phcatlantis

Politics is a pretty general forum for pretty much anything that's politically, socially or economically worth talking about. And unlike SFN's other forums, there are no resident 'experts' to assist posters in discovering resources and employing the analytical tools of the various fields explored here. On top of that, Politics doesn't appear to be any different from similar forums on other boards--its a place for advocacy through logic chopping, aphorism and moral posturing. Not that that's a bad thing--SFN's Politics, pseudoscience, and religious forums are fun outlets for the culture wars. But if someone wanted to discuss applying network models to problems of resistance and rebellion in failed states, it would be lost in any number of repetitive Iraq/Israel/Kansas threads. Now imagine an SFN that attracted people study economics, psychology, operations research and managerial science, etc.?

Spin off some social sciences forums for more sophisticated, academic discussion; leave Politics for advocacy and potpourri.

I like that idea. I'm also curious as to why you think children exposed to a religious and instead of secular view of the life sciences would have a harder time getting into college or finding work? Like I said, this is probably a better discussion for Education, or if we had such a forum, Public Policy

The other guy's refering to the fact that much of the Southwest and California belonged to Mexico a century and a half ago. Or is there some sort of statute of limitations on territorial justice?

You know, everyday millions of working Americans plan the lottery... I think you'd have a hard time convincing anyone except those on the most lunatic fringes that Israel is not a stable country. Most Israelis are. Which says nothing about their support for punishing Palestinian supporters of terror, now does it? I'd much rather watch you go one and one with your own strawmen.

If that's the case then his point fails on the fact that the Israelis are targeting only players; in this case, the populations that provide safe haven for terrorists. The Israelis are quite discriminating. They're targeting the civilian support base for the Palestinians with a pretty precise and non-lethal weapon. Of course you do, because through that magnificent lens of yours "simply being a Palestinian" includes hiding and feeding the terrorists amongst you. Are you an Israeli? What's all this "we" stuff? By that reasoning, riot control measures are not only futile, but principally counter-productive. Here's a thought. I can go with your gut on this matter, or the professional opinion of senior IDF officers.

Where would you let it go then? This a better topic for politics or education, but I'm just curious.

Yet, like in the missile strike against a Hamas holdout, the innocent casualty is unintended. And in fact, the risk of unintended innocent death is far less in the case of these non-lethal measures. The operation doesn't target innocents. It targets those who aid and abet the enemy. A nation-state's centers of gravity are its industrial sites. If it is wrong to target those who harbor, supply and finance terrorists in known holdouts, is it then wrong to target industrial facilities of materal worth to the enemy? You've conveniently defined innocent to include anyone who doesn't qualify as an operator.

Sure it has. Israel has lost nearly 10,000 in five overt wars lasting a combined two years with its neigbhors, more than five times than the number of Israelis killed in five years worth of Palestinian intifada. Which, as horrific as it is, doesn't come close to matching the lethality of Israel overt conflict with her neighbors. In short, I'll take suicide bombers over Syrian brigades nearly overrunning the Heights anyday. I linked both. Hence the 1 and 2. And that's to make the point that Palestinian violence against Israel is relatively new and has only in recent years risen to within an order of magnitude of the deadliness faced by Israel twenty years ago. That was in response to your claim that Israel has faced this threat for 50 years. They haven't, and that contradiction undermines your entire perspective on the conflict. I don't think there's any evidence whatsoever that Ariel Sharon underestimated the impact of his presence on Temple Mount. There's a question as to whether he cared, or whether he should've. As far as I'm concerned, if the Palestinians feel that's justification for engaging in violent anti-Semitism, I grow less and less concerned with their national aspirations or physical well being for that matter. So by that reasoning, riot control is an exercise in futility. It's not a misunderstanding. It's a perfectly understandable reaction to the barbarity of a would be nation that for reasons ranging from its own making to conditions imposed on her refuses to to join the modern world. And the question whether the mere satisfaction of securing the territories once and for all is worth enduring some years more of European scorn is a subjective matter. Sure it is, as much as Spain can declare Basque territory its own. Surely you wouldn't argue that the Northern United States, whose populations by definition did not live in the South, had no right to force the Confederates back into the Union? Sure, and then we can get to the more satisfying discussion about whether or not this tactic will work. And if you can do that without appealing to moral indignation, then we can start right now.

All right. I'll ask] in the future. You did. Precisely where I entered the discussion, in fact. In your words: "THAT's what he called 'two wrongs making a right', and his assessment was correct." I specifically entered the conversation to refute the characterization of this truism as an assessment. I sure would, but more importanly I think others probably care as well. I hope you don't censor yourself on my behalf. My question was whether or not you'd entertain such a position, not whether you'd adopt it.

I'd love for you to point out the difference between my position and ecoli's. Considerably so. Israel's neighbors lack the capacity or will to fight after losing five wars and considerable amounts of blood, treasure and (for a lengthy period of time) territory. Palestinian nationalism is barely fifty years old, and mass Palestinian resistance against Occupation is less than thirty. After that, the vast majority of the casualties sustained by Israel after 1948 due to Palestinian violence occurred after Oslo. [1,2]. Unsurprisingly, this is precisely why there was such a large constituency against land for peace deals. From the Israeli experience, far more deadly experiences followed Oslo and Camp David than the initial settlement of the West Bank. So while withdrawal from the occupied territories is strategically and operationally desirable, doing so under conditions negotiated with a partner that seems unwilling and at times supportive of a deadly terrorist foe remains a hotly contested question. I said his presumption that either Israel has no right of self-defense or in this case no such claim is insane. I'm sure we've all held onto a number of insane beliefs for whatever reason. And what does the data say on the effectiveness of sonic booms (or other non-lethal measures) as a means of disrupting civilian support for terrorism?

I'm not so sure that it is your opinion, when we get past the truisms. Which is why I even jumped into the conversation in the first place. You did sum up Dog's point succinctly--two wrongs don't make a right. The implication there is that Israel's employment of this tactic wrong. And that is an assertion. Nevermind that its non-lethal, nevermind that it is particularly less lethal to the enemy's population than most alternatives short of abdicating defense entirely. We're simply to take Dog's gut feeling (which you possibly share) as reason enough to denounce this method. Don't you think you owe an explanation as to why? Let me ask you something. Are you willing to entertain a position that holds "Israel should pave Gaza to glass?" Or do you have a point you won't go beyond? We can stick to the merits without having to impugn one another's openmindedness. And at least I'm addressing Dog's points.

Well, do a quick check. Earth is 1.50e11 m from the Sun. The Sun's luminosity is 4e26 W. The solar irradiance at Earth's orbit is just the luminosity divided by the area of a sphere at Earth's radius. You get roughly 1370 W/m^2. So yes, that figure is solar output at the top of atmosphere.

His assessment isn't correct. It isn't even an assessment. It's an assertion, one that presumes, insanely so, that either the right to self-defense is a wrong or that Israel has no such right in this case.

By that reasoning, shouldn't non-lethal crowd control measures invigorate and coalesce rioting mobs? The Israelis are using a first and foremost non-lethal tactic that is no less indiscriminate and far less dangerous than gas, so what's your problem? Yes. Israel, like most other countries faced with a violent and determined foe, have used bullets, explosives, and other lethal measures. What's so bad about some loud noise and frightened children? I'm curious. How many attacks by Israeli civilians against against Palestinians civilians have their been in the past four years? How about visa versa?

What's to sort out? You have three commission reports on US intelligence, two specifically pertaining to executive and congressional products covering Iraqi WMD. You have a helluva lot of open source information on Iraq's forces, the insurgency strength, US deployments, maps, etc. There's an immense public record that's almost entirely online. So either I have a position I can back up or I simply haven't done my due diligence. You?

With all due respect' date=' how do you go from "believe [the President'] intentionally misled" to "[t]hese are the things people want answers from the administration about..." No, I imagine base ego, opportunism and either willful or insanely unintentional ignorance of their own language from three years ago play a large role as well. But for now I only contend that they're the revisionists; who cares about their motives? Every proposed Democratic "solution" to the objects of their "criticism" fall into three categories, train the Iraqis faster, set a timetable, redeploy to the periphery (or out of the region all together). The training of Iraqi forces is an operational question, not a strategic or a political one. The only difference between the Administration's approach to withdrawal's and the Democrats is that the Democrats insist that there is a necessity to spell out a timetable--even if conditions force us to deviate from it. This was a remarkably senseless addition to a conditions-based operations in 1972-3 (yet another Democratic proposal) and it is today. Finally, staging out of the periphery makes no sense whatsoever without an Iraqi force capable of securing any and all areas Americans leave behind. In short, the Democrats' entire plan can be summed up as skipping to the last chapters of Phase IV of the standard oplan and then calling it quits no matter what. So yes, no sensible human being period has any reason whatsoever to question the general conduct of the counter-insurgency. Unfortunately, we can count the number of sensible Democrat in the Senate presently on one hand (and probably can only recall Joe Lieberman's name). Maybe you'd do better to focus on tangible problems encountered at the operational level. It's pretty hard to argue against "clear, hold and build" when you apparantly plan to do the same thing.

Not native, I assure you. Good to be here. Object oriented politics, now there's a discussion.

Just a quibble. Materialist claims are not necessarily falsifiable. Any materialist claim constructed from observables rationally predicting something that is demonstrably unobservable defies falsifiability. This is why we're careful to distinguish between the supernaturalism period, which can never find foundation in exclusively naturalism and mathematics, and that which may not pass the falsifiability requirement but is never the less rationally discovered through construction of material com.ponents

I've done two complete web apps and three prototyped thick applications so far in RoR and I'm thoroughly impressed. For one, I love Ruby as a language period, there's nothing out there that can match its OO model and depth of reflection. Rails is a great framework in that--as far as I've encountered--lives up to its DRY and convention-based principles, but also because it leverages Ruby's truly OO quality to expose so much of itself to extension and revision by developers without breaking. Ajax in Ruby is nice for typical tasks like form observers, remote links, and one shot effects, but you'll still really need to learn the practice in Javascript to fully leverage its power in crafting statefulness. I can say that for myself, I don't see a need to go back to Perl, Python or PHP.

And what exactly closer to the truth about the Democrats' revisionism? I agree there are some strong points to their case. For example, its not unlike the Democrats to vote out of utter ignorance or base political motive. After all, this was 2002, a midterm election year where the Democrats strategy of trying to run towards the right with the Republicans on Homeland Security and Iraq backfired and actually increased Republican majorities in both houses. Oh, just an aside. Kerry noted yesterday on Face the Nation that the international terroristist component of the Iraq insurgency was the smallest part. Here's an example of either Democratic stupidity or dishonsty. Can somebody tell me which is the smaller group in the the Afghan insurgency--the Taliban, the Hazara rejectionists, or al Qaeda? Is Kerry now recommending withdrawal from Afghanistan? Final comment. A lot of hay has been made of recent Democratic "redeployment" proposals. Almost all of them follow the same sort of sick, pulled right out of thin air operational art that accompanied the "reconnaissance en force" proposals before the war began. So let's take the Korb report as our baseline and say half to three quarters of deployed force to the Iraq theter are drawn back home and the remainder redeployed to the Periphery. How exactly is this different from the search and destroy posture MACV maintained between 1964 and 1968? And can anybody tell me what the fatal flaw facing American forces egressing into combat under those battlespace conditions?

Then I suggest you find us a PDB that was more "nuanced" product than what the President sold to the American people. This whole exercise is pretty academic.