I never said we should kill them.

It's not an analogy, that's a straight 1 to 1 comparison I made.

To your points.

1) I don't think you have any idea what sovereign means. ISIS could claim sovereignty (debatable, I'd say no, but it's debatable) the militiamen absolutely cannot.

2) What's your point?

3) Ha! Then what are the guns for?

4) That's not really a point.

I'd deal with it by arresting them. Blockade the preserve, when they leave, arrest them. Don't allow any food in. Shut off their electricity and water. Tell them they're welcome to come out, unarmed, whenever they're ready.

As I understand it, China's biggest fear in the event of a military conflict with the U.S. is a sea blockade. These islands are meant to allow China's navel forces early warning for potential attacks (they are building long-range radar stations on some of the islands) and quick-strike capability in the event of an attempted blockade since the islands are being equipped with port facilities and will likely serve as refueling/rearming stations. They also are an attempt by China to "control" the traffic (both sea and air) moving through the area. They aren't designed to stop a full-scale invasion of the mainland and would likely just be bypassed if something like that ever came to pass.

EDIT: See here for a more detailed explanation about China's overall military strategy.

Crap....I just took your word that I was wrong. Just minor googling shows me that I was essentially right, and what you speak of happened near the end of total allied control of Germany. We've essentially had bases there since the end of the war.
WIKI-
In practice, each of the four occupying powers wielded government authority in their respective zones and carried out different policies toward the population and local and state governments there. A uniform administration of the western zones evolved, known first as the Bizone (the American and British zones merged as of 1 January 1947) and later the Trizone (after inclusion of the French zone). The complete breakdown of east-west allied cooperation and joint administration in Germany became clear with the Soviet imposition of the Berlin Blockade that was enforced from June 1948 to May 1949. The three western zones were merged to form the Federal Republic of Germany in May 1949, and the Soviets followed suit in October 1949 with the establishment of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

In the west, the occupation continued until 5 May 1955, when the General Treaty (German: Deutschlandvertrag) entered into force. However, upon the creation of the Federal Republic in May 1949, the military governors were replaced by civilian high commissioners, whose powers lay somewhere between those of a governor and those of an ambassador. When the Deutschlandvertrag became law, the occupation ended, the western occupation zones ceased to exist, and the high commissioners were replaced by normal ambassadors. West Germany was also allowed to build a military, and the Bundeswehr, or Federal Defense Force, was established on 12 November 1955.

Will YOU stand corrected? ...or was this a misunderstanding of what I meant by 'why the bases are in Germany', because I do understand those reasons have changed over time, as you indicated...I was talking about the original reason we stationed American military there.

Around the 1 minute mark I got confused and wondered why the traffic was all heading towards a blockade... Had to watch it a second time before I spotted the traffic being diverted onto a separate carriageway!

Sure they're making a statement, but they're not really causing any change.

From the looks of it there's no indication where it connects with the road that it's actually a sidewalk, and the people who they stopped will surely go through there again when the blockade isn't present.

I don't know. I feel like their gripe should be with the local municipality or whoever can put up signs or barricades or anything to help make it clear it's a sidewalk and not a road.

How many of those tunnels were into Egypt used to smuggle dangerous items like food and medicine because Israel blockaded them and stopped or drastically slowed any shipments? How many of the "attack tunnels" only went into occupied territory, and how many went into Israel proper? How many children died digging these tunnels in the last decade, as opposed to the entirety of the past?
Ya don't like to answer those kinds of questions, me thinks. Makes the story less 'interesting' by adding informative facts?

In 1951 Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq received the vote required from the parliament to nationalize the British-owned oil industry, in a situation known as the Abadan Crisis. Despite British pressure, including an economic blockade, the nationalization continued.

August 19, 1953, a successful coup was headed by retired army general Fazlollah Zahedi, organized by the United States (CIA) with the active support of the British (MI6) (known as Operation Ajax). The coup—with a black propaganda campaign designed to turn the population against Mossadegh—forced Mossadegh from office. Mossadegh was arrested and tried for treason. /wikipedia

Iran got trampled on and interfered with by foreign nations exploiting her natural resources--oil. I'd be pissed too.

By contrast, Iran knows what happened to her next door neighbour after Iraq changed the preferred currency for oil sales from USD to Euros late in 2000 (They switched back to dollars in 2003.)

More on the story:
http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/the-stream/the-stream-officialblog/2013/10/17/first-nations-clashwithpoliceatantifrackingprotest.html
"Omg they burned our cars, so violent!" exclaimed the officer equipped with military gear, pointing guns at women and elders. #Elsipogtog

Sympathy blockades and protests are going up across the country.

As I recall from studying this is a college class, we had only the two atomic bombs available. Getting material for another was possible, but I think I recall that at the time we could only collect enough for one bomb every several months.

So, a HUGE aspect of this is that we had a pretty good hand of cards in the poker game, but felt that we had to bluff to suggest that it was even more overwhelming.

To me, the interesting part of the debate isn't blockade vs conventional bombing vs invasion vs A-bombs. I think it gets most interesting to consider alternatives that involve dropping one or more of the 2 A-bombs some place where their power would be demonstrated, but where casualties would be as low as possible.

Either option you mentioned would have been GREAT, if they worked (and forced surrender). But both had potential pitfalls also. Drop one on an unpopulated area, and they might have believed we were trying to take credit for some sort of natural event (German V2s blowing up in London were often attributed to sewage gas explosions early on). Staging a demonstration for scientists and leaders to witness might have hardened their resolve and/or made them question ours.

If I had been in Truman's shoes, I feel like I would have preferred to use ONE of the two bombs on something like one of your suggestions; either unpopulated drop or demonstration. Then, use the second on a target of military significance if/when they didn't surrender.

However, in hindsight that would have been a risky move -- they didn't surrender after the Hiroshima bomb, only after both. Would a demonstration and one "we mean business" bomb have been enough to elicit the same response? Who knows. At that point, consider how screwed we could have been if it HADN'T, and it would have taken months to build another bomb (plus keep in mind that we weren't 100% confident in the bombs working reliably, even after trinity and the first two drops). I guess that we could have maintained a blockade and said "we'll give you 3 months to come to your senses" while we made another bomb, but I think that would have legitimately resulted in Japan questioning our resolve quite a lot; we'd be showing our cards too early.

I guess that at the end of the day, I don't envy Truman for having to make that kind of decision. Given the givens, I think that he probably played it as safe as possible and went with the option that was the MOST likely to force surrender. Perhaps some other option would have worked as well but avoided some of the casualties, but Truman took the information available to him and made the decision that he felt was the best -- I think that is pretty much the best we can ask of our leaders.

I know Penn is making a fine argument, but magic underpants aside: ALL religion is just like this. Mormons are NOT special here, but maybe they make it easier to see sometimes.

It is not made for those that are intellectually honest nor intellectually curious to a fault.

It is the truth of this world and moreover the truth withing our psychology, a truly terrifying notion to any religion believer that EVER happens to fully understand the mind. Your mind can act very much like a paradox, in this, it allows for the most immense blockades to be made so that no one, not even themselves can truly ever tell themselves the truth--EVEN IF in front of them. Because, as one thing is absolutely certain: humans are driven by fear.

ONLY those that have conquered fear truly acknowledge the world as it is, though they do STILL fear, but they fear things that are logical, like losing loved ones or becoming a victim of intellectual deception yourself...

>> ^Januari:

You know i told myself there just HAD to be more to this story when i saw the title... then i watched the video... and wow.. just wow... Has to be one of the most irresponsible uses of authority i've seen in a long time. Really just incredible.


Yeah, when I first started hearing about it, I thought they were leaving out pertinent information, but nope, the head of police tried to make it sound like it was a 'rolling blockade', but it was most definitely not, the cars were stopped for a couple of minutes, at a standstill, when the car crashed into them.

They'd been tracking the guy for over a hundred kms, how could they not have had time to get out countermeasures or do something else other than just park a bunch of civilians across a road?

TYT isn't asking the right questions.

Why isn't there a financial blockade on New York Times, Guardian, and Der Spiegel?

Who are wikileaks' funders, past and present?

How much does it cost to run a website that stopped accepting submissions years ago, and only hosts text and a few video files that are actually published by surrogates?

Why not use other funding methods? There's plenty of other payment processors and p2p solutions. Funny there's been a financial blockade in the US on online gambling for 5+ years, but you can find a way to send and receive funds if you really want to.

I agree with everything. Also, I need to point out that 99%of movie explosions are bullshit. Explosions do not have gigantic fireballs. I was fucking SHOCKED to find out Bad Boys 2 was a Bay film, specifically because the explosions (at the end, in Cuba) were so realistic. No giant flames. Just an explosive force demolishing shit. I'm mainly talking about the part where Will Smith shoots the guard post with the AT-4 rocket launcher. >> ^Jinx:

Actuaaallllly I really liked the way Firefly was shot. And that part of the movie where they rush the blockade with all those Reaver ships on their tale was class.
DON'T SUGGEST JOSS HAS ANY FLAWS AGAIN.
ps. Does anybody else find movie explosions terribly underwhelming? Oh, they set fire to some gasoline again. yawn. How about some actual shockwaves Hollywood, how about making explosions that look like they take people lives, not just eyebrows. Thx.

>> ^Jinx:

Actuaaallllly I really liked the way Firefly was shot. And that part of the movie where they rush the blockade with all those Reaver ships on their tale was class.
DON'T SUGGEST JOSS HAS ANY FLAWS AGAIN.
ps. Does anybody else find movie explosions terribly underwhelming? Oh, they set fire to some gasoline again. yawn. How about some actual shockwaves Hollywood, how about making explosions that look like they take people lives, not just eyebrows. Thx.


Joss Whedon wrote Alien Resurrection. Joss Whedon wrote Alien Resurrection! Joss. Whedon. Wrote. Alien. Resurrection.

Actuaaallllly I really liked the way Firefly was shot. And that part of the movie where they rush the blockade with all those Reaver ships on their tale was class.

DON'T SUGGEST JOSS HAS ANY FLAWS AGAIN.

ps. Does anybody else find movie explosions terribly underwhelming? Oh, they set fire to some gasoline again. yawn. How about some actual shockwaves Hollywood, how about making explosions that look like they take people lives, not just eyebrows. Thx.