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At 2/7/08 04:49 PM, ThePretenders wrote: Did you know that walking to the shops produces more CO2 than driving?

haha! So according to those calculations my cat's afternoon sleep costs the planet more than a car driven to the local gym and back.

At 2/6/08 10:31 PM, Al6200 wrote:

a law requiring doctors to warn their patients if they're significantly overweight and show them the risks of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, etc.

Oh what.. no public-service liposucking or stomach-stapling ads during the kids cartoons?? Yawn.

This is a problem that could spread (pardon the pun), and we might soon see fat tax at the airports, or obese regularly weighed at check-in and refused a boarding pass altogether.

Infact, fat is the new carbon footprint ..call it fatprint. They use more fuel whether they fly of drive across country. They cost cost more in hospitals. They add costs to 'weight bearing loads' in structural engineering design. Everywhere they go, there's more consideration and expense.

Obviously fat people should be confined to their houses (or at least those that can barely get out their front door ;-)

Someone trailling behind trumps up the Terror Card and garners widespread Republican support.

Nothing confusing here. Move along.

At 2/5/08 11:41 AM, Korriken wrote:

At 2/5/08 01:01 AM, TheMason wrote:

Okay, I'll try to say this a little more simply. With a 95% employment rate...those jobs going overseas are excess jobs.

Numbers of jobs isn't the only factor here.

Mason.. try.. s..i..m..p..l..e..r..

I'm pretty sure that a clothing or toy manufacturer would pay better than say, McDonalds or Walmart.

No. McD's is a service industry. Clothing and stuffed toys can be done by robots, or even cheaper by human robots aka Chinese.

While employment rate is 95% the poverty rate is 12.3% in 2006. Most of the people living in poverty either don't work, or work at such a very low paying job.

Despite being poorer paying for artificially high rents, and monopolized fossil fuels futures, the poor are wearing much better (newly imported) rags.

Excess jobs are a good thing, it means that companies will have to compete over workers and therefore have to pay a better wage/benefits.

100% employment means higher wages right across the board, which means higher cost of production and inflation, which means less exports.

The answer is simple... but the answer is not so simple as people try to make it out to be.

Like blaming the Chinese for perfecting American-style Capitalism.

At 2/5/08 11:40 AM, zoolrule wrote: "The Iranian Court sentenced 22 Years old a death penalty because he handled nuclear weapons while drunk"

^OMFG, he deserves it!

At 2/4/08 09:44 PM, cellardoor6 wrote: A recently edited wikipedia article.

Nice try.

Haha. Yeah, like there's nothing more suspect than quoting Govt. debt figure from CIA fact-sheet.

Seperating INTERNAL GOVT DEBT from EXTERNAL GOVT DEBT just to re-calculate TOTAL GOVT DEBT is the biggest CON on the planet!

Haven't you heard of 1st lender, 2nd lender, 3rd lender? Just because US Govt figures show they are choosing 'US creditors' for their 1st point of borrowing, doesn't mean the money still isn't sourced from overseas, or somehow magically doesn't count as public debt.

Even by your own calculation, upto a FIFTH of the economy you are measuring is STIMULUS at the cost of DEBT. But regardless of how you spin it, the US Govt Debt to GDP ratio is 9.2 Trillion / 14.3 Trillion, or nearly 66% of GDP.

At 2/4/08 09:32 PM, Der-Lowe wrote: nobody cares about inflation..

Ironically, inflation is currently becoming a serious issue in countries with strong economies. Worldwide inflation is starting to bite. Here in south-pacific government-led interest rates are hitting 10% in an effort to drive inflation down. In China and India the governments are using intervention and subsidy to try to limit inflation.

If inflation does become a problem in US (yes, inflation can run away even during recession) then it's gonna take a truely massive swing of US monetary policy to combat it. Infact, it's the exact opposite of Bush's long-standing "stimulus or die" packages. It seems highly doubtful that you could possibly steer an economy of America's size thru such a reversal of direction without considerable casualties.

Best not to think about it.

At 2/4/08 08:53 PM, Imperator wrote: Guess the message he wants for America is "You better work in the military field, otherwise you're out of a job and out of health benefits".

Sure, one gets the feeling it's moved past lining one's military pockets with gold shielding, and headed into the realm of imminent survival readiness planning ...like when the end of civilization is nearing, education won't save any of us, only military spending will.

Perhaps on some supercomputer under some mountain the boffins with their lead retractable pencils have finally calculated with some certainty that an end of the world climatic starvation civil collapse scenario is looming. The WOT has a new foe.. Civil Chaos Theory!

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At 2/4/08 06:51 PM, cellardoor6 wrote: The issue here is government budget deficits, not national or public debts.

^DUH!

Government budget deficits make national public debt..

"The United States total PUBLIC DEBT, commonly called the national debt, or U.S. GOVERNMENT DEBT, is the amount of money owed by the United States federal government to creditors.." {sauce}

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At 2/2/08 08:39 PM, Dante-Son-Of-Sparda wrote: its stealing thats why I encrypted mine you have to be a idiot not to

I'm sure there's a proggy out there somewhere that can place paid pop-up ads on stolen wi-fi. Could turn into a nice little money earner ;O)

At 2/2/08 12:06 PM, slayer114 wrote: How does this have to deal with politics?

He's enabling terrorists by leaving web channels open and having no digital border control. It's a trivial step from this to thermonuclear-annihilation, caused by the flagrant hacking of shopping-cart servers in the basements of baby factories.

'dat seller ov da crack, he neds ta lerns da maff.. £2000 pa weak iz knot ad ups ta £50,000 pa yeer.

..obsilly e iz get payd by SUn rag 4 make up kool stoory.

At 1/9/08 01:32 AM, Gunter45 wrote:

At 1/9/08 01:23 AM, JudgeDredd wrote: No-one's listening. Speak to the hand~!

90's pop-culture and, therefore, irrelevant via Argument Ad Archaism.

..coming from someone with 1840's sig.

Bullcrap.

Horsefeces.

I'll stop saying mucus, if you stop saying..

Ok, where can you go legally?

Technically? Canada and Mexico. However, I'll concede the point on practicality. I'm not one to debate a purely technical point.

Win.

Don't bet on it.

Why? What are the Vegas odds?

408 weeks / 1 - 408;

At 1/9/08 01:21 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: I always seem to run out of clean clothes whilst watching political speeches.

So watch them naked.. They're there making them imagining everyone's naked anyhow.

At 1/9/08 12:50 AM, Gunter45 wrote: I think XeroXTC is dead on. In America, we are allowed to express any opinion we want.

No-one's listening. Speak to the hand~!

The very fact that there are Americans who are quite vocal about their hate of America is a sure sign that we're still free.

Bullcrap.

Simply because you don't like the direction your country is taking, the only option is to jump ship and go somewhere else?

Ok, where can you go legally?

... but it's what makes America such an amazing country. If you don't like something, let it be known. That's the first step to a movement; being vocal.

Don't bet on it.

At 1/8/08 08:43 PM, Malachy wrote: I think there should be a designated allotted time when you just shouldn't keep reheating that dinner from last week....

If it's a TV-dinner then i think you're safe.

not really

MI H8 > UR H8 !!

joign teh queue.

At 1/7/08 09:01 PM, TheMason wrote:

The Clinton impeachment deeply divided this country,

Yes and no. He wasn't impeached for actually getting the BJ but committing perjury and lying about it under oath.

You're quite right. If he had just said "Yeah, she blew me. It was awesome!" then we wouldn't see Hillary running in 2008.

Brilliant. It's change now, or status quo = Repulican (John McVain)

At 1/7/08 06:31 PM, LordJaric wrote: So letting the people vote on how they want their country to be runned is bad.

If u believe ^that, then why are you on NGP?

At 1/7/08 04:23 AM, Maxben wrote: Keep in mind that there is a big difference between the "Ruling Elite" and the "Intellectual Elite".

When Worm said "Let the intellectual elite RUN for office" he was talking about intelligent voters.

You turned it around by suggesting intelligence be a pre-requisite for running a country. That the "Intellectual Elite" know best, and could therefore do a better job. In my mind that would make them the Ruling Elite ..they would be running things, even if they had puppet figureheads fronting their own policy. The people (ie. not voters) who helped put Bush in power ARE the Ruling Elite, and not Bush himself just because his father was president before him.

My point stands; The Ruling Elite (the intelligent ones ACTUALLY running things) do not make decisions that are in the interests of voters (regardless of any given timeframe) as much as the interests of themselves. Leaders come and go, but the Ruling Elite often remain.

But no. I'm not surprised by the tendancy of this topic to swing from the intelligence (or lack of it) in voters, towards the intelligence (or lack of it) in leaders ...because as we know by now, that's Funk's standby favorite topic.. *cough* fascism *cough*

That said, it's the instinct of voters, regardless of intelligence, to support strong leaders, mainly because at least then they know the person they vote for is actually going to do most of the Ruling, and not some unknown figure hiding in the shadows (The Devil We Know). It's the more intelligent voters however that support a policy platform, rather than just strong leadership (which as it happens, has been shown to be based on basic anatomy of the brain).

One question remains; whomever we speak of as "intelligent voters" voting for intelligent policy, isn't that policy still primarily benefitial to those voters themselves, and not the population as a whole, which (as i believe Funk is alluding to when he talks about company management) is the woeful failure of democracy, other than the feel-good factor of everyone casting a vote as only evidence they are somehow (however minutely) involved.

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At 1/7/08 01:40 AM, Maxben wrote: Somebody with forethought and intelligence needs to tell these people what is in their best interest as they obviously don't know.

The Ruling Elite has traditionally told them going to war was in their best interest, typically raising the IQ of both countries in the process. But in leu of returning to trench-warfare, we at least need some evolution to the decision-making process.

At 1/6/08 10:45 PM, Gwarfan wrote: Do you even know where Ethiopia is?

*shrugs*

I'll support them with every last cent i have when they legalize weed and change their name to Utopia.

People in the northen hemisphere become so obese and overindulgent that the Earth tilts on it's axis, turning Antartica into a hospitible country with a flourishing economy and population, whilst hitherto deserts burst out with tropical rainforests.

Then to everyone's surprise, they find vast quanities of oil on the moon and mars.

Only to be topped off with utter shock and amazement when God pops around for some tea and biccies.

At 1/5/08 01:42 PM, FUNKbrs wrote: Therefore, one man one vote is a horribly logically flawed concept.

Hey. Why do u think i joined NG mate? My vote (based on "experience") is already worth about 10 votes + 12% = 11.2 and growing. Now if democracy has Experience Points (EP) then life would get a whole lot better.

Either that or life's hippy-streetscum will sell their vote like the do in America.

<3 cellar

At 12/31/07 03:04 PM, SlithVampir wrote: Converse, or Nike, or whoever can, under NAFTA, lay off that entire factory, and send those jobs over to China, where they can get 14 year old girls to make them for ten cents an hour.

here's my 2 cents..

Those brands were being made in China illegally anyway. I'm sure those companies thought "if can't beat 'em, join 'em". The result of 10 years of globalization and Chinese boom have had the result of bringing 100s of millions of dollar-a-day rural folk into the Chinese middle classes. Those in turn have disposible income, and long for western lifestyle and western products. American companies are, like the rest of the world, keen to cash in on China's new prosperity. Anything jobwise that America has lost it will certainly gain back if those companies are bringing back bottom line profits for shareholders, and cheaper goods for the public. China should look after it's own labor laws, and in the odd case they don't, we certainly arn't too slow hearing about it.

The cracks that have appeared in Capitalism, not those visible surface cracks, but the deeper structual ones, is how well 'trickle-down theory' works. Like, is there a growing demand for more service industry workers? Does that demand translate into higher wages or new jobs in western countries who are losing factories to China, India, or Mexico? Seeing how there is a return in western society to colonial-style paid housework, then i guess at some level it does.

We can debate whether those are real jobs or not, but nevertheless it's still a function of supply and demand. America's new middle classes can only afford housemaids because they have more money and less time. Is that an improvement on the past? Perhaps not. But 'the good with the bad' is that shop goods we buy have never been more widely available or cheaper than are now. As consumers at least we don't have too much to complain about.

.

At 12/30/07 11:21 PM, cellardoor6 wrote: Someone's jealous.

Nyuk-nyuk. MY lvl icon doesn't even look like hers.. and no confusin' me with EarFish either!

(..is it me or is there a LOT of 'Axes of Evil' icons on NG!)

At 12/30/07 11:22 PM, Empanado wrote: Ideas, suggestions?

huh? draft??

..when they ask ya to cough, fart instead ..say something like "sorry hun, dat happens everytime me boyfriends touch ma scrot." ..if that doesn't do it, wink at a few GIs, saying you've got a 'twitch'.

At 12/30/07 11:04 PM, chocolate-penguin wrote:

At 12/30/07 09:41 PM, JudgeDredd wrote: Secondly, 9-11 has NOTHING to do with IRAQ, other than Bush convincing young and old that "The Rules Have Changed!".

Al Qaeda operates in Iraq, and they fight alongside insurgents. So if you think Al qaeda has nothing to do with 9/11, I don't think you should be here.

Al-qaeda are just going whereever American troops are. You'd do just as well setting up some Military Mc-Disneychurch somewhere out in the desert, or a gas pumping depo for Cadillac racing w/ pork chow restaurants and bars. You'd attract them like flies. Better that than Baghdad central.