Berger
 

Did you realize that you were reading the Wall Street Journal's account of a conversation with Hillman? And Hillman said "the contents of all the five documents at issue exist." The word "contents" presumably refer to the marginalia and notes.

opportunity costs
 

Someone comparing the sort of things John Quiggan posts on the internet with your own efforts would have to laugh at this.

He's talking about invading another country, not starting a revolution.

That's in the Himalayas, not the Middle East. Pay attention.

Four+ years on the case, and you're just getting started. Fabulous. Maybe paying attention to the countries with actual WMD a little earlier would have been a better idea.

Berger
 

BTW, love the sig, Ty.

Replaced Texan
 

Dunno about registration. Hell, I'm not even registered. But the district went about 64% Bush, 55% DeLay in 2004. His district doesn't like him very much. Democrat can win if enough people are disgusted with DeLay. I can't imagine a credible R running against him.

I personally don't think that Morrison is that liberal, but he did get all sorts of endorsements from people like Howard Dean and the Daily Kos and places like that. The DCCC liked him a lot too.

What's good is that there is going to be a major split in the Texas Republican party next year. If Kay Bailey comes back (and it looks like she is more and more every day) to run against Perry in the primary, it's gonna be a bloodbath. With Carol Keaton McClellen Strayhorn Rylander (we call her Grandma) in the wings ready to pounce, lord knows what's going to happen. The good news for the Ds is that simply being a Republican isn't gonna be good enough. And if KBH wins the primary, DeLay will not ride her coattails, because they can't stand each other.

Plus, we have Kinky Freedman as an announced candidate, and Chris Bell's "exploration" has probably hit magma by now. Rumor is he hired Joe Trippi yesterday.

Ya'll should come down to Texas to watch next year. It's going to be damned entertaining.

opportunity costs
 

Idon't make an effort.


This was Cherokee nation, Cherokee tribe! we invaded.



But he's right- if we just quit spending on military all would be well! we'd stop death and disease! He is so very smart- it's the kind of thing he posts on the internet.



For sone of them we had to wait for them to fully develop the technology Clinton/Carter gave them. We'll sort it out. Go read some blogs and have a drink. the country is in good hands.

opportunity costs
 

And what exactly could a Democrat administration done differently about North Korea etc?

opportunity costs
 

Duh! it didn't object so it wasn't a problem. like Afghanistan wasn't a problem, or Al queda wasn't a problem.

Replaced Texan
 

The registration is the key. Here in California the districts are so Gerrymandered that they are either safe Republican seats or safe Democrat seats. The General election is always a joke. The only way to get rid of incumbants is with a primary. Congressman Doolittle, who I think is number five in the Republican leadership, has his district right near the Bay Area in Lake Tahoe. He is Delay's right hand man. He has also been implicated in the scandals. He is a strong social conservative who constantly questions the whole idea of a separation of church and state. We tried to take him out four years ago but the establishment really came down hard on us. Cheney, Delay, Hastert etc. all came out and had fundraisers for him. But we are going to try again considering all the scandal and I think we have a good shot at it. I have heard talk of Republicans planning on doing the same thing to Delay in Texas. I have already received second hand threats from Delay's people so I know they are nervous.

opportunity costs
 

That was my point, but thank you for reminding us.

Berger
 

Yes - ever heard of an earnings call. Those are scripted you know.

You think contents includes notes, huh? You may be right, but I think its cloudy and when coupled with the stress on "originals" makes me wonder.

opportunity costs
 

Ah, a song fondly loved in my youth. Thanks for the memory, Hank.


Now back to our regularly scheduled sniping and bile.

opportunity costs
 

Under Clinton, the strategy was to bribe the North Koreans to stop building the bomb, and to hope that the regime collapses in the interim. This worked, in that they shut down their weapons programs for years, but didn't work, in that they restarted the programs before the regime collapsed.

If you want to get the North Koreans to stop doing something, you need to either use positive or negative reinforcement. The Bush Administration rules the former out, on the grounds that it will reward bad behavior. And we haven't found any way to deter the North Koreans from continuing with both their uranium and plutonium programs -- if you don't understand the difference between the two, you probably don't understand how Bush has made things worse. Indeed, our use of force in Iraq has plausibly convinced Iran and North Korea that they need nuclear weapons as a deterrant.

This should suggest what one might try differently.

Replaced Texan
 

Believe me, after last session's redistricting, there's not a household in Texas that hasn't been thouroughly evaluated for signs of latent or patent republicanism. The thing is, everyone thought that Ft. Bend county would be the strong one for DeLay and the parts of Harris and Brazoria that he got in the redistricting would be a little tougher. They were from Nick Lamson's old district. But the interesting thing about Tom DeLay is that the longer that people know him, the worse they feel about him. Ft. Bend county voted only 52% for him, and that was before most of the recent stuff came out about him. Right now, his polling is god awful in his district. If there've been veiled threats in California, there've been outright assaults in Texas. He still controls all the GOP money in this state, and NO ONE is going to beat him in a primary, unless he's sitting in a jail cell.

opportunity costs
 

Running blogs is easier than running the leadership of the world. This should suggest what one might try differently (ie STFU)

opportunity costs
 

We all tried that earlier on the FB, and it didn't work. But why don't you show us again how it would go.

BTW, Bill Simmons reminds me:

• A quick recap of the 2003 Draft ...
  
  No. 1. – LeBron James
  No. 2. – Darko Milicic
  No. 3. – Carmelo Anthony
  No. 4. – Chris Bosh
  No. 5. – Dwyane Wade

Ouch. That's worse than our North Korea policy.

run rudolph run
 

Eric Rudolph has agreed to plead guilty to the 1996 bombing at the Atlanta Olympics and three other blasts, the Department of Justice confirmed to FOX News on Friday.

Huh?!? I thought that Jewell guy was the Olympick bomber. Looks like it might have been another masterpiece of law enforcement from the Reno and Freeh Department of Justice.

Clinton really came close to destroying this country.

Although, in fairness, I suppose anytime a Reno and Freeh action doesn't end up with a houseful of Christian children being incinerated or a small Cuban boy kidnapped and sacrificed on the altar of marxism we are ahead of the game.

opportunity costs
 

It was Dumars making a FU at the rest of the league- "No. 2 pick- guys most of you'd see as franchise players available everywhere? We'll the take the weird high school kid from slovania- we don't need fuckall. Sort of like when the guy picks Harrelson to be Wesley's partner in White men can't jump, but w/o the surprise result.

opportunity costs
 

Are you suggesting that we go back to bribing? Or in other words, proping up a dictator? Damned either way.

opportunity costs
 

Really - I thought we found out later that they had been continuing with the weapons program right through the Clinton Administratoin. That they never shut it down.

Replaced Texan
 

I can't believe the Democrats want to get rid of him. He is the best fundraising and base energizer they have now that Jesse Helms is gone. Wednesday, I am meeting with a group from Texas that is going to help us with Doolittle. I will find out Wednesday morning what, if anything, they plan on doing about Delay.

opportunity costs
 

The stick's not working, is it? You may have to give to get. I also accept a point Spanky made earlier, in a different context: It makes sense to engage with and co-opt regimes. He was talking about about right-wing dictators, but the point is the same.

There's an important difference between plutonium and enriched uranium that defenders of the administration like to ignore or blur. At any rate, there's a real question about whether North Korea cheated on its side of the bargain.

run rudolph run
 

Are you really trying to claim that the Davidian cult was Christian? Do you really think that this guy was a messenger from God? and where in the Bible does it say that a minister is suppossed to hit the sheets with every thirteen year old girl in the ministry? btw - how many wives do you have?

opportunity costs
 

If the regime has a good economic policy and is increasing the standard of living for their people. Then yes - co-opt. They are just sowing the seeds of their own destruction and will turn into a stable democracy. But a socialist regime like Myanmar, or a Kleptocracy, like Iraq under Hussein, should never be co-opted. North Korea happens to be both. We should do whatever it takes to undermine these regimes.

Last of the Mohicans
 

The other night I was watching the history channels series on the Conqueres of the New World. In the Hudson episode (conquering the north east) they interviewed a Native American who claimed to be a Mohican. Didn't James Fenimore Cooper kill the last Mohican? Daniel Day Lewis's friend? I am confused.

opportunity costs
 

Even if they have a bad economic policy, isn't engagement probably the better strategy? Look at Cuba. For all our efforts to isolate Castro, he's still. Maybe trade with Cuba over the years would have done more to bring him down.

Replaced Texan
 

I don't know a single Democrat that wants to keep him, in part because he's the money man for the GOP.

I doubt that anyone in Texas in the GOP will admit to wanting to do anything about DeLay.

opportunity costs
 

But even if true, the trade shouldn't be in missile guidance and nuclear tech- you know?

Replaced Texan
 

I would love, LOVE to hear what they have to say in response to Spanky's lectu . . . uh, question.

opportunity costs
 

I guess that depends on whether you insist that any old aluminum tube should be considered nuclear tech.

opportunity costs
 

Oh. Burn. The tubes were for making helium for observation balloons, right?

When your son tells you the Zig zag's you find in his Levi's pockets are to wrap up mints from the cafeteria, remember your trusting nature.

opportunity costs
 

I may be wrong, but I thought the virtually unanimous opinion of the technical experts was that they were only suited for conventional rockets. I think the exception was a guy they kept calling "Curveball", for some reason.

When you see your kid eating a brownie, do you sniff them to see if there's any funny ingredients?

opportunity costs
 

Are you kidding? Why sniff, when you can call the DA and tell them you have right in front of you a cut-and-dried possession case?

opportunity costs
 

Don't be such a moron. Have you been under a rock? Everyone now understands they were for conventional rockets.

• The Intelligence Community’s analysis of the high-strength aluminum tubes offers an illustration of these problems. Most agencies in the Intelligence Community assessed—incorrectly—that these were intended for use in a uranium enrichment program. The reasoning that supported this position was, first, that the tubes could be used in centrifuges and, second, that Iraq was good at hiding its nuclear program.
  
  By focusing on whether the tubes could be used for centrifuges, analysts effectively set aside evidence that the tubes were better suited for use in rockets, such as the fact that the tubes had precisely the same dimensions and were made of the same material as tubes used in the conventional rockets that Iraq had declared to international inspectors in 1996. And Iraq’s denial and deception capabilities allowed analysts to find support for their view even from information that seemed to contradict it. Thus, Iraqi claims that the tubes were for rockets were described as an Iraqi “cover story” designed to conceal the nuclear end-use for the tubes. In short, analysts erected a theory that almost could not be disproved—both confirming and contradictory facts were construed as support for the theory that the tubes were destined for use in centrifuges.

last week's WMD report, chapter 1, pages 49-50

opportunity costs
 

Depends- my kid has never been busted for possesion. For your hypo should I assume that, or should I assume a kid who has?

opportunity costs
 

Dick-head
The helium ballon reference was to the vans. And if you find out your son's ZZs are for wrapping candy- congrats- answer is you still have to call bullshit on him for having them.

"I think the establishment of a democracy in Iraq, and the break down of the other totalitarian regimes, and the creation of a becon of hope to combat the lure of jihad is good- but it doesn't justify what we went and did. After all, a crime happened here on 9/11 but the 18 guilty parties all paid with their lives."

opportunity costs
 

Assume the kid has. Are you sniffing their brownie?

opportunity costs
 

I agree with you that our Cuba policy has been stupid. We should not isolate them. If we had engaged them Castro would have been overthrown a long time ago. What I meant was that certain regimes we should not try and overthrow the regime. The authoritarian government that is pulling a country out of poverty should be left alone. But with a government that is diminishing the standard of living its people, should be undermined at every opportunity. And we should try and overthrow the regime. Uganda has an authoritarian regime right now, but they have a great economic policy (a rare thing in Africa) so they should be left alone. Zimbabwe has a kleptocracy that just stole an election. We should do everything in our power to undermine that regime.

Replaced Texan
 

Their response would be what they always say about me. That I am a heathen and a heretical RINO that is out to undermine family values. And of course completely ignore the point that they are the Democrat's best friends.

opportunity costs
 

I don't parent halfway- I'd eat one to find out.