Personally, I wouldn't be real surprised. Realize that Israel does actively spy, and even spies on the US. http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE78645B20110907 The US actively watches for Israeli spies. I'm not sure why the rush to assume the guy's innocent. Even tyrannical dictators usually have their reasons. I doubt the arrest was terribly politically expedient and I don't know that the guy has anything Iran needs. The evidence may not be presented the way we're accustomed to in the US and the sentence might be harsh, but that doesn't mean the guy is totally clean, either. And personally, I don't trust Israel any more than I trust Iran. Both ridiculously crooked governments with crazy right-wing dictators.
Unless Anon can call in an airstrike, or single-handedly cripple a first-world nation's financial system, they don't know what "power" is.
Big talk from a guy in hiding.
Yeah the only thing that can cripple a first world financial system is a first world financial system.
you must be at lest 3 years old, your UID and the manner, in which you express yourself. Shouldn't you put 'are too' in there?
This thread - place where you don't belong, you need to go home and watch teleboobbies, or whatever they brainwash kids with nowadays.
Don't pretend to know something about which you know nothing. I guarantee, you've not put more than 15 minutes into studying the political shenanigans that are destroying the USPS, if you think it's fucking stamp prices. You sit back and armchair criticize a poster, who clearly has a decent grasp of the issue, and you're really just a know nothing. I'm embarrassed for you. You're no different than a Teabagger. An ignorant, loud mouthed schmuck (the three always go together). The best thing intellectually lazy and uninformed people can do, is shut the fuck up.
They are more interested in protecting their jobs, than making changes that help the students (such as firing bad teachers, or eliminating permanent employment via tenure). You can see the excellent ABC 20/20 documentary called "Stupid in America" on youtube. There's also a sequel produced for FOX which updates the older 20/20 report. And then a "part 3" sequel to the sequel.
Yeah, I can see you get your thinking from ABC and FOX.
You are in a thread, where I am replying to this comment:
So, just for clarity let's make sure everyone understands that the USPS is being deliberately engineered to fail by the same vandals and saboteurs who are deliberately engineering our economy to fail.
So you are the moron here.
That you bother commenting on issues you clearly don't understand makes you the moron, moron.
The real reason is that the price of stamps is mandated by the government, and since the government is doing everything it can to pretend that the inflation is low, they won't allow USPS to raise the prices to be able to survive.
Yeah, it's all about stamp prices. Real weighty addition to the thread, moron.
YOU posted this? This is exactly, if you can read between the lines, everything I ever say that you're constantly bashing, yet you post this. You're such a fat stupid fuck.
Can someone explain to me why "vandals and saboteurs" are deliberately crashing the system?
I mean are these Chinese infiltrators or what? Otherwise I can't see a reason unless someone is making a profit (not sure what that has to do with pensions though).
Sure, I'll explain it. Because business interests almost fully control the Republicans and Democrats and don't like any nationalized services or social services. It was decided in the 70s that social programs couldn't be destoryed in legislation, due to popular outcry, so they'd create so much debt for the county that it would be impossible to fund national programs that benefit people. http://thefbm.com/2012/04/16/starving-the-beast/
As a side note, we have a statue of Lenin right here in Seattle. I walk by it while at the farmer's market every week. It's a reflection of Seattle's crypto-leninist leanings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Lenin,_Seattle
Unless you are gay or are performing abortions... Ok, actually not even then at least mostly. There used to be a time when Islamic countries where the sanctuaries of science and enlightenment whereas christian Europe made an excursion into a dark age that would make even the Taliban shudder with disgust.
It's a lot easier to fall into ignorance when knowledge is dificult to obtain; held by priestly castes. What's Islam's excuse today? It takes real discipline and conscious supression of critical thinking to avoid the obvious these days. Even just 100 years ago, ignorance was much easier. Oh, and btw, if you're gay or need healthcare, you might not be so glib.
Well he assumes it won't be a flying car.
Automatic system on airline have saved a hell of a lot of lives.
How is his idea any different then using blind people to test driverless cars with?
It isn't.
You comparison is bad, and you should feel bad.
Do you ever have ideas of your own, or are you just on here to 1) personally attack people 2) ask questions that there are no firm answers to?.
Can't help but notice your posts are almost always (very) short, shallow replies to what other people have said (criticizing them) and that's a pretty easy thing to do. What's more difficult, but more rewarding, is thinking for yourself, doing your own research and making a fresh post OF YOUR OWN thoughts. You're just an internet TROLL, plain and simple. It's intellectually lazy (assuming you have some intellect, altnough I haven't seen much sign of this) to armchair criticize others.
In the US you've got a society that's designed from the ground up to benefit big business. The US is also unquestionably the most powerful country on earth and (practically) owns the world. The US is also one of the most open societies in the world and one of the largest, geographically. The predominant school of thought among social engineers and social planners in the US, is that the population must be highly indoctrinated (and the US population IS higly indoctrinated). The Netherlands really only compares to the US in the openness of its society. Given those facts, you can't compare the US and Dutch people. If you think those facts shouldn't affect people's socilization, you're just not giving the subject enough thought. One example, and this will be a tad controversial; there's a reason the Netherlands enjoy ten political parties and the US has only two (that are basically the same party); What the people of the Netherlands think doesn't matter outside of the Netherlands. What the people in the US think matters a lot.
UM No we, USA have not owned the world in a long time. Last I checked we own China like 30 Trillion dollars or something ridiculous like that. I don't think we own shit anymore. u
It's funny that you think it's all about money. Nope. In the end, people with power understand one thing: Violence. Who can unleash the more violence than anybody? The US. Money is a spoil gained by war, it's not the means, it's an end. Violence is the means.
...I'm not so sure it's well understood what causes an morbidly obese person to all of a sudden become an athelete.
You said you didn't see him for "a couple of years". That's not "all of a sudden". It's not about being a "natural athlete", it's about making a choice, taking responsibility for yourself and just doing what needs to be done. You spent 30 seconds forming that hypothesis in 2004, and in 8 years you haven't managed to improved on it. Who's the dumbass?
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I said he all of a sudden became an athlete, not he all of a sudden became thin. And he did all of a sudden become an athlete. I haven't managed to improve on it, becuase I don't sit around thinking about fat people. I go to yoga twice a week, bike, eat right and don't drink. Theories about why fat people become athletic don't preoccupy my mind. Maybe you rack your brain over it. Maybe you should work in sales at 24 hour fitness.
My Apologies, I'm not familiar with the inner workings of this website, I only casually use it... don't really know what "karma" is, nor do I really care (this is a website, not real life, I hope you don't base too much of your self worth on the karma level of your slashdot account or the opinions of internet strangers).
That said, you are a sad piece of work, and I expect in real life you're not nearly as tough as you are on the internet. So internet warrior, continue your crusade of uselessness, spouting idiotic platitudes about your idyllic society.
Like I said before, if you honestly consider yourself to be part of a movement towards a better society, with your ignorant and hate filled postings... well you are living proof of why your proposed system has collapsed into misery every time it has been attempted. You don't want a better world, you feel powerless and you want more power at the expense of those who you perceive to have more power. Once you achieved power you wouldn't share it equally (it has *never* happened), you would oppress just as badly (historically, much more brutally) the people below you. A basic study of history would make this painfully evident to you, but it is obviously clear that you don't have even a basic knowledge of the systems you propose to change.
So again, what was the actual benefit to an oil company in starting a war?
Higher oil prices? They already had those with sanctions. If they wanted to get them higher, they just use their cartels.
More oil to exploit? With a destroyed infrastructure? It took almost a decade for Iraqi production to really start up again. Just get sanctions taken down.
Saddam was not playing ball? And they were sure that who went into power would? They could have just waited for Saddam to die and it would have taken less time.
Perhaps a multinational company could pull strings to start a war, but what was their motive? Being capable of an action doesn't make you guilty of it by default. Trade doesn't benefit from uncertainties, and war is one big uncertainty.
You're telling me that people you believe are diabolically intelligent would actually opt to start wars to improve their profit margins, when they could do that in a host of simpler and more effective ways. Ways, I might add, that they are masters of, because they know how to make craptons of money without having to use armies to extract it. It just doesn't really make any sense, unless you are determined to consider them just pure Chaotic Evil.
Look, I'm not a college professor, ok? That said, Hussein had nationalized oil production. If you know what that means, you should know what the "actual benefit" was. Taking a decade to start up again is far preferable to never having access. Saddam not playing ball and they're sure the other ruler would? Uh...absolutely sure. Hello, we took over the country. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they're sure. And again, even if there was that risk, it's better than no access at all. All this uncertainty you speak of doesn't really exist. The US practically owns the world, so US planners weren't too worried about losing their grip on an impoverished, but strategically necessary country.
Really?? I seriously doubt someone is going to blow a mod point on this comment, within mere minutes of you posting it.
You can't let your actual message speak for itself so you have to artificially inflate your score with duplicate accounts... well pathetic is as pathetic does and you just proved it!
Hey, oldspice, let's compare karma, shall we? Notice when I post, it's automatically 2. When you post, it's 1. Do you know what that means? Stupid fuck.
Uh how is wanting corporations to serve the people who work for them and the communites they exist in a "paradise"? What's wrong with YOU that someone who cares about actual PEOPLE (yeah, remember those) is "hate filled"? You're so full of hate and lies it's astounding. You're probably a fat slob, too. Jesus Christ, what a freak. Yeah, I'm AWFUL because I don't like seeing people that used to have decent lives totally stripped of their retirement, earnings and their fucking dignity. Get your priorities straight, you stupid fuck.
Honestly? All the oil mongering corporations had to do to get the oil was convince the UN to lift sanctions. It wouldn't have been that hard. No one else really wanted those sanctions anyway.
You know why we went to war? Because there is/was a neo-con belief that it was America's job to spread liberty and also that a war in the Middle East was inevitable anyway. They allowed themselves to become convinced that there were WMDs in Iraq and went after them.
Of course, Iraq fed into that perception because even though they had probably been destroyed by 2003, Saddam had played the brinksman game of trying to convince everyone he still had them. He did his job so well that no one listened when the Iraqis started to deny they had them.
That's what it was. Ideology and an idea that they were doing "the right thing". Look at other things where people believed that they were honestly trying to do the right thing and bloodbaths resulted. The French Revolution anyone? It doesn't require a global corporate conspiracy to start a war, although you can be sure they certainly did not stand in the way of it when it came time to sell their services.
You could blame the Military-Industrial complex, and I'd probably be more inclined to go for that, but I've never bought the idea that oil companies wanted to start a war in the middle of their resource areas. The chaos would keep production unavailable for years and destroy infrastructure that they would want to not have to rebuild to extract the oil later on. Building wells and terminals and pipelines is *expensive* and time consuming. You only fight a war over that stuff if you have no other option.
It's just not true that we went to war for anything other than our multinationals (defense, oil, etc and I should have mentioned the array of multinationals that benefitted and pushed hard for war). Sure, there may have been some people who pushed for war to "spread freedom", but the actual planners know why we went to war and it was to pay the piper. You know, the guys paying our politician's bills?
I bet you didn't. I bet your marginal tax rate was 28%, and I bet you paid an effective tax rate of 18-19%, which is about what you'd expect for a software engineer making about 110k per year.
Unless you actually made the ~$422,000 (single) or 575-600k (married/joint) required for you to have actually paid 28% *effective* tax rate.
What's that, you say? Effective income taxes are far lower than top marginal rate?! NO WAY!
At least you "bet" and don't claim to know. Kudos for that.
Slashdot Mirror
Personally, I wouldn't be real surprised. Realize that Israel does actively spy, and even spies on the US. http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE78645B20110907 The US actively watches for Israeli spies. I'm not sure why the rush to assume the guy's innocent. Even tyrannical dictators usually have their reasons. I doubt the arrest was terribly politically expedient and I don't know that the guy has anything Iran needs. The evidence may not be presented the way we're accustomed to in the US and the sentence might be harsh, but that doesn't mean the guy is totally clean, either. And personally, I don't trust Israel any more than I trust Iran. Both ridiculously crooked governments with crazy right-wing dictators.
The motivations might be:
Then only let people with super high karma edit their own posts. Or make it so that they can only "Add" to their posts.
But then what about your posts? ;-)
Unless Anon can call in an airstrike, or single-handedly cripple a first-world nation's financial system, they don't know what "power" is. Big talk from a guy in hiding.
Yeah the only thing that can cripple a first world financial system is a first world financial system.
you must be at lest 3 years old, your UID and the manner, in which you express yourself. Shouldn't you put 'are too' in there?
This thread - place where you don't belong, you need to go home and watch teleboobbies, or whatever they brainwash kids with nowadays.
Don't pretend to know something about which you know nothing. I guarantee, you've not put more than 15 minutes into studying the political shenanigans that are destroying the USPS, if you think it's fucking stamp prices. You sit back and armchair criticize a poster, who clearly has a decent grasp of the issue, and you're really just a know nothing. I'm embarrassed for you. You're no different than a Teabagger. An ignorant, loud mouthed schmuck (the three always go together). The best thing intellectually lazy and uninformed people can do, is shut the fuck up.
The Unions are the problem that stop advancement.
They are more interested in protecting their jobs, than making changes that help the students (such as firing bad teachers, or eliminating permanent employment via tenure). You can see the excellent ABC 20/20 documentary called "Stupid in America" on youtube. There's also a sequel produced for FOX which updates the older 20/20 report. And then a "part 3" sequel to the sequel.
Yeah, I can see you get your thinking from ABC and FOX.
You are in a thread, where I am replying to this comment:
So, just for clarity let's make sure everyone understands that the USPS is being deliberately engineered to fail by the same vandals and saboteurs who are deliberately engineering our economy to fail.
So you are the moron here.
That you bother commenting on issues you clearly don't understand makes you the moron, moron.
No, that's not the reason.
The real reason is that the price of stamps is mandated by the government, and since the government is doing everything it can to pretend that the inflation is low, they won't allow USPS to raise the prices to be able to survive.
Yeah, it's all about stamp prices. Real weighty addition to the thread, moron.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/02-0
YOU posted this? This is exactly, if you can read between the lines, everything I ever say that you're constantly bashing, yet you post this. You're such a fat stupid fuck.
Can someone explain to me why "vandals and saboteurs" are deliberately crashing the system?
I mean are these Chinese infiltrators or what? Otherwise I can't see a reason unless someone is making a profit (not sure what that has to do with pensions though).
Sure, I'll explain it. Because business interests almost fully control the Republicans and Democrats and don't like any nationalized services or social services. It was decided in the 70s that social programs couldn't be destoryed in legislation, due to popular outcry, so they'd create so much debt for the county that it would be impossible to fund national programs that benefit people. http://thefbm.com/2012/04/16/starving-the-beast/
Next time a holier than thou Canadian is on slashdot bashing the US. Yeah, Canadians elect idiots, too and let tyrannical laws pass.
As a side note, we have a statue of Lenin right here in Seattle. I walk by it while at the farmer's market every week. It's a reflection of Seattle's crypto-leninist leanings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Lenin,_Seattle
Unless you are gay or are performing abortions... Ok, actually not even then at least mostly. There used to be a time when Islamic countries where the sanctuaries of science and enlightenment whereas christian Europe made an excursion into a dark age that would make even the Taliban shudder with disgust.
It's a lot easier to fall into ignorance when knowledge is dificult to obtain; held by priestly castes. What's Islam's excuse today? It takes real discipline and conscious supression of critical thinking to avoid the obvious these days. Even just 100 years ago, ignorance was much easier. Oh, and btw, if you're gay or need healthcare, you might not be so glib.
Well he assumes it won't be a flying car. Automatic system on airline have saved a hell of a lot of lives.
How is his idea any different then using blind people to test driverless cars with?
It isn't.
You comparison is bad, and you should feel bad.
Do you ever have ideas of your own, or are you just on here to 1) personally attack people 2) ask questions that there are no firm answers to? .
Can't help but notice your posts are almost always (very) short, shallow replies to what other people have said (criticizing them) and that's a pretty easy thing to do. What's more difficult, but more rewarding, is thinking for yourself, doing your own research and making a fresh post OF YOUR OWN thoughts. You're just an internet TROLL, plain and simple. It's intellectually lazy (assuming you have some intellect, altnough I haven't seen much sign of this) to armchair criticize others.
In the US you've got a society that's designed from the ground up to benefit big business. The US is also unquestionably the most powerful country on earth and (practically) owns the world. The US is also one of the most open societies in the world and one of the largest, geographically. The predominant school of thought among social engineers and social planners in the US, is that the population must be highly indoctrinated (and the US population IS higly indoctrinated). The Netherlands really only compares to the US in the openness of its society. Given those facts, you can't compare the US and Dutch people. If you think those facts shouldn't affect people's socilization, you're just not giving the subject enough thought. One example, and this will be a tad controversial; there's a reason the Netherlands enjoy ten political parties and the US has only two (that are basically the same party); What the people of the Netherlands think doesn't matter outside of the Netherlands. What the people in the US think matters a lot.
UM No we, USA have not owned the world in a long time. Last I checked we own China like 30 Trillion dollars or something ridiculous like that. I don't think we own shit anymore. u
It's funny that you think it's all about money. Nope. In the end, people with power understand one thing: Violence. Who can unleash the more violence than anybody? The US. Money is a spoil gained by war, it's not the means, it's an end. Violence is the means.
...I'm not so sure it's well understood what causes an morbidly obese person to all of a sudden become an athelete.
You said you didn't see him for "a couple of years". That's not "all of a sudden". It's not about being a "natural athlete", it's about making a choice, taking responsibility for yourself and just doing what needs to be done. You spent 30 seconds forming that hypothesis in 2004, and in 8 years you haven't managed to improved on it. Who's the dumbass?
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I said he all of a sudden became an athlete, not he all of a sudden became thin. And he did all of a sudden become an athlete. I haven't managed to improve on it, becuase I don't sit around thinking about fat people. I go to yoga twice a week, bike, eat right and don't drink. Theories about why fat people become athletic don't preoccupy my mind. Maybe you rack your brain over it. Maybe you should work in sales at 24 hour fitness.
My Apologies, I'm not familiar with the inner workings of this website, I only casually use it... don't really know what "karma" is, nor do I really care (this is a website, not real life, I hope you don't base too much of your self worth on the karma level of your slashdot account or the opinions of internet strangers). That said, you are a sad piece of work, and I expect in real life you're not nearly as tough as you are on the internet. So internet warrior, continue your crusade of uselessness, spouting idiotic platitudes about your idyllic society. Like I said before, if you honestly consider yourself to be part of a movement towards a better society, with your ignorant and hate filled postings... well you are living proof of why your proposed system has collapsed into misery every time it has been attempted. You don't want a better world, you feel powerless and you want more power at the expense of those who you perceive to have more power. Once you achieved power you wouldn't share it equally (it has *never* happened), you would oppress just as badly (historically, much more brutally) the people below you. A basic study of history would make this painfully evident to you, but it is obviously clear that you don't have even a basic knowledge of the systems you propose to change.
Tootles!
So again, what was the actual benefit to an oil company in starting a war?
Higher oil prices? They already had those with sanctions. If they wanted to get them higher, they just use their cartels.
More oil to exploit? With a destroyed infrastructure? It took almost a decade for Iraqi production to really start up again. Just get sanctions taken down.
Saddam was not playing ball? And they were sure that who went into power would? They could have just waited for Saddam to die and it would have taken less time.
Perhaps a multinational company could pull strings to start a war, but what was their motive? Being capable of an action doesn't make you guilty of it by default. Trade doesn't benefit from uncertainties, and war is one big uncertainty.
You're telling me that people you believe are diabolically intelligent would actually opt to start wars to improve their profit margins, when they could do that in a host of simpler and more effective ways. Ways, I might add, that they are masters of, because they know how to make craptons of money without having to use armies to extract it. It just doesn't really make any sense, unless you are determined to consider them just pure Chaotic Evil.
Look, I'm not a college professor, ok? That said, Hussein had nationalized oil production. If you know what that means, you should know what the "actual benefit" was. Taking a decade to start up again is far preferable to never having access. Saddam not playing ball and they're sure the other ruler would? Uh...absolutely sure. Hello, we took over the country. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they're sure. And again, even if there was that risk, it's better than no access at all. All this uncertainty you speak of doesn't really exist. The US practically owns the world, so US planners weren't too worried about losing their grip on an impoverished, but strategically necessary country.
Really?? I seriously doubt someone is going to blow a mod point on this comment, within mere minutes of you posting it. You can't let your actual message speak for itself so you have to artificially inflate your score with duplicate accounts... well pathetic is as pathetic does and you just proved it!
Hey, oldspice, let's compare karma, shall we? Notice when I post, it's automatically 2. When you post, it's 1. Do you know what that means? Stupid fuck.
Uh how is wanting corporations to serve the people who work for them and the communites they exist in a "paradise"? What's wrong with YOU that someone who cares about actual PEOPLE (yeah, remember those) is "hate filled"? You're so full of hate and lies it's astounding. You're probably a fat slob, too. Jesus Christ, what a freak. Yeah, I'm AWFUL because I don't like seeing people that used to have decent lives totally stripped of their retirement, earnings and their fucking dignity. Get your priorities straight, you stupid fuck.
Honestly? All the oil mongering corporations had to do to get the oil was convince the UN to lift sanctions. It wouldn't have been that hard. No one else really wanted those sanctions anyway.
You know why we went to war? Because there is/was a neo-con belief that it was America's job to spread liberty and also that a war in the Middle East was inevitable anyway. They allowed themselves to become convinced that there were WMDs in Iraq and went after them.
Of course, Iraq fed into that perception because even though they had probably been destroyed by 2003, Saddam had played the brinksman game of trying to convince everyone he still had them. He did his job so well that no one listened when the Iraqis started to deny they had them.
That's what it was. Ideology and an idea that they were doing "the right thing". Look at other things where people believed that they were honestly trying to do the right thing and bloodbaths resulted. The French Revolution anyone? It doesn't require a global corporate conspiracy to start a war, although you can be sure they certainly did not stand in the way of it when it came time to sell their services.
You could blame the Military-Industrial complex, and I'd probably be more inclined to go for that, but I've never bought the idea that oil companies wanted to start a war in the middle of their resource areas. The chaos would keep production unavailable for years and destroy infrastructure that they would want to not have to rebuild to extract the oil later on. Building wells and terminals and pipelines is *expensive* and time consuming. You only fight a war over that stuff if you have no other option.
It's just not true that we went to war for anything other than our multinationals (defense, oil, etc and I should have mentioned the array of multinationals that benefitted and pushed hard for war). Sure, there may have been some people who pushed for war to "spread freedom", but the actual planners know why we went to war and it was to pay the piper. You know, the guys paying our politician's bills?
I also think that all corproations should be worker controlled,
s/corproations/coprorations/g
There, FTFY
Grow up
Your "I've seen some good arguments" is about as compelling as "that's a bunch of bull"... Real well documented.
I bet you didn't. I bet your marginal tax rate was 28%, and I bet you paid an effective tax rate of 18-19%, which is about what you'd expect for a software engineer making about 110k per year.
Unless you actually made the ~$422,000 (single) or 575-600k (married/joint) required for you to have actually paid 28% *effective* tax rate.
What's that, you say? Effective income taxes are far lower than top marginal rate?! NO WAY!
At least you "bet" and don't claim to know. Kudos for that.
Is 24% close enough? http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2842145&cid=39958777
Truthfully, I was expecting it to be about half that.