All scientists agree that the sun is made up of Hydrogen.
All scientists agree that gravity pulls things down.
All scientists agree that smoking is bad for you.
All scientists agree that splitting the atom will produce energy.
Why is it that when all scientists agree that human activity is having an effect on Global Climate, all of a sudden your hear all these people begin to doubt them. Claiming that all that these scientists care about is their funding is ludicrous, because many of them will get funding either way. Of course, those that are really into money, like Bjorn Lomborg, will actually argue against the mounting evidence. In exchange they'll get huge grants from industries whose profits might be diminished by scientific enquiry. And those who doubt only when scientists challenge their love for their SUVs, like ostriches, will be happy to put their heads back in the sand and say: see, there's a couple of scientists who say that Global Climate change isn't happening. They must be right!
Personally, I'd rather not take the chance. If Global Warming has only a 10% chance of being true, then the odds are still way too high, because the consequences are catastrophic.
So, in response to you, I say that if every scientist agrees (or at least no scientist disagrees) that Global Climate Change threatens us, then we should be very concerned. We should fund their studies, and if we find out that they misused the funds or overstated the threat in order to get more money, we can always cut that funding. In other words, unlike the most catastrophic scenarios linked to Global Warming, it's a reversible mistake.
Better safe than sorry, especially when the future of humanity is at stake.
the encumbant was leading in all the polls somethign like 4 to 1. Thats right, the encumbnat was expected to win by four times the amount of votes the challenger was expected to recieve.
Uh, no he wasn't. The incumbent was slightly ahead in most polls (by about 5%), and behind in a few. I don't know where you get your numbers from but they are grossly inaccurate.
You have a train bombing killing around 180 people and claimed it was becasue of the association with bush and his wars
Actually, Aznar tried to blame it on ETA without having any proof of this. He basically wanted to use this - like Bush used 9/11 - to give himself more authority at home against the armed wing of the Basque separatists. This is the main reason he lost, because he tried to blatantly lie to his constituency. How could the Spanish people objectively vote for someone who so quickly tried to score political points using such a terrible tragedy?
Your understanding of the situation seems seriously hampered by your desire to have it agree with your arguments, it seems.
then you have a political party miracully pull in over 3 time the amount of votes they were expected
Again, your numbers are as wrong as your grammar (and your timing...this discussion has been cold for more than a week now).
to get and install a newer government that was campaining on pulling support for the US and the war in iraq/terror.
The war in Iraq is very different from the "War on Terror", despite Bush's unrelenting propaganda. In fact, the war in Iraq is a costly diversion from the War on Terror. There were no terrorists in Iraq before the War (there were far more in Saudi Arabia), there was no connection between Al-Qaeda and Iraq (again, look to the Saudis). Iraq has drained Washington's military and intelligence resources, leading to the fact that Bin Laden is still free today. Not only that, but the Bush administration and its closest allies now admits that the war in Iraq was based on faulty information from the CIA (information which the Bush administration basically telegraphed to the CIA in the first place, telling it to "find a link between 9/11 and Iraq" mere days after the tragedy, when there clearly weren't any).
Not only that, but Spain's new government actually increased its troops in Afghanistan and embarked (with France's help) on a crackdown against ETA that left it devastated (for which what's left of the movement retaliated over the last week). So in fact Spain hasn't chosen appeasement, but it rather chosen to fight terrorism - the smart way. In doing so, it has been much more efficient that the U.S., who has probably created more terrorists than it has killed over the last year and a half, severely damaging the its international reputation and influence in the process.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that spain elected who they did directly because of the last train bombings.
Aznar shot himself in the foot by trying to deceive the population into thinking that the ETA were responsible for the bombings, when they clearly weren't (ETA almost always calls in advance, and tries to minimize casualties). However, the fact is that 80% - that eighty-freakin'-percent - of Spaniards didn't want their troops in Iraq. Now, the question is: do you believe in democracy, yes or no? Please, anser this simple question, and then try to justify that Aznar was doing the right thing by going against the wishes of 4 voters out of 5.
once i pull out the pools
I gather you mean the polls. Please, provide us some links - and a variety of them, because we all know that single polls are notoriously inaccurate.
Not that this has any relevance, since the new Spanish government didn't appease terrorists in any way - on the contrary, Spain quickly caught all of those responsible for the Madrid bombings, sent more soldiers to Afghanistan and mounted a crippling operation against ETA. In other
My guess is the stereotypical phonetic spelling. There's always a risk when using such cliches to represent someone from another culture. Some people find it insensitive, though technically it is not racism.
It is percieved that the spanish people are weak, cowardly and whatever by a certain portion of the population
A certain portion of the American population. The perception outside of the U.S. is quite different.
I doubt the "rest of the world" sees it much different unless you talk to the ones that are against the war.
The vast majority of the world's population was against the war. Even in the U.K., a majority of the population was against it. The places where the population were in favor of it were few and far between (i.e. Poland and Kuwait...go figure!)
Either way, it did give legitamacy to terrorist reguardless of the campain prommises and all.
I disagree. What gives terrorism legitimacy is changing your policies because of a terrorist act. By keeping steadfast, Spanish politicians proved they had a might pair of cojones!
Maybe terrorism does work.
Sadly, it often does. Case in point: the CIA-trained, U.S.-sponsored Death Squads in Nicaragua and El Salvador. They savagely killed hundreds of farmers and civilians, and succeeded in stalling the democratic process in those countries for a number of years. Terrorism is used all the time by superpowers - only it's called "low-intensity conflict."
However, this is irrelevant to the current discussion. Terrorism can be said to work when it influences policy-making. In this case it didn't since the policy was known well in advance.
Actually, I think they should have made the point that they did. I.e. "We want to pull out, but we can't do that now as it would appear as weakness in the face of terrorism.", of course in diplomat-speak.
Nonsense. The U.S. doesn't act based on how its actions will be perceived, why should any other nation? Spain doesn't have to justify its actions, nor do Spanish voters have to justify theirs. If you recall correctly, it was Aznar's government who try to pin this on ETA, without having proof, trying it could build political capital on the Madrid bombing the way Bush did with 9/11.
Again, it's mostly in the U.S. that there was perception that Spain caved in to terror - the rest of the world was more aware of the situation than americans were. It's not the rest of world's responsibility to make sure that their policies are well-interpreted in the States, but rather that of the American media.
Well of course not everyone was aware of it. However, on this matter you'll find that Europeans, Canadians and people from other countries were in general well aware of the position of the wide majority of spaniards on the issue.
In any case, it is irrelevant: the new government had made its case clear to the Spanish people, to whom they are responsible. Changing policies because of the terrorist attacks would have first and foremost been badly interpreted by the Spanish voters themselves, and therefore it was the duty of the Spanish government to proceed with the pullout as planned.
Personally, I don't believe that the terrorists who blew up the Madrid train wanted Spain to pull out - on the contrary, they must have known that people were about to change governement to one that had already declared that they wanted the spanish troops out. I think that the terrorists wanted the opposite, for Spain to stay in Iraq and be forced to spend more money in this quagmire. Remember, Bin Laden learned this from the CIA in Afghanistan: if you want to bring down a superpower, get it embroiled in a long guerilla conflict which will drain it of its money and its finest young men.
Anyway, it's late and I've got to go to bed...we'll just have to agree to disagree. Cheers!
The rest of the world ins't neccesarily as informed to know what the political climate as well as the campain prommises in spain are. Sure there would be a few people that knew (just like i did) butthe majority of them couldn't give a rats ass about what was going on in spian until an apearant terrorist act influence thier election and support for actions in iraq.
That's what I'm saying: from reading international papers, it seems pretty clear that most of the world (who was against the war in Iraq by a wide margin) actually understands that Spain had already planned to withdraw, and that this was not in reaction to the Madrid bombing. About the only people who didn't understand this, and who called on Spain for what they perceived as cowardice, were pro-war americans.
Don't worry too much about the perception the world has of Spain and its actions - worry more about the perception the world has of the U.S. and its actions.
This would probably include most of the rest of the world.
The "rest of the world" is better informed about what goes on in the world than you think - better informed than people in the U.S., for that matter.
The fact is that the new government had said repeatedly that they would pull their troops out of Iraq if elected. If they hadn't, then it would have looked as if they'd changed their plans due to terror - maybe not to people in the U.S., but their main responsibility is to spaniards, not americans. It's not their responsibility to change the way they act to make sure that their policies are not misinterpreted by americans - it's up to americans to find out what's going on in the rest of the world...
Pulling troops from iraq right after a terrorist attack were they were claiming that no more attack would happen if they did pull out onlyn lends creditability to the terrorists. This is independent of spains intentions to pull the troops anyways.
90% of the spanish population was opposed to the war in Iraq - it's only natural that the new government would follow the will of the people. What you're suggesting, though, is that they should have stayed in Iraq because of the attacks - in other words, let their behavior be dictated by terrorists!
The fact of the matter is that the new Spanish govt. understands that the "war on terror" is a police effort, not a military one, and that there was no Iraq-Al Qaeda link before the invasion. Iraq is a distraction from the war on terror - a costly one at that - and a venture which was not approved by the spanish population. By helping the U.S. in Iraq, Aznar was going against the wishes of the citizens, and they voted accordingly.
Game development doesn't only involve programmers. In fact, most people who work at developing games aren't. On my team (I'm a lead designer), I currently have 3 level designers, 3 modelers, 4 animators, 4 texture and effects artists, 2 testers, one producer, one production manager, one art director and 6 programmers (of course, that's not counting those who develop the engine and its tools).
Game development is quite unique among software development in that respect. Now, can anyone be really productive when they work 80 hours/week? That's the real question!!
Alcohol represents a much higher risk in that regards that marijuana (for starters, alcohol breaks down inhibition and makes people drive faster, while pot will usually make people drive slower). Following your logic, alcohol should be made illegal.
Orwell was a Anarchist sympathizer and a socialist when he was younger (fought on their side in the Spanish Civil War, even), however he veered away from ideologies after seeing what Stalin was doing in Russia. If he was alive today, no doubt he'd use Dubya's America as inspiration for the sequel to 1984...
Meanwhile (to get back on topic), I think EA should really reconsider their corporate philosophy. I'm a lead designer for a game developer, and I wouldn't be interested in working at EA even if they offered me a job. I mean, I like working in video games and all, but that doesn't mean I don't want a life of my own!
In today's utterly Partisan Congress, that would essentially require a Democratic majority in the House, would it not?
Well, most of the attention has been on the presidential election, but the fact of the matter is that there is an actual chance that the Democrats will win the house. There's also an outside chance that they'll win the Senate, but that seems a lot more remote.
I agree with you about the strange things that have happened since 2000 - one has to try real hard not to see a concerted effort on the part of Republicans to take any means necessary to make sure they retain control of the government (to better gut it, it seems). Let's just hope that americans make the right choice with a sufficient majority in November...
Thanks, I didn't know how that was called. Notice, however, that the original poster was giving this as an example of how the Canadian electoral system was at a disadvantage with regards to the american one, an assertion which I disagreed with. By saying that it is a serious problem in the States, your post only confirms that I was right.
Uh, Illinois and New Jersey both went to Gore. That is three states. How many electoral votes does that make now?
46. That's still only about 55% of the 83 votes mentioned in the original example. Better luck next time! (Oh, and try not to get examples from the early 60s to support your point of view...)
Actually I'm in Montreal. But I follow american politics - moreso than most americans, unfortunately.
May I direct your attention to election 2000. The Bush camp was fixated on using the legal system to stop any proceedings toward resolving the irregularities. They will do anything to stay in power this time.
Well, to quote Bush himself: "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, won't...Won't get fooled again!" A lot more people are going to be watching this time around - too much irregularities could make Bush lose support, even among conservative allies.
If Kerry wins, be ready for a "mysterious plane crash" to take out Kerry and Edwards prior to inauguration time. Farfetched?
Very farfetched - and very risky (you'd have to infiltrate the Secret Service, for starters). Even then, power wouldn't go to Bush, but under the Constitution would be passed on to the Speaker of the House. At this moment, it is not certain whether this will be a Democrat or Republican, as all 435 House seats will also be elected come November.
Yes, but we've seen stranger in the last four years.
Well, there was Wellstone's plane crash, which certainly raised eyebrows. Unless you believe that Bush and co. were behind 9/11 (which is utterly ridiculous - they simply used the tragedy to their political advantage), I disagree that we've seen stranger than what you'd suggest. This would be a bigger story than Kennedy.
I agree with you that the "left/right" axis is inadequate - though I wouldn't say that it's "idiotically simplistic" (to me, that's unnecessarily inflammatory language - let's not start any flamewars over this, m'kay?). Simplistic, yes. But it does represent broad tendencies, which is useful on a strategic level, i.e. Nader does tend to take votes away from Democrats more than Republicans, because they are both to the "left" of the political spectrum. You can be as nuanced as you want about this, the fact is that this is a hard, cold political reality. Ignore it at your own peril.
Meanwhile, I find the approach taken on the Political Compass web site much more relevant: in addition to the "Left/Right" axis, which is basically an economic scale, there is a "Totalitarian/Libertarian" axis, which is more social in nature. Check it out if you don't already know about it.
Err, voter turn out is low here. around 60% in a good year.
Actually, 60% would be a very bad year, assuming you're talking about federal elections. Turnout for the past election was 61%, but that's the lowest it's ever been since 1867. Over the past few decades, it has usually been between 79% and 67%. Compare that with the average turnout in U.S. elections, which has been between 36% and 55% since 1970...
While the voting is relativly trustworthy, the rigging is done in how the voting disticts are made.
I wouldn't call that rigging. Granted, the representation isn't completely proportional, and redrawing of the district boundaries is sometimes motivated by partisan politics, but that is far from being a widespread issue.
Of course, there's always room for improvement - however, the subject of this discussion is the actual voting process, i.e. the methods used. Canada uses a standard, uniform method across the country, a very simply and straightforward one. Of course, it only has about 1/10th of the population of the U.S., so it might not be completely adaptable - but it sure beats electronic voting machines with no paper trails and serious security issues!
And why, do you think that a congress made solely of democrats and republicans will make it any easier for a non-democrat, non-republican to have a fair chance at winning office?
You're mixing things up. The whole issue is about the voting process, not the entire political system. I agree with you that a two-party system sucks, but the point here is to make sure that, at the very least, peoples' votes are tallied correctly and that voting access is adequate.
Or do you think that we don't need some serious 3rd/4th/5th party representation to fix things?
As long as there are always an even number of parties, and that they are equally divided on the right/left axis - otherwise, a new party only undermines its closer relatives while helping its most antagonistic opponents. Look at Nader, there's a good reason why Republicans are financially supporting many of his efforts to get on states' ballots. Now, if both Perot and Nader were running...
We don't seem to disagree that much, really - I just think that it's possible to improve the voting process, and that making abuses and irregularities public is the first step into reducing their impact on the overall election.
Or possibly only non "idiotically optimistic". 1000 years from now, if anyone cares, I'm sure we'll be able to conclusively determine which.
It is not being optimistic to say that the electoral process - and democracy as a whole - has improved over the past century. Moreover, there are examples of other western democracies where the voting process is much less controversial. Canada is a good example: voter participation is high, and irregularities are few - yet the ballot casting system is both very simple and virtually tamper-proof.
I really do think you are pessimistic. The American electoral process can be improved. It will require lots of hard work, and a good dose of humility, but it is certainly an achievable (and worthy) goal.
Actually, supposing there is another controversey (not sure how likely, but for the sake of argument) what makes you think this will help?
We learn from our mistakes, don't we? You're basically arguing that the system is broken and can't be fixed. This is either being pessimistic, barring the possibility of progress in the electoral process, or the result of partisan politics (i.e. you realize that your side profits from voter fraud and thus reject any monitoring that would seek to reduce it).
Like in every other country, they'll report that the "election was rigged" and if anything, stir up even more shit than if they hadn't "monitored" it.
In every other country, really? Actually, could it be because of the simple fact that when there are few irregularities, it doesn't make for good news and therefore it's not as widely reported by the media.
Every year, I hear about something like this, in shitty 3rd world countries whose names I intentionally forget.
Using one's ignorance as an argument. I rest my case.
Do you think that this time, Dubya will just say "well golly gee, you got me... kerry did win after all'?
Should there be any major irregularities that would've tipped the vote over to Kerry, he wouldn't have much of a choice.
I see a pattern of voter fraud allegations on both sides. This, it seems, is reason enough to have impartial observers around.
I'm also curious to hear why you consider Colin Powell a democrat? After all, the Secretary of State invited the observers jointly with members of Congress. Then again, you do try to make a comparison between five states on one side (totalling 83 electoral votes), and one state (10 votes) plus two counties...
Basically, you're saying that since irregularities always happen, one shouldn't try to monitor them and help improve the voting process. I disagree. Transparency in elections is essential to democracy. The process has to be fair and open, and the vote secret (thus free of coercition). The truth is that the 2000 elections were controversial; some monitoring can only help people regaining faith in the electoral process.
Also, since what goes on in the U.S. has a significant impact on what goes on in the rest of the world, the fairness of U.S. elections is an international matter of concern. The U.S. citizenry should only not see this as a humiliation, as they are the one who will benefit from any corrected irregularities. The only people who should be humiliated are those found responsible of those irregularities.
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Any time you see every scientist agree...
All scientists agree that the Earth is round.
All scientists agree that the sun is made up of Hydrogen.
All scientists agree that gravity pulls things down.
All scientists agree that smoking is bad for you.
All scientists agree that splitting the atom will produce energy.
Why is it that when all scientists agree that human activity is having an effect on Global Climate, all of a sudden your hear all these people begin to doubt them. Claiming that all that these scientists care about is their funding is ludicrous, because many of them will get funding either way. Of course, those that are really into money, like Bjorn Lomborg, will actually argue against the mounting evidence. In exchange they'll get huge grants from industries whose profits might be diminished by scientific enquiry. And those who doubt only when scientists challenge their love for their SUVs, like ostriches, will be happy to put their heads back in the sand and say: see, there's a couple of scientists who say that Global Climate change isn't happening. They must be right!
Personally, I'd rather not take the chance. If Global Warming has only a 10% chance of being true, then the odds are still way too high, because the consequences are catastrophic.
So, in response to you, I say that if every scientist agrees (or at least no scientist disagrees) that Global Climate Change threatens us, then we should be very concerned. We should fund their studies, and if we find out that they misused the funds or overstated the threat in order to get more money, we can always cut that funding. In other words, unlike the most catastrophic scenarios linked to Global Warming, it's a reversible mistake.
Better safe than sorry, especially when the future of humanity is at stake.
the encumbant was leading in all the polls somethign like 4 to 1. Thats right, the encumbnat was expected to win by four times the amount of votes the challenger was expected to recieve.
Uh, no he wasn't. The incumbent was slightly ahead in most polls (by about 5%), and behind in a few. I don't know where you get your numbers from but they are grossly inaccurate.
You have a train bombing killing around 180 people and claimed it was becasue of the association with bush and his wars
Actually, Aznar tried to blame it on ETA without having any proof of this. He basically wanted to use this - like Bush used 9/11 - to give himself more authority at home against the armed wing of the Basque separatists. This is the main reason he lost, because he tried to blatantly lie to his constituency. How could the Spanish people objectively vote for someone who so quickly tried to score political points using such a terrible tragedy?
Your understanding of the situation seems seriously hampered by your desire to have it agree with your arguments, it seems.
then you have a political party miracully pull in over 3 time the amount of votes they were expected
Again, your numbers are as wrong as your grammar (and your timing...this discussion has been cold for more than a week now).
to get and install a newer government that was campaining on pulling support for the US and the war in iraq/terror.
The war in Iraq is very different from the "War on Terror", despite Bush's unrelenting propaganda. In fact, the war in Iraq is a costly diversion from the War on Terror. There were no terrorists in Iraq before the War (there were far more in Saudi Arabia), there was no connection between Al-Qaeda and Iraq (again, look to the Saudis). Iraq has drained Washington's military and intelligence resources, leading to the fact that Bin Laden is still free today. Not only that, but the Bush administration and its closest allies now admits that the war in Iraq was based on faulty information from the CIA (information which the Bush administration basically telegraphed to the CIA in the first place, telling it to "find a link between 9/11 and Iraq" mere days after the tragedy, when there clearly weren't any).
Not only that, but Spain's new government actually increased its troops in Afghanistan and embarked (with France's help) on a crackdown against ETA that left it devastated (for which what's left of the movement retaliated over the last week). So in fact Spain hasn't chosen appeasement, but it rather chosen to fight terrorism - the smart way. In doing so, it has been much more efficient that the U.S., who has probably created more terrorists than it has killed over the last year and a half, severely damaging the its international reputation and influence in the process.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude that spain elected who they did directly because of the last train bombings.
Aznar shot himself in the foot by trying to deceive the population into thinking that the ETA were responsible for the bombings, when they clearly weren't (ETA almost always calls in advance, and tries to minimize casualties). However, the fact is that 80% - that eighty-freakin'-percent - of Spaniards didn't want their troops in Iraq. Now, the question is: do you believe in democracy, yes or no? Please, anser this simple question, and then try to justify that Aznar was doing the right thing by going against the wishes of 4 voters out of 5.
once i pull out the pools
I gather you mean the polls. Please, provide us some links - and a variety of them, because we all know that single polls are notoriously inaccurate.
Not that this has any relevance, since the new Spanish government didn't appease terrorists in any way - on the contrary, Spain quickly caught all of those responsible for the Madrid bombings, sent more soldiers to Afghanistan and mounted a crippling operation against ETA. In other
My guess is the stereotypical phonetic spelling. There's always a risk when using such cliches to represent someone from another culture. Some people find it insensitive, though technically it is not racism.
It is percieved that the spanish people are weak, cowardly and whatever by a certain portion of the population
A certain portion of the American population. The perception outside of the U.S. is quite different.
I doubt the "rest of the world" sees it much different unless you talk to the ones that are against the war.
The vast majority of the world's population was against the war. Even in the U.K., a majority of the population was against it. The places where the population were in favor of it were few and far between (i.e. Poland and Kuwait...go figure!)
Either way, it did give legitamacy to terrorist reguardless of the campain prommises and all.
I disagree. What gives terrorism legitimacy is changing your policies because of a terrorist act. By keeping steadfast, Spanish politicians proved they had a might pair of cojones!
Maybe terrorism does work.
Sadly, it often does. Case in point: the CIA-trained, U.S.-sponsored Death Squads in Nicaragua and El Salvador. They savagely killed hundreds of farmers and civilians, and succeeded in stalling the democratic process in those countries for a number of years. Terrorism is used all the time by superpowers - only it's called "low-intensity conflict."
However, this is irrelevant to the current discussion. Terrorism can be said to work when it influences policy-making. In this case it didn't since the policy was known well in advance.
Actually, I think they should have made the point that they did. I.e. "We want to pull out, but we can't do that now as it would appear as weakness in the face of terrorism.", of course in diplomat-speak.
Nonsense. The U.S. doesn't act based on how its actions will be perceived, why should any other nation? Spain doesn't have to justify its actions, nor do Spanish voters have to justify theirs. If you recall correctly, it was Aznar's government who try to pin this on ETA, without having proof, trying it could build political capital on the Madrid bombing the way Bush did with 9/11.
Again, it's mostly in the U.S. that there was perception that Spain caved in to terror - the rest of the world was more aware of the situation than americans were. It's not the rest of world's responsibility to make sure that their policies are well-interpreted in the States, but rather that of the American media.
Well of course not everyone was aware of it. However, on this matter you'll find that Europeans, Canadians and people from other countries were in general well aware of the position of the wide majority of spaniards on the issue.
In any case, it is irrelevant: the new government had made its case clear to the Spanish people, to whom they are responsible. Changing policies because of the terrorist attacks would have first and foremost been badly interpreted by the Spanish voters themselves, and therefore it was the duty of the Spanish government to proceed with the pullout as planned.
Personally, I don't believe that the terrorists who blew up the Madrid train wanted Spain to pull out - on the contrary, they must have known that people were about to change governement to one that had already declared that they wanted the spanish troops out. I think that the terrorists wanted the opposite, for Spain to stay in Iraq and be forced to spend more money in this quagmire. Remember, Bin Laden learned this from the CIA in Afghanistan: if you want to bring down a superpower, get it embroiled in a long guerilla conflict which will drain it of its money and its finest young men.
Anyway, it's late and I've got to go to bed...we'll just have to agree to disagree. Cheers!
The rest of the world ins't neccesarily as informed to know what the political climate as well as the campain prommises in spain are. Sure there would be a few people that knew (just like i did) butthe majority of them couldn't give a rats ass about what was going on in spian until an apearant terrorist act influence thier election and support for actions in iraq.
That's what I'm saying: from reading international papers, it seems pretty clear that most of the world (who was against the war in Iraq by a wide margin) actually understands that Spain had already planned to withdraw, and that this was not in reaction to the Madrid bombing. About the only people who didn't understand this, and who called on Spain for what they perceived as cowardice, were pro-war americans.
Don't worry too much about the perception the world has of Spain and its actions - worry more about the perception the world has of the U.S. and its actions.
This would probably include most of the rest of the world.
The "rest of the world" is better informed about what goes on in the world than you think - better informed than people in the U.S., for that matter.
The fact is that the new government had said repeatedly that they would pull their troops out of Iraq if elected. If they hadn't, then it would have looked as if they'd changed their plans due to terror - maybe not to people in the U.S., but their main responsibility is to spaniards, not americans. It's not their responsibility to change the way they act to make sure that their policies are not misinterpreted by americans - it's up to americans to find out what's going on in the rest of the world...
Pulling troops from iraq right after a terrorist attack were they were claiming that no more attack would happen if they did pull out onlyn lends creditability to the terrorists. This is independent of spains intentions to pull the troops anyways.
90% of the spanish population was opposed to the war in Iraq - it's only natural that the new government would follow the will of the people. What you're suggesting, though, is that they should have stayed in Iraq because of the attacks - in other words, let their behavior be dictated by terrorists!
The fact of the matter is that the new Spanish govt. understands that the "war on terror" is a police effort, not a military one, and that there was no Iraq-Al Qaeda link before the invasion. Iraq is a distraction from the war on terror - a costly one at that - and a venture which was not approved by the spanish population. By helping the U.S. in Iraq, Aznar was going against the wishes of the citizens, and they voted accordingly.
Game development doesn't only involve programmers. In fact, most people who work at developing games aren't. On my team (I'm a lead designer), I currently have 3 level designers, 3 modelers, 4 animators, 4 texture and effects artists, 2 testers, one producer, one production manager, one art director and 6 programmers (of course, that's not counting those who develop the engine and its tools).
Game development is quite unique among software development in that respect. Now, can anyone be really productive when they work 80 hours/week? That's the real question!!
Alcohol represents a much higher risk in that regards that marijuana (for starters, alcohol breaks down inhibition and makes people drive faster, while pot will usually make people drive slower). Following your logic, alcohol should be made illegal.
Actually that was Stalinist Russia.
Orwell was a Anarchist sympathizer and a socialist when he was younger (fought on their side in the Spanish Civil War, even), however he veered away from ideologies after seeing what Stalin was doing in Russia. If he was alive today, no doubt he'd use Dubya's America as inspiration for the sequel to 1984...
Meanwhile (to get back on topic), I think EA should really reconsider their corporate philosophy. I'm a lead designer for a game developer, and I wouldn't be interested in working at EA even if they offered me a job. I mean, I like working in video games and all, but that doesn't mean I don't want a life of my own!
In today's utterly Partisan Congress, that would essentially require a Democratic majority in the House, would it not?
Well, most of the attention has been on the presidential election, but the fact of the matter is that there is an actual chance that the Democrats will win the house. There's also an outside chance that they'll win the Senate, but that seems a lot more remote.
I agree with you about the strange things that have happened since 2000 - one has to try real hard not to see a concerted effort on the part of Republicans to take any means necessary to make sure they retain control of the government (to better gut it, it seems). Let's just hope that americans make the right choice with a sufficient majority in November...
Thanks, I didn't know how that was called. Notice, however, that the original poster was giving this as an example of how the Canadian electoral system was at a disadvantage with regards to the american one, an assertion which I disagreed with. By saying that it is a serious problem in the States, your post only confirms that I was right.
Uh, Illinois and New Jersey both went to Gore. That is three states. How many electoral votes does that make now?
46. That's still only about 55% of the 83 votes mentioned in the original example. Better luck next time! (Oh, and try not to get examples from the early 60s to support your point of view...)
You must be new here (in the US).
Actually I'm in Montreal. But I follow american politics - moreso than most americans, unfortunately.
May I direct your attention to election 2000. The Bush camp was fixated on using the legal system to stop any proceedings toward resolving the irregularities. They will do anything to stay in power this time.
Well, to quote Bush himself: "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, won't...Won't get fooled again!" A lot more people are going to be watching this time around - too much irregularities could make Bush lose support, even among conservative allies.
If Kerry wins, be ready for a "mysterious plane crash" to take out Kerry and Edwards prior to inauguration time. Farfetched?
Very farfetched - and very risky (you'd have to infiltrate the Secret Service, for starters). Even then, power wouldn't go to Bush, but under the Constitution would be passed on to the Speaker of the House. At this moment, it is not certain whether this will be a Democrat or Republican, as all 435 House seats will also be elected come November.
Yes, but we've seen stranger in the last four years.
Well, there was Wellstone's plane crash, which certainly raised eyebrows. Unless you believe that Bush and co. were behind 9/11 (which is utterly ridiculous - they simply used the tragedy to their political advantage), I disagree that we've seen stranger than what you'd suggest. This would be a bigger story than Kennedy.
I'm not familiar with Condorcet voting - what's it about? (Sounds interesting...)
I agree with you that the "left/right" axis is inadequate - though I wouldn't say that it's "idiotically simplistic" (to me, that's unnecessarily inflammatory language - let's not start any flamewars over this, m'kay?). Simplistic, yes. But it does represent broad tendencies, which is useful on a strategic level, i.e. Nader does tend to take votes away from Democrats more than Republicans, because they are both to the "left" of the political spectrum. You can be as nuanced as you want about this, the fact is that this is a hard, cold political reality. Ignore it at your own peril.
Meanwhile, I find the approach taken on the Political Compass web site much more relevant: in addition to the "Left/Right" axis, which is basically an economic scale, there is a "Totalitarian/Libertarian" axis, which is more social in nature. Check it out if you don't already know about it.
Err, voter turn out is low here. around 60% in a good year.
Actually, 60% would be a very bad year, assuming you're talking about federal elections. Turnout for the past election was 61%, but that's the lowest it's ever been since 1867. Over the past few decades, it has usually been between 79% and 67%. Compare that with the average turnout in U.S. elections, which has been between 36% and 55% since 1970...
While the voting is relativly trustworthy, the rigging is done in how the voting disticts are made.
I wouldn't call that rigging. Granted, the representation isn't completely proportional, and redrawing of the district boundaries is sometimes motivated by partisan politics, but that is far from being a widespread issue.
Of course, there's always room for improvement - however, the subject of this discussion is the actual voting process, i.e. the methods used. Canada uses a standard, uniform method across the country, a very simply and straightforward one. Of course, it only has about 1/10th of the population of the U.S., so it might not be completely adaptable - but it sure beats electronic voting machines with no paper trails and serious security issues!
And why, do you think that a congress made solely of democrats and republicans will make it any easier for a non-democrat, non-republican to have a fair chance at winning office?
You're mixing things up. The whole issue is about the voting process, not the entire political system. I agree with you that a two-party system sucks, but the point here is to make sure that, at the very least, peoples' votes are tallied correctly and that voting access is adequate.
Or do you think that we don't need some serious 3rd/4th/5th party representation to fix things?
As long as there are always an even number of parties, and that they are equally divided on the right/left axis - otherwise, a new party only undermines its closer relatives while helping its most antagonistic opponents. Look at Nader, there's a good reason why Republicans are financially supporting many of his efforts to get on states' ballots. Now, if both Perot and Nader were running...
We don't seem to disagree that much, really - I just think that it's possible to improve the voting process, and that making abuses and irregularities public is the first step into reducing their impact on the overall election.
Or possibly only non "idiotically optimistic". 1000 years from now, if anyone cares, I'm sure we'll be able to conclusively determine which.
It is not being optimistic to say that the electoral process - and democracy as a whole - has improved over the past century. Moreover, there are examples of other western democracies where the voting process is much less controversial. Canada is a good example: voter participation is high, and irregularities are few - yet the ballot casting system is both very simple and virtually tamper-proof.
I really do think you are pessimistic. The American electoral process can be improved. It will require lots of hard work, and a good dose of humility, but it is certainly an achievable (and worthy) goal.
Actually, supposing there is another controversey (not sure how likely, but for the sake of argument) what makes you think this will help?
We learn from our mistakes, don't we? You're basically arguing that the system is broken and can't be fixed. This is either being pessimistic, barring the possibility of progress in the electoral process, or the result of partisan politics (i.e. you realize that your side profits from voter fraud and thus reject any monitoring that would seek to reduce it).
Like in every other country, they'll report that the "election was rigged" and if anything, stir up even more shit than if they hadn't "monitored" it.
In every other country, really? Actually, could it be because of the simple fact that when there are few irregularities, it doesn't make for good news and therefore it's not as widely reported by the media.
Every year, I hear about something like this, in shitty 3rd world countries whose names I intentionally forget.
Using one's ignorance as an argument. I rest my case.
Do you think that this time, Dubya will just say "well golly gee, you got me... kerry did win after all'?
Should there be any major irregularities that would've tipped the vote over to Kerry, he wouldn't have much of a choice.
Seeing a pattern yet?
I see a pattern of voter fraud allegations on both sides. This, it seems, is reason enough to have impartial observers around.
I'm also curious to hear why you consider Colin Powell a democrat? After all, the Secretary of State invited the observers jointly with members of Congress. Then again, you do try to make a comparison between five states on one side (totalling 83 electoral votes), and one state (10 votes) plus two counties...
Basically, you're saying that since irregularities always happen, one shouldn't try to monitor them and help improve the voting process. I disagree. Transparency in elections is essential to democracy. The process has to be fair and open, and the vote secret (thus free of coercition). The truth is that the 2000 elections were controversial; some monitoring can only help people regaining faith in the electoral process.
Also, since what goes on in the U.S. has a significant impact on what goes on in the rest of the world, the fairness of U.S. elections is an international matter of concern. The U.S. citizenry should only not see this as a humiliation, as they are the one who will benefit from any corrected irregularities. The only people who should be humiliated are those found responsible of those irregularities.
Hey Coward, please indicate how anything I have actually said was ignorant. Be specific.