I listened to an interview with some connected folks to this situation a few days ago, and there's a bit more to it.

(I don't remember any detail, but the gist was ...)

The ranch is directly adjacent to the refuge, and the government has been trying to grow the refuge.

The government has been trying to get the particular rancher's land for a while, offering to buy it, and generally making living there inconvenient, to encourage him/them to leave.

There was some funny business with the arson charge, like there being some hunters on the land that had a different account of the events, and their account was at odds with what the government asserted happened.

Folks have the opinion that the arson charge was a convenient way of dialing up the 'get out of town' message - and so this occupy whatever response is some sorta backlash. Something like : "You want us to leave so you can have our stuff? Oh yeah? Well why don't YOU leave and we'll take YOUR stuff?! Take that!"

Also, the group has not been isolated. People and media come and do all the time, and the group makes daily statements to the media. One reporter noted that he has only seen one person carrying a firearm the entire time (a single man with a pistol in a holster), and everyone else has no firearms on their person (regardless if they have any in general, they aren't walking around armed).

-scheherazade

Unfortunatly, it's not just Merkel and her cabinet. It's the press, it's the economics departments at universities, it's politicians at all levels. Call it an economic nationalism, hell-bent to defend what they know to be the moral way of doing business. Everything left of this special flavour of market fundamentalism has been systematically attacked and suppressed for at least 30 years.

For instance, our socialist party, still referred to as the fringe of what is acceptable, runs on what is basically a carbon-copy of social-democrat programmes from the '70s. Similar to the British Green Party and Labour. Krugman, Stiglitz, Baker, Wolff, DeLong -- they'd all be on the fringe in Germany. Even the likes of Simon Johnson (IMF) or Willem Buiters (City Group).

If you speak out in favour of higher inflation (wage growth) to ease the pressure on our brothers and sisters in southern Europe, you'll be charged with waging a war against German saver. "You want to devalue what little savings a nurse can accrue? Don't you support blue collar workers?"

The same blue collar workers have been stripped of their savings by 15 years of wage suppression, the same blue collar workers are looking at poverty when they retire, because the PAYGO pension system was turned into a capital-based system that only works to your benefit if you never lose your job, always pay your dues and reach at least age 95. The previous system survived two world wars without a problem, yet was deemed flawed when they realized how much money could be channeled into the financial system – only to disappear at the first sight of a crisis, eg every five to ten years.

Similarly, you could point out that a focus on trade surpluses might not be the greatest of ideas, given the dependence it creates on foreign demand, a weak currency and restricted wage growth domestically. But they'll call you a looney. "The trade surplus is a result of just how industrious our workers, how creative our scientists and how skilled our engineers are. It's all innovation, mate! Are you saying we force the others to buy our stuff? That's madness."

You simply cannot have an open discussion about macroeconomics in Germany. Do I have to mention how schizophrenic it makes me feel to read contradictory descriptions of reality every day? It's bonkers and everyone's better off NOT reading both German and international sources on these matters.


Any compromise would have to work with this in mind. They'd have to package in a way that doesn't smell like debt relief of any kind. People know that stretching the payment out over 100 years equals debt relief, but it might just be enough of a lie to get beyond the level of self-deception that is simply part of politics. If they manage to paint Varoufakis' idea of growth-based levels of payment as the best way to get German funds back, people might go for it. Not sure if our government would, but you could sell it to the public. And with enough pressure from Greece, Spain, Italy, and France most of all, maybe Merkel could be "persuaded" to agree to a deal.

As for Syriza's domestic problems: it's a one-way ticket to hell. Undoing decades of nepotism under external pressure, with insolvency knocking on your door? Best of luck.

Italy is hard on Greece's heels in terms of institutional corruption. Southern Italy, in particular, is an absolute mess. Given the size of the Italian economy, Syriza better succeed, so their work can be used as a blueprint. Otherwise we're going to need a whole lot of popcorn in the next decade...


Edit: Case in point, German position paper, as described by Reuters. As if the elections in Greece never took place.

You seriously need to calm down and read our stuff again if you think we're taking sides. You're so eager to defend your opinion, which is based on very little of actual factual information(no, short clip without ALL the relevant stuff that escalated to the result isn't enough), and especially the seemingly fanatic eagerness to make assumptions about us doesn't do your credibility much good. I doubt you'll ever understand what objectivity means if that is truly what you think. And yeah, filming him ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU KNOW there's multiple cameras already on him is very much so egging him on, no matter how correct one might be in doing it. I do agree that the drunk is an asshole and homophobic.

Saying "it's simple to see who started it" is nothing but jumping into conclusions, and that kind of shit leads to all kinds of messed up shit, no matter how probable it indeed in this case seems.

I met Robin, several years back while they he was filming Jumanchi.
He was filming in my neighborhood, all filmed a block from my house.

But I met him in line a my local comic shop. He was there buying some action figures. He told me about how he tried to come into the store the day before but was mobbed in the street. He'd been looking for these specific action figures for a while and had tracked them down and had them on hold. (Wild Cats from McFarlane toys)

I was standing beside him for a bit before I even knew who he was. I remember thinking he was shorter than I'd expected. He was nice, collected and smiled as we chatted in the line to pay for our stuff. I didn't overwhelm him with questions or treat him like a celebrity. Just chatted in line like I would with anyone else.

He finished paying for his purchases and left the store. He was immediately met by body guards. who took his purchases and quickly disappeared (out of the way) as he walked up the street with his Publicist.

It was just a casual meeting. but somehow I always wanted to meet him again, so I could say, remember when we met in the comic store. I supose that will never happen now, though, it may never have happened any way.

Sorry to see such a genius mind leave us. I hope he's found his peace.

Stop takin' our stuff!!

I would also like those things back.

Obama has released 12 years of tax records. Romney claims he is following precedent, but the only people to do only 2 years in recent history (dating back to Regan) is McCain and Palin, everyone else has done 5 to 20 years.

I agree Reid is probably speaking out of turn. However, Romney, beyond the lie of following precedent has also said that if he releases them Obama and others will use the stuff in there against him... which means there is something there to use against him, which while may be legal, would paint him in a bad light. He doesn't want to disclose because there is something he wants to hide. It may even be as simple as his church finding out he hasn't paid his full tithe as he says he has paid. In the end, this guy believes in giving big tax breaks to people who have refused to hire people because they want the life of luxury. The CEO of Wal-Mart takes $36 million a year, if he only took $1 million, imagine how many people could have jobs? But no, there was a choice at some point in the company's history that employing people or paying their existing employees living wages wasn't worth while and it was better spent on those on the top... one of the local 1%'rs fires over 1000 people over 3 years and keeps everyone else with no raises (almost all at minimum wage), then goes out and buys a jet and another mansion. This is the attitude of the rich. That they deserve privilege and if they have to ruin thousands of families to do it, then they will... and then they threaten that if we raise their taxes another 3% they will fire more people so that they can maintain their ultra high standard of living, and the Republican answer is "no, don't do that, we'll in fact lower your taxes, and punish those people you fired so you could have a jet, and punish those people who you refuse to pay a living wage so you could have that second mansion. We won't cut spending on the military, god forbid, we are only spending more than the next 19 countries combined, almost all of whom are our immediate allies... we should also cut education and science and NASA... look how expensive NASA is, it almost costs as much as it costs us to give our troops in Afghanistan alone A/C... I mean if we ended the wars that would free up almost all the deficit that Bush created and we blame on Obama, we could nearly have a balanced budget by just cutting that and increasing taxes a small 3% on the top 2%, and while we say deficits are bad now, we all know they aren't when they are for our stuff, just if it helps the people we are screwing over, then it's bad..."

EDIT: Again, I think Reid needs to back it off. Its nearly as bad as Trump's whole birther thing...

>> ^MrFisk:

They don't teach us this in journalism school.


They taught me just to show up at the disclosed location for the piece of paper that is handed out by the PR guy and bring it back, for the news! I noticed that our rival newspaper always copied our stuff; what gives with the plagiarism-OMG?


On a serious non-sarcasm note:

What a complete and utter blowjob fest so much of this world is now suffering from pointedly in the political, media, and corporate worlds. This just shows that we are evolving towards a precipice rather than backing away from it; I wonder if any of these idiots even realize it, as it WILL affect the mega-rich, whether they think they are safe on their private land with their "enforcers" or "private army" or not. If shit hits the fan, they WILL NOT BE. If society falls apart it will become...UGLY. I mean that in the WORST possible sense as I'm sure everyone reading understands.

Wolf Blitzer (as do many other prompter lead talking head "journalists" out there) calls himself a journalist, but he's the epitome of the very problem of the system--Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, THOUGH COMICS are closer to journalists in every way as they have integrity, function, ability, information, tenacity, knowledge, WIT, comprehension, and reliability than any of the leading "News" networks... I could list other qualities they have to be sure, they have a great many, both. But, the point is that are news and information is becoming rapidly vapid and obsolete except to the idiotically inclined viewers, that unfortunately seem to still watch and worse still believe and accept what they say as true... Even though much of the information presented is in the form a Junior High student could understand, showing that they truly do know their audience as well...

>> ^zor:

We could mine these ourselves but it is a filthy business. China should tell the US to fuck off and do it themselves.


We could, but all our stuff is usually mixed in with Thorium, and thanks to the EPA you have to treat it like toxic waste. Even though you could eat thorium and be totally fine, it only just barely radioactive.

If we all got to promote our stuff to the front page there would be a disgusting influx and steady climb of bad videos on the front. All ready there is TOO MUCH promoted stuff. Keep the power points as they are 2-1 as it where. 2 for me to promote 1 to promote yours.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

Ok, I'm sorry, I got about halfway before I had to stop otherwise I would have chainsawed my own ear drums.
Sorry, I don't really buy it. CNet wasn't owned by CBS until 2008. And even then the suggestion that it's some sort of conspiracy by disney or whoever to spread the use of file sharing seems really far-fetched.
Whenever I'm confronted by something like this I always ask "What's the profit motive?" I don't really see the end game for the content producers here.
Exec A: hey let's distribute file-sharing software and then people will pirate our stuff without paying for it!
Exec B: errr, ok. How does this make us money?
Exec A: we'll sue a bunch of poor people for millions. They're bound to pay up and the negative publicity won't impact us at all.
Exec B: riiiiight. /backs away slowly
Frankly, I think it's far more likely that cnet, zdnet and so on were tech web sites run by tech guys whose owner hadn't a clue what they were doing. Meanwhile the tech guys were just doing what every other tech guys did and hosted the popular software. I can't actually credit the studios with that much understanding of the technology. "Never attribute to malice what can more easily be attributed to incompetence." Frankly, if anyone in the content industry were even slightly less retarded, they'd have done what valve did ages ago. When we get the movie/tv version of steam, this problem will largely go away.
a good question to ask climate change deniers.


Um, yeah, he did explain the motive:

a) You get heaps of traffic to your sites in the first place to get the file sharing software etc.
but mostly
b) You can then go to the law makers and go 'Look how many people are illegally downloading our content, you MUST allow these hugely heavy handed and insanely over the top punishments to go through'... 'Well, before we thought it was just those 'fringe' elements, but you bring forth a compelling case of this becoming mainstream... yes, let's give you these insane powers'.

It does make sense. They didn't like these people pirating their stuff, but it seemed to be too 'small time' and 'limited'. So, let it slide, and even actively encourage it, until it becomes mainstream enough that you can start jumping up and down and get laws passed that give you far greater powers than you otherwise would have had.

He is annoying to listen to though, I'll give you that.

He also has an over-inflated sense of himself if he thinks that his video will single-handedly bring about a stop to SOPA

Ok, I'm sorry, I got about halfway before I had to stop otherwise I would have chainsawed my own ear drums.

Sorry, I don't really buy it. CNet wasn't owned by CBS until 2008. And even then the suggestion that it's some sort of conspiracy by disney or whoever to spread the use of file sharing seems really far-fetched.

Whenever I'm confronted by something like this I always ask "What's the profit motive?"* I don't really see the end game for the content producers here.

Exec A: hey let's distribute file-sharing software and then people will pirate our stuff without paying for it!
Exec B: errr, ok. How does this make us money?
Exec A: we'll sue a bunch of poor people for millions. They're bound to pay up and the negative publicity won't impact us at all.
Exec B: riiiiight. /backs away slowly

Frankly, I think it's far more likely that cnet, zdnet and so on were tech web sites run by tech guys whose owner hadn't a clue what they were doing. Meanwhile the tech guys were just doing what every other tech guys did and hosted the popular software. I can't actually credit the studios with that much understanding of the technology. "Never attribute to malice what can more easily be attributed to incompetence." Frankly, if anyone in the content industry were even slightly less retarded, they'd have done what valve did ages ago. When we get the movie/tv version of steam, this problem will largely go away.

* a good question to ask climate change deniers.

Uargh... nooooo...... Germany doesn't want the Euro because of some guilt or whatever. As far as I can tell we want the Euro because we've got the second biggest export-economy in the world and are surrounded by our biggest buyers. It is in germany's best economic interest to keep the single currency going. Also, we really like all you guyz in se Europe. Buy our stuff.

Having listened ten seconds more: Dude is full of shit. "Supranational political dictatorship"? "Harmonise out of existence national identities"? "soviet socialist republics"?

And for typical britishness: Mentioning Germany invading Poland and that the British king against whom the Americas rebelled as being German. Which has nothing to do with anything.

Hmmm....

Now, is this actually a nasty troll against women?

Kind of. Sort of. Not really, but kinda sorta.

I shall write a little essay on the relative value of words, to explain.

I was in my late teens when the Feminist Movement of the seventies was getting going. This was a time of women reclaiming language.

Women were described as "Miss or Mrs". Men were "Mr", with no designation as to their marital status. Just "Mr". So women came up with "Ms". No indication of marital status. The word was chosen to have an equal "value" to Mr.

We were also struggling with being called "girl" rather than "woman."

I got into many conversations, trying to convince folks that calling a grown woman a "girl" is very insulting. I heard many different reasons why it is okay to call a woman that, and I eventually figured out a logical response to each of those reasons.

It came down to a simple test.

Say something about a woman, calling her a "girl". Now change the gender -- would you say the same thing about man and be able to use the word "boy"? Or does it sound completely insulting to call a man a boy in that situation?

Example:

"I'll have my girl get back to you on that" when meaning your 51-year-old support staff person. Would you say "I'll have my boy get back to you on that." Think you would do it? How about if your support staff person is a black man? Now try it. Really drawl out that "boy", Southern it up big time.

NO. FUCKING. WAY.

If you would not call a black man a "boy", you got no business calling a grown woman a "girl."

It's okay to use girl sometimes, just as it is okay to use boy. "Boys' Night Out." "Girls' Night Out." Equal value phrases. No problem with "girl" if you can substitute "boy" and not feel weird.

So here we have rottenseed's eloquence.

"tits cunts cocks balls"

Nicely balanced, two sexual characteristics for each gender. They aren't the same area of the body, but that is just a reflection of the realities of anatomy. Our stuff is top and bottom, men have their stuff in the same place.

The only thing that sits badly is the word "cunt." That word doesn't have a male equivalent in rottenseed's attempt to be balanced. A truly balanced word would have been something like vay jay jay, or even @Lann's cooter. Cooter is a sweet term.

The word "cunt" has been used too long and too often as a pejorative to dismiss an entire woman as being just a body part, to shame her, to silence her, to reduce her to irrelevance. It wasn't that long ago that you wouldn't even hear or see the word -- it was spelled down to C-Word, and everyone knew what horrible thing had been said. Can't say that is true with the words "cocks" and "balls."

So "cunt" doesn't have a matched value word on the male side of this triumph of eloquence.

Women are starting to reclaim the word "cunt" for themselves, just as Eve Ensler made it okay to say vagina. I know you younger folks might be surprised to know this, but it wasn't that long ago NO ONE EVER said vagina. Penis was okay, but the word vagina was whispered and suggested and disguised (Lann's cooter, for example, it was always referred to with cute nicknames.) That was the beauty of Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues. She set out to make vagina have the same "value" as penis, and she succeeded, brilliantly.

We haven't managed to reclaim "cunt" yet, but we are sneaking up on it.

So. To maintain the word value balance, just as I have been doing since 1970, I shall edit rottenseed's mature and eloquent tone poem to:

tits cooters cocks balls

TL DR: tits cooters cocks balls



>> ^rottenseed:

tits cunts cocks balls

I found exactly one hit for a lyric snippet from the first song the boys are singing in the mess, sung to the tune of "Lili Marleen" (http://videosift.com/video/Hanna-Schygulla-Lili-Marleen). I suppose it's dubbed "The Lancs of 75 [Squadron]".

The Lancs of Mepal, they're on their way,
Off to bomb the Jerries, they bomb them every day,
And when they wish to show their might,
They bomb the sods by day and night,
The Lancasters of Mepal, the Lancs of 75.

Off we go from Briefing and leap into our kite,
Open up the throttles and roar into the night,
We've left the flarepath far behind,
It's bloody dark but we don't mind,
The Lancasters of Mepal, the Lancs of 75.

There's the bloody searchlights waving round the sky,
Not much ruddy power and not too bloody high,
I hope they don't start shooting til we're through,
They might get me and they might get you,
The Lancasters of Mepal, the Lancs of 75.

Now we're through the target setting course for home,
Soon we'll see the Sandra's waving o'er the 'drome,
That's if we don't go off the track,
And stop a crafty burst of flak,
The Lancasters of Mepal, the lancs of 75.

Junkers off to starboard, Focke-Wulf off to port,
Gunner calls to Skipper, the range is getting short,
Prepare to corkscrew starboard, go,
We know our stuff and we're not slow,
The Lancasters of Mepal, the Lancs of 75.

Now we're in the circuit with a turn to land,
No intruders round us, ain't it bloody grand,
We fooled the Hun once more tonight,
Dropped a load right on the Reich,
The Lancasters of Mepal, the Lancs of 75.

When the war is over and there's no more ops to do,
We'll think of all our pals,
The ones who did not get through,
The pals who were with us through thick and thin,
That we one day the War would win,
The Lancasters of Mepal, the Lancs of 75.

http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/general/8985-wwii-dittys.html

@Tymbrwulf

I pretty much agree with everything you just said. I think the prose you wrote above would make an excellent deface to the preface of the new book I prefaced called, 'Elephants That Became A Morass Relay System That Were "Gored" Into A Multi-Platform Supported Prostitute', written by John C. Dvorak and prefaced by me and your stuff near the back. Right before the end; you'll kindly remind the readers that they read 259 pages of nothing. Literally, (literally) nothing, but THIS (plus our stuff):

"Then on that dissmal day did I look fondly over the barren San Francisco skyline and remembered the quote I had stated so long ago, and evermore..so...truth-worthy now..."
----

'Apple makes the arrogant assumption of thinking that it knows what you want and need. It, unfortunately, leaves the “why” out of the equation — as in “why would I want this?” The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse’. There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I dont want one of these new fangled devices.'