2009-08-07, 14:05 | Link #3501 | ||
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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Not saying there isn't a real problem -- just noting a LOT of arm-waving. Virtually all your links involve extensive arm-waving as well though some actually admit the lack of data. Many fail to even define what they mean by "children". Is a 19 year old a child? A 23yr old? I've seen 25 year olds labeled as "children" in some stats for the purposes of inflating numbers. Follow the numbers quoted in all the links to their source and watch the substance of the numbers vanish in a haze of arm-waving and sometimes sourceless assertions. From the UN link: Quote:
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Last edited by Vexx; 2009-08-07 at 14:32. |
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2009-08-07, 18:30 | Link #3502 | |||
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: PMB Headquarters
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Reports: Arrest warrant for missing Japan actress
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Obama unlikely to visit A-bombed cities in Nov. Quote:
Last edited by Shadow Kira01; 2009-08-07 at 18:30. Reason: fixed syntax error. |
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2009-08-07, 18:58 | Link #3503 | |
Pretentious moe scholar
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Age: 37
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Remember to wish India a happy nuclear winter while you try and figure out how to deal with the the Islamists who have already infiltrated your country. You know, the ones that actually are a pressing security threat. (Israel too actually. But hey, look at the bright side: Intel's Israeli labs would get a chance to learn what it's like to work with silicon made from radioactive sand! Wouldn't a radioactive Core i7 be the l33test thing ever? You could install a readout for a geiger counter in a 5.25 bay.) |
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2009-08-07, 20:38 | Link #3504 | |
Banned
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Imperial Manila, Philippines
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The "Vietnam/Afghanistan scenario" doesn't apply. No power supports the Islamists. Iran? lol. Anyway, there's nothing in Afganistan so it isn't like carpet bombing will destroy any significant infrastructure. It would actually be better because it will pulverize those mountain hideouts. Add building of a Israel-style barrier on the Pakistani border. Like the colonel from that movie about Gulf war snipers said, "College football" while jets bomb the target. Edit: Bombing IS effective http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baitullah_Mehsud Last edited by Thingle; 2009-08-07 at 20:59. |
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2009-08-07, 20:48 | Link #3505 | |
Banned
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Imperial Manila, Philippines
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Thank you. I have a reason to be certain. |
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2009-08-07, 21:17 | Link #3506 | |||
Pretentious moe scholar
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Age: 37
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No wait... if that's all they did nobody would give a crap. Anyway, I'm sure the other countries in the area will appreciate the radioactivity. Quote:
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At least the domestic unrest is in their country, not mine. Last edited by 0utf0xZer0; 2009-08-08 at 01:58. |
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2009-08-07, 21:48 | Link #3507 | |
Love Yourself
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Northeast USA
Age: 38
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Then of course there's the fact that the recession is, you know, still ongoing. Unless Obama could snap his fingers and make things better tomorrow, his approval ratings would suffer over that regardless. Actually, his approval ratings would still dip a bit if he could do that, because people would be whining that Obama should have snapped those magic fingers a few months - weeks - minutes - seconds earlier than he did. Not to come off as an Obama fanboy, but I'm displeased with commentary and posts like yours. The guy has been in office for a little over half a year, and he's dealing with some big-time issues. You're giving him a "D" - for what? Things seem to be stabilizing, and he's laying the groundwork for some enhancements to society. A "D" would be more fitting for a situation where things would be continually getting worse, I'd say. Out of curiosity, what would it take to get an "A" out of you? Jesus rises again and declares the United States a great place, thanks to Obama?
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2009-08-07, 21:59 | Link #3508 | |
Pretentious moe scholar
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Age: 37
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(Sorry, bad Nanoha joke...) |
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2009-08-07, 22:27 | Link #3509 | ||
Le fou, c'est moi
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Las Vegas, NV, USA
Age: 34
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Don't feed the troll, guys. It's not like we haven't gone through his extremist views before. Genocide slaughter yadda yadda. Whatever.
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Meanwhile, in related news involving the magicks of the Messiah's Administration, BBC claims that... Quote:
Not sure how much is up to Obama and how much is up to the natural business cycle, the article only vaguely says "analysts" (who?) attribute it (how?) to the stimulus package (hmm); but since we're going to blame everything on The One anyway, let's put all the good with the bad. Fairer that way I think. |
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2009-08-08, 03:21 | Link #3510 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Suburban DC
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Honestly, I think it's really silly to try and give all these arbitrary ratings of a president. MAYBE pundits can do it and I am not saying that average joe blow is "stupid" by any means, but given the labyrinth intricacies of government action (not to mention how it constantly changes), I have trouble believing average guys "rating of the president'. In short, too subjective.
If people can't do it for their senator (whom many constituents FREQUENTLY overlook and underrate) how can you for the prez? It's simple, it's a "What has he done for me" kind of angle. This isn't bad by any means, it's inevitable in such a multipolar, varied society. But it still is skewed. Polls are down cause people are frazzled due to slow VERY slow recession recovery and other economic malaise. Always happens. I will be surprised if major health care reform is passed that has a radical change in the status quo. Americans are too afraid of anything that looks like "socialism" whatever that may be. Personally, I think Vexx has pointed out the irony in the fear of "government bureaucrat healthcare" when "insurance bureaucrat healthcare" seems just as stupid. Once the recession pulls away, I wonder if there will be as much hooting and hollering, it seems to come in cycles. Like how no one is hollering about immigration reform any more. |
2009-08-08, 03:26 | Link #3511 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: China
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Even though he has only been in power for less a year. He still has troops stationed in places and an economy in the doldrums. Even with a strong charisma and popularity, taking on an ingrained establishment like healthcare right now is very risky, IMHO; if he can do it, he would go down in history as one of the better presidents, though, but my gut feeling is he'll fail in all but the small bits. Healthcare isn't like Social Security (the proverbial third rail of American politics), but it has its strong players also. Obama will need to dance really well to make things happen, IMHO, and that'll be hard to do with other problems on his plate. Real estate (personal and commercial) looks bad as well. Taking on too much and not consolidating your gains before doing something new is risky and prone to backfiring. Everything together is looking like a shotgun approach, and unless you have strong and loyal lieutenants, can be risky. Spoiler for To save space:
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2009-08-08, 03:29 | Link #3512 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: East Cupcake
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@solomon: Honestly, much of the current "popularity" polls are a little unimportant...right now at least. Besides some of the polls detailing what Americans think are the msot important issues (and other issue based polls), these popularity polls will not actually matter until 2010 and then, most importantly, in the 2012 race. Since the Recovery Package/Stimulus Bill is really supposed to take effect in 2010 and finish by 2012 (therebouts), people's opinion of Obama, and their local governors/representatives/senators, will undoubtedly increase in those years quite a bit. Consequently, the current Republican strategy is to try and cut off as much of the Independent support as they can early on, and hope none of them decide to go back in the years to come (after the economy starts chugging along again).
@LynnieS: I partially agree. I would also rate Obama as about a C (average) currently, but my rating is mostly due to the fact that he is not properly handling the discussion/agenda he wishes to enact, instead letting himself be side-tracked by pointless issues and not fully explaining what he wants or why what he wants can be "good" (not to say that everything in his agenda is "good") for the country/people. That being said, even if he could take full command over the discussion, I would still only rate him a B- to a B, considering that several of his policies are still fairly weak. |
2009-08-08, 03:38 | Link #3513 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: China
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^ Certainly the upcoming elections should prove interesting. Depending on how that looks like beforehand, poll-wise, I see a certain amount of jockeying and "testing the waters" announcements coming out of various agencies and PR offices. If things look particularly bad, I would not be surprised to see people who are presently in Obama's camp disagree and go against him publicly, which can weaken him and his work further, which would be too bad.
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2009-08-08, 03:56 | Link #3514 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: East Cupcake
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^Agreed. 2010 will be pivotal to understanding the next presidential election, and if the Republicans can find a way to repeat their performance from 1994 (which is what they are trying to do now by stirring up the masses), then Obama will become something of a lame duck in 2011 with the odds for a re-election evening out significantly (older members will undoubtedly recall that Bob Dole was the front runner of the 1996 election up until just a month or so prior to the actual election) with whomever runs against him.
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2009-08-08, 06:09 | Link #3516 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Suburban DC
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Barring any HUGE slipups vis a vis the Economic Recovery or Health Care Reform, I fail to see strong coat tail type election waves of Republicans. Particularly in those big Northeast and Midwest suburbs, 's not the early 80s any more and demos have moderated. Local Elections will be very very local in focus, ie those that lean whatever way will go in the most logical direction as to who is most popular on the ground. |
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2009-08-08, 06:15 | Link #3517 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Suburban DC
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I guess you can blame the prez for not making drastic enough action, but states have a big share of fault mismanaging their budgets which helped lead into this pickle (Michigan, Penn and Cali are particular offenders) |
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2009-08-08, 08:54 | Link #3518 |
Hina is my goddess
Graphic Designer
Join Date: Dec 2005
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Im actually a bit happy that his popularity is slipping slightly. The democrats are now stronger than they have been in a very long while. If there was ever a time to try some Liberal views and show that they could work, now is the only time to do it and afford a short term hit to popularity.
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2009-08-08, 09:25 | Link #3519 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2008
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And hopefully it doesn't take 10 years+ to work. Who knows, as much as I detest liberal policies, I would care less. It's much more efficient to try getting as much as possible out of it and if things go bad, I can always move to another place
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2009-08-08, 12:03 | Link #3520 | |
Love Yourself
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Northeast USA
Age: 38
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Hey, I'd think it'd get massive ratings from the athiests, because it'd finally put to rest the debates about religion (including its fallacies). But saying Obama would get an "A" for raising Jesus was a bit presumptuous - most people would probably only rate that an A-. The point deduction would come because it was only Jesus Christ Himself, rather than God Almighty. If you're going to have high expectations, why settle for anything less, right?
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Furthermore, the military is finally getting smart. Rather than taking the "we killed X bad guys" approach, they've recently adopted a new strategy of not focusing on the kill count, and instead focusing on protecting the civilians and encouraging stability that way. I think that's a much better approach. I'm not sure how much of it can be attributed to Obama (if any), but it did happen under his administration, so he gets partial credit at least. The healthcare thing seems really badly placed in terms of timing, but who knows? We're in a rebuilding sort of stage now; maybe this is actually the better timing to do it. And even if Obama fails at it, I'd rather that he try than not. Someone has to take that risk and accept a few cuts in their ratings to even suggest it. I don't imagine that his potential failure at implementing it would make it any harder to implement in the future. Maybe I just have low expectations. I want the president to make peace with other countries and, to but it bluntly, make it his priority to not piss other people off. That's about it. Congress should be doing the rest, not the president. Obama lost some of my approval by very early taking sides in the Gates vs. Crowley race issue, but at least that was a domestic thing, not an international one. I'm still pretty happy with what he's doing. I'd be even happier if he'd stop increasing the debt, but I guess you can't do that without having people complain that you're doing too little. Hell, if the average American doesn't understand the importance of saving in their own life, why should they understand why it's important on the national level?
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