A compulsory buyback is still... more of a confiscation, in my mind.

In the US, areas with a "demonstrate a need" law usually end up "only if you have connections," in practice. But regardless, I overstated, yes, but the point is that the restrictions listed here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia#Firearms_categories

Are restrictions that 1) no one in the US would dare propose 2) would require a constitutional amendment or a new Supreme Court ruling. They are undoubtedly effective, but they just aren't going to happen in the US, and few people are trying to get them to happen. So pointing to Australia's success with those laws is not really indicative as to how proposals in the US will fare.

Australian firearm ownership is at 3-4%. You'd be crucified if you tried to get US ownership down to that level.

I realize everyone is foaming at the mouth and positive of what happened here, but it should be noted that Israel denies hitting the hospital, and that the United Nations had not confirmed the source of the blasts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/25/world/middleeast/despite-talk-of-a-cease-fire-no-lull-in-gaza-fighting.html?_r=0

Everyone wants to paint Israel like this giant monster, but things are being way overstated. Let's get serious. If Israel was embarking on a program of "ethnic cleansing" they could easily kill every last person in Gaza. Seems clear enough to anyone that this is not what they're trying to do.

If Hamas was in Mexico shooting rockets at Texas half the people shouting genocide at Israel would be wearing little yellow ribbons hoping our soldiers all come back safe from our Mexican invasion.

I have a hard time imagining, or believing, that anyone purposely bombed a hospital full of children. But I can easily believe accidents of all kinds will happen in a battleground the size of Detroit.

Not really. @Xaielao is saying that the author of the poem is vastly overstating the extent of the problem.

Honestly, I've seen more videos complaining about this behaviour than I have actual evidence of this behaviour. I dunno, maybe it's a generational thing. My friends and I will occasionally use our phones while socialising, but generally it's along the lines of "what time is the movie we're going to see" or "what's the weather looking like for our road trip tomorrow", and very occasionally "did you see <friend who lives overseas> just had a baby?". I don't think we've ever sat around separately browsing.

Can people be rude and obnoxious with their phones or with social media? Of course, but the problem is not phones or social media, the problem is assholes. Take away phones and social media, and they will just find another way to be assholes.

Like right now, I'm going to be an asshole and explain to @Xaielao that when you're posting your opinions, you should use correct fucking grammar!

I think your quote may be wrong, quantum physics deals only with the sub-atomic level.
Atoms and/or molecules do not behave like some particles do. Particles also can't be in 2 places at once, but appear to be able to move from one place to another without traveling between. It's an incredibly difficult science to understand, more so when it's basic principles are misunderstood.
This has nothing whatsoever (or barely anything, nothing directly) to do with evolution. It is an attempt at explaining the sub atomic world, not the atomic one. Evolution happens in the macro/atomic level and larger. It MAY happen in some unknown way in the sub atomic level, but hasn't been noted or studied there that I know of.
Did I state or imply that 'there's no way gawd did it'? I don't think so, you are projecting. While I don't 'believe' in gawd(s), I do leave open the miniscule possibility it exists, or that one did before the big bang....one problem is there's no real set definition for gawd, so if something outside our universe created this one, is that "gawd"? Must it be super-natural, or simply a creator? Must it exist in our universe to count? How about in our perceptible dimensions? Could it just be alien to our universe, but not a supernatural omniscient direct human creator? There's far too many points of view on that to have consensus of what constitutes a 'gawd'.
I will state that there's no proof, or even evidence, of a (or many) gawd(s). That said...Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, (thanks Mr Jackson), so there's also no 'proof' it doesn't exist (it's hard or impossible to prove a negative).
Jumping to the conclusion that, because there's no proof of no gawd, it must exist, is also close minded against the high probability (likelihood) that it doesn't, and never did, exist outside human minds.
Science and gawd don't go together or explain each other any more than addition explains a words spelling. They're totally different arenas of thought. Thinking that science 'proves' the existence of 'gawd' either greatly overstates the 'proof' or completely misunderstands science. At best, science doesn't disprove the existence of 'gawd(s)', but then again that was never the mission of science or real scientists...they don't deal with/in theology at all.
I would point out that, most Christians (or any religious people really) have repeatedly 'proven' the non-existence of 'gawd(s)' to themselves...all gawds except the one they think exists....but for some reason the one they believe in is exempt from all the proofs (math term, not bad English).

EDIT: What science has done is disprove most, if not all 'proofs' put forward alleging to prove the existence of gawd(s), and also removed all requirements for ones existence to explain the universe and existence.

America expanded NATO and rearmed Germany a country that and invaded and nearly destroyed Russia twice in that century. We didn't keep to our treaties and we rarely ever do.

Russia was a weak superpower in the Cold War actually, they had been under rapid industrialization but were basically moving from being mostly farmland so it was superficial. The amount of power they had was greatly exaggerated. The thing is when you have the two LARGEST propaganda systems on Earth saying that Russia is indeed a very significant threat and that they are Socialist you can't really fight that with facts because people are too emotional about the situation.

If history says anything we will likely overstate Russias power and influence. Our "Containment" of them will really be more of a power grab to increase our influence all over the world.

What's interesting is the American public is kind of sick of this shit. You see the media and the administration and tons of people on the Hill talking about how awful Putin and Russia is. How they're going to take over places bit by bit and everything is going to hell, how terrible this is, but many in the public don't believe them and don't give a shit. We're sick of this lying crap, we don't believe the President when he says we have to invade a new place anymore and he looks like an idiot when everyone shuts him down.

So my prediction is the media will do more screaming, more wringing of hands and yelling at people about why don't they care about this or that. They'll make things up, sensationalize conflicts and basically use propaganda all while ignoring our crimes and situations we're responsible for.

This was long and pointless with no citations but I've decided I don't care, take this as my opinion and shove a salt lick down your throat.

Yes, and loved it I went with my wife on a rare child-free outing.

It was a bit odd that they played down the fact that Lauda and Hunt were actually friends, and shared a flat at one point. I'm also deeply suspicious of the film's version of the crash, since footage appeared to show a car which was working perfectly and which oversteered only due to a small driver error. Minor quibbles though, and a hugely entertaining film.

Do enlighten me: How do you think "dominant corporation(s) or collusion thereof [will] strongarm retailers?" That simply won't happen. Rather, there will be fewer barriers to entry for other widget manufacturers to enter the market, either independently or working for competing "dominant" corporations when they discover that it's more profitable to not be "paid off" but to compete in the market instead.

A dominant corporation cannot buy every possible competitor. That's absurd. And there will always multiple "dominant" corporations, and not just one, or one and a number of "start-ups." Where there is Coke, there will be Pepsi. Where there is Apple, there will be Samsung. In a free market, monopolies and cartels cannot exist except in the very short term and at an eventual loss (unless they have the primary monopoly of the government to back them up).

If there are patents, there's no free market. A free market, by definition, must exclude all patent, trademark, copyright, and other such IP law. So, you may have picked the worst example.

Free markets without patents is not a problem at all. Not for the market and not for consumers. Companies may just be more careful about spies. They certainly wouldn't be incentivized (like they are now) to spend $millions just to hold patents on products that are never produced, only to corner the market and "strongarm" competitors (like they do now).

Companies like Bed, Bath & Beyond have been trying to price upstarts out of the market for years, decades even! And they're still not able to get rid of competitors! Same can be said about Walmart. Many stores other than Walmart sell TVs, even at higher prices, and remain competitive. Other stores sell linens besides BB&B. So, you have a distorted view of how markets actually work. No one corporation can monopolize the sale of any goods or services. That's just incorrect (unless the government helps them to do so). It just doesn't happen.

There's no such thing as a "natural monopoly." Name one. In Texas, for example, there are competing utility providers, and people can choose which energy service to use. This is in contrast to CA, where most of us are forced to "choose" PG&E over zero other alternatives.

"Restriction of information/prevention of rational, informed consumers"

I'm sorry, but anyone who has been involved in business knows this is complete horseshit. If you have a better product/service (the only way to outdo the competition), you will let the customers/market know right away.

And there's no scale at which markets collapse. The same forces of the market apply to big, small, and medium businesses. There is no arbitrary size for which these forces do not apply. And keep in mind that without government granted privileges, corporations would be much smaller than they are now, because competition would make it easier for competitors to participate, thereby forcing a re-allocation of resources to accommodate the market's demands.

So, yes you most certainly "overstated" your case. All markets can be free, regardless of size. Whether it's a small farmer's market or Whole Foods. The same market forces apply. They all have to court voluntary customers through service, price, quality, etc. Again, anyone who has had to work with marketing will know this.

BTW, things like "price dumping" are circumvented all the time. Does Rolls Royce care that Hyundai sells cheaper cars? Does Mercedes care that a Prius is less expensive?

Target makes money because Walmart is cheaper, not in spite of it!
And everything Walmart sells, you'll find many other stores selling it, even though Walmart might sell it cheaper.
The local natural food store in my neighborhood sells, more or less, the same things as Whole Foods. None of your objections pose any real problems in the real world.

I don't see Walmart buying every other TV seller, or even trying to do this. Microsoft tried but, so what? They failed, because they could not buy every single competitor in the software world, could they?

Even in Somalia, to use @enoch's example, in the telecommunications industry (to pick one that saw growth), no one even remotely managed to do any of the things you say could happen. In 20 years, no corporation did any of these things. Why not?

Because they couldn't.

And did "dominant" corporations take over all small retailers and sellers? No way, not even close! They couldn't. Only regulations can really kill all small retailers (and they do it all the time). Your outrage is gravely misplaced. Do the countless bazaars and sellers of Turkey, India, or Thailand get taken over by "dominant" corporations?

Hint: No.

Only when government meddles, do the big corporations wipe out the little ones, and sometimes each other.

In any case, Coke will not eliminate Pepsi (or Sprite, or Dr. Pepper, or A&W), government or no government.

All markets are free at inception, and no markets are free in practice. Why do you think this is?

A few ways to suppress competition, off the top of my head?
Dominant corporation(s) or collusion thereof strongarms retailers into not carrying competitors products.

Dominant corporation(s) or collusion thereof pays off widget manufacturers to not provide widgets to competitors.

Dominant corporation(s) or collusion thereof simply buys and buries competitors, disruptive technologies, whatever.

Free market with patents (antithetical concepts?): Dominant corporation(s) or collusion thereof refuses to license patents to competitors.

Free market without patents (this has too many problems to enumerate, but just picking one): Espionage. R&D is squandered when a competitor steals your trade secrets/reverse engineers your products, sells it for a pittance.

Price dumping. Dominant corporation(s) or collusion thereof with large cash reserves simply prices upstarts out of the market.

This list is just off the cuff, is by no means exhaustive, ignores other things like:

1) "Natural" monopolies (utilities, roads, railways, etc.)
2) Restriction of information/prevention of rational, informed consumers
a) Side note: In a free market, this is the only place you can go to for environmental protection, avoidance of the tragedy of the commons.

Edit: Okay, I may have overstated my case. Very small-scale interpersonal markets can be free. That farmer's market that's too small to attract the big guys, that's pretty free. There's a scale at which it collapses, though.

The wording "is funded by the US gov" is misleading though to in that it implies the majority of funding for Egypt's military is coming from the US. That's simply not true. The US donates upwards of 1 billion to the Egypt as a whole, the percentage that goes direct to military isn't disclosed that I can see, but it's safe to say with the military running/owning the entire country it is primarily going to the military. The flipside is that so is the majority of Egypt's domestic $230 billion GDP. The US contribution no doubt influences Egypt's military decision making, but not so as to dominate them. More over, purely diplomatic pressure from the US will hold more sway over any party in Egypt than that kind of money.

All that said, I don't see the omission as so terribly glaring. Pressure from American foreign policy, and foreign policy of ALL world governments, plays a role on Egyptian domestic matters, but it's ranking for overall influence is beneath the topics hit in the talk. The talk seems well prioritized, and US financial aid ranks even lower than policy pressure so I don't begrudge, or even find surprise, at it's omission.

If you overstate the influence of America it can quickly reach a racist point where the underlying logic is that the poor egyptians and arabs are so weak and ineffectual that they can't be expected to stand against a mere whim of white westerners.

I agree with the concept here, but I think he is overstating it a bit. Actively selling out your own people/family while slavery was actively occurring is rather worse than forgetting (or never learning) that your religion was used as a tenuous justification for slavery many many generations ago.

On the other hand, a more contemporary spinoff of this that lends further weight to the argument can be found in the widespread apprehension amongst whites back in the 60's and 70's that all or most of the African American population would convert to Islam. A lot of writings by prominent white people of that era show just how terrifying that prospect was for them, and many candidly justified that fear by saying that it would reduce or eliminate the level of control that whites had over the black population. Pretty disgusting stuff to read from a modern point of view.

Actually, I'm fairly surprised that wave petered out as quickly as it did. Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, and others brought the trend of blacks converting to Islam into national attention; but it didn't gain as much traction as many whites of the time feared. It would be interesting to see a study into the whys of that -- my best (yet unfortunately rather stereotype-based) guess is that many single-parent or head-of-household African American mothers were reluctant to let their sons convert from their family's traditional Christian upbringing and suppressed or quashed a lot of the momentum of the movement in its early stages.

Interesting. I've got a semi-relevant story, but I get long winded so feel free to skip to the next comments if you like.

My wife (Thai) and I (American) had our first daughter this year. When she first got pregnant, one of the doc's first priorities was to get us both tested for "Thalassemia", which I had never heard of before. Apparently it is a blood disorder that affects hemoglobin production and therefore red blood cells -- if both parents carry the (rather rare) recessive gene, it can be a pretty bad deal.

It turned out that my wife is in the 1% or so of Thais that carry the gene (but she doesn't express / suffer from it, it is recessive and she has the dominant gene also). I had to get tested as well, but they said it would be incredibly unlikely that I'd be positive and I wasn't. So, our daughter has a 25% chance of being a carrier like my wife but zero chance of suffering from the effects of it.

Anyway, I was curious about the disease and asked the doc why it is a big deal here (every pregnant couple MUST get screened for it here when getting hospital/prenatal care) but I'd never even heard of it in the US. It turns out that the disease / genetic mutation arose only in places with high rates of malaria. As it happens, the genetic effect on your blood cells that the mutation has makes you more resistant to malaria -- full-on exhibitors of it (two recessive genes) are far less likely to die of malaria than people that don't have the gene. That is, assuming that you don't have the extreme variants of it that make it very unlikely to survive early childhood. Basically, if you have the disease and yet are healthy enough to survive to adulthood, you're close to malaria immune (that's overstating it, but ballpark). The malaria parasite can't survive and reproduce properly on your funky Thalassemia-affected red blood cells.

I thought that was a pretty interesting evolutionary response that must have arisen from some populations being pretty much decimated by malaria back in pre-recorded history. Current carriers like my wife are probably the descendants of lucky folks that survived a deadly outbreak in history by virtue of having a disease/mutation that is, under normal circumstances, slightly or even extremely bad in species survival / reproductive fitness terms. I thought that was kinda cool -- but I'm glad that neither my wife nor my daughter are/can be full-on expressors of the gene.

Fair enough. I probably hastily overstated that part.

Give me a 914 with a Subaru motor or a 944 and I'd flog it all day long.

If I was gonna get something with snap oversteer I'd get a 1989 SuperCharged MR2 (mostly for the body style)

The Cannabis Cup has nothing to do with medical marijuana, it is a recreational marijuana event, normally held in Amsterdam.

Where there is no difference, is between a bunch of people drinking alcohol and these people smoking marijuana... well save for the fact these people aren't using something that destroys their bodies as much, it doesn't make them more violent and irritable and overly confident in themselves and their reaction time, and the high ends much sooner than the drunkards drunkenness (but can be detected in the system for far longer); but hey let's keep wasting billions of tax dollars keeping up a sham of a double standard so we can keep prisons over crowded with non-violent drug offenders, let's waste police resources finding people smoking or growing a plant,rather than violent criminals that pose an actual threat to society... because that makes perfect sense in opposite world.

Make no mistake, the supposed tax revenue that proponents of legalization make are a bit overstated since it is relatively easy to grow (to grow period, to grow quality stuff not so easy or cheap) compared to brewing one's own beer or something, but there would be some.

It is the height of hypocrisy to say marijuana should be illegal while saying people should be allowed to drink/make/brew beer, wine or other such drinks or us tobacco products.

@daxgaz, @grinter and @Bruti79

I know some of you are joking, but I think you're overstating the risk here. Shark attacks against humans are rare. Shark attacks against divers are even rarer. Shark attacks against divers underwater are practically nil.

The risk of doing this vs (for example) surfing at dusk are much lower. Personally, I'd say it's worth the risk for the chance to interact with one of the most amazing creatures on the planet.