The USA Political Thread

[lennco]

Here you can spout your USA political views.

Rules:
1. Keep it clean
2. No fighting
3. Respect the views of others.
4. US Political views, No Religious views
5. Have fun

:wave:

 

[GILSAN]

“ISIS commanders told us to fear nothing at all because there was full cooperation with the Turks,” said Omer of crossing the border into Turkey, “and they reassured us that nothing will happen, especially when that is how they regularly travel from Raqqa and Aleppo to the Kurdish areas further northeast of Syria because it was impossible to travel through Syria as YPG [National Army of Syrian Kurdistan] controlled most parts of the Kurdish region.”

http://www.newsweek.com/isis-and-tu...rds-former-isis-member-reveals-turkish-282920

No surprise in that news at all. Turkey cannot be trusted. Turkey hates the Kurds, they hate the Greeks, they hated the Assyrians, they hate the Armenians (remember their genocide of 1.5 million Christian Armenians that they refuse to acknowledge?) And naturally they hate Americans and Jews, just to mention a few.

According to our local media there are a dozen Portuguese jihadists fighting for ISIS. Guess where they entered Syria from? Yes you guessed it.... Turkey.

We received some good news a few days ago. One of those bastards was killed. 11 left to go.

Why did it take Newsweek so long to find this out. Oh I forgot, must have been Obama that asked the MSM to keep quiet about Turkey since he is such good buddies with his friend, Erdogan.

 

[verbster]

James Inhofe (R) is the new chair of the senate committee on the environment. When asked about climate change, Inhofe quoted Genesis 8:22 and explained, "My point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous."

Gosh! Can't argue with stone cold logic like that.

 

[RogueWriter]

One pretty easy way to reduce government..... sounds like they are cutting into this a bit, but how do you prevent this from re-occurring?

Duplication In Government Programs

I found this quote especially appalling, but it speaks to big government:

"It's impossible to account for how much money is wasted through duplication, in part because the government doesn't keep track of which programs each agency is responsible for, according to Dodaro's prepared testimony."

 

[GILSAN]

The most polite robbery ever

 

[verbster]

One pretty easy way to reduce government..... sounds like they are cutting into this a bit, but how do you prevent this from re-occurring?

Duplication In Government Programs

I found this quote especially appalling, but it speaks to big government:

"It's impossible to account for how much money is wasted through duplication, in part because the government doesn't keep track of which programs each agency is responsible for, according to Dodaro's prepared testimony."

The GAO often does a very good job of telling it like it is. I was surprised to see how many of their recommendations were being implemented. Thanks for the article.

 

[verbster]

(Moving comments from the non-political thread here.)

If it's not being already done, soon all user names will be indexed with real names and all of the info online about you into one huge data file . . . viewing habits, subject matter, health, clothes preference, foods, morals, politics, etc. . . . all available on a subscription basis.

I can see how forum posts supply lots of psychological info. Wouldn't take much to tweak that sort of data for unwanted purposes, even if it seems benign. . . targeted political voting, etc. Heck, why vote at all, when a data base can match your political beliefs with a suitable candidate.

I would guess many will disagree with me on this (and I'm rambling a bit), but I can't see how it won't happen. The Internet is going to turn out to not only be the beginning of a communication revolution, but also a privacy intrusion revolution. Who's going to stop huge corporations from buying info or buying the companies that collect the info, or just colluding like the NSA does? Internet privacy law doesn't really exist, or at least been truly litigated. The government will want the data just as much as M Soft or Exxon does. It's going to cause huge problems because people will be scared to speak up . . . . right after the first major objectors speak up and suddenly their "private" lives are made public, possibly including details that aren't real or true. (Can you imagine trying to fight stuff released about you that isn't true?) In any case, my doom and gloom predictions may be way off the mark, but then again they might not. This is a good example of hoping for the best but expecting the worse, but how do you stop the worse when you don't even know what's happening in that dark place and by nameless people. It's like a J. Edgar Hoover wet dream.

 

[GILSAN]

(Moving comments from the non-political thread here.)

If it's not being already done, soon all user names will be indexed with real names and all of the info online about you into one huge data file . . . viewing habits, subject matter, health, clothes preference, foods, morals, politics, etc. . . . all available on a subscription basis.

I can see how forum posts supply lots of psychological info. Wouldn't take much to tweak that sort of data for unwanted purposes, even if it seems benign. . . targeted political voting, etc. Heck, why vote at all, when a data base can match your political beliefs with a suitable candidate.

I would guess many will disagree with me on this (and I'm rambling a bit), but I can't see how it won't happen. The Internet is going to turn out to not only be the beginning of a communication revolution, but also a privacy intrusion revolution. Who's going to stop huge corporations from buying info or buying the companies that collect the info, or just colluding like the NSA does? Internet privacy law doesn't really exist, or at least been truly litigated. The government will want the data just as much as M Soft or Exxon does. It's going to cause huge problems because people will be scared to speak up . . . . right after the first major objectors speak up and suddenly their "private" lives are made public, possibly including details that aren't real or true. (Can you imagine trying to fight stuff released about you that isn't true?) In any case, my doom and gloom predictions may be way off the mark, but then again they might not. This is a good example of hoping for the best but expecting the worse, but how do you stop the worse when you don't even know what's happening in that dark place and by nameless people. It's like a J. Edgar Hoover wet dream.

Nice post. I believe your doom and gloom predictions are right on the mark.

Facebook is the best example of having a massive treasure trove of the personal information of one quarter of world's population right now.... and growing all the time.

Frightening, when you think about it. That's why I don't put my, or any of my families photos there, or what we do or where we go, etc.

 

[RogueWriter]

(Moving comments from the non-political thread here.)

If it's not being already done, soon all user names will be indexed with real names and all of the info online about you into one huge data file . . . viewing habits, subject matter, health, clothes preference, foods, morals, politics, etc. . . . all available on a subscription basis.

I can see how forum posts supply lots of psychological info. Wouldn't take much to tweak that sort of data for unwanted purposes, even if it seems benign. . . targeted political voting, etc. Heck, why vote at all, when a data base can match your political beliefs with a suitable candidate.

I would guess many will disagree with me on this (and I'm rambling a bit), but I can't see how it won't happen. The Internet is going to turn out to not only be the beginning of a communication revolution, but also a privacy intrusion revolution. Who's going to stop huge corporations from buying info or buying the companies that collect the info, or just colluding like the NSA does? Internet privacy law doesn't really exist, or at least been truly litigated. The government will want the data just as much as M Soft or Exxon does. It's going to cause huge problems because people will be scared to speak up . . . . right after the first major objectors speak up and suddenly their "private" lives are made public, possibly including details that aren't real or true. (Can you imagine trying to fight stuff released about you that isn't true?) In any case, my doom and gloom predictions may be way off the mark, but then again they might not. This is a good example of hoping for the best but expecting the worse, but how do you stop the worse when you don't even know what's happening in that dark place and by nameless people. It's like a J. Edgar Hoover wet dream.

The hard data, imo, has already been fairly well distributed, all of the core stats about you are available or were in databases that have been compromised, so you figure nothing about you that has ever been put in a computer is a secret. Merging that with the algorithms that facebook provides about your specific political choices and with an analyzation of your politically oriented comments/associations, anything that a corporate or government entity wants to know about you, save maybe your fingerprints, is at their disposal. Facial recognition software is just the final nail in that particular coffin. The data dating back to your youth will be used against you if you ever try to run for office or express an opinion that power brokers find objectionable. It's a pretty dark world, if you look at it like that.

 

[Theo Goodman]

dark wallet, open bazzar, tor, tor proxy, .onion , OTR, Tails, pgp, onename, blockchain id, blockchain notary, multi signature transactions, git

All of these are just tools, they can help with privacy and doing away with depending on google or facebook and other unreliable sources for reputation or identifcation, they can also be used for trustless escrow, unforgable notary timestamping, decentral marketplaces, decentral open source investigations, and obscured transactions. Our computers were not built with privacy in mind, some of our software is waaay ahead of our hardware.

If it's not being already done, soon all user names will be indexed with real names and all of the info online about you into one huge data file

Conspiracy Theory

That is why when people want to hide their identity they often take another identity and write as that person, in the style and using the vocabulary of that person, from color/colour and a lot more in depth.

 

[RogueWriter]

Eh, yet another government database falls... USPS says the breach, which lasted for two months was 'limited in scope' but may have included USPS employee names, addresses and social security numbers....

Real limited, right?

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/usps-hacked-postal-hit-cyber-attack-163100000--abc-news-topstories.html

 

[verbster]

yeah, whatever happened to being proactive? Big businesses, government departments, military . . . they all know they're going to be tested. I'll bet hackers-turned-hacker security are popular and well-paid right now.

 

[verbster]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/video/viral/chick-fil-a-manager-bans-teenage-slang/vi-AA7CrhI
Chick-fil-a manager bans teenage slang

 

[GILSAN]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/video/viral/chick-fil-a-manager-bans-teenage-slang/vi-AA7CrhI
Chick-fil-a manager bans teenage slang

One paragraph of this is called news?

 

[Domainace]

Yes, well Chick-fil-a is evil, and the media needs to watch carefully for any hint of misconduct or inappropriate language by any of its employees. Meanwhile, Russia has reached nuclear parity with the USA for the first time in decades. But Russia is not quite as evil as Chic-fil-a.:D

Such is the state of political awareness in the US these days.

 

[GILSAN]

 

[GILSAN]

Yes, well Chick-fil-a is evil, and the media needs to watch carefully for any hint of misconduct or inappropriate language by any of its employees. Meanwhile, Russia has reached nuclear parity with the USA for the first time in decades. But Russia is not quite as evil as Chic-fil-a.:D

Such is the state of political awareness in the US these days.

If I ever visit the USA again, I'll make sure to eat at Chick-fil-a... in support of their beliefs

 

[Domainace]

That picture is in Japan, http://www.yokoso-japan.jp/en/55010.html
Good skiing, too. Like that every year.

 

[GILSAN]

That picture is in Japan, http://www.yokoso-japan.jp/en/55010.html
Good skiing, too. Like that every year.

Yes.... the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route

 

[verbster]

Yes.... the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route

So you pick a picture of snow on an alpine ridge famous for snow to prove global warming is nonsense. Good job.

 

[GILSAN]

So you pick a picture of snow on an alpine ridge famous for snow to prove global warming is nonsense. Good job.

What's nonsense is that the main culprit of the so called global warming... the US, (actually they've probably been overtaken by China by now) has been so slow to take measures to reduce so much crap going into the air. Americans could easily start by forcing their car manufacturers to built much more fuel efficient cars, like we have in Europe.

Americans cars are the worst gas guzzlers on earth, have been so for almost 100 years. (what can the world do when Americans have this love affair with big cars) Look how much crap these cars have spewed into the atmosphere in all this time. US Car manufacturers and Oil companies have castrated and shelved dozens of fuel efficient technologies for cars for so long that people have resignated themselves to the status quo. Liberals keep talking about global warming, but what have they done? Nothing. They keep blaming it on Conservatives.

They talk about it when the temperatures rise and they talk about it when the temperatures drop, WTF, make up your minds. Oh of course I almost forgot.... they can always call it "Climate change" when temperatures drop and "Global warming" when it gets hot.