Explain to me why spying on, say, Angela Merkel or the entire Copenhagen or G20 summits is related to US national security and maybe I'll see your point.
Because when your only aim is "winning", whatever the fuck that means, there are no friends; everyone is a potential enemy. When you have decided to maintain global dominance, everyone is an enemy, including you own citizens.
One of the most dangerous conditions known to medicine - prolonged lack of proper sleep increases the risks of developing depression and psychosis apart from the other detrimental effects [which are many].
Sleep deprivation is a method of torture that leads eventually to insanity.
But don't worry, fellow Americans - your insanity is spreading fast around the world. Our brave leaders, here in Europe, work around the clock [with apparent lack of sleep - see symptoms above] to implement every detrimental [to humans and society] system and method disguised as "increased efficiency" and "cutting costs".
And here too, the new generation is brainwashed to accept all this as normal. "Work harder and we will make it" - yhea, right. Work harder under artificial, manipulative and downright abusive financial system which can delete your life [together with your hard work] in a second? Work harder when the rules of the game are not what they are professed to be? Work harder so that 0.1% of the wealth you actually produced trickles down to your ever shrinking middle class budget? Work harder and we will increase your children tuition fees by 100%. Work harder and will keep on increasing the costs of living [energy, housing, food, water, education, health care] with a rate that outpaces the increase in your income by factor of 2 or more?
I don't mind working and I do like to do many things. I love to feel appreciated and I love the thought that I am contributing in my own way to my life and the whole of humanity. But I do not accept to be a hamster in wheel who has to run ever faster [shortening my life in the process] in order to stand still [or go backwards as it happens in the last decade].
People, we have to stop this insanity and the first step is to realize that we are manipulated into "camps" so that we keep on fighting each other. Reading the discussions about such topics I notice that at least half of the population has bought into the scam and will defend the system with their lives. I do not see any way how this can be changed. I have spent years trying to convince a handful of people to look a bit further than the next meal without substantial success. And I am bloody good when it comes to talking and convincing people.
Any ideas?
Why is your comment not at +5 Insightful is beyond understanding....
Signed: an ex-teacher with huge passion for the job and very similar experiences as yours
The whole discussion is very interesting; I still want to try to understand why the crime rates are going down [very admirable development to be sure].
It seems to me that [in the US] there is negligible effort to address the socioeconomic reasons for crime. What we are usually told by scientists about the relation between crime and society is in the lines of more equality, supremacy of the law, honest business relations, good education, health care and social nets etc. does often contradict the very fundamentals of US society. So, meaningful change in society is unlikely reason for the decreased crime no matter how complicated those relations could be. Add to that the lobbing by the prison industry [if half of what I read in respectable source is true, well, I am speechless] which apparently unable to cope with decreased demand makes it so that lesser and lesser crimes are given prison time and new crimes are invented all the time, and it seems to me that the climate as a whole encourages crime [the media's role is a whole huge load of Dingo's kidneys, that I am too revolted to talk about].
But crime decreases.
My personal last straw to grasp for is biochemistry. Could it be as fundamental as that? I have heard stated few times that decrease in pollution might be a contributor. Lead gets mentioned often. Certainly during the period of wild use of lead the US must have had the most vehicles per capita on the planet. The wealthiest and most-industrialized country at the time. Maybe someone has more knowledge to share. Anyway, that is where I'd look for an explanation. And if the socioeconomic reasons are too complex to understand or too difficult to measure looking at chemistry might be the only option. If nothing else, so we could rule it out [or not].
I say we EMP the whole site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure!
I played the role of the village idiot in my team for almost 2 years. It was due to an unique and very unpleasant set of circumstances [outside work, mostly family and health stuff] that totally destroyed my motivation, concentration and even my will to live. Now this might be somewhat different than what the fine article is talking about, as the condition was temporary and everyone knew I could perform above expectation even bordering on excellent.
Nevertheless, only my direct supervisor was aware of all the facts of my case and he never shared them with the MT [because I asked him not to]. Thus for the MT I was a case of lost motivation, reasons unknown. Despite that, considerable effort was executed both on team level as well on MT level to help me out.
More or less the action was as follows:
- Instead of doing long-term project with uncertain result they put me on important but short-term project so I could see the positive effect of my work immediately and boost my self-confidence.
- Every time I did something good, an MT member would drop by the office to congratulate me in front of everyone
- I never heard a single nasty word about me; no-one spoke about my performance and very importantly they all avoided in making me feel patronized. In line of this I did get negative evaluation for one of those years and was punished financially. I wanted this as I was afraid that if I get a "hand-out" I might loose some of the motivation to get better again.
- They send me working part-time to 4 different teams and also contractors outside the company - meeting and working with many new people on very diverse projects really helped getting back on my feet.
- When they saw the recovery progressing really nicely they threw me on the most urgent project in the whole company where I contributed substantially, gained more "fame" than ever before and was rewarded financially offsetting the previous punishment and then adding some to my career growth.
I count all this experience as a resounding success and I have told them many times how grateful I am.
This is Europe and more importantly the Netherlands. As I have stated here before, there is a bunch of neocon-like politicians in NL [alas, they have the power ATM] that are just itching to destroy the management system of the country, more commonly known as the "the polder model".
They claim the model is not profitable but what they mean is that it is not profitable for their corporate friends. Society as whole wins BIG TIME by using that model and it is CHEAPER (again, if you look at the whole country, not a single company or industry). What would be the profit for society if they kicked me out and I spiraled in misery and depression? Would I ever recover? Would I ever get another job? Could it be that I'd turn into complete burden for society, incapable of supporting myself. In such desperation people turn to drugs and suicide becomes a viable way out.
Ohh yhea, I just noticed that I imply in the beginning of the last paragraph that the polder model might not be so profitable if you look at specific business. That is false - the company also wins since if I had not recovered they'd have to spend tens of thousands finding and educating a replacement for me [I did the math, our solution was cheaper indeed than hiring another person]. So, apparently the polder model is not profitable for a very small group of people within companies who probably get their bonuses based on very short-term performance so that the long-term negative effects of fucking your employees is not visible at the moment.
Obvious troll is obvious but still....
Q: What have Africans done for humanity?
A: Everything, since as far as we know Homo Sapiens evolved there.
Your question reminds me the hilarious "What the Romans did for us" gag...
Too bloody.
The hypocrisy is mind boggling. On one hand it should not be too disturbing for the observers, on the other nitrogen is "too easy" as a poster mentioned above [I for one am for the nitrogen; if I ever want to kill myself I'd use it].
The injection is particularly evil IMO. Just imagine being suddenly awake during surgery and noone notices the monitors [for the sake of argument] - you can't move, you can't scream. I cannot imagine worst than this. No matter how badly it hurts, being able to squirm and scream helps. Total madness!
The world is in the hands of the worst part of humanity. We build our system this way......
The humans are parasites only under the current paradigm not per se. You seem to be under the delusion that it is "our way or the highway" situation. False dichotomy it is called. All docile, ignorant, sociopathic and moronic people use this "argument"
Small addendum: anecdotal but still - I know many non-religious parents that came to regret sending their kids to religious schools. I personally never understood their optimism that somehow their kids would escape the indoctrination.....
Brilliant! The desired effect is achieved!
Remind me again, wasn't the Internet hailed as a game-changer that would bring people together, make us better human beings, or at least different.
Where is this profound change? It did not happen. Perhaps the optimists have underestimated people's distrust for the different? So, even though James and Ivan could chat while being 10000 miles away, and learn how for instance the media that feeds them is biased diametrically opposite, most of the time they didn't.
But just to make sure, you know just in case the impossible happened, all governments in the world made sure we won't talk with each other. Let me not recount the endless torrent of censorship all over the place across the whole world - this is
humanity throws away half of the food produced.
wake me up when we get real, please!
Show me the health and sustainability advantages.
Health - people focus on the issue of over-eating fat; that does not mean do not eat meat. What health issues does a balance diet [with meat] have?
Sustainability - I've said it 100's of times - there is no difference for the environment between 3 billion meat eaters, 7 billion vegetarians, 10 billion vegans or 15 billion insect and fungi eaters. No difference in terms of environmental impact of producing food that is. Huge difference on any other front as those 15 billion will still require water, air, housing, clothing, utilities and so on...there will be no sustainability ever without retrain on population expansion.
And NATO does exactly the same. Both sides test the awareness of the others all the time. Such "accidents" happen tens of times per year...of course the public is ignorant and unwilling to educate themselves so it is easy to manipulate in this manner....
The wackos are preparing for WWIII. It scares the hell out of me and don't you think for a second that there is a good guy in this mess. They are all guilty as sin – the Russians and the West.
Do you know what actually happened? On a psychological/diplomatic/social level. The winners from the cold war turned out to be ungracious winners. Military doctrine states that after you win if you do not use your victory properly, if you overdo on punishing, pillaging and humiliating the losers, sooner or later they will rise aging and kick you. Germany after WWI anyone? Russia after the Cold war? First, the “sound financial advices” from the west almost destroyed Russia [don’t tell me you don’t know that IMF are the modern day slave-traders], the mafia gained the power, the military bases started cropping, the promise that NATO will not expand east was broken. What did you expect would happen after such humiliation and desperation? Naturally, a strong leader emerges [reinforced by historical tradition] that turns all the tables against the west and start solidifying the nation around anything, anything at all that is different from the western ideology.
Very simple, but very notable example, just for illustration – the prevailing opinion in the east these days is that west is a bloated plutocracy populated chiefly with drug-users, pedos and gays [notice the lumping those people together in one group of “evils” – already the propaganda is apparent]. And the fact the west has all those evils is due to the very socio-economic system they live in so we should never, ever adapt it or even respect it – it only breeds “monsters”. And so on and so forth it goes.naturally similar stereotypes are propagandized in the west as well. So that when the bastards on the top make the wars they so much desire the people will support them since we are fighting sub-humans anyway
Thus, in my opinion, anyone who expresses preference to either side in this conflict is supporting the devils themselves and acts against his/her own interest and the interest of the species.
And BTW, admins, Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands.
My father bought me Casio when I began primary school. It has a batery but also 4 small sollar panels of sorts, so it did not work in darkness. Basic aritmetic operation only [fit for 7 year old]. At the moment it's in another country, so I cannot tell you the model. It still works though [and has been used first by me and then by mom and dad]. Let me see, that was...33 years ago. Astonishing!
Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the Sun.
