American Politics, pt. 6

25075. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/18/2001 3:09:37 PM

As violence and drug production spills over Colombia's borders, the Bush Administration has decided to broaden Plan Colombia. Congress is giving the Bush Administration an additional $676 million to fund what is now called the Andean Counterdrug Initiative (ACI)--an effort that would send more drug war cash to Colombia, and, now, its neighbors. Many are skeptical that a disproportionate amount of money spent on supply reduction will ameliorate America's drug problem or Colombia's war; as such, on July 10, House Appropriations Committee Democrats Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and David Obey (D-WI) offered amendments that would have redirected some or all of the money to US drug treatment programs. No one was surprised when they failed. "At least on this side of the Hill," sighed one Democratic staffer, "the notion of expanded treatment or demand reduction is virtually hopeless."

But what did come as a shock was the discovery of language in the bill (apparently inserted late in the game by Foreign Operations subcommittee that not only gives the Bush Administration authority to send as many private military specialists as it wants to Colombia, but to send them in as heavily armed as they want--and with broad rules of engagement.

25076. PelleNilsson - 7/18/2001 3:16:02 PM

jexster

Isn't it Moron II of Texas?

25077. Dusty - 7/18/2001 3:49:58 PM

jexster

hello!!!

Is the brain working?

What part of "YOU ARE MAKING the distinction" don't you understand?

I'm cool with no distinction. It's stupid, but if you want that position go for it. So you are refuting your own point.

25078. Dusty - 7/18/2001 4:54:02 PM

Makes me almost pine for Jadegold - he/she was the master at undermining his/her own claims.

25079. JudithAtHome - 7/18/2001 6:06:11 PM

We just received our notice that we will be receiving our refund from GW&Co. in the first week of September. I'm sure they'll be upset that we are going to put it in savings rather than run out and blow it all on a spending spree.

25080. arkymalarky - 7/18/2001 6:07:49 PM

Hey! I've already spent mine and I haven't even gotten a letter yet, the rat.

25081. jexster - 7/18/2001 9:03:01 PM

Dusty...

Stick with me and you will never go wrong. :)

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Security was a major concern for the White House Wednesday as President Bush opened his second trip to Europe in little more than a month.

Bush stopped first in London for talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a key figure as the president tries to sell his controversial missile defense plan to the European allies and Russia.

The security concerns, however, were focused on the second stop, in Genoa, Italy, for the annual Group of Seven/Group of Eight summit, where as many as 100,000 demonstrators were expected and where security precautions were unprecedented because of recent episodes of sometimes violent protests at major international gatherings.

There is one thing I still am unclear on. Maybe you can help.

Is the King of Sweden sending his Royal 21 Moon Salute Honor Guard to welcome King Moron I of Texus?

25082. bubbaette - 7/18/2001 9:03:20 PM

We got the letter today. Mike asked me what I thought of GWB now and I responded that I still think he's a punk. I'll take the cash, but that doesn't mean he's bought my vote. Besides, as the Repubs are fond of repeating ad nauseum -- it's not GWB's money -- it's mine in the first place. I ought to give it to a democratic candidate.

25083. jexster - 7/18/2001 9:03:24 PM

Damn EuroTrash!

25084. jexster - 7/18/2001 9:08:39 PM

In the Never Ending Remedial Education of Dusty - A Lesson in Distinctions Sans Difference...

A disturbing account of the Bush campaign's actions during the recount was published in Sunday's New York Times. Its six-month investigation revealed the extent to which Republican operatives used the Florida secretary of state's office for partisan strategizing. In addition, Republican staffers from the House Armed Service Committee used their congressional clout to obtain the personal e-mails of military personnel overseas during the recount controversy -- and then coordinated with party strategists to bring soldiers and sailors into the public relations battle. It was, if not illegal, a serious ethical breach.

Finally, election boards in Bush strongholds -- but not in Gore counties -- employed unusually lenient standards to validate votes that arrived after November 17 or that were missing foreign postmarks, witness signatures or addresses. In fact, reported the Times, "Bush counties were four times as likely as Gore counties to count ballots lacking witness signatures and addresses."

Add to these irregularities the reckless voter-roll purging and other practices that disenfranchised undetermined numbers of African Americans and you have a stinging indictment of the electoral process.

That editorial comment from today's SF Chronicle says it all. Whether the stinging indictment is or is not a judical matter is a distinction utterly without difference.

25085. OhioSTOPAS - 7/18/2001 10:29:05 PM

. . . but thank goodness the Supreme Court stepped in to preserve equal treatment of all Florida voters.

25086. concerned - 7/18/2001 10:51:23 PM

The USSC was doing nothing more than putting the brakes on an out of control SCOFLA, after warning those juridical parasites not to ignore Federal and State law. Funny how you Lefties parade your selective blindness here.

25087. jexster - 7/18/2001 11:01:49 PM

The USSC was doing nothing more than putting the brakes on an out of control SCOFLA, after warning those juridical parasites not to ignore Federal and State law. Funny how you Lefties parade your selective blindness here.


If you've said that once you've said that 1000 times...

I'll let my co-counsel Ohio make mincemeat of your cute but sorry ass.

25088. jexster - 7/18/2001 11:13:20 PM

While the Moron is away the House doth play!

Faith Initiative Hits Snag in House
GOP Moderates' Bias Concerns Postpone Vote

Now who gave the so-called GOP "moderates" a gonad transplant?

U concerned? How kind of you to donate yours to such a worthy cause!

25089. jonesatlaw - 7/19/2001 1:07:07 AM

I can't wait until the first faith based program gets grant proposals from the likes of Rev. Farakhan, Rev. Moon, The Church of Jesus Christ, Christian, and and whatever NeoNazi from the midwest who's taken to calling himself "Pontifex Maximus" or the like.

They'll be struggling for rationales to exlude them, because Joe and Josephine Voter are not going to be happy that these folk will be nuzzling the public trough.

25090. jonesatlaw - 7/19/2001 1:11:36 AM

Meanwhile back at the ranch, our state AG just got his butt spanked for a granstanding attempt to intervene in an ACLU sponsored suit trying to force the removal of a momument bearing the ten commandments from a public park. The basis for Attorney General Stenberg's motion for intervention? Moses is among the figures depicted on a series of bas reliefs on the state capitol building, and a decision removing the park monument could threaten the capitol building.

Just goes to show you, it may be great politics to pander to the Christian Right, but it doesn't always fly in court.

25091. jonesatlaw - 7/19/2001 1:13:05 AM

above should read "Ten Commandments"

25092. jexster - 7/19/2001 5:19:42 AM

Bush Overseas Ballot Scam Series-SkipperTM: There's a Scandal in Here Somewhere!


Series-Skipper™ is a service from kausfiles that lets readers avoid long, worthy newspaper series. (For more on the rationale for Series-Skipper™, click here.) Last Sunday's New York Times investigative report on Florida overseas ballots wasn't a series, but at 397 inches in length (counting graphics), with three sidebars and input from 24 reporters, it could have been! In response to overwhelming demand from civic-minded consumers who do not want to actually read this important story, kausfiles has extended the reach of its proprietary Series-Skipper™ technology.

25093. jexster - 7/19/2001 5:26:38 AM

Dusty...time for the Razor Strap!


Occam's Razor that is...


"Under intense pressure from the Republicans, Florida officials accepted hundreds of overseas absentee ballots that failed to comply with state election laws. ... The flawed votes included ballots without postmarks, ballots postmarked after the election, ballots without witness signatures, ballots mailed from towns and cities within the United States and even ballots from voters who voted twice."

25094. jexster - 7/19/2001 5:33:26 AM

The investigative arm of Congress yesterday demanded that Vice President Cheney release information on the development of the administration's energy policy, an action that could lead to a rare court showdown between the executive and legislative branches.

Good Week for Neither Moron Nor Klown

25095. jexster - 7/19/2001 5:38:58 AM

Free To Laugh...Free To Laugh, Even Mary Carville is Free to Laugh

"The Democrats have continued on their course of the politics of personal destruction," said Mary Matalin, a top aide to Cheney and Bush. "They ought to stop wasting taxpayer money on phony investigations and start working on the energy policy we sent to the Hill."

25096. jexster - 7/19/2001 5:42:22 AM

Dusty...

Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate
"plurality should not be posited without necessity."

25097. joezan - 7/19/2001 5:45:07 AM

jones:

They'll be struggling for rationales to exlude them, because Joe and Josephine Voter are not going to be happy that these folk will be nuzzling the public trough.

Maybe Joe and Josephine will be heartened to know that the Nation of Islam has been nuzzling at the public trough for some years now - to the tune of millions of $ - for providing "security" at housing projects in Chicago.

25098. Dusty - 7/19/2001 8:46:50 AM

jexster

If anyone was paying attention to you (which I doubt) they must be rolling in the aisle. You've posted again and again with information proving that you blundered. At first, I thought it was cognitive dissonance, but now I'm wondering if you are simply clueless.

Here's a hint:
Is the distinction between vote fraud and voter fraud material, or a distinction without a difference?

25099. Adrianne - 7/19/2001 8:59:24 AM

CalGal

(gasping with laughter)

OK, so DCMPD DOES have some pretty stupid folks working for them. Check THIS out.

Whew.

25100. Adrianne - 7/19/2001 9:00:47 AM


Crap, that link isn't working. The url is

http://www.mpdc.org/News/2001/0107/010713.htm

25101. bubbaette - 7/19/2001 9:09:54 AM

Who does that gal's hair? I want to make sure I avoid them.

25102. Cellar Door - 7/19/2001 9:12:03 AM

Internet in Crisis.

25103. Adrianne - 7/19/2001 9:21:10 AM


Lawsy, lawsy, Bubba. I screamed:

My EYES! My EEEEEYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEESSS!

25104. bubbaette - 7/19/2001 9:23:14 AM

I feel certain that Condit committed those criminal haircuts. He should be jailed immediately -- the hell with due process.

25105. Dusty - 7/19/2001 9:25:01 AM

Very funny. Especially the necessary caveat at the end.

25106. jexster - 7/19/2001 2:22:22 PM


There are now approximately 800 sites whose mission is to analyze, attack and especially ridicule the King Moron I of Texus.
An Embarrassment of Riches

25107. Cygnus X-1 - 7/20/2001 9:19:51 AM

jexster, I think Jonathan Swift said it best:

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that all the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

25108. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/20/2001 10:18:27 AM

". . .a true genius" [gaaak!!!]







". . .dunces are all in confederacy against him." [double gaaakkk!!!]



25109. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/20/2001 10:19:38 AM

Oh wait, I see -- cygnus was talking about Clinton!

25110. jexster - 7/20/2001 10:45:57 AM

The Bush administration has placed the nation on a "collision course" with Russia and NATO allies by designing a missile defense plan to violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in a matter of months, former national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger said yesterday.

Berger, who was President Clinton's top foreign policy aide from 1997 to 2000, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Bush administration's aggressive timetable for testing and emergency deployment of missile defenses makes negotiating a compromise with the Russians "virtually impossible."

"Indeed, it may be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading almost inevitably to breach or unilateral abrogation which, at the very least, is premature," Berger said. "How can we expect to negotiate modifications of the ABM Treaty or a change in decades of strategic policy with the Russians in a matter of months?"

Congressional Democrats have advanced similar arguments. But Berger's position also drew unanticipated support from Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), the committee's ranking Republican, who urged the administration to seek amendments to the treaty before any decision is made to abrogate or withdraw from

Post

25111. jexster - 7/20/2001 10:49:23 AM

Call them the Star Wars Lobby, but understand that their ties to key congressmen and officials in the executive branch make them much more than a lobbying group.

Weschester County Weekly

25112. bubbaette - 7/20/2001 10:49:33 AM

That last photo of the S.C. is excellent, Wiz.

25113. janjon - 7/20/2001 10:52:09 AM

That's not the S.C., bubba. It is the idiots who currently run the House of Representatives. Hard to decide which one is the worst.

25114. JudithAtHome - 7/20/2001 11:15:04 AM

Stranger than fiction:

The author of a book about George W. Bush has killed himself, police said.

James Howard Hatfield, 43, wrote Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the making of an American President in 1999.

The unauthorized biography accused Bush of covering up a cocaine arrest. But during interviews about the book, Hatfield lied to reporters about his own criminal past.

A hotel housekeeper discovered the man's body about noon Wednesday, Springdale police Detective Al Barrios said Thursday. Barrios said the man apparently overdosed on two kinds of prescription drugs.

Police don't suspect foul play.

....from AP Wire Service

25115. Wombat - 7/20/2001 11:19:27 AM

If Democrats thought like Republican, Mellon- Scaife operatives, we would tie Hatfield's death to sinister forces in the Bush White House.

25116. JudithAtHome - 7/20/2001 11:22:24 AM

Yes, the vast conspiracy to get rid of people who write books Bush can't read or something.

25117. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/20/2001 11:24:30 AM


Thanks Bubb!

J@H- How sad.

25118. Cygnus X-1 - 7/20/2001 11:24:52 AM

No, WizardOfWimpy, I must have been talking about you. After all, it takes a true genius to amuse himself by posting these pictures you make over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Ordinary folks like me would have thought it was a stupid waste of time long ago, but not a genius like you!

25119. jexster - 7/20/2001 11:27:47 AM

. Ordinary folks like me

You said it. No me.

25120. jexster - 7/20/2001 11:28:12 AM

Very ordinary

25121. JudithAtHome - 7/20/2001 11:29:54 AM

you make over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

Hmmmmmm......sounds like some of the conservative points people make here. Like, Clowntoon is a rapist; liberals are schmucks; Bush won.

25122. Wombat - 7/20/2001 11:31:21 AM

Cygnus:

Coming from someone who used to provide erroneous link descriptions to spoof sites, you are in no position to criticize.

25123. jexster - 7/20/2001 11:31:55 AM

Bush to Daschle: I'm No Isolationist, I'm a Moron

25124. Cygnus X-1 - 7/20/2001 11:34:27 AM

You can't make up stuff funnier than this:

The USCCR's (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights) report claimed voters "were delayed at the polls or denied their opportunity to vote," highlighting the case of Ms. Margarita Green, who complained she was not allowed to vote because she was told she was not registered. Mr. Leahy [Miami-Dade elections supervisor David Leahy, Democrat] has produced a form signed by Ms. Green in 1998 declaring, "I no longer live in Dade County." Green never re-registered upon her return to Dade County.

Another case highlighted by the USCCR's report was that of Felix Boyle, who complained he was not informed that his polling place had changed. "I couldn't find where I was supposed to vote," claimed Boyle. But, according to Mr. Leahy, "Felix Boyle stated that the polling place for Precinct #36 was in a different building than was used in the 2000 primary election. The same building was used for both elections."

25125. jexster - 7/20/2001 11:36:01 AM

Wiz....maybe you should go easy. Perhaps Cyg resents your mocking Slim Pickens' performance.

25126. Cygnus X-1 - 7/20/2001 11:36:57 AM

Gee Wombat, your sense of proportion seems to be non-existent; or, is it that double-standard you liberals apply? Please compare how many times I used a disguised link with how many times Wimpy has posted stupid pictures. Then, compare the obtrusiveness of each practice.

25127. jexster - 7/20/2001 11:38:24 AM

Bush Ditches Hastert

25128. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/20/2001 11:50:09 AM

Jex-[ LOL! ]Thanks for the NR link.

Did you find the Presidunce image a bit dark on the Tshirt you ordered? It was on mine and the SupremeClowns mug came with a "Made In China" label.

Ya just can't win with these capitalists and commies!

25129. JudithAtHome - 7/20/2001 11:56:08 AM

, compare the obtrusiveness of each practice.

But many of us actually like Wizs "obtrusiveness"....


25130. Cygnus X-1 - 7/20/2001 11:59:44 AM

Judith, that's right. I forgot. According to Swift, all the dunces will be in confederacy against a genius.

25131. JudithAtHome - 7/20/2001 12:03:17 PM

It depends on what your definition of "genius" is....mine is: Wiz.

25132. janjon - 7/20/2001 12:28:43 PM

The Wiz is the greatest.

End of story.

25133. jexster - 7/20/2001 12:35:47 PM

Wiz Rulz...

Cyg Drulz...

And Bush is a Moron

AYLESBURY, England, July 19 -- President Bush declared today that he is "plenty capable" of handling U.S. foreign policy after Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle questioned the president's competence as he headed for his first economic summit.


Free to Laugh, Free to Laugh....

25134. jexster - 7/20/2001 12:37:11 PM

Wiz -, Due to mail theft(!) I have had my Presidunce T delivered to a friend's apt. Friend on vacation back next week.

Can hardly wait!

25135. Wombat - 7/20/2001 1:01:21 PM

Well, Cygnet, since I don't do what WoW and yourself do, and I tend to take legitimate- seeming links seriously enough to use them, perhaps I attach more importance to the deliberate use of erroneous links than I do to WoW's graphic fantasies. If they annoy you, ignore them.

25136. OhioSTOPAS - 7/20/2001 1:04:47 PM

President Bush says he's "plenty capable"? Hahaha!

That reminds me of Bush's statement during the campaign that he was "plenty smart". However, anyone who says "I'm plenty smart" likely isn't.

Based on the evidence, I'd say the same is true for "I'm plenty capable."

25137. labwabbit - 7/20/2001 1:08:52 PM

I'm plenty sure about that as well O.

25138. OhioSTOPAS - 7/20/2001 1:11:48 PM

"How tough are you guys?"

"Depends on how much you pay. You pay a little, we a little tough. You pay a lot, we a lot tough. You pay too much, we too much tough."

"Well, I pay plenty."

"Then we plenty tough."

25139. OhioSTOPAS - 7/20/2001 1:13:12 PM

Apparently Chico Marx is writing George W. Bush's speeches, which would explain a lot.

25140. JudithAtHome - 7/20/2001 1:15:30 PM

Having him speak such eloquence while on foreign soil is cringe-worthy, at best.

25141. Cellar Door - 7/20/2001 1:24:50 PM

If Chico is writing the speeches, why isn't Rufus T. Firefly the President?

25142. labwabbit - 7/20/2001 1:37:00 PM

It does appear that little-boy Bush, is getting plenty roughed-up on the playground.

25143. janjon - 7/20/2001 1:45:29 PM

He seems to be limited to being able to absorb only one or two directives as to what to say and how to say it at a time. For instance, when giving a recent pep talk to the GOP House members, he kept saying "I'm passionate" about this or that. Right. Means the polls have indicated that people have caught on to the fact that the only things for which he seems to evince passion are naps, exercise and that bizarre ranch.

And, when traipsing through Urop, his leitmotif is "I talk plainly." Right. As in simplemindedly.

Linear this dolt is.

25144. Absensia - 7/20/2001 1:50:16 PM

Supreme Clown mugs???? Where can I get them? Please, please, please tell me.

25145. JudithAtHome - 7/20/2001 1:53:06 PM

his leitmotif is "I talk plainly."

Shouldn't that ne "I talk plain"?

25146. janjon - 7/20/2001 1:55:18 PM

From the Washington Post story linked above:

"The president said world leaders "have found that I'm a person who speaks plainly and openly about key issues."

"We're willing to listen," Bush said. "But I will still continue to stand for what I think is right for our country and the world."

Right. Meaning - I can only think and talk in terms of a is followed by b which is followed by c. And, if you don't like our good ol' American abcs, fuck you Urop!

25147. Cygnus X-1 - 7/20/2001 2:03:09 PM

Wow, janjon, I actually agree with you. Bush does have his shining moments, wouldn't you say?

25148. janjon - 7/20/2001 2:56:22 PM

if you find that drivel comforting in the context in which W mouths it, all I can say is .

25149. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/20/2001 5:50:47 PM

Thanks for the support folks!!!

25150. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/20/2001 5:52:19 PM

25151. jexster - 7/20/2001 8:54:43 PM

Lest We Forget - Poppy!

Though the Bush administration has pulled out of the [Kyoto] accord, the United States is party to the 1992 Rio de Janiero convention that defined the goals for climate protection and gave birth to Kyoto. The U.S. thus remains obliged to shoulder a hefty share of the costs in helping poorer nations reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, a contractual obligation made in the Rio convention, which was signed by Bush's father, former President Bush.

25152. jexster - 7/20/2001 9:01:16 PM

Whopper of the Week - King Moron I


"The Vice President is not reinventing the federal government, he is reinvigorating the federal government. And Americans will feel this influence in our own lives. We'll have to work through a maze of bureaucracy to get health care, or tax relief [italics Chatterbox's]. ... How many of you own a rooftop photovoltaic system? Let's see the hands. Not too many. You're beginning to get the drift of 'targeted.' "

--Candidate George W. Bush at a Nov. 1 campaign rally in Minneapolis.

"On a third front, the House Ways and Means Committee may late this week approve tax breaks for purchase of photovoltaic solar systems in homes and for buying ultra-fuel efficient hybrid cars--both urged by the administration ."

--July 17 Associated Press report by H. Josef Hebert.


25153. jexster - 7/20/2001 9:05:57 PM

Speaking of Campaign 2000 BushShit, remember how the Moron squealed like a stuck pig at Wayne LaPierre's comment that the NRA would set up office in the West Wing...

Well They Have - CBS Evening News

25154. jexster - 7/20/2001 9:07:15 PM

It's all enough to cheer the heart of any gun lobbyist. An NRA vice president had predicted last year that if Bush won the group "would work out of the White House." This kind of early success, however, has to exceed even the NRA's wildest dreams.

25155. concerned - 7/20/2001 11:11:01 PM

Yo, jexster? How are things in the Demo-ratrace? The rats still winning?

25156. concerned - 7/20/2001 11:11:13 PM

Yo, jexster! How are things in the Demo-ratrace? The rats still winning?

25157. jexster - 7/20/2001 11:18:56 PM

Fine and dandy concerned!


President Bush's senior adviser, Karl Rove, met with two pharmaceutical industry lobbyists in his White House office last month when he owned more than $240,000 worth of stock in two of the nation's biggest drug companies, the White House confirmed yesterday.

Rat-Rove!

25158. jexster - 7/20/2001 11:19:39 PM

Redrum...Redrum

25159. Cellar Door - 7/21/2001 10:27:51 AM

A "Man of Faith" -- cops to his lies!

25160. Absensia - 7/21/2001 10:47:51 AM

#25149-50
Thanks Wiz....those are great...from where can I order them???

25161. jexster - 7/21/2001 11:48:30 AM

The Bush administration's plan to shake up California's woebegone Republican Party is about to set off a feud between moderate Bush allies and the state party's conservative activists, a conservative magazine reported.

"Bush Friend Plotting Coup in California GOP," is the headline on an article in the July 23 Human Events, which quotes angered conservatives and calls the matter "a full-blown crisis." The story, writer John Gizzi reported, goes like
this:

25162. jexster - 7/21/2001 11:49:22 AM

abs...just click da pics!

25163. jexster - 7/21/2001 11:52:25 AM

And like this: Vice President Dick Cheney can "take a flying leap through a rolling doughnut" for his assertions that the state's energy crisis will not be eased by conservation, the governor's top energy adviser said Thursday night

25164. jexster - 7/21/2001 11:56:20 AM

And like this:
[Former CA Gov}
Wilson opposes Bush's immigrant-amnesty proposal
GOP blames ex-governor for alienating Latinos

25165. jexster - 7/21/2001 12:01:52 PM

And like this:


Gov. Frank Keating of Oklahoma turned down a request by President Vicente Fox of Mexico to commute the death sentence of a Mexican citizen.

Ariba!

25166. Cellar Door - 7/21/2001 12:04:31 PM

FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- An office worker for U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough was found dead Friday in the congressman's district office.

Lori Klausutis, 28, may have had prior health problems, medical examiner Michael Berkland said. A police statement said there were no signs foul play.

Klausutis had worked for Scarborough since May 1999 as a consituent service coordinator, said Mick Serrano, press secretary for the congressman.

Scarborough was traveling from Washington late Friday and was not available for comment, said an aide in his Pensacola office.

Scarborough, a Republican, announced last month he was resigning Sept. 6 to spend more time with two young sons.

A special primary election is scheduled Tuesday to select Democratic and Republican nominees for an Oct. 16 general election to replace him.

25167. jexster - 7/21/2001 12:21:23 PM

Remember Poppy and the Flag Burning Amendment...


recent law school graduates weren't even born the last time the Supreme Court was thought to be a reliable safety net for civil liberties

Kinsley On the Improbable Demise of Poppy's Putrescence

25168. concerned - 7/21/2001 12:54:11 PM

Re. 25124 -

Funny, but disgusting, also. Why does the USCCR waste everybody's time with this tripe instead of exercising at least a minimal level of due diligence? Is it that they are trying to impress their coterie of credulous/stupid Lefties?

25169. Cellar Door - 7/21/2001 1:05:53 PM

Sex, Drugs and Republicans.

25170. concerned - 7/21/2001 1:11:54 PM

Condit is a Democrat.


Just in case anybody wasn't sure....

25171. JudithAtHome - 7/21/2001 1:18:24 PM

I think everyone is aware Condit is a Democrat...

25172. JudithAtHome - 7/21/2001 1:41:56 PM

...but he's no Hank Williams, Jr. He has Friends In High Places

Condit Has an Alibi

Dick Cheney has emerged as a surprise witness for the beleaguered congressman, NEWSWEEK has learned

By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE

July 20 — Vice President Dick Cheney has emerged as a surprise alibi witness for Rep. Gary Condit in the investigation into the disappearance of missing Washington intern Chandra Levy, NEWSWEEK has learned.

Condit had a private meeting with Cheney on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, May 1, to discuss the California energy crisis, according to White House and law-enforcement sources. The meeting began at 12:30 p.m. EDT and lasted for about 20 to 25 minutes, the sources said.
It was at that very moment that, according to police, Levy was in her Dupont Circle apartment wrapping up a three-hour-plus session on her laptop computer in which she sent out e-mails and surfed the Internet. She searched for plane schedules for return trips to California, looking for discount fares on Southwest Airlines, and clicked on various Web sites, apparently to check out locations in Washington, including, law-enforcement sources say, a Baskin-Robbins ice-cream store.












25173. JudithAtHome - 7/21/2001 1:43:27 PM

Don't know what caused all that expanse of white after my post...

25174. concerned - 7/21/2001 1:46:16 PM

Btw, shouldn't Cond-scum step down? I don't think child-molesters in public office do anybody any good, especially when they are implicated in the deaths and disappearances of others.

25175. JudithAtHome - 7/21/2001 1:50:27 PM

Yeah, that little "innocent until proven guilty" thing is just a nuisance, isn't it?

And please do not mistake my remartk as support for a grown man who, for whatever reason, thinks it is okay to date young girls while he is a married man...he's to be condemned for doing that. But until he's charged with her murder, I don't think we ought to assume he did it, no matter that he is an odious person.

25176. concerned - 7/21/2001 1:56:20 PM

Re. 25175 -

Then there is Condit's almost certain loss of effectiveness as a legislator because of his admitted wrongdoing. If he believes in public service rather than hoping that he might be able to keep his job as some kind of sinecure, he ought to consider whether stepping down might really be best for his constituency.

25177. Absensia - 7/21/2001 2:01:52 PM

#25162

Jexster...not sure why I only right clicked before....must of been a senior moment! Now they've been ordered!

25178. JudithAtHome - 7/21/2001 2:04:49 PM

I agree with you on that last post, concerned.

25179. ranheim - 7/21/2001 4:50:17 PM

I don't understand anything about this Condit/Levy business at all; unless it is the "gotcha politics" of Washington D.C.

Ask yourself - in your community, "how many young woman have disappeared in the last 6 months"? There is one locally - that I am aware of - in a parish (that is a county to you) of 40,000. And nobody, except the family, gives a thought to the disappearance any longer. Her 15 minutes of Andy Warhol fame; and now the flame has burned out -figuratively, and most likely, literally.

I like and respect the members of Congress much less than most of you. However, I am aware that the lack of respect costs. Police, however ineffective they may have been prior to Prohibition, were treated with respect by all. Prohibition cast most policemen in a dubious light. Their reputation as a group certainly has not improved since. Constant negative publicity, the like that Condit is receiving, does not enhance the image of Congress - either here or abroad.

They make of themselves laughing-stocks. They need no help from the media. For me, I am tired and bored of this circus.

25180. concerned - 7/21/2001 4:53:15 PM

Re. 25179 -

Well, I don't really pay much attention to it, either, but once in a while, it shows up on my radar in such a way that I feel that I need to comment. In this case, it was an article I read that indicated that, while the media is obsessively concentrating on this case, few mentions are made of Condit's party affiliation. Hence, my original post.

25181. concerned - 7/22/2001 10:06:37 AM

Gephardt threatens more Democrat tax increases if they control the House in 2002.

25182. concerned - 7/22/2001 10:37:36 AM

From the NYT: US Allies Allies Tell Bush They'll Act Alone on Climate Accord

excerpt:


GENOA, Italy, July 21 — As tens of thousands of demonstrators marched toward the center of this ancient city and occasionally clashed with the police, the United States' leading allies told President Bush today that they intended to move ahead and ratify the Kyoto Protocol on global warming by next year, even without American participation.

At the summit meeting of top industrial nations, protesters and riot police clashed anew, one day after a protester was killed. Today as many as 50,000 demonstrators flowed through the streets of Genoa, but outside the center of the city, where the leaders were sequestered.

The crowds were far larger than on Friday. The police made efforts to keep their distance, after images raced around the world on Friday of an Italian policeman shooting a demonstrator dead, and then running over his body with a jeep.

I won't hold my breath waiting for them to ratify Kyoto. In fact, the question arises as to why they haven't already.

Even if the US did sign on which, which would only have any conceivable chance of happening, given our First Amendment, with a full court press of media disinformation, it'd only change the global CO2 increase by less than 1% a hundred years from now, and the economic price is clearly unacceptable, especially for the less well off. What may be even worse is that major pollutors such as India and China are left free to do their worst without any constraints whatsoever, according to Kyoto.

All in all, the Kyoto Protocol is based on bad science and would have the effect of reducing economic competitiveness if the US adopted it, while having negligible potential to reduce CO2 emissions in its present form.



25183. concerned - 7/22/2001 10:52:52 AM

Wherefore such Leftist intrasigence regarding the useless Kyoto Protocol, to the extent of disregarding US suggestings of implementing carbon sinks?

25184. concerned - 7/22/2001 11:09:33 AM

..suggestions...

25185. jexster - 7/22/2001 12:43:16 PM

knew that the commission on Social Security reform appointed by George W. Bush would produce a slanted report, one designed to bully Congress into privatizing the system. But the draft report released last week is sheer, mean-spirited nonsense.

The commission, in an attempt to sow panic, claims that Social Security is in imminent peril — that the system will be in crisis as soon as 2016. That's wildly at odds with the standard projection, which says that Social Security reserves will last until 2038. And even that projection is based on quite pessimistic assumptions about future economic growth and hence future payroll tax receipts. If you use more optimistic assumptions — say, the assumptions in the budget forecasts that were used to justify Mr. Bush's tax cut — the system will still be financially sound in 2075.

25186. jexster - 7/22/2001 12:46:11 PM

Krugman on SS BushShit

25187. jexster - 7/22/2001 12:48:35 PM

GENOA, Italy, July 21 -- President Bush came under intense pressure from other leaders at the Group of Eight summit of industrial powers today to relax his opposition to the Kyoto treaty on climate change, as violent anti-globalization protests continued for a second day.

In what participants described as the most contentious session of the summit so far, Bush was thrown on the defensive as other leaders warned of the dangers of jettisoning an international agreement that has taken nearly a decade to negotiate...

25188. jexster - 7/22/2001 12:51:16 PM

EU Leftie Leaders Lampoon Lame "Leader"

25189. jexster - 7/22/2001 1:03:59 PM

King Moron I Hasn't Seen A HotBox Like This Since He Pledged DKE

"Senior European diplomats said the leaders of France, Britain and Germany took turns trying to convince Bush that he could not reject the Kyoto treaty without offering an alternative strategy to cope with climate change. They emphasized that public opinion in their countries has become so emotionally charged over the issue that if the United States failed to take a more positive approach, it could inflict serious damage on the transatlantic partnership."

25190. concerned - 7/22/2001 2:45:15 PM

Sounds like the socialist morons are really trying to bully GWB.

They'll soon find out that their efforts on behalf of the worthless Kyoto Protocol are wasted.

25191. concerned - 7/22/2001 2:49:43 PM

GWB speaks the truth:

Bush said while he shared their objective of reducing "greenhouse gas" emissions, he did not believe Kyoto was a worthy treaty, nor would it ever be ratified by Congress.

Of course, the truth counts for little among those for whom politics is paramount, but then, George W. Bush is more than a politician; he is a statesman.

25192. JudithAtHome - 7/22/2001 3:08:35 PM

he is a statesman.

In your dreams!

25193. concerned - 7/22/2001 3:36:26 PM

Don't know about you, JAH, but I prefer a president who isn't a habitual liar and who doesn't try to shove bullshit like Kyoto down our throats.

25194. JudithAtHome - 7/22/2001 3:42:46 PM

Well, you are welcome to him, concerned. This guy may not be an habitual liar but he definitely knows how to shave the truth.

The fact that he sounds like a hick from Sticksville when he stumbles off the written path makes you proud? Fine and dandy...may you beam with pride each time he opens his mouth. As for me, I'll continue to enjoy his strategery and his being digmatic.

25195. concerned - 7/22/2001 3:46:52 PM

The fact that he sounds like a hick from Sticksville when he stumbles off the written path makes you proud?

I guess the Republicans wanted to give the Democrats a chance in 2004:)

25196. ranheim - 7/22/2001 4:13:38 PM

Has anyone in this thread considered avoiding the subject of the supposed intelligence of the president? Or the man he defeated?

I think it can be posited by all of us that neither were geniuses.

Additionally, if I had my choice, I would rather the president have common sense than genius.

25197. JudithAtHome - 7/22/2001 4:19:33 PM

Well, sure, we can avoid discussing the Presidents intelligence. We can also avoid discussing 9/10ths of the stuff we discuss here. But since he keeps putting it out there, as it were, I see no need to muffle my comments on his alleged intelligence or lack thereof.

25198. JudithAtHome - 7/22/2001 4:20:20 PM

Additionally, if I had my choice, I would rather the president have common sense than genius.

I couldn't agree more.

25199. ranheim - 7/22/2001 4:23:48 PM

With all the advisors; speech writers; other hangers-on around the president, I often wonder how much of what he speaks of or about comes from considerations he, personally, has made.

I would bet that it is a surprisingly low %.

25200. jexster - 7/22/2001 4:24:27 PM

Additionally, if I had my choice, I would rather the president have common sense than genius.

How bout neither?

GENOA, Italy (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) said on Sunday that anti-trade protesters such as those who disrupted a big-power summit with riots that killed one demonstrator were ``dead wrong.

25201. jexster - 7/22/2001 4:42:25 PM

To be sure, intelligence of the kind that might manifest itself in high SAT scores isn't the most important quality in a chief executive. Leadership, integrity, and determination are all more critical qualities. Dumb luck helps. Dumbness doesn't.

Do Dim Bulbs Make Great Presidents? [Weisberg, 11/03/99

25202. jexster - 7/22/2001 4:42:54 PM

dumb

25203. jexster - 7/22/2001 5:46:00 PM

BONN -- With an international pact to fight global warming suddenly said to be within reach, environmentalists and politicians Saturday praised the power of solidarity in their efforts to reduce so-called greenhouse gases--even if the biggest producer, the United States, won't.

Delegates and observers acknowledged that a deal to rescue the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which would apportion emission reductions to industrialized nations, is still far from guaranteed. But there was a watershed change in atmosphere at the U.N. Convention on Climate Change here after negotiators reported major advances toward resolving the most divisive issues.

Intellect - 0; Common Sense - 0; Relevance - 0

25204. jexster - 7/22/2001 11:34:12 PM

WASHINGTON -- Nine years after Roger Keith Coleman was put to death in Virginia's electric chair, his legal case lives on, a test of whether the state may

LAT

25205. bubbaette - 7/23/2001 7:41:22 AM

There's an article in this morning's Richmond Times-Disgrace saying that Va. has one of the nation's oldest forensic DNA labs. I can't imagine why the opposition to re-testing the sample in the Coleman case. In most cases so far, re-testing DNA has proven that the right man was convicted.

The AG in Va. now so opposed to re-testing the evidence is Mark Early -- a right wing Christer and right-to-life fanatic who, while a member of the General Assembly, repeatedly introduced whackaloon anti-abortion bills which he knew would be found unconstitutional if enacted. Shame he doesn't extend his beliefs about the sanctity of life to the living.

25206. bubbaette - 7/23/2001 7:44:04 AM

This fanatic dim-bulb -- Earley -- is now running for Governor.

25207. Wombat - 7/23/2001 8:24:33 AM

So, how will Motiers spend their impending tax rebates?

The Wombats will be investing most of theirs, except for a sizeable contribution to the Democratic Party. I guess that too would be an investment.

25208. ranheim - 7/23/2001 8:30:41 AM

Democratic Party

Home of labor union members; teachers; government employees; minorities.

That is an investment?

25209. Wombat - 7/23/2001 8:45:56 AM

It is a sounder investment than many, given the Republicans' fiscal irresponsibility.

25210. ranheim - 7/23/2001 8:51:49 AM

Remember now!! I'm the guy that says "a pox on both your houses!"

Specifically, how is the Republican Party more spendthrift than the Democratic Party?

Sorry to post and run; I'm off to the office.

25211. Dusty - 7/23/2001 8:56:51 AM

Wombat Message # 25115

If Democrats thought like Republican, Mellon- Scaife operatives, we would tie Hatfield's death to sinister forces in the Bush White House.

Guess you aren't following the TT thread on this subject.

Excerpts:
There is every reason to believe this is murder, its too good for Bush not to be investigated, not that it will be....There is no way in hell this was a suicide....I can promise one absolute 100% guarantee - We will never, NEVER, know the truth - the cover-up story has already been written....The media's certainly in no hurry to report this latest "Shadow Government" action....I don't blame President Gore. I'm implying that the current occupant of the White House is behind the death of James Hatfield.

25212. Wombat - 7/23/2001 9:07:57 AM

Dusty:

I limit myself to whatever rantings occur at the Mote.

25213. Dusty - 7/23/2001 9:22:00 AM

Well, I'd like to think that our Democrats (with some notable exceptions), have a firmer grip on reality.

25214. jexster - 7/23/2001 10:47:38 AM

Twenty House Republicans who came to the White House late last month found a president with his back up -- and against the wall.

Up Against the Wall MF!

25215. jexster - 7/23/2001 10:49:00 AM

"I've got a beautiful ranch in Crawford, Texas," Bush answered, noting that he had just returned from a visit. "If I get sent back there for vetoing a bill I honestly believe will hurt people, then I'll go."

25216. jexster - 7/23/2001 11:00:43 AM

ENOA, Italy, July 22 — President Bush and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia agreed today to link discussions of American plans to deploy a missile defense system with the prospect of large cuts in both nuclear arsenals. If an accord was reached quickly, it might take the place of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty.

Putin has Bush by the balls. Having just signed a treaty of friendship with China, he turns around and grabs the Soul Man, desperate for an NMD deal, and ropes him into negotiating a revision of the ABM treaty. Walking away from active negotiations is, of course, vastly more difficult than walkking away from the "relic of the cold war".

Intellect - 0
Common Sense - 0
Soul Reading - 100!

25217. jexster - 7/23/2001 11:03:10 AM

Viva Il Papa!

J2P2 opens meet with King Moron with warnings on the evils of capital punishment and stem cell research.

25218. concerned - 7/23/2001 11:06:43 AM

Re. 25216 -

Count on jexster to turn a probable significant advance in nuclear nonproliferation into 'putin has bush by the balls'.

25219. jexster - 7/23/2001 11:16:21 AM

Count on Jexster to stop the spin.

Reality check concerned!

25220. jexster - 7/23/2001 11:19:58 AM

BTW the AF, according to Senate testimony, wants to violate the ABM treaty within a matter of months.

Now, tell us Oh Minion of the Moron, do you expect Putin to give Bush a comprehensive arms deal by then?

And BTW, the Putin/Bush deal has nothing whatsoever to do with "non-proliferation"

Spin...spin...spin

25221. jexster - 7/23/2001 11:35:36 AM

When it comes to the bitter partisan wars of reapportionment, Bruce Cain's job is to give Republicans and Democrats one less thing to fight about.

Cain, who directs the University of California at Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies, is the honest broker who provides both sides with numbers they can trust, based on work he has been doing for the past 20 years.


Cain is tight with my buds Rich DeLeon (SFSU Poli Sci Chmn) and David Lee (Chinese-American Voter Education Committee)...a demographic geek, he is also big on Asian-American voting behavior in CA....


Chron

Bio

25222. Cygnus X-1 - 7/23/2001 11:44:43 AM

My advice to George Bush over the stem cell research issue: Veto any bill calling for federal funding of stem cells. Say it has nothing to do with abortion rights or the advocacy of a pro-life stance. Simply state that the federal government has no constitutional authority in this matter. This may make people think twice, or in most cases once, about the Constitution.

Then, remind the country that there are many (not necessarily me) who abhor the concept of using stem cells for research. Follow that with a quote from Thomas Jefferson: "To compel a man
to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."

25223. jexster - 7/23/2001 11:49:05 AM

Simply state that the federal government has no constitutional authority in this matter. This may make people think twice, or in most cases once, about the Constitution.

And cite Roe v. Wade for authority.

Good idea!

25224. jexster - 7/23/2001 11:52:49 AM

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical"

Exactly what a representative of the US Conf. of Catholic Bishops said in a debate with Orrin Hatch!

25225. Cygnus X-1 - 7/23/2001 12:03:17 PM

Who knows, Roe v. Wade may be a good case to cite. It's decision had to do with what government can't do.

25226. Cygnus X-1 - 7/23/2001 12:05:19 PM

And remind the armchair politicians out there that we're only talking about federal funding. We're not talking about whether or not stem cell research is outlawed as all of this heated rhetoric may lead the uninitiated to believe.

25227. concerned - 7/23/2001 12:30:05 PM

There's nothing wrong with stem cell research, per se. There's everything wrong with harvesting stem cells from fetal tissue, especially since there are other sources of stem cells, such as fat tissue from liposuctions.

In a gruesome irony, the very same people who inveigh against medical research on animals insist on cuisinarting unborn babies with few restrictions. Why should such peoples' opinions be given much weight?

25228. Cygnus X-1 - 7/23/2001 1:34:58 PM

jexster, out of courtesy, I looked to see if anyone commented on the Bush/Putin talks before I posted something. I see you did in #25216. Now, let me say, if you try and turn this into anything but a major victory for Bush, then you are either a hack or an imbecile.

25229. rubberducky - 7/23/2001 1:40:55 PM

Re: Message # 25207, Wombat.

So, how will Motiers spend their impending tax rebates?

cash it, get money order, send to fucking IRS for the fucking tax burden i still owe from 2-fucking-thousand.

not that i think i'm overtaxed or anything.

25230. JudithAtHome - 7/23/2001 1:45:40 PM

unborn babies with few restrictions. Why should such peoples' opinions be given much weight?

And what, pray tell, will they do with these "babies" otherwise?

25231. JudithAtHome - 7/23/2001 1:47:10 PM

Ducks...if you still owe money, you won't get a refund; they will apply it for you.

We're putting ours in savings.

25232. greystoke - 7/23/2001 1:56:31 PM

"So, how will Motiers spend their impending tax rebates?"

Donation to the "Al Gore in 2004" Committee.

Also known as CREVICE -- The Committee to Re-Elect the VICE president.

Slogan -- Stick your refund in Al's CREVICE.

25233. ElliottRW - 7/23/2001 2:06:14 PM

Ducky, won't your existing tax liabilities automatically be removed?

25234. ElliottRW - 7/23/2001 2:08:03 PM

Ah, I see Judith has already answered. He he.

25235. jexster - 7/23/2001 2:12:14 PM

"The Earth will become a much hotter place over the next century, according to researchers who predict in a study published on Friday there is a 90 percent chance the planet's average temperatures will rise 3 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. Researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, used a computer model to predict probable long-term increases in the Earth's temperature if no actions are taken to curb the emissions of gases and pollutants that many scientists blame for global warming. The researchers said the planet has warmed up by about 1 degrees over the last century. But they say it is likely to heat up by about 1 or 2 degrees as early as 2030. By 2100, the most likely increase would be in the range of 4 to 7 degrees, while there is a 90 percent chance global average temperatures will rise 3 to 9 degrees, they said."

OK Soul Man, Krusty Klown, which part of 90% don't you understand?

25236. jexster - 7/23/2001 2:13:31 PM

if you try and turn this into anything but a major victory for Bush, then you are either a hack or an imbecile.

Guilty on both counts. Now why don't you answer the substance of my comments?

25237. jexster - 7/23/2001 2:15:38 PM

In an interview with the American Spectator, Dick Cheney rejected the worldwide scientific consensus that human activity is the cause of global warming.

"There seems to be no doubt that there is global warming going on. It shows up a lot of different ways. The question is whether it's a result of centuries-long natural cycles or whether man's activity over the last 50 or 60 years has contributed to it."

Asked about European anger over Kyoto, Cheney contemptuously said, "They'll get over it."

Free To Laugh...Free To Laugh

25238. bubbaette - 7/23/2001 2:16:18 PM

I expect ours will go into home improvement projects. If I weren't a state employee, I'd give a hefty chunk of it to our democratic gubernatorial candidate.

25239. jexster - 7/23/2001 2:27:42 PM

R Moron, Krusty Feuding???

Contrast the Cheney Interview with...

"We were all pleased by his new orientation," said President Jacques Chirac of France, citing Bush's pledge to work more effectively with leaders of the other major industrialized countries to reduce "greenhouse gas" emissions, even though the United States still says it will not ratify the Kyoto global warming treaty.

3 possibilties:

1. The hot box worked and Bush now thinks against his conservative supporters that greenhouse emmissions are a problem.

2. Chirac is an idiot and swallowed a load of Offensive Charm

3. Chirac is a smart politician who beat Bush up on Day 1 and declared victory on Day 2.

25240. Jimbo - 7/23/2001 2:45:05 PM

I would imagine the BSA or Salvation Army could use some bucks. But I don't suppose they'll get much from those who post here.

25241. JudithAtHome - 7/23/2001 2:47:35 PM

I suppose they get many thousands from those who share their views, however...they aren't at the poor house doors, by any means.

25242. Cygnus X-1 - 7/23/2001 3:08:49 PM

jexster, re 25236, what's there to address? How can you possibly spin as failure Bush's getting Putin to agree to not piss & moan about us pursuing a NMD? After all, I'd say 99% of the holier-than-though-I'm-smarter-than-average media thought, along with Daschle (who's suddenly more important that Speaker of the House), that we were "isolating" ourselves because there was no way Russia would agree to a NMD (as if Russia should have any say in the matter).

Like it or not, Bush lead and the rest of the morons will follow. Despite near overwhelming antagonistic sentiment from the press and the socialists in Europe, Bush is getting what he wanted. That's a hell of a lot better then a president raising his sails and letting the winds take him where they may. What a refreshing change from our previous president.

25243. Cygnus X-1 - 7/23/2001 3:12:22 PM

jexster, re 25239, you really are an imbecile if you think we give a rat's ass about what the frogs think. "It's hard to respect the French when you have to bail 'em outta two big ones in one century. But, you gotta hand it to 'em when it comes to mayonnaise. Nice job, Pierre."

25244. JudithAtHome - 7/23/2001 3:18:38 PM

imbecile if you think we give a rat's ass about what the frogs think.

Well, shoot, let's just extend that to "rest of the world" and be done with it....after all, we don't need anything from them, do we?

25245. rubberducky - 7/23/2001 3:21:32 PM

ah - well, goodie for me. uncle sam will save me the whole buck i was planning on spending on postage & money order issuing fees.

and Bush says he wants to stimulate the economy.

25246. ranheim - 7/23/2001 9:13:44 PM

JAH

I would be a whole lot more comfortable for my children and grandchildren if we were less reliant on ANY other country or groups of countries than we are at the present time.

But, then, I am nearly an isolationist. I would think that way.

25247. Cygnus X-1 - 7/23/2001 10:51:19 PM

Fortunately, we were able to fend off Hillary Clinton's ego-driven attempt to impose socialized medicine on us. Japan, it seems, wasn't so lucky.
[Excerpt:]
TOKYO (AP) Dr. Katsura Nakakawaji's daily ritual starts at 9:30 a.m. with a visit from a 70-year-old patient.
The man wants ultrasound and massage for his joints, which are arthritic and sore. He doesn't really need the treatment, and Nakakawaji suspects the main reason he comes is to chat with other elderly patients, all regulars, in the waiting room. He gets the care anyway.

"He comes every day because it costs him close to nothing," said Nakakawaji, whose clinic is in a quiet, upscale neighborhood. "But he doesn't realize that someone has to pay for his visits."

That someone is the government and the government is running out of money.

[End excerpt:]

25248. Francis Urquhart - 7/24/2001 11:01:14 AM

To this forum's credit, I've yet to see anyone endorse the humiliating concept of reparations for slavery, but for those who have flirted with such a position, this is a must read, and a thoughtful respite from the obviousness of a Horowitz.

John McWhorter

25249. CalGal - 7/24/2001 11:55:18 AM

I liked that McWhorter piece; it's actually probably better in Social Issues. (fewer people will miss it).

25250. Cellar Door - 7/24/2001 12:09:55 PM

The McWhorter piece is precisely what would expect from a publication that pushed "The Bell Curve."

25251. Francis Urquhart - 7/24/2001 12:12:49 PM

Worse.

They pushed this

A Brother Can't get a Break at TNR

25252. Cellar Door - 7/24/2001 12:16:40 PM

GACK!!!

Maybe they should rehire Sully as editor.

After all, his policy is "Brothers Welcome," isn't it?

25253. glendajean - 7/24/2001 12:16:59 PM

Or this. A piece about The Weekly Standard and Bush's tax cut.

25254. CalGal - 7/24/2001 12:18:59 PM

That link didn't work.

25255. CalGal - 7/24/2001 12:20:18 PM

Actuaally, none of the TNR links work for me. I get a novell page.

25256. Wombat - 7/24/2001 1:00:41 PM

The McWorter article is a good antidote to the attitude espoused by reparationists.

25257. Cygnus X-1 - 7/24/2001 1:18:30 PM

A sure sign Bush is doing a good job: Carter is disappointed.
[Excerpt:]
Jimmy Carter said he is disappointed in President Bush's performance in the Oval Office and said the first-term Republican has ignored moderates in both parties - including Secretary of State Colin Powell.
...
''I have been disappointed in almost everything he has done,'' Carter said.
[End excerpt]

25258. janjon - 7/24/2001 3:43:00 PM

From this week's New Republic.

The "Note" is entitled "Daddy Daddy":

"In some ways President Bush is inexperienced; in other ways President Bush is experienced. In foreign policy, he is sorely inexperienced (except, amigo, in the one piece of our foreign policy of which a governor of Texas would have some knowledge); in having his father bail him out of a mess, he is exceedingly experienced. It happens that, for months now, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah has been complaining that the Bush administration is tilting toward Israel and disrespecting Yasir Arafat's intifada. So what's a commander-in-chief to do? On July 15, The New York Times reported that 41 pitched in to do the work of 43 and telephoned the disgruntled petrocrat to assure him that 43's "heart is in the right place"--the right place being, of course, the oily Gulf, which is the only part of the Middle East that 41 has ever really cared about. Even worse, "[a]ccording to one of the accounts, President Bush was in the room when his father made the call." After which, no doubt, Junior breathed a great sigh of relief and wiped that grin off his face and swore that he will never get into trouble again and flipped open a beer. But we are skeptical. The president just keeps breaking new ground in demeaning our diplomacy. Whatever will we do with that boy?"

25259. janjon - 7/24/2001 3:46:04 PM

Carter says it succinctly as well as aptly.

25260. JudithAtHome - 7/24/2001 3:46:47 PM

Hey, he's plenty good in foreign policy!! Just ask him.

25261. jexster - 7/24/2001 4:18:55 PM

Bush Saves Kyoto...Leaves US Isolated

25262. jexster - 7/24/2001 4:22:04 PM

It's hard to respect the French when you have to bail 'em outta two big ones in one century. But, you gotta hand it to 'em when it comes to mayonnaise. Nice job, Pierre."

Cyg there is hope for you yet! My favorite commercial.

But we now understand why Chirac was being so nicey, nice to King Moron I. He had Kyoto in the bag. Its the Euro MO these days. Rough him up for the first part then release a bunch of fluff to the press so he doesn't look so dismally stupid

25263. jexster - 7/24/2001 4:24:24 PM

Thank you George Bush...You saved Kyoto single handedly. You could have let it die without all that bully pulpit but NO you had to show you were a leader.

Bwahahahahaahaha

25264. janjon - 7/24/2001 4:40:41 PM

Watching this Presidency unfold is an incredible, numbing experience. I suppose that they way they got there emboldens them to think that they can just continue to go their merry way, period.

I would like to believe that W occasionally looks at himself in the mirror and says words to the effect of Holy Shit, what in the fuck am I doing here. But I don't think he is that introspective.

25265. jexster - 7/24/2001 4:50:55 PM

"It's a geopolitical earthquake," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the World Wildlife Fund Climate Change Campaign. "Other countries have demonstrated their independence from the Bush administration on the world's most critical environmental problem."

25266. jexster - 7/24/2001 4:52:39 PM

The problem he has now is moving off his hardline. He set it so hard that nobody pays any attention to his "center" moves which are seen as just so much window dressing.

25267. jexster - 7/24/2001 4:59:10 PM

How can you possibly spin as failure Bush's getting Putin to agree to not piss & moan about us pursuing a NMD?

OK I will make it simple for you.



25268. jexster - 7/24/2001 5:01:19 PM

Now Bush can spin this until the cows come home and it won't change the fact that Putin has him by the balls. His position is weaker today than it was at the so-called second "sucessful" test.

On the plus side, it gives King Moron a graceful way out of his pell-mell to hell NMD campaign

25269. arkymalarky - 7/24/2001 5:11:59 PM

I would like to believe that W occasionally looks at himself in the mirror and says words to the effect of Holy Shit, what in the fuck am I doing here. But I don't think he is that introspective.

Hahaha. You'd better hope he isn't. If he ever got the slightest bit of perspective I'm convinced he'd go into an absolute panic and run screaming. Then what would we do? We'd be at the mercy of Cheney.

25270. jexster - 7/24/2001 5:12:38 PM

''I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe--I believe what I believe is right.''--Rome, July 22, 2001

25271. Cygnus X-1 - 7/24/2001 5:13:53 PM

jexster, if you like that commercial, you can't be as dumb as to believe what you wrote in 25267.
Russia has announced and presumably intends to keep MIRV's as their answer to NMD if it is sucessful
Who cares?
By linking NMD to reductions talks, Putin gets leverage he did not previously have
Duhhh... I thought, according to the press and Daschle, Putin had all the leverage. This is only a face-saving measure.
Before he made his deal with Putin, Bush had only to pull out of the ABM treaty. Now he has to pull out of active negotiations with Russia on nuclear arms as well.
So what?
These negotiations will go nowhere if NMD appears to be anything more than a colossal waste of US tax dollars
Like I said, it's just for Putin to save face. We don't give a fuck what Russia says. You talk as if we can't just go ahead with NMD without Russia's approval. As I've tried to make clear, Bush leads. He does not sail with the political winds.

And, I hope all you idiots who are criticizing Bush as being inexperienced in foreign policy had the same criticisms of Clinton in his first 6 months. Oh, shit, I forgot about that old double standard you liberals apply to everything. My bad.

25272. jexster - 7/24/2001 5:16:17 PM

It has happened with the brutal logic of film noir: The protagonist's early mistake puts him in a tight spot. He escapes, but only by plunging into a deeper deception. His escalating series of lies and crimes cut off, one by one, any path to deliverance until, finally, he is caught.

Our story begins in June, when George W. Bush signed his name to a tax cut filled with gimmicks that sneakily disguised its true cost. It was not long, however, before the Bushies realized that they had sucked away so much federal revenue that, in 2002, the government wouldn't be able to fund itself without tapping the Medicare surplus


Scams on Top of Scams..Bush's Tar Baby

25273. jexster - 7/24/2001 5:21:10 PM

Cyg...try as I might you are just too dense.

You throw around phrases like "save face" "so what" "I don't give a fuck" and think you've constructed an argument.

With NMD and arms reduction linked in talks, the only way ABM happens is if Putin lets it happen or Bush walks the talks.

Now you may not care, but I guarantee you a domestic and international disaster of Moronic proportion if he chooses the latter course.

General arms reduction talks linked to ABM gives life to the "relic" it did not have.

25274. Cygnus X-1 - 7/24/2001 7:10:49 PM

Pretension about details will get you nowhere, jexster. I throw around those phrases so that you, by elaborating on your position, illustrate just how specious you position is. Of course, it takes a reasonable person to discern that.

You just don't get it, do you. Repeat after me: Russia doesn't matter.

25275. arkymalarky - 7/24/2001 7:17:33 PM

Hahaha! Don't bother Cyg with details, Jex! He's trying to get you to see the big picture!

25276. Cygnus X-1 - 7/24/2001 8:59:51 PM

You know, there's a facetious way to illustrate the differences between men and women. You present them with a situation where they're an outfielder in the world series and a fly ball has been hit to them. As they go to catch the ball, they see their child has fallen over the ledge. Now, they can either go save the child or catch the fly ball. Famously, women will choose to save their child rather than catch the fly ball. Men, so the story goes, are astounded that the women can make this choice without asking if there are men on base.

Now, a resonable person would say "Who cares about the details? That's your child we're talking about!" This is the point. WHO CARES WHAT RUSSIA SAYS? We're talking about our defense! Finally, a big government program that's actually constitutional.

Anyway, it doesn't necessarily matter if there are men on base. What really matters is the score of the game.

25277. JudithAtHome - 7/24/2001 10:47:13 PM

Yeah, what's a dead child or two...

25278. concerned - 7/24/2001 11:41:48 PM

Wonder how jexster will spin it when we have arms reduction and NMD.

25279. jexster - 7/25/2001 4:06:55 AM

Ain't spinning a damned thing.

That's what you idiots cannot grasp.

I simply provided an analysis of the political implications of this "deal"

25280. jexster - 7/25/2001 4:08:41 AM

And if you accept Cyg's view "Who cares what Russia thinks or does" the very last thing you would want to do is enter into negotiations not only of NMD but also arms reductions.

But he's a Soul Man!

25281. jexster - 7/25/2001 4:20:47 AM

25282. jexster - 7/25/2001 4:33:12 AM

Russia matters enuf to King Moron to open comprehensive nuclear arms talks including NMD.

FY 2002 - 3 NMD Tests will violate treaty

Now either the Idiot in Chief will have to walk out on the talks to conduct those tests or he won't conduct them at all.

The political price for NMD has gone up, not down.
Internationally Euros will howl. Domestically, he has given Carl Levin just the excuse he needs to crap on funding until we get some real world results.

In fact, Bush's NMD political strategy is ludicrous. Reminiscent of Kyoto, he thumps his chest about the ABM Treaty all in a manic rush to buy a 300 billion system that has yet to be proved feasible against a threat that is wild ass nuclear strategist fancy.

25283. jexster - 7/25/2001 4:49:46 AM

Ass backwardness seems to infect NMD technically as well as politically...

National Missile Defense Technology Found Wanting -- Again
Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.), Chief of Research - Center for Defense Information, smith@cdi.org

Last week, the multifaceted U.S. effort to develop and field a reliable if limited national missile defense (NMD) once again was panned by authoritative critics.

The General Accounting Office (GAO), one of Congress' watchdog agencies, struck first with another devastating analysis of the Space-Based Infrared System-Low (SBIRS-Low). The report, "Defense Acquisitions: Space-Based Infrared System-low at Risk of Missing Initial Deployment Date" (GAO-01-6, February 28, 2001), says that "the Air Force's current SBIRS-Low acquisition schedule is at a high risk of not delivering the system on time or at cost or with expected performance."

With its complementary six-satellite SBIRS-High system, the 30-satellite (24 active and six test) SBIRS-Low system performs several crucial functions. Operating from space, SBIRS is intended to detect hostile missile launches, perform mid-course tracking, identify decoys from real warheads, and cue land-based missile-control radars that would guide interceptor missiles and their "hit-to-kill" warheads to an intercept point in space.

But the SBIRS-Low program has flipped the logic of acquisition. Instead of designing and testing the system first, including its software, the Pentagon is pressing ahead with building the estimated $2.4 billion satellite array before it completes flight tests meant to help determine the final design. In fact, according to the GAO, five of six fundamental elements, including the infrared sensors themselves, may very well not be ready by the anticipated deployment window
.

25284. jexster - 7/25/2001 4:50:11 AM



All Bush has done is triple the risk of failure with his 3 platform scheme none of which has proven core technology.

Ass backwards procurement and a waste of billions to defense a phantasm

25285. Cygnus X-1 - 7/25/2001 10:20:21 AM

Judith, re 25277:
Yeah, what's a dead child or two, especially if you can use their stem cells for research?

25286. PelleNilsson - 7/25/2001 11:49:14 AM

What a really stupid post.

25287. ElliottRW - 7/25/2001 12:03:11 PM

Cygnus, just in case you're interested, there is a discussion going on in Philosophy that touches on the stem cell issue.

25288. PelleNilsson - 7/25/2001 12:39:05 PM

I posted a piece in history on how president Wilsson was handicapped by his lack of experience when, at Versailles, he had to go into face-to-face negotiations with real political pros like Clemenceau and Lloyd George.

Maybe a parallel can be drawn with Bush and Putin. The latter first made his way up the KGB hierarchy and then switched to politics where he made it to the top in the byzantine court of Yeltsin. He's a wily operator, compared to whom Bush is no more than a country hick who has had his career served on a silver platter.

25289. jexster - 7/25/2001 12:54:31 PM

No Bush is not a country hick. He's a rich preppy boy.

Hayseed is a Moronic Affectation. In 1978, he lost a race for congress in Midland. He blamed the hick vote and his big city sissified ways.

|Vowing "never again to lose to a Bubba with a gun rack in his pickup", he put on that southern accent (listen carefully its not Texas, more high class Mississippi or perhaps East Tennessee), Tony Lama Texas Shit Kickers, and bought a couple of those Texas White Trash Big Silver Beltbuckles.

25290. jexster - 7/25/2001 12:58:23 PM

Note today's news reports of Bush admin backpeddaling on precisely the points I mention, the reasons I cited.


Faux White Trash Moron's boyz are busily hedging, hemming, hawing, tryin to slip and slide their way out of the Putin Deal their Leader stumbled into.

But all the kings horsies....

25291. jexster - 7/25/2001 1:02:30 PM

Thanks FU but never cast a sissy eye at reparations.

But I have had an idea on how to calculate them.

Lincoln promised one way tickets to Nicaragua or Liberia, 40 acres and a mule to all freed slaves.

Restitution not reparation

....put the parties in the same place that they would have been had Lincoln performed.

25292. jexster - 7/25/2001 1:26:02 PM

A Befuddled King Moron I Snatches Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

WASHINGTON -- Congressional efforts to combat global warming received an unexpected boost from a decision this week by more than 180 countries to deal with the problem without the United States, outside experts and key lawmakers said Tuesday.

They added that prospects now appear good that Congress will pass one or more measures designed to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, which scientists say is the chief contributor to global warming.

"The odds are improving that this Congress will deal with the issue before the [2002] election," said Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.), a leading environmentalist in his party.


hehe

25293. PelleNilsson - 7/25/2001 1:30:44 PM

No Bush is not a country hick. He's a rich preppy boy.

Is there a difference? In political savoir-faire I mean.

25294. iiibbb - 7/25/2001 1:45:15 PM

which scientists say is the chief contributor to global warming.

false... no one is sure.

The chief contributors are water vapor and methane. The fact that supporters of Kyoto keep falling back on the argument that it's CO2, when so much evidence shows that CO2 probably isn't the most important, makes me question such rabid support of the treaty even more.

Science should be concentrating on our actualantropogenic influence on global climate.

25295. PelleNilsson - 7/25/2001 2:21:46 PM

Science should be concentrating on our actual antropogenic influence on global climate.

So that's not what science does, you mean? How odd.

25296. iiibbb - 7/25/2001 2:43:30 PM

That doesn't appear what science is doing in this case. Seems to me many of the louder scientists in this debate have taken a decidedly biased stances to promote political agendas.

25297. iiibbb - 7/25/2001 2:49:49 PM

This is an interesting philsophical issue to me. How much should scientists attempt to distance themselves from the political turbulance that surrounds subjects they generally study because the care so much about them? Pretty difficult to do I imagine... particularly one usually needs some sort of controversy in order to creat the leverage that generates funding.

25298. ElliottRW - 7/25/2001 5:20:44 PM

iibbb -- thinkng about the objectivity of scientists reminded me of this article.

25299. iiibbb - 7/25/2001 5:34:17 PM

Good read Elliot.

There are 2 problems I see. There are biased scientists, and there are politicians(and public) that is hungry for anything that can be encapsulated in a short, sweat theory. They don't want to do any hard thinking for themselves... just cut to the chase.

Who can blame some scientists for giving them what they ask for...or more importantly what they _pay_ for. When a scientist falls back on their mealy-mouthed double-speak where they qualify everything with "may", or "evidience suggests"... is because it's rare you find an overwhelming truth.

In the past there have been woefully few. Eistein's theory, and Maxwell's equations maybe.

The main reason I have such a low opinion of politicians capacity to understand scientific literature, is because of the diffuculty I have in understanding it (particularly outside my discipline), and I'm a PhD student.

So you can be down on the US for not having an open mind about CO2 and global warming if you like, but just because some population of experts who happen to have politicians ears right now insists that they're right... doesn't mean they're right.

25300. iiibbb - 7/25/2001 5:35:19 PM

sweat=sweet (I swear I was influenced by those Japanese signs in that other thread)

25301. concerned - 7/25/2001 6:44:58 PM

Re. 25258 -

Highly ironic coming from one who endorsed the suppposed 'co-presiduncy' of the WH Rapist.

But considering which side of the political spectrum is responsible for this piffle, about what would be expected.

Carry on.

25302. concerned - 7/25/2001 6:47:06 PM

Virtually every one of the 180 countries 'dealing' with CO2 emissions is doing so, if at all, exclusively by tongue lashing the US.

How transparent.

And hypocritical.

25303. concerned - 7/25/2001 6:48:14 PM

Are we raising wheat in Greenland yet?

This should be the global warming litmus test.

25304. concerned - 7/25/2001 6:56:06 PM

Let's be clear on this. The huge majority of real scientist, climatologists, etc. know that the Kyoto Protocol is shit and that predictive global climate modeling is little more than a crapshoot.

Most of those who speak in favor of Kyoto have obvious political agendas and if with any post graduate qualifications, usually have obtained those in the humanities.

25305. concerned - 7/25/2001 7:04:53 PM

Re. 25281 -

I hope all you hard core Democrat faithful hang on to that vintage WWII-era attitude about missile defense until the last dog dies as your position sinks into obvious and total irrelevancy.

25306. iiibbb - 7/25/2001 7:19:51 PM

I remember I was at a party once and I met an earth-firster. He was going on and on about the evils of man and our crimes against nature. He was in school studying ecology or environmental law or something. His background was political science.

Eventually he started complaining that his department was making him take freshman biology. He didn't think it was necessary.

He was very loud... seemed very authoritative... and had everyones' ear... but he was full of shit.

I never really identified myself as a forester/ecologist student because there was no telling what he as a proponent of violence would've done... and maybe I just didn't feel like spending the evening shooting down his dogmatic ideals... he seemed like a waste of effort.

25307. concerned - 7/25/2001 8:38:21 PM

Re. 25306 -

Of course the most ecologically responsible course of action is for one to 'off' himself, preferably by hanging with an all natural hemp rope in a pile of manure.

This was satire, from I believe, a magazine called the National Lampoon, but not all that far removed from the attitude of the more militant earth-firsters, it would seem, with the exception that they prefer that the other guy off himself.

25308. ElliottRW - 7/25/2001 8:54:15 PM

concerned,

Are you sure you aren't jexter's evil twin?

25309. ElliottRW - 7/25/2001 8:59:16 PM

iiibbb,

I've been pondering the articles you cited, particularly the Roy Spencer article. It made me remember the GCM that I built as part of a mathematical modeling course I took with Dr. Richard McNider.

Prof. McNider was, like you, skeptical about global climate models and pointed out to us that they tend to be very sensitive to changes in estimates of the Earth's albedo--at the time a poorly understood variable.

So, I too am skeptical about global warming specifically, and of eco-alarmism in general.

Still, I think it is important to understand that Spencer's article is actually a conjecture--a reasonable hypothesis, perhaps--but not evidence in and of itself. Spencer's testimony does not disprove global warming--indeed nothing in the article denies global warming--it just serves to cast a shadow of doubt on the accuracy of existing climate models. Spencer's argument rests on three points: 1) existing climate models fail to account adequately for atmospheric convection of water vapor, 2) this failure introduces a bias towards higher estimates of global warming, and 3) as models improve in this respect, estimates will be revised downward.

These points, particularly 2 & 3, are supported only partially by the cited research. Indeed, Spencer's points 2 and 3 rest upon two facts (rainfall efficiency increases with temperature, high rainfall efficiency leads to faster heat transfer from the surface to the upper atmosphere) that are supported (at least in the article) only by annectdotal evidence or simply Spencer's intuition.

Also, there is no discussion about how much of an effect this purported bias might produce in GCMs; are these effects Spencer discusses potentially significant? It's not established.

25310. concerned - 7/25/2001 9:20:42 PM

Re. 25308 -

Not quite. Jexster is my evil doppelganger.

25311. concerned - 7/25/2001 9:41:41 PM

Rather than simply hypothecate about GCMs, I also look at the geological and historical record of the effects of climatic cycles in the recent past.

1) It appears that self sufficient agricultural communities existed in parts of Greenland during the Medieval warm period. Nobody with serious credentials has suggested that global temperatures will soon reach that high an average.
OTOH, we have the IPCC, which is affiliated with the UN, whose overriding agenda makes their global climate prognostications more than suspect.

2) Oceanic levels varied between the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age by eight inches, corresponding to a change in average global temperatures of about 3 1/2 degrees Celsius.

3)During the peak of the last interglacial optimum, when global temperatures averaged some 2 1/2 degrees C warmer than they do today, the Sahara Desert disappeared for a period of several hundred years, to be replaced by a savanna, and the climate in Northern Europe was more temperate than it is today, belying the agitation about Gulf Stream disturbances due to glacial melting.

4) Estimates are that from a third to half the increased CO2 output due to human activities is being incorporated into biomass due to its fertilizing effect.

5) Due to increased levels of precipitation, the central ice sheets of both Greenland and Antarctica are becoming thicker. It hasn't yet been determined whether this wholly compensates for melting at their peripheries, but to gauge the total magnitude of the difference that might be expected over the next century, see 2) above.

Keep in mind also, that these observed changes in climate had much more time to express themselves than the few short decades that current predictions are allowed, so it would be reasonable to believe that such changes due to human activities will be significantly smaller than modeling predictions due to the elapsed time factor alone.

25312. OhioSTOPAS - 7/25/2001 10:05:36 PM

Why do conservatives/Republicans always want to argue about global warming in "Politics" instead of a science thread?

You're tipping your hand, boys.

25313. concerned - 7/25/2001 10:10:10 PM

First of all, I'm politically a centrist. That aside, this is where the discussion was before I got here, with Jexster being a notable contributor.....

25314. concerned - 7/25/2001 10:12:26 PM

I would like to believe that W occasionally looks at himself in the mirror and says words to the effect of Holy Shit, what in the fuck am I doing here. But I don't think he is that introspective.

More likely GWB looks in the mirror and thinks: 'Better me than a Vanderbilt Divinity School dropout without any post graduate qualifications."

25315. iiibbb - 7/25/2001 10:18:00 PM

Elliot:

My citation was as much to show that everyone doesn't agree as much as anything else. I'm taking a course in systems modelling this coming semester and really looking forward to it.

My level of understanding of models (especially talking to my landscape ecologist friends) is that you usually can not trust the predicted magnitude a model generates. In most cases models give you a good indication of the direction a system will go... but to trust their output as the absolute change would be irresponsible in the majority of cases.

I don't dispute that CO2 probably will affect global temperature... but is it the main thing?

I mean, if you want to reduce global pollution and make energy use on this planet more efficient... that is an admerable goal and something I definitely support... but if you're trying to accomplish these goals via the spector of global warming... then you don't have me.

I am not a scientist who believes the end justifies the means.

There are two forces that shape social change: government and knowledge. Government is very good at forcing social behavior/policy to achieve specific goals quickly... but it is a very linear force. Lots of social problems are moving targets. Knowledge affects society much more slowly... but it is much more accurate.

It is important to balance the forces of knowledge and government. The speed of government can be good, but many times it proves inflexible and misses the target. Aquiring knowledge, although able to deal with everchanging social goals, proves slow in times of crisis.

(cont)

25316. iiibbb - 7/25/2001 10:37:21 PM

I offer two examples.

Affirmative action: Government took many necessary steps to try to guide our society to a more equitable treatment of gender and race. However, does that action actually open minds? I don't think it does. In fact, as government has gotten more and more aggressive with these policies we now are seeing backlash to these policies.

Still... I feel that the demographics of younger people tends to be one of more open-mindedness wrt minorities and gender.

...example 2: A quandry I recently involved myself in. Government identified stream water quality as an important goal of society. Many states implemented "best management practices" and subsidies to encourage farmers to install streamside management zones on their properties. All well and good.

However... A "new" concept (not actually new) in land management, temperate agroforestry, has been gaining attention in the research community in the past decade. Agroforestry has a lot of promise in improving productivity of our agricultural landscapes, improving the economic viability of small farmers, as well as sustaining and improving environmental quality.

25317. iiibbb - 7/25/2001 10:37:30 PM


In an agroforestry system, you would have streamside management zones to protect water quality, but you would also try to encorporate some sort of low impact management system which also provides economic benefit.

However, the government programs which promote streamside managemnt zones explicitly forbid these SMZ's be used for production purposs. If you do you don't get the matching funds. Why? If you can develop a system which produces products for some sort of economic benefit to the landowner, while still functioning to protect water quality... why wouldn't you encourage that. Surely if you could convince farmers that you are doing more than just taking their land out of production you would get more of them to buy into these stream management systems.

That is the inherent problem with government explicitly guiding policy.

Policywise it can get you from point A to point B very quickly... but it is very difficult to adjust if your goals change because of new information or new technology.

25318. iiibbb - 7/25/2001 10:46:12 PM

The other annoying thing about government policy... is that once a program or law is in place... it is very difficult if not impossible to remove it even if it proves ineffective or out of date.

Think of all the ineffective gun laws for instance. The ones that were supposed to put a stop to crime once and for all. Do the recind any of those laws once shown that they don't work? Nope.

Thus, I find myself very resistant to giving governments a clear path to new policy/laws. Each law past is an incremental decrease in freedom. I'm not so libertarian that I don't recognize the need for a certain ammount of government. There are some things that wouldn't happen unless they were facilitated by goverment.

Anyway... I potificate enough for now.

25319. iiibbb - 7/25/2001 10:54:17 PM

Message # 25312

Pardon:

All this is merely in response to all the banter about global warming today in this thread... all claiming that Bush/US are fools to ignore all this scientific evidence.

I started off by challanging that the scientific evidence they cite is political in origin. Then I cite references that show there is not universal agreement in the scientific community regarding global warming.

Tipping my hand indeed. If we took it to the slow thread would you even bother to read it?.. or would you be content to sit in here and continue to berade the U.S.'s stance on Kyoto?

25320. concerned - 7/25/2001 11:33:22 PM

Well, I know jexster's mission in life is similar to that of Boris Badinov's in Rocky and Bullwinkle:

'Keel Bush'

25321. iiibbb - 7/26/2001 8:50:30 AM

Message # 25312

Tipping the winning hand perhaps.

How would someone argue against the Kyoto treaty, if the supporters are using the scientific evidence that says it's happening as their primary argument? You flog the US and Bush saying that we're ignoring this "obvious" problem. Then when an kyoto detractor brings up scientific evidence that doesn't support its claim, science is suddenly not germaine to the discussion.

Please; the truth of the matter it's all about politics. Within the scientific community, and throughout the world.

I'm all for lowering our pollution emmisions... I want the US to become more energy efficient. But we shouldn't do the right things for the wrong reasons. Once people find out that we messed up, government policy loses yet more of its already waivering credibility.

Don't we remember the fable of Chicken Little?

25322. Francis Urquhart - 7/26/2001 12:49:51 PM

First Peanuts, Now This

25323. CalGal - 7/26/2001 12:57:49 PM

Jesus, that's dumb.

25324. rubberducky - 7/26/2001 1:03:23 PM

that's stupid beyond words, Fran

my favorite thing about it is the 'do as i say or i'll sick some new laws on ya' angle. very classy.

25325. iiibbb - 7/26/2001 1:08:01 PM

5000 incidents out of how many total passengers per year warants this response?

Why not just arrest the assholes who cause problems? Fine the crap out of them. Ban them from the airline.

What is it with reactionary, heavy-handed goverment and the wholesale taking of freedom in order to quell some insignificant problem.

25326. jexster - 7/26/2001 1:20:07 PM

Science is very germane to the discussion iiibbb. Junk science prepared by industry trade groups that's another matter.

So too, ideological CYA flowing from 1600 Penn Ave in great abundance.


God Save King Moron I, Savior of Kyoto!

25327. jexster - 7/26/2001 1:22:09 PM

As the energy crisis worsened this year, Davis hired two former Clinton White House insiders, Mark Fabiani and Chris Lehane, to manage his public relations effort. Davis soon began appearing frequently on the national stage, including a "summit" with President Bush that vaulted Davis to equal footing with the president.

"Equal footing with Bush" talk about the soft prejudice of low expectations!

Gray Davis Generating Power Image



25328. bubbaette - 7/26/2001 1:22:33 PM

It's making a big assumption to say that the law will be enacted if the airlines don't act. Surely the Senator knows that there are more people involved in passing a law than just she.

25329. jexster - 7/26/2001 1:27:51 PM

"Next summer in DC is going to be the political equivalent of nuclear winter" - Me 12/00

Washington seems to be stuck in the summer rerun from hell - H. Kurtz 7/25/01

Close enuf for guvmit work.

25330. jexster - 7/26/2001 1:29:19 PM

Leave it to FU to bitch that she can't get soused on her next shuttle to LaGuardia.

25331. Francis Urquhart - 7/26/2001 1:31:41 PM

First bathhouses, now booze. She's a menace.

25332. jexster - 7/26/2001 1:34:39 PM

Tell me about it. Miss Prig and a bitch to boot.

25333. Francis Urquhart - 7/26/2001 1:35:44 PM

I like her for vp.

Lieberman-Feinstein.

25334. iiibbb - 7/26/2001 1:36:15 PM

I wasn't the one who said science wasn't germane. I also don't believe I cited "junk science" sources either.

Industry is also not the only source of 'junk' out there.

25335. jexster - 7/26/2001 1:38:39 PM

WASHINGTON, July 25 — The debate over Pentagon spending has exposed a deep rift within the Republican Party's conservative wing, pitting supporters of tax cuts and smaller government against military hawks who contend that President Bush is shortchanging the armed forces....

To Our Brave Men and Women in Uniform, Don't Worry Help is on the Way!

I think its time for a little fuzzy math!

NMD - 100 million bucks/shot x 12 shots/yr = 1.2 Billion for starters.

25336. CalGal - 7/26/2001 1:39:06 PM

I like Feinstein, actually, but this is moronic.

25337. jexster - 7/26/2001 1:42:00 PM

Lieberman-DiFi - The Democrats' Taliban Ticket

25338. jexster - 7/26/2001 1:45:57 PM

Representative Curt Weldon, a Republican from Pennsylvania who sits on the Armed Services Committee, said ....

"I don't think he's doing enough to sensitize the American people as to what the real needs of the military are," Mr. Weldon said of President Bush. "We knew the train wreck was coming for the last six years."

"train wreck" - that's a metaphor I think I can play with for a while

All aboard!

25339. jexster - 7/26/2001 1:48:19 PM

Has Mexico Out Foxed Bush? (Weekly Standard)

Ain't hard!

25340. jexster - 7/26/2001 1:53:35 PM

People Get Ready There's A Train A Comin
Don't Need No Ticket Ya Get On Board...

No Defense - Kagan & Kristol

25341. jexster - 7/26/2001 1:56:49 PM

Those of us who expressed concern about the Bush administration's shorting of the military were told not to worry


Gee now haven't I heard that somewhere b4?

Leavin On the Midnite Train to Georgia!

25342. ElliottRW - 7/26/2001 2:31:16 PM

Re: booze on airlines.


Is there a link between booze and "air rage"? I haven't seen any studies on this. I realize that some of you may be saying "research doesn't matter" since you view this an issue of rights, but I'd still like to know if there are any facts underlying Feinstein's request.


If there is a link, then perhaps some sort of action is called for. (Language Mavens--did I just end a sentence with a preposition?) Assuming there is a link, what can we do about it?

25343. bubbaette - 7/26/2001 2:39:44 PM

catheterize all passengers, gag them and restrain restrain them in their seats, and give them fluids intravenously. That way, they can have alcoholic drinks but can't give you any shit.

25344. CalGal - 7/26/2001 2:41:17 PM

I suspect the numbers show a correlation, but that doesn't mean cause.

25345. Cygnus X-1 - 7/26/2001 2:41:38 PM

Just call me Wiz.

25346. JudithAtHome - 7/26/2001 2:43:26 PM

Did anyone vote on that poll next to the article FU linked to? I expected it to be very one sided, on the side of NO but it wasn't.

25347. iiibbb - 7/26/2001 2:44:58 PM

5000 incidents out of millions...that's hardly overwhelming. Even if there's a correlation... it's probably related between alcohol and a certain personality type, not air-rage. People that can not conduct themselves properly should be arrested and fined. It has nothing to do with alcohol being served on airlines.

I worry more about how many drinks someone's had before they pick up their rental car.

25348. jexster - 7/26/2001 2:46:55 PM

Yea there are tons o facts, evidence, studies to back DiFi up on this one.

A favorite of Sixty Minutes and Nightline not to mention flight attendants.

But I prefer that FU get drunk...easier to lay that way

25349. jexster - 7/26/2001 2:51:48 PM

Cyg..

You appear ready for the advanced course....

GWB Art: over 750 images of ridicule, mockery and fun...

25350. jexster - 7/26/2001 3:04:43 PM

You and me ain't nothin but mamals
So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel

The Number of the Beast

25351. PelleNilsson - 7/26/2001 4:27:01 PM

I suspect there is also a correlation with the increasing frustration of flying: delays, overcrowded airports and so on.

25352. bbb - 7/26/2001 5:23:04 PM

Has Condit resigned yet?

25353. bbb - 7/26/2001 5:25:04 PM

EPA has finally figured out that "Three pollutants" approach is more sensible than the "Four pollutants" approach.

Heh!

25354. JudithAtHome - 7/26/2001 6:33:10 PM

SALON article on a Bush Anniversary.

Among those of us who have drunk too much and quit, there is a bond like that among soldiers or mothers or anyone who has been forced by the passion for survival to face elemental truths. We recognize each other by the habits we acquired in the trenches and on the road home: the way a soldier lights a cigarette, the way a mother ties a child's shoe, the way a reformed drunk pauses before speaking, to let the bad thoughts pass in silence.

And so it is that I see in President Bush not just a tongue-tied conservative scion of empire, bereft of eloquence, stumbling in the suit jacket of his father, but a drinker much like myself who one day awoke and saw that he was drowning and started swimming for his life, and got lucky and made it to shore.

And if our president were like the many drunks who have quit through the good offices of one program of recovery or another, he might on Saturday be stepping onto the shallow plywood stage of a large, well-lit basement off the serving kitchen of a downtown church in some honest if unexceptional American city and looking out at the motley American faces linked not by class or race or gender but only by their peculiar boozy habit and saying to them, "My name is George, I'm an alcoholic, and today I have 15 years." Because it was on July 28, 1986, that Bush woke up with his last soul-devouring hangover and decided he'd had enough. And if we are to believe him, and I for one see no reason not to, he hasn't had a drop since.

Good story....

25355. jexster - 7/26/2001 7:58:45 PM

You cannot trust our media.

Reuters is claiming "US to Keep Pressure on Iraq After Spy Plane Incident-Bush".

Now I HEARD what he said on CNN and he didn't day he was going to pressure Iraq.

What The All Highest Moronicy said was, he was going to keep up the pressure on EyeRack.

And to top it off (unless its a lie a first as far as I can remember), KM I's Air Force leaked to CNN that they are under orders to bomb EyeRacki radar. And not just any radar. The sources were quoted as saying that a particular type of radar would be bombed.

25356. jexster - 7/26/2001 8:11:02 PM

That was a good article indeed JAH.

25357. jexster - 7/26/2001 8:17:03 PM

To be sure, some observers think that Bush's unwillingness or inability to explicitly acknowledge his alcoholism indicates that he's a "dry drunk" -- an alcoholic who has stopped drinking but hasn't addressed his underlying problems, because he's too dumb and privileged. ...They think he's an intellectually vapid, callous child of entitlement.

I'm in that camp.

25358. jexster - 7/26/2001 8:18:01 PM

Why don't geocites pics ever work? I go ask the techies.

25359. Dusty - 7/26/2001 8:29:47 PM

Pelle beat me to it, but it is worth repeating. Flying is getting increasingly exasperating. When cooped up people have been waiting in longer lines, suffering more delays with less information, then add a couple drinks and some nerves will snap. To attribute it all to the drink is missing the problem.

Guess what, people have been drinking on planes for years. I'll bet drinking is down, not up. If air rage is up, look for the factors that are up, not down or flat.

25360. jexster - 7/26/2001 9:05:15 PM

I bet you have no idea what the level of drinking is Dusty.

25361. jexster - 7/26/2001 9:07:59 PM

CBS Evening News reports that Sadaam, encouraged by King MI's Kyoto Disaster and Porking By Putin, took another pot shot at U2 today. Mano a Moron the Mutha of All Battles!

Dan also continued the program's series on how Bush's FERC makes secret deals with Bush's Texas Mafia to pork Californians.

Its betta on CBS!

25362. jexster - 7/26/2001 9:18:15 PM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Howard Gantman or Jim Hock
http://feinstein.senate.gov
Wednesday, July 25, 2001

Senators Feinstein and Hatch Introduce Bipartisan Measure to Fight Gang Violence

Washington, DC - U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Orrin Hatch
(R-UT) today introduced legislation to combat gang violence by increasing the
penalties for the most serious gang crimes and by making it a federal crime to
recruit persons to join a criminal street gang and to use a minor to commit a
violent federal crime.

"I believe the federal government must be an active partner in the fight
against gang violence," Senator Feinstein said. "That is why I introduced the
Criminal Gang Abatement Act, legislation aimed specifically at the most
dangerous, sophisticated, and mobile gangs in the country."

Despite the recent drop in crime, a 2001 Justice Department gang study found
that youth gang problems grew dramatically between the 1970s and 1998. The
study found that since 1980:

The number of gangs has increased from 2,000 to 26,000;
The number of gang members has increased from 100,000 to 840,000;
The gang problem has spread to all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

25363. jexster - 7/26/2001 9:19:24 PM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Howard Gantman or Jim Hock
http://feinstein.senate.gov
Thursday, July 26, 2001

Controlling the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons

Washington, DC - With the United States having blocked more direct action by
a U.N. Conference on the Illegal Trafficking in Small Arms, Senator Dianne
Feinstein (D-Calif.) today called for continued international action to address
the dramatic proliferation of these weapons and for the United States to take a
leadership position in these efforts.

The following are Senator Feinstein's remarks to the Senate, entered into
the Congressional Record:

"Mr. President, last week I came to the floor to express my concern about
U.S. policy at the U.N. Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light
Weapons in All Its Aspects. This was the first effort by the international
community to address the issue of the illicit proliferation of small arms and
light weapons at the United Nations. I believed it was imperative that the
United States take a leadership role in the conference rather than being an
impediment to progress.

25364. jexster - 7/26/2001 10:18:14 PM

From Bonn to Baghdad to Genoa to Constitution Ave, NE

Bush Becoming Irrelevant

25365. Stumbo - 7/26/2001 11:30:44 PM

"... add a couple drinks and some nerves will snap."

I'm not sure, actually, that denying those drinks wouldn't cause more nerves to snap.

25366. jexster - 7/26/2001 11:52:36 PM

There are happy, nice drunks (me)

There are angry bad drunks (truth or dare...fill in the __________)

25367. Stumbo - 7/27/2001 1:14:32 AM

... And then there are already-angry people, trying to have a few drinks in order to relax, forgive, and forget, who might instead get even angrier when denied that option.

BTW:

"... the Association of Flight Attendants [...] wants airlines to [...] never us[e] free drinks as compensation for delays or cancellations."

A 75-minute flight I took a few weeks ago was delayed by over 2 hours, due to what the airline admitted was a mechanical problem (i.e., its own fault). No compensation whatsoever was offered. So I chewed out a coupla flight attendants; were I a violent person, I might've punched someone's lights out.

Any frigging token of compensation would've taken the edge off -- and what better way is there than a free drink, even setting aside the sedative effects? They sell 'em for $4, but I doubt the airline is actually out more than 50 cents, if even that. How much more cost-effective can you get?

25368. don s. - 7/27/2001 2:05:23 AM

... due to what the airline admitted was a mechanical problem (i.e., its own fault). No compensation whatsoever was offered. So I chewed out a coupla flight attendants...

That'll teach those flight attendants to neglect their airplane-maintenance duties.

25369. don s. - 7/27/2001 2:13:08 AM

Just call me Wiz.

Hey, Geddy, I don't think the Wiz steals his cartoons from rushlimbaugh.com.

25370. jexster - 7/27/2001 4:20:00 AM

I think that the overwhelming majority of straight mean are mean drunks (extensive sociological observation you understand)

I think straight men should not be allowed to drink on airplanes

25371. Toenails - 7/27/2001 7:13:56 AM

Why are Condit and his loyal-but-misguided staffer continuing to try to keep the lid on concerning the Congressman's (evidently) multiple liaisons with assorted females?

At this point, I would think the best strategy would be to parade before the cameras as many former Condit-lovers as possible, thus demonstrating that the vast majority of women who have slept with Our Boy are still alive and kicking.

25372. iiibbb - 7/27/2001 8:17:46 AM

I think airplanes should be banned

25373. iiibbb - 7/27/2001 8:18:44 AM

If it saves just one child isn't it worth it?

25374. Stumbo - 7/27/2001 11:07:09 AM

Don:

I still have a copy of that post-ValuJet "Damn. The stewardess worked ALL MORNING on that engine!" cartoon, somewhere.

But I think you know what I meant.

25375. jexster - 7/27/2001 1:55:57 PM

Global Warming Heats Up....As we bridge players say, let's review the bidding!




To those who claim to prefer that their President have common sense instead of intellectual acumen, I give you King Moron I of Texas.

25376. jexster - 7/27/2001 1:57:19 PM

An imposter - vapid in all senses common or otherwise

25377. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/27/2001 2:33:45 PM

25378. Absensia - 7/27/2001 2:58:52 PM

Wiz...Perfect! Makes my day!

25379. bubbaette - 7/27/2001 3:20:41 PM

Curious George of the Jungle

25380. rubberducky - 7/27/2001 3:24:53 PM



order yours today!

25381. jexster - 7/27/2001 6:03:24 PM

Posted in the highbrow thread, aka international, an article from the NYT on the Middle East Mess concludes:

Yet a year after Camp David, with the reality on the ground so transformed by bloodshed, most of those who took part in or observed the negotiations still believe that a permanent peace agreement is possible.

Although they acknowledge little likelihood of final-status talks under Mr. Sharon, they still believe in the inevitability of a future agreement that is very near to what they were designing.

"Even at this darkest of hours, I believe that peace is achievable," Mr. Erekat said in an interview in his Jericho office. "Clinton took us on a futuristic voyage. We have seen the endgame. It's just a matter of time."

Mr. Sher agreed. "I still think that peace is doable, feasible and reasonable," he said in his Jerusalem office, which is decorated with photographs from Camp David. "That's the tragedy, because the basis of the agreement is lying there in arm's reach."


Thank you William Jefferson Clinton, Not "former president" but the Last President of the United States!

25382. jexster - 7/27/2001 6:04:55 PM

Having been taken to the Mountain Top where are we headed on the BushShit Train today?

Hey Mister Impostor Conductor?

25383. concerned - 7/27/2001 6:42:55 PM

keel booshe

25384. don s. - 7/27/2001 8:12:57 PM

But I think you know what I meant.

Of course I know. You vented on some hapless flight attendants for something that they had absolutely no control over.

Thanks for helping make the world a better place.

25385. Stumbo - 7/27/2001 11:48:29 PM

Don:

They were there in their capacity as official customer-service representatives of a company that had just treated me (and 100+ other customers) like crap.

And the more said customers bitch about such treatment --e.g., threaten to never use that company's services again (which I did), and actually stick to that (which I probably will) -- the more likely the message is to filter up to the folks in charge, and prompt them to improve their policies.

Which, indeed, does help make the world a better place. So, you're quite welcome.

25386. concerned - 7/28/2001 12:15:41 AM

I have this to say about our current economic situation:

So much for Clintonomics.

25387. jexster - 7/28/2001 12:45:39 PM

So much for BushShit concerned..what you are seeing is a failure of Big Capitalism...and Bush Shit...

Speaking of which, 2 months ago refiners were making $27/barrel profit and Krusty was klownin around talkin about how we needed a new refinery on every street corner.

NOW with gas consumption the highest its ever been, refiners are awash in gasoline and cutting back production often as much as 20-30%. They are also scaling back investment and will soon be cutting jobs.

Now go yap about the wonders of private enterprise and the ham-handedness of guvmint to some one dumb enuf to believe it!

25388. jexster - 7/28/2001 12:49:09 PM

Meanwhile back at the TrainWreck that is concerned's Presidunce not mine...

House Boinks Bush Again: Upholds Clinton Arsenic Regs - Set to Drill King Moron I on ANWR Next Week

25389. jexster - 7/28/2001 12:57:41 PM

People get ready there's a train a comin
Don't need no ticket you just get on board!

In a recent survey that 48 percent of voters said they would be more comfortable with Clinton as president, compared with 36 percent for Bush.

25390. jexster - 7/28/2001 12:58:23 PM

you jess thank the Lord!

25391. jexster - 7/28/2001 2:28:42 PM

Must See TV!

CNN
Greenfield at Large
Monday July 30

Is King Moron I About to Make the US the Next Rogue State?

25392. bbb - 7/28/2001 4:19:43 PM

Huh?

25393. concerned - 7/28/2001 5:35:58 PM

More proof of leftward media bias (as if it was needed):

A local news radio announcer referred today about the 'worry in the stock market about the 18% decline in the NASDAQ this year'.

Shouldn't he have been honest and referred to the over 50% decline in the NASDAQ between March 2000 and January 20th, 2001, when GWB took office? The decline, incidentally, covered about half of the 18% that was mentioned.

Such media bullshit.

25394. concerned - 7/28/2001 5:39:12 PM

You gotta admit Jeff Greenfield is a moron with a real knee jerk attitude.

25395. concerned - 7/28/2001 5:46:58 PM

..referred today to the...

25396. concerned - 7/29/2001 3:56:54 AM

From the Observer:


Bush plans 'space bomber'


The United States is exploring the development of a 'space-bomber' which could destroy targets on the other side of the world within 30 minutes.

As part of a weapons modernisation strategy personally directed by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Pentagon is drawing up plans for a 'sub-orbital vehicle' launched like a spacecraft, which Rumsfeld describes as 'valuable for conducting rapid global strikes'. The craft - which would set the scene for a new generation of stratospheric warfare - would be able to drop precision bombs from a height of 60 miles, flying at 15 times the speed and 10 times the height of America's current bomber fleet. It is unclear whether it would be manned.

The new plane could be developed quickly by adapting shelved research for Ronald Reagan's 'Star Wars' together with plans for a reusable spacecraft called the X-33 Venture Star, under development by Nasa and Lockheed Martin.

It would drop bombs from such a height that they would act as 'bunker busters', penetrating deep into underground silos without explosive warheads and causing massive pre-emptive damage on the ground within minutes of the start of a conflict - indicating a clear intention to take out enemy missiles before they have the capacity to launch. It would also be out of reach of conventional air defence systems.

The bomber could return to base in the US within 90 minutes from any point on the globe.

Dan Plesch, director of the British American Security Information Council, said the development revealed that America was engaged in military 'anarchism' and was seeking to dominate space militarily before China or Russia were able to do so.

Looks like Lefties have revealed their hand here. It appears they would prefer that the US step back and let China or Russia 'dominate space'.

25397. concerned - 7/29/2001 4:09:27 AM

Hmmm. Clearly, the ABM Treaty wouldn't apply to the 'space bomber'. But I get the drift. If the US ever develops a significant space based military capability, then it would likely become trivial at some point to come up with a means to stop incoming ICBMs. Thus the Left would prefer that the US never progress militarily at all.

25398. ranheim - 7/29/2001 12:34:41 PM

Politics in Louisiana.

There seems to be dearth of candidates in both parties. Three races were highlighted in Sunday's papers : 1) The race for the next Governor (Mike Foster is in his second term. It is against LA law to have 3 consaecutive terms as Governor) 2) The race for the seat of the junior Senator (currently, Mary Landrieu is the junior senator and her term ends in 2002) 3) The race for Representative for the Fifth District.

Local Democrats are putting pressure on Sen. John Breaux to run for Governor. For this office, there appears to be other strong candidates (e.g. the current Attorney General); but, all agree that Breaux would be the best candidate and almost a sure winner. The states' fight with Tom Benson (owner of the New Orleans Saints)and the land based casino in New Orleans have pitted the city of New Orleans against the remainder of the state. New Orleans wants financial help to keep both entities in that city. The problem is twofold : there continues to be white flight from NO (tax base is decreasing) and in both issues, the city is all alone. Polls from the rest of LA show that voters do not support use of their tax money to keep the Saints in NO or to keep the casino open. Both the Saints and the casino maintain that they cannot remain viable in their current financial worlds. Breaux, known to be a conciliator and a deal maker, is thought to be able to resolve both problems. Foster's term ends in 2004.

The current Representative from the Fifth District, John Cooksey, is going to run against incumbent Senator Mary Landrieu. He is given a chance, however slim, to un-seat her.

The race to replace Cooksey - while two years away - is not drawing much comment. And, surely, potential candidates seem not to be floating trial balloons with their name on them.

From a state that was intensely politcal when I moved here 30 years ago, this lack of political activity astonishes me.

25399. concerned - 7/29/2001 12:39:35 PM

Lose the casino, keep the Saints; that'd be my advice.

25400. Cellar Door - 7/29/2001 4:12:24 PM

"You gotta admit Jeff Greenfield is a moron with a real knee jerk attitude."

connie -- we're in agreement on something!

had to happen sooner or later.

25401. jexster - 7/30/2001 6:39:01 AM

Actually Greenfield is probably one of the most intelligent and erudite members of the punditocracy principally because he isn't a knee jerk....

If Greenfield is a moron..what dis?

The fundamental mystery of the Bush administration is how it so grievously misread--and continues to misread--the political landscape

Bush Burning

25402. jexster - 7/30/2001 6:44:47 AM

Yea...it does seem awfully dull esp for La. Breaux would be nuts to run for gov and won't.

What's up with my old buddy & co-worker Bill Jefferson?

25403. jexster - 7/30/2001 6:58:24 AM

Offensive Weapons in Space...the Real Reason for the NMD push?????

From the Center for Defense Info...

GAGNON: The important point, again, is that BMD is the early technology. It is the first step. It is the Trojan Horse. And following that, already, right now, TRW, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, they're working on follow-on technologies. They have the funding. And they are developing them today. They will soon be deployed—space-based lasers, we're talking about—that will have offensive capability. That will have the ability to hit targets in space, and down to the earth. These are the technologies that they're most interested in. These are the technologies they talk about and envision for 2020, and other internal Space Command documents.

So the BMD system is the way to get the American people to support the idea of having space weapons. By calling them defensive. And then, the follow-on technologies that will soon be deployed thereafter, will be the way that they come in and begin the actual deployment of offensive weapons in space. This is the schedule, this is the plan—it's very well-articulated in their own documents. We don't have to make it up. It's there.

25404. ranheim - 7/30/2001 9:04:03 AM

LA Politics - jexster

They are, as of yet, only whispers. However, some of LA's political junkies say that Breaux, despite being a part of the Senate majority once again, is bored in Washington. So far, he has only listened to pleas to run for Governor when Foster's term expires.

We hear little about Bill Jefferson north of New Orleans. Partly his fault; partly my fault. But, there is a huge divide between New Orleans and the remainder of the State. Race plays a part. But, voters outside of New Orleans are becoming extremely tired of the city trying to blackmail the remainder of the State into putting more and more money into that city. White flight is making that situation worse; not better.

Re-districting should be a hot-button issue in the State; but, one rarely hears about it. The Black Caucus in the State wants a second predominantly black congressional district (Jefferson in NO occupies the one now extant). The Fifth District (in which I live) would appear to be the most likely candidate. The poweres-that-be would have to go to the black portions of Baton Rouge; go north through Avoyelles Parish (in which I live); through the black sections of Alexandria; then continue on up to Monroe. Those re-disticting lines ran into a judicial challenge 10 years ago. It will be interesting to see what the pols do this time. Will keep you posted.

25405. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/30/2001 9:19:39 AM

25406. concerned - 7/30/2001 11:27:45 AM

Re. 25403 -

Oh, boo hoo, jexster. Thanks to a Republican President, we're going to establish ourselves in space before the Chinese or Russians.

With a Democrat in the WH, you can assume that we'll just give the store away, decreasing medium and long term US economic competitiveness and increasing our vulnerability to attack.

Which is what MAD is all about, lest you have forgotten: ensuring that we're vulnerable to annihilition. Well, I say: fuck that noise!

25407. concerned - 7/30/2001 11:30:35 AM

Notice that the points being argued have suddenly changed. Now, everybody admits that the US can eventually develop the capability to repulse ICBMs. Now, Lefties want the US to simply step aside and wait for the rest of the world to fight among themselves to gain predominance in space---in about forty years or so.

25408. concerned - 7/30/2001 11:31:50 AM

Or, twenty five years, whatever.....

25409. concerned - 7/30/2001 11:53:57 AM

I just talked to a rep of a major fpga manufacturer about the electronics job situation in the Norther Illinois area. He said it's slow everywhere with no letup in sight except for defense contractors like Northrop Grumman and Sundstrand. He called these pockets of activity the 'Bush Effect'.

25410. concerned - 7/30/2001 11:59:09 AM

The two corporations I mentioned develop leading edge electronics for detection and countermeasure systems, btw. They don't do stereotyped military items such as heavy artillery or armored vehicles.

25411. Wombat - 7/30/2001 12:47:04 PM

Umm...newsflash:

The United States already is already predominant in space, and neither the Chinese nor the Russians have the resources to dispute it for the foreseeable future.

I would be interested to hear more from Concerned on Mutually Assured Destruction, and why it is a bad thing.

25412. concerned - 7/30/2001 12:55:55 PM

Re. 25411 -

MAD is a concept which, if it ever had a day during the cold war, has been rendered obsolescent by changing geopolitical dynamics. Even the person who formally codified it as a 'policy', Henry Kissinger, has been disclaiming it for years. I tend to trust his judgment on the matter over, say, yours.

25413. jexster - 7/30/2001 12:59:20 PM

The point remains concerned why?

Why spend billions on an NMD system that can so be so readily overwhelmed against a threat that does not exist simply as lead procurement for a more costly system we don't need?

Mighty expensive key to Pandora's box if you ask me!

Criminal profligacy.

25414. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 12:59:36 PM

In the nuclear freeze 80s, MAD was derided by the Left as, well, mad. Now, the Left clings to it like an old friend, its shield against big, bad, destabilizing Star Wars.

25415. jexster - 7/30/2001 1:04:53 PM

Only concerned could believe that military spending improves economic competitiveness.

Money spent on weapons is the most unproductive investment any society can make.

25416. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 1:09:12 PM

jexster

Oh please. You're like the Blanche DuBois of political theory.

25417. jexster - 7/30/2001 1:16:42 PM

That's facile FU and I think you know it. At least I would hope you do.

The arms race in the 80's and before was inherently unstable. Nuclear force levels and costs spiraled out of control and were well in excess of any legitimate war fighting requirements. Russia and the US acted like "apes on a treadmill" each building ever greater quantities of arms against perceived first strike threats presented by the last move in the game.

A hostile Russia facing a hostile US at a frozen level much higher than we now have would be stabilizing and more than sufficient for deterence.

Star Wars is obviously destabilizing for it can be defeated by increasing the numbers of warheads deployed assuming it can ever work in the first instance. It is useless for instance against SLBM's and under the rosiest scenario will work effectively against only the smallest powers.

Star Wars in the 1980's of course played into first strike fears.

25418. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 1:24:06 PM

jexster

I'm not sure the author of "Money spent on weapons is the most unproductive investment any society can make" is constitutionally permitted to level the charge of facile.

As for your well-worn observations on 80s arms policy, MAD requires that no matter the amounts of weapons, there remain parity. At that time, the Left found the concept (not just, as you wrongly suggest, the build-up) insane.

Now, in order to discredit even the most basic of steps towards missile interception, the Left trots out MAD as one would a long lost love.

Or, the Left says things like "Money spent on weapons is the most unproductive investment any society can make".

25419. concerned - 7/30/2001 1:25:28 PM

Re. 25415 -

Actually, it does. One example which springs to mind is: printed circuit board technology was developed in WWII for missile applications.

Another one is: Darpanet led to the internet.

Bonus Question: Are you willing to hazard a guess at what the initial impetus was for nuclear power generation research?

25420. jexster - 7/30/2001 1:25:28 PM

There is only one semi-plausible threat scenario which could possibly be advanced to justify NMD. I can conceive it but am damned if I can come up with a plausible real world example.

NMD may prevent nuclear strikes against third countries. This would enhance US credibilty and effectiveness in those situations where we might not wish to put nuclear guarantees out to the third nation. Closest I can come to....Slobo had the bomb during Kosovo.

25421. concerned - 7/30/2001 1:28:00 PM

Besides, to dwell on 'money spent on weapons' misses the point.

I'm referring to applications research.

25422. jexster - 7/30/2001 1:31:06 PM

In fact, the above is SO hypothetical that it doesn't even make the Pentagon's threat assessment list...the so-called rogue state danger appears at the bottom and was probably put in for the benefit of Defense Appropriations Committees.

Call a spade a spade...the big defense contractors want to use this scam as long-lead procurement to keep their production lines and research budgets going til Space Wars ...

25423. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 1:34:04 PM

Ah yes.

The defense contractors.

The energy companies.

The tobacco companies.

The HMOs.

Damn you Krusty .

25424. Cellar Door - 7/30/2001 1:35:05 PM

In which case we'll all be required to see "Battleship Earth"

25425. Cellar Door - 7/30/2001 1:36:03 PM

You're forgetting the Drug companies, Francis.

But then that's Sully's balliwick, not yours.

25426. jexster - 7/30/2001 1:37:58 PM

MacroEcon 101 or 30 seconds of sustained thought on the matter is all it takes FU....

Theoretically and practically unassailable.

First theory...spend billions on weapons or billions on houses? on food? hell spend it on drugs (well maybe not on any drug!) And the investment will yield a greater dividend. Weapons are designed NOT to be used for chrissakes. They are meant to sit and rust.

At least your car gets you to work before it rusts!

Historically-

The US during the 1980's.

The US during the Vietnam War.

Russia.

The Great Battleship arms race from Dreadnought to WWI.

Europe cold war

Japan cold war

Ever stop to think (30 seconds will do) why Europe is so reluctant to set up a EuroDefense Force? Why do it when we will since its such a freakin fine investment!

Sheesh....

25427. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 1:42:11 PM

"Money spent on weapons is the most unproductive investment any society can make".

Thank God we were able to end our war with Japan by dropping all of those pre-fab WWII era houses on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Money to split the atom? Absurd. Just hitch up a suburban block to a B-52 and bombs away.

25428. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 1:43:11 PM

Sheesh.

25429. jexster - 7/30/2001 1:43:35 PM

I won't dispute the fact that MAD is insane and neither would you. But in a sense it is the logical conclusion to any nuclear arms race. This is because of the bang for the buck those weapons give.

MAD was actually not a liberal creation but an Eisenhower doctrine articulated first by John Foster Dulles who I believe coined the bang/buck phrase. Liberals argued against MAD on the grounds that it did not provide real deterence against conventional threats.....

I still recall my Herman Kahn - Architect of the Dance of Death

25430. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 1:44:42 PM

The wisest thing you said of late jexster is that you don't weigh in on topics outside your forte.

If only you could be persuaded that your forte is more limited than you might imagine.

Understanding, of course your vast edumacation.

25431. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 1:46:33 PM

jexster

"Liberals argued against MAD on the grounds that it did not provide real deterence against conventional threats....."

Yet now, they cling to it in the hopes of forestalling even the most limited of strategic intercepts.

You are coming along well, grasshopper.

25432. jexster - 7/30/2001 1:48:11 PM

The Freeze made sense at the time for the simple reason that it proposed arsenals even larger than we now have!

The flaw of the freeze is hindsight. No one knew, no one even had an inkling that it was unproductive military spending that would be the straw that broke the back of a Soviet economic and political order that had been nearly comatose for 20 years or more. The CIA routinely and predictably underestimated % of Soviet Defense/GDP

25433. Cellar Door - 7/30/2001 1:50:51 PM

Bad news for connie. Guess those Voodoo dolls didn't work, dear.

And as you'll note Francis (re our discussion of British actresses) Elvis now has his eye on (gasp!) Liz Hurley!

25434. JayAckroyd - 7/30/2001 1:52:52 PM

FU notes:

"As for your well-worn observations on 80s arms policy, MAD requires that no matter the amounts of weapons, there remain parity. At that time, the Left found the concept (not just, as you wrongly suggest, the build-up) insane."

which is actually not so. MAD requires that both sides have a sufficiently destructive force that would survive a first strike. The US response was to construct the triad, to preserve a second strike capability underwater and in the air.

Land based ICBMs contribute least to MAD--they are first strike weapons.

The Soviet development of their 10 MIRV weapons (SS-18?) which prompted the US MX/Peacekeeper response is what spawned star wars. A ten MIRV missile is itself inherently destabilizing, because it carries the biggest use 'em or lose 'em threat. If you're gonna have land based ICBMs as a first strike threat (which was US doctrine, rather than massing troops in Germany), they should only have one warhead, so that an attacker has to expend a warhead for each one removed.

The actual goal of the first star wars effort, expressed by people like Perle in Congressional hearings, was to protect the MX--preserving it as a deterrent.

Back to the main point. The buildup of land based forces WAS insane, and the method chosen was destabilizing. There's no need to match an enemy warhead for warhead. You just want a sizable survivable set of warheads (50?) sufficient to destroy the opponent. I was very pleased to see the administration recognize that the MX is a bad weapon.

25435. ElliottRW - 7/30/2001 1:53:52 PM

...the big defense contractors want to use [NMD] as long-lead procurement to keep their production lines and research budgets going...

Is this a bad thing, in and of itself? What I mean is, don't we want a strong, stable defense industry? For the record, I am not for NMD (I think other projects could keep the defense industry strong while meeting more significant threats).

25436. jexster - 7/30/2001 1:53:57 PM

No defense contractors are a special breed. They live on contracts that provide large and steady cash flows over a long period of time to remain viable contracts which are outside the so-called free market which we are taught to venerate at an early age just about the time we get the story of George Washington and the cherry tree.

If you think I jest, pick up a copy of Air Force Times sometime. And check out who advertises and read a few of the articles. Its a god damn sales brochure for Lockheed.

Just good business...For Lockheed that is not for US

25437. jexster - 7/30/2001 1:55:37 PM

Jay's got it right...must have taken National Security Policy courses in poli sci

25438. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 1:56:04 PM

"Liberals argued against MAD on the grounds that it did not provide real deterence against conventional threats....."

By the way, this kind of 1990s, DLC gloss to Liberal strategic doctrine of the 80s is beneath you. At least paint the spade a spade, as you are prone to say.

The Liberal criticism of MAD was not the Scoop Jacksonesque "Mad does not work because it does not deal with the conventional array of forces" and you know it.

Kinsley of late, a well-thought out piece of which I don't totally subscribe. Kinsley on MAD

25439. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 1:58:38 PM

Jay

It was my understanding that the evil defense contractors spawned Star Wars.

25440. jexster - 7/30/2001 1:58:54 PM

Blanche Dubois? Refresh...Tennessee Williams?

I am too butch Niner. Not your average faggot.

I do not like Barbara Striesand, my Blanche Dubois recall is long gone, don't like Madonna (though I did like Patti Labelle)

25441. JayAckroyd - 7/30/2001 1:59:09 PM

"I won't dispute the fact that MAD is insane and neither would you."

jexster said this one.

And it's false. MAD's worked great. If you start with the premise that you're gonna build nukes at all, then MAD's all that is gonna work. Is it sane to build nukes?

jexster's also bought the widely peddled canard that military spending that took down the Soviet Union. It's interesting to note that this particular argument depends on military spending being unproductive for the economy as a whole, but it's wrong anyway. There's no need to get into a pissing contest about what happened in the 80s. The empirical evidence is in front of us. We've been looking at the same people running things, in the same way in the 90s WITHOUT military spending, and the country is still a kleptocratic wreck.

25442. JayAckroyd - 7/30/2001 2:02:22 PM

25349

There were people who argued in the 70s that it wasn't about defense. It was about pork. Well, the pressing threats are countries that are near collapse, and defense spending and troop commitments are still at wartime levels.

Is it about defense? Or is it about pork?

25443. jexster - 7/30/2001 2:02:27 PM

These guys are in deep trouble Elliot. Since the Cold War died they've been treading water. And that is not necessarily a good thing for the country either. You can't create a modern war fighting equipment production line over night from nothing

25444. JayAckroyd - 7/30/2001 2:02:49 PM

25439, I mean.

25445. concerned - 7/30/2001 2:10:15 PM

And it's false. MAD's worked great. If you start with the premise that
you're gonna build nukes at all, then MAD's all that is gonna work. Is
it sane to build nukes?

Very false premise about MAD and nukes in the above. Any conclusion based on such is nearly worthless. There is no prerequisite, nor necessity for this 20th Century concept of total war (and total destruction).

25446. concerned - 7/30/2001 2:13:47 PM

Re. 25441

What about tactical nukes? And suitcase bombs (the existence of which in no way obviates NMD)?

25447. JayAckroyd - 7/30/2001 2:15:41 PM

No? Isn't the whole NMD premise based on the fear of total war?

IAC, the genie is out of the bottle. Chivalry is dead. Oppenheimer was right.

Once it becomes clear that there are really no rules, there are no rules.

25448. JayAckroyd - 7/30/2001 2:17:44 PM

conerned--

I don't get your point in 25446.

25449. JayAckroyd - 7/30/2001 2:18:38 PM

"And suitcase bombs (the existence of which in no way obviates NMD)?"

In the absence of NMD is the probability of a suitcase bomb greater or less than ballistic missile?


25450. jexster - 7/30/2001 2:35:49 PM

Sorry Jay but if you are gonna charge me with error at least base it on something I said..

I said that MAD was insane or perhaps you think that the a military situation that contemplates killing 500 million people in a matter of weeks or months is rational?

I never said that it didn't work. Its always worked. And it doesn't necessarily have to be mutual to work. Countries with a handful of nukes can deter not only nuclear war but high violence conventional conflicts too.

I also never said that defense spending was the sole cause of the fall of the Evil Empire. In fact, I said that it operated at the margin on top of other problems of a socio-economic-political nature. It did in fact precipitate the fall though even that blow was struck well before Reagan's day...Breshnev's budgets did the most damage.

Russia in case you haven't noticed isn't pouring tons of rubles into the military. Hell those bastards are lucky if they get paid!

The historical evidence is overwhelming that military spending is not productive certainly beyond some minimal point.

25451. JayAckroyd - 7/30/2001 2:43:38 PM

"I said that MAD was insane or perhaps you think that the a military situation that contemplates killing 500 million people in a matter of weeks or months is rational?

I never said that it didn't work."

Insane but effective. Okay, I guess.

25452. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 2:48:20 PM

"or perhaps you think that the a military situation that contemplates killing 500 million people in a matter of weeks or months is rational"

Criminey. An entire geopolitical outlook derived from Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Ralph Nader and Thomas Aquinas.

Jay

Please explain to me how MAD can work without a credible land-based first strike capability.

25453. Dusty - 7/30/2001 2:48:24 PM

jexster

I bet you have no idea what the level of drinking is Dusty
Drinking is down generally. I suppose it could be trending differently on planes, but I doubt it.
In addition, I've taken hundreds of flights over the last three decades; I probably have enough data points to form a credible trend.

25454. jexster - 7/30/2001 2:53:14 PM

jexster

"Liberals argued against MAD on the grounds that it did not provide real deterence against conventional threats....."

Yet now, they cling to it in the hopes of forestalling even the most limited of strategic intercepts.

You are coming along well, grasshopper."

I wish I could return the compliment but as it is I that I pitched the argument at a level well lets just say about 20-30 feet over your head shortie.

The liberal critique of MAD/conventional was Kennedy's creation and it became mainstream. It has nothing to do with the ability of US nuclear arms to deter a nuclear strike by any other nuclear power on the planet large or small. MAD in those cases - say Iraq - can be had for 10 warheads,12 tops. NMD does not add to the deterence assuming it adds anything in the first place because 1) NMD nor no NMD those states aren't gonna let fly a nuke not because of NMD but because they cannot be sure that we won't respond massively. Its the chance that they will be wiped out that deters, that works, NMD adds nothing.

NMD does create incentives for countries to increase the number of warheads and its not terribly hard to do that given the present uncertain outlook for the technology.

You're problem FU is one of nuance and understanding here. Your posts are facile because you lack a fundamental grasp of the issues.

Take your comment re: nuclear deterence of conventional conflict and strategic intercepts. Two entirely different things.

Now I realize you have learned a new word- MAD. I know ya wanna practice your ingles as much as you can. But hey ya gotta know what the concept means first. I would be like me throwing puta around when asked what type of burrito I want.

Comprende?

25455. jexster - 7/30/2001 2:58:50 PM

Oh you're probably right Dusty....I regretted the wholly gratutious swipe shortly after the post and apologize for it...

I believe the argument advanced goes something like alcohol on top of flight delays, crowded planes, and airports leads to air rage. Its therefore easy to ease the problem if that is correct and I think, based on extensive drinking experience that alcohol does in fact loosen inhibitions which keep the cork on all the frustrations.

25456. AceofSpades - 7/30/2001 2:58:53 PM


You're problem FU is one of nuance and understanding here. Your posts are facile because you lack a fundamental grasp of the issues.

Every once in a while Jexster says something that makes me laugh out loud.

25457. jexster - 7/30/2001 2:58:56 PM

Oh you're probably right Dusty....I regretted the wholly gratutious swipe shortly after the post and apologize for it...

I believe the argument advanced goes something like alcohol on top of flight delays, crowded planes, and airports leads to air rage. Its therefore easy to ease the problem if that is correct and I think, based on extensive drinking experience that alcohol does in fact loosen inhibitions which keep the cork on all the frustrations.

25458. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 2:59:55 PM

jexster

Your post doesn't seem complete without some trite paen to a professor know one knows, for whom you assiduously checked footnotes.

Your repeated assurances notwithstanding, you offer flavor-of-the-post ("It's insane, but it's not INSANE") mush, followed by a consistent, if well-disguised ("Well, you obviously misunderstood") retreat when your bland but surprisingly stupid bromides are challenged.

But as the saying goes, when you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way.

Now rebut with how you once blew Strobe Talbott in Charlie Cook's foyer and let Jay and I have an adult discussion.

25459. JayAckroyd - 7/30/2001 3:06:09 PM

"Please explain to me how MAD can work without a credible land-based first strike capability."

The first strike capability is irrelevant in the deterrence of a first strike from an enemy. First strike capability was constructed by the US to deter a Soviet invasion of Germany. It was constructed by the Soviets for one of two possible reasons: 1) to continue to make an invasion possible (they'd strike our nukes first) or 2) to threaten our land based forces in the event of an act of US aggression. It's hard to know which of those two scenarios was more true in the minds of the Soviets.

If you just want to deter nuclear attack, you only need a second strike force. If you want to deter conventional attacks cheaply, you need a first strike force.





25460. JayAckroyd - 7/30/2001 3:09:41 PM

All these comments assume that the policy makers are sanely pursuing a well-reasoned policy. There is certainly evidence to the contrary, the 10 MIRVed weapons among them. I keep flashing on Peeter Sellars saying "But it is pointless if you don't TELL anyone."

25461. jexster - 7/30/2001 3:11:52 PM

Hey Ace! Believe it or not I missed you. Where ya been?



Sorry Niner but you can trot out all the half witted silly assed hollywood/liberal stuff you want and add blanche dubois too but it won't help your cause a bit. I'm on pretty safe ground, outside of an insane asylum when I say that, in itself, massive nuclear war is loony tunes.

In fact, none realized this more keenly than those in the military and out who studied and worked in the field. Outside a few wackos like Curtis Lemay, those who remained did so by utilitarian rationalization and by resigning themselves to make the best of a situation they knew was inherently insane.

Herman Kahn titled his best known work on nuclear warfighting strategy as - Thinking the Unthinkable.

25462. Dusty - 7/30/2001 3:12:11 PM

jexster

Sorry, I missed the apology.

25463. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 3:15:12 PM

jexster

"I'm on pretty safe ground, outside of an insane asylum when I say that, in itself, massive nuclear war is loony tunes."

Yes you are, dear. Tonite, dessert is tapioca.

25464. JayAckroyd - 7/30/2001 3:16:53 PM

The sheer number of warheads also argues against the rationality of the nuclear arms race. A survivable 50 or so warheads would seem to be plenty deterring. 100 single-warhead land-based missiles is one heckuva deterrent to a conventional invasion, especially with the introduction of theatre nukes. The scenario that has the Russians launching against the land-based missiles pre-invasion seems wacky in retrospect, given a relatively small number of warheads in the air, under water, and perhaps, launchable on warning.

The need for coordination and secrecy is also quite daunting when you're looking at a 20 minute launch window for your enemy. By the late 70s, with effective satellite monitoring of troops and missiles, it's hard to construct a realistic invasion scenario. (FTM, since we'd cracked the Soviet codes in the 50s, it's hard to construct a really scary scenario then, either. Of course, the Soviets didn't know that we'd cracked the code.)

25465. JayAckroyd - 7/30/2001 3:17:23 PM

toys

25466. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 3:22:38 PM

Jay

The attempt to meld MAD with a range of acceptable numbers of missiles is foolish, as it ignores intelligence-gathering, technological advances, and global positioning. worse, it assumes that the knowledge of the enemy is staic and/or one's own monitoring technology is infallible.

25467. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 3:23:11 PM

staic=static

25468. Wombat - 7/30/2001 3:24:04 PM

In its rather labored rationale for NMD, the Bush (and before it, the Clinton) administration used the "rogue" state possessing missiles with nuclear warheads as a reason for construction of NMD. Presumably MAD still holds for Russia and China.

What rogue state has the capability or will have that capability in the next 30 years? Can anyone state firmly that North Korea and Iran will have the same type of government in 30 years?

Given that the threat of an Israeli nuclear counterstrike deterred the one bona fide "rogue" (Saddam) from firing gas tipped Scuds at Israel during the Gulf War, is there any indication that a state--rogue or otherwise--would risk extinction by taking out a US city or two? Or nuking US forces at a staging area in Saudi Arabia...or Japan? It would be unilateral assured destruction.

Perhaps a Bin Laden type might attempt a nuclear attack on the US or its interests, but would an ICBM be the method of delivery? They are expensive and complex, and require a degree of infrastructure that terrorist groups lack (and any country from which this missile would be launched would be subject to retaliation).

25469. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 3:27:15 PM

Wombat

"What rogue state has the capability or will have that capability in the next 30 years? Can anyone state firmly that North Korea and Iran will have the same type of government in 30 years?"

This is as ass-backwards as it gets. Because North Korea and Iran may be less archaic and fanatic in 30 years, we should not develop the technology to protect ourselves from the fanatical act they may be working toward.

25470. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 3:37:11 PM

"is there any indication that a state--rogue or otherwise--would risk extinction by taking out a US city or two?"

Was there any indication that Japan would attack Pearl Harbor? Yes, actually, but the conventional wisdom of the time said no.

As for a rogue state and an indication of fanaticism, let me scenario one out for you: in 30 years, Israel, a mildly lesser fanatic state that thankfully does our bidding, gets fanatical in an Arab meleee ala' 1967 and lets loose a tactical nuclear weapon in the theater. As is Arab custom, what Israel does is imputed to the United States, and a missile is launched at the United States by a rogue Arab nation which has not gone the peaceful, loving way of North Korea and Iran.

Implausible.

Yes.

But so was Pearl Harbor.

To dismiss the possibility (the Liberal fallback, now that dismissing the technology is crumbling) is but the harumphing of generations of peace-time killers long since past.

25471. jexster - 7/30/2001 3:37:37 PM

There is one other remote risk that NMD, if it works at all, would handle quite well. Accidental launch of one or two - maybe even 1/2 dozen - ICBM's.

But is it worth it? Is it worth it fiscally? And I'm not necessarily talking about feeding the hungry,housing the homeless or other such liberal favorites.

Hell what about conventional readiness? How bout a new fighter to replace the F14? This same Howdy Doody who brought the GOP Convention to tears with that "not ready for duty Mr. President" lie has solved the readiness problem by reducing the war fighting requirement from 2 to 1 1/2 wars!

Is NMD's cost extravagant in light of the risk it is meant to guard against? Is it more or less cost effective than programs to improve conventional readiness or aid the build up of mulilateral regional defense forces?

You can buy a shit load of $100 toilet seats for the military with NMD money.

25472. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 3:40:31 PM

The debate is over when the Left talks cost. They no longer have a technological argument, they no longer have strategic argument, so it gets down to wanting butter (or a better F-14, the DLC skin game) over guns.

The Clinton/Bush policy of developing an anti-missile capability is inevitable. Catch the fever.

25473. jexster - 7/30/2001 3:43:48 PM

Looks like Bush is giving up the Bully Pulpit for the pulpit.

He's going to be preachin at us now. Can't wait for Father of the Drunkettes to lecture us on raising kids.

Washington -- President Bush, whose domestic agenda has largely stalled on Capitol Hill, plans to try to recapture the initiative this fall by putting more emphasis on the presidential role of moral leader with a series of executive actions and legislative proposals designed to foster community spirit and family values, administration officials said yesterday.

White House planning documents call for Bush to play down issues geared toward conservatives that dominatedhis first six months in office. Instead, the documents say, he will stress themes that "unite Americans by focusing on children, quality of life and universally appreciated values."

I've begun to understand what compassionate conservatism really is.... its what he does when he wants to hide.

25474. jexster - 7/30/2001 4:09:16 PM

Boy we are short on ammo today Niner.

Call me a liberal and I am supposed to do what?

Cry?

Hey, I was eating up defense and foreign policy courses in college during the Vietnam War. Then, due to lack of boss interest, I grabbed that one away from one of the senior LA's.

Though I opposed the war, I did so on military and geo-political grounds.

I'd doted on each pearl from Richard Perle when he worked for Scoop Jackson. My knees jerk neither left nor right on defense. I was DLC from my mother's womb.

I dunno what it is but Republicans seem lost in the Reagan era. Cut the taxes, star wars, its pathetic sight to see, old, tired, brain dead, worn out, don't quite know what year it is. The political equivalent of Alsheimer's?

25475. PelleNilsson - 7/30/2001 4:14:12 PM

The comparison with Pearl harbour is dumb.

The question to aks is: Would the Japanese have attacked if they had been certain that Japan would have been destroyed, not perhaps, and not years later but for sure minutes later?

25476. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 4:21:23 PM

Pelle

Go look up archaic, fanatical, mistake, and error in your Swedish-to-English dictionary. Get back to me.

jexster

Your self-absorption is unimpressive. Increasingly, your rebuttals boil down to "I was once . . . I used to know . . ." The Grandpa Walton schtick is tired.

25477. PelleNilsson - 7/30/2001 4:32:16 PM

It is interesting how people who find themselves cornered give up reasoned argument in favour of cheap slurs about my ability to understand simple English words. In any case, if I needed or wanted to look up those words I had better use an English-to-Swedish dictionary, don't you think, my dear fellow?

25478. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 4:36:42 PM

Pelle

Please. You dip your toe in with a lame "Pearl harbour is dumb", yet you whine like a six-year old girl because your dollop of wisdom is batted away with the rebuttal it merits.

That said, whatever dictionary would be most illustrative is what I recommend, as your presumption that MAD applies to fanatics, those who err, and primatives who have unfortunately been given technological capacity way beyond their ken is lacking.

25479. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 4:37:31 PM

Feel better?

25480. PelleNilsson - 7/30/2001 4:40:46 PM

Yeah, we can't let those primatives get away with it, can we?

25481. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 4:47:40 PM

My ape-to-English dictionary clearly supports my use of the word "primative."

25482. PelleNilsson - 7/30/2001 4:57:38 PM

Haha! If this discussion is still going on tomorrow I'll have something more serious to say but for now it's good night.

25483. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 4:59:15 PM

Ooooooo, Oooooooo

25484. amax - 7/30/2001 6:32:06 PM

Re SDI (or NMD, or whatever)

Clarke's Law of Revolutionary New Ideas
All revolutionary new ideas ... pass through three stages, which may be summed up by these reactions:
'It can't be done.'
'It's possible, but it would be too expensive'
'I always said it was a good idea.'


(or something to that effect)

25485. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/30/2001 7:10:02 PM

My ape-to-English dictionary clearly supports my use of the word "primative."

The Ape-to-English dictionary is a necessity for all Repugs now -- here are the illustrations that come with the definition for "primative" [sic] . . .











He seems to be growing in his primativitudiness as FU grows in his smugitudinal insults.

25486. jexster - 7/30/2001 7:10:04 PM

My rebuttal was certainly more than name dropping FU, names dropped for a purpose.

What purpose? Why check the damned message. Your portrait of liberals and the freeze movement was bad charicature, nostalgic whimsy, and largely inaccurate. Your performance then hit rock bottom when you projected your faded Reagan memories onto me.

You had to be corrected yet again and will have left your Mote Day a bit better informed than when you began it.

You should thank me.

25487. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/30/2001 7:11:18 PM

Jex!!! Did you wear your shirt? How'd it look? Any results?

25488. jexster - 7/30/2001 7:12:06 PM

Mmm...now does this sound familiar FU?

whine like a six-year old girl because your dollop of wisdom is batted away with the rebuttal it merits

And I thank you for saying the same thing with greater economy of expression.

25489. Wombat - 7/30/2001 7:18:17 PM

Urquhart:

I am afraid that your quick move to abuse shows up the emptiness of your position. The idea of spending billions of dollars for a system that so far is batting .333 (under highly controlled test conditions) on the highly implausible chance that a "rogue" state will not only obtain an ICBM or two but will blithely ignore the known capacity of the US to destroy them, is analogous to what you and others decry when some propose spending billions of dollars to combat global warming.

25490. ranheim - 7/30/2001 7:52:15 PM

Wombat

I don't believe it; we are in agreement for once.

But, I imagine there is a difference of opinion as to how to spend the Missle Defence money. I would like to see R & D in the area of trying to better identify weapons (such as nerve gas containers; biologic weapon containers; etc.) at our borders and international airports. I have recently taken two domestic airline trips recently and it seems to me that security is very lax.

Many people raising hell about over-booking; delays in take off time; etc. I saw a near fist-fight between a passenger and a male airline employee at a gate of departure. The potential passenger had been bounced and was more than furious; mad (in the medical sense of the word). How in the world can there be actual security with 1/2 of the people in airports furious because their trips have been delayed or cancelled?

25491. concerned - 7/31/2001 12:38:49 AM

Good news for real Liberals - resurgence of the Green Party

25492. concerned - 7/31/2001 12:51:53 AM

Re. 25489 -

Wombat blithely ignores the likelihood of nuclear blackmail. Furthermore, much of my support for NMD is not based on a static requirement for the implementation of a system everybody hopes will not have to be used.

If, in the final analysis, the r&d, manufacturing base and knowhow gained from space based defensive systems does nothing more than help the US keep the advantage with the inevitable economic move to space, then it will have been money well spent.

Damningly enough, those who dismiss NMD development never contrast and compare with the certainly more questionable, from a utilitarian standpoint, moon program of the '60's or the five trillion dollars in welfare transfer payments over the last 35 years which have done little but destroy the african american family unit.

25493. concerned - 7/31/2001 1:03:16 AM

Another worthwhile comparison with the moon program is in the extremely limited success rate during the first eight years of the US space program. It didn't even hit its stride until 1965, even with a much higher proportion of the then GNP spent on it and with effectively full operational status throughout that time period.

In light of this, it's fair to dismiss the careless criticism over the success rate in the recent NMD tests. It's too early for, and not enough information is available to, the casual observer to predict the efficacy of the ultimate NMD implementation after only three tests. In fact, as I write this, it seems to me that only an idiot or charlatan would try such an extrapolation.

25494. joezan - 7/31/2001 8:22:54 AM

Well, everyone knows that money would be much better spent on education.

Do you realize how many credit cards you could issue to even low-level staffers, with that kinda dough?

25495. Wombat - 7/31/2001 12:45:29 PM

Nuclear blackmail? You set off a nuke, we'll take your country (or the country that is harboring you) back to the 16th century. The US doesn't even have to use nukes to do so. Ask Iraq or Serbia.

Also, if the state is such a "rogue" what's to prevent a preemptive strike (overt or covert) at any point in the development and deployment process?

25496. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 1:00:57 PM


You set off a nuke, we'll take your country (or the country that is harboring you) back to the 16th century

Seems to me that leftists like Wombat cried and screamed when we bombed the Libyan Presidential compound, with *conventional* bombs (and not many at that), after gathering good proof the Libyans were funding terrorist activities.

But Wombat would like us to believe the US would incinerate millions of *innocent* civilians in response to a nuclear attack, no questions asked.

And no whining from the left.

Uh-huh.

Personally, I'd rather the missile *not* hit us at all. Sure, vengeance is all nice and good, but if I can stop a nuclear attack, I'd prefer that over incinerating millions of innocent civilians and then having to listen to the incessant kvetching and geschreien of the sissy left for a hundred years.

Christ, you sissies still whine about Hiroshima.

25497. Wombat - 7/31/2001 1:16:04 PM

Generalizer Spades:

It appears to be hardliners like yourself who are mewling about the inhumanity of war, and how the magic star wars can make it all go away.

If the "rogue" nation actually succeeds in launching a missile, and NMD actually succeeds in knocking it down (neither a given), what will the US do? Will the US retaliate? Do you think this retaliation will be a slap on the wrist? Will the US just say: "better luck next time?"

25498. Wombat - 7/31/2001 1:19:29 PM

Also, since Spades is now so tender-hearted about our enemies, the US has demonstated how a country can be taken back to medieval times without inflicting heavy casualties on the civilian population (ask Iraq and Serbia).

25499. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 1:21:22 PM


It appears that sissies like yourself are suddenly praising Mutual Assured Destruction and delighting in the nuclear anhiliation of millions of innocent civilians.

This is ludicrously disingenous, and no one believes you for a fucking millisecond. You simply have a knee-jerk hatred of Star Wars because "Ronnie Raygun" proposed it; had it been Carter who proposed it, you'd be championing it.

You claimed it would not work. It *does* work. You are undeterred in your knee-jerk opposition.

You claimed the Russians would never accept it. They, apparently, *will* accept it, if coupled with another measure you approve of (dismantling of a large number of nukes.) But still, you are undeterred in your knee-jerk opposition.

The slim reeds of justification you have for opposing NMD break in the gentlest of winds, one by one, but you are undeterred in your knee-jerk opposition. You simply keep inventing new reasons to oppose.

You just don't like anything military, or anything having to do with Ronnie Raygun. You are a relgious zealot.

25500. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 1:27:35 PM


Also, since Spades is now so tender-hearted about our enemies, the US has demonstated how a country can be taken back to medieval times without inflicting heavy casualties on the civilian population (ask Iraq and Serbia).

1) Ah, so now we're NOT going to nuke them, ay? Now we're just going to "retaliate" by taking out the occasional bridge and power plant? I thought so.

2) Saddam hardly cares about any pain his countrymen feel. He doesn't have to care about them; he runs the military. It should be noted that a major war and 10 years of "maintenance bombing" still haven't dislodged Saddam from power; and yet you seem to be suggesting that it's a real "threat" to a terrorist nation's leader that we bomb his television stations. Uh-huh. Saddam seems to be doing just fine.

3) Iraq and Serbia were largely medieval, anyway. If we bomb North Korea into the "Stone Age," we'll be setting them back, oh, fifty or sixty years. Again, a big "threat."

4) You continue assuming our enemies cherish life above vengeance, despite the fact that there are thousands of terrorists ready, willing, and able to commit suicide in order to bomb us. Or hadn't you heard, Wombat?

5) I'm not tenderhearted about our enemies; *you* are. And yet you blatantly lie that we can just "nuke them off the face of the planet" with no objections from you or your fairy fellow travellers. That's total bullshit, of course. You're only claiming that so that you can oppose NMD on the grounds that we "don't need it."

25501. Francis Urquhart - 7/31/2001 1:31:59 PM

Ace

But why should we invest in defensive technology when in 30 or 40 years, North Korea and Iran could very well be Lollypopville and Gumdroptown?

(just updating you on yesterday's line)

25502. Wombat - 7/31/2001 1:38:36 PM

Ace:

You are generalizing again. If any side has been presenting theological arguments in the NMD debate, it is yours. MAD is proven to work, and so would UAD (Unilateral Assured Destruction).

The pro-NMD side is basing its arguments on a number of assumptions that are utterly speculative at this point. On the basis of such "faith-based" reasoning, NMD proponents wish to deploy a system that has not been operationally tested, works one-out-of three times (in highly controlled circumstances), scrap existing arms control agreements, and spend 10s if not 100s of billions of dollars doing so. This against a posited threat that is essentially implausible.

Ace, if you truly support the military, you would be asking that most of this money go to bolstering our conventional forces. As it is, it is likely that the military is going to starved in order to pay for this tribute to the conservative diety, Ronald Reagan.

25503. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 1:38:59 PM


PS, Wombat:

Saddam Hussein had *continued* to develop and purchase WMD, *despite* the "threat" of retalliation...

FOR TEN YEARS.

And we attempt to kill him by bombing his bunkers every ten years.

Tell me, Wombat, why isn't Saddam "deterred"? Oh why oh why doesn't he understand that living in peace is better than acquiring a nuclear bomb?

If Saddam isn't deterred by the threat of death in *pursuing* WMD, why do you insist he *will* be so deterred against using them?

You claim he's a rational fellow; so tell me: How come he hasn't abandoned his WMD program?

25504. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 1:40:50 PM


We attempt to kill Saddam every TWO years, I meant.

Please explain why Saddam isn't "deterred," dear Wombat. Please do not avoid the question. I know you'd rather avoid it, and rather pretend you didn't see it, but I really need to know why Saddam isn't deterred NOW but will be in the near future.

25505. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 1:42:51 PM


"Ace, if you truly support the military, you would be asking that most of this money go to bolstering our conventional forces. "

No, jackass. I could get additional money to support our conventional forces by, say, slashing the Education budget.

You set up false choices.

As the liberals always say: Why should we choose between Priority A and Priority B? Can't we just have both?

25506. Francis Urquhart - 7/31/2001 1:42:55 PM

The 6 Step Star Wars Program

Star Wars is crazy and Reagan is stoopid.

Star Wars doesn't work.

Star Wars destabilizes.

Star Wars is too expensive.

Star Wars will detract from our conventional forces.

Butter, not guns.

25507. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 1:44:28 PM


"Star Wars doesn't work.

"Star Wars destabilizes. "

I do love how, for the past ten years, the Left has steadfastly maintained, simultaneously, that:

1) NMD will not work.

2) NMD will work "too well" and thus be destabilizing.


They seem quite comfortable advancing both contradictory arguments simultaneously.

25508. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 1:49:14 PM


Wombat,

If Saddam gets a nuclear missile, do you think we would intervene if he attacked Isreal?

Will you not admit that the fact that a terrorist nation/aggressive tyranny armed with a nuclear missile must, at the present moment, be given a more or less free hand to do what it likes?

If Milosevic had had nuclear missiles, would you have supported bombing him to stop "genocide"?

25509. Wombat - 7/31/2001 1:51:16 PM

Ace:

Are these thousands of terrorists ready kill themselves by launching a nuclear missile? They going to get them on special at the Khyber Pass outlet of Nukes R Us, build it in their backyard, and fire it?

You and I agree that Saddam Hussein is a prime example of a "rogue" ruler. During the Gulf War, it would have been very much in his interest to fire chemical warheads at Israel, yet he didn't. Why? Because Israel threatened to nuke Bagdhad in response.

25510. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 1:52:10 PM


Part of the problem, I think, is that the left wants *America* deterred. They don't like the fact that we can invade nations with impunity (well, most nations; all but the nuclear armed nations) and they are perfectly comfortable with a Third World Tyranny getting the bomb, just so they can deter America from its imperialistic behaviours.

25511. Wombat - 7/31/2001 1:55:21 PM

Ace:

Are you familiar with the concept of preemption? Let me know when you are.

25512. Francis Urquhart - 7/31/2001 2:00:11 PM

Wombat

You predicate national security policy on your assurance that reason will prevail in an uncertain future, even amongst the most unreasonable of people. Your hubris is so staggering that you are willing to disengage reasearch and development of the one defense program that could thwart a nuclear missile, if, God forbid, you are wrong, and peace, harmony, and reason do not join us all together in that future.

Your assurances that you couldn't be wrong are not enough, and the benefits (averting nuclear holocaust) far outweigh the negatives (expenditure of money).

"More men die by the sentiments of good, fat, reasonable men in peacetime than by all gunfire summoned by all butchers in all wars"

Francis Urquhart
July 31, 2001

25513. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 2:00:40 PM

"Are these thousands of terrorists ready kill themselves by launching a nuclear missile?"

Yes. They're willing to give their lives to kill ten people; of course they'd be willing to die to kill tens of thousands.

"They going to get them on special at the Khyber Pass outlet of Nukes R Us, build it in their backyard, and fire it? "

Yes.

In case you haven't heard, nuclear weapons are/will be widely obtainable. Osama bin Laden is trying to buy one, for example; and the day will come when a Russian colonel sells him one. Germany and other countries intercept nuclear triggers and the like being transported from Russia to the Middle East all the time; you are a liar, or a buffoon, or both if you claim that it is not *inevitable* that Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, etc., will have nukes within 10-15 years.

You're just a fucking idiot. Saddam doesn't care about his own people's lives; he also doesn't care about his OWN life, because we've been trying to kill him FOR TEN YEARS and it has not stopped him from trying to acquire a nuke (indeed, there are occasional reports he already has one to three nukes).

So what, precisely, is there to deter him? Please explain.

"During the Gulf War, it would have been very much in his interest to fire chemical warheads at Israel"

How so? It would have been fun for him, I'm sure, but I don't see how it would have been "in his interest."

25514. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 2:00:49 PM

"yet he didn't. Why? Because Israel threatened to nuke Bagdhad in response. "

I suppose there's some truth in that. But it's also the case that Saddam, at that point, knew that the war would go against him badly, and was planning on merely fighting "with honor" in order to then sue for peace and extricate himself from the mess he'd gotten himself into. Drawing Israel into the war would have been incompatible with that goal.

But I'm very happy that you are so certain of Saddam's motives and thinking that you're *sure* he'd never nuke "the Great Satan."

How do you know Saddam's plan wasn't to sue for peace, extemporize, and develop a nuke so that in the NEXT war he would be victorious?

25515. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 2:03:20 PM


"Saddam Hussein is a nice, life-cherishing, rational man, and he always will be. I know this. I've looked into his eyes and caught sight of his soul."

-- Wombat, July 31, 2001

25516. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 2:06:14 PM



"yet he didn't. Why? Because Israel threatened to nuke Bagdhad in response. "

Ah. So presumably WE would be deterred from taking action against Saddam once he has the bomb?

Yes?

or No?

25517. Francis Urquhart - 7/31/2001 2:09:27 PM

"We, the German Führer and Chancellor, and the British Prime Minister, have had a further meeting today and are agreed in recognizing that the question of Anglo-German relations is of the first importance for two countries and for Europe. We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again. We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other questions that may concern our two countries, and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference, and thus to contribute to assure the peace of Europe."

Neville Chamberlain, September 30, 1938

25518. Francis Urquhart - 7/31/2001 2:11:39 PM

"Mick Jagger and I just really liked each other a lot. We talked all night. We had the same views on nuclear disarmament."

--Jerry Hall

25519. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 2:15:42 PM


Liberals live in a Strageloveian world. Just call Wombat Dr. Wombat --Or, how I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb.

Now Wombat's acting all tough about pre-emptively bombing countries which *may* have the bomb. Earth to Wombat: You never really know when they have the bomb, until they test one. We don't *know* Saddam has a bomb, and we won't *know* he has one until he blows one up in the desert.

But Wombat will of course have a glib rejoinder:

"Well, we should put all the NMD into better intelligence."

Ah.

25520. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 2:20:01 PM


"If they get tough with us, we'll get tougher with them. If they bomb us, we'll bomb the shit out of them. We'll bomb them preemptively, we'll bomb them after the fact, shit, we'll try to bomb them retroactively if we can figure out how. We'll just fucking bomb *everybody.* We have to bomb everybody to avoid being the dreaded 'John Wayne' caricature the Europeans and fairy liberals fear so much.

"By persistent, indiscriminate bombing, we'll be stabilizing the world. Peacefully. The way it should be. We'll bomb the world with love... just to avoid building a defensive system."

-- Wombat, who wants to tape a daisy on to every bunker-busting bomb we have

25521. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 2:23:30 PM


A Russian general launches a strike against the US? Impossible; it could never happen.

The US accidentally launches a single missile at Russia, which must then be destroyed in order to avoida nuclear war? Impossible; it could never happen.


Saddam gets a missile and threatens to nuke New York unless we stay out of his invasion of Kuwait? Impossible; it would never, ever happen.

25522. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 2:27:37 PM



BTW, Money Dowd wrote a column last week equating GWB with, yes, the Apes from Planet of the Apes.

Now, I wrote a parody column making this same glib equation, three months ago. My column was much better, especially since there was no Ape movie out at the moment and therefore my analogy wasn't trite and obvious.

And yet she has a Pulitzer and I do not.

25523. Francis Urquhart - 7/31/2001 2:28:53 PM

It's like none of these people have seen War Games.

"Now, children, come on over here. I'm going to tell you a bedtime story. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. Once upon a time, there lived a magnificent race of animals that dominated the world through age after age. They ran, they swam, and they fought and they flew, until suddenly, quite recently, they disappeared. Nature just gave up and started again. We weren't even apes then. We were just these smart little rodents hiding in the rocks. And when we go, nature will start over. With the bees, probably. Nature knows when to give up, David."

25524. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 2:29:06 PM


If you are one of the people who find Money Dowd "funny," I have bad news for you: You are yourself not funny, and don't have a well-developed sense of humor.

There are many people who find the Cathy comic strip funny. We call such persons "simpletons."

25525. Francis Urquhart - 7/31/2001 2:31:06 PM

Easy, mister.

Cathy's a laugh riot.

And weren't you defending Paula "I Just Had a 12 Pack, Hey, How Did These Kids get Naked?" Poundstone?

25526. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 2:34:51 PM




As Mark ran around the jungle chased by snarling simians, I began feeling anxious. Apetown seemed strangely, disturbingly familiar: evolution hurtling backward. Progress in reverse. An arrogant determination to trash the compacts governing humans.

"Do-gooders," one monkey sniffs. "Who needs 'em?"

When Tim Roth as the human-hating chimpanzee army general announced "Extremism in defense of apes is no vice," I suddenly got a creepy feeling that I had been there.

Was Apetown Washington? Was the Planet of the Apes the Bush White House? Hmmmm, so W. is President Primate.

...

Like the monkey planet, Washington looks more and more menacing and antediluvian, with the Bushies beating their chests and growling.

...

During the campaign, W. wouldn't come out firmly in favor of teaching evolution over creationism. That should have been our clue that he's unwilling to evolve. He is so mired in the past, he almost seems antagonistic toward the future.

Without giving away the ending of the new version of the classic collision-of-species movie, I can tell you there's a chilling scene set in Washington. It shows what can happen when the guys in charge monkey around in the wrong direction.

Please.



25527. Francis Urquhart - 7/31/2001 2:35:52 PM

Yeesh.

Please don't do that.

25528. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 2:36:40 PM


You and I will have to disagree on how funny Paula Poundstone was.

I probably grade female comediannes on a steep curve. There are so many Elaine Boozlers that when an Ellen DeGeneres or Paula Poundstone comes along, I probably deem them funnier than they objectively are.

EG and PP may not be the funniest comics in the world. But when you compare them to Elaine Boozler, well, you can't compare them.

25529. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 2:37:32 PM


Niggah please, more like it.

25530. Francis Urquhart - 7/31/2001 2:41:26 PM

Ace

That's fair. With Joy Behar and Margaret Cho setting the standard, Poundstone is elevated.

That said, I wonder if she'll be able to incorporate her arrest into her act like Richard Pryor was able to incorporate his self-immolation?

25531. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 2:46:22 PM


My Money Dowd Ape Column, which has not *yet* won a Pulitzer:

14746. AceofSpades - 4/6/01 10:13:12 PM


MONEY DOWD

TAKING LIBERTIES


"... And Richard Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, looking mightilly like a stooped-over Cornelius as he challenges the diktats of the orange-colored Orangutan masters..."

"...Curious George Bush, nakedly resplendent on a chestnut stallion with his semi-clad Nova by his side, trotting off to a 'Forbidden Zone' of ostensibly moderate politics which lay somewhere beyond the pulverized Staute of Liberty..."

"'Get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty apes!' Charleton Heston exclaims, while wearing his white leisure-suit from the Omega Man. But the apes cannot take their paws of poor Charleton, for he *is* one of the Apes now..."

25532. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 2:52:18 PM


Money Dowd.

She really makes you think... about television shows.

25533. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/31/2001 5:21:45 PM

. . . and comic strips . . .

25534. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/31/2001 5:55:37 PM

The study determined the following IQs of each president as accurate to within five percentage points:

     147 Franklin D. Roosevelt (D)
     132 Harry Truman (D)
     122 Dwight D. Eisenhower (R)
     174 John F. Kennedy (D)
     126 Lyndon B. Johnson (D)
     155 Richard M. Nixon (R)
     121 Gerald Ford (R)
     175 James E. Carter (D)
     105 Ronald Reagan (R)
     098 George HW Bush (R)
     182 William J. Clinton (D)
     091 George W. Bush (R)

25535. jexster - 7/31/2001 7:23:30 PM

91...U sure Wiz?

Isn't that higher than moron?

Mine is pretty close to Nixon's.

And still more soft predjudice of low expectations


A new Zogby poll released today shows George W. Bush's job approval rating has crashed below the 50 percent level for the first time in his presidency. Even worse, less than a majority -- just 48 percent -- now think the U.S. is headed in the right direction.

"The poll, conducted of 1006 likely voters nationwide between July 26-29, shows voters giving Bush a 47% positive, 51% negative job performance rating," according to Zogby's website. "In June, voters gave Bush a 51% positive, 48% negative job performance rating. The poll has a margin of sampling error of +/- 3.2%."



Drop LOW ye expetations....SOAR oh soft prejudice

25536. OhioSTOPAS - 7/31/2001 7:52:49 PM

Maybe President Bush should try to boost his ratings relative to other Presidents by dividing positive rating points by IQ points. Bush has a rating-to-IQ ratio of over .500, while Clinton's was only about .333. Take that, Democrats!

25537. dusty - 7/31/2001 8:20:21 PM

WoW
Nope

25538. Indiana Jones - 7/31/2001 8:36:56 PM

You have to wonder about people who measure the IQ of "presidents over the last 50 years" and include FDR.

25539. dusty - 7/31/2001 8:39:08 PM

WoW

From The Urban Legends people:

Claim: According to a study by the Lovenstein Institute, President Bush has the lowest IQ of all presidents of past 50 years.
Status: False.


Origins: No, this isn't a real news report, nor does it describe a real study. There isn't a "Lovenstein Institute" in Scranton, Pennsylvania (or anywhere else in the USA), nor do any of the people quoted in the story exist.

This is simply a political jibe, made obvious by its ranking all the Democratic presidents of the last several decades as having high (even exceptionally high) IQs, while ranking all the Republican presidents from the same time frame as average to moderate in intelligence, with the current president and his father assigned below-average figures placing them at the very bottom of the list.
[emphasis added]

25540. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/31/2001 8:44:46 PM

Hey, I made no claims--I merely provided a link.


But my, how defensive we are!

25541. Indiana Jones - 7/31/2001 8:49:29 PM

Dusty: Scroll to the bottom of Wiz's link and it's obviously a hoax (read about the authors).

I would rank Nixon as probably the smartest of that bunch, though I obviously know less about these guys the farther back you go. Clinton is up there, but with a lazy--yet ambitious--intellect.

The idea that Kennedy had a 174 is especially laughable. My guess is none of them had an IQ in excess of 140--unless Carter claims his is 176 (assuming that part of the story is accurate).

Carter surely wouldn't lie about it, but that's ultra-genius level.

25542. dusty - 7/31/2001 8:50:26 PM

Ha-ha,
I was about to post that we would hear claims, "only a joke" heh heh.
But the "I merely provided a link" is even better.

25543. ronski - 7/31/2001 8:52:20 PM

A high I.Q. isn't always the best predicator for worthy public service.

Henry Kissinger was pretty smart. I don't remember the left fawning over him when he advised bombing the bejeesus out of Cambodia.

(An instance where I agreed with the left, as it happened.)

25544. ronski - 7/31/2001 8:59:52 PM

...predictor...

25545. Jimbo - 7/31/2001 9:01:12 PM

WoW's I.Q.
Not very high as evidenced by his silly posts. But what can one expect from one so young?

25546. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 9:02:54 PM


ummmmm... you hardly need an Urban Legends report to doubt a "report" which purports to estimate IQ's -- within five points, no less! -- based upon not an actual test, but upon observations.

PS: Clinton didn't write a book before he became president. Well, maybe he did "write" a book, but it was the same sort of book that GWB also "wrote" -- i.e., a ghostwritten rehash of the candidate's policies offered in an election year.

25547. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 9:06:10 PM


It's amusing that the idiotic report says that they have estimated IQ's to "within five points," while not having the actual IQ scores by which to establish this level of accuracy.

I estimate Ohio is a moron, for example. that estimate is within one retard-classification of his actual classification.

Anyone see the problem, here? How do I know my estimate of Ohio as a "moron" is correct within one retard-class until I actually determine his true level of mental retardation through testing?

But liberals -- never the sharpest knives in the drawers, though they like to believe they're smart due to the fact they find Money Dowd funny -- just ain't very good at thinking.

25548. Jimbo - 7/31/2001 9:14:31 PM

I think that number for Clinton was a count of the women he porked his last year in office. But, I don't consider that a bad score.

25549. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 9:14:44 PM

"Among comments made concerning the specific testing of President GW Bush, his low ratings were due to his apparent difficulty to command the English language in public statements"


Giggle. Bush's "apparent difficulty to (sic) command" the English language.

Uh huh.

And Wiz bought this.

"his lack of scholarly achievements other than a basic MBA"

A "basic" MBA? In other words, a "basic" postgraduate degree, like a "basic" JD? What on earth could this possibly mean? Very few presidents have had advanced degrees, such as a "basic MBA"; are the lunkheads who wrote this "report" (and Wiz) under the delusion that most Presidents have been multidegreed PhD scientists?

"and an absence of any body of work which could be studied on an intellectual basis."

Ah.

"The complete report documents the methods and procedures used to arrive at these ratings, including depth of sentence structure and voice stress confidence analysis."

I am giggling at this person's massive inability to write coherent English sentences.

"Voice stress confidence analysis?" To determine IQ?

Huh?

Are you liberals ALL fucking retards, or just the idiots who show up here?

"All the Presidents prior to George W. Bush had a least one book under their belt,"

Incorrect on two counts, as previously noted.

"The Lovenstein Institute of Scranton Pennsylvania think tank includes high caliber historians, psychiatrists, sociologists, scientists in human behavior,"

also called behaviorialists. Or social scientists.

" and psychologists. Among their ranks are Dr. Werner R. Lovenstein, world-renowned sociologist,"

Hee, hee, hee. "World renowned socioligist."

" and Professor Patricia F. Dilliams, a world-respected psychiatrist."

.

25550. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 9:14:56 PM

Again, is this a fucking joke? Well, yes. But is it a joke that Genius Ohio and Genius Wiz believed this fucking ludicrously obvious hoax?

Seriously. I'd like to give you two IQ tests. I think that would be very interesting

25551. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 9:17:31 PM


"This study was commissioned on February 13, 2001 and released on July 9, 2001 to subscribing member universities and organizations within the education community"

Again, do these people understand what basic English words mean? If the study was "commissioned," commissioned by whom?

They don't tell us, because they don't know what "commissioned" means. They think it just means "begun," and it sounds like a grown-up word.

25552. Jimbo - 7/31/2001 9:18:08 PM

I think that one I.Q. test would be enough!

25553. CalGal - 7/31/2001 9:21:20 PM

I remember the first time I read Ace and Francis' bitching about Maureen Dowd's use of analogies. At the time, I'd only read her columns sporadically and really did think the Mafia analogy for Dauphin Bush was pretty funny. But I have to say they're right--that's all she does is pop culture analogies and it wears thin real quick. I quit reading her almost completely a few months ago. I still like the Baker as consigliere take, though.

25554. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 9:21:28 PM

"In a report published Monday, the Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, Pennsylvania detailed its findings of a four month study of the intelligence quotient of President George W. Bush. Since 1973, the Lovenstein Institute has published it's research to the education community"

Or "its," as the educated world writes the word.

People who cannot distinguish between "it's" and "its" are deriding GWB's IQ. Meanwhile, certified jackasses Wiz and Ohio join in in mocking GWB's IQ, despite the fact that their inability to spot an obvious, silly (purporting to judge IQ based on "voice confidence"!) and shoddy hoax ("it's" vs. "its," "basic" MBA) says quite a bit about their own lack of mental firepower.
on each new president, which includes the famous "IQ" report among others.

25555. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 9:31:44 PM


Seriously.

Have you morons ever heard of anyone's IQ being determined, not by an actual test, but by "sentence structure analysis" and "voice stress confidence" and scholarly writings?

No?

Me neither.

Why do you think that is?

Perhaps because it's not frigging possible?

Have you ever heard a psychologist say he must refuse to diagnose someone he hasn't actually treated?

And yet you geniuses both believed that IQ could, suddenly, be estimated "to within five points" by "voice stress confidence analyses."

Giggle.

Who's stupid?

Let us say, for the sake of argument, that GWB *is* stupid.

Can you think of two more moronic people? Perhaps two morons you know quite well? Two people bordering on mental retardation?

Good God All Mighty. How stupid.

25556. Jimbo - 7/31/2001 9:38:40 PM

One can get detailed opinions of the mental health of Johnathon Swift, who most realize died hundreds of years ago, by present day shrinks. So, I imagine it is fair to judge the I.Q. of modern day pols from just watching them play golf, let us say, or maybe by how they handle a fly rod. A much easier method is to note which political party they align with.

25557. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/31/2001 9:47:12 PM

"People who cannot distinguish between "it's" and "its" are deriding GWB's IQ.

"Well, it's an unimaginable honor to be the president during the Fourth of July of this country. It means what these words say, for starters. The great inalienable rights of our country. We're blessed with such values in America. And I--it's--I'm a proud man to be the nation based upon such wonderful values."-- George W. Bush, visiting the Jefferson Memorial, Washington, D.C., July 2, 2001


Must have struck a nerve--you're annoyance and personal insults are so gratifying . . .and will only inspire the irritainment !



25558. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/31/2001 9:57:58 PM

The quarter-witted in his own words. . .

"Anyway, I'm so thankful, and so gracious--I'm gracious that my brother Jeb is concerned about the hemisphere as well."--Miami, Fla., June 4, 2001

"Our nation must come together to unite." --Tampa, Fla., June 4, 2001

Here's what Bush said about how far he would have the U.S. go to defend Taiwan: "Whatever it took to help Taiwan defend theirself." --Good Morning America, April 25, 2001


Jan. 11, 2001...He said he wanted his administration to be remembered for making America "a more literate country and a hopefuller country." --Reuters, Bush Chooses Trade Rep

25559. AceofSpades - 7/31/2001 10:03:11 PM


GWB probably knows the difference between its and it's.

Do you, Wiz? Apparently not. That typo should have stuck out like a beetle in a bowl of butter pecan ice cream.

But you didn't see it. It looked "write" to you. Or "right." Whichever.

And it's vapid morons like you who get the most chuckles from GWB's "stupidity."

25560. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/31/2001 10:57:31 PM

I didn't even bother to check it Ace; nor did I personally attack anyone . ..which speaks volumes about one's benightedness, I suppose.

25561. OhioSTOPAS - 8/1/2001 5:43:06 AM

My my my: Jokes about the President's IQ really brought out the troops.

Say the President's stalwart defenders, "Hey! He's not THAT stupid! And besides, you can't prove it!"

For the record, I believe President Bush's rating-to-IQ ratio is actually less than .500. Barely.

25562. iiibbb - 8/1/2001 8:51:58 AM

If only Gore's IQ had been larger.

25563. JayAckroyd - 8/1/2001 8:56:09 AM

I just want to take a moment to straighten out the arguments against missile defense. It goes like this:

1) If it could be made to work, it's a bad idea.
A. It's destabilizing--it encourages launches before it goes operational.
B. The ratio of benefit to cost is very low.
C. It protects against the lowest probability threat.
D. It changes the equation in what has been, to date, a very effective method of deterring nuclear exchanges.
E. There are cheaper, more certain to be effective counter measures, like bombing missile sites.

2) It's not gonna work.

A. The Reagan umbrella is off the table. Nobody claims that a fully effective nuclear shield can be built.
B. The initial star wars review talked about laser and brilliant pebbles and space based stuff, and ended up saying the only thing that is close to possible is hitting a missile with a missile. We already have such a facility in the Dakotas, which we shut down because DoD determined it couldn't work. Lots of time and money has not done anything to get the sf stuff off the concept table.
C. The only realistic approach requires multiple layers, but constructing multiple layers is fraught with all kinds of trouble, like floating a boat in hostile or semi-hostile waters to hit a launch phase weapon. And of course none of the layers are past conceptual outlines, other than hitting a missile with a missile.
D. The tests so far of the one thing that is not conceptual (16 years into the program) have been very disappointing. Very unrealistic scenarios are being tested approximately annually.
E. No matter what the system, it is easy to devise countermeasures, especially since all testing must be done in the open.



25564. JayAckroyd - 8/1/2001 9:03:07 AM

In 25466 FU says:
The attempt to meld MAD with a range of acceptable numbers of missiles is foolish, as it ignores intelligence-gathering, technological advances, and global positioning. worse, it assumes that the knowledge of the enemy is static and/or one's own monitoring technology is infallible.

This of course was part of my point in 25464. As it became increasing certain that we need not fear a sneak Soviet attack in Germany--intelligence was much better, satellites could identify troop movements, we had broken the Soviet codes, we'd developed tactical nukes--we increased our strategic arsenal steadily. Reagan talked about a window of vulnerablilty at a time when we were pretty damn sure that there would be no European invasion without a great deal of forewarning--way more than a 20 minute ICBM launch window.

Does such an analysis assume infallible monitoring? Not at all. But the requirements for massing tank columns on the West German border would have been very difficult to keep secret, given the depth of US intelligence. The only scenario that was even vaguely plausible would have been using war games as a cover. For that reason, a large amount of information was exchanged between the US and the Soviets during games.

25565. Wombat - 8/1/2001 9:05:12 AM

Amusing how some who are indignant about misinformation on President* Bush's alleged lack of intelligence gleefully propagated similar material about Gore. Sauce for the goose...

I wouldn't equate inarticulacy, incompetence, and inexperience with lack of intelligence. Jimmy Carter exemplified all three as well.

25566. JayAckroyd - 8/1/2001 9:15:01 AM

It's a joke. It was clearly a joke before reading the link. In fact, it's a pretty funny parody of the pseudo scientific garbage that shows up in newspapers from time to time. Or as books, like The Bell Curve.

25567. JayAckroyd - 8/1/2001 9:22:06 AM

One last NMD note:

I want the proponents to answer three questions:

What is the likelihood of a nuclear launch by any country in the next decade?

Is this likelihood higher or lower than the suitcase or tanker bomb scenario?

At what level of probable successful defense against, say, a five missile attack, would you deploy a NMD system?

And no cavilling. These are central questions. If you really have no idea, you should fold up your policy adviser tent and go home. If I suggested a domestic program just in case it was needed and it there was a pretty decent chance that it might work if it was needed, the gales of laughter would be (rightly) deafening. (I guess we have that in the education bill, don't we?)

25568. JayAckroyd - 8/1/2001 9:24:32 AM

Now that I've reminded myself, does anyone thing the scenario in the Bush education bill makes sense? After a school has repeatedly failed to deliver decent test scores, the response by the federal government will be to REDUCE funding to the programs those students are in? That's gonna fly, politically?

Such a program can only work if the parents can pull their kids out of such a school. They can only do that something like a voucher plan is in place. And that is off the table, right?

25569. Dusty - 8/1/2001 9:36:29 AM

Wombat

Who is indignant? Oh yeah, Wow is indignant that we didn't realized he was just providing a link.

It was just a joke. But if it was such a joke, why come back with a purported quote from Bush using "it's" Incorrectly? Doesn't make sense. Not to mention that it was a speech, so the question ought to be directed at the person who transcribed it. Earth to Wow, while one can crew up the distinction between "it's" and "its" when writing, one cannot when speaking.
Of course, even more important is that it was used correctly. There's something odd about using a quote from Bush to prove he blundered, when the quote uses the word correctly!
There are so many blunders, I'm not sure I can keep track of them all.


Quit while you aren't too far behind.

25570. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/1/2001 9:39:37 AM

I don't bother about the details anymore because it's all too obvious that the mindset behind every Bush initiative is predicated on might makes right.

"Suffering builds character and God gave us the right to exploit everyone and everything!"

Is it any wonder that half the world wants to blow us up?




25571. Dusty - 8/1/2001 9:44:56 AM

What about the initiative to force GE to dredge the Hudson?
Some sinister plot behind it?

25572. Wombat - 8/1/2001 9:44:56 AM

What are you getting so offended about, Dusty? I pay about as much attention to cheap shots about Bush as I did to Gore (none). I was just expressing amusement that some who would gleefully propagate anything derogatory (whether true or not) about Gore are indignant now that the shoe is on the other foot.

25573. Dusty - 8/1/2001 9:47:57 AM

Wombat
Offended? Hardly.
I'm chuckling at the gullibility of those who hate Bush, and the furious back-pedalling when people realize they've been had.
It's comical.

25574. iiibbb - 8/1/2001 9:51:09 AM

I've not made up my mind yet, but for the sake of playing devil's advocate.

What is the likelihood of a nuclear launch by any country in the next decade?

If it is as difficult and complex of a technological mountain to climb, why limit it to nuclear launches only a decade from now? I do see a decent probablility that China's ambitions will make them a threat within the next 10 to 30 years.

It's better to do the research now then have to slap it together at the last minute, and if it's such a difficult thing to do then it seems putting it off is the wrong thing to do.

Saying that it won't work now because it didn't work for Regan is not valid because of the emmensly better computing power we have now.

Is this likelihood higher or lower than the suitcase or tanker bomb scenario?

I worry about terrorist attack far more han I worry about missle attack... but a threat is a threat. Both problems should be addressed.

At what level of probable successful defense against, say, a five missile attack, would you deploy a NMD system?

Too diffcult a question to answer. If a system is 50% successful, a nation need only launch twice as many missles. I guess there's the economic burden it places on that nation, but that's a deterent.

25575. Wombat - 8/1/2001 10:02:48 AM

China currently has 12 nuke-tipped ICBMs. I do not know if they are MIRVed. They will be building more, I am sure. However the argument propagated by NMD supporters under both Clinton and now Bush is that an NMD system will only be able to defend against the accidental launch or a missile or two from a "rogue" state. For existing nuclear powers, MAD still applies, and will for the foreseeable future.

25576. Dusty - 8/1/2001 10:05:56 AM


Wombat
But who exactly is indignant? I only recall seeing myself and Ace react. Ace didn't sound indignant (or at least, not any more than usual).
You indicated that these indignat people gleefully propagated derogatory posts about Gore. I don't recall doing that. Ace may well have, but I don't recall anything posted as fact that tunred out to be a hoax.
So whatever are you talking about?

25577. Francis Urquhart - 8/1/2001 10:08:44 AM

Jay

I will answer your questions.

"What is the likelihood of a nuclear launch by any country in the next decade?"

Unknowable, but in a general sense, highly unlikely.

The question, however, reveals your blinkered thinking. I find it unlikely that NMD technology would even be 50% reliable with regard to a single missile in 10 years, but what kind of mullethead premises defense policy/R&D on threats that may or may not arise in the next 10 years? Ask yourself this question, and then maybe your view will broaden: Are nuclear weapons proliferating since inception, or are they largely in the hand of the same people who had them in the 50s?

Quite simply, if you develop the technology, you have the option, should the world in the next decade be something less that the Xanadu you and others presume it will be.

"Is this likelihood higher or lower than the suitcase or tanker bomb scenario?"

Unknowable, but under your premise, were the country to work on defense technology/R&D to prevent the tanker bomb scenario, all of your arguments against NMD would hold.

"At what level of probable successful defense against, say, a five missile attack, would you deploy a NMD system?"

5%. Technology is not static, so the numbers would always increase, and I presume that if you were on the receiving end of one of those missiles, you'd take the 5% (ever-increasing) over placing a copy of your well-meaning analysis over your head as protection.

25578. Francis Urquhart - 8/1/2001 10:09:43 AM

Now, to your arguments.

"A. It's destabilizing--it encourages launches before it goes operational."

It is stunning, your ability to prophesize a chummy world where benefits are low and probabilities are infinitessimal, yet your first argument out of the gate is a reliance on the danger of agitated states launching first strikes because of a system you deem a) ineffective and b) unnecessary. Either you are muddled or your argument is hopelessly inconsistent, for if it is a world where such nations and threats exist, you have argued for NMD.

But, or course, you believe the world is and will be dangerous only if an ineffective and unnecessary NMD is operational. Prior to that point, it is a serene haven where no wrong could occur (at least, for a whopping 10 years).

"B. The ratio of benefit to cost is very low."

Really? When 5 missiles come at 5 cities and we knock down one, tell it to the saved citizens of Boston. Any fair analysis of cost-to-benefit rates not only probabilities and costs, but harm. And the harm NMD seeks to deflect is as catastrophic as we know.

"C. It protects against the lowest probability threat."

See above. Again, the same low probability threats that would never launch a missile with NMD in place, under your analysis, would rush to launch a first strike before it became operational.

25579. iiibbb - 8/1/2001 10:11:21 AM

However the argument propagated by NMD supporters under both Clinton and now Bush is that an NMD system will only be able to defend against the accidental launch or a missile or two from a "rogue" state.

I think assesment is reasonable for the immediate future... but technology improves. Think about how many times some leader in the computer industry has said that computer technolgy has advanced as far as it ever will.

When they started the Human Genome project they said it was going to take decades... but because of advances in technology it's almost done.

I'm sure MD could advance, but the research has to be done in order to advance at all.

25580. Francis Urquhart - 8/1/2001 10:11:55 AM

"D. It changes the equation in what has been, to date, a very effective method of deterring nuclear exchanges."

How so? It can't work, as you say. Would not the forces that are concerned about NMD be laughing with delight at the folly of the expenditure. Surely, if you know it is a waste of time, so too China and the Soviets.

"E. There are cheaper, more certain to be effective counter measures, like bombing missile sites."

This is nonsensical. NMD is designed to do soemthing after the missile has been launched. If it makes you cheery to bomb the missile site after the missile has been launched, feel free, but doing something about the missile while it is en route seems a little more productive.

25581. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/1/2001 10:13:41 AM

25573. Dusty - 8/1/01 2:47:57 PM

Wombat
Offended? Hardly.
I'm chuckling at the gullibility of those who hate Bush, and the furious back-pedalling when people realize they've been had.
It's comical.

Funny, Dusty, but your tone certainly seemed indignant. I don’t remember attacking you personally for any of your opinions about Clinton or Gore; so why the need to impugn my motives or point of view?

I think you were offended because you identify with Bush so strongly and resent deeply the same kind of tactics of demonizing heaped upon Clinton for the last nine years.

And FTR, I don’t hate Bush. I detest the meretricious profiteers who pull his strings and stick us with the bill for their exploitation.

25582. Dusty - 8/1/2001 10:18:36 AM

BTW,
I'm happy to drop the discussion of the Bush IQ hoax, in light of the fact that further discussion can only embarrass liberals (to the extent that is possible) and the Jay led discussion on NMD is far more interesting.

25583. Indiana Jones - 8/1/2001 10:21:37 AM

What is the likelihood of a nuclear launch by any country in the next decade?

Too many variables, but I'd estimate the likelihood of an attempted offensive use of a nuclear weapon within the next 20 years as greater than 90 percent. Next decade? 50/50.

Against the US is another matter and the probabilities are affected, of course, by what we do--including NMD progress--during the time period in question.

Is this likelihood higher or lower than the suitcase or tanker bomb scenario?

I think the probability of a missile delivery is highest, followed by airplane. The suitcase and tanker deliveries are low probability IMO. (How much does the lightest atomic bomb weigh, BTW?) Moreover, if we hypothesize a very small nuclear device capable of being carried in a suitcase, then it's likely not as devastating an attack as an ICBM.

At what level of probable successful defense against, say, a five missile attack, would you deploy a NMD system?

Depends on the cost of the system (as well as the probability of the attack). Given zero cost, I'd deploy an NMD that had a 1 percent chance of stopping a five-missile attack, even if the attack was not at all likely.

I do think that a comparison between NMD and global warming in terms of policy decisions and resource allocation is a good debate because of similarities of economic costs and the unpredictability of the problem and proposed solution effectiveness.

25584. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/1/2001 10:22:42 AM

Yes, by all means, Dusty--let's quibble over the details of Armageddon!

25585. JayAckroyd - 8/1/2001 10:27:10 AM

"A. It's destabilizing--it encourages launches before it goes operational."

It is stunning, your ability to prophesize a chummy world where benefits are low and probabilities are infinitessimal, yet your first argument out of the gate is a reliance on the danger of agitated states launching first strikes because of a system you deem a) ineffective and b) unnecessary. Either you are muddled or your argument is hopelessly inconsistent, for if it is a world where such nations and threats exist, you have argued for NMD.

Seems to me the shoe is on the other foot. If the threat from these states is real, and pressing, then the threat is escalated pre-deployment. I'll grant you this argument if you will agree that there is no pressing threat nor is there likely to be.

In that context you can make a case for esoteric R&D into the to be found sf stuff, but no case for deployment.

Let me restate, because one reason I posted that list of arguments is that the NMD proponents seem to be unable to handle if..then arguments. If the threat is real, then NMD increases the threat predeployment. If it is not real, then there is no need to work on it.

BTW, you can't just dismiss the risk as unknowable. Your intelligence services have to provide risk assessments based on their best knowledge. Just as NASA calculated the risk of a shuttle exploding, DoD, the NSA and the CIA calculate risks of attack. That has to be part of your policy decision making apparatus.

25586. Francis Urquhart - 8/1/2001 10:36:14 AM

"I'll grant you this argument if you will agree that there is no pressing threat nor is there likely to be."

Fair enough. I've stated from the outset that the threat is minimal, a small percentage chance for a devastating result.

"In that context you can make a case for esoteric R&D into the to be found sf stuff, but no case for deployment."

This is Alice in Wonderland stuff. Who studies something without any hope of practical application?

"If the threat is real, then NMD increases the threat predeployment. If it is not real, then there is no need to work on it."

This is overly simplistic, form-fitted to your prejudices. If the threat is real NOW, it must be assessed. As for future threats, you seem to think that R&D defense policy need only look 10 years into the future.

"BTW, you can't just dismiss the risk as unknowable. Your intelligence services have to provide risk assessments based on their best knowledge. Just as NASA calculated the risk of a shuttle exploding, DoD, the NSA and the CIA calculate risks of attack. That has to be part of your policy decision making apparatus."

Of course I can. In fact, it is the only honest answer. I did not say 75% or 2%. Can you affix a percentage probability past 10 years?

Moreover, your reliance on the most maligned and hamstrung of governmental operations is further alarming, especially in light of the fact that over the last decade, the Chinese were able to lift our most secret nuclear technology.

25587. JayAckroyd - 8/1/2001 10:38:40 AM

B. The ratio of benefit to cost is very low."

Really? When 5 missiles come at 5 cities and we knock down one, tell it to the saved citizens of Boston. Any fair analysis of cost-to-benefit rates not only probabilities and costs, but harm. And the harm NMD seeks to deflect is as catastrophic as we know.

1. You've already refused to assess the risk of this scenario. Creating scary and entirely unrealistic scenarios isn't a fair form of discussion.

2. All the missile defense program does is stop this scenario. Now don't mistake this for a concession that this is a real scenario. I make two claims: a) alternative delivery mechanisms are more likely than missile launches, with no NMD. b) deploying an effective NMD doesn't protect Boston. It just changes the decision matrix for a bad guy. And there are plenty of alternatives. (I claim those risks are also overstated. More civilians have been killed by military accidents (KAL 007, italian gondola riders, the iranian plane we shot down) than by Bin Laden type terrorist attacks.

3. The scenario you outline would be ultimately catastrophic. We would have to launch in response. So the sieve like nature of any incompletely effective NMD makes multiple launches more likely. Getting even one missile out of five through will require a US nuclear response. Moreover, please note that an 80% effective system against five missiles is exactly equivalent to no system against one. In either case, we launch. So where's the marginal benefit.

4. Prememptive strikes are cheaper and more effective, especially if accompanied by other actions to reduce prolif, such as reducing US and Russian arsenals. BTW, above someone talked about hitting warhead production facilities, and how that can't happen till they've solved the warhead construction problem. That's not solving the problem NMD solves. The way to solve that problem is to hit missile installations.

25588. Indiana Jones - 8/1/2001 10:39:23 AM

If the threat is real, then NMD increases the threat predeployment. If it is not real, then there is no need to work on it.

Jay: Suppose you were in a situation similar to that the Soviet Union faced right after WWII. There was the threat of nuclear attack by the US, but the supply of bombs the US had was small, and you had clear superiority in conventional weapons.

Would you have pursued developing an atomic bomb of your own to counter the American threat...or would you have conceded the US a permanent nuclear superiority?

25589. Indiana Jones - 8/1/2001 10:40:25 AM

Addendum: Knowing that by attempting to develop atomic weapons of your own, you increased the risk of a US preemptive strike.

25590. JayAckroyd - 8/1/2001 10:42:34 AM

. It changes the equation in what has been, to date, a very effective method of deterring nuclear exchanges."

How so? It can't work, as you say. Would not the forces that are concerned about NMD be laughing with delight at the folly of the expenditure. Surely, if you know it is a waste of time, so too China and the Soviets.

Oddly enough, there are people who think that did happen. Initially the Soviets were in quaking terror of our scientific prowess, but Gorby eventually came to believe it was a chimera.

I think the Chinese fear the technological development of effect theatre weapons, to be deployed in defense of Taiwan and Japan. They'd rather stop all r&d in this area.

If the proponents were saying stuff like, let's get a theatre solution working, and then move from there, incrementally, I'd be more persuaded that this is for real.

25591. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 10:44:29 AM


"1. You've already refused to assess the risk of this scenario. Creating scary and entirely unrealistic scenarios isn't a fair form of discussion."

So says the Global Warming Fairy.

It's so comical. Tens of billions to fend off a threat not proven to exist; not a dime to protect against a proven threat, using technology now proven to work. (Oh! Wait! It wasn't "battlefield" conditions! It was... it was... daylight! Yeah, that's it! Daylight!)

By the way: if you don't think a nuclear strike is a proven threat, I suggest you search the web for pages on "Hiroshima" and "Nagasaki."

25592. JayAckroyd - 8/1/2001 10:45:14 AM

This is nonsensical. NMD is designed to do soemthing after the missile has been launched. If it makes you cheery to bomb the missile site after the missile has been launched, feel free, but doing something about the missile while it is en route seems a little more productive.

I don't follow this at all. You announce that ICBM sites are construed to be a threat against the US, and they will be taken out during construction. Best to coordinate this with the Russians and to engage in some non-prolif policies, like the test ban and a reduction in forces.

25593. glendajean - 8/1/2001 10:46:50 AM

Bush is hurting in the latest Zogby poll.

For the first time in his presidency, George W. Bush receives a net negative job performance rating from U.S. likely voters, a new Zogby America poll reveals.

The poll, conducted of 1006 likely voters nationwide between July 26-29, shows voters giving Bush a 47% positive, 51% negative job performance rating. In June, voters gave Bush a 51% positive, 48% negative job performance rating. The poll has a margin of sampling error of +/- 3.2%.

25594. JayAckroyd - 8/1/2001 10:46:52 AM

INdy--


I'll take that bet. What are the stakes?

25595. rubberducky - 8/1/2001 10:49:06 AM

Jay

you should link your Message # 25563 into the 'topics of interest' section so people can follow the conversation.

25596. glendajean - 8/1/2001 10:49:22 AM

From today's NY Times:

G.O.P. Tries to Counter Lack of Support Among Women

Republicans inside and outside the White House are focusing anew on the party's disadvantage among women in the electorate, a problem that has persisted — and by some recent measures worsened — through the beginning of the Bush administration.

25597. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 10:50:00 AM


"You announce that ICBM sites are construed to be a threat against the US, and they will be taken out during construction."

Ah. I see. It's all so simple. We'll just nuke (you need nukes to get at deep silos; bombs won't do it) anyone who pisses us off.

Gee. Why didn't I think of that?

Best to coordinate this with the Russians and to engage in some non-prolif policies,

Hahahahahahahahaahhahaaahaaa. Jesus Christ, this gets more comical by the moment. Just coordinate an attack on what is likely a former Soviet Client State with the Russians. "Coordinate it." "Just coordinate it." And then.... engage in some "non-prolif policies."

Oh. Gee. I thought we were doing that NOW, but that it wasn't working (as is predictable... you can't stop the advance of technology).

But Jay always has the glib, jackass fairy rejoinder ready. "Oh, we'll just engage in some non-prolif policies." Oh. Very oh, baby.

25598. Indiana Jones - 8/1/2001 10:50:11 AM

Which bet, Jay? 50-50 of an attempted use of an offensive nuclear weapon in the next decade?

Sort of a grim thing to be wagering on, and I'd have to hope you win. But in all seriousness, I think it's as likely as not.

25599. Francis Urquhart - 8/1/2001 10:51:30 AM

Jay

"1. You've already refused to assess the risk of this scenario. Creating scary and entirely unrealistic scenarios isn't a fair form of discussion."

I'm trying to be polite, but you've premised your argument on the need to have a definite percentage of risk within a mere 10 years. Any fair assessment would determine that if those are preconditions for you to approve a defense policy (i.e., if risk need be assessed to near-certainty and policy need only outlook a decade), you have created a ready-made policy of misguided timidity based on a fool's need for assurance.

"2. All the missile defense program does is stop this scenario. Now don't mistake this for a concession that this is a real scenario. I make two claims: a) alternative delivery mechanisms are more likely than missile launches, with no NMD. b) deploying an effective NMD doesn't protect Boston. It just changes the decision matrix for a bad guy. And there are plenty of alternatives. (I claim those risks are also overstated. More civilians have been killed by military accidents (KAL 007, italian gondola riders, the iranian plane we shot down) than by Bin Laden type terrorist attacks."

Again, you have one bad guy in your analysis. But, Jay, they come in all shapes and sizes under all styles and scenarios with various and sundry quirks, abilities, motives and equipment. But because your 2001 bad guy - constructed primarily to argue against NMD - can easily overcome the technology as it exists NOW, the entire proposal is useless.

25600. Francis Urquhart - 8/1/2001 10:51:40 AM

"3. The scenario you outline would be ultimately catastrophic. We would have to launch in response. So the sieve like nature of any incompletely effective NMD makes multiple launches more likely. Getting even one missile out of five through will require a US nuclear response. Moreover, please note that an 80% effective system against five missiles is exactly equivalent to no system against one. In either case, we launch. So where's the marginal benefit."

The response if the NMD knocking down the missile. The next response is retaliation, which will occur whether there is an NMD or not (under your theory, nuclear holocaust occurs only if 4 of the 5 missiles make it, not 5 of 5). If your new hurdle is that NMD is supposed to prevent all nuclear war, you've just stumbled from muddled and inconsistent to borderline dishonest.

"4. Prememptive strikes are cheaper and more effective, especially if accompanied by other actions to reduce prolif, such as reducing US and Russian arsenals. BTW, above someone talked about hitting warhead production facilities, and how that can't happen till they've solved the warhead construction problem. That's not solving the problem NMD solves. The way to solve that problem is to hit missile installations."

And now we come full circle, where a preemptive first strike is bandied about as an ALTERNATIVE to NMD, which is a system that could prevent a rogue missile.

25601. JayAckroyd - 8/1/2001 10:53:11 AM

"In that context you can make a case for esoteric R&D into the to be found sf stuff, but no case for deployment."

This is Alice in Wonderland stuff. Who studies something without any hope of practical application?


We do it all the time. Where do you think the stealth technologies came from? My claim is that we are clearly way ahead of ourselves on the more esoteric systems, which was precisely the result of the first crack at this.

This is overly simplistic, form-fitted to your prejudices. If the threat is real NOW, it must be assessed. As for future threats, you seem to think that R&D defense policy need only look 10 years into the future.

1. You refuse to assess.
2. No, I think defense departments need to examine short medium and long term threatt Stuff more than ten years out is hard to predict,though. IAC, the administration is talking about deployment in the next two or three years.
3. You still have to do cost benefit analysis. And when you are talking 100 billion dollars to stop a low probability threat for which there are substitutes, you're spending money like a drunken LBJer. We're talking about Korea and Iraq here.

25602. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 10:53:39 AM



Giggle.

Jay, why would a country aggressively pursuing a nuclear weapon sign a test ban treaty? Or, if they signed it for shits and giggles, why would they abide by it?

Are you a fucking retard, or are you just doing a comedy bit of some sort?

25603. Francis Urquhart - 8/1/2001 10:56:16 AM

Jay

"You still have to do cost benefit analysis. And when you are talking 100 billion dollars to stop a low probability threat for which there are substitutes, you're spending money like a drunken LBJer."

What's 100 billion dollars for Fenway Park? Nothing.

But, as I said two days ago, when the contortions end, it just comes down to butter, not guns.

25604. Cellar Door - 8/1/2001 10:56:37 AM

"Jay, why would a country aggressively pursuing a nuclear weapon sign a test ban treaty?"

IT'S CALLED "PUBLIC RELATIONS," MORON!!!!

25605. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 10:57:22 AM


I believe the threat of war could be ended if we could just get every child in the world to hold hands and sing a happy song.

That, and "non prolif policies," such as test ban treaties.

25606. Cellar Door - 8/1/2001 10:58:31 AM

I think the threat of war oculd be ended if freaks like you got fucked on a regular basis.

25607. JayAckroyd - 8/1/2001 11:00:50 AM

"1. You've already refused to assess the risk of this scenario. Creating scary and entirely unrealistic scenarios isn't a fair form of discussion."

I'm trying to be polite, but you've premised your argument on the need to have a definite percentage of risk within a mere 10 years. Any fair assessment would determine that if those are preconditions for you to approve a defense policy (i.e., if risk need be assessed to near-certainty and policy need only outlook a decade), you have created a ready-made policy of misguided timidity based on a fool's need for assurance.

I'm not talking anything like near certainty. There are three issues I'm driving at. 1) The actual risk is low, so low that NMDer won't state them. 2) The risk of a non missile attack is greater than the risk of a missile attack, and the effect of a successful NMD is to increase the already riskier scenario. 3) The delta to the risk of attack by deployment of an effective NMD is very close to zero.

I grant you that deployment of a really effective system requires a longer time frame than ten years--much longer in my opinion. That's why I find a position of increased R&D on the strategic side, and intensive research on the tactical side a plausible route. But the administration is talking nonsense.

25608. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 11:03:51 AM


I think we just need some non-prolif policies.

Incidentally, over the next twenty years, I estimate the chance of a nuclear attack (not necessarily against the US) at around 10-15%.

Israel is also a big target. It would be nice to prevent missiles from hitting Israel.

But then, Jay Ackroyd assures me it is impossible that anyone would shoot missiles at Israel, despite the fact that someone did just ten years ago.

25609. JayAckroyd - 8/1/2001 11:04:03 AM

Again, you have one bad guy in your analysis. But, Jay, they come in all shapes and sizes under all styles and scenarios with various and sundry quirks, abilities, motives and equipment. But because your 2001 bad guy - constructed primarily to argue against NMD - can easily overcome the technology as it exists NOW, the entire proposal is useless.

Again, I think is your problem, not mine. You're gonna take a whole boatload of money and pour it into one threat scenario. It's not unlike the B-1 and B-2 bombers,which were expressly designed to penetrate Soviet air space. The NMD is a narrowly focused defense system with a very high price tag.


25610. Indiana Jones - 8/1/2001 11:05:28 AM

Nukefix

This program calculates the probability of nuclear weapons use just by doing the number-crunching for you. It relies on the maxim "garbage in, garbage out," of course, but for those who like to have a mathematical basis for their assumptions, it's interesting.

25611. JayAckroyd - 8/1/2001 11:06:56 AM

The response if the NMD knocking down the missile. The next response is retaliation, which will occur whether there is an NMD or not (under your theory, nuclear holocaust occurs only if 4 of the 5 missiles make it, not 5 of 5). If your new hurdle is that NMD is supposed to prevent all nuclear war, you've just stumbled from muddled and inconsistent to borderline dishonest.

First, that was how NMD was sold to the nation, but leave that aside.

But my perfectly consistent point is that an incompletely effective NMD is a very small improvement over no NMD at all. And noone, as you note, argues that we can construct a completely effective NMD.

25612. Francis Urquhart - 8/1/2001 11:07:12 AM

Jay

"I'm not talking anything like near certainty. There are three issues I'm driving at. 1) The actual risk is low, so low that NMDer won't state them."

I've addressed this. Your requirement for an assessment of risk is goofy. I've conceded the risk is low from the outset. To the extent I'm an NMDer, I would think we can drop this issue.

"2) The risk of a non missile attack is greater than the risk of a missile attack, and the effect of a successful NMD is to increase the already riskier scenario."

This is irrelevant, unless you can argue that NMD development DETRACTS from prevention of a non-missile neclear attack. Otherwise, it is akin to saying "Because of the World Trade Center bombing, NMD is unecessary."

"3) The delta to the risk of attack by deployment of an effective NMD is very close to zero."

I don't understand 3). Please restate.

25613. JayAckroyd - 8/1/2001 11:09:07 AM

And now we come full circle, where a preemptive first strike is bandied about as an ALTERNATIVE to NMD, which is a system that could prevent a rogue missile.

I'm sorry. I was not clear. I was thinking in terms of a conventional strike, as with the Israelis in the 70s against the Syrian(?) breeder plant.

25614. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 11:10:42 AM



Mmmmmmmm... fifteen years ago fairies like Jay Ackroyd and Carl Sagan assured us that the chances of a nuclear attack were quite high (50-100%). Of course, back then, they claimed such high probabilities in order to goad us into a nuclear freeze.

Now, of course, there's a new threat (NMD-- scary!), so they just completely reverse the old math. Now the chance of a nuclear attack approaches zero.

odd. The chance of a nuclear war was very high when only five countries had nukes, but now that just about every middle east country is going to have nukes, the chances of a single nuclear attack has plunged to ZERO.

You might start to think that sissies like Jay Ackroyd concoct whatever spurious argument comes to mind simply to argue against ANY new weapon (or, in this case, defense system). But I'm sure that's not the case.

And I'm sure we just need to coordinate some first strikes on former Soviet client states with Russia, and then we need some "non-prolif policies."

That should do it.

25615. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 11:10:46 AM



Mmmmmmmm... fifteen years ago fairies like Jay Ackroyd and Carl Sagan assured us that the chances of a nuclear attack were quite high (50-100%). Of course, back then, they claimed such high probabilities in order to goad us into a nuclear freeze.

Now, of course, there's a new threat (NMD-- scary!), so they just completely reverse the old math. Now the chance of a nuclear attack approaches zero.

odd. The chance of a nuclear war was very high when only five countries had nukes, but now that just about every middle east country is going to have nukes, the chances of a single nuclear attack has plunged to ZERO.

You might start to think that sissies like Jay Ackroyd concoct whatever spurious argument comes to mind simply to argue against ANY new weapon (or, in this case, defense system). But I'm sure that's not the case.

And I'm sure we just need to coordinate some first strikes on former Soviet client states with Russia, and then we need some "non-prolif policies."

That should do it.

25616. Wombat - 8/1/2001 11:10:50 AM

The administration is proposing to deploy in the next few years a system that is essentially untested against a speculative threat. It is back-assward, and speaks more of faith in the unknown than anything else.

Anyone proposing to do something similar in any other area would reap the well-deserved scorn of NMD's most ardent proponents on this thread.

25617. JayAckroyd - 8/1/2001 11:13:29 AM

"3) The delta to the risk of attack by deployment of an effective NMD is very close to zero."

I don't understand 3). Please restate.

In my view the missile as delivery mechanism is the least likely scenario. Those missile-less nations are unaffected by the NMD deployment. Those that can acquire missile technology, in the event that it can reach some level of effeciveness, will join those nations who use other methods. So if there is currently a 1 percent risk of a launch by 2006 and a 3 percent risk of a tanker/suitcase bomb (both are numbers that I think are very high, but if we're not talking about numbers like this, we're completely wasting our time), then preNMD the risk is some like 25-1. My claim is that post NMD, the odds are still gonna be 25-1.

25618. Francis Urquhart - 8/1/2001 11:15:05 AM

Jay

In essence, you malign NMD because it wzs sold as a Cold War all-encompassing shield, and now, it has been transfigured into a defese system applicable to other, more timely threats.

"And noone, as you note, argues that we can construct a completely effective NMD."

No one has ever argued that we can construct a completely effective defense system of any type. An M-1 jams, Jay. Again, you set such high hurdles, thus making your judgments seem all the more reasonable to you.

I agree. If the standard for defense policy/R&D is a system that can pinpoint risk to the nth degree, with a perfect assessment of risks 10 years out 9and no more), and it must be 100% effective, no matter the global exigencies and shifts, then NMD is a colossal failure.

25619. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 11:15:13 AM


Yes, Wombat, I'm sure there won't be more tests en route to deployment.

You guys are having trouble with the fact that it worked. You had your religious conviction (it can't work! It's impossible), and mere facts are having a tough time replacing that dogma.

You won't say "It can't work, it's impossible!" anymore; but you simply adjust the formulation slightly to get "the system is essentially untested."

"essentially untested" = tested, apparently

25620. Indiana Jones - 8/1/2001 11:16:46 AM

My estimate of the probability of an attempted offensive use is based on who has the bomb now, who is likely to get it in the next 10 years, and who is likely to get it in the next 20 years. I also assume that getting the bomb will not necessarily change the behavior of those developing it (in the sense of making them suddenly realize the "responsibility" that comes with such technology).

Others can always hope that I'm a pessimist. India and Pakistan--so far, at least--may demonstrate that to be the case.

25621. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 11:18:53 AM


"it (in the sense of making them suddenly realize the "responsibility" that comes with such technology). "

mmm-hmmm. Part of the problem is that Jay Ackroyd and Wombat associate nukes with "mature" countries (US, USSR, Britain, etc.), and they can't help but subconsciously imagine that having nukes is inherently "maturing."

Unconsciously, they believe that when Saddam Hussein gets the bomb, he will turn into Tony Blair and Iraq into the United Kingdom.

25622. JayAckroyd - 8/1/2001 11:19:24 AM

But, as I said two days ago, when the contortions end, it just comes down to butter, not guns.

Not at all. It's about effective distribution of defense resources. For example, the development of theatre nukes like the neutron bomb was a good idea. It deterred the Soviet invasion directly, without requiring troop commitments and without having to decide to go launch in response to a tank deployment.

DoD hates this initiative, you know. They expect to see money sucked out of existing programs if NMD is fully funded. And they're right. They hated it first time round as well.

Hold the defense budget constant. Or cut the whole budget by 10 percent. This is still a bad idea, with a terrible benefit cost ratio--even if it worked. And it's not gonna work. Please don't forget we have a facility for missiles to shoot down missiles. We shut it down a few months after opening it.

25623. Wombat - 8/1/2001 11:19:33 AM

Jay:

It was an Iraqi reactor.

25624. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 11:21:05 AM


"Please don't forget we have a facility for missiles to shoot down missiles. We shut it down a few months after opening it."

Uhhhhhh... This was in the 1970's.

Incidentally, Russia still maintains its missile defense system around Moscow.

25625. JayAckroyd - 8/1/2001 11:22:00 AM

In essence, you malign NMD because it wzs sold as a Cold War all-encompassing shield, and now, it has been transfigured into a defese system applicable to other, more timely threats.

I did make that particular malignment. The thing was sold dishonestly.

But that is a distinct note from my claim that it is an inefficient use of defense resources, even if it works.

Is the "delta is near zero" argument clear now?

25626. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 11:24:05 AM


Jay,

Since deterrence works so wonderfully, why engage in non-prolif policies at all?

In fact, you extol the benefits of MAD/UAD to such a degree I wonder why we don't simply give North Korea and Iraq nuclear missiles so that we can then reap the benefits of a completely peaceful world which flow, inexorably and inevitably, from such technology.

25627. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 11:28:48 AM


After all, once NK and Iraq have the bomb, they will be "deterred." they're not deterred NOW, but strangely (you assure me) they WILL be deterred once they have the bomb.

I would imagine the situation were 100% the opposite... but you tell me countries WITHOUT nukes aren't deterred, while countries WITH nukes are.

And I still say we need some good non-prolif policies.

25628. Francis Urquhart - 8/1/2001 11:30:44 AM

Jay, Wombat

The debate is wound down, at least for me.
If a missile is launched by a terrorist nation (one of the many clamoring for the technology) , and we don't have the technology to knock it down because we were so cocksure we didn't need it, the result is less acceptable to me than having the technology and never having to use it. I'll suffer your harumphs and "told you sos", comforted in the fact that we never had to use nuclear weapons after Japan.

That is really where we are at. I don't presume to know the threat, ten years out or further, because I'm not an asshole or a fortuneller. I expect the threat is low. But I assume the threat is or will be real, because that is the most valuable part of realpolitik.

I cannot go the way of the clerk. I cannot stymie research and development (and defensive research at that) because you presume scenarios that coincidentally make NMD a waste of money and effort in every scenario. It is uncanny.

25629. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 11:32:38 AM


FU,

BTW, I sent an email to your "Artist formerly known as Leo Sayer" account.

If I don't get a response posthaste, I just don't know what I'll do.

25630. Francis Urquhart - 8/1/2001 11:33:21 AM

Ace

I'm on it. You make me feel like dancing.

25631. Wombat - 8/1/2001 11:36:07 AM

Now the right, after pooh-poohing the the Nuclear Freeze/Nuclear Winter crowd's totally spurious assessments of the risk of a nuclear exchange have come up with an equally spurious assessment of the risk of nuclear war.

Possession of nuclear weapons does make states take a different view of conflict. If India and Pakistan can develop a framework of notification, deployment, and nonproliferation like that of the US and the Soviet Union, then welcome to the club. I am skeptical that they can, but more encouraged now than I was initially, at least in the first two areas. Incidentally, both states still have a ways to go before they can deploy their systems (assuming they can afford them).

Iraq's past record is an indicator of how trustworthy they are. It is imperative that they be prevented from maufacturing or otherwise obtaining nukes. But we all know that.

25632. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 11:38:35 AM


And when they get nukes, we'll just have to hope for the best.

Let a smile be our nuclear umbrella.

25633. Francis Urquhart - 8/1/2001 11:45:38 AM

BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE: A BRIEF HISTORY

"As the structure of the NMD program was evolving, so was the perception of the threat. The November 1995 national intelligence estimate (NIE) of the missile threat to the U.S. homeland concluded that such a threat was not likely to appear over the next fifteen years. After Republican law makers charged that this NIE had been unduly influenced by politics, an independent commission was established under former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield to evaluate the threat missiles posed to America. In its 15 July 1998 report, the Rumsfeld Commission concluded that "concerted efforts by a number of overtly or potentially hostile nations to acquire ballistic missiles with biological or nuclear payloads pose a growing threat to the United States, its deployed forces and its friends and allies." While these systems would not match those of the U.S. for accuracy and reliability, they would allow the nations that developed them "to inflict major destruction on the U.S. within about five years of a decision to acquire such a capability (10 years in the case of Iraq)." Almost as if cued by the Rumsfeld report, the Iranians flight tested their medium-ranged Shahab-3 missile on 21 July. This was follow by a North Korean test of its Taepo Dong-1 missile on 31 August. This second test was especially troubling, for the North Koreans demonstrated important capabilities associated with ICBMs, including staging and the use of a third stage on the missile."

25634. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 11:46:21 AM


"Bush is hurting in the latest Zogby poll.

For the first time in his presidency, George W. Bush receives a net negative job performance rating from U.S. likely voters, a new Zogby America poll reveals.

The poll, conducted of 1006 likely voters nationwide between July 26-29, shows voters giving Bush a 47% positive, 51% negative job performance rating. In June, voters gave Bush a 51% positive, 48% negative job performance rating. The poll has a margin of sampling error of +/- 3.2%. "

This is actually pretty misleading.

One: The change is within the MOE.

Two: Zogby doesn't ask the typical approve/disapprove question. He asks, how would you rate Bush-- Excellent, Good, Fair, or Poor? See-- "Fair." Fair garners 34% of responses. It's not quite the same question as the typical approve/strongly approve/disapprove/ strongly disapprove.

I mean, I rate Bush as "fair" and I like him.

Meanwhile, every other poll shows Bush bouncing back to 57% approval, after all the liberal nonsense about eroding popularity.

25635. Francis Urquhart - 8/1/2001 11:48:00 AM

Poll advice.

Worry when you're under 40 and crow when you are over 60.

All the rest is schmutz.

25636. Wombat - 8/1/2001 11:48:14 AM

Ace:

I prefer research, deterrence, preemption, and the passage of time to the umbrella that the Bush admininistration is proposing. It opens sometimes and may keep the rain out, if there is not too much of it, and it falls on the right part of the umbrella.

25637. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 11:49:51 AM


Geeze, I wish we still had President Clinton with his 182 IQ -- precisely double Bush's 91 IQ.

Precisely.

Estimated to within five points of accuracy.

25638. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 11:51:34 AM


It seems the choice is clear. We can either take practical measures to prevent nuclear attack, or we can depend on the kindness of stranges.

Your choice-- NMD or BDBD (Blache DuBois Defense. It means "White Woods," you know).

25639. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 11:53:09 AM


"It opens sometimes and may keep the rain out, if there is not too much of it, and it falls on the right part of the umbrella."

Yes, and I prefer having no batter at the plate than one who hits .333.

It's all so obvious. Either you hit 1.000 like a fucking man or you don't swing at all.

Managers should just forfeit every game rather than fuck around with this .295 or .320 nonsense.

25640. greystoke - 8/1/2001 11:53:28 AM

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


EWING, N.J. (AP) -- A former campaign volunteer walked up to Trenton Mayor Douglas H. Palmer at a funeral and punched him in the face, police said.

Ronald Turner, 50, of Trenton, was immediately arrested by a police officer who witnessed the incident at the funeral in Ewing on Tuesday.

Turner, who was charged with disorderly conduct, had served as a volunteer on three of Palmer's mayoral campaigns.

Palmer was treated for a sore jaw.

Turner could not be reached for comment.

25641. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 11:54:28 AM

That belongs in your pissant thread, you little monkeyfucking whore.

25642. Indiana Jones - 8/1/2001 11:55:38 AM

I didn't know that about the Zogby poll. It is strange to equate "Fair" with negative.

Results from grade inflation. "Average" is negative too, you know.

25643. Wombat - 8/1/2001 11:57:09 AM

In terms of nukes, a defence system has to hit much better than .333. What failure rate is acceptable to you?

To continue your baseball analogy, the Bush administration is sending a class A ballplayer to face Mariano Rivera.

25644. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 11:59:32 AM


The approve/strong approve/disapprove/strong disapprove FORCES respondants to pick a negative or positive category. It denies them the option of picking the "Eh, I dunno, okay I guess" answer, which a lot of them want to do.

But Zogby allows them this "Eh, I dunno, okay I guess" option. But then he claims it's a "negative" response.

It's more like a "Need more information/no opinion" response.

25645. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 12:02:42 PM


"In terms of nukes, a defence system has to hit much better than .333."


Why?

Are you claiming there's no difference between two and three cities being nuked?

This is the problem with you people. You simply refuse to contemplate ugly scenarios. The very fact that they're ugly, to you, means they're impossible. QED.


"What failure rate is acceptable to you? "

Oh, 90% or more, given that I am capable of distinguishing between ten nukes hitting us and nine nukes hitting us, which you apparently are not. To you, it's all the same. What's a few million extra deaths between friends?

But let me ask you: What SUCCESS rate do you require? Giggle. 100%, right? No, wait-- athletes give 110% all the time, so why shouldn't NMD?

NMD with less than a one hundred and TEN percent success rate is entirely ineffective, right?

25646. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 12:04:04 PM


TV BIG: I WAS ‘CRACK' SCREENWRITER

By MICHAEL STARR
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SOBER:
Aaron Sorkin (left), with lawyer Steve Sitkoff, tells TV Guide he's been drug-free since his April bust.
- Associated Press

August 1, 2001 -- Troubled "West Wing" honcho Aaron Sorkin, nabbed on drug charges in April, says he was often high on crack when he wrote the 1995 movie "The American President."
"I was smoking crack cocaine every day" while writing the movie, Sorkin tells TV Guide in an interview appearing in the magazine's upcoming issue.

Sorkin says that while living at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles, he would write a few pages of the movie a day, while he was sober - then put the Do Not Disturb sign on his door and get high on crack.

"That is why it took me three years to write the script," he says.


But boy oh boy, was it worth the wait!!!

25647. greystoke - 8/1/2001 12:06:12 PM

"That belongs in your pissant thread, you little monkeyfucking whore."

Its very gratifying to post something that elicits a thoughtful response. I think I'll hang out in this thread more often.




PS I'm not little.

25648. AceofSpades - 8/1/2001 12:09:29 PM


You little pussy, I was joking. If I meant to really insult you, you'd know it.

Homo.

25649. greystoke - 8/1/2001 12:12:10 PM

No offense taken. I'm just glad you don't love me like Francis does.

You know, the "Age of Urquhart" and all.

25650. Wombat - 8/1/2001 12:14:42 PM

Giggle, yourself. Let me know when we deploy a system that has a 90% success rate (I'll settle for operational tests). I'll give you 10 years to do it.

If a "rogue" state is unable to build an deploy nuclear missiles in the first place, then there is no threat at all.

25651. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 1:13:42 PM


WashingtonPost/ABC poll: Bush personal approval rating 63%; Bush job approval rating 59%

25652. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 1:15:24 PM


Hmmmm. Out-of-the-Closet Urquhart said "worry when you get to 40%, crow when you get to 60%."

Are we close to crowing?

Jeepers. Can you imagine the numbers when we come out of this slump (which, hopefully, we'll do in the next couple of quarters)?

25653. Indiana Jones - 8/2/2001 1:25:49 PM

Question for the anti-NMD folks:

Suppose a patriotic American genius discovered a cheap and effective way to implement NMD. As president, would you then support it?

The reason I ask is that in discussing this issue I sometimes get the feeling that there are other reasons besides those on the table that motivate some people against NMD. In particular, I think they like MAD and don't want to see it go away.

25654. Francis Urquhart - 8/2/2001 1:26:55 PM

Ace

No. 59% is 52% and vice-versa. It is all schmutz, and you don't want to be jexsteresque, running around like aretard when it is at 52% and becoming oddly silent when it is at 59%.

All

This is a decent review of books on the Election.

Review of Election 2000 Books

25655. CalGal - 8/2/2001 1:27:38 PM

Yes, but the approval is definitely qualified in ways that could possibly turn against him. Also, the Dems have a higher approval rating (60%) than Bush (59) and the Republicans (51).

It's quite possible that the public doesn't object to the rich, oil companies, and large corporations having influence over Bush (64-72%) and that Bush doesn't care about "ordinary people" becaues they are waiting and seeing. Or it could be that he will consistently get decent job approval ratings from people who believe he doesn't give a damn about them and don't share his priorities.

In either case, I don't think high approval ratings will help him get his agenda through any easier, nor will it help him get re-elected so long as those negatives persist.

25656. CalGal - 8/2/2001 1:28:37 PM

I read that Weekly Standard review last week; it was good. I actually have Greenfield's book; bought it on impulse. It reads quick.

25657. Francis Urquhart - 8/2/2001 1:29:58 PM

I've heard Dershowitz, Sammon and Bugliosi, and they seem mental. I'm not sure I can read any more on the election, but were I to choose a book, I'd read Greenfield, who is not mental.

25658. thoughtful - 8/2/2001 1:31:38 PM

Did anyone else catch the irony in today's top story about the health care bill? The TV stations were hailing Bush's success with completing successful negotiations with Charlie Norwood. Hello. Norwood is a Republican....normally you complete successful negotiations with the opposing party.

25659. CalGal - 8/2/2001 1:32:43 PM

Greenfield's book was much chattier; it also had a nice bit of behind the scenes.

I've been surprised by the reviews of Dershowitz' work. They were more positive on the basic meat of his gripe than I would have thought.

25660. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 1:41:53 PM


Cal,

You are forever giving this the "Oh, but..." nonsense in the polling data. You didn't point out Bill Clinton's various weaknesses in the polls; you only believed his "Big Number," the One Number, the job approval rating.

What, praytell, has changed since then?

25661. Cellar Door - 8/2/2001 1:47:04 PM

Ithink everyone's forgetting the enormous gulf that exists between political junkies like us and ordinary people. Poll numbers are treated like holy writ in the "mainstream" media. What they invariably indicate to me is thatoverwhelming numbers of prople couldn't care less about ny of this. I'm sure their numbers have swelled in recent years as this relentless ideological warfare has driven more and more people away from politics altogether.

25662. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 1:48:11 PM


Long story short: A job approval rating is of course composed of both positive and negative views, of both strengths and weaknesses. But it is, in the end, the Final Number, the number we get to after adding up all the plusses and subtracting all the negatives.

As usual, you claim that only the negative sub-calculations are relevant. You've never claimed this before Bush.

It's a bit like claiming that the country is in a formal recession because Louisianna is experiencing negative growth. Well, that may very well be, but the country as a whole -- taking into account all the states like La which experience worse-than-average growth, and all the states which experience better-than-expected growth -- is not experiencing negative growth, but rather a very small positive growth.

And yet your analysis of Bush's poll numbers always seems to proceed from taking his *worst* areas while ignoring his overall numbers.

Again, what has caused this sudden, and rather odd, change in your method of poll analysis?

25663. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 2:00:03 PM



This is the Janny-Jon school of poll analysis, by the way. So you're in good company.

The Janny-Jon school says: Republican Presidents' "real" approval rating is their lowest rating in any category or on any issue; Democratic Presidents' "real" approval rating is either their actual approval rating or their highest rating on a specific issue, whichever is higher.

None of this makes much sense, except to ludicrous blinkered partisans. But just know you're in good company.

25664. CalGal - 8/2/2001 2:14:32 PM

Ace,

It depends on what the ratings are used to support. In Clinton's case, the only time I ever mentioned job approval ratings was when I was discussing why it was foolish to think the people would approve of the impeachment efforts, foolish to think Clinton should resign, and so on. Also, I would certainly have mentioned it if the people didn't think he shared their priorities and cared about them--but in fact, they did think so. There was no disconnect.

Here you are "crowing" over Bush's ratings--but what contention are you supporting? If you wish to assert that the numbers prove that Bush isn't suffering because of Florida in the election, you are right. The approval numbers are sufficient.

But I figured you had something bigger in mind, although I confess that was only an assumption. So what premise do you think the high approval ratings support? That the people share his priorities? But they don't. That the people have been won over by his agenda? They haven't. That they like his party? They don't. That his job approval ratings will make it easier for him to be an effective leader and use his popularity as a weapon? But the rest of the numbers demonstrate exactly the opposite.

I don't think any president who wants to be re-elected could be thrilled with polls consistently saying that the people think he doesn't care about them, don't share his priorities, thinks the opposition cares more about them and is more bipartisan, and aren't all that thrilled with what he has accomplished.

25665. CalGal - 8/2/2001 2:19:14 PM

It goes without saying that you (Ace) are substituting some other "liberal" for me, obviously. The only time I ever mentioned Clinton's job approval ratings was in response to the impeachment issue, or to support my position that quite often people say they want moral behavior, but really want someone who does a good job at accomplishing tasks they value.

When Bush achieves that, he'll be in good shape. Until then, the disconnect is far more important to him than his popularity polls, and I'm reasonably sure he'd agree with me.

25666. zojak quafeth - 8/2/2001 2:20:17 PM

Indy,

many posts ago, you asked about the size of current nukes in the context of the likelihood of a suitcase or tanker attack. (I didn't record post number.)

There are two good, somewhat technical books by Richard Rhodes on the history of the A-Bomb and the H-bomb. "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" and "Dark Sun."

I remember reading that the operational portion of the fat man fusion bomb we dropped was a sphere with a 5 foot diameter.

The working portion of a U.S. fusion bomb today (that actually winds up in the business end of an ICBM, with a higher explosive power, btw), is about the size of a soccer ball.

The fat-man was, by today's standards a technological dinosaur. It's basically a ball of plutonium surrounded by standard explosives. You set of the explosives to compress the plutonium. Once the plutonium compresses o critical mass the whole thing blows.

The hardest part about making it was getting the plutonium. The second hardest part was configuring the explosives around the plutonium to get it to compress to a smaller sphere.

Today there are readily available mathematical models and computers are sophisticated enough to make the second part relatively simple. So it's still getting the plutonium that's the tough part.

I would guess that we can assume that a nuke somehow smuggled into the U.S that could do damage equivalent to what we did in 1945 in Japan would be somewhere between a 1 to 5 feet in diameter.

25667. thoughtful - 8/2/2001 2:22:59 PM

Its very gratifying to post something that elicits a thoughtful response. I think I'll hang out in this thread more often.

Please, greystoke, that was nothing at all like a thoughtful™ response at all...ever.

25668. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 2:38:10 PM


"people say they want moral behavior, but really want someone who does a good job at accomplishing tasks they value"

What did Clinton accomplish? Which parts of his agenda were actually passed into law?

25669. JayAckroyd - 8/2/2001 2:38:20 PM

Indy says:

Suppose a patriotic American genius discovered a cheap and effective way to implement NMD. As president, would you then support it?

Sure. And I'd support the implementation of cold fusion as well.

Seriously, your question fits in the context of the first set arguments I posted--that even if it works, it doesn't make sense to deploy what has been proposed. Each of those arguments turn, as you note implicitly, on the expense required to make a small (if not zero) reduction in risk of warhead delivery. So obviously, I either have to answer yes, or withdraw those arguments, with one exception. The time period before deployment becomes very dicey. Since I don't think that we need fear an ICBM attack in general, I certainly can't claim to fear an ICBM attack before deployment. So wrt that argument as well, I'd say sure, deploy.

But I also note that there is a deep contradiction here for the NMD proponents. I don't fear a predeployment attack because I don't fear a missile attack in general. If you DO fear a missile attack in general, you should be greatly concerned about use 'em or lose 'em scenarios, especially wrt China. It's odd that the MORE effective the defense is, the more concerned you should be about use 'em or lose 'em scenarios.

Now my question. Would you distribute this cheap effective techonology to any nation who wanted it?

25670. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 2:40:19 PM


Jay,

Do you think the government should pay for catastrophic health insurance?

Say, a very expensive procedure with only a 20% of success?

Do you think HMO's should be compelled to pay for such procedures?

Assuming the answer is yes:

What, do you suppose, accounts for your willingness to pay for expensive measures with a 20% chance of success in one arena but not another?

25671. Indiana Jones - 8/2/2001 2:44:35 PM

zojak: Thanks for the info. I did find on the Web later that we have managed to shrink our nukes considerably since WWII: the source I found implied the smallest were 10s of kilograms, which would still make for a pretty heavy suitcase. Moreover, I think terrorists (i.e., those using this method of attack) are less likely to get their hands on a sophisticated nuke amd more likely to get a hold of some crude device that would also probably be larger.

The main problem, though, I have with this scenario as a probable is that those who possess multiple nukes generally have missiles. And those who somehow come into the possession of one I would think are going to be very careful about how they use it. Tankers are incredibly slow and someone trying to smuggle a nuke in by suitcase could very easily be apprehended. It's not like with drugs where you can tolerate a lot of interdiction because what gets through will command a higher price.

I'm not saying the tanker and suitcase scenarios are impossible--just that when you try to calculate for everything (including the number of nuclear weapons possessed by nations with missiles versus the number of nuclear weapons just floating around) the probabilities of a missile or airplane attack just seem much more likely to me.

25672. JayAckroyd - 8/2/2001 2:46:30 PM

FU Summarizes:

"we don't have the technology to knock it down because we were so cocksure we didn't need it, the result is less acceptable to me than having the technology and never having to use it. "

This summary is obviously not responsive to my claim that even if you deploy the technology, you don't lower the risk of warheads going off.

This summary also presumes limitless resources, with no trade-off between different defense requirements, and with no attempt to allocate of resources appropriate to levels of risk.

I've been reading some risk perception literature recently. One common theme is that people worry more about very dramatic stuff than is actually warranted by the level of risk. They fear airplane flights, but not car trips, for example. Plane crashes are dramatic (and dreadful--that's also part of the pattern).

I think that's part of what is going on here, in FU's response, and in the general popularity of NMD policy. Something horrible could happen. We have to DO SOMETHING. Regardless of expense. Regardless of effectiveness.

25673. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 2:49:46 PM


"We have to DO SOMETHING. Regardless of expense. Regardless of effectiveness."

Giggle.

For the children, perhaps, Jay?

25674. iiibbb - 8/2/2001 2:51:56 PM

I don't think terrorists/rogues could build a very sophisticated bomb. I would imagine it's more on the lines of a very dirty bomb with inefficient detonation. Wouldn't level a city, but it would kill a lot of people and dirty things up quite a bit.

25675. Indiana Jones - 8/2/2001 2:53:51 PM

Jay: Interesting that you mentioned cold fusion because that was in my mind as well. I used to have energy policy debates with someone who I eventually became convinced didn't want any solution that allowed us to keep our wasteful lifestyles. He really wanted us punished as much as he wanted to solve the energy crisis.

As far as NMD, I think some are afraid that a US invulnerability would lead to more American "arrogance," including perhaps a willingness on our part to employ nukes when we don't get our way.

Would you distribute this cheap effective techonology to any nation who wanted it?

Nope. I wouldn't distribute it at all if I thought that widespread knowledge could possibly lead to a reduction in its effectiveness. Otherwise, I would have to be convinced that its dissemination to any other nation was in the US national interest. If that sounds harsh, let me put it this way: the world wasn't at peace before nuclear weapons came into existence, either.

25676. CalGal - 8/2/2001 2:56:19 PM

What did Clinton accomplish? Which parts of his agenda were actually passed into law?


Well, quite a bit. But that's not relevant; we're talking about people's impression of him and how that matters to things like re-election, popularity, and support.

25677. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 3:00:03 PM


Well, quite a bit.

Such as what? I asked you WHAT was passed into law, not what, in your estimation, constitutes "quite a bit."

But that's not relevant

But of course not, darling. You assert that Clinton was "successful" at "accomplishing" tasks the people value, but you're unable to name any.

Let me guess: Americorps. Yeahp, America was clamboring for that.

25678. JayAckroyd - 8/2/2001 3:02:22 PM

As far as NMD, I think some are afraid that a US invulnerability would lead to more American "arrogance," including perhaps a willingness on our part to employ nukes when we don't get our way.

That may be. But that's not the case with me. It is true I would like to see the military substantially reduced in size, as with the rest of the government, and do object to this as a wasteful boondoggle.

On your unwillingness to distribute the shield, I think you're making an interesting mistake. Such a shield would remove incentives for prolif, if widely distributed. Pakistan doesn't need the bomb if it has the shield. The conventional threat in Europe from Soviet attack has vanished, so our need for first strike capability is gone. Unless, of course, you can describe a contemporary first strike scenario.

An unwillingness to distribute also dramatically ratchets up the use 'em or lose 'em risk.



25679. JayAckroyd - 8/2/2001 3:03:48 PM

And, Indy, doesn't an unwillingness to distribute indicate "a willingness on our part to employ nukes when we don't get our way." Else, why not distribute?

25680. Indiana Jones - 8/2/2001 3:05:07 PM

Jay: I would be willing to sign treaties with nations guaranteeing them an American defense against nuclear attack if they would agree to dismantle their own nuclear weapons programs.

25681. CalGal - 8/2/2001 3:06:36 PM

You assert that Clinton was "successful" at "accomplishing" tasks the people value, but you're unable to name any.


I said no such thing.

We're talking about popularity polls, remember? Actual accomplishments aren't at issue (for either side). What is at issue is what the numbers mean about what the people think and feel. Clinton's high popularity numbers came as a result of people who felt he cared about their priorities and that he was doing a good job in achieving them. His actual accomplishments mean nothing in comparison to that belief, if people can be assumed to vote in conjunction with their beliefs.

Likewise, Bush might be accomplishing a great deal, or he might be accomplishing nothing. He may in fact care passionately about the little people, and loathe oil companies. But this will do him no good if the people think he's doing a great job at pushing through agenda items that they don't care about.

So when you crowed about Bush's numbers, what did you think they meant?

25682. Indiana Jones - 8/2/2001 3:08:26 PM

Jay (25679): Partly I wouldn't distribute out of a fear that the technology could be countered. As far as our getting our way, I would personally not ever use nuclear weapons except in a case involving our national survival.

I would want to keep that prerogative, however, and certainly not forfeit it for those who came after me.

25683. Francis Urquhart - 8/2/2001 3:10:06 PM

Jay

It speaks volumes that you would equate catastrophe from an aggressive foreign entity using advanced technology sometime in our future with airplane crashes and car trips. Nuclear strikes, be they massive emanating from China or rogue and singular emanating from North Korea, are unlikely and dramatic. Yet, our entire defense posture is predicated on deterring the former, and our most recent defense policies - as urged by the last four Presidents -are wisely envisioning the latter. That both fact patterns are unlikely - just like plane crashes - does not militate against prevention of either.

You have laid out well the position of the arrogant clerk who sees 10 years out. In opposition, I have laid out the position of the wary spendthrift who sees much further.

Unless you deem further explication of my philosophy on NMD (you can rest assured, I need no more explanation of yours), I'm not sure we have much left to discuss. But in the interests of clarity, I'll gladly answer any specific questions you have.

25684. Indiana Jones - 8/2/2001 3:11:04 PM

BTW, I don't think any other nation of any stature in the world would develop such a technology and do better than the position I've stated above as far as the rest of the world goes.

25685. zojak quafeth - 8/2/2001 3:11:06 PM

OK, let's assume you're a mad man. You're Qaddaffi on his deathbed. You want your last great act to be the nuking of an American City. You've got 3 nukes that can be mounted on missile systems that can come within 2 miles of the center of your 3 target cities.

Scenario 1. There is a NMD system.
Scenario 2. There is no NMD system.

Does anyone seriously contend that under scenario 1, you'd just say, "shit, there goes that idea." I don't think so. I think you'd try to smuggle the nukes in by boat/truck/whatever. So what have you gained in defending against "rogue" nations with a NMD? I have no idea what the chances are of someone successfully smuggling at least one of 3 bombs into the country is. But it's gotta be fairly decent with the amount of traffic we have coming in each day.

Under Scenario 2, even if there is no NMD, aren't you better off driving your bomb in a truck next to your target rather than risking that your nuke lands a few miles away, even though a few miles away might be close enough?

So what has NMD bought you?

25686. Indiana Jones - 8/2/2001 3:14:40 PM

zojak: Certainly there are scenarios under which NMD will be of little benefit. But that doesn't counter the scenarios in which it would be. It's all cost-benefit analysis.

Hence the clerk versus the spendthrift.

25687. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 3:15:53 PM


"So when you crowed about Bush's numbers, what did you think they meant?"

I think they meant that 59% of America approves of his job performance, and 63% approves of him personally.

25688. Francis Urquhart - 8/2/2001 3:21:02 PM

zojak

Your hypothetical presumes that a truck bomb is more of a nuclear threat than a missile, today and down the line, a conclusion wholly contrary to that of the military establishment.

Regardless, as defense policy, do you

1) prepare for both eventualities.

OR

2) throw your hands up because darn it, those pesky terrorists/rogue states are going to figure it out one day anyway?

25689. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 3:23:24 PM



If the possiblity of a truck bomb means we should NOT guard against a missile attack, is it not necessarily true that the possibility of a missile attack means we should also NOT guard against a truck bomb?

25690. CalGal - 8/2/2001 3:24:20 PM

Ace,

Ah. Then my response would be, so what? But so long as you don't think it means he's got a better chance of pushing his agenda through or that it helps the Republicans in the next election, no big. I'm glad you're happy.

25691. zojak quafeth - 8/2/2001 3:26:08 PM

I don't disagree with that Indy, but it seems that I've been hearing that the "primary" purpose of NMD is not to deter Russia or China, but to deter rogue nations. I don't think rogue nations are necessarily deterrable.

25692. Francis Urquhart - 8/2/2001 3:31:09 PM

zojak

I agree. But I don't think deterrence is the backbone of NMD.

In fact, the hope is effectiveness. For example, Qaddafi would not be deterred from launching a missile because of NMD. Rather, we'd shoot it down if he - or some other nuthead - lets one loose.

So, to the extent deterrence is a factor in NMD, I think it is much like Tim McVeigh is now "deterred" from committing another terrorist act.

25693. Wombat - 8/2/2001 3:31:55 PM

Indy:

You don't mean nuclear fusion rather than cold fusion? I would love to see money poured into nuclear fusion research.

Your scenario re NMD raises an interesting issue. I am sure the Generalizer Bunny and his smarmy sidekick will hoot and holler, but I would not deploy it absent an actual, rather than a hypothetical threat. It would make the US safe from the threat of nuclear missiles, but would it protect US installations, allies, and interests around the world? It wouldn't protect against a nuke in a truck in Haifa, Bahrain, or Seoul, a scenario which is also unlikely, but perhaps more within the means of the terrorists that some seem to be living in fear of.

25694. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 3:31:59 PM


"But so long as you don't think it means he's got a better chance of pushing his agenda through"

He's got half of it through *already*, and the House just passed the other half. He will have more legislative victories in one year than your Hero had in 8.

What more are you expecting, Petunia?

25695. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 3:32:59 PM


I restate:

If the possiblity of a truck bomb means we should NOT guard against a missile attack, is it not necessarily true that the possibility of a missile attack means we should also NOT guard against a truck bomb?

25696. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 3:35:44 PM


Giggle. Bush already passed the cornerstone of his agenda -- the "massive, budget-busting, dangerous" tax cut -- but Petunia takes solace in the fact that his high approval rating won't aid him in getting his "agenda" passed.

Pssst: The tax cut WAS the agenda, Petunia. Giggle. You think we care about much else?

25697. Cellar Door - 8/2/2001 3:39:47 PM

Sure you do.You care about not getting laid.

25698. Francis Urquhart - 8/2/2001 3:40:11 PM

Ace is correct. The tax cut was pretty much the agenda. It has changed the dynamic on spending, taxes, and Social Security reform for the next twenty years.

The rest is pretty much catch as catch can.

25699. Cellar Door - 8/2/2001 3:42:09 PM

Twenty years?

We'll see.

25700. CalGal - 8/2/2001 3:43:50 PM

Well, good. So long as Bush doesn't want to accomplish anything else--and given that the polls Ace is happy about demonstrate the people aren't too pumped about what he has done--then he's in great shape.

I assumed, wrongly, that Ace was pushing the popularity polls as proof that Bush was doing well in a way that reflected positively on the Republican party and the future.

In any event, Bush seems to be good at making the Republican party look bad, using that same poll. At least that's always what Clinton was blamed for.

25701. Wombat - 8/2/2001 3:44:23 PM

It has changed the dynamic for the worse, as I am sure we will discover in much less than twenty years.

25702. CalGal - 8/2/2001 3:44:47 PM

It has changed the dynamic on spending, taxes, and Social Security reform for the next twenty years.


Oh, this is horseshit, though. For one thing, it can be undone at any time--especially given how little support there is for it.

25703. Indiana Jones - 8/2/2001 3:44:53 PM

zojak: IMO while the rogue nation scenario is partly the explanation for developing NMD, the reasons it is emphasized the most are political/diplomatic.

25704. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 3:45:03 PM


I restate again:

If the possiblity of a truck bomb means we should NOT guard against a missile attack, is it not necessarily true that the possibility of a missile attack means we should also NOT guard against a truck bomb?

25705. Francis Urquhart - 8/2/2001 3:46:07 PM

Wombat

That may be true, but the dynamic now runs pursuant to the cut. For better or worse.

25706. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 3:47:06 PM


"For one thing, it can be undone at any time--especially given how little support there is for it. "

Hee, hee, hee.

Uh-huh.

Yeahp.

That's why Democrats are trying to undo it. That's why they're making a big issue about it. Right?


Hee, hee. You really don't live in a zip code located on this plane of existance, do you?

25707. Indiana Jones - 8/2/2001 3:49:15 PM

Even if the tax cut is repealed at some point--or it expires of its own accord, which is what I understand will happen in 10 years without further action--it won't be "undone." Not unless they pass a retroactive tax increase.

Always a popular move.

25708. Wombat - 8/2/2001 3:49:29 PM

Generalizer Bunny:

We are already guarding against both. You don't need NMD to do that. You cannot buy nukes over the counter and hook 'em up to an Estes rocket, which is the impression that you give.

25709. JayAckroyd - 8/2/2001 3:49:47 PM

But that doesn't counter the scenarios in which (NMD) would be (effective). It's all cost-benefit analysis.

Yes, it's all cost benefit analysis. And because there exist alternative delivery mechanisms, the benefit is nil. And the costs are high.

IOW, there are NO scenarios when it would be effective. If missiles won't work, evil dictators
won't use them.

FU's "wary spendthrift" refuses to quantify the initial risk, the risk reduction and doesn't care about the cost. He waves away such petty considerations--and expresses confidence that it is actually possible to create a useful defense, with no evidence, and no desire to examine any.





25710. CalGal - 8/2/2001 3:51:42 PM

In fact, the Wall Street Journal is already reporting that we're running a bit low on money.

Raise your hands, everyone who thinks the public will go along with massive cuts in spending to fix a shortfall we've got in part from cutting taxes. What could we use to see how they feel about it? I know! Let's look at that poll again:

17. Do you think this tax cut will or will not leave enough money to keep the federal budget balanced and provide enough money for programs such as Social Security, education and health care?

Will: 45
Will not: 52

So they'll blame the tax cut.


20. Which of these is more important to you: (holding down the size of government) or (providing needed services)?

Size of government: 33
Needed services: 63

Yeah, I see a lot of support for staying the course.

25711. CalGal - 8/2/2001 3:52:50 PM

That's why Democrats are trying to undo it.

Why should they try to? Hell, most of it hasn't been "done" yet. Much of the changes don't kick in for some years.

25712. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 3:53:36 PM


Liberal Jackass:

Do you support paying lots of money for expensive operations with fairly low levels of success?

Yes?

Or No?

Simple questions, simple questions. But the sissies just refuse to answer.

I have to say on this score conservatives have loads of integrity. You ask us a question, we answer.

Not the lying sissies.

25713. Francis Urquhart - 8/2/2001 3:53:40 PM

Indy

Good point. $40 billion just got returned to the taxpayers in the form of direct payments, and that was a Democratic proposal offered by John Spratt (D-SC). I fail to understand this concept that this ill-thought, absurd, easily reversed tax cut just snuck in and passed itself. The liberal Democrats started at $0 and stopped at $1 trillion. Bush got $1.3 trillion.

Everybody's ass is in the soup, and every decision now factors in that cut, from defense spending to Social Security reform, to discretionary spending.

Even if it deficits soar, the cut will have to be reversed by those who have the cojones to reverse a tax cut in the face of what is sure to be people clamoring to cut spending.

No longer must and argument be made for. The cut is the status quo.

25714. CalGal - 8/2/2001 3:55:09 PM

Incidentally, I don't much care one way or another about the tax cut, although it would amuse the hell out of me if the Republicans got nailed for losing our surplus. And it serves the Dems right for not holding firm on the tax cut--they'll look pretty silly for wringing their hands and wailing "we told you soooo!"

25715. Francis Urquhart - 8/2/2001 3:57:14 PM

Jay

"FU's "wary spendthrift" refuses to quantify the initial risk, the risk reduction and doesn't care about the cost. He waves away such petty considerations--and expresses confidence that it is actually possible to create a useful defense, with no evidence, and no desire to examine any."

Peaceful killers count beans when assessing defense.

As for evidence, the technology improves daily, and it is certain a) not to regress and b) to advance ahead of that of the threat. But naysayers like you are legion in history. All your stocks in hirse-and-buggy whips, pish-toshing those who would have us on the moon.

25716. zojak quafeth - 8/2/2001 3:57:50 PM

Ace:

If the possiblity of a truck bomb means we should NOT guard against a missile attack, is it not necessarily true that the possibility of a missile attack means we should also NOT guard against a truck bomb?


I think your statement is way too narrow a view.

By analogy, I guess the Maginot Line really did do its job to the extent it prevented a DIRECT invasion THROUGH the Line against France.

Measure it that way and the Maginot Line was a great success. Of course, if the objective was to keep France in French hands, frankly, it sucked.

It seems to me that the objective needs to be to defend against a nuclear/bio/chem attack, period. And not to simply create a "missile shiled" that can be circumvented.

If NMD is the best way, fine. But remember, we're also not talking limitless resources either.

If we could invest the same cash in intelligence, other tech and other systems would we be in a better position defensively?

25717. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 3:58:22 PM


No one can "lose" our surplus.

Funny that you speak of losing "our surplus" when you mean "the government's surplus."

But that money isn't "lost." We know where it is.

It's in the pockets of the people who pay the taxes. And I'd rather have it there than in the government liberal slush-fund for "priorities" and "investments."

25718. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 4:00:18 PM


"He waves away such petty considerations--and expresses confidence that it is actually possible to create a useful defense, with no evidence,"

We just shot down a missile, douchebag. Or hadn't you heard?

Liberal Dictionary:

Evidence which helps the conservatives = "no evidence"

Lack of evidence for the liberal point of view = "stuides say" (also see "all the experts think")

25719. Francis Urquhart - 8/2/2001 4:00:43 PM

Cal

How does the fact that you don't care about the tax cut affect your analysis? Negatively (you don't care; thus, you haven't thought out your words), positively (you don't care and your dispassion elevates and informs your analysis), or is it a wash?

I'm trying to gauge the effect of your own interest on your political punditry. (g)

25720. JayAckroyd - 8/2/2001 4:01:47 PM

I think 25713 is correct for now. There may be some interesting unintended consequences wrt military spending that I am looking forward to. There are enough broken details that the cut may be reversed by stealth in response to those unintended consequences. It'll also be interesting to see what happens when we go into a deficit.

That reminds me. I have a proposal for privatizing the SS system. Construct a formula for each participant's share of the trust fund. Send them each a 30 year treasury note for that amount in an account that can't be accessed until the SS retirement rules. Do the same with future SS surpluses. Voila--the commitments that the administration is saying are not real commitments, become real commitements. And there will be no more deficit spending on the back of the payroll tax.

25721. Wombat - 8/2/2001 4:03:31 PM

Generalizer Bunny:

Expensive operations with little chance of success are an attempt to cure an actual condition, not a speculative one. To expand on your stupid analogy, do you think we should we should lop off a woman's breast and replace it with a prosthesis because there is an .0000001% chance of her getting cancer?

Yes or No?

25722. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 4:03:44 PM

Cal always claims "she doesn't care about the tax cut," because she wants to advertise her alleged high salary, but the fact is that she cares about precisely like most of us care about it:

Largely due to partisanship. I want the Republicans to "win", she wants the liberals to "win."

But time and time again she asserts she doesn't care "either way," when her constant kvetching indicates quite plainly she cares a great, great deal.

Earth to Cal: I don't "care" about the tax cut all that much, either. It won't make or break me.

So, good: Neither one of us "cares." And yet here we are arguing.

The idiot does this all the time.

25723. JayAckroyd - 8/2/2001 4:05:32 PM

"As for evidence, the technology improves daily, and it is certain a) not to regress and b) to advance ahead of that of the threat. But naysayers like you are legion in history. All your stocks in hirse-and-buggy whips, pish-toshing those who would have us on the moon."

And those who fell for cold fusion and try to build perpetual motion machines. We can't do everything we can think up.


However, I think you've done a credible job of making a case that it is prudent to continue to make substantial R&D investments, as was the policy in the last administration. You haven't come close to making a case in support of the current administration's policy.

25724. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 4:05:57 PM


"Expensive operations with little chance of success are an attempt to cure an actual condition, not a speculative one. To expand on your stupid analogy, do you think we should we should lop off a woman's breast and replace it with a prosthesis because there is an .0000001% chance of her getting cancer?

Yes or No?"

No. But that's the wrong question.

Should we invest in breast-cancer fighting technology in order to be prepared for the eventuality that a woman will develop breast cancer?

Yes?

or No?

And you simply avoided answering the question via semantics. "Oh, that's a *speculative* threat," you whine and hiss.

Oh. Well that settles the question, then.

25725. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 4:07:38 PM


"And those who fell for cold fusion and try to build perpetual motion machines. We can't do everything we can think up. "

Giggle.

Jay, I'm just curious: Which physical law states that you can't shoot down a missile, in principle?

And what happens to this alleged law now that we *have* shot down a missile?

Ya gotta love liberals.

It's pure cognitive dissonance. Jay can't live in a world in which we shot down a missile, so she just wishes it away.

You go, girl.

25726. Francis Urquhart - 8/2/2001 4:08:53 PM

Jay

The current administration's policy is the same, basically, as the last three. Develop with an eye toward implementation.

Only in Wonderland are things studied solely as an end unto themselves.

Look out, folks. If you keep this up, we're going to keep studying NMD and then, if you don't behave, we're going to study it some more.

And Jay, under your coneptualization of what should be studied and what should not vis-a-vis cost-benefit analyses, every penny toward AIDS research has been pissed down the gutter.

25727. JayAckroyd - 8/2/2001 4:12:47 PM

And Jay, under your coneptualization of what should be studied and what should not vis-a-vis cost-benefit analyses, every penny toward AIDS research has been pissed down the gutter.

The allocation of resources to AIDS and breast cancer research has been greater than a strict cost benefit accounting would have made. That's true.

So what's your point? I am not saying plug in formulas and get out answers. Policy makers have to make decisions on issues other than strict cost benefit considerations. But in this case, you're a couple of orders of magnitude out of the ballpark.

The current administration's policy is the same, basically, as the last three. Develop with an eye toward implementation.

Pardon me?!? Did you really mean to type that?

25728. AceofSpades - 8/2/2001 4:13:30 PM


And Jay, under your coneptualization of what should be studied and what should not vis-a-vis cost-benefit analyses, every penny toward AIDS research has been pissed down the gutter.

True. And yet she won't acknowledge that.

25729. Francis Urquhart - 8/2/2001 4:15:27 PM

Hey.

A Mason Dixon poll

Bush favorable 49%
Bush unfavorable 29%

Jeb Bush, that is.

Trial heat against Janet Reno

Bush 54%
Reno 39%

25730. JayAckroyd - 8/2/2001 4:16:06 PM

every penny toward AIDS research has been pissed down the gutter.

That was kinda hyperbolic wasn't it? The choice isn't between $100 billion and $0. You've been saying, essentially, "whatever it takes," but I doubt you mean that. I think there are better ways to spend defense dollars, and that NMD, as currently proposed, is a porky boondoggle.

25731. Francis Urquhart - 8/2/2001 4:17:10 PM

Jay

Sure I did, if you are arguing your Wonderland theory that Reagan, Bush and Clinton NMD policy has been solely to "study" without an eye toward implementation.

25732. JayAckroyd - 8/2/2001 4:19:01 PM

No, I never suggested that. I do think the current adminstration's deploy whether it works or not is a significant change in policy.

However, your comment above the tax cut being the status quo may make this all moot. There may not be budget to implement anything other than the annual shoot a missile at a missile and a baloon test.

25733. Wombat - 8/2/2001 4:24:02 PM

The current administration wants to deploy NMD, and then hope that they can get it to work. That's quite a bit different from the previous administrations.

Back to medical analogies:

On the basis of tests in laboratory conditions, one of the rarest forms of cancer can now be treated sucessfully some of the time. Let's devote a large proportion of our budget to making that treatment available to all, and to hell with the FDA. Of course we might have to cut back a bit on research to fight skin cancer...

25734. CalGal - 8/2/2001 4:24:52 PM

Largely due to partisanship. I want the Republicans to "win", she wants the liberals to "win."


Note the switch from "Republicans" to "liberals".

And actually, I don't want the Dems to "win" on most things. I like inaction whenever possible, given that no one is promoting ideas that I actually agree with.

As for your claim about my opinion on the tax cut--"not caring" means just that. I don't think it says anything high minded about my principles--there are people here who make as much as I do who actively oppose it, so if I wanted to parade my altruism I'd take a different stand.

25735. Francis Urquhart - 8/2/2001 4:25:12 PM

Jay

In some arenas, "whatever it takes" is acceptable, and in national defense, that's where I'll be.

All defense spending is, too some extent, porky and boondoglish.

Again, to get some reality into the picture, as you speak as if NMD is just below Curing the Common Cold on the possibility meter and just above Ridding the World of Car Alarms on the necessity meter,

History

25736. CalGal - 8/2/2001 4:28:00 PM

I don't "care" about the tax cut all that much, either. It won't make or break me.

Well, duh. But I thought you actively supported it. "Caring" doesn't mean it has to affect you personally--it just means you have a strong position on it one way or the other.

25737. zojak quafeth - 8/2/2001 5:34:47 PM

FU -

Your hypothetical presumes that a truck bomb is more of a nuclear threat than a missile, today and down the line, a conclusion wholly contrary to that of the military establishment.

Regardless, as defense policy, do you

1) prepare for both eventualities.

OR

2) throw your hands up because darn it, those pesky terrorists/rogue states are going to figure it out one day anyway?

Well, first, our policy discussion is so freakin public, all the rogue nations need to figure it out is CNN. If you were intending o hide the ball so that Muammar doesn't know whether or not we've deployed, well then...oops. So I really don't think that 2) is a valid option.

Second, as to 1), do we have the money to prepare for both?

As I said above, I just don't want us to end with the missile defense version of the Maginot Line. I think we take the cash we have and use it to best effect. If that means more money to intelligence to better monitor who has it and what they're gonna do with it, then maybe that's a better alternative.

After all, we bombed Qaddaffi's house after NSA intercepted personal phone calls linking him to the night club bombing in Germany that killed US military personnel. Maybe better and more intelligence would identify more threats and give us a better response.

Can we afford both?

25738. Francis Urquhart - 8/2/2001 5:36:26 PM

Sure we can. We can always print more money.

25739. zojak quafeth - 8/2/2001 5:39:23 PM

LOL. Well then let's build a hardened concrete dome around the entire country. We'd prevent all attacks and be able to play baseball year round.

25740. Francis Urquhart - 8/2/2001 5:40:52 PM

How thick would it have to be?

I hate the sun anyhow.

Adios.

25741. CalGal - 8/2/2001 5:44:14 PM

How does the fact that you don't care about the tax cut affect your analysis?

It doesn't. But had I not made that post, he no doubt would have gone off on a rant about my opposition to the tax cut. Since I made that post, he was left with the weak rejoinder about my income.

Not that it matters much--hell, he went on and on about my use of Clinton polls when I almost never post polls at all. Ace just yanks notions out of his ass. But periodically I attempt to stem the tide.

25742. concerned - 8/3/2001 3:44:05 PM

Re. 25723 -

One of the things that Jay Ackroyd does not seem cognizant of is that a system which uses interdependent technological building blocks to reach an end goal need not, should not, and in practice, cannot have every exigency fully demonstrated before the first operational step is taken.

For instance, NASA's plans for the Space Shuttle were already well advanced in the early '70's while the Apollo Space program was still in progress. According to 'reasoning' such as Ackroyd's, NASA would have had to prove to the most violent skeptic's satisfaction that the Mir Space Station, the Hubble telescope and the Iridium satellite network were fully proven out and ready to implement before the first operational tests of the Shuttle components would be justified.

This is just how backwards the reasoning is of people who oppose the implementation of any aspect of NMD research today.

25743. concerned - 8/3/2001 3:53:55 PM

I've got to laugh at the wishful thinking of Lefties who are placing their political bets on the 'Big Cur' and his female counterpart in 2004.

In case they've forgotten, he's caught in a Constitutional 'Catch 22' and I'd welcome any chance of the Demorats nominating another Clowntoonian 'twofer' with a female lead in 2004, because it would hand George W. Bush a golden opportunity to kick Hillbilly butt bigtime.

25744. Cellar Door - 8/4/2001 10:55:37 AM

FRANK RICH IS GOD!!!!

25745. jexster - 8/4/2001 11:42:31 AM

Vice President Cheney rejected a demand from the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to produce information and documents related to the development of the Bush administration's energy policy.

The action by Cheney, in response to a "demand letter" sent July 18 by the GAO's chief, U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker, takes the administration and Congress a step closer to a lawsuit or a congressional subpoena battle


What's Krusty Tryin to Hide!

25746. jexster - 8/4/2001 11:48:04 AM

Mmmm...a clue!

Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and Democratic Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) yesterday jointly called for a plan to require all U.S. power plants and industries to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, the latest sign of congressional unrest with President Bush's handling of global warming.

Go Giants!!!

25747. OhioSTOPAS - 8/4/2001 11:56:01 AM

Jex: Looks like the President will fulfill a campaign promise whether he wants to or not.

25748. jexster - 8/4/2001 12:41:21 PM

The Bush Administration had a lot weighing on this month's test of the missile defense shield. Two previous tests failed. Furthermore, Democrats -- not to mention the Russians and Chinese -- are dead set against the shield, with its $100 billion plus price tag. The Bush Administration couldn't take its chances on another screw up . . . so it had the $100 million test rigged.

The missile was launched from Kwajalein Atoll, about 4,800 miles from the where the target was released, in Vanderberg, California. The crucial test was declared a success when the "kill vehicle" struck its target dead-on at 11:09 PM, the exact moment planned.

The success did not surprise Air Force Lt. Fen. Ronald Kadish, head of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. He had told reporters the night before that he was "quietly confident" about this "very complex" test. According to Salon, Kadish's confidence was bolstered by the fact that a global positioning satellite beacon was guiding the missile to its target.

Since the event, the White House has widely boasted about the test's success, all the while trying to reclassify records showing that the test was not run properly. In a desperate attempt to cover its behind, the Defense Department has blatantly tried to intimidate Theodore Postol, a missile defense expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Finally, a Pentagon official owned up to the scam, admitting that real warheads would not possess come-get-me technology.

Maybe Ohio - If He Can Find Time Between Rigging NMD Tests!

25749. jexster - 8/4/2001 12:51:08 PM

In this month's high-profile anti-ICBM test, a prototype interceptor was able to find a target warhead partly because the target signaled its location to the interceptor for much of the flight, and the transmissions formed the basis of the targeting orders, according to officials and documents..
JOHN M. DONNELLY Defense Week

25750. jexster - 8/4/2001 12:53:48 PM

When Clinton lied about stickin a Churchill in Monica's twat all it cost the taxpayer was a few million bucks, thanks to Ken Starr and Henry Hyde.

When Bush lies it costs you hundreds of billions.

A hundred billion here, a hundred billion there and pretty soon we're talkin real money!

With apologies to the Late Great Ev Dirksen.

25751. jexster - 8/4/2001 12:56:22 PM

we can always hope that the Iranians or the North Koreans or the Chinese will attach to each incoming nuke a loudspeaker that screams "come and get me!"

25752. jexster - 8/4/2001 12:59:08 PM

CORRECTED: Officials Say Beacon Aids Anti-Missile Test {Reuters}

25753. jexster - 8/4/2001 1:03:01 PM

"Tax-rebate checks and weakening corporate tax payments are among the factors likely to force the Treasury Department to borrow $51 billion this quarter. THAT WOULD BE the largest single quarter of borrowing by the government since the beginning of 1996", when Bill Clinton put the federal budget in the black for the first time in decades. "On April 30, Treasury said it expected to pay down $57 billion of the publicly held portion of the national debt during the period. That projection, however, was made before congressional passage of President Bush’s $1.35 trillion tax-cut package."

>Its Called Crowding Out - MSNBC

Hey FU...

Did I ever mention that I briefed Tim Russert on Crowding Out for the DSCC when he worked on the Moynihan Campaign in 1976?

25754. jexster - 8/4/2001 1:03:32 PM

I crack myself up.

25755. jexster - 8/4/2001 1:23:35 PM

And am right again...Putin Porked Bush At Genoa

Top Putin Aide's Charm Offensive Against NMD

25756. jexster - 8/4/2001 9:18:59 PM

Cllrdr: A future for Rudy...The Next Mayor of SF!

"It is like `The Odd Couple,' " says Mr. Koeppel, who speaks in a gravelly New Yorkese not far removed from Walter Matthau's Oscar Madison. "When Rudy leaves after breakfast, I ask, `What time are you coming home?' and he calls me Mother."

25757. Cellar Door - 8/4/2001 9:40:03 PM

Close, but no cigar.

25758. dusty - 8/4/2001 9:58:31 PM

Trivia Question
What is the median age of CNN viewers?

25759. dusty - 8/4/2001 10:17:06 PM

Answer: 64

25760. Cellar Door - 8/4/2001 11:21:52 PM

Your point?

25761. ButterfieldSwire - 8/5/2001 1:06:50 PM

Senate Leader Tom Daschle has a preposterous toupee. Everytime I see that pimp, I'm always surprised no one ever brings it up in jest. Can anyone name any previous US legislator who has tried to pass off his bald skull as normal

25762. dusty - 8/5/2001 1:31:22 PM

Cellar Door

Now I understand their attempts to court a younger demographic. I wouldn't have guessed that the age was that high, although it appears that the median age of all news shows is fairly high, which either says something about the interest of the young in current affairs, or says that the internet as a news delivery system is more ubiquitous than I realized.

25763. jexster - 8/5/2001 2:08:13 PM

No real surprise here. If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times. King Moron I supports energy cartel price fixing.

George W. Bush said something interesting about economics the other day. No, really. It wasn't his usual line about how tax cuts are the answer to whatever ails you; he said something unscripted, something that reflected what he really thinks and feels. You might say that his remarks gave us a sense of his soul. And it turns out that his soul — or maybe it's just his heart — belongs to people, of whatever nationality, who sell oil.

Erl 'n Gas Uber Alles - Krugman

25764. jexster -8/5/2001 2:09:47 PM

1999: World Oil Said Bush Would Be the Perfect Presidential Candidate to Deal With Low Oil Prices.
In 1999, World Oil wrote that Bush "would be well aware of the fact that oil prices have collapsed" and "would seem to be the perfect individual to lead the charge in doing something about the [low] price of oil." The editorial said one possibility was that Bush and his father could persuade the Middle East to hold production, increasing prices, and that if Bush was successful in increasing the price of oil, "he could parlay his actions into substantial contributions." [World Oil, 2/99]

1999: Cheney Praised OPEC Production Cuts That Raised Oil Prices.
According to the Associated Press in March 1999, "OPEC members agreed today to cut crude oil production by 2.1 million barrels a day and maintain lower levels of output for a full year starting April 1, oil ministers said. The group of 11 oil producing nations approved the cuts in an effort to strengthen prices and end a global oil glut." Then-Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney praised OPEC's decision. "I've been struck by the extent OPEC seems to have gotten its act together," said Cheney. [Dow Jones, 4/12/99; Mickey Kaus, Slate, 7/28/00; AP Online, 3/23/99]

25765. jexster - 8/5/2001 2:11:15 PM

According to one oil analyst interviewed by Reuters, Mr. Bush's apparent expression of support for their efforts to keep prices high "excited a lot of OPEC ministers

Hell he gives 'em a hardon!

25766. jexster - 8/5/2001 2:12:46 PM

When California complains about high electricity prices, it gets a lecture about how you can't defy the laws of supply and demand. But when foreign producers collude to prevent prices from falling in the face of an oil glut, the administration not only signals its approval but endorses the old, discredited theory that cartels are in consumers' interest.

25767. jexster - 8/5/2001 2:14:32 PM

Any wonder why Butterfield S wants to talk about toupees!

OK I'll do that 2.

I think toupees are passe.

Go for the skinhead look as I have!

25768. Cellar Door - 8/5/2001 2:18:04 PM

Well if that's the case,dusty, why doesn't CNN just replace Wolf Blitzer with Carson Daley?

25769. Cellar Door - 8/5/2001 2:43:07 PM

Doesn't the NYT know that the AIDS crisis is over? Sully said so, and he's always right. Far Right.

25770. jexster - 8/5/2001 10:36:33 PM

The Republican Party's relationship with the Hispanic community has not been a pretty sight in recent years.

In recent presidential elections, the GOP's share of the Hispanic vote has ranged from a low of 21 percent (Robert Dole, 1996) to a high of 37 percent (Ronald Reagan, 1984). President Bush pulled 35 percent last year. As governor of California, Pete Wilson seemed to do everything in
his power to alienate the considerable Hispanic population in the Golden State, leaving the state GOP with a cross to bear for many years --and
perhaps decades -- to come.

Bush received only 9 percent of the African-American vote, and he shows no sign of standing a chance to improve his showing with black voters.
As a result, Hispanic voters -- whose share of the vote is growing faster than any other segment of the population -- have become an enormous priority for Republicans. "Off to the Races 7/31/01

25771. jexster - 8/5/2001 10:37:03 PM

Clearly the Bush administration has used a number of policy initiatives to try to appeal to Hispanic voters -- or at least a segment of them -- in recent weeks.

The White House announced an effort to legalize many of the 3 million illegal (or undocumented, as the latest politically correct euphemism
goes) Mexicans in the United States, hoping that Bush and the party will get more credit than Reagan did for a similar effort in the 1980s.

Against this backdrop, some laughed when Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., called Democrats "anti-Mexican, anti-Hispanic and
anti-NAFTA" on truck safety standards. Under the provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexican trucks are to be allowed to
transport goods beyond the border zone, starting in January 2002. While Lott's motive was probably not defending the sensitivities of the Mexican people but supporting NAFTA and the Bush administration, he did have a legitimate point.

Unsafe trucks, regardless of their nationality, have no business on the road. But for Democrats and the Teamsters to insist that Mexican trucks
be required to meet a higher safety standard than Canadian or American trucks does seem to amount to implicit racism.

Is someone killed or injured by an unsafe American or Canadian truck any less dead or maimed than one killed or injured by a Mexican truck?

This fight is about politics, not jobs. Each party has its sacred cows and must defend them, no matter how right or wrong. Sometimes Republicans behave shamefully on behalf of their special interests. This time Democrats are doing it. While I am hardly a campaign finance reform
zealot, cases like this make even those skeptical of many reform efforts wish that something could be done to prevent instances like this one.

Charlie Cook

25772. jexster - 8/5/2001 10:41:24 PM

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) is planning a shift in emphasis back to some of the core ``compassionate conservative'' themes that helped put him in the White House, aides said on Sunday.

Huh?????

Our National Joke

Rhenquist, Scalia, Thomas Kennedy and O'Connor put him in the WH...his "compassionate conservative" issues were just so much offensive charm!

25773. Cellar Door - 8/6/2001 9:49:01 AM

Since Sully's days are clearly numbered (and IMH(omo)O he can't die fast enough!) a new Self-Hating Gay was needed. An lo -- from the bowels of Meow Mix emerged Norah Vincent.

25774. jexster - 8/6/2001 11:15:03 AM

State Dept Worries that US Interests Suffering with King Bumblefuck's Mideast Policy

25775. Francis Urquhart - 8/6/2001 11:17:11 AM

Ah.

A month of vacation.

25776. iiibbb - 8/6/2001 11:42:08 AM

Just reading for myself two of Norah's own columns... Norah on ACLU and Clarance Thomas, Norah on Political Correctness, and "Identiy Politics".

25777. iiibbb - 8/6/2001 11:52:43 AM

except from "Identy Politics"

Diversity, in the true sense of the word, is good. No one committed to liberty and equal opportunity disputes that. Every fair-minded person wants America to live up to its promises. To be inclusive. To be sex-, class-, color-, race-and lifestyle-blind. The problem is that multiculturalism, in its current form--identity
politics--has been having quite the opposite effect. It excludes. It estranges the very cultures it purports to integrate, by overemphasizing rather than de-emphasizing the categories that keep us from seeing each other as human beings. And only by seeing each other as unique, irreducibly complex individuals rather than as prototypes of gay, Asian American, bourgeois masculinity or straight, white, working-class femininity and so on--can we avoid the very separatist, clannish hatreds that are endemic to fascism.

25778. Cellar Door - 8/6/2001 12:34:34 PM

She is so full of shit I don't know where to begin!

25779. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/6/2001 6:42:52 PM

25780. Cellar Door - 8/6/2001 7:36:37 PM

"Do I blame leftist academics for the world's problems? Of course not."

Lying cunt -- of course she does!

25781. iiibbb - 8/6/2001 10:36:57 PM

Rhetoric of Identity Politics

25782. jexster - 8/6/2001 11:02:39 PM

President Bush has met the enemy. And it is him.

Why Duhbya's Scampering for Compassionate Conservatism

25783. jexster - 8/6/2001 11:04:01 PM

Thanks for the link bbb...worth spending some time with....

25784. jexster - 8/6/2001 11:05:44 PM

and since my poli sci prof thinks I should expand my Asian American voting thingy into a master's thesis and as I have a rough plan to take it further in my Research Methods course...thanks for an item in Works Cited!!!

25785. jexster - 8/6/2001 11:09:00 PM

As Amitai Etzioni (1993) proposes, "The incessant issuance of new rights, like the wholesale printing of currency, causes a massive inflation of rights that devalues their moral claims

My Communitarian God hath spoken!!!

25786. jexster - 8/6/2001 11:21:27 PM

It was apparent from the first day George W. Bush outlined his campaign agenda that he was promising more than he could deliver--that, if he really intended to push through such a large tax rollback, there simply wouldn't be money left over for all of those wonderful-sounding morsels of compassionate conservatism. This is why candidate Bush cried "fuzzy math" every time a critic asked him about his budget numbers. And it's why President Bush insisted on pushing through his tax cut before the budget could be finalized.

25787. Cellar Door - 8/6/2001 11:34:30 PM

So Gergen offers what mught be called the "Baby You Can Drive My Car" solution.

Cozy, ain't it?

Based entirely on never-to-be-examined givens of his straight petit bourgeois existence.

25788. Cellar Door - 8/6/2001 11:39:22 PM

Meet the New Democrats!

25789. Absensia - 8/7/2001 12:20:06 AM

Ohhhhh, CNN is showing the Pro-Condit rally. His father, Refv. Adrian Condit is speaking. Must be at least 25 people there...this is too much. Mel Brooks must have written this.

25790. CalGal - 8/7/2001 12:31:31 AM

But remember, there's only like 75 people in all of Modesto. So that's a pretty good turnout.

25791. Absensia - 8/7/2001 12:34:17 AM

Well...I thought you'd be there!!

25792. Absensia - 8/7/2001 12:35:29 AM

25793. Absensia - 8/7/2001 12:35:58 AM

(WEG)

25794. rubberducky - 8/7/2001 8:10:25 AM

hey Jex, did you read the bad news for you in my Message # 701 in thread 110?

25795. ButterfieldSwire - 8/7/2001 12:03:06 PM

Al Sharpton for President

25796. jexster - 8/7/2001 12:03:38 PM

I know!!! They pulled too many punches.

25797. jexster - 8/7/2001 12:07:51 PM

I know!!! They pulled too many punches.

A couple weeks back the Bush Yahoo's were struttin tall in the NYT or the Post, I forget which, talking about how ready the Grayte Stayte was for electricity deregulation. "Prepared for months...surplus of supply...ban on exporting to California or any other state yadda, yadda, yippie, kai yeah! Well now the bumblefucks are getting a taste of their own medicine!

Wholesale Electricity Prices Surge in Texas - Rip Offs Begin

25798. jexster - 8/7/2001 12:13:09 PM

errata - not "biness"

"biniss"

25799. ButterfieldSwire - 8/7/2001 12:14:39 PM

All For Al in 0-Four

25800. ButterfieldSwire - 8/7/2001 12:16:11 PM

O-Fays 4Al in 04

25801. jexster - 8/7/2001 12:16:50 PM

Texas will not unleash deregulation on a statewide basis until January. But a pilot program begun last week got off to an inauspicious start when, on the first day of trading, wholesale electricity prices skyrocketed to $1,000 per megawatt hour.

The normal trading range is between $3 and $45 -- nearly the same as what California utilities paid before deregulated prices went haywire.

So fuckin predictable this Moron of Texas!

25802. jexster - 8/7/2001 12:21:14 PM

So fuckin predictable ...

Message # 25752
Message # 25753
Message # 25755
Message # 25763
Message # 25774
Message # 25782
Message # 27597

All For Al in 0-Four

25803. jexster - 8/7/2001 12:22:51 PM

The trusted Almanac of American Politics 2002 is now available.

Get insight on every member of Congress and governor from Michael Barone,
Richard E. Cohen and Charlie Cook.

25804. robertjayb - 8/7/2001 12:25:42 PM

Number one son is speaking cryptically but enthusiastically about a "prominent and well-regarded woman from Sugarland" (Houston suburb)being lined up to run against Tom DeLay for his congressional seat. (jexster, you have agents in this territory, any word of this?)

I doubt the rascal can be defeated but with a good demo candidate there would be great opportunity to pound the bastard as the repubs did with Tip O'Neil.

25805. jexster - 8/7/2001 12:31:11 PM

By the time President Bush returns to Washington on Labor Day after the longest presidential vacation in 32 years, he will have spent all or part of 54 days since the inauguration at his parched but beloved ranch. That's almost a quarter of his presidency.



25806. jexster - 8/7/2001 12:33:04 PM

I haven't heard squat Duck...last election, the Dems ran an 82 y.o. grandmother....now my dad is a 77 y.o. grandfather....I've been encouraging him to throw his 10 gallon in the ring...will check it out ASAP!

25807. jexster - 8/7/2001 12:38:31 PM

All told 42% of his Presiduncy spent a vacances!

Nice work if you can get it!

25808. robertjayb - 8/7/2001 12:46:06 PM

Duck?

25809. Cellar Door - 8/7/2001 1:07:42 PM

"All told 42% of his Presiduncy spent a vacances!"

Kind of like Eisenhower, but without the brains.

25810. JudithAtHome - 8/7/2001 1:50:37 PM

Or the golf.

Does GW even play golf? Or any sport?

25811. robertjayb - 8/7/2001 3:17:21 PM

Sure.

Whatta guy! How duz he do it?


"The president, who received his daily security briefing on the way to the golf course, said he is making progress on a number of issues and that his "outdoor play" will not affect his "working vacation."

25812. JudithAtHome - 8/7/2001 3:41:29 PM

Oh yeah...now I remember he and his dad with their caps on playing golf together...

25813. JudithAtHome - 8/7/2001 4:30:26 PM

Nero Fiddles While Genome Burns

President Bush on Tuesday launched a vigorous defense of his decision to spend a month on vacation away from Washington as a poll reported a solid majority of Americans think 30 days is too long.

``Washington D.C. is a fine place, and I'm honored to be working in the Oval Office and staying in the compound there. But I'm the kind of person that needs to get outdoors ... It keeps my mind whole, keeps my spirits up,'' Bush told reporters.

25814. Indiana Jones - 8/7/2001 4:40:03 PM

I sort of assumed Bush would pick a different running mate for term 2 to groom as the heir apparent. He may just decide one term is enough, though, in which case, the Republicans are going to be without an obviouis nominee.

As far as his time in Texas goes, Democrats ought to just be glad he doesn't spend all his domestic efforts fundraising, like another well-known Prez.

25815. CalGal - 8/7/2001 4:52:28 PM

He wouldn't be anywhere near as good at it so nothing to fuss over, really.

I don't know that Bush would want an heir apparent--that's why he chose Cheney in the first place. Maybe his priorities will be different in the next term.

25816. jexster - 8/7/2001 4:58:45 PM

Sorry Robert!

The very mention of DeLay tiggers my dyslexsia!

25817. jexster - 8/7/2001 5:00:21 PM

Oh Indy he spends plennny time fundraising or did you miss that Black Tie and Boots Bash for 25 million?

25818. jexster - 8/7/2001 5:03:15 PM

NEWSBREAK!!

CNN reports from the Royal Longhorn Linx....

"I plan to issue a statement on how life should interface with science"

That is all.

25819. Indiana Jones - 8/7/2001 5:13:41 PM

Cal: Do you think Democratic pockets and Republican pockets are equally deep? (I have my own opinion...just wondering about yours.)

As far as being a good fundraiser: 1) You have to have power or the likely potential of achieving it; 2) you have to be willing to do it (fundraise), in all its forms; and 3) the people giving you money have to think you agree with them.

I think charisma is of minor importance except as it relates to "potential" above--and perhaps being all things to all people (#3).

Cf. Jesse Helms.

25820. Indiana Jones - 8/7/2001 5:18:14 PM

My point re a second term was I'm not sure he'll seek one. The Republicans better hope he does or they'll face the Democrats w/out any "incumbent" factor. After four years Bush will have the edge against any Demo with the possible exception of Gore because of perceived "presidentialness."

Oh and (Bill) Clinton, if the 23rd amendment is repealed a la Chris Matthews.

Another Republican (no way it's Cheney) will have the downside of Republican incumbency w/out any upside of the public being able to visualize easily that person as president.

25821. Indiana Jones - 8/7/2001 5:21:46 PM

(To state what is probably obvious: My example of Jesse Helms was to show charisma is of minor importance once someone is powerful...not an example of someone who can be all things to all people.)

25822. jexster - 8/7/2001 5:21:47 PM

CNN Inside Politics leads into its piece on stem cell research by pointing out how the Moronic Dithering on the issue has given the religious right time to mobilize. A group of 'em is now threatening the Dauphin with read my lips treatment.

Perhaps a real, as opposed to faux freeper has a different take, but this is a crock as far as it goes.

The illuminating part of the story is the threat itself for it reveals the Great Bush Fear and that the DeLayists KNOW he KNOWS what's in store for him in any move to the center.

25823. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:21:47 PM


Poopstain.

25824. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:22:46 PM



POOOOOOP-stain!

25825. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:23:08 PM



PS,

I just pooped.

25826. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:24:00 PM


"I don't know that Bush would want an heir apparent..."

Colin Powell.

25827. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:25:09 PM



Can you suh-mellllll...

...what the BOTUS is POOOOOOPING!?!!?


25828. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 5:25:23 PM

Called upon by the President to deliver the death blow to the Democratic Party in 2004, to stand in for a vice president failing in health, with only 4 years to wait until he achieves the prize.

25829. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:27:12 PM



Now u know that Colon Power is just a runny steaming turd crapped out by the RNC Shitfactory don't u Francis?


Al Gore in Oh-Four!!! Catch the fever!!!


Weeeeeeeee-hooooooooo! Poopstain!

25830. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:28:41 PM


Colon Power is a House Nigger that gives House Niggers a bad name.

Now I know U might be upset by the word "nigger" Paco but I can use it because I am a card carrying liberal homo.

25831. jexster - 8/7/2001 5:29:08 PM

Welcome back Ace...

Nice to have a real (as opposed to faux freeper) around to rise in stout defence of The Royal Moronic

25832. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 5:29:45 PM

More importantly, although Powell's approval rating is 83%, his rating in the subcategories on his handling of the Kurdistan conflict and the situation in Bali falls well under 50%.

25833. jexster - 8/7/2001 5:30:24 PM

Maybe you wannna talk global warming?




Giggle. giggle.

I pooped my pants!

25834. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 5:30:28 PM

And we all know what that means.

He's a Super Duper Pooper.

25835. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:30:59 PM


Thanks for wel-cummming me back Jex. Now U and I can get to exposing the Fragrant Fraud for the poopy stink he is.

25836. jexster - 8/7/2001 5:32:10 PM

global warming don't suit?

How bout

- a lecture on free energy markets?
- four hours on how Clinton took bribes for pardons?

- no? Bribes from China?

- no? NMD?

- oh I know...lets yap about Elian for a couple of days.

25837. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 5:32:13 PM

DA' MORON'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE.

U know The Bastard is poopy.

U know it.

As sure as Karl Rove is Krustalicious.

25838. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:32:19 PM



And U and I can bend over Fey Francis and show him what what "Poopstain" really means. Not staining something with poop, but staining his poop with something else.

Something white and hot and virally-loaded.

25839. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 5:32:55 PM

Da' Dumb Ass from Crawford is sooooo dum he's poopy dumb.

25840. jexster - 8/7/2001 5:33:46 PM

Hey FU!

Did I ever mention I know Charlie Cook, co-author, Alamanac of American Politics 2001?

25841. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:34:01 PM



Karl Krove is a Krusalicious Krispy-Kream Konsuming Kocksucker.

U know it is trU.

And nothing compares 2 U.

25842. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 5:34:20 PM

jexster

Why, no. Really? He has fine hair.

25843. jexster - 8/7/2001 5:34:50 PM

Or maybe you could enlighten on something you might actually know something about....

Will the Giants trade Eric Davis for Benny Agbayani?

25844. jexster - 8/7/2001 5:34:53 PM

Or maybe you could enlighten on something you might actually know something about....

Will the Giants trade Eric Davis for Benny Agbayani?

25845. CalGal - 8/7/2001 5:35:01 PM

I thought it was the 25th Amendment? But I always get them confused.

I can't see Bush not running again in 04, if only because he wouldn't want to be another one-term Bush president.

25846. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:35:06 PM


"Did I ever mention I know Charlie Cook, co-author, Alamanac of American Politics 2001?"

Did FU ever mention that he, unlike you, has actually read it?


You may "know" Charlie Cook, but I doubt very much he knows U.

25847. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 5:35:10 PM

Hey jex, did I ever tell you about when I was at the Democratic Convention in 1988?

Someone pooped on Charlie Cook's hair.

25848. Indiana Jones - 8/7/2001 5:35:16 PM

Jeez louise, just when dey all in da house, I gots to scat on outta hyeah and find me sum a dat chow belly so I'z kin load up fo da next poop stain.

25849. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 5:36:23 PM

Indy

Tough pooper, buddy. Very Krustaficious.

Rove On!

25850. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:36:50 PM



Now I have to expose some more Kraptastic Konjurations of the Klown in Khief...



POOOPSTAIN!

25851. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:38:42 PM


Jexster, U must tell us more about Kharlie Kook.

25852. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 5:40:50 PM

The Washington Post when Bush is at 52%.

Front page: "PRESIDENCY ON BRINK"

At 59%

A-24: "Bush gains in Poll, But Troubles Lie Ahead, and the Stupid Poll is Fucked From Go"

25853. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:41:16 PM



No one wants 2 talk about da vaKationing Krusty the Kraptacular Klown in Krawford?

25854. JudithAtHome - 8/7/2001 5:41:46 PM

What? Has the FDA pulled Ritalin off the shelves in the past few days?

25855. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:43:31 PM


FU,

The National Review (I think) published side-by-side paragraphs from articles about polling figures, one article showing Clinton at 59% and the other showing Bush at 59%.

Clinton was "popular." Bush was... in danger.

Of course.

25856. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 5:43:38 PM

POOOOOOOPSTAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


A 30 Day working vacation?

Sega Genesis with Jeb and the Krustificataiposnoshjegejydmnhgejfvg
Karl Roverfiusgfdwief.

Poooooooooooooop!

25857. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 5:44:49 PM

"President Levels Off at 66%: But Low Poll Numbers on the Environment Dog the White House and Threaten the Agenda."

25858. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:46:01 PM



Be sure U see it!!!!

Comedy Central 10pm

That's my Bush!

George is perplexed at how his polling numbers show him at 59% approval when no one at the New York Times likes him at all. Co-starring Barbra Streisand.


Ketch da Feeever!!!

25859. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 5:47:34 PM

"Presidential Approval Rate at 72%: Danger Lies Ahead as Poll Shows Low Support Among Native Americans and residents of Boston."

25860. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:48:37 PM


Job Approval rate plunges to 69%; New York Times staff locates Provincetown antique-dealer willing to call Bush an "asshole" in print

25861. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:49:41 PM


Poll: Four out of Five Americans staying over at Al Franken's Poolside Guest House feel Bush is "Unprepared" for the Presidency

25862. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 5:50:19 PM

"Bush Approval Rating Slips to 82%: Mary Jane Kacaramazk of 'Malcom in the Middle' Slams the President at the Golden Globes."

25863. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:50:29 PM


Four of five Baldwins Agree that Bush Sucks; One in Five says "Can I have some Crack?"

25864. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 5:51:39 PM

"Bush Approval at 67%: Senate Democrats Open Hearings on Validity of Modern Polling"

25865. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 5:53:34 PM

"Bush Approval Steadies at 64%: Results Mixed as President Suffers a Calamitous Drop to 29% Amongst Families of Those Accidentally Killed by Military Bombing on Vieques"

25866. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:53:51 PM



BREAKING NEWS -- Poll of New York Times Editorial Page writers finds that seven out of eight believe the President to be "Illegitimate;" one out of eight believes the President is Cornelius from Planet of the Apes

25867. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 5:55:47 PM

Matthews: "So, how 'bout those poll numbers?"

Begala: "Oh, Chris, you and I know that poll numbers can be manipulated. There are ways of asking questions . . .

Matthews: "Begala, Christ, he's at 74%."

Begala: "Sure, but that's just 74% of people they happened to call on that day. That's very iffy, Chris. You know that."

25868. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:57:30 PM


Update: Poll also finds that seven of eight NYT Editorialists believe Bush is "like, totally clueless or something" on the Environment; One out Eight also believes Bush is the Grinch who Stole the Enviornment, and that Dick Cheney is Max, his Dog, pulling his Sleight of Corporate Greed and Enviro-Assassination down to a mountain to steal little Cindy-Loo Who's Suckerfish

25869. CalGal - 8/7/2001 5:58:07 PM

Sure, but that's just 74% of people they happened to call on that day

That's a fairly close approximation of Ace's posts last year.

25870. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:58:23 PM



"Sleigh of Corporate Greed," she meant, not Sleight.

25871. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 5:58:56 PM

President Bush reaches the summer break in his first White House year buoyed by high personal approval but facing broad public doubts about his overall agenda and key policies, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll supplemented by face-to-face interviews with voters in four battleground states.

Bush has a 63 percent personal favorability rating in the poll and a 59 percent job approval score, the second-highest numbers recorded since he took office. But only half of those interviewed believe he is succeeding in his goal of bringing "needed change to Washington," and more people than not say his priorities are wrong.

25872. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 5:59:12 PM


"That's a fairly close approximation of Ace's posts last year."

Idiotic and untrue. Pretty much everything we've come to expect from The Mote's leading moron harpy.

25873. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 6:00:08 PM


"But only half of those interviewed believe he is succeeding in his goal of bringing "needed change to Washington," "

Only half.

25874. CalGal - 8/7/2001 6:00:46 PM

I'm sorry? Wasn't it you who talked about the significance of polling on weekends, and when Dems were likely to be home, etc, and how unreliable this made any polls showing Gore in the lead?

I was goofing about the "fairly close approximation". But then, I'm pretty sure that Francis was, too.

25875. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 6:00:52 PM


"But only half of those interviewed believe he is succeeding in his goal of bringing "needed change to Washington," "

Only half.

25876. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 6:01:13 PM

Further, only one-third agreed that Bush looks much like a billy goat.

Most disturbing to the White House, just under 25% of respondents agreed with the statement "I would trust George W Bush to choose my fall wardrobe."

"These are trust issues, and on those issues, the president is in deep trouble," said media analyst Howard Kurtz.

25877. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 6:02:01 PM


"Wasn't it you who talked about the significance of polling on weekends, and when Dems were likely to be home, etc, and how unreliable this made any polls showing Gore in the lead? "

I talked about the problems with polling on weekends, yes. Which is a fairly well documented phenomenon, admitted by Gallup and the like.

25878. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 6:03:54 PM

With the survey showing public concern over an energy crisis down since spring but worries over a possible recession higher, Bush's overall job approval rating has improved slightly from a June slump, but it is below the peak of 63 percent he scored in April.

Since spring, Bush's numbers have improved on education and energy, but disapproval scores have risen on his handling of the economy, international affairs and Social Security. The shakiness of his overall position is indicated by the fact that, for the second month in a row since the Democrats took over the Senate, as many people want the country to follow their lead as say Bush's direction is right.

Worse, 65% of respondents indicated a preference for Senator John Edwards (D-NC) over Bush as both a canasta and square dance partner.

25879. CalGal - 8/7/2001 6:04:58 PM

Sure. But that's no more than what Francis is mocking, so it seemed worth pointing out.

25880. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 6:05:59 PM


Ummm, no it's not.

25881. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 6:06:16 PM

Perhaps most dangerous to the president's political fortunes, a mere 11% of those who use the term "poopstain" in their daily discussions support his policies.

25882. AceofSpades - 8/7/2001 6:08:06 PM


The difference between Clinton's 59% approval rating -- deemed "popular" -- and Bush's 59% approval rating, deemed shaky and weak?

It's obvious. The right people liked Clinton. The Tina Browns, the Barbra Streisands. The antique-dealers and personal assistants. The teachers and the trial lawyers; the fashion designers and the graphic artists.

Clinton was popular with the people that matter. You know -- the urban sissies.

25883. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 6:08:19 PM

sidenote - I'm one of those 11%.

25884. JudithAtHome - 8/7/2001 6:09:11 PM

sidenote - I'm one of those 11%.

Well, duh.....

25885. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 6:12:19 PM

Juditha

Poopstain. I hope he drills for oil through the head of every baby seal in Alaska.

All

Ha Ha Ha, Lord, Oh, Lord

25886. JudithAtHome - 8/7/2001 6:13:27 PM

FU:

..and never have those initials been more apt!:-)

25887. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 6:15:07 PM

York's closing comments are well-taken.

"Which means that the president's supporters should probably not take too much comfort in the Post poll."

Live by the poll, die by the poll, as jexster has ably demonstrated.

25888. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 6:16:14 PM

Can you get oil out of a seal's head?

Oh, Lord, I sure do hope so.

Enron!

Enron!

Enron!

Ken Lay!

Ken Lay!

Krustibillious Krap.

25889. JudithAtHome - 8/7/2001 6:18:57 PM

FU:

I do believe the oil is found in their little sleek hides...

25890. Francis Urquhart - 8/7/2001 6:20:25 PM

Sweet. Hope Springs Eternal.

Adios.

25891. CalGal - 8/7/2001 6:26:17 PM

I thought the Post analysis of the poll numbers was relevant--it would have been wrong to post the numbers without the explanation. If Clinton's numbers were similarly in conflict and they didn't analyze it, then Byron can feel free to bitch. My bet is that there isn't a similar discrepancy.

That said, I think York is right about the poll's usefulness. But then I said the same thing last week. (I send him all my best stuff.)

25892. jexster - 8/7/2001 7:15:46 PM

Adios Tart Tounge Tarte!

ASHINGTON, Aug. 5 — A coalition of conservative organizations, concerned that their top military priority is facing a tough battle on Capitol Hill, has begun a national lobbying campaign to pressure Congress into supporting President Bush's plans for a missile shield.

The coalition, Americans for Missile Defense, intends to collect more than one million signatures, inundate lawmakers with letters and e-mail messages and raise money for a campaign in time for the September budget debate, the organizers said.

"Missile defense, like very few other issues, has the capability to immediately unite conservatives of all stripes," said David A. Keene, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, which is helping to spearhead the coalition.

NMD Big Rig

But strategic defense, and ridicule of MAD, became essential elements of the American conservative theology. The flame of faith was kept alive through the cold 1990s by movement monks at Washington think tanks and devotional conferences around the world. Silent prayers were said in the offices and boardrooms of defense contractors throughout the land.

NYT Today

Special thanks to dear departed Beavis for reminding me of thisKinsley Link

Is Butthead still 'round?

25893. jexster - 8/7/2001 7:30:07 PM

Yet more READ MY LIPS threats from the wingnuts, this time, according to NPR, they've made the threat WRT leaked plans to have Ted Olson defend affirmative action in federal contracting.....

25894. Francis Urquhart - 8/8/2001 11:27:32 AM

a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95000937" target="new">Poop From the Murderers of Vince Foster

25895. Francis Urquhart - 8/8/2001 11:28:25 AM

Crap

Poop From the Murderers of Vince Foster

25896. CalGal - 8/8/2001 11:42:03 AM

What does the article have to do with Vince Foster?

25897. greystoke - 8/8/2001 11:46:32 AM

Dirty politics in Seattle.

Disillusioned by his brief, stormy stint in politics, Green Party candidate Michael Jepson said yesterday he's shelving his Republican-aided bid for the King County Council.

...

Ceriello reiterated the Greens' belief that two of their local nominating conventions, in SeaTac and in Lynnwood July 7, were manipulated by a veteran Republican political consultant, Stan Shore, and his wife, Leslie Donovan. The two paid for legal notices, meeting rooms and snack food for the conventions and gave money to both Green Party nominees.

The apparent motive, Greens and Democrats charge, was to put Greens on the ballot to peel votes away from Democrats in two pivotal races. One could determine party control of the evenly split state House of Representatives, and the other could change party control of the County Council, now 7-6 Republican.

...

Some Green Party activists were suspicious when they showed up for the conventions, especially the County Council nominating convention at the 13 Coins restaurant at SeaTac, where several of the delegates were later found out to be Republican Party precinct committee officers.

A roomful of non-Green people were smoking cigarettes and drinking cocktails at mid-morning and snacking on cheese, salami and other cold meats, said Michael Kovacs, who turned down Donovan's effort to recruit him as a candidate.

"At Green gatherings, usually it's like hummus and tortilla chips and organic stuff and carrots," Han said.

...

Jepson said: "I would warn anyone before they go into politics: Do a lot of research on who's bringing you in, who's backing you and who your true friends are. Because in politics I don't think there is such a thing as a true friend."

25898. Francis Urquhart - 8/8/2001 11:48:43 AM

Confucious say, never trust man in Topsiders bearing Cheetos.

25899. greystoke - 8/8/2001 11:48:57 AM

Dirty, rotten, cigarette smoking, cocktail drinking Republicans. Donating money to Green Party candidates? Paying for their snacks and meeting rooms? Have they no shame?

25900. Cellar Door - 8/8/2001 12:01:36 PM

Apparently Abigail Thernstrom and Russell G. Redenbaugh contracted a hit on Vincent Foster.

Right, Francis?

25901. jexster - 8/8/2001 12:13:06 PM

The Justice Department has filed a Supreme Court brief supporting a company that is being sued for allegedly discriminating against a woman with a disability, worrying some activists about the Bush administration's willingness to defend the rights of the disabled.

In the brief, the solicitor general argues that a lower court used flawed reasoning to classify the woman as disabled. The brief further argues that the high court should send the case back to the lower court so it can reconsider its ruling.

Advocates for the disabled said that the Justice Department made good legal points. But they question why the administration took sides, filing a brief that favors the employer, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky Inc.

"They could have done it because they were being hyper-technical, or they could have done it because they were trying to pander in some way to the business community," said Chai Feldblum, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center who helped draft the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990.


mmmm...let's see....which is it? I have no idea.

I know. I'll Ask Francine!

25902. rubberducky - 8/8/2001 12:15:06 PM

but seriously folks...

a 30 day 'working' vacation?

i heard that after such, all told, he’ll spend nearly a third or fourth of his presidency on that fucking ranch.

doesn't that seem ... excessive? even to his supporters here?

25903. jexster - 8/8/2001 12:16:51 PM

CRAWFORD -- As dawn broke Tuesday over Central Texas, President Bush and his 18-vehicle motorcade whisked through this sleepy village, heading for a rare appearance in public -- a round of golf with a state senator, a surgeon and a dentist at their private club on Lake Waco.

By noon, Bush was back at his sun-seared 1,600-acre spread, running solo along a dusty lane. Trailing behind was a sport utility vehicle carrying the president's military aide and Secret Service agents.

Later, Bush read a little, then went fishing on a man-made lake stocked with bass. By evening, Housing Secretary Mel Martinez --the former Republican governor of Florida -- and his wife had arrived for a cookout. They then stayed overnight at the home of the president and first lady Laura Bush.

Billed by White House aides as a working vacation, the president's retreat to Crawford has been low-key and little more than quiet. While Bush clearly likes the thought of his having a monthlong break from Washington, most Americans do not.

The Houston Chronicle

25904. jexster - 8/8/2001 12:21:05 PM

Bushology Interactive

A free, regularly-updated service, providing links to public-information sources for those investigating members of the Bush family and their business/political interests

25905. Cellar Door - 8/8/2001 12:21:20 PM

Here's a balanced, reasonable analysis of Dubbya.

To my way of thinking at least.

25906. jexster - 8/8/2001 12:35:53 PM

Robert....


DeLay inquiry came up empty.

In fact word is that incumbent protection redistricting will take what passes for a Democratic stronghold in Eastern Fort Bend County and put it into Ken Bentsen's Harris County District.

The 82 year old blue-rinse grandmother who ran against DeLay because God told her to may do so again. In the old district she got somewhere between 10 and 15 percent of the vote.

25907. jexster - 8/8/2001 12:43:26 PM

Nice Work Moron - 42% of Fraudulency Spent On Vacation

You can't really blame George W. Bush for wanting to take it easy. Anybody who's in the work force is familiar with the notion of yearning for additional vacation days. But apparently there are limits to our empathy. A recent poll finds 55 percent of respondents opining that the president's monthlong break from Washington is too much time off.....

? Bush ought to stop dissembling about his penchant for relaxation and just run with it—be the Vacation President!

Of course, making leisure policy the focus of his administration might require some time, and a lot of work. No reason to rush such a big project. Maybe a sabbatical would help.


The Vacation Presidunce

25908. jexster - 8/8/2001 12:44:22 PM

the Beavis and Butthead President

25909. jexster - 8/8/2001 1:07:24 PM

Rumsfeld is being excoriated for mismanaging the Defense Department--so much so that it's rumored there's a pool at the Pentagon to guess when Rumsfeld will go. The heavy betting is sometime after February, but Chatterbox wonders if Rummy can stick it out that long....
What's especially odd about Rumsfeld's fall from grace is that it was brought about not by liberal Democrats but by conservative members of Congress and uniformed officers of the United States military.

Read My Lips: Time to start a Rumsfeld Death Watch!

25910. jexster - 8/8/2001 1:17:55 PM

He's been sold out by a White House that cared more about its $1.35 trillion tax cut than about helping Rumsfeld fund missile defense

Why I have said as much myself and not in my FreeRepublic.com persona either!

25911. jexster - 8/8/2001 3:06:37 PM

Bush Hammers Boards to Help Build House Reuters

25912. concerned - 8/8/2001 4:55:11 PM

Anybody who seriously believes that the question is not 'when' but 'if' should find the following excerpt from a rather long article in the NYT Magazine enlightening:

The Next Battlefield May Be in Outer Space


he Defense Department's newest satellite technology, Warfighter I, sits inside a protected clean room in Germantown, Md. To enter, you must run your shoes through a cleaning device and then don a "bunny suit," a layered hooded outfit that covers every part of your body except your eyes.

"Human skin sloughs off as many 30,000 particles a second," says the program manager, Michael Lembeck, as we step onto a tacky mat, essentially an enormous piece of flypaper. "If one speck of skin got on the Warfighter's lens," he adds with friendly hyperbole, "it would set us back 20 years."

The satellite, which is not much bigger than a college sophomore's dorm refrigerator, is undergoing final tests. Several different machines -- producing an artificial magnetic field, digitally created blinking stars, phony
sunshine and computer-generated Global Positioning System signals -- are fooling the satellite into acting as if it were in real orbit. Several lights click on and motors grind. "It must think it just cleared the North Pole," Lembeck says, "and is reorienting itself toward the sun."

25913. concerned - 8/8/2001 4:55:56 PM


After a few more tests confirm the on-board systems are working, Lembeck says, "We'll get all the graybeards in the room, tell them what we've done here and they will bless us and say, 'Go fly."'

In fact, Warfighter I is an extremely powerful camera, one that will give the Pentagon revolutionary new powers of surveillance. But its importance goes beyond its technological wizardry. The launch of Warfighter -- scheduled for early September -- will mark the latest effort by the Pentagon to end a new threat to American security. According to the nation's war planners, America has had a free ride in space during the last 40 years, when the only country capable of even getting there was Russia. Now there is a satellite rush in the final frontier, with both countries and companies entering space. Commercial space launches started to outnumber military ones in 1998. Of the 1,000 active satellites currently in orbit, about an eighth belong to the U.S. military, and that percentage will diminish by the end of the decade, when experts estimate that operating satellites in space will reach 2,000.
(Warfighter is being launched by a private company called Orbital Imaging, itself a sign of the times.)

25914. concerned - 8/8/2001 4:56:30 PM

America's war planners fear that we could soon lose our advantage in space. As a result, the military has commissioned numerous studies and long-range plans, all of them coming to the same conclusion. Space, the Pentagon believes, is the ultimate military "high ground" -- the tower from which to pour boiling oil. Therefore,
America's goal there should be, in the felicitous phrase used in an early study, "Global Battlespace Dominance."

Perhaps that term sounded a little too Strangelove, for the Pentagon's preferred phrase has since become "Full Spectrum Dominance." Last year, the Air Force developed its Strategic Master Plan for space, which states our goal bluntly: "To maintain space superiority, we must have the ability to control the 'high ground' of space. To do so, we must be able to operate freely in space, deny the use of space to our adversaries, protect ourselves from attack in and through space and develop and deploy a N.M.D. capability."

N.M.D. stands for national missile defense, the controversial $8.3 billion missile shield that President Bush and his secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, have championed. (Last month, the Pentagon announced that it was ready to pour concrete on the first missile-defense test site, in Alaska.) And yet the political attention devoted to national missile defense, which is an updated version of President Reagan's Strategic Defensive Initiative, has obscured its larger purpose. According to the Strategic Master Plan, N.M.D. is but one part of a triad of
technologies -- along with improved space surveillance and antisatellite offensive weaponry -- that, the Air Force hopes, will lead to total "space control." George Friedman, an intelligence consultant and the author of "The Future of War," calls the national missile defense plan a "Trojan horse" for the real issue: the coming
weaponization of space.

25915. concerned - 8/8/2001 4:57:04 PM

The cost of expanding our space assets is only now beginning to show itself. Many of the specific systems for space have had their budgets increased in President Bush's first defense-spending proposal, which has been
otherwise criticized for being stingy. A new system of space sensors went from $239 million to $420 million. (By comparison, the Air Force's new F-22 Raptor fighter plane has a price tag of $180 million.) A previously unfunded space-based radar program is budgeted at $50 million. And a line for "space control technology" -- a euphemism for antisatellite weaponry -- was expanded from $8 million to $33 million. Carefully budgeted space
technologies like the Warfighter will cost only $42 million, but the more exotic ideas face a long climb up the technological curve and will cost billions.

Warfighter's camera features a new form of imaging called hyperspectral. Space is already home to multispectral cameras, which can take a picture of an ecosystem and discern conifer from deciduous trees. But hyperspectral goes much further, distinguishing the subtle "light signatures" that separate a field of oats from barley and telling
you the precise species of oats. And then whether the field contains natural or genetically altered oats. And then whether the field is infested with insects or damaged by nitrogen depletion.

25916. concerned - 8/8/2001 4:57:17 PM

The eventual commercial potential of such a technology is obvious. But if you talk to enough colonels and experience what old Pentagon hands call "death by briefing," -- and I have -- you will hear mentions of hyperspectral quickly followed by the new mantra of contemporary war planners: tanks under trees. To put it briefly: as with oats, so with tanks. Warfighter I will be able to discern the unique light signatures of extremely specific things -- like tanks hiding under trees or tanks covered in camouflage or tanks painted with a paint meant to make them not look like tanks.

Consider what such space-assisted technology would have meant to a commander in, say, Kosovo two years ago. He could have swept the contested area with Warfighter I and zeroed in on every enemy tank, missile, ammo dump or plane, almost no matter how hard the Serbs tried to conceal them. Then the commander could have called in a
cruise missile to blast each one. In theory, the entire conflict could have been finished off in time for lunch. It's a nice, sweet, hammock-tempting image if you're a war planner.

In preparation, space planners have already engaged in some feverish brainstorming. They envision a high-tech arsenal that will take full advantage of the military potential of space, ranging from the near-term possible to
long-term notional: kinetic energy rods, microwave guns, space-based lasers, pyrotechnic electromagnetic pulses, holographic decoys, robo-bugs, suppression clouds, 360-degree helmet-mounted displays, cluster satellites,
oxygen suckers, microsatellites, destructo swarmbots, to name a few.

25917. concerned - 8/8/2001 5:01:01 PM

On another subject, how the publisher of Clowntoon's autohagiography is going to recoup their 10 million dollar advance from the remaindered bins is beyond me.

25918. Cygnus X-1 - 8/8/2001 5:13:34 PM

hey rubberducky, re 25902, why are you so concerned about Bush's "30 day 'working' vacation" but don't seem care that Congress is in recess until Labor Day? Is it because some members of Congress are Democrats?

25919. concerned - 8/8/2001 5:22:01 PM

Incidentally, my 'when but if' reference above was not regarding any actual conflict in space, but relating to the eventual military/commercial exploitation of space.

25920. jexster - 8/8/2001 7:04:18 PM

Members of Congress are working! Working in their districts! Working on their re-elections.

And Barney Frank isn't the Vacation President.


I'd also not be too concerned about Clinton's book advance. The Free Market Gods have pronounced their divine judgment. Clinton is worth more than any non-fiction writer in history. You are now to keep silent, Concerned.

25921. jexster - 8/8/2001 7:07:49 PM

42% of Term Spent On Vacation

From a GOP point of view, its far better he spends his time herding armadillos than mounting that Bully Pulpit!

25922. OhioSTOPAS - 8/8/2001 8:26:43 PM

Cygnus (25918): Surely you're not serious.

For what it's worth, I don't think it's an issue that President Bush is spending August in Texas. His ranch can be well set up for communications, and whatever he needs to do can be done reasonably well there. I think more important is whether he's giving the job the attention it needs, not where he's doing (or not doing) it.

25923. jonesatlaw - 8/9/2001 3:26:46 AM

I feel the same way about Bush being on vacation that Will Rogers felt about congress being on one.

25924. concerned - 8/9/2001 3:38:36 AM

It's a very good thing that Republicans don't require their president to be out drumming up fundraiser dough 24/7 when he can be dragged away from taking mulligans, perjuring himself or fucking with the help.

25925. concerned - 8/9/2001 3:48:06 AM

Wrt sources of stem cells, since both immature and mature stem cells are available from placentas and liposuction fat, and, additionally, are available in much greater quantity and more easily processed from these sources than in grinding up unborn babies, it seems that Lefties have once again let their sloganeering groupthink ways buttfuck themselves into the revolting position of being the braindead ghouls attempting to gin up an industry in dead babies for no good reason.

25926. Cygnus X-1 - 8/9/2001 9:35:20 AM

Ohio, Re 25922.

Exactly. Somehow, your point about being able to work from his ranch doesn't get conveyed in the polls. It's almost as if the polls are trying to get the people to express disappointment in the president.

As for Congress, who says they're working? Who says Bush is not working? Only the press has the voice to be heard saying this. So far, they haven't stooped low enough to outright say it, but they sure imply it.

25927. rubberducky - 8/9/2001 9:57:54 AM

wrt 'working' at the ranch for more than 40% of his term thus far, how much is this costing tax payers to basically relocate the White House to TX?

so what if Congress is in recess? you're telling me that there's nothing Bush could be doing? oh wait, of course. Cheney is in DC, so why would Bush even need to be there, eh?

Who says Bush is not working?

how much work are you going to get done fishing, jogging, and working on your damn ranch clearing trails? hmm, maybe he'll invite a cabinet member over for dinner so 'work' can get done. oops! already done!

25928. Francis Urquhart - 8/9/2001 9:59:33 AM

I thought telecommuting was all the rage with "you people."

25929. Absensia - 8/9/2001 10:01:31 AM

Telecommuting? Have you ever seen him use a computer? Nope, not even for games.

25930. Francis Urquhart - 8/9/2001 10:03:08 AM

What are you driving at?

That Bush is stupid and lazy?

I've never heard such affrontery.

25931. OhioSTOPAS - 8/9/2001 10:06:03 AM

Francis admires Dubya so much, he spells like him.

25932. Absensia - 8/9/2001 10:06:11 AM

That would be yes...as in D O L T.
I am sorry to have shocked your tender sensibilities.

25933. rubberducky - 8/9/2001 10:08:47 AM

Fran:

you may be onto something, but let them show that in the photo ops instead of him in his 'dirty ranch hand' get up and ten gallon hat.

PS not all gay people telecommute as you well know by now, heh

25934. Absensia - 8/9/2001 10:11:50 AM

Those are "designer photo op" outfits to show American he's a real MAN.

25935. Francis Urquhart - 8/9/2001 10:13:20 AM

duck

I didn't mean gay people. I meant "librals."

Absensia

I've never heard it suggested before that President Bush is doltish. This is all so new to me. And unsettling.

Could this be true?

25936. Absensia - 8/9/2001 10:15:54 AM

Poor FU, you've led such a sheltered life. (sigh)

25937. concerned - 8/9/2001 10:16:05 AM

I believe Pinocchio Bore willingly classified himself as computer illiterate - didn't want to use a laptop.

Then we have Clowntoon's Palsy Walsy AG Stooge Reno who discarded computers completely for a quill and foolscap.

25938. Absensia - 8/9/2001 10:17:33 AM

And this is relevant to Bush's 30 day telecommute, how?

25939. Francis Urquhart - 8/9/2001 10:17:48 AM

I'm flabbergasted at this "Bush is stupid" charge. It just strikes me as inconceivable.

Is this a widely held view amongst the intelligentsia and the muckrakers?

25940. Absensia - 8/9/2001 10:20:05 AM

We are talking national security here..for today...for tomorrow...for the next month. And important decisions too....I hear Bush will announce tonight his "decision" on stem cell research. Radio said 9 pm. I'm not sure if they meant EDT or PDT or what.

25941. Absensia - 8/9/2001 10:22:12 AM

"Is this a widely held view amongst the intelligentsia and the muckrakers?"

I don't know, but he was seen on the cover of " Famous Dolt and Doltettes in America."

25942. ycmeehan - 8/9/2001 10:31:50 AM

Absensia,

Just for a pre-announcement prediction: Since embryos don't vote and the Bush agenda call for re-election at any cost, an ingenious straddle will be forthcoming. Only embryos that have been abandoned by their donors will be acceptable and that only after an attempt to has been made to have them adopted. The whole program should be confusing enough so that both pros and cons will have something to hang on to.

25943. concerned - 8/9/2001 10:33:03 AM

Re. 25938 -

Fwiw, I have never seen a photo where the Big Cur was anywhere near a computer. But you brought it up in the first place....

25944. Absensia - 8/9/2001 10:36:26 AM

ycmeehan
A very good analysis. My too early morning thought was that he'd "just say no." But your view makes more sense and just for the reasons you said!

25945. concerned - 8/9/2001 10:38:22 AM

Re. 25942 -

That's if you embryo grinders get lucky.

25946. ycmeehan - 8/9/2001 11:30:10 AM

Re-25945. It's not for me to get lucky. The luck will have to be with Bush to enable him to dodge the cannon ball.

Look at the figures. About a hundred people voted in the last election which means that a hundred million that could have didn't. Of the hundred million that didn't vote eighty million don't care about stem cells and they won't vote in the next election. However, the remaining twenty million that didn't vote in the last election have a personal vendetta to perform. Some members of their families are directly affected, they believe, and one way or another they will make it to the polls to cast a vote against Bush even if a yellow dog is running against him.

25947. janjon - 8/9/2001 11:41:03 AM

of course W's handlers will straddle on stem cells. On the surface their message tonight will be a little of something for both camps. But, the prevailing theme will be that study, much much more study is needed. Through, say, 2004.

Which brings me to:

44 IN 2004!!!!

25948. janjon - 8/9/2001 11:43:55 AM

Let's try that with a bit more emphasis:

44 IN 2004!!!!

25949. Cygnus X-1 - 8/9/2001 11:58:53 AM

hey rubberducy, re 25927, I didn't see you complain about all of the time Clinton spent fundraising. At least Bush isn't embracing our corrupt political system as you liberals would call it.

25950. Cellar Door - 8/9/2001 12:03:32 PM

You don't have to embrace what you embody.

25951. Cygnus X-1 - 8/9/2001 12:04:06 PM

yc, re 25946:
No straddling is necessary. All Bush need do is cite the Constitution and his oath to uphold it. Maybe then someone would read it.

25952. OhioSTOPAS - 8/9/2001 12:29:36 PM

Do you mean he should say that the Constitution prohibits the federal government from spending money on research to cure diseases?

As a Democrat, I can only dream of President Bush saying something so wacky.

25953. JudithAtHome - 8/9/2001 12:40:18 PM

Sit back and watch....he'll be saying something very close to wacky, rest assured.

25954. Absensia - 8/9/2001 12:41:32 PM

Maybe he'll say it's become a religious issue and so the first amendment prohibits the government getting involved, especially since it's spend all that money on charter schools. (RME)

25955. Wombat - 8/9/2001 12:48:45 PM

And faith-based programs

25956. bbb - 8/9/2001 1:05:50 PM

What happened to GoreCam?

25957. bbb - 8/9/2001 1:07:00 PM

Can we impeach Clinton for the economic slowdown started from last year?

25958. Cellar Door - 8/9/2001 1:08:12 PM

LOL!

25959. Wombat - 8/9/2001 1:41:27 PM

Ohio:

What Cygnus means is that if it ain't in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, the Federal Government cannot do it. You know, like if it ain't in the Bible, it didn't happen.

25960. Cygnus X-1 - 8/9/2001 3:47:33 PM

Wombat, you're right. That's exactly what I mean (except for the Bible bit). As for it not going over very well with the public, too fucking bad. That's the whole point of saying it. He can finally make the case to the idiot masses (aka Democrats) that the federal government is not the solution to everything. In fact, it's often the cause of our problems.

And what about Thomas Jefferson's line?: "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." How would rubberducky, for example, feel about federal funding for research into a "cure" for homosexuality?

Bush should also point out it's not a matter of it being legal or not. We're only talking about federal funding. After all, it's not as if no disease was cured without federal funding. As a matter of fact, given the federal government's track record for funding initiatives (education, welfare, social security, etc.), I would think we would not want the federal government to fund this.

25961. Wombat - 8/9/2001 3:56:09 PM

Cygnus:

Your belief in the Constitution is exactly that of a religious fundamentalist's toward the Bible. I am suprised you don't recognize that.

25962. janjon - 8/9/2001 4:31:42 PM

his belief in the Constitution as HE perceives it to be.

25963. Cygnus X-1 - 8/9/2001 4:35:54 PM

No Wombat, there's a difference. I don't hold a "belief" in the Constitution. Basing government on what people "believe" is a recipe for disaster. (Hmmmm, maybe that's what's wrong.) My views on the Constitution may elicit the same emotion from you, but it's not analogous to someone's views on the Bible.

No one can prove that the Bible is God's word. You have to have faith. However, it can certainly be proved beyond a resonable doubt that the Constitution is how the founders of the United States intended the country to be run. Also, there is plenty of evidence (ie. the 10th amendment, the Federalist Papers, etc.) that the founders' intent was that their be a limited central government and that we be protected from tyranny of the majority that would result if we had a "living" Constitution.

25964. Indiana Jones - 8/9/2001 4:42:47 PM

Remember the faux Bush IQ discussion from about a week ago?

At least one "journalist" has been taken in by it.

25965. janjon - 8/9/2001 4:46:13 PM

That is one simplistic article.

25966. Wombat - 8/9/2001 4:58:42 PM

Cygnus:

All it proves is how the founding fathers wanted the country to be run at that time, when the United States was an agrarian, preindustrial, impoverished, indebted, disunited, disfunctional entity. Their intent was to create a Federal State that was stronger than what existed before, while retaining a high--but arguable--degree of autonomy for the states.

In their wisdom, they did something that you decry: they built in an amendment process that allowed the Constitution to grow and develop as the country did. You seem to believe the Constitution should have stopped after the first 10 amendments, and that all the subsequent amendments that follow are somehow illegitimate and against the wishes of the founding fathers.

This is manifestly untrue: If the founding fathers believed that the Constitution was perfect--as you appear to--why did they make it possible to change it?

25967. Indiana Jones - 8/9/2001 5:03:14 PM

Anyone can call himself an "independent" journalist and write a column. Needs a better factchecker, though.

25968. janjon - 8/9/2001 5:06:07 PM

well put, Wombat. And in terms that even Cygnus ought to be able to comprehend.

Among other things, the Founding Brothers (very engaging book, incidentally), makes it very clear as to how much the Boys were winging it in terms of their efforts to come up not only with provisions that would make sense but (gee, politics even then) would end up being ratified.

25969. concerned - 8/9/2001 5:08:42 PM

Re. 25964 -

This is the first I heard that there was such a 'debate'. Doesn't this journalist check her sources out? I appears that much of this Lovenstein 'Institute's IQ ratings of presidents were achieved by legerdemain and wishful thinking.

25970. Absensia - 8/9/2001 5:09:58 PM

As I recall, the first ten amendments came later. There was too much controvery at first. The ten amendments were adopted in 1791. The constitution was ratified on Sept. 17, 1787. I know, picky picky.

25971. concerned - 8/9/2001 5:12:25 PM

Wonder what this 'Institute's' rating of Bore's IQ would have been, based on his collegiate scholastic career? Probably somewhere in the moron/imbecile range.

LOL!

25972. Absensia - 8/9/2001 5:14:02 PM

Wombat, I agree with janjon...very well put.

25973. OhioSTOPAS - 8/9/2001 5:15:14 PM

Cygnus: "The Congress shall have Power To . . . provide for the . . . general Welfare of the United States." (Article I, Section 8, first clause)

25974. concerned - 8/9/2001 5:18:48 PM

Can 'general Welfare' be defined as blowing 5 trillion dollars to destroy the African American family structure and dramatically increase child poverty and societal dysfunction?

I think not.

25975. JudithAtHome - 8/9/2001 5:19:08 PM

Probably somewhere in the moron/imbecile range.

Oh, you mean equal to Bushs?

25976. Cygnus X-1 - 8/9/2001 5:24:37 PM

Wombat, re 25966:
Not so fast. You're not going to get away so easily with that one. Come down off that horse. I most certainly do not decry the amendment process. It would be foolish to not be able to amend the constitution as needs arose.

What you don't seem to understand, though, is that there is no amendment that constitutionalizes the majority of modern day government functions. That's the problem. The amendment process was meant to be deliberative (3/4 of the state legislatures among other requirements). The problem with that, for you liberals that is, is that that means we need more than a simple majority or plurality to amend how the federal government functions. This means that once we deliberate one some foolish, bleeding heart program you liberals want, it will most likely be rejected by more than 1/4 of the states.

You want a federal role for education? Fine, let's seriously debate it and see if we can get 3/4 of the state legislatures to agree that the federal government should control education. Maybe there is a federal role for it. But it shouldn't be up to a bunch of pandering congressmen to decide.

What, is all of this too much work to carry out the will of the people (think of the children!)? Too bad. It's better to err on the side of caution. A government which governs the best governs the least.

25977. OhioSTOPAS - 8/9/2001 5:27:05 PM

Did I mention that "The Congress shall have Power To . . . provide for the .. . general Welfare of the United States"?

25978. janjon - 8/9/2001 5:30:02 PM

A government which governs the best tries to promote the well-being of all of its citizens and residents and as such tries to be innovative and pro-active in its efforts.

25979. Cygnus X-1 - 8/9/2001 5:31:12 PM

OK, Ohio, you took the bait 25973. Read that articule fully and read Madison's explanation of it. If you read it, you'll realize that what you quoted is not punctuated with a period. No, the sentence continues and enumerates the specific powers that are for the "general welfare of the United States". As Madison says, why bother enumerating the powers if they really meant the "general welfare" to be whatever Congress wanted?

See for yourself.

25980. Cygnus X-1 - 8/9/2001 5:32:25 PM

I'll save you some trouble if you go to that link. Search for "welfare". He goes right into the clause Ohio cites.

25981. Absensia - 8/9/2001 5:34:51 PM

There is a semi colon at the end of the general statement, not a colon, and the enumerated powers also end with semi colons...the enumerations are a continuance, not a limitation.

25982. Absensia - 8/9/2001 5:35:35 PM

Semi colons set off clauses.

25983. Cygnus X-1 - 8/9/2001 5:39:19 PM

But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? ... For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity...

- James Madison, Federalist 41

25984. Absensia - 8/9/2001 5:42:56 PM

I have read the Federalist Papers and Madison can say what he wants...the FP are not the Constitution, and it took some doing to get the constitution ratified. But, when you get down to it, it's all in constitutional construction.

When you challenge a federal regulation in court on the basis it conflicts with the Constitution, the judge wants to hear about construction.

25985. janjon - 8/9/2001 5:47:04 PM

Madison was just practicing politics. Trying to be persuasive. Not so much to get the thing ratified, but to try to win over supporters for his (and Jefferson's) agrarian (some would say utopian) views.

25986. concerned - 8/9/2001 5:51:53 PM

A government which governs the best tries to
promote the well-being of all of its citizens and
residents and as such tries to be innovative and
pro-active in its efforts.

...but at what point does the segue occur into excessive social engineering such as we have been seeing a backlash from during the last 20 years?

25987. OhioSTOPAS - 8/9/2001 5:53:14 PM

"The breadth of this power [Congress's spending power] was made clear in United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1, 66 (1936), where the Court, resolving a longstanding debate over the scope of the Spending Clause, determined that "the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution." Thus, objectives not thought to be within Article I's "enumerated legislative fields," id., at 65, may nevertheless be attained through the use of the spending power and the conditional grant of federal funds."

- South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987)

25988. robertjayb - 8/9/2001 5:55:47 PM

44 in 2004!!!! Oh, I get it (thump, thump). A family tradition.

25989. jexster - 8/9/2001 6:22:26 PM

Message # 25935 dumber den dirt

25990. Absensia - 8/9/2001 6:31:27 PM

Just in: BREAKING NEWS from CNN.com

-- President Bush has decided on compromise that allows limited
federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, sources say.
Details soon.

25991. Absensia - 8/9/2001 6:33:45 PM

ycmeehan was dead on.

25992. ycmeehan - 8/9/2001 6:40:18 PM

Absensia,
Yes, this morning at nine-thirty I was but it was a no-brainer.

25993. concerned - 8/9/2001 6:48:53 PM

1)What is the likelihood of a nuclear launch by any
country in the next decade?

2) Is this likelihood higher or lower than the suitcase or
tanker bomb scenario?

3) At what level of probable successful defense against,
say, a five missile attack, would you deploy a NMD
system?

Thought I'd dispose of these questions, now that I've seen them.

1)Both nuclear blackmail and the unpredictable actions of states suffering from crises and disorderly successions has to be allowed for. Anybody who says they want you to trust them on a specific figure, particularly on the negligibly low side, for all of these unpredictable factors, is simply unserious about the matter. Additionally, the benefit/cost ratio is unprecedently high for an in place NMD system. This is even true ignoring the technological boost in R&D and manufacturing of implementing such a system which is unlikely to be achievable in anything approaching a comparable timeframe by any other practicable means.

2)Apples and oranges. The security measures, for the most part, required to protect against suitcase and tanker bombs should not be looked at as a zero sum expenditure vis a vis that for NMD. Given such a dynamic variable, why use as an excuse for inaction foolish predictions of the relative likelihoods of one type of nuclear assault over the other? Add to this the weighting factor that suitcase bombs are lower budget and potentially far, far less destructive than even the simplest MIRVed warhead.

3)Again, an implied constraint, masked as a 'question'. Perhaps the best answere is simply a reminder that the ultimate goal of NMD is to make the most destructive class of nuclear weapons obsolete.

25994. concerned - 8/9/2001 6:55:55 PM

Re. stem cell research - Bush threw a mere sop to the embryo grinders, because no Federal funds will be allocated for stem cells harvested by that means henceforth.

25995. concerned - 8/9/2001 7:18:29 PM

To further elaborate on Question 3 above, however, assuming a 3 stage NMD system and, let's say we allow for the boost phase defensive stage to be knocked out. The success rate would probably depend somewhat on the size of the NMD deployment that could be brought to bear. For instance, a missile which is targeted for, say Denver after passing over the North Pacific could be taken out by probably several separate suborbital phase defensive systems as it passes near Alaska and travels over the Pacific Northwest, and, depending on the redundant reentry phase defensive capabilities intended for a larger launch that could be brought to bear, that success rate could probably also be independently increased considerably.

25996. concerned - 8/9/2001 7:24:21 PM

So, given the second and third stages with an assumed for this example 15-20 missile targeted capacity at which each might have a 50% kill ratio capacity; this might double to 75% each with a five missile attach so that there'd be perhaps one chance in four that even one out of the five launched missiles would ultimately reach their target.

25997. concerned - 8/9/2001 7:30:55 PM

grabbin'

25998. concerned - 8/9/2001 7:31:06 PM

a

25999. concerned - 8/9/2001 7:31:19 PM

cheap

26000. concerned - 8/9/2001 7:31:33 PM

nilli?

26001. concerned - 8/9/2001 7:41:37 PM

And the beauty part of NMD is the generations of angst that US citizens would avoid because we wouldn't feel obligated to bomb the entire downtrodden population of some poor totalitarian nation into radioactive buzzard bait.

26002. Cellar Door - 8/9/2001 8:16:00 PM

connie, how old are you?

26003. concerned - 8/9/2001 8:21:47 PM

cllrdr -

Trust me when I tell you that I've seen good days and I've seen bad days. And you know what? Unlike most Lefties, I prefer the good days.




MAD, indeed!

Fer chrissakes

26004. Cellar Door - 8/9/2001 8:40:25 PM

No I'm seriously interested in knowing how old you are. There's a reason for this.

26005. concerned - 8/9/2001 8:43:21 PM

Er, um. I'm 46.

26006. Cellar Door - 8/9/2001 8:55:37 PM

Hmmm. That means you were 16 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Do you remember those wild and wooly days?

26007. concerned - 8/9/2001 9:02:15 PM

Actually, I was about 6. I've read enough well after the fact to draw the conclusion that we were as close, if not closer to a nuclear exchange with the USSR then than at any other time.

26008. Cellar Door - 8/9/2001 9:43:12 PM

Do you have any personal memories of what it was like being 6 back then?

26009. jexster - 8/10/2001 1:06:53 AM

concerned ...U aren't 46 no way....22 if a day.


I was 10 and have vivid memories. What you've read is accurate as hell. Forget the histories, forget the media coverage at the time, forget the fact that US forces were at Defcon 2, the highest alert ever during the nuclear age. When it comes to war and rumors of war, the best measure is ordinary folk.

For 2-3 days at the "eye-ball-to-eye-ball" point in the crisis, the nuclear war fear among friends, family, community was palpable.

I'll never forget Adlai Stevenson at the UN...

"Mister Ambassador[dobrynin], answer my question. I am prepared to wait for your answer until hell freezes over."

26010. jexster - 8/10/2001 1:16:36 AM

Re. stem cell research - Bush threw a mere sop to the embryo grinders, because no Federal funds will be allocated for stem cells harvested by that means henceforth.

Bullshit.

- He left that door open. He was quite clear about that.

- The Senate will be adding bucks for full blown embryonic stem cell research to appropriations bills and DeLay/Armey will be attaching "Hyde amendments" to the same bills banning use of any money for ANY research.

- Meanwhile the Taliban is pissed. READ MY LIPS....etc.etc.etc. And from their point of view, who can blame 'em? Private enterprise pays to harvest the embryoes to add to the cell lines already developed. Federal funding assures that is money well spent picking up the ball after the "killing" has been done.

Either life begins at conception or it doesn't.

Bush'll be straddling that fence til we retire him in '04.

26011. jexster - 8/10/2001 1:49:31 AM

Message # 25995

Are you daft?

None of the mission-critical technology for any of the 3 stages exists right now and probably won't for 5-10 years, if ever.

Put those compound percentages against this imaginary enemy back in your butt where you found 'em concerned. Even these mythic "rogue" nations, if they have indeed deployed ICBMS by that time, will have more than 5 and will have developed decoy technology to go with. And if they shoot (which they won't) if only 1 gets through, that one (unless its Dallas or Houston) is all that's needed....

Unless the shield is impregnable, and more importantly, unless the adversary believes it the shield is impregnable, NMD will add nothing to the nation's security, which will be a matter of offensive deterence then as now.
Waste of billions. I do so enjoy these wingnuts, with their febrile reasoning, especially when they get all peace-nik on us.

But its all just strategic flummery amusing though you surely are.

26012. jexster - 8/10/2001 1:50:12 AM



And BTW, you reference to "MAD" is misplaced in the NMD debate. The proper term is "offensive or active deterence". Mutually assured destruction does not apply to the so-called rogue state threat but at present, only to the US/Russia, US/Ukraine strategic balance.


26013. concerned - 8/10/2001 2:37:41 AM

Re. 26011 -

You miss the quite important point that such a NMD as I hypothecated would have save many millions of lives of the scenario I created, which I believe is quite reasonable.

game..set...match to Concerned.

26014. concerned - 8/10/2001 2:50:24 AM

GWB has defined the Federal position on funding embryo derived stem cell extraction which is that there won't be any. That's as solid a declaration that the US Government isn't lying in bed with the embryo grinders's obsession with destroying human life as is needed or practicable.

26015. concerned - 8/10/2001 4:45:36 AM

Ralph Nader is a real Green Party Energizer Bunny!

26016. concerned - 8/10/2001 4:47:00 AM

26017. ycmeehan - 8/10/2001 4:57:44 AM

Bush has finally defined himself in absolute terms He has chosen the embryo that was to be discarded over the childhood diabetic. This choice separates him from a true conservative such as Orrin Hatch. Why did he do it? This will remain the question of the day.

Some will attribute his decision to ethical and moral considerations. From my point of view, the decision arose out of a fear of losing his base, --the religious right--.

The ball now moves to his opposition, which is formidable indeed. They are in a position to sink him if they are as ruthless as he is. If the opposition frames his decision as a choice of the to be discarded embryos over the potential life span of a diabetic child, in my opinion, he becomes politically dead.

26018. Wombat - 8/10/2001 8:05:20 AM

So, concerned, in the aftermath of your hypothetical attempted nuclear missile strike on the US that has been successfully foiled by NMD, the United States would do nothing to retaliate against the country that launched it?

To think that there wouldn't be retaliation of an unprecedented scope after a stunt like that shows a degree of naivete that would make one of your stereotypical "leftists" blush.

I also find it hard to believe that someone who is such a hard-bitten "centrist" as yourself would trot out a leftist lament on the angst of MAD and how it scarred generations as a reason for promoting NMD.

26019. jexster - 8/10/2001 8:33:40 AM

Message # 20613

What will save millions of lives is deterrence you Moronic Minion.

One warhead getting through is all that it takes to ruin your day (unless it hits any number of cities in Texas, Kansas, Mississippi...you get the pic)

In fact, its the very possibility that a warhead might get through that will stop any from being launched and it has been thus since 1945.

So it is deterrence that works not your febrile wingnut fulminations.

26020. jexster - 8/10/2001 8:36:33 AM

Indeed an argument can be made and has been by many nuclear strategists that acquiring nuclear weapons is a very bad idea for third powers on the grounds that 1 warhead puts the new member of the nuclear club squarely in the sites of several thousand US warheads.

But that's a lecture for the slow thread....

26021. vw - 8/10/2001 8:37:45 AM

I have three concerns over Bush's announced on Stem-cell research.

1) Who owns the 60 stem cell strains that are now the only source of research fodder? How much money can they make off of being the only source of stem cells? Who do they contribute to politically?

2) Is the US going to suffer a "brain drain" of our best researchers in this area? Are we going to see our best and brightest leave our gentle shores for countries that have fewer restrictions (Italy comes to mind)? What is the long-term effect of that on our country?

3) The question has never been about the life. After the moment of conception, there is life. The question, as ycmeehan pointed out, is whether or not we are going to afford the same rights to a clump of 200 to 400 undifferentiated cells as we do to Christopher Reeve? Bush's answer is pretty clear. He better hope that he doesn't live to see the day when my stomach cells are capable of being used to generate "life" in the same way.

26022. jexster - 8/10/2001 8:39:48 AM

For the first six months of his administration, President Bush tethered himself to the Republican Party's right wing with his tax, environmental, personnel and foreign policies -- enrapturing conservatives while worrying moderates and minority voters.

That pattern changed in dramatic fashion last night.

In his most prominent forum since his address to Congress last winter, Bush used a nationally televised speech to make his first significant break with conservative orthodoxy. He agreed to federal funding for embryonic stem cell research -- in a strictly limited manner that left liberals unsatisfied, but brought accusations from conservatives that Bush broke a campaign pledge and set the country on a "slippery slope" toward the killing of embryos for study.

"I think there is a shift going on," said Gary Bauer, a conservative leader who opposed Bush in the Republican presidential primaries. "On economic policy he's been Reaganesque, but it seems to me increasingly on social policy there's this disturbing trend."

Damn str8t Gary!

Read My Lips: Leftward Lurch Maybe Brief

Robert Novak was apoplectic on Crossfire....now King Moron is in the cross hairs of the same Tech9 that wasted Poppy.

26023. jexster - 8/10/2001 8:42:37 AM

BabyKiller qu'est-ce que c'est!

26024. rubberducky - 8/10/2001 8:49:41 AM

i thought Bush did a decent job last night. i was, as were most, expecting some sort of middle ground and he delivered it for now. those that are hard core on either side can find something to like and can read into what he said anything they want and claim 'victory'. which, in this day and age, is a 'victory' for a politician -- no matter what a sad commentary that is.

26025. jexster - 8/10/2001 8:50:51 AM

"Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, rejected Bush's decision. "The trade-off he has announced is morally unacceptable," he said. "We hope and pray that President Bush will return to a principled stand against treating some human lives as nothing more than objects to be manipulated and destroyed for research purposes."

But Republican strategists predicted that on this issue Bush will be hurt less by dispiriting conservatives than by alienating moderates. Conservatives "will make a little noise and attempt to stir things up, but at the end of the day they have nowhere to go," said strategist Scott Reed."


In nomine Patri, et Fili, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum
benedicta tu mulieribus
et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei
ora pro nobis peccatoribus
nunc et in hora mortis Moronibus.

26026. rubberducky - 8/10/2001 8:52:48 AM

Re: Message # 26021, vw.

Are we going to see our best and brightest leave our gentle shores for countries that have fewer restrictions (Italy comes to mind)?

as i understand it, this is just federal funding being limited. private research can continue unabated. so the only 'brain-drain' may be people jumping to private enterprise instead of working for the public good.

26027. rubberducky - 8/10/2001 8:54:28 AM

Jay

you may want to link in the stem cell decision in the 'topics of interest' starting with Absensia's Message # 25990.

26028. jexster - 8/10/2001 8:54:43 AM

The "hardcore" RD to the left (NB:not "on the left") is hardly hard.

We're talking scientists, doctors, the president of Stanford Medical School.

Politically, he satisfies no one. He doesn't put the issue at rest but merely drags it out and with it, his sorry ass which is now on the line.

Watch it RD, you've swallowed the Austin Fun Bunch's spin. Gotta watch what you eat.

26029. jexster - 8/10/2001 8:58:28 AM

Interesting factoid from Nightline. Seems the Moron-in-residence has a continuing fuzzy math problem. He said that there were 60 cell lines.

There are only 12. 12*5=60 I 'spose....

But substantively I rather like the idea that Bush by dragging this out so has focused attention on an important moral, ethical issue whereas Gore because he wouldn't have hesitated a second in maintaining the policy would have put the kabash on the debate that will now proceed to the Moronic One's detriment.

26030. rubberducky - 8/10/2001 8:59:21 AM

of course he didn't put it to rest, Jex. he wants reelected and he wants the Religious nutcases to get out there and vote for him.

i'm just saying that you can read whatever you really want into what he did, depending on your preconceived inclinations. nothing new here.

26031. jexster - 8/10/2001 9:02:30 AM

No he wants re-elected and wants moderates and independents to vote for him and he runs the risk that conservatives who, it is said, have no where to go will find that they can go home on election day.

Thus the repeated warning shots delivered first by DeLay in his 12/20 visit to ArmadilloLand and which have been picked up noticeably since James Jeffords put an end to the Wingnut WingDing.

26032. jexster - 8/10/2001 9:04:46 AM

EIDAIHE, China, Aug. 8 — Jiang Zemin has not yet met George W. Bush, but in their single telephone conversation last month, Mr. Jiang now says, ``from his voice I could feel that he was a president I could do business with.''

Ah so....make Chop Suey!!!!

26033. vw - 8/10/2001 9:08:08 AM

There are only 12. 12*5=60 I 'spose....

That's what I get for listening to the President about numbers.

I was only aware of 5 so I was surprised at 60.

Nonetheless, who owns them?

26034. jexster - 8/10/2001 9:13:18 AM

One company VW...licenses to others including Chiron here in the Bay Area....

Now consider...there are 12...the scientists want hundreds and they want NIH to shepard and fund.

Soooo....these gouhls with the Bush-ripened promise of Big Bucks dangling in front of their murderous eyes just go kill a few babies on their own dime...and well Mister Moron, whatcha gonna do now???

Heh..heh..heh..

I feel Freeper Foray comin on!

26035. jexster - 8/10/2001 9:17:11 AM

In answer to Cyg's desperate and tortured treatment of US Constitutional jurisprudence,

What say Cyg about the 30% or so of us who think that the use of taxpayer dollars to kill living beings is morally reprehensible?

Not to mention this up coming Texas murder?

TYLER, Tex. — J. Michael Luttig, a member of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Virginia, is considered one of the most influential and conservative federal judges in the nation, a jurist thought to be on President Bush's short list for the Supreme Court. He also has the awful distinction of being one of the few federal judges in history to have a father who was murdered.
With Mr. Beazley now scheduled to be executed on Aug. 15, his case is attracting international pleas for clemency because he was only 17 at the time of the slaying and because his co-defendants have since recanted parts of their testimony. His supporters also question whether prosecutors sought the death penalty simply to placate Judge Luttig, who moved his office to Tyler for the trial and apparently consulted with prosecutors on jury selection.

And the taxpayers footed Luttig's blood lust bill to boot!

26036. concerned - 8/10/2001 10:18:47 AM

An excerpt from 'Clinton's roguery is money in the bank', which also forecasts that 'loyal' Democrats will doom his autohagiography to the remaindered bins:

YES, IT'S A CATCH-22, but one that explains why Bill Clinton's presidential memoirs couldn't possibly be worth the $12 million advance that Alfred A. Knopf has reportedly agreed to in the book deal making headlines this week. If Clinton were the sort of mature, self-aware, candid figure able to pen an honest account of his scandal-scarred presidency, he would never have been caught with his pants down in the first place.

Of course, neither would he have gotten his record-setting advance. Let's face it: Knopf's interest in Clinton, like ours, comes not because he was a towering president - he most assuredly was not - but because he was such a
monumentally flawed one.

If Clinton's post-presidency is any indication, there can be little doubt that his book will proceed, leaf upon self-justifying leaf, into the high hundreds of pages, just as his State of the Union speeches regularly rattled on well into a second hour.

Yet it's hard not to think that, once truckloads of the remaindered books have been pulped for reincarnation as the latest Britney Spears bio...

26037. concerned - 8/10/2001 10:20:45 AM

Re. 26033 -

Nationally or worldwide, or do you even know which 'your' numbers even relate to?

26038. jexster - 8/10/2001 10:23:13 AM

Concerned you really must stop kicking against the goads....

The Gods of the Free Market have spoken...Clinton Rulz....

All wingnutted ones must now keep silence!

26039. concerned - 8/10/2001 10:23:20 AM

Re. 26024 -

GWB avoided both horns of the dilemma which was presented to him on the stem cell issue. It's hard to ignore the probability that (many of) those who lament his choosing a so-called 'middle ground' are mostly regretting having an excuse to ridicule his decision in one way or the other.

26040. concerned - 8/10/2001 10:24:09 AM

Re. 26024 - erratum corrected

GWB avoided both horns of the dilemma which was
presented to him on the stem cell issue. It's hard to
ignore the probability that (many of) those who
lament his choosing a so-called 'middle ground' are
mostly regretting not having an excuse to ridicule his
decision in one way or the other.

26041. concerned - 8/10/2001 10:35:50 AM

The question,
as ycmeehan pointed out, is whether or not we are
going to afford the same rights to a clump of 200 to
400 undifferentiated cells as we do to Christopher
Reeve?

The above is so patently unbalanced a formulation of the ethics of the issue that I hesitate to publicly guess whether ignorance or disingenuousness was the main culprit in precipitating such a post. Embryo stem cells, which have been not been well established, if at all, for research, have no known desirable or proposed properties which do not also belong to stem cells derived from more readily available, more well established in research and far less controversial sources such as umbilical cords, fat tissue or placentas.

26042. rubberducky - 8/10/2001 10:39:34 AM

well, con-man, what do you call Bush's position if not firm 'middle-ground'?

26043. concerned - 8/10/2001 10:45:26 AM

Re. 26018 -

Wombat -

I was not suggesting that there wouldn't be some sort of retaliation; only that it would not likely involve a mass loss of human life in the scenario I proposed.

Depending on the exact circumstances and in the case of a government being culpable, the retaliation could range from trade and other sanctions to temporary military occupation by the UN or US and replacement of the culpable government.

26044. concerned - 8/10/2001 10:48:09 AM

Re. 26042 -

It's certainly preferable to Clowntoon's dishonest 'wink and a nod' policy which gave the superficial appearance of restricting government funds for extracting embryo stem cells for research without actually doing so.

26045. Cellar Door - 8/10/2001 10:51:22 AM

There will be stem cell research. There's money to be made and that's the Bottom Line.

26046. concerned - 8/10/2001 10:52:06 AM

Exactly.

26047. jexster - 8/10/2001 11:36:29 AM

Recently I gave the "bipartisan" commission on Social Security reform — many of its members and staff are actually associated with the ultra-conservative Cato Institute — a very hard time over its interim report. Was I unfair? No. It's even worse than I thought.

I had been trying to come up with a reductio ad absurdum, something that would demonstrate how nonsensical the commission's analysis is. But I needn't have bothered; a commission member, Thomas Saving, did the job for me, in a presentation he gave at Cato

Cato Calumny..Where's Ronski?!?!?!??!?

26048. jexster - 8/10/2001 11:37:13 AM

on honeymoon???

26049. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 11:40:58 AM

jexster, re 26035:

If you mean what about paying for our military (whose purpose is to kill)? If you don't like it, too bad. It's in the constitution and something you must accept if you're a citizen. Financing our defense was recognized as necessary in order to secure our inalienable rights.

If you mean state executions, once again, the Constitution allows for this. Federal executions are Constitutional and so, of course, are state executions.

Now, the real crux of the matter is when you live in, say Texas, and don't like your tax money being used to finance so many executions. The beautiful thing about how this country was founded is that you are free to move about in it. That is, in this case, move to New York. The problem with you liberals is that's not good enough for you. No one with whom you disagree is to be allowed to carry on without your consent. You wish to stifle all dissent and federalize everything. This is precisely why the federal government was limited in its power. Like minded people should be free to associate in communities where practices they abhor are forbidden. As long as the citizens therein are free to leave, what's the problem?

A good example now is Bush's stem cell decision. If, for argument's sake, I am morally opposed to using embryos as research objects, there is no state to which I can move to ensure that my tax dollars don't finance the practice.

Yet another piece of freedom lost.

26050. vw - 8/10/2001 11:49:32 AM

Cygnus , when did we win the right not to bar our tax dollars from anything we disagree with?

Embryo stem cells, which have been not been well established, if at all, for research, have no known desirable or proposed properties which do not also belong to stem cells derived from more readily available, more well established in research and far less controversial sources such as umbilical cords, fat tissue or placentas.

And that has jack shit to do with the question of whether or not speaking of “killing” or murdering 200 undifferentiated cells is establishing a presumption that a blastula has a compelling right to life. Especially a blastula that would not exist were it not for the same type of technology that is being stymied by this bill.

As for you apparent compulsion to start a dialog with me by pissing an insult on my sneakers … you can kiss my cute little rosy butt cheeks for all I care about your opinion on my state of knowledge.

26051. vw - 8/10/2001 11:50:40 AM

should have read "the right TO bar our tax dollars " ... sorry.

26052. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 11:51:23 AM

Here's something to ponder:

Imagine how quickly our medical advances would proceed if we were free to use human subjects without regard to their lives.

Yes, yes, horrible indeed. But, what if we permitted scientific research on the condemned? That is, Timothy McVeigh was going to fry anyway. Why not see how his body reacts to the latest AIDS vaccines? Hell, give his leg to the guy who just lost his in a shark attack. It's going to be "discarded" anyway.

Now, where's the distinction between this and embryonic stem cell research? Is it that McVeigh is a living human being and an embryo isn't? Who says? What is "life"? Should we go with majority/mob rule?

26053. Wombat - 8/10/2001 11:54:47 AM

Concerned:

You might be technically up on NMD, but your grasp of the political, diplomatic, and military ramifications of an unsuccessful missile strike against the US is ludicrous. I hope the Generalizer Bunny (Ace) reads it.

Given US doctrine concerning taking/inflicting casualties, the miscreant rogue state could expect at the very least a shower of cruise missiles on its miltary installations and communications "nodes," aerial destruction of any facilities pertaining to WMD production, and whatever collateral damage takes place.

"Occupation?" Try "invasion," with all the casualties and destruction that it entails.

26054. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 11:55:26 AM

vw, We do not have the right to selectively bar our tax dollars from being used for purposes with which we disagree. Neither does the federal government have the right to impose taxes for the funding of unconstitutional activities. It seems we are at an impasse.

As for that other missive, I think you have me confused with someone else.

26055. rubberducky - 8/10/2001 11:56:01 AM

Should we go with majority/mob rule?

...

As long as the citizens therein are free to leave, what's the problem?

amazing what 11 minutes can do

26056. Wombat - 8/10/2001 11:59:31 AM

Cygnus:

We've been over this before, but the Constitution only calls for the creation and maintenance of a naval force. Armies were to be raised as needed from state militia. This was, of course, unworkable from the beginning, and a standing military establishment was created.

26057. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 12:04:34 PM

rd, re 26055. You think you're clever don't you? Unfortunatley, the answer to you is that by federalizing everything, you are imposing on the sovereignty of free people. It is not enough to say "you're free to leave the USA if you don't like it." The USA was supposed to be a country of free people. The more you federalize, the more freedom you take. Equating the subjugation of a free people with the free association of like-minded people doesn't work. They're not the same.

26058. vw - 8/10/2001 12:08:17 PM

As for that other missive, I think you have me confused with someone else.

Sorry, I knew it wasn't you ... I was just remiss in adding concerned’s name to the front of my screed.

Now, where's the distinction between this and embryonic stem cell research? Is it that McVeigh is a living human being and an embryo isn't? Who says? What is "life"? Should we go with majority/mob rule?.

Do you have 14 hours or so for me to answer this?

Hope about we start right from the fact that Timothy McVeigh has all the traits we associate with sentient beings (even if he is a repulsive sentient being). He has the capacity to be self-aware, conscious to perceive the world around him, to perform as a moral agent with the rights and responsibilities inherent to such agency, etc.

A blastula has none of these. It does have the potential to have all of these. I am not arguing that a blastula does not deserve any consideration due to its potentiality for becoming a sentient being. But let’s take a look at that potentiality.

Currently that blastula has been discard from being considered for implantation by the biological parents that caused its existence, kind of a big stopper there on the potentiality thing as there is no environment for it to continue its development.

(cont.)

26059. vw - 8/10/2001 12:08:27 PM

Secondly, it exists inside a container of liquid nitrogen so it doesn’t even have as much chance of furthering its development in that environment as one of my ovum does of spontaneously starting to divide all on its own without fertilization.

Third, in every other area of the law, this little clump of cells is considered property. It can be awarded as property in a divorce settlement. The people that donated genetic material to produce it contractually own it and pay to store it. If they default on the payments for the storage, the company providing the storage services are within their legal rights to seize the cells in lieu of payment.

Damn, client of the phone … BRB

26060. Cellar Door - 8/10/2001 12:09:24 PM

"Free" to do what?

26061. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 12:10:27 PM

Wombat, re 26056:

There has been debate about that issue. Many conservatives believe that in order to have created a standing army, we needing an amendment. I guess it wasn't politically expedient. If you believe in a strict enumeration of powers in Article 1, section 8, then you should oppose a standing army. Do you?

Regardless, you still must pay for the maintenance of a navy whose purpose is to kill.

BTW, don't cite past unconstitional decisions as reason why we should have more. In this case, two wrongs don't make a right.

26062. janjon - 8/10/2001 12:11:30 PM

What a bomb W laid last night. Doesn't take a genius to figure out that once you get through the verbiage, he was yet again pandering to his right.

What is comical is the side show efforts. Throw on a national broadcast at 9 p.m., too late to be dissected on the evening news and just before newspaper deadlines, making it quite difficult to get analyses printed. Throw out little pep rally advocates in as many media outlets as possible to spread the word that this profound and deeply thought about decision indeed means that research (lots of it) will continue. right. for profit. tis the American way.

But, funniest of all, are the efforts to make it sound as if there is such an animal as the Western White House and that this whole episode shows W to be deeply involved and attached and profound and wise.

Any body want to bet that he won't be able to talk for more than 15 seconds as to what issues were involved in, say, a month or so? Too many other things to absorb his attention - like cutting sagebrush or whatever the hell it is one does in a godforsaken place like that ranch.

26063. Cellar Door - 8/10/2001 12:12:15 PM

"Free" to impose religion.

"Free" to discriminate against anyone who isn't a straight white male -- or castrating white female.

"Free" to maim and murder anyone who isn't a straight white male -- or castrating white female.


26064. jexster - 8/10/2001 12:14:12 PM

Nice try cyg..but you can't have your crap cupcake and eat it too!

Your argument - correct me if I am wrong - is that because a substantial minority of our citizens strenuously oppose embryonic stem cell research finding it morally repugnant, it is an unconstitutional "tyranny of the majority" to require that taxes paid by all finance such activity.

Now this is a novel argument indeed to be charitable but assuming soundness for the sake of demonstrating its infirmity, I submit that the same logic applies with even greater force to state killing of living persons.

And yes I am speaking of capital punishment...seamless web and all that...

So next time we have a debate on capital punishment, I expect to see you on the side of God and me

26065. CalGal - 8/10/2001 12:14:49 PM

I don't understand why we are making any distinction at all. Why is creating embryos for research and termination any different from having an abortion? If an embryo is life, then termination ought to be considered wrong in both cases, not just one.

26066. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 12:15:16 PM

vw, you're not going to get anywhere. A newborn infant has no chance of survival without intervention by some caregiver. Is it alive?

No one can say with authority what is "alive". So, why not err on the side of caution. At the very least, allow like-minded people to associate in communities where they don't have to fund something that doesn't err on the side of caution.

26067. jexster - 8/10/2001 12:17:05 PM

That's right Cal...as a priestly rep of the USCCB put it..."either life begins at conception or it doesn't"

To which I might add "or you aren't sure"

26068. jexster - 8/10/2001 12:21:49 PM

Here's something to ponder:

Imagine how quickly our medical advances would proceed if we were free to use human subjects without regard to their lives.

Pondering...Pondering...please wait...

OK

Embryos as I understand the current legal situation cannot be used for post-(mortem's not quite right is it?) research without the consent of the "parents" (not quite right either) as is the case if the child days birth +1 second....

If as Cyg might have it, the life of Tim McVeigh is of lesser constitutional/legal moment, why not harvest his and other's body parts for the good of the humanity that he and others showed such contempt for?

26069. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 12:29:23 PM

No, jexster, in 26064 you are wrong. My argument is not "because a substantial minority of our citizens strenuously oppose embryonic stem cell research finding it morally repugnant, it is an unconstitutional 'tyranny of the majority' to require that taxes paid by all finance such activity". That is my argument for why it was a good thing to limit the powers of the federal government. Federal funding of embryonic stem cell research is unconstitutional simply because there is nothing in the Constitution permitting it. It has nothing to do with how people feel about it.

26070. jexster - 8/10/2001 12:39:59 PM

Oh sorry..I missed the point....I didn't understand the depth of your faith in Our Founding Father's and their omniscience!

Wars on cancer....wars on drugs....street lights...parking meters...UNDECLARED WARS!!....war in vietnam...the FBI...the CIA...Kosovo...nuclear bombs...NMD...the Western(!) WhiteHouse and Armadillo Ranch...King Moron's 1/2 time presidency.......

I for one am glad that Our Founding Paters thought to authorize air strikes against Sadam!

26071. janjon - 8/10/2001 12:50:33 PM

yes. And, as another example, I suppose the FCC should be limited to regulating the stagecoach and courier-by-horse trade since obviously nothing more advanced like, say, optic fibers or railroads, could have been envisioned when those all-knowing gurus did their job.

Oh, I guess, communications delivered by boat, too. As long as not on man-made bodies of water, like canals, since they weren't around at that time either.

26072. Absensia - 8/10/2001 12:54:43 PM

pigeons, you forgot carrier pigeons.

26073. jexster - 8/10/2001 12:54:50 PM

Cyg...

Constitutional Law - Nowak [Hornbook Series, West Publishing]

Tribe, Laurence H. American Constitutional Law

Tribe L & Dorf M (1991) On reading the Constitution

26074. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 12:56:19 PM

janjon, I'll assuming you are capable of understanding principles and are able to apply them as necessary, so I won't demand that you come up with an example with merit. However, please read Article V in the Constitution.

26075. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 12:59:39 PM

jexster,

Where you'd like to take us.

In case you have trouble understanding it.

26076. janjon - 8/10/2001 1:00:01 PM

cygnus - you have your head way up your posterior when it comes to understanding the constitution. You come out with absurdly simplistic so-called principles, you have to live with the consequences.

absentia - how could I have been so remiss! I must admit that when I think of pigeons, I think of pressed, under glass. But that would bring in the FDA and God knows that whole group has to be unconstitutional according to Cygnus.

26077. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 1:02:21 PM

janjon, regarding Article V, that's where a sovereign state must explicitly give its consent to any abridging of its freedom. It's not supposed to happen through judicial or legislative fiat.

26078. jexster - 8/10/2001 1:03:43 PM

Thanks Cyg...but I have no desire for more DoubleSpeak than DuhBya has already delivered...

And 'sides I don't want to take anyone anywhere in particular save you on a journey into the wonderful world of constitutional law and Marky Mark Wahlberg to places better described in the Sex Thread

26079. janjon - 8/10/2001 1:04:36 PM

cygnus - you are a fruitcake.

26080. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 1:04:45 PM

janjon, re 26076. Wow, you so elegantly put me in my place, I realize my adherance to principle has been wrong all along.

Why don't you take your football and go home.

26081. Absensia - 8/10/2001 1:07:20 PM

Janjon...and the USDA....and, maybe you have already gotten USDA involved by identifying Cygnus as a fruitcake. Now they'll want to test him/her.

26082. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 1:08:14 PM

Is it so tough for you to understand, janjon? Just because a law may have merit does not mean it's Constitutional. Think, man, think!

26083. janjon - 8/10/2001 1:09:20 PM

arghh. US instead of F. All those initials, all those agencies. What have we become!

26084. janjon - 8/10/2001 1:10:57 PM

cygnus - your thought processes are so constipated as to lead me to think that a new remedy would be helpful. Adequately tested and approved, of course. Not possible in your world, I guess.

26085. Wombat - 8/10/2001 1:11:35 PM

Cygnus:

Since I don't take the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as the "literal" truths by which the country must be run, I have no problem with a standing army. However, you as a constitutional literalist must have a large problem with this. You must be against it, or you have sacrificed the Constitution on the altar of expediency.

Fortunately, our founding fathers--even Jefferson, who had to cope with the real world threats of the British and Napoleon were not as idiotically inflexible as you are.

Your sainted Jefferson also violated the Constitution by agreeing to the Louisana Purchase. Should we give it back to France?

26086. JudithAtHome - 8/10/2001 1:11:51 PM

Karen Hughes is on CNN right now gilding GWs lily of a speech last night...

I noticed he used the term "snowflake" in mentioning how unique each embryo was...that was a nod to some anti-stem cell advocates who are members of the Snowflake Group or Unit or whatever...they advocate placing unwanted embryos with infertile couples.

26087. ButterfieldSwire - 8/10/2001 1:23:28 PM

Butter's Reform of Social Security

1) Double payments to SS recipients over 80. Pay 1.5 on the dollar to SS recipients over 78.

2) Raise the retirement age for traditional S.S. to 78.

3) Turn Social Security into a forced savings plan in which all funds (less a tax paid to finance the annuity for people over 78) are invested in 30 year Treasury bonds backed (unlike current SS benefits) with the full F&C of the US. [One could complain that by forcing people to hold T-Bonds that one was forcing them to hold low return assets. Au contraire. Every portfolio holder holds low return/low risk assets. Under the BS plan, these assets would just be people' Social Security accounts.)

4) Pay for the switch from a PAYGO system to a vested system with a consumption tax. A consumption tax, unlike the radical income tax advocated by Paul Turdman, has two advantages. First, it does not reduce incentives to produce income (ie. it does not reduce incentives to work or save). Second, a fair share of the tax burden would be imposed on people much of whose income does not come from labor but much of whose income is spent on consumption, (i.e. the same people who 20 years ago set up a system to siphon money from cuurent workers to them).

26088. JudithAtHome - 8/10/2001 1:27:19 PM

Ha...first question from the press at Karens press conference: the guy said he'd never known Karen OR the President to go into such laborious detail over a decision...why now?

26089. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 1:27:58 PM

Wombat, I was playing poker a few weeks ago and in one of the rounds I was dealt a straight. Much to my dismay, someone else was dealt a flush. Fortunately for me, however, the people with whom I played "were not as idiotically inflexible" as I am and considered a straight higher than a flush. Isn't that something?

26090. ButterfieldSwire - 8/10/2001 1:31:04 PM

The Dumbocrats Social Security reform plan:

i) Raise Income Taxes
ii) Pay Enough Benefits to the generation that votes them into power that even the the average voter of that generation (unnamed to protect the innocent generation, okay, its the baby boomers) is a net welfare recipient.
iii) Suck the rest of the country dry to pay for their vision of the US as a nation of welfare recipients.

26091. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 1:32:04 PM

Wombat, given what I said in 26089, should I play poker from now on and consider a stright to be more valuable than a flush since the rules were already broken?

26092. ButterfieldSwire - 8/10/2001 1:34:35 PM

Lets face it, anyone who is 50 years old and a Democrat is a flibberdigit who hasn't saved a penny in their life and is thinking how great turning the US into a welfare state would be.

26093. jexster - 8/10/2001 1:38:47 PM

So the president has finally put all of us out of our misery, with his final decision on stem-cell funding. Actually, he's put only some of us out of our misery, as some of us have to watch medical research move slower than necessary to help the people we love. Still, the president has made a Great Decision, and as such, it seems a word about Bush's thinking process is in order.

Yesterday, as the nation waited for his announcement, not one but four different flaks, officials, and cronies took time out to tell the public how very hard the president was thinking about this issue. "Agonizing," "grappling," and "worrying" were the words chosen by George W. Bush's aides and staffers over the past months. "Obsessed," "introspective," and "consumed" were the descriptors they tossed out, with grave gravity.

How many smart people does one have to put on one's staff to communicate that you are indeed great thinker? One? Two? Eleven? Why is it that you never hear about Einsteinor Martin Buber sending forth minions into the night to inform the world that the big man is thinking? Might we not have hoped that the man who runs the country is, likewise, thinking all the time? How is it possible that we elected a president to whom the state of being in thought is so utterly foreign that vast battalions of foot soldiers must be dispatched to the blue room just to advise us when it's happening?
Have you ever seen a constipated cat?

On Constipated Cats and Compassionate Conservatives

26094. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 1:40:10 PM

What timing! George Will's latest essay touches on some of the subjects just discussed here. For example, what do you think of the Nuremberg trials? Justice deserved? A necessary kangaroo court?

26095. CalGal - 8/10/2001 1:42:14 PM

Butter,

How would the consumption tax work (for SocSec)? Would it be means tested?

26096. Wombat - 8/10/2001 1:45:54 PM

Cygnus:

What a dumb analogy.

Should we return the Louisiana Purchase, since it was acquired in contravention of the Constitution?

Or should we just let you rave on about how the Constitution has been repeatedly violated and our freedoms are increasingly under threat, without forcing you to explain what the historical consequences of what your belief in the literal Constitution would have made our country into.

26097. jexster - 8/10/2001 1:49:31 PM

So the president has finally put all of us out of our misery, with his final decision on stem-cell funding. Actually, he's put only some of us out of our misery, as some of us have to watch medical research move slower than necessary to help the people we love. Still, the president has made a Great Decision, and as such, it seems a word about Bush's thinking process is in order.

Yesterday, as the nation waited for his announcement, not one but four different flaks, officials, and cronies took time out to tell the public how very hard the president was thinking about this issue. "Agonizing," "grappling," and "worrying" were the words chosen by George W. Bush's aides and staffers over the past months. "Obsessed," "introspective," and "consumed" were the descriptors they tossed out, with grave gravity.

How many smart people does one have to put on one's staff to communicate that you are indeed great thinker? One? Two? Eleven? Why is it that you never hear about Einsteinor Martin Buber sending forth minions into the night to inform the world that the big man is thinking? Might we not have hoped that the man who runs the country is, likewise, thinking all the time? How is it possible that we elected a president to whom the state of being in thought is so utterly foreign that vast battalions of foot soldiers must be dispatched to the blue room just to advise us when it's happening?
Have you ever seen a constipated cat?

On Constipated Cats and Compassionate Conservatives

26098. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 1:57:02 PM

Sorry Wombat, I'm unfamiliar with constitutional remifications of the Louisiana Purchase. If Article II, Section 2 "He shall have Power ... to make Treaties" doesn't apply, then I'm at a loss. However, if it were unconstitutional, it doesn't mean we should give it back. That would mean our tax money was simply a gift to Napolean. If it were unconstitutional, Jefferson should have gone through the necessary processes to acquire the land rather than acquire it by fiat. Of course, if you don't believe in the rule of law, you'll disagree.

26099. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 1:58:24 PM

Wombat, BTW, why is it a dumb analogy? Should I go give back the money I won in that hand?

26100. vw - 8/10/2001 2:02:02 PM

Cyg asks, Is it alive?

Whether or not the blastula used in stem cell research is alive is not the question. Of course it's alive, I don’t dispute that. The real question is whether or not we ascribe the human right of life to a clump of 200-400 undifferentiated cells.

I started in my previous post to describe just some of the traits we use to define a "human" deserving of consider wrt rights.

You choose to focus on one and ignore the other, yet we don’t ascertain “humanity” by applying a single trait. A newborn is ascribed some rights (but not all) because of other traits newborns possess that cell clumps don’t.

26101. vw - 8/10/2001 2:02:58 PM

consider = consideration

26102. OhioSTOPAS - 8/10/2001 2:09:30 PM

"How is it possible that we elected a president to whom the state of being in thought is so utterly foreign that vast battalions of foot soldiers must be dispatched to the blue room just to advise us when it's happening?"

Hahaha!

Imagine the excitement if the President ever reads a book!

26103. OhioSTOPAS - 8/10/2001 2:16:07 PM

Cygnus, : "Federal funding of embryonic stem cell research is unconstitutional simply because there is nothing in the Constitution permitting it."

Nothing except "The Congress shall have Power To . . . provide for the . . . general Welfare of the United States."

26104. OhioSTOPAS - 8/10/2001 2:19:38 PM

If anyone objects to having their tax dollars spent on stem cell research, I and other research supporters will pay their share. In return, they can pay, say, our share of the cost of "Star Wars" missile "defense".

Problem solved.

26105. jexster - 8/10/2001 2:26:14 PM

The Moron Giveth & the Moron Taketh Away. Blessed Be the Name of Our Moron!

WHITE HOUSE SECRETLY ASSURED RELIGIOUS RIGHT THAT FAITH-BASED FUNDING PLAN WILL ALLOW RELIGIOUS GROUPS TO PROSELYTIZE

26106. JudithAtHome - 8/10/2001 2:29:38 PM

Interesting article, Jex...

26107. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 2:58:01 PM

Ohio, I already pointed out yesterday how according to Madison (in Federalist 41), the primary author of the Constitution, Article I Section 8 (which you cite) stipulates a specific enumeration of powers which qualifies the term "general welfare". That is, "general welfare" doesn't mean just anything. It is limited to the powers enumerated immediately following.

As for "Start Wars", see said Article I, Section 8 and Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution.

26108. janjon - 8/10/2001 2:59:50 PM

it is fascinating to get a glimpse of how a wingnut's thought processes and purported logic work.

keep posting, cygnus. more more more.

26109. Cygnus X-1 - 8/10/2001 3:20:08 PM

Yeah, janjon. And you just keep putting me down. Your logic is like a steel trap. It refutes me at every step. As a matter of fact, it's so compelling that you don't even have to say it. Or, at least that must be what you believe because you certainly haven't said anything at all not to mention intelligible.

26110. AceofSpades - 8/10/2001 3:27:44 PM


Should we return the Louisiana Purchase, since it was acquired in contravention of the Constitution?


I'd like to hear the argument/evidence supporting this claim.

26111. janjon - 8/10/2001 3:33:56 PM

cygnus. I don't find it to be a profitable let alone enjoyable use of my time to try to refute the brittle and myopic crap you've been spewing forth.

Wombat said it quite well - you are idiotically inflexible.

26112. Cellar Door - 8/10/2001 3:35:11 PM

Hey Ace -- you're a sophisticated guy. Ever date a stem cell? I hear they have huge knockers. Is that true?

26113. Wombat - 8/10/2001 3:59:24 PM

By Cygnus's standards, the Louisana Purchase was unconstitutional because the Constitution does not specifically empower the federal government to acquire new territories by treaty.

Fortunately, Thomas Jefferson was not Cygnus, and decided to do so anyway.

26114. OhioSTOPAS - 8/10/2001 4:36:07 PM

Cygnus (26107): As someone pointed out yesterday, Madison is just one person with an opinion on the interpretation of Article I, Section 8. Alexander Hamilton (to name one) thought otherwise.

Furthermore, the text, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court, supports Hamilton's view.

26115. ycmeehan - 8/10/2001 5:20:16 PM

Jexster,
BabyKiller qu'est-ce que c'est!

If that was an inquiry, here it is: Assassin de b

26116. ycmeehan - 8/10/2001 5:24:39 PM

Here again.
Jexster,
BabyKiller qu'est-ce que c'est!

If that was an inquiry, here it is:
Assassin de bébés (or) Assassins d'enfants.


26117. Property of Jesus - 8/10/2001 6:09:13 PM

President Bush made the right decision threading the needle regarding human embryos research last night. He is impressing me more and more as he grows in office. When elected last November, I didn't think he had the soul to be a great president, but I might be wrong.

It was disconcerning seeing the flies buzzing around his head while he was speaking in Crawford, Texas, however.

26118. Cellar Door - 8/10/2001 6:17:57 PM

Flies tend to congregate around shit piles.

26119. JudithAtHome - 8/10/2001 6:33:08 PM

I swear I just heard GW say in an interview that "the skeptists" should ask for clarification...I'm hoping he really said "skeptics".

26120. Property of Jesus - 8/10/2001 6:42:13 PM

To err is human. To purr feline.

Best line from President Bush's speech.

*This allows us to explore the promise and potential of stem-cell research without crossing a fundamental moral line by providing taxpayer funding that would sanction or encourage further destruction of human embryos that at least the potential for life.*

26121. Property of Jesus - 8/10/2001 6:43:07 PM

To err is human. To purr feline.

Best line from President Bush's speech.

*This allows us to explore the promise and potential of stem-cell research without crossing a fundamental moral line by providing taxpayer funding that would sanction or encourage further destruction of human embryos that have at least the potential for life.*

26122. Cellar Door - 8/10/2001 6:48:28 PM

Couldn't be clearer!

26123. JudithAtHome - 8/10/2001 6:49:06 PM

:-)

26124. vw - 8/10/2001 6:57:04 PM

human embryos that have at least the potential for life

(snort) Hell of a lot of potential there ... frozen in a canister without a womb to call their own.


26125. Property of Jesus - 8/10/2001 7:01:52 PM

It works for me. But sometimes simple declarative sentences make an impression.

Driving down a suburban street recently, I noticed a lone female protestor standing outside the driveway to a small townhouse complex with a red sign saying: *Babies Killed Here-->*.

Bad News. Now I know where another Abortion Clearhouse exists

26126. greg smith - 8/10/2001 7:53:59 PM

Sounds like your typical baby hating liberal...oh well.

26127. JudithAtHome - 8/10/2001 8:05:52 PM

What do you mean, baby hating liberal? Do all liberals hate babies? Rather narrow definitions there....

26128. arkymalarky - 8/10/2001 8:54:42 PM

He means we hate whiny-baby Republicans.

26129. Property of Jesus - 8/10/2001 9:26:41 PM

"Ronald Reagan is not a typical politician because he doesn't know how to lie, cheat and steal. He's always had an agent for that."---Bob Hope.

26130. jexster - 8/10/2001 9:53:34 PM

CBS Evening News: George Bush's Advisors Thought They Were Putting the Presidunce in the Middle of the Stem Cell Controversy - Instead They Found Themselves in the Cross Fire!

Ack...Ack...fur balls

Leave it to King Moron to think that finding himself with wingnuts (and the rest of the country) to the left and far out wingnuts to the right of him means he's found the mushy middle!

Holy Constipated Cats Batman!

26131. jexster - 8/10/2001 9:55:21 PM

Save us and help us POJ

26132. jexster - 8/10/2001 9:59:06 PM

Baby Killers q'est-ce que c'est?

26133. jexster - 8/10/2001 10:06:07 PM

The Justice Department has yet to file a brief in an ongoing court battle over whether the existence of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, commonly known as the OPEC cartel, violates U.S. antitrust law.

Bush Endorses OPEC Oil Price Fixing

Whatever Ken Lay wants, Ken Lay gets right Butthead er....Ace?

26134. jexster - 8/10/2001 11:01:11 PM

Paul Krugman's Aug. 5 New York Times column contained the startling news that George W. Bush had endorsed OPEC's decision to conspire to cut oil production


Remember Beavis you heard it from me first! And way b4 Krugman.

26135. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/11/2001 12:06:57 AM

26136. robertjayb - 8/11/2001 12:59:43 PM

Clever as ever, Wizard.

26137. vw - 8/11/2001 1:16:44 PM

Sounds like your typical baby hating liberal...oh well.

Oh gee, I'm devastated by the depth of political and ethical insight in this witty response. Were you scratching your balls when you posted that or your head?

I happen to like babies just fine ... I have no emotional attachment to a clump of 200 undifferentiated cells. But don't fret about it ... I'm sure the whole topic is very confusing for someone that just found out that babies don't grow under cabbage leaves.

26138. robertjayb - 8/11/2001 1:38:08 PM

heh-heh-heh

26139. robertjayb - 8/11/2001 1:41:55 PM

Hillary a hit with plumbers and fitters...

26140. jexster - 8/11/2001 8:50:56 PM

Gore and Alexander in Joint Tennessee Appearance

26141. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/11/2001 10:54:53 PM

Thanks Rob -- for the comment . . . & the article!

26142. Absensia - 8/11/2001 11:33:55 PM

hahahahaha hahahahahaha hahahahahaha oh, hahahahahahahah. But the eyeshadow and lipstick rock!

26143. concerned - 8/12/2001 1:55:09 AM

'The Man From Grope'? Hilarious! But all too true...

26144. concerned - 8/12/2001 1:59:19 AM

A line from the upcoming autohagiography from the Big Cur:

From the outset, I wanted to prove that I was a genuine New Democrat. Fortunately, I had the personality and the connections to pull it off. Bubba on Wall Street. Cracker with Chablis. A modern Huey Long, but well tailored and tamped down.

26145. concerned - 8/12/2001 2:02:57 AM

While I made a lot of media hay about my Cabinet "looking like America," few journalists focused on the blue-blood orientation. I sealed the deal by installing Wall Street bootlicker Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) as treasury secretary and Bob Rubin (D-Goldman Sachs) as economic policy czar. Both were fervently appreciated in the upper reaches of American journalism.

26146. concerned - 8/12/2001 2:10:06 AM

Some more...

To be frank, bombing also came in very handy. I don't want to hear about "Wag the Dog." No president needs a Hollywood movie to understand that when the commander-in-chief kills some foreigners, all kinds of media goodies follow.

I was five months into my presidency when I gave the order to launch two-dozen missiles at an Iraqi office complex. (If it bothered any important American journalists that a number of nearby civilians died in a residential Baghdad neighborhood, they never let on.) I loved Time's coverage of my televised Oval Office announcement: "one of his finest moments; he struck the right tone, reasoned but forceful." My subsequent use of missiles -- whether against Sudan, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, or Iraq again -- won me floods of media praise.

Even in the depths of the Monica mess, there was appreciable media allegiance to me, perhaps in gratitude for the political agenda that I championed so well as president. Many a journalistic lap dog couldn't stop drooling.

Sure, again and again, I betrayed my own high-sounding calls for social justice and economic fairness. But I learned early on that when such betrayals occur, forgiveness tends to rise with income bracket. And when was the last time a poor person owned a TV network?

Now, you can save your money, Lefties - there's not much more that'll be worth reading in Clowntoon's little memoir.

26147. joezan - 8/12/2001 9:04:34 AM

A modern Huey Long, but well tailored...

?









I mean,

????!!!!



HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa!!!!!!!!

26148. JudithAtHome - 8/12/2001 12:37:25 PM

Exactly what "human life" are these people referring to when they say stem cell research will be "taking human life"? Human life is not in a freezer for years waiting for a chance to be injected into a womans womb to perhaps take hold and possibly develop into a fetus...these frozen embryos aren't guaranteed to do that. These are cells, not humans.

26149. jexster - 8/12/2001 12:37:55 PM

A recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll showed in a head-to-head matchup, Gore and Bush were tied at 48 percent, showing that despite Gore's seven months of silence, the electorate remains as divided as it was in November.

26150. jexster - 8/12/2001 12:39:22 PM

Why 2-3 more trips to the bully BushShit, and King Moron-the-Baby-Butcher will have done for Al Gore what he did for the Kyoto Protocols!

26151. jexster - 8/12/2001 12:41:11 PM

JAH .... I'd happily 'splain it to ya but its waaaayyyyy to early for my Freeper Personsa.

I haven't finished my first double depthcharge of the day yet.

26152. jexster - 8/12/2001 12:41:34 PM

JAH .... I'd happily 'splain it to ya but its waaaayyyyy to early for my Freeper Personsa.

I haven't finished my first double depthcharge of the day yet.

26153. ranheim - 8/12/2001 12:55:26 PM

An interesting Letter to the Editor in Friday's Advocate (Baton Rouge). A man from Meraux, LA wrote the letter (Meraux is across the Miss. River from New Orleans). S. LA has been hit rather more hard than the rest of the state by permanent losses of jobs in the last 10 years.

Utilizing Dept. of Labor stats of Sept., 2000 he wrote that the USA has lost 507,384 jobs in that reporting period. Almost 7000 in S. LA alone. Fruit of the Loom closed 2 or 3 plants; Jeanerette Mills closed; as did Stuffed Shirt of Slidell - all of these jobs went directly to Mexico.

He mentioned that, at the signing of NAFTA in 1993, the USA had a positive trade balance of $1.7 billion; currently the USA is in a negative trade balance of $22.8 billion with Mexico.

Among his other gripes were that some pesticides banned in the USA are used by farmers in Mexico. Thus, our foods are less safe. Additionally, due to lack of personnel, less than 1% of the trucks entering the USA from Mexico daily are inspected. Thus safety on the highways of states bordering Mexico are less safe.

There had been mention that the powers-that-be in Washington wish to expand the NAFTA agreement to all of Central, and eventually all South, America. The writer is busily writing letters to congressmen in opposition the expanding NAFTA. He wants the 1993 agreement disavowed.

Nothing was said in his letter of this, but, I am betting that the only group that has gained from the NAFTA agreement are the large, multi-national corps. And they have much more lobbying power in Washington than an individual from the tiny town of Meraux. But, that is the way this country is run in 2001.

26154. ronski - 8/12/2001 6:06:41 PM

Judith,

I think they mean this: the fertilization of a human egg by a sperm creates human life. Unless there is a natural or human intervention, that human life will proceed to birth and become a living human being. The embryo, therefore, even a nanosecond old, is human life.

To an extent I agree with that. But I make a distinction between "human life" and "a human life," and I gather from your post you do too. I disagree with those who look at an embryo, or worse, a fetus, as nothing but a meaniningless lump of cells, as well as with those who think an embryo or fetus is the same thing as a breathing person.

A fertilized human egg is a unique event: if left to grow in the womb it will become a human being unlike any other that has ever existed or as far as we know will ever exist. And that includes clones, who might be genetically identicle (barring subtle genetic changes which happen with some frequency even when plants are cloned or "meristemed"), because the genetic double is nevertheless a unique individual.

At the same time, a frozen bastula is not a living, breathing human being and will never become one if left forever in a freezer or stuffed into a red waste bag.

I'm uncomfortable with creating human embryos expressly for the purpose of harvesting embryonic stem cells, but at this time I'm also uncomfortable with the idea of Congress banning the process or making any benefits derived from such procedures illegal. And all this said, I think Bush made a reasonable decision.

26155. jexster - 8/12/2001 6:11:53 PM

b>The Giants Win the Penant!!!

The Giants Win the Penant!!!

The Giants Win the Penant!!!

The Giants Win the Penant!!!

26156. jexster - 8/12/2001 6:12:47 PM

Holy Constipated Cats Ronski you can't be serious...

Think you might need some more HoneyMooning

26157. jexster - 8/12/2001 6:39:44 PM

Just when you thought Slate's book, George W. Bushisms, couldn't possibly sell any more copies, the President has done it again. According to the Washington Post, a vacationing Bush was surprised on Tuesday when asked by reporters about the plans of Panos Zavos, a Kentucky scientist, and Severino Antinori, an Italian fertility doctor, to clone a human being.

Bush decided to answer on the topic of stem cells instead. Then, he offered this promise: "I'll be making a statement about my views on how life and science should interface when I'm ready."

Constipated Cat Watch: Bush Interfaces with Brain

26158. ronski - 8/12/2001 7:35:34 PM

jexster,

Can't be serious about what?

26159. Jimbo - 8/12/2001 9:01:23 PM

While it is true that Jefferson went against his previous anti-federalist stance in the Louisana Purchase, he was enough off a prgmatist to allow the ends to justify the means. It is also a fact that the Federalist Senators voted against the Purchase, mainly based on the argument that it was an unconstitutional act. That was not their view when Hamilton proposed a National Bank. As it is today, most tightly held values were easily let go for political gain.

26160. jexster - 8/12/2001 9:24:07 PM

Read my lips....

Who'll Stand Up for the Right to Life? Not GWB (Saletan)

26161. jexster - 8/12/2001 9:25:20 PM

And all this said, I think Bush made a reasonable decision.

26162. jexster - 8/12/2001 9:40:28 PM

I think he's a Constipated Cat!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top aides to President Bush (news - web sites) expressed mixed views on Sunday on whether he might eventually consider expanding embryonic stem-cell research beyond the limits he set last week.

In separate interviews, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card left open the possibility Bush might at some point allow funding for research beyond the 60-plus stem cell lines now identified, while Health and Human Services (news - web sites) Secretary Tommy Thompson ruled it out.



And its 12 lines. Someone tell Reuters to stop believing what Ari Fleischer puts out.

26163. ronski - 8/12/2001 9:41:21 PM

jexster,

Could you be a little clearer? (You may remember that I consider myself pro-choice, favoring restrictions on abortion but not the outlawing of them in the first trimester).

26164. jexster - 8/12/2001 9:51:53 PM

Ribbin ya Ronsk...the decision was a sham..hardly reasonable....see Saletan who puts it quite clearly IMO and the comments of Card and Thompson and in fact my first post, post-constipated cat speech....

But now for some REALLY important news

Due to some excellent work by The Shrew, Free Republic will attend and have a booth at the National Federation of Republican Assemblies in Dallas on August 25-26! The theme for this conference is "Boot Camp for Conservatives" and will feature many seminars and workshops on activism! FReepers will attend and then give briefings on the cruise in October! Workshops and seminars on the cruise will be taped and forwarded to all chapter leaders and be made available Forum participants! If you are interested in attending, please FReepmail me! ATTENTION TEXAS AND DALLAS AREA FREEPERS!

Hey Ronsk! Wanna Be My Date?!?!

26165. ronski - 8/12/2001 10:17:04 PM

I've said it before and will say it again. Any time there is any chance that GOP actions might result in the recriminalization of abortion, the party will retreat from its pro-life posturings and leave the anti-abortion social conservatives high and dry. The approval of public money for a measure of embryonic stem cell research is this process in miniature.

One of these days, the anti-abortion true believers will either get fed up with the GOP and leave politics altogether, or start a new third party.

26166. ronski - 8/12/2001 10:18:45 PM

I've said it before and will say it again. Any time there is any chance that GOP actions might result in the recriminalization of abortion, the party will retreat from its pro-life posturings and leave the anti-abortion social conservatives high and dry. The approval of public money for a measure of embryonic stem cell research is this process in miniature.

One of these days, the anti-abortion true believers will either get fed up with the GOP and leave politics altogether, or start a new third party.

26167. ronski - 8/12/2001 10:19:28 PM

Odd, I only clicked once.

26168. ronski - 8/12/2001 10:19:55 PM

And good night.

26169. Indiana Jones - 8/12/2001 11:03:48 PM

I've said it before and will say it again....

You are a man of your word, Ronski. You said it again almost immediately.

Heh.

26170. jexster - 8/13/2001 8:26:31 AM

MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin firmly rejected the Bush administration's push to jointly withdraw from a treaty banning national missile defenses but spoke hopefully Monday of agreeing to mutual cuts in nuclear weapons.

Putin to Rumsfeld: "You Rummy Old Thing, I Done Told Ya I Would Pork King Moron, Just Like Jexster Posted on the Mote!"

Maybe someone should invite the SecDef to register for the Mote!

26171. jexster - 8/13/2001 8:28:33 AM

a legend in my own mind

26172. jexster - 8/13/2001 9:35:14 AM

"When asked to choose between Bush and Gore in a CNN/Gallup/USA Today poll last week, Americans again divided exactly in half--48% for Bush, 48% for Gore. The cultural chasm remained huge. Bush carried rural voters by a dozen percentage points and lost urban voters by 14. Bush led by 15 percentage points in the South and trailed by 20 in the East. Married voters liked Bush, single voters, Gore. Women who stayed at home with children preferred Bush, women who worked outside the home, Gore. Americans who attend church at least weekly gave Bush a big edge; those who worship less often (or not at all) backed Gore. The bottom line: It's still two nations." LAT

26173. jexster - 8/13/2001 9:37:58 AM

Let's Ditch Dixie: The case for Northern secession

26174. ronski - 8/13/2001 10:47:54 AM

jexster,

Oh, sure, that's your tune now.

When libertarians and conservatives suggest that perhaps we should have let the South go in 1860, liberals get all nuts about it.

26175. Cellar Door - 8/13/2001 10:51:36 AM

This can't be right. Sully and Dan Savage say the AIDS crisis is over - and they're NEVER wrong.

26176. jexster - 8/13/2001 12:04:41 PM

Hey Ronsk...I wasn't around then...'sides I am a Son of the South, born south of the Mason-Dixon (Bethesda Naval) and reared in Louisiana

Saved by dual citizenship, I also qualify as "Golden Son of the Golden West" as I trace CA lineage to 1839.

26177. jexster - 8/13/2001 12:17:55 PM

Bush's stem cell policy is actually more liberal than Clinton's. "While Mr. Clinton would have required the cells to be derived only from frozen embryos held by fertility clinics, to ensure that fresh embryos were not taken from couples at the moment the woman was trying to become pregnant, some of the cell lines approved for use by Mr. Bush were derived from fresh embryos that were created in excess of patients' need." NYT

As a result, the true believers in the anti-abortion movement are slowly beginning to criticize Bush. But these true believers have been stabbed in the back not only by Bush...

26178. jexster - 8/13/2001 12:23:23 PM

Ronski...

WRT blessings of gay unions in the Latin and Eastern Church see Religion Thread

26179. jexster - 8/13/2001 12:33:58 PM

How King Moron of Texas Managed to Lose the Support of "Blue Dog" Democrats

Holy Constipated Cats!

26180. jexster - 8/13/2001 1:17:23 PM

any hope of cooperation between Bush and the Blue Dogs was probably dashed when Republican leaders rammed through the House a Bush tax cut filled with budget gimmickry

As the young boys might say "laters".

I have to go

Poop

Then call my buddy V. Putin

26181. robertjayb - 8/13/2001 2:54:38 PM

The enemy of my enemy, etc...Yeah, Charlie Stenholm! You go, Podner!

26182. ronski - 8/13/2001 3:12:33 PM

jexster,

Thank you, and, with a bow to the immortal words of Groucho Marx, "There will be a letter about this in the New York Times tomorrow morning," here is the response to your recent suggestion of calumny:

NY Times Letters

26183. Cygnus X-1 - 8/13/2001 3:18:38 PM

Hey Ronski, there's an article about that in NRO.
No Trust

26184. AceofSpades - 8/13/2001 3:19:05 PM



For a free e-mail subscription to Best of the Web Today, click here.


BY JAMES TARANTO
Monday, August 13, 2001 12:38 p.m. EDT
We Have a Winner
The envelope please. And the World's Laziest Columnist is . .. Gwynne Dyer!

We know what you're thinking: Who the heck is she? Actually, Gwynne's a guy, and according to his bio on this page, he is "one of Canada's media renaissance men, an outstanding journalist, broadcaster, producer, author and filmmaker who now makes his home in London." He claims his syndicated column appears in 150 newspapers, but we found the column that won him this coveted award in only three: Australia's Canberra Times, New Zealand's Southland Times and New Jersey's Newark Star-Ledger.

So how is Dyer lazy? Let us count the ways. First, the premise of his column is the most tiresome cliché around: that President Bush is not too bright. When the Star-Ledger ran the column last Tuesday, it gave it the oh-so-subtle headline "Too Dull-Witted to Lead."

Second, Dyer offers the following "evidence" of Bush's supposed intellectual shortcomings:

IQ tests are notoriously unreliable, and we all know that "IQ" does not correspond very closely to executive ability. But the Lovenstein Institute's conclusions about George W. Bush are nevertheless illuminating.

The Lovenstein Institute, based in Scranton, Pennsylvania, has long published an IQ for each new president, based on his academic performance, writings "achieved without aid of staff," linguistic clarity, and so on.

It's rough and ready stuff, but it awarded Bill Clinton an astonishing IQ of 182 (the average in the U.S. today is around 104), which largely conforms to one's previous impression that the man was useless but brilliant. . . .

26185. AceofSpades - 8/13/2001 3:19:37 PM

At the other end are the Bushes. Even the father only scored 98, but he did seem in charge of his White House. He was, after all, a man with long service in bureaucratic wars and much foreign experience as well. But George W. Bush has no such background, and the Lovenstein Institute estimates his IQ at 91. . . . It is a harsh and an early verdict, but maybe things are spinning out of control just because they are smarter than he is.



26186. AceofSpades - 8/13/2001 3:19:46 PM

There's just one problem, and we'll let the Star-Ledger explain it. On Saturday the Jersey paper ran the following correction (which we couldn't find on its Web site):

A column by Gwynne Dyer on Tuesday's op-ed page contained incorrect information. The column cited a study by the Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, Pa., that concluded President Bush had the lowest IQ of any recent president. There is no Lovenstein Institute in Scranton, Pa., and no such study was conducted.

U.S. News & World Report (fifth item) pegs the "Lovenstein study" as an "Internet hoax," and the excellent Snopes.com urban-legend site has a thorough debunking.

So Dyer is citing a canard to confirm a cliché. But we have not finished plumbing the depths of his intellectual indolence. It turns out even in being duped he was merely being derivative. All of the "information" about the "study" that Dyer included in his "column" had appeared in London's left-wing Guardian nearly three weeks earlier, and Dyer doesn't even "credit" the Guardian for its "reporting"!

We actually saw the Guardian piece back in July and thought about excerpting it for our How Others See U.S. feature. But the story seemed far-fetched to us, so we checked it out by running a Yahoo! search, which turned up no evidence of the institute's existence. Accordingly, we dropped the idea of using the Guardian column.

Now, we don't mean to pat ourselves on the back for our diligence. Conducting that search took us no more than 10 seconds. Our point is that Gwynne Dyer was too lazy to do even that minimal amount of work. Canada's renaissance man indeed.

26187. AceofSpades - 8/13/2001 3:20:58 PM


Ah.

And so the "Parade of Geniuses" -- "Geniuses" who snipe at Bush's allegedly low IQ, "Geniuses" all taken in by a sloppy, poorly-executed and utterly implausible internet hoax -- continue to demonstrate their superior intellect by acting like complete buffoons.

26188. janjon - 8/13/2001 3:29:29 PM

then there are those of us who merely look at what he says and how he says it and the attitudes he expresses and the curiosity he does or does not express and we make up our own minds.

he isn't stupid. he's blessed. with his daddy's last name and his daddy.

26189. OhioSTOPAS - 8/13/2001 3:51:43 PM

Doth Ace protest too much?

26190. don s. - 8/13/2001 3:58:46 PM

...mainly through the territorial lust of Louis XIV.

Actually, it was Leopold I, a nephew of Felipe IV and thus a candidate for the Spanish throne himself, who precipitated the War of Spanish Succession by objecting to the accession of Philip, Duke of Anjou.

26191. janjon - 8/13/2001 3:59:05 PM

Ace has just lammed onto a lamentable and slipshod "article" in an effort to discredit what is too widespread to be discredited - the conclusion that, whatever his native intelligence or lack thereof, W is not what one would call very engaged in the thinking side of his job.

Besides, we all know that Ace likes to fume and rant.

26192. janjon - 8/13/2001 4:00:21 PM

it is amusing to see Ace bring up the word lazy in a discussion involving W, however.

26193. concerned - 8/13/2001 4:01:58 PM

Not all Lefties can be Gwynne Dyer. But a lot of them wish they could be...

26194. don s. - 8/13/2001 4:05:44 PM

In accordance with the Treaty of Utrecht, the boundary ran up the Mississippi (the limit of Spanish territory), then up the Illinois River to Lake Michigan, around what is today southern Ontario to the St. Lawrence ...

Yes, that was the British interpretation. The French, however, argued that they had legitimate control of the lands between the Mississippi and the Appalachians.

26195. don s. - 8/13/2001 4:09:18 PM

... a dead treaty!

Yeah? Tell that to the Gibraltereans!

26196. concerned - 8/13/2001 4:14:58 PM

Actually, I've heard that there is a form of mild mental retardation (forget the name) where the afflicted individual has a splinter skill in being verbally gifted.

Reports are that in conversations with such individuals, the first impressions are of great glibness and facility with speech. Soon enough, the vacuity of that person's conceptual underpinnings becomes apparent, however.

This pattern also sounds descriptive of the liberal intelligentsia as a whole, if you ask me.

26197. arkymalarky - 8/13/2001 4:25:57 PM

Hahaha. It sounds to me like a Conservative effort to label the Superior Liberal mind with some kind of special problem.

I can hear them now:
"Sure, your argument sounds excellent and beautifully stated, but I see the 'vacuity of your conceptual underpinnings' under that veneer of intellect and amazing articulation."

26198. JudithAtHome - 8/13/2001 4:36:55 PM

Very funny, Arky!! And completely believable.


Beautifully stated, too....

26199. Cygnus X-1 - 8/13/2001 4:46:12 PM

Ace, re 26184:

That was one of the funniest things I've ever read. I went and checked out this Dwyer guy. That fool looks like he should be living in a van down by the river.

26200. JudithAtHome - 8/13/2001 4:56:42 PM

Next door to Ace?

26201. Stumbo - 8/13/2001 5:55:35 PM

I read a few columns by Dyer back in Canada, many years ago. Mostly crap, as I recall.

26202. concerned - 8/13/2001 6:56:53 PM

An excerpt from the conclusion of 'Unraveling the Role of Aerosols in Climate Change' from Environmental Science and Technology, August 1, 2001. Envirowackos read this at their own peril:

If larger values of the indirect forcing were included, the models would undoubtedly suggest the need to consider a larger sensitivity to the net forcing in order to fit the historical record of temperature change. If the indirect forcing is larger than about -2.0W m-2, it would lead to a net cooling that would be inconsistent with the historical record of climate change. Consistency would then require that some additional positive forcing be added to the array of factors that have contributed to rising temperatures. Some mechanisms associated with anthropogenic aerosols and involving increases in ice clouds could possibly lead to a substantial positive forcing, but as yet, there are no quantitative estimates of the forcing associated with such changes. Whether or not such changes turn out to be substantial, the aerosol and cloud research communities have their work cut out for them.

Amen to that.

26203. Cellar Door - 8/13/2001 7:27:13 PM

The Gore Vidal piece in "Vanity Fair" is quite interesting, well-reasoned, and not at all like what you've been led to expect.

26204. jexster - 8/14/2001 9:33:03 AM

Bush Finds Droopy Tit Caught in Ringer - Will Veto Stem Cell Expansion

Read my lips..........

26205. jexster - 8/14/2001 9:34:29 AM

Concerned, Ace, and King George of Moronia...globally warmed voices a cryin in the wilderness

26206. jexster - 8/14/2001 9:35:19 AM

Kyoto Lives

Elian is Free

And a belated happy 75th to Fidel

26207. Cygnus X-1 - 8/14/2001 9:44:12 AM

This just in: An asteroid didn't kill the dinosaurs, global warming did!

That's right, we all know how hot it was during the Jurassic period. It was positively tropical throughout most of the world. This was all caused by global warming. And did the dinosaurs care? No, they were basking in the sun without a care in the world. Well, look where they are now. They didn't stop driving their SUVs and if we don't, we'll end up just like the dinosaurs.

26208. jexster - 8/14/2001 9:49:50 AM

Wen Ho Lee Investigation A Creepy Crawly Wingnut Crock

there goes the Asian vote....
Asian Americans & San Francisco Politics

An Analysis of Voting Behavior and Opinion

by Jexster

26209. jexster - 8/14/2001 9:57:18 AM

Even in this town full of thinking people, who would have thought the Socialist Party would model its fledgling think tank after the Cato Institute, the avowed champion of free-market capitalism and limited government?

"We like to think of this as our Cato Institute," said Greg Pason, national secretary of the Socialist Party USA, in a statement announcing the creation of the American Socialist Foundation. "With this new foundation we can hold press conferences, publish books and issue studies and reports on a variety of issues from an inclusive socialist perspective

Cato And SPUSA: Two Peas in a Pod

Ronsk I C Cyg's in...Like Lucy - Free Advice 5 cents...go get some Charlie Brown!

26210. janjon - 8/14/2001 11:08:30 AM

Sigh. He would be a babbling idiot next to a babbling brook if that god-forsaken ranch had a brook. Instead, he just babbles.

Pearls of prose from that folksy guaranteed to induce hay fever bill signing photo op yesterday:

""People have got all kinds of opinions," Mr. Bush acknowledged today, later adding: "Understand that there's a moral issue — moral issue, plus there's a chance that we can save people's lives. And I've laid out the path to do that."

As Mr. Bush signed the farm legislation today, and mused yet again about the meaning of his month away from the White House, he repeatedly spoke of the American heartland and the "values" it represented. That word, which he used at least a dozen times, is music to many social conservatives' ears.

"We want our families to be on the farms and ranch," Mr. Bush said from a podium set up amid the 1,600 acres of his property. "After all, farm families represent the best of America. They represent the values that have made this country unique and different — values of love and family, values of respect for nature."

So, Americans are unique in their love of family and respect for nature, eh. Tell the 138 or so Kyoto signatories that.

And, lordy. One of the biggest values down on the farm these days involves how to get an even bigger subsidy from us urban types (value slouches that we are.) A bigger slice of the American Pie, so to speak.

26211. janjon - 8/14/2001 11:10:59 AM

And as for the stem cell imbroglio, further and more chilling pearls of prose:

"I spent a lot of time on the subject," Mr. Bush added as he spoke to reporters after a ceremony on his ranch for the signing of legislation giving agricultural businesses and farmers $5.5 billion in additional federal aid this year. "I laid out the policy I think is right for America. And I'm not going to change my mind."


Why chilling? His conviction that once he's made up his so-called mind he's finished on that subject. End of story. No room for meaningful ambiguities or legitimate disputes re conflicting interests in that man's mind.

I guess I would much prefer for him to just make snap "decisions" based on the advice of his advisors. That might at least inculcate a feeling that he might at least entertain revisiting them.

Suppleness is not a concept that is familiar to 43.

26212. Cellar Door - 8/14/2001 11:11:51 AM

Nothing in that story about the NYT's role in the persecution of Wen Ho Lee, Jex.

The "mainstream" media is tighter than the Mafia.

26213. jexster - 8/14/2001 11:31:57 AM

No shit Cellar. Where's Noam Chomsky now that we need him!

26214. jexster - 8/14/2001 11:36:16 AM

Ace I wasn't taken in by the so-called internet hoax....the IQ was too high for Moron.

Have you ever seen a constipated cat? All straining and shaking and sweating?

26215. jexster - 8/14/2001 12:00:41 PM

Bush Has Met the Enemy, and It Is Him!

26216. jexster - 8/14/2001 12:07:23 PM

"even if you grant that some significant proportion of Clinton's cognitive time was spent thinking about issues such as "I wonder, does that bra hook in front or in back," at least no one can dispute that he was thinking all of the time. He never sent forth minions to tell us that, Hey! Incredible! The president's thinking ... again"

26217. ronski - 8/14/2001 12:18:05 PM

A politician "promoting more than he could deliver."

What a novelty.

I'm real happy Clinton never did that.

26218. jexster - 8/14/2001 12:21:32 PM

For a Transcript of Totally Brainless Answers to Reporter Questions - See WH Official Transcript

IQ-75 tops

26219. jexster - 8/14/2001 12:24:17 PM

I gotta go poop.


Adios Butthead, Charlie Brown

26220. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/14/2001 1:41:46 PM

. . .and speaking of "poop" . . .

26221. ronski - 8/14/2001 2:53:34 PM

On the heels of the stem cell debate, perhaps it is a good time to repost this.

26222. Cellar Door - 8/14/2001 3:07:31 PM

The NEW Philadelphia Story

26223. jexster - 8/14/2001 3:16:05 PM

OFF TO THE RACES
The Eight-Year Switch

Next year promises several interesting governors races, but while many states' 2002 story lines remain cloudy due to dithering candidates, the
contenders in Pennsylvania have been at work for months now.

Four candidates are fighting for the seat of term-limited Republican Gov. Tom Ridge. On the Democratic side, it's Bob Casey Jr., the state
auditor and son of former Gov. Robert P. Casey, and Ed Rendell, the former Philadelphia mayor, who served as chair of the Democratic National Committee during last year's presidential election. On the GOP side, state Attorney General Mike Fisher, long the presumed front-runner, is in a primary fight with state Treasurer Barbara Hafer.

Democratic Primary
Since World War II, control of Pennsylvania's governor's office has swung between the two parties every eight years like clockwork.

The Democratic primary race will pit Casey's network throughout the state, particularly among party foot soldiers and labor supporters,
against Rendell's higher profile in the Philadelphia area (home to an estimated 40 percent of the Democratic base) and his ability to raise large amounts of money nationally. Against that backdrop there will also be an ideological battle -- Rendell is pro-choice and pro-gun control. But Rendell is also running against history -- the last time a Philadelphian was elected governor in Pennsylvania was in 1914.

Republican Primary (Who cares!)
The May 21 primary is a long way away, and there's every indication this will remain a toss-up race all the way to next November.

Charlie Cook
John Kohut contributed to this column.

26224. jexster - 8/14/2001 6:49:45 PM

'Trailblazer' Bush Pitches Character in Colorado


hahahaha

26225. robertjayb - 8/14/2001 11:31:11 PM

An appropriate response...

ESTES PARK, Colo. (AP) - A man was arrested for allegedly urging people to throw rolls of toilet paper decorated with President Bush's face at the president's motorcade during his visit to this mountain town Tuesday.

Sheets on the rolls show the smiling faces of Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Attorney General John Ashcroft. John Fischer sells them on his Web site, along with anti-Bush bumper stickers.

Fischer, who was charged with disturbing the peace, denied telling anyone to throw the rolls. He said he handed them out along with bumper stickers in a designated protest area along the motorcade route, and that teen-agers suggested throwing them.

26226. JudithAtHome - 8/15/2001 10:20:09 AM

Dollar Tumbles After IMF Warning

FEARS of a slump in the dollar were reignited yesterday by a strongly worded warning from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that sent the US currency tumbling on the foreign exchanges.
The dollar dropped to its lowest level in almost four months against the euro, and also lost ground against the yen and the pound, after the IMF said that America’s ballooning current account deficit had put the currency at serious risk.

26227. jexster - 8/15/2001 11:46:27 AM

More Bad News for the United States of Moronia - Enron CEO Resigns as Co. Heads for Toilet

Let's pass that Bush energy bill with its 30 billion in subsidies NOW!

I am gonna write Boxer, Feinstein and Pelosi this mornni