Übergeek 바둑이: what is wrong with a severe fine if you dont vote? We have that iv Australia and it works:(

Don't quote poor to me, those without can work for the community.

Bernice:
Media fear mongering.
It's ridiculous. A new leader doesn't imply an imminent attack without cause. Have we, or has any country, given North Korea cause to attack?
If not, they won't.
The media is creating news merely for marketing purposes.

Dark Prince: the americans have approx. 36,000 troops in Korea....if there is nothing to worry about why are they there....but then you are starting to sound like someone else in here....

Bernice:
I didn't say there is nothing to worry about.
I am saying there is nothing additional to worry about than previously until the new leader of North Korea indicates there is through word or action.
If anything, the change in leadership should be viewed as an opportunity to renewed diplomacy with North Korea.
Whether I sound like someone else is hardly an issue.

Bernice: You're right about North Korea. I'm more that the world is on alert (as we in the US always are or should be) than worry. But you probably mean worry as in "concern" and we should be concerned who takes over etc. We are only ONE nut-job away from some serious conflicts with those nations that have the big bomb (as does N Korea). That should "worry" everyone. ;)

Artful Dodger: well the Dead Mans SON has taken over and to me that is to cause much concern...."the apple never falls far from the tree"

Bernice: Maybe he's even more of a nut.

I suppose a kid in his early 20s is "entitled" to be a leader. It is no different than kings and queens and the princes that get propped up into power. However, these people are just figure heads. In reality the power resides in a technocratic apparatus, a system of bureaucrats that exercises power on behalf of the figure head.

Well, the technocratic, bureacratic apparatus is the same in every government. Western pseudodemocracies have "cabinets" with their ministers and secretaries. The difference is that in western pseudodemocracies people vote to chose their dictator for a few years, they have the option of calling him names if they don't like him, and finally he leaves only to be replaced by another one. In North Korea the dictator is imposed, nobody can call him names and he leaves only when he is dead.

The military bases are there because of fear that war could break out again. After all, North and South Korea never declared peace. They live under a cease fire, and they are both too radicalized in their ideology to concede peace to each other.

Is North Korea a threat? Historically it is and it is not. North Korea never attacked the USA, or any European nation, or Japan. If anything, it was always the other way around since it was the empires that attacked the weaker nations. The Japanese empire abused Korea for centuries,as did the Chinese empire and the Mongolian empire. However, North Korea did attack the south with the backing of the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union. Our western empires killed 3 million North Koreans, and at the same time they want North Korea to trust the west. Would the USA or the UK trust a country that killed 3 million of their people?

Western empires want North Korea to abandon its nuclear program, even though those empires make no effort to abandon their own. Western empires deplore WMDs, even though they have arsenals that could kill every living thing in this planet. The West expects North Korea to be sane, without admitting the insanity of their own behaviour.

Artful Dodger: now that IS interesting......thanks :)

Bernice: I thought so too

Artful Dodger: In which way? The Atheism or the anti religion passion he had?

Bernice: The Dead Man disowned one of his sons because he wanted to goto Tokyo's Disneyland. Another he disowned because he was to feminine.... "no good because he is like a little girl".

Which left him one son to name as the new King.. sorry, great Leader!

(V):Hitchens was an intellectual and a gentleman. Dawkins is smart, but not at Hitchens level of intellect. Dawkins didn't have an anti-religion passion, he had hate. And he wore his hate on his sleeve.

Artful Dodger: Hitchens was a journalist, Dawkins is a scientist. Hitchens can be just as blunt but by trade he is more of a wordsmith. He hated religion after 9/11. This display of "tribalism" is just as present according to him in any major monotheistic religion.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA55jGyq2C8&

(V): Maybe it was his journalistic style I liked so well. Don't know. I just enjoyed listening to how he said things.

Despite the gloomy economic situation, the United States has become the world's most generous nation, according to this year's Charities Aid Foundation's World Giving Index.
Ireland is ranked second followed by Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. Charities Aid Foundation used Gallup's Worldview Poll to look at three behaviors: "giving money, volunteering time and helping a stranger."
The U.S. came out on top after being ranked fifth last year.
"Overall the World Giving Index demonstrates that the world has become a more charitable place over the last 12 months - with a 2 percent increase in the global population 'helping a stranger' and a 1% increase in people volunteering," CAF said in its press release.
The Washington Post, reporting on the survey, shows that wealth and charity don't necessarily go together. Of the world's top 20 wealthiest nations, only 5 made it into the top 20 most charitable.
And who is bringing up the rear as least charitable nations?
China, Russia, and India.


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/12/us_regains_top_spot_as_worlds_most_charitable_nation.html#ixzz1hDjsd5LE

it is good to see that the USA and Afghanistan are such good friends on Twitter :)

you can feel the love :)

Bernice:

To me it is interesting that people on the right admire Hitchens. Of course he is an atheist, but that is forgiven because he was a big defender of the war in Iraq. If Hitchens had opposed the war, would he be a "scholar and a gentleman"? His friendship with Paul Wolfowitz certainly helped to assuage any concerns about his atheism. People forget that Hitchens started out as a Troskyist (a communist) and it was in that part of his life that his atheism developed. However, when the war in Iraq started he completely abandoned his left-wing politics in favor of right wing ideology. For all his intelligence, he seems to me ideologically flaky. Anybody who goes from left to right like that shows a lack of conviction in his beliefs. Yet in spite of his ideological switch, he still remained an atheist. It is rather a paradox.

Übergeek 바둑이: It must be kind of desperate, and the fight against ignorance can lead some people to anything, even the ugly. Neocreationism for instance, stubbornness due to an illusion related to the "birth", the right of the first birth. Nobody keeps his first new birth, but the illusion is kept alive with dark spots in the soul. These black spots, Hitchens was on about them, and I admire him for that. Neocreationists are missled, and it ruled the americas. Hitchens stood open to a lawsuit for the Babylon trip of Mr. Bush, his Irak war.

Let us replace the EU personnel.

Übergeek 바둑이: I don't..

"However, when the war in Iraq started he completely abandoned his left-wing politics in favour of right wing ideology."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUixaVH8DVY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDj6WechLhw&

I don't think so. I think he was not of one ideology.

Well the new supreme leader looks ... ... in control.

... Those hats remind me of ..

..... I don't get why the states vote on who gets to be the leader of the opposition. Isn't that something the party should decide?

(V):

As I understand it, the membership of each state casts its vote. The nomination is done through election within the party. People outside the party do not get to vote in the nomination process.

Übergeek 바둑이: And this needs to take 6 months!!

Guess it's the politicians and the PR firms who are profiting, not the people. All that money would do wonders helping build community projects

(V): So it is, the republicans for sure are not part of the solution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM

Worth watching, and having deforestation, disastrous pollutions and such in mind. If you don't know what this is, you have a gap in education. If you think you are not part of what happens somewhere abroad, you are an ignorant.

gogul: Payback is too big for our supercapitalists, they can't pay back their depts.

What's going on with Wulff in Germany is just a flashbang. In Europe, some may get a little angry about certain german politicians somewhere ... around the european central bank... Barroso and the kind are not justifiable anymore in their positions. What can they do? Wipe streets? Cleaning public toilets? Move to prison?

gogul: I'm counting on proper conscience. It kills if you were a bad boy (or girl for that matter).

So what exactly did those Marines pissing on corpses help to achieve by their "golden showers"?

(V): A typical misunderstanding. They don't know how it really works. They, among others, need a lesson in capitalism. (hint --> employment protection).

(V): First of all: Why did they video tape it??? And how is it that tapes like this get out??? Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb!!! I hope those idiots all get discharged and lose all their $$ etc. Idiots.

(V):

I suppose that humilliating a dead body shows their courage, determination and devotion to freedom and democracy. As always, the fascist nature of the war rears its ugly head. One would like to believe that it is the exception rather than the rule, but as with Abu Graib, the crime is not in doing something rotten, but in being so stupid as to film it and then expect it never to be seen by anybody else. I am sure the whistleblower who leaked it will end up in a court martial because the real crime is exposing a dirty secret and then "risking national security".

Artful Dodger: You would have thought knowing what could happen to them if caught, they would've not wanted it videoed. Just as the UK intelligence service is now facing investigation on handing over people to the former Gaddafi regime knowing they would be tortured.

The records found by the rebels are rather incriminating

Heads will hopefully roll on both sides of the pond.

Übergeek 바둑이: I think it's more a case of the psychology of someone who kills easily, any elite force is going to have a high degree of this small percentage of humanity (something like only 3-4%) .... and that within this small percentage you are going to have a few some real morons with no respect.

They'll be caught and made an example of. Of course the name of the person filming and uploading it will come out. Then it becomes a matter of how much of a sheep they were.

(V):

> Heads will hopefully roll on both sides of the pond.

I wish that I had your faith in the legal system. To me the legal system is an inadequate joke when it comes to war crimes comitted by western military forces. I look at the Abu Graib case, and not a single one of the soldiers involved served a full sentence. Most of them pleaded guilty, "cooperated" with prosecutors and got either reduced or suspended sentences. The ones that served sentences ended up being paroled early. It is a joke to me that these people could torture and sexually abuse prisoners, and get no substantial punishment. Worst of all, they can still return to active duty even if they were demoted to privates. Abuses at Guatanamo bay have received no legal prosecution and have for the most part been swept under the carpet.

These men urinating on corpses will be demoted, have their pay suspended for a month, and serve at most 6 months in prison. It will be another legal joke just like Abu Graib.

Übergeek 바둑이: I have to agree with you, our legal systems have been inadequate. Especially when influenced by politicians and agencies wishing to hide their dirty laundry, or use legal jargon that has no real reality bar making justification morally easier for the voting public to digest.

Yet I've noticed over the last decade or so that hiding has become much harder. The reporting and investigation done, even with the various biases revealing much by how they write.

.. and even with the likes of Murdoch and other right wing news outlets, we still have some independent journalistic outlets.

So, while I don't trust our legal systems, I know it is being watched. And I do trust our deep down humanity.

Yes, it is despicable to urinate on a corpse, but this was filmed because they saw nothing wrong with it. They are operating on some moral high, the legitimacy of their cause. They have just killed these men but you guys are complaining because they "peed" on them. What is the penalty for denigrating a corpse? You think 6 months in jail is not enough but murder that is ok? We should be looking rather at a society that breeds these types of men, then harnesses and nurtures these instincts and finally celebrates their achievements.

yoyudax: Yes. This is a war, while you may not agree with it, the guys who are dead were actively engaged in said war.

The standard of military rules established is respect for the combatant dead. They are dead, they cannot shoot, kill, bomb or otherwise pursue the death of anyone else.

Also this act now it has gone viral, is likely to cause a spike in recruitment in enemy combatants..... ie more people attempting to shoot/kill troops active in Afghanistan. So in essence, those four soldiers have contributed to the deaths of their own.

"We should be looking rather at a society that breeds these types of men"

... limited employment prospects, Salusa Secundus style harshness and savage use of country/faith without question.. or that they are kids?

"Funny commercial" --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9RBCr56i08

yoyudax:

> We should be looking rather at a society that breeds these types of men, then harnesses and nurtures these instincts and finally celebrates their achievements.

War is a business, and western governments went into war not to promote their ideology but to promote their business interests. Our politicians can talk of freedom and democracy, but the reality is that the entire "intelligence" system exists to justify wars that have as their objective to build ever greater empires. National security is the excuse through which empires are built, and freedom and democracy are the ideological battle cries.

Our governments are made of hypocrites. The best proof of that is the recent visit by David Cameron to Saudi Arabia. His primary objective was to secure the sale of 70 fighter jets to the most despotic kingdom and main supporter of Al Qaeda in the Middle East. When convenient, our governments do business with tyrants, and when convenient, they call them enemies and do war with them.

The American government could have stopped the sale of violent video games to children. Instead they blocked the proposed law and let parents buy war video games that are nothing but propaganda to shape young minds into believing that "war is cool and heroic".

The Pentagon spends milliong of dollars developing video games, financing movies, promoting advertising and using all forms of media to ensure that young people enlist in wars under the hope of becoming heroes. Instead our youth become desensitized, ideologically-blind killers. When they don't come back in body bags, they come back with post-traumatic stress disorder, sociopathic disorder and even psychopathic disorder.

The men who urinated on those corpses became psychopaths because only a psychopath would place so little value in life that he would think it is OK to denigrate and humiliate a dead body. They became psychopaths not to promote freedom and democracy in Afghanistan, but to build and protect a pipeline that will bring oil from the Caspain Sea basin into Pakistan and India.

These men will now be made "an example of", but an example of what? After a few months in jail, they will be released. A slap in the wrist will not be an example of justice, but an example of cold indifference and western hypocrisy. In the meantime, kids can keep playing "Call of Duty" so that they can grow up to become like these men.

Übergeek 바둑이: the ois*fg business interests of the past two, three decades were ideologic, even if until the end of the nineties, the neoconservatism was transported as rational economical attitude (which was never seen so by the left). At least since 9/11 it became clear to a broad population that the economical thinking was a redistribution program, deeply ideologic and suppressive. Not because of 9/11, but because of what happened after that. At least since then it became clear that this god talking to G.W. Bush has nothing to do with the biblical Jesus at all. This god the american establishment was praying to, and still is, was the god also know under the name "Wall Street", a religious project of commercialisation of every aspect of life, in big parts under the guise of the biblical God - abused and misguided Americans, for a man who demonstrated about 2000 years ago that we give a damn on God, to console his true followers.

I'm not coincidently choosing a religious rhetoric. All nonbelievers out there with their heart at the right place should be thankful that people like me do study the matter this way. Power is magic of a sort common people can't grasp self-evidently. Our powerful man and woman "up there" are drunken by this magic, the economical thinking outgoing from anglo-saxon business schools and wall street not only ideological, but also a religious project. In their ivory towers they feel like greek gods on the mount olympus and this olympus sort of works and humanistic values are a afterwit, there are still of those who just laugh about us the people.

We have to implement morality in leadership and we can't do this with the current personnel at a rate of 90%, because it will be visible soon enough that those man and woman abused for years, telling lies, rearranged language and bought certain to shut up and destroyed others (like me but I didn't mind one, two, three, four, five times etc.), abused the system at their advantage since they climbed up these stairs to power, it's generations of generations of abuse over many, many centuries.

We want to tell these people on power to just move off their seats and positions, it must be an awful trap to be caught in the act of stealing public means to fill up private purses to be drowned in money (it must, it has to be an awful trap). Usury of 90% is the way to go for the upper class, you'll see these words proved by reality, 80% of the suffering worldwide a stupefying unnecessary.

Übergeek 바둑이: Video games have been proved to calm down, it's a reducer of aggressions, amok runners take their urge out of other things, even if some of them played these sort of games. Although this game you mention is certainly in anyway nothing for kids. It's the blunted affect militarists are looking for with these games, killing without emotions.

gogul: Certain spaces of european power abuse start to slowly understand that they are completely unnecessary, that the world will run better without them and who start to be mentally ill about bad conscience being a bad bad buzzer. huh, still a lot to do.

Wikipedia..... Close down or fine the advertisers?

(V): It was a good protest to stop corporate government takeover of the internet.

Jack: I hope so, rather strange that they target the sites rather than the companies advertising on them. I would have thought if they really wanted to stop file sharing, they would approach the problem from all levels.

But.. I guess going after companies is so hard for the USA as they seem to be protected by the constitution and lobbyists of said country.