I think it's extremely unlikely that we'll see nuclear war as a result of Trumps election. In fact I'm pretty certain that it is *less* likely given the aggression by Russia in the last few years. If our news is to be believed, they've been directly threatening the stability of the Middle-East and Eastern-Europe, and if the US had elected a president with a harder stance against those actions, more conflict would have certainly been the result.
Currently we're more likely to strike deals with Russia, who has a strong relationship with China, (the other major power we'd have the most chance of going to war with) so the greater danger at this point is being undermined economically or through some other diplomatic/political tactics.

Carefully crafted passive aggressive slap in the face to blacks and colored people, with a special poke in the eye to Black Lives Matter. This is as "american" as it gets.

I took fencing in college, and had some preconceived ideas about men probably being better at it on average due to higher strength on average.

At least for foil fencing, that turned out to be quite wrong. With foils, strength is far less important than dexterity and footwork skill, which in my class the girls tended to be noticeably better at.

...However, aggressiveness / competitiveness / "killer instinct" was in many ways more important than either strength OR dexterity, and the males tended to exhibit those qualities far more than the females in my class. So even though the women were more technically proficient, the men tended to win matches at a much higher rate.

I found that interesting. Can't say that my experiences would speak to any sort of universal trend, but it was the clear trend in my beginner's level course.

Also i find myself a suspect of people who aggressively attack labels. I tend to think they are disguising true feelings that can't be said publicly. Although wtf do i know

It depends on the kiwis you meet.

In general, kiwis are a bit like the Irish in that they won't swear at you, but will swear with you.

You'd have to be a real asshole to get your average kiwi to be aggressive towards you, but there are plenty of them who will happily swear like a trooper in general conversation.

An example
https://www.facebook.com/thomas.barrettwalker/videos/559204527613940/

I realized one day that cigarettes were interfering with how many bong hits I could take....I quit in that moment and never had another.

This passive aggressive coercion is quite distasteful to me. I hate people who do this, pretend the smoke is bothering them when in reality it's the fact that someone is smoking that bothers them....not the smoke. What's hilarious is to see those kinds of people try to publicly shame a cigarette smoker with their fake coughing and death stares, then I'll spark a cigar and they'll not say a word or even tell me it smells great.
I used to ask people who complain about cigarettes (usually a fake health complaint) if they drive...then I would offer to sit in a closet smoking if they sit in their car with a hose from the tailpipe going in the window and see who cracks first. No one ever took me up on the challenge.

@bareboards2
pure and utter sophistry.

and i resent the fact that you slyly attempt to imply that i will just sit back and remain silent to injustice.

when i feel quite confident my records on this site prove the exact opposite.i have vociferously and aggressively taken on those who would bully,berate and belittle anyone who would voice their opinion.

i believe i have come to YOUR defense on more than one occasion.

what i found disturbing in your comment and maybe i should clarify is this "As Homeland Security says, if you see something, say something."

this is LITERALLY what was posted on almost every open venue in east germany.

and for you to tacitly excuse this statement by dismissively stating that "the stasi operated in secret".as somehow being evidence of your own righteousness belies an ignorance of just how oppressive and fearful those people were living in those conditions.

so you are morally superior because you openly called to out,and i quote "benevolent dictator with a light touch",and did not do so in private?
THIS is your justification?
THIS is the evidence you present to me to...what? exactly?

if you truly feel that you have somehow struck a blow for justice and taken a stand for moral integrity,then i submit that you have no clue what free speech really entales,nor do you understand the implications when we,as a community,start calling in the big daddy in the sky every time someone writes an offensive potty/racist or bigoted word.

and just LOOK how you consumed @gorillaman 's comment.
you made no reference to his salient point,but rather focused on ONE thing:nigger prince.

now was this appropriate?
taken singularly i would have to agree with you.
no..it is not appropriate.

but when we take our understandings of @gorillaman,who has been a contributing sifter for over 10 years,and consider his humor..which is dark and incredibly dry (like sahara dry),then with this context added to the mix,we can conclude that he was probably making a joke...you are certainly within your rights to find that joke in poor taste,and with this community,you are also within your rights (and even encouraged) to take @gorillaman to task for his poor taste.

but instead you called for big daddy in the sky to bring the hammer of justice down,and punish this dirt potty mouthed racist.his crime?
racist verbiage.

no consideration of who was writing it.
no consideration of his history on this site,which you openly admitted is a community.
you just..focused..on..the..word.

and then you preen like a peacock thinking somehow you have struck a blow of righteousness?

please sister.....you accomplished nothing except to put dag in an awkward position,and came across as a self righteous moralizer.

when you simply could have done what other sifters here actually DID.
you downvote his comment.
and if you felt so inclined,and it appears you ARE so inclined,directly call @gorillaman out for his poor choice of verbiage.

look BB,
i actually find you to be a sweetheart,with a huuuuge propensity for empathy and compassion,but every time i engage with you my sphincter tightens up like it is preparing for a colonoscopy.there is this ever-present apprehension that my words will not be taken with humanity that they are written,or the open honesty i am trying to convey.

i am sure that if we were actually sitting in a cafe,sipping that delicious coffee you guys are so proud of, i would not experience this anxiety when engaging with you,but it seems EVERY time i disagree with something you post,or an opinion i may take issue with,i offend you in some manner.

you ..and i am sure this is not done on purpose..make it incredibly difficult to disagree with something you post,because i always feel i have hurt your feelings somehow.

real or imagined...i am just being honest here.i always approach any interaction with you as if i am walking on eggshells,underlined with landmines.

i am simply disagreeing with you here.
calling for a ban on gorillaman because of a joke made in poor taste,while simultaneously disregarding his contributions to this site,and taking his personality into consideration,is simply an over-zealous reaction and in no way deserves the attention of dag.

because if gorillaman deserves to be banned for an offensive phrase,than i should be banned as well.

free speech is just that...free.
of course we are free to ridicule that speech.
yaaay free speech!

Thank you @enoch, I was trying to figure a way of replying on how there isn't a denial that a minority of Muslims believe in suicide bombing, but that it isn't as widespread and exclusive to Islam as the far right make it out to be. You summed it up pretty well.

I was also going to add all the abortion clinic bombings and the Atlanta Centennial Olympic Park bombing... all Christian and being done in the name of Christ. Then in Ireland/UK with the IRA... though that one isn't just religion and is more political (though again, many of those political differences has to do with worshiping Christ the wrong way).

There are militant Buddhist too, who do very violent and aggressive acts against others.

And there are plenty on the left who decry Islam, look at Sam Harris by example who argues the danger of Islam a great deal.

I agree, that we need to address the underlying political issues... and sometimes just need to let things go. There is a big civil war going on the middle east between denominations of Islam, and we are picking a side, which in turn makes us a target of the other side. We ignore the fact that the goal of terrorist groups is to make it an "us vs them" world, so that it makes it easier to recruit potentially radicalizeable people. I hear Christians bemoan how Christianity must be true because of all the persecution, proves Satan is trying to push Christianity down, but then they have zero empathy for how it must feel for a Muslim, and the persecution they feel, and how that must make them feel they are the right one for the same exact reasoning.

The fact so many Christians are not only willing, but calling for a war, for a new Crusade basically, shows that Christians are just as easily radicalized. They may not be strapping bombs to their chests yet, but I'd guess if they were in a Muslim country and felt they were being repressed, then I'd wager they'd be more than willing to engage in suicide bombs.

The pint being, yes, some Muslims do engage in suicide bombs, but it isn't just them. Christians have done it plenty in the past, and will undoubtedly return to it again, especially as the more radicalized and violent portion of them become normalized here in the US thanks to the election of Trump who encouraged them all through his campaign.

Mutually assured destruction I think is often woefully overlooked as a stabilising force in the world.

I don't think it's at all a co-incidence that since nuclear proliferation we have only seen wars vs non nuclear nations. You can never really win meaningfully vs a nation that has the thermo-nuclear trump card in their back pocket.

When superpowers come to blows now, proxy wars are the only realistic option. That may still suck for the poor bastards that get caught up with it, but it does mean a world war is somewhat off the table (even if they like to rattle the sabres from time to time).

Also Starship troopers is an oft misunderstood book I think. Some people get so hung up on the underlying idea of a Military dictatorship that they miss much of the nuance and wisdom woven into it.
I'm not even sure Heinlein was even necessarily advocating such a world, but rather using it as a narrative device to explore how our societies really work once you drop the wishful pretences (especially the stable ones).

It seems like there is perhaps some intrinsic relationship between peace and the capacity for effective and controlled violence. There are few people as calm and non aggressive as the ones who truly know they have nothing to fear from you in a fight.

Here's a good example of my point, being that there are reason's why you shouldn't get overly aggressive with strangers, you never know who they really are.....
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Why-Road-Rage-Is-A-Bad-Idea

This whole diatribe is exactly what pushed middle spectrum voters to actually vote against Clinton. More aggressive division and partisan line drawing is the problem, not the solution.

Anybody not 100% committed to a pro-choice stance was sick and tired of the far left calling them evil for it.

Anybody that had any thoughts that your choices regarding how to have sex and who to have it with were in fact choices were tired of being called slurs like homophibic.

Anybody who didn't believe carbon taxes or cap and trade markets were the answer to climate change was sick of being charged with hating the children and 'denying' fundamental science.

Anybody watching angry calls for safe spaces re-implementing segregation as though it was a good thing was tired of it.

Like it or not, a large part of America disagreed on the extremity of the establishment's direction on these and other areas. Trump was the one candidate nobody wanted, not the media, not the Democratic party, not even the Republican party.

I believe the divisive winner takes all approach to complex and sensitive social issues drove a lot of voters to pick Trump as the none of the above option.

For the record, I didn't vote Trump. I'm Canadian and couldn't vote at all, but if I could I'd have voted Clinton. I would have voted Clinton in spite of disliking her as a clone of her husband that actively fought to prevent action on the Rwandan genocide. Which is to say, in any other election I'd have lobbied for a vote anyone but Clinton campaign. Awful that the Republicans managed to find someone worse in Trump...

I watched the last 4h of their 14h live coverage -- some good bits in there. Hopefully, the more aggressive parts of the TYT network (SecTalk, TYTPol, etc) will do a thorough post-mortem on the election.

"Really, Hillary is evil?"

Well, Bill, I suppose it depends on your definition of evil, doesn't it.

To me, voting for both the invasion of Iraq and the Patriot Act (twice!) is an absolute disqualifier. Like it used to be in '08 when HRC ran against Obama. Remember that one, Bill?

Now, looking at it from a country that had its leaders punished for waging a war of aggression, and rightfully so, Hillary meets my definition of evil. Her push for war in Libya, her immoral comments on the ghastly death of Gaddafi, her militaristic calls for a more robust foreign policy (aka war), her calls for a no-fly zone in Syria (aka war with Syria & Russia)... Bill, that shit is evil. And it's only the lesser of two evils because her opposition is Trump.

So spare me the horseshit. I don't even have to judge her economic policies which basically are the same flavour of neoliberalism as always, her hawkishness is enough evil for several lifetimes.

I'm basically done with defending WikiLeaks as well, after the shit they pulled with the leaks of Turkish data. Completely irresponsible, that one.

However, WikiLeaks doesn't need credibility -- the data does. And the data they published vis-á-vis Clinton/Podesta/DNC is, as of now, solid. There was one fake document, but that was shown to have been injected by someone other than WL.

"Strong bias" -- oh, I do have a strong bias. Plural, as in biases, actually. For instance, I'm disinclined to take anything the US intelligence agencies say at face value, given how they manufactured more than one casus belli. I don't put much weight into (un-)official statements in general, but especially since all the misinformation they spread about issues like the coup in Honduras or the actions of Nazi militias in Ukraine.

In this particular case, however, my argument is much simpler: Occam's razor seems much more likely than malicious intent. Propaganda outlets on both sides are run by people. Maybe the propaganda outlet Sputnik intentionally twisted the content of email, or maybe they just fucked up, like people are wont to do. Maybe someone intentionally fed Trump this bad info, maybe his people are just as incompetent as he is.

There are too many parts in this that include people who have more than once proven themselves to be utterly incompetent, or in complete ignorance of even the concept of truth. I don't think Trump gives a shit about truth or facts, he strikes me as the typical blowhard who spouts whatever shit comes to mind, and spins stories on the fly like a 4-year-old when caught red-handing.

No need for a conspiracy there, with all this incompetence, naiveté and plain disregard for facts.

So when they keep on pushing the Russian angle in this, it just seems like a desperate attempt to conjure up the old unifying enemy. Why worry about Russian propaganda when there's plenty on FOX and MSNBC/CNN? Why worry about Russian hackers when you accept the unbelievably insecure method of eletronic votes, partly without paper trails, and completely controlled by private companies?

It's just very strange to an outsider like me to see them focus on perceived external influences when the internals are a complete clusterfuck. And this presidential election is the biggest clusterfuck I've seen in 30 years, which doesn't mean much, admittedly.

That said, we can't just be looking at it from the outside with binoculars, not when people are back to full-blown Cold War rhetoric. When the ruling class in the US and/or the ruling class in Russia start their pissing contests and other forms of grandstanding, it's usually brown people who pay the price, like they have been in Syria for the last couple of years. And Libya. And Yemen. And Somalia. And Afghanistan, And Iraq. And Pakistan.

Personally, all the rhetoric about "standing up to Russian aggression" and similar nonsense makes me keenly aware that the bridge just outside my hometown was constructed with a shaft to place explosives in, to slow down advancing Soviet troops... so yes, I would very much like to bitch-slap all these warmongerers on both sides, but particularly the ones in the US since they are currently the ones racking up the highest death toll.

Edit: I should have made it clearer. Yes, WL is absolutely biased against Clinton and they do seem to act in support of Trump. Assange in particular. Which bums me out to no end, since I actually met the guy in person when they presented WL at the 26C3.

Statistically, men aged 35-50 driving blue BMWs are most prone to road rage.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2390373/BMW-drivers-really-aggressive-drivers-prone-road-rage-wheel.html