I don't want a common or average man running the country. I want the smartest person we've got. Unfortunately, only the stupid seem to gravitate towards politics.
He didn't do to bad for a former peanut farmer. Personally, I think we need to go back to electing failed haberdashers. The failures always seem to make better presidents ehile the sucesses don't sem to grasp the reality that politics isn't like business. Same with generals - very fewer (with the exception of Ike) we're able to grasp the differences between poitics and the military (aka. you can't just order people to do something and then expect it to get done.)
Actually, the voter turnout is only about 50% of the eligible voters. They got something liek 125 million voters to turnout for the 2000 elections and it was considered a phenomenal turnout. So 53% works out to be about 55 million people or so depnding on how good the voter turnout is.
Probably. Bush probably doesn't even know what Broadband is. Probably thinks its a bigger band for his hat. It's like the manufacturing question. Is he just trying to spin bad numbers or, worse, is he so far out of touch that he doesn't know what a manufacturing job is? Does he even know what flipping a burger is? The question popped up on Fark recently:
(Newmoonpuppyhead): I wonder if Bush even knows how to flip a burger. It must confound him. The shaping of the meat. The placing of the pattie on the grill. Never knowing when to turn it over. I can see him sweating. Bringing in Cheney and Rice for suggestions. Not listening to Powell when he says its done. Rumsfield telling him to keep cooking it. Of course it's manufacturing to him, a huge undertaking for the Bush administration
He'll promise anything just to get re-elected. Afterall, after this election, he won't have to worry about re-election. So expect to se more empty promises and more dreams that are just that - phantom, shadows, and spectres with no substance. But in the man's defense, he (or whoever is pulling his strings) at least has dreams - which is far more than Kerry's got.
And who will lead us into the light of this brand new day? In the 19th century, liberals thought that if they made everyone literate, people would read the great works like shakespeare and Homer. Civilization would be enlightened. Instead, they learned to read but used it not to increase their knowledge but to entertain themselves with tabloids and magazines (not to mention hate-filled pamplets). The end result was not what the liberals had expected but an increase in what they feared. They had been given the tools but used them for the wrong ends. The same will probably be true in the future. Sure, their will always be the enlightened (or even, dare I say, the illuminated) but for the most part people will still be people. As they said in the seventies, science gave them two options: a bomb or the keys to world peace. And people chose the former and discarded the latter. The enlightenment they dreamed of the 19th century, in the 20th century (look at 1950's scifi), and even now may eventually come but it is not inevitiable. The day may be waiting to dawn but I have to admit, I doubt the people will find their way to it on their own.
Studies have shown that the surface of Venus is basically a huge ceramic nearly indestructable (by earth standards) plate. They researched it by taking a sample of the material they believe makes up Venus's surface, exposing them to conditions like those found on the surface of Venus, and then testing what they got back. They foudn it to be one of the hardest forms of ceramic they ahve ever encountered. Not to easy to strip mine (or process) that stuff...
While fusion would be part of the solution, their will stilll remain vast problems when cheap oil runs out. For example: agriculture. Genetically engineered crops won't solve the problems of famine when we are already overusing our water supply and then run out of petroleum based fertilizer. If it was just transportation, we could all ride steam engines driven by coal. Instead the problem is far more troubling. No matter how you cut it, it appears that a famine of some level is almost inevitable.
Simply put: we are running towards a brick wall. It seems almost inevitable. Maybe that is why the government/powers-that-be seem so uninterested with solving the long term problems and are instead focusing on non-issues. Bush wants to press the gas pedal harder. Kerry thinks the solution is to change the spedometer so it looks like the car is going slower. Nader's in the back hysterical and screaming we're all gonna die.
"Since when did Real Soon Now translate to 10yrs+... ?"
When the last prediction stated that we would not see a working fusion reactor until 2050. In the late 1990's, when the first really good fusion reactor tests that we're producing more than what was being put in (less than a percent more), everyone was shitting their pants in excitement that we may have them in another fifty years of research. Well, now it appears we'll only have to wait till 2015. 10 years instead of 50 == real soon.
"have the time, energy, and patience to learn which of their 8 text editors is the best. To them, the whole idea is ridiculous, and they'll ask you, "why don't they just make one good one?"
It is ridiculous. Everyone knows the best of the text editors is vi.
Inida is also posed on the verge of a biblical level drought in 30 yrs. Every year it drains it aquifier and every year it gets less and less. It isn't refilling. The chance Inida had to avoid it it lost in the 90's. Now the only question is how bad will the famine be. Millions of starving ppl and millions of corpses don't a good economy make.
We aren't delusional about our economic influence. The US is not going to go down in flames nice and peacefully. We have a fing huge military and a whole lot of reaaly big bombs. If the US becomes unstable, just like any other country that becomes unstable, we will begin to use them. Unless your counting Iguana Bob stands, the world's economy is going to have a real tough time dealing with teh losses.
Not to wise to anger the holders of the world's greatest working supply of nuclear weapons.... Ceaser invaded Gaul to make money (in order to pay off his campaign debts form the consulship), we may have to do the same.
This is the kind oif thing that will backfire on the WTO. The wto says we need to allow online gambling so the decision becomes: saty a member and allow it or take a stand and leave the WTO. After the demonstrations against it in Seattle, etc, and the increased dislike of the orginzation - the WTO policy may blow up in its face.
We have all these nuclear weapons lying around with all these codes. Its a natural lottery with a payment plan already set up. I say we start gambling with them. Just think of the payoff for losing/winning...
The world did not respect the phrase "I am a roman citizen" becuase Rome played nice or becuase Rome was loved. Roem was respected becuase it had no problem using its legions. If your nice, peopel will listen to what you have to say and might do it. If you play to win, peopel will listen to what you have to say and do it becuase they are afraid of what will happen if they don't.
9/11 would not be stopped by making the world liek us. There will always be soemoen who hates us. Bin Laden would hate us no matter what we did. What stops 9/11s isn't making people liek you but watching your back and making peopel fear you. A roman citizen could walk anywhere in the empoire and all he needed for protection was the phrase "I am a roman citizen.". Why? Not becuase ppl loved or respected Rome but becuase Rome's vengenance was so absolute and so extreme that no one would dare harm its citizens for fear of Rome's reprisals.
Put simply, the rest of the world, liek the European Union and China each wants what is best for them. They want to ruel the world. But since they can't, they whine about how we do so; how we are not playing nice. If we were in thier shoes, we would do the same. Are they interested in playing fair? No, for if they were in our shoes, you can bet your money that those calls about fairness and nice woudl disappear right out the window. You paly to win or you play to lose. That is international politics.
As Machavelli noted, it is good to be liked but better to be feared. Plus their is the whole lasting fame thing. In the annuls of history, who do you think is rememebred more: Rome or Switzerland? The bottom line is this: the world is not the nice happy place that some people like to think it is. In the real world, nice guys do finish last. In an ideal world, we would all get along and play nice and we would all have world peace etc.. But this is the real world. In the real world, we are in competition against every single country and nation that has an interest contary to ours. The chinese have no interest in being fair if they can win. The european union will exercise as much control over world politics as it can in order to get what it wants. The countries of the world are not 'nice'. They are out to get what they want at almost any cost. Very few people see themselves as 'citizen's of the planet', rather they see themselves as citizens of thier respective countries and they want their countries to win. We are fools not to do the same. If we threw our guns and ammo away, would we be respected? yes. Would the chinese immediately invade and run down the nice respectable poeple under the threads of their tanks? Yes. The buddist monks are very respectable people and look what happend to Tibet. The world works in much the same way the romans realized it did back 2000 years ago: you can respect and admire an enemy but that cannot stop you from destroying them (or rendering them no longer a threat in the most effecient and long lasting way possible) becuase they are still your enemies, whether they say so or not.
Beyond that their is the whole matter of universal respect and admiration being impossible. You can please all the people some of the time and you can please some of the poeple all the time, but you cannot please all the people all the time. Even if world politics was a popularity contest, we still would probably lose. The moment you come out in favor of anything is the moment you come out against soemthing.
As to being right, every great country throughout history has equated right to what is good fro their country. The classsic example is Romes mindset. Take Turnus from the Aenied: he was wrong and hence bad becuase he resisted the future that was Rome. A country at the time was seen as bad becuase they resisted what the romans wanted. Every country is like that. We call it treason - acting against your countries best interests.
The end result is this: the world does not see itself as citizens of the world. It sees the world like a giant football game where we each have a team. It is a game with no rules but those which one side can impose on another. Now you can whine about how we shoud all play nice. or you can play to win. If you don't, you lose. Simple as that. The world whines about how we are not nice orr fair, we'll I got news for it 'losers always whine about winners, winners go home and f*** the prom queen.' Or better yet, remmeber what happened to the citizen's of the world in the Sand Pebbles. If we play by the rules and are nice, we will be crushed by those who don't. People will not play nice with us becuase they respect us, they will take advantage of us. People valu winning over being nice. It's something we need to learn. Christ played nice and look where it got him - a religion shaped more by a man that hijacked the image of Christ for his own agenda (namely Paul).
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I don't want a common or average man running the country. I want the smartest person we've got. Unfortunately, only the stupid seem to gravitate towards politics.
He didn't do to bad for a former peanut farmer. Personally, I think we need to go back to electing failed haberdashers. The failures always seem to make better presidents ehile the sucesses don't sem to grasp the reality that politics isn't like business. Same with generals - very fewer (with the exception of Ike) we're able to grasp the differences between poitics and the military (aka. you can't just order people to do something and then expect it to get done.)
Actually, the voter turnout is only about 50% of the eligible voters. They got something liek 125 million voters to turnout for the 2000 elections and it was considered a phenomenal turnout. So 53% works out to be about 55 million people or so depnding on how good the voter turnout is.
Probably. Bush probably doesn't even know what Broadband is. Probably thinks its a bigger band for his hat. It's like the manufacturing question. Is he just trying to spin bad numbers or, worse, is he so far out of touch that he doesn't know what a manufacturing job is? Does he even know what flipping a burger is? The question popped up on Fark recently:
(Newmoonpuppyhead): I wonder if Bush even knows how to flip a burger. It must confound him. The shaping of the meat. The placing of the pattie on the grill. Never knowing when to turn it over. I can see him sweating. Bringing in Cheney and Rice for suggestions. Not listening to Powell when he says its done. Rumsfield telling him to keep cooking it. Of course it's manufacturing to him, a huge undertaking for the Bush administration
He'll promise anything just to get re-elected. Afterall, after this election, he won't have to worry about re-election. So expect to se more empty promises and more dreams that are just that - phantom, shadows, and spectres with no substance. But in the man's defense, he (or whoever is pulling his strings) at least has dreams - which is far more than Kerry's got.
I am pleased to finally meet a member of the Bush administration. So you're the one pulling Bush's strings?
And who will lead us into the light of this brand new day? In the 19th century, liberals thought that if they made everyone literate, people would read the great works like shakespeare and Homer. Civilization would be enlightened. Instead, they learned to read but used it not to increase their knowledge but to entertain themselves with tabloids and magazines (not to mention hate-filled pamplets). The end result was not what the liberals had expected but an increase in what they feared. They had been given the tools but used them for the wrong ends. The same will probably be true in the future. Sure, their will always be the enlightened (or even, dare I say, the illuminated) but for the most part people will still be people. As they said in the seventies, science gave them two options: a bomb or the keys to world peace. And people chose the former and discarded the latter. The enlightenment they dreamed of the 19th century, in the 20th century (look at 1950's scifi), and even now may eventually come but it is not inevitiable. The day may be waiting to dawn but I have to admit, I doubt the people will find their way to it on their own.
Well, off to play more Deus Ex.
"Strip-mine Venus? Why not?"
Studies have shown that the surface of Venus is basically a huge ceramic nearly indestructable (by earth standards) plate. They researched it by taking a sample of the material they believe makes up Venus's surface, exposing them to conditions like those found on the surface of Venus, and then testing what they got back. They foudn it to be one of the hardest forms of ceramic they ahve ever encountered. Not to easy to strip mine (or process) that stuff...
While fusion would be part of the solution, their will stilll remain vast problems when cheap oil runs out. For example: agriculture. Genetically engineered crops won't solve the problems of famine when we are already overusing our water supply and then run out of petroleum based fertilizer. If it was just transportation, we could all ride steam engines driven by coal. Instead the problem is far more troubling. No matter how you cut it, it appears that a famine of some level is almost inevitable.
Simply put: we are running towards a brick wall. It seems almost inevitable. Maybe that is why the government/powers-that-be seem so uninterested with solving the long term problems and are instead focusing on non-issues. Bush wants to press the gas pedal harder. Kerry thinks the solution is to change the spedometer so it looks like the car is going slower. Nader's in the back hysterical and screaming we're all gonna die.
"Since when did Real Soon Now translate to 10yrs+ ... ?"
When the last prediction stated that we would not see a working fusion reactor until 2050. In the late 1990's, when the first really good fusion reactor tests that we're producing more than what was being put in (less than a percent more), everyone was shitting their pants in excitement that we may have them in another fifty years of research. Well, now it appears we'll only have to wait till 2015. 10 years instead of 50 == real soon.
You have to look at it as not what is the best choice but what do your really want. Me? I was able to decide. I choose not to read the article.
"have the time, energy, and patience to learn which of their 8 text editors is the best. To them, the whole idea is ridiculous, and they'll ask you, "why don't they just make one good one?"
It is ridiculous. Everyone knows the best of the text editors is vi.
But Switzerland has never prospered in the way Rome dide. And Rome lasted a 1000 years so switzerland is only at the half way mark.
2 hours of sleep and speeling gitz reelle bad...
So in a fight, after you hit an opponent, do you then let him hit you just to be nice and fair?
Inida is also posed on the verge of a biblical level drought in 30 yrs. Every year it drains it aquifier and every year it gets less and less. It isn't refilling. The chance Inida had to avoid it it lost in the 90's. Now the only question is how bad will the famine be. Millions of starving ppl and millions of corpses don't a good economy make.
We aren't delusional about our economic influence. The US is not going to go down in flames nice and peacefully. We have a fing huge military and a whole lot of reaaly big bombs. If the US becomes unstable, just like any other country that becomes unstable, we will begin to use them. Unless your counting Iguana Bob stands, the world's economy is going to have a real tough time dealing with teh losses.
Not to wise to anger the holders of the world's greatest working supply of nuclear weapons.... Ceaser invaded Gaul to make money (in order to pay off his campaign debts form the consulship), we may have to do the same.
This is the kind oif thing that will backfire on the WTO. The wto says we need to allow online gambling so the decision becomes: saty a member and allow it or take a stand and leave the WTO. After the demonstrations against it in Seattle, etc, and the increased dislike of the orginzation - the WTO policy may blow up in its face.
Better than playing nice and inviting them.
We have all these nuclear weapons lying around with all these codes. Its a natural lottery with a payment plan already set up. I say we start gambling with them. Just think of the payoff for losing/winning...
The vast majority of people are idiots. They need governments to tell them how to run their lives. If you don't believe me, watch an episode of Cops.
The world did not respect the phrase "I am a roman citizen" becuase Rome played nice or becuase Rome was loved. Roem was respected becuase it had no problem using its legions. If your nice, peopel will listen to what you have to say and might do it. If you play to win, peopel will listen to what you have to say and do it becuase they are afraid of what will happen if they don't.
9/11 would not be stopped by making the world liek us. There will always be soemoen who hates us. Bin Laden would hate us no matter what we did. What stops 9/11s isn't making people liek you but watching your back and making peopel fear you. A roman citizen could walk anywhere in the empoire and all he needed for protection was the phrase "I am a roman citizen.". Why? Not becuase ppl loved or respected Rome but becuase Rome's vengenance was so absolute and so extreme that no one would dare harm its citizens for fear of Rome's reprisals.
Put simply, the rest of the world, liek the European Union and China each wants what is best for them. They want to ruel the world. But since they can't, they whine about how we do so; how we are not playing nice. If we were in thier shoes, we would do the same. Are they interested in playing fair? No, for if they were in our shoes, you can bet your money that those calls about fairness and nice woudl disappear right out the window. You paly to win or you play to lose. That is international politics.
As Machavelli noted, it is good to be liked but better to be feared. Plus their is the whole lasting fame thing. In the annuls of history, who do you think is rememebred more: Rome or Switzerland? The bottom line is this: the world is not the nice happy place that some people like to think it is. In the real world, nice guys do finish last. In an ideal world, we would all get along and play nice and we would all have world peace etc.. But this is the real world. In the real world, we are in competition against every single country and nation that has an interest contary to ours. The chinese have no interest in being fair if they can win. The european union will exercise as much control over world politics as it can in order to get what it wants. The countries of the world are not 'nice'. They are out to get what they want at almost any cost. Very few people see themselves as 'citizen's of the planet', rather they see themselves as citizens of thier respective countries and they want their countries to win. We are fools not to do the same. If we threw our guns and ammo away, would we be respected? yes. Would the chinese immediately invade and run down the nice respectable poeple under the threads of their tanks? Yes. The buddist monks are very respectable people and look what happend to Tibet. The world works in much the same way the romans realized it did back 2000 years ago: you can respect and admire an enemy but that cannot stop you from destroying them (or rendering them no longer a threat in the most effecient and long lasting way possible) becuase they are still your enemies, whether they say so or not.
Beyond that their is the whole matter of universal respect and admiration being impossible. You can please all the people some of the time and you can please some of the poeple all the time, but you cannot please all the people all the time. Even if world politics was a popularity contest, we still would probably lose. The moment you come out in favor of anything is the moment you come out against soemthing.
As to being right, every great country throughout history has equated right to what is good fro their country. The classsic example is Romes mindset. Take Turnus from the Aenied: he was wrong and hence bad becuase he resisted the future that was Rome. A country at the time was seen as bad becuase they resisted what the romans wanted. Every country is like that. We call it treason - acting against your countries best interests.
The end result is this: the world does not see itself as citizens of the world. It sees the world like a giant football game where we each have a team. It is a game with no rules but those which one side can impose on another. Now you can whine about how we shoud all play nice. or you can play to win. If you don't, you lose. Simple as that. The world whines about how we are not nice orr fair, we'll I got news for it 'losers always whine about winners, winners go home and f*** the prom queen.' Or better yet, remmeber what happened to the citizen's of the world in the Sand Pebbles. If we play by the rules and are nice, we will be crushed by those who don't. People will not play nice with us becuase they respect us, they will take advantage of us. People valu winning over being nice. It's something we need to learn. Christ played nice and look where it got him - a religion shaped more by a man that hijacked the image of Christ for his own agenda (namely Paul).