ONE gas station is over $6…in Beverly Grove, the shopping district of Beverly Hills. The real average is $4.77 statewide.
Another totally dishonest @bobknight33 post. I expect nothing less.

I’m in Humboldt county, the most expensive gas in California regularly by far (except for special hyper expensive stations like Big Sur, Icehouse gas on the Rubicon trail, and the Uber rich one in the post).
…we are barely over $5, just like we were in 2019.

Why did Caesar cross the Rubicon?

The fact he had to say that at all shows the Rubicon we've crossed.

No Bob, it has not.

A few cases a year of forcibly separating children from their family for cause or temporarily holding unaccompanied minors is in no way the same as jailing every refugee, legal or not, and separating thousands of children a month.

And real Republicans (not you) have finally found the Rubicon they won't cross, and are starting to become Democrats in large numbers with some long respected Republicans leading them in an effort to slow the Trumpian destruction they went along with for too long....i just hope enough of them to counteract the know nothing tribalistic morons that are replacing intelligent people in your party.

You are such a careless and sad liar...if you're going to lie, come up with better, harder to disprove lies, or face a lambasting for your stupidity and gullibility in believing Russian propaganda once again (after falling into that pit so many times I can't count) without ever making the tiniest bit of effort to see if what you wish is true and have been told by oan Jones RT or faux is true actually is true (hint, it never is).


You just love spreading obvious, easily debunked, idiotic lies....
But Jesus, Bob, even for you, this is pathetic, and that's saying a lot.

Fuck any person going on a humanitarian trip to see terrified displaced separated refugee children while wearing a message saying "I don't care". They are either too heartless or brainless to deserve a whit of respect, there's no middle ground.
Fuck anyone willing to tear apart thousands of families as a form of political blackmail , fuck them in the ass with a billy club if they have no plan on how to reverse their family separations when their bullying tactic fails.
Fuck anyone standing with and defending those indefensible actions of human garbage.

Yes, that's true. A stock Hilux is definitely meant to be kitted out to run the Rubicon with ultra long travel swing arms, springs and shocks. Good comparison. My 1993 Ford Escort wagon lifted a wheel on these types of ramps too, piece of shit car that high centers on even the smallest curb. Couldn't touch anything on the Big Sluice. (Could the point have been that the vehicle is stable on 3 legs and with 4wd able to keep moving with one wheel providing zero traction?? For a stock pickup, not bad)

HA!!! As I saw it, that's Hilux FAIL!
The point of ramps like this in my experience is to see how much your suspension can flex. The Hilux didn't do so well, that wheel is pretty high up in the air. My '73 Jeep CJ-5, which is built for 4 wheeling hard core trails like The Rubicon, and has done that one twice, might not lift a tire on that ramp.

"The key is to remember that the surveillance and the abuse doesn't occur when people look at the data. It occurs when people gather the data in the first place."

This is what we've been trying to get into people's heads for years and years in this country as part of our fight against data retention by telecoms. As soon as data is gathered in a machine-readable format, you have crossed the Rubicon. End of story.

Also, fuck my government for not offering asylum to brother Snowden.

>> ^NetRunner:

It strikes me as funny how the right's partisanship makes them twist themselves in knots.
Killing Osama bin Laden is a sign that Obama has crossed some Rubicon, beyond which no man is safe? Please.
Napolitano himself said it's legal if we declare war. I know it's fashionable amongst the silly to pretend that there's something qualitatively different about a "declaration of war" and an "Authorization to Use Military Force", but I don't see a rational basis for it. In both cases, you're having Congress grant explicit authority for the US military to be used.
Well, the 2001 authorization to use military force allows the president to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against persons who authorized, planned or committed the 9/11 attacks. So, it's legal.


Yay! What a proud statist!

It strikes me as funny how the right's partisanship makes them twist themselves in knots.

Killing Osama bin Laden is a sign that Obama has crossed some Rubicon, beyond which no man is safe? Please.

Napolitano himself said it's legal if we declare war. I know it's fashionable amongst the silly to pretend that there's something qualitatively different about a "declaration of war" and an "Authorization to Use Military Force", but I don't see a rational basis for it. In both cases, you're having Congress grant explicit authority for the US military to be used.

Well, the 2001 authorization to use military force allows the president to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against persons who authorized, planned or committed the 9/11 attacks. So, it's legal.

Gentlemen, we have crossed the rubicon.

The stupid part is that if there was any genuine concern with stopping the flow of heroin out of Afghanistan, the Taliban would still be in place. They had all but stopped the production of poppy. Yet the first season after the Taliban was ousted the production went from 180 tons to nearly 4000 tons.

Read Crossing the Rubicon in it there's a good explanation why the drug war is so important to the world economy. Basically, the drug cartels use big business to launder their money, big business uses the drug money to make major purchases at lower cost to them than if they borrowed the money from banks, and the prison/law industries need the drug users to keep their prisons and court rooms full, so they can keep the public thinking they need more cops and jails.

There's far more money to be made for everyone concerned if the Drug War continues, so don't expect to see it change any time soon.

>> ^brain:
I don't understand the idea of "this is not a scientific claim." I would think that the scientific method is the way to obtain knowledge. If you have no observations, no evidence, you have no argument. Your claim has become on par with a claim that fairies exist. Right?


First, the rabbi didn't say that it's a knowledge claim, either--at least, not in this clip. One can make claims that are nonetheless not knowledge claims. A faith claim would seem to be in this category.

Second, it's not the case that all knowledge is scientific knowledge. History, for example, provides us with knowledge. Through the study of history, we can know that Caesar crossed the Rubicon and became the Emperor of Rome. Yet history is not strictly speaking scientific. Yes, it's highly empirical, but there is a great deal of interpretation involved as well.

Surely literature and poetry have unique contributions to make, insights to provide. And yet these insights are in no way scientific.

Science itself is nonsensical without certain philosophical underpinnings--justifications for and articulations of empirical knowledge-gathering, an understanding of what kind of knowledge can be gathered, etc. These considerations take place before any scientific endeavor can be made, whether they are consciously made and clearly articulated, or subconscious and confused. If science leads to knowledge, then surely the study of philosophy on its own leads to a certain kind of knowledge.

So no, science is not the only way to gain knowledge.

Bleedingsnowman,

At what point did I claim that those videos were fair and balanced? This sift is so one-sided itself that it begged some balance. I'm sorry I wasn't able to get better links for balance - it's hard trying to find a balanced report, they seem to be on either extreme trying to convince you their side is right. I freely admit that I don't know about buildings. The one point that stuck out in my mind was that the building first started collapse where it was supported by a beam that wasn't damaged. Has that question been answered? (I'm honestly asking here.) It was because of that question that I ended up posting those links.

I don't know why you brought up the public official that thought 9/11 was purposeful. There are many former officials and covert agents that believe it was purposeful who don’t have a history of mental illness. That's more of a distracting fact than a relevant one.

You are making an assumption of what I believe when it comes to "conspiracy theories" (or perhaps addressing them in general.) Either way, let me clear the air so that you know where I stand on this. I think the theories that deal with the planes are extremely unlikely and don't stand up to the light of day. The theories about the buildings are unlikely also. The only reason that they continue is the government's behavior of seizing all evidence and hiding/destroying it. I understand your point about not releasing the material, but after studying history of the US and seeing the amount of governments that the US has covertly overthrown in the last 50+ years; I don't really trust the government’s intentions very much anymore. I personally believe that some people found out about this planned attack and then made sure it happened. Otherwise it is hard to explain such things such as multiple CIA investigations being purposefully blocked against people on the terrorists watch list, etc. As I said before, "Crossing the Rubicon" does a good job of pulling together the motives (and some actions) for some people in our government to make sure that 9/11 succeeded. I would recommend it to anyone. And no, it isn’t one of those kooky conspiracy books with large assumptions, half-truths, etc.

Lastly, I really hope you don't take this as an attack because that is not my intention. It's very hard to have a discussion about an issue like this because it evokes a lot of emotion. You did mention that you knew about buildings. Can you answer the one question from the first paragraph? (It refers to the first link.) With that answered, I feel that I can personally move the theories about the buildings from ‘unlikely’ to ‘extremely unlikely’. Oh, I’ll edit those links out too.

Regarding the couple of comments about whether the war in Iraq was about oil. 9/11 gave exactly what the PNAC report was looking for (and spelled out in their report “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”) to mobilize public outrage and direct it towards a military invasion of the Middle East. “Crossing the Rubicon” is an investigation that creates a nice picture for the motives of certain people to be involved in 9/11. But aside from those questions, there is one question that many people think they already know the answer to:

Is the Iraq war is a failure?

Whether something is a failure or a success depends on your goals.

If the goal was to bring democracy to a random nation (i.e. nothing to do with reasons given for the war) in the Middle East, then Iraq is a disaster. Just like Cheney told the press it would be when discussing why the previous President Bush's (Bush I, for skimmers) administration didn't overthrown Saddam the first time. So what changed for Cheney between that time and when the current President Bush (Bush II) invaded Iraq? Some hidden knowledge about a region that has been unstable for a thousand plus years? Or perhaps different goals?

Now if the goal was oil-centric, then Iraq is easily a success. Under the draft that the US gave Iraq for its constitution, the Iraq National Oil Company would control 17 of the 80 current oil fields. Foreign corporations would control the other 63 oil fields AND any future finds for the next 30 years. Pretty sweet deal, eh?

Here's a quote from Jim Holt's book, "It's the Oil, Stupid."

**** BEGIN QUOTE ****
The occupation may seem horribly botched on the face of it, but the Bush administration's cavalier attitude towards 'nation-building' has all but ensured that Iraq will end up as an American protectorate for the next few decades - a necessary condition for the extraction of its oil wealth. If the US had managed to create a strong, democratic government in an Iraq effectively secured by its own army and police force, and had then departed, what would have stopped that government from taking control of its own oil, like every other regime in the Middle East? On the assumption that the Bush-Cheney strategy is oil-centred, the tactics - dissolving the army, de-Baathification, a final 'surge' that has hastened internal migration - could scarcely have been more effective. The costs - a few billion dollars a month plus a few dozen American fatalities (a figure which will probably diminish, and which is in any case comparable to the number of US motorcyclists killed because of repealed helmet laws) - are negligible compared to $30 trillion in oil wealth, assured American geopolitical supremacy and cheap gas for voters. In terms of realpolitik, the invasion of Iraq is not a fiasco, it is a resounding success.
**** END QUOTE ****


Also are two videos to add a counterpoint about WTC7 for this sift (please read post below also):
http://www.stage6.com/LoneWolf/video/2201611/9/11-WTC7
http://www.stage6.com/LoneWolf/video/2201336/9/11-Official-Pancake-Theory-Debunked