Wow so this is what happens if a country clings to two parties.



Here I vote for the green party and they get into government or opposition. In the US, into obscurity.
So Germany is not in Irak, gets out of nuclear power, has a working economy, fairly good welfare, free university, and very few gun-owners.

Yay mixed-member parliament!

Actually, yes I do. Most of what you named where not clanish but rather dictatorships. Moreover, Irak, or as many of us spell it, Iraq, has only existed since British imperialism merged 3 separate states together. Even Afghanistan isn't exactly what I am talking about, nor a good seed state for any form of anything as it has been racked by centuries of wars and hardships. There is a difference from the pure tribal form, from which I am borrowing, and the idea of clans which I am proposing. It is more along the lines of Dune, but without the condition of it being strictly family or location based. Labor unions are already a close approximation to my idea, just of a more limited scope. Unless you are proposing that labor unions make us like Afghanistan, then I don't really think you have made a point yet.

>> ^Smugglarn:

A clan system? Like Afgahnistan, Irak, Libya, Saudi Arabia... need I go on?

A clan system? Like Afgahnistan, Irak, Libya, Saudi Arabia... need I go on?>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^Truckchase:
>> ^ridesallyridenc:
Truckchase, you're right. With regard to your last two paragraphs, I think we are more similar than I may have thought. At least with respect to our perceptions of the problem. Our individual ideas of how to address the problem, however, may be divergent.

Man do I appreciate that; this is why I love the sift! I really mean it when I say I'm open to ideas. The initial thought of my "solution" makes me ill at first glance, but I've thought about this one for a long time and haven't yet come up with any other way to stem the tide in our lifetime. I do think we'll eventually get a shift against the immense corporate and personal power of the ultra-huge and ultra-rich as the mainstream populous is denied what has been promised to them, but often we humans take generations to see what has right in front of our face. My real fear is that by the time the US citizens wake up and see what has been going on, it'll be too late and we'll be a severely dis-empowered country with a heavily entrenched ruling upper class.
That said I do think there is certainly a need for workforce stimulus as you have laid out. Balancing the two concepts is the exceptionally hard part... apathy is the mortal enemy of progress.
Edit: replaced "can't" with "haven't yet"

In my friends sci-fi, never to be, movie; the villain, through gene manipulation, became a world financial powerhouse. He was able to manipulate the world with this power, and the device of his power...a teleportation machine. Using this device, similar to the fly, he could modify himself, and indeed, store backup copies of himself if things went bad. The hero's couldn't combat him, he was to strong and powerful. The hero discovered that each day if the villain was alive, the clone was destroyed. The hero thought of a plan to combat the villain...with himself! They were able to unleash the clone of the villain, and of course, both wanted to be top dog.
I bring this story up because I think it has a lot to deal with our current situation. Their are 2 types of ultra rich, those who earned it, and those who exploited it. The former are more common then the later, but the later is the bad apple that spoils the bunch for sure. More often than not, usually their rise to power isn't because of any real thing, but of being able to game the system in their favor. The current game in town is government regulatory bodies. They are able to be top dog because they can run anyone out of business with their "power" (money, and the government is their teleportation device . In many cases, if you had other "villains" running around, they would be hard pressed to gain unchallengeable power. I have yet to be exposed to a "natural" monopoly spare ones dealing in raw earth resources.
I think one of the main problems you face if you wish to level the playing field with regulatory bodies is distributed costs, concentrated benefits. You can't gain much political capital to fight the unfair sugar tax all US citizens incur, the financial drain is just to small to get motivation to fight. That "tax" results in, if memory serves, a 4 billion dollar "subsidy" to the sugar growers of America. If you are a sugar company, it just makes since to pass laws like this. The same goes for any other US company. When you are talking billions of dollars, you can't NOT be in Washington...no matter how "legal" it is. If the drug war has taught us anything, when billions of dollars are at stake, there isn't a wall high enough to stop the flow. You will never, ever end regulatory corruption.
Personally, I feel things like videosift could replace many of what we consider government responsibilities. With, I say, about 120 people talking about all the things that matter, you could protect yourself from companies known for food contamination, health trends, investing in your retirement, ect. Even things like labor unions might be better served through communities of people and not just of workers.
I think that the answer to many social problems can be solved if we look to our own evolution. It has been said that brain size is directly correlated to the size of the animal group members. If you extrapolate from monkey brains to our brain size, the perfect group size is around 130-200 people. Any system larger than this flies in the face of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. You can expect much suffering and exploitation in a system that goes away from this number. I believe this is the reason a person can feel alone in a city of millions of people, your brain just isn't ready to handle it. Communities might not be the most efficient way to run things from a logical stand point...but we aren't mostly logical. We are animals trying to be more than what we are. As a result, we have caused much suffering and hardship.
My new metal experiment is developing a sort of "clan" system. Managing powers of clans and rights and responsible thereof. I think it would be inefficient, yet, highly effective because it takes into account the general nature of mankind. Of note, labor unions are already along the lines of clan thinking, so my thought experiment is already playing itself out through the natural course of the market.

Seems like the soldiers weren't necessarily that green. They seem to be all to aware of the way their enemy operates. Hit and run and always coming back another day for another fight. The problem is multifaceted:

Technology
The cameras should clearly be in colour and much higher res. Fuck why not 3D?

ROE
Due to the nature of the insurgent and terrorist tactics the ROE have been made so lax that these kinds of incidents are avoided mainly through luck.

The Enemy
As previously noted the insurgents/terrorists use tactics that incorporate civilians to such a degree that they are virtually indistinguishable.

It is however wrong to see the warbands as anything close to a "liberation army" or an instance of "the people" rising up against oppression. The main conflict in Irak is a religious one - and a muslim one at that. However horrific this violent act is, it's peanuts compared to what "the Iraqi people" are doing to each other every day.

I'm with Netrunner - war is hell - avoid it. Don't they read "The Art of War" at West Point?

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
You know - I'm going to go ahead and use one profanity for a change, though I usually eschew the practice. But all this neoliberal whining about the health care protesters is BULLSHIT.
I have a very good memory. I recall that in the Bush years, the Democrat party was pretty cool with the fine art of public protesting. Democrat protests were FAR more organized and planned by neolib far-left interests than the current protests are.
But now all of a sudden the protesters are 'nazis'... The White House sets up a snitch program to rat out fellow citizens... Unions thugs are roughing up protesters... Leaders of the house & senate are maligning US citizens and even Godwined the issue... Neolib apologists and propogandists like Madcow whining about how 'bad' protesting is... Hmmm - Democrats don't seem to think protests are so cool any more. Community activists are now a bunch of 'nazis'... My, how things change in just a few months...
I didn't mind the protests against Bush, even though they were Democrat hired rent-a-mobs. But there's nothing WRONG with that. If the protests didn't actually reflect the will of the people, then they would have gone nowhere. But the Iraq war protests had traction becuse the American people didn't support the war in general. The protests reflected the national mood and attitude - so they were legigimate despite being fostered and fomented by neolib special interest groups.
The same thing is true of the protests now. This is not just a bunch of bussed in rent-a-mobs. This is a wide spread protest by a HUGE number of citizens who do not like what is happening. They're motivated by the stimulus bill, or unemployment, cap & trade, takeovers of auto companies, the huge deficit spending, the health bill, or any number of about a million things Obama has said/done/planned since he took office.
I think they also reflect the rather alarming attitude that Democrats demonstrating since they took power. They are acting about 100X more totalitarian and nazi-esque than the Republicans ever did under Bush. They drip with contempt towards their own citizens. They insult and demean opposition. They ignore the polls that show there is not a lot of support for what they're doing. They're brusque, callous, and haughty - and they don't mind showing it. What's worse, there are some very scary things going on like Union thugs roughing up protestors and shoving private citizens out of public meetings. That's jackbooted, brownshirted, oppression being bought and paid for by Democrats - just the stuff they accused Bush of doing.
And then there's the Democrat party's blatant hypocrisy. They whine at citizens for not saving money while they spend like drunken sailors. They tell companies to drive to Washington while they buy brand new private jets and go on massively expensive junkets.
Combine the lack of support for unpopular legislation with the Democrat propensity for voter disdain and utter hypocrisy... Is it any small wonder that people are protesting en masse? It's a wonder this didn't hit them much sooner, to be frank. They've crossed a line and reached a tipping point. This isn't just some Republican orchestrated thing. This is a massive citizen uprising against a government that is becoming too intrusive.
The neoliberals flacks like Madcow can sneer at the citizens all they want. But these are CITIZENS of the United States that are trying to get invovled in the process - and the Democrats are treating them like they're scum. The Democrat party is playing with fire here. If they keep up this kind of condescention and deny the reality of the situation (that people DON'T want this) then they're going to end up repeating 1994 in 2010.


C'mon really dont be that stupid, first of all with the war on Irak most of the people at that time was Ok with it, when they saw that everything was a lie and a personal agenda of some is when the protest begin not before , but now they are protesting for something that has not even happen, for someone as ignorant as you it has to ring a bell or are these rednecks that naive not to ask some question or see diferent opinions before taking a side?. C'mon

woopsie. You woulda thought I'd have checked that. Link in thread, or..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GeIImbZpCo

watch where you point that thing, btw!

In reply to this comment by MarineGunrock:
Yeah, but it's dead now, so I can't really give ya one...

In reply to this comment by schmawy:
Did you ever see this? I posted this comment before I really knew you and was probably a little afraid of you. Just stumbled across it.


In reply to this comment by schmawy:
I'd like MG's opinion on this.

Yeah, but it's dead now, so I can't really give ya one...

In reply to this comment by schmawy:
Did you ever see this? I posted this comment before I really knew you and was probably a little afraid of you. Just stumbled across it.


In reply to this comment by schmawy:
I'd like MG's opinion on this.

Did you ever see this? I posted this comment before I really knew you and was probably a little afraid of you. Just stumbled across it.


In reply to this comment by schmawy:
I'd like MG's opinion on this.

Well this idiot thinks that sounds like a diesel in the background and I don't know of many airplanes with such an engine. The sound of dirt underfoot would seem to negate it being on a boat. They are filming through a light enhancing scope or other device, which would be particularly sensitive to the above mentioned atmospheric phenomina of high altitude ice crystals, Mr. Dirt.

In reply to this comment by joedirt:
idiots. This is shot out of an airplane window, correct? It is probably the effects of the plexiglass or whatever and/or the micro-scratches. Just like when you look through glasses or a car windshield you can see effects like this.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'strange, lights, sightings, irak, nightvision, insert, ufo, comment, here' to 'strange, lights, sightings, irak, nightvision, insert, ufo, comment, here, iraq' - edited by raven

hey wait a minute, when hannity mentions that the soilders putting their lives on the line for the country i first presumed he meant USA, then i realized he ofcourse meant Irak. yay! good samaritans (if they're not in it for the free ipods)

not that i support the "angel-of-death" lady, she is the proof of a wrathfull god. (i dont really know how to spell wrathfull)

"We will fight for a safer world" ...huh ... except : Irak, Iran, North Korea, Afganistan, whoever I want

No a great fan of famyli, so is lying to say a actually watch the video,but the start idea is great, except the too easy '' al gore would be better than bush'' quote (but is true than irak war probably wouldn't on his program though).

There the ''democracy'' we bring to irak.

I was under the impression that wars were fought with Germany and Japan because the axis powers attacked the US. When did Irak strike the US with its "disappearing chemical weapons labs"?

Oh yes! There was that Saddam-Al Qaeda link Bush made up! Now I remember...silly me!