WT: China can't dump dollars, nor can world markets re-price oil in Euros just because they're pissed at the U.S. Like it or not they have almost as much a stake in what we are as we do.

Actually, China doesn't even have to dump dollars. All it has to do is suggest that it might be thinking about diversifying its currency holdings to send the dollar into a tailspin:

One spark behind the dollar's latest downturn was a comment by a Chinese lawmaker suggesting that the country should buy more euros. Although the lawmaker isn't responsible for financial policy and later amended the remark, the comment fueled pessimism about the dollar's prospects amid slowing U.S. economic growth.
http://teletrade.blogspot.com/2007/11/markets-tumble-as-dollars-fall-adds-to.html

The most immediate trigger for the sell-off in the dollar, traders said, was a jarring signal that suggested China might shift some of its enormous hoard of dollars and dollar-denominated assets — more than $1.4 trillion — into other currencies to get a better return on its money.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/08/business/07cnd-stox.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

While I agree that China and OPEC are not likely to take these actions, it being much more to their advantage not to (after all, when you've got the world's only superpower by the short and curlies, why give that up for a mere profit?).

But it's just not like you to say that something can't happen. You've been around long enough to know that all it takes is the proper combination of stupidity and cupidity at the right time. Saying that nobody would do something because it is just too stupid is ignoring the last eight years of your life.

dcutler: Now it is a legitimate question to ask, now, in retrospect if he was correct. Were these actually independent Iraqi citizens or was he talking to representatives of the Iraqi government? He thought the latter, but your point is that in retrospect there is every reason to believe that it was the former.

The media thought Scott Ritter was a representative of the Iraqi government, let alone any stray Iraqi who had anything to say about it. In the run-up to the war, anyone who thought there should be no invasion was a "Saddam-lover", either in the pay of the Iraqi government or clearly delusional. File it under people-who-say-things-that-the-media-doesn't-want-to-hear.

the creation terrorists
— susan sunflower

Also known as the religious right or dominionists. Meet me on the west rim of the Grand Canyon.

... lies in bypassing it. The problem is caused by Salon refusing to allow the <a> tag to create links. The way to go around this is not to use tinyurl (for all the reasons given previously), but to simply turn a valid URL in the text to a clickable link.

The way to do this is:

Get Firefox and an add on that makes any URL in text into a clickable link. I use Linkification (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/190), but there are others available also. Copy and paste no more. And don't let tinyurl take you somewhere you don't want to go.

For those who don't use Firefox and don't want to give up their present browser, you can go to the tinyurl site and let them install a cookie that will let you preview tinyurls so that you at least know where you are going when you copy and paste the tinyurl into your browsers address line.

shooter: Hmmmm. How do you measure freedom.

The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
— Lord Acton

You'll remember him — he's the "absolute power corrupts absolutely" bloke.

Aycharaych: Conan Doyle was absolutely right in "The Purloined Letter", the very best way to hide something is right out in plain sight.

"The Purloined Letter" was written by Edgar Allan Poe, not Conan Doyle.

That's the problem with being self-educated — there's no one to tell you when you've got it wrong. Of course, regardless of who published it, the point remains valid: the best place to hide something is in plain sight.

But I'm not trying to pick on you. I just hate to see facts abused — even in a good cause.

... to reawaken the previous discussion on the merits of formal versus informal education. It's hardly a new observation. In fact, as far as I'm concerned the final word on it was said two and a half centuries ago:

"I presumed," cries the ensign, "only upon the information of your great learning."—"Oh! sir," answered Jones, "it is as possible for a man to know something without having been at school, as it is to have been at school and to know nothing."
— Henry Fielding, Tom Jones (1749) Book VII, Chapter XII

Since the series by Laurie R. King featuring Mary Russel seems to have given both Sherlock and Mycroft a new lease on life. Aficionados of Heinlein, of which there seem to be a goodly number hereabouts, will doubtless be aware of it as well.