So the intelligence was wrong...

[Slim]

Originally Posted by jeff

No it isn't. Do you have anything factual to rebut my statement?

Yes, Jeff, it is.

Originally Posted by jeff

Don't accuse me of being anti-American, Slim, no matter how much that empties your list of rhetorical answers. I want us to be successful, and want Iraq to become a peaceful democracy. Neither of which has anything to do with condeming the administration for having misled us into the war in the first place. Don't you remember pre-election Bush coming out solidly against nation-building?

No, Jeff, you dont. You would like nothing better than to see Iraq disintegrate into a steaming pile.

[jeff]

This is an example of why people treat you with condescension, Slim, as you're unable to participate in a discussion without insulting people and attacking their patriotism. That's just being a punk and not worthy of respect. For all that I disagree with him, somebody like Inq is worth 10 of you.

I like how you answer my "No it isn't" with that clever (!) comeback, but not the second part of the sentence "do you have anything factual?"

[Slim]

Originally Posted by jeff

This is an example of why people treat you with condescension, Slim, as you're unable to participate in a discussion without insulting people and attacking their patriotism. That's just being a punk and not worthy of respect. For all that I disagree with him, somebody like Inq is worth 10 of you.

I like how you answer my "No it isn't" with that clever (!) comeback, but not the second part of the sentence "do you have anything factual?"

I hate to break this to you buddy, but not everyone here seeks your approval or feels required to play by your rules.

I'm sure you made Inq's day.

[jeff]

You don't have to play by anybody's rules, but then you have no right to complain when people point out your posts as BS.

What's sad is that you think being a punk is good enough. Why do you bother posting, if not to exchange ideas with people, and maybe influence them? Do you think that this advertises your positions and beliefs in a way that convinces people to join your side? Or are you really here just to be a troll and act juvenile?

If my remark pleases Inq, that's fine. We differ in outlook and rhetoric, and there's plenty we criticise about one another, but neither of us are punks.

[gojujay]

Originally Posted by achilleus

Well, we should never have gone in, but it's way too late for that. Bush's admistration wants to (re)build a democratic Iraq to stabilize the region. We are far from successful. Currently it's a work in progress. Some say it's going well, some say it won't ever be done. To really evaluate it's success will take some time, l mean years. Until then, it's not a success. Unfortunately, Bush, in his ramp up to war never really said this, and gave the impression that that the whole incident would be wrapped up in months, without any financial issues...

I agree that we should not have gone into the country, especially without a formal declaration of war (which I also believe should have been done in Afghanistan), in fact I agree with most of this quote.

Originally Posted by achilleus

I would settle for doing it adequately. However, from the get go, it's been done poorly, from bad intel to inept planning.

It could've been done better, but, all things considered, it's not too bad. Look at all the fits and false starts THIS country had in the beginning. I especially like the visual of the Congress running from veterans wanting their back pay!!

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally Posted by Fechter1

I know RL was just trying to be a troll, but you'd be surprised how many people around the world believe what he wrote to be representative of the American people's beliefs...

Scary, huh?

Well... no.

People outside of USA do not generally assume people like RL to be representative of USA. Being representative of the GOP, however, is another matter.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally Posted by jeff

This is an example of why people treat you with condescension, Slim, as you're unable to participate in a discussion without insulting people and attacking their patriotism. That's just being a punk and not worthy of respect. For all that I disagree with him, somebody like Inq is worth 10 of you.

I like how you answer my "No it isn't" with that clever (!) comeback, but not the second part of the sentence "do you have anything factual?"

Much as I like what you write, Jeff, there is a thing that I do not understand: Why do you spill ink on Slim at all? He is a punk, and too old to grow out of it. Some people just can not be good - better to write them off. He is not worth of your effort, or anything else for that matter.

To describe Inq as worthy ten of him should be an affront to Inq - you are describing Inq as a major evil!


Poor kids, anyway.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[jeff]

Peter, you're absolutely right, and I couldn't do better than to follow your advice (I must learn to resist punk provocation)

I hope that Inq understands the 'worth 10' comment in the right spirit (though perhaps it would please him to be thought of as a Dr. Evil ) In math terms it's probably better characterized as absolute value |x| than as a vector. Is that geeky enough?

[Slim]

Originally Posted by jeff

Peter, you're absolutely right, and I couldn't do better than to follow your advice (I must learn to resist punk provocation)

I hope that Inq understands the 'worth 10' comment in the right spirit (though perhaps it would please him to be thought of as a Dr. Evil ) In math terms it's probably better characterized as absolute value |x| than as a vector. Is that geeky enough?

Must....resist....

[Slim]

Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson

Hi!




Much as I like what you write, Jeff, there is a thing that I do not understand: Why do you spill ink on Slim at all? He is a punk, and too old to grow out of it. Some people just can not be good - better to write them off. He is not worth of your effort, or anything else for that matter.

To describe Inq as worthy ten of him should be an affront to Inq - you are describing Inq as a major evil!


Poor kids, anyway.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

Didnt you read his post? He's doing his Civic Duty.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally Posted by Slim

Didnt you read his post? He's doing his Civic Duty.

Actually, I wrote that "spill ink" post yesterday, and read the "civic duty" post earlier today. Can´t read f101 every waking hour.


Peter Gustafsson

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally Posted by jeff

In math terms it's probably better characterized as absolute value |x| than as a vector. Is that geeky enough?

You are talking to a technical sciences PhD! No risk of being über-geeky!



Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[jeff]

Peter, I did that purely for your entertainment!

Slim tried to correct me on that, BTW. His 'must ... resist' post above originally had Sorry, but your wrong. If Inq was worth 10 of me, as you said, it's a scalar, not absolute value nor a vector. Geekey, yes, Correct, no. I dunno, I think the metaphor works as well with vector quantities as with scalars, as one vector can be 10x another. What do you think?

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally Posted by jeff

Peter, I did that purely for your entertainment!

Slim tried to correct me on that, BTW. His 'must ... resist' post above originally had Sorry, but your wrong. If Inq was worth 10 of me, as you said, it's a scalar, not absolute value nor a vector. Geekey, yes, Correct, no. I dunno, I think the metaphor works as well with vector quantities as with scalars, as one vector can be 10x another. What do you think?

Wow, he knows that there are scalars and vectors, and they are not the same thing!


Lets step it up - we send him to the Matrix! (I doubt he has any eigenvalue, though.)


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[Larrison]

Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson

Lets step it up - we send him to the Matrix! (I doubt he has any eigenvalue, though.)

Yeah, but how determinant will he be?

[Slim]

Originally Posted by jeff

Peter, I did that purely for your entertainment!

Slim tried to correct me on that, BTW. His 'must ... resist' post above originally had Sorry, but your wrong. If Inq was worth 10 of me, as you said, it's a scalar, not absolute value nor a vector. Geekey, yes, Correct, no. I dunno, I think the metaphor works as well with vector quantities as with scalars, as one vector can be 10x another. What do you think?

Yes, after thinking some about it, it occured to me that a vector is a better representation of a personality than a scalar since it does have a direction component.

I'll leave you 2 to play in Hilbert Space now...

[jeff]

will the matrix be ill-conditioned (like many arguments), or lead to singular conclusions?

Slim: directionality was part of the joke/point. Good that you reconsidered.

[achilleus]

Originally Posted by gojujay

It could've been done better, but, all things considered, it's not too bad. Look at all the fits and false starts THIS country had in the beginning. I especially like the visual of the Congress running from veterans wanting their back pay!!

Well, here's where disagree. Yes, this country had fits and starts in the beginning, and yes arguments can be made for Iraq not being too bad, but are you seriously saying that this administration hasn't learned since the revolutionary war?

Seriously though, in every business field I've worked in, if people made mistakes the level that the Bush administration has (wrong research, underprepared, poor financial projections, etc...) there would be massive firings. Massive. This entirely leaves out the question of 'did they lie/mislead/deceive us. However when you look at the mistakes, listen to the testimony of others you have to wonder, 'Is our government/this administration so inept as to make these mistakes? Or is it more plausible they misled us? Did they really believe they could build a stable Iraq for so little money, in such little time? Did they really believe in things that couldn't be proven? Don't we have one person in the governent such as Inq, who'll argue to the death that many things they said are fact, haven't been proven?' And to be honest, whether they lied or were incompetent only matters to me in that if they lied, I'd have a little more confidence in their ability to get the job done.

But shouldn't we demand accountability and competence from our leaders?

[esskreemr]

Originally Posted by achilleus

Seriously though, in every business field I've worked in, if people made mistakes the level that the Bush administration has (wrong research, underprepared, poor financial projections, etc...) there would be massive firings. Massive.

Well, there have been over 12,000 'employee' terminations, if you count the disabled. If you consider the 'war' to be a hostile takeover, the total terminations are anywhere from 30,000 to well over 100,000 depending on who you're willing to believe.

[jBirch]

Originally Posted by jeff

will the matrix be ill-conditioned (like many arguments), or lead to singular conclusions?

Slim: directionality was part of the joke/point. Good that you reconsidered.

Mathematically, vectors have no inherent directionality, being merely a n-partite grouping of values along non-parallel basis axis (or scalar multiplications of basis vectors if you prefer). In Newtonian physics, they are defined as having magnitude and direction with both a defined origin and a defined destination. Algebraically, they are represented by an Nx1 matrix. Physically as a Nx2 matrix. A bit of a difference in definition here. (Though most commonly, I'll grant, a vector is assumed to originate at the origin).

10x a matrix can be a number of different values. Assuming Inq and Slim are both multidimensional beings (or, at least, multi-faceted) then we can talk about scalar multiplication of the various personality basis to end up with Inq being 10 times greater in magnitude then Slim, with us taking both the good and the bad. This would merely mean that Inq is 10 times as intense along all dimensions as Slim. Depending on how we define the personality vectors, we can get Inq being 10 times as good, bad, or any combination in between. (In fact, if anyone wants to go through the permutations and combinations of 10 x Slim = Inq it would certainly help clarify the problem here).

Course, we could narrow the results and define 10x Slim being a vector (or even a matrix!) with some distribution of values to end up with a dot product describing Inq 10 times greater in magnitude. Depends on what we mean when we say "10 times Slim = Inq".

Though in the spirit of Inq, I would assume that the valuation was 10x the economic value of Slim, not 10x the personality. And we all know (as Inq has repeatedly shown us) that economic valuation is all about returns over investments. Meaning that an investment in Inq will generate an economic output 10 times what an investment in Slim would be. Depending on the projected lifespan and depreciation of Inq/Slim, we could work out a total cost to society for every investment in Inq/Slim to determine who has the higher