We'll know this year, then. Phrases from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "...a group of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings demand to learn the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything from the supercomputer, Deep Thought, specially built for this purpose. It takes Deep Thought 7½ million years to compute and check the answer, which turns out to be 42."
Must see.
Stop Letting Politicians Scare You Into War in the Middle East - Reason.com: "ISIS has its hands full fighting Syrian, Iraqi, and Kurdish forces, so why the hysteria that some new and unprecedented threat faces the American people? Because irresponsible politicians know that public fear breeds public acquiescence. Yet the Obama administration must have thought that ISIS wasn't threatening enough, because during the first airstrikes in Syria, U.S. bombs also hit a hitherto unknown group said to be planning an imminent attack on America, the Khorasan Group. The first reason for skepticism is that the administration has redefined imminent also to mean not imminent. A second reason is that hardly anyone had heard of the Khorasan Group, and it seemed to disappear as quickly as it arose."
Seems Legit.
Why we need to fix St. Louis County - The Washington Post: "Occupancy permits are just one of the myriad ways in which these municipalities can sap funds from poor people. Basically, if you live in St. Louis County, you’re required to get one for your residents. It doesn’t matter if you rent or own. The police can then periodically make compliance checks (although generally they conduct these checks after they’ve been called to a residence for another reason, like a noise complaint or domestic dispute). If there are more people in your place than your permit allows, they can fine you and each person in your home. Attorneys I spoke to say the regulation can end up being a way to enforce antiquated local laws against unmarried cohabitation, and judging by comments you sometimes hear in courtrooms or from local officials, a way for police and prosecutors to essentially fine people for having premarital sex. You can probably guess which communities are most likely to be subjected to these occupancy inspections."
Why we need to fix St. Louis County - The Washington Post: "If you’ve read my report, you might remember that Bel-Ridge is the town of 2,700 people that in its budget said it planned to make about $450 this year for every resident. It’s also the town that fined residents for not subscribing to the only authorized municipal trash service, and that in the early 2000s was caught manually changing a green light to red in order to nab unsuspecting motorists. The town is 83 percent black."
Why we need to fix St. Louis County - The Washington Post: "Pundits and commentators have suggested that these concerns are all overblown. After all, who could object to car registration laws, insurance requirements or speed limits? (For a well-argued but I think ultimately flawed example, see Heather Mac Donald from the Manhattan Institute here.) This all misses the point. When a local government’s very existence depends on its citizens breaking the law — when fines from ordinance violations are written into city budgets for the upcoming year as a primary or even the main expected source of revenue — the relationship between the government and the governed is not one of public officials serving their constituents, but of preying off of them. When the primary mission of a police department isn’t to protect citizens but to extract money from them, and when the cops themselves don’t look like, live near or have much in common with the people from whom they’re extracting that money, you get cops who start to see the people they’re supposed to be serving not as citizens with rights, but as potential sources of revenue, as lawbreakers to be caught. The residents of these towns then see cops not as public servants drawn from their own community to enforce the laws and keep the peace, but as outsiders brought in to harass them, whose salaries are drawn from that harassment. The same goes for the judges and prosecutors, who also rarely live in the towns that employ them.
...a more common example frequently mentioned to me by attorneys in the area is the frequency with which someone will get pulled over and fined for driving without proof of insurance, driving without registration, driving with a suspended license, or all three, but with no citation for a moving violation. The question then becomes, why was this person pulled over in the first place? The unfortunate answer is that he or she looked like someone who might lack insurance, registration or a valid license. Which is to say he or she looked poor. Being poor in St. Louis County not only means that they’re less able to pay for and follow all of these rules and regulations, because the poor are less able to do all of that, but also that they’re more likely to be targeted and harassed even if they have followed all the rules. And as any honest cop will tell you, once an officer has pulled you over, he can always find some reason to fine you."
"3. The U.S. has no boots on the ground.
The United States already has combat troops in Iraq. A U.S. diplomat acknowledged to me that American spotters in the Kurdish region of Iraq provide coordinates for airstrikes. He said U.S. advisers are armed and would shoot if attacked. If insurgents down an American plane, armed U.S. helicopter teams would go into enemy territory to rescue pilots. By redefining “combat troops,” the U.S. not only wages war in the Middle East, but on the English language. Just one week into the bombing campaign, Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey said the U.S. might have to introduce ground combat troops into Iraq. The White House quickly disavowed the statement, but leading Democratic and Republican hawks are already pressuring Obama to formally introduce combat troops. As the air war proves incapable of destroying IS, the administration will likely introduce more ground troops, perhaps renaming them “limited, temporary, counterinsurgency advisers...
5. The U.S. can fight IS and other extremists without simultaneously helping Bashar Assad, Iran and Hezbollah.
One year ago, the Obama administration was beating the war drums against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons. Now the U.S. is bombing insurgents opposed to Assad. At the moment the Syrian civil war is a zero sum game. Weakening Assad’s enemies strengthens Assad’s regime. Assad, and his allies Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah, are pleased with U.S. attacks on IS. But if ultra-right-wing rebels are weakened, pro-U.S. rebels won’t fill the gap. How long will it take for the U.S. to start bombing Syrian army targets?
6. The U.S. supports only moderate rebels.
Contrary to conservative criticism, the Obama administration has tried to create pro-U.S. civilian and armed groups. Obama has failed, not because of “lack of leadership” but because Syrians won’t accept U.S. policy. In my interviews inside Syria and neighboring countries, Syrian rebels and opposition activists made clear they opposed the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Washington’s total support for Israel. Every Syrian I ever met wants Israel to return the Golan Heights seized in 1967, for example, but the U.S. isn’t interested in having that discussion. Meanwhile, American allies such as Saudi Arabia have armed extremists such as the al-Nusra Front, a group affiliated with al-Qaida. Saudi Arabia’s ultra-right-wing interpretation of Islam shares many ideological similarities with al-Nusra and IS. Yet the U.S. plans to have Saudi Arabia train “moderate” Syrian rebels, which is like asking Al Capone to train Chicago police cadets...
7. The U.S. fights to defend human rights and the rule of law, not oil.
Syria and Iraq have faced massive humanitarian crises for the past three years. Yet the U.S. directly intervened militarily only when the oil-rich Kurdish region of Iraq was threatened. Kurdistan contains the world’s ninth-largest reserves of oil and could eventually replace Russia as a major supplier of oil and gas to Europe. Over 50 foreign oil companies now have offices in Kurdistan, many cutting highly profitable oil production deals with Kurdish officials."
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