AstroProdigy

Agreeing with the Democrats doesn't make you liberal. In fact, as a liberal I can tell you the Democrats are far from liberal and voting with them makes you only left leaning. It's Republicans who fly off the wall. Btw as a white man you have no idea what the black community is like to say Obama going to Wright's church makes him extreme. No one criticizes all those insane conservative preachers that the Republicans go to because they're not black. Ms. Obama never felt pride for the country that brought her ancestors over as slaves and continued to abuse them for 100 years after they were "free". There were covertly racist practicing still going on up until recently like red flagging areas where a black family has moved. Yeah I don't blame them for not having pride in the US, but surprisingly she's having it now in seeing that a black candidate is actually capable of winning the White House and the black community would be forced to realize the same if he actually won. You'll get the opposite if he loses in a Bradley effect type surprise defeat. Anyway I can't honestly see how anyone can support McCain. His economic policy is to add even more tax cuts for the rich on top of the Bush tax cuts that he wants to renew and pay for it all with endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan and a third war in Iran. Here's a newsflash; if McCain's current policies were put into place on top of all the debt Bush has packed on we might just go bankrupt and have the world foreclose on America by the end of his term. Playing the patriot and wearing your lapel pin everywhere you go may look nice, but if you're utterly screwing the country you're supposed to defend then you're not a real patriot. Obama may have problems with his own economic agenda, but it's leagues better than McCain's. There's not much worse you can get than McCain's economics. On social issues do you really want an ultra conservative super majority in the Supreme Court long after the next president leaves office doing whatever they want? You may not like Obama personally, but come on if you care anything about the country you live in would you really vote for McCain to turn us into a third world country? Think logically.

Now that I think about it youtube is meant to be shared publicly so you can just do a public search. My bad.

...says the guy who goes on later in the post to make analogies.

They can use browsers, internet providers, and logs to basically determine who goes online, see what they're doing, and control what they search for. Technology is moving at a rapid pace which makes future regulation very difficult, but all that depends on the technology progressing rapidly forever. If it stops or slows down significantly enough it will be controlled.

ThunderJam all your posts here are to bash me.

It's not about Viacom using it. It's about the US government being legally allowed to look through it and Viacom being allowed to show it without a warrant as the precedent has been set in law recently. I do agree the same thing could happen with Google, but Google is more trustworthy than one of the handful of conglomerates that controls the vast majority of US media and chokes any real questioning of the Bush administration out of existence. I'm just waiting for the young in America who grew up with a free internet gets their act together and forms a voting block that doesn't allow the internet to go the way of television and radio.

That's really news to me consider official US policy allows for soldiers tours to be extended without their permission. It's called Stop-loss policy and it allows the military to keep extending your tour as much as they want. Sure some might be able to avoid this, but others don't. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...0,4947941.story The topic got started because Picard is an ignorant !@#$%^&*bag who buys anything that's fed to him as long as it supports his racist beliefs.

Soldiers are going into Iraq 3 or 4 times because they don't have a choice. No one has to sign up for a second tour of duty? WOOOOOOOOOOOW! That is some major ignorance. If I tell you I know people who didn't have a choice in the matter and that it's a well known fact that people don't get to choose going on a second tour of duty what would you say? Where did you get this little gem of information? FOX News? I don't think even they would say something like this. This is epic ignorance here someone who doesn't even know this very common fact proves they have no real understanding of the subject matter beyond propaganda and what they convince themselves so they can sleep at night. Actually enemy soldiers have more rights than terror suspects. They have a nice defined set of rights whereas you can do whatever you want to terror suspects since torture is only what you define torture to be and if you change the definition then you haven't tortured anyone. What I meant is that Generals who lead the actual armies are more capable of understanding military strategy and thus have an extra qualification, but besides that point military service doesn't automatically make you a good president anyway as Grant's failure as president proves quite nicely. Congressional experience does help McCain's experience credentials, but I never argued it doesn't. Fighter pilot training does nothing to make you a good leader for hundreds of millions of people and millions of troops. Unless McCain was going to personally lead a squad of fighter planes into Iraq this is utterly bogus. In fact no matter what part of the military McCain was in and what position he held you would say it's perfect leadership experience. I'm not holding anything against McCain. All I'm saying is that his military portfolio didn't give him actual leadership experience to use as President so while the military service itself is honorable it still doesn't make him a good president. In a two party system you'll settle for the same party you always pick, Aileron. Back when it was Kerry the war veteran with shrapnel in his leg versus Bush the National Guard deserter you picked Bush because he was the Republican. Don't lie that there was ever a chance of you voting for Obama over any Republican. If Hitler was the Republican you'd come up with elaborate reasoning for voting for him.

I mean burglary is punishable by death in this country now so why not let private citizens take the law into their own hands? Give me a break; it's not like this guy made a citizens' arrest. He murdered two people. Of course murder is quite the sign of self reliance. You really prove yourself to be a man when you murder people who aren't threatening you with your gun. I don't like my neighbor so I'd better invite him over here so I can show him I'm self reliant in the back of the head. I don't need a government to do anything when I can go on a shooting spree myself. Better yet so it will be a crime I'll wait for his dog to !@#$%^&* on public property and then pick up my AK47 of justice. Hey I don't want to depend on the government to put out fires it makes me a slave so let's put them out ourselves! You can't argue because that would be anti free markets which are always right! Why have a government at all? You need to invade Afghanistan after a terrorist attack? Why rely on the government go get a group of friends with guns and have at them! Dependence is the only reason we have societies; you live on the fruits of an interdependent society every day. Without dependence you have a little something called anarchy. If you can't even accept the notion that we all need each other then why are you responding to any of these politically based threads? Politics is a result of dependence, which according to you is how slaves are made out of men. Why are you even using a computer? That was made by other people and the power is provided by others. Smash your computer and go out into the woods to live with nature because dependence is how slaves are made out of men. Oh no you'd be depending on nature then your only option now is to kill yourself so you won't be a slave to anything. Let's all do it actually. The hypocrisy is amazing when people like you don't want the government getting involved when it suits you, but when you don't like abortions or gay marriage you expect the government to do something about it! You want to stop terrorist attacks? Ok let's depend on the government to do it for us and give them all the power they could ever want and be dependent on them to take care of everything, but oh no let's not let the government interfere when a guy murders two people for robbery. P.S.: If NBVegita comes on saying that a society can exist without people depending on each other and then waits for an endless debate on it where he plays dumb and waits for me to cite things 20 times for every word then I'll make it easy and just not respond.

Most of the people in Guantanamo Bay are innocent. Heck we're holding one guy because he supposedly was a driver for Al Qaeda and got him from people who wanted money for turning in "terrorists". Now add to that all of that nice juicy torture that people like you have been denying, but came out after a while as these things always do at great expense to our international standing.

See Vegita has a strange fetish for conservative "wholesome" American values that he doesn't want to admit. It has to do with his upbringing which taught him to have utter contempt for anything that sounds like or can be related to socialist principles in any way and as a response to that he embraces insane conservative ideology and defends it at all costs. I find he needs to comes to grips with the problems he's had in his life as he's secretly very angry about it and has directed his anger at people he perceives game the system (with welfare) while he had to work hard. Until he gets past it he'll keep coming up with crazy posts like this one and will probably defend it indefinitely with posts like "prove it with a source, ok the link is biased I don't believe you, link a source again, I don't believe it link a source again, etc." which has become the standard of his posts.

Or maybe you're doing it because your father and grandfather both did it and you basically had to. Maybe you wanted a scholarship and didn't expect a war to break out. Maybe you joined the military for the prestige, but had special family connections to keep you out of any real fighting (Bush anyone?).

You do understand that condoning this action makes us worse than Saudi Arabia. At least they only chop hands off for robbery. If this happened in a state with sane people this man would be convicted like the murderer he is, but of course this happened in Texas. Now I'm sure you may think this guy's bad!@#$%^&* now, but if he were actually your neighbor you'd change your tune. Mentally imbalanced idiots who look for excuses to shoot people aren't my cup of tea.

The only way I'd give to people in the military a special qualification is when they lead armies. That is something McCain has not done and, therefore, he is no more qualified than Obama who at least is a generally very smart guy. The photo is "stupid" because it !@#$%^&*erts blind loyalty and !@#$%^&*umes military service is naturally superior to understanding other cultures in terms of leadership. Being a soldier makes you a good follower whereas understanding the world makes you more adept at dealing with others who are different from you.

Don't bother with Gametime he's just being a !@#$%^&*. This boggles my mind Aileron. Occasionally you come out with great insight like you just did in your last post and with point 4 (although point 2 showed your biases). This shows me that you want to have intelligent opinions on these matters, but your rigid, predetermined cir!@#$%^&*stances just don't allow it for most situations. Here's what I suggest to you. Take some time to clear your head. Drop everything. Drop all of your opinions and start from scratch. Then challenge every opinion you make thoroughly to make sure you're right. If you rediscover a lot of your old ideas then fine, but there's just so much clutter and inaccuracy in your thinking you need a change. One of the worst things someone can do is be rigid and let themselves be fooled easily just because they secretly want to be. This creates a mindless society that allows events such as the Holocaust occurs. It doesn't just require evil people; it requires the masses to follow them.

Being a POW makes you qualified to be president of the United States about as much as being a slave laborer makes you qualified to be a mathematician. Sure you went through hardship, but what does it have to do with you being a competent president or mathematician? If a man got a divorce does that qualify him to be the CEO of Microsoft? Aileron: Either that's funny satire at how stupid some Americans can be to which i commend you for bringing to us or oops you're one of them.

I'll just have gravy with my mashed potatoes.

Isn't the point that the separation between floors and their ability to move allows the building to catch more wind and solar power?

Greece for the win. I have no idea how Greece ranked as #1, but it probably is due to a cultural trait of Greeks (which I should know about as a Greek, but unfortunately no (also I'm from Cyprus, which is ranked red)).

The oppressors have any easy time there because there's little nationalism in those countries. How can there be when all the borders are arbitrary and cut right across ethnic lines? If you can give the major ethnic groups their states or combine ethnic groups that are similar into federation types of states with the borders drawn to match where the ethnic groups end then you can work towards better governance because then a leader who was corrupt would be screwing group A and since group A is united in a common culture they don't want to have their position in Africa hurt by incompetent leaders. Unfortunately to do this would require a huge commitment by the west and would lead to quite a death toll. Seeing as genocides happen routinely in Africa (Biafra, Southern Sudan, Congo, Rwanda, Congo again, Ethiopia, Darfur, Congo again) it can't be that bad. Unfortunately we also have to worry about the fact that western countries want to serve their own interests and this type of endeavor would get corrupted and make things worse. That's why I stand by the former idea I put out there of buying from African countries to give to other African countries. It promotes cooperation between them and makes them more self sustaining.

My professor discussed a great solution to the way our food aid has demolished Caribbean food industries that applies here as well. It would be nice in that it's politically correct while at the same time extremely effective. Instead of producing goods in our giant, mechanized factories and sending them to Africa so that it demolishes their own industries why don't we just go to a country in Africa that produces a certain product well, buy from them, and then give those products away as development aid to other countries. We reward countries in Africa for efficiency by buying their products while at the same time aiding them in a way that doesn't create a crippling dependence on the United States, but instead a beneficial dependence between African states that might also defuse many of the ethnic conflicts there. Economic interdependence turned the most violent continent in the world (Europe) and turned it into a union (most of it at least) that's compe!@#$%^&*ive, prosperous, and peaceful. Africa has a huge wealth of natural resources and most of the population isn't located in the desert so only the arbitrary borders would pose a serious problem to African prosperity in the long term. We'd be byp!@#$%^&*ing corruption by buying directly from producers so even if the development aid is stolen by corrupt regimes at least the people we bought the products from prosper and spur job creation. That in itself might be enough to break the cycle that grips the continent today.

Ignoring the clear racism and ignorance from Picard I can easily just shoot down this whole thing because it's not even true. Where is your source for Barack Obama being 46% Arab? So Obama is now a black supremacist AND an Arab? Either his mom is half Arab and his dad is half Arab, his mom is almost fully Arab and his dad is black, his mom is white and his dad is almost fully Arab or a combination of these must be true in order for Obama to be 46% Arab. Here's a picture of his father. Here's a picture of his mother. Considering Obama's mother is entirely white and Obama's father is entirely black by both ancestry and appearance for Obama to be 46% Arab would require me to be Chinese and Picard to be black since all three are equally valid. I read an article confirming that Picard is indeed of African American extraction and, therefore, I must believe it because that's what being that mentally challenged requires. Hey you know I heard Martin Luther King was Russian oh no! Picard you lend credence to the argument that some people just shouldn't be allowed to vote.

link

Ok let me change the analogy. Instead it's a 30 year old with 3 kids and a husband who died of cancer. Since her husband didn't have health insurance because it's so !@#$%^&* expensive the bill killed all of their savings and lost them their house. Now the wife lives alone with the 3 kids and works 2 jobs while raising them, but still can't make ends meet because pay is so !@#$%^&*ty. What if the husband ran out on her? Is that her fault too? The objective is that everyone who works hard can at least make a wage that they can support a small family with. That's become less and less the case for decades. The only reason my family stays afloat is because my dad happened to buy a house 25 years ago when housing prices were 10 times lower and rented most of it for years to help pay off the mortgage while I slept in the same room with my 2 sisters. We all got to go to college because there was a strong state and city university system and a great deal of financial aid, which is slowly being eroded today by poor fiscal planning. The only reason this was all possible is because my parents are immigrants and had that diligent immigrant mentality that you can't possibly expect Americans to have. When you come from poverty in another country it may be easy to live with little, but as an American raised in a time when people lived with more what do you expect? It used to be that one person could work hard and all the basic luxuries of life could be provided for. Now both mother and father can work hard and longer and still be incapable of living the American dream. It has little to do with wanting a free ride and almost everything to do with one of the perils of capitalism when it isn't controlled.