It was Holder, as U.S. Attorney in D.C., who chose not to prosecute Ira Magaziner when he told the bald-faced lie that only federal employees belonged to Hillary's health care task force. (It was in fact rife with insurance industry types.) Holder's rationale? No one ever wrote down what "membership" in the task force actually meant.

No doubt Dick Cheney remembered this when he formed his energy task force.

Paul, no matter what mistakes or intentional insult a commenter makes out of your name, you can't sign in under any other name until you start a new account. In a Haloscan commenting system, you can. It doesn't care if you use Paul or Pual. If you misspell your name here when you sign in, you don't get in, even with the right password. For me to change, for instance, from Mooser to Nooser, I would have to open a new account.

I'm just a little mystified why a poster would start a new account with a similar name and not just keep their old account, or start an account with a totally new name like, for instance, oh, "Garms Balls" or something.

Of course, if a person, or anybody else for that matter, wants to create a new account, there is nothing to stop them.

Why it's almost as if someone wanted to separate themselves from a years worth of letters posted under their name. Why would someone do that? I doubt very much you would.

"One quick question. For someone to really 'game the system,' would you need to have multiple instances of influence being wielded inappropriately? Does one (possible) instance really qualify?" -- umbrage

Good question.

I'd like to be able to take the absolute route and state that if there was one instance of such activity, it would be too much....but...

I really don't know what my threshold on this would be. As I said, I am merely catching a whiff of this sort of thing (and I don't even know that Holder did utilize his inside connections), but I'd really like to see the law being imposed without regard to the "connections" of the party involved. Again, it's philosophical on my part but I am reality-based enough to know that I'm dreaming.

The Versailles Syndrome isn't going away instantaneously, but it would be nice to see a small chunk of it disappear early in the Obama administration.

This place makes me think too much.

I was being droll.

folk yore: enjoy what is near, unless we know of, and tasted something sweeter. Prevail, until something is recognized as better? Never destroy a preference for ancient things. (Contemplation: `Lucretus)

The acorns grew repugnant,

couches strewn with grasses,

eaves were utterly abandoned.

Hearts are crushed by tribulation.

Vow and vow- practice tranquil mind.

Trouble too will rear its head. agitation. on and on, incessantly. Reverberations. Apprehensions.

All the rules of war, certainly the GCs, condition our being bound by the rules to our enemy also accepting and being bound by the same rules.

When i read Article 2, i see the following:

Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.

Setting aside the fact that al-Qa'ida is not a "Power," doesn't that indicate that the GCs are not conditioned as you say>

I don't know if anybody here reads the Blog "Pharyngula" by Prof. PZ Myers. (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/)

"Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal"

Anyway, when PZ has a commenter that gets on his nerve, he "disemvowels" them. Deletes all the vowels from their post.

It's more effective than banning or deleting, but it does waste space. But it drives the trolls nuts!

Man is a clown, dancing on the edge of an abyss.--Balzac

I tried changing my name to clownsense, but somebody already had that Handel, maybe it was Beethoven?

Sorry, Paul. I should know better than to feed the drolls!

I'm not sure what you're going on about but just leave me out of it. Look at my archive and you will find an embarrasingly voluminous screed factory. But I don't want any part of this. As I said, I was joking with you at one point. But don't push this further please. I may be the only one who doesn't think its funny, but I doubt it.

So you are not the poster I used to read who signed in under "Oomex"? Never heard of him? And letters in that archive ("Oomex") are not from you?

Are those in some way unfair questions? A simple yes or no will relieve my perplexity, Omooex.

As I said, I was joking with you at one point. But don't push this further please. I may be the only one who doesn't think its funny, but I doubt it.

Exactly what are you insinuating? "Don't push this further"?

Did I miss something while I was watching the elections?

I've always posted under Omooex, except as you note for a brief period as Garm's Balls (which was a great name, despite the content). You are the one who came up with Oomex, though I was never sure why. If you doubt it, you can google Oomex...all you will find is the acronym I mentioned, and your own mispelling of my handle in your posts.

Now, to paraphrase Raymond Carver: Will you please drop this, please.

I'd take your hypothetical one step further.

If Canada invaded our country and began butchering and eating the carcasses of American citizens on the grounds that we are not human, then we would be allowed---nay, compelled---to behave as though Canadians themselves are not human, because they have abandoned such niceties themselves. And the Geneva Conventions would seem pretty quaint then, eh? It would be exactly like being attacked by wild dogs.

Rather than prosecute individual Canadians for their actions, we would be forced to come up with efficient means of exterminating the Canadian brutes en masse on their own soil. For example, we could develop and deploy a Canadicide spray, or Canadian-zappers, poisoned offal, and so on. We would get the UN to help us (or look the other way as we) clear out the entire northern region of the North American continent with nuclear weapons.

The reason for this is that we have a plain duty to defend civilization from cannibals. And the Geneva Conventions expressly state this principle, as you say.

Do you agree?