CIA Core Values

* Service. We put Country first and Agency before self. Quiet patriotism is our hallmark. We are dedicated to the mission, and we pride ourselves on our extraordinary responsiveness to the needs of our customers.
* Integrity. We uphold the highest standards of conduct. We seek and speak the truth -- to our colleagues and to our customers. We honor those Agency officers who have come before us and we honor the colleagues with whom we work today.
* Excellence. We hold ourselves -- and each other -- to the highest standards. We embrace personal accountability. We reflect on our performance and learn from that reflection.

lol

Exactly. Hell, robbing banks is damn beneficial, as long as you're the thief and you don't get caught! I mean, slavery helped the economy like nothing else, so at least there was an upside, right?

It's disgusting that anyone would even dare to quibble over the potential benefits of being immoral and unethical, as if it made any difference whatsoever.

I don't know, I think that's asking for a little too much foresight and setting the bar a bit too high. Think of the Milgram experiments. They were told it was okay, that it wasn't torture, and then they realized that it was, and that it was not okay. Some people kept going, but some, through conviction of conscience, stopped. If I was told that waterboarding wasn't torture, knowing nothing about waterboarding and trusting that the people telling me to do it knew what it was or wasn't, then I would probably go along too -- at first.

Listen, I'm with you that torture is the wrong move, always, but it doesn't need (or likely deserve) a doomsday scenario. "The Arabs" are too disparate and tribal to unite, and even if they did, they still don't have the infrastructure, logistics, or weaponry to stage an invasion.

But just because they don't pose a threat to world domination doesn't mean we can treat them (or anyone) with impunity.

Please,: let me know if the many (or even one) instances where Americans weren't tortured because America stood on some mythological high ground?

You mean like this?

With time, the 23 prisoners were divided into two groups. The three American men and the three British hostages were singled out for the worst abuse, both because of the militants' grievances against their countries and because their governments would not negotiate, according to several people with intimate knowledge of the events.

Within this subset, the person who suffered the cruelest treatment, the former hostages said, was Mr. Foley. In addition to receiving prolonged beatings, he underwent mock executions and was repeatedly waterboarded.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10...

Is that what you mean?

To be clear I am NOT at all blaming the US for the actions of terrorists. People are accountable for their own actions. But it's certainly evidence that revenge has been focused in our direction, and not in other directions, or that people weren't tortured because they stood on some high ground.

I was thinking about going, but the reviews will have been mixed.

Since airspace is under the purview of the FAA, not municipalities, you'll be waiting a long time. Even if they tried, the court battle would last for years.

You mean like all the falling and shot-down airplanes we have? Why do people insist on solving problems that don't exist?

This will basically make retail and delivery jobs obsolete. That's several million people suddenly without work and with no prospects for getting work. I guess there's always tent cities...

Yes, I'm sure all those career delivery men will be heartbroken.

Both of them.

Not having to replace clutch plates, for example, might be a nice and relatively easily doable thing.

Probably not worth it. A properly functioning clutch should have minimal parasitic loss from friction when engaged, so the only thing you're saving is the cost of replacing the clutch. Since clutches are usually easy to replace and relatively cheap, especially compared to the cost of something like this, it's probably throwing money away.

Ironically, the idea that sunflowers are heliotropic is an urban legend.

South. That's why this article is stu... Let's say stupendous.

Dear God, man. Eminem != The Prodigy, and that song's a classic. If you haven't, you should watch the video, as it's still relevant today.

The reason is because someone (a local, actually) got speeding tickets based on an officer's judgment of reasonable and safe, and the courts found the prohibition unconstitutionally vague.

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12...

What's the term that's often thrown around here? Correlation != causation.