Remember the Biolabs?
 

Who was it who said, "“Freedom’s untidy. Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. " ?

Personally, I blame Grover Cleveland. "Ma, Ma, where's my pa?" indeed.
 

Know any? Please send her contact info. Also, I need her to be 21-25, and Swedish. My current coach and I aren't getting along as well as we used to.

Remember the Biolabs?
 

No, our intelligence on them was correct -- there were serious doubts that they had anything to do with WMD. The Admin just chose to supress that intelligence in order to portray these, falsely and dishonestly, as conclusive evidence of WMD.



No. But generally I make sure to read the memo before starting any wars.

Now What
 

Two words: French engineering.

We are not scared by the country which gave us the Peugeot.

Les Fribbles
 

Plus, they call their nuclear program the "force de frappe" -- who's afraid of a milkshake?

Quote of the Day
 

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

John Stuart Mill
English economist & philosopher (1806 - 1873)

More Grist From the Mill
 

"He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that." (On Liberty, ch. 2.)

Remember the Biolabs?
 

"The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful is the cause of half their errors." (On Liberty, ch. 2.)

Quote of the Day
 

"It was an enormous mistake for us to try to occupy that country after June of 2003. We have to pull back, and we have to recognize it."

Newt Gingrich

This Mill Guy May Be on to Something . . .
 

"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."

-- Letter to MP Sir John Pakington (March, 1866)

This Mill Guy May Be on to Something . . .
 

I think my dad wrote a book about Mill.

This Mill Guy May Be on to Something . . .
 

I've written volumes about both you and Shape Shifter!

This Mill Guy May Be on to Something . . .
 

Slashfic doesn't count.

Quote of the Day
 

It is interesting that you would offer this today. Is this your response to seeing that Bush and Co. pushed the "Trailers of Mass Destruction" claim when the admin's intelligence demonstrated that this was anything but proof of WMD?

There are many things for which I am willing to go to war.* But bringing about the current situation in the Middle East is not one of them.

*I note that Mill uses the words "willing to fight." When did you enlist?

Phonetapping
 

I think all calls to Mexico should be tapped and traced so that we can root out illegal immigrants.

Thoughts?

Quote of the Day
 

I think Mill wrote those words as commentary to the American Civil War. Maybe Spanky is quoting Mill as his way of acknowledging Iraq's descent into civil war, and also perhaps to express his admiration for the Iraqis who believe enough in their cause to resist an occupying force.

Phonetapping
 

You mean the sweeps conducted after the next national set of protests won't do the trick?

Phonetapping
 

They use phone cards and dial from the houses that they clean - so it wouldn't really work.

Phonetapping
 

this is an excellent point.

"In San Mateo, Juan Alvarez exorted "Illegals have rights too!!!" Alvarez, who illegally entered the country with his wife 15 years ago, now has 4 children in public schools"

Why the hell aren't they beating down the door to Senor Alvarez's hacienda and locking him and his wife in irons?

Phonetapping
 

Which "Juan Alvarez"?

Phonetapping
 

http://phone.people.yahoo.com/py/psP...Address+Search

Phonetapping
 

You think you joke, but you don't. I handled a criminal case once where, after months of wiretaps, the FBI and DEA arrested our guy because there were 2 or 3 calls (out of about 15,000 recorded) to his home, and someone asked for "Juan". Which was his name, and also his son's name, and possibly the name of one or two other people....

Eventually we got the charges dismissed, but I suspect that waking up to an M-16 in your face and confronting a threat of 100 years in prison because the charge is being part of a massive drug conspiracy can ruin your week.

Phonetapping
 

<<Insert that doctored photo of the hairless cat with Elian here>>

Phonetapping
 

this is fun to read on a day when you charge Bush with creating a reason to start a war! I would rather be wrongly charged with drug trafficing. remind me of motive again? Cheney's oil money or revenge for Dad?

Phonetapping
 

if someone calls this guy AND he's a marine, I'll will shit my pants. that would be scary!

Quote of the Day
 

It was sent to me in an email so I threw it up. It had no relationship to what was being discussed at the time because I had no time to read the postings at that time.

I registered for the draft on my eighteenth birthday, and would have gone if called. Was recruited by the airforce and was all set to go (they wanted me because of my great eyesight - vision and distance that is) but when they discovered I was color blind, they didn't want me so bad anymore.

Border - what purpose does it serve?
 

When I was sixteen I was working in a Mexican restaurant as a busboy (you have to be eighteen to be a waiter). I was the only anglo busboy. One day these guys in suits showed up and all of a sudden, I was the only employee left in the restaurant.

I got promoted to waiter on the spot and the owner and his wife took over the kitchen. There were twenty tables, so needless to say it was a complete disaster.

In the sweep two older gentlemen who were my favorite waiters (because they tipped out well) got caught up in the net and sent home. In addition, all the busboys got nabbed (leaving me with a hell of a lot of work).

This experience really put the Feds low on my list, but then the owner told me - don't worry - they will be back in a week. Sure enough - one week later they were all back.

Ever since then I have wondered why we have a border.

Religion and Maps
 

I've always thought maps were cool, and have wondered on occasion about the distribution of religious adherents across America.

Via Andrew Sullivan, someone named Geitner Simmons has accumulated a whole bunch of maps showing the breakdown of affiliations, by county, based on 2000 Census data.

Ranging from overall religious adherents:

http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/pics/geo.../adherents.gif

To breakdowns of the most prevalent denominations in a given county:

http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/pics/geo...rch_bodies.gif

There are breakdowns of most of the major denominations, including Methodists:

http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/pics/geo.../methodist.gif

Mormons, with an unsurprising concentration:

http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/pics/geo...ion/mormon.gif

Jews, who seem to congregate in LA, NY, Seattle, South Florida, and various spa locations around the country. (Who knew?)

http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/pics/geo...ion/jewish.gif

The site has a breakdown and explanation of most other denominations. Check it out.

Gattigap

Phonetapping
 

Sure, why not? It never gets old.

http://www.lawtalkers.com/hairless.jpg

(Picture courtesy of Chinaski Productions)

Phonetapping
 

Funny, I didn't realize that I had to prove motive.

even the pro-war Economist calls Bush and Blair "Eager Deceivers" because they overstated the "evidence" of WMD, falsely portraying as conclusive that which their administrations, if not they personally, knew was anything but.

Quote of the Day
 

At least this time you have a reason.....


So did I. It was required by law at the time. You want a cookie for that?

You are a brave, brave man. You are willing to fight if the alternative is prison or exile? Wow. I am awed by your selfless patriotism.

Have another cookie.


uh-huh. You don't say whether you actually would have gone, interestingly enough. But I guess being "willing to fight [as long as I don't have to do any of that nasty 'ground-war' stuff]" still counts, for a cookie at least.


Though the color-blind thing explains some of your poker bets, at least.

asstapping
 

Oye, ese......a tu esposa le gusta que le dan candela por el culo. dígale que juan el marino originale diche le agradezca.

juan, usmc

Phonetapping
 

!dios mio! qué clinton y reno hizo a él era un pecado. ruego a Jesús para la alma de elian.

asstapping
 

Is this the real Juan or the fake one?



edit for Sidd: Is this the real one or the fake Juan?

asstapping
 

Soy el originale. Es verdad. Mira aqui ver las otras escrituras de mi mano. no cree los mentirosos.

asstapping
 

I am now the owner of Hank_Chinaski nick over at judged.com!

This Juan USMC is the original imposter sock. I give it more credit than the imposter chinaskis.

Religion and Maps
 

That has to be my favorite post ever. I love maps too.

Religion and Maps
 

It's very interesting. But I found it somewhat annoying that the division lines between colors varies by religions, even for religions that (as I understand it, but I'm not going to go look up) are roughly the same size, nationwide (Jews and LDSs).

It was confusing to see the county where I grew up place both religions with the same color, since I would have guessed that Jews made up around 0.5% (i.e., essentially non-existant) and Mormons maybe 8-9% (i.e., a pretty sizable presence, maybe even the fourth or fifth largest group). Which is likely the case, because the two maps assign those groups the same color, but don't lump the same percentages together. Weird.

I'm not alleging bias, but one has to wonder how those gradiation differences influence how the map is read, and what implications one takes from it. If the Mormons were on the same scale as the Jews, for example, Nevada would look much more Mormon.

Religion and Maps
 

Yeah, I saw that too. I imagine they tinkered with the percentages assigned to each allocation because otherwise, some of the maps would've just looked plain empty because some religious groups just don't have many people at all in most counties (but they might have some).

Religion and Maps
 

I thought you were color blind.


Damn malingerers.