Re: Nuclear MAD Re: Soldiers Die, CEOs Prosper
On Sep 14, 2006, at 9:21 PM, jdiebremse wrote:
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Gibson Jonathan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
Because the USA may be the target of nuclear terrorism. OTOH,
nuclear terrorists might explode a bomb anywhere they can, just
to show they have it.
OK.
How does this make any difference? We faced nuclear megadeath
of enormous proportions for decades w/o erosion of our rights -
well, actually we have, but that's another topic - or, at least
the ones we curtailed are a comfortable pain we are already
long familiar with.
Nuclear Islamic Terrorism is far more dangerous than Nuclear
Communism. They had something to lose, while the islamic fanatics
don't - not even if the retaliation would reduce every sacred
islamic place to radioactive dust.
Nonesense. Why do the puppetmasters pushing suicide bombers have less
to lose than the soviet aparatchniks did? There are any number off
technical, political, cultural, etc, reasons for a ffoolish leadership
to intentionally, or by blender, trigger nuclear bombs. The scale of
mistakes is obviously much worse under the old Cold War than an
isolated nuke going off here or there. Losing Morder, er Washington
DC, to an attack would be bad, but nothing compared to
globe-straddling
nuclear winter after a typical US-v-USSR script.
The scale is obvious and one you don't address.
I can think of a number of reasons.
1) In a world with numerous sources of nuclear bombs, it may be
impossible for the victim of nuclear bomb terrorism to identify with
certainty the source of the terrorism.
I've been stewing on this for a decade as a minor plot point in a
story. Certain isotope ratios can help trace the origin, but this may
not always lead to an actual instigator and it would be easily to set
up a third country as the fall guy. Still, it's a risk zealots are
probably willing to make because retribution may be hard to deliver
exactly as well.
I still argue the nuclear winter scenario is much worse - and there are
many nukes still ready to go relatively quickly both in the US and
Russia. We almost went over this brink a number of times for a number
of reasons. We still could.
2) The source of the terrorism may be a non-State actor. For example,
if Osama bin Laden steals a Pakistani nuclear weapon and ships it on a
container ship to Seattle - how does the US retalitate? What does he
have to lose?
Do you think an enraged American electorate will care? Look at the
Depleted Uranium we prodigiously dumped on Iraq already w/o a care. DC
would blanket the entire region with mushroom clouds - certainly if
this administration is still holding the levers. CheneyCo is ready to
act on some 1% likelihood, if what we read in David Siskinds' new book
is accurate.
3) Nuclear weapons are primarily suitable for killing civilians and
destroying infrastructure. Most modern democracies have officially
disavowed the tactic of intentionally killing civilians in warfare and
retaliation. As such, an Islamic terrorist may reasonably conclude
that the US would not retaliate with nuclear weapons to an incident of
nuclear terrorism. Note: *whether* the US would actually retaliate
with nuclear weapons is not of first-order importance. It is only
important, at the first order, that it is possible for an Islamic
terrorist to *believe* that the US would not retaliate with nuclear
weapons.
JDG
Gee, I thought all modern warfare had the aim of reducing populations
instead of battlefield theaters - the civ death rates certainly went up
dramatically once the modern era of industrial warfare began last
century.
Look at GwB's Schlock Offal campaign trying to decapitate {Oh, was
it after this the jihadi's decided to behead victims?} the Iraqi
leadership - fecklessly as it happens with some zero for fifty score.
Only civilians died around this precision ultra-clean {cough} method.
I was reading yesterday how a senior Israeli commander denounced his
dropping cluster bombs across southern Lebanon villages - bomblettes
manufactured right here in the good ol' USA and now maiming children
daily.
As for nukes, it seems to me that our policy is still pre-emption on
the suspicion that someone has such weapons and might {that slim 1%,
again} do us harm. Certainly was the main skeery-monster pretext for
an invasion of Iraq. As I said, I find it hard to believe that after
our global knee-jerking overreaction to 9-11 that such terrorists would
believe the Republican Guard dug in around DC wouldn't gleefully smite
with righteous vindication anybody who makes a sour face at us - so to
speak.
Jonathan Gibson
www.formandfunction.com/word
___
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Re: Morality
JDG said: Given the existence of universal truth, I don't see how the number n of people who fail to recognize and accept that universal truth is at all relevant. After all, that universal truth is, by definition, universally true. Yes, indeed. But Dan was specifically talking about transcendental truths. If we have no way to determine those truths, and thus no way to act on them, then they're of no use to us whatsoever. So far, nobody has presented me with an acceptable criterion for a moral assertion to be true, let alone for something like God exists to be true. Rich ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Jobs, not trees! (Collapse, Chapter 2)
JDG said: Additionally, if my memory serves me correctly, Egypt went on to become one of the most important and productive provinces in the Roman Empire. Thus, it hardly seems to have been depleted. In fact, Egypt was so productive that there were people who argued against its annexation as it was so much richer than the existing provinces that whoever controlled it would necessarily dominate the Roman state. This in fact turned out to be true. Octavian - later the emperor Augustus - took control of Egypt not as a new Roman province but as his own personal property, and this was an important part of his stabilisation of the turmoil of the collapsing Republic. Throughout the early Principate it remained an anomalous province controlled more or less directly by the emperor. Its importance was shown again a century later during the civil wars after the death of Nero, the key event of which was Vespasian gaining control of the Egyptian corn supply, which fed the city of Rome. The economic decline of Egypt only started almost a century after that, with Marcus Aurelius' suppression of an Egyptian revolt and the detrimental effects on the Egyptian economy of several years of warfare. I'm not sure why the solution of dividing Egypt into a number of smaller provinces took so long to occur to the Romans. Rich ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Fertility Gap
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sep 14, 2006, at 10:34 AM, J.D. Giorgis wrote: A thought-provoking article about the implications of differing fertility rates based on political ideology in the US: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008831 Yeah, but it forgets that people's politics can change with time. That's true. But he does cite evidence that at the end of the day, 80% of people still end up with the politics of their parents. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Soldiers Die, CEOs Prosper
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Gibson Jonathan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That you can phrase the question as should a defense company be making sub-standard profits - whatever that means in this realm - is amazing to read. If you have any direct experience I'd like to hear about it. They've always been astronomical That's interesting. One way to prove this assertion, would be to examine the profits of defense companies. Perhaps you some evidence then that the stock value of publicly-traded defense companies has historically exceeded those of other industries? My point about sub-standard profits was directly related to the trend in the early 90's when many defense contractors went out-of-business during peacetime. Additionally, my point was expressly designed to focus the discussion on the quantifiable. The war is an emotional issue, and it is easy to criticize businesses for excessive profits. By asking what is the difference between excessive and standard profits, it helps to focus the discussion. The US military from the Continetal Army under George Washington to the armed forces of today has *never* been self-sufficient - the military has always depended upon services provided by outsiders. Presumably, those outsiders have provided those services as a profit. Hence my questions. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Keep Propaganda Off The Airwaves
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, if ABC had decided to air Farenheit 9/11 this weekend instead would you all agree or disagree that such an action would be a bald-faced attempt to slander Republicans and revise history right before Americans vote in a major election? I think I would disagree. That movie wasn't presented as a dramatization of history, so it is a rather different kettle of fish. At the same time, I don't particularly think it belongs on the public airwaves. I have to say, that I think that you are really twisting yourself in knots in trying to distinguish between a documentary as being something that was not attempting political sander or to revise history, but a dramatization as being something that was. In fact, I'll come out and say it - I find your distinction to be totally hypocritcal. Farenheit 9/11 pushes the envelope of consensus in a direction that you are inclined to believe is possible and which damages your political opponents. The Path to 9/11 pushes the envelope of consensus in a direction you are not inclined to believe is possible, and which damages the political side you support. Additionally, would you agree or disagree the federal regulators should engage in political censorship of content on American airwaves, either all the time, or near the time of an election? I would disagree, but that in no way affects my belief that they were wrong to air it. There are many things that I believe are wrong that the government does not neet to try to fix. You, among others, have tried to argue that that ABC should be treated specially because it is broadcast over the public airwaves. I think this is a hopelessly outdated idea, from a day in which there were only 3 or 4 television networks. Today, 99% of households have access to cable television, and 60% of households subscribe to cable television. Another 8% subscribe to satellite TV. In other words, the idea that broadcast TV is a monopoly in a day and age of 530 television channels, movie theatres, and the Internet is simply outdate. Moreover, I think the attitude take by the Democrats here has a chilling effect on political speech - the most important form of free speech that there is. I personally think that it would be good for the TV networks to take on controversial atttudes. Apparently the Democrats here think that the networks should stick to tripe like Yes, Dear instead... JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: It takes a village to poison a child's mind
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is why the Democrats will always lose: we lack the will to feed poisonous lies to children to achieve our ends. Uh huh. - It tells students that the United States went to war in Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction -- but fails to note that, in fact, Iraq did not have WMD. Nor does it note the increasing evidence that the Bush administration knew this all along and manipulated intelligence in order to make a dishonest case for war. Apparently you just send them out in e-mail newsletters. Absolutely: emails that are sent out to people who specifically asked for them, and who presumably knew that they were signing up for a partisan email newsletter. Well, let me put it this way. Given that this partisan news-letter accusing The Path to 9/11 of intentionally not getting the facts right couldn't get the facts right itself, I'm totally disinclined to believe that there was anything factually inaccurate about that movie, pending further evidence. In the meantime, it simply looks like a totally hypocritical attempt to try and silence political speech (albeit not necessarily using the force of government to do so) engaged in by people who believe that Farenheit 9/11 should be the only representation of the events leading up to that day JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Scholastic Does the Right Thing
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In an impressive display of agility, educational publisher Scholastic has cancelled their planned distribution of study guides to accompany the Path to 9/11 miniseries and replaced them with a Media Literacy Discussion Guide that focuses on helping high-schoolers learn how to think about and interpret what they get from the media. Here's Scholastic's statement on the matter: http://www.scholastic.com/medialiteracy/ And the Media Literacy materials themselves: http://content.scholastic.com/browse/unitplan.jsp?id=175 Just imagine if religious conservatives had gotten the material on a Scholastic study guide changed. JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush, Buchanan, and Hoover
Oh, that sucks! http://idiotgrrl.livejournal.com/ From: Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Subject: Re: Bush, Buchanan, and Hoover Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 23:02:36 -0500 At 10:54 PM Thursday 9/14/2006, PAT MATHEWS wrote: But Hoover in the sense that the sewage hit the fan That's what you get for trying to use a regular vacuum cleaner for that purpose rather than a wet-dry model -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Morality of Killing Babies
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], John W Redelfs jredelfs@ wrote: People extol the virtues of abortion Not *all* people, Maru. Not anybody that I know of. At best, it is a triage decision. Wow. Finally a view that really gets to the heart of it. Thanks, Nick. I may use that in the future. Too bad its not true. Consider the website of this abortion provider - other than a token sentence about choices, I don't see the words triage anywhere here: http://www.womenonwaves.org/article-1020.273-en.html http://www.womenonwaves.org/article-1020.273-en.html Heck, they even provide their own ultrasound pictures of the unborn child! JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Soldiers Die, CEOs Prosper
JDG wrote: Nick Arnett wrote: A while ago, somebody said This country isn't at war, only our military is at war. I think that was profound. It bugs the heck out of me, to put it mildly, that our leaders ask no one except the troops to make sacrifices for the current wars. What is huge profits? Is there some level of profits for these companies that you would accept as not being huge? I'm normally loath to speak for other listmembers, but I think you may have missed Nick's point, John. There's no sense of shared sacrifice in this Iraq war; we're cutting taxes while spending extra money on fighting. We're not being asked to sacrifice anything. And if you don't ask people to sacrifice, there's few that will. And I would think regardless of one's ideology that reducing your income while increasing your expenses just wouldn't make sense. It seems like buying a bigger house after getting a pay cut to me. Jim ___ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Morality of Killing Babies
On 15/09/2006, at 3:29 PM, jdiebremse wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], John W Redelfs jredelfs@ wrote: People extol the virtues of abortion Not *all* people, Maru. Not anybody that I know of. At best, it is a triage decision. Wow. Finally a view that really gets to the heart of it. Thanks, Nick. I may use that in the future. Too bad its not true. It's true for many. Consider the website of this abortion provider - other than a token sentence about choices, I don't see the words triage anywhere here: So what if they don't use the actual word? That doesn't mean that's not what it is to some people and under many circumstances (and I'm guessing that a lot of people wouldn't know what it means anyway...). http://www.womenonwaves.org/article-1020.273-en.html http://www.womenonwaves.org/article-1020.273-en.html Heck, they even provide their own ultrasound pictures of the unborn child! That's potentially tasteless, yes. Charlie ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Soldiers Die, CEOs Prosper
On 9/14/06, jdiebremse [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What is huge profits? Is there some level of profits for these companies that you would accept as not being huge? Particularly after accounting for the fact that companies which provide services to the military naturally find their services to be in much greater demand during wartime than in peacetime? I don't think there is an economic formula in existence that justifies making money in a cause for which people are giving their very lives. To justify war profits with supply and demand is to put economics ahead of life. Not one cent that anybody made was worth the lives of those who gave their lives and limbs for a war. Not one. You can't put Wes and all the rest on your balance sheet. Also, do you have a problem with defense companies making sub-standard profits during peacetime? Do you believe that defense companies should receive profits during wartime that would compensate them in the long run for the risks they beared while their services were not in much demand during peacetime? I believe that anything that creates economic incentives for war is wrong. The greater the incentive, the more wrong it is. Yet it happens all the time. I hope and pray that the vast majority of people still believe that making profits from death and destruction is wrong, that every red cent is tainted with the blood of the fallen, even if it can be justified by economics. -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Morality of Killing Babies
On 9/15/06, jdiebremse [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not anybody that I know of. At best, it is a triage decision. Wow. Finally a view that really gets to the heart of it. Thanks, Nick. I may use that in the future. Too bad its not true. Consider the website of this abortion provider - other than a token sentence about choices, I don't see the words triage anywhere here: So what? The following, from that site, is certainly the language of triage: Your decision has to be made free of coercion, and you have to be well-informed about all the alternatives. Every woman with an unplanned pregnancy faces different and sometimes conflicting emotions: feelings such as insecurity, desperation, anxiety, depression, shame or guilt may compete with happiness. Our counselling service will help you cope with these feelings now and in the future, providing information about all your options and supporting you in making your personal choice. You talk as if there are people who are filled with glee at the opportunity to have or perform abortions. I've never met or heard from a single one and I'd suspect serious mental illness if I did. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Keep Propaganda Off The Airwaves
On 9/15/06, jdiebremse [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I personally think that it would be good for the TV networks to take on controversial atttudes. Airing a factually inaccurate historical docu-drama? That is as much like taking on controversial issues as going on a holiday cruise is like walking on water. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Soldiers Die, CEOs Prosper
At 08:39 AM Friday 9/15/2006, Nick Arnett wrote: I don't think there is an economic formula in existence that justifies making money in a cause for which people are giving their very lives. And yet for most of the world's history that has been a very real part of the economic system. It still is in many cases, even in this country . . . coal mining, frex, or other jobs involving underground tunneling, where the expression a man a mile talks about the human cost of performing the job. Even in many less intrinsically dangerous situations, the difference between eliminating 99.9% of the expected casualties and absolute safety becomes a matter of diminishing marginal returns as the cost of eliminating that last 0.1% works out to perhaps trillions of dollars per life saved. (I am not mentioning this to make light of your argument about the current war, but just to point out that in many other cases we accept a human cost as necessary part of the cost of getting a job done.) -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Soldiers Die, CEOs Prosper
On 9/15/06, Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (I am not mentioning this to make light of your argument about the current war, but just to point out that in many other cases we accept a human cost as necessary part of the cost of getting a job done.) Accepting it and quantifying it are two different things. I accept that some things cost lives. That's a separate issue from war profiteering. Even if there were a war that cost no lives, profiting from violence is just wrong. And happens all the time. I'm imagine that I have indirectly made money from violence, although not intentionally. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush, Buchanan, and Hoover
JDG wrote: Given everything that Herbert Hoover accomplished with his live, I'm very surprised to see you compare Bush to Hoover I know nothing about Hoover. Was he also an strategical genius like Bush? Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Soldiers Die, CEOs Prosper
On Sep 15, 2006, at 4:56 AM, jdiebremse wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Gibson Jonathan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That you can phrase the question as should a defense company be making sub-standard profits - whatever that means in this realm - is amazing to read. If you have any direct experience I'd like to hear about it. They've always been astronomical That's interesting. One way to prove this assertion, would be to examine the profits of defense companies. Perhaps you some evidence then that the stock value of publicly-traded defense companies has historically exceeded those of other industries? My point about sub-standard profits was directly related to the trend in the early 90's when many defense contractors went out-of-business during peacetime. I agree with you, but lack any such study off-hand. I'm a little busy just now, but will keep my eye open in the meantime. I will note that the defense budget didn't dropped under Clinton - it simply didn't grow as it had decade after decade. The stories I recall were more about mergers than belly-ups due to the high expectations these organizations set and the lower profits management was unwilling to accept: hence lots of golden parachutes for those who could no longer fit even as their beat marched onward. By any thumbnail, off-the-cuff, first-person anecdotal definition I can offer up the current model gets the heading Wretched Excess. One wonders what this minor Clinton adjustment to the budget, social relaxation, economic stimulus defense companies repurposing their tech to commercial uses might do for us again... our society spends a hug amount of mental energy alone on the topic of security. Additionally, my point was expressly designed to focus the discussion on the quantifiable. The war is an emotional issue, and it is easy to criticize businesses for excessive profits. By asking what is the difference between excessive and standard profits, it helps to focus the discussion. The US military from the Continetal Army under George Washington to the armed forces of today has *never* been self-sufficient - the military has always depended upon services provided by outsiders. Presumably, those outsiders have provided those services as a profit. Hence my questions. JDG And there I'd like to see the big picture of cost and roles and sheer personnel numbers through the centuries. Somebody must have done such a tooth-to-tail ratio. Anybody know of a Napoleon's 1812 Moscow campaign style histograph of our own numbers? http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/posters - Jonathan - ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush, Buchanan, and Hoover
Hoover had a far better strategic brain than Bush. Unfortunately, that's not hard. Let's rephrase that: Hoover did have a strategic brain. He was just operating on the wrong theory under unprecedented circumstances, and a lot of startegists do not respond quickly to things. Or why he was replaced by the highly tactical-minded Roosevelt who'd had two years at least to study the problem. Bush's strategic ability can be measured in micrometers IMO. http://idiotgrrl.livejournal.com/ From: Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Subject: Re: Bush, Buchanan, and Hoover Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 12:44:54 -0200 JDG wrote: Given everything that Herbert Hoover accomplished with his live, I'm very surprised to see you compare Bush to Hoover I know nothing about Hoover. Was he also an strategical genius like Bush? Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Scholastic Does the Right Thing
On Sep 15, 2006, at 5:19 AM, jdiebremse wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In an impressive display of agility, educational publisher Scholastic has cancelled their planned distribution of study guides to accompany the Path to 9/11 miniseries and replaced them with a Media Literacy Discussion Guide that focuses on helping high-schoolers learn how to think about and interpret what they get from the media. Here's Scholastic's statement on the matter: http://www.scholastic.com/medialiteracy/ And the Media Literacy materials themselves: http://content.scholastic.com/browse/unitplan.jsp?id=175 Just imagine if religious conservatives had gotten the material on a Scholastic study guide changed. Actually, I believe Scholastic changed the guide because they themselves recognized that the Path to 9/11 film was flawed, unnecessarily divisive and ill-timed. I think it is telling that it was replaced by a Media Literacy curriculum. I don't think they just caved to all that pressure from us crazed liberals, I think that they felt that the film was so flawed that what students needed was to know how to view it critically. As to your Just imagine, here you go: a bit of imagining... NBC is famously preparing a strongly pro-choice Path to Choice miniseries, which they tout as based on the 'NIH Study on Conception and Life'. The film is previewed to a select group of pro-choice bloggers, NOW, ARAL and other so-called abortion advocates. The film is know to make numerous false statements about when life begins, and shows well-known persons shown doing and saying things that they had not done, in service of the film's agenda. In one scene that draws a lot of fire, it shows a top Focus on the Family staffer deciding to have an abortion, reasoning that life probably begins after a baby takes his or her first breath. Scholastic gets involved to create a study guide for what they feel is an important portrayal of a vital issue or our time. Their curriculum repeats the misleading portrayals in the film, bringing its biased pro-choice message to 100,000 high schools and painting James Dobson as a bit of a fraud. Right-to-life advocates -- spearheaded by James Dobson, furious at how Focus on the Family's position had been misstated -- mount a huge campaign pointing out the flaws in the film and asking NBC to correct its errors or can it. NBC decides to air the program largely intact, including the misleading scenes. Further pressure is brought on Scholastic, which decides to deliver a neutral curriculum on Making Difficult Ethical Decisions instead. Would I be upset by this outcome? Not at all: I would applaud Scholastic for declining to be involved in a smear against Dobson and for refusing to push one view of a highly divisive issue down the throats of millions of kids. Dave Actual Values Voter Maru ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Keep Propaganda Off The Airwaves
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 9/15/06, jdiebremse [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I personally think that it would be good for the TV networks to take on controversial atttudes. Airing a factually inaccurate historical docu-drama? That is as much like taking on controversial issues as going on a holiday cruise is like walking on water. Rather than continuing to trade rhetorical points, perhaps you could start by specifying those things that are broadly-accepted factual inaccuracies - and not just partisan factual inaccuracies JDG ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Soldiers Die, CEOs Prosper
On 15 Sep 2006 at 6:39, Nick Arnett wrote: I hope and pray that the vast majority of people still believe that making profits from death and destruction is wrong, that every red cent is tainted with the blood of the fallen, even if it can be justified by economics. And there are people out there who use that argument to say any game involving violence shouldn't make a profit either. Or gun makers for the civilian market. Or... Y'know what this reminds me of? A (*this* on is worksafe, others on the site are not) PLIF comic: http://plif.andkon.com/archive/wc161.gif (I admitedly really like some of PLIF and in particular that comic, which single handedly sparked my The Arcadia Project scifi setting) AndrewC Dawn Falcon ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
It's OK When It's My Guy...
One of the thoughts I've had repeatedly since 9/11 is about the phenomenon that just about anything can be accepted if it's done by guys on your own side. The unprecedented power that George W Bush is trying to take into the White House is one of those. Republicans say it is great; Democrats say it is awful. I am pretty much a old-school yellow-dog Democrat. But I like to think that I'd be a bit nervous if Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter were making similar moves. Would Republicans feel totally comfortable with these things if Clinton, Carter or Johnson were doing it? Will they still think these things are OK if the next president turns out to be Hillary Clinton and she uses the same arguments and powers? - jmh CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information or otherwise protected by law. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: It takes a village to poison a child's mind
On Sep 15, 2006, at 5:15 AM, jdiebremse wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Dave Land [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is why the Democrats will always lose: we lack the will to feed poisonous lies to children to achieve our ends. Uh huh. - It tells students that the United States went to war in Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction -- but fails to note that, in fact, Iraq did not have WMD. Nor does it note the increasing evidence that the Bush administration knew this all along and manipulated intelligence in order to make a dishonest case for war. Apparently you just send them out in e-mail newsletters. Absolutely: emails that are sent out to people who specifically asked for them, and who presumably knew that they were signing up for a partisan email newsletter. Well, let me put it this way. Given that this partisan newsletter accusing The Path to 9/11 of intentionally not getting the facts right couldn't get the facts right itself, I'm totally disinclined to believe that there was anything factually inaccurate about that movie, pending further evidence. OK. I have no problem with that. Some people were convinced by it, others were not. ABC, evidently was among the latter group, and Scholastic among the former. You feel that the newsletter got its facts wrong. Oh, well. At least it didn't air it on the public airwaves in front of millions of people who haven't even bothered to consider their political positions beyond what ever mommy and daddy said when they were six. In the meantime, it simply looks like a totally hypocritical attempt to try and silence political speech (albeit not necessarily using the force of government to do so) engaged in by people who believe that Farenheit 9/11 should be the only representation of the events leading up to that day I do not believe that. FAIR does not believe that. Media Matters does not believe that. The only people who believe that are some straw men set up by your ilk. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Keep Propaganda Off The Airwaves
On Sep 15, 2006, at 11:15 AM, jdiebremse wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 9/15/06, jdiebremse [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I personally think that it would be good for the TV networks to take on controversial atttudes. Airing a factually inaccurate historical docu-drama? That is as much like taking on controversial issues as going on a holiday cruise is like walking on water. Rather than continuing to trade rhetorical points, perhaps you could start by specifying those things that are broadly-accepted factual inaccuracies - and not just partisan factual inaccuracies ... So that you can just dismiss them as partisan factual inaccuracies? Why would anyone waste their time with that pointless game? Just because it varies from the BushCo agenda does not make it partisan. Here's one, though: NOBODY in the Clinton admin was called by ANYBODY in Afghanistan who was ready to pick up the package or whatever was their code for capturing Bin Laden and refused to give the authorization. The film included such a scene, clearly intended only to make Clinton look bad. What kind of Kool-Aid they serving where you are? Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What should we believe when there is no reliable information?
On Sep 14, 2006, at 3:34 PM, Charlie Bell wrote:
On 14/09/2006, at 7:26 PM, Gibson Jonathan wrote:
Hey, there was a lot of mass and volume to be those structures and it
is little wonder some of it spread out. The point we are all
scratching our heads over is how they didn't topple off to one side.
None of these buildings {though WTC7 was a shorter one} acted as any
other building has. Ever.
Good assertion. So let's see the evidence. Show us please a case study
of a building collapse *of this construction type* that has toppled
further than half its width in a progressive collapse.
If you can show us one that has acted another way, then we have a
comparison line.
I think it's fair to not go line by line through your post before we
have a basic data point.
Charlie
Charlie,
You've turned the whole thing in it's head. Your asking me to prove
support for your position that the official story, du jour, holds true.
There has been no such examples provided that I can find, nor was the
single architect I was able to reach as I reply.
Your task would be to start citing where else this rarified and
extra-ordinary event is not so very exotic. My claim is that it's
unique: guess what, my null search results thus far prove my point.
Can you disprove this
Where's your examples that prove your assumptions?
Jus' wundrin'...
Jonathan Gibson
www.formandfunction.com/word
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Re: What should we believe when there is no reliable information?
On 15/09/2006, at 11:52 PM, Gibson Jonathan wrote:
Charlie,
You've turned the whole thing in it's head. Your asking me to
prove support for your position that the official story, du jour,
holds true.
No, I'm asking you for evidence to support your claim that it doesn't.
The point we are all scratching our heads over is how they didn't
topple off to one side. None of these buildings {though WTC7 was a
shorter one} acted as any other building has. Ever.
That's what you said. Back it up with evidence of other buildings of
the same type acting differently, and I'll go Hmm. Interesting and
we have a conversation about why. As it is, you're making an
unsubstantiated assertion, and asking others to disprove it. No,
that's not how science works.
Where's your examples that prove your assumptions?
I don't have assumptions. I'm just reasonably happy that the
explanations I've heard fit the evidence I've seen. If you're
challenging those, then you provide evidence to support that. As I said:
Good assertion. So let's see the evidence. Show us please a case
study of a building collapse *of this construction type* that has
toppled further than half its width in a progressive collapse. If you
can show us one that has acted another way, then we have a comparison
line.
I'm not dismissing you and I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm
interested in your view. But I need you to back up your assertion
with a bit of evidence. It's a simple request.
Charlie
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Re: The Fertility Gap
At 12:10 PM Friday 9/15/2006, Dave Land wrote: On Sep 15, 2006, at 4:30 AM, jdiebremse wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sep 14, 2006, at 10:34 AM, J.D. Giorgis wrote: A thought-provoking article about the implications of differing fertility rates based on political ideology in the US: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008831 Yeah, but it forgets that people's politics can change with time. That's true. But he does cite evidence that at the end of the day, 80% of people still end up with the politics of their parents. It is a point of considerable pride for me to be in tiny minority who do not. I like to think that we _demonstrably_ think for ourselves as proven by having politics at the opposite end of the spectrum from our parents. On the other hand, I would venture to guess that a good deal less than the full 20% who wind up opposing their parents' politics do so by thinking it through: some number must do so merely to spite their parents or because they're contrary. On the other other hand, I would venture to guess that a similar percentage (less than 20%, possibly by half for both groups of outliers) of those who _do_ end up with their parents' politics do so by thinking it through. Perhaps only about 20-30% of people end up with whatever politics they have through any sort of conscious effort. The rest are sheep. And they vote. And some folks may say something like If you vote for party/candidate X you might be doing so because you thought it through and decided that that was the best choice for the country, but it is obvious that no one who thought about it at all could possibly vote for party/candidate Y . . . (for some values of X and Y) I Am A Thoughtful Voter, You Are A Mindless Idiot Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: The Fertility Gap
On Sep 15, 2006, at 2:31 PM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: I Am A Thoughtful Voter, You Are A Mindless Idiot Maru I am both, depending on the election, to be honest. I'm taking this one a little more seriously. The primaries almost got by me without my putting a lot of thought into them, so I was kind of a mindless idiot on that one. Dave ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Bush, Buchanan, and Hoover
On Sep 15, 2006, at 7:50 AM, PAT MATHEWS wrote: Bush's strategic ability can be measured in micrometers IMO. Yeah, but have you measured his strategery? It's off the charts! -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: What should we believe when there is no reliable information?
Sorry Charlie,
I have lost the references I have to the side-toppled buildings I speak
of, but will relay them as they turn up. Some of the same ones
appeared in the threads when we first dove into this some months ago,
if that helps.
Ok, let's get into the science a bit more.
This event triggered a number of memories for me as I was almost out of
High School when nearby Mt St Helens blew. Watching the turbulent
cloud motions of WTC has been gnawing at my hind-brain for some time.
I'd not made the connection until I saw this piece. He nails it.
http://wakeupfromyourslumber.blogspot.com/2006/09/pyroclastic-flows
-911s-smoking-gun_13.html 22 minutes in length
This piece of video compares pyroclastic flows a good use of layered
data to see various interactions, physical simulations and the times
they occurred. This example relies on basic newtonian principles to
question the secondary plumes and arcing debris that is seen RISING and
ARCING away from the building AFTER initial shock-waves and debris
fields HAVE PASSED in the collapse wave - what causes material to
exhibit a cannonball trajectory except explosive action? It helps
explain why debris was found farther than expected from the central
core, although I'm still searching for more factoids.
As a paraglider one learns to gauge the elements in a highly tuned way
and in a funny accident of fate I've even launched off Mt St Helens.
Riding thermal updrafts is essential to staying up longer than a few
minutes in the air. Something was making powerfully clear thermals to
my trained eye {simply put your maimed or die if you don't learn these
tricks when flying} and even laymen can appreciate the force we see
once it's pointed out. It also examines the heated dust columns with
some notations under the clip to quantify the needed heat to move these
particles. This motion we see in the central dust/smoke plume bespeaks
of an intense heat source driving everything straight up on a clear
day. I'd like to know if the kinetic release of heat caused by this
mass impacting the ground is anywhere near hot enough to exhibit this.
I doubt it.
Additionally, I refused to watch the agitprop Paths to 9-11
dreck-u-mentary on ABC, but instead watched Robert De Niro host a CBS
viewing of a documentary made by the two French brothers, Gedeon
Jules Naudet, who were filming a rookie firemen's journey at the
closest WTC firehouse that morning. They caught the footage of that
very first plane striking and have come up with an amazingly touching
film. In this film you see the only footage of the interior lobbies
known and at one point we see the elevators finally disgorge hapless
worried riders trapped when event began. This flies in the face of the
'aux-current' official story that lobby destruction was caused by jet
fuel somehow coursing all the way down from above through those
shafts to blow marble facades off the walls to explain why firemen
witness burned broken people in the lobby when they arrived. These
are not the jumpers who come later in horrifying audio crashes. I
never understood how this burning fuel traveling down suddenly turns
into an explosive mechanism only towards the bottom {there were several
more extra large floors below street level} in this fable and now I
feel it is debunked. I've mentioned before those same burned dazed
people have born witness that something exploded out of the basement.
It was those same firemen's testimony about a series of explosions
just like a demolition bringing the buildings down that got me off my
ass to investigate the discomfort I had with the official story{s}.
BTW - I'm done with ABC.
I've V-chipped ABC, ABC family, Disney, Lifetime, AE, E!, and ESPN
right out off our household and I haven't missed anything yet. My wife
may want to tweak my list but my son will never watch Disney's
Fantasyland {in more ways than one} again and I refuse to purchase
their Pixar DVD's for him. Nyet. Nada. No way. I suggest if your
offended by their blatant coddling to this administration while only
critical of the Clinton-era, then it's time to lance the boil. It's
worse than Fahrenheit 911 because there you knew where the POV of the
director was facing, here they insist it's factual in the face of 9-11
Commission reports, etc.
And tell them, tell them all, as well as the it wasn't us ABC News
team of your feelings if you hope to have any near-term effect on their
craven conduct.
- Jonathan -
On Sep 15, 2006, at 2:08 PM, Charlie Bell wrote:
On 15/09/2006, at 11:52 PM, Gibson Jonathan wrote:
Charlie,
You've turned the whole thing in it's head. Your asking me to prove
support for your position that the official story, du jour, holds
true.
No, I'm asking you for evidence to support your claim that it doesn't.
The point we are all scratching our heads over is how they didn't
Re: Bush, Buchanan, and Hoover
- Original Message - From: Warren Ockrassa [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion brin-l@mccmedia.com Sent: Friday, September 15, 2006 6:56 PM Subject: Re: Bush, Buchanan, and Hoover On Sep 15, 2006, at 7:50 AM, PAT MATHEWS wrote: Bush's strategic ability can be measured in micrometers IMO. Yeah, but have you measured his strategery? It's off the charts! Oh Yeah.Its quite nucular! xponent RIP Ann Richards Maru rob ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
9/11 conspiracies (WAS RE: What should we believe when there is no reliable information?)
John Gibson wrote: I understand your acceptance. Interesting that your friend is well-placed and perhaps well-heeled - this actually fits a premise I'll go into later about people who know where their bread gets buttered. I'd really like to know just how these studies were funded, administered, who supplied their raw data and coordinated the results before accepting this - given so much else around the event is in question. It may well take serious scholarly work a decade or two to sift this out. If I have to eat old crow that is desiccated and moldy, so be it - are you equally prepared? My response: Well, I left the list largely in response to this sort of thing, but against my better judgment, I have to reply to this one. I'll have four questions at the end, and I'd really like your answer to them. It's my friend you're slandering, after all. So, I notice that conspiracy theorists are often enthusiastic about in describing vague, overarching conspiracies, so it's worth taking this down to a concrete level. This isn't a high levels of government type conspiracy you're describing, after all, one just involving say, passive incompetence on the part of intelligence agencies or what not. You're suggesting that it's possible that the towers themselves were destroyed by something other than airplane impacts. OK. So let's think about what that implies. On a personal level, I could put it this way. McKinsey was thanked publicly by Mayor Bloomberg for its analysis of the accident and the public safety response. I worked there, and while I wasn't part of that project, I did look at the results. If what you're positing did occur, we _should have_ noticed. You've mentioned that you don't believe the MIT study on the towers as well because you don't know who funded it. I'm a graduate student at MIT now, so there's another link. Finally, I have at least three close friends who were senior staff at the White House and Pentagon at the time of the attack (one of whose desks was 50 feet from the point of impact at the Pentagon, in fact), so they probably would have had to know too. On an even more personal level, my father is a structural engineer and has been for more than thirty years. We've talked about the attacks many, many times. If there was really something highly implausible about the way the attacks played out, he _should_ have noticed. My mother was trained as a nuclear physicist (in fact, she got her PhD at 22, making her surely one of the youngest people, and certainly one of the youngest women, ever to do so - and if you think that because she got it in India it's not a real PhD, I'd just point out that her professors were from MIT and CalTech, IIT Kanpur, where she got her degree, might be the most difficult school to get into in the world, and Richard Feynamn was there for the oral defense of her dissertation) who has spent the last 30 years doing safety analysis for NASA - and is good enough at it that she was one of the first people called to help with the Challenger investigation. So she certainly should have been able to tell if there was something wrong with the official explanation as well. Let's see. My friend on the 9/11 Commission was chosen to be senior staff on probably the most important investigation in history when she was in her mid-20s. After that she was accepted into, and is one of the best students at, MIT's Political Science program, certainly one of the 3 best programs anywhere in International Relations and Security Studies. Finally, people on the list know who I am. You can get my bio on the web by googling my name - it's the first thing that will come up. But I've spent a fair amount of my life studying organizations (particularly militaries) in crisis, and there's nothing strange or surprising about the way people behaved on 9/11 to me. So either my entire immediate family and a surprising proportion of my friends, and I, were all in on the conspiracy and thus guilty of the worst act of treason since Benedict Arnold or we are guilty of truly heroic levels of professional incompetence. I'd say, given the information above, there's at least a prima facie case that we're not incompetent. So I have to be either in on it, or a complete idiot. If what you believe is true, one of those has to be. So, John, my questions for you are really pretty simple. Given what I've written above: 1) Do you think I was part of the conspiracy, at least after the fact (I didn't have to be in on it beforehand)? 2) If you do, why? You've suggested that the people who believe the official story know which side their bread is buttered on. OK - who's buttering my bread? 3) If you _don't_ believe I was in on it, that leaves two other possibilities. Do you think (as I described above) that a large proportion of my friends, family, and colleagues are all complicit in high treason and I just didn't twig to that? And if so, what's
