FMBI

The only problem, of course, being that you cannot have infinite growth, and lowering taxes has unforeseen consequences. For example, allowing too much capital to float around creates bubbles which then pop and leave everyone except a lucky few holding the bag. This is just what we've seen in the housing boom - tax rates lowered, the rich had more money to invest, but there weren't enough legitimate things to sink it into, so they threw it into get-rich-quick schemes that ended up in a housing "crisis" which was then blamed on every poor person for getting an adjustable rate mortgage for (what appeared to be) a lower rate. It doesn't really matter if raising taxes increases revenues (although I personally must disagree with the article on that, for reasons I'll discuss some other time), because you're still reining in the rich and preventing the wealth gap from growing too large. If that happens, then the price of everything increases while fewer people are able to pay for it. I would say that social equality is a better goal to strive for than somehow hoping to use finite resources and fuels to achieve infinite growth, all the while avoiding schemes by the rich to avoid taxation (which is worse now than it used to be, in fact). And besides.. for the 30000th time (and I mean that literally), the super rich did not earn their money. You earn your money if you work a legitimate job and get paid a legitimate amount (even if it might be $300 an hour), but when you simply cash out on stock bonuses and make $10 M in one year, then send it overseas to avoid the (already tiny) capital gains, inheritance, or other taxes, then you didn't earn a penny of it. There's something to be said for a silent partner who keeps money in the company through good times and bad, but when you see the sort of thing we have today (where executives give themselves millions of dollars in stock options, often conveniently forgetting to notify their shareholders and/or workers) then you have to concede the whole "they earned it, let 'em keep it" argument is bull!@#$%^&*. And finally - who says the working man doesn't get a dime of the money? As usual, that's a libertarian fallacy of "It doesn't happen here, so it can't happen anywhere" - in the Nordic welfare nations (which have been allegedly suffering states of economic collapse for the last several decades, despite their being far ahead of the US in healthcare, R&D, and living standards) the government wisely reinvests the money back into the nation and everyone gets a share. The problem is that in the US the conservatives have taken it upon themselves to reduce the effectiveness of government while the liberals have seen fit to drastically expand the scope of programs without ensuring that they're performed correctly. That's left us with a bloated bureaucracy that misleadingly gives the impression that "all government is bad," when in fact our government is one of the few outside of the third world that can boast such inefficiency.

That's a nice theory, the only problem is that it's two totally different things. Hussein had complete control of the nation, had secret police, and was ready to take any steps necessary to remain in power (which is the reason we knocked him out so easily in '03 - he was more worried about the home front than about a US invasion) - and, most importantly, although he was an absolute dictator, he delivered. Even after we bombed the !@#$%^&* out of Iraq and then applied incredibly devastating sanctions, he kept the place running, albeit at a much lower level of prosperity. The US, on the other hand, went in with virtually no force, had no plan to pacify civilians through force or peaceful coercion, relies on "the other sect" (IE Sunni v Shia or Shia v Sunni) to make their own death squads to hunt down opponents of peace, and we've kept saying "We're handing power over" without making any attempt to, thus making both us and the Iraqi "government" look bad. And I won't even get into the "reconstruction," - the majority of the funds were just skimmed off and never went anywhere, and a lot of the rest went to useless projects ($50 million hospital in a town without power, anyone?). It's two entirely different situations. Saddam was a ruthless, arrogant !@#$%^&*, but he made good on his promises - the US preached "peace" and "democracy," then did virtually nothing for the people on the ground, all the while indiscriminately killing (or hiring Iraqis to kill) civilians. People under Saddam didn't have the power, or the reason, to stand up to him, whereas in the case of the US, they see an oppressive foreign power that has a lot of strike force but no staying power, and therefore they can easily undermine us in the long term by creating local "free concerned citizens" who are willing to avenge the death of their fathers, brothers, or (in all too many cases) mothers or sisters. Uhh.. you've backtracked about 15 times on this now, you wanna give up or switch positions again? And as for why the Mahdi army might be anti-US.. I don't even want to go into the cliches, but what would you think if you were part of a populist movement that had worked to gain the will of the people during a tyrant's reign at home, and then an invading power came in, took out that leader, and then made your life worse after promising to make it better? I'd be pissed as !@#$%^&*. Your "when you have a rebel group that will not negotiate" statement is about as logical as saying that we had a right to bomb Cambodia and trigger Pol Pot's genocide because the North Vietnamese were heading through on their way to the RVN. And finally.. think through the bull!@#$%^&* and ask yourself, once and for all, what "right" we have to be there in the first place. We invaded, found no WMDs (please, mention the 20-year old Chems that everyone already knew he had.. come on), triggered the death or relocation of an estimated 5 million people (compare that to Hurricane Katrina?), and we're still failing in the "duty" to the Iraqis that the neocons make so much out of. Yes, we've still got "good" news coming in, but the problem is that we aren't the ones benefiting from that. As soon as it's feasible, the groups that are currently "cooperating" with the US will drive us out, because it will gain them even more support - and the US is at least partly to blame for that because we've refused to make an actual peace, we've just pushed for temporary, unofficial peaces to gain a fighting advantage (which is what they're doing right now, and what you seem to be so angry about). And on a related issue that is being oddly ignored by the (shamelessly liberal propaganda machine)* media - what would happen if the US withdrew tomorrow? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There'd be a short-term flareup, probably a few thousand people would die (which is a tiny amount in comparison to what we - and, admittedly, our opponents - have done), and then it would quiet down. Why? Because in a proxy war, the ammo only lasts so long, and only one belligerent can gain complete support without outside intervention. There have been dozens of long-term civil wars, but almost every single one of them lasted as long as they did because of constant help and support (contras, Afghanistan, Sudan atm, Lebanese civil war [arms traffickers], Korean war, Chinese Civil War, and the "South African Border War") - if the outside powers stop screwing around, then the locals take care of things on their own - and, contrary to current belief in the US, it often isn't as bad as when the higher powers keep screwing things up. The victorious powers know that they have limited resources, and they know that if they're too harsh, the losers can start a new movement to at least put a thorn in their side, and possibly overthrow them. Compare this to great power intervention, where you have nearly unlimited resources stretching across a vast distance, and you have no need to really worry about the fate of the losers. The only feasible option is for the US to leave Iraq, because, as Howard Dean (slimy, slippery, slick, !@#$%^&* that he is) said, it is a war that cannot be won. The consequences of the US "winning"** are to stay in Iraq, spend trillions more on the war, dislocate even more Iraqis, create permanent tension in the near east, ensure that the EU will aspire to military power as well as economic power (reversing a trend that they've been pursuing for quite a long time - and it'll be directed at us), and cause even more harm to the Iraqi oil fields (some of them have been permanently damaged by the methods we used to "repair" them during the war). On top of all that, the US is already struggling to stay afloat (as some commentators have been pointing out, 90% of the populace never escaped the 2001 recession - in addition, with virtually nil growth rates for this year, consider what growth rates would have been if CPI gave an accurate picture of the economy - say, instead of 3% price rises, how about the 15% that really happened?) - it is impossible to maintain this war past the 10th anniversary, and there is no conceivable benefit to staying that long. If we want to "win" the war in a way that could actually be classified as winning, we'd have to stay in for a total of 15-20 years, and even then Iraq would still be little more than a client state with old US military equipment. If you're willing to spend another trillion for a small gain (or perhaps none at all, as the violence is likely to flare up again, and then the "gains" of the surge will evaporate - get out while you're ahead, as the saying goes), then you're welcome to it, but I don't see the point. *That's called sarcasm. **In the current media usage of the term.

I vaguely remember something a little like this (also in PA) - apparently the government is forcing power companies to buy up old low quality coal and use it to generate power (thus cleaning up the area at the same time). I'll have to find the story for you, it's been a while since I heard it.

Fine. As far as their practices, a lot of churches (I observed the following on one of my family's try-the-local-churches sprees a few years back) are now giving you something between a marine drill sergeant's mental rape of the new recruit, and the drug-abusing hippie "you gotta connneeccttt with yourselff" !@#$%^&*. The result is a unique blend of destroying the person, and making them feel good without making them think about it. Classic mind control. As far as "promising them salvation," in theory they cannot (and they mention that as often as possible, believe me) but in practice* they work to build the conclusion that "our version is the only right version" and frequently say things like "Lots of people like to say, oh, well, !@#$%^&* isn't real.. but I'm telling you.. !@#$%^&* IS REAL AND EITHER YOU GO TO HEAVEN OR YOU GO TO !@#$%^&*" - it adds up to a combination of undermining the position of the outside "them" while meanwhile establishing terrible consequences for questioning the authority of your current leader. I will say that in a lot of cases, it isn't as bad as your average cult, but it's still pretty fricking bad. Again, this is from personal experience. And finally, though they constantly mention the Antichrist, it's used more as a tool to, again, ensure the fear of their followers so that they'll stick closer to their daily dose of good ole Jesus (or, more often, the nearest preacher). You can also make a case for them saying "Read your Bible, don't trust me, don't trust anyone, find out for yourself" - but the last group that was really willing to challenge every part of the Scriptures, reinterpret them, and allow open discussion of all sorts of "set-in-stone" truths was the Pharisees, and they don't exist anymore. Anymore, for all the talk of independent minds and avoiding losing control of your mind, people really have no option, because there's so much stuff out there that you have to conform with, or else you risk being ostracized from your group. You can read a verse 40 times, but ultimately, you're (almost always) going to go with your leader's interpretation. Some of these things might be different in other areas (such as New England or the Pac NW), but even in the industrial-Democrat-agnostic heartland, I've still seen very few preachers willing to encourage independent thought on the part of their "flocks." *Note that Protestants are especially vulnerable to this, because the US has a history of endlessly splitting Protestant groups, many of which quietly deny salvation to other groups - for example, Baptists and Pentecostals.

He looks like Roger Edvardsen.. http://web.archive.org/web/20040612211948/http://www.ehem.no/bilder/nerd.jpg

They're !@#$%^&* funny, but the sad thing is, they aren't the worst out there anymore. I read a book from the 80s (written by moderate protestants) that lamented how many cults, psychological-spiritual-lifestyle blend societies, and occult groups were popping up, and how they totally destroyed their members. Today, the situation's far worse, with millions of people throwing away their lives and undergoing brainwashing that would make the North Koreans smile. However, even worse is the more "mainstream" group of Evangelicals that now use almost exactly the same methods that they used to accuse "Satan worshippers" of utilising to take control of their followers. Right now you're looking at somewhere around 50 million people who are ready to listen to anyone that promises them salvation. So don't start laughing at the Scientologists, because in a few years you might see them declared illegal in the US, even as they're gaining more government support in Europe. And then you'll have to deal with millions of !@#$%^&*-bent (oh, the irony) missionaries coming to save the European agnostics and atheists from their sins. Woot?

So this is sort of the logical extension of their discovery that 1/7 people in the US are drinking prescription drug waste? Nice. Remind me not to get involved in this, I'd feel embar!@#$%^&*ed to know that I'm analyzing my neighbor's waste.

Oh noes, it's the dark half!

I don't have a problem with moderately fat people (Here in the states, almost nobody looks good past 20), but I just get pissed when they get in to "willpower" and "I'm trying, !@#$%^&*it, I'm trying" - I mean, I'm lazy as !@#$%^&*, but when I decide to do something, I get it done. And with the thousands (make that tens of thousands - !@#$%^&* that, hundreds of thousands) of studies done on the negative effects of being overweight, I'd think that they'd do the math and figure "Let's see, save $50-200,000 on medical bills over 10 years, live another 15 years* - !@#$%^&*, I could afford 30,000 restaurant meals, and I'd be around long enough to eat them!" - instead they just live unhealthily, day in, day out. Whatever. It's your health and your pocketbook, right? And don't even get me started on this new "Don't diet, instead pay us $10 per meal and we'll mail you 'healthy' food!" craze.. God, I hate diet fads, but this is even worse. It's making people feel good about failing. * Yes, there have been studies done that you can increase your lifespan by more than a decade by "pursuing healthy options" and exercising. All those fat ASSS dragging down our national life expectancy.. we'd be tied with the Japanese by now if it weren't for them.

Wow.. there's generally a reason that road speeds are limited - safety. How the !@#$%^&* did you go at 4x the limit without being killed on a turn or something?

Every time something like this happens in Europe, the "So much for free speech" people pop out. Scientology is a re!@#$%^&*ed cult, and I'm against political correctness, so I support the kid. But, several European countries do have the best freedom of speech in the world, so don't start a rant against the EU all of a sudden. Especially you Brits. I mean, it could be worse.. instead of an occasional misdirected government effort, you could live in a country where every non-mainstream thought is so har!@#$%^&*ed and persecuted that the only people with unique views are the nuts who don't give a !@#$%^&* about respectability (and thus further destroy the credibility of anything they support).

Uhh, judging from the responses, I'm the only one here who actually comes close to obeying the laws? But I'd say it has to be a scam, or at least very misleading, because they'd probably be blocked from intervening in your case or something. No way they'd be willing to fork over a few thousand dollars to the kind of irresponsible person who'd buy this, at a rate of $13 a month.

I didn't say he was innocent of what he did, but you have to think about this for a second. The passing of time is not inconsequential, because after a certain point you are simply reminding people who suffered (such as children who lived through the holocaust, or someone who lost their family, etc) of things that happened a long time ago, without giving them the satisfaction of seeing a beneficial result. Perhaps under the rule of law, you should have the option to prosecute people, no matter how long ago something like this happened, but from a common-sense standpoint, there is no reason to do something like deport them to a hostile country, execute them, or bring them to international trial. If you need the symbolism, place them under house arrest, they're old enough it won't matter anyway - but as far as actual punishment, what's the point? I don't see a need for anti-genocide precedent, because there will never be another major-power genocide (Hitler wouldn't have gotten as far against nukes), and it's almost impossible for anyone outside of an individual small nation to bring people to justice within a reasonable amount of time (look at the trouble Rwanda has had). When you don't need a precedent, when they've completely changed their lives, and when bringing this up can bring bad memories to light for people involved, I really don't see how it can be considered a good thing. I see your point, but I just don't think it applies anymore, unless the US is willing to stop stalling the UN, World Court, etc, so that we actually have a reason to do this (so that the international community has the ability to intervene in nations like Sudan, for example).

Link I've always found these cases frustrating. Yes, at the time these men committed some of the worst crimes in all of history, yes, they became accustomed to it, yes, they should have faced trial - but when you run into the ones that chose to live in Europe or the US for 60 years afterwards, and who have done nothing wrong, what is the point of "bringing them to justice"? It accomplishes nothing except reminding people of the tragedies that occurred - which might be an honorable goal, except that you are effectively sacrificing someone who has (in many cases) done nothing wrong since that time. I personally hold no sympathy for the Nazis that fled to Argentina or Brazil, but if they decided to risk living in Western Europe or America, where they stood a good chance of being prosecuted, or Eastern Europe, where the intelligence networks were likely to find and "eliminate" them, then haven't they already stated that they're willing to play by society's rules? Getting caught for even the most minor offense could turn up the past, and thus they were almost unbeatably forced to make a clean break. It's not the same as never committing the crimes in the first place, but it would seem to conjure up images of redemption and leaving the past behind - two major features of Christianity. Isn't that enough these days?

Be sure to do it on webcam. jk

I like flaming, it makes me happy after the depressing weight of my real life gets me down. Plus, JDS is banned on the MG forums, he has nowhere to go. ill be friends wit u jds!! well spam and flame togeder!!!! ))))

Ouch, $12m for a house he doesn't live in? While lazily flipping through my cable (if you can call it that - 22 channels, 4 religious, 2 shopping, useless 3 local channels, 2 duplicate networks, etc) I noticed this guy. http://www.reproducts.de/museum/2001/1002_cerullo/cerullo.jpg Doesn't he look a lot like our favorite olde-tyme character? What makes it even more disturbing is that, while he lacks the eternal adolescence of Mr. Haney, he has a very wheezy and annoying voice. I find it hard to believe this is a coincidence.. I mean, we all know that Hitler has reincarnated, right? Also, note what the caption is on that picture. His noble ex(tortions)hortations on behalf of God are a joy to behold.

This whole Mark thing is even more interesting in light of a book I found called End-Time Visions which, among other things (such as pointing out that Tim LaHaye, Pat Robertson, van Impe, and others have been continually revising their end-of-the-world schedule since the 1960s, even while mocking the Jehovah's Witnesses and others), had an alternate theory of the mark that resolves a lot of the issues involved (which previously were either ignored or glossed over, as in Left Behind when one of the characters "was forced to take the Mark" but remained saved). Basically, there's a verse in Exodus (I forget which one, maybe if I'm bored enough I'll find it later on) that contains a very similar verse to the one relating to the Mark, except it's referring to God. Essentially it was never meant to be a physical mark, it was supposed to be a representation of your devotion to God. Of course, in the end times this is going to be relating to Satan (if, indeed, the end times come). I've always been pissed at the fact that they can't come up with an explanation of how they'd make the Chukchis, Tibetans, Central Asians, and Tatars take the Mark, when they wouldn't even be able to find them, or how a physical mark could prevent you from reaching God (Are we forgetting the James verse the bible-thumpers love to quote about how men can destroy your body, but not your soul?). If the Mark, on the other hand, is merely a spiritual thing, then it's much more believable (or at least logical), even though I'm not quite ready to ship off to Siberia or the South American wilds yet. And also.. I got a kick out of the Tom Cruise picture.

so neway, I thought that was a male, not a female.

In the first place, ew.. Kobe beef, lobster, and truffles stuck together? And I thought people were gross for eating caviar.. In the second place, I hate to be a downer, but this is just another symptom of wealth inequality. When you have people willing to spend $100 on something so worthless, while [cliche]most of the world lives on less than $2 a day[/cliche] and even in the US, the top 1% owns more than the bottom 90%.. Sick.

So am I to understand that the ban will not be lifted in the foreseeable future?

How much LSD was involved in this post?

At the time of colonialism's end* As I said, significant redrawing after independence (in other words, with no western intervention). And FYI : Spanish Morocco is still pretty much independent. The Morrocans have themselves a little riot every once in a while over it. In the case of Ifni, the Spanish returned the enclave. French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa, as both I and Astro mentioned, were not clearly marked in the first place, France set up the borders. I wouldn't call them "sizable" chunks of Cameroon, although I already mentioned that the change happened. I also mentioned Libya, which gained from various territories, but Sudan also gained from the other French territories - it was basically a matter of even more random redrawing to make it geometrically appealing. Libya did lose some territory to Egypt but it was not really that big of a loss, all of Libya outside of the coastal strip is virtually worthless. Didn't I mention Somalia? Sheesh. Walvis Bay was under South Africa's control, because South Africa virtually annexed South West Africa. That's a little like Russia ceding Alaska to the United States on a much smaller scale. And I also mentioned German East Africa. Almost all of these had at least great power influence in the background, and most were a direct result of the colonialist's decisions, such as the French colonies. You aren't really proving that the independent nations did much on their own. ^.-

Speaking as someone who's addicted to geography, the African borders have not significantly changed since independence. Astro's right. http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/willow/history-of-africa3.gif Some changes: French Somaliland is Djibouti - the others are unified into Somalia Libya got a small slice of various French colonies Rwanda and Burundi independent Chad now exists Other than that, as Astro said, they basically haven't changed at all. The French colonies were just split up into borders that hadn't existed before. In no case since have borders significantly changed due to either war or diplomacy. The closest that it's come to that was when South Africa dominated (and to some extent, still does) Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia (and of course Lesotho and Swaziland), or when Rwanda, Uganda, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Angola were looting the Congo in the Africa World War. If you can offer an example of where borders changed by more than a couple miles (or were merely reorganized, as in the case of Sudan, Cameroon, or Egypt) then I'll be glad to hear it. On the other hand, Astro,stop being an !@#$%^&*.

ROFL.. It wasn't rigged in the first place, she was just favored by a bunch of self-proclaimed party leaders. All the talk about logic in the other thread, and now you're making insane statements like this? That's a joke. Obama is 170 delegates ahead, she has to make up more than 300 while he only has to get 140 more. For months now, we've heard nothing but "WILL IT CONVINCE THE SUPER-DELEGATES", and we've heard the same inane statements repeated over and over by all the networks. Well, let me answer that. If they tried to switch allegiance to her now, it'd have to be a massive number (think 40% of the super delegate total or something along that line), and they'd all have to do it at the exact same time. You'd need billions (which, in case you hadn't heard, she does not have) of dollars in bribes and 5,000 riot police at the DNC. It ain't gonna happen.