Heck, even the football and basketball players I knew in college were in the softer degrees- you can't spend time in practice and be *also* spending 80 hours a week writing an OS for an upper level software engineering class, while taking higher math and physics classes at the same time. Not without flunking out anyway.
With this, I tend to agree. But I blame the current immigration system and the rules that directly cause such behavior:
Which is a good reason to shut down the borders until we can straighten those rules out into an easy to use expert system tied to a set of web pages and spies of our own.
a) Non-immigrant intention provision for visas: legal visitors have to prove they do not want to stay in this country, and intend to leave after their studies/research/business/work are complete. Unless they can show this, they will not get a visa to come here. This might sound reasonable, but what we are actually saying is: "get out, and take your diplomas, brains, business ideas, and research with you". This makes sense for tourists, but not for, say graduate students or PhD post-docs.
In fact, I'd say it needs to be exactly the opposite- they shouldn't be allowed across the border unless they are willing to denounce their former country and begin citizenship proceedings. We don't have enough college slots for AMERICAN CITIZENS who want to get PhDs and Master's degrees- why should we be training other the children of other ocuntries?
b) Disbalance between student/researcher visas and work visas. We have several million students coming in each year, but only 70k work visas for those (H1-B, a 'junior' green card). Interestingly, those 70k work permits are awarded not the the best and brightest, but to employers like Microsoft that basically hire under-educated code-monkeys at slave wages.
If they want an education, they should be getting it in their home country, and using their brains to create an economy at home.
So I guess you propose we stop the in-flow of the smart people completely, while I propose letting (or even compelling) those that come here, stay here. [compelling: they have to re-pay to US Govt any scholarships+interest+wages for next 12 years if they wish to work for our competitors]
More, I want to stop the in-flow for a short number of years until we can be assured that *every* person coming here will become a citizen and that *every* potential citizen gets a full background check *before* crossing the border.
I'm not quite sure what the constant is, mainly due to a lack of a mathematical model for beauty, but yes. Beauty and brains seem inversely porportional to me; it's an *extremely* rare individual who has both.
a university that requires students to do so much work they can't even shower once a day [30 mins, tops?] would produce nothing but extremely burnt-out students who can study hard. I don't know about where you live, but employers around my neck of the woods are looking for people skills just as much as they are programming skills. Perhaps you and I disagree on what a 'good' univeristy is?
Likely. That's a great way to get rotten programmers who take ages to finish a project, but it isn't what employers like EA Games and Microsoft are looking for.
Of course, that's also part of the reason why I gave up on private industry as well....
at the 'better' Universities [Oxford, Imperial, etc]
Another problem is that these aren't better universities, they're just older and more well known. A GOOD university in CS will *require* the student to work with a minimum amount of sleep and time for hygenic care.
Perhaps the UK is the opposite of the US then- both my college classes and *every* job in the last 11 years has the software engineers tending towards the morbidly obese and pale skin...except the Hindu replacements of course.
And I would rather they came here and solved OUR problems;-)
They're not here to solve our problems, they're here to learn what we know, and take it home to give their own culture a boost. In other words- they're spies in the economic war, and should be treated as such.
I like America in the position of the only Superpower. I like negotiating from a position of strength.
Better get a time machine then- our Superpower status is gravely in doubt. Heck, we can't even find one crazy old man in a cave.
I am not willing for this country to sit around and stagnate, and while away the time waiting for another Superpower to emerge and wipe us out.
Too late, that's basically all we've been doing for the last 16 years- giving all the research opportunities and manufacturing away to other countries.
That was precisely what France and even Britain did in the 1930s. This is what the United States tried to do around the same time (until we got sodomized by the Japanese and reversed policies, just in time).
Too bad the Japanese eventually beat us anyway.
I was hoping 9/11 would show that you just don't sit around and hope for the best. Instead you follow the Bush doctrine, and take the fight to the enemy, into his home, house, backyard. You then defeat the enemy, and make our 'friends' play by OUR rules.
The problem is that Bush didn't defeat the enemy- he instead invited them in and forced our citizens to play by THEIR rules. Defeating the enemy for 9/11 would have taken a nuke in Mecca- something he was unwilling to do. Defeating the economic enemy is harder- but Bush is as much of a traitor as Clinton was in the economic war.
What you are proposing instead is sticking our head in the sand, exposing our behind, and cracking open a bottle of anal lube in the hopes that the adversaries would like to be gentle.
No- what I'm suggesting is closing our borders, and nuking anybody who opposes us.
I long ago discovered that there is very little new in art coming from beautiful people. To get new art, the artist has to be going through some form of personal persecution or crisis. Beautiful people don't have that problem.
Boy, he really hasn't studied human beings enough, has he? First he expects smart people to be beautiful (or the converse) and now he expects large boobs to be pert?
That he's got his use cases mixed. Intelligent, creative people are far less likely to pay attention to personal appearance, where beautiful people are far less likely to pay attention to mental pursuits.
Let me understand this: you would rather have foreign scientists go to China and give them the next-gen nukes, cancer cure, AIDS vaccine, quantum computing, nanomechanics, neural interface, etc. etc. instead of coming to the US and working for our benefit here?
I'd rather they stay home and solve the problems of their OWN countries first. We wouldn't need an AIDS vaccine if we didn't let in so many people with AIDS.
You would rather foreign tourists injected their cash into Russia/Germany/France than give it to our economy? (and yes, tourism is free money: hosts really give up nothing of substance in return).
Cash is mythical, it doesn't really exist to begin with- and yes, until we can feed our own people I don't see any reason why we should be giving other people luxury that our people cannot afford.
Remember, either you are with us, or you are against us. There's just no way around it. Unless the rich and the smart work for us, they will work elsewhere and against us!
Near as I can tell, they already are anyway- The Waltons are Chinese, for instance, despite the fact that they live in Alabama. I don't see *anybody* working to keep America strong, just sap it for their own enrichment.
And what happens when say, China conquers/unifies the rest of the industrialized world... Pre-mongolian China and pre-Columbus AmerIndians have tried this 'closed borders' Buchananism, and looked how that turned out for them:)
Actually, if the Pre-Columbus AmerIndians had actually done so- correctly- by killing off Columbus and his crew, the Spanish would have written them off as a failed experiment and we wouldn't have had to worry about it. It was the wish for trade with the Europeans that killed off several branches of my family, an OPEN borders policy.
So what you're saying is that most choices can't be broken down simply to two different solutions?
No, what I'm saying is that we're really only presented with ONE solution for any given problem- vote in the guy who was bought and paid for by the corporations. It doesn't matter what party you vote for, the option is still the same.
Welcome to pretty much every democracy outside of the USA:)
If we had more than one solution, it would be welcome to DEMOCRACY.
People vote. If you don't like the way your representative is voting, don't like who is giving money to him, or don't like him being left handed, you can vote him out.
Only to be replaced with another guy from the opposite party accepting bribes from the same people; and STILL the ordinary citizen who can barely afford to pay his mortgage gets left out of the loop.
Like I said: Lot's of luck changing the world but I still think the doctrine of "premtive and overwhelming force" so beloved by the neo-cons is like pouring petrol onto smoldering ashes
And I think there's an obvious reason why that is. They've got the preemptive part right, but the neocons are *extremely* deficient in the overwhelming part. Based on some of the more conservative plans from generals who got fired for being conservative, we're short at least 7 million troops in Iraq and 3 million in Afghanistan- and we've left *NO* reserve for protecting the United States. The current "stay the course" tactic is not just pouring petrol onto smoldering ashes, it's also digging a trench from the fire straight to your tent first! That's part of the reason why I believe it's too late to do anything; they've screwed it up so badly already that it's going to be *really hard* to end the war anytime in the next thousand years.
You are wittnessing the death throws of medievil style theocracies as a governing force, the only way that kind of ideology will make a comeback is if the crash of civilization comes to fruition and even then it will be your christian neighbours forcing it on to you.
That kind of theology is already making a comeback, and the reason is obvious: The culture of death does not offer an evolutionarily sustainable lifestyle. The only question left is, can we morph democracy into an evolutionarily sustainable lifestyle? Or will we continue making the same mistake that gives theocracies their power?
Preachers say some terrible things, so does talkback radio and those evangelical TV shows. Hate speech is protected under the US constitution, ( provided your not the target, eh? )
It is protected- but that's not the point. The point is that to find your enemy's weaknesses, you need to listen to the people who are making their plans. Yes, Michael Savage says much the same sort of thing on his radio show- but I've yet to hear of a single *individual* taking him literally. Tens of millions of Islamics take these preachers seriously- and have attacked us in the past- and will do so in the future.
I think the word you are looking for is *secure*: *secure the borders* instead of *close the borders*.
Nope, that's for people who think that the business of the United States is serving the world- rather than serving our own citizens.
Closing the borders completely would be counterproductive and will greatly hurt the US by stopping tourists, workers (the legal kind), students, business peolpe and sscientists.
As far as I'm concerned, we're currently fighting two wars: One military, the other economic. Tourists, imported workers, foreign students, foriegn business people, and foriegn scientists are our enemy in the second. We have the natural resources to close off the rest of the world, and we should do so sooner rather than later. Time we stood on our own two feet instead of trusting that other people will be there to support us.
Corporations are still made up of individuals, of whom citizens still have a voice.
No they don't- because corporations are oligarchial dictatorships, not democracies.
If you can donate to a candidate because he wants to surrender to your friends in North Korea, why can't a CEO donate to someone who is going to keep his company from going out of business and putting a few thousand employees out of work.
Because what the CEO is really donating for is to someone who is going to give him that big lucrative contract that justifies his bonus that he steals from the workers and the stockholders. You forget- no C-level executive can be trusted, the whole system of corporate governance is so broken at this date and time that basically the C-level executives are just embezzling from everybody else.
Same old reason- say one thing in Podunk, Kansas; do something completely different in Washington DC, and hope that one doesn't find out about the other. Since most voters have actual lives- the majority will NEVER know the difference.
Because we're being invaded to the tune of 3 million innocents and 20,000 military a year (the military being rogue bribed Mexican operations in support of drug cartels). Also, there's the little fact that anybody willing to bring in meth would probably also bring in a al Qaeda bomb for the right price.
But in addition to all of that- unless you have something people want, they have no reason to become citizens. There's got to be something in it for our new citizens- and a border crackdown will create the job pressures South and North that they'll welcome parity of labor laws with open arms, instead of fighting to keep the status quo.
If that really is your view of the world today I feel sorry for you. There is not that much time left to enjoy the relatively peacefull world we have now (as compared to the last five decades I have wittnesed first hand). We have real potential for a cRash of civilizations due to "peak-oil" and the "sixth great extinction". The current skirmish in the ME is a just another proxy war between the five permenant members, it will get worse as oil, food and water resources dry up around the planet over the next 50 years or so.
If you haven't noticed, that so-called "skirmish in the Middle East" has had incidents in every country in Eurpoe, in India, in Japan, in China, in Canada, in Mexico, in Russia, in several African countries, and yes, at least 5 incidents I'm aware of in the United States in the past 15 years. I'd call that a World War, not just a skirmish in the Middle East. And yes, I agree- it will get worse before it gets better, which is damn good reason to STOP IT NOW whatever the cost.
Where? Small "doomsday" groups such as OBL's followers pop up in every war, OBL has pulled off some spectacular stunts but his CIA trained group are nothing new to politics or warfare.
They are one of 12 different sects that I'm aware of vying to create the great Islamic One World Caliphate- and OBL's group does have something new in THEOLOGY, if not in politics or warfare: The Sole Man Jihad.
AQ may have 10 even 100 million sympathisers but I assure you they are not all wearing bomb belts and they do not all want OBL in charge.
Heck, I'd be surprised if his group had even 50,000 followers world wide. But his is not the only sect of Islam that thinks this way.
However keep shooting up their villages and cities and they will happily assist ANYONE in their endevours to kill you. How popular is Hezbolla (sic?) since the Lebannon mis-adventure?
Very- they're polling to take over the Parliment after the next elections, if the BBC is to be believed. Several Samaritans in the region hope that they'll give them the in to get rid of Israel.
They no longer need anything from Iran, all of Lebannon now thinks they are fucking heros.
They didn't need anyting from Iran to begin with- that's a piece of American propaganda- they had their support from Syria.
That sentiment is your crime and is the reason people want to kill you. Like OBL you have every "right" to go off and change the world by preaching death and destruction, I hope to be around for a few more decades to see how it pans out for you.
If WWIII lasts another 5 years, it will be too late for even this tactic- and how it will pan out is your forcible conversion to Islam (or death- they always seem to allow that out).
OTOH: If you are trully interested in "understanding the enemy" I can recommend no better starting point than Robert Fisk.
He's one of my sources- but he fails in one important way- he's not Shi'a himself, or any of the other more dangerous sects of Islam. The real primary source for understanding this enemy is al Jeezera's website- and also some of the more outspoken preachers on http://www.memritv.com/. Why go second hand, when the terrorists themselves are so willing to tell you what they think (though it does help to be able to read Arabic).
Bull. There is no "real story" in a market - there's a good of a certain legally-assured quality for a known price. You decide if it's value to you is worth that price.
True free market capitalism cannot assure legally a level of quality- that is regulation and that is forbidden in the free market.
You can't "profit" by buying something. People buy something because, to the buyer at least, it's worth the opportunity cost.
If you buy something for less than it would take to make it yourself- and then resell it to somebody for equal what it would take to make it yourself- then that is profit. This is the business model of Wal*Mart, after all.
You assume that labor is the only input in food. In fact, in corporate, "bulk" farming labor is the lest expensive of inputs. "Bulk farming" works because it is more efficient for a few mechanized individuals to exploit a vast tract of land than for many to hand-work a small one.
In ORGANIC farming, true organic farming, labor is the majority of the input. I've been both a mechanized and an organic farmer, and I know the deifference.
"Efficient" is the key word here. More food is produced from fewer resources; society gets more and pays less. Very few reductions in cost come becasue a minimum wage laborer got the axe - long-term gains come from productivity increases. Technologies that make better use of land, that require fewer or no pesticides, that more effictively use soil are the source of the reduction in cost and the source of society's riches.
What do you think a "productivity increase" is if not a minimum wage laborer's job being eliminated? I see you've bought into the lies of economics.
If no farmer can survive on anything less, than the price would never get less. There would be no farmers around to sell at that price.
No, Wal-Mart just buys up the land, and instead of farmers, brings in illegal immigrants at $2/hr. Or better yet, just ships in the "organic" produce from Chile without bothering with actually certifying it organic. What kind of idiot are you anyway to not know how the world works?
If one particular farmer can't survive on anything less, he is squandering resources that could be turned into much more by someone else. This one particular farmer is damaging the environment and wasting resources unproductively because he is unable or unwilling to utilize his labor better. Society as a whole should not have to pay for one man's stubbornness, and with markets, they don't have to.
Yes, that's the entire meaning of the wrod ORGANIC. Thus the entire organic market should not exist according to your philosophy. It's better to raise produce and dairy in South America, India, Africa and China than here, because it's much more EFFICIENT to do so.
It is impossible for a small farmer to produce food profitably nowadays not because of a corporate conspiracy or anonymity-enabled indifference - it's because a small farm is one of the worst ways to produce food. Using the worst possible way in lieu of a better alternative wastes finite resources to the detriment of society.
That corporate conspiracy is called Capitalism, dear boy- don't lie and call it something else.
You point out that "your system of allocating resources" only works when the units are small. Then go set it up right now - if you don't have to drag the rest of society with you, this should be easy. And I'm sure you'll be infinitely more prosperous cloistered in your island state than you will as an underemployed software engineer, once you've rid yourself of the oppressive shackles of markets.
Hahaha- you think I'm a communist- rather than a DISTRIBUTIST. Name one island anywhere in the world that isn't owned by a totalitarian agrictulturalist culture. You can't- because as soon as such cultures find one, they assimilate it with guns and bombs.
No you can't. Salaries and money have value only in how much you can buy with them. Getting paid a billion dollars because you paid the rest of your community a billion dollars makes a nice, happy little circle - but all that matters is the productivity and efficiency of your tribe. If everybody has a billion dollars, but your farm production for the year resulted in a half acre of grain, you'll have a true understanding of where the value of money comes from.
I've lived on a farm. Money has no actual value- it's just another religious myth.
Ridiculous salaries are not wealth; they're a measure of wealth with ever-changing dimensions. The mere transfer of goods does nothing to create wealth - the production of goods does.
Very good- so tell me, what goods does a CEO produce to deserve a salary 400x the rest of the citizens? What goods does a stock broker or a banker produce? None that I can see. So therefore, those people don't deserve the salaries your capitalist system gives them.
Wrong. Human life has an intrinsic value which cannot and should never be measured through any economic means.
And yet capitalism does it repeatedly.
But your intrinsic worth as a human being has nothing to do with what is equitable. Capitalism conveniently lets a worker keep the bulk of his labor.
You must still be in college- no worker actually believes that lie. And since the rest of your message fails to prove this lie and is based on it, come back when you can PROVE that the worker keeps the bulk of his labor.
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Heck, even the football and basketball players I knew in college were in the softer degrees- you can't spend time in practice and be *also* spending 80 hours a week writing an OS for an upper level software engineering class, while taking higher math and physics classes at the same time. Not without flunking out anyway.
With this, I tend to agree. But I blame the current immigration system and the rules that directly cause such behavior:
Which is a good reason to shut down the borders until we can straighten those rules out into an easy to use expert system tied to a set of web pages and spies of our own.
a) Non-immigrant intention provision for visas: legal visitors have to prove they do not want to stay in this country, and intend to leave after their studies/research/business/work are complete. Unless they can show this, they will not get a visa to come here. This might sound reasonable, but what we are actually saying is: "get out, and take your diplomas, brains, business ideas, and research with you". This makes sense for tourists, but not for, say graduate students or PhD post-docs.
In fact, I'd say it needs to be exactly the opposite- they shouldn't be allowed across the border unless they are willing to denounce their former country and begin citizenship proceedings. We don't have enough college slots for AMERICAN CITIZENS who want to get PhDs and Master's degrees- why should we be training other the children of other ocuntries?
b) Disbalance between student/researcher visas and work visas. We have several million students coming in each year, but only 70k work visas for those (H1-B, a 'junior' green card). Interestingly, those 70k work permits are awarded not the the best and brightest, but to employers like Microsoft that basically hire under-educated code-monkeys at slave wages.
If they want an education, they should be getting it in their home country, and using their brains to create an economy at home.
So I guess you propose we stop the in-flow of the smart people completely, while I propose letting (or even compelling) those that come here, stay here. [compelling: they have to re-pay to US Govt any scholarships+interest+wages for next 12 years if they wish to work for our competitors]
More, I want to stop the in-flow for a short number of years until we can be assured that *every* person coming here will become a citizen and that *every* potential citizen gets a full background check *before* crossing the border.
I'm not quite sure what the constant is, mainly due to a lack of a mathematical model for beauty, but yes. Beauty and brains seem inversely porportional to me; it's an *extremely* rare individual who has both.
a university that requires students to do so much work they can't even shower once a day [30 mins, tops?] would produce nothing but extremely burnt-out students who can study hard. I don't know about where you live, but employers around my neck of the woods are looking for people skills just as much as they are programming skills. Perhaps you and I disagree on what a 'good' univeristy is?
Likely. That's a great way to get rotten programmers who take ages to finish a project, but it isn't what employers like EA Games and Microsoft are looking for.
Of course, that's also part of the reason why I gave up on private industry as well....
So...the only good artist is a tormented artist?
Yes. Solving the torment, solving the crisis, ends the art.
Too many of the sexy art chicks saw me as a shoulder to cry on, they are as fucked up as anyone else.
Then you are using a strange meaning of the word "sexy" that I have not previously been aware of.
at the 'better' Universities [Oxford, Imperial, etc]
Another problem is that these aren't better universities, they're just older and more well known. A GOOD university in CS will *require* the student to work with a minimum amount of sleep and time for hygenic care.
Intelligent, creative people *who are not completely vampirizing their sex drive*
Uh, isn't that the whole point? If you're intelligent, you spend time in *other pursuits* than sex.
Perhaps the UK is the opposite of the US then- both my college classes and *every* job in the last 11 years has the software engineers tending towards the morbidly obese and pale skin...except the Hindu replacements of course.
And I would rather they came here and solved OUR problems ;-)
They're not here to solve our problems, they're here to learn what we know, and take it home to give their own culture a boost. In other words- they're spies in the economic war, and should be treated as such.
I like America in the position of the only Superpower. I like negotiating from a position of strength.
Better get a time machine then- our Superpower status is gravely in doubt. Heck, we can't even find one crazy old man in a cave.
I am not willing for this country to sit around and stagnate, and while away the time waiting for another Superpower to emerge and wipe us out.
Too late, that's basically all we've been doing for the last 16 years- giving all the research opportunities and manufacturing away to other countries.
That was precisely what France and even Britain did in the 1930s. This is what the United States tried to do around the same time (until we got sodomized by the Japanese and reversed policies, just in time).
Too bad the Japanese eventually beat us anyway.
I was hoping 9/11 would show that you just don't sit around and hope for the best. Instead you follow the Bush doctrine, and take the fight to the enemy, into his home, house, backyard. You then defeat the enemy, and make our 'friends' play by OUR rules.
The problem is that Bush didn't defeat the enemy- he instead invited them in and forced our citizens to play by THEIR rules. Defeating the enemy for 9/11 would have taken a nuke in Mecca- something he was unwilling to do. Defeating the economic enemy is harder- but Bush is as much of a traitor as Clinton was in the economic war.
What you are proposing instead is sticking our head in the sand, exposing our behind, and cracking open a bottle of anal lube in the hopes that the adversaries would like to be gentle.
No- what I'm suggesting is closing our borders, and nuking anybody who opposes us.
I long ago discovered that there is very little new in art coming from beautiful people. To get new art, the artist has to be going through some form of personal persecution or crisis. Beautiful people don't have that problem.
Yeah, but where do the brains come in? Athletes are not exactly known for their creativity or intelligence.
Women: "... pert breasts" (and presumably larger/fuller too)
Boy, he really hasn't studied human beings enough, has he? First he expects smart people to be beautiful (or the converse) and now he expects large boobs to be pert?
That he's got his use cases mixed. Intelligent, creative people are far less likely to pay attention to personal appearance, where beautiful people are far less likely to pay attention to mental pursuits.
Let me understand this: you would rather have foreign scientists go to China and give them the next-gen nukes, cancer cure, AIDS vaccine, quantum computing, nanomechanics, neural interface, etc. etc. instead of coming to the US and working for our benefit here?
:)
I'd rather they stay home and solve the problems of their OWN countries first. We wouldn't need an AIDS vaccine if we didn't let in so many people with AIDS.
You would rather foreign tourists injected their cash into Russia/Germany/France than give it to our economy? (and yes, tourism is free money: hosts really give up nothing of substance in return).
Cash is mythical, it doesn't really exist to begin with- and yes, until we can feed our own people I don't see any reason why we should be giving other people luxury that our people cannot afford.
Remember, either you are with us, or you are against us. There's just no way around it. Unless the rich and the smart work for us, they will work elsewhere and against us!
Near as I can tell, they already are anyway- The Waltons are Chinese, for instance, despite the fact that they live in Alabama. I don't see *anybody* working to keep America strong, just sap it for their own enrichment.
And what happens when say, China conquers/unifies the rest of the industrialized world... Pre-mongolian China and pre-Columbus AmerIndians have tried this 'closed borders' Buchananism, and looked how that turned out for them
Actually, if the Pre-Columbus AmerIndians had actually done so- correctly- by killing off Columbus and his crew, the Spanish would have written them off as a failed experiment and we wouldn't have had to worry about it. It was the wish for trade with the Europeans that killed off several branches of my family, an OPEN borders policy.
So what you're saying is that most choices can't be broken down simply to two different solutions?
:)
No, what I'm saying is that we're really only presented with ONE solution for any given problem- vote in the guy who was bought and paid for by the corporations. It doesn't matter what party you vote for, the option is still the same.
Welcome to pretty much every democracy outside of the USA
If we had more than one solution, it would be welcome to DEMOCRACY.
People vote. If you don't like the way your representative is voting, don't like who is giving money to him, or don't like him being left handed, you can vote him out.
Only to be replaced with another guy from the opposite party accepting bribes from the same people; and STILL the ordinary citizen who can barely afford to pay his mortgage gets left out of the loop.
Like I said: Lot's of luck changing the world but I still think the doctrine of "premtive and overwhelming force" so beloved by the neo-cons is like pouring petrol onto smoldering ashes
And I think there's an obvious reason why that is. They've got the preemptive part right, but the neocons are *extremely* deficient in the overwhelming part. Based on some of the more conservative plans from generals who got fired for being conservative, we're short at least 7 million troops in Iraq and 3 million in Afghanistan- and we've left *NO* reserve for protecting the United States. The current "stay the course" tactic is not just pouring petrol onto smoldering ashes, it's also digging a trench from the fire straight to your tent first! That's part of the reason why I believe it's too late to do anything; they've screwed it up so badly already that it's going to be *really hard* to end the war anytime in the next thousand years.
You are wittnessing the death throws of medievil style theocracies as a governing force, the only way that kind of ideology will make a comeback is if the crash of civilization comes to fruition and even then it will be your christian neighbours forcing it on to you.
That kind of theology is already making a comeback, and the reason is obvious: The culture of death does not offer an evolutionarily sustainable lifestyle. The only question left is, can we morph democracy into an evolutionarily sustainable lifestyle? Or will we continue making the same mistake that gives theocracies their power?
Preachers say some terrible things, so does talkback radio and those evangelical TV shows. Hate speech is protected under the US constitution, ( provided your not the target, eh? )
It is protected- but that's not the point. The point is that to find your enemy's weaknesses, you need to listen to the people who are making their plans. Yes, Michael Savage says much the same sort of thing on his radio show- but I've yet to hear of a single *individual* taking him literally. Tens of millions of Islamics take these preachers seriously- and have attacked us in the past- and will do so in the future.
I think the word you are looking for is *secure*: *secure the borders* instead of *close the borders*.
Nope, that's for people who think that the business of the United States is serving the world- rather than serving our own citizens.
Closing the borders completely would be counterproductive and will greatly hurt the US by stopping tourists, workers (the legal kind), students, business peolpe and sscientists.
As far as I'm concerned, we're currently fighting two wars: One military, the other economic. Tourists, imported workers, foreign students, foriegn business people, and foriegn scientists are our enemy in the second. We have the natural resources to close off the rest of the world, and we should do so sooner rather than later. Time we stood on our own two feet instead of trusting that other people will be there to support us.
Corporations are still made up of individuals, of whom citizens still have a voice.
No they don't- because corporations are oligarchial dictatorships, not democracies.
If you can donate to a candidate because he wants to surrender to your friends in North Korea, why can't a CEO donate to someone who is going to keep his company from going out of business and putting a few thousand employees out of work.
Because what the CEO is really donating for is to someone who is going to give him that big lucrative contract that justifies his bonus that he steals from the workers and the stockholders. You forget- no C-level executive can be trusted, the whole system of corporate governance is so broken at this date and time that basically the C-level executives are just embezzling from everybody else.
Same old reason- say one thing in Podunk, Kansas; do something completely different in Washington DC, and hope that one doesn't find out about the other. Since most voters have actual lives- the majority will NEVER know the difference.
Because we're being invaded to the tune of 3 million innocents and 20,000 military a year (the military being rogue bribed Mexican operations in support of drug cartels). Also, there's the little fact that anybody willing to bring in meth would probably also bring in a al Qaeda bomb for the right price.
But in addition to all of that- unless you have something people want, they have no reason to become citizens. There's got to be something in it for our new citizens- and a border crackdown will create the job pressures South and North that they'll welcome parity of labor laws with open arms, instead of fighting to keep the status quo.
If that really is your view of the world today I feel sorry for you. There is not that much time left to enjoy the relatively peacefull world we have now (as compared to the last five decades I have wittnesed first hand). We have real potential for a cRash of civilizations due to "peak-oil" and the "sixth great extinction". The current skirmish in the ME is a just another proxy war between the five permenant members, it will get worse as oil, food and water resources dry up around the planet over the next 50 years or so.
If you haven't noticed, that so-called "skirmish in the Middle East" has had incidents in every country in Eurpoe, in India, in Japan, in China, in Canada, in Mexico, in Russia, in several African countries, and yes, at least 5 incidents I'm aware of in the United States in the past 15 years. I'd call that a World War, not just a skirmish in the Middle East. And yes, I agree- it will get worse before it gets better, which is damn good reason to STOP IT NOW whatever the cost.
Where? Small "doomsday" groups such as OBL's followers pop up in every war, OBL has pulled off some spectacular stunts but his CIA trained group are nothing new to politics or warfare.
They are one of 12 different sects that I'm aware of vying to create the great Islamic One World Caliphate- and OBL's group does have something new in THEOLOGY, if not in politics or warfare: The Sole Man Jihad.
AQ may have 10 even 100 million sympathisers but I assure you they are not all wearing bomb belts and they do not all want OBL in charge.
Heck, I'd be surprised if his group had even 50,000 followers world wide. But his is not the only sect of Islam that thinks this way.
However keep shooting up their villages and cities and they will happily assist ANYONE in their endevours to kill you. How popular is Hezbolla (sic?) since the Lebannon mis-adventure?
Very- they're polling to take over the Parliment after the next elections, if the BBC is to be believed. Several Samaritans in the region hope that they'll give them the in to get rid of Israel.
They no longer need anything from Iran, all of Lebannon now thinks they are fucking heros.
They didn't need anyting from Iran to begin with- that's a piece of American propaganda- they had their support from Syria.
That sentiment is your crime and is the reason people want to kill you. Like OBL you have every "right" to go off and change the world by preaching death and destruction, I hope to be around for a few more decades to see how it pans out for you.
If WWIII lasts another 5 years, it will be too late for even this tactic- and how it will pan out is your forcible conversion to Islam (or death- they always seem to allow that out).
OTOH: If you are trully interested in "understanding the enemy" I can recommend no better starting point than Robert Fisk.
He's one of my sources- but he fails in one important way- he's not Shi'a himself, or any of the other more dangerous sects of Islam. The real primary source for understanding this enemy is al Jeezera's website- and also some of the more outspoken preachers on http://www.memritv.com/. Why go second hand, when the terrorists themselves are so willing to tell you what they think (though it does help to be able to read Arabic).
Bull. There is no "real story" in a market - there's a good of a certain legally-assured quality for a known price. You decide if it's value to you is worth that price.
True free market capitalism cannot assure legally a level of quality- that is regulation and that is forbidden in the free market.
You can't "profit" by buying something. People buy something because, to the buyer at least, it's worth the opportunity cost.
If you buy something for less than it would take to make it yourself- and then resell it to somebody for equal what it would take to make it yourself- then that is profit. This is the business model of Wal*Mart, after all.
You assume that labor is the only input in food. In fact, in corporate, "bulk" farming labor is the lest expensive of inputs. "Bulk farming" works because it is more efficient for a few mechanized individuals to exploit a vast tract of land than for many to hand-work a small one.
In ORGANIC farming, true organic farming, labor is the majority of the input. I've been both a mechanized and an organic farmer, and I know the deifference.
"Efficient" is the key word here. More food is produced from fewer resources; society gets more and pays less. Very few reductions in cost come becasue a minimum wage laborer got the axe - long-term gains come from productivity increases. Technologies that make better use of land, that require fewer or no pesticides, that more effictively use soil are the source of the reduction in cost and the source of society's riches.
What do you think a "productivity increase" is if not a minimum wage laborer's job being eliminated? I see you've bought into the lies of economics.
If no farmer can survive on anything less, than the price would never get less. There would be no farmers around to sell at that price.
No, Wal-Mart just buys up the land, and instead of farmers, brings in illegal immigrants at $2/hr. Or better yet, just ships in the "organic" produce from Chile without bothering with actually certifying it organic. What kind of idiot are you anyway to not know how the world works?
If one particular farmer can't survive on anything less, he is squandering resources that could be turned into much more by someone else. This one particular farmer is damaging the environment and wasting resources unproductively because he is unable or unwilling to utilize his labor better. Society as a whole should not have to pay for one man's stubbornness, and with markets, they don't have to.
Yes, that's the entire meaning of the wrod ORGANIC. Thus the entire organic market should not exist according to your philosophy. It's better to raise produce and dairy in South America, India, Africa and China than here, because it's much more EFFICIENT to do so.
It is impossible for a small farmer to produce food profitably nowadays not because of a corporate conspiracy or anonymity-enabled indifference - it's because a small farm is one of the worst ways to produce food. Using the worst possible way in lieu of a better alternative wastes finite resources to the detriment of society.
That corporate conspiracy is called Capitalism, dear boy- don't lie and call it something else.
You point out that "your system of allocating resources" only works when the units are small. Then go set it up right now - if you don't have to drag the rest of society with you, this should be easy. And I'm sure you'll be infinitely more prosperous cloistered in your island state than you will as an underemployed software engineer, once you've rid yourself of the oppressive shackles of markets.
Hahaha- you think I'm a communist- rather than a DISTRIBUTIST. Name one island anywhere in the world that isn't owned by a totalitarian agrictulturalist culture. You can't- because as soon as such cultures find one, they assimilate it with guns and bombs.
No you can't. Salaries and money have value only in how much you can buy with them. Getting paid a billion dollars because you paid the rest of your community a billion dollars makes a nice, happy little circle - but all that matters is the productivity and efficiency of your tribe. If everybody has a billion dollars, but your farm production for the year resulted in a half acre of grain, you'll have a true understanding of where the value of money comes from.
I've lived on a farm. Money has no actual value- it's just another religious myth.
Ridiculous salaries are not wealth; they're a measure of wealth with ever-changing dimensions. The mere transfer of goods does nothing to create wealth - the production of goods does.
Very good- so tell me, what goods does a CEO produce to deserve a salary 400x the rest of the citizens? What goods does a stock broker or a banker produce? None that I can see. So therefore, those people don't deserve the salaries your capitalist system gives them.
Wrong. Human life has an intrinsic value which cannot and should never be measured through any economic means.
And yet capitalism does it repeatedly.
But your intrinsic worth as a human being has nothing to do with what is equitable. Capitalism conveniently lets a worker keep the bulk of his labor.
You must still be in college- no worker actually believes that lie. And since the rest of your message fails to prove this lie and is based on it, come back when you can PROVE that the worker keeps the bulk of his labor.