The News Thread

[number8]

The AP twitter account was hacked. Didn't happen.

[shaun]

Heh



http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=^GSPC+Interactive#sy mbol=^gspc;range=1d;compare=;i ndicator=volume;charttype=area ;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;log scale=off;source=undefined

[number8]

Suckers.

[D_Davis]

Suckers.

And these are the people at the heart of the financial well-being of America, and in some ways the world.

[number8]

Wait, what?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...tsarnaev-case/

Speaking of drones, Paul did go on to say that he was fine with the use of drones in finding or fighting a criminal on the loose.

“Here’s the distinction, I have never argued against any technology being used against having an imminent threat or an act of crime going on,” he said. “If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and fifty dollars in cash, I don’t care if a drone kills him or a policeman kills him.”

What he objects to, he said, is constant surveillance in the absence of any evidence of criminal activity. “But it’s different if they want to come fly over your hot tub, or your yard just because they want to do surveillance on everyone, and they want to watch your activities.”

He added, “If there is a killer on the loose in a neighborhood, I’m not against drones being used to search them out.”

But... wasn't his whole filibuster about using drones to kill Americans on American soil?

[Robby P]

Not exactly. He said during his filibuster that he did not have a problem using drones against people who posed an imminent threat to public safety. He was primarily opposed to the idea of using drones against people not engaged in combat (or otherwise posing an immediate risk to the safety to others) without being afforded their right to due process. This was an admirable position to take and the filibuster itself was a worthy cause even if perhaps a bit murky in its intentions. This latest quote, however, is pretty reprehensible and undoes almost all of the good will Rand had built up previously. In this hypothetical scenario, this person is clearly not presenting an imminent threat simply by virtue of having presumably robbed a liquor store for all of fifty dollars. It is not okay to drone or otherwise kill a guy simply for committing armed robbery. The first response needs to be apprehension rather than execution and the fear which Paul fails to grasp is that access to weaponized drones might give officers less incentive to risk their lives trying to apprehend a suspect and make them more likely to resort to remote control lethal force instead.

[number8]

8-story garment factory in Bangladesh where they make probably 80% of all the clothes you own collapsed, killing 70 people and injuring hundreds. Some people are still trapped in the rubble.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/wo...pse.html?_r=1&

[Ezee E]

8-story garment factory in Bangladesh where they make probably 80% of all the clothes you own collapsed, killing 70 people and injuring hundreds. Some people are still trapped in the rubble.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/wo...pse.html?_r=1&

Their firefighters have lightning pants:
d

[number8]

Oh right, I forgot that a lot of the factory workers were probably children.

[slqrick]

Sad that it's just going to be another tiny blip on the radar.

[Spun Lepton]

8-story garment factory in Bangladesh where they make probably 80% of all the clothes you own collapsed, killing 70 people and injuring hundreds. Some people are still trapped in the rubble.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/wo...pse.html?_r=1&

Obviously, this happened because of government regulations.

[Acapelli]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/hagel...emical-weapons

uh oh

[B-side]

We really need to get more intimately involved. It's a total mess, and the rebels seem just as bad as the regime at times, but something has to be done. The rebels are probably only aligning themselves with Al Qaeda branches for the reinforcement. It's a remarkably stupid move, especially if you're looking for international support, but from their point of view, they've probably long given up on hopes of international military aid. I think it's probably too late for us to play as effective a role as we could have a year or two ago, but it's clear that the massacre needs to end, be it through strictly diplomatic means (which seems highly unlikely), or through heavily controlled force. Break the Al Qaeda ties, provide a no fly zone, and establish a coherent resistance and supply the moderates with weapons, medicine and food.

[Yxklyx]

I don't see this being any of the USA's business at all. If the UN wants to do something then fine.

[Robby P]

It would be easier to justify intervention if either one of these sides was worth fighting for. We are currently supplying military aid to the rebel faction but that's about to dry up considering who they've chosen as bed fellows. The Obama administration originally claimed that chemical weapons were going to be the line in the sand so rhetorically we're sort of bound to intervene but when have empty promises actually ever mattered?

[bac0n]

I'd kinda wish the Arab League would do something, if nothing else than to show the world they're good for more than just giving Israel the finger.

[Irish]

Break the Al Qaeda ties, provide a no fly zone, and establish a coherent resistance and supply the moderates with weapons, medicine and food.

That invites a multi-year, multi-billion dollar commitment, similar to Iraq. You also risk running some kind of weird proxy war with Russia (rumor has it Russia is smuggling weapons to Assad, while western powers like Britain and the US are using Turkey to get weapons to the rebels).

What's most interesting to me is that the American based outlets are pushing this Al-Queda connections. It paints the entire Syrian resistance with one brush. Which is ridiculous because the rebels are made up of multiple factions, many of them secular. The reporting on this seems to me to be baldly slanted toward US interests.

I don't see this being any of the USA's business at all. If the UN wants to do something then fine.

Syria has, by all accounts, a HUGE stockpile of chemical weapons. If the government disintegrates, there's a fear that those weapons will be "disappeared" overnight. Nobody wants Syrian made stuff showing up in the hands of Hezbollah or the Taliban.

There's also the control of Syria's oil fields to consider, which account for about a quarter of their GDP (iirc; that number could be way off).

And the issue of protecting Israel.

The Obama administration originally claimed that chemical weapons were going to be the line in the sand so rhetorically we're sort of bound to intervene but when have empty promises actually ever mattered?

Ha, yeah. Obama is full of shit. My guess is they are basing this announcement off of statements by the Israeli intelligence community (which were quickly contradicted by Israel' own PM). This happened earlier in the week.

Unless the US has a bunch of guys running around Assad-controlled territory, I can't see how they know this for sure. It's all gamesmanship. Both sides accused the other of using these weapons, Assad invited inspections in a round of diplomatic hanky panky and then withdrew permission. There's a group of UN inspectors who have been sitting on their asses in Cyprus for the last week waiting to get into the country. Most of the country is a warzone. Nobody knows anything.

[MadMan]

I'd kinda wish the Arab League would do something, if nothing else than to show the world they're good for more than just giving Israel the finger.

Hah. The Arab League is mostly worthless. At least the African Union is trying to provide some kind of security/stability in their area of the world, even if they aren't successful a lot.

Look I don't want US involvement in Syria, but Irish has a point about not wanting their stockpile of chemical weapons to end up in the wrong hands. I'm not sure what the play should be here, and that's why I'm glad I'm not working in government or in charge of anything heh.

[Yxklyx]

As for chemical weapons in Syria there are likely orders of magnitudes greater quantities of such weapons here in the USA at much easier reach of crazy USA psychos. Comparing foreign arsenals to what exists in this country is laughable.

[B-side]

The Arab League has been helping with Syria, stopping short of a full scale military intervention. And no, I don't see Syria as being like Iraq. Providing a no fly zone and aid is not an invasion. If we were actually helping the rebels come together under one leader and one set of guidelines, with proper aid and funding, this war would be over by the end of the year. We don't need to send anything more than a UN-collaborative peacekeeping force to maintain the safe haven. This would require very little commitment in terms of actual personnel considering we'd be collaborating with several other countries and having the UN handle everything.

[B-side]

As for chemical weapons, the reports are not just from some guy in Israel. They're being independently confirmed by Syrian doctors and British and French intelligence as well.

[Barty]

The US Government and it's allies can never be trusted when they target any country for regime change. Whoever they choose to be the new leader(s) will nearly inventively be worse than who originally was in power.

In conclusion, we should mine our own fucking business, and stay the fuck out of the middle east.

[B-side]

That's not even remotely accurate. Ask any Panamanian how they feel about the US helping them oust their dictator. Ask Germany. Ask Russia. Ask South Korea how they feel about having a developed country with basic human rights as opposed to what's happening right next door. And this libertarian isolationist bullshit is so egregiously amoral and unconscionable it astonishes me that you people pretend to be the real moral heart of America. The US has a responsibility as an enormously influential, wealthy and powerful nation to use that status for the good of all people. Yes, we have our own issues to deal with, but we can walk and chew gum at the same time. If you're content to watch countries slaughter their own people through military force or simple nutritional neglect, then you have absolutely zero clout on anything even remotely related to human rights.

[Irish]

As for chemical weapons in Syria there are likely orders of magnitudes greater quantities of such weapons here in the USA at much easier reach of crazy USA psychos. Comparing foreign arsenals to what exists in this country is laughable.

This doesn't make any sense. Nobody compared arsenals ... except, apparently, you. What bearing does the US weapon supply have on Syria, or that possibility that Syrian weapons could be smuggled out of that country in the absence of any real government?

[Irish]

The Arab League has been helping with Syria, stopping short of a full scale military intervention. And no, I don't see Syria as being like Iraq. Providing a no fly zone and aid is not an invasion. If we were actually helping the rebels come together under one leader and one set of guidelines, with proper aid and funding, this war would be over by the end of the year. We don't need to send anything more than a UN-collaborative peacekeeping force to maintain the safe haven. This would require very little commitment in terms of actual personnel considering we'd be collaborating with several other countries and having the UN handle everything.

This has never worked. Any time a government goes down, it's a clusterfuck. There is no way to bring together secular rebels and jihadists under the same banner. A no-fly zone wouldn't prevent the use of chemical weapons or genocide.

Look at Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda. The UN was there in each case.