From editor@telecom-digest.org Sat Jan 3 19:43:50 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p2/8.11.3) id i040hoc22607; Sat, 3 Jan 2004 19:43:50 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 19:43:50 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200401040043.i040hoc22607@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V23 #3 TELECOM Digest Sat, 3 Jan 2004 19:44:00 EST Volume 23 : Issue 3 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson BBC Writer Can't Fathom the Internet (Ronda Hauben) Re: Twenty Years Ago Today 1-Jan-2004 Back on 1-Jan-1984 (Lisa Hancock) Re: 10-Digit Dialing (Lisa Hancock) Re: NANP Numbering (Earle Robinson) Re: How Are Cellphone 911 Calls Handled? (John R. Levine) Re: How Are Cellphone 911 Calls Handled? (Steven J Sobol) Re: California Plan Would Halt Trucks Remotely in Attack (Tom Horsley) Re: Step, Panel and XP (Wesrock@aol.com) Re: My Upgraded Computer System (Gene Gaines) Re: Then Benjamin Franklin Must be a Terrorist Too? (Tom Betz) Re: Then Benjamin Franklin Must be a Terrorist Too? (Lisa Hancock) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk is definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ronda Hauben Subject: BBC Writer Can't Fathom the Internet Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 17:26:44 UTC Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC Is there some reason the BBC can't understand what the Internet is about, or take the trouble to spread an accurate understanding of it, rather than a mistaken conception that makes the Internet into the one network ARPANET? Specifically the Internet is a network of networks -- or a metasystem of networks. It makes it possible for diverse networks to speak to each other. The ARPANET was a connection of different computers and operating systems, not at all as the BBC story portrays it. See the following which is the BBC version of the ARPANET and Internet. And below I have included a quote from a paper where the creation of the Internet is described: On Thu, 1 Jan 2004, Dave Farber wrote on his IP list posted: > What the net did next > By Mark Ward > BBC News Online technology correspondent (...) > TCP/IP was key to turning the Arpanet into the internet. > Small start > The Arpanet came before the net and demanded that all computers that > connect to it do so with the same hardware and software. > By contrast, the net, thanks to TCP/IP, could let people on > different sorts of computers running different software, swap > information. The real contrast is quite different, however. From a paper about the ARPANET and the Internet: "The ARPANET solved the difficult problem of communication in a network with dissimilar computers and dissimilar operating systems. However, when the objective is to share resources across the boundaries of dissimilar networks, the problems to be solved are compounded. Different networks mean that there can be different packet sizes to accommodate, different network parameters such as different communication media rates, different buffering and signaling strategies, different ways of routing packets, and different propagation delays. Also dissimilar networks can have different error control techniques and different ways of determining the status of network components." The challenge in accommodating dissimilar networks is at once a conceptual and architectural problem. Kahn recognized the need for a communications protocol to transmit packets from one network, and reformat them as needed for transmission through successive networks. This would require that there be black boxes or gateway computers and software that would provide the interfaces between the dissimilar networks and which would route the packets to their destination. (18) Also there would need to be software to carry out the functions required by the protocol. Appropriate software modules, and perhaps other modifications to allow efficient performance, would then have to be embedded in the operating systems of the host computers in each of the participating networks and gateways would have to be introduced between them. The design for such a protocol would be a guide to create the specification standard for the software and hardware that each network would agree to implement to become part of an internetwork communications system. The standards or agreements to cooperate would be set out in the protocol." (from The Birth of the Internet: An Architectural Conception for Solving the Multiple Network Problem) http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/birth_internet.txt We want the Internet to grow and flourish. It would seem important than to start the new year off with accurate information about its development. Ronda ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: Twenty Years Ago Today 1-Jan-2004, back on 1-Jan-1984 Date: 2 Jan 2004 20:51:56 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Edtor's Note: It seems hard to believe that this > Digest dates back to when there was *one* phone system -- the Bell > System -- for almost everyone. At the time, I really thought quality telephone service this country took for granted was doomed. It didn't work out that way, thank goodness. The Bell System generally (there are exceptions) ran an excellent service. It was the right system for the technology of the time. But the cost of electronics were on a downhill slide in those years. Look what an IBM plain PC cost and what kind of machine you'd get today with the same money. Cheap electronics revolutionized the ability to provide local and long distance telephone service. In electro-mechanical days, where a single piece of switchgear could cost $1,000, engineers had to be judicious how many they ordered for an exchange and how they all linked together. But today, cheap electronics lets them be inexact, as does cheap fiber optic links. They still have to plan for traffic of course, but it's a lot simpler and easier. Computer programming is a lot today easier when it was back then -- we don't have to count our bits like we did, even in 1984, which led to the Y2K mess. In reading the histories, it's amazing the stuff they no longer have to worry about because of cheap high capacity and electronic flexibility. The breakup of the Bell System had two big separate parts two it: One was the discontinuance of the rental policy. The company realized that the cost of renting out phones was now exceeded by the cost of servicing them, and let that revenue source go. I think that generally has been good for consumers, however, many telephone sets out there today are pure junk. The other was long distance competition. That has always bothered me and I think consumers and investors got screwed and still get screwed. Look at MCI/Worldcom. As far as I'm concerned, if newcomers want a piece of the action, let them pay to build their own infrastructure. The Cable TV company managed to build a line to my house independent of Bell. So should local competitors -- bypass the existing company completely, and that would eliminate all the disputes and finger pointing over the cost of the local loop. It might actually leave the newcomers better off with a modern loop plant while Bell struggles with old copper conduits. I'm sad to say IMHO AT&T has gone really downhill. I no longer use them. All the companies are interested in marketing -- they have sales people now who know nothing of phones nor care; not the well trained service reps of the past. But despite that, the system still seems to work. > Nor were there any other electronic publications on the internet Was there even a publicly accessible Internet back then? I thought it was just locally run BBS's in those days. Back then they seemed to be converting to ESS like crazy. I had it in 1983. When did cell phones come out? Originally they were a replacement for mobile phones, and built into an automobile. I recall watching a "90210" rerun episode, and the guy was talking on a corded phone in the car, which struck me as strange. I then realized that episode was old, and it was advanced for its day. Then they came out with bag phones, then hand held ones, progressing getting smaller and smaller. It blew my mind when I got my first Motorola "flip phone" -- for free no less, with a $20/month (limited usage) rental. I was just like "Captain Kirk" and his communicator; and it amazed me the power it had at such an affordable price. I recall reading articles in the Bell Laboratories Record about "AMPS" which was cell phones. I presume Bell Labs invented the concept. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Cell phones began about 1981. Chicago was the first city to have cellular service. Sometime around 1984 I got my first cellular phone. It was a large thing shaped like a brick, and you wore it in a shoulder holster like thing. I got it from Radio Shack and it cost me about seven hundred dollars and you *had* to have a contract with Ameritech for a year or two to even be allowed to buy a phone. TELECOM Digest began in August, 1981, and it was originally an ARPA group, called arpa.telecom. For a few years, the connection to Usenet was through a gateway computer. PAT] (Lisa then continues) wesrock@aol.com wrote: > As I mentioned, the first dial office in Oklahoma City, in > 1920, used A.E. SxS because there was no W.E. SxS equipment. By 1927, > there was #1 SxS from W.E., and it was installed in the downtown > office in Oklahoma City. Yes, originally WE had to buy its steppers from AE, but eventually built their own. > I'm not sure how the usage of long distance and premises > equipment particularly affected the type of central office equipment > to be installed. Those were all the smae for all types of offices, > Panel, step, #1XB. Well, my response was based on the comment that the Bell System didn't care much for SxS. I'm suggesting that perhaps the more tougher networking needs of bigger or major cities resulted in their getting more attention. Those cities generated more revenue and had more traffic to justify that attention. I dare say that a east coast small city might have more telephone traffic than a mid west or southwest city of the same population. This is because the east was more interconnected and had more national commerce that went by phone than smaller towns which were likely more insular back then. In other words, a small bank in Philadelphia probably had more long distance traffic and sophistication than a bank of the same size in say a city like Houston. > The vast majority of interoffice trunking in cities with more > than one office was local trunking between offices. Los Angeles was > probably almost unique in having substantial operator dialing to > interzone (or "multiple message unit") and toll offices before World > War II. I'm not sure when message units went into effect in big eastern cities like Phila or NYC, to save on writing toll tickets for very short haul toll calls. IIRC, the Bell System history says Los Angeles had a pioneer AMA system which generated a full ticket rather than just a counter increment. > One issue, of course, was of interoperability between dial and > manual offices. But a more pressing issue in places that were all SxS > and had grown to where the trunking arrangement, directly controlled > by the pulses the customer dialed, had become complex and was rapidly > becoming more complex, had no way of interfacing with offices designed > for such complex arrangements. I think the Bell System history mentions an SxS tandem. I also wonder if pre-war or early postwar calling volumes were that large to be that troublesome. By "large" I mean by today's standards. Today no one would blink at spending 15c for a toll call, but back then even 5c was equivalent to $2.00 today. Not a lot, but something to make people pause or limit their use of long distance. Also, the suburbs had yet to have their big postwar book. When the boom hit, the suburbs did have inadequate telephone capacity -- some places didn't even have phones except for some corner phonebanks, others had mandatory party lines. > just accepting that there were some local routes that couldn't be > economically automated and requiring customers to dial "operator," > who then completed the call for the customer (a solution that was > adopted in Houston). We forget that automation, especially sophisticated common control, was very expensive, and it took a lot of volume to justify eliminating manual service. Indeed, well into the 1960s, long distance still required an operating to get the caller's number before ANI. > "Britton, OK", no doubt to the confusion of many callers. (That, of > course, is not unique anywhere around the country -- there are many > rate points like that around the country that, in many cases, have no > current place name to give you a clue.) In suburban Philadelphia, there were two towns that were their own rate center, but actually served by city exchanges. One was MElrose 5 in Melrose Park (also Elkins Park*) which is served out of the city's WAVerly exchange. The other was ESsex 9 in Cheltenham, served out of the city's FIdelity/PI exchange. (There were separate PIoneer and PIlgrim buildings, and I always get them confused, both served northeast Phila.) *The very same Elkins Park mentioned recently in this newsgroup. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: 10-Digit Dialing Date: 2 Jan 2004 16:25:10 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > The old style manual exchanges had two groups of holes. > Along the top the holes were tie lines to other exchanges and closer > to the bottom were the numbers on that exchange. In cities, there was not enough room on a boardface for all the jacks. To accomodate, traffic was split between "A" and "B" operators. The A operator answered the subscriber and listened for the exchange and number. She plugged into the exchange only and reached a "B" operator for that exchange. The "B" operator was told the number and plugged into that jack. > The operators' training was very intense *before* an operator was > allowed to work alone at a position. I talked to our town's now retired switchboard operator. When she started on the town manual board, things were pretty informal. The operators acted as they did in the "Mayberry" literature -- knowing where the doctor and other public safety people were, etc. She said operating procedures were pretty informal. Any complex calls (ie long distance) were forwarded to the next town. When the town went dial in 1954, she transferred to a nearby city. That was more as you described -- extremely regimented and structured and certainly not as pleasant to work at. > Because the operators were very well trained, call set up time was > usually the same as or slightly less than in automated dialing days, > at least in the earliest of days when 'rotary dialing' was done. By > the time the subscriber got the phone to his ear, heard the dial > tone, and dialed out all seven digits and the call got set up in > the equipment the manual office operators would have finished two or > three such calls. Don't forget that in small towns often only a few digits were required to dial a call, so dialing was fast. Long distance, on the other hand, was slow and expensive. Until about the late 1950s, it was cheaper to send a telegram, and people wrote letters for social conversation to distant relatives. People from those days tell me service was pretty fast in normal conditions. But it would be slow in abnormal conditions. It cities there was no social conversation. The Bell System history says way back ringing was automated and provided a signal, and a busy signal was provided too. There was high turnover in the job. In the early days, they fired girls when they got married. In later years, people just got tired of it and quit. Some women went on to become PBX operators, being "Bell trained" was an important job requirement. PBX operations varied greatly -- some big boards were as bustling and impersonal as a central office, while others provided more personal service. After WW II, traffic went up but the system didn't have enough capacity to support it. Service quality suffered in some places. People take the telephone for granted these days, and have done so since the 1960s. But in the 1950s and earlier, the telephone was an expensive appliance. Not everyone even had one, and a great many had party lines to save money. The flip side is that people tended to live much closer together in the cities and towns and didn't need the telephone to stay in touch -- they'd just walk down to the corner drugstore/soda fountain. For rural people it was a lifeline. Once the Bell System got the postwar capacity trouble under control in the 1960s, it began to advertise the telephone as a luxury--extensions, premium sets, teenager extensions and later separate lines. Inflation note: Prices in the WW II era are roughly 20 times for today. That is, a 5c coin phone call back then would cost $2.00 today. A $2/month phone bill would equate to $40 today, and I suspect most local service back then ran about $3-$4, equivalent to $60 to $80 today for very basic service. ------------------------------ From: Earle Robinson Subject: Re: NANP Numbering Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 01:36:35 +0100 Please hide my email address. Thank you. > A better question is why the system in the rest of the world is > different from the system in the US since North America had long > distance dialing first. > The technical difference between the two is that the NANP uses "en > bloc" signalling which collects all the dialed digits and then > >attempts to complete the call, while the ITU system uses > "compelled" signalling which routes calls a few digits at a time. > This means that the NANP system needed phone numbers where the > originating switch could tell how many digits would be in the > number, so numbers are fixed length, while> the ITU system just sent > digits down the line and let the remote switch ask for as many as it > wanted, permitting variable length numbers. While the NANP system had its merits as you point out, the ITU nowadays is more logical. First of all, it avoids all those area code changes that occur periodically in the states. It also is simpler and more flexible. In countries like Germany, you can dial the number and the extension number. There is no limit on the number of digits, as you point out, with the ITU system. Here in France we have an implementation that permits easy dialing around for long distance calls, too. The initial 0 signifies that the phone company selected as the designate local carrier is to be used. (Note that one may choose another one quite easily.) Then the country is divided into 5 areas, 1 for the Paris area, 2 for the Northeast, 3 for the Northwest, 4 for the Southwest and 5 for the Southeast. Cell numbers are use the 6 and 8 is for special numbers. So, a call say to the Paris area might be 01-4444-5555. However, if you wished to use say tele2 for the call, you'd dial 41-4444-5555. International calls are initiated using the standard 00. But, if you wish to use say tele2 you'd dial 40, then the country code, and finally the number. For example, a call to New York City might be 401-212-444-5555. For those carriers that aren't fortunate enough to have their own single digit a 4 digit prefix must be used. An example using budgetelecom to call New York City would be 3111-00-1212-444-5555. Earle Robinson ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jan 2004 20:13:10 -0000 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine) Subject: Re: How Are Cellphone 911 Calls Handled? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA > My Verizon cellphone is 703-447-xxxx. Last November I was waiting at > a stop light in Troy NY (local area code: 518) when an accident > occurred a few feet from me. So I picked up my phone: I believe that cellular 911 goes to the state police here in NY. But I don't know why you'd need two transfers to get to the right department. Usually they'd transfer you directly to the correct place. In our county, there's one PSAP run by the county sheriff's department that handles all the 911 dispatching. The city and village police cover their respective municipalities, the university departments cover Cornell and Ithaca college, and the sheriff's deputies cover everything else. Some of the departments don't have 24/7 coverage so the PSAP has the schedule to know when a department has a car on call and when to call the sheriff. They might have transferred you to the county and the city does its own dispatch. Regards, John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711 johnl@iecc.com Village Trustee and Sewer Commissioner http://iecc.com/johnl Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail ------------------------------ From: Steven J Sobol Subject: Re: How Are Cellphone 911 Calls Handled? Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 18:14:46 -0600 W Randolph Franklin wrote: > me: "Can't you get that from the ANI?" > 3rd 911 person: "Not from a cellphone." Of course they can't get your location from a cellphone. :) The best they can do is get an approximate location based on which cell towers you are connecting to/have connected to in the past few minutes. Remember that a cellphone can physically be located ANYWHERE, unlike a landline. The carriers are working to fix this, but the 911 call centers have to upgrade their equipment too ... > of the call being transferred around and the original calling number > being lost in the switching as a result. I feel certain the first > 911 person had your number, getting transferred to a second then a > third person is what lost the number. But you're still not guaranteed that the call from a cell will be from any given location. I could be at my house in Apple Valley when calling from my cell, or I could be clear across the country in New York City, for example. JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services 22674 Motnocab Road * Apple Valley, CA 92307-1950 Steve Sobol, Geek In Charge * 888.480.4NET (4638) * sjsobol@JustThe.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not think she asked the man where he was located .. she asked him *what his number was*. PAT ------------------------------ Subject: Re: California Plan Would Halt Trucks Remotely in Attack From: tom.horsley@att.net (Thomas A. Horsley) Organization: AT&T Worldnet Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2004 00:01:58 GMT > If they aren't real careful with this, they are going to make > hijacking a truck as easy as crashing Microsoft Windows. Yea. On a similar (but possibly even more frightening note) there was a segment on the news the other day about technology being developed to take over the controls of airplanes and divert them automatically from "no fly" zones. My first reaction was: "Great, now terrorists won't need suicide missions to take over airplanes, they can just hijack the technology the manufacturers will be conveniently adding for them to allow the control system to take over the plane and override the pilot ...". >>==>> The *Best* political site >>==+ email: Tom.Horsley@worldnet.att.net icbm: Delray Beach, FL | Free Software and Politics <<==+ ------------------------------ From: Wesrock@aol.com Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 20:35:04 EST Subject: Re: Step, Panel and XP In a message dated Thu, 1 Jan 2004 10:37:17 CST jsw@ivgate.omahug.org wrote: > The Manawa office in Council Bluffs, IA (Omaha, NE area, 712-366) used > what was called 'Directorized SxS'. This was an outboard conversion > used on some Ma Bell (and maybe others) step offices to approach > common control. This conversion was most likely done in the 1960's, > and provided dial tone to the subscriber, and recorded the dialed > number, either in dial pulses or touch-tone tones. For interoffice > calls it then drove the switch train, and for intra-office it provided > the signaling (MF, dial-pulse, possibly even revertive - I dunno) that > the called office expected. This installation lasted until the mid > 1980's when the Manawa office was cut to a DMS-10. The senders used in the London (UK) exchange (all step at the time) were called directors. For some reason I got the idea that "Director" was perhaps the trademark of a particular manufacturer. Someone else commented about the "directors" used by General Telephone on step offices in the L.A. area, so perhaps A.E. owned the rights to the name in the U.S.A. I think you have "interoffice" and "intra-office" reversed in your description. And not only did the sender of director put out the type of signalling needed by the office being called, or offices which it tandemed through, it translated the routing based on the prefix digit dialed, permitting routing that might bear no resemblance to the original three digits and perhaps even adding additional prefix digits as needed to reach the desired office. Originally this was the only purpose of it; putting out signalling other than dial pulses was not part of its original function. >> Panel Type and 1XB had no provision for dealing with SxS pulsing. When >> 1XB came around, presumably the easterners assumed that any place which >> would need them would be panel. > Panel used the 'revertive' signaling method, possibly invented by Rube > Goldberg which, to make it very simple, the called office > advanced the contact and the calling office told the called office > when to stop. This was emulated in the #1 crossbar, as it was > intended to be compatible with the panel system. (I also vaguely > remember that the 1ESS was able to speak revertive as well.) In reading the descriptions of #1XB, I was amused to learn, with what seemed the narrow and short-sighted ideas of the invenstors and designers, that revertive signalling, indeed a Rube Goldberg system, was used between two #1 XB offices, emulating panel even when there was no panel office involved. > When placing a call from a panel office, the revertive pulse sounds > could often be heard as a distinctive 'scratch-scratch' sound during > dialing. > I'm familiar with the way both the Omaha and NYC phone systems were > back in the electromechanical days, and both used panel and 1XB > extensively with lots of revertive pulsing between the various > offices. (Ma Bell's first full-scale panel office was in the Atlantic > office in Omaha. Years ago I provided information about this to the > Digest here.) Both areas used 5XB for newer installations until the > early 1970's. > There were pockets of SxS around both Omaha and NYC, often appearing > as DID implementations, but occasionally for POTS, as in the Manawa > office I mentioned above. (I remember specifically that Columbia U in > Manhattan and Union Pacific in Omaha used such a scheme.) Did these two users own their own switching equipment? Railroads were entitled to, as "right-of-way" companies; don't know about educational institutions. Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Both of those were Signal Corps owned and operated SxS systems. It turned out that DID worked just fine by giving them prefixes and treating them as any other SxS office. (This is, of course, simplifying, since the incoming and outgoing trunking had to be greatly changed, but basically it was no big problem.) The Bell offices they worked out of were either SxS or #5XB, so that presented no problem. Wes Leatherock wesrock@aol.com wleathus@yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 15:15:15 -0500 From: Gene Gaines Organization: Gaines Group Subject: Re: My Upgraded Computer System Pat, I have an old Sharp laptop (same CPU speed as yours) running Windows 95. I just does the job, and I love it. I sympathize with you in giving up an old "favorite hunting dog" like this. You never can tell about that old stuff. Last week a friend of mine was throwing out an old IBM Wi-Fi card, my wife grabbed it and brought it home, we threw it into the old 95 laptop, installed the software, and the darned thing is doing Wi-Fi wireless all over the house (course, the battery gave up holding a charge about two years ago, has to operate on house power.) On Windows 98 ... I have downloaded ALL the fixes and upgrades for Windows 98 II from Microsoft, can send them to you on a CD if they would help you. Good luck with the housecleaning. Gene gene.gaines@gainesgroup.com ------------------------------ From: Tom Betz Subject: Re: Then Benjamin Franklin Must be a Terrorist Too? Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 22:21:08 +0000 (UTC) Organization: XOme Quoth Joe@nospamcity.com in news:telecom23.2.17@telecom-digest.org: >> But you see, its not just the sore losers here in the USA who hate >> Bush, a lot of people in the rest of the world don't like him (or >> his father) either. PAT] > Hey, what about folks like me who voted for Bush and now feel like I > elected Adolf Hitler? Trouble is, I can't stand any of the Democrats > so it is time to stay home. You can't seriously tell me that you prefer Hitler to Dean. Staying home is how the non-Nazi Germans got Hitler in the 30's. The Nazis didn't stay home -- they elected him democratically on August 19, 1934. One man, one vote, one time. We need to make sure to vote in the 2004 election, or we may not be permitted to do so in 2008. And no, I'm not exaggerating. Democracy is always tenuous, but this year it is more tenuous than most years. "I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the King that led them to it; who to disobey were against all proportion of subjection." - W.S. ------------------------------ From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com (Jeff nor Lisa) Subject: Re: Then Benjamin Franklin Must be a Terrorist Too? Date: 3 Jan 2004 10:15:08 -0800 Organization: http://groups.google.com A Nony Mous wrote: > According to the last news reports I read, Bush actually won the > elections in Florida (a group of news organizations had their own, > unofficial, recount) which gave him the Electoral College majority > required. That is true. I don't understand why Bush critics don't focus on the real spoiler of that election -- Ralph Nader. Had he pulled out, Gore would've won with an unquestioned majority. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: > But I do believe if Mr. Gore had taken (through whatever rationale) > the office of President there is a reasonably good chance that > 9/11/01 would have not occurred ... But Bush II went into office a > bit more belicose and beligerant than his predecessor ... I must disagree with that. IIRC, the enemy planned the attack well before Bush entered office and attempted to destroy the WTC during Clinton's term, as well as attacked other U.S. targets world wide. > almost daring the folks in the middle east to cause trouble, which > of course they did. I disagree with the notion that the attack on the U.S. was the result of anything the U.S. said or did. The attack was not rational in the sense it was designed to change US foreign policy or limit US military capability. The attack was simply to murder innocent people and destroy property -- as an end in itself. > ... Clinton was too laid back for anything like that; so, I suspect, > would have been Gore. I can't help but wonder if Clinton was distracted by the impeachment proceedings and Monicagate nonsense to the extent he ignored warning signs or lost credibility to use legitimate military action against those who attempted to destroy the WTC the first time. He tried one limited effort and was roundly criticized for doing so. > But you see, its not just the sore losers here in the USA who hate > Bush... Both Clinton and Bush Jr are passionately hated by their critics and I find this very disturbing. The conservatives hated Clinton since he (to them) represented everything wrong about the 1960s. Newsweek reported that they were indeed out to get him and looking for something when Paula Jones came along and they jumped on that with big money and legal resources. That was bad for the country. But the liberals hated Bush the moment he was elected. Many think the U.S. somehow "deserved" 9/11 because of its foreign policy which is absurb (unless you believe that the U.S. should be 100% isolated from the rest of the world without any trade.) And screaming about every decision Bush makes isn't good for the country either. > a lot of people in the rest of the world don't like him (or his > father) either. PAT] That is something I don't understand and makes no sense. When Bush declared his intent to go into Iraq, the critics went nuts, seeing Bush as far worse than Saddam. If that were really true, then these people would be demanding Saddam be restored to power since Bush had no business removing him, yet I don't hear anyone suggesting that. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. 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