3/25    http://www.csua.org/u/ib9
        Iran says they have signed confessions from the Brit soldiers to
        "to aggression into the Islamic Republic of Iran's waters" and that
        they'll trade them for Iranian spies captured in Iraq.
        Will this be an Archduke Ferdinand moment?
        \_ This situation is beyond crazy. Has anyone seen analysis that
           clearly shows whose territorial waters these sailors were caught in?
        \_ No, Bush would clearly love to "double down" in Iran, but his
           hands are tied now. Two years ago, this would have meant war.
           \_ These are british soldiers, not americans.
              \_ And?
                 \_ And?
              \_ British->NATO->US, says Bush.
        \_ Who exactly is "Iran" and what did they say?
        \_ Wonder how the Brits'll react?  Freeze Iranian funds?  The
           Iranians are pretty clearly in the wrong.
           \_ how about grabbing an iranian vessell from iranian waters, taking
              the crew prisoner, and claiming they are all spies with signed
              confessions.
           \_ Are you sure that the Brits were not in Iranian waters? All I have
              seen are "he said - she saids" claims. I assume the Brits
           \_ Are you sure that the Brits were not in Iranian waters? All I
              have seen are "he said - she said" claims. I assume the Brits
              will escalate until the Iranians back down. We shall see.
              \_ There is concensus.  They were in Iraqi waters.
              \_ 3/27 Update:
                 http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070327/wl_nm/iran_dc
                "Blair's spokesman said the next step London could take would
                be to publish proof, in the form of global satellite
                positioning (GPS) records, that the sailors had not entered
                Iranian waters."
                But of course Iran could claim that the GPS records are fake.
                BTW, if Margaret Thatcher were still the PM, the Brits would be
                planning to nuke Iran by now.
                \_ At least sending the fleet in that direction, but Briton
                   doesn't have much of a fleet anymore.

3/25    $12K in lingerie stolen from NJ Victoria's Secret:
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070322/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_underwear
        \_ Which makes that 'hot underwear'?

3/25    Despite the fact that my .spamassassin/user_prefs file has the spam
        threshold set to 0.0, spamassassin is using 3.0, and consequently I
        am getting tons of spam in my inbox.  This didn't seem to be
        occuring several weeks or months ago.  What can I do to fix it?

3/25    Agent Smith cast as Megatron:
        http://www.filmwad.com/hugo-weaving-is-megatron--1990-p.html

3/25    http://www.csua.org/u/ibb
        Why Republicans are increasingly skeptical of global warming.
        \_ This is a joke. The real reason is because it's used as a political
           and communist weapon, and the evidence supporting it is a bigger
           joke than this article.
           \_ "communist"? The hell?
              \_ Well, socialist.  It's a scheme to transfer wealth.  That's
                 all.
                 \_ I'll certainly agree that there are countries out there
                    looking to exploit the perceived disparity in carbon
                    emissions, but it would seem to me that this can be
                    rectified by assessing carbon emissions correctly and
                    then fining the hell out of the PRC and India (the two
                    biggest "developing world" producers of carbon emissions).
                    \- US carbon emissions are 5x china and 20x india on
                       a per capita basis. what would you use to "correctly"
                       allocate emissions to get "everyone" to go along with
                       "fining the hell" out of china/india.
                       \_ Which completely ignores what each country produces
                          with that carbon.  The US out produces those
                          countries by how much?  You can't look at one number
                          like carbon/capita and decide from that with no
                          context that higher carbon/capita country is more
                          'bad' than lower carbon/capita country.  If I burn
                          5x your level of energy but produce 50x more with
                          it, then you're the wastrel, not me.
                              \- so are you a Randroid? seriously.
                                 i dont think you understand the difference
                                 between a "rights" based discussion and an
                                 efficiency based one.
                                 \_ I've never read anything from Rand.  And
                                    where on this thread does anyone mention
                                    anything about 'rights'?  Carbon is all
                                    about waste and inefficiency.  Perhaps you
                                    are unclear on the thread topic?
                                    \- by rand i mean ayn rand not rand corp.
                          \_ So if my neighbor makes $100k a year and I make
                             $20k a year and he leaves 5 piles of dog crap
                             on the sidewalk, while I leave only 2, *I* am
                             the worse polluter? Somehow, I don't think
                             most people are going to see it that way.
                             \_ If your neighbor has 300 dogs and you have 1
                                dog then yes you are the worse polluter.  You
                                again skip the context part and just count the
                                single 'result' factor without taking into
                                account at all what was achieved for that
                                expense.  By the numbers if you had his 300
                                dogs we could assume you'd have 600 piles
                                instead of his 5.  You're a dog mess leaving
                                wastrel and he is efficient and clean.
           \_ actually it's a great capitalist commercial scheme by Al Gore
             who plans to profit from the scare bigtime selling credits
             \_ As usual, the head of the party or corrupt church gets wealthy
                while the normals suffer.
           \_ I am kind of curious, do you really believe that the 90% of
              atmospheric scientists who support the idea of anthropogenic
              global warming are that easily decieved? That you are better
              qualified to evaluate the evidence than people who have
              spent their whole life studying it?
              \_ How else are they going to get tenure? By proving everyone in
                 their department is wrong? One and only one will get tenure that way.
                 their department is wrong? One and only one will get tenure
                 that way.
              \_ The world is flat.  100% of scientists know that.  The Earth
                 is also the center of the universe.  There is concensus on
                 that fact.  If you don't agree we'll just torture and then
                 burn you at the stake, heretic.
                 \_ How impressively specious.  Hyperbole aside, do you really
                    believe that the modern scientific establishment is no more
                    enlightened than the Catholic Church in the middle ages?
                    Are you actually equating loss of tenure and/or grant
                    money to being tortured and burnt at the stake?  Or is
                    your bombastic sarcasm merely an effort to disguise what
                    you know to be an empty argument? -dans
                    \_ Yes.  It's the modern version of it, yes.  No, but have
                       you stopped beating your wife or are you intentionally
                       misframing my statements because your views are merely
                       unsupported opinions unbackable by facts?  Two can play
                       that sort of cheap rhetorical game.  I find it tedious
                       and boring and prefer not to but I'm doing it here just
                       as an example of how annoying and useless it is in any
                       sort of serious discussion.