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In the UK, you get investigated and harassed by the police for using the wrong gender pronoun for transgender people. Seriously, that's so much better?

Claim that Islam is evil in most of the EU and you get charged and then sent to jail for 6+ months. It's not just Germany, but wonderful Sweden as well. And of course the UK.

Say anything against the Government in much of the world and you end up in prison (or just - gone). Yes, most of the rest of the world has a lot less freedom of speech. Provably so. In fact, your post to me would qualify as hate speech in much of Europe and could land you in jail because you denigrate me. Seriously.

Krugman's NYT column is called "The Conscience of a Liberal." Nate Silver and Krugman had a public dispute [mashable.com] when Silver left the NYT to form FiveThirtyEight. Silver said, about Krugman [talkingpointsmemo.com], "Plenty of pundits have really high IQs, but they don’t have any discipline in how they look at the world, and so it leads to a lot of bullshit, basically,” Silver said in that interview."

Economic models are data fit to curves. See the 'Philips curve' [google.com] and 'the breakdown of the Philips curve' [google.com]. However, this data exists in the context of other systems. "All Models Are Wrong" [google.com] of course, but it seems to me many economists don't appreciate the error in their models and are willing (and paid) to make grand pronouncements based on highly error-filled models. Often in support of one social narrative or another.

Hey look! Chaff!

That's an awful lot of words to avoid facing that Krugman repeatedly says his simplistic models are not complete and not supposed to be complete.

Krugman: "In the aftermath of the Great Recession, I went with my models and they always worked!" Unfortunately he missed biggest economic event of the past 80 years, the Financial Crisis while a few others did not (side note, he had a feud going with that guy who predicted it).

Yes, it has since the 1980s, but it started stalling around 2005, and that is the point of curiosity.

It's not all that curious. There are plenty of plateaus in productivity in our history. Finding one, especially in an asset bubble that was sucking up a ton of capital, is not all that weird.

You're surprisingly making a bit of sense here. But your assertion that this is not a puzzle in economic circles is wrong.

No, not because 'reasons'. Because of its fairness and resistance to corruption, cronyism and favoritism.

That you can not actually design beyond high-level platitudes.

Nothing I said is a platitude. Work on your literacy, there are many good educational aids out there.

Don't conflate all of Europe as one.

Don't skip over the word "most".

So that leaves Germany.

You apparently think Europe consists of 6 countries, one of which is located in South America. Also, you want to warn people to not over-generalize Europe.

Your reading comprehension needs work. I specifically said Venezuela was not part of Europe, in the part you cut out.

I know you're trying, bless your heart, but try harder.

We're not as homogeneous as Germany for sure, or even the UK so our population has a different temperament, values and intelligence

And why am I not surprised racist bullshit appears.

Nothing I said is racist. One of the reasons the term 'racism' is losing its power in suppressing discussion is because people like you bandy it about too much whenever you disagree with something. It's an incontrovertible fact different groups have different temperaments, intelligence and values. Look up the UN indices on national corruption. Look up national IQs. You know what "Boko Haram" means? Educate yourself, you'll appear less foolish per

often aggregate teetotalers due to religion/philosophy with teetotalers due to illness

Leading to the 'sick quitter' hypothesis. And has been factored into more recent studies, and found to be not the issue it's presented to be...

https://health.spectator.co.uk...

Then, a few months before his death in 2005, he published a study based on 23 years of data which replicated the results of his previous studies while disproving the sick quitter hypothesis by comparing lifelong non-drinkers with moderate drinkers. The latter had lower rates of heart disease and lower risk of premature mortality.

[...]

The sick quitter hypothesis was repeatedly tested and found wanting. The protective effect on the heart was repeatedly shown to be real and not the result of unhealthy former drinks in the non-drinking group.

Being as there is much movement to stop the red light district in Amsterdam, because even the regulated markets are bad for women. It's not anti-male (I am male myself) it's trying to make men better. You may think that men are fine, but metoo has shown that on average men suck. You can either try to make men better and call out shitty behaviour in men or you can be part of the problem.

Go and look at porn titles and see if there is any words implying coercion or rape (drunk, brutalised, pain etc.). I think you'll find there are many. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... If being illegal was such a disincentive then women would not be complaining about the amount of sexual abuse they face. Really the 'boys will be boys' narrative gets far more play than rape bad.

As I say I am not focusing on the workers employed, I am not the person to ask about that. I am talking about making the buying of sex illegal because legalising it doesn't get rid of the problems it brings. https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/... https://www.spectator.co.uk/20... I believe those selling should be decriminalised, because putting them in jail doesn't help the women escape from the abusive situation.

Most of the ideas here are not my own, they come from women, if you'd prefer to read the same by a man here http://robertwjensen.org/artic... I would suggest you look at what some women (adult human females) have to say on the topic, there are many reports out there from women who have left the industry, I suggest you go look at what they say.

Where have you been all this time?

There have been stories like "we had sex and he put finger into my mouth and I didn't like it". (one POC celebrity)
Or like "he asked for oral sex, I asked maybe later and then he kind of slightly nudged my head" - James Franco.

The pinnacle of sexual harassment, assault, rape and eating people alive (if we conflate definitions, let's do it grandly) for me was a Doctor, who "sexually harassed or assaulted or raped or eaten alive" by inviting her to become a "friend" on the facebook (something, that evil serial harasser/assaulter/rapist/cannibal did to all his patients).

The bloated approach to what does constitute sexual (insert something from unwanted comment to brutal murder) went so far, that when applied to men, figured that 6 million of american men are sexually assaulted/raped/murdered by women every year National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey 2010

But wait, it's not yet finished, these numbers are not scary enough some are working hard to get even more impressive figures.

Do you **REALLY** think these companies are going to put up a legal fight for you when your DNA is requested by the government?

A.C.#2

They don't have to. The multiple layers of anonymizing means nobody can provide anything useful. Besides which, there's nothing in there the government can use. Paranoia is a psychiatric disorders, not a political stance.

If you cared to Google it, you would find that, with a search warrant, law enforcement can obtain genetic information and material from places like 23andMe and Ancestry. In fact, the link below confirms they already have at least once. You can use a pseudonym. Maybe it and the corporate anonymity maze will be enough to slip through the sophisticated clutches of the Law's big data algorithms. GLWT.

https://www.ajc.com/news/national/can-police-legally-obtain-your-dna-from-23andme-ancestry/8eZ24WN7VisoQiHAFbcmjP/

BTW, Paranoia is a political stance. It's so obvious, you don't really need a link, but even so:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/20...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35382599

they're making the best choices they _can_ make in the context of their lives. Low pay, long hours and constant stress puts them in a position where these foods are a logical and reasonable choice.

That myth has long been debunked.

I was once one of those low-pay, long-hour, high-stress workers. Yes, I had to be on food stamps for 2 months to keep my family fed. And yes, I spent less on healthy choices than other recipients spent on unhealthy ones - so much so that at the end of the 2 months I still had over $200 in my account (I tried to give it back but they wouldn't let me).

Compare the cost of 6 apples to the cost of a 6-pack of apple-flavor Fructose cakes.

Oh dear, you sad semi-literate Trumpie, you missed all the references (not one of them is Reddit). Here they are so you can improve your reading skills.

1) The Guardian - Trump Tower meeting with Russians treasonous, Bannon says in explosive book

2) NBC - A Panama tower carries Trump’s name and ties to organized crime

3) Global Witness - Narco-A-Lago: Money Laundering At The Trump Ocean Club Panama

4) The Guardian - Trumps Panama tower used for money laundering by condo owners, reports say

5) Sketchy Donald Trump Deal Eyed For Ties To Iran | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC

6) The New Yorker - Donald Trump’s Worst Deal:
The President helped build a hotel in Azerbaijan that appears to be a corrupt operation engineered by oligarchs tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard

7) NPR - The New Yorker Uncovers Trump Hotels Ties To Corrupt Oligarch Family

8) Business Insider - Dossier author Christopher Steele: Trumps hotel and land deals with Russians need to be examined

9) New York Times - Trump Associate Boasted That Moscow Business Deal ‘Will Get Donald Elected’

10) The Washington Post - Trump’s company had more contact with Russia during campaign, according to documents turned over to investigators

11) Slate - An Intriguing Link Between the Mueller Investigation, Trump, and Alleged Money Laundering

12) GQ - Inside Donald Trumps Election Night War Room

13) Politico - Trump’s mob-linked ex-associate gives $5,400 to campaign

14) Raw Story - Longtime Trump business partner ‘told family he knows he and POTUS are going to prison’: report

15) The Spectator - Forget Charlottesville - Russia Is Still The True Trumps True Scandal

16) McClatchy - Donald Trump and the mansion that no one wanted. Then came a Russian fertilizer king

17) New York Times - Tracking the Yachts and Jets of the Mega-Rich

18) McClatchy - Trump, Russian billionaire say they’ve never met,

What happened to: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."?

Stepford students. Children being taught that they need to have a safe space and be protected. Institutions of higher learning pushing only one view point, instead of challenging multiple viewpoints. Professors pushing and punishing students for having the "wrong view point" and so on as to not offend people. The big push for political correctness and not hurting feelings, microagressions and all the other associated bullshit. That disagreement is harassment. That facts are racist. Take your pick.

Remember 2 years back with that professor who told students to grow up over Halloween costumes? Then was yelled at on the quad by an insane student who screeched that "university wasn't about an intellectual space, but about 'building a home.'" Or the professor that screeched "she needs some muscle over here" to get rid of that nosy student reporter and on and on and on and on... Yeah. There's an entire generation out there who've been taught this. There's that same generation that will go out of their way to hound, harass, you and your family if you dare to step out of line. They're today's young budding fascists who believe that the state should determine what's right, and they'll use the power of the state or their group to make sure it happens.

the big means to censor at the moment is the "stop funding hate" campaign from a few twitterati activists who are "shaming" companies for advertising on newspapers they find objectionable (though perfectly legal and normal - mainly the Daily Mail at the moment which is a centre-right paper that also has an unhealthy (IMHO) section on celebrity gossip)..

They've managed to get paperchase and pizza hut to apologise for running adverts in these newspapers - PH for running a "free pizza" giveaway in the Sun newspaper most recently. I think they also attacked Breitbart using the same tactics a while
back.

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/...

The campaigners are actually open about this. One of the chief organisers of SFH says it's about changing 'the financial balance' so that we 'get to the point where... you don't make money by publishing these headlines'. And so you stop publishing them. You stop saying things which, rightly or wrongly, you consider to be interesting or important or true, because some fat cat has threatened to defund your operation if you don't.

Maybe you would like to chew on this for a bit.

Swedish police admit race cover up on crime
This cover-up of sex assaults in Sweden is a gift for xenophobes
It’s not only Germany that covers up mass sex attacks by migrant men... Sweden’s record is shameful

Don't you think it is problematic when the government is hiding facts from the public? Including for the purpose of political manipulation and the prevention of the discussion of public policy based on the facts?

Of course some things are more difficult to hide than others.

Sweden gang rape ‘live-streamed on Facebook’

Look, you are clearly from the UK and have no clue WTF you are talking about. Please stick to topics to which you have knowledge.

Just so you don't make a complete fool of yourself next time, here are some statistics. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-t...
    Note that African Americans make up 15% of the population while accounting for ~2500 out of 5700 murders. There is clearly a sub culture of violence there that does not extend to the other minorities or indeed the other 85% of the population.

Considering you live in the UK, unless you served in the military, your only experience with guns has been TV, movies and the pap that your liberal media has spoon fed you. Meanwhile, disarmed Europe is one charismatic dictator away from another Hitler... Atheism and antisemitism area already well on their way in Europe. https://www.huffingtonpost.com...
https://www.spectator.co.uk/20...

The Las Vegas shooter was firing AR15 style rifles from 35 stories up at 500 yards range at nearly full auto at night using a bump stock. (One rifle at at a time, probably swapping rifles to keep from warping the barrels). The only reason he hit anyone was the sheer number of bullets he fired and the fact that he was firing into a crowd of 22,000 people. His hit ratio was ~550 injured or killed or about 2.5%. And that was aiming for a mob of people who were unaware of what was going on, at least at first. Anyone who as ever fired a fully automatic weapon knows that you cannot aim for shit at full auto. Anyone who has even seen a bump stock in action knows that you can't hit the broad side of a barn at 100 yards using one. The barrel and sight literally jump around in your hands beyond even the normal recoil... Compare that to a hunter (or retired or active duty military, many of whom were in the crowd) with a rifle crouched behind a truck looking for the shooter. At full auto, the muzzle flashes from the MGM were readily apparent to many witnesses.

Germany.

Throw away your passport. Don't tell them where you're from. Apply for asylum. Worst case you get denied but you still get free housing, healthcare, food and other basic necessities. If you refuse to leave long enough you get a permant residence permit.

How's that working out for Germany? I hear that rapes are up by double digit percentages and social friction it as 50 year highs.

citations

https://www.gatestoneinstitute... https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/...

Three supporting views (I hope instructive and entertaining):

https://www.theatlantic.com/da...

http://www.independent.co.uk/v...

https://www.spectator.co.uk/20...

Rapey McRapeface?

Between 2013 and 2014, according to the IEA, global energy demand grew by 2,000 terawatt-hours. In order to meet this demand, we would need to build 350,000 new 2-megawatt wind turbines – 50% more turbines than have been built globally since the year 2000. Wind power is not the future; there is simply not enough extraditable energy. Unfortunately, better technology cannot overcome this problem: turbines can become only so efficient due to the Betz limit, which specifies how much energy can be extracted from a moving fluid.

https://www.nationaleconomicse...

https://www.spectator.co.uk/20...

Wind is not the answer.

>> There are no murdering, thieving, raping thugs running around in Europe.

So how is that whole "living in denial" thing working out for you?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/...

Nobody tried to ban Milo

https://www.change.org/p/ban-m...
https://www.theguardian.com/te...
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/...
http://www.breitbart.com/milo/...
http://www.dailyuw.com/opinion...

Look, I could keep going but I think that presents extensive proof that you're full of shit.

But since you apparently stopped reading after my first sentence, you don't know how your post actually PROVED my point.

I didn't stop reading. I merely went back and highlighted that you lied in your opening sentence, and since the rest of your illogical rant ridden with falsehoods was based on that lie I couldn't be arsed to go through and point out where you're full of shit.

Milo is offensive and a lot of people have tried to ban him. Many of those identify as 'left' on the political spectrum.

It's clearly too complex an issue for you as you can't properly articulate it. You're too busy throwing around labels like 'left' and 'right', and misrepresenting even those arbitrary positions, and you're operating from a bigoted ignorant base that will prevent you finding any answers, simple or otherwise.

Now fuck off and watch how adults do it.

Germany isn't even on track to meet their 2020 commitments. The Energiewende isn't working, and while they have sunk enormous resources into replacing (some) nuclear with renewables, the carbon intensity of Germany has barely budged. The dirty little secret is that most of the "renewable" energy comes from "biomass", which is even worse than burning lignite. (so-called brown coal; essentially packed dirt.)

Centuries ago, humanity burned a lot of trees for energy, and it resulted in widespread deforestation. Returning to those times is insane. We are razing North-American forests, turning them into pellets, and shipping them overseas to Europe to burn.

Renewable advocates would have you believe that this is "green", just because it supports their ill-advised attempts to fill landscapes with highly inefficient energy farming technologies. They need something after all, because the sun sets and there are frequent and extended periods where the wind is calm. Even if this practice was carbon-neutral, it will take centuries for the destroyed habitats to be restored, if ever they can be.

It probably isn't wise to hold your breath for the next three decades, and expect a better outcome.

The reality is, if someone considers my comment "toxic" because it hurts their feelings. They probably need to spend some time outside of their social bubbles and realize that the world isn't a happy place where people give you what you want if you cry loud enough. The sad thing is, it *is* the left(not all of it), that are pro-censorship and anti-free speech. It's the same situation that we saw back in the 80's and 90's. Remember? When you had the religious nuts holding power in quite a few places, claiming that video games are gonna make mass murders. D&D will make you summon demons. Those things that happened all those years ago. Then there was a very subtle change in the 90's as those on the left started taking up those mantles themselves. Note tipper gore, hillary clinton, joe liberman and so on. Who said videogames will make murders, censoring TV is right, banning some types of music is proper. The last 20 years have shown that the left were happy to take up that mantle. You've got an entire generation of students in universities that believe that "those old people trying to censor things" were right. In Europe, you've got politicians who are trying to hold onto their political power by censoring. Elitists in universities doing the same.

The left currently has an authoritarian and extremism problem. Pretending it doesn't exist, will do nothing to help either side or anyone at all. And the political spectrum right now is in a fundamental shift. People on the left and right are becoming more libertarian, and there is a large segment of the left and a small segment on the right that's shifting to authoritarian. But as it stands right now? The problem is mainly on the left. Check your local university, see how much anti-free speech and pro-censorship policies have been put into place in the last decade to protect peoples feelings. How words have been twisted, where the label troll/racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/etc has become "anyone who disagrees with my point of view."

Apparently the Left has a problem with name-calling as well. If objectifying women or minorities is bad, so is objectifying the competition.

Hint: this is why we got Trump. . .

Justin Trudeau is a master of public-image manipulation. He knows the tricks about appealing to young, inexperienced hyper-liberals, but can do little to divert people's attention from his abysmal track record on matters such as appeasing to the oppressive and aggressive Chinese regime, appeasing to the criminal family of Ibn-Saud, and oppression of First Nations. He self-consciously cultivate his own hero-worship, but he's just politician.

By now, anyone still falling for such cheap PR stunts and gimmicks?

LOL! More proof of fake news on the internet brought to you by the guardian.

I thought you guys would be pushing the scare with https://www.theguardian.com/en...

How is your article above not as fake as this "Trees might cause air pollution on city streets" to drive a wedge to help us decide to cut down all the trees on the planet.

Is this greenpeace's reply to the inconvenient news that the world has gotten 14% greener? http://www.spectator.co.uk/201... -- indeed, why does no one want to know? And why go all denier on good news?

Oh, so you could basically just have boiled it down to "it's a ridiculous strawman that I and my fellow alt-rightists scumbags have invented, in order to further our hateful agendas".

That would have made it so much clearer.

So self-identified labels are a strawman? FYI "SJW" is a label created by social justice warriors, I know...facts hurt feels. But, nice assumptions there. Do you also believe that the "right" and "conservatives" are dangerous neo-nazi's that are bent on world domination and to dispose of (((them))), while kicking illegals and plotting ways to resurrect Hitler? I think I got all the regressive talking points there. No wait, I missed Pepe and how a cartoon frog is a neo-nazi hate symbol for white supremacy.

After all, I'm sure these regressive leftists who fit all of those points are just harmless. Just like those ones who were protesting at Mizzou, and Yale, Harvard, Oxford, Toronto, etc, etc, etc. Get triggered at human bones claim that halloween costumes are racist, and offer "counseling" for it. Scream that kimono's are cultural appropriation and so on, and on, and on. Very invented....

In 2014 EP election, party groups declared their candidates for Commission Presidents. Juncker was EPP candidate, Martin Schulz was PES candidate and Guy Verhofstadt was ALDE candidate. EPP won the election, so Juncker was nominated by EC and elected by EP.

Parliament rubber stamped the council nomination but where did the public vote for him? You think the public in Northern Europe would have considered the guy electable? You have obviously forgotten that few in the EU wanted Juncker and if you think European politicians consider Junckers "election" legitimate then consider...

On Tuesday evening, EU heads of state and government come together for what could be their last supper together with Cameron. On the following morning, they make clear to Juncker that they will be taking the lead in the exit negotiations with Britain. "But that is the Commission's responsibility," Juncker protests. "Jean-Claude, we have been elected, you haven't been," is the rejoinder from several prime ministers and heads of state.

Not in codecision procedure, which is used in most areas since the Lisbon Treaty.

My reading (and it has been some time) was simply that the commission can overrule parliament and that the council of ministers can overrule the commission.

That is not true. EP can dismiss the commission by two-thirds majority vote of no-confidence. See article 234 of the Lisbon Treaty.

Also note that in the past, EP was able to force resignation of Santer commission even without legal right to for that.

I was going from memory but am prepared to split the difference on this. Rather than a simple majority vote we have an arbitrary 75%, should parliament ever use a power that was not granted with a view to ever being exercised.

Sure, it's possible to apply pressure for a political resignation.... until it is not. Were such tactics always reliable, Juncker would never had landed the job to begin with.

Boris Johnson's prize winning entry to the Spectator’s President Erdogan Offensive Poetry competition:

There was a young fellow from Ankara
Who was a terrific wankerer
Till he sowed his wild oats
With the help of a goat
But he didn’t even stop to thankera.

Minister of Bantz.

I modded so posted as AC!
From right-wing so it must be wrong!?
I consider myself left-wing, but fact is the fact, your argument just like German media, "you should not be convinced by right-wing populist propaganda, believe me!".
OK, if the links aarlin posted above is from neo-nazi, how about this:
It’s not only Germany that covers up mass sex attacks by migrant men... Sweden’s record is shameful
Now Swedish officials face claims of covering up migrant sex attacks

For the first link, it's so FUNNY that Sweden mentioned 'fighting Russian propaganda war'. I wonder whether if they found out the Russian sub? Oh, how panicked Sweden media reacted as they found a Russian sub sank in early 1900s? or French fighter violated Sweden's airspace was missed identifying as Russian one? or use 'gay ads' to repel Russian submarine?

Using these guidelines, we can safely avoid any kind of worthwhile discussion and ensure that the weight of your opinion is entirely based on how quickly you can victimize yourself!

Well, fuck me! <<-- maximum points, triple-word score

Rustaceans? What kind of gibbety-toot is this?

"The Cry-Bully always explains to the point of demanding that one agrees with them, and always complains to the point of insisting that one is persecuting them."
~Meet the Cry-Bully: a hideous hybrid of victim and victor, by Julie Burchill

The euro is the primary cause of Europe's economic woes. It allows Germany to act in old-school mercantilist manner and beggar its neighbors. Floating currency exchange is needed by nations to protect themselves against trade deficits literally sucking money out of them, with the inability to compensate because they've given up one of the most powerful policy tools of a sovereign: control over their own money supply. Ordinary Germans do not really benefit either, as the nation's trade surplus is not driven only by efficiency, but also by internal wage suppression. You cannot have an effective and stable monetary union without also having an economic and fiscal union, and that can never work across Europe's heterogenous cultural and political patchwork, despite the megalomeniacal fantasies of creepy old men like Juncker, Schäuble, etc. http://www.spectator.co.uk/201...

Citations provided
http://www.examiner.com/article/twitter-fury-after-1-000-muslims-rape-sexually-attack-women-cologne-germany
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/01/06/stories-on-cologne-assaults-face-censorship-on-reddit
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/its-not-only-germany-that-covers-up-mass-sex-attacks-by-migrant-men-swedens-record-is-shameful/
http://newobserveronline.com/media-conspiracy-over-cologne-mass-sex-attack/
Four of the first five results from google search ---- censorship cologne | koln muslim attacks

http://dailycaller.com/2015/10...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
http://www.americanthinker.com...
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ge...
http://nypost.com/2016/02/09/e...
https://pjmedia.com/homeland-s...
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/ho...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
http://www.thelocal.dk/2016012...
http://www.politico.eu/article...
http://www.express.co.uk/news/...
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2...
http://www.breitbart.com/big-g...

Well then, you should welcome me to your club.. Your panic is duly noted. Wake up, white people!

Remember when I wrote that people in the UK and Europe were afraid of reporting, investigating, or prosecuting immigrants for fear of being called racists? You just demonstrated my point with your little race baiting comment.

Rotherham: In the face of such evil, who is the racist now?

The Yorkshire town where 1,400 girls have been sexually abused by Asian men is a byword for depravity – all because people wouldn’t rock the multicultural boat

Rotherham child abuse scandal: 1,400 children exploited, report finds
A 'new dimension' of sexual assault in Cologne
Germans outraged by mayor’s advice for women after raft of harassment
It’s not only Germany that covers up mass sex attacks by migrant men... Sweden’s record is shameful

Some of your figures are a bit off, and you omit some important data.

The Blitz in London (which never even got close to 'carpet bombing' killed less than 500 people.

The Blitz killed far more than that. Just the first attack killed almost that many.

... by the end of the Blitz, around 30,000 Londoners would be left dead, with another 50,000 injured.-- The Blitz

-------

The German 'carpet bombing' of Rotterdam killed less than 1000 people, and involved 90 bombers...

The German bombing of Rotterdam occurred while the Dutch were negotiating surrender. The only reason it killed so few people (~900) was that there had been evacuations. As it was the bombing destroyed about 2.5 square km of city, and left many thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) homeless.

Other 25,000 in Dresden, pretty much the same method, 40,000 in Hamburg. While the British assisted on such raids, they were very much American designed and lead.

You've pretty much got that wrong. The UK and US teamed up for "around the clock" bombing, but it was the British that concentrated on "area" bombing at night while the Americans strove for precision bombing during the day. RAF Air Chief Marshal "Bomber" Harris was a key driver in planning bombing campaigns. RAF bomber command attacks often dwarfed the associated American attacks in size. For bombing Hamburg during Operation Gomorrah the RAF typically sent 780-790 +/- to bomb at night, and the USAAF managed 100-150 to bomb during the day (although it attempted more). For Dresden it was RAF 722 and USAAF 527.

There failure is also well documented (it was supposed to 'break' the Germans, instead of course it just strengthened their resolve), but the lessons have pretty much been ignored.

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki broke the Japanese will to continue the war. As to Hamburg,

"It was quite a surprise to us when the first Hamburg raid took place because you used some new device which was preventing the anti-aircraft guns to find your bombers, so you had a great success and you repeated these attacks on Hamburg several times and each time the new success was greater and the depression was larger, and I have said, in those days, in a meeting of the Air Ministry, that if you would repeat this success on four or five other German towns, then we would collapse." – Albert Speer – The Secret War

The carpet-bombing of Hamburg killed 40,000 people. It also did good

But however terrible Operation Gomorrah was, it did serve a purpose in the end. It changed the attitude of many Germans, who may hitherto have been unaffected by the war, discrediting a leadership which was unable to ‘protect’ the population. As tales of the bombing spread throughout Germany, it provoked something called the ‘November mood’ of growing antipathy to the regime. Operation Gomorrah and the devastation of German cities meant that there could be no ‘stab in the back’ myth, as there was after 1918 when it suited people to believe that Germany had not lost the war fairly, but had been betrayed by their own home front. In this sense, Germany’s modern democracy was built on the rubble of its cities.

Because Trump was the Darling of the SNP for quite a while.

Alex Salmond, famous for his supposed love of Scotland and it's people overruled a local ruling and a local man who refused to sell his farm for Trump's golf course because what Alex Salmond actually gives a shit about is power and money, not Scottish people and he saw Trump as a path to that. This is also why he has courted Murdoch on numerous occasions.

But then Murdoch got into phone hacking and Trump got pissed about wind energy, and became quite embarrassing, so Salmond instead decided to pretend he hated these hard right types that he'd been courting so hard for so long at the expense of the Scottish people.

The only travesty is that Scots with a nationalist leaning hate England and in particular Westminster so much because they're so full of nationalist bile that they're willing to fall hook line and sinker for the myth that Salmond and co. give a shit about anything other than themselves and their own thirst for power. The idea they give a shit about Scotland or the average Scotsman is laughable given how close Salmond and the SNP were to people like Trump to the point of being willing to fuck over Scottish people to Trump's benefit. Scottish nationalism is mostly about a racist hate for the English by people who naively thought Braveheart was a factual documentary, because the SNP have shown many a time they have no problem selling parts of Scotland and it's people down river to anyone else, like Trump.

So there's your answer. They awarded it to him because for some time he was the darling of the SNP, which shows what a fucking joke the SNP are to anyone with half a brain as much as they may claim to hate and want to distance themselves from him now. But here is old Alex with his mates that he now likes to pretend were never any such thing, because, as they say, a picture paints a thousand words:

http://cdn2.spectator.co.uk/fi...

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multi...

http://www.heraldscotland.com/...

I forgot in my previous post, that this isn't a left-vs-right thing. This is the pro-authoritarian left mainly right now, with some on the right with shared beliefs(aka horseshoe theory in action), and pro-social libertarian left and right fighting against this garbage. This is how far banning people for wrongthink has gotten.

Paranoid bullshit.

Idiot that hasn't been paying attention.

Banning of expression and speech banning wrongthink
Banning of speech on university campuses and another banning costumes and another safe spaces, and no dissent safe spaces and pro-racial segregation. Did I miss anything, or do you need a few dozen more examples? This isn't isolated, you can find more examples of every single one.

Suddenly having a prime minister who'd at least hesitate at the height of a crisis before nuking a few million civilians doesn't sound like such a bad idea...

http://blogs.new.spectator.co....

"With their exclusive rights protected by the Public Carriage Office, and their rivals held back, London black cabs behave like any cartel — they squeeze their advantages for all their worth." http://www.spectator.co.uk/fea...

Uber is cheaper and quicker than black cabs: http://www.independent.co.uk/v...

In the age of GPS "The Knowledge" is a needlessly hard test which keeps most people out. https://www.washingtonpost.com...

London drivers say "The Knowledge" is better than a GPS http://www.theguardian.com/wor... but even before the age of GPS, most cities on the planet regulated taxi without such a test. Doctors do something similar with entrance boards which decide how many new doctors can enter a field. http://wallstreetpit.com/5769-... Rudimentary economics: any profession which restricts their numbers can charge more. Imagine if nurses, paramedics, firemen and cops set up their own mandatory boards what it could do for them.

Most cities restrict taxi numbers usually by restricting the number of licenses issued.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/6... FRANCE $270,000
http://globalnews.ca/news/1780... CANADA Was $360,000
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/cost... AUSTRALIA Was $425,000
http://www.scmp.com/business/m... HONG KONG $1M
http://www.washingtonpost.com/... USA $1.2M

He's a douche and a jerk to people he disagrees with.

On the plus side, for a mere $100,000 per year he'll deign to dine you. It's totally creepy!

Why do you assume the poorer states even need that money?

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/c...

If the United Kingdom were a US state, it would be poorer then EVERY state in the US except for Mississippi. Consider what the UK can afford and you can understand that every US state is perfectly capable of providing for the education of its people without federal support. If the above statistic is valid... and I think it is correct 'enough' to carry the point... then we shouldn't have a problem providing everyone with the education they need on a state level.

No state needs the federal money.

Might some state taxes have to go up as a result of not getting the federal money? Perhaps. But then by the same token, the federal taxes could be reduced. Is there a reason this money needs to flow through Washington?

Would that lack of redistribution of wealth between the states cause problems? I don't see how it could. Areas that are considered wealthier are often not. They typically just have a higher population density. And even if you say their average income might be higher, that ignores that their costs of living tend to be higher as well. The end result tends to be that the objective standard of living is pretty comparable in most respects.

Part of how that statistics about the UK was created is that it took cost of living into consideration. You can say a dollar is worth a dollar but what does a dollar buy you? And in some places money goes farther. Which means that money is worth more in those places which means that to account for wealth in various areas you have to adjust their money for what their money buys.

Really, a lot of this is about understanding statistics. You have to be careful with them.

Is any more proof needed that John Kerry is a twat. He is certain to be the next president of the United States of America. We have, in Britain, a labour politician who is on record stating that she wanted to see 'a limpet mine put on every pumping station.’ She was referring to the pumping stations in the Somerset levels and was head of the Environment Agency at the time, responsible for the policies that have led to the appalling flooding in Somerset, see http://www.spectator.co.uk/fea... If that had been said by a person with olive skin and a foreign accent they would have 'disappeared' as a potential terrorist. These people are eco-terrorists, nothing more. We also have a member of the Green Party calling for everyone in a government position who doesn't believe in AGW to be removed, the sort of political purgess that the Communists favored; clearly living up to the 'Water Mellon' name.

That's why we recently appointed Abu Quatada as our Jihad Tsar, whose job (amongst other things) is to implement sharia law in the UK.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/war/abu-qatada-appointed-uks-jihad-tsar-201202074865

On a more realistic note, the poll you mention was carried out by a notoriously right-wing paper (the Sunday Torygraph) and tubthumped by the notoriously xenophobic ones (the Daily Heil). Back in 2006. Nothing has so far apparently happened about this supposed groundswell of angry muslims eager to start stoning unbelievers and I still haven't been stoned to death my a single one of my friends or cow-orkers.

Please compare this article from the spectator (also right-wing) on a similar thrust that was made in 2008:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/825601/our-survey-shows-british-muslims-dont-want-sharia/

There seems to be an awful lot of (presumably american?) people on slashdot that seem convinced that the UK is somehow populated by trillions of militant muslims hell-bent on dragging the country, and later the world, back to the dark ages. Perhaps it's just the rarefied circles I've moved in but I don't think even 1% of the muslims I know or have met are even remotely interested in anything approaching muslim or any other theocracy, in fact most would find the very idea of such abhorrent as they were quite happy to escape from one. And much like most christians or people of any other religion, they're eternally irritated by people thinking that the fundamentalist blowhards represent them.

A quick guide to how much NaCl you should include with anything you get from the UK newspapers:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BritishNewspapers

Islamophobia is also a fun read:
http://www.islamophobiatoday.com/

Except you bring zero evidence that cogitation has anything to do with your genetic inheritance in humans

Sure but there's existing evidence around: http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8970941/sorry-but-intelligence-really-is-in-the-genes/
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/01/twins/miller-text

So given current scientific evidence regarding heritability and intelligence, I suggest that my claim that "most of it is born" with respect to mathematically geniuses is highly plausible.

Teaching is still very important just like coaches, training and practice are still very important for sprinters.

But the evidence is that geniuses are mostly born not made just like top sprinters are mostly born not made.

You can teach almost anyone to fight or do math or to run, but not all will be top fighters, math geniuses or world record sprinters.

And like it or not in many fields the top count more than the rest. Few care about the sprinter who finished 10th. Few care if you are the 10th to independently discover the Theory of Relativity (unless you do it when you are four or something ;) ).

But in other areas it's not so important, so people who aren't going to be the best in the "Star fields" may be better off in those other areas.

It's not average or even above intelligence they care about here. They are looking for the best.

Analogy: they are not looking for those who can merely run fast. They are looking for what makes the top sprinters the top sprinters.

Like it or not, there's at least some research that indicates I'm more likely to be right than wrong:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8970941/sorry-but-intelligence-really-is-in-the-genes/
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/01/twins/miller-text

So for your claims that I'm wrong that most of it is born, I'd say show me some scientific evidence first. If most of intelligence is linked to genetics (based on research as mentioned) then arguably most of "math genius" is likely to be linked to genetics too.

Its like buying a burial plot. If you are a nobody, you can expect to be dug up, probably within 100 years, but surely within 200. If you are famous, and your headstone is huge enough, you might rest there forever, but you might also have friends or perfect strangers buried on top of you.

One of my friends worked or a cemetery. One of his jobs was to open crypts and use a broom to push whatever was left into a pit in the back to make room for the next person. If the crypt was the kind that didn't have the pit, then they would take the remains and "dispose" of them. According to the policy, he only got to learn what that meant after working for them for 10 years and he only got to do the broom thing because he worked there for five.

There is zero contract enforceability.

Its like buying a burial plot. If you are a nobody, you can expect to be dug up, probably within 100 years, but surely within 200. If you are famous, and your headstone is huge enough, you might rest there forever, but you might also have friends or perfect strangers buried on top of you.

I could foresee records being *cough* lost and bodies going bad and having to be cremated over the centuries.
I seriously doubt anyone in the future would welcome back any long frozen geezer. Who knows what diseases might be lurking in those bodies.

For International analyses, I prefer ForeignPolicy.com. Economist has great analyses on a variety of topics. Their audience is fairly critical and generally compensates any skew. Generally speaking, financial publications have very little tolerance for political noise and propaganda (it costs money to be misinformed) and focus on the numbers and the big picture. London Financial Times and Bloomberg are good in my book.

I too like the Economist. It is good, not perfect, but good. So much so that I carried a subscription for many years.

Al Jazeera are only good by the standards of the Middle East. When they report anything about the Qatari royals (with their Wahabbist leader) they are incredibly biased. The BBC are very left-biased. Their editors are so weak they are often fooled by 'stringers' without even basic fact-checks. This is no wonder given the Cultural Marxism permeating UK universities (I suggest you do your research on 'Cultural Marxism' as I suggested - the West won the political and economic war against Marxism but completely lost the cultural war [originally seeded and funded by the USSR]. This is why you *look* but you do not *see*). Here's an example describing how bad the BBC is: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/douglas-murray/2013/03/will-owen-jones-apologise/
On such a sensative matter the BBC printed speculation that matched their agenda, and did not do even rudimentary fact-checking. It is a shame you are oblivious to the political narrative being put forward by the BBC.

OK. Do list some non-political original journalism and analytical work that Breitbart produces. I just went there and it was impossible to glean anything useful. The signal to noise ratio is terrible. If there are occasional jewels, I certainly am not going to waste that much time finding those. I agree that all sites have some noise, but I just don't want to spend time where the balance is not in my favor.

Just like Google, Breitbart is a news aggregator. It also highlights niche stories that the political elites and mainstream media suppress. Breitbart have highlighted the criminal actions of Obama over Benghazi, how Hiliary Clinton's State Department supplied Stinger missiles to Al Qaeda affiliates in Libya and then *lied* about the deaths of an Abassador and SEALs to cover their misdeeds. Since the CIA was against this they released the scandal about Petreus to neuter his opposition. They they knowlingly blamed it on a filmmaker who made an scripturally accurate (http://www.pi-news.org/2012/09/fact-check-the-innocence-of-the-muslims/) film about the evil warlord Mohammed, and threw him in jail despite the First Amendment - where he remains a political prisoner of the Obama regime. Breiutbart also highlighted the criminal actions of Eric Holder and the numerous deaths resulting frrom the Fast n Furious scandal. They also highlight the Muslim Brotherhood operative Huma Abedine's role in the State Department as Hiliary's aide. Breitbart also continue to report the Obama Administration's *tyrannical* use of the IRS and DoJ to target any grassroots political opposition - from convservatives to Jews to internet rights activists. All illegal stuff. Even Peirs Morgan was recently forced to conceed that those struggling to retain their Second Amendment rights actually had a point - because the US Government has become increasingly tyrranical. Breitbart continue to point this out. Do your news sources do this? I guess not. You are living in the Matrix and even someone like me trying to 'lead a horse to water' cannot undo the cultural conditioning you cling to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIdBuK7_g3M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghx3d1GiAc0
So you *look* at Breitbart but do not *see* no idea at the significance of the scandals it is r

If you're fine with paying for ERs then you should be fine with paying for preventative medicine

I also heard that eating at McDonald's is not as good for your health as dining in the creme de la creme restaurant. Should we pay hobos to eat there? Surely, if they are eating well they will be healthier, n'est-ce pas?

But of course one always has to draw a line somewhere. We are just haggling about where that line ought to be. We are not the only ones with an opinion on the subject.

That doesn't invalidate the concept of socialized medicine.

Most attempts to establish socialized medicine failed, and people died as result (there are several mechanisms of that.) Does that experience invalidate the concept? No. But if you don't change the ways of doing it you will get exactly what others have gotten before you.

Outcomes in the US are pure shit for most citizens

But they have a say in that. One can always sell their house to pay for a top notch heart surgery, for example. Try that in Zimbabwe. In the old USSR you had no control over your healthcare; if there is a treatment available but your doctor doesn't care about it or about you, you will die. There may be a good surgeon somewhere else, but you will be cut up by a drunkard with shaky hands and foggy memory; and when you die you just become a statistic. I don't really want to argue this from the position of appeal to authority, but I was there and I saw all that, firsthand. Many americans, who never set foot outside of their continent, just don't know how lucky they are. That makes them vulnerable to sweet lies of populists who tell them that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. But it is not. You will learn that, eventually, but it will be too late.

Thanks for your comment. What many don't understand is that it was trivial for *Hamas* to check the accuracy of the claim. Their rockets leave different fragments to the fragments that a surface to air missile does (by fragments, the pieces are large enough to read serial markings etc off). The BBC should not have used Hamas as a source as they have persistently been found to use 'stringers' (false sources for journalists). Hezbollah was also busted doing this during the 2006 Lebanon War.

Before you (mistakenly) absolve the BBC I suggest you read this: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/douglas-murray/2013/03/will-owen-jones-apologise/
The journalist in question, Owen Jones, it a leftists well-known for choosing anything to slander the entire nation of Israel. It is telling that the BBC lacks the discernment to identify and eliminate such people. The BBC used to be good an impartial. They still rely on that cachet but the reality today is very different. The BBC is stuffed with liberal arts graduates who unquestioningly parrot the fashionable but inaccurate claims of the Pallywood and jihadi stringers. The modern BBC has disgraced itself again - it can't even get basic journalistic tennets like "Check your facts, don't trust your sources" correct while in its quest to subtly bend opinion toward the political Left.

Umm, citation needed on that. And it would hardly be surprising for a journalist to assume that explosives that strike in Gaza are much more likely to be Israeli than Hamas - Hamas firing rockets at Gaza makes about as much sense as the IDF firing explosives at Tel Aviv. I'm not suggesting Hamas are innocent here, just that they aren't that stupid.

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/douglas-murray/2013/03/will-owen-jones-apologise/
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/166054#.UU5hVVdXvXw
Notice how the left-wiung journalists at BBC are choosing to slant the news they present to you (without doing basic tradecraft like checking facts). It turns out a lot of Hamas' poorly made missiles misfire and land on their own civilians. Hamas doesn't care about the civilians, it gets to blame it on Israelis and the journalists repeat the falsehoods without checking. Rinse and repeat a few times and the moral actor (Israel) is demonized in the minds of regular folks and the evil actor (Hamas) comes out smelling like the innocent party (despite them caring neither for Israeli nor Palestinian civilians in their genocidal jihad - ps. check the Hamas Charter, it is pure evil).

A professional journalist *must check their facts* before publishing. If they can't check that facts then either don't publish, or list the possibilities. In many instances reporters covering conflicts between forces (not just Israelis, also against NATO etc) will publish articles that are inflammatory but also very wrong. Once an article has been published it is very hard to retract. That's why we get jihadis killing people because they see shamely false articles on BBC etc that accuse Israel or NATO of war crimes - yet the forces of these nations take a great deal of care to wage war humanly and within the Geneva Convention (unlike their opponents whose whole modus operandi is a complete war crime). Besides the BBC the UN is not much better (no suprise, it is dominated by the 57 countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation [OIC] who are all for committing geneocide against Israel because the Qur'an and hadiths expliticitly say this will be done before the Last Days).

Would I be correct in guessing you are Israeli or regularly read Israeli news sources?

Do you have any idea of how racist that sounds? as if Israelis can't report impartially, ever? Being critical of any culture is fine, provided it is fact based. Where I take umbrage is that much of the reporting these days doesn't get basic facts straight. The BBC and Al Jazeera are not high quality sources as the grandparent suggested, in fact they are quite baised because they don't fact check reports that match their narrative, just like MSNBC. That's just poor journalism.

Now yes, I do read Israeli sources since the mainstream media is so badly biased. You must also note that I also try and read translated news from the Palestinian side too - not the stuff originally in English, because that has been designed with 'taqoyya' in mind. If you read the stuff (or watch videos) translated from material originally for Palestinians you will be amazed how racist, genocidal, anti-Western, anti-Israeli and downright evil their news is. Take a look sometime at the brainwashing shows their children get. Look at the Goldstone Report from the UN, and how the UN accepted unfounded claims uncritically. Later the eponymous author of the report, Richard Goldstone withdrew his name because it was clear he was being played for propaganda purposes. The problem is, the damage had already been done to the reputation of the side that sought to avoid war crimes while the side whose modus operandi is a deliberate war crime is brushed over.

In other words, I wouldn't expect to see accurate reporting from Haaretz on the H