The Conservative hatred of McCain is weirdly self-absorbed. The last 7 years have shown us that we don't just elect a President, but we elect someone who puts his people in the Judiciary. For all the talk of being a "maverick", McCain swallowed the kool-aid and voted the GOP line way more often than not. I can't take Coulter or anyone seriously who is actually willing to forego the opportunity to completely change the Supreme Court and cement the conservative hold on the judiciary because he uses bad words and they don't like his "temperment". If they are going to decide questions of this kind of importance based on crapola like that, obviously they shouldn't ever be taken seriously. Is it really worth it to them to have the Democrats possibly snatch the Supreme Court and judiciary away from them?
So with all the anti- mcliar flying- romney bails! Now the storm troopers awaken. Mcliar can stay above the fray while his evil brownshirts attack! This country is about to experience something that they have never seen in its 200+ years! Maybe you can post some Orgs that are involved in assisting newly expatriated US folks claiming sanctuary!
They torture, not because they believe it's legal but because they know it is illegal. They want us to know they can do this without restraint, repeatedly. This isn't about law or justice or politics, it is naked power; the assertion of it and the flaunting of it. The demonstration, each and every day, that they operate absolutely beyond and above the law and there is not a damn thing we can do about it, now or ever.
Impeach ? Don't make me laugh
Afraid Helen is pro'ly right, especially as any honest evaluation of torture has concluded it is counterproductive. The occupied WH is interested in producing more terrorists to keep their endless war going.
I think the link you meant for Arthur is going to Duncan.
Arthur is here:
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/
The article you link to re the comms cable failures (and many of the comments) is full of technically naive gibberish. Take with a large pinch of salt...
and Dominic,
There were a total of five cables (cut/disrupted) completely isolating Iran. Timing was just as the Indian telephone banks were closing down for minimal disruption.
how many indies were blocked from voting in california?
For less hysterical and more technically informed information on the cable "cuts", Ars.Technica has posted a useful article:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/...e-
failures.html
@IntelVet - Comments to the thread at moonofalabama.org included "proof" that all of Iran was offline because one particular router was not pingable. My question is; was that router pingable the day before? My guess is that it wasn't - I certainly don't let complete strangers ping my company's infrastructure routers - they're configured not to respond /at all/ to anyone except my network team and our service providers, and this is fairly standard behaviour. In fact, the more informed reports state that although Iran certainly experienced disruption to their internet connectivity, the country was by no means "cut off" at any stage during the recent problems.
This year is likely to be a year of decision for many daily newspapers. One of the first to take a leap into the unknown is in Madison, WI. The environment's gain is a newspaper lover's loss: No more dead tree daily for The Capital Times. The liberal afternoon daily will try to reinvent itself as an internet paper in April.
Indeed, Dominic.
But, the other "company" routers were, indeed, pingable. Does IT in Iran have a better "security" handle on things than other regions? Maybe, maybe not. I know, none of my routers are pingable, but then, I enforce that globally.
No hysteria, I would appreciate just the facts, for once sir. While no one (except the moron in the WH) has the whole picture, five cables were rendered unable to do business as usual,for various reasons, all within a few days.
Coincidence? Maybe.
It's b/c I'm so familiar with the work of Gorenfeld that I get annoyed by the attention paid to Tom Cruise and Scientology in general. There's a cult with undue influence in the halls of power running around but it ain't Scientology.
Reading the comments of the Ars Technica article is actually far more interesting than the article itself (which really doesn't say much of use other than 'Conspiracy? What conspiracy?')
For example, the point is made that, if one wanted to place taps on underwater optical cables, one way to do it would be to cut them and then place the taps elsewhere on the lines while the cuts were being repaired, so that the operation could not be detected.
The (well-known-or-should-be) point is also made that the US has equipment specifically designed to do precisely this.
@ Intelvet - actually, only three cables, not five, in only two seperate incidents:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/200...k_fix_forecast/
It's instructive to note that on the whole the only people who have donned their tinfoil hats to scream about conspiracies seem a) badly informed about the exact nature and number of the breaks and b) badly informed about the technical aspects of comms systems in general.
@ Mike - interesting idea, yes - but one wonders if it wouldn't be about a thousand times easier to insert the taps into NOCs on land, where a switch port in promiscuous mode will do most of the hard work for you?
Dominic,
three cables cut, two others otherwise rendered the same as "cut".
I categorize those hiding heads in sand in the same place as those running around with tin-foil hats. Coincidence happens, occasionally. At least, admit coincidence with pretty high odds against.
and, inserting taps on land may be politically impossible.
Also, unless Fio (when I was in), one does not have to break a cable to tap info. The US did "inductive taps" toward the end of the cold war.
> inductive taps
Not on fibreoptic cable...
Oh. Right. Coincidence that packets in and out of Iran are at zero, and have been for a week. Really anyone could believe it's an accident, right?
@Scorpio and IntelVet - Where are you people getting this mis-information? Iran has NOT been cut off from the net for a week, and there were NOT five cable failures. We have hard information on three failures only, plus another one that happened two weeks ago and has been incorrectly lumped together with the current problems, and a completely unrelated POWER OUTAGE that caused further difficulties.
I mean, the IRANIANS don't seem to think that they've been cut off, and one has to assume that they are the experts in this matter?
http://www.renesys.com/blog/
2008...isconne_1.shtml
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6...ut-the-
cab.html
Sheesh! Less tinfoil headgear, please, people! The US government is doing enough bad things already for us to be worrying about without making up a few more!
Dominic,
1. I said "unless Fio", meaning, unless fiber optic, about inductive taps.
2. Your link (server: renesys) pretty well describes what happened. Apparently one router became unpingable (perhaps because it was under "attack" from everyone trying to verify whether Iran was up or not 
.
The same article does mention that Iran seems to have lost 20% (a significant amount in any event) but in this case did not even make the top 10 countries with losses.
Bruce Scheier provides a picture of the prime suspect at http://www.schneier.com/blog/
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