Then what does belong in the main Sift Talk?

>> ^jonny:

if [Mitt] takes office we all know the chances of war with Iran go up
I don't think that's necessarily true. Obama has shown his willingness to engage in war, even when it should be clear that doing so will accomplish little in the long run either in terms of US security or the given country's or region's security and stability. Also, just because Romney is a Republican doesn't mean he's anywhere near as crazy or willfully blind to reality as Bush. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'd rather have Romney in office, even just for this particular issue. I'm just saying I don't think as voters we have any real indication what either one of these men will do if, e.g., Israel launched a unilateral attack. Also, it's worth noting that these decisions tend to be made based on large amounts of information that will never be known to any of us.

if Obama goes in, at least we have a chance of accomplishing our goal in a timely manner.
What makes you think that? The timely manner in which Guantanamo has been shut down? Or perhaps the timely manner in which we pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan?
What do you guys think about this situation?
I would hope that anyone occupying the White House is aware that any direct attack on Iran by the US will almost certainly lead to a very large regional conflict, and could quite possibly result in a true world war. I'm not trying to be melodramatic or hyperbolic - if the US directly engages Iran militarily, there is no doubt neighboring countries will be brought into the conflict. The big question is would China or Russia or some other significant power dependent on oil from Iran and the rest of the Gulf region decide to get involved to limit the US's influence. It's not hard to imagine China playing at least a covert role in assisting Iran. How would the US react? For that matter, how would India and Pakistan react? Both have nukes and are not exactly on the best of terms with China. The potential consequences of a US invasion of Iran are just too great to risk, for any President.

_{Also, this (and several other posts) really doesn't belong in the main Sift Talk.}

if [Mitt] takes office we all know the chances of war with Iran go up

I don't think that's necessarily true. Obama has shown his willingness to engage in war, even when it should be clear that doing so will accomplish little in the long run either in terms of US security or the given country's or region's security and stability. Also, just because Romney is a Republican doesn't mean he's anywhere near as crazy or willfully blind to reality as Bush. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'd rather have Romney in office, even just for this particular issue. I'm just saying I don't think as voters we have any real indication what either one of these men will do if, e.g., Israel launched a unilateral attack. Also, it's worth noting that these decisions tend to be made based on large amounts of information that will never be known to any of us.


if Obama goes in, at least we have a chance of accomplishing our goal in a timely manner.

What makes you think that? The timely manner in which Guantanamo has been shut down? Or perhaps the timely manner in which we pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan?

What do you guys think about this situation?

I would hope that anyone occupying the White House is aware that any direct attack on Iran by the US will almost certainly lead to a very large regional conflict, and could quite possibly result in a true world war. I'm not trying to be melodramatic or hyperbolic - if the US directly engages Iran militarily, there is no doubt neighboring countries will be brought into the conflict. The big question is would China or Russia or some other significant power dependent on oil from Iran and the rest of the Gulf region decide to get involved to limit the US's influence. It's not hard to imagine China playing at least a covert role in assisting Iran. How would the US react? For that matter, how would India and Pakistan react? Both have nukes and are not exactly on the best of terms with China. The potential consequences of a US invasion of Iran are just too great to risk, for any President.


_{Also, this (and several other posts) really doesn't belong in the main Sift Talk.}

From a cotton farm in Turkey Scratch Arkansas to the very pinnacle of the music world. 71 year old Levon Helm will soon be gone. Thought I'd post this tribute song written by Elton John from his 1971 album "Madman Across the Water".

Story here. http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Entertainment/Music/6474166/story.html

From the above story "Born May 26, 1940, in Turkey Scratch, Arkansas, the son of cotton farmers, he learned to play guitar and drums as a child. By 17 he was appearing in honky tonks in and around nearby Helena and taking in performance by such southern legends as Conway Twitty, Elvis Presley, Bo Diddley, and Ronnie Hawkins.

He joined Hawkins’ rockabilly band The Hawks just before they moved to Canada in the late 1950s.

In the early 1960s, Helm and Hawkins recruited Canadians Robbie Robertson (guitar), Rick Danko (bass) and pianist Richard Manuel and organist Garth Hudson. They left Hawkins and toured as Levon and the Hawks before backing Bob Dylan in the mid-60s. Fans weren’t initially receptive to Dylan’s switch from acoustic folky to electric folk-rocker, and Helm headed back south, working on offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico for a couple of years until bassist Rick Danko asked him to rejoin the group that would become known around the world as, simply, The Band"

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Levon+Helm+near+death+wife+daughter+with+videos/6474166/story.html#ixzz1sLwHMdvM

>> ^MichaelL:

Gulf War vet with two black belts?
Hmmm...
Tactically, you don't keep your hands down by your waist when an agitated aggressor is nose to nose with you. Had the thug swung first he would have tagged the homeowner. Within a couple of feet of each other, the first person to swing will catch the other -- it's not possible to see the attack and react within the fraction of a second you have to defend yourself.


Nah he's fine.

Gulf War vet with two black belts?
Hmmm...
Tactically, you don't keep your hands down by your waist when an agitated aggressor is nose to nose with you. Had the thug swung first he would have tagged the homeowner. Within a couple of feet of each other, the first person to swing will catch the other -- it's not possible to see the attack and react within the fraction of a second you have to defend yourself.

>> ^TheFreak:

Oh man, I wish I'd been put out. Had them out by an army dentist during the gulf war. A few shots of novacaine and right to work with the torture tools. I'll never forget the sound of the tooth being cracked away from my jaw and the dentist on top of me with his knee on my chest for leverage. Only one side too, so there went 5 years of orthodontics as my teeth shifted after the removal. Still, I should be glad they removed them at all. First time in a couple PFCs just ground the teeth down to nubs to keep them from putting pressure on the other teeth. Fucking army. Had splinters of tooth coming out through my gums for a year.


My dad waited to get his wisdom teeth out, and they became impacted and then infected. He woke up one day with his jaw swollen out on one side and had to have an emergency extraction. He only found one doctor that would do it. They numbed him, but he was in too much pain for it to dull it out. Then the doctor straddled his chest and stuck a big steel bar with a crook into his mouth and hammered on the end of that with him watching and aware the whole time. Hit until he broke his tooth into a couple pieces and pulled them out. After he told me that, as soon as my dentist mentioned on needing to get my wisdom teeth out I was like "Do it but knock me out!"

that sounds quite medieval.>> ^TheFreak:

Oh man, I wish I'd been put out. Had them out by an army dentist during the gulf war. A few shots of novacaine and right to work with the torture tools. I'll never forget the sound of the tooth being cracked away from my jaw and the dentist on top of me with his knee on my chest for leverage. Only one side too, so there went 5 years of orthodontics as my teeth shifted after the removal. Still, I should be glad they removed them at all. First time in a couple PFCs just ground the teeth down to nubs to keep them from putting pressure on the other teeth. Fucking army. Had splinters of tooth coming out through my gums for a year.

Oh man, I wish I'd been put out. Had them out by an army dentist during the gulf war. A few shots of novacaine and right to work with the torture tools. I'll never forget the sound of the tooth being cracked away from my jaw and the dentist on top of me with his knee on my chest for leverage. Only one side too, so there went 5 years of orthodontics as my teeth shifted after the removal. Still, I should be glad they removed them at all. First time in a couple PFCs just ground the teeth down to nubs to keep them from putting pressure on the other teeth. Fucking army. Had splinters of tooth coming out through my gums for a year.

@renatojj

Corporations already use force. They are more subtle about it than the Somolis, sure, that's an extreme example, but why do you think Foxconn employees commit suicide in such high numbers? They are forced to work long hours, the company forces them to live on-site, the company forces them to develop no social contact.

Companies in the States even use force on the government. They threaten to pull up stakes if a state won't change the laws to their liking. They pay billions of dollars to force their message down the throats of gullible people (such as yourself).

You want companies to have more freedom, to what end? Perhaps it would mean an increase in GDP, but a larger share of that GDP would go to a smaller number of people. If 95% of the people are worse off, 4% are the same and 1% do better, is that good policy? Look at Sweden, which has high taxes and strict laws governing how corporations must act. Are they suffering? Nope, the people are doing way better than America. Same for Japan. In spite of all their economic troubles, the PEOPLE of Japan are doing quite well. Americans? Not so much. One of the highest crime rates in developed countries, one of the highest infant mortality rates, near the lowest education and literacy levels, near the highest in poverty rates, near the lowest life expectancy. Is that the place where you want to live? More freedom for corporations means more gulf oil spills, more union busting, lower wages, lower employee benefits, more offshoring of American jobs.

Finally, China is not doing as well as most people suppose. Much of their economic boom has been real-estate driven and it is in a bubble which will make the US look like a joke by comparison. There are whole cities in China with space for two million people that are completely empty. All of it was driven by government legislation (ie. not free). In fact China has a much more restrictive business environment than America in many ways, they just have rock-bottom wages, a near endless supply of people and moderate education levels. That is why they're doing well (for now, we'll see what happens when their bubble pops).

>> ^hpqp:

>> ^ChaosEngine:
Remember when Hitchens got into trouble for saying that women aren't funny?
These two are not proving him wrong.

Crap in a hat, I upvoted your comment only to realise there was a "not" in it. I think Harto is pretty funny, and Jenna can be too. But there are way funnier women, that's for sure.


Agreed. I thought CommunityChannels response to racism was hilarious and as a general rule I find Tina Fey really funny.
But Jenna was just irritating and Harto just fell flat, even though I thought the concept had potential. It's the Saturday night live effect. The gulf between "almost funny" (most of their sketches) and truly funny (a few moments of genius, like Fey's Palin) is vast.

Controversial as it was, I do believe there's a grain of truth in Hitchens article.

>> ^longde:

@Gallowflak, so where do you place sport hunting/sport fishing? Where the utility in that?


Its actual utility is questionable, but I still think there's a clear gulf between that and, to put it one way, inflicting suffering pointlessly.

It really depends on the intentions of the person. I don't think that most hunters are out to cause suffering; they're out to indulge themselves in their activity. Inflicting cruelty isn't the objective, then, and it's a very different psychological process.

The question is: what are the origins of this behaviour? What does it mean? How does it reflect on the person acting in that way?

And my argument is that those who act to cause pain and suffering (esp. on a sentient entity) and are capable of doing this without remorse, and without empathy, are dangerous, disgusting and obscene.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^artician:
I'm so curious to why people reject that notion. Is it purely fear of other religions and cultures? Are that many americans actually for invading other countries? I've never encountered that state of mind before, at all. From my experience most people are pretty quick to equate War with Evil.

I have a theory that most Americans know pretty much what we're doing. The fight between the indoctrinated (both the right and the left) is actually a fight about how we should go about doing what we're doing in the world. Indoctrinated Democrats have no problem with bossing other countries around and getting our way, we just have to be nicer about it and do it carefully so that we at least LOOK like we're good. Whereas the indoctrinated Republicans believe we are "Special" and should not only do it but do it with complete disregard for what ANY else thinks or says.
This is just a theory based on what I've seen from what our presidents do. Democratic presidents aren't any better on war crimes than Republican presidents. They just seem to be in the business of trying to tell everyone they're being nice and when they have to do something awful it's all the other countries fault.
I mean look at Bush and Obama...Bush locked up people indefinitely and said they deserved it and he does it because they're they enemy. Obama doesn't bother he just assassinates them. If Bush assassinated more like Obama he'd come out and take full credit and say it was AWESOME that he was doing it...Obama not so much, more hand wringing and deflection.
This is also helped along by the media who play their role well. It's just a theory but I like it.


Wow Yogi, we agree on something .

I think your view is pretty much bang on. The only difference between Dem. and Rep. presidents is the reasons they give for acting purely in their own self interests(which very often coincides with making decisions that are in America's self interests).

Where I disagree with Ron Paul's conclusion is about what the answer to all this should be. I don't for a second believe Ron Paul would be any different than all those before him. Instead of selfish wars he'd maybe follow the course of selfish isolationism. Take the recent example in Libya. America had two selfish options, go in or don't. Not going in would mean keeping the President's hands clean and money in America's pocket, and Ron Paul insists that what he'd have done. It also would have meant leaving thousands of Libyan civilians to Gaddafi's death squads. It would mean a Libya still ruled today by Gaddafi, with a newly subdued and less numerous population.

I don't see a clearly white/black obvious ethical choice in most geopolitical decisions, it's always messy. The Iraqi's that hate America the most(the Sadrists) don't hate them for all the things that America did to them, but for America's failures to act. The hate America for it's failure to push into Baghdad in the first Gulf War. In lieu of that they want revenge on the Sunnis. They want to commit their own eviction of all Sunni's from Iraq, or in it's stead to kill them for what Saddam had done with their aid. Was America wrong to stick around in Iraq after evicting Saddam and trying to stand in the middle, stopping a civil war driven by revenge against the Sunnis?

Ron Paul and Chomsky are generally agreed on minding our own business is the only ethical choice. It's hard to make that argument for Libya. It's impossible to make that argument for Rwanda. There are situations in our world were the ethical choice IS to go to war and stop something even more evil than war inherently is. What Ron Paul and Chomsky understand though is that no matter how grave the evil you oppose, your actions will create people who hate you for interfering. War makes it inevitable that your own forces will commit crimes against innocents, and their families will hate you. Ron and Chomsky conclude that means never get involved, I call that cowardice and insist there are situations that demand paying that price and coming to the aid of our fellow man when faced with terrible evils like genocide. In theory, every signatory nation to the convention on genocide agrees with me on this point too.

>> ^criticalthud:

i'd honestly really like to see a first person shooter where you play the nazis, or the iraq'is, or the japenese.
Yeah, playing the Iraqi troops during the first Gulf war would be a blast, mission one: surrender, mission two: surrender again, mission three: get blown up while fleeing Kuwait on the highway of death.

Gulf of Mexico eh? The best thing to do would probably be to jump in the water with the bleeding dog and thrash about until you are both saved.

"Look a dolphin fin! He's come to help us!"

Pretty sure it's the Cortez Sea (Gulf of California)
>> ^G-bar:

where the heck is that place! I wanna dive NOW!