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At 9/26/06 02:20 PM, Proteas wrote:

I'm tellin' yall it's a SABOTAGE!!!!

DER DER, DER DERR

That music video is the best music video ever made in the history of mankind. I think.

The video was better.

I think I've decided my next tattoo. I'm switching over to the other arm, and it's going to be concentric circles. Bunches of them. Yes?

Oh, I was going to ask proteas... In what does your dial driven radio reside?

At 9/25/06 02:44 PM, Proteas wrote: All I have is a dial driven radio, and it suxxorz when I can't find my favorite radio stations EVEN with the aid of the manual presets. I don't even have a tape player in my car, otherwise I would have bought one of those by now. :-P

I can't resist the opportunity to show that I am, indeed, the "l33t sh1t." [see pic attached]

happy b-day fli.

Didn't read every reply, just wanted to note that there was a photography club in C&C, but of course we were limited by size constraints there.

Great deal moving the topic over here!

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Thought this one came out quite nice, for being taken just by my point-and-shoot digital.

At 9/24/06 07:16 PM, Proteas wrote:

At 9/24/06 06:53 PM, RedSkunk wrote: He did what in the who now?

Tada.

Ya know, I wasn't really interested, I just wanted to say something like that at least once in my life. Thanks for the link though.

I wish I had more time for stuff.

At 9/24/06 02:39 PM, ScrewLooseChange wrote: I found out that MarkyX, someone who occasionally visits this forum, is the same who edited the ScrewLooseChange: Not Freakin' Again edition. It's like we have a celebrity on Newgrounds =]

He did what in the who now?

I drove down to Rhode Island today to pick up some winter wheels for the MINI. Edn.

At 9/22/06 04:46 AM, Samuel-HALL wrote: Here's a question: Why not improve the cluster bomb, so it actually fucking explodes on impact..

Cluster bomb technology has improved. The most advance ones have a success rate of "high 90%s" according to the companies producing them, "80%s" according to indie organizations. And bombs with higher success rates (meaning they go "boom") are being used more often. But two things - firstly, much of the information on cluster bombs out there is con, so they stress the failure rates of the earlier tech. And secondly, the more advance are, obviously, more expensive.

There's also the push to make it so that bomblets that don't explode go inert, but so far I don't believe any of them actually do this in reality.

At 9/22/06 12:28 PM, Grammer wrote: It uses Windows XP, but it isn't a PC or a Mac, it's made by a company called "Micron Electronics".

? It's a PC. Anything "IBM-compatible" (basically which means running Microsoft) is a PC...

Anyone ever hop onto NG on a public computer and notice how many #$#$#$%@ pop-ups there are? This website is so not cool on that count. =\

God, I just spent the last two hours typing up an e-mail full of questions about voting systems to some random guy with a Ph.D on the stuff from Stony Brook. My inner geek comes out about the weirdest things (like voting systems and drugs).

But still.. Those are two hours of my life that I'll never get back..

At 9/20/06 07:45 PM, Truthiness wrote: In all seriousness, RedSkunk, I can see what you're saying, but I wonder exactly what you're getting at with it. Who are the Libertarians saying oligopolies are formed by anything other than market power?

I'm trying to figure out whether or not oligopolies are the natural result of free market capitalism, and if they are, whether there are any better solutions out there. I said that if oligopoly is the natural result, then libertarian ideology is flawed, in that a market dominated by an oligopoly is far from a competitive market.

At 9/20/06 10:30 PM, TheloniousMONK wrote: Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

Care to provide an argument?

I'm waiting for some historical distance before coming to any conclusions. Time will tell what the hell is going on. If it's nonviolent, then action isn't necessarily needed from anyone outside of Thailand, although there are better minds who can make that call.

The US is an empire, this is obvious. We're a proxy empire, if you will, through multinational corporations, and international instutitions like the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. The primary effect of organizations like these have been the enslavement - through debt - of 3rd world nations. Notice how almost all aid from the US, the West, and these international organizations is tied to agreements to use our companies, and to reform their governments and societies, in the name of fighting corruption, but which have the effect of opening their lands to our corporations and practices. We insist on liberalizing their economies while we continue to subsidize our own, allowing us to flood their markets. Particularly with agriculture.

When I say "we" or "America" I do not mean the country we know as America. National borders are getting fuzzy, the Western Europeans / EU are just as heavily involved.

I think it's just a politicized excuse to blame illegal immigrants for our electoral system's woes. Many of the problems we have currently are not the result of individuals voting multiple times, or of illegal immigrants voting. The problems are with broken or faulty machines, dead people "mysteriously" voting, and underhanded institutional fraud / problems like in '00, spreading the word in black communities in the south that criminal records would be checked, or limited access to voting machines / functioning machines in poor or rural areas.

What do picture IDs solve that regular IDs don't? It's political, nothing will come of it positive or negative.

That would be an amazing start, but I doubt it will happen. "Calls to Washington" does not mean it is going to happen. Hell, the US regularly uses cluster bombs itself – Afghanistan and Iraq are littered. It is sort of lame to stop selling them to Israel while we continue to use them. However, it's a start, and I'd strongly support the ban. We ought to stop making them, they violate international law (they are indiscriminate, the unexploded bomblets cannot be aimed and exploded regardless of friend, foe, or neutral).

At 9/20/06 05:54 PM, LoneFalcon1989 wrote: Suply and demand, buddy! If all the poor workers want to buy more stuff, the demand goes higher and so does the price. So basically all you did by giving the poor man $1000 extra is make prices go up in the long run. WHEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! Inflation!!! Just what every American wants more of!

You're saying that all inflation is a bad thing. Economic growth is tied to a certain amount of inflation. Controlled inflation that is the result of controlled economic growth is not necessarily a negative. Think about it.

At 9/20/06 03:46 PM, WMahoney wrote: However, **raising** the minimum wage is VERY short sighted. Many mfg goods are already produced outside of the country, by workers getting paid much less than 5.15 per hour. Raising the min wage will only increase this, because it will be more expensive to pay for the factory labor here.

This was your first incorrect assumption. Since, as you pointed out, manufacturing goods are produced outside of the US by workers making much less than $5.15, then why would anyone manufacture goods inside the US? The future of manufacturing in the US is high-quality, low-production "specialized" products. These required skilled workers, therefor higher wages. The people making minimum wage in the US are not in the manufacturing sector. The people making minimum wage in the US are in the services industry, one of the most rapidly growing sectors in most of the post-industrial world.

The service industry can not outsource their jobs. You can not have people in China flipping burgers at the local fast food chain, or selling [Chinese] goods at Wal-Mart. Can't be outsourced. The outsourcing argument fails.

Now the increased unemployment argument. This again does not work in the real world. Your theoreticals might make sense, but they don't make for a good argument. Businesses do not pay for people to sit around idly. They pay people to work. In the US, it is especially true that people are not over-compensated – especially those working at / slightly above minimum wage. Meaning, your local burger chain can not fire anyone should the minimum wage rises. They are already stretching their human resources.

Why would your theoretical flower shop pay three people to work if they could easily get by with two employees? A well-run business would not. A well-run business is not paying people more than they need to. And the companies that do? If you're supporting inefficient businesses, then who is the real capitalist here?

Finally comes the "inflation argument." Yes, companies will offset wage increases by increasing prices. However, these price increases are insulated by being spread throughout society. The increased cost of a burger will be placed onto everyone in society. The person earning $6.50 an hour instead of $5.15 will be making a much higher wage, even taking into consideration inflation. You have no basis to claim that inflation will rise with the minimum wage linearly. That doesn't make sense, and that's not what happens. If you are going to make that claim, show some statistical evidence. And be sure to make a credible case that all of the inflation is due to minimum wage increases. Correlation does not equal causation, take into consideration other historical factors. Thanks.

The most obvious inherent failing with classical liberalism, or free market capitalism.

It is this contradiction.

Firstly, there is the statement that everyone ought to have an equal shake at things. Everyone should have the chance to rise or fail based on merit. It is a free market, and that individuals / parties have have the superior product should be able to sell that superior product. Competition. Perfect competition and competitive markets are the theoretical perfect capitalist society.

Secondly, the point of a company is to make a profit. Those most fit to survive should survive, those who can't – fail. Additionally, profitability results in market power. And market power begets market power – through increased amounts of capital that can be used to reinforce superior product / status quo / etc., through additional R&D, being able to undercut / buy out competitors, ETC.

Without government intervention, and even with most of the time, unimpeded free market capitalism results in oligopolies. Think of a single market that is not dominated by half a dozen or a dozen companies. Can you?

The avowed libertarian or free market capitalist will contend that oligopolies are the result of government intervention, or other influences outside of the market. This seems to fly in the face of historical realities, however. Rockafeller and the early oil industry was an oligopoly without any government intervention. In fact, the early American oil industry is a perfect example of this inherent contradiction in classical liberalism. I'd recommend Daniel Yergin's The Prize for anyone interested in oil's history.

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Thoughts or critiques? I'd like to hear differing opinions here, because I'd like to believe in the infallibility of capitalism, and/or libertarian ideals [since I'm essentially a "social libertarian."]

At 9/19/06 04:15 PM, Jesus wrote: Children + choice = no education

All of your answers were nonsensical, but this.. Is especially ludicrous.

.... To make my point worth it.. Congrats steel reserve for thinking outside of the box, if nothing else. I registed as Green when I was eighteen, but for '04 I re-registered as Dem so I could vote in the primary. I keep meaning to go back to Green, but there's not much of a point beside simple 'moral support.' The US isn't a two-party system just for shits and giggles – it's reinforced by the structures in place, and nobody with the power to change things wants to. We need to work on reforming the system, campaign finance reform would be a great start, before third parties become viable.

At 9/18/06 08:44 PM, fasdit wrote: As people have said before, nuclear proliferation is impossible. You can't just make people forget something that is a fundamentally simple physics concept.

You don't know what proliferation means, do you? Consult your dictionary before posting next time, please.

At 9/17/06 11:28 PM, fasdit wrote: The presense of Nuclear Weapons by everyone in a sense prevents them from being used. Because everyone knows that if one country fires its nukes the other country is going to fire back resulting in a stalemate.

MAD only made sense when only the major countries with something to loose had nuclear weapons, and even then it didn't make all that much sense (haven't any of you children ever seen Dr. Strangelove?). Nuclear proliferation makes nuclear weapons easier to come by (look at the break-up of the USSR, and the amount of suitcase nuclear weapons STILL unaccounted for). As an example, I'd ask you how the US having 11,000 nuclear warheads prevents a religious fundamentalist from detonating a bomb in a major urban city.

This response is aimed at you too, flagg, you little wanker.

At 9/19/06 02:46 PM, Proteas wrote: Did you honestly think I wouldn't do something about it sooner or later?

Uhhh.... Rhetorical?

At 9/18/06 07:45 AM, stafffighter wrote: Call me closed minded but I cannot picture people watching football in a juice bar.

Soccer maybe?

At 9/17/06 06:21 PM, MortifiedPenguins wrote: Well aint that great for the multitude of victims of collateral damage.

Since when have you cared about collateral damage?

At 9/17/06 04:02 PM, Samuel-HALL wrote: And I work at a little ceasars, now.

Can you get me free pizza?

At 9/17/06 06:51 PM, Grammer wrote: I can't wait for the 2006 Poli Forum Awards. I don't even know if I'll get nominated for anything (besides troll), but I have an idea of who I want to nominate.

But remember, nothing from now will matter in three months. It's really the Nov-Dec Awards. =]

lol@stampers thread.

Ah. Genius. Too bad I feel sorta weird reading it in a public computer lab..