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Oddly enough, when American citizens are killed by the thousands as a response to direct actions of their freely elected democratic government, its called "terrorism"

"Terrorism" is a method — targeting (rather than accidentally hitting) enemy civilians has been frowned upon since shortly after the WW2.

What you're saying is that anyone that suffered directly from decisions made by the US governments has the legitimate right of shooting down *any* american

I am saying nothing of the kind. My point was not, that Gazans all "deserved to die" because of their vote — I was simply responding to mrspooni's claim, that "Palestinian people as a whole are not Hamas". They are Hamas or Hamas-sympathizers and do deserve the burdens of war. Any other country in the region would've summarily killed (Syria, Iraq) or expelled (Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia) such people — Israel's restraint is, if anything, inhumane.

And now we can go back to those "direct actions" of our freely elected government, which, in your opinion, justify killing Americans. Which actions are those? Bin Laden's major grief with the US, for example, was — America's desecration of the holy soil of Saudi Arabia, which we defiled with our infidel boots. Is that a good reason for you?

Its not the hater's portrayal when you have western media covering it [...] Are you really convinced that Hamas has a super-duper propaganda machine that is bigger and more efficient than Israel's/US machine

Hamas has inherent propaganda-advantages:

• they are the underdog, whom "low-information" spectators always prefer;
• their non-military policies (inasmuch as they are known at all) are Socialist, bringing every "low-information" bum with a Che Guevara T-shirt on their side;
• Western countries have a much bigger share of Arabs and Muslims now, than even 20 years ago — who all sympathize with their "brethren"

After starting — and loosing — several "real" wars in the 20th century, Arabs have given up on the "honest" battlefield success. They've switched all their efforts into terrorism on one hand and propaganda whining on the other. They are succeeding.

Shit happens when you bomb one of the most densely populated areas in the world, and they don't care.

Retaliation will hit any area in the world, from where thugs shoot at somebody. Israel's retaliation will try to hit the thugs only, but it is not, of course, guaranteed... That the area is "densely populated" should be the concern of the shooters, not of those, who defend themselves and their country.

Even if you want to try and spin it as not Hamas' fault and the fault of countless rogue elements in the Gaza strip then ultimately Hamas is the controlling authority in the strip so still bears blame. Hamas has every power and authority in the strip to make sure it happens and due to their iron grip on it any time it does happen it must be with either their implicit (blind eye) or explicit blessing.

If Israel did nothing about some genuinely zionist civilians shelling the shit out of Gaza indiscriminately for years on end would you say it's not the states fault even though for it to occur it would require the state to explicitly avoid acting to stop it?

The fact is, that Hamas is linked directly with the MB (and even Al Qaeda offshoot) Sunni militants.

Because Hamas has been largely isolated now by Iran and Syria because it opted to back ISIS and other Sunni militants and hence sided against Assad's regime and Hezbollah the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda and affiliated groups are really the only allies it has left.

A quick search will pull up many 10s of incidents this year alone in Sinai near Gaza. It's no coincidence that this is such a hotbed of Sunni militant activity with Hamas right across the border. Sisi didn't close the border for shits and giggles, he closed it because:

http://al-shorfa.com/en_GB/art...

http://news.kuwaittimes.net/mi...

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/...

http://www.latimes.com/world/m...

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/...

http://english.alarabiya.net/e...

So whilst Hamas and friends are selling folks like you a story about poor Gaza children being bombed whilst playing, Hamas and friends have been bombing poor Egyptian (and trying to bomb) poor Israeli children whilst playing too. When you see a photo about some suffering wounded kids in Gaza at Israel's hand, spare a thought for the suffering kids in Sinai etc. at Hamas and friend's hand too.

Which is why again, Hamas is every bit as bad as the Israelis.

Even if you want to try and spin it as not Hamas' fault and the fault of countless rogue elements in the Gaza strip then ultimately Hamas is the controlling authority in the strip so still bears blame. Hamas has every power and authority in the strip to make sure it happens and due to their iron grip on it any time it does happen it must be with either their implicit (blind eye) or explicit blessing.

If Israel did nothing about some genuinely zionist civilians shelling the shit out of Gaza indiscriminately for years on end would you say it's not the states fault even though for it to occur it would require the state to explicitly avoid acting to stop it?

The fact is, that Hamas is linked directly with the MB (and even Al Qaeda offshoot) Sunni militants.

Because Hamas has been largely isolated now by Iran and Syria because it opted to back ISIS and other Sunni militants and hence sided against Assad's regime and Hezbollah the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda and affiliated groups are really the only allies it has left.

A quick search will pull up many 10s of incidents this year alone in Sinai near Gaza. It's no coincidence that this is such a hotbed of Sunni militant activity with Hamas right across the border. Sisi didn't close the border for shits and giggles, he closed it because:

http://al-shorfa.com/en_GB/art...

http://news.kuwaittimes.net/mi...

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/...

http://www.latimes.com/world/m...

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/...

http://english.alarabiya.net/e...

So whilst Hamas and friends are selling folks like you a story about poor Gaza children being bombed whilst playing, Hamas and friends have been bombing poor Egyptian (and trying to bomb) poor Israeli children whilst playing too. When you see a photo about some suffering wounded kids in Gaza at Israel's hand, spare a thought for the suffering kids in Sinai etc. at Hamas and friend's hand too.

Which is why again, Hamas is every bit as bad as the Israelis.

When you start dropping shells on their side of the border.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/07/russia-warns-over-deadly-ukraine-shelling-201471391428887801.html

Some Palestinians have, if at all, just seconds to leave before an attack but many do leave and flee to the school buildings that under control of the United Nations. The schools are opened especially for this and the UN personnel take care of the refugees and keep both "militants" and weapons out of its buildings.

It also provides the Israeli military with the exact coordinates of the schools. So guess what happens next:

Israeli shells hit UN shelter in Gaza:

As many as 30 people have been reported killed and 100 injured in the Israeli shelling of a UN school in Gaza that was being used as an emergency shelter.

Al Jazeera's correspondent Nicole Johnston, reporting from Gaza, said the school in Beit Hanoun came under shelling on Thursday. She said sources had told Al Jazeera that up up to 30 people had been killed in the bombardment.

The AFP reported a UN official as confirming "multiple dead and injured".

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Robert Turner, the director for UNRWA, the UN's refugee organisation in Gaza, said there was no warning from the Israelis before the shells landed. He confirmed there were casualties.

He said the UNRWA were in contact with Israeli forces about a window to evacuate the school before the attack happened

"This is a designated emergency shelter," he said. "The location was conveyed to the Israelis.

"This is the fourth strike on our installations in three days."

Four attacks on well known refugee centers within three days. Does anyone still believe that such attacks are some random accidents?

until the the ISP's began to deliberately throttle services it worked very well.

Is that water, the ultimate solvent -- or perhaps bacteria -- are breaking down the plastics back into it's components, and the ocean (much like the oil from the BP spill) is taking care of itself.

Naw, couldn't be. Go ahead and panic, hippies!

Yeah, and everyone know that broken down oil was completely harmless.

Whatever components that plastic is breaking down into it likely contains a lot of molecules that aren't found in nature. When those molecules enter an organism there's no telling what the hell they're going to do.

I don't understand this fantasy that some people cling to that we can dump endless streams of random crap into the environment and mother nature will just magically take care of it with no consequence. People would sure as hell notice if you started dumping garbage into a lake and screwing up a beach where people swim once a week, why do you think the things that actually live in the polluted water won't be affected?

Oh come on now... the guy may be a tea party-aligned rape fugitive who overrode his political party to caucus with the Neo-Nazis, gave the dictator of Belarus an advance on leaks to be used in purges against his enemies, attempted to blackmail aid agencies by threatening to release information that could get their sources killed (including Amnesty International, to the tune of $700k), makes his volunteers sign 7-figure ultra-repressive NDAs, caused the defection of most of Wikileaks's staff due to complaints from authoritarianism to diverting the organization's money to himself, writes on his blog about how he's a god to women and women's brains can't do math, made a fake op-ed in the name of one of his opponents supposedly supporting him and promoted it with a fake twitter account in his name, wanted his book to be called "Ban This Book: From Swedish Whores to Pentagon Bores", wanted it to be full of his sex stories and at one point interrupted his ghostwriter to leer at a couple of 14-year-olds before remarking that one was "fine until I saw the teeth", cyberstalked a 17 year old before he got famous, and so on down the line ad nauseum... ....that's still no reason to wish him ill.

Here is one informative piece on what working for Amazon is like: http://www.theguardian.com/tec... and one on Apple http://www.aljazeera.com/progr... Essentially, these companies make massive profit and can easily afford to pay a decent wage without hindering their bottom line. What is appalling is that these companies do not do so. A lot of these jobs are dead-end without the opportunity for advancement. Getting decent pay for labour is a constant struggle as are decent working conditions. Historically, companies try to exploit labour and need to be called out. Also, we have cases like Intel where manufacturing is built on stolen land and in violation of UN treaties such as their factories on occupied Palestine. Only when consumers put pressure on these companies and workers organize will companies concede proper working conditions. You or your children could wind up working in these places, perhaps even a summer. They need a safe work place with decent pay, especially when the company is flush. I am an entrepreneur myself and have clients all over the world who buy my products. I know that an adequately paid work force will be able to afford what I sell. I also manufacture locally (Canada) which costs more than off shore, but is worth it for the higher end products I put out. And since we are talking about Amazon, I detest the fact that their (Amazon Canada) shipping rates are subsidized and the rest of us entrepreneurs in Canada have to pay full price. Why should they get special treatment? Us small business owners pay way more taxes than Amazon. You bet my elected representative is put on notice for this.

So are you suggesting that it was up to the Americans and Russians to determine the choices a sovereign people should make? How about if someone made those choices for you? Oh Wait, they already do...

First, sovereignty isn't an absolute, especially when Russia and Ukraine were in fact a single sovereign country until very recently. Crimea is historically Russian and was only part of "Ukrainian" territory in the USSR because of an internal administrative boundary change.

Hell, throwing your "choices a sovereign people should make" back at you: what about the parts of Ukraine that are heavily Russian and WOULD rather be part of Russia?

Obama didn't just allow the Ukrainians their own choice - he actively supported the rebels against the pro-Russian government. Given Russian interests in the Ukraine, especially in the Crimea where Russia maintains a significant military presence, and the clearly stated importance Russia placed in Ukrainian status, Obama still helped topple the government there.

That's the mess Obama needlessly stepped into. And made worse. Then walked away from spouting hashtags while people died.

But it gets worse - after fomenting a rebellion everyone in Europe knew the Russians would respond to militarily (which is why they didn't support Obama, resulting in the "Fuck the EU" comment), Obama seemed surprised by the Russian response. Hmm, exactly like Obama was surprised by the reaction to his deserter-for-five-terrorists deal. (Is "Chuck Hagel did it!" our fifth excuse for that PR disaster now?)

Charles Bolden
The Nasa administrator and astronaut in conversation with Al Jazeera's Imran Garda.

Mr Bolden said: "When I became the Nasa administrator, he [Mr Obama] charged me with three things.

"One, he wanted me to help reinspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering."

Oh, goodie. NASA's job under Obama - explore space? Nope, make " Muslim nations ... feel good".

Guess that explains why Obama traded five top Taliban leaders for one weasel deserter.

Can't. I live in another state with long border with Russia. Finland. Unless you're calling for me to get out of my home country, I cannot exit the situation.

And NATO with help of our single pro-NATO party are slowly pushing us into situation which Ukraine is today, in spite of massive popular opposition to independence.

Here's a fairly reasonable opinion piece on what's going on in there:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indep...

Why did Obama personally intervene to keep a Yemeni journalist brutalized and imprisoned for daring to report on U.S. bombings that kill innocent people? Why was an Al Jazeera office bombed by Bush? Why does anyone think that the U.S. would hesitate to take out Snowden if it's willing to murder 16 year olds based on who the kids father was?

http://www.aljazeera.com/progr...

Whelp. So much for "no shots fired"
Warning shots fired. They kept out a force trying to enter Crimea.

At least no one has been arrested, tortured, and killed. well damn

Even having nothing to hide, and guilty of nothing, you are still target to confirmation bias. And a private joke could put you in deep troubles.

Um, no.

Um, yeah.

The president was impeached by the

But illegally removed from office. Ukraine's constitution requires a 2/3 vote to impeach a president, but a 3/4 vote to remove him from office. 328 votes is well short of that 3/4 majority. An analogous situation would be if Republicans forced Bill Clinton out of the country if they had 60 votes to convict in the Senate - but the Constitution requires 67.

If you don't support what the protesters achieved in the Ukraine then you don't support democracy, it's as simple as that.

You're so far off-base you're off-planet, it's as simple as that. The United States has spent five biiiiiiiilion dollars propping up the pro-West faction of the country. The first thing the "interm" government did was to strip Crimea of it's autonomy while starting to crack down on ethnic Russians. Oh, and installed the founder of a neo-nazi party as head of the country's security. Like the right wing in Venezuela, they are trying to do by force what they failed to do at the ballot box.

By supporting this coup, you are opposing democracy.

Apple could care less about 'making the world a better place'. If a few deaths and suffering of people helped pad the bottom line, they would go for it without hesitation. So would Apple buyers. People who buy Apple products just want their I-things, no matter what suffering is behind it, sort of like the way some women obsess over diamonds. African blood on it? No problem, as long as it sparkles. I have shown and explained Apple exploitation to Apple buyers directly, the answer was, 'so what if they exploit Chinese, there are just so many of them!'. Forget about the front line workers at Apple shops who get paid a pitance, or the ultra-poor who gather coltan in Africa for all our devices--give those shiny devices. Now Apple is already sitting on a lot of money, giving all their workers, their fair share will not even scratch theor money pile. Now spme will say, 'Apple contracts their manufacturing to other companies, they have no idea what is going on'. Do you really think a company like Apple will hand over their proprorietary means of production blindly? Just give away their secrets and say, 'we trust you'. Now, some idiots say that Apple exploitation was discredited because some playwright in the US spoke about and then retracted stories of Apple exploitation. They say, Apple does not exploit because that play has been discredited'. I am not talking about the play, I would like to go here, for starters: http://www.aljazeera.com/progr... and this as well http://www.aljazeera.com/progr... and this http://www.cbc.ca/news/technol... And let us not forget that Intel bases a lot of their factories on occupied Palestine, land mandated as belonging to Palestinians by the UN. Intel, who provide CPU's to Apple. Now you will say, 'oh come on, it is totally fine that exploitation occur because all companies do it anyway'. I am saying, these companies make oodles of money, if the buyers get concerned they can ask the manufacturer, 'we helped you become rich, please give a tiny amount to those you hurt and change enough not to hurt others again--it wil not really affect your vast sums of wealth'.

Apple could care less about 'making the world a better place'. If a few deaths and suffering of people helped pad the bottom line, they would go for it without hesitation. So would Apple buyers. People who buy Apple products just want their I-things, no matter what suffering is behind it, sort of like the way some women obsess over diamonds. African blood on it? No problem, as long as it sparkles. I have shown and explained Apple exploitation to Apple buyers directly, the answer was, 'so what if they exploit Chinese, there are just so many of them!'. Forget about the front line workers at Apple shops who get paid a pitance, or the ultra-poor who gather coltan in Africa for all our devices--give those shiny devices. Now Apple is already sitting on a lot of money, giving all their workers, their fair share will not even scratch theor money pile. Now spme will say, 'Apple contracts their manufacturing to other companies, they have no idea what is going on'. Do you really think a company like Apple will hand over their proprorietary means of production blindly? Just give away their secrets and say, 'we trust you'. Now, some idiots say that Apple exploitation was discredited because some playwright in the US spoke about and then retracted stories of Apple exploitation. They say, Apple does not exploit because that play has been discredited'. I am not talking about the play, I would like to go here, for starters: http://www.aljazeera.com/progr... and this as well http://www.aljazeera.com/progr... and this http://www.cbc.ca/news/technol... And let us not forget that Intel bases a lot of their factories on occupied Palestine, land mandated as belonging to Palestinians by the UN. Intel, who provide CPU's to Apple. Now you will say, 'oh come on, it is totally fine that exploitation occur because all companies do it anyway'. I am saying, these companies make oodles of money, if the buyers get concerned they can ask the manufacturer, 'we helped you become rich, please give a tiny amount to those you hurt and change enough not to hurt others again--it wil not really affect your vast sums of wealth'.

Quoting previous articles:

In Pictures: Ghana's e-waste magnet
E-waste at the Agbogbloshie dumpsite near Accra has created a socio-economic and environmental disaster.
Kevin McElvaney, 12 Feb 2014

Inside Ghana's electronic wasteland
Dangerous practice of burning electronic waste to extract metals could be made safely obsolete.
Chris Stein, 02 Nov 2013

Quoting previous articles:

In Pictures: Ghana's e-waste magnet
E-waste at the Agbogbloshie dumpsite near Accra has created a socio-economic and environmental disaster.
Kevin McElvaney, 12 Feb 2014

Inside Ghana's electronic wasteland
Dangerous practice of burning electronic waste to extract metals could be made safely obsolete.
Chris Stein, 02 Nov 2013

"Folks collectively spend billions getting the degrees and experience, only to get jobs at Walmart; where they can't even pay their student loans. To top it, we continue to support FB, Google, M$ and others who continue to push for underpaid H1V1 visas..." Not to contradict you, I am very interested in this, especially the last part. A lot of these monster companies thrive on unpaid work, more detail on this would be valued. I agree, we support too many monsters, like Apple. http://www.aljazeera.com/progr...

If you dare to oppose, your news will be boring

Except when you get to report on your own buildings and journalists being targeted by the US Army. I'm surprised it has taken this long for the US to drop in the World Press Freedom index to be honest, given their attitude to free press outside their borders.

If i don't like my black/muslim/spanish/different-in-some-way neighbors, or the boyfriend of the girl i want, i can just report them as pointing a laser to a passing aircraft. In the worst case i could say that I mistook a keychain for a laser pointer. In the best case, i will get $10.000, and could get rid of that neighbor because he will be victim of authorities/nsa confirmation bias.

And it could work in both ways, if you don't want that nasty redneck falsely accuse you, you can accuse him first. In any case, whats the worst that could happen if you call the police?

Don't worry. The confirmation bias will make sure that you will become an expert too.

I'm sure that's true. I've no idea what our trade balance is in vanadium or ruthenium. The aggregate is not so good though.

And what do you think the US is doing with all those raw materials? They get bought and then used for productive purposes. Japan has virtually no natural resources but no one is arguing that they are screwed as a result. Being a net importer of raw materials is neither good nor bad by itself.

No, what everybody is celebrating is that our domestic production is now slightly higher than our imports.

What everyone is celebrating is that exports exceeded imports in 2013 and that looks to continue in 2014. Plus Canada and Mexico account for around half of US oil imports so it's not like the US is directly dependent on the middle east for supply.

That must explain the US trade deficit and the German surplus in manufactured goods.

The US exports more than Germany does AND has a GDP 4X the size of Germany meaning the US economy is not nearly so dependent on exports. You're a little too wrapped up in whether a country has a trade surplus or not. Having your economy so dependent on exports has both significant advantages and disadvantages. It's not simply suplus=good/deficit=bad.

American dream (as perceived from outside): if you work hard, you are going to be successful no matter how stupidly -as opposed to smart- you work.
I might be wrong, but I feel that the majority of mid-class americans are incurable dreamers (or were bitten by the tsetse fly... many times over).
It's not quite wrong (after all some believe hope is a basic human right), even if it doesn't do them - the dreamers - any lasting and concrete good.

I guess a lot of Americans hate smart people, don't they?

It's only human to be upset when disturbed (however lightly) from a wet dream, isn't it? I mean, one worked hard and climbed towards the climax... only to be denied of it.

This is a bullshit article. The basis for it is that food supplements didn't (and don't) work but an NSAID would probably have worked. No shit. It's well known that the supplements industry for people is mostly snake oil. Of course it will be more so for pets. There are plenty of references on the net if you search, but in case you're lazy I just found this one. If a drugs works, there may be side effects (as with the NSAIDs in the TFA). This doesn't mean that "pet medications don't work." It means you need to do your research and not believe the crap it says on the packet. If people stopped buying this shit, the companies would stop selling it.

Do you have a source or are you are retard?

My god how far has the propaganda that Islam is as harmless as the women's institute gone. Surely you must have read about all the polio workers killed?

Since you bothered to post, you could have the decency to post a link...

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/04/world/americas/mexico-radioactive-theft/

http://abcnews.go.com/International/mexican-police-find-stolen-truck-radioactive-cargo/story?id=21091737

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/2013/1204/Hijacked-radioactive-material-found-in-Mexico.-How-dangerous-was-it

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/12/4/-extremely-dangerousradioactivetheftinmexicoiaea.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/stolen-cobalt-60-found-abandoned/2013/12/04/7d3fe3f8-5d42-11e3-8d24-31c016b976b2_story.html

New Zealand stands in contrast, are you sure?

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2013/11/locked-up-warriors-201311481133704146.html

From http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/10/us-denies-tapping-merkel-mobile-phone-20131023185133142198.html ---

US President Barack Obama had assured German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the US is not monitoring her communications, according to the White House spokesman.

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24647268

The White House said President Obama had told Chancellor Merkel the US was not snooping on her communications.

"The United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor," White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Wednesday.

From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/23/merkel-phone-tapped_n_4150812.html

For its part, the White House denied that the U.S. is listening in on Merkel's phone calls now.

"The president assured the chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "The United States greatly values our close cooperation with Germany on a broad range of shared security challenges."

Maybe when he said U.S. he actually meant us, as in him & his wife? Or that will be his next excuse?

From http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/10/us-denies-tapping-merkel-mobile-phone-20131023185133142198.html ---

US President Barack Obama had assured German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the US is not monitoring her communications, according to the White House spokesman.

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24647268

The White House said President Obama had told Chancellor Merkel the US was not snooping on her communications.

"The United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor," White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Wednesday.

From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/23/merkel-phone-tapped_n_4150812.html

For its part, the White House denied that the U.S. is listening in on Merkel's phone calls now.

"The president assured the chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "The United States greatly values our close cooperation with Germany on a broad range of shared security challenges."

President Obama, 'It wasnt me'...

• Government Shutdown: "Washington needs to get out of the habit of governing by crisis" , blame Washington
• Weak employment number s, Blame Congress , forget the fact that the democrats have 40 job creation bills they haven't acted on.
• The Economy is sluggish , blame the Europe..
• Structural Problems are preventing economic growth: its the ATM Machines in airport Kiosks
• Businesses have lost their edge causing slow job growth, blame the American Businesses , forget tax hikes and regulations imposed by the administration
• US Economy is slow and jobs are not on the rise, blame High Energy Prices lets not talk about opposition to the American Energy Initiative, Shutting down Coal Production. After all Nuclear Power is the way to go... just ask Japan.
• Debt ceiling, spending out of control. blame republicans, blame congress. Wait.. doesnt the President sign all those spending bills?

Failure is an opportunity.
If you blame someone else,
there is no end to the blame.

Therefore the Master
fulfills her own obligations
and corrects her own mistakes.
She does what she needs to do
and demands nothing of others.

--Lao Tzu

I think the problem we are facing is a lack of good leadership.

I would refer you to the OP, which states China wants a de-Americanized global currency, which they state is because a defaulting US destabilizes the whole world.

and:

Swiss National Bank Chairman Thomas Jordan warned Tuesday that failure to lift the U.S debt ceiling could have damaging international repercussions and he urged lawmakers to make a deal.

"I hope that the U.S. Congress will find a solution before the time limit ... we saw the last time it can really have very negative impacts on international financial markets," he said, according to Reuters, referring to the 2011 standoff that brought the U.S. to the brink of a debt default. - http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/10/8/world-tells-us-thatadebtdefaultwouldbecatastrophic.html

Fixed link: OT but informative: Timeline of Edward Snowden's revelations

My three daily readings are :

new.google.com - not a reference site per se but sometimes news can be reported from less mainstream media. Chose a national edition (/?ned=xx in url) for other languages, spanish speaking world has quite a different coverage.

Al Jazeera , as many pointed out here. Many subjects are covered with much less biased point of view than in western media. Pretty good and quality journalism. Some in-depth coverage samples: BP disaster and one year later.

Slashdot ... again not a reference site per, but I don't have time to read much more than those three sites.

In French: Mediapart and Rue89 for some alternative views.

I'll have a look at the crowd advice here, nice thread.

4 Points
1) Diversity is good, but... You must keep in mind that is not sufficient reason to read a source. A 'diversity' of falsehoods is worthless.
2) You can't read everything. Choose the areas that mean the most to you (international affairs, economics, national or local politics, etc) and try to find 2-3 sources that seem to do good work in those areas.
3) Be aware who is paying the bills. The consumers/adverisers in typical newspapers? Purely advertisers as in television/online reporting? Government in state funded broadcasting? I don't believe reporters will bend their views to match the person paying the bills. Instead reporters with unsympathetic views will often not get hired in the first place (probably not a lot of leftwingers in Fox or rightwingers on MSNBC). I'd strongly recommend reading Manufacturing Consent for more information.
4) Let your choices evolve. The editors today may not be the editors tomorrow. Companies get bought out, new ones arise. How much longer will the Guardian's editor remain?

My recommendations:
The guardian -- You already have your reasons. I think their dissimenating the NSA leaks and wikileaks info when no one else would is justification enough.
al jazeera -- Particularly foreign viewpoint, high quality.
Democracy Now -- Not the best quality but clearly believe what they say and is run off donations. Also provides an American (important to me as I am one) viewpoint on things.
Their are others I think are probably good and have seen other posters mention already but I'm not experienced enough with them to know.

"Map: US bases encircle Iran" http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2012/04/2012417131242767298.html
"US....close military partnerships with ....and Azerbaijan"
No need for a color revolution and a flood of US backed NGO's just yet unless they change their temporary accommodation of foreign military policy.
The bases and transit corridors are fine.

Yet "police throughout [Iraq] continued to use abusive and coerced confessions as methods of investigations," the State Department cites in its latest report, adding, "Credible accounts of abuse and torture during arrest and investigation, in pretrial detention, and after conviction, particularly by police and army were common." The State Department says former prisoners, detainees and human rights groups detail methods including "stress positions, beatings, broken fingers, electric shocks, suffocation, burning, removal of fingernails, suspension from the ceiling, overextending the spine, beatings on the soles of the feet with plastic and metal rods, forcing victims to drink large quantities of water then preventing urination, sexual assault, denial of medical treatment, and death threats."

Confessions have long been a deliberate element in Iraqi justice, both before and after Saddam's rule. The justice system, based largely on Islamic and tribal tradition, has always placed the importance of confessions above other types of considered evidence. Here, it's called the Master of the Evidence, similar to the Latin phrase Confession est regina probationum, or "Confession is the queen of proofs," which justified the use of forced confessions during the Middle Ages.

Denying the state the incentive of extracting a confession "by any means necessary" is one of the best gifts your founding fathers left for you. Removing that safeguard from your justice system will certainly be detrimental. You may think it will never be used against the innocent but one should never forget the famous quotation by H. L. Mencken:

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

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

Morsi was a Member of Parliament in the People's Assembly of Egypt from 2000 to 2005, and a leading member in the Muslim Brotherhood. He became Chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) when it was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. He stood as the FJP's candidate for the May–June 2012 presidential election.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/whos-who-in-the-muslim-brotherhood

Morsi was first recruited to the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States while studying for his PhD in engineering at the University of Southern California.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/07/20137314127329966.html

Morsi rose within the Brotherhood ranks, becoming a member of its powerful Guidance Bureau in 1995.

I can't find the source but I remember reading that Morsi is the 4th or 5th highest ranked brotherhood member. Yes he was the brotherhood's second choice for president, because he's not the highest ranking member. He has sworn oaths of fealty to the Egyptian brotherhood leader.

So everything you said was either a fabrication or a outright deception. Are you a propaganda agent or just an idiot?

Actually overstatement of the year. On both sides. The protests were not by millions of people on either side. There simply wasn't enough room for that many people in the space occupied by the protestors on either side of the fence.

Doubts emerge over Egypt's protester numbers

Like releasing the same document twice, with different redactions? http://www.aljazeera.com/humanrights/2013/08/2013851618340986.html
Or information on an Iraqi shooting? http://gcn.com/articles/2005/05/13/pdf-user-slipup-gives-dod-lesson-in-protecting-classified-information.aspx
Or when the TSA published their 'classified' handbook? http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/tsa-leak/
Or when the UK revealed their nuclear submarine secrets? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13107413

I love this comment! Yes, Apple has ENOUGH money to pay their workers well. Enable Apple workers to make commission. Not that I buy Apple, because they exploit workers. http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/activate/2011/09/201194144739197637.html Apple give it from the back AND the front. Nice. Pay your workers you cheap rich old monsters.

The Ipad is DRM. The kids cannot study, share or modify the code or freely run the programs as they wish. The kids are beholden to whatver rules Apple imposes. A better route would be an open device that allows for an understanding of how it works along with innovation. Consequently, generations of dependant users are not encouraged to understand and improve things. I prefer generations of innovators, thinkers, who share ideas, challenge and improve. Give the kids access to the source, let them root the thing. The devices should run libre software and made locally. Do you want Islaves or Thinkers? Rewarding oppression does not do much good for the world either. Apple's labour policies leaves a lot to be desired. http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/activate/2011/09/201194144739197637.html The third world has better devices, like the One Laptop Per Child http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child that runs the opensource Sugar OS. Heck, places like China, India, and South America have the right idea. They use devices that run LIbre software. Why is it that the US is taking the worst route possible? On everything?

That is incredibly simplistic, there are lots of reasons to setup shop in the U.S. versus China or India especially. How much work are you going to get done with rolling black or brown outs that are common in both countries? How reliable are your workers going to be when infrastructure crumbles from an earthquake. You might not be watching the news but things are a lot more stable in the U.S.

Corruption of government officials in both countries also runs rampant. Finding good people is easy compared to dealing with all of that. There are of course different regulatory problems too, RIM ran into that problem in a big way. Moving to European countries is of course far easier but then you lose savings on labor as they command higher rates just like we do. There is a reason that a network engineer in NYC makes about the same as a network engineer in London.

Econ 101 as you know is far from a complete picture of a state economy much less a country or global economy.

There is also the reality that most people setup shop in the U.S. because they are from the U.S. It would be a very rare occurrence for anyone living in the U.S. to start a company in another country regardless of the talent pool unless they already had a company in the U.S. that proved successful.

I've met a lot of smart people, from all over the globe, no matter where you go you can probably find qualified people as long as you're willing to pay the prevailing wage. You don't go to India and pay a network engineer the same as you pay someone in Somalia.

Spending a year in solitary confinement with guards refusing to let you sleep for *months* and making you strip naked at random times...before you're even *charged*,

Manning probably regrets making a gratuitous suicide threat, don't you think?

" Manning told a guard that if he wanted to kill himself, he could hang himself with the waistband of his underwear." -- more

Jesus fucking Christ, the data rape going on there is brutal. You conveniently forget to mention that the year 1683 lies at the end of a 700 year period of brutal persecution, crusades and general mayhem, all founded on religion (on the surface) but boiling down to "more power for me, less for you". And you could probably tally the losses on both "sides" of that conflict, but in reality it was everybody against everybody.

It seems to me like you have absolutely no clue what these groups want, and why they're acting the way they do. It's so much easier to just attribute their motives to a fucking 400 year old battle, than actually spending a bit of time reading something other than the party pamphlet you've been handed. Or hey, how about this, you talk to some of the people that knows, I'm sure they're all around you. A good point to start is reading the english version of Al Jazeera, they're just as biased in their news coverage as the western medias, but it will give you a good glimpse of what is actually, truly going on. It also provides a counter balance to the deep indoctrination you've experienced.

Doesn't everybody remember last year, when multiple reports came out from sociologists saying that food prices cause riots, and that food prices worldwide were expected to peak in the summer of 2013? Headlines like 'We have until August 2013 before riots sweep the globe', and 'We have one year before everything explodes' -- that doesn't ring a bell for anyone else?

Social unrest is correlated to the price of necessary commodities. When the poor cannot afford basic necessities, they have no choice but to get violent. Because of crop failures last year, this year is primed for social unrest EVERYWHERE.

The Arxiv paper demonstrating the correlation, based on data from the 2008 food riots.
An article warning us from last year. And another. And another.

Sociologists have known this was coming. Governments should have known this was coming. It's going to be a brutal, bloody summer. Get ready.

Apple pursued lawful tax evasion, so it is acceptable. It does not matter if Apple use exploited labor to achieve their goals, harmful DRM, (lawfully) evade taxes, and not thank their biggest customer (USA) by establishing a larger manufacturing presence. http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/activate/2011/09/201194144739197637.html http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/activate/2011/09/20119994239791675.html Apple are not much different from Walmart, who harm US national interests by their practices: http://vimeo.com/52359213 Consumers do not care. Ideally, a well informed populace would take Apple and any other corporate entity who harms US interests to tasks. They could boycott, organize protests. Instead, consumers reward this behavior, so why should Apple not do whatever it wants?