KLB

The problem is that what the Bush administration is doing is out side of the court system (e.g. requiring search warrants) and congressional oversight. It is another example of "national security" being used to justify actions beyond the constitutional checks and balances of three branches of government. However, striking a correct balance and ensuring sensible precautions REQUIRE the checks and balances laid out in our constitution. The Bush Administration has time and time again done end runs around both Congress and the court system. One example of this was President Bush's signing into law an explicit ban on torture (lobbied for by Senator John McCain) only to then sign a "signing statement" that stated he reserved the right to waive the torture ban if he concluded that some harsh interrogation techniques could advance the war on terrorism. In all Bush has signed some 750 signing statements on 110 laws more than all other presidents combined. These signing statements are a circumvention of the balance of powers written into our Constitution (which Bush is sworn to protect). http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0606280131jun28,1,2571963.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003090115_bushlaws28.html Odd story about book makers now giving odds of Bush finishing his term in office over these issues: http://www.theonlinewire.com/articleView.aspx?ID=947

I think there was a WWII saying that went something like this: The most flawed belief in the world is to think that you have nothing to hide so you have nothing to worry about. This is exactly how civil liberties start to get sucked away until we have none and end up living in a totalitarian society. If the government is able to collect and analyze mountains of data from ISPs on random fishing expeditions looking for "signs" of criminal activity then countless totally innocent people will start to get caught up in the drag net and subjected to unfair scrutiny and questioning that could destroy their lives and or careers even when no crime was committed. The same goes with monitoring of international money transfers. This isn't about the monitoring of money transfers from rouge country 'A' to rouge country 'B' it is about monitoring money transfers from America and American citizens to other countries regardless of the country the money is coming from or going to. It is about monitoring American's. At the very least this is about protecting and defending the constitution and in particularly the first and fourth amendments. The simple act of stockpiling of communications and data by the government has a chilling effect on the free flow of ideas and the first amendment. People become afraid to speak out of fear of their words being misconstrued. People become fearful of having innocent open dialogs about really important issues like foreign policy, terrorism or criticizing the government. We only need to go back to the McCarthy hearings which the movie "Good Night and Good Luck" are based to see what kind of affect government intrusion into personal lives can have. Personally I am more scared of our own government stomping on my civil liberties than I am of any terrorists. The terrorists already won. They have convinced American's to give up the freedoms we hold most dear and to allow our government to trample over the Bill of Rights in the name of national security.

I have a razr and my wife has a razr, but we've never tried any pairing yet.

Exactly! This is what I am referring to. The borders for Iraq were arbitrarily drawn and did not take into account any cultural/ethnic considerations. For instance, Kurds are very different from Turks, Sunnis and Shiites, Yet this group was essentially split in half with half of the population being ruled by Turks and the other half being ruled by what became Iraq. Had the British had any cultural considerations, they would have created a separate state of Kurdistan out of what are the Kurdish areas of Turkey and Iraq. We see the same boneheaded drawing of borders during the breakup of the British Empire throughout the Middle East and Africa. It has created ethnic minorities all over that ended up being repressed, creating all kinds of ethnic strife. Any time an ethnic group gets arbitrarily split like happened with the Kurds and then turned into an artificial minority it is bound to create resentment and conflict.

The three state one oil company plan could work, but I think so much of the problems in the Middle East was brought upon the Middle East by the West that we should't force any "solution" upon them. I do know that Turkey is really concerned about the Kurds having an independant state because it could cause Turkish Kurds to demand independence.

The problem with a "three state" solution is that all of the oil is in Shiite and Kurdish held areas. The Sunni areas have far less oil reserves.

Pangloss, I think this is a very important observation to your Dick Cheney vs. surgeon general question earlier. It is very clear from the evidence I provided in our other discussion that Dick Cheney and the Bush administration made the evidence fit the agenda. In this case the agenda is public health based on hard science. Since the first surgeon general report was published in 1964 on smoking mountains of evidence has been building up that has lead to the conclusion that smoking is a serious public health concern. The tobacco industry was a very/is a very big industry with a very powerful lobby. Politically speaking bringing forth reports that suggest there should be public smoking bans that infringe on people's liberties is going to be very unpopular among some segments of the population. If there is going to be any instances of the evidence being built upon an agenda, it is going to be (and has been) by those who stand to lose the most by public smoking bans (the tobacco industry). As we have seen over the Iraq war issue, agenda lead evidence rarely withstands intense scrutiny for very long, yet the issue of the health risks related to second hand smoke was raised by a surgeon general twenty years ago and the evidence has only gotten more compelling. If this evidence had been agenda driven, it would have been completely debunked years ago by the tobacco industry.

Now I will provide a little evidence of my own. Note data from my webpages is all compiled from OSHA, USDOT and EPA regulations, NIOSH guidelines, the US DOT Emergency Response Guidebook, NFPA (National Fire Protection Administration) and material safety datasheets from manufacturers of various chemicals in my database. Hydrogen Cyanide http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/chemicals/cn/Hydrogen%A0cyanide.html http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/MHMI/mmg8.html Butane: http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/chemicals/cn/Butane.html carbon monoxide: http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/chemicals/cn/Carbon%A0monoxide.html ammonia: http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/chemicals/cn/Anhydrous%A0ammonia.html toluene: http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/chemicals/cn/Toluene.html arsenic: http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/chemicals/cn/Arsenic%A0metal%A7%A0Arsenia.html lead: http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/chemicals/cn/Lead.html chromium: http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/chemicals/cn/Chromium%A0metal.html cadmium: http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/chemicals/cn/Cadmium%A0dust.html also see: http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/environmental/200605norwegiansalmon.html formaldehyde: http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/chemicals/cn/Formaldehyde.html I could continue, but I've just spent over an hour on this post. Cigarette smoke is full of really hazardous chemicals that ought not be put into the human body. Common sense says that if cigarette smoking is hazardous to one's health spending a life time breathing second hand smoke is also going to be hazardous. The only reason a strong report about the dangers of second hand smoke didn't come out sooner is because if one was going to set the stage for a report that would lead to the banning the consumption of a legal product in public spaces, then the evidence had better be so over whelming that smokers and the tobacco industry could no longer defend smokers' "right" to smoke in public places. I think we will find that this report will mark a massive turning point in smoking in America where non-smokers will finally demand that smoking be banned in public places across the entire country. Again I challenge anyone who doesn't believe that second hand smoke is hazardous to human health to provide as much or more evidence to support your claim as the surgeon general provided in his report proving that second hand smoke is hazardous.

Let's go back to our never ending evolution "debates" and why evolution is so important to biological sciences and in particular biomedical research. Our understanding of evolution and the relationships between different species allow us to understand how things that affect animals also affect humans. Furthermore there is plenty of direct human evidence provided over the years of research that there is health risks without relying on research animals. Also over the years I've seen or read different reports/articles that talk about how second hand smoke can actually be more concentrated than primary smoke because the filters on cigarettes. As a result primary smoke could actually be less of a threat than secondary smoke. The reports I saw were years ago so I couldn't bring them up, but I'm sure this issue would be addressed somewhere in the piles of research reports referenced. In the surgeon general's report. Simply think about the fact that in a smoke filled room, when one draws in through the filter the smoke is filtered, yet the second hand smoke is completely unfiltered.

Yes you are missing something. The surgeon general isn't just stating something for political purposes. His statements are based on the conclusions drawn in the 670-page study that is based on hundreds (note HUNDREDS) of scientific studies over decades. This is his point. Time for debate is over. The evidence has gone well beyond indicating a possible connection. It has has become so overwhelming as to be beyond debatable any longer. No I didn't read all 670 pages, but the conclusions shouldn't come as a suprise to anyone. This issue has been studied for decades and over those decades study after study kept drawing the same conclusions. Here is the link to the surgeon general's interview on the News Hour I mentioned earlier as they have now posted it: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june06/smoke_06-27.html Here are some other news coverage on the report: http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/Smoking/tb/3640 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/27/AR2006062700525.html http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-06-27-smoking-report-qanda_x.htm http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-smoking28jun28,0,6728507.story?coll=la-home-headlines Here is the report itself if you are not satisfied with taking the surgeon generals word at what the report contains: http://surgeongeneral.gov/library/secondhandsmoke/ Anyone who still wants to cast doubt on the health risks on second hand smoke are just trying to stick their head in the sand.

This will be a totally unscientific reply and instead will look at the question from a more philosophical/societal stance. In answer to your question, to a non-smoker, no amount of risk from second hand smoke is tolerable. Why should someone else be able to put my health at risk simply to satisfy their addiction? To me, smokers should not be allowed to harm or potentially harm others especially non-smokers. This isn't a matter of personal choice. People do not have a choice not to breath thus they can not choose not to breath in second hand smoke if it is present. Also, this is a public health issue. Society should also not be forced to pay the medical costs associated with the diseases caused by second hand smoke. No longer can smokers rely on pseudoscience from bad tobacco industry funded studies to try and cause doubt about the risks associated with second hand smoke. This report isn't based on one study. It is based on hundreds of studies conducted over decades. Now it is time to clean the air of our public places.

I saw an interview with the Surgeon General tonight on the News Hour. Jim Lehrer questioned him pretty hard and the Surgeon General made some very strong arguments. Even when baited, the Surgeon General refused to endorse a nationwide smoking ban in public places, but he did say he hoped local governments and private businesses would act on their own. I think this report should really put a nail in the coffin so to speak on the debate about about second hand smoke. I imagine that later tonight or tomorrow the interview will be on the News Hour's website at: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/

Exactly, there are some things that just would have never occured to us before. For what will be obvious reasons, I won't say when or where, but I used to work with a company that handled vast quanitities of chemicals (I don't want to be more specific). Our facility was essentially in an isolated location at the end of a long road and was only surrounded by a single chain link fence and padlocked gates that people sometimes forgot to lock. There was no 24 hour security on location. It would have been nothing for someone to break in and do whatever they wanted undisturbed. At any point in time it was not uncommon for us to have in our facility around 1/2 million pounds of sodium cyanide (in 20' containers) and over 1/2 million pounds of ammonium nitrate (in 20' containers) along with around and upwards of two dozen rail car tankers full of chemicals like: glutaraldehyde, methanol, xylene, hexanol, hydrochloric acid, kerosene, diesel fuel, motor oils and some nasty proprietary trade secret blends that you would want to avoid. We were a terrorist's candy store and never thought about it or took the issue seriously. I am no longer associated with that company, so I do not know what changes have been implemented (other then they no longer keep ammonium nitrate on site), but the fact was we never thought about "what if." That company was not unique. They simply followed standard industry practices. There are thousands of facilities around this country with the same risks following the same practices. Unless we really scare ourselves senseless by thinking about what terrorists could do, we (as individuals and companies) might never take it upon ourselves to harden these soft targets.

This also shows that there very rarely truely original ideas. No matter what it is, it always seems that someone thought of it before. That's why I'm not worried by things like the contest we have been discussing.

Okay, this will prove that I'm a History Channel adict, however, some of the countless WWII History Channel programs have discussed an insergent movement in Germany after the fall of Germany that called themselves Werewolves and they tried to undermine Allied occupation forces using terrorist tactics similar to the insergets in Iraq today.

I tried reading the entire thread before posting, but guess I glazed over while reading. It can get really hard getting caught up on a thread and points do get missed unfortunately. It happens all the time with disaster/terrorist/action/thriller movies. Should we stop having "Friday the 13th" movies or movies like "Silence of the Lambs" because it might give somebody ideas? What Scheier did will not give terrorists (as a group, not as individuals) ideas that they didn't already have. If people are predisposed to commit a crime or terrorist act, they are going to come up with enough ways to do it on their own. I'm also quite certain the terrorists (as a whole, not as individuals) have come up with ideas much worse than anything posted on Scheier's contest. This I believe was Scheier's point in the exercise.

I was refering to this thread specifically. Even this isn't entirely easy as it requires a group of people who are willing to die for the cause working together, not getting caught during the planning phase and not botching the execution of the plan. The more people a plan requires, the more difficult it will become to execute. I don't know about that, determined terrorists can be very creative on their own as 9/11 showed. I seriously doubt it gave any serious terrorists any new ideas. If anything the exercise showed just how devious the human mind could be. Besides, based on the idea of not giving terrorists ideas, Hollywood should stop producing movies with such themes.

It seems to me a reason why big 9/11 attacks are not common has been over looked in this thread is that they are so hard to coordinate, plan and pull off. See: http://wired.com/news/columns/0,71152-0.html?tw=wn_politics_9 The following links are also referenced by the article I linked above: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/04/announcing_movi.html http://www.schneier.com/essay-087.html All links are interesting reading.

In the famous words of "Monty Python's Flying Circus," now for something completely different. A Ninja with a really weird accent explaining network neutrality: It's pretty funny. I thought people could use a little hummor on this subject.

The perpetrator in this case was not an individual. It was an entire administration, a collective political organism if you will that had a specific agenda from the beginning (even before 9/11), which was to go to war with Iraq. The administration had the evidence it needed to know that the information they were using was bad and entities within the administration tried very hard to make sure that the leadership of the administration knew that the information was false and/or unreliable. The leadership (Dick Cheney), however, kept rejecting any information that did not fit the agenda and promoted any evidence that supported the agenda to go to war even when such information was completely unvetted, unreliable and/or known to be from bad sources. In fact much of the "evidence" was complete hearsay from a single completely unreliable source that had been discredited by the intelligence sources around the world. There was no collaborating evidence for many of the claims and only a single source of hearsay was relied upon on many instances. Another source of "key" intelligence was only acquired after the individual had been "rendered" to Egypt and then severely tortured (all of this is in the afore mentioned Frontline documentary). In his efforts to get intelligence that supported what he wanted to prove, Dick Cheney went so far as to create a secret intelligence service within the Department of Defense and to completely cut off the CIA. When it was pointed out that the CIA had no intelligence assessment in regards to Iraq, the CIA was forced to produce a document in a few weeks that normally takes months or years to produce and any information that Dick Cheney did not like was excluded from the assessment. So, instead of being an unbiased assessment of the best available information, the intelligence assessment was a rubberstamp of what Dick Cheney wanted to prove. Did Dick Cheney really believe what he told us? Yes he probably did, but only because of willful ignorance to all of the intelligence available, a blatant rejection of any intelligence that brought into question the validity of his agenda, which was to invade Iraq. To me when an administration undertakes efforts as a collective organism to exclude contrary intelligence so that the head of that administration can claim plausible deniability, it is "false pretenses", because there was a collective effort to distort the facts and intelligence and to squelch any intelligence that "undermined" the objectives of the administration. For the sake of this debate am I willing to concede that false pretenses basically means to intentionally deceive? Sure, but it doesn't negate my usage of it. I have by providing evidence that still supports the use of this phrase even using Pangloss's more narrow definition. That evidence is that the administration as a whole did suppress good intelligence that brought into question all of the administration's claims and relied on unsubstantiated evidence simply because the administration had an objective to go to war with Iraq (even before 9/11) and it was unwilling to look at any evidence that brought into question the validity of that objective and it promoted as undeniable proof any evidence that supported their agenda even if that intelligence was know to be completely unreliable. It was a willful act to hide the truth, this is the sprit of the meaning of "false pretenses". Here is a very important question. Is there any practical difference between willfully lying about what one knows and willfully avoiding information that might undermined what one is trying to prove? If I slipped the wrong name in a quoted statement, my apologies, it was a slip of the keyboard so to speak. I always try to cite the proper poster. If you point out the error in citation, I'd be happy to fix it.

And this is what political debate is all about. But it also shows that they believe only what they wanted to believe and ignored all intelligence that ran counter to their preconceived conclusions. They forced the intelligence to fit what they believed. They did not form their beliefs based on what the intelligence showed. In the scientific world I believe this is called pseudoscience. Should we be basing our decision to go to war based on pseudoscience?

As I said in my PM reply to you I can not admit I was wrong, because I do not believe I was wrong in my usage of "false pretenses" even based on your very narrow definition of the phrase based on the evidence I provided by way of the PBS Frontline link. Anyone who takes the time to watch the Frontline special in question, read the interviews of Bush Administration officials, CIA officials and others in the intelligence community and takes the time to read and follow all of the other documentation provided on Frontline's website in regards to their documentary on this issue will see that there is more than enough evidence to support my position that the Bush Administration lied (yes lied) to the American public and to the world at large in an effort to drag us into a war that certain Bush Administration officials had wanted to drag us into well before 9/11. For those who missed my earlier link, here it is again: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/ Anyone who is not familiar with Frontline, should be and should follow the link to their website I provided above. I personally respect PBS Frontline as one of the most thorough and detail minded investigative reporting documentary series on TV today. This isn't some low budget ratings grabbing, half baked program. They get the interviews others could only hope to get and they pull apart an issue and explore it with surgical precision and they document everything they claim. Frontline isn't about hyperbole, they are about a search for the truth wherever it may lay. What I am saying is not based on an ideological viewpoint. It is based on very solid evidence and interviews from within the Bush Administration on the exact issue of whether or not we went to war based on false pretenses. Yes it will take people several hours to watch the documentary and to read all of the supporting documentation, however, once one has done this it will be very hard to argue that the Bush administration did not lie and twist intelligence to get the results they wanted. --EDIT-- Note this post was written before seeing Pangloss's last post so take that into account.

But how are normal home users going to get to connect to the Internet2? It will be via the same telcoms that are lobbying against network neutrality today. The Internet2 might speed up the Internet, but it will be the telcoms that provide the final mile and they will still use any excuse they can to extract money from any sources they can and this includes charging for prioritization.

I think their plan is to make prioritization a realty with Internet2. They want to gain more control over Internet2 than they have over the Internet currently.