Self entitled monsters+what really happened at UC Davis

General Discussion
141

Also, the protestors haven’t lost sight of what they are protesting for.

The media has simply chosen to state that they have.

Of course they have.

Why wouldn’t they?

They are owned by monied interests who don’t WANT OWS to stand a chance.

Monied interests who don’t want the rest on the 99% to get together under the same banner of change.

Because more than the numbers they have now, might just foment change.

And that the monied interests will fight tooth and nail to prevent.

The American media is THEIR instrument - not the American people’s.

Anyone who believes otherwise, probably believes that the tape-machine shaped lump underneath George W. Bush’s coat during his debates with John Kerry, was merely a lint ball…

What?

You never saw that?

Yeah…

Wake up.

142

fair enough

Why do we as Americans make what is millions to other people, and we end up paying more for the same services other people pay for. What is the justification or reasoning of for this??

143

@Clu. co-sign on everything.
i’m sure the dude i quoted ain’t defending the 1%. i think it’s more of “hey guys that’s not effective and you look like a douche”. let’s find out.

and random, how do you call out a ron paul supporter in a civil manner. i don’t got patience. it’s not helpful to say to my (other) friend: you don’t know shit.

144

That vid is shocking. Those disrespectful, stupid little brats deserve what they get.

145

First video: I actually think both sides did a great job! The police were professional and basically courteous, while the protesters pushed the envelope, but at the end of the day made some noise without anyone getting seriously hurt. Seriously: well played America, imo.

Because the important thing to remember here is that a massive range of possible cultures are possible on this earth. You could live in a society where the police straight-up opened fire, or were surrounded and pulverized. Or a fanatical bomber just walked into the middle of everyone and detonated. But what I saw I consider a civilised event, for sure (our tech doesn’t hurt in keeping police accountability up high, with the recording going on!)

Which leads to the second video… I’ll admit, during portions of the first vid I was siding more with the police, so I was prepared to go with this guy’s argument… but I’m afraid he lost me when he started getting very personal. I haven’t heard of this guy before, but he strikes me as basically the American version of a guy we have here in the UK called Jeremy Clarkson (who also happens to be way into cars).

By the third video it seems incredibly apparent that the top poster really has a bit of an agenda going on. That video is hardly relevant. And again, I’m reminded of an earlier point: the spectrum of cultures available to us. Yes, we could have a zero tolerance to stupidity society and let those children beg or starve in the streets, but without going into the morality of it, that would just be wrong. Fact is, silly people are going to do silly things and in this case it’d make sense to try to make the best out of it. It is comparatively cheap to use some systems to try to make decent, productive members of society out of her kids if she can’t.

Because believe it or not, we are all in this together. I’m no economist, but even capitalism is essentially based on communal effort. Here’s a good article explaining how I feel on that better than I could: http://adamcadre.ac/calendar/13745.html

And so on to the 1% guy video. To be fair to him: he is a brave and intelligent man with excellent rhetoric. He would probably have me agreeing with him if I were to speak to him with his microphone… the one point I’d have to just stick it out and straight-up disagree with him on a level I could understand is when he said “everyone is greedy”. There is a difference between saying you want to wear some clothes, and that you will constantly want more. Yes, we all have interests, and we want to live well, but greed is about being selfish. As stated, our financial system, indeed, entire way of life, is based on communal contribution. That is the amazing thing about civilisation, it is a wonder it is even possible. To then say “screw that, I’m out for all I can get” well, hey you can feel that way personally, but it cannot be sanctioned by official bodies of the state because it is contradictory to what they represent.

I agree with him that the state should be concerned with protecting liberties, and corporations should be allowed to get on and provide goods and services, but the line between liberties and goods/services can be a fine one at times. Part of government’s role should be to prevent greediness… but now I’m starting to sound so idealistic I’m just going to stop there. Apologies SRK, just needed to vent this…

Oh and massive props to the scientific talk going on here also. Interested to hear about the difficulties of solar power, made me think about the whole abiogenesis problem but now that would be going off topic. ANYWAY great stuff on the whole, do carry on. :slight_smile:

edit: oh… re: the list of proposals, they are totally ludicrous, but I’m not sure how ‘official’ they would be considering the somewhat biased approach taken by top poster (and i really can’t be bothered to research it all beyond this thread!)

146

Nuclear is a very viable source right now, but the problems with it are mostly political. We live in an era that has been raised in fear of this. It is true that there is some valid concern about how the waste is handled, but at the same time there is mass hysteria on the part of the public that only muddles the issue.

Like I had mentioned before you can mention the word nuclear and get a negative response even when the context has nothing to do with radioactivity. NMR is a prime example. It is basically the measurement of atom’s spin state in the presence of a magnetic field, but with “Nuclear” in the name people freaked out and it had to be renamed to MRI.

Overall Nuclear is actually the most efficient source that doesn’t emit CO2 or other green house gases and we seem to be the only country who doesn’t use it. Hell France is more liberal than us overall and yet they generate a ton of their power off nuclear energy.

147

Wow… ok, I knew about the image meme, but had no idea how blown-up this incident has been.I’m definitely going to link to the first video posted here if anyone talks nonsense about it. The police were actually surrounded, they have the right to do it!

edit: ok… so my original comment “both sides did well” would stand IF the occupiers were honest about what went down. But they’re not. Wikipedia is well off on its coverage. It quotes a protestor who was sprayed: “we sat down because we didn’t want them arresting only a few of us” (it wasn’t fair). Well, no, that’s not true is it: you were demanding they were released. At least that’s what you told the police: that they couldn’t leave until they released your pals. Well, that’s not how the police works, and you know it.

Yeah… see, one of the things the government provides that is pretty much essential for civilisation is a police force. I actually read one comment earlier saying if they were real civil servants they’d be fire fighters! As if the police isn’t a real emergency service also. Wow. Good luck with those marauding bands of well armed, strong, sadistic opportunistic bullies. Yeah, good luck with that. It’ll be everyone for themselves in no time.

It’s not your fucking university, you are priviliged enough to study there. The person who has a much greater claim to calling it her university ordered the police remove you. What a fucking mess. Yeah… got pretty mad about it once I’ve actually heard some of the responses to the edited version. Total bs.

148

In no scenario was it right for the cops to pepper spray those kids like they did. All the had to do if they were so desperate to leave was simply step over them. Hell, some how they manage to climb fences in order to get to a perp but bunch of kids squating in a circle caged them in? Fuck outta here.

Zero sympathy for the cops. They should have been eating a donut or holding a riot shield after being paid to be at a clan rally.

149

^ But Angelpalm, they had arrested people and wanted to take them to the station. A crowd of friends of said arrested people were blocking their path, and demanding the police release their friends. Dragging their friends over them would probably have led to a fight. Either way, it’s not about sympathy: they’re the cops. You try to fence them in, and make demands of them, what do you think’s going to happen?!? Seriously!

150

One more question, if you don’t mind. Disposing of spent nuclear rods, politics aside, do we have a sustainable way to manage spent fuel? I read something few years back about some sort of well/site being digged a mile deep in the Nevada desert to dispose of spent fuel. That sure sounds like a lot of work (and money).

You also mentioned rods being reprocessed after losing so much of their fission efficiency? I also read somewhere about a technology being developed where the fuel aren’t rods but beads and the working fluid is something else than steam (helium?)?

I’m going to see if I can read up on all of this.

151

Man, what are these cops?

Oompa Loompas?

Fuck this silly Willy Wonka shit man.

152

I personally haven’t seen that particular research so I can’t comment too much on it.

Even when you reprocess fuel rods you still have some radioactive waste to deal with, but in general it is much easier to deal with. Instead of getting rid of Uranium which has an insanely large half life, you are getting rid of smaller compounds that will actually decay in our life time in stable elements. I know there is also research going on to see if they can actually use these isotopes for useful tasks.When you leave Uranium to decay on its own you get a long chain of products many of which aren’t safe and take a long time to decay.

I also saw somewhere people were discussing about using Thorium instead of Uranium in reactors.

153

[media=youtube]UGL-Ex1CD1c[/media]!

check 8:30 onward to Schiff try arguing with a stupid nigga.

154

^This right here pretty much. Face it, Dissing the people who have helped protect the country is about as smart as getting a blowjob from a trash compactor. It will work against you and hurt whatever point you were trying to make everytime. This is why you don’t let nuts run the nuthouse.

-Starhammer-

155

I really like that Peter Schiff guy. I’m sick of getting taxed 28%, I can just imagine the frustration he feels getting taxed to high hell.

156

Sorry for quoting the video but I don’t like the question deflection that he did @ 9:20…

Only intelligent dude there was the black guy that looked like Donald Glover… Schiff was deflecting the hell outta him tho…

157

For as intelligent as Schiff is, he isn’t always the most rational.

listen to this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRYk4PobHx4#t=4m19s

Bascially after the glorification of free-market capitalism, Schiff says that the strives of the unions did not end child labor and did not stop unfair hours. He calls it liberal propaganda.

Basically he’s saying that history is wrong and he is right…

He says that free-market capitalism is the snake-oil cure all for everyone’s problems. No… just no.

And also, corporations don’t pay all of their taxes as it stands right now. There are loopholes. Schiff knows good and well about those loopholes too, because he is the son of a businessman who used them.

Seriously google how much corporations pay for taxes and you will see how much they get away with. Please don’t feel sorry for them, because they don’t feel sorry for you when they continue to commandeer the political system and bring the economy crashing down on the people’s collective head, and then have the nerve to call for austerity lol.

158

That black guy IS smart and Schiff didn’t didn’t deflect but agreed with him on his point that there is a marriage or special relationship between the government and corporations and that the government dispenses favors to corporations that lobby/bribe them. This isn’t capitalism but cronyism.

no cigar: I think one thing you are missing is that Schiff nor I think that tax cuts for corporations alone is going to fix this problem, it’s just one small thing that would help. Schiff wants deregulation, he wants to make it affordable for businesses in the US to hire US citizens again instead of realising it’s too fucking expensive complying with all these rules and regulation and deciding to move your bike factory to China or somewhere else. Schiff owns many businesses and most of them are outside the US near Cuba because he knows he won’t have to pay all these fees or taxes like he would in America and by doing that the company can be competitive. It’s not different than what all the other multinational companies like Google are doing they are all operating outside the US and paying nothing (sometimes the government pays them lol!). There’s a reason why all the economic growth is happening in 3rd world countries where there is very little government involvement in businesses, it’s because business people don’t have to comply and pay all sorts of fees just to keep their businesses running.

Here, let me give you a small example that will make sense of this. My dad used to go to barber where they used to offer towel shaves. Then one day the government told all the barbers that now they have to replace each blade used on customers because of health and safety reasons which makes sense but what ended up happening is that all barbers instead decided to discontinue to service all together. Having to replace the razor each time it was used was expensive and the barbershop couldn’t afford to do it anymore under the new government rules so they stopped doing it. That’s why when you go to the barbershop now they don’t offer the service. This is pretty much what has happened with industry and factories in the US. Instead of complying with all these rules and paying all sorts of fees it makes more sense to just shut your factory down and move to India where there are very little rules and fees. Then on top of that you can pay these people a dollar/day instead of hundreds of dollars you would pay an American. So again, tax cuts for the rich alone is not going to solve anything, like Schiff says you need to get government out of the economy and let the free market work - but we all know this is never going to happen.

[media=youtube]vY46z9I90p0[/media]

159

I get that. I also get that the trend of regulate to continue shoving things out of the US is perpetuated mostly because those that “took their business elsewhere” discovered it was more profitable anyway, so the more excuses in line, the better. Instead, what should occur is a half and half situation: we need to take a good long look at the intention on all the regulations put in place, yank the ones that seem on the silly side, and at the same time, there needs to be some incentive put in place for those that keep their shit here in spite of all the regulations in place. As much as people like to cringe at the idea, the only way I can see adding incentive would be to throw some sort of tariff on those that shuffle all of it overseas, and it’d have to be something significant enough to counteract all the costs of regulations. There’s a great number of various points where government saying “uhh, wtf you doin’?” make sense. Those gotta stick else we return to the days of the industrial revolution. Just as likely as there are way too many regulations in place that do little more than give an excuse to export.

160

I’ll say listening to that guy I don’t think that he is. He was constantly making the argument that because there were social problems (Women’s right to vote, Black Rights, etc) therefore nothing they did back then was good. It was a major logical fallacy