pparaska

I guess that's because all of Washington is not a big bureacracy like some people think. Over the past 16 years working either in or with US government people (DoD), I've known very few clueless people. What I usually find are people that are very thoughtful and intelligent, as well as people who try very hard to do the right thing with the taxpayer's money. Now if you want to talk about DC city government, it's a totally different thing! I won't go there. What Mike means is that just listening to the media and much of what is out on the Internet about how things work in Washington is many times far from the truth. On matters such as WMDs, etc., you need to have security clearances or be involved with those that do to find out the truth about things. That's what really chaps my hide - when I see those totally out of the circles where this stuff is going on making broad statements about what is and isn't the truth. Arm chair politicing on WMD issues from the college campus is about as far from the center of the facts as you can get. But that's what gets the press (just go read ucsusa.org or fas.org). Talk about aiding and abetting!

IMO, from reading things you're written here, and the way you wrote them, your arguments are very much aligned with those of anti-war activists. There's no vendetta against the anti-war types from me. We're having a debate about whether the anti-war people may have blown the protest horn too hard. I must question the logic of arguments people present when they tell me that they are passionate about something, or get worked up over something and post stuff based on those feelings. It's impossible to have a decent debate if those things are not kept in check. I resent that statement. You're in essence saying that I back the president's DOING SOMETHING about Saddam's regime because you think I'm a republican, and you think that is why I write the things I do. Yes, I'm registered republican, only so I can have a say in the republican primaries in my state (Maryland) to get the far right old boys out of the republican game - so that the rabid bleeding heart liberal democrats in this state can be put out of office a bit easier. You're making an accusation that I say what I do because I'm a Republican. I say you don't know me well enough to make that accusation. And it's false on top of that. Read on. I will not take Hans Blix's report or quotes for a statement of the truth, because I work in a closely related part of the business that he does and my sources do not jive with what he said and wrote - I can only assume he did what he did to serve a purpose other than telling the truth. I also said that the repurcussions of the way it WAS done non-covertly may have actually had a more positive effect on the middle east tyrannies. In other words, I'm questioning whether my desire to have done the Iraq regime change covertly would have had a less positive effect than the method that I was against. Isn't this exactly the point of view I was pronouncing? In other words, no, I didn't contradict myself. I don't think I'm that hard to understand, but maybe I wasn't clear about my opinions on this topic. Let me quote myself (http://forums.hybridz.org/showpost.php?p=528525&postcount=110) : We DID and STILL CONTINUE to go after Bin Laden, even though the MSM likes to say otherwise. We don't need 150,000 troops to look for and find Osama - THAT would be a waste. Throwing 400 billion dollars at finding Bin Laden would have been the most gross misuse of funds I can think of. There are many fronts on the war on terror, and Bin Laden is just one, and one that some terrorism experts say is less important than he used to be. The fundamentalist muslim terrorist are becomeing more indepent of Bin Laden, so taking him out is not as a decisive move as it once might have been. Since when does retaliation become more important than defending ourselves and innocent people from another country from a ruthless regime? Catching Bin Ladin won't bring back one of the 3000 or so people killed in the 9/11 terrorist strike. Catching him may help us to root out more Al Quaida terrorists and shut down training camps and infrastructure, if we can get him alive. But what else would it do, besides give us a feeling of vindication? Even if you put the 400 billion dollars into finding Bin Laden, how sure are you we could find him, find him alive, and have any kind of positive impact on other terrorists? Al Quaida would still be active and have sleeper cells around the world. This registered republican is speaking about it, and telling you that having Bin Laden in jail or dead would not gaurentee things would be any better for us or the world, from a terrorism standpoint. Yes, that's opinion, based on no real facts, just the ramblings of terrorism experts. And some people resist war action no matter what the consequence of not going to war are. How do you know that the part of US government (the Bush administration) did this brashly and was gung-ho? Were you part of the strategy meetings, the decisions to do this? Do you really believe that they did not weigh the negatives in loss of human lives of coalition soldiers, innocent Iraqi's? I for one have more faith in the people who make up the administration, the government and the world in general to believe they did not, and that the tried to be intelligent about what they are doing and weigh these things out.

I'm sure Kim would love to hear that . I'd love to hear his full technical reasoning as to why he wanted the weight foward and farther from the CG. Can you get him to get on here or document it elsewhere for our reading pleasure?

Grumpy, thanks for that link! Haven't seen you here in months and glad to see you're still hanging around here!

Gary, I saw those pics in your album the other day. I noticed that in the orange Z, it was in a "scarab" type of position, or at least used a small distributor and left the stock hood latch bracket on the firewall. See as I'm open minded about the Scarab vs set-back placement issue as it relates to "handling", I'm wondering if the successes Dustin has had with "Top Time of Day" experiences are with the engine set forward or aft, and by how much compared to the standard "Scarab" placement, however we might define that... Not trying to make flames, just very curious.

It's the use of military power. I won't argue the semantics - it's pointless. What I was trying to point out was it's not conventional war, that brings about visions of wanton violence against entire cities, etc., like WWII. This action is more like a police action against a bunch of thugs in the streets. Were they? The inspectors were constantly delayed once they were allowed back in, causing suspicion. And they were not allowed for years before that, again causing suspicion as to how and where WMD stuff could be hidden. Yes, even hidden outside of the country. Do I know this for a fact? No. Is it even a simply plausible reason we found none when we did get there? Saddam played a game of bluff here, to his detriment. ????? How? Find the thread, copy the URL of the page to the paste buffer, paste the URL in between [ url] and [ /url] tags (no space after the [ ). Random deaths are just as important as the ones that "our government caused", IMO. And yes, we are responsible for letting deaths occur around the world, if we have the power to not let them happen. It's our duty as decent human beings to help our fellow human beings. Which gets back to my rant about how we and the rest of the world are complicit in letting Saddam's regime kill 100s of thousands if not the 1.3 million I've seen quoted (see above in this thread). "I'll have the stop-the-war jello, but leave the let's stop the murderous dictator dish off my tray please."

Hmm.... Uh, WE DID try to handle this diplomatically - Saddam foolishly played a game of bluff and lost, to the detriment of the people of Iraq and the Coalition. There's a point that some people just won't listen to diplomacy. Saddam is a great example. You CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. DIPLOMACY WAS EXHAUSTED - THERE WERE TWO CHOICES LEFT : The UN's pandering, and the Coalitions "war". The problem I have with this kind of argument is this: Sometimes the use of armed forces is actually a means to an end that is a greater good. This pretty much defines the acceptable use of power, IMO. To try to always stay passive in all situations where diplomacy won't work (Think Hitler, Saddam twice now, Kadaffi) is to actually be more a part of the problem than the solution. It's like standing by while your neighbor beats his familyt to death. When the world's powerful countries put their collective heads in the sand and let huge human rights and/or WMD violations go unchecked, they are accomplices to the evil. Does that mean that I condone just jumping in to every country that commits gross human rights violations or WMD programs? No. Diplomacy is a great tool and many times works. But with people like Saddam, forget it, you have to take him out to get rid of the evil. Does it mean that I feel that the US and the rest of the world powers waited too long to take out Saddam's regime, so that 100s of thousands (if not the 1.3 million I've quoted elsewhere) of people wouldn't have been killed by it? YES. If the UN were worth ANYTHING they'd worry about gross human rights violations and WMD programs by countries bent on empire building (sorry, talking about Saddam's Iraq, not us), they'd make this their priority instead of standing in the way of a few of the superpowers to do something about it. That and getting food, medicine, other necessities to people in those countries. But no, we get hand wringing about the casualties of this "war" that are mostly unavoidable once we make the decision to do something about Saddam. The US and the coalition has made it a priority to use humane tactics in first getting Saddam and his flunkies and army during the initial activities 2 years ago, and then in getting the insurgents, while trying to keep innocent civilian causualties to a minimum. Do I hear any hand wringing about the 100000s of thousands or 1.3 million dead at the hands of Saddam's regime? Hell no. All we hear in the press is the whining about the mostly UNAVOIDABLE deaths due to the coalition going in and trying to make Iraq a better place FOR IT'S PEOPLE. If you ask me it's like being Cafeteria Christians. People whine and ring their hands and put up web sites about all the numerous people killed since we went into Iraq, but have nothing to say about the fact that we STOPPED a horrible dictator who killed many more than that before we got there. and a dictator that many times made it clear he was a horrible world citizen and one that wanted WMDs (and even used them on his countrymen). Saying you condemn the war and not saying that what Saddam was doing to his country men was even worse is disingenious and self serving, IMO. Self serving to what - pacificism. Pure, blind pacificim, while 100s of thousands die because people are afraid to pick up a weapon to try to put a stop to an ongoing atrocity. An yes, I think the UN is very derilict in their duties. The kind of thing going on in Iraq under Saddam is not unique. It's happened and is happening all over the world while the UN does next to nothing, because of the pacificists that run the show - blind pacificists that think war-like actions against thugs that run countries like they were the devil are worse than letting them continue. If we were true people of a loving God or just believers in helping the just and innocent, we should be beating our breasts for the innocent victims in those other places instead of spewing hate for a few governments in this world that decided to flip off the ineffective UN and do something about Saddam. We should be going to bed at night cussing the murderous dicatators of this world, not a president and his cabinet that are actually doing some good for the people of Afghanistan and Iraq. JMO, obviously.

Check the gland nut that holds the strut cartridge into the strut housing. I had that problem with my Z years ago after I bought it - the previous owner didn't tighten the gland nut enough and it eventually loosened and made clunking noises while driving.

I certainly don't practice what I preach on this, but it's refreshing to see people go to the trouble of letting the engine get it's intake air from INFRONT of the radiator support. I always laugh when I see a $10K+ SBC in a $60K+ built up street rod, etc., with a tiny rectangular chrome filter right in front of the throttle body of an LT1 style intake, where the fan is blowing hot air right into the bottom side of it. Nice work!

For a short halfshaft like the Z has, my opinion is that it's not really a good idea to go after the U-joint method, from an engineering standpoint. The range of angles the halfshaft u-joints move through is just too large for this to work well with alot of torque. U-joints are very poor for transmitting torque when more than a few degrees off of zero u-joint angle. Very quickly they tend to "bind up" due to this fact. That's one reason that they break in the halfshafts, unless you can keep the angles down during the time your are throwing the large torque through them. Even still, you're trying to get the forces across two opposed bearing cups, instead of the typical 3 locations in a CV joint. CV joints have much less of a problem transmitting torque when more than a degree or so off of straight. Sure you can offset the strength deficit of the U-Joint design with bigger stronger joints, but with the Z31 CV shaft bolt in upgrades that are out there, you'll just be behind the game. JMO

Not weird at all. Bush and his guys decided for many reasons to subject our forces to this action in Iraq. I hate to call it a war, because that brings up images of gross firepower, carpet bombing, indiscriminate wiping out of huge numbers of people, a la WWI and WWII. This is more of a regime change police action. Avoidable? some of them for sure. Remember, I stated earlier that I was one that felt it would have been better to wait 10 years to go in covertly instead of using ground troops and shock and awe. But I wonder if 2 years later the positive aftermath of taking the UN to task on their mistakes, seeing European governments change their minds about dealing with ruthless dictators and WMD holders, and middle east governments recentering themselves with more Politically Correct tactics. Less bloody (over a short period of time) is not always best, IMO. The end of WWII was quite bloody at the hands of President Truman. Many feel that the blood vaporized in Hiroshima and Nagasaki actually saved lives. Continuing to let Saddam's regime's atrocities go uncheck has costs that can't just be counted in deaths. Not to mention that he was using oil for food funds to put into place stepped up WMD programs. Please at least link to these other arguments. I've spent many ours going out and finding facts to back up my arguments in just this thead. I argued the response to this above already. What about the 100s of thousands if not millions (depends who you believe) of Iraqi people who died at the hands of Saddam's regime over the past 35 minus 2 years? Inaction is just as deadly as action, in some instances.

The shipping weight of my TR-3550 without oil and with their crappy shifter was 105 lbs.

I'm not convinced that the doctors are not making numbers up anymore. But, I'll take it with just a grain of salt that they aren't, instead of a handful. The problem is knowing out of who's dead on the gurney, whether they are an innocent victim (unless a small child) or an insurgent, etc.

To back up my assertion that IraqiBodyCount.net is leftist or anti-Iraqi "war" note, or follow the links surrounded by RED: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/contacts.htm "The IRAQ BODY COUNT Project Team are: HAMIT DARDAGAN (Co-founder, principal researcher and site manager) is a freelance researcher currently working in London. He has made an in-depth study of the research methods of Professor Marc Herold, who pioneered a media-based methodology for estimating civilian deaths in the Afghan war of 2001-2. He has written for Counterpunch, and has undertaken research for a number of organisations, including Greenpeace. He has been chair of "Kalayaan" a human rights campaign for overseas domestic workers in the UK, which led to significant enhancement in their legal rights. JOHN SLOBODA (Co-founder, associate researcher and archivist) trained as a research psychologist and is currently Professor of Psychology at the University of Keele, UK. In 1999-2000 he worked with the Committee for Peace in the Balkans, and researched effects on the civilian population of the NATO bombing campaign. Since September 11th 2001 he has been responsible for the daily peaceuk.net mailing list disseminating critical non-violent perspectives on "the war on terror". He is a founder member of the Network of Activist Scholars of Politics and International Relations (Naspir), and a local delegate to the Stop the War Coalition. He is currently Web Resources Manager for Peace News, and in January 2004 was appointed Executive Director of Oxford Research Group. KAY WILLIAMS (Senior researcher and archivist) is a recently retired librarian, who worked most recently as Head of Acquisitions in Keele University Library. She runs a mailing list for those in the Keele and Newcastle-under-Lyme area of Staffordshire who are interested in local and national anti-war activities. BÜLENT GÖKAY (Project consultant) is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Keele University. He is co-founder and core researcher of the Keele Southeast Europe Unit. He has authored many books and articles on global politics, the Middle East, Balkans and Central Asia, including A Clash of Empires: Turkey between Russian Bolshevism and British Imperialism (1997), The Politics of Caspian Oil (2001), Eastern Europe Since 1970 (2002), and The Most Dangerous Game in the World: Oil, War, and US Global Hegemony (2002), and is co-editor of the forthcoming book, War, Terror and Judgement: 11 September 2001 (Feb 2003). TORBEN FRANCK (Webmaster) is a musician and peace activist. He is webmaster for www.peaceuk.net, www.humanshields.org as well as Iraq Body Count. He has recorded a track (with Joe Wilson) for the recent Stop the War CD compilation, issued in December 2002. He is a delegate to the Stop the War National Conference. MARC HEROLD (Research consultant) is an Associate Professor of Economic Development, International Affairs and Women's Studies at the University of New Hampshire, USA, where he has taught since 1975. He holds a Master's degree in international business and finance and a Ph.D in Economics from the University of California in Berkeley, as well as an engineering degree in electronics from the Swiss Federal Polytechnic University. He has focused his writings upon social and economic changes in the Second and Third Worlds and his current research interests are on Brazil and Afghanistan, including the latter country's post-war situation. In December 2001 he released a widely cited study of the human costs of the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan "A Dossier on Civilian Victims of United States' Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan: A Comprehensive Accounting"), updates to which may be found at: http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mwherold. GLEN RANGWALA (Legal consultant) is a lecturer in politics at Newnham and Trinity Colleges, Cambridge University. He is trained in political theory and international law. His doctorate, from Cambridge University, was in political and legal rhetoric in the Arab Middle East. He is also published on a number of other themes, including international humanitarian law, comparative human rights law, Iraq and nuclear weapons. DAVID FLANAGAN (Technical consultant) is author of JavaScript: The Definitive Guide (among other standard works) and wrote the JavaScript code for Iraq Body Count that keeps our Web Counters updated while making them easy for webmasters to install. PETER BAGNALL (Tech consultant & user support) is currently a postgraduate student at Lancaster University studying computer science and psychology. He spent two years working as a software design consultant in Silicon Valley, and before that four years as a network research engineer for British Telecom. His professional interest is using technology to provide real benefit to society, rather than just to develop flashy gadgets. His thoughts on ethics, politics and technology can be found on his website. TRANSLATORS FOR PEACE is a free association of translators from all countries and of all nationalities. The Association was founded in 1999, during the Kosovo war, by a group of Italian translators who decided to dedicate a portion of their time to translate and publish information regarding the costs of modern technological wars in terms of human lives, the environment, democracy and human rights. ERIC CLARKE (Assistant researcher) is professor of music at the University of Sheffield, where he does research and teaching in the psychology of music. He was an active member of Camden CND in the 1980s, and is a member of Amnesty International. NIKKI DIBBEN (Assistant researcher) is a lecturer in music at Sheffield University where she carries out research into music perception, and gender representations in popular music. JOSHUA DOUGHERTY (Assistant researcher) is a guitarist, private instructor and a graduate student in music at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA, USA. MARIANNE FILLENZ (Assistant researcher) is senior research fellow in neuroscience at St Anne's College Oxford and retired University lecturer in Physiology. She was a member of the national committee of Scientists against Nuclear Arms (SANA) and is a present member of Scientists for Global Responsibility. CHARLIE FORD (Assistant researcher) was awarded a doctorate for his holistic critique of Mozart's Cosi fan tutte in 1989 and has since published on popular music. He is an active member of Amnesty International and an occasional contributor to peaceuk mailings. JORDANA LIPSCOMB (Assistant researcher) is a retired litigation attorney and mother of two. Supporting member and event coordinator of Musicians Opposing War (MOW). She received her Bachelors of Arts degree from New York University in Russian Language and her Juris Doctorate Degree from Southwestern University School of Law. She is currently researching the legalities and criminal implications of this war and welcomes information and sources on this subject. SCOTT LIPSCOMB (Assistant researcher) is a co-founder of Musicians Opposing War, a collective of Northwestern University faculty, staff, & students in the United States who came together for the purpose of expressing opposition to the War on Iraq, who believe that U.S. military aggression is likely to increase - not deter - terrorism on American shores, and who advocate seeking non-violent solutions to the world's problems through a consensus of peace-minded nations. Scott is an Associate Professor in the School of Music at Northwestern, where he teaches in the Music Education and Music Cognition programs and carries out research related to the processes involved in music listening and their affect upon the listener. He is also co-author of "Rock and Roll: Its History and Stylistic Development" (2003, 4th edition, Prentice-Hall) and has been extremely concerned about the lack of response to this issue from the musical community. The recent appearance of organizations like Musicians United to Win Without War (Russell Simmons, Rosanne Cash, Michael Stipe, Dave Matthews, Peter Gabriel, Suzanne Vega, and others) is a welcome occurrence and hopefully only the first of many more that will follow. DARELL WHITMAN (Assistant researcher) is a post-graduate student with the School of Politics, International Relations and the Environment at Keele University. He holds a Master’s degree in Government from California State University, Sacramento, a Master’s degree in Political Sociology from Southern Oregon University, and a Juris Doctorate in law from the University of Santa Clara. He is an attorney licensed to practice law in California and U.S. federal courts. He has been a long-time peace and environmental in the U.S., and served on the national organizing committee of the Emergency Committee to Stop the War (Gulf War I) from 1991-1992. ROWAN WILLIAMS (Assistant researcher) is a graduate in Modern Languages from the University of Cambridge. For a number of years she was Justice and Peace representative for the Anglican Community of St Francis, and a member of the steering group of the Justice and Peace Links of the interdenominational Conference of Religious. She is currently training for the priesthood in Cambridge." Let me see, do they have an axe to grind?

Yeah, listening to body counts from a leftist website is very dangerous. I totally agree with your assertion that telling an insurgent from a non-hostile civilian is just about impossible, unless we are talking about small children. I don't know if any of you remember Saddam warning us in the final days of the fall of Bahgdad that we were about to see a new and interesting form of warfare. I fully believe what he meant was the non-uniform wearing tactics of the insurgents, etc. Body counts as to who died (were they combatants or not) becomes incredibly difficult if you don't know what is in the mind of the person you find dead without a uniform on. 20000 in two years is a huge number of people to die in a country even as populous as Iraq. But just how many of those are enemies of not just the coalition, but peace loving Iraqi's. How many are deaths of peace loving Iraqi's killed by insurgents because they were designated as coaltion collaborators. WE'LL NEVER KNOW. One thing is for certain at this point - the people of Iraq now has a reason to have hope- one they haven't had for 35+ years. Yeah, the Iraqi people would have been so much better off it we just left Saddam's regime there to continue their atrocities and kept the people of that country living under the cloud of fear and no personal freedom that that had.

I don't have time now to look into the quote of 58 times the chance of violent death, but me thinks that if you were to follow the money, it is based on some far left wing liars. Brad L. Maaske, creator of the Documentary Film, 'WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION -- THE MURDEROUS REIGN OF SADDAM HUSSEIN' http://www.iraqitruthproject.com/ quotes 1.3 million killed by Saddam's regime before we got there 2 years ago. Whether that is accurate is a question I have. But something tells me that it'd be difficult to kill as many people as his regime did in 35 years in the 2 years we've been there. It's not like we've carpet bombed the country or anything.