So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Tories now have majority rule in the house of commons for 5 years, which means they can push whatever they want as long as they're aligned without being reigned in. Last time this happened the gap between rich and poor deepened massively, benefits were slashed, our rail system was privatised and Libraries closed- oh, and Miners went on strike due to terrible conditions.

38% is not a Majority vote, in my mind, and leveraging young voters because they "don't know better" and have very little consideration to other issues that do not affect young fit workers is a very American thing to do.

honestly, growing up poor has taught me to respect socialist ideals such as public free healthcare and benefits for the unable. - But there was a time in my teen years where even I would have voted conservative because "these issues" wouldn't have affected me as a young worker- but they will one day and people should be quick to recognise that.

Tories scare the life out of me, they have a history of being self-serving. :\ and you're right about the choices not being stellar.

I'd suggest creating another party- but we have so many!

The other thing is, that in my opinion, what ruined the country most in the long term was the reign of Miss Thatcher. The total sale of the state and the rise of the banks stripped the country from any other options (all other industry is in ruins today or sold to foreign (e.g. German) corporations) -- GB must give the banks a free hand, or crash. And when they do, we all in Europe loose (also GB).

I also read a statement from a Economist, who largely criticized Camerons idea of further reducing the states spending (as much I understood, by privatization). This makes the country even more vulnerable to crisis and I also see some very good examples in GB, how privatization can make public services worse.

Obviously the UK can't "run out of money", the Tories missed their own immigration target by a factor of 10, and joining the Euro was always a Conservative ambition (remember Black Wednesday?).

In America, for whatever reason, that tip might have been ignored. :(

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/boston-bombing-anniversary/...

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bombers-phone-call-father/story?id=...

If you buy that.

Regardless of how much knowledge it represents, mass surveillance by central agencies is just them pretending to know the truth. The reason why is because the information used to 'know' is based on simulations of bad actors doing bad things, usually in the past, applied to the present moment. This 'simulated truth' translates into multiple communications channels of unknown quality when instantiated (because there are multiple futures) and fails to represent the present state of bad actor's actions.

In short, it's a low trust channel which is always ripe for a misuse of power!

As John Steinbeck put it best, “Up ahead they's a thousan' lives we might live, but when it comes it'll on'y be one.”

The theory is that - much as the decentralised panopticon of Van Vogt's "Anarchistic Colossus" - we'll eventually be able to parse everything everybody ever says and preemptively stop bad things. The practice is that humans are pretty good at it and computers aren't yet (that we publicly know of).

Reading about Eagle Claw [1], I was surprised at how few human assets the US had in Iran, due to both post-Vietnam cuts and an increased belief in computer magic. It's been a while but I remember they had something like a couple of cooks in the embassy, and nobody outside... contrast this with General Kalugin's assertion in his biography that almost 2/3 of Soviet staff in the US was KGB!

More recently, Charlie Hebdo was followed by a few leaks from the DGSE complaining of budget cuts targeting human assets and "street" operations, and a reorg that definitely did not prioritize the man on the street (no link - I read it in French papers).

Pete Blaber, at the time commander of Delta Force, recently complained [2] that Operation Anaconda was plagued by generals who managed it from the comfort of their AC rooms in Washington, basing their decision on drone and satellite feeds, unwilling to trust the men on the ground (and even cutting the Delta Force team out of comms when they objected).

The sad thing is that HUMINT takes a long time to develop, and requires a lot of experience (which is partly why the Allied won the intelligence war over the freshly purged German apparatus). Firing those with that experience can lead to years of underperformance as the expertise is slowly rebuilt.

This is one of the reasons the CIA was happy to use former Nazis to hunt Soviet spies in Germany [3] - justified both by these men's extensive experience operating in the territory and the fact that the Stasi was doing the same. I think not enough has been said about how the recent (returning) obsession with electronic surveillance is potentially damaging that side of (genuine, needed) counter-terrorist capability.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw

[2] http://www.amazon.com/The-Mission-Men-Me-Commander/dp/042523... - what is most interesting was Delta Force's insistance on reading everything they could from previous defenders of the Shahi-Kot, thereby anticipating the exact way in which the enemy took down the helicopters later sent in by Washington, which was the way the locals used to shoot down Soviet helicopters.

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehlen_Organization

The fact alone that high-up army officials and H&K managers even attempted such behaviour is telling enough about the respect to the constitution of those involved.

The fact that this behaviour has not warranted immediate consequences (at least resignation/discharge of the involved AND a criminal investigation by the Bundesanwalt) is telling lengths about the Bundesanwalt, too.

> The BND is not properly supervised, but the government already acknowledged that and said that they are going to solve it.

Honestly, you're believing in that? A secret agency is by definition secret, and I don't see the amount of change needed for proper surveillance of the spies coming anytime soon.

> What I found to be the most outrageous thing is that chancellor Merkel said that her goal is to enforce german law on german ground, and that they are working towards that. This doesn't sound like she is really convinced to be able to do so. I expect the government to say that german law will be enforced and that they will fight any activity not adhering to them.

I don't see that much of a problem in this regard, though. The US embassies and military bases in Germany have historically been dealt with as foreign territory, even though they were not de jure. In a certain way, what we allow the US to do in "their" bases and what we get in exchange from the US, is a reasonable amount of discretionary power of the politicians. However, this needs trust and at least "private" (i.e. knowledge on level of ministers/heads of state) transparency on both sides that no cheating takes place.

Hyperbole much? He may have been disparaging of religions (once in the talk, mind you) but never white people.

The talk's great.

This is like comparing a complaint of a little girl about wanting to have candy and the complaint of income-bringers of households about their jobs and thus their families being threatened.

He argues that the very business model of Google, Facebook and co are a fundamental threat to democracy.

http://news.yahoo.com/germany-grapples-rise-anti-foreigner-m...

Edit--video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZFmnz4ROEo

Less trivial, but Germany is one of the major forces controlling EU's border policies - and that's a wider form of nationalism and protectionism that pretty directly costs lives.

Political forces like AFD and pegida (legida, ...) aren't exactly a sign of receding nationalism either.

When you look, how people are treated from other nations, than I see very much undercover nationalism. Of course, we are still at a low level, because of our history and because the media does not enforce nationalism like in other countries ... but I think, that we can not take our own attitude and think that everybody has it.

I see nationalism rising again in many countries in Europe and in the world today. In the same time, egoism is rising (what partially counteracts to nationalism, partially reinforces patriotism).

I think, we see the age of egoism rising today. What it will end up, who knows?

In Germany's behavior within the E.U. and open desire to rule Europe?

In their characterizing of Southern countries (even in popular media read by millions, etc) with terms used in the past to describe Jews? (from "lazy" and "pests" to "traitors" and "PIIGS").

In the frequent verbal attacks immigrants from Greece (for example) face in Germany, in shops and public spaces?

The description of who can use *.ie is slightly vague on Wikipedia, but indicates there has to be a "tie" to Ireland. Moving the company out of the country seems like it might break whatever tie was there if it's based on any of the above criteria.

It's already too complicated to me as an Ugly American to differentiate Ireland, Northern Ireland, the UK, (Great) Britain and/or England, I'm hoping someone with more expertise can comment.