Slashdot Mirror

Recent example: FEA endorsed the candidate who vowed to take away opportunities for students to learn without FEA on the payroll.

It turned out to be a very close election. Votes from parents who wanted to choose their kid's school instead of being trapped in the government system may have been enough for the winning margin.

That's just a recent example.

I bet you have no problem with lofty ideals such as telling people not to "monkey things up" by electing a black candidate.

You are proving the point of others, of the "politicized intelligentsia" redefining things, or misinterpreting things out of ignorance, in a gratuitously political manner to frame a debate or assassinate an opponents character.

In reality the phrase is old Navy non-racial slang and the candidate was in the Navy.

"‘Monkey’ Navy slang
Concerning the "monkey this up” comment by gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis: The meaning of words depends on one’s personal experiences.
The same words mean different things to different people. The term "monkey this up" is a U.S. Navy slang term. And DeSantis was in the Navy, so he used words known in parts of the Navy world. Others heard something different, but that does not mean that DeSantis was trying to refer to race or anything else other than to say let's not goof up the good thing we've got going in Florida (my words, of course)."
http://www.orlandosentinel.com...

"Monkey it up" is not a common phrase - mess it up, fuck it up, screw it up, yes, but monkey it up? There was definitely something on the Republican candidate's mind and I figure it was more dog whistling than warning to his fgollowers.

Nope.

"The term "monkey this up" is a U.S. Navy slang term. And DeSantis was in the Navy, so he used words known in parts of the Navy world."
http://www.orlandosentinel.com...

I'm not going to rationally turn on the lights and try to have a discussion with a criminal who has just broken into my home to ascertain what their intentions are.

Just because it's legal doesn't make it right. In addition to the fact that this is morally indefensible behavior (they entered my home without permission, therefore murder them!?), this kind of impulsive response has often led to someone mistakenly shooting a friend, family member, or police officer. You should ALWAYS be certain of your target before firing, or even bringing a weapon to bear.

Citations:
https://www.thetrace.org/2018/...
http://www.orlandosentinel.com...
https://www.vibe.com/2017/04/d...

In this case, how to grow mushrooms?

March 27, 1994

FORT WORTH, TEXAS — Forget physics. Think fungus. A petroleum engineer has his eyes on miles of dark, damp tunnels where scientists once contemplated smashing atoms. Naresh Vashisht wants them to grow mushrooms instead.

I had trouble believing this hilariously terrible idea is real, but apparently it is. Orlando Sentinel is a real newspaper.

Facebook is doomed.

Your generation has ruined enough..

I agree entirely. Considering a bunch of high school kids in Florida have been able to accomplish in a few weeks something the four generations before them have not been able to, I'd say that anyone over 19 needs to get out the fucking way. The kids are all right.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com...

I agree, giving guns to teachers is a major accomplishment generations before them were not able to. Perhaps the next school shooting will be stopped by armed teachers instead of cops who stand outside and do nothing http://m.washingtonexaminer.co...

Your generation has ruined enough..

I agree entirely. Considering a bunch of high school kids in Florida have been able to accomplish in a few weeks something the four generations before them have not been able to, I'd say that anyone over 19 needs to get out the fucking way. The kids are all right.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com...

and then one there auto cars out cars get's a crash will they pay out or hide under a system of franchisees and subbed out rent a cars?

right now they don't really enforce the basic safety rule or pay drivers the full IRS mileage so the car up keep is poor.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com...

http://www.restaurant-hospital...

http://theexaminer.com/stories...

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/12...

Why yes, it is shit. But it sells.

Most people are not that sort of quivering weakling fearing being called names.

And yet that's the exact reason why those things happened. But you'd best realize that most people actually are afraid. That's one of the primary findings of the rotherham case. That's also one of the findings of the san babernandio attack, and pulse. And they're afraid of losing their job if they speak up. Of being attacked by a lynch mob on twitter for saying something. Of friends and family doing the same. I'll bet $20 that it was the exact same thing this time too. Or it could simply be the outright refusal of muslims inside the community deciding to ignore it, that one happens quite often too. Sometimes the local mosque is complicit to boot, which was the case of the parliament hill shooter here in Canada.

Also, there is no such mentality in the progressive community to exclude whites in any way shape or form.

Do tell... That seems to be exactly how they create safe spaces and safe spaces and safe spaces and safe spaces and even safe spaces. They don't dare call it "segregation", it's just "safe spaces".

There is no white culture, but it's dominant. Okay, makes prefect sense.

Boeing workers have sabotaged their OWN PLANES in the past. What makes you think a nut job worker wouldn't do it? Two sources below
http://articles.orlandosentine... http://www.csmonitor.com/1997/...

I laugh because it would take such a massive effort that it would actually be easier and more reliable to just use normal bribery to get what you wanted. Something like the Clinton Foundation is the way to do it, that's a marvel of efficiency in terms of hooking up money with political outcomes.

:-) (not too partisan, are we?) Or it can be as small as a $25,000 to a certain attorney general..

Still gotta ask, how are you going to verify black box voting machines that provide no "receipts"? It least with paper you can do your job in a manner that everybody can plainly see for themselves. Why all the resistance? Electronic voting is not ready for prime time. It is unnecessary gimmickry, and it is completely untrustworthy. Is the simplicity really that difficult to understand? Or is there an actual concerted effort to facilitate fraud? Because with all the hand waving about "conspiracy theories" it sure looks that way.

They probably use the same testing kit as the Orlando police.

Yup. "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away." (Or 3 hours, if someone thinks they saw a bomb.)

"In the three hours that followed, more than 100 law enforcement officers gathered near the club to assess the situation and wait. People were still inside, calling 911 from a bathroom, wanting to be rescued."

http://www.orlandosentinel.com...

Remember, it is not the police's job to save lives. Seriously. They do what they can, and most of them are good people, but contrary to what you see in movies, it is not their job to put themselves into harm's way to save you. They are not Bruce Willis or Kiefer Sutherland. If the situation looks bad, you're probably on your own.

Re-read that quote. I want to bold the whole thing. ONE HUNDRED officers showed up... and waited. People were continually calling 911 and hoping to be rescued.

It's like most of the people here don't want workers from India and it's somewhat racist.

No, it's like people don't want to be replaced by foreign labor when local labor exists. If the H-1B program was not illegally abused to undercut wages, and instead used for its intended purpose of filling jobs that can't be filled with local talent, we wouldn't have a problem.

That case always gets brought out. :D Well, not always... There's a bit more to the story but nothing too huge.

They were also violating the local sign regulations.
http://articles.orlandosentine...

Disney really, really are dicks:
http://articles.sun-sentinel.c...

I can't find the last one but because the pictures were too large anyhow, and the day care didn't get the correct permissions - even after given a chance, the Hanna-Barbara pictures got painted over in 1992, I think? I think it was 1992. I can't find 'em.

In a strange twist of events, I think it was about 2010 when they re-painted the Hanna-Barbara images. They had permission to do so from the town and I think they might have also made them smaller than the originals. They had a second ceremony with the Hanna-Barbara people when they put the new pictures up. I want to say that Hanna-Barbara charged them $1 for the license.

Here's the fun part... Because Hanna-Barbara did that for *this* day-care, the original one, they ended up having some legal issues that came out of it, as others sought to license them at the same cost that the Floridian day cares paid. I don't recall the fallout from that but it's amusing how many times this has popped back up in the news, in conversation, etc...

An oddity... The date for that article was 04/08/1989. Today is 04/10 and while it's not significant, it is amusing to note. Of course, I'm easily amused. But, it's really kind of funny how often this one comes up in conversation. It has been nearly 30 years and we still talk about it. There was some interesting fallout from that and the reverberations of Disney's antics still ring true today. Good.

I think you'll need to try again after you get some more sleep, that link doesn't even mention a left turn lane, it seems like it's talking about a road called Suicide Lane because there were 88 accidents there in 11 months, but no evidence that there was a "suicide lane" there that caused 88 accidents.

Searching for "suicide lane" accident studies gets me articles like this one where apparently the "correct" thing to do is to never allow anyone to ever turn left again because some old woman turned left without checking for oncoming traffic. Likewise "Police and engineers often deride such lanes as 'suicide lanes,' not so much because cars might collide head-on, but because they allow people to cross traffic anywhere." I guess walling off left turns forever resolves my question of whether having the turning lane is safer than having people stop in the "fast" left lane to turn left, though if you're going to go to the expense of installing a wall on a 7 lane road, you might as well give up and upgrade it to a ramp-access freeway with service/frontage roads and underpasses to get to the other side.

The more professional terms "bidirectional left turn lane" or "two way left turn lane/TWLTL" gets a few actual studies. This study says that it's hard to determine if raised medians actually stop wrecks compared to TWLTL or if they move them to the cross streets where people are trying to go around the median to get to the other side. It suggests that raised medians are appropriate for residential sections (like your picture) rather than commercial sections, and feedback from people and companies on proposed median treatments seems to mirror that, with business developers preferring two way left turn lanes to raised medians, and residential developers and residents preferring wide, landscaped medians to both TWLTL and small concrete medians. This study from the '70s likewise suggests that TWLTL are recommended for commercial development. I did find this study where someone complained TWLTLs are scary, which amused me since apparently "scary" is a reason to erase all the lines from the road, but also a reason to not allow people to turn left.

If I had to go around a raised median every day I left my house, I too would demand it to be a very wide landscaped median, so I could actually U-turn around it without having to execute a 3 point turn (this study recommends to plan for a 48 foot turning radius for passenger cars, like turning from an 11' lane around a 22' median with two 11' lanes on the other side ). I'm afraid the street you've got in your photo is just irredeemably fucked. Add frequent speed humps and set the speed limit to 15 MPH with active enforcement by a local sheriff hired with neighborhood association dues to convince through traffic to find some other way around.

Could you back that up with some data? The recent scandals in China involving tainted milk, exploding bottles and so on suggest that less safety regulation is not likely to save more lives.

I hear of runners running (no pun intended) into trouble when they are out practicing while wearing headphones. If she's just getting started, do you really want to prioritize on that?

Three posts in and we already have the obligatory "Why would you want to do that?" response. Some things never change.

It's a valid point - many races ban headphones and running on streets with headphones is not just a bad idea, it's outright stupid. Anything that reduces your situational awareness out on the road is a bad thing - especially when you're out on a 20 mile run and towards the end, you just want to get home.

You might want to consider the topology of NK (http://b.static.trunity.net/images/194500/600x617/scale/747px-north-korea-topography.png)

To "flatten" a country that's roughly the size of Indiana with mountain ranges is quite a bit different that doing it to a desert nation. You also get to deal with the tunnels and bunkers they've created: http://articles.orlandosentine...

Yes, the U.S. has bunker busters, but you have to know where to use them all. And the fact that NK has successfully tunneled into the ROK would indicate that the ability to detect them all is still lacking http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/02/...

This one seems to be a pretty decent explanation: http://www.orlandosentinel.com...

Heh. One bit of that article made me chuckle (emphasis mine):

The explosion destroyed the $70 million rocket, its Dragon I capsule and 4,000 pounds of supplies that was headed to the International Space Station. None of it was insured.

I can just imagine Elon going to his local insurance agent, trying to get coverage for an experimental vehicle carrying 400 tons of rocket fuel and LOX.

This one seems to be a pretty decent explanation: http://www.orlandosentinel.com...

I am tolerant

Tu le rant, en effet

... of alternate views but you sockpuppets really should just go somewhere else. your cover is blown ...

You like people to agree with you. When they do not: "sockpuppet!" I seldom agree with you, hence the outrage. Nothing has changed in 10 years.

yes - I am quite sure that there are many paid and unpaid (not directly) people who are doing all they can to discredit those who are the real heros.

On the contrary, I honour real heros ....

French Resistance heroes inducted into Pantheon in Paris
Veterans to receive French Legion of Honor for World War II service
'British Schindler' Sir Nicholas Winton dies aged 106

. . . and call others to justice ....

Julian Assange Demands Rape Case Files Before Sweden Questions Him

It is Independence Day in the United States. Do you celebrate, or mourn?

It is unlikely a brief review could really check for additional fraud beyond what was already discovered. http://articles.orlandosentine... The existence of systematic fraud in the project indicates that no confidence could ever be placed in it.

Good grief. I'm a resident of Orange County Florida. So I actually read the "summary" since I was curious.

This has been all over the local newspaper lately. The upshot is that like many places, Florida has a public records law. The law has a cute name : "government in the sunshine". The county is storing documents in a Dropbox account. A citizens group is concerned that lobbyists may have access to the account and may be hiding some things in there from the public. So the citizens group wants to know who has accessed the account.

If you want to read a lot more on this, don't read the summary, read these newspaper articles:

Orlando Sentinel 9/26/2014

Orlando Sentinel 11/12/2014

Orlando Sentinel 11/24/2014

Good grief. I'm a resident of Orange County Florida. So I actually read the "summary" since I was curious.

This has been all over the local newspaper lately. The upshot is that like many places, Florida has a public records law. The law has a cute name : "government in the sunshine". The county is storing documents in a Dropbox account. A citizens group is concerned that lobbyists may have access to the account and may be hiding some things in there from the public. So the citizens group wants to know who has accessed the account.

If you want to read a lot more on this, don't read the summary, read these newspaper articles:

Orlando Sentinel 9/26/2014

Orlando Sentinel 11/12/2014

Orlando Sentinel 11/24/2014

Good grief. I'm a resident of Orange County Florida. So I actually read the "summary" since I was curious.

This has been all over the local newspaper lately. The upshot is that like many places, Florida has a public records law. The law has a cute name : "government in the sunshine". The county is storing documents in a Dropbox account. A citizens group is concerned that lobbyists may have access to the account and may be hiding some things in there from the public. So the citizens group wants to know who has accessed the account.

If you want to read a lot more on this, don't read the summary, read these newspaper articles:

Orlando Sentinel 9/26/2014

Orlando Sentinel 11/12/2014

Orlando Sentinel 11/24/2014

To carry on with ideas like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Law-enforcer misuse of driver database soars (January 22, 2013) http://articles.orlandosentine...
Thats some history and local news. What the mil and federal districts around the US are seeking is a near instant facial recognition system as a person walks down a street.
Has police contact been made before? What was the result? A US or international tourist looking at a WW1 memorial in a city moves their camera around?
A nice approach that can escalate to an ID demand and friendly chat down.
A social media film crew? Local media students? Social media citizens looking to do a "First amendment test" and post the resulting talk down on their blog or site?
A larger approach that can escalate to a talk down with enough law enforcement officials to walk around and find the "citizen journalists" car.
That is why a near instant facial recognition system is so important. Expert local law enforcement officials can be tasked to the person with a camera and then shape the local optics. From friendly to very direct.
The passports in and passports out would be a nice idea too.
The US seems to have no real desire to go back to Operation Intercept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and having secure boarders again.

The feds sure seem to be leaking a lot of things in the run up to the elections on Tuesday.

Ferguson.

George Zimmerman going to a fed grand jury, where a witness has suddenly "remembered" something:

Following Zimmerman's acquittal on a murder charge, Taaffe has reversed his position and now says that he believes Zimmerman was motivated by race the night he followed then shot Trayvon in 2012.

Taaffe cites a phone conversation he had with Zimmerman in the days following the shooting but before Zimmerman was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.

When originally interviewed by federal investigators in the weeks following the shooting, Taaffe did not tell them about the phone call...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9...

Three buildings in the World Trade Center complex collapsed due to fire-induced structural failure.[96] The South Tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m. after burning for 56 minutes in a fire caused by the impact of United Airlines Flight 175 and the explosion of its fuel.[96] The North Tower collapsed at 10:28 a.m. after burning for 102 minutes.[96] When the North Tower collapsed, debris fell on the nearby 7 World Trade Center building (7 WTC), damaging it and starting fires. These fires burned for hours, compromising the building's structural integrity, and 7 WTC collapsed at 5:21 p.m.[97][98] The Pentagon sustained major damage.

So, #96-98:
http://articles.orlandosentine...
World Trade Center Building Performance Study, Ch. 5 WTC 7 – section 5.5.4
Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7, p. xxxvii.

You can point a camera anywhere you want, they'd be far more versatile than mirrors, ... You'll most likely get multiple cameras, stitched views, and more coverage, not less

Really? I've had a stitched view for over a decade now. (PDF) It takes no power or extra equipment and I can see what's in the adjacent lanes behind me.

True, I have to glance at one non-adjacent sensor to another, but then again the road is still visible around me -- if something happens in front I already have a slight visual and can immediately lock and focus on it. (Then again, in high school driving class they taught us to continually scan our surrounding, check our mirrors, as well as maintain a "space cushion" around the car.)

Oh, and a spot of dirt or water (wherever might THAT come from?) will obscure that entire mirror as opposed to just being an inconvenience.

Ever had to scrape off a mirror from the accumulated snow / ice / fog? THAT'll be easy to do on the camera lens as well, I'm sure.

Then again there's be some idiot that will reconnect the camera inputs to watch TV, never mind being slightly night-blind from the always-on slight blue glow from the camera display. Or did you want to use B/W LCDs?

Mandate this in all new cars? Well if that's what you want. Personally I'll be out buying a glass cutting kit and a lot of superglue while re-positioning the camera to get an upskirt picture of the car next to me.

It's already mandatory to receive power and water thanks to the International Code Council

http://www.orlandosentinel.com...

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

North Korea is technically at war with the US, South Korea, and the UN armed forces. It is involved with counterfeiting on a global scale, illegal arms trade, drug trade, and supports terrorism. That is on top of diverting food aid sent to help its starving peasants to the North Korean military. Three generations of a dissenter's family get sent to prison camps where they are likely to die. They are used in experiments.

If you can't figure out the difference between North Korea and the US then your meter is broken.

U.S. Aircraft Carrier Leaving Disaster Zone After Tsunami

True. We know federal judges are above anything like bribery.

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/09...

http://articles.orlandosentine...

http://news.google.com/newspap...

My second choice would be to send all 8,000 workers at the Chennai plant a letter explaining which court was at fault for them losing their paychecks this month by forcing them to be furloughed, and which might be responsible for them losing their jobs permanently.

As if a single Indian civil servant would care.

India is well known for rioters storming courthouses and then lynching people:

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-10-18/kolkata/30296226_1_iron-ore-rampaging-mob-gas-shells
http://e-pao.net/GP.asp?src=11..230813.aug13
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2002-04-16/news/0204160102_1_india-mob-gujarat

So yeah, I think at least the first civil servant dead would probably care.

Around 1994, you'd spend close to $300 on 8MB of memory, a 486 CPU could be around $250 (being generous). I've blown your $500 budget, and you've still got the motherboard, sound and video hardware, floppy drive, hard disk, power supply, and IO peripherals before you have a functional computer. Sound and CD-ROM alone would cost around $500. If you're buying enough to build a whole computer from scratch with retail-priced parts, you're looking at an easy $1500+ for a machine that isn't particular top of the line. Swap meet prices would lower that somewhat, granted, but it's hard to imagine it would've been an over 70% discount.

And anyhow, the guy you replied to didn't say anything about computer prices. His parent post did, but you replied to the wrong post.

The Cubans don't want them there, and they haven't cashed any of the checks for the 'rental'.

The previous Cuban government was content to cash the checks, and Castro's government did cash the first check they received. They haven't cashed more as a protest against the US by the communist Cuban government.

Since there were Cubans that crossed the fence from Cuba proper to Guantanamo and back to work on a daily basis until 9 months ago, there are do doubt some Cubans that were content to see them there. Most likely there would be well over a thousand Cubans working there as there were in the past, but the communist government won't allow retiring Cuban workers to be replaced by other Cubans. As a result, the very good wages by local standards are not being paid to Cubans, but to workers imported from the Dominican Republic and the Philippines. Given Cuba's anemic economy the communist Cuban government is harming Cuban workers to spite the US.

Since many Cubans have tried to escape Cuba over the years to get to the US, it seems likely that there are more fans of the US than you let on.

1994 Cuban Exodus Remembered

When Fidel Castro announced that his government would not stand in the way of Cubans who wanted to flee the island, Domingo Perera saw the chance he had been waiting for.

A carpenter, Perera already had made rafts and tried to leave, only to be thwarted and imprisoned four times. After Cuba opened the door in August 1994, Perera, his daughter and nine others launched a raft toward the United States....

Today, Perera, 55, is a published author who owns a tile business on Florida's Gulf Coast. He said he is glad he risked fleeing his homeland.

"I never complain about this country," he said. "I tell people, `You have to thank God that this country opened its doors to you.' "

During a month in 1994, more than 35,000 rafters, or balseros, left Cuba for the United States, many aboard flimsy homemade rafts.

Marielitos' Stories, 30 Years After The Boatlift

In April of 1980, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declared the Port of Mariel open, permitting Cubans to freely depart for the U.S. In the next six months, an estimated 125,000 Cubans arrived in a massive wave on American shores. "Marielitos" remember their journeys on the 30th anniversary of the Mariel Boatlift.

I suspect that most of the Cuban people are bigger fans of the US than you. Maybe you have had a chance to wave a "Castro Si!" banner enough?

Okay so is it just me or is anyone else thinking that it wouldn't take a high school education to understand how to sap power from the road for free for powering your cell phone, laptop, or for the real inventive some parts of your house. Maybe that's just the cynic in me talking.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to bypass the electric meter on your house either. Some people do it, some maange to escape getting caught for quite some time. Some get caught when the house burns down (typically because they whole reason they bypassed the meter was so they could run thousands of watts of grow lights in their basement and the kind of amateur electricians that bypass electric meters don't usually follow electrical codes when they wire in their power hungry equipment).

Do you sit in a classroom with an orca at the board?) and polled them at a scientific level? Even if they did, what does "almost all" mean?'

There were bits of fishy stuff in two of the articles I read as well

I remember reading of Daniel Dukes the person who was found dead apparently swimming with Tillikum but that's all I read, it was a very short piece.
Got a lot more from their local paper but the way it was written kept me looking for the next literary er whatchamacallit's

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/
marijuana-smoking drifter with a string of petty arrests. (drug addict)

a worn-out Florida Department of Motor Vehicles identification card. (it doesn't work anymore?)

had to scale a 3-foot-high Plexiglas barrier (Must of been a very small person)

On Christmas Day 1998, he was charged with misdemeanor marijuana possession in Marion County.(addicted drug addict)

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/
The National Geographic refers to Daniel Dukes as a drunk (highly unlikely - but gives one an "ah ha, I see")

"There is strong circumstantial evidence that Tillicum may have killed again," I went on. "He was moved to SeaWorld Orlando,
where a drunk climbed in over the wall one night and was found drowned in the whale's pool the next morning."

Just after that is this:
"This second case, the 1999 death of Daniel Dukes, was more ambiguous, because there were no witnesses." (don't think there were many in Daniel Dukes's
case either) ,/p>

Is this one of those cases where the state allowed them to put a surcharge on customers' bills for years before they even built the plant?

I don't suppose we'll ever see that money back, will we?

No, in fact the reason why they cancelled the plant was precisely because the state's government told them they could not raise their rates to pay for the construction of the plant, and they didn't have $25 billion just sitting around to pay for the whole thing in advance. I'm sure in 10 years when Floridians are paying three times as much for electricity that they wish they took the 5% increase when they had the chance. That's short-term thinking politicians for you though, they couldn't care less what happens in 10-20 years, all they care about is keeping their constituents happy for their next election.

Is this one of those cases where the state allowed them to put a surcharge on customers' bills for years before they even built the plant?

I don't suppose we'll ever see that money back, will we?

You know, I have no love for Holder and all the other hate mongers and race baiters that have ginned up this Trayvon/Zimmerman case, but that particular story is not credible. As near as I can tell it originated from an Orlando Sentinel story that supposedly quotes some pressure group representative who claims that during a teleconference some DOJ official solicited "tips" via an email address that isn't actually "active" yet. There is no recording of this call and no other corroboration that I can find. It has merely ricocheted around the right wing echo chamber with remarkable velocity.

There is more than enough abuse of power occurring in this matter that it isn't actually necessary to make stuff up.

Of course I'm not surprised. Goebels would be proud to see how well his lessons were learned and laugh on the irony of how his victors would call themselves moraly superior.

The Western allies, victorious over both Nazi fascism and Soviet communism, have been overall morally superior. If that isn't clear, you're missing out on some history.

The Soviet Story (2008) (Goebbels is mentioned in this, by the way.)
A Portrait of Stalin: Secret Police

The Black Book of Communism
The Black Book of Communism - (book review) by Daniel J. Mahoney

There is little to separate Snowden from Philby. The full damage from Snowden has yet to be fully revealed, but it is already beginning to accumulate. That people confuse him for a hero speaks to the moral confusion of our age.
   

Have any proof of that? That is pure 100% speculation.

I don't think anyone will be able to fault you for fair mindedly ignoring the obvious regarding the behavior of leftist anti-American regimes.

Nicaragua, Venezuela offer NSA leaker Edward Snowden asylum

Maduro said several other Latin American governments have also expressed their intention of taking a similar stance by offering asylum for the cause of "dignity."

Chavez, who hand-picked Maduro as his successor, often engaged in similar defiance, criticizing U.S.-style capitalism and policies. In a 2006 speech to the U.N. General Assembly of world leaders, Chavez called President George W. Bush the devil, saying the podium reeked of sulfur after the U.S. president's address. He also accused Washington of plotting against him, expelled several diplomats and drug-enforcement agents and threatened to stop sending oil to the U.S.

Maduro made the asylum offer during a speech marking the anniversary of Venezuela's independence. It was not immediately clear if there were any conditions to Venezuela's offer.

But his critics said Maduro's decision is nothing but an attempt to veil the current undignified conditions of Venezuela, including one of the world's highest inflation rates and a shortage of basic products such as toilet paper.

"The asylum doesn't fix the economic disaster, the record inflation, an upcoming devaluation (of the currency), and the rising crime rate," Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles said in his Twitter account. Maduro beat Capriles in April's presidential election, but Capriles has not recognized defeat and has called it an electoral fraud.

Doing it for the "dignity" of the country isn't doing it out of concern for the human rights of Snowden. It is to enhance their national self-esteem while hurting the US.

...one of the most powerful, evil, and corrupt governments in the world. ... The US does not have any sort of ethical limits to its actions ...

Really? Really? I think you're overdue for calibration. I strongly urge you to watch at least the first, if not both.

The Soviet Story (2008)
A Portrait of Stalin: Secret Police

As to the following, these are hardly the only examples of this sort of thing.

U.S. Aircraft Carrier Leaving Disaster Zone After Tsunami
The Marshall Plan
The Berlin Airlift

That is why when we tell Europe to jump their only response is a polite, "How high?"

That is clearly nonsense. It is easy to see when you look at things like defense spending compared to NATO treaty obligations, diplomatic relations, trade, national laws, and many other things.

I'm afraid you have a very distorted picture of the US based on misinformation.

The US defense budget at the end of WW2 was approximately 38% of GDP. It now hovers around 4-5%. The idea of an all powerful "military industrial complex" is a distorting myth. The defense budget is in fact dwarfed by social welfare spending. And don't forget healthcare spending, which is three to four times larger share of GDP than defense spending. You can see a chart of defense spending at the link below:

Defense Spending as Percentage of GDP Well Below Historical Average

Also, your idea about the nature of the conflicts doesn't really match up with the history. The 9/11 attack killed about as many people as the Pearl Harbor attacks which caused American entry into WW2. The 9/11 attacks resulted in about $100,000,000,000 in damage to the US economy. The fact that something is not an existential threat does not mean that it is not dangerous and has to be dealt with.

Saddam's invasion, conquest, and annexation of Kuwait in 1990 was also another military episode that was properly dealt with. The UN took action and a large international coalition of nations drove Saddam's army out of Kuwait. Completely proper, and justified.

I think you have a very one dimensional view of the American armed services which is an all volunteer military which both protects the United States and helps abroad.

U.S. Aircraft Carrier Leaving Disaster Zone After Tsunami
U.S. Military Relief Mission in Haiti Ends

Not to mention the last time they had a democracy we murdered their leader and forced in the Shah so BP could get cheap oil on the backs and blood of all those murdered by our dear beloved puppet the Shah.

Your history is way off there. The so-called secular democracy in Iran at the point in question consisted solely of the former Prime Minister who had dissolved parliament, was ruling by decree indefinitely, faked an election, and resisted the sole remaining check on his power - the right of the constitutional monarch to dismiss the Prime Minister. What you refer to as "democracy" was a simple dictatorship at that point. The real coup in Iran was the Prime Minister overthrowing the government. The counter-coup was restoring the Shaw to power. Over time the Shaw was an ally of the West, not a puppet. Because of that alliance, Iran was trusted enough to be allowed to buy some of the most sophisticated weapons in the West. That almost became a huge problem after the Shaw fell. It would have been ugly indeed if it had been a few years later.

Let me put up a quote from a former general in the US Marines, see how much of this sounds familiar...

Your quote is apparently from Major General Smedley Butler, USMC, twice winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor. He was a good of a battlefield marine and commander as you would want. Outside of uniform the man was a fringe political crank. I would follow him anywhere on a battlefield, but nowhere near a voting booth.

BTW how many of you know that Afghanistan has a mineral deposit so big it may end up being worth more than the Iraq oil fields? Sadly the USA doesn't do a damned thing because its "right" anymore, not unless some corp can exploit a place and make out like Gods.

You aren't seriously suggesting that the US was wrong to attack Al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan after 9/11, are you? Do you really believe that US attack against the perpetrators of 9/11 and their protectors had anything to do with those mineral deposits (that I believe were discovered after the invasion)?

Why don't you check to see what portion of oil business the US has in Iraq. You might be surprised. (Hint: you are way off base.)

What corporation(s) do you think made out like gods when the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln assisted with relief operations after Indonesia was hit by a tsunami?

I don't think it is a case of the US not doing anything because it's right so much as you prefer the explanations in the leftist media which seem to have a limited list of motivations for US actions that are often at least misleading if not in fact wrong.

Thank goodness that only exists in jokes... or does it?

8 Arrested For Smuggling Radioactive Substances
Report Reveals Rampant Smuggling of Radioactive Materials

An eyewitness report of an actual crime and a tip on some subjective activity that is arguably suspicious are two different things entirely.

Agreed. And when it comes to terrorism, here is the difference: If you have eyewitness reports of an actual terrorist attack, you most likely already have dead bodies, maybe a lot of them. The terrorists may be on their way to escaping, and the two in Boston almost did. When you get a tip about suspicious activity that might suggest a connection to terrorism, there probably aren't any dead bodies, and the police or security services can investigate in a calm, thoughtful manner, with all of the legal nicities that everyone here likes. So, which is your preference? Discovery before or after an attack?

In florida, sitting and reding the Koran on my front porch would probably be enough to get me called in.

In Florida it would probably get you called, "neighbor," as in "Howdy neighbor."

Muslims grow, Baptists decline in Metro Orlando, religion census says

Metropolitan Orlando's Muslim population grew dramatically in the past decade, gaining more than 25,000 worshippers since 2000, according to a new census of religions released Tuesday. Muslims were second only to Roman Catholics, whose numbers increased by nearly 64,000, the census found.

Muslims now outnumber Presbyterians, Lutherans and Episcopalians in the Orlando area of Lake, Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties. Imam Tariq Rasheed, director of the Islamic Center of Orlando, said the growth comes from Muslims moving to Central Florida from other American cities and from abroad.