Right now, Ufansius, I want you to cite a single civil liberty you've lost since 9/11. Just one, please.

While I'm not Ufansius, this is just too easy.

1) I have completely lost the right to have a judge - i.e., a separate branch of government, appointed for life and therefore not directly answerable to the president and his lackeys - decide whether or not my phone calls are appropriate targets of investigation. In other words, there is now absolutely nobody who can gainsay the administration from listening to anybody they feel like listening to, for any reason they feel like listening. Per the precedents they are making, this extends to ANY search of ANY kind.

2) People are now routinely arrested without probably cause. Most are simply set free. A few American citizens (and a rather considerable population of others) are held indefinitely, without any sort of fair hearing.

In short, the President and his designated appointees can listen in on and seize anybody the feel like, at any time, and nobody can gainsay their right to do so (at least, per their statements, and it's hard to find a counter-example at this point, either).

That is, in effect, a complete suspension of ALL civil rights, I'm afraid. George W. Bush has already, in effect, declared himself dictator.

Hmm, sounds like Kim Il laughing all the way to the bank to me. The workers aren't allowed to talk or profit?

If misspeaking was such a cardinal sin, why was Bush elected twice? He can't get through a paragraph without screwing up.

The most commonly used medical definition of obesity is based on the BMI, which is a nearly meaningless statistic which tells you nothing about the state of the person described aside from the ratio of their height to their weight. The quite thin woman depicted is almost certainly classified as "obese" under this ridiculous system.

And then researchers have the chutzpah to claim WE'RE in denial when they describe athletic individuals as "obese".

At this time (8:40pm PST) Busby is trailing by more than 8%.

They didn't even get a majority? 8P Posturing, indeed.

The ignorant ones are the people who think that we aren't in a war that goes beyond the black and white labels they need to feel comfortable in their little worlds.

Looked in a mirror recently?

9/11 was one in a previous series of attacks. It just happened to be the one that got us off our asses.

But it didn't get us off our asses. We didn't catch the mastermind. We didn't stop or even slow down terrorism. We didn't secure America against further acts of terror. The Homeland Security department is, by all independent accounts, a mess. The 9/11 commission unequivocally slammed their lack of progress.

Instead, we're mired in a war of choice that has nothing to do with 9/11 or the series of attacks which preceded it.

And make no mistake, the American military only took out Zarq' in the most direct sense. His downfall came from Arab informants. Make no mistake, it was effectively the Iraqis who got him dead. They're killing each other at a breakneck pace these days - we're just another tool in their arsenal of civil war.

admit the truth: MOST AMERICANS WANT BUSH IN OFFICE

- ER

Um, no they don't. The polls are more than clear on that.

We have poured a huge amount of time, money, and effort into trying to prime the POLITICAL process in Iraq.

- Bill

No, we really haven't. The amount of money "poured" into Iraq's political process is utterly miniscule compared to the amount spent on purely military operations. If we'd really spent a lot of money on reconstruction and politics it'd be done and over with by now. If we'd simply spent $250 billion in the first six months, we could've easily put everything on the right track before the insurgency had time to take root, mostly pulled out, and let the Iraqi's work out the long term consequences.

And now a poster presumes if only America had thrown more money into Iraq earlier, it would be fine by now.

I presume you think you're replying to me, but I neither wrote nor meant anything of the sort.

A sufficient initial supply of money would, in fact, have enabled us to rebuild their infrastructure and perform an initial vote in a whirlwind of activity. Six months would've been MORE than long enough.

And then, as I said before, we would've left it in the Iraqis' hands. At that point, you're free to imagine whatever dire scenario suits your bigotry. However, both of us would've been in much better positions.

$60 billion over several years is nothing, in the scale of things - and that number sounds suspiciously high, given that I distinctly remember us going in with $3 billion(!) for the first year, and expecting it to be paid back by then through oil revenues.

Dennis, you're now 0 for 2 in terms of basic - basic - reading comprehension. As such, I see no point in writing another letter which you will also misconstrue.

For example, I stated that the money would be sufficient for US to rebuild their infrastructure, etc. - somehow you turned that into THEM using it to rebuild their infrastructure with the money handed over as a gift, and attacked THAT position for several paragraphs as if it had anything to do with what I wrote rather than a strawman YOU invented.

Then, you effectively repeated your assessment that I think this would have "fixed" things, which I've already corrected you on once before.

On a separate note, you decided the $250 billion would wreck the American economy, as if we aren't going to end up spending FAR more than that in our current quagmire. You stated that my suggestion has no military merit despite the fact that I didn't make it up and that it's mostly just a partial, generalized paraphrase of points made by most ACTUAL generals.

Then, you ended by making pathetically incorrect guesses as to my physical location, completely cementing your stream of incompetence.