Aileron

No

No, 'suggestive thinking' isn't so much a matter of targeting the subliminal, but by repe!@#$%^&*ion. It has been shown though that the power of repeated suggestion is strong. Generally if the media repeats a lie often enough, people believe it. Rush Limbaugh does good segment on that, where he will repeatedly find a single sentence that has been repeated by about two dozen over by different broadcasters regarding the same topic. Ofcourse you'd have to be a right-winged crazy to listen to Rush Limbaugh. After all the media has said that he's a right winged extremist two dozen times over by different broadcasters, so they must be right. The media already used the power of suggestion to ruin Bush' presidency in the eyes of the people, and has also created many stereotypes which make it easier for them to sell papers. (All CEOs are greedy, All government workers are accepting bribes, Anyone who doesn't believe global warming will set the world on fire is getting money from Exxon, etc.) How the process works is simple. If you repeat one side frequently without stating the other, you close the debate before it even starts, and the viewing public thinks that it is socially unacceptable to disagree with the media. I'll also give that the media's suggestions aren't always anti-right. I could be convinced that the media used this process to convince people invading Iraq was a good idea, though I will contend that if it did it wasn't Bush's doing. He has no friends in the New York Times. While I'd say that the media is more often anti-right than anti-left, I will say that there is enough anti-left stuff in the media that left-wingers have a right to be pissed.

As somebody who works with Mexicans, I'd say Aquarius is wrong. Mexicans are borderline lazy. For some reason, the media likes to use 'Hispanics', when I've found that there is a huge difference in motivation between Puerto Ricans and Mexicans. Puerto Ricans generally work to send their children or themselves to college, or something along those lines. They almost always have a plan for a future on how to get their family out of the !@#$%^&*-job economy. Basically, they are normal people. Mexicans just drift. They do show up and go home, but pick and choose which rules they want to follow and which work they do. With a Mexican, there is no long term plan, and they generally don't have the motivation to work hard. My theory is cultural training. Mexico is a country with no universities, few colleges, and little to no means of a working class family to send their children to get educated, nor would there be professional jobs for those children if they did. Their government has never dealt with corruption, nor tried to address the economic issues which keeps all the wealth locked up tight in the elite classes. Essentially, a Mexican 'peasant' is born a peasant, will work all his life as a peasant, will die as a peasant, and his children will all be peasants too, and worst of all, there is nothing he can do to change any of that. Thus they avoid hard work because where they come from, hard work is not rewarded. I don't blame the Mexican people, as they have correctly adapted to their cultural environment. That's half the reason I'd say annex Mexico. Historically the US has done a better job managing Mexican territories than Mexico has. Just look and California and Texas, and note that the economy of those territories sucked under Mexican rule. And the only reason 'Mexicans take jobs no American will do' is because when that statement is true, which it generally isn't, but when it is, it is because the job pays less than minimum wage and it is illegal for an American to do that job. Additionally there is always a McDonald's or Walmart nearby which will pay minimum wage. There isn't a thread about Bush stopping the elections, but I did hear that John Kerry is using a mind control machine to build a huge army with which to take over the world, and that army has already taken over Wyoming. Transmission on all frequencies from planet Earth to Aquarius: Bush didn't stop, nor is he ever going to stop, the 2008 elections. Sorry for being rude about it, but I have to call paranoid statements for what they are.

Hey, with the number of illegal aliens we are getting, it seems they all want to be Americans anyway.

Well, there is a real case for it. For instance, Illegal Immigration never seems to get solved, and every Republican will tell you its Democrats catering to minorities, and every Democrat will tell you its Republicans and their big business interests. Maybe a third group is the one stonewalling progress. There are real organizations like the SPP and NACC, with some pretty big names as members, who seem to be acting with that goal in mind. The major annoyance isn't so much that some leaders are moving towards NAU, but that they are secretly doing it without trying to get public approval. I for one wouldn't be against the idea of annexing Mexico, but would demand a vote first before it actually happens.

Well, that's the point. Any scientist worth his salt will tell you that science cannot answer this question. If the universe could be described as a box, the only thing science determines is the contents of the box. It cannot answer questions about why the box is there, what the box is made of, what is the environment around the box, etc. Applying science towards the supernatural is like trying to make toast with your blender. It is simply the wrong tool for the function.

Or it is a zombie doing a very good job of acting like it isn't a zombie. It's not entirely circular either. I think, therefore I am. However, whether or not you think is unknown to me. You act like you think, but I don't read your thoughts so I don't know. Really, think of it like The Matrix, only without other people plugged into it. Still, I'd say anyone who believes it is a jack!@#$%^&*.

No, they wouldn't. Bush can deploy federal forces for 90 days and national guard forces indefinitely. Considering how Iraq fell in about a month, it certainly is possible. (And before you go whining about how much power the presidency has, this is less than what the founding fathers intended. They understood that for certain things you need a single executive making decisions.) And veg, all those things are a result of people whining too much. One thing about whiners though is that they are generally too lazy to oppose something for real.

That definition of "troop" is not in any dictionary, though I understand what you mean. You mean to say that there are enough elite units of the US military operating in the area that they probably could invade Iran, make a big mess, and leave it for the Iranians to clean up as long as no large-scale occupation is attempted. I agree. Note that there is a difference between "could" and "want to". I'd say however that while the "could" is true, you cannot prove the "want to". You don't know George Bush. All you know about him is what the media tells you he thinks like. I don't know him either, but I do know this: I attended one of his live campaign speeches in 2004. It was a three hour speech, during which he honestly made articulate well thought out arguments for his previous actions and future plans. Overall, I'd say for every 1 minute he spent stuttering, he spent 59 making truly intellectual and well articulated statements, and he made a very good argument for the invasion of Iraq, much better than any of mine in fact. However, the reporting in the local news about the speech highlighted the stuttering, didn't pick up on any of the nuances in his statements, and in general portrayed him as the stereotypical Bush we've seen in the media this whole time. I can't say that I know that the media has been deliberately portraying him this way all the time, but I do know they have done it at least once. I also know that he did not make the decision to invade Iraq lightly, and I'd expect that he won't make any rash decisions with Iran either.

It's not entirely dumb, as there is no one for any one person to disprove the theory to himself. Here's another thing to blow your mind...maybe the universe is infact 10 seconds old, but has a historical backlog written in reverse time from the point of origin, and you were in fact born a few seconds ago but have a lifetime of artificial memory. However, science applies to physical world by axiom. Science !@#$%^&*umes that if a tree falls in the forest, it makes a sound. Thus your theory cannot be judged scientifically because it lies outside the bounds which science is constrained to by axiom. A good way to describe it is by video game, where the player is interacting with two npcs, one on-screen and one off-screen. On some level the npcs phase in and out of illusionary 'existence' as the player looks towards and away from them, but according to the game-world's math, both npcs are in 'existence' at all times. The sad thing that while no one thinks this theory is true, I've met a lot of people who believe it to be true. That is, they make token gestures to acknowledge others, but are incredibly selfish at heart. The best example here in this forum are those, and you know who you are, who think the average citizen/voting public are zombies. Several months back I found myself in one of those political arguments in MG's pub chat. It was about the War on Terror, and this guy, I don't remember his name, so I'll call him "Steve", was losing the argument. Finally he challenged me "Okay, Mr. Know-it-all, name five countries which border Afghanistan." I happened to have studied a map of Afghanistan a few months earlier, so I was able to name off Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, and Iran. The only reason I remembered the map is because the map had some statistics on it and I found the difference between the literacy rates interesting. It certainly wasn't that great of a feat - It was more luck than anything, and I remember watching kids fill out the map of Africa on public television, while I could probably only place about half a dozen of them correctly. The point being though was that I knew something that he didn't know, and furthermore something he didn't think was possible for someone else to know. Essentially I disproved the zombie theory to him. Steve however wasn't that mature and !@#$%^&*umed that I had infact googled my response and that I was a poser of a know-it-all. He made that accusation because he simply could not comprehend that it was possible for another person to exist, and came up with whatever unlikely story he could in order to keep the zombie theory alive inside his mind. Jesus referred to those such as Steve as being 'blind'.

Could you ppl stick with lolcatz please...the morbidly obese just brings back too many bad memories of trying to save their lives in a hospital.

Um, you people don't seem to get attraction's intent at all. I'd say what Subspace actually needs rather than a SS CIA, would be shady band of SS mercenaries. We could then take over the smaller zones in overnight coups and then start smuggling, erm, something, into the larger zones.

Extra credit I guess.

You know, McCain is the only one of the three to have actually run against Bush in the past. Be careful about calling him "Bush 2.0". To answer JDS' question: Right now McCain has clinched the Republican nomination, so he's running in November. Obama is currently leading the Democratic Primary by a significant margin. However, not by so much of a margin that Hillary can't win if everyone who hasn't voted yet votes for her. Her ace in the hole is Pennsylvania, the fourth biggest state in the country, and has a lot of delegates. Currently Hillary is leading in Pennsylvania and has an endorsement from Governor Ed Rendel. (Who has marginally more popularity in conservative districts as the Frankenstein monster when he was trapped in the burning windmill surrounded by angry villagers.) However, Obama is gaining popularity in PA. The geography of PA is as follows: You have Pittsburgh in the west and Philadelphia in the east, who vote consistently democratic. In the center and northern portions of the state are the Pennsylvania "T", a region of conservative districts. Currently we have a governor who was the former mayor of Philadelphia with the nearly stated policy of robbing the rest of the state to finance benefits for Philadelphia, and between his overwhelming support in Philly* and the democrats in Pittsburgh who don't know any better, he can get away with it. *He has a great initiative to encourage people voting...where the rest of the country has about 30% of people voting, Philadelphia has had voter turnout rates of 105% plus or minus 1%...the dead are literally rising from their graves to vote for Rendel.** Ofcourse no one would accuse someone as honorable as he of committing voter fraud. Democrats never would do such a thing. **Okay, so that trick is old...The real scam seems to be using state money to finance buses which on election day take certain voters from district to district to district to vote multiple times fro Rendel during his elections. I do hope he tries this trick on the upcoming primary when everyone is watching and gets caught. Long story short, right now Pennsylvania is being run in the same way as New York is being run - the state is being run by a large city which is getting kickbacks from the state at the expense of the rural districts and other cities, and we have a governor who is just like the Clintons in that he has questionable honesty, radical liberal authoritarian policies, and that look that makes me want to stock up on holy water, wooden stakes, garlic, and silver crosses. I'd figure Obama's best chance is to try to focus on gaining Pittsburgh. There happens to be a lot of black people in Philly, but to be blunt, those people are Rendel's tools so they'll vote for Clinton. Obama's best chance will probably sit with democrats who are tired of the current party establishment.

Look, if Bush is going the '!@#$%^&*!@#$%^&*ination' route I'm all for it. The world needs a middle ground between useless talking and war. Raids/threats/!@#$%^&*!@#$%^&*inations are good things if those actions prevent a large scale war. Particularly in the case of terrorist leaders who don't have bases and live in civilian houses in civilian neighborhoods, assassination is the easiest and cleanest way to deal with them. To me, it seems like the reason why Al Queda has survived as long as it has is because its greatest vulnerability is something we refuse to capitalize upon. Veg, I'll admit he has a point. The US has one big army on one side of Iran in Iraq, and another big army on the other side of Iran in Afghanistan. Those armies could easily be diverted away from insurgent hunting for a short time, and additionally taking out Iran would greatly reduce the effectiveness of the insurgents in Iraq. Additionally having a continuous land m!@#$%^&* would make the process more efficient, and also add some more options in terms of nation building strategies. Still, with all the funding Iran is giving to the radical Shi'ite groups, I wouldn't be surprised if the US military is trying to make a dragnet along the border. Still, I wouldn't trust the Russian government with anything. The main reason they were against action in Iraq is because they were making lots of money in the Oil for Food scam.

Hey, don't be a hater JDS. I don't like the system, but I don't blame the people either. I'm not so proud that if someone dropped 20k on my lap I wouldn't take it, atleast not for this reason. Here's another thing...I've got a little sister who's headed to Villanova next year. She's top of her class, has a 4.05 out of 4.0 GPA, good SAT scores, etc. For all purposes, she has reached the maximum capacity of what she could possibly accomplish academically. She's not getting a 20k scholarship. (She isn't going to be winning any internet popularity contests either...she's kinda ugly. She's got the perfect build to become a female bodybuilder. I'd also advise everyone here to not tell any jokes, because unless you've had training or are exceptionally large yourself she could kick your !@#$%^&* in hand to hand combat.)

You know, I should get this topic back on track. Okay, so Huckabee is out of the race and the prediction I started the topic with is bung...my new prediction: Obama is going to carry all of the remaining states in the primary. However, just before the DNC some 'scandal' is going to break out. At the DNC, all of the Super-Delegates will vote Hillary, as well as a few Obama delegates who come from pro-Hillary districts, who will use the excuse that it is "what their state would have wanted if they knew about (whatever the scandal happens to be). Overall, despite clear public support for Obama, Hillary Clinton will get the Democratic nomination. What will happen next is huge public outcry, not over their candidate but of how the party elites have abandoned democratic principles. After a period of some rioting, the event will lead to the complete disintegration of the Democratic party, and Democratic voters will become either independents or third party voters. The three big names on the November ballot will be McCain, Obama, and Nader. Obama will run as an independent, while Nader will actually have a decent shot at the presidency as democratic voters will move to the Green Party. Hillary will still be running, but by this time the Democratic party will consist of two members: Hillary, Bill, and Chelsea...with Bill and Chelsea pointing to each other claiming that the other one is Green. What will then happen is that McCain will school Obama in the debates, while Nader will shoot himself in the foot by choosing Al Gore as his running mate. After the election, McCain will carry all the states, and all votes in the Electoral college except one, out of respect for George Washington's unanimous victory. McCain will become president. Obama will spent the next four years building some kind of replacement liberal party and will run again in 2012. Nader and Gore will disappear into the wilderness together on some environmentalist mission and will never be heard from again. Hillary Clinton will be so enraged by her defeat that her anger will be made manifest in the form of an inter-dimensional rift which releases cacodemons which raise the dead as zombies. A band of gritty survivors, armed with lots of big guns which the Republican party will lift the regulations against, will defeat the zombies and the cacodemons. The battle will end in a cataclysmic explosion which the survivors will narrowly escape, but Clinton will be just seconds short of escaping from. Or atleast that's how I'm hoping it turns out.

No, the Church hardly said a thing about that movie. I know my priest didn't. Most of us are of the "who the !@#$%^&* cares?" variety...though I myself am annoyed that those themed movies seem to keep building upon themselves and creating their own freaky cult following. The problem is that when you get an organization with a billion members in it, if a fringe of 0.001% of the total members of that organization protest, that segment has a protesting force of 10,000, and that fringe segment can seem quite large. I used to think Islam was the same way, that because they are a multiple-nation-spanning religion, that the 1% fringe can still make huge appearances. Now, however, I suspect that it might be something entirely different.

That is true...I honestly don't know what this topic is doing in here, because other than a few specific posts from the Trash Talk Dwellers, this topic is pretty clean. All I can say is that Colombia University has been messed up for years. Politically they have become so far left-wing that I am honestly not surprised to see them award scholarships like this. There is a difference between deserving something and wanting something. Apparently Colombia feels that deserving something means getting other people to want you to have it. I didn't vote. As a college graduate I find this whole system to be disgusting. I'm not entirely sure it would be a kindness anyway. It would mean that your friend would go to a nutcase school (albeit by highly intelligent nutcases) and proceed to be taught that the best things in life are handouts.

Look, if you hate it so much, get a job, buy the bandwidth, and set your own forum up. Then you can flame whoever you want.

So, wait...this isn't an April Fool's Day joke?

Hey, what'd you expect? It wasn't supposed to be a multi-billion dollar Hollywood action movie.

Delegates can vote for whoever they want to. Generally the delegates follow the wishes of their territories, but with the current democratic party, I could see a few delegates for Obama states being convinced that voting Clinton would be 'what their states really wanted'. Still, that has never happened before in any election, except after a candidate won. The other thing is the so called 'Super Delegates'. These people are delegates who get votes at the DNC but don't represent a state, so if you took two of them, those two Super Delegates have as much voting power as the entire state of South Dakota. There are currently enough undecided Super Delegates to put Clinton's name on the ticket. Essentially the Democratic Party could put whoever they want on the ballot. The only question is how much are they willing to alienate their own voters to put somebody's name on the ballot. One can expect that if the people vote one way, and the super delegates vote the other, the Democratic Party would destroy itself.

Drake, don't cut off your nose to spite your face. Your idiot partners aren't the ones who are hurting you. Your teacher is. If your teacher didn't group you with the idiots, they could have been idiots all they want and it wouldn't have affected you. Your situation sucks, but the way I always have said it is "The only thing worse that a bad situation is a bad situation which somebody is whining about." Think positive and rise above this situation. Putting your partners to use involves focusing on the skills they do have. If nothing else, they can fetch you coffee.

Get creative. My sister got a lazy partner to pull his weight in a chemistry project by intentionally spilling a chemical on him which died his hands purple, though I don't know the details. I guess find out what your partners are doing to goof off, take one of their things which they require to do the activity, and tell them you'll give it back when the project is done.