From their website:

Current life expectancy in nations where capitalism has significant presence (abbreviated list)
82 -- Australia
78 -- United States
82 -- Japan
81 -- Israel
80 -- Italy

Current life expectancy in nations where capitalism has only modest presence (abbreviated list)
71 -- Philippines
66 -- Russia
70 -- Honduras
65 -- Pakistan
59 -- Senegal

Current life expectancy in nations where capitalism has little or no presence (abbreviated list)
30 -- Haiti
47 -- Nigeria
45 -- Afghanistan
40 -- Zimbabwe
64 -- North Korea

WikiLeaks' Bottom-Line Revelation

by

Austin Bay

Julian Assange, the man behind the WikiLeaks dump of secret US State Department cables, has been frank about his reasons for releasing thousands of classified -and stolen -- documents.

Assange says he wants to seriously damage the United States. If this damage forwards America's ultimate destruction, so be it. The son of leftist America-haters, Assange was born and weaned during the Cold War. Then the wrong side won. What the superpower Soviet Union failed to do with its armies, he, a super-empowered individual, will accomplish via the information anarchy of the Internet.

If Assange's history-shaping goal seems grandiose and detached from reality, indeed it is. However, once you understand the man's religion, his megalomania and solipsism become a bit more comprehensible if even more reprehensible.

Like other anti-American cranks on the planet, Assange holds firm in his warped faith that the U.S. is the leading source of global evil. The roots of this religion run deep, beginning with 18th century European aristocrats who despised the American Revolution. The anti-Americanism of Nazis, communists, tribalists, anarchists and now militant Islamists all rehash the same tropes, with their semi-schizoid baseline being the U.S. is simultaneously a vast authoritarian conspiracy and a heterogeneous menagerie of infidel-cowboy-capitalist idiots who dogmatically resist enlightened social policies.

Assange argues his revelations will force this conglomerate American monster to become more secretive and authoritarian. Limiting access to information, in order to stop future leaks, will reduce the monster's secretive and authoritarian effectiveness. The monster's "security state" will dumb down, and --here's the moment of religious rapture in Assange's prophecy -- this will increase global justice.

Assange also links this shackling of America to creating peace. Don't snicker too long. There are a lot of tenured gray-haired profs with ponytails who teach this dreck at notable universities and get paid for it.

Assange understands media grandstanding, but he doesn't understand people and certainly doesn't understand how American diplomats contribute to maintaining peace.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates understands people and diplomacy, and his assessment of Assange's info dump is as clear as it is historically and psychologically informed. At the Pentagon last week, Gates said: "The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it's in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us and not because they believe we can keep secrets. Many governments -- some governments -- deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation."

Gates added that the cables were "embarrassing" and "awkward," but the ultimate effects on policy would be "modest."

Pray that Gates is right about modest impact, but right now and for at least the next six months, the world confronts the possibility of a nuclear war in East Asia ignited by North Korean aggression. This is a time period when the world absolutely needs close -- and trustworthy -- cooperation between the U.S. and China. A big war in Korea could kill millions but will guarantee a global economic depression. Leaked cables discuss corruption in China's Communist Party and names hypocritical party elites.

Even if the information is accurate, this is a case where revealed candor damages personal relationships among key U.S. diplomatic personnel and Chinese leaders. China is a face culture, and the leaders have lost face. A mature appreciation of the common danger should override personal anger, but another leak revealed that China sees North Korea as a "spoiled child" and that it believes Korea will ultimately be reunited with South Korea absorbing the North. This revelation weakens China's political leverage with North Korea at a moment when any leverage is precious.

Assange, of course, did not consider how he increased the threat to the lives of millions of Korean, Japanese and Chinese when he dumped his filched documents. His faith-based narrative of American evil excludes the possibility that American diplomats are collaborating with China to avoid war and eventually put an end to North Korea's armed brinksmanship without a nuclear explosion.

Here's WikiLeaks' bottom-line revelation: Assange and ideologues like him promote an ignorant and destructive solipsism that has nothing to do with peace and justice but a lot to do with sociopathic narcissism.

I'm glad to see you're so unabashedly cocksure of your world views you've taken it upon yourself to point out the "rhetorical dishonesty" of others as measured by your inerrant yardstick of political insight and genius. And when you've humbly failed at this modest task, you've been more than gracious to take it upon yourself to teach those like me of our errors by converting our misguided comments into MadLibs.

Don't give up on us, dear lord, for we know not what we do.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
I seem to make little headway pointing out blankfist's rhetorical dishonesty, so this time I'm going to turn his own words against him.

bcglorf, I'm glad you see this as a success story. Breaking a few eggs to make that omelet, I see.

How droll. That straw man won't be getting up any time soon after a beating like that.

Your claiming cutting police wages will make these situations less frequent, and better handled. I make the more modest suggestion that slashing police salaries is a good way to recruit MORE guys like the murder, and less like his partner and the rest of the force that is prosecuting him.

I suppose you also still to prefer to hide from the challenge of who the majority of the police force resemble, the murder or the ones trying him?

as a raging feminist and a mother,.... i gotta disagree.

my kids grew out of the sesame street days years ago, and now are mortified of viewing or duplicating anything remotely attached to sesame street.

are little girls over sexualized in/by pop culture? yes
is it because they saw a pop stars cleavage on sesame street one time when they were 2? probably not.

do i think the same sample of parents will let their little girls idolize vapid, packaged, subtly sexualized and marketed teenage pop stars later in their lives? yes.
and let their little boys form a skewed idea of women and sexuality built around pop culture iconography and too much internet porn? yes.


>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/Stu" title="member since June 23rd, 2010" class="profilelink">Stu
Your point is my point exactly! Our culture is constantly filled with scantily clad females.
As soon as you change the channel you'll find a girl in a bikini is selling you some crap.
So in our hypersexualized marketing culture it's not a cop out to suggest that we promote modest behavior and select role models for young kids who practice modesty.
By obstinately defending Perry's right to show the top of her tits..
You're all missing the point completely.
And essentially condoning someone like Kesha teaching 3 to 7 yr olds their numbers and alphabet by rewording her song about binge drinking and causal drunk sex.
Some of these kids are going to become attached to these shitty artists.
Worship their albums and outfits and success and likely associate being half naked with success and popularity.
They don't even have to be told that. They just see the behavior and emulate it.
My point is. If you show kids racy glamorous popstars they'll aspire to that.
Maybe if you showed a female scientist or olympic athlete or district court judge more female youth would aspire to those things.
...Am i seriously the only windbag on videosift that hold this point of view?

@Stu
Your point is my point exactly! Our culture is constantly filled with scantily clad females.

As soon as you change the channel you'll find a girl in a bikini is selling you some crap.

So in our hypersexualized marketing culture it's not a cop out to suggest that we promote modest behavior and select role models for young kids who practice modesty.

By obstinately defending Perry's right to show the top of her tits..

You're all missing the point completely.
And essentially condoning someone like Kesha teaching 3 to 7 yr olds their numbers and alphabet by rewording her song about binge drinking and causal drunk sex.

Some of these kids are going to become attached to these shitty artists.
Worship their albums and outfits and success and likely associate being half naked with success and popularity.
They don't even have to be told that. They just see the behavior and emulate it.

My point is. If you show kids racy glamorous popstars they'll aspire to that.
Maybe if you showed a female scientist or olympic athlete or district court judge more female youth would aspire to those things.

...Am i seriously the only windbag on videosift that hold this point of view?

Upvote for the courage to actually show a woman's ass!! Last nsfw nudity vid i saw they practically jammed a lens up a guy's colon but modestly covered the female's. So sick of it.

@GeeSussFreeK I know what you mean. I'm definitely guilty of that type of partisan sorting you describe -- I'm sure blankfist is nodding his head at that.

I guess I mostly do it not so I know who's good or bad, but so I know who's the choir, and who're the skeptics. I like talking with skeptics more than preaching to the choir.

Lately though, I don't get the sense that politics is about conversations anymore. The left is pretty mad that even with the White House and huge majorities in both chambers of Congress, they barely got half of Obama's pretty moderate platform enacted.

The right is mad that Democrats still occasionally get modest legislative victories at all, since we're all un-American socialists who want to kill your grandmother, or something.

All signs point to two more years of a really awful status quo, at best. I don't even want to think about the worst case scenarios.

@blankfist I don't really care what label you give yourself. If lumping you in with "the right" offends you so much, perhaps you should focus more on pulling the other people in that category back into line with something more like what you believe.

Since you never seem to be able to discern my inferences when they're not blunt and explicit, I would say that my point was that Obama-as-candidate was laying out a pretty modest platform of things liberals thought could and should be done in the 2009-2013 time period, not everything the left would ever like to do if given unlimited power to implement the policies they'd like to see.

Obama-as-President with overwhelming majorities in Congress has, predictably, fallen short of even those modest goals. I'd say on the policy level a lot of that was due to the rather high proportion of both caucuses coming from DINOs like Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln.

That said, even if 2008's election had resulted in this fairytale fantasy where my specific conception of leftiness could be implemented switfly and irrevocably, I probably wouldn't have even thought to put farm subsidies on my list of Top 100 Things to Do.

In this world where even passing the most critical, common sense legislation there is (like cap & trade) requires major political battles, we're just not going to waste our energy on something that we don't think is particularly significant.

Ultimately, it's pretty much the same answer to either question at root (the politicians care more about making corporate donors happy than living up to the ideals they claim to hold true), but it does seem like it's more apt to ask why they survived under Bush than it is to ask why they haven't been eliminated by Obama since it supposedly is a priority for you guys, and the Republicans have far better party discipline than Democrats ever have.

Taken from LiveLeak...

War with Iran has already been decided by the powers that be and the modern-day quasi-declaration happened last Thursday. Using the same legislative and propaganda playbook that led to the Iraq War, the U.S. Government has just officially declared War on Iran. Reuters reported "Congress on Thursday approved tough new unilateral sanctions aimed at squeezing Iran's energy and banking sectors, whic More..h could also hurt companies from other countries doing business with Tehran. The House of Representatives passed the bill 408-8 and sent it to President Barack Obama for signing into law. The Senate had approved it 99-0 earlier in the day."


Congress hasn't officially voted for a Declaration of War since World War II. In modern times they use creative wording in bills that authorize the broad use of force across borders in the sweeping "War on Terror." The Bush Doctrine of preemptively attacking countries because they may pose a threat to America in the future was universally trashed by progressives, but is alive and well under Obama, the Prince of Peace, without one dissenting vote in the Senate. This authority is what the Obama Administration claims also gives them the legal argument to bomb sovereign countries like Pakistan.

This unilateral decision by the United States Congress comes on the heels of a 12-2 U.N. Security Council vote on June 8th to impose a "modest tightening of sanctions" against Iran. Of course, Russia and China have been assured that sanctions won't apply to their energy needs in order to secure their votes. After the vote President Obama asserted that, "these sanctions do not close the door on diplomacy."

However, the United States preempted this embargo vote in Congress by taking up an aggressive posture in tandem with Israel by deploying an Armada of Battleships to the Red Sea. There are now reports from the Israeli National News that, "The Israeli Air Force recently unloaded military equipment at a Saudi Arabia base, a semi-official Iranian news agency claimed Wednesday, while a large American force has massed in Azerbaijan, which is on the northwest border of Iran."

Now, it seems that the United States is working overtime to sell their war plans to potential allies. CIA chief, Leon Panetta appeared on ABC's This Week and announced that the Iranians, "have enough low-enriched uranium right now for two weapons. They do have to enrich it, fully, in order to get there. And we would estimate that if they made that decision, it would probably take a year to get there, probably another year to develop the kind of weapon delivery system in order to make that viable."

While world leaders negotiate their piece of the Iranian pie in G8 negotiations, the multinational fear campaign has begun. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Sunday that a CIA warning that Iran has enough uranium to build two atomic bombs was "worrying," and criticized Tehran's secrecy over its nuclear program. Gathered at the G8 Summit in Ottawa, world leaders now "fully believe" and are "worried" that a preemptive attack by Israel on Iran is inevitable. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told reporters that "Iran is not guaranteeing a peaceful production of nuclear power [so] the members of the G8 are worried and believe absolutely that Israel will probably react preemptively."


Enforcing an unprovoked embargo on a sovereign nation has been historically defined as an act of war. Unfortunately, very few of our elected officials know or understand history and therefore overwhelmingly voted for the new sanctions. Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), an outspoken critic of Iran sanctions, was one of the eight house members to vote against the measure. Here is Ron Paul from a few months ago comparing sanctions to an Act of War while discussing this bill; H.R. 2194 Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010.

The Bush-Obama Doctrine is the rule of tyrants. Clearly it looks like Israel and America are determined to preemptively strike Iran even though Iran has always maintained that their nuclear program is for peaceful energy production only. America has once again engaged in an Act of War on a sovereign nation that has not harmed, or even threatened to harm her. Iran's biggest crime appears to be sitting on a sea of crude at a time when oil-thirsty Neo-cons, who penned the Doctrine, rule the world. The coming war with Iran will not be pretty.

>> ^Unsung_Hero:

>> ^mxxcon:
>> ^Unsung_Hero:
>> ^mxxcon:
In Soviet Russia dogs eat you.

Too bad this didn't happen in Korea or your comment/meme would have been hysterically perfect!
my comments are always hysterically perfect regardless of their content, context, place or time of post.

Quite the modest one as well. You do realize I wasn't attacking your comment, right? Merely playing off of it.

and i was stating a scientific fact

>> ^mxxcon:

>> ^Unsung_Hero:
>> ^mxxcon:
In Soviet Russia dogs eat you.

Too bad this didn't happen in Korea or your comment/meme would have been hysterically perfect!
my comments are always hysterically perfect regardless of their content, context, place or time of post.


Quite the modest one as well. You do realize I wasn't attacking your comment, right? Merely playing off of it.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

For a modest fee, I could provide this service for anyone interested.


1 Z$?

For a modest fee, I could provide this service for anyone interested.

I used to believe in spiritual stuff. I would read things like scientists associated with the Institute of Noetic Sciences doing a joint study with mainstream scientists around 2004 in which both teams separately used the exact same equipment and procedures, but came up with results that supported their separate paradigms.

The Institute of Noetic Sciences folks thus concluded that reality literally conforms to your paradigm or something, and that we have to re-examine hundreds of years of science.

Now that I have more intellectual experience, I believe more sober-minded scientists will tell you that there are innumerable ways to unknowingly botch your study if you care about the outcome, and that's one of the reasons science is so notoriously difficult to do right.
>> ^Trancecoach:

Grad, Bernard. "Paranormal Healing and Life Energy." American Society for Psychical Research Newsletter 7 (1981).
——. "Some Biological Effects of the 'Laying on of Hands': A Review of Experiments with Animals and Plants." Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 59 (1965).
——. "A Telekinetic Effect on Plant Growth." International Journal of Parapsychology 3 (1961); 5 (1963).
Grad, Bernard, Remi J. Cadoret, and G. I. Paul. "The Influence of an Unorthodox Method of Treatment on Wound Healing in Mice." International Journal of Parapsychology 3, no. 2 (1961).

>> ^hpqp:
>> ^Trancecoach:
So there's actually been some hard data collected on the effects of prayer on healing. The effects are extremely modest (albeit statistically significant).
Dr. Bernard Grad worked with a self-proclaimed healer, Oskar Estabany, and observed that Estebany could "psychically" (i.e., prayer-at-a-distance) inhibit the damage caused by saline to red blood cells, thereby decreasing the healing time of wounds in mice, as compared to a control group of mice for whose healing was not prayed.
That said, I think this family needs to get the hint... unless of course the man's right, and the woman's foot IS all she has (and judging by her family, he might be right).

Link to study, please?