I don't know if this link will open---
This is Donald's reply:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-father-fallen-soldier-ive-made-lot/story?id=41015051

In his first response to a searing charge from bereaved Army father Khizr Khan that he’d “sacrificed nothing” for his country, Donald Trump claimed that he had in fact sacrificed by employing “thousands and thousands of people.” He also suggested that Khan’s wife didn’t speak because she was forbidden to as a Muslim and questioned whether Khan’s words were his own.

“Who wrote that? Did Hillary's script writers write it?” Trump said in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “I think I've made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard.”

i wish i was her manager so i could give her a goddamn raise, promotion, and letter of recommendation to corporate demanding they pay her tuition, provide a grant, a scholarship, whatever else corporate toolbags get that she don't got -- i dunno free executive level dental and health care? until that happened, i would sacrifice 100 oxen in hecatomb to her every night. it's really the least i could do with my father's oxen empire, if i was a fast food manager and heir to an oxen empire.

It seems really strange from an outside perspective. It isn't all that long ago - at least in my memory - when certain types of American were almost celebrating that they were willing to torture and maim people if they 'got their answers'. Even if some of those people were innocent, it was an acceptable price to pay.

When Ed Snowden came out and told us that our governments were spying on us, trawling through our data and tracking our entire history online and in reality through surveillance cameras. The majority of America was against Snowden (in all the polls I've seen) - in any other day he would have been given the Nobel peace prize and celebrated as an all-time hero that stood up to impossible odds just to give the human race full disclosure on their 'freedom'. That's the stuff of legend, the stuff that people should be talking about in 1000 years time like we talk about Genghis Khan or something. Instead he was treated like a traitor and forced to live in exile in Russia because it was the only country that wouldn't hand him over to the torturing, controlling, law-breaking bastards he'd just made to look very stupid..... Gee, I wonder why he didn't want to face "criminal proceedings"? Nothing to hide, nothing to fear - except if you cross the wrong people?

Not too long ago freedom WAS an acceptable sacrifice for security.

When a lunatic got hold of an automatic rifle, killed 50 people and injured another 50, the prevailing argument seems to be "Hey, hey, let's not over react here, we can't sacrifice our freedom because of one terrorist act."

The only difference in this situation is that it isn't about "other people's" freedom and "my security" any more. It is about "my" freedom and "other people's" security.

You probably weren't one of those people, but I think it's fair to preface my comment with that contradiction.

I accept you have a decent point in this case; people shouldn't lose their freedom because the FBI made a mistake. But that's not the question being asked, let's talk about the general case rather than this specific one. The question is does legislation exist that will make mass shootings less common in the US? And I think the answer is yes, but I also think that culture is the biggest factor, not just access to guns.

As an example of what I mean - what if there were legislation that limited his ability to get hold of the weapon, registered that he had expressed an interest with the FBI who could then investigate based on his history? And maybe some other legislation could make it harder in general for him to just go and borrow one of his friends', or steal one from a local lax firing range, or whatever other illegal means exist to get hold of one.... perhaps because there were less in circulation, or those that were in circulation were more stringently secured?

At the end of the day it might not stop him getting hold of one, but it might make it harder and he might have second thoughts or make a mistake and be caught if it were harder. Hell, at least then the families of the dead would be able to say that a CRIME was committed when this fucking lunatic who had been under investigation was allowed to get access to a weapon that could so easily kill or maim a hundred people.

Sorry, but I am still against banning people from owning weapons based on browser history. Our government has a very nebulous definition of what it takes to be considered a terrorist.

Look at the individual in this shooting, the FBI suspected him, he underwent three FBI interviews and an undercover probe where he admitted to having terrorist ties. The FBI removed him from the terrorist watch list after all of that. Yet you can get added to the watchlist by looking at ISIS affiliated websites.

So, if we did follow the recommendations of the President, the terrorist would still have been OFF the watch list and able to buy guns, while the person who went to an ISIS site might be unable to.

The point is that no specific regulation is going to stop these shootings, other than to ban firearms altogether. I'm not willing to sacrifice that right.

That video explains exactly why in the end, voting for the lesser of two evils leads to the greater. Without a third party popping up from time to time forcing parties to realign nothing will ever change. The same two parties keep swapping power. The spoiler effect is a necessary sacrifice, required to effect change in a first past the post system.

Ideally our senators would implement voting reform and end first past the post. Not likely to happen if they are all benefiting from the current system.

It's probably pretty annoying to hang out with a moralizing vegan if you just don't share their opinions on animal welfare. That makes sense. People who make moral choices only to throw it in the face of those around them are assholes, regardless of the specific issue.

On the other hand, you have to imagine that the reactions a vegan gets from others are pretty disappointing too. If you give up your free time to rescue puppies or orphaned elephants, everyone says that's a nice thing to do. If you sacrifice your wallet, tastebuds and convenience to save a cow or chicken, a significant number of people will fall over themselves to tell you how ineffective, hypocritical, or morally backward you are.

I'm pretty sure that those people are assoles too.

I would actually say that's what makes a personally successful politician, but not a professionally successful one, and as far from a perfect one as it's possible to be.
I think we need both election reform and finance reform to make a difference. Election reform to be able to actually hold politicians accountable to their voters at least once every few years, and finance reform to make them want to work for the voters rather than the donors.

A perfect politician would be fair minded, not greedy, not ego driven, not 'tribal', honest, willing to sacrifice for the greater good, thoughtful, consistent but willing to change in the face of new information, moral (not the kind of morality where you force your specific morals on others, but the kind of morality where you can be a role model for them), and still influential and successful at not only finding solutions to problems that are at least palatable to all, but also successful at getting them implemented. I'm not sure I've ever seen one of those...but as I see it, Sanders checks more boxes than most, far more than any other candidate.

You're right, they often get either just the flavor or just the texture, but not often both at the same when it comes to mock foods. Although it seems like every other week a new company is coming up with products that get closer and closer to real thing. Gardein "chicken" tenders for example. I actually find they taste better than the real ones(yeah I didn't think it was possible for chicken to taste any better either!) And hey no cholesterol

I don't see it as a sacrifice, not when I'm the one reaping all of the benefits. The knowledge that I haven't doomed a sweet piggy like the one in the video to stand in a 2x3 foot cage until it collapses is more satisfying than the flavor of the best bacon . Not to mention health benefits, environmental (and some asshat farmer gets less money too is pretty satisfying too haha)

Lions in a cage most certainly wouldn't eat you. They would attack you and kill you out of fear and protection of their territory, perhaps even out of the fun of it, being feline. Assuming they were well fed of course which most animals in captivity are. But they would not bother wasting the energy to eat you when they are fed much tastier and healthier food.
There are also plenty of documented cases were a lions maternal instincts take over and they protect an infant animal. such as this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRUXU172vGg (there is a similar few where leopards save monkeys by returning them to trees etc)
It goes to show that even carnivores with strong killer instincts are able to see compassion, and that they only kill out of necessity to survive. When survival isn't factor anymore the rules are completely different.

Sorry, I've tasted vegetarian bacon and it simply doesn't measure up. Even the seitan fake bacon, which is close, lacks the proper crispness and flavor.

I fully support anyone's choice to make the sacrifice to their lifestyle by skipping animal products, but even the best fake meat alternatives do not completely measure up to the real ones in taste and texture.

Everything dies and, outside of the 'civilized' food chain, most every creature dies from old age or by being eaten (sometimes while still alive). If I were to go into a cage full of lions, I don't think they would have a crisis of conscience over my level of sentience in deciding whether or not to eat me.

Saying that "Taxation is the price we pay for a decent civilization" is the same as saying that "Human sacrifice is the price we pay for having a sun."

Such "primitive" ideology (with its absurd beliefs, fetishes, taboos, and weirdnesses) is reflected by a belief in strange elites as being either godlike ("Bernie!") or demonic ("Koch!"), along with a total ignorance about the functioning of the (alien) banking system and the military empire that it feeds.

I've always found the whole argument that good deeds are actually selfish acts to be a little silly. Would it be better if an act of kindness can only be ideologically pure if it's accompanied by some kind of sacrifice by whoever commits the act in the first place? Open a door for an old lady? Fine, but afterwords you must commit seppuku or everyone will think you're a dick.
Feeling good for doing the right thing is just positive reinforcement in action and that seems like a win-win to me.

Let's remember he's a comedian, it's pretty facile to overlook the fact that he has to be both entertaining and funny regardless of the message he wants to get across. It is extremely difficult to be funny enough to attract widespread popularity as a comedian and at the same time exhaustively cover a nuanced topic to deliver the most devastatingly convincing points.

I know it's that difficult because no one can do it. Ricky Gervais tries to do it sometimes but he either sacrifices the comedy in lieu of the message or vice versa. Who is to say if he would be as popular as he is now if he didn't do that?

So then is it better to make the perfect point to a smaller number of people, or to make a point to a lot of people and hopefully inspire them to take an interest or discuss it? Well, here we are discussing it, so i think he probably achieved exactly what he wanted to.

Carlin said that if the context is right, any word is fine. But in your "stupid" example, you try to discredit Carlin by describing a context which is clearly not right. So it turns out this is just a strawman argument. He didn't say he wants people called stupid (or retarded) or n-word like the old days, he said that words like retarded and n-word are ok in context. I don't know how you can disagree with that. I also don't know why i censored the n-word because the context was right, but it felt a bit gratuitous when i wrote it.

Apologies, I got carried away... wall of text incoming.

@RedSky

I agree, monetary policy at low rates has very little to offer in terms of economic stimulus. Then again, the focus almost solely on monetary policy is part of the problem. Fiscal policy can have a massive impact, both directly (government purchases of goods and services) and indirectly (increase in automatic stabilizers). But for that you either need to be in control of your central bank, so that you can engage in Overt Monetary Financing ("printing" money). Or you need the blessing of the private banks, which is particularly true for a Vollgeld system.

The budget is the core of a parliamentary democracy, and to be at the whim of the folks at Deutsche Bank, HSBC or Credit Suisse -- no, thank you very much. We saw how that played out in Greece.

Anyway, the central bank can do miraculous things: if it provides funds to the democratically elected body in charge of the budget, aka parliament/the government. Trying to "motivate" the private banks to stock up on cheap reserves to stimulate lending is just a sign of ideology.

The great Michal Kalecki, in his essay The Political Aspects of Full Employment, summarized the general issue of government spending quite clearly. The industrial leaders stand in opposition to government spending aimed at full employment for three distinct reasons: a) dislike of government interference in the problem of employment as such; b) dislike of the direction of government spending (public investment and subsidizing consumption); c) dislike of the social and political changes resulting from the maintenance of full employment.

I'd say control over your currency is too great a tool to leave it in the hands of unelected managers. Clement Attlee knew very well why he had to nationalize the Bank of England in '46.

Back to the issue of inflation, I'd like to make two points. First, how big a role should inflation really play when talking policy. Second, what's the influence of a central bank on inflation.

Where does it come from, this focus on inflation. People usually talk about government spending when discussing inflation. Private spending is rarely brought up, even though it can be just as inflationary. So let's ignore private spending for a moment and talk purely government spending: should a deficit/surplus not be judged primarily by how well it helps us achieve our macroeconomic goals? Or more clearly, why should we sacrifice full employment or our general welfare on the altar of inflation? Yes, that's over the top. But so is the angst of inflation.

I'd say let's stick with Abba Lerner's concept of functional finance and judge deficits/surpluses purely by how well they help us achieve our macroeconomic goals. Besides, the US has run massive deficits during the GFC, so much in fact, that a great number of monetarists saw hyperinflation just around the corner. Still waiting for it. Same for Japan. Massive deficits... and deflation.

As long as spending, both private and government, doesn't push the economy beyond its limits (full employment, real resources, production capacity), out-of-control inflation just doesn't materialize. Plus, suppressing inflation is actually one thing central banks can do quite well. Unlike causing inflation, which both Japan and the EU are showcases off. Draghi can dance naked on the table, monetary policy (QE, mainly) won't push inflation upwards.

Which brings me to the second point: what's inflation, what's the cause of inflation, how can central banks manipulate it.

CPI is often used as a measure of inflation, but I prefer the GDP deflator. CPI doesn't account for externalities that you cannot influence, whatever you do. Prime case: the price of oil. Monetary policy of the Bank of Sweden has no influence on the price of oil. The GDP inflator, however, accounts for every economic activity within your currency zone -- much more useful.

General theory says, this measure of inflation goes up when demand surpasses supply. And vice versa. The primary factor of demand is domestic purchasing power, therefore wages. If you suppress wages, you suppress inflation. If you push wages, you push inflation. More specifically, you can see a direct correlation between unit labour costs and the GDP deflator in every country at any time. Here's a general graph for multiple countries, and the St. Louis FED provides a beauty for the US.

That's why it's easy for central banks to combat inflation, but almost impossible to fight deflation.

In all fairness it could be the case that he couldn't find an oven he wanted that fit in that space. When my parent's old fridge died they had a hard time finding a fridge small enough to fit in the space as apparently most newer refrigerators are gigantic. So they found a smaller one, but it's a cheap and noisy piece of shit, they finally got the kitchen remodeled last summer and can now fit something decent in there when they decide to dump this one.
Clever solution, even if it does make my brain hurt a bit.
If he keeps up with the weird angles and such however I'm afraid he'll soon be making sacrifices to Dagon on the center island.

I doubt he's evil. That would be SUCH a terribly lame and predictable twist. That will kill the film for me immediately.

I'm expecting him to be in self-exile, carrying a weight from killing his father, and to keep himself from the dark side. He's probably just anti-social.

I think everyone is going to get the force in this one. I think they're going to pull a Buffy-finale, and "The Force Awakens" refers to the power to use the Force being spread to every living thing.

That has nothing to do with Luke, (unless his self-exile is some sort of journey culminating in his self sacrifice to facilitate a change of that kind, or something) I just needed a platform to share my theories.