Capt.Slog

The FACT (from many studies quoted by Marg) that torture is ineffective and has a tendency to produce "bad intel" is irrelevant to you, then? You DO realize that the techniques we use in SERE training were designed to get FALSE confessions (propaganda) from our people during the cold war, right?

So why post in it, then?

Which US police force waterboards its suspects, and slams them into walls? When a Chicago cop (illegally) tortured his supects, he managed to obtain a whole lot of false confessions that in some cases led to innocent people being sentenced to death.

I'm pretty sure you just made that up. There are 218 million adults in the U.S. How does a 1 to one million sampling ratio imply any sort of statistical significance, when it comes to the opinions of a large population? Mabe you should do some reading on the statistics of sampling before making such a claim.

And what if, as seems highly likely given the abundance of evidence, you and rushmc are way wrong?

Well, I think Christians should be allowed to marry, so I guess I'm not a bigot.

And fewer options than the "super rich", who appear to be paying at a lower rate. According to the article" "In 2006, the most recent year for which information is available, the average tax rate for the working rich was 22.8% - that is, after all was said and done, they ended up paying 22.8% of their adjusted gross income in income tax. The floor for being in the top 1% was an income of $388,806. That same year the average tax rate paid by the super-rich - the 400 filers with the highest incomes - was only 17.2%."

Just this week Capital One sent my wife a new card under the pretext of a security breach having compromised her previous one (which had not expired). She was instructed to cut up the old card and immediately start using the new one. Buried in the fine print it turned out that the new card had a $39 annual fee whereas the old card was free. Good job she always reads fine print.

If your religion's primary symbol is a man being tortured to death, what else would you expect? I expect there's a correlation with IQ too.

Explain why it's bad advice. As many as one in five passengers develops a cold within a week of flying because of bacteria and viruses in the recycled air of the cabin. But catching a cold may be the least of a traveller's worries. Other airborne infections which can be transmitted between passengers include tuberculosis, influenza (flu), measles, mumps and chicken pox. Recycled Air. The air is recycled on aircraft and usually consists of 50% fresh and 50% stale air. Boeing Flight Manual. Lufthansa have a mixture of 60% fresh air and 40% recycled whereas other airlines like B.A. have 50-50 or 60-40 of recycled air. Bacteria and viruses that cause illnesses like colds flu and pneumonia become airborne when passengers talk cough or sneeze. A cough produces 100,000 particles that can be dispersed over 20 rows in the cabin. This was shown in a study by Boeing and Pall Cabin Filters Brochure 1999. Transmission of Disease in flight. Influenza epidemics follow major air routes. The Centres for Disease Control, Atlanta, Georgia has proved that tuberculosis can be transmitted to passengers through the air conditioning. Kenyon T.A. et al (1996). Transmission of multi-drug resistant mycobacterium during a long aeroplane flight. New England Journal of Medicine 4,334. Testimony before subcommittee on Aviation U.S. Senate 1989 Robertson G. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.(SARS) As with all infectious diseases,prevention can be controlled by frequent washing of hands. Be alert to symptoms of fever,dry cough,shortness of breath,headache and muscular stiffness.If a respiratory mask is worn the risk of infection can be reduced. Gastro-enteritis. Two incidents of gastro-enteritis occurred on a Britannia Flight that affected 46% and 38% of passengers on short flights from U.K. to Europe. The virus was spread directly from person to person and through air conditioning. Public Health Laboratory Services (1997) Donnely m. et al. An investigation of gastrointestinal illness among airline passengers. Insecticides (Permethrin). All visitors to Australia are sprayed with pesticides that can cause health problems for passengers with allergies, chemical sensitivities, asthma and other respiratory problems. The pesticide is sprayed either directly into a cabin with passengers onboard or unoccupied cabins are treated with long-lasting residual chemicals. U.S. Consumer Report. Jan 1999. Travel letters

"The fact is, an investigation into a particular physical, chemical, or biological process might not pay off for a year, or a decade, or at all. And when it does, the rewards are often broadly shared, enjoyed by those who bore its costs but also by those who did not. "That's why the private sector under-invests in basic science - and why the public sector must invest in this kind of research."

Not all defaulters were scumbags. Many, I'd suggest most, were caught by circumstances beyond their control. And even then, $400k is peanuts compared with the thievery of people like Madoff, Lay, Skilling, Swartz, Kozlowski, etc. The circumstances may have been beyond their control, but better planning....even barely-reasonable planning....would've prevented them from being "caught." A lot of people want some standard of living that they can't afford, so they see what they want to see. Instead of looking at their own situations realistically, they sugar-coat it for themselves. Well, they screwed up. Can't blame anybody but themselves. Those who gave the loans were greedy. I think these folks could easily foresee what was likely to happen, but they, too, put blinders on and believed the lies they told themselves. They deserve what befell them. Unfortunately when those folks got what was theirs, the rest of us got it too. There's gotta be a lesson in there...somewhere. ~linz I suspect you differentiate between a first time homebuyer unable to comprehend the terms of a mortgage, and a mortgage broker making millions by knowingly selling NINJA mortgages to the unwary, knowing full well that some investor down the line would end up holding the bad loan. I suspect you also differentiate between a first time homebuyer unable to comprehend the terms of a mortgage, and a wall street banker hoping to making a fortune off of derivative trades. I suspect you also differentiate between a first time homebuyer unable to comprehend the terms of a mortgage, and a scam-artist likee Bernie Madoff or Ken Lay.

Since SERE training has been mentioned by a number of the torture apologists here, it should be remembered that SERE traing was designed to help US personnel resist methods the USSR, Chinese etc had developed to produce propaganda from false confessions. These torture techniques were not designed to produce the truth.

and that is a problem. the thing is, those are in a different league than silly shit like stress positions. Is waterboarding "silly shit"? We imprisoned Japanese soldiers after WWII who did it to US prisoners. You wouldn't be advocating a double standard here, would you?

Ya this part And this part Besides which, they are clearly illegal under our treaty obligations (and hence under the US Constitution). You DO believe in the US Constitution, don't you?

And it just lost most of that this morning (see attached). Don't declare victory yet. Right now , Dow is down 3.12% Since when is 3.12% "most of" 22.7%? 3% of the total, is not the same as losing 230 points out of the gain of the last few weeks. The gain is but a subset of the total. College professors realize such things. If it bothers you that much, substitute the words "a lot" if you wish. On March 2, 2009 the Dow was 6763.29 Right now (2:39ET) it's 7859.65 So it's still UP over 1050 points (16.2%) since March 2. We know you want the economy to fail under Obama - all DZ.COMmers realize this. Don't declare defeat yet.

Sure! www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0724-09.htm

And it just lost most of that this morning (see attached). Don't declare victory yet. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Wall-Street-slides-as-apf-14973082.html Right now , Dow is down 3.12% Since when is 3.12% "most of" 22.7%?

www.gallup.com/poll/113980/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Job-Approval.aspx 62% approval rating is polarizing?

Probably at work... And now they're unemployed?

Also in 1947, the United States prosecuted a Japanese military officer, Yukio Asano, for carrying out various acts of torture including waterboarding. Asano was sentenced to 15 year hard labor.

It's my understanding that they all had to be subjected to the techniques they used as part of their training. Same idea as making police get sprayed in the face with pepper spray before they start carrying it. So Bush, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, et al, got waterboarded? I kinda doubt it. No. I meant the guys who actually performed the interrogations---the ones who people are discussing prosecuting or not. There is a big difference. First, the trainees are doing it voluntarily, second, they know it has limits and is going to stop before very long.

That brings up one of my pet peeves.... business expenses... its AMAZING what corporations can write off that would be considered to be MASSIVE LUXURIES in any normal persons mind. I think those kinds of loopholes need to be shut off.. once and for all....sorry but if you want a fancy office.. or a mega structure to shout how successfull you are or your business is... PAY for it out of your own gawd dayum pocket.. not charge it off to the rest of the american taxpayers. The IRS estimates that honest taxpayers have to pony up an additional $2,200 per return to pay for the under-reporters and over-deducters.

I've never been to Saudi Arabia. I have been to several other predominantly muslim and/or arab countries. I'll stand by my statement. You should go.... be sure to take your wife with you and see how she feels about them just a few minutes after exitiing their airspace. I took my wife to an arab country (Tunisia) and they treated both of us very well. You generalized far too much on this subject.

The IRS estimates that self employed Americans and small business owners underpay their taxes by roughly $150 BILLION/year by underreporting income and overstating expenses. In addition, the IRS estimates that another $150 BILLION goes unpaid on account of corporations and wealthy Americans sheltering their money in offshore tax havens. And your tax dollars have to make up the shortfall.