What confuses me is that most Americans *love* their armed forces with utmost (almost too much) pride, yet so many think that socialism is a dirty word.

The American armed forces are paid for by the taxpayer. We can't defend ourselves on an individual level as well as we can, through tax contributions, employ a permanent army to do it for us.

To me it feels like the essence of a country is socialist - our 'tribe' decided at some point to work together. Instead of us all individually walking every day to get fresh drinking water or water for washing, we chip in and buy essential infrastructure like water treatment plants and pipes, the electrical grid or sewage system. Instead of having to defend our properties and possessions all the time from intruders, we chip in and pay the police to keep order for us. Instead of individually teaching our children, we all chip in and employ experts to do the best job possible.

Whilst some of those things are available to be purchased privately if you so wish, you can't have your country without socialism.

For me, the worst sin is being against free universal health care. However well prepared or covered you think you are, all it takes is a twist of fate and you'd be in the same situation as so many others - incapable of making the money you need to buy the cure. Or caring full time for a dependent person, unable to work to pay the medical costs. That's why everyone should chip in - because any one of us, through no fault of our own, in an instant, could need access to more than we could get by ourselves.

Better than having the amusement park *in* the treatment plant though. -1 for sea pig.

While I'm quite happy that there is a respectable distance between my mouth and my asshole. But I still question the wisdom of building the amusement park next to the sewage treatment plant.

I thought "dissolved organic matter" was a euphemism for overspill from flooded sewage treatment plants?

Sanitation issues

Currently, human waste is collected daily from thousands of septic tanks across the city and driven by tankers to the city's only sewage treatment plant at Al-Awir. Dubai's rapid growth means that it is stretching its limited sewage treatment infrastructure to its limits. Because of the long queues and delays, some tanker drivers resort to illegally dumping the effluent into storm drains or behind dunes in the desert. Sewage dumped into storm drains flows directly into the Persian Gulf, near the city's prime swimming beaches. Doctors have warned that tourists using the beaches run the risk of contracting serious illnesses like typhoid and hepatitis.

source:wiki/Dubai


somebody needs to make some carbon nano poop tubes or something

At Dubai's only sewage treatment plant there are long queues and serious delays.
Truck drivers who are paid by the lorry load to collect waste from the city's septic tanks wait for several hours to dispose of their foul cargo legally.
There simply is not the capacity to deal with all the human waste the city dwellers produce.

"After dark some drivers are taking a shortcut and dumping their loads straight into manholes meant only for rainwater."

- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7663883.stm

I grew up in Wichita and Joy Land was THE amusement park for a large area (the next closest park was 3hrs away). I have not been there in well over 20 years, but I still remember the layout of the park and know where each of these shots was taken. It's definitely sad to see somewhere that was such a happy place for many children decay like this.

However, to be fair, Joy Land really was a pretty low class operation for a very long time (as long as i can remember). What you can't see in this video is that there is a sewage treatment plant a few miles away (open pit type) and in the summer it would often waft through the park. Also, it got the nick name of "Gang Land" around town because it was near several bad neighborhoods. The gang kids (yes, there are gangs in Wichita Kansas), would have fights at the park. There were frequent fist fights, and occasionally stabbings and shootings. Additionally, The park was pretty small and the rides were poorly maintained. The scariest part of that roller coaster was seeing the occasional bolt come flying off as the coaster would go by and a regular rain of chipped paint coming down. I think at the time it was one of the oldest wooden coasters in operation and there is a reason they were phased out.

So, this video definitely causes mixed emotions in me. On the one hand, it's very sad to see a part of my childhood rot like this, but on the other hand, it's probably for the best that the place is gone.

The only economies of scale that continue to gain efficiency from having more than 6 billion customers are those where the cost of R&D dominates. Most products where the cost of R&D dominates are rather bourgeois, not what most people in poor countries need to stop being malnourished to the point of mental retardation.

The problem isn't present population - it's growth. For every increase in population, new infrastructure has to be built -- roads, schools, houses, markets, water treatment plants etc. When a country already cannot provide basic infrastructure for its current population, growth only makes their financial situation worse. When the average age is 15, there aren't enough adults around to teach or feed the noobs, and this further impoverishes the society. Vast tracts of virgin rainforest are razed to produce new farmland and new settlements -- this is a problem. Earth has enough people on it; population growth must stop.

^bamdrew

what is a "community"? can I touch it? what does it look like? where does it live?

there is no such thing as a "community" only the individuals which it is made of. forsaking the individual for the community of individuals which comprise it makes no sense. at its heart, free market theory is rooted in individual rights.

how is anything you said a criticism of the free market? what is stopping a "community" of individuals from coming together to fund a waste treatment plant, or other non-profit organization?

as far as fossil fuels (pollution) what makes you think there is no free market solution? again...this is all stemming from your misunderstanding of what a free market is. I cannot walk down the street and toss a pile of garbage on your shirt can I? thus what makes you think that a power plant can do the same, by producing smog and other effluents which "dirty my shirt". this is a role of government--to prevent people from tossing garbage on each other--and it is completely compatible with the free market.

there are already free market solutions to pollution, solutions which would greatly reduce the current levels of pollution while at the same time increasing production...you just have never heard of them because you haven't looked.

as I've said, a free market is not economic anarchy so stop acting like it is.

>> ^imstellar28:
^of course you don't agree a free market is viable, because you have no idea what a free market is or how it works!


I live in Indiana, and to me the United States is a community of people before its a free market. We have different levels of government to address problems in the community. Fossil fuel use has been a problem for some time now, and the way our community addresses community problems is with government involvement in some form, be it funding the private sector to build such-and-such water-treatment plant or establishing publicly financed schools or having centers for disease control.

Communities big and small have representatives who make decisions on the community's problems with the community needs in mind; the free market is a set of interconnected buyers and sellers who make decision from information pertaining to the likelihood of increasing shareholder wealth.

Now, your argument is that community decisions shouldn't influence the economy of the community if its a free market economy. My argument would be that the community comes first.

This is oversimplifying, but this is a message board for a David Letterman clip.

...

Free country? Do you think that is really what our soldiers are 'fighting' and 'dying' for? No. They are fighting and dying for a corporate run war profiteering state.

She now has the right to counter claim that her constitutional rights for free speech were violated, and I can guarantee you.. in any true free and fair system, She would win hands down.

Tough to find such a thing in the US of course.

Now you know why people are trying to name a sewage treatment plant after George W. Bush.

Lurch, i would refer to bases in germany, uk, lithuania and literally scores of other countries as a form of occupation, it's a kind of quiet empire. The presence of those bases gives the USA considerable political leverage.
"state sponsored killing" referred to collateral damage, not bases. i would definitely call the US Army blowing up Iraqi civilians "state sponsored killing". Hope that explains it.

As for the whole "there will be bloodshed if we withdraw"... damn, as if there isn't bloodshed now, and as if the bloodshed will stop quicker with an occupying christian army on their soil. Comparisons to Vietnam are interesting... last time I checked Vietnam was not a communist stronghold bathing in blood.

What you are saying, by extension, is "there should be US troops in every country where there's bloodshed" and that is totally impossible. What is so different about Iraq? Why not go prevent the bloodshed in Sudan or Burma or China or Russia? No war proponent has ever explained this to me.

About those bases you say aren't permanent:

We're talking about a U.S. embassy compound under construction these last years that's meant to hold 1,000 diplomats, spies, and military types (as well as untold numbers of private security guards, service workers, and heaven knows who else). It will operate in the Iraqi capital's heavily fortified Green Zone as if it were our first lunar colony. According to William Langewiesche, writing in Vanity Fair, it will contain "its own power generators, water wells, drinking-water treatment plant, sewage plant, fire station, irrigation system, Internet uplink, secure intranet, telephone center (Virginia area code), cell-phone network (New York area code), mail service, fuel depot, food and supply warehouses, vehicle-repair garage, and workshops."
...
When it comes to American construction projects in Iraq, the sky's really the limit. Just recently, National Public Radio's Defense Correspondent Guy Raz spent some time at Balad Air Base about 70 kilometers north of Baghdad. As Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post reported, back in 2006, Balad is essentially an "American small town," so big that it has neighborhoods and bus routes -- and its air traffic rivals Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174858/baseless_considerations