Letters to the Editor
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Another stranglehold on the free exchange of information?
I participated in an online teleconference yesterday concerning the use of technology (with an emphasis on the Internet) in education and research. During the presentation, a Dr. Diana Oblinger waxed near-poetic about amateurs and professionals freely collaborating online concerning scientific research.
When the time came for questions, I asked if such increasing reliance on the Internet in its present form was a wise idea. In the United States, telecommunications traffic is subject to filtering, interference and outright censorship. Verizon and AT&T have already been caught censoring such information for political purposes; in addition, they have further demonstrated a willingness to violate telecommunications law at the government’s request. Given that the current administration sees nothing wrong with interfering with scientific research for partisan purposes, is it wise to give them an additional stranglehold on the free exchange of information?
Alas, Dr, Oblinger had no answer.
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Ames!
Wow-No Hidden. No kidding, respect. Talk about tap-dancing practice lessons in the outhouse?
Wow- In open. Informative. Yes.
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@ anonymous
Yes, unrestricted submarine warfare is inhumane, and would ipso facto be intolerable, all else being equal.
But of course, all else wasn't equal. Warfare on the scale of 1914-1917 was literally unprecedented, and since it involved our major trading partners, it could have been expected to cause major disruptions. Beyond that, it was shocking, the deliberate targeting of what hitherto had been defined as civilians.
With the benefit of hindsight, though, it was simply a point on the arc of increasingly brutal warfare, brought about by a combination of larger populations, and the increasing lethality of military technology. Blaming the Germans exclusively for arriving at it first was disingenuous at best.
It was said that in the early eighteenth century, you could have a major European war going on in a field in France or Austria, while over the next hedgerow, the harvest continued uninterrupted. An exaggeration, perhaps, what with armies living off the land and all, but not much of one. After Napoleon, as his Russian campaign had proved, and our own Civil War confirmed, civilians were at risk in a way that they hadn't been since the time of the great migrations.
If you need proof of this, skip ahead to WWII, when --even after Guernica -- strategic bombing, ending in nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no less, was something all participants considered a necessary and perfectly acceptable, even admirable addition to their military capabilities. We may have forgotten this, but apologists for terrorism, notably Osama bin Laden, have not.
I'd argue that as big as our domestic economy was in 1914, it would have been prudent to try to endure the hardship and inconvenience of being cut off from Europe for an indeterminate period, and to look for other ways to help end the conflict. How much worse off would we have been if the British Empire had ended in 1918, or 1920, rather than 1947? Would we have had Hitler? Would we even have had the Balfour Declaration, or the necessity of an Israel to salvage what remained of a population treated as some sort of industrial waste? I don't know, but certainly setting out for France in 1917 wasn't the only risk a more prudent American government might have run, and in the end we and the world might well have been better off.
Look at what we have now. We've reached the end of the arc; we don't give a rat's ass about one another, or at least our governments pretend that we don't, and the bloodthirsty idiots in Washington are not only spending us into the poorhouse in Iraq, but they're actually proud of our newly renovated nuclear arsenal.
We might have sent the world a much different message in 1917 than we did, and taken the opportunity to provide an example of a better way to handle the rivalries between nations. In my view, it was perhaps the last opportunity anyone will have to do so. Sadly, we chose another path.
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Bebop-o for President
Forget Al Gore; I'd like to start a draft (please pardon the expression) BeBop-o for President movement. We don't need people who think inside _or_ outside the box; we need someone to throw the goddamned box away and start fresh.
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Tap Dancer W.T. in the Out House!
I nominate William as King of Tap Dance Contest- held every other day @ Salon's- Jim White's backyard wood brick-built like,
Outhouse- a blurred-ribbon-award for your Left Lapel.
But, King Tap Dancer William, the winner/weiner, YOU W.T.,
Close the door and pull up the britches? Put your two paws/hands up into the air- Alluia, King William, please shut the outhose-sh***er door. Poo. You stoopid? Yep! Yu-bet, ya britches.
Switches.
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The responsibilities of office
Maybe when you're president, bebop, you can grant me a pardon, or get Halliburton to build me a bigger outhouse? A whole country full of tapdancers, what's a poor chief executive gonna do? Grow more blueberries, that might work. Couldn't hurt, anyway, I reckon.
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Were the soldiers intentionally abandoned?
Given that everyone who is required to know what FISA is knows that it has the 72-hour emergency eavesdropping exception, I can think of only two explanations for the soldiers' deaths, assuming that eavesdropping would have saved them.
1. It wasn't a FISA-relevant case because nobody thought of doing the eavesdropping until after it was too late, or
2. Spies were ordered not to file for an emergency exception and to wait until the FISA court made a determination before they commenced eavesdropping.
I'm assuming #1 is correct, which means McConnell is being mendacious. But if #1 is incorrect, they have lots of 'splainin to do.
Not that the Democrats are going to ask them to do it....
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W.T. First things first...
In addition to forgetting to pull up the britches, you refuse to zip the lip-zipper. Be cautious that you remember to tuck inside yout pants, your blue booty Buddha foot ya's got off of poor Pedinska.
Yow also get the Forgot-To-tuck, back into a hidde-tucked curl position. Please, tuck-to-curl, remember, Put-Back into the britches the whatsa-call-it?
You want a Daffy Taffy piece of chocolate snicker's chewy caramel and nut bars? gads.
I refuse to be anything. no.
I am the last person to take a bath.
I would make a stinky skunk catcher.