Another great idea by the US government
 

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...rror_market_10

:hmm:

That seems very stupid.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

I give them props for creativity.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

:eek3:






...only in america :rolleyes:

Hey! I live in the middle east!

Make a prediction, send me some money, and I'll make sure your prediction comes true! You win, I win, who's complaining?

The two senators opposing this make me proud to be a democrat.

But seriously, this is ludicrous! You can just imagine the leader of some middle eastern country surfing the net, all of a sudden he comes upon a page where bookies are taking bets that someone is going to gun him down next week. Its going to be chaos when bets actually start to ensue.

I posted on another thread, the one about saddams sons confirmed dead, that America is doing stupid things that they dont have buisiness doing. Many people there forceably disagreed with me. Lets see them defend this.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

...lol...pathetic...

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

oh c'mon, even you must admit that this is a hairbrianed idea that only an idiot like G.W. Bush could come up with.... now america's like one big da*n casino

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

Vampyr, we disagreed with you there because you were wrong :p

Anyway, as it said this is "part of a research effort 'to investigate the broadest possible set of new ways to prevent terrorist attacks.'" Glad some people in the Pentagon have an imagination. You take a topic such as investing, and try to create some ways it could be used to their advantage, and you end up with this. Stupid idea, has way too many political problems to ever actually go into effect, but it brings the idea to the table, and in some point in the future some ideas created by this project may be taken for a new program. But that leads me to the next problem.

While there could be ways to use the stock market to detect terrorist attacks, if our country needs to use the stock market for intelligence, George Tenet not only needs to be fired immediatly (he does anyway), but Clinton needs to make a public apology for allowing him to become DCI during his administration.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

Only thing I'll admit is that it takes a hairbrained idiot to use Bush as a scapegoat for everything that goes on in the world.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

no arguements here :D


now i don't blame him for everything that goes on in the world, i only blame him for stupid things that happen that hes "supposed" to have control over, for example when candadian troops were killed by american troops, he said it was a mistake, but never did apologize, even when it was brought to his attention. And if a war starts with Iran (such as CNN is suggesting) than i definately will blame Bush for that because blah! after whats just happened in Iraq, they wanna put Iran through the same thing. Hey, maybe their looking for "Nucular weapons" and not nuclear ones, maybe thats why they havent' found them, cuz they're gonna have a hell of a time explaining another war to the world

I still dont believe I was wrong, but Im not getting into that row again.

What you say is correct, but what scares me is that there are morons in the government who will think of things like this and others who will support it. Seriously, the fact that they have the guts to actually make a statement that this idea had passed through their heads either makes them brave to face the public opinion, or stupid. In my opinion, stupid.

Ill have to agree with Gekko. Im not saying Gimp is a hairbrained idiot, but George Bush could not possibly have thought of and put this into effect all by himself.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

LOL. You're strange :D

You would be surprised how much the President doesn't have control over. Thanks to the lovely system of checks and balances, the President doesn't always get his way, and they have little control in other large government agencies, like the CIA, FBI, and many things within the military. But the President plays scapegoat during his term, part of the job I guess.

That's because it was a mistake. This was such big news because it happened to Canadian troops, but friendly fire incidents happen all the time to American troops. Take a look at the numbers in Iraq, non-hostile casualties are at a disturbing rate. Friendly fire is part of war, it happens, but this time it happened to someone else's troops. Not a good thing, but it's nearly impossible to uncover what went wrong in a situation like that. What is Bush supposed to apologize for, someone else screwing up? It's not Bush's mistake, I don't see why he would owe an apology. And the Canadian troops getting hit is not something Bush is supposed to have control over, going back to your earlier statement.

CNN shouldn't be suggesting anything, and if they are, change the channel immediatly. CNN should only report the facts, any suggestions should be commentary by various people who appear on their shows. Talk about war with Iran has been going on since they were named as part of the axis of evil. But the younger generation in Iran is likely to revolt, and overthrow their own government. That is far from a war with the US. That falls under the CIA's job.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

hmm, never looked at many of those things in that way.... stupid CNN *muttering*

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

I was just jokingly saying that I look at each issue differently. I side with the Republicans more often than not, but there are many issues where I side with the Democrats. This isn't a me against you issue, I disagreed with you there cause I think you were wrong there, doesn't mean I do now, nor do I see this issue being divided on party lines. Two Democrats oppose it, I don't see the Republicans supporting it. Even the Republican-controlled Senate wants to cut funding to the project.

For this particular program, I don't think it should've ever been made avaliable to the public. I think it should've been displayed amongst the research groups, and maybe tried something different using the basic idea, or file it away. What scares me is that they planned to register next week, if I remember correctly. It progressed way too far.

It was a Pentagon research group, Bush isn't running it. I haven't heard Bush support it either.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

Hope you're not getting the wrong impression about CNN. CNN should only be reporting the facts, and leave you to form your own opinions about it. Now most news stations on TV are full of programs that bring in people to have political discussions. Those people will try to get their message across, but it will likely only show one side of the issue. CNN itself should never be suggesting anything about a war with Iran, but someone who comes on CNN may. It's his/her opinion, but they doesn't speak for the government, and they are likely only telling one side of the issue. The other problem with those shows, which was made very apparent when making the case for Iraq, is that they make the issue seem very cut and dry, and they never are. There are many things which are important, but will never make it into those short segments. Everything goes much deeper, but that stuff is usually left out of TV.

Anyway, before I get into a long rant on how I hate the media, I'll get back to the point. Someone who goes on CNN may think we're going to war with Iran, but there are many out there who also think that we won't. Don't start blaming Bush for something that someone on CNN is predicting. The White House handles each situation differently, and they have never said they plan to attack Iran. There's nothing wrong with watching CNN, but be sure to listen to both sides of the issue, because the truth likely lies somewhere in the middle. CNN's website is a much better place for information, if you want to avoid so much of the editorial, but they will only report what is new. For a better understanding of the whole situation, past, present and future, magazines like TIME, US News & World Report, and The Atlantic Monthly usually do a better job of giving you a more in-depth look at the situation, and not just what is currently going on.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

I agree with gekko, I think the idea is creative and it also promotes America's youth to let loose secrets in exchange for financial incentives. It's a win-win situation.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

Well I stumbled upon a few other articles, for anyone interested.

First, we have a follow-up on the article. The plan has been canceled, and it seems many were unaware of it. Surprise, surprise.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp.../terror_market

Next up, the San Francisco Chronicle has an article on it, which explains it much better. Still can't say I support it, but the article does clear some things up, and explains the basis behind it. I might even go so far and say it's a decent idea on paper, but it would never work in the real world.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...9/MN126930.DTL

And last but not least, this isn't the Pentagon's only experiment involving the stock market. A grant was given to MarTek (Market Technology Systems) to develop these markets. Currently they have demo markets on the Homeland Security threat level, and the spread of SARS.

Your right. Only most of the time I agree with Democrats, but then every now and then one of them will com along and do something stupid that just makes me shake my head. People seem to think our entire government and political beliefs can be broken down into a couple of parties. Not going to happen, people are too diverse.

Yeah, thats what I was saying. They were stupid for even announcing this idea had been run through there head.

Yeah, neither have I. Some people seem to think that Bush has a major influence on EVERYTHING that happens in America. Hes not smart enough for that, no one is. People seem to forget that we have a Senate, a house of representatives, sepreme court, cabinets, etc.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

Being pro-anything that deals with gambling, I don't have a problem with the government setting up a betting service.

But imagine if there were some european country with a "predict american leaders deaths" gambling ring going on. There would be so much outrage from politicians in the US. I'm sure there will be outrage abroad, however. This, like about 99% of the things the government is doing to "fight terrorism" will actually encourage more terrorism.

Now, if you really want to take some steps to stop terrorism, you could do something like.....oh.... I don't know.... maybe.... STOP GIVING MONEY/SUPPORT TO ISRAEL!

But that'll never happen...

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

This keeps interest up. So it is a smart idea.

And I wouldn't be proud to be a Democrat right now. You have one huge image problem.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

i would have to agree with him on this one..

Im not even going to coment on that. :rolleyes:

Whatever, man. Ill be proud of whatever the hell I want to be proud of. :mad2:

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

Terrorists are proven to attack when least expected. If you keep public interest up in the war against terrorism people will remain vigilant and it will be less likely that there will be a terrorist attack. It's an extremely simple concept.

Please do not turn this one of those "us vs. you" kind of things. We all of have our own unique opinions and that would be senseless.

And gekko is right about CNN. They should only report the facts, and not be opinionated in that regard. I still prefer newspapers over news channels. And there's a pretty low possibility that we could wage war with Iran. There will most likely be an uprising against the current government instead. Bet CNN didn't tell you that, eh gimpy?

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

nope, they actually failed to mention that, :D, but you have to admit the current US government is having quite a few of unhappy citizens on its hands. not to mention global citizens, although i don't blame bush for everything, i do blame him for supporting a lot of things like a war Iraq, i mean, he hasn't found the weapons, yet he still persists they ARE there, not they MIGHT be there. In my mind the possibility that they are there doesn't exist, I don't think its all bushes fault, i just think the current government is corrupt.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

The US government will always has unhappy citizens on its hands. It doesn't matter what administration, there are a lot of people who won't like it. Even with Reagan, where he won every state except Minnesota :D Funny though, Mondale can beat Reagan in this state, but can't beat Coleman for a Senate seat. Haha :) Back on track, making global citizens happy is not the responsibility of the US government. Being anti-Bush may have helped Germany's president win the election, but Germans don't vote in the US. People will always hate the US, the issue changes, but it's always there.

Now, on to WMD. The CIA had incredibly poor human intelligence in Iraq to actually tell us where these things are. The CIA has many problems these days, and not having human intelligence makes it really hard to find weapons. Saddam has been successfully hiding weapons for 12 years, in other words, he's an expert. See, what I find funny is that the very people who are worried about finding weapons are the ones who made it this difficult in the first place. Ideally, we should've attacked Iraq, without ever sending an inspector. Catch them offgaurd, before they have a chance to get all their defenses setup, and weapons hidden. But of course, lovely politicians don't think that way. So instead, Bush agrees to send back inspectors. If they can't do their job in a decade, how can anybody expect them to do any better in a couple months? Of course, they still didn't agree to the terms, where they could go anywhere. All interviews were done with an Iraqi government official there waiting to kill them, that's a lot of help. Oh, and let's not forget they were kept out of private homes. When the inspectors wanted to go into an Army base, they were told they couldn't. Of course, it didn't really make the headlines. Thank you media.

Anyway, inspectors are still given a guided tour of Iraq, come up with nothing. Only gives Saddam more time to hide them, and prepare. So then we take them out, and wait while we debate in the UN forever. Well that's great. Now we have no one in the country, and he is free to begin hiding these weapons wherever he chooses. He also gets time to stick the Fedayeen in with regular units to make the fighting harder than it ever should've been.

So where are they? Good question. At the end of the war we had only checked a third of the sites we knew about. Right now, we have over 7 miles of paper work recorvered, that they need to examine, which is a very slow process. Lack of human intelligence means we're stuck relying on people telling us where they are, and since we just now killed the kiddies, and big papa is still out there, I wouldn't expect to many Iraqis to be speaking quite yet. Common sense will tell you they exist. Throughout this process there have been many things found that help prove that they exist. Everything's there except the actual weapon, which they don't have for no reason. You don't by bullets if you don't have the gun. Finding those will be a lengthy process, and they are probably in some deep underground bunker that we don't know about, and only a few people would be able to point out.

As for Bush, he shouldn't ever say that there might not be there. As a leader, he needs to be confident. When people look to their leader, they want someone who can make a decision and stand behind it, and not crumble under pressure.

All government is corrupt, however, you need to be careful when you look at it that way. Everyone has their own personal agendas that they work for, and politicians are conceaned about the party, and not the people. Politics has a role in everything, unfortunately. But you take it way too far. Would the United States ever attack a country for oil? No. Would the United States give a construction deal to Halliburton over an equally-qualified company? Probably. Would the United States go to war to give Halliburton a job? No.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

:banghead:

We must go over the same simple points over and over and over and over.

:banghead:

Ok, I'm going to post on this finally. Some will be repetitive of what I have said on earlier threads, but since some people don't like to listen when the things that are said don't agree with their ideaology, I will repeat them:

The following are FACT

Weapons of Mass Destruction

1) Anti-War people love to scream about how we haven't found anything. Legally we didn't NEED to find anything. The responsibility was on Iraq to provide proof of the weapons destruction or storage that accounted for all listed from 1998, when the UN found illicit weapons. They were to provide this proof or face "serious consequences". I blame the UN for the vagueness in their decree.

Iraq never attempted to be concillatory to the UN inspectors, as admitted by Hans Blix. This makes Iraq in violation of the UN order. Please keep in mind that the two biggest opposing views on the war came from France, who has a track record of purchasing re-sold food and medicine from Iraq's Oil for Food program which was intended for the Iraqi people and had clandestine Oil contracts with Iraw during the embargo, AND Russia who were discovered to have been actively selling arms to Iraq even while the war was going on. Conflict of interest anyone?

Bottomline: By letter interational law Iraq was in violation of the UN, not just the US's views.

BTW, illegal weapons were found all over the place, just not chemical or biological. Think Al Samoud 2 missiles. By having these alone they are in physical breach.

2) Chemical and Biological Trailers and Beans OH MY - There have been many tons of Beans used to make Risin (sp?) gas in Iraq. Can these beans be used for food purposes? Yes, but considering that Iraq was reselling food and medicine from the Oil for Food program to fund their military, this makes no sense. Same could be said for the trailers, but there are several flaws in believing these trailers were used for food.

a) Why a Trailer? If producing food in a trailer is so efficient and cost effective, why don't wee see Keebler making cookies in them? The fact is it makes no sense to make food out of several trailers. If Iraq was maaking food, they would have had a central processing center and then used those trucks and trains to distribute the goods. Lets use common sense here.

b) Fermentation Tanks - Each trailer had fermentation tanks. Unless the Iraqi government was making Bean Beer, there is no other use for them besides producing chemical weapons.

3) Where Did All Those Weapons Go? - Do you really think that any government who wished to prove themselves as legitimate in front of the world audience would destroy over 1,000 tons of chemical and biological weapons in 4 years and NOT HAVE A SINGLE RECORD SHOWING THAT THEY WERE DESTROYED NOR HAVE PROOF THAT ANY INSTALLATION WAS USED TO DESTROY THEM????? Once again we fall back to the common sense issue.

Argue semantics all you like, but both the letter of the law and common sense back the United State's involvement in Iraq.

WHAT!? Im agreeing with Bond! Seems impossible...

Seriously, we did the whole "going to Iraq was stupid" debate before.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

Er, that's not really what I meant. I meant that some people still think going to war was the wrong thing to do. It's been proven time and time again that it was the right thing to do. Look what Strangler posted, that alone is enough to go to war. Facts are on our side of the issue. If you won't listen to them it's pointless to discuss with a wall. Maybe that was what you meant, oh well... sorry if it was.

And for the record Hans Blix is a ****ing idiot who didn't want to find any weapons so he could keep his job.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

I assume it's still ok for Fox News to be opinionated though?

It's OK to be opinionated so long as you agree.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

Of course it is, because Bond must be biased, right? :rolleyes:

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

That's not my point. Any one channel is allowed to be opinionated as long as they report the news as facts and nothing but facts. I want to hear the facts and details of things reported in an unbiased manner. As do most people.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

News should only report the facts, and leave people to make their own decisions on how they feel about it. Report the facts, and let people make their own decisions.

Problem is we have things backwards in this country. News media has had liberal reporters for the longest time, and then when we start getting some conservative reporters, they go far right to counter it. So we're getting both sides of the issue, and need to find the middle ground. We should be given the middle ground and formed our own opinions on it.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

hmm, although i don't agree the US wouldn't go to war simply for oil, i do agree with some of the things you stated gekko, but a lot of it is about opinion. Its easy just to write off Hans Blix as a selfish idiot(to bond) and say its his fault taht nothings been found, but on the other hand, you could also look at the fact that he retired on his own, a little bit ironic if you think that the only reason he didn't find anything was for job security. Another reason why Bush might have started the war is the simple reason taht his dad tried the same thing, and Bush just wanted to continue his father legacy.


Another thing that has been curious to me is the fact taht the first thing the US does is go into Iraq and disarms them, and then wages a war on them!!!!!!!!!! is that not halarious????? i mean its like you want to play basketball with some guy but first you break his arms and legs! as for what strangler stated about those weapons being a breach, they were not, is iraq not allowed to have weapons to defend itself, if you say no, than that means the George Bush has no right to attack them, because if he does, than all the freedom and rights that america stands for is a load of crap. What is a breach??? what was found were not WMD so therefore saddam never stated he didn't have them, so therefore why shouldn't he have them??

I'm probably biased because i'm in canada and am influenced by media here. So that may also be why i believe this entire war (or slaughter) can never be justified.



And what ever happened to bin ladden?? :sneaky:

hee hee, did you know that they were business partners for an oil well the opened up 2gether? too busy to get an article right now, but i'll get one later, its just that bush is a VERY shady character when it comes to morals so i don't think that he should be trusted to lead the worlds most powerful nation

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

Well, from what I've gathered from your posts, you don't fully understand the situation that led to war in Iraq. You're getting bits and pieces, but not the whole thing. You also may just be a pacifist. Learning more about it may help you see that it is justfied, or you might still think there was not an immediate threat or reason to go. But either way, there's a lot that you missed.

Bush 41 didn't try the same thing, Desert Storm was about getting Saddam out of Kuwait, not get him out of power. That is ultimately why we never took him out of power, which I believe was a mistake, but we can't change the past. If you want to use this as a reason to go to war, I must ask you why. Why would Bush 43 want to take Saddam out of power? For no other reason other than his father's administration they choose to leave him in? I would argue that you need to dig deeper, into was leaving Saddam in power and bad thing, and why would George W. Bush want him out of power. When you answer that question, you have uncovered one of the reasons to go to war.

This falls into the UN thing. It's not like we walked in, took their weapons away so they had nothing to fight with, and then attacked them. The UN had imposed regulations on Iraq after the first gulf war, which said they needed to destroy all existing chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, and stop the production of them. It also put restrictions on the range of their missles, so they couldn't attack Israel and other neighboring countries with long range missles. If they need missles for defense only, then they need to travel no further than the country's border. That basically covers the rest of what you said there as well.

He is hiding, in the nasty mountainous regions of northern Pakistan where it's nearly impossible to find someone.

A generalization I have no idea what you're basing it on. Please explain.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

as much as it was the UN's decision to clear all weapons, it was America's choice to attack, so there is no way to say that they had no idea this was going on, or such. And yes, i am a pacifist, and i referred to Bush being a shady character in morals because of his former affiliations with osama bin laden, which in probability meant he had connections with other people as well, although there is no evidence to support the theory i just stated, it's simply my opinion

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

Now I respect your opinion on Hans Blix gimpy, but let me please point out a few things you may not know about this "mild-mannered" man. Here are three quotes that I found quite interesting:

"I have my detractors in Washington. There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things in the media."

Speaks for itself.

"There are people in [the Bush administration] who say they don't care if the UN sinks under the East River...and other crude things."

That's because the UN is a debating society that does not enforce its own laws.

"It's true that the Iraqis misbehaved and had no credibility, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they were in the wrong."

That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it Mr. Blix?


Now, you probably don't know about Han Blix's history. During 1981-1997 he was the director general of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). That means he was in charge of overseeing inspections of Iraq's nuclear programs. During his time as director general Iraq was able to hide advanced nuclear weapons development programs from the IAEA. These advanced nuclear weapons development programs were only found AFTER the Gulf War in 1991. Mr. Blix is a hypocritical man who did not want to find any weapons so that he could keep his job, as shown in the past.
You fail to remember that Bush Senior could have overtaken Iraq in Desert Storm. Instead Saddam signed a treaty, which I'll get to later and the U.S. did not go into Baghdad. That was a mistake if you ask me, we should have dealt with him before. There are many reasons why we went to this war, which have been stated over and over, and over again. If you really want to know them look them up.
Every media outlet is biased somehow. Canada is a great country if you ask me. I would be proud of the things that you are doing, such as legalizing gay marriage.


I believe you said something about that Saddam should be able to have weapons to defend his own country, although I can no longer find it in your post so you may have deleted it. But in any case, Saddam was not allowed to have certain weapons, because if he did he would bomb the hell out of the Kurds in the North and the Shiites in the South. Of course he still had these weapons, which was in direct violation of U.N. laws and the treaty that he signed during the Gulf War.

That is an extreme opinion that has no factual basis. In other words, you're speaking gibberish.

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

i agree completely with everything else you said, except for this, i think it does, just because someone has a faulty past, there is no sense in not believing them in the present and killing them for it, what was in the past should have been dealt with in the past, it is no reason to simply write them off as liars and ignore their word and proceed with a war.


sorry for the lack of puncutation :D

Re: Another great idea by the US government
 

Iraq agreed to the terms, that's why they have these UN regulations in the first place. It's gets down to the point where either he agrees, or we're he's going to be taken out of power. He agrees.

So the UN puts restrictions on what they can do. We could get into the many times they sold oil illegally, by smuggling it to Turkey and Iran. Syria did quite a bit towards the end as well. But weapons are today's topic. Let's look at this situation:

The UN agreed to keep Saddam in power if he signed a treaty and agreed to the terms. Then he makes no effort to destroy his current weapons, and he develops new weapons in violation. Now what are you going to do? Enforce your laws, or give me a slap on the wrist?

The UN is run by a bunch of pussies who don't want to enforce their own law. Iraq violated the terms, and the UN needs to enforce their laws. If you keep turning your cheek, the problem will only get worse. Take a look back in history and you'll find an example that proves this all too well.

First off, you need to explain Bush's connections with Osama bin Laden, and be very clear. Then I'll get back to the rest. But if you don't have evidence, don't make the claim. It kills your credibility. Innocent until proven guilty.