While I'm in no position to buy from Monsanto, and don't know enough to advocate for or against them, the troubling impression I have of them is their business practices. This is why I had a quick look through that contract analysis.

It reminded me of something I am familiar with: software. You often have clauses that prohibit analysis or reverse engineering of software. Like the farmer doing the Monsanto contract analysis I [almost always] have no interest in doing that reverse engineering, but I definitely want others to be able to so they can look for things like security holes.

Having the attitude of 'this contract is fine because it doesn't restrict me from anything I want or would expect to do' is completely understandable, but can hide some of the real issues.

I love the Kurzgesagt videos, and again here they impress me by mentioning the issues with these companies, while completely separating it from the issue being analysed.

I'm using my frankness to inspire your eventual break from the repressive social attitudes of your ant regime. Magic is symbolic of the grand illusion of all societies. Especially ant society. Kind of scary, your hive's influence on us humans. It's such a blissful possibility being made part of one mind.

Excuse my bad attitude, but I am pissed. YOUR ANGER IS A GIFT.

Excuse my bad Attitude, but I am pissed. Not depressed -- YOUR ANGER IS A GIFT.

@bcglorf

i don't think using @drradon 's example of anarchy a good use as a rebuttal.

now may be larken rose's vision is an extreme example,taken from the von mises institute,and where they dreamily offer a counter to police with a "non-aggression principle".while cute and adorable,humans tend to be far more vicious and violent in nature,especially when desperate.

but again,i think our respective approaches to authority will not find common ground here.

i do not seek a leader,but i am ok with a representative,though i do not seem to have any in my government at the moment.

i find it curious,amazing and not a little disturbing just how easily people will quietly,and tacitly accept a police that has become more and more draconian,violent and aggressive while SIMULTANEOUSLY decreasing the citizens rights to protect themselves,defend themselves and resist unlawful police practices.

because they simply change the law to make what WAS illegal...legal.with a stroke of a pen.

and i simply cannot respect when an american says,without any sense of justice or history,to just sit down,shut up and do what you are told.

while claiming they are a patriot,waving their american flag made in china.

the history of law enforcement in this country reveals that their main job,their main focus and duty is NOT to the poor,the dispossessed or the marginalized.

the police's job is to protect those who hold assets,who have money and wield political power.

and before you say anything,i am quite aware that there are some,and they are the majority,who do their job with honor and distinction.my argument is not about singular police officers but rather the systematic problems inherent in the system.

lets take my city for example.
i am blessed enough to live adjacent to a very wealthy and influential housing development.

average police response time?=7 minutes.

right down the street,not 10 miles down the road,is a depressed area of town.industry and manufacturing abandoned that area 20 years ago.it is stricken with prostitution,heroin addicts and abject poverty.

average police response time?=22 minutes

yet the main police station is in THAT area.

or should i bring up the history of american labor movement?
where the coal miners in west virginia decided to strike,and because the owners of the mines were politically connected.the governor sent in the state police to...and this should send chills down your spine...shoot any miners unwilling to go back to work.

and they did.
they murdered any coal miner still willing to stand up against the owners of the mine,and this included women and children.

now lets examine that for a minute.
workers for a coal mine decided to strike for better working conditions (which were horrible) and actually have a day off,besides sunday (because:god).

the owner of the mine,who was losing immense of amount of money due to zero production of coal,called the governor to have the state police,a civil institution,sent in to put those people down.to force them to either get back to work or face violence.

*now the owner brought in his own mercenary group to assist in the process of intimidation,strong arm tactics and violence.

i will add one more story that is personal,and comes from my own family,and may possibly explain my attitude towards police in general.

my father was born in 1930,in alton illinois.
now that small town had been hit particularly hard during the depression.my father spoke of not having indoor plumbing until he went into the navy,and how the floors in his childhood home were simple boards over dirt.

he grew up extremely poor,and my grandfather struggled to find steady work,and i gather from what my father told me.my grandpa made bootleg beer out of the bathtub.so he and his 6 brothers and 1 sister had to bathe in the mississippi river while grandpa tried to make money by selling illegal hooch.

my father also regaled me with stories of the chores he had as the youngest of 8 kids.it was his job every morning to head to the train tracks and pick the coal that dropped from the coal carts.(which he admitted to being lazy and stole directly from the very full coal cart itself while his brother kept an eye out for the station master).

my point is that my father grew up in desperate and poor times.

but one story always stood out,and i think it is because it has a wild west feel to it that always transfixed me,and i made him tell me the story over and over as a child.

when times are tough,people will do whatever they have to in order to survive,so my grandfather making illegal hooch was not the only illegalities being played out in that small town.neighbor upon neighbor did what they had to,and most were considered criminals in the eyes of the state.

so i guess one of my grandpa's friends was on the run from the law,and sought refuge at my grandpa's home.which he allowed,because neighbors take care of neighbors,at least they used to.

well,in a small town everybody knows everybody,and eventually three police officers showed up at my grandpa's house,and demanded that he turn over (i forgot the guys name).

and i remember the pride on my fathers face whenever he retold this story....

my grandfather stood tall on the top of his stairs facing his front door,holding his gun he was given during WW1 and told the police officers (which he knew.small town remember?),that if they took one step into his home..he would blow their heads off.

now this is a story retold from a childs perspective many years later.i am sure my fathers memory was a tad....biased..but i would bet the meaty parts were accurate.

now my question is this:
how would that exact same scenario play out in todays climate?

well,we would see on the 6 o'clock news how a family was tragically shot to death for harboring a criminal and that the police had done EVERYTHING in their power to avoid this kind of violence.

i know this is long,and i hope i didn't lose you along the way,but i think we should not dismiss the very real slow decent into a society that silently obeys,quietly accepts more and more authoritarian powers all in the name of "safety",and that any form of resistance is to be viewed as "criminal" and "troublesome".

so while i agree that "when should we shoot a cop" should be in the realm of:let us try to never do that.

i also cannot agree to placing cops on a hero platform as if their job is somehow sacrosanct and beyond reproach.they are human beings,of limited intellect,whose main job it is to protect those who own property,have wealth and wield political power.

and with the current disparity and blatant inequality their job has been more and more focused on keeping those 30% undesirables down.

the poor,the destitute,the marginalized,the addict and the junkie and the petty criminals.

those are a threat to the "better" citizens.they are a blight on a community that should be cleansed from the tender eyes of those who are deemed more "worthy".

rich folk may wring their hands,and lament the plight of the poor and wretched,but for GOD's sakes! they don't want to actually SEE them!

so a police officer can do all the mental gymnastics they want in order to justify their place in society,but at the end of the day,they serve the elites.

and they always have.

I had never heard it claimed that cigars pose less/different cancer risks than cigarettes.

Google search provides mixed (as you might expect) results.

Cancer.gov, the Mayo Clinic, and WebMD all seem to suggest that cigar smokers in general tend to have lower rates of lung cancer than cigarette smokers (because they generally don't inhale, which I didn't know), but higher than non-smokers. And they have comparable or possibly higher rates of other cancers (oral, esophageal ... pancreatic) as compared to cigarette smokers.

Several results suggest that there is less data about cigars, results aren't statistically significant, etc. etc. and that they believe that cigars are much safer than cigarettes, if not entirely safe. But frankly, the pages I see (in a cursory search that I don't really have a personal stake in) promoting that view don't seem as ... trustworthy to me as the Mayo Clinic, or Healthcare Triage videos like this one (that list references right in the video).


No holier-than-thou attitude intended. ...Although I can say that I'm personally very glad I never acquired a taste for tobacco products of any kind. And a very low interest in alcohol consumption -- I go months on up to a year+ between drinks of booze without ever missing it. I sometimes avoid social situations because of smoke, which I suppose is a downside. But on the other hand, I'm enough of an introvert that avoiding social situations is probably something I'd be doing anyway... So at the very least I have more money to waste on other things since I'm not a smoker or much of a drinker.

@bcglorf
you left out that anwar had worked for the CIA and NSC as a consultant,and that in his earlier days as an imam was critical of al qeada and was very pro-american.

look,i am not arguing the fact that anwar did become radicalized,nor am i denying that his shift in attitudes (which was mainly due to americas handling of the iraqi war) had become not only critical,but had gone from condemnation to calls for violence,and praise for violence.

which brings us to the fort hood shooter nidel hasan who was an avid fan of anwar al awlaki,and DID have a correspondence with awlaki.which when examined,was pretty fucking one sided.it was apparent that hasan was attempting to get in the good graces of awlaki who,evidenced by the email correspondence,had no real relationship with hasan.though awlaki did praise hasan,and his violent actions.

so i do not get where 'the emails are closed".just google nidal hasan and anwar al awlaki emails,and you can go read for yourself.

and as for these emails as justification..i really do not see your logic in this respect.

so if someone becomes a huge fan of mine,and emails me constantly because we met ONCE and now they think we are buddies and share common interests (which,maybe we do),and that person perpetrates a violent act.

am i responsible for that act?

and here is where the crux of the discussion REALLY is:
maybe i AM responsible.
maybe i am guilty of inciting violence.
maybe i should be held accountable,because not only did i keep this mans violent intentions to myself,which resulted in death,but then praised his actions afterwards as being the will of god.

there are ALL possibilities,and they are valid questions.
they are legal questions,and maybe there should be a legal accountability.

should the proper pathway to a legal conclusion be:
a.a remotely piloted drone that targets my phone and launches a missile murdering (assasinating0 me,along with innocent by-standers?

or.

b.working with the yemeni government to bring me into a secure facility to be questioned,and possibly charged with inciting violence and prosecuted in an international court of law?

do you see what i'm saying?

the question isn't if anwar al awlaki,as a prominent imam,was vocally against american foreign policy,or that he openly supported violence in the form of terrorism.

the question is:
how do you address that situation,and prosecute the legalities?

because as scahill posited:how do you surrender to a drone?

could anwar al awlaki be guilty of EVERY charge the US accused him of?
quite possibly.
but we will never know because he was assassinated,as was his 16yr old son.

even your counter argument is speculation based on loose affiliations,and tenuous connections.

you will NEVER be able to supply a concrete,and verifiable accounting of anwar al awlaki's guilt,because you CAN'T..he was assassinated.

and THAT is the point.

now let us take this a step further.
let us examine how this can be abused,and watching trump consolidate executive power by surrounding himself with departmental loyalist,loyal only to him,we can begin to see the beginnings of trumps "soft fascism".

now lets take how you made your argument,and supplant a different scenario,but using the same parameters.

do you SEE how easily the drone program could be used to quickly,and efficiently remove opposing political players from the board? dissenting and opposing voices simply painted as violent enemies of the state that were in need of removal,because of the "possibility" that they may one day actually incite or cause violence?

the state can now murder a person for simply what they say,or write but NOT what they actually DO.

anwar al awlaki didn't actually kill anyone,didn't perpetrate any acts of violence.he simply talked about the evils of american empire,the mishandling of the iraq war (which he was originally in support of) and praised those who DID engage in violent acts of terror as doing the work of god.

should he have been held accountable in some fashion?
i think there is case to be made in that regard,but instead of going through proper channels,and adhering to the protocols of international law,he was outright assassinated.

and just how easily this can be abused is incredibly frightening.

again,i understand we approach things from different angles,but you have to see the danger in this practice,and how easily it can be misused to much darker and sinister purposes.

"well,he said nasty things about us and had a lot of friends who were on the terror watch list"

is simply NOT a valid enough excuse to simply murder someone.

there are protocols and legal procedure for a REASON,and anwar al awlaki may certainly have been in breach of international law and therefor possibly SHOULD have been prosecuted under those terms.

but we will NEVER know,because he was killed.
by an american president.
a nobel peace prize winner and constitutional law professor.

anwar al awlaki was an american citizen,his SON was an american citizen,but due to those abominations:MCA of 2006 and the NDAA of 2012.obama had the power and authority to assassinate them both.

where was there right to face their accuser?
habeas corpus..gone...a legal right that dates back to 1205 a.d by the BRITISH..gone.
innocent until proven guilty....gone.
the right to provide evidence in your defense...gone.

all the president has to do..and DID in this case,is deem you an "enemy combatant" and BOOM..dead.

i really hope you reconsider your attitude in this case my friend,because this shit is fascism incarnate,and now trump has his chubby little fingers on the "fire" button.

god help us all......

radical islamic terrorism is the usage of a rigid fundamentalist interpretation as a justification predicated on abysmal politics.

ill-thought and short sighted politics is the tinder.
hyper-extremist fundamentalism is the match.

ISIS would never even have existed without al qeada,who themselves would not have existed without US interventionism into:iran,egypt and saudi arabia.

and this is going back almost 70 years.

so lets cut the shit with apologetics towards americas horrific blunders in regards to foreign policy.actions have consequences,there is a cause and effect,and when even in the 50's the CIA KNEW,and have stated as much,that there would be "blowback" from americas persistent interventionism in those regions.which stated goals (in more honest times) was to destabilize,dethrone (remove leaders not friendly to american business) and install leaders more pliant and easily manipulated (often times deposing democratically elected leaders to install despots.the shah and sadam come to mind).

see:chalmers johnson-blowback
see: Zbigniew Brzezinski-the grand chessboard.

or read this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/america-created-al-qaeda-and-the-isis-terror-group/5402881

so to act like islamic radicals just fell from the fucking sky,and popped out from thin air,due to something that has been boiling for almost 70 years is fucking ludicrous.

radicalization of certain groups in populations have long been understood,and well documented.

and religion,though the most popular,and easiest tool to motivate and justify heinous acts of violence for a political goal,is not the SOLE tool.

nationalism is another tool used to radicalize a population.
see:the nazi party.

but it always comes down to:tribalism of one kind or another.

@transmorpher

so when you use this "ISIS themselves, in their own magazine (Dabiq) go out of their way to explain that they are not motivated by the xenophobia or the US fighting wars in their countries. They make specifically state that their motivation is simply because you aren't muslim. You can go an read it for yourself. They are self confessed fanatics that need to kill you to go to heaven. "

to solidify your argument,all i see is someone ignoring the history and pertinent reasons why that group even exists.

you may recall that ISIS was once Al qeada,and they were SO radical,SO fanatical and SO violent in their execution of religious zeal..that even al qeada had to distance themselves.

because,again...
religion is used as the justification to enact terrorism due to bad politics.
but the GOAL is always political.

you may remember that in the early 90's the twin towers were attacked and it was the first time americans heard of al qeada,and osama bil laden.

who made a statement back in 1993 and then reiterated in 2001 after 9/11 that the stated goal (one of them at least) was for the removal of ALL american military presence in saudi arabia (there was more,but it mostly dealt with american military presence in the middle east).

but where did this osama dude come from?
why was he so pissed at america?
just what was this dudes deal?

turns out he was already on the road to radicalization during the 80's.coming from an extremely wealthy saudi arabian family but had become extremely religious,and he saw western interventionism as a plague,and western culture as a disease.

he left the comforts of his extremely wealthy family to fight against this western incursion into his religious homeland.he traveled to afghanistan to join the mujahideen to combat the russians,who were actually fighting the americans in a proxy war.and WE trained osama.WE armed him and trained him in the tactics of warfare to,behind the scenes,slowly drain russia of resources in our 50 year long cold war.

how's that for irony.

osama was not,as american media like to paint the picture "anti-democratic or anti-freedom".he saw the culture of consumerism,greed and sexual liberation as an affront to his religious understandings.

this attitude can be directly linked to sayyid qtib from egypt.who visited the united states as an exchange student in 1954.now he wasnt radicalized yet,but when he returned to egypt he didnt recognize his own country.

he saw coco cola signs everywhere,and women wearing shorts skirts,and jukeboxs playing that devils music "rock and roll".

he feared for his country,his neighbors,his community.
just like a southern baptist fears for your soul,sayyid feared for the soul of his country and that this new "westernization" was a direct threat to the tenants laid down by islam.

so he began to speak out.
he began to hold rallies challenging the leadership to turn away from this evil,and people started to take notice,and some people agreed.

change does not come easy for some people,and this is especially true for those who hold strong religious ideologies.
(insert religion here) tends to be extremely traditional.

so sayyid started to gain popularity for his challenge if this new "westernization",and this did not go un-noticed by the egyptian leadership,who at that time WANTED western companies to invest in egypt.(that whole political landscape is totally different now,but back then egypt was fairly liberal,and moderately secular).

so instead of allowing sayyid to speak his mind.
they threw him in prison.
for 4 years.
in solitary.

well,he wasn't radicalized when he went IN to prison,but when he came OUT he sure was.

and to shorten this story,sayyid was the first founder of the muslim brotherhood,whose later incarnation broke off to form?

can you guess?
i bet you can!
al qeade

@Fairbs ,@newtboy and @Asmo have all laid out points why radicalization happens,and the conditions that can enflame and amplify that radicalization.

so i wont repeat what they have already said.

but let us take dearborn michigan as an example.
the largest muslim community in america.
how many terrorists come from dearborn?
how many radicals reside there?
how many mosque preach intolerance and "death to america"?
how many imams quietly sanction fatwas from the local IHOP against american imperialistic pigs?

none.

becuase if you live in stable community,with a functioning government,and you are able to find work and support your family,and your kids can get an education.

the chances of you become radicalized is pretty much:zippo.

the specific religion has NOTHING to do with terrorism.
religion is simply the means in which the justifications to enact violent atrocities is born.

it's the politics stupid.

you could do a thought experiment and flip the religions around,but keep the same political parameters and do you know WHAT we find?

that the terrorists would be CHRISTIAN terrorists.

or do i really need to go all the way back to the fucking dark ages to make my point?

it's
the
politics
stupid.

Terrorists are usually not from countries that America or even previously the Soviets have been bombing the shit out of.

ISIS themselves, in their own magazine (Dabiq) go out of their way to explain that they are not motivated by the xenophobia or the US fighting wars in their countries. They make specifically state that their motivation is simply because you aren't muslim. You can go an read it for yourself. They are self confessed fanatics that need to kill you to go to heaven.

The countries with one of the most intolerant cultures, are some of the best educated and wealthiest people on the planet. Countries such as UAE and Saudi Arabia. These countries are best buds with the west, and yet they still jail women when they are raped (not the rapist), and they stone and crucify protesters asking for human rights. These are the actual laws, not a few extremists, or terrorists, it's the law of the country. They are intolerant and oppressive by law, thanks to their theocratic ruling system.

To sum up the above, it's not an educational issue, it's not a poverty issues, it's not a revenge issue. It's culture, attitudes, and religion.

Wonderful collection. From a very serious perspective, it demonstrates the sense of entitlement, the lack of understanding, and the sheer contempt of the leftist media faction and "their party" for the concerns and challenges faced by a large fraction of our population. That nearly 50% of our population would vote for a bloviating buffoon like Trump says no less about their attitude toward the leftists preferred alternative than it does about their affection for Trump.

@enoch
I did my best :-) I honestly feel threatened by this attitude of feeding the bear crumbs and pretending he is a friend. Also cant help liking Abby, so very disappointed.

@newtboy
For russia Assad is a (replaceable) puppet, bolstering Assad is just using that puppet for their own needs. ISIS is a threat because it directly supports terrorist groups within Russia. Sending in their air force and that coal powered smoking joke of an aircraft carrier was a military excercise with minimal losses and huge political and home security gains. Expensive though.

One cant just send in a task force to take out a dictator simply because one believes it would be the right thing to do. Countries generally have a limitless supply of local mafioso would-be dictators or religious leaders which the local population prefers to foreign rule. Religion and politics are just a thin veil for local tribal wars. In spite of Syria being a fairly civilised country before the current events I doubt there was ever a "democratic" alternative to Assad. Sometimes you just get lucky and the dictator decides he wants democracy (South Korea, Chile, Gorbatchev inadvertently).

F**k the whole middle east actually IMHO, twice. The Kurds never get any love from anyone and they´ve survived in the middle of this crazy shitstorm for millenia. Yet they will never have a country of their own. Even "Palestinians" created only in the last few decades appear to be closer to that goal. Not fair at all.

Would that fly with you if Obama had said that to Christians that had completed the immigration process, or already immigrated but were on business outside the US? Just go somewhere else, you scare us. You would not accept it.

You do get that many people now 'banned' already lived here, right?
You do understand that those refugees already accepted went through an invasive 18-24 month vetting process while living in refugee camps with no jobs or schools, right?
You do understand that some who've completed that process and were accepted because they put their lives and their families lives in danger by working for America in, lets say Syria, are now denied permanently and their lives are now in danger from retaliation, right?
You do understand that those already accepted would have sold their homes and assets in their home countries, left their jobs, and in some cases purchased property in the US, right ?

If this were done by Obama, or to white Christians, you would be frothing at the mouth. Just wait until Canada bans white right wingers because you guys have now proven to be terrorists and lets see how you react. I seriously doubt it will be with calm patience and an 'oh well, we can just go elsewhere' attitude.

EDIT: Expecting a uniform measured response from 100% of a terrorized, decimated, displaced people who've lived a living hell for years, some growing up in it, to a plan that seems to remove any hope of escape to a place where they might live a normal life, an escape they've worked towards for years at great expense and hardship, and in some cases escaping certain death due to helping America....no culture or people on earth are going to live up to that. American's certainly don't. We go off half cocked over 1% of that hardship and fly planes into federal buildings.

...Says the person advocating blaming and ruining the lives of innocent people for the acts of those that attacked and displaced them. Destroying the lives of random innocent people will never make the situation better, it will create more hatred for the US. That's the behavior I'd expect from a racist or Nazi because they're seeing everyone with a certain demographic as terroristic. We don't need more people with intolerant and inflexible attitudes.

I think it's the racism and xenophobia they already had coupled with a sudden influx of "others" that are now in their daily lives that turns them to extremism, because they've been primed to do so by the far right. If it was only a matter of "my feels got hurt" and nothing else, we wouldn't have international outrage at our horribly thought out, disastrously implemented, clearly racially and theologically motivated travel ban, but it hurts far more than feelings, it will kill some people.

HA!!!! All those groups have been labeled terrorists at one time, and all of them have committed terroristic acts. Every. Single. One. You just pulled a Bob and used an example that totally destroys your point.

Read some history, Christian extremism puts Islamic extremism to shame.

I'm certain this does happen, just as you've described. But I can't agree that it's a measured response.

Terrorizing random innocent people will never make the situation better. That's the behavior I'd expect from a racist or a nazi (because they're seeing as everyone within a certain demographic as guilty) We don't need more of people with intolerant and inflexible attitudes.

And although the xenophobia could be the last straw which turns someone to extremism, I think it's most likely because they've already been primed to do so. Because if it was only a matter of "my feels got hurt" and nothing else, then we'd be seeing terrorism by minorities such as gays, Jews, aboriginals, Tibetans and so on. But we don't. And while these groups act out in some pretty extreme ways, it's not anywhere near on the immoral levels as we've seen from islamists.