I agree with the trial westy, but to say the CEO should have vetted information and seen through the lies of professionals is a bit much.

If the sources know one thing, it is how to manipulate--even one of their own.

>> ^westy:

So he is admitting that he himself didn't do his job in vetting what was in the document and checking that the sauces were correct , WASN'T IT HIS JOB TO CHECK THAT THE SOURCES WERE CORRECT ( ie not coming from one guy that was waterboarded). sure he has other people to go over the document but you cannot just say OH THEY TOLD ME SO I BELIEVED IT.
evan if he is or was inosent Why are we still not having a high profile trile of the people that presented the intelligence as being of value ?
Also the Neo-conservatives just wanted an excuse to go to war with these countries the intelligence didn't even matter they had and still have an agenda we dont know about and they simply used the events of 911 and bullshit inteligence as a way to get what they want , they have no intrest in doing whats best for "the people" they are only intrestead in whats best for them and "there people" which is probably 200,000 or so super ritch people.
I dont see why we dont try governments that go to war with people and fail , they are guilty of the killing of many people us troops and people on the other side. If we don't have triles and understand how this can happen then it will happen time and time again.

So he is admitting that he himself didn't do his job in vetting what was in the document and checking that the sauces were correct , WASN'T IT HIS JOB TO CHECK THAT THE SOURCES WERE CORRECT ( ie not coming from one guy that was waterboarded). sure he has other people to go over the document but you cannot just say OH THEY TOLD ME SO I BELIEVED IT.

evan if he is or was inosent Why are we still not having a high profile trile of the people that presented the intelligence as being of value ?

Also the Neo-conservatives just wanted an excuse to go to war with these countries the intelligence didn't even matter they had and still have an agenda we dont know about and they simply used the events of 911 and bullshit inteligence as a way to get what they want , they have no intrest in doing whats best for "the people" they are only intrestead in whats best for them and "there people" which is probably 200,000 or so super ritch people.

I dont see why we dont try governments that go to war with people and fail , they are guilty of the killing of many people us troops and people on the other side. If we don't have triles and understand how this can happen then it will happen time and time again.

i think they should have pressed her to describe the CIA milleu, how and why she became what she was, etc.

Most of if not all of the problems with conspiracy is the fact that the background of the dealings described therein seem, to put it mildly, outlandish

BUT,
If there's this guy called (for instance) Michael, who likes to cut off peoples balls and shove them into their mouths (as in some sort of torture scenario, and we know that torture happens) or if he can even calmly watch a man who is being waterboarded, THEN


we are dealing with something akin to a "subculture" that needs to be adequately described before we can make sense of the actions of people like "spooks" torturers, assets, etc....


In the end, does it strike me likely that something like this COULD have happened: sure it does. I actually think is more probable than the "official" scenario, but I still don't know

>> ^deedub81:

Yes, he was in Forbes as one of the "25 most influential liberals in U.S. media" and he calls himself a radical.
Not sure where "neo-con" came from.
Forbes 25 Most Influential Liberals

>> ^jwray:
Hitchens is not a conservative.



His numerous editorials in support of the Iraq War caused some to label him a neoconservative, while Hitchens insists he is not "a conservative of any kind." -wiki

Verily so about the minimizing part. But my content wasn't so much minimizing as it was pointing out a need for more (I should say unique or more useful) information. Besides that, I don't think the variation is significant--it is proven women are discriminated against so what if the data is off by a few percentage points? With that said, it is a good and valid statistic, even if imperfect; and, it does prove that discrimination happens. That isn't minimizing.

Could I have phrased that a bit clearer? I doubt it...anything that remotely smells like "minimizing," regardless of if it is true or not, is enough to bring out the illumination!

As far as waterboarding... Let me make an example of how I communicate sometimes.

"Yeah, waterboarding is horrible but it doesn't happen often." <<<< I don't see that as minimizing. I think it is trying to state a truth... However, everybody would scream that I am minimizing the truth and should be waterboarded
However, this is minimizing >>>>>>"I don't see what the problem is. It's just a dunk and leaves no lasting physical damage." Vastly enormous difference.

Waterboarding is torture. Period. It's a psychological beating. But does it happen often? (I don't know enough about the frequency of use, I just used the statement as an example for debate.) Just suggest that it doesn't and the lynching begins. "Once is too much!" Agreed, but once is still not often.

I think we look at comments and generalize...

berti's stats, no matter where they came from have one relative fault--they don't point anything new that would change a perspective. Two things have changed my perspective.

1-The comparisons of jobs between women versus men, and women versus women. Last one being the most important. And 2-the exclusion of part-time work.

>> ^NetRunner:

@Lawdeedaw data is fun.
I'm glad you found my data so useful, but honestly BLS is where you wanna go for any labor-related stats, and some of the charts berti pointed to were using the BLS datasets I pointed you to.
To try to explain why people are coming out of the woodwork to protest, I'd point to this passage of your post:

I just used my wife and I as an example of how skewered statistics could be. I know there is real wage discrimination and this post in no way disputes or marginalizes it; however, it does make me wonder how inaccurate studies can be. I know women are kept down in jobs so they cannot rise.
I just think the truth lies somewhere in the middle--women are discriminated against, but not as much as we like to make it out to be.

This kinda thing just rubs us lefties the wrong way. People are constantly trying to minimize the issues liberals care about. We hear it from Heritage about poverty (it's not so bad, they have TV's!), we hear it about waterboarding (it's just a dunk in water!), and we hear it about global warming (see, it still snows in winter!).
We're extra sensitive to people doing that on issues we think we've already convinced the public are a problem, like the gender wage gap.

@Lawdeedaw data is fun.

I'm glad you found my data so useful, but honestly BLS is where you wanna go for any labor-related stats, and some of the charts berti pointed to were using the BLS datasets I pointed you to.

To try to explain why people are coming out of the woodwork to protest, I'd point to this passage of your post:

I just used my wife and I as an example of how skewered statistics could be. I know there is real wage discrimination and this post in no way disputes or marginalizes it; however, it does make me wonder how inaccurate studies can be. I know women are kept down in jobs so they cannot rise.

I just think the truth lies somewhere in the middle--women are discriminated against, but not as much as we like to make it out to be.

This kinda thing just rubs us lefties the wrong way. People are constantly trying to minimize the issues liberals care about. We hear it from Heritage about poverty (it's not so bad, they have TV's!), we hear it about waterboarding (it's just a dunk in water!), and we hear it about global warming (see, it still snows in winter!).

We're extra sensitive to people doing that on issues we think we've already convinced the public are a problem, like the gender wage gap.

Oh man, where to start...

Amazing how all leftists are criminally corrupt, all of them, apparently. Just because you're a leftist, it automatically means you don't care about the people. On the face of it, patently absurd. Yes, some leftists are corrupt. No question about it. So are many capitalists, too. Doesn't mean either philosophy is bankrupt.

Obama's big gov't spending doesn't do anything for the poor and middle class. You mean, except saving jobs when the economy tanked, the vast majority went to the poor and middle classes. Other than that... LOL...

I'm totally sympathetic to the argument the stimulus may do more harm than good in the long run, but it wasn't done to shovel money into big bloated, criminally negligent gov't troughs. It was done to save jobs, and help the economy. Even if I disagreed with waterboarding, I wouldn't go around telling people the Bush administration did it because they loved the thrill of torturing people.

Leftist governments do not help with wealth distribution?! They just make it worse? I'm sure that's happened on occasion, but that's generally patently false. UN reports show the following:

In the U.S. the top 10% hold 70% of the country’s wealth
In France, the top 10% hold 61% of the country’s wealth
In the U.K. , the top 10% hold 56% of the country’s wealth
In Germany, the top 10% hold 44% of the country’s wealth
In Japan the top 10% hold 39% of the country’s wealth

France, UK, and Germany are significantly to the left of US in terms of their economic system without question. Japan is a weird beast, but still more socialist than we are. Their personal income tax rates are very low, but their corporate tax rate is one of the highest in the world. They also have significant elements of socialism in their economy, such as universal health care, publicly funded education, transportation, etc., but there is also a lot of free market elements as well. They also have a progressive income tax, although it has become less progressive as years have gone by.

So, I'd love to know how you came to that conclusion.

Finally, let me explain why some such as myself favor a form of mixed economy with a blend of socialism and capitalism: it works better for virtually everyone - rich, poor, and the middle class. As a very simple example, universal mandatory education, which was not a part of US society until it was publicly funded, helped businesses in the end because it increased the skill set and productivity of workers, which allowed businesses to increase profits in the long run. Universal, compulsory publicly funded education is socialist in nature. And how can society afford this? Partly by progressive taxation, which you claim is "poor people" believing that they have a right to the rich's money. Well, guess what? It worked BEAUTIFULLY! Universal public education and a progressive income tax coincided with the rise of the US as a global economic superpower as those first generations of publicly educated people came of working age. Weird how that worked, huh?

Now, I know people such as myself you consider a "neolib", but we're actually moderates, many of us are well intentioned, as I'm sure is true about conservatives, and we also have quite a bit of facts on our side to back us up, too. Raising marginal tax rates on the richest 1% of Americans is socialist in nature, but doing it a small amount isn't tantamount to socialism. And socialist ideas aren't inherently bad either (same for capitalistic ideas).

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Besides, leftists really don't care jack-crap whether or not the bottom 5% actually ever moves out of the poverty level. The crocodile tears about the 'poor' is a bunch of propoganda they use to advance higher tax rates - which help the poor only in the barest, most marginal, subsistence-only way. Neolibs use the poor as a manure shovel to trowel money into bloated, criminally negligent government troughs. Obama's entire regime is demonstrable proof that huge government spending accomplishes nothing for the poor or middle class. In fact, higher taxation & spending accomplish the exact opposite of 'helping' the middle class. Leftist governments do not help with wealth distribution. If anything, wealth disparity is frequently much worse under leftist systems. "Rich" person money does more good funding private-citizen billionaire prostitute crack snorting addictions than it does in government.
So I reject the neolib premise that money "must" be shunted from the rich to government, or society is somehow less fair. Frankly, it is none of your cotton-pickin' business or mine what rich folks so with their cash. Neither poor people, nor the middle class have any right to anyone else's money just because they're jealous that someone else has more of it. If a guy is rich, it is their decision what to do with their money. Donate to charities, invest it in businesses, or use it to murder puppies - whatever - it's THEIR cash - not yours. Same goes for companies and corporations too. Just because a company is earning truckloads of cash doesn't mean you have any right to one jack-sprat cent of it.

@blankfist I have to say, this is just getting sad. A City Council deciding on a building fire code regulation? Aren't there real injustices still happening in the world?

IMO, the people objecting raised mostly reasonable questions about it. The video doesn't show the answer to the reasonable questions, just to the boneheaded ones (e.g. you mean you're going ahead even though we whined at you in person?). If people don't like what the council does, they have plenty of recourse to take.

The council are all elected officials, and the people objecting are unable to make their case to the people of the city about why this should move their vote in the next election. They can file suit against the law if they think it violates some sort of Constitutional statute. Or worst comes to worst, sue the city if something does indeed go wrong and they incur damages because of the lockbox.

As to the conversation @GeeSussFreeK and @Skeeve are having about "the merit of an idea does not depend on the number of people who hold that idea", while I agree that statement is true, it also is almost a non sequitur. Gallileo was prosecuted by the Catholic church for saying things that later turned out to be true. George Bush wasn't tried for war crimes, even though he's directly confessed to ordering crimes against humanity (waterboarding).

If you want to see your meritorious ideas gain the force of law, you need to win popular support for those meritorious ideas. Saying "free speech is in the Constitution" isn't at all a guarantee you're going to be legally allowed to speak your mind. Free speech (or any other right you think you're entitled to), will only persist as long as a significant portion of the population feel strongly that you should have it.

So back to the actual lockbox case. Suppose the government accepted all liability for damages that may result from lockbox abuse. Does that set your minds at ease? If not, what "right" is it you think is being violated?

Gentlemen, I give you an alternate way to extract information other than waterboarding. (And it's fun for the interrogator too.)

bill whittle=revisionist and apologist.
george bush may 1st 2003 on the deck of the abraham lincon:
"major combat operations in iraq have ended.in the battle of iraq,the united states and her allies ...have prevailed".
whittle is correct that bush never once says "mission accomplished".do i need to point out the semantics here?

then he goes on to conflate that somehow iraqis ability to vote (while ignoring the massive amount of data concerning fraud,intimidation and outright scandal) is the very thing which inspired epypt,syria and jordan to rise up against their theocratic,oppressive regimes.
this is patently false and the reasons are well documented and not one of them is iraqs ability to vote.

waterboarding was the reason we got positive intell on bin laden?
ok now he is just making stuff up to fit his own premise.there is NO documentation to back that statement up.in fact the intelligence has revealed the exact opposite.

article 3 of the geneva convention CLEARLY states that waterboarding IS considered torture.case closed.end of discussion.

this video is so chock full of disinformation that my head may explode due to the sheer volume.
bill whittles bush-love is well known.
the only satisfaction i get from this video is the fact that bin laden was assasinated under obama and must keep this tool up at night crying into his pillow.
poor poor whittle.

One common argument for supporting waterboarding/"enhanced interrogation techniques" is that terrorists wouldn't hesitate to torture and wouldn't care about prisoner rights.

While true, that still should have no bearing on how we choose to treat others. It really is the political equivalent of "but Johnny's parents let him do this." To which we would reply that it doesn't matter what Johnny's parents let him do or how other kids act, we are different.

A moral that acts one way only if someone treats you in the same fashion isn't a moral at all. Cheers to you, Senator McCain.

Sexiest waterboard torture video EVAR!

>> ^Gallowflak:

>> ^Psychologic:
>> ^Gallowflak:
Oh, come on, dude. The issue here is making people almost deliberately uncomfortable, claustrophobic and immobile for the sake of some extra profit. It's not a matter of taste, or people thinking every design should suit them/their physiology, it's just fundamentally horrible design.
I was relieved to hear that it's only for flights of two hours or less in duration. The idea of being in that position for 22 hours on the Birmingham/Sydney route is almost as terrifying as a waterboarding session.

It's optional. As far as I can tell, no one is being put in that situation against their will (that would be fairly dishonest).
Bicycles aren't exactly comfortable either, but people choose to spend hours on those. You may not want to, and that's fine, but I'm glad the option exists.

With the condition that it's optional, then there's surely no problem. However, an important consideration is what percentage of seats will be comprised of these new designs in the airlines that install them.
I should also say that I have no idea what bicycles have to do with anything.


Unless every single plane installs this and only this - that's still optional.

I *can* fit in one of these seats, i don't *want* to sit on one, so i won't. Where's the beef? No one's forcing anyone to use them, so why the fuck would anyone complain?

If you're too fat to fit on a rollercoaster, you find another ride that you can fit on. That rollercoaster is not mandatory.

>> ^Psychologic:

>> ^Gallowflak:
Oh, come on, dude. The issue here is making people almost deliberately uncomfortable, claustrophobic and immobile for the sake of some extra profit. It's not a matter of taste, or people thinking every design should suit them/their physiology, it's just fundamentally horrible design.
I was relieved to hear that it's only for flights of two hours or less in duration. The idea of being in that position for 22 hours on the Birmingham/Sydney route is almost as terrifying as a waterboarding session.

It's optional. As far as I can tell, no one is being put in that situation against their will (that would be fairly dishonest).
Bicycles aren't exactly comfortable either, but people choose to spend hours on those. You may not want to, and that's fine, but I'm glad the option exists.


With the condition that it's optional, then there's surely no problem. However, an important consideration is what percentage of seats will be comprised of these new designs in the airlines that install them.

I should also say that I have no idea what bicycles have to do with anything.