timberlandko wrote:I think Iowa's greatest importance is merely that it is first in a long line of contests of varying form. More attention comes its way than is really deserved. The New Hampshire Primary is the first real battle, as a primary is easier on its participants than a cucas. In a primary, all one needs do is show up and vote, a caucus is a long, testy evening of argument, counterargument, resolution and counter resolution, atended only by those who care enough to plan for it, get to it, and actively participate ...
I think it's an amazing thing, though. Reading about the Iowa caucuses and what they involve in terms of voter participation and involvement has really raised my opinion on US democracy - I don't think you have such a thing anywhere else.
Theyz more than ragg-heads. I'm not permitted to say what theyz really are on A2K, but I'm tempted.
This is from timber's post above, "(1) the civil rights and civil liberties of all Americans, including Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, and Americans from South Asia, must be protected, and that every effort must be taken to preserve their safety;" When all know it's bull ****, except people like timber.
Allow me, they's
PEOPLE, just like you and I. Its amazing how easy that is for some to forget, isn't it?
Random, interesting campaign observations ...
Quote:What the Dean people saw in Charleston was not the angry, vein-popping politician they see on television, and many came away impressed. One longtime Renaissance-goer pronounced Dean "Clintonesque," the highest compliment that can be paid in this crowd. In response to a question testing his youth-culture awareness, Dean did a brief takeoff of a song by Outkast, the hot hip-hop group. "He knows the lyrics to Outkast songs and, man, can that dude dance," enthused a 16-year-old.
Clark didn't fare quite so well. He arrived late in the evening, coming off an eight-state "True Grits" tour of the South. He relied too much on his stump speech and stock phrases: "America is at risk; America needs better leadership." He doesn't have the snap, crackle and pop that Dean has. He got several softball questions, including what he would want the one sentence on his tombstone to read and how he would differentiate his vision from the other eight Democrats in the field. He said it would be presumptuous of him to write his obituary as president since he hadn't yet been elected (too literal an interpretation of the question), and ticked off the positions he and the other Democrats shared, like pro-choice and affirmative action, but declined to offer an overarching vision. When Moseley Braun was asked to offer one line for her tombstone, she answered with ease and humility, "She did the best she could with what she had."
Howard Dean romances the crowd at Renaissance Weekend
The democratic contenders are still attacking their own. By Reuters: "JOHNSTON, Iowa (Reuters) - The Democratic presidential contenders took aim at front-runner Howard Dean on Sunday, tangling over taxes, trade and foreign policy in a lively debate two weeks before Iowa hosts the first nominating contest." They're all giving GWBush a free ride to the white house.
cicerone imposter wrote:This is from timber's post above, "(1) the civil rights and civil liberties of all Americans, including Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, and Americans from South Asia, must be protected, and that every effort must be taken to preserve their safety;" When all know it's bull ****, except people like timber.
So if that wasn't in there, you'd complain of its absence, but since it is, you claim it is meaningless.
Just curious, but how is it that you always seem to know which information is meaningful and which is not? You've weighed in for some time now as to which economic indicators mean something and which don't. Now you are telling us when the text of a law is or is not "bullshit". I suspect (in fact I know) that in both cases the only criteria you use to make these Kreskin-like divinations is how they compare to your own opinion. With all due respect, that criteria is at least as empty of value as you claim is the passage cited above.
Scrat, I'm not wasting any effort on Your behalf. Maybe somebody else can respond to you - I'm not.
scrat........it is bullshit........I say so, so there!
no wonder the conservatives like Lieberman, he uses the same logic they do. "I am losing therefor i am winning" tomorrow he might proclaim "Mission Accomplished"
Looks like the Bush regime is going to give all Illegal Aliens the nod to be here as equal citizens and forgive their crime of border hoping for profit.....
oh, and eligibility for social security too
when exactly does this take place 007?
Clark is now within the margin of error with Dean among registed Democrats.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/06/elec04.prez.poll/
The Patriot Act II
http://www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/downloads/Story_01_020703_Doc_1.pdf
Excerpts...
Quote:This provision would expand FISA's definition of "foreign power" to include all persons, regardless of whether they are affiliated with an international terrorist group who engage in international terrorism.
The italics are the proposal's. Not mine.
Quote:Thus, the normal authorization and extension periods for surveillance of international terrorist organizations would be up to a year, and corporations and associations which are international terrorist organizations would not be treated as United States persons under FISA.
Quote:This provision thus establishes a specific authority under Exemption 3 of the FOIA to clarify what is already implicit in various FOIA exemptions: the government need not disclose information about individuals detained in investigations of terrorism until disclosure occurs routinely upon the initiation of criminal charges.
Quote:any person who, during the commission of or attempt to commit a federal felony, knowingly and willfully uses encryption technology to conceal any incriminating communication of information relating to that felony, be imprisoned for an additional period of not fewer than 5 years.
Lola wrote:when exactly does this take place 007?
I have a thread on that ... dont think it'll be quite that drastic ...
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16788
ye10man
Thanks for the quotations.
As a kid, I got hooked on science fiction. If anyone has been following the Mars Spirit coverage and listening to the various scientists and engineers involved speaking of the project, it is once again apparent how many of them were initially given impulse towards space exploration through he science fiction they too read (or watched) when young. But my interest wasn't so much in the gizmos of the genre, but in the imaginative portrayal of possible future social arrangements and conditions.
Writers like PK Dick (Blade Runner) or William Gibson (Neuromancer) or even Matt Groenig (Futurama) take on a task similar to that which Orwell set to with 1984 - to frame possible near-future social/political worlds arising out of (what those authors perceive as) tendencies in human behavior and in technological advance.
Gibson, for example (who coined the term 'cyberspace') portrayed a startlingly prescient vision of the internet (written back in 1983!). But that imagined world also included a social and political evolution away from the autonomous nation state (with its traditions of civil and human rights protections) and towards an arrangement where corporate entities were effectively running the show. High tech and high Hobbes.
One would have to be fairly obtuse to discount Gibson's vision out of hand, given the changes we have seen in the last two decades in international trade and finance agreements and the consequent subsuming of local political autonomy. And if one considers the facility with which these international corporate arrangements have come about relative to the difficulty in establishing or designing international political arrangements - the UN.
Tommy Franks, about two months past, expressed his opinion that, given another serious 'terrorist' attack, the US may well reorganize itself under military management. How disagreeable he personally finds this prospect isn't certain. But I think we can assume that military folks in the US aren't terribly different from military folks in Argentina, relative to other groups within either nation's populations. A social arrangement such as that which might be allowed under the more authoritarian iterations of the Patriot Act (or as we see in Guantanamo) would seem much more reasonable and efficient from their viewpoint.
But I think we ought to acknowledge that such a direction could mesh quite happily with large corporate interests as well. In such a possible arrangement, we would expect to see 'terrorism' defined increasingly broadly and expanding to include acts which hurt or cause disruption to financial interests (eg tree spiking, anti-globalism organizations and protests). It was not merely chance involved when the Oil Ministry building in Bagdhad was protected while the museum holding irreplaceable antiquities was not. Too, we might exect that acts and groups which place themselves in opposition to the intentions and legal/social/political consequences of government acts such as the Patriot Act might be increasingly perceived as treasonous, or as instances of 'terrorism'.
To assume, as many actually do, that America, or the modern western world, is somehow exempt or protected from evolving much too far in such a direction, is to make exactly the reverse assumption from that of the founders of the US, who knew very well that government could not always be trusted, and that democracy and liberty requires not subservience to authority, but the constant contestation of authority.
Gosh Blatham it appears that you are saying that everyone is the same and then making binary distinctions concerning social and political values.
I don't think there is much validity in assuming the U.S. military will behave more or less as does or did the Argentine forces (presumably under similar circumstances). We are different countries with different traditions and our armed forces have had enormously different experiences. Even the history of the 20th century has shown clearly that the behaviors of the armies of different countries are highly variable. You are indulging in stereotyping - a very serious error in the modern secular coda.
With another modern secular prophet in mind (Maslow) I would suggest that, at least initially it was more important to protect Bagdad's oil ministry than the several muserums - hierarchy of human needs and all. Oil is Iraq's most valuable physical resource and their ability to deal effectively with their many social and economic problems will be highly dependent on their ability to promptly resume production. If for no other reasons to repay their armaments debts to Russia and France. The oil does remain the property of the Iraqis, and not any U.S. corporation.
America is no more exempt from the temptations and failings that beset nations than any other. However, it is not reasonable to assume that we will suddenly start behaving more like the former Soviet Union or the now extinct European empires, than like ourselves in the past. Humans and their institutions evolve on a more or less continuous basis. Discontinuities in such behavior are exceedingly rare in history.
007 wrote:Looks like the Bush regime is going to give all Illegal Aliens the nod to be here as equal citizens and forgive their crime of border hoping for profit.....
oh, and eligibility for social security too
A new word has been coined, 'Hispandering'.
Brand X, The word is "bushwacking" the electorate.
