whatever sentiments you hold toward Bush, you should also have toward FDR.

It's touching that you think of us as lionizing a mid-century Dem president, but you may be surprised to learn that many, if not most people here aren't party-line Democrats.

I'm far from well-educated on the subject; my understanding of it is based on quotes like these:

"We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture," said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess.

http://tinyurl.com/yutbvr - at sig

However, if you have information to the contrary: specifically, that systematic torture was U.S. policy as directed by the White House, I'd be very interested to see it.

Dude, there were hundreds of treaties. If you want a link, try www.google.com, or your local library.

Dude, I didn't make the assertion. If you can't back it up, then I'm going to assume you pulled it out of your ass.

I'd expect you to do the same for anything I just blithely asserted, like - oh I don't know - say, that the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases due to human activity has caused most of the warming observed since the start of the industrial era, and that the observed warming cannot be satisfactorily explained by natural causes alone.

For example.

Wouldn't make more sense to learn,improve our policies,clarify them and move on

It would.

Do you have suggestions on how we can "learn" without investigating what actually happened?

We broke half, and the Indians broke the other half.

That should be simple to substantiate. Care to provide a source?

I know you really want to intellectualize, but lots of things in life are pretty simple

Sure. People often make things more complex than they are, but in my experience, people tend to err on the side of oversimplifying things rather than thinking things through too much.

In this case, I don't actually disagree with your conclusions, but I just think it's ridiculous that out of a dozen letters, you haven't missed an opportunity to call something "simple."

Afghanistan seemed "simple" at the beginning. Defeat the Taliban, have a loya jirga, pave some roads, paint some schools, pack up and leave. Ask your brother how that turned out.

Human nature is so goddamn simple that it's not even funny.

Like anything else, from a distance what seems simple is irreduceably complex when viewed close up. Yeah, people in general behave pretty consistently... but try predicting how a taxi's gonna move in downtown Boston when you're going downhill on a bike at 20mph.

OK, get back to work, "Mr. Simple."

Everything, apparently, is fuckin' "simple."

The President-elect should, therefore, as his first official act — indeed, perhaps as part of his Inaugural Address — order the immediate detention of George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo, David Addington, and perhaps a few others, at a secret location outside the sovereign U.S., for the purposes of extracting from them evidence of the plot and the identities of the other participants, who can in turn be detained and interrogated to see what they have to say for themselves.

http://tinyurl.com/8nbo42 at sig

You've always been afraid to confront the real villans out there and now is no different. You'll find out how popular Bush is if there are any attaempts at prosecutions.

That's funny: you realize you just included yourself as one of the "real villains?"

Don't flatter yourself, chickenshit.

Please be explicit. What will happen if there is a prosecution?

If prosecution happens "progressives" will have to start moving to Canada in droves.

What does this mean, exactly? I mean, I literally don't understand it.

The "Canada" trope usually refers to draft evasion, but I don't think that's what you're saying. Are you suggesting that there will be some sort of nationwide pogrom of people who actually believe the law should be followed, and as a result there will be mass emigration?

You may not have known what you were saying yourself, and this may have been a sort of creative riff on "America, love it or leave it," but I'd appreciate a little clarification here.

By stopping the offensive, Israel decided to spare Barack Obama the specter of a Middle East blood bath on his inauguration day Tuesday and avoid friction with the new U.S. administration.

So there's that, I guess.

http://tinyurl.com/9l2lg3

...it's seemed to me for a while that they've been waiting to throw Dee under the bus. They never really gave her character that much depth or complexity, I never bought her relationship with Lee, and the whole Sagittaron-Christian-Scientist background thing seemed kind of mailed in. It wasn't like Kandyse McClure didn't do a good job with the material she was given, but it was always weak tea.

She was Ensign Jones. You know, the one who always dies when they beam down to the planet? Sorry Dee.