All right, here's the plan. We'll create a diversion by throwing the planet's orbital axis off by thirteen degrees. Actually, ten degrees should do it. You don't want to throw it off too much, because, well, you know.
Now, once we've lowered the gravitational fields by, say, forty gigawatts and secured the outer perimeter... securely... well, I think we'll be just fine.

Any questions?

/me puts on a monocle

Ok, then! Move out! Lock and load! Happy birthday and stay frosty!

I'm in.

.. say, this is some good coffee! I thought we ran out of it?

I found some more. It's in the orange container.

*SPIT-TAKE*

You.. fool!

/me falls on the floor

That's.. anti-Finn medicine!

x_x

Hey, Finnumubeki, one more thing.

Yes?

I'd like to name my own price for your big, sweet ass!

D:

Hey, feeger, what's this thing on my head?

It's a ... crown? You're the king.

That's right. I'm the king.

The Monkey King.

Ya know, feeger, I'm beginning to enjoy this thread more than Jay Leno.

I've got some bad news for you, sunshine. Feeger had to go the loo, he's back in the igloo.

And he sent me along as the surrogate FGR.

And I'm gonna find out where you, GBK, really stand!

Oh, hell.

I, uhh.

I'm standing over here.

... get yourself up against the wall.

Eugh, that's it. I'm not doing this anymore. This whole thing sucks.

And the worms ate into his br-


Wait, what are you not doing anymore?

This! This whole thing with the trolls and the fan fiction and the annoying people. We're not teenagers.

I knew this was a dumb idea.

But what about my unreasonable demands?

You didn't list any.
Looks like this thread is going directly to the archive.
The /dev/null archive!

Please bring me some juice...

I just had the most horrible dream. In space.

DOJ absolutely. Dragnet programs are worthless for legitimate SIGINT since the potential for these programs has always been very obvious. From what little we know, the NSA material is mostly traded to other western countries in exchange for information about American citizens, which is then given to the DOJ for parallel construction or to the private sector for industrial espionage. Which is all tremendously illegal, but lol if u.

The War Department too, mostly because it's the only desk job where burnt-out officers can earn six figures, but the fact that the NSA hurts so many innocent people is a huge bonus.

I imagine that most complicit politicians are just stupefied. Keep in mind, these are mostly average people; politicians are a product of the same culture and educational system that produced us, and most people are raised to implicitly trust police officers and soldiers (el oh ****ing el). If a highly-decorated soldier comes into an average person's office, on the first day of their scary new job they're grossly unqualified to do, and spins a grim tale about all of the eldritch horrors that await any country that does not spy upon, torture, and execute its own citizens without trial, it's a lot more likely that the average person is going to sign away a lot of your rights than it is that the average Keith B. Alexander is immediately hospitalized for delusional psychosis.

I'm not discounting that some politicians are being blackmailed, but I really don't think it takes that much for the NSA to get their way.

Are there any JKEdit users on the forums tonight?

Get them up against the wall...

Now this one browsing the Asheron's Call Forum, he doesn't look right to me...

Get him up against the wall...

And that one's looking for CAGE!

And that one for JK3DO!

Who let all these people out of their secluded chatroom!?

And this one's making 32x32 MATs!

And this one's got RBots!

If I had my way, I'd have all you play TODOA!

*GUITAR!*

I miss when Asheron's Call wasn't unplayably bad.

Reminds me of that famous quote from Eisenhower's farewell address

Sorry, don't know how to play this video :(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bqr5DVx3dw

Of course, it should be noted that judges in the U.S. have apparently been bullied by the White House for trying to rule against NSA surveillance: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/us/white-house-tries-to-prevent-judge-from-ruling-on-surveillance-efforts.html?_r=0

As if the complete mayhem of the legislators isn't enough, it seems there is seriously a breach of the American Constitution. I'm more concerned about this than anything, and the implication that it's probably happened more than a few times, because, well, it's clear that the American government is literally becoming totalitarian. So long, Roman Republic, hello Roman Empire.

And yeah, I'm pretty sure the scare tactics work on the politicians. I mean, they are after all some of the most obedient people, their job is to serve the interests of their campaign funders, the financial sector, and the military Keynesianism that lines the pockets of the Gingrich district people and so forth

As for me, well, I suppose I'll vote for Mickey Mouse for my district, but I live in the state that loves to reelect Dianne Buttlicker Feinstein so she can make 1984 journalism a reality by making "legitimate journalism" a privilege, because, if you're not government approved then, well, **** you.

By the way, have you noticed an ever-increasing amount of right-wing lunatics? I mean, even here in California, I have a neighbor who spends 24/7 in the News Corporation echo chamber and literally denounces his U.S. citizenship, flies a California flag, claims he's exempt from federal law and they're stealing his money through taxes.

White House likes the black ops/dragnet **** because inside their bubble it's the only actionable information they have. That, and it's not like Obama has a lot else to do besides **** with federal judges. I mean, what else is Obama going to idle away his time doing, signing bills from congress? lol

It's a ****ty ****ing do-nothing job and I am consistently astonished at how much perception of authority is heaped upon it. If anything leads to American dictatorship some day it'll be the public expectation of dictator-like powers vested in the executive.

It's been totalitarian for a long time.

Basically a republican, but

- Gets consistently re-elected by progressive Californians because she is a Democrat, and
- Is tolerated by the Democratic Party because she gets re-elected

Democracy is a failure.

Cascadian independence has been a thing for about a million years. The Free Citizen/man-of-the-land/dickbutte/whatever movement is strongly associated with evangelical/prosperity gospel Christianity though, just like amway and vector marketing and other MLM scams, and that is growing.

idk. imo any place where people are still engaged enough to have strong opinions, even if they're terrible and scary, is a step up. In my country people are becoming disengaged with everything, like our social glue is coming apart.

It's always fun to see your endless cynicism expressed. Yeah, I suppose that when I think about it, the president is mostly a P.R. figurehead for his elite constituents who does what he's told



Increasingly totalitarian, sure, but they're far more secretive about it than say, 40 years ago, which is probably a good sign.


Like um, the Wiemar republic? I could see the 'government is evil' types forming a fascist regime in a couple of days given the right incentives.

It's not cynicism, and it has nothing to do with any 'elites'. The United States has a very weak executive, by design. The scope creep of the executive under Bush was a subject of great concern, if you've forgotten. Lord knows I've tried, but I don't think there's enough drambuie in the universe.

The president can veto bills, nominate appointees for certain positions, ask questions, and lead the military. None of which he's done a lot of. So outside of his extra-constitutional roles as democratic party mascot and honorary whip for the republican house majority, he probably has an awful lot of time to listen to very stupid west point ex-wunderkind schizos explaining why they need a trillion dollars to record exabytes of mathematical noise in order to find THE EVIDENCE WHICH IS DEFINITELY THERE I AM SURE OF IT OR ELSE WE'LL HAVE 9/11 2: THE SEARCH FOR MORE MONEY AND IT WILL BE YOUR FAULT.

They were plenty secretive under Hoover, and only slightly more limited in scope because they didn't have the technology. Hoover spied on everybody; he was just as insane as Alexander. Of course, Hoover will be remembered for more than "was coincidentally in the same West Point graduating class as three other disgraced generals, each embodying a different cardinal sin", so.... Where was I going with this again?

Why would minarchists support state corporatism exactly?

Edit: This isn't taught right in schools and I can offer some pointed guesses as to why. There were a lot of little issues in the Weimar Republic but the big ones that led to its "fall" were: 1.) trying to recover from a protracted contraction ("the great depression") with a fiscal policy based on triggering a deflationary spiral, i.e. radical austerity, 2.) an established precedent of the executive creating and abusing exceptional powers to successfully institute unpopular policy despite the opposition of the rest of government, and 3.) widespread voter intimidation and disenfranchisement.

It wasn't politically-engaged 'crazies' who created the Third Reich, it was a horrendously broken democracy. And it wasn't that different from what we have today.

Don't forget to change your pants.

Originally posted by Jon`C:

It's not cynicism, and it has nothing to do with any 'elites'. The United States has a very weak executive, by design. The scope creep of the executive under Bush was a subject of great concern, if you've forgotten. Lord knows I've tried, but I don't think there's enough drambuie in the universe.

The president can veto bills, nominate appointees for certain positions, ask questions, and lead the military. None of which he's done a lot of. So outside of his extra-constitutional roles as democratic party mascot and honorary whip for the republican house majority, he probably has an awful lot of time to listen to very stupid west point ex-wunderkind schizos explaining why they need a trillion dollars to record exabytes of mathematical noise in order to find THE EVIDENCE WHICH IS DEFINITELY THERE I AM SURE OF IT OR ELSE WE'LL HAVE 9/11 2: THE SEARCH FOR MORE MONEY AND IT WILL BE YOUR FAULT.

I guess once the financial crisis was mostly solved, there wasn't much for Obama to do. No major wars, no crises. I guess his motivation is to look busy? Who knows

They couldn't even catch the Tsaernev brothers when they were tipped off by Russian intelligence

In case you're reading this, guys, I love big brother

Originally posted by Jon`C:

They were plenty secretive under Hoover, and only slightly more limited in scope because they didn't have the technology. Hoover spied on everybody; he was just as insane as Alexander. Of course, Hoover will be remembered for more than "was coincidentally in the same West Point graduating class as three other disgraced generals, each embodying a different cardinal sin", so.... Where was I going with this again?

I know virtually nothing about Hoover besides the dates he was in office and that a dam was named after him. American education has a tendency to gloss over the difficult sections of American history

Originally posted by Jon`C:

Why would minarchists support state corporatism exactly?

I wouldn't exactly call them minarchists, more likely they are simple reactionaries that have been caught up in the extreme corporate-funded, anti-state, anti-labor propaganda. I would easily envision their racist "but what about me?" attitudes taking a new form fairly simply, if only the incentives were right

Originally posted by Jon`C:

Edit: This isn't taught right in schools and I can offer some pointed guesses as to why. There were a lot of little issues in the Weimar Republic but the big ones that led to its "fall" were: 1.) trying to recover from a protracted contraction ("the great depression") with a fiscal policy based on triggering a deflationary spiral, i.e. radical austerity, 2.) an established precedent of the executive creating and abusing exceptional powers to successfully institute unpopular policy despite the opposition of the rest of government, and 3.) widespread voter intimidation and disenfranchisement.

It wasn't politically-engaged 'crazies' who created the Third Reich, it was a horrendously broken democracy. And it wasn't that different from what we have today.

Don't forget to change your pants.

You don't think the crazies would take to a violent revolution? They seem to love stocking up guns for The Inevitable Race War of 2020 (© 2000-2014 Free Speech Systems, LLC), don't seem to regard history or facts, etc., it seems like they'd be the prime demographic for it.

Yes, I also love all of the many overpaid chronic underachievers who decide which among us are the great satan, and I definitely do not at all view the unskilled, minimally-technical tasks they perform to be the most useless, wasteful, socially-damaging welfare program we've ever invented.

J. Edgar Hoover, not Herbert Hoover.

The backbone of their movement is David Koch's unwavering faith in capitalism and minarchism, neither of which leaves much room for a system which is fundamentally at odds with finance and other forms of rent seeking.

What does the mechanism of change have to do with the system of government that results?

What did he do, besides COINTELPRO?


These people are not ideologically driven. They are obedient to what they perceive as authority. How else would you have an army of "free thinking objectivists" that are incessantly loyal to right-wing media? The point is that they only believe in minarchism because of minarchist propagandizing, not because they would arrive at these conclusions if they knew how to learn independently.


Wouldn't it have alot? How would you reason that the mechanism of change wouldn't directly influence the system being changed?

....isn't that enough? What did Hitler do, besides genocide?

Because the authority figures they blindly follow are ideologically driven.


America - Republic - violent overthrow
Russia - Stalinism - violent overthrow
Germany - Nazism - parliamentary democracy and popularly elected coalition government
etc.

I was wondering if that was the limits of his *******ry. Yes, being in charge of operations to assassinate black panther leaders and subvert socialism is incredibly wrong


And what happens when they adopt new authority figures? Or if the authority figures they follow change their stance?



And Nazism was extremely popular during those elections, more so than the American revolution and certainly more than Stalin's regime

Isn't it funny how threads evolve?

To think this discussion started because a teenage girl slapped someone with a fish. If she does get caught, I hope she claims her actions were politically motivated.

This next question is brought to you by Ol' Kentucky Shark, of Kentucky Nightmare Talkshow Liquor Corporation.

You might remember him.

Yeah, he's the fish we met earlier, right?
He's my friend too.

I like him.

Alright. Here's the question:

Who wrote the extremely famous phrase, "A shark on whiskey is mighty risky. A shark on beer is a beer engineer"?

Uhh... give up?

The answer we're looking for, gbk, is Doctor Worm.