nerdgirl

The study is important because it challenges and present data disproving those stereotypes. Assertions that keep being repeated can eventually – but not always – be taken as ‘truth.’ Feminism isn’t monolithic as it has sometimes been portrayed … in the harshest and most unflattering terms possible. The vast majority of feminists (we’re not a monolithic group) very much like men & love the one(s) with whom we choose to be intimate – from their brains to their toes and parts in between. I’d ‘questimate’ around 90-98%; the substantial majority of the remaining percentage being those who are lesbians. It isn’t about hating (hopefully, as the study conclusions indicate & as my only semi-facetious original commentary elaborates); it’s about being valued as an autonomous member of the human species and having the access (or not being denied access) to opportunities to succeed (or to screw up!) that aren’t solely based on one’s chromosomes. Who benefits from propagation/repetition of the stereotypes you described? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Sounds like a fantastic adventure! "Inman, 48, started June 2 from his hometown of Lebanon, Ore. Halfway through his cross-country trek dubbed Uncovering America by Horseback, he's rolled up 1,700 miles. His wife, Brenda, also 48, drives ahead in a pickup and horse trailer filled with water and provisions for Blackie, three dogs and themselves." Wonder how many of us would love to do something like that ... perhaps not on literal horseback ... but I bet some would tho'.

Thanks for the review; the “movies that make you think” comment definitely gets my attention. Your review immediately made me think of this month’s issue of Foreign Policy, with the cover story “Iraq is Not His (Pres. Bush) Fault: It’s Yours”: “It’s easy to blame the violence in Iraq and the pitfalls of the war on terror on a small cabal of neocons, a bumbling president, and an overstretched military. But real fault lies with the American people as well. Americans now ask more of their government but sacrifice less than ever before. It’s an unrealistic, even deadly, way to fight a global war. And, unfortunately, that’s just how the American people want it.” … and to a provocative Op-Ed on yesterday's Washington Post by a former soldier who served in Iraq, From Abu Ghraib to Georgetown: I'm Back Home, But Still in Iraq's Grasp, which is also linked through National Review Online (i.e., the Op-Ed is getting attention from both ‘sides’). He writes: “I find it frustrating that Facebook is a bigger part of most students' lives than the war. “This culture of duty is at odds with the culture of individualism and self-promotion that seems paramount here in college. And yet, the divide between my soldier friends and my fellow students isn't the result of any fundamental differences between the people themselves. Many of my peers at school know much more about the world around them than my fellow soldiers do -- international relations is a popular subject at Georgetown. My Army friends used to laugh when they saw me reading the Economist; my friends here think everyone should read it. Students talk about refugees from Iraq, North Korea, Burma and Darfur with sincere compassion. One of my friends told me: 'I want to dedicate my life to educating people about the sufferings of others.' “That's a wonderful goal, but I often feel that the words ring hollow. Students' true priorities are demonstrated by their daily activities: They have friends to meet, parties to attend, internships to work at, extracurricular activities to participate in, papers to write and classes to attend. They're under a lot of pressure to build a strong resume for whatever company or graduate school they apply to after college. They're under no pressure to be concerned about those who are less fortunate -- or those who fight wars on their behalf.” VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Hmmm … according to this, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) [I had to look up the acronym … to me “CRP” stands for the “Critical Reagents Program” ] accounted for ~8% of the farm bill on FY05. It sounds like the CRP is different from what you describe in the first paragraph. The stated goal of the CRP seems to be to facilitate the planting of native vegetation in order to proactively minimize or reverse soil erosion, facilitate nitrate filtration before reaching drinking supplies, and minimize degradation of natural weather breakers. Considering the real costs associated with landslides on the west coast, loss of barrier islands to lessen hurricane impacts in places like New Orleans, soil erosion, the Dust Bowl, this doesn’t sound like a poor investment. But, as we all know, goals do not always resemble the final implementation and execution of programs (government or otherwise). What are the criticisms? Is this program just an easy target? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Really? Why? Historically which nation-states have most resembled what you describe in practice? Consider applying your notional concept to modern, Westphalian international security and nuclear weapons proliferation. A number of states voluntarily gave up nuclear weapons programs or unquestionably posses the latent technical capability to pursue nuclear weapons programs if they made such a decision, including but not limited to Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Brazil, Argentina, Turkey, South Africa, Japan, ROK. Some of those nation-states voluntarily relinquished that “strength” because they were confident in agreements – signed pieces of paper and verbal promises – made by the US that they would be protected under our “nuclear umbrella.” Would you advocate that those states … & others with latent technical capability pursue … their own strength through proliferation of nuclear weapons? The now-declassified predictions/assessments of SecDef Robert McNamara in 1963 suggested that w/in 10 years the world would see up to 8 additional nuclear weapons states with additional other possible candidates for NWS (p. 6 has the now-infamous table). Consider the role of the NPT and the vigorous participation of the US in its negotiation in the mid to late 1960s largely due to concerns that US-USSR deterrence would not be enough to limit proliferation. ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- W/r/t the overall thread: This morning’s Financial Times features an interview with Admiral Fallon, in which the head of US CENTCOM criticizes the rhetoric of folks like AEI’s Michael Leeden and others who are advocating for military action. Admiral Fallon: “None of this is helped by the continuing stories that just keep going around and around and around that any day now there will be another war which is just not where we want to go… “Getting Iranian behaviour to change and finding ways to get them to come to their senses and do that is the real objective. Attacking them as a means to get to that spot strikes me as being not the first choice in my book. “There has got to be some combination of strength and willingness to engage. How to come up with the right combination of that is the real trick. “We need to see them do something along the lines of ‘we are serious about having a dialogue’ and then maybe we can do something,” While it’s not a completely parallel situation, one might take pause & wonder if Adm Fallon would be the next Gen Eric Shinseki? [Frankly, I don’t think so, largely because the dynamics of OSD have changed under SecDef Gates and DepSecDef England.] VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

New study finds “Feminism and romance go hand in hand.” Major finding: "men with feminist partners reported both more stable relationships and greater sexual satisfaction." Researchers also found that “feminist women were more likely to be in a heterosexual romantic relationship than non-feminist women,” and "unflattering feminist stereotypes, that tend to stigmatize feminists as unattractive and sexually unappealing, are unsupported." Synopsis here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071015102856.htm. Primary data here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/6163700x51t5r169/ (PM with an email addy for a pdf copy of the peer-reviewed paper if you are unable to access it from the Springer site.) Among the men participating in the study, whether they tended to hold feminist attitudes or not, greater sexual satisfaction was found to correlate positively with their wife or female partner’s tendency to feminist attitudes. To some folks (women and men) the study’s findings are kind of like an announcement from the US Dept of “Duh.”

If (& that can be a dangerous assumption) I understand correctly, you’re talking about a counterfactual, i.e., trying to analytically ask the question of “if we had done “x” instead of the historical “y,” what would have happened/been the implications?” You’ve potentially got a neat case in part because you’ve indentified some specific causal relations to test. Are there comparable cases in which increased diplomacy was selected over covert action, and what were the outcomes? Frankly, I don't know enough about the specific programs to which you're referring. Nota bene: counterfactual analyses, which traces its roots to Hume, sometimes get confused with revisionist history or alternative history, which they’re not. Counterfactuals can be fascinating, im-ever-ho. A colleague & I are currently working on one related to use of nuclear weapons, which is a topic that has had a number of previous counterfactuals done, along w/the US civil war & reconstruction, WWI, and WWII ... pretty much any major armed conflict and a lot of minor ones too. If you’re really interested in this area, you might explore if someone has done explored the counterfactual that you’re suggesting. Some well known, popular examples include: Bob Cowly’s What If?: The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been, Niall Furgusson’s Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals, and (a bit more methodolgically-focused, aka how to do better counterfactuals) Belkin & Tetlock’s Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics: Logical, Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Nah man.. Nukes are soooooooo 20th Century..... A good engineered pandemic is the way of the future. [sarcasm] Eh ... transgenics is soooo 1980s ... the wave of the future is nanobots. When smaller is better! [/sarcasm] /Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I'll join you for a virtual beer at Murphy's. marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

True ... I'm not sure anyone was debating that. It is entirely possible, however, that I missed that part.

For something of a different perspective: this represents a mediocre interim approach at best and a distracter at worse. An explicit recommendation of the Intelligence Commission Report was the need for more and better HUMINT (human intelligence). A subtle recommendation of the 9/11 Commission Report was the need for more and better HUMINT. And HUMINT is hard, expensive, complicated, and takes time. Does the intelligence community have enough trained analysts with appropriate technical, cultural, language, and/or operational backgrounds to analyze and integrate the massive amounts of SIGINT (signals intelligence) being collected? More SIGINT noise is not going to help validate the signal in the absence of HUMINT corroboration. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

In Flanders field the poppies [g]row, Between the crosses row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe, To you from failing hands we throw The torch - yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. Dr. McCrae, who I believe was actually a Canadian, composed after the 2nd Battle of Ypres. VR/Marg … I had to Google the 2nd & 3rd stanzas

He already has.

U.S. Holds Up-To-Date Blueprint for Attack on Iran And of course, as we all know, per our Constitutional system the US military responds to/acts on direction from civilian leadership. I do not – in any way – criticize developing plans and fleshing out hypothetical/notional scenarios. What data goes into such planning scenarios, how the scenarios are interpreted, the decision-making process, and decisions to act (or not & how to act) are of significant concern. Found Blix’s comments very interesting. VR/Marg ---- ---- ---- The U.S. military has plans and forces available for an attack against Iranian nuclear facilities although defense officials remain reserved about military intervention in this situation, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Nov. 8). Potential targets in Iran include its Natanz uranium enrichment facility, various ballistic missile installations and military bases as well as naval resources that Iran could use to cut off the Straits of Hormuz, an important route for Gulf oil shipments. The U.S. Navy has stationed an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf carrying about 60 fighter jets as well as other aircraft that could be used in an attack against Iran. U.S. fighters and bombers have also been placed at air bases in Iraq, a regional air operations center in Qatar and elsewhere in the region. Roughly 2,200 U.S. Marines have been deployed to the Middle East on ships led by the amphibious assault vessel USS Kearsarge. The United States could also deploy Delta Force soldiers or other special operations commandos to Iran to carry out a stealth attack against its nuclear facilities. U.S. Army and Marine forces remain overstretched from years-long ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Little evidence exists that senior military officials have advocated action against Iran. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has repeatedly refused to rule out an attack even as he said the United States was pursuing diplomacy and new economic sanctions to pressure Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program. He said on Oct. 25 that recently announced U.S. unilateral sanctions against Iran were intended as an alternative to war rather than an escalation toward conflict. When asked late last month if planning for an attack on Iran was being stepped up or only going through regular updates, Gates said he “would characterize it as routine.” Conventional military forces in Iran are considered to be more limited than the forces of other Middle Eastern countries, but Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the Iranian military possesses considerable defensive capabilities. “Its strengths in overt conflict are more defensive than offensive, but Iran has already shown it has great capability to resist outside pressure and any form of invasion and done so under far more adverse and divisive conditions than exist in Iran today,” Cordesman wrote this year. Cordesman estimated that Iran maintains an army of about 350,000 troops (Robert Burns, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, Nov. 9). Meanwhile, former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix on Wednesday described Iran as a potentially greater threat than prewar Iraq, the Melbourne, Australia, Age reported. Blix said that Iran’s is not “practically prostrate” as Iraq was in 2003. “They had had sanctions since 1991 and were in miserable shape and everyone knew that,” he said. “In the case of Iran, this is very different. Iran is a country that has a big military apparatus,” he said “They have also a large nuclear sector with two nuclear power reactors that are ready to go into operation, research reactors going on, a lot of people and a lot of money. “Therefore the suspicions and concerns about Iran and enriched uranium are far more substantial than they were in the case of Iraq,” Blix said (Daniel Flitton, The Age, Nov. 8). In remarks published yesterday, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia called on Iran not to heighten tensions with Western powers over its nuclear program and urged Tehran to reach an international compromise enabling it to pursue a peaceful nuclear energy program, Reuters reported. “The world fears that Iran's nuclear program will lead to developing nuclear weapons. Iran has announced its nuclear program is intended for peaceful use,” Abdullah said. “If this is the case, then we don't see any justification for escalation, confrontation and challenge, which only makes issues more complicated” (Reuters I, Nov. 8). A high-level Russian diplomat said Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin did not deliver a secret message to Iran about its nuclear program while attending a summit in Tehran last month, Reuters reported (see GSN, Oct. 19). On Oct. 17, Iranian state media quoted Ali Larijani, then Iran’s top nuclear envoy, as saying Putin had delivered a “special message” to Iran’s government. The report provided no further details. “There were no secret messages,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak said when asked about Putin’s visit. Some media reports indicated that Putin’s message might have been that the United States would open direct negotiations with Tehran if it abandoned its uranium enrichment efforts (Guy Faulconbridge, Reuters II, Nov. 7). Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I vaguely remember one instance in early October; have there been others? I assumed that was an inadvertent slip of the tongue ... or he was tired. A couple years ago I accidently said "Czechoslovakia" at an international meeting, when I should have said the "Czech Republic." Very not good Or is he using it metaphorically to comment on the slide away from democracy and increasing power centralization in the Kremlin that Russia has experienced under President Putin? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Perhaps I'm confused ... am confident that someone will correct me if that's the case.

What constitutes such documents? Was intent to act on materials or knowledge contained there-in established? The "distance learning" phenomenon among radical Islamists/global Salifists is well-established particularly w/r/t construction of IEDs. It's also fascinating to observe where they have almost cut-n-pasted translated versions of stuff from right-wing, Neo-Nazi, anti-government American militant 'literature' of the the 1980s-1990s. At the same time, deconflicting that from artistic expression -- even if I don't like what it says or portrays --and the 16-year old geek in the midwest who has a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook are important differences, imo. What is it in this case? Or is that not quite clear? Is it an application of an anti-terrorism version of the 'precautionary principle.' i.e., assumed to be used for terrorist purposes unless can be shown unilaterally to the contrary? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

They aren't your enemy either. If there are turnarounds that are separated by "years", then possibly the time or technology to check things out then wasn't up to today's standards. Strongly concur. Blantantly cut from an old post of mine in SC: I bet you & others here could cite the case of thalidomide babies as an example of where US FDA provided a protective service -- friend to lots of mothers and children in the 1950s -- which was largely due to one, stubborn in a very good way, FDA scientist-chick who refused to approve the sale/use in the US. Europe, which is now frequently regarded a more regulatory or actively employing the 'precautionary principle," did not prohibit thalidomide ... Another example is the recent adulterated pet foods and toothpaste from China. FDA regulations help keep melamine- and ethylene glycol (anti-freeze) contaminated products out of the US. As much as an impact as the contaminated pet foods had on the pet owners, another diethylene glycol (used because it's cheaper than non-toxic glycerin) in other products from China, e.g., cough syrup, has likely killed thousands in places like Bangladesh & Panama. NY Times did an an expose a few months back: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/world/americas/06poison.html?ex=1182139200&en=2196679c766f38b1&ei=5070, although it's been a suspected or identified problem for years ... just didn't have dying American cats and dogs to get the public's attention. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I'm trying to figure out the conclusion that the readers are supposed to arrive at. Are you suggesting that the threat from Al Qa'eda has been over-hyped in some way ... or under-appreciated? Are you suggesting that the CORONA program is paralleled with NSA wiretaps? Or commenting on the cuts in the Appropriations bill to the Air Force's space-based weapons program ... or cuts to funding for missile defense (the Polish radar sites)? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Concur w/r/t articulate writing and skill in crafting an Op-Ed. It’s good rhetoric (& that’s not a pejorative or sarcastic slam, either), it has to be reasonably good to excellent rhetoric in the precise meaning of word in order to make it into the Wall Street Journal. Heartily concur with the Op-Ed’s conclusion: “Let's vote next year for people who believe in America's future, not for the ones who live in the Cold War past.” Of the current candidates, who is most living in the Cold War past? I am confident that the writer believes/thinks honestly and with complete personal integrity that the analysis and interpretation he draws from objective facts and his expert opinion of history is reasonable, robust, and correct. As the OP wrote, it’s an opinion editorial. Where do the objective facts and historical analysis & interpretation diverge? And what can historical analysis – like Lt. Gen. Pacepa did in his Op Ed – suggest for current policy? I want to push the assertion quoted above w/r/t to objective facts in the Op-Ed. -- Lt. Gen Pacapa writes “Let's return to the traditions of presidents who accepted nothing short of unconditional surrender from our deadly enemies.” Was the surrender of Gen Cornwallis in 1781 unconditional? -- He also writes: “I learned that international respect for America is directly proportional to America's own respect for its president.” That’s an incredibly intellectually provocative assertion, and I would love to see a primary data analysis. But how do you determine that? When does one measure that? How does one deconflict the level of international “respect” and positive feeling for the US immediately after the attacks of September 11th when France’s Le Monde proclaimed: “We are all Americans! We are all New Yorkers, just as surely as John F. Kennedy declared himself to be a Berliner in 1962 when he visited Berlin. Indeed, just as in the gravest moments of our own history, how can we not feel profound solidarity with those people, that country, the United States, to whom we are so close and to whom we owe our freedom, and therefore our solidarity?” versus the level of international “respect” and negative feelings for the US after the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal became known? Does Lt. Gen Pacepa apply a selection bias to fit the argument? Nota bene: The Pew Global Attitudes Project has tried to do something akin in their 47-nation survey, which found that international respect for America, China & Russia (what they call global powers) has declined over the last 5 years. The Pew survey also notes that there are exceptions – opinion toward the US is largely favorable (very favorable in some cases) in African countries beyond North Africa. And then there are cases like Turkey – in which 83% of those surveyed like our way of doing business but 81% dislike “American ideas about democracy.” -- Lt. Gen Pacepa notes that “Republican challenger Thomas Dewey declined to criticize President Roosevelt's war policy” as evidence of past support of Presidential foreign policy. What about Wilkie in 1940? He criticized the Roosevelt’s ‘eagerness for war’ (as we of course did not actually declare war until 1941). I’m impressed with Lt. Gen Papeca's personal choices to defect and respect the authoritative base from which he writes, but I’m not impressed with his dismissing/accusing/intimating (via good rhetoric) that challenging one political party’s policies is akin to abetting America's enemies. What propaganda is resurging or being brought back? Historically, what nation-states are that reminiscent of? Are there lessons to be learned in his writing? Perhaps yes. Should that lesson learned be to not challenge the elected representatives? I don’t think so. VR/Marg p.s. What Lt. Gen. Pacepa describes – looking back to history and drawing conclusions to today’s challenges is exactly what I was hoping to get out of this post, when I asked “Steel” if there were lessons that one could learn from the Cold War-era incidents he described that the next president should pay attention to w/r/t DPRK & Iran nuclear proliferation & dealing with radical Islamic/global Salafist terrorism. Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

And so it goes. Tick tock tick tock Did Fed Res Chairman Bernanke say something specific in his testimony to the JEC today say about the state of the US economy and causal factors? Did he indicate that he foresees indicators of a recession ahead? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

That sounds simlar to was the situation of the rural private road where I grew up (midwest). 50 acres of land were originally (pre-1930s) purchased by two brothers. As they grew older, they subdivided the land into 1 & 2-acre plots, but the access road remained technically the property of one of the brothers. It was a private road; one of the brothers & his wife paid the taxes. The township also didn't plow or grade it. While laws obviously vary from state to state, in the case you describe, are there rights of ingress & egress? VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Uh guys … before you get all excited about a letter-writing effort (backed by Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md.), you may want to investigate a little further. According to the one of the articles I cite below, there are 156 different print or video options available for you to get your porn on base. Additionally, “The [1996] law does not affect troops’ ability to buy adult material in stores outside installations or to purchase subscriptions.” The ACLU is defending soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines "First Amendment rights to choose what they read." VR/Marg ---------------- Another article, which one might argue took a more balanced and statute-focused view: “Military's porn ban questioned” Excerpts: “Dozens of religious and anti-pornography groups have complained to Congress and Defense Secretary Robert Gates that a Pentagon board set up to review magazines and films is allowing sales of material that Congress intended to ban. “"They're saying 'we're not selling stuff that's sexually explicit' … and we say it's pornography," says Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association, a Christian anti-pornography group. A letter-writing campaign launched Friday by opponents of the policy aims to convince Congress to "get the Pentagon to obey the law," he adds. “The Military Honor and Decency Act of 1996 bars stores on military bases from selling "sexually explicit material." It defines that as film or printed matter "the dominant theme of which depicts or describes nudity" or sexual activities "in a lascivious way." “Challenged as a First Amendment violation, the law was upheld by a U.S. appeals court in 2002. “ “About 67% of the 473 "titles" reviewed have been barred, the Pentagon says. “Defense officials "don't want to take porn away from soldiers," says Patrick Trueman, a former federal prosecutor who now works with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group. "They say, 'well, 40% of this magazine is sexually explicit pictures, but 60% is writing or advertising, so the totality is not sexually explicit.' That's ridiculous." “Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., who sponsored the law, says the military is skirting Congress' intent. He notes the material also could contribute to a hostile environment for female military personnel. "If soldiers want to read that stuff, they can walk down the street and buy it somewhere else," Bartlett says. "I don't want (the military) to help." “Nadine Strossen, a New York Law School professor who heads the American Civil Liberties Union, says the law effectively censors what troops get to read in remote areas or combat zones. "We're asking these people to risk their lives to defend our Constitution's principles … and they're being denied their own First Amendment rights to choose what they read," she said.” ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Similarly, from Military Times Online “Anti-porn groups decry exchange sale policy” ““The question of selling pornography in military exchanges has been decided by Congress, and the Department of Defense cannot change the law,” said Patrick Trueman, special counsel to the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian public interest law firm that is one of the signatories to a May 4 letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Army and Air Force Exchange Service officials said concerns about “adult sophisticate” materials represent a small portion of complaints to AAFES. “Last year, 27 comments — less than 0.2 percent of the 16,344 comments AAFES received — expressed dissatisfaction with the adult sophisticate assortment, spokesman Judd Anstey said. One customer asked for an expanded assortment. “Following a Pentagon rule in late 2006 that allows banned material to be reviewed every five years, Penthouse was reviewed this spring and was reinstated, along with Playgirl and Ultra for Men. Hustler was reviewed again, along with 14 other publications that were deemed to still be sexually explicit and will remain banned from exchanges. But there has been no change in the law or the Pentagon board’s definitions of “sexually explicit.” “Rather, the change was in the magazine, Penthouse publisher Diane Silberstein said. New owners who took over in 2004 have worked to recreate Penthouse based on the magazine’s “original DNA” when it was launched in 1969, she said. “They hired two research firms, which collected data showing that while men do want to see young women in their entirety, they want more glamour shots, Penthouse representatives said. “The law does not affect troops’ ability to buy adult material in stores outside installations or to purchase subscriptions. “In response to the groups’ complaints, Leslye Arsht, deputy undersecretary of defense for military community and family policy, wrote that the board reviewed Celebrity Skin, Penthouse, Perfect 10, Playboy, Playboy’s College Girls, Playboy’s Lingerie, Nude, Nude Playmates and Playmates in Bed — “and determined that, based solely on the totality of each magazine’s content, they were not sexually explicit.” “As such, their sale in exchanges “is permissible,” Arsht wrote in a letter to the groups last month. “At press time, defense officials had no comment on how many magazines and other materials have been reviewed since defense officials decided late last year that publishers could request a new review once they had been banned for five years. “Army wife MaryAnn Gramig, who lives at Fort Knox, Ky., and is the research and policy director for the nonprofit organization Rock: Building Stronger Communities and Families, said she surveyed a number of exchanges by phone, including those at the academies, after some complaints were raised. ““I happened to be a military spouse working for a pro-family group,” she said. But she’s long been aware of adult materials sold in the exchange at her own base, she said. ““I have three children, and we shop at the exchange. I don’t let them go to the periodical section without me,” she said. “There’s enough stress on the military and families. This doesn’t help.”” Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

Concur. Problems with currently available systems & software have been well-documented: --- The illustrious John Hopkins Study Abstract: “With significant U.S. federal funds now available to replace outdated punch-card and mechanical voting systems, municipalities and states throughout the U.S. are adopting paperless electronic voting systems from a number of different vendors. We present a security analysis of the source code to one such machine used in a significant share of the market. Our analysis shows that this voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts. We identify several problems including unauthorized privilege escalation, incorrect use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network threats, and poor software development processes. We show that voters, without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited votes without being detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal software. Furthermore, we show that even the most serious of our outsider attacks could have been discovered and executed without access to the source code. In the face of such attacks, the usual worries about insider threats are not the only concerns; outsiders can do the damage. That said, we demonstrate that the insider threat is also quite considerable, showing that not only can an insider, such as a poll worker, modify the votes, but that insiders can also violate voter privacy and match votes with the voters who cast them. We concludethat this voting system is unsuitable for use in a general election. Any paperless electronic voting system might suffer similar flaws, despite any "certification" it could have otherwise received. We suggest that the best solutions are voting systems having a "voter-verifiable audit trail," where a computerized voting system might print a paper ballot that can be read and verified by the voter.” --- SAIC’s report, commissioned by the State of Maryland, concluded “[t]he system, as implemented in policy, procedure, and technology, is at high risk of compromise.” -- Bruce Schneir (applied cryptographic "guru") on The Problem with Electronic Voting Machines. "Unfortunately, electronic voting machines -- although presented as the solution -- have largely made the problem worse. This doesn’t mean that these machines should be abandoned, but they need to be designed to increase both their accuracy, and peoples’ trust in their accuracy. This is difficult, but not impossible." "Bugs in software are commonplace, as any computer user knows. Computer programs regularly malfunction, sometimes in surprising and subtle ways. This is true for all software, including the software in computerized voting machines. For example: "In Fairfax County, VA, in 2003, a programming error in the electronic voting machines caused them to mysteriously subtract 100 votes from one particular candidates’ totals. "In San Bernardino County, CA in 2001, a programming error caused the computer to look for votes in the wrong portion of the ballot in 33 local elections, which meant that no votes registered on those ballots for that election. A recount was done by hand. "In Volusia County, FL in 2000, an electronic voting machine gave Al Gore a final vote count of negative 16,022 votes. "The 2003 election in Boone County, IA, had the electronic vote-counting equipment showing that more than 140,000 votes had been cast in the Nov. 4 municipal elections. The county has only 50,000 residents and less than half of them were eligible to vote in this election. "There are literally hundreds of similar stories." Schneir includes some suggestions on how to increase the security of electronic voting machines. VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying

I like him, but I think he would be better as SecDef in Fred Thompson's administration. Gut feel or ? Thoughts on Giuliani? On the Democratic side, my bet is if Senator Clinton gets elected she'll go with General Wes Clark; if Senator Obama is elected my bet for SecDef is Richard Danzig (former Secretary of the Navy). VR/Marg Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters. Tibetan Buddhist saying