Gorgon

"You may not have heard, but I've got a lung infection at present, so I'd be grateful if you would refrain from making me laugh so much. Dissent in the intelligence community is like bitchiness in the movie industry. Intel is the art of drawing conclusions from imperfect data." The formulation of a report which categorically states that the probability is extremely high that Sadam has WMD AND an active neculear weapons programme all the while there are a significan portion within the organisation who vehemently disagree, who's position is never brough to the attemtion of the administration, that is misinterpretation of the facts, mr. interlligence analyst. The intelligence to back up these claims, defectors trained by aforementioned Achmed Chalaby to bolster his chances of becoming president of Iraq, mind you this was all before the corruption scandal and his complete isolation from Iraqi politics. And recently, a senate comitee on Iraq settle the issue by stating unequivocally that Sadam did not have WMD in the leadup to invasion, and therefore, that the premise of the war was false, at best a mistake, at worst ... A CIA report concludes the same http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/06/iraq.wmd.report/ I have to say your callous dismissal would be much more believable if you actually knew facts surrounding it.

Running around at full tilt for 90 mins does.

"actually, no you idiot" You need to learn to make people look like fools without actually calling them idiots, you know, like I have been doing to you the last few days. 'a sattelite saw something' is hardly compelling evidence of anything at all. Firstly we are clearly in wishful thinking territory here, secondly, since the mobile weapons facility theory is highly suspect considering the sources, what is left that could have been moved to Syria, a few chemical grenades... honestly, who cares. Syria could cook up some anthrax on its own without too much trouble.

LOL is this round two ? - The phantom weapons are now in Syria, quick, invade, send the secretary of state to the UN with a bull**** story. Might I point out the source that Sadam had mobile weapons facilities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Chalabi

" actually you can't use the words "proven fact" as there is strong evidence he had something (they don't know what), and shipped it out during the dead period before the war, probably to syria. taks " What a sad little fig leaf, but sure, it's not completely proven.

" In any event it's interesting that you bring up the comparison with WMD. Do you not think that a brutal dictator unsupervised by ANYONE who has previously built WMD, wants WMD, and retains the industrial capabilities to produce WMD wil probably have them? " What are you talking about ? Bush and Rice use the national securtiy estimate of 2002 to bolster the contention that they did the right thing with the information they had at the time, only there were plenty of dissenting views within the intelligence community that were never presented. It's called plausible deniablilty, tell us what we want to hear and don't tell us anything it might be better we be seen not to know. It's a proven fact that Sadam didn't have any WMD but was engaging in a game of high stakes bluff, so I take it you mean Iran ?

The CIA fabricated the WMD evidence Bush needed as a pretext for war. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB129/index.htm

"Er... Sando, you know you might accord the CIA the same presumption of innocence you grant the suspect gentleman. Or is it OK to work purely from teh basis that you reckon they do that sort of thing?" Why sould one extend presumption of innocence to an organisation accountable only to an oversigth comitee and not to normal standards of criminal law ?

Migth I point out that there is not a significant power anywhere which does not engage in skullduggery. Some people I guess think that we have move on from the cold war and that such practice should nolonger occur. While I agree on principle I don't see it happening any time soon. The only difference here is that the cat is out of the bag.

There are quite a few people who aren't interested in WoW. Me included.

They work fine, remeber you still get stat increases with levels so you might end up being too uber which will destroy your enjoyment of the game.

Its not the newspaper, it's the report, i'm sure there are dozens of other news site sources.

Again I have to point out that science is not about link contests. It is quite clear that there are disenting views on global warming, but it is also equally clear that a growing consensus now links human activity to global warming.

I played Guildwars a lot and the most enjoyable time I had was main quest instances. The quests, of which there are hundreds are all drab repetative things you accept without ever reading what are about. It does have a rather egalitarian theme to it as you will be able to get first class gear practically without farming. The stuff that costs 100 times more just looks different, so you can tell the l33t from the mere mortals. What I would most like to see in a MOG are quests that aren't stupid and an involving main story line, as well as competative gaming elements.

"this is the problem with society, people like gorgon are running off at the mouth based on reports by political organizations (IPCC) and news media." Thats a little convenient don't you think, whenever you don't like the message the organisation magically becomes 'political', a claim for which, incidentially, you make no explanation. From what I can glean of your political lean though, the UN affiliation alone is damning evidence.

"so your proof of a "consensus" is a couple news stories," The 90% of the scientific community was in a BBC report and another link I can't find now. The 'news story' is about the IPCC report which is considered the one stop authority about global climate change, science is not about link contests though, if you look hard enough you can find a web page 'scientifically' supporting any claim you care to make, regardless, since your claim is the more outrageous why don't you 'prove' that there is no consensus. I have a sneaky feeling though, that you are not interested in finding out anything that conflicts with your current position. "The latest IPCC report was written by hundreds of experts and reviewed by hundreds more, from 113 countries. It is being released in stages during 2007. The first chapter, released on Friday, deals with the scientific basis for climate change. The next two parts of the IPCC's 2007 assessment, plus a synthesis, will be released throughout the year. Part 2, dealing with the impacts of climate change and our vulnerability to those impacts, will be released in April. Part 3, to be released in May, deals with how we might mitigate these impacts."

" prove it. i love such unfounded statements. so easy to shoot down. even at that, maybe roughly 90% of those that publish, or are funded, but that does not mean 90% believe as such. many that disagree are afraid to for fear of being black-listed. more and more are coming forward every day to point out how ludicrous, sometimes outright fraudulent, the so-called "science" regarding this topic is." http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/b...s.php?id=116511 http://environment.newscientist.com/articl...-humankind.html Why don't you prove that there is widespread bullying of scientist who refuse to go along with the notion now ?

I don't see the point. Warhammer is about massive battles, and hundreds of l33t terminators running around farming for their gold dual heavy bolter pistols, it just seems a little too goofy.

This reminds me, i'm going to try and see if I can make it through a week with no gaming of any kind.

" grrr... ok, simple concept, there is no such thing as scientific proof, therefore, debate will always continue for any scientific hypothesis/theory. heck, the most tested theory on the planet, relativity, is still being debated! furthermore, this particular debate is hardly over, in spite of what many seem to claim. more and more scientists are coming forward as "denialists" w.r.t. the climate every day. if anything, the debate is only heating up. " Roughly 90% of the scientific comunity believe that the global warming phenomenon is man man made, roughly 10% believe that the temperature changes are a natural phenomenon, that is quite sufficient to say that the debat whether or not it exists or not is nolonger in the foreground. The Republicans, traditionally quite content to believe there was no such thing, are quite keen on some of Arnold's success in energy management in California rubbing off on them.

Fish and game should be capable of protecting the resources they are there to be a custodian of. It's pretty simple, if you log too much the forest doesen't grow back, if you over fish people lose their livelyhoods. One of the richest fishing grounds anywhere on the planet is in Icelandic waters, because they enforced quotas that would allow populations to grow rather than just replentish themselves.

I like cats, but I keep dogs. I prefer a pet I can take with me pretty much everywhere I need to go, plus I live in an appartment. Cats need to be able to come and go as they please.

There is nothing enigmatic about my avi or my sig. No pearls of wisdom or secrets of the pyramids.

Minuses : Seemingly endless hours of child actors and teenage romances. Mediocre acting across the board. Jar Jar Binks. Pluses : The Emperor and Yoda in Revenge of the Sith. Obi Wan in Attack of the Clones.

So the real problem is that he is rich and a democrat ...