So it's all about Obama? What about Bush. Talking about anything having to do with Iraq and not framing the situation with the Bush invasion is like talking about the sinking of the Titanic and never saying the word iceberg.

Obama already admitted that there was a US intelligence failure in understanding the fast rise of ISIS. Maybe if the US So Called Intelligence community spent less time spying on Americans, Germans, Australians, British, etc, they might have some time and money left over to look out for trouble in the rest of the world. Of course that might reduce the amount of Homeland Pork, so clearly it's not going to happen.

Personal revenge for the invasion of Kuwait.

As long as Hussein was the US attack dog, going after Iran, then the conservatives backed him 100%. Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, 1983.

Actual rather than rhetorical opposition to such use was evidently not perceived to serve U.S. interests; instead, the Reagan administration did not deviate from its determination that Iraq was to serve as the instrument to prevent an Iranian victory. Chemical warfare was viewed as a potentially embarrassing public relations problem that complicated efforts to provide assistance. The Iraqi government's repressive internal policies, though well known to the U.S. government at the time, did not figure at all in the presidential directives that established U.S. policy toward the Iran-Iraq war. The U.S. was concerned with its ability to project military force in the Middle East, and to keep the oil flowing.

So during the Iran/Iraq war, the Regan administration wanted to keep Iraqi oil flowing and engage in a poxy war with Iran. The brutal nature of the Hussein regime was of no consequence, and the reality that Iraq was using chemical weapons was ignored and treated as a public relations issue.

Then Hussein invaded Kuwait and things spun 180 degrees. The conservative/neo-con policy establishment decided that "regime change" in Iraq was the single most important policy goal in the Middle East. Figures like Perle, Wolfowitz and Kristal started the Project for the New American Century in the late 90's. One of their major themes was getting rid of Saddam Hussein.

Richard Perle, who later became a core member of PNAC, was involved in similar activities to those pursued by PNAC after its formal organization. For instance, in 1996 Perle composed a report that proposed regime changes in order to restructure power in the Middle East. The report was titled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm and called for removing Saddam Hussein from power, as well as other ideas to bring change to the region. The report was delivered to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Two years later, in 1998, Perle and other core members of the PNAC—Paul Wolfowitz, R. James Woolsey, Elliot Abrams, and John Bolton—"were among the signatories of a letter to President Clinton calling for the removal of Hussein."

Suddenly the chemical weapons that were ignored during the Iraq/Iran war were such an immediate danger that it was critical that the US back the invasion of Iraq. Many of the people who were in or supporters the GW Bush administration when it was backing Hussein were in or supporting the New American Century Project and calling for Hussein's overthrow. (And then there were the fabrications and lies about biological and nuclear weapons. but that's another successfully covered up conspiracy.)

Remember, this was all years before the September 11th attacks. They wanted to get Hussein in real bad way.

Then the World Trade Center attack occurred, and the neo-con propaganda machine whet into high gear claiming that Hussein, not Iraq the country, but their leader, was World Enemy Number One. Then the US invaded the wrong country, and now is in a fight with ISIS, which is arguably worse then Iraq under Hussein. Would ISIS even exist if the US hadn't occupied Iraq? How come no one even asks this question?

There is no rational case for the policy shift from pro-Hussein to anti-Hussein in the US right wing. As a person or as a political figure he did not change very much between the Regan, George Herbert Walker Bush and George Bush eras. The only thing that changed is that he went from be an attack dog for the US, to attacking US interests in the Middle East. As long as he was a pit bull controlled by the US it was fine. When he bit his owners hand he had to be destroyed. It was all personal. No other explanation fits. This is made starkly apparent given how the Bush administration used 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq and get back at Hussein.

I hope that clear things up for you.

Your comment is irrelevant and ignorant. It's not about the economic/political/Western Europe nature of the state, it's about what happens in a power vacuum when central authority goes away.

And if you want some irrelevant historical trash talk, when the Germans were filthy tribesmen squatting in the forest in Europe, the Arabs had one of the most advanced civilizations on the planet.

How does it feel when the racist implication is on the other side?

On Slashdot, every time Obama proposes legislation or executes an executive order, or wears a tan suit, there are these 2nd Amendment types that crawl out from under the stove (think cockroaches) and start growling about "da ebil gummment gonna take my freedom/gun/dick away", and threaten they are going to use their right to bare arms to shoot at mailmen, the guy who mows the grass on the highway and forest rangers, or whatever.

So now the guy running the FCC, who for all intents has "Property of the Cable Industry" and his capital equipment serial number tattooed on his ass, is getting ready to turn US internet access into a monopoly that will dive the user experience back to the days of 9600 baud dial up access. So where are the threats and bluster? Where are the outraged howls about inalienable rights, and prying guns out of their cold dead hands? Sound of crickets...

In one case there is a black guy, and in the other case a conservative old white guy. I can't imagine why one would invoke talk of violence, and the other gets none of that flack. Gosh, what could possibly be the reason?

Because without some form of regulation, some dickhead is going to start selling grades. Just like without regulation, you would end up being poisoned by the food you eat. If you don't believe me, just look at what's going on in China. There was a case last year where someone got caught recycling cooking oil from a sewer. Chinese with more money to spend by imports from Taiwan and Japan, since it is much less likely that they will get sick.

I'm fed up with dolts like you. You live in a place where the government keeps your day to day life reasonably together, and then all do is whine. I hope your mother goes to a medical clinic where someone cheated on their grades, and she ends up dieing. Better her then me, or anyone I know. That is is only way a shithead like you will ever start paying attention.

Crap, you are a total dickhead.

Let's assume for a moment that you have a child going to second grade. You piss someone off, and they decide to get back at you through your family. They take you child's photo, pictures of the school they attend and your house and phone number and post it on websites frequented by pedophiles. They imply that your child is available for sex. You start getting horrible phone calls at all hours of the day and night, creepy guys drive by your house, and even knock on your door. Someone tries to snatch the child off the street near the school.

Then you try and get the information off the web, and all the sites say they don't have to do anything because "private enterprise". What then? What if the worst happens and the child is abducted and killed? Yeah, the perp can end up in jail, but what about the "free enterprise" businesses that make money off this. Do you really want to count on the civil law to protect you?

I happened to pick a hypothetical case with a child, but the equivalent happen to women with psycho ex-boyfriends all the time: set up a fake account with real contact information and advertise for kinky sex. Not good.

Remember Facebook is big.

Total number of monthly active Facebook users 1,310,000,000

Total number of mobile Facebook users 680,000,000

Increase in Facebook users from 2012 to 2013 22 %

Total number of minutes spent on Facebook each month 640,000,000

Percent of all Facebook users who log on in any given day 48 %

Average time spent on Facebook per visit 18 minutes

Total number of Facebook pages 54,200,000

Percent of 18-34 year olds who check Facebook when they wake up 48 %

Percent of 18-34 year olds who check Facebook before they get out of bed 28 %

Average number of friends per facebook user 130

Average number of pages, groups, and events a user is connected to 80

Average number of photos uploaded per day 205

Number of fake Facebook profiles 81,000,000

Remember, for the LGBT community the consequences can be as serious as grievous bodily injury or death at the hands of a complete stranger. Chanting "free enterprise" as a justification in this situation puts you firmly on the side of potential violent thugs.

And just to help you sleep well tonight, there is no way to know if all the people who were targeted were LGBT or not. Given the vile stupidity of the perpetrator, there might have been cases of mistaken identity. It's not like the person who did this is the most stable or thoughtful person around. In fact, you could have been on the list. Sleep tight.

Combustible head. You're on Fire

If someone in Congress is willing to stand up to corrupt publicly subsidized major league sports, what about doing something about corrupt publicly subsidized financial institutions that have no actual oversight?

First, the public subsidy.

Fed funds, the U.S. overnight inter-bank lending rate, opened 0.08 percent, within the Federal Reserve’s target of zero to 0.25 percent, ICAP Plc, the world’s largest inter-dealer broker, said in an e-mailed statement.

Fed funds traded from 0.06 percent to 0.3125 percent yesterday, according to data posted on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s website. The fed effective, or a volume-weighted average of rates on trades arranged by major brokers, was 0.09 percent.

This this is on Oct. 2 2014: 0.09% is free money. Who gets this free money: the big banks, B of A, Citi, Chase. Also the top four investment firms which are also banks: #1 Goldman Sachs, #2 Morgan Stanley, #3 JPMorgan Chase, #4 Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Note the overlap, there is no meaningful difference between banks and brokerage firms.

So what is the result? Why the Fed's Zero Interest Rate Policy Isn't Working.

But, the Fed’s problem – like Japan a decade ago – is as the International Monetary Fund puts it in its latest financial stability report, the economy is “bifurcated”. Many large American companies, particularly those with global operations, are highly profitable and liquid. Unsurprisingly, for them “bank lending conditions and capital market financing remain easy”, the IMF notes.

But many small and medium-sized companies – or the entities that typically create jobs inside America, not overseas – find it hard to raise funds. A survey conducted by the International Franchise Association in Washington, for example, notes that whereas in March half of its members expected credit conditions to improve soon, now less than a quarter expect any easing; even as Treasury yields fall.

And the lack of any effective oversight: Bank of America fined $7.65M over accounting blunder.

The Wall Street Journal reports the SEC charged BofA with breaking securities laws pertaining to record-keeping and internal controls after the bank disclosed in April that it had discovered a nearly $4 billion accounting error.

So 7,650,000 divided by 4,000,000,000 = 0.019125 or 1.9125%. Note that this error existed for years, and it meant that BofA saved a huge amount of money by having $4 billion less in capital reserves then was required.

But to understand what the fine really means it should be compared to the market capitation (total worth on the stock market), which on Oct 2 2014 was $177 billion. So 7,650,000 divided by 117,000,000,000 = 4.32203e-05 = .0000432203 = 0.00432203%. Ohh, that must have really really hurt.

No one was held accountable. No one lost their job, was demoted, got a bad mark on their permanent record. The stock holders end up paying the fine. That's what it means to have no effective oversight.

So the NFL is in trouble and B of A gets a fine valued at 0.00432203% of their current net worth. That is why my brain hurts.

Shithead, you deserve to die in a severe storm.

You're an asshole. Your were born an asshole and you'll die an asshole. And the sooner you die the better off the rest of the world will be.

The international sub-atomic physics community is discussing where to build the next really big project. One leading candidate is Japan, because they seem to be interested in picking up a sizable chunk of the bill. (There are other politically inspired reasons, like the lack of this kind of facility anywhere in the eastern hemisphere.)

So how much ground displacement was there in 2011 during the Great East Japan Earthquake?

By analyzing over 500 GPS stations, the GFZ scientists Rongjiang Wang and Thomas Walter have found that horizontal displacements of up to five meters in an eastern direction occurred at the east coast of Japan. The cause lies in the earthquake zone, i.e. at the contact interface of the Pacific plate with Japan. Computer simulations of this surface show that an offset of up to 25 meters occurred during the earthquake. Calculations of the GFZ modeling group headed by Stephan Sobolev even yielded a displacement of up to 27 meters and a vertical movement of seven meters.

And then there is the permanent subsidence which was up to 1.2 m (3.93 ft) in the Oshika Peninsula, Miyagi Prefecture.

So building new expensive technological infrastructure in earthquake country and ignoring known problems seems to be a common occurrence. And I'm sure it's a world wide blind spot with respect to a lot of other potential natural disasters as well.

Stop lying, I'm sick of it. Just admit what you are actually doing for a change.

You, and all the other "skeptics", are pretending to be engaged in a rational approach.That's not credible.

There will never be enough evidence to convince you. It's obvious from your past behavior. Every time a new piece of real world evidence shows up you have the same knee jerk reaction: ti's not enough, there's some other reason, it happened before, what about (irrelevant information here), etc.

So there is an extraordinarily large walrus event: it doesn't count. There are new high temperature records being set every year: the numbers are skewed. Vermont maple farmers are loosing their livelihood because the winters are not cold or long enough: it's just a long term cycle. Dozens (or even hundreds) of species in North America and Europe are moving their range further north every year: a common pattern isn't happening, each case is unique and unrelated.

Stop wearing the fig-leaf of "rational skeptic". You have made up your mind. No additional information will sway you. Short of a "personal extinction event", you are not going to change you position or your behavior.

Your lucky bastards. Why can't this happen in the US? If only we could get a crazy-right party that would split the Republicans, things could be so much better. I'm jealous of the UK right now.

Do you know what the word "hypothesis" means? I think not, based on your reply. Factually, I drew no conclusions. I never claimed to do any "studies" either. I quoted a very well known historical figure, who was obviously stating an opinion. When I agreed with him, saying that this had been going on a long time, I was agreeing with his opinion. Two opinions, one of them from a dead man.

I now think (one more opinion) that you are saying things that give credence to my hypothesis.

Why do you make this so easy for me?

Oh that's right, the subject is stupidity. Now it makes so much sense.

Then again I could just recall that John Stuart Mill was moved to remark to the House of Commons: “What I stated was, that the Conservative party was, by the law of its constitution, necessarily the stupidest party. Now, I do not retract this assertion; but I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative. I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any hon. Gentleman will question it.” (My emphasis).

Note that this has been true from the time of Mills, 1806 - 1873, so it's not a recent phenomenon.

I would hypothesize that there is a direct correlation between conservatism and stupidity; the more extreme the conservatism, the stupider the person.

You know why the appropriately named Anonymous Coward is whining about "one political party or another"? It's because he, she, or it is pathologically paranoid about any statement that might conflict with it's deep insecurity. Any statement that can be construed in any way as a disagreement must be attacked.

And then there's the pretense of not naming a specific political group. Hmm, I wonder who they heck it is referring to? The Amerian Conservative Party (2008), American Freedom Party (2010), Justice Pary (2011), Objectivist Party (2008), Pirate Party (2008), or Unity Party of America (2004)?

If the list seems biased to the right, it's because I decided to pick political groups that were started in the 21st century, and you have to go back to the 1980's to find anything left wing.

So who could it be? Starts with a D, ends with a C, has 10 letters including the vowels a,e,i, and o: D-m-cr-t-c Party. I'd like to buy a vowel, Pat.