SpankyMcFarland

Why would this bother anybody?

One obvious question is eye colour. Did Castro have any blue eyed children? Were any of his partners blue eyed? If he was homozygous for the brown eyed gene then Trudeau would be ruled out as a possible child.

How is it not news? It’s true and of great interest to the public.

I know we don’t approve of nicknames around here but this is reported news: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/380615-colbert-trumps-new-nickname-is-spanky-after-stormy-daniels

There was a catastrophic fire in a Russian mall the other day. This man lost his wife, kids and sister. Now he can speak the truth without fear of reprisal: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/man-who-lost-entire-family-in-russian-shopping-centre-blaze-blames-vladimir-putin-s-regime-for-a3799921.html

It’s not just Facebook (or cellphone calls that Facebook has apparently been logging metadata from). US software used by a hospital, for example, could contain a ‘backdoor’ making it potentially viewable by US agencies. We have no say whatsoever on such surveillance - what is seen and what use is made of it.

Accepting it sounds nicer but I don’t see a big difference there. A lot of this is not at a conscious level either. We can talk about them all we like and pretend we have a role here but the direction they are taking is not going to change. When we discuss privacy these days we seem to focus on the local variety e.g. neighbours snooping on our health or tax records. The notion that some nerds working for the US government could be looking at the same documents doesnt bother us that much.

Look at what people are putting up on their Facebook pages and consider how few will abandon that ‘platform’ because of the CA revelations. We are becoming numbed to the idea of MNCs and states, domestic and foreign, watching what we do.

Facebook is a surveillance company which we have welcomed into our homes. The whole cultural idea of privacy is disappearing before our eyes. I predict convergence between China and ourselves on this matter in the coming decades.

BTW there’s nothing wrong with lottery winners being rich.

What’s with all the caps? I should start by admitting we’re all part of a vast anti-lottery conspiracy. In my province, they do parade the winner. The person is dragged before the cameras and identified. They might as well leave town because they are going to be besieged with calls. Lotteries in the UK and Ireland get on very well, thank you, without doing this to their winners.

Of course they should be allowed to stay anonymous. Some US states do this already and it’s the norm in the British Isles. Why should a winner be paraded like a perp to give free publicity to the lottery company? In essence, they’ve made a good investment. Unless you’re going to publish everybody’s income a la Norway, why focus on these people?

Put yourself in an ordinary Iranian’s shoes. If a foreigner attacks, then no matter how much you despise the government you will defend your country. This is the truism that Saddam Hussein demonstrated in 1980. To think otherwise is to imagine that foreigners love their countries less.

Right now, regime change would mean war. The mullahs retain support among conservative, rural Iranians. An external attack on the country would force nearly everybody into the regime’s hands and put back any chance of meaningful change for decades.

Germany, France and the rest of Europe are not going to support any policy that leads to civil war and chaos in Iran. With Bolton, we may even see a US military offensive that will set back liberals in the country for another generation.

Like much of Eastern Europe, then. And Finland. Wars make for strange bedfellows. The Nazis were worse, of course, but it's hard to condemn a country taking drastic measures when facing Stalin.

Iran, like Russia, needs democracy - specifically, liberal democracy with rule of law and religious tolerance - but it cannot be imposed from outside. We are going to have wait this one out. The Iranians I have met have nearly all been unequivocally secular in their outlook, which is encouraging, but the rise of illiberal democracy in countries like Turkey suggests the possibility of a different and darker future.

Yes. I think it should stay independent of Iran now, but with majority rule.

I’ve never heard of the ‘junkie’ vote before. Who knew they were so politically engaged?

Iran’s foreign adventures are not all the same. In Syria, they provide ground troops for a dreadful but secular dictator who is quietly backed by most Christians there (and here, unfortunately), whereas in Bahrain, for example, they support a Shia majority labouring under a Sunni absolute monarchy. Bahrain gets very little mention in the US press. It’s an awkward example of where the Iranians are on the right side. They are also right to press for the civil rights of Shia Muslims in KSA. Obviously, it would be nice if they were as concerned about the welfare of their own ethnic and religious minorities.

Deserve to get it good and hard. He was scathing about democracy: http://www.aei.org/publication/h-l-mencken-on-democracy-government-and-politics/ Look at the second last one on that list.

Any candidate for high office has to expect some scrutiny. That’s not ganging up on Ford. Some of the remarks in that interview were childish. His solutions sounded simplistic rather than simple and this rich ‘common man’ has had a lot of time to prepare them.

Ford’s problems go beyond policies. He has to demonstrate a new level of personal maturity in this campaign.

That happened to some of my relatives but a quiet word was had with the parents and that was it. Problem solved.

Fortunately, I am not Greek so massive umbrage will not be taken over conflating Byzantine and Ottoman Empires.