LekkoscPiwa

I'm happier in the US where the dream of owning BMW or Porsche may easily become reality vs. just stay a dream forever.

why BMWs are on average 4 times more expensive in Singapour than US? Low taxes at work? Need to use public transportation because cars ownership is taxed to hell and back? How came person using bus and not owning a car is considered to have better standard of living?

Governmint: im just going through agile sprint 0 with fda. according to the project manager sprint 0 will take weeks or even months! these people really need to stop saying they are agile. The pace of anything happening is horrible. Sprints taking months.... welcome to the government way of doing things!

And what sprint 0 is all about? Onboarding. That's right they need months jystvto give laptops to developers. As a guy coming from a start up i get heart attack every time they rape vocabulary with agile, sprints, scrum master or even daily stand ups that should be renamed to hour long meeting about why we failed again...

You really need to show me where The Founding Fathers say that Freedom is Speech is out there to talk about weather while enjoying tea. The Freedom of Speech is there to talk about dangerous, unpopular ideas without the Fear of Prosecution. And that's what PC killed. Example: try having any type od scientific discourse even in a medical field about DNA differences among races that cause higher rates of lung disease among blacks. Just plain stupid. And I agree that future generations will be laughing at PC as much as they laugh at MacArthur communist witch hunt from 1950s.

Stalin was looking for excuses to kill people. For example in 1937 - way before World War 2 started in Europe - he ordered murdering of all officers in the Red Army. If I remember exactly over 30,000 people were killed. There was no enemy for Russia at that time. There was no war going on. Nothing. Just Stalin's paranoia.

Robespierre on the other hand was governing France that was on a verge of a civil war: monarchists vs. republicans/liberals/democrats. He was governing France that was in state of war with basically whole of Europe. Six foreign powers if I remember correctly attacked France at the same time trying to restore the monarchy. With monarchist in France - French people - supporting the foreign powers. You tell me there is no difference? Please elaborate.

This article presents typical left-wing German point of view to the point of predictability. As a dual Polish/US citizen I understand and can relate to a lot of this what the article author says, but on the other hand what is striking in German liberal left is this: world is nice, safe place and any indications of terrors done by communists, or terrorists, etc. are widely exaggareted. I remember how I lived in Communistic Poland and during the Martial Law imposed by Communist Generals in 1980s Reagan not only called them Evil, he also started helping Polish resistance including food donations. I was one of these little kids really grateful for American food I got through a local church courtesy of the Paranoid US Tax Payers. Thank you for that guys. I still remember this tasty yellow cheese. Will never forget it. At the same time the West German political class was downplaying the Martial Law in Poland and refuse to criticize Polish GOvernment trying to "understand". And I see they continue doing this stupid thing. On the other hand after WW2 there were some extreme changes in German society. Pacifism uber alles instead of Deutschland uber Alles. And this is stereotypical article in that sense. In the sense of "All Germans and pacifist to the point of imposing danger on themselves and others".

On the other hand I sincerely believe that the US is way over the top with the reaction to 9/11. The terrorists wanted to destroy our fundamental liberal freedoms. By taking away those freedoms the uS Government seems to be confused on which side it is really fighting for.

Mental exercise: 1. Take the text replace Ashkenazi Jew with Arian 2. Trust me they (the nazis) had they scientists to proof exactly the same but with Arians.

And see how you kidnap "science" in the same of ideology. That's actually pretty ugly.

>This isn't "the west" cowing down before China, but a private, profit-seeking news organization deciding on a more pragmatic (albeit cowardly) option after what must have been a big cost-benefit analysis.

Well, it is. Because if the US Government would have had a firm stance on protecting Freedom of Speech then the cost-analysis for Bloomberg would be - it is not worth pissing off the US Government.

The whole of Europe basically declared war on France when Robespierre was in charge. He wasn't looking for another excuse to kill a few thousand people. He couldn't have having traitors in this circumstance. People forget about historical circumstances when talking about Robespierre. He wasn't looking for excuses to kill people like Stalin. He really had no choice, the spies of these 6 countries really were there, and the country was also on the verge of civil war. And big chunks of French elites supported the outside interventions to restore monarchy. How you deal with that? By talking about gay rights? And Robespierre did know that he will die in the process. When you read him, he says it openly - I know the process will swallow me - he accepted that. All I'm saying is, this is what we need now, if we don't want to continue on this path of cultural suicide.

Radicalism isn't always a bad thing. The problem with the current Western civilization is that we traded radicalism for cynism and liberty for safety. This has nothing to do with education. Goring was very well educated. Most of the population in any country of the world will turn into angry blood thirsty mob - as soon as you leave them without choice. Look at Golden Dawn and Greece. It's not like Greeks becamse angry blood thirsty mob overnight. It was a process of radicalisation in the wrong direction. And if good people in Greece won't wake up and stand up radically for the liberal values the Greece will be lost. And this will be precisely because Greek elites that represent Liberal way of thinking are cynical about their own values. They don't look like they believe in them. They don't look like they believe in anything. And that's not a political class that you will vote for in a crisis. For the crisis you need someone with a balls and vision, not someone mumbling about political correctness and gay rights.

Radicalism is like a knife. In bad hands or minds it will surely do more harm than good, but giving up on it altogether isn't wise. Especially when you are a good guy and refuse to be radical in your efforts to spread good.

couldn't agree more

This is the fundamental problem that the West has: we don't have jacobins. We don't have political and intellectual elites that aren't cynical about our own values. It is not like we will punish some extreme Muslim treating his wife like a slave with a jail time. We will just be politically correct and say that's his culture. Liberalism doesn't go well with radicalism for some reason. Radical Liberals like Robespierre, Danton are needed. People who believe in our Western values enough to die in their name. If we are cynical about ourselves how on Earth can we compete with people who commit suicide because they believe in their values more than their life. That's something we really need. We give up our values for nothing. Who cares about China? Our value is freedom of speech and people who don't believe in freedom of speech were guillotined in Revolutionary France. I wish we could have elites today that would be as serious about freedom, liberalism and capitalism as French Revolutionaries were. I hope I will live to see it. Just tired of the apathy in the US. Wake up!

US is number 51 in life expectancy according to CIA Factbook. All the 50 countries that have higher life expectancy have public health care system. Look at it from competitiveness standpoint: your capitalistic approach to the healthcare yields worse results that public one. I mean those are facts. Now, you can obviously come up with all kinds of theories why it is not so, but ignoring this statistic just make you look like someone with a lot of fairy tales to tell. 51. Are you telling me that all those who are better have worse system? Is that right?

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

Nonsense. Us was #1 in life expectancy. This year it is on place 51. It's not like racial mix-up in the US changed so much since 1960s that you suddenly dropped 50 places. It's been a process.

Of course, you might have bright spots here and there. Like premature babies are so common for women after 30s and 40s that sure you have to do something about once women started to work and be pregnant much later in life. It's not like we need it as much in Poland where still majority of pregnancies is for women in their 20s.

All I'm saying you are 51 on the list. You may have all kinds of excuses for that, but it's very, very weak.

US has lower life expectancy than Poland. It has lower life expectancy than any of the 19 developed nations. It has life expectancy at the level of developing Eastern European nations like Poland, Slovakia, Estonia, etc. At the same time US spends the biggest percentage of its GDP on healthcare. More than Germany does, more than France doesm more than UK does, more than Japan does. And people in France and Japan live on average almost 10 years longer than in the US. And then US asks its citizens to pay for coverage extra on top of the taxes out of which 1 dollar out of 10 was spent on healthcare anyway.

Now, you tell me why this is such a great system because obviously I must be missing something. Because US as the only country from the list above has free-makret system while the others are 100% taxation sponsored, a.k.a. free. Tell me. Dying to find out.

I work at "agile" project for a federal government agency. These people need to stop using words meaning of which is a mystery to them. For them Agile means we have a daily meeting with developers now to get status updates and throw even more stuff on them.

Right now working on "sprint zero" which exists to 'determine deliveries'. I mean they still operate it as they have always done. They just stole another buzz word that sounds cool. Yes Mr. President we do agile. And because Mr. President doesn't know what agile is, the agency doesn't know what it is, so we can continue business as usual, just make sure that our contractors speak sprints instead of iterations. Stupid.

33% chance of wasting a week is incredibly low? How came?

I'm sure that the political decision to capture top Nazis alive, so they can have a free trial, did in fact cost more lives too. But I will not buy for a second the idea that we killed Osama on the spot because of the perceived higher risks for the Navy SEALs. I'm just not buying it.

I think, that if the US made a political decision to give this monster - Osama - a chance for a free trial, as well as other Al Quaida members that would be a step in the right direction as far as winning the war goes. Because you play by your own rules. When opposite is being done, like killing children who are US citizens by Presidential Order just because their parent was a suspected terrorist killed a week earlier - that's like we're Al Quaida now. Because we run this war the same way they do. Like terrorists. The whole point of 9/11 was that we give up our values - freedom, democracy, rights, capitalism - and we did just that. We became exactly what they wanted us to become. Instead of forcing them to play by our rules. Can you imagine bin Laden having a trial? It's the concept from our civilization. That even the worst monster - like a master mind behind the Holocaust - deserves a trial. That's what differentiates our civilization from theirs. Applying this rule to Osama, and him partaking in it, is showing the Arab world the suporiority of our system. Going there and killing him like a dog when he isn't armed, just execution mafia style, is showing them we're not better.

At this level of decision, I believe that the political decisions always overweight military ones. These are the top SEALs, this dude would stand no chance this or another way. Forcing a trial on him and his organization and sentencing to hanging for crimes against the humanity - this would resonate much more and have better outcome as long as winning the war goes. You show them - you put planes into buildings and kill thousands of innocents - and we still give you honest trial. That's what made us great. Believing in freedom. I think Arabs would be totally shocked to see that. They'd be more inclined to accept superiority of our system. And maybe that's why Germans in WW2 didn't fight after some point. They felt like moral losers. Like the evil that was defeated by something good. I think that's what we're lacking in this war. And without it, I doubt we will ever win it.

Yep, if you can kill American citizens without the right to trial, without the right to the attorney, if you label nuns terrorists, if you kill children of suspects just in case - and it is all lawful - that's insane. Not someone pointing it out.

Every time you occupy a country there will be guerrillas and insurgents. So, I'm not really sure how this is unconventional in this context. It's absolutely normal, natural and to be expected.

With the regard of the enemy of state a so-called terrorist in the US today I have the same fundamental problems as with the enemy of the state called Jew in the Nazi Germany: 1. No definition of terrorist, hence anyone can be one including 82-old nuns: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/10/protesting-n... 2. "Terrorists" are devoid of all human and citizen rights. No right to free trial, no right to the attorney, no right to be not tortured, not right to be suspected innocent unless proven guilty, etc.

So now the dirty work of killing these quite often completely innocent people is handed over to those squads. And they just remind me of "special operations" done by SS Totenkopf. Go there kill a boy because his daddy is a suspected terrorist. And then kill their whole family too. All I'm saying there is difference in scale, but the legal ramifications are very similar. What stops the Government from labeling you a terrorist and targeting you? How will you proof your innocence without a trial and attorney?

I don't think you understood. There is something that we know makes sense from a military perspective. I.e. Osama is dangerous and must be dealt with at the spot. I understand what you saying. You didn't understand my response which is: this what you described is and must be a political decision and not military one. It was a political decision to shoot him like a dog at the spot. The excuse you give for that action could have been given regarding Himmler too. It wasn't because at that time it was important to us that even monsters like Himmler - personally responsible for overseeing Holocaust, and actually coming up with the idea itself - were given a chance of defense in a trial. Because that was the decision made by the USA President (among other leaders) at that time at the Yalta Conference. You expected me to come on real terms with your cheap excuse? First, stop your own cynism, and come to the terms with the fact that it was a political decision and then we can talk about the reasons for or against it. Don't give me this BS here as I'm some kind of a naive 6 year old.

> First of all, if Himmler and Goebbels were hell bent on fighting to the death, they almost certainly would have been shot and killed by U.S. forces. Perhaps not though, because high-ranking German officials aren't known for blowing themselves up, so there's a much better chance of taking them alive even if they do fight back.

It was decided precisely by all Allied Forces: USA, UK, USSR during Yalta Conference in 1945 that some kind of International Tribunal will be established to give the Nazis elite a fair process. Mind you, that was after 70m people dead and horrors of the war. When Aushwitz was months old history, not years old. And they still gave them free process. Why? Because they believed in the values of our civilization. Once the political will like that is there, we are morally victorious as well. We just show to the world that our values are different. What you show by killing innocent 16 year old boy whose only fault was to have a father that was suspected of terrorist acticity is that you yourself don't believe in your values anymore and are cynical about them. And this makes radical muslims case in their countries of origin this much stronger. "You see, they are just like us, they kill innocent children too, they are just hypocrites and cynical people when they talk about the freedom, democracy, due process. There are no such things in the world". They can say it, and you know what? They'll be right! On this level we already lost big time, there is no slightest shadow of a doubt about it in my mind. They are ready to commit suicide in the name of their values. We don't give a crap about our own. How exactly you want to win this war of civilizations in this circumstance? Robespierre was ready to die for Liberal values. And he did. Dantone was ready to die for Liberal values. And he did. People are not going to die in the name of cynism. Capture Bin Laden and give him free, honest, open free trial. That's what people who actually believe in what they preach would do. If we don't believe in these things anymore, why on Earth you think that we can even remotely win?

> Another thing to consider, is that after the Germans surrendered, they largely stopped trying to kill us. They lost, and we occupied their territory in a relatively peaceful manner. The same cannot be said for Afghanistan or Pakistan, so you really can't compare the situations.

Talibans didn't lost. You ask me, they are winning. Winning like a little fly being still alive wins when you try to kill it with a machine gun. Just by its existence is a proof of your inability to win using the current strategy.

Yep. Exactly like SS Totenkopf. Nothing conventional there too.

Of course not. It's not like they are Himmler's or Goebbels that clearly deserved fair trial for starting a war that costed 70 million deaths. We don't give that to people who blow up buildings killing thousands.

At some point we started to be very cynical about our own values, like liberalism for that example. I wish we had taken our own values more to the heart. That's the only way to win these things morally as well.

Yeah. Like SS Totenkopf and the Jews. The enemy might be anywhere and there is no friendly territory.

The key point from my post is that there is really no biking infrastructure in most of the US, so riding a nice bike to the office in fact becomes a statement. Because riding a bike in let's say Phoenix is just plain dangerous. You don't do it there, period. It's just not convenient to the point where it looks like you are making a left-wing centered statement. It's like driving Hummer H1 in Brussels city centre. One could argue all day long they do it for the passengers safety but the reality is that a strong political statement would be sent (i.e. I have money and don't care about the green craze).

The pace at which the USA destroys the remainders of its credibility is astonishing.

Just timing is politically too convenient to do it now: http://www.activistpost.com/2013/04/obama-approves-epas-high...

Do you think that these 300 saved lives of others because of what they did? Do you think it was necessary at that point just to - I'm sorry for putting it that way - sacrifice them ?

My point is that the Government should be the one trying to resolve that issue. Not Tepco. My claim is we would be all better off if a state could throw in its resources to help with the Disaster after effects. They seem just to sit there and blame Tepco instead of doing their job.