First Timer
 

Welcome. Before posting substantively, you should ketchup on all posts on this board since inception, including the infamous "Is the Income Tax Theft?" debate.

Oops. Lucky you. Sic transit gloria mundi. Well, post away!

random thoughts
 

From what I can tell, saying that the TSA "will never be perfect" is literally true but profoundly wrong. It is an unimaginative, poorly functioning bureaucracy. How else to spur improvement than by focusing public attention on its failings?

First Timer
 

Mickey Kaus, in Slate, tries to explain what he thought Easterbrook was thinking.

I'm unimpressed with ESPN's firing of him. They seem to be more interested in getting revenge for Eisner than they are in maximizing shareholder (i.e., my) value. Not that Easterbrook has a material effect on the annual report, but still.

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This sounds suspiciously like a rhetorical question. The answer cannot be "by surreptitiously breaking the law in order to embarass the law enforcement agency." It's the hacker mentality with real lives at stake.

He's not the worst guy who ever lived or anything, but he was playing with fire.

The above was your 666th post in the post-PB meltdown world. So maybe you're fucking with me here.

If a tree falls in a forest...
 

Man, you aren't kidding. Wiped off the face of the earth.

If that's not a sign that the media monopolies have too much power, I don't know what is.

First Timer
 

Oh yeah. I read on the other board that you have entered into the Republican sacramental bond of marriage. Congratulations, I think and hope! Having taken part in the oppression of democrats everywhere, i assure you my credentials are the most goodest on the board as a conservative. That said, I and other conservatives here appear* to be intellectualy honest enough to admit that Coulter, Hannity and O'Reilly are a buncha dopes.

As for veracity, I'll never read that ugly motherfucker's book, but a liberal at my firm read it and challenged me to find where it was ever shown that the media was biased** as liberal or democratic or something. Ten minutes later, I told him he would never be taken seriously again. It was almost unfair to characterize the studies as studies... they were more like confessionals. 80% of those in the media who were surveyed admitted that they were adherents of Marxist, or at least admitted that their sympathies leaned*** towards the democratic party. Anyway, congratulations again. Are you registered at Crate & Barrel under str8? If so, I might be getting you something (I just looooove that store).

Hello

* In reality, I think everyone here usually tries to be, which is nice
** Biased being an understatement. It was more filled with hate to anyone who is not...
*** Leaned, yeah right. If Marxism was a deep swimming pool, the press would be drowning in it.

random thoughts
 

He wasn't playing with fire. Your argument is that if they go soft on him, Al Qaeda will use dopes to smuggle box cutters on board planes, and if they're caught they'll get away with it because the TSA will be too stupid to realize the difference. While I concur with the latter assessment, I don't think that what this guy did increased the risks we face. The stuff he smuggled was found where he left it, right? In fact, he made us all safer by pointing to the crappiness of TSA's security procedures, which appear calculated to convince us that we're being inconvenienced so much that we must be safer. TSA should punt its adherence to searching everyone, and hire some smart people to profile and interview passengers the way the Israelis do it.

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It may have been so long ago that it seems like it never happened, but presumably, at some point, you learned that some crimes require some form of "intent". Additionally, the reason I brought up the topic was because of our recent conversations on "prosecutorial discretion", esp. in regards to narcotics cases.

Anyway, I'm not saying that he's not actually guilty of some felony or other. I'm just saying that if they can give him a job for $8.00 per hour so they can hear his theories before they have to search 8000 planes, he might be able to help them avoid, well, searching 8000 planes.

Additionally, it would make government seem a bit less inept, and a bit more interested in keeping people safe. Which makes politicians look a bit better.

Put him in jail, and it partly looks like you are jailing a critic who is pointing out how you aren't keeping us safe. Which makes me feel a bit less confident in your abilities*. Which makes me want to vote for someone else to be in charge.

See where I'm going with this? To me its about what's right, but to the executive branch, it'll be about appearances.

No doubt.

Hello

* The terms "you" and "your" being replaceable, generally, with "the government" or some variation thereof.

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Holy fuck. Sgt. Club, can you pile on with me here??? CtD? Fluffy?

Tyrone, I totally agree. Totally.

Hello

random thoughts
 

I say make him do this for free as part of his plea agreement.

I remain unconvinced by the sincerity of his efforts. I'm not saying he was a terrorist. But maybe he got a little thrill or ego boost by doing this.

random thoughts
 

I almost guarantee that he did. And its quite similar to the boost that, e.g., a joyrider might get.

I like the plea agreement idea too. I'm just saying, give the kid a bit of motivation to cooperate by, e.g., not putting a felony on his record.

Ever see Catch Me If You Can?

Something like that.

Anyway, it looks like an opportunity to me. But, much like the Palis, our government almost never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Hello

First Timer
 

What board have you been on? Or are you exploring the wonderful world of controlled substances a few decades after the rest of us?

I go out of town a couple days and everything goes to hell in a handbasket. Jeez.

Did anyone happen to see this story today?

Last week we saw the headlines trumpeting the broad resolution of support from the UN naming Bremer & Co as the official authority for Iraq reconstruction. Now, in a much quieter story leaked/developed over the weekend and appearing below the fold on the front page, it turns out that there will be an independent third party organization coordinating the international aid after all.

It's funny...I think this is actually great news on the political front for GWB. In other words, the overall perception is that Bush got the reso he wanted from the UN without ceding any authority to foreign control. But functionally the arrangement described in this article will be far different from what that resolution describes. So, there's no loss of "face" to those conniving Francophiles in the UN, but the admin does what it needs to do to get more dough poured into fixing up Iraq.

I'll be interested to see if the money Japan has pledged already goes directly to the US authority or to this new international one. Or, taking this further, if the existence of the two funds results in donations to be characterized as a "we support the US" pledge or a "we don't necessarily like the US, but we need to rebuild Iraq so it doesn't become another Afghanistan" pledge, depending on which fund gets the $$$.

First Timer
 

Well, when was the last time someone said something nice about Coulter, Hannity or O'Reilly here?

I even said something nice about Mary Mitchell of the Chicago SunTimes (a Daley wag for the Daley rag).

So I'm just saying, I'll give you *my* Coulter*, if you promise never to make me listen to *your* Franken.

Or whatever.

Whatever whatever.

Hello

*Uhm, not really "my" Coulter; and certainly less hurtful for me to give up than, e.g., reaching in my pocket and pulling out the lint.

First Timer
 

Who can say? The old stuff is all gone. Are you implying that SEF and its ilk do not exist?
I wasn't questioning re: specific people, I was questioning what seemed to be a statement by you that there are not wacko partisans on here. Though, they have not been around as much since the old board "mysteriously" disappeared the other day.