AndrewL

Actually he does. Or have you already forgotten what your purpose was in the armed forces? Andrew

Can't you just acknowledge the reality that our ancestors who came to this land were genocidal and succeeded in destroying a totally viable and wonderful culture? Why do they have to be celebrated - its so phony... And to thank god for this... well thats just perverse. Nobody says you have to feel guilty - i certainly don't. I just prefer to be honest. Tribal peoples are not colonists, only civilized people are colonists, in the truest sense of the word. Well i still don't know what definition of empire you are using so im not sure exactly how to read your paragraph. But you seem to be confused about something - which is that the US pays for what they need. On the surface that might appear to be true but lets take a deeper look. As you may be aware the US imports 70% of its energy. The US is approximately 4% of the worlds population and uses approximately 25% of the worlds resources. Now who are they paying for these resources and energy? It seems to me they are paying client states that keep the restless natives mostly obedient with brutal military force. A military force trained and equipped by America and her closest most like minded friends. And who benefits? Do the people who live off these resources benefit? Or does the client government benefit? Yes. Do the industry CEO's and shareholders benefit? Yes. The people remain in perpetual poverty while the 'west' cuts down their forests, converts their land to factory farms, pollutes their water, and generally rapes them. This is all done for the benefit of the people who live in the core of the empire. Meanwhile we are fed constant incessant lies that it is actually good for these people that we exploit them and their land. If only they would just obey and get with the program.... Let me guess, you hung out with other rich people at nice hotels? The fact is their GDP has collapsed dramatically since the 70's. This is what happens when you have hundreds of spoiled princes spending billions of dollars on palaces, fleets of cars, private hunting reserves on tribal lands in africa, and other forms of extreme decadence. The worlds largest exporter of oil can't even compete in GDP with most resource depleted countries belonging to the american empire - a very revealing fact IMO. The royal family is just another dictatorship armed by America to protect the constant and abundant flow of oil to the market. Saudi Arabia's GDP by all measurements is even lower than Iran, and Iran has been under US sanctions for decades.... I work for a very large corporation and have worked constantly since i was 14 all the way through university. I think corporations right now exist in a world of total unaccountability. Look at Burma (Myanmar) - a major source of their human rights abuses is Total/Chevron - but they are exempt from the sanctions that have been in place against that brutal regime for years. But it is Total/Chevron that pay the military to make sure no people get in the way when they exploit and pollute and displace the people who live in on the land. Meanwhile this junta is slaughtering monks in the streets - but still nobody mentions sanctions against the corporations or would consider holding them accountable. That has to change. I think its terribly sad that you identify yourself with corporations. To me a corporation is just another powerful entity that does whatever it can to turn a profit. A corporation to me is just an unfortunate reality that helps me buy the food they keep locked up. I don't celebrate them as you seem to. I have no allegiance or loyalty to any corporation. Im not one of those people who treats themselves as a free billboard for their bosses, walking around pathetically displaying the company logo..... i prefer to identify myself with... well i just want to experience what it truly means to be human. Here is something i read today from Chris Hedges that i really liked and what i prefer to identify with: "There is a meaning to existence. It is found, as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Joseph Conrad and Vasily Grossman knew in simple, blind acts of human kindness, especially towards the outcast and the stranger. It is discovered when we confront and acknowledge the inevitable chains and limitations of human nature but do not completely succumb to them. These small acts of compassion, never free from the taint of self-interest, do not make the world a quantifiably better place. We will not be rewarded for them. We will not save ourselves from evil, suffering and death. But these acts mean that we have, if only for a moment, felt what it means to be fully human." http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/...ges_black_mass/ There is nothing wrong with discovering and promoting the positives of any culture or society. I certainly think that in the west we do in fact have a pretty rich heritage of free inquiry and discussion - among other things. The very act of posting here is to promote the free exchange of information that exists and is valued and protected in this culture. I'm likewise in the same situation as you. I'm paid fairly well, have a house and can contribute along with the mother of my child to the well being of his life. You seem to purposely ignore and gloss over the real problems of this culture though. You seem to want to pretend they don't exist. But they do, and i feel compelled to understand and reveal them. I dont even care so much if anybody agrees or even listens. Andrew

Fuck...im tired of federalism, provincialism, municipalism, ---- the only politics that are not corrupt and useless is at the level of the community league. Andrew

"He who is not with me is against me..." --Jesus Christ, in Matthew 12:30 and Luke 11:23 of the New Testament of Christianity. This false dilemma goes back probably long before Jesus Christ im sure..... buts it origin is neither modern nor does it originate with Goering. The most classic reference to it is from the bible. Good to see old Georgie is stuck in 1st century moral concepts.... Andrew

Apparently you have a problem recognizing that we have very little street crime in Canada. I think you would agree that because most Canadians do not want street crime, we actually have a fairly low rate of street crime. This can partly be explained by the fact that most Canadians are not partaking in street crime because they do not want street crime.... Can you honestly say that after 5 years NATO has won the hearts and minds of Afghanis - or are they losing them? I think they probably will end up hating NATO and its members as much as they hate the taliban. Such is they way these things always go. How do you know what the will of the Afghan people is? I assume its the same as anybody else's - that is to be left alone, to be free of interference from foreigners; be it the Soviets, be it the British, Pakistan, the Taliban, the US, Saudi Arabia, or NATO...... Is there actually any credible polling done that shows the majority of Afghans want a foreign military presence of any type in their country? Does anybody actually talk to the villagers before they kill them? You mean the resurgent shining path that bombed a market in Peru a few months back? I suspect they are resurgent because the conditions that lead to the rise of internal conflicts and insurgencies still exist - which is mainly foreign interference in all its oppressive and exploitive forms. Andrew

Why did they do this though? What goals and aspirations were they trying to achieve? You just described how they went about being an empire, you did not tell me what an empire actually is and why they exist. Again, what is an empire? Here is something i found: An empire exists when one nation, tribe or society exercises long-term domination over one or more external nations, tribes or societies. Through that domination the imperial power, or empire, is able to determine many of the key political, social, economic and cultural outcomes in the dominated society or societies. And that is the critical point---the ability of the empire to determine what happens, the outcomes in the societies under its control---is what distinguishes an empire from other forms of political organization. Those who hold power at the centre of an empire typically derive economic benefits, access to important resources, control of militarily strategic territory, and other forms of power as a consequence of imperial arrangements. http://www.jameslaxer.com/empirechapter.pdf Given that definition which i think is pretty straight forward it seems as though america really is an empire of sorts.. don't you agree? If its not right than why did you thank 'god' for it? How do you view the role between corporations and governments in places like Myanmar, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Latin America, I.... etc... Saudi Arabia you say is a rich nation but why do the people live in poverty? What is the role that corporations play in exploiting the 'colonies'; what is the role that governments play in protecting the corporations from angry natives and villagers; what is the role that modern economic institutions play in making sure the 'right people' see most of the money and benefits? That is exactly what all empires tell themselves. There is always a sense of salvation amongst imperialists - originating with the Abrahamic tradition. That still is true today. If it makes you happier to fabricate your own sunny and warm realities about the way the world works - so that it doesn't bring you down - than that is your choice. It does not make it true though. Its also worth noting that life is ususally always better the closer one is to the center of the empire - only until the empire begins to crumble. Then the violence abroad and the repression at home begin to get nastier and nastier. Andrew

I have no reason to believe it. If it was true we would not still be in the exact same position after 5 years. Andrew

Can you please define empire for us weaponeer? Andrew

What if their decision is to resist NATO? Will we respect that? Andrew

At the most basic level, life is 'unfair'. For the Wolf to survive he must eat a Deer, and so on. There is always a winner and a loser. That is just the way of things. Andrew

It will just be a relief to have anybody else in power.... but the relief will only be temporary. The crappy thing is that if it is a democrat the partisans will be out in full force trying to make whoever it is look stupid and awful.... it will be payback. The divisive nature of american politics will only get worse. Andrew

The only thing im concerned about is whether they are honestly reflecting the science at the state it is in. Monckton is certainly not. We can only guess at his motivations. And i agree, if the information is coming from a climate scientist who is peer reviewed we should take it very seriously. Thats not to say there can't still be biases (the peer review process should correct these biases in most cases), and we should definitely be skeptical about modeling, but when it comes to skeptics in general, we should expect they don't make elementary errors as Monkton does. Its hard to view him as credible when he is so easily debunked by people who actually know what they are talking about. One thing that is really ridiculous is when skeptics try to claim this is just some big conspiracy theory perpetrated by the UN and thousands of scientists and dozens of governments around the world. That is just silly nonsense with no evidence at all. Andrew

Actually this is meaningless. The corrected data is for the US only. The US temperature data is for a whopping 2% of the entire surface of the planet. The change to the global trend accounted for less than one thousandth of a degree. Big deal. The perceived high temperatures recorded in the early part of the century are attributed to the fact that solar activity was on the rise, and that we were in a period of low volcanic activity as compared to the late 18th century. Neither the sun or volcanic activity account for warming since the 70s. The temperature corrections from NASA do not change the global trend which reveals a persistent warming since the 70s, and it is so far best explained by AGW. Andrew

Yes there is. You have to filter out the anamolies like volcanoes and el ninos. Then you apply the line of best fit. What you get is the same rate of increase from 98 till now as you had from 75 to 98. This is taken from all the same data sets you are linking to. I can keep looking at it and i keep seeing the same thing, which is the same rate of warming since the 70s. Andrew

Sunset, There has been warming since 1998. You have to understand the natural variance and use linear regression to see it. but the warming trend is still there. Quit providing the same graph over and over again. Respond to the rebuttal. The fact is this is just another skeptic claim that gets recycled on message boards ever once in a while. Then it shows up on some exxon funded site and i have to go through this all over again. Its a little tiresome. Andrew