"I regularly disagree with a lot of what I see on the BBC - particularly (I'm adult enough to admit) when it conflicts with my worldview or preconceptions. However, whenever I've gone away and read up on a point that's annoyed me (even just to convince myself "I was right"), I've almost always found that either I was wrong, or at least that the "true" case was more evenly-balanced than my previous opinion was."
You have hit the nail on the head, the BBC is regularly accused of bias from ALL sides of politics but is rarely shown to be factually incorrect. Many a politician has tried to stack the BBC's management in an effort to pull them "into line" and have invariably failed. Here in Australia we have two stations that are modeled on the BBC, they are SBS and ABC.
I figure any news outlet that can manage to upset all sides of politics is a valuable source of both information and opposing opinions.
BTW: The reason Fox news has no substance is that it will only present dissenting views for the purposes of ridicule and is often factually deficient. But to be fair and balanced to Rupert, he freely admits to using his media outlets to push his personal worldview.
"The fact is one side purposefully tries to maximize civilian casualties. The other side tries to minimize civilian casualties."
Rubbish, neither side cares about civilians. The aim of both sides is to maximise damage to "the enemy" and to hell with anyone who happens to be nearby. The only difference I see between Israel and Hezbolah (apart from size) is that Israel occasionally offers an insincere apology.
"I would like to hear your definition of a terrorist."
Terrorist - Someone who uses terror for political gain.
"You seem to be wanting to set the bar at a personally convenient level."
Do I have any answers as to how mankind can escape the system of international fudalisim that costs thousands of lives and trillions of dollars every year - no, but at least I can recognise it for what it is.
"The first victim in any war is the truth. Both sides have propaganda teams trying to spin every story."
Agreed, it's also worth noting the whole planet is now convinced we are in an (endless) war on terror. The "tolling of the division bell" is getting louder, the world is polarizing into groups that genuinely belive they have no other choice but to fight terror with even greater terror. I can't help thinking that humans are like lemmings pushing each other off a cliff, the bulk of those doing the pushing are nowhere near the edge.
Scandals: I don't live in the US but living in Australia it's sometimes hard to tell. I don't know all the details of the current political scandals, but I have read lobbyists and elected officials are being charged in increasing numbers. I have seen this behaviour from past US presidents whereby those who "fall on their swords" through loyalty are rewarded with pardons at the end of the POTUS's tenure. George's tenure finishes in ~2yrs,...
"You can't say that civilian areas are legit military targets because a soldier may be in the area."
Correct, and by the same logic you cannot say a village, apartment block, ambulance, airport, mobile phone tower,...is a military target because a "terrorist" may be in the area or may use the infrastructure. Both sides are guilty of horrendous actions and the sooner the US acknowlages this fact the sooner we can stop this "war on terror" nonesense.
"Granted, they both kill civilians, but terrorists do it on purpose; they target civilians. Israel targets Hezbola fighters hiding among civilians."
Are you saying that Israeli soldiers locate their bases away from civilians and never mingle with the population? The truth is that Israel has the power to take the fight to Arab homes, if the Arabs had FA-18's with laser guided bombs they might just do the reverse. Also have a look at the body count and note the ratio of combatants/civilians dead on both sides.
You are falling for propoganda that supports prolongs the fighting by claiming that one side is more evil than the other.
"doing a deeper story about the family of the palestinan suicide bomber, and the terrible poverty that drove him to do what he did"
I don't know about CBC but having watched similar interviews on the BBC and SBS(Australia), "poverty" has little to do with the motivations of suicide bombers. Most bombers who attack Israel are teenagers or young adults (often women), nearly all of them claim to be seeking vengence for the death of a friend/relative. Israel seeks it's own vengence by routinely bulldozing the houses of the bombers relatives thus fertilizing the ground for yet more bombers, more bulldozers and more victims.
OBL claims his motivation for 911 was "US bombs raining down on Lebanon during the 80's" - how many new OBL's is the current bombing campain creating?
The parent post suggests..."the only solution is to avoid allowing muslim/arab reporters from submitting GWOT stories"...and then has a sig that says "Stop censorship, blah, blah, blah".
The entire post is little more than propoganda and should have been rated "-1 incitefull" or at best "-1 hypocritical".
"Libertarians value property rights because you need ownership of things to have freedom."
...and other's value religion because you need to "know God" to have freedom. Both are deluding themselves if they think freedom is something that can be mandated. To paraphrase Bob Marley - freedom is a (delusional?) state of mind.
The problem I have with the Libertarian view is that they think simple "property laws" will suffice to cure our social problems, yet the bulk of law is already about property (in ALL cultures). Also why does the Libertarian view rarely talk about unwanted/international property, such as pollution and the dwindling numbers of fish in international waters? If the last tree on the planet was in my yard, am I allowed to poision it to make way for my driveway? - As it stands now, the answer depends on where I live.
I agree with the sentiments in "tradgedy of the commons" (ie: if nobody owns it, nobody will look after it) but to have property laws we need to have people who create, judge and enforce the laws (ie: a government). These people need to be paid, blah, blah,...tax the only people we can (ie: those with property). Many nations are already at that stage, but on a global scale 50% of all mesurable property is still concentrated in the hands of ~500 individuals ( ~0.00000008% of the population). The Libertarian view is nothing more than a nieve "systems analysis" of how the "system we have" arose in the first place.
Disclaimer: The same can be said of any political "ism" that claims to have all the answers, political "ism's" are simple ideas for simple (or desperate) minds, they fail not because of their answers but because of the questions they ignore (ie:dogma).
Having said all that I still think the Libertarian view has some interesting points. I like the idea that my body belongs to me, this would give me the right to fill it with whatever drugs I fancy and use it anyway I like with another consenting adult.
I doubt that, there are ways to make electricity that are both cheaper and cleaner than portable gas turbines.
"clean water"
According to TFA, the unit provides one gallon of DIRTY water for every gallon of fuel. Would it not be vastly more efficient to simply ship 10,000 gallons of bottled water than to ship 10,000 gallons of fuel plus X number of turbines?
"$900 hammer"
Wake up, there are no $900 hammers, just dodgy accounting to cover the cost of "black ops".
"Are you listening, Mr Gates? Here's where your billions might earn you a little bit of karma."
For a start, the implicit suggestion that karma can be bought and sold - is bad karma! Last time I paid any attention, the Gates foundation had given away some $30B via projects that directly assist people in the third world.
The other implicit suggestion you make is that the military is funding development for humantarian reasons. AFAIK the military do nothing to assist poverty stricken countries, in fact they regularly perpetuate the misery by proping up dictators and corrupt regimes in exchange for access to strategic positions/resources. Sure the military sometimes helps out in the immediate aftermath of natural distasters but human kindness is certainly not the reason why they have consistently chosen to push the development of portable power units.
"Part of the reason why decisions are made like they are is because older people make the decisions for the young, and the only way the future matters is if the older generations care about the younger generations."
Once you understand the monkeysphere it becomes easy to spot (eg: above quote).
"The problem now is we are on the verge of running out of "things" to fight over on the group level."
Not even close! They say "war is a failure of politics" but in reality war is a tool of politics that has shaped both the evolution of our species and it's countless "failed" civilzations. The problem now is that there are no civilizations that are isolated from each other and a group of five powerfull and competing nations are ruling the roost. If it hasn't already happened, there will soon be "nowhere to hide".
What happens when two of the "veto" countries disagree? For example the current French/USA disagreement whereby the US & UK are attempting to drag France into a war zone not of their making? To answer my own question, nothing constructive happens!
"Think of the children, ask mom and dad" comments.
I became a father at the age of 21 and all of a sudden needed a steady job. I found a job out in the bush, hard work, reasonable wage + accomodation. It was a great start for a new family but could only last while the kid was not in school. My kids are now a 26yro man and a 21yro woman, neither lives "at home".
The job that helped so much in their early childhood involved cutting down old growth forrest, remeber: I was thinking of my children as in food, shelter and a healthy rural environment. I agree to cut down the last tree would be a horrendous crime, trees can be managed as a renewable resource but sadly the politics of "self interest" rarely allows it.
Now if people get upset about trees, what will be the reaction to dwindling oil (and therefore fertilizer!!!) supplies, do you think the "five veto's" will share nicely with each other when they can't even fertilize their own crops? I realise one must live in hope or life becomes literally "hopeless", but ignoring politics will not make political problems go away.
No, people want to aliviate their own "misery" first, their monkeysphere comes next, the rest of humanity is "beyond" their capacity for caring (except maybe thru charity where someone does "something good" on your behalf).
The current situation is a whole lot of passionate people fighting for thier own interests, then the interests of their monkeysphere and finally for other groups such as voters and "the rest". Does it ever cross anyone's mind that one man's hero is another man's villian. Even Hitler had plenty of public support but this does not mean German's are "evil". It's just that "at the time" Hitler seemed to be looking after Germany pretty good, what with capitalists from around the world investing in the country and Hitler building a strong military, things were "just peachy" compared to the rest of the planet.
The "international community" is a collection of nation states, many of them capable of wiping out our species entirely, all of them looking out for thier nation's "self interest". With diminishing oil reserves, the collapse of fisheries and other bad news about the future of humanity I don't see how these self interested "states" can avoid blowing each other up. Democracy has become an excuse for fascism, kidnapping a soldier is provocation, to retaliate by kiddnaping half of a democratically elected government and destroying the only power plant servicing 1.4 million people?
The west is supposed to be living under the shadow of terror, so how come the vast majority of terrorfied people I see on my TV are arabic?
"Ghandi and King both worked in the open against unjust laws, and they won--by being in the open. If you're too cowardly to do whatever it is that you do out in the open, then you shouldn't be doing it."
They picked the worst they could find, everyday instructions are often ambiguous. Many moons ago I drove Taxi's, there can be a 180deg difference between...
I haven't forgotten that supermarkets without at least one knowlageable green grocer in the store have crappy fruit and veg departments, that was the point behind the comment. Over here in oz that translates to over half the supermarkets selling crap, people buy the crap because they either don't know any better or are too lazy to go to more than one shop for their food. Same goes for meat, bread and fish. The most expensive steak you can have is the cheap bit of leather that was so tough even the dog had to sit down to chew the leftovers, why buy/eat crap?
Disclaimer: Everyone has different tastes such that there is no perfect pineapple.
Have you ever heard the term "family planning" or do you just keep screwing until someone shouts "I'm pregnant"?
I was born the year after sputnik was launched and have lived through the history of space exploration, the hubble pictures are worth every cent. Space exploration has shown mankind that we all live on what Carl Sagan called a pale blue dot. It has also shown us that it is all we have got, it's our collective "bird in the hand".
Slashdot Mirror
"I regularly disagree with a lot of what I see on the BBC - particularly (I'm adult enough to admit) when it conflicts with my worldview or preconceptions. However, whenever I've gone away and read up on a point that's annoyed me (even just to convince myself "I was right"), I've almost always found that either I was wrong, or at least that the "true" case was more evenly-balanced than my previous opinion was."
You have hit the nail on the head, the BBC is regularly accused of bias from ALL sides of politics but is rarely shown to be factually incorrect. Many a politician has tried to stack the BBC's management in an effort to pull them "into line" and have invariably failed. Here in Australia we have two stations that are modeled on the BBC, they are SBS and ABC.
I figure any news outlet that can manage to upset all sides of politics is a valuable source of both information and opposing opinions.
BTW: The reason Fox news has no substance is that it will only present dissenting views for the purposes of ridicule and is often factually deficient. But to be fair and balanced to Rupert, he freely admits to using his media outlets to push his personal worldview.
I can easily be convinced by rational arguments, your argument is a hawkish western argument and it is not entirely rational.
"When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you." - I can only assume he didn't expect people to vote for Hamas.
"Do you think it's possible for every voter to read every act of law that is voted upon in Congress?"
I hear that congressmen don't bother to read them either.
WW1 was called the "war to end all wars".
WW2 was called the "war to end all wars".
You want another "war to end all wars", are you insane?
"The fact is one side purposefully tries to maximize civilian casualties. The other side tries to minimize civilian casualties."
Rubbish, neither side cares about civilians. The aim of both sides is to maximise damage to "the enemy" and to hell with anyone who happens to be nearby. The only difference I see between Israel and Hezbolah (apart from size) is that Israel occasionally offers an insincere apology.
"I would like to hear your definition of a terrorist."
Terrorist - Someone who uses terror for political gain.
"You seem to be wanting to set the bar at a personally convenient level."
Do I have any answers as to how mankind can escape the system of international fudalisim that costs thousands of lives and trillions of dollars every year - no, but at least I can recognise it for what it is.
OBL's millions was seed money. In recent news the Saudi's just donated $US1.5 billion to Lebanon and are demanding that Israel withdraw immediately.
"The second an attack is launched from said village, apartment block, ambulance, airport, or mobile phone tower it becomes a military target."
Justifying the killing of civilians is a "terrorist" mentality, regardless of the flag you follow or the weapons you use.
"The first victim in any war is the truth. Both sides have propaganda teams trying to spin every story."
Agreed, it's also worth noting the whole planet is now convinced we are in an (endless) war on terror. The "tolling of the division bell" is getting louder, the world is polarizing into groups that genuinely belive they have no other choice but to fight terror with even greater terror. I can't help thinking that humans are like lemmings pushing each other off a cliff, the bulk of those doing the pushing are nowhere near the edge.
Scandals: I don't live in the US but living in Australia it's sometimes hard to tell. I don't know all the details of the current political scandals, but I have read lobbyists and elected officials are being charged in increasing numbers. I have seen this behaviour from past US presidents whereby those who "fall on their swords" through loyalty are rewarded with pardons at the end of the POTUS's tenure. George's tenure finishes in ~2yrs,...
"You can't say that civilian areas are legit military targets because a soldier may be in the area."
Correct, and by the same logic you cannot say a village, apartment block, ambulance, airport, mobile phone tower,...is a military target because a "terrorist" may be in the area or may use the infrastructure. Both sides are guilty of horrendous actions and the sooner the US acknowlages this fact the sooner we can stop this "war on terror" nonesense.
"Once someone decides to hate the USA, one excuse is as good as another."
You do realise that USA can be replaced with Iran, Gazza, New Zealand or any other country or group somebody has decided to "hate".
"Granted, they both kill civilians, but terrorists do it on purpose; they target civilians. Israel targets Hezbola fighters hiding among civilians."
Are you saying that Israeli soldiers locate their bases away from civilians and never mingle with the population? The truth is that Israel has the power to take the fight to Arab homes, if the Arabs had FA-18's with laser guided bombs they might just do the reverse. Also have a look at the body count and note the ratio of combatants/civilians dead on both sides.
You are falling for propoganda that supports prolongs the fighting by claiming that one side is more evil than the other.
"doing a deeper story about the family of the palestinan suicide bomber, and the terrible poverty that drove him to do what he did"
I don't know about CBC but having watched similar interviews on the BBC and SBS(Australia), "poverty" has little to do with the motivations of suicide bombers. Most bombers who attack Israel are teenagers or young adults (often women), nearly all of them claim to be seeking vengence for the death of a friend/relative. Israel seeks it's own vengence by routinely bulldozing the houses of the bombers relatives thus fertilizing the ground for yet more bombers, more bulldozers and more victims.
OBL claims his motivation for 911 was "US bombs raining down on Lebanon during the 80's" - how many new OBL's is the current bombing campain creating?
The parent post suggests..."the only solution is to avoid allowing muslim/arab reporters from submitting GWOT stories"...and then has a sig that says "Stop censorship, blah, blah, blah".
The entire post is little more than propoganda and should have been rated "-1 incitefull" or at best "-1 hypocritical".
"Libertarians value property rights because you need ownership of things to have freedom."
...and other's value religion because you need to "know God" to have freedom. Both are deluding themselves if they think freedom is something that can be mandated. To paraphrase Bob Marley - freedom is a (delusional?) state of mind.
The problem I have with the Libertarian view is that they think simple "property laws" will suffice to cure our social problems, yet the bulk of law is already about property (in ALL cultures). Also why does the Libertarian view rarely talk about unwanted/international property, such as pollution and the dwindling numbers of fish in international waters? If the last tree on the planet was in my yard, am I allowed to poision it to make way for my driveway? - As it stands now, the answer depends on where I live.
I agree with the sentiments in "tradgedy of the commons" (ie: if nobody owns it, nobody will look after it) but to have property laws we need to have people who create, judge and enforce the laws (ie: a government). These people need to be paid, blah, blah,...tax the only people we can (ie: those with property). Many nations are already at that stage, but on a global scale 50% of all mesurable property is still concentrated in the hands of ~500 individuals ( ~0.00000008% of the population). The Libertarian view is nothing more than a nieve "systems analysis" of how the "system we have" arose in the first place.
Disclaimer: The same can be said of any political "ism" that claims to have all the answers, political "ism's" are simple ideas for simple (or desperate) minds, they fail not because of their answers but because of the questions they ignore (ie:dogma).
Having said all that I still think the Libertarian view has some interesting points. I like the idea that my body belongs to me, this would give me the right to fill it with whatever drugs I fancy and use it anyway I like with another consenting adult.
"The result is, when America says go, the world listens."
The reality is, when America says go, the world ducks for cover."
"a boon to developing countries"
I doubt that, there are ways to make electricity that are both cheaper and cleaner than portable gas turbines.
"clean water"
According to TFA, the unit provides one gallon of DIRTY water for every gallon of fuel. Would it not be vastly more efficient to simply ship 10,000 gallons of bottled water than to ship 10,000 gallons of fuel plus X number of turbines?
"$900 hammer"
Wake up, there are no $900 hammers, just dodgy accounting to cover the cost of "black ops".
"Are you listening, Mr Gates? Here's where your billions might earn you a little bit of karma."
For a start, the implicit suggestion that karma can be bought and sold - is bad karma! Last time I paid any attention, the Gates foundation had given away some $30B via projects that directly assist people in the third world.
The other implicit suggestion you make is that the military is funding development for humantarian reasons. AFAIK the military do nothing to assist poverty stricken countries, in fact they regularly perpetuate the misery by proping up dictators and corrupt regimes in exchange for access to strategic positions/resources. Sure the military sometimes helps out in the immediate aftermath of natural distasters but human kindness is certainly not the reason why they have consistently chosen to push the development of portable power units.
"Part of the reason why decisions are made like they are is because older people make the decisions for the young, and the only way the future matters is if the older generations care about the younger generations."
Once you understand the monkeysphere it becomes easy to spot (eg: above quote).
"The problem now is we are on the verge of running out of "things" to fight over on the group level."
Not even close! They say "war is a failure of politics" but in reality war is a tool of politics that has shaped both the evolution of our species and it's countless "failed" civilzations. The problem now is that there are no civilizations that are isolated from each other and a group of five powerfull and competing nations are ruling the roost. If it hasn't already happened, there will soon be "nowhere to hide".
What happens when two of the "veto" countries disagree? For example the current French/USA disagreement whereby the US & UK are attempting to drag France into a war zone not of their making? To answer my own question, nothing constructive happens!
"Think of the children, ask mom and dad" comments.
I became a father at the age of 21 and all of a sudden needed a steady job. I found a job out in the bush, hard work, reasonable wage + accomodation. It was a great start for a new family but could only last while the kid was not in school. My kids are now a 26yro man and a 21yro woman, neither lives "at home".
The job that helped so much in their early childhood involved cutting down old growth forrest, remeber: I was thinking of my children as in food, shelter and a healthy rural environment. I agree to cut down the last tree would be a horrendous crime, trees can be managed as a renewable resource but sadly the politics of "self interest" rarely allows it.
Now if people get upset about trees, what will be the reaction to dwindling oil (and therefore fertilizer!!!) supplies, do you think the "five veto's" will share nicely with each other when they can't even fertilize their own crops? I realise one must live in hope or life becomes literally "hopeless", but ignoring politics will not make political problems go away.
Even more proof that /. doesn't need a spell checker on the reply page. :)
"People in this world WANT more misery"
No, people want to aliviate their own "misery" first, their monkeysphere comes next, the rest of humanity is "beyond" their capacity for caring (except maybe thru charity where someone does "something good" on your behalf).
The current situation is a whole lot of passionate people fighting for thier own interests, then the interests of their monkeysphere and finally for other groups such as voters and "the rest". Does it ever cross anyone's mind that one man's hero is another man's villian. Even Hitler had plenty of public support but this does not mean German's are "evil". It's just that "at the time" Hitler seemed to be looking after Germany pretty good, what with capitalists from around the world investing in the country and Hitler building a strong military, things were "just peachy" compared to the rest of the planet.
The "international community" is a collection of nation states, many of them capable of wiping out our species entirely, all of them looking out for thier nation's "self interest". With diminishing oil reserves, the collapse of fisheries and other bad news about the future of humanity I don't see how these self interested "states" can avoid blowing each other up. Democracy has become an excuse for fascism, kidnapping a soldier is provocation, to retaliate by kiddnaping half of a democratically elected government and destroying the only power plant servicing 1.4 million people?
The west is supposed to be living under the shadow of terror, so how come the vast majority of terrorfied people I see on my TV are arabic?
"Ghandi and King both worked in the open against unjust laws, and they won--by being in the open. If you're too cowardly to do whatever it is that you do out in the open, then you shouldn't be doing it."
Neither Ghandi or King masterbated in public.
They picked the worst they could find, everyday instructions are often ambiguous. Many moons ago I drove Taxi's, there can be a 180deg difference between...
"Turn right[,] here."
and
"Turn[,] right here."
I haven't forgotten that supermarkets without at least one knowlageable green grocer in the store have crappy fruit and veg departments, that was the point behind the comment. Over here in oz that translates to over half the supermarkets selling crap, people buy the crap because they either don't know any better or are too lazy to go to more than one shop for their food. Same goes for meat, bread and fish. The most expensive steak you can have is the cheap bit of leather that was so tough even the dog had to sit down to chew the leftovers, why buy/eat crap?
Disclaimer: Everyone has different tastes such that there is no perfect pineapple.
"...I am an incompetent bastard that never know if they are ripe enough to be eaten..."
...and "incompetent bastards" + sticker is cheaper than "competent bastards".
Seriously, if an experienced grocer can't open the crate and see how ripe / fresh the contents, how the hell does he stay in bussiness?
Have you ever heard the term "family planning" or do you just keep screwing until someone shouts "I'm pregnant"?
I was born the year after sputnik was launched and have lived through the history of space exploration, the hubble pictures are worth every cent. Space exploration has shown mankind that we all live on what Carl Sagan called a pale blue dot. It has also shown us that it is all we have got, it's our collective "bird in the hand".