The corporations that control our government are using the deficit as a means of destabilizing our economy, in order to intimidate us into selling off our resources, cutting our social programs and giving away our first amendment right of assembly.

This is the Shock Doctrine in effect. Disaster capitalism.

They've done it to Chile and Argentina, and now they are using these tactics on the United States. Not only is a high deficit an effective means of corporate control, it is also a great way to make money, as every looted bailout, subsidy, handout and no bid contract dollar is currently stagnating in some offshore corporate tax haven. We should freeze those accounts, repatriate those looted dollars and send these corporate execs to Guantanamo for the rest of their lives.

The problem is not that the legislative branch is deaf, blind or dumb. The problem is that they are corrupt. They have no intention of balancing the budget or reducing the deficit.

You will have to excuse my very strong opinion on the matter. I can not change my feeling on it and for that reason you can damn well expect me never to be on a jury for this type of crime. I grew up in a military family. I have friends and family overseas that will have deal with the direct fallout of this and I do expect it to not only make their job more difficult but has even put them at even more risk. I do not expect them to pick and choose what laws to follow and what not to. On the other hand I do not believe he is being treated differently then anyone else in the prison. With the amount of press that is on this case I do not believe that he is being treated wrongly and that most of what has been said is bullshit in an attempt at sympathy.
I also find it insulting that a Russian Propaganda group is being treated as news. A year ago I had never even heard of Russian Times but now when ever I do its some BS negative story on the U.S. or the EU. Everyone is giving the U.S. Crap in treating of one person but Not one thing is ever said about the thousands in prison in Russia, China, Argentina, Turkey, Syria, Yemen, Uzbekistan, Myanmar, Laos, Malaysia, the list goes on and on and on. People keep saying Innocent until proven guilty for Manning but condemn the U.S. on Hearsay.
Sorry the BS meter is off the scale on this.



>> ^Lawdeedaw:

>> ^skinnydaddy1:
Good thing he's not in Russia. If he had been RT would of never said a damn thing and he never would of been heard from again. As for his treatment, sorry he is a traitor to his country. He is not a hero, He is not an activist. He was a solder who took an oath that he betrayed. He should be spending the rest of his life behind bars. He has put people at great risk that may even get someone killed. It does not matter if names were removed. With enough information people can connect the dots and figure out who or what happened.

I won't argue the point of traitor versus not, or the arguments others have made about 'innocent until proven guilty.' That argument falls short with my bullshit radar, just like yours-- BUT, technically, many dumbass conservative voters, and liberal voters, and elected officals betray America every day by assulating and ignoring the constitution. Take the War Powers act? Wtf? Gitmo? Since when the fuck did the Founding Fathers write that the constitution applies only to citizens? Did the fathers put that in there? Fuck no. And did it exclude actions across the seas? Fuck no again. And because the constitution is a form of law for government, if something is not written, it does not apply.
So, the constitution applies to everyone. I assume so, since the Fathers were not retards and just forgot...
Futher--Manning will go to jail for life. Question is if you think this General who is okaying cruel and unusal treatment should join him? And if you argue it is not cruel and unusal, I would like your proof. I assume YOU would have spent years confined inside a box, all alone and naked for years... That would be proof, not speculation, because you can say, "I didn't mind it one bit." Somehow, I doubt you would volunteer though...
The prison itself is violating America's sacred document, and all who accept responsibility over Manning is a traitor... So what is your opinion on this matter? Do you support the constitution--or the rhetoric? Are you pro-freedom? Or pro-hypocrite?
I assume you are pro-freedom. So while you and I think Manning should be in jail for breaking legitament laws within constitutional authority, there are a lot of traitors in this. Of course Asange is protected, among others. Because we can't be cherry picking laws that forged our country's backbone, can we? Am I right?

Why is it extreme fiction to think that powerful, ambitious men would take advantage of a power vacuum? Free market intervention via the IMF has horror stories far, far worse than this. Real stories, not fiction. Chile, Argentina, Nicaragua, Bolivia. Powerful people take advantage of the power vacuum in our country too. Deregulation of derivatives caused the current financial crisis. Deregulating the banks caused the mortgage fraud crisis. Deregulating energy caused the Enron crisis. Business has co-opted our relatively powerful government and led us into war and debt. Take away government and the hard fought laws of the last few centuries and the power of wealthy ambitious men would be unbound. Take away government and the hard fought laws of the last few centuries and what you consider to be oppression would be dwarfed.

When states fail, gangs and warlords always immediately rise up to take advantage of the system.

When I say anarchists and conservative libertarians are naive, I'm not trying to be mean. I think they are blind to the historical constant that powerful, ambitious men will always try and game political systems, and that anarchism, by design, would be completely impotent at stopping them. It is no small coincidence that these powerful, ambitious men support many of the institutions and think tanks that inform your politics. The same people that fund Cato and the Reason Institute also fund PNAC and Freedomworks. Does it not disturb you that Neo-Cons fund your institutions? Does it not disturb you that conservative libertarian heroes like Milton Friedman have backed violence and violent dictators in South America to further their cause? To further your cause?

Anyway, this is why I find conservative libertarianism and anarchism so objectionable. I don't think anarchism could ever happen, because of the paradox that in order to achieve and maintain an anti-state, you would need the power of a state. The reason I oppose a movement that could never get off the ground is that its principles (low taxes, deregulation) are being used as justification for the very tyranny it seeks to abolish.

(PS: check out the documentary: GASLAND. My fiction was based on real events.)

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Law, I like that Ron Paul is liberal on some social issues, but his economic views would only serve to hasten the power and influence of corporations in this country, thus negating everything else. All that utopian free market stuff sounds great in the abstract, but when you put it into practice (see Chile and Argentina and the US over the past 3 decades) it fails badly. I don't want change for the worse.


I agree, the free market does little policing. I don't think though that it would have mattered. Where it would have mattered--like Iraq and Gitmo--he could have ended those programs. The market, however, Congress would have blocked, and so you would have come out on top there too.

Law, I like that Ron Paul is liberal on some social issues, but his economic views would only serve to hasten the power and influence of corporations in this country, thus negating everything else. All that utopian free market stuff sounds great in the abstract, but when you put it into practice (see Chile and Argentina and the US over the past 3 decades) it fails badly. I don't want change for the worse.

>> ^Yogi:

Very Sexy but I would've preferred a bit more dancing on a dance show and a little less everything that they did to try and look a racy as possible.


You know how I know you're gay....

Apparently, the show and channel got in a lot of trouble with Argentina's version of the FCC.

Let me first make it clear that I support gay marriage, because it's about to sound like I don't.

This argument is always framed wrong by both sides. See, gays already have the same marriage rights as the rest of us: a man can marry a woman and a woman can marry a man. Opponents make this argument but then continue with another that's not true: that gays are asking for special rights. Gays are not asking for special rights, they're asking for new rights. These new rights would apply to us all. Straight or gay, we could all marry whomever we wanted, genders be damned. You should be happy to gain rights in a time when they are being whittled away in the name of safety. Just because you have no desire to utilize those rights doesn't mean they have no value. I don't own a gun but I'm glad I have the right to.

This is not about sexual orientation; it's about freedom from government control over your personal life. What kind of "conservatarian" are you that thinks the government should have this sort of power?

@quantumushroom (re: Freedom from Religion)
It depends on how you interpret "freedom from religion". If you interpret it as meaning I should be able to live my life without ever being exposed to anything religious, then no. That's obviously ridiculous.

What it's supposed to mean, and what is protected by the First Amendment, is that I can live my life without having religious beliefs imposed on me by the government. The government cannot tell me I can's go out after sundown on Friday or go to work on Sunday. They cannot make eating pork and shellfish illegal, at least not on religious grounds.

@quantumushroom (re: Gay marriage in history)
Same-sex marriage was legal and common in the Roman Empire up until the Christians took power and made it illegal. They also had anyone who was in such a marriage executed.

Same-sex marriage was also legal and common in parts of China during the Ming dynasty.

Presently, full marriage is legal in Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain and Sweden.

Basically, the trend seems to be that when and where people are reasonably intelligent and not of an Abrahamic religion, gays are A-Ok.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Stephany Flores, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Dutch, Natalee Holloway' to 'Stephany Flores, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Natalee Holloway, Van der Sloot' - edited by marinara

Awesome username!
Despite it being so appropriate for this video, it was already sifted

http://videosift.com/video/Stray-kitten-joins-hikers-on-9000-mile-journey-to-Argentina -> http://videosift.com/video/Backpacker-Kitty-Travels-The-World

Always enjoy popping a left wing groupthink bubble... Reagan was correct, and Stewart is dead wrong. It has been repeatedly established that increased taxation results in decreased economic activity, and subsequent strangulation of tax revenue. What Stewart (et al) ignore is that America has the #2 highest business tax rate in the world (39.25%) behind only Japan (39.54%). And then the left wonders why 'evil' companies choose to operate in places like Hong Kong (15%), China (25%) and India (30%).

And the 'evil' rich? Our top tax rate is 39%. That's lower than Germany (49%), Japan (50%), Italy, and the UK (50%) - but it is higher than S. Korea (35%), India (30%), Finland, Argentina, Brazil, et al. The US is very middle of the road (leaning to high) in regards to top tax rates. This is statistical fact as opposed to Stewart rabble-rousing. The top 5% of U.S. wage earners pay over 60% of all federal income taxes. The top 50% pay a whopping 97.1%. The poor aren't paying squat.

To listen to Stewart you'd think businesses & the rich pay nothing, and the poor are the ones paying all the taxes. That is a left-wing delusion peddled which only the stupid and inattentive could possibly accept. The rich are the ones paying the taxes. So when a tax CUT happens, it is attacked as a 'cut for the wealthy'. Yeah, the wealthy get it because they are the only ones PAYING it. The only place you can 'cut' taxes for the poor & middle class is gasoline, state, social security, medicare, and medicaid. And yet oddly, no one on the left ever proposes alleviating THAT tax burden.

When you make a nation a friendly environment for business and wealth it results in wages, jobs, industry, growth, and (yes) TAX REVENUE. The "tax the rich to prosperity" concept the left ascribes NEVER works. A heavily taxed wealthy class combined with a low/un-taxed middle & poor class results in a disincentivized lower & middle class, inflation, depression, stagnation, low productivity, shrinking population, business flight, and eventual economic collapse.

Everything Stewart says here is baloney. No one is saying "no taxes on the rich and kill the poor!". Fiscal Conservativism advocates reasonable, sensible economic policy friendly to business, investment, and wealth. Such a method benefits everyone. America became great because it welcomed and rewarded business, wealth, ingenuity, creativity, and hard work. Countries like Germany (52% taxes) the UK (50%), France (50%), Italy (46%) and so on are the ones that have screwed up royally by stifling these attributes in their populations via socialization.

Thanks for posting this, haven't heard it in years. Is this the original video for the song? It looks WAY too modern for the videos made in 1980 but I could be wrong.

Looks like the band from Argentina "Miranda" took a queue from this video (or vice versa)

"Don" by Miranda

Here are the groups:

Group A
South Africa
Mexico
Uruguay
France

Group B
Argentina
Nigeria
South Korea
Greece

Group C
England
USA
Algeria
Slovenia

Group D
Germany
Australia
Serbia
Ghana

Group E
Holland
Denmark
Japan
Cameroon

Group F
Italy
Paraguay
New Zealand
Slovakia

Group G
Brazil
North Korea
Ivory Coast
Portugal

Group H
Spain
Switzerland
Honduras
Chile

Alright, people. One of my best friends goes to the University of Pittsburgh and he was in the middle of the whole thing. Most of the "protesters" were just students curious about what was going on. He wrote this about it all:

"This note is for my friends who are not in Pittsburgh and have not yet been given a fairly comprehensive version of what has been going on here. If you have been seeing my wall posts, you'll know that something bad happened in Pittsburgh, but if you want my story, here it is...

On Thursday and Friday September 24-25, the G-20 World Leader's Summit occurred in Pittsburgh. The summit involved the leaders of the United States, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Russia, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. The purpose of the summit is to have a forum for the major world leaders about the global economic crisis. Pittsburgh was chosen to be the location for the summit in order to highlight its economic recovery after the city's manufacturing industry collapsed about 40 years ago.

The G-20 is always met with protesters for various causes, including global warming awareness, socialism, peoples' rights in other countries, anti-free-trade, and anti-war, and anarchy. The city of Pittsburgh was required to bring in police forces from all regions of the state of Pennsylvania and other nearby states.

On the evening of the 24th, the summit began with a dinner in the Phipps Conservatory, a plant exhibition hall (really quite a nice place) just under a mile from my dorm in the borough of Oakland. The University cancelled classes after 4:00 PM that day in order to ensure that students did not have to be outside if they did not wish to. During the day of the 24th, several protests had been broken up by riot police. At about 7:00 PM a small protest began at the Schenley Plaza. (from this point on, I will be referring to locations on campus, please refer to the map I posted at:< http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs209.snc1/7620_178174626232_559501232_4081545_8066324_n.jpg>)

I went there to investigate myself at about 8:00 PM. The protest itself was fairly small, only about a hundred or so people total, with only a handful of protesters. There was some live music and dancing, courtesy of the Hare Krishna. Despite the fact that the protest was fairly small and peaceful, there were several hundred police forming a perimeter around the plaza, which is under a quarter-mile from the Conservatory. All of the Police were in riot gear, which covered any form of identification they may have had; they were also all armed with lethal and non-lethal weapons.

Around 9:00, I decided to return to my dorm. At 10:15, I overheard someone saying that they saw fire on Forbes Avenue. I decided to go out and investigate. At this point, the street had been flooded by curious students, and would remain that way until the police removed them. Several dumpsters had been pushed into the intersection of Forbes and Atwood by anarchist protesters. The next intersection had a overturned dumpster with flaming garbage spilled on the street. Several shop windows had been broken by a protester from California, however the media initially implicated that it had been students who were responsible.

I reached the lawn of the Pitt Union, and at about 10:45 the police began to multiply rapidly. They also brought in several scary-looking trucks with large dish-shaped things on them. This turned out to be a Long-Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), which emits a loud, scary noise which is physically disabling within a certain radius. At 11:00 PM, the trucks began playing a pre-recorded message declaring that the people in the streets had become an "illegal gathering" and that the crowd was to disperse, or they could be subject to arrest or attack with "less lethal" weaponry (does that mean you're less dead when you get hit?)

At this, I decided to retreat to Forbes Hall. Other people were not fortunate enough to get out of there as quickly as I did, and became exposed to a hail of "OC" gas, rubber bullets, mace, LRAD blasts, and nightsticks. The University unfortunately decided to lock down the residence halls as the police approached, giving the retreating students nowhere to go to escape from the police. One of my friends was arrested while holding open the doors to the Litchfield Towers residence hall lobby so that escaping students had somewhere to go. She was dragged outside of the doorway, beaten to the ground, not given any rights, held for five hours, and released without any charge as of yet.

At the time, I was unaware of this, but I watched the police advance through the lower campus (residential area, mainly between Forbes and Fifth avenues) via the live feed on the local news. When I noticed that they were three blocks away from Forbes Hall, I went to the patio on the second floor of the hall (out of reach of anyone who didn't live there or have a friend there). At about midnight, the cops were in front of the hall, still chasing a small group of protesters despite being nearly a mile from the original protest ground and being practically at the end of the campus. Without any real warning, they threw several canisters of "OC" gas onto the patio. Unknown to me at the time, several also entered the lobby and threatened to mace several students who were unable to enter the hall due to the lockdown.

OC gas is for all intents and purposes the same as tear gas. When you inhale it, your lungs and throat itch and you can't do anything but cough. If it gets in your eyes, you become partially blind and it feels like your eyes are melting. I was several feet away from a grenade and was directly exposed to it for several seconds as my fellow students and I tried to escape. I ran to my bathroom on the sixth floor and flushed my eyes and choked for five minutes. The third floor had window open out of which the students had been looking, it was filled with gas, and the students living on the third floor became refugees for several hours while it cleared.

Shortly after passing Forbes hall, the police attack ended. They left Oakland with 42 arrests (most were let go that morning), and a large number of unfairly treated, assaulted, and pissed students. The university itself has yet to make any statement regarding Thursday night, but the Mayor of Pittsburgh and Chief of Police have stated that they are "proud of how well the police handled the situation". They are apparently not fans of students either.

I will save my personal commentary and descriptions of the aftermath for another note. However, here are a few links that you will find interesting.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNeD4rHUF4A> a compilation of student-made videos from 9/24.
The videos are of varying quality and contain some harsh language and violence. These will give you an idea of what the students here experienced (I know the person being dragged away at 2:35)
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6aRrQz7224> This video was not taken by me, but it was taken from my vantage point when Forbes Hall was attacked
<http://www.pittnews.com/> Pitt's student newspaper, featuring independent coverage of the G-20 (and some rather good photography, the ones I took came out terribly)
<http://www.pittbriefly.com/> A blog on which many videos of the G-20 'riot' have been posted. Some of these cannot be found on Youtube.

Thank you for reading this,
......."

On a related note, the biggest bird that ever flew was Argentavis magnificens, an ancestor of the Giant Condor. Impressive picture of replica here.

>> Discovered decades ago and formally described in 1980, Argentavis magnificens is the largest bird known. It lived six million years ago during the Miocene period throughout Argentina. It is nearly the size of a Cessna 152 light aircraft, with a 23-foot (7-meter) wing span and weighing approximately 150-pounds (70-kilograms).

It would have been impossible to take off from a standing start. The bird probably used some of the same techniques used by modern-day hang-glider pilots such as running on sloping ground to get thrust or energy, or running with a headwind.
But once it was on a thermal, it could easily rise up a mile or two without any flapping of its wings -- a free ride, just circling. Then at the top, the bird could simply glide to the next thermal and in this way it could certainly travel 200 miles a day -ScienceBlogs excerpts

edit: And the biggest creature that ever flew was a Quetzalcoatlus.

>>A pterodactyloid pterosaur. More recent estimates based on greater knowledge of azhdarchid proportions place its wingspan at 10-11 meters (33-36 ft). However, similar claims to an upper size limit for flight accompanied the discovery of large (up to 9 m (30 ft)) Pteranodon, and azhdarchids larger than Quetzalcoatlus with wingspans 12 meters or more (such as Hatzegopteryx) have been discovered.
A 2002 study suggested a body mass of 90–120 kilograms (200–260 lb) for Quetzalcoatlus, considerably lower than most other recent estimates.[7] Higher estimates tend toward 200–250 kilograms (440–550 lb). -wiki excerpts

Oh god people, please don't bring USSR into the mix! For your enlightenment, here is a current list of countries that have universal healthcare, or some sort of publicly sponsored health care system :

Afghanistan, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iraq, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Oman, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Ukraine and the United Kingdom

And I don't think these countries are all led by democrat, leftist, socialist,or son-of-African-immigrant leaders either.