Rumsfeld baffles press with 'unknown unknowns'

[charrison]

There are no knowns," Mr Rumsfeld.

"There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns - that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know but there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know," Mr Rumsfeld said.

"So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that's basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns.

"And each year we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns."

linkage

 

[glenn1]

Sounds like Moonbeam was screwing with the Teleprompter again.

 

[notfred]

That ALMOST kinda makes sense.

 

[NFS4]

Please tell me you're joking

 

[Atrail]

What a qoute!

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: notfred
That ALMOST kinda makes sense.

After the 2nd or 3rd pass

 

[Moonbeam]

Makes perfect sense to me.

He means, by the way, that he doesn't have a good reason to attack Iraq, but that he wants to do it anyway.

The tricky part, though, is when we discover those unknown unknowns, is what we discover then added to the known unknowns or the known knowns. That, I suppose would depend on what is is. The question is, when we discover that something is, is it something we know or is it something we don't. In the later case we know it is, but we don't know what it is. But what can happen that is truly astonishing, I mean talk about your unknown unknowns, is that after even a few more years and the collection of more of those unknown unknowns there can began to dawn on the most subtle of minds, first the suspicion, and later the unshakable conclusion, that what in fact we know is nothing at all. This is that state known as freedom from the known and sometimes freedom from the tyranny of the known, for the mind that does not know, every minute is fresh and filled with living wonder, filled with the joy of life.

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Makes perfect sense to me.

He means, by the way, that he doesn't have a good reason to attack Iraq, but that he wants to do it anyway.

The tricky part, though, is when we discover those unknown unknowns, is what we discover then added to the known unknowns or the known knowns. That, I suppose would depend on what is is. The question is, when we discover that something is, is it something we know or is it something we don't. In the later case we know it is, but we don't know what it is. But what can happen that is truly astonishing, I mean talk about your unknown unknowns, is that after even a few more years and the collection of more of those unknown unknowns there can began to dawn on the most subtle of minds, first the suspicion, and later the unshakable conclusion, that what in fact we know is nothing at all. This is that state known as freedom from the known and sometimes freedom from the tyranny of the known, for the mind that does not know, every minute is fresh and filled with living wonder, filled with the joy of life.

STFU

 

[Yossarian]

omg I thought this was from the Onion. Truth IS stranger.

 

[Spoooon]

Seems easy enough to me. There are things that we know we know. And things we know that we don't know. What is unknown are the things that we can and can't know and what we can and can't not know.

 

[sandorski]

LOL! Truth is stranger than fiction, someone once said.


Either 1) he writes Bush's speaches, 2) Bush writes his, or 3) they were separated at birth. I'm picking #3

 

[Yossarian]

someone in this very thread, even

 

[Mrburns2007]

The press is baffled by BS and puppet shows so it doesn't surprise me that they can't extract what he means.

 

[dakata24]

 

[geoff2k]

Did somebody forget to take their medication again?

 

[Whitecloak]

reminds me of humphrey from "yes,minister"