@newtboy

"There is no publicly available PROOF that Trump himself colluded to steal the election....yet."

and when i see actual proof i shall adjust my opinion accordingly.

seymour hersh was the journalist who debunked and exposed the fabricated narrative of the assad regime using sarin gas against the syrian people.

that was in 2013.

and i think you need to differentiate between an institution and an individual.
there have been individual analysts who have come out and openly spoken against the current narratives being put forth by their respective intelligence institutions.

not trying to be a dick here,but i think you are painting with too broad a brush.

we actually agree FAR more than disagree.
the difference is i am demanding evidence not politically motivated speculation by agencies who have proven themselves to be extremely deceitful when it serves their interests.

and i refuse to recognize a corporate media outlet which puts profit above all else as a credible "news" source simply because it appeals to my dislike and disgust at our current sitting president.

james o'keefe is a slimeball,and breitbart a rag that appeals to the most base,and biased of us,but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

and to even attempt to give either any validity or credence is akin to accepting a big giant bowl of feces simply because it smells a tad less worse than the other.

still two bowls of shit to chose from....and i refuse both.

so when you say you disagree with me,you really don't.
you are just accepting that "less" smelly bowl of shit.

and hey,you may have chosen correctly,and it may all be true.
i will be the first to congratulate you on being right.

and then they will impeach trump,and then we all get to enjoy president mike pence.

now think on THAT little nugget for awhile.
good luck sleeping.....

@Fairbs

look at what i wrote.

i totally agree with you,and the mounting evidence that:

russian intelligence may have attempted to influence our elections,but name a first world country whose intelligence agencies do NOT try to influence elections,or unduly influence legislators to implement legislation favorable to their interests?

the argument isn't that russian intelligence did what every ..single..intelligence agency does on a global scale,with US intelligence agencies being the biggest offenders.

the narrative being shoved down our throats is that the trump campaign COLLUDED with russian intelligence to install trump as president,of which there is NO evidence..zero..zip..nada.

is there evidence that trump may (and let us be frank,most likely)have engaged in some suspicious and possibly illegal financial and business dealings with russia?

considering that no american financial institution will touch trump with a ten foot pole,and his global credit is in the shitter.also considering his blatant abuse of his son in law to garner financial loans from china with the promise of "presidential favoritism" (which is soooo fucking illegal).

i think it safe to say that trumps business and financial dealings with russia are,how shall i put this?
colorful and inventive?(and possibly illegal).

but does this translate to collusion to install trump as president?
nope..just a crooked car saleman abusing his status to broker deals with crooked russians.

you mentioned the 13 intelligence agencies.
do you mean the SAME agencies that were POSITIVE that saddam had WMD's?

the same agencies who were CERTAIN that assad had used sarin gas on civilians?

the very same agencies who were 100% proof positive that gadhafi had killed his own people?

THOSE agencies?

the very same agencies who are making the argument that russian intelligence colluded with the trump campaign and have not provided ONE lick of evidence besides:"trust us,we know".

sorry mate,you know i love ya,but i am gonna need some proof,because THOSE fuckers have lied to me more often than not.the term DEEP state is referring to the very agencies that have lied to us time and time again.

and i ain't buying it.

and for CNN to get pantsed in public by the likes of a slimeball such as james o'keefe and breibart..FUCKING BREITBART..they need to just walk out into traffic and end themselves.

not that i gave CNN much cred to begin with,but now they are just dead to me.a pimple on a syphillis infected rhinocerous's ballsack.

so much fail...but corporate bobbleheads do not experience shame,or guilt.

cuz they get paid to lie,obfuscate and gaslight you,and me.
despicable human beings...the lot of them.

@ChaosEngine

um...is your comment missing some parts that you forgot to type?
or was it a typo?

when did i deny that a chemical attack actually occurred?

my skepticism is in regards to american corporate media slavishly regurgitating the narrative coming out of the white house.

that the assad regime attacked his own people with sarin gas,and a complicit media which has uncritically jumped on board the "assad bad-america good" bullshit train.

or do i REALLY need to point to iraq,or even libya for that matter.

as for the rest of your comment.i see no reason to contradict a negative.i simply never made a claim against those organizations.

you are free to believe what you wish my friend,i will remain skeptical.

and i think history backs my skepticism.

@MilkmanDan

i do not want to speak for eric,so i will just explain why i downvoted.

this video attempts to explain the syrian crisis,with almost zero critical examination.the video practically regurgitates the current american political narrative and never mentions the conflicts of information.

let me explain:

1.the video states this all started due to the arab spring,but totally fails to mention that the MAIN reason for the continued conflict is not arab spring,but the fact the both qatar and saudi arabia have been pushing syria to allow them to build a pipeline through syria in order for those countries to sell oil and gas to europe.

which would be in direct competition with russia,which is the main provider of oil and gas to europe.

2.this video claims..twice..that assad has used chemical weapons against his own people.while convenient for a western power which may,or may not,wish to engage militarily.there was no evidence in 2013,and there is no evidence this time (mainly due to time.i mean come on,TWO days? and BOOM.assad did it,nothing to see here.move along).

the only journalist in 2013 that challenged the narrative was seymor hersh.who was ridiculed and chastised,and ultimately vindicated in 2014 by the UN securities commission,that assad was not the perpetrator,but rather the al qeada off shoot el nosra.

which was barely covered,if at all,in american corporate media.

it is also important to mention that the assad regime,in full compliance with the UN,handed over all materials that could be used in chemical warfare.i.e:sarin gas.

3.while the video DOES mention it,it does so in a very slick way,and if you are not following this situation,you will miss it.

america IS supporting and funding "rebels",but pay attention to who those rebels are:they are the offshoot of al qeada,el nosra.

so in effect,america sis funding and supporting al qeada to fight against the assad regime.

i will give you time to allow that to sink in a moment.

these are only a few of the glaring inconsistencies in this video,but i will agree that the situation in syria is complicated,but the reasons for that complication are not being mentioned in this video..at all.

and one final thing to chew about before i go,because i think it is an important aspect to ponder,and as of right now,thats all it really is:speculation.

assad was set to meet with a UN peace council in a week to discuss possible diplomatic solutions.add to this that trump had just recently (last week) backed off obama's "red line" approach,and stated quite clearly that america is ONLY interested in dealing with ISIS,and had NO interest in dealing with assad.

question:

why would assad,with only a week to go before peace negotiations,commit politicial suicide by gassing his own people?

who benefits from this attack?

because it sure is not assad.

we all know the situation in syria is dire,complicated and grotesque,but the current narrative being fed to americans simply does NOT add up.

2+2 does not = 5

and this video does nothing to clear that up,it simply regurgitates american corporate media's narrative.

and i refuse to upvote that.

Hello again,

Just commented to a video and later noticed it was one of yours. Would've just commented to you instead had I noticed first. I have to say I still don't entirely understand where you come from in all this. Plainly and rightly you mistrust any American claims of humanitarian concern. However, in my view you seem to be misreading Obama's cues. If anything he's appeared very reluctant to go into Syria, as it'd be domestically very unpopular. As far as the Kissinger type pushers in America go, seeing Al Qaida sponsored rebels bleeding themselves out against Russian and Iranian backed Syrian military forces and even Hezbollah forces seems like a dream come true. I can hardly see cold hearted long game analysts in America wanting anything but to just grab popcorn and enjoy the show as their enemies mop each other up. I also see Obama's reluctant attitude as exactly what is being read by Assad and Putin in their responses and almost willful scorn for Obama's red line and apparent giddy eagerness to abandon the threats he'd tied to it. I just don't see the eagerness and enthusiasm for a march to war from America that you do. With an agreement to remove chemical weapons from the area, America is freed of the only possible concern it had about anything happening in the area. That seems evidenced by America's seemingly eager acceptance of it, and tacit recognition of Assad's control of the country out into 2014 in order to implement the agreement.

As for the angle I care about, what is your assessment of the UN inspection and their report? Unless you count them to be on the take of Western powers, or duped and stooged within the war zone where somehow America managed to influence them more than Assad I don't see any ambiguity to the findings. Samples from rockets, soil, and victims alike all tested positive for Sarin gas. The rockets found with Sarin on them had Russian engravings and the craters they could project trajectories from pointed towards a Syrian military base. I'm not sure how you reject all of that by pointing at 'counter evidence' gathered and presented solely by Syrian and Iranian sources.

Here is a link to the actual full text of the UN inspection team's report:

http://www.un.org/disarmament/content/slideshow/Secretary_General_Report_of_CW_Investigation.pdf

Their investigation was only about the use of chemical weapons, and not who may have used them. That said, they concluded they found basically irrefutable evidence of extensive deployment of Sarin gas in the region. They also were able to estimate the trajectory of some rockets based on their impact craters and the trajectories are clearly towards a Syrian military compound.

Unless you choose to believe that the UN inspections team is a pawn or puppet of the US, Assad is not being framed, he deliberately used Sarin gas on his own people.

Ok, I sat through the mostly flat increase in funding (against a backdrop of exponential inflation, meaning a real world decrease in funding) and thought, is this going somewhere?

Then I thought... ok, how many more comedy scare tactics are they going to use.

Then... then I got to 'Floride is the main ingredient in sarin nerve gas'. Yeah. I'm done.

You know what else is in Sarin gas? Carbon! We must cleanse our bodies of carbon, to protect our precious bodily fluids!

Your video, Chemical Weapons (Sarin Gas) - Periodic Table of Videos, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

@GeeSussFreeK

I didn't say GDP, I said GDP per capita. Both Finland and the US have roughly the same GDP per capita.

My assertion is that crimes are more likely to be committed by criminals who are empowered by guns. Suicide has nothing to do with this and that's why I didn't address it.

Murder rates are the only universally comparable measure when you consider various violent offenses are classified differently and with varying degrees of tolerance in difference countries.

I think it would hardly be a stretch to assert that guns allow criminals and delinquents to dish out far more death per violent incident - being a reason why crime is average/above average, but murder (especially by firearms) is astronomical.

Either way, I want to address murder singlehandedly as I think it's certainly still an important (and far less finnicky) topic to argue in and of itself, not crime generally.

Crimes again are classified and reported to varying degrees in different countries.

Again, I want to point out that my argument isn't about gun legislation but about gun ownership rates. I have no doubt that if you were to ban guns immediately in one state, there'll not be a chasm of a decline in gun murder rates. Arguments that look at gun laws ignore the blatant fact that US borders are very porous as far as I understand, and that even then, gun laws take years, decades perhaps to have meaningful effects on ownership rates and as a result, general availability at above minimal cost to criminals. Looking at the wikipedia page for California's gun laws, the only meaningful law I see is a 2005 ban in San Fransisco on all firearms and ammunition. Something like this would take at least a decade to have any meaningful effect though, I'm sure I would agree with you here when I say that smuggling guns into simply a city of all places (not a country with customs, or even a state) and selling them on the black market would hardly be difficult - where surrounding areas have no such ban.

I agree that no legislation will prevent a determined terrorist or capable individual from inflicting massive damage if nuclear weapons were readily available and manufactured in large amounts in one area of the world. A concerted and enforced gun ban on the other hand (with restrictions for hunting in some areas, target shooting, and potentially eased laws for protection in remote areas with low police presence) would do a great deal to reduce availability and reduce the incidence of gun murder by petty criminals which makes up the majority of gun deaths in the US.

Take for example our legislation in Australia. There's nothing exceptional about it, I'm just most familiar with it:

"State laws govern the possession and use of firearms in Australia. These laws were largely aligned under the 1996 National Agreement on Firearms. Anyone wishing to possess or use a firearm must have a Firearms Licence and, with some exceptions, be over the age of 18. Owners must have secure storage for their firearms.

Before someone can buy a firearm, he or she must obtain a Permit To Acquire. The first permit has a mandatory 28-day delay before it is first issued. In some states (e.g. Queensland, Victoria, and New South Wales), this is waived for second and subsequent firearms of the same class. For each firearm a "Genuine Reason" must be given, relating to pest control, hunting, target shooting, or collecting. Self-defense is not accepted as a reason for issuing a licence, even though it may be legal under certain circumstances to use a legally held firearm for self-defense.[2]

Each firearm in Australia must be registered to the owner by serial number. Some states allow an owner to store or borrow another person's registered firearm of the same category."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia

There is a very good reason why this has led to a 5.2% ownership rate among citizens and a murder rate by guns of between 29% and 19% that of the US per capita depending on which numbers you use from here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

If you want to come back to saying that people simply murder in different ways, then look at purely the murder rate - the number goes up just slightly to 35% (the rate of murder per capita in Australia of that in the US).

Gun laws aren't punishment. Just like nuclear weapon bans aren't punishment. Or Sarin Gas bans. They're good policy.

Just like making everyone buy basic health insurance to reduce risk among consumers and lower prices, where the poorest are subsidised. If you insist on using analogies, I think this compares incredibly well to a gun ban which makes allowance for recreation and hunting (and at least in my view, allowances of 'for protection' licenses in remote areas with limited quantity and strict restriction to avoid smuggling).

Just like the compulsory third party car insurance we have here, that ensures that if you are at fault and damage another car, the innocent party is guaranteed to have their car repaired.

What I hope you understand coming from a libertarian position (and this is repeating the first thing I said in this whole discussion to blankfist) is that libertarianism is not a flat and universal position on individual rights. You, just like anyone I would imagine, have limits to how far you go with individual rights. You recognize the validity of a system of laws to limit the impact of one's individual's actions on another, and the retribution they should receive for violating it. You simply draw the metaphorical line on rights further right on the ideological spectrum than I do.

Therefore you can't simply justify gun ownership by claiming individual rights and the notion that everyone's entitled to them as they are not presumed guilty. You have to consider whether it does harm in society or not, just like the rest of us.

I hope I've laid out a pretty convincing arguments based on the statistics (speculative of course, I have neither the time nor resources to do a rigorous analysis controlling for a multitude of variables) that gun ownership does lead to more (gun) murders. If we were taking about a 10-20% difference, sure it would be debatable, but we're talking about a 2 to 3 fold increase. Let's not kid around about what causes this.

If you think that individual rights are so incredibly important that they trump this palpably gargantuan increase in death (and suffering) then that is certainly a position you can take, but let's be honest about this if that's the position you want to take.

As far as I'm concerned, I don't think they are. I think the opportunities for self defense, the willingness to use a gun of most people, the willingness of normal and ration people to risk death for losing their property are small. The sheer empowerment and impetus a gun (easily available from a nearby store at a price anyone can pay) can give a criminal on the other hand is huge.

---

Just a quick recap on things I didn't cover.

If you want to demonstrate guns are less devastating than drugs then kindly provide data to support this. If you are referencing the drug war or even if you are not, this is totally irrelevant to the question I posed to you.

Comparing guns to drugs and referencing the opium war is just not a good analogy. Colonialism. Colonialism. Colonialism.

Yes cars kill people, so do airplanes. So do pretzels. In fact, just about everything kills people (although yes car accidents are far more significant than pretzels). We do have a plethora of legislation that increases car safety. Guns are of course unique in that supposedly (if you would believe people in the US), more guns and LESS gun legislation protects you from the more guns you now have and so on. Let's look at this objectionably just as I compared the benefits to defenders versus aggressors for gun ownership. Cars provide an obvious benefit and are fundamental to commerce and modern life (unlike guns 99.9% of the time for private defenders of civil liberty). More legislation and safety requirements can obviously reduce death rates. To me it seems pretty obvious how to proceed here.

About time such scanners are introduced. Terrorists trying to board the planes with explosives and ceramic blades, everywhere you look. Just yesterday, a group of 27 terrorists tried to hijack a Cessna by overpowering the pilots with their genital piercings. With this new technology, they wouldn't have gotten onto the airplane.

But how long until they finally invent a method to remove all bodily fluids and gases? It's completely unacceptable that you can still get aboard with a bowel filled with sarin gas.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Oh good, this is going to be one of those kinds of threads. [Calling Quantum Mushroom]

3,000 paltry lives, hmm yes - imagine lining up everyone in a small town in America (including your family) - placing them in a gymnasium and filling it with Sarin gas. We'll put you on the other side of a glass window so you can be a witness to this trifle, this insignificant little blip on the radar of the world. Would you like a crossword puzzle to do while you wait?

There's nothing paltry about causing the violent death of one human being - let alone 3,000.