ibx

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/disillusioned-british-jihadists-stuck-in-turkey-because-they-are-too-scared-to-come-back-to-uk-9775281.html I think this is really an interesting problem. What do you with these type of people of which there will undoubtedly be more in the future? I think this really puts the fundamentals of a free western society and the presumption of innocence to a test.

God dammit, liberal progressives want people that are less fortunate than themselves to have something to eat and basic medical care. Those dirty fucking hippies are unbelievable.

Before I begin I think we must remember that we cannot compare the US and Germany directly. In large because Germany has to import the majority of it's energy. It creates lots of jobs across a huge sector. Especially what we call "Handwerker" in Germany which is the traditional blue collar class. It destroys hardly any jobs in Germany since all energy intensive industries are exempt from the "Energiewende" tax. It creates more jobs than it destroys at least here. Yes Germany's forests are actually growing, 1/3 of German land is now covered with forest and it's huge industry with lots of jobs, only an American can think thats this is a bad thing. Yes I am, I pay for the "energiewende" with my Power bill. The main reason for this not the environment though, but Germany's irrational fear of nuclear energy as I'm sure you are aware. The Energiewende only really started after Fukushima. The green aspect is seen as huge bonus, which it is if it means Germany is more energy independent. Yeah, Germany's GDP has been decreasing for about 2 months now, for the first time in a long time. This has more to do with the geo political situation(Ukraine, southern europe) than the energiewende. Are you implying that Germany is dragging the EU down? Germany is suffering from first world problems?I don't think I understand what that paragraph means. Third world countries are now starting to invest in renewable energy btw. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-12/renewable-energy-investments-shift-to-developing-nations.html Germans who are "poor" get their utilities paid for by the government. Nobody gets their power shut off if they follow the correct bureaucratic procedures. Only in a true Christian nation are the poor left to fend for themselves. Once the energiewende is done, wende means as much a change which means it will end, energy will be cheaper and especially will make Germany more independent form energy imports. We don't have oil, coal is too expensive and we have to import our gas from Russia. It makes a lot of sense for Germany to try for more energy independence, this of course different if you have your own oil/gas like the US. In the long run renewable energy is much cheaper than fossil fuels which the US subsidizes like crazy btw.

Yeah this is not really news to anybody paying attention to the rest of the world. I don't understand why Americans refuse to believe or accept that the green movement is a huge stimulus program. It creates lots of jobs, and a huge domestic market for pretty much everything. It also increases quality of life for the population. Once everything is more energy efficient, energy demand goes down, making energy cheaper, further boosting the economy. Germany started it's green movement in the early 90s, it had a huge stimulus effect and helped make the reunification affordable. We are still one the worlds leading economies. That should be impossible if we are to believe some the posters here... It's actually a win win situation - unless you are in big oil.

More like conservative or undereducated.

It's in da Bible.

I think the difference is, if a scientist claims a fact, every other scientist can verify that fact until becomes universal knowledge. Gravity will always pull things towards center mass. No scientist arguing differently will be taken seriously without evidence which is again understood by other scientists. This leads to a universal understanding of gravity. And all of a sudden there is a consensus on the effects of gravity. Where is the universal interpretation of the bible? The consensus? No matter how much I look for the truth in the bible I will always find something to contradict what I found in the same fucking book. How can this ever lead to any understanding of anything at all?

You are making a fundamental mistake with the intelligent design argument. Your office being organized is a defined state that you defined before the office was organized. Nature does not have predefined ordered state but organizes itself according to laws of physics and evolution without a predetermined outcome. If this was not true, life could not adapt to changing environments. Which it does, our weak spine and knees are proof of either this or of a really poor design. Intelligent Design requires a pre defined goal, you know to design. This is simply not how nature works. There is no predetermined goal or target for physics to create the planet earth exactly like it is or for evolution to create an animal exactly as it is.

Theists are completely fine breaking causality if one questions the origin of God. Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. Isaiah 40:28 Romans says I can clearly see Gods work, Isiah says I can never understand God. WTF !? Maybe it just doesn't make sense to a rationally thinking person.... See causality above. So some people are good and some people are bad with or without God. We agree on this.

You must be trolling...

The logical conclusion: If I cannot imagine Harry Potter, my imagination is weak. I cannot imagine Harry Potter. My imagination is weak, and I can therefore not make a billion dollars writing books about him. This is nothing but a diluted version of Anselm's Ontological Argument which has been ripped apart since it's inception.

I agree with this. Though it may be wrong, speaking Ebonics will probably be detrimental in finding a good job since it conveys poor education. I think mandating attendance will do exactly that, you may not catch everybody but you will at least give everybody an equal opportunity which is denied to a lot of people simply due to the neighborhood where they happen to be born.

I just saw an interesting bit about Ebonics yesterday by Steven Pinker. Do you think Ebonics is a less valid accent/dialect than say welsh, scottish or the other varieties of english pidgin? Yeah - it's better than prison - also I disagree with the fact that parents should agree. School should be mandatory. A 16 old girl named Shaniqa from Compton is just as unfit to guarantee a good future for her children as McKayley-Lee from rural Kansas, or Jaquelin-Chantall from Neu Cologne in Berlin. I think the state/government has the obligation to ensure equal opportunity and must make sure all children have access to a competitive education. Everything else leads to segregated social classes.

Though a traditional family is definitely a stabilizing factor, I think with a divorce rate of over 50% and the way society is developing(contraception, emancipation etc.) the traditional family will become rarer and rarer. http://www.prb.org/Publications/Reports/2012/us-household-change.aspx This is also not so much of a problem if the state/government takes over the roll of providing the children with a stable environment by supplying day care and day schools. This is currently happening in Germany where officials have identified the problem of lower class single households. The government has to now step in to insure that all children get equal opportunity by keeping them in school for longer hours, this also gives the parent enough time to work. School is also compulsory to the point where German parents have sought asylum in US for religious reasons, other parents have gone to jail for not sending their children to school. This is detrimental to gang building. I know this not the perfect solution, but it's better than locking them up.

You give people some perspective. Obviously once they start shooting at each other it's probably too late. I would argue though, that a 16 year old is not beyond saving. The trick is to not let them get that far. That can be achieved by a competitive education and even more importantly a perspective to be able achieve more in life than minimum wage, for a lot of people even that remains elusive. How this can be achieved is matter of hot debate, one thing where most people are in agreement about is, to stop the quasi segregation and ghettoisation of certain ethnicities or social groups in the inner cities. This is a problem in every western country. I think putting young people away for decades in the US justice system harms society more than anything else. Hardly any effort is made to re socialize inmates or to turn anybody back in to productive member of society.

The USA already has more people in prison than any country on earth. Both in absolute and relative numbers. Please explain how putting even more people in prison is going to solve anything.

Like the death penalty is good deterrence for murder?

How is that even comparable? If somebody threatens your son with a gun I think you may have a point. If you are in store thats being held up I would think the best for your son would be to not get involved.

What about just giving the robber the few thousand $. Do you really think it's worth killing anybody over that amount of money? Would you kill a teenager to protect a corporations money? Now I know you think you are protecting the people he is threatening, but I would argue that shooting is always more dangerous for everybody around, than not.

https://www.aclu.org/reproductive-freedom/supreme-court-allows-employers-discriminate-against-employees-denying To me, an employer being privy too how you use your health care package is as intrusive as them being privy to how you spend your income. If they can say they don't want their compensation package (health care) to be used on contraception why can't they say they don't want their compensation package (cash) to be used on contraception either?

The only way the west will be able to directly influence anything is by selectively arming militias in return for loyalty. Now this is dangerous game to play. In Afghanistan we let Pakistan decide who gets what, that was a huge mistake. Now in Iraq it's the arm chair Jihadis in Saudi Arabia and Qatar arming organizations such as ISIS. Their primary aim is to weaken Iranian influence. It's all a big cluster fuck and we should let them take of it themselves.

Another assessment from an Israeli Viewpoint: http://www.inss.org.il/index.aspx?id=4538&articleid=7116 I think the Wall Street Article is full of misinformation and ignorance of the current situation. It reads like typical administration bashing.

I personally don't see much evidence other than ISIS being much more than a paper tiger: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/29/the-paper-tiger-of-the-tigris-how-isis-took-tikrit-without-a-fight.html

I think some people in Belfast will beg to differ.

The primary function of cars is transportation, the primary function of guns is to kill things. If you do not see the difference you are beyond redemption.