HeyYou

I would point out, that the REASON it is a 'partisan' report, is because the republicans REFUSED TO PARTICIPATE. They already knew the answer as well. We have known the answer since long before King George 'the decider' stated that 'it isn't really torture'. What a load of bull feces. The dems knew what the results were going to be as well, as the conclusion that torture is worthless as an intelligence gathering tool was know LONG before this report was even commissioned. Quite frankly, I am unsure why they bothered to waste several years, and god knows how much money..... on this in any event. There really wasn't a point. (but then, does ANYTHING washington does actually NEED to have a point?) Is this going to be used against us? You bet. And not just by the jihadi's either. Even Lil' Kim o' N. Korea is cashing in on this. "Human Rights Abuses"..... I can see him now, sitting behind his desk, giggling, and pointing, and whispering behind his hand "And they call US barbarians........" Right. That is just so much the image the US really wants to portray on the national stage...... Even the Australians are second guessing their 'close alliance' with us..... And I don't blame them.

Or make themselves more....... as the case may be. I wanna know why, even WITH all the federal subsidies for wind power, the electric company would have to charge MORE for wind generated power, than they would if they did nothing at all?

An Iranian, apparently suspected of many sex related crimes, no known terrorist affiliations, and, most importantly, he is dead. Along with two other folks. No word currently how any of them got that way though.

is it really honorable to be ripped apart by lions? I could think of MUCH better ways to die....... Just stick a sword in my chest, thankyouverymuch.

It's obvious to me that the politicians in DC don't really care about this country any more. All they care about is their cushy jobs, and their campaign donors. Romney said it best. "We don't matter." And it's true. We don't. We get legislation shoved down our throats that NO ONE wants. We get involved in places we have no business being in. We stick our noses into EVERYONE elses business, while our own country falls apart around our ears. We need some SERIOUS change, and neither the dems, nor the repubbies, are going to accomplish it.

The only way I see the dems winning much of anything come 2016, is if the republicans REALLY screw the pooch, or, run another idiot for president. They have an opportunity here, wonder if they can come together enough to actually DO anything with it.

Sit inside lakeview manor for whatever your respawn time is, + 1 day. See if you can go outside.

Your oblivion.ini file is stashed in the same folder your saves are. My Documents\My Games\Oblivion.

The investigation has been going on for several years. The mid term elections have little or nothing to do with it.

What's 'biased' about basing an evaluation on official reports? How would talking to the folks that wrote the reports make any difference at all? Are the people that wrote them now going to change their tune? Argue that the OFFICIAL report 'isn't accurate'??? Do you think as those reports get bumped up the food chain, that the folks that wrote them go with them? (if so, you have no clue how chain of command works.)

Casting cost keeps going down though. (I think.)

Legendary knocks you skill back down to 15. With the requisite loss in abilities there as well. Basically, that just enables you to level indefinitely. The Community Skill Cap Remover, raises the skill caps, so your skill keeps progressing, you continue to get better, and the equations used by the game can reflect that. It is amazingly configurable for leveling speed, and skill/equation caps. (you can cap the equation at a lower number than the skill itself, as, for some skills, start getting into higher numbers (north of 300 or so), and strange things can happen.....) Used in conjunction with a perk mod, that gives you perks over the 100 skill value, gives you a bit more motivation to continue developing your skills. Of course, you can get incredibly powerful at higher levels....

The republicans on the intelligence committee CHOSE not to participate. They already knew what the conclusions were going to be. Timing? That one is a real puzzler.... why release it at all? It isn't going to help anything, all it is going to do is embarrass us as a nation. Again. Do we really need to air our dirty laundry in the public square? The various intelligence agencies that were actually doing the deeds, are still insisting that they actually got some good intel from these methods. But then, I wouldn't expect them to say anything else. The report was based on documents FROM the various agencies. Drone strikes vs. torture....... Hhhmm..... It's a war. People die. If there are civilians near the target, good chance they are going to die as well. If your enemy tends to hide among civilian populations, civilians are going to die. Civilian casualties didn't seem to be an issue during wartime until recently...... we bombed entire cities, killing civilians SPECIFICALLY in the past. No one went up for war crimes for those acts....... Torture is pretty much universally agreed on to be morally wrong. Its even outlined in the Geneva Convention for the treatment of prisoners of war. I don't think the terrorists really need any more motivation to want to kill americans........ May make a nice recruiting tool though.

We didn't invade Iran. We invaded Iraq, and set the stage for the whole mess we have today. We turned on our allies, (mubarak) and supported his opposition. His opposition then turned to the muslim brotherhood, that took over the country. Exactly what we DIDN'T want. We overthru Saddam, and civil war/sectarian violence erupted in spades. We supported the rebels in Syria...... and look how that has turned out..... And what's really funny, the US is pretty much responsible for Al Queda getting their start, as WE are the ones that financed, trained, and armed them, when they were the rebels fighting against the soviets in afghanistan. When it comes to nation building, our record is absolutely terrible. We suck at it. We should learn from that, and STOP TRYING TO DO IT to people we have zero understanding of. Our politicians seem to think that everyone thinks like americans do, and want their freedoms. That is simply not the case. The culture in the ME is so radically different from ours, that the mind boggles wondering how are politicians can so dramatically mis-read an entire people.....

Yeah, we have been hearing the "throw them out" song and dance for years, but, we still keep electing the same crooks every time.

In this article in paragraph 5, it states: Of course the intelligence agencies disagree, but then, even if they KNEW FOR A FACT that their interrogation techniques did not yield any significant results, they would still be required to say they did, to justify their use. There are some other interesting tidbits in the report summary, and I doubt it tells the full story either..... But, in the end, torturing captives to garner information, or any other reason for that matter.... just isn't something we, as the supposed 'good guys', should be doing. If we resort to those methods, not only are we in violation of various international laws, but we are morally wrong as well. There are other ways to get the information, that are just as, if not MORE effective. Especially when dealing with zealots......

Romney was a corporate raider. Not exactly the person I would want trying to run my country as a 'business'...... breaking it up, and selling it off, really isn't an option. Ross Perot may have made a good president.... he financed his own campaign, so, he wouldn't be beholden to any contributors, actually had a clue how to run a business, and had some definite plans to help out AMERICANS, not just corporate america.

We knew where most of their production facilities were before the war..... we also had agents on the ground. Some of the more esoteric targets we probably used 'enhanced' methods to obtain information on, but, that was the exception, not the rule...... Would it have made any difference had we not? Maybe. But, there is something we can never know. And that is part of the problem with the current situation in most of the Middle East.... we have no one on the ground to give us intelligence....... torturing them doesn't really help either.... religious fanatics are notorious for choosing an unpleasant death over giving up info........ I am quite certain the CIA used far more 'unpleasant' methods than mere water-boarding..... in some of their 'secret' prisons..... Either that, or they just handed the suspects over to 'less scrupulous' allies..... and let THEM have at 'em. But, again, it has been PROVEN that torture is NOT an effective means of information gathering. That was my question as well.... Quite frankly, if you don't like me flying my american flag, IN AMERICA, get the flock OUT! I will happily lend you a boot up the backside to speed you on your way. :D

Bad? Worse? Does it matter? NONE of them in washington today, from ANY party, have AMERICA'S best interests in mind when they are writing/voting on legislation, all they are thinking about is keeping their major campaign donors happy, so they can get re-elected. We have a badminton game going on now. First the dems are in control, then the country gets sick of them, and the republicans take control, the public gets sick of THEM, and the dems are back, ad infinitum. Trouble is, nothing really changes. It's the folks with the money that run the government. Not "We the People." The people haven't counted for decades. Now, it's all about the money. When it comes to that, there is ZERO difference between the parties..... (granted, I voted republican back in november, JUST to make it more difficult for the dems......) Our government has been bought and paid for, with the complicity of the supreme court. Whoever thought that removing limits on campaign spending wouldn't contribute to dishonesty, and influence peddling, was smoking too much crack. (unfortunately, the supreme court agreed with him..... they must have been sharing the same pipe.) The names/faces/party in control.. may change, but, that's about it. Its just different ways of giving away our tax dollars to other countries that hate us. Brilliant strategy......

Thank You A. That's what I was looking for. Point taken, But, there is already a huge difference between us and them. Sometimes you have to take off the gloves and boots and step into the sh*t. It's the only way to fight that fire with fire. Otherwise, upholding our precious moral standards will result in us living under their sharia standards....our complaints about racism, sexism and homophobia will seem trivial in comparison. There is a fine line....pandering to extremist won't reveal it. And that is why we should leave war fighting to..... the war fighters. The politicians set the END goal, and then the military gets us there. We defeated germany by destroying their industrial capacity, and choking off resources. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed, including women and children, and no one here at home even batted an eye. We bombed Dresden, a target with little to no military value, just to see how the deaths of LOTS of civilians would affect the enemy morale....... and no one said boo. Today, that would be considered a war crime..... We have become too soft when it comes to defending our homeland, (and a whole lot of other areas as well....... but, that's several other topics...) and it appears that political correctness is the rule of the day. Hell, a guy in California was forced to remove his AMERICAN flag, because it might upset his Mexican neighbors. (who also happened to be living in California.......) That's just stupid...... But, I digress. Turn the generals loose. Tell them: Defeat ISIS, remove them as a threat, do not use nukes. And let them go. My guess is, ISIS would be history inside 90 days. Of course, a fair few folks out there in the world would be pissed at us..... but, they would have a whole new respect for the US. Or maybe that would be "fear"......

Amazing, isn't it? What sort of elitist, egotistical attitude would justify such actions in a human being? The man went from a glorified lawyer/ community organizer to POTUS in what? eight years? He actually had more "present" days in the senate than he did actually participating. Why? Because he was out campaigning.....his specialty, and one talent he continues to excel at to t his day, and continues to prioritize at present. 'Politics first, America second'. That, along with " it's ok for me, but not for you...do as I say, not as I do" should be the democrats tag-line for 2016. :smile: That would apply equally to both parties...... or maybe I should say: All parties......

Then if we are going to do it, lets simply admit it, call it what it is, and be done with it. The world will judge us by our actions. If those actions don't produce results, well, then were they really 'justified'? If we do the same things we condemn our enemies for, is that not just a bit hypocritical? Besides, it has already been proven that torture is ineffective as a means of intelligence gathering. Inflict enough pain on anyone, and they will happily tell you what you want to hear, whether it is true or not. Not to mention that coerced testimony is inadmissible in any court of law.

Hey now. I HAVE a life. I picked one up at Miejers when they were on sale. That was the only way I could afford one. :D

Which president, and how so?

A bit of a "random" statement, don't you think? But, it does matter how, and, who is being 'tortured'. If the SOB is responsible for killing thousand of innocent people, and, you have evidence proving his involvement, Go right ahead.....I won't shed any tears.....I gaurantee you that. :smile: If we already have evidence, what is the point of torturing him? (aside from stuffing him in prison, or simply whacking him dead?) No, it does matter. We are supposed to be "better" than all that. If we resort to torture, that puts us on the same level as those we are fighting against, and declaring "evil" BECAUSE they torture people.