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PoliGAF 2013 |OT1| Never mind, Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

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R

remist

Member
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-drone-strikes-will-get-pass-in-counterterrorism-playbook-officials-say/2013/01/19/ca169a20-618d-11e2-9940-6fc488f3fecd_story.html

Targeted killing gets institutionalized and the CIA gets a one year exception to operate outside the rules in Pakistan. They can continue to approve "signature strikes" without any clear intelligence about a targets identity.

Meanwhile Obama refuses to reveal even to the senate intelligence committee the legal opinions he uses to justify targeted killing of american citizens.

I hate how normalized this kind of stuff has become. There is hardly any controversy.
 
R

Rocket Scientist

Member
remist said:
I hate how normalized this kind of stuff has become. There is hardly any controversy.
Click to expand...
I used to just turn a blind eye to things like this and Guantanamo thinking things like the economy were more important right now, but Obama is just weak sauce at this point. It's sad really. I'm really interested to hear what he says once his presidency is over and the books are written again. How does he sleep at night.
 
I

ISOM

Member
Rocket Scientist said:
I used to just turn a blind eye to things like this and Guantanamo thinking things like the economy were more important right now, but Obama is just weak sauce at this point. It's sad really. I'm really interested to hear what he says once his presidency is over and the books are written again. How does he sleep at night.
Click to expand...

I'm not here to really defend targeted drone kills but it's not like he is using them for fun or something. Their intended purpose is to kill terror targets the same way as if he had ordered marines to go into those areas and hunt down and kill those very same people. I'm guessing obama sleeps very well at night, well other than the innocent people that get killed but casualties of war and all that.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm more sensitive to the responsibilities that the president of the united states has in protecting the country from terrorism than your average citizen.
 
T

T'Zariah

Banned
I feel kind of horrible that some part of me is viewing them as "acceptable" collateral damage rather than the alternative of sending our troops there and dying.

Goddammit.

:(
 
R

Rocket Scientist

Member
IGSaint said:
I'm not here to really defend targeted drone kills but it's not like he is using them for fun or something. Their intended purpose is to kill terror targets the same way as if he had ordered marines to go into those areas and hunt down and kill those very same people. I'm guessing obama sleeps very well at night, well other than the innocent people that get killed but casualties of war and all that.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm more sensitive to the responsibilities that the president of the united states has in protecting the country from terrorism than your average citizen.
Click to expand...
That's how I used to feel I guess, so I understand your point, but I can't anymore.
 
R

remist

Member
IGSaint said:
I'm not here to really defend targeted drone kills but it's not like he is using them for fun or something. Their intended purpose is to kill terror targets the same way as if he had ordered marines to go into those areas and hunt down and kill those very same people. I'm guessing obama sleeps very well at night, well other than the innocent people that get killed but casualties of war and all that.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm more sensitive to the responsibilities that the president of the united states has in protecting the country from terrorism than your average citizen.
Click to expand...

Even if you don't support ending the drone program completely there are plenty of common sense reforms that Obama has been in no hurry to put into place. Obama has been resistant to adding any kind of oversight or transparency to the process and I doubt this new "playbook" makes any significant difference. First and foremost these strikes should not be run out of the CIA, they need to be transparent about the rules of engagement and they need to acknowledged the innocents killed and compensate the families.
 
C

ClassyPenguin

Banned
NightBlade88 said:
I feel kind of horrible that some part of me is viewing them as "acceptable" collateral damage rather than the alternative of sending our troops there and dying.
Click to expand...

Add to that the efficiency of it (not only in costs but in militaristic terms) and well, it's no surprise that they would adopt drone strikes.
 
F

Frank the Great

Banned
NightBlade88 said:
I feel kind of horrible that some part of me is viewing them as "acceptable" collateral damage rather than the alternative of sending our troops there and dying.

Goddammit.

:(
Click to expand...

Just remember that there is also plenty of collateral damage involved in traditional ground warfare with air support. I don't know if there are any studies on the matter but it would not surprise me if, in aggregate, targeted drone strikes result in less civilian deaths than other forms of combat. Not to mention the added bonus of keeping our troops out of harm's way.

I remember during the airstrike on Baghdad, for instance, that at least hundreds of civilians were killed and many thousands more were displaced.

War is shit no matter how it is waged; drones are just the new horrible thing in a long parade of horribles. There is nothing wrong with being okay with drone strikes as opposed to some of the other shitty tactics we have engaged in. Of course, from an anti-war viewpoint drone strikes are always terrible, but again that does not mean they deserve to be distinguished from other forms of combat.
 
P

pigeon

Banned
Trying to figure out what to write for my first post. I might recycle something about coalitions or the debt ceiling from earlier on PoliGAF...hmm.
 
S

sc0la

Unconfirmed Member
empty vessel said:
Instead of the number of people at each tax bracket who will face that as their top rate, I would be more curious to see a graph of the percentage of income taxed at each bracket. What that would show is a ton of money being taxed at 39.6, since nearly half of all income is taken in by the top 1%.

The problem is that, of that top 1%, the overwhelming majority of that income is taken in by the top 0.1% and even the top 0.01%. That means, effectively, that the top income bracket is basically a flat tax on a huge chunk of the country's income.

I think it's criminal that the 500,000th dollar of income is treated the same for income tax purposes as the $5,000,000th dollar.
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Yep. I would have rather left the bush cuts in place and made a deal to add brackets of 45% at 1million and 55% at 5million +

Get rid of the AMT in exchange for making the payroll tax holiday permanent.
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
pigeon said:
Trying to figure out what to write for my first post. I might recycle something about coalitions or the debt ceiling from earlier on PoliGAF...hmm.
Click to expand...

Actually the posts all sort of read like more researched PoliGAF posts so far.

On the subject any of you from SoCal? They were testing hydrogen powered cars out there a few years ago and I was wondering if any of you had the chance to try one out. I was thinking of doing a post on them and it would be a lot better if I could talk to someone who has used one. The tech is really cool, but I haven't heard about them for a while so I don't know how far it's advanced.
 
G

Giant Panda

Member
Frank the Great said:
Just remember that there is also plenty of collateral damage involved in traditional ground warfare with air support. I don't know if there are any studies on the matter but it would not surprise me if, in aggregate, targeted drone strikes result in less civilian deaths than other forms of combat. Not to mention the added bonus of keeping our troops out of harm's way.

I remember during the airstrike on Baghdad, for instance, that at least hundreds of civilians were killed and many thousands more were displaced.

War is shit no matter how it is waged; drones are just the new horrible thing in a long parade of horribles. There is nothing wrong with being okay with drone strikes as opposed to some of the other shitty tactics we have engaged in. Of course, from an anti-war viewpoint drone strikes are always terrible, but again that does not mean they deserve to be distinguished from other forms of combat.
Click to expand...

It's sort of along this line of reasoning that I support drone strikes personally: it's the best way of doing a terrible but necessary thing. Far as I know it results in the least lives lost as well as lowest cost budget wise.
 
empty vessel

empty vessel

Member
Giant Panda said:
It's sort of along this line of reasoning that I support drone strikes personally: it's the best way of doing a terrible but necessary thing. Far as I know it results in the least lives lost as well as lowest cost budget wise.
Click to expand...

I don't believe it is remotely necessary. Obama's targeted assassination program (and institutionalization thereof) will be a giant black mark on his historical legacy. These are acts about which there was not too long ago a solid human consensus against doing. Governments that did it had to do it secretly and deny that they did it. That consensus will one day return and Obama will rightfully be judged extremely harshly for what he is doing internationally.
 
T

Tim-E

Member
You guys are doing great with your writing; keep it up! I'm going to try and gun for 3-4 pieces a week. I think that's doable considering I'm balancing grad school, work, and a kid.
 
C

Chichikov

Member
Tim-E said:
You guys are doing great with your writing; keep it up! I'm going to try and gun for 3-4 pieces a week. I think that's doable considering I'm balancing grad school, work, and a kid.
Click to expand...
Can I offer an advice?
Aim for less, at least at first.
Four pieces a week a lot, I don't think many people can maintain that with high quality as a hobby (if you know yourself to be one of those people, more power to you, and you should probably ignore everything I say as your blogging prowess highly suppress mine), don't blow your load to soon, pick a pace which is sustainable.
Plus this blog has many writers, if it will produce 20k words a day, no one will be able to keep up with it.
 
R

RDreamer

Member
Dax01 said:
Nothing. WordPress hates me, and we only started our relationship today! I don't know what I did.
Click to expand...

Sorry I can't get to my actual computer for like 2 hours.

Could you perhaps try making a new account, maybe?

Tim-E said:
You guys are doing great with your writing; keep it up! I'm going to try and gun for 3-4 pieces a week. I think that's doable considering I'm balancing grad school, work, and a kid.
Click to expand...

I'll probably get 2-3. Depends on what I see and get inspired by.
 
C

ClassyPenguin

Banned
B-Dubs said:
Actually the posts all sort of read like more researched PoliGAF posts so far.

On the subject any of you from SoCal? They were testing hydrogen powered cars out there a few years ago and I was wondering if any of you had the chance to try one out. I was thinking of doing a post on them and it would be a lot better if I could talk to someone who has used one. The tech is really cool, but I haven't heard about them for a while so I don't know how far it's advanced.
Click to expand...

I went to a Mazda showcase when they had their hydrogen powered RX8, but I never drove one or anything. They leased their cars to the Hynor project in Norway.
http://www.mazda.com/mazdaspirit/env/hybrid/rx8_hre2.html
The car industry moves to what is profitable so right now it's hybrids, small displacement-turbo engines and lighter cars.

Autoblog Green is a good place to look for news.
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
ClassyPenguin said:
I went to a Mazda showcase when they had their hydrogen powered RX8, but I never drove one or anything. They leased their cars to the Hynor project in Norway.
http://www.mazda.com/mazdaspirit/env/hybrid/rx8_hre2.html
The car industry moves to what is profitable so right now it's hybrids, small displacement-turbo engines and lighter cars.

Autoblog Green is a good place to look for news.
Click to expand...

I've got plenty of news, they're actually planning on rolling out hydrogen cars in 2015 or so and they've got a deal with Norway and parts of the EU to set up refueling stations, what I was hoping was for a review from someone who had used one. Guess I can use the Top Gear review, I was planning on linking to it anyway.
 
J

jamesinclair

Banned
This is what happens when libertarians make a state

The first of 31 prizes scheduled to be raffled by New Hampshire police chiefs in May has a retail value of $1,995. It also has folding iron sights, a collapsible stock, and weighs 7.4 pounds, according to the manufacturer’s website.

The winner, chosen from 1,000 entrants in the sold-out contest, will walk away with a military-style assault rifle that closely resembles the weapon used to massacre 20 first-graders and six adults in Newtown, Conn.

The raffle, which will give away a firearm every day in May, has unleashed a growing storm of criticism against the New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police. That group, critics say, is acting with tone-deaf insensitivity while memories of the Newtown killings remain painfully fresh.

In addition to the first day’s prize — a Ruger SR-556 semiautomatic carbine that holds 30-round magazines — the police chiefs will give away other semiautomatic assault rifles, bolt-action hunting rifles, and semiautomatic and single-shot handguns to benefit a New Hampshire law-enforcement training academy for 14- to 20-year-olds.
Click to expand...

http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/0...izes-raffle/hOYEpkzYR5lc7vPsByExxI/story.html
 
J

jamesinclair

Banned
Dax01 said:
Oh, no, it's terrible. It's just some brief, random thoughts. You can read it here! I'll have a more meatier post when I talk about LBJ and the Famous 89th. I also added myself to the list of contributors.
Click to expand...


Oh really?

Zoey is a junior at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and is currently working on a Bachelor’s Degree in Film Studies with a possible minor in Political Science. She is twenty-years old and has a job as on-campus A/V technician. She’s a huge science-fiction nerd and loves a good, cold rainy day. Her favorite music artist is Sophie Ellis-Bextor, and she listens to her constantly. Her favorite song ever and of all time, Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Today the Sun’s on Us,” has a current iTunes play-count of 3,315.
Click to expand...

Prepare to get hit on.

hits
 
A

Amir0x

Banned
i will definitely tell you that you should feel creeped out about it and do everything you can to not allow anyone to delve further :p
 
T

Tamanon

Banned
Hey my stepbrother is just graduating from UNC Wilmington!

Been thinking about it for my Bachelor's next year. And this cancels out my future guest post on the lacking of diversity on DeadHeat Politics.
 
T

Tim-E

Member
Yeah, I probably don't need to shoot for the stars with a bunch I posts every week. With the number of contributors we have, we should have a steady-enough stream of content so that no one person should really have to force themselves to write. I dont need to dry up my well of ideas too quickly.

I'm new to this whole group blog thing, so forgive me.
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
Tim-E said:
Yeah, I probably don't need to shoot for the stars with a bunch I posts every week. With the number of contributors we have, we should have a steady-enough stream of content so that no one person should really have to force themselves to write. I dont need to dry up my well of ideas too quickly.

I'm new to this whole group blog thing, so forgive me.
Click to expand...

Honestly I'll probably only manage about a post a week myself. Some weeks will obviously be more than others depending on what happens.

ivysaur12 said:
So, Ashley Judd is going to run in KY, isn't she?
Click to expand...

And Colbert's sister in SC.

Dax01 said:
PoliGAF, you are obsessed with my being a woman...I don't know if I should be amused by it.
Click to expand...

Guys can be weird about girls online.
 
J

jamesinclair

Banned
Tim-E said:
Yeah, I probably don't need to shoot for the stars with a bunch I posts every week. With the number of contributors we have, we should have a steady-enough stream of content so that no one person should really have to force themselves to write. I dont need to dry up my well of ideas too quickly.

I'm new to this whole group blog thing, so forgive me.
Click to expand...

You wont run out of ideas, youll run out of time.

For my blog, I must have 20+ posts in half-written stages. Sometimes I actually have no time. Sometimes, TV is just more exciting.

I aim for 3 a week, which is enough to keep people checking my blog frequently.
 
G

Giant Panda

Member
empty vessel said:
I don't believe it is remotely necessary. Obama's targeted assassination program (and institutionalization thereof) will be a giant black mark on his historical legacy. These are acts about which there was not too long ago a solid human consensus against doing. Governments that did it had to do it secretly and deny that they did it. That consensus will one day return and Obama will rightfully be judged extremely harshly for what he is doing internationally.
Click to expand...

I don't see that view returning until terrorism is genuinely no longer a major threat. At that point, of course people will look at harshly as they will view it is not necessary. However that makes their opinion sort of pointless as they will no longer be in the same situation as when the drone program was in place.

The drones just have too many benefits compared to the few drawbacks they have to not use them. They decimated core Al Qaeda and though innocents certainly have been killed there would have been more deaths using other methods. It is certainly something they need to use sparingly and they need to try to bring down the number of innocent deaths, but I believe for the foreseeable future it is worth it.
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Link said:
It's depressing when I think that 20 is too young for me.
Click to expand...

Tell me about it. :(

Dax, on this part of your post:

Dax01 said:
The Constitution of the United States of America is the oldest constitution in the world
Click to expand...

Someone could correct me, but I'm not sure if this is true. Is it?
 
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