What do you KNOW?

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Cloud

not picking up on any personal knowledge here, just yammering

??

Are you suggesting that I'm just yammering? You don't understand what I'm saying?

[Cloud]

yes, I'm suggesting you're yammering. As far as I can tell (from reluctantly scanning those long posts) you are talking about some other people's opinions.

Which is okay with me, of course-- you can say anything you want. But I would rather here from YOU, not read some confused--yeah, yammering. What do YOU know?

[glatt]

You don't like it when the threads you start drift away from you original intent, do you Cloud?

BigV was commenting on the Rumsfeld thread drift that started a few days ago. He wasn't yammering at all.

[Cloud]

oh, I don't really care, honestly. Drift all you want.

I'm constantly a-drift.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Cloud

yes, I'm suggesting you're yammering. As far as I can tell (from reluctantly scanning those long posts) you are talking about some other people's opinions.

Which is okay with me, of course-- you can say anything you want. But I would rather here from YOU, not read some confused--yeah, yammering. What do YOU know?

Since you asked so nicely...

glatt is correct. I have plenty of information in that post about what *I'm* thinking. As with most of my posts, you have to read a lot to get it, though. I tried to keep the different voices easy to distinguish with the color coding. The material in the gray box is the direct quote from the press conference when Rumsfeld uttered the (in)famous "Unknown unknowns" remark. *I* talk (at length) about what I think about his statement. Something you may not yet know about me is that I consider context important, so I included the question he was responding to and his complete answer.

I then talk about his answer. I color coded his words in red, and my paraphrasing and interpretation of his remarks in blue. The words in black (not in the quote box) are all mine. Those are my thoughts, which I freely share with you.

Respectfully, I beg to differ. I am not yammering. If you want to know what I know, how I think, read my posts.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Don't waste your time V, Cloud's not interested in thinking, just posting.

[Cloud]

okie dokie. I will gladly read your posts. The ones without Rumsfield in them.

[BigV]

Perhaps, xoB.

Surely that's ok too. And you're right, I can get drawn in with a serious response to something intended to be casual. It's one of the burdens of being a srs cat.

[Cloud]

Serious Cat:

[xoxoxoBruce]

Your free to read or skip any posts you want, but criticizing what you haven't read for comprehension is rude.

[Cloud]

so was your comment to me. Saying that I'm not interested in thinking is rather uncalled for, and not true.

My comments to BigV were not meant to be mean-spirited, and I apologize if they were taken that way. There's a lot of discussion in his posts, which I did read, about what other people think. I want to know what YOU (meaning the posters) know! Trying to get at life knowledge here.

[BigV]

What "other people" are you talking about? In my post, only I am talking, and I'm talking about one thing, what Rumsfeld said. It's all me, for pete's sake.

Rummy said "this and that", then I say what I think about it.

But *KNOW*... that's a strong word I rarely use. I have said this before.

Originally Posted by BigV

I don't think I know anything. I might be wrong about that, though.

I don't know.

[BigV]

"Well, Art is Art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And East is East and West is West and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh... Now you tell me what you know."
--Groucho Marx, "Animal Crackers"

[LabRat]

I agree with the paraphrasing that V did, and wish more polititicians (or anyone in a 'higher' position than moi) would just GET TO THE POINT.

The following is my get to the point version:

All of us in this business read intelligence information. I have done a great deal of work and analysis on past intellegence regarding what we knew, 'knowns', when we learned it, and when it actually had existed.

I found that there are occasionally very important pieces of intelligence information, 'unknowns', we did not know for up to13 years.

When we make our threat assessments, we base it on the known 'knowns' and the known 'unknowns'. And each year, we discover a few more of those unknown 'unknowns'.

I hope more people would have understood that. Of course, they would have known he was not answering the original question though

Originally Posted by Cloud

--I know that people are capable of anything, from the ultimate evil to the ultimate good. So don't be surprised!

--I know that the IRS sucks!

--I know I love my children, and they love me.

Wow, you know more than I do. I don't know that my child loves me and I don't believe in absolute evil or good.