At 10/8/03 12:23 PM, Furious_Angel wrote: I suggest do it like this:

Blue- Rightists.
Red- Leftists.
Green- Central.

It's much easer.

true. i think a few regulars already think alone those lines.

i'm trying to more align it with the two groups that are already established in this forum, and give it a bit more spin; REDS => angry Revolutionaries, and not just pro-Communists. Or Green, as in green party activists.

BCC; i take that as confirmation you are a conservative/republican who agrees the status quo :)

it's not OLD?? it's frigg'n CURRENT!!

BUSH is STILL the most powerful leader in the world, commander and chief of US forces, in the pocket of every company that wants to make politial contributions to get their way, ..and is seeking re-election!!?

he hasn't had to answer even 1 of these many important questions yet??!

$_$

gotta luv Moore's approach thou..

"We always say it was committed by a "Arab terrorists" or by an "Islamic fundamentalist", but we never define Osama by his rightful title: multi-millionaire. Why have we never read a headline saying, "3,000 Killed by multi-millionaire"?

Why didn't that become the reason for profiling potential terrorists? Instead of rounding up suspicious Arabs, why don't we say, "OMG! a multi-millionaire killed 3,000 people! Round up the multi-millionaires! Throw them all in jail! No charges! No trials! Deport all the millionaires!!"

LOL!!

At 10/7/03 11:58 PM, IonBlaster wrote: Everyone else: 0% of the votes
If you live in California, pack up all your valuables and exit the state NOW!!!

there's really only 1 uber 1337 thing to say to that..

Our NG profile's AURA should really reflect our political groupings here in Politics Forum, so lets settle on which is which.

My thoughts are;

RED - DAG (alternative) ..neo-political
BLUE - PC (conservative) ..status quo
GREEN - LUG (liberal) ..pro-weed, etc.

can everyone post views so we get a concensus going.

At 10/7/03 07:26 PM, gerbilfromhellll wrote: it isn't illegal to attack another country without declaring war on them. if it was, the iraq 'war' would've been illegal.

THE IRAQ WAR WAS ILLEGAL!! (the UN charter says so)

oh, and if all the middle eastern countries banded against israel, israel would crush every single one of them. relativelly quickly at that.

because Israel has tons of Nukes and other WMD, and America is playing backup.

At 10/7/03 12:07 PM, Lyddiechu wrote: For machiavelli, evil is whatever is against your interests, it has nothing to do with morality.

*turns DAG light on*

so if my interest is in world domination, then evil is anyone who tries to stop me, right?!

i left it a little obscure, maybe because your essay has done similar.

take this paragraph;

At 10/5/03 09:11 PM, Lyddiechu wrote:

"Machiavelli argues that Christian morality always leads to an advantage for one’s enemies. Mercy, forgiveness, and hesitance in dealing with an opponent given one’s enemy time to regroup and strike, causing the chaos and bloodshed one hoped to avoid by being “moral” in the first place. A wise politician strikes quickly and judiciously, treating the enemy as if it were a disease, for, as Machiavelli states; “when one recognizes from afar the evils that arise in a state..."

..when we read this in today context we naturally compare it with pre-9'11 and post-9'11 events.

We know that GW Bush likes to think of himself as some great christian leader, doing God's work, fighting Evil wherever he (Bush) points his finger.
But by our view it might not be God's Will to seek vengence and retribution ..at least the Bible states this quite clearly! Bush doesn't even claim to be following God's direct orders. It's more like the "them and us" but from a hawkish government's priviledged standpoint .."We're the good guys", "We're fighting off evil forces" ..but as Machiavelli states something like; EVIL (to a non-Cristian) is whatever we say is EVIL ..and what we say is EVIL (which suits our purpose becuase WE view ourselves as the GOOD GUYS) ..which means we're reacting out of self-interest ..which can now be labelled "pre-emptive self-preservation".

Put another way. One group's moral beliefs will not always equate to another groups morality standpoint. It does not make either group less or more religious. It's purely an ethical difference, which leads to a greater conflict of interest!
Suddenly the two opposing sides start fighting, each in the name of their personal Gods or belief systems. But what Machiavelli doesn't suggest (as a non-Christian) is that neither side can really claim or proove themselves to be more righteously or more morally superior. This will always be subjective, as it comes down to each personal interpretation or right and wrong, which pretty much always aligns with self-interest anyways.

See, it's hard to describe non-religious beliefs in plain english :-/

At 10/6/03 10:43 AM, D2KVirus wrote: I have noticed there is a disruptive, angry, potentially violent subculture that kicks off as soon as they aren't getting anything the way they want it..
The thing is, they're all Pensioners, not teenagers. So where is the panicked coverage of this phenomenon?

This has occured me too.
Not that there's a growing army of elderly about to take over the world, but that polititians and "upstanding members of society" -almost without exception- have been very unrepresentative of youth or youth issues. Meaning; THEY ARE ALL OLD. THEY ALREADY RUN THE WORLD!!

It then strikes me as if these old farts (the worlds decision makers!) are very earnest when it comes to the education and technical skills of the very young, almost as if they are relying on the bright-young generation to complete their scientific jigsaw puzzle as soon as possible, offering them a viable form of medical immortality.
Specifically, the focus is on medical breakthru that most benefit the rich, old, and powerful. Concerns of the young (those that will inherit the real problems of today) or the poor of the wider world (thus underfunded in corporate research) are then merely labelled as "problematic elements of society resulting from a lack of education"

.

At 10/6/03 10:00 AM, Sophia_7 wrote:
Bierman has done some experiments on RSI using MRI technology, but it is, so far, inconclusive.

it would be logical that dream states (Alpha wave patterns not only associated with sleeping) are more receptive occasions, similar to the total concenration of the subconcious mind, like that of a judo expert meditating (focusing) before giving a demonstration of overwhelming strength (mind over matter) in which EEG readings have also shown these strong Alpha patterns.

you make it hard to spot the difference between a non-Christian Moralist and a Christian one.

I think that government could harness more diverse pockets of idealism, with a scattering of liberalism, and a hint of chaos, layered with a technological morality. It's like some business is very straight-laced suits and commerce, while other businesses pander to the common needs of real citizens (sex drugs and techno raves) while the government, for the most part, currently controls the layer of technological morality.

It's the latter (government agengies) that need to be privatised, not just electric and water and such. Government funding of an authorative organisations makes the "them and us" division, but privatised (with a comprehensive overview of public watchdogs) would give less oportunity for rampant self-interest at a government level which often spews out and affect other countries.

*tokes on joint*

how kan u take this board serious?

*downs 10th can of lucky lager*

cant even delete ma possts.. *hic*

At 10/5/03 09:22 AM, gerbilfromhellll wrote: not really.... who would let terrorists live in the same city as you?

how naive.

not really, they could nuke palestine and remain un-touched, depending on where they dropped it.

which is why Isral makes tatical nukes and land-mine nukes..

i think you're confusing israel with america. AMERICA 'needs' hundreds (of thousands) of nukes. israel needs none.

look whos watching too much FOX news

OH NO! NOT THE ATHEISTS! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES, THE ATHEISTS ARE COMING! seriously, shut up.

you're outnumbered! deal with it.

At 10/5/03 09:18 AM, gerbilfromhellll wrote: did you get this information from fox news?

BBC

go suck on a bible, jesus boy

cold-hearted.. athiest.

At 10/4/03 11:57 PM, darthknight878176 wrote: You guys have every right to be there and every right to defend yourselves. I hope you guys bomb the hell out of the bastards who did it. Screw foriegn opinion, they aren't in your shoes.

why don't they just nuke the hell out of 'em... oh, that's right - they live virtually in the same city.. bugger those damn nukes are too powerful..

why does Isael need hundreds of nukes???

At 10/4/03 11:59 AM, Furious_Angel wrote: I don't know what about you, but for me it's just another reason why we should nail that terorist bastard Arafat and his company.

a noob flying his defiant flag of hate, and espousing the same rhetoric.. you have no sympathy here Furious_F**K!! Israel now bombs Syria on some new pretext of military superiority..

> "Still wasn't born the motherfucker that will stop Israel"

"you call to the Devil and He shall fulfil your deep desire to meet with Him!"

or put another way;

If you participate in an event, you then have a direct causal-link to the outcome. BUT, How dissociate do you have to be from influencing the outcome, before your accurate guestimate of such outcome can be classed as a "super-natural ability"?

"...but wait! there's more."

ironicly, South American and African and other poverty-stricken nation's best remaining productive lands are now all designated as "Native or Tropical forests of vital importance to World's oxygen production" (besides plankton) ..not something you can bottle and sell so easily :(

I'm sure thou, if the Earths oxygen supply does get low, that the big corporations who have most helped cause the problem, will be the first to patent all known methods of chemically producing bottled O2 for international sale. </synical>

At 10/4/03 11:56 AM, firebird1985 wrote: Maybe, maybe not.

"proof! we need proof!"

Actually, winning lotto or some easy life is not normally the result of PSI-powers. Oddly enough, if you sell heaps of shares before your chosen company's stock crashes then you'll as likely get investigated for insider-trading. Likewise, if you win often at the Casino, your name will be blacklisted and your face plastered around as a deterrant to future gambling.

So PSI talents are not normally directed towards personal gain. They are like flashes-of-inspiration, visions infrequently verbalized until after the event. Whether it's merely De-Ja-Vu is then quite hard to disproove.

If a computer with "sufficient information" can predict weather patterns a week in advance with over 90% certainly, then the human brain can easily tap into it's massive-media databanks and link cause to effect with equal precision.
The question is whether our society (or government secret services) are ready to accept that a few people are "gifted" to see snipets of future events without access to the resources, spy-satellites, and super-computers. Or will we (as Sci-Fi writer Philip K Dick often suggested..) feel threatened by sush unexplained phenomina, like the flat-earth or religious society did during the dark-ages?

Why else did the US government breifly launch the "Online-Terrorist-Betting" website, before finally deciding it far too controvesial, or worse, provocative!?

UPDATE: One Third of NZ doctors have stated in a recent poll that they would like to have the option of prescribing medical marijuana for some patients.

Currently this decision is under governmental review..

At 10/4/03 08:36 PM, JudgeFUNK wrote: The invaders take all the money, and the locals are reduced to serfdom. Why is the US government not held responsible for the actions of its citizens?

i've missed a lot of SouthPark but yesterday saw the 100th episode (Anti-War Protestors vs Pro-War Advocates) ..and as funney as it was, it pointed out that; blowing away foreign sovereign states in a unilaterally selective manner, whilst allowing their own populous the "relative freedom" to moan and groan about it, is a central founding-fathers concept to saying "hey, we're also the good-guys here!"

Praise be Allah for NG BBS where US citizens like JudgeFunk who are prepared to step outside their comfort-zone and say so publically!

p.s. MANPOWER sux ass!!!!!!11 =^__^=

At 10/4/03 10:07 AM, D2KVirus wrote: It's post-traumatic stress, stemming from months of Jimswhine, usually asking for sources, then flaming when he got them. Or whatever other well appreciated tactics he employed to avoid the truth. See also: Commander K-25, AmericanBADASS, NEMISiSZ, ardshepherd..

Amen to that Bro!!

At least with the Devil's Advocates we are left in some uncertainty about strongly held or opposing views. It takes rampant sarcasm to a whole new level..

*turns DAG light on*

F__k, like ALL hippy pacifists should be stood against the American flag and shot ..those lazy bast__ds!

*turns DAG lazer-sight on*

*aims at ardshepherd*

err, BWS.. u roxxorz!! *coughs* "TEH EDN!" *coughs*

At 10/4/03 07:15 AM, Slizor wrote: Neo-imperialism forces countries to do things which benefit the rich countries (see the IMF, WTO, etc.)

some are obvious; like the DuPont "patented process" of turning oil into plastics, then pursuading congress to outlaw marijuana AND HEMP!!
It's common knowledge in the decriminalisation-camp that Industry Protectionism over Environmental Concern is at the heart of US (government) strategy for over half a century. Such laws hurt thrid-world countries the most - the plant being a vital source of food, shelter, clothing, packing and paper, trade, jobs, etc.

America pushes it's free trade agenda for it's own benifit, then shows itself to be the worst perpetrator of sanctions and tariffs - and any old reason will do!

A Starbucks on every street corner and the loss of thousands of family-run boutique coffee-shops in the process. Even Americans who go on holiday to remote destinations are saddened to see they could just as well have stayed at home to enjoy their "All-American cuisine" (fast-foods) in a thousand foreign cities.

Will American dollars become the only currency? Take a look at the dominant Credit Card companies! Take a look at Microsoft business practises. Take a look at US military budget spending in the last few decades! Take a look at recent Intellectual Property Laws! Take a look at American protectionism, where cotton growers are paid more in subsidies than their total cotton production is actually worth. Take a look at the "America has the right to flaunt it's WMD, but no other country even has the right to even have defensive weapons (programs)" .. the approach of the current hawkish US administration.

There are 1001 such examples that i could give which all point to the same conclusion; "economic global domi-Nation" ..a Neo-SuperPower approach to international trade negotiations. Might is Right!! Money makes Money!!
Meanwhile, poverty is seen to be a third-world handicap which will continue to benefit the USA "..so long as they don't take OUR jobs"

At 10/1/03 03:41 PM, BWS wrote: What if he tried to sell the cop a bag of socks and said it was coke?

do you mean you have socks that look like cola ova there? weird! (lost translation indeed ;)

as has pointed out already, baking soda gets bread high, so it's obviously an illegal substance. But in todays terms he could easily have been arrested for selling WMD (ie. an anthrax lookalike)

But here's my question. If the cop accepts the baking soda and pays with a wad of monopoly money (real monopoly money!) could the dealer then sue the law-enforcement (law-entrapment) agency for passing off counterfeit currency?

this case has many ramifications!

"problems of teh future - today!"

Does it exist? Do you know of any irrefutable evidence? A personal experience of importance?

..or is the whole concept of precog just a joke, less interesting than night-golf or TV game shows?

If you've had a vision you think is precog and want to let it known to all, then this is the place to present it and have it taken half-seriously (..maybe)

At 9/29/03 08:46 PM, Dagodevas wrote: If we were to institute a global government, then it should have a system of checks and balances much like the one that America was found on to prevent there being a single political entity with more political power than others.

but a system donimated by a two party system is the result. That's not a good basis for a world government... World War 3, maybe.

Anyhow, Euroland and American imperialism are evidence the world is still moving towards 1-W-G. It'll be interesting to see if all African or all Asian countries finally settle on 1 currency, etc.

At 9/29/03 08:31 PM, giantass wrote: Ok everyone has an opinion of who or what god is. Is real is it an idea? Share your views and ill tell u mine.

you are flying the Israeli flag - me thinks you are dying to tell us..

**atheists opinion**

whatever god is? or hie/her/its intentions? this Universe we're presented with is so very very vast as to totally conceal any truth of the matter.

At 9/29/03 05:56 PM, BWS wrote: Right. How likely do you actually think that is? Given the demand, do you really think that there could be a worldwide hault on production of guns?

Yes (..but i am NG's resident idealist -doh!)
..maybe if we can throw in some technological widget somewhere in the production cycle? ..or is hi-tech only a tool of the military?? :*(

(did I explain this well?)

yes, very well.
We can probably agree that young kids (4-10) should be given the opportunity to become multi-lingual (before the neural pathways become too established) and give adolecent kid (10-16) more courses specifically tailored towards their chosen profession -but allowing them to change if need be.
I personally knew what i wanted to do careerwise when i was 9 or 10. I'd like to see some stats on any correlation between when a child decides their prefered occupation and whether they do get work in that field, and whether they would have changed their minds if given a second chance? This is essential info which is easy to gather (except NG doesn't have polling) and would go a long way to adapting our school systems which are overly focused on facts than job prospects.

Maybe this makes me sound like an advocate of corporate enslavement, but this is only because the corporate world offers more "hands-on" practical knowledge than most schools with lots of theory without useful application.

At 9/28/03 04:39 PM, RugbyMacDaddy wrote: Its only cause they can get away with it.

Any Iraqi who speaks out against the slaughter of innocent people will be branded a "Saddam sympathizer", "an enemy combatant", or worse, "a Terrorist". This is not something new for Iraqis to come to terms with. The "think, before you speak, before your house gets ransackled, and your head gets blown off" was what they've thankfully learnt under Saddam regime. Without that instilled cautionary approach, many more vocally outspoken Iraqi's would have come to grief.

Praise be Allah for quick merciful death.

At 9/28/03 08:56 PM, UNpossible wrote:

At 9/28/03 03:29 PM, bumcheekcity wrote: Firearms shouldn't be used.

As dumb as it sounds, with what would we stop the grizzly bear?

..it was actually a typo; "the right to bear arms" ..it was a clause for taxidermists to legally sell their meat thru the open market, rather than the black market.

They decided to leave the clause as stated, ammending it to allow people to own short-sleeve-shirts (bears skins were becomming quite rare, and cotton was already a popular alternative) ..by the time the gun lobbyists interpreted it to mean "the possession of lethal weapons", the sale of hunting rifles was already diminishing in favour of the of the smaller, lighter, "people hunting" hand-guns.

*starts collecting bets on when Wade will post in topic*