yes, screw those dirty hippy environmentalists. Let's turn the planet into a smoggy ozone cloud with daily sulfuric acid rain. Then we can cut and burn all the trees to make room for a new walmart. We won't be able to go outside because the air will be too polluted and the sun will scorch us, but at least we won't be giving into to those illogical hippy enviro freaks.
Hannitty? Is that you? It' me Colms!
I see where you're coming from but I have to agree to disagree. I have quite a few detailed rebuttals to the china theory and i have some very detailed information on why the bush administration behaves the way it does in relation to oil supply versus price, but it would take me three days to type it out.
It is nice to see that there is someone on this board who can carry on a debate though
We wouldn't invade other corn producing countries because we have more than enough corn here to go around. We don't however have enough oil. The reason oil prices are high, is that production and refining capacities have been limited by strict US environmental regulations, lack of infrastructure in Iraq, and turmoil in much of the oil producing regions. Just because the oil prices aren't plummeting doesn't mean we haven't secured oil. We control the oil fields, but it's going to take time to get that oil out of the ground and turn it into a useful product. As for the oil companies getting their people elected being untrue, look at bush's campaign contributions and tell me otherwise. Tell me how we were threatened by Iraq? Al Queda is and always will be against regimes like Hussein's because he was a secularist. Hussein would never have allowed terrorist organizations to flourish in his country because they are a threat to his power structure. Iraq had limited amounts of chemical and biological agents, but no delivery methods. You can build all the anthrax weapons you want, but if you don't have a decent delivery method they aren't much good. Add to this that he and everyone else in the world know that an attack on US soil using wmd results in instant thermonuclear annihiliation.
We aren't invading North Korea because we already have a strong stategic military base in the region, and North Korea doesn't have any resources we want. Norht Korea has the capability to attack the continental US and has threatened to do so. They routinely do horrible medical experiments to their citizens, torture and murder political dissidents, and have let several million people starve to death in the last couple of years. If the war in Iraq was about eliminating a threat to the US and freeing an oppressed people from tyranny, again explain why we aren't invading N Korea.
It's called rhetoric, and I was feeding you some of your own medicine. The last thing we need at this point in our countries history is intolerance for differing politicial viewpoints. If you find the dixie chicks offensive, then by all means voice your opinion and boycott them. The problem is, all of the rabid conservatism of late is not a tolerant form of conservatism. If someone speaks out against the actions of a conservative leader, they are threatend, bullied, and called unamerican. Do you remember McCarthyism? Is that really what you want? Do you want everyone who disagrees with your political viewpoint to leave the country? What about people of differing religions? Perhaps I was a bit hypocritical in my last post and I admit that it was not a very intelligent reply. I'm taking the time now to express myself in an appropriate manner. How is it patriotic or even American to tell someone of a differing viewpoint they should just deal with and conform or leave the country. If our founding fathers had taken that attitude we would still be an English colony. America was paid for by the blood and sweat of those who were willing to stand up to the political norm and be a dissident. Perhaps if we all stopped the partisan baiting back and forth and actually listened to what one another had to say, we could actually make some progress.
Anytime the political pendulum swings too far to either the right or left it's bad news, and to a large extent the pendulum has swung so far to the right that it's bordering on fascism. We as a nation need to accept the fact that simply hunting down and killing islamic traditionalist is not going to stop terrorits, and neither is increasing police powers. Even if we stop 99 out of 100, it only takes one. A futurist for the pentagon once said that a good way to look at the world is to say how many people can a determined man kill before he is put down himself. That number has increased exponentially and it's not an option to stop 99 out of 100 anymore. Killing people and imprisoning others, and invading holy lands of a large portion of the population is only going to fan the fire. We have to address the roots of the terrorism plague rather than just simple pruning the occasional leaf we catch.
My question for you is this, what aspects of the nefarious liberal agenda do you find so horrible, and what points of the republican/conservative agenda do you find so appealing? I'm curious if you actually know the policies and the results of the neocon regime or if you just decided you were republican because you didn't like a liberal stance or two.
I'll take off my tinfoil hat when you go out and read and actually learn the politics of the region in question. Occums Razor, if the war looks like it's about oil, it most likely is. As much as I'd like to pretend otherwise, I can't overlook the fact that almost every single person in a high ranking position in the current administration has extensive ties to the oil industry. Why do you think we support Israel? Strategic interest. Why do you think we "liberated" south korea from the commmunist? Military strategic interest. The only ally we have in the region besides Israel is Saudi, which is flakey at best. By invading Iraq, the administration has done several things. They pacified the hawks who wanted revenge for 911, they have attempted to setup a puppet regime there that will be favorable to the US having airbases there, and they have secured a large supply of oil, and have attempted to establish dominance in the region where most of the remaining oil is located. If it's not about oil and geographical strategic interest, then why did we invade Iraq rather than North Korea, who is developing mid-range to intercontinental ballistic missile technology? North Korea will be capable of hitting the west coast with a nuclear warhead within the next few years, their leader routinely tortures and kills his citizens, and the people there are starving. In addition, North korea routinely threatens both the United States and our regional allies with nuclear annihilation, yet we do nothing. Now lets look at iraq. They had a bunch of crappy outdated soviet military hardware. A limited amount of resources, and an army who is unwilling to fight anything other than a localized guerilla war. Explain to me how this was a humanitarian war again, and not about strategic interest and oil?
You're right, it's not about oil in the short tem. It's about developing a stategic power base in the region, so in the near future we can leverage our military might against the Arabs, Asians, and Russians to control what's left of the dwindling oil supply.
Conservatism: The next best thing to fascism.
Here's an idea jackass, rather than just shouting "American Hater" at everyone who doesn't worhsip dubya, how about you go read some books and learn how to construct an actual rebuttal. Or better yet, go listen to some more Rush Limbaugh and continue to dull your wit. Maybe if we're lucky, you'll become so stupid and rabid with conservative self-righteousness you'll be out beating hippies and 'merkin haters when the polls are open. One last thing, if you're not already steril, email me and I will pay for your vasectomy. The idiots are already overpopulating the world and I'd be glad to remove some of the piss from the gene pool.
Put this in a different perspective. What if after president bush blows up a couple of hospitals with his imperialist war, the entire middle east unites and invades America. Obviously our military can handle it, but let's put ourselves in their shoes. Say America can't defend itself. A foreign country sends troops who don't understand our culture, who look different from us, and speak another language. They wander the streets of your town and randomly pick people up and lock them away for months on end. The also periodically bomb your city and after blowing up the local walmart and the local episcopal church they say their were enemies there. THen one day an errant bomb lands on your house while your out scavenging for food and kills your entire family. You come home and your babie's arms are sitting in the front yard and your wifes disembowelled corps is sitting on the front door step. Bob your neighbor has something similar happen. What are you going to do? Are you going to just sit there? No, you're going to go out with a gun and kill the people who have done this to you, and then you may very well be so angry you burn their corpses. I'm not defending the brutality of the actions of those in fallujah, but instead of spitting out the same old tired right wing propaganda, take a look at things from the side of the people we are killing.
As for gaurding the food caravan, these guys were mercenaries, plain and simple. They were ex navy seal and spec ops and they were heavily armed. It sucks they died but let's not try to make them out to be mother theresa.
As far as the torture goes, it's appalling on either side. The crappy thing is that the people who were doing weren't the ones behind it. The cia agents and the mercenaries hired by the brass to direct this torture won't ever be held accountable.
As for the love it or leave it statement, this is pure idiocy. You don't leave something you love just because it's taken a turn for the worse. You fight tooth and nail to right what is wrong through civil discourse, debate, and voting. A better idea is, if you don't like people having the freedom to say what they want and the freedom to disagree with the fascist garbage that come out of your mouth, why don't you leave? You have the right to say what you want, but you have no right to tell people who disagree with you that they should leave the country.
What I love the most is the hypocracy of the right wingers. It's ok to send people to a foreign country to die for our freedom, but we give all of our freedom here in the US up because a relatively small number of people have been killed by hostile action. Voluntarily giving up your liberties completely negates the sacrifices of our service men/women made in the name of liberty. If we're willing to sacrifice troops for freedom, shouldn't we also be willing to occasionally sacrifice civillians. I know I'd rather die than have every man woman and childs civil rights curtailed to protect me, and the last thing I'd want to come out of my death is fear mongering and totalitarian government.
What the fuck difference does it make what OS the computers are running. Why would gates put linux on these computers? Face it, most people know and like windows and don't care to learn linux. They don't care if microsoft is a monopoly. Until the *nix hordes start donating 8billion worth of computers to schools, then your criticism is a moot point. A free computer for every kid in a classroom is good thing regardless of what OS it runs. And honestly, who cares if they have to pay the 99 dollar upgrade fee for the next version of the os, assuming they even need it, when the hardware has been provided for free? Assuming that microsoft actually makes meaningful revisions to their os every 3 to 5 years, the schools would at most have to upgrade their pc's os 1 time during the life of the hardware. Oh no! They paid 100 dollars for a pc! How much would they pay for decent linux boxes? I bet more than 100 bucks.
How the hell is microsoft somehow responsible for every evil thing in the world. Oh I'm sorry, did Microsoft make Gator? No they didn't. The idea that UNIX/Linux don't get spyware because they are superior is bullshit. They don't get spyware because a miniscule portion of the computer using world uses these OS's so it's not economically sound for a spyware company to write code for these platforms. If you like Linux, great, but stop fucking blaming microsoft for every single bad thing in the world.
The colonist were guerillas, not terrorist. They defended their homes and kille military men and those who directly supported the military. They didn't go to england and bomb markets adn buildings. They didn't kidnap Brits abroad and behead them. They didn't want to destroy england, just be left alone. Big difference.
The economy has a lot to do with the president. Global military policies affect the economy in vast ways. Maybe you should pick up a macro ec book. The president is responsible for a large portion of the debt. Congress passes funding bills, but it was the presidents tax cut and the presidents war, as well as his ridiculously ineffective security policies that have taken a budget surplus to a record debt.
As for unemployment, the unemployment rate right now is nowhere near accurate. There is a substantial portion of the population who has just given up. I've seen estimates, by conservative pundits no less, that actual unemployment is aroun 10-11%.
Peace dividend from the Cold war? Back that up. You are claiming that I make baseless statements, show me something to demonstrate this peace dividend. We had peace because we weren't crusading around the globe tormenting the muslims.
So when clinton bombs sudan for harboring terrorists it's bad, but when Bush launces military operations on half the globe it's ok?
Afghanistan isn't the problem. The hellhole in Iraq is a problem. Having troops in Haiti, the Phillipines, malaysia and indonesia is a problem. If you doubt we have troops in these places, go meet some spec ops guys and they will tell you otherwise. I know several spec ops guys who were sent to malaysia on covert ops, and these same guys were sent to Iraq and engaged in combat a full 7 months before we declared war. Bush was already unilaterally engaging Iraq way before the UN even had a say in it.
Budget deficit. Congress sets the budget, correct. Let's take a look at that, we have a republican president who asks for ridiculously large expenditures in police and military powers while at the same time giving tax breaks, and the republican cohorts in congress kowtow to him and give him that. So how is bush and the rest of the fascist crew not responsible?
You don't have to be a terrorist to have your rights taken away. There are people who have been denied access to lawyers and not charged with a crime rotting in prisons right now. Government wiretapping abilities have multiplied by orders of magnitude. Most of our due process statutes have been thrown by the wayside and people are being denied equal protection under the law just because of their ethnicity. Sounds great. First they came for the Jews... and eventually it will be people like you. You probably haven't noticed since you aren't being thrown into prison based on your race or religion.
We had a lot of good will post september 11th and we had relatively stable relations with the middle east. Now not only do the arabs hate us, the russians and chinese are getting anxious and Europe is slamming us daily.
They arabs have always disliked us, there is no doubt about that. Before bush we had a smoldering ember, now he has fanned the flames and we have an inferno. Great job Necons!
So what your saying is that the republican congress and president had nothing to do with the economy? Bush sure as hell is talking a lot about what he has done for the economy. So which is it, is he a worthless liar or are you wrong? Either way it doesn't inspire much confidence in a guy who can barely assemble and intelligible sentence. Let's see how much you love Bush when two years into his second term we have a larg scale guerrilla war in the middle east and he starts drafting. Let's see how many of you Neocon hawks are willing to go die for you belief in the Bush administrations military policies.
this is such an intelligent response I don't even know where to begin. Lets kill everyone like me who doesn't like fascism! Then the country will be great and the opposite of France. Fucking retards like you are why Bush is in office. Even the Bush supporters are fascist pukes. Do us all a favor, volunteer for the marine corps and go die for you country in a god forsaken hell hole like a good little republican so a couple of fat ass trailer park queens can keep having 1 a gallon gas.
Let me spell this out for you. There is not going to be a rebound or a society to rebound 30 years from now. People have leveraged credit for houses/cars/properties based on the idea that they will earn enough to pay those debts. Get a large enough portion of those people defaulting and you get complete and utter economic collapse. When the US economy collapses, expect most of the world to be drug down with it. Also let's examine the fact that when an additional 6 billion people in India and China start earning enough to purchase cars and other energy consuming products our oil and energy supply is going to run out real quick which will lead to further economic collaps. Get ready for our bright future. The only solace I can take is knowing that these greedy corporate fuckwads will have slaved their lives away for a currency that will be worth jack shit due to their own actions.
completely incorrect.
NSA/CIA/US military leaders are probably the most tracked people on earth. You don't think China and the other major intelligence services keep tabs on our agents?
Politicians are tracked by other politicians. See Watergate, and many other incidents.
Bill Gates is tracked by the DOJ and IRS and probably a host of pissed off competitors.
Rich people are tracked by conspiracy theorists, irs, and other rich people.
Everyone gets tracked to a degree unless you are completely off the grid.
there may not be a government law, but I've got a romanian ak47 with a 100 round drum attached that says its at least not going to be pleasant for them to try and tag me. Also, what's to keep people from just cutting these things out? Mark of the beast anyone?
we had a roaring economy, very low unemployment, relative world stability, a constantly improving world image, and everyone was succesful.
Now let's take a look at Bush:
record unemployment
two full scale wars
conflicts involving US troops in at least 4 other locales
Gasoline headed towards 3 dollars a gallon
Record budget deficit
Record trade deficit
Historically notable loss of civil liberties
We have lost all credibility and good will in the international arena.
We have fostered and increased hatred of our country in the Arab world
Our currency is declining daily against the Euro, which should reduce our trade deficit with Europe but isn't because of the economic policies of Bush.
Add to this the fact that he didn't win the popular election, consistently makes decision based on religion and even goes so far as to state that openly, and is now trying to silence all criticism and opposition to him through the FEC.
He's doing a much better job apparently.
I'd have to say with the worlds population increasing exponentially, and the supply of oil decreasing exponentially coupled with a lack of any viable alternative energy source, the best prediction would be that we will be walking our riding in animal drawn carts. Since gas is already hitting 3 dollars a gallon how long is going to be before it's simply not feasible to use a gasoline powered vehicle for anything? I guess we also have bicycles.
gambling is entertainment. If your stupid enough to think your going to make it rich by gambling, then we probably dont want you having enough money to survive and reproduce
Bring em on. 2B versus a couple of 400 Megaton ICBMS, railguns, laser weapons, space based weaponry, best trained troops in the world, most armed population in the world, and lets not forget the fact that the US has a crap load of level 4 labs loaded with nasties. All the man power in the world isn't going to beat a relatively small number of nukes,bioweapons and a shitload of spec ops troups. What are the Muslims going to do? Throw rocks, suicide bomb. Let there be a couple more large scale terrorist attacks in the US and see how many of those 1 billion muslims are left standing. Lets see those rocks up against minutemenII. As for the Chinese, we supply them with a large portion of their food. How much fighting are those 1 billion people going to do with nothing to eat?
We have antitrust legislation. They are violating it. Just because we decide to not buy products from a company that breaks the law, doesn't mean we hate capitalism. Your argument is weak at best. Your drawing a correlation that doesn't exist. If you want to delude yourself into thinking the RIAA member groups are law abiding citizens who just innocently enforce their copyrights, then keep stroking them off. Your obviously the one who hates capitalism. Capitalism is the free market, not 5 big companies conspire to price fix and buy legislation to inhibit competition. Your obviously fascist, as you so tacitly approve the unjustified influence of corporate lobby over our government.
Our country was founded on the idea of checks and balances. The citizens overthrow or overturn laws that they don't want. When basically every single person in the country who has a computer is using peer-to-peer, it's obvious what the publice wants. Did we vote for draconian copyright laws, dmca, etc? NO! Do we have fair elections that are not rigged by corrupt funding and coporate influence? no. I didn't fucking vote for any of the pro RIAA laws. The reps I vote for didn't vote for them. If these laws were put to the public they would immediately die. Instead they are hidden on page 657 of the save the puppies and fluffy bunnies act so no one will want to vote against them and look like an ass. Seems like the playing field is pretty fair.
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yes, screw those dirty hippy environmentalists. Let's turn the planet into a smoggy ozone cloud with daily sulfuric acid rain. Then we can cut and burn all the trees to make room for a new walmart. We won't be able to go outside because the air will be too polluted and the sun will scorch us, but at least we won't be giving into to those illogical hippy enviro freaks.
Hannitty? Is that you? It' me Colms! I see where you're coming from but I have to agree to disagree. I have quite a few detailed rebuttals to the china theory and i have some very detailed information on why the bush administration behaves the way it does in relation to oil supply versus price, but it would take me three days to type it out. It is nice to see that there is someone on this board who can carry on a debate though
We wouldn't invade other corn producing countries because we have more than enough corn here to go around. We don't however have enough oil. The reason oil prices are high, is that production and refining capacities have been limited by strict US environmental regulations, lack of infrastructure in Iraq, and turmoil in much of the oil producing regions. Just because the oil prices aren't plummeting doesn't mean we haven't secured oil. We control the oil fields, but it's going to take time to get that oil out of the ground and turn it into a useful product. As for the oil companies getting their people elected being untrue, look at bush's campaign contributions and tell me otherwise. Tell me how we were threatened by Iraq? Al Queda is and always will be against regimes like Hussein's because he was a secularist. Hussein would never have allowed terrorist organizations to flourish in his country because they are a threat to his power structure. Iraq had limited amounts of chemical and biological agents, but no delivery methods. You can build all the anthrax weapons you want, but if you don't have a decent delivery method they aren't much good. Add to this that he and everyone else in the world know that an attack on US soil using wmd results in instant thermonuclear annihiliation. We aren't invading North Korea because we already have a strong stategic military base in the region, and North Korea doesn't have any resources we want. Norht Korea has the capability to attack the continental US and has threatened to do so. They routinely do horrible medical experiments to their citizens, torture and murder political dissidents, and have let several million people starve to death in the last couple of years. If the war in Iraq was about eliminating a threat to the US and freeing an oppressed people from tyranny, again explain why we aren't invading N Korea.
It's called rhetoric, and I was feeding you some of your own medicine. The last thing we need at this point in our countries history is intolerance for differing politicial viewpoints. If you find the dixie chicks offensive, then by all means voice your opinion and boycott them. The problem is, all of the rabid conservatism of late is not a tolerant form of conservatism. If someone speaks out against the actions of a conservative leader, they are threatend, bullied, and called unamerican. Do you remember McCarthyism? Is that really what you want? Do you want everyone who disagrees with your political viewpoint to leave the country? What about people of differing religions? Perhaps I was a bit hypocritical in my last post and I admit that it was not a very intelligent reply. I'm taking the time now to express myself in an appropriate manner. How is it patriotic or even American to tell someone of a differing viewpoint they should just deal with and conform or leave the country. If our founding fathers had taken that attitude we would still be an English colony. America was paid for by the blood and sweat of those who were willing to stand up to the political norm and be a dissident. Perhaps if we all stopped the partisan baiting back and forth and actually listened to what one another had to say, we could actually make some progress. Anytime the political pendulum swings too far to either the right or left it's bad news, and to a large extent the pendulum has swung so far to the right that it's bordering on fascism. We as a nation need to accept the fact that simply hunting down and killing islamic traditionalist is not going to stop terrorits, and neither is increasing police powers. Even if we stop 99 out of 100, it only takes one. A futurist for the pentagon once said that a good way to look at the world is to say how many people can a determined man kill before he is put down himself. That number has increased exponentially and it's not an option to stop 99 out of 100 anymore. Killing people and imprisoning others, and invading holy lands of a large portion of the population is only going to fan the fire. We have to address the roots of the terrorism plague rather than just simple pruning the occasional leaf we catch. My question for you is this, what aspects of the nefarious liberal agenda do you find so horrible, and what points of the republican/conservative agenda do you find so appealing? I'm curious if you actually know the policies and the results of the neocon regime or if you just decided you were republican because you didn't like a liberal stance or two.
I'll take off my tinfoil hat when you go out and read and actually learn the politics of the region in question. Occums Razor, if the war looks like it's about oil, it most likely is. As much as I'd like to pretend otherwise, I can't overlook the fact that almost every single person in a high ranking position in the current administration has extensive ties to the oil industry. Why do you think we support Israel? Strategic interest. Why do you think we "liberated" south korea from the commmunist? Military strategic interest. The only ally we have in the region besides Israel is Saudi, which is flakey at best. By invading Iraq, the administration has done several things. They pacified the hawks who wanted revenge for 911, they have attempted to setup a puppet regime there that will be favorable to the US having airbases there, and they have secured a large supply of oil, and have attempted to establish dominance in the region where most of the remaining oil is located. If it's not about oil and geographical strategic interest, then why did we invade Iraq rather than North Korea, who is developing mid-range to intercontinental ballistic missile technology? North Korea will be capable of hitting the west coast with a nuclear warhead within the next few years, their leader routinely tortures and kills his citizens, and the people there are starving. In addition, North korea routinely threatens both the United States and our regional allies with nuclear annihilation, yet we do nothing. Now lets look at iraq. They had a bunch of crappy outdated soviet military hardware. A limited amount of resources, and an army who is unwilling to fight anything other than a localized guerilla war. Explain to me how this was a humanitarian war again, and not about strategic interest and oil?
You're right, it's not about oil in the short tem. It's about developing a stategic power base in the region, so in the near future we can leverage our military might against the Arabs, Asians, and Russians to control what's left of the dwindling oil supply.
Conservatism: The next best thing to fascism. Here's an idea jackass, rather than just shouting "American Hater" at everyone who doesn't worhsip dubya, how about you go read some books and learn how to construct an actual rebuttal. Or better yet, go listen to some more Rush Limbaugh and continue to dull your wit. Maybe if we're lucky, you'll become so stupid and rabid with conservative self-righteousness you'll be out beating hippies and 'merkin haters when the polls are open. One last thing, if you're not already steril, email me and I will pay for your vasectomy. The idiots are already overpopulating the world and I'd be glad to remove some of the piss from the gene pool.
Put this in a different perspective. What if after president bush blows up a couple of hospitals with his imperialist war, the entire middle east unites and invades America. Obviously our military can handle it, but let's put ourselves in their shoes. Say America can't defend itself. A foreign country sends troops who don't understand our culture, who look different from us, and speak another language. They wander the streets of your town and randomly pick people up and lock them away for months on end. The also periodically bomb your city and after blowing up the local walmart and the local episcopal church they say their were enemies there. THen one day an errant bomb lands on your house while your out scavenging for food and kills your entire family. You come home and your babie's arms are sitting in the front yard and your wifes disembowelled corps is sitting on the front door step. Bob your neighbor has something similar happen. What are you going to do? Are you going to just sit there? No, you're going to go out with a gun and kill the people who have done this to you, and then you may very well be so angry you burn their corpses. I'm not defending the brutality of the actions of those in fallujah, but instead of spitting out the same old tired right wing propaganda, take a look at things from the side of the people we are killing. As for gaurding the food caravan, these guys were mercenaries, plain and simple. They were ex navy seal and spec ops and they were heavily armed. It sucks they died but let's not try to make them out to be mother theresa. As far as the torture goes, it's appalling on either side. The crappy thing is that the people who were doing weren't the ones behind it. The cia agents and the mercenaries hired by the brass to direct this torture won't ever be held accountable. As for the love it or leave it statement, this is pure idiocy. You don't leave something you love just because it's taken a turn for the worse. You fight tooth and nail to right what is wrong through civil discourse, debate, and voting. A better idea is, if you don't like people having the freedom to say what they want and the freedom to disagree with the fascist garbage that come out of your mouth, why don't you leave? You have the right to say what you want, but you have no right to tell people who disagree with you that they should leave the country.
What I love the most is the hypocracy of the right wingers. It's ok to send people to a foreign country to die for our freedom, but we give all of our freedom here in the US up because a relatively small number of people have been killed by hostile action. Voluntarily giving up your liberties completely negates the sacrifices of our service men/women made in the name of liberty. If we're willing to sacrifice troops for freedom, shouldn't we also be willing to occasionally sacrifice civillians. I know I'd rather die than have every man woman and childs civil rights curtailed to protect me, and the last thing I'd want to come out of my death is fear mongering and totalitarian government.
What the fuck difference does it make what OS the computers are running. Why would gates put linux on these computers? Face it, most people know and like windows and don't care to learn linux. They don't care if microsoft is a monopoly. Until the *nix hordes start donating 8billion worth of computers to schools, then your criticism is a moot point. A free computer for every kid in a classroom is good thing regardless of what OS it runs. And honestly, who cares if they have to pay the 99 dollar upgrade fee for the next version of the os, assuming they even need it, when the hardware has been provided for free? Assuming that microsoft actually makes meaningful revisions to their os every 3 to 5 years, the schools would at most have to upgrade their pc's os 1 time during the life of the hardware. Oh no! They paid 100 dollars for a pc! How much would they pay for decent linux boxes? I bet more than 100 bucks.
How the hell is microsoft somehow responsible for every evil thing in the world. Oh I'm sorry, did Microsoft make Gator? No they didn't. The idea that UNIX/Linux don't get spyware because they are superior is bullshit. They don't get spyware because a miniscule portion of the computer using world uses these OS's so it's not economically sound for a spyware company to write code for these platforms. If you like Linux, great, but stop fucking blaming microsoft for every single bad thing in the world.
The colonist were guerillas, not terrorist. They defended their homes and kille military men and those who directly supported the military. They didn't go to england and bomb markets adn buildings. They didn't kidnap Brits abroad and behead them. They didn't want to destroy england, just be left alone. Big difference.
The economy has a lot to do with the president. Global military policies affect the economy in vast ways. Maybe you should pick up a macro ec book. The president is responsible for a large portion of the debt. Congress passes funding bills, but it was the presidents tax cut and the presidents war, as well as his ridiculously ineffective security policies that have taken a budget surplus to a record debt. As for unemployment, the unemployment rate right now is nowhere near accurate. There is a substantial portion of the population who has just given up. I've seen estimates, by conservative pundits no less, that actual unemployment is aroun 10-11%. Peace dividend from the Cold war? Back that up. You are claiming that I make baseless statements, show me something to demonstrate this peace dividend. We had peace because we weren't crusading around the globe tormenting the muslims. So when clinton bombs sudan for harboring terrorists it's bad, but when Bush launces military operations on half the globe it's ok? Afghanistan isn't the problem. The hellhole in Iraq is a problem. Having troops in Haiti, the Phillipines, malaysia and indonesia is a problem. If you doubt we have troops in these places, go meet some spec ops guys and they will tell you otherwise. I know several spec ops guys who were sent to malaysia on covert ops, and these same guys were sent to Iraq and engaged in combat a full 7 months before we declared war. Bush was already unilaterally engaging Iraq way before the UN even had a say in it. Budget deficit. Congress sets the budget, correct. Let's take a look at that, we have a republican president who asks for ridiculously large expenditures in police and military powers while at the same time giving tax breaks, and the republican cohorts in congress kowtow to him and give him that. So how is bush and the rest of the fascist crew not responsible? You don't have to be a terrorist to have your rights taken away. There are people who have been denied access to lawyers and not charged with a crime rotting in prisons right now. Government wiretapping abilities have multiplied by orders of magnitude. Most of our due process statutes have been thrown by the wayside and people are being denied equal protection under the law just because of their ethnicity. Sounds great. First they came for the Jews... and eventually it will be people like you. You probably haven't noticed since you aren't being thrown into prison based on your race or religion. We had a lot of good will post september 11th and we had relatively stable relations with the middle east. Now not only do the arabs hate us, the russians and chinese are getting anxious and Europe is slamming us daily. They arabs have always disliked us, there is no doubt about that. Before bush we had a smoldering ember, now he has fanned the flames and we have an inferno. Great job Necons! So what your saying is that the republican congress and president had nothing to do with the economy? Bush sure as hell is talking a lot about what he has done for the economy. So which is it, is he a worthless liar or are you wrong? Either way it doesn't inspire much confidence in a guy who can barely assemble and intelligible sentence. Let's see how much you love Bush when two years into his second term we have a larg scale guerrilla war in the middle east and he starts drafting. Let's see how many of you Neocon hawks are willing to go die for you belief in the Bush administrations military policies.
sounds good to me. Give me a harley chain and a picket sign and lets get it on.
this is such an intelligent response I don't even know where to begin. Lets kill everyone like me who doesn't like fascism! Then the country will be great and the opposite of France. Fucking retards like you are why Bush is in office. Even the Bush supporters are fascist pukes. Do us all a favor, volunteer for the marine corps and go die for you country in a god forsaken hell hole like a good little republican so a couple of fat ass trailer park queens can keep having 1 a gallon gas.
Let me spell this out for you. There is not going to be a rebound or a society to rebound 30 years from now. People have leveraged credit for houses/cars/properties based on the idea that they will earn enough to pay those debts. Get a large enough portion of those people defaulting and you get complete and utter economic collapse. When the US economy collapses, expect most of the world to be drug down with it. Also let's examine the fact that when an additional 6 billion people in India and China start earning enough to purchase cars and other energy consuming products our oil and energy supply is going to run out real quick which will lead to further economic collaps. Get ready for our bright future. The only solace I can take is knowing that these greedy corporate fuckwads will have slaved their lives away for a currency that will be worth jack shit due to their own actions.
completely incorrect. NSA/CIA/US military leaders are probably the most tracked people on earth. You don't think China and the other major intelligence services keep tabs on our agents? Politicians are tracked by other politicians. See Watergate, and many other incidents. Bill Gates is tracked by the DOJ and IRS and probably a host of pissed off competitors. Rich people are tracked by conspiracy theorists, irs, and other rich people. Everyone gets tracked to a degree unless you are completely off the grid.
there may not be a government law, but I've got a romanian ak47 with a 100 round drum attached that says its at least not going to be pleasant for them to try and tag me. Also, what's to keep people from just cutting these things out? Mark of the beast anyone?
we had a roaring economy, very low unemployment, relative world stability, a constantly improving world image, and everyone was succesful. Now let's take a look at Bush: record unemployment two full scale wars conflicts involving US troops in at least 4 other locales Gasoline headed towards 3 dollars a gallon Record budget deficit Record trade deficit Historically notable loss of civil liberties We have lost all credibility and good will in the international arena. We have fostered and increased hatred of our country in the Arab world Our currency is declining daily against the Euro, which should reduce our trade deficit with Europe but isn't because of the economic policies of Bush. Add to this the fact that he didn't win the popular election, consistently makes decision based on religion and even goes so far as to state that openly, and is now trying to silence all criticism and opposition to him through the FEC. He's doing a much better job apparently.
I'd have to say with the worlds population increasing exponentially, and the supply of oil decreasing exponentially coupled with a lack of any viable alternative energy source, the best prediction would be that we will be walking our riding in animal drawn carts. Since gas is already hitting 3 dollars a gallon how long is going to be before it's simply not feasible to use a gasoline powered vehicle for anything? I guess we also have bicycles.
it would if it made it impossible for an alternative party to have any chance whatsoever of winning an election.
gambling is entertainment. If your stupid enough to think your going to make it rich by gambling, then we probably dont want you having enough money to survive and reproduce
Bring em on. 2B versus a couple of 400 Megaton ICBMS, railguns, laser weapons, space based weaponry, best trained troops in the world, most armed population in the world, and lets not forget the fact that the US has a crap load of level 4 labs loaded with nasties. All the man power in the world isn't going to beat a relatively small number of nukes,bioweapons and a shitload of spec ops troups. What are the Muslims going to do? Throw rocks, suicide bomb. Let there be a couple more large scale terrorist attacks in the US and see how many of those 1 billion muslims are left standing. Lets see those rocks up against minutemenII. As for the Chinese, we supply them with a large portion of their food. How much fighting are those 1 billion people going to do with nothing to eat?
We have antitrust legislation. They are violating it. Just because we decide to not buy products from a company that breaks the law, doesn't mean we hate capitalism. Your argument is weak at best. Your drawing a correlation that doesn't exist. If you want to delude yourself into thinking the RIAA member groups are law abiding citizens who just innocently enforce their copyrights, then keep stroking them off. Your obviously the one who hates capitalism. Capitalism is the free market, not 5 big companies conspire to price fix and buy legislation to inhibit competition. Your obviously fascist, as you so tacitly approve the unjustified influence of corporate lobby over our government.
Our country was founded on the idea of checks and balances. The citizens overthrow or overturn laws that they don't want. When basically every single person in the country who has a computer is using peer-to-peer, it's obvious what the publice wants. Did we vote for draconian copyright laws, dmca, etc? NO! Do we have fair elections that are not rigged by corrupt funding and coporate influence? no. I didn't fucking vote for any of the pro RIAA laws. The reps I vote for didn't vote for them. If these laws were put to the public they would immediately die. Instead they are hidden on page 657 of the save the puppies and fluffy bunnies act so no one will want to vote against them and look like an ass. Seems like the playing field is pretty fair.