Politics

RobertDyck · 2017-03-21 11:54:11

Tom Kalbfus wrote:

when we still have not solved the terrorist problem?

Yes you did. President Barack Obama had Osama bin Laden assassinated. And that was done wrong. He should have been captured alive, brought to the US for trial. I wanted to see a long, prolonged, televised trial. I wanted to see bin Laden in handcuffs, his beard shaved off, his hair cut in a prison crew cut, and orange prison jump suit. I wanted to see him face the families of those he killed. That would have been cathartic for the American people. But no, he was assassinated. Terrorists assassinate people, civilized countries bring perpetrators to trial. America hasn't accepted it's over.

And today we see on the news that the US has banned carry-on laptops and tablets. What!?!? That affects me. I haven't checked any baggage since 1997. I bought a bag called a "weekender", the largest bag that fits under the seat of an economy class seat. It has a central compartment for clothes, and a side compartment for laptop and papers. I haven't travelled in a couple years, but when I do I buy my ticket online, use the airport check-in kiosk to get a boarding pass, and walk straight onto the plane. When the plane arrives, I walk straight to the taxi area. I never waste time waiting in lines, never waste time at the luggage carousel. I've had my luggage lost or damaged too many times, just don't trust airlines. That means the laptop I use to make my presentation has to be in my carry-on. If I can't carry a laptop, then I can't give a presentation at a Mars Society convention. If I can't give a presentation, there's no point in me going.

This reminds me of the ban on liquids. Airport security experts have long admitted that the ban on liquids does absolutely nothing for safety. It's just "theatre", to appear to be doing something. I creates inconvenience without doing anything for safety. Just an appearance of doing something.

However, TV news stated the ban, but reading online showed a clause the talking head on TV didn't mention. This is only for jets coming from Mideast or North Africa. Oh, so this doesn't affect me. Ok.

Back to your point. How much longer is the US going to meddle in Middle East affairs? Bin Laden is now dead, but the US appears determined to create new enemies. You can't "solve the terrorist problem" when you keep creating new enemies. You keep creating your own problem.

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-03-21 14:27:45

RobertDyck wrote:

Tom Kalbfus wrote:
when we still have not solved the terrorist problem?
Yes you did. President Barack Obama had Osama bin Laden assassinated. And that was done wrong. He should have been captured alive, brought to the US for trial. I wanted to see a long, prolonged, televised trial. I wanted to see bin Laden in handcuffs, his beard shaved off, his hair cut in a prison crew cut, and orange prison jump suit. I wanted to see him face the families of those he killed. That would have been cathartic for the American people. But no, he was assassinated. Terrorists assassinate people, civilized countries bring perpetrators to trial. America hasn't accepted it's over.

Really? I don't seem to recall Al Qaeda or ISIS ever surrendering or giving up the fight! What we need to do is crush their will to fight and their will to sacrifice themselves, and when that happens, when the world gets back to normal and we no longer have to worry about suicide terrorists then the War on Terror will be good and won!

And today we see on the news that the US has banned carry-on laptops and tablets. What!?!? That affects me. I haven't checked any baggage since 1997.

Blame the Jihad! Unfortunately, you don' win wars by enhancing security and building walls, what you have to do is go out and destroy the enemy, make such an example of him so that other people and countries will no better than to start a war with you, this is what we did to Japan and Germany at the end of World War II, but unfortunately over time, the enemy forgets and needs to be reminded, they agan think they can wage a war against you and win, so we need to show them that they are wrong, by destroying enough of them to make them think that further fighting would be too costly and not worth it!

I bought a bag called a "weekender", the largest bag that fits under the seat of an economy class seat. It has a central compartment for clothes, and a side compartment for laptop and papers. I haven't travelled in a couple years, but when I do I buy my ticket online, use the airport check-in kiosk to get a boarding pass, and walk straight onto the plane. When the plane arrives, I walk straight to the taxi area. I never waste time waiting in lines, never waste time at the luggage carousel. I've had my luggage lost or damaged too many times, just don't trust airlines. That means the laptop I use to make my presentation has to be in my carry-on. If I can't carry a laptop, then I can't give a presentation at a Mars Society convention. If I can't give a presentation, there's no point in me going.

Defense defense defense, over the last 8 years the emphasis has always been on defense and not on offense, if the Enemy fails to get through and make his attack, he says, "Oh darn," and tries again and again until he finanlly succeeds and auses the casualities that he wants! It is time we fought back and retaliated, make their societies pay the price for getting into a war with the United States!

This reminds me of the ban on liquids. Airport security experts have long admitted that the ban on liquids does absolutely nothing for safety. It's just "theatre", to appear to be doing something. I creates inconvenience without doing anything for safety. Just an appearance of doing something.

The something we could do is bomb the enemy, bomb him and bomb him until his people grow tired of the war and the mounting causalities. What is this war for anyway? What do they hope to achieve? Obama would have ended this war at the negotiating table if he could, but they just kept attacking and attacking, and by doing so, they kept the war alive for the next Administration, the Trump Administration, and Donald Trump needs to do what Obama could not, finish off this enemy so it is no longer a threat!

However, TV news stated the ban, but reading online showed a clause the talking head on TV didn't mention. This is only for jets coming from Mideast or North Africa. Oh, so this doesn't affect me. Ok.
Back to your point. How much longer is the US going to meddle in Middle East affairs? Bin Laden is now dead, but the US appears determined to create new enemies. You can't "solve the terrorist problem" when you keep creating new enemies. You keep creating your own problem.

A long as the Middle East meddles on our affairs by attacking us! That is the answer, our goal is clear, to stop terrorism, to stamp it out, what I their goal, to be destroyed by the West? Also why do you want them coming here? It seems they are proving that Islam is a menace, that is what their Jihad is showing us! Why do we continue to let Muslims in here and walk among us, and pull out a dagger or a bomb every now and then, or run us over with a truck or take over an airplane and crash it! If your argument is we shouldn't be meddeling in their affairs, that also seems to be a strong argument for not letting them come here, yet you liberals say we should get out of the Middle East, and you roll out the red carpet for middle easterners that want to come here, especially Muslims! You seem determined that Americans not feel safe. th only argument for pulling out of the Middle East is for safety, but you undermine that by insisting that we don't band Muslims. So we are back to square one, you refuse to follow a true isolationist policy, yet you want us to withdraw from the middle east without banning Muslims from coming here. So my question is, why should we do what you ask? There seems to be nothing in it for us! No matter what we do, they keep on killing us, so the only choice left is to go out and destroy them! That is the logic and my conclusion, do you have a better answer?

RobertDyck · 2017-03-21 15:33:35

Tom: Have you bothered to try to read their statements? Do you have any idea why they're fighting? Or do you only read propaganda? They have said the United States started it. The United States murdered their leaders. The United States has soldiers on their soil. The United States is occupying their land. Did you ever stop to think that your own government is the bad guy? They see themselves as freedom fighters. They certainly won't knuckle under to a military oppressor who kills their leaders, imposes a puppet government with collaborators who are completely corrupt, embezzling their tax dollars and extorting their business. That's what they claim. Did you ever stop to think they could be right? That large American corporations operating in their country have committed atrocities? That American military operating under orders from corrupt American politicians receiving bribes from those large American corporations have sent covert ops to commit murder? So you want to "crush" them. Uh huh. This is what one of their cities look like now. And you wonder why they continue to defend themselves?
woman-and-child-in-kobani-syria.jpg.size.custom.crop.1086x720.jpg

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-03-21 19:36:35

That is propaganda, the United States doesn't occupy any land in the Middle East, they say we do, but that doesn't make it true. and also I might add, the Middle East was the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, Islam was a latecomer that arrived in the 7th century, 700 years after the birth of Jesus Christ, so no they don't have exclusive rights to the place. Islam is just an overly successful cult, it would be like the Mormons taking over North America and saying no other religions belong here!

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-03-21 20:05:19

RobertDyck wrote:

Tom: Have you bothered to try to read their statements? Do you have any idea why they're fighting?

There statements have little to do with why they are fighting, they are fighting for power, they are fighting against liberals like you, they hate women's rights, they hate Jews and Christians, there is nothing just about what they are fighting for, they are simply two-legged monsters that look human. You see what they did, putting people in cages and burning them alive? They stone women for adultery, they cut off heads and put them in baskets, they are simply monsters, and we need to hunt them down!. I don't know why you bother to try and see things from their point of view, they are not civilized, they are not humane, they behave in ways that are similar to the orcs of Middle Earth. So when they start acting like human beings, then maybe they'll deserve to be treated like human beings, but until then they are monsters!

Or do you only read propaganda?

What propaganda, the 9/11 attack was real, I was there! I believe humans were really burned in cages, I can show you the baskets of human heads they collected, and they trained children to shoot other children that weren't what they considered to be Muslim. They are barbarians, and they deserve no respect from us, and we should make it clear to them that they are not going to get any respect from us, so long as they behave this way.

They have said the United States started it. The United States murdered their leaders.

It was their leaders idea to have this Jihad against the West, if they would fight like civilized soldiers, they would get more respect from us, but they don't, they target civilians on purpose!

The United States has soldiers on their soil.

What is their soil? Syria or Iraq? The Levant, they claim a lot of land, and there are modern states that occupy that land and don't agree with them, and the fact that they act like monsters and violate all the rules of war while they fight indicates they don't really deserve any land. If they act like orcs, they are not going get Mordor!

The United States is occupying their land. Did you ever stop to think that your own government is the bad guy?

Not once, if we were as evil as they are, we would have exterminated them the way Hitler intended to do with the Jews!

They see themselves as freedom fighters.

Well they are not freedom fighters, they haven't freed anyone, and have enslaved quite a few women and forced marriages on them after murdering their husbands!

They certainly won't knuckle under to a military oppressor who kills their leaders, imposes a puppet government with collaborators who are completely corrupt, embezzling their tax dollars and extorting their business.

Then we need to kill them! People who burn POWs in cages deserve nothing.

That's what they claim.

I can tell a lie too, and so can you, saying something doesn't make it true, and people who murder and enslave are capable of lying

Did you ever stop to think they could be right?

You mean about enslaving women and burning people in cages? Don't you believe in equal rights for women. We're the country that does, they do not, that is one of the reasons they are fighting us, but you are more than willing to think of the United States as evil, no matter who says it, even if its a bunch of Islamo-Nazis that hate women and who are intolerant of other religions and homosexuality. These are monsters!

That large American corporations operating in their country have committed atrocities?

You take the word of an orc?

That American military operating under orders from corrupt American politicians receiving bribes from those large American corporations have sent covert ops to commit murder?

Murder people who stone women for adultery and immodesty?

So you want to "crush" them.

Yes they are killing us, if we kill enough of them, they will get the message that killing Americans is a bad idea!

Uh huh. This is what one of their cities look like now. And you wonder why they continue to defend themselves?
https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/the … 86x720.jpg

We will stop when they stop attacking us, its quite simply, but they love fighting and sending their men and women to die in suicide bombs, they fact that they are using such things indicates they don't value their own lives so why should we? They are a bunch of monsters that look human, that have got this meme in their head that they are part of a Jihad against the West, and we've played softball with them for too long, letting them think they can win, and that God is on their side. We need to show them the error of their ways.

SpaceNut · 2017-03-21 20:51:01

Governance is very much compounded by the seperation of state and federal control plus laws for each that should be unified from state to state but are not. To which the federal is to be the voice of the people from each state and not there own respective lifer voice which is why if we are to keep a federal level of government then we need to do term limits for all three branches of it. Also if you believe that we are indeed a united level of states then there should be only one law that matters and not serveral different ones depending on state, county and city or town levels of government in addition to the federal.

What I see is the democrats and Republicans are doing a poor job of trying to create a unified level of laws that equalize the nations differences in each state. That is were the rub is as the only method that is be pushed is to employ them in governments positions in these states but that is not enough as the low end wage earner is still in poverty even when they work like a dog, not just a 40 hour week but closer to the 60 or 70 hour level just to raise there heads above water. That said we subsidize the poor which has bread those that take advantage of the helping hand. To correct that we need a work requirement of at least 20 to 30 hours a pay period (weekly) to make it so that we stop it from being taken advantage of as if you do not work you get no help. Sure there may be a few exception but we can limit it.

Health care is apart from ethics is a pricing difference for the same care from place to place and for doctor to doctor with in a states border but also from one state to the next. The charges are to be the same across the board. The rates for the insurance and its coverage is to be the same as well. Do not play games with this parts of the body is covered by this policy while the others are covered by another insurer's policy type.

Infrastructure is a problem even at the town or city level as they will nickle and dime them as to keep property taxes from rising which actually causes it to eventually cost way more to implement later than had they done it in the here an now instead. This is not just for the roads we drive on as the county and state will do the same when it comes to replacing bridges and expanding the widths of current highways to make them safer and to allow for short commute times as stop and go would be reduced if they were design correctly. When we talk this we are also talking about water, sewerage, waste water runoff and power this is not just an only in the remotest area of the town, city, county or state which towns also do a little as needed for the most concentrated areas of there land.
The same action is used to control costs as it on the tax payers backs for state and property for these.

I agree that the banks were not totally at fault for the collapse of housing but a cause to want to get a home is the ever increasing rent which is just money being flushed down a toilet which means they are not saving enough and have not learned to tighten the belt to be able to sustain owning the home either as when the first item needs repair they have not set aside funds to make the repair possible.

Energy is a consumption problem where it is to easy to make use of it rather than doing it the hard way with your back or not at all...It is ever to convenyent to keep adding more and more devices that use power to the equation. The energy takes on also other forms in coal, oil, gas, gasoline, tar ect....with the same net results of more consumption and more devices, more vehicles ect...until we work closer to home we are stuck with the ever rising costs. Solar, wind, water, ocean wave technology and thermal while not as effiencent in supply as nuclear do make up for it by its steady flow of the energy created from the sum of them collectively. Nuclear would be fine if it was less hazardous and was more like the standard smoke detector for safety. That is why science is looking at the isotopic generation by several different effects.

RobertDyck · 2017-03-21 21:25:56

Tom Kalbfus wrote:

if we kill enough of them, they will get the message that killing Americans is a bad idea!

You realize they have the same idea. You kill them, they kill you. When does the cycle stop?

When Bill Clinton was president, the cycle with al-Qaeda escalated until it became 9/11. ISIS hasn't attacked the US on American soil...yet. Do you want to push them until they do?

Look. The US supported general Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Look how well that turned out. The US supported Osama bin Laden against Soviets in Afghanistan. Again, didn't that work? Iran elected a Prime Minister in 1951, had a modern liberal democracy. An Anglo-American coup in 1953 overthrew that government, installed the Shaw who was corrupt. This isn't sounding good, is it?

Now there's ISIS. Bad guys. The only reason they have any chance is the ongoing civil war in Syria. The fight between Syrian army and rebels ties up all their resources. If that wasn't ongoing, they Syrian army would have long ago gotten rid of ISIS. And you realize ISIS gets most of their weapons by intercepting weapons drops by the US intended for rebels.

kbd512 · 2017-03-22 03:45:37

SpaceNut wrote:

Governance is very much compounded by the seperation of state and federal control plus laws for each that should be unified from state to state but are not. To which the federal is to be the voice of the people from each state and not there own respective lifer voice which is why if we are to keep a federal level of government then we need to do term limits for all three branches of it. Also if you believe that we are indeed a united level of states then there should be only one law that matters and not serveral different ones depending on state, county and city or town levels of government in addition to the federal.

I agree with the general principle of simplification and unification of state and federal laws, but there are so many discrepancies between state and federal laws that state/federal unification of law is mostly fantasy. There is also tremendous inequality in how the law is applied.

SpaceNut wrote:

What I see is the democrats and Republicans are doing a poor job of trying to create a unified level of laws that equalize the nations differences in each state. That is were the rub is as the only method that is be pushed is to employ them in governments positions in these states but that is not enough as the low end wage earner is still in poverty even when they work like a dog, not just a 40 hour week but closer to the 60 or 70 hour level just to raise there heads above water. That said we subsidize the poor which has bread those that take advantage of the helping hand. To correct that we need a work requirement of at least 20 to 30 hours a pay period (weekly) to make it so that we stop it from being taken advantage of as if you do not work you get no help. Sure there may be a few exception but we can limit it.

The only people who should receive tax money without work are those who are truly disabled. Even if you broke your leg and can't stand, we'd give you clerical work. If you want to go to college but have no money, then you work for your community for some small number of hours during the week when class is in session and during your summers you pick produce in the fields, plant trees for the parks, work on construction sites, or otherwise trade your time for money, just as you would if you were employed. At the end of your college course work, you have a small student loan, but no insane sum of money that takes a couple decades to pay off. If you're a prisoner, then work is mandatory. If you want to eat, then you work. You can go to college, you can go to the military, you can go to prison. Any path you choose, we're going to teach our children the value of hard work and perseverance.

SpaceNut wrote:

Health care is apart from ethics is a pricing difference for the same care from place to place and for doctor to doctor with in a states border but also from one state to the next. The charges are to be the same across the board. The rates for the insurance and its coverage is to be the same as well. Do not play games with this parts of the body is covered by this policy while the others are covered by another insurer's policy type.

It's a racket for sure, but we must make it work for everyone. I'm fully aware that that's easier said than done.

SpaceNut wrote:

Infrastructure is a problem even at the town or city level as they will nickle and dime them as to keep property taxes from rising which actually causes it to eventually cost way more to implement later than had they done it in the here an now instead. This is not just for the roads we drive on as the county and state will do the same when it comes to replacing bridges and expanding the widths of current highways to make them safer and to allow for short commute times as stop and go would be reduced if they were design correctly. When we talk this we are also talking about water, sewerage, waste water runoff and power this is not just an only in the remotest area of the town, city, county or state which towns also do a little as needed for the most concentrated areas of there land.
The same action is used to control costs as it on the tax payers backs for state and property for these.

There are some good reasons why most public works are designed the way they are, but an engineer's design criteria for a project and the user's design criteria can be and often is quite different. With respect to stop-and-go traffic, you'll never see the end of that until self-driving cars are accepted by the public. All the mass transit systems I've seen merely create congestion points in different places. The transit speeds are typically slow, but admittedly still better than nearly dead stop bumper-to-bumper traffic.

As far as taxation for municipal and state public works is concerned, that's a very complicated issue.

SpaceNut wrote:

I agree that the banks were not totally at fault for the collapse of housing but a cause to want to get a home is the ever increasing rent which is just money being flushed down a toilet which means they are not saving enough and have not learned to tighten the belt to be able to sustain owning the home either as when the first item needs repair they have not set aside funds to make the repair possible.

I honestly think prices are ridiculous, as are modern home and lot sizes. I don't need a yard. I need enough livable space in a floor plan that's efficient and practical. It's not art work, it's just an enclosed space for me to store the crap that my wife buys.

SpaceNut wrote:

Energy is a consumption problem where it is to easy to make use of it rather than doing it the hard way with your back or not at all...It is ever to convenyent to keep adding more and more devices that use power to the equation. The energy takes on also other forms in coal, oil, gas, gasoline, tar ect....with the same net results of more consumption and more devices, more vehicles ect...until we work closer to home we are stuck with the ever rising costs. Solar, wind, water, ocean wave technology and thermal while not as effiencent in supply as nuclear do make up for it by its steady flow of the energy created from the sum of them collectively. Nuclear would be fine if it was less hazardous and was more like the standard smoke detector for safety. That is why science is looking at the isotopic generation by several different effects.

The show stopping problem with solar and wind is not those technologies themselves. It's the nowhere near as efficient batteries to store the generated electricity. We don't have batteries with energy densities sufficient to store gigawatt-hours of electricity for any reasonable cost. The land use is also excessive. Even if a solar panel exists that can produce 1kWe per square meter, one 30mm ball of Uranium or Thorium still represents a lifetime energy supply for the average person.

elderflower · 2017-03-22 04:46:29

Best available technique for energy storage seems to be Hydro pumped storage where water is pumped to a high level reservoir when there is surplus power available and released when there is a deficit. This is fairly efficient and can be done on a large scale. Suitable sites are difficult to find and good luck getting one past the nimby/ greenies.

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-03-22 08:22:37

RobertDyck wrote:

Tom Kalbfus wrote:
if we kill enough of them, they will get the message that killing Americans is a bad idea!
You realize they have the same idea. You kill them, they kill you. When does the cycle stop?

When they are dead! Since they are not afraid of dying, we are going to have to kill them in order to get them to stop, it is a shame really, most normal people know when to stop when they feel that continued fighting will almost certainly get them killed, not these fanatics. Fanatics need to be killed, as we can't convince them that they won't go to Heaven when they die, we just have to remove them from the board so they can no longer threaten us!

When Bill Clinton was president, the cycle with al-Qaeda escalated until it became 9/11. ISIS hasn't attacked the US on American soil...yet. Do you want to push them until they do?

Funny, that wasn't the Bill Clinton I remembered. The Bill Clinton I remembered didn't have a lot to do with the Middle East, he bombed the Iraqis to protect the Kurds in the north, he got involved in the Balkans to save the lives of Bosnian Muslims against the Serbs, that wanted to rape and murder them. (The Serbs were Russia's allies, it was with the Balkan conflict that we got the first inklings that there was something wrong with the Russians!) Bill Clinton didn't actually do much to the Muslims, many Muslims were immigrating to the United States, and they were conservatives that were trending Republican until the 9/11 attack! And after the 9/11 attack, the Democrats suddenly realized they needed to stand up to the religious rights of Muslims not to be discriminated against! The Democrats didn't think much about them before, except that one was the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy! After 9/11 the Democrat suddenly saw this disadvantaged group that was facing prejudice because of public perceptions in the immediate aftermath of that attack, instead of thinking about protecting Americans, they were thinking about protecting Muslims from a backlash in the aftermath of that attack. Their priorities were backwards! They even go around trying to bring in more Muslims into the Country, Chuck Schumer does that while at the same time demanding more money for Homeland security. It occurs to me, maybe they wouldn't need as much money for Homeland security if they weren't trying to stop Trump from banning people from 6 dangerous Muslim majority countries, they want t bring them in here, and the wan Federal money so the Government can keep an eye on them, all without profiling! Does this make any sense?

Look. The US supported general Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Look how well that turned out. The US supported Osama bin Laden against Soviets in Afghanistan. Again, didn't that work? Iran elected a Prime Minister in 1951, had a modern liberal democracy. An Anglo-American coup in 1953 overthrew that government, installed the Shaw who was corrupt. This isn't sounding good, is it?

The US didn't support Saddam Hussein when he was invading Kuwait, in fact we actively opposed him! What is your point? What we don't have a crystal ball so we can see who is going to betray us next? Does anyone have such a crystal ball? Benedict Arnold was an important part of the cause for American Independence before h betrayed it to he British, should we have known he was going to be a traitor? How? We try to find allies wherever we can, we don't know what they are going to do in the future, Saddam Hussein was one such ally.

Now there's ISIS. Bad guys. The only reason they have any chance is the ongoing civil war in Syria. The fight between Syrian army and rebels ties up all their resources. If that wasn't ongoing, they Syrian army would have long ago gotten rid of ISIS. And you realize ISIS gets most of their weapons by intercepting weapons drops by the US intended for rebels.

And the Syrians are the good guys? I recall decades after decades of them launching missiles into Israel targeting civilians, why should I care if these bad guys defeat the other bad guys? I want to defeat them both! If that devastates Syria, then too bad, they chose to be bad guys, so that tends to leave their cities in ruins, just like the Germans and the Japanese!

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-03-22 08:30:40

RobertDyck wrote:

Tom Kalbfus wrote:
if we kill enough of them, they will get the message that killing Americans is a bad idea!
You realize they have the same idea. You kill them, they kill you. When does the cycle stop?
When Bill Clinton was president, the cycle with al-Qaeda escalated until it became 9/11. ISIS hasn't attacked the US on American soil...yet. Do you want to push them until they do?
Look. The US supported general Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Look how well that turned out. The US supported Osama bin Laden against Soviets in Afghanistan. Again, didn't that work? Iran elected a Prime Minister in 1951, had a modern liberal democracy. An Anglo-American coup in 1953 overthrew that government, installed the Shaw who was corrupt. This isn't sounding good, is it?
Now there's ISIS. Bad guys. The only reason they have any chance is the ongoing civil war in Syria. The fight between Syrian army and rebels ties up all their resources. If that wasn't ongoing, they Syrian army would have long ago gotten rid of ISIS. And you realize ISIS gets most of their weapons by intercepting weapons drops by the US intended for rebels.

Their objective is to get us to surrender, convert to Islam and be conquered by them, you are forgetting we are a superpower, have nuclear weapons and the largest economy on Earth, and they are in the Third World with third world poverty and a lot of fanaticism. I do think that he chances of our crushing them are a lot greater than their chances of crushing us. What stops us is people like you who are always sympathizing with the underdog, they are in an extremely disadvantage position relative to us, and you think that is unfair, that they should have as equal a chance of destroying us as we have of destroying them. What this accomplishes is prolonging the war with them, they can't defeat us, and because of people like you, we keep pulling our punches and are not defeating them. Like World War II, they need to be defeated quickly with whatever it takes, so the war can end, that is the most merciful thing we can do, we need to kill these "rabid dogs!" Put them out of misery so we can get on with peace and prosperity, and of course colonizing space!

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-03-22 09:36:57

Curious, while I was posting my last message, it appears there was something going on outside the Parliament building in London, UK. Some guy in an SUV started driving on the sidewalks, running over people, he was shot at by armed police, he crashed into the railings outside of the Parliament building, got out side his car, and attempted to stab the police with a knife and was shot dead. Given this information, I am predicting that this person was a Muslim, after all, who else would he be? No sane person would do a thing like this, it could only be a Muslim, or someone who was truly psychotic! What is your prediction? Are you beginning to understand the Brexit vote now?

Terraformer · 2017-03-22 13:01:46

To be honest, I don't think we voted for Brexit because we were worried about terrorism. It was more of a sovereignty issue, as well as problems surrounding uncontrolled immigration.

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-03-22 22:24:58

Terraformer wrote:

To be honest, I don't think we voted for Brexit because we were worried about terrorism. It was more of a sovereignty issue, as well as problems surrounding uncontrolled immigration.

You mean psychos coming in from a sick part of the World, that is the Middle East, that other Europeans felt sorry for because they were such underdogs! Do you think Londoners regretted electing a Muslim as Mayor? Having a Muslim mayor didn't make them immune to terrorism. I wonder why Princess Diana wanted to date a Muslim? I don't think she would have looked good in a veil or a burka. Trump wanted to date her, but she preferred the Muslim, too bad!

kbd512 · 2017-03-22 23:07:14

Tom,

Give it a rest. Whatever it is that Londoners think about their mayor is, quite frankly, none of our business. The Brits can decide what it is that they must do to protect themselves. They don't need any criticism in the wake of an attack on their people. Sooner or later everyone will figure out on their own that some people are simply not your friends and may never become your friends, irrespective of what you want to believe about your relationship with them.

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-03-23 08:08:16

I believe there is a lesson to be learned here which can be applied to us, since the culture of our country is related to theirs. There is a phenomenon that I call "White Guilt" the British had their Empire in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and they feel like they hae to make amends for all the injustices wrought by that Empire, but it seems to me that the British Empire also did a lot of good, which they are discounting, and not all evil in the World stems from past white exploitation of other races. Whatever made that bearded Asian go crazy and run people over in his SUV and stab that police officer, was not because of something white people had done to him, it was not slavery or Imperial Exploitation or the Opium trade in the 19th century, those are just excuses. I am trying to be helpful. the Brits aren't doing me any favors by letting themselves be vulnerable to terrorists or by fighting them, I just figure we have something in more common with the British People than with Middle eastern fanaticism. There are parts of this World that are just sick, and those people did it to themselves, we are not responsible for the way they are.

kbd512 · 2017-03-24 09:18:40

Tom,

I don't feel the least bit guilty over the color of my skin and it's not something I need to apologize for. I just don't give a damn about peoples' skin color. I've met enough people from enough different parts of the world to know that appearances count for very little, attitude counts for substantially more, and irrespective of appearances and attitudes, behavior is very nearly all that matters. Diatribes against various people with varying amounts of melanin in their skin misses the readily discernible issues with value systems.

At this point in human history, Islam is a religion with a substantial number of followers who practice violence towards non-believers and different sects of the same religion. If we were living a few centuries back in time, I would have had a similar opinion towards Christianity. However, in 2017 I haven't seen very many Christians, Buddhists, or Jews intentionally driving motor vehicles into people or blowing themselves up in the middle of shopping malls. There will be someone along shortly to point out that what's generally true is not universally true, but what's generally true is still generally true and my point still stands.

With respect to politics, I think that the application of generalization to belief systems is what separates liberal thinking from conservative thinking. As it pertains to thought process, the liberals are sorting for similarities and the conservatives are sorting for differences. That explains nearly perfectly why liberals can't differentiate generality from universality (they're options people) and why conservatives are constantly trying to differentiate people / places / things (they're procedural people, like you, Tom).

Let's illustrate how this works in the exchange of ideas between you and Rob:

Rob asked when the cycle of violence would stop. That question clearly illustrates that he believes that his actions determine the actions of other people. To the extent that he interacts with rational people, that's certainly true. That's sorting for similarities. However, human behavior is seldom rational and behaviors tied to religious practices are typically highly irrational. In your responses to Rob, you keep pointing out what's different between them / us. Rob makes a statement and then you counter with how the detail or circumstance of an event was "different" from whatever Rob stated. That's sorting for differences.

You two speak the same language and you come from the same culture / society, but you can't communicate with each other in any meaningful way. Imagine that you don't speak the same language and come from a completely different culture. That'd be why nobody over here really understands what's going on in the Middle East. The "similarities" people think they're just like us and the "differences" people think they're completely different from us. Unfortunately, the answer is "no" to both ideas. They're not "just like us", nor are they're "entirely different" from us, either.

GW Johnson · 2017-03-25 15:32:32

Thanks, kdb512, your insightful analysis just above was a most welcome change to most of the wild idiocy I see in this thread.

I also see the problems generated by adherence to belief systems instead of verifiable fact. They are everywhere around us.

GW

SpaceNut · 2017-03-25 19:56:18

kbd512 if there is that much discrepancies between state to state laws that we can not unify them we might as well call us the anything but United States of American as you are saying we will end up being closer to that of Europe as we are not getting our states to talk in English and every where I turn we are catering to the county of orgins native language...that is not what our founding fathers did when they chose English over all of the languages that were here in the colonies....

As for you broke your leg and can't stand, it may also mean that you can not drive to that desk job let alone get to another means of transportation but all in all I agree with only the disable should be garenteed help without work.

As for going college but have no money, why not add 2 years to highschool at a college level for the associates in your own community by your self funding means of community work program. This would instill pride with in there community rather than trashing it....

Health care is a racket for sure but is socailism for medical care the only way to correct this or is there another way to remove the greed of price gouging and corruption.

The traffic stop n go conjestion are due to exits and entrances that are along a short distance where the vehicle volume and lane count for time can not handle it. The exit and entrances are lane reducing amd this starts the issue snowballing. Lane merges have the same effect.

The taxation for municipal and state public works is one of viable property value to gather the fees for the work other wises its through the tolls one might pay to use the road, I have heard that some include a road use fee as part of vehicle registration as another method to raising funds for road work. The infrastructure of water and sewer are another problem where the viable property is born by those that own and through higher rental fees to the land owner.

The battery technology and effieciency only is an issue for the off grid application but the affordable size of uranium or thorium is not enough to even produce power with unless someone can come up with life time financing....

SpaceNut · 2017-03-25 20:27:57

House Intelligence committee goes to war with itself over Russia investigation

an investigation that is squashed while in action is no investigation at all.

Schiff: New evidence shows possible Trump-Russia collusion

Schiff explain his comments earlier in the week when he said there was more than just "circumstantial evidence of collusion," suggesting "it's the kind of evidence" that a grand jury investigation would want to consider.
The tension on the Intelligence Committee comes a day after CNN reported that the FBI has information that may indicate associates of Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives.
The FBI is now reviewing that information, which includes human intelligence, travel, business and phone records and accounts of in-person meetings, according to those US officials. The information is raising the suspicions of FBI counterintelligence investigators that the coordination may have taken place, though officials cautioned that the information was not conclusive and that the investigation is ongoing.

U.S. needs to stop Russian electoral interference, NSA’s top civilian leader says

The NSA, with 35,000 civilian and military employees, gathers intelligence on foreign targets overseas through wiretaps and increasingly by cyberhacking. Its other mission is to secure the government computers that handle classified information and other data critical to military and intelligence activities.

Now you see what Snowden is all about taking refuge in Russia....

SpaceNut · 2017-03-26 17:05:38

I have posted before about the Analysis | Nearly 1 out of every 3 days he has been president, Trump has visited a Trump property

For the eighth weekend in a row, President Trump has visited a property that bears his name. He has done so on 21 of the 66 days he has been in office, meaning that for the equivalent of three full weeks of his just-over-nine weeks as commander in chief, he has spent all or part of a day at a Trump property — earning that property mentions in the media and the ability to tell potential clients that they might be able to interact with the president.

These are very expensive trip to property that is his and he gets to charge the government for his visit and the income is tax free so long as he is president...To be fair we might be overworking him... not...
Since when does the employer pay for your weekend get aways?
That has led to the Democrats to want to have transperancy on the costs of these.....

Make Access Records Available to Lead American Government Open ActDemocrats Introduce ‘Mar-A-Lago Act’ To Make Trump Meetings More Transparent

The bill’s authors say Americans have a “right to know” who may be reaching out to the president at his private resort. This would require that the Trump administration publish visitor logs from the White House and any other place where the president “regularly conducts official business.”
“It’s simple: the American people have a right to know who has access to the president and who has leverage over this administration,” Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) said in a statement.

We should know this as including once with the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe; a visit that became highly publicized after it was revealed President Trump and Prime Minister Abe reviewed classified documents in full view of ordinary guests at the Palm Beach resort.

The so called “Winter White House,” Is a Major Conflict of Interest ... a place where anyone can gain access with the purchase of a $200,000 membership fee and based off froom 2013 information, each visit to Mar-a-Lago costs taxpayers about $3 million.

The Obama administration began keeping visitor logs at the White House in 2009 — noting the names of 6 million visitors during the presidency — after a lawsuit by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

So what was good for Obama is the same for Trump to do.....

SpaceNut · 2017-03-26 21:25:33

Death threats for judges that have gone against Trumps ban...
Judge gets death threats after blocking Trump travel ban: report having next to nothing with regards to national security.

The federal judge who acted first to block President Donald Trump’s most recent travel ban has received numerous death threats since the ruling, prompting authorities to give him a 24-hour protection detail, according to a report.

Quite the opposite it has happened to create home grown terrorists in Trumps name....

https://www.yahoo.com/news/judge-blocke … 19759.html

Consequently, the FBI will provide U.S. District Judge Derrick Wilson with heightened security detail as it looks into the threats, according to a statement from the U.S. Marshal Service, which was spearheading the investigation.

Federal judge in Virginia sides with Trump on revised travel ban “Fortunately, this decision does not alter the injunctions that are already [in place]," an immigration advocate said Friday. Trump's revised order -- designed to stand up to legal scrutiny -- was blocked by courts in Maryland and Hawaii on the grounds that it seeks the same type of discriminatory justification as the first order.

kbd512 · 2017-03-26 21:29:34

SpaceNut,

There is only general legal consensus on fundamental legal principles. For example, rape / robbery / murder are felonies in every state of the union, but legal definitions for such and punishments all vary. It can vary between different municipalities in the same state. It would be beneficial to everyone involved but the liars, I mean lawyers, if there were single definitions and punishments.

Apart from major crimes, I'd be nice if tort laws were uniform between the states. Every state could still have their own civil laws, but anything normally classified as a felony should be consistent. Why is domestic abuse a misdemeanor in some places when assault, which is what all domestic abuse is, normally classified as a felony? It shouldn't matter what state you lived in if you were beating your wife.

* De-criminalize alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana possession, for both adults and minors, or maybe make it a misdemeanor offense that doesn't rate jail time; fines are a more effective deterrent in a society driven by the almighty dollar
* De-criminalize prostitution, at the very least for the prostitutes, so they can get a better job at some point later in life

The community service to pay for college is what I proposed. I'm not dead set on the details of how the work-for-education program is implemented, so long as the program gets implemented. Young people need to learn to respect each other and the value of hard work. Nobody should get handed things simply because of who their parents are.

Some form of socialism is required for universal health care legislation to work and not break the bank. Off the top of my head, price controls and published prices for goods (medical supplies) and services (tests and procedures) are required. All government-run health care services I've ever seen are unmitigated financial disasters. The people living with those systems may not see it as such because they've nothing to compare it to. I've worked for a health care services company. Trust me when I say this is not something you want our government running. Maybe some other country's government would do a much better job, but we're not talking about that "other" country's government.

The Affordable Care legislation is already failing. If President Trump manages to pass the American Care legislation, then that will fail, too. Apart from forcing providers to accept patients with pre-existing conditions and tort reform, the only other constructive thing our government can do for health care is implementation of price controls, which is something President Trump has already hinted at.

Toll roads pay for construction and maintenance. The costs borne by the contractors seems to incentivize high quality roads. Here in Texas we've discovered that "make it properly the first time because we're (contractor) paying for it" contracts vs "cost plus because they're (the public) paying for it" contracts work quite well. Toll roads won't mitigate traffic issues, though. Only computer-controlled vehicles that cooperatively work with each other to facilitate swift and efficient movement will stop that with the number of vehicles presently on our roads.

With respect to utility grade electrical power production, electrical energy storage is a major problem from renewables, unless you want to solve that climate change problem with more coal and petroleum products. We have already incidentally mined enough Thorium to provide enough electricity to power the entire US for 12 years. We can remove it from the radioactive waste storage sites and use it any time we want to. Every time we mine for rare earth materials or Uranium, extraction of Thorium is nearly unavoidable. We need one 30mm golf ball for every American, assuming we just burn it up (which is stupid, but what we do right now) instead of continuing the fuel cycle (which is what we should be doing).

Terraformer · 2017-03-27 10:30:22

Re. energy storage, could we make Trump Wall into one big pumped hydro storage system? 100 metres high, 10 metres deep, 20 metres wide, and 3.2 million metres long. That would give us ~18 GWh of energy storage. Basically it would be a big earthwork with a very long canal on top of it. It would also be a program to create Green Jobs.

Tom Kalbfus · 2017-03-27 11:24:57

kbd512 wrote:

Tom,
I don't feel the least bit guilty over the color of my skin and it's not something I need to apologize for. I just don't give a damn about peoples' skin color. I've met enough people from enough different parts of the world to know that appearances count for very little, attitude counts for substantially more, and irrespective of appearances and attitudes, behavior is very nearly all that matters. Diatribes against various people with varying amounts of melanin in their skin misses the readily discernible issues with value systems.
At this point in human history, Islam is a religion with a substantial number of followers who practice violence towards non-believers and different sects of the same religion. If we were living a few centuries back in time, I would have had a similar opinion towards Christianity. However, in 2017 I haven't seen very many Christians, Buddhists, or Jews intentionally driving motor vehicles into people or blowing themselves up in the middle of shopping malls. There will be someone along shortly to point out that what's generally true is not universally true, but what's generally true is still generally true and my point still stands.
With respect to politics, I think that the application of generalization to belief systems is what separates liberal thinking from conservative thinking. As it pertains to thought process, the liberals are sorting for similarities and the conservatives are sorting for differences. That explains nearly perfectly why liberals can't differentiate generality from universality (they're options people) and why conservatives are constantly trying to differentiate people / places / things (they're procedural people, like you, Tom).
Let's illustrate how this works in the exchange of ideas between you and Rob:
Rob asked when the cycle of violence would stop. That question clearly illustrates that he believes that his actions determine the actions of other people. To the extent that he interacts with rational people, that's certainly true. That's sorting for similarities. However, human behavior is seldom rational and behaviors tied to religious practices are typically highly irrational. In your responses to Rob, you keep pointing out what's different between them / us. Rob makes a statement and then you counter with how the detail or circumstance of an event was "different" from whatever Rob stated. That's sorting for differences.
You two speak the same language and you come from the same culture / society, but you can't communicate with each other in any meaningful way. Imagine that you don't speak the same language and come from a completely different culture. That'd be why nobody over here really understands what's going on in the Middle East. The "similarities" people think they're just like us and the "differences" people think they're completely different from us. Unfortunately, the answer is "no" to both ideas. They're not "just like us", nor are they're "entirely different" from us, either.

The two major religions in our culture, Christianity and Judaism, originated in the middle east, these two religions were spread by the Roman Empire when in conquered the middle east, it was spread throughout Europe, North Africa, and western Asia, and then Rome fell, in the Dark Ages came a new religion, this one is called Islam, its founder is named Muhammad, it was Muhammad and his religion that made Middle east culture alien to our own, prior to the arrival if Islam, middle easterners didn't think that much differently from ourselves. Christianity defended itself from the onslaught of Islam during the Crusades, Islam managed to conquer the Middle East, North Africa, and made inroads into Europe itself, with Spain and Turkey being Islamic colonies. The Spaniards fought back and drove the Muslims out of their country prior to 1492, other than that, and despite the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Islam held onto its gains, the Christian World, unlike in Spain, did not try to rechristianize them. It is odd that the main religious denomination of the Democratic Party are Muslims. Muslims are the only group within the Democratic constituencies that take their religion seriously! You have a lot of "Cafeteria Catholics", you have your "Atheist Jews" that are "cultural Jews" only, kind of like Bernie Sanders, but the only devout group within the Democratic Party are Muslims, they pray five times a day, the women cover themselves, their beliefs are largely conservative, they don't believe in women's rights, they think gay people ought to be put to death, and prior to the 9/11 attack, they would have tended to be Republicans, but now because of their associations with terrorists, they have fallen into the Democratic Camp. Why is this exactly? The set up is like this: a bomb goes off, killing a bunch of westerners, some Muslim takes credit for setting off this bomb and says he did it for Allah, and naturally these westerners get quite angry with Muslims for being a apart of this, and there is a backlash against them. Liberals tend to be only concerned with this backlash against Muslims, and not for the victims of these Islamic attacks, because they are so filled with White Guilt, they figure white people had it coming and don't need defending, and instead believe that the World needs to be defended against white people, so whoever strikes out against white culture and receives a backlash, needs defending, but white people themselves are presumed guilty by them.

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