Re: Disturbing evidence of torture

[Gautam Mukunda]

--- Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I was shocked and saddened to see and hear evidence
> of what looks like
> atrocities performed by US guards of Iraqi
> prisoners.  

I'm not even a tiny bit shocked, unfortunately. 
Anyone here ever seen the results of Zambardo's
Stanford Prison Experiment?  There are some other
experimental psychology experiments like that which
suggest that this sort of behavior is pretty routine
unless prison guards are given exceptional levels of
supervision and training - and even then it happens a
lot, actually.  The condition of American prisons, and
the way prisoners are treated in them, is perhaps the
most disgusting facet of modern American life.  I
occasionally feel that the only person in America who
cares about that fact is me.  See, for example, Bill
Lockyer, the Attorney General of California, who has
spoken favorably of prison rape.

But that's neither here nor there.  It's not shocking
or surprising but it is, of course, tragic.  The way
we deal with it will, at least, serve to limit the
damage (I hope).  I would imagine that what will
happen is, at the minimum, a full court martial of
everyone involved.  The American military, sadly, has
a record of not moving up the chain of command quite
as aggressively as I would have hoped (in My Lai, for
example, the people above Calley's level were not
prosecuted at all, so far as I recall - I would have
had his immediate superior, at least, thrown in prison
for prima facie gross dereliction of duty if I had the
option).  In this case it is _absolutely vital_ that
the commanding officers of the people invovled be
cashiered from the service, quite publicly so if at
all possible, assuming that all the facts are in.  I
can't imagine that there are any facts that could
possibly mitigate the evidence so far, but I have to
concede the possibility that something is possible.

The difference between America and its enemies is not
that Americans do not commit atrocities.  Sometimes we
do, because Americans are humans too.  The difference
is that when our enemies commit atrocities, the people
who do so are awarded for it, and the people who
commit them are applauded as heroes.  Americans who
commit atrocities are, and should be, punished for
their crimes.  There is _nothing_ more important
facing the American military's justice system right now.

=
Gautam Mukunda
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Freedom is not free"
http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com




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Re: Battlestar Galactica

[Doug Pensinger]

Ronn! wrote:

Assuming you want to hold the ground.  If for some reason you are simply
interested in wiping out vermin (the alien race) who pose a threat to 
you, perhaps in the way that a nest of very nasty hornets in a tree right
outside your back door would, you could simply sterilize the planet by
nuking the entire surface from orbit (or even further away) . . .

The Mike Lee solution!

--
Doug
Hey Mikey!  He likes it! maru
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Re: March for Women's Lives

[Julia Thompson]

Doug Pensinger wrote:
> 
> Dan wrote:
> 
> >
> > - Original Message -
> > From: "Damon Agretto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 2:58 PM
> > Subject: Re: March for Women's Lives
> >
> >
> >> Can someone explain what exactly a sock puppet is
> >> anyway, for those of us not as net savvy?
> >>
> >
> > A sock puppet is a false name that is used by a poster, usually for an
> > attack on another poster.  Sock puppet attacks involve one or more false
> > names being used to attack a fellow poster.  When executed perfectly, it
> > makes it look as though a number of people are opposed to a particular
> > poster.
> >
> > Sock puppet is a descriptive compound name for this.  The sock puppet is
> > held by the real person, but it is not a person on its own, it is just a
> > bad attempt at being one.
> 
> or from the jargon dictionary
> (http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/s/sock_puppet.html)
> 
> sock puppet n. [Usenet: from the act of placing a sock over your
> hand and talking to it and pretending it's talking back] In Usenet
> parlance, a pseudo through which the puppeteer posts follow-ups to their
> own original message to give the appearance that a number of people
> support the views held in the original message.
> 
> or in the urban dictionary:
> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sock+puppet&f=1
> 
> sock puppet- An account made on an internet message board, by a person who
> already has an account, for the purpose of posting more-or-less
> anonymously.

I'm on a couple of mailing lists where someone has set up a Yahoo
account and posted the password to the lists.  Anyone can post
anonymously using that, if they want.  Or, if they're in a situation
where they don't have access to any other subscribed address (only
subscribers can post) and they need to get a message to the list, they
can use it.

The only thing is, at the end of each message, there's a .sig:

This is an account for cowards afraid to take personal responsibility
for their
actions.

So anything posted with that address is automatically discounted, unless
the poster using that address identifies themselves in the post (which
I've seen happen twice, both due to the user not having internet access
through their regular computer for whatever reason).

What's really fun is when someone starts flaming posts from that
address

Julia
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Re: Battlestar Galactica

[Alberto Monteiro]

Damon Agretto wrote:
>
> Combat in space, however, there is no "equivalent" (at
> least known) to aircraft; so essentially everything is
> a "ship." So, rather than looking at space fighters as
> aircraft, rather look at them as small "ships."
>
But there may be: if we assume that interstellar travel
is totally different from interplanetary travel, we would
have two different classes of spaceships.

Alberto Monteiro

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RE: Battlestar Galactica

[Ronn!Blankenship]

At 02:56 PM 4/30/04, Nick Lidster wrote:
You cant win a war in the sky, you got to have troops to hold the
ground.


Assuming you want to hold the ground.  If for some reason you are simply 
interested in wiping out vermin (the alien race) who pose a threat to you, 
perhaps in the way that a nest of very nasty hornets in a tree right 
outside your back door would, you could simply sterilize the planet by 
nuking the entire surface from orbit (or even further away) . . .



-- Ronn!  :)


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Re: War in Space, was Re: Battlestar Galactica

[Robert Seeberger]

Offhand, I can think of  different type of fighting craft a "Space
Carrier" might deploy.

A fighter craft that in swarms, protects the Carrier by forming a
protective sphere, or singly or in small groups act as recon.

A torpedo craft that launches attacks against carriers or other
similarly large structures.

An atmospheric fighter (lander too?) for planetary missions.

Small scout craft with long range travel potential carrying equipment
that makes it equivilent to our AWACs.

Very small drones that act in concert and compliment all the other
craft.


A Carrier would have to be enormous to carry full compliments of each
of these fighting machines, but that might be the way it would need to
be done.



xponent
We Come In Peace, You Got A Problem With That? Maru
rob


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Re: March for Women's Lives

[Doug Pensinger]

Dan wrote:

- Original Message -
From: "Damon Agretto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 2:58 PM
Subject: Re: March for Women's Lives

Can someone explain what exactly a sock puppet is
anyway, for those of us not as net savvy?
A sock puppet is a false name that is used by a poster, usually for an
attack on another poster.  Sock puppet attacks involve one or more false
names being used to attack a fellow poster.  When executed perfectly, it
makes it look as though a number of people are opposed to a particular
poster.
Sock puppet is a descriptive compound name for this.  The sock puppet is
held by the real person, but it is not a person on its own, it is just a
bad attempt at being one.
or from the jargon dictionary
(http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/s/sock_puppet.html)
sock puppet n. [Usenet: from the act of placing a sock over your 
hand and talking to it and pretending it's talking back] In Usenet 
parlance, a pseudo through which the puppeteer posts follow-ups to their 
own original message to give the appearance that a number of people 
support the views held in the original message.

or in the urban dictionary:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sock+puppet&f=1
sock puppet- An account made on an internet message board, by a person who 
already has an account, for the purpose of posting more-or-less 
anonymously.

--
Doug
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ADMIN: Server problem finally identified

[Nick Arnett]

Well, we figured out why the server was slowly falling apart over the 
last few days... it was infected with the (supposedly rare) Unix virus 
RST.B.  I don't believe that it'll be affecting any other machines or it 
wouldn't be on the net.  But cleaning it up is going to be a tedious, 
ugly chore, I'm afraid.

We had our server-level virus scanning off for just a few days, after 
recovering from a disk failure... and this is what we get!

Nick
--
Nick Arnett
Director, Business Intelligence Services
LiveWorld Inc.
Phone/fax: (408) 551-0427
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: March for Women's Lives

[Dan Minette]

- Original Message - 
From: "Damon Agretto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 2:58 PM
Subject: Re: March for Women's Lives


> Can someone explain what exactly a sock puppet is
> anyway, for those of us not as net savvy?
>

A sock puppet is a false name that is used by a poster, usually for an
attack on another poster.  Sock puppet attacks involve one or more false
names being used to attack a fellow poster.  When executed perfectly, it
makes it look as though a number of people are opposed to a particular
poster.

Sock puppet is a descriptive compound name for this.  The sock puppet is
held by the real person, but it is not a person on its own, it is just a
bad attempt at being one.

Dan M.


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RE: Battlestar Galactica

[Horn, John]

> From: Steve Sloan II [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

> machines from their colonies, but I can't think of a good reason
> for ground fighting.

Mars needs women?

 - jmh

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Re: March for Women's Lives

[Damon Agretto]

Can someone explain what exactly a sock puppet is
anyway, for those of us not as net savvy? 

Damon.

=

Damon Agretto
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum."
http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html
Now Building: 





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RE: Battlestar Galactica

[Nick Lidster]

You cant win a war in the sky, you got to have troops to hold the
ground.
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Re: Battlestar Galactica

[Damon Agretto]

> Maybe they want to terraform the Earth-like planets
> so they can
> live there. Maybe the planets they've been living on
> are in the
> same solar systems as the human colonies, and
> they're too
> territorial to allow human colonies in solar systems
> they
> already claim. In either case, why wouldn't they
> just bomb the
> colonists from orbit, instead of wasting their
> ground troops?
> Ship-to-ship fighting and dogfights would make sense
> in that
> scenario, as humans fight to keep alien bombers or
> terraforming
> machines from their colonies, but I can't think of a
> good reason
> for ground fighting.

While the bombig from orbit point is a good one, the
thing that immediately jumps to my mind is that these
locations have some sort of strategic importance, and
bases, supply dumps, forward listening posts, etc. And
they may have felt threatened when another intelligent
species parks right in their back yard. So while they
may not neccessarily need or want to terraform
(alienform?) the planets to their purposes, they may
have wartime value beyond that. Thus, ground troops in
spacesuits to provide ground security.

Damon.


=

Damon Agretto
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum."
http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html
Now Building: 





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Re: Battlestar Galactica

[Steve Sloan II]

Nick Lidster wrote:

> Perfectly true, anyone can be a grunt, however when your in
> the middle of no where, have no backup, and need to get the
> job done what do you do? "Though you fly in the clouds, a
> marine is a grunt first." The 58th was heralded as the best
> of the best. To me they were flying grunts, more then once
> the played in the dirt.
And aside from the other objections, why would that war even
*need* ground troops? The enemy on the show constantly wore
spacesuits in Earth-like environments, suggesting that they
couldn't live on the planets they were trying to conquer.
Early in the show, an alien prisoner even turned into a
puddle of green goo after drinking ordinary water! Why would
the aliens want to conquer planets where humans live, if they
can't live there?
Maybe they want to terraform the Earth-like planets so they can
live there. Maybe the planets they've been living on are in the
same solar systems as the human colonies, and they're too
territorial to allow human colonies in solar systems they
already claim. In either case, why wouldn't they just bomb the
colonists from orbit, instead of wasting their ground troops?
Ship-to-ship fighting and dogfights would make sense in that
scenario, as humans fight to keep alien bombers or terraforming
machines from their colonies, but I can't think of a good reason
for ground fighting.
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Re: Battlestar Galactica

[Damon Agretto]

> Right, but why do we only have aircraft carriers,
> and not small boat
> carriers for fleet vs. fleet operations?  IMHO, its
> because aircraft has a
> different set of tradeoffs from boats/ships.  I
> cannot imagine a carrier
> of, say PT boats being effective in fleet to fleet
> operations.  If they
> were effective, wouldn't we have had at least one PT
> carrier in a fleet?

But look at it this way: what if aircraft were never
developed? The advantage aircraft have over a PT boat
is both speed and altitude. But in other regards a PT
boat is superior: it has greater endurance and
payload. But speed and altitude trump the abilities of
the PT boat. But in a place where there is no
competition from aircraft, it would be reasonable that
PT boats, with greater technology, would prosper.

In between the period between the development of the
self-propelled torpedo and the development of
effective fighter aircraft (essentially WWII), one of
the biggest threats naval planners saw in the future
was that from torpedo boats. These were usually light
vessels with small cannon and a number of torpedos,
and although they were not the direct predecessor to
MTBs like the American PT, they fulfilled the same
role. They were so concerned that an entirely new
class of warship was developed specifically to counter
them: the Destroyer (or, more accurately, Torpedo Boat
Destroyers) and to fulfil a similar role in high seas
fleet actions. With better technology (primarily in
materials and engines during WWII) these craft could
be made smaller and more effective. But they were
completely overshadowed by airpower.

Combat in space, however, there is no "equivalent" (at
least known) to aircraft; so essentially everything is
a "ship." So, rather than looking at space fighters as
aircraft, rather look at them as small "ships."

Looking back I think I made my analysis needlessly
long and wordy. To sum up: the reason there are no PT
carriers is that airpower completely overshadows that.
In space, though, there is no equivalent.

Damon.



=

Damon Agretto
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum."
http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html
Now Building: 





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War in Space, was Re: Battlestar Galactica

[Ronn!Blankenship]

At 12:02 PM 4/30/04, Damon Agretto wrote:
> One thing I've always thought silly was the whole
> idea of carriers in
> space.  Air craft carriers work well because the
> planes they launch travel
> in a different medium than the ships: air vs. water.
>  Carriers in space are
> like two battle groups of large ships launching a
> number of small boats to
> engage in combat.
I'm not so sure about that. One of the reasons
carriers were effective (and still are) is because you
can fight your enemy at an arms distance...you don't
have to close with him. In this context a carrier
essentially becomes a battle transport for smaller
attack craft, that can then be used to defend the ship
at an arms distance, or to launch attacks of their
own. The best protection a ship can have is to NOT
expose itself to enemy guns...


Also, given the distances involved, even if the two planets at war are 
neighbors in an astronomical sense, in most cases it is unrealistic for a 
one- or two-man craft to be able to travel the entire round-trip distance 
to the enemy world and back.  First, whatever technology is assumed for 
traveling great distances, if it relies on known physics, it is going to be 
bulky (frex, reaching relativistic speeds requires, even assuming 100% 
conversion of fuel mass into motive energy, a mass of fuel at least several 
times the mass of the payload (off the top of my head I seem to remember 
that it would take 10x the mass of the ship to reach a speed of about 99.5% 
of c, assuming 100% efficiency, so you can multiply that by the reciprocal 
of the true efficiency), and that's just for accelerating from rest to 
relativistic speeds.  To slow down, you have to bring that much fuel along, 
so the total fuel for a one way trip is that multiple of the ship's mass 
squared (100x in the above example), and for a round trip, unless you can 
count on refueling at your destination before starting back, the total fuel 
required at the start becomes the \fourth power\ of that multiple (10,000x 
in the above example), whereas a non-relativistic ship would be so slow 
that no one but virtual immortals would consider using one as a warship 
(what would be the point of launching an attack over a perceived insult in 
an interstellar radio message when it's possible that by the time your 
attack craft get there the \species\ that sent out the message may be 
extinct or evolved into something else), and even they would have to carry 
along enough consumables for the journey unless it is assumed they can be 
put in stasis for the duration), and if it relies on unknown 
physics("hyperdrive", "warp drive", etc.), it is frequently assumed to be 
bulky.  Even if we assume that a "warp engine" can be built small enough to 
install in something the equivalent of an F-15 or an F-16 or even a B-52, 
assuming that the crew is composed of humans or beings with similar 
limitations puts a rather low upper limit on how long such beings could 
remain on duty flying it without stopping to rest.  Carrying the "fighters" 
or "bombers" on board an "aircraft carrier" allows for a much larger engine 
and fuel supply than would fit on a smaller craft and allows for enough 
personnel that the "carrier" crew can work in shifts around the clock, and 
the "fighter" pilots can rest until the "carrier" gets close enough to the 
enemy planet or fleet that the round-trip flight time is at most a few 
hours, similar to the duration of a mission for such aircraft 
today.  (Granted, one can think of some ways around some of these 
limitations, but some of those will introduce additional complications of 
their own.)



-- Ronn!  :)


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Re: Battlestar Galactica

[Gautam Mukunda]

--- Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Right, but why do we only have aircraft carriers,
> and not small boat
> carriers for fleet vs. fleet operations?  IMHO, its
> because aircraft has a
> different set of tradeoffs from boats/ships.  I
> cannot imagine a carrier
> of, say PT boats being effective in fleet to fleet
> operations.  If they
> were effective, wouldn't we have had at least one PT
> carrier in a fleet?
> 
> Dan M.

No, but it's not clear that WWI fleets wouldn't have
evolved in that direction, with destroyers (which
were, among other things, used to launch torpedo
attacks on enemy fleets) possibly getting
smaller/faster/more manueverable in order to increase
their chance of getting to torpedo launching range.  I
think carriers might make sense, actually, but only if
you assume the existence of a weapons technology with
the ability to do a fairly high degree of damage at a
very short range that can be carried by a small craft,
and that such small craft have a significant ability
to penetrate enemy defenses in order to deliver this
weapon.  Given that, then fighters might make sense -
you'd want to use them to deploy that weapon at longer
range than your onboard systems could deliver, and
then you'd want fighters to defend against the other
guys fighters...and then you're off to the races.

=
Gautam Mukunda
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Freedom is not free"
http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com




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Re: March for Women's Lives

[Dan Minette]

- Original Message - 
From: "Julia Thompson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 12:29 PM
Subject: Re: March for Women's Lives


> Dan Minette wrote:
>
> > You know, I've never understood the motavation of sock puppet trolling.
> > Especially when one is trolling virtually the entire community one is
a
> > member of...including oneself.
>
> What makes you think he's a sock puppet, anyway?
>
> Julia

1) Conversations between two list members about not needed to out Mike Lee.

2) Patterns of writing that mimic patterns of an established list member.

3) Absolutely ridiculous, sometimes self mocking,  positions are taken.  I
think that the positions are not taken in good faith.

4) The patterns of what posts are responded to, and which are not.

Dan M.



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Re: Battlestar Galactica

[Dan Minette]

- Original Message - 
From: "Damon Agretto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 12:02 PM
Subject: Re: Battlestar Galactica


> > One thing I've always thought silly was the whole
> > idea of carriers in
> > space.  Air craft carriers work well because the
> > planes they launch travel
> > in a different medium than the ships: air vs. water.
> >  Carriers in space are
> > like two battle groups of large ships launching a
> > number of small boats to
> > engage in combat.
>
> I'm not so sure about that. One of the reasons
> carriers were effective (and still are) is because you
> can fight your enemy at an arms distance...you don't
> have to close with him. In this context a carrier
> essentially becomes a battle transport for smaller
> attack craft, that can then be used to defend the ship
> at an arms distance, or to launch attacks of their
> own. The best protection a ship can have is to NOT
> expose itself to enemy guns...

Right, but why do we only have aircraft carriers, and not small boat
carriers for fleet vs. fleet operations?  IMHO, its because aircraft has a
different set of tradeoffs from boats/ships.  I cannot imagine a carrier
of, say PT boats being effective in fleet to fleet operations.  If they
were effective, wouldn't we have had at least one PT carrier in a fleet?

Dan M.

Dan M.


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Re: March for Women's Lives

[Julia Thompson]

Dan Minette wrote:

> You know, I've never understood the motavation of sock puppet trolling.
> Especially when one is trolling virtually the entire community one is  a
> member of...including oneself.

What makes you think he's a sock puppet, anyway?

Julia
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Re: Collected thoughs on Iraq

[Julia Thompson]

Andrew Paul wrote:

> I posted this a while back, but it got lost in a black hole.
> I agree, how much should we trust the polls in Iraq?

If you're talking about the 55K post you tried to send on the 8th, I
still have a copy.

A message larger than 40K won't go through to the list without moderator
approval.

I will not put a message through that I haven't read in its entirety.

In the normal course of events, expect it to take me 48 hours to get
through such a post and put it through.

In a week when I've got 2 children on antibiotics and a husband who's
not entirely well, it'll take longer.

Throw in a death in the family and needing to get the house ready for
visitors, and I'm looking at 6 days.  By which point, someone else may
have given up and discarded it for size, or it may have been lost if the
server has crashed in the meantime.

I can send you a copy and let you edit it into 2 smaller posts, if you'd
like.

(I posted something shortly after you submitted that post, reminding
folks of the 40K limit on message size.)

Julia


Julia
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Re: Battlestar Galactica

[Damon Agretto]

> One thing I've always thought silly was the whole
> idea of carriers in
> space.  Air craft carriers work well because the
> planes they launch travel
> in a different medium than the ships: air vs. water.
>  Carriers in space are
> like two battle groups of large ships launching a
> number of small boats to
> engage in combat.

I'm not so sure about that. One of the reasons
carriers were effective (and still are) is because you
can fight your enemy at an arms distance...you don't
have to close with him. In this context a carrier
essentially becomes a battle transport for smaller
attack craft, that can then be used to defend the ship
at an arms distance, or to launch attacks of their
own. The best protection a ship can have is to NOT
expose itself to enemy guns...

Damon.


=

Damon Agretto
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum."
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Re: Battlestar Galactica

[Dan Minette]

- Original Message - 
From: "Damon Agretto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 11:02 AM
Subject: RE: Battlestar Galactica


>
> > Perfectly true, anyone can be a grunt, however when
> > your in the middle
> > of no where, have no backup, and need to get the job
> > done what do you
> > do? "Though you fly in the clouds, a marine is a
> > grunt first." The 58th
> > was heralded as the best of the best. To me they
> > were flying grunts,
> > more then once the played in the dirt. A necessity
> > then, more so then
> > now, with the earth at the edge of defeat and
> > loosing more men/women
> > then we can replace even through invitro's it comes
> > to a point that
> > everyone no matter how trained must do the lowliest
> > job. Of course that
> > is my opinion.
>
> Still doesn't make sense. If you really are on the
> ropes, then a trained pilot you invested several
> million dollars and several months worth of training
> will be FAR MORE VALUABLE than some draftee pulled off
> the street, given cursory training and a rifle. To put
> this in perspective, in 11 months of combat, from 6
> June 1944 to 8 May 1945, the 1st Infantry Division
> lost some 212% of its personnel. If you factor in the
> fact that not all personnel in the division are
> trigger pullers (probably 1/2 to 2/3 are), then the
> losses probably approach more like 300% or more.

Wow.  I realize losses were high, but I never thought about them being that
high.  My uncle was a chaplin with those forces and he was tremendously
disturbed by what he saw...although he never went into details.  I can see
why.

>With
> that in mind, its just not cost effective to expend
> valuable, trained (and more importantly) EXPERIENCED
> pilots in something a teen ager with 2 months of
> training can do equally well.

IIRC, in WWII, pilots were a tremendous bottleneck.  It was far easier to
produce 30,000 figher

> And I find it hard to believe that a carrier (or
> carrier battlegroup, as although escorts were never
> shown, they must have been there) wouldn't have
> embarked Marine platoons, or even assault ships, as
> part of their fleet, especially if ground combat would
> be known to be encountered. At the very least, it
> would be better to gather the cooks and other
> unessential personnel, give them rifles, and send them
> into combat, just as it was done at Bastogne, and
> really throughout the US campaign in Europe when we
> began to feel the "manpower crunch" when all the
> better suited troops were either dead or wounded.

One thing I've always thought silly was the whole idea of carriers in
space.  Air craft carriers work well because the planes they launch travel
in a different medium than the ships: air vs. water.  Carriers in space are
like two battle groups of large ships launching a number of small boats to
engage in combat.

Dan M.


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Disturbing evidence of torture

[Dan Minette]

I was shocked and saddened to see and hear evidence of what looks like
atrocities performed by US guards of Iraqi prisoners.  Its also disturbing
to have defense lawyers refer to one of the accused soldiers as a woman who
was an assistant manager at a pizza parlor, and was thrust into the roll as
a prison guard with no real training.  I hope this statement can be proven
to be a bald faced lie, that she actually was thoroughly trained, but I
don't hold out hopes that everything that seems to be systematically wrong
with this situation will be shown to be an illusion.

Let me say now that no discussion of systematic problems should be taken as
any indication that the individuals involved are not personally culpable,
and that there should be any amelioration of their responsibility or
punishment.  There can both be individual responsibility and institutional
responsibility.

I would have expected the US to have anticipated potential problems and to
have institutionalized checks to minimize the chance of this happening.
>From reports, it is not just a bad apple or two doing things when no one is
looking; it was a group of folks who thought it was acceptable.  The
letters home indicating pride in getting people to talk quickly seem to
indicate this.

I've heard disgust expressed by senior commanders; and I fully believe that
this disgust is real and heartfelt.  Not only does it go against their
ethics and professionalism, but it makes the mission in Iraq all that much
more difficult, as public opinion appears to be turning as it is.

So, I've got a few questions on this, that I hope someone has some answer
for.

1) How strong was the emphasis on getting information vs. keeping
professional and humane standards?

2) What training did the guards have?

3) What was the role of the private contractor?

4) How much supervision did the guards have?

5) How easy was it to report abuses?

6) How were the guards regularly reminded of the absolute need to continue
humane treatment?


I'm not asking anything about the morality of the guards actions because I
cannot imagine that there will be a wide range of opinions on that.  I
heard senior commanders speak about it on TV and found myself agreeing
fully with their depiction of it.  They gave every impression of being
disgusted and angry, and that fit my feeling pretty well. I would guess
that everyone from Tom Beck to JDG in the political spectrum here would
agree to within nit picking on this.   But, I think the other questions
could generate some worthwhile discussion.

Dan M.


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RE: Battlestar Galactica

[Damon Agretto]

> Perfectly true, anyone can be a grunt, however when
> your in the middle
> of no where, have no backup, and need to get the job
> done what do you
> do? "Though you fly in the clouds, a marine is a
> grunt first." The 58th
> was heralded as the best of the best. To me they
> were flying grunts,
> more then once the played in the dirt. A necessity
> then, more so then
> now, with the earth at the edge of defeat and
> loosing more men/women
> then we can replace even through invitro's it comes
> to a point that
> everyone no matter how trained must do the lowliest
> job. Of course that
> is my opinion. 

Still doesn't make sense. If you really are on the
ropes, then a trained pilot you invested several
million dollars and several months worth of training
will be FAR MORE VALUABLE than some draftee pulled off
the street, given cursory training and a rifle. To put
this in perspective, in 11 months of combat, from 6
June 1944 to 8 May 1945, the 1st Infantry Division
lost some 212% of its personnel. If you factor in the
fact that not all personnel in the division are
trigger pullers (probably 1/2 to 2/3 are), then the
losses probably approach more like 300% or more. With
that in mind, its just not cost effective to expend
valuable, trained (and more importantly) EXPERIENCED
pilots in something a teen ager with 2 months of
training can do equally well.

And I find it hard to believe that a carrier (or
carrier battlegroup, as although escorts were never
shown, they must have been there) wouldn't have
embarked Marine platoons, or even assault ships, as
part of their fleet, especially if ground combat would
be known to be encountered. At the very least, it
would be better to gather the cooks and other
unessential personnel, give them rifles, and send them
into combat, just as it was done at Bastogne, and
really throughout the US campaign in Europe when we
began to feel the "manpower crunch" when all the
better suited troops were either dead or wounded.

Damon.


=

Damon Agretto
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum."
http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html
Now Building: 





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Re: March for Women's Lives

[Dan Minette]

- Original Message - 
From: "Julia Thompson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 11:20 PM
Subject: Re: March for Women's Lives


> Robert Seeberger wrote:
> >
> > - Original Message -
> > From: "Julia Thompson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 10:42 PM
> > Subject: Re: March for Women's Lives
> >
> > > and how do you know he's not just playing with your head, anyway?
> > >
> > Exactly what trolls do.
>
> With a troll, you have a number of options.  One of those is choosing to
> be amused.  I'm trying to go with that one as much as possible this
> week.  :)  (Ignoring is another, getting one's panties in a wad is yet
> another.)
>
> That receptionist comment is rankling a bit, though, due to the
> ludicrous incompetency I've heard about in a number of receptionists.
> (And had to deal with personally in a rather stressful situation.)
>
> Julia

You know, I've never understood the motavation of sock puppet trolling.
Especially when one is trolling virtually the entire community one is  a
member of...including oneself.

One thing this is apparent, however.  Mike Lee is tacitly expressing
admiration for American Patriot.

Dan M.





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RE: Battlestar Galactica

[Nick Lidster]

Perfectly true, anyone can be a grunt, however when your in the middle
of no where, have no backup, and need to get the job done what do you
do? "Though you fly in the clouds, a marine is a grunt first." The 58th
was heralded as the best of the best. To me they were flying grunts,
more then once the played in the dirt. A necessity then, more so then
now, with the earth at the edge of defeat and loosing more men/women
then we can replace even through invitro's it comes to a point that
everyone no matter how trained must do the lowliest job. Of course that
is my opinion. 
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RE: Wow

[Ronn!Blankenship]

At 09:09 AM 4/30/04, Andrew Paul wrote:
From: Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

>Ronn!Blankenship wrote:

>> <>
>>
>> (55KB JPEG or 3MB TIFF)
>Fun picture

>Sonja
>GCU: Saturn put in perspective
Yea, it is pretty impressive.
I think the "image scale is 286 kilometers (178 miles) per pixel" sentence 
did it for me.


If you have the space and time to do so, try downloading the 3MB TIFF 
version and zooming in on the rings . . .

Wow Again Maru

-- Ronn!  :)


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RE: Wow

[Andrew Paul]

From: Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 

>Ronn!Blankenship wrote:

>> <>
>>
>> (55KB JPEG or 3MB TIFF)

>Fun picture

>Sonja
>GCU: Saturn put in perspective

Yea, it is pretty impressive.
I think the "image scale is 286 kilometers (178 miles) per pixel" sentence did it for 
me.
 
Andrew
 
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Re: March for Women's Lives

[Travis Edmunds]

From: Dave Land <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: March for Women's Lives
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 17:50:56 -0700
his posts bespeak a hatred that goes right to the core.
Funny post Dave!  But you people just don't seem to get it; using 
your above wording as evidence of course. The man is not consumed with a 
hatred that penetrates to the proverbial core. No, not at all! He is however 
consumed with himself (this goes beyond survival instincts) and puts great 
care into presenting us with the Mike Lee mask.

And as for Jim taking the bait...well look around Dave. He's not the only 
one. In fact, you did just that (took the bait that is) with your post here. 
*And I'm not so sure that you're even aware of it.*

You see, whenever you reply to Mike in a way that includes cliched speech 
full of collectively agreed upon definitions of collectively agreed upon 
words, which form collectively agreed upon phrases then you 'take the bait'. 
For that is where Mike thrives! He can superbly manipulate that type of 
speech, and to put icing on the cake, he makes it funny!

So 'what do I do' you might ask? Well, play dirty. Don't use cliche's, don't 
use collectively agreed upon definitions (debate those definitions!) or 
collectively agreed upon words (don't recognize those words!). Mike is like 
Neo, and the cliched, 'witty entertainment writer' type of speech that he 
thrives in is the Matrix. So take it to him outside the Matrix. Just some 
friendly advice Dave. Hell, it worked for me.

*Forgive me my arrogant, presumptuous, and slightly offensive manner.*

-Travis

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Re: Wow

[Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten]

Ronn!Blankenship wrote:

<>

(55KB JPEG or 3MB TIFF)
Fun picture

Sonja
GCU: Saturn put in perspective
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Re: Ultimate Chutzpah

[Gary Denton]

Google mail - not sure how I like it yet.

Love the storage space - 1000 MB.

Does not have all the functions of other email services but adds an
interesting format and labels instead of folders.  It appears
everything stays in your stack until you archive it but you are
encouraged to search or filter by labels or words in documents.  Very
fast searches.  

Ads are less intrusive and better than Yahoo or Hotmail because
related to the topics and only text ads.
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Re: March for Women's Lives

[Ronn!Blankenship]

At 08:06 AM 4/30/04, Travis Edmunds wrote:

From: Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: March for Women's Lives
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 19:14:18 -0500
"Bathroom humor is an American-Standard."
Ha! Is that your own quote Ronn!? If so I'd like to quote you. If not, 
could you tell me who's it is?


I've seen it in MAD Magazine, but I doubt it was original there, either.

"Bathroom Humor Is A Kohler" Just Doesn't Have The Same Ring Maru

-- Ronn!  :)


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Re: ShrubCo Deletes, Alters Gender Issue Web Data

[Ronn!Blankenship]

At 05:11 AM 4/30/04, Kevin Tarr wrote:
At 01:31 AM 4/30/2004, you wrote:

At 10:56 PM 4/29/04, The Fool wrote:

Key government offices dedicated to addressing the needs of women have
been disbanded, according to the report.


Well, heck, we know that all women need is to find a man and have 
children so they can sit around all day watching soap operas and eating 
bob-bons . . .

Oink, Oink Maru

Ronn
First women want equality, then they want special offices


You don't want me to tell you what I first read that word as (though you 
can probably guess).



and reports pertaining just to them. I guess equal protection under the 
law applies to white males only.

Kevin T. - VRWLC
28 years ago the What Women Want Policy Center opened. Last week they 
completed their first task; they agreed on a logo. Next task: stationary.


ISTM that taking 28 years to come up with a logo is about as near 
stationary as any organization could be without being absolutely stationary.

Maybe their next task ought to be getting someone to print their logo on 
some sheets of paper for them to use for official 
correspondence?  Hopefully that won't take another 28 years.

Letterhead Stationery Maru



-- Ronn!  :)


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Re: Battlestar Galactica

[Damon Agretto]

> I can watch DBZ (my generic name for all things
> Dragonball) 24/7. I just 
> can't get enough of it.

Ugh!
 
> Speaking of anime (or at least something like anime)
> has anyone heard 
> anything about a new Astroboy series?

What did you want to know? It was recently airing on
the Cartoon Network, though I don't know if it still
is. I wasn't too keen on watching it, as I wasn't keen
on the original either. But if you liked the original,
this has better quality animation, and maybe deeper
stories (though I only watched a couple episodes at
the most).

Damon.


=

Damon Agretto
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum."
http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html
Now Building: 





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Re: March for Women's Lives

[Travis Edmunds]

From: Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: March for Women's Lives
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 19:14:18 -0500
"Bathroom humor is an American-Standard."

Ha! Is that your own quote Ronn!? If so I'd like to quote you. If not, could 
you tell me who's it is?

-Travis

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Re: Battlestar Galactica

[Travis Edmunds]

From: "The Fool" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Battlestar Galactica
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 19:26:51 -0500
Besides, how much Dragonball (can one tolerate???)

I can watch DBZ (my generic name for all things Dragonball) 24/7. I just 
can't get enough of it.

Speaking of anime (or at least something like anime) has anyone heard 
anything about a new Astroboy series?

-Travis "that little guy was tough!!" Edmunds

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Re: March for Women's Lives

[Travis Edmunds]

From: Gary Denton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: March for Women's Lives
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 14:57:45 -0500
As a new member can I ask if he is always like this?
Always.

Is this supposed to be satire?
Good question. Is it supposed to be? Hmmm...I'd say yes.

As a side note, it most certainly IS satire.

As a second side note, welcome to the list!

And as a third, allow me to say that top posting is generally frowned upon 
here. Not that I personally care all that much, but some people will get 
snotty. This one time I top posted...

-Travis "...hope you don't use AOL" Edmunds

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Re: ShrubCo Deletes, Alters Gender Issue Web Data

[Kevin Tarr]

At 01:31 AM 4/30/2004, you wrote:

At 10:56 PM 4/29/04, The Fool wrote:

Key government offices dedicated to addressing the needs of women have
been disbanded, according to the report.


Well, heck, we know that all women need is to find a man and have children 
so they can sit around all day watching soap operas and eating bob-bons . . .

Oink, Oink Maru

Ronn
First women want equality, then they want special offices and reports 
pertaining just to them. I guess equal protection under the law applies to 
white males only.

Kevin T. - VRWLC
28 years ago the What Women Want Policy Center opened. Last week they 
completed their first task; they agreed on a logo. Next task: stationary. 
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Re: ADMIN: Wonky server

[Jean-Marc Chaton]

* Nick Arnett [Thu, 29/04/2004 at 16:40 -0700]
> Jean-Marc Chaton wrote:

> >Maybe you could mount a live system cdrom
...
> >Then change PATH and other libpaths in /etc/profile. 

> 
> Some good ideas there... but one rotten bit of this problem is that 
> verifying the binaries with rpm requires grep!  Maybe I can work around 
> that...

Yes if you mount a live installation then change your paths, the grep
that's going to be used  won't be the one on your disks but the one on
the live install




-- 
Jean-Marc
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Wow

[Ronn!Blankenship]

<>

(55KB JPEG or 3MB TIFF)

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