2009-12-19, 08:32 | Link #5122 | |
AS Oji-kun
Join Date: Nov 2006
Age: 74
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The Afghan troop increases won't really begin much before next summer, so I'm doubtful that they'll have much of an impact on the 2010 midterms. Persistent unemployment at 10% will have an effect, though. Presidents always fall in popularity over the first year of their terms, and presidents nearly always see their party's majority fall in the House, and often in the Senate as well, after the midterms. Kennedy's first year in office was also generally unsuccessful, with humiliations like the Bay of Pigs adventure and the unproductive, and perhaps even destabilizing, summit with Khrushchev in Vienna. Like Obama, Kennedy inherited his first national security challenge from a previous Republican administration. From what I've read, Kennedy was a reluctant convert to the scheme. His advisers all told him the plan would work, and the romance of the adventure probably appealed to the Kennedy who read both history and Bond novels. Obama, in contrast, has repeatedly and publicly taken full responsibility for the Afghan war throughout both his campaign and his term in office. I haven't seen anything about whether he has a taste for Fleming's novels, but Daniel Craig did say Obama would make a better James Bond than McCain. He thought McCain would make a better M. Pierce Brosnan thought Obama "has what it takes to be" James Bond. In related news: U.N. Climate Talks ‘Take Note’ of Accord Backed by U.S. Obama's appearance as James Bond is detailed on page two: "The deal eventually came together on Friday after a dramatic moment in which Mr. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton burst into a meeting of the Chinese, Indian and Brazilian leaders, according to senior administration officials. Mr. Obama said he did not want them negotiating in secret." Hmm. Hillary as Felix Leitner?
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Last edited by SeijiSensei; 2009-12-19 at 09:49. |
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2009-12-19, 14:04 | Link #5125 |
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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When did being *part* of the community and having obligations as part of the group become "socialism"? No one exists in isolation, whatever their delusions of independence. The group chooses what efforts to share and what to leave up to the individual. That's why we have, for example, a public road system, fire, and police rather than a privately-owned one.
That said.... almost no one is *happy* with the bill that the Senate is going to approve... its a byzantine mess with insufficient controls that hands the insurance and pharma corporations many bonanzas at the expense of the community. Corporations have no obligation to the community whatsoever by definition... why anyone would think being ruled by them and their unelected executives is better than representational democratic government is curious. Its like feudalism without the "obligations of the nobility". Eisenhower had a fair amount to say about the topic. I don't think many people understand just how far right the politics in the US has tilted in the last 40 years...
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Last edited by Vexx; 2009-12-19 at 14:14. |
2009-12-19, 14:11 | Link #5126 |
Not Enough Sleep
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: R'lyeh
Age: 48
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i think we still got a 2 to 3 hundred years before the earth pull the plug on humanity. And in 2 to 3 hundred yrs if we are still stuck on Earth and 1 little planet humanity deserve to go extinct.
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2009-12-19, 15:16 | Link #5128 | |
NYAAAAHAAANNNNN~
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 35
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Either that, they spent their past 40 years indulging in the excesses of capitalism not to even make important decisions like you who had worked in the government. It is more about whatever shit one has been through that helps offer an alternate perspective from others. I think US did not predefine liberty during its independence that shortchanges it of its price. Nothing is free in this world.
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2009-12-19, 16:11 | Link #5129 |
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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My attitudes really haven't changed much in 40 years.... I'm an Eisenhower/Goldwater with sprinkles of old Buckley type of conservative. OTOH, on cultural matters, I've always been "liberal" (those New Testament ideas of treating people as you'd want to be and doing things as a community). By todays's meter in the US, apparently I'm a raving progressive even when I quote Eisenhower or Goldwater (or Jefferson/Franklin, two other favorite quote sources).
The corporatist is neither "left" nor "right" ... they go with whatever maximizes their short term profit into their wallet at the expense of the public. They avoid responsibility for the infrastructure they thrive in and they leave town once they've broken it. The profits made are not re-invested in the community. In short, sociopathic. And somehow over the last hundred years, we've made that entity both a "person" in terms of rights but not responsibilities ... and equated dollars to free speech. The combination is destructive.
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2009-12-19, 18:20 | Link #5132 | |
Senior Member
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Our Founding Fathers NEVER intended the Federal Government to get 1/10th the size it is now. Politicians are being bought for hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars just for a single vote. 2100 page bills are being snuck through congress in the middle of the night. Or at least attempted to be snuck through. Nothing is for free. There is no free lunch. Someone has to pay for every program that goes through. And that someone is the tax-payer. Every. Damn. Time. Why is it that I, who pay my taxes, who found a job that gives health insurance, and have done everything right, why am I being punished for it Vex? There are millions of Americans on Government Assistance as it is. Most of them don't deserve the help they're getting. Why am I funding that, and now I'll have to fund all of their healthcare too? What kind of crap is that? America Can't afford to spend trillions on this healthcare reform bill. We're already broke. The money isn't there. |
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2009-12-19, 19:04 | Link #5133 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2008
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Court to decide if pet dog is just property
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34470910...s_and_animals/
Briefly, a neighbor shot and killed a family's dog when it wandered onto his property. He was convicted of animal cruelty, but the family also sued him in civil court. In most states, animals are considered property so you can only successfully sue to recover economic damages, such as the market value of the animal. However, the market value of an adult, mix breed dog is essentially nothing. But the family is arguing their pet is worth more than that because of the emotional attachment. Is a pet just property? A family member? Something in between? Does it matter how attached to family is to the pet? |
2009-12-19, 19:35 | Link #5134 | |
思想工作
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Vereinigte Staaten
Age: 32
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Just because the founding fathers didn't believe in government spending doesn't mean they were right. They lived in the 1700s and things are different now.
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2009-12-19, 21:16 | Link #5135 | |
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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"Government Assistance" is mostly going to the pockets of the top-end of the spectrum. And good luck if you ever actually have a major issue with health -- and find out you've been rescinded by a corporate "death panel" ...
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2009-12-19, 21:40 | Link #5136 |
Komrades of Kitamura Kou
Join Date: Jul 2004
Age: 39
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It's always been, and unless human nature change, always will be about maintaining the status quo. Doesn't take a genius to know that once people climb the corporate ladder after stomping on other people's lives and livelihood along the way they'll do the same things they've been doing to keep themselves at the cream of the crop.
People forget that at the end of the day, healthcare and insurance aren't services, they're products. At least you people have some sort of basic healthcare for the masses; I've been studying in the hospital system of this developing nation for barely three years and I've seen way too many people unable to pay their bills for even the most basic services. It's sickening.
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2009-12-19, 22:00 | Link #5137 |
✖ ǝʇ ɯıqnɾl ☆
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Mortuary : D
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Sushi set to go Sky high
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Source : Yahoo News / Reuters
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2009-12-20, 02:11 | Link #5138 | |
NYAAAAHAAANNNNN~
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 35
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Having the ability to pro-sell a product that saves lives isn't ethical in the first place. It is just like saying that the lives of the consumers are worth a dozen dimes three times a day before meals.
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2009-12-20, 09:16 | Link #5139 |
Takao Tsundere Cruiser
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Classified
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This girl won't give up. Won't she?
Dutch sailor girl Laura Dekker 'missing' Dutch police say teenage sailor Laura Dekker - who seeks to be the youngest person to sail solo around the world -has been missing since Friday.
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2009-12-20, 11:39 | Link #5140 | |
Le fou, c'est moi
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Las Vegas, NV, USA
Age: 34
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IMO, a total bloody waste of precious resources. Those commercials aren't cheap. And it's not like they're contributing anything even artistically (like some cool commercials do); every goddamn drug commercial I've ever seen generally has A) slightly-better-looking-than-average-people, B) soothing narrator's voice, C) movement to show how happy the slightly-better-than-average people are, D) some midtown America scenery with greens and/or "ideal" houses. Extra points if it comes with dogs. You never see cats. Cats are too dignified for drug commercials. So the lesson of day (lol) would be, what is normal in current day USA might actually be total idiocy that would make any neutral observer shudder in disgust. Maybe a hundred years later historians will be writing (err...blogging? Holocron-ing?) about the terrible conditions of a corporatist early 21st century USA and the Socialist Scare that killed reform efforts by the well-meaning but tragic President Obama, or something. Kinda like how we write about the industrial horrors of the Gilded Age today. |
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current affairs, discussion, international |
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