Pangloss

Just awful. Al Qaeda claims responsibility for this, but it's interesting that so many people don't believe them, almost as if they prefer to believe that the government, or the US, were behind it. Which of course plays right into Al Qaeda's hands. Bhutto was extremely popular with young men, who are so angry, why, who knows, they might just want to... blow themselves up! Interesting article in the new issue of Time about this. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1698828,00.html

A perfectly reasonable argument, IMO. I'm sure it will be countered with points about psychological after effects, and that's a reasonable point as well, but psychology is an inexact science flooded with incalculable variables. Can waterboarding permanently harm someone? It seems likely that it can. But it seems to compare favorably with other forms of coercion, including some that are currently deemed acceptable. Nice post.

Then you admit that you're deliberately misrepresenting my position. Got it. All perfectly valid opinions, and you're welcome to post them. I acknowledge their posting and simply point out that other opinions also exist. I am allowed to express my opinion on this subject, and you're NOT allowed to lie about what I said. What I did ostensibly is reopen the issue in my mind. What you feel I did was dodge the moral issue. I'm okay with you saying that people shouldn't dodge the issue. I'm NOT okay with you saying that I've done so. You don't know what's in my heart and mind, and it's wrong for you to attack me in this manner. You initiated that attack with no provocation, it's unwarranted, it's in violation of board policy, and it's a moral wrong. And you know it. You're wrong. Once again you deliberately misrepresent my position. I never said that. Bascule, I point out specific flaws in your reasoning, and you respond with "you really meant ____", and "you actually just said ____". For me to point these things out is NOT ad hominem, it is RESPONSE to ad hominem. Your argumentation is consistently riddled with logical fallacies, and furthermore, even in cases where your argument contains a textbook example of a logical fallacy, it takes me some ten posts of back and forth and STILL you will never even admit it. (At least I admit it when I make those mistakes.) I've not attacked you as a person, though I have attacked your ridiculous and counter-productive arguments. Can you improve the substance of your arguments, rather than constantly attacking me as a person?

I apologize if I gave you that impression. Maybe I was too harsh in my last reply to you, but my feeling is one of repressed not repressee. But I understand where you're coming from and I will endeavor not to push those buttons, as it were. Again, I'm not saying that just because waterboarding works sometimes, or in one case, means it will work every time. I believe that we've got clear evidence here that waterboarding has worked and it may work again in the future if it is applied again. I agree that this doesn't mean that it will work in all cases. But I think it's a bit disengenuous to require evidence that it will work every time in the future, or even that it will work more often than not. That's not the issue here. If the treatment is humane then it could be combined with any number of treatments, and there's no reason why they can't all be tried. So just because it has a low percentage of success (IF it does, which hasn't been established!) doesn't mean that it's a bad idea. What would be more important in that case would be whether or not it's humane, wouldn't you agree? So why do I have to be demonized in order to make these points? Are my arguments not logical and reasonable? What's with all the ad hom and accusations of logical fallacy? I don't think that's fair, and I think it should be called out by people who share Bascule's viewpoint, not just those who agree with me.

Why is it necessary for you to spin my argument at all? Why can't you argue with me on the basis that I've stated, that I have an open mind about whether waterboarding constitutes torture? Your opinion is that it's torture, fine, I respect that. I'm trying to have an open discussion between intelligent people, and you're finding it necessary to demonize me by accusing me of defending torture. Why? I think everyone on this web site should be demanding an answer from you to that question, and I think it's typical and ridiculous that nobody will do so, because your position represents the politically correct position for this board.

We don't know that there were false positives, so it's erroneous for you to say "never mind how many false positives there were". That is a false premise. Do you have any substantive evidence of false positives that's not from a secondhand source that's been directly and clearly refuted, and which flies directly in the face of testimony from an expert who was directly working on the events in question? You're clearly being rude towards me and aggressively distorting my arguments for no other reason than the fact that I have an open mind about waterboarding, and I don't think that constitutes an argument. And I don't think pointing that out constitutes an ad hominem, either. I'm sorry you feel otherwise, but if you have a problem with it you can take it up with another mod or admin here.

So... we all know we're all a bunch of readers here, whadya get whadya get whadya get?!?! Here's a short list (at least until I finish unpacking the car and refresh my memory): Reality Show, by Howard Kurtz. Interesting narrative, just published in October, of the last ten years in the American network news biz, focusing mainly on the change of anchors at CBS, NBC and ABC. It's not getting a lot of great reviews, but I've read about half of it so far and find his insider angle and objective analysis to be really valuable. Kurtz is the media observer for the Washington Post. Your Movie Sucks, by Roger Ebert. Some of Ebert's best work are his reviews of the WORST movies. Great stuff. World War Z, by Max Brooks. Some sort of zombie novel. Looked interesting, and I think somebody here recommended it to me so I threw it on my Amazon list. Common Ground, by Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel. I think I did a write-up on this for the politics board earlier, but basically these guys (one conservative, one liberal) write a regular column for USA Today in which they try to find real common ground on major issues. This book presents a collection of their columns, I believe. Best of all, me mum found me a first edition of The Roman Revolution by Sir Ronald Syme, complete with fold-outs. Woot!

What I think is that your argument needs work. First of all, there's a big difference between an author quoting unnamed sources and an actual source stepping forward himself. Second, I looked up Suskind's book in the Wikipedia and found a whole chorus criticizing it. In fact, former acting CIA director John McLaughlin told Wolf Blitzer outright on CNN that Suskind was completely wrong about Zubayda. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/20/sitroom.02.html That's not to say that McLaughlin is right and Suskind is wrong, it just says that there is reasonable doubt about Suskind's conclusion, which was drawn much earlier and, again, based on unnamed sources. So I don't believe I am being unreasonable in suggesting that the situation has changed. But like I said in the OP, I consider this as having reopened the question, not put a final nail in the coffin of opposition waterboarding.

I suppose that would be a lot, especially since nobody is more than 99 times removed from anyone else on the planet (or is that just a netmyth?), so if you go back too far you end up demonizing yourself!

Now there's a paragraph the other side could never get away with, and a perfect demonstration not only of the fact that this is indeed a political argument, but of which side of this political argument is politically acceptable on this forum, and which side is not.

No, that would be an example of making mistakes, letting inappropriate and incorrect influences dictate bad decisions.

I would've chosen Al Gore as well, but it would have been a choice of influence not approval. Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is a dangerous game.

Why not?

That's a great story. Though I'm a bit confused at where you feel that differs from what I said in the quote. He was motivating you, and you say he wasn't pushing a Christian ideology, so I guess I'm confused, but maybe I'm missing something. But a great story and thanks for passing it along. I love the idea of starting off a class with a story that illustrates a point.

One of the fascinating things about politics is the ongoing ebb and flow of political parties and their oft-changing positions over time. The Green Party is ostensibly an environmentalist movement, but at the moment their leading candidate for president is Cynthia McKinney, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist and former congresswoman from Georgia, who is most likely using the Greens as a sympathetic base for her disestablishment agenda. McKinney is a fascinating case, and as a native Georgian I've been following stories about her for years. I see her as a kind of mutant relic of the civil rights era. An extreme, closed-minded, uncompromising version of Jesse Jackson (who's at least smart enough to keep his mouth shut about "the Jews" most of the time). As a Democrat and a Congresswoman, McKinney spent most of her time trying to cast light on secret documents, which seemed useful enough at the time, and got her plenty of media attention. Things went downhill, however, after her antisemitic opinions and 9/11 conspiracy theories came to light, and she was ousted by the voters in 2006. She's since relocated to San Francisco, joined the Green Party, and gotten accepted into a PhD program at Berkeley where she will study those secret 1960s FBI civil rights monitoring programs (drawing parallels with the Bush administration, no doubt). The Greens seem to know what they're getting into, but some of them don't seem to like it. I don't have a link on this at the moment but I caught a brief mention yesterday about predicted rowdiness at the Green Party convention and presidential debates which I believe are coming in the spring. But she does at least pay lip service to Green party goals, and she's hardly the only one taking that kind of extreme position in the party. But I think it's worth noting that the Green party is certainly not a friendly place for scientists and generally-intelligent, logical, thoughtful people these days. It seems to be more the party for crackpots and misfits now. Here's an interesting (and amusing) article at the Atlanta Journal & Constitution about McKinney's recent announcement: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/dekalb/stories/2007/12/23/mckinney_1224.html

I'm on the road here so I'll just be brief. First, thanks for returning to the subject at hand -- I guess you guys found out a little about "Captain's Values". (grin) Second, my point in raising this issue was not so much to demonize this guy, because I think we all understand how stories can get blown out of proportion, but rather to see if we're all on the same page about whether these specific actions might be unacceptable. I think we are. I think we also agree that challenging students in a classroom is a good thing, and that furthering a personal ideological agenda in the classroom (when not done for the purpose of challenging students) is a bad thing. This is why I personally wouldn't fire the teacher in question, because I cannot determine based on the facts in evidence whether students are, for example allowed to raise the opposite point of view. Now don't get me wrong, it's hard to imagine from the quotes (and the audio recording I've heard) that this guy will listen for even a nanosecond to an opposing viewpoint. But if he does -- holy cow, what a powerful classroom that must be, especially if he's making it clear to the students that they SHOULD be forming their own opinions, that they SHOULD be standing up and challenging his statements. In short, I want to hear an audio recording from his classroom of a presentation from a student in support of the Iraq war, or the benefits of organized religion on society. Does he allow the student to make his or her case? And does he grade that student on their conclusions, or their effort? That would be revealing, I think.

That's fine, then ask that question instead of stating that one cannot say that there are Jewish values. I know people who use that phrase to mean "values that I have, which may be the same as values that you have as an atheist, etc".

Well to be honest, I looked back at his post and my second reaction to is was that it wasn't necessarily a personal attack. Ad hom, though, and abrasive as hell, and not really acceptable, IMO, but I'd probably have to seek a second opinion on it now before mashing the delete button. And I'm literally walking out the door on vacation so I'm probably just going to have to punt. I'll post a note on the mod board for somebody to review this thread. But I still think you're arguing semantics with Severian for no reason. You should acknowledge the obvious secondary defintion for those phrases, whether you feel that's what he meant or not. If it was important to you to that Lance acknowledge a logical point about GW, then surely you can do the same here.

The American (or British) soldier is hardly incompetent, they're just poorly lead at times, and Petraeus would not be one of those poor leaders, if the current military situation is any indication.

At no point. You try your best, you do what seems like the right thing, for the right reasons, and you hope for the best. Sometimes it doesn't work out, and you take your lumps and move on. That's really all there is to it. Should we allow easy access to powerful weapons on the streets of America? No, IMO we should not. But that doesn't make me responible for the various shootings that take place. Not ever. There is no "at some point" to consider, and it's not an interesting question at all. It's completely moot. Likewise, we need to make sure that when we have foreign involvements, we listen to what's actually wanted and needed locally, that we don't allow corruption to enter into things, that we think long term and that we ponder alternatives carefully at all times. But in the end, even if we screw up, we should not be held responsible for things we didn't actually do. Not that I fault you for asking the question, mind you -- I'm all about thinking and discussing and arriving at your own conclusions, not having them force-fed to you by either the TV news OR a zealous politics-board moderator.

Ok, you never again get to complain about people wasting their time on television and Harry Potter!

It wasn't a refutation, it was a widening of the discussion. Frankly a lot of people in this country very MUCH equate consequences to moral equivalency, and hold us responsible for 9/11, Iran's nuclear weapons program, and so forth. Many complaints about "Mission: Accomplished" and "you're either with us or against us" aren't just complaining about mistaken policy, they're holding George Bush personally and directly responsible for Iran's actions. How many times have we heard the phrase "... but we supported Saddam during the 1980s, so...." used as a direct refutation for going to war in Iraq? The implication of that approach is not that we made a poor choice in the 1980s, but that we were responsible for the present situation in Iraq.

A statement that ironically cuts in two directions, and for two reasons. Still, I agree with your point in that post, though I still remain unconvinced that your "proofs" are actually proofs rather than just educated (and politically influenced) opinions (and important evidence). Though I think I understand better now why you're frustrated.

Time Magazine this week announced it's choice: Russian President Vladimir Putin. That article and the runners-up are listed on this page: http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/personoftheyear/0,28757,1690753,00.html If you were chosing, who would you pick?

They also had one bit in that story where they put uncontained food, like slices of cheese and fruit, into a soft-plastic lunch box, and the food picked up lead from transfer. I realize the food should normally be contained in plastic wrap (etc), but who hasn't seen kids eat food directly off tables, counter-tops, chairs, etc? I have some parent friends who let their children eat directly off tabletops in RESTAURANTS! Augh! (My wife barbs me sometimes with her "five-second rule", pretending to eat stuff that's fallen on the floor if it's picked up within five seconds. Anybody else heard that one before? Apparently it was something her grandmother used to say, and she actually meant it!) (And of course I say that, and then watch, those kids will have super-efficient immune systems and end up being the sole survivors of the superbug that's about to wipe out the rest of us!)