Ghost of BiB

What leverage? By the way, if anyone cares, there was a major reorg at State a few months ago in the non and counter proliferation areas. Some poster, I forget who, had actually used it as evidence in a "Bush cronie" thread. There is/was a huge faction that believes all proliferation issues can be solved by treaties. There's another faction who doesn't. Some of the treaty only faction left, and some now work for certain think tanks. Another hit on "proactive" policy thinking. Anyone explaining a layered approach to proliferation issues is going to come off on the news as a militaristic hawk.

10th grade should be old enough to think. By the time I was in the 10th grade, I was already running a crime syndicate and had an invasion of Mexico figured out. Some teaching still needs to go on at home. How many parents are discussing the news with their kids? What are they hearing in Social Studies (or whatever it's called now)? Maybe not the same, but Darlene and I used to take an actual globe and talk about how things going on in "A" were influencing things going on in "B". Linking events to the colors on the map is an excellent way to bring relevance to them. It's amazing how much those big blue spots to the left and right of the US have affected things for a couple hundred years. Nice memory tool. I can see where it could be easy to cross the line, though. Many of you have heard my geo-political takes over the past 5 years or so. I can only imagine what would happen if I were teaching the class. Of course if I had my way, the map would look a lot different. Point being, it's one platform out of many and should be folded into context. If there is any real valuable lesson for the youngun's, it's to learn to fit that perspective along with others to discover the gaps and contradictions so they can develop an idea themselves.

The best part was Flutie getting food poisoning.

That's where I whip up my home made Marburg. You can do it with a good looking blonde, too.

But then again, he probably won't. Geeze, if Outer Podunk takes Horace Gribbley, we might be able to trade up for Slimfast Schnidlap! This is serious business, here. Give me a minute so I can post that 6 more times.

American Idol is finally over?

Yeah, there's always that, but you can't give up on life today if you look ahead.

So now I snot on myself

Never mind, none of us can joke with each other anymore. Can't interefere with the youth movement.

Oh still my barely beating heart.

Ghost turds.

See how CNN works?

Cable sleeps under my bed. Not the other way around. Damn media and rumors.

I'm still working on that GED thingy.

I'm hiding the livestock.

I graduated high school. Can I play? No? Nobody likes me. I'll sue.

Maybe because they have been told their opinions for about 10 yeras?

I've never had a weather machine. This is a great example of how this dumb sh-- gets started. I used to have a good line on a state of the art death ray, but some idiot left it in his trunk when he sold the car.

Hence the emergence of the poor man's guided missile - the martyr zealot. But, it was only a matter of time before we had to move our Risk pieces around the board. It's hard to defend nuclear non-proliferation in a lot of circles when you are the one with the most nukes. Anyone who has them now I feel at least a little confidence with, including believe it or not DPRK. But blending martyrdom, ideology and nuclear weapons does not a pretty picture make, especially when one has countries out there that feel they can absorb an attack. Depending on your point of view (in that part of the world) it's hard to justify not going there when your sworn adversaries have them, and I think that colors a lot of thinking in the UN and elsewhere. Someone not threatened, at least in their own minds doesn't have a compelling need for the investment and the baggage. Several countries have dropped their programs.

Then Gene Hackman becomes coach.

First, my very first comment has to do with about the other 12 things discussed and agreed on in India-US meetings. All that is getting mentioned is the nuclear deal. One issue was India separating the linkages from it's military and civilian programs, which I think negated any NPT issues for the new agreement. Not sure. I think the text to the actual agreement is being sat on right now with some internal Indian parliment issues. I don't think the nuclear thing is weapons related anyway, I just think the whole thing is about alliances. It all has to go to Congress anyway, so I'm pretty sure things will come out clearer there. They have to approve changes to NSG rules for that part to take place.

Read the treaty. In short, all games are technically legal until one reaches the stage where one has an actual viable weapon. It can be interpreted right to the point where where the pit meets the device.

This is true.

I don't know how everyone else works it, but there are very clear cut classification guidances within the DOD. A grey area, to me is FOUO stuff, which technically doesn't meet the requirements of the Confidential, Secret, Top Secret and above criteria, but is exempt from the FOIA as it's deemed to be sensitive though not an actual risk to national security. Bid information, for example. Methinks from the DOD perspective, that's where a lot comes from. State has a different means and criteria for classifying stuff. One of the problems with sharing information. CIA, to the best of my knowledge does pretty well whatever they want. At the executive level, you are working with everybody's different systems, so I have no idea how they blend that. They generally don't tell anyone anything. Lord only knows how Homeland is figuring it out, as they have so many players from so many places. A lot of the reluctance to pass anything meaningful to Congress is that it is out the door before the ink is dried, if there is a grey area at all. Yes, there are exceptions and some (albeit, few) very well informed, smart people in Congress on both sides. But, they know and follow the rules and I've never heard of leaks coming directly from there. So, what I'm getting at is that unless it's information directly derived from the gathering of intelligence by certain methods, actual operational plans and related stuff or compartmentalized weapons info, once it gets into court I think one runs into what the definition of "is" is. There are also cross agency connections there in a lot of cases because of commonality. An example is the DOE "Q" clearance matched to the DOD CNWDI designation. This is also why a while back I made the comments about the NSA info that I did. It is clear cut and dried. Things like Valerie Plame are in the "is" is category.

How does the NFL pension plan really work? I can sort of appreciate it for the majority of players who never see 7 figures in what is a relatively short career, but at the same time how many kids right out of college get to start at over a quarter million dollars. Is there wiggle room here somewhere to at least discuss? Players making more money have more money to set themselves up for their second careers. And if anyone can, there's a Capitol in Washington I'd like you to stop by too.