Politics

The National Geographic Channel is doing a two-part series (four hours total) starting on Monday night about 9/11, focusing on Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's rise to power. It takes a lot of newer information into account, and should be an interesting (and unlike what many of you seem to prefer to expose yourselves to, objective) piece. The link below is to NGC's home page, where you can enter your zip code and find out what channel it comes on in your area: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/channel/ I'll probably post a review after I've seen it next week.

Were the London Police Justified in Killing Jean Charles de Menezes?

Cindy Sheehan's son was killed in Iraq. She was already, at that time, opposed to the war. But she and the family did meet with President Bush, and after that meeting she expressed that she felt better because of the meeting, and that the president had been sympathetic, and helped the family a great deal. Her family continues to feel that way, and in fact her husband has separated from her over this issue. But Mrs. Sheenan took a different route, hooking up with extremist groups and Michael Moore, and is now camped outside the president's home in Texas, lying about her background, her connections, her feelings, her previous disposition, and her previous meetings …

Which president have started the strage tradition of finishing every appearance with "God bless America" ? Carter ? Reagan ?

Should government focus more on correct procedure or correct consequences? Consequential justice focuses only the result. For example, if someone is suspected to be a suicide bomber then it is better to kill him to potentially save more lives. The killing is bad and taking away individual freedom may be bad but the damage is much worse if this person were in fact a suicide bomber so it's okay to kill him. You can calculate it as follows (probability bomber blows up)*(aggregate social unhappiness from many people killed by bomber) > (probability bomber doesn't blow up)*(aggregate social unhappiness from one person killed), and therefore it is okay to kill the suspec…

If I had had children and a neighbor who also has two children moves into my neighborhood, then if that neighbor threatens to harm my children, do I have the right to harm the neighbor's children if by harming the neighbors children (e.g. torturing them) I prevent my neighbor from harming my own children? What do you think?

Gotta hand it to the old curmudgeon -- he knows how to point out hypocrisy. It makes me all a-tingly. Full story here: (Non-subscription, yay!) http://www.slate.com/id/2124157/

Early on the morning of July 23, a fisherman from Ningbo City in east China's Zhejiang Province was shocked by the sight of a huge creature lying dead beside the seawall near his home... Picture and more here: http://www.china.org.cn/english/Life/136739.htm

http://blamebush.typepad.com/blamebush/2005/08/judge_roberts_k.html For those who don't know, Judge Roberts' children are toddlers, so this is obviously just meant in good fun. The Roberts boy put on a bit of a show for reporters during President Bush's announcement of Roberts as his nominee, and it's amusing because during the announcement you could see Bush and Roberts trying hard to keep a straight face, but you couldn't see why they were trying not to laugh -- that came out in news reports later. (hehe) It was a nice bit of non-partisan humor -- something both liberal and conservative parents could sympathize with. BlameBush is actually a far-right bl…

The Cassini spacecraft has coasted to its closest encounter yet - skimming just 175 kilometres above Saturn's icy moon Enceladus. But astronomers are at a loss to explain its observations. On 14 July, Cassini swooped in for an unprecedented close-up view of the wrinkled moon. Its Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) camera has since returned pictures of a boulder-strewn landscape that is currently beyond explanation. The "boulders" appear to range between 10 and 20 metres in diameter in the highest-resolution images, which can resolve features just 4 m across... Pictures and more at: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7692

If a society of people (society A) engaged in torture and slavery of their children as part of the culture, would it be correct and moral for another more powerful society (society B) of people to steal children away from society A for the good of the children? Assume that society B has a government that will protect the children's individual rights to freedom and pleasure.

As we solemnly note the passing of the 60th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, I noticed that the evil empire specter was raised again by the left, and the deceptive spin about necessity was perpetuated by the right. (An interesting case of pole reversal, by the way, since Truman was a Democrat.) While both sides have some good points here and there, I think it's sad that we continue to beat ourselves up about Hiroshima. IMO, what's done is done. Consider: - The moral decision to bomb civilians in that war was done years before, and every air power in that war committed that same atrocity. They were all "keeping up with the Joneses". Whether you blame…

Efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons began in the late 1940s. In part this reflected the horror of the weapon, but it was also spurred by the wartime secrecy that surrounded America's Manhattan Project. That secrecy continues to this day. What it overlooks is that the nature of scientific knowledge is such that it cannot be protected or controlled. If citizens of one country can learn physics, so can citizens of any other country. Given the spread of nuclear weapons, nonproliferation policies must be called a failure.

Gay Teens Executed In Iran: UK Gay News - Iran Executes Gay Teens By Hanging: This is awful

I was thinking about the different ways people have tried to justify abortion. And, it occurred to me that there is a strange justication for pro-choice that goes something like "its her body, her choice" and "the unborn person is not a life". I dont think people reason consistently about this. For instance, while there is a sharp divide between people who believe in "her body, her choice", almost everyone agrees that alcohol abuse during pregnancy is a very very bad thing. So, it makes me wonder how people can justify the simultaneous belief that the unborn person is not a life for the first 6 months (implying that its not morally valuable or cannot be harmed) an…

A landslide of "hot rocks" blamed for California fires. Apparently the 'hot rock' mystery has not been solved. http://www.earthfiles.com/news/news.cfm?ID=938&category=Environment http://www.darkplanetonline.com/blog/2005/07/584-degrees-f-hot-rock-mystery.html

http://www.wavy.com/Global/story.asp?S=3482974 PETA (People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals), collected animals, promised to find homes for them, and instead euthanized them in the back of a van and dumped them in the dumpster belonging to a shopping center. http://www.wavy.com/Global/story.asp?S=3482974 If anyone here has been donating money to these "people", I hope you'll find a better cause. I think it is unfortunate that unwanted dogs and cats must be euthanized, but I understand that "we" can't allow them to breed out of control. I have a tremendous problem when the "holier than thou" PETA people collect money from the general public under the …

The Sydney Morning Herald (and I believe the New York Times) reported today that President Bush wants the Intelligent Design theory taught in schools, along with evolution:

This is most disturbing:

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15739502-13762,00.html Yep, real zombie dogs. Ok, not *really* zombie dogs, but still... And it's actually from a peer-reviewed and reliable source: Journal of Trauma Injury Infection and Critical Care. 2004; 57(6): 1266-1275 Mokele

I was surprised () to see that this board didn't have a thread dedicated to the all-knowing Political Compass test. So, here it is. Take the test at http://www.politicalcompass.org/, then post your results. I'll go first: Economic Left/Right: -4.88 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.90

I moved this post here because it really belongs here in politics: Do you have a source for this, a real source? Try the US Government Declassified Archives right here: Northwoods Operation Here's an alternate link to the .pdf file Northwoods Op 2 If that doesn't spell it out for you, do a search with Dogpile "Operation Northwoods".

BBC News Article Round and round and round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows. The Sunni Moslems have usually been the good guys, but they seem to be behind the insurgency in Iraq. Who can blame them? The Shiites are using their police powers to commit further tortures and murders of Sunnis. This is when the ink is barely dry on any agreements signed by the alleged coalition government. It's a joke. What do you get when you set up a joint Shiite/Sunni government? You get a Shiite government. As far as I know, historically Sunnis have been much easier to get along with, by anybody, than the Shiites. Saddam may or may not have played head games with…

It is often said that the definition of insanity is "Doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for a different result." In the early 1980s the US needed a strong ally in the Middle East to help it oppose the threat of a religiously-controlled Iran. Iraq, and its dictator leader Saddam Hussein, provided a ready answer, and money and weapons flowed into that country. The resulting war cost Iraq and Iran dearly in lives, with no clear victory or resolution to anybody's problems. In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US needed a strong ally in the Middle East to help it oppose the threat of a religiously-controlled Afghanistan. Pakistan, and its d…

Multiculturalism is a result of freedom of expression. Culture is perceived by perople. For people to perceive culture it has to be expressed by others. Therefore, to argue against multiculturalism is to argue against freedom of expression. If a person is against multiculturalism and defends his position by saying that he is free to express himself, wouldn't this be contradictory?