jamal2609 comments

@Beelzebub:

The sad fact is, and I reiterate, 9/11 was a huge emotional trauma for Americans. The ones unwilling to accept what transpired are in denial because they simply can't handle the humiliation of having their iconic structures successfully attacked by 19 Arabs armed with box cutters.

I think I know what you mean, but I'll see you and raise you. Every fantastic event like this is met with even more fantastic conspiracy theories. What's more romantic, exciting, and comforting than to think there's this vast conspiracy that can explain all of this? A dark room filled with a cabal of old, angry white guys conspiring secretly to rule the world, enrich themselves, and/or enslave the rest of the world's population. It's lot easier to believe this than to believe that life is so much more complicated.

@neogreenjapan:

See Beelzebub's comments on reverse reconstruction above.

In the months leading up to 9/11, intelligence agencies were receiving several non-specific threat indicators pointing to the increased potential for a terrorist attack. Maybe your TS exercise was based on information being received by an intelligence agency, hence the elevation in classification level that would not have occured in the previous 8 years. As you point out in your post, terrorists hijacking aircraft was one of many scenarios discussed at the time. It would not have been unusual to exercise for each likely scenario.

NIST and the engineering community in general have already acknowledged that the official version of events is plausible. They don't want to refute conspiracy theories to prevent giving these theories any undue attention. Now I can see why.

@sabiwabi:

As for the dancing Israelis, why would they be celebrating while disguised as Arabs?

So I guess the FBI is in on it, too? You see, the further you take your theory, the more people get involved in the conspiracy. The more people get involved in the conspiracy, the less likely it is to be a conspiracy.

@sabiwabi:

Are you trying to make my point or yours?

@sabiwabi:

My point is, the more complicated the conspiracy, the more likely it is to fail. Iran/Contra and the recent attack sinking a Korean military ship are small potatoes, simple, compared to the kind of coordination required to pull off a 9/11 conspiracy.

These conspiracy theories always involve some number of elaborate high-level cover-ups by the government as part of some grand plot to accomplish some nefarious objective. And there are so many of them!

I'm curious, for those who believe 9/11 was some sort of grand plot, have any of you ever actually worked with or for the US governement?

It's like herding cats.

It's almost impossible to keep a secret in a room between 7 people much less orchestrate a complex, coordinated, multi-agency cover-up with hundreds of people across a large geographic area with so many eyes looking at the event and studying it after the fact. The complexity of an operation and the possibility for failure increase geometrically with the number of people involved. I think you all are giving US gov't bureaucracy too much credit...

I'm not saying a consipracy isn't possible, I'm just saying it's very, very unlikely it could have been pulled off without some major whistleblowing going on at some pretty high levels.

Conservative commentator Glenn Beck and tea party champion Sarah Palin appealed Saturday to a vast, predominantly white crowd on the National Mall to help restore traditional American values and honor Martin Luther King’s message.

I'm not sure I know exactly what is meant here by traditional American values, but it seems Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck do. Has a consensus been reached as to what those values are? Can someone shed some light on this, because the article doesn't say much?

If not, then the whole meeting is just a cheap PR stunt to promote a couple of TV personalities and whip up populist sentiment. I guess don't see what all the fuss is about.

@Molenir:

Nonesense. There were a very small minority who felt that way. Most Americans were screaming NO!

That's an interesting interpretation of the polls -- too bad you're wrong. If 41% of people were saying they want the health care bill and 12% were saying they want health care reform but it didn't go far enough (the single-payer crowd), that means 53% were against maintaining the status quo -- they, a majority, wanted serious change. They weren't screaming "NO," they were screaming "MORE!" The Republicans sat on their hands.

Keep in mind this discussion started because you claimed the American public was never divided over the issue of health care. You're STILL wrong. Now you're wrong by a lot.

Are you familiar with them? This is not a case of obstructionism, for most of the time, the Dems had 60 votes. They could have rammed through whatever they wanted.

Wrong again, Molenir. You seriously need to check your facts: Joseph Lieberman was and is an Independent, not a Democrat. The Dems were one vote short of the cloture vote. Joe Lieberman threatened to hold up the legislation and the Dems were forced to change it on two separate occasions to appease him: first for the public option, and then again for the provision allowing individuals as young as 55 to receive Medicare.

The Dems definitely did not have 60 votes to ram through "whatever they wanted." Again, check your facts.

Compromise, learn to love it. If you can't compromise, then you might as well not be in politics.

The reason the Democrats didn't just pass the bill with the majority they had is because they wanted to develop a bipartisan bill! Your suggestion that they didn't want to compromise is disingenuous. You mention Olympia Snowe. You know why she didn't vote for health care reform? In her own words after announcing her decision:

"This process denies us the opportunity to thoroughly and carefully and deliberately evaluate what's at stake"

This coming from the woman who voted 'yes' with the Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee's version of the reform plan. Apparently she had plenty of time to thorougly and carefully deliberate back then. She flip-flopped, but it worked as intended. She bought enough time for the election in Massachusetts that forced the Dems into reconciliation.

You mentioned Susan Collins, but I don't know of anyone who seriously considered Susan Collins a 'yes' vote on health care, do you? After all, her stated primary concern about the bill was its cost, but anyone with a memory knows that Susan Collins voted for Medicare Part D and the Bush tax cuts. She didn't fool anyone but herself.

But one has to ask, "Why did the whole bipartisanship issue rest with Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins?" The reason is because they were the only Republicans who even hinted they might vote yes on legislation that was originally presented by the Republicans themselves back in the '90s during the Clinton administration.

Every other Republican was in lockstep opposition to the bill, originally a Republican bill, and wanted to start over. This was Mitch McConnel's strategy, and it worked. Again, they deserve a drubbing.

Compromise on more key points, and it would have been truly bi-partisan. That however was not the path the Dems chose

Right, like the point that says you have to buy insurance or pay a fine? Any honest person who has seriously studied this issue understands that mandatory insurance is a requirement for a system that guarantees coverage for everyone. The ammendment to eliminate the requirement was a poison pill ammendment, like many of the poison pill ammendments introduced by the Republicans, that demonstrates they did not bargain in good faith. Compromise doesn't mean voting for ammendments that totally destroy the legislation or otherwise render it useless. That's called capitulation, and that's not how it is supposed to work.

I would like to reiterate, the Health Care legislation is just one of many examples of how the Republicans have been the party of 'no' in Congress.

Reckless brinksmanship, plain and simple.

And do you know why it's so important that the Republicans take a beating over this? Because the next time they are in power and there is a major crisis, the Democrats might do the same thing to the Republicans. Where will that leave the unfortunate citizens of the US who are subject to this silly one-upsmanship? Imagine a US Congress in which no bill can pass unless you have 60 vote supermajority. The US Congress was not designed to function in this way.

Short sighted and irresponsible. Shame on the Republicans.

@sabiwabi:

I'm sorry you think Flaherty's article is a waste of time. Did you read the part where it said anyone owning 5 percent or more of the outstanding shares of a publicly traded firm be made public, or that member banks sold shares to other members, and that no public stock was ever sold to the non-bank public?

How about the part where he says that each member bank gets 1 vote, regardless how many shares they hold, and there are 1,000 of them, so influencing the voting behavior of over 500 banks would cost hundreds of billions of dollars? Sounds like herding cats to me.

Of course, this is all based on the assumption that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is the Federal Reserve, which is in and of itself wrong, and I quote:

"A brief look at how the Fed's powers over monetary policy are actually distributed shows that the key assumption in the Mullins-Kah conspiracy theory is erroneous. The Federal Reserve System is controlled not by the New York Fed, but by the Board of Governors (the Board) and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). The Board is a seven member panel appointed by the President and approved by the Senate."

The link to the conspiracy theory provided by neogreenjapan above also discusses the theory of foreign ownership of the 12 regional reserve banks. But, if you understand how the Fed really works (as quoted from Flaherty above) you can quickly see that even if foreigners controlled the 12 regionals and the New York Fed, they still would not be able to control the Federal Reserve System.

That is a verifiable fact.

Interestingly, conspiracy theorists don't agree among themselves which countries supposedly control the Federal Reserve. I think you can safely say we are not dealing with a "Peter Schiff Was Right" scenario here. That was an interesting video, however. Watching all those Fox News analysts falling all over themselves was entertaining. Thanks :)

My point throughout this post has been that using conspiracy theory to show that someone else, in this case the Americans, are two dimensional and clueless is itself perilous. The reason is because it's so easy to shoot holes in your argument. I recommend using more credible sources than Mullins and his followers.

BTW, I think Peter Schiff was qualified to make his assertions about the direction of the economy in 2006/7 considering his background. It's too bad no one listened to him.

I can't say the same for Mullins or Kah.

@Molenir:

Wow, talk about revisionist history. The public was never evenly divided over the issue.

The only source I know of at that time having numbers approaching 67% was Fox News. The Washington Post and New York Times and most everyone else reported completely different numbers from Fox. However, since you think I'm making it up, why don't you check for yourself?

The Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/28/AR2010032804094.html

The Wall Street Journal:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704784904575111993559174212.html

The Kaiser Health Tracking Poll:

http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/8058.cfm

The New York Times CBS poll, Gallup ... I can keep going. There are lots of links here. As you can see, I'm not making it up. The country was in fact divided during the health care debate. For you to suggest the public was 'never' divided is revisionist. Check your facts.

If anything, the public didn't like the health care bill because it didn't go far enough. There are poll numbers to support that claim as well.

The longer it went on, the more opposed to it Americans became

I agree, although I'm not sure why you mentioned that in this context. It doesn't change the fact that the public was, and still is, divided.

Heh, the Dems have the votes to push anything through they want.

Are you familiar with the rules in the Senate concerning cloture votes and filibusters, and how bills become law in the US? If so, then you know the Dems do not have the votes to push through anything they want, especially while Republicans act in lock step against each major initiative. If they did, you can bet they would have done it by now.

And the health care debate is just one of many examples of Republican obstructionism. The filibuster was used almost twice as often by the the 110th Congress than any Congress in history, the current Congress has already enacted 50 filibusters, in and of itself a dubious achievement, and even Republican Senators have acknowledged obstructionism is Mitch McConnell's strategy.

First 40, and now 41 Senators from across the Republican spectrum are acting in lockstep to prevent bills from passing and to obstruct judicial nominations and executive appointments. Republicans have been employing parliamentary tactics to the fullest to delay and disrupt the workings of the legislative branch.

This is obstructionism, plain and simple, at an important time in the history of the US, and it's irresponsible. I hope the Republicans receive a drubbing for it.

Amen, tkoind2.

@sabiwabi:

There's nothing wrong with conspiracy theories per se, and I agree that some conspiracies exist, just as you suggest. The problem with conspiracy theories is many of them end up being short on evidence or are refuted altogether.

If you take a look at the essay by Edward Flaherty I refer to in my response, you'll see that the author directly refutes the claims made by Eustace Mullins and others, and the quote in the post submitted by neogreenjapan earlier. I won't copy-paste the relevant text of the essay here because it's BIG, but you are welcome to Google it and check it out for yourself. If you Google "Federal Reserve ownership Edward Flaherty," it'll be the first link.

You can believe whatever you want, but if you are going to call those poor Americans two dimensional or clueless based on the writings of Eustace Mullins et al, I would say you should check your own facts first. Edward Flaherty makes good arguments as to why these conspiracy theories are false.

And it's not just the health care initiative they've been obstructionist on, either. It's no secret that Mitch McConnell's Republicans in the senate are united in opposition to just about anything significant the Democrats try to do. It's their strategy and they're not hiding it:

From this article http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/us/politics/17mcconnell.html in the New York Times:

“We came in shellshocked,” said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. “There was sort of a feeling of ‘every man for himself.’ Mitch early on in this session came up with a game plan to make us relevant with 40 people. He said if we didn’t stick together on big things, we wouldn’t be relevant.”

As you know, 40 refers to the Senate filibuster. The Republican minority is using the filibuster to leverage its minority in the Senate. That sounds a lot like the party of 'No' to me.

Yeah, sorry that doesn't fly. Americans were completely opposed to health care,

That is incorrect. The public was evenly divided over the health care issue at the time, and that was substantiated over-and-over in the polls during the debate.

Your party of No mantra doesn't really work either. Republicans have reached out, repeatedly, but when Dems refuse any compromise, when they push for radical stuff that only Dems want, and that most Americans oppose, the Dems aren't the party of no, they're the party of Arrogance.

I'm sure you are aware of Republican Mitt Romney's health care plan and its relation to the one proposed by the Democrats, right? Mitt Romney spent weeks backpedaling on the topic because the plan proposed by the Dems was modeled on his Massachusetts plan, and closely mirrored the plans proposed by the Republicans themselves in the 90s. Obama's administration wanted a bipartisan agreement, but all the Republicans could do was tell him to completely throw out the existing plan, a plan that closely mirrored the Republican's own proposals, and start over. That's not exactly reaching out.

From an article entitled "The Empty Chamber" in the New Yorker:

"Other amendments were more nakedly partisan, and outlandish. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, proposed an amendment that repealed the entire law. Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican obstetrician from Oklahoma, introduced an amendment to insure that veterans diagnosed with mental illness would not be denied the right to own firearms, and another to prevent “convicted child molesters, rapists, and sex offenders” from buying erectile-dysfunction drugs with taxpayer funds. Coburn got through the minute he was allotted to explain his Viagra amendment without cracking a smile. “This is not a game amendment,” he insisted. “It actually saves money.”

So many senators snickered that the presiding officer banged his gavel for order."

(Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/09/100809fa_fact_packer?currentPage=all#ixzz0xloQ2jEP)

@neogreenjapan:

Thanks for the clarification. As you suggested, I did a Google search on Federal Reserve ownership, and the first link that comes up is an essay by economist Edward Flaherty of the University of Charleston debunking the conspiracy theory regarding ownership and control of the Federal Reserve. This is a very insightful essay that makes verifiably factual claims about ownership and control of the Federal Reserve. Take a look at it when you get the chance, it's good reading. Spoiler Alert: it's not the Crown of England.

I found several links, including the one you quoted in your comments about the Federal Reserve being owned by the Crown of England. GoldSeek is a commodities website discussing gold prices, right? I also found links to pages debunking that very same theory.

Significantly, the ownership claims you refer to were made chiefly by Eustace Mullins first, and later Gary Kah. I don't know if you are familiar with these two, but I strongly suggest you investigate their backgrounds and take a look at their work. The reason I say this is because Eustace Mullins is a conspiracy theorist of the highest order, and I've heard of him before. He's a crackpot -- check it out.

I'm not quite sure who Gary Kah is, but after an admittedly brief Google search I was only able to find his web site www.garykah.org. It doesn't list all of his qualifications or experience, by I was able to determine that he was the Trade Specialist for Europe and the Middle East for the government of the State of Indiana. I don't know how long he was in that position, but I'm not sure if that qualifies him as an authority on Federal Reserve ownership.

I would like to see someone with skin in the game make the same claim about Federal Reserve ownership. I'm more inclined to believe an economist from an accredited unversity that makes a factually verifiable argument than spurious claims from a known conspiracy theorist. WSY?

@MistWizard:

The child protection laws I am referring to were passed first in 1999 and subsequently were ammended in 2004. The Victorian era, as you know, is long over.

These laws were created to protect children from exploitation, not because of some Victorian prudishness.

As far as the age of 18 goes, that just happens to be the generally accepted age, it's not a magic number. It's like the drinking and smoking ages: the line has to be drawn somewhere.

It seems like you and others are stuck on the age of consent, but that's not the issue here. It's the age at which a girl can engage in prostitution. That's quite a bit different than consensual, experimental sex with a peer.

@neogreenjapan:

I think our disagreement about the history of the Federal Reserve is a misunderstanding of terms. I am referring to the Federal Reserve System of the United States. This system was established by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.

Please link to something more authoritative than conspiracy theorists to prove your point. Why should I, or anyone else, believe that Wayne N. Krautkramer knows what he is talking about? I can create a web page saying Mickey Mouse runs the Federal Reserve, but that doesn't make it right!

Also, I'd like to point out that the fact that Hardt and Negri are "commies" or "nazis" is not the reason I am doubting what they say. It's the fact they are not economists or financial analysts. I am doubting their qualifications, not their political views. Although their political views do speak to potential bias.

I'm merely suggesting that these two individuals are no more qualified to evaluate the role of a central bank than I am. If you can provide the opinion of economists who share their views I think that would help.

@neogreenjapan:

You are familiar with where that phrase you quoted comes from, right? It comes from a book by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Michael Hardt is a literary theorist and Antonio Negri is a Marxist sociologist. They've written a tome that has been described by some as the communist manifesto of 21st century.

Asking these two to comment on the usefulness of a central bank is like asking Rush Limbaugh to comment on the usefulness of the Clinton presidency -- you know exactly what answer you're going to get. To say that these two will take a somewhat less than entirely objective look at the function of a central bank, ANY central bank, is an understatement.

Either way, neither of them are economists or financial analysts, so it could be fair to say their opinions should be taken with a grain of salt.

The notion that the Federal Reserve is owned by the Crown of England is pure conspiracy theory. If you are going to make such a sweeping statement, please provide some sort of evidence.

Before you trash the Americans about how two dimensional their politics are or about how clueless they are, you should closely examine your own assumption about the facts.

The Republicans really have stirred up a hornets nest this time around, and they are taking a big gamble by being as persistently obstructionist as they've been. These last 18 months have been particularly dark times for governments based on democratic principles, with the autocrats in China making these governments look really bad.

Personally, I think the GOP should get clobbered if for no other reason than because of their tactics. You can debate about whether the Democrats or Republicans have good ideas for helping put the country back on track, but the fact is that the brazen obstructionism they've been engaging in this last cycle is particularly odius. Very irresponsible.

David Frum had it right when he said that Republicans blew it big time when they went obstructionist instead of working with the Dems on health care reform. The Republicans passed up a great opportunity to help shape the legislation, but instead they ended up with a flawed bill that will have to be fixed by some future Congress.

These kinds of tactics belong in a WWF wrestling match ring, not in a responsible political arena. What a shame.

Japan takes ideas from around the world and adapts them to Japan. There's no reason why people around the world can't do the same with Japanese ideas. This guy really isn't hurting anyone. Who knows, maybe he can come up with something better?

GOP = Grand Old Party, also known as the Republican Party in the US.

@glycol57:

Take a look around, Japan, USA, Europe, wherever ... you see all sorts of laws - some quite extreme - about who can have sex with who, exactly how old they're supposed to be, of what relation, exactly under what circumstances - and yet there's an absolutely constant stream of these "outrages" in the press and you know what's reported represents only a small fraction of what's really going on. Humans are very sexual, they fancy what they fancy when they fancy it and all the policemen or imams or whatever can't do much about it.

Larceny is also rampant, in spite of laws prohibiting it, but that doesn't make larceny OK.

If you want an "age of consent" with a rational base then I'd suggest returning to the sensible old time standard - puberty. It was good enough for 200,000 years ... and then everyone fancied that they'd become 'sophisticated'. Well, maybe the societies became more complex, but the people did not. Same biology as always.

Understand what you're saying and it's a good point. The penal code puts the age of sexual consent at 13 in Japan, so although I'm not pretending to be a lawyer, it seems the Japanese would mostly agree with you on the point of consent. The Japanese are not criminalizing biology.

But the age of consent and the age at which a girl and her john can engage in prostitution without running afoul of child protection laws are two different things.

If a girl decides she wants to have experimental sex with a classmate, for example, she can legally do that at the age of 13. That's the age of consent. If she decides she wants to sell her body for money to a 45 year old man, on the other hand, that 45 year old man, and anyone who is an intermediary to that transaction, can go to jail and pay a stiff fine.

The first case involes the sexual development and maturation of the child and is not a problem, according to Japanese law, especially when the two individuals engaging in sex are of similar ages. The second case is exploitation. See the difference?

For those who are interested, please also check Jidō baishun, jidō poruno ni kakaru kōi tō no shobatsu oyobi jidō no hogo ni kansuru hōritsu, or "Law for Punishing Acts Related to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, and for Protecting Children." This is another Japanese law that explicitly forbids child prostitution. Under these laws, a "child" is defined as someone under the age of 18. As you can see, the morality of protecting children from child prostitution isn't just limited to the "West."

I think HonestDictator points out well the problems that happen when children are permitted to make these decisions for themselves.

Japanese morality may be different from "western" morality, but on the subject of child prostitution there seems to be quite a bit of agreement. Please check out Article 34 of the Child Welfare Law.

If you won't draw the line at the age of 18 then where will you draw the line? If she's old enough to utter the word "yes" then she's old enough to consent to sex?

@bobbafett:

Did you consider that maybe the comments are being made here by people that think children require extra protection from adults because they are usually not developed enough to make good decisions for themselves? This argument applies to boys as well as girls, but we are talking about girls now because they are the ones selling themselves in this article.

Once someone is mature enough to make their own decisions and they decide to sell themselves for money then more power to them. The problem is it's almost impossible to determine whether someone is mature enough to make their own decisions. That's why the law is based on age -- it's imperfect, but it's as close as you're going to get.

@afroengineer:

He broke the law and is an adult. That's justice. It doesn't have to be fair.

@MistWizard:

Which is why I agree with legalizing prostitution.

@oikawa:

I did understand your comment, maybe better than you realize? The 16 year old is not making the decision to get married, his/her parents are. The reason is because the 16 year old can't make that decision. That's the point. Just because it's legal doesn't make it right.

@Hyperjump:

In a region of the planet where underage sex and prostitution have gone hand-in-hand for thousands of years just how successfull do you think the imposition of western morality will be?

Perhaps you should ask the Japanese government -- they've made laws protecting minors from prostitution. Underage sex and prostitution are not exclusive to non-western society, either. Societies all over the world, not just western ones, have decided having minors sell themselves for money is generally a bad thing, and they've made laws to deter people from doing this.

I'd like to take this to the next logical step. Since there are several posters here who feel it's just fine for a minor to engage in prostitution, I'm curious. If an 8 year old child wants to engage in sex for money is that OK with you as well? My question is, if all that's required is the consent of the child to make it OK, is having sex with a 2 year old acceptable? There are plenty of sexual predators out there who would definitely take advantage of this opportunity.

If not, what is the age minimum? Is there any?

@oikawa:

Sorry, I didn't catch it. After reading several posts that were condoning child prostitution I got a little distracted.

Folks, even if you have no qualms going out and having sex with children that tell you they are OK with it, please know that Japan has a law against prostitution with children under the age of 18. The penal code may very well say that the age of consent is 13, but you can still run afoul of the law. CoinLaundry picked up on this in an earlier post.

@oikawa:

Actually, no. It's not all right for your parents to profit from the sexual exploitation of a minor either. As with many things, though, just because it can be done legally doesn't mean it's "right."

Anyway, the article explicitly states that he approached the girls, not their parents.

@elbudamexicano:

These are not so-called underage girls. They are in fact underage girls, legally and developmentally.

Anyway, the argument is not that they didn't know that what they were doing was illegal. The argument is that they cannot decide for themselves to engage in this behavior because they are not yet adults.

I happen to agree with you that it would be better to legalize prostitution. I do not, however, agree that underage girls should be allowed to do it. This is equivalent to legalizing the sexual exploitation of minors.

@neogreenjapan:

In Hawaii and in USA, mixed race Asians are referred to as Hapas.

I think this only really happens in Hawaii. Hapa is a Hawaiian language term. I've lived in the continental US and I've lived in Hawaii, and I've never heard this term used outside of the islands.