"King Obama" is racist? Fuck you and your race card.

Check out the groupthink.

Reading the story doesn't make it clear. Lockheed Martin was contracted in 2011. However, the project began in 2008.

So either it took SSA three years to select a contractor (entirely plausible,) or SSA started the project internally and then contracted it out for some reason.

In any case the cause seems clear enough; the analyst Congress made them hire can't figure out who is in charge of delivering the system. No one in SSA has taken responsibility — so it flounders on — the never ending zombie IT project.

Diffusing responsibility is job #1 for bureaucracies. It seems SSA has perfected their work.

Sigh. Poe's law once again.

I was illustrating the absurdity of racism charges against opponents of illegal immigration.

Log in. Don't fear these hypocrites.

I think these anti-H1B visa folks are racists, just like the anti-immigrant knuckle draggers yelling about their `jerbs.'

Mix that into your granola and chew on it.

The large scale Oxygen contamination of Earth's atmosphere by plant emissions began 650-700 million years ago.

I believe our greatest strength in the West has been the relative lack of corruption. I know that claim is like nails on a chalkboard to the common malcontent millennial armed with dozens of mod points around here, trained from birth to rail at every iniquity, but they are naive; the level of corruption that had to exist to reconcile the delta between the state and reality in Soviet bloc nations is several times greater than anything that has existed in the West.

Whole sciences had to be practiced in secret while the practitioners professed absolute allegiance to anti-science dogma such as Lysenkoism. A completely corrupt labor `bonus' system evolved to compensate valuable (not to be confused with `honest') employees despite government policy; something we see emerging today in our own corrupt government workforce. Occasionally the corruption would grow large enough to bubble to the surface and become embarrassing news even in a place that had absolute control over the news; the `Ryazan Miracle' was a case of this. Chernobyl was a direct result of corruption that provided bonuses and awards to officials throughout the system.

When you have to commit a crime by shopping the `black' market just to put staples in the fridge you are engendering a mentality. Sovok, as you say. An indifference to the value of laws.

Between the `drug war,' our welfare state, piratic corporate governance and ever greater abuse of power by our government, we are rapidly catching up.

I was thinking similarly. Their vampire game stalled out and died, as far as I know. They ultimately ended up apologizing for neglecting EVE while making incredibly sophisticated in-game avatars for a cohort of gamers least likely to care about such frippery. DUST 514 appears to be a failure, judging by CCPs own statements and the announcement of Project Legion, another attempt at MMOFPS.

One could be forgiven for thinking there are better places to find clues about the future of gaming.

I suspect you're over-generalizing there. More likely it's one particular parties' mandate you've grown sick of. When the pendulum swings the other way you probably have a great deal of tolerance for supposed electoral mandates.

The moral certitude you indulge has you reaching for some thread that would grant immunity to your agenda despite election results. I think the president of the United States did particularly well at disabusing folks of this mentality. When confronted with minority party survivors and the litany of policies they expected to be honored, he said;

"We won."

Anything else you need clarified?

That's probably true, however the people you have in mind have been filled with so much contempt and hate they can't contain it. They're self image is `tolerance' and noble intentions, but look around and some of these responses; you'll find rage and rationalization of anti-democratic `solutions' to the `problem' of `short-sighted' voters. Give them unfettered power and there will be no bottom to the well of anti-human tyranny.

It's not about environment. It's about the power to enforce a world view.

Catch the cop-out in that sentence?

Let me help; the government that you're so disappointed with campaigned on and was democratically elected on exactly this platform. They left not one shred of doubt about what they would do with the carbon tax when elected.

The people of Australia have no interest in adopting your energy poverty agenda and it is upon them that your "disappointment" belongs. Take it up with them and stop copping out; either you sell energy poverty to your fellow citizens and make them want decline or quiver in rage while they vote for prosperity.

The other option is to nullify the voters with statism, which I'm sure you'll have no trouble rationalizing.

So Ukraine intelligence is recording separatist traffic and giving it to the media. Among these are two calls between some "Major" johnny-on-the-spot reporting to someone called "Greek":

One call:

Greek: "Yes Major!"
Major: "Kazaks from the Chernukhino checkpoint shot down the plane."

The above is abridged; the audio has a lot more speech and this is an alternate translation:
Major: "Well, these were <guys from> Chernukhino who shot the plane. From Chernukhino checkpoint. The Cossacks that are standing at Chernukhino."

Next call:

Greek: "What's the news?"
Major: "I mean, it's definitely a civilian aircraft."
Greek: "Were there many people?"
Major: "A fuck ton. The debris rained right into the yards"
Greek: "What's the aircraft?"
Major: "I haven't figured it out yet. I haven't reached the main section. I only looked at where the bodies began to fall."
Major: "There are remains of chair mounts, the chairs, the bodies."

So we've got separatist commanders taking credit for the shoot down before they knew it was civilian, Twitter posts celebrating captured Buk missiles deleted by separatists and captured traffic naming the shooters; the Russian equivalent of rednecks standing a post and firing missiles at unidentified aircraft.

Patton wanted to keep marching East and settle Uncle Joe after Germany fell. He might have saved us all about 70 years of this bullshit.

Strelkov is former GRU and a present day Russian operative stirring up shit in Ukraine on behalf of Putin and fellow travelers. He has been personally sanctioned by the EU for corrodinating the separatist insurgency. Read his Wikipedia page if you want more.

No no no. That's one of the oppressed freedom fighters struggling against the Ukrainian fascist junta.

Get your narrative right.

He "thinks that" because for him, and many many like him, a system that successfully neuters Hamas is very troubling; Iron Dome removes a pain point for Israel and a bargaining chip for Hamas, and Ted Postol and his NPR ilk don't like it. The fact that Israel has created the antidote for Hamas and their ballistic pipe bombs means Israel can exist relatively untroubled, and this reality is so disturbing to these people that they will grasp for and cling to any claim to the contrary.

In the long run they need not worry. This is an arms race and eventually Hamas will be given something better to use. The qassam rockets themselves were just another step in that progression after Israel isolated itself from Gaza suicide bombers with the West Bank wall, another successful and effective Israeli creation that NPR routinely lambastes.

Eventually Hamas will be given new weapons, Israelis will start dying again and all will be well. Until then it's all hands on deck at NPR to downplay and discredit Iron Dome, and if you've got a claim that will convince any of the vast hoard of Israel Derangement Syndrome sufferers that Iron Dome doesn't work, they have the air time.

Israelis have interwebs just as good as you and, unlike the subjects that live in the surrounding dictatorships, theocratic monarchies and failed states, they're allowed to use it. Despite this there is very little video evidence of damage in urban areas and Israeli civilians aren't being killed. Given the quantity of rockets fired and past performance of qassam barrages, it is not possible that the rockets are getting through in large numbers.

"But they're covering up the deaths!!!!1" you say.

Ok, well, the burden is on you to prove your conspiracy based argument then; what's the "real" body count and were are you getting it?