No sir, you are the one who claims the democrats had, and spent more money in the last 2 elections, and now that the republicans are the champion of the middle class (rather than it's most fervent enemy)....apparently because Faux told you so. I propose YOU are living in opposite land.
The middle class, along with nearly everyone else (not the top 1%), was screwed long and hard by the Bush administration and republican congress. True enough the democrats didn't stop them, nor did they fully solve the disaster they were left with 6 years ago. It was not, however, democratic policies that decimated the middle class, nor was it democratic policy that kept it that way, it is the obstructionist republicans insisting on continuing their own disastrous policies, and democrats never insisting on an actual filibuster (by republicans) to halt political progress, but accepting the mere threat of filibuster and giving up far too easily.
Claiming that the republicans have or will work FOR the middle class is either disingenuous or coming from the completely uninformed. (EDIT: please note that the economy has ALWAYS done better under democratic leadership than it has under republican leadership....every cycle in the last 50+ years, and the economy has been the republicans main issue that entire time.) Remember, it's proven repeatedly that those who listen to/watch "fox news" are consistently LESS informed than those who watch/listen to NOTHING. I think that's what's happened here.

EDIT: Love the new, totally appropriate 'sad clown king' avatar!

A fascinating episode in the struggle between unions and the establishment is currently taking place over here. A change in the regulations of union membership within a company allowed the union of railroad engineers to grow a pair and actually represent their members in a meaningful way.

Keep in mind, unions over here were not busted, but subverted instead. "Domesticated", you might say. Now here's a small union in posession of tremendous leverage: if the trains stop rolling, half the country grinds to a halt.

Many corporate lackeys in government got scared and a new law was proposed to curtail the power of smaller unions. A law that is deemed quite unconstitutional, by the way.

And that's when the umbrella organisation of this small union pitched in with a statement that can be summed up unequivocally as "it's on, bitches". It's just rhetoric so far, but the small union already made good on their threats last month, so I'm somewhat hopeful that we'll finally get to see some meaningful pushback against the war on unions.

No man, that body armour, those boots...I'd harvest the bones of a thousand murdered infants to build our bed if that's what it took. Do you think that's what she wants?

I had to go rewatch this. It's practically perfect. Not an origin story, no romance subplot, no compromise. Just a day in the life of Judge Dredd. Love it, but my favourite Dredd story was told in rhyme:

They'd been waiting there since nightfall for the Sharks to come along,
They knew they'd have to pass this stretch of street.
So they'd sharpened up their stickers and they'd brought along their bars,
And they were wearing steel-tipped stompers on their feet.

There was Big Frank Zit and Faceache, Crazy Joseph with his spear,
The Dixon Boys were there and Billy Rat.
Ike the Spike had brought his sister with her homemade ghetto blaster,
And the Ghoul had put new rivets in his bat.

Now it wasn't nothin' personal that they had against the Sharks,
Any bunch of dead-end spugs would do.
'Cos there was nothing they liked better than to mash and bash and stomp,
Same as any normal Mega-City juves.

"A-rumbling! A-rumbling! We love to go A-rumbling!
("AAAH!")
We love to lay in ambush in the night!
("AAAA!")
A-rumbling! A-rumbling! The Zits were born for rumbling!
(SMAK!)
There's nothing we like better than a fight!"
(KRAK!)

Then a headlight pierced the darkness - a rider gaunt and grim,
Daystick drawn and ready in his hand.
     The chin belonged to Dredd,
     And the voice as well, which said:
"You creeps can do your rumbling in the can!"

"It's just one judge!" cried Cindy Spike and opened with her blaster -
"I'll send him back to Central in a sack!"
(SPOING! "AAAAAAA!")
But Dredd's bike absorbed the blast and laid her on the street,
With tyre marks running right across her back.

Then the judge got down to business and his daystick rose and fell,
Striking out at every head he saw.
For though the Zits launched the attack, the Sharks were fighting back -
And self defence is no defence in law!

As the heap of bodies mounted, Big Zit could see his Waterloo,
Waiting just one station down the line.
Oh, sure, he loved to rumble - but he preferred to be on top...
"Let's scram and live to fight another time!"

("Dredd to Control! We got forty-plus juve rumblers fleeing east through Bernstein. Zits and Sharks, back-up required."
"Wilco, Dredd!"
"Med squads and meat wagons to Moreng Alley. Estimate twenty casualties, more to follow."
"Control to all units area Bernstein. YPs on the run."
VRMMMM!
"Pick 'em up!")

In the space of sixty seconds there was a judge on every street.
From watching bays others scanned the slab -
"We got two Zits runnin' fast though the Tamblin Underpass!"
"Krupke here! I got 'em in the bag!"
(THUNK! THUNK!)

They cut them off at Sondheim and they mopped them up on Wood,
On Pedway 12 they corned Crazy Joseph.
He tried to make a stand - but a spear's not worth a damn,
When it's up against a judge's high explosive.

The Ghoul surrendered quietly, he didn't have much choice -
Ike the Spike tried to scale the sector wall -
("Save your bullet, he'll never make it." "Oh no! AAAAAAAAAAAAH!" SPLATT!)
The Dixon Boys all copped it when they tried to hitch a ride,
On the 2020 Zoom to Bernstein Halt.

Big Zit thought he'd play it clever, the law was everywhere,
The safest thing for him to do was hide -
Dredd tracked him down on infrared - "Don't bother to come out!"
"The best place for trash like you is inside!"

In minutes flat they'd caught them, every Shark and every Zit.
To Dredd it fell to ladle out the years -
"Twenty years apiece for Cindy Spike, Billy Rat and Ghoul."
An extra ten left Big Frank Zit in tears.

For Faceache minus half his face, for the hapless Dixon Boys,
For Ike impaled so cruelly on his spike,
For Crazy Joe with his gaping hole, there'd be one final rumble,
Along the last conveyor belt at Resyk.

A-rumbling! A-rumbling! They loved to go A-rumbling!
But the Zits will go A-rumbling no more!
A-rumbling! A-rumbling! They loved to go A-rumbling!
But they should've known they couldn't buck the law!

Over here, the union of railroad engineers is currently showcasing what a union was supposed to be doing, and almost the entire establishment is fuming. You just got to love how a proper strike reveals so many of them for what they are: corporatists who couldn't give a shit about workers.

"How can such a small group of people exploit their positions to grind an entire country to a halt? How can they hold us hostage like this?"

Ironically, it's the same people who (partially-)privatised our railroad in the first place. Railroad engineers used to be civil servants, no risks of strikes there.

The press is demonising them, brass from both government parties is demonising them, laws are proposed to practically strip them of their right to go on strike...

All major unions have been in bed with corporations for so long now that people barely remember what it looks like when a union fights for its members. They used to fear union leaders like Otto Brenner (Otto the Great, Iron Otto), now they're playing golf with his successors.

I got recommended to read Atlas Shrugged by a friend of mine. That friend turned out to be a beret-wearing high-art-snob ponce, but i didn't know it at the time.

I managed to finish it and whilst there were reasonable ideas in there that i think in some way we have paralleled in reality - whilst i find that most of her characters are sociopathic to some degree, i can very much sympathise with the idea of being led by the least capable in society who abuse the system of power that they shape and build to implement bad ideas badly.

I like the idea that the world would grind to a halt if the morons in charge did not have the ordinary, hard working people to keep things afloat... but that's about all i like about it. And i think we genuinely can see it happening in the world today in a less exaggerated fashion - the recent recession clearly demonstrated that the people in charge of money and property do not understand what they're doing and ignored the warning signs for years. Furthermore, our feckless leaders have done nothing about it, property bubbles continue to grow and bonuses for the upper echelons are still outlandish whilst the lower workers are struggling to get by in the recession. And then the expenses scandal of the MPs in Britain literally stealing money from the public pocket to have their moats cleaned (that actually happened) and such. Yesterday the watchdog looking into the scandal has decided that the investigation will take place in secret from the public and punishments will also be kept secret. Et voila, two clear instances of those in charge having no clue and no moral compass swept under the rug and forgotten about.

In conclusion, Ayn Rand is a very small minded individual who thinks that everyone in the world must think like she does. That is the only reason i can think of for the approximately 30 pages i read about the female lead character's personal sexual obsession with being taken aggressively by a man and made to feel defiled and used, and how all women feel that and all men wish to dominate and use a woman in turn.

But i think she got it spot on about how being led by those least capable morons will bring the world to its knees, and it won't require the hard workers to quit either. It just requires them to let it happen. And there's no little paradise to run off to, there's just Earth.

@artician - that's exactly it. The characters have no human empathy in Atlas Shrugged. I don't understand why it has to be all or nothing for most people - all conservative or all liberal. Why not the best of both? It IS possible to be ethical, productive and innovative at the same time.

And yet with all those evil socialist regulations, the building industry in London hasn't ground to a halt.

Amazing....

I also found it interesting they highlighted the Ryugyong Hotel (the huge pyramid building). It's been under construction for 25 years, largely halted since the Soviet Union collapsed and the slush fund train ended. While the exterior is done according to wikipedia, the interior is not and it's always be unoccupied.

China's metropolises feed a similar misconception. They are similarly impressive that it's easy to forget that the country as a whole is still very poor. China's GDP per capita is half of Brazil, a quarter of South Korea and a tenth that of the US.

While China is obviously not as repressive as NK, the hukou dual citizenship system has a similar effect of segregation rural and urban dwellers. While rural workers may be able to move to work in the cities, they will enjoy none of the social benefits and protections that local citizens do. This has a lot to do with China's disparity of income and accretion of wealth to the large cities.

Noone is telling Israel to shrug their shoulders....the issue is not with the defence, it is the measure of the defence.

Israel should send in a police force, and find those responsible. Shut down the tunnels by ground, stop bombing indiscriminately.

This requires police action, not military...the 'missiles' you keep referring to are pathetically weak, absolutely pathetic.

Were I leader of Israel, I would drop the wall, set about repairing the damages inside the city, allow the organisation of a government, support it in getting benefits in for the people of Gaza and Palestine, halt the invasion of settlers into Palestinian territory, halt the bombings and send in armed police where reports of weapons stashes are. Set up large scale police patrols in troubled areas, let people go about their lives without the fear of having a bomb dropped on their head, try to give them a leg up in life....and the revenge attacks using piss weak rockets will stop.

The Israeli measure of force is far far higher than it should be.

There is no army inside gaza, its kids playing with homemade rocketry. Get cops in there, not 500lb bombs.

If both sides agreed to a ceasefire, allowing UN peacekeepers into the area to...you know...keep the peace, whilst the cities are rebuilt, peoples lives can get back to normal...my god imagine that world.

@newtboy
while appreciate the sentiment and ideology behind your commentary,i just do not see it play out in reality.

i was going to post links to convey just how broken our democracy is,and those links are legion.the data is incontrovertible and to be quite honest...depressing.

i tire of people making this about libs/repubs.
that is NOT the argument,though it IS the argument that is presented to all of us.
no.
the REAL argument is about POWER and POWERLESSNESS.

the only true power the people have is they,themselves and the ability to form associations,to group up and put pressure on those who wield power.to create institutions which force..by sheer numbers..those in the ivory tower to hear the voices of the common folk.

but those institutions and associations have been dismantled and the people marginalized.

would you like scumbag A or dirtbag B?
and maybe a possible third party candidate,which leads to the inevitable "lesser of two evils" argument you are alluding to.

all of that does not change the fact we are getting our clock cleaned by the elites who only seek to further their own interests.

we lost.plain and simple.

but i cannot ignore the optimism in your post.
i just wished i shared it.
in my opinion the only path we have left is mass uprising.
to grind the gears of the machine to a halt and force those in the ivory tower to come to the bargaining table.

i do not share you enthusiasm and trust in a totally (in my opinion) broken political system that threw us all overboard 40 years ago.

that is playing THEIR game by THEIR rules.
and that game is rigged and in their favor.

i think the evidence of that has become abundantly clear to anybody who has been paying attention.

its like gambling in vegas.
yes..there are a few who win big but the majority lose their shirts but the illusion that maybe...juuust maybe..you too might win big keeps people coming back to the table.

they have stacked the odds in their favor and to play the political system is no different.
either way..the house always wins.

so why play a rigged game?
why play by rules that have been instituted to benefit the elites and fuck us all over?

the time has come to change the game and create new rules.

i apologize for the lengthy rant.
i truly wish i could share in your optimism newt.
i do realize there are those who are doing their best to fight this inequity and corruption.
so there is hope....a tiny..slim..sliver of hope.

and on that note i hope right along with them.

Please do give us a closer look at ISIS is doing. Massacres, torture, rape, collective punishment and on, correct? Maybe killing what, 100 people at a time in the worst instances? That doesn't distinguish them from Saddam. Within Saddam's rule those crimes are what guys like yourself colloquially referred to as Saddam's 'firm' hand. They are his, so to speak, lesser and more routine crimes. I'd left them beneath mention thus far.

If you must insist on parroting your ignorance of Saddams al-Anfal campaign I'll resort to posting excerpts as evidence that the gassing was but a small part of it.

4,500 Kurdish villages were destroyed by Saddam, that's entire villages turned to rubble.
182,000 dead civilians by counts gleaned from Saddam's own records of how many Kurds his forces had succeeded in eliminating.
The concentration camps Saddam ran were pretty clearly modeled after Hitler's:
With only minor variations ... the standard pattern for sorting new arrivals [at Topzawa was as follows]. Men and women were segregated on the spot as soon as the trucks had rolled to a halt in the base's large central courtyard or parade ground. The process was brutal ... A little later, the men were further divided by age, small children were kept with their mothers, and the elderly and infirm were shunted off to separate quarters. Men and teenage boys considered to be of an age to use a weapon were herded together.

The conditions within the camp were terrible and torture, abuse and beatings were routine. The men of fighting age though were sorted for the express purpose to later drive them out into the desert by bus or truck for mass execution. This is how Saddam carried his genocide of the inhabitants of the 4,500 villages he'd destroyed.

Anyone interested in more or questioning the veracity of the above account can find more and endless references and evidence here:
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1993/iraqanfal/index.htm#TopOfPage

As for American policy, I don't quite see where I suddenly bear personal responsibility to clean up the world if I choose to form my opinions on world events independently of it's 'fit' to American policy.

I don't care much if it was Bush or Putin that took Saddam out of power aside from hedging on which would leave a better Iraq, either would be tough not to be an improvement from Saddam. Similarly for Sudan or the Congo, I'd be rather glad if world powers finally cared enough to try and spare the people there suffering under brutal military repression and endless war crimes. I'm not quite sure why you wouldn't share such a view?

Does this thing have any kind of automatic-shutoff safety mechanism whereby it the motor will halt if it detects any kind of impediment? Doesn't look like it.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Cyclic-Elevator-lift
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Paternoster-a-Cyclic-Elevator

...and Egyptians, and Muslims.
It's funny because I recall the Obama administration halting foreign aid when the Muslim Brotherhood seemed to be grabbing power, so how is it exactly that they're an exception?

While I see where you're coming from, I have a few issues with what you're saying:

1. The organization you're referring to is staffed, has offices and overheads. Assuming it isn't corrupt and skimming and holding multi-million-dollar appreciation nights and galas (and we probably shouldn't assume that it isn't), the money you're giving this organization still gets portioned off quite a bit. Your point about helping on the systemic level is quite valid (provided you are channelling your concern into actually doing so), but I'd look more into local community health centres or the nonprofit down the street, and still, that money isn't guaranteed to reach the person in front of you. Much as a social worker can help him connect to essential services, advocate for fair and affordable housing, counsel him on trauma, etc, he will still need money for a lot of basic needs.

2. You are vastly oversimplifying the needs and situation of every person on the street. That person may actually depend on money from strangers to make rent (being that welfare barely puts a dent in even the lowest affordable housing costs), feed kids, buy food that isn't McDonald's or canned food, get a haircut, or a million other things that everyone needs money for.

3. Even if that person intends to spend some of your money on oxy or crack, it is not in your right to judge that. While addiction can very generally be called "bad", this person may suffer from chronic pain, trauma, mental illnesses, or some combination and short of governments finally realizing that housing and caring for the poor is cheaper than incarcerating them and treating emergency health conditions, self-medicating is the only reasonable way they can continue functioning for another day. This isn't even an unlikely scenario; think how easily someone can go from your (or my) comfy life to homeless, poor and desperate. It isn't always "bad decisions"; you could be a contractor that falls and gets a serious injury, hit by a car, stricken with a mental illness you have no control over, traumatized earlier in life, born into a high-risk environment or social strata, or anything else, and then start sliding from there. You develop an addiction, your income comes to a screeching halt, your loved ones can't or get too tired to support you, bills that were routine become suffocating, and there you are on the street, pain exploding relentlessly in your body/mind, on the other side of the decision, seeing chins turned up and eyes turned away from you and hearing people mutter "Don't give anything to him; he's just gonna use it to get high," to each other.

4. Not a single person in the video (and really, in just about every situation you see on whatever street you're on) speaks to or even looks at the guy.

While I wouldn't expect that everyone gives money to folks on the street (I myself have only done it a few times), it frustrates me to hear people insist that nobody should. "He's just going to use it for drugs/booze" is a presumptuous and ignorant statement and mindset.

One more thing: if you really care about urban poverty and those suffering from it, the biggest thing (IMO) you can do is vote for politicians/parties who openly and strongly support social services and welfare, then hold them to their promises. I don't make a ton of money, but I am happy to pay higher taxes and lose some luxuries if it means people who need help just to get by get it.

It's too early for any news if a single player TES game is in development but the MMO is a massive undertaking with rumors of a massive budget. Zenimax Online, the company developing the game, isn't seperate from Bethesda/Zenimax, it's just a legal entity for the development team. So just how much can the publishing side of the house afford to commit to other proects while the MMO is in production? We already know the production of expansions for Skyrim was prematurely halted right before it was announced that ESO would be the next Elder Scrolls release.

Everything virtual does not have to be this kind of choice, VoodooV-I'm no wimp, the process would work were it not continually hijacked by a mechanism that is both glaringly apparent and for a certain privileged few to tweak at their leisure while maintaining a simple yet elaborate ruse. 'Writing' someone in would not work and this cold-cut fact should also be glaringly apparent to anyone with the capacity for critical thought tinctured with a dash of common-sense. Elections are and have been simply an exercise in complacent self-approbation and self-deceit for some time now...going waaay back-The white-knights and villains are agreed, in every personality, every human breathing as all are capable of the worst atrocities and the infinite empathy and kindness. The checks-and-balances only work if everyone plays by the rule book and not the cheat-sheet.


Now, an intelligent breakdown of your reaction cloaked as some meaningful response:

'someones feeling attention deprived again, trolling and picking fights to overcompensate'

No-I'm not picking a fight, I'm picking at a soft-spot in a personality and calling attention to particular predictable rhetorical repetition in a manner which also predictably, causes these certain personalities to cry foul, troll (insert racist here, as those who cry racism are invariably the racists themselves) or any other convenient terms which halt the process of reason.

"If I thought there would be actual rational discourse, I would engage him." (here's your chance) 'But nope' (there's the cop-out and hasty retreat with the regular gang of supporters)

'It would just be noise' (perhaps to yourself, as this is yet another convenient dismissal of an alternative point of view or realization).

And bareboards, sorry if I cause you to la la la with fingers in your ears, I did nothing rather, your reaction as well connotes a predictable denial of the meat in my rant, as is Chaos calling out the mundane aspect of mistyped punctuation.

Haven't had a drop of alcohol when this was written earlier this morning, nor have I smoked the ganja for over 2 months...question mark, exclamation point.....and more than enough ....el;ipsis

As tired of the childish shit as y'all are of mine?? Yep-But I hold-out hope for communion and understanding, as we all play here together.