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I think it's stupid to be proud of things like nationality or race. It's not like you got to choose or you worked towards it as a goal, you just happened to be born that way. However, if you want to be, it's your choice.

At 8/21/08 07:15 PM, Der-Lowe wrote: What did you say, then?

That most European countries have lowe debt and higher currency value. That's a fact. A pure fact. I wasn't trying to say it matters a whole lot, just that the US isn't ahead in absolutely everything.

At 8/21/08 07:10 PM, Gunter45 wrote:
You wouldn't need to take out Medvedev. He just does as he's told.

Actually Medvedev as different positions than Putin on many domestic issues, but he follows Putin when it comes to foreign policy.

As far as Russian's latest developments, it's not surprising. They're talking a big game for their citizen's benefit. They love what's going on.

True.

Culturally speaking, the Russians have always held a lot of national pride and, ever since the fall of Communism, they feel like they're not taken seriously. With Putin at the reins, they're finally getting some perceived respect out of the world, through the might of a strong leader, no less. Putin can do no wrong in their eyes as long as he keeps up the bluster.

Again, True.

As for Georgia, the cease fire and moving the armor column back and all that bullshit? It's a really smart move. Nobody's buying it, but that's not the point. He's able to say that they're cooperating to some degree and, obviously, it's been enough to placate the rest of the world enough to where no real military action is being taken. If Russia just went in and steamrolled Georgia, UN or NATO peacekeepers would be deployed in no time. Americans would actually be in favor of us getting involved. As it stands, Russia's winning the political war and it's making their lives a lot easier.

As I've said a million times before, Georgia is the one starting all this, Russia is completely justfied.

Now, I had said a while back that Georgia was targeted because of their tentative position regarding NATO. They were in talks about joining and, while the jury's out on whether or not they would have been admitted, Russia's sending a message: the Warsaw Pact is back in business.

How?

The next target's most likely one of three neighboring countries: the Ukraine, Poland, or Chechnya. The Ukraine is also in talks with NATO and, for my money, that makes them a pretty blatant next move and Russia's been keeping their cards face up, so I don't think they're going to be throwing in any surprises.

Chechnya isn't a rival country, it's part of Russia. I seriously doubt Russia will attack Ukraine or Poland, that's just bluster designed at resecuring influence.

However, this missile shield deal affords Russia a chance to send another message: don't have military dealings with the US. Of course, I'm a little skeptical. The way Russia's been playing this, they've been careful not to push the international community's leniency too far. The US just signed a military agreement with Poland and putting troops down is going to give the US full justification to send troops to hound Russia and the Russian army is barely even a shadow of the Red Army. It's a fight they know they would lose, politically and militarily. They're not stupid enough to throw the dice on whether or not we'd get involved, it's too much risk for a meager gain.

The Russian Army is actually going through a modernization plan, and it's already though as the second most powerful military after that of the US. I agree Russia won't attack Poland though.

Now, Chechnya. Chechnya is the fattened cow waiting to be slaughtered. Russia could completely dominate them without hardly even putting up a pretext. Chechnya's on bad terms with the US, they've had civil war (in which Russia's been involved already), the country is fractured to the point that the citizens would welcome anyone who could give them stability and, let's face it, nobody gives a shit about them.

Russia has been fighting Chechnya for along time. Chechnya is a breakaway provence of Russia, like South Ossetia is to Georgia (I agree with people on how hypocritical Russia is being).

It's an easy target, but there's really no message being sent. It's just expansionism for its own sake, which Russia's interested in, but they can take Chechnya any time they want. Georgia and the Ukraine are on a timetable because Russia's not going to wait and find out whether or not they're admitted to NATO. That would make things rough. So they're going to annex them before they have the opportunity and then set their eyes on all the surrounding Bumfuckistans and Azbhekiwhatevers and nobody's going to do shit.

Russia isn't "annexing" anything. The Pro-West Georgian president is still in power, and this has actually increased it's chances of joining NATO.

My thoughts on all of this? While it's going to make the world a much more tense place, I welcome it. Being American, I know that Americans are at their best when they have competition. If there's nothing to push us, we get soft and apathetic. It's been happening for decades. We don't have any motivation to dominate because there's no other superpowers to dominate. I think adding some tension and competitiveness to the international stage is going to break this bullshit apathetic attitude towards everything that's been taking root in the US and I am totally welcoming that.

I agree for the opposite reasons. With competetion, the US won't go around messing in other countries business and do stupid crap like attack Iraq for fear of pissing off Russia.

At 8/21/08 07:03 PM, Al6200 wrote: If it matters to anyone, a few months ago I decided to enter in the GDP per capita and debt as a percentage of GDP for every nation listed in CIA World Factbook.

There was quite literally no real correlation between debt and wealth. There were lots of nations with huge amounts of debt and great amounts of wealth, like Japan. Conversely there were nations with huge amounts of debt that had horrible economies, like Zimbabwe.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications /the-world-factbook/rankorder/2186rank.h tml

The sad thing is that you tell that to some "Zomg America will die because we have so much debt", and they just shrug it off with "Correlation is not causation".

Did I ever say the United States economy was weak because of it's debt or will fall because of it's debt. NO! I agreed the EU economy is worse than that of the US, I was just showing that is certain areas, however small they may be, the EU beats the US.

At 8/21/08 06:51 PM, animehater wrote:

At 8/21/08 06:46 PM, Saruman200 wrote: democratically elected

Sure.

I know. Russia actually has higher voter turnout that the United States, so technically Russia is more democratic :) The only valid (as in verified by international correspondents) complaints about the Russian elections was media bias. However, the majority of these correspondents agreed that even if the media coverage had been fair, United Russia still would have won.

Dispicable, absolutely dispicable. That is just un-fucking-believable. That principal needs to fired and sent to an asylum. He's a danger to himself and others.

At 8/21/08 06:31 PM, animehater wrote: I think that in order for this to not turn into another Cold War both Putin and Medvedev need to be taken out.

Yep, let's get rid of two democratically elected leaders because we thing we're better than them. There is a good representation of how the West is no better morally than Russia.

At 8/21/08 06:40 PM, Der-Lowe wrote:
Currency value is meaningless in itself; what is important is the real wages. Eg, if the Fed decided tomorrow to change the dollar for the super dollar, exchanging 10 dollars to one super dollar, the new dollar would be worth more that the Euro, yet nothing would happen in the real economy.

Furthermore, a constant appreciation of the currency, such as Europe (and the rest of the world) has experienced, creates deflationary inertia, which can be really harmful.

Not really, some have way higher debt than the US, such as Italy.

I never said currency value was very important, nor did I say all European countries have lower debt. Most, not all. There very different.

Russia was the completely justified in the Russia-Georgia conflict. This is pretty obvious to anyone who takes the time to read about the history of said conflict and the region and nation it occured in. Russia saying is will nuke Poland and end cooperation with NATO is stupid, but it's all bluster. Russia won't be kicked from the G8 or WTO. It has too much influence, and really most people on the world stage know the consquences of messing with Russia, and also realize the reality of the situation in Georgia. While Western leaders will always bluster, just like Russia, nothing will ever come of it. It's Real Politik, all this stuff about "moral highground" and what not is crap. Russia, NATO, Georgia, and all the other countries of the world are just acting in there best interest. I think is very hypocritical to talk about how "troubling" Russia is, when the US is doing the exact same thing in the Middle East: reassurting it's influence. Once, again, Real Politik. If you really think Russia is the bad guy and Georgia and the West are the good guys, your sourly mistaken.

I don't smoke pot, but I know a lot of people who do, and I don't see anything wrong with that.

At 8/21/08 05:39 PM, TehChahlesh wrote:

At 8/21/08 03:47 PM, KeithHybrid wrote: Rosie O'Donnell said the government orchestrated 9/11.

Then again, Rosie O'Doneell is a stupid, ugly closet lesbo

She's not a closet lesbian you immature jackass.

Seriously, she's been out of the closet for a long time. Try, ya know, to actually know something about a person before you insult them.

I agree with you accept the last paragraph. What does not allowing people to get on a plane have to do with socialism or Ron Paul?

At 8/21/08 03:56 PM, zambota wrote:

At 8/21/08 03:12 PM, Saruman200 wrote: If you deny it happened your a Neo-Nazi shithead.

So it's the old "If you disagree with my views you're a filthy Nazi" deal huh?

No, because Neo-Nazis are known for denying genocide, including the Armenian genocide. I suggest you read a little about the genocide, and about the people who deny it today. It has nothing to do with "disagreeing with my views". Saying the Armenian genocide happened isn't a "view" it's a fact.

I think the idea that we can't ban him because he isn't explicitly breaking the rules is dumb. For an example:

John Doe is building a sandcastle. Jane Doe comes and knocks over John Doe's sandcastle whenever he's building so he has to start over. Is Jane Doe breaking the law? No. Is Jane Doe being a stupid bitch? Yes. So while John Doe may not be able to file charges or anything, he can sure as hell get an adult to come and tell Jane Doe to stop.

How does this relate to our situation? John Doe is the Newgrounds community. Jane Doe is Shaggy. The sandcastle is a topic. The law is BBS rules. John Doe's older brother is an admin. We, the users of Newgrounds are trying to have a discussion, but Shaggy comes and wrecks the discussion. Shaggy isn't nessicary breaking the rules, but he sure is being a dumbass. While we can't ban Shaggy based on the rules, we can get Pox or someother mod to come and ban Shaggy for the benefit of the community.

Shaggy isn't explicitly breaking any rules, but he certainly harming the Newgrounds discussion community. The moderators should be able to take it into there own hands ban him for the betterment of our NG society. We shouldn't let a beaurcracy stop us from improving our discussions and topics.

There is a much evidence to support the Armenian genocide as their is the Holocaust and the Rwandian Genocide. It happened. There are Turks that admit it happened. Turkish leaders at the time admitted it happened. The Armenians know it happened, because they know the location of the mass graves of their grandparents. International observers know it happened. They have found camps, mass graves, and bodies from the genocide. If you deny it happened your a Neo-Nazi shithead.

I say you ban him. Is only purpose seems to be to get people angry at him, and when you reply to his stupid posts saying how...well...stupid they are, they ignores you. I'm pretty sure that trolling, not to mention he's quite ready to insult/flame anyone who points out the obvious stupidity of his posts. I think that's ample jurisdiction for a ban. Of course, this would be a lot easier if stupidity was a bannable offense, because he definatly qualifies in that category.

At 8/19/08 03:00 AM, zoolrule wrote:

At 8/18/08 01:16 PM, Saruman200 wrote: And while it is true Israel is not a extremely religious country, it was founded on religion and religious people control it.

Wrong, Wrong, and emm wrong.

Explain why. It's generally better to actually contribute something to the discussion instead of just calling something else wrong.

Even though I'm an atheist, I don't think it's right to exclude someone from a profession just because of religion. That's the same thing as saying blacks shouldn't be doctors because they won't treat patients of an opposing gang, or women shouldn't be doctors because they will wimp out at the sight of blood: your indulging in stereotyping and introlerance. If a relgious view gets in the way of a job there medical license should be reverted for awhile. Besides, most doctors are atheists in the first place, as are increasing numbers of people, espicially those with a higher education.

I'm a dual Canadian-American citizen who lives in Canada, and as far as I can tell the lower drinking age causes no harm. By 18 your old enough to vote and drive, why not drink.

At 8/20/08 09:51 PM, Shaggytheclown17 wrote: I'm not even gonna wait for your dumb reply, I'm leaving, too many ignorant kids here.
God is real n if you don't believe in him in my belief you desearve to go to Hell n that is fair.
Hes giving you an infinite amount of chances n you refuse, I feel sorry for you.

LOL, how many times have you supposedly left the thread now. I will enjoy it in Hell, see you there!

At 8/20/08 09:47 PM, Shaggytheclown17 wrote: Saruman200 you are an alternate account, why don't you show who you really are you fucking coward.
That fact has made me decide not to put your stupid reply into any consideration or even read, I hope you shut up you stupid kid.

Check my IP, I'm no alternate account. You call me a stupid kid, but you type as though you are 12, and seem to have the basic logic of a 2nd grader.

At 8/20/08 09:45 PM, Shaggytheclown17 wrote:
Hmm that makes sense, but why would they say "oh I don't know if I believe or not"?
Could just admit that it is God, my 2nd oldest brother has that same problem, he feels something in him that helps him, he doesn't call it God n I have no idea wtf else it could be, n he calls himself some kind of pagan...

You think you can debate this with us when you don't even know what an agnostic is? I can see the stupidity runs in the family.

At 8/20/08 09:13 PM, Shaggytheclown17 wrote: Evolution as I and many others have said is not Science or a fact, it is a theory.
Religion such as Chrisianity does have historical facts that a man named Jesus was crucified n there were even documents explaining the miricles he preformed, back then do you really think somone would document something like that if it wasn't true?

Evolution is as atheism a religion, theres no denying it, you can't sort of believe in God or partially, its either you do or you don't. To try and disprove God would be like trying to say that we don't really exist or we don't exist for any purpose at all, we just came out of nowhere by random chance, that is how psychotic people are who try to disprove him.

Whatever dark outlook on life most of the people here have I really don't want to hear it because I've heard enough satanic racist nazi stuff, its time to hone in on reality.
Reality, yes reality is real and theres nothing you can do about it, most of the people here who would bastardize science in the name of their own ass, they hate people who believe in God because they hate God himself, they know hes real but they don't want to repent for their sins.

Anyway this really isn't a major issue at all, you know I have a couple freinds who are atheist, I had a big argument with them n one of them said at a later time that if he comes accross the devine inspiration that most people here may find rare that he would thank me n admit that he was wrong.

This is, without a doubt, one of the most stupid, illogical, and incomprehensible arguments I have ever read. I...I...I just can't believe the stupidity. It's like all the stupid in the universe just converged at one point and formed shaggy and his post. This assures me there is no God, because if there was he would never allow such stupidity to be spoken in his name. I think before you register for newgrounds you should have to take an IQ test. That would stop some of the people like you who's IQs are obviously below 40 from posting here. It would save us all a lot of time. Now that I'm done spouting my amazement with the stupidity of your post I'll get around to debunking the retardation.

Yes, people would most definatly lie back then. 1) The Gospels were written hundreds of years later. 2) People lied back then. They betrayed and stabbed in the back, heard of Julius Caesar. By your logic, all the Roman and Greek Gods are real, but that would conflict with your Christianity wouldn't it. 3)Yes, Jesus was real. But he was nothing more than a schizofrenic who though he heard God talking to him.

The second paragraph is barely comphrensible. I don't know if you were actually trying to write or were just typing random words about the subject to make yourself seems smart (it isn't working).

The third paragraph isn't much better. "yes, reality is real" Well, ya think?!? What great intelligence. Bastardize science in the name of my ass. Yes! I preach the holiness of my ass, since it is surely more likely than God! If I knew God was real why would I seek to disapprove of him. Wouldn't that mean I would go to hell? What the fuck is this stupidity. You accuse us of being Satanic Nazis. First off, to be Satanic you have to believe in the Christian Bible, thus your not atheist as you worship Satan as a God and believe the Bible is truth, which is obviously isn't. Secondly, the Nazis were fanatic God followers. They believed God created Aryans superiour to all other races. They believe they would go to a mystical land when they died (I forget what they called it). Sounds a lot like Christianity to me!

I'm inclinded to believe that your joking, as I find myself unable to believe that someone could be this stupid. Is your head so far up your ass your eating your own shit, and spitting it at us in the form of your posts? The hypocracy and stupidity is slowly eating away at my braincells. I don't know how much longer I can last.

Agreed. It's stupid to blame inanimate objects for the faults of human beings. But it's easier to blame the video game, and people like to do things the easy way. Censorship has no place in modern society. If parents can't control their children, blame them. This is the same kind of shit that got the nation into prohibition, and we all know how that turned out.

At 8/20/08 08:33 PM, Phobotech wrote: "New Battle Looms over South Ossetia."

Long after the guns fall silent in the Georgia-Russia conflict, the two countries' legal artillery is still likely still be firing away in an attempt to have the each other publicly judged guilty of war crimes, even genocide.

On September 8th, the International Court of Justice begins hearings in a case filed by Georgia.

The thing is, they're technically both responsible for killing civilians in the cross-fire, right? So shouldn't they BOTH be tried?

Yah, I don't see why only Russia should be tried. Georgia is actually the one responsible for the majority of deaths. Unfortuneatly Georgia is playing the victim and has most of the international community on its side.

I think it's quite obvious that the EU economy is worse off than that of the US in most categories, such as GDP growth. But Europe is way ahead of the US in currency value. Most European countries have way lower debt than the US as well. However, your still right. Still, I think most Europeans know this. A few trolls on Newgrounds are hardly a good representation of the general population.

If swearing is against the law, that law should be changed immediatly. Fuck is just a word, no different than the. That fireman is an uptight little son of a bitch, he deserved anything she said to him.

I assumed in my first post this was US centric, but considering I'm a dual citizen of the US and Canada and I'm bored, I'll give my party affiliate in Canada aswell. I generally vote Liberal (the name should be self explanitory to any Americans reading) in local and provincial elections, but have occasionally voted NDP (a far-left Canadian political party to any body not familiar with Canadian politics). Of the three Canadian general elections I've vote in (2000, 2004, and 2006) I voted Liberal, NDP, and then Liberal again. I consider myself drifting in-between Liberal and NDP, leaning Liberal simply because they have a better chance of winning. If there's an election this year (as there probably will be) I'll probably vote Liberal. As boring as he is, I like Stephane Dion and his Green Shift plan.

At 8/20/08 07:00 PM, dadit wrote: Unlike most of you, I am NOT an athiest I belive in God and love him.

I dont care what the scietists say. I will allways belive the way I was brought up. I belive god created the Big bang and that created earth. Also I think that Adman and Eve were the first ones on earth...so...yea

Care to explain why? While your views are interesting and all, it would be so much better if you actually contributed something to the discussion instead of just telling us all about your self.

Here's my view:

Science will never be able to disapprove or religion because people are stubborn and hate being wrong. Religion used to deny that Earth revolves around the sun and that the Earth is round. When the evidence become overwhelming they finally admitted it, but in the end they read through the bible and found "hay, look, a theistic metaphor. The bible was right all along." This will happen with evolution and the big bang eventually too.

Theistic metaphors are hardly accurate however. The people who find these things find them because they specfically look for anything that might hint as some kind of metaphor. When you already have a certain view in your head before you read something, your going to come up with the conculsion you want. Say someone has never heard of George Orwell or Animal Farm. I could tell them George Orwell is a renowned kid's writer, and they would read Animal Farm and determine it's a story about some pigs that take over a farm. If I tell them George Orwell wrote that book as a criticism of Soviet Communism, they'll see the metaphors right away.

In the end theistic metaphors are crap, and really, all religion has to prove it's theory is a book. A book that could have been written by anybody. They believe it's true because the authors are claimed disiples of Jesus. But if I tell a naive person J. K. Rowling is a visionary prophet, they just might believe Hoggwarts is real. So, which is more true, the Bible or Harry Potter? I mean, Religious people may say "God works in mysterious ways", but doesn't Harry Potter explain that there are magic invisibility spells or something that Muggles can't see the wizard world? It really isn't that different. Harry Potter's explanations are just as believable as the Bible (or Torah, or Koran, or any other religious text) if you go into it with the right mindset. In the end, there is not suitable explanation for religious belief other than faith in a single book or scroll. Please, prove me wrong, but I doubt you can.

Blaming an inamiate object for a human disicion is stupid. I'm sure we could find that statistics show people who eat more potato chips are more likely to kill, or some other wierd stat. Do we blame the chips? Of course not. The people who kill because of video games arn't completely sane. If we stop them from playing video games, something else will just push them off the deep end too. Maybe we should keep all our kids in a white padded room wearing strait-jackets, that'll certainly protect them from all the corrupting influences.

This crap about video games causing violence is just justifcation for censorship. In the end, this, like abortion or gay marriage, has nothing to do with statistics or facts, it has everything to do with your moral views on whats right or wrong.