Pangloss

Thanks to Phi for All for making the effort to clean this up and get it back online, and also thanks to the members who requested it. What I mostly thought was interesting about this thread was just that it was so unique. I don't think any of us had even HEARD of this particular conspiracy theory before. It's a great example of backwards logic, yes, but it's also just a darned unusual conspiracy theory. I thought it was worth keeping for that reason alone. I guess this makes Chuck happy because he's "reached people" with his theory. But I'm okay with that. Full exposure for the win.

Let's watch the rhetoric.

I'm somewhat at a loss at the moment as to why processor speed hasn't started ramping up again. I'm not sure if it's a matter of the industry's shift in focus to multi-core architectures, or if it's due to the approaching limitations of transistor gate size. IBM produced a gate a couple years back that was only four atoms across, but IIRC it produced a lot of errors due to quantum effects. What I don't know is how close processors are getting to that size. I know they're still substantially larger than that, but I don't know how much larger. (How big is 45nm in terms of "# of atoms across the gate"? I've no idea.) The "buzz" over the last couple of years has been that once Core 2 Duo was out that Intel would have more or less resolved its current architecture limitations and would be able to start ramping up processor speeds again. But so far that hasn't really happened. Instead they seem to be focusing on increasing L1 cache size (up to 12mb) and front-side bus speed (1333mhz!). Intel's current roadmap calls for Nahalem (45nm) architecture in 2008 and Westmere (32nm) architecture in 2009. The number of transistors could approach 1 billion in these series and they'll all be 4- or 8-core processors. But narry a word about clock speed is even being discussed. I don't get it, but that's what's happening. Frankly I think the multi-core thing is getting out of hand. It's hard to imagine that an 8-core processor is really going to be all that much more better for me while sitting here typing a message in a window in Internet Explorer, for example. Yeah it might render Shrek 8 in 20 seconds, but will that really help the average computer user? But the way things are going we may see 16- or 32-core processors before some common sense returns to the industry.

You're probably right. I know Amazon.com knows FAR more about me than I'd care for any government to! A reasonable and compelling argument, IMO. I don't know much about it, and of course this is only the Wikipedia, so it my be completely wrong, but this article would seem to suggest otherwise: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teudat_Zehut

I agree that Iraq was not connected to 9/11. But Iraq was harboring terrorists, such as the Achille Lauro mastermind. Harboring terrorists wasn't our stated reason for invading Iraq. That was WMDs, remember? Are there any examples of cases where we accused a country of connections to terrorism and there weren't any? I'm not saying you're wrong, by the way, I'm just asking the question. I don't know of any, but that doesn't mean none exist. I didn't say that it was successful, in fact I haven't commented on that at all. But since you bring it up, it's necessary to point out that attacks in Basra are down because attacks all over the country are down. Whether that is due to "the surge" or because, as I suspect, the terrorists (both Shiite and Sunni) are basically doing a cease fire because when we leave they'll be able to blow each other up with impunity is another question. But as Sisyphus pointed out, not at the government level. I agree with him that this is an important distinction, for the following reason: We should be supporting governments that don't wish to attack us, and opposing governments who do wish to attack us. That shouldn't be our ONLY reason for supporting foreign governments, but it absolutely should be one of them.

I'm not sure what you mean by "poor judgement". Do you mean that we misidentified them as terrorist nations? What nations have we identified as terrorists threats who later turned out not to be?

I share the concern, but don't you think that at least part of the reason there hasn't been an attack on US soil since 9/11 is because of increased security? I don't think most of the larger, more intrusive measures have had much impact, but I think the increased awareness alone has had an obvious impact. Richard Reid was captured by passengers after getting through screening for example -- a great example of increased awareness leading to a victory over terrorism. Too bad it was the passengers and not actual security practices! But in fairness there have also been numerous incidents of early foilings and exposures and actual captures, and it's pretty hard to say there's been NO impact from increased security measures. I think people need to pay more attention to what's happening in this area, but if we're going to have IDs anyway (e.g. driver's licenses) then the information ought to be available nationally under certain circumstances. As to whether we should brandish an ID before entering a national park, I'm not so keen on that.

Your "important distinction" between Wahabbis and Sunnis is irrelevent to the issue of who is supporting Sunni insurgents because we already agree that "Wahabbi" Sunnis are doing so. We also know that Iran is supporting the Shiite insurgents. So your "news" is actually spin -- the spin that Iran's support for terrorism somehow doesn't matter (and we should stop paying attention to it) because Saudi Arabia is doing the same. You seem to be saying that two wrongs make a right, so leave Iran alone: Sorry, not buying it. ------- BTW, to iNow, 60 Minutes showed direct Iranian personnel involvement in Iraq two weeks ago, interviewing a high level Iranian official who *stipulated* his presence in Iran at an insurgents location just before a US Army raid. They're not admitting to weapons, though, and I thought your point about the "drug dealer" was a good one (and thought provoking).

Cool. Was it a secret Marine disinformation squad, or an unusually successful dropped-leaflets campaign?

Interesting, Sisyphus, thanks for passing that along.

Why would the government (or Tibbets) want to cover up a single firebombing? There were many firebombings that took place, they're well-documented, and many of them were FAR worse than what happened to Hiroshima. What is the motivation for this alleged cover-up? We also have eyewitnesses from Hiroshima who say it was one airplane and one bomb. (Unless, of course, Tibbets got to them somehow as well. Perhaps he parachuted in after the bombing and spent several days walking around (an American in khakis covered in US insignia in the middle of the Japanese homeland) convincing the radiation-poisoned locals that they were actually firebombed.)

I pretty much skimmed this thread, so please correct me if I just missed it, but what does any of this have to do with whether Paul Tibbets lied about something (or not)? I feel kinda mislead by this thread, and I'm going to rename it to something more appropriate to the subject actually being discussed here. Paul Tibbets felt compelled to ask for an unmarked grave because of all the anger and resentment generated again him and his family by Hiroshima. That is no way for a "greatest generation" serviceman to be remembered. You want to hold his bosses responsible, fine, but leave the late Colonel and his family alone. They've suffered enough.

Not only do you know better than that, you're the one who actually STARTED the discussion on this web site about differences between Sunnis and Shiites and how Americans don't recognize the difference.

Right. Which is the Sunni side.

I didn't include a question along those lines (which were focused on the child brainwashing issue). You may have misunderstood one of the ones I did include. For example, I'm looking for whether the number of "jesus camps" is increasing, but not because I'm wondering if the number of evangelicals is increasing, but rather because I want to better understand their influence and popularity within the evangelical community. How common is it for evangelicals to think "those guys are a bunch of loons and I would never do something like that to my kids", for example. Is the trend going one way or another? That sort of thing.

This information is not news. Iran supports the shiite side of the conflict. These other countries support the sunni side of the conflict. Why is any of this considered a surprise? Haven't we known all along that the Saudis and their money and madrassas were supporting the Sunni insurgents? How does this let Iran off the hook, exactly? Sounds like we're being fed a "leave Iran alone" agenda here, perhaps in response to the "do something about Iran now" agenda coming from the White House.

I agree. Here are some of the specific questions that would help convince me that religious zealotry is an actual, significant danger in this country: - Are "jesus camps" growing, in frequency and number? - What is the actual statistical percentage of stated evangelicals who send their children to "jesus camps"? Is that number growing or shrinking? - What kind of acceptance (mind share) do they actually enjoy (statistically speaking) amongst the mainstream majority of the evangelical community? (put another way, how do they "poll"?) - What happens to these children long-term? Do they find themselves unable to attend non-religious higher education schools, for example? Are they unable to succeed/excel in mathematics and science? One of the problems we find with the modern documentary feature is that they tend to follow one specific line of reasoning and approach. They're not trying to be objective and present all sides. That's a GOOD thing, because if they were then we would feel less impact and thus miss the important point that's being made. As you say, we need BOTH inputs. At the moment we can't seem to get those from the same sources, but that's okay -- doesn't mean we can't find out the answers.

I just knew there was a reason we invaded Venezuela. Thank goodness that awful Chavez came to power and gave us our pretext!

Right, and I think that's a "yes" to Severian's question above (Post#21). I think where I got confused is when you (agentchange) replied to iNow thinking that he was talking about the current situation. I think he (iNow) was talking about this new, proposed system, that Sisyphus brought up earlier in the thread. (Does that sound right to everyone?) (lol)

I apologize as well, to iNow, Mooey and YDOAPS, if I went too far with the last few posts. Looking back on it, regardless of what people actually said, it was kind of a dumb and fruitless place for me to go on an otherwise pleasant Thanksgiving day. Fair enough. I don't know that I would call them good resources but I DO consider them valid points of view (bearing in mind that I've not seen all three of them yet, only two of them, but I think I get the general idea). You and I agree that they express a valid concern AND it's a concern that people ought to hear. Believe me, I didn't think that for a moment. I agree with this general sentiment, but I think one of the reasons that, for example, I keep butting heads with some here is because of exact definitions -- we draw these lines in different places. I would include, for example, the typical episode of the Oprah Winfrey show in that definition. Conversely, some here at SFN feel that just going to church on Sunday and singing hymns falls into that category. Maybe we should have a conversation about defining gray areas like that. It seems to be at the heart of a lot of things. I greatly appreciate that qualification, both on the level of smoothing over this discussion, and on a personal level (having several close friends who are doing home schooling, one of whom is quite liberal!). With that qualification I agree with what you're saying 100%.

Nonsense, it's exactly what she said. If it isn't what she meant then I'm sure she'll be happy to clarify that when she posts again. What's the problem? I must confess I am completely at a loss why people keep posting things and then when the most obvious inferrence of what they said is pointed out to them, they back off saying "oh nonononono that isn't what I said at all!" (Though I'm not even slightly at a loss as to why you let them get away with it but pounce on me when I point these things out.) That is a broad characterization and implication of widespread abuse. That is a broad characterization and implication of widespread abuse. That is a logical fallacy supporting the above broad characterizations. I'm not misrepresenting anything, iNow. I understand where people are coming from with these opinions, but I'm raising a fair and well-reasoned objection. I'm sorry you have a problem with it, but that's my right and I intend to continue doing it.

Homeschooling equates to brainwashing? And I wouldn't have any doubt about that if I watched Jesus Camp, Hell House and God's Next army? And nobody else sees even a potential for a problem with that line of reasoning, eh?

Stop changing the subject. In the thread we are talking about evangelicals. But you responded to me personally, in this post right here, making a connection that I did not. Pangloss: yourdadonapogos: In response to that quote, that response is a judgement call, an opinion stating that you believe that evangelicals constitute screaming zealots. That is the opinion that you have stated. I don't know why you refuse to stand behind your own opinion, but I can't imagine what the problem is. Prejudice is a normal, human response, and everybody has them -- I certainly have my share. You even stand with the politically correct, accepted majority here at SFN, which clearly believes that religion is a bad influence on society, and that it must be attacked. What's the problem? Why not stand behind what you said and tell me where you're right and I'm wrong, instead of pretending you didn't say it?

You just did. Because I was talking about screaming zealots, not evangelicals. YOU made that connection, not me. Therefore you are replacing screaming zealots with evangelicals. And in the process answering your own question about why that constitutes prejudice.

Okay, I take that to mean that you withdraw your objection. Got it. Where's the straw man?