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Comment They're destroyed first...that's the whole idea (Score 5, Insightful) 174

The whole idea is that the chemical weapons are destroyed FIRST...they are being destroyed AT SEA, not "destroyed" by simply dumping them into the ocean.

The fact that the other blog entries hosted at the same site as TFA include:

- Rihanna Displays Illuminati Hand Gesture at Latest Music Award Performance

- SSDI Death Index: Sandy Hook 'Shooter' Adam Lanza Died One Day Before School Massacre?

- 15 Citizens Petition to Secede from the United States

- Will U.S. Troops Fire On American Citizens?

- Illuminati Figurehead Prince William Takes the Stage with Jon Bon Jovi and Taylor Swift

- Has the Earth Shifted â" Or Is It Just Me?

- Mexican Government Releases Proof of E.T.'s and Ancient Space Travel ...should give you a hint as to the veracity of the content. (And yes, I realize it's simply a blog site with a variety of authors and content.)

As should the first comment, from "LibertyTreeBud", saying:

"Why not add it to some new vaccine? Or, perhaps add it to the drinking water and feed it to the live stock? These creatures will do anything for profits. Lowest bidder mentality rules."

What "creatures", exactly? The international organization explicitly charged with the prohibition and destruction of chemical weapons? What alternatives are people suggesting, exactly?

If you want a real article discussing this situation factually, not the tripe linked in the summary, see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-25146980

Comment Utility (Score 1) 365

It turns out that having a universal unique idenitifier is really handy. There are reasons you WANT to be able to be affirmatively and uniquely identified as "you", but you want that capability under your own control. Even with PKI (a system that could be trusted, anyway), someone has to hold a central database. Guess who that would likely be? And if it shouldn't be "the government", then who?

Comment Re:That's not at all the point (Score 2, Informative) 496

Yes, it is about "controlling firearm dissemination"...for EXPORT. That's why the State Department Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance is involved. If you've already made up your mind that the true motive relates somehow to American citizens in a country with as many privately owned firearms as people, no amount of logic or reason will change your mind.

Comment That's not at all the point (Score 4, Informative) 496

The point isn't that DOD thinks the files are going to disappear, and it doesn't matter anyway since the purpose isn't to "disarm Americans" or "keep the files out of the hands of Americans" or some other utter garbage.

There are treaties and various arms control export restrictions (ITAR) at stake, and US-based corporations or entities cannot provide arms in violation of these constructs. If this sort of thing is on the Pirate Bay or elsewhere, DOD trade control doesn't care.

Comment Re:Some other relevant stories (Score 2) 270

Yes, and just like eyewitnesses to an accident, it's shown that such "points of view" are often wrong or misinterpreted.

Just one example of many: the statements by people near the Pentagon on 9/11 that it "sounded like a missile". How many of those people have actually ever even *heard* what a commercial jetliner sounds like traveling at nearly cruising speed just hundreds to dozens of feet off the ground "sounds like", much less a missile? This is then used as "proof" that it couldn't have been a plane, and probably was a "missile", despite all evidence to the contrary (including numerous statements from people saying they clearly saw the plane, sometimes in the same sentence as the cherry-picked quotes where they say it "sounded like a missile").

This is why we have professionally trained (usually) journalists and experts, because they do the filtering and analysis for us. I'm sorry, but NO individual is capable, his or her self, of becoming an authority on everything related to every major event that occurs with the end result being better analysis than what has already been done by investigators and task forces of experts. Sure, have a questioning mind and all that, but don't assume everyone in the "media" or the "government" is always lying to you, and random, out-of-context, and/or misinterpreted (or outright wrong) assertions by "citizen journalists" (or anyone else) are gospel.

Comment Re:crowsourcing did NOT fail - here's why (Score 1) 270

You're acting as if information was "withheld"...it wasn't. There is no mechanism to release every single piece of evidence collected by every agency to the internet and "crowdsource" it.

What was "crowdsourced" was information that was already on the internet. Furthermore, the FBI did, in fact, release the relevant snippets of video and pictures from the private security cameras and other sources.

Sorry, but "crowdsourcing" is not always the answer, and this was not a success, much less a rousing one.

Comment Some other relevant stories (Score 5, Informative) 270

This has been a fascinating phenomenon, and it's only going to evolve more as time goes on.

Crowdsourcing or witch hunt? Reddit, 4chan users try to ID Boston bomb suspects

Boston bombing: How internet detectives got it very wrong

'I didn't do anything!' High school track runner forced to deny involvement in Boston Marathon bombings after a picture of him and his coach is widely circulated

Social media as breaking-news feed: Worse information, faster

Worse information, faster -- this neatly sums it up, and I'm a huge proponent of social media and its benefits, including to government.

And for the record, no, the FBI wasn't seeking to "censor" anyone, and the "next logical step" (as I have seen asserted elsewhere) won't be to "shut down" internet or social media resources during major public emergencies; however, law enforcement agencies absolutely can request, once they have identified suspects via investigative and legal processes, that people focus on those instead of playing CSI: Internet.

Sadly, the echo chamber of the internet enables some people, in seemingly increasing numbers, to go a step further and choose to believe everything is automatically a "false flag" conspiracy with the stated perpetrators "framed"â¦..

The "wisdom of crowds" can be a misnomer.

Comment Re:Note this is not the "top 1%" (Score 1) 893

Sure, but those people aren't the ones who are the source of our problems. For what it's worth, from 2011 IRS data:

Category..........Top 0.1%....1%....5%...10%..25%..50%..Bot 50%
Income Req'd $........1.4M..344K..155K..112K..66K..32K....N/A
Income Share %...........8....17....32....43...66...87.....13
Effective tax rate %....24....24....20....18...15...12......2
Income tax share %......17....37....59....70...87...98......2

Also, you're comparing apple to oranges by saying that "you could [...] save enough in about 4-5 years to stop working and still be making 10 times what your average American makes." No, because they already have the income they have, and they have a different lifestyle -- and guess what? They haven't done anything wrong.

The place where anything that can be defined as actual unfair "abuse" is occurring is in the 0.01% and up, and it's not even all of those people. To wholesale target the "top 1/5/10%" as evil or the cause of our problems ignores the fact that the top 10% -- who themselves are making over $100,000/year -- are paying 70% of the federal income tax share.

Even if we could have the bottom, say, 50%, or even the bottom *90%* pay NO tax of any kind, including payroll, sales, or anything else, and shift that ENTIRE burden to the top 10% (which is absurd, but let's just roll with it for the sake of argument), there would still be a massive wealth disparity. The very poor would still be very poor.

What then? True wealth redistribution? I'm sorry, but no matter how noble that might be in the view of some, that is simply not compatible with a free society. That's the problem people have with this whole "the top 1% is evil" and/or "has more than they deserve" trope. It's not your business how much someone else has. Surely you can do with less; shall we take it away? Of course not.

What we should be targeting is actual ABUSE and people who are getting off scot-free...and hint, it's not the vast, vast, vast majority of people in the top 1%. So what happens when a certain element of the top 0.00X% are essentially flouting the system and operating outside the bounds of any of the regulations and laws to which the rest of are beholden? Apparently if we ask the Occupy crowd, it's to attack everyone who appears to have more than you as the enemy.

Comment Re:Note this is not the "top 1%" (Score 1) 893

Actually, I know exactly where Occupy (née OWS) came from: the anti-US, anti-capitalist, anti-"consumerist", "culture-jamming" Canadian magazine Adbusters, which openly stated that the goal was to ride the discontent in the wake of the economic downturn to turn people against the "rich", in the form of the "top 1%".

They made absolutely no secrets about it, and were proud of it. The fact that the "Occupy" movement spread to places outside of the US is irrelevant, and happened after AdBusters seeded and initiated the movement within the US.

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