In the US they tend to attract the people who are too left for the Democrats, or occasionally protest votes from Democrats who can't stomach their own candidates. It is true on some issues they might be viewed as conservative, shift towards more decentralized government for instance, but on others...well they support the "decentralization of wealth" (communism) just as much as they support the decentralization of government, mixed with extreme environmentalism. As you can see read for yourself... http://www.gp.org/tenkey.shtml Basically they are ecologically "friendly" communists.
I had this terrible sinking suspicion that the US would make the list. I haven't been this glad to be wrong since the time that my doctor assured me that it wasn't malignant.
The only reason I was worried about it was due to possible anti-American bias, you know the same kind of crap where you get reports that the U.S. is one of the top producers of torture impliments in the world (never mind that those things are wire cables, rubber hoses, car batteries, things like that...), and not due to any real Free Speech problems. Hell, of all the countries in the world the US is one with the least tendencies towards censorship...well, maybe that will change with the Democrats in charge.
* (Am I really the only liberal that was disgusted that Americans actually voted for the Democrats as their progressive party?! Lame. Seriously lame. That party gave America the DMCA, which to this day stifles security research and technological advancement. They destroyed an aspirin factory using cruise missiles to distract people from the fact that th president was LYING UNDER OATH TO THE SUPREME COURT. That should be considered treason for a president. Why can't Americans start voting for a pair of rational parties; Green vs Libertarian would make for a great election, don't you think?)
Indeed, the Democrats are anything but "progressive", they tend to push censorship, domestic spying, and international interventionism. Plus tend to be anti-business, and anti-technological growth. But I would hardly call the Greens a sane choice as a replacement either, they want to push the US towards the insane end of European-style socialism with 90% income tax rates on the working class (of course, replacing the money stolen with "services"), heavy handed regulation of business, and other BS. The US does need a shakeup in it's political structure, but I'm not sure that looking towards anything currently on the extreme left (for the American political spectrum) is where you'll find the answer.
Take installation. Linux zealots are now saying "oh installing is so easy, just do apt-get install package or emerge package": Yes, because typing in "apt-get" or "emerge" makes so much more sense to new users than double-clicking an icon that says "setup".
Linux zealots are far too forgiving when judging the difficultly of Linux configuration issues and far too harsh when judging the difficulty of Windows configuration issues.
And Wintards like yourself can't seem to grasp the fast that I, as a Linux user, can very well install software just by using a click-n-drool GUI...instead of typing commands. Tools like apt-get and emerge are useful, and easy if you know them...but they also make for great back end processes for easy to use front end GUIs.
The meaning of "arms" has also changed: at the time, it was understood to mean the sort of weapon carried by an infantryman. Heavier weapons would be refered to as "cannon"; so Amendment II doesn't mean you have a right to a howitzer on your front lawn.
That would also bring handguns into question, especialy concealed ones. And what about RPGs?
Handguns are certainly infantry weapons, ever hear of a sidearm? So what's the question there? And what about RPGs?
Go live out in the middle of some jungle somewhere, naked, in the mud while the rain is pouring down and some animal is hunting you for food and say that.
Is your consciousness part of that physical pattern though?
We may not know everything about the brain yet...but we know enough to know that it's physical structure and the physical processes going on in it are what makes up your consciousness. So yes, your consciousness is part of the physical pattern.
Ever since you were born, throughout your childhood, and through the years since then every single piece of matter/energy in your body has been continually swapped out for new matter/energy. Cellular level, molecular level, atomic level, even at the sub-atomic level you are not the same, physically, as the various versions of you throughout your life. But you are the person who existed for that whole time, right? Of course you are. Because what you are is less about physicality, and more about the pattern that is you, that exists within the ever changing physical matter that currently composes your body. Since this is about the quantum teleportation of that pattern (and the pattern does get teleported, and cannot be cloned) then the subject who arrives on one end of the teleport is the same person who left from the other end.
No, what's bloated is when you buy and install the lastest version of Windows, which is about the same size and takes just as long....only to find your list of applications is one web browser, a media player, one rather crappy shell, one e-mail program, a calendar, one built in photo gallery (finally?), one crappy DVD burning program, and a handful of crappy tools.
Huh, I've lived in Illinois for 27 years, and never heard of Little Egypt. Interesting. Is there really a lot of tourism down there?
Huge amount. As I mentioned most of Illinois' wineries and vinyards are located here (and Illinois wine is actually very fine stuff, most of the vinyards have won international and national winetasting competitions) and there are organized "wine trail" tours between them. It's a fairly big business. Then there's the gambling. We also have a lot of large parks and lakes, including one very large and beatiful national park, and these are a pretty big draw, along with various private wilderness areas, and lots of the smaller rivers. There are a fair number of small, quaint towns that have some historic or niche tourist interest, and usually have a number of quaint (and expensive) "bed and breakfast" style places to stay. And the fall colors are generally a draw too, lots of people coming through on cross country bike tours and so forth. And it's apple season, people come from States away to visit our apple orchards.
I would have thought the vast majority of Illinois tourism is centered around Chicago...
Yeah, but to be fair a good number of Illinoisans seem to think of everything south of Chicago as a great wasteland...
Actually, there's some degree of legalized gambling machines as well, which requires a license. And there's OTB/racetrack betting as well. So not all of Illinois gambling takes place on the water, just the casino style gambling.
And hell, the Little Egypt region (where there seems to be a fair amount of access to riverboat gambling in Illinois) isn't just where the gambling related tourism is, but much of Illinois' tourism period. Pretty good tourist economy with the bed and breakfasts, "outdoor recreation", most of Illinois' vinyards and wineries, tons of orchards, massive number of places of historic interest, small museums, tons of festivals, etc... So it makes sense that this part of the State would have the casinos too.
i think the original poster was referring to the democratic party's 'machine' style politics of the 20's-40's. intimidation, registering dead people, graft, ballot stuffing... all that stuff. wikipedia has an acceptable article on the chicago democratic machine here.
of course, that was 60 or 70 years ago and the shenanigans of the democratic party did not rely on the ballots being paper. but i think that was the original point.
Of course, I remember watching local news reports of similar events during the last election (those which had been caught of course, how much slipped through we'll never know)...of course that sort of thing didn't get picked up by the national news media who were more interested in concentrating on the Republicans for some reason...
You know what these stories and rants always fail to mention? That the Democrats cheat very heavily in elections as well. I don't think there's been a legitimate major election in Illinois (a Democrat stronghold) in decades, here we get dead people signed up to vote, fictional people voting, absentee votes coming from non-existance addresses....all votes for the Democrats. On top of that there's all sorts of fraud and corruption at pretty much all levels. And the Democrats haven't been above tactics like "slash the tires of the cars of volunteers of the opposition", or having the cops called with bogus complaints.
The Democrats cheat just as much, if not more than the Republicans....that in 2004 they just weren't as good as the Republicans at it is no reason to go whining about "stolen" elections.
Oh so we were not only not supposed to fight back when they attacked us, we were supposed to keep trading with them beforehand as well while they were raping and pillaging and mass murdering their way across Asia....
Don't know how it's in the US, but I don't wonder countries are against online gambling: not because of your health, or to prevent fraud, but because of all the money they'll lose their grip on.
In the US itself, it's not a Federal matter. Gambling is left up to the States although on land such as Reservations it is pretty much open since it's not against Federal law. Different States have different laws concerning gambling. In some States gambling in all forms except the State lottery is illegal (heck, there may be States without a lottery I don't know...). In others only a few types are legalised. In others many forms are, but require licensing by the State.
In my own state Casinos are legal, provided they are on riverboats...and the State is essentially part-owner of the operations. There is also a state-run lotto, betting on horseracing is legal at licensed betting parlors, and gaming machines are legal but again require a license. On the other hand private wagers for money, private card games for money, and other such gambling is illegal because the State can't rip people off...but such things happen anyway.
Sorry, apart from the french thing, none of that made sense to me. Especially the bit about intel. Are you serious or just trolling (if the latter I'm afraid this is my last post on this thread). It was quite clearly Bush's wish many years ago to invade Iraq Intel or no. If we fed false intel then I doubt Bush would be so chummy with Blair (who really should know better - as he has at least half a brain).
I'm refering to the whole "African yellowcake" incident, even though we had sources which said that the intel was bogus, British intelligence kept insisting that it was legit.
The news here is definitely as I described, the news there (when I was there last) was as I described, and the news on Fox.com is as I describe.
What news did you watch over here, Fox news? Because pretty most other news networks here are pretty much like I described.
I'm not saying your experience is invalid, just that I don't understand what you're trying to say.
I'm trying to say that you can't take what the media says as an indicator of how America actually is because they're all pretty much a bunch of biased hacks these days...one side or the other. They'll even go to lengths of making up their own "news" events just to have something to air which supports their agenda and makes a profit. It's not representative of the actual United States.
And after you insulted my wife, I'm churlishly reticent to put much effort in to doing so.
Perhaps I did put it a bit harshly....but I did certainly mean that if anyone does not significantly identify with the American people and culture, they probably shouldn't be an American citizen. That doesn't mean they have to support the government, hell, it's very American to not support the government... But the culture is another thing altogether. And it was at least implied originally that your wife was leaning in that direction.
What she hates is the unending misery that we (the rest of the world) receive daily, commonly referred to as world news.
Well, we certainly have that in common, the domestic news media is just as bad. But in a different way.
We get American commentators telling, not suggesting to, us that we must live by their policies. That the US Government is the moral saviour of the world, that capitalism, left unchecked, will bring prosperity to all, that Islamists are evil, that Communism is evil, that China is our enemy, that liberalism is bad, that Bush is a great man, that communist states spy on their citizens and are therefor even more evil (suggesting US doesn't), that mental torture for years on end, without legal representation is fine, as long as unelected bodies deem those tortured to be 'a threat', that global warming isn't happening, and that if it is, its China's fault, that 'things like this will happen in the heat of war' when children are executed by US soldiers, inmates are sexually assaulted etc... etc..., that invading a country because they might have WMD is fine, despite being the world's leading creator, producer and distributor of WMD, that when tortured captives finally kill themselves, that their suicides are a calculated act of war, that Bush was fairly elected, as long as he and his chums get to decide what 'fairly' is, that Palestine's elected government is not legitimate, but that Iraq's militarily imposed leaders are, that... Believe me I could go on all day, every day, for months. Not one of these assertions is wholly true (despite being sold as God's own sentiment). In fact most of these are outright lies. And when there is one thing that links each one, like Pavlov's dogs, we begin to associate the lies with the connecting experience. Each of these stomach churning untruths is first espoused via a Washington accent.
Here the message is this... We're obviously horrible compared to the paradise that exists elsewhere, but are also responsable for any suffering that exists anywhere. Global warming is not only absolutely human caused, but is the cause for everything from warm days to every natural disaster on the planet. You can't hear a news report without linking something, however loosely and idiotically, to global warming. Leftism (I won't say liberalism....American "Liberalism" has strayed so far from the tenets of it as to no longer qualify for the term) is the savior of the human race. The evil gas companies are money gluttons who wish to steal your souls, rape the women, and sell your babies into slavery and therefore every cent they make should be taken by the government. US soldiers are guilty until proven guilty (no "innocent" involved in this situation, as every potential and spurious allegation must be 100% true if it's anti-US). Bush was unfairly elected...and the Democrats never, never engage in election fraud, ever. In fact, anything that mentions the Democratic Party in a bad light must either be given no attention at all, or buried as quickly as possible. The Green Party must be brought up in nearly any serious political discussion. The US is an evil hypocrite for having WMD itself, since we don't want oppressive, agressive, warmongering nations who have been known to use them on their own people even to have them. That Iraq's democratically elected government can never be legitimate and that there can never be peace in the region so we should bring all our troops home instantly.
That's what our media tells us.
No The UK isn't perfect, but its a century or so since 'we' (obviously I wasn't around then) took it upon 'ourselves' to tell the rest of the world what to do and how to do it. And like Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Holland, Sweden, and the numerous other post Imperialist nations of the world, we learnt our lesson. The difference is, if the US has to learn its lesson the hard way, then there may not be a world left at the end of it.
He wants his "America, love it or leave it" jingoism back. You know who should get the fuck out of MY country? Idiots like you who don't know the value of freedom. Take your fascist authoritarianism elsewhere, buddy, this is the Land of the Free and I won't have you or anyone else trying to turn it into something else.
I'm just saying that if a person hates American culture and society so much as this person is described to, so much so that she cringes whenever an American so much as says hello....perhaps she shouldn't be a citizen. If you're going to be an American...be an American. Someone who holds onto their citizenship as a formality, while having no love for their homeland is a disgusting person in my book.
I am sorry, but the US is not exactly the one country I would be listening if I wanted to develop a country in such a way that its people get to live better lives. If I were interested in building a country which is good for corporations and a small part of its population, I'd have a different opinion. The US has, in very many aspects, gotten to the point that it can compete with England the eerie status of the only undeveloping nation in the world.
I don't know what you're smoking, but it's some pretty strong stuff. The US is undergoing very strong economic growth right now, people are well fed (even the poor are too well fed), there is decent medical care, plenty of jobs, and regardless of international propaganda....a very high degree of freedom. Oh, but of course, those things aren't important...more important for the government to force people to "live better lives"...whatever that is. Does it involve lots of suffering and a "humble life" and all that bullshit?
Not at all: that notion, very much in line with information one might have gotten reading National Geographic specials about Africa, is quite mistaken. There are very well educated, well fed people in Bolivia, who have, for a few of generations already, left the agricultural stage which you have in mind when you refer to "timeshared plowing animals". None of that is incompatible with not having potable water and paying ridiculous prices for gas and oil. Not even with having learned yet different ideas of fucking Capitalism from those you have.
44% of Bolivia's population works in agriculture, forestry, and fishing... and what agriculture isn't based on coca production is subsidence farming, which is what I refer to as the people "scratching dirt with a stick." Then there's mining and energy...but yeah...who wants to deal with Bolivia these days? Most of the mining is very small scale anyway and not very profitable. Nobody is going to be attracted to come in and develop any of the other resources on a significant scale now. And there is a small, educated minority sure, but that's a handful of elites. The US is is a very well educated nation by comparison, simply because virtually everyone here is educated to some degree.
First, a little note: there are no dictators in South America, currently: every government has been elected democratically by the population. You may not like their choices, but, well, you'll have to learn to deal with it (hopefully, you have gotten past the Kissinger method of dealing with outcomes of elections which you do not like, like in Chile...)
Meh, Hitler was democratically elected, doesn't mean he wasn't a dictator. Tyrants can arise via popular vote far more easily than by military action.
Now, I think that a nation has complete right on the management of the assets of its country. The fact that previous (in general, non-democratically-elected and rather Kissinger-style "elected") governments decided to turn national resources to foreign (or local, in fact) companies to the detriment of the actual people of the nation (for example, Bolivia, which is the country you probably have in mind has huge reserves of natural gas, that gas is being extracted by foreign companies at an amazing pace, and yet there is a negligible number of Bolivians who have natural gas in their houses to cook and provide heating, and they pay that gas with a price comparable to the price people in LA pay for the very same gas after it has been transported to LA) and decides to change that, seems perfectly reasonable.
It may seem that way, but it ends up being a bad deal for the Bolivians in the long term. First, the reason they turned to foreign companies was because they lacked the economic infrastructure to exploit that natural gas themselves. No capability means the only thing they'd have been doing with it would have been sitting on it. Not much use then is it? Turning over development brought in money, brought in jobs, brought in (most importantly) foreign investment in the country. Bringing out the military and suddenly saying, "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it further" tells companies and investors that Bolivia is not a trustworthy place to do business, or a trustworthy country to do business with. Foreign investment in Bolivia is the only chance that country has of climbing out of it's shithole status and actually joining the developed world.
They can't just instantly solve their economic problems by seizing assets "for the people", pissing off foreign investment, and crying about how horrible their economy is. That makes things worse, not better. Because of Bolivia's actions it's already horrible economy is going to go right into the shitter, and they'll blame the US for it when it's their own damn fault. The only way Bolivia is going to get any better is to encourage an environment which is friendly to business, this will encourage economic growth. Listen to someone from the #1 economic power in the world on this...
I'm quite sure that if you lived in Bolivia and had no potable water and had to pay ridiculous prices for gas and oil, your ideas about fucking Capitalism would be different.
Probably, but then I'd also likely be uneducated and scratching at dirt with a stick to try and get a meager amount of food to grow on a tiny plot of land...maybe if I'm lucky have a timeshared plowing animal!
Only ignorace of the effects the economic policies pushed by the US have had on other countries can excuse this comment.
Pick any south-american country and come live with us to enjoy the priviledge of living in a US-led open market and industrial revolution.
And without the US push in your economies you'd be....ah yes, nowhere. South America would be a huge shithole without Capitalism (and it isn't quite...some places aren't too bad and certainly better than a lot of places in the world), the kind of shithole that Venezuela and Bolivia are very rapidly moving toward. Watch them in coming years. You've already got dictators using military power to take over assets of foreign held companies (not even US companies....companies from other S American countries...), turning the economies into shit...all in the name of "helping the people" and trying to fuck Capitalism.
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In the US they tend to attract the people who are too left for the Democrats, or occasionally protest votes from Democrats who can't stomach their own candidates. It is true on some issues they might be viewed as conservative, shift towards more decentralized government for instance, but on others...well they support the "decentralization of wealth" (communism) just as much as they support the decentralization of government, mixed with extreme environmentalism. As you can see read for yourself... http://www.gp.org/tenkey.shtml Basically they are ecologically "friendly" communists.
Well, you know what they say about musicians...
I hate this to come to a shock to you....but nature isn't all that friendly to you.
Ever since you were born, throughout your childhood, and through the years since then every single piece of matter/energy in your body has been continually swapped out for new matter/energy. Cellular level, molecular level, atomic level, even at the sub-atomic level you are not the same, physically, as the various versions of you throughout your life. But you are the person who existed for that whole time, right? Of course you are. Because what you are is less about physicality, and more about the pattern that is you, that exists within the ever changing physical matter that currently composes your body. Since this is about the quantum teleportation of that pattern (and the pattern does get teleported, and cannot be cloned) then the subject who arrives on one end of the teleport is the same person who left from the other end.
No, what's bloated is when you buy and install the lastest version of Windows, which is about the same size and takes just as long....only to find your list of applications is one web browser, a media player, one rather crappy shell, one e-mail program, a calendar, one built in photo gallery (finally?), one crappy DVD burning program, and a handful of crappy tools.
Yes, they might come to take them back home!
You know what these stories and rants always fail to mention? That the Democrats cheat very heavily in elections as well. I don't think there's been a legitimate major election in Illinois (a Democrat stronghold) in decades, here we get dead people signed up to vote, fictional people voting, absentee votes coming from non-existance addresses....all votes for the Democrats. On top of that there's all sorts of fraud and corruption at pretty much all levels. And the Democrats haven't been above tactics like "slash the tires of the cars of volunteers of the opposition", or having the cops called with bogus complaints.
The Democrats cheat just as much, if not more than the Republicans....that in 2004 they just weren't as good as the Republicans at it is no reason to go whining about "stolen" elections.
Oh so we were not only not supposed to fight back when they attacked us, we were supposed to keep trading with them beforehand as well while they were raping and pillaging and mass murdering their way across Asia....
In the US itself, it's not a Federal matter. Gambling is left up to the States although on land such as Reservations it is pretty much open since it's not against Federal law. Different States have different laws concerning gambling. In some States gambling in all forms except the State lottery is illegal (heck, there may be States without a lottery I don't know...). In others only a few types are legalised. In others many forms are, but require licensing by the State.
In my own state Casinos are legal, provided they are on riverboats...and the State is essentially part-owner of the operations. There is also a state-run lotto, betting on horseracing is legal at licensed betting parlors, and gaming machines are legal but again require a license. On the other hand private wagers for money, private card games for money, and other such gambling is illegal because the State can't rip people off...but such things happen anyway.
I'm refering to the whole "African yellowcake" incident, even though we had sources which said that the intel was bogus, British intelligence kept insisting that it was legit.
What news did you watch over here, Fox news? Because pretty most other news networks here are pretty much like I described.
I'm trying to say that you can't take what the media says as an indicator of how America actually is because they're all pretty much a bunch of biased hacks these days...one side or the other. They'll even go to lengths of making up their own "news" events just to have something to air which supports their agenda and makes a profit. It's not representative of the actual United States.
Perhaps I did put it a bit harshly....but I did certainly mean that if anyone does not significantly identify with the American people and culture, they probably shouldn't be an American citizen. That doesn't mean they have to support the government, hell, it's very American to not support the government... But the culture is another thing altogether. And it was at least implied originally that your wife was leaning in that direction.
Well, we certainly have that in common, the domestic news media is just as bad. But in a different way.
Here the message is this... We're obviously horrible compared to the paradise that exists elsewhere, but are also responsable for any suffering that exists anywhere. Global warming is not only absolutely human caused, but is the cause for everything from warm days to every natural disaster on the planet. You can't hear a news report without linking something, however loosely and idiotically, to global warming. Leftism (I won't say liberalism....American "Liberalism" has strayed so far from the tenets of it as to no longer qualify for the term) is the savior of the human race. The evil gas companies are money gluttons who wish to steal your souls, rape the women, and sell your babies into slavery and therefore every cent they make should be taken by the government. US soldiers are guilty until proven guilty (no "innocent" involved in this situation, as every potential and spurious allegation must be 100% true if it's anti-US). Bush was unfairly elected...and the Democrats never, never engage in election fraud, ever. In fact, anything that mentions the Democratic Party in a bad light must either be given no attention at all, or buried as quickly as possible. The Green Party must be brought up in nearly any serious political discussion. The US is an evil hypocrite for having WMD itself, since we don't want oppressive, agressive, warmongering nations who have been known to use them on their own people even to have them. That Iraq's democratically elected government can never be legitimate and that there can never be peace in the region so we should bring all our troops home instantly.
That's what our media tells us.
You call
It may seem that way, but it ends up being a bad deal for the Bolivians in the long term. First, the reason they turned to foreign companies was because they lacked the economic infrastructure to exploit that natural gas themselves. No capability means the only thing they'd have been doing with it would have been sitting on it. Not much use then is it? Turning over development brought in money, brought in jobs, brought in (most importantly) foreign investment in the country. Bringing out the military and suddenly saying, "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it further" tells companies and investors that Bolivia is not a trustworthy place to do business, or a trustworthy country to do business with. Foreign investment in Bolivia is the only chance that country has of climbing out of it's shithole status and actually joining the developed world.
They can't just instantly solve their economic problems by seizing assets "for the people", pissing off foreign investment, and crying about how horrible their economy is. That makes things worse, not better. Because of Bolivia's actions it's already horrible economy is going to go right into the shitter, and they'll blame the US for it when it's their own damn fault. The only way Bolivia is going to get any better is to encourage an environment which is friendly to business, this will encourage economic growth. Listen to someone from the #1 economic power in the world on this...
Probably, but then I'd also likely be uneducated and scratching at dirt with a stick to try and get a meager amount of food to grow on a tiny plot of land...maybe if I'm lucky have a timeshared plowing animal!