Dham, want some evidence do you?
There you go.
I can also pull up the surrounding facts if you want.

As for Ashcroft, in the larger view, a backward government can stifle the forward movement of a society, by spewing their utterly stupid rubbish into law, they are building the next terrorist attacks. BY ignoring international law on every level alone they have said, we're not going to play by the rules, and push our weight around when we feel like it, why the fuck should anyone else obey them?(and if anyone says that utterly stupid illegal combatants rubbish.....) Without in any way wishing troops harmed I’d love to see some US troops captured and held without a crap of attention paid to the Geneva Convention purely so spit in the US face about it. This kind of rubbish threatens to undermine international stability, and is against the longer term economic interests of everyone, US included. Another example? The missile shield, the only really credible use of it now is against china, thereby forcing China to greatly expand its warhead stockpile (as it is doing at the moment to counter the NMD), so in the end, everyone has more nukes and mad still stand, great fucking work. In the process you've destroyed an anti-profiliation treaty for a false sense of security. These people are dangerous, to everyone.

jag -

I'm not looking for circumstantial evidence. So fuck that. Yes, I want surrounding facts. I want to be certain that 18 of my countrymen died for oil.

Prove it.

I'm surprised noone caught this:

Look at his hands. Look at the statue above him. Add a caption.

I donno, maybe it's just me...

Quzah.

What am i meant to do? Hack into private conversations between governemtn and military? Tap the phone lines? THere IS no fuckign proff, but everything else fits, if you don't want to see it, you won't.

The US had zero other reason to drop in 20000 troops (like they respond to every humanatarian disaster like that) to delibver aid supplies? The timing? The HQ? Come on, at least it was a big factor, at most it was the only reason.

oil is part
 

I'd have to go look for an article to cite but there was more than "just" oil involved. Mohamed Said Barre had also run up an enormous foreign debt, for personal enrichment, which he left on the backs of his people. He was dumped, without ceremony, by his own people, who then failed to create another government to assume the debt, which the international community felt the "people" of Somalia were liable for. The international community couldn't bear the thought of a people without a centralized government.

OK yes this attutide of his bothers me.. but.. fine.. if Ashcroft wants to be a puritanical prude that's his privilege. And as somebody else said, surely there's another location for that podium, or a different room, where those briefings could be done.

But jeez -- come on -- $8,000? How do you spend $8,000 to do something like this? Were the drapes hand-woven silk? Were the rods used to hang them from made of the finest hammered gold/platinum alloy? etc. etc. I give up. I need to go finish my departmental budget for work. I could do a lot with an extra $8,000. :beer:

(Wait, I never saw all those extra smilies before.. tell me it's not my fault for posting those links....)

Yes, it is.

You haven't bought draperies recently, have you? Cost me over 100 bucks for an ordinary wool/acetate drapery and cheapie traverse rod for a standard-sized window. And that was on sale. I'm sure these are much bigger, of heavier material, and probably custom (and not on sale). $8000 doesn't seem out of line, except that they shouldn't be there in the first place.

I admit, no... and I'm not suggesting they could have done it with $150 in stuff from Home Depot. but I refuse to believe that that statue couldn't have been covered up in an appropriate way (i.e. no thumbtacks in the historic wood paneling) for much less then $8,000.

Of course, it takes somebody who will say, "You know, $8,000 is an awful lot to pay to accomplish this.. maybe we should see if we can bring it in for less."

"I was traveling on a bus when some Taliban pulled me off and beat me for not wearing a burqa," she said: "It cost me 500,000 Afghanis ($33) to buy one."

Are you suggesting maybe the Justice Department should have purchased an oversized burqua for Liberty?

Justice. Whatever. It's the same mentality ... cover yourself, woman!

Something tells me that :whofarted that might not be the most tasteful solution to the "problem" - at least in the minds of many.

Cheaper and easier to remove Ashcroft than remove Justice from the Great Hall. That guy scared me during his confirmation hearings, and that was before 911.