This much is true:

If they can, they will.

Of course nobody's paying attention to the loss of our privacy rights. There's a "War against Terror" on.

Problem is, whose terror and who's fighting it? Seems like we're the ones who ought to be terrified at the immense powers of the administration, which grow expotentially everytime I turn around.

Next they'll wiretap your sandwich at Mickey D's to make sure you buy the right kind of food. Not enough that you can't have trans fats!

Karen, I apologize to you, also.

Fraud Guy

We aren't going anyplace that fast....

Holly,

I apologize. I will stop, also. Contrafactual history is a hobby that I didn't want to see abused by secret agent man.

Fraud Guy

Working backward from page 8 of 18, because I sort by newest, I am trying to catch up on the latest comments on this thread,

but I'm beginning to get more than a little creeped out by the trolls this time, and really wish everyone would just stop feeding them.

There's something about the tone that makes me think they get excited by making the regular commenters, especially the women, react. Is it just me? because I don't usually notice things like that... maybe because I don't feed trolls.

If everyone would just ignore them, eventually they would go somewhere else, and the discussion thread wouild be at least one-third shorter, and much more concise.

What's the difference between a war here and a war there...the names may change, but people will still be dead.

Contrafactuals are inaccurate by their nature, especially as time goes on. However, you seem to imply that no wars would have occured if we had dropped Abombs on the Soviets. It is much more likely that they would have occurred, but elsewhere.

I was reading somewhere that conservatives are more realistic than liberals because they take into account that bad things can happen. Obviously, that means you are a liberal, and I am a conservative.

And as someone pointed out upthread, the private exploitation of our personal data is also a huge problem that is continuing to operate under the radar.-- Paul Dirks

There were a couple of mentions of this issue. The best one briefly highlighted some of the players in the information-industrial complex, introducing a few under-publicized corporate names. But for the initial mention.... you will have to h/t shooter242. Given your strict sense of responsibility I know that you will do so post-haste. ;)

prunes, Kitt, L.W.M.: I've pan-fried smelt that rose to the bait less readily than you do. How about keeping the thread on-topic by granting Jake the "respectful" silence he deserves?

Well, if they still love to hear the sound of Greek while they're eating, there may yet be room for us in the New World Order.... :-)

I'm trying to decide whether I should spend the next couple of days publicizing information and filing a patent because something I told someone might get snapped up for commercial use and taken out of the public domain if I don't. But all I really wanted to do was get someone excited about the subject matter.

Why does every damn thing have to be about money and power, power and money, all the time?

Makes me think of bebop-o's image of the neocons doing the Satyricon scene.

We'll have to agree to disagree on the rest.

I didn't mean it to sound like you or your letter was off topic - just the amendment. I am against any legislative action now because it might mislead people into thinking that we don't need investigations. But we do, badly - the lawbreakers need to be held accountable.

Something just occurred to me--maybe another reason for Bush to "stay the course" is him not wanting to give up these "war powers" that gave him and the DOJ these unprecedented powers to do whatever they please. Maybe they're not finished with some "project" they need in place before the war ends.

Relevant to the discussion about security and spying and data mining and all the rest, I urge folks to head on over to www.schneier.com and click on his Blog link and scroll down to the title Schneier Talk at Macalester College. There's an audio and video link. Noted security expert Bruce Schneier gave a talk at Macalester College in April.

Here's the link to the audio:

http://www.macalester.edu/whatshappening/audio/guestspeakers/macguest20070503.mp3

I'm not Schneier, nor do I work for him or even know him. His talk is very inciteful, and a good source of information. The focus of Schneier's discussion is security and security trade-offs, what security means, under- and overestimation of risk, security and the media, and so on.

Good stuff.

No kings,

Robert

I know what you mean. I just posted this in the next thread which I know you'll read...

This is the Big Picture I tend to see: Democrats=Criminals

As Veteran Novice posits in the previous thread...

The "real criminals" in the Scooter Libby case were the opposition party (Democrats) who have "criminalized politics" and put an "innocent man" (convicted by a jury of his peers) behind bars. This is the only explanation for this doublethink.

My point is, as Veteran Novice has observed, I think correctly, as I have felt, we don't need to help them criminalize being a Democrat.

Technically, you are correct, we would have avoided the wars you cite if the Allies followed your insane contra-rational advice. What we likely would have had is a continuation of WWII with Soviets rolling back over most (if not all) of Europe that we had just liberated, as well as running into the Middle East. They likely would have aided Indian independence from Great Britain (but with a slightly different tenor) afterwards. If we did still chuck a few Abombs over, they likely would have had to fall on Western Europe for effectiveness (and reach), which may have stopped hostilities, but would not have gained effective peace. The (new) Cold War would likely have flared hot a few times, but in different locations (including the ME and Africa, instead of or in addition to Korea and Vietnam). The United Nations would have been stillborn, or morphed into something closer to NATO. Then, at home, I don't want to even think about how bad HUAC would have gotten, then, but I wouldn't hesitate to state that the effects would have been worse for the world in the long run, with a higher body count and the sumbersion of even more countries under Communist rule for a longer period of time.

Remember, the Abombs hit a disheartened and losing nation, not one flushed with victory over a hated enemy. Our bombs would not have had the same effect on the Soviets that they had on Japan. The Soviets had the largest army, air force, and tank force on the planet at the time, and little hesitation about using it.

Often, the best use of an army, or a weapon is to not use it. A bluff not made can't be called.

And on your P.S. to Prunes. You still have yet to point out ONE incident where domestic spying that would not have been legal under FISA or other Constitutional methods has stopped a terrorist cell within the US. If there hasn't been one in almost 6 years of trying, then one can decidedly say that these extralegal, unconstitutional methods are not effective, and should be stopped. I use many fraud screening methods in my job--if one is not effective, and is costing money and manpower best used elsewhere, I stop it. It appears that you would keep using it because you just don't trust your fellow citizens to keep reporting the bad guys they see, not the ones you imagine are out there.