I don't think that's possible. ANYONE but Clinton is better than Bush. That doesn't mean we can't do better than McCain.
Clinton? I was thinking Palin. I think she really could end up being worse than Bush. Didn't she say Iraq was a task from God?
If I ruled the world, my agenda for the Obama presidency:
- Fix Bush's financial mess. - Re-establish our Constitutional rights (like, ban the PATRIOT act). - Pull us out of Iraq ASAP. - Go after Bin Laden where he really might be.
Fully agreed there.
Although I don't place the blame for the financial mess entirely with Bush. He's responsible for the out-of-control national debt, but the financial crisis is a bit more complicated than that (though probably not unrelated either).
Actually, we may have just elected the 3rd incarnation of the antichrist. (first 2 being Napoleon and Hitler) That is of course if Maitreya is not the antichrist.
It all depends on if we are the new Babylon or if Iraq is the new incarnation of Babylon. According to most conjecture on the timeline of this subject, we should know by fall of next year if Obama is the latest incarnation of the antichrist. Lets see if he ends up with control of the world.
Ooh, that's a good point! Don't those Rapture types believe that the antichrist will be a really charismatic peace maker?
Do these countries want what's in America's best interest, or do they put the interest of their own countries above the USA's?
According to some Dut6ch media, McCain would actually have been better for us, because he supports free trade much more than Obama does. And McCain apparently really liked Europe, whereas likes the US and then the entire world, with no special consideration for Europe that I've noticed.
And yet you'll have a hard time finding McCain supporters here. Even among conservatives. Everybody loves Obama.
Why? Well, personally, I think Obama will be better for the US and better for the rest of the world. What happens in the US affects everybody, and especially Europe, and what happens in the rest of the world also affects us.
Europe does fine, and doesn't need any special consideration at this time. Fix your own country, and stop fucking up the rest of the world, and we'll be perfectly happy with you.
Besides, there was a time when the US was a shining city on a hill (as I've heard so many people put it), that the rest of the world loves to see and aspire to. Well, that city has been in decline for decades, and has been thoroughly buried by George Bush, but we still love the idea, and wouldn't mind seeing it back again.
And now: one election, and there it is again! Well, it requires some work, but somehow it's a magical idea.
For some reason, a lot of people love to love America, and hate to have to hate it. And for those people, the world suddenly got a lot brighter.
in re: 1., yes you can: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogical_DNA_test#Biogeographical_ancestry. Of course, whether race means something apart from where you or your ancestors happened to come from, that is still open (*). But make no mistake, there absolutely is a technical concept of "biogeographical ancestry" which is very analogous to what is called race, and incorporating it into a model can increase the power and accuracy of clinical trials and disease screens. I would call this scientific.
But if you want too go that route, then Obama is definitely not of the same race as most Afro-Americans. As far as I know, the American slave population came mostly from western Africa, whereas Obama's dad is from Kenya. And I probably don't have to tell you that genetic diversity within Africa is much bigger than in the rest of the world put together.
So chances are the only "race"-related DNA sequences that Obama has in common with most other black Americans are the ones that passed through Europe.
Him being elected will not fix racism but it is a big step in the right direction.
What would really be a big step in the right direction, is if he turned out to be a brilliant president. If it turns out he's crap, the racists will be shouting: I told you so!
Personally I think the chance he'll be brilliant is bigger than the chance he'll be crap. He seems intelligent and thoughtful, keeps his cool and can think on his feet. And I've been told he really listens to people, which you'll have to admit is quite rare for a politician. I think he'll do quite well.
Well honestly what can you expect, when the last band of idiots was allowed to run up a 7 trillion dollar deficit? SOMEONE is going to have to pay that off.
With all the tax cuts he's proposing, I'm actually wondering how Obama is planning to do that. I don't disagree with his tax plans -- they seem very well thought out -- but the Bush Debt (I propose calling it that from now on) still needs to be paid off somehow.
(So far I've been (apparently) banned on RedState and been banned on FreeRepublic. You'd think they'd be more sensitive to Constitutional issues, especially among people historically voting libertarian.)
FreeRepublic? I wasn't aware of that site until yesterday, but from what I've seen there since then, I get the impression it's a bunch of dangerously ignorant loonies. Besides, they seem to be ultra-conservative rather than libertarian anyway.
My advice: find a real (and sane) libertarian forum.
Because if the rest of the world likes you, they might stop thinking up ways to blow you up. When you say please don't build any Nuclear missiles they might actually listen. Hell there's a chance that people won't take the whole 'giving people democracy thing' as such a bad joke if you actually came across as well meaning and decent. It's not just the Europeans you need to consider,
The Europeans are the least of your concerns. When the shit hits the fan, the EU and the US are in bed together no matter what idiots are in power in the various countries. What really matters is the US' relationship with the rest of the world. Large parts of the world see the US as a bunch of violent, evil, oppressive racists, and not without reason. The election of Barack Obama goes quite a long way towards shattering that world view. Following it up with some good and serious diplomacy rather than posturing with weapons, just might open some doors that had been thoroughly nailed shut from both sides.
I was hoping for a Bush win in 2004 for a simple reason: I wanted him to be president when the whole shit was stinking even up the noses of the big media. I wanted him to be president when it became clear to even the last and hardboiled conservative that President Bush was a failure. I wanted an actual reporting in the daily news how bad a president was in power.
You knowingly voted for a president that you knew was bad?
A person who lived through the collapse of the soviet union once pointed out that in America, the only relevant political parties are the Capitalist party and the Capitalist party. Democrats and Republicans disagree on a handful of very minor issues, despite all the media trumpeting about one being "left" and one being "right."
Putin seems to have learned that lesson too. While wanting to go back to the glory of the Soviet and Tsarist days, he also wants Russia to seem democratic. So he created two parties who are free to disagree on all sorts of minor issues, as long as they obey his doctrine in the big stuff. Real alternatives (like Kasparov's movement) get persecuted.
For extremely meaningless definitions of "marxist", perhaps. He is less marxist than many 20th century presidents, including Eisenhower and Teddy Roosevelt.
Boy, he did miss a lot of votes. I'm not going to check everything he voted on, though. He usually votes with the party, he very rarely votes with the Republicans against the Democrats, and for some earmarking issue I don't pretend to understand he voted against both parties.
From his voting pattern, he doesn't come across as a dangerous nutcase. Apart from his regular absence.
Bloody, hell, that;s the most informative site on political ideas I've seen in a while. It's definitely not vague about what the problems are and how he intends to solve them. The page on ethics in particular doesn't pull any punches.
His tax ideas nearly made me want to travel back in time and emigrate to the US just so I could vote for him. The world looks like a much brighter place now that I've read that site.
(I worry a bit about the euphoria I'm suddenly feeling. What the hell was in my breakfast?)
Not insane or clueless, just dont read neo-con trash mags like Drudge, Fox News, and the National Journal. You hardly prove your point by posting links to known ultra-conservative sites. You could have posted a link to Stormfront for all that matters to try to prove your point.
Is National Journal really that bad? I'd never heard of it, but looking around I found this glowing analysis of Obama that compares him to Roosevelt and Lincoln and explains why he has what it takes to be a brilliant president.
It's the way of things. And let's be honest here: things really just don't change all that much, and there's nothing this President and Congress can do that can't be undone by the next ones.
Really? Do you think the invasion of Iraq can be undone? I think Bush proved that governments can screw up quite a lot that can't be easily undone.
People can't walk on top of water without cheating.
How exactly do you plan to prove that? You can only prove that the bodies you've examined don't rise from the dead, or that most/normal people can't walk on water. This doesn't prove in any way that God doesn't exist. Only that the laws of physics seem to apply most of the time.
didn't you know the USPS recomends you not send cash through the mail
If Knuth is right, it's safer to send cash than a check.
It is. When you send cash through the mail, you know exactly how much money you're risking, and for small amounts like $2.56, it might well be the safest way that's economical.
NoNoNo... You're Thinking VH1 and all their (Insert stupid phrase) Of Love here shows.
I thought VH1 made all those "Top X craziest celebrity Ys" documentaries with a bunch of idiots commenting in what ways celebrities are even more stupid than they are.
That's quite a different standard than the US, I imagine.
Quite. US television and movies are full of "product placements," which are really just commercials I suppose. Was the idea behind bleeping out brand names on Dutch TV to avoid diluting the brand value of the names?
No, it was to prevent, well, product placement, I suppose. The idea was that companies might want to offer TV stations money if they mentioned their product in a positive way, and apparently we can't have that. Commercials need to be clearly labeled as such, or something.
Nowadays sponsoring of TV shows is pretty common on commercial TV, but it's still explicitly mentioned that it's sponsoring.
Slashdot Mirror
Would McCain have been worse than Bush?
I don't think that's possible. ANYONE but Clinton is better than Bush. That doesn't mean we can't do better than McCain.
Clinton? I was thinking Palin. I think she really could end up being worse than Bush. Didn't she say Iraq was a task from God?
If I ruled the world, my agenda for the Obama presidency:
- Fix Bush's financial mess.
- Re-establish our Constitutional rights (like, ban the PATRIOT act).
- Pull us out of Iraq ASAP.
- Go after Bin Laden where he really might be.
Fully agreed there.
Although I don't place the blame for the financial mess entirely with Bush. He's responsible for the out-of-control national debt, but the financial crisis is a bit more complicated than that (though probably not unrelated either).
Yes
Interesting idea, actually. (Although some Americans here claim the US is not a democracy but a republic, so would it even qualify?)
But does this idea make him so much worse than Bush? Sounds like international cooperation at least, instead of starting wars on his own.
Actually, we may have just elected the 3rd incarnation of the antichrist.
(first 2 being Napoleon and Hitler)
That is of course if Maitreya is not the antichrist.
It all depends on if we are the new Babylon or if Iraq is the new incarnation of Babylon. According to most conjecture on the timeline of this subject, we should know by fall of next year if Obama is the latest incarnation of the antichrist. Lets see if he ends up with control of the world.
Ooh, that's a good point! Don't those Rapture types believe that the antichrist will be a really charismatic peace maker?
Do these countries want what's in America's best interest, or do they put the interest of their own countries above the USA's?
According to some Dut6ch media, McCain would actually have been better for us, because he supports free trade much more than Obama does. And McCain apparently really liked Europe, whereas likes the US and then the entire world, with no special consideration for Europe that I've noticed.
And yet you'll have a hard time finding McCain supporters here. Even among conservatives. Everybody loves Obama.
Why? Well, personally, I think Obama will be better for the US and better for the rest of the world. What happens in the US affects everybody, and especially Europe, and what happens in the rest of the world also affects us.
Europe does fine, and doesn't need any special consideration at this time. Fix your own country, and stop fucking up the rest of the world, and we'll be perfectly happy with you.
Besides, there was a time when the US was a shining city on a hill (as I've heard so many people put it), that the rest of the world loves to see and aspire to. Well, that city has been in decline for decades, and has been thoroughly buried by George Bush, but we still love the idea, and wouldn't mind seeing it back again.
And now: one election, and there it is again! Well, it requires some work, but somehow it's a magical idea.
For some reason, a lot of people love to love America, and hate to have to hate it. And for those people, the world suddenly got a lot brighter.
John McCain should have won the election. He was defeated by the racist voting pattern of the African-American community. Look at the CNN statistics.
95% of African-Americans voted for Obama.
You mean 95% of African-Americans voted for a guy who's half white? That's terrible!
Daily Show
I was really disappointed by their election coverage.
in re: 1., yes you can: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogical_DNA_test#Biogeographical_ancestry. Of course, whether race means something apart from where you or your ancestors happened to come from, that is still open (*). But make no mistake, there absolutely is a technical concept of "biogeographical ancestry" which is very analogous to what is called race, and incorporating it into a model can increase the power and accuracy of clinical trials and disease screens. I would call this scientific.
But if you want too go that route, then Obama is definitely not of the same race as most Afro-Americans. As far as I know, the American slave population came mostly from western Africa, whereas Obama's dad is from Kenya. And I probably don't have to tell you that genetic diversity within Africa is much bigger than in the rest of the world put together.
So chances are the only "race"-related DNA sequences that Obama has in common with most other black Americans are the ones that passed through Europe.
Him being elected will not fix racism but it is a big step in the right direction.
What would really be a big step in the right direction, is if he turned out to be a brilliant president. If it turns out he's crap, the racists will be shouting: I told you so!
Personally I think the chance he'll be brilliant is bigger than the chance he'll be crap. He seems intelligent and thoughtful, keeps his cool and can think on his feet. And I've been told he really listens to people, which you'll have to admit is quite rare for a politician. I think he'll do quite well.
Well honestly what can you expect, when the last band of idiots was allowed to run up a 7 trillion dollar deficit? SOMEONE is going to have to pay that off.
With all the tax cuts he's proposing, I'm actually wondering how Obama is planning to do that. I don't disagree with his tax plans -- they seem very well thought out -- but the Bush Debt (I propose calling it that from now on) still needs to be paid off somehow.
We have the right to bare arms.
I don't think anyone is trying to infringe on your right to wear a short-sleeved shirt.
You'd be surprised at the dress codes at some companies.
(So far I've been (apparently) banned on RedState and been banned on FreeRepublic. You'd think they'd be more sensitive to Constitutional issues, especially among people historically voting libertarian.)
FreeRepublic? I wasn't aware of that site until yesterday, but from what I've seen there since then, I get the impression it's a bunch of dangerously ignorant loonies. Besides, they seem to be ultra-conservative rather than libertarian anyway.
My advice: find a real (and sane) libertarian forum.
Because if the rest of the world likes you, they might stop thinking up ways to blow you up. When you say please don't build any Nuclear missiles they might actually listen. Hell there's a chance that people won't take the whole 'giving people democracy thing' as such a bad joke if you actually came across as well meaning and decent. It's not just the Europeans you need to consider,
The Europeans are the least of your concerns. When the shit hits the fan, the EU and the US are in bed together no matter what idiots are in power in the various countries. What really matters is the US' relationship with the rest of the world. Large parts of the world see the US as a bunch of violent, evil, oppressive racists, and not without reason. The election of Barack Obama goes quite a long way towards shattering that world view. Following it up with some good and serious diplomacy rather than posturing with weapons, just might open some doors that had been thoroughly nailed shut from both sides.
I was hoping for a Bush win in 2004 for a simple reason: I wanted him to be president when the whole shit was stinking even up the noses of the big media. I wanted him to be president when it became clear to even the last and hardboiled conservative that President Bush was a failure. I wanted an actual reporting in the daily news how bad a president was in power.
You knowingly voted for a president that you knew was bad?
A person who lived through the collapse of the soviet union once pointed out that in America, the only relevant political parties are the Capitalist party and the Capitalist party. Democrats and Republicans disagree on a handful of very minor issues, despite all the media trumpeting about one being "left" and one being "right."
Putin seems to have learned that lesson too. While wanting to go back to the glory of the Soviet and Tsarist days, he also wants Russia to seem democratic. So he created two parties who are free to disagree on all sorts of minor issues, as long as they obey his doctrine in the big stuff. Real alternatives (like Kasparov's movement) get persecuted.
Obama is a leftist, bordering on marxist
For extremely meaningless definitions of "marxist", perhaps. He is less marxist than many 20th century presidents, including Eisenhower and Teddy Roosevelt.
Washington Post
Boy, he did miss a lot of votes. I'm not going to check everything he voted on, though. He usually votes with the party, he very rarely votes with the Republicans against the Democrats, and for some earmarking issue I don't pretend to understand he voted against both parties.
From his voting pattern, he doesn't come across as a dangerous nutcase. Apart from his regular absence.
Barack Obama's stance on just about everything.
Bloody, hell, that;s the most informative site on political ideas I've seen in a while. It's definitely not vague about what the problems are and how he intends to solve them. The page on ethics in particular doesn't pull any punches.
His tax ideas nearly made me want to travel back in time and emigrate to the US just so I could vote for him. The world looks like a much brighter place now that I've read that site.
(I worry a bit about the euphoria I'm suddenly feeling. What the hell was in my breakfast?)
Not insane or clueless, just dont read neo-con trash mags like Drudge, Fox News, and the National Journal. You hardly prove your point by posting links to known ultra-conservative sites. You could have posted a link to Stormfront for all that matters to try to prove your point.
Is National Journal really that bad? I'd never heard of it, but looking around I found this glowing analysis of Obama that compares him to Roosevelt and Lincoln and explains why he has what it takes to be a brilliant president.
It's the way of things. And let's be honest here: things really just don't change all that much, and there's nothing this President and Congress can do that can't be undone by the next ones.
Really? Do you think the invasion of Iraq can be undone? I think Bush proved that governments can screw up quite a lot that can't be easily undone.
1) Don't ever write "Erm..."
Why not? And how else can you signify being slow-witted?
Of course you can prove that god doesn't exist.
Dead bodies don't rise from the dead.
People can't walk on top of water without cheating.
How exactly do you plan to prove that? You can only prove that the bodies you've examined don't rise from the dead, or that most/normal people can't walk on water. This doesn't prove in any way that God doesn't exist. Only that the laws of physics seem to apply most of the time.
lol Truth. Those shows get me sick. Its like they're throwing it in my face that i'm poor... /end emo moment.
They're throwing in your face that you're poor and saner than anyone on TV. (Which could be pretty depressing too.)
If Knuth is right, it's safer to send cash than a check.
It is. When you send cash through the mail, you know exactly how much money you're risking, and for small amounts like $2.56, it might well be the safest way that's economical.
NoNoNo... You're Thinking VH1 and all their (Insert stupid phrase) Of Love here shows.
I thought VH1 made all those "Top X craziest celebrity Ys" documentaries with a bunch of idiots commenting in what ways celebrities are even more stupid than they are.
Quite. US television and movies are full of "product placements," which are really just commercials I suppose. Was the idea behind bleeping out brand names on Dutch TV to avoid diluting the brand value of the names?
No, it was to prevent, well, product placement, I suppose. The idea was that companies might want to offer TV stations money if they mentioned their product in a positive way, and apparently we can't have that. Commercials need to be clearly labeled as such, or something.
Nowadays sponsoring of TV shows is pretty common on commercial TV, but it's still explicitly mentioned that it's sponsoring.
Hate to tell you, but obama is not the great black hope. He is a white guy in a black man's body.
Seems to me he's a half white/half black guy in a light brown body.