helix: good to hear from you; it's been a while, i think. do you have a sense that the iraqi people have a common ground? it doesnt have to be a unanimous (hey, would it be "an unanimous" or "a unanimous"?) voice to survive, even in the middle east, but a strong voice will have to rise to the surface, i think. couchman doesnt think it's going to be a rabid one--and neither do i, if one ever surfaces. tbt
scatter: excellent response. the connection between the high voter turnout and a strong sense of "country" is very important. i thank you for reminding me. i think that such a civil war is unlikely in the near future. not impossible, certainly, but im not sure the alignment of purpose is balanced or organized enough to produce more than the steady stream of insurgency and regular acts of isolated terrorism. but that is also one of
hey couchman, you're bringing a lot of good bits here, but you're too angry at someone who doesn't exist on this thread. it's hard not to become sensitive in such a polarized system, but you've got to know that youre throwing around as much anger as, say, an anti-war activist. "will you just calm the fuck down, man?" "calmer than you, Dude." sorry for the lebowski tangent. im not sure if you are trying to label me one of your nays
im not disagreeing with you. maybe it's the simple fact that im here listening to varied news sources, and my understanding of whats happening there is filtered through so many perspectives. i hope that at some point there will be someone in iraq backed by the popular opinion and with the understanding to determine that it is indeed time for us to leave. what i believe, though, is that there is too much instability throughout the reg
im not certain i believe, like dabe, that we will be there forever. but dr. guy, i wonder where you are finding your hope. im not sure if you, like couchman, expect an extended stay with a positive end result, or you believe that we will be removing forces in the next few years. but right now, i have no idea what to hope for. tbt
couchman, well, that definitely answers my question; your feelings about permanent installments are a little different than mine, but i agree with your take nonetheless. we will be in iraq for a long while. im not certain where you were going with your media-hyped iran twin comment, but i wonder whether or not the us would have anything to say about the most enlightened elected theocracy, or about even your most enlightened pan-arab
and im sorry if it makes you uncomfortable to hear it. it makes me uncomfortable to write it. tbt
ive got this question that ive been meaning to ask you. feel free to write it off. i read your blog, if not religiously, then regularly. due to work load, i took a break from joeuser for a little while, and when i came back, i checked in with your blog to see what ive missed (and, for the record, i didnt do that with everyone's blog). granted, i dont know the workings of your personal life, but have been courageously candid about so
you could be right. of all of our interactions with international powers and policies, our relations with China seem the most murky. i cannot imagine any direct military confrontation between US and China ending in anything other than catastrophic disaster. tbt
thatoneguy, i pretty much feel the way you do. very good reply: thank you. while i certainly wasn't convinced that a military effort should have taken place, right now i think removing the troops would be an unmitigated disaster for iraq, not even to begin speaking about oil or other local interests. i wish i could flag one of the soldiers who post at this site regularly to give a 1st person account of how things look. my own moral
dr.miller, im not necessarily convinced that we are setting up a permanent installation the way dabe suggested, though i do see this as a possibility. but maybe im searching for a best-case scenario, regardless of whether or not we remove our forces. again, im not there. im no soldier and im not looking to spin the situation to look a certain way from a certain political perspective. of course, i do have a political perspective, bu
dabe: i agree that it will be a long time before we get out. my question is whether or not we CAN get out, now. let's suppose we removed our forces in two or three years. there's no way that iraq could survive, is there? forget about oil, forget about any other political motivation for the moment. let's suppose we had one pure intention, and that intention was to help re-build a stable country with a sound infrastructure. could we do it,
I do not live in Iraq. I've never been there, though I have spent time in the Middle East. I am not a soldier, and I do not patrol the streets of Baghdad, or fight to maintain safety while Iraqi citizens attempt to control the direction of a new government. But news reports and military maps seem to suggest an unfortunate reality. United States and the c
very true serenity. it's funny: i tried to put together a site on tblog.com, where the basic service is free but every attempt to produce a unique blog costs money. not only does the site crash on a regular basis, but the support is slow and unsure. on that site, everyone who "makes suggestions" tends to reveal frustration everytime a comment is made. joeuser is such a supporting environment as far as user concerns go, that it seems to me t
and after everything is said and done, free will discussion had or not, i would do the same thing danny would. for some of the reasons i suggested in the game theory, i would bury my head in the sand and say, "either we sink or swim together. lowell, you want to be correct? well, you'd better put the money in box B or you're screwed like me." thanks, danny. we'd both go down in infamy together. it still confuses me though. the m
about the risk factor, i completely agree. i would suggest, however, that this riddle is a little different from the "bird in the hand" riddle you proposed. as you correctly pointed out, there is no way to determine how often the two different sums will surface if you make the switch. the laws of this riddle state that lowell has a track record of 90% successful prediction. lowell says that he has no concern as to whether people think he's
that IS interesting, how the perspective shifts, huh? you know, whenever i ask this riddle to friends, i get the OPPOSITE response, almost invariably! I wonder why? everyone says that you would be a fool to pick anything other than "B". 9 of 10 isnt a lock, but it's pretty good! and that's when i usually launch into my free will discussion which hasnt even come now. the question i usually ask is whether or not there is any way on
OG, Fantastic article, and very insightful. Lifting the arms embargo would be a disaster in many ways, at least until international relations became more clear and much more honest. If China ever pursued a military campaign in Tawain, can you imagine what the western world would do in response? Probably you can: they would do absolutely nothing. There would be a handful of similar embargos, perhaps. There would be n
lol. nicely said. i would guess that you do not have the gambling bug, and i commend you for it. there is a guy named "amarillo slim" preston, who, among other things, is a professional poker player. he also is known far and wide as the best proposition gambler alive. basically, he is golden when he establishes the odds of events playing out in certain ways. the rumor is that he has done everything from holding his breath in cold water to
that is an excellent point. i was wondering if this thread would get to the risk factor. there is no doubt that risk affects the actual statistics. look at the lottery. first, it is very, very rare that the jackpot will ever get to a point where it makes statistical sense to purchase a $1 ticket. if you are going to choose a lump sum rather than the annuity, you get less than the actual jackpot; if someone else hits the jackpot at the sa
okay. but (and remember, im still not picking sides) look at it this way: suppose there are two boxes in front of you, labelled A and B. box A has 10,000 in it; box B has a 90% chance of having 1,000,000 in it, as determined by a computer program using the most sophisticated random number generator available, using prime number variables and so-on. of course, if you are unlucky enough to select B on the 1 of 10 times that 1,000,000 isnt there
it's never a good idea to trust your government blindly. hopefully, the belief that power is passed to the ruling class by god is over. still, we DO elect our government, and while the perfect candidate may not have ran during a particular election, it seems silly to not allow the government to perform services. they do make many mistakes. regardless of whether you are a liberal or conservative, i would guess that programs proposed a
i'm not taking sides yet, but let me play devil's advocate. look at this from a purely statistical perspective: over ten years, lowell has a track record of correctly predicting an outcome nine of ten times. there is no real reason to suspect that his odds are about to change. so, if you choose A and B, nine of ten times you will make 10,000, and one of ten you will make 1,010,000. given that you had ten opportunities, you should co
Regular Users of Joe like myself probably found themselves somewhat shocked when the new, revitalized forum layout arrived the other day. I spent about an hour fiddling with the buttons and switches, locating forum threads, and trying to determine who mudflap was, the lucky SOB. Maybe one or two months into my term here at JoeUser, it occurred to me that this site is FREE. While there are many free blog sites out there, most require the purc
I encountered a slightly different variation on this riddle once again in LABYRINTHS OF REASON by William Poundstone. Anyone with the slightest interest in logic and the concept of paradox should read it. A man by the name of Bernard Lowell, at the age of twenty, moved from his home in a small town in Ohio to Las Vegas, Nevada. He was fascinated by
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