Good post. I've always been interested in the history of WWII, I'm re-reading Ken Burns' "The War" these days. The best book I have read is David Webster's "Parachute Infantry", he was a good writer who was there at the Normandy and Market Garden airdrops and also did Germany occupation duty. They did him a real disservice in the "Band of Brothers" episode "The Last Patrol", they made him out to be a weasel when he was anything but.

I've heard this revisionist history BS so many times now I just can't stand it anymore. There was no magical 'gifting' of Palestinian land to invading European Jews. That's a completely baseless self justification for Middle Eastern anti-jewish hate mongering.

Jewish people were a significant percentage of the population in Palestine long before the Nazi's and their ilk started making Europe look unpleasant. They were Palestinians themselves, not invaders. Both Arab and Jewish Palestinians lived side by side in Palestine for a long, long time before the 1940s. Clearly, come the 1940's there was a large influx of Jewish people from Europe. Calling them 'invaders' versus refugees though seems an easy call given the holocaust and Nazi occupation of the whole of Europe. Still, you insist on calling them invaders. I don't have words for how disgusting that is.

So, in the mid 1940's we have a Palestine loaded with Jewish and Arab Palestinians, plus a good number of Jewish refugees. The tensions between those groups escalates into a full on civil war. Not an invasion, but a civil war between Jewish and Arab palestinians where the only group remotely fitting the 'invader' role are holocaust survivor refugees now in a country were there is AGAIN a war against them on the basis of being Jews. I'm not sure I think they are as callously the aggressor. What is more, upon the UN mandating a two state solution to the whole mess, the Jewish Palestinians immediately accepted. The Arab Palestinians though appealed to the Arab league, and many of the leaders within it that stood alongside the Nazi's pontificating solutions to 'the problem'. So now a fledgling independent Jewish state spent it's first day receiving a join declaration of war upon it by all it's neighbouring countries that each out numbered it grossly. I again can't but see the Israeli fighting as defensive. In fact, I must insist it was an existential fight that, should they have lost, would have us discussing the second and even worse holocaust of the European Jews that fled to Palestine.

But I know it's popular today among pseudo intellectual circles to just declare Israel an invasion and occupation by a foreign army of vastly militarily superior super jews. It's a fantasy though, and it's one that was scripted up by hateful racists to justify their hatred. None of that says anything about white-washing Israeli policies in the decades following. If you want to call them invaders from the start though you are speaking a truly horrific set of lies.

At the same time, when you purposely build rocket launchers in a school then you can't complain when the school gets destroyed, occupants included.

EDIT: still, I'd expect Israel to take the high road and set themselves up in a completely different part of the world. Then they could avoid all of that conflict. Set up a new Israel in the middle of Australia, or something like that. I'm sure many countries would be happy to accept educated and skilled immigrants for a change.
Not only would that ensure the safety of their civilians, but they'd then have the moral high ground as well.

The President does have enough power to totally sink us IF they're volatile enough. Simple incompetence in a president doesn't sink us. However, that can cost lives. 1,833 people died officially from Katrina, although obviously not that many were directly from the utter incompetence of the Bush administration. 4,500 Americans have died in Iraq during the invasion and subsequent occupation. These things don't "sink" the US completely, but they're VERY consequential.

But Trump is incompetent AND volatile. Bringing both of those qualities to the table as president, and you've got much much bigger issues.

Finally, I absolutely do not get the charges of personal corruption against Hillary Clinton, especially when compared to Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton, so far as I can tell, is an agent who is operating within a system that has been corrupted, and not personally by her. The system needs to be reformed. She's done things to win within the system that you'd ideally not do. But I don't get how she is personally corrupt.

But you speak as if Clinton is the competent but corrupt one, and Trump is the incompetent but non-corrupt one, which blows my mind. How is the only way you can be corrupt is through accepting campaign contributions? How is Trump University not an indictment of how corrupt Trump personally is? How is it not corrupt to appeal to white supremacists? How is it not corrupt to name call, incite your supporters to violence, and dismiss women because they must be on their periods? How is it not corrupt to have your daughter make a speech at the RNC and then tweet how to buy the dress she was wearing, so she could make some coin?

Because one of those forms of corruption is being potentially corrupted by a corrupt system, but they're at least trying to reform that system. Hillary Clinton is the one against Citizens United, officially calling for a constitutional amendment to get rid of it. Has Donald Trump?

I don't think HRC will be a great president. I don't particularly like her much. However, she is qualified to be President. She's done nothing illegal, which is the hallmark of whether someone is corrupt.

And don't kid yourself about our government's ability containing a fascist. The Weimar Republic's government had structures in place to prevent the rise of Hitler, too. They had separation of powers. The government was one of the most democratic governments in the world. Fat lot of good that did.

I'm not saying necessarily that Trump is the next Hitler. But I am saying that there are enough similarities that I can't vote for him, and the mere fact he got a major party's nomination is scary beyond all reason. And voting for someone like that proves out their blueprint for future candidates across the board for offices in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches at all levels of government.

As much as I don't like HRC, Trump is easily the worse major party's nominee in a very very very long time.

If it's not fake, it appears the black VW was following the Porsche with the intent of kidnapping the occupants. Either the cyclist gave them the opportunity, or he was actually part of the operation (though he really didn't block the Porsche enough to be guaranteed that kind of response, unless they knew he was prone to that sort of thing).

For starters, I have to oppose the implied thought that Saddam's reign of terror was preventing this sectarian violence. His rule through the Suni minority to wage genocides against the Kurdish and Shia majority and decades of brutal repression of same all served to make the sectarian hatred and violence worse. Tally up the hundreds of thousands he killed through genocide, the million plus he killed in the Iran-Iraq war and everyone that died by direct execution or deliberate starvation level poverty and compare it doesn't stand out as starkly and objectively a desirable alternative to today.

Now if you ask what would I do differently it depends on what level of power I've got to act with. Ideally, we can go back to first Iraq war and have Bush senior march on Baghdad. This would've aborted one of Saddam's genocides. Equally importantly, this would have kept the Shia Iraqi population's view of America as a liberating force. The standing in the desert and watching Saddam slaughter them thing still carried their mistrust of American forces after Saddam's actual removal later. That singularly stupid move of leaving Saddam in power, at the urging of most of the planet, drove the Shia population of Iraq back to Iran as their sole sympathetic ally.

Next step, after the removal of Saddam, whether we can do it back then, or only a few years ago as it really happened is to truly setup an occupation government. You don't bring stability to a region by immediately trying to transition to a democracy before the shooting has even stopped. The occupation government would be run by somebody with actual knowledge and experience with Iraq, rather than as Bush senior did by sending in a guy with zero experience and a two week lead to brief himself. The task you should place on this leader, is to setup a federated Iraq, with distinct and autonomous Shia, Sunni and Kurdish states. The occupation government would dictate things after taking input from Iraqi's rather than holding them to the tyranny of the majority as Bush and co allowed. The occupation would setup an initial constitution defining what laws and agreements spanned all three Iraqi provinces/states and what extent of autonomy they had to define their own systems of government. The American military's job would be to enforce this very basic constitutional framework. Each Iraqi state/province would be aided in setting up their own governments with a transition plan again dictated not voted upon. The transition plan would define the point in time when each state transitioned from occupation rule to a self determined future and rule of law.

The above plan on the whole would work, but Bush and co couldn't have managed post Saddam Iraq more poorly if they had actively tried to.

If zero time travel is allowed and we are to 'fix' things today, you need a lot MORE power. You need an army the size of America or Russia's and the political will to spend several years doing things the public will hate you for. The end game is still the same as above, a federated Iraq kicked off under a dictatorial occupation. To get there from today though you need to create stability. You need to take an army and march it across the entire country. As each city is cleared of militants you take a census of everybody and keep it because you need it to track down future militants. In entirely hostile locations like were ISIS has full rule, you bomb them into the stone ages before marching the army in. The surviving population is given full medical treatment. Now, as for sorting militants from civilians though, you do NOT use American style innocent until proven guilty justice. Instead, any fighting age males are considered guilty until proven innocent. This level of rule of law needs to remain in place until stability can be restored. You of course guarantee lots of innocent arrests, but your trying to prevent massive numbers of innocent deaths so it's required. As you stabilize the nation you can relax back to innocent until proven guilty and work on re-integrating the convicted.

You'll note that although the methods I'd declare necessary above are by any count 'brutal', they do not extend into Saddam's usage of genocide, torture and rape as the weapons of choice.

Then you end up with people taping mags together and reloading within a second or so.
Even faster if they count shots and stop firing at capacity-1 before reloading.
There are work-arounds...




Realistically, the end game of the political left is a gun ban + confiscation. The end game of the political right is total gun deregulation.
Each side needs something to argue to excuse their existence, so they will argue in their direction so long as there is anything left to argue, and those are the natural consequences.
Gridlock is literally the best thing that can happen for folks in the middle.




Syria isn't the best example. The people were not armed, and they turned to foreign auxiliaries to fight for them. They invited and gave shelter to all sorts of foreign militants to fight against their government, and made a mess of things. They would have been better off with a home-grown insurgency.

Not like a home grown insurgency would have done much good either way. The Syrian Arab spring was a democratic call for ... Islamic law. It originated in Hama, where an earlier Islamic insurgency was put down (the muslim brotherhood) by Assad's father. Half the country didn't support the insurgency against Assad, and anyone who is non-muslim or secular, or even moderate, is sitting on Assad's side of the country hoping he holds out.

But generally speaking, insurgency with small arms is what defeats occupiers over time. Not in pitched battles, but by making occupation so expensive and tedious that the occupier loses interest over time.


-schehearazde

Although I'm in favour of sensible gun regulation, I'm not sure legislation alone will solve your gun problem.

The problem in the USA is, IMO, cultural.

The idea that you would need a gun for "protection" is quite foreign to almost every other country in the developed world.

But, as we've seen in threads here since Orlando, people in the US seem genuinely afraid that they will be "defenseless" if stripped of their arms.

Why is this?
When I've asked people before, I hear responses like "it takes the police 10 minutes to get to your house". Er ok, fund your fucking police?

But that doesn't address the fear of home invasion in the first place. Is it really that common in the US? And if it is, WHY is it?

It's simply not a concern for anyone I know in any other country (excluding war zones, etc). Clearly, if it is such a problem, having a gun isn't deterring people from doing this.

Maybe instead of looking at the short-term symptoms, you should be asking yourselves what is driving people to be so desperate that they are willing to risk their lives breaking into other people's homes knowing that the occupants are potentially armed.

The problem is essentially escalation ( the "Chicago Way").

10: "All the criminals have guns, I better have one too"
20: "Shit, if I'm going to rob that place, they probably have a gun, better go armed"
30: goto 10

Breaking this cycle means addressing inequality, racism, and poverty. People in the US aren't inherently worse than everywhere else, but your system is set up to incentivize criminals to carry a gun.

But FFS, at least stop burying your heads in the sand and let the CDC study this.

It doesn't work like that. What you end up with is something akin to Australia's gun laws, which 'technically' still allow certain people to own guns, realistically most won't or can't

Category A: Rimfire rifles (not semi-automatic), circuit loaded firearms. shotguns (not pump-action or semi-automatic), air rifles including semi automatic, and paintball gun. A "Genuine Reason" must be provided for a Category A firearm. [AKA, you have to prove you have a reason to own these weapons. Newsflash, the majority of police will automatically deny you. Oh yeah, for a PAINTBALL gun as well.]

Category B: Centrefire rifles including bolt action, pump action, circuit loaded, and lever action (not semi-automatic), muzzleloading firearms made after 1 January 1901. [Same as Cat A, must have a 'genuine reason' to own one, be registered, have a fee, ton of other limitations, so basically hard to own]

Category C: Pump-action or self-loading shotguns having a magazine capacity of 5 or fewer rounds and semi automatic rimfire rifles. [Only Primary producers, farm workers, firearm dealers, firearm safety officers, collectors and clay target shooters can own functional Category C firearms.]

Category D: Self-loading centrefire rifles, pump-action or self-loading shotguns have a magazine capacity of more than 5 rounds. [Functional Category D firearms are restricted to government agencies, occupational shooters and primary producers in some states. Collectors may own deactivated Category D firearms.]

Category H: Handguns including air pistols and deactivated handguns. [This class is available to target shooters and certain security guards whose job requires possession of a firearm. To be eligible for a Category H firearm, a target shooter must serve a probationary period of 6 months using club handguns, after which they may apply for a permit. A minimum number of matches yearly to retain each category of handgun and be a paid-up member of an approved pistol club. Target shooters are limited to handguns of .38 or 9mm calibre or less and magazines may hold a maximum of 10 rounds. Participants in certain "approved" pistol competitions may acquire handguns up to .45", currently Single Action Shooting and Metallic Silhouette. IPSC shooting is approved for 9mm/.38/.357 sig, handguns that meet the IPSC rules, larger calibres such as .45 were approved for IPSC handgun shooting contests in Australia in 2014. Barrels must be at least 100mm (3.94") long for revolvers, and 120mm (4.72") for semi-automatic pistols unless the pistols are clearly ISSF target pistols; magazines are restricted to 10 rounds.]

Category R/E: Restricted weapons, such as machine guns, rocket launchers, full automatic self loading rifles, flame-throwers, anti-tank guns, howitzers and other artillery weapons [Obviously this class is right out...]

You can own some muzzleloading weapons without restrictions, although percussion cap pistols are restricted. In addition to these minor rules, all guns must be secured in a safe or other similar location, all must be fully registered so that the government knows the location of every single weapon/owner, and you can't sell them to another person, only to a dealer or the law to be destroyed.

After a few years of de-fanging and getting the citizens used to not having weapons, the Australian government and law enforcement routinely quietly hold gun buybacks to persuade more people to give up their weapons. They also do amnesty turn ins now and then.

So, that is the AMAZING suite of laws Australia put in place to stop mass shootings. Forgive me if, when combined, those type of laws would basically neuter the 2nd amendment. We've already neutered the 1st with 'hate speech' and the ability to sue over getting your feelings hurt. The 4th has been steadily under attack, because GOOD citizens shouldn't mind if the government rummages through everything you own or do. We haven't messed with the 5th amendment too much, so we could look at that next, maybe allow torture of everyone for confessions.

I'm getting tired of listing points, so let me just say this. I am incredibly sorry that people died, they shouldn't have and it is an utter shame. However, we are already fighting on a daily basis to keep a facsimile of the rights that were fought for when we built this country. Watering them down further only helps our government tighten the bonds of enslavement upon us. I can't agree with that.

Structural failure isn't the only risk. The point of modern safety features is to reduce the impact of the crash on the occupants. If you crash an army tank into a large tree at high speed, the tank itself is likely to be fine but the occupants probably won't. In your case, whether your car is better or worse than the average modern car in a crash is probably "it depends".

How does your car compare to the Discovery in http://videosift.com/video/Crash-tests-SUV-vs-Minivan-Which-one-does-better ?

Wow. From now on, I'm going to try my hotel key on the first room I pass, and if it opens, I'll be demanding my money back AFTER using it to open every room I pass to tell the occupants they should check out IMMEDIATELY or nail their door shut.
That is horrifying, I wonder how many room invasions they've had.

The 1970 Bronco would be ok; the occupants inside...
Hmmm.

Cockpit design is the trick, eh?

One view emphasizes events occurring during and after the Allied occupation of Japan (1945–1952), and stresses that manga was strongly shaped by United States cultural influences, including US comics brought to Japan by the GIs and by images and themes from US television, film, and cartoons (especially Disney).

There are two schools of thought on this theory; the link you provided is from someone who believes in the other school of thought, which is fine, but it is not the end all definition. Additionally, I never said the characters weren't Asian in the manga or anime, I said jokingly that they are drawn with western characteristics like the rounder Occidental eyes.

Clearly the original character is meant to be Japanese, and the studio certainly could replace a known actress with lots of draw power with a lesser known actress, but realistically this is meant to make money. Just like "All you need is kill" was redone and cast with money making actors as Edge of Tomorrow. In the end, the studio is selling a product and is going to want to make the most money possible, so casting will almost always go to an actor that pulls a fan base.

@newtboy I wasn't attempting to say that the character was meant to be western, I was merely joking about the art style. Sorry for any confusion I may have put forth.

The problem is that sets up what reminds me of the 2000 election. It absolutely astounded me half the country thought George W. Bush was a valid candidate, let alone the better candidate than Al Gore, not that I liked Gore, but given the choice between the two, Gore had viable plans for the budget, a cohesive foreign policy, etc.

It shouldn't have been a close election, but not only was it razor close, Gore lost. Countless times there have been in world history leaders who came about who generally wouldn't and shouldn't have, but they did. All it takes is a bad recession or other event to tilt the odds in their favor at the right time. Hitler doesn't come to power without the Great Depression and the Treaty of Versailles leaving Germany dependent on US loans.

And to me, Trump is absolutely frightening. I honestly have absolutely no idea what he would do as President, and not in a good way. I quite honestly don't even know if he's actually in line with the Tea Party or not. It is terrifying to me that he's on a course where potentially a recession at the wrong time could make him president because so many voters are absolutely ignorant or stupid enough to support him.

Screw the entertainment value of it. I keep thinking back to the George W. Bush Iraqi occupation and the crapshow that was Katrina and realize people's lives are literally at stake by botching the selection of the next President, and when you make one option completely invalid before the election even starts, it doesn't help.

If you think a rule imposed by any authority is unjust, feel free to practice some civil disobedience.

But part of the impact of civil disobedience comes from accepting the (unjust) punishment / consequences of that disobedience with some dignity. That is what really persuades other people to see the injustice in the same light that you do.

Occupying a "federal building" that is only very tenuously connected to the word "federal" and then taking to Facebook to beg for "bare necessity" supplies (like French vanilla coffee creamer) is not dignified.

Yelling and cussing at a University Dean (?) because ... um, I actually can't figure out what she's upset about ... is not dignified.


Rosa Parks refused to leave her "colored seating" place on a bus when the driver demanded that she vacate it for some white people. He said "why don't you stand up?", and she said "I don't think I should have to". He told her he was going to call the police, and she said "you may do that." She had more dignity in her little finger than all of the Oregon clowns have put together.

That's why today, more than 60 years after the fact, people still remember what she did. The Oregon dudes will be lucky to be remembered 60 *hours* after their "occupation" of that building ends.