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Wordsmith @ 458

I have a question.

Something sent out as a “legislative update” sent out by a freshmen congressional rep that is a campaign brochure instead. Per the rep’s office, this “update’ was sent to some 85,000 households. However, there are at the very least 120,000 voting households in this rep’s district, with perhaps as many as 150,000. Questions are being raised as to what list was used for the mailing? Only to contributors and supporters?

As an elected official can mailings via their legislative office be used for the official’s reelection campaign – at the expense of the taxpayer?

Oooo- nice question. Lets see if any of the legal eagles are up to finding out the answer.

Franking privileges.

Thanks for sharing your insights and wisdom. Whatever I share comes from many casual acquaintances, including, e.g., Avi Chomsy (Noam’s daughter) and Yigal Ahrens (Moshe’s son). I am not anti-semetic, nor am I anti-zionist. But there are things going on in that area of which I strongly disapprove.

Oh. My. Ghod.

ET, have you seen the recent writeups here in the us about the GAY BOMB? well, this is the israeli defense establishment’s equivalent. I’ll take it point by point:

Terrorists Controlled By Brain-Chip Implants:

We cannot currently even FIND the mind/brain interface in a FRIGGIN LAB RAT, much less a human. There isn’t even THEORY about where to look. There are ten trillion neurons in the average human brain, each having up to one million connections to other neurons. The most optimistic projections of the actual research teams working on the problem don’t expect any “brain chip” possibilities until NEXT CENTURY.
(note that later on he says “ten years” on this winner. sure. keep backing there, guy.)

Carrying Nano-Technology Cluster Bombs:

Jeebus Save Me. Nano-technology is the science and technology of atomic-scale machinery. literally machines made of moving parts of one or a few atoms. We currently can build a nano machine to swat a single celled organism with a hammer. That took ten years and ridiculous amounts of money, but it works. This is the destructive nanotech device that could be put in your bloodstream. Only problem is, they are made of pure gold, have to be assembled by hand, and don’t work on more than one cell at at time (ie, a single shot weapon). To kill anyone with them would require injecting the victim with about ten pounds of gold robots. Good luck getting them to hold still for that and not notice. Oh, and of course they don’t transfer to other victims either, they’re too big to get through the skin pores. Nature and evolution invented nanotechnolgy long before we did; it’s called “life”.

“Cluster bombs” require LOTS and LOTS of explosive chemicals. Nano means one ONE or a FEW ATOMS. no room for explosive compounds, sorry. And forget about stuffing a few atoms of explosive in a little cell-swatter. we can’t control electricity or radio at that level; to get those abilities you have to move up to micron-sized stuff, not nano-tech at all. If someone told you that a deadly attack of explosive link was being planned, I don’t think you’d buy it. That is FAR more reasonable than a “nano-tech cluster bomb”.

“Within five years, however, we might be faced with terrorists armed with powerful new explosives delivered by robot. Even remote controlled toys might be used to deliver dangerous payloads into crowded places like supermarkets, he said.”

Five years? Hell, give me a thousand dollar mastercard and a bomber who knows how to rig C4 and I’ll give an RC robot bomb RIGHT NOW. Of course, it will be rather easy to spot and intercept and almost impossible to aim at a target, but hey! We’re terrorists. We don’t think ahead. NOT. Robots are here now. They are made of plastic. They break easily and are very limited. Future robots will be less so, but not much. Sorry to break this to ya, but the TERMINATOR is a MOVIE SPECIAL EFFECT. They don’t exist in real life and never will, because if you can build a terminator you can build at lot more useful contraptions that are FAR FAR more destructive.

“Some of these payloads, also conceivably within five years, would be constructed using radical nanotechnology that could produce something called the MOAB, or Mother of All Bombs.”

Oh. My. Freaking. The Hafnium Bomb, Israeli version. The more things change the more they stay the same. Bottom line, this was a hoax designed to get money from the DOD. It worked for about ten years and then died. linky.

So, in the end, total bullshit. But worth the trouble to debunk.

newtonusr @ 473

Like I said the other night:
Wanna fuck something up? Let the Americans buy it a cycle it thru their Media-Entertainment complex.

Thankfully, we no longer have the red/blue flashing lights for the puck … remember those on Fox Sports?
I still don’t get why the American Networks don’t use the same camera angles and brightness as the Canadian Networks … it makes the puck easier to follow as well …

Continued here…

Alfred Kelgarries @ 393

Ed*ard Teller @ 389
. . .

The turks aren’t saints, by any means, but they do have an amazingly low BS detection threshold. The PKK in northern Iraq has been screwing with them, assuming the US would protect them from Turkish retaliation. Oopsie. Wrong-O, Kurdy Loo. They don’t mistreat the Kurds that much, and are trying to do better. The PKK are bandits, plain and simple…

Well, maybe not so simple. You’re getting the Turkish viewpoint. Do you know any Kurds?

The Kurds are divided between Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. Turkey treats the Kurds like we treated American Indians 100 years ago, like forbidding them to speak Kurdish, and suppressing expression of Kurdish culture. The Great Powers after WW-I, when carving up the Ottoman Empire decided to divide Kurdistan into three parts the way Republicans like to gerrymander Democratic metro areas. I’m not saying the Kurds are just poor innocent victims; after all, Saladdin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, was a Kurd from Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s home town. But that was 800 years ago.

Whether Kurds are “bandits,” or freedom fighters, depends on where you sit.

But I understand that right now, the Turks are your friends, and they helped you out in Gaza, so I respect your POV.

Bob in HI

Bob, the Kurds are the largest ethnic bloc without a nation-state! You omitted Syria and Lebanon on your list! The PKK, have long been noted for their thuggery, the UKK, has long been the viable voice for the Kurds!

. . . The turks aren’t saints, by any means, but they do have an amazingly low BS detection threshold. The PKK in northern Iraq has been screwing with them, assuming the US would protect them from Turkish retaliation. Oopsie. Wrong-O, Kurdy Loo. They don’t mistreat the Kurds that much, and are trying to do better. The PKK are bandits, plain and simple. …

I thought that my first reply to this got lost in cyberspace, but now I see it. I replied in defense of the Kurds.

Fortunately I caught that in time to edit this, so I’ll only add that I’ve been all the way through Turkey and back, four times– From Edirne, on the border with Europe, through Istanbul, in which I probably spent about two weeks total on the 4 trips, through Ankarra, on up to the Black Sea coast, then back into the mountains around Erzurum, and then through eastern Turkey past Mt. Ararat into Iran– and back again by the same route, 4-6 months later. A set of VERY interesting experiences. But I didn’t get down south into Kurdish territory.
I loved my experiences in Turkey.

Bob in HI

CTuttle @ 471

It is North America’s Game!!! ;-)

Like I said the other night:
Wanna fuck something up? Let the Americans buy it a cycle it thru their Media-Entertainment complex.

Thankfully, we no longer have the red/blue flashing lights for the puck … remember those on Fox Sports?
I still don’t get why the American Networks don’t use the same camera angles and brightness as the Canadian Networks … it makes the puck easier to follow as well …