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I would like to remind USPol that government staff are just doing their jobs generally speaking. So while I no longer fly because I don't agree with or enjoy the expanded duties and absurdities of the TSA when I can avoid it, hypthoethicals about how you cure the anti government dysfunctionality cancer should begin with how you eliminate poisonous policy. Right now I'm watching citizens in my own municipality complain that we aren't building out fiber to encourage economic development and refusing to hear that its illegal in Washington state to sell to end users thanks to telecom lobbying so obviously city government deliberately hides and obfuscates bidding contracts so we can screw ourselves over. Government corruption requires public compliance and complatancy to exist E:/OK it doesn't require it but it sure makes it more possible than otherwise. RuanGacho fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Apr 1, 2015 |
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Apr 1, 2015 15:52
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CommieGIR posted:Government Corruption would exist otherwise, its to what level it would exist that would change. What gets me to work every day is each day is o e step closer to unimpeachable transparency and information sharing. If I can get past the threshhold where I can defend existing processes to be in the public interest before all else, empiricism will rule  Also a pony.
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Apr 1, 2015 15:59
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How are u posted:I'm looking for somebody to reassure me. Today The Guardian had a big old article about how congressional Republicans are gearing up to sink Obama's deal with Iran by any means necessary. Tom Colburn can write letters about birthday cake to Iran all he wants its not going to make anyone outside his base take him seriously. The Republicans have an agenda they need to be passing because as the presidential politics get closer there's going to be more and more worbling birds they'll have to coordinate with so no one looks like the senate set them up to fail. What I'm saying is the Republican congress is spending their time between plays yelling at the spectators and the more they try to fool around with poo poo like foreign negotiations that aren't their responsibility they less regressive poo poo they'll accomplish this session. I mean they can't even get an up or down vote on a new AG.
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Apr 4, 2015 08:00
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Personally I love my parents and prefer not to contemplate a world where the only hope of social progress is that everyone their age is dead and its the only way. I endeavor to be more hopeful than that. Humanity is better than that.
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Apr 4, 2015 15:49
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Anyone who's looked at WA states senate budget (the R one) knows exactly how serious they are about fiscal conservatism, or anything they claim to stand for outside of less government.
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Apr 7, 2015 20:27
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JT Jag posted:Honestly the Republican Party should change their name, because what they practice isn't even honest conservatism any more. They're honestly closer to anarcho-capitalists than proper conservatives. I wonder how much time it would buy us collectively to just start calling them that outright, and then when they object just say "please explain how you are conservative" forcing them into defense against the Socratic method.
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Apr 7, 2015 20:47
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How about Rahms position in any future Admins is Wall Street Hunter, where its his explicit job to find, charge and guillotine members of wall street. He knows where they hide and who they are evidently. If he's in public service for anything but self gratification he should be ecstatic for the opportunity.
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Apr 8, 2015 18:58
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I'm as goony as the next guy but the idea of goons being against PE is so  it can't possibly considered reasonable.
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Apr 9, 2015 00:32
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Grouchio posted:I just heard a good speech from Susan Collins on the radio about how fed up she is about bipartisanship's extinction. Who?
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Apr 9, 2015 18:50
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fknlo posted:He's pro mercenary if I remember correctly. So instead of sending troops over we just send "private mercenaries" to do our bidding. States Rights, etc... It was bad and explicit enough that back in 2008 goons wanted to know if Ron Paul played MGS4 and said " yes exactly this is how the military should work!"
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Apr 12, 2015 17:10
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PerpetualSelf posted:Why are americans loving pussies when it comes to anything. Dear secret service, when we say eat the rich we mean that they should be stripped of their title and assets and made to suffer a pedestrian life. SA is literally going into the library of congress and goons still talk like drunken stalinists. 
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Apr 16, 2015 07:18
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Generally speaking part of the problem is states do not bind well to economic regions, the west and east side of Washington state have very different needs for a "living wage". But we'll never examine that in depth because that would require data and science.
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Apr 17, 2015 21:20
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A Winner is Jew posted:Sorry, I didn't know computer janitors were giving themselves imaginary titles now to fuel their own sense of self importance. Right now I'm trying out Lord of Networks, Wet works, Procurement and Cyber security Adminstration.  For some reason they won't let me file the reclassification paperwork for four different jobs.
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Apr 17, 2015 22:14
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icantfindaname posted:Design a new type of reactor that is fueled by Israeli settlers We're trying for stable reactions not runaway radioactive killdozers.
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Apr 17, 2015 22:17
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Zeitgueist posted:Time is a poo poo magazine and a shibboleth for pseudointellectuals much like adoring Friedman or Brooks, you say? I knew a friends new age christian church was poo poo when the pastor based an entire sermon on a times magazine article.
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Apr 17, 2015 23:47
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FlamingLiberal posted:Why am I not surprised that yet another corporation has found an easy way to make crazy markup off of the taxpayer's dime. I am occasionally accused of being virulently anti corporate to a fault but I'm not sure why having a base standard of "does this organization benefit society" is such a high bar to pass. But then we get into that nonsense about government picking winners and losers and the market's divine right to have an uneven playing field.
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Apr 18, 2015 15:40
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I'm glad that everyone is appropriately informed about the likelihood of man made EMP but those of us in planning government emergency response actually do talk about EMP as a serious infrastructure threat because the last bout of seriously bad solar weather happened in the 80s and were really not sure how poo poo will go down in the next 30 year event ( and yes that's due soon) http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/08/01/solar_storm_a_massive_2012_cme_just_missed_the_earth.html See attached pictures.
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Apr 20, 2015 08:28
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Stultus Maximus posted:Or that "winning" can be a lot more complicated than "killing more of them and blowing up more of their stuff." Also known as the only republican war strategy.
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Apr 20, 2015 15:15
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Jackson Taus posted:Quick question - why do we talk about hardening the grid but not hardening everything? Like wouldn't a massive EMP blow up approximately all electronics? Like everything from laptops and cell phones to newer cars to some thermostats? The short answer is that we can't get the free market actors to stop using hard coded passwords for cyber security in inconsequential systems like power plants and HVAC systems and the like, trying to tell the American public that at some random time interval we cant predict the sun is going to have a plasma tantrum and send an electromag hail storm to end civilization as we know it is not an easy political sell. You can see this useless behavior in how we are currently dealing with the wild fires that keep happening in the west side of the country. The real issue is that America is very reactionary right now and with the power on we can get key transformers restored in 3 months, we being reliant on cost benefit analysis of the private sector only have spare parts for 10% (if that) of the grid being damaged which is way less than what a significant solar event
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Apr 20, 2015 15:43
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Trabisnikof posted:The federal organization that regulates the US grid (FERC) disputes the claims that it would cause mass damage to the grid, but agrees it could cause blackouts. So probably nothing worse than a software bug + tree branch could cause. Funny because I literally sat in front of the guy in charge of the Cascadia part of it a year ago and the basic summary of his presentation was "poo poo could get real guys" Do you have a source because I'd love to not worry about it.
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Apr 20, 2015 19:26
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site posted:How localized would a sun-based EMP be on Earth? Like, that map shows all of the US being affected, but would it also hit the whole upper hemisphere? Would it affect all of Earth? The link earlier of the 2003 event that hit the north east US and east Canada is considered a fairly typical area of effect, the issue lies in part that if the earth was angled the wrong way at the wrong time it could hit basically an entire country at once and turn the lights and everything else out. Munkeymon posted:They're working on it http://www.nerc.com/pa/Stand/Pages/Project-2013-03-Geomagnetic-Disturbance-Mitigation.aspx You can see the event they're planning on dealing with in "Benchmark GMD Event White Paper" on there but I can't comment on how reasonable it is because I know gently caress all about electronics at this scale aside from being constantly amazed it all keeps working somehow. I'm not TOO worried about that because that would first make them admit that the government has a purpose. RuanGacho fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Apr 20, 2015 |
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Apr 20, 2015 20:27
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A Winner is Jew posted:Depends on how large the ejection is really, and the smaller the better since one that effects the earth globally would probably really gently caress up our magnetosphere, possibly permanently and since that's the thing that protects us from all the really bad radiation in the universe that would be Ghostbusters levels of really bad. Its probably best not to think too hard about it, because there's, our electronics are hosed and lol goodbye earth levels of damage possible but the latter is far less likely or we wouldn't still be here.
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Apr 20, 2015 20:32
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Popular Thug Drink posted:IANAE but if all electronics were turned off and unplugged, probably also with the battery disconnected on your laptop, you'd be fine. I think our best line of defense to prevent horrible catastrophe is to have early sensing satellites giving us a few hours/days notice and then shutting everything down in the affected area until it all blows over. Our best warning time is about 7 to 15 minutes because these effects are traveling at a fraction of light speed. Hours warning will require time travel or sun diagnostics that can see an ejection coming before it appears.
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Apr 20, 2015 20:41
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Really what everyone should take away from this is the Sun is an angry God and we should do more to appease it and worry less about if our policy is Bibi approved or anti abortion because the Sun gives no fucks.
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Apr 20, 2015 20:44
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I have more problem with the fact that Hillary is another member of the same two families that have been in our presidential campaigns for the past 30 years than I am with her, herself. It helps that there are so many people who hate her so irrationally that they can't make any real policy critique against her because that would open them up to a reasonable response which would only help her. It should be really obvious how much fear she strikes into them that they feel such a need to be trying to tear her down literally years before she is "Running" If they had been this afraid of Obama they would have been writing dreams of my real father after his 2004 speech.
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Apr 21, 2015 15:32
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zoux posted:What about his injuries makes it so he has to wear sunglasses all the time? Did the mob pour bleach in his eyes? He has exchanged his sight to gain the vision to see Washington's Kitchen for what it really is.
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Apr 21, 2015 22:34
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ElegantFugue posted:Which sounds a lot better when you think of all the politicians whose defining features seems to be "support bad positions at all costs." If there's one thing we need more of its politicians who respond to public pressure and opinions because right now the elected are far more to the right than the public average. Remember the point of the elected official is to represent their constituents to their best of their ability and make at times executive decisions in their best interest, not to follow an ideological rigor that doesn't respond to reality. gently caress you thread I think you might have just made me speak in favor of Hillary  I want anybody else, anybody. But I'll take her over these mammon worshiping god tier shits.
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Apr 22, 2015 18:40
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I kind of wish we could clone sanders with the slight tweak that he's 30 stories tall and he needs to consume people over 20 million in net personal worth in order to live. Then let him loose in the middle of wallstreet.  Attack on Titan(s of Industry)
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Apr 22, 2015 19:56
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Joementum posted:Mmm, smells like a fresh Fox News poll. I didn't realize that Daesh was now able to project outside of Iraq after having toppled the Iraqi government, which last I checked had less naval power than the US.
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Apr 23, 2015 23:56
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ReidRansom posted:I'm not comfortable calling them flying death robots until they're autonomous and are granted the ability to make kill decisions without a human involved. If there's a dude somewhere pulling the trigger, it's just a really long gun. Today Shadow Lord Cheney announced that his army of Freedom Drones were now able to discriminate between quail calls and a member of anti American combatants saying "Dad let's go to the park"
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Apr 24, 2015 00:21
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The problems of today's society that we really need to address require complex solutions that serious people and not the Serious People need time and support to work on. These things range from income inequality, privacy versus security, economic development and the maintenance of the human supporting biome. Edward Snowden is in Russia, Senators are throwing snowballs in the Senate and the government is figuratively fiddling while agents of it allow infrastructure to return to gravel, its law enforcement agents murder citizens and Tom Brady's career is more important than securing a future for the entire human race. Politics is a game for the rich, and we've allowed the first society in the history of humanity that can solve any problem it really wants to turn inward and devour itself because the challenges we face have not been decided by "common sense" in the gilded or prehistoric age. We can and have to do better.
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Apr 26, 2015 18:45
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I'm honestly not sure why we're pretending that barring some rare instances of the media playing along with public outrage that the Kabuki theater of how congress interacts with the other branches and by extension the rest of the world has any basis in reality anyway. It definitely is more connections than careful manipulation of public polling, anyone who knows any elected officials can tell you this is not house of cards going on.
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Apr 26, 2015 21:22
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