> Or are you thinking they'll magically know in 2008 where Osama is because five years earlier some other guy moved to Abbottabad for a year?
They seemed to magically know exactly where he was within a week of the Wikileak being released.
Some people argue that they knew long before and didn't want anyone to know because they were gaining valuable intel. To that I have to ask: why didn't they just perform the raid right away, capture him, gather all his materials, and take down the al Qaeda from the top?
Some people argue that they didn't know anything but what was in the Wikileak and figured everything out in a panicked rush after the leak. To that I have to ask: why did the government fail to do anything with this very important lead for the 2-6 years that they had it?
Some people argue that the government had been meticulously gathering information and was coincidentally very close to capturing him when the leak was released. To that I have to ask: would you like to buy a bridge?
You've got to be pretty messed up to argue against the total destruction of al Qaeda in order to get a little more intel against them. I mean talk about missing the forest for the trees.
> They had a lead only. They have to find the courier, watch the courier over time, see where he goes, try to find out where he came from, verify that he really is a courier, verify that he's really the right courier, figure out which of the many locations he goes to is the one with Osama, verify that Osama is really there, watch the place to figure out the comings and goings, etc.
They had at least that lead, not only that lead. We don't know what else they had. They killed UBL within a week of the Wikileak coming out. So they either a) only just gathered all that information over 3+ years and were slightly more than a week from conducting the assassination raid when Wikileaks leaked the information, b) managed to rapidly jump on the lead and get all the information you mentioned in only a week, or c) had all the other information you mentioned and they were sitting on it. Which of those is actually plausible? I'll tell you that it isn't b).
> This was in Pakistan which is an ally and not a country we're at war with, you can't just send in a smart bomb and hope for the best.
Really? You're going to argue this? That's like arguing that the sky is a sort of brick red color. We drop bombs on Pakistan all the time, enough that it gets headlines on a practically daily basis. I find it hard to believe that you would even attempt this argument.
I have a hard time believing the US government, the same one that drops countless bombs on innocents in order to take out low level "militants", would put off an operation for years in order to be 100% sure before it acted. Really, when has it ever dallied on a target for that length of time out of an excess of caution, much less a very slippery and high-value target? The idea is completely absurd.
And everyone knew for a long time that the compound was a terrorist hideout, and must have been holding a high-profile terrorist. They knew for over two years, up to 6 years, but failed to act. You can't convince me that the US military waits years for 100% certainty before commencing with an operation, that's just absurd.
I should have included: consider all the bombs we recklessly drop on Pakistani villages as we hunt for "militants" and frequently kill only innocents. An excess of caution in this isolated instance seems utterly unbelievable. Especially because as the length of time we hang on to a lead without acting on it only increases the chance that we lose the opportunity.
But that's a difficult story to swallow. What was our government doing in the 3-6 years that it had this information? Why did Bush end the hunt for bin Laden 3 years ago?
Many al Qaeda soldiers have no idea who bin Laden is? If you believe then perhaps you'd be interested in this bridge I have for sale.
I've no idea whether bin Laden was relevant any more, no one really knows that, but that anchor who said these al Qaeda recruits have never heard of him has to be an idiot.
Except that waterboarding gave us nothing, and it was the tried and true non-coercive interrogation methods that provided us with that information, contrary to what Fox News would have you believe.
Did you miss the part in the summary where it said that companies like AT&T can now block class action suits from forming? You have fewer rights as you cannot form a class action and your consumer rights consequently erode.
> So you are preferring the system where you as a consumer will receive a pittance in a class action suit and some attorneys will receive millions? That is fair how?
Yes. It's fair because, as mentioned above, a class action is not about damages but consumer protection. The attorneys' costs may end up in the millions but that's because large companies like AT&T have the resources and the interest in turning the lawsuit in to a massive legal battle, so both sides end up spending millions to fight it. States' attorneys that prosecute class action suits aren't in it for profit, they aren't getting "a cut", but they still have costs, costs frequently escalated by the very well-funded corporate opponents they face.
This in no way motivates them to settle. Companies like AT&T that have enormous legal resources are now more motivated to flex them and crush what meager legal challenge an individual might present, if they even deem the battle to be worth the time, stress, and effort, much less the cost. These companies know that most of their victims, individually, will decide it isn't worth it to pursue justice. Sure, we still have the right to sue individually, and we have the right to feel the legal arm of a multi-billion dollar corporation come crashing down on us.
To them, it's a calculation. They will break the law, cheat, abuse, and injure their customers if it is profitable to do so. Even with class action lawsuits it is not uncommon for the government to win damages that account for far less than the company's ill-gotten gains. The absence of class action lawsuits to punish them makes it even more profitable. When you get to the scale of these large corporations like AT&T, it's no longer about what's legal, it's about whether the crime or injury is profitable after the legal costs. Now it just got more so.
You pay the same price whether your bill is subsidizing a phone or not. So if you're paying full price for your phone then you are losing money, just for the flexibility to switch carriers at the drop of a hat, which is rather pointless since there are few carriers like Cricket that don't require a contract, if any at all.
The original iPhone doesn't allow you to install iOS4, but the 3G does. These complaints come from 3G users that were convinced to install iOS4.
The promise and appeal of the iPhone in the first place is that it supports software updates, the manufacturer and the ecosystem all supports installing apps from the App Store, and Apple continually and artfully sends you OS updates that are supposed to gradually improve your phone experience. Apple convinced 3G users, explicitly and implicitly, that iOS4 would make their experience better, not worse. It explicitly said iOS4 supports the 3G, and expected (expects) that everyone migrate to it, and iTunes probably still pushes 4.2.1 on 3G users. But as it turned out, contrary to the expectation that Apple built up, iOS4 is worse on the 3G than iOS3. The phone much less responsive, not "snappy" at all, and third party apps crash constantly. A very un-Apple-like experience. And Apple doesn't allow anyone to downgrade their OS, insisting that iOS4 is the best OS for the 3G.
My girlfriend has a 3G and she loved it until she installed iOS4 but now she hates it. She's still under contract, too, since she got it when the 3GS was available because the 3G worked wonderfully at the time and the differences between the two models appeared negligible then. And now she's stuck in the unfortunate position of her contract expiring when the latest model is already a year old, and stuck with the grim choice of suffering with this pile of crap for another 6-12 months or dealing with this experience again in a year or two.
Why is it so hard to believe that one will need new hardware for a new OS? Because Apple told us the opposite on so many occasions, when they promised us OS updates that promised to make our experiences better, not just when they release an OS update but as a feature of the hardware itself, and because Apple generally has a good reputation for supporting its hardware well.
Slashdot Mirror
Does this mean that robots are now more evolved than Randroids?
> Or are you thinking they'll magically know in 2008 where Osama is because five years earlier some other guy moved to Abbottabad for a year?
They seemed to magically know exactly where he was within a week of the Wikileak being released.
Some people argue that they knew long before and didn't want anyone to know because they were gaining valuable intel. To that I have to ask: why didn't they just perform the raid right away, capture him, gather all his materials, and take down the al Qaeda from the top?
Some people argue that they didn't know anything but what was in the Wikileak and figured everything out in a panicked rush after the leak. To that I have to ask: why did the government fail to do anything with this very important lead for the 2-6 years that they had it?
Some people argue that the government had been meticulously gathering information and was coincidentally very close to capturing him when the leak was released. To that I have to ask: would you like to buy a bridge?
Our government can obviously be trusted to never endanger lives through its recklessness.
You've got to be pretty messed up to argue against the total destruction of al Qaeda in order to get a little more intel against them. I mean talk about missing the forest for the trees.
So I'm just curious how do you think that bin Laden not being dead makes us safer.
They knew from the activities of the courier that the target was already there.
> They had a lead only. They have to find the courier, watch the courier over time, see where he goes, try to find out where he came from, verify that he really is a courier, verify that he's really the right courier, figure out which of the many locations he goes to is the one with Osama, verify that Osama is really there, watch the place to figure out the comings and goings, etc.
They had at least that lead, not only that lead. We don't know what else they had. They killed UBL within a week of the Wikileak coming out. So they either a) only just gathered all that information over 3+ years and were slightly more than a week from conducting the assassination raid when Wikileaks leaked the information, b) managed to rapidly jump on the lead and get all the information you mentioned in only a week, or c) had all the other information you mentioned and they were sitting on it. Which of those is actually plausible? I'll tell you that it isn't b).
> This was in Pakistan which is an ally and not a country we're at war with, you can't just send in a smart bomb and hope for the best.
Really? You're going to argue this? That's like arguing that the sky is a sort of brick red color. We drop bombs on Pakistan all the time, enough that it gets headlines on a practically daily basis. I find it hard to believe that you would even attempt this argument.
I have a hard time believing the US government, the same one that drops countless bombs on innocents in order to take out low level "militants", would put off an operation for years in order to be 100% sure before it acted. Really, when has it ever dallied on a target for that length of time out of an excess of caution, much less a very slippery and high-value target? The idea is completely absurd.
I'd mod him insightful several times over before I considered modding you insightful.
And everyone knew for a long time that the compound was a terrorist hideout, and must have been holding a high-profile terrorist. They knew for over two years, up to 6 years, but failed to act. You can't convince me that the US military waits years for 100% certainty before commencing with an operation, that's just absurd.
I don't know why we can't trust the government and especially the military, since they have never any innocent deaths, ever.
And anyone who thinks differently and tries to expose their secrets to be hanged.
Do you think they will drill far enough down to find this link that shows that Donald Rumsfeld himself admits the same?
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/02/rumsfeld-bin-laden-gitmo/
I should have included: consider all the bombs we recklessly drop on Pakistani villages as we hunt for "militants" and frequently kill only innocents. An excess of caution in this isolated instance seems utterly unbelievable. Especially because as the length of time we hang on to a lead without acting on it only increases the chance that we lose the opportunity.
But that's a difficult story to swallow. What was our government doing in the 3-6 years that it had this information? Why did Bush end the hunt for bin Laden 3 years ago?
> I hope it isn't true, but I really hope that our elected government weren't waiting to do this at a more convenient time... like election time.
Or for some reason wasn't interested in doing it all, which is kind of what it sounded like the first time I heard about it.
Many al Qaeda soldiers have no idea who bin Laden is? If you believe then perhaps you'd be interested in this bridge I have for sale.
I've no idea whether bin Laden was relevant any more, no one really knows that, but that anchor who said these al Qaeda recruits have never heard of him has to be an idiot.
Except that waterboarding gave us nothing, and it was the tried and true non-coercive interrogation methods that provided us with that information, contrary to what Fox News would have you believe.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/the-republican-spin.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+andrewsullivan/rApM+(The+Daily+Dish)
[citation needed]
So it's preferable to dispense with any realistic possibility of justice entirely?
Did you miss the part in the summary where it said that companies like AT&T can now block class action suits from forming? You have fewer rights as you cannot form a class action and your consumer rights consequently erode.
> So you are preferring the system where you as a consumer will receive a pittance in a class action suit and some attorneys will receive millions? That is fair how?
Yes. It's fair because, as mentioned above, a class action is not about damages but consumer protection. The attorneys' costs may end up in the millions but that's because large companies like AT&T have the resources and the interest in turning the lawsuit in to a massive legal battle, so both sides end up spending millions to fight it. States' attorneys that prosecute class action suits aren't in it for profit, they aren't getting "a cut", but they still have costs, costs frequently escalated by the very well-funded corporate opponents they face.
This in no way motivates them to settle. Companies like AT&T that have enormous legal resources are now more motivated to flex them and crush what meager legal challenge an individual might present, if they even deem the battle to be worth the time, stress, and effort, much less the cost. These companies know that most of their victims, individually, will decide it isn't worth it to pursue justice. Sure, we still have the right to sue individually, and we have the right to feel the legal arm of a multi-billion dollar corporation come crashing down on us.
To them, it's a calculation. They will break the law, cheat, abuse, and injure their customers if it is profitable to do so. Even with class action lawsuits it is not uncommon for the government to win damages that account for far less than the company's ill-gotten gains. The absence of class action lawsuits to punish them makes it even more profitable. When you get to the scale of these large corporations like AT&T, it's no longer about what's legal, it's about whether the crime or injury is profitable after the legal costs. Now it just got more so.
You pay the same price whether your bill is subsidizing a phone or not. So if you're paying full price for your phone then you are losing money, just for the flexibility to switch carriers at the drop of a hat, which is rather pointless since there are few carriers like Cricket that don't require a contract, if any at all.
The original iPhone doesn't allow you to install iOS4, but the 3G does. These complaints come from 3G users that were convinced to install iOS4.
The promise and appeal of the iPhone in the first place is that it supports software updates, the manufacturer and the ecosystem all supports installing apps from the App Store, and Apple continually and artfully sends you OS updates that are supposed to gradually improve your phone experience. Apple convinced 3G users, explicitly and implicitly, that iOS4 would make their experience better, not worse. It explicitly said iOS4 supports the 3G, and expected (expects) that everyone migrate to it, and iTunes probably still pushes 4.2.1 on 3G users. But as it turned out, contrary to the expectation that Apple built up, iOS4 is worse on the 3G than iOS3. The phone much less responsive, not "snappy" at all, and third party apps crash constantly. A very un-Apple-like experience. And Apple doesn't allow anyone to downgrade their OS, insisting that iOS4 is the best OS for the 3G.
My girlfriend has a 3G and she loved it until she installed iOS4 but now she hates it. She's still under contract, too, since she got it when the 3GS was available because the 3G worked wonderfully at the time and the differences between the two models appeared negligible then. And now she's stuck in the unfortunate position of her contract expiring when the latest model is already a year old, and stuck with the grim choice of suffering with this pile of crap for another 6-12 months or dealing with this experience again in a year or two.
Why is it so hard to believe that one will need new hardware for a new OS? Because Apple told us the opposite on so many occasions, when they promised us OS updates that promised to make our experiences better, not just when they release an OS update but as a feature of the hardware itself, and because Apple generally has a good reputation for supporting its hardware well.
You must never sign a service contract, and buy all your phones at full price. Doesn't that get expensive?
Don't worry, the market will sort it all out!