The News Thread

[B-side]

I'm increasingly exhausted with the framing of the drone issue in terms of US citizenship. Like all of a sudden it's a bad thing because of victim nationality.

You have a point, but the issue isn't so much that it's extra bad because Americans are more valuable but because we're all supposed to be protected by the law we so desperately hail as the greatest to ever grace mankind. Americans expect a certain level of legal protection and due process because the Constitution dictates it. Not only this, but there is something like an invisible line that everybody fears never gets crossed when it comes to wartime activity, and the line is drawn between who is vulnerable and who isn't. People want to believe the government exercises the utmost discretion and has access to the most advanced intel, making these decisions easier for us to swallow when the rationale is clouded in secrecy than when it's made public and sounds far too vague and human to be acceptable. It's not a matter of increased distaste for drone strikes so much as it is increased vocalization of that distaste. People see drones as a way of minimizing casualties both foreign and domestic. I don't think it's as nefarious as it seems. We see constant feeds of Islamist extremists bombing schools, raping, killing and otherwise stringently oppressing women, shooting children in the head for promoting education and talking about strange gods rewarding insane behavior. I'm not surprised people have become this detached from this war and its overseas ramifications. It seems to have no real direct impact on us save for the families of the soldiers and we'd like to keep it that way, so we use drones to minimize human involvement in something this dirty and impractical. I may be liberal, but I don't necessarily oppose drone strikes. I oppose them without proper evidence and would only support them in extreme situations. If they can be used to stop an imminent and obvious threat, then I find myself hard-pressed to oppose them. But that's not really what's happening, and I think people are beginning to catch on. It's just a shame that it took "American citizen" in the legal rationale to perk up peoples' ears.

[Robby P]

Drone piloting programs are all the rage at universities right now. FAA estimates there will be 10,000 drones operating in domestic airspace within the next five years. I don't see how anything bad could come of this.

[MadMan]

I'm increasingly exhausted with the framing of the drone issue in terms of US citizenship. Like all of a sudden it's a bad thing because of victim nationality.

Brightside summed it up pretty well. I stopped supporting Obama around 2011 because of the drone attacks, which are also creating new terrorists every time they kill innocent civilians (which are of course labeled "Collateral Damage.")

[Lucky]

Scary Things in Your Food

Beaver anal gland juice for natural flavoring? Who in the hell figured that one out?!

[Kurosawa Fan]

Your link doesn't work. It links to a mobile Yahoo! page that my Mac won't open.

[number8]

Pope quit.

[Lucky]

Your link doesn't work. It links to a mobile Yahoo! page that my Mac won't open.

Bah, that's probably bc I tried to link from my phone. The yahoo article goes by the same title if you're really curious it shouldn't be hard to find.

[Dukefrukem]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow...210739814.html

A teenaged girl flips off a judge and tells him "fuck you". She gets sentenced to 30 days in prison for being found in contempt of court.

I get it, but do judges have the biggest egos on the planet? Or are those pro athletes?

[dreamdead]

I get it, but do judges have the biggest egos on the planet? Or are those pro athletes?

I'm utterly fine with the judge's decision. Her whole behavior even before the F.Y. seemed totally disconnected with the ordeal, and her description of her finances dismissed any sense that she was taking the situation seriously. Simple logic says that you don't disrespect those with power over you. That's a lesson that teenagers too often forget.

I've got one student who checked his cell through class this morning. When I assigned twenty minutes to letting the class work on their drafts, he grabbed his books and left class, without a word, after maybe two minutes. That kind of behavior leaves the teenager practically begging to be penalized in some way.

[Lucky]

I've got one student who checked his cell through class this morning. When I assigned twenty minutes to letting the class work on their drafts, he grabbed his books and left class, without a word, after maybe two minutes. That kind of behavior leaves the teenager practically begging to be penalized in some way.

This is college, right? In an English class this would have been me. "I'm a science major and I'm just required to be here" was my mentality.

[dreamdead]

This is college, right? In an English class this would have been me. "I'm a science major and I'm just required to be here" was my mentality.

I could tolerate that, maybe, if the class wasn't Developmental English. Since these students are already repeaters of that class, I'd like to believe that they'd want to at least not piss off the instructor and put in the minimum amount of work. 'Cos writing a draft in class is so exhausting.

Sigh.

[Lucky]

Ah, yeah. I can understand your frustration with that. You can lead a horse to water, but, you know..

[Ezee E]

Pope quit.

I was wondering what all the tweets were about.

[Barty]

I get it, but do judges have the biggest egos on the planet? Or are those pro athletes?

That's because many do. The black, religious like robe. The sitting highest in the court room. The seal of the county/state/nation behind them, with light coming out from the chamber they walk in. The entire court room is designed to prop up their authority, stature, and power over the courtroom.

Contempt of court is basically the judge himself being the accuser, judge, and jury. It's pure tyranny, and that judge is a horrible human being.

[[ETM]]

So North Korea is setting off nukes underground.

[B-side]

Scary Things in Your Food

Beaver anal gland juice for natural flavoring? Who in the hell figured that one out?!

I don't like these kinds of articles. They're often very misleading.

[MadMan]

So North Korea is setting off nukes underground.

These assholes do realize if they even kill one US citizen what little of their country exists will be destroyed completely, right? From what I've been reading the Chinese are getting fed up with NK, too, although I don't know if they would stand by the second time around. Of course in the process South Korea will get bombed heavily....its just not a situation I want to entertain.

PS: For now North Korea can't reach US soil. That's not very comforting to me.

[bac0n]

What concerns me, tho, is that Seoul is within heavy artillery range of North Korea, and North Korea could nuke Japan with virtually no warning.

[number8]

If it comes to it, I bet US won't actually go to war with NK. We'll just silently give weapons to South Korea, China and Japan and let them take care of it.

[Pop Trash]

If it comes to it, I bet US won't actually go to war with NK. We'll just silently give weapons to South Korea, China and Japan and let them take care of it.

We still have a ton of soldiers in South Korea that would be affected (my uncle included). Obama would have to make the decision to evacuate or basically have a shadow war with NK.

I just don't understand NK's logic unless they are living in such a reality of their own making that they are crazy enough to not give a shit that they get bombed to smithereens. If they do nuke Japan for some psycho reason, I'm assuming the US will do everything possible to help Japan nuke them into nothing while not taking the responsibility for it (I'm assuming Japan and SK would then take over NK for reconstruction).

[Robby P]

I assume their logic is the same as every other developing nation's which is that they want nuclear weapons for diplomatic leverage and not to start a nuclear fallout.

[Dukefrukem]

I just don't understand NK's logic unless they are living in such a reality of their own making that they are crazy enough to not give a shit that they get bombed to smithereens.

Here's the timeline of NK and you answer your own question here.


1950: After just two years of being a country, North Korea invades South Korea because why not? This, as you might have guessed, kicks off the Korean War.
1950s: Soviet Union decides to be helpful, giving North Korea the means to start its nuclear program.
1950s: North Korea constructs Kijong-dong, a fake city situated in the DMZ meant to lure South Korean defectors. It's still there—and uninhabited—today.
1965(ish) Jong-il claims in his biography to have written no fewer than 1,500 books in his three years at university.
1976: Two US Army officers killed by North Korean soldiers in what is known as the Axe Murder Incident. The pair were brutally murdered for pruning a poplar tree.
1978: Kim Jong-Il, not yet ascended to leadership, kidnaps famed South Korean director Shin Sang-ok to help jumpstart North Korea's burgeoning propaganda film industry. He makes seven films before finally escaping in 1986.
1985: North Korea signs up to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Totally normal at the time, a little insane in retrospect given...
1986: Yongbyon nuclear reactor put into operation. Powered by uranium, it was capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium.
1991: North Korea somehow joins the UN.
1994: Kim Jong-il purportedly tries his hand at golf for the first time, managing a 38-under par round that included no fewer than 11 holes in one. Satisfied, he immediately declared his retirement from the sport.
1998: Taepodong-1, a two-stage intermediate-range ballistic missile, developed and tested. US claims North Korea is developing nuclear weapons at secret sites.
2003: North Korea withdraws from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (naturally).
2004: Jong-il claims the invention of the hamburger as his own.
2005: North Korea publicly declares its has nuclear weapons.
2006: First(?) nuclear test in the North Korea. US officials suggest that it was probably a misfire. Whoops!
2007: A smoking ban is imposed on the entire city of Pyongyang, to prevent Kim Jong-il from being exposed to secondhand smoke during his recovery from surgery.
2008: Kim Jong-il reportedly schemes to remove all short people from Pyongyang by promising them access to a miraculous heightening drug, then kidnapping them.
2008: A 50-year-old female South Korean tourist is shot down by a North Korean soldier for stumbling into 'military territory' in... the Keumgang Mountain Tourist Region.
2009: North Korea launches a rocket called Unha in the general direction of Japan, in what appears to be an advanced preview of WWIII. Second nuclear test.

[Irish]

If it comes to it, I bet US won't actually go to war with NK. We'll just silently give weapons to South Korea, China and Japan and let them take care of it.

Treaties & history. The US wouldn't act silently, because our obvious presence is the only thing keeping the peace in that area. We're also acting as a military-by-proxy for both South Korea and Japan.

The real issue is not poking the bear (ie, China) while maintaining the 50 year stalemate.

[D_Davis]

The backdoor CISPA and SOPA.
http://rt.com/usa/news/obama-signs-c...ity-order-042/

[MadMan]

1994: Kim Jong-il purportedly tries his hand at golf for the first time, managing a 38-under par round that included no fewer than 11 holes in one. Satisfied, he immediately declared his retirement from the sport.

Hilarious. Also my favorite part of that list.

Naturally China doesn't want another democracy in their region, but at the same time they are completely fed up with NK's insane behavior.