I think we should really be looking at solving our population and resource problems first. In the US we live in one of the richest countries in the world and we can't even properly feed, house and clothe the people we have now, but sure, let's add immortality or at least radically extended lifespans to that mix.

My post was in the context of mass murder and gun regulation. Blaming the gun, fearing the tool and having a knee jerk response to do 'something' to avoid something like this - I think leads to initiatives that just will not have any true effect unless we examine everything at play here. People get very frustrated and want solutions right away. Gun regulation is an easy out. But in the end, what really needs to be looked at is mental health issues, poverty issues, resource access issues, venue security and education for more returns on your investment. People intent on mass murder are just not going to be deterred or hindered by regulations.

Syria had a fractured military, where part went with Assad, and part went with the [effectively "Neo Hama"] rebellion (i.e. anti secularist rebellion).
Russia supported Assad.
Militants from the region came to support the rebellion and were given shelter and resources by rebels.
(Which is why moderate Muslims, Christians, atheists, etc, are now hiding on Assad's side of the conflict (or running to Europe))
That place really sucks. If you're a regular person, the options are bad and worse.

Land and buildings don't produce wealth and taxes without people.

-scheherazade

Same ratio or worse in Syria with insanely more powerful weapons available to citizens and a far lower grade military...actually far more tilted against the military....the military that has won. (Against multiple enemies both foreign and domestic)
Yes, bombs damage assets, but not territory, which is what's really at stake. Buildings only have value if they're in your territory, so if they aren't, it's beneficial to destroy them.
No civil population has successfully denied an armed military what they need to function since the Nazis failed in Russia that I know of. It's really not as simple as it sounds, the only effective way to deny them your resources is to destroy them.

In the Arab spring, I think the government was overthrown because military leaders decided to stand with the people in short order. It could have been quite different, in places it was. This is a better, more recent example of your point, imo.

all right since you know so much, let's have some sources

1/3 of the number of resources are in PR than either FL or TX; there have already been more deaths in PR than either FL or TX; there is something like over 1/2 of the people that haven't even been contacted yet to see how they're doing; I read about a reporter that was 45 miles from the capital and they had dozens of people asking them if they were FEMA

I believe he is right in speaking on state's rights but I think his example is not well thought out. He compares many of his and others views on rights and says that it's their turn to act like the rednecks in the 60s who wanted to maintain segregation. Well if he looks back at what happened he won't be too happy. The US government stepped in and said Nope ain't gonna happen and used the courts, military, and other resources to force the beginning of the end of segregation. So to carry his analogy to it's logical conclusion then the US government would step in and say Nope to their sanctuary cities, gay marriage,women's choice, and all of the other concepts he listed.

Like I said I believe in state's rights and agree with him in concept on what he was saying. Just think he used a very poor analogy to make his point.

That's a great resource. ty.

I agree, but that's why the antifa people do far more harm than good, even though their stated intentions may be good their methods aren't.

They allow it to be framed as a choice between actually violent Nazis/right and actually violent PC fascists/left. (This couldn't be better for the Nazis, as the extreme right is far larger, older, better prepared, with far more resources than the extreme left and I think they're orgasmic they're managing to turn the national narrative into a battle of extremist ideals.)

I think that's the moral relativism being attempted, and no reasonable person wants either choice.
All that said, I also think there isn't really a choice to be made between the two, but I still firmly refuse both.

http://www.ireport.com/themes/custom/resources/swfplayer/mediaplayer.swf appears to be *dead.

Picking up meals from homes, delivering them to people at work, then taking the lunch box back to their home...
Seems like an incredible waste of resources.

By Joel Clement July 19 at 4:10 PM

Joel Clement was director of the Office of Policy Analysis at the U.S. Interior Department until last week. He is now a senior adviser at the department’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue.

I am not a member of the deep state. I am not big government.

I am a scientist, a policy expert, a civil servant and a worried citizen. Reluctantly, as of today, I am also a whistleblower on an administration that chooses silence over science.

Nearly seven years ago, I came to work for the Interior Department, where, among other things, I’ve helped endangered communities in Alaska prepare for and adapt to a changing climate. But on June 15, I was one of about 50 senior department employees who received letters informing us of involuntary reassignments. Citing a need to “improve talent development, mission delivery and collaboration,” the letter informed me that I was reassigned to an unrelated job in the accounting office that collects royalty checks from fossil fuel companies.

15:05-15:30: you tell Mr and Mrs Front-Porch that your loonie of 1871 cannot be compared to your loonie of 2013 (year of this interview). You went off the gold standard in '33, you abandoned the peg in '70, and your currency has been free-floating ever since. Yes, the ratio of debt to GDP has some importance, but so does the nature of your currency. Just look at Greece and Japan, where the former uses a foreign currency and the latter uses its own, sovereign, free-floating currency.

Pay back the national debt -- have you thought that through?

First, the Bank of Canada is the monopolist currency issuer for the loonie, so explain to me in detail just how the issuer of the currency is supposed to borrow the currency from someone else? If you're the issuer of the currency, you spend it into existence, and use taxation as a means to create demand for your currency, and to free resources for the government to acquire, because you can only ever buy what is for sale.

Second, every government bond is someone else's asset. An interest-bearing asset. A very safe asset, in the case of Canada, the US, the UK, Japan, etc. "Paying back the debt" means putting a bullet into just about every pension fund in the world that doesn't rely exlusively on private equity or other sorts of volatile toilet paper.

There's a distributional issue with these bonds (they are concentrated in the hands of the non-working class, aka the rich), no doubt about it. But most of the other issues are strictly political, not economical.

What if the interest rate rises 1%? The central bank can lower the interest rate to whatever it damn well pleases, because nobody can ever outbid the currency issuer in its own currency. Remember, the central banks were the banks of the treasuries. The whole notion of an independent central bank was introduced to stop these pesky leftists from spending resources on plebs. That's why central banks were often removed from democratic control and handed over to conservative bankers. If the Treasury wants an interest rate of 2% on its bonds, it tells its central bank to buy any excess that haven't been auctioned off at this rate. End of story.

What if the market stops buying government bonds? Then the central bank buys the whole lot. However, government bonds are safe assets, and regulations demand a certain percentage of safe assets in certain portfolios, so there is always demand for the bonds. Just look at the German Bundesanleihen. You get negative real rates on 10 year bonds, and they are still in very high demand. It's a safe asset in a world of shitty private equity vaporware.

But, but.... inflation! Right, the hyperinflation of 2006 is still right around the corner. Just like Japan hasn't been stuck near deflation for two decades, and all the QE by the BoE and the ECB has thrown both the UK and the Eurozone into double-digit inflation territory. Not! None of these economies are running near maximum capacity/full employment, and very little actual spending (the scary, scary "fiscal policy") has been done.

But I'm going off track here, so.... yeah, you can pay back your public debt. Just be very aware of what exactly that entails.

As for the poster-child Latvia: >10% of the population left the country.

Here's a different poster-child instead, with the hindsight of another 4 years of austerity in Europe after this interview: Portugal. The Portuguese government told Master of Coin Schäube to take a hike, and they are now in better shape than the countries who just keep on slashing.

On a different note: Marx was wrong about the proletariat. Treating them like shit doesn't make them rebellious, it makes them lethargic. Otherwise goons like Mario Rajoy would have had their comeuppance by now.

PS: Blyth's book on Austerity is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in its history or its current effects in particularly the Eurozone.

A platoon-based realistic multiplayer first-person shooter for PC set during the Second World War.
HUGE BATTLES - 100 players per game, 50 per team

COORDINATE - Win through teamwork, tactics, and communication
​
A NEW METAGAME - Capture sectors and resources to beat your enemy into submission

COMBINED ARMS - Over 20 different player-controlled vehicles and deployed weapons

EPIC THEATER OF WAR - Do battle across a 1:1 scale 4 kilometer-squared map

MORE THAN THE TWITCH - Supply, capture and building systems ​

EXPERIENCE HISTORY - Historically accurate arsenal with realistic weapon behavior

A MODERN ENGINE - Developed for Unreal Engine 4

It's hard for me to know why Putin is doing what he's doing. When he moved on Crimea, was he doing it because of the advance of European influence closer to Russia's borders? He's short on good allies unlike 'the west', so can he let people chip away at his comfort zone? Or is he a crazed imperialist?

I don't know. Why don't I know?

Because my government have shown themselves over the years to be a bunch of twats who will literally tell bare faced lies, whilst smiling, and when confronted with the horrors of what they've done they throw their heads back and laugh like a fucking sea lion swallowing a fish whole. And that's what they've done to their OWN PEOPLE. To other countries countries we declare war and send in the multinationals to rape their resources. I consider the invasion of Iraq equally dodgy as the invasion of Crimea. So my moral compass for what's ok and not ok no longer has a baseline.

On the other side, a bunch of people who used to know how the world worked back in 1970 probably thought propaganda was the best way to whip up some nationalistic pride and resentment toward the reds, but in 2017 the majority of young people don't trust a single word they say. So these 70 year old media mogul billionaires can't even tell a believable truth anymore - even if Putin's tanks were half way down my street i'd have to clap eyes on them before i could be sure.

Plus Russia's leadership is Putin himself, he's the spearhead, and he's very cunning. Our leadership is spread across a set of democratically elected people, half of which are both incompetent and self interested, while half of those remaining are merely one or the other. It's easier for one person to look competent and assured. Someone like Merkel has to share the associated incompetency of whatever the German equivalent of her 'cabinet' is.

Of course they do. The problem is that neither of those descriptions fit Trump, and even if they did, he's a fucking sociopath. The rest of us exist solely so he can harvest resources (primarily money and adoration) from us.