I agree....mostly.
My plan, for when I'm emperor, is one tax rate based on the budget that pays for everything in full (no deficit, and pay off the debt) and puts 2% in the bank yearly for future unforseen disasters, with a base deduction of whatever poverty level in your state is +100%, so people barely out of poverty pay nothing.
Whatever that number is should be applied across the board, no loopholes, no special tax rates for certain types of income, no extra exemptions, nothing.
Also, 100% tax on money hidden offshore to avoid taxation and use RICO on the church(s) to pay off most of the debt first.


Yes, there were many reasons why the job market was good in the 50's for white guys, most of which are unthinkable or impossible today. For instance, a single income household with one average salary could not only save, they could often have a continuously rising standard of living. There's no way today, even on two incomes most families are in debt and downwardly mobile.

Amazing that there has been so much video from this disaster to repair.

Hubris.

WW2 japan had fighters that flew faster, climbed quicker, had bigger guns, and turned quicker (a6m vs f4f). And we had intel reports that told us, but we ignored them because "we have the best stuff and nobody else can compete".

You see the same stuff today with China. China makes all of our microchips, all of our microelectronics, most of which are designed over there anyways (companies here just ask for a widget that does X and Y, and Chinese companies design+make it), yet we act like as if they are some technologically retarded place that only knows how to steal ip.

Russia has been at the forefront of rocketry since ww2. Nobody has systems that compare to their consistency and reliability. Not even the U.S.. The idea that Russia can't make a hyper sonic missile before the U.S., because it's Russia, is a non sequitur.

Also, Russia broke up as a country because guaranteed government jobs for all citizens, where you can't be fired and performance is not important, is going to destroy any economy. No one will produce, shelves will be empty, and money will be no more than paper. Combine that with making private business illegal (preventing people from economically helping themselves), and you have a recipe for economic disaster and social discontent.

This missile exists to swat down carrier groups on the cheap.
We're gonna need some powerful lasers, or our own hyper sonic interceptors, or else proliferation would instantly leave us isolated in the Americas (vis-a-vis power projection via conventional weaponry). Our only option for projecting power would be reduced to nuclear or nothing.

-scheherazade

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Love your reply and POV. You got it pretty much 100% right IMO. I admit, as I Christian, I went in from a far more cynical perspective because this "wholly uninterested god" is way different from the God of the Bible. Not that God didn't bring some crazy disasters on humans in the OT, but damn, not this way or purpose as in the videos.

I don't mind people mocking God or Christians or overly religious zealots of any faith. Many are wholly deserved to be mocked. People (that includes me, God knows I'm a dumbass, lol) need to be held responsible for their own crap & offensiveness and be called out.

Still, I feel this series is not helping any discussion, just good for a laugh (maybe?) and some decent video editing & production. It's harmless if seen as a philosophical piece.

I'd love to see some intelligent, cool-headed no-trolling discussions on the pros & cons, history & evolution of religion and such. But it's really tough when religion is so politicized (especially in the USA) and often hijacked for self-serving purposes. (Godly man Roy Moore my ass!)

I live in Canada, and I would call myself a Christian in public here, but in the US? No freaking way... it's not out of fear of being mocked and anything... it's that I hardly see me as anything similar to those "evangelicals" from my own limited exposure to them in US media. It's like they're a different (offensive) beast.

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Lol. Quote CNN, it's "repeating what lying disgraced fake news CNN says". Don't quote CNN, it's "I don't hear that on CNN".
Anything to be dismissive, eh Bob?
Sorry, I think for myself. I understand that's a foreign concept to you....but you really should try it sometime.

So, you watch a right wing crybaby claim the right is too infantile and unpatriotic to accept a likely legal future, and claim they (you) are going to throw an adult tantrum if you don't get your way, and your answer is "the crybabies are from the left". *facepalm.
Funny, I don't recall those leftist crybabies threatening revolt and armed insurrection when Clinton was investigated unfairly by unambiguously anti Clinton investigators for years on end, then impeached over being a good lawyer with a good vocabulary ("is" doesn't mean "was").

24/7/375 anti Trump reporting, because he's a disaster 24/7/365. It's not propaganda if it's true.

Trump polls dropped to 60% disapproval. Duh.

I agree there...only the fake stories help worried conservatives in their resolve, because only fake stories support Trump. Honest reporting turns adults against Trump.

All the antifa protest, huh? Funny, I haven't heard about them except as a distraction or subject change mentioned by you in some time.
#walk away is not real, Bob, except the part describing conservatives #walkingaway from Trump. Hanging your hat on liberals leaving Democrats and joining Republicans because Democrats are too nasty, are overtly racist, and are hyper supportive of Russia simply isn't going to go well for you.

Bob, you represent what's wrong in America....1/4 of us have lost touch with reality and decided that any fact they don't like can just be dismissed as a lie, no matter how factual it is, and an industry has grown to sell you stories that reinforce that mindset. (No one said Murdoch isn't smart). You are firmly in that willingly self blinded group, still supporting a undeniably disloyal, honorless, petulant fraud and consummate liar and fooling yourself that you're in a majority. 36% (his approval rating) isn't a majority, 60% (his disapproval rating) is.....but unflattering numbers are fake news, right?

I've been following this story here. Sure was happy when they were found alive -- I had started to lose much hope after they'd been gone 4+ days.

The bad news today is that a Thai volunteer diver, a former SEAL, died on a return trip from setting up extra air supply tanks along the route. BBC coverage is very good:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44734385

Most cave diving experts think that it would be extremely risky to try to move the kids out by diving. One of the on-scene people from the US has said that none of the boys know how to swim, let alone dive, and the conditions in cave diving make it so that panic can quickly lead to disaster.

Unfortunately, a new complication has come up. Oxygen levels in the chamber they are in are now at 15%, down from the usual 21%. They are working to get piping in to supply fresh air, but logistics of that are difficult since they need about 3 miles of piping. And to make matters worse, heavy rains are in the forecast, which will further stress the pumping that they are doing to keep water levels low in the cave.

The Thai head of the Navy rescue operation was quoted today as saying that "At first, we thought the children could stay for a long time... but now things have changed, we have a limited time." If that is correct and can't be resolved (due to dropping oxygen levels, rising water, or whatever), they may have to opt for the risky exit via diving. So definitely not out of the woods yet.

Choking is a perfectly valid submission technique for someone posing a threat to the cop or other people.

I'm not saying that happened here, because there's no context in the video.

Clearly, the guy is resisting arrest, but we have no idea whether a) the arrest was warranted in the first place or b) whether this was a proportionate response.

Neither can you deny that there's a strong possibility this wouldn't have happened if the guy was white.

As for the cop, he should be suspended with pay while the investigation is carried out. We apply the same "innocent until proven guilty" standard to police that we do to everyone else. On the flipside of that, if he's found guilty of misconduct, he shouldn't just be fired, he should face jail time for assault and abuse of power.

Finally, suggesting that crowds should "turn on police" is a recipe for disaster. There are zero good outcomes from that. At best, you have police unable to do their jobs in case of crowd violence, and at worst, you end up with people being killed.

No matter how unjustified you feel your treatment is, it's important to remember that resisting arrest is very much at your own risk. The law varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but even where it IS allowed, if the arrest later turns out to be lawful, you will be charged with an additional crime.

Looks like disaster was averted because the planes on the ground hit the "high beams"...

Trump is a fucking disaster at every conceivable level. He's a terrible president, a shitty businessman and a failure on the most basic human levels.

The question is: do we call this a special circumstance and disregard our own standards of civil discourse? Do we NEED to abandon etiquette (and possibly ethics) because the alternative is so much worse?

Or does that just play into his hands? Insulting Trump like this is kinda like playing chess with a pigeon — it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.

And THAT is his one skill.

I stick with step 0- stick out tongue, go full crazy stare, and freeze in hopes the disaster will mistake me for a stuffed animal and pass me by.

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