succession of Presidents to try to change that. Eventually, that effort may pay off. But believe me, the last way you are going to see that is through CIA field employees refusing to take orders in field operations. Those folk ARE, after all career gov't employees, and have pensions to worry about. But take heart, there HAVE been the occasional brave souls that have taken stands before... and they usually make a difference.
Not applicable in this case. The woman TFA was about is a CIA CONTRACTOR. That means she works for a company that holds a contract with the CIA for certain work, in this case, programming.
So she WASN'T a gov't employee. The terms of her employment would have included a clause that in order to remain employed, she would have to be able to hold a certain level clearance. As soon as the CIA pulled her clearance, she was no longer able to perform her job - so she lost it. Plenty of legal precidence on this in the courts, too! She could have been working in a non right to work state and it would still be legal.
You've got a good point.
There is a lot of controversy over this, even in gov't circles, believe it or not. On one hand, you are right, the intelligence field is a world that operates in a very murky, semi-legal, dirty world. Sometimes, the only way to get information from a determined enemy is to do bad things to good people to get them to provide info. That could mean deliberately compromising an individual in an influencial position using drugs, sex, money, gambling or other shady vices, it could mean finding people with a grudge and plying them with money, drugs, sex, or all three.
The use of interrogation to obtain information from an enemy prisoner is always touchy. You have to know the person's attitudes about his employer. Is he patriotic? Has he a weak spot in his feelings? Can we expand on that? If he is a strong supporter or a fanatic, then the problem is compounded and made more difficult. The use of environental factors to reduce a person's resistance to interrogation does not necessarily have to include what the law would call torture. That could include such things as sleep deprivation, disturbance of the sleep/wake cycle, isolation from fellow prisoners or outside news, etc.
The use of such techniques as waterboarding are controversial because they do not necessarily include the deliberate infliction of pain - but DO inflict mental anguish through inciting a fear of what one's captors may do to you next. Remember - many of the people we have kept prisoner are from cultures where torture is a common method of interrogation. The CIA uses the fear this incites in their prisoners to influence them to talk, and in the heat of the overall conflict, it is remarkably easy to convince oneself that taking just that one small step further won't hurt.
There are those that would argue that subjecting these people to harsher methods of interrogation are necessary because the people we are holding are trained to withstand the legal methods we are allowed to use. That is the heart of the controversy, and there are arguments on both sides.
Myself, I tend to come down on the side of more civilized conventions. Not over how effective it may or may not be, but as soon as we gave up the high ground, we lose any protections we may have been able to claim from holding that high ground. That may put us at a disadvantage, but we've overcome such disadvantages before and come out on top.
Nice try at utopian ethics.
Fact is, an intranet that belongs to, and is controlled by, either a corporation or a government, IS a "private" intranet. "Private" in this case refers to a meaning of "NOT public". the corporation or government, by virtue of owning the equipment upon which the intranet operates, has the right to control the content of that intranet.
Anybody that has any experience at working in a bureaucracy like the CIA would (or should) KNOW not to critisize the upper management about such a sensitive subject. Cafeteria food is one thing - even gov't managers realize that such things are harmless, and let employees blow off steam and gives them a feeling of some "empowerment" (to use a politically correct term in use today) over their work environment. But being empowered over your work environment is NOT the same thing as POLICY.
The brass, and only the brass, have a say in that. Employees can get in trouble, and get moved to non-critical or even boring, umimportant jobs, over such things. CONTRACTORS, on the other hand, are expendable, and WILL get fired - do not pass go, do not collect $200. Don't even pack yer things, we'll send 'em to ya!