Politics

Long ago American colonialists protested British control of the American colonies: no taxation without representation! Last year on April 15th, a bunch of disenfranchised conservatives decided they felt the same way, except they're unrepresented because their candidates lost in a legitimate election. However, why not evoke imagery of colonial America? TEABAG THE WHITE HOUSE! Of course, given certain sexual connotations of "teabagging", the movement would eventually shed this label. I still enjoy it While this movement originally began as a populist uprising fundamentally rooted in libertarian principles of government, Fox News personalities, particularly Glen…

I have a dream. That one day Mankind will grow out of its infancy and peacefully expand into the galaxy. In order to ease that transition from type 1 to a type 2 Kardashev civilization I believe we need a society and form of government more up to task. As Carl Sagan once wrote "Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works." My goal is to design a better educated, more free, more involved, and more fair and just democratic society using the tools of sociology, psychology, political science, behavioral biology, philosophy, economics, and the knowledge of the past ten thousand years of human civilization…

Republicans have shown contempt for federal programs they think cuts into private sector earnings or makes the government bigger, like FEMA, OSHA, the EPA and others. Typically, they'll put a political appointee in charge who has no credentials for the job, or remove the program's ability to regulate, and then later point to how bloated and worthless the program is. They don't believe in them so they don't try to make them work (which they magically do when the Democrats take them back). Since Reagan, Republicans have been responsible for the biggest deficits as well, cutting taxes to make the deficits even bigger. They push spending where it means large private secto…

Anybody hear the news about what's happened in Greece? How did they get into the position they're now in and when will it get better? What does everyone think? ...your speculations please...

I think that the voting system is flawed, and that a lot of us will agree. So, I want to propose the idea of replacing it with a quiz system instead. My goal is to get this idea nationalized. Instead of voting (especially for the same redundant right or left who a lot of us know nothing about) why not replace it with a quiz system? It would be a much more efficient method of elections imo for getting what we, as a public whole, desire most. An example of the quiz would be a simple "Do you want to legalize x? Yes, No. Do you want the money to go towards y? Yes, No." I hope that we can change our system as soon as possible to this new proposed system for the greater good. …

Dear all, I am curious about the consequences of the US government shut down. So, can you all please add some very concrete things that were shut down? The NY Times listed a number already. 1. At NASA, 97% of the employees must go home. Only the essential employees for the current ongoing missions are working. 2. National parks and museums are closed. (That must suck if you want to do some tourism)... 3. Here's one from the Netherlands: The Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial is closed (source in Dutch), and it graves are no longer maintained. It is the final resting place of over 8000 American soldiers who died in World War II. If the grass grows too …

What a joke. Liberals create policies that can't work and then they need a boogeyman to blame their failure on. Childish.

If the President loses Trudy Rubin he is in trouble. She does a great job pointing out our Presidents incompetent foreign policy. http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/trudy_rubin/20130901_Worldview__Parsing_a_U_S__response_to_Syria.html What is worse is that now he is claiming that he didn't set a red line on chemical weapons. Yet, we all heard him lay down that line. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/04/201163/obama-i-didnt-draw-the-red-line.html#.Uidxoz-BV8E I don't think Obama will be able to pass the buck on this one. Does anyone? Perhaps he is hoping that congress will turn him down in the belief that he can blame congress. Or perha…

Without going in to conspiracies about "our government planning it"... This time of year keeps rehashing the story of 4 planes accomplishing what planes simply can not accomplish. But, aviation technology is kind of my thing. I have my degree on the subject, I'm federally certified, and I've been a professional mechanic for nearly a decade now.... And out of all that time, working for a couple "large companies".... I've never met a single member of the aviation community that believes that a Boeing 757 could have been at any of those crash sites.... Especially the pentagon one. Just wondering if there were people out there with basic training that still thought…

Will the EU ever go distroyed? The most Europeans aren't fan of the EU. As a Swiss I am mostly not fan about the EU because the EU is very undemocartic and has toooo burocratic(there is a law for the banans). And the EU has a big problem tooo handle with the souverenity of each European state.

this american president want to sell today. what he wasn't buying as a senator 12 years ago. a reason to go to war again . shame obama shame

In 1935 Ethiopia appealed to the League of Nations for assistance after attacked by a group of Italian-backed Somalis. The comedy that followed demonstrated that the League was impotent if a permanent member of the League so wanted it. Peter Wilson, for example, writes in League of Nations: Wikipedia likewise writes on the demise of the League: Veto power gave any permanent member the ability to completely abrogate the function of the League of Nations. It wasn't lost on the British PM when it happened: Unfortunately, it looks like nations that could commit to collective security, are once again abandoning it, and the UN is slowly and predictably dyin…

Firstly - excuse the title; this is to do with English Law and not with the warning given to suspects in the USA - I just couldnt resist the pun. Setup Glenn Greenwald is the reporter with the British newspaper the Guardian who has been working with Edward Snowden in publishing the files that Snowden is leaking from the NSA. The English law on stopping, searching and questioning tends to be based on the idea of reasonable suspicion - ie the PC cannot search or question a person randomly or in order to ascertain if any offence might have taken place; the PC should have a pre-existing and reasonable suspicion that the person has committed a specific offence. Whils…

http://lavabit.com/ Because it was found that Snowden had used this e-mail service the government forced the owner of Lavabit to close it's doors. Silent Circle also stopped because of this event. I feel the people should be doing something now. Clearly the government is after Snowden for some reason and it is affecting the internet's ability to spread information freely without government intervention. If the government can do this, then the government can declare what scientific research should be released and what is not to be, if it could help countries with poverty and such. What does everyone think of this?

Most nations have a legal drinking age, this varies from 16 in Switzerland, 18 in the UK and 21 in some US states. The purpose of this drinking age is to prevent individuals below this arbitrary age from obtaining alcohol or entering a premises in which alcohol is served. This is intended to protect individuals below this age from the negative effects of alcohol. Unfortunately these drinking age laws are not only unenforceable but counter productive. Teenagers under the arbitrary drinking age will still obtain and drink alcohol, via older friends/parents/siblings and so on. Because these underage drinkers are not allowed to drink legally they do so on street corners, …

What are the rules and principals that a political discussion should obey? A view is considered in below, any other view or experience? any objection? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seemingly a complete Political dialogue should containes 4 elements: 1.To be critical of the present situation (or to defend it) 2.What would be the ideals and alternatives for the present situation? 3.Is there any way to achieve these ideals and alternatives? 4.Are there any ways to stablize these ideals and alternative? Most of the…

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/07/republican-war-obamacare-reaching-absurd-new-heights Republican War on Obamacare Reaching Absurd New Heights Any other examples of lying and hypocrisy? Do you agree with the title that republicans would probably fare better in elections if they weren't so often lying and spouting such hypocritical absurdities?

I've had several ideas of how to "level the playing field", so to speak. The most recent one JUST popped into my head, but I will start chronologically. 1. Job Trade Holiday We all get stuck in a highly redundant process of achieving survival by getting our paycheck. What if we chose to implement some sort of Job Trade Holiday, where everyone, under some restrictions, gets the opportunity to trade their job with someone else? Note: This idea was developed very early in my Philosophy training, probably while I was taking Ethics. It's not complete at all, just a suggestion for a new radical type of holiday that would give us the chance to liberate ourselves. 2.…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/02/white-house-delays-employer-mandate-requirement-until-2015/?print=1 Is this the beginning of the end for ACA (aka Obamacare)? Why not go ahead and save all that money by implementing ACA on time? Why miss a year of savings? You would think Obama and the Democrats would want to bask in the glory of ACA in the lead up to the next election. Okay, enough of the sarcasm. I doubt employers will rejoice in this delay. Perhaps they will postpone some layoffs and some hour cut back plans but I doubt it. Employers hate uncertainty. The uncertainty of the impact of ACA has been holding back the economy long enou…

Introduction and summary In this short video, I reject of the idea of peace talks with the Taliban and present an outline of my proposed strategy to beat the Taliban (and win the war on terror). Transcript from the video - The desire for "peace talks" with the enemy is where poor generals with a failed war strategy end up Why would NATO and specifically the US want to encourage "peace talks" with the enemy Taliban? Why not simply crush the enemy? What's the political or military issue here that might mean "peace talks" would be part of an exit strategy for the US and allies? Key failures have been - Weak strategic thinking and planning …

The Gold price has lost more than 22% in only three months (April_2013) And more than 2% on this Friday. Yet it is the absolute safe haven. What's next? If it continues like this until the next Nobel Prize Award will not be more than a symbolic dollar.

there had been discussion in 2011-2012 about two papers about how to manipulate the deadly H5N1-influenza virus so it could be transmitted from human to human, maybe just like normal flu. The USA NSABB first recommended to not publish the papers in full, but finally agreed to publish them. A "moratorium" followed, during which international researchers agreed to not research this further. This has ended earlier this year and research resumed. There was an editorial in Nature http://www.nature.com/news/h5n1-viral-engineering-dangers-will-not-go-away-1.12677 and a letter to Obama's bioethics commission signed by leading virologists. http://www.cidrap.um…

So far, DOMA is struck down. Prop 8 is dismissed on standing meaning there was no grounds to appeal and thus SSM is once again legal in CA. Watch the announcements live here.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prop8-supreme-court20-2008nov20,0,2453702.story The California Supreme Court agreed today to review legal challenges to Prop. 8, the voter initiative that restored a ban on same-sex marriage, but refused to permit gay weddings to resume pending a ruling. The court overturned a ban on same-sex marriage on May 15 in a 4-3 historic decision. Opponents of gay marriage gathered enough signatures to place Proposition 8 on the ballot as a proposed constitutional amendment. Gay rights advocates argue that the measure was actually a constitutional revision, instead of a more limited amendment. A revision of the state Constitutio…

In light of the NSA data gathering (discussed here), here's an important question: Is metadata private? (I will answer when I have some more time)