Politics and world news

[BruceVC]

6 minutes ago, Guard Dog said:

Bruce do not waste your time. He won't respond. And yes, that guy is a flat out racist. 

I am hoping he will respond to this question, for me its not unusual to encounter anti-white sentiment sometimes. Its something I just ignore as it normally lacks historical accuracy and tends be about sweeping generalizations that are impossible to justify

But I still would believe ktchong can explain his China view, that should be simple if he is being sincere is his misplaced belief ?

[BruceVC]

24 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

He's super pro-China and defends everything they do and as GD said, he doesn't really participate in discussions. He just rants and leaves with no conversations to be had.

Bruce, just support Taiwan and Hong Kong and also boycott Mulan  

I hear you, that was my general view of him from what regular members thought about him. One of the things I was confronted with growing up at the end of Apartheid and voting at the age of 18 in the new South Africa is sometimes you will be confronted by people who automatically dislike you or have a negative view of you because of your race and  historical events like Apartheid, they assume all white people in South Africa are responsible ...you dont take it personally because its based on real events in our history and you never encounter it  from people in RL

But in SA people at least give you a reason, for example people who want land reform/expropriation assume all white people stole the land but in SA only 8 % of white people are farmers...

But Ktchong wasn't subjected to Apartheid laws and denied an education or a limited one so I would be very surprised if he cant support China based on what he believes. Thats what a debate is, we present our views and people can decide for themselves. I loved debating at school....I was useless at sport so these types of subjects gave me an identity which is important for young people 

 

Edited January 11, 2020 by BruceVC

[Zoraptor]

3 hours ago, ShadySands said:

I haven't read the articles that the linked article references as I don't have access to the WSJ or NYT.

It's why I said I haven't looked very much into it before posting.

The 1st article is certainly based on anonymous sources, but there's a lot of circumstantial evidence to back it up unlike many reports based on anonymous sources. Certainly even if he did not do it to shore up support it had that effect; since there's no 'Wag the Dog' accusation made all it really does it describe what actually ended up happening in terms of R support as being what was intended to happen. And while the NYT is pretty stridently anti Trump the WSJ is owned by stridently pro Trump Rupert Murdoch, albeit it's editorial line is more nuanced than something like the New York Post or The Scum, with both the NYT and WSY seemingly getting the same information independently which always boosts reliability.

The 2nd article is verifiably true, and it's not hard to dig up contemporaneous tweets about the assassination attempt on Shahlai and him being thought dead if it were really necessary.

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

It's very, very likely, as it's due incompetence rather their being malicious. Similar situation to the Vincennes, albeit a bit less aggressive by the shooter.  Forget if MH17 was down to rebel idiocy but it also seems likely.

Skarpen is actually correct there, at least technically. By a strict definition the only civilian airliner that has been shot down accidentally in fairly recent times was the Siberian Airlines plane shot down by Ukraine during a test firing, where the missile missed the target drone and locked onto the airliner behind it; MH17 (misidentified as IL76 most likely), this case (cruise missile supposedly) and IranAir655 (F14) were all mistakes instead as all hit their (misidentified) but intended target. KAL007 was shot down deliberately having been identified as a civilian type plane, but legally, as it had repeatedly transitted closed military zones and was 100s of kms off target- and there was a genuine spy plane based on a civilian airframe nearby.

Of course by common usage most of those incidents are referred to as accidents instead.

Edited January 11, 2020 by Zoraptor

[Maedhros]

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/

[Agiel]

2 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

KAL007 was shot down deliberately having been identified as a civilian type plane, but legally, as it had repeatedly transitted closed military zones and was 100s of kms off target- and there was a genuine spy plane based on a civilian airframe nearby.

Of course by common usage most of those incidents are referred to as accidents instead.

Frankly I wouldn't let the Soviets off that easily on that basis. The behaviour of the flight that was not consistent with previous American reconnaissance missions should have tipped the Soviets off, and they had courses other than shooting down the jet (Put it this way: Technically in some US jurisdictions it is legal to brandish a firearm at or shoot some kid that intruded on one's property. Nonetheless the shooter shouldn't expect anyone to break out the 18-year old scotch for him at the next block party) per David E. Hoffman's chapter on KAL 007 in "The Dead Hand":

<<Another plane flew in the sky that night, circling close to the Soviet Union, an RC-135 four-engine jet used for intelligence missions by the U.S. air force. The RC-135, a converted Boeing 707, was a familiar spy plane, known to the Soviets. Osipovich, the interceptor pilot, recalled he had chased it many times. The RC-135 flights were monitoring Soviet ballistic missile tests on an intelligence mission known as Cobra Ball. The plane was crammed with cameras and special windows down one side to photograph a Soviet missile warhead as it neared its target. The upper surface of the wing on the side of the cameras was painted black to avoid reflection. The RC-135s were based on Shemya Island, a remote rocky outcropping in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.

Soviet missile tests often aimed at the Kamchatka Peninsula. How the missiles landed could help the United States monitor arms control treaties and look for violations. The pictures could show how many MIRVs came from a missile and the final trajectory. The RC-135 planes flew in circular or figure-eight orbits with camera lenses aimed at the Soviet coastline, in anticipation of a test. On the night of August 31, a missile test was expected and the RC-135 loitered in the sky, waiting. The RC-135 had a wingspan of 130 feet, compared to the 747, which stretched 195 feet and 10 inches across. Both had four engines, located under the wings. The 747 featured a prominent hump on the front of the fuselage for the upper passenger deck. As the RC-135 circled, at about 1 A.M., the larger 747 flew by, seventy-five miles south. This was a critical moment of confusion for the Soviets. They had been tracking the RC-135 by radar. When the missile test didn’t happen, the RC-135 headed back to its base on Shemya Island, but Soviet radar didn’t see it turn and go home. On the way home, the RC-135 crossed the flight path of the 747 at one point. The Soviet radar somehow lost the RC-135 and picked up the 747, now unexpectedly heading directly for Kamchatka. The plane was given a number, 6065, and the track was annotated with an “81,” which meant one unidentified aircraft. It was the off-course Korean Air Lines flight, but the Soviet ground controllers thought it might be an RC-135. The radar tracked the plane as it approached Kamchatka, but not constantly. Radar contact was lost, and picked up again while the plane was about halfway over the peninsula.

When the airliner approached Kamchatka, Soviet air defense forces were slow to react. Controllers were groggy, commanders had to be awakened, and there were radar gaps. Transcripts of ground control conversations show they spotted the plane just as it flew over the air defense forces base at Yelizovo. They scrambled four interceptors. These planes zigzagged in the air for twenty minutes but could not find the jet, which was actually north of them, and they were forced to return to base. The plane flew on, straight out over the Sea of Okhotsk and toward Sakhalin Island, about seven hundred miles away. Radar contact was lost at 1:28 A.M.

the plane just as it flew over the air defense forces base at Yelizovo. They scrambled four interceptors. These planes zigzagged in the air for twenty minutes but could not find the jet, which was actually north of them, and they were forced to return to base. The plane flew on, straight out over the Sea of Okhotsk and toward Sakhalin Island, about seven hundred miles away. Radar contact was lost at 1:28 A.M.

..

Guk, the KGB chief in London, had been in Moscow during the shoot down, and he later took Gordievsky aside and told him that eight of the eleven Soviet air defense radar stations on Kamchatka and Sakhalin were not functioning properly. Dobrynin heard>>

 

Emphases seem to corroborate the testimony of the Soviet defector pilot Alexander Zuyev, who claims that several EW and GCI radars remained inoperable because they hadn't been repaired in a timely manner despite the Far East MD's claims to the contrary. 

https://youtu.be/_glEQuvurFQ?t=107

<<At 3:09 A.M. an order was given to destroy the plane, but then rescinded. The Sokol command post duty officer wondered if the Americans would really fly a spy plane directly into Soviet airspace. They usually circled outside territorial waters. “Somehow this all looks very suspicious to me,” he said. “I don’t think the enemy is stupid, so … Can it be one of ours?” He called another command center at Makarov, on the eastern tip of the island, to see what they knew about the plane’s flight. “It hasn’t bombed us yet,” was the reply.

...

The Soviet ground controllers asked Osipovich six times whether the airliner was showing navigation lights, on the assumption that a plane without them might be on a spy mission. At 3:18, Osipovich reported, “The air navigation light is on, the flashing light is on.”>>

Note that contrary to popular culture examples even the SR-71 kept their flights outside of Soviet airspace, as they had sensors and photographic equipment powerful enough for their missions monitoring Soviet naval bases in Murmansk, Vladivostok, and Petropavlovsk from this distance. 

 

<<At 3:24, Osipovich’s radio crackled with orders:

“805, approach target and destroy target!” The airliner was just slipping away from the Sakhalin coast. Osipovich recalled later it was at this point he had finally gotten a look at the plane, and he realized suddenly it was larger than an RC-135. “Soon I could see it with my own eyes,” he recalled. “It was a big plane, and I thought it was a military-cargo plane because it had a flickering flash-light. There were no passenger plane routes, and there had been no occasions of any passenger planes losing their way…I could see it was a large plane. It wasn’t a fighter plane, but either a reconnaissance plane or a cargo plane.”

...

Dobrynin recalled seeing Andropov that day. Looking haggard and worried, Andropov ordered Dobrynin to rush back to Washington to deal with the crisis, saying, “Our military made a gross blunder by shooting down the airliner and it probably will take us a long time to get out of this mess.” Andropov called the generals “blockheads” who didn’t understand the implications of what they had done. Dobrynin said Andropov “sincerely believed,” along with the military, that the plane had made an intrusion into Soviet airspace as part of an intelligence mission to check Soviet radars. But even that, Andropov said, was no excuse for shooting it down instead of forcing it to land.>>

The PVO commanders made a stupid gamble for the sake of their careers ordering the shootdown of KAL-007.

Edited January 11, 2020 by Agiel

[Agiel]

11 hours ago, Katphood said:

This has to be the single worst 'January' of my life. Come on! It's my birthday on 27th. Can't even have a decent moment of peace in this godforsaken country.

 

If this regime has showed anything to the world, it's that it isn't afraid of killing its own people, since 1700+ Iranians have died by the hands of our dear government in the past 3 months.

 

So, in conclusion: dear Trump, the next time you are trying to avoid impeachment, try and put the spotlight on any country but Iran. These people are nuts...

It if makes you feel better the vast majority of people in North America who deal with Iranians on a regular basis have nothing but positive experiences with them. One of my best friends through high school was Persian and about the only thing he did that could be remotely construed as vaguely pro-Iran was him curling his lip at the depiction of Persians in <<300>> and even I shared that sentiment. In college I had an Iranian roommate (as in he had emigrated from Iran) and had spotted me watching a documentary on Ruhollah Khomeini and the Iran-Iraq War and said to me "Why are you watching something about that a**hole?", and while at parties he could go at length about how crooked the Pasdaran and the Basij were. Trump often accuses other countries of "not sending their best and brightest" to the US, but in the case of the Iranians this simply wasn't true; I was at my cousin's Computer Science graduation at UCLA and you would go through several minutes hearing nothing but Persian last-names.

Edited January 11, 2020 by Agiel

[Katphood]

1 hour ago, Agiel said:

It if makes you feel better the vast majority of people in North America who deal with Iranians on a regular basis have nothing but positive experiences with them. One of my best friends through high school was Persian and about the only thing he did that could be remotely construed as vaguely pro-Iran was him curling his lip at the depiction of Persians in <<300>> and even I shared that sentiment. In college I had an Iranian roommate (as in he had emigrated from Iran) and had spotted me watching a documentary on Ruhollah Khomeini and the Iran-Iraq War and said to me "Why are you watching something about that a**hole?", and while at parties he could go at length about how crooked the Pasdaran and the Basij were. Trump often accuses other countries of "not sending their best and brightest" to the US, but in the case of the Iranians this simply wasn't true; I was at my cousin's Computer Science graduation at UCLA and you would go through several minutes hearing nothing but Persian last-names.

 

Thank you, sir. It means a lot to me that people on these boards are so kind and well informed.

[Guard Dog]

People generally get along just fine. It's governments who pick fights and tell them who they are supposed to hate

 

[Zoraptor]

2 hours ago, Agiel said:

Frankly I wouldn't let the Soviets off that easily on that basis.

I wouldn't let them off either, morally, but legally it was justified- and in contrast to the other shoot downs the ultimate blame lies with KAL007 flying into completely the wrong area. If the pilots* had navigated properly they'd have been nowhere near Sakhalin in the first place. Didn't deserve to be shot down over it of course, but still.

In the other cases the pilots were blamelessly flying as expected on normal flightpaths when shot down, and the fault for their destruction is exclusively with others.

*and some blame for the nav system not making it obvious if INS was being used.

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, Guard Dog said:

People generally get along just fine. It's governments who pick fights and tell them who they are supposed to hate

 

Well, or their parents.

5 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Skarpen is actually correct there, at least technically. By a strict definition the only civilian airliner that has been shot down accidentally in fairly recent times was the Siberian Airlines plane shot down by Ukraine during a test firing, where the missile missed the target drone and locked onto the airliner behind it; MH17 (misidentified as IL76 most likely), this case (cruise missile supposedly) and IranAir655 (F14) were all mistakes instead as all hit their (misidentified) but intended target. KAL007 was shot down deliberately having been identified as a civilian type plane, but legally, as it had repeatedly transitted closed military zones and was 100s of kms off target- and there was a genuine spy plane based on a civilian airframe nearby.

Of course by common usage most of those incidents are referred to as accidents instead.

Yeah, I should have said people still believe that Iran planned to shoot a passenger airline. 

Edited January 12, 2020 by Malcador

[Guard Dog]

The voters in Iowa are worried about electing the wrong candidate to take on the Orange Menace. I'll save them some trouble.... they are ALL the wrong candidate. Not t take out Trump. He'll undo himself. But to be President... none of them are good choices.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/elections-2020/many-iowa-democrats-are-paralyzed-by-fear-of-choosing-the-wrong-candidate-to-take-on-trump/ar-BBYPEkU?li=BBnbklE

[Guard Dog]

Obama's former campaign guru warns against Bernie: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/11/bernie-sanders-trump-jim-messina-097578

Bernie Sanders would be a f-----g joke except he isn't funny. He is a multi-millionaire who says it's immoral to be a millionaire. But he's not giving up his money or any of his luxury homes. In both of his Senate terms he ran as a Democrat until after the primary elections and THEN switched to independent so he would not have to face a challenge from the left. Then looks down his nose at the Democrats and piously exalts himself over them. He checks off all the boxes of the caricature of a politician. A rich old white man from the political aristocracy  so far removed from "the people" he might as well be from another planet. But he has legions of idiots eating out of his hand actually believing his sales pitch. Personally I hope he gets nominated. An election between one dangerous idiot and another is better than we deserve

[213374U]

17 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

People generally get along just fine. It's governments who pick fights and tell them who they are supposed to hate

Don't you live alone in the ass-end of nowhere? It's easier to get along with people when you rarely have to deal with people.

However, I have to struggle to keep my inner beheader in check when my neighbors decide to start tearing down walls in the weekend. Or when some **** cuts in line just because he thinks he can, and reacts badly when I have the audacity to object. Pond scum figures he can reuse workout clothes for an entire week, and never puts back whatever equipment he's used after he's done. Smoking in enclosed spaces where it's strictly forbidden just because there's no one around at that precise moment. Driving like Batman because traffic regulations are for chumps. You know, the works.

Maybe it's because I'm getting old and cranky and pay more attention to these things but there seems to be an increasing erosion of common courtesy, civility and manners. And I'm pretty sure that the government has zero to do with any of it. They may circumstantially take advantage, and sustained, large scale violence is difficult without state‑level organization. But people not getting along is just a result of people being people, no need to appoint anyone to office.

Edited January 12, 2020 by 213374U

[Maedhros]

3 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Obama's former campaign guru warns against Bernie: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/11/bernie-sanders-trump-jim-messina-097578

Bernie Sanders would be a f-----g joke except he isn't funny. He is a multi-millionaire who says it's immoral to be a millionaire. But he's not giving up his money or any of his luxury homes. In both of his Senate terms he ran as a Democrat until after the primary elections and THEN switched to independent so he would not have to face a challenge from the left. Then looks down his nose at the Democrats and piously exalts himself over them. He checks off all the boxes of the caricature of a politician. A rich old white man from the political aristocracy  so far removed from "the people" he might as well be from another planet. But he has legions of idiots eating out of his hand actually believing his sales pitch. Personally I hope he gets nominated. An election between one dangerous idiot and another is better than we deserve

No political candidate will make Bernie Sanders' wealth suffer more than Bernie Sanders (if he wins). Bernie's so called hypocrisy is if anything a stronger argument for higher taxes on the rich. 

 

[Guard Dog]

2 hours ago, 213374U said:

Don't you live alone in the ass-end of nowhere? It's easier to get along with people when you rarely have to deal with people.

 

 I cannot argue with that! Or much of what else you said. My job and my dogs are likely the only things keeping me from going feral at this point.  I'll tell you one thing, hell will freeze solid before I ever live within a city limit again. Solid. That life is no good for anyone!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

4 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Obama's former campaign guru warns against Bernie: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/11/bernie-sanders-trump-jim-messina-097578

This is the guy who advised Theresa May in her surprising loss against Corbyn, lost Matteo Renzi his referendum that led to the Five Star Movement and Northern League coming to power in Italy, and thought Hillary was going to destroy Trump in 2016 so I'm not going to put much stock in what he says. 

[Guard Dog]

57 minutes ago, Maedhros said:

No political candidate will make Bernie Sanders' wealth suffer more than Bernie Sanders (if he wins). Bernie's so called hypocrisy is if anything a stronger argument for higher taxes on the rich. 

 

Assuming you take the man at his word. Political leaders have a long history of crafting laws in ways that exempt themselves from it. "Socialism is for thee, not for me" and "All animals are created equal but some animals are more equal than others". 

But even if he could do all the s--t he promises as President,  and spoiler alert:

Spoiler

he can't

he could not raise enough money to fulfill his promises. He could not do it if he seized every nickel of the top 1% and had all of them put in labor camps. Which means deficit spending on steroids. Well, it already is on steroids.  But all the democrats are promising to spend even more. Trump IS spending more. Meanwhile:

https://www.usdebtclock.org/

Tick tock tick tock. Hey, IDGAF. Let the whole thing burn. But I'm an old man with no family to worry over and I'm already well prepared for the collapse of all things. What about you?

Edited January 12, 2020 by Guard Dog

[Guard Dog]

Out of all the flaws of the people who seek political office over their fellow citizens I think hypocrisy galls me the most. More than dishonesty and megalomania  to tell you the truth. the latter two are just to be expected. but with hypocrisy they are just mocking you right to your face. 

[Hurlshort]

I don't have any sympathy for the 1%, so I'm not sure what the concern is. Their wealth has seen massive spikes in recent years while the middle class struggles to keep up with basic COLA.

[Guard Dog]

28 minutes ago, Hurlshot said:

I don't have any sympathy for the 1%, so I'm not sure what the concern is. Their wealth has seen massive spikes in recent years while the middle class struggles to keep up with basic COLA.

Let's kill them

[Skarpen]

35 minutes ago, Hurlshot said:

I don't have any sympathy for the 1%, so I'm not sure what the concern is. Their wealth has seen massive spikes in recent years while the middle class struggles to keep up with basic COLA.

Well fascism starts when you stop seeing some groups as people. Being bitter about some people being better than you is not a pretty sight.

[Maedhros]

1 hour ago, Guard Dog said:

Out of all the flaws of the people who seek political office over their fellow citizens I think hypocrisy galls me the most. More than dishonesty and megalomania  to tell you the truth. the latter two are just to be expected. but with hypocrisy they are just mocking you right to your face. 

Hypocrisy can be very annoying, and the "houlier-than-thou" attitude can be annoyingly prominent on the left side of the political spectrum. However, in this "internet detective age" I think many need to remember that just because someone's a hypocrite doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong. It's fully possible to be the biggest hypocrite in the room, but at the same time the one with the best ideas.

Personally I dislike the politicians who disregard science and research the most. Be it in regards to climate change, education or whatnot. I don't know what I'd call that personality flaw though? Idiocy?

Edited January 12, 2020 by Maedhros

[Guard Dog]

To whom it may concern I have been drinking since 11 AM so if I am a bit more argumentative that usual... something something

[ComradeYellow]

1 hour ago, Skarpen said:

Well fascism starts when you stop seeing some groups as people. Being bitter about some people being better than you is not a pretty sight.

No.  Fascism starts when so called "left wing" politicians fail to do their jobs and improve conditions for the lower strata.  That's when right wing demagogues like Trump and Bannon step in and play into their sense of justice.

[Raithe]