I was misled

On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 05:01:12 GMT, "Pete" <[email hidden]> from Road Runner High

Speed Online urlhttp://www.rr.com/url said:

"Kevan Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

The Iraqi Prime Minister was chosen by occupation authorities and has no
legitimate democratic basis for holding power. I would hope he would step

down

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rather than inflame civil war and/or becoming another Iraqi tyrant by
stubornly holding on to illegitimate power.

Not quite...he is merely an interim guy. There only to help stabilize
things, and hopefully see through the process of holding valid elections.

Or so the Bush administration claims. I don't particularly trust them, given
their track record.

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But whomever it might be, whether supported by Bush/Blair or not, would be a
target. Now that the overall controlling figure, Saddam, is gone, that
country is ripe for an all out civil war. The only thing holding it back
(partially) is the presence of foreign troops. Even that may not be enough.

How do you conduct a 'fair' election when police stations are being blown
up? Or the government offices in Bagdad? How safe do you think a polling
place would be? Would you go vote?

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They won't blow it up if it belongs to the Iraqi people instead of
profiteering foreigners.

Bull. A lot of those people doing the blowing up are there *only* to blow
stuff up. They are not Iraqi, nor do they care about 'the Iraqi people'.

Or so the Bush administration claims. I don't particularly trust them, given
their track record.

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They are looking to shame us into leaving (see Spain), and carving out a
piece of what is left. To the detriment of 'the Iraqi people'.

We _should_ be shamed into leaving after all the lies that led to the invasion
and how we've actually made the country _worse_ than it was under a tyrant. As
I've said, the Iraq War is a national disgrace.

--
Kevan Smith
[email hidden]

On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 15:19:51 -0700, Mark Hickey <[email hidden]>

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However, he would wait for the UN to take action (which as we now know
would NEVER happen since they were on Saddam's payroll)

(You were speaking of conspiracy theories?)

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or you have a
president who will do what needs to be done, regardless of the
political posturing of France and Germany.

Interesting choice of words. It has yet to be demonstrated that
invading Iraq is what needed to be done. There is no evidence before
or since invasion that Iraq was responsible or even connected to what
happened on 9/11. Justification for US actions has degenerated to the
specious "Nip EVIL In The Bud By Any Means Necessary" argument.

P.S. There is evidence by the bucketload that Saudi money and power
was behind 9/11, yet the occupant of the white house believed what
needed to be done was to secretly evacuate rich and powerful Saudis
from our country.

P.P.S. I like bikes.

Steve

On 25 Jun 2004 22:53:35 -0700, [email hidden] (James

Annan) said:

Here in mild-mannered conservative Japan...

Quoted message said:

but they should at least be aware that this really is
how the rest of the world views him
(and by extension, those who elect him).

Or since he wasn't actually elected, "those who erect him."

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
..

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This like other topics we might choose not to read is each reader's
prerogative to skip or not. Off topic trouble arises when within a
thread someone takes advantage of folks who are following the subject
by introducing another agenda such as helmets under tire problems.
That is not what is happening here.

Please feel free to post your ride-logs (over 30 paragraphs and 3,000 words
to surmount) to the political newsgroup of your choosing.

Mark Hickey <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

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(JP) said:

My guess is that if Putin did tell Bush
something, the *whole* story is actually embarassing so Bush can't use
it- maybe something like, Putin told Bush that Iraq was making plans
to attack the US with terrorists if we invaded Iraq.

Heh... I can always count on you to brew up new and increasingly
fanciful conspiracy theories...

I would like to hear *your* theory about why the Bush administration
hasn't said a single word about Putin's claim. Really. I find the
whole thing pretty puzzling. And, as I said, I did read about someone
in the Executive Branch dismissing it. So what is your theory?

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So you're saying the St. Pete Times and the SF Chronical maintain the
"daily.misleader.org" website. LOL.

No. I'm saying that the article that came up on their site references
articles in the St. Petersburg Times and San Francisco Chronicles that
completely support their article. You have absolutely no basis to
discredit anything on daily.misleader.org, so you just pull
accusations out of the air and refuse to address the fact that there
are solid references in the story, so solid that they are essentially
irrefuatable.

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Thing is, you get the whole story - both sides. For some reason, that
approach seems to be total anathema to many liberals. I suppose it's
easier to go through life not hearing anything that contradicts your
preconceived notions - but personally I would hate to appear that
naive when discussing the issues in public.

How ironic then that you seem so naive, if not ignorant, when
discussing these issues in public. I can't recall you ever being able
to quote a single fact or present any kind of logical analysis on
anything not bicycle related.

Let's just examine the post I'm responding to:

1. You make derogatory comments about daily.misleader.org implying
that it is an untrustworthy source. This argument is in its essence
nothing more than name calling. You cite no evidence to contradict any
part of any story on the site. You cite no evidence to contradict the
sources for any of those stories. You refuse to address the fact that
the story I cited is based on articles from two major newspapers and
instead try to confuse the issue by setting up a strawman claim to
knockdown despite it having no connection whatever to my actual
comments. Not a single fact or logical conclusion, though, in your
entire response.

2. No evidence that Drudge presents both sides of the story. No
evidence that he is reliable. No evidence that Drudge backs up his
reports with references.

You're right, though, I'm not interested in both sides of the story.
Reality only has one side, with different perspectives, and
unfortunately, your perspective requires mostly closing your eyes so
you can ignore the reality of the Bush administration's huge negative
accomplishments: failure to defend against 9/11; exploding national
deficits; a mostly jobless economic recovery with falling real wages;
over 800 of our troops dead in Iraq for a lie.

These are the facts. There is no other side to it, only excuses.

JP

Luigi:

Actually, if you go to rbt, you'll find losts of discussions about
various cycling topics. This is merely one of them. Nobody is forcing
anybody to participate in this particular one. If you have a specific
questions about bikes, nobody is stopping nobody else from asking and
many of us are actually responding to some of those questions. At this
pont, probably everyone knows that the "i've been misslead" thread is
about politics. If anyone clicks on the subheading, it is purely by
choice.

Andres

Luigi de Guzman <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 18:18:34 GMT, [email hidden]

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What is it that irritates you so about factual reporting.

I'm not irritated about factual reporting.

I am mildly irritated that rbm is going to be turned into yet another
front for the US Presidential election.

You've been around on the rec.bicycles.* hierarchy much longer than I
have, so I know you won't take kindly to a n00b like me reproaching
you for posting something so blatantly off-topic as this. But perhaps
there are regular NG readers who want to talk about bicycles and wish
not to have the ugliness of the present electoral campaign intrude
upon that discussion?

-Luigi

www.livejournal.com/users/ouij
photos, rants, raves.

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You're right, though, I'm not interested in both sides of the story.

Obviously.

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Reality only has one side, with different perspectives, and
unfortunately, your perspective requires mostly closing your eyes so
you can ignore the reality of the Bush administration's huge negative
accomplishments: failure to defend against 9/11;

Let's see. Terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 9/11=0. Only a blinded
liberal would call that a failure to defend against 9/11.

exploding national

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deficits;

Yes, and that's why Bush loses my vote.

a mostly jobless economic recovery with falling real wages;

Simply not true. This is propaganda, not fact. If you'd like to cite some
credible source for this information, I'll cite some that will show this is
misinformation.

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over 800 of our troops dead in Iraq for a lie.

No lie detected, at least by me. If you detected one, then I think it is
interpretation. I don't support the invasion of Iraq and didn't support it
prior to the invasion. I wouldn't have supported it if there WMD's (and I
believe there were at the time) and I wouldn't have supported it to unseat a
bad dictator (that isn't the role of our government.) But I don't support
statements like this about the President or anybody else when it's simply
not true or at least subject to interpretation. We need to support the
effort now that it is fait accompli, not do what we can to destroy the
effort for partisanship. Destroying it just wastes the lives and money for
no reason.

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These are the facts. There is no other side to it, only excuses.

These are the facts as you interpret them and yes there is another side.
Politics is truly humanity at its worst. Sadly, you are a shining example
of that. There is no problem with differences of opinion but partisanship
simply doesn't belong in in any discussion of national security.

I have no comment or knowledge about the media cited above because I haven't
read them. I don't read politically charged media during election years.
It is fruitless. But I suspect that each has its agenda and will interpret
"facts" as they see fit. Doesn't make them necessarily right or wrong, just
right or left.

Fred

"Pete" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

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There seems to be two major factions in Iraq. One that only wants peace,

and

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to be left alone to rebuild and maybe start a democracy of some sort. The
other apparently wants to incite a civil war, hoping they come out on top.

Two? You are probably off by an order of magnitude.

Even if we limit ourselves to identifiable factions, we have to count a
couple of Shiite factions, a Kurdish faction, Baathists hoping to return to
power (with or without Saddam Hussein), etc. A news story this morning
suggests the Turks are worried about instability in northern Iraq, and are
starting to get involved in creating "stability" there.

Plus, it seems likely that NOW there actually IS substantial involvement by
external terrorists in Iraq, which Bush encouraged with his "Bring it on"
bluster -- not that they needed encouragement.

Civil war seems like a reasonably likely prospect. Will the Iraqis be
better off under a messy civil war than they were under the repressive
regime of Saddam Hussein? What a set of alternatives! What a fiasco.

"Kevan Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 21:43:11 GMT, "Pete" <[email hidden]> from Road Runner

High

Quoted message said:

Kevan: > >> 3) The suspension of all activities of non-Iraqi corporations in
Iraq,

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with

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special attention paid to energy companies. The goal here is to return

to

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the

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Iraqi people what rightfully belongs to them -- their treasure.

Pete: > >They can't have their rightful treasure if the insurgents are left
alone to

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blow it up.

Kevan: > They won't blow it up if it belongs to the Iraqi people instead of

Quoted message said:

profiteering foreigners.

Sure they will, under a civil war scenario or a "warlord" scenario. If
faction A controls a resource, factions B, C, and D will be anxious to
either gain control of that resource or at least deprive faction A of it.

"Pat" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

it is just as misleading to suggest that one should get ALL of his "facts"
and news from Drudge as it is from any other source. We should all be
reading everything we can so that tunnel vision doesn't ensue. For

example,

Quoted message said:

you might want to add this site to your reading:

www.factcheck.org

Looks interesting. Sort of like "snopes" for politics.

(Snopes is a site that investigates internet Urban Legends.
http://www.snopes.com )

---
Mike Kruger
Blog: http://journals.aol.com/mikekr/ZbicyclistsZlog/

Mike Kruger' email hidden from said:

"Kevan Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 21:43:11 GMT, "Pete" <[email hidden]> from Road Runner

High

Quoted message said:

Kevan: > >> 3) The suspension of all activities of non-Iraqi corporations in
Iraq,

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

with
> special attention paid to energy companies. The goal here is to return

to

Quoted message said:

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the
> Iraqi people what rightfully belongs to them -- their treasure.

Pete: > >They can't have their rightful treasure if the insurgents are left
alone to

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

blow it up.

Kevan: > They won't blow it up if it belongs to the Iraqi people instead of

Quoted message said:

profiteering foreigners.

Sure they will, under a civil war scenario or a "warlord" scenario. If
faction A controls a resource, factions B, C, and D will be anxious to
either gain control of that resource or at least deprive faction A of it.

It's too late to prevent that, and keeping occupation forces there only
channels the violence wider. Besides, I seem to recall _our_ country was
founded under less than peaceful circumstances.

The U.S. has really [censored] up in Iraq, and to claim that you are interested in
preserving peace there now is really hard for me to believe. Where were you
last year?

--
Kevan Smith
[email hidden]

Fred said:

Quoted message said:

a mostly jobless economic recovery with falling real wages;

Simply not true. This is propaganda, not fact. If you'd like to cite
some credible source for this information, I'll cite some that will
show this is misinformation.

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/000995.html

| Real wage and salary income per capita has, so far, fallen by 3.5%
| over the Bush administration.

Granted, Brad is only a Professor of Economics at Berkeley.

--
Keith Willoughby http://flat222.org/keith/
"Suspected murderer of Tupac murder suspect murdered"

<[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

This is NOT off topic. The topic is "Misled" and is more pertinent to
our well being than to acquiesce in an organized dismantling of our
democratic government and our nation's standing in world affairs.
Talking about bicycles is appropriate, but it loses significance in
the shadow of the deep moral depression into which our country is
sinking to dictatorship in spite of the guise of representative
government.

I have to agree. I think we are very much at a major fork in the road in the
post cold war era, actions taken today will set the climate for decades to
come, just as the post WWII policy did. I think the administration is blowing
it, so do many (better qualified) others:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46538-2004Jun16.html

Peter Cole said:

<[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

This is NOT off topic. The topic is "Misled" and is more pertinent to
our well being than to acquiesce in an organized dismantling of our
democratic government and our nation's standing in world affairs.
Talking about bicycles is appropriate, but it loses significance in
the shadow of the deep moral depression into which our country is
sinking to dictatorship in spite of the guise of representative
government.

I have to agree. I think we are very much at a major fork in the road in the
post cold war era, actions taken today will set the climate for decades to
come, just as the post WWII policy did. I think the administration is blowing
it, so do many (better qualified) others:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46538-2004Jun16.html

I agree as well. I'll contribute the following which is the full text of
a speech by former Vice President Al Gore to the American Constitution
Society at Georgetown University on June 24.

http://alternet.org/election04/19047/

Bret

"Kevan Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 14:00:14 GMT, "Mike Kruger" <[email hidden]>

from

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

"Kevan Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Kevan: > They won't blow it up if it belongs to the Iraqi people instead

of

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Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

profiteering foreigners.

Mike: > >Sure they will, under a civil war scenario or a "warlord" scenario.
If

Quoted message said:

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faction A controls a resource, factions B, C, and D will be anxious to
either gain control of that resource or at least deprive faction A of it.

It's too late to prevent that, and keeping occupation forces there only
channels the violence wider. Besides, I seem to recall _our_ country was
founded under less than peaceful circumstances.

Kevan: > The U.S. has really [censored] up in Iraq, and to claim that you are
interested in

Quoted message said:

preserving peace there now is really hard for me to believe. Where were

you

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last year?

I was opposing the war not just last year, but in 2002.
I opposed it, in part, because I thought it was possible we'd get stuck in a
quagmire and be unable to find a decent way out. We are now there.
I admit I don't really know exactly what we should do now in order to
extricate ourselves and have some decent chance at a stable country.
I think you are too optimistic in thinking that there's some single, stable
entity that represents the Iraqi people that we could turn anything over to.
We may have precipitated the chaos, but getting rid of us doesn't undo the
chaos. I wish you were right, though.

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

This is NOT off topic. The topic is "Misled" and is more pertinent to our

well being than to acquiesce in an organized dismantling of our democratic
government and our nation's standing in world affairs.

Quoted message said:

Jobst Brandt
[email hidden]

Sorry, Jobst. I have to disagree.

Although I am a great admirer of your bicycling work (and you have worked
with other members of my family as well -- "you da man" as they say. My
father's custom Paramount was patterned after your Cinelli), this is
off-topic.

The topic is not "misled". "I was misled" is the thread. The topic is
"rec.bicycles.misc" (or "rec.bicycles.tech" which is cross-posted).

The issue of GW policies is of passionate interest -- but not in a bicycling
forum. In the bicycling forum, it becomes garden-variety trolling or SPAM.

Quoted message said:

Talking about bicycles is appropriate, but it loses significance in the

shadow of the deep moral depression into which our country is sinking to
dictatorship in spite of the guise of representative government.

This is your tacit admission of inappropriateness to this forum. You are
claiming that "greater good" supercedes the organized interest in bicycling
topics.
Please move to "rec.politics" or whatever forum exists for political
discussion.

- Skip La Fetra
(the reply-to account at hotmail is active but refuses mail. Post here or
add my initials ('fel'😉 to the account name and it will get to me.)

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

This is NOT off topic. The topic is "Misled" and is more pertinent to our

well being than to acquiesce in an organized dismantling of our democratic
government and our nation's standing in world affairs.

Quoted message said:

Jobst Brandt
[email hidden]

Sorry, Jobst. I have to disagree.

Although I am a great admirer of your bicycling work (and you have worked
with other members of my family as well -- "you da man" as they say. My
father's custom Paramount was patterned after your Cinelli), this is
off-topic.

The topic is not "misled". "I was misled" is the thread. The topic is
"rec.bicycles.misc" (or "rec.bicycles.tech" which is cross-posted).

The issue of GW policies is of passionate interest -- but not in a bicycling
forum. In the bicycling forum, it becomes garden-variety trolling or SPAM.

Quoted message said:

Talking about bicycles is appropriate, but it loses significance in the

shadow of the deep moral depression into which our country is sinking to
dictatorship in spite of the guise of representative government.

This is your tacit admission of inappropriateness to this forum. You are
claiming that "greater good" supercedes the organized interest in bicycling
topics.
Please move to "rec.politics" or whatever forum exists for political
discussion.

- Skip La Fetra
(the reply-to account at hotmail is active but refuses mail. Post here or
add my initials ('fel'😉 to the account name and it will get to me.)

Bret Wade said:

I agree as well. I'll contribute the following which is the full
text of a speech by former Vice President Al Gore to the American
Constitution Society at Georgetown University on June 24.

Well done. Such analysis points out- by sheer contrast- the dismal
failings of John Ashcroft's legal education, which seemed to forget to
teach him about the Bill of Rights, balance of powers and limits of
authority. And such analysis also points out the remarkable
contradictions in the current Republican world view: that the role of
government should be limited, and yet government should have nearly
unchecked powers to interfere in the lives of individuals and deny
them their Constitutional rights.

That *any* American, Democrat or Republican, can close their eyes or
otherwise fail to see the horrendous dangers posed to the future of
this nation by the Bush Administration and its cadre of whackos is
nothing short of frightening.

Bret Wade said:

I agree as well. I'll contribute the following which is the full text
of a speech by former Vice President Al Gore to the American
Constitution Society at Georgetown University on June 24.

http://alternet.org/election04/19047/

I saw a wonderful tape of Gore giving a speech advocating the overthrown of
Saddam, juxtaposed with his recent rants. Maybe someone should make a
"documentary" about it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/809168.stm (too lazy to actually
find speech, but this references it or something similar).

Bill "hypocrisy abounds" S.

And once again:

http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1310344&l=42270

Jobst Brandt
[email hidden]