I see the US State Department has a new system for assessing the risk of foreign travel - level 1 (normal risks akin to US), level 2 (heightened risks), level 3 (reconsider travelling), level 4 (do not travel). The UK is assessed at level 2, along with France, Spain, Italy and Germany - all due to the risk of terrorism.
The risk classification takes account of the following categories: - crime - terrorism - civil unrest - health - natural disaster - time-limited event (such as an election or sporting event) - other I've posted before about how distorted the US government's perception of the risks of terrorism compared to other types of risk is and this appears to me to be another instance of this.
We lost our minds after 9/11 and have not recovered them in any kind of sense. All you need to do is look at how our various countries react to terrorist attacks. In the UK and France, people are out on the street hours later going about their daily lives in defiance of the acts, acts whose entire purpose is to instill fear. Everytime I see an attack happen in Europe, I see the populace rob the attackers of that power by refusing to alter their way of life, which is what they want.
America?? We create a color-coded alert system. When the Boston Marathon bombing happened, the city was basically under martial law for 24 hours because of two jack-asses. Americans have somehow been convinced that the prospect of dying by way of a terrorist attack is worse than any other way dying. And yet, as I mentioned before, more people die in this country each year because toddlers get ahold of unsecured fire-arms than are killed by terrorists. Fact is, collectively, America is weak-minded and paranoid. And maybe humans are in general. But on out lofty perch, we have become a special breed of it. Bin Laden succeeded beyond his wildest dreams with 9/11. He turned us into a nation that cowers in fear and lashes out at the rest of the world. We've been slowy destroying ourselves from within since those planes hit the towers. It won't be the terrorists that take down the United States, it will be the American people.
BS, people don't have a choice.
And our way of life has been altered and is carrying on being altered. And that will become apparent eventually, at the moment it's in that classic Brit phase of being understood but not being voiced. The nature of the UK is changing, far less trust, a lot more segregation when people have the ability and means to vote with their feet.
The demographic change in the big cities is shocking, moreso in London, and it's accelerating.
I see the US State Department has a new system for assessing the risk of foreign travel - level 1 (normal risks akin to US), level 2 (heightened risks), level 3 (reconsider travelling), level 4 (do not travel). The UK is assessed at level 2, along with France, Spain, Italy and Germany - all due to the risk of terrorism.
The risk classification takes account of the following categories: - crime - terrorism - civil unrest - health - natural disaster - time-limited event (such as an election or sporting event) - other I've posted before about how distorted the US government's perception of the risks of terrorism compared to other types of risk is and this appears to me to be another instance of this.
We lost our minds after 9/11 and have not recovered them in any kind of sense. All you need to do is look at how our various countries react to terrorist attacks. In the UK and France, people are out on the street hours later going about their daily lives in defiance of the acts, acts whose entire purpose is to instill fear. Everytime I see an attack happen in Europe, I see the populace rob the attackers of that power by refusing to alter their way of life, which is what they want.
America?? We create a color-coded alert system. When the Boston Marathon bombing happened, the city was basically under martial law for 24 hours because of two jack-asses. Americans have somehow been convinced that the prospect of dying by way of a terrorist attack is worse than any other way dying. And yet, as I mentioned before, more people die in this country each year because toddlers get ahold of unsecured fire-arms than are killed by terrorists. Fact is, collectively, America is weak-minded and paranoid. And maybe humans are in general. But on out lofty perch, we have become a special breed of it. Bin Laden succeeded beyond his wildest dreams with 9/11. He turned us into a nation that cowers in fear and lashes out at the rest of the world. We've been slowy destroying ourselves from within since those planes hit the towers. It won't be the terrorists that take down the United States, it will be the American people.
BS, people don't have a choice.
And our way of life has been altered and is carrying on being altered. And that will become apparent eventually, at the moment it's in that classic Brit phase of being understood but not being voiced. The nature of the UK is changing, far less trust, a lot more segregation when people have the ability and means to vote with their feet.
The demographic change in the big cities is shocking, moreso in London, and it's accelerating.
What don't they have a choice about?? I'm not sure I understand exactly what we are talking about here. I would assume it's about immigrants (specifically Muslim immigrants), but I won't presume without asking. If so, I am under the impression that many votes in favor of Brexit were the result of this very issue. What happens when that isn't the magic wand for the changing demographics of Britain that it was sold as??
I see the US State Department has a new system for assessing the risk of foreign travel - level 1 (normal risks akin to US), level 2 (heightened risks), level 3 (reconsider travelling), level 4 (do not travel). The UK is assessed at level 2, along with France, Spain, Italy and Germany - all due to the risk of terrorism.
The risk classification takes account of the following categories: - crime - terrorism - civil unrest - health - natural disaster - time-limited event (such as an election or sporting event) - other I've posted before about how distorted the US government's perception of the risks of terrorism compared to other types of risk is and this appears to me to be another instance of this.
We lost our minds after 9/11 and have not recovered them in any kind of sense. All you need to do is look at how our various countries react to terrorist attacks. In the UK and France, people are out on the street hours later going about their daily lives in defiance of the acts, acts whose entire purpose is to instill fear. Everytime I see an attack happen in Europe, I see the populace rob the attackers of that power by refusing to alter their way of life, which is what they want.
America?? We create a color-coded alert system. When the Boston Marathon bombing happened, the city was basically under martial law for 24 hours because of two jack-asses. Americans have somehow been convinced that the prospect of dying by way of a terrorist attack is worse than any other way dying. And yet, as I mentioned before, more people die in this country each year because toddlers get ahold of unsecured fire-arms than are killed by terrorists. Fact is, collectively, America is weak-minded and paranoid. And maybe humans are in general. But on out lofty perch, we have become a special breed of it. Bin Laden succeeded beyond his wildest dreams with 9/11. He turned us into a nation that cowers in fear and lashes out at the rest of the world. We've been slowy destroying ourselves from within since those planes hit the towers. It won't be the terrorists that take down the United States, it will be the American people.
BS, people don't have a choice.
And our way of life has been altered and is carrying on being altered. And that will become apparent eventually, at the moment it's in that classic Brit phase of being understood but not being voiced. The nature of the UK is changing, far less trust, a lot more segregation when people have the ability and means to vote with their feet.
The demographic change in the big cities is shocking, moreso in London, and it's accelerating.
What don't they have a choice about?? I'm not sure I understand exactly what we are talking about here. I would assume it's about immigrants (specifically Muslim immigrants), but I won't presume without asking. If so, I am under the impression that many votes in favor of Brexit were the result of this very issue. What happens when that isn't the magic wand for the changing demographics of Britain that it was sold as??
You made the statement that in Europe nobody was reacting to the terrorist threat. And that the US was over reacting.
Trump maybe many things, but it's France that nearly elected the FN. It's Germany that currently has had a massive rise of the right that has resulted in there being difficulty forming a goverment. It's Poland, Hungary and other Eastern countries who have elected goverments that are changing laws and have come out and said no to Islamic immigration. It's Austria that has a president who is far right. And the UK voted for Brexit.
What happens if none of these magic wands work? Trouble I would think.
Are you American, if so, why are you running your country and it's people down so much? You think by insulting people over and over and over you are going to have anybody listen to your POV?
I see the US State Department has a new system for assessing the risk of foreign travel - level 1 (normal risks akin to US), level 2 (heightened risks), level 3 (reconsider travelling), level 4 (do not travel). The UK is assessed at level 2, along with France, Spain, Italy and Germany - all due to the risk of terrorism.
The risk classification takes account of the following categories: - crime - terrorism - civil unrest - health - natural disaster - time-limited event (such as an election or sporting event) - other I've posted before about how distorted the US government's perception of the risks of terrorism compared to other types of risk is and this appears to me to be another instance of this.
We lost our minds after 9/11 and have not recovered them in any kind of sense. All you need to do is look at how our various countries react to terrorist attacks. In the UK and France, people are out on the street hours later going about their daily lives in defiance of the acts, acts whose entire purpose is to instill fear. Everytime I see an attack happen in Europe, I see the populace rob the attackers of that power by refusing to alter their way of life, which is what they want.
America?? We create a color-coded alert system. When the Boston Marathon bombing happened, the city was basically under martial law for 24 hours because of two jack-asses. Americans have somehow been convinced that the prospect of dying by way of a terrorist attack is worse than any other way dying. And yet, as I mentioned before, more people die in this country each year because toddlers get ahold of unsecured fire-arms than are killed by terrorists. Fact is, collectively, America is weak-minded and paranoid. And maybe humans are in general. But on out lofty perch, we have become a special breed of it. Bin Laden succeeded beyond his wildest dreams with 9/11. He turned us into a nation that cowers in fear and lashes out at the rest of the world. We've been slowy destroying ourselves from within since those planes hit the towers. It won't be the terrorists that take down the United States, it will be the American people.
BS, people don't have a choice.
And our way of life has been altered and is carrying on being altered. And that will become apparent eventually, at the moment it's in that classic Brit phase of being understood but not being voiced. The nature of the UK is changing, far less trust, a lot more segregation when people have the ability and means to vote with their feet.
The demographic change in the big cities is shocking, moreso in London, and it's accelerating.
What don't they have a choice about?? I'm not sure I understand exactly what we are talking about here. I would assume it's about immigrants (specifically Muslim immigrants), but I won't presume without asking. If so, I am under the impression that many votes in favor of Brexit were the result of this very issue. What happens when that isn't the magic wand for the changing demographics of Britain that it was sold as??
You made the statement that in Europe nobody was reacting to the terrorist threat. And that the US was over reacting.
Trump maybe many things, but it's France that nearly elected the FN. It's Germany that currently has had a massive rise of the right that has resulted in there being difficulty forming a goverment. It's Poland, Hungary and other Eastern countries who have elected goverments that are changing laws and have come out and said no to Islamic immigration. It's Austria that has a president who is far right. And the UK voted for Brexit.
What happens if none of these magic wands work? Trouble I would think.
Are you American, if so, why are you running your country and it's people down so much? You think by insulting people over and over and over you are going to have anybody listen to your POV?
Yes, of course I am American. I think my country reacted to 9/11 the exact way Bin Laden intended us to act. Beyond that, the rise of the far-right in Europe and the US does bother me. But I hold them responsible for their own views. Far too often they are excused by saying society or the left "pushed" or "forced" them to become more radicalized. I'd rather they just owned up to their idealogy without offering caveats or excuses.
My comment about terror attacks in Europe was simply meant to convey that people dusted themselves off and moved back on with daily life rather quickly, because it's the only thing you can do. In America, the city similar acts take place in almost seem to go into a 24 or 48 hour paralysis, and have caused us to militarize our police departments from coast to coast. I didn't mean to infer or claim Europeans don't care about the attacks. Simply that I admire their response to them in defiance of the death and chaos.
You made the statement that in Europe nobody was reacting to the terrorist threat. And that the US was over reacting.
Trump maybe many things, but it's France that nearly elected the FN. It's Germany that currently has had a massive rise of the right that has resulted in there being difficulty forming a goverment. It's Poland, Hungary and other Eastern countries who have elected goverments that are changing laws and have come out and said no to Islamic immigration. It's Austria that has a president who is far right. And the UK voted for Brexit.
What happens if none of these magic wands work? Trouble I would think.
Are you American, if so, why are you running your country and it's people down so much? You think by insulting people over and over and over you are going to have anybody listen to your POV?
Wait - didnt Austria elect someone from the Green party (or their equivalent of it?). I recall a far right nationalist came really close to winning. I may be mistaken here, though.
On the whole, I think you're mostly correct here. I think the biggest change is that the voting population that has historically been conservative (not too moderate, but also not too radical) are moving more towards the far-right political parties rather than conventional conservatism. It's in response to a lot of factors, but immigration is one (as is the changing workforce, and the societal impacts of slowed post industrial economies.
I know it wasnt directed at me, but I also dont know what the last bit means.
My comment about terror attacks in Europe was simply meant to convey that people dusted themselves off and moved back on with daily life rather quickly, because it's the only thing you can do. In America, the city similar acts take place in almost seem to go into a 24 or 48 hour paralysis, and have caused us to militarize our police departments from coast to coast. I didn't mean to infer or claim Europeans don't care about the attacks. Simply that I admire their response to them in defiance of the death and chaos.
Same in Russia. If those terrorist sympathizers think that bombing our cities would stop us from bombing their ISIS friends in Syria, they're in for a surprise. I have many differences with Putin's regime, both on internal and international level, but the Syrian campaign is one of the few things he did that I supported unconditionally.
Of course, the government wouldn't be a government if it didn't capitalize on the terror attacks to push a law that obliges ISPs to store their clients' traffic for six months. Yeah, right, apparently people only die in bombings, and not in droves from poor medicine, surrogate alcohol, car accidents, etc. Yeah, totally.
Same in Russia. If those terrorist sympathizers think that bombing our cities would stop us from bombing their ISIS friends in Syria, they're in for a surprise. I have many differences with Putin's regime, both on internal and international level, but the Syrian campaign is one of the few things he did that I supported unconditionally.
You support the Russia intervention in Syria unconditionally? I mean, I understand fighting ISIS - but hasnt Putin been rather target indiscriminate, attacking any an all groups in Syria not allied with Assad? I'm not trying to level accusations, as I think the US hasnt necessarily made Syria a better place since we began our own involvement, I'm just curious about your position on this. Propping up Assad doesnt seem like the right call to me.
I don't think Putin really means to support Assad, rather he would prefer to see peace restored in Syria first, and the elections conducted next. At least that's what I can gather from among the media warfare raging on last years.
Same in Russia. If those terrorist sympathizers think that bombing our cities would stop us from bombing their ISIS friends in Syria, they're in for a surprise. I have many differences with Putin's regime, both on internal and international level, but the Syrian campaign is one of the few things he did that I supported unconditionally.
You support the Russia intervention in Syria unconditionally? I mean, I understand fighting ISIS - but hasnt Putin been rather target indiscriminate, attacking any an all groups in Syria not allied with Assad? I'm not trying to level accusations, as I think the US hasnt necessarily made Syria a better place since we began our own involvement, I'm just curious about your position on this. Propping up Assad doesnt seem like the right call to me.
this is a dreadful subject to discuss and it's a nasty war that where i hate to take sides but the conflict is less in shades of grey and more in terms of rebels vs "empire"
"assad" is the government and the internationally recognized state of syria, and all the other sides are insurgents, including the kurds, but the kurds are substantially different from the rest and russia recognizes this difference (as does syria).
if one supports syria not losing the war to islamist factions, then one supports the russian intervention which is legally and strategically a self-understandable thing since the two countries are allies, syria invited russia, and russia has some extremely solid reasons to help syria which includes protecting their naval basing in the mediterranean, and destroying some nasty domestic-russian islamic terrorists that went to syria to fight (where they keep being terrorists: it's not like they become freedom fighters when they cross a few borders)
if one accepts this as a fact of the world order (there is international law, laws of war, there's alliances, there's terrorists and insurgents, there are democracies, non-democracies and absolute hellholes in the form of ravaged de-facto fragmented countries, there are powers able and willing to intervene and protect their allies and interests abroad) it's impossible, i have to tell you in the strongest terms: absolutely impossible to concieve of a russian intervention that would only target those factions that the USA deems acceptable for russia to target (just isis for example). it's absolutely unavoidable that russia will confront all of syria's enemies once they're a part of the conflict as an ally and to take any conditional stance on this is untenable.
Hawaii sent out a incoming missile alert on Saturday; the text of the message made it clear that the threat was both imminent and that it was not a test or a drill. They have apologized for it, saying that someone sent "the wrong template" during a routine test. I agree--it was a test...but not of the emergency alert system. No, I suspect they sent out the "this is not a drill" message on purpose so they could see how people would react--they were trying to test the citizens, not the alert system. Most of the time, cities and States in the United States score a D or an F for disaster preparedness, as do most citizens.
Stupidly, there are people in Hawaii who want the State to stop the routine testing of the early warning sirens. If I were living in Hawaii, I would put up with the sirens because most estimates state that a missile launch from DPRK could hit Hawaii in 20 to 25 minutes. If the launch isn't detected for 5 minutes then you really don't have much time to get to shelter before it strikes. You also have to err on the side of caution and presume that any DPRK launch is going to be at least dirty, if not fully nuclear--you don't want to be in a city when it hits.
You can prepare for a hurricane because you can be fairly certain of where it will hit two days out--that's plenty of time. With a tsunami (major earthquakes in the Eastern Pacific can trigger those) you would have several hours advance notice--again, plenty of time to get to higher ground (at least in Hawaii; if you are closer to the quake then you may have only a few minutes). Only with a tornado do you generally get almost no advance warning--they can drop out of mesocyclones at any moment.
Anyway...the main point is that they sent out that message on purpose to judge people's reactions.
I just ordered home voting for my mobility-reduced mother for Finnish Presidential Election.
After bit of a telephony jungle, with a communal worker actually calling me back post official work hours after I unsuccessfully called the number given in the voting form sent to her. I'd had given up, but... I do suspect the Communities in Finland know the strong official sanction for equitable voting opportunity.
I also recall fondly six years back when we went and voted in the second round of presidential election - where my mother had only her press-card to validate her person, but in Finland it is about being either known by voting officials or officially ID'ed.
(either way, a voter gets tacked in a list of eligible voters, so fraud has a very short trail - I'm not aware of a single case reported thus far)
Should you not be known, in Finland, you can get a temporary ID from the police just for voting purposes, where you have to be able to provide a passport photo, thou. Should you have no fixed address - prevoting is available in multiple stations in all Finnish communities.
I especially feel strongly happy in the democratic sense that voting opportunity is provided in prisons in Finland - apparently not a universally held policy in the EU. (thou soon to be ex, ref UK)
My point of view: while I do not think most currently illegal activities in Finland will any time soon risk becoming legal, there must be a legitimate path to this, within norms of universal human rights.
People have been condemned to prison for protesting racial segregation, for example, in this world of ours.
Anyway...the main point is that they sent out that message on purpose to judge people's reactions.
Based with a choice of cock-up or conspiracy, I vote for cock-up . If it was a deliberate act there would not only be significant political consequences, but legal ones as well. Not only could the state be sued for any accidents that happened while people attempted to seek safety this time (which could happen anyway), but they could also potentially be sued in the event of a real emergency by people not seeking safety on the grounds they assumed it was another test. Of course if an emergency were sufficiently serious that might render legal consequences moot anyway ...
if one accepts this as a fact of the world order (there is international law, laws of war, there's alliances, there's terrorists and insurgents, there are democracies, non-democracies and absolute hellholes in the form of ravaged de-facto fragmented countries, there are powers able and willing to intervene and protect their allies and interests abroad) it's impossible, i have to tell you in the strongest terms: absolutely impossible to concieve of a russian intervention that would only target those factions that the USA deems acceptable for russia to target (just isis for example). it's absolutely unavoidable that russia will confront all of syria's enemies once they're a part of the conflict as an ally and to take any conditional stance on this is untenable.
I dont necessarily disagree. I think my point is more that this was their intent. Russia essentially said that they were going to Syria in order to deal with ISIS, but they seem to have another objective: Saving the Assad regime (For reasons you referenced yourself. Naval base, ally in the Mediterranean, lucrative arms deal with Syria, and part of Russia's larger goal of working to keep the middle east within their sphere of influence).
I have two thoughts about that:
First - It's regrettable then that they're keeping Assad propped up since by all accounts I can find, the Syrian government has been pretty horrible in its treatment of the Syrian people. This isnt to say I know that the rebels (some or all) are any better - but just that Assad seems pretty awful.
Second - I have no illusion that while the US tries to frame the support of rebel groups in Syria as a moral choice, it would also potentially weaken Russian influence in the middle east. It's realpolitik.
You know between: - Trump for the USA - The Brexit for the British (last utterance being David Davis asking for legal advices against the EU for preparing for a "no deal" conclusion when he himself said that he is preparing for such scenario otherwise the EU negociators wouldn't take him seriously). - Bibi in Israël whose son not only is a regular escort client (that which no one should really care) but also says on tape that his father placed friends on billions worth contracts. - Putin running for another mandate (counting his PM mandate make that 5) - Germans still looking for a government - Rajoy stuck with Catalonia and the images of police brutality in Barcelona (everyone saw the Catalan firemen protecting protesters from the police)
It's not so bad here. Having a president giving the Chinese one a horse and making the event there (as a reminder Obama offered the British queen an iPod and David Cameron offered the Chinese president a soccer shirt).
Hawaii sent out a incoming missile alert on Saturday; the text of the message made it clear that the threat was both imminent and that it was not a test or a drill. They have apologized for it, saying that someone sent "the wrong template" during a routine test. I agree--it was a test...but not of the emergency alert system. No, I suspect they sent out the "this is not a drill" message on purpose so they could see how people would react--they were trying to test the citizens, not the alert system. Most of the time, cities and States in the United States score a D or an F for disaster preparedness, as do most citizens.
Stupidly, there are people in Hawaii who want the State to stop the routine testing of the early warning sirens. If I were living in Hawaii, I would put up with the sirens because most estimates state that a missile launch from DPRK could hit Hawaii in 20 to 25 minutes. If the launch isn't detected for 5 minutes then you really don't have much time to get to shelter before it strikes. You also have to err on the side of caution and presume that any DPRK launch is going to be at least dirty, if not fully nuclear--you don't want to be in a city when it hits.
You can prepare for a hurricane because you can be fairly certain of where it will hit two days out--that's plenty of time. With a tsunami (major earthquakes in the Eastern Pacific can trigger those) you would have several hours advance notice--again, plenty of time to get to higher ground (at least in Hawaii; if you are closer to the quake then you may have only a few minutes). Only with a tornado do you generally get almost no advance warning--they can drop out of mesocyclones at any moment.
Anyway...the main point is that they sent out that message on purpose to judge people's reactions.
I just want to state, that it would probably be nearly impossible to get out of a city in 20 minutes after hearing the siren unless you have access to air traffic such as a helicopter. Five extra minutes allows you to say goodbye to your loved ones maybe, but I personally would rather be oblivious to my impending doom.
Plus where would you go? I wonder if Canada will take the Diefenbunker out of retirement, or they have another location already established somewhere else unknown to the pubic at large as world tensions heat up. Living in a capital city I do think about this.
20 minutes? Luxury! I remember during the cold war we only had a 4 minute warning in the UK - which was only useful for pub discussions along the lines of "What would you do with your last 4 minutes?".
if one accepts this as a fact of the world order (there is international law, laws of war, there's alliances, there's terrorists and insurgents, there are democracies, non-democracies and absolute hellholes in the form of ravaged de-facto fragmented countries, there are powers able and willing to intervene and protect their allies and interests abroad) it's impossible, i have to tell you in the strongest terms: absolutely impossible to concieve of a russian intervention that would only target those factions that the USA deems acceptable for russia to target (just isis for example). it's absolutely unavoidable that russia will confront all of syria's enemies once they're a part of the conflict as an ally and to take any conditional stance on this is untenable.
I dont necessarily disagree. I think my point is more that this was their intent. Russia essentially said that they were going to Syria in order to deal with ISIS, but they seem to have another objective: Saving the Assad regime (For reasons you referenced yourself. Naval base, ally in the Mediterranean, lucrative arms deal with Syria, and part of Russia's larger goal of working to keep the middle east within their sphere of influence).
I have two thoughts about that:
First - It's regrettable then that they're keeping Assad propped up since by all accounts I can find, the Syrian government has been pretty horrible in its treatment of the Syrian people. This isnt to say I know that the rebels (some or all) are any better - but just that Assad seems pretty awful.
Second - I have no illusion that while the US tries to frame the support of rebel groups in Syria as a moral choice, it would also potentially weaken Russian influence in the middle east. It's realpolitik.
these are some important facts/circumstances here: russia got involved pretty late, and it might even have been a rash decision. russia has gone beyond it's means to keep things going; people generally thought that it was a show move and that they would pull out after shooting a few of those ballistic rockets as a tech demo. russia wouldn't have been able to achieve a move towards a more appealing regime by plotting against assad... externally imposed regime change towards democracy during a civil war - i don't that's ever happened in history.
i mean, it's almost "mathematically impossible" for russia to intervene on behalf of an ally, and undermine the government of that ally at the same time. russia has needed stable and secure swathes of territory to land their planes and they've also needed someone to fight for in the first place. iran has a big influence there too, and they've been fighting the ground war; if there had been some regime instability, perhaps iran could have propped an even worse alternative. russia probably realistically holds that syria is better off with the government surviving the war, than the other factions destroying the regime, and having the land ruled by various warlords, which gives their intervention the meaning of a genuine crisis-management effort, and creates an unavoidable (i could probably say unfortunate as well, but it would be pointlessly naive) aura of beneficiality, even if russia is not "morally invested" in the outcome for the syrian people all that much, which is a given, since it's a foreign country with a foreign people.
the thing that the russians have going for them is creating a general feeling around the world that they are contributing to the war coming to an end. the usa has created a general feeling that their actions have prolonged the war. this is why the russians have won the contest in the theater the second they were determined to stay until the end, and they've done so in a hybrid way (secure influence in a region, and make the usa look bad as much as possible in the process). after this fact there's no realpolitik for the usa to be had. the real opportunity is gone.
Since it's MLK Day, and I saw this poll number thought I would share. These are Martin Luther King Jr.'s favorability numbers:
1966: 33% 2018: 94%
Point being, the fight for justice is never popular when it is actually occurring. His numbers are that high now because he is now an ideal and entered American myth, like Lincoln and Kennedy. If he were still alive fighting today, he would not have such universal approval. Most of King's popularity among white America only appeared after he was dead and no longer able to shock the system.
I just want to state, that it would probably be nearly impossible to get out of a city in 20 minutes after hearing the siren unless you have access to air traffic such as a helicopter. Five extra minutes allows you to say goodbye to your loved ones maybe, but I personally would rather be oblivious to my impending doom.
Plus where would you go? I wonder if Canada will take the Diefenbunker out of retirement, or they have another location already established somewhere else unknown to the pubic at large as world tensions heat up. Living in a capital city I do think about this.
I live in a large enough metropolitan area and close enough to a major airport that an impending missile attack (if nuclear) near my area probably means virtually immediate death for me, whether I know about it or not. I would rather know. Of course, I am already mentally prepared in case of some form of imminent doom...but I am also prepared to live in a post-apocalyptic world, so ultimately I can get by either way.
It probably was just one person making an Epic Fail but I always love a good conspiracy. Perhaps this is a fault in my thought process but if I had been in charge of Hawaii's emergency alert system I would have sent out that message on purpose so we could then have a real discussion about disaster preparation.
*************
I suspect Dr. King would be aghast not that racism still exists in the minds of some people in 2017 but that the number one killer of young black men is, according to the FBI's own crime statistics, "other young black men". Your community cannot advance if its own members are preying upon one another.
Deflecting concerns about racism by pointing to black-on-black violence is gross, and baselessly attaching Dr. King's name to that deflection is grosser.
I think Dr. King would mostly be pleased with the state of the nation in 2018 if he had a chance to see it. We still have racial issues to sort out, but the biggest dragons of his time have been slain.
If he had been born in the late twentieth century and was alive today, however, I imagine he'd be very dissatisfied, and he'd have all kinds of ideas for what needed to be done. The mere absence of segregation is not enough. The standards for racial equality are much higher these days.
20 minutes? Luxury! I remember during the cold war we only had a 4 minute warning in the UK - which was only useful for pub discussions along the lines of "What would you do with your last 4 minutes?".
When I was at primary school in London, we had sirens erected just outside our playground before the Thames barrier was finished for flood warning.
Our school had a bombsite next door which we used to play on (coverered in wet the bed plants and fireweed), all our parents/grandparents had been through the Blitz, we were totally immersed in WW2 culture to some extent.
I remember all the children (myself included) going absolutely nuts when they tested the sirens. All of us were convinced the Germans were coming and we were about to be bombed or the Russians were about to nuke us. And the teachers running around trying to get everybody to calm down and trying desperately to explain it was only a test and anyway the sirens were only there to signal flooding. (of course even when the message got through, it was far too much fun running around and screaming rather than actually calm down)
Laugh about it now but OMG we were terrified at the time.
Deflecting concerns about racism by pointing to black-on-black violence is gross, and baselessly attaching Dr. King's name to that deflection is grosser.
No, it isn't. It is an established fact that young black men have more to fear from other young black men than from any other demographic group, including "police officers". Racism is bad but a community tearing itself apart is worse.
Deflecting concerns about racism by pointing to black-on-black violence is gross, and baselessly attaching Dr. King's name to that deflection is grosser.
No, it isn't. It is an established fact that young black men have more to fear from other young black men than from any other demographic group, including "police officers". Racism is bad but a community tearing itself apart is worse.
My first argument would be that all demographic groups are more likely to kill each other than anyone else. My second argument is that violence is historically a byproduct of poverty, and the #1 reason for African-American poverty is the nearly 250 year start in regards to generational wealth that no African-American family even had a remote possibility of gaining access to until the mid-60s. African-Americans in the United States weren't even remotely free, full citizens until just over 50 years ago.
I don't disagree with that. Many people need to realize that it is 2018, though, and not 1918. The opportunities are available now which did not exist in decades past so if people work towards the future they may not become rich but they certainly won't remain poor for the extent of their adult lives. If Barack can come from a mixed family background, attend university, become a Senator and then ultimately President then other black people can succeed, as well.
Of course, that line of reasoning applies to all people. It takes only the maturity to play the long game and the dedication to see it through.
Wow, 3.2 million people have already lost insurance just last year. Even I wasn't expecting news like that this early. First increase in uninsured in nearly a decade. What a massive failure. Or, it would be a failure if it hadn't have been done on purpose. You can expect that number to triple in 2018:
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And our way of life has been altered and is carrying on being altered. And that will become apparent eventually, at the moment it's in that classic Brit phase of being understood but not being voiced. The nature of the UK is changing, far less trust, a lot more segregation when people have the ability and means to vote with their feet.
The demographic change in the big cities is shocking, moreso in London, and it's accelerating.
Trump maybe many things, but it's France that nearly elected the FN.
It's Germany that currently has had a massive rise of the right that has resulted in there being difficulty forming a goverment.
It's Poland, Hungary and other Eastern countries who have elected goverments that are changing laws and have come out and said no to Islamic immigration.
It's Austria that has a president who is far right.
And the UK voted for Brexit.
What happens if none of these magic wands work?
Trouble I would think.
Are you American, if so, why are you running your country and it's people down so much?
You think by insulting people over and over and over you are going to have anybody listen to your POV?
My comment about terror attacks in Europe was simply meant to convey that people dusted themselves off and moved back on with daily life rather quickly, because it's the only thing you can do. In America, the city similar acts take place in almost seem to go into a 24 or 48 hour paralysis, and have caused us to militarize our police departments from coast to coast. I didn't mean to infer or claim Europeans don't care about the attacks. Simply that I admire their response to them in defiance of the death and chaos.
Of course, the government wouldn't be a government if it didn't capitalize on the terror attacks to push a law that obliges ISPs to store their clients' traffic for six months. Yeah, right, apparently people only die in bombings, and not in droves from poor medicine, surrogate alcohol, car accidents, etc. Yeah, totally.
You support the Russia intervention in Syria unconditionally? I mean, I understand fighting ISIS - but hasnt Putin been rather target indiscriminate, attacking any an all groups in Syria not allied with Assad? I'm not trying to level accusations, as I think the US hasnt necessarily made Syria a better place since we began our own involvement, I'm just curious about your position on this. Propping up Assad doesnt seem like the right call to me.
"assad" is the government and the internationally recognized state of syria, and all the other sides are insurgents, including the kurds, but the kurds are substantially different from the rest and russia recognizes this difference (as does syria).
if one supports syria not losing the war to islamist factions, then one supports the russian intervention which is legally and strategically a self-understandable thing since the two countries are allies, syria invited russia, and russia has some extremely solid reasons to help syria which includes protecting their naval basing in the mediterranean, and destroying some nasty domestic-russian islamic terrorists that went to syria to fight (where they keep being terrorists: it's not like they become freedom fighters when they cross a few borders)
if one accepts this as a fact of the world order (there is international law, laws of war, there's alliances, there's terrorists and insurgents, there are democracies, non-democracies and absolute hellholes in the form of ravaged de-facto fragmented countries, there are powers able and willing to intervene and protect their allies and interests abroad) it's impossible, i have to tell you in the strongest terms: absolutely impossible to concieve of a russian intervention that would only target those factions that the USA deems acceptable for russia to target (just isis for example). it's absolutely unavoidable that russia will confront all of syria's enemies once they're a part of the conflict as an ally and to take any conditional stance on this is untenable.
Stupidly, there are people in Hawaii who want the State to stop the routine testing of the early warning sirens. If I were living in Hawaii, I would put up with the sirens because most estimates state that a missile launch from DPRK could hit Hawaii in 20 to 25 minutes. If the launch isn't detected for 5 minutes then you really don't have much time to get to shelter before it strikes. You also have to err on the side of caution and presume that any DPRK launch is going to be at least dirty, if not fully nuclear--you don't want to be in a city when it hits.
You can prepare for a hurricane because you can be fairly certain of where it will hit two days out--that's plenty of time. With a tsunami (major earthquakes in the Eastern Pacific can trigger those) you would have several hours advance notice--again, plenty of time to get to higher ground (at least in Hawaii; if you are closer to the quake then you may have only a few minutes). Only with a tornado do you generally get almost no advance warning--they can drop out of mesocyclones at any moment.
Anyway...the main point is that they sent out that message on purpose to judge people's reactions.
After bit of a telephony jungle, with a communal worker actually calling me back post official work hours after I unsuccessfully called the number given in the voting form sent to her. I'd had given up, but... I do suspect the Communities in Finland know the strong official sanction for equitable voting opportunity.
I also recall fondly six years back when we went and voted in the second round of presidential election - where my mother had only her press-card to validate her person, but in Finland it is about being either known by voting officials or officially ID'ed.
(either way, a voter gets tacked in a list of eligible voters, so fraud has a very short trail - I'm not aware of a single case reported thus far)
Should you not be known, in Finland, you can get a temporary ID from the police just for voting purposes, where you have to be able to provide a passport photo, thou. Should you have no fixed address - prevoting is available in multiple stations in all Finnish communities.
I especially feel strongly happy in the democratic sense that voting opportunity is provided in prisons in Finland - apparently not a universally held policy in the EU. (thou soon to be ex, ref UK)
My point of view: while I do not think most currently illegal activities in Finland will any time soon risk becoming legal, there must be a legitimate path to this, within norms of universal human rights.
People have been condemned to prison for protesting racial segregation, for example, in this world of ours.
I dont necessarily disagree. I think my point is more that this was their intent. Russia essentially said that they were going to Syria in order to deal with ISIS, but they seem to have another objective: Saving the Assad regime (For reasons you referenced yourself. Naval base, ally in the Mediterranean, lucrative arms deal with Syria, and part of Russia's larger goal of working to keep the middle east within their sphere of influence).
I have two thoughts about that:
First - It's regrettable then that they're keeping Assad propped up since by all accounts I can find, the Syrian government has been pretty horrible in its treatment of the Syrian people. This isnt to say I know that the rebels (some or all) are any better - but just that Assad seems pretty awful.
Second - I have no illusion that while the US tries to frame the support of rebel groups in Syria as a moral choice, it would also potentially weaken Russian influence in the middle east. It's realpolitik.
- Trump for the USA
- The Brexit for the British (last utterance being David Davis asking for legal advices against the EU for preparing for a "no deal" conclusion when he himself said that he is preparing for such scenario otherwise the EU negociators wouldn't take him seriously).
- Bibi in Israël whose son not only is a regular escort client (that which no one should really care) but also says on tape that his father placed friends on billions worth contracts.
- Putin running for another mandate (counting his PM mandate make that 5)
- Germans still looking for a government
- Rajoy stuck with Catalonia and the images of police brutality in Barcelona (everyone saw the Catalan firemen protecting protesters from the police)
It's not so bad here. Having a president giving the Chinese one a horse and making the event there (as a reminder Obama offered the British queen an iPod and David Cameron offered the Chinese president a soccer shirt).
Plus where would you go? I wonder if Canada will take the Diefenbunker out of retirement, or they have another location already established somewhere else unknown to the pubic at large as world tensions heat up. Living in a capital city I do think about this.
i mean, it's almost "mathematically impossible" for russia to intervene on behalf of an ally, and undermine the government of that ally at the same time. russia has needed stable and secure swathes of territory to land their planes and they've also needed someone to fight for in the first place. iran has a big influence there too, and they've been fighting the ground war; if there had been some regime instability, perhaps iran could have propped an even worse alternative. russia probably realistically holds that syria is better off with the government surviving the war, than the other factions destroying the regime, and having the land ruled by various warlords, which gives their intervention the meaning of a genuine crisis-management effort, and creates an unavoidable (i could probably say unfortunate as well, but it would be pointlessly naive) aura of beneficiality, even if russia is not "morally invested" in the outcome for the syrian people all that much, which is a given, since it's a foreign country with a foreign people.
the thing that the russians have going for them is creating a general feeling around the world that they are contributing to the war coming to an end. the usa has created a general feeling that their actions have prolonged the war. this is why the russians have won the contest in the theater the second they were determined to stay until the end, and they've done so in a hybrid way (secure influence in a region, and make the usa look bad as much as possible in the process). after this fact there's no realpolitik for the usa to be had. the real opportunity is gone.
1966: 33%
2018: 94%
Point being, the fight for justice is never popular when it is actually occurring. His numbers are that high now because he is now an ideal and entered American myth, like Lincoln and Kennedy. If he were still alive fighting today, he would not have such universal approval. Most of King's popularity among white America only appeared after he was dead and no longer able to shock the system.
It probably was just one person making an Epic Fail but I always love a good conspiracy. Perhaps this is a fault in my thought process but if I had been in charge of Hawaii's emergency alert system I would have sent out that message on purpose so we could then have a real discussion about disaster preparation.
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I suspect Dr. King would be aghast not that racism still exists in the minds of some people in 2017 but that the number one killer of young black men is, according to the FBI's own crime statistics, "other young black men". Your community cannot advance if its own members are preying upon one another.
If he had been born in the late twentieth century and was alive today, however, I imagine he'd be very dissatisfied, and he'd have all kinds of ideas for what needed to be done. The mere absence of segregation is not enough. The standards for racial equality are much higher these days.
Our school had a bombsite next door which we used to play on (coverered in wet the bed plants and fireweed), all our parents/grandparents had been through the Blitz, we were totally immersed in WW2 culture to some extent.
I remember all the children (myself included) going absolutely nuts when they tested the sirens. All of us were convinced the Germans were coming and we were about to be bombed or the Russians were about to nuke us. And the teachers running around trying to get everybody to calm down and trying desperately to explain it was only a test and anyway the sirens were only there to signal flooding.
(of course even when the message got through, it was far too much fun running around and screaming rather than actually calm down)
Laugh about it now but OMG we were terrified at the time.
Of course, that line of reasoning applies to all people. It takes only the maturity to play the long game and the dedication to see it through.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/uninsured-population-increases-by-3-2-million-in-trumps-first-year-in-office