However, it seems unlikely that this was rebels targeting themselves with chemical weapons.
More likely than using chemical weapons when you're winning as opposed to last year when you were losing, in your capital city right next to your own forces? The same day that chemical weapons inspectors arrive? When a military power that has either bombed or bombed and occupied half a dozen Muslim countries has been shouting for six months that it would really really like to bomb you as well?
Keep in mind they vetoed any multilateral UN action to keep the peace in Syria.
They vetoed calling out the United States and Israel for arming and funding jihadist ethnic-cleansing organ-eating rebels, and Saudi Arabia and Qatar for doing the same plus sending in foreign fighters?
1) what Syria agreed to (initially Russians refused saying "it's Syria's right to have them"
No, they didn't, that's just 11th Dimensional Chess nonsense to give Obama all the credit no matter what the facts actually are. Obama's only spent the last year and a half making it very very clear that he really really wants to bomb Assad.
The whole time, he kept everybody talking, dangling the bait of a peaceful solution- some compromise - while he was using tanks on protesters that were overwhelmingly peaceful, and at worst lightly armed and totally disorganized.
And while Saudi Arabia and the United States have been supplying money and weapons to the "opposition", of which Al Queda makes up a powerful faction, including guys who cut the hearts out of enemy soldiers and munch on them.
I watched the interview last night with Charlie Rose
Then you saw him make perfectly reasonable points, like why would he use chemical weapons right next to his own troops the day weapons inspectors arrive, or why the American's aren't thundering over Israel's WMD arsenal while they're at it. You know, since they're the one regional power that has indisputably used chemical weapons, when they dumped phosphorus on Gaza.
The problem is that too many in the press kept trumpeting it like it would be some kind of revolution, and the ignorant masses, led by Apple fanatics, bought into the hype.
Tautologies are boring.
The mistake people have been making for well over a decade is to brand Apple as an innovator. They're not, far from it, in fact. What they are is amazing integrators
You could say the same thing about any company that has ever existed, if you applied this standard you're holding Apple to against the rest of the industry.
The mobile market has matured with competitors catching up and even surpassing the iPhone in a variety of ways
You mean competition is good for developing products for consumers? I'm sure your Nobel Prize in Economics is in the mail for that observation.
The problem is that it seems Apple is afraid to tamper with their formula and so is playing it far too safe.
They're making more money than anyone else, and the only one of their competitors making real money is Samsung. Poor beleaguered Apple.
Fortunately for them, they've been able to retain their position as the prestige brand. This is partially due to the fact that the entire industry, all the way down to the retail level, keeps reinforcing that belief.
Because no other company could possibly position themselves as a premium brand/invest in marketing/bring repeat customers.
nothing like the compelling experiments Google or Microsoft keep putting forward
I notice you didn't say "product". Because Glass has sold a few hundred million units and made a few hundred billion dollars for Google.
There's a difference between electric cars and magical self-repairing chariots of the gods. For one thing, electric cars still have about 1.3 tons of moving parts that do not repair themselves. For another, electric cars are not pulled by magical boars that can be killed and eaten each night only to return alive by dawn willing to go through the whole thing again tomorrow night. There are more, but those two details should help you sort out the differences better.
There's a difference between being clever and just being obnoxious. Most of the maintenance done on a car involves the gasoline engine, which electric cars don't have.
Electric: Breaks Tires
Gas: Breaks Tires Oil Coolant Carburetor Emissions system Muffler
Sure, you keep your Model S for ten years and you'll have to change the battery, but that's a one-time operation, not something you do every 30,000 miles.
Do you usually blunder around while parading your ignorance on remedial history, or is this a special case for you?
The 1953 Iranian coup d'etat, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup, was the overthrow of the Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953, orchestrated by the United Kingdom (under the name 'Operation Boot') and the United States (under the name TPAJAX Project).
Hezbollah are Iran's pet terrorists because they do things like blow up civilian airliners, attack international embassies, launch rockets into neighborhoods and bomb buses in civilian neighborhoods. The list of terrorist acts that Iran has committed through their Hezbollah proxy is thousands of items long.
You mean: ever hair-on-fire accusation from the two biggest terrorist states on the planet: the United States and Israel, which have a nice tradition of accusing others of that which they practice first. You want to talk bombing the embassy in Lebanon, lets talk about the Israeli invasion and U.S. occupation that preceded it. You want to talk about shooting primitive gunpowder based rockets into Israel, you need to talk about the advanced missiles fired from Israel that preceded them.
That you could possibly say they are anything other than a terrorist organization leads me to believe your either a troll, Iranian government agent, the most ignorant person I have ever met on the Internet or so deluded as to need checking into a mental hospital.
You're either a sophist, racist, or tool swimming in American/Israeli exceptionalist buuuuuullshit. You can whine about Hezbollah when they rain down phosphorous on civilian populations like Israel, or the 50 civilians they slaughter for every alleged Irgun terrorist with Predator Drones.
Continued willful stupidity just insults your own intelligence as well as ours. Powerball winners obviously exist, but they are an insignificant portion of the population - as are communists.
One or two nutjobs that nobody cares about have labeled legitimate anti-israel criticism as anti-semitic.
Other than your average press release from the ADL, the shunning of Helen Thomas, professors denied tenure, and college students sent for hate speech reeducation for...walking out of a presentation from an IDF stooge.
So if by "one or two nutjobs" you mean "constant reflexive action from just about all rabid Zionists", then yes. Hell, as sqrt points out, this shit was even automated. You probably still have a megaphone icon on your desktop.
Apparently written by someone that has never really looked into politics in the US. The US has a full political spectrum, including communists* and socialists just like Europe. The thing is that most Americans won't vote for communists if they understand that is who is running for office.
Again with the "painful to read" shtick, eh? Since when does existence equate to relevance? Okay, so you can join the Communist Party in the United States - what are your chances of getting elected to a position above dog catcher or passing a law stripping capitalists of the ownership of the means of production. Buttkiss, that's what.
There is absolutely no proof for anything you just said.
Other than Iran's 200 year record of not making war on it's neighbors, and Americas 200 year record of making war on whoever it feels like. With Israel following in its footsteps.
The real problem with a nuclear Iran is that it would cause Saudi Arabia, as their regional rival, to go nuclear.
The cat was out of that bag 40 years ago when Israel was obtaining it's own nuclear arsenal. Iran getting nukes would be a stabilizing force on the region as it would put some limit on Israeli aggression.
Fortunately, US intelligence indicates Iran isn't building a bomb.
So do the Israelis, if you press them. Which makes it "funny" that both countries have spent years threatening to bomb Iran (and covertly car bombing their scientists) for the nuclear weapons program they say Iran doesn't actually have. The unstated reason of course being that they want to be able to bomb Iran with impunity, and a nuclear deterrent would interfere with said impunity. It's the same reason Israel gets apoplectic when its neighbors purchase anti-aircraft missile defense systems: they don't want IDF bombers getting shot down.
You're wrong, you have no idea what Zionism is. you're just mindlessly slandering the liberation movement of the Jewish people. It has nothing to do with having a county of only Jews. The fact that there are over a million non-Jewish Israelis, kind of puts the lie to that idiocy.
That bullshit doesn't fly any more. Zionism, like Manifest Destiny before it, was a neat little idea to carve (or re-carve) a nation out of a piece of land, when it was just an idea. When it was put into practice, of course it became the definition of a racist policy.
Because just as extending the Untied States across the plains to the Pacific was impossible without ethnic cleansing and land theft on a massive scale, perpetuated by immigrants on the native population, so was the creation of modern Israel. By a bunch of European immigrants dispossessing the native population of their land.
Bringing Israel into it muddies the waters in this case though, as Israel is against bringing a non-Muslim nation in to attack their Neighbor. They want Syria to be stable
Not as much as they'd like to take out an ally of Hezbollah an Iran while solidifying their "claim" on the Golan Heights. Israel's desire for peace take a very distant back seat to their desire for land and military supremacy over the region. That's why they pitch a fit when Iran or Syria gets missile defense systems or might someday want a nuclear bomb, because Israel wants to be able to attack them with impunity.
Get the fuck outta here with that ignorant assed American Exceptionalism.
Get real, Iran has a history of openly supporting terrorism that goes back for decades.
Oh, you mean Hezbollah, who are terrorists because they dare to oppose the terrorist state of Israel. The problem for you dumb ass is America's funding and support of organizations like MEK in Iran, who also happen to be on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations. Or they were, until enough reporters started making a stink over high level politicians like Howard Dean and Rudy Giuliani getting money to lobby for them.
Look, Slick, Iran hasn't attacked another country for 200 years, compared to hundreds of aggressive military operations of choice for both the U.S. and Israel. You want to complain about Iran's government being controlled by mullahs? Start with the nearest mirror, since their secular democratic government was overthrown by the U.S. and Britain. After supporting the torture-loving Shah for decades, the U.S. also supported Iraq when it declared war on Iran, including giving Saddam intelligence that allowed him to gas the Iranians.
And of course there's Stuxnet, where the U.S. has already declared an act of war if done to us. Your ignorant American Excpetionalism BS doesn't fly in the age of information, where ignorance is a choice.
i also remember the ice age scare of the 70's. I don't think the GP is misremembering anything.
Too bad the facts say otherwise. They're stubborn that way, like wingers that "remember" Clinton's responsibility for Ruby Ridge, when that fiasco took place before he was even elected, much less sworn into office.
Large groups of scientists have believed very wrong and goofy things for long periods of time.
Zombie talking point. There's an overwhelming consensus amongst physicists on basic forces of gravity - care to test it with your foot and an anvil? The thing about all those "goofy ideas" is that they were replaced with better ideas, theories and models. Until the denialists come up with a superior model, they can pound sand with their zombie.
I'll help you break the code there. The Iranian army was attacked by the Iraqi army with Iraqi manufactured chemical weapons under orders from the Iraqi government.
I'll let you in on recent news, since you've been living in a bunker: the U.S. gave Iraqis intel on Iranian troop positions with the full knowledge that they would use gas, and made no more effort to punish them than after they gassed the Kurds. Didn't stop the same neocons from breathlessly citing the latter - which they didn't care about at the time - as a reason to attack Saddam. "He's killing his own people!"
Assad inherited the "family business" - Syria - from his father.
As did Obama from Bush and Reagan and Nixon. Thus it makes perfect sense for Obama to break out the Agent Orange.
Assad didn't "give the United States and Israel the perfect excuse to bomb him if he's not desperate or a retard" by using chemical weapons.
Despite Obama making it crystal for the last year that he would really like to bomb Assad with talk of "red lines" on chemical weapons? You're either being willfully obtuse here, or Assad isn't the retard in the room.
also doubt that the Israelis would bomb Syria over the matter. They would bomb to keep advanced Syrian weapons out of the hands of Hezbollah, Hamas, and possibly al Qaida, as they have already done. It is yet to be seen if the US will do anything, even as a token.
Courteous of you to answer your own question, saves me the time.
He has nothing to gain by doing so -- Wrong. He has an easy way to kill rebels unprepared for chemical warfare, unlike the Syrian Army.
Wrong. If he were desperate enough to use chemical weapons, and invoke the "red line" that you've been studiously ignoring, then he would have used them when he was losing the war rather than winning as he is now. You're also depending on the "dumber than pond scum" explanation since the attack took place in the capital city, already a stronghold of Assad support, very close to his own forces. There's a reason even the Nazis didn't use chemical weapons in WWII: they are uncontrollable and can easily blow back onto your own troops. The other reason is that their use invites your enemies to respond with equal force, so we're back to pond scum again.
He has everything to lose by doing so -- Highly doubtful. Other countries have used chemical weapons and it typically leads to disapproval - shudder!
Other countries that aren't on America's shit list, like Somalia. You do know that makes a bit of a difference, yes? Like how we bombed Gaddafi for killing opposition protestors in Libya, all the while merrily selling weapons to be used on opposition protestors in Yemen, Bahrain, and Egypt.
I look forward to you gaining further insight.
I look forward to a response that doesn't pretend that Assad isn't dumber than pond scum and the nation that outspends the rest of the world combined on weapons hasn't been threatening to bomb the shit out of Assad if he, you know uses chemical weapons.
We see from history that too much interference in the economy, regardless of reason, slows down progress, and that, in the long run, saves more lives and improves the quality of life far more than some coastal issues would lessen it. I'd rather have a few billion move inland over the course of 100-300 years and end up in the year 2300 with year 2300 technology, then slow the economy and save the coasts and end up with year 2200 tech in 2300 (or year 2100 tech, or 2050).
Randian nonsense. The costs of centrally planned climate mitigation are insignificant next to the costs of doing nothing, or leaving it to Exxon to decide it's in the interests of their shareholders first.
what are the positives and negatives of climate change as it is currently occurring, what ought to be done, and what can be done. None of these questions are nearly settled.
Yeah. Who cares if cities drown, countries disappear under the ocean, and Africa starves if Tropicana can plant some orange groves in Greenland?
Republican doves and Democrat hawks on Syria?
Republican doves were driven out of the party by 2003. And Democrats have shown their propensity for hackery since they've defended actions from their Dear Leader that would have had them in the streets if it was Bush doing the same things for the same reasons.
To be fair, some of those who started politicizing AGW early on didn't help
Concern trolling.
People should not have picked results, out of context, that were convenient at the time.
Which models you referring to - maybe the ones that have consistently understated the rate of change?
But when someone finds evidence that more ice is being formed somewhere else it looks suspect
Not as suspect as long-debunked denialist talking point, since warmer weather can carry more precipitation, which can result in increased snowfall. What's next, why can't we we see stars on shots from the lunar landing?
Some of the loudest proponents of AWG, have done the most damage to the cause. After trying to simplify the situation for the greater population and then having the over simplification shown to be questionable a couple of times; laymen have a heard time knowing what to think.
More concern trolling.
To make matters worse, people start calling each other names and ridiculing each other. When you start labeling non-believers: deniers, Luddites, planet-killers, etc. what do you think is going to happen. Hell, how would most people react?
Tone trolling for those who want willful ignorance and faith-based science respected. The anti-vaccers have earned their derision, but the climate change denialists are going to get a lot more people killed than the anti-vaccers.
Don't like it? Come up with a superior model based on science rather than ideology. Denialists and concern trolls love to talk about how newer theories have replaced older ones on the shape of the universe, just up thread, but ignore the part where better theories were developed.
But instead of taking a deep breath and discussing it like rational people, it's devolved into name calling.
It's been discussed rationally ad nauseum over the last 30 years. Rationality is not the problem, we've had that in spades, willful ignorance is. And for some people, it is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into" - Johnathan Swift.
Slashdot Mirror
More likely than using chemical weapons when you're winning as opposed to last year when you were losing, in your capital city right next to your own forces? The same day that chemical weapons inspectors arrive? When a military power that has either bombed or bombed and occupied half a dozen Muslim countries has been shouting for six months that it would really really like to bomb you as well?
Seems legit.
They vetoed calling out the United States and Israel for arming and funding jihadist ethnic-cleansing organ-eating rebels, and Saudi Arabia and Qatar for doing the same plus sending in foreign fighters?
Wow, missed that news.
No, they didn't, that's just 11th Dimensional Chess nonsense to give Obama all the credit no matter what the facts actually are. Obama's only spent the last year and a half making it very very clear that he really really wants to bomb Assad.
And while Saudi Arabia and the United States have been supplying money and weapons to the "opposition", of which Al Queda makes up a powerful faction, including guys who cut the hearts out of enemy soldiers and munch on them.
Then you saw him make perfectly reasonable points, like why would he use chemical weapons right next to his own troops the day weapons inspectors arrive, or why the American's aren't thundering over Israel's WMD arsenal while they're at it. You know, since they're the one regional power that has indisputably used chemical weapons, when they dumped phosphorus on Gaza.
Have you considered that 11th Dimensional chess has never been anything more than wishful Obamabot thinking?
Tautologies are boring.
You could say the same thing about any company that has ever existed, if you applied this standard you're holding Apple to against the rest of the industry.
You mean competition is good for developing products for consumers? I'm sure your Nobel Prize in Economics is in the mail for that observation.
They're making more money than anyone else, and the only one of their competitors making real money is Samsung. Poor beleaguered Apple.
Because no other company could possibly position themselves as a premium brand/invest in marketing/bring repeat customers.
I notice you didn't say "product". Because Glass has sold a few hundred million units and made a few hundred billion dollars for Google.
There's a difference between being clever and just being obnoxious. Most of the maintenance done on a car involves the gasoline engine, which electric cars don't have.
Electric:
Breaks
Tires
Gas:
Breaks
Tires
Oil
Coolant
Carburetor
Emissions system
Muffler
Sure, you keep your Model S for ten years and you'll have to change the battery, but that's a one-time operation, not something you do every 30,000 miles.
Do you usually blunder around while parading your ignorance on remedial history, or is this a special case for you?
Dumbass.
You mean: ever hair-on-fire accusation from the two biggest terrorist states on the planet: the United States and Israel, which have a nice tradition of accusing others of that which they practice first. You want to talk bombing the embassy in Lebanon, lets talk about the Israeli invasion and U.S. occupation that preceded it. You want to talk about shooting primitive gunpowder based rockets into Israel, you need to talk about the advanced missiles fired from Israel that preceded them.
You're either a sophist, racist, or tool swimming in American/Israeli exceptionalist buuuuuullshit. You can whine about Hezbollah when they rain down phosphorous on civilian populations like Israel, or the 50 civilians they slaughter for every alleged Irgun terrorist with Predator Drones.
Continued willful stupidity just insults your own intelligence as well as ours. Powerball winners obviously exist, but they are an insignificant portion of the population - as are communists.
Other than your average press release from the ADL, the shunning of Helen Thomas, professors denied tenure, and college students sent for hate speech reeducation for...walking out of a presentation from an IDF stooge.
So if by "one or two nutjobs" you mean "constant reflexive action from just about all rabid Zionists", then yes. Hell, as sqrt points out, this shit was even automated. You probably still have a megaphone icon on your desktop.
Again with the "painful to read" shtick, eh? Since when does existence equate to relevance? Okay, so you can join the Communist Party in the United States - what are your chances of getting elected to a position above dog catcher or passing a law stripping capitalists of the ownership of the means of production. Buttkiss, that's what.
You were saying, Junior?
Other than Iran's 200 year record of not making war on it's neighbors, and Americas 200 year record of making war on whoever it feels like. With Israel following in its footsteps.
The cat was out of that bag 40 years ago when Israel was obtaining it's own nuclear arsenal. Iran getting nukes would be a stabilizing force on the region as it would put some limit on Israeli aggression.
So do the Israelis, if you press them. Which makes it "funny" that both countries have spent years threatening to bomb Iran (and covertly car bombing their scientists) for the nuclear weapons program they say Iran doesn't actually have. The unstated reason of course being that they want to be able to bomb Iran with impunity, and a nuclear deterrent would interfere with said impunity. It's the same reason Israel gets apoplectic when its neighbors purchase anti-aircraft missile defense systems: they don't want IDF bombers getting shot down.
That bullshit doesn't fly any more. Zionism, like Manifest Destiny before it, was a neat little idea to carve (or re-carve) a nation out of a piece of land, when it was just an idea. When it was put into practice, of course it became the definition of a racist policy.
Because just as extending the Untied States across the plains to the Pacific was impossible without ethnic cleansing and land theft on a massive scale, perpetuated by immigrants on the native population, so was the creation of modern Israel. By a bunch of European immigrants dispossessing the native population of their land.
Not as much as they'd like to take out an ally of Hezbollah an Iran while solidifying their "claim" on the Golan Heights. Israel's desire for peace take a very distant back seat to their desire for land and military supremacy over the region. That's why they pitch a fit when Iran or Syria gets missile defense systems or might someday want a nuclear bomb, because Israel wants to be able to attack them with impunity.
Get the fuck outta here with that ignorant assed American Exceptionalism.
Oh, you mean Hezbollah, who are terrorists because they dare to oppose the terrorist state of Israel. The problem for you dumb ass is America's funding and support of organizations like MEK in Iran, who also happen to be on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations. Or they were, until enough reporters started making a stink over high level politicians like Howard Dean and Rudy Giuliani getting money to lobby for them.
Look, Slick, Iran hasn't attacked another country for 200 years, compared to hundreds of aggressive military operations of choice for both the U.S. and Israel. You want to complain about Iran's government being controlled by mullahs? Start with the nearest mirror, since their secular democratic government was overthrown by the U.S. and Britain. After supporting the torture-loving Shah for decades, the U.S. also supported Iraq when it declared war on Iran, including giving Saddam intelligence that allowed him to gas the Iranians.
And of course there's Stuxnet, where the U.S. has already declared an act of war if done to us. Your ignorant American Excpetionalism BS doesn't fly in the age of information, where ignorance is a choice.
It came through ok; I saw that video a long time ago but had forgotten about it. Mobile posting can be a pita...
Too bad the facts say otherwise. They're stubborn that way, like wingers that "remember" Clinton's responsibility for Ruby Ridge, when that fiasco took place before he was even elected, much less sworn into office.
Zombie talking point. There's an overwhelming consensus amongst physicists on basic forces of gravity - care to test it with your foot and an anvil? The thing about all those "goofy ideas" is that they were replaced with better ideas, theories and models. Until the denialists come up with a superior model, they can pound sand with their zombie.
I'll let you in on recent news, since you've been living in a bunker: the U.S. gave Iraqis intel on Iranian troop positions with the full knowledge that they would use gas, and made no more effort to punish them than after they gassed the Kurds. Didn't stop the same neocons from breathlessly citing the latter - which they didn't care about at the time - as a reason to attack Saddam. "He's killing his own people!"
As did Obama from Bush and Reagan and Nixon. Thus it makes perfect sense for Obama to break out the Agent Orange.
Despite Obama making it crystal for the last year that he would really like to bomb Assad with talk of "red lines" on chemical weapons? You're either being willfully obtuse here, or Assad isn't the retard in the room.
Courteous of you to answer your own question, saves me the time.
Wrong. If he were desperate enough to use chemical weapons, and invoke the "red line" that you've been studiously ignoring, then he would have used them when he was losing the war rather than winning as he is now. You're also depending on the "dumber than pond scum" explanation since the attack took place in the capital city, already a stronghold of Assad support, very close to his own forces. There's a reason even the Nazis didn't use chemical weapons in WWII: they are uncontrollable and can easily blow back onto your own troops. The other reason is that their use invites your enemies to respond with equal force, so we're back to pond scum again.
Other countries that aren't on America's shit list, like Somalia. You do know that makes a bit of a difference, yes? Like how we bombed Gaddafi for killing opposition protestors in Libya, all the while merrily selling weapons to be used on opposition protestors in Yemen, Bahrain, and Egypt.
I look forward to a response that doesn't pretend that Assad isn't dumber than pond scum and the nation that outspends the rest of the world combined on weapons hasn't been threatening to bomb the shit out of Assad if he, you know uses chemical weapons.
Randian nonsense. The costs of centrally planned climate mitigation are insignificant next to the costs of doing nothing, or leaving it to Exxon to decide it's in the interests of their shareholders first.
Yeah. Who cares if cities drown, countries disappear under the ocean, and Africa starves if Tropicana can plant some orange groves in Greenland?
Republican doves were driven out of the party by 2003. And Democrats have shown their propensity for hackery since they've defended actions from their Dear Leader that would have had them in the streets if it was Bush doing the same things for the same reasons.
Concern trolling.
Which models you referring to - maybe the ones that have consistently understated the rate of change?
Not as suspect as long-debunked denialist talking point, since warmer weather can carry more precipitation, which can result in increased snowfall. What's next, why can't we we see stars on shots from the lunar landing?
More concern trolling.
Tone trolling for those who want willful ignorance and faith-based science respected. The anti-vaccers have earned their derision, but the climate change denialists are going to get a lot more people killed than the anti-vaccers.
Don't like it? Come up with a superior model based on science rather than ideology. Denialists and concern trolls love to talk about how newer theories have replaced older ones on the shape of the universe, just up thread, but ignore the part where better theories were developed.
It's been discussed rationally ad nauseum over the last 30 years. Rationality is not the problem, we've had that in spades, willful ignorance is. And for some people, it is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into" - Johnathan Swift.