the media discussion around the deal is essentially useless, because it's approaching it from a false perspective.

it doesn't matter what source of information you're drawing on. left. right. tabloids. academic literature. american media, or foreign media. they all frame the deal in the terms of america having iran where it wants it and being able to turn the vice until it gets what it wants. that is, essentially all media interprets the situation in the vacuum of american-iranian relations. when the rest of the world is mentioned, it's in order to help mediate, or give the us extra muscle in negotiations.

this interpretation exists in the realm of fantasy. and, one cannot understand the circumstances unless it is entirely discarded as absolute fiction - which is near impossible, because it is the only narrative available anywhere at all.

the issue on the table was never based on the assumption that iran is in the american sphere of interest, which is what is necessary to get to the existing narrative. rather it was always seeking to resolve the question of whether iran will remain in the american sphere of interest, as it was until the revolution - or if it will exit that sphere of interest and enter a joint russian-chinese sphere of interest. and, what the deal on the table does is "allow" that exit to occur. the republicans are rejecting the deal for that reason, not due to anything about enrichment. but, they are out of touch with the reality of the situation, which has changed to the point that if they follow through with their rhetoric on iran it is likely that they will start a world war. the importance of the agreement is being ignored because the narrative is based on an incorrect premise.

allow is in quotations because the truth is that the americans can no longer prevent this. and, this is a consequence of other policies. rising american militarism in eastern europe, european sanctions against russia, the continuing war in syria and the general recent western hostility against moscow have emboldened russia to behave a little bit more aggressively. the sanctions were intended to force russia to change it's behaviour. this was stupid, it was predictably going to fail and the people pushing for these sanctions were acting out of clear ignorance of the russian mentality. this is a failure at the state department of comical proportions; it is an error that should have never even been contemplated.

a few weeks before the deal got signed, russia announced plans to move advanced anti-aircraft systems into iran. this was something the russians had previously been threatening to do, but refrained from doing as a fig leaf to the west. they kept the threat up for leverage, but didn't do it to prevent hostilities. now that those hostilities have reached dangerous levels, they are following through with their threats.

these missile systems make the containment of iran difficult to the point of nearly impossible. they are an effective deterrent against an american invasion. further, they make the nuclear option unnecessary. we can no longer bomb iran to stop them from making the nuclear weapon they wanted to make to stop us from bombing them. in that sense, this is indeed a "permanent" solution - it's a permanent acceptance of the loss of iran.

once you understand the situation, you understand why the republicans are kneejerking - they refuse to accept the loss of iran. but, that does not make them any less foolish. as iran is now protected from attack by russian missiles, the entire basis of the sanctions regime has fallen apart. a refusal to sign the deal will not do anything to prevent the loss of iran, but will do everything to piss off the rest of the world. there's little indication that they care, but this is folly at a frightening level - and as mentioned could have disastrous consequences.

what we will see in the next few years is increasing iranian integration into russian and chinese organizations, like the sco. there's even talk about them being the first non-soviet state into the csto. trade will increase across asia, as eastern countries increasingly ignore the sanctions.

and the fact is that america cannot prevent this. it can only sign a weak agreement to save a little bit of face, and look mildly foolish rather than irrelevantly weak.

had they not slapped those sanctions down on russia, things may have been different. but, they set this in motion themselves.

america is not the emperor of the world. it can't just go around telling everybody else what to do.

Ryan Herich
It can tell iran

deathtokoalas
+Ryan Herich no. the takeaway from the situation is that it cannot, that the rest of the world will not stand around and watch any longer and that it is time to move on.

as time goes on, jessica is orienting herself further and further towards the looney right. the idea that the eu is the cause of the economic stagnation in europe, or that leaving it will benefit the british economy, is the most absurd economic ignorance from the least educated sectors of the british public. it's not the kind of perspective that deserves any kind of serious analysis. watching jessica conduct these interviews from positions of extreme ignorance (and yet unplaced confidence that is really simply arrogance) with people that are much smarter than her is increasingly like watching the village idiot walk into the local university with a bible and use it in a debate over equations. it's becoming painful, paul. this is a bad combination....

will the uk leave the eu? the conservative position is about two things: (1) leverage and (2) sovereignty. and, while it may be true that socialism is dead in europe, it has died along with "socialism" in russia. the underlying fear was never socialism, exactly, but that the continent would realign with the russians. this fear is no less valid today, socialism or not.

the various tensions playing out in the world are no doubt exacerbating this old fear. a german swing to russia would put the uk in a bad position, where they would have to make some choices they don't want to.

that's what this issue is about: not getting pulled into a german realignment policy, and rather maintaining the sovereignty to remain the junior partners in the anglo-american empire. we'll know how serious the british concerns about german alignment truly are by whether the referendum runs or not; if it runs, there's some serious movement going on. if it doesn't, it's just continued leverage.

i actually suspect he's working for the banks, just like obama, and is on a parallel mission to take down clinton. it's a lot of deja vu with 2008. i mean, who is running all these youtube channels? and where's he getting all this money from, all of a sudden?

it's not that i'm particularly fond of clinton, or even have many agreements with her regarding much of anything. but the way that a certain segment of the establishment has consistently gone after her is very curious to me. the base anti-establishmentarian in me finds that sort of compelling.

in public, she hasn't signaled anything but every intent to do what she's told. so, why are they so keen to keep her out of office?

Upton Sinclair
+deathtokoalas Bill Clinton removed provisions from Glastegel which helped the banks a great deal and Miss Clinton has received a lot of campaign donations from banks, he gets money from unions and regular people donating as they like him - kinda like a kick starter but political.

deathtokoalas
+Upton Sinclair the situation around glass-steagall was kind of complicated. clinton didn't write the legislation, it was written by senate republicans, and did not have the power to veto it. republicans had tried to pass similar legislation through the 80s, but it was always blocked by senate democrats, who had a congressional majority for a very long time - up until the clinton administration.

it's an open question as to whether he would have vetoed it, if he could. he's on the record as claiming he would have, but his record is kind of spotty on it. but, the bottom line is that he didn't write the repeal, and he couldn't have stopped it.

i don't think glass-steagall was the issue that lined the banks up against her in 2008. i think it was health care. and, that's largely been taken care of. further, few would argue that she was not a sufficient enough war monger during her time as secretary of state. and yet they continue to despise her.

what i find curious about the situation is that it's really not clear why this is. it can't be just a kind of broad, general fear that she's "too liberal" - even if any liberal would scoff at such a claim. the lengths that they go to to get rid of her are just off the wall. there has to be a specific reason for this, and it's not obvious.

Upton Sinclair
+deathtokoalas I personally dislike her due to the fact that she just seems fake and heavily influenced by the various donors backing her and not liberal enough, she seems like if she were elected she'd bring home pocket change. I personally find Bernie more appealing than her due to the facts he's not getting huge campaign donations from billionaires and millionaires like Clinton and basically all other major politicians, he's a proven progressive who's always stood by what he believed in and not what's most popular at the time, and he's just more to the left - which I like.

deathtokoalas
+Upton Sinclair see, i think that that's the "official narrative" which is meant to convince you to vote for him and keep her out.

bernie sanders is somebody that's been in politics a long time and who has blazed his own path for a long time. but, this run seems orchestrated. i'm not falling for it.

i don't think he's actually running on grassroots support and union funds. i think it's just what you're being told. that's what they told you about obama, too - and you learned the hard way that it wasn't true.

i'm not stumping for clinton. i'm much too far to the left to consider voting in the two-party system in the united states. i'm just calling a spade; bernie's not what he appears to be.

i'll acknowledge that there is a difference between sanders and obama, in relation to clinton. on paper, clinton was always to the left of obama, they just created a mirage to hide that. on paper, sanders is clearly to the left of clinton. but, i'm not expecting the outcome to be different.

i don't have any evidence. not yet, anyways. it's just informed intuition. but it's a skepticism that is necessary and that will unfortunately probably reveal evidence as time unfolds,

bloodybleeder
+deathtokoalas I'm more fascinated with a persons ability to ignore the shit out of Hillary's corruption. The very thing leftists HATE about government corruption... "but... she's a woman, its all propaganda...YOU HATE WOMEN!"

deathtokoalas
+bloodybleeder leftists don't really care about government corruption. it's a christian values, conservative right-wing kind of thing. like most leftists, i take the socratic position that democracy is impossible without corruption, and upsetting yourself over it is banging your head against the wall for no rational reason.

i should clarify a little. exactly how the left views government corruption depends on how far left you go. but this discussion is kind of outside the realm of democratic politics. and i need to state again that i'm not a clinton supporter; if i was an american, i would certainly prefer bernie's rhetoric, but would lean rather heavily towards a more left-leaning party like the green party. i'm just pointing out that i'm very skeptical of all of this, and suspect that something on the order of a vast right-wing conspiracy is underlying it.

but, the basic idea on the left - that really anchors the whole concept of what left-wing means - is that government is inherently corrupt. you can't make government less corrupt; power corrupts. not absolute, absolutely. but relative, relatively. so, we might bring something like a class analysis in to explain this, and try to find ways around this. but whether you're talking about the anarchists or communists or anybody else on the far left, our basic argument is that we need to get rid of government altogether because it can never be reformed.

if you pull a little more into the center, they argue for things like regulatory bodies to try and minimize corruption. but, the basic premise remains that the corruption is unavoidable. the best you can do is try and police it. and, that might be preferable to you if you don't like corruption but aren't quite upset enough about it to start a revolution.

people like me that are further left than this will point out the capture issue, but are ultimately left shrugging it off until more people come to our side and argue for the abolition of the state altogether. we know there's nothing that can really be done.

it's only the right that has ever identified corruption as a sin on an individual level rather than a systemic problem. it's only the right that has ever promoted the idea that the solution to corruption is voting out the corrupt individuals and replacing them with incorruptible ones. the left has always seen that as naive.

so, in practice, while parts of the moderate left may argue for regulatory bodies to minimize corruption, the broad left sees it as a systemic issue that exists independent of individual politicians and is forced to accept it as a part of the system until more broad-based support can be generated for anti-statist reforms. the left consequently rarely bases voting decisions on the issue of corruption. but, the right seems to maintain the kind of protestant perspective that corruption is a consequence of wicked people and can be stamped out by replacing them with more scrupulous people.

to put it another way: left-leaning voters are going to tend to assume that they're all equally corrupt and either decide not to vote at all or base their voting decisions on something else.

it's hard to claim this disc is a lost classic, if you're a canadian - it was ubiquitous for a little while. but it sort of seems like it.

it may be partly because it's at about the time that canada began to lose it's own, distinctive musical culture. we hung on for a few more years, and arguably even hit a peak in the mid 90s. but, since then, canadian music has become an expression of what america has lost. younger people may correctly see something of greater value, by comparison. but, it's a different animal. the truth is that we've lost as much as they have; it's just harder to tell from the outside.

never did get into the beach boys. more of a beatles fan. but this song really hit me just the right way when i was about ten or so.

their bassist was actually a rather substantial musical influence on me and, along with mccartney, still really forms the crux of how i approach the bass guitar, underneath however many other influences.

jim m
+deathtokoalas beetles? stones

deathtokoalas
+jim m the rolling stones created almost nothing of any lasting value. their legacy will die with their fan base.

the beatles-stones debate is an anachronism. people will follow their parents. bloody wankers. but anybody under 40 (if not 50, nowadays) can clearly here that the stones were not in the same league as the beatles. it's the same thing with the beach boys, really.

we can have beatles-floyd debates - and i may side with floyd, depending on the context. or maybe beatles-byrds debates, if you're so inclined. but a beatles-stones debate is pointless. it's like arguing the relative merits of thomas pynchon v. dr. seuss.

Anonymous User
+deathtokoalas Nothing of lasting value? The Beatles are undeniably a major influence to many artists, but to act like the Rolling Stones made nothing of lasting value is hilariously wrong. I'm not even a Rolling Stones fan, I would also rather listen to The Beatles, but let's not kid ourselves.

Jake Britt
+deathtokoalas Brian Wilson is the guy The Beatles went to for their inspiration...

deathtokoalas
+Anonymous User they never even released a mediocre record. their one attempt at doing something interesting - satanic majesties request - is just laughably bad.

they were talentless hacks. they were always absolute followers - there's not an original idea in their discography. they may have some place in the history of fashion. but, they will be lucky to get a footnote in the musical history of the period. the beatles, on the other hand, will be remembered for quite some time.

it's all ** or * records - out of ten stars.

they'll have a better chance in a paragraph on the mahavishnu orchestra.

"john spent his early days loosely attached to a clownish group of bohemian village idiots called 'the rolling stones' before he began his career in earnest. remaining information about this group is scarce, but it is known that they were of great popularity in their day amongst the uneducated, rural underclass."

deathtokoalas
+Jake Britt that's a poor way to express the relationship between brian wilson and paul mccartney. there was a kind of a rivalry. brian wilson was very impressed by revolver, and made pet sounds in response to it. mccartney was impressed by pet sounds, and countered with sgt. peppers. his inability to top sgt. peppers is the actual reason that brian wilson never released another record. it drove him insane.

fwiw, mccartney has since acknowledged the importance of the session musicians on pet sounds. he was not initially aware that the bass parts were mostly written and performed by carol kaye, for instance. and, he seemed to be a little taken aback by that, as though a fraud had been exposed to him.

it was a leading question on the tpp. nobody opposes increasing trade.

that 18% green-leaning ndp vote is really on the brink of splitting, and may be an underestimate. a large amount of that is very fragile at this point. mulcair has already made a series of choices meant to position himself dead centre, and the online reaction to a lot of it has been pretty dramatic. he has those voters on his side, at most, until he passes legislation they don't like - and he *will* pass legislation they don't like. they may hold their noses and vote for him, to get rid of harper and then start criticizing him five minutes later. that might be what i end up doing. if he doesn't slow that centrist cave down a tad, he might manage to scare them off before the election.

http://ipolitics.ca/2015/08/14/the-ekos-poll-ndp-liberals-still-struggling-to-break-free-of-deadlock/

Spencer
Ekos for the past 2 months seems to consistently low ball Liberal support by around 2 or 3 points and high ball Green support compared to most other polling firms.

deathtokoalas
this swing in the green vote is real. the ndp has been disappointing to left-leaning voters as of late.

Spencer
I wouldn't be that surprised if the Greens picked up a point or two by the end of the campaign, but I still think Ekos is high balling them when every other polling firm has them at about half of what Ekos does.

deathtokoalas
this poll put the ndp-green swing at almost 20% of the ndp vote. that's closer to 5-6%. i think it's a given that mulcair can kiss that goodbye if he starts backing pipelines and signing free trade agreements, as he's signaled he will. but, holding them up to the election is a question of how loud the centrist rhetoric is, and how intent those voters are to ignore it to push a change in government. they have little choice but to conclude he at least couldn't be worse than harper. but, protest voters vote with their hearts. he could very well scare off enough of his base to drop him to second or third, in his rush to the middle.

wow. if you're a poll geek, you should check out that mainstreet pdf file. i wish more firms did this kind of polling on undecideds. it really clarifies where people are actually at. for example, quantifying that only 6% of undecideds in ontario are leaning conservative [even keeping in mind that 50% refused to answer], while 18% surveyed are undecided, is very clarifying.

and that poll gives the liberals some hope in quebec, too. hrmmn.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-polltracker-aug14-1.3190102

i've been ignoring the senate scandal fiasco as a sideshow, even a show-trial for harper to use to push his senate agenda through. i couldn't see it having much of an effect on the critical swing on the left. and conservative voters are so rigid, they'd follow their leader into a fire, or drink the kool-aid, or whatever analogy you want....

....but, that swing on the left is shutting down and stabilizing....

a lot of people attributed the 2006 loss to the sponsorship scandal, and it perhaps had some effect in shoring up that roughly 5-8% "pc swing" that was floating around after joe clark endorsed the liberals in 2004. but it was really the nature of the swing, being right-leaning. and, i think there's an argument that the ruling on gay marriage was as or more important. i think it's effect was really overblown. harper really didn't walk out of it with a higher vote total than the conservatives & reform got together through the 90s - which is what you'd expect under *ambient* conditions.

so, if the analogy is to hold, i'd argue it should actually have a minimal effect, rather than a dramatic one.

but, what the duffy thing can hurt is the red tory part of his base. that 5-8% bump that joe clark gave the liberals (and went back in '06) has been gone in most polling for months, leaving him with numbers that are not far off of what reform got in the 90s. it consequently may be a factor in moderate conservatives swinging to the liberals.

and, the truth is there's a lot of stuff like this that could even eat into the libertarian side of the reform base. something like c-51, or the attempt to make boycotting israel a hate crime, could rub civil libertarians badly. conservatives in canada have generally leaned strongly towards protections for civil rights as a balance in being "tough on crime". he's not really balancing this in ways that most conservatives *i* know would approve of.

the narrative up to now has been those attack ads. there's really no evidence they've had any effect at all. in the end, actions speak louder than words.

the flip side of this is that if you look at the liberal numbers of 28% and realize that 6-8% of this is coming from traditional conservative voters, and then you compare the remaining 20% to the 37-40% they were getting in the 90s, you quickly see just how badly the ndp have eaten into the liberal support. that's a 15% swing from the liberals to the ndp. and it might be there for a generation or more.

it won't hurt jobs, and it will help people in the long run. further, it's nice to see some policy based on behavioural economics. one hopes that homo economicus is on the path to extinction; it seems, it couldn't compete.

but, let's not be naive. sure: this might help people in the long run, so long as it remains viable relative to the inflate and burst cycle. but, the real winners are investors. that's a lot of other people's money to gamble.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ontario-retirement-pension-plan-who-loses-who-wins-1.3189773 

Angry Earl
actually the investor's (banks, mutual fund companies, etc) would benefit most from the private investment (e.g. RRSPs, TFSAs) rather than a government pension plan because they make money off the fees, but the investment costs with large pension plans (e.g. CPP, Ontario Teachers, OMERS) are trivial in a percentage cost and the investment returns have greatly exceeded the private sector over many years. If I could have CPP or OMERS invest my money for me, I would be glad to turn over my portfolio.

Jessica Murray
that may be technically true, but we're talking about creating funds by taxing people that otherwise wouldn't create rrsps - *because* they wouldn't otherwise create rrsps.

it's going to end up in the hands of investors, who are going to gamble it on the stock market and do all other kinds of shady things with it. in the end, they get the largest profit, not the pensioners.

state propaganda speaks of things like "educating people about how to save and invest". it's misunderstanding that it's not an issue of education (although it may be broadly lacking) so much as it's an issue of priority. personally? i have no plans to make it to 65. i'd rather spend the money on beer and popcorn. i can't argue i'd invest it better, i'd argue i don't care about investing it. but, then what happens when i make it to 79, after planning my whole life to live to 59? "oops. forgot to save. too busy having fun.". well, that's what a government *does*...

if there are windfalls, the government could very well raid it; i don't see a big problem with that, so long as nobody gets a letter in the mail telling them there's no money left. conversely, if there are shortfalls, the state will make up the difference through other means.

instead of handing off the money to investors, they could pocket it. but, they won't, because they don't want to. and, they don't have the initial stock market capital that you can get by pooling money together, either - which is very useful if you're going in.

i've been saying for years that the liberals need to beat the ndp, not the conservatives, and they're fighting battle after battle on the wrong side of the spectrum. call it a self-fulfilling prophecy if you wish, but the pendulum has now swung: i would expect the liberals to grow primarily at the expense of the conservatives at this point, while the ndp grows at the expense of the liberals, and the greens grow at the expense of the ndp. running an unpopular government at the far end of the spectrum means the conservatives don't grow, they shrink...

as the liberals slowly take over the right, and cement themselves as a moderate conservative party, the conservatives will fade back into the socred legacy they came from. harper wanted this to be his party, and his government. harper party. harper government. and, that's likely what he'll get. the conservative party is done when he is.

you'll inevitably see some crossings and realignments, with traditional conservative party support slowly moving into the liberal camp - and bringing it a lot of money. which is probably what they've been angling for the whole time. all the votes are on the left, but all the money is on the right.

so, i'm going to stop saying this. they set their own course, and the support on the ground has caught up to the rhetoric and policies: they exist on the right, and are in competition for conservative voters.

this election? not likely to work out well. next election? the existential struggle swings right.

if you set out to destroy the liberal party of canada, you'd better be willing to accept the consequences of failing at it.

the liberals may come out of this firmly on the right of the spectrum, but it's the tories that have days that are numbered.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-polltracker-aug14-1.3190102

SOB_Van_Owen
Traditionally, Conservatives campaign from the right but govern from the left and Liberals campaign from the left but govern from the right. It is all in an effort to control the middle.

This is different though. Trudeau is trying to outflank Tom, not Harper. The only thing I wonder is if he will let Harper sit as a minority PM for three years like his spineless predecessors did.

Jessica Murray
well, i think the conservatives are doing a pretty good job of campaigning on the right...

i don't think you can underestimate how badly this government has tarnished the "conservative" brand. they're in a distant third with voters under 55. distant. like, 20%. as their base dies, the party dies. within a few years, they're unlikely to be competitive.

that 30% conservative number has been a rock bottom since wwII. it's been unheard of to see the conservatives consistently polling in the 20s. but, it's masking the liberals' swing to the right, and the voters they've lost permanently to the ndp.

i mean, imagine trudeau's father campaigning on balanced budgets. it's rather comical.

the regional breakdowns make the three-way race somewhat of an illusion. the liberals don't have a regional base. even if the liberals can get up to 30-32% support, that likely just means they come in second place almost everywhere they lose. they will likely not be a significant force in the next parliament. with a few bad gaffes, they could even lose party status - even with 20-25% of the popular vote, if a lot of it is in alberta and quebec, where they can't win.

but, the moment the conservatives lose power, they lose the only argument they have. and, once harper steps down, you'll see the conservatives "release their delegates", if you will. that base of long time moderate conservatives does not like him any more than the rest of the country does, but they're sticking with him because they're conservatives and they like stability. the moment they're no longer in power, and they have a new leader, all bets on numbers higher than than the ~10% the socreds consistently got up to 1980 are off.

inflation of any sort always increases prices. deflation of any sort never decreases prices. so, you're half right. it's not a nefarious plan by the nwo or the rastafarians or something. but it's a fundamental fact of capitalism: prices never come down.

www.cbc.ca/news/business/oil-storage-tanks-filled-to-levels-not-seen-in-80-years-1.3190001

this is how you hold people accountable.

i'm just legitimately curious: do you have any comments regarding this idea of making boycotting israel a hate crime?

that sounds like it might be a little contentious on your side of the spectrum.

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGy6uV7yqGWDeUWTZzT3ZEg

i mean, it's kind of not respecting market theory.

and then there's the hate crime minefield.

fwiw, i'm not a supporter of bds as a tactic. i agree with chomsky's criticisms. but, i'm still curious.

this is quite interesting...

it's republican talking points, set to a laugh track to attempt to emulate the daily show. no punch lines. no set ups. it's quite seriously just tabloid paper talking points with a laugh track.

there's been a lot said about how more people watch the daily show than the news, and how jon stewart was amongst the most influential people in american politics. with his retirement, and colbert moving out of the format, it would be reasonable for the right to try and walk in.

this is....it's just bad. there's no subtlety. it's flat propaganda.

i'm interested to see what kind of audience it can generate.

this kind of thinking is widespread, but it's basically our inability to completely eject creationism. it's completely backwards.

we don't evolve traits to fill a purpose. rather, shit happens through random error at the genetic level, and if it's useful then we hang on to it. if it's not, it may or may not go away. but, it doesn't go away because we don't need it. it either goes away because not having it is advantageous (which is probably the case with the tail) or because some other advantage happens to coincidentally be linked to not having it it (which is probably the case with things like different eye and hair colours, and the loss of muscles referenced in the video).

for example, let's say that telepathy develops in a single human that happens to only have four toes. it would be conceivable that descendants of this human may become dominant, and they may only have four toes. but that has nothing to do with how useless a pinky is. it has to do with how useful telepathy is. and, there would be no contextually meaningful answer to the question "why do some people have five toes and some people have four toes?".

if neither of these things are true, the trait just continues on with no effect on selection until one of the factors appears.

so, we don't want to be looking at traits and asking "what is their purpose?". that is basically asking "why was this designed?". nor does every trait need to have a use or even provide an advantage,

the better way to look at traits is to assume they are random and useless as a null hypothesis, until enough evidence can be gathered to reject that hypothesis and demonstrate an actual survival advantage. if you take this approach, you'll quickly realize that much of what we see around us is really void of any purpose. and, that's actually quite liberating.

the telepathic human could also coincidentally be born without the ability to synthesize a protein, or some other disadvantage. and, if telepathy is much more advantageous than not having that protein is disadvantageous, we're left with many descendants that have telepathy, and cannot synthesize a protein. then, if we ask "of what purpose is this failure to synthesize a protein?", we are not asking a coherent question. that's just randomness...

the reason that you're getting so much push back on the iran deal is the perception of manifest destiny, this idea that it's america's rightful place as global hegemon, as invincible empire.

at some point, americans are going to have to realize the folly of this thinking - or face the consequences of the errors that come from it. but, this is ancient propaganda. in some sense, it's baked into the culture.

it was never clear what your mandate really was, other than to not be the dipshit your predecessor was. but, a significant part of the perception of your presidency was your public speaking skills. if there were any expectations at all, they were regarding your use of the bully pulpit to snap some sense into people.

http://www.youtube.com/user/whitehouse

SelectCircle
The world's up for grabs. Why let Islam have it? Or Marxism.

deathtokoalas
self-determination isn't an ideological position. it's an unavoidable fact, sooner or later.

SelectCircle
+deathtokoalas Self-determination is the intellectual ploy that Islamists and Marxists use to get good forces to back off - so they can take over instead. You must be a very low-level stooge for the Left if you haven't figured out yet the cynicism and duplicity of your evil post-colonial Marxist leaders.

deathtokoalas
+SelectCircle i align with the strain of anarchism that has continually been slaughtered by marxists, and has both written extensively in opposition to marxism and fought against it - always losing, unfortunately.

there's not a debate to be had, here. you cannot prevent people from determining their own future. you can only render yourself irrelevant by trying - or destroy yourself if you invest enough into it that you're seen as a threat to the self-determination of others.

SelectCircle
+deathtokoalas Anarchists and Marxists wink at each other - lovingly. There's not a single ally on the Left for decent people. And it's about time you shape up and stop playing while getting played.

deathtokoalas
+SelectCircle lol. well, i sometimes argue that conservatives and liberals are the same thing. i guess i can't be too critical of your ignorance on the matter.

SelectCircle
+deathtokoalas This is a case of Presumed Ignorance vs. Pretend Naivete. - Do you ever cut the crap and just level with folks?

deathtokoalas
using a two-pronged axis, marxists are on the far right of the socialist spectrum and are viewed by anarchists as little different than fascists. marxism is really the evolution of a strain of feudalism called "enlightened despotism". there's some exceptions. but most anarchists view most marxists as totalitarian, right-wing lunatics that are the absolute enemy of any meaningful concept of liberty - and we know from experience that we cannot count them as allies, despite them tricking us into it in the past. we don't look at the soviet union or the prc as failed attempts at communism, we understand that the approach was flawed from the start and that the outcome was the only thing that could have ever come from centralizing power into a state bureaucracy and aligning it under the head of an absolute ruler. the dictatorship of the proletariat can only ever be a dictatorship of the proletariat.

anarchism has the same intellectual roots in the french revolution as much of what we call western liberal democracy. it's really a purer adherence to the principles that our own society was founded on.

SelectCircle
+deathtokoalas You're a Marxist who's lost his mind waiting. That's all.

deathtokoalas
+SelectCircle i'm more into thomas paine than karl marx, actually. and, considering that he was attempting to apply pre-industrial liberalism to an industrial society, i don't think marx' insights into economics (which is about what anarchists would restrict themselves to in citing marx) are very useful in the growing reality of living in an automated, post-industrial society. the economics of marxism only make sense if you assume socialization of production as a given. otherwise, it's pointless intellectual masturbation.

another way to put it is that anarchists are really the same thing as what you'd call "social liberalism", they just take both planks (economic collectivism, individual freedom) to more exaggerated places, which partially means taking the state out of it in favour of local decision making.

we need fresh thinking on how to apply liberalism to an automated, post-industrial society. and the answer may look more like something milton friedman thought up than something karl marx imagined.

SelectCircle
+deathtokoalas Paine would've settled for Marx. We know what you guys are about. And you know it too. 

deathtokoalas
+SelectCircle marx was pretty critical of paine.

SelectCircle
+deathtokoalas Protestants are critical of Catholics. But both are Christians. In the same way that atheists don't get sucked into fine sectarian distinctions but just condemn the whole lot - conservatives are learning to condemn the whole Left as all the same thing. You know with whom you stand - even if they're the ones who martyr you.

deathtokoalas
+SelectCircle the difference between anarchists and marxists is more along the lines of the difference between christians and jews, in the sense that we come from a common place but have drastically different perspectives. and, if you want the direct analogy, it's that marxists are closer to upholding the fire and brimstone of the old testament, whereas anarchists are more into the love your neighbour idea of the new one.

you can paint with as broad a brush as you like. you're correct in deducing that you're unlikely to find much common ground with either of us. and, we're not going to sit around and wait for your approval. but it would behoove you to understand the differences in perspective if you have any desire in carrying out a meaningful debate with any of us. otherwise, you're likely to merely come off as sounding rather foolish.

anyways. this has little to do with my post, here. you just randomly accused me of being a marxist. that is incorrect. and that should be the end of this discussion.

the cold war was not ideological, and it didn't begin in 1945. it was geopolitical, and it came out of the napoleonic wars. the 90s saw a pause in this struggle, but the truth is that nato really only second thought it for a moment. by the time that bush took over, the policy was to take advantage of the historical window of opportunity that russia's weakness allowed for. every single war in eurasia since 1991 has existed within the same cold war context that existed before 1991. this process of toppling dictatorships is the process of cleaning up lingering russian influence, and annexing the area to the american empire.

sanctions of this sort may work on a country like spain, which sees itself as an aspect of a culture, rather than a culture itself. and if a twist of history had america as a spanish-speaking country (not such an outlandish alternate history at all), they might work in a country like venezuela, which is deeply anti-colonialist but not insularly nationalist. but, they will not work in countries like iran and russia, which remain deeply nationalistic as autonomous islands of insular culture. russia has a history in europe, but it is not a part of europe; iran has a history in the arab world, but it is not arab. neither seek integration into a whole, they merely seek friendly relations. rather, a smart analysis of countries like iran and russia would suggest that these sanctions will only resolve the will of the people to fight for sovereignty, create anger and hate towards america and may possibly even create terrorists.

further, sanctions of the sort send the message to the rest of the world that the west is a poor partner that cannot be trusted.

it's over a year after this was published, and in that time what we've seen is iran and russia work together to get around the sanctions, with increasing moral support from beijing.

i claim that this was predictable and that it is less a result of russia outsmarting the state department and more the result of the state department pushing foolish policies that they should have known would be ineffective.

perhaps restoring some funding cuts for the humanities is in order.

it's less that the question is unclear and more that it's hard to convert. french and english are pretty different in terms of the way they use tenses, and such a question is a bit of a tongue twister to convert.

so, he asked: "did you mean 2.5 years ago?"

the interviewer said "no - i meant today".

so, he begins to answer the question: what would he do differently if he's elected prime minister. that's what was just agreed upon. but he's stopped.

"no, what i mean is if you were prime minister today."

but, that was what was just clarified - he meant today, not 2.5 years ago.

so, now that he understands the question (which is about today, not 2.5 years ago), he asks for it to be reasked, to avoid the translational issues coming out.

but, it's clear upon reasking that he meant 2.5 years ago, not today - which is not what was just agreed upon. when it's clear that the initial clarification was incorrect, and he meant two years ago, the question now requires a different response.

the third restart identifies the actual issue with dion, which is something western democracy has seen happen from time to time and will likely happen again. the most famous example and archetype for this is adlai stevenson. this is a hypothetical that somebody like dion cannot approach in the irrigorous manner that most politicians would. because, if he was prime minister 2.5 years ago, he wouldn't have the same opinions that he has today, because harper would not have been prime minister.

this necessity for careful thinking is very useful to academics and to policy wonks. we want this kind of thinker in government. but it consistently flies over the head of the general populace, which often interprets careful thinking as a sign of weakness, or, ironically, even a lack of intelligence.

stephane dion has a pretty impressive resume. it's clear that he had some translational issues, and that the question is the kind that you can't expect him to answer the way a "regular politician" would. rather, you would expect him to answer it the way an academic would, which is very carefully, and with a lot of thinking that controls for hypotheticals and attempts to work them out.

what you can't reasonably argue is that he was unable to answer the question. and, history will be rather rude to those that promote this argument.

fwiw, i don't think the tories got it aired.

i think ignatieff got it aired.

Cons R Gone!!
Harper polls at about 30% support because 30% of Canadians fit in the parameters of these studies.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/study-links-low-intelligence-with-right-wing-beliefs/article543361/

Low-Effort Thought Promotes Political Conservatism
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/01/04/0956797611421206.abstract 

"Psychological Science" showed that children who score low on intelligence tests gravitate toward socially conservative political views in adulthood.

swamprat
According to lefties conservatives have all the money.

Sure is nice to be stupid AND rich.

I guess all the welfare folks that don't vote conservative are really smart.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-pollcast-aug13-1.3190054

Jessica Murray
do you realize that there's a debate here that goes back 3000 years, to old bearded dudes discussing life in the athenian acropolis?

intelligence. wealth. and, more importantly, the desire for wealth, and it's ultimate value. we've been trying to sort this out a long time.

but, a lot of pretty smart people have had some pretty compelling arguments to side with the welfare folks over the ceos when it comes to measuring intelligence levels.

i don't understand that study, though. i'm some kind of social liberal that pulls the basic combination that defines it (economic collectivism, individual freedom) to a pseudo-anarchist extreme when i'm sober, but i turn into a ranting and raving total anarchist when i'm inebriated...

this is an issue that evokes a lot of emotion, and for good reason. but the reality is that canada has limited options in terms of what it can do to reverse the status quo and stop the slaughter. the ndp position is based on trying to avoid an argument that is unlikely to be more than frivolous, in any substance, and merely likely to play into the conservatives' tendency to sow ignorance and confusion.

it's a little bit of a step back from the pristine moral conviction that canadians associate with the ndp. but, mulcair is in this to win. it's the correct *political* decision. canadians clearly need to adjust their expectations. this is but one of a collection of issues that long time ndp supporters are going to find themselves disappointed in.

and there's truly a lot of reasons to not like it. but, let's be coldly rational. harper is never going to move on this. if this is an issue that you want canada to play a larger role in, however limited our options are, then you're better off electing them first and trying to convince them later.

how canada votes on certain things at the un may be somewhat embarrassing, but the reality is that it matters little whether the us vetoes it with our support, abstention or dissent.

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/08/11/morgan-wheeldon-ndp-candidates-israel_n_7973876.html

--

Ron Grant
How does the NDP explain to our first nations about their blind support of Israeli settlers forcing Palestinians of their generational land ? How do they they explain that they gagged some one that stood up for the little guy. this is not my NDP.

Dov Pollock
The reason we call Jews "Jews" is because they come from Judea. The reason we call Arabs "Arabs" is because they come from Arabia. The name Palestine was given to Judea in 135 c.e. by the Roman emperor Haradian as punishment to the Jews for their uprisings against Rome. Before Judea, there were the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea and before that the Kingdom of Israel. The Jews have an unbroken physical and spiritual connection to their homeland which extends back some 3,500 years. In 350 c.e. the Jerusalem Talmud was completed. A marriage contract (Ketuba) for a Jewish couple in northern Israel from the year 1023 c.e. may be found at the Israel National Library in Jerusalem. At the end of the 16th century the Ottoman Sultan ordered some 1000 Jews from the land of Israel to Cyprus. The 1834 c.e. census for Tzfat (Safed) in Israel's northern Galilee shows a population of 6000, equally devided between Jews and Arabs. A census of Jerusalem taken a few years later shows that the Jews make up the largest population by a large plurality. Later they would be seen to make up a clear majority. The simple fact is that alone among all the ancient peoples, the Jews exist until today. They live in the same country that they lived in three thousand years ago, with the same name (Israel), with the same capital (Jerusalem), speak the same language (Hebrew), pray to the same God and follow the same Jewish scriptures (Torah) of three thousand years ago. Israel is the generational homeland of the Jews and the Jews are the ideginious population.

Jessica Amber Murray
the biggest point that you're missing is that palestinians are cultural arabs, not genetic arabs. they are genetic hebrews. something similar could be set of the lebanese, who are genetically phoenician, but converted to islam - and are not genetic arabs. arab is a complex term, and it's used interchangeably in complex ways that often don't make a lot of sense to people outside the region. but, the difference between "cultural arab" and "genetic arab" is roughly similar to the distinction between "hebrew" and "jew".

the palestinians are consequently not invaders to the region, as you appear to be implying. they are the descendants of the jews that you speak of, but they converted to islam at some time in the past. the name "palestinia" comes from "philistinia" (the ones david took on in the bible myth), and was indeed used to rename the area in an attempted roman genocide. the romans carried out several genocides, the worst of which was probably in carthage. but that doesn't change the reality that the palestinians are not genetic arabs - they are genetic hebrews, and cultural arabs.

it follows that they have an equal claim to the region. and, this is the point that needs to be addressed to get to a reasonable solution. the two-state solution is no longer a serious policy option, and hasn't been for upwards of fifteen years. there's just nowhere left to put it. the last gasp attempts to create a two-state solution required uprooting large amounts of jewish settlements, which is something that is not going to actually happen on the ground, and really shouldn't happen.

a state of israel needs to be built around the historical reality that some hebrews are jews and some hebrews are muslims and modify it's laws to allow for equal citizenship, equal land ownership and equal rights.

a one-state solution is the only serious option on the table. it can be a state where jews are granted special rights due to their religion, or it can be a state where all citizens have equal rights. and only the latter is sustainable.

from a historical perspective, i don't see anything that is factually incorrect about this former candidate's position. and it's both alarming to see him snuffed out and disorienting to see how out of touch the ndp leadership is on this position. but, i understand it's a pr decision by a party that would rather avoid frivolous battles of this nature than engage in them.

there's no causal connection between the size of a deficit and the ability to spend. past deficits and existing debt to not imply the need for austerity. the government is not a household, it's a money creator. the deficit is not a debt that needs to be repaid, it's a measure of wealth in the economy. eliminating the debt would mean collecting and destroying all money in the economy and going back to a barter system of exchange.

the terms "deficit" and "debt" should not be used, in context. rather, we should speak of "money created" and "total existing dollars".

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-economy-features-aug12-1.3188476

longtime_in
The debt can be a significant problem depending where we are in the economic cycle. We have been in a long term period of no growth to slow growth. If and when interest rates start to move deficits and the resulting accumulate debt matter.

But to support your point debt financing last year was actually $3 billion less than it was 10 years ago even after we borrowed over $150 billion.

Jessica Murray
to whom? it only matters to people that want to increase the value of the currency. there's no such thing as "debt financing" in the context of a sovereign government. rather, there's "money destruction". the only value that destroying money has is to increase the value of the currency. this is the reason you see conservatives pushing these programs - they're financed by people that want to see the value of the dollar increase, which happens to be bad for exports which is bad for jobs. but, that's not your concern when you're an investor playing the money markets.

regular, working, voting canadians ought to have no interest in debt reduction; in fact, it's in their interest to keep the value of the dollar relatively low.

iamjustme
Sounds like you went to the same stupid school of economics that Harper did!

Jessica Murray
that's probably the most ignorant statement that i've yet to see this election cycle. in fact, it's a position that can be tied rather strongly to the era of pierre trudeau. it's a liberal party position. or, at least it's the position of the only liberal party i'd ever vote for.

liberals don't care about deficits. they never have.

i'm not interested in re-electing joe clark.

fwiw, nobody should expect a tax cut for small businesses to create jobs, either. that does not increase demand for businesses. all empirical evidence suggests that giving businesses more money has no effect on job creation.

however, combined with an increase in corporate tax rates, it should be a fair shift in taxation and should at least be revenue neutral - if it's costed correctly.

so, why do this? because small businesses are good places to put campaign signs, and good people to have on your side in an election.

as economic policy, it's essentially meaningless - but he's covered it by promising to return corporate tax rates to where they should be. but, it's smart politics. and, mulcair is a smart politician.

the way i'm reading the results right now is that if that if the conservatives can get to 32 in this current regional break down, and the liberals can stay above 28, then that will force the ndp to around 30 and we'll likely see results that look something like this:

conservative: 170
ndp: 150
liberals: 20

...based on the conservatives sweeping the prairies and ontario, and the ndp sweeping bc and quebec.

i may be exaggerating. but only by a tad.

i would hope that, with results like that, even the conservatives would agree that we need electoral reform.

yes.

32%--->170 seats. you don't need much for a plurality in a three-way tossup.
30%--->150 seats.
28%---> 20 seats.

of course, if the ndp can get that boost, and i still think they can, then it's over - for the same reasons. they stabilize over 35%, and we start wondering if they get 200 or 300, as they sweep the country outside the prairies.

if the ndp get a mild, across the board boost from the liberals then they can sweep ontario while losing the popular vote for the same reason that the conservatives can sweep it without breaking 33%.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-grenier-poll-tracker-debate-1.3188431

hobabby
Too bad the FBI didn't grab her server on day 1. It was just reported that her server that the FBI picked up 2 days ago was SCRUBBED CLEAN. Clintons thumbing their noses at the law and the taxpayers again. You would think that after all these years, they'd get tired of the lying and cover-ups and for once in their life, be honest. 

After 30-some years, you would think SOMEONE in law enforcement would be on top of their tactics. Oh, that's right...most of those who had inside info have died in an accident, suicide, and/or even murdered. 

There has to be SOMEBODY who cares enough about this country who could finally have her arrested and convicted besides Trey Gowdy and the rest of the members of these committees. He can't do it alone although he's trying his best to do so.

Beryl Gray
Hmmmmm. I have had some peripheral contact with computer security issues. If something was written on a hard drive, there are people working in the intelligence community that can recover it. (Unless it was erased with a hammer or .45-caliber round.)

deathtokoalas
that was true up to a few years ago, under the assumption that the person formatting the drive didn't know what they were doing. nowadays, you can zero out a drive with software as simple as a commercial windows dvd, if you know the right switch. funny ideas regarding things like recovering traces of magnetic interference are entirely theoretical, and would be essentially impossible to actually carry out. setting everything to zero gets rid of it.

again: the establishment hates clinton. she is not anti-establishment. she desperately wants in. they don't want her. she's "too liberal".

they *will* run somebody to beat her. and she will lose to that person.

it's consequently very hard to figure this out. if there's one person in the american spectrum that you can be pretty sure is not for sale, it's ralph nader. but sanders is pretty close. given that it is certain that wall street will run a candidate against hillary, the question needs to be asked: is that candidate bernie sanders?

i've seen a lot of signs. strange youtube channels that seem to be run by professional propagandists. apparent jumps in fundraising. it's all quite ominous.

...but it's bernie sanders. he couldn't be...?

he needs to be vetted. this requires investigation. where's he getting the money from?

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/12/new-poll-bernie-sanders-ahead-hillary-clinton-new-hampshire#comments

the chinese are kind of defensive about that river. strikes me more as military infrastructure.

the purpose of the united nations shelter is that it is a place of refuge, of sanctity. for that reason, it cannot be made a target under any circumstance and the united states must uphold this under the strongest threat of consequence, including threatening to withdraw funding.

for israel to attack the shelters under the argument that there are rockets in them is to take a racist position that the lives of their civilians are more valuable. there is not another way to interpret this; it is the slaughter of palestinian civilians under the logic that they are less valuable than israeli citizens. and, this logic cannot be accepted, rationalized or tolerated. the state department should be ashamed of itself for parroting it.

for these reasons, hamas must also respect the neutrality. and, should they refuse to do so, it is the responsibility of the united nations to take action. for example, they could bring in an armed "peacekeeping" force to patrol the facilities and expel militants.

it is not israel's responsibility to police these facilities. however, it is their obligation to respect the sanctity of their shelter.

the thing about unorganized collective action like this is that it doesn't control for what people's perspectives actually are, and it consequently doesn't really present a coherent argument. everybody is there for a different reason, has a different end, etc. this has sometimes been presented as an asset, in terms of getting people together. and that's a debate if you're looking to start a revolution, but a little less of one if you're protesting a war.

norman finkelstein knows what he's talking about; we all know that. but, the statements coming from the other activists merely demonstrate ignorance. the palestinian side may be morally more correct, but it's essentially by accident if you're not actually aware of the facts on the ground.

the idea that israel would stop the bombing if hamas would stop the rockets is just absurd israeli propaganda, and quickly disassembled; i won't bother. but, it's really no less ignorant to argue that hamas is a democratic party. they're a brutal, authoritarian regime. you ask around gaza, and they'll tell you they fear hamas as much as they fear israel. they routinely carry out public executions in the streets.

so, how do you expect the career bureaucrats in the civil service to react, when all they hear from the streets is various different types of ignorance? you expect them to just say "they don't know what they're talking about".

individual martyrdom is clearly pointless. but collective action isn't much more than that if there's nothing tying it together; in that case, it's not really collective action - it's a lot of individual martyrs sacrificing themselves together.

they do this all of the time: they start clutching their pearls the moment somebody makes any kind of common sense statement or basic fact that intrudes into their warped concept of non-reality, then they pretend they're expressing some kind of majority opinion that is beyond any kind of debate in order to distract from the fact that the opinion they're expressing is insane. the media eats it up because it's often aligned. but, the truth is that most people see it for what it is.

i mean, imagine the exchange if the topic were evolution. it's no less likely - depending on the circumstance. but it clarifies the absurdity of it.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/spin-cycle-will-all-of-the-oilsands-be-developed-1.3185553

i'd obviously like to see more details, but the liberals are right on this one - if we abolish the senate, we set up an elected dictatorship. we should be trying to create more checks and balances, not less.

i'd just add a caveat: if we're going to give an unelected body of academics and policy wonks the teeth to overturn an elected body, it should automatically invoke a referendum on the legislation. the idea is a chamber of sober second thought. that means we ought get a chance to think it over after listening to what the experts have to say, rather than just having them kibbosh it outright.

i also agree that we need to really take a step back and find ways to reassert the autonomy of individual mps.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-harper-trudeau-senate-duffy-1.3186954 

Caliburn
Upper House defenders who claim that “sober second thought” is valid only perpetuate a myth. Sober second thinking – in effect a check on the democratic impulses of the Commons – is only theory, it’s not the practice, never has been and instances of failing to provide such thought are legion.

The regional representation idea failed right from the start because seats have NEVER been appointed by "region", ie "the Maritimes" or "The Atlantic Provinces" or "Central Canada". The seats are allocated according to provincial boundaries.

Think about Duffy - whatever he said about representing PEI was pure rhetoric - the reality is he represented the Conservative Party. What region did Brazeau represent? None - he looked out for Aboriginal peoples and, of course, the Conservative party. And Wallin - well she waded in on trade, military matters, women's rights and the Conservative Party - can you think of a single Saskatchewan initiative?

Provincial premiers speak for the regions, as do lobby groups and face it - the House of Commons effectively expresses regional differences through MPs who are more in direct contact with the places and people across Canada!

So;
• “sober second thought” – nice idea, but that’s all it is, and
• “regional representation” – there’s no such role to play!

Therefore let's scrap this pointless, unelected, Upper House and make Canada a true democracy.

Jessica Murray
i really don't think that harper's appointments are very useful in determining the value of the senate. rather, they are useful in determining the value of the prime minister, which we all know is very low. and, see, that's the point - there needs to be some kind of a check, there.

i don't think it should be based on regional representation, either. i think it's value is that it is an unelected body, and that that is an aspect that should be retained. i'm not really that keen on majority-rules democracy. we've largely avoided that in canada through our reliance on minority governments, which has often given the ndp the balance of power, and we're really better off for it.

in terms of a checks and balances approach, i'm looking more at the united states senate/house system as something to draw on. in theory, it's a good idea to have these duelling houses. but, in practice it's created a lot of gridlock. so, how can we take that good idea and modify it so it slows the process down a little but doesn't grind it to a halt?

so, we don't want this elected system - it's going to slow things down too much. and, we don't to get rid of it - it would give the prime minister unlimited power in both practice and theory. we need to find a middle point that allows the body to function as it was meant to.

and, i do think a merit-based appointment process is the right approach. it's just a question of finding the right procedures. perhaps it's something the civil service could take a lead in. and, it's also a question of finding the right balance between a body that can provide suggestions and oversight from a position of knowledge and a body that is going to suppress democracy.

the liberals aren't who they used to be, but they have a pretty good track record at this. working it out may be a slow and difficult process, but it strikes me as the best option, nonetheless.

to put it another way: we've seen the results of a system that allows any idiot that can get a mandate to run the country into the ground. and, we need to adjust to prevent that from happening again.

i don't really deny that the senate has never been the body it was intended to be. but, that's a reason to reform it to fulfil it's function, not a reason to jettison it.

right. but when you get this kind of response to widespread mass hopelessness, it's time to get a serious move on the economic situation.

it's one thing to go "woah" when you hear the kind of xenophobia coming from certain segments of white america.

it's another to realize that there really are drastic economic circumstances underlying it.

would hitler call himself an extremist? or just a nationalist?

extremism is never self-designated.

would the british be willing to offer aid to the syrians to help them update their military technology to allow for more targeted strikes?

the americans do not need the syrians to send them information, and then waver over it's truth. they can gather it on their own and know for sure.

here's the thing about this guy...

he doesn't want this. any of it. he wants to be running a medical practice. he's an eye doctor.

somebody killed his brother, and he got stuck with something he didn't want. he's been trying to organize an orderly transition since the day he was appointed. a democratic transition is what he was trying to put together. willingly. with no prodding.

but, you can't do that under these conditions. and, guess who hates democracy? starts with an s, ends with "abia".

the saudis launched a war in syria to prevent a democratic transition.

the official narrative is so wrong as to channel orwell.

but, now he must step down as a condition to end the fighting in the area - and his generals must step down with him. after years of destruction and chaos, he cannot be trusted to let this go. should he be left to gather strength in the region, he will return the favour. and, as much as i'd like to see the saudis firebombed to hell, it can't happen like that. the stronger assad becomes the more necessary it is that he be removed.

he was not his father when he got the job. but, he will become more and more like him with each passing year spent fighting an existential war.

war against women, huh?

hrmmn.

we're all doomed.

i've never understood why he didn't just admit it. he should have reacted in libertarian terms and made a point about privacy and personal freedom.

the only person in the world that has a right to judge him on this is hillary.

"how will you answer the charge from hillary clinton..."

ask her to marry him?

trump wouldn't deny it, though.

"yeah. i had sexual relations with that woman. so what?"

and a lot of people - myself included - think that's exactly what clinton should have done.

"the war against women", as i understand it, is a term that comes out of the left, and is meant to describe the republican party's attacks on abortion in certain states, mostly in the deep south. google tells me that the republican party recently pressured trump to change his stance on abortion.

i think a part of the misunderstanding is this idea that warren is a populist, quasi-socialist type. rather, she's a relatively conservative new deal capitalist that wants to recreate a regulatory system that will prevent capitalism from cannibalizing itself. in a more enlightened period, she would have been a centrist, liberal democrat - not the type that gets a lot of union support and runs on fiery anti-establishment rhetoric, but the type that wants to make relatively minor changes to allow for more accountability and ultimately gets most of her support from what is a different sector of wall street. elizabeth warren is very much a wall street democrat. she's just a different type of wall street democrat. but the current spectrum has reached the point where this once dominant ruling clique now barely exists, and voters are only vaguely aware that it even ever existed.

the truth is that clinton is within this same clique, and their differences are much smaller than their agreements.

the truth is also that the anti-regulatory, reaganomics clique on wall street actually despises clinton with every inch of their being. this is the clique that poured billions into obama's campaign to beat her.

so, why did she say this?

there's not a conniving, calculated reason. it's just an honest assessment. and, i agree with her. but that's so unusual in american politics that it didn't even cross your mind.

so, what's he going to do if you decide to go anyways?

behead you?

there's certain things that governments can pass laws on and certain things they can't. anybody who wants to get there will get there...

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/harper-proposes-travel-restrictions-1.3184703

trump will get more votes as an independent than he will as a republican because it will smash the partisan gridlock that sees 90% of the country vote based on letter rather than policy. that said, he's still unlikely to win - it's just the difference between getting 20% as a republican and 30% as an independent. the republicans do not have a monopoly on stupidity.

the biggest problem in the united states is the two-party system and the consensus-leading-to-gridlock that results. trump might be a frightening, lunatic fringe dipshit, but if he can break that system up then he's doing the world an invaluable service

if he can pull that base out of the spectrum, and leave a more moderate republican party behind, it should also help to pull the democrats a little to the left.

i mean, what you want is a four party system that has three serious parties that meet in the center and one to mop up the fringe and keep them out of the system. you need to get to three before you can get to four. but, it's clear where a trump-led "tea party" type party would sit.

while we're at it, why not convince bernie sanders to run as an independent? if trump opens up the spectrum, sanders very quickly becomes more competitive.

www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-dumped-from-republican-event-after-attack-on-fox-moderator-megyn-kelly-1.3184230

i'm a politically engaged left-of-center voter and the debate more or less ruled out a vote for the liberals this election cycle, and perhaps ever again. i haven't seen a single attack ad. i don't even own a tv. and i'm somewhat of a fan of his father. but justin trudeau demonstrated very clearly - crystal clearly - that he's somewhat of an airhead. this media narrative that trudeau held his own is exposing a lot of the media bias; it's a preposterous analysis. his responses were consistently ridiculous, and bordering on a parody of the legacy of the canadian liberal party. he didn't just look weak. he bluntly looked unelectable.

you're probably right that not many people watched this - on thursday. however, something that has changed in the internet era is that voters can go back and watch the debate whenever they want. they just have to look it up on youtube. by the end of the cycle, i would expect this to result in record penetration. the internet era is not the tv era, and voters will be more informed from this moment forwards than they have been since the 50s, when the tv stole their brains.

and, i'm rather convinced that it *was* decisive and will have a dramatic influence. not because anybody really pulled ahead. the other three parties held their ground, and really only appealed to their base (although the ndp base is expanding). but, because a lot of people on the educated left are going to react by striking trudeau off the list for good - and that quite plausibly may include the entire liberal party, as well.

simply put, he came off as an idiot. whatever criticisms you may want to level at past liberal candidates, this is the first time in my life that i've seen the liberal party run by a man that is clearly a fool. traditional liberal voters will see this. and, that will be decisive.

http://ipolitics.ca/2015/08/07/it-was-a-very-good-debate-and-it-likely-didnt-change-a-thing/

Patrick
Were we watching the same debate? Polls peg Trudeau as the clear winner. Mulcair seemed seemed sedated and had trouble defending his party's misleading $15/hr minimum wage hike. He also had trouble defending his pipeline stance against Elizabeth May, and he seemed to be more concerned with the leader of the third party than attacking the Prime Minister's record.

Trudeau, while he stuttered a little bit (they all did, except for May), made his points and had the closest thing to a knockout punch of the night. "9. My number is nine." A respectable answer, and a clear one, if you pay any attention to the role of the courts in our country.

deathtokoalas
that number nine response made me burst out laughing. it was a ridiculous response that glossed over a complex issue in absurd language. i don't really want to get into it, but it just made him sound like he didn't really understand the ruling.

i really don't find anything misleading about the ads, it's pretty clear to me what a "federal minimum wage" is. but, it's 2015. people walk around with internet access in their pockets. it's a five second google job to clarify it. you can't fool people like that anymore, even if you're trying to.

his response to the pipeline stance is what i mean when i say that mulcair is appealing directly to liberals in a way that trudeau isn't. canadian liberals *love* that non-commited, middle point that balances extremes. we want centrism. moderation. the way he presented himself in the middle of the spectrum suggested he was the logical alternative - as opposed to the conservatives that want all the pipelines and the greens that want none. and, you'll notice he did that line several times and whenever he did he ignored the liberals. it was strong framing; masterful, even. if i was mulcair, i'd be pushing for may in the debates just so he can do that as much as he can. that's the message that the liberal party used to succeed in getting out, and that mulcair is blatantly winning the battle on.

i mean, it takes him a little outside the base. mulcair is definitely going to bleed on the left; he's not a leftist. the greens will benefit from that. rather, he's aiming dead center, at the liberal base. and, i see every reason to expect him to steal a large amount of it.

looking back at the beach boys, they strike me largely as pro-american propaganda. and, i think that is the central point in their vast overratedness. this is in some ways a silly, simple song. but it is in some ways a fairly profound social commentary, deep satire, and rather interesting in a time capsule sense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMl0v5fmSmk

brian wilson was servin’ usa.
paul mccartney was backin’ the ussr.

did i hear a little lennon drop from the ukrainian fm? all we are sayyyying...is...

guess they don't want to end up back in the ussr.

truth is this guy even looks like he's in the mafia.

there's two sides to this. wherever you have class, you have socialism. but what is perhaps more significant is that the american elite has a long history of what could be called vulgar marxism.

"The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against any danger from that source. A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more likely to taint a particular county or district, than an entire State."

america has been willing to read socialist ideas and learn from them, but more often than not it has been to find ways to uphold the dominance of what is really still the landholding class.

what hillary is saying is that she's not qualified to answer the question and she'll follow the recommendation of the review that she put in place. in a technical sense, it's a correct position. sanders is really not qualified to take a position before the review completes, either. it's fact-based reasoning.

i mean, suppose she says she opposes it and then the review she put in place confirms it, or vice versa. then, why did she put the review in place if she was going to ignore it?

the purpose of the review is to establish the facts.

now, that said, there's certainly some politics in this. did we need a review to determine the facts? and is the review process fair and unbiased?

but, she could hardly take a position on a fact-finding review process that she set up before it finishes.

but, what if trump runs as an independent?

jeff4justice3
+deathtokoalas Exactly. Not to mention what about all the 2 party system goons in the local statewide races. This seems unprincipled of Sanders.

deathtokoalas
+jeff4justice to me, the issue is how unelectable clinton is.

he doesn't want to pull a ralph nader - and let's realize that trump will be worse than bush. world war three probably already started. but, he's going to blow the whole thing to pieces. that part of it sits well with me. it would be irresponsible to get trump elected by running as a third party candidate; i agree.

the part that doesn't sit well with me is comparing hillary to gore. gore was actually relatively progressive. look at what clinton did in libya. she seems obsessed with imperial concepts of militarism; she's not really running for president, she's more running for empress. and, on that level clinton & trump are two sides of the same coin.

the democratic nominee has to be really, really, really bad for this kind of logic to work out, for us to fully conclude that it really doesn't matter. it's never been this bad. but, clinton really is this bad.

and, i supported her in 2008 based on what she did as first lady.

it's not the same person.

jeff4justice
+deathtokoalas Pull a Nader? So if you moved to my hometown where Republicans win by around 80% just so you could vote for the winner? If gay marriage was still un-ruled by SCOTUS and you lived in Alabama where it was likely to lose as the ballot would you vote for the antigay side just to be on the winning team?

Also, Nader (or Perot as the Republicans like to cite) were not around in the internet age.

It's time for people to stop staying in the abuser/victim game and move on past the failed 2 party system. otherwise unprincipled voters will keep electing unprincipled elected officials.

The right to vote for women, an end to legal racial segregation, gay marriage, a black President, marijuana becoming legal were all previously seemingly impossible.

The 2 party system will crumble as soon as people get the courage to stop indulging in self-defeating thinking.

deathtokoalas
+jeff4justice well, it's a bad example. i actually don't really support gay marriage; what i support is the abolition of marriage.

this is all culture war nonsense. i'm more concerned about serious issues: environment, foreign policy, health care, trade. and, when you lined the candidates up previously, there was an actual difference on the serious stuff. clinton actually reduced military spending to ensure more money was available for social security, for example. no republican would have done that. that's a concrete, real difference.

the problem, today, is that none of the mainstream democrats would do that, either - every single one of them, including the current president, would happily cut social security to increase military spending. and, so i do agree with you....now. i wouldn't have agreed with you twenty years ago, when the choice was bush v. gore. there was a clearly defined lesser evil there.

clinton v. trump isn't even a question of a lesser evil, it's a question of a lesser crazy - and there isn't one.

what the united states really needs is a three-party system to ensure that the democrats have some pressure from the left.

but, that doesn't make sanders' choice any easier. if he runs then the republicans will probably win. and he knows that. i'm convinced clinton is actually that bad. sanders may be a bit more optimistic about a clinton presidency.

but, if you end up with a potential four-way race, that whole calculus is out the window.

jeff4justice
+deathtokoalas Then don't get married but no need to force that on gays who decide they want to or should. Anyway, I won't be joining you on any votes for the failed 2 party system. Good luck.

deathtokoalas
+jeff4justice well, i wouldn't vote against it. but, i'm not going to go out of my way to vote for it, either. it's just not an actual issue of substance.

marriage is an inherently oppressive patriarchal system of enforced male dominance, and only truly makes sense in an implied system of religious fundamentalism. this is archaic and should be abolished in favour of more specific contracts about property. if two people want to buy a house together, that should not affect whether or not they want to buy a car together. nor anything about their kids - although those arrangements should be put down in writing beforehand.

i don't know why gay people want to get married. i don't know why they want to join the army, either.

i would, however, actively vote for the idea of abolishing all of the legal aspects of marriage, reducing it to a legally meaningless ceremony that religious people have total control over (and consequently abolishing all insurance benefits). but, that only makes sense in the context of a universal health care system - so you wouldn't need to get married to get your partner covered.

up here in canada, the issue was actually dealt with by a supreme court ruling. with the stroke of a pen, gay people could get married anywhere in the country. nobody really cared one way or another. it has not been a political issue here since 2004, if it ever was at all.

jeff4justice
+deathtokoalas "not an actual issue of substance" if you're loved was was in the hospital and you could not access them... or if you were unable to have social security benefits... or if your country tried to give you different tax assessment laws... or if you were unable to sponsor a partner from another country. Nonsense.

Statism altogether is an inherently oppressive patriarchal system of enforced male dominance. Nonetheless, while things are the way they are people should be treated with equal rights. We should not need government permission in these matters - but for now, government does impose itself on these matters.

Yeah, the military industrial complex sucks and is part of the evil empire. But that does not mean any self-preserving gay person would not want to see an end to DADT.

Also, marriage equality has been ruled to be legal by the Supreme Court here too since last year.

The anti-gays always care and always try ways to undermine court rulings pertaining to equality.

People cared enough to write things like "What Stephen Harper won’t tell you about same-sex marriage" as recent as 2015.

Anyway, gays can marry now so I don't have any further need to convince you to care about the issue now.

And you're mind seems made up about the 2 party system.

We've both made our points.

Peace be with you.

deathtokoalas
+jeff4justice well, no. my argument was not in favour of two-party systems, but in favour of three-party systems. i was, after all, asking him if he would run if the race opened up. i expanded on the point by explaining his argument, while disagreeing with him - the truth is that hillary clinton really ought to be running for the republicans.

i think you seem to be looking at voting as some kind of moral act, rather than a pragmatic means of achieving a goal - or, as it may be in the modern era, of minimizing damage. an intelligent person can not vote purely based on "principles". there needs to be a lot of compromise, or it's just a self-defeating waste of time.

so, if hillary does win and sanders does not run (and i was an american) i would have to support a third party, or perhaps not bother at all. which is what i was getting across in posing the question.

but, i think you're on to something about the gay marriage: if all the people that support gay marriage supported universal health care instead, you wouldn't even need to talk about gay marriage. and, conversely, reducing the issues to things like whether gay people can get married neutralizes large swaths of issues that threaten certain financial interests.