Re: Opportunity costs of war
At 11:38 PM Friday 4/15/2005, Julia Thompson wrote: Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 08:20 PM Friday 4/15/2005, Julia Thompson wrote: Dan Minette wrote: - Original Message - From: "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" Sent: Friday, April 15, 2005 7:46 PM Subject: Re: Opportunity costs of war we invade! Justice will be served! With a side order of freedom fries. No fries. They sell an assortment of chips, though. So do most electronic hobby stores, but I wouldn't want to eat there . . . There's some sort of witty retort involving Fry's Electronics, but I can't come up with it right now. Yeah. We don't have those locally, or like you I might still be trying to find that retort . . . Glass Retorts I Have Out In The Shed With My Other Chem Lab Stuff Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Opportunity costs of war
At 07:08 PM Thursday 4/14/2005, John DeBudge wrote: On 4/14/05, Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Someone else has read "The Mythical Man-Month," I see . . . > I really wish the only experience I had in that subject was from a book. So do we all . . . -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Opportunity costs of war
On 15 Apr 2005, JDG <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote An opportunity cost is the value of the next-most-valuable expenditure for a limited resource. That is not what it was 40 years ago. At that time the definition that I learned was that an opportunity cost is the value of what you give up The `next-most-valuable expenditure' was `what you consider the second most valuable expenditure'. Thus, in the US, an opportunity cost for agricultural subsidies is funding for a different way to handle currently farmed land: In a science fiction nove, Alexander Jablokow talked of one opportunity this way: ... They wore the uniforms of Huntmasters, recognizable anywhere ... As they grew older and more experienced, they could become Wardens and develop a complete and intimate knowledge of the wildlife of several hundred square miles of forest, guiding hunting parties and making sure only animals slated for cull were hunted. Such men often lived in the forest and grew to look like earth gods, bearded and venerable. [These] two Huntmasters, however, were young men and, being Lunar dwellers, could only become Wardens of one of the underground Environments ... p. 166 `Carve the Sky' by Alexander Jablokow 1991, Willian Morrow and Co. ISBN 0-688-10324-3 In US politics, a `next-most-valuable expenditure' might be to reduce (urban) technological research to increase (rural) agricultural supports. The forgone technological research would be such an action's `opportunity cost'. (If foreigners undertook the research, the species might not forgo it; but America would.) In this example, the additional (rural) support for an administration in power, and diminished opportunities for its (urban) opposition would define the value of the expenditure for the administration. (For others, the `next-most-valuable expenditure' might be to abandon people and companies that depend on rual subsidies and favor urban research.) In this set of definitions, the concept of `opportunity cost' does not include the notion of preference. You may not like the alternative opportunity. On the other hand, the concept of `what you consider the second most valuable expenditure' does include the notions of preference; and that you made the preference second in an ordinal sequence. Perhaps definitions have changed since I learned the concepts two generations ago. -- Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Peaceful change
On 14 Apr 2005, Nick Arnett wrote ... this does beg the question of what intelligence is. Genetics networks seem very smart. Yes, very true. As far as I can see, most science fiction readers require that entities communicate by a symbolic language that humans understand in order to be perceived as intelligent. A non-speaking genetics network may look smart but not intelligent. (A speaking entity may be treated as an enemy. I am not suggesting that it will not; just that it will be perceived as intelligent.) Interestingly, two people from differing religous backgrounds have told me that that entities `with the intelligence, emotions, and wisdom of humans, but not looking like humans' should not be `granted the rights' of humans. (I specifically used the words that are quoted.) >From a political point of view, I think it is well to evaluate whether a proposal `preserves' a genetics network. That way the network remains. If you learn more and want to investigate in a new manner, you can do so. -- Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Opportunity costs of war
On 15 Apr 2005, JDG wrote A given project is calculated to cost $5 and provide $10 of benefits. Why wouldn't you engage in such a project? Consider abortion. Many argue that over a sufficiently long time period, the world population would be better off lowered -- if only to reduce environmental impacts and to enable those humans who are left to use currently available and not-to-expensive energy sources, rather than fossil fuel sources or sources that require technological advances, such as hydrogen-boron fusion. Since some people, such as those who have sworn to abstain from sex before marriage, nontheless engage in sex before marriage and do so with fewer preventions than others, some kind of post-sex population control is economically valuable. (For the sex, I am remembering reports of some recent research that looks truthful to me based on my knowledge of humans. Over multi-generational time periods, you can slow rates of population growth by delaying marriage, using infanticide, and the like (more modern techniques are often nicer). (But only when a society stops thinking of its biological future, or when it is wiped out by illness or war, does its population growth halt entirely. Thus, to halt population growth, as will happen in any finite universe, if you do not want the halt controlled by war, famine, pestilence, or despair, some kind of post-sex population control is economically valuable.) But if you believe that abortion is intrinsically evil, then even though it provides an economic benefit, it should not be permitted. That is to say, with such a belief, the categorical concept of `intrinsic evil' trumps the ratio-based concept of a cost-benefit. -- Robert J. Chassell [EMAIL PROTECTED] GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Evil and Wrong
On Fri, 15 Apr 2005 20:35:40 -0500, Dan Minette wrote > > > Finally, I would argue that the only justification for killing and > > > war is weakness. If we were strong enough to stop evil actions > > > without such extreme measures, then we would be morally compelled to > > > do so. > > > > I cannot agree with the premise that underlies this -- that evil is "out > > there" and we "in here," if powerful enough, can eliminate it. > > That really isn't the premise. The premise is this: we as a > community need to address evil actions. I don't see community > action with regard to evil within the heart because the community I > cannot see into people's hearts. You may say so, but the president's language -- referring to his presidency as part of a divine mission, "destroy the evil-doers," "wonder-working power," "rid the world of evil," "you're with us or you're with the terrorists," "America is the hope of all mankind... the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness shall not overcome it," "the liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to humanity," "Pax Americana," all spoken in support of war and empire -- I hear to say that we are on God's side, rather than (as Lincoln said) praying that we are on God's side. God is God, we are just a country. The answer to this lousy theology is to remember that the battle between good and evil belongs to God, not us, and it takes place first and foremost in our own hearts, to fear God's justice (Jefferson) rather than presume that we are it, to address the log in our own eye before criticizing hte speck in our neighbor's, to put our concern with the poor and hungry, rather than accumulating wealth and power. Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Peaceful change
On Fri, 15 Apr 2005 20:49:18 -0500, Dan Minette wrote > > It is nationalistic idolatry. We are not the good. > > Actually, that's not what Bush is saying. But right below, you say he *is* saying it, don't you? > ...what > one does to bad guys is OK because we know who are the good guys and > the bad guys. Perhaps you don't see it as nationalistic because he allows for the existence of "good guys" who aren't Americans. But the definition of a good guy is anybody who agrees with our national policies. Everybody else is working against us, for the forces of evil. > I sincerely think > that Bush thinks God's will for the world is a prosperous world > filled with people living in peace and freedom everywhere. I can't see that, since he seems to clearly want some people dead, by which I mean he seeks peace at the barrel of a gun. I see an enormous conflict between "wipe out the evil-doers" and "blessed are the peacemakers." > If we are only faithful, God will ensure that we will succeed. I > don't think this is sound. There was no such hubris in the six-point plan -- it was based on faith, not might. Nobody was selling it as a guaranteed solution; it was a faith-based initiative. Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Evil and Wrong
On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 07:22:55 -0700, Nick Arnett wrote > I hear to say that we are on God's > side, rather than (as Lincoln said) praying that we are on God's > side. That first part should have read, "I hear to say that God is on our side..." Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Faith, Hope, and Decision Making
At 02:52 PM 15/04/05 -0500, you wrote: - Original Message - From: "Nick Arnett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2005 6:46 PM Subject: Re: Peaceful change > > I can go back through the posts, but I see repeated claims that we > > can find a choice that involves far less violence than war, yet > > accomplish the most important objectives. > > Is a "claim" the same thing as a "hope?" Is an argument the same thing >as faith? I have been struggling with an answer to this, because I've had very difficult experiences with people who equate faith and hope with wishful thinking. I think that there is the same type of difference between them as there is between joy and having a good time. Let me relate a couple of experiences regarding this to give a background for my thinking. I was going to snip this, but perhaps it would be better to comment. First, I have experienced this type of thing in church related work, and I've been accused of not having faith when I differ with the people. The best example of this comes from our church Our church membership started dropping about 5 years ago, close to the time I joined the Session (the governing body of the church). There was a faction on the Session who believed that God provides contributions to the church if the church is faithful to it's mission, so that to look at these type of trends and working out why...and then deciding which is integral to our mission (and thus faithfulness requires us to accept the loss of membership) and what is not integral (like playing hymns at a dirge-like pace which can be changed to attract more members). Churches have an unrecognized "mission" besides that of their particular religion. They provide social support for their members, a surrogate "tribe." For reasons I don't really understand but are probably related to the evolution of our culture this function is being replaced by other groupings. The effect hits various religions and locations differentially. But, people refused to face hard issues. Instead they called the expectations that God would take care of the problem "hope" and "faith". To the extent humans have the ability to think rationally, they lose it in high stress situations. The reason is rooted in our evolutionary past. I made an argument similar to the one I made here: it could very well be that we needed to risk losing the property and restarting as a smaller church if we found that our identity as a church was counter-cultural in the Woodlands. But, we needed to make that a conscious decision, instead of letting things slide...and perhaps losing our buildings and grounds over things that could be changed without seriously affecting the mission of the church. For a while, I thought giving up the site would be a very reasonable solution, until I started to see how much community work we did (ESL, babysitting for children of ESL, pre-school, etc.) in those facilities. I don't think the Lord calls us to simply hope for an easy solutionthat's not what I consider Christian hope. The second example is work related. I have worked around a group that attracted the faith and hope of the management team. They told the management team that what they wanted was feasible, and that they could do it. The whole team did optimistic engineering. The team was so good at relating to the wishes of the management for what could be, they kept on getting a lions share of resources, even when they didn't produce. Now, you could argue, and I would agree, that the type of faith and hope the management team had was not spiritual in nature. Wishful thinking would be a better term than faith and hope for their actions/attitude. I would argue the same is true for the first group. We were a church that was very good with providing opportunities for advanced discipleship for believers, so-so at encouraging belongers, and absolutely terrible with seekers (to use common church nomenclature breaking potential members into three groups). As a result, we were an aging church, with a big hole where young families should be. In my opinion, the views that staying with the same old same old was not an expression of faith, but an unwillingness to leave their comfort zone. Their "faith and hope" inoculated them against having to face unpleasantness. I struggled with this for about two years, becoming very frustrated as a brick wall was put up. I have to wonder how it worked out? So, when I see the 6-point program for correcting Iraq and see a cornerstone of it is legal proceedings resulting in massive internal and external changes, I immediately feel echoes of this type of unpleasant situation. The "faith and hope" of these people stopped all discussion. If they were immunized against any arguments against their position, then there is no real chance for dialog. Worse. In situation building up to war or war itself people are caught into thinking modes that badly depress thinki
Re: Peaceful change
- Original Message - From: "Nick Arnett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" Sent: Saturday, April 16, 2005 9:34 AM Subject: Re: Peaceful change > On Fri, 15 Apr 2005 20:49:18 -0500, Dan Minette wrote > > > It is nationalistic idolatry. We are not the good. > > > > Actually, that's not what Bush is saying. > > But right below, you say he *is* saying it, don't you? > > > ...what > > one does to bad guys is OK because we know who are the good guys and > > the bad guys. > > Perhaps you don't see it as nationalistic because he allows for the existence > of "good guys" who aren't Americans. But the definition of a good guy is > anybody who agrees with our national policies. Actually, the definition of a good guy is anyone who wants to live in peace and freedom and would be willing to let his neighbor do the same. That's not really that bad of a definition. >Everybody else is working against us, for the forces of evil. He is too sure that he has a l > > I sincerely think > > that Bush thinks God's will for the world is a prosperous world > > filled with people living in peace and freedom everywhere. > > I can't see that, since he seems to clearly want some people dead, by which I > mean he seeks peace at the barrel of a gun. Actually, the line was captured dead or alive. I think that he would be willing to wipe out AQ to stop them. The reality of the situation is that, because we are not powerful enough to always stop violent actions without resorting to violence ourselves. The classic example of this is Bohnhoffer. He was reputed to have such a strong sense of the spiritual, that he was able to turn the hearts of the SS guards who were guarding him and was able to engage in spiritual dialog with them. Yet, he felt that _he_ had to resort to violence to stop Hitler. If someone who wrote one of the greatest books on discipleship in the 20th century, and wrote a confessions that placed Jesus clearly at the center of the church and our lives over nationalism (Theological Declaration of Barmen) felt that he had to seek peace at the barrel of the gun, I don't see how we can automatically declare all such views evidence of bad theology. >I see an enormous conflict > between "wipe out the evil-doers" and "blessed are the peacemakers." There is, indeed, > > If we are only faithful, God will ensure that we will succeed. I > > don't think this is sound. > > There was no such hubris in the six-point plan -- it was based on faith, not > might. But, it was faith in human institutions. It was faith in the power of human law. By doing things the right we, we somehow evoke God's power and everything turns out for the best. But, in a world where theological understanding about the consequences of war and inaction in the face of dictators must be informed by the Holocaust, we cannot count on God to intervene because we eschew violence ourselves. That doesn't mean that pacifism is wrong, it means that pacifism must adress the millions who died when they could have been saved by actions that killed thousands. To borrow JDG's example of something that is intrinsically wrong, if he refused to condemn an innocent man to save a nation, he would have to adress the loss of the nation. This doesn't make him wrong, indeed I have sympathy for that position; it merely makes him adress the moral question at hand instead of arm wave around it. My guess is that JDG would be willing to accept such a requirement, and talk about why it was wrong to condemn an innocent man to save lives. >Nobody was selling it as a guaranteed solution; it was a faith-based > initiative. No, but it was sold as a plausible alternative. There is no evidence that it was. How does it differ from the actions at my church that I described? Finally, let me better explain how I draw the line between two cases. Faith and Hope is believing that God was with the Jews in the concentration camp, that he never abandoned them, even though they suffered and died. Magical thinking is believing that, if we only hold true to pacifism, God will intervene to change the hearts of the Nazis, thus avoiding the Holocaust. I used the word magical thinking as a means of expressing the belief that we can somehow control/direct God's actions in the world. Believing in God being with us and working in God's time and God's way, without it being expressed in terms of the things of this world stands in opposition to magical thinking. This is what I associate with hope and faith. The problem we have is discerning how we are called. In my opinion, Bush and the folks behind the 6-points make very similar discernment mistakes. It is certainly not my position to determine if either sinned. But, as a fellow Christian, I am called to offer my own discernment and to engage in the very human political process of developing the communities discernment. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/
Re: Desktop Search Question
On 4/15/05, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Several people that I work with would like to begin > sharing resources such as presentations, website > resource info etc. We are geographically dispersed > and tossed around the idea of adding a library to our > intranet, but the organizational aspect is something > we dread as this thing gets bigger. Someone suggested > google/yahoo desktop which seems to be like gmail, > constantly organizing. Anyone using either of these > and want to give me feedback? I am not sure how we > could all contribute to one location and then search it > as needed. > > Thanks, > Dee You could try using wikis- they seem to organize dispersed groups pretty well. ~Maru http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
At 11:21 AM Wednesday 4/13/2005, Nick Arnett wrote: That would be, um, difficult, since 12-step programs are spiritual in nature. For many, I suspect, a big part of such a program is the replacement of bad theology with better, if not good, theology. Oh. If that's all it is, I can refer you to two young guys in suits and white shirts who can help you do that in half as many steps . . . -- Ronn! :) Professional Smart-Aleck Mormon. Do Attempt. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Lost tribe of Eskimos found.
A tribe of Eskimos was recently discovered living in what was perpetual stealth from their more common cousins. They call themselves the Oudupuwd Now the cycle of life is complete. Inuit and Oudupuwd Vilyehm - Needed nonsense after tax day. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 11:21 AM Wednesday 4/13/2005, Nick Arnett wrote: That would be, um, difficult, since 12-step programs are spiritual in nature. For many, I suspect, a big part of such a program is the replacement of bad theology with better, if not good, theology. Oh. If that's all it is, I can refer you to two young guys in suits and white shirts who can help you do that in half as many steps . . . -- Ronn! :) Professional Smart-Aleck Mormon. Do Attempt. I'm betting they'll show up on bicycles, be very polite, and decline offers of coffee Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
'Hello', said the Ostrich, to the Administration
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002243262_terror16.html http://tinyurl.com/box2r "U.S. eliminates annual terrorism report" By Jonathan S. Landay WASHINGTON — The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered. Several U.S. officials defended the decision, saying the methodology used by the National Counterterrorism Center to generate statistics had flaws, such as the inclusion of incidents that may not have been terrorism. But other current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered the report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism," eliminated weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism. "Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," charged Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal. A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed that the publication was eliminated, but said the allegation that it was done for political reasons was "categorically untrue." According to Johnson and U.S. intelligence officials, statistics that the National Counterterrorism Center provided to the State Department reported 625 "significant" terrorist attacks in 2004. That compared with 175 such incidents in 2003, the highest number in two decades. The statistics didn't include attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, which President Bush as recently as Tuesday called "a central front in the war on terror." The intelligence officials requested anonymity because the information is classified and because, they said, they feared White House retribution. Johnson declined to say how he obtained the figures. The numbers of incidents and fatalities in the report for 2003 were undercounted last year, forcing a revision and embarrassing the White House, which had used the original version to bolster Bush's election-campaign claim that the Iraq war had advanced the fight against terrorism. U.S. officials blamed bureaucratic mistakes involving the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, the forerunner of the National Counterterrorism Center, created under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which Bush signed Dec. 17. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., among the leading critics of last year's mix-up, reacted angrily. "This is the definitive report on the incidence of terrorism around the world," Waxman said. "It should be unthinkable that there would be an effort to withhold it — or any of the key data — from the public. The Bush administration should stop playing politics with this critical report." The State Department published "Patterns of Global Terrorism" under a law that requires it to submit to the House and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a country-by-country terrorism assessment by April 30 each year. A declassified version of the report has been made public since 1986 in the form of a glossy booklet, even though there was no legal requirement to do so. The senior State Department official said a report on global terrorism would be sent this year to lawmakers and made available to the public in place of "Patterns of Global Terrorism," but that it wouldn't contain statistical data. The official didn't answer questions about whether the data would be made available to the public, saying, "We will be consulting [with Congress] ... on who should publish and in what form." One U.S. official who requested anonymity said analysts from the counterterrorism center were especially careful in amassing and reviewing data for 2004 because of the political turmoil created by last year's errors. Another U.S. official said Rice's office was leery of the center's methodology, believing that analysts eager to avoid a repetition of last year's undercount included incidents that may not have been terrorist attacks. The U.S. intelligence officials said Rice's office eliminated "Patterns of Global Terrorism" when the counterterrorism center declined to use alternative methodology that would have reported fewer significant attacks. ~Maru 'Whatever are you doing down here too?' 'Same as you.' ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Peaceful change
On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 11:25:07 -0500, Dan Minette wrote > Actually, the definition of a good guy is anyone who wants to live > in peace and freedom and would be willing to let his neighbor do the > same. That's not really that bad of a definition. Whose definition is it? Yours? Bush's? Mine? > had to seek peace at the barrel of the gun, I don't see how we can > automatically declare all such views evidence of bad theology. I haven't said that I think Bonhoeffer's theology is bad. I know Bonhoeffer's theology and George Bush is no Bonhoeffer. > But, it was faith in human institutions. It was faith in the power > of human law. By doing things the right we, we somehow evoke God's > power and everything turns out for the best. That's rather ambiguous, isn't it. Whose definition of "best?" Ours or God's? I heard a news item about a Marine regiment in Iraq that had a large number of churches praying for it, and none of their troops were killed or suffered amputations. All that prayer worked, the report said. Does this mean that our prayers for Wes didn't "work?" What were they praying for, exactly? And is the survival of all of those Marines proof that prayer works? How can prayer, which is based in faith, ever be proven? We could said that all those people prayed for the Marines and they all survived, so it all worked out for the best. As far as I'm concerned, things worked out for Wes's company, which had a lot of losses, for the best, too, as long as we make the best of it, trusting that God redeems all. There was nothing in the six-point plan that claimed that God was behind it or that it would surely work. It was presented with churches behind it in hope of success and under a moral imperative to try all other alternatives before going to war. > But, in a world where theological > understanding about the consequences of war and inaction in the face > of dictators I feel angry when anyone bring up "inaction" or "doing nothing," etc., in this thread. Nobody is suggesting doing nothing. But there are times when something seems terribly wrong by human standards, but God asked us to let events unfold, rather than insisting on unfolding them our way. Our notion of control gets us in plenty of trouble, partly because we imagine that we are in control! The presumption that only we, the United States, can minimize the harm being done by a dictator, easily leaves God out of the picture (or worse, makes Him a cheerleader for us, pro-war, pro-rich, etc.). When, how and to what degree to intervene is rarely clear, but that does not change a deep presumption against war. To reduce the uncertainty to non-interventionism is unfair. > we cannot count on > God to intervene because we eschew violence ourselves. Good heavens, Dan, we can *always* count on God to intervene, my faith tells me. Without God's constant, total involvement, all of creation would come to a halt and we would cease to exist. The question is not whether God is involved, the question is what God is asking of us as the body of Christ. Do you believe that God is constantly involved, constantly present? Do you believe that sometimes we need to intervene because God isn't doing so? > No, but it was sold as a plausible alternative. There is no > evidence that it was. How does it differ from the actions at my > church that I described? No evidence? Do you believe that we are obligated to take seriously the voice of the majority of Christians around the world? Would you agree that democracy is a good system not because people are good, but because we have such capacity for wrong-doing? When the majority of churches and Christians around the world are telling us that what we are about to do is wrong, and leaders that represent a huge number of them present an alternative, how can you say there is no evidence? Are they fools? Nick ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Peaceful change
On 4/17/05, Nick Arnett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sat, 16 Apr 2005 11:25:07 -0500, Dan Minette wrote > > we cannot count on > > God to intervene because we eschew violence ourselves. > > Good heavens, Dan, we can *always* count on God to intervene, my faith tells > me. Without God's constant, total involvement, all of creation would come to > a halt and we would cease to exist. The question is not whether God is > involved, the question is what God is asking of us as the body of Christ. Do > you believe that God is constantly involved, constantly present? Do you > believe that sometimes we need to intervene because God isn't doing so? That is sarcasm, correct? Because seriously proposing that the universe has no independent existence from a supreme deity is a stance I believe is called pan-theism, and I gather from other things you have written that your 'faith' is not a pantheistic sect. ~Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
At 06:11 PM Saturday 4/16/2005, Julia Thompson wrote: Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 11:21 AM Wednesday 4/13/2005, Nick Arnett wrote: That would be, um, difficult, since 12-step programs are spiritual in nature. For many, I suspect, a big part of such a program is the replacement of bad theology with better, if not good, theology. Oh. If that's all it is, I can refer you to two young guys in suits and white shirts who can help you do that in half as many steps . . . -- Ronn! :) Professional Smart-Aleck Mormon. Do Attempt. I'm betting they'll show up on bicycles, be very polite, and decline offers of coffee In some areas like here, where one pair are responsible for a rather large geographical area, they do have access to a car. Otherwise, two out of three ain't bad . . . -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 'Hello', said the Ostrich, to the Administration
At 07:28 PM Saturday 4/16/2005, Maru Dubshinki wrote: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002243262_terror16.html http://tinyurl.com/box2r "U.S. eliminates annual terrorism report" By Jonathan S. Landay WASHINGTON The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered. Several U.S. officials defended the decision, saying the methodology used by the National Counterterrorism Center to generate statistics had flaws, such as the inclusion of incidents that may not have been terrorism. But other current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered the report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism," eliminated weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism. "Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," charged Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal. A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed that the publication was eliminated, but said the allegation that it was done for political reasons was "categorically untrue." According to Johnson and U.S. intelligence officials, statistics that the National Counterterrorism Center provided to the State Department reported 625 "significant" terrorist attacks in 2004. That compared with 175 such incidents in 2003, the highest number in two decades. The statistics didn't include attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, which President Bush as recently as Tuesday called "a central front in the war on terror." The intelligence officials requested anonymity because the information is classified and because, they said, they feared White House retribution. Johnson declined to say how he obtained the figures. The numbers of incidents and fatalities in the report for 2003 were undercounted last year, forcing a revision and embarrassing the White House, which had used the original version to bolster Bush's election-campaign claim that the Iraq war had advanced the fight against terrorism. U.S. officials blamed bureaucratic mistakes involving the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, the forerunner of the National Counterterrorism Center, created under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which Bush signed Dec. 17. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., among the leading critics of last year's mix-up, reacted angrily. "This is the definitive report on the incidence of terrorism around the world," Waxman said. "It should be unthinkable that there would be an effort to withhold it or any of the key data from the public. The Bush administration should stop playing politics with this critical report." The State Department published "Patterns of Global Terrorism" under a law that requires it to submit to the House and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a country-by-country terrorism assessment by April 30 each year. A declassified version of the report has been made public since 1986 in the form of a glossy booklet, even though there was no legal requirement to do so. The senior State Department official said a report on global terrorism would be sent this year to lawmakers and made available to the public in place of "Patterns of Global Terrorism," but that it wouldn't contain statistical data. The official didn't answer questions about whether the data would be made available to the public, saying, "We will be consulting [with Congress] ... on who should publish and in what form." One U.S. official who requested anonymity said analysts from the counterterrorism center were especially careful in amassing and reviewing data for 2004 because of the political turmoil created by last year's errors. Another U.S. official said Rice's office was leery of the center's methodology, believing that analysts eager to avoid a repetition of last year's undercount included incidents that may not have been terrorist attacks. The U.S. intelligence officials said Rice's office eliminated "Patterns of Global Terrorism" when the counterterrorism center declined to use alternative methodology that would have reported fewer significant attacks. ~Maru 'Whatever are you doing down here too?' 'Same as you.' ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l Any chance of another take, this time with some line breaks here and there to supply readability? -- Ronn! :) ___ http:
Re: 'Hello', said the Ostrich, to the Administration
On 4/17/05, Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Any chance of another take, this time with some line breaks here and there > to supply readability? > > -- Ronn! :) /scratches head. Formatted just fine in Gmail... Oh well. Give it another shot. Or y'all could follow the links. U.S. eliminates annual terrorism report WASHINGTON — The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered. Several U.S. officials defended the decision, saying the methodology used by the National Counterterrorism Center to generate statistics had flaws, such as the inclusion of incidents that may not have been terrorism. But other current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered the report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism," eliminated weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism. "Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," charged Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal. A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed that the publication was eliminated, but said the allegation that it was done for political reasons was "categorically untrue." According to Johnson and U.S. intelligence officials, statistics that the National Counterterrorism Center provided to the State Department reported 625 "significant" terrorist attacks in 2004. That compared with 175 such incidents in 2003, the highest number in two decades. The statistics didn't include attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, which President Bush as recently as Tuesday called "a central front in the war on terror." The intelligence officials requested anonymity because the information is classified and because, they said, they feared White House retribution. Johnson declined to say how he obtained the figures. The numbers of incidents and fatalities in the report for 2003 were undercounted last year, forcing a revision and embarrassing the White House, which had used the original version to bolster Bush's election-campaign claim that the Iraq war had advanced the fight against terrorism. U.S. officials blamed bureaucratic mistakes involving the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, the forerunner of the National Counterterrorism Center, created under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which Bush signed Dec. 17. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., among the leading critics of last year's mix-up, reacted angrily. "This is the definitive report on the incidence of terrorism around the world," Waxman said. "It should be unthinkable that there would be an effort to withhold it — or any of the key data — from the public. The Bush administration should stop playing politics with this critical report." The State Department published "Patterns of Global Terrorism" under a law that requires it to submit to the House and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a country-by-country terrorism assessment by April 30 each year. A declassified version of the report has been made public since 1986 in the form of a glossy booklet, even though there was no legal requirement to do so. The senior State Department official said a report on global terrorism would be sent this year to lawmakers and made available to the public in place of "Patterns of Global Terrorism," but that it wouldn't contain statistical data. The official didn't answer questions about whether the data would be made available to the public, saying, "We will be consulting [with Congress] ... on who should publish and in what form." One U.S. official who requested anonymity said analysts from the counterterrorism center were especially careful in amassing and reviewing data for 2004 because of the political turmoil created by last year's errors. Another U.S. official said Rice's office was leery of the center's methodology, believing that analysts eager to avoid a repetition of last year's undercount included incidents that may not have been terrorist attacks. The U.S. intelligence officials said Rice's office eliminated "Patterns of Global Terrorism" when the counterterrorism center declined to use alternative methodology that would have reported fewer significant attacks. There; manually copied and line-breaked. If that don't come out right, I give. ~Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 'Hello', said the Ostrich, to the Administration
Wondering if this will be more readable for Ronn!... Julia Maru Dubshinki wrote: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002243262_terror16.html http://tinyurl.com/box2r "U.S. eliminates annual terrorism report" By Jonathan S. Landay WASHINGTON — The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered. Several U.S. officials defended the decision, saying the methodology used by the National Counterterrorism Center to generate statistics had flaws, such as the inclusion of incidents that may not have been terrorism. But other current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered the report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism," eliminated weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism. "Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," charged Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal. A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed that the publication was eliminated, but said the allegation that it was done for political reasons was "categorically untrue." According to Johnson and U.S. intelligence officials, statistics that the National Counterterrorism Center provided to the State Department reported 625 "significant" terrorist attacks in 2004. That compared with 175 such incidents in 2003, the highest number in two decades. The statistics didn't include attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, which President Bush as recently as Tuesday called "a central front in the war on terror." The intelligence officials requested anonymity because the information is classified and because, they said, they feared White House retribution. Johnson declined to say how he obtained the figures. The numbers of incidents and fatalities in the report for 2003 were undercounted last year, forcing a revision and embarrassing the White House, which had used the original version to bolster Bush's election-campaign claim that the Iraq war had advanced the fight against terrorism. U.S. officials blamed bureaucratic mistakes involving the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, the forerunner of the National Counterterrorism Center, created under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which Bush signed Dec. 17. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., among the leading critics of last year's mix-up, reacted angrily. "This is the definitive report on the incidence of terrorism around the world," Waxman said. "It should be unthinkable that there would be an effort to withhold it — or any of the key data — from the public. The Bush administration should stop playing politics with this critical report." The State Department published "Patterns of Global Terrorism" under a law that requires it to submit to the House and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a country-by-country terrorism assessment by April 30 each year. A declassified version of the report has been made public since 1986 in the form of a glossy booklet, even though there was no legal requirement to do so. The senior State Department official said a report on global terrorism would be sent this year to lawmakers and made available to the public in place of "Patterns of Global Terrorism," but that it wouldn't contain statistical data. The official didn't answer questions about whether the data would be made available to the public, saying, "We will be consulting [with Congress] ... on who should publish and in what form." One U.S. official who requested anonymity said analysts from the counterterrorism center were especially careful in amassing and reviewing data for 2004 because of the political turmoil created by last year's errors. Another U.S. official said Rice's office was leery of the center's methodology, believing that analysts eager to avoid a repetition of last year's undercount included incidents that may not have been terrorist attacks. The U.S. intelligence officials said Rice's office eliminated "Patterns of Global Terrorism" when the counterterrorism center declined to use alternative methodology that would have reported fewer significant attacks. ~Maru 'Whatever are you doing down here too?' 'Same as you.' ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 'Hello', said the Ostrich, to the Administration
Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 07:28 PM Saturday 4/16/2005, Maru Dubshinki wrote: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002243262_terror16.html http://tinyurl.com/box2r "U.S. eliminates annual terrorism report" By Jonathan S. Landay WASHINGTON — The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered. Several U.S. officials defended the decision, [snippage] Any chance of another take, this time with some line breaks here and there to supply readability? How odd. It was quite readable when *I* got it. At least, it was here. I'm using Thunderbird for this account. It was quite readable in PINE, as well. Eudora, on the other hand, had that problem. As well as with the repost. Maybe it's a Eudora-specific problem? Something else weird is going on with it -- those are the only 2 posts I have from Maru that had the footer added by the listserver come through as an attachment, rather than something integral to the body of the message. Oh, and when I tried to reply to it in PINE, I didn't get a quote character at the beginning of every line -- only the beginning of the first quoted line. I tried replying from here. The extra lines between paragraphs I saw here didn't show up in Eudora, but at least the paragraphs were beginning at the beginning of a line, instead of the whole thing being *totally* run together. That's all I'm doing for now about it. I'm tired and I want to go to bed, but there's something I want to figure out first, and I need to find the right screwdriver to do it Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 'Hello', said the Ostrich, to the Administration
At 11:14 PM Saturday 4/16/2005, Julia Thompson wrote: Wondering if this will be more readable for Ronn!... Yes, thank you. Am I the only one for whom both of the other attempts were all run together into one huge block of text? If so, I guess the problem is somewhere between the list and here rather than in the list software or at the sending end: I just mentioned it in case the problem was somewhere other than at my end and someone wanted to look for it . . . Computers Are Such Fun Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 'Hello', said the Ostrich, to the Administration
At 11:18 PM Saturday 4/16/2005, Julia Thompson wrote: Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 07:28 PM Saturday 4/16/2005, Maru Dubshinki wrote: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002243262_terror16.html http://tinyurl.com/box2r "U.S. eliminates annual terrorism report" By Jonathan S. Landay WASHINGTON The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered. Several U.S. officials defended the decision, [snippage] Any chance of another take, this time with some line breaks here and there to supply readability? How odd. It was quite readable when *I* got it. At least, it was here. I'm using Thunderbird for this account. It was quite readable in PINE, as well. Eudora, on the other hand, had that problem. As well as with the repost. Maybe it's a Eudora-specific problem? Something else weird is going on with it -- those are the only 2 posts I have from Maru that had the footer added by the listserver come through as an attachment, rather than something integral to the body of the message. Oh, and when I tried to reply to it in PINE, I didn't get a quote character at the beginning of every line -- only the beginning of the first quoted line. I tried replying from here. The extra lines between paragraphs I saw here didn't show up in Eudora, but at least the paragraphs were beginning at the beginning of a line, instead of the whole thing being *totally* run together. That's all I'm doing for now about it. Thanks! As I said in my response to your other post, I just mentioned it in case it was a problem at the sender's end or with the list. There must be some sort of weird formatting code hidden in it somewhere which led to the various problems . . . at least that is all I can guess. I'm tired and I want to go to bed, but there's something I want to figure out first, and I need to find the right screwdriver to do it Be sure to use fresh orange juice, as the reconstituted stuff tastes bad enough before you add the taste of EtOH to it . . . -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Well, ONE problem has been solved.... Re: 'Hello', said the Ostrich, to the Administration
Julia Thompson wrote: That's all I'm doing for now about it. I'm tired and I want to go to bed, but there's something I want to figure out first, and I need to find the right screwdriver to do it I found the right screwdriver, I found the toy (looked in the living room, came back in here, it was less than a meter from my tool box), switched out the batteries that didn't fit, put in new ones that I'd been hoping *would* fit when I saw them on the store shelf this evening -- And they worked. Yay! We get to be driven mad by a couple of silly cars again! (But at least these have an "off" switch, unlike SOME battery-powered toys I could mention) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 'Hello', said the Ostrich, to the Administration
No problem. If I find an article good enough to pass along, its good enough to be formatted and sent twice. Now, the strange thing is, while it was formatted right when I sent, and when I viewed it again in gmail, when I looked at your reply, then it was block text! I figure your client is probably the reason, since it is what would reformat the article. ~Maru On 4/17/05, Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Thanks! As I said in my response to your other post, I just mentioned it > in case it was a problem at the sender's end or with the list. There must > be some sort of weird formatting code hidden in it somewhere which led to > the various problems . . . at least that is all I can guess. > > > >I'm tired and I want to go to bed, but there's something I want to figure > >out first, and I need to find the right screwdriver to do it > > Be sure to use fresh orange juice, as the reconstituted stuff tastes bad > enough before you add the taste of EtOH to it . . . > > > -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Peaceful change
Dan, > In short, he has drawn a line between dictators, > terrorists and their cronies and everyone else. A line he erases by saying "You are either with us or with the terrorists." I don't see the line, Dan. Rather than "dictators, terrorists and their cronies," he named whole countries the "Axis of Evil." I wish what you said was true, but your editing of the President and my wishes can't change the fact that this is a guy whose first thought was to call his program for Iraq a crusade. That's not the way to start "peaceful change." Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
