Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Eagle_eye]

The most resource rich areas of Germany were all lost at Versailles. Germany as it was at the beginning of WWII had pretty minimal resource wealth.

[darkrider2]

I've noticed that people who say the government is completely inefficient and wastes tons of money are always the same people who will defend the ridiculous oodles of money that get spent on the Department of Defense.

Hold on I'm getting a call from our news correspondent at the pentagon.

Yes, what is it James.

Breaking News: Hello Tom I'm standing outside the pentagon where we've just received news that yes, the Department of Defense is still part of the government. If any claims of independence or privatization are made, we'll be sure to inform you. Back to you Tom.

Well, you heard it here first folks. Now our next story, cute cat videos.

[SalmonGod]

How about the legendary efficiency of those private contractors (mercenaries) the DoD is increasingly fond of?

[darkrider2]

How about the legendary efficiency of those private contractors (mercenaries) the DoD is increasingly fond of?

Oh those private 'security' forces that are notorious for gunning down unarmed civilians in broad daylight? Yeah I love those guys.

[Duuvian]

For GreatJustice's benefit:

There was a hole in the bottom of the Sea (and the government for once didn't have the means to do anything about it, and left it to the private sector to fix it until the government had to bring out a $20 billion dollar stick to make them do something effective other than PR campaigns]

[10ebbor10]

Don't forget the time oil diggers actually dug a hole in a lake and hit a salt mine.

The most resource rich areas of Germany were all lost at Versailles. Germany as it was at the beginning of WWII had pretty minimal resource wealth.

They didn't use them at Versailles. (Not all of them anyway). France (backed up by Belgium) did "invade" a rather large part of their terretory during the interbellum though, when Germany failed to pay the war payments. (Which were rather ridiculous)

[palsch]

Because it's only fun when we have really controversial meat to chew over.

Obama looks likely to issue an executive order on cybersecurity after the bills fail in the Senate.

That whole post is interesting, not least because it highlights the three areas the cybersecurity legislation was supposed to address, in order of controversy;

1) Authorisation of new research, reforms of existing programs and similar miscellaneous filler.
Likely easily done with an executive order and minimal fuss, albeit more limited given funding limitations.

2) Setting private security standards.
This was the part the Republicans and Chamber of Commerce hated. The strongest form proposed was a set of full regulations with security requirements for organisations running critical infrastructure. The weakest (but still rejected) was voluntary regulations with positive incentives to meet them.

It seems that at least some watered down version could be established under an executive order, granting the DHS the power to set standards and then offer immunity - through a law designed for anti-terror purposes - for those who meet such standards. That would be a strong incentive for companies to meet at least some minimum standard of electronic security discipline by removing liability for security failures when they do occur.

3) Information sharing.
This was the part that cause privacy and civil liberty problems. No version of the information sharing section was particularly good in the original bill.

This is also the part that really needs watching. The post I linked gives a strong anti-privacy case (disturbing for a conservative/libertarian site like Volokh...) while I take a near opposite view (although I think some extremely limited data sharing with strong protections and penalties as far as use of data goes could fly, although probably not under an executive order).


All in all, a few things that would be improvements over the congressional CISPA/Senate bills;
- Guarantee cybersecurity remains a civilian issue. Republicans wanted it handed off to the DHS.
- Removes (or greatly reduces) the possibility of the most extreme measures, which tended to be the worst.
- Obama is more likely to want a fight with the CoC than with privacy interests, which suits me just fine.

Worth watching, because this could play a huge role in the security debates during the election.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Obama stated opposition to the cybersecurity bill and an intent to veto if it passed the Senate, so I don't know why anyone would think he'd substitute it with an executive order.

[palsch]

Obama stated opposition to the cybersecurity bill and an intent to veto if it passed the Senate, so I don't know why anyone would think he'd substitute it with an executive order.

Because he pushed hard for a cybersecurity bill. He threatened the House version of CISPA with a veto for various reasons. Primarily because it was disgusting with regards to privacy concerns and lacked any form of regulatory system. This statement from the administration during the Senate debate was in reference to the Lieberman-Collins compromise bill, but lays out the types of provisions he wanted. There is also Obama's own WSJ editorial which makes cybersecurity a priority.

This approach stays true to our values as a society that cherishes free enterprise and the rights of the individual. Cybersecurity standards would be developed in partnership between government and industry. For the majority of critical infrastructure companies already meeting these standards, nothing more would be expected. Companies needing to upgrade their security would have the flexibility to decide how best to do so using the wide range of innovative products and services available in the marketplace. Moreover, our approach protects the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. Indeed, I will veto any bill that lacks strong privacy and civil-liberties protections.
...
Today we can see the cyber threat to the networks upon which so much of our modern American lives depend. We have the opportunity—and the responsibility—to take action now and stay a step ahead of our adversaries. For the sake of our national and economic security, I urge the Senate to pass the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 and Congress to send me comprehensive legislation so I can sign it into law.

If you believe what's been passed around the more conservative and libertarian sites I tend to read, he said this while allowing the Senate bill to fail. Essentially he wants this fight.

[Gantolandon]

There are two problems here.  First, the concept of "jobs" in our society is total bullshit.  Having a job does not necessarily mean you contribute anything to society, which I understand to be the basis of the assumption that if you don't have a job that you aren't earning your keep.  A job means only one thing:  making profit for somebody wealthier than you.  Second, our society is so productive that not everybody needs to work, or everybody needs to work very little.  There are a large and ever-increasing number of jobs out there right now that are complete wastes of time that benefit nobody, and only exist because need to have even a worthless "job" to justify their own existence.

I find it most ironic. It was supposed to be a major advantage of the free-market capitalism, frequently underlined by its proponents - that, unlike all forms of socialism, it does not waste people's energy and money by creating bullshit jobs to keep them occupied. But hey, at least statistics look good!

In fact, former Eastern Block state communism and capitalism share more similarities than it appears.

[GreatJustice]

Probably because they would have allowed the fly ash to escape into the atmosphere instead of trying to clean it up.

Key word there is "trying" (only 3% has been cleaned up so far), not to mention that it was preceded by an attempt to cover it all up and claims that the air wasn't toxic.

Of course Japan was going to have a recession in the 1920s. Japan's major exports were luxury goods like silk. After WWI nobody had the money to buy luxuries, and at the end of 1929 the Great Depression hit, which only worsened the situation. And I'd like to point out that Japan was imperialistic well before WWI. The Russo-Japanese War was fought in 1905 over Machuria as part of their imperialistic agendas. Japan joined the allies in WWI so that they could get Germany's Asian processions and the resources they had.

Nonsense. Japan was undergoing its recession while countries such as the US were in full boom and very much in demand of luxury goods. It was undergoing the worst of its own depression long before the Great Depression even began in the US.

Japan was imperialistic before the 1920s, but not on the same scale that it was afterwards. Before, it had been a method of proving itself to the western powers. After, it was a necessity to keep Japan's fragile economy going.

I'm not talking about industry here. I'm talking about natural resources. Germany may be resource rich in some areas, but not all of them and it definitively did not have enough farmland to feed its entire population. Germany has always been vulnerable to blockades, which is why the German–Soviet Credit Agreements were signed despite the hatred that the two countries and their ideologies.

Germany was resource rich in terms of coal, and it had sufficient industry to trade for what it didn't have.

When War Socialism was introduced in Germany, what it served to do was actually increase consumption of resources early in the war by imposing maximum prices on essential goods (in this case, food). This meant the German people had no food shortages at the beginning of the war, but as the war dragged on longer than intended food was rapidly depleted. Furthermore, restrictions on trade and production made it less worthwhile for a man to work making food when he could only sell it at certain places, for low prices, to certain people. The fact that it was introduced before Germany's capabilities of importing were completely restricted via the entry of Italy and Romania into the war didn't help, either. Germany itself certainly didn't have the food production necessary to last the entire war, but even trade with the continental members of the Central Powers would have been sufficient, and without War Socialism the people of Germany would have had at least enough food to get by on a daily basis.

Another problem is that several of the agrarian communities of Germany and Austria Hungary basically cut themselves off from the starving cities when food was in high demand, as they saw that hoarding their food was more worthwhile then selling it all at a loss and having less for themselves.

I've noticed that people who say the government is completely inefficient and wastes tons of money are always the same people who will defend the ridiculous oodles of money that get spent on the Department of Defense.

Don't bother reading my posts or anything, just skim over them, stamp me with a "REACTIONARY CAPITALIST PIG" logo, and attack me for views I don't hold.

For GreatJustice's benefit:

There was a hole in the bottom of the Sea (and the government for once didn't have the means to do anything about it, and left it to the private sector to fix it until the government had to bring out a $20 billion dollar stick to make them do something effective other than PR campaigns]

Its not like the building of that rig had anything at all to do with the DWRRA or anything

[alway]

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/18/opinion/kleinbard-canellos-romney-tax/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
Interesting article on Romney's reluctance to release past tax returns.

[palsch]

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/18/opinion/kleinbard-canellos-romney-tax/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
Interesting article on Romney's reluctance to release past tax returns.

Right, I forgot to post this earlier.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[penguinofhonor]

Holy fuck how are they earning 5 million dollars a year in the white house? Admittedly I have no clue how presidential income works and it dropped a ton after 2009 so it was probably election stuff but damn.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The President's salary is $400,000 a year, so most of that money is from elsewhere.