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Messages - More Than Mortal

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6421
Serious / Re: Holy shit it's going down (fucking Russia)
« on: April 01, 2015, 11:59:42 AM »
I can't tell if this is a joke or if you legit fucked up that URL.

6422
Serious / Re: Serious personal question to LGBT users
« on: April 01, 2015, 11:40:14 AM »
Look I think if people can receive the news that their family died in a plane crash by text that you can text or call your sister if you think a phone call will go terribly.

But I recommend you call her. Just be honest and say your mother told you and you wanted her to know you don't have a problem with it at all and that you're still her brother and nothing can change that.

That's the route I'd go with. Bringing it up all sneaky like is just weird and will almost always come out forced and make it seem like you don't genuinely support her.

But that's my opinion based on my experiences and what I think would work best. Maybe I'm wrong.
I support this course of action, really. You know your sister better than we do, but just being direct and honest might be the right way to go.

6423
My opinion? Israel shouldn't exist. It's nothing against Jews. I say this because it's brought unnecessary suffering to them when America was practically a safe haven for them.
I actually agree. I especially disagree with the Zionist idea that the Jews deserve a country all of their own.

But, history is history. We can't change the fact that Israel exists in the here and now. If anyone's really to blame for the poor formation of Israel, it's the British Empire.

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But the fact of the matter is Israel is a terrible place with terrible people and lost their moral high ground many decades ago.
I can't disagree that Israel has its faults. But I can't agree that they don't have the moral high ground.

I'd take a xenophobic Orthodox Jew from Israel over a fundamentalist Muslim from Gaza any day. But, fortunately for Israel, its worst elements don't exactly rule it. They give Arabs full rights of citizenship, allow them to serve in the Knesset and they have one on the Supreme Court. And they don't fire rockets from besides residential areas, schools and hospitals to make the Palestinians look bad when they retaliate.

6424
Can you imagine all the things we could pay for if we didn't give Israel money?
You could stop funding Hamas through the PA first. That seems like a smart first move.

6425
Israel really is as bad as Palestine.
Nowhere near.

While I oppose the settlements in the West Bank, we shouldn't forget that the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank is legitimate under international law. Hamas is a disgusting, fundamentalist organisation that wilfully kills its own citizens to make Israel look bad. There will never be a Palestinian state so long as Hamas is in the mix.

6426
Bloomberg
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(Bloomberg) -- While the world remains fixated on the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, the Obama administration is facing another foreign policy showdown in the United Nations Security Council.

The administration has signaled that it might abandon the decades-long U.S. policy of protecting Israel at the UN and back a Security Council resolution laying out terms for a two-state solution to the almost 67-year-old dispute between the Jewish state and the Palestinians.

Robert Malley, the Middle East director for President Barack Obama’s National Security Council, told at least one European nation two weeks ago that the administration is more willing than it has ever been to work on a Security Council resolution defining the parameters for a Mideast peace agreement, according to a report on the conversation to superiors by a Washington-based European diplomat. A copy of the report was viewed by Bloomberg News.

The reported comments by Malley are “completely false,” Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said in an e-mail. “Rob has not had any conversation on this topic with any European diplomats then or since.”

Obama, though, has left no doubt that he’s considering whether to bend the U.S. policy of vetoing UN resolutions that Israel opposes and, in the process, punish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for pledging that he will ensure that no Palestinian state is created anytime soon. Netanyahu also opposes the talks with Iran, warning Tuesday that the deal the U.S. seeks would “pave the way” for the Islamic Republic to develop nuclear weapons.

Obama’s Evaluation

“We have to do an evaluation of where we are” on Mideast peace efforts, Obama said at a news conference on March 24.

Past U.S. Security Council vetoes were “predicated on this idea that the two-state solution is the best outcome,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest has said. “Now our ally in these talks has said that they are no longer committed to that solution. That means we need to reevaluate our position.”

Obama said he’ll wait for Netanyahu to form his new coalition government by the preliminary April 22 deadline before announcing the conclusions of his Mideast peace policy reassessment.

While Palestinians and Europeans are excited by the prospect of U.S. support for a two-state solution, they remain wary of how much political and diplomatic latitude Obama has to follow through.

Republican lawmakers are promising to fight back if Obama qualifies U.S. support for Israel at the UN. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has warned of a “violent backlash by the Congress, bipartisan in nature,” if Obama lets a Security Council resolution defining the terms of a peace agreement go forward without first getting both sides to agree.

Purse Strings

“The last thing I want is to be put in a box where I have to take the UN on,” Graham told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on March 23, reminding the audience that as chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, he has the power to suspend America’s $654 million annual contribution to the world body.

UN diplomats and Obama’s former Mideast peace negotiators say the president has two realistic options.

First, the U.S. could back a French plan to draft a Security Council resolution that would set a binding timeframe in which to define the parameters of a two-state solution based on Israel’s 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as their shared capital, said two knowledgeable Security Council diplomats.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on March 27 that in the “coming weeks” France will restart discussions on such a text, which ended in December due to U.S. objections.

Cornerstone Resolution

Robert Serry, the UN’s departing Mideast peace envoy, urged the Security Council last week to update its 1967 Resolution 242, which has been a cornerstone of almost 50 years of diplomatic efforts. It was adopted after Israel captured East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights and Gaza from its Arab enemies in the Six-Day War that year. Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt after the two countries signed a peace treaty in 1979.

Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Egypt, said “a carefully crafted resolution on parameters” is the most realistic option for the U.S. to take, “provided that it is balanced and doesn’t go into so much detail as to prejudge negotiations.”

The biggest challenges will be whether to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, which the Palestinians and the French oppose, and what security arrangements should be included to ensure that a new Palestinian state couldn’t be a launching pad for attacks against Israel, said the two diplomats.

The second U.S. option is to introduce a new draft Security Council resolution that outlines no parameters. It would call on both parties to make progress toward resuming negotiations and condemn activities such as Israel’s settlement-building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank for obstructing the path to peace, said an Arab diplomat at the UN who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

Pressuring Israel

While such a resolution is unlikely to be adopted, a draft would pressure Israel and Netanyahu to at least freeze settlement construction, said three Security Council diplomats who asked not to be named commenting on sensitive matters.

Such actions also might help deter the Palestinians, at least for a time, from seeking full statehood recognition from the Security Council and membership in international treaties, or from pursuing its request that the International Criminal Court probe alleged Israeli war crimes, said the three diplomats.

‘Best Option’

Aaron David Miller, a vice president at the Wilson Center in Washington who served as a Middle East negotiator in Republican and Democratic administrations, said Obama first must determine his goals for the remainder of his term before exploring the U.S. options at the Security Council.

“The real question is, what is the best option for the administration to pursue in the next two months?” Miller said.

Adopting a UN resolution before any agreement is reached between the two parties would be useless unless the administration is ready to try to force Israel to accept a two-state solution by cutting U.S. aid to Israel, recognizing Palestine or pushing the Europeans to sanction Israel and reduce trade, Miller said.

“But I see no indication whatsoever that this administration is ready to do that,” he said.
Jesus fucking Christ.

6427
The Flood / Re: Orange Tic Tacs or The others?
« on: April 01, 2015, 10:32:31 AM »
Orange and lime.

6428
Serious / Re: Wait, why do we hate Bill Maher again?
« on: April 01, 2015, 10:27:48 AM »
Looking back to when Christopher Hitchens was on and displayed pro Iraq War sentiments, the audience literally booed him to the point where he flipped them off.
YouTube


Hitchens has got some fucking balls.

6429
Serious / Re: Wait, why do we hate Bill Maher again?
« on: April 01, 2015, 10:25:11 AM »
YouTube


I've always enjoyed this.

6430
Serious / Re: The Iraq War
« on: April 01, 2015, 10:20:41 AM »
And to everyone else, just searching this page alone:

Most of that is probably me.

6431
Serious / Re: Wait, why do we hate Bill Maher again?
« on: April 01, 2015, 10:19:38 AM »
I don't usually like Maher, but that was pretty spot-on.

6432
Serious / Re: Wait, why do we hate Bill Maher again?
« on: April 01, 2015, 10:12:33 AM »
Who the fuck is the annoying bitch with that autistic laugh.

6433
Serious / Re: The Iraq War
« on: April 01, 2015, 10:08:15 AM »
Democratization is the most obvious outcome of liberation by a Western country. And indeed, it was certainly one of the US's primary reasons for invading Iraq.
Oh. My. God.

I DON'T CARE why the US invaded. I care about the CONSEQUENCES of the invasion. If the US wanted to democratise Iraq, fantastic. Irrelevant to me. Again, you're equating support for the prosecution of the war with implicit support for the actions of the Bush Administration.

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The US has more than enough of its own resources to reasonably sustain itself, but curiously its dependence on other countries skyrocketed during the Clinton and Bush years.
Gee, I wonder if that has a simple and straightforward economic explanation.

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But how can you say that factually incorrect claims about the threat of Iraq (which you've still yet to refute) would somehow demand its prioritization over literally genocide.
I don't think it does. How have you not already gleaned that I think something substantial should've been done in Darfur. All I said was that I'm not sure the situation in Darfur was worse than Iraq in humanitarian terms. I think our prior diplomatic involvement gave us better grounds with which to involve ourselves in Iraq.

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NK is cushy with China so it's unlikely we'll actually do something about them unless China decides Kim has gone off the wall.
Exactly.

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You support it but then... you don't for some inane reason.
Jesus fucking tittycrackers.

Let me put it to you in the best way I possibly can: I support the need to get the deficit down in the UK, I don't support the current government raising the bank levy to help with that.

Is that a simple enough analogy for you?


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How many countries do we know of that have been spying on the emails of countries that call us their ally? It's like patting them on the back in friendly way and putting a 'kick me' sign on their back.
Yes, because countries should trust their allies implicitly and we can all dance around a tree singing kumbaya.

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If you believe preposterous claims such as that, then I know the perfect place where you can hone your abilities as a logical gymnast.
You know that pyramid you sent me, with the different 'levels' of argument? Yeah, this belongs right at the fucking bottom.

Abu Ghraib was a tragedy, and yet it's not really on anybody's mind any more. Hardly a diplomatic meltdown. The Agadir Crisis was a diplomatic meltdown. . . This? Not so much.

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He lied. Why do you insist on handwaving that?
Okay then, he lied. Fuck Bush. Bush is a moron.

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Iraq was hyped up the US government. The situation in Darfur was leagues worse than it was in Iraq.
Any evidence? Let's not forget just how guilty Saddam was of genocide, too.

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Darfur's tragedy is that it doesn't have any oil.
And Bosnia had the same tragedy when the neocon Right didn't want to touch it. Yeah, it sucks. But that's why I'm not part of the neocon Right. Or at least the "establishment" neocons. We were right to intervene in Bosnia, despite the protestations of the slug Henry Kissinger.

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Considering the fact that we're still in Iraq 12 years
Are you mad? US forces left late 2011. But of course, that doesn't fit into your narrative of the US military trying to constantly find excuses to keep us in that region. I've said, several times, how toppling a regime is not a five year deal. You must, of course, be referring to our involvement with ISIL. I don't really care. The going's good.

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Yeah, and I'm not going to list all the consequences all over again.
Because the last time you did that I made a mockery of them.

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Your batshit view of the world allowed it to happen.
What the FUCK are you talking about?

6434
Serious / Re: This blog is great
« on: April 01, 2015, 09:18:51 AM »
That was legitimately funny.

The sad thing is that I couldn't tell it wasn't kosher until Chomsky came in.

6435
Serious / Re: Serious personal question to LGBT users
« on: April 01, 2015, 08:13:12 AM »
Exorcism.

6436
Serious / Re: Boycotting states to protest legislation
« on: March 31, 2015, 07:15:47 PM »
It's sort of like how Thatcher didn't want to impose sanctions on Apartheid South Africa since it would disproportionately harm blacks the most. Boycotting the state isn't going to help anybody.

If they actually want to do anything, they should be calling for boycotts of the businesses who use their freedoms in bigoted ways. But like most slacktivists they're probably too lazy to think that much into it.

6437
The Flood / Re: Mmm mmmmmm, Tara Reid in a bikini.
« on: March 31, 2015, 04:49:20 PM »
I think my penis just committed suicide.

6438
UKIP is a joke bro. The only good thing is Farage's hilarious speeches in the EU.
And the Euroscepticism.

6439
A question about UKIP; are they also involved in paramilitary activities like Golden Dawn?
No, none of our parties are.

6440
I swear you bounce from Conservatives to UKIP every single fucking day.
I think UKIP is a good political force; Euroscepticism is a good thing to lay out on the table, as well as things like abolishing inheritance tax and shifting around the income tax brackets. But the one thing I've always disagreed with UKIP on is their attitude to immigration.

I'd only vote for UKIP if I was confident the incumbent Tory in my constituency would be re-elected (which he probably will be) only to increase their share of the vote and encourage a Conservative minority government to ally with UKIP and the DUP.

I've never wanted UKIP to even take my own constituency, let alone be a part of whatever government is formed next.

6441
Serious / And just like that, my opinion of UKIP drops dramatically
« on: March 31, 2015, 01:51:18 PM »
UKIP leader Farage pledges 90 percent immigration cut

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London (AFP) - The head of the UK Independence Party on Tuesday promised to slash net migration into Britain by 90 percent as he unveiled an election poster showing escalators riding up the White Cliffs of Dover.

In a campaign stop at the ferry port city, Nigel Farage accused Prime Minister David Cameron of being "dishonest", arguing that Britain could not control immigration while staying in the European Union.

Farage said he would cut net migration to around 30,000 people a year from the current level of some 300,000 a year. The Conservatives had promised to reduce the numbers to under 100,000 a year.

"I'm saying a net level of about 30,000 a year is roughly what we had for 50 years from 1950 almost until the turn of the century," Farage said.

"It was a level at which this country was comfortable and that integration was possible and it didn't, crucially, compress the wages."

Farage's party campaigns against large-scale immigration and for Britain to pull out of the EU, saying that both have hit working-class Britons hard.

The party is expected to win only a handful of seats in the May 7 election, according to the latest opinion polls, but could have take away votes from the ruling Conservatives in key seats.

Farage has said that UKIP could support a Conservative minority government in future but only if the 2017 deadline for an EU membership referendum promised by Cameron is brought forward to this year.

6442
The Flood / Re: HONORARY AMERICANS THREAD
« on: March 31, 2015, 12:28:45 PM »
Britbongistan. Bear in mind both of my mother's parents are American.
FUCKEN IMMGRANTS

6443
The Flood / Re: CURRANTLY LISTENAN?
« on: March 31, 2015, 12:27:09 PM »
YouTube

6445
The Flood / Re: Why did you pick your avatar(s)?
« on: March 31, 2015, 10:41:05 AM »
Because the European Union can go fuck itself.

6446
The Flood / that nigel farage is nothing but a slimy snake
« on: March 31, 2015, 10:40:23 AM »

6447
Serious / Re: Why I oppose the European Union
« on: March 31, 2015, 10:27:02 AM »
I am not sure, do you really think that NATO would be successful at doing that? If it actually was then the ideas of an unified EU military wouldn't be starting to get more trending as of late, don't you think?
I think it would be capable.

Only, however, if, as Door says, there is a punishment mechanism for those who don't meet the 2pc spending requirement.

6448
Serious / Re: Why I oppose the European Union
« on: March 31, 2015, 10:23:07 AM »
Yeah, but would it actually be better for Europe to return into a rabble of nation states without a central organization focused on the area?
I think a higher degree of involvement from NATO could keep Europe united in matters of defence.

6449
Serious / Re: A hypothetical question in regards to money/currency
« on: March 31, 2015, 10:15:07 AM »
This is pretty much the economy we'll have post-scarcity, with the caveat that nobody will actually be working but still have access to the goods and services.

6450
Serious / Re: Why I oppose the European Union
« on: March 31, 2015, 10:12:35 AM »
So, how would you feel about an actual federal Europe?
oh god kill me

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