Re: Simpsons take on Iraq war
Rob wrote: Anyone who thinks Hollywood is run by a liberal cabal won't change his mind after watching The Simpsons' annual Halloween special. What makes opposition to the war liberal? Many prominant conservatives such as George Will, W.F. Buckley have come out against it. No one is saying that _all_ conservatives are brain-addled drunken draft dodging chicken hawks. 8^) Doug Don't care if addled is spelled wrong (is it?) maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: We Will Not Be Afraid
Julia Thompson wrote: Hennaed hands? Always get them done for Diwali, wedding anniversaries and karvachauth. :) Once the kids are older, I'll go back to hennaed feet as well. :) I got henna on my chest yesterday, a lovely lotus centered in the design. I need to try to get a picture of it, not sure how I'll manage that right now Dan? A tripod? The kids? [both of mine have gotten quite good at taking my pics] I am sure you can think of something. :) Ritu, who has never seen a hennaed chest before. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Simpsons take on Iraq war
On 23 Oct 2006, at 7:40AM, pencimen wrote: Rob wrote: Anyone who thinks Hollywood is run by a liberal cabal won't change his mind after watching The Simpsons' annual Halloween special. What makes opposition to the war liberal? Many prominant conservatives such as George Will, W.F. Buckley have come out against it. No one is saying that _all_ conservatives are brain-addled drunken draft dodging chicken hawks. 8^) Doug Don't care if addled is spelled wrong (is it?) maru No, but 'prominent' is. -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate. - Richard Dawkins ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
On Oct 22, 2006, at 1:51 PM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote:
At 01:27 AM Sunday 10/22/2006, pencimen wrote:
For those few of us who saw the disaster that is Bush coming,
While some voted for Bush primarily because they thought that
President Gore would be an even bigger disaster from which it might
take even longer to undo the damage, if ever.
-- Ronn! :)
I can't agree with you. Let me count the ways... no, I don't have that
kind of time.
I started listing the grand follies I could foresee even watching the
2000 campaign from Amsterdam, but the actual blooded tragedy list
out-does anything I conjured - especially the Katrina fiasco. Besides,
the rebuttals from killer B's have been pretty good.
I'll see your hand-waiving about shadowy Al-shaped boogie-monsters and
raise you one extended parable of America as the Good Cop instead of
Bad. If you want an interesting illustration of working smarter not
harder on the problem of anti-terrorism, take a look at this
alternate-history where Gore was actually president when 9-11 occurred
and he {characteristically} engaged the moribund post-com high-tech
industry and an eager world into a strong effective coalition of
distributed social efforts to truly marginalize AQ.
http://e-sheep.com/spiders/
It's more engaging than my little explanation does it justice.
- Jonathan -
___
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RE: We Will Not Be Afraid
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Charlie Bell Sent: Friday, October 20, 2006 9:52 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: Re: We Will Not Be Afraid Why not? Where in the law does it say that habeas corpus has been suspended? In a bit you already quoted. If you are declare a UEC, habeus corpus has been suspended. (e)(1) No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien ^^ detained by the United States who-- `(A) is currently in United States custody; and `(B) has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination. I underlined the key phrase here. There is no doubt that the law states that alien UEC do not have habeas corpus rights. This phrase was clearly intended to exclude citizens...by the use of the word alien. As I said elsewhere, this has ample precedent. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Liberty Security
The example that is often used is the response of AQ to the trial of the first WTC bomber. Sure. That's an example, but your country was founded on freedom and liberty. Ben Franklin had something to say about trading liberty for security. Lets first consider the specifics of the case, and then the general question: is every restriction of liberty for security wrong? With respect to the first question: 1) Constitutional rights have not been, traditionally, granted to foreign soldiers, spies, and saboteurs. Foreign soldiers have been afforded certain rights. Foreign spies and saboteurs have not. The law we are considering is very consistent with precedent here. 2) Considering the problem faced at the time; a multi-national organization that was the senior partner with a foreign government that gave them sanctuary. We know that, subsequent to this attack, the group was able to make four more attacks on US soil/ships (with 9-11 as the last and biggest one). Between these two, we can see the decision on UEC as a change from considering the activities of AQ as crime to considering it foreign sabotage. There are definite risks for aliens that result from this...particularly when the decisions are made by the gang that couldn't shoot straightbut it's nothing like the risk to liberty the US has already weathered. To consider the general case, let me give an example of requirement of a tradeoff between security and liberty from a time I was on the jury. The highway patrol caught a woman speeding. They followed her onto private property (her boyfriend's house) to give her a ticket. Her boyfriend told her to just go inside, because the cops couldn't follow them there without a warrant...which would not be given for speeding. She was home free because she was on private property. He was stupid enough to interfere with the officer giving a ticket, and we convicted him. If he just talked, he would have been fine, but he pulled her away from the cop...which is illegal. Now, the courts have decided that private property is not a sanctuary from speeding tickets. Even though a cop usually needs a warrant to search a house, they do have a right of hot pursuiteven for a traffic stop. If she did go inside, they could follow her. I really don't have a problem with this. It is an infringement on liberty, but it does seem like a reasonable tradeoff. Maybe people could argue that there would be little harm in requiring a search warrant with respect to a traffic stop, but I don't think police following a gunman onto private property while in hot pursuit should be illegal. The bets at the time of the US revolution was that such a government couldn't last. It would either fall into tyranny or anarchy. Franklin rightly warned against accepting tyranny as a protection against anarchy. But, balancing the two risks is not the same as trading security for liberty. Most historians have considered Lincoln's balancing act to be a good thing...even though he arrest people right and left with no real legal basis for doing so. I have very significant differences with Bush's view of the proper tradeoff. I think he is wrong, and that his actions do pose a danger. You probably have differences with me. But, I'd guess that there'd be some point where you would favor security in the security/liberty balancing act. My second amendment quote had a smiley, but it does point out a case where I'm almost certain that you'd favor restrictions on the liberty of citizens to own any arms they wished. This is one case where I strongly believe that limits on liberty for security purposes are well founded. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: We Will Not Be Afraid
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Charlie Bell Sent: Friday, October 20, 2006 9:52 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: Re: We Will Not Be Afraid On 21/10/2006, at 12:00 PM, Dan Minette wrote: This would seem to exclude citizens. However, it actually doesn't, because if you are declared a UEC because you have been deemed to have provided material support to terrorists (say you'd rented an apartment to the 9/11 hijackers), then you are one until you can challenge it in a court... oh. Now you can't, until the Government says you can. Why not? Where in the law does it say that habeas corpus has been suspended? In a bit you already quoted. If you are declare a UEC, habeus corpus has been suspended. (e)(1) No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who-- `(A) is currently in United States custody; and `(B) has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination. Now, if you can show me where it states that citizens lose their habeas corpus rights if they are declared an unlawful enemy combatant, then I'd get worried and upset. It doesn't. But what it allows is for a citizen to be declared a UEC. But they're a citizen, and can show they're not covered by the law! Great! They can show their passport to the judge! When they get a judicial review... which *they're not entitled to* if they're declared a UEC... They're illegally detained (as citizens aren't aliens) BUT CAN'T APPEAL TO THE COURTS to prove this... But their next friend can...and this has happened in both cases where a citizen was declared an unlawful enemy combatant. Both cases have been reviewed by the courts. The potential hole in habeas corpus, someone rotting in prison has no chance to petition a court because he can't get to a court has been thought of and dealt with decades ago. The real problem is the 60+ year old precedent that's on the books. The new law means there's no review at all. I don't think the intent of the law was to remove American citizens who were declared illegal combatants from the US court system. If it was, then the Constitution clearly states that the courts are the ones who will decide if the Congress has the constitutional right to bar them from intervening. ` The precedent we have to decide this isn't as clear as I'd like, because Bush folded his tent rather than let the Supreme Court rule against him. But the fact that the court let Bush know that they'd be watching him closely, combined with Bush withdrawing his case, indicates to me that its pretty clear that declaring an American an IEC does not deprive him of his rights. So, the bottom line is that if the president uses the law, instead of his power as Commander in Chief to declare a citizen an IEC, and then state that the courts can't review this...then this will be reviewed by the courts...just as his previous argument was. Since the Supreme Court offered guidance concerning the role of Congress in setting up military tribunal for alien UEC...and provided different guidance concerning American citizens, the lower courts should be able to work through this rather straightforwardly. Can't you see how insidious this is? No, because the American legal system doesn't work that way. The real risk is, as it was in 1942, that the Supreme Court will acquiesce. There are two cases where this happened in WWII, to the detriment of liberty, which we've already considered here. ...and Congress has said that it will accept any person defined as a UEC as a UEC. Let's hope there's a big shift in Congress in a couple of weeks eh? I'm definitely pulling for the Democrats to take the House and Senate. They are favored to take the House, and the Senate is up in the air. Going out on a limb, I'm predicting a 50/50 Senate, with Cheney breaking the tie, and a 20 seat Democrat majority in the House. I invite others to go out on the limb with me and take a guess. Let me ask a question about the UK legal system. Let's say Parliament passes a law that prohibits the criticism of the government during a war, and that the House of Lords approves it (IIRC, they can still reject a bill once by sending it back to the House of Commons, but I may be wrong about this.) The courts have greater powers of interpretation. While it's hard for an Act of Parliament to be struck down by the Law Lords, it can be rendered impotent by the courts through precedents. OK, let's look at the restrictions on civil liberty that have been recently passed in the UK. Which have been rendered impotent? In the US, they could. Further, they could, and often do, rely on precedence in interpreting the constitution to do
RE: We Will Not Be Afraid
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of PAT MATHEWS Sent: Sunday, October 22, 2006 2:44 PM To: brin-l@mccmedia.com Subject: RE: We Will Not Be Afraid Dan said: They are usually created in gray areas. The biggest extension of Presidential power was from 1860-65. The second biggest one was from 1932-45. With the exception of pushing the button, no president from Truman on had FDR's power. After Nixon's excesses, presidential powers were reduced ~1974-80. I note that both times is was during times of national crisis. The only pre-Lincoln precedent was John Adam's Alien Sedition Act which was post-crisis but while the national identity and course were still being firmed up, and it was pretty promptly rejected. Jefferson expanded Presidential powers beyond what he believed they should be when he made the Louisiana Purchase. He did it because it was too good for the nation to pass up. That doesn't match Lincoln or FDR, but it might match Adams. The other point worth noting was the peaceful transition from Adams to Jefferson was something people didn't take for granted at the time. It really meant something. As for the national government turning into witch-hunters, I can think of three times in our history previous to ours and every one of them came at a time when a foreign revolutionary movement was giving us serious panic attacks, as one is today: The Alien Sedition Act on the heels of the French Revolution. The Palmer Raids on the heels of the Russian Revolution. The McCarthy Era, after we'd had it proven to us that Stalin was gobbling down as many chunks of Eastern Europe as possible and who knew where he would stop? And of course today's Clash of Civilization., when jihadists seems as great a threat as any of the ones listed above and are operating much the way we imagined the Communists did in the 1950s. (And for all I know, they did. But very few people were really listening.) There were Communist spies during the time of McCarthy, but there were no cases of sabotage that can be attributed to USSR sponsored terrorists. My main points when I started contributing to this thread was to point out how the reaction to threats that were not as real was much larger in the past than the present reaction to a threat that has been realized. During and after WWI, the risk of Communists causing severe damage to the nation was minimal. Yet, the willingness of Americans to deny liberty to other Americans was strong. For example, membership in the KKK numbered in the millions. There were tens of thousands of lynchings during that period. After WWII, the risk posed by Communist spies was real. But, it certainly wasn't from blacklisted Hollywood actors and directors. A much more reasoned debate could/should have taken place during that time. Still, while blacklisting is bad, it is nothing like lynching. A friend of mine was blacklisted in the '50s, and lost his job as a Congressional aid (he lost it because he was a member of the Abraham Lincoln brigade in the Spanish Civil War). But, he had a long and happy life after that, with a good law practice, and stayed active in politics for decades. So, I'd argue that the '50s, while bad, was a step forward from the '20s. And, I'd argue that nowgiven the fact that massive damage has taken place from sabotage, the reaction is mild compared to earlier reactions. Indeed, the most questionable actions of Bush are tied to legal precedents that stem from these earlier times. One could see the strong presidency advocates in the Bush administration as looking towards FDR's power as a goal to aspire to. He's tried to assume some of those powers...and has met modest resistance on the way. None of this contradicts what you wrote...it's just that what you wrote is a good starting point for restating what my original case was. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
On Oct 22, 2006, at 1:51 PM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 01:27 AM Sunday 10/22/2006, pencimen wrote: For those few of us who saw the disaster that is Bush coming, While some voted for Bush primarily because they thought that President Gore would be an even bigger disaster from which it might take even longer to undo the damage, if ever. What, precisely, are you talking about? Remember, we're talking about 2000 here, not 2004. 9/11 had not happened yet. We had not been converted into a nation of wusses who cower in the corner and strip of our clothes while going to the airport yet. We were still a nation that believed in the rule of law, who believed that torture was the kind of thing that the bad guys do to their prisoner. What unmitigated horse-shit. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Apostates!
Horn, John [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Behalf Of Charlie Bell Global warming... just a theory... Bunnies... I think it's bunnies... The bane of vengeance demons everywhere... ;) I recently re-watched a DVD with 'Buffy The Musical' --bloody brilliant, that. Debbi Missing Giles Maru :( __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Apostates!
Andrew Crystall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip ...Global Dimming, caused by particulate and other emissions fom Human industry has hidden much of the effect of global warming - to the tune of 5C or even more. As Europe works to clean up its factories, temperatures have noticeably edged upwards. The crisis is here, is now, and is far far worse than the predictions of 2000. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_prog_summary.shtml ...The effect was first spotted by Gerry Stanhill, an English scientist working in Israel. Comparing Israeli sunlight records from the 1950s with current ones, Stanhill was astonished to find a large fall in solar radiation. There was a staggering 22% drop in the sunlight, and that really amazed me, he says. Intrigued, he searched out records from all around the world, and found the same story almost everywhere he looked, with sunlight falling by 10% over the USA, nearly 30% in parts of the former Soviet Union, and even by 16% in parts of the British Isles. Although the effect varied greatly from place to place, overall the decline amounted to 1-2% globally per decade between the 1950s and the 1990s. Gerry called the phenomenon global dimming, but his research, published in 2001, met with a sceptical response from other scientists. It was only recently, when his conclusions were confirmed by Australian scientists using a completely different method to estimate solar radiation, that climate scientists at last woke up to the reality of global dimming... I'd heard about this from someone consulting at an Arizona solar power plant (not sure if it was experimental or fully operational) several years ago; IIRC it was a 17% reduction they'd noticed, but I'm not sure over what time-frame. I'll see if I can get more info from my source. Debbi So *That's* Why The Bushies Didn't Want To Reduce Particulates In Air Pollution! Maru :/ __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: We Will Not Be Afraid
Ritu [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip And since we are all being so cheerful and festive [well, *I* am, what with typing with hennaed hands], Happy Diwali. :) Right back at ya! (Well, not the hennaed part; actually _my_ hands are daily decorated with, well, digested hay, which is not nearly so festive, if still honest work...) Anyway, there's a lovely Sarah Brightman song from 'Harem' that mentions a 'Diwali moon' - now I'm going to have to load up that CD when I get home. Debbi Happy Harvestfest Instead Of Happy Halloween Just Doesn't Have The Same Cheeriness Maru :) __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Irregulars Question: smell of CH2O (formaldehyde)
Ronn!Blankenship wrote: Deborah Harrell wrote: snippage ...Using Mexican vanilla (prepared with propylene glycol# as well as grain alcohol) #Yep, radiator antifreeze -- I _do not_ advise it for consumption at all! Actually most antifreeze is _ethyl_ glycol, which tastes sweet and so the taste attracts dogs to drink from puddles and then the metabolic pathway which breaks down EtOH in human and animal bodies tries to break it down and the result is formaldehyde which wrecks the liver, leading in a few hours to days the whole cadaver being packed in formaldehyde . . . (Yes, I know that _you_ know that. ;) ) Whoops, yes indeed. But at least some brand of mexican vanilla had 'propyleneo glycolica' (badly misspelled, but that's the best I can recall from over 6 years ago!) on the label. I wonder if it has a sweet taste too? Debbi No Ketotic Breath Here! Maru ;) __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
More on Dimming (was: Apostates!)
Deborah Harrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Andrew Crystall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ...Global Dimming, caused by particulate and other emissions fom Human industry has hidden much of the effect of global warming - to the tune of 5C or even more. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_prog_summary.shtml I'd heard about this from someone consulting at an Arizona solar power plant (not sure if it was experimental or fully operational) several years agoI'll see if I can get more info from my source. From http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/03oct_novarupta.htm?list91324 In June 1912, Novarupta—one of a chain of volcanoes on the Alaska Peninsula—erupted in what turned out to be the largest blast of the twentieth century. It was so powerful that it drained magma from under another volcano, Mount Katmai, six miles east, causing the summit of Katmai to collapse to form a caldera half a mile deep. Novarupta also expelled three cubic miles of magma and ash into the air, which fell to cover an area of 3,000 square miles more than a foot deep... [there's a pic at the site, also a graph] ...When a volcano anywhere erupts, it does more than spew clouds of ash, which can shadow a region from sunlight and cool it for a few days. It also spews sulfur dioxide. If the eruption is strongly vertical, it shoots that sulfur dioxide high into the stratosphere more than 10 miles above Earth. Up in the stratosphere, sulfur dioxide reacts with water vapor to form sulfate aerosols. Because these aerosols float above the altitude of rain, they don't get washed out. They linger, reflecting sunlight and cooling Earth's surface. This can create a kind of nuclear winter (a.k.a. volcanic winter) for a year or more after an eruption. In April 1815, for instance, the Tambora volcano in Indonesia erupted. The following year, 1816, was called the year without a summer, with snow falling across the United States in July... ...But both those volcanoes as well as Krakatau were in the tropics; Novarupta is just south of the Arctic Circle... ...This bottling up of Novarupta's aerosols in the north would make itself felt, strangely enough, in India. According to the computer model, the Novarupta blast would have weakened India's summer monsoon, producing an abnormally warm and dry summer over northern India, says Robock... ...Robock and colleagues are examining weather and river flow data from Asia, India, and Africa in 1913, the year after Novarupta. They are also investigating the consequences of other high-latitude eruptions in the last few centuries... Debbi who fortuitously read that NASA mewsletter today __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Apostates!
Deborah Harrell wrote: I recently re-watched a DVD with 'Buffy The Musical' --bloody brilliant, that. It was the first complete Buffy Episode I ever watched. Until then, I had the idea that Buffy-the-series was as idiot as Buffy-the-movie. The humour surprised me. I could never get rid of the addiction of watching Buffy. Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
On 24/10/2006, at 2:04 AM, Dan Minette wrote: I underlined the key phrase here. There is no doubt that the law states that alien UEC do not have habeas corpus rights. This phrase was clearly intended to exclude citizens...by the use of the word alien. As I said elsewhere, this has ample precedent. And how, if you're arrested and held wrongly, do you prove you're a citizen, when you've been arrested under the act? It doesn't prevent you being accused and arrested, but it does prevent you challenging your arrest. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
More on electronic voting
Oh, goody... http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20061023/tc_nf/47233 Proponents of electronic voting have found themselves again on the defensive following the unauthorized release of software for voting machines used by the State of Maryland and manufactured by Diebold Election Systems. The apparent security breach comes just two weeks before nationwide elections that will include an array of new voting technologies. According to news reports, three disks containing software code were sent to a former Maryland lawmaker. Maryland and Diebold officials told the Associated Press that the software in question is outdated and will not be used in the upcoming election in that state, although it might be used in other states... ...Following the 2000 election, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit privacy-advocacy group, pointed to glitches that made it difficult to change votes if people made mistakes. Some electronic machines were not calibrated properly, the EFF said, which made it easy to vote for the wrong person. And there were indications that the electronic voting process takes longer than officials expected, which could result in long lines on election day. Unauthorized distribution of software underscores the potential for security problems associated with the use of electronic voting systems, said Stamp... Debbi still waiting for her ballot, as there was a 'glitch' in the Jefferson County printing... __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
On 24/10/2006, at 2:21 AM, Dan Minette wrote: But their next friend can...and this has happened in both cases where a citizen was declared an unlawful enemy combatant. Both cases have been reviewed by the courts. The potential hole in habeas corpus, someone rotting in prison has no chance to petition a court because he can't get to a court has been thought of and dealt with decades ago. Meanwhile, you spend 4 years in a jail, possibly in Syria, and get tortured. Great. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Apostates!
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrew Crystall Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2006 2:13 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: Re: Apostates! On 18 Oct 2006 at 6:07, John W Redelfs wrote: On 10/17/06, Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 18/10/2006, at 2:31 AM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: (Printed in the local paper this morning. I found it on-line at Jewish World Review Oct. 16, 2006 / 24 Tishrei, 5767) Global warming... just a theory... I've read that Mars and Jupiter are also warming, and that it has something to do with the output of the sun. Is that true? If so, then why should we I've never heard serious discussion of it. Okay, here's a little factiod: 9/11 might have saved the Earth. Why? Because America did something after 9/11. It grounded aircraft. And without the water vapour in atmosphere, something very interesting came of the data analysis - it was hotter than it should of been, during that period. And some scientists started drawing together other evidence. Meanwile, other - very well documented - research is showing that less light has been hitting the Earth. By a degree, on average, of some 22% in Israel - with comparative figures elsewhere. Let me offer a fairly good and balanced website's take on this: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=105 Basically, it shoots down the long term implications that were given by the strongest advocates of the global dimming theory: quote Does this all have either an implication for the global climate sensitivity (how much warming would result from a doubling of CO2) or the scenarios used by IPCC to project climate changes out to 2100? This is where I have to disagree most strongly with the commentary in the program. First, if we were trying to estimate climate sensitivity purely from the response over the 20th century, we would need to know a number of things quite exactly: chiefly the magnitude of all the relevant forcings. However, the uncertainties in the different aerosol effects in particular, preclude an accurate determination from the instrumental period alone. While it is true that, holding everything else equal, an increase in how much cooling was associated with aerosols would lead to an increase in the estimate of climate sensitivity, the error bars are too large for this to be much of a constraint. The estimate of 3+/-1 deg C (for doubled CO2) based on paleo-data and model studies is therefore still valid, even after this program. end quote FWIW, IMHO, the gues at realclimate.org sound like scientists in their writing. There is a particular voice that scientists use when writing about their own field, and this site's writings are almost always in that voice. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
...
I'll see your hand-waiving about shadowy Al-shaped boogie-monsters and
raise you one extended parable of America as the Good Cop instead of
Bad. If you want an interesting illustration of working smarter not
harder on the problem of anti-terrorism, take a look at this
alternate-history where Gore was actually president when 9-11 occurred
and he {characteristically} engaged the moribund post-com high-tech
industry and an eager world into a strong effective coalition of
distributed social efforts to truly marginalize AQ.
http://e-sheep.com/spiders/
It's more engaging than my little explanation does it justice.
- Jonathan -
Jonathan--
Yes, I like Patrick Farley's stuff. But it doesn't seem to
have been added to in three years. Too bad! I hope he's
doing well...
---David
Highly recommended
___
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Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
On 24/10/2006, at 2:21 AM, Dan Minette wrote: Can't you see how insidious this is? No, because the American legal system doesn't work that way. ...doesn't work *what* way? Bad laws have been used in the past to detain people that haven't done anything wrong. It takes years to right these wrongs through the courts, and in the meantime the President gets the powers he wants for whatever he desires. The fact is, as the law stands a US citizen can be detained indefinitely without charge unless and until a friend gets them out with a lengthy court procedure. That's insidious in my book. Let me ask a question about the UK legal system. Let's say Parliament passes a law that prohibits the criticism of the government during a war, and that the House of Lords approves it (IIRC, they can still reject a bill once by sending it back to the House of Commons, but I may be wrong about this.) The courts have greater powers of interpretation. While it's hard for an Act of Parliament to be struck down by the Law Lords, it can be rendered impotent by the courts through precedents. OK, let's look at the restrictions on civil liberty that have been recently passed in the UK. Which have been rendered impotent? I don't know if any have. But that's somewhat besides the point. But this is the major difference: in the UK we don't have enshrined civil liberties in the form of a Bill of Rights, you do. So it's a lot more obvious when those rights are being eroded. Given this, which we all seem to know, why do you think that the latest law, which doesn't suspend habeas corpus for citizens, changes the legal rights of the President from what they were in 2000? The FDR precedent seems to be far stronger and much more straightforwardly applied than this law. The President can now hold a citizen indefinitely until someone else gets them out. So the individual can have their habeus corpus right suspended until a family member or friend (who knows they've been arrested under this law and doesn't just think that they've disappeared...) gets a court case together. An individual citizen can be imprisoned indefinitely until their status has been determined. It turns out that they're not an alien and were imprisoned illegally. And so the forces of justice and liberty march on. Indeed, with respect to the Presidential power to declare citizens enemy combatants, construct tribunals, and execute them on the decisions of these tribunals, the actions of the last 5 years has slightly restricted Bush's power from what the Supreme Court declared FDR's power to be. But he's trying as hard as he can to grab more. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
On 24/10/2006, at 4:03 AM, Dave Land wrote: On Oct 22, 2006, at 1:51 PM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 01:27 AM Sunday 10/22/2006, pencimen wrote: For those few of us who saw the disaster that is Bush coming, While some voted for Bush primarily because they thought that President Gore would be an even bigger disaster from which it might take even longer to undo the damage, if ever. What, precisely, are you talking about? Remember, we're talking about 2000 here, not 2004. 9/11 had not happened yet. We had not been converted into a nation of wusses who cower in the corner and strip of our clothes while going to the airport yet. We were still a nation that believed in the rule of law, who believed that torture was the kind of thing that the bad guys do to their prisoner. And Bush got in by appealing to the sort of people who regard Democrats, especially environmentalist ones with an actual brain, as akin to communists in the 50s. That's what Ronn was referring to, I'd imagine. Not the majority of Republicans who would have voted anyway, but the mobilisation of the religious right, who they got moving by appealing to the sense that 8 years of Clinton was turning the White House into a bordello and allowing *shudder* *whisper* liberals *shudder* to run America Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Irregulars Question: smell of CH2O (formaldehyde)
At 04:48 PM Monday 10/23/2006, Deborah Harrell wrote: Ronn!Blankenship wrote: Deborah Harrell wrote: snippage ...Using Mexican vanilla (prepared with propylene glycol# as well as grain alcohol) #Yep, radiator antifreeze -- I _do not_ advise it for consumption at all! Actually most antifreeze is _ethyl_ glycol, which tastes sweet and so the taste attracts dogs to drink from puddles and then the metabolic pathway which breaks down EtOH in human and animal bodies tries to break it down and the result is formaldehyde which wrecks the liver, leading in a few hours to days the whole cadaver being packed in formaldehyde . . . (Yes, I know that _you_ know that. ;) ) Whoops, yes indeed. But at least some brand of mexican vanilla had 'propyleneo glycolica' (badly misspelled, but that's the best I can recall from over 6 years ago!) on the label. I wonder if it has a sweet taste too? Debbi No Ketotic Breath Here! Maru ;) Nor here, so I wouldn't know how either tastes. I've never even felt an urge to chug 1,2,3-propanetriol, much less the trinitrate ester. -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Apostates!
On 23 Oct 2006 at 17:11, Dan Minette wrote: Meanwile, other - very well documented - research is showing that less light has been hitting the Earth. By a degree, on average, of some 22% in Israel - with comparative figures elsewhere. Let me offer a fairly good and balanced website's take on this: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=105 Heh. Try elsewhere for anything LIKE balanced. I'm NOT going to go into the entire flamewar about why. (Hint: PR flacks, not scientists) Basically, it shoots down the long term implications that were given by the strongest advocates of the global dimming theory: It's absolute rubbish. There has been no serious criticism of the data used in the studies, which show a consistant fall - in ALL parts of the world. Yes, there are problems with a few individual issues with the data, setting them aside makes less than 0.1% of a difference in the result. We know from the post-9/11 shutdown and the data gathered then the high significance of vapour trails. Each and every study done comes up with consistant results. Every single climate model developed without global dimming is, as things stand, a waste of processing time. There is good science to say that cleaning up our atmosphere might be nothing short of dangerous - the data on what would cause a runaway heat reaction is looking gloomier and gloomier as time goes on. AndrewC Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Apostates!
On 24/10/2006, at 10:32 AM, Andrew Crystall wrote: On 23 Oct 2006 at 17:11, Dan Minette wrote: Meanwile, other - very well documented - research is showing that less light has been hitting the Earth. By a degree, on average, of some 22% in Israel - with comparative figures elsewhere. Let me offer a fairly good and balanced website's take on this: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=105 Heh. Try elsewhere for anything LIKE balanced. I'm NOT going to go into the entire flamewar about why. (Hint: PR flacks, not scientists) Well point us at it, because while you may disagree with their conclusions, they are indeed scientists. It's possible to disagree with an analysis without casting someone as a lackey of whatever conspiracy you want, Especially without providing evidence. We know from the post-9/11 shutdown and the data gathered then the high significance of vapour trails. Each and every study done comes up with consistant results. Yes, and there's still honest debate about the long-term implications of this. Every single climate model developed without global dimming is, as things stand, a waste of processing time. There is good science to say that cleaning up our atmosphere might be nothing short of dangerous - the data on what would cause a runaway heat reaction is looking gloomier and gloomier as time goes on. But again, the levels and effects are still not fully understood. Dismissing entirely a source just because a two year old article disagrees with your current thinking doesn't seem rational. They may well be wrong. And there certainly is a crisis - the acceleration of the Greenland melt is testament to that, as are the worsening conditions here in Australia and elsewhere. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: We Will Not Be Afraid
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Charlie Bell Sent: Monday, October 23, 2006 5:15 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: Re: We Will Not Be Afraid On 24/10/2006, at 2:21 AM, Dan Minette wrote: But their next friend can...and this has happened in both cases where a citizen was declared an unlawful enemy combatant. Both cases have been reviewed by the courts. The potential hole in habeas corpus, someone rotting in prison has no chance to petition a court because he can't get to a court has been thought of and dealt with decades ago. Meanwhile, you spend 4 years in a jail, possibly in Syria, and get tortured. Great. Charlie Charlie, why are you mixing up cases of the treatment Syrian/Canadian citizen who was sent to Syria (under the well established legal precedent)? Was it a lousy thing to do? absolutely. Did they get the wrong man? probably, since he's now allowed in the US. Was it legal? That's well established. No country is required to admit the citizens of another country. This is not as troublesome as extraordinary renditions, which had been practiced for years by Clinton as well as Bush. I'm not defending it by saying worse has been happening on a regular basis, but merely indicating that it is not an example of something radically new. With respect to the time it would take for a writ of habeas corpus to be filed after a person was declared an enemy combatant, I think it is would be worthwhile to see how long it took for a writ of habeas corpus to be filed on behalf of Padilla: From http://cipp.gmu.edu/research/Padilla-0602Article.php quote On June 9, 2002 President Bush declared Padilla an enemy combatant and ordered him to be detained in a military brig in South CarolinaIn June 2002, Donna Newman, Padilla's appointed attorney, filed a writ of habeas corpus on his behalf. end quote So, it took less than three weeks for the writ to be filed. The problem for Padilla was the 60+ year old Supreme Court precedent, not an inherent problem with habeas corpus. Given the precedent, it would be hard for a lower court judge to honor the writ...ignoring the Supreme court precedent establishing the Commander-in-Chief's right to assume this power. What I'm trying to argue is certainly not that Bush did the right thing in these cases. Rather, that he didn't break any new ground. In particular, the law we are discussing breaks no new ground. All the problems that could be posed by this law were already better established in precident. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
On 24/10/2006, at 11:44 AM, Dan Minette wrote: Meanwhile, you spend 4 years in a jail, possibly in Syria, and get tortured. Great. Charlie Charlie, why are you mixing up cases of the treatment Syrian/Canadian citizen who was sent to Syria (under the well established legal precedent)? I'm not mixing them up, I'm saying that now, while you are waiting for your status as a citizen or otherwise and therefore the applicability of the Military Commissions Act to your case to be determined, there is no personal right to appeal to the courts, and you can be detained anywhere they choose, and you can be tortured legally, and there is a window under the new act which will take a while to close, under which citizens of the US could be detained. What I'm trying to argue is certainly not that Bush did the right thing in these cases. Rather, that he didn't break any new ground. In particular, the law we are discussing breaks no new ground. All the problems that could be posed by this law were already better established in precident. ...and you are still missing the crucial part of the new act. `(B) has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination. The last bit is the crucial bit. While you're awaiting determination, you can't file habeus corpus (or petition any court for any reason...). Once the determination is made, then you can appeal in court. But there's no way to put a time limit on a Combatant Status Review Tribunal hearing. So, in this period, you can be illegally detained indefinitely. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Heroes
Are you guys watching this show? So far it has been great! xponent The Faces Of Hiro Nakamura Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Apostates!
On 24 Oct 2006 at 11:05, Charlie Bell wrote: On 24/10/2006, at 10:32 AM, Andrew Crystall wrote: On 23 Oct 2006 at 17:11, Dan Minette wrote: Meanwile, other - very well documented - research is showing that less light has been hitting the Earth. By a degree, on average, of some 22% in Israel - with comparative figures elsewhere. Let me offer a fairly good and balanced website's take on this: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=105 Heh. Try elsewhere for anything LIKE balanced. I'm NOT going to go into the entire flamewar about why. (Hint: PR flacks, not scientists) Well point us at it, because while you may disagree with their conclusions, they are indeed scientists. It's possible to disagree with an analysis without casting someone as a lackey of whatever conspiracy you want, Especially without providing evidence. Charlie, it's a long argument across newsgroups and blogs. RealClimate ITSELF is not the issue, it's an blog. The problem is with the bias of individual articles, and a lot of them are ghost- written by PR flacks. (Don't buy the spare time thing for 2 seconds). Collectively, they trash junk science, which means anything the consensus of the authors doesn't like. Take something like http://www.climateaudit.org/, where you can get useful data, by comparison. If you're looking to debunk Crichton's pseudo-science, then sure, read RealClimate. But for the rest... (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=enq=realclimate+comment+censorship meta=) Every single climate model developed without global dimming is, as things stand, a waste of processing time. There is good science to say that cleaning up our atmosphere might be nothing short of dangerous - the data on what would cause a runaway heat reaction is looking gloomier and gloomier as time goes on. But again, the levels and effects are still not fully understood. Dismissing entirely a source just because a two year old article disagrees with your current thinking doesn't seem rational. Not understood in this case means there are fairly broad margins of confidence as to the magnitude of the effect, NOT this is not significant. The data in most cases which is criticised was not considered especially significant for over 50 years, and was accepted. As soon as its significant, there are new ways dreamed up to attack it. (From people who formerly had no issues with it) AndrewC Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Apostates!
On 24/10/2006, at 12:05 PM, Andrew Crystall wrote: Well point us at it, because while you may disagree with their conclusions, they are indeed scientists. It's possible to disagree with an analysis without casting someone as a lackey of whatever conspiracy you want, Especially without providing evidence. Charlie, it's a long argument across newsgroups and blogs. RealClimate ITSELF is not the issue, it's an blog. The problem is with the bias of individual articles, and a lot of them are ghost- written by PR flacks. (Don't buy the spare time thing for 2 seconds). Collectively, they trash junk science, which means anything the consensus of the authors doesn't like. Take something like http://www.climateaudit.org/, where you can get useful data, by comparison. If you're looking to debunk Crichton's pseudo-science, then sure, read RealClimate. But for the rest... (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=enq=realclimate+comment+censorship meta=) Thanks, that's all I was asking for. Every single climate model developed without global dimming is, as things stand, a waste of processing time. There is good science to say that cleaning up our atmosphere might be nothing short of dangerous - the data on what would cause a runaway heat reaction is looking gloomier and gloomier as time goes on. But again, the levels and effects are still not fully understood. Dismissing entirely a source just because a two year old article disagrees with your current thinking doesn't seem rational. Not understood in this case means there are fairly broad margins of confidence as to the magnitude of the effect, NOT this is not significant. Fair enough. The data in most cases which is criticised was not considered especially significant for over 50 years, and was accepted. As soon as its significant, there are new ways dreamed up to attack it. (From people who formerly had no issues with it) That happens. I'll have a trundle about later. Cheers for the link and pointer... Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: We Will Not Be Afraid
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Presuming that you would describe the fear of your grandmother being forced to live in a cardboard box on the street and eat dogfood for lunch if Republicans are elected to be principle rather than personal safety. The leadership on the left does not routinely justify their policies by telling us to be afraid that our grandmothers will live that way. They do when issues like the reform of Medicare and the school lunch program are the leading natural issues of the day. Surely you haven't forgotten the Democratic tactics of the last years of the Clinton Administration? The adminstration constantly justifies its war on terror by telling us to be afraid. They justified the invasion of Iraq by telling us to be afraid of chemical and nuclear attacks against the United States. They invoke 9/11 constantly. The tell us we have to fight them over there so that we don't have to fight them here. And to the extent that those on the left use any fear-mongering to try to get their way, shame on them. We will not be afraid is not anti-Republican. It is anti-fear-mongering. But I think that not being afraid takes far more power away from the right than from the left. Tell me, do you think we should make our political decisions out of fear? I think that fear can be healthy. If Bill Clinton had told us that we needed to invade Afghanistan, not just because the Taliban were oppressing their own people, but because if we didn't invade Afghanistan, that some day Osama bin Laden and the Taliban would launch a devastating attack on the United States, I think that would be a healthy example of fear being used to justify the correct policies. There are all sorts of other decisions that arise out of healthy fear: conducting fire drills in schools, purchasing an earthquake preparedness kit for your home, buckling your seat belt while driving, etc. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
The Assumption Re: 9/11 conspiracies
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not at all. The Assumption is interesting because it is a two- fer. If you disagree with this dogma, then by definition, you also have to disagree with the dogma of papal infallability. Would you claim that any person that believes in some dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church but disbelieves in other dogmas [say, a person that claims to be a good catholic but regularly gets impregnated by different men and goes to an abortion clinic to get rid of the tumor that starts to grow in the belly] is, in reality, not a catholic? I am reluctant to judge another person's faith. Provided, however, that someone is aware of the penalty, then a Catholic who procures, or assists someone in procuring, an abortion, is automatically exommunicated from the Catholic Church. In the case of other dogmas, the person must either be formally excommunicated, or formally engage in heresy in order to be automatically excommunicated, under the Canon Law of the Catholic Church. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
