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I found the article you pointed to at the Conceptual Guerilla to be an interesting piece at a site devoted to cutting edge progressive thought and politics. I think I've found a companion piece of similar gravitas over at The People's Cube.

Of course no web article is going to cover material like this in any real depth. Anyone wishing to explore related themes may want to consider some of the following books by prominent African American economist Thomas Sowell:

Marxism: Philosophy and economics
Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles
Affirmative Action around the World: An Empirical Study
Race and Culture: A World View
Intellectuals and Society
Basic Economics 4th Ed: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy
Economic Facts and Fallacies: Second Edition
The Housing Boom and Bust, Revised Edition
Black Rednecks and White Liberals
Dismantling America: And Other Controversial Essays by Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell will never have the following of a Chomsky, but then he doesn't have Chomsky's genocide denier problem. (Cambodian genocide)

Politics vs. Economics - Short-term decisions have long-term effects
Evil-Man Economics

I found the article you pointed to at the Conceptual Guerilla to be an interesting piece at a site devoted to cutting edge progressive thought and politics. I think I've found a companion piece of similar gravitas over at The People's Cube.

Of course no web article is going to cover material like this in any real depth. Anyone wishing to explore related themes may want to consider some of the following books by prominent African American economist Thomas Sowell:

Marxism: Philosophy and economics
Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles
Affirmative Action around the World: An Empirical Study
Race and Culture: A World View
Intellectuals and Society
Basic Economics 4th Ed: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy
Economic Facts and Fallacies: Second Edition
The Housing Boom and Bust, Revised Edition
Black Rednecks and White Liberals
Dismantling America: And Other Controversial Essays by Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell will never have the following of a Chomsky, but then he doesn't have Chomsky's genocide denier problem. (Cambodian genocide)

Politics vs. Economics - Short-term decisions have long-term effects
Evil-Man Economics

There is no real debate. The people who actually know the science are largely in agreement about the conclusions. The "debate" being spoke of is faux debate stirred up by people from think tanks funded by oil companies. It's about as meaningful as fundy wackos going on about how there is large debate over the legitimacy over the theory of evolution.

I've known this was bullshit for 20+ years, back when I read an article that predicted sea level rises up to 2 feet, +/- 2 feet. In other words, it may be sooooo bad, the we wouldn't even be able to tell that it's happening! The real problem is anthropogenic continental drift, anyways.

The timecube is just a poor imitation of The People's Cube.

I gave up my evil Oneism when I became the Commissar of Time. In fact, the Timecube is a cheap capitalist imitation.

Timecube isn't an imitation of ANYTHING. Your site, however, is quite typical in its genre.

For extra mindfuck, View Source on Timecube sometime!

I gave up my evil Oneism when I became the Commissar of Time. In fact, the Timecube is a cheap capitalist imitation.

No, you can always quote your opponent.

My example was about quoting your opponent's supporters...

Free speech should not trump copyright

Not normally, but in case of political speech — yes, I think, it should trump everything. This thread has some good examples already. Here are more — all of them mock Obama and the Democrats using the artwork of Shepard Fairey, himself a copyright thief in your book.

Once you put any limit (however seemingly reasonable) on political speech, you are on a very slippery slope...

(That said, I'm wondering, where the heck is the copyrights-are-evil brigade, that's so quick to denounce "MafiaAA" on this forum — for their attempts to enforce copyrights. I wonder, if the said brigade are holding their fire (rather than tearing you apart), because this is about RepubliKKKans...)

Quote your opponnant, quote his supporters, the issue is the same. I find it humorous that you would use such a transparent ruse to wiggle out of a discredited position. Do you expect people not to notice?

Political speech can not trump certain things, such as direct incitement to violence, slander or libel, or copyright (if copyright is to work as all as outlined in the US Constitution) and of course the devil is in defining 'political speech.'

The 'copyright is evil' brigade don't exist except in certain people's imaginations. The issue is more complex and nuanced than that. But keep up that whining martyr complex, I'm sure it will earn you converts to the party.

No, you can always quote your opponent.

My example was about quoting your opponent's supporters...

Free speech should not trump copyright

Not normally, but in case of political speech — yes, I think, it should trump everything. This thread has some good examples already. Here are more — all of them mock Obama and the Democrats using the artwork of Shepard Fairey, himself a copyright thief in your book.

Once you put any limit (however seemingly reasonable) on political speech, you are on a very slippery slope...

(That said, I'm wondering, where the heck is the copyrights-are-evil brigade, that's so quick to denounce "MafiaAA" on this forum — for their attempts to enforce copyrights. I wonder, if the said brigade are holding their fire (rather than tearing you apart), because this is about RepubliKKKans...)

from the religion-is-wonderful dept.

Though religions are, indeed, full of wonder, some are fuller than others... Religion of Peace in particular... Maybe, it is just because it is so young — over 700 years younger than even Christianity, though.

Are you sure? Just about every Asian I know can do it that quickly, and they make up about 30% of the world's population.

That's because in China they use The People's Cube

Here is the link, that describes how to make such a bomb — and the joys of deploying it...

What I see instead is a large number of credulous people who believe whatever certain pundits tell them is the best way to screw with liberals.

Exactly the point! For some reason, scratching almost any "environmental activist" one can find a worn-out Che Guevara T-shirt underneath. Why is it? Are the liberals noticeably more green-conscientious? No, they aren't...

It must be, then, that a substantial body of the Illiberal crowd sees "global warming" as a pre-text for destroying (or, at least, shackling) Capitalism. Indeed, regardless of whether the Global Warming (renamed recently to a less odious "Climate Change") is a) a threat and b) a man-made phenomenon, it is useful just because it can be used to hurt Capitalism...

This is well-illustrated by the modern version of Pascal's Wager. To restate Pascal's conclusion: even though the existence of Anthropogenic Global Warming cannot be determined through reason, a Progressive should wager as though AGW exists, because living life accordingly has everything to gain, and nothing to lose.

Those lost cities have nothing to do with warming one way or the other. Hint: geological processes exist.

Exactly! You got it! So, when we talk about ancient history, we can calmly attribute things to geological processes, that we have no control over. But when dealing with our own times, we aren't going to skip a good opportunity to raise taxes and give more control to the government. Scratch almost every modern "environmentalist" and you'll find a worn-out Che Guevara T-shirt underneath...

Nobody tried to argue that anthropogenic global warning traveled back in time to make it a desert.

Actually, you can be sure, there were people explaining the climate change and/or the rising sea levels, that flooded the entire cities, by the anger of the gods. You can also bet safely, that various priests back then suggested (and demanded) large sacrifices to appease the supernaturals.

Kinda like what Al Gore is doing now (warning, unsafe amounts of sarcasm at the link)...

This ignores some of the more obvious ways in which humans can change the atmosphere.

The point is not, that humans don't change the atmosphere at all. It is that our (anthropogenic) contribution to the change is negligibly small — we also "contribute" to Continental Drift... The cooling of the last 10 years, that so frustrated the CRU alarmists (one of them writes in an e-mail: "The fact is we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't."), is now explained by the lower Sun activity — even when reminding the faithful readers, that "These changes are not enough to reverse global warming". Well, duh, "It is the Sun, stupid". Whatever we do here — and we didn't reduce our emissions (save for those few weeks in Bejing you observed) over the decade — the Sun will trump that many times over.

Oceans rising? Right... There are ancient cities on the sea floor off North Africa. Did Mediterranean rise because the humans were cooking too much 2000 years ago?

That's why we need to act NOW to return the glaciers to the same state they were in 30,000 years ago.

The "NOW" has to be pictured with a multi-colored fist raised in anger against the oppressors.

While at it, the humanity also ought to rise against the evil Big Business (as opposite to the beloved "Mom and Pop" shops suffering from Wal-Mart), who contribute to the Continental Drift. Because every time a plane takes off on one continent and lands on another, the continents are pulled farther and farther away from the positions they were in before humanity appeared.

They [Fox -mi] don't deal in news, but rather in propaganda.

Good to see more brave Americans joining the President in his War on Fox News! The enemy will be crushed!

That said, I fail to see, how their being news or not is relevant to the issue. DeBeers and Ralph Loren most certainly aren't news organizations, but they do have their listings anyway.

[...] a pathetic, lost-looking pack of redneck cretins?

That's right, comrade!.. That's a bit of objective fact-delivery, that all true news organizations must try to emulate...

Did it find pluto back? I heard we lost Pluto a while back.

Pluto perished in the brutal and heartless planet-eat-planet world championed by Big Astronomy, where bigger planets are getting bigger and the smaller ones — smaller...

You can't ignore them, nobody can.

I lived the past 9 years without TV — watching it only in gym sometimes. Yes, we do have a TV-set — but no cable (our Internet comes via DSL). I think, I've ignored Timewarner/Comcast/whoever it is, whom the government gave my part of town as a monopoly.

The GP's point is valid — ignoring corporations is far easier, than the government.

The government's only acceptable role is ensuring, various corporations compete in providing a service or making goods, rather than collude. When the government attempts to provide the same service themselves (having declared the oxymoronic "market failure"), you get the worst of both worlds — government's inefficiency and a monopoly's arrogance.

I do hope, we don't get to experience this ourselves again in health care. Public schools, USPS, and highways are enough...

And the worst that can happen is when corporations and the government get together.

Yes, that's called Fascism. Some people ascribe this to Obama administration, as it aims to take over corporations. Calling him "Hitler" over this misses the point, though, (and triggers Godwin's Law) — Nazism is an aberration of Fascism and Obama does not deserve the mustaches printed on his portraits (although they do make me glee, because Bush deserved it even less).

Things sucked in Mussolini's Italy and in Franco's Spain, without the death camps. One need not be genocidal to destroy economy...

Extremists never classify themselves as extremists.

You are attempting to imply, that I myself is an extremist and therefor fail to recognize fellow extremists (who rushed Russia's reforms). First of all such soundbites don't prove anything, but only obscure the discussion. It would've been a lot easier, if you were honestly stating your accusation...

Back to the point, free market is the best — and must be an ultimate goal of every society. It is not any more a matter of faith, than the "belief" in personal liberty — because the liberty is what makes free market the only possible way for an economy — the market's participants are simply the people pursuing happiness.

This is a moot point, because Russia never got a free market — the mistakes of their administration of the 1990ies (and its foreign advisers, if any) was not in the goal, but in the means of getting there...

The shades of grey are there, you simply do not wish them to be.

This statement is so easy to turn 180 degrees — while keeping its accusatory arrogance intact — that I leave it as a reader's exercise...

As to your disapproval of "extremes", allow me to rephrase some other "extremists" to demonstrate my point:

• "We'll pay a bargain price, bear a reasonable burden, inconvenience ourselves a little, argue with friends, apologize to foes, in order to facilitate preconditions for the success of compliance."
• "I've been half-way up the mountain." "I have a sleeping disorder."
• Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down Half This Wall
• Let he, who is without Class 1 Felony and has no pending warrants, cast the first stone.

There is more, where these came from and all of them mock the notion, that extremism is automatically bad...

You wanted to try the soviet leadership in order to extend the US's penis size, not to attain any meaningful goals.

False. I want to a) extract vengeance; b) provide historical disincentive for the future generations of assholes; c) get the corrupt criminals off the backs of the Russians, so they can rebuild their country. I don't know, why you had to bring "penis" into a discussion...

Crimes against humanity or war crimes are not punishable by the US

In Nuremberg they were... In Japan they were... Both Germany and Japan became prosperous free countries within 20-30 years afterward. Russia is not even close — maybe, purging the higher crust of a rotten criminal regime was needed?..

you are not judge, jury and executioner.

And you are not the defense counsel, what's your point?

Besides this, the perpetrators were long since dead.

First, monsters like Lazar Kaganovich demonstrated amazing longevity... Second, there were plenty of crimes (against humanity) committed after Stalin's passing — by people not only alive, but not even retired in the 1990ies.

More importantly, the Communist Party itself should've been disbanded, its assets confiscated, its ideology banned — like the National Socialists of Germany and the Baath of Iraq (all three had very small differences in goals and tactics, BTW). Instead, they are the second-largest party in today's Russian Duma...

if the US had of asserted control over the Russian people it would have been even worse ... some people just do not want you to control their lives.

And Germans and Japanese did?..

Instead of poverty and crime, you'd have civil war and another dictator in place by the end of it

Your dire scenario

Well there are dangers involved with micro-organisms in the composts and manures used to fertilize organic fields; real country-folks usually have well developed immune systems and have no problems but city-slickers especially those with compromised immune systems can get life threatening infections.

Since so called conventional farming causes the same thing I don't consider that a valid argument. I doubt the breakout was localized to rural communities when Taco Bell had contaminated food.

Before you Obot twits mindlessly mark me flamebait or troll why not try rebutting my assertion?

A seen on The People's Cube:

Obama: America supports the democratically-elected President of the USA, even though he has strongly opposed American policies.

I don't know anything about this gentleman, but, maybe, his writings simply go against the current Illiberal pro-Democrat bias of the paper? They weren't always this way — most famously, NYT used to be against government-mandated minimum wage until 1999.

Perhaps, they are trying to score some favors from the current government in the hopes of getting substantial financial help (a bailout, that was, no doubt, already promised to them) and certain writers are no longer welcome?

One does not need to be a "rabid partisan" to fall into disfavor — until recently NYT weren't hiring such partisans anyway. Just not participating in the adoration fest could've been enough. When the company survival is at stake, one can't afford taking chances...

Of course peolpe helping each other and a solid community are great, but in the context of this happening in lieu of large for-profit organizations providing quality service? I think not.

I bet, you have no problem with the government doing it, do you?

Let's instill volunteerism in young people — and those, who aren't excited by the possibility of unpaid labor, might find it harder to get into college (the linked to bill mentions "college credits" for participants). I mean, it worked so well for the USSR, we ought to try it — but not for a corporation, oh no!

You mean this isn't the BIG CHANGE everyone was HOPING for ?

Emphasis added, where appropriate. Barack Obama — with the aide of his trusty Media — has skillfully mesmerized a lot of people. To the point of simply "feeling good" about him, but unable to state, what exactly the like so much.

And as for bad things, he managed to neutralize them all too. When asked, the vast majority of his supporters proved rather ignorant and, in particular, could not recognize some damaging facts as having to do with Obama. Yet almost everybody "knew", Sarah Palin claimed to be able to see Russia from her house (she never said that, Tina Fey did).

Looks like we replaced one set of idiots with an even more morally bankrupt set.

Obama is not an idiot (neither was Bush, but that's a different story). He is a determined politician, in there for the money, power, and prestige — and with a chip on his (and his wife's, in particular) shoulder... He figured out long ago, that poorer people are always a majority, and is shamelessly manipulating them to get his way.

His support is waning, though, America just needs to persevere 'till 2010, when Republicans will, hopefully, get their act together and regain some standing in Congress... Until then, bills like the one we are discussing will be sailing through unhindered.

http://www.thepeoplescube.com/red/viewtopic.php?t=2795 perhaps she is using the baby in a similar fashion?

I cannot prove this but I will offer some speculation: the more I have heard of his speeches and his intentions and his beliefs, the more I think that John F. Kennedy was a fluke.

Just like JFK, Barack Obama is a product of Chicago Political Machine(TM) — easily the most corrupt local political system in the nation (think Blagojevich)... I'd rather JFK and Obama were both flukes — having the nation's President come from such gutters as a rule is rather disgraceful...

So, I think Obama or any other President probably cannot help but to make bad choices or to have corruption. Even if he himself is a sincere man, he is working within a system that is not designed for sincerity.

Were you as forgiving towards the previous President? More importantly, were the moderators?

...announces the Hope'N'Change Operating System. "Only 30% chance of crashing!"

The truly funny thing is, people of the Bush-is-an-idiot persuasion (like yourself) never seem to disagree with the Bush-is-Hitler crowd, despite having near-opposite opinions on the matter...

That said, MAD is not the only struggling publication — seems like getting Obama elected was their swan-song...

The truly funny thing is, people of the Bush-is-an-idiot persuasion (like yourself) never seem to disagree with the Bush-is-Hitler crowd, despite having near-opposite opinions on the matter...

That said, MAD is not the only struggling publication — seems like getting Obama elected was their swan-song...

Actually, that's the first time I've heard the term, so that may be a good question.

Then you haven't been paying attention. 33700 web-page hits returned by Google for the term "Bushitler", plus 618000 images comparing the President to Fuhrer. Godwin's Law has been officially suspended since 2001, and remains so to this day, although now that Obama is closing in on the office, indignant intelligentsia may start calling for the law to be restored. Having, at best, looked the other way, as the previous president was compared to Hitler, you are now expecting me to follow the best scholarly practices examining the next one — and most of what his supporters stand for? No way. He certainly quacks like a duck...

Let's examine one of your Hitler quotes, "We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class." That would obviously fall under Socialism, because the government is supplying the distribution of goods necessary to maintain the healthy middle class. That would not fall under fascism

So, Hitler's own proclamations make him not quite Fascist, as far as your definition is concerned. Awesome. May I suggest, something is wrong with the definition, perhaps? Let's not split hairs, though. The point was and remains thus: Fascism and Socialism are not at all opposites.

If you want to play with political affiliations, try to guess, whose quote this is.

This was in the aftermath of the Columbine High School shootings.

And then the ACLU intervened, calling for calm, fearing backlash against innocent gun owners:'all gun owners aren't terrorists'.

That should read "Threatened to take him hostage (is not the same as) Taking him hostage - the title is misleading. I had a less than and greater than that were scrubbed out of the final posting - sorry.

It depends on who you believe. Read the article. According the Tech, she took him hostage, then he escaped. Or if you believe her *side* of the story, the Tech shows up at 12:30 PM, works on her computer, and then takes off running for no reason whatsoever, and then she sits down to drink a third of a vodka cooler as the police knocks on her door.

This is truly the only acceptable Che t-shirt:
http://17503.spreadshirt.com/us/US/Shop/Index/design/design/Comemierda-Comunista-668020

-john

Cow Farts

Now its people? I thought we already had consensus of this science ... and then it changes.

At some point, quite recently, our popular site "The People's Cube" (ThePeoplesCube.com) was purged from Google search results. MSN , Yahoo and other search engines still have it - but Google has erased/blocked any link to the site in its database...

The People's Cube?

Or The Peoples Cube:

http://www.thepeoplescube.com/