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if they think they wont hold any responsibility for counterfeit items or any other wrong illegal activity they are clearly wrong and shouldnt go about it this way. wasnt piratebay kinda decentralized also and look what happened to it?
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It sucks that no one stood together and decided not to buy the bitcoins from the government unless they were going to offer the coin for 250 each and thats it. If the bitcoin community didnt buy it Im sure the price of bitcoin would have sold far more cheaper in the auction
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- Assess the range of potential dangers to the US, along with benefits of US influence, and scale military spending appropriately, or let it grow more slowly with time. Unfortunately scaling back the military kills huge numbers of jobs. This is what happens when you make a country dependent on government...all the eggs are in one basket. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume we can cut the military by 40% no questions asked (a very generous assumption). $280 billion in savings. - Other tax or spending reforms Not specific enough to judge. Totals Savings: $613 billion/year You did better than most. You are coming up about $1.4 trillion short though. Maybe $1 trillion assuming the economy gets better. Anyway, there are many potential answers (including many not listed). The problem with nearly all of them is that they require sacrifice, so they are politically unpalatable by one side or the other. No one is saying it is impossible to balance the budget; we are saying it is impossible congress will actually act before it gets so bad that we implode. Though I don't have the time to go through all the numbers and, as I mentioned, this was only a partial list of fixes, I will say that, though Congress does wait with major fixes until the problem becomes acute, it does act once it is acute enough. Meanwhile, it does seem willing to often make smaller improvements. For example, as a generation Xer, I cannot retire with full benefits until I am 67. Which is fine for most problems but things like debt are easily fixed when the problem becomes "acute". Debt is one of those things that when the problem has to be addressed, you can't. It's how almost all major empires have collapsed. The Roman Empire being a classic example. Lucky for us, we are years away a "sacking of DC". |
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The word world war 3 has been thrown around alot in 2014. It's kind of getting scary because so many pieces of the puzzles are coming together.
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so while obama says isis is not about religion... well... isis is telling the world.. it is about religion... now can we say that islam is the religion of hate? violence? murder? cause thats what isis is saying and doing... and there doesn't seem to be too much push back from muslims at all...
Well I believe Islam is not a religion at all, but a political ideology of suppression, terror and hate. They masquerade as a religion so they can claim 'religious freedom'. How do you come to your conclusions. The article is about ISIS not all Muslims. But you try and spin this shit that it is all Muslims. I understand that you are a prejudice as hell but to lump everyone that is Muslim to ISIS show just how unintelligent you really are. Are you aware that many of the NFL players are Muslim. Do you think they support ISIS? |
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so while obama says isis is not about religion... well... isis is telling the world.. it is about religion... now can we say that islam is the religion of hate? violence? murder? cause thats what isis is saying and doing... and there doesn't seem to be too much push back from muslims at all...
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Well, all these stories tend to end the same...with the country being taken over. I think the more important question is what that timeline is. In my honest opinion, we are probably further out from "the end" to the point where you or I will not be around. With that said, we certainly will have some big declines within the next 20-40 years. Currently 100% of the revenue generated goes towards paying old people, paying sick people, paying interest on debt, and paying people to XXXX up and/or rebuild another country. At the state level, another 25% of the revenue goes towards helping sick people. Unfortunately, you get to a point where you aren't just helping people who need it, you are creating a small work force with a large entitled force. Slowly this degrades the economy, you end up with huge disparities in income, and the nation begins to cave in on itself. Take a look at Greece and most of the EU as an example of where we will be in 20 years. After awhile you just become so weak that anyone can just walk all over you. It happens with all nations but it takes a long long time.
So in short, we'll stumble along for awhile and eventually go the way of the dinosaur.
Think we'll actually make it another 20 years like this? I'd be all too happy if we somehow could manage that. I expect changes in our level of technology to bail us out if we can manage to make it that far. I just suspect the problem is much more imminent. We'll easily make it another 20 years. They won't be great years, but the United States will exist. Besides, we gotta wait for a few other countries to fully collapse before we go down that road. Believe it or not, others are ahead of us. |
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Well, all these stories tend to end the same...with the country being taken over. I think the more important question is what that timeline is. In my honest opinion, we are probably further out from "the end" to the point where you or I will not be around. With that said, we certainly will have some big declines within the next 20-40 years. Currently 100% of the revenue generated goes towards paying old people, paying sick people, paying interest on debt, and paying people to XXXX up and/or rebuild another country. At the state level, another 25% of the revenue goes towards helping sick people. Unfortunately, you get to a point where you aren't just helping people who need it, you are creating a small work force with a large entitled force. Slowly this degrades the economy, you end up with huge disparities in income, and the nation begins to cave in on itself. Take a look at Greece and most of the EU as an example of where we will be in 20 years. After awhile you just become so weak that anyone can just walk all over you. It happens with all nations but it takes a long long time.
So in short, we'll stumble along for awhile and eventually go the way of the dinosaur.
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and its official... isis wants to go back to the good old days... the stone age.... reviling all culture, learning, growth... they are now colating their agenda for their slaves, and it does not look pretty at all... well... at least for the slaves... the leaders will probably enjoy the very things they ban others from.... The Islamic State of Iraq recently issued educational regulations for the Caliphate. Music, art, sports, social studies, history and psychology are now banned in the classroom.
Translated by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi:
Directorate of Programs in the Islamic State
General Statement to all Education and Teaching Institutions
1. The following subjects are to be definitively abolished from teaching programs: artistic musical education [music], nationalist education, social studies, history, artistic composition education [drawing], sport, philosophical, social and psychology studies, Islam-Christian religious education), to be replaced by subjects added in compensation by the directorate of programs in the Islamic State.
2. Complete abolition of the name ‘Syrian Arab Republic’ wherever it is found and it be replaced by the Islamic State.
3. Complete abolition of the Education Ministry and its replacement with the Ministry of Education and Teaching.
4. Removal of all photos that do not concord with Islamic Shari’a.
5. Removal of all Syrian Arab song wherever it is found.
6. No teaching of nationalist doctrine and instead: commitment to Islam and its people, and no affiliation with idolatry and its people. Indeed the land of the Muslim is the land in which the law of God governs.
7. The teacher is to patch up gaps in knowledge of the grammar of Arabic dependent on omission by examples that do not contradict the Islamic Shari’a and politics of the Islamic State.
8. The word ‘homeland’ (watan), or ‘his homeland’, or ‘my homeland’ or ‘Syria’ is to be replaced wherever it is found with ‘The Islamic State’ or ‘his Islamic State’ or ‘the land of the Muslims’ or ‘The Islamic State’ or ‘the province of ash-Sham’.
9. Abolition of any example in maths that points to interest, interest on money, democracy, or election.
10. Abolition from the sciences of anything connected with the Darwin theory, natural selection and not attributing all creation to God- Almighty and Exalted is He.
11. The teacher is to make the students aware that all the laws of physics and chemistry are from God’s laws in creation.
12. This general statement is considered compulsory and all who disagree must be held accountable.
ISIS also banned weed and burned a field of marijuana plants in Syria this past week. http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/ |
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As far as mainstream leadership, your point might have had more weight if Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen hadn't made a joint statement denouncing ISIS on 08/11/14.
As far as marches and protests in dictatorships, they tend to happen less often.
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We don't have any publicly available data that Qatar for example funds the Islamic State. This has been a pretty popular misconception because these countries fund other Islamist militias who may also work with say the Al Nusra Front or even contain Al Qaeda affiliates, but that isn't the same as directly funding the IS. In fact, these countries have been, under US pressure, cracking down fairly hard on financial sources for the Islamic State and even Al Nusra recently. Saudi Arabia might have at one point, it is hard to tell, we don't really have that data unfortunately and it is difficult to distinguish between private funders and those allowed to fund with Saudi government complicity / support.
always amuses me those numbies blaming the US for Islamic fanatics. Crazies have been around for millennia. Religious zealots as well. THe numbies refuse to acknowledge that blaming the US is pathetic. We are the EXCUSE. Not the reason. There is no question US foreign policy has some blame for attacks against US interests. Nothing operates in a vacuum. If you piss people off enough, they react. This is the result of US foreign policy pissing off a lot of people. I'm neither attacking nor defending the policies themselves, just making a statement of fact that they sometimes cause violent blowback. |
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Now of course that doesn't mean that Israel did what we were pressuring them to do (engage in a peace process), instead they unilaterally pulled out of Gaza in order to end peace talks with Abbas.
Dov Weisglass (the aid) went on to explain:
"The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process, and when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress."
If there was any ambiguity in that he also stated:
"The disengagement is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians."
That's fairly cut and dry, so no i'm not just proverbially speaking talking out of my ass, rather I say those things because I have paid attention to internal Israeli political dialogue. I make those claims specifically because I have direct supporting evidence for them.
This actually isn't true either, we see pressures occur all of the time in the absence of security council agreement.
Please point out the pressure put on any security council member that was solely done by the UN. Because I would say that the UN made some noise, and the US, China, or Russia did what they chose despite the UN comments. In fact, I would say that the UN only puts out what at least one of those countries wants put out. |
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And I'm really not much of a supporter of the UN. It's goals are fine, but they surpass reality. When you consider the majority of countries in the world have some sort of non democratic government, I don't want their opinions forced on me. Nor do I believe my opinion should be forced on some Afghan tribe. Essentially, their goals are too grandiose to be possible.
We have direct evidence of it though. the Sharon government blatantly stated that they pulled out of Gaza for example because of increased international pressure on them to engage in a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority. From one of the chief initiators of the plan stated when asked why Israel had engaged in it: "Because in the fall of 2003 we understood that everything was stuck. And although by the way the Americans read the situation, the blame fell on the Palestinians, not on us, Arik [Sharon] grasped that this state of affairs could not last, that they wouldn't leave us alone, wouldn't get off our case. Time was not on our side. There was international erosion, internal erosion. Domestically, in the meantime, everything was collapsing. The economy was stagnant, and the Geneva Initiative had gained broad support. And then we were hit with the letters of officers and letters of pilots and letters of commandos [refusing to serve in the territories]. These were not weird kids with green ponytails and a ring in their nose with a strong odor of grass. These were people like Spector's group [Yiftah Spector, a renowned Air Force pilot who signed the pilot's letter]. Really our finest young people." That's pretty straightforward, he mentioned both US pressure and several instances of international pressure. Of course, this last part is exactly what I meant. They will do what's in their interest while pretending that pressure made them do whatever it is that was in their interest to do. |
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I can understand that, and I understand your reasoning. But let's be honest, you aren't the person either side is trying to sway. The people both sides are trying to sway are the people I described, who watch a few moments of FOX, or MSNBC, or CNN to form opinions, then switch back to Honey boo boo. Violence will never change their minds. We see violence change the minds of people all of the time. I can assure you for example that Israel is facing much greater pressure over the issue of Palestine than Morocco is over the issue of Western Sahara and unfortunately, part of the reason for that is the absence of violence in the Western Sahara. There are other reasons of course since Israel is such a prominent interest of our culturally and politically. Conflict doesn't guarantee attention, just ask the Sudanese in South Kordofan. I'm also not sure how this is a rebuttal or appropriate response to my statement. I'm not sure what you would have me do, give in to propaganda? Refrain from correcting people? Stop talking about it? I'm not really sure what you are advocating here. Going back to the beginning of our conversation, the only thing I'm discussing is the best way to change the perspective of the American public. The only thing I'm a proponent of is a change in tactics. If I saw that the current tactics were working, I wouldn't be chatting about it at all. |
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His statement was highly ambiguous, when it didn't have any reason to be so. We've seen such things before with other groups like Al Shabaab when it was trying to put forth a public image of control during its three way split and internal power struggle. It becomes especially interesting when the Israeli police reports and independent experts/ analysts both agreed that it hadn't been ordered by Hamas leadership and that they seemed to be operating operationally speaking on their own. The higher ups in the Israeli government are the primary faction stating that Hamas ordered it via primary leadership. Hamas still (right now) denies a role in it.
The truth is hard to get at, I don't know what it is, but neither does anyone with only publicly available records to go off of.
And who do you want this proof for? Some sort of world body like the UN? There is no true such world body that will ever matter in a case like this. Russia is a great example. The UN can say what they like, but it doesn't matter. If anything happens in Ukraine that matters, it will be because the US drags Europe kicking and screaming into an effective sanctions routine. Ban Ki-moon making statements will do nothing important. The same applies to Israel. I ask for proof because it is being used in a propaganda effort to justify Operation Protective Edge and make Hamas out to be the main / sole aggressor within the most recent fighting. Plus I have my standards, so I tend to demand details when hard claims are made of that nature, especially since I am familiar with some of the nuances of conflict. I mean no offense whatsoever, but there is no possible proof that is available to the world in general that would effectively sway your opinion on the situation there. I can understand that, and I understand your reasoning. But let's be honest, you aren't the person either side is trying to sway. The people both sides are trying to sway are the people I described, who watch a few moments of FOX, or MSNBC, or CNN to form opinions, then switch back to Honey boo boo. Violence will never change their minds. Well that is a bit offensive since it implies that I am not capable of changing my mind regardless of the situation and am incapable of impartial analysis. I also find that a bit off since I actually have changed my mind, and quite dramatically, on this issue and used to be a staunch supporter of Israeli occupation which would seem to indicate that my opinion is open to changing dependent upon evidence / research. That wasn't the point. Neither side is particularly trying to convince people who study the issue thoroughly, through the use of propaganda. I wasn't indicating you were unable to change your mind. |
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And I'm really not much of a supporter of the UN. It's goals are fine, but they surpass reality. When you consider the majority of countries in the world have some sort of non democratic government, I don't want their opinions forced on me. Nor do I believe my opinion should be forced on some Afghan tribe. Essentially, their goals are too grandiose to be possible.
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If we're talking about swaying US public opinion, the Hamas guy just sabotaged any gains Hamas propaganda has made, and reinforced Israeli propaganda.
I don't see how this is really relevant to anything that I've been saying. though your dismissal of international bodies like the UN I find a bit odd in this case, since we have seen very real cases of Israel being pressured into giving up territory and making concessions by external actors and bodies. If Israeli conservatives had their way it would still be in occupation of Gaza, the Sinai, and Southern Lebanon; and the West Bank would have been purged of Arabs and annexed in full by now. I doubt we will agree that Israel has been pressured to do anything in particular. I find it far more likely that they did things they knew could be worked in their favor, then pretended that they were "pressured" into doing it. The UN has no way of bringing effective pressure so long as any one of the security council members opposes it. |
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His statement was highly ambiguous, when it didn't have any reason to be so. We've seen such things before with other groups like Al Shabaab when it was trying to put forth a public image of control during its three way split and internal power struggle. It becomes especially interesting when the Israeli police reports and independent experts/ analysts both agreed that it hadn't been ordered by Hamas leadership and that they seemed to be operating operationally speaking on their own. The higher ups in the Israeli government are the primary faction stating that Hamas ordered it via primary leadership. Hamas still (right now) denies a role in it.
The truth is hard to get at, I don't know what it is, but neither does anyone with only publicly available records to go off of.
And who do you want this proof for? Some sort of world body like the UN? There is no true such world body that will ever matter in a case like this. Russia is a great example. The UN can say what they like, but it doesn't matter. If anything happens in Ukraine that matters, it will be because the US drags Europe kicking and screaming into an effective sanctions routine. Ban Ki-moon making statements will do nothing important. The same applies to Israel. I ask for proof because it is being used in a propaganda effort to justify Operation Protective Edge and make Hamas out to be the main / sole aggressor within the most recent fighting. Plus I have my standards, so I tend to demand details when hard claims are made of that nature, especially since I am familiar with some of the nuances of conflict. I mean no offense whatsoever, but there is no possible proof that is available to the world in general that would effectively sway your opinion on the situation there. I can understand that, and I understand your reasoning. But let's be honest, you aren't the person either side is trying to sway. The people both sides are trying to sway are the people I described, who watch a few moments of FOX, or MSNBC, or CNN to form opinions, then switch back to Honey boo boo. Violence will never change their minds. |
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If we're talking about swaying US public opinion, the Hamas guy just sabotaged any gains Hamas propaganda has made, and reinforced Israeli propaganda.
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His statement was highly ambiguous, when it didn't have any reason to be so. We've seen such things before with other groups like Al Shabaab when it was trying to put forth a public image of control during its three way split and internal power struggle. It becomes especially interesting when the Israeli police reports and independent experts/ analysts both agreed that it hadn't been ordered by Hamas leadership and that they seemed to be operating operationally speaking on their own. The higher ups in the Israeli government are the primary faction stating that Hamas ordered it via primary leadership. Hamas still (right now) denies a role in it.
The truth is hard to get at, I don't know what it is, but neither does anyone with only publicly available records to go off of.
And who do you want this proof for? Some sort of world body like the UN? There is no true such world body that will ever matter in a case like this. Russia is a great example. The UN can say what they like, but it doesn't matter. If anything happens in Ukraine that matters, it will be because the US drags Europe kicking and screaming into an effective sanctions routine. Ban Ki-moon making statements will do nothing important. The same applies to Israel. |
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