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If you look at the US/SK exercises they had names like "Team Sprint". I think if war broke out you'd see

1) A lot of cruise missile and airstrikes on NK missiles and artillery north of the DMZ - it would be a much more intensive bombing campaign than any yet seen.

2) An amphibious landing north of the DMZ by South Korean forces. They'd divide into a group that would go for Pyongyang to end the regime and another group to head back south to attack the DMZ from behind.

3) If NK uses nukes I think the US would respond with tactical nuclear strikes against NK military formations.

The reason is that in a real war Seoul is very vulnerable to dug in NK missiles and artillery. The US doesn't really do trench warfare. It prefers blitzkrieg style warfare i.e. lots of tanks on the move - the Gulf War being the classic example.

The North is probably very short of food and fuel but it probably has dug deep fortifications to protect its forces aimed at Seoul from air attack and stocked them up with enormous amounts of ammunition. So a war of attrition favours the North and is deadly for Seoul. A war of maneuver and movement favours the south and is probably what their US advisers have taught them because that is what the US does well. Also if they want to minimize the deaths of registered voters in Seoul that is the only choice.

Put those together and I think you'd see a very aggressive attempt by the US and SK to end the war before the North could do too much damage to Seoul. You can't be sure of that with air strikes alone, so I'd expect an amphibious landing in the North.

Also the North would be thrown badly off balance politically by an amphibious landing - it would be like in D Day where no one dared wake Hitler because he'd apparently said the invasion wasn't going to happen the way it did. Lastly no one with first hand experience of them really likes murderous totalitarian regimes and most people in NK probably know the South is a better place to live. So if the South is lucky the NK regime will fracture and collapse completely once SK tank columns start to roll through the countryside and individual NK commanders switch sides or decide not to fight.

It's reasonable to assume for example that the US and SK forces will be able to destroy NK's communications systems. So if you're an NK commander you don't even know if King Kim is even alive once the war starts.

What about China? Well if you look at Wikileaks they may well have told the South Koreans they're not to fussed if they remove the regime and unify the country so long as US forces are not stationed in the North.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/29/wikileaks-cables-china-reunified-korea

In highly sensitive discussions in February this year, the-then South Korean vice-foreign minister, Chun Yung-woo, told a US ambassador, Kathleen Stephens, that younger generation Chinese Communist party leaders no longer regarded North Korea as a useful or reliable ally and would not risk renewed armed conflict on the peninsula, according to a secret cable to Washington.

Chun, who has since been appointed national security adviser to South Korea's president, said North Korea had already collapsed economically.

Political collapse would ensue once Kim Jong-il died, despite the dictator's efforts to obtain Chinese help and to secure the succession for his son, Kim Jong-un.

"Citing private conversations during previous sessions of the six-party talks , Chun claimed [the two high-level officials] believed Korea should be unified under ROK [South Korea] control," Stephens reported.

"The two officials, Chun said, were ready to 'face the new reality' that the DPRK [North Korea] now had little value to China as a buffer state - a view that, since North Korea's first nuclear test in 2006, had reportedly gained traction among senior PRC [People's Republic of China] leaders. Chun argu

Arbitrary execution.
It happens weekly -- what do you think Terror Tuesday is all about. And one for certain was completely innocent 16yo American born boy. The government knew so much about him when it killed him, that it claimed he was 21.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/abdulrahman-al-awlaki-death-10470891#ixzz2ABHMgELN
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/20/the_killing_of_awlakis_16_year_old_son/

Arbitrary indefinite detention.
Obama tried to close the facility at Gitmo and MOVE the PRACTICES to the Thompson Federal Supermax in Illinois. Don't feed me that bullshit about GOP obstruction and he tried to "close GITMO" where people understand "close" to mean "stop the practices" rather than merely continue the practices at a new location.
http://www.aclu.org/national-security/creating-gitmo-north-alarming-step-says-aclu
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/06/obama-promise-close-guantanamo-worse

Libya, and the War Powers Act. Obama conveniently redefines war.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/19/obama-libya-lawyers-war-powers_n_879951.html
http://www.nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/house-rejects-authorization-of-libya-intervention-20110624

* http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech-technology-and-liberty/political-speech-facebook

* http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jul/06/facebook-apologises-free-speech-syria

* http://gawker.com/5885714/

* http://www.boingboing.net/2011/04/19/richard-metzger-how.html

* http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/feb/21/facebook-nudity-violence-censorship-guidelines

I could keep pasting these all day long but I think I made my point.

* http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech-technology-and-liberty/political-speech-facebook

* http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jul/06/facebook-apologises-free-speech-syria

* http://gawker.com/5885714/

* http://www.boingboing.net/2011/04/19/richard-metzger-how.html

* http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/feb/21/facebook-nudity-violence-censorship-guidelines

I could keep pasting these all day long but I think I made my point.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/mar/05/top-gear-tesla-jeremy-clarkson among other sources which quote the episode in question.

Maybe there's more rape in North Korean prisons?

More of everything.

Revealed: the gas chamber horror of North Korea's gulag

North Korea is Dark

Japanese families fear that North Korea is still abducting

Care to take a holiday?

The world's worst cruise holiday?

Two resources that they will apparently never run short of:
Nitwits that take up their cause.
Soldiers and weapons

Food, on the other hand....
The Cannibals of North Korea

NK is brutal. The problem is the US is brutal as well. Maybe if a country which actually didn't have the most prisoners in the world were to comment people wouldn't view it as a joke. It's clear the US government is not serious about human rights. Do we care about the rights of our prisoners?

I do think that American citizens care abut human rights but the lawmakers aren't voting that way. They won't even end the brutal war on drugs and outlaw for profit prisons. How can I take them seriously when they are building the worst prison state in the history of mankind. A prison state which will allow rich people to own shares in the prison camps. Laws which will arrest people on any charge they need to, in order to meet some quota so the prisons can profit.

I don't see how it's any worse or any better than what NK does. NK uses less humane methods, but the result and plan seems to be the same. Both nations have a prison industry. If the US has a prison industry it cannot speak on prisons. Outlaw for profit prisons and then you can speak on it.

Say anything negative about them, and they may sue!

I drive a Volt and I've had LEAF people walk up to me in parking lots, unsolicited, to tell me that my car isn't really an electric car or to gloat about their "all electric" car. I'm embarrassed to be part of the "electric car" community.

Point out 2 things -

Manufacturing electric cars creates twice the pollution as manufacturing similar, conventional autos

and

the "fuel" from their vehicles most likely comes from pollution-belching coal and gas fired power plants.

That should shut them up.

Maybe there's more rape in North Korean prisons?

More of everything.

Revealed: the gas chamber horror of North Korea's gulag

North Korea is Dark

Japanese families fear that North Korea is still abducting

Care to take a holiday?

The world's worst cruise holiday?

Two resources that they will apparently never run short of:
Nitwits that take up their cause.
Soldiers and weapons

Food, on the other hand....
The Cannibals of North Korea

Those 900,000 people includes a massive amount of military personnel who signed up and appreciated the risk.

Iraq had the draft. And in a dictatorship, even "military volunteers" are not volunteers. Believe me, I have family who used to live under a dictatorship.

The 110,000 people I stated (who were literally killed by direct military action by the allies, not Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence)

No. Even according to IBC, only about 12% were killed by coalition forces.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jan/03/iraq-body-count-report-data

Your meandering diatribe arguing that the power vacuum caused by the invasion was somehow justified or cool is mind-boggling. These are facts, and clearly have lead to the destabilisation of the country. It has nothing to do with liberal tendencies what-so-ever. Your argument is fatuous beyond belief.

You're right: it has nothing to do with liberal tendencies; you are no liberal. You are a liar and you seriously try to argue that a stable dictatorship by a mass murderer is preferable to a democracy. People like you are reprehensible.

Really?

The investors are happy?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/feb/27/apple-tim-cook-angry-investors-dont-like-it-either

Apple's stock price was over 700 in October. It is now at 430. Investors are pissed, and they are LOOSING money.

And where's the conclusive proof that Osama Bin Laden, or Saddamn was directly or solely responsible for 911. There is allot of what ifs. And while the Taliban is real. The Al-Queda was a construct of American lawyers.

Osama Bin Laden Admits Planning 9/11 in Meeting with Egyptian Terrorist
Bin Laden was pretty clear about why he did it.

The Al-Queda was a construct of American lawyers.

You don't know what you are talking about.

A history of terror: Al-Qaeda 1988-2008

And where's the conclusive proof that Osama Bin Laden, or Saddamn was directly or solely responsible for 911. There is allot of what ifs. And while the Taliban is real. The Al-Queda was a construct of American lawyers.

Osama Bin Laden Admits Planning 9/11 in Meeting with Egyptian Terrorist
Bin Laden was pretty clear about why he did it.

The Al-Queda was a construct of American lawyers.

You don't know what you are talking about.

A history of terror: Al-Qaeda 1988-2008

Yea, how dare those bastards make clean air and water for everyone priorities over profits for the select few!

You mean the select few 313E+6 US citizens, right? The Chinese making our stuff don't get clean water and air. The select few like you make sure they get cancer villages instead because you can't afford the cost of the regulations you insist on for yourself.

The nature of the charges against him, alongside the way he has been treated while in custody, shame the US system of justice. He surely committed a crime in doing what he did, but the punishment needs to fit the crime. Does it?

There's a picture here.

They will be; original link is crap; this one has slightly more information:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/26/titanic-2-launch-new-york-replica

and of course...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic_2

Great coverage & background in the included link.
Glenn Greenwald should be required reading in High School these days.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/26/supreme-court-eavesdropping-law-doj-argument

The IAEA has some credibility issues. The current leader stated behind closed doors that he fully supported the USA in every respect. Gosh, that sounds neutral doesn't it. Experienced former officials flat out says it's working without peer review and repeating the mistakes of the past.

And that assumes the inspectors are all legitimate. The CIA thoroughly infiltrated the pre-IAEA inspections agency. It was a simple calculation (which they got wrong), so why would they not do it again?

U.S. government officials said they considered the risk of discrediting an international arms control system by infiltrating it for their own eavesdropping. They said the stakes were so high in the conflict with Iraq, and the probability of discovery so low, that they deemed the risks worth running.

The degree to which the whole thing has been politicised means it's hard to know what to believe anymore. You certainly can't assume the IAEA is a rock-solid foundation of truth.

There are those in Africa who kill people who are deemed to be witches, there was a case in London

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/01/couple-guilty-boy-murder-witchcraft

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/09/tracymcveigh.theobserver

There are those in Africa who kill people who are deemed to be witches, there was a case in London

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/01/couple-guilty-boy-murder-witchcraft

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/09/tracymcveigh.theobserver

Sorry, but if you haven't been paying attention the "European union" is a Laurette. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/15/un-backed-troops-accused-rape-congo or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_peacekeeping#Reception or just take the UN's word for it here: https://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/fatalities/documents/stats_1.pdf . The UN claims to only whack a under 200 a year.

Bah! We've got cattle stations larger than some countries.

And yet, despite our ridiculously massive land mass and relatively tiny population, owing to fucked-up government policies we also boast some of the most expensive house prices in the world.

9/11 says otherwise.

Oh, come now - even the government has stopped trotting that tired old meme out. The guys who did / planned that now 11 year old event are all dead, and as I highly doubt you worked in the WTC, I'm hard pressed to believe that you, personally, were a target of that particular attack. Get over yourself.

So do the hordes of documents recovered at Bin Laden's compound.

Really? Those documents name you, specifically, as a target? Or is this just another example of the paranoid bloviating that I called you out on originally?

So do the daily speeches from various Imams, religious leaders, political leaders and sundry others throughout the world. So do postings from numerous organizations.

If you think third-world despots talking shit and making vague, random threats regarding the US is some new phenomenon, I'd have to ask what rock you've been living under since... well, since the US started playing Team America: World Police.

Not to mention, our government does it's own fair share of saber rattling and beligerant assault, so it's not like we're completely innocent in all this, contrary to what American Exceptionalism has brainwashed you to believe.

So do the thwarted attempts at car and suicide bombings.

What, you mean those fake terrorist plants created by the FBI?

You don't find it odd that the only domestic 'terrorists' the government could find in the past decade were ones they created themselves?

Wanna buy a bridge in Brooklyn? I'll give you a great deal.

Most importantly, so do the words from the people we have killed wherein they have stated their goal is to attack the U.S.

See above response regarding saber-rattling. Also, are you really afraid of what dead men said they would do, presuming they were still alive?

Or are you saying all those people are merely plants by the CIA?

FBI, but yea, quite a few. Of course, it's a well known fact (among those of us who can stomach facts) that Osama Bin Laden was originally funded and trained by the CIA; so was the Taliban. Considering our government's track record on training attack dogs that end up turning on us... can you prove any of them aren't government plants?

Children, and according to standford/NYU study:

Following nine months of intensive research—including two investigations in Pakistan,
more than 130 interviews with victims, witnesses, and experts, and review of thousands
of pages of documentation and media reporting—this report presents evidence of the
damaging and counterproductive effects of current US drone strike policies. Based on
extensive interviews with Pakistanis living in the regions directly affected, as well as
humanitarian and medical workers, this report provides new and firsthand testimony
about the negative impacts US policies are having on the civilians living under drones.

It is like those holding the reins want to create terrorists, must not be enough already to justify the defence spending we already have - good for MIC business.

These types of reports fail to compare the use of drones to use of other forms of combat. Drones cause far less "collateral damage" than more traditional forms of warfare. For example, consider the use of suicide bombers- far more civilians killed total, and by percentage. And apologists like to ignore that the groups being shot at have shown absolutely NO hesitation to target civilians directly and use them as cover.

We could use carpet bombs, and kill shitloads of civilians. We could send in troops, or use cruise missiles, and still kill more civilians than we do with drones. We could do all kinds of things, the only thing which results in fewer civilian casualties is to pack up our bags and go home. Now, I realize that is what many people would like to see happen, but it's not going to result in peace. That's the whole problem- they will bring the war to us, while at the same time going back to an oppressive Theocracy in their own land which places little or no value on the lives of women or anyone who doesn't fall down and pray to their Imaginary Friend in the Sky.

Vitamin C and vitamins in general are not some magic bullet against common illness.

http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/vitamins_common_misconceptions?open
http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/complementaryandalternativemedicine/dietarysupplements/dietary-supplements-misconceptions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/jul/18/medicineandhealth.sciencenews

Best research we got suggests if you take something like 1000mg a day at the start of a cold you can ease the effects, but you'll also develop nausea, headaches, and kidney stones.

So what's worse? runny nose of a kidney stone?

Pot calling the kettle black. You failed address the GP, and completely ignored the research presented demonstrating that current drone and air strikes are increasing the risk of terrorism and is counter-productive. Instead you supplanted evidence presented with your conclusion "I somewhat doubt it", and went on to advocate drone strikes by passing the blame for innocent deaths onto the supposed targets ("...it is the jihadis [not drone strikes] who caused the death of the presumably innocent...). You even raised doubts over any claims that any deaths by drone strikes might be innocent at all... "presumably". I guess you have read book on rhetoric, and that is why you employed it to avoid addressing any of the real issues at hand...

Following nine months of intensive research—including two investigations in Pakistan, more than 130 interviews with victims, witnesses, and experts, and review of thousands of pages of documentation and media reporting—this report presents evidence of the damaging and counterproductive effects of current US drone strike policies. Based on extensive interviews with Pakistanis living in the regions directly affected, as well as humanitarian and medical workers, this report provides new and firsthand testimony about the negative impacts US policies are having on the civilians living under drones.

It is like those holding the reins want to create terrorists, must not be enough already to justify the defence spending we already have - good for MIC business.

Microsoft has strong ties to Burson Marsteller and uses them to manage social media marketing.

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow described B-M as follows in August 2012:

"Who's Burson-Marsteller? Well, let me put it this way -- when Blackwater killed those 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, they called Burson-Marsteller. When there was a nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island, Bobcock & Wilcox, who built that plant, called Burson-Marsteller.

        "[After the] Bhopal chemical disaster that killed thousands of people in India, Union Carbide called Burson-Marsteller. Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu -- Burson-Marsteller. The government of Saudi Arabia, three days after 9/11 -- Burson-Marsteller.

        "The military junta that overthrew the government of Argentina in 1976, the generals dialed Burson-Marsteller. The government of Indonesia, accused of genocide in East Timor, Burson-Marsteller.

        "The government of Nigeria, accused of genocide in Biafra, Burson- Marsteller. Philip Morris, Burson-Marsteller. Silicone breast implants, Burson-Marsteller. The government of Columbia trying to make all those dead union organizers not getting in the way of the new trade deal, they called Burson-Marsteller.

        "Do you remember Aqua Dots? Little toy beads coded with something that turned into to date rape drug when kids put the beads in their mouths and all these kids ended up in comas? Yes, even the date rape Aqua Dots people called Burson-Marsteller.

        "When evil needs public relations, evil has Burson-Marsteller on speed dial. That`s why it was creepy that Hillary Clinton`s pollster and chief strategist in her presidential campaign was Mark Penn, CEO of Burson- Marsteller."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/sep/23/money.digitalmedia

They use other organizations as well.

Much of my work for Microsoft does indeed speak to advertising fraud. Microsoft must make sure Bing doesn’t show ads for scams, that fraudsters don’t use the Microsoft DRIVEpm ad network, that Windows Defender properly detects spyware/adware, etc. I’ve worked with Microsoft on these kinds of matters.

Ben Edelman

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2012/dec/05/sperm-count-fall-is-it-real

Sharpe said that whether or not the French study settled the debate over falling sperm counts, it was *unquestionable* that across northern Europe, *one in five, and perhaps more*, young men has a sperm count low enough to impair their fertility. That matters more today than 30 years ago, when women were having children at a younger age.

http://www.malehealthcenter.com/c_fertility.html
Over the past 30 years, fertility among married couples in the U.S. has dropped dramatically. During the '60s, between 7 and 8 percent of couples reported problems conceiving; today that number has risen to between 25 and 30 percent.

No single cause can explain this decline, but it appears that average sperm counts have been falling over the past couple of decades. Again, medical science can't say exactly why sperm counts might be dropping, but we do know a number of things that can affect them:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/28/sperm-study-declining-quality_n_1837200.html
This article provides some support for your position.
Some areas are experiencing declines in sperm count and quality but others are not.

As the article says...

  So why care about the muddy picture, if babies are still being born? So far, there has been no global shortage of babies â" but in 30 percent of the cases of infertility, there is a male factor, said Wendie Robbins, a professor at the UCLA School of Nursing. Male infertility is suspected in about 70 percent of cases in Israel.

"Many times, there is just no cause that people can find for infertility," she said, adding that she was surprised how interested the men in a new study of hers were about increasing their fertility. "People underestimate how much men are interested in optimizing the possibilities for their offspring." (Robbins and colleagues recently found in a study partially funded by the California Walnut Commission that eating walnuts may boost sperm quality.)

Deonandan says there are two reasons why the sperm situation should be taken seriously. "If the decline is real, then an essential aspect of the human animal is being changed very rapidly in only a few generations," he told LiveScience.

Worse than that. Depending on the sales model, publishers may get less money from an electronic book

To put your figures in some kind of perspective as to who out of step they are. Authors used to get between 10-15% royalty through tradition means. They now expect 50%...but are generally offered 25% *forever*. It looks pretty awful for authors.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/12/ebooks-publishing-deals-fair

Is seems the authors seem to think the what publishers arn't worth 75% of their book anymore.

Any citations to back up your statement?

Citations? Citations? You need citations that pushing massive tax cuts for the rich while starting an illegal, unnecessary War of Terror had a weeee bit of a negative impact on the nations finances?

Not exactly.

We'll give you all the minorities that we either imported as slaves, or close to slave like conditions, and then performed systematic racism against for decades and we'll see what happens to your murder rate. The non-minority murder rate in the U.S. is much closer to the U.K. even with our guns, so something doesn't add up.

Therefore applying a U.K. answer to a U.S. problem is not going to have the intended effect.... http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/datablog/2012/apr/12/london-knife-crime

measures they can take against devices like these http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/feb/13/gps-jammers-uk-roads-risks?

His comment was that 2.4 doesn't travel very far, and 5ghz doesn't go as far as 2.4. I challenged that by posting over a 150+ mile link. What did you miss here? .

I didn't miss anything. Its an established fact that 5Ghz has less range than 2.4Ghs. Range of 5Ghs is usually less than half the range of 2.4.

So what he said was true.

And what you said didn't matter, because if that extreme example were repeated with 2.4Ghz devices it would be even more successful than the 5Ghz devices. So it was a complete non sequitur. (The test was also run in an environment where nothing else existed on 5Ghz. Those days are long gone.

[citation needed] Everything I've seen says that more and more people are owning guns.

So glad you asked! The Guardian probably has the best full summary and charts but I can give you the same data a few ways. Sadly there's no report of guns per household but you can see the trends. Overall gun ownership is on the decline or stagnant while gun purchases are going up. Seems to suggest this quite strongly, yes?

Again, you don't understand the second amendment. It's not for "me", it's for the nation. Congrats on failing civics.

Holy selective reading Batman! I think we're facing our arch-nemesis again ....The Straw-Man! The point is that you've can't even manage an actual intellectual defense the purpose of the 2nd amendment. You remind me of how at the opening of Starship Troopers Casper Van Dien's character just banally quotes the textbook about the difference between a citizen and a civilian (when asked by the professor) without understanding what those words mean. Later near the end of the movie after most of his friends have died he realizes the true nature of the sacrifice those words entail and he gives a proper answer as if he were there.

You come off just like that: You can quote your civics textbooks but I doubt you'd know true Public Virtue if it bit you in the ass. You're just trying to defend your own pre-existing opinions by very poorly attempting to claim they're constitutionally justified. When challenged you'll spew any quote or sound bytes that at least superficially seems to support your point without ever trying to understanding what those words truly mean. As Inigo Montoya would say: You keep using these words...I do not think they mean what you think they mean.

[citation needed] In fact, that's not what the second amendment is for at all, and if you had studied the issue you would know that instead of being wrong about literally everything.

Here we go again. What the hell am I citing here? I'm not QUOTING SOMEONE I am explaining what appears to be an evident principle regarding the evolution of our constitutional principles with regard to the present situation. If you want to claim my assessment is wrong you are perfectly free to. But that requires you to explain IN FULL WHY I AM WRONG. Which means highlighting the specific error I made, explaining why it is an error, and THEN giving your own answer with an explanation of why it is more correct. My point in the previous post was that even IF IT WAS originally meant to stop a Rogue government, even IF it was meant to offer us this protection. It does not and will no longer suffice for billions of obvious reasons, the most important ones I gave directly in my last post. Of course seeing as you've decided to edit out all of the paragraphs I spent EXPLAINING EXACTLY WHY THIS IS SO it sure does SEEM crazy.

Good work thar buddy, sadly I notice these things! ;p

You can't just cut all of the wheat out of my field (context out of my posts) so you can snipe at all the scarecrows (create a series of easy to target straw men to knock down.) I'd say it's you who's obviously out of your element. IF YOU HAD OBVIOUSLY STUDIED THIS then YOU WOULD EASILY BE ABLE TO CORRECT ME. You, however, have not done this. You've said I'm wrong without ever explaining why. You're speaking in short sound bytes rather than talking in paragraphs and falling back on the convenient defense of asking for evidence whenever I make an assertion in hopes that I wouldn't have done my research and you could defeat me without having to ever actually prove anything yourself.

I am explaining that according to my understanding of the 2nd Amendment and constitutional principles; they were all adopted to serve practical purposes. These purposes however do not remain static, they're created to solve problems at the time but

This article was published recently about research into how to avoid having to equip these lines with overhead power:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/03/battery-powered-intercity-trains-possible-study

Rationalization.

Billionaires in walled compounds keep their own machine.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/nov/01/afghanistan.terrorism

It's marked "informative", rather than say "insightful", because it relates a matter of fact.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/13/tea-party-billionaire-koch-brothers

That you don't like the fact being pointed out is neither here nor there. That's not what moderation is about.

There's this game that "skeptics" of the scientific theory of Global Climate Change like to play.
They assume that climatologists have come to their conclusions (that the Earth is warming due to greenhouse gas emissions and human activity is partly responsible) because the scientists (they say) "were paid by people and governments to come to that conclusion".
While us "warmists" have been providing the scientific evidence; the "skeptics", on the other hand, argue politics "follow the MONEY!!!" (they say)
The problem is that when you do take their advice and the money leads to conservative billionaires, the Heartland Institute, Exxon Mobil (Fossil Fuel industries), and others who have a financial and political interest in denying the science of Climate Change:
All of a sudden the "skeptics" want us to forget about following the money!

There's this game that "skeptics" of the scientific theory of Global Climate Change like to play.
They assume that climatologists have come to their conclusions (that the Earth is warming due to greenhouse gas emissions and human activity is partly responsible) because the scientists (they say) "were paid by people and governments to come to that conclusion".
While us "warmists" have been providing the scientific evidence; the "skeptics", on the other hand, argue politics "follow the MONEY!!!" (they say)
The problem is that when you do take their advice and the money leads to conservative billionaires, the Heartland Institute, Exxon Mobil (Fossil Fuel industries), and others who have a financial and political interest in denying the science of Climate Change:
All of a sudden the "skeptics" want us to forget about following the money!

The reason Facebook wants your real name is because they want to market things to you and it makes it easier.

If you give them a fake name, then they have to go through the trouble of finding your real name from anyone you communicate with. Use facebook on a cell phone? Do your friends? Then facebook already knows your real name.

To them, you are confirmed as a real user by being cross referenced by your friend's contact books. Keep your silly alias.

No. They predicted a >0% chance of an earthquake but told people it was a 0% chance, resulting in people who were already preparing for an earthquake to stop their preparations.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/23/world/europe/italy-quake-scientists-guilty

The experts determined that it was "unlikely" but not impossible that a major quake would take place, despite concern among the city's residents over recent seismic activity.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/23/italian-scientist-earthquake-condemns-court

But [Claudio] Eva insisted neither he nor his colleagues had given any reassurances in their brief, 40-minute meeting. "We always maintained it was not possible to predict or exclude an earthquake," he said.

Now who do I believe, some guy named Rary on the Internet, or Jethro Mullen from CNN and Tom Kington from the Guardian?

Actually I believe that you're wrong. Monsanto authorizes their seed progeny to the elevators. The farmer that sold his seed to the grain elevator was allowed to do so contractually. Another farmer subsequently purchased seed from the grain elevator, with the Monsanto seed mixed in, and planted it. http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/feb/09/soybean-farmer-monsanto-supreme-court

Well, they (Monsato) want to have it both ways: Sold UNMARKED as GM, so that we couldn't discriminate against GM when purchasing seed, and still hold us responsible as if we were completely informed when we treat it as if it was completely natural. For all we know, farmers' seed selection process for glyphosate tolerance could have netted out a naturally occurring mutation in grain, or at least they could claim that was what they were aiming at.

Actually I believe that you're wrong. Monsanto authorizes their seed progeny to the elevators. The farmer that sold his seed to the grain elevator was allowed to do so contractually. Another farmer subsequently purchased seed from the grain elevator, with the Monsanto seed mixed in, and planted it. http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2013/feb/09/soybean-farmer-monsanto-supreme-court

That's exactly the crux of the matter - Ron Paul is acting, and I believe he is confused into thinking that he is justified in pursing a trademark claim because last time he pursued a claim over his name he was justified

He isn't confused. He's going after the domain on the same ground as many others before him:

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/ericjsinrod/2005-04-20-hillary-clinton_x.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2000/jun/02/news.juliaroberts
http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1291&context=chtlj

Actually, it seems I misremembered my source; what Bush grew by more than twice as much as Obama has isn't the deficit, but rather, federal spending. The problem is that while Republicans like to talk about reducing government spending, they don't really seem to do it... but they still like to lower taxes.

Here's the thing. The Republicans have always been about more than reducing taxes, they're also very strong on national security. They believe that the job of the government is strictly to protect the country and enforce reasonable laws. So, while they definitely want to reduce spending, they aren't trying to reduce spending to zero, they're trying to reduce spending to the point where the Federal government is only spending money on "necessities", like the military.

Now, when you are fighting two wars, Republicans are going to feel that it is actually justified to spend the money for that purpose. It's sort of like making your mortgage payment, as opposed to spending the money on a new sports car.

The problem here is, at the same time that we are fighting a war, certain people are trying to push through "sports cars" like increased social/environmental spending on the Federal level. So there is now this irritating dynamic where they want to spend more money on the military, but they don't want to spend more money on programs. And I see what they are doing. They are trying to reduce government, and at the same time trying increase the percentage of the government that is used on the military. It's a very hardass way of going about it, and it's why they are very susceptible to being called the Party of No, because there is no compromise involved.

That said, I sympathize with them. If they did compromise with creating new entitlements, those entitlements will never go away. So it's a losing proposition to compromise, because who is going to vote to remove or even reform health care propositions once everyone becomes accustomed to them?

Long story short, not all spending is created equal. To the Republicans, military spending might be reduced, but it is a bedrock for the government, while social programs are considered either secondary, or even a problematic thing for a good government to spend money on.

And by the way, Democrats do propose reducing federal spending - namely, military spending, which is currently more than half of the discretionary federal budget. The US not only spends more on its military than every other country in the world - it spends more than the next seven top spenders combined.

As I pointed out above, the government exists to maintain it's military. The Republicans might argue that paying for the Army is the same as making your house payment. It is something you must do to maintain your existence. Reducing military spending is feasible in the sense of better efficiencies and better use of money, but if it means reducing capabilities, they would consider it equivalent to saying that the US should move from a nice house to a cardboard box just so they can buy a sports car.

Secondly, a lot is made out of the size of the budget in absolute terms, but the US spending per capita on the military as a part of it's GDP is not #1. We have the largest military because we have, by far, the largest economy to support one. And, we also have the largest global interests that are key to maintaining that economy. While the military is not a bargain, we are actually devoting less money per person to our military than other smaller countries.

Note that in 1988, we were using 5.7% of GDP for our military. In 2011, we used 4.8%... while fighting two wars. In 2011, that made us #7 on the GDP list, after Israel, Jordan, UAE, and Saudi Arabia, amongst others, and again, we're fighting two wars in that time period.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/apr/17/military-spending-countries-list

Lastly,

Android is less locked-down in certain ways (e.g. you can install apps from anywhere), but it's still ultimately locked down, by carriers in some case, and by Google. E.g. it isn't possible to remove certain apps - like Facebook (on my old t-mobile phone) and the Google apps (on a Nexus 4). You need to jailbreak it (root it) to do the really interesting things. If you care about such things: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/19/android-free-software-stallman

PS: Of course Richard Stallman was again all correct about cloud services: Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman

Now the DRM from the cloud services will be standardize. That will give legislators only more excuses to push such laws as the DMCA, SIPA or SOPA. "The proposed law will only make compliance with the W3C Media Source Extensions more easier. You do want your Youtube videos, no?"

No different, except for the massive difference in operating costs. How much does a chopper pilot get paid, how much in dollar terms does the fuel cost, how much does the vehicle cost to build? How much does a drone cost in comparison?

Dorner is a multiple murderer with a $1 million bounty on his head. The authorities in this case aren't worried about the financial costs of bringing him in. Now, it's certainly true that in other cases the use of automated surveillance might enable the cops to go further than they would if they had to do things manually, but this isn't really a good test case for that.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jan/03/google-nexus-4-phone-sales

So... only 400,000 Nexus users last quarter?