At 7/25/09 02:38 AM, BrianEtrius wrote:

PLUSIRECOGNIZETHOSETITLES

homo.

Don't feel sad, Shrikey. What's that line about satisfying some people some of the time? Obama has exceeded my wildest expectations. Has anyone here stayed up with their parents and watched the news? Seen the Dow? The economy is not in death spiral, kamikaze mode anymore. There's a turn around in sight, somewhere. Just imagine McCain suspending his presidency so he could focus on the economy, or Bush bleary-eyed, sucking his thumb in Crawford. Everyone is underestimating the value of having adults back in the White House over just these past few months. Without a steady hand, things would - guaranteed - be much worse.

Meanwhile he's fulfilled (given political realities) numerous campaign promises (gitmo's time is near, end of fed raids on legal pot suppliers, IRAQ) and is actually successfully pushing through substantial healthcare reform. I never expected that to become a reality. What makes Obama successful as a campaigner is making him successful in office. He's using the bully pulpit. He's got popular support, and I love how it's making all the nut jobs squirm.

Not reading any responses to anything I write does wonders for my enjoyment of this forum.

At 1/5/09 09:36 AM, bcdemon wrote: Ok fine, how much dose Hamas pay for the fuel that powers the Katyusha rocket? You figure that out and were set....

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/513 51

At 1/5/09 05:41 AM, Tancrisism wrote: The ones we should support are the Israelis and Palestinians, not Israel or Palestine. In order for there to be peace it is extremely important that both sides no longer feel attacked by the other, as at the moment both Israelis and Palestinians feel that the other is completely out to kill them. I don't know how it can be accomplished, but at the moment I think the ball is in Israel's court.

"Palestine" or "Palestinians" or Hamas or any other over-generalizing representation of the other side has no say over whether or not some random dude in Gaza is willing to blow themselves up at a checkpoint. There will never be a wholesale end to the violence with a single swoop - Israel uses this as justification to continue the conflict.

Israel has all the control in the world over their military. The burden has always been on Israel because they've always had the ability to end their side of the conflict. They are the ones with a functioning government. Israel's attacks are at the bequest of the Israeli government and carried out by the Israeli military.

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

At 1/5/09 06:38 AM, KemCab wrote: Didn't the Palestinians ELECT Hamas?

I think Israel should consider every citizen in Gaza a member of the organization and act accordingly. There's no negotiation with these people. Give them a hand and they cut off your arm.

You don't understand the situation at all. I would suggest picking up a book.

Hamas was elected in a sham of an election that was pushed by the US and Israel. The only organizational body in the Occupied Territories before the '06 elections was the PA, which was never meant to be a government. Suddenly, we give the Palestinians the right to vote, and we expect them to vote for, who? Fatah? Our boys? The party that did effectively jack since Oslo? They went with the alternative.

Keep in mind that Hamas is effectively two different organizations, similar to many others in the Middle East, in that they have a political arm and a military arm. Bombing government buildings and destroying what little infrastructure remains will do nothing to prevent rockets being launched. Rockets will be launched regardless of Hamas' top leaders, the Gaza population, or Israel's retributory attacks.

Israel never really left Gaza. "Re-invading" Gaza won't do anything but escalate the situation. Israeli leaders know this.

Anyone who thinks humanity will be around in a million years is really naive.

At 1/4/09 11:59 PM, TimeLordX wrote: Solar (photovoltaic) panels and wind power will always be fringe power sources. The bulk of our nation's energy production will need to come from a cheap, replenishable source. My bet's on nuclear fusion (which uses hydrogen, the most common element in the universe). The trick to making it work is to make the reaction sustainable (which is harder than it sounds-the longest sustained reaction lasted .5 seconds and generated 16.1 MW). The only byproducts of the reaction are helium, an inert gas and tritium (a hydrogen isotope with a half-life of 12 years). There is no chance of a runaway reaction as nuclear fusion requires precise conditions and any disruption to those conditions would shut the reaction down. There is concern over radioactivity, but mainly from the reactor's components. They would remain very radioactive for 50 years and treated as low-level waste for another 100 (compared to the thousands to millions of years with fission by-products). In 300 years, they'd be as radioactive as coal ash. (Source: Wikipedia-Fusion Power)

First, the irony of your "fail safe fusion" plant. People say the same thing about fission because of the multitude of safeguards, yet we've seen them fail. And did you really just favorably compare the waste from fusion to coal ash? Didn't coal ash just create one of the largest manmade environmental disasters state-side, since, well. um? (Pick your favorite. Do Three Mile Island for extra irony points.)

Radioactive byproducts - even ones that last hundreds instead of thousands of years - are unacceptable today. The waste presents the same, identical problems as fission. I have a bridge to sell to anyone who thinks Yucca Mountain will be a permanent solution. Similarly "permanent" storage sites are leaking waste across the globe. I also sincerely doubt the technical differences between fusion and fission will have any difference regarding proliferation.

You can call solar and wind "fringe," I think they're an opportunity at a drastically different form of energy production. One that takes production away from plants and onto the homes of Americans across the country. Revamping America's infrastructure by putting energy production into the hands of consumers and small businesses (vis a vis today's oligopolies) would do wonders in terms of increasing our personal stakes in energy efficiency, lowering and insulating costs, and preventing things like huge, regional outages during storms or other disasters.

At 1/3/09 12:38 PM, Conspiracy3 wrote: Ethanol and hydrogen aren't solutions: they are just worse problems. With ethonal you burn more energy refining the corn (unless you make ethonal from sugar cane like Brazil doez) than you get from burning the fuel.

I think you're wrong. Ethanol is the immediate solution to a transportation infrastructure based around liquid fuel. Cellulosic ethanol - fuel produced by agricultural / industrial waste like corn stalks left in the field or sawdust from a sawmill, or even switchgrass in fallow fields - holds promise for a huge net energy gain because this energy is going unharnessed currently. Traditional ethanol produced from corn is still a net energy gain, dependent on economies of scale. Ethanol promises better energy gains than petroleum in the future. Consider the amount of energy put into drilling in Alaska or in the North Sea. Cheap, easy oil is gone - we've drilled Pennsylvania and the Balkans all to hell. Petroleum is becoming more energy intensive every day, and ethanol: less.

Just because a fledgling tech might not be immediately economical isn't reason to abandon the technology. We used to tap into the ground, find oil, and fill buckets of it for lighting. We used more coal BTU for BTU to get oil in the 1860s because oil was advantageous, net energy gain or loss be damned. Likewise, even if / when ethanol is a net energy loss, we're able to use renewable green energy to produce ethanol which is advantageous compared to burning more petro.

The reason cellulosic ethanol or biodiesel is the future for transportation use is because we have the technology today to do it. Any modern car will run E85 with a $400 conversion kit atop your injectors. It's a liquid fuel that we'll be able to use in our existing infrastructure. We do it already. Ethanol is also a fuel we'll be able to produce at home, meaning some insulation from international politics / markets. Locally E85 is nearly a $1 cheaper per gallon, and while you'll see a ~25% decline in fuel economy, the fuel's octane is actually in the 105-110 range, making it a better fuel than petro.

Nuclear, fission or fusion, isn't really conceivable as a future fuel source. Firstly, fission has proved dangerous. Not while operating (although, sure, it can be), but when dealing with the spent fuel. It's also a huge obstacle in terms of nuclear proliferation worldwide. Inconsistency between what we say and what we do. Nuclear power also directly contributes to the proliferation of weapons in the same way the dairy industry contributes to veal. Fusion may be safer operation-wise, but it still does not replace petro as a liquid fuel for transportation use. We'll be able to generate electricity from alternative renewable sources, but electric automobiles are still a joke. Meanwhile, we have the ability to reduce consumption of petro now via ethanol production. Maybe it's just a bridge to a future source that holds more promise. Till then.

At 1/4/09 11:03 PM, Minarchist wrote: The idea that technology reduces the demand for labor, resulting in a net loss of jobs, is a classic fallacy and is contrary to the long history of human civilization. The fallacy exists because of the incorrect view that economics is a zero sum game.

Bingo. Give the boy a biscuit.

Efficiency does not mean less manpower. There are more factors at play. Take recycling. Recycling creates jobs (it's quite labor intensive) while reusing resources. It also consumes a lot (manpower, electricity, water, depends on what you're recycling).

Green technology is another example. Everyone wants more efficient transportation, housing. This means new technology, research, and skillsets in building materials, HVAC, energy sources. Green is a boon for industry because highly specialized industry can't be as easily outsourced. Neither can the manual labor or know-how that'll be required.

At 10/20/08 06:39 PM, Grammer wrote: I don't really know who he is. It's hard to tell the trolls from the sincere idiots

Why differentiate?

I've written about this before....

...the intelligent use of drugs can also be an impetus for exploration, for creativity and introspection. The chief danger, then, is that the mind-altering substance allows us to think and perceive the world differently. And to reinterpret the world is to change it.

Powell's endorsement only helps Obama, particularly among moderate, suburban, and military families. It didn't have very much at all to do with race, and everything to do with Obama being the better candidate (and Powell not being a partisan hack).

At 10/20/08 05:49 PM, Grammer wrote: You just said "wrong" a bunch of times

I could do that too but I'm not a retard

Uh... You're spending time responding to WolvenBear. That doesn't really demonstrate great judgement, bub.

At 10/20/08 05:24 PM, Phratt wrote: Rigged? Yes.

Racist? No.

You throwing the word racist around like that just make people take it less seriously. Use the word where its do, not just anything bad done to a blackman.

I imagine "discriminatory" wouldn't have fit in the title...

It's pretty obvious that Obama is not a Muslim, and that this is an underhanded smear fueled by hyperventilating conservatives. Obama's supposed "gaffe" wasn't even a gaffe as far as I'm concerned, just poor wording. They were talking about allegations that he's Muslim. There was a question whether McCain had been floating those allegations. Obama said McCain hadn't said anything about his "Muslim faith." He should have put "alleged" in front of that. But the looney tuners jumped on it. *yawn*

At 10/20/08 10:20 AM, Al6200 wrote: I just find it hard to believe that voter fraud is as prevalent as people claim.

http://www.blackboxvoting.com

"Voter fraud" is actually incorrect wording here. Voter fraud would be individuals attempting to vote when they're not legally entitled to, say a non-citizen or a citizen attempting to vote several times. That's inconsequential.

What we're talking about here is a systematic failure of the entire voting system. This isn't a huge politicized conspiracy, per say. But it does have political consequences, because poorer (overwhelmingly minority) districts are disproportionately affected.

Here's a press release from a report looking at whether or not we're ready for Nov. 4th. (Full report is linked within the release.)

Included in that press release are these points about failures during the primaries earlier this year:
- In the Republican presidential primary in Horry County, South Carolina, touch screen machines in 80% of precincts temporarily failed, and a number of precincts ran out of paper ballots and sent voters to cast provisional ballots at other precincts.

- In Ohio's March 2008 primary, votes in at least 11 counties were "dropped" when memory cards were uploaded to computer servers due to a software flaw;

- In the August 26, 2008 primary in Palm Beach County Florida, several votes in a judicial contest disappeared during a recount, and then reappeared in a second and third recount, flipping the outcome to a different winner each time;

- In the September 9, 2008 primary inWashingtonD.C., three different counts produced three different vote totals, with thousands of "phantom votes" appearing in the first two counts.

Why is the US system more complicated than Canada's? Historical and political realities, as well as the simple fact that our population is 10x larger.

At 10/14/08 04:51 PM, JoS wrote: If you go to university I am sure you have heard of some group advertising meetings for a group about the "Israeli Apartheid" . hell I am sure most of us have heard this term before. However, am I the only one who finds this to be racist and bigoted?

No, the comparison is neither racist nor bigoted. It's completely apt.

First, apartheid is generally defined as a system of segregation or discrimination on the grounds of race.

Pointing out that Arab-Israelis are allowed to vote does not prove your point Rugby. The apartheid comparison is directed towards Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. They don't get to vote in Israeli elections - only shams of elections via the Palestinian Authority, an administration organization, not a government. Saying that Palestinian disenfranchisement is OK because they are not citizens is circular logic. In apartheid S. Africa, black disenfranchisement was OK because they were not considered 1st class citizens. Israel is still in de facto control of both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Palestine is not an organized state, and Israel actively works to prevent a functioning state from emerging.

Egypt blocking refugees from entering their borders has nothing to do on this topic.

The fact that many home demolitions are justified on the basis of "permits" does not condone these demolitions. Israel has in the past used three main justifications for demolitions - as retribution for "terrorism," national security reasons, and the houses were built without permits.

During the Second Intifada (2000-current), Israel has demolished 5000 homes, nearly 2000 excused because of permits, more than 600 as retribution. Israel has stopped the retribution justification, but still demolishes based on the second two. Israel makes obtaining building permits by Palestinians in the Occupied Territories virtually impossible. In addition to housing, Israel has also targeted Palestinian Authority ministry offices, infrastructure, and cultivatable land.

Israel controls all borders and access points (ports, airports), collects taxes and duties for the Palestinian Authority (and withholds said taxes on political grounds), continues to build a segregated highway system running throughout the Occupied Territories, constructs illegal walls, settlements, and checkpoints preventing Palestinians from moving freely throughout the Occupied Territories. All of Israel's actions have reinforced and exacerbated conditions in the Occupied Territories, where 2/3s of Palestinians are impoverished and unemployment sits around the 50% mark. Since the '06 elections, Israel has withheld the taxes and duties owed to the PA, which now runs almost entirely on foreign aid. This money goes toward basic infrastructure like schools, police and fire stations.

Pointing out these facts does not make me an anti-semite. Calling Israel's actions in the Occupied Territories "apartheid" does not make me racist. Condemning the actions of the government of Israel has nothing to do with Judaism.

"How I experienced a deja vu when I saw a security check point which Palestinians had to negotiate most of their lives that I was reminded so painfully of the same checkpoints in apartheid South Africa, when arrogant white policemen treated almost all blacks like dirt, or, when someone pointed to a house in Jerusalem and said that used to be our home, but now it has been taken over by the Israelis, which made me recall so painfully similar statements in Cape Town by coloureds who had been thrown out of their homes and relocated in ghetto townships some distance from town."
-- Desmond Tutu

At 5/19/08 06:34 AM, Korriken wrote: my apology: I told em I was sorry that he was raised in a society of double standards where he is allowed to use racist remarks but white people couldn't. I was tossed out for a few more days until i got a lawyer to get the principal to reverse his decision.

Did you impress anyone?

At 5/15/08 07:36 PM, Al6200 wrote: On the other hand, Paris Hilton appears on TV shows and gets money from her Dad. Even though she doesn't work very hard, she gets a lot done and therefore makes a lot of money. The fact that everyone knows who she is is a testament to how well she does her job of being infamously well known.

"Being famous" isn't an occupation.

At 5/16/08 09:50 AM, RedCoin wrote: Every culture to ever exist has always had some form of hierarchy and probably always will.
It's human nature I suppose.

It's not human nature but a natural consequence of a stratified economy. Hunter-gatherer societies were egalitarian. Before the existance of agriculture, where specialization began.

At 5/16/08 06:35 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Class systems tend to spring up on their own, Even in Utopian Indian tribes you WILL have individuals in the tribe valued more than others.

A tribe is a class system by definition, bud.

You are confusing the letter of the law with the intent.

A drinking age of 21 is not to prevent 20-year-olds from drinking - it doesn't - but to limit the number of 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds. And this, it does, as the number of young teens drinking on a regular basis did in fact statistically decrease after the age limit was raised. A drinking age of 18 increases accessibility to young teens exponentially as we then have 18-year-olds in high school legally able to purchase alcohol for their younger peers.

Moderate consumption is not particularly harmful, given. But moderate consumption is essentially unaffected by the drinking age. Parents, on a case by case basis, can make the decision to allow their child alcohol. Age restrictions are not meant to prevent a responsible 18- or 19-year-old from having a glass of wine with dinner at home with his/her parents. I know of no such instance where someone has been charged for this.

Additionally, I am unaware of any study that shows consumption of alcohol to be beneficial to young teenagers. Early teen drinking has been linked to alc
oholism later in life, however.

You have not adequately demonstrated how an age limit of 21 "shrouds alcohol in mystery" or prevents a "positive cultural attitude" towards alcohol. Even if we assume these things are true for a moment, lowering the age to 18 would not necessarily change a thing. The largest single input in regards to children and mature drug use, is their parents. Better parenting at a group, societal level is dependent on factors far more reaching that an arbitrary age limit.

The single argument that holds water for lowering the drinking limit from 21 to 18 is the adulthood one and the inconsistency between drinking and smoking, warfare, etcetera. Therefor I've held for awhile now that we ought to raise the smoking, draft, and voting age to 21. A similar argument to drinking applies to smoking - I think the less accessible cigarettes are to young teenagers the better. I also don't think teenagers are, on a collective basis, mature enough to fight in wars or vote intelligently. The voting thing is alleviated by the fact that youth don't vote. But as long as we're looking for consistency in our laws, right?

Denial isn't an argument. Pretending the WHO doesn't study the health and healthcare of a nation isn't an argument. And out typing someone else isn't "winning." I'm bored. You haven't swayed me. I still put more faith in an international health body such as the WHO than an unimpressive user on a flash website.

As for your claim that I haven't provided proof of direct indicators of the quality of care... Here are some links to some statistics the WHO commonly uses, which you may or may not agree are such indicators. Click them or not. I'm done.

http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7MortNeoBoth/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7Immunized/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7BirthsAttended/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7ANC/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7ARV/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7TBCasesDetectedDOTS/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7TBCasesCuredDOTS/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7TBPrevRate/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7TBIncidenceRate/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7PolioCases/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/whosis/indicators/200 7MortChildCauses/en/index.html

At 11/28/07 07:40 PM, fli wrote: Stuff for the AARP.

I've gotten stuff from AARP before too. Who knows what monkeys are in charge of sending that stuff out.

.
And I'm ducking out for another few months. Too many kiddies and ideologues still.

I don't think there's any hope for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict until the US government steps up to the plate and forces a solution. The US sends a huge amount of aid into the area year after year. Attaching actual strings to it could set things going pretty quickly.

Cellar door - say something new and worth responding to if you want a response, ok sweetie? If you believe everything I say to be either disingenuous or ignorant, then don't bother. You're wasting my time.

At 11/27/07 05:54 PM, poxpower wrote: stuff

I wasn't trying to pile on you at all pox. I was intentionally upsetting this "lefties hate America" BS that comes up again and again. As if everyone who isn't a rabid conservative is simply motivated by the destruction of America. It's played out.

But one comment. As far as green technology.. One of the LARGEST uses of resources today is the construction and renovation of buildings. Green building techniques - in addition to what I said earlier re: manufacturing jobs in the US - are better for the environment AND better for inhabitants via lower VOC emissions AS WELL AS more cost effective in the long term. Green means building more efficient buildings that use less resources and are less damaging to the environment. And this stuff is here today. What's not to like? The argument that things "aren't economically feasible now, just wait" is self-defeating.

I liked the movie. I don't remember all the inbreeding. I just thought they were Canadian?

-> He's a fringe candidate with no chance of being elected.

-> They get our minds off of the lemming frontrunners and talking about issues that wouldn't be brought up otherwise.

What's not to like?

It's war of the worlds for the 21st century.

Reactions? Yeah, pandemonium.

At 11/27/07 04:11 PM, Euroc wrote: But there is a push to become more socialized... do you think this would cause more disenfranchisement among immigrants and set up problems like those in Europe?

I don't think there is a push for more socialization in Europe. Others can feel free to chime in. Eastern Europe has mostly gone radically laissez-faire after the iron curtain lifted. Some nations there have flat taxes, little welfare, etc. Libertarian wet dream.

France and Germany have aging populations, similar to the baby boomer phenom in the US. This puts more of a strain on the economy as more people retire. They're seriously reconsidering government - check Angela Merkel being elected prime minister of Germany. She's very conservative by German politician standards.

Well, there are definitely areas that can be compared and contrasted. I was comparing the idea that two sub-cultures want to set up a segregated society within a diversified Nation. From the statistics I am familiar with, I think Muslims account for about 25 percent.

As I said though, sub-cultures tend to segregate initially. Regardless of the group. Maybe a better comparison would be black nationalism movements in the US in the 50s-60s. There we have a disenfranchised (and not recently immigrated) minority group trying to break away. The comparison is still weak though.

Statistics about Muslims in Europe (and N. America) vary widely, but they aren't 25% anywhere. Here's a quick link I googled. As I said, estimates vary.
http://www.islamicpopulation.com/europe_
islam.html

"I'm told the Native People in the Arctic, in order to kill wolves take a sharp knife, melt the ice, and bury the handle in the ice and let it freeze over with the blade projecting up. They would cover the blade with blood. Wolves would smell the blade and come to try to eat. They would lick the blade. When they licked the blade they would cut their tongues and they would drink their own blood. They really were thinking that they had a lot to eat then, and of course they were drinking their own blood and killing themselves in the process.

That's what imperialism has done to our communities. It takes away the ability for you to live in a normal situation and then they bury a blade in the ice and put some blood on it. you come to lick the blade thinking that you're getting nourishment, and actually what you're doing is killing yourself in the process."

Excerpt from, "Resistance of African People, Crisis of Imperialism:Why We must Build the National People's Democratic Uhuru Movement", by Omali Yeshitela.

...
How apt is the wolf metaphor in the 1st <-> 3rd world globalization chasm, or alternatively the underground drug economy in the US?