From: Daniel Mandic on 12 Oct 2006 15:26 Ken Smith wrote: > In article <ivTWg.10$25.119(a)news.uchicago.edu>, > <mmeron(a)cars3.uchicago.edu> wrote: > > In article <eggdcq$1bi$1(a)blue.rahul.net>, kensmith(a)green.rahul.net > > (Ken Smith) writes: > > > In article <krBWg.7$25.142(a)news.uchicago.edu>, > >> <mmeron(a)cars3.uchicago.edu> wrote: > > > > In article <egdvtv$31b$1(a)blue.rahul.net>, > > > > kensmith(a)green.rahul.net (Ken Smith) writes: > > > [....] > > > > > It cerrtainly could not have been done before the warning was > > > > > given. The warning was IIRC very short notice. > > > > > > > > The missilles had to fly over at least 4-500 miles of Pakistani > > > > territory. That's close to an hour at Tomahawk speed. And, > > > > the warning had to be issued before they crossed the Pakistani > > > > border. So, at a modest estimate, the warning had to be at > > > > least an hour before impact. Plenty of itme. > > > > > > I agree with the estimated number but dispute the conclusion for > > > the reasons I suggested below. > > > > > > > > >>>> The Pakistani inteligence called the > > > > > ISI is well know to be infiltrated. This means that some > > > > > members not all members are working for the other side. The > > > > > warning went not to the ISI but to the government. If would > > > > > then have to travel through the government to the ISI and > > > > > then within the ISI to a corrupt person who would then have > > > > > to have OBL's number on speed dial. It is very likely that > > > > > Musharraf knowing that the ISI is infiltrated would delay > > > > > telling them of the warning until after the missiles have > > > > > reached the target. > > > > > > > > > the time we're talking about is before 9/11, thus before > > > > Musharraf became an ally in the war on terror. In fact, the > > > > US-Pakistani relations were far from friendly at that time. > > > > Thus, no reason to expect Musharraf to be especially > > > > cooperative in this respect (and plenty of reasons to expect > > > > otherwise). And, it wasn't only the ISI that was infiltrated > > > > at that time. > > > > > > Musharraf and his buddies are "secular thugs". OBL is a > > > religious nut case and an enemy of Musharraf. There is no reason > > > to believe that Musharraf would help OBL unless he felt he had > > > something to gain and every reason to think he would be happy at > > > his misfortune. > > > > > You need to learn way more about how things work in these parts of > > the world (in most of the world, for that matter). Your thinking > > above is along the same lines which made the British intelligence > > and foreign service, in the late 30s, to rest assured that there is > > no possibility of an aliance between Hitler and Stalin, and we know > > how that turned out. > > Stalin fully agreed to the aliance. He simply would not believe that > Hitler was stupid enough to attack Russia. He was wrong in this but > it was a good direction for him to bet. > > As for not understanding the world, I point the charge back at you. > > > > Aliances, especially in these parts of the world, are not based on > > mutual love, only on utility and potential of harm. > > Yes and the logic on the Pakistan side would say that OBL is a danger. > > > > You befriend > > somebody not because you like him but because, otherwise, he may > > harm you (while, in the right constellation, he may harm your > > opponents). You probably forgot that prior to 9/11 Musharraf and > > his "secular thugs" were quite friendly with the religious thugs of > > the Taliban (who were Osama's hosts). > > Actual it is some of the tribes within Pakistan that were the reason > for the "befriending". Musharraf has a largish population in the > west that are the same tribe as the Taliban. He was unlikely to make > public statements against them for fear of causing trouble within his > own country. This does not mean that didn't see OBL as a threat. > > > > So, the different religious perspectives > > didn't get in the way of mutual understanding. > > > You mean utilization not understanding. Each side was attempting to > play the other. > > > > So, when you add all this up, the picture is quite opposite of what > > you paint above. > > I disagree. When you add it all up Musharraf would have been happy > for OBL to go away. He had every reason to fear Al Queda. He would > not have warned him. > > > > providing a timely warning to Osama was in Musharraf > > interests, as it enhanced his utility for the Taliban, diminishing > > the chances of them fomenting trouble within Pakistan. > > No. Having provided the warning the event is over. Nothing needs to > be traded for it. Musharraf would have gained nothing for it. He > would have at the most have mailed an urgent letter to OBL knowing > it would get there too late. > > [....] > > Mind you, I'm not saying here for sure that Musharraf did in fact > > convey this information (or caused it to be conveyed). Only, that > > the balance of political logic points in this direction. > > I disagree as per above. The bulk of the logic says he would not. > It also says that if he did it would have been too late. Also we > know that OBL changed his plans before. If any leak happened it > happened before this. > > > > I personally wasn't there but it has been reported that he > > > changed his plans and didn't go. Since these reports have not > > > been rebutted, I take it as likely that that is what happened. > > > > :-)) Rebutted by whom? The Afghani free press? By and large, the > > stuff that got reported from Taliban's Afghanistan was the stuff > > that the Taliban wanted to be reported. Or, if Al Quada was > > involved, the stuff that both the Taliban and Al Quada wanted to > > have reported. > > By anyone at all. This includes the US intelligence agencies to the > degree that their results have been published. This is the accepted > view of what happened. > > > > > Try to think about it seriously for a moment. > > Why? It makes my head hurt :) > > > > Suppose you're Osama > > and you escaped a deadly attack thanks to a timely information > > provided by a well connected source. Are you going to publicize > > this fact. That would've been dumb, since it would disclose the > > fact that you've such sources, risking compromising
From: lucasea on 12 Oct 2006 15:30 "Jonathan Kirwan" <jkirwan(a)easystreet.com> wrote in message news:sg1ti29dndl3kncm7aj7fihp7cuab0gv9e(a)4ax.com... > > The conservative base is also spitting mad. Those that believe in > small government and have been similarly sold a bill of goods that > never was delivered upon and where there is little evidence they ever > intended to do so. One of the men directly involved in the political > successes of the conservative base is going around on various talk > shows now, speaking with anyone who will listen, about just how angry > they are at the grossly increased expenditures of the US gov't and the > expansion of interference into everyones' lives here. None of which > his group likes. Despite the fact that I've spent much of this thread complaining about the Republicans, I will turn to my roots and defend them for a change. I don't think it is fair to say that "Those that believe in small government and have been similarly sold a bill of goods that never was delivered upon and where there is little evidence they ever intended to do so." I think, when the Republicans came to a position of parity in Congress in the early 90s, they did indeed intend to deliver upon the conservative values of smaller government. Their constituency really did seem to want that. After all, it was partly the actions of Congress during the Clinton administration that allowed for balancing the budget and even generating surpluses. I'm not actually sure what led them to discard the old party values of small government and fiscal conservatism, but that seems to have been something that happened well after their rise to parity in the early 90s. Perhaps the spend-spend-spend greed of the 90s stock market and .com boom created a constituency that became intolerant of any sort of bad news. Thus any sort of bad news like "we're going to have to cut the spending on your pet program X" was avoided like the plague, and Congress never controlled the Federal government's spending like they should have. Perhaps that combined with the Republican legislators' fear of doing anything that might lose them a vote, and return control of the Congress to the Democrats, where it had resided for many decades previous. Eric Lucas
From: T Wake on 12 Oct 2006 15:36 <lucasea(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote in message news:XRtXg.6230$NE6.413(a)newssvr11.news.prodigy.com... > > "Jamie" <jamie_ka1lpa_not_valid_after_ka1lpa_(a)charter.net> wrote in > message news:bItXg.268$di5.244(a)newsfe06.lga... >> do you have a speak impairment? i find you repeating lately with >> over used and worn out statements, please be more creative! i am >> getting bored. > > Oh, great, another semi-literate insultbot enters the discussion. Good > thing, we needed more of those. Lot of them around. Its amusing that the vast majority of the "bomb Islam now" posters have resorted to nothing but self gratification and childish insults. Speaks volumes of the IQ required to maintain that viewpoint.
From: lucasea on 12 Oct 2006 15:36 "T Wake" <usenet.es7at(a)gishpuppy.com> wrote in message news:YLudnZqxL5FgELPYRVnyhw(a)pipex.net... > >> Read Smolin's book, "The Trouble With Physics." It's full >> of examples of theories in physics that were simple, beautiful, wildly >> acclaimed, and dead wrong. How were they shown to be dead wrong? By further accumulation of data, not by simply gravitating automatically to the more complex theory. >> Not true there, either. Often the simplest solution is non-orthogonal, >> in that too few adjustable parameters control too many behaviors. That >> makes for ugly, often unworkable, tradeoffs. Often a more complex >> design is safer to use because various parameters don't strongly >> interact. As somebody else pointed out, experimental science is very different from engineering design. > In your examples the "all other things being equal" appears not to have > been met. Can you cite any examples of where Ockham's Razor has been > falsified? > >> I doubt you can find a serious scientific paper that mentions OR. Any time anybody says "the simplest explanation for this result is...", they are making tacit reference to OR. > You are harbouring misconceptions about what Ockham's Razor is used for. > This site explains it fairly well > http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node10.html > > The important bit is: > > "But there are are theories which have the very same predictions and it is > here that the Razor is useful. Consider for example the following two > theories aimed at describing the motion of the planets around the sun > a.. The planets move around the sun in ellipses because there is a force > between any of them and the sun which decreases as the square of the > distance. > b.. The planets move around the sun in ellipses because there is a force > between any of them and the sun which decreases as the square of the > distance. This force is generated by the will of some powerful aliens. > Since the force between the planets and the sun determines the motion of > the former and both theories posit the same type of force, the predicted > motion of the planets will be identical for both theories. the second > theory, however, has additional baggage (the will of the aliens) which is > unnecessary for the description of the system. " And this is directly on point of the current discussion, which was whether or not one needs wacko conspiracy theories about the demise of Western Civilization to explain al Qaeda's behavior, or if one only needs to look at the effect of US foreign policy on the Arab world to see a much simpler explanation. Both theories explain the data--i.e., that al Qaeda has knocked down two US buildings, and has undertaken several other bombings against US assets in various other parts of the world. Eric Lucas
From: T Wake on 12 Oct 2006 15:37
"Michael A. Terrell" <mike.terrell(a)earthlink.net> wrote in message news:452E680C.9DDB0A99(a)earthlink.net... > Jamie wrote: >> >> do you have a speak impairment? i find you repeating lately with >> over used and worn out statements, please be more creative! i am >> getting bored. > > > I got so tired of his broken record that I tossed him into the bozo > bucket months ago. Good for you. Less of your posts can only be a good thing. |