Bush wanted more specifics
http://tinyurl.com/2gwad Bush told reporters with him in Texas that the Aug. 6, 2001, memo about Osama bin Laden's desire to attack the United States was no indication of a terrorist threat. There was not a time and place of an attack. Damned Al Qaeda forgot to send him a programme. -- Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Tytlal story planet part III --or is it IV by now?
Finished another read of Sundiver. Ok, By process of elimination, the three _legal_ colony worlds leased at time of Sundiver: are: Atlast Horst Omnivarium (..with Nudawn population having been reduced to zero.) So I can't have the story based on Adirondak _after_ Sundiver. It would have to be before. This may be a problem, or this may be a solution. The next two leased planets to be aquired have to be: Deemi Calafia (It may have been a secret package deal. Can't get one without also taking the other.) Deemi has the alien prison, assumed to have been already established before Earth took over the lease. So now I have only two choices: Adirondak pre Sundiver, pre leased Horst --GIM survey to ascertain that no ecological damage was done by Earth's only two landings. Calafia post Sundiver ---GIM sponsored open house survey. To let Earth figure out if the planet is worth also taking the problem planet Deemi. There's already a convienient plot point in using Calafia. The Synthian strands the party in order to try to find the Progenitor cache that was left on the terrestrial planet that had exploded. I prefer post Sundiver. That way I can include little snipits about why Cynthian was changed to Synthian, (the Synthians themselves asked for the change), and why the one galaxy changed into the Civilization of the Five Galaxies. (We were on probation. It was on a need to know basis. Galactic Civilization was afraid of having humans spread out like the plague. Of course it didn't work. The Tabernacle left one year before the Sundiver incident.) So, how does using Califia stand with everyone else? Jacob and Helene might be in the main survey party, but I'm only writing about the small branch exploration that goes to the other side of the planet. Even if the lease wasn't signed until -220, the first visit to the planet could have been made in -239 or -238, just after the Sundiver incident. Contact was in -280. If Earth had been rationing out the amount of old entertainment tapes the Tytlal could get at any one time, I figure 40 years should be just stretching the limit. William Taylor - The Attitude of Respectful Waiting has the hands folded in front. Don't look too closely if you have three Tytlal in this pose. Usually the fingers of one hand are secretly doing Rock, Paper or Scissors. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Occupation of Iraq IMHO
David Hobby wrote: This would annoy Turkey: their worst nightmare is a Kurd state. Correct. So, what's wrong with Kurdistan? Nothing. But Turkey is one of the most important satellites of the USA :-) There should be some nice system of plebescites to let people organize into the countries they feel like organizing into, rather than being stuck with historical borders. Yeah. What about the mexicans in occupied Mexico deciding to secede? :-P It's a complex situation: does the majority of people that live in some region have the right to impose their laws and custums upon the minority? Imagine a city where 70% of the people convert to some crazy cult, and decide that they have the democratic right to constitute a Theocracy. The current system of overpowerful nation states and weak UNO and weak cities is skewed, but I can't see a viable alternative. Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Another Rice Lie Exposed: Pentagon did Plan for Airplane Crashes into Buildings
http://www.mdw.army.mil/news/Contingency_Planning.html Contingency planning Pentagon MASCAL exercise simulates scenarios in preparing for emergencies Story and Photos by Dennis Ryan MDW News Service Click on image to view article's photos Washington, D.C., Nov. 3, 2000 The fire and smoke from the downed passenger aircraft billows from the Pentagon courtyard. Defense Protective Services Police seal the crash sight. Army medics, nurses and doctors scramble to organize aid. An Arlington Fire Department chief dispatches his equipment to the affected areas. Don Abbott, of Command Emergency Response Training, walks over to the Pentagon and extinguishes the flames. The Pentagon was a model and the plane crash was a simulated one. The Pentagon Mass Casualty Exercise, as the crash was called, was just one of several scenarios that emergency response teams were exposed to Oct. 24-26 in the Office of the Secretaries of Defense conference room. ... ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Cynthian changes to Synthian
Why does Cynthian change to Synthian? Easy. It's a matter of false pride. They'd rather be confused with a Scythian warrior than with a township in Ohio. Vilyehm ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: English to Anglic
Sundiver uses English. Startide Rising uses Anglic. How to explain the change. Hmm. Too many aliens were wondering why the main reservation was in Baja California and not in England, sense the near exclusive use of English obviously meant that those of England were the dominant subclan of Earth. Then again, there were the French. For several centuries now, their main objection to the use of English as the international language was the mere fact that it consisted of the word, English. William Taylor - Pil holograms are now used to train all French waiters in Galactic Protocols. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Meta Level was Winning the War on Terror
(I just received your message of 7 April.) Keith Henson wrote The model of evolutionary psychology ... is that any observed feature in a species is either the direct result of the feature being selected or it is a side effect of some feature that was selected. Yes, I understand. But the question is why choose evolutionary psychology over some other kind of explanatory world view. If you cannot prove that the observed feature is indeed a result or side effect, what good is the model? So the capacity for individuals to amplify xenophobic memes in some circumstances (which we know happens) is one other the other. No, it only is one or the other if we already think that way. Maybe the xenophobic memes originate somewhere else. Because such memes serve the function of synchronizing the warriors of a tribe to attack another tribe as a group Right. But based on this statement you could argue that the memes are the result of cultural learning -- after all, those cultures which have them better are the ones that survived ... This would be supported as direct selection if ... No, it would not! It would only show that such memes help a culture. The question is which explanation is better? I don't understand the point you are trying to make here. The question is: Can someone better explain xenophobic memes using cultural anthropology or evolutionary psychology? What about another hypothesis: that spies (for our side) are better tolerated during bad times than good times? Is that hypothesis better explained (or better attacked) using cultural anthropology or evolutionary psychology? I know the goal; my question is not about the goal, but whether evolutionary psychology is providing a good explanation, or whether it is hokum? . . . evolutionary psychology . . . . is a way of thinking about psychology that can be applied to any topic within it. In this view, the mind is a set of information-processing machines that were designed by natural selection to solve adaptive problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. This way of thinking about the brain, mind, and behaviour is changing how scientists approach old topics, and opening up new ones. This quotation tells us about evolutionary psychology; it does not tell us whether it is any good or not. Why choose evolutionary psychology over another explanatory discipline, such as cultural anthropology? That is the question. -- Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises As I slowly update it, [EMAIL PROTECTED] I rewrite a What's New segment for http://www.rattlesnake.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Non-hostile gunshot wound?
Ronn!Blankenship wrote: Horn, John wrote: died from a non-hostile gunshot wound. What would that be? Or friendly fire? Yes, but the term friendly fire actually says what it means. Clearly, we can't have *that*. People back home might start to think war is dangerous, and people get hurt when mistakes are made. Or, for that matter, even when everything goes right. It's not really that different from a pre-owned car. Jim No facts a little double-speak can't cure Maru ___ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush wanted more specifics
At 11:05 PM 4/11/2004 -0700 Doug Pensinger wrote: http://tinyurl.com/2gwad Bush told reporters with him in Texas that the Aug. 6, 2001, memo about Osama bin Laden's desire to attack the United States was no indication of a terrorist threat. There was not a time and place of an attack. Damned Al Qaeda forgot to send him a programme. What would you have done? Invade Saudi Arabia? It should be noted that an unfortunate consequence of declassifying just this PDB is that we aren't given any context.For example, how does the threat assessment in this PDB compare to threat assessments in other PDB's of the same time period - threats which never materialized? Of course, this PDB stands out in retrospect, but what would have been a reasonable reaction in the context of the time? Personally, I think that it is silly to be treating the 9/11 Commission like one giant partisan blame game.Rather than tripping over themselves to try and blame the Bush Administration for 9/11 in an election year and to utterly absolve the Clinton Administration, the focus should be on making improvements for the future. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Pakistani Tells of North Korean Nuclear Devices
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/13/politics/13NUKE.html?ei=5062en=3aacdb0631638038ex=1082433600partner=GOOGLEpagewanted=printposition= http://tinyurl.com/2p7x7 Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who sold nuclear technology around the world, has told his interrogators that during a trip to North Korea five years ago he was taken to a secret underground nuclear plant and shown what he described as three nuclear devices, according to Asian and American officials who have been briefed by the Pakistanis. If Dr. Khan's report is true, it would be the first time that any foreigner has reported inspecting an actual North Korean nuclear weapon. Past C.I.A. assessments of North Korea's nuclear capacity have been based on estimates of how much plutonium it could produce and assessments of its technical capability to turn that plutonium into weapons. Dr. Khan, known as the father of the Pakistani bomb, said he was allowed to inspect the weapons briefly, according to the account that Pakistan has begun to provide in classified briefings to nations within reach of North Korea's missiles. American intelligence officials caution that they cannot say whether Dr. Khan had the time, expertise or equipment to verify the claims. But they note that the number of plutonium weapons roughly accords with previous C.I.A. estimates that North Korea had one or two weapons and the ability to produce more. White House officials declined to discuss the intelligence reports, saying through a spokesman that the subject was too sensitive. But Vice President Dick Cheney was briefed on Dr. Khan's assertions before he left for Asia over the weekend, and he is expected to cite the intelligence to China's leaders on Tuesday to press the point that talks over disarming North Korea are going too slowly, administration officials said. They expect him to argue that the Bush administration is losing patience and may seek stronger action, including sanctions. Dr. Khan also told Pakistani officials that he began dealing with North Korea on the sale of equipment for a second way of producing nuclear weapons through the enrichment of uranium, as opposed to plutonium as early as the late 1980's. But he said he did not begin major shipments to North Korea until the late 1990's, after the country's plutonium program was frozen under an agreement with the United States. North Korea has since renounced that agreement. According to officials who have reviewed the intelligence reports from Pakistan, Dr. Khan admitted that he shipped to North Korea both the designs for the centrifuges used to enrich uranium and a small number of complete centrifuges. He also provided a shopping list of equipment that North Korea needed to produce thousands of the machines. We think they've pretty much bought everything on the list, with the possible exception of a few components,said one American official, adding that the Bush administration is still uncertain exactly where the uranium weapons program is, or whether it has begun production. As the intelligence briefing by the Pakistani officials has flowed through South Korea and Japan, it has set off alarms among senior Asian officials. Until now, they have tried to finesse the subject of whether North Korea is already a nuclear power, or was simply bluffing as it works to develop weapons. China, in particular, has cast doubt on the American and South Korean claims that North Korea is developing a uranium weapon, perhaps hoping to take at least one problem off the table after a year of so-far fruitless talks in Beijing. Asia can ignore a lot of things when it deems it convenient, said Kurt Campbell, a senior defense official in the Clinton administration. But these reports make it very hard for the regional powers China, South Korea and Japan to pretend publicly that North Korea doesn't already have a significant nuclear capacity. Many critical details are missing from the account that Pakistan has given to the United States and its Asian allies. Because Pakistani officials are not permitting American intelligence agencies to interrogate Dr. Khan directly, American officials are getting their information second-hand. Some officials suspect that Pakistan is withholding crucial details, including any evidence about countries that Dr. Khan dealt with beyond North Korea, Iran and Libya. According to officials with access to the intelligence reports, Dr. Khan described being taken to a secret plant that appears to have been different from the main North Korean nuclear plant at Yongbyon. It was about an hour out of the capital, Khan says, according to one senior Asian official. But it's not clear in what direction. It is unclear to American intelligence officials whether Dr. Khan was taken to a site that Americans previously suspected was a nuclear plant or to a site they were previously unaware of. Dr. Khan was shown what was described to him as three plutonium devices, he reported. He told his
Re: Smirking right-wing git
At 09:12 PM 4/12/04, Tom Beck wrote: Made the mistake of watching Sean Hannity and his inane smirking grin listening to some conscientious objector to the war in Iraq. I guess you don't have to treat your guests with even a minimum of respect when you're self-righteously ordained by God to know the Truth. Bleagh. Worth defeating Bush just to see this vile, immature scumbag have to eat some crow for a change. Since I didn't get to see it (I don't get that here, and besides, I got home from class about the time you wrote your message, it looks like) what was said? -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush wanted more specifics
At 09:30 PM 4/12/04, JDG wrote: At 11:05 PM 4/11/2004 -0700 Doug Pensinger wrote: http://tinyurl.com/2gwad Bush told reporters with him in Texas that the Aug. 6, 2001, memo about Osama bin Laden's desire to attack the United States was no indication of a terrorist threat. There was not a time and place of an attack. Damned Al Qaeda forgot to send him a programme. What would you have done? Invade Saudi Arabia? It should be noted that an unfortunate consequence of declassifying just this PDB is that we aren't given any context.For example, how does the threat assessment in this PDB compare to threat assessments in other PDB's of the same time period - threats which never materialized? Of course, this PDB stands out in retrospect, but what would have been a reasonable reaction in the context of the time? Personally, I think that it is silly to be treating the 9/11 Commission like one giant partisan blame game.Rather than tripping over themselves to try and blame the Bush Administration for 9/11 in an election year and to utterly absolve the Clinton Administration, the focus should be on making improvements for the future. Particularly when even Richard Clarke has admitted that there was probably nothing anyone could have done to prevent the 11 Sep 2001 attacks. -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Smirking right-wing git
Since I didn't get to see it (I don't get that here, and besides, I got home from class about the time you wrote your message, it looks like) what was said? I didn't see much of it, and I don't remember specifics. Some guy from something called Conscience International was on talking about the wrongness of putting American soldiers at risk. Throughout, Hannity was smirking like some wise old person listening to an idiot prattle on, clearly not listening to a word the guy said. Then he spoke, like a sage dealing with childish, foolish savages, saying something like in a war against terrorism, some people are going to have to fight and die. At that point I turned off (I was only watching during a commercial break in something else I had been watching). But for the right wing, it's always someone else who fights and dies; it wasn't and it isn't ever them. And I know that by itself does not necessarily invalidate the policy of fighting or the fighting itself. But a bit of humility is in order for people who have never themselves been in harm's way. For Sean Hannity to assume such an air of superiority over people objecting to the war when he himself is 10,000 miles away from it is sickening. For all these right wing chickenhawks to berate anyone who objects to the war is disgusting. Especially when the war in Iraq is a distraction from fighting terrorism and may even be contributing to an increase in terrorism. Supporting the war is one thing. But don't lie about it and don't attack the motives of those who oppose it. For one thing, it's not going so well that opposition is clearly wrong-headed. And a lot of the problems we're facing were foreseen by many of the opponents but were ignored or dismissed by the Rumsfeld-Cheney-Safire drumbeaters. -- Tom Beck my LiveJournal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/tomfodw/ I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never thought I'd see the last. - Dr. Jerry Pournelle -- ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: PDB
At least it's not called the Threat Matrix. Gawd what an insult that was. Hmm... The Top Five TV programs trying to cash in on the word Matrix. 5. Matrix the Press 4. Matrix Pizza 3. Meet Joe Matrix 2. This Old Matrix and 1. The Matrix Eye for the Mashugana Guy William Taylor - No redeeming social value email. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush wanted more specifics
Personally, I think that it is silly to be treating the 9/11 Commission like one giant partisan blame game.Rather than tripping over themselves to try and blame the Bush Administration for 9/11 in an election year and to utterly absolve the Clinton Administration, the focus should be on making improvements for the future. Bush, who had to be forced to name this Commission in the first place, has had 2 1/2 years to make improvements. How many can he point to? He didn't want the Homeland Security department either. He has underfunded the TSA and many other programs. No one at the FBI or CIA has been forced to pay any professional price for their errors. Bush has never called upon the American people to make any sacrifices at all other than waiting a bit at airports - no calls to drive more energy efficient automobiles, to use less imported gas, to seek out true alternatives (other than drilling up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to provide 6 months' worth of petroleum). Our seaports are no more secure now than they were on Sept. 10, 2001. The wealthy have not been asked to give up a penny of their tax cuts to make this a more just society or pay for any improvements. We have done a poor job of consolidating change in Afghanistan and mobilizing the rest of the world to fight terrorism (and have alienated most of the rest of the world by our arrogant disdain for things they feel strongly about, such as climate change). We've ignored a country that demonstrably has WMD to launch an unnecessary war against a country that doesn't. Given these facts and Bush's unwillingness before 9-11 to take Al Qaeda seriously, how can we be asked to trust Bush to make any improvements? Nobody is absolving the Clinton Administration, which did not do as much as it should have to fight Al Qaeda. But it is clear that before 9-11, the Bush Administration did NOTHING to fight Al Qaeda. And, after a decent initial response following 9-11, the Bush Administration got bored and decided to go after Iraq as it had always wanted to, and also pissed away much of the international sympathy for the US as a result of 9-11. If I had compiled that record, I'd want to focus on anything else myself. It's always the people who screw up who say, But enough about the past, let's concentrate on the future. And maybe, as the investment commercials say, past performance is no guide to the future, but what else do we have to go on? -- Tom Beck my LiveJournal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/tomfodw/ I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never thought I'd see the last. - Dr. Jerry Pournelle -- ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush wanted more specifics
On Apr 12, 2004, at 10:30 PM, JDG wrote: At 11:05 PM 4/11/2004 -0700 Doug Pensinger wrote: http://tinyurl.com/2gwad Bush told reporters with him in Texas that the Aug. 6, 2001, memo about Osama bin Laden's desire to attack the United States was no indication of a terrorist threat. There was not a time and place of an attack. Damned Al Qaeda forgot to send him a programme. What would you have done? Invade Saudi Arabia? It should be noted that an unfortunate consequence of declassifying just this PDB is that we aren't given any context.For example, how does the threat assessment in this PDB compare to threat assessments in other PDB's of the same time period - threats which never materialized? Of course, this PDB stands out in retrospect, but what would have been a reasonable reaction in the context of the time? Personally, I think that it is silly to be treating the 9/11 Commission like one giant partisan blame game.Rather than tripping over themselves to try and blame the Bush Administration for 9/11 in an election year and to utterly absolve the Clinton Administration, the focus should be on making improvements for the future. JDG ___ That is exactly where the focus has been. Read some of the staff reports. Also, for the most part, the commissioners have been non partisan in assessing what went wrong. And make no mistake my friends, the US government at almost every level bears some responsibility for the events of Sept 11, 2001, as does the media and the citizenry. Almost no one, with the exception of a very few career civil servants crying in the wind, paid attention to the threat that Al Queda posed to this country. john ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush wanted more specifics
At 11:29 PM 4/12/2004 -0400 John Garcia wrote: That is exactly where the focus has been. Read some of the staff reports. Also, for the most part, the commissioners have been non partisan in assessing what went wrong. That's not how the Condi Rice interview appeared to me. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush wanted more specifics
Ronn!Blankenship wrote: Particularly when even Richard Clarke has admitted that there was probably nothing anyone could have done to prevent the 11 Sep 2001 attacks. I've heard that misquote one too many times. What he said was that the steps he suggested the Bush administration should take _in January of 2001_ probably would not have prevented the attack. He suggested that if the administration had gotten off thier collective asses and beaten the bushes a bit when they were getting so many warnings of an impending attack, that it's impossible to tell what might have happened come September (paraphrase.) The myth that the Clinton administration was soft on terrorism compared to the Bush administration has been totally shattered. And now Bush comes out and says there was no iminent threat. This from the guy that went hermantile over intellegence provided by a few Iraqi ex-pats with the same agenda as himsef. Yikes. -- Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Meta Level was Winning the War on Terror
At 10:16 PM 12/04/04 +, you wrote: --===1943412254== (I just received your message of 7 April.) Keith Henson wrote The model of evolutionary psychology ... is that any observed feature in a species is either the direct result of the feature being selected or it is a side effect of some feature that was selected. Yes, I understand. But the question is why choose evolutionary psychology over some other kind of explanatory world view. If you cannot prove that the observed feature is indeed a result or side effect, what good is the model? Even if you can't prove an observed feature resulted from direct selection or byproduct, it is (in my opinion) useful to be able to limit it to one or the other rather than saying the gods put the ears on your head. But a lot of the time we can rule one out. So the capacity for individuals to amplify xenophobic memes in some circumstances (which we know happens) is one other the other. No, it only is one or the other if we already think that way. Maybe the xenophobic memes originate somewhere else. The *origin* of xenophobic memes is not the point. It is clear that like feedback squeal they can originate from arbitrary *noise.* The important thing is that under specific conditions xenophobic memes as silly as long ears and short ears can amplified up to killing fury. That's what is thought to have happened on Easter Island. I am sure you can think of more recent examples. Because such memes serve the function of synchronizing the warriors of a tribe to attack another tribe as a group Right. But based on this statement you could argue that the memes are the result of cultural learning -- after all, those cultures which have them better are the ones that survived Blink? Memes *are* cultural learning. Or are you saying that there is a metameme people learn that in hard times they should spread vicious ideas about their neighbors? That's not impossible, but I can't think of any evidence for it. Perhaps you could come up with an example? ... This would be supported as direct selection if ... [Restored context] if your model of one tribe attacking another led to the early and late attackers being killed more often than those in the main body of warriors. No, it would not! It would only show that such memes help a culture. This argument has been accepted as the evolutionary persistence of the tight peaking of the 13 and 17 year cicadas. The ones that come out a year early and the ones that come out a year late fair very poorly compared to the bulk of them that swamp predators. Attack in a group as a *meme* rather than a gene might go back further than the chimp/hominid split since chimps do it, but I am more concerned with the underlying gene based psychological mechanisms that lead to attack and under what conditions they get turned on. The question is which explanation is better? I don't understand the point you are trying to make here. The question is: Can someone better explain xenophobic memes using cultural anthropology or evolutionary psychology? I am not aware that cultural anthropology has a deep explanatory model other than evolution. If you know of one, please point me to it. What about another hypothesis: that spies (for our side) are better tolerated during bad times than good times? While spies go way back, I can't see a spies operating in the little tribes in which we evolved. If spies are tolerated better (or worse) during bad times it would be a side effect of some trait that evolved long before populations got large enough for spies to be practical. Is that hypothesis better explained (or better attacked) using cultural anthropology or evolutionary psychology? I know the goal; my question is not about the goal, but whether evolutionary psychology is providing a good explanation, or whether it is hokum? . . . evolutionary psychology . . . . is a way of thinking about psychology that can be applied to any topic within it. In this view, the mind is a set of information-processing machines that were designed by natural selection to solve adaptive problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. This way of thinking about the brain, mind, and behaviour is changing how scientists approach old topics, and opening up new ones. This quotation tells us about evolutionary psychology; it does not tell us whether it is any good or not. Why choose evolutionary psychology over another explanatory discipline, such as cultural anthropology? That is the question. I am always willing to consider logical arguments and better models. I think cultural anthropology and evolution psychology are likely to merge at the edges like the physical sciences do so there might not be any difference. I came to evolutionary psychology models after many years of not making progress with memetics models. Memes I now
Re: PDB
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At least it's not called the Threat Matrix. Gawd what an insult that was. Hmm... The Top Five TV programs trying to cash in on the word Matrix. To be fair, there actually _is_ something called the Threat Matrix used as a survey of the current state of terror threats. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business $15K Web Design Giveaway http://promotions.yahoo.com/design_giveaway/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush wanted more specifics
At 08:54 PM 4/12/2004 -0700 Doug Pensinger wrote: I've heard that misquote one too many times. What he said was that the steps he suggested the Bush administration should take _in January of 2001_ probably would not have prevented the attack. He suggested that if the administration had gotten off thier collective asses and beaten the bushes a bit when they were getting so many warnings of an impending attack, that it's impossible to tell what might have happened come September (paraphrase.) I seem to recall Clarke being asked point-blank by the Commission (paraphrase) was there any chance that implementation of your recommendations would have prevented the 9/11 attacks? Clarke: None. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush wanted more specifics
--- John Garcia [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That is exactly where the focus has been. Read some of the staff reports. Also, for the most part, the commissioners have been non partisan in assessing what went wrong. And make no mistake my friends, the US government at almost every level bears some responsibility for the events of Sept 11, 2001, as does the media and the citizenry. Almost no one, with the exception of a very few career civil servants crying in the wind, paid attention to the threat that Al Queda posed to this country. john That's not really fair...quite a few people _outside_ the government were saying things. The US government failed, catastrophically. What made Clarke's apology so galling was that what he was _really_ saying was everyone else was wrong, and I was right, on everything, for my entire life, without exception. He wasn't really apologizing at all. I would agree with you about the commissioners in general, with the striking exception of Ben Veniste, who really does appear to be a hack, more interested in scoring political points than anything to do with terrorism. It appears to be rebounding on him, but we shall see. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business $15K Web Design Giveaway http://promotions.yahoo.com/design_giveaway/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush wanted more specifics
John Garcia wrote: That is exactly where the focus has been. Read some of the staff reports. Also, for the most part, the commissioners have been non partisan in assessing what went wrong. And make no mistake my friends, the US government at almost every level bears some responsibility for the events of Sept 11, 2001, as does the media and the citizenry. Almost no one, with the exception of a very few career civil servants crying in the wind, paid attention to the threat that Al Queda posed to this country. What about Readers Digest? They had an article on Bin Laden sometime before 9/11, I remember Julia who'd have to go to an effort to figure out which issue, but who *could* do it if pressed hard enough (it's still in a box from the move almost 2 years ago) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush wanted more specifics
John wrote: That is exactly where the focus has been. Read some of the staff reports. Also, for the most part, the commissioners have been non partisan in assessing what went wrong. And make no mistake my friends, the US government at almost every level bears some responsibility for the events of Sept 11, 2001, as does the media and the citizenry. Almost no one, with the exception of a very few career civil servants crying in the wind, paid attention to the threat that Al Queda posed to this country. But the buck stops in the oval office. As it becomes more and more evident that Bush was asleep at the switch, and worse, that he refuses to even begin to take responsibility for his lapses, it becomes more and more imperitive that we spare no effort to send him packing. -- Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush wanted more specifics
--- Doug Pensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But the buck stops in the oval office. As it becomes more and more evident that Bush was asleep at the switch, and worse, that he refuses to even begin to take responsibility for his lapses, it becomes more and more imperitive that we spare no effort to send him packing. -- Doug You feel this way about _eight years_ of continuous inaction by the Clinton Administration too, or is it only Republicans who get blamed for inaction? Doing nothing after the first WTC bombing...after an attempt to assassinate George Bush...after Kenya...after Tanzania...and after the USS Cole - that was okay? = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business $15K Web Design Giveaway http://promotions.yahoo.com/design_giveaway/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush wanted more specifics
--- Doug Pensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And now Bush comes out and says there was no iminent threat. This from the guy that went hermantile over intellegence provided by a few Iraqi ex-pats with the same agenda as himsef. Yikes. -- Doug Your argument is that we should always act, under any circumstances, when there's probably not an imminent threat (from an organization far less powerful than any state) but that we should never, under any circumstances, ever, ever act before there's an imminent threat from a state with the financial power of the world's second largest oil reserves that has spent 20 years attempting to acquire nuclear weapons? If President Bush had ordered the invasion of Afghanistan in August of 2001, I'm sure of two things. One, 9/11 would have happened anyways (the plotters were already in the country). Two, you, Tom, and the Fool would be urging the impeachment of the President for an unprovoked attack on a foreign power. You might even have been right. The evidence that the Taliban were dangerous on September 10th of 2001 was far weaker than the evidence that Saddam Hussein was dangerous, come to think of it. = Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freedom is not free http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business $15K Web Design Giveaway http://promotions.yahoo.com/design_giveaway/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
ATTN: All military/former military on the list, was Re: Smirking right-wing git
At 10:10 PM 4/12/04, Tom Beck wrote: Since I didn't get to see it (I don't get that here, and besides, I got home from class about the time you wrote your message, it looks like) what was said? I didn't see much of it, and I don't remember specifics. Some guy from something called Conscience International was on talking about the wrongness of putting American soldiers at risk. Was he against all wars, or just the current action in Iraq? Did he give any specific reasons that you recall for being against the current action in the time that you watched? Throughout, Hannity was smirking like some wise old person listening to an idiot prattle on, clearly not listening to a word the guy said. Then he spoke, like a sage dealing with childish, foolish savages, saying something like in a war against terrorism, some people are going to have to fight and die. At that point I turned off (I was only watching during a commercial break in something else I had been watching). But for the right wing, it's always someone else who fights and dies; it wasn't and it isn't ever them. A question for all the members or former members of the military on the list: do you consider yourself more right or left wing? My own experience in the military suggests that for the most part professional military members tend to be more conservative than liberal, though it frequently seems that those labels are so abused that they are almost meaningless. Thus my feeling is that in the current volunteer military service we have in the US, most of the people who sign up, and particularly those who stay in, probably represent the right wing more than the left wing. (If anyone can show me that I may be wrong in this feeling, I would appreciate being corrected.) And I know that by itself does not necessarily invalidate the policy of fighting or the fighting itself. But a bit of humility is in order for people who have never themselves been in harm's way. For Sean Hannity Anyone know if Sean Hannity is a veteran? (I have no idea.) FWIW, I occasionally hear some of Sean Hannity's radio program while on the way to class (the alternatives at that hour being a couple of local sports call-in shows) but I would not necessarily consider myself a fan: I don't think I've ever listened to his show when I'm at home, frex. to assume such an air of superiority over people objecting to the war when he himself is 10,000 miles away from it is sickening. For all these right wing chickenhawks to berate anyone who objects to the war is disgusting. I personally don't berate everyone who objects to the war. Some objections are quite legitimate. Others, though. do seem (to me, at least) to simply boil down to a intense dislike of the fact that GWB is in the White House, and those objections I tend to find less credible. Especially when the war in Iraq is a distraction from fighting terrorism and may even be contributing to an increase in terrorism. Supporting the war is one thing. But don't lie about it and don't attack the motives of those who oppose it. For one thing, it's not going so well that opposition is clearly wrong-headed. And a lot of the problems we're facing were foreseen by many of the opponents but were ignored or dismissed by the Rumsfeld-Cheney-Safire drumbeaters. -- Tom Beck my LiveJournal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/tomfodw/ I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never thought I'd see the last. - Dr. Jerry Pournelle -- -- Ronn! :) Probably right of center, definitely former military (USAF officer) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: PDB
At 10:15 PM 4/12/04, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At least it's not called the Threat Matrix. Gawd what an insult that was. I did watch some episodes of that, though I guess it says something that it made such an impression that pretty much all I can remember about it now is the name. I suppose it was cancelled without announcement: I know that although it was listed in _TV Guide_, for about three weeks running the local station replaced it with a show about St. Jude's Children's Hospital, repeating the same show every week . . . Hmm... The Top Five TV programs trying to cash in on the word Matrix. 5. Matrix the Press 4. Matrix Pizza 3. Meet Joe Matrix 2. This Old Matrix and 1. The Matrix Eye for the Mashugana Guy You left out: The Identity Matrix A[i,j] = delta(i,j) Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: PDB
In a message dated 4/12/2004 9:04:07 PM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: To be fair, there actually _is_ something called the Threat Matrix used as a survey of the current state of terror threats. = Gautam Mukunda It's been a day with an all day headache. I didn't want to be fair. TV aint fair. They killed Wonderfalls. ...and I have to figure out why it takes 45 years for the Tytlal to start watching old MGM cartoons. William Taylor ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush wanted more specifics
In a message dated 4/12/2004 9:10:45 PM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: What about Readers Digest? They had an article on Bin Laden sometime before 9/11, I remember Julia who'd have to go to an effort to figure out which issue, but who *could* do it if pressed hard enough (it's still in a box from the move almost 2 years ago) From one estate sale, I had to remove Readers Digests at least ten years old, still in the original sealed mailing box. Two years in a moving box is nothing. William Taylor ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
43 years ago today . . .
. . . at least on the West Coast, for a little longer. http://www.yurisnight.net/spaceparty.php (I didn't see any mention of it on the list, though maybe it got swallowed up when the server was on the fritz . . .) For Bonus Credit (No Googling), What Related Events Happened On The Same Date In 1981 And 1985 Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush wanted more specifics
JDG wrote: I seem to recall Clarke being asked point-blank by the Commission (paraphrase) was there any chance that implementation of your recommendations would have prevented the 9/11 attacks? Clarke: None. GORTON: Now, since my yellow light is on, at this point my final question will be this: Assuming that the recommendations that you made on January 25th of 2001, based on Delenda, based on Blue Sky, including aid to the Northern Alliance, which had been an agenda item at this point for two and a half years without any action, assuming that there had been more Predator reconnaissance missions, assuming that that had all been adopted say on January 26th, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11? CLARKE: No. from http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0403/24/bn.00.html -- Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush wanted more specifics
Gautam wrote: You feel this way about _eight years_ of continuous inaction by the Clinton Administration too, or is it only Republicans who get blamed for inaction? Doing nothing after the first WTC bombing...after an attempt to assassinate George Bush...after Kenya...after Tanzania...and after the USS Cole - that was okay? The testimony I've seen Guatam, even that from Dr. Rice and other administration officials, is that while the Clinton administration didn't have a stellar record wrt terrorism, the Bush administration actually deemphisized anti-terror in the months leading up to 9/11. That's what Bush gets blamed for. Prove me wrong, and I'll back off. -- Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
