Furthermore, Tiberius doesn't seem to grasp the fact that all this shredding of the Constitution has shown no evidence of actually physically making us any safer at all. Ports? Borders? Nuclear facilities? Electrical infrastructure? Information security? Mass transit? Where exactly are we on these things?
— certifiedprepwn3d

See, Bush has it all figured out. We don't have to worry about protecting those things because we're fighting them over there so we won't have to fight them over here. Why would the terrorists want to come here to kill Americans when it's much easier to kill Americans in Iraq without having to put in all those travel miles. Besides, Bush seems convinced that the terrorists couldn't find America anyway

It's only if we leave Iraq that the terrorists will follow us home, because, you know, America isn't on any maps or anything and otherwise the terrorists would have no way to find us. If we leave Iraq, though, then we'll have to spend a lot of money protecting all those vulnerable things that we've been able to ignore because the terrorists can't find us as long as our army is in Iraq.

that the neocons were right about one thing: Iraq has become a model for the Middle East:

Iraq's civil war nightmare
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4741616.stm

Press fears new Lebanon civil war
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6205810.stm

Gaza sliding into civil war
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1903820,00.html

More birth pangs of the new Middle East

shooter said:

Cassus Belli for the eggheads.

No, casus belli is for eggheads (i.e., people who know Latin). Cassus Belli is a French rapper from Lyon. It's also something you see on right-wing blogs. Cassus Belli is for those who like their rap in French and cassus belli is for those who never learned Latin in College, High School, or Reform School.

The NYT says that Rice is working for diplomacy and negototiations while Cheney's office is pushing for military action against Iran. Why then, was an Undersecretary of State, Nicholas Burns putting out the word that

"There's irrefutable evidence the Iranians are now doing this [transferring weapons to the Taliban] and it's a pattern of activity," U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told CNN.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/06/13/iran.taliban/index.html

Presumably Rice, as Secretary of State, runs the State Department and everyone in DOS works for her. If she is pushing the peace meme and Cheney is pushing the war meme, why is one of her underlings out pushing the war meme? Is Burns an OVP mole at State? Are they just trying to see how it plays in Paris? Is there really not any "debate" in the administration and they are just playing the same disingenuous game they did before the invasion of Iraq (we haven't decided what we're going to do about [insert the name of your favorite Middle Eastern country beginning with "I" here] yet)? Any, all, a few, or none of the above?

Whatever the answer to this particular conundrum, it must be pointed out that "irrefutable evidence" is a Cheneyism. Everyone will remember Cheney's

We now have irrefutable evidence that he has once again set up and reconstituted his program to take uranium, to enrich it to sufficiently high grade, so that it will function as the base material as a nuclear weapon.
http://www.senate.gov/~levin/newsroom/release.cfm?id=249087

Cheney's "irrefutable evidence" was, of course, the aluminum tubes that the NYT so conveniently wrote up on the front page. So here we have all the usual suspects: Rice, Cheney, the NYT and "irrefutable evidence". Once again there seems to be an effort afoot to build a consensus for a war that they have already decided to have.

Of course, no one is addressing the question of why the Shi'ite Iranians would be arming the Sunni Taliban, but then it's hard to tie up all the loose ends with a one-size-fits-all lie. As long as there's "irrefutable evidence" who cares about the details.

WT said: just as my own openly displayed limitations help them sort my stuff out

Everyone has limitations, William. Some are just more aware of them than others. In fact, if one is aware of and understands his limitations well enough, they aren't really limiting. As all actors and politicians (as well as actors who are politicians and vice versa) know, once you can fake sincerity you've got it made.

WT: Gullibility generally requires collusion on the part of the gulled.

Yeah, I'll go along with that. But that's the artistry of the con man — to make the gulled willing participants in their own gulling. Usually it's just a matter of offering them something they really want in exchange for little or no effort on their own part. But it's perhaps a bit too facile to say that the conee has to want to be conned. Sometimes the conee just wants what the con man is offering even if he doesn't want to be conned. Personally, I could really use the $247,645,000.00 that I have won in online lotteries over the past few days.

For the link to Tim W. Brown.

I have a suggestion for a quotation to replace his Walpole on his page:

Though by whim, envy, or resentment led,
They damn those authors whom they never read.

— Charles Churchill

And this is the piling swivel

Americans call it the stacking swivel.

That you could recognize the source from five words taken out of context.