Saddam's sons Odai and Qusai were killed this morning in Mosul. Check out the whole story here.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,92591,00.html

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Jason
Lynn Swann 06'

"Individualism is absent when other peoples' standards, not reality and reason, are ones primary guide."

http://www.cnn.com/

Check out CNNs headline for this:

"Trumped."

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I have a question, though it's a very minor one and hardly something I'm too concerned over.

I've read that each of Hussein's sons had a $15 million price on his head, while Hussein is worth $25 million.

Does anyone else think these numbers are unnecessarily high? Couldn't the government just as easily have made it $5 million per son and $10 million for Hussein and saved $35 million, for example? Are the people considering turning Hussein in sitting at home thinking, "Gee, I don't know if $10 million is enough of an incentive. They really need to sweeten the pot."

Unless Hussein is offering them more to not say anything, which I suppose is possible.

I think in Iraq, $25,000 is = $25 million here. IMO.

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Jason
Lynn Swann 06'

"Individualism is absent when other peoples' standards, not reality and reason, are ones primary guide."

You can see the post mordem pictures at www.foxnews.com. They had em' first.

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Jason
Lynn Swann 06'

"Individualism is absent when other peoples' standards, not reality and reason, are ones primary guide."

Do you think that ridding the people of Iraq of the murder and torment of these men and their family justifies the war in Iraq?

Of course.

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Jason
Lynn Swann 06'

"Individualism is absent when other peoples' standards, not reality and reason, are ones primary guide."

Absolutely not, even if that really were the reason for the war. The country is worse off now "after" the war (despite the fact that American and "Allied" men & women continue to die...hmm...I always thought the end of a war meant, you know, there was no more fighting...leave it to Bush The Educator to tell me that isn't the case), no water, electricity, even food in some places. And of course, there's those "few" looted items that are older than our entire nation (and the nations many of our ancestors came from), which are destroyed, gone forever. Oh wait, did I say a "few?" I meant tens of thousands of artifacts. But ask your average US citizen about that, and even if they do know such looting took place, Fox News, one of our country's esteemed, ehem, "unbiased" news agencies, has convinced the average schmuck & schmuckette that damage and theft was a best minimal, and worst exaggerated.

I just have one word for those who support/ed the war: Oil. That's all this war is about. Yet, despite the fact that we're raping their land of one of the few natural, lucrative resources available to this third-world nation, gas prices continue to rise, jumping as much as 50c in some areas of the country recently over a very short period of time. Well, that happens every summer, though once again, you're average shmoe doesn't correlate the price jump w/ the time of year when a majority of the country goes on holiday. In fact, both my brother and I pointed this out to my mother, and, bless her naivete, she didn't believe that the gas companies would do such a thing. And for the most part, Exxon and the like don't even bother trying to use PR to make up excuses for the price gouging, so you (and, unfortunately, I) can only guess what goes on in the average suburbanite's head when companies (and the gov't) does try to cover their slimy little rears. What's changed, though, is that they're getting more greedy, and though they drop the prices in the off-season (until the end of autumn/beginning of winter, when they raise the prices on oil and gas used for heating purposes, despite the fact that more people buy at this time of the year...seems a little backwards, doesn't it?), the don't drop them as low any more. Think about the past few years: gas goes from $1.20/gal (still too high, since it costs little more than 15c to process the same amount) to $1.45/gal, then "drops" down to $1.25, average consumer happy, gas not $1.45/gal, ugh; summer come, gas go to $1.55/gal - vacation-time end, gas "drops" to $1.30/gal. Of course, these aren't exact numbers, but you get the general idea. So, gas is now (in the burbs; haven't paid attention to city prices since I have no car) regular unleaded, the lowest-end, is $1.75-$1.80/gal. I'm guessing, and I may be wrong on this, it will "drop back down" to around $1.55-$1.60/gal. Yet, before the hike, in the same area it was around $1.45/gal. Inflation can't be blamed for this - that's too much of a hike, and gas companies/station are also laying off people, so it's not like they're giving everyone (except the top management, maybe) raises because they're nice guys and passing it along to the consumers - they're just greedy bastards. Now, contrary to Zog's belief, I'm not against companies - not even companies that would dig up their own "mother's" casket if there was oil underneath it - making money. But they're just getting overly greedy, and our gov't continues to support it - despite the fact that we'll soon be, if we aren't already, brining over a lot of oil from our Imperialistic takeover of Iraq (see? Back on topic! And you thought I was just rambling on and on and...oh, wait, I was; nevermind). It's not like we're paying for the oil we're taking, except in American and British and Australian and (insert other scared country that is our "ally" in Iraq here) and, of course, Iraqi lives. I'm sure that we'll sell some of the oil (that isn't ours, but when has that stopped the US before, especially when under Republican despot rule?) to other countries, but we won't sell all of it. Or will we? I suppose that could be used as a form of poor, false, thinly-veiled lies of justification for the most recent price hike(s). I guess we'll just have to wait and see how things in Iraq proceed. It's not like we don't have the time; unlike Afghanistan, which we more or less abandoned (along with too many of our troops, who are still dying over there as "peacekeepers) to decay and a quickly, continually regrouping (and I suspect smarter and more powerful, thanks to the state of the country) Taliban after we bombed the hell out of their infrastructure, we're going to be in Iraq for years. I'd stake my reputation (such as it were) and money on it. Heck, just so y'all know I'm serious, I'll stake my Kurzweil K2600 on it (for those of you who don't know and aren't into keyboard synthesizers, a K2600 is one of, if not the, top-of-the-line "workstation" synthesizer(s) on the market today, and can cost more than some small cars)! I don't want to set too restrictive of a time period, as this synth is my baby - though unlike a real baby in more ways than appearance and "species"; as far as I know, it's still illegal (in most countries) to crack the case and install personally & professionaly customized and flashed OS and sound-generating chips, sound modules and ZIP drives in preadolescent humans...right? Man, what I wouldn't give for a built-in WiFi connection in my brain, connected to neural netware and membrane-thin, laser-etched 50' virtual screens burnt into my corneas...

Wait, what were we talking about? Nevermind. Time to go read some Ray Kurzweil (yes, same Kurzweil - he started the company to make one of the first, though not the first, digital sampling synthesizer, that was the first digital synth to be able to accurately recreate a grand piano and other orchestral instruments - originally designed for Stevie Wonder, a friend of his, for whom he also developed the first optical character recognition system capable of "reading back" the text it generated), who's written a number of amazing books on the subject, including books on AI. Okay, well, I've managed to ramble on more than usual, somehow ending up on the topic of human/machine augmentation. I definitely think it's time for bed; being away for 38 hours does that to you, I suppose. If I've actually managed to say anything worth responding to (in relation to the topic at hand; I could go on for hours about HumAug and intelligent machines), please do so. I'll check back tomorrow for the interesting responses...and, and yours too, Zog .

(That's a joke, BTW. Wouldn't want to offend anyone. This second.)

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I tend to agree but not really sure about it either way..

It's good that you take time to consider your responses.