For the .005% of the population buying certain models of Mercedes, which did jack for the 99.995% of the driving public that did not have those vehicles. Don't be willfully obtuse.

What are you talking about? No one forced you to slam your brakes on at the last second.

No one but the state that can send you a ticket for $300. Which, for a wage-slave, could easily be the difference between having a roof over your head or moving into the backseat of your car.

Never ran a red light where it wasn't my own fault.

Then you've never frequently driven an intersection that had it's yellow light time shortened by a couple of seconds to increase the number of tickets handed out. That, or you drive like old people fuck.

Ordinarily the left-of-centers around here have no trouble making the connection between higher government revenue and greater public safety.

...for starving states and cities of revenue so they look to sin taxes (moving violations, pot busts) to make up the difference. Because 1) civilization costs money and 2) low taxes have high costs.

All they're doing in Chicago is providing themselves the means to fund their Government [1] by punishing law breakers

You mean what "tough on crime" right-of-center wankers have been demanding for decades? You jokers like to whine about big buggmit, but you find yourselves slipping into a brisk goosestep when it comes to all things authoritarian.

Anyhow Chicago, enjoy your statist hell. You deserve it.

Just how divorced from reality are you? Declaring war on public schools and selling off metered parking to a private company (that promptly jacked up rates) is a sign that Chicago is in a socialist hell on what planet???

11.3% is certainly a meaningful number, and far removed from the practical nonexistence that was being posited.

That number doesn't tell everything however. Since many of those jobs are concentrated in specific sectors of the economy the percentage of union employment in that sector can be much higher than 11.3% and have a significant impact. Example: teacher's unions.

Being a self-righteous wanker might give you warm fuzzies, but it does nothing to change the fact that a system that encourages drivers to suddenly stand on their breaks is a shitty system. One that has been proven to cause more rear-end collisions, your self-righteous wankery notwithstanding.

Nope, the tailgater is always wrong, without exception

Nope, that's conflating "unable to come to a complete stop if the driver in front stands on his brakes for some BS reason" with tailgating. As someone said upthread, getting all self-righteous at other drivers might give you warm fuzzies, but it doesn't change the fact that shitty traffic engineering is shitty traffic engineering.

When you can get the criminals to do the same, I'll agree with you.

When the Feds stop charging people for lying to federal investigators, I'll agree with you. Either both citizens and officials are allowed to be dishonest - outside of being under oath in a court of law - or neither one is.

Agreed. Have a great night.

There is no pipeline.

Pipe Dreams - The origin of the "bombing-Afghanistan-for-oil-pipelines" theory.
Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline Still a Dream* - Published on Monday, September 20, 2010

A working pipeline, if it ever gets built, will require a country more stable than Afghanistan is now or will be any time soon. It is too easy to sabotage otherwise, and that would result in billions of dollars down the drain. Nobody is going to risk it.

The US didn't install Saddam. He was a local bully-boy that worked his way up in the Baath socialist/fascist party by native wit and sheer ruthlessness.

Not really, no. From what I understand the hack ended up trashing a large percentage of Sony's computers, led to leaks of emails that were fodder for many news and gossip sites, and stopped the release of a movie that was already being advertised. You don't think those extraordinary events would get coverage otherwise?

I doubt it, no. Getting into an actual shooting war with North Korea wouldn't be a trivial thing. The body count would be huge if for no other reason than the inevitable crippling of the North Korean state would lead to widespread starvation among a population that is already barely making it. But before that happened the capital of South Korea would be flattened by artillery from North Korea. Nobody wants either outcome.

I'm willing to be skeptical, but this doesn't seem to be something contrary to the known behaviors of the North Koreans.

One of the 20th Century's lessons is that the West has not always been firm in confronting evil regimes such as North Korea's.

When it comes to global matters there is no shortage of people that get it wrong when the question involves the US.

Whether I do or don't, have or haven't, I'm pretty sure I can form reasonable opinions and make useful arguments.

* I can't tell you how painful it is to reference Ted Rall, slightly less so for Common Dreams.

Since 2003? Maybe you should look into what countries won oil contracts from the Iraqi Ministry of Oil. That would mainly be European and Chinese companies. US companies didn't tend to be interested due to the turmoil. There was also a lot of work to do in bringing Iraq's oil fields back on-line and up to their potential due to the neglect of Saddam's era. Keeping things running was and is a challenge due to attacks by insurgents.

If you think something else was going on you probably have some unreliable "history" there.

Restroom.

Many people here hold a variety of opinions against me since I don't share their views. I'll take clarity over agreement if agreement means being wrong.

If you don't want to believe the FBI, that's fine. But then you don't really have an informed basis for much else to say unless you examine the evidence yourself, you designate someone else as worthy of trust, or choose to engage in speculation (and are clear that is what it is). If you are going to trust another party in this surely that party of trust isn't going to be North Korea given its track record of not simply lies, but fantastically unlikely lies?

Kim Jong Il Bowls a 300 and Other Great Moments in North Korean Sports

You're post is bullshit. Iraq's long history of aggression, violations of human rights, crimes against humanity, and many other crimes was a part of the discussion prior to the invasion. You're trying to rewrite history but it fails since not everyone has forgotten. The same regime was in power the entire time and it was only going to get worse when Saddam's sons took over.

Iraq actually did posses banned missiles and warheads at the time of the invasion. What it didn't have was the chemical agent filler for the warheads, which some something it would be able to create fairly quickly once it had bribed its way out of sanctions as it was doing. I indicated above what happened to that filler, which was also a violation of various obligations on Iraq.

Well then, until you take a plane to South Korea, examine the situation yourself (how will you convince the banks to let you look?), and spend probably a couple of years developing the expertise on how the North Koreans operate to say one way or another you don't have much useful to say on the matter I would guess. Can we rely upon your silence until you have that expertise and direct access to evidence?