Since you all know I'm a cop (because I'm not afraid of admitting it), please list your occupations below so that I can find videos of people in your occupations misbehaving, so then we can all criticize and generalize about everyone in your profession.

thank you

Crap....I just took your word that I was wrong. Just minor googling shows me that I was essentially right, and what you speak of happened near the end of total allied control of Germany. We've essentially had bases there since the end of the war.
WIKI-
In practice, each of the four occupying powers wielded government authority in their respective zones and carried out different policies toward the population and local and state governments there. A uniform administration of the western zones evolved, known first as the Bizone (the American and British zones merged as of 1 January 1947) and later the Trizone (after inclusion of the French zone). The complete breakdown of east-west allied cooperation and joint administration in Germany became clear with the Soviet imposition of the Berlin Blockade that was enforced from June 1948 to May 1949. The three western zones were merged to form the Federal Republic of Germany in May 1949, and the Soviets followed suit in October 1949 with the establishment of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

In the west, the occupation continued until 5 May 1955, when the General Treaty (German: Deutschlandvertrag) entered into force. However, upon the creation of the Federal Republic in May 1949, the military governors were replaced by civilian high commissioners, whose powers lay somewhere between those of a governor and those of an ambassador. When the Deutschlandvertrag became law, the occupation ended, the western occupation zones ceased to exist, and the high commissioners were replaced by normal ambassadors. West Germany was also allowed to build a military, and the Bundeswehr, or Federal Defense Force, was established on 12 November 1955.

Will YOU stand corrected? ...or was this a misunderstanding of what I meant by 'why the bases are in Germany', because I do understand those reasons have changed over time, as you indicated...I was talking about the original reason we stationed American military there.

I'm guessing purely from a forces standpoint that if you were stood up, you'd be a lot more likely to survive than if you were lying down, like the video says. Mainly because your internal organs and brain are about to be decelerating, and you want to minimise the deceleration as much as possible. Your extremities might get pulverised, but without the organs they're not much use anyway.

There's some historic example about a 1945 bomber crashing into the Empire State Building, severing the ropes and inducing free-fall, but the lift's ropes coiled up and cushioned the occupant's fall and they lived. I just looked it up, and apparently only several times has free fall ever happened, only killing one person. But apparently people die from falling in the shafts, mechanics caught in machinery and strangulation from scarves caught in doors.

While i certainly appreciate your concern for menstrual cycles everywhere and i don't want to distract from your truly epic mic dropping moment against poor newt... can you honestly, with even the tiniest bit of objectivity go back and read through these posts and still act like your some kind of victim and sole occupant of the moral high ground?

You are absolutely right, the results of elections in Greece do not create an obligation for fiscal transfers from other European countries.

But that plays right into what Varoufakis has been saying for years, doesn't it? The program over the last seven years has reduced Greek output by a quarter, and thereby its ability to service and reduce its debt. The troika is offering more loans, loans that cannot be payed back, in return for a further reduction in Greece's ability to pay back those loans in the first place. Extend and pretend, all the way. Nevermind the humanitarian cost or the threat to democracy itself.

It is either counter-productive or aimed at a different goal entirely. Greece wants an end to those loans, and all the loss of sovereignty that comes with it, while the Eurogroup in particular wants to stick to a program that only increased Greece's dependency to a point where they can throw the entire country into unbearable misery at a moment's notice (e.g. cut ELA access).

Take the privatisation demands as an example. The program demands that Greece agrees to sell specific property at a specific price. Both parties are keenly aware that this price cannot be realised during a fire sale, yet they still demand a promise by the Greeks to do so. Any promise would be a lie and everyone knows it.

Same for the demanded specificity of Greece's plans. After decades of nepotism, a fresh government made up entirely of outsiders is supposed to draw up plans of more detail than any previous government came up with. And they cannot even rely on the bureaucracy, given that a great number of people in it are part of the nepotic system they are trying to undo in the first place.

Taxes, same thing. The first king of Greece (1832'ish) was a prince of Bavaria who was accompanied by his own staff of finance experts, and they failed miserably. Greece went through occupation, military junta and decades of nepotism, and the new government is supposed to fix that within months.

Those demands cannot be met. The Greeks know it, the troika knows it, the Eurogroup knows it.

Zizek called it the superego in his recent piece on Syriza/Greece:

"The ongoing EU pressure on Greece to implement austerity measures fits perfectly what psychoanalysis calls the superego. The superego is not an ethical agency proper, but a sadistic agent, which bombards the subject with impossible demands, obscenely enjoying the subject’s failure to comply with them. The paradox of the superego is that, as Freud saw clearly, the more we obey its demands, the more we feel guilty. Imagine a vicious teacher who assigns his pupils impossible tasks, and then sadistically jeers when he sees their anxiety and panic. This is what is so terribly wrong with the EU demands/commands: they do not even give Greece a chance – Greek failure is part of the game."

Aside from all that, the entire continent is in a recession. Not enough demand, not enough investment, unsustainable levels of unemployment. Greece was hit hardest, Greece was hit first. It's not the cause of the problem, it is the canary in the coal mine. And Italy is already looking very shaky...

I'm surprised he glosses over Israel's supposed right to expand land through military conquest. That's what perpetuates this conflict, civilian settlement in West Bank land with evictions of current Palestians using dodgy means.

The argument that the occupation is about security concerns is clearly hollow, it's been a process of gradual civilian settlement with the intent of the West Bank becoming part of Israel de facto for decades.

The trouble is, Arab population growth in both Israel and the West Bank will continue to outpace that of Jews and instead it will soon become an apartheid regime increasingly at conflict with itself.

At this point, Israel are basically holding a midget at arm's length, kicking him in the balls with steel toe caps whilst Palestine slap ineffectually at their hand.

Israel has the capability to deal with the attacks on "their" land (let's not forget the UN recognise much of their occupation as illegal) without indiscriminate shelling of areas populated by MOSTLY innocent civilians. They are basically investing in future terrorism by choosing not to do so, giving themselves an excuse to elaborate on their prison camp which we refer to as Palestine.

You don't have to be FOR hamas to be AGAINST the killing of innocents, and i'm afraid Israel does the lion's (and the lioness', and the cubs') share of that. They can and should be better than retaliation.

No way that car occupant survived at :20

I'm guess from you're tone your American, or at least only figure Americans are going to be reading? You note that 'we' can't get to the moon, while Chinese rovers navigate it's surface. You note with alarm what coastal Florida will face from sea level rise, and not an entire nation like Kiribati. When we look at a global problem we can't ignore technology just because it's Chinese, or focus so hard on Florida's coast we ignore an entire nation in peril.

Sea levels aren't going to be fine in 2099 and then rise a foot on the eve of 2100. They will continue to rise about 3mm annually, as they have already for the last 100 years.(on a more granular level slightly less than 3mm nearer 1900 and slightly more nearer 2100 but the point stands). Coastal land owners aren't merely going to see this coming. They've watched it happening for nearly 100 years already and managed to cope thus far. Cope is of course a bad word for building housing near the coast and at less than a foot above sea level. It's like how occupants at the base of active volcanoes 'cope' with the occasional eruption. All that is to say, the problem for homes built in such locations has always been a matter of when not if disaster will strike. The entire island nation of Kiribati is barely above sea level. It is one tsunami away from annihilation. Climate change though is, let me be brutally honest, a small part of the problem. A tsunami in 1914 would've annihilated Kiribati, as a tsunami today in 2014 would, as a tsunami in 2114 would. And we are talking annihilate in a way the 2004 tsunami never touched. I mean an island that's all uninhabited, cleared to the ground and brand new, albeit a bit smaller for the wear. That scenario is going to happen sooner or later, even if the planet were cooling for the next 100 years so let's be cautious about preaching it's salvation through prevention of climate change.

Your points on food production are, sorry, wrong. You are correct enough that local food growth is a big part of the problem. You are dead wrong that most, or even any appreciable amount is to blame on climate change now or in the future. All the African nations starving for want of local food production lack it for the same reason, violence and instability. From this point forward referenced as 'men with guns'. The people in Africa have, or at least had, the means to grow their own food. Despite your insistence that men with guns couldn't stop them from eating then, they still did and continue to. A farmer has to control his land for a whole year to plant, raise and harvest his crop or his livestock. Trouble is men with guns come by at harvest time and take everything. In places like the DRC or Somalia they rape the farmer's wife and daughters too. This has been going on for decades and decades, and it obviously doesn't take many years for the farmer to decide it's time to move their family, if they are lucky enough to still be alive. That is the population make up of all the refugee camps of starving people wanting for food. It's not a climate change problem, it's a people are horrible to each other problem. A different climate, better or worse growing conditions, is a tiny and hardly worth noting dent in the real problem.
CO@ emission restrictions do not equate to global economic downturn, they could just as easily mean global economic upturn as new tech is adopted and implemented.
I stated meaningful CO2 emission changes. That means changes that will sway us to less than 1 foot of sea level change by 2100 and corresponding temperatures. Those are massive and rapid reductions, and I'm sorry but that can not be an economic boon too. I'm completely confident that electric cars and alternative or fusion power will have almost entirely supplanted fossil fuel usage before 2100, and because they are good business. Pushing today though for massive emission reductions can only be accomplish be reducing global consumption. People don't like that, and they jump all over any excuse to go to war if it means lifting those reductions. That's just the terrible nature of our species.

As for glaciers, I did read the article. You'll notice it observed that increasing the spatial resolution of models changed the picture entirely? The IPCC noted this and updated their findings accordingly as well(page 242). The best guess by 2100 is better than 50% of the glaciers through the entire range remaining. The uncertainty range even includes a potential, though less likely GAIN of mass:
. Results for the Himalaya range between 2% gain and 29% loss to 2035; to 2100, the range of losses is 15 to 78% under RCP4.5. The modelmean loss to 2100 is 45% under RCP4.5 and 68% under RCP8.5 (medium confidence). It is virtually certain that these projections are more reliable than in earlier erroneous assessment (Cruz et al., 2007) of complete disappearance by 2035.

If you still want to insist Nepal will be without glaciers in 2100 please provide a source of your own or stop insisting on contradicting the science to make things scarier.

@Jerykk
i cant make heads nor tails what you are trying to convey.
are you making an argument for harsher prisons?
or an assertion that if they were less harsh people would WANT to go to prison?
that recidivism is irrelevant so we should just execute prisoners?

i agree that poverty leads to desperation which can lead to criminal activity.there is plenty of statistics to back that up,though interestingly those numbers are dropping in regards to poverty=crime.

as for your deterrence argument.
yeah..no.the numbers obviously dont add up.
right now there are more american citizens incarcerated than the soviet gulags of the 80's.in fact,america incarcerates more citizens per capita than any other nation in the world.

americas prison population=2.4 million..and rising.

which leads me to my next point.
what is the purpose of prison?
well,it should be to remove those violent elements from society and for the offenders who are non-violent a way to pay a debt to the society they betrayed (fill in the offense here ____).

when their time has been served (paid) then they are free to rejoin society and reintegrate themselves back into society.

but what if that system of punishment strips you of all dignity and humanity?treats you like an abandoned dog at the local animal shelter?physically beaten and spiritually shattered,just HOW to you rejoin normal society?

what then?
do you blame the inmate who was thrown into a inhumane system?or maybe..juuuuust maybe..it may be the SYSTEM which is the blame.

let us look at some stats shall we?
the private prison industry is the 9th largest lobbiest in the country.who lobby for stricter sentencing,zero tolerance and mandatory jail time.a new trend in this area is now regarding teens AND pre-teens.they also make contracts with the local government to have a certain % occupancy.(meaning that even if those beds are not filled,the company STILL gets paid).

and lets not forget those kick backs to the local judges.already 25 judges this year got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

the idea that prison is a deterrence has been debunked.
there are over 5000 federal laws NOT including state and local.so at any given time,in any given day,YOU have perpetrated a federal crime.

the idea the prison is for rehabilitation is utter bullshit,another liberal feel-good "look at the good we are doing" trope.

prison is a business.
based on the mafia principle.
it is about making the poor a commodity and exploiting their lack of resources to fight back.
recidivism?
thats just repeat customers.american prisons care zippo about recidivism.

again i reference the milgram experiment.
treat people like animals and they will soon behave like animals.
treat them with humanity and dignity and the outcome is far more positive for a society as a whole..we ALL benefit.

but the private prisons dont want that..it means less profit for them.

the norden is doing it right and the results are impressive.

@scheherazade
bingo!

the courts are a racket.
ideals and principles are all well and good,full of fluffy bunnies and rainbows but the hard facts are that the,ironically named "justice system" ,is simply a money extraction machine.

its business,with little or nothing to do with actual truth or justice.

its a pay to win system.
you have the cash?
well here is your fine and have a nice day.
you're broke?
fuck you...pay me.
no job?
fuck you..pay me.
cant pay?
fine i have a nice little cell where we get a kickback for your time spent and just for a nice,good kick in the balls..we are going to charge you for everything and double it for privileges,because we have a 20 year contract with the local privately owned prison and we guaranteed 90% occupancy.

what did people think was going to happen with all the austerity going around? the roads still need to be maintained.cops need to be paid,schools need to open,water needs to be treated and rich people/corporations sure as fuck dont wanna pay for any of that bullshit..so fuck you poor people!

welcome to the grinding machine that is your local courthouse!

fuck you and have a nice day!

I wonder what sort of stuff would be on american television if they were imprisoned and illegally settled by another people? Are we also to call le resistance terrorists too? Polish ghetto uprising? They are similar to Hamas. But fortunately, that occupation didn't last long enough for children to grow into lifeless, soulless terrorists who had every shred of humanity ripped from them when they saw their childhood friends, pets, family ripped to pieces by indiscriminate shelling. God, if you didn't hate "the people" who did that beforehand, you would after. I don't support Hamas, but you can't possibly try to suggest they wouldn't exist anywhere else given the same circumstances. And furthermore you can't act like Israel's death tally is anything but an investment in MORE TERRORISM.

The numbers matter though - the numbers you see represents a massacre. If you took time to look it up, you'd find the majority of those killed in Palestine were women and children - something like 700, and it's rising, so even if you counted every Palestinian male above 18 was a terrorist using a child as a literal human shield, that's still more Palestinians than terrorists. This "human shield" thing hasn't been proven in any kind of article i've seen anyway, and i suspect it's simply to dehumanise them for western palatability.

It's the world's biggest concentration camp. Even the UN are beginning to say words to the effect now, do you think they go against American interests for fun?

Given the balance of women and children killed to men, and even allowing every man to be considered a terrorist, how can you think that 700 women and children to two is a matter of equality in everything but weaponry, and how can that be used to justify continuing on this path of destruction? Surely 700:2 has to be a good argument for a different approach?

I'm not after an argument here man, i'm trying to explain the other viewpoint.. More PEOPLE are dying by Israeli weapons than combatants, that is not a good way to end the hatred that leads to terrorist attacks..

Hamas exists as a direct response to the Israeli occupation and illegal settlement of Palestinian lands. They then kick the hornets nest by periodic and blatant bombing of civilian targets, and top it off with taking even more land. I fail to see what other reaction they expect.

Yes. That is what has happened.

In Gaza.

Under IT"S OCCUPATION BY ISRAEL.

...and It is Gaza suffering loss of life right now. NOT ISRAEL.

Very first thing I thought when I first saw civilian camera drones was that voyeurism is no longer a ground floor occupation.