Sorry I answered your post. I figured there was a 50/50 chance you were trolling but I gave you the benefit of the doubt.
I assure you there are lots of places in the world that are better places to live than the U.S., though obviously everybody has their own opinion in what they want in a place to live. I'm sorry I didn't stay in Canada. Coming back to the U.S. was a career thing and back then Clinton was still in power. I've been hoping 2000 was an aberration and Americans would come to their senses. Obviously they didn't and probably wont now.
All in all you are just showing the classic American conceit and arrogance about how much better America is than the rest of the world.
America being better than the rest of the world might have been true a while ago, it was obviously a big plus being protected by two oceans when the world was embroiled in world wars. But now peace and prosperity is breaking out in most of the world.
Unfortunately as is often the case when you put your fat ass to rest on your laurels the rest of the world caught up and passed you and you just haven't figured it out yet. Since 2000 and 9/11 American is getting bad at a high rate of speed.
You just need to look where all the top non American grad students are going to do their advanced degree work now. It ain't the U.S. anymore, its University of Toronto, Oxford and anyplace but the U.S. 1) thanks to the terrorism paranoia its really hard for highly educated, top flight, non muslim grad students to get Visa's. 2) if you are foreign born and considering the U.S. you have to allow for the risk you might be arbitrarily arrested and denied access to your family, lawyer or due process, forever. That is something you don't see in civilized countries, just police states.
I hate to break it to you but if you keep drying up the influx of the top flight, foreign educated talent on which the U.S. economy is massively dependent it will eventually tank your economy some more.
Oh, did I mention the U.S. primary and secondary education system is a disaster which is why the U.S. has to import so much foreign schooled talent.
Uh, you can renounce it unilaterally. Political refugees do it all the time. Unless the U.S. agrees you wont be able to return to the U.S. without risking arrest, and you need to be careful to stay in places they can't extradite you. I doubt many places will extradite you if you claim political refugee status and more countries are probably inclined to understand it based on recent events.
That does have kind of a cool sound to it, being a political refugee from America. If I get to the point I try renouncing the citizenship thats what I'm telling 'em just to see the look on their faces (of course I'll make sure I'm not in a U.S. embassy or in a place they can extradite me when I say it.
Not sure what the rules for dual citizenship are or if they managed to get a U.S. passport without being a U.S. citizen.
I assure you if they are U.S. citizens they are supposed to be filing a tax return with the IRS every year though they might not actually have to pay any taxes if they are under the foreign income exemption. If they aren't filing returns then they are gambling the IRS doesn't eventually notice, track them down and make them regret it, especially if they owe back taxes(if they were over the foreign income exemption).
As another poster said its actually hard to renounce U.S. citizenship because Uncle Sam wants to tax you cradle to grave.
Uh, I'm American I just lived in Canada for a long time. I have really seen both cultures for extended periods and they are very different in a lot of important ways. Maybe the part of my attitude you are pissed off at is due to my residual Americanism. Heh, I think I get you coming and going with that one:)
Its just my opinion but I'll take Canadian culture over my own any day, especially now that the U.S. is turning in to a right wing police state with a fondness for killing people for no particularly good reason.
I assure you if you live for long in a Canadian city that gets a lot of American tourist traffic you would know why I said all the things I did. Maybe all tourists are a little obnoxious but Americans have a pretty solid and well deserved cultural stereotype of being arrogant dicks when they travel. Before you start all the politicly correct ranting about me stereotyping people, I assure you that national educational systems, wealth, media, churches, politics does in fact result in cultural tendencies. Are the stereotypes universal, no, but they do hold more times than not.
As I said originally Canadians are probably going to treat you great if you are American, but if you act like an American, and expect them to bow to your greatness for it, I assure you they do hold it against you and will talk about it behind your back to other Canadians, me having been there long enough that I usually passed for one and they do dislike snotty Americans.
As long as you are still carrying a U.S. passport and a U.S. citizen yes you do have to file a tax return every year until you die. As some other poster said the U.S. has become pretty aggressive in trying to prevent rich people from renouncing their citizenship to dodge taxes. It was becoming trendy for rich American to get citizenship in Caribbean islands with next to no taxes, which you can pretty much buy if your rich enough, so they could duck U.S. taxes. Unfortunately when it comes to taxes the U.S. really does strive to own you cradle to grave. Sorry to say but if you acquire citizenship somewhere and want to renounce your citizenship and they wont let them well fuck 'em though you wont be able to return to the U.S. if that happens and need to be a little careful traveling anyplace where they might try to extradite you.
Like I said you don't have to actually pay taxes if you are making under the exemption of $70K or so. There are a couple different tax systems can you file under if you are living abroad but thats the one I did.
You mean it was legal for George Washington to serve four terms, or he did server four terms. As best I recall basic American history he refused the third term. I'm pretty sure he only served two terms and he died three years after the end of his second term.
George set the two term precedent everyone followed by example, until FDR after which the law came. If there is going to be a President that's gonna want a dynasty and to get rid of the limit its George W.
Of course the Bush royal family has Jeb in the queue though he is denying he will run in 2008 but not after that. And of course Arnold is being groomed for it if they can get the constitutional constraint on birthplace fixed. Would be kind of interesting for Arnold to get it, moderate that he is, he was raised be a Nazi police chief in Austria and there would be irony for an actual Nazi to be leading the New Republican party.
"Good lord. You can demonize conservatives as much as you want, but when Clinton won, nobody talked about civil war."
Actually they did. The right wing and the House spent eight solid years trying to overthrow him and damn near succeeded. Only difference they were using Ken Starr and like a hundred of millions of our tax dollars as the weapon instead of guns. If they'd just been a little luckier, or had the power they have in congress now, they would have impeached him and thrown him in jail. It was for all intents and purposes a semi constitutional coup attempt, versus the actual coup the right wing used to dispose of JFK.
Its easier to engage in a non violent civil war when you have power. Unfortunately at this point the left is real close to being completely powerless and following your guide probably will be in perpetuity.
"it is about reaching a compromise that maxmizes societal welfare."
Welcome to Naive 101. There isn't a compromise bone in the bodies of the New Republicans. They completely steamroller the Democrats in Congress every chance they get. The are routinely rewritting compromise legislation in Republican only conference committees and then forcing it through on an up or down vote.
I hate to break it to you but the liberals are in a fragmented shambles, are completely devoid of organization, they have no clue what they stand for and they have no stars that don't suck. Hillary is a star but if you ever actually listen to her on CSPAN she doesn't seem to know what she's talking about half the time. The right is already salivating over the prospect she will run in 2008 and what they will do to tear her apart.
By contrast to the liberals the right wing is a massively organized steamroller that knows exactly what they stand for and they dont waste anytime debating it or having second thoughts even when they are completely wrong. They've been out of power for a long period, they know it sucks and they are going to do what it takes to not be there again. The Dems are just now figuring out how bad it sucks to be powerless.
Their rights one and only goal is to finish wiping the left off the map and they will do whatever they have to, to achieve that end. Next up to be steamrollered, a couple appointments to the Supreme Court, and then get 60 seats in the Senate in 2006 and then America is going to be in a dark right wing hole its unlikely to every come out of.
The Right wing, who now rule America, also don't give a rats ass about "maximizing societal welfare". They are about maximizing their wealth and power and they'll tell that to your face except when they are trying to sucker the middle class out of their votes using wedge morality issues and fear.
I'm American and lived in Canada about half my adult life and am one of the disgruntled geeks getting ready to leave again. I loved Canada. I'm sorry I didn't stay there and get on a citizenship track. I'll probably go someplace even cheaper and warmer this time and try to retire early.
The people in Canada are consistently a lot easier to live with than Americans. They aren't nearly as arrogant, stuck on themselves, and aren't socialized to think its their prerogative to shit on the rest of the world. Canadians can spot Americans a mile away since they are routinely assholes when they visit Canada. Canadians, at least all the ones I know, are consistently nice level headed people, hard workers, great partiers, its no accident they churn out great comedians, and THEY HAVE GREAT BEER. American beer sucks by comaprison. They have pretty strong socialist leanings but there are right wingers there just like here, they just aren't rabid like the American right wing.
If you are going to be an expat you need to be ready to deal with the immigration system which is the biggest hassle. It depends on where you are going but you usually need a job waiting, with a visa, though many countries like Costa Rica have pensionero visas where you just have to have a clean record and a proven investment income. Its designed to draw wealthy gringos who are looking for a cheap place to retire and spend their money. I think its a couple thousand dollars a year in interest, social security or investment income so its pretty easy to do. It is only a visa though.
The big challenge to being an expat is if you are really going to do it you have to ditch your U.S. passport and citizenship and get citizenship where you are going. It takes a lot of time and work to get citizenship most places and you need to make sure you pick a country where you are going to be happy, fit in for the duration, and a place that isn't like to explode in a revolution for example. Americans are too fat dumb and happy to revolt but there are places where radical changes do happen, often with the help of the CIA.
If you dont renounce your citizenship you get to file income tax returns with Uncle Sam in perpetuity and that means you are still supporting the mad dogs that now rule Washington. If you make more than than the exemption limit on foreign income you get double taxed, where you live and by Uncle Sam. I think the annual exemption was around $70K but I dont know what it is now. I'd heard the Republicans were moving it and maybe even lowering it to tax expats more though I don't recall what actually happened.
All in all carrying a U.S. passport and flaunting your American'ness has always been a bit of a negative around the world, people tend to envy you some and resent you some more. After the last 4 years I imagine flaunting American, and especially bragging about, in most of the world is going to invite nothing but negativity and grief. Canadains treat most Americans reasonably well because they are generally nice people but they aren't likely to really accept you and frequently will do their best screw you given the chance, just because you live in a country that tries to screw the rest of the world at every opportunity in every way.
Dream on. Now he has a mandate, now he gets to appoint some supreme court justices. Now he doesn't have to worry about getting reelected, unless he decides to do an FDR and stay in office for ever due to the "national emergency" and "these troubled times".
Bush isn't going to take a single step to heal any wounds, other than spout a bunch of empty rhetoric about healing the nation, being a uniter not a divider, oh and by the way "its our way or the highway" and "you are either with us or you are against us".
Why should he heal wounds, he didn't heal any wounds last term, in fact he poured salt in them. In his first term he'd lost the popular vote and maybe the election. Now that he thinks he has a mandate he is going to be insufferable.
You are gonna see the Republicans continue to completely shut the Democrats out of the legislative process and the Senate fillibuster is going to be the only way to stop them from enacting an agenda even more extreme than the last four years. I assure you the Republicans are going to attempt to change the way the Senate works to do away with or circumvent the fillibuster, or they will pull out all stops to finally reach 60 seats in the Senate in 2006. They are already half way there. When they are and they have stacked the Supreme Court there will be no checks and balances left in our government as long as they keep pandering to their evangelical base(ban abortion, ban homosexuality, put prayer in public schools).
Say hello to a permanent Patriot Act, and probably one that ends up extended not reformed.
Say hello to an all powerful unified national intelligence agency which will merge the the spying arms of the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, etc. and give it a blank check to spy on Americans. Also put it under a single partisan political hack like Porter Goss. You wont be able to tell it apart from the the good old KGB by the time they are done. They are trying to piggyback National ID cards on the same bill. Get used to showing your ID card or having RFID scanners automaticly scan it anytime you are in public.
Say hello to privatized Social Security, which might actually be a good idea excepting for the two trillion dollar hole its going to blow in the Federal budget, and the windfall profits it will bring to Wall Street who can now gamble on bubbles with all that retirement money, with the great potential it will a lot of it will end up in their pockets and not in your retirement.
Say hello to more tax cuts on capital gains, dividends, estates, corporations and the wealthy and more soaring deficits. Meanwhile your payroll taxes will probably go up, and the payroll tax surplus will go defray the tax cuts for the rich. The tax burden will continue to shift on to the middle class, the rich will get richer...you know the rest.
You just have to look at the stock market today to see who really won the election:
Halliburton up Lockheed and Boeing up Drug companies up Energy companies up Diebold up Goggle up (Ok tech stocks being up are just an indicator the bulls are back in town and are yearning for a new bubble to cash in on and then pop once all the yokels are suckered back in, especially when they have all their privatized Social Security money ready to gamble).
Again the polsters are supposed to be tracking the essentials for the refuseniks especially age, race and gender and its supposed to be used to correct the results if there is a trend among refusers.
The plan is to renounce it though it takes a lot of work and time to get new citizenship. If you don't renounce it you have to keep paying taxes to the U.S. government once you pass the exemption limit on foreign income. If you pay taxes that means you are supporting and endorsing the insanity the current American government is perpetrating in your name and will apparently be perpetrating for a really long time.
The other obvious advantage to ditching the U.S. passport is Americans are now so increasingly and universally despised in the rest of the world that packing a U.S. passport is just asking for trouble and not any kind of plus anymore.
I'd think you would be kind of sad that your citizenship makes you hated by most of the world now. It wasn't that way just a few years ago before you know who came to town and Americans had the collective frontal lobotomy.
"and shouldn't we condsider impeaching a president who contradicts intelligence about alluminum pipes in order to justify an unjustifialble war- blatantly lieing to congress and the American people?"
Uh, the people can't impeach a President. All the people can do is vote him out or overthrow him. They didn't do the former and the later is unlikely.
The House has to impeach and the Senate has to approve. In case you haven't noticed the Republicans have a stranglehold on both houses of Congress which is why there haven't been any "gates" like Watergate in this administration though numerous candidates exists. This is also why all the investigations in to the wrongdoing end up being white washes and slaps on the wrist. The Republicans can quite literally get away with murder and torture now and it will just be more so once they finally get to stack the Supreme Court this term. Next on their list after that is to do whatever it takes to get to 60 seats in the senate in 2006. At that point they can DO ANYTHING THEY WANT as long as they keep their evangelical base happy with them (which they can just by banning abortion, homosexuality and instituting prayer in public schools).
Fact is the evangelicals and the extreme right wing are unified, organized, funded and willing to be ruthless. Liberals are in a disorganized, fragmented, shambles mostly thanks to the fact they have to hang their hats on the bankrupt Democrats who are now in complete collapse.
For engaging in torture in Abu Graib so far only enlisted soldiers have been convicted, officers and the civilian leadership came out unscathed. That is the military code, you don't try loyal officers who keep their mouths shut, the officers stay loyal to the civilians leadership and they cover each other's asses. Its OK to hang the enlisted scapegoats out to dry.
"For that matter, a fair number of people belonging to The President's Church will probably find their freedoms a thing of the past as well."
This isn't really plausible. All evangelicals are a big, unified voting block. They have a commonality of views that cross their denominational lines. If you splintered it, which is what you are talking about you would screw up their power base.
I doubt you will find anybody in the evangelical block or the politicians they elected caring about denominational quibling. As long as its white, protestant, bible thumping, anti abortion, anti gays, anti drugs, anti sex, anti rock and roll, pro war, pro wealth, and pro America dominating the world this group is going to back it and hang together.
The only people its going to discriminate against are the non religious and non Christian. I imagine Catholics will fair OK though maybe not as well as Protestants.
These things should be coming as as soon as the Supreme court and the rest of the courts are stacked in the republicans favor:
- abortion will be outlawed in all forms - the prohibition on prayer in schools will be lifted and it will become mandatory again in the conservative states - gay marriage will be banned, then any legal recognition of civil unions. Conservative states will outlaw sodomy again and which is basically outlawing homosexuality and shove it back in to the closet - three strike laws and the war on drugs will reign and the prison population will continue to swell to the point the U.S. locks up more people per capita than the most repressive dictatorships. Of course thats already happened.
School prayer is the sweeping social change. If you and your children don't subscribe to the Christian faith, your children are going to suffer. Either your children play along and eventually turn Christian or they face isolation and ridicule. It wouldn't be particularly suprising if it extends in to the workplace and business with evangelicals getting unspoken preference in hiring and evangelical businessmen get preference in contracts and business.
It is interesting that in the Oklahoma senate race the Republican candidate was branded as to conservative for Oklahoma and was at risk. For example he'd been suggesting lesbians were taking over the schools and that girls shouldn't be allowed in the restrooms together. He won comfortably indicating its impossible to be to conservative for bible thumping Oklahoma.
As an aside it is interesting to note who is up on the stock market this morning which is a true indicator of who won the election and who will be cashing in for four more years:
Halliburton Lockheed and Boeing Drug companies Diebold (up 2%) Tech stocks are up though I'm not sure they are the biggest benefactors of Republican pork. Google topped $200 which maybe just suspects the bulls want to go on a little rampage not that the rich will keep getting richer and everyone else will keep getting poorer.
If they are doing the polls according to Hoyle they should have refuser data on whether more men were refusing the poll than women. They really are supposed to be taking every nth voter, recording data on refusals and taking the next voter. There shouldn't be a gender bias unless there is an actual gender bias in the voters or there is a gender bias in the refusers. Unfortunately I didn't see the refuser data at first blush.
The one obvious thing you notice in this data is Kerry apparently lost a big chunk of women voters compared to Gore and probably explains the difference in the popular vote. Apparently the politics of fear worked on them, or maybe Kerry just sucked worse than Gore.
Tomorrow it will be interesting to go through the state numbers to see where they differ from the poll results and maybe correlate to evoting states and see if there is a chance some of the swing states were stolen.
All in all it appears likely Bush did win the popular vote and as much as I'd wish the win was due to rigging it appears there is a good chance that it just indicates the majority of Americans actually like Bush and by my standards that suggests they are not good people. Its also apparent that evangelicals now completely dominate America government and that is really not good unless you are one.
I'd already thought of the probability that if the software is rigged they would be checking for someone jumping the date around and posted it a few minutes before you did.
Thats why I switched to wishing I could dissassemble some of the software loads off of machines in precincts that are out of whack with the exit polls, before someone has a chance to replace them.
I, of course, agree that it would be better to not have paperless voting machines at all but that doesn't solve the fact that this election is fishy and, with a few more years of the new Republican party dominating America I think we can stop worrying about fairs election or anybody but right wing extremists and evangelicals dominating the U.S. and the world from now on. Been waiting for this outcome and it looks like its finally time to emigrate and hope I can find a pleasant little corner of the world that America and the bible thumpers will overlook and not fuck up.
"None the less, I am still very impressed with what he has had to say."
I agree. I imagine you are talking about the one he gave a few weeks ago in particular. I stumbled across it live on CSPAN and I just dropped everything and listened to it, fascinated, which is a pretty rare response for me to a politician speaking. It was clear, powerful and hitting one Bush nail on the head after another. If he'd been running I would have actually liked voting for him with that rhetoric and I generally can't stand the guy.
"Still I do wonder how he would have fared against Bush."
At this point it appears he couldn't have done much worse than Kerry:) Kerry was running against the one of the most incompetent and untruthful Presidents in American history and Kerry still managed to come out on the losing end.
If you ready the MystertPollster link I've posted multiple times in this thread, the precincts that are polled are supposed to be randomly sampled from all the precincts in each state.
I assure you it would be insane to poll only urban precincts. You would be completely wasting your time and the data would be completely worthless. Any remotely clueful in pollster would know that.
I am truly impressed with the fact the number of/. who have posted on this thread trying to explain away and rationalize this glaring discrepancy. You would figure with the number of scientist, engineers, etc on here the reaction would be to solve a mystery instead of making lame attempts to explain it away.
I know the prospect that American elections are being rigged is unpleasant, and it more than likely they aren't, but I assure you elections are rigged all the time around the world, the CIA are experts at it and there is no reason why America is immune. The only way to prevent it is to be real prigs about trying to catch it.
Now that we have electronic voting with no paper trail it has suddenly become a lot easier to do and not get get caught. This election was the easiest one to rig in America's history and it has some key indicators that it may have been. Of course then too maybe all the bible thumpers came out to vote and at this point unless you are evangelical its probably a good time to get out of America. I was waiting to see how this came out but it is about time to emmigrate.
I sure would like to disassemble the code in some of the evoting machins in some precincts where they disagree with the exit polls, unfortunately you have to do it before someone has a chance to change the software loads on them and it ain't gonna happen.
Maybe you could catch if they are rigged by testing them, if you could test them before they are changed, and you get the test setup just right. I'm afraid a smart programmer has rigged them to only flip a couple percent to the Republicans on election day and they are probably disabling the rigging if they detect someone jumping the date around. At least thats what I'd do.
If you read the post I've put elsewhere in the thread, the exit pollers are supposed to record a basic description of refusers. If they are consistently getting refusals from women or old people it should show up in the refuser data.
"Republicans of all ages are less likely to chat about how they voted & why"
I think you are making up a bunch of crap excuses and don't have a clue if what you are saying has any basis in fact.
When everyone is trying to explain away a discrepancy that wasn't there before 2000 it is a cause for more suspicion not less.
"then it would definitely be enough to throw off exit polls by at least a percent or two and maybe more."
Exit polls have in fact been about the most accurate polls there are up until the Republicans started seizing power and they started going south in 2000. Yes they have a margin of error but its not like they just went completely to hell in the just the last 4 years. If any of your B.S. excuses were valid, they should have always been there, they wouldn't have just started this year.
Many of the exit polls were off by way more than a percent or two at least in early in the day. Apparently the Bush camp was crushed early in the day and the Kerry camp was dancing in the streets. Again why did all your little excuses just kick in lately.
Not sure you followed it but I was replying to, quoting and making light of an AC who was proposing the armed rebellion. That one was modded to zero and beloved Slashdot puts those out of sequence so you might have missed it. I think he was entirely serious but unlikely to actually do it.
Read this. It does explain the methodlogy they are supposed to use though obviously they can't force the pollers to actually do it. Are you sure you were watching a real exit poller or just a creative guy who figured out an innovative way to meet "cute girls".
They certainly aren't suppose to gender bias because it would stick out like a sore thumb in the statistics. They are supposed to pick every 10th or 20th voter, and record evenly spaced results throughout the day. When they get a refusal they are supposed to record the basic characteristics of the refuser so it can be accounted for, and pick the next voter.
They really should be substantially more accurate than the pre election polls because they are actually sampling real voters and not trying to guess likely voters. Needless to say you can't do anything if voters just lie though I'd be inclined to think statisticly you would get an equal number of voters lieing that they voted for Bush and Kerry.
"Wow, there's a sterotype that's way out of line with reality."
It was a joke. Get a sense of humor.
It is kind of a well known trend, Democrats & liberals favor gun control, Republicans & conservatives don't. That is one of the ways we define them in our polarized little world. It kind of follows if you favor gun control you are less likely to have them. I have a small arsenal around here though they are pretty pathetic by rebellion standards, mostly.308 old breech loading hunting rifles. No magazine in sight. I'm glad for you that you are an exception but I doubt you indicate a trend.
I assure you if liberals/minorites got pissed enough about todays election to start an armed revolt the conservatives would be glad to side with and help out the authorities. Not like there is a snow balls chance in hell anybody is going to doing anything about another sham election except parade through the court system until the Supreme Court throws it to the Republicans again. This term the Republicans will get to appoint one or two justices insuring they will always win overwhelming victories in the courts from now on so the Democrats will have to give up even trying that route after this.
"The exit polls were never all that good numerically."
Yea sure, like I'm gonna believe your anonymous coward BS. Do you have something to support your claim? Here is a pretty good write up with all the methodology and downside to them but it says:
"I have always been a fan of exit polls. Despite the occasional controversies, exit polls remain among the most sophisticated and reliable political surveys available. They will offer an unparalleled look at today's voters in a way that would be impossible without quality survey data. Having said that, they are still just random sample surveys, possessing the usual limitations plus some that are unique to exit polling (I also remain dubious about weighting telephone surveys to match them, but that is another story for another day)."
They have a margin of error like most polls but it sure is odd that margin of error was apparently uniformly in Kerry's favor. You would expect the margin of error would randomly favor Bush in some states and Kerry in others.
"I prefer and honest count without the hoopla."
Now I know you are full of B.S. Where did you develop this certainty the vote counts are always honest or accurate.
Like I said exit polls are the only check we have against potential election rigging. If they disagree wildly with the election results I'm not sayin it means the election was rigged but it suggest it is a possibility
There was a lady on Fox tonight is one of their election specialist. I wish I'd caught her name. She was rabid that if your getting really bad exit polls they are probably right and you have a problem. She apparently has massive experience over many elections. For some reason tonight the exit polls were wildly wrong.
" If ever there was an excuse for armed rebellion against the state, this is it."
I hate to break it to you but the conservatives have more guns and they use them a lot more than liberals and geeks. They kill a lot of animals with them in particular. Why exactly do you think the right wing is so keen on protecting gun ownership. Hint, its not to keep the government in line, its so they can smack down the liberals and minorities if they ever get out of line.
The only thing trending in favor of geeks is they may have superior skills in first person shooters and flight simulators but I'm not sure those skills translate in to meat space.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry I answered your post. I figured there was a 50/50 chance you were trolling but I gave you the benefit of the doubt.
I assure you there are lots of places in the world that are better places to live than the U.S., though obviously everybody has their own opinion in what they want in a place to live. I'm sorry I didn't stay in Canada. Coming back to the U.S. was a career thing and back then Clinton was still in power. I've been hoping 2000 was an aberration and Americans would come to their senses. Obviously they didn't and probably wont now.
All in all you are just showing the classic American conceit and arrogance about how much better America is than the rest of the world.
America being better than the rest of the world might have been true a while ago, it was obviously a big plus being protected by two oceans when the world was embroiled in world wars. But now peace and prosperity is breaking out in most of the world.
Unfortunately as is often the case when you put your fat ass to rest on your laurels the rest of the world caught up and passed you and you just haven't figured it out yet. Since 2000 and 9/11 American is getting bad at a high rate of speed.
You just need to look where all the top non American grad students are going to do their advanced degree work now. It ain't the U.S. anymore, its University of Toronto, Oxford and anyplace but the U.S. 1) thanks to the terrorism paranoia its really hard for highly educated, top flight, non muslim grad students to get Visa's. 2) if you are foreign born and considering the U.S. you have to allow for the risk you might be arbitrarily arrested and denied access to your family, lawyer or due process, forever. That is something you don't see in civilized countries, just police states.
I hate to break it to you but if you keep drying up the influx of the top flight, foreign educated talent on which the U.S. economy is massively dependent it will eventually tank your economy some more.
Oh, did I mention the U.S. primary and secondary education system is a disaster which is why the U.S. has to import so much foreign schooled talent.
Uh, you can renounce it unilaterally. Political refugees do it all the time. Unless the U.S. agrees you wont be able to return to the U.S. without risking arrest, and you need to be careful to stay in places they can't extradite you. I doubt many places will extradite you if you claim political refugee status and more countries are probably inclined to understand it based on recent events.
That does have kind of a cool sound to it, being a political refugee from America. If I get to the point I try renouncing the citizenship thats what I'm telling 'em just to see the look on their faces (of course I'll make sure I'm not in a U.S. embassy or in a place they can extradite me when I say it.
Not sure what the rules for dual citizenship are or if they managed to get a U.S. passport without being a U.S. citizen.
I assure you if they are U.S. citizens they are supposed to be filing a tax return with the IRS every year though they might not actually have to pay any taxes if they are under the foreign income exemption. If they aren't filing returns then they are gambling the IRS doesn't eventually notice, track them down and make them regret it, especially if they owe back taxes(if they were over the foreign income exemption).
As another poster said its actually hard to renounce U.S. citizenship because Uncle Sam wants to tax you cradle to grave.
Uh, I'm American I just lived in Canada for a long time. I have really seen both cultures for extended periods and they are very different in a lot of important ways. Maybe the part of my attitude you are pissed off at is due to my residual Americanism. Heh, I think I get you coming and going with that one :)
Its just my opinion but I'll take Canadian culture over my own any day, especially now that the U.S. is turning in to a right wing police state with a fondness for killing people for no particularly good reason.
I assure you if you live for long in a Canadian city that gets a lot of American tourist traffic you would know why I said all the things I did. Maybe all tourists are a little obnoxious but Americans have a pretty solid and well deserved cultural stereotype of being arrogant dicks when they travel. Before you start all the politicly correct ranting about me stereotyping people, I assure you that national educational systems, wealth, media, churches, politics does in fact result in cultural tendencies. Are the stereotypes universal, no, but they do hold more times than not.
As I said originally Canadians are probably going to treat you great if you are American, but if you act like an American, and expect them to bow to your greatness for it, I assure you they do hold it against you and will talk about it behind your back to other Canadians, me having been there long enough that I usually passed for one and they do dislike snotty Americans.
As long as you are still carrying a U.S. passport and a U.S. citizen yes you do have to file a tax return every year until you die. As some other poster said the U.S. has become pretty aggressive in trying to prevent rich people from renouncing their citizenship to dodge taxes. It was becoming trendy for rich American to get citizenship in Caribbean islands with next to no taxes, which you can pretty much buy if your rich enough, so they could duck U.S. taxes. Unfortunately when it comes to taxes the U.S. really does strive to own you cradle to grave. Sorry to say but if you acquire citizenship somewhere and want to renounce your citizenship and they wont let them well fuck 'em though you wont be able to return to the U.S. if that happens and need to be a little careful traveling anyplace where they might try to extradite you.
Like I said you don't have to actually pay taxes if you are making under the exemption of $70K or so. There are a couple different tax systems can you file under if you are living abroad but thats the one I did.
You mean it was legal for George Washington to serve four terms, or he did server four terms. As best I recall basic American history he refused the third term. I'm pretty sure he only served two terms and he died three years after the end of his second term.
George set the two term precedent everyone followed by example, until FDR after which the law came. If there is going to be a President that's gonna want a dynasty and to get rid of the limit its George W.
Of course the Bush royal family has Jeb in the queue though he is denying he will run in 2008 but not after that. And of course Arnold is being groomed for it if they can get the constitutional constraint on birthplace fixed. Would be kind of interesting for Arnold to get it, moderate that he is, he was raised be a Nazi police chief in Austria and there would be irony for an actual Nazi to be leading the New Republican party.
"Good lord. You can demonize conservatives as much as you want, but when Clinton won, nobody talked about civil war."
Actually they did. The right wing and the House spent eight solid years trying to overthrow him and damn near succeeded. Only difference they were using Ken Starr and like a hundred of millions of our tax dollars as the weapon instead of guns. If they'd just been a little luckier, or had the power they have in congress now, they would have impeached him and thrown him in jail. It was for all intents and purposes a semi constitutional coup attempt, versus the actual coup the right wing used to dispose of JFK.
Its easier to engage in a non violent civil war when you have power. Unfortunately at this point the left is real close to being completely powerless and following your guide probably will be in perpetuity.
"it is about reaching a compromise that maxmizes societal welfare."
Welcome to Naive 101. There isn't a compromise bone in the bodies of the New Republicans. They completely steamroller the Democrats in Congress every chance they get. The are routinely rewritting compromise legislation in Republican only conference committees and then forcing it through on an up or down vote.
I hate to break it to you but the liberals are in a fragmented shambles, are completely devoid of organization, they have no clue what they stand for and they have no stars that don't suck. Hillary is a star but if you ever actually listen to her on CSPAN she doesn't seem to know what she's talking about half the time. The right is already salivating over the prospect she will run in 2008 and what they will do to tear her apart.
By contrast to the liberals the right wing is a massively organized steamroller that knows exactly what they stand for and they dont waste anytime debating it or having second thoughts even when they are completely wrong. They've been out of power for a long period, they know it sucks and they are going to do what it takes to not be there again. The Dems are just now figuring out how bad it sucks to be powerless.
Their rights one and only goal is to finish wiping the left off the map and they will do whatever they have to, to achieve that end. Next up to be steamrollered, a couple appointments to the Supreme Court, and then get 60 seats in the Senate in 2006 and then America is going to be in a dark right wing hole its unlikely to every come out of.
The Right wing, who now rule America, also don't give a rats ass about "maximizing societal welfare". They are about maximizing their wealth and power and they'll tell that to your face except when they are trying to sucker the middle class out of their votes using wedge morality issues and fear.
I'm American and lived in Canada about half my adult life and am one of the disgruntled geeks getting ready to leave again. I loved Canada. I'm sorry I didn't stay there and get on a citizenship track. I'll probably go someplace even cheaper and warmer this time and try to retire early.
The people in Canada are consistently a lot easier to live with than Americans. They aren't nearly as arrogant, stuck on themselves, and aren't socialized to think its their prerogative to shit on the rest of the world. Canadians can spot Americans a mile away since they are routinely assholes when they visit Canada. Canadians, at least all the ones I know, are consistently nice level headed people, hard workers, great partiers, its no accident they churn out great comedians, and THEY HAVE GREAT BEER. American beer sucks by comaprison. They have pretty strong socialist leanings but there are right wingers there just like here, they just aren't rabid like the American right wing.
If you are going to be an expat you need to be ready to deal with the immigration system which is the biggest hassle. It depends on where you are going but you usually need a job waiting, with a visa, though many countries like Costa Rica have pensionero visas where you just have to have a clean record and a proven investment income. Its designed to draw wealthy gringos who are looking for a cheap place to retire and spend their money. I think its a couple thousand dollars a year in interest, social security or investment income so its pretty easy to do. It is only a visa though.
The big challenge to being an expat is if you are really going to do it you have to ditch your U.S. passport and citizenship and get citizenship where you are going. It takes a lot of time and work to get citizenship most places and you need to make sure you pick a country where you are going to be happy, fit in for the duration, and a place that isn't like to explode in a revolution for example. Americans are too fat dumb and happy to revolt but there are places where radical changes do happen, often with the help of the CIA.
If you dont renounce your citizenship you get to file income tax returns with Uncle Sam in perpetuity and that means you are still supporting the mad dogs that now rule Washington. If you make more than than the exemption limit on foreign income you get double taxed, where you live and by Uncle Sam. I think the annual exemption was around $70K but I dont know what it is now. I'd heard the Republicans were moving it and maybe even lowering it to tax expats more though I don't recall what actually happened.
All in all carrying a U.S. passport and flaunting your American'ness has always been a bit of a negative around the world, people tend to envy you some and resent you some more. After the last 4 years I imagine flaunting American, and especially bragging about, in most of the world is going to invite nothing but negativity and grief. Canadains treat most Americans reasonably well because they are generally nice people but they aren't likely to really accept you and frequently will do their best screw you given the chance, just because you live in a country that tries to screw the rest of the world at every opportunity in every way.
Dream on. Now he has a mandate, now he gets to appoint some supreme court justices. Now he doesn't have to worry about getting reelected, unless he decides to do an FDR and stay in office for ever due to the "national emergency" and "these troubled times".
Bush isn't going to take a single step to heal any wounds, other than spout a bunch of empty rhetoric about healing the nation, being a uniter not a divider, oh and by the way "its our way or the highway" and "you are either with us or you are against us".
Why should he heal wounds, he didn't heal any wounds last term, in fact he poured salt in them. In his first term he'd lost the popular vote and maybe the election. Now that he thinks he has a mandate he is going to be insufferable.
You are gonna see the Republicans continue to completely shut the Democrats out of the legislative process and the Senate fillibuster is going to be the only way to stop them from enacting an agenda even more extreme than the last four years. I assure you the Republicans are going to attempt to change the way the Senate works to do away with or circumvent the fillibuster, or they will pull out all stops to finally reach 60 seats in the Senate in 2006. They are already half way there. When they are and they have stacked the Supreme Court there will be no checks and balances left in our government as long as they keep pandering to their evangelical base(ban abortion, ban homosexuality, put prayer in public schools).
Say hello to a permanent Patriot Act, and probably one that ends up extended not reformed.
Say hello to an all powerful unified national intelligence agency which will merge the the spying arms of the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, etc. and give it a blank check to spy on Americans. Also put it under a single partisan political hack like Porter Goss. You wont be able to tell it apart from the the good old KGB by the time they are done. They are trying to piggyback National ID cards on the same bill. Get used to showing your ID card or having RFID scanners automaticly scan it anytime you are in public.
Say hello to privatized Social Security, which might actually be a good idea excepting for the two trillion dollar hole its going to blow in the Federal budget, and the windfall profits it will bring to Wall Street who can now gamble on bubbles with all that retirement money, with the great potential it will a lot of it will end up in their pockets and not in your retirement.
Say hello to more tax cuts on capital gains, dividends, estates, corporations and the wealthy and more soaring deficits. Meanwhile your payroll taxes will probably go up, and the payroll tax surplus will go defray the tax cuts for the rich. The tax burden will continue to shift on to the middle class, the rich will get richer...you know the rest.
You just have to look at the stock market today to see who really won the election:
Halliburton up
Lockheed and Boeing up
Drug companies up
Energy companies up
Diebold up
Goggle up (Ok tech stocks being up are just an indicator the bulls are back in town and are yearning for a new bubble to cash in on and then pop once all the yokels are suckered back in, especially when they have all their privatized Social Security money ready to gamble).
Again the polsters are supposed to be tracking the essentials for the refuseniks especially age, race and gender and its supposed to be used to correct the results if there is a trend among refusers.
I dont think the pollsters ask verbal questions other than whether they will fill out the exit poll. Its a printed questionairre.
Check. One more slashdotter trying to rationalize why the exit polls failed 3 elections in a row.
The plan is to renounce it though it takes a lot of work and time to get new citizenship. If you don't renounce it you have to keep paying taxes to the U.S. government once you pass the exemption limit on foreign income. If you pay taxes that means you are supporting and endorsing the insanity the current American government is perpetrating in your name and will apparently be perpetrating for a really long time.
The other obvious advantage to ditching the U.S. passport is Americans are now so increasingly and universally despised in the rest of the world that packing a U.S. passport is just asking for trouble and not any kind of plus anymore.
I'd think you would be kind of sad that your citizenship makes you hated by most of the world now. It wasn't that way just a few years ago before you know who came to town and Americans had the collective frontal lobotomy.
"and shouldn't we condsider impeaching a president who contradicts intelligence about alluminum pipes in order to justify an unjustifialble war- blatantly lieing to congress and the American people?"
Uh, the people can't impeach a President. All the people can do is vote him out or overthrow him. They didn't do the former and the later is unlikely.
The House has to impeach and the Senate has to approve. In case you haven't noticed the Republicans have a stranglehold on both houses of Congress which is why there haven't been any "gates" like Watergate in this administration though numerous candidates exists. This is also why all the investigations in to the wrongdoing end up being white washes and slaps on the wrist. The Republicans can quite literally get away with murder and torture now and it will just be more so once they finally get to stack the Supreme Court this term. Next on their list after that is to do whatever it takes to get to 60 seats in the senate in 2006. At that point they can DO ANYTHING THEY WANT as long as they keep their evangelical base happy with them (which they can just by banning abortion, homosexuality and instituting prayer in public schools).
Fact is the evangelicals and the extreme right wing are unified, organized, funded and willing to be ruthless. Liberals are in a disorganized, fragmented, shambles mostly thanks to the fact they have to hang their hats on the bankrupt Democrats who are now in complete collapse.
For engaging in torture in Abu Graib so far only enlisted soldiers have been convicted, officers and the civilian leadership came out unscathed. That is the military code, you don't try loyal officers who keep their mouths shut, the officers stay loyal to the civilians leadership and they cover each other's asses. Its OK to hang the enlisted scapegoats out to dry.
"For that matter, a fair number of people belonging to The President's Church will probably find their freedoms a thing of the past as well."
This isn't really plausible. All evangelicals are a big, unified voting block. They have a commonality of views that cross their denominational lines. If you splintered it, which is what you are talking about you would screw up their power base.
I doubt you will find anybody in the evangelical block or the politicians they elected caring about denominational quibling. As long as its white, protestant, bible thumping, anti abortion, anti gays, anti drugs, anti sex, anti rock and roll, pro war, pro wealth, and pro America dominating the world this group is going to back it and hang together.
The only people its going to discriminate against are the non religious and non Christian. I imagine Catholics will fair OK though maybe not as well as Protestants.
These things should be coming as as soon as the Supreme court and the rest of the courts are stacked in the republicans favor:
- abortion will be outlawed in all forms
- the prohibition on prayer in schools will be lifted and it will become mandatory again in the conservative states
- gay marriage will be banned, then any legal recognition of civil unions. Conservative states will outlaw sodomy again and which is basically outlawing homosexuality and shove it back in to the closet
- three strike laws and the war on drugs will reign and the prison population will continue to swell to the point the U.S. locks up more people per capita than the most repressive dictatorships. Of course thats already happened.
School prayer is the sweeping social change. If you and your children don't subscribe to the Christian faith, your children are going to suffer. Either your children play along and eventually turn Christian or they face isolation and ridicule. It wouldn't be particularly suprising if it extends in to the workplace and business with evangelicals getting unspoken preference in hiring and evangelical businessmen get preference in contracts and business.
It is interesting that in the Oklahoma senate race the Republican candidate was branded as to conservative for Oklahoma and was at risk. For example he'd been suggesting lesbians were taking over the schools and that girls shouldn't be allowed in the restrooms together. He won comfortably indicating its impossible to be to conservative for bible thumping Oklahoma.
As an aside it is interesting to note who is up on the stock market this morning which is a true indicator of who won the election and who will be cashing in for four more years:
Halliburton
Lockheed and Boeing
Drug companies
Diebold (up 2%)
Tech stocks are up though I'm not sure they are the biggest benefactors of Republican pork. Google topped $200 which maybe just suspects the bulls want to go on a little rampage not that the rich will keep getting richer and everyone else will keep getting poorer.
If they are doing the polls according to Hoyle they should have refuser data on whether more men were refusing the poll than women. They really are supposed to be taking every nth voter, recording data on refusals and taking the next voter. There shouldn't be a gender bias unless there is an actual gender bias in the voters or there is a gender bias in the refusers. Unfortunately I didn't see the refuser data at first blush.
The one obvious thing you notice in this data is Kerry apparently lost a big chunk of women voters compared to Gore and probably explains the difference in the popular vote. Apparently the politics of fear worked on them, or maybe Kerry just sucked worse than Gore.
Tomorrow it will be interesting to go through the state numbers to see where they differ from the poll results and maybe correlate to evoting states and see if there is a chance some of the swing states were stolen.
All in all it appears likely Bush did win the popular vote and as much as I'd wish the win was due to rigging it appears there is a good chance that it just indicates the majority of Americans actually like Bush and by my standards that suggests they are not good people. Its also apparent that evangelicals now completely dominate America government and that is really not good unless you are one.
I'd already thought of the probability that if the software is rigged they would be checking for someone jumping the date around and posted it a few minutes before you did.
Thats why I switched to wishing I could dissassemble some of the software loads off of machines in precincts that are out of whack with the exit polls, before someone has a chance to replace them.
I, of course, agree that it would be better to not have paperless voting machines at all but that doesn't solve the fact that this election is fishy and, with a few more years of the new Republican party dominating America I think we can stop worrying about fairs election or anybody but right wing extremists and evangelicals dominating the U.S. and the world from now on. Been waiting for this outcome and it looks like its finally time to emigrate and hope I can find a pleasant little corner of the world that America and the bible thumpers will overlook and not fuck up.
"None the less, I am still very impressed with what he has had to say."
:) Kerry was running against the one of the most incompetent and untruthful Presidents in American history and Kerry still managed to come out on the losing end.
I agree. I imagine you are talking about the one he gave a few weeks ago in particular. I stumbled across it live on CSPAN and I just dropped everything and listened to it, fascinated, which is a pretty rare response for me to a politician speaking. It was clear, powerful and hitting one Bush nail on the head after another. If he'd been running I would have actually liked voting for him with that rhetoric and I generally can't stand the guy.
"Still I do wonder how he would have fared against Bush."
At this point it appears he couldn't have done much worse than Kerry
If you ready the MystertPollster link I've posted multiple times in this thread, the precincts that are polled are supposed to be randomly sampled from all the precincts in each state.
/. who have posted on this thread trying to explain away and rationalize this glaring discrepancy. You would figure with the number of scientist, engineers, etc on here the reaction would be to solve a mystery instead of making lame attempts to explain it away.
I assure you it would be insane to poll only urban precincts. You would be completely wasting your time and the data would be completely worthless. Any remotely clueful in pollster would know that.
I am truly impressed with the fact the number of
I know the prospect that American elections are being rigged is unpleasant, and it more than likely they aren't, but I assure you elections are rigged all the time around the world, the CIA are experts at it and there is no reason why America is immune. The only way to prevent it is to be real prigs about trying to catch it.
Now that we have electronic voting with no paper trail it has suddenly become a lot easier to do and not get get caught. This election was the easiest one to rig in America's history and it has some key indicators that it may have been. Of course then too maybe all the bible thumpers came out to vote and at this point unless you are evangelical its probably a good time to get out of America. I was waiting to see how this came out but it is about time to emmigrate.
I sure would like to disassemble the code in some of the evoting machins in some precincts where they disagree with the exit polls, unfortunately you have to do it before someone has a chance to change the software loads on them and it ain't gonna happen.
Maybe you could catch if they are rigged by testing them, if you could test them before they are changed, and you get the test setup just right. I'm afraid a smart programmer has rigged them to only flip a couple percent to the Republicans on election day and they are probably disabling the rigging if they detect someone jumping the date around. At least thats what I'd do.
If you read the post I've put elsewhere in the thread, the exit pollers are supposed to record a basic description of refusers. If they are consistently getting refusals from women or old people it should show up in the refuser data.
"Republicans of all ages are less likely to chat about how they voted & why"
I think you are making up a bunch of crap excuses and don't have a clue if what you are saying has any basis in fact.
When everyone is trying to explain away a discrepancy that wasn't there before 2000 it is a cause for more suspicion not less.
"then it would definitely be enough to throw off exit polls by at least a percent or two and maybe more."
Exit polls have in fact been about the most accurate polls there are up until the Republicans started seizing power and they started going south in 2000. Yes they have a margin of error but its not like they just went completely to hell in the just the last 4 years. If any of your B.S. excuses were valid, they should have always been there, they wouldn't have just started this year.
Many of the exit polls were off by way more than a percent or two at least in early in the day. Apparently the Bush camp was crushed early in the day and the Kerry camp was dancing in the streets. Again why did all your little excuses just kick in lately.
Not sure you followed it but I was replying to, quoting and making light of an AC who was proposing the armed rebellion. That one was modded to zero and beloved Slashdot puts those out of sequence so you might have missed it. I think he was entirely serious but unlikely to actually do it.
Read this. It does explain the methodlogy they are supposed to use though obviously they can't force the pollers to actually do it. Are you sure you were watching a real exit poller or just a creative guy who figured out an innovative way to meet "cute girls".
They certainly aren't suppose to gender bias because it would stick out like a sore thumb in the statistics. They are supposed to pick every 10th or 20th voter, and record evenly spaced results throughout the day. When they get a refusal they are supposed to record the basic characteristics of the refuser so it can be accounted for, and pick the next voter.
They really should be substantially more accurate than the pre election polls because they are actually sampling real voters and not trying to guess likely voters. Needless to say you can't do anything if voters just lie though I'd be inclined to think statisticly you would get an equal number of voters lieing that they voted for Bush and Kerry.
"Wow, there's a sterotype that's way out of line with reality."
.308 old breech loading hunting rifles. No magazine in sight. I'm glad for you that you are an exception but I doubt you indicate a trend.
It was a joke. Get a sense of humor.
It is kind of a well known trend, Democrats & liberals favor gun control, Republicans & conservatives don't. That is one of the ways we define them in our polarized little world. It kind of follows if you favor gun control you are less likely to have them. I have a small arsenal around here though they are pretty pathetic by rebellion standards, mostly
I assure you if liberals/minorites got pissed enough about todays election to start an armed revolt the conservatives would be glad to side with and help out the authorities. Not like there is a snow balls chance in hell anybody is going to doing anything about another sham election except parade through the court system until the Supreme Court throws it to the Republicans again. This term the Republicans will get to appoint one or two justices insuring they will always win overwhelming victories in the courts from now on so the Democrats will have to give up even trying that route after this.
"The exit polls were never all that good numerically."
Yea sure, like I'm gonna believe your anonymous coward BS. Do you have something to support your claim? Here is a pretty good write up with all the methodology and downside to them but it says:
"I have always been a fan of exit polls. Despite the occasional controversies, exit polls remain among the most sophisticated and reliable political surveys available. They will offer an unparalleled look at today's voters in a way that would be impossible without quality survey data. Having said that, they are still just random sample surveys, possessing the usual limitations plus some that are unique to exit polling (I also remain dubious about weighting telephone surveys to match them, but that is another story for another day)."
They have a margin of error like most polls but it sure is odd that margin of error was apparently uniformly in Kerry's favor. You would expect the margin of error would randomly favor Bush in some states and Kerry in others.
"I prefer and honest count without the hoopla."
Now I know you are full of B.S. Where did you develop this certainty the vote counts are always honest or accurate.
Like I said exit polls are the only check we have against potential election rigging. If they disagree wildly with the election results I'm not sayin it means the election was rigged but it suggest it is a possibility
There was a lady on Fox tonight is one of their election specialist. I wish I'd caught her name. She was rabid that if your getting really bad exit polls they are probably right and you have a problem. She apparently has massive experience over many elections. For some reason tonight the exit polls were wildly wrong.
" If ever there was an excuse for armed rebellion against the state, this is it."
I hate to break it to you but the conservatives have more guns and they use them a lot more than liberals and geeks. They kill a lot of animals with them in particular. Why exactly do you think the right wing is so keen on protecting gun ownership. Hint, its not to keep the government in line, its so they can smack down the liberals and minorities if they ever get out of line.
The only thing trending in favor of geeks is they may have superior skills in first person shooters and flight simulators but I'm not sure those skills translate in to meat space.