View 434 October 2 - 8, 2006 (original) (raw)
This week:
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Subject: Record of instant messages
I agree with you thoughts on Foley except for it being hard to get the instant message records. In MSN instant messenger you just right click on the contact and select the message history. On one case on my instant messenger it goes back six months.
Andy Bushnell
Thank you. I seldom use Instant Messages.
I doubt Foley preserved those, so the question becomes, who did, and why?
Jerry,
I use Trillian for my IM and it automatically saves a record of every IM exchange. It wouldn�t be difficult for someone who had access to the machine to pull up the conversation.
Robert Walker
Which still leaves the question, who? Who had these and for how long? It appears that the Democrat leadership knew about these for a long time. These messages are years old. Years.
======================
Subject: The Tribes of Iraq
You said "It's hard enough to build a nation out of tribes."
True enough, but the Alemanni, Bastarnae, Bavarii, Burgundians, Chauci, Cherusci, Cimbri, Franks, Franks - Chatti, Franks - Ripuarian, Franks - Mythological, Franks - Salian, Franks - Sicambri, Gepids, Goths, Goths - Ostrogoths, Goths - Tauric, Goths - Visigoths, Hermanduri, Heruli, Ingvaeones, Irminones, Istvaeones, Lombards, Marcomanni, Quadi, Rugians, Saxons, Sciri, Sennones, Suevi, Teutons, Thuringii, Ubii, Vandals, Vandals - Asding, Vandals - Siling, and Warni, et al. managed it.
I do not know enough history to say exactly how. Does anyone know? Is it reproducible? Can the process be shortened and can we skip the analogue of the Germanic Imperial phase please?
Fred Zinkhofer
Generations of occupation in Gaul and in the area behind thelimes with intermarriage and expansion of citizenship.Claudius was born in Gaul, and promoted Gaulish freedmen to administrative posts when he built the Imperial civil service. As to whether the process can be shortened, I don't know, but it took at least a generation in America for citizens to cease being "hyphen Americans", and with "modern" education and civil rights legislation it is not happening at all. We now have ballots in 24 languages. We value "diversity" over Americanization.
If we cannot induce those growing up here to adopt our values, why do we believe we can cause some kind of transformation in Iraq where Sunni hates Shiite, both hate Kurds, and all three despise Turkomen; where the Turks want to suppress an independent Kurdish state which is the only orderly part of Iraq; etc? Clearly nations can be built; equally clearly the Western intelligentsia despises "nationalism". If Iraq is not to inspire "national" patriotism, to just what are Babylonians, Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, Persians, Turkomen, etc. to be loyal? To Islam? Which one? Shia, Sunni, Wahabi, Sufi? What, other than dislike of Israel and US intervention, unites all these people? I ask seriously.
=======
We have heard that there is a bank robbery in progress in the north part of the Valley. Reporters say there is no evidence that disgraced Republican Congressman Foley is involved, but investigation continues.
=======
Let's see: Democrats control the DC city council. In DC the age of consent is 16, and this applies between elder men and boys of 16; it's perfectly legal. Perhaps that is as it should be. Roman boys became soldiers at 14 and were completely of age, and most Roman girls were married before 16. There are good arguments for making age of consent lower or higher, and I don't intend to engage in them. The point is that it would be no crime to have consummated relations between older men and boys of 16 in DC so long as both parties consented. There is certainly no evidence that any of the boys Foley corresponded with objected to the correspondence; and Foley's power over them was certainly no greater than that of the President over interns in the White House.
Foley had correspondence with 16 and 17 year olds, but there is no evidence that he actually consummated any relationships; had he done so with boys 16 and above it would not be a crime; but when certain Democrats learned of Foley's emails and IM's, they went to the authorities to ask for criminal investigation although there was no crime and to Democrats being gay and cavorting with 17 year old boys can't be a crime? Now they claim that the Republican leadership ought to have gone public, but the Democrats who had most of the data didn't have any obligation to do so, and their concern is protection of the boys --
Protection from what? Under the laws in DC there couldn't have been a crime even if the boys had undressed in Foley's office. There might be some Capitol regulation preventing that, but nothing would have been illegal about a liaison in the local Holiday Inn, the one down by FEMA, or the Capitol Hill Sheraton. What were the boys to be protected from?
Now it's true enough that had Foley's proclivities been known to his constituents they would have chosen another candidate; but that's because Republicans in general do not accept that it's all right for men and boys of 16 to have sexual relations.
If all this had come out about an openly gay Democrat it's not even likely he would have resigned, much less that anyone would call for Pelosi's resignation.
And I for one have had enough of the discussion. Foley doesn't seem to have committed a crime, and the Democrat demands that Hastert resign because he didn't protect the children from something the Democrats have never denounced to begin with is tiresome at best.