PN-G bamatex

If I put all my guns in my neighbor's house and somebody breaks into my home the day after, are you going to sit there and ask me why I didn't use my guns? No, because the answer is obvious: I didn't have them on me. The better question to ask is why I chose to put my guns in my neighbor's house where I couldn't get to them if I needed them. It sounds stupid... until you find out that I'm an excon with several prior felony convictions who's banned by law from owning a gun, and that the people who were breaking in were law enforcement officers carrying out a search warrant to find my guns. Saddam may have been a tyrant, but he wasn't stupid. He, like the North Vietnamese forty years earlier, knew that America is susceptible to something a traditional enemy is not: war weary public opinion. And that belief wasn't without validation; the last time we had invaded Iraq in 1991, the first President Bush chose to halt the invasion after liberating Kuwait and not to remove Saddam for fear that it would take the war to another level and turn public opinion against him. Now, knowing that, put yourself in Saddam's shoes. You're facing a war you know you cannot win conventionally against a vastly superior enemy that's beaten you before. If coalition forces come in and find chemical weapons or worse, you choose to use them in your own defense, you're done. It's just like the excon; if the police find his guns or worse, he uses them to try and keep them out, he's facing that many more charges and convictions, and that much more jail time. If, on the other hand, coalition forces find no chemical weapons - if the police don't find the guns - there's a chance public opinion turns against the war and they leave - that the police, their warrant expired, exit the home and your life goes back to normal. In essence, Saddam was hoping for a repeat of the Gulf War. The US comes in, finds no chemical weapons, turns around and leaves because the primary objective is either completed or uncompletable, and he stays in power, leaving him to go and retrieve his weapons later. It also explains why he stayed in the country as long as he did; how many third world dictators are going to stick around when the world's most powerful military force comes a callin' unless they believe it won't be there for very long? Especially going from living in a palace to living in a hole under a piece of plywood.

I'm with tvc. Glock 23.

It's against my better judgment to become involved in this thread at all, but I think I have a moral duty to the truth that requires me to, even if some of the people who read this post would prefer to stick to an inaccurate narrative in the face of inconvenient evidence.   [Hidden Content]   This is a link to a blog post on the website of the United States Naval Institute - not Fox News or MSNBC or any news media organization that could be perceived as biased either way, but rather a 140 year-old non-profit think tank based on the grounds of the United States Naval Academy that counts several retired US military leaders among its membership.   The actual blog post contains direct quotations from a number of significant figures in the international intelligence community. Perhaps most notably is a statement made in 2003 by James Clapper, a retired general in the United States Air Force and current Director of National Intelligence under the presidential administration of Barack H. Obama, in which he made a very convincing case based on satellite imagery that Saddam Hussein had moved his chemical weapons stockpiles out of Iraq and into Syria in the months leading up to the beginning of Operation: Iraqi Freedom in March of 2003.   The blog also contains the assertions of former Iraqi Air Force General Georges Sada, who claimed in his memoirs and to the New York Sun that two separate Iraqi Airways jetliners were covertly converted into cargo planes and used to funnel chemical stockpiles by air to Syria in 56 separate flights under the guise of Iraqi aid following a Syrian dam collapse in 2002.   Additionally, and most damningly, are the assertions contained within the blog made by the Israeli Director of Military Intelligence, General Moshe Ya'alon, who provided evidence of Iraqi truck convoys carrying chemical stockpiles into Syria from December of 2002 to February of 2003 under the direction of former Soviet KGB Chief General Yevgeny Primakov, who headed the Soviet Union's special envoy to Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the evil empire's dying days.   I don't know how much more plain I can make this. It's obvious at this point that Saddam had his chemical weapons, and that he got them to Syria before the US invaded - even one of his own generals admits this. Further, the evidence strongly implies that the Russians were involved in helping him do so.   The only thing these assertions lack is the indisputable proof necessary to carry them over from reasonable suspicions to credible charges, which would likely be found if US troops were deployed into Syria, thus explaining Putin's position of defiant opposition to US involvement in the Syrian crisis after remaining utterly silent about US involvement in the same kinds of situations in North Africa.

  You don't have to have lawyers to start a petition, and I don't recall it being said in the news that the Trevinos had obtained one.They're simply exercising their rights as constituents of BISD.   In any case, the only reason it's taken so long for BISD to be taken over by BISD is that the school board voted to appeal the decision in court. Anytime you take up a court case, it takes time. Honestly, if anything, it's surprising it didn't take longer.

  Arguably. A sizable crowd has been seen protesting around Beaumont in favor of the TEA takeover on several occasions. At least part of that crowd was present outside the courthouse in Austin during the injunction hearing. I think that constitutes a fair amount of "buzz."   On an aside, isn't there a rule somewhere banning current school board members from running for school board again after TEA has turned the district back over to local control? Or was that something I dreamed?

  Man, what I woudln't give....

The order has nothing to do with the petition.   According to the news, the judge wants to see the names of the Board of Managers who are set to take over before he'll sign the order. I'm a little curious to know why that is.

Sentimental favorite? The M1 Garand. And yes, I own one.   Practical favorite? The AR-15. Although the AK-47 may take that position if I ever get to spend some quality time with one.

[Hidden Content]   Nobody was hurt and they're saying it was an accident that occurred during a drug sting.   Naturally, I have a lot of questions.

  I've never had their sandwiches before. I'm going to have to try that.

While we're at it, who do y'all think has the best kolaches? My vote is for Weikel's Bakery in La Grange.

  The situation in 1995 and the situation now both involved state mandated tests. Then it was failure. Today, it's cheating. It was about this time last year that the scandal involving Patricia Lambert and the cheating (among several other things) she purportedly coordinated at Central was exposed.   I don't recall what ever came of the lawsuits filed over that situation, but if it was ever proven, that on its own is grounds for a full investigation by TEA, regardless of the district's financial situation.

  I would beg to differ with you there. And with all due respect, I'm a lot closer to that generation in age than you are.

  Guess what?   Megyn and Glenn were wrong.

    That's an excellent point, and I think it hinges on one factor: the students. In 1995, the students never stood up and never did anything. Twenty years later, for every adult you're seeing at these rallies, you're seeing a student, too. The news was quick to point out that the biggest round of applause to follow any individual speaker at the BISD board meeting came after a West Brook student spoke. I've seen interviews with students from all three BISD high schools on the news in the past few weeks.   It could be argued that the students are more aggravated this time around because of the layoffs - because the students were seeing the very real and tangible consequences of poor management by the school board for the first time. But I think it can be attributed at least partially to a different generation operating under different circumstances. In 1995, the economy was good and jobs were plentiful. Today, the economy is anemic at best and the percentage of the population in the workforce is at its lowest since records first started being kept. To say it succinctly, the job market is more competitive than it's ever been, and the determining factor for who among new entrants in the job market actually gets a job, as well as among college applicants, is often the quality of their prior education. Right now, BISD isn't sitting too pretty in that regard. Throw in a dash of social media, which has made social movements that much easier to get off the ground and nearly cultivated a revolution all its own among young people in Iran in 2009, and you have a recipe for a much more active student body. When students are riled, parents are just that much more riled, and that's what I think is leading to the more visual protests.

  Apparently, the Russians, the Syrians and most of the western world's intelligence community beg to differ.   Sorry, but I think I'll take their word over yours.

  I think that might be the best idea you've ever had. Now how do we get him to do it?

More like a last-ditch effort to stifle public input that didn't work.

  I'm capable of thinking for myself, thanks.

  Bar H on the corner of 365 and IH-10 in Fannett is pretty good for gas station barbecue too.   The Salt Lick is one of my all-time favorite places to eat.

tvc beat me to it, but one thing I'll add about hearsay, since it was brought up, is that it can be a big part of establishing probable cause if properly corroborated by the circumstances of the situation and pertinent evidence. That standard satisfies what's known as the "totality of the circumstances" test, which was laid down in a Supreme Court case called Illinois v. Gates (1983). Basically, what that means applied to BlueDove's comment is that the judge who issues the warrant can do so if he feels like the sum total of the facts presented before him constitutes probable cause, a sizable portion of which can be hearsay in the form of a veracious tip under the right circumstances.

  Not false. Outdated.   [Hidden Content]   [Hidden Content]   [Hidden Content]   Ever wondered why the Russians wanted us to stay out of Syria so bad when they didn't care about North Africa? Probably because they didn't want us to go in and discover more conclusive evidence of their having aided Iraq in moving their weapons before the invasion started.   Saddam had the weapons. And he didn't even get all of them out; I used to keep links to a few articles about the discovery of chemical weapons stores that were still left in Iraq which are unfortunately now dead. But the bulk of his stores were moved to Syria. The reason we didn't find those weapons wasn't because they weren't there, it's because the Russians wanted to make sure we didn't.

    It's sad that I have to say this, but it's about time.

  One of the great things about a US carrier group is that its mere presence is often a force in itself.

Am I the only one who sees a problem with the prospect of tying US troop deployments to Iraqi reforms expanding representation for the blocs the insurgents claim to represent? Isn't that negotiating with terrorists? And doesn't that just encourage them to terrorize some more the next time they want something they don't get?