Keep it up Mr. Gage.. keep it up. All he asks is for an open independent, thorough, and science based investigation *absent of political influence*. Is that too much to ask? Apparently it is for the US government. The evidence is substantial that something went on. Sure it is exceedingly embarrassing for the US government. It effectively kicks the US, as a nation, in the balls for having such a massive weakness/failure.

If the government, or other powerful US based organization was involved. That is dire for the country indeed. If it wasn't a conspiracy, yet the US government willingly hid the truth for the sake of 'saving face', then that is also dire and goes entirely against all morals. Especially considering that they used the WTC attacks, which they potentially knew as being false, as a premise to initiate wars in not one, but two nations. Iraq and Afghanistan.

Whichever way this goes. Should the truth be revealed, it isn't going to end up positive for the US as a nation. But, with the truth cleared, we can ensure TRUE justice, and the nation will be STRONGER for it.

Simply looking at it in that perspective IS PATRIOTIC. Living blindly and uninformed is NOT FREEDOM.

>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^NordlichReiter:I thought that common knowledge was no felony can be sent to arbitration.
Rapes in Iraq are not crimes in the US, so, you can't follow that chain of responsibility. As far as I'm aware Iraq provided full criminal immunity to contractors at the time, so it wasn't even a crime in Iraq.


It depends on the circumstances. I for example was born overseas on a US military base within another country. However as my father was in the US military, and I was born on a US base (legally considered US soil), then I am a natural born citizen, as if I was born within the border of the USA in any state. US diplomatic compounds are also considered US soil. As a result anyone on such grounds are subject to US law. When they step beyond those grounds, especially in wartime... they are in the employ of the US military and are bound by the same laws which govern the troops. Murder is murder. Rape is rape. This isn't the first time crimes have been prosecuted in US court that took place overseas.

With the same logic, a crime committed on the high seas beyond the borders of the US or any nation would not be prosecutable. This is not the case. The are a lot of complexities involved of course, but i can guarantee a gang rape or murder spree won't go unpunished in such a blatant rape case as this.

Why the Republicans are fighting it? Lobbying money. KBR, Halliburton, Blackwater (conveniently renamed for those with memory issues) may think they are immune from the law. Lawmakers may have told them they are immune. But that does not make it so.

A high ranking official may get away with it. But a bunch of raping low-levels will face a judge. The public won't allow for it.

Yes, we atheists are neither citizens nor patriots, George.
Your father though, oh boy, what a guy.
Real patriot. Real hard-working, exemplary American citizen. Let's see what he did for his country:

- A director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

- His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

- Even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.

- The firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s.

- Evidence shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen's US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war.

And that's just scratching the surface.

^{From http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar}

Since when is Social Security health care spending?

I'll confess I was being lazy and not looking up what the total spending was, my memory was that it was between $2-3 trillion, and that currently about a third of that number is government spending. Your numbers actually confirm that.

What you were saying was that $1.5 trillion is being spent by government on health care now (it's nearly half that by your own numbers), and that HR 3200 would increase it to $3 trillion, when the costs estimated by the CBO show that they're not expecting anything like the cost increase that you are.

Now, as for your general smug self-righteousness, that much I can tolerate, but you and I have spent way too much time arguing with one another for you to honestly think I'm someone who just regurgitates propaganda without giving it a second glance. If you'd like to have a civil conversation with me about what liberals are actually trying to do, and why we think it will work, I'm happy to give you a good faith effort to explain and provide sources that I believe support my position.

If you just want to call me a moron, and engage in strawman arguments, I probably will just find something else to do.

Now, this statement:

You think insuring another 40 million is only going to cost $80 billion?

Shows that this statement is false:

I read everything, critically, with a grain of salt, and verify both the logical validity of the argument and the source backing the claims.

Because it means you haven't even read the summary of the bill you're supposedly arguing against.

The coverage expansion is largely accomplished by mandating that everyone purchase insurance. That's coupled with a mandate for employers above a certain size (I'm not being specific out of laziness) to provide an insurance plan.

That's why covering the uninsured won't raise government costs by that much. In fact, part of the CBO estimate includes a $200 billion-ish savings from Medicare and Medicaid due to employer mandates.

Most of the "cost" of the bill comes from a subsidy to cap the cost of insurance for people making between 133% and 400% of the poverty line to a sliding percentage of their income (1.5% at the low end, 11% at the high end).

Most of the expected cost savings are actually hinged on something I would suspect you'd like: the formation of a national insurance "exchange", where private plans for individuals would be allowed to compete nationwide. In addition, a Medicare-like public option would be made available for people to purchase with their own money in the same exchange. Recipients of the subsidy described in the previous page would be allowed to use it to buy any plan in the exchange, public or private.

Don't believe me? Then read the bill.

I will also confess that I have not found a rigorous study claiming to predict the effect on the overall cost of health care in the US, based on HR 3200. If you've seen one that looked at the overall public and private costs of either HR 3200 or a Medicare For All single-payer plan, I'd be happy to see it.

Personally, I tend to think the plan is setting up a market-driven experiment to find the best way to structure the insurance aspect of health care. Employer mandates keep much of the existing system intact, while the newly invigorated individual market gets both the free market cost-cutting gimmick (more competition!), and the evil socialist cost-cutting gimmick (no profit or marketing costs, total focus on patient care) going head-to-head.

Hmmm, As far as I can tell it is a woman's clothes commercial.

The Spanish says that "Women always knew that a change in clothes make us powerful." Then the voice says "I'm totally Palace," which I'm assuming is the name of the store?

Clearly for a product that isn't US based, but that's my guess... VERY cool btw. The chicks in classic costumes look hawt.

>> ^quantumushroom:
Dr. Paul seems to believe everything happens in a vacuum, e.g. world peace awaits if only the US would withdraw all troops and close all US bases around the globe.
Still, a Congress filled with Ron Paul clones would be VASTLY superior to the sh t we have now.


No, that isn't his point at all. The point is we are bearing all the financial and human cost of something that isn't even appreciated by the world at large or our own citizens. When you hear him talk, he never even talks about this being the solution for "world" peace, just our peace. The world is the worlds problem. I still don't know his exact position of foreign affairs. I tend to think a little different than him on some issues. He has a VERY isolationist mentality at times, but as the old adage goes, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. To be a total recluse seems to invite certain disastrous alliances of evil.

That said, I think we can all be in agreement that Dr. Paul isn't a politician in the typical since, he is a person...the last person on capital hill.

Dr. Paul seems to believe everything happens in a vacuum, e.g. world peace awaits if only the US would withdraw all troops and close all US bases around the globe.

Still, a Congress filled with Ron Paul clones would be VASTLY superior to the sh*t we have now.

I disagree with her that retroactive immunity was given because it was a revenue stream for telecom firms, it was given because Bush pushed for it, issuing an executive order post 9/11 that mandated that the NSA, bypass FISC approval under FISA to start wire tapping. If you are a US based telecom firm, how exactly do you say no to the NSA when it comes with orders from Bush, at the time of large terrorism fears and general public support to do pretty much anything?

The blame is thus with the abuse of executive powers as envisioned by Cheney and the rest of the Nixon gang that believed that the President has the ultimate authority to do anything he likes. Also as I recall there was one single telecom firm that refused to abide by this and thus was mired in legal issues. I do however concede that there is alot of American technology helping China impose a surveillance society everyone from Microsoft to Yahoo to Google is involved there.

America needs civics education programs in schools from Elementary level. If you don't know your rights as a citizen, being free is a moot point.

>> ^Engels: the world doesn't present us with binary numbers to begin with

The world presents us with no numbers. If we grossly categorize things we can use unary(base 1, think counting on your fingers). All bases are pure and arbitrary abstractions.

While many argue "using base ten follows from having ten fingers", that would technically give us base-11(0-10 fingers). Also consider that, since we are using an arbitrary base anyway, we could use 64(the number you can count to on your fingers of one hand in binary).

One of the nice things about being multi-base conversant, is that it's easy to see how arbitrary and unnatural any of these decisions are. base 60 (think sec/min min/hr) or base 12(think mo/yr hr/day) are used regularly with analog devices, because these bases work better for these purposes. The fact that we label these devices with digital numbers does not effect their non-base-10 function.

We just think of everything in base-10 by default and assume that the world works that way, even though we regularly and unknowingly use systems and technology which rely on other bases.

Ohh, for fuck's sake: http://www.debunking911.com/thermite.htm

It was not a goddamn government conspiracy... It was a plot formed and carried out by a radical Islamic group, who held grievance against the US for infractions they felt were made against the Muslim world. Including: the presence of US bases on holy Saudi land; the interference with Iranian politics (installing the pro-western Shah via coup in the 1970s); the first Gulf war against Iraq; the support of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories; etc. etc.

Grow the hell up and realise what is really going on the world, so that governments can learn not to just muscle around Middle Eastern nations, giving rise to such groups which do seek to exploit an angry muslim populace.

You do know the hover text already does what you are saying..

Not sure that I ever want the promote date and time shown as it is in the comments and really, really temporary. Plus it is freaking in different color background and sorting.

Also, time and date format are up to the website. If the server is in CA and that's what they want to do, fine. Don't use US based websites if you want some GMT or 5Dec08 nonsense. We are busy keeping the world screwed up with our backwards english units and not metric dates and measures.

How about is says 12/05/08 5:55pm PST and that is enough for most intelligent persons to figure out what that means.

[EDIT] actually the hover text says December 4th, 2008 4:44pm PST .... Hopefully that isn't too confusing for you.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Worked for me because I'm using a US based VPN - I leave it on pretty much all the time these days.

>> ^dag:
It's loading OK for me at the moment, but I don't doubt it was having troubles earlier. I think you are in Australia like me?
With these big ad servers, they will try and direct you to the server closest to your region. I've noticed that Australia often gets a slow loading server. Not just for VideoSift but on many US based sites.
I would LOVE LOVE to take all the ads off of VideoSift. Unfortunately, there are bills to pay.


Yeah, I'm in Australia also, we always get shafted

And yeah, it was purely in jest in regards to the ads, of course you need the revenue.

>> ^jonny:
I definitely see lots of slowdown with tribalfusion. quantserve too.
Oh, and couldn't there be a sift talk channel for sift related talking?
you're in it now!


Ahh, right, so no channel = Sift talk... gotcha

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

It's loading OK for me at the moment, but I don't doubt it was having troubles earlier. I think you are in Australia like me?

With these big ad servers, they will try and direct you to the server closest to your region. I've noticed that Australia often gets a slow loading server. Not just for VideoSift but on many US based sites.

I would LOVE LOVE to take all the ads off of VideoSift. Unfortunately, there are bills to pay.

>> ^MarineGunrock

US immigration/naturalization disagrees, as does the president(see Guantanamo). People born to citizen parents are citizens, no matter where they are. Children born to non-citizens in US bases are not citizens => bases are not US soil.

Issues of jurisdiction, and issues of naturalization do not follow the same rules. For a US citizen whose children do not plan to run for president bases are effectively US soil, but technically they are not.

Even if you were right, "US soil" is not the issue "natural born" is, the Constitution is vague, and we are going to have to deal with it.