remember that redneck which built a bonker and killed all his familiy and himself?

if you do similar in swizzerland, you might die aged 80 and found eventually weeks after your death because of people remembering you didn't show up for several months now:

http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/schweiz-einsiedler-hortete-sprengstoff-in-illegaler-waldbehausung-a-851201.html

I guess this is far more "real" then your web5.0 buzzword-featuritis-thingabob!!111

pudding and pie, too

IG thinks Facebook is a colossal waste of time, energy, and brain power.

Oh. I will say one more thing. Considering that I'm paying much less for better service than most people with normal HMOs in the US have, I really couldn't care less who I'm subsidizing.

Especially when you consider that you're subsidizing anyone on Medicare anyway.

Couple things -

1. The Israeli system allows you to choose from 4 different health care 'funds' which means there is competition.

2. There's no way that America's healthcare could use the same model successfully because:

a. The per capita number of doctors here is MUCH higher.

b. Doctor's salaries are MUCH lower. A good doctor here doesn't make $100K/year. Department heads might make that much. Residents make less than $10/hour. (On the other hand, they have little student debt, since college/med school is about $4K/year, and a lot of doctors get part of their education paid for by the army)

c. Israel has a population of 8 million people. These things don't scale. Maybe state-by-state, but nationwide, no way.

http://www.isidewith.com/results/37876228 
Who the heck is Gary Johnson? 

http://www.isidewith.com/results/37330373

No, this isn't another advertisement for the Nolan chart.  :)   I still consider myself a libertarian but I'm completely fed up with the Libertarian Party's complete lack of pragmatism.  Anyway, it's that time of the decade again here in the US, where we are given the illusion of participation in our government by choosing which moron gets to sit in the white house for the next four years.  Here's a site that has what appears to be an objective quiz that tells you which of the candidates most matches your worldview.

[ http://www.isidewith.com/ ]

Here are my own results.  They agree with what I already suspected: either the LP is getting even further out of touch, or I am personally sliding to the right, or perhaps a bit of both.

Candidates you side with...

93%

Mitt Romney

on economic, immigration, domestic policy, healthcare, social, and science issues. 

90%

Ron Paul

on immigration, economic, domestic policy, foreign policy, and healthcare issues. 

79%

Gary Johnson

on economic, domestic policy, foreign policy, and healthcare issues. 

75%

Virgil Goode

on immigration, domestic policy, foreign policy, and social issues. 

67%

Jimmy McMillan

on economic, immigration, and domestic policy issues. 

17%

Barack Obama

no major issues. 

7%

Jill Stein

no major issues. 

6%

Stewart Alexander

on foreign policy issues. 

39%

New Jersey Voters

no major issues.

69%

What'dya think you made the law, or something?

All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

As someone who lives in a country with good socialized healthcare, I don't think socialized health care is necessarily a bad thing. On the other hand, I don't see how ObamaCare gives actual socialized health care. In a good system, everyone pays a reasonable amount b/c the systems aren't run on as high a profit margin. In ObamaCare, the middle class and up pays more. Only the lowest working class seems to benefit, as far as I can tell. 

How do you think we socialist communist in europe/germany handle our enforced health insurances for the homeless? Do you think the companies send out predators to sniff around under bridges and in the woods, stalking the poor until they find them and then force them to work enough to pay their monthly health insurance fee?

No, only our national TV stations will resort to these measures, health insurances just obey to the normative power of facts and will only take in people who want to be insured.

when I booked my health insurance for my trip to china they told me its world wide, except USA and Canada. If I would go there, I need to tell and pay 3 times as much, and it wouldn't last for a year but just 14 days.

I guess some things are simply cheaper to organize on a socialized way. Welcome to socialized health insurance.

Ridiculous, but hilarious

Wonder if someday we'll look back on this day the same way we do the day that Hitler was elected....

Once upon a time, there was this state called GDR, were the people felt oppressed quite a bit. They weren't really starving, they weren't really suffering from socialized health care or general lack of healthcare, there was 100% employment rate. The only bad thing you could say about the rulers was that they were a bit nosy and distrusting of their people. Oh and this whole Wall thing and the lack of free travel rights to most countries.

And now this state is gone, without a single shot fired. Lesson learned: Guns do not free people from oppression, people free people from oppression.

Nice preemptive strike though...  "Quick, look over there!"

sometimes you have to watch your problems from a different point of view... or have them watched. then you just need to listen ;-)

Fri Jun 01 2012 16:23:56 EDT from fleeb @ Uncensored

RE: China...
Hm, interesting.

yes, I think its important that not just the goverment can supress you.

and, except for the a little more penetrant beggers I felt pretty safe in china. Hyou have to know the right gestures to get rid of them: a turn of the hand with spread fingers next to your hip.

Ok, no facebook. well... ;-) and you have to get used to their way of road useage: walk when cars are standing, not when its green.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2012-05/26/content_15392452.htm

China starts cataloguing human rights violations in the us of a.

One of the things I don't think anyone should really lose any sleep over is the government going broke. Its something that politicians use to hurt other Politicians  but it's really overblown and exaggerated  to spark fear and anxiety into voters. I worry about the important issues like war, socialized medicine, rights,freedom and lack thereof. Government going broke is nonsense.

Mon May 21 2012 17:35:50 EDT from Spell Binder @ Uncensored

Re: Characters in telnet and TCP/IP overhead.

fleeb: There's an option that can be turned on in most telnet clients nowadays which implements some form of Nagle's algorithm:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagle's_algorithm

The basic idea is to bundle up smaller messages--where the overhead would otherwise be overly large, such as the one-byte messages sent by telnet--into larger messages before transmitting. It does improve data efficiency, but can end up doing so at the cost of latency.
Telnet Binder

it can also end up with backspace working or not.

some of these measures lead to telnet just sending finished lines to the server; so backspace can be implemented inside of the client, and the server never sees the wrong chars.

yes, the risk of reaction running away like in fukushima or harrisburg might be lower.

From reading I can tell you that the wikipedia article its pretty much all what was communicated in the media as well.

a reactor which can have a crack without anybody knowing for a decade is not a good thing to have.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor#Criticisms_of_the_reactor_design

for a more detailed list.

I guess "nobody ever did this in production scale" is one of the even bigger concerns.

we're rather getting reliable cold fission in the whater glass then production scale pebble reactors.

Mon May 21 2012 10:13:35 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

@fleeb +1 , right on the money. We like renewables but we can't suspend basic economics for it.

@dothebart -1 , this is FUD spread by the flat earthers. Current designs such as pebble bed reactors are solving these problems nicely; we just haven't seen big development of them (outside of China at least) because the greenazis continue to stonewall all new builds.

there has been a pebble bed reactor in germany too. There were many problems with it, which made it a desaster on itself; next to that they don't scale up in size as other designs and don't solve the problem of what to do with used fuel either.

Latest news from it was that they "lost" some pebbles. wtf?

Pebble reactors are 80'ies scifi like 60'ies scifi about earth ships or jet turbine powered cars.

get alife.

I just think the operators of nuclear power stations should be ordered to be insured against a super gau; and unless there is a final storage of the used fuel... turn them off.They have been searching for 60 years now, its time for results.

well, its not just people in the US crying for the bad oil industry driving the gas prices up...

and... every year on and on, gas is more expensive in the two easter weeks...

the other alternative... simply not buying gas at that time...

as long as one can find parking cars with the engine running gas still isn't expensive enough.

1) Only in America could politicians talk about the greed of the rich at a $35,000 a plate campaign fund raising event.

2) Only in America could people claim that the government still discriminates against black Americans when we have a black President, a black Attorney General, and roughly 18% of the federal workforce is black. 12% of the population is black.

3) Only in America could we have had the two people most responsible for our tax code, Timothy Geithner, the head of the Treasury Department and Charles Rangel who once ran the Ways and Means Committee, BOTH turn out to be tax cheats who are in favor of higher taxes.

4) Only in America can we have terrorists kill people in the name of Allah and have the media primarily react by fretting that Muslims might be harmed by the backlash.

5) Only in America would we make people who want to legally become American citizens wait for years in their home countries and pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege while we discuss letting anyone who sneaks into the country illegally just become American citizens.

6) Only in America could the people who believe in balancing the budget and sticking by the country's Constitution be thought of as "extremists."

7) Only in America could you need to present a driver's license to cash a check or buy alcohol, but not to vote.

8) Only in America could people demand the government investigate whether oil companies are gouging the public because the price of gas went up when the return on equity invested in a major U.S. oil company (Marathon Oil) is less than half of a company making tennis shoes (Nike).

9) Only in America could the government collect more tax dollars from the people than any nation in recorded history, still spend a trillion dollars more than it has per year for total spending of $7 million PER MINUTE,and complain that it doesn't have nearly enough money.

10) Only in America could the rich people who pay 86% of all income taxes be accused of not paying their "fair share" by people who don't pay any income taxes at all.

Israeli health insurance for traveling abroad is about $1.50 a day, no matter where you go.

If you end up sick somewhere they feel is too expensive, they fly you home for care (assuming you're stable enough to fly).

before my trip to china I had to book an additional health insurance.

its about 8e per year, and has the same conditions about stay days for all around the world in the default package.

Exception: USA & Canada, which would be a lot more expensive because of "the private and expensive health systems over there"

no - I don't think this is related to obamacare.

I suspect that LS is referring to the Laffer Curve rather than the man himself.  Unfortunately for liberals, the inconvenient truth is that it's more than theory; it's a proven economic effect.  One need only look at this chart:

 [ source: http://tinyurl.com/2ay6r32 ]

Raising taxes does not increase revenue; the revenue level stubbornly stays at 19% of GDP regardless of the tax rate.  Furthermore, it is a documented fact that raising taxes does not pay down the debt; for every $1.00 of new taxation, there is a $1.17 increase in spending [source: http://tinyurl.com/7xb9ym8 ]

Nevertheless, our Marxist-in-Chief continues to fool a lot of people into thinking that class warfare is a good idea, and pushes the kind of taxation that sucks the capital out of the true source of economic growth: investment in business.

Finally, I assert that no "Grand Bargain" was offered at all.  Establishment RINO's bullied our Tea Party reps into accepting politics as usual.  A bargain with the devil is never a real bargain.  Now that it's clear that the GOP has failed to maintain itself as the bastion of conservatism, it's time for the conservatives to bail out and start a true conservative party.  GOP can be "democrats lite" and the traitor scum at MSNBC can continue bashing the hell out of them while the Real Americans go off somewhere else and save the country.

ok, facebook, g+ and wordpress blocked behind the iron curtain.

nice weather, not much green in beijing.

verry new polished architecture with big bight LED-screens right next tco 80'ies underground stuff. Apple store got its own building...

wiring looks like in beirut in many places.

Taxxi realy cheap, starbucks next to 1:1 the euro price. So for 10miles of taxi one can drink one big coffee sort of.

air next to ok outside of work hours; looks like there is a forrest fire somewhere around the block at work-daytimes.

_many_ cars, some bikes.

medium/cheap asian cars, but many upper class cars; Mercedes, Audi/VW, BMW, Porsche. Next to no Renault or other french manufacturers very fiew GM cars, primarily german brand cars. Not many SUVs.

most taxis are hundai lantras.

10 Million bicycles in beijing miss melua? in some cellars maybe? not anymore.

I think a large part of the frustration is the sad excuse for candidates that the Republican Party is offering.

Which is why I still nominate IG for president.

He doesn't actually have to win, or even be nominated, or even provide proof of eligiblity. 

I'm going to put you in as a write-in vote :D

-- 
http://www.skpacman.com

hmz, if Mrs. Assad bought these pumps:

http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-79902-4.html

Mr. Assad probably steps on her feet while dancing more often..

Ok. that was surprising how much is from Canada and Mexico...

Is Texas tapped out or what? 

I remember when I lived in Oklahoma, I'd see oil wells everywhere. (This was in the mid-80s.)

I miss the 80s...

When I was young enough that I had no clue what was flying with US politics.

Welcome back, Rag - nice to see you here!

under my administration there will be no government recognition of any type of marriage, so you can go ahead and marry whoever or whatever you want. 

What if that person doesn't want to merry you?

Amen?

Thu Mar 01 2012 06:59:05 PM EST from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored Subject: Re: IGnatius T Foobar - A Plan For America That Doesn't Suck

(The permalink for the above post is http://tinyurl.com/IGnatiusTFoobarForPresident -- please feel free to pass it around.)

Added to my dev site.. last link in the left nav bar (see link to my site in my signature)

:)

-- 
http://skpacman.hopto.org

Sorry, IG, there will be no resting...that would be a violation of the separation of religion and state.

(The permalink for the above post is http://tinyurl.com/IGnatiusTFoobarForPresident -- please feel free to pass it around.)

All of the current politicians do suck, and as of late I'm feeling somewhat disenfranchised and fatalistic about the whole situation.  So perhaps we as a nation deserve to get our asses kicked at this point ...  unless we can get someone in office who dismisses the whole damn system and just gets things done.  That person is me. 

You don't have to vote for me; I will be taking control of the White House on 2013jan20.  I will be your next President.  In 2000 we proved that you don't have to actually win the election.  In 2008 we proved that you don't even have to be a native-born American who qualifies for the office.  So in 2012 we will prove that you didn't even have to run for the office by installing someone (me) who wasn't even participating in the elections.

On my first day in office I will sign an executive order excluding the state of Washington from the union.   We will then declare war on the Evil Republic of Washington, and the bombing of Redmond will begin that night. 

On my second day in office I will sign another executive order making it legal to shoot anyone caught crossing the border illegally.  Gun-toting patriots will flock to Texas and Arizona and take care of the illegal immigration problem without the government having to spend one cent on enforcement.

My third day in office will be spent visiting Congress.  I will make it clear to them that they have 24 hours to have a bill on my desk for signing that will repeal ObamaCare.  If they do not comply, we will drop all security at the Capitol and permit/encourage citizens to administer atomic wedgies to the congresscritter(s) of their choice.

On the fourth day I will travel to the headquarters of all unnecessary government agencies (department of education etc) and personally shut off the electricity in those buildings as those agencies are dismantled.  The National Guard will be deployed to handle any violent public sector union protests when superfluous federal employees are dismissed.  Other agencies will be downsized until they are no longer exceeding their authority; for example, the FCC will be permitted to oversee the use of broadcast spectrum but will not be permitted to regulate content on the airwaves.

Day five will be spent overhauling our energy policy.  All subsidies will be immediately stopped, both to conventional and "alternative" suppliers.  The free market will decide what kind of energy is the most economical.  All permits for domestic energy production will be granted; we will drill for oil and gas; we will build pipelines; we will fast-track nuclear facilities.  Once this is completed we will significantly reduce the amount of oil we buy from terrorists.  Speaking of subsidies -- we will also stop funding the United Nations.

Then on day six I will overhaul our tax code.  There will be a 10% flat tax, no brackets, no deductions.  The corporate tax rate will also be set at a flat 10%.  At least half of the IRS may then be dismantled due to the simpler tax code.  I will enact a 15% tarriff on anything imported from Communist China, and a 25% excise tax on anything produced by union labor.  This will immediately produce useful domestic jobs.

On the seventh day I will rest.

IG, the big secret is that the ALL suck!

IGGY for President.  Pervect for Congress.  

Loanshark, is the Naked Cowboy still running as an independent?

Another thing I wanted to add/take away was the Romney part, I think we are stuck with Obama until 2016.  You are right, it took a lot of small incremental steps to get us in this mess, it is going to take a lot of small incremental steps to get us out. 

I have to agree with you that we have not seen the worst of it yet.   Looking through the blogs and the forums at various places people are too damn ignorant on any subject that is going on in the world.  There is also the "but OUR side is better" crap. 

I will disagree with the Obama/Romney Depression, I think this has been in the works for a lot longer than that. 

When people really start hurting they will take anything, and a desperate individual is a dangerous individual.  If they are willing to take anything they will take the worst.

seems legit, but i dont think it will reach far enough for it to make a sizeable impact.

like a mosquito landing on an elephant....

-- 
http://sdkproductions.hopto.org

This sounds legal enough to deserve attention:

 http://imgur.com/gallery/Y9gtN

 Not that I think it will really kick in becaue the sheeple are to many and will probably ignore this anyway. Only media businesses that might notice are the small ones where the nerds and geeks buy, the big players probably won't even care. 

If I start praising you on websites will people start calling me a "Foobartard?"

Yes we Canada!

http://brianmcalvert.com/canadaparty.html

Sun Jan 29 2012 03:08:09 PM EST from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

Wanna know how ignorant most people are? Many years ago, someone once posted here (in seriousness) "libertarians are just republicans who want to use drugs."

I can not tell you the number of times I have heard that.  I said I wanted to end all the "War Ons"  The War On crime, The War On poverty, the War On drugs, and the War On terror are just ways to funnel taxpayer money to various failed government agencies and will never solve the problem they were intended to solve.  I can't tell if the person was serious or not but someone said the only thing I really cared about was ending the war on drugs so I could have drugs.

Sun Jan 29 2012 03:08:09 PM EST from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

If elected, I will do all of the following:

(SNIP)

This is old, from the 70s but if you don't want to listen to L(l)ibertarians, then at least listen to the Pants Down Republicans.
http://denisboyles.com/PDRepublicans.html

Fri Jan 27 2012 05:18:21 PM EST from skpacman @ Uncensored

The recent remarks from the MPAA in regards to SOPA and PIPA prove the point.

Our government has been turned into a bunch of morons who delight in the fact that their decisions can be bought. Our media giants delight in the fact that they can pay for government decisions. And our regular Joes (literally anyone that lives below the "2%" [or whateverthefuck]) has no say unless we do what we did with the recent blackout protest.

It's not going to get any better until we start seeing people with political and moral views like IG, fleeb, Ford, and dothebart in Congress.

And here's my $0.02:

ART CANCRO FOR PRESIDENT! (then fire everyone in congress)

#ThatIsAll

Never gonna happen, sadly, since those most suited to govern, seldom want to. Which is likely the most sad thing anyone can say about any form of government.

The recent remarks from the MPAA in regards to SOPA and PIPA prove the point.

Our government has been turned into a bunch of morons who delight in the fact that their decisions can be bought. Our media giants delight in the fact that they can pay for government decisions. And our regular Joes (literally anyone that lives below the "2%" [or whateverthefuck]) has no say unless we do what we did with the recent blackout protest.

It's not going to get any better until we start seeing people with political and moral views like IG, fleeb, Ford, and dothebart in Congress.

And here's my $0.02:

ART CANCRO FOR PRESIDENT! (then fire everyone in congress)

#ThatIsAll

But you are in luck!  Tonight there is yet another debate in the never ending debate series.  This debate will be sure to depress you and bring you closer to the reality that the republican choices are so bad Obama will probably have a second term.

That might have been more interesting and less vomit-inducing.

Basically, one big campaign speech, with a smattering of amazingly timed "new laws".

Tue Jan 24 2012 09:23:08 PM EST from Ladyhawke @ Uncensored

Anyone else watching the Candy Land that is the State of the Union?

Nah, they could just put up a full screen graphic that says "We're F*c>ed!" and I would be happy.

Anyone else watching the Candy Land that is the State of the Union?

Oh, and for those interested in the Louisiana and Italy stories, here are a couple of links:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111019/17424316421/louisiana-makes-it-illegal-to-use-cash-secondhand-sales.shtml

http://www.thebitcointrader.com/2012/01/in-italy-its-1984.html -->  Since this one was published, they've already reduced the limit to 1,000E- with a stated move toward a 300E limit, as well as added license plate cameras and cash-sniffing dogs to the borders to prevent cash from trravelling out of Italy.  See the below article for more on this.

http://www.mises.ca/posts/blog/italy-and-capital-controls/

This scares the hell out of me, even more than the new cash restrictions in Louisiana and Italy.  Those, while disturbing, were at least *legal*.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-16/obama-recess-appointments-challenged-by-trade-groups-in-lawsuit.html

Essentially, Obama bypassed the constitutional requirement of congressional review to install 3 National Labor Board appointees and apoint a consumer financial czar.  Even worse, the AD actually *blessed* the action because even though the congress made certain it was in session every 3 days - specifically to avoid recess appts - the fact that this was the purpose of the sessions made them invalid.  Talk about twisted logic!!

since the EU can forumalte regulations which the members have to translate into local law in a certain time, it can also demand the opposite.

Most probably consequences would be to drop hungary from the EU.

Hungary is a pretty special case, since being an ex-warshaw-pact state it joined the EU while growing a democracy plus getting its economy on speed.

It seems as if many hungarians used debts in euro to purchase houses, cars etc. _before_ hungary attempted to join the euro zone (they still aren't)

Their currency dropped, and many people weren't able to fullfill their interest rates of their credits anymore (which got more expensive by magnitudes)

So you now have a population which is growing pretty poor pretty quick by bleeding money out of the land.

In the outcome, it seems as if many of them don't care that much about democracy anymore, since they eventually blame their personal loss on that kind of economic fail.

LS, can we honestly say that ALL of the EU members are democratic?

You know how I feel about what's happening over there.  But I am just as leery of too much power being held in an organization's hands (like the EU) as I am when it happens inter-governmentally (as in Hungary).

Not sure how I feel about the EU determining the governmental style of a soverign nation.  But, it will be interesting to see what they do.

Thu Jan 12 2012 12:44:27 PM EST from LoanShark @ Uncensored

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/world/europe/european-union-gives-hungary-an-ultimatum.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

BUDAPEST — Faced with what critics say is an alarming drift away from
democracy by one of its members, the European Union gave the Hungarian
government a final warning Wednesday that it would face the start of
formal legal action by next Tuesday unless it modified a series of
measures that threaten the balance of power in the country.

Mon Jan 09 2012 12:52:08 EST from fleeb @ Uncensored

I'd take it seriously.

I think some people need something more than just a year to decide whether or not they're ready for college. Something like civil service (military service or something analogous) would help fulfill a peculiar need that we have in the United States for transitioning people from high school to college or trade school.

Fleeb - I was referring to LS's saying that they need military service and being fired at with live rounds. Most of the kids I went to college with did either 2 service years (girls) or 3 years in the army (boys). While I think it's miserable and tragic that we need to have a draft, I think that the kids coming off 3 years of army service or 2 years of national service are a lot better prepared to handle college. 

I think the average high school graduate needs at least one year of something where you don't sit in a classroom all day before they decide whether they're best off going to college or not.

I think if I were raising a kid in the US, I'd make them take a year and work or volunteer for greenpeace or something before I'd let them start college. And if my son gets an army exemption (which he might b/c of his eye), I think I'll encourage him to take at least a year before college anyway.

I made a lousy decision when I was 16 (applying for colleges), and now I'm 33, in the wrong field, even though I knew from the beginning what I wanted to do, and I don't know a good way to get back where I want to go.

in .de we have had military & civilan services (like in elderly resorts or hospital) which were just stopped for a migration to a total professional army.

so while the army was more about in the mood, ok no more making people dig through the mud that don't want to, we' re fine with this...

the civilian services were a little afraid of not being able to fullfill their jobs, so a voluntary social year was created.

The transition seems to have worked well,

I think its a good thing to have the young do that year to develop their social skills for highschool and so on.

Can't tell if you're joking or trolling.

I think that because of how college is perceived, most 18-year-olds have no idea whether college is for them or not. 

College counseling in high schools needs to be way different. 

It's not even just a matter of intelligence. I don't think that low IQ is the reason I failed miserably at college and took 6 years to finish.

If it were, I probably wouldn't have kept a 90+ average in grad school. 

I simply wasn't ready for college, and I wsn't mentally stable enough for it. I think countries that have gap year (army or national service) do their kids a great service.

Loanshark,

Not sure that I agree that the only person who can tell whether college is a good choice for a person is that person himself, but I essentially agree with most of what you said.

It's been my experience that in most cases people have a tendancy to assign a lower value to things they receive for free.  Even a nominal fee can increase the value of something in most people's minds.  That said - I also have to agree with fleebs that the cost of college today is completely out of control (private secondary school, as well), not only from the perspective of availability and affordability - but even from the perspective of value proportionality.

Sat Jan 07 2012 11:52:26 AM EST from LoanShark @ Uncensored

Ultimately, there are two types of people: those who should go to college, and those who shouldn't. And at the end of the day, there is only one person who knows which category a student falls into: the student himself. And unfortunately, the only way that we have figured out how to extract an honest answer to that question from the student is to threaten to stick him with the bill.

Thu Jan 05 2012 10:13:44 AM EST from LoanShark @ Uncensored

Oh I hate the Romans.

Apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order  ... what have the Romans done for us?

Thu Jan 05 2012 11:09:16 EST from dothebart @ Uncensored

these days you even are called an antisemit if you say that some jew didn't properly use toilet paper.

Why would you care how someone used toilet paper, you antisemite?!

these days you even are called an antisemit if you say that some jew didn't properly use toilet paper.

Plus those evil Zionists stole the land from the Palestinians!

(never mind that people who say that have an assumption that there was a settled 'Palestinian' land and the Jews came in en masse and took it away...)

Iran is its own disaster waiting in the wings, though if this is true, it indicates that America isn't totally oblivious.

http://www.whiteoutpress.com/articles/q12012/us-troops-going-to-israel483/ 

Anti-semitism is on the rise around the Christian world, particularly in Europe. Even the UK is getting bad.

The situation in the US is still tolerable, but it's not going in a good direction. The ways laws are designed and such makes it unlikely that there would be actual state-sponsored antisemitism in the US, but Klansmen and their ilk can do a hell of a lot of damage.

One of the scariest parts of this situation for me is how under the radar this is - and how apathetic we are toward it.  Not just Jews, but most of the people with whom I've brought it up.  And these are not generally apathetic people, particularly in the realm of world events and politics.  I get similar reactions regarding the situation in Iran.

And it's the late 1920's again. Please please let the Jews there see the writing on the wall and LEAVE. Israel is waiting for them. With paprika ;)

Apparently Yale has a similar program planned. If you could get a certificate of acheivement from a major university based on online performance...

In Israel, we have the open university.

You don't have to be accepted.

You can take any course as long as it doesn't have a prerequisite.

You pay per course - the price per course is something like $500 and includes course materials. Most people take 1-2 courses per semester, and some courses are offered on summer semester, so you're spending around $1500-2500 per year, and you can still work full-time.

You can learn from the book, online, or in select locations.

Courses have exercises that must be handed in to get a grade. There are exams for some  courses. You can write exams at a number of locations - it's unlikely that you'd have to drive more than an hour to find an exam location.

If you complete all the courses needed for a degree, you get the degree, even if it took you 20 years.

The courses are rigorous, and a degree from the Open University signals potential employers that the person is very motivated and wasn't handed anything on a silver platter. 

Now this really could be a game changer, TriL.  Both in terms of educational access - and market affect.  It'll be fascinating to see how it plays out.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2011/12/21/m-i-t-game-changer-free-online-education-for-all/

What's the new initiative, Tril?

the whole college thing has me thinking in a different direction. I say boycott. If, en masse, 18-year-olds decide that they're not willing to pay more than (for the sake of argument) $15K per year for college, and enough of them get on board, then yes, some people aren't going to go to college, but the colleges are also going to find ways to make it more affordable. 

Yes, I get that there aren't that many places at Cooper Union and the military academies and there are only so many football scholarships, but if the "Occupy" movement makes a commitment not to spend more than a cap, they will take the floor out from under the colleges and someone will find a way to make it happen. It may mean a lot less professors, much larger lecture halls, more online/self-study learning and a lot less extras on campus, but I believe it can be done. 

And if not, there's always the new initiative by MIT.

Fleeb, I don't know that I agree with this assumption.  As a Jr in HS, I'd already been working for several years and had a good sense of what spending vs saving meant - and so did many of my friends.  Granted, I didn't know how much it cost to run a *household* - but I certainly understood that if I spent the money I had on X, then it would not be available for Y.  I also understood that money was not unlimited and that if I wanted to buy something, then there was a labor cost *to me* associated with obtaining it - and that if I wrecked it, that there would be a cost *to me* associated with replacing it.  

What is troubling to me is that the generation of kids now in HS (and those just out of college, like my youngest sib) do *not* seem to understand these things.  They honestly do not seem to comprehend that while society by it's nature should assist those less fortunate - that this is a gesture of kind will and meant for necessesities; it's not something to which they are entitled, much less for non-necessities. 

Sat Dec 31 2011 07:38:39 AM EST from fleeb @ Uncensored

A young adult who is just going to college doesn't know how much this 'civilized' life we lead actually costs. You simply do not know until you actually have to do it yourself. For young adults, that often doesn't actually happen until your late twenties, possibly your thirties (that is, when you no longer have to ask for help from your parents occasionally, and you're settled into your career).

So, yeah, of course the high school junior with straight A's has difficulty understanding how it couldn't happen.

We've gone so far down the entitlement lane now that even moderate "progressives" find themselves confused - and fewer and fewer seem to understand the cause and effect matrix.

Not sure if I mentioned this before, but a bit ago, my next door neighbor and her son got caught in the "occupy salem" demonstration.  At dinner that night, he wanted to know why people were so mean and not wanting to help them (they wanted the city to give subsidies for college) and positited that if everyone chipped in than everyone should be able to go.

My middle-class neighbor spent some time trying to explain, and then finally said something to the effect of:  "you know all those vacations and toys we've not been able to get for you because we 'couldn't afford' them - and all the times we couldn't make your plays and games because we were working?  The reason was so that we could save for you to be able to go to an ivy league school - or whatever other college you choose.  If we instead give that money to other people so that *they* can go to college, then we would not be able to give it to you....and you would likely either have to attend whatever school the state was willing to pay for or work your way through."

Her son - a high school junior with straight A's genuinely had difficulty comprehending why both could not happen.

my apologies. I wanted to be sure that everyone could see the image after my take on it.

It looks like an advertisement for General Mills. Look at it - The Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Apple Cinnamon Cheerios are left alone!

Sun Dec 25 2011 10:02:51 EST from dothebart @ Uncensored

well, yes Iraq. I'd basicaly compare it to yougoslavia, a state where ethnical groups have been combined, and one oppressed the other.

I guess the Iraq and its peoples would be better of to become a looseley couplet union of at least 3 states.

Fri Dec 23 2011 14:07:01 ESTfrom fleeb @ Uncensored

Yes... we are overstretched. Which is why I didn't want us messing around in the in the first place.

 

 

whew fleeb, this one is so true. should better belong into health and wellness?

But the smacks frog pushing shugar... remindet me of my last attempt to buy these. I simply can't keep myself from eating much more than I would require.

if you have a cereals mix with oatmeal plus lots of other stuff in it, and a mere 5% of these in the mix it might be ok.

but else this is a real killer, and comparing it to H is definitely justified.

On a completely different topic, though:

http://www.popaganda.com/media/blogs/billboards/cereal%20boxes%20on%20shelf%20LA%20SM.JPG

Subversive art, with a decidedly anti-corporate bend to it.

 

well, yes Iraq. I'd basicaly compare it to yougoslavia, a state where ethnical groups have been combined, and one oppressed the other.

I guess the Iraq and its peoples would be better of to become a looseley couplet union of at least 3 states.

Fri Dec 23 2011 14:07:01 ESTfrom fleeb @ Uncensored

Yes... we are overstretched. Which is why I didn't want us messing around in the in the first place.

 

 

On a completely different topic, though:

http://www.popaganda.com/media/blogs/billboards/cereal%20boxes%20on%20shelf%20LA%20SM.JPG

Subversive art, with a decidedly anti-corporate bend to it.

The citizens of the United States have been gladly giving up their freedoms in the name of safety and or convenience for a long time now.  I am sure it is happening all over the world.  Maybe those guys over on Prison Planet are only mildly crazy conspiracy nuts.

Sadly, I believe it's been some time since there has been freedome for Jews (or Muslims for that matter) in Hungry.

But, I do agree that there is relativity and I certainly agree that freedom is in trouble around the world with great impact on Israel - and the US, whether we like to admit it or not.

its been like that for a year.

Hungary is a canary of a different color, but certainly singing at full throat, I agree.  And yet, there's very little coverage of it.  Haven't seen much on Kim Jong Il's death either.

But there's lots of "alerts" about the withdrawal of the final US troops from Iraq....

Thu Dec 15 2011 04:36:32 PM EST from triLcat @ Uncensored

The war's barely begun. Israel is a test case. If the west allows Israel to fall, then Radical Islam will take over them very shortly thereafter.

Oh come on, it isn't like radical islam has been at war with the west for hundreds of years... he said sarcastically.

On the other hand, fleeb, had we been willing to entertain this argument back during WWII, millions of lives might have been saved. 

Most arguments can go both ways.  In this case, however, I agree with Tril.  Israel's a canary in the coal mine.

The war's barely begun. Israel is a test case. If the west allows Israel to fall, then Radical Islam will take over them very shortly thereafter.

Tue Dec 13 2011 11:06:20 AM EST from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

Oddly, I can't find any mention of this in the mainstream media at
home (tho some uk rags mention it w/o the allahu akbar).

This is disgraceful. Until we can actually admit that radical Islam itself is the enemy, not just Al Qaeda or some other vague group, we're going to continue to lose the war.

I thought you guys had already won it

Sadly, I fear that we may be coming to a place where we have more to lose than "just" this war.

Have you seen the news reports coming out of european and asian papers about the Russ-Chinese discussions?  The topic seems once again strangely absent from the standard US/International press.

Tue Dec 13 2011 11:06:20 AM EST from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

This is disgraceful. Until we can actually admit that radical Islam itself is the enemy, not just Al Qaeda or some other vague group, we're going to continue to lose the war.

Oddly, I can't find any mention of this in the mainstream media at home (tho some uk rags mention it w/o the allahu akbar).

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2011/12/hollywood-jihad-shootout-gunman-calmly-targeted-drivers-people-shouting-allahu-akbar.html

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/12/hollywood-gunman-shouting-allahu-akbar-fires-upon-random-passersby-at-sunset-and-vine.html

Sat Dec 10 2011 11:04:20 AM EST from triLcat @ Uncensored

some people learn best by writing down what they're learning. You're discriminating against that segment of the population. Sounds insane to me.

Exactly my point. If I didn't write it down, I didn't remember it. I still have notes from my college classes that I use on a daily basis (print-making, AutoCAD, SolidWorks, ANSI, ASME, ... the usual drafting stuff).

It's insane to even think that notes are copyright infringement. We had a policy campus-wide in college about notes. You take notes or fail the class. It was part of every single teacher's cirriculum.

I learn by writing, following directions, and direct experience. I can't just sit there and soak up the information. I have to write it down or I'll forget as soon as the instructor is done talking...

Idiocracy at work. 

some people learn best by writing down what they're learning. You're discriminating against that segment of the population. Sounds insane to me.

Fri Dec 09 2011 02:46:16 AM EST from dothebart @ Uncensored

http://laboratorium.net/archive/2011/12/08/bad_news_from_berkeley

new level in copyrights stupidity.

note-taking prohibited to protect the prof from the students stealing his material.

WTF?

progress...

how are lazy students supposed to remember what the f'ing lecture was about if they cant take notes? I had several professors tell me "if you do not take notes, i don't expect you to pass." and he would point out the "really important" stuff and hint that it would be on the next exam/final/essay/assignment/etc...

bah

http://laboratorium.net/archive/2011/12/08/bad_news_from_berkeley

new level in copyrights stupidity.

note-taking prohibited to protect the prof from the students stealing his material.

WTF?

EcoGeeks speaking sleek Greek?

Tue Dec 06 2011 10:57:42 EST from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

Economies of scale are important because a big power plant can generate electricity far more efficiently than a bunch of little ones, particularly if we're talking about on-site plants maintained by people who aren't experts dedicated to power generation.

What the little plants do exceptionally well, however, is to keep excessive load off the grid, which no longer has to transport as much electricity to as many places.

Community and municipal power plants would be a good step forward, but good luck getting that past the greenies.

you're missing some other important points.

 - the line length needed to transport the electricity also causes loss (plus lowers reliability)

 - the overal degree of efficiency of the whole system can be increased by using the remainding heat, which you can't that much on a 100MW Nuclear Power Plant.

you can use big power plants (regardless of coal/gas/nuclear) for industrial scales for example in alloy production, or to power railways...

but just to power peoples houses and middle size industry smaller scale power plants scale better.

Wed Nov 30 2011 14:42:03 EST from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

Orbiting energy platforms have been discussed before. The generally agreed upon method of delivering the energy to earth is via a focused microwave beam.
There is some concern that if the beam drifts away from its target collector, it will start cooking people wherever it happens to land.

Whether this is a bad thing is left as an exercise for the reader :)

I remember one version of SimCity which contained exactly these microwave collectors, with abovementioned problems:

Microwave Power:This provides a ton of pollution free power, but once in a while the beam misses the dish. -ZAP- ^Whoops!^ 

Stats:
Size: 4 x 4 tiles
Year Available: 2020
Megawatts: 1600
Tiles Served: 4,848
Pollution: 0 units
Life Span: 50 years
Land Value: 28,000,000
Cost: $28,000
Cost per megawatt: $17.5

Source:  http://sc3k.itgo.com/sc2000/items/powerplant.html

PS: As a german full of typical Angst I agree with dothebart. I think energy efficency and powersavings are more essential than more power sources. We still waste to much. (And no, I am not some kind of "back to the stone age" fanatic, I just think we can build smarter devices and machines.)

Wed Nov 30 2011 12:57:48 PM EST from Ygorl @ Uncensored

We should just build a whole bunch of nuclear plants on the moon. That way it won't be a big deal if a couple of 'em blow up every now and again.

That would be an interesting solution, but how would we get the resulting electricity back to earth?

if every 20 years we continue to have a hazard like tschernobyl or fukushima, which each time produces a 20km diameter dead spot in heavily settlet areas there soon will be no more space.

we don't even have a single place for the nuclear waste after 60 years; and I don't think we will find one any time soon. So generations will have to be educated how to breed the waste so it doesn't blow in ther face.

if every nuclear power station has to be inshured to cover the fatalities it produces in case of a GAU plus an inshurance to cover the handling of the waste, so you put the total price tag on it, I doubt anyone will find a good reason to build a nuclear power plant. Its not cheap, its not safe and yes, we need to find something else; be it reducing the energy use or finding other technologies to give us the energy we want to consume.

first time in history massive protests against nuclear waste transports in france.

just about 400 protesters, but 400 more than usual.

In germany these transports call several thousands on track since the eighties.

I like what this guy says about half way through the video, he doesn't believe in private property, but he does believe in personal property.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/17/hey-wow-the-daily-show-actually-made-fun-of-ows-sorta/
(From the Daily Show)

Good material skpac

PROTECT IP and SOPA are being voted on today.

I just wish google would pick the right side and pull out the big guns.

I was so pissed about this stuff that I posted it all over my recording studio's website: http://bit.ly/vzLM3M

"Rational adults"?  There is no need for insults and name calling here.

Sometimes I skip this room because things make me angry. 

Mostly, I like the dialog - I feel like rational adults discussing issues can actually help a situation.

Two monumental explosions in Iran and the press is mostly ignoring it...

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/12/world/meast/iran-blast/

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/looting-main-street-20100331

 What happened here in Jefferson County would turn out to be the perfect metaphor for the peculiar alchemy of modern oligarchical capitalism: A mob of corrupt local officials and morally absent financiers got together to build a giant device that converted human shit into billions of dollars of profit for Wall Street

I probably should have responded to this here instead of on G+ with that Snopes thing.  I wish I still had the text I wrote regarding Jesus' words concerning Christmas Trees, as that was kinda funny.

Wed Nov 09 2011 09:25:16 EST from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

Taxation without representation, or a war against Christianity ... you decide!

http://www.conservativerefocus.com/blog5.php/2011/11/08/obama-disguises-attack-on-christianity-as-aid-to-ch ristmas-tree-marketing-tax-on-christmas-trees-decreed-by-obama

(or ... http://tinyurl.com/bpj22s9 )

Imam Obama places a tax on Christmas trees -- and conveniently bypasses Congress by running it through the Department of Agriculture instead of legislating it.

WTF?

I'd say a symptom if you have a state system with several instances who all need to approve decisions (like we have in germany also..)

Once one of these houses simply "blocks" because of because without any chance to find a comon denominator on discussions, you have to find a way around it.

http://occupymemphis.org/media/kunena/attachments/100/tumblr_lt874owi8h1qzsnxyo1_1280.jpg

Tue Oct 18 2011 13:09:17 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored Subject: Re: One Law. Period.

There is only, precisely, One Law.

Are we referring to "the One Law, the totality of all laws" as discovered by Moses?

Or something else?

It is mathematically impossible to have more than one law if the requirement is that such laws are to be coherent.

Moses ?  I try to steer clear of religious perspectives as they so often end up creating very intense RDFs where logic threads

 undergo quantum entanglement at relativistic velocities which even heavy doses of alcohol cannot alleviate...

[Urgent note to self: Drink coffee at least one hour before turning logging onto uncensored and typing things one might regret later ]

cheers

-- 
TheOneLaw

Google for example has its main part of the company there, at least the one that should be paying business tax in USA. They only have 15% business tax or something like that in ireland. So they gain a little by all the foreign countries but still not enough to bail out their own banks, EU did that. They also wont raise their tax, since the foreign businesses would leave then... 

It might be interesting to see how much taxes less "the rich" could be paying if they were paying all their taxes. For example, according to our primary yellow press magazine, the greeks have 200 billions € on offshore accounts (mostly switzerland), alledgedly... Dodging taxes is a widespread hobby of germans, too.

Lots of american companies have their main headquarter in ireland for tax reasons (and the EU recently bailed ireland out of their debts, iirc...), Bono (that head fag of U2) has his main place of living in netherlands, because he pays less taxes there. If all of these people were living in the country they call "home" (for whatever reason they do so) and pay proper taxes, maybe the state wouldn't need to tax them that much. If Apple would still build their hardware in US instead of Shenzen, pay their employees more and charge the same, they wouldn't gain as much as they do now, but the US might gain more...

 Also maybe legallizing all drugs and taxing them might cash in some money while at the same time it might reduce the money spent for border control and on crime fighting the mafia... But that would be unethical, i guess.

Then again, I don't understand politics and economy, so what the heck. ;)

I think you're flattening dimensions here not able to bear the needed information.

I think one would need a graph here; x axis % of population, y axis % of income

best twice, one to the direction %welthiest and %poorest.

At this point, I'd really like to see a private, NGO-funded audit of the federal budget.  I want to know where the hell all this money is *truly* going.  Given it's gargantuan size, I simply don't believe that it's mostly going to medicare, 800$ hammers, and social security (read: defense and social programs, in gen) and not to enourmous amount of guttable pork.

Getting very close to seeing a Dave-vention as a desireable option.

There is only, precisely, One Law.

Anything else is simply gaming performed on you by other people.

...or by you on other people...

Wed Oct 05 2011 11:12:27 EDT from zooer @ Uncensored

I want to make a law outlawing laws.   Well actually any new laws until we get the old laws fixed.

 

I am going to recommend the "drugs" option for her.

 

-- 
TheOneLaw

In related news...

(That about says it all, doesn't it?)

At http://rayharvey.org/index.php/2011/09/michael-moore-old-fashioned-capitalism-when-wealth-was-shared/ there is an article in which we re-discover how little Michael Moore knows about capitalism.

I forget some people use the text client and can't see the images displayed in-line, so here is a link to my image from the post above.
http://palmbeachpravda.com/images/feild2.jpg

What I find amazing is that the person writing those demands isn't a well known economist.  Those demands are so extraordinary, so well thought out, high paying job offers must be filling his in-box.

I want to make a law outlawing laws.   Well actually any new laws until we get the old laws fixed.

I am going to recommend the "drugs" option for her.

Fleeb for President!

Wow, I just read those demands.  Wow.

Weird ... tarriffs happen to be on the list of "demands" of the ridiculous "occupy Wall Street" movement.  It's pretty much the only reasonable thing on the list.  Check out this nonsense (source: http://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed-list-of-demands-for-occupy-wall-st-moveme/ )

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

Demand four: Free college education.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.

WTF???

It sucks you had to go through that, fleeb.  Hopefully, this corner will help bring the services to a time when no one will need to do so.

Alright Mr. Foobar, there are fifteen formally declared republican candidates, make your Frankenstein Monster.  (Or a Mr. Potato Head)

For fun build a second monster using non-declared, withdrawn or candidates from other parties.

Thu Sep 08 2011 04:23:18 EDT from the_mgt @ Uncensored

Build a taxpayers union! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Taxpayers_Federation

which is primary a loby organisation pinpointing govermental waste.

But whatever agency you work for, you probably don't want to become blacknosed by them.

Build a taxpayers union! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Taxpayers_Federation

Good find, zooer.

I pass by this house and I see a FeEx truck in the driveway.  I always wondered about it, perhaps the owner of the truck purchased a route.  As I remember the truck isn't in the best shape.

From what I understand is the post office gets its money from the sale of stamps and services, however the post office can get "loans" from the government.  So it is all a matter of creative accounting.

I have heard suggestions  such as delivery every other day, but the union would get upset about that.

UPS is unionized, Fed Ex is not.

Interesting

Verizon had 46,000 workers on strike in August who were counted as unemployed. The strike is now over and those workers will add to employment in September (LINK)

So will they brag about "creating" 50,000 jobs?

It is all in the numbers...

haha, so it  is the PhD of trolling.

Poe's law is interesting, thanks for the education! (Something like that happened to me when I founded the "Christians and Atheists united against  sneaking Agnosticism" group on a socialist network I was once part of. Lot's of people joined the group and seriously discussed why the whole thing was wrong. [Or they were trolling me back, you never know])

Mon Sep 05 2011 20:15:30 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

the_mgt : yes, the Westboro folks are pretty wacko, but keep in mind that the liberal media deliberately overblows and magnifies these stories as part of their effort to impose an atheocratic government.

so I was pointed to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christwire

Mon Sep 05 2011 10:18:18 EDT from Ladyhawke @ Uncensored

Another nice thing is that most of them have have an agreement whereby if a member is unable to pick up their portion on time, it gets donated to an agency or family in need (vs getting double sold or going to waste).

Ok, won't happen here, since they also do shipping.

Also the local disposal rate has shrunk ever since.

Mon Sep 05 2011 09:36:03 EDT from the_mgt @ Uncensored

http://christwire.org/2011/09/7-things-barack-obama-and-hitler-have-in-common/

Seriously, either this site and those Westboro Baptist Church guys all own PhDs in trolling or they are seriously mentally disturbed. Here in germany, we only fear the muslim bros, as our minister for inner affairs never gets tired to remark. But if I were living over there, I would seriously fear some christian fundamentalists.

Still, this quote is the most funny and ubar epic troll sentence evar:

Both leaders were birthed out of wedlock and as the Bible and a quick look around an anti-abortion protest will quickly tell you, most single moms are also liberal lesbians.

I wish those guys the experience of living in a KZ for some months.

If they survive, they probably know they were missing the point.

What the media leaves out is that Fred Felps was a fund raiser for Al Gore.  (LINK)  He also endorsed Bill Clinton.

mgt, that line was so funny it was hard to take seriously enough for the offense the writer intended.

What Bart described we in the States call CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture agreements).  They're fantastic, I agree.  Especially during the last few years when I've not been able to keep my own garden, it's a welcome alternative to the super market.  The food tastes so much better and, at least here, our winter crops go far beyond cabbage.  Last year they had several different types of squash, fall corns, fall beans, cabbage, and a number of root vegetable harvests (like beets, late carrots, parsnips, etc).  Another nice thing is that most of them have have an agreement whereby if a member is unable to pick up their portion on time, it gets donated to an agency or family in need (vs getting double sold or going to waste).

Many CSA's here offer organic options - and some even offer local eggs and meat.  I don't purchose those as I keep kosher, but if I ever find a kosher CSA, I'd love to do that, too.

http://christwire.org/2011/09/7-things-barack-obama-and-hitler-have-in-common/

Seriously, either this site and those Westboro Baptist Church guys all own PhDs in trolling or they are seriously mentally disturbed. Here in germany, we only fear the muslim bros, as our minister for inner affairs never gets tired to remark. But if I were living over there, I would seriously fear some christian fundamentalists.

Still, this quote is the most funny and ubar epic troll sentence evar:

Both leaders were birthed out of wedlock and as the Bible and a quick look around an anti-abortion protest will quickly tell you, most single moms are also liberal lesbians.

Also I wholeheartly agree with dothebart, despite the problem that you will mostly eat cabbage in winters.

up to 50% of all food produced in the western wold is disposed.

http://www.taste-the-waste.de/

the methane produced by the rotting of that food could be lined up against 50% of the co2 exhausted by cars...

seems as if one way to cope the problem is to choose a 'veggie box'-distribution; where a local farmer mixes a box of localy produced veggies for his subscribers;

that way he can better evaluate whats needed than the supermarket, who is dependand on whoever comes in.

we've got such a  box for half a year now. (well i'm not in charge of cooking...) but it sort of wokrs like that:

on sunday you get the preselection for your box, the next week pricelist comes with the last weeks box.

you that can choose to add or remove parts from the order. (via webif)

some days later, the delivery truck stops by, drops the box, picks up the empty stuff from the last week.

The next box, or the other cheap offerings give the puzzle for the menu for the next week; sometimes you learn new foods which you wouldn't have chosen in the supermarket...

My Chief Menu Officer, Katie, seems to be pretty satisfied with all that; the mouths to feed also.

Fri Sep 02 2011 10:53:54 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

This would also *significantly* reduce the size of the IRS.

When is the last time government was reduced?  Government will never allow itself to shrink.

Mon Aug 15 2011 22:01:11 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

It's been argued that one way to make things "equitable" (which is what the tax-and-spenders keep saying they want) would be to eliminate income taxes altogether, and switch entirely to consumption taxes. So it doesn't matter how much money you made -- you get taxed when you spend it.

This would greatly simplify the tax code.

I purposely "forgot" this thread, but last night I decided my blood pressure wasn't high enough and decided to look around.  IGnatius, have you read the Fair Tax book?  Interesting read but I am not sure enough people would understand what is going on.  People might not notice they had more money in their pockets but they would notice they are paying more at the purchase time.  Some people think it would create a black market, which I don't think it would be any bigger then the current black market.  I just don't think a consumption tax would work, I like the idea.

The problem is people don't realize all the hidden taxes they pay.

Wed Aug 31 2011 07:10:36 AM EDT from saltine @ Uncensored

What if time travellers killed JFK because he triggered WWIII?
Makes sense.. Their timetime changed the moment the shot went off and the gunmen were no more...

Wait... that theory actually makes more sense than the BS that's been passed around for several decades.

Yeah, but he had help.

It would be a good exercise to determine where the current taxation stands along the Laffer curve.  I suspect that we are closer to the peak of the curve *with* the Bush tax-cuts-for-everyone in place, and further to the right of the peak without them.  From this it would stand to reason that increasing taxes  at this time will actually decrease revenue.

As I've mentioned before, it is generally understood that raising taxes does not increase revenue, as this chart shows:

[ Go to http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/income-tax-receipts if you can't see the image ]

If one accepts that tax hikes will not increase revenue, it stands to reason that the only option available is spending cuts.  I'm not going to be partisan about it either -- I think all of the unnecessary foreign wars are just as cuttable as the unnecessary social welfare programs.

"Tax reform" means different things to different people.  I would advocate a flat tax.  No brackets, but no deductions either.  And furthermore, income from all sources (payroll, investments, etc) can be taxed equally.  10% across the board.  Not only would this make taxation more equitable, but the vastly reduced complexity would allow the IRS and related bureaucracies to be vastly reduced in size, further shrinking the cost burden imposed by an oversized public sector.

Simple problems have simple solutions.  This is a simple problem, whether the political elite want to admit it or not.  All that stands in the way are special interest groups.

mmm....butta!  err...cake!

This was originally posted as a response to a message my long time friend Matt H. posted on his blog [ http://technospiritualist.blog.com/2011/07/30/senator-john-boehner/ ].  It has been slightly edited in its appearance here, mainly to detach it from the context of the original post.

Many people are now calling for our governmental critters in Washington to find a "compromise" that will get us past this nasty little budgetary stalemate regarding the August 2 debt ceiling deadline.

They are calling for a compromise, but on what?  The reason the Tea Party exists in the first place is because partisan politics have gotten out of control.  Would a compromise involve accepting a tax hike (or as the left now calls it, "revenue enhancements")??

The dirty little secret that the media doesn't tell you is that the government won't pay off its credit cards just because they raised taxes.  If you look at their spending history for the last half century (enough of a time span that you can't really blame one political party or the other for this) -- for every dollar of new tax revenue the government brought in, they added $1.17 of new spending.

Lest anyone think I'm making this up, here's the easiest citation, although it can be confirmed elsewhere as well: [ http://goo.gl/katgJ ]

Tea Party reps know this.  And they're not loyal to the Republican establishment; they are loyal to the American people and the Constitution.  That's why they're taking such a hard line.  They know that a "compromise" just kicks the can down the road.

And because they know this, one of the things being rejected by the ideologues on the left is any "compromise" that only lasts one year.  One year should be ample time to get things in order, right?  But they know it isn't; they know that the Obama camp isn't going to take that year to say "ok, we spent too much, this health care thing is unsustainable so we'd better roll it back" -- no way, no how.  They will only accept a plan that raises the debt ceiling high enough to kick the can down the road for TWO years -- in other words, well past the 2012 election.

The "cut, cap, and balance" plan is a compromise.  It includes a balanced budget amendment.  When you think about it, it's insane that we even need a balanced budget amendment -- the idea of keeping the budget balanced should have been common sense and standard practice ever since the beginning.  So why is it a compromise?  Because when Boehner's camp tells you that they're willing to cut a trillion dollars, they're talking about cutting a trillion dollars from a baseline of a NINE trillion dollar increase.  Where I come from, nine minus one is eight.  That's +8.

Google "the penny plan" to see what we really ought to be doing.  The penny plan balances the budget by:

• Cutting total federal spending by one percent each year for six consecutive years,
• Setting an overall spending cap of 18 percent of gross domestic product in 2018, and
• Reducing overall spending by $7.5 trillion over 10 years.

[ source: http://minx.cc/?post=319378 ]

By the way ... the idea that rolling past the August 2 deadline without raising the debt ceiling is going to suddenly plunge the Known Universe into a catastrophic chain reaction that implodes the entire space-time continuum -- that's nothing but scaremongering.  It will indeed cause a few problems, but the sun will rise in the east on August 3.

Gnaaaa, Loanshark! I didn't listen to that tune for about 20 years and now the melody of Justified & Ancient haunts me!!!

TURN UP THE STROBE!!

hahaha, never really made that connection, but know that you say it, I remember owning a mixtape in the 80s with some music by them. (I was around 10 yo then and only discovered the books 5-6 years later.)

About the political situation in USA, I believe in the Tzarist Occupied Government theory and the democrans/republicrats conspiracy the late RAW proposed while candidating for his Guns 'n' Dope party. http://www.gunsanddopeparty.com/

Equal rights for ostriches!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzMN2c24Y1s&feature=player_embedded

wikileaks commercial.

cool video.

A government's answer to any problem is, of course, more government,

exactly...

Yeah. It's actually very interesting how so many people think that they're mutually exclusive.

If you look at the order of creation in the Bible, it runs roughly parallel with the order of evolution.

If you go with the punctuated equilibrium theory (which, btw, is better supported by the fossil record than classical evolution), it's even easier to believe in creationism.

That, and if they're posting random users' password information on Twitter then they are not really only attacking the jerks trying to control the internets, are they?

I realy like them attacking the GEMA, which has been known for manipulating who gets what money for which music is played for quiet a while now.

and that with themselves using around 50% of the royalities they charge.

this might have been acceptable 1990, but now?

note: i've also posted this on my main site (http://blurredvizionstudios.com).

Love it or hate it, they're doing it so we can have our internet-freedom like it's meant to be!

Now that, my friends, is a bold undertaking: http://usat.ly/j7F0BE

(LulzSec and Anonymous declare war against government agencies and large corporations.)

:D glad to see a powerful group of hackers share my same ideals in regards to how (badly) the internet is policed by bloated corporations and know-it-all government agencies.

oh, and you should be able to give these privileges to more than one person.

I don't think its a matter of gender anyways.

there are quiet a bunch of rights which one should be able to give to a related person (regardless if you have sex with them or not) like:

- hospital access in case of accident

- pull the plug in case of fatal accident after n months...

- who's the kids to be replacement parent in case of accident

- who's what kind of inheritor

- adopt (you have to be checked here regardles of all those things...)

- share inshurance policies

...

and that most probably in a similar way like checkboxes as you find them on your privacy profile on facebook.

and, there should be advantages for those raising kids, because of you have those dink's (dual income, no kids) who get unfair advantages over others that were intended for couples raising kids.

Or you could go the super sneaky way:  Allow for the stupid "separate but equal" crap to destroy marriage from the inside out.  Use it to insist not only on all of the same perks of marriage, but also on some additional extras, to ensure that the protected classes receive "no less".  Just make sure there are no limitations as to who is allowed to take advantage of the "civil union" status.  Soon enough, the extra bennies inherant in the "civil union" status will have most folks going for a "civil union" from the state and a "marriage" from the church/rabbi/blue man group.  State run marriage will eventually then become either a minority event or completely irrelevant all on it's own.

Ha.  Kinda like his style.  :-)

I'm something of an Indie.  But it seems to me that the quote Moorfield noted from a buisnessman who said "Great job Senator! I catered a gay wedding once. As long as your money is green I will serve you. I care about my bottom line. It's about the economy. Plus, it's the right thing to do." captures most of what the Republican party is really supposed to be about anyway: economic independance and small gov't. <swivels around for Ragnar>

On another note, who is Gary Johnson and why is CNN supposedly blackballing him?

like it was in germany after WW I:

many unemployed soldiers, who didn't learn any proffession other then fighting.

Some of them were employed as teachers (poor kids...) but many of them remained unemployed, sowing the seeds for WW II.

if you want to bomb mecca, bombing jerusalem would also solve a bunch of conflicts centuries old.

...and suddenly you´re an illegal imigrant...

spanish rightwing election spot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNoRv8Nu86I

you're gonna like it.

Saudi Arabia definitely counts, even if their government isn't openly hostile.  You are correct about Canada being the biggest supplier.  That's actually a good thing, because if we were producing more of our own oil we could eliminate quite a few of the others.

Heh...

"This is what happens to you when you fuck with America.  We litigate you into oblivion."

Which, honestly, seems like a fate worse than death.  I don't expect Noriega is feeling the love right now.

i'd say a headshot is a pretty cheap exit for such a man.

hm, imho they shouldn't have published it immediately.

this devalues the information they found on the computers and around the house.

and, as they practiced whaterboarding the last years in guantanamo a lot, these persons would have been the right ones to continue with.

since al quaida has been a somewhat looseley coupled tree structure, its probably more like a hydra by now.

lets see how much of the roots of the tree they can locate & destroy now.

Heh...

I acknowlege the politically ticklish nature of what our government did there... but I'm inclined not to care about it so much.  In fact, it's almost because of its dubious nature that I respect him a little more than I did before.  A good leader does have to bend or break the rules occasionally... knowing which ones to break, and how to break them, is the hallmark of good leadership.

In fact, Obama did exactly what I would expect a proper leader to do, which actually surprised me, as I have always thought of him as a puppet figure, or a mouthpiece.  He kept it quiet, kept all the information as hush as possible, and surprised everyone with the results after it was done.  In a war, that is precisely how you should function... it's all about deception and surprise.  If you don't respect this action, you probably also don't respect what the Israelis did in the Six-Day War.  Now, he just has to deal with the fallout, which I think will work out okay for him in the end (just as the Six-Day War worked out okay for the Israelis).  That's exactly what should have happened, and I think it's the single best thing the man ever did with his position.

Which is kind of sad, really... I wish he had managed to do something more noble than an act that involved the death of another man.  Like, maybe, properly deal with the economic problems our country has instead of making them worse, etc.  You can still do some gutsy things without having to kill someone.

Bush and Clinton broke some rules that have had a lasting negative impact on this country.  I suspect Obama just broke some rules here that will have relatively short term negative effects with long term benefits.

In the end, we'll see.  Obama has done so many bad things with his presidency that I don't know if this one thing is enough to redeem him.  But I don't think he did a terrible thing here at all.

The situation isn't quite equivalent, but it's close.

I don't think the Pakistani government is very stable, honestly.  They're holding on by a thread.  The people, increasingly, do not support their government, and that's a problem.

well, as the pakistani president pointed out, they also were victum of terrors from al quaida, for example they've killed the presidential candidate a while ago.

I guess its a little like holding the USA liable for a drugdealer being hidden from a foreign police.

I'd like to see Mexican forces flying with a Helicopter to california, to shoot somebody who, coordinates drugs and crime from his big house in hollywood hills, in Mexico from there, and the Mexican President anouncing his death on tv in prime time.

I wonder if anyone things Michael Jackson is still alive.  I know at least one person who thinks bin Laden isn't really dead.

I was kind of intrigued with everything that went into this.  And I have to admit, I'm kind of wondering about the level of commitment the Pakistani government has.  I suppose, after all, it's really our problem, but...

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie,
nor establish the truth.

Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.

So it goes.
I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives,
but I will not rejoice in the death of one,
not even an enemy.
Returning hate for hate multiplies hate,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate:
only love can do that.

Hate multiplies hate,
violence multiplies violence,
and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

The chain reaction of evil —

Martin Luther King, "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?"

So is Michael Jackson -- did you know that?  :)

Kudos to the CIA and the Navy SEAL team that carried out the exercise.  On the other hand I'm already retching at all of the political posturing that's going on.

So... Osama bin Laden is dead.

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WARNING: POLITICAL RANT. Stop reading NOW if you're not into this kind of thing.

This was written in response to someone who sent me a link to an article in a trashy liberal rag which argues that people who don't embrace liberal propaganda (such as the myth that B. Hussein Obama was born in the United States, and the myth that humans are the cause of global warming) actually have some sort of physical brain damage.

It is ironic that a screed criticizing the human habit of selective belief would come from the propaganda machine of Mother Jones, a participant in one of the most damaging selective belief systems in the world. It is indeed frightening to observe the incognizant conformity of so many people based on the disingenuity supplied to them by the liberal media. What is even more frightening is the method with which the statists attempt to suppress dissent by any means possible, including and especially by the systematic destruction of the reputations of the more threatening dissenters. When the facts are not on your side, your options are limited, but if you cannot destroy the dissent, destroy the dissenters.

As for the actual birthplace of one Barack Hussein Obama, one must call into question the eagerness with which the liberal elite attack the skeptics. They wish to marginalize skeptics of Mr. Obama's birthplace as part of the lunatic fringe with the same ferocity they used to marginalize skeptics of anthropogenic global warming – a group whose skepticism became legitimate last year when the IPCC was found to have falsified the data used as the basis for its scaremongering. So perhaps the important question is not where Mr. Obama was actually born, but rather, why is it unacceptable to question anything at all? Skepticism is healthy, and it is quite legitimate to distrust those who instruct us to withhold our skepticism because it clashes with their political agenda.

If you are curious about where I personally believe Mr. Obama was born, you are asking the wrong question. It is too late, unfortunately, for the answer to that question to make a difference. Even if the truth came out today, it would take years for the lawsuits to finish; furthermore, even if he was suspended from office today, he has already done such horrific damage to our nation that even if a complete reversal is possible, it will take decades to complete. While I could easily launch into a point-by-point analysis of the facts, which are quite decidedly not in his favor, this is a topic on which nearly everyone has already made up his or her mind.

Many are guilty of espousing selective belief systems. Perhaps the most egregious offenders are those who continue to enable the statist agenda being unwillingly ramrodded down the throats of Americans who, by and large, simply want to be left alone to continue doing the things that made our nation great in the first place. Big Government has different plans, though. “We are the priests of the Temples of Syrinx, and if you don't agree with our agenda, you're a racist!” they repeat over and over again, attempting to marginalize anyone who can actually see the fnords and knows that Big Government is the friend of no one but itself.

And now that I've mixed Rush/2112 and Illuminatus references in the same paragraph, it's probably time to wrap things up. Thanks for your attention, and God Bless America.

Oh, the doesn't actually reply as such but just posts everything to the end.

Hmmm.

A work colleague spent about 4 hrs explaining himself whilst on a business trip and was only allowed through because airport security telephoned the company he was travelling to and had a long conversation.  Something to do with having travelled to Egypt in the last few years.  Don't believe the hype.

Wow!

How will you know they put it on? (assuming you've built up your immunity)

One slice of Sicilian pizza, sprinkled with iocaine powder, please.

It had occured to me that it might have been a practical joke, but honestly, who could be sure?

If so, he was very, very elaborate with the prank.  He also immitated some of the goofy DNS problems you might have prior to the event a couple of days or so ago.

I'm very angry with our government right now.

I woke up this morning and performed my normal routine of checking up on my favorite web comics.  One of them, however, has had its domain hijacked:

http://www.gpf-comics.com/

Not the sort of hijacking you'd expect... our government did this.  I can find no information on the internet as to why Mr. Darlington's site was taken.

But, I did find this:

http://torrentfreak.com/us-government-responds-to-domain-seizures-ignores-the-big-question-101129/

Of course, the idiots at the MPAA applaud this, but I wonder how quickly they'd reverse their position if someone hacked into their web site, put some child pornography on a hidden place within it, then reported them to the government so their domain became seized.

No due-process at all.  None.  IBM could have their public presence stripped from them if one of their employees decided to start using their web site for distributing anything illegally, to give a little perspective on this.  If the company I currently work for had its web site stripped, I would have to find employment elsewhere almost immediately, as we do not have the funds to hire lawyers to fight this kind of thing.

Fucking amazing.  What the hell is going on with our government?

whew. so after allmost 60 years of conservative leader ship it Badenwuertemberg (next to bavaria..) a guy from green Party is going to become prime minister. Times are changing.

Tue Mar 22 2011 09:12:24 AM EDT from wizard of aahz @ Uncensored

Bella - it's worse for the conscripts. They have no choice whatsoever.

Which is why I would feel diferently ;)

Here's a thing one of my friends on face book posted: