Ok, so who IS fighting racism? Because just looking at some of the posts in this thread, it needs fighting.

This is +5 Insightful?

I get that some people feel that affirmative action has been taken too far. I also get that some feel that it actually has a detrimental effect on the supposed beneficiaries. I don't claim to know either way.

But it looks to me as if racism, the bad old ugly kind, is very much alive in the USA (and many other places). So it seems unhelpful, to say the least, to ridicule people who are attempting to fight it -- whether you agree with their particular approach or not, we need more of those people.

Seems to me what you need is a political party that opposes this shit. Whenever Ds and Rs agree on anything, it is a pretty safe bet that the public at large do not.

So be it, huh? Serves those civvies right for having been born in the wrong country? That is an argument which betrays complete moral bankruptcy. And completely overlooks that the war in Iraq was not justifiable to begin with. Certainly it had nothing to do with protecting US citizens.

  The Nuremberg Tribunal ...

I think that the answer, in your hypothetical example, as well as the current Gaza conflict (and the previous three, actually), is both.

The tragedy is nothing will come of it. A UN report will determine that both sides committed war crimes. Israel will condemn this as anti-semitic, and Hamas will condemn it as depriving them of the only way they have left to resist Israeli military and economic warfare.

Even looking at root causes is futile, for a conflict this old. So an apparently simple question such as "who broke the ceasefire / truce?". For example, one might argue that it was Hamas, because they fired rockets from Gaza, before the first Israeli airstrike hit. But another might argue Israel, because it never even started implementing the conditions upon which the truce was achieved (settlement freeze, lifting the blockade, ...)

In any other case, the UN would send in peackeepers. But of course that is not possible here, because of the US' reflexive support for Israel (which, according to some, amounts to US legislators' mortal fear of AIPAC).

Well, I don't think anyone is likely to rebel against the US government -- not by force anyway, given that the latter is armed to the teeth. 1.6 billion bullets for DHS, was it?

But not everybody is claiming that the possibility of armed rebellion (preposterous though it may be) makes for a valid argument in support of the second amendment.

Actually I haven't said anything about left- or right-wing, though I suppose that generally speaking the need for the second amendment is felt more strongly by the right-wing. And the need to rid society of all those firearms is perhaps more strongly felt by the left. But, correct me if I am wrong, isn't the Tea Party a minority amongst right-wingers? And by extension, among pro-gun activists?

From the outside, the Ds and Rs don't actually seem all that different, and it would appear that they somehow agree on precisely those issues that are unpopular with both of their supporters. E.g., PATRIOT, domestic NSA transgressions, copyright and patent legislation, and the better part of the US foreign policy come to mind.

Oddly enough, some of the staunchest defenders of the second amendment claim to do so on the principle that an armed populace can keep a government in check -- and overthrow them by force if need be -- and yet those same people seem some of the least likely candidates to criticize the government for all these bogus measures and information black-outs in the name of "national security".

This instance is particularly shocking. They are required to make privacy assessments, presumably as a remnant of more enlightened times when the government still operated on the assumption that at least *some* members of the public are well-meaning, mostly harmless citizens. Times in which the folks who wrote up this requirement didn't even think, apparently, to include a demand that the results be made public.

And now they claim that the results of that assessment must be kept secret. For your own good, honestly. Well, that fact in itself should tell you all you need to know.

Hehe, point taken. Actually I AM a blast at parties, provided I make a point of leaving my assorted linguistic obsessions at home... Anyway, I meant no offense, I trust you got that.

Thats's cute and all, but not actually correct.

Con, as in "pros and cons" comes from "contra", meaning against.

But "con" in congress means basically the opposite, which is to say "with", "together". As in "concert", "consistent", "consonant", "contract" and so on.

But you know, it's still pretty funny.

In French I've heard it say that
on parle == they talk
on ment == they lie

But etymologically that is equally broken I guess.

Absolutely right.

I would only add that, in addition to worrying about an evil foreign power getting hold of such records, we should also worry about evil local groups who might be in government some time in the future.

Which is why, in my opinion, these records should be subject to strict time limitations and expire sooner rather than later -- if we decide we need them at all for, you know, only slightly evil purposes.

I'm not sure why you are surprised -- wasn't the main reason for these intra-agency deals mainly to circumvent the restrictions to spying on ones own citizens?

That said, we in the Netherlands have an absolutely terrible record -- no pun intended -- of evesdropping and phonetapping and so on.

Geen punt joh, doe ik wel even.

Translation of parent post:

Look, I understand the sentiment. I honestly do. Even the suggestion to send our own strong men, though it is preposterous and you know it.

It just seems to me that the surest way to guarantee that this tragedy will just keep on escalating from what should be first and foremost about the victims and their families, is this rush to conclusions and consequences in this volatile geopolitical powder keg. Except, you know, with nukes.

What we know doesn't seem to amount to much yet, sadly, if we disregard the he said / she said.

Until evidence is presented, this is no more credible than the overwhelming evidence of WMD in Iraq and of Assad being behind the sarin attacks.

Likewise, not credible. They would say this anyway.

And this is also quite meaningless, as of now, because of the accuser is basically at war with the accused.

Incidentally I wonder if these militants are less pro-Russian than they are anti-Kiev (post coup).

Meanwhile, though, there are at least some relatively positive developments:

Absolutely agreed, which is why I wasn't supporting anyone.