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[smjjames]

They rely on proxy groups as well, so, theres some power projection.

In that light, then yeah, gotta wonder what the heck they're doing with all that. If it's as a deterrent, it's roughly 6 times more than what would just be deterrent role if they just wanted to match it dollar for dollar. So, unless it's all for show (those Royals certainly like their bloated militaries), it's gotta be for some purpose.

[Sheb]

The arms race with Iran theory doesn't hold up when you realize Iran isn't playing that game. Iran's strategy is based on deterrent + diplomacy. They're a regional power, but force projection isn't the source of that power.

https://tradingeconomics.com/iran/military-expenditure

https://web.archive.org/web/20121024195316/http://www.salon.com/2009/10/01/cole_12/

Belief: Iran is a militarized society bristling with dangerous weapons and a growing threat to world peace.

Reality: Irans military budget is a little over $6 billion annually. Sweden, Singapore and Greece all have larger military budgets. Moreover, Iran is a country of 70 million, so that its per capita spending on defense is tiny compared to these others, since they are much smaller countries with regard to population. Iran spends less per capita on its military than any other country in the Persian Gulf region with the exception of the United Arab Emirates.

It's funny that your two links are in disagreement with each other by a factor of two. I wonder if those number accounts for spending on the revolutionary guard and spending on proxies in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.

[redwallzyl]

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/06/06/531591202/harvard-rescinds-admission-of-10-students-over-obscene-facebook-messages

Those sjws taking over collages and saying we cant say racist and anti-Semitic things and that made light of pedophilia. What has America come to? /s

[Max™]

So Qatar is housing terrorists?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Udeid_Air_Base
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_Sayliyah_Army_Base

Did he just call our military terrorists?

Woody

Was gonna say, you're dealing with a whole generation that literally grew up with him as Woody to the point that the movie cast grew up with them and it was a main theme of the series, and the Rock is more recognizable as a character than any of his movie roles.

Woody Allen, Woody Gurthrie or Woody Harrelson, which one do you mean? Only a small subset of people would automatically be like "oh you mean Tom Hanks" if the only clue was "Woody".

Sheriff Woody was in multiple movies which are very likely among those which a freshly eligible voter would have seen, for the semi-obtuse. I would have gone fully obtuse with John Miller myself.

[Playergamer]

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/06/06/531591202/harvard-rescinds-admission-of-10-students-over-obscene-facebook-messages

Those sjws taking over collages and saying we cant say racist and anti-Semitic things and that made light of pedophilia. What has America come to? /s

well i mean, don't take a single example of a college doing something agreeable as proof that this stuff is okay.

i mean these people be crazy.

sorry some of those sources aren't great, but you get the point.

[Lord Shonus]

There's a big difference between voice acting and actual acting. I would never associate an animated character with their VA, and I doubt I am alone in that.

[Reelya]

It's funny that your two links are in disagreement with each other by a factor of two. I wonder if those number accounts for spending on the revolutionary guard and spending on proxies in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.

Probably not that, it's probably because the spending is not in fact in US dollars, so one might be PPP dollars vs nominal exchange rate dollars.

Nobody can agree on the exact military expenditures for large nations, not just Iran, so there's no need to speculate here on any iran-specific reason for the discrepancy. Let me give examples:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

You have two groups here calculating military expenditures, but there are many more groups doing the same thing. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and International Institute for Strategic Studies are the ones cited in Wikipedia:

SIPRI says China spent ~215 billion, but IISS says China spent ~146 billion. Which is a pretty whopping discrepancy, and shows how subjective it is. There's basically no way that can be explained away as spending on foreign militia, because China doesn't really do that, at all.

[nenjin]

He did use it correctly.

Oh right. I forgot I just saw a converted Chevy Astro van serving as a battlewagon filled with AK-47 toting journalists hell bent on establishing a new CNNiphate in the Middle East.

My bad.

[Draignean]

He did use it correctly.

Oh right. I forgot I just saw a converted Chevy Astro van serving as a battlewagon filled with AK-47 toting journalists hell bent on establishing a new CNNiphate in the Middle East.

My bad.

See 2.

Again, literally literally has a definition that accepts using literally to make a statement that is literally impossible/untrue in order to reinforce a point.

And because of that, the above sentence is fucking gibberish. 

Welcome to English.  All hope abandon ye who enter here.

[Max™]

There's a big difference between voice acting and actual acting. I would never associate an animated character with their VA, and I doubt I am alone in that.

Perhaps, but you're hardly the rule either, I don't watch much live tv or movies anymore so I tend to link people to their voice first, but the point was just that it's a recognizable character Hanks did, and as a bonus it is already a rich memevein. There's a Rock in my Vote, and it isn't even my final form!

Oh shit, just realized with a Johnson/Hanks ticket we would get to see a candidate call another one a jabroni at some point, guaranteed!

[Reelya]

note: I think I know why the Iran military expenditure data is much higher on that one measure than the other. It's nothing to do with spending on Hezbollah etc.

SIPRI includes veteran's pensions in the measure, the IISS one doesn't. So countries which have a good retirement plan for military veterans have their defence spending artificially inflated on the SIPRI measure. Trading Economics mentioned that they use the SIPRI data as their source for the graph.

[nenjin]

He did use it correctly.

Oh right. I forgot I just saw a converted Chevy Astro van serving as a battlewagon filled with AK-47 toting journalists hell bent on establishing a new CNNiphate in the Middle East.

My bad.

This comic is somewhat applicable.


Definitions change. Get over it.

Seems like good old shit word crafting to me.

[Reelya]

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/06/06/531591202/harvard-rescinds-admission-of-10-students-over-obscene-facebook-messages

Those sjws taking over collages and saying we cant say racist and anti-Semitic things and that made light of pedophilia. What has America come to? /s

That really is a straw man, campus censorship is as much about censoring the left as it is the right. Leftwing and liberal scholars who have displeased the sjw in-group, by being free thinkers, are being shut down much more often than right-wing provocateurs who try and speak on campus.

Neo Nazis and shit have never been welcome, the shift to intolerance to free speech on campuses is not about that. Plenty of left-wing scolars are saying that they feel oppressed by the indoctrinated / intolerent regressive left mobs.

Basically you have a new generation taking on the mantle of leftism, but using it in a cultist / fascist sense. They're a cancer on the very survival of the left itself. An enshrined dogma and a braying mob can be built around anything even lip-service to "tolerance".

Look at the blue eyes/brown eyes experiments and similar. Those are held up as an analogy to racism, but what they really show is that everyone has the seeds of intolerance in them, and they will attach them to any characteristic. whether that's because you're in the wrong social strata or you don't wear the right badges or whatever, it's the same bullshit as where racism is coming from.

"The Third Wave" social experiment is also elucidating. You take a bunch of normal kids, convince them they're the chosen ones and morally superior to everyone else, then they self-organize into something resembling the Hitler Youth. There's no basic reason this can't be done in a fashion in which the credo is "SJW values".

[Starver]

Trump claims that no one will ever stop him from using Twitter.

Inb4 Twitter bans Trump (EVERYONE! push that report button on the covfefe tweet)

Is there thing to select why it is being reported, so you can choose "bad language" (Bad, bad language, loser!), perhaps?

See 2.

When a particular definition of a word is "when it is not <the word>" in it, I can only imagine that we're laying down Logic Mines for the forthcoming war against the AIs.  Whom we should end up decimating [sic].

[Reelya]

As for the campus stuff, you think SJWs are fighting the right? NO ... the rightwing is loving that shit, the way SJW types act is their number one recruiting poster, by far.

http://jezebel.com/feminist-students-protest-feminist-prof-for-writing-abo-1707714321

Feminist Students Protest Feminist Prof for Writing About Feminism

As feminist student activists fight to expand their circle of vulnerability in collegiate life, Title IX has gone from a law designed to protect college students from sexual misconduct and discrimination to a means by which professors are put on trial for their tweets.

When Jezebel is mocking campus feminism for being special snowflakes with a cult of victimhood, who use their influence to crush dissenting views in the feminist ranks, you know this shit has gotten out of hand.

After students put in Title IX complaints against her because they disagreed with an essay she wrote, she got put through the wringer of a gestapo-like ad hoc investigation. She was allowed under the title IX investigation process to have one supporter during the interrogation, and chose another faculty member. That faculty member was then themselves bombarded with title IX complaints for sticking up for her.

Then, partway through the investigation, the title IX investigators suggested that she should take out title IX complaints against everyone who'd complained about her, noting that the process itself was oppressing her feminine voice! She declined to do so. This is basically a witch hunt, in which the inquisitor encourages the accused witch to counter-accuse the accusers. It's amazingly ironic that this whole process was done in the name of feminism.