825 Forum Posts by "Draconias"
At 7/12/06 08:13 PM, GSgt_Liberal wrote: You know, it's funny. Why do people call New York and Massachusetts so liberal? 1 has banned gay marriage (NY) and one has citizens working against it (a considerable number).
Those are the home areas of many notorius Democrats. Although the extremists who get on the news may not be representative of the area, the many are often forgotten in favor of the few in stereotypes.
Isn't President Bush from Massachesetts?
At 7/12/06 11:17 AM, DarthTomato wrote: in america you can work on a farm as early as 14, even younger if the parents, child, and farmer can make an agreement. but anywhere else you have to be 16 to work and 18 to do a night shift. and 21 to drive a truck over state lines.
I think I'd like to call BS on your statements. I am quite sure that 14 is the minimum age for working because I had summer jobs (at real companies) between 14 and 16 years old. I even worked at a a government-funded institute at the age of 15. This leads me to believe that you are mistaken about the age limit.
Also, many people here seem to forget that schools have summer, and school isn't all day. 14+ year olds can easily work during the summer or in the evenings without missing school or harming their ability to perform well in school. In fact, at later ages High Schoolers often do exactly that without any problems. Why should we expect it to be different for a 14 or 15 year-old?
At 7/11/06 08:10 PM, o_r_i_g_i_n_a_l wrote: A Greenpeace document:
4. A fire in a spent fuel cooling pond at Sizewell B could result in 3,500 to 15,000 cancer deaths and large releases of radioactivity just 100 miles from London.
Some researchers discovered the Cure for Cancer a couple months ago. Those cancer deaths can be struck off your list soon...
(totally serious & truthful)
At 7/11/06 06:28 PM, Engelsman wrote: Disadvantages
* Although not much waste is produced, it is very, very dangerous.
It must be sealed up and buried for many years to allow the radioactivity to die away. The half life of uranium is something like 35000 years.
You have forgotten one major thing, though: what comes from the ground can go back into the ground. The radioactive waste of a nuclear power plant is not significantly more dangerous than uranium ore, it is just highly concentrated. If the waste products were diluted with filler material, and then stored in exhausted uranium mines, the danger of the waste products would be reduced to effectively zero.
Isn't it right to return the Earth exactly how we left it once we are finished? Return spent uranium fuel to uranium mines, filling in the mine from the bottom up as we deposit waste. When we are finished, permanently seal the mine. Where once radioactive ores dwelt, radioactive ores shall do so again.
* Nuclear power is reliable, but a lot of money has to be spent on safety - if it does go wrong, a nuclear accident can be a major disaster.
But engineering can reduce the possibility of a disaster to essentially zero. The only nuclear power plant problems (Long Island, Chernobyl) were caused by poor technology. Nuclear power plants were a new thing, and the technology of the time wasn't quite up to it.
New technology and new designs prevent any such failures from happening. Forcing everyone to rely on the 40+ year old nuclear power plants is not how you ensure safety. All of those old nuclear plants should have been replaced with new, safer ones.
People are increasingly concerned about this - in the 1990's nuclear power was the fastest-growing source of power in much of the world. In 2005 it was the second slowest-growing.
The word "nuclear" has become a boog-a-boo of sorts.
* It creates new targets for terrorist groups.
Nuclear plants don't make good targets. First of all, it is physically impossible to make a nuclear bomb out of civilian-grade uranium. A dirty bomb is possible, but there are much, much easier ways to make a dirty bomb. Like stealing the waste from any of the over-flowing old nuclear plants currently in operation.
Also, terrorists by and large rely on low-tech attack methods. Nuclear power plants have never been targets because the terrorists simply aren't equipped to take advantage of something so high-tech and complex.
* Britain's an island; we're just too small to have this sort of danger all over the country. If there's a repeat of Chernobyl then it's only a few hundred miles to the nearest major town or city.
* They have a short lifetime, 25-30 years. This makes it only a short term solution.
Not true. They have a lifetime of 40+ years. Many have been operating for nearly that long in the United States. Also, you forget that power plants are a renewable "resource" for every country.
Geologists have estimated that we have enough uranium easily accessible on Earth to handle our entire current power consumption rate and the expected increases for 1.5 billion years or so. And that's not even counting the harder-to-get stuff and the radioactive material attainable from the oceans, which would bump it up to 5 billion years-- longer than the Earth will be habitable.
* Cancer risks increase for people living near the stations.
Show proof for this. Nuclear plants do not raise the background radiation level above ambient. By law, they aren't allowed to let enough radiation leak to even raise the ambient radiation level by 2%. Thus I believe that your claim may be false.
Solar Energy
* Solar energy is free - it needs no fuel and produces no waste or pollution.
Maintenance costs. Worker costs. Solar power is not free. Also, it has been proven that solar panel fields do pollute-- besides destroying the natural habitat in the area, they produce a huge amount of heat pollution, raising the average temperature everywhere within half a mile by up to 10 degrees F.
Wind Power
* Wind is free, wind farms need no fuel.
Wind farms do need fuel-- wind. Wind is not universally available like sunlight, so only very specific regions are suitable for windmills.
* Wind farms can be tourist attractions.
Not an acceptable point. Too fickle.
* A good method of supplying energy to remote areas.
However, since only specific regions can effectively use turbine farms, the chances are good that remote areas will not be able to use profitable turbine farms.
Also, don't forget that turbine farms raise the bird fatality rate by over 7000%. A big field of giant spinning axes tends to mince any birds that fly through. Heavy winds also make it tough for birds to maneuver, so it is almost impossible to avoid the turbine farm.
Tidal Power
* Once you've built it, tidal power is free.
Maintenance costs. Worker costs. Ever wonder what happens when 1,000,000 barnacles attach to your power generator?
* Offshore turbines and vertical-axis turbines are not ruinously expensive to build and do not have a large environmental impact.
Not quite true. Tidal power plants are generally avoided because they completely massacre the nearby environment. They drastically alter the strength of tides, block sea creature transport, kill sea creatures in the turbines, and severely disrupt the local environment. "Wall" tidal generators are the most destructive.
Hydro Power
Disadvantages
You're totally right about hydro power. However, another disadvantage is that most countries have nearly tapped-out their potential hydro power supply with dams already. They can't handle enough of our demand.
Wave Power
I have not heard enough about wave power to judge it. However, it immediately sounds like it may have environmental impact similar to wind power-- high wild life fatalities and disruption of flow.
At 7/11/06 10:11 AM, Dark_Raven01 wrote: Yea but thats not true communism, thats just 2 nations being ruled by tyrants and claiming to be communists.
BS. Philosophers and useless thinkers are not the ones who define "true" communism. It is reality and working systems which define truth, and in this case those two nations are as true as they come. You are a fool if you think you can claim that all of the real-life attempts at communism (all of which ended the same) are not "true" communism.
At 6/30/06 05:10 AM, bradford1 wrote: If no one can handle economies, than no economic activities should work at all.
If you didn't know, most countries in the world currently rely on a system called "free market" where the people as a whole control the economy through their individual actions and choices. The interactions and incentives of people and situations work to automatically balance an economy in an effective manner. Whenever something needs more people, supply and demand makes it a more lucrative choice, so more people head to that sector and correct the problem. The same is true for the reverse situation. Free market economies have proven to be an effective, stable, and highly successful choice.
However, all planned economies that have been tried so far have collapsed soon after their beginning. One organization, no matter how big, can not manage an economy, especially when they eliminate the natural incentives and balancing mechanics of the market. Communism and Socialism both rely completely on some organizing force to keep the market from collapsing; no human organization can handle such a job.
Understand?
Whoa, whoa, whoa, what the fuck are you saying? Socialists believe that the government should be larger than Republicans do. There can to be a working government to keep things humane.
First of all, Republicans are small government, but big business.
Second, the thing that truly prevents abuses in a power higher than the "companies" which can overrule any decisions that they make and apply punishments. However, when your "company" is that power, abuses are very hard to prevent. Even if you have a judicial system, the Leader can simply overrule them, especially if he has control of the military.
Also, considering the guaranteed resistance of Capitalists to Socialism, it is highly likely that any Socialist country will be highly militarized or radicalized by time it successfully converts to Socialism. That sort of situation just makes it that much easier for a dictator to emerge or for abuses to occur.
Socialism has even been added with democracy, so why are you mentioning an egotistical leader?
Presidents can still ignore rules. Just look at the actions of President Bush. Also, Presidetns with military power (see late USSR) can easily become dictators or hold the effective powers of a dictator because no one dares to defy them.
How do you know that the nation has to be totalitarian? Democratic Socialism solves all of the Socialist problems that you presented.
I never said it had to be totalitarian, but consistantly Socialist countries have resorted to violent force to suppress protestors who complain about the collapsing economy caused by the poor management by the government. Democratic Socialism does nothing to solve the problem because radicalization of the population is still highly probable (and necessary for a complete conversion to Socialism), and heavy resistance from the portions of the population which lose out under a Socialist regime (those doing well) and those who deplore the conditions after many years of poor management (the same exploited lower-level workers).
Just because it is democratic does not mean that violence won't be employed to keep it from converting back to Capitalism because Socialism fails.
I think that you developed this opinion independently and without any working knowledge. That is why it is stupid.
You have not had enough working life experience to understand how Capitalism and free market functions properly, and how Socialism simply can not provide what a country needs.
The necessity of Socialism and Communism disappeared when countries realized that economic development does not just halt at heavy industry-- it continues into high-tech and complexity-based economies. Marx could not have imagined the power of computers and robotics; that is why he came to such a foolish conclusion about the future of mature economies. Hindsight is 20/20, and it is totally apparent now that Marx was simply ignorant of how countries would develop in the future.
The .50 cal rifle is useful for combat and war... even if that means combat against an opressive, unjust government or war against an invading Mexican (or Canadian) army,
If we keep the citizens of the United States armed, they can defend themselves against nearly any threat, which makes everyone safer overall. Oh yeah, and did I mention that a .50 cal might be useful for a vigilante attack against terrorists attempting to make an in-the-open attack inside the US? (Like taking control of a building and holding everyone hostage-- 3 locals with .50 cals could obliterate the terrorists from a mile away.
At 7/7/06 11:59 PM, _rainmaker_ wrote: So no, it's not fair at all.
Rainmaker, you are simlpy wrong. Fairness has nothing to do with this situation because it isn't a comparison between two equal groups, one of which is disadvantaged. We have one huge majority with a millenia-long established tradition and a small minority which wishes to completely redefine that tradition-- purely for the reason of making it more convenient for them to participate in it.
Nothing prevents homosexuals from getting married. However, "marriage" is a tradition that unifies a man and a woman. Sex doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it. The option is still completely open for everyone who wishes to participate in it.
"Gay Marriage" is not actually marriage. It completely redefines the form and function of marriage, and most notably, ties it to a specific sexual orientation (and by implication, sexual acts). This would completely destroy the actual history and intentions of marriage, instead turning it into a tax break and convenience for a minority who want to pretend that they are the majority.
If you want to have sex with another man, or with another woman, you're free to do so. However, that does not mean you should get your own special version of marriage.
If everyone has free access to a local Apple orchard, does it make sense for "Apple" to be redefined as "Orange" just because a couple local people love to make orange juice, not apple juice?
To be blunt, who gives a damn if children make a personal decision to have sex at an early age? It is the responsibility of the adult population to make minors as safe as possible, regardless of what personal choices those minors make. This is about saving lives, and it overrides everything else.
Also, there's already enough stuff out that there will screw you over for screwing around that curing a particularly lethal STD will still leave behind a lot of extremely unpleasant and some dangerous ones. If fear of HPV is all that kept your kids from having sex, there's something wrong with how you raised them. Most kids don't even know what HPV is, let alone care one bit about it.
At 7/2/06 09:53 PM, Warrickneff wrote: That makes me curious again....do you believe that it is disproportionate because of racial profiling? And should racial profiling now be something for police to be doing?
The simple truth is that crimes are currently disproportionately committed by black males in the 17-24 range, particularly with violent crimes. The culprit of the disporportionality may be connected to the disprportionate number of blacks who live in poverty-stricken ghettoes in the United States, but black females don't follow the same trend!.
It is not a matter of police profiling. NCVS self-survey statistics reflect almost the same disproportionality (slightly less).
Random Crime-related Fact: Did you know little old ladies (and men) are the least likely people to be targeted by criminals of any sort? Each old person (70+) is 9x less likely than anyone in any other age group to be the victim of a crime. 15-25s are the #1 targets and perpetrators of crime, and criminals usually target people like themselves.
At 7/2/06 06:14 PM, YoureAllStupid wrote: If all of these new studies that are coming out are true, then like I've said since the near beginning, it should be perfectly fien to legalize weed...
See, the problem is that "all of these new studies" aren't there. Very little research has been or is being done on Marijuana, and virtually no long-term use tests have been done. Most of the research information used as propaganda for the legalization of Marijuana is fairly old material that all concludes with, "Well, we're not really sure what it does to people over the long term."
While all of the pro-legalization people point at those studies and shout, "Hey, there's nothing bad about Marijuana!" But the truth is that we simply don't know what the long-term negative effects are, not that there aren't any. Right now on the internet, there is a huge gluttony of "fluff" articles about Marijuana that completely obscure any of the actual discoveries made about it, particularly the studies indicating dangers of Marijuana.
Also, if it impairs driving...
It does impair driving and motor skills, as well as decision-making.
At 7/2/06 09:24 PM, Iamrecognized wrote: I think we need to be more worried about emo people takeing over.
Emos? Ha! Just hand them all our knives and they'll get rid of themselves!
(JK)
What many people seem to forget is that putting someone in jail does not remove their ability to commit crimes or remove their influence from society.
Not everyone in jail is an absolute diehard criminal, and a majority eventually get out of jail. Your serial killer with a life-without-parole sentence can still murder other inmates, or spread his cancerous ideals to not-as-bad inmates who eventually return to society. Keeping these criminals presents a strong negative influence which spreads to savable people and corrupts them.
Remember, Prison is not about punishment; it is about rehabilitation and removal. Executing the truly depraved criminals is the ultimate act of removal, and is even more torturous for them because they often go 10 years waiting for death before they are actually executed.
Also, the conditions in prison are actually better than many decrepit areas where those criminals live. It may not even be a punishment for many criminals to be in jail.
At 6/28/06 05:04 PM, bradford1 wrote: Do not stupidly believe that the USA is totally problem-free.
How can you possibly think any system that involves hundreds of millions of people can prevent every problem from occurring? Democratic Capitalism, without too much Socialism, is the best possible system for ensuring the lowest possible poverty rate. However, human organizational abilities and the limits of human knowledge and information are what truly prevent our system from being "ideal" in your mind.
That man was homeless for a reason we don't know, and the limitation of our knowledge, and the knowledge of anyone involved with helping him, prevents us from truly being able to solve the problem for him. Also, inefficiency in the system from human mistakes makes it impossible to prevent all such situations from occurring.
At 6/28/06 07:24 PM, Togukawa wrote: There weren't any WMDs found,
Actually, 500 shells of mustard gas and serin gas, which are officially defined as Weapons of Mass Destruction, we found hidden in various weapon and ammo depots. Another 5,500 similar shells are still unaccounted for between the total we know Saddam had and the amount we know he actually destroyed.
WMDs were found, but no nuclear weapons or labs were found. Equipment for purifying uranium was found, but not of it was something strictly for nuclear weapons creation and was quite old.
It is not reasonable to assume you can effectively ban bullets entirely. Grassroots production is extremely easy, and determining the difference between already-held and new bullets is next to impossible. If you ban the ownership of bullets, you will just look stupid because you might as well have banned guns themselves.
Banning certain types of guns or bulletss, such as Anti-Tank rifles and notched-tip bullets, is definately allowed. However, banning bullets or guns entirely is unacceptable, will be heavily challenged by the populace, and will be identified as a constitutional violation.
At 6/27/06 07:08 PM, colob wrote: it would work in an ideal world, which we do not have
socialism is the way to go
Few people realize it, but Socialism is a perverted form of Capitalism. In Socialism, "companies" are entire countries, "executives" are government officials, and the rival "companies" are all the other nations around the world. The amount of effort required to manage an entire economy is enormous, and no one has or will be able to do it effectively. It's just not a task humans can handle.
Also, without a higher power (like a government) to prevent abuses like poor working conditions and fearmongering, nothing is there to stop the Socialist "company" from spiraling out of control because of even one greedy, egotistical leader. When a "company" has a military to suppress worker's unions and dissent, it eventually devolves into inefficiency and tyranny.
Bullets are independent from guns. However, when used in concert, the bullet is a subset of the gun, so any targets hit by bullets were shot by the gun.
So... the fact that our military is responsible for securing the freedom of the United States during the first rebellion, preventing a genocidal maniac from conquering all of Europe during WWII, and for making us a world superpower means nothing to you?
At 6/25/06 02:00 PM, BigScizot wrote: The reason that we went into Iraq was because the CIA thought that there were WMD's in there but we soon found out that there weren't.
Actually, there were. We found mustard gas and serin gas shells hidden in various weapon silos, mixed among the normal weapons, even though Saddam claimed to have destroyed all of those weapons in the 90s.
However, we didn't find nukes, the specific WMDs that everyone got all scared about. For some odd reason, you say "mustard gas" and people just stare at you, but you say "nuclear bomb" and people freak the hell out. Both are defined as WMDs, and mustard gas has been completely illegal since WWI.
Marijuana ruins productivity. Ecstasy sends people overboard on partying and can kill. We don't need those kind of things on the open market.
Just because Alcohol and Tobacco seem worse doesn't justify legalizing another drug. Just because Joe murdered someone doesn't make it okay for Bob to rape someone.
Alcohol is too engrained in our culture and traditions for us to get rid of it. We've tried, and people simply did not want to give up something which we've had for upwards of 7,000 years (archaeological evidence has provided dates for the oldest known alcoholic drinks, which were found in Ancient Egypt).
Alcohol may be dangerous, but we've learned to live with the consequences of reasonable consumption, and those who achieve alcohol poisoning are most often using alcohol illegally anyways (like teenagers).
Tobacco used to be critical to our agriculture. However, it isn't any longer. It is a relative newcomer on the scene, and now that we know it is both addictive and lethal, most people dislike it. Since Tobacco isn't that great to use anyways and we don't need it, it is slowly being eliminated from our economy and culture. In other words, Tobacco is dying.
Marijuana is also a relative newcomer, and it doesn't promise much. No rowdy partying, no hilarious entertainment or nostalgic thoughts of millenia-old traditions... just people fuddling around with an empty feeling they are convinced is a euphoric happiness. There is no real reason that Americans should want to start another bad habit, and the best argument anyone has found in favor of it is, "Well, it isn't that bad of a habit..." Marijuana should just stay illegal. If we don't start using it as a culture now, we won't have to stop later.
Drugs have a negative reputation because they are dangerous. We want to save everyone from as much pain as we can with addictive drugs because we know that they don't actually have full control with using it. None of the big drugs should be legalized or decriminalized because it will hurt people and come back to bite us in the ass.
Bush is entirely within his legal rights to make that executive order.
In the dissenting report filed for the Kelo case, the Supreme Court judges emphasized that in only that specific case was the local government justified. In fact, the dissenting report encouraged local and state governments to make laws banning this form of Eminent Domain.
Since Bush's executive order is equivalent to a law for those under his authority, he is entirely within his rights to do exactly what the Supreme Court suggested. Many local governments, including my own, have banned the type of Eminent Domain supported by the Kelo case. Since the Legislative branch is operating lawfully when it passes laws for the general populace regarding Eminent Domain, and the Judicial branch even suggested that course of action, then the head of the Executive branch is completely within his rights to ban that form of Eminent Domain with the force of law among those under his authority.
Stop trying to bash Bush for doing the right thing and following the law.
Marijuana isn't worth the effort. Hell, it isn't worth any effort. Just let it go already.
You guys don't seem to understand that the missing girl was a big story because she is the first American to die or go missing at Aruba. They rely almost entirely on tourism to survive, so even a single American, especially the first, to go missing or be murdered is a major threat to their economic survival.
At 6/14/06 07:21 PM, gooze_bump wrote: the best way for you to pull the wool over someone eyes is to make it unbelievable and a joke.
Wrong. The way you pull the wool over someone's eyes is to make them believe something completely, even though no shred of physical evidence exists for it. Make them place their faith in you.
You know, eventually this crap about "real" communism gets boring.
Claiming that the real world experiments in communism are something different than your version of communism does not make your ideas any more valid.
Communism is deeply, deeply flawed. It contains every utopian concept it can possibly gather and throws them together in a bundle so cluttered that no one thinks to look at the inner workings of it.
How do you distribute everything equally? How do you convince people to never improve themselves or their situation? Something as small as a vegetable garden or a cooking contest with a prize makes you unequal. How do you convince people to never do anything outside the jurisdiction of the community, such as bets and gambling with buddies?
Just promising equal pay to every worker does not make the system feasible. Who distributes the pay? Who manages the prices for various goods? What happens when a drought comes, or a flood? Who manages these things so that everything doesn't break down.
Someone who is now in a new class, that's who. Anyone who is given the leadership power to manage other people is now in a higher class than the average, powerless working man. You've just destroyed your communistic equality.
So you claim everyone will just "work for the community." Well, what if I disagree with you about what the community is? Let's say my community decides it wants more land. Well, we're just going to have to take it from your community. War and hatred haven't been eliminated in your "utopian" communistic society, you just ignore them.
The only way to eliminate war is to eliminate boundaries. So let's say the entire world is united under communism. Do you have any idea how hard it would be to keep 6 billion people happy and well fed? If any section of the system begins changing or fails, there is absolutely no way to deal with it. A massive bureacracy would be necessary, one that would inherently destroy the promised equality of communism.
And even then, how do you deal with the issue of leaders? There are people in this world who gather followers. Your communist state will not just be a total mob of sheep. There will be wolves in the pack no matter what you do, and when it comes time for decisions about the future of the state, people will disagree. Communist states almost always begin falling apart after divisions such as Bolsheviks and Mensheviks occur.
Also, what about people who decide they don't want communism? Are you going to violently suppress them, killing those people or forcing silence? You're no better than any of the communist states that have been tried before if you force people to follow communism.
Face it. Communism does not work. It is a Shadow Utopian-- a thing of no substance at all. No matter how hard you shout in favor of it, you will never make it solid and true. Communism is deeply flawed, and the vices of men have nothing to do with communism's failure.
At 6/12/06 12:53 PM, altanese_mistress wrote: If the animal and all those inanimate objects can give their consent, then sure. But thats the thing; only human beings can consent. And THAT is where we draw the line.
So, even if a Parrot were to tell a person, "I love you. I want you to marry me," then that wouldn't count as consent? The Parrot would be stating it very plainly in language that no person could misunderstand. It's communicating directly, and there is no evidence in the claim that the Parrot is mentally incompetent because it is obviously capable of clear speech.
Why is a line drawn there when you refuse to draw the same line for persons with the same mental capacity and probably weaker linguistic skills? If it is about consent, there is no proof that animals are incapable of giving consent, only the human belief that all animals are stupid and inferior (i.e. non-sentient).
At 6/9/06 10:12 PM, Peter90688 wrote: Plain in point, the cavemen, european man aka the white man is the uncivilized race of this planet. Since the dawn of fucking time, white people have been known for canniblism, racism, harshness, cruelity and uncivilized acts.
Heres some examples.
1) Look up the history of Christmas, its full of homosexuality.
Look up human history. It's full of every type of sex you can imagine. It has nothing to do with European civilization in particular, so you can't single them out.
2) Whites destoryed Africa.
Wrong.
Europeans colonized Northern Africa (Roman).
Europeans raided Africa for slaves (Colonial), a practice which the Africans had long performed against one another. Europeans took Africans around the world, even though African civilization was entirely lackluster and weak at the time (Colonial).
Then Africans destroyed Africa with Civil War, corruption, and hatred (Modern).
3) Whites destoryed the Native American race and still is.
Europeans conquered the Americas. Big whoop. Native Americans still exist and dominate northern Canada and South America. They still exist in their own "nations" on reservations in North America. The Native American "race" is still intact. We only destroyed their civilization, just as civilizations have done throughout history, regardless of where they existed.
4) Created AIDS and Crack.
Actually, researchers have pinpointed the source of HIV in recent months. The Africans caused the problem because they hunted so many apes that eventually Simian Immunodeficieny Virus became HIV.
Even if Europeans may have created crack, but others have done worse. We only refined what others already had. The natives of South America used cocaine long before Europeans showed up. The people of the Middle East grew opium for generations. Europeans have actually probably had the lowest drug use throughout history, with the exception of alcohol.
5) Look at 9/11, the illuminati killed its own people.
People from the Middle East killed Americans on 9/11. People from the Middle East have also killed millions of their own people. The genocidal incidents among Europeans and Americans have been fairly few and far between throughout history. However, the Africans, Phillipinos, and Middle Easterners have had a fairly consistant run of one to five major genocidal sprees per decade.
6) Hurricane Katrina.
The Cubans sent it up to the Americans. They own the water closest to where Katrina formed.
7) Thanksgiving history. Queen Isabella and the Pope thanksgiving.
We all have our dark days.
8) Jim Crow Laws.
Middle Eastern laws about females: seperate and inferior. At least the Jim Crow laws gave lip service to equality and paved the way to true equality through their wording.
9) Welfare.
Chinese Communists. And they killed people to try to create a true welfare state.
10) Guantanomo Bay
Vietnamese hot boxes. Europeans and Americans are essentially the only people in the world who have actually pushed through and tried to enforce anti-torture and humanitarian rules in warfare.
11) Holocaust
Sudan. Europeans did it once; everyone else does it every other day.
12) THE GOP
Another black mark that cannot be erased.
13) Slavery
The Middle East invented slavery. Africa perfected raid-based slavery that held the slaves in permanent suffrage based on their ancestry. China perfected "aristocratic" slavery. South Americans and Phillipinos perfected work/harvest slavery. Europeans (Roman) attempted to tie worth into slaves so that they would not just be abused and left to die.
14) Pants
Damn. You've got me there. I can't possibly justify such a heinous invention. Never forget the loin cloth!
At 6/9/06 07:31 AM, Aapo_Joki wrote: If this global warming is natural, why is the CO2 of level of the last two centuries almost twice higher than they've been in 650,000 years before that? And why did the beginning of this "heat wave" just happen to coincide with the industrial revolution?
Notice how you qualified your statement. Sure, the CO2 levels are extremely high, compared to the last 650,000 years. What you intentionally omit is that from the Mesozoic era and older, CO2 levels were consistantly far higher than anything we've seen in the last 650,000 years. Life flourished in the higher temperatures and CO2 concentrations of those eras.
And with respect to the "heat wave," you may be mixing up cause and effect. Did it ever occur to you that maybe the industrial revolution was influenced by the "heat wave"? Most of the world was just exiting the "Little Ice Age," which had crippled agriculture for multiple centuries. Suddenly, with the temperature increase, harvest sizes exploded, and the demand for labor (and soon machinery) skyrocketed. Now, with a major food surplus, an economic boom occurred that fostered the development of machines, which soon caused the industrial revolution. Cause and effect is important.
By the way, did you know the #1 Greenhouse Gas is not carbon dioxide. It's water vapor. Why do you never hear people protesting about all the water we allow to evaporate in resevoirs and other things? Because targeting CO2 is not just a matter of praticality, it's also a propraganda tactic against industry. A majority of the 1% of the total greenhouse gas production that comes from humans is from our livestock (methane) and our water management (water vapor).
I can just hear it now... "Fur is murder. Everything else is genocide!"
