"Airstrikes in Syria shifted from the besieged city of Kobani toward the oil facilities that fund Islamic State fighters"

oh, really? and, who is buying that oil?

two points:

(1) cut supply. keep prices high. again.
(2) if the oilfields are in syria, it is syria that loses the infrastructure when they are destroyed - regardless of who or what temporarily controls them.

they're destroying the syrian infrastructure. i don't need a patrick cockburn or robert fisk article to explain that, it's clear as day.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/10/18/isil-kobani-airstrikes/17507239/

cetaceans are sketchy. we're better off getting closer to elephants.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j75KdkV7n2o

what i'm seeing here doesn't strike me as much different than playing fetch with a dog. the dolphin's digging it.

the question of captivity is sort of complicated in the way it intersects with intelligence. humans don't live in our natural environments either, but it doesn't imply we're unhappy. dogs can be happy creatures as pets. drawing that line in the sand is really negating their intelligence level. you want to work a concept of choice in, but it's not easy.

the dolphin seems happy. it's not being aggressive. it's making "happy dolphin" sounds. that pool almost certainly connects to a bigger area. but, again, do you define your happiness in terms of how big your house is?

fuck this.

i want a war against ebola, with weekly presidential drone strikes.

on top of that, the ‘e-bowler’ app inventor has been denied contracts due to the name. how ridiculous is that? it almost sounds like a joke. the scaremongering just never ends...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-hNPztgAnI

typical right-wing logic. first, you cut funding to essential services to the point that they can't perform their basic tasks. then, you blame them for their "incompetency" and accuse them of "wasting tax money" when they tell you they can't afford to do what they should be doing.

should there be a travel ban? sure. but, conservatives (in both parties) need to take responsibility for creating agencies that are unable to respond to crises. otherwise, you need to come to terms with the fact that this is the society you wanted and this is the society you got.

government is the problem; it's your responsibility to protect yourself from infection.

don't like that? then get a grip on reality: you can't have services if you don't want to pay for them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xPgeF_4hHY

yeah, i'm not comfortable in upholding the implied hierarchy in the student-teacher relationship underlying the argument that the teacher should have reacted differently because she's a teacher. the reality is that the teacher was assaulted, and i feel she had the right to assert herself - not in a professional capacity, but in a personal one. i can't criticize her for her reaction, but i think the student should be expelled.

i think that means we have the right to call cops over with kissing sounds and shoot them in the face when they get close.

so, it's kind of like...disaster capitalism...

haven't read this yet, but she's brought out the thesis slowly and it's clear what she's getting at. and she's right. but she's running up against a brick wall almost immediately: part of the social darwinism of neo-liberalism is the idea that what we call capitalism today is a law of nature. the "free market" isn't this thing that we create, but this thing that exists in the wild.

also, a lot of this is based on the false idea that the approval has been delayed. in fact, the pipeline has already been approved, and it's even already pumping....