Aileron

Its one of the byproducts of the 60s. One of the outcomes was that there were stereotypes generated about the political parties. The Democrats has the reputation of being the party of women, minorities, and the working class. For a long time up to including the present day, if you were black you voted Democrat no questions asked. If you were a worker, you voted Democrat, and if a Republican proposes something it must be bad because a Republican proposed it. The result of this is that the Democrats have these groups in their pocket, giving the party an incentive to complain about racial problems and to create racial problems, but no actual incentive to solve racial problems. Instead they cater to southerners, because southern conservatives are the group which is flexible enough to switch party lines and ends up deciding the elections. As long as the Democrats can count on having the minority vote and the Republicans can count on not having the minority vote, nobody is going to try. As for sexism vs. racism, lets face the truth: skin color is only skin deep, while the difference between the genders is greater than that. The reason sexism survives more is because it actually has a small amount of fact to support it.

I was being expedient. Iraq started a border skirmish. Iran responded with a war. The point I was trying to make was that the war was about Iran's expansionism. If they weren't being expansionist they would have made peace after fighting the initial invasion back. While technically Iraq started the fighting, Iran was the one who decided the scale and nature of most of the conflict, so it is more fair to say it was Iran's war. I'll admit I'm not very good at communicating clearly, and you interpreted it as a faulty statement. Oh, "mining of uranium" should be revealed first and foremost. The IAEA can't know they have tracked all the uranium unless they know how much they have to track to begin with. Though this argument seems to be involving a lot of international law, which is not my strong suit.

spidernl, make up your own jokes. Don't rip off of the Dilbert calendar that's on your desk. I'd still vote for Colin Powell if he ran. Kinda understand why he doesn't though. He makes enough money in pensions sitting on his !@#$%^&* that it just isn't worth the aggravation.

It's been done, and anyone who lives in western states sure as heck knows it. Not specifically with a bailout, but there have been many times where Wyoming, Colorado, and North Dakota has had to put up with federal laws for the self serving interests of California, New York, and New England. In this case said bailout would probably take the form a federally proposed bill backed by Democrats, who would use a sob story of people losing their homes to demonize anyone who opposes it. I don't really know who to blame over the economy. Bush seems to be the popular target, but the economy didn't really get bad until after the Democratic congress took over. I guess the biggest reason is the inability for politicians to compromise.

Oh please. Historically the US has only been able to pull off a shadow of the evil !@#$%^&* Europe got away with, and frankly the history of all the previous versions of Iran back to ancient Persia are worse than both. I mean, Iran is more modern than it used to be, but at the end of the day her cultural beliefs are still in the 'might makes right' category. I know the story of US-Iranian relations since WWII! Long story short: things were good for us, then Jimmy Carter messed things up. He was too busy cleaning our hands of one totalitarian dictatorship that he replaced it with one which is worse! Besides, whether or not you trust the US is irrelevant. The US' nukes are an entirely different issue.

What? Coming up with excuses not to vote for the black guy? Your mind has been twisted. Over the course of this topic you've been the one generating excuses not to vote for the Republican. Obama has two things on his resume: He's black and he's a Democrat. I'll admit he also did well in college. But that's it in its entirety.

Its not their weight, but it is amazing how many excuses those two can generate. By the way, this is why we oppose illegal immigration!!!! While these two are not technically illegal immigrants, the sad truth of the matter is that your typical migrant won't work and will generate excuses. I mean, she's not sure she can get to work due to the price of gas? Sure gas is up, but it isn't that expensive yet! Then, imagine if you lose a job or get passed up on a raise because a person like that shows up and underbids you. You know that person isn't going to work and isn't worth a dime, but your employer has to give them a chance. Overall, its a problem generated by political correctness and the inability to call these people 'lazy'. I am all for putting up a wall. At very least it will keep the fat ones who can't jump over it out.

No we didn't forget. Its just dumb to let new nations in the nuclear club. India and Pakistan were bad enough. Hey, if it were up to me North Korea would be a crater right now for building a nuke. Could you cite a source that Israel has nukes please? SeVeR, my viewpoint on Iran's nuclear programs is that whether they are within their rights or not, its a smart decision to oppose them.

I do find it utterly amazing that the same people who were fighting lynching, denial of the right to vote, and real segregation back in the 60s now fight this crap today.

That actually does have enough data to conclude that riding a bike without a helmet is more dangerous, though not by that much.

I wasn't responding to any point in particular. I don't even disagree with the conclusion. All I was doing was pointing out a flawed argument.

That's a classic logical fallacy. You didn't prove a cause and effect relationship. 100% of people who died while riding a bike were doing so on a bike with a front wheel attached. Conclusion: Front wheels are dangerous and they should be removed from the bicycle before you ride it. To be serious, another possibility explaining that statistic is that the helmet does nothing to prevent the kind of crash needed to kill someone, and that 90% of bike riders happen to not wear helmets.

Astro, back to the enlistment thing, (I know I should learn to drop this stuff) I never said the Army couldn't extend a tour. I said they couldn't fit 6 years worth of tours into a 4 year term of enlistment. People do criticize the insane right winged preachers! I myself have done so! It just happens that no presidential candidate from the Republican side has gotten buddy-buddy with them because generally the Republicans like to filter themselves. As for the cartoon....AAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW . Poor Obama. Bush has only been putting up with crap like that from every cartoonist, late night comedy show, and internet jokester every day since January 1st, 2000.

Someone who's just started Vista is going to need more. User Account Control is a security feature which blocks programs from having administrative rights, like modifying other files. As such, it reeks havoc with most pre-Vista programs such as Continuum. While clicking 'Run this program as an Administrator' will solve your Continuum problems, if you have a lot of pre-Vista programs, you will have to do this for each one unless you turn UAC off. Turning it off will make you computer less secure, as by design any malware would not be able to modify you settings with it on. However, that feature was not in XP, so if you were smart enough to keep viruses off your old XP computer, you should do fine without UAC. I don't know how to do it off the top of my head. Go to the Control Panel and search for "UAC" or "User Account Control".

Astro, that 'pearl of wisdom' comes from the friends I have who actually went into the Army and were shipped over to Iraq. When somebody enlists they do so for several years, usually four. Between how long a tour lasts and the amount of off time for training and re-equipping, it takes enough time that the Army can only squeeze one, maybe two tours in before a soldier's enlistment ends. To get tours three and four they have to re-enlist. There just isn't enough time for the Army to put a wannabe college student through four foreign tours over the course of a single enlistment. Now, the enlistment for the reserves are longer, but they still couldn't do what you are describing. Bak, actually its true but only opposite. If the Democrats put forward a good enough candidate I could vote for him. I would for instance vote for Harry Truman if I had a time machine, maybe John Kennedy as well. Obama isn't like Harry Truman at all. The worst thing about him is that everything is an 'irrelevant' topic regarding him. You can't talk about his lack of experience. It isn't relevant. You can't talk about the fact that if elected, the Presidency will be the first job in Obama's life where he will actually be the boss of somebody else. It isn't relevant. You can't talk about the issues because he hasn't been around long enough to take a stand on any issues, so that would be talking about his inexperience, which isn't relevant. You can't talk about his connections to Chicago's organized crime. It isn't relevant. You can't talk about the fact all of his personal life contacts are left-wing radicals. It isn't relevant. Apparently the only fair subject Obama supporters consider relevant is the fact that he's black, can smile real good, and that he stands for 'change', a vague concept which every non-in!@#$%^&*bent Democratic politician claimed to have campaigned on in the past 30 years. You know what? That's why this topic got started. What do you expect to happen when your candidate is so inexperienced that he doesn't have a record to criticize?

pfft...that argument is sad Astro. Everyone knows the best way to stay out of the real fighting is to join the Navy. You don't need 'connections'. Also, the reason many of the soldiers are going over to Iraq 3 or 4 times isn't because they feel they need to to get a scholarship. No one has to sign on for a second tour of duty. Fair to say the ones that keep going over are borderline psychotic terrorist killing machines. I'd mark the line of qualification for military counting towards presidential qualification lies at the officer level. All officers have to lead, though it can be weak at the 2nd Lieutenant/Ensign level. McCain however ended at a Navy Captain, which is a high rank that many officers retire off of. By 'retire' I mean really retire. As in 'quit working because you have finished your career'. (Navy Captains are not to be confused with Army Captains. The equivalent rank of a Navy Captain is Colonel in the Army.) All fighter pilots command the support staff for their planes, which is about a dozen. Additionally, McCain eventually commanded a wing of fighters, meaning he was in charge of other pilots. If you count the support staff for those pilots, which is fair to do as the whole reason for mid ranking officers in the first place is so one man doesn't have to micromanage everyone, then McCain indeed was in charge of an 'army' of sailors. I'll admit that when a politician comes forward who reached the rank of Lieutenant and commanded a patrol boat, it shows patriotism but not leadership. However, when somebody reached the rank of Navy Captain, the rank alone signifies leadership, because people just don't get that high without it. I mean, 'leading armies' is something Army and to a much lesser extent Marine officers do. Navy officers will lead group of people on a ship, in McCain's case a large group of people devoted to the F4 Phantoms on an aircraft carrier. Okay, so he wasn't quite an Admiral...he was one rank below that, but he also spent a lot of time in Congress. Keep in mind Theodore Roosevelt was a Colonel, which is the same level. Overall Astro, you are essentially holding the fact that McCain joined the Navy rather than the Army against him. I don't. Hey, not everyone has the stones for the Army. That doesn't quite make people in the Navy 'weak'. It just means the Army is stronger. As I said earlier, in a two party system I guess I'll have to settle for a Navy guy.

Criminals aren't going to be stopped by a sudden pang of conscience. Sooner or later, someone has to use force. Having a citizen do it is just a more efficient process than waiting for law enforcement. The 'conservative value' here is 'self-reliance', meaning the ability to look after yourself and keep yourself safe without requiring somebody else to protect you. The opposing for is 'dependence', meaning the need to require somebody else to provide a life saving service for you. 'Dependence' is how slaves are made out of men. The problem is that in our society we are dependent on a lot of things, so no one notices a security dependence when we have, for example, an oil dependence. Case in point a state a dependence would add one more way for those in power to screw people.

Um, sorry my last post was so long that apparently no one bothered to read it. I should have known better. Long post short: If we treat terrorists like spies and soldiers rather than criminals, we won't need things like the Patriot Act or whatever similar thing in the UK which started this thread. Most of our need for such acts stems from the fact that we are trying to use our criminal justice system to do a job it isn't supposed to. We need proof 'beyond a reasonable doubt' person X was planning a bombing. If we want to be prudent and stop X before he builds the bomb, rather than in between after he builds it but before he uses it, we need to wiretap his whole life in order to get that proof. Now if an international spy gets caught planning a bombing or assassination, all the authorities need to do is catch him, prove he works for someone, and get some indication of the spies' orders, and they are all set. We never needed the Patriot Act to catch spies! All we need to do is approach terrorism as a military threat, and we won't have to sacrifice any of our civil liberties.

Well, I didn't say those 4 are problems. I said that I don't know what the problem is and if that is the problem, there is a solution to it. GameTime, to answer your question, yes they are an oppressed society. I don't know if you've met a true born African, but those people are generally tough as nails. Keep in mind though that we are making generalizations about an entire continent. There certainly are lazy elements in Africa.

Bak, there are a lot of times where being a war hero is the only needed qualification. It has happened in the history of the US, and a good number of them have turned out to be good presidents as well. Generally, it takes a Colonel or higher, which McCain is. Look, if you intend to make the argument that McCain doesn't have enough experience, just give up now because you'll never make that argument work. Astro, how can a couple of unedited photos be 'stupid'? A camera doesn't have an agenda. They only record what they scan. I guess what passes for 'intelligence' nowadays is blind support for everything liberal, in which case a camera's tendency to be unbiased is very 'stupid' indeed.

Kinda mean, but relevant to this topic:

Finland, I'm not trying to pull that crap. What I am saying is that the expected result would be that there would be some countries low on security on one end, some countries invading privacy on the other, but most of them staying in the middle. Those people consider no one to be in the middle. For instance, the 'bastion of totalitarian fundamentalism' known as Sweden is in the red. Really? I thought Sweden was full of a bunch of soft hippies last time I checked! Sorry, the evaluations you cited don't meet a sanity check. Maybe you could argue that they could merely are off-center, thus implying that we could apply a translational affect on the skewed results to get something more reasonable. But, that logic would be flawed because the fact that the UK is over these people's max and China is also over these people's max doesn't imply they are the same. Imagine a bathroom scale designed to measure a human being up to 100 lbs. If a 500 lb. morbidly obese man steps on it, he maxes it out. If a 180 lb. healthy man steps on it, he also maxes it out. The idiot designed scale would register both men as morbidly obese. Yes, governments want more control. The reason why is that they need that type of control to prove a terrorist is a terrorist in a court of law while preventing the actions of terrorism in advance simultaneously. Here's an example. It is an old one, but it should serve the purpose. On November 5, 1990, a man by the name of Meir David Kahane, an Israeli official with admittingly expansionist views, was on a speaking tour in the United States at the New York Marriott East Side Hotel in Manhattan. During the speech, an Islamic terrorist by the name of Sayyid Nosair walked into the hotel room, pullout out a .357 magnum modified for assassination, and fired two shots into Kahane from point blank range, in front of quite a lot of witnesses, and shot and wounded two more people while fleeing the scene. Forensics was able to find 3 of the 4 shots fired, and match them to the gun in Nosair's possession. Nevertheless, when it came to trial Nosair was found innocent of the murder charge when tried by a jury of his peers, 'jury of his peers' meaning a bunch of terrorist sympathizers pulled out of various third world countries. Apparently, the conclusion the jury came to was that the gun must have flown out of Nosair's sleeve, floated around the area on its own, shot three men out of its own inanimate free will, and then flew back into his jacket. The point the government is trying to make is that if there were a bunch of cameras in the hotel and outside the street, there might have been enough evidence to convict the man. Or, we could accept the reality that the man wasn't a citizen committing murder, subject to a civilian court, but rather an organization-guided !@#$%^&*!@#$%^&*in subject to military tribunal. The problem wasn't the lack of monitoring. The problem was that we were trying to use a system designed for petty thieves against an international !@#$%^&*!@#$%^&*in backed by a large m!@#$%^&* movement organization. Now, the rest of the story is that Nosair did get convicted on the illegal gun charge. The judge opted to use every legal trick in the book to put Nosair in prison for 20 years on that charge. Want another example? How about Obama's favorite serial bomber, the Weatherman Bomber. He started blowing up government buildings left and right, but when he plotted to blow up a military base, our national security forces were on the ball and managed to stop him. That process however involved an illegal wiretap, and the Weatherman Bomber was acquitted because due process wasn't followed. Look, I'm all for Cons!@#$%^&*utional Rights, but when one plots to launch an attack on an Army base, one shouldn't expect to be visited by a suspicious local cop. If you are plotting to attack a military base, it would be fair to expect the CIA, FBI, NSA, BATF, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the United States Postal Service to have enough monitoring wires shoved up your !@#$%^&* that its hard to walk and enough bugs in your home that the local power grid surges every time you fart. Sorry, plotting to blow up an 'enemy' base is an act of war, not the act of a criminal. If he wanted to play soldier he should have been treated like a soldier. At very least I say we should kick him out of the country he hates so much. There are plenty of Mexicans who would love to take his place. Also, let us plan for the future a little. What will happen if we catch Osama Bin Laden alive and try him for Sept 11th and July 7th? He certainly masterminded the attacks, but we can't prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt in front of a jury of his peers. We'd have to have his whole life on tape in order to do that. However, if we claim he is an enemy of the entire civilized world, we could certainly prove it and convict him on that. The worst thing about it is that we do have all the infrastructure we need. The cameras and monitoring ability our governments have is more than enough. We also have the legal system necessary to defeat terrorists already set up - the Geneva Conventions in regards to how spies are treated, which is summary execution. One could argue an international terrorist is a spy quite easily. If we treat terrorists like criminals, governments would need to trample on human rights to stop them. If we treat them like spies or militia, we won't need to monitor our own citizens nor will we need to write laws which can be turned on our citizens later.

Bak, the fact that organized international terrorists are enemies of a lot of western countries should be obvious. Criminals are people who don't follow the law. Terrorists generally want to overthrow and change the law. The fact that they intend to overthrow a government's major legal structure through force places them in the 'military' category, as criminals do not engage in that sort of behavior. Finland, those people have an agenda. It should be obvious with the blatant lack of teal and green on that map. Generally, they say that there are countries with no cameras at all, but the moment someone puts some up the whole country is a human rights violator. Sure, they have what looks like Greece in the green (hard to see - its a small map), but other than that its alarmist propaganda.

Its a good idea, depending upon the nature of the problem. If the problem is local corruption, then they still find some way to get all the money themselves and we'd be back to square one. It will work, though there is still a good chance that the money we paid to the suppliers winds up as a 'protection fee' to the local warlord, while the aid we give out ends up in the hands of another warlord on the receiving end. That's not insurmountable. If it starts to happen the warlords would just need to be taken out.

Well, removing the aid would mean less money in the hands of the corrupt to finance a 'security' detail. Money translates into a wider area which they are able to 'protect'. So, cutting the aid would mitigate the problem. As I said though, the permanent solution is to simply throw down the oppressors.