It's been 62 years since General Patton wanted to go on into the Soviet Union. Would it have been a different 62 years if he had? Undoubtably. Instead of the 62 years of wars, genocides, and terrorists we had, we would have had 62 years of a different set of wars, genocides, and terrorists, most likely. Why is it that people who get fixated on counterfactuals like what if Patton had invaded Russia, and Who Lost Our China, and all the other reductionist views of history assume that all the bad things would have gone away and been replaced by good things, and all the good things would have happened anyway?

Would we be blogging if the Cold War hadn't caused ARPA? How do you know it wasn't Hedy Lamar's fault for inventing spread spectrum and causing the cell phone? Maybe if she'd pulled her teeth earlier, she would have gone into acting before she could seal the fate of the twin towers.

And yet you think we should just hand you permission to nuke or surveil, because you can compose counterfactuals? Isn't that the problem right now, that the PNAC counterfactuals weren't correct and we invaded?

Please respond to my post detailing the inefficacy of mass wiretapping or admit you don't know the first thing about it and are entirely unqualified to discuss the matter and will defer to my somewhat greater expertise.

I do not normally make such promptings, but since you are prompting Kitt in such a way, I am sure it won't offend you.

Slate's interactive GOP scandal map

http://slate.com/features/2007/scandal_guide/scandalmap.html

Elephantman's alma mater

http://www.patriotuniversity.com/PriceOfTruth.htm

http://www.history.neu.edu/PRO2/

As a student of COINTELPRO and someone who actually "lived through it" I don't think you are over-reacting...

Everyone is under-reacting...

"...the program does not really contain blockbuster new revelations that are unknown to those who have been attentive to these matters, but is nonetheless very much worth watching because it powerfully dramatizes the severity of privacy erosion at the hands of a federal government operating largely in the dark." [Glenn Greenwald's words, my emphasis.]

That's what we need from "news reporters" and "documentaries" on public broadcasting! No new facts or reporting; rather, a dramatization of the views of the fans of Bill Moyers who call in during the fall pledge drive. And the left-wing writers and producers who populate the PBS/NPR echo-chamber.

I have noticed the absence of the stars, and assumed that it was because you were of the same opinion that I am--and that Salon had made some kind of policy change, or someone new had been put in charge of that function.

It is, though, especially silly to have your comments flagged in this way.

I can see the value. Over at slate, the volume of commentary is so high and the signal to noise ratio so low that using the editor's filters can be helpful. But, ftmp, those of who comment here are not seeking recognition but a deeper and clearer understanding of the issues being discussed.

Don't e-mail john-ashcroft or the neocon's replacements. 'Um a diatribe of grief.

All I got when I e-mailed or letter wrote them was was big bold threats: QUIT.

Seriously. I copied threats on FBI letters. I can prove me no lie...all Dada, everyday...not manana oat feeling today, me--sluggish after Mother's day. that is...i best hush {?}...But,

I never knew the chief assistant to john's A's W.C. Crime Investigation Dept., was...a-Guess Who? hint. He has an initial that begins with C- for crooked homeland's Director. Or, most non-brain-dead detect they are less-secure, and gov-mint is more insecure, and severely wicked-wrecked!

Get me into a bib-lettuce patch so I can roll over-&-over and eat some milky lattuca saliva's. Yow-wee...

...Wary, a wow-good brunch is here, and it's better than eating at a greasy-spoon neocon establishment downtown? Palms up. i stay home, yoo stay cloistered at a safe homestead too...

...They (politico's) act a skunk-drunk, even if dang-sober, or what? Very ill-Zany.

http://tinyurl.com/35xc9v

Hahaha..

excerpt of Aussie interview pre-Iraq invasion with Goofney:

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2003/20030310_american_dreamers/int_gaffney.htm

JONATHAN HOLMES: So what do you say to the six to ten million people worldwide who were demonstrating last weekend essentially against war, against the possibility that a hundred thousand, who knows how many innocent Iraqi civilians would be killed in this process, but also were demonstrating against what they perceive as the unilateral arrogance of the United States arrogating to itself the right to decide about war and peace rather than leaving it to the Security Council?

FRANK GAFFNEY: I would say with due respect to those of them that are well meaning and genuinely peaceable not to be confused with a small minority that I believe are very illicitly anti American and have no more interest in world peace than they have in you know promoting American national interests, I would say to them I respectfully believe you're wrong and I believe that when you find, as you will I hope shortly, that the Iraqi people welcome the end of this horrible regime, even if it comes at some further expense to themselves, knowing as they do that the alternative is more of the horror that they've lived under for the past two or three decades. Ah you'll see I think an outpouring of appreciation for their liberation that will make what we saw in Afghanistan recently pale by comparison. You'll see, moreover, evidence in the files and the bunkers that become available to our military, evidence not only of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction programs and his future ambitions for their use perhaps and for aggression against his neighbours, but also I would be willing to bet evidence of his past complicity with acts of terror against the west, perhaps more generally but certainly against the United States which in turn I think will further vindicate the course of action that this president is courageously embarked upon.

"although I speak several languages and have my doctorate in Russian history"

That explains the nom de plume, Jake007. I can only imagine where that mail order sheepskin came from...

http://www.patriotuniversity.com/PriceOfTruth.htm