If Hinkley Point C is any indication, you're not going to find someone to finance/build a nuclear power plant, not in a capitalist society.

It's a massive upfront investment that private entities are basically allergic to; it cannot be insured due to the massive damage caused if things go south on you, so you need the government to act as a backstop; the price you'd have to charge per MWh is humongous compared to solar/wind, so you need massive subsidies, and that's without the ridiculous amount of rent-seeking corporations insist on nowadays.

That, to me, sounds like private is out. Hinkley Point C is being built by EDF, aka the French state, and EDF is struggling not be dragged into the abys by Areva, after the EPR in Flamanville is nothing short of a financial disaster. And we're not even talking about the troubles they are in for having fudged the specifications on the pressure vessels of more than 20 French power plants. Cost-cutting measures, as always.

So, which capitalist state is going to pick up the tab? Any volunteers? Over here, we cannot even get bridges fixed before they collapse...

And to be honest, I'm not entirely sure I would want a profit-oriented enterprise or austerity-supporting government construct something like an NPP these days. Look at the construction sites at Flamanville and Olkiluoto, they are modern towers of Babylon, with subcontractors of subcontractors from 30 different countries working for povery wages. Anyone think either of these, should they ever be finished at all, will come even close to the safety standards layed out in their official plans?

Right. Here are some facts.

The CIA isn't spying on most of us through our TVs right now, though they do have the technology to do it and have developed it specifically for that purpose.

So have countless other entities (government and independent. You can download the tech yourself if you care to, or have the technical ability).

Samsung is spying on you through your Samsung TV's
(http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/fine-print-on-one-of-samsungs-tvs-says-its-recording-your-voice/)

Any consumer products with voice recognition could be considered to be spying on you, such as Google and Amazon "home assistants".

Technically, by now anything with an active microphone has the capability to do this. It should probably be considered worse that it's not the government, but completely unknown third-parties who supply the infrastructure to do this on a massive scale for the purposes of data mining for advertising.

I have personal experience with this technology and the industries that develop and distribute it. This isn't hearsay or conjecture. I will never understand why it's acceptable for unchecked third-party corporations to spy on you, but once the government does it, a slightly larger minority gets upset.

If only every entity were empathetic. What a beautiful creature.

Marvel's upcoming The Defenders series, is Dr. Strange related (at least in the comics) and steongly tied to Marvel's Lovecraftian side, namely The Nameless One and his entities. Dr. Strange comics are very very Lovecraft driven. You could say The Infinity Gauntlet is Lovecraftian in it's nihilism themes, the concept of gaining all the pwoers of a god, and the fact that it is the cosmic beigs who fight Thanos, NOT the useless human superheros who become pawns and tortured by Thanos. I mean, just read a lot of comics written by Jim Starlin and you may encounter these horrors

Galactus and the Silver Surfer are ALSO a horrific, biological, cosmic horror story. Norrin Radd, a human like being from a humanlike world was called to by a dark entity and he helped feed that entity with the dezteuction of his homeworld and then SERVES and is augmented by Galactus....

Marvel's Celestials? Especially The Dreaming Celestial, Tiamut, awoken to judge earth.

The historical precedents being (self)censorship and gulags.

Subjective offense and harm defined by well-meaning panels of social judges are the road to hell.

Is the man really black enough to be allowed to say nigger? Is the woman really ugly or is she justly offended? Who decides? Or is there some other concept at work here? Like common morals decided upon by peers in normal social contact (conflict), instead of dictated by a "higher" entity, the SJW.

Let the people decide for themselves. The normal path is that legislation is formed based on morals, not the other way round.

This is spec-non-official thing, right?
I mean, there's no way a major corporate entity is going to step into the immigration controversy at this time with this sort of message.
Right?

Or---Am I missing something?

Maddow and the Hollywood Reporter have documentation and admissions from the corporate entities themselves that they hired paid actors. You have a bullshit article with a single person as a source hosted on a website with a Colombian top level domain name. Oh, and the cherry on top of this shit sundae is the name of the author of this article, Jimmy Rustling.
Well played Bobby, well played indeed.

@newtboy
you were not the only one who put me on the defensive for supporting chis hedges.
so if you feel singled out,i apologize.

the point of this post is put into light an adored spokesperson for the left,and a commentator who is also left leaning (and many of his upvoted videos can be found on the sift) to make a point.

and by your comment,you are struggling to reconcile the two.
but you DID reconcile,and you did so by giving maddow a tacit pass and condemning kyle for being a "complete bombastic liar".

when the truth is:
they both are...kinda..sorta..

they both are approaching,and making their points by using biased and slanted data to influence you,and i for that matter,into adopting their viewpoint.

these are not outright and pernicious lies.they are lies that serve a purpose and i find maddows far more egregious,because it is far more subtle..and you appear to have bought it.

she did so by using the innocuous word "might",yet her inferrence cannot be mistaken.they call it the "dog whistle".this is a wink and a nod that those dirty ruskies own our new president.

wink wink...nudge nudge..know what i mean?

now kyle is not exactly lying either.
he is using russias reaction to the new deployment from putin himself.who has stated that there was an agreement that there would be no new encroachment after the GDR,but that simply reveals the cleverness and political saavy of putin.

the real truth is this:
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/11/06/did-nato-promise-not-to-enlarge-gorbachev-says-no/

or is it?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-did-the-west-break-its-promise-to-moscow-a-663315.html
from 2009?

maybe this is the truth?
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-shifrinson-russia-us-nato-deal--20160530-snap-story.html
from 2016.

well,personally i am going with the LAtimes and der spiegel.
brookings is a right wing think tank with deep tentacles in the pentagon and DoD.

but CNN reports that poland LOVES the new troops:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/14/europe/poland-us-troops-nato-welcome/

look,
while i will agree that putin is a vicious thug,who murders political opponents and tortures dissidents.that he is ruthless and relentless political player.

i do not see any evidence of russian hacking influencing our elections,nor do i see a new russian empire pushing for those cold war expansionism days.

the only entity/country i see pushing for expansion and a renewal of the cold war..is us..the pentagon and the department of defense,and those juicy juicy defense contracts!

i feel my time on the sift is coming to a close.
having to defend my admiration for a pulitzer prize winning,war correspondent and author is just...weird.

at least i know i am biased,but i do my best to self-correct.

@newtboy

not to butt my nose in...
ah who am i kidding..of course i am going to butt my nose in.

you and space are getting caught up on definitions.
neo-conservative which is a fairly new political philosophy from the 1960's by irving kristol,whose name you may recognize as bill-the bloody- kristol (weekly standard) father.

prior to neoconservatism was.../drum roll
neoliberalism.

the fundamental difference is what you alluded to newt,but in my opinion were far too gracious in your definition.
while neoconservatism is far more hawkish,seeing american and "manifest destiny" as her right,and being a global power has a right to use that power to serve her interests,even if that be way of military force.the ultimate goal is to spread american excellence to the world in the form of markets.we sell our awesome and they buy,and we extract what we need for our interests a.k.a business baby.

neoliberalism may be more "dovish" but the goals are the same:political and financial dominance.

and the results are very similar as well.
so while neoliberalism may use economic hitmen,the IMF and the GTO to impose the will of american buisiness,and the neoconservatives may rely on the military heavily..

countries are still stripped of their resources,their labor exploited and a starbucks on every corner.their sovereignty is more a suggestion than an actual respective entity.

both philosophies are abhorrent and destructive and cause incredible suffering....and death.

i am super high right now,so if i misread your guys conflict..please forgive.
if i read it right and helped..
you are welcome!

I don't know, because clearly there are positive emotions here. If the world was full of media like this, we'd probably all think twice about sensitivity toward others with disabilities.

At the same time, we have a history of unrelated entities packaging positive morals in their own labels and passing it off as somehow being associated, or using that association to boost their own standing; religion, politics, commercialism, etc.

Truly sorry my negative assessment was one of the two initial posts. I've no idea what the "unamerican" comment was about.

Video omits something important :

NRA didn't need to be anti-gun-control prior to the 60's.

You used to be able to mail order machine guns shipped straight to your house... without any background anything.

It's the creation of affective (spelled with an 'a' on purpose) gun control laws at the federal level that gave the NRA a cause - hence they took up the cause.

The NRA is, essentially, a reactionary entity (in its current form).

-scheherazade

@newtboy
I admit that perhaps invading Palestine slowly was their best viable option before the war ended.....I just think it's helpful to be perfectly honest that that's what happened and not play some game about it and pretend they hold the moral high ground on that part of the issue.

I guess I just don't agree on calling it an invasion from the outset. European Jews had the doors closed to them everywhere the world over, illegal immigration or staying in what would become Nazi occupied Europe were their only options. Palestine was hands down the most attractive option, despite a hostile Arab Palestinian population. The main reason being that the Jewish Palestinian minority were basically a state within a state. The Arab and Jewish populations had both sufficiently failed to integrate already that they were operating as largely segregated and autonomous regions. Thus, Jewish Palestine was both reasonably close to Europe, and very much welcoming to the people leaving. I don't believe that's fair to be marked as an invasion from the outset. I must insist that if we get to insist all actors conduct themselves in their own self interest, that the Jewish immigration from Europe to Palestine could have been entirely peaceful, and if the Arab population had taken a live and let live approach things could have gone swimmingly. Of course humans aren't ideal or moral very often, so both sides fought and tensions arose. By the time WW2 was over it was too late, the dice were cast and another Jewish exodus from Palestine back to Germany wasn't gonna work. Neither were the Jewish people promised a thing from Germany and it would all be on a hope and a prayer. They had a better shot making their own future by standing their ground in Jewish Palestine. Truth be told, I really can't blame the Jewish side for saying enough is enough and we're gonna stand and fight. Neither can I blame the Arab Palestinian's over much as their biggest fight was really just for independence from the British. With the British gone, both the Jewish and Arab residents fought it out over who would control what, which is sadly fairly natural.

The point I DO lay blame is when the civil war took a pause and Israel declared independence on the UN mandated borders. The Arab world(not the Arab Palestinians) jointly refused to accept any Jewish portion of Palestine and swore to drive them into the sea. Worse, they vehemently called for the retreat of all Arab palestinians from the region to make it easier to clear the country out. Of course, they failed to win that fight and it's been a source of great shame and horror ever since. They didn't fail for lack of strength in arms or numbers, but because each neighbouring Arab state cared not a whit for restoring Palestine to the Arab Palestinians but instead each sought to seize a portion of it for themselves, as invaders. Luckily for Israel they exploited those divisions to come out the other side.

There's plenty of atrocities to blame on the Palestinian response, but also empathy for a displaced and, today, a decimated people still suffering horrifically, mostly for 'sins' of their grandfather's, namely the sin of fighting invaders stubbornly.

But that is all the more the tragedy, as that is very clearly the way the Israeli's started out. They remained peaceful and fled as nation after nation tried to destroy them. The most open place to them in the time probably was Jewish Palestine. For all the atrocities to blame on Israel, I also have empathy for the plight they started from. Even their whole history through today is a tight rope walk were losing any single one of the wars from then till now would have seen the end of Israel as state.

As much blame as one can put on Israel for meeting homemade rockets with professional air strikes, they aren't the only ones to be blaming. Yes, more empathy is needed for the Palestinians than blame. But their are plenty of states, mostly Syria and Iran using the Palestinians as proxies and pawns. So many Arab entities WANT to see dead Palestinians in the news because it plays well for them. I really insist they get as much or more heat than Israel for the tragedy unfolding.

I don't know how to answer that Dag Yes, I have seen the "entities" - more real than here... yet, I try not to focus on that aspect of the experience I try to explain them in the video link I posted above... but they don't always appear the same way, the energy is basically the same though.

When I got mine, I had to get 2 passport photos, submit a fingerprint, take a day long class, take a written test, and pass a range test with my preferred CCW handgun. There are a bunch of other restrictions which I'll list below; not all states have these but Texas is one of the easiest states to get licensed in, so this should give you an idea for a baseline. When it comes to 'may issue' states like the ones I listed earlier, they have the same hoops to jump through generally, but the main one is you have to prove good cause to a police entity to carry. In many cases, those entities are either 'suggested' or blatantly told "Do not give out any permits". I suppose power or money could get around that, but you would still have to pass the other requirements.

Texas CCW pre-reqs:

A person is eligible for a license to carry a concealed handgun if the person:

is a legal resident of this state for the six month period preceding the date of application,

is at least 21 years of age (military 18 - 21 years of age now eligible - 2005 Texas CHL Law change),

has not been convicted of a felony,

is not currently charged with the commission of a felony, Class A or Class B misdemeanor, or equivalent offense, or an offense under Sec. 42.01 of the penal Code (Disorderly Conduct) or equivalent offense,

is not a fugitive from justice for a felony, Class A or Class B misdemeanor, or equivalent offense,

is not a chemically dependant person (a person with two convictions within the ten year period preceding the date of application for offenses (Class B or greater) involving the use of alcohol or a controlled substance is ineligible as a chemically dependant person. Other evidence of chemical dependency may also make an individual ineligible for a CHL),

is not incapable of exercizing sound judgement with respect to the proper use and storage of a handgun,

has not, in the five years preceding the application, been convicted of a Class A or Class B misdemeanor, or equivalent offense, or an offense under Section 42.01 of the Penal Code (Disorderly Conduct) or equivalent offense,

is fully qualified under applicable federal and state law to purchase a handgun,

has not been finally determined to be delinquent in making child support administered or collected by the attorney general,
has not been finally determined to be delinquent in the payment of a tax or other money collected by the comptroller, state treasurer, tax collector of a policital subdivision, Alcohol Beverage Commission or any other agency or subdivision,

is not currently restricted under a court protective order subject to a restraining order affecting a spousal relationship,

has not, in the 10 years preceding the date of application, been adjudicated as having engaged in delinquent conduct violating a penal law in the grade of felony,

has not made any material misrepresentation, or failed to disclose any material fact, in an application submitted pursuant to Section 411.174 or in a request for application submitted pursuant to Section 411.175.

P.S. if you screw up on any of the above 'after' you get your ccw, it gets suspended until you go before a board for review. My instructor said when I took the class, almost every single review case is denied.

Regulation *can* mean operating under government direction.

If militia is open to regulation, then the government only needs to make such a regulation.

The option is there for the taking.

That's why the idea of an entity needing a protection from the government, when the government can simply require the entity to serve the government's will, is moot.


All good. We can agree to disagree. Cheers.

-scheherazade