Pangloss

I don't care what the percentage of evangelical christians are right-wing nuts. It's a free country. I do care what percentage of CEOs are corrupt. That's NOT the province of a free country -- companies with CEOs are *public* and if they're corrupt I have something to say about that. (grin) By the way, But since the Senate requires a 60% vote to get just about anything done, it's just so big an advantage as one might think. The real problem is the House. Most Americans do not know who their Representative is, or are aware that he or she is up for re-election in November, much less who their opponent might be. Redistricting (which is done at the state level) is so ridiculously political that it's practically on a street-by-street basis, so nobody knows or remembers what district they live in, and finding that information (especially for someone who's not WWW-savvy) can be challenging. It's often said that special interest groups have more control over the House than the Republican and Democratic party leadership COMBINED. When you see something like the end of the Assault Weapons Ban, in spite of 69% approval by the public, it's not hard to see why they say that.

(shrug) Two wrongs don't make a right.

I'm serious about talking to the media. Remember: Those guys have probably heard similar stories from other people. Adding your piece to the puzzle may be the big break they've been waiting for to do a story. By the way, if that came up here where I live, it would be a HUGE story. We've had a number of accidents over the past five years that involved police officers NOT involved in high-speed chases dying or killing someone because they ran a red light or were just going way too fast on a surface street. Point being, if you lived where I live, a reporter would probably REALLY like to hear from you.

I have his second book here but I haven't gotten a Round Tuit yet.

Douglas, have you read "Bias" by Bernard Goldberg, by any chance?

My perspective as a Florida undecided swing voter: He went. Stuff happened. He has the documentation, that's the end of the story. Maybe he abused the system, and he certainly didn't go to Cambodia, but I don't see any other relevence here. John McCain vouches for him. That's good enough for me.

Given your stipulations, drz, I think you have a really solid point. It's one that's fairly subtle and is often lost in online discussion, but I noticed that the folks in this thread latched on pretty quick -- another sign of the high level of discussion you guys have here, and you should be proud of that. You should go to your local district attorney's office, complete with badge numbers and dates/times. Then you should talk to local media. For god's sake, if you haven't already, stop following cops. You have what you need, anything more is just courting disaster. But don't give up on the story. Keep it going. Start a web site/blog. Tell everyone in media that you can. By the way, local media is amazingly receptive to this sort of thing. Believe it or not, I don't think local TV news people actually get very much email, so they'll read it if you send something. I get responses from local media every time I send feedback on their news programming.

Newsweek has a story that's amusingly ironic in the wake of Memogate: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6073449/site/newsweek/ In a nutshell, they're saying that CBS News and 60 Minutes had originally intended to air a different story on September 8th. The story in question involved those allegations put forth by the Bush administration just before the Iraq war that Iraq was attempting to purchase 500 tons of uranium from Niger during the embargo period. It turned out that those documents were forged, but there's been little progress since then on figuring out who created the forgeries, etc. Apparently CBS News had latched on to a break in the case and was going to report on it, but they postponed it in order to show the Memogate story. Now... how can they? I hope they do, of course -- news is news, and if there's a story here, then we need to hear it. But I love the idea that CBS News will be carefully vetted for a while. I'd love to see an ombudsman standing behind Rather Dan for a few weeks, looking over his shoulder as he reads the news. There's no room for ego in the news room.

Caught an article somewhere this morning, I think it was at Neowin.net, saying that the Wikipedia was over one million articles now. I guess my biggest complaint about Wikipedia would be that it could use Google's bad spelling fixer. I've lost track of the number of times I've failed to find something in the Wikipedia, gone over to Google, and found the first entry from Google's search results to be an article in the Wikipedia (spelled correctly). (hehe) Google is usually my first stop, but lately it's becoming my first stop *after* Wikipedia.

I didn't call Maddox annoying.

Yes, that speech supports my assertion that Blix believed that it was quite possible more weapons existed, and that more time should be spent looking for them. He was, by no means, ready to throw in the towel because they didn't exist. Thanks for passing it along.

It's probably not a good idea for you to assume I'm not familiar with his background. At any rate, just because someone is smart/respected doesn't mean *I* have to respect him. Why assume I don't have my reasons? We're here to express our opinions, are we not? I'm sorry if you dislike mine, but I see no reason to insult me. I haven't attacked you. You do. I'm referring to Blix in 2003, and I read your links when you posted them earlier. The link I posted earlier defends my position. But rather than assume you haven't read it, which would be rude, I will simply point out that the site is well documented. He also discusses this at great length in his book "Disarming Iraq". It's a bit dry, but worth reading. You may find his position to be much more complex (and objective) than one might think.

Okay, at annoying people in general then. (grin)

I think that page just proves how successfull O'Reilly is at annoying extremists.

I have respect for Blix. I have none for Anan. You won't get far trying to convince me that he actually can put two neurons together in a coherent thought. Anyway, as I said above, Blix wasn't saying there were no weapons in Iraq in Jan/Feb 2003, he was saying he hadn't found any and asking for more time to find them. He also nailed them on new violations, and said that he believed he would find more violations, and possibly WMD stockpiles. He thought they were there, and he's admitted since then that he was wrong.

I think they just plain aren't. This is also the branch of the party that's most closely tied with the military-industrial complex. The defense budget has gone from $250 billion to almost $500 billion in only ten years. Obviously part of that started with Clinton (we deferred a lot of spending, I believe), and there's certainly an inflation component, but $500 billion?! It's crazy. No other country in the world spends more than (I think -- don't quote me on this) $65 billion. I don't think most conservatives and Bush supporters are even aware that that's the case. People view the Democrats as the party that *decreased* spending on defense (incredible!), and the massive increases have somehow stayed beneath the public radar. But again, there are counter-arguments to these points, and other factors to consider in a two-party election. You'll note that I'm still considering voting for Bush in spite of these factors. There is a reason for that.

Actually, before I get to that, I should point out, that many members of the administration are notably absent from that list, such as Karl Rove. I've read that he's a mover and shaker within the neo-cons, but apparently he's never been pinned down on the subject, so he's not on the "known" list. But there are others who are clearly not on the list because they do not agree with PNAC/neo-con politics. Obvious entries on this list would include, of course, Colin Powell, and I would say also Condoleeza Rice is not likely a PNAC/neo-con. Also I looked into former HUD Secretary Mel Martinez recently, because he's running for senate here in Florida, and upon finding that he does not appear to be a member (in spite of being asked to run by Karl Rove himself), I voted for him in the August 30 Republican primary. And, of course, Bush himself is not a member. Getting back to the question at hand, what makes PNAC and the neo-cons a little scary is primarily their position on foreign policy matters. You see, simply put, the neo-cons believe that it IS the job of the United States to be the world's policemen. Now I'm in the States, so if you guys overseas are getting a sense of "of course, don't all Americans feel that way?" from that statement, let me assure you -- we do not. Most of us are sick and tired of being stuck with that job, in fact, and many of us feel that we are placed between a rock and a hard place by international opinion. Damned if we do something, damned if we do nothing. Which is why you generally don't hear members of PNAC talking about PNAC. It's not a SECRET, but at the same time, it's not something they're going to trumpet either. It just doesn't "play in Peoria", so to speak. PNAC *says*: - American leadership is good both for America and for the world; - Such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy, and commitment to moral principle; - Too few political leaders today are making the case for global leadership; Which sounds harmless until you read on to see such phrases as "military action is an acceptable and necessary resort". Of course they would say that if you don't back up your position with strength, then you're not going to get anywhere in international politics, because there simply isn't enough (any?) international law to base anything on. PNAC is also in favor of creating an American "Global Constabulary" -- a police force of American soldiers, enforcing compliance around the world. No, really. It was PNAC that got the ABM treaty discarded from American compliance. They've been on the top of the political food chain for a while now -- this stuff predates Bush, and really began with the Reagan administration. But it's important to keep in mind -- they are NOT the only voice in the Republican party. They're simply the strongest voice at the moment. The PNAC/neo-cons generally make up what people usually hear referred to as the "hawks" in the administration. That's how I feel most Americans know them -- as the hawks. When I speak with my conservative friends, they're generally surprised to learn about PNAC/neo-conservatism. They generally start fitting me for a tin foil hat at that point, which is why this argument is just rolling off my keyboard -- I've had this conversation at least half a dozen times this summer. That's it, in a rather largish nutshell. Apologies for the length. (Maybe I should have started a separate topic, eh? I can see I didn't even get into why I don't think these guys are really all that scary in the final analysis.)

Sure. First, some reading material from objective/centrist/moderate/independent sources, just to prove that it's not tin-foil-hat territory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century That site covers it really well, but of course folks unfamiliar with Wiki work have only my word that it is objective/independent (and it sounds like witchery, doesn't it? definitely a tin-foil-hat sort of name!), so I'll just mention briefly that this is a self-proclaimed organization with a public web site (URL just below), whose goals are stated right there on their site. There's nothing secret about any of this. http://newamericancentury.org/ Also, Pat Buchanan, one of the most conservative people on the planet, a guy who makes Rush Limbaugh look like Al Franken, has a new book out called "Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency". If Pat Buchanon thinks the neo-cons are a real deal, then I think it's safe to say they're a real deal. More about Pat Buchanan can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Buchanan Regarding the membership, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are all members, by their own admission. Cheney and Rumsfeld actually founded the group, along with William Kristol, the editor of Weekly Standard. I believe Richard Perle of AEI (another Heritage Foundation offshoot, as is PNAC) was also a founder. Other prominent members include Elliott Abrams (NSC advisor for mid-east policy), Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis Libby, and a host of other conservative movers and shakers like Gary Bauer, William Bennett, Jeb Bush, Eliot Cohen, Steve Forbes, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Norman Podhoretz, Dan Quayle, and James Woolsey. What's a little stranger (and this is where the tin foil hat types start to glance skyward) are the membership of folks like Seth Cropsey of Voice of America, or Francis Fukuyama of the President's Council on Bioethics (who obviously advises the president on issues such as embryonic stem cell research). Let me follow up in a separate post about what it is that makes PNAC and the neo-cons that gives guys like me pause, and a gives guys like Michael Moore and Al Franken great big heaping pile of "AIEE!" This message is getting kinda long and I'm not sure if there's a size limit on this board.

Yeah, they did go back in 2002/early 2003, in the same timeframe as 1441 was being passed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#UNMOVIC_search_2003 In a nutshell, they went back in and rooted around a while, found nothing, and Blix gave a report. Much more detail is available at the URL above. What it basically amounts to is that Blix was the only informed voice saying there was nothing there, and in detail he wasn't even saying that there was nothing there, he was saying that he hadn't found anything. Even to this day Blix will happily confirm that he thought at the time that there was a good chance Iraq did actually have them. His position was that more time should be spent looking for them.

Thanks again. That looks absolutely fascinating. I've always wondered if there was a name for that, I just never thought to look into it. It makes perfect sense that someone has gone through and reasoned it all out.

No, that's a new one on me. Thanks for the tip. In fact, I see Wikipedia has a good article on it. (I'm really starting to get into that Wikipedia thing....) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

Sorry, by the way, I just couldn't resist -- the irony was too rich. Nothing personal, you seem like a nice guy Phi. I actually agree with you, in fact, and try hard to avoid sweeping generalizations myself, for exaclty the reason that you, well, generalized about. (grin)

Allow me to quote from Thales page 5: (Hehe, you did ask me to read the entire thread...) ;-)

Could be. But that's what he's promised, and of course if he fails in that promise then he'll pay a price for that.

"The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters." - Dwight D. Eisenhower