taks

first of all, they've always had the ability to listen in to all calls. here's where your argument fails, however, is that doing it and USING it are two different things. the government has a lot of power that we are unable to control, and complaining that they can listen to normal citizens going about their normal lives is ridiculous. when they use that information we have a case. as soon as you connect your phone line to a foriegn entity with known ties to terrorists you void your rights for due process. my "brilliant" argument is just as brilliant as yours in terms of case law, commissar. taks

false analogy. my statements were clearly a) a result of probable cause and b) foreign intelligence. you're talking about something that occurs a) without reason and b) completely within our borders. case law supports both sides, actually, so it's not a win-win for either position. either way, if you're on the phone with a known terrorist from a foreign land it certainly qualifies as foreign intelligence. another false analogy. i'm talking about outside our borders, you're referring to inside, without probable cause. apples and oranges, commissar. taks

you don't, and i never said you could absolutely know. however, if you aren't talking to terrorists, you don't need to worry. such taps can't be used against a US citizen for anything unless he is indeed talking to terrorists. i realize you have a person concern here, but this is one grey area i cannot take caution with. the constitution gives the president full authority to collect foreign intelligence where it concerns the safety of the US. remember the big stink during the clinton administration over the public keys on data going out of the country? even if it was legit, the government asserted its right to examine any data transfers, and therefore required that all encryption methods be easily broken by US cryptography tools. same deal, gubmint wants to listen it can, and will. uh, two wrongs don't make a right. i do not trust the government one bit. never have. hate it. it is a monster that has outgrown its mandate. unfortunately, every time i mention MY version of how things should be run, people keep pointing me back to this unweildy monster. it is the very thing hard left politics favor that has created such a beast. and the right happened to stumble into all this power with a ribbon on top. to assume they would not use every bit of the power we gave them is naive at best. however, i again note that i know i am not doing anything wrong, and have nothing to worry about. if i find out they're tapping my phones for no reason (the likelihood of that is astronomically low), i have cause for concern and lawsuit... btw, everyone in here knows they can and do implement pattern recognition schemes that can pick out calls from anyone, right? echelon, i believe, is the conspiratorial name. been around a loooooong time. not just bush doing the eavesdropping. taks

you have got to be kidding me. you quoted fahrenheit 911 almost verbatim and then pull this crap. big deal. since when are cabinet members not allowed to argue. no, it is not. a strategic partnership in order to oust russia from afghanistan is a lot different than "friends." furthermore, bin laden's family have repeatedly disowned him. you really should read something other than left wing rants. it was repeated how many times? are you sure you got the quote straight, or off of another website? i think you should check your facts. proof please. saying "it was everywhere" doesn't count. i believe you're confusing the trade deficit here... which is a socialist view of the economy. hardly conservative. taks

the onus is not on me to prove that they are not breaking the law, the onus is on you to prove they are. i'm not forfeiting any rights. i'm not calling any terrorists, either. should it turn out they are listening to conversations without cause, and without known ties, they should be prosecuted. again, where did i say anything about innocent people? you do know what probable cause is, right? you also know that probable cause is reason for even regular beat cops to search your home without a warrant, right? if i'm not calling terrorists, i'm not being listened to. again #2, prove they're listening in on inside the border calls, then you have a case. guilty until proven innocent seems like the argument YOU just made. for shame. taks

uh, michael moore isn't the most reliable source in the world. thoroughly debunked. nonsense takes a loooooong time to type out, doesn't it? calling yourself a conservative with this much liberal ideology running through your head really, really is disingenuous. you need to come out of the closet bud. or were you working the "i'm a conservative so my opinion is therefore not biased!" angle? taks

so has every other president that has had the means. he's not invading US citizen's privacy, he's invading the privacy of known terrorists. if you don't want the government listening to your phone calls, then don't call known terrorists. there's a such thing as probable cause. rhetoric, in other words. big deal. what? WHAT? and exactly how do you consider yourself a conservative i wonder? do some research here, btw, you REALLY don't know what you're doing. if you look at the "tax cut for the rich" you'll notice that now the "rich" (top 20%) pay a higher percentage of the total taxes paid than before the cut. simple math, man. you mean "if you don't know what the news media is spinning" right? he's got plenty of opinions to listen to, all of which are much more tuned in to what's "really going on" than any newspaper or tv show. ??? you mean working while in texas. clinton as well as every other president did the same thing. they take a break, that really isn't a break, and go home. hate to tell you, but this statement is patently false. sourece? so much for your adherence to conservatism. it's called a free market. btw, gas prices in the US are half of what they are in europe. wonder why... ? since when is this news or any difference than normal? countries trade money around left and right. taks

most of what you said is actually illogical, but i'll elaborate. no kidding. he has a right to a trial. if we were to just kill him outright, we'd be no better than he. care to cite this "in charge of iraq" source? bit of a stretch, particularly given the elections they just had. 30,000 iraqis, but that's not the point. war is hell, and people die. not sure how this is a logical argument for accountability... they were deemed not a threat... so what? you mean the bill passed by the house and the senate? really, evidence? and even if he thinks he's god, who cares? any person in a position of power does. so you'd rather he not say anything at all? you already know what he's doing, therefore nothing he says will matter to you, so why gripe about it? this is the most illogical of all your statements. complaining for the sake of complaining. where'd the can't do math thing come from? pronunciation is a horrid problem in the us, i agree, but hardly an indication of one's intellgence. i love how all you people with an axe to grind come in here and call him unintelligent, without really even knowing. do you actually know how much of a percentage of sales oil companies make in profits? record profits are being made simply because they normally barely break even. their overall sales may be high, but their margins are only a few percent. this is a joke of an argument, put forth by socialists that just hate the free market. you're hardly a conservative in this regard, though you're welcome to keep fooling yourself. btw, lots of people have stock in oil companies, not just bush. liberals and conservatives alike. get over it. curious what he's supposed to do? tinker with the free market even more? it's bad enough as it is... more socialist agenda here. taks

you are probably correct. i think the term "impeachment" is often confused with conviction. impeachment is more like an indictment, i.e. it is only a statement that there is sufficient evidence to proceed with a trial. nixon would have been impeached, too, had he not resigned. he actually would have been convicted, IMO, as well. when clinton was impeached, i was pretty convinced they all knew the senate would refuse to push the trial... it was more of a hand-slap than anything. taks

uh, circle of eight is the fan group that has put out a bunch of patches, but isn't really a "mod" so to speak. it does, however, turn on a bunch of deleted quests and adds some new content. this is really the patch that makes the game sort of complete, at least not so much a beta effort. shining ted over there is working on an actual module, i think keep on the borderlands. i'm not sure how he's doing the graphics, since they look different than what i remember from the game (i assume it works the same as bg2 mods, where you reuse art and graphics with your own critters, triggers and dialog, but i can't be sure). you can find it all at www.co8.org, btw. taks

simple majority in the house to issue articles of impeachment. senate then tries him, requiring a 2/3 majority for conviction. they then have the option to remove him from office, bar him from future office(s) or both. taks

uh, you mean no more, right? you do remember that clinton was indeed impeached... ??? taks

and based on this statement, you are obviously the one to determine what "adult" means. yeah, and if you had actually read the reports that came out, most of the inspectors always commented on how it seemed "they were waiting for us as we arrived, almost as if they knew we were coming." pretty easy to hide something when you know where everyone is looking. no, blix was an idiot. there were wmds, and it looks pretty likely they were moved out before we went in. "everyone else in the world" knows for a fact that saddam had documented nerve agents and the ability to disperse them, yet somehow they managed to disappear right before his report was due. he claimed they were destroyed, yet offered no proof of the claim. uh, and you're quoting hans blix as real information? whoa, unbelievable. and i'm the narrowminded one. taks

uh, you trivialized a FELONY action. he lied under oath, which is perjury. and the statement "seeking to take away our rights" is really, really ill-informed. but that's you... taks

what NSA bit? you mean the NSA spying on international calls? i didn't mention it because i was replying mostly to the chief justice bit but for your sake... definite grey area. but i'm not impressed that this be called a crime. bush is certainly not the first president to do this, either (rumor has it clinton did the same). you make international calls to known terrorists and you've automatically provided probable cause... even in search and seizure laws probable cause is enough to allow entrance to private property without a warrant. i do think, however, that there should be some sort of judicial notification given that it seems the reason for such actions are entirely due to the current system (FISA?) being pretty slow. an after the fact ruling could then be used to shut down any gross violation. were they doing it INSIDE the US, i'd have a problem with that no matter what (barring a warrant, of course). taks

uh, the chief justice presides over the trial, but he is in no way "in charge" of any impeachment process. if congress wants to bring the articles and pass them to the senate (an impeachment), it will, regardless of what the chief thinks. also, bush had "his own" chief justice before he got to pick a new one anyway so it's not a real issue. regardless of whether you like bush or not, there's no real grounds for any sort of impeachment. he's committed no real "high crimes and misdemeanors" that can be effectively put forth in articles of impeachment. and remember, gripe all you want about the intelligence, but the guy in charge at the time was clinton's man (tenet was appointed during the clinton administration in 1997), a long time democrat. he was the one that personally assured the president of the information he was getting. taks

according to who, you? you get to be the ultimate arbiter are who gets to claim what heritage. i'd like to see you stand before a non-practicing jew and tell him/her he is not a jew. pretty incredulous claim there. pretty foolish as well, to make such ill-informed statements without anything other than... oh yeah, your opinion. highly regarded as it is, too. uh, now you don't make sense. by definition, lineage is where you descended from. in other words, if you descended from the same place, you have the same lineage. in other words, not all palestinians are semites... they come from different places. taks

some, but not all... they claim heritage from a variety of places, including rome. that's what my point was in the follow up, i.e. modern day palestinians do not really have a common heritage or lineage. they are a mixture of several cultures over time. nope, well, at least not only. lots of jews don't believe in judaism. read up relevant passage: "In modern usage, Jews include both those Jews actively practicing Judaism, and those Jews who, while not practicing Judaism as a religion, still identify themselves as Jews by virtue of their family's Jewish heritage and their own cultural identification." most of the jewish friends i've had in my life called themselves "jews" but did not connect with the religion. taks

given that islamic religions did not exist until Muhammad in the late 500s, and that current day palestinians do not have much in the way of a common heritage or lineage, it will be difficult to argue that any other than jewish (more appropriately hebrew) people were there first. it is more than plausible (probable, probably) that many owe their original heritage to the jews in the first place, however, which is a strange irony. taks

i must make one more point... it also works in societies that are a) relatively small, at least much smaller (orders of magnitude) than countries like the US and b) societies that have high levels of resources and/or services that are in great demand in the rest of the world. the former point is really aimed at small tribal groups where everyone has to pitch in because there are more jobs to do than people to do them. the latter point is simply because the positive trade balance affords the society money to blow, so to speak (scandinavian countries have such a benefit). such societies, btw, are actually living off of the fruits of the rest of the capitalist societies which are generating the wealth. so in the end, they still need us materialistic bastards to keep 'em humming. also, well made point eldar. well made. taks

ebay's failure, er, downfall, has nothing to do with capitalism. they should have regulated it but didn't. it is private enterprise, so they are allowed to put restrictions on their own business model. now, capitalism affords someone else to come in with a model that restricts the online shopping aspect. perhaps i have an idea now... taks PS: too excited to argue the virtues of capitalism over socialism and call kaftan a freeloader... going skiing tomorrow! PPS: i'd never call you a freeloader kaftan, but the joke was too easy to drop.

oh, the point then, is that they didn't want to go in with nukes, they actually wanted the long drawn out battle. hints of this are apparent in the movie as well as the hypocritical look at war (the "news" flashes, etc.). taks

the following is based on something i read, but i don't know where to find it anymore... (maybe imdb database?): ok, i have not read the books, but i did do some research regarding this movie since i had heard the books were MUCH better and MUCH darker. apparently, the books alluded to the possibility that the original meteor (or comet, or asteroid or whatever it was) that was slung towards the earth by the bugs was a ploy. i.e. the bugs didn't attack earth, but humans did. they did it in order to rally the earth behind a common cause. i don't remember the details from there... apparently the books were very anti-war and went much deeper into the whole military society thing (citizenship from service, etc.) it was pretty bleak. ok, that's enough about that... taks

you mean like, real-time with pause? which, not coincidentally, nearly 90% of all rpgs are actually implemented with... ahem. taks

but now you're discriminating against religion, which is tyranny in and of itself. just because there is a belief that you, or everyone but one for that matter, don't agree with does not give you the right to supress it. freedom works both ways. you're free to have or not have any opinion, regardless of how insane, or inane, it is. to tell people they can't have religion in their lives without forfeiting their right to vote is the antithesis of the very enlightenment you support. taks