The protective covering of floating ice that has shielded the Arctic Ocean from solar heating for so long is now going fast, and we will probably see an ice-free Arctic Ocean in the August-September period as early as the 2020s. Mercifully, this is the smallest of the three major feedbacks in terms of its impact – but it triggers a bigger one.
The warmer air and water in the Arctic then starts to melt the permanently frozen ground and coastal seabed (permafrost) that extends over more than ten million square km. (3 million sq. mi.) of territory, a considerably larger area than Australia. This melting releases a huge amount of methane that has been locked into the ground for millions of years. Methane is a far more effective warming agent than carbon dioxide, and so we spin closer to runaway.
[...]
Those are the killer feedbacks. Earth has lurched suddenly into a climate 5-6 degrees C higher than now a number of times in the past. The original warming usually came from massive, long-lasting volcanic eruptions that put a large amount of CO2 into the atmosphere – but in every case it was feedbacks like these that carried the planet up into a temperature regime where there was a massive dieback of animals and plants.
Considering we're already experiencing major extinctions I'm not sure I want to stack ecological disasters.
I'd rather say "understandably" or "unexpectedly", because the Libyan government has every right to be pissed off.
What happens when an elite Iraqi commando enters the US and "arrests" prominent terrorist and war criminal Donald Rumsfeld, killing 15 secret service agents in the process?
The way it's written, this is an insulting propaganda piece.
A better metaphor would be Cuban commandos entering the US to arrest Luis Posada Carriles who committed a bunch of terrorist bombings in Cuba with support from the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) and had some interactions with the CIA.
No one claims that Abu Anas ab Libi was a past or present member of the Libyan government, but he did have supporters in the Government and it's not certain how anxious they were to arrest him themselves.
The Somalia situation is a little different as I think the Somalia government still has trouble controlling portions of the country so foreign countries get a little more latitude in going in and carrying out policing operations within their borders, however the US probably has some kind of understanding with Somalia.
According to the article the project has been behind schedule for a while:
Earlier this year the U.S. Government Accountability Office criticized the pace of development and testing for Healthcare.gov.'s IT system and noted that it was missing important milestone deadlines.
This is worrying as it suggests this isn't the case of a few glitches and poor load testing, the project might simply not be done.
In defence of CGI (since I'm Canadian and will reflexively look for excuses for my cultural brethren) it's not uncommon for software projects to miss launch dates, they just seem to be in the unfortunate position of having to launch anyways. The other excuse is that their requirements exploded when 34 states refused to join ObamaCare and had to be handled by the Federal exchange.
All the news stories have been about "which political party should we blame."
You want to know who to blame? All of the twits who have been cheering on "their team" while this has been going on, instead of pressuring their representatives to do their job. The members of Congress -- in both major parties -- feel no pressure to actually resolve the situation, because they've managed to trick their supporters in the media into giving them a pass while they wasted time instead of actually trying to come up with a solution that has a chance of working.
"Sure he shouldn't have strapped a bomb to his chest. But the hostage negotiator should have worked harder to get him the money in the vault, so really they're both to blame for the explosion."
They might end up overrating shows like Honey BooBoo or Jersey Shore that end up as targets for mockery, but in general people just ignore shows they don't watch.
I think the risk with this system is they need a very good understanding of the show's demographic to understand the numbers since a lot of people post nothing about the shows they watch while others blab about everything.
They also need to understand why people are posting. People talked about Breaking Bad a lot because it was so good, and they also talked about Dexter because it got so bad. When good shows drop in quality hard core fans stick around but start to complain. So you could conceivably get an uptick in chatter that instead of signalling a rise in ratings actually precedes a drop in ratings.
First rule is get rid of the midichlorians and get an alternate explanation for the Force. That's something that could actually be explored in the first movie.
Han Solo finds a strange artifact that turns out to be a communication device which puts him in contact with an enigmatic race of time travellers. These time travellers lead Han Solo and a group of adventurers to a distant planet from far in the future. But during the time jump the Millennium Falcon is severely damaged and starts to plummet towards the planet below. But as they fall Luke Skywalker senses an extraordinary Force presence, and the Millennium Falcon is no longer falling but is being pulled, pulled by a mysterious large figure standing on the beach of an island...
I'm not sure how that's relevant. Dzamba invented the cricket reactor and created a business plan using it.
What the Hult team did is take that invention (and probably parts of the business plan), make some additions and/or changes, and entered it into the competition. No one claims they had any part in inventing the original cricket reactor.
What we don't know is how much of the prize was due to the work they did on the business plan, I think the product is the important thing but like everyone else here I'm a tech person. You can't just walk into a famine with an invention and help people, you need a business plan to make the idea do something. Perhaps these guys really did an amazing job and could have won with almost any idea in the competition instead of the reactor.
Of course, even if they did legitimately deserve the credit for the prize they still broke their agreement to include him as a partner.
Insurance companies are in the business to make money.
If an insurance company can convince people that the threat is greater, then they can raise rate above their expected coverage amount and therefore make even more money.
Disaster Insurance companies are not altruistic. If I were an Insurance Company, I would wholeheartedly support the Global Warming crowd, for it creates fear of disaster, and fear is what drives you to buy insurance.
Not realizing the profit motive is ironic.
If insurance companies were talking up global warming but not raising rates you'd have a point.
But they are raising rates, which means they do believe AGW, because if they didn't they'd charge less to undercut by the other insurance companies and make more profit. It's the absolutely most trivial application of economics.
Is anyone else basking in the irony of all these pro-business AGW denialists suddenly trying to come up with excuses for why the market disagrees with them?
You don't need regulation for anything, market forces keep companies honest and well behaved!! Except now... because insurance companies are somehow able to charge unnecessarily high premiums without being undercut by a competitor, or the government is making them overcharge or something...
The market is right, unless is disagrees with you, and then it's wrong.
Problem is prescription drugs aren't safe. More people OD on prescription drugs than street drugs, or course there's probably more opioid prescription drug users than street drug users but it's still a major issue.
I'm not sure I like the DEA doing this but prescription drug abuse is definitely a legitimate problem.
That's a self-sustaining mechanism of the Slashdot hivemind.
Despite our best wishes to the contrary, Slashdotters are terribly biased humans. We just know what's right, because we are all of such high intelligence and scientific mind, so we are blind to our own biases. Of course, anyone who agrees with us is probably coming to the same conclusion only because they are smart and rational, too... so we should mod them up, of course, for being such a fine, upstanding Slashdotter like ourselves. Should we then ever need to examine our own judgement, we have the karma system and our comment history showing that we were modded up, reinforcing the consensus regardless of truth.
This is painfully obvious on any thread concerning law, privacy, Big Data, religion, or economics. The hivemind has made up its mind on most aspects of these matters, so any comment parroting the approved opinion will be modded up, while any comment that opposes will be modded down, regardless of fact.
There's certainly a group think bias but it doesn't affect thoughtful measured comments pushing the debate that much. I think the bias really shows up when it comes to cheerleading. ie a joke about the Catholic church can do pretty well but a joke about atheists is going to fall flat.
A system I've seen work well elsewhere is to have admin-promoted "top comments" for each story, where the admins doing the selection are encouraged to pick comments that are relevant, accurate, and unusual. a dozen comments repeating the same sentiment won't be picked, but one that puts forth a well-reasoned argument to the contrary is more likely.
Slashdot actually tried this a few years back (think they called is slashback), I remember because one of my comments was selected for the very first story where they tried it! I think the problem with this model is it required a lot of extra admin work to pick out the handful of brilliant gems by exceptionally gifted and attractive commenters.
I think threads + moderation is the key, but for some reason a lot of sites seem to hate threads and I can't imagine why, not only do no threads make the discussions unreadable but it seems to turn the threads into cesspools. Any admins care to weigh in?
Yeah, Edison profited off the research of his students, and everyone around him......a bad example to be used if they want to prove patents are useful.
And an even worse example if you want to show that NPEs are useful today. That fact that independent inventors were useful a century ago is irrelevant. They play very little role in modern innovation. Many companies refuse to even talk to independent inventors, because knowledge of their patents can expose the company to liability. What most NPEs do is sit on the patent and wait for someone to independently come up with the same innovation, and then demand payment. They are just parasites.
You've also got a different marketplace, the mp3 player invention existed for a while before Apple showed up, what Apple brought to the table was intense refinement of the concept and figuring out the product ecosystem and way to sell it. Similarly everyone saw smart phones coming for years, but only a handful of companies were in a position to actually in a position to actually execute it. I think the technology ecosystem is too intertwined for someone to simply build a better lightbulb and have someone else sell it as a finished product.
Of course there might still be some big NPEs doing good work that we don't recognize because their logo isn't on the product.
Assad is a dictator would be a statement of fact. Assad is a "brutal" dictator is an ad hominem. If you wish to expand on the fact that he is a dictator and provide a separate opinion of him being "brutal" that would be different. As it was presented it was ad hominem. The same would be said with "Assad winning is a horrible outcome." The word horrible is not factual and not a backed opinion. Therefor it is an ad hominem. As I mentioned when I first requested you drop the ad hominem, their use is often subtle and used without much thought because other people (media) do so. Pay attention to the statement "without much thought".
It wasn't without much thought, it wasn't even stated without justification.
Before you even showed up I referred to him "Brutalizing the opposition into violent revolt", and the comment that drew you in specifically referenced him torturing people (including children) to death, and shooting protesters before the protests turned violent. I clearly justified my position that in his reactions to the Arab Spring Assad wasn't just a dictator, he was a brutal dictator. So I strenuously challenge your assertion that it was an Ad hominen because I definitely 'provide[d] a separate opinion of him being "brutal"'.
As for Assad being a horrible outcome, I think it's a given that a) Assad has established himself as a brutal dictator, and b) a dictator reestablishing himself after a bloody sectarian civil war virtually never has a good outcome, c) as a principal we don't like dictators violently suppressing opposition to win (particularly when they instigated the violence) because it gives other dictators really bad incentives..
To Clark's list, every country on the list he provided except for Iran has been impacted. Some with full overthrow (Egypt/Libya) and others on the verge (Syria).
Look at the damn list. Of course they were, every country in the middle east was impacted!!
Lets review the 6 non-invaded: Sryria, Libya: Civil war Sudan: Major ongoing protests Lebanon, Somalia, and Iran: Minor and short term protests
And you know what, Saudi Arabia The fact a) you actually
You claimed that Saudi Arabia and Turkey were not as bad as Syria, I showed that this was not true. Now you claim that Turkey was a model? For what, a non revolution while remaining a tyrannical state which abuses both protestors and journalists? Outside of what media presents you, there is no difference between living in Syria and Turkey or Syria and Saudi Arabia.
I'm going to step back and give you a moment to reevaluate "Saudi Arabia and Turkey were not as bad as Syria, I showed that this was not true" [...] "there is no difference between living in Syria and Turkey or Syria and Saudi Arabia". Because if you were even considering comparing life in Turkey (or even Syria) to life in Saudi Arabia... I'm going to have an insulting reply.
Yet somehow the allies of the US remain unscathed in revolution and protest.
You also missed Iraq and Afghanistan on Clark's comments.
Except of course for the major Arab ally, Egypt.
Again, all you showed is that the Bush Administration wanted to intervene against a bunch of Middle East dictatorships, then a decade later the entire Middle East goes through a wave of protests, and the countries most affected are a mostly different list of Middle East dictatorships.
First, I gave the link to Clark's statements. If you don't review the evidence how can you perceive to speak rationally on the subject? On a similar track, I gave a link to an exceptional book which you deny any desire to read. If you deny evidence that provides a clear and concise opinion differing from yours and refuse to review evidence, I can only assume that you wish to maintain your belief regardless of how irrational that belief may be.
Second, you ignore the point I made. How is it that certain countries had revolts and others did not? If you wish to maintain that it was all coincidence, you are not looking very closely at reality.
Well I actually explained why some countries might have revolted and others didn't (based on the characteristics of those countries) but I'll humour you and look at the list of countries Clark listed.
Iraq, Sryria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.
According to wikipedia governments were overthrown in
"Tunisia, Egypt (twice), Libya, and Yemen; civil uprisings have erupted in Bahrain and Syria; major protests have broken out in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, and Sudan;"
So of your 6 countries that Clark listed that the US hadn't invaded only 2 are actually at risk of an overthrow and only one other had major protests. Lebanon, Iran, and Somalia are all relatively unaffected.
So I actually agree, it wasn't a coincidence because the two lists aren't similar enough to be considered a coincidence!
I have actually studied rhetoric and Philosophy for over 30 years, I know very well the definition and use of ad hominem. Claiming a person is "horrible" or "brutal" is easily within the definition and practice. A single semester in a University should make this abundantly clear, however most people today are content with reading a definition on Wiki and believing that they know how something works. Obviously that is not true, and perhaps you are not "most people". That said, your belief that it is not ad hominem is absolutely wrong.
I disagree on the basis that ad hominem is a fallacy and my point was completely valid. How was I making a fallacy? You made a statement that included "I won't claim Assad is good" and argued that we shouldn't bomb Syria, I followed with a statement that included "Assad is a bastard" and agreed that we shouldn't bomb Syria. The only difference in our statements is I indicted Assad in stronger terms, and I implied that Assad's badness could be a motive for bombing his regime but I didn't think they should do it.
I'm not sure you know much about Turkey. I have seen first hand thieves get their hands beaten with iron rods until they were permanently crippled, and people get eyes burned out for looking at women. You speculate because of what you hear, not because of what is real. There is plenty of evidence to show how Turkey jails journalists and protestors, and has for decades (just like Saudi Arabia). Turkey claims to be a democracy just like Saudi Arabia claims to be a monarchy. Both are tyrannical states just like most in the middle east that suffered revolts. There is no rational way of thinking that those two countries should escape revolution if in fact all of the middle east revolutions are due to a fed up populace. They are not however listed in Clark's commentary which precedes the revolts.
I said mostly democratic, they still have issues but they have properly counted elections with power transfers. I don't deny the major human rights issues and they've had their own protests but a lot of the protesters were probably looking to Turkey as a model of what they wanted. So it's pretty disingenuous to say "There is no rational way of thinking that those two countries should escape revolution if in fact all of the middle east revolutions are due to a fed up populace" when the difference are quite obvious.
Plenty of evidence to the contrary on this one. In my opinion to claim it's all coincidence is foolish. Especially when you see specific patterns, such as the revolutions occurring in the exact countries where Clark was speaking of. Meanwhile, other more abusive (Saudi Arabia) countries are unscathed. There are way to many "coincidences" here to be just that.
So the Arabs weren't capable of having spontaneous revolutions on their own? I can't remember the full list of countries that Clark spoke of, but maybe they chose those countries because they had non-allied dictators and populations ripe for revolution, just the kind of countries that might take part in the Arab spring. One of the reasons the Saudi's were unaffected is because the group in power is not only the huge majority Sunni, but the very strict Wahabbi sect that extremists usually embrace. ie The extremists didn't revolt in Saudi Arabia because they were already in charge.
And how do you explain Egypt? I'm pretty sure that wasn't in the Clark list and the US, particularly the people whom made the list, were sure worried when Mubarek was going down.
The US is currently bombing 5 countries in the Middle East in the open. Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan. We bombed Libya, Ethiopia, Kenya and a few others on whims. All of this under Obama. Your implication that he is trying for peace denies facts and actions. The US was booted out of Iraq after 11 years of occupation. Obama was trying to renew the "peace keeping" role and Iraq refused. Afghanistan will remain a "peace keeping" operation for as long as possible, just like Iraq.
You mean drone strikes? It's dishonest to count the drone strikes under both drone strikes and warfare. And I don't think Obama was trying as hard as you think to stay in Iraq. He wanted a lasting role and bases but didn't want to continue active military operations.
Ad hominem is something we tend to do without much thought. You claimed Assad would be a horrible outcome (rough quote). That is an ad hominem whether you realize it or not. Additionally, you claim contrary to historical evidence that he is a "brutal dictator".
Where you and I differ is that I don't suppose Assad to be a good guy or a bad guy. I look at what history shows he did in Syria and come to a pretty neutral opinion. He is not worse than Saudi Arabian rulers, or Turkey's rulers. He's not better than the Israeli theocracy either.
Trying to pain him in a specific light and repeating propaganda does not help determine what really happened or what's really for the best.
I think you need to look up the definition of Ad hominem. And during peace he was fairly permissive in outside of politics, but his reactions to the protests fit the profile or brutal dictator quite well.
And he's better than the Saudi rulers but definitely worse than Turkey's rulers, you do realize Turkey is mostly a democracy right?
As for the Israeli comparison, Israel is guilty of some pretty abhorrent actions and policies, but in a completely different way than Assad. Israel is a democracy occupying and colonizing another country, it's bad, but a completely different kind of bad.
f you only show half of the issue, it at least implies that Assad is the only thing wrong. Our media and politicians are painting this same exact picture. The "horrible" is a matter of your opinion and not necessarily factual or historically correct when it comes to Syria. Lets ask a couple pertinent questions related specifically to the Wesley Clark statements.
Well the origin was my claim that violent revolutions weren't that effective or nice, and comparing Syria and Libya to the rest of the Arab spring as Evidence. Then I attacked Assad because someone replied that Assad was a nice guy who's people only revolted because of western interference.
1. What triggered a sudden change in 8 middle east counties all having sudden revolutions?
You could claim "Dictator", but lets ask then why is Saudi Arabia and Turkey are the only large nations immune to this? You might claim "brutality" but again you are forced to ignore that Saudi Arabia and Turkey are immune to public scrutiny and are at least as brutal as Assad. You are also ignoring Qatar and Egypt that are backed by the US and NATO (hence Canada). You could claim Religious leadership, but then you ignore every country in the Middle East including Israel. Something else must be going on.
The Arab Spring was a cultural phenomena. Don't know exactly why the Saudi's had no major uprising but Turkey was already democratic. People were protesting against repressive governments, they're all different countries so I'm not surprised that the revolutions took off in some or barely started in others. I'm not sure what you're actually suggesting.
You are claiming that the Muslim Brotherhood is "new" in Syria and only showed up after the protests? If so, that is absolutely wrong and completely distorted. Assad has been fighting terrorists in his own country for decades with that name. The name "FSA" is new, but are the players any different than what Assad had been previously fighting?
Now, if you check the above and find I'm correct then your assumption that Assad is torturing and killing non-violent protesters is plain old wrong.
I'm claiming that additional Islamist fighters started entering once the confrontation turned violent, and the ones in Syria turned more extreme. I don't know if their arrival coincided with the start of violence, or was a reaction to the escalated violence, but the origin of the revolution was mostly secular.
If a person behaves differently than their rhetoric, they are a liar. If Obama's actions are no different than Bush, then he is the same warmonger. Black ops and corporate mercenaries have increased as have clandestine drone attacks. So Obama is more of a warmonger than Bush when you take away his lies. I do remember how bad Bush was, both of them in fact. I also remember how bad the last 40 years of presidents have been on domestic policy.
Well Obama is ending the two major wars Bush started. Bombed, but didn't invade Libya, and might not even bomb Syria now. If you want to get Obama than realize he's fundamentally a pragmatist, he doesn't want war but can be pushed into one.
We agree on the first part, but that's not what you started with.
Well no, it is where I started, you just assumed because I argued the obvious fact that Assad is a bad guy I might be in favour of the bombing strike.
The middle is a matter of opinion that I don't agree with. Ad hominem attacks are not true "because" and historically and politically I can't say I agree. Col Gaddafi was a prick in the past, Assad is nothing like him. The last part of that I agree with. Killing more innocents is not justification for someone killing innocents. It's a hypocrisy.
If you have never read Gary Allen "None Dare Call it Conspiracy" I will highly recommend that you do. It's a brief read and should be free for most e-readers. That book should shed s
Bull, go back and read what you said. You specifically called out children being killed as an appeal to emotion. Same crap propaganda media is doing, think before you write. If you wish to claim innocent deaths, make sure that you include all of the innocents killed by the rebels in your examples. They have been slaughtering Christian's and Jews, ransacking and desecrating temples and churches too. It's not one side that's a bad guy, so your view is extremely distorted and one sided.
I know what I said, Assad escalated the situation by killing children among other things, it wasn't an appeal to your emotion, it was explaining how he appealed to the rebels emotion to either crush the peaceful protests or create a violent uprising he could really crush.
And I never claimed Assad was the only bad guy, at this point him retaining power might be the least horrible outcome.
The point is that it is very possible that Assad never changed from when he was friendly to the west. Fighting a sudden surge of armed terrorists in your own country makes you obviously behave differently, but is it genuine to think that his philosophy changed overnight? I find it more possible that our media after successfully toppling other countries in the region changed their spin on Assad and Syria. Call it a draw if you wish, but it's nonsense to ignore facts and history.
The terrorists showed up when the conflict escalated. I don't doubt Assad didn't change, when things were good he tried to be a good dictator by western standards, when he was exposed to a serious threat to his power he reacted with a brutal suppression. And we might be watching different media as I follow a lot of non-MSM, but for me Assad became a bad guy after a lengthy period of torture and killings against non-violent protesters.
Obama is no different than Bush, except in rhetoric and his rhetoric does not match his actions. The Patriot act was renewed not renounced. Wars have gone clandestine, not stopped. Gitmo was not closed, no bankers went on trial, etc.. etc.. The guy has been caught lying more than any other US President in history. He bold faced lied 3 days before the NSA story broke and told you he did not allow spying on Citizens. Google search that one, no citation is necessary. There are web sited dedicated to just tallying up all of his lies.
I think you're misremembering how bad Bush was. I know all about Obama's lies along with lack of torture prosecutions, abuse of state secrets act, etc. But he's definitely not the warmonger Bush was. And I'm not sure how he's escalated clandestine wars aside from the increased drone strikes.
You have not done much in the way of research, sorry. I won't claim Assad is good, but quite frankly it's none of our business what we think of him. What we plan to put in his place matches what we did to Libya, and that country is just fucked right? Syria is it's own nation, just like Russia and China. The Feds may not like Putin either, but it's not like they should just start bombing Russia to get him out of office (and in fact it is illegal to do so).
Where did I say we should intervene in Syria? I never said that. Assad is a bastard but I don't see how we (well you, I'm Canadian) can do anything to fix that situation. US bombing is almost certain to make things worse.
First, save the "for the children" fallacy arguments that US politicians spew. Death of innocents is just that.
You missed the point. My argument wasn't "destroy Assad he's killing the children!!", I was pointing out that the revolution turned violent in part because Assad incited the population by torturing kids to death.
Second, there is a whole lot of information backing the claims you responded to. Did you see how John Kerry a few years ago was at a nice party with Assad? Back 3 years ago, Syria was known as the most progressive nation in the Middle East and a "good guy". Syria allowed women to drive and work, had no Sharia courts or Sharia laws. Syria minded their own business and did it very well.
Yes. Assad was a nice western educated guy and before things got serious he seemed to be doing a good job. So what? Do you think he's just a misunderstood nice guy? Do you think the entire war is a conspiracy? What's the point?
Listen to what Wesley Clark says here.
Yeah the Bush administration were warmongers who went into Iraq for no good reason, made a strong push to go into Iran, and basically wanted to invade the whole middle east and implement democracy by force.
What does this have to do with what's happening now? For all Obama's flaws he's not that style of neocon.
Do some research on the subject if you dare. I have no confidence that you will, but don't denounce people with a different opinion with ad hominem. There are plenty of facts countering your position. No, I'm not going to condense a year worth of reading into a list of citations for you. One citation is enough to get you started.
Well I have done research, and you haven't even provided a single relevant citation or argument. You think Wesley Clark talking about the plan of a completely disgraced administration from over a decade ago means the leader of the other party who ran as Bush's opposite is going to do the same thing??
I mean what is your actual argument. You've thrown out some weird conspiracy theories but I don't even know what your point is. Assad is really a good guy? Assad is a bad guy but we're already waging the war to get rid of him? What?
Assad didn't brutalise the opposition, the simple fact of the matter is that he has overwhelming majority support.
What are you talking about? Syria had the same setup as Iraq, a Shia dictator ruling over a Sunni majority, Assad was popular for that setup but "overwhelming majority support" is just plain wrong.
The people that are fucking his country up are demonstrably foreign mercenaries in the pay of Britain, the United States, France, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar.
sources: plenty of contacts on the ground who are living it, not the BBC, Fox, CNN or Reuters. What they aren't showing is buzzcut ex-army regulars using CIA terminology and training to great effect while passing instructions to each other in English, French, and Turkish. Why? Because it not only doesn't suit the agenda (whatever that might be) of those with plausible interests in the region, it would in fact further damage already salted international relations.
I call BS. Maybe you're reading some conspiracy nuts claiming a bunch of "reports from real Syrians" but they're either being duped by pro-Assad activists (kinda ironic) or just wrong. There's lots of news from real Syrians, youtube videos, twitter accounts, blogs, and no evidence of these foreign mercenaries.
After the protests started Assad would take people, sometimes kids, brutally tortured them to death, then returned them home. Everything was still peaceful so there was probably pressure from inside the party for him to step down or reform so things didn't degenerate. He kept torturing and shooting people until the opposition started fighting back. As the fighting spread Islamists started to enter the game in a big way, the Christians and other minorities who were either on the fence or sympathetic to the protesters went to Assad because they've seen what happens to minorities in Iraq when the repressed Sunni majority takes power after a civil war.
And I don't know what you mean about "events of a mere seventy years ago in Eastern Europe". Some other conspiracy theory?
Because the Arab spring protests that stayed non-violent had better outcomes than the ones that turned violent. Brutalizing the opposition into violent revolt and civil war is probably the reason why Assad is still in power.
Hmm, looks at the Canadian quarter in his pocket. Ah...the queen.
Just saying...
And she does diddly squat, we might toss out the monarchy entirely when she dies though frankly we don't really care. We're still just as free and independent as you.
Oh, and a large part of why the British Empire states are free today is BECAUSE America rebelled. It was a costly Vietnam type war for the British. The British citizens didn't want to be on the side of the ethics battle. And oh, yeah, we kind bailed out our British friends in two World Wars.
I'm sure that played a factor, but I suspect it was also the fact the colony simply became developed enough to govern itself and by that time the Brits weren't comfortable ruling a bunch of other English speaking white people as a colony.
Unless you're in a movie violence against a government is rarely an effective strategy.
And yet here we are, free men and women, subjects of no Crown.
Congrats, with a violent revolution you achieved the same level of freedom that we have in Canada, Australia, India, and pretty much the rest of the Commonwealth.
Note I said it's rarely an effective strategy, I'm sure you've heard of agent provocateurs? If violent resistance is so effective why do governments try to create it so often?
In the most recent example the main reason why Assad was able to survive the Arab Spring was he brutalized the peaceful opposition until they turned violent. Once that happened everyone who wasn't a Sunni became scared of what the now violent Sunnis would do if they gained power. So they threw in with Assad and gave him a base. In Libya the rebels won the war (partly because there wasn't the same Shia/Sunni situation) but the aftermath is still pretty chaotic and messy. If you think taking up arms against the US government, successful or not, would result in anything but a disaster, you're delusional.
Violence can solve problems, but only in messiest and most horrific way possible.
Slashdot Mirror
Antarctica is one of the major feedbacks:
[...]
Considering we're already experiencing major extinctions I'm not sure I want to stack ecological disasters.
I'd rather say "understandably" or "unexpectedly", because the Libyan government has every right to be pissed off.
What happens when an elite Iraqi commando enters the US and "arrests" prominent terrorist and war criminal Donald Rumsfeld, killing 15 secret service agents in the process?
The way it's written, this is an insulting propaganda piece.
A better metaphor would be Cuban commandos entering the US to arrest Luis Posada Carriles who committed a bunch of terrorist bombings in Cuba with support from the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) and had some interactions with the CIA.
No one claims that Abu Anas ab Libi was a past or present member of the Libyan government, but he did have supporters in the Government and it's not certain how anxious they were to arrest him themselves.
The Somalia situation is a little different as I think the Somalia government still has trouble controlling portions of the country so foreign countries get a little more latitude in going in and carrying out policing operations within their borders, however the US probably has some kind of understanding with Somalia.
According to the article the project has been behind schedule for a while:
Earlier this year the U.S. Government Accountability Office criticized the pace of development and testing for Healthcare.gov.'s IT system and noted that it was missing important milestone deadlines.
This is worrying as it suggests this isn't the case of a few glitches and poor load testing, the project might simply not be done.
In defence of CGI (since I'm Canadian and will reflexively look for excuses for my cultural brethren) it's not uncommon for software projects to miss launch dates, they just seem to be in the unfortunate position of having to launch anyways. The other excuse is that their requirements exploded when 34 states refused to join ObamaCare and had to be handled by the Federal exchange.
All the news stories have been about "which political party should we blame."
You want to know who to blame? All of the twits who have been cheering on "their team" while this has been going on, instead of pressuring their representatives to do their job. The members of Congress -- in both major parties -- feel no pressure to actually resolve the situation, because they've managed to trick their supporters in the media into giving them a pass while they wasted time instead of actually trying to come up with a solution that has a chance of working.
"Sure he shouldn't have strapped a bomb to his chest. But the hostage negotiator should have worked harder to get him the money in the vault, so really they're both to blame for the explosion."
They might end up overrating shows like Honey BooBoo or Jersey Shore that end up as targets for mockery, but in general people just ignore shows they don't watch.
I think the risk with this system is they need a very good understanding of the show's demographic to understand the numbers since a lot of people post nothing about the shows they watch while others blab about everything.
They also need to understand why people are posting. People talked about Breaking Bad a lot because it was so good, and they also talked about Dexter because it got so bad. When good shows drop in quality hard core fans stick around but start to complain. So you could conceivably get an uptick in chatter that instead of signalling a rise in ratings actually precedes a drop in ratings.
:( I'm getting the sad feeling you get when you try to make a joke and people respond in a serious manner.
First rule is get rid of the midichlorians and get an alternate explanation for the Force. That's something that could actually be explored in the first movie.
Han Solo finds a strange artifact that turns out to be a communication device which puts him in contact with an enigmatic race of time travellers. These time travellers lead Han Solo and a group of adventurers to a distant planet from far in the future. But during the time jump the Millennium Falcon is severely damaged and starts to plummet towards the planet below. But as they fall Luke Skywalker senses an extraordinary Force presence, and the Millennium Falcon is no longer falling but is being pulled, pulled by a mysterious large figure standing on the beach of an island...
I'm not sure how that's relevant. Dzamba invented the cricket reactor and created a business plan using it.
What the Hult team did is take that invention (and probably parts of the business plan), make some additions and/or changes, and entered it into the competition. No one claims they had any part in inventing the original cricket reactor.
What we don't know is how much of the prize was due to the work they did on the business plan, I think the product is the important thing but like everyone else here I'm a tech person. You can't just walk into a famine with an invention and help people, you need a business plan to make the idea do something. Perhaps these guys really did an amazing job and could have won with almost any idea in the competition instead of the reactor.
Of course, even if they did legitimately deserve the credit for the prize they still broke their agreement to include him as a partner.
Insurance companies are in the business to make money.
If an insurance company can convince people that the threat is greater, then they can raise rate above their expected coverage amount and therefore make even more money.
Disaster Insurance companies are not altruistic.
If I were an Insurance Company, I would wholeheartedly support the Global Warming crowd, for it creates fear of disaster, and fear is what drives you to buy insurance.
Not realizing the profit motive is ironic.
If insurance companies were talking up global warming but not raising rates you'd have a point.
But they are raising rates, which means they do believe AGW, because if they didn't they'd charge less to undercut by the other insurance companies and make more profit. It's the absolutely most trivial application of economics.
Is anyone else basking in the irony of all these pro-business AGW denialists suddenly trying to come up with excuses for why the market disagrees with them?
You don't need regulation for anything, market forces keep companies honest and well behaved!! Except now... because insurance companies are somehow able to charge unnecessarily high premiums without being undercut by a competitor, or the government is making them overcharge or something...
The market is right, unless is disagrees with you, and then it's wrong.
1) Some trader was extraordinarily lucky, placing a massive bet just before a major announcement that would make that bet highly profitable.
To what extent did people know a major announcement would be made at 2pm?
2pm is a nice round number, so it's plausible that someone already had a big bet scheduled to go off at that time.
But if people knew a potentially major announcement would be made at 2pm having a prescheduled bet go off at that time is just ludicrous.
Problem is prescription drugs aren't safe. More people OD on prescription drugs than street drugs, or course there's probably more opioid prescription drug users than street drug users but it's still a major issue.
I'm not sure I like the DEA doing this but prescription drug abuse is definitely a legitimate problem.
That's a self-sustaining mechanism of the Slashdot hivemind.
Despite our best wishes to the contrary, Slashdotters are terribly biased humans. We just know what's right, because we are all of such high intelligence and scientific mind, so we are blind to our own biases. Of course, anyone who agrees with us is probably coming to the same conclusion only because they are smart and rational, too... so we should mod them up, of course, for being such a fine, upstanding Slashdotter like ourselves. Should we then ever need to examine our own judgement, we have the karma system and our comment history showing that we were modded up, reinforcing the consensus regardless of truth.
This is painfully obvious on any thread concerning law, privacy, Big Data, religion, or economics. The hivemind has made up its mind on most aspects of these matters, so any comment parroting the approved opinion will be modded up, while any comment that opposes will be modded down, regardless of fact.
There's certainly a group think bias but it doesn't affect thoughtful measured comments pushing the debate that much. I think the bias really shows up when it comes to cheerleading. ie a joke about the Catholic church can do pretty well but a joke about atheists is going to fall flat.
A system I've seen work well elsewhere is to have admin-promoted "top comments" for each story, where the admins doing the selection are encouraged to pick comments that are relevant, accurate, and unusual. a dozen comments repeating the same sentiment won't be picked, but one that puts forth a well-reasoned argument to the contrary is more likely.
Slashdot actually tried this a few years back (think they called is slashback), I remember because one of my comments was selected for the very first story where they tried it! I think the problem with this model is it required a lot of extra admin work to pick out the handful of brilliant gems by exceptionally gifted and attractive commenters.
I think threads + moderation is the key, but for some reason a lot of sites seem to hate threads and I can't imagine why, not only do no threads make the discussions unreadable but it seems to turn the threads into cesspools. Any admins care to weigh in?
Yeah but he's taking names.
Yeah, Edison profited off the research of his students, and everyone around him......a bad example to be used if they want to prove patents are useful.
And an even worse example if you want to show that NPEs are useful today. That fact that independent inventors were useful a century ago is irrelevant. They play very little role in modern innovation. Many companies refuse to even talk to independent inventors, because knowledge of their patents can expose the company to liability. What most NPEs do is sit on the patent and wait for someone to independently come up with the same innovation, and then demand payment. They are just parasites.
You've also got a different marketplace, the mp3 player invention existed for a while before Apple showed up, what Apple brought to the table was intense refinement of the concept and figuring out the product ecosystem and way to sell it. Similarly everyone saw smart phones coming for years, but only a handful of companies were in a position to actually in a position to actually execute it. I think the technology ecosystem is too intertwined for someone to simply build a better lightbulb and have someone else sell it as a finished product.
Of course there might still be some big NPEs doing good work that we don't recognize because their logo isn't on the product.
Assad is a dictator would be a statement of fact. Assad is a "brutal" dictator is an ad hominem. If you wish to expand on the fact that he is a dictator and provide a separate opinion of him being "brutal" that would be different. As it was presented it was ad hominem. The same would be said with "Assad winning is a horrible outcome." The word horrible is not factual and not a backed opinion. Therefor it is an ad hominem. As I mentioned when I first requested you drop the ad hominem, their use is often subtle and used without much thought because other people (media) do so. Pay attention to the statement "without much thought".
It wasn't without much thought, it wasn't even stated without justification.
Before you even showed up I referred to him "Brutalizing the opposition into violent revolt", and the comment that drew you in specifically referenced him torturing people (including children) to death, and shooting protesters before the protests turned violent. I clearly justified my position that in his reactions to the Arab Spring Assad wasn't just a dictator, he was a brutal dictator. So I strenuously challenge your assertion that it was an Ad hominen because I definitely 'provide[d] a separate opinion of him being "brutal"'.
As for Assad being a horrible outcome, I think it's a given that a) Assad has established himself as a brutal dictator, and b) a dictator reestablishing himself after a bloody sectarian civil war virtually never has a good outcome, c) as a principal we don't like dictators violently suppressing opposition to win (particularly when they instigated the violence) because it gives other dictators really bad incentives..
To Clark's list, every country on the list he provided except for Iran has been impacted. Some with full overthrow (Egypt/Libya) and others on the verge (Syria).
Look at the damn list. Of course they were, every country in the middle east was impacted!!
Lets review the 6 non-invaded:
Sryria, Libya: Civil war
Sudan: Major ongoing protests
Lebanon, Somalia, and Iran: Minor and short term protests
And you know what, Saudi Arabia The fact a) you actually
You claimed that Saudi Arabia and Turkey were not as bad as Syria, I showed that this was not true. Now you claim that Turkey was a model? For what, a non revolution while remaining a tyrannical state which abuses both protestors and journalists? Outside of what media presents you, there is no difference between living in Syria and Turkey or Syria and Saudi Arabia.
I'm going to step back and give you a moment to reevaluate "Saudi Arabia and Turkey were not as bad as Syria, I showed that this was not true" [...] "there is no difference between living in Syria and Turkey or Syria and Saudi Arabia". Because if you were even considering comparing life in Turkey (or even Syria) to life in Saudi Arabia... I'm going to have an insulting reply.
Yet somehow the allies of the US remain unscathed in revolution and protest.
You also missed Iraq and Afghanistan on Clark's comments.
Except of course for the major Arab ally, Egypt.
Again, all you showed is that the Bush Administration wanted to intervene against a bunch of Middle East dictatorships, then a decade later the entire Middle East goes through a wave of protests, and the countries most affected are a mostly different list of Middle East dictatorships.
First, I gave the link to Clark's statements. If you don't review the evidence how can you perceive to speak rationally on the subject? On a similar track, I gave a link to an exceptional book which you deny any desire to read. If you deny evidence that provides a clear and concise opinion differing from yours and refuse to review evidence, I can only assume that you wish to maintain your belief regardless of how irrational that belief may be.
Second, you ignore the point I made. How is it that certain countries had revolts and others did not? If you wish to maintain that it was all coincidence, you are not looking very closely at reality.
Well I actually explained why some countries might have revolted and others didn't (based on the characteristics of those countries) but I'll humour you and look at the list of countries Clark listed.
Iraq, Sryria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.
According to wikipedia governments were overthrown in
"Tunisia, Egypt (twice), Libya, and Yemen; civil uprisings have erupted in Bahrain and Syria; major protests have broken out in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, and Sudan;"
So of your 6 countries that Clark listed that the US hadn't invaded only 2 are actually at risk of an overthrow and only one other had major protests. Lebanon, Iran, and Somalia are all relatively unaffected.
So I actually agree, it wasn't a coincidence because the two lists aren't similar enough to be considered a coincidence!
I have actually studied rhetoric and Philosophy for over 30 years, I know very well the definition and use of ad hominem. Claiming a person is "horrible" or "brutal" is easily within the definition and practice. A single semester in a University should make this abundantly clear, however most people today are content with reading a definition on Wiki and believing that they know how something works. Obviously that is not true, and perhaps you are not "most people". That said, your belief that it is not ad hominem is absolutely wrong.
I disagree on the basis that ad hominem is a fallacy and my point was completely valid. How was I making a fallacy? You made a statement that included "I won't claim Assad is good" and argued that we shouldn't bomb Syria, I followed with a statement that included "Assad is a bastard" and agreed that we shouldn't bomb Syria. The only difference in our statements is I indicted Assad in stronger terms, and I implied that Assad's badness could be a motive for bombing his regime but I didn't think they should do it.
I'm not sure you know much about Turkey. I have seen first hand thieves get their hands beaten with iron rods until they were permanently crippled, and people get eyes burned out for looking at women. You speculate because of what you hear, not because of what is real. There is plenty of evidence to show how Turkey jails journalists and protestors, and has for decades (just like Saudi Arabia). Turkey claims to be a democracy just like Saudi Arabia claims to be a monarchy. Both are tyrannical states just like most in the middle east that suffered revolts. There is no rational way of thinking that those two countries should escape revolution if in fact all of the middle east revolutions are due to a fed up populace. They are not however listed in Clark's commentary which precedes the revolts.
I said mostly democratic, they still have issues but they have properly counted elections with power transfers. I don't deny the major human rights issues and they've had their own protests but a lot of the protesters were probably looking to Turkey as a model of what they wanted. So it's pretty disingenuous to say "There is no rational way of thinking that those two countries should escape revolution if in fact all of the middle east revolutions are due to a fed up populace" when the difference are quite obvious.
Lets look at the
Plenty of evidence to the contrary on this one. In my opinion to claim it's all coincidence is foolish. Especially when you see specific patterns, such as the revolutions occurring in the exact countries where Clark was speaking of. Meanwhile, other more abusive (Saudi Arabia) countries are unscathed. There are way to many "coincidences" here to be just that.
So the Arabs weren't capable of having spontaneous revolutions on their own? I can't remember the full list of countries that Clark spoke of, but maybe they chose those countries because they had non-allied dictators and populations ripe for revolution, just the kind of countries that might take part in the Arab spring. One of the reasons the Saudi's were unaffected is because the group in power is not only the huge majority Sunni, but the very strict Wahabbi sect that extremists usually embrace. ie The extremists didn't revolt in Saudi Arabia because they were already in charge.
And how do you explain Egypt? I'm pretty sure that wasn't in the Clark list and the US, particularly the people whom made the list, were sure worried when Mubarek was going down.
The US is currently bombing 5 countries in the Middle East in the open. Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan. We bombed Libya, Ethiopia, Kenya and a few others on whims. All of this under Obama. Your implication that he is trying for peace denies facts and actions. The US was booted out of Iraq after 11 years of occupation. Obama was trying to renew the "peace keeping" role and Iraq refused. Afghanistan will remain a "peace keeping" operation for as long as possible, just like Iraq.
You mean drone strikes? It's dishonest to count the drone strikes under both drone strikes and warfare. And I don't think Obama was trying as hard as you think to stay in Iraq. He wanted a lasting role and bases but didn't want to continue active military operations.
Ad hominem is something we tend to do without much thought. You claimed Assad would be a horrible outcome (rough quote). That is an ad hominem whether you realize it or not. Additionally, you claim contrary to historical evidence that he is a "brutal dictator".
Where you and I differ is that I don't suppose Assad to be a good guy or a bad guy. I look at what history shows he did in Syria and come to a pretty neutral opinion. He is not worse than Saudi Arabian rulers, or Turkey's rulers. He's not better than the Israeli theocracy either.
Trying to pain him in a specific light and repeating propaganda does not help determine what really happened or what's really for the best.
I think you need to look up the definition of Ad hominem. And during peace he was fairly permissive in outside of politics, but his reactions to the protests fit the profile or brutal dictator quite well.
And he's better than the Saudi rulers but definitely worse than Turkey's rulers, you do realize Turkey is mostly a democracy right?
As for the Israeli comparison, Israel is guilty of some pretty abhorrent actions and policies, but in a completely different way than Assad. Israel is a democracy occupying and colonizing another country, it's bad, but a completely different kind of bad.
f you only show half of the issue, it at least implies that Assad is the only thing wrong. Our media and politicians are painting this same exact picture. The "horrible" is a matter of your opinion and not necessarily factual or historically correct when it comes to Syria. Lets ask a couple pertinent questions related specifically to the Wesley Clark statements.
Well the origin was my claim that violent revolutions weren't that effective or nice, and comparing Syria and Libya to the rest of the Arab spring as Evidence. Then I attacked Assad because someone replied that Assad was a nice guy who's people only revolted because of western interference.
1. What triggered a sudden change in 8 middle east counties all having sudden revolutions?
You could claim "Dictator", but lets ask then why is Saudi Arabia and Turkey are the only large nations immune to this? You might claim "brutality" but again you are forced to ignore that Saudi Arabia and Turkey are immune to public scrutiny and are at least as brutal as Assad. You are also ignoring Qatar and Egypt that are backed by the US and NATO (hence Canada). You could claim Religious leadership, but then you ignore every country in the Middle East including Israel. Something else must be going on.
The Arab Spring was a cultural phenomena. Don't know exactly why the Saudi's had no major uprising but Turkey was already democratic. People were protesting against repressive governments, they're all different countries so I'm not surprised that the revolutions took off in some or barely started in others. I'm not sure what you're actually suggesting.
You are claiming that the Muslim Brotherhood is "new" in Syria and only showed up after the protests? If so, that is absolutely wrong and completely distorted. Assad has been fighting terrorists in his own country for decades with that name. The name "FSA" is new, but are the players any different than what Assad had been previously fighting?
Now, if you check the above and find I'm correct then your assumption that Assad is torturing and killing non-violent protesters is plain old wrong.
I'm claiming that additional Islamist fighters started entering once the confrontation turned violent, and the ones in Syria turned more extreme. I don't know if their arrival coincided with the start of violence, or was a reaction to the escalated violence, but the origin of the revolution was mostly secular.
If a person behaves differently than their rhetoric, they are a liar. If Obama's actions are no different than Bush, then he is the same warmonger. Black ops and corporate mercenaries have increased as have clandestine drone attacks. So Obama is more of a warmonger than Bush when you take away his lies. I do remember how bad Bush was, both of them in fact. I also remember how bad the last 40 years of presidents have been on domestic policy.
Well Obama is ending the two major wars Bush started. Bombed, but didn't invade Libya, and might not even bomb Syria now. If you want to get Obama than realize he's fundamentally a pragmatist, he doesn't want war but can be pushed into one.
We agree on the first part, but that's not what you started with.
Well no, it is where I started, you just assumed because I argued the obvious fact that Assad is a bad guy I might be in favour of the bombing strike.
The middle is a matter of opinion that I don't agree with. Ad hominem attacks are not true "because" and historically and politically I can't say I agree. Col Gaddafi was a prick in the past, Assad is nothing like him. The last part of that I agree with. Killing more innocents is not justification for someone killing innocents. It's a hypocrisy.
If you have never read Gary Allen "None Dare Call it Conspiracy" I will highly recommend that you do. It's a brief read and should be free for most e-readers. That book should shed s
Bull, go back and read what you said. You specifically called out children being killed as an appeal to emotion. Same crap propaganda media is doing, think before you write. If you wish to claim innocent deaths, make sure that you include all of the innocents killed by the rebels in your examples. They have been slaughtering Christian's and Jews, ransacking and desecrating temples and churches too. It's not one side that's a bad guy, so your view is extremely distorted and one sided.
I know what I said, Assad escalated the situation by killing children among other things, it wasn't an appeal to your emotion, it was explaining how he appealed to the rebels emotion to either crush the peaceful protests or create a violent uprising he could really crush.
And I never claimed Assad was the only bad guy, at this point him retaining power might be the least horrible outcome.
The point is that it is very possible that Assad never changed from when he was friendly to the west. Fighting a sudden surge of armed terrorists in your own country makes you obviously behave differently, but is it genuine to think that his philosophy changed overnight? I find it more possible that our media after successfully toppling other countries in the region changed their spin on Assad and Syria. Call it a draw if you wish, but it's nonsense to ignore facts and history.
The terrorists showed up when the conflict escalated. I don't doubt Assad didn't change, when things were good he tried to be a good dictator by western standards, when he was exposed to a serious threat to his power he reacted with a brutal suppression. And we might be watching different media as I follow a lot of non-MSM, but for me Assad became a bad guy after a lengthy period of torture and killings against non-violent protesters.
Obama is no different than Bush, except in rhetoric and his rhetoric does not match his actions. The Patriot act was renewed not renounced. Wars have gone clandestine, not stopped. Gitmo was not closed, no bankers went on trial, etc.. etc.. The guy has been caught lying more than any other US President in history. He bold faced lied 3 days before the NSA story broke and told you he did not allow spying on Citizens. Google search that one, no citation is necessary. There are web sited dedicated to just tallying up all of his lies.
I think you're misremembering how bad Bush was. I know all about Obama's lies along with lack of torture prosecutions, abuse of state secrets act, etc. But he's definitely not the warmonger Bush was. And I'm not sure how he's escalated clandestine wars aside from the increased drone strikes.
You have not done much in the way of research, sorry. I won't claim Assad is good, but quite frankly it's none of our business what we think of him. What we plan to put in his place matches what we did to Libya, and that country is just fucked right? Syria is it's own nation, just like Russia and China. The Feds may not like Putin either, but it's not like they should just start bombing Russia to get him out of office (and in fact it is illegal to do so).
Where did I say we should intervene in Syria? I never said that. Assad is a bastard but I don't see how we (well you, I'm Canadian) can do anything to fix that situation. US bombing is almost certain to make things worse.
First, save the "for the children" fallacy arguments that US politicians spew. Death of innocents is just that.
You missed the point. My argument wasn't "destroy Assad he's killing the children!!", I was pointing out that the revolution turned violent in part because Assad incited the population by torturing kids to death.
Second, there is a whole lot of information backing the claims you responded to. Did you see how John Kerry a few years ago was at a nice party with Assad? Back 3 years ago, Syria was known as the most progressive nation in the Middle East and a "good guy". Syria allowed women to drive and work, had no Sharia courts or Sharia laws. Syria minded their own business and did it very well.
Yes. Assad was a nice western educated guy and before things got serious he seemed to be doing a good job. So what? Do you think he's just a misunderstood nice guy? Do you think the entire war is a conspiracy? What's the point?
Listen to what Wesley Clark says here.
Yeah the Bush administration were warmongers who went into Iraq for no good reason, made a strong push to go into Iran, and basically wanted to invade the whole middle east and implement democracy by force.
What does this have to do with what's happening now? For all Obama's flaws he's not that style of neocon.
Do some research on the subject if you dare. I have no confidence that you will, but don't denounce people with a different opinion with ad hominem. There are plenty of facts countering your position. No, I'm not going to condense a year worth of reading into a list of citations for you. One citation is enough to get you started.
Well I have done research, and you haven't even provided a single relevant citation or argument. You think Wesley Clark talking about the plan of a completely disgraced administration from over a decade ago means the leader of the other party who ran as Bush's opposite is going to do the same thing??
I mean what is your actual argument. You've thrown out some weird conspiracy theories but I don't even know what your point is. Assad is really a good guy? Assad is a bad guy but we're already waging the war to get rid of him? What?
Assad didn't brutalise the opposition, the simple fact of the matter is that he has overwhelming majority support.
What are you talking about? Syria had the same setup as Iraq, a Shia dictator ruling over a Sunni majority, Assad was popular for that setup but "overwhelming majority support" is just plain wrong.
The people that are fucking his country up are demonstrably foreign mercenaries in the pay of Britain, the United States, France, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar.
sources: plenty of contacts on the ground who are living it, not the BBC, Fox, CNN or Reuters. What they aren't showing is buzzcut ex-army regulars using CIA terminology and training to great effect while passing instructions to each other in English, French, and Turkish. Why? Because it not only doesn't suit the agenda (whatever that might be) of those with plausible interests in the region, it would in fact further damage already salted international relations.
I call BS. Maybe you're reading some conspiracy nuts claiming a bunch of "reports from real Syrians" but they're either being duped by pro-Assad activists (kinda ironic) or just wrong. There's lots of news from real Syrians, youtube videos, twitter accounts, blogs, and no evidence of these foreign mercenaries.
After the protests started Assad would take people, sometimes kids, brutally tortured them to death, then returned them home. Everything was still peaceful so there was probably pressure from inside the party for him to step down or reform so things didn't degenerate. He kept torturing and shooting people until the opposition started fighting back. As the fighting spread Islamists started to enter the game in a big way, the Christians and other minorities who were either on the fence or sympathetic to the protesters went to Assad because they've seen what happens to minorities in Iraq when the repressed Sunni majority takes power after a civil war.
And I don't know what you mean about "events of a mere seventy years ago in Eastern Europe". Some other conspiracy theory?
So you're agreeing with me right?
Because the Arab spring protests that stayed non-violent had better outcomes than the ones that turned violent. Brutalizing the opposition into violent revolt and civil war is probably the reason why Assad is still in power.
Hmm, looks at the Canadian quarter in his pocket. Ah...the queen.
Just saying...
And she does diddly squat, we might toss out the monarchy entirely when she dies though frankly we don't really care. We're still just as free and independent as you.
Oh, and a large part of why the British Empire states are free today is BECAUSE America rebelled. It was a costly Vietnam type war for the British. The British citizens didn't want to be on the side of the ethics battle. And oh, yeah, we kind bailed out our British friends in two World Wars.
I'm sure that played a factor, but I suspect it was also the fact the colony simply became developed enough to govern itself and by that time the Brits weren't comfortable ruling a bunch of other English speaking white people as a colony.
Unless you're in a movie violence against a government is rarely an effective strategy.
And yet here we are, free men and women, subjects of no Crown.
Congrats, with a violent revolution you achieved the same level of freedom that we have in Canada, Australia, India, and pretty much the rest of the Commonwealth.
Note I said it's rarely an effective strategy, I'm sure you've heard of agent provocateurs? If violent resistance is so effective why do governments try to create it so often?
In the most recent example the main reason why Assad was able to survive the Arab Spring was he brutalized the peaceful opposition until they turned violent. Once that happened everyone who wasn't a Sunni became scared of what the now violent Sunnis would do if they gained power. So they threw in with Assad and gave him a base. In Libya the rebels won the war (partly because there wasn't the same Shia/Sunni situation) but the aftermath is still pretty chaotic and messy. If you think taking up arms against the US government, successful or not, would result in anything but a disaster, you're delusional.
Violence can solve problems, but only in messiest and most horrific way possible.