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At 1/13/06 07:42 PM, red_skunk wrote: Isn't it odd how some people only show up if you say their names three times in a row?

Jessca Alba, Jessica Alba, Jessica Alba.
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come on, i'm still waiting!

At 1/12/06 11:20 PM, BeFell wrote: I know I'm in for intelligent reading when people start comparing modern America to an empire that ceased to exist more than 1500 years ago.

come on befell, there is some merit to these claims. The state of america in the current day does quite closely resemble that of the late roman republic, of course we are nowhere nearly as bad. But there is class warfare, corrupt politics, oppurtunistic battling politicians, stagnant economy in which constant wars of conquest are nesecarry to continue any economic growth, etc etc etc. Not saying that we are exactlly like the late republic, but it is wong to dismiss the comparison as bullshit.

At 1/12/06 11:03 PM, stafffighter wrote:

At 1/12/06 10:52 PM, ScaryDeadGirl wrote: I just think it's odd that guy on guy is deleted more often while girl on girl is somehow widely excepted. : \

I think it's unfair but a huge duh as to why

yeah, i guess i'm the only one who misses the gay man love sigs.

At 1/12/06 08:25 PM, SuperDrummer146 wrote:

So yes, I'd have to agree that Gandalf's character represents people in the Bible.

In the whole arc where gandalf fights the balorag and comes back, he is an alagory for christ. He fights the balorag on the bridge and falls off (dies for mankinds sins) and then after he fights it on the highest peak and is killed he is brought back (raised from the dead) then comes back to help the remaining fellowship (the second coming). There are references to chirst and his acts throughout the book.

I respect you, and you are a mod, but please, keep this hack journalism crap out of here. come on, newsmax? you can do better than that.

At 1/12/06 01:09 AM, BaKsHi wrote: Today I filled out an application to Best Buy. Second time. I hate those computer employment systems. I've heard they pay well there. Got my fingers crossed.

Done and done. Reminds me of those summer days.

zomg, bakshi, you and your spamming ways. spam whore of the universe

Well, if puerto rico wants to join, more power to them. However, I don't think they will be accepted. Since Puerto Rico is mainly liberal, and the house and senate are under conservative control, I don't think that the leadership would want two more democratic senators and however many additional democratic congressmen. Especially at this current time, when republican power in the legislature is waning, and the last thing they want to do is give more seats to the opposition party.

At 1/11/06 07:23 PM, Imperator wrote:
Or any good art exhibits? Anything we could deem "high" cultural?

Just curious to see what's happenin out derrr.....

I went to see the 'Bodies' exhabition recently, and its just amazing. Its been touring big cities recently, and if you don't know it, its an exhibition of human cadavers with the skins stripped off to reveal the muscle and bone structure beneath, as well as ligaments and some exposed nerves. The bodies are all strongly preserved and they are posed in various positions. If it is near you, i would definately reccomend seeing it.

Imperator, although I don't feel like getting embroiled in this discussion, just a technical note about our bombs. Some percentage of our bombs are 'smart' bombs, which use lasers to guide them to their targets. As you said, these bombs aren't exactally always smart, but they're a far cry from saturation bombing. However, many of our bombs are cluster bombs, which are bombs which break up into dozens of smaller bombs to saturate an area with firepower. As well as indiscremenately destroying or damaging large areas, many of these smaller bombs fail to detonate, remaining buried in the rubble, until some iraqi pokes them with a stick. So althoug we have come a long way from firebombings and biological warfare, our methods are a far cry from humane.

goodness, story time in the reg lounge.

Thanks Imperator, sorry i got pissed, your apology is accpted. As to the Israel example and how we can't really control how our former allies act, my point was that we installed most of these regiemes/extranational groups knowing that they were 'bad' people, but served our purposes at the time. I know that we always try to remedy the situation, but I guess that its just a bit of nievete on my part that I just can't come to terms that at times America puts aside its ideals and is just a self serving and oppurtunistic country. As to granada, well, I'm not surprised they put up a memorial, considering we killed off all the leftist politicians. I find your comparison of America now to the Late Republic extrmely interesting because, as luck (or fate) would have it, I actually made the same comparison several times a while back, like on Redskvnk's site, the progressive voice. (i forget the URL) but yeah

At 1/10/06 10:03 PM, fenrus1989 wrote:

At 1/10/06 09:23 PM, sdhonda wrote: Although they have done more bad than good, they do have a few good deeds under their belts:

-Had they not entered WW2, the iron curtian would have been much bigger, as would japans empire. In fact, it would look alot like 1984s map.'

so thats it, thats all we get. Nothing being mentioned about us bases countering the
steel curtain or protecting berlin.

We were just as much at fault in the cold war as the Russainswere both sides pushed towards escilation.

-They do give aid.

We annually give more aid then any other country in the world. Most of our food supplies are either charity or exported.

We give the smallest percentage of our GDP in aid of any western industrialized nation.

-They sent peace keepers to some UN approved missions.

We are the UN.

um no? We are an obstinate member state who prevents the UN from working properly, like us rejecting the international criminal court.

everything. Since I after all am an American, america has done everything for me, be it good or bad. We have established the first democratic republic with a governmental organization that can still hold up under the eormous ammount of abuse it is currently taking, we have set the global precident for individual rights and freedoms, we have set up one of the most robust higher education systems in the world, but on the other hand, we have been the home to extrmeely famous hypocracies, such as slavery, and our persual of a 'new world order'. SO I mean, America is a mixed bag. Anybody who says its all bad or all good is much too much of an idealogue.

Imperator, thats just a low blow. I though we were here to debate politics, not rip on each others' ages. The fact that I am not 18 yet doesn't make any difference. I'd appreciate if you either made a valid refutation of my point, or shut up about my age.

At 1/10/06 09:04 PM, Wyrlum wrote: I think Gandalf's character is based off of people in the Bible, mainly prophets. Anyone agree with me?

All of LoTR and Narnia was based off the bible. After all, both JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis were professors of Theology and Anglo Saxon Studies at Oxford at around the same time.

When I'm interested in a book, I can usually read it in under a day, especially if its a graphic novel or something. But there are a lot of books where i read them uber slowley, like The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand, whcih I still can't get past the first two pages of.

Sorry, didn't see that it didn't include covert ops. But the point that I was trying to get across was, that a majority of our wars, legit or not, involve taking down dictators or states that we ourselves propped up, as in the case of Panama, Iraq, the War on Terror, and many others.

Of course Imperator, you left out all our wars prior to 1978, as well as our semi-covert military coups, such as the origional panama coup, the contra affair, our involvement in Chile, the CIA support of Sadam Hussein's uprising in Iraq, etc etc etc. How many of these modern wars are the international community helping the US clean up its mess?

Silzor, by literature i didn't just mean 'literature' in the strict sense. Literature meaning not just the acknowleged cannon, but whatever books you feel like talking about, modern fiction, nonfiction, comics, etc...

At 1/10/06 07:03 PM, Imperator wrote: First up: J.D. Salinger's "A Perfect Day for Bananafish"

Anyone read it?
I only suggest this cause it's currently on my mind.....

I've been meaning to, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Although I did read catcher in the rye last month. It was the third time, I really love that book. Its frankly one of teh best books about alienation and growing up ever written. However, It wasn't until recently that I saw just how much it owed to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. After reading that book for english this week, its amazing how much salinger draws from it in crafting Catcher. I guess teenage angst stories never change...

At 1/10/06 06:59 PM, Empanado wrote: Enough with this smarty-pants talk. We need a link to something that will make people vomit and possibly want to tear their eyes out.

Rubber Johnny, Rubber Johnny

(Moderately creepy)

bleh. I've seen this before in adverts for aphex twin (a great techno group, for those of you who don't know), and its at the same time disgusting and amazing. minus the amazing part. It makes me want to be ill. I love it. Its horrible. Its great.

I mean, I'm not surprised. Terrorists are bred from people who have no hope and nothing left to live for. Be it because of western cultural imperialism, or fatal and incurable diseases, this is the kind of environment in which terrorists thrive, and its totally not a surprise that they use people who suffer from fatal diseases.

Being that the Politics board is almost as much about simple 'inteligent discussion' as it is about politics, I thought it better to put this topic here than in General. So, in leiu of the lit discussion that is going back and fourth in the reg lounge, I though that we should make a deadicated topic for it. What do you all think?

At 1/9/06 09:16 PM, fli wrote:

At 1/9/06 08:45 PM, Quanze13 wrote: Proteas, yes, the book was much better than the movie, and the author, Chuch Palahniuk has written many really good books, like Invisible monsters, haunted and lullabye. his most recent is called 'stranger than ficton' and its a bunch of 'short stories' about real people and events.

Oh well... I wouldn't say "really" good books.
But Fight Club was the best one.

I don't care for the rest-- Invisible Monsters was more or less. Choke was just not good.

I mean, its not that they're great literature or anything, they're just good easy fun reads. Especially since I've been having trancendentalist bullshit shoved down my throat in englash class for the last couple months, Palahniuk is more of a modern man's take on Emerson and Thoreau's ideas.

At 1/9/06 10:27 PM MALforPresident wrote:

somehow finding librarys that will loan me the 10 volumes of neil gaiman's "Sandman" : series, pick up Neil Gaiman's new book "anansi boys" (the sequal to "american gods"..or : was it prequal?)

After classics like The Watchmen, The Sandman is probably one of the best comic books ever. You totally won't regret reading it. Have you read the sequil series, 'Lucifur'? Its currently in the middle of a run from Verdigo and its not bad.

At 1/10/06 06:58 AM Samuel_HALL wrote:

But one of the key 'morals to the story', in the book, is that it's foolish to do the things the : characters in the book did; that it's foolish to think that way.
The core of that story is that there is no 'defeating' order. The end of the book shows how : all the anarchy in the world just forces to system to adapt you, and you it.

Very true. Although, I don't think the book is about how people shouldn't strive to defeat order, only how futile it is. The book is really just a fatalistic take on neieve anarchic idealistic writings and you're right about how its just him talking about how the society does just buy and sell everything. revolution and heroism become comodities, and who is going to pay for them?

Exactly. Palahniuk is mocking that trancendatalism mind-set. He makes a farce, and a : mockery of it.

All of his characters, who think that way (from Choke to Fight-Club) all eventually realize : the error of their ways. They all eventually realize that there is no such things as : 'seperating yourself from society'.

I have to disagree. In most of his books, his characters don't realize the futility of runing away from society, but find that society has run away from them. Like in Invisible Monsters the protaginist has a completely emersonian ending, having stripped away her shalow capitolistic persona, she is ready to find her true self. And in Lullabye, its just the opposite, the main character finds himself a represntative of a society that is becoming obsolete, while the two wiccens run away from it.

Little do we all know, but this thread was just an experimet by stanford university to proove that people are just all stupid and intolerant.

zomg, you are XXXharcoreXXX

Proteas, yes, the book was much better than the movie, and the author, Chuch Palahniuk has written many really good books, like Invisible monsters, haunted and lullabye. his most recent is called 'stranger than ficton' and its a bunch of 'short stories' about real people and events.

At 1/8/06 08:28 PM, LadyGrace wrote:

At 1/8/06 08:20 PM, FUNKbrs wrote:

At 1/8/06 07:59 PM, stafffighter wrote: I worry that I'm insane but not enough to enjoy it

I suggest drugs.

Yeah, but then he'd be like you... and that's not necessarily a good thing.

of course it is </kissing up to mod>

well, just on paper, with no regard to reality, a benign dictatorship is the best government. A benign dictator, being extremely knowlegabe about the affairs of state, and having nothing but love for his people, would get things done extremely efficiently and well. However, there is no ideal benign dictator, and this whole topic is moot.

Sam: about fight club, i totally agree how all 14 yr old anarchists should die. The book isn't even about anarchy. it is a modern take on the philosophy of trancendentalism, which talks about abandoning society and letting yourself become your own man. If you read palahniuk's other novels, especially invisible monsters and haunted, this theme cropps up again and again. Its still a great movie.