I should move to Alaska :O
Are there any mountains in Alaska???
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Comic Talk and General Discussion *
Congratulations on your elections USA.
But if you lean left or right, the guy that leans in your direction is always going to be more your speed than the alternative.
Like, I vote Democrat, because I'm leftist, but even if I didn't care for the Democrat running the Republican's not a safer bet, and in our screwy system a third-party candidate is a throw away vote.
I voted for a republican in a local election because the democrat was a corrupt douchebag. While you have a point, it's not quite so simple.
I think the very best argument about gay marriage comes through the separation of church and state.
If a church doesn't want to marry a gay couple. Fine. Or as Chenk Yuger says, "God Bless, Go Forward" If a church doesn't want to recognize a marriage? Fine.
But, the since the state allows certain benefits for marriage, the state should apply the *exact same* benefits that would go to a hetero couple marrying.
Even though I have nothing but disdain for liberatarians, I do think the state got too involved in the whole marriage issue. Why should the state reward (or penalize) marriage?
But they did, and since they do, they shouldn't discriminate.
I voted for a republican in a local election because the democrat was a corrupt douchebag. While you have a point, it's not quite so simple.
Sucks when that happens. Frankly, the quality of our leadership is so low, and participation so low, you can usually knock the ones you really don't like out in the primary.
I'm torn. Republicans always vote their party. Always, which means when Tom Delay was charged with supporting corrupt business practices (and forced prostitution) in the Marianas Islands, the Republicans voted to waive senate rules to keep his sorry ass around.
Republicans will *always* be anti-choice, which is something I feel very strongly about. So, I have to fight the idiots at the primaries, but even if a Dem is an idiot, I can't trust a Republican to do anything about the environment, or choice, or racial discrimination because while your candiate may be a good guy/gal, the party is hopelessly corrupt and will sabotage your guy. So your guy turns coat on you.
Guh. Try living in Kansas sometime.
Gay Marriage, nope. No good here. We've banned civil and common law marriages, and we no longer teach evolution in our science classes. ALSO, they're trying to teach intelligent design, as an 'alternative theory.'
Because, as we all know, evolution is just a theory as well, and theories are not to be trusted. They're all..shifty and all that.
Thank god I live in a University town, an oasis in a desert of mental stagnation.
Grrrr…I'm not bitter, not bitter at all.
You know it. Jesus, as we all know, is one of the famed Zionist Velociraptor Knights.
He rides into battle, a bottle of whiskey in one hand, a battle axe in the other, and 3 katanas that he is juggling with his mind.
I thought everybody knew that!
See?
*all images blatantly ripped from Google image search, and crappily photoshopped in 5 minutes.
Canada's (relatively) new conservative government recently tried to re-open the gay marriage bill and was voted down. I'm thinking it was all the liberal politicians who jumped ship onto the winning party last minute… "Yay! We won! No, wait, don't change any laws."
Intelligent design, eh? Almost as backwards as the sex ed classes they teach in the Catholic schools up here. "Abstinence, abstinence, abstinence. Any questions-no? On to math."
Disappointed as well - and slightly disturbed. What's more disturbing to me is the people I've run into here who don't seem to have thought the issue through very well. My roommate in college, for example, said there should not be gay marriage - we need more families to produce more children because the world is underpopulated.
Tell that to the people stacked on top of each other in Japan. Or how about all the millions and millions in India? The world is more populated now than it's ever been, yet an individual is asking for more resources than ever before to keep up a "21st Century Standard of Living". I think it would be great if there were less people in the world. A lot less.
look at all that unpopulated land!
Now all we need is to be able to convert salt water into freshwater… and run on cleanly created hydrogen power… and live off of mold… or something…
unpopulated land? yeah, right..
they only marked the bits of land where the population was very high in the millions…
There's like thousands and Thousands of people in North Dakota and in centeral america in gerenal, yet those people don't show up on the map?
uhhh… yeah, right….
so I don't exist, and the thousand of people here don't exist? (is an North Dakotan)
The world can sustain us now, but there is some discussion that we have reached "peak oil" which means our rate of new oil discoveries is not keeping up with oil production. Considering much of our food production is linked to fossile fuels, either directly with tractors and combines, or indirectly with petrolium based fertilizers, it is debatable whether we are at a 'sustainable population level'
I think it's bad to vote only democrat or only republican for no other reason that political alleigance. You really gotta look into their individual platforms. Simply putting more Democrats in power doesn't automatically mean you'll get the results you want. I've always felt like America needs a generous mix of both parties, whether you hate one of the parties or not.
Whatever the case, I hope we get the results we want.
the only NON stupid remark I have seen (although I might have missed some) on this thread.
A big reason for the power shift is probably because several republicans happened to be cought in a legal scandal and lost their reelection runs (duh, noone wants to elect a possible crook; and please don't make remarks about "party X is full of criminals"). Which actually shows a good amount of people DO care about individual character more then party aligience. At least that is what I am hoping…
What's sad is that with the money we spend in Iraq these past few years we could feed everyone in the world.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA… ok first of, most world hunger isnt because lack of food, but because lack of ability to bring food to hungrey people, usually caused by local warlords/gangs/corrupt governments…
Second of all: ECONOMICS: money doesn't poof up and disappear. Government spends money paying soldiers, companies, buying equipment, etc. Those use the money to buy stuff and pay employees etc, money gets taxed again, and government gets it back. It actually oils the economy and makes it stronger. So no money was "wasted", in fact the US is probably richer now. You can argue that killing is morally wrong, that wars are evil, etc. But to argue that money is being wasted merely shows you are ignorant of the workings economics. In fact, with a stronger economy, the us is able to DONATE MORE FOOD TO THE NEEDY; and probably does.
Second of all: ECONOMICS: money doesn't poof up and disappear. Government spends money paying soldiers, companies, buying equipment, etc. Those use the money to buy stuff and pay employees etc, money gets taxed again, and government gets it back. It actually oils the economy and makes it stronger. So no money was "wasted", in fact the US is probably richer now. You can argue that killing is morally wrong, that wars are evil, etc. But to argue that money is being wasted merely shows you are ignorant of the workings economics. In fact, with a stronger economy, the us is able to DONATE MORE FOOD TO THE NEEDY; and probably does.
Wow. Just wow. I think I can hear Milton Friedman spinning in his grave. Then again, considering old Milt, he'd charge a nickle to let people watch him spin.
Add Keynes, along with some egg whites and sugar and you probably could get a decent meringue out of it.
I'm not even going to pretend I understand all of the politics out there. I don't know what all the democrats stand for, but I've seen what happens with republicans in charge, and I'm all for a change. I wish there wasn't so much corruption involved all around, and I'm not going to pretend that just because "they" are democrat, they'll solve all of the problems.
I'm sick of all of the debate about gay marriage, abortion, "Creation vs Evolution", The "War on Christmas". I understand people have their reasons for taking one path over another on each of those issues, but WHY should someone else's life be changed because individuals are uncomfortable with these subjects? If you don't think gay people should marry, don't marry gay people! If you can't understand that a theory is not the same thing as a hypothesis, that it's something that has withstood both the test of time AND new evidence arising, then you can go ahead and determine your OWN version of how we came to be on this planet; don't you dare take away my copy of "The Origin of the Species…"!
Politics get brought into all of these because people have chosen to relinquish control of their lives to the government, because it's easier than taking control of your own actions. "Censor this!Ban that!" Because it's easier than accepting that other opinions exist, and that not everyone fits into a cookie cutter ideal. People who want power will play off of these debates, using and twisting people's fears and desires. Democrat OR Republican, this happens. I'm sick of political agendas and corruption.
Oh well. ^^ At least I live in America, where we might be corrupt and spoiled and sheltered, but we still have a higher standard of living than a lot of other areas, and a lot more freedoms than we're realizing that we're giving up at times.
I don't think the democrats will solve everything either. I think I have more of a say with democrats in charge, and I know that democrats don't run on a platform of hating mexicans, gays and women. It does turn into an issue of trust.
Its intersting that you point out the issues that the Christianists are so extreme about. I think most Christians follow the idea that the state and church can be separate. However, radical elements have kind of snuck in and are causing all sorts of havok on a system that's worked fairly well for 200+ years.
Second of all: ECONOMICS: money doesn't poof up and disappear. Government spends money paying soldiers, companies, buying equipment, etc. Those use the money to buy stuff and pay employees etc, money gets taxed again, and government gets it back. It actually oils the economy and makes it stronger. So no money was "wasted", in fact the US is probably richer now. You can argue that killing is morally wrong, that wars are evil, etc. But to argue that money is being wasted merely shows you are ignorant of the workings economics. In fact, with a stronger economy, the us is able to DONATE MORE FOOD TO THE NEEDY; and probably does.
Oh of course, how could I have missed the fact that although we're running up huge deficits every year, and taxes only take a portion of what the government pays, the government is making it all back? Ha ha. Silly me.
[/sarcasm]
Out of the 400 billion that we spend in Iraq every year, we don't get that back. I suppose you could argue that it doesn't really matter, because it's all just peanuts to the government, and asking the US to pay back it's loans would upset the world economy. But that money could be redirected other places. For example if we weren't in Iraq we could use that money to support troops in Darfur and stop the genocide. Instead we've destabilized an entire region. Did you hear about how if the US leaves Iran and Saudi Arabia will both go into Iran? It's bad stuff, and we caused it.
Out of the 400 billion that we spend in Iraq every year, we don't get that back. I suppose you could argue that it doesn't really matter, because it's all just peanuts to the government, and asking the US to pay back it's loans would upset the world economy. But that money could be redirected other places. For example if we weren't in Iraq we could use that money to support troops in Darfur and stop the genocide. Instead we've destabilized an entire region. Did you hear about how if the US leaves Iran and Saudi Arabia will both go into Iran? It's bad stuff, and we caused it.Just wanted to chime in again, and I realize I'm responding more to than just you. Thanks for the hijack ;)
Re: money going poof. It does happen, and is based on how the Fed adds and removes currency, which printing is a very tiny portion of.
It would be interesting to find out where all this money is going. Unfortunately, the GAO cannot determine where its going, and the current Republican congress has voted to end investigation into the funds lost. I'm expecting the democrats who got voted in to re-open that investigation. Henry Waxman is the congresman in charge of it, and rumor has it that Republicans are nervous. I hope that nervousness is justified, or else its time to break out the torches and pitchforks.
The interest on the deficit is always compared to GDP, but I'd like to point out that current war expenditures are *not part of the current budget*. In short, they are not even being reported in the current deficit. Sorry to add more bad news.
I started to write a long post about the various players in the re-froming Iraq, of which the USs role is debatable. Now is the time to get into the "when we're leaving by helicopter" pool. However, I really think www.juancole.com is the very best for learning what's going on. I mean, this might come as a shocker, but the guy speaks arabic. I don't think Fox News *ever* has any Arabic speakers on.
But sorry, back to the whole deficit thing. China lends us money to buy Chinese goods. Its this steam engine that no one knows how to stop without the world economy melting down. So, economists in China and the US cross their fingers and say, "Nothing to see here, move on…" Its not a question of whether this strange construct will come to a halt. The question is whether it will glide to a stop, or simply meltdown under its own temperature. There are no other countries who can take up the slack to keep China going like the US. No one buys like we do. The current average US savings rate is *negative*. It doesn't take a degree in economics to realize this is unsustainable.
But how to get off the train? No one has a good answer, yet.
Another fun fact is watching the oil producing countries swtich from dollars (petrol dollars) to Euros (petro Euros). This servers to *totally* weaken US currency. Its hoped that the US economy is strong enough to handle the additional burden of "floating" like every other currency in the world (Save China's whose exchange rate is madated by goverment decree – chalk one up for those "retarded Chinese" [reference to another thread]
There was a bit of a hubub about the dollar passing the 1.3 Euro exchange rate. I guess 1.3 was considered a bit of a bottom ceiling, and the dollar crashed through it. I don't follow currency very much, but great analysists like Brad Delong and Sean Paul Kelly www.agonist.org do so and have been blogging the train wreck to come. The blog is especially fun when you combine it with someone like Stephen Roach from Morgan Stanley. I definitely encourage them as reads for anyone who even slighty grooves to currency and economic issues, and they are very accessible reading. A word of caution though, since Economics is referred to as "the dismal science" you can expect a lot of bad news and discussion of worst case scenarios.
So, for some quick impacts. The US is bleeding currency *and* current economic conditions are cause a higher than average number of home loan defaults. This trickles up the line, and makes American investments riskier. When an investment is riskier, you want a higher rate of return, which turns into a higher interest rate. Higher interest rate = more defaults, which increases the risk. See the cycle? It is breakable, but will require more stones than either Chinese or US economists have right now.
Anyway, that's the rant, and I'll leave ya be now!
Congrats on your elections USA people!
You're finally getting a change there, good on you. :)
we need more change.
The lawyers and the politicians are trying to ruin everything that the revolutionaries fought for.
The people have to lead…the leaders will have to follow.
Waiting for a solution from the government is like waiting for a tornado.
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