FMBI

Blah

8/05/08 Silly: Kyrgyzstan seizes weapons from US officials, before realizing they were there to train the Kyrgyz security forces. Oops. Expert warns Arabs to stay calm during the Olympics, lest they get a heart attack. 8/04/08 Political: South Korean protest #3991096 looks like it's gonna be a fun one. Speaking of mad things.. Economic: Nigeria loses more than $20 million every day in oil revenues. Chinese retail sales up 23% in June from last year. Meanwhile, Britain's retail sales slowed down significantly. Silly: Canadian park closes.. didn't notice this story till today. California premiers new "Deport Yourself" law to help encourage illegal aliens to gtfo. I bet Tancredo's giggling in his political grave. More fun with those crazy Saudis. Oversexed French die.. French oysters, that is. 8/03/08 Political: North Korea expels southern tourists over the investigation of a recent tourist murder. Maybe we'll finally get that war, eh? The Big Three lose top spot to 8 Japanese automakers. Japan always thrives when there's a recession for some reason.. The Armenian genocide might be getting back into the news. Weird how Bush always targets weak countries for his human rights preaching, eh? Silly/Disturbing: New Zealand police arrest a man charged with filming users of a public toilet. Ugh. Don't even know what to say for this one.. Scientists discover world's smallest snake. Unfortunately, it could go extinct before they can really study it. 8/02/08 Political: Italy deploys troops in major cities. Couple that with Berlusconi's custom-made immunity package, the government-encouraged hatred of the Roma, and the suggested universal fingerprinting plan, and I think we've got ourselves a case for fascism. Ukraine wants Russia to leave Sevastopol (when don't they want Russia to leave?) - seems kinda dumb to me to take on Russia when they're already pissed over the Missile Shield deal. London bombings may have been stoppable? I bet they're kicking themselves right now. The US ain't the only country with a privacy problem. Economic: Don't expect oil prices to go down permanently. OPEC wouldn't be silly enough to let that happen. On the one hand, I can see why they're so upset about tax evaders, but I would think that penalizing "offshoring" (or in this case, off-Alping) companies and individuals would be a better choice than bringing the entire EU into an international law dispute. Germany's economy slowing down, though it's better than it's been since reunification. Silly: The Kiwis are, once again, attempting to reduce dependence on foreign fuel sources. Even more inventive than their geothermal program. Saudi Arabia tries to cut down on pets, perhaps because of an aversion to people doing it doggy-style? So yeah, these are kind of random, but I think they're all interesting. Sure beats starting one "SAW THIS IN THE NEWS" thread every 2 weeks.

No go, YouTube deletes any explicit images. Though, for some reason, they allow teaser vids for porn sites to stay up. O_O

Yeah, read about this in the news. As usual, it's to protect us.. such a considerate government. Course, if that requires searching the laptops of US citizens, that's fine by me. ^_^

JDS, how ya doin'? Suffering severe withdrawal symptoms yet? Getting that unstoppable urge to slowly inhale as you suck on that delicious cigarette, thereby giving yourself a near-orgasmic feeling with each breath? Wondering how you could ever have quit performing such an uplifting activity? Or, are you just glad to have quit sucking tar and nicotine into your lungs, thereby shortening your lifespan by up to a dozen years? ^_^

cute dog analysis I counted 8. And that's the all-time glory days of the root/2!@#$%^&*z war.

If I may interject a quibble here, your choice of Israel for comparison was a bad one. While it's almost always referred to as "The Jewish state," there have been estimates in the past that up to % of ethnic Jews are (were at time of study) atheists. See what happens when you let ethnicity and religion become interchangeable?

There is a reason managers are payed more, but the reason is often inflated to pointlessness. There is absolutely no reason why such drastic manager-worker income disparities should exist. In Japan, the top executives make only a fraction of what American executives do, and they often make better long-term choices. In the special case of the US (which is usually a special case... some would call it a "basket case" ), that argument is nullified, because the pay is so unfair*. *Yes, pay is unfair when it fails to keep pace with productivity growth, inflation, or basic living needs. Keep in mind that the vast majority of the country (around 90%) has been in a "recession" for decades.

Creemy, may I refer you to my original post?

Contraceptive link I'll modify the "often absolute" statement a bit here. Yes, there may be more Christians in the Democratic party than there are in the Republican party, but the core, bible-thumping, church-every-Sunday crowd* almost invariably goes Republican. I honestly don't know why Democrats try to pick up the Evangelicals, because it never has a significant effect, unless outside cir!@#$%^&*stances are so god-awful* that they would have voted against the Republican anyway. Meaning, this year, some Evans might desert - but if things go back to normal, they'll still make up a massive part of the Republican voting bloc. I don't know about you, but I'd rather see the boiler repaired before it explodes, to use an absurd metaphor. *Note that I'm not trying to insult anyone here, just making my point.

Translation: I like a man in uniform.

Ah, but the "lower wages + even lower prices = good" theory falls short in situations where you can't export poverty anymore. China's rising wages, the semi-recession, and our flat wages (despite tremendous productivity growth in recent years) have all made it more expensive to import, and without a compensating rise in wages, you end up in a situation where your cash runs out all too quickly. While pushing wages ahead of productivity results in inflation, allowing them to lag behind and then making up for it by sucking in the low-priced junk of the rest of the world can only last so long. At a certain point, your economy's eroded so far that you completely lose economic independence. We've all seen how well that worked for the pseudo-colonies of the early-and-mid 20th century. 90% foreign economic ownership of your economy, 100% political ownership. Forgive me if I sound a bit paranoid, but getting 50% of the world to say that they'd be better off without us, and simultaneously handing them the reins to your future doesn't sound too smart. And also, the "fall in poverty" that you cite seems a little oversimplified to me. Expanded trade with insufficiently mature economies (Africa, Central America, and Thailand come to mind) tends to provoke rapid shifts which throw people off the wagon far more rapidly than in mature economies, which are at least fairly stable in terms of equality. We probably pushed 20 million people into the slums in order to accomplish that 4 million drop. And even after that, I still find it questionable, because the poverty line has barely changed, while the value of the dollar has dropped drastically in recent years.

He's 2pacz, and he's an

I feel compelled to throw in my 2 cents (which, if measured by 2000's currency values, are now actually 1.2 cents). #1, thanks for changing the sig. Though I dislike the Nazi reference. If I were to go with any insane ideology, I'd probably pick Trotskyism, at least it has nice (as opposed to genocidal) ideals. #2, Hoch was both right and wrong. Right in the sense that most are, wrong in the sense that 90% of the people (in the US, at least) use them interchangeably, often with a heavily racist tilt. I, personally, feel the distinction is necessary, because, though obvious, it helps pound it into your brain. #3, it did not show a lack of common sense. As a rural Pennsylvanian who has lived 45 minutes from the interstate (which is !@#$%^&* hard to do in this state), I've seen more than my share of people who cling to guns and religion, merely because they're there. I do not have serious disagreements with either occupation when pursued logically*, but a very large number of those I have come into contact with are willing to throw reasoning out the window whenever it comes to their two twin passions. Besides, aren't we forgetting the rest of the speech? When you consider the context, he is actually sympathetic to the woes of the working class (of which I am a proud, if upward-aspiring, member), rather than some lofty elitist looking down upon the unwashed masses. Besides, Hillary jumped on the quote so she could !@#$%^&* her false populism all over it.. that should tell you something about the veracity of criticizing him over it. Spoiler! --Click here to view-- #4, I personally feel this was based less on a mistake than on a "Big Picture" view (and a clear one, at that). The army (and virtually all of our intelligence services) have ignored or ineffectively focused on training translators, leading to a chronic shortage. While you can't just take an English-Arabic translator and stick them in a country that speaks Dari, Obama likely meant that, if we're putting limited resources into training people, we should be training them for Afghanistan. He has personally focused more on that country, so that would be his logical conclusion. I hope. And besides, he hasn't said anything about the "Iraq-Pakistan" border yet. So there. * In the case of guns, logically, safely, and without a useless obsession with how "cool" they are. In the case of religion, with the acceptance that selective literalism is an exercise in stupidity, that there are people who disagree with you, and that mis-translations and deliberate killings-off (as in the case of the illuminating, if by definition non-canonical, Gnostic scriptures).

The religious elite have lots of anti-democratic ideas. However, to ensure fair play, I will avoid the extreme religious reconstructionist views, and try to stick to the more mainstream ones. - The idea that we "need to take this country back for God" (most notable in Patrick Henry College, but very popular in most Baptist churches I've been to), regardless of actual history (the theocracy-oriented colonies failed, the Founding Fathers were primarily deists / agnostics, etc). - The often-absolute alliance with the Republican party - no, I'm not against this because I'm a liberal, I'm against it because it concentrates too much power in too few hands. I'd be just as upset if there were an always-Democratic faction with as much electoral power as the evangelicals - handing one third of the electorate to a party, regardless of virtue, is extremely dangerous. - The move from healthy skepticism of Islam to a belief in total dissolution of the UN, shutting down trade with those nations, etc - it might sound good ("It will MAKE them cooperate!"), but it actually does severe and lasting damage to any democratic movements those countries might develop. *COUGH* Iran *COUGH* - The move to declare contraception as "abortion" - this is undemocratic, because it could (note that I'm no friend of feminists) set women's rights back several decades. Saying we should delink respect and sexuality is all well and good, but it's a lot easier to say that when you aren't the one that gets pregnant in teenage sex. - The religious right's initial emergence was actually based on an attempt to re-allow segregation in BJU, though the abortion issue nicely smokescreened this. Jesse Helms might have died, but there are quite a few people out there (especially in the easily roused Baptist-oriented south) who would like to see Jim Crow brought out of the grave. The belief that the US is turning into a "legal oligarchy" has been floating around for quite a while, mostly based on the observation that, as you mention, you have a hard time even breathing anymore without a lawyer's permission. However, on closer inspection, the Judicial branch isn't so threatening by itself. The top Judiciary has been Executive-dominated since FDR, with every president packing the Supreme Court, getting legal aides to rewrite the law, and appointing "everyday" judges to see that everything goes their way. If you take the Executive out of the picture, yes, you still have an extremely inconvenient, greedy, m!@#$%^&* of lawyers ("feeding off of society" as a friend of mine fondly refers to them), but their short-term focus and desire for money actually short-circuits their ambition in virtually all cases. So you might have companies that pay out $5 million to an obese woman who ate at McDonald's, but you won't have significant, life-changing suits that make you want to kill yourself. Low-level judges are also largely irrelevant, because while they might do a bit of grandstanding (as in old Roy "Tenner" Moore's case), any huge decisions they make are going to get referred to the higher levels, and those higher levels are, again, stacked by the Executive. It doesn't make a difference if a crazy judge out in Wyoming throws the Cons!@#$%^&*ution out the window, unless there's someone bigger to back him up. So.. actually, that just makes the presidency look even more threatening.

The forums are still dead, though. And populated mostly by annoying kids. I speak from experience.

Well, the trick with the Army is to get in (get the bonuses, any education benefits you may use in the future, get self-defense training if you're into that, get your body set in the "fitness zone" for the rest of your life) and then get out. If you don't, then one day you'll wake up in your 40s, and realize that being a Lt. Colonel doesn't really mean anything. One or two terms (course, you're going to be an officer, so you can just hop the train whenever) is the optimum. Beyond that, you're giving your life to an organization that, while it may be populated with caring people, is essentially uncaring by nature. Patriotism sucks when it accomplishes nothing for no one. Also - yeah, they have charts for everything. Most of them are designed to push people just as far as they can go without actually breaking down - mind games, but apparently they're effective. An example is how, in the SEALs, they put you in the water for varying times depending on water temperature, just so you can always get that nice arctic buzz.

Strange, we all remember arguing with Aileron. And yet we're still wishing him luck. Stupid behavior influencing fluoride.

Judges suck. However, they're a lot less threatening than a religion+financial elite backed presidency, both because of their limited impact and their limited ambition. Besides, judges have recently been going right-wing on all the major decisions - death penalty, gun control, etc. What's the big deal?

I'm not going to miss you when you go away. That was the dumbest post I have ever seen. In socialism, contrary to popular idiocy, people would have to work, and, furthermore, you're a lot more likely to enjoy yourself if you're under "market socialism," in which you can compete to get the best goods, but you can also opt out if you don't like the system and go do your own thing. Contrast that with "libertarianism" which is nothing more than a justification of current American economic theory - eventually the top 1% will own 99% of the wealth, rather than the 39% they have now. I'm glad you finally figured out that the free market doesn't always work, but you still seem to believe socialism inevitably leads to dictatorship. Which, I suppose, is a logical !@#$%^&*umption, if you have absolutely no background in world history, and thus don't realize that the US and Britain overthrew or weakened any left-leaning governments which could have possibly interfered with them (Guyana, N!@#$%^&*erian Egypt, Chile, 1953 Iran) - thus, the remaining socialistic governments tended to be run by complete incompetents like Mugabe or Kaunda. Using this kind of evidence, you could say that nuclear weapons are harmless because they've only been used twice. Also - no, people would not be obese under socialism, because (all other things being equal) the more egalitarian a population is in earnings and living standards, the healthier it is. Besides, socialism, while not perfect, is more accepting of entropy, and accepts that infinite waste is not possible. While it's still heavily consumption-oriented, it is less obsessed than capitalism with using up as many resources as fast as possible. Lastly, the CCC would be a great thing to revive today, as it could build long-range rail networks (allowing the US to survive $5 gas in a few years - if we don't get that, then the trucking networks will shut down, and anyone living in the southwest or California is going to starve), repair some of the existing infrastructure (a report just came out that put the bill at $1.6 trillion), and help with urban planning and conservation of resources. However, it wouldn't happen, because it's still a "socialist" measure, and any time there are at least 41 Republicans in the Senate, it's not going to get anywhere.

I notice that you haven't changed your sig, or even replied to the criticism. Apparently maintaining a lie is justified so long as you have bizarre, irrelevant reasons for it?

I like men.

Ah, the joys of voluntary enlistment. Where's conscription when you need a psychological liberator?

Bleh, hate to disagree with you here, but I used to know a couple guys who had been in both the Army and the Marines, and they said the Army BCT was a lot harder than it was in the Marines.

Link Yes, the study was partially funded by unions, but I don't hear anyone complaining when transnats bankroll studies saying free trade is wonderful. Just another fun example of how the ideal of free trade is hampered by pesky little things like reality. Oh, for the glory days when we could send a few frigates and get guaranteed fair trade.