Chilly

Yeah, I did, and I've been a subscriber to the Times for a few years now. My point is that the NY Times was a large instrument in setting the country up for war. This is what I mean by "supported". Not necessarily the individual news editors or writing staff. Many people pointed to the Times articles and said "see, this is why we need to go to war in Iraq", thus my argument that the Times supported the war effort and the war. Most of the country saw these stories coming out in the NY Times (and the other major agenda setter in the US - the Wash. Post, LA Times, and WSJ), or another news agency copying them (network news, for instance), and decided to go to war. The Times, whether it was inadvertent or not, and regardless of the feelings of the staff members, proved to be a big vehicle for the support of the war effort. Perhaps "supported" isn't the best word, because it can be taken to mean the individuals that work for the newspaper rather then the newspaper itself, but I'm hard pressed to come up with a better one. It was such a cornerstone at the time of popular opinion in the United States that "promoted" or "progressed" aren't strong enough words. From the article: That says a lot. The Bush public case for War in Iraq was reinforced by the same information that duped the NY Times. Neither the government nor The Times most likely did the investigating that they should have. If the Bush administration had this information, which was going to strongly boost support for their foreign policy goals, why the heck would they try to prove it false? Ignorance is bliss, so they say. On the other hand, The Times had a business decision at hand: Do you rely on the President's information and the people that talked to him, or do you log hundreds of man hours and expensive investigative reporting costs to corroborate the story? What "we" (being the public in this case) knew about WMDs in Iraq was the same thing that the White House was pushing, and based off of the same intelligence. If by "we" you mean the governments decision to go to war in Iraq, then to be honest I doubt that WMDs had much to do with it, and this discussion is a moot point. The reason why I discuss Wilsonian foreign policy is because Bush is the first President to seemingly share his view on foreign policy and the world. A lot of why Bush does the things he does can be explained by looking at Wilson. Wilson was an idealist who believed that the spread of Democracy could cure most of the ails in the world. He believed that America's foreign policy shouldn't just be for America, but for humanity as a whole. As the leading Democratic country, it is our duty to spread democracy through the world. He also believed that free markets and trade were the keys to economic success. As we were liberators, we would help build up a Democracy, and then the people and governments of the foreign countries, who were formerly oppressed, would be friendly to us. Wilson ran into issues though building stable countries after the invasions. He was criticized for pulling out too soon (lol), and never really made the foreign policy work. Since the Cold War era, we've gone back to Wilsonian politics. The first Bush, and Clinton also, both somewhat subscribed to Wilsonian foreign policy, and W is the biggest subscriber of everyone. We're seeing the same effects too - issues building up countries after we went to war with them. This is why I keep harping on Woodrow Wilson in relation to our current foreign policy. There's evidence that it would work too - Democratic countries generally don't attack each other, people generally have a higher standard of living, etc., if only we could figure out how to stabilize countries after we've converted them. Wilson couldn't do it, and neither could our current or last two Presidents (if Clinton even bothered, lawl). And what did Harry Truman's personal struggles tell us about the Presidency too? They're ordinary human beings, and they have the same struggles that other humans do too. And until I find out otherwise, I'll think of Bush in the same way and give him the benefit of the doubt, much like I would someone else in this situation. O'Reilly is an idiot, so I'm not even going to touch that one, lol. People deal with different things in different ways, if Bush feels that the best way for him to try to not personalize Iraqi deaths is through humor, then that might just be what is happening. The media gives us a state of "false intimacy" when our elected officials which makes us think that we know them. As its been proven time and time again (most recent, Foley anyone?), we really don't have a clue what these people are like as human beings, only as politicians. Therefore, I default back to my idea that a large majority of human beings would not enjoy sending people off to war and hearing about their deaths, and theres no way we'll know for sure until after his Presidency has ended and some of his more personal struggles are revealed.

Definitely good for poker that they get another network show. I also think that with the popularity of DVRs, we might see more TV shows like this that will attract people to watch it, not cost too much to produce, and air at late hours. Especially if the attempt to ban skipping commercials is ultimately successful.

Exactly (Although I wouldn't call him the "real deal" at all yet)

I'd go with one of the best fantasy QBs this year, Carr, coming off his bye week.

I agree with all the others, Bush and Rivers.

They hid the "news" that Tolken had an unfinished last book? In order ot push an agenda? What, exactly, was this agenda that they are pushing and why would "hiding news" of Tolken's unfinished book help this?

This is the website that they are referencing. They're actually in second place, and are giving a good sum of money to a politician who is going to be in the senate from the very state that they are based out of. The site also says: If we do a little bit of digging, we find out that individuals that claim Goldman Sachs as an employer's donations to all political candidates from New York is overwhelming. From their profile of Goldman Sachs, $2,229,733 this year is from individuals who claimed Goldman Sachs as their employer, and $362,500 that actually came from the company's PAC. Now, lets look at previous donations from Goldman Sachs & Co: - Between 93-99, they were the 3rd biggest contributor to Republican D'Amato's campaign. - Also between 93-99, they were the 3rd largest contributor to Democrat Moynihan's campaign. - Between 97-02, they were the 3rd largest contributor to Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign - Between 97-02, they were Schumer's largest contributor. Wait, so you mean that mostly individuals for this company are donating money to candidates in the state that the company is based out of, and the company is trying to gain influence with politicians from their home state? Oh, my! It's quite the corruption! Call the NY Times! Wait a second...

lawl @ that website which published the Democrats side of things and cut out completely the Republican offenses of the Washington Post article they cited.

Flying instructors in this sort of situation do have at least partial control of the plane, do they not?

Lou just had to work in immigration, lol.

I'm surprised the Dems haven't made this an issue. "They're weak on homeland security - someone could fly a crop duster with anthrax over Neuva York and kill us all!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jibQuPXaG1s rofl

I think no matter what, we'd both just keep pulling out more stats, rofl.

Not exactly. Because of the way injuries end seasons, you have to compare shorter periods of time then the end of a season to current rush defenses. For example, at this point, the Ravens had given up 74.25 yards/game rushing, significantly less then their final average of 99.4 yards/game (and good enough for first place). This is, of course, something we could go back and forth on, so I think we might just have to agree to disagree lol.

He's selling Rothelisberger low, and you're selling Droughns low as well. Its a good trade for you though just because you are gettting a player at a need position and getting rid of a player you have depth at. Foster > Droughs anyday. Do it.

I would like to offer you some advice... LOSE THIS WEEK! I'm playing you damnit.

Giddy in what sense? That it helps him politically? I could see that he's happy to have a war because of the boosts he gets, but the way it was being implied is that he personally enjoys sending people to war. Do you really think that The Prez is *so* out of touch with humanity that he looks at everything politically and doesn't have any personal struggles of his own? The memoirs of previous Presidents show that this is very rarely, if ever, the case in the US. I'd argue that it isn't the Iraqis' decision. It wasn't their decision whether we invaded Iraq, and it hasn't been their decision (up to this point) that we are staying there. If we just say "Okay, we'll leave if thats what you want" and suddenly listen to what they are saying it will be nothing more then an excuse to pull out. Our concerns in this war have little to do with the Iraqi people and a lot more to do with our own interests. Which is why coming up with a solution at this point is the best thing to do. Its not at the point yet where we've tried multiple strategies and have no way of winning it.

I didn't get that notion from this at all. Actually, most people on this board think that the American people are stupid 24/7. If they did go to war because of a supposed link between AQ and Iraq, they'd be stupid as well. The honest positive reasons to go to war have been overshadowed by the incorrect reasons to go to war. (Of course, the decent arguments against war have been overshadowed by "OMG THERE WERE NO WMDS" crap that has become partisan politics of this war). You're right, the NY Times editorial page came out against going to war back in 2001, saying that there were no good short-term options to remove Heussein. However, the NY Times paper as a whole actually supported the Presidents decision, whether on purpose or inadvertantly, during the leadup to war with its coverage of news. This was discussed by the editors here. I'm not trying to sound pedantic. If you claim that we want to Iraq because they had WMDs, and that the war is a mistake, then you need to explain how that decision was a mistake given what we knew at the time, otherwise its a moot point. Now, if you want to say that the intelligence community made a mistake in its pre-Iraq operations, then thats a different story. So a country music song = what the President is feeling? Well, then since the President had Alan Jackson on his iPod, I guess that mean's he is also wasting away again in margaritaville, and he went to Iraq to search for his lost shaker of salt, as Alan Jackson did the song in a 1999 album with Jimmy Buffett. There are plenty of reasons why he'd like to be a wartime President, and why a war helps him as The Prez, I'm not denying that, but to just flat out say he enjoys war is labeling him with emotions that we have no idea if he's truly like or not. Just because the media gives the appearence of getting intimate with the President doesn't mean that they do, and just because you saw him smiling for a camera or making a joke (that for all we know might have been totally taken out of context) doesn't mean he actually likes it, lol. Not necessarily. People could just flat out not understand a lot fo the reasons why we are doing this behind the PR campaign, and that would make them stupid as well. That is, though, predicated on what we do with Iraq I'd argue. If we stay, and don't change any of the methods that we are currently using to deal with Iraq, then yeah it would be insane to pour more resources into it. The military is actually doing a pretty good job of changing how they are approaching ground operations in post-war Iraq. This is the article and its a definite good move in the strategy part. The post-war construction effort in Iraq hasn't gone great, partly because its not a typical military operation and its been run that way. Other military buffs on this board that know more then me feel free to correct me, but I don't believe that the military is setup to deal effectively with these types of Democracy-building issues that they've encountered. Quite frankly the Democratic plan of cutting our losses is quite underwhelming. At the very least, the US needs to give the appearance of securing Iraq's government for political reasons. I'd cautiously disagree here. Breaking up Iraq into three different regions, while keeping family in the same place, causes some big issues. - It encourages ethnic cleansing in these areas caused by the distinct countries. - Wealth is unevenly distributed in Iraq, and breaking up Iraq will ultimately lead to wars over natural resources. - What do you do with Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, Kirkuk? That immediately triggers a war for control over those cities. I said "cautiously disagree" because I think it could work.... with a strong police force and better democratic institutions in Iraq, things that thus far we haven't been able to build. Hell no. There's no way they want to be out of power just to make something go away, especially if the Democrats so find a miracle solution. That would cost them years. The last thing that they want is Democrats appearing stronger then they are on one of the most important issues in American politics today, and for the foreseeable future. Also, the incumbency advatage of controlling resources and the media is so freakin huge that it would be stupid for them to purposefully lose an election.

I'd have to go Denver, Philly, San Diego, Indy (just because they are undefeated) to round out my top 5.

You should look at all the facts too - they've played some of the weakest run defenses in the NFL.

This is going to be fun. Yeah, he just magically stirred up the support by appealing to stupid, American Idol people? I guess that would explain why the NY Times, Tom Friedman, and others in the "American Idol" crowd supported it, to name a few common agenda-setters in the media. So if you want to debate the President on whether it was a necessary war or not, how about not focusing on WMDs? While the whole WMD thing might HAVE been a non-issue to go to war, that doesn't automatically discredit the war effort. If you want to debate whether or not this war is necessary you have to look at the other effects/consequences of what fighting this war meant. lol, they wanted a war because it made them feel good? Yeah, I'm sure the Prez feels happy every time someone dies in Iraq. I don't like the guy and I think he's a phony on a lot of his compassionate conservativeism junk, but jesus man, do you really think that war makes him feel good? If you want to debate whether this war was a mistake or not, it might be helpful to take a look at the Wilsonian era of foreign policy, what we knew of Iraqi civilization and its effects on nation building would be, and other such topics, like the effect of democratization on Middle Eastern and other countries in the world. Oh yeah, and you might also want to look at it from the intelligence we had at the time, since hindsight is 20/20. Now you want us to just leave Iraq? What purpose does that serve, really? At this point whats really necessary is a revamp of our attempt to build democracy in Iraq and strengthen the government there. Just up and leaving is going to do *nothing* for us in the future. The military has done a good job recently of making headway in this issue. I had been critical of them in the past, but I read a great story in the NY Times that provided plenty of encouragement. They are completely reworking their strategy on the ground in post-war Iraq, and it had many, many positives.

I still will not admit to sleeping with her. I don't care how many times you post this!

Hell, a lot of that is because many people are incapable of putting more thought into foreign policy, whereas they can relate to American Idol. I'd argue that most people don't understand even an iota of what the democratization process accomplishes when its successful, and aren't capable of looking outside of the normal sources to investigate it. "I'd like to find out more about this whole democracy in the middle east thingamagiggy, I think I'll turn to the always-reliable sources at Fox News to understand it." Most people would walk into a bookstore and have a hard time discerning between different authors and books to the point of being able to find one where someone actually knows what they're talking about. Go, go PR teams!

Hahahah. Fine, I'll block you then! Wait, most of the time its me asking you stuff... hrm..... that won't work.

Yeah, I figured that I had filled it up with the last message I sent, but had no way of telling you.