| Search Results |
Total results: 11 |
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General Politics
/ Re: Barry’s dreadful treatment of Gordon Brown! |
on: Nov 26th, 2009, 02:09am |
| Started by Dean | Post by Reticuli |
It's a notable presidential "failure" to not adhere to protocol exactly as you would prefer when dealing with a particular world leader? If that's all that's necessary, where the hell were you during the eight years of Bush? You, sir, are a fool.
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General Politics
/ Re: Five Questions I'd Like the Candidates to Answ |
on: Nov 26th, 2009, 01:56am |
| Started by Reticuli | Post by Reticuli |
The House Judiciary Committee just released documents showing Karl Rove was at the heart of the federal prosecutor scandal. U.S. Atty. Nora Dannehy is the current head of an investigation into possible criminal charges.
Obama's space panel has leaked to the press it is likely to not recommend returning to the moon as a prerequisite for going to Mars. As for whether the panel will recommend a refocusing of the manned space program towards the red planet, the panel has been vague.
Pedro, I don't see how the President's views on Islam have anything to do with the subject. Considering it's just another religion "of the Book", and they all have radical elements, I hardly think his past positve statements show some darker motivations...which I have to assume is the only reason you're bringing that up out of the blue.
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General Politics
/ Re: Should we have a Department of Peace? |
on: Oct 28th, 2008, 11:09pm |
| Started by freeforever | Post by Reticuli |
"Peace" isn't actually an action, say, as "defense" is. So I'm not sure exactly what it would do. Technically, the State Department already serves the role of diplomacy, embassies, and related activities. I think such a new department as you suggest would be about as useless and redundant as the Department of Homeland Security has been when we already had the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency. Personally, I think the NSA should probably be disbanded and absorbed into the other intelligence agencies, since its creation was specifically to keep its budget away from prying eyes and keep its existence secret & unacknowledged. More simplification of agencies would be better than simply more agencies. In the case of 9/11, it wasn't a lack of law and allowable behavior that prevented things from being done. The procedures were already in place. It's just that individuals at CIA, FBI, and State prevented others from doing their job for such petty reasons as they didn't like how a colleague conducted their personal lives or they didn't want a subordinate to be so successful at their job that they may be promoted ahead of them one day. There's very little in the Patriot Act that even would have prevented the attacks.
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General Politics
/ Re: In response to Sarah of Roseburg on Myspace |
on: Oct 17th, 2008, 9:56pm |
| Started by Reticuli | Post by Reticuli |
He called us BIG SATAN and Israel, Little Satan. And obama wants to meet with him and be friendly can i say anymore. We need a leader who has been their, Mccain has fought and been tortured for our country. Obama said the other day that OUR troops were raiding and bombing small villages. What the heck is he talking about Were buliding schools and homes over there. How dare he talk bad about our troops.
--We’re not at war with Iran. The President of Iran also has no power in his country. He is simply a figurehead of the radicals who wields no actual power, internally or externally. The average Iranian is a moderate Shiite Muslim who gets CNN. Al Qaeda, in contrast, is a Wahaabi Sunni organization. Obama believes Iran, however, should not become a nuclear state and would back that up with force if necessary. There is no evidence Iran actually has an active nuclear weapons program, though, and international law protects their right to have peaceful nuclear power.
--Additionally, Israel already has a nuclear deterrent of its own, and I’m not talking about the U.S. Israel is already generally believed to have a significant atomic arsenal to dissuade any nation from using WMD/CBRN against it. In spite of the common misconception, no country can give a domestically-produced nuclear device to a rogue group of terrorists without that device being easily traced back to its country of origin.
--In other words, if hypothetically Iran did secretly become a nuclear armed state and gave said device or nuclear material to some Shiite radical group (they probably would never deal with a Sunni like Bin Laden), the nuclear remains after its use could be easily tested by the U.S. or UN atomic response teams to determine that it was an Iranian device. All nuclear material has a unique signature as to its exact origin of mining & processing that cannot be concealed or altered. Nuclear scientists are very good at determining this. Hence the reason nuclear stockpile security is so important since it is unlikely such a terrorist nuke would come from a small nation that would be annihilated for such a behavior, but rather would more likely come from U.S, European, Chinese, or Russian stockpiles that are incredibly large and difficult to secure. No country is going to willingly give such a device that can be traced back to themselves to any rogue group.
-- We are technically not even at war with the nations of Afghanistan or Iraq anymore. Afghanistan actions are authorized under NATO, the first time that treaty has ever been utilized, as a response to the attacks on 9/11, and they are not directed at the government there. Iraq for the last several years has been under a UN mandate, which has already expired. Further military presence in Iraq will be the result of either peacekeeping operations or a joint Status of Forces Agreement with the new nation of Iraq. In simple terms, the wars-proper against the nations of Afghanistan and Iraq ended some time ago. What are left are counterinsurgencies and counterterrorism operations. It’s also interesting to point out that the majority of 9/11 hijackers and planners came from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, two of our allies that we send billions of dollars a year to in free money. The state religion of the latter is actually the same radical sect that Osama bin Laden belongs to: Wahabiism.
--The quote you’re talking about was actually just Obama quoting the former head of NATO forces in Afghanistan as to the ineffective method of raiding villages, kicking down doors, and spraying & setting fire to poppy fields. Obama favors going after Al Qaeda & the Taliban directly, since neither is involved with the everyday lives of average Afghans. One last point on this, the Taliban was actually created by the Pakistani intelligence service. So there is actually quite a lot to their distaste for attacking Al Qaeda in the boarder tribal lands, something Obama seeks to do.
Conclusion: If anything my biggest problem about Obama is that he is a socialist. The United States of America is a democracy! We strive to achieve and make things better for oursleves. How dare he "Spread the Wealth" Why does another person deserve my hard work and sweat and tears. Let it be my choice not his! Mccain isnt perfect, i dont agree on everything he says but please dont throw away your vote to someone who doesnt understand what America is all about! John Mccain does and has fought for it like my fiance and the troops of America. I am scared for what Obama really is, I just hope I am wrong, please take another look into Mccain.
--Barack Obama is not a socialist or a communist. He is a democrat. He believes in representative government, a well-regulated free market, fair taxation, and justice for all. Questioning a law-abiding public servant’s patriotism and alleging such erroneous political affiliations smacks, quite frankly, of McCarthyism and the Red Scare.
--The United States is colloquially a “democracy”. In actuality, it is in fact a form of mixed-government, embodying elements of monarchy, aristocracy, republic, and pure democracy, with the strength of each being maximized and the devolutionary weakness of each being minimized as much as possible. Technically, a real democracy would be something like what was practiced in Athens a very long time ago. However, this is considered a form of antiquated “mob rule” that resulted in irrational conflicts like the Peloponnesian War, such disgusting things as the execution of the philosopher Socrates, and a severe lack of cooperation between the Greek city-states which eventually led to their defeat by Rome.
Thanks!
--Don’t mention it.
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General Politics
/ In response to Sarah of Roseburg on Myspace |
on: Oct 17th, 2008, 9:55pm |
| Started by Reticuli | Post by Reticuli |
Ok first and for most Barack Obama
1) Higher taxes! He says for only the top 5 percent will pay but what he doesnt tell you is that the bottom 40 percent doesnt pay taxes at all, so where is the taxes going, yeah middle class. O and so you want the rich to pay everything right. You know the people that worked hard for what they have. Its called the trickle down economy. The wealth invest in buisness that provide jobs that provide other jobs... We demand more money from them, that cuts our jobs and others and others. I dont understang why people can not see that Obama told a plumber the other day who was starting a business, he asked him why are you going to tax me?? Obama said " To share the wealth" Why does anyone have to give their money away to others?? It should be your and my choice if i want to share your or my wealth. Its called SOCIALISM!!!!! i CANT STRESS THIS ENOUGH! Why should the people that work hard give money to people who dont, the ones that take out loans and morgages that cant pay them back. People dont need to get free handouts, thats not what our country is about. We are for the American Dream! To work hard and succeed! Obama is a socialist, you might say whats wrong with helping others?? Their is a difference, I should have the choice to give my money away, not the government and certainly not Obama.
--I’ve never heard of that “bottom 40 percent” statistic. Does that include children, the unemployed, and the elderly? The majority of tax revenue in the U.S. comes from the bottom 95% of income brackets. That would not change under Obama, though the gap would be decreased somewhat. Right now 50% of U.S. corporations pay no taxes on profits and many of the top 5% actually pay a lower income tax bracket than their lower income employees. Obama simply wants to bring taxation back up to Clinton levels for the top 5% of businesses and individuals, while reinstating the Bush Administration tax cuts for the middle class and lower incomes that are about to expire.
Mccain- Lower taxes!!!!! wow so it can boost our economy! Sounds good to me!
--Trickle-down and supply-side economics has been utilized during three presidential periods: Reagan, Bush 1, and Bush 2. All three periods saw a massive increase of government debt, numerous corporate corruption scandals, and a weakening of the middle class. In the middle of all this was 8 years of the Clinton Administration, which for all the private affairs scandal, had a balanced budget, massive economic growth…especially in the stock market when capital gains taxes were actually higher, and a general strengthening of the middle class. Whatever one has to say about the Democrats, economics is not one of their weaknesses.
2) Obama- DOESNT want to Drill, wow thats why our prices are high on gas, were not using our own resources, we getting our resources from places like Saudia Arabia and others that harbor terriosts. We spend so much money on buying export oil, when we have it here! This would save our gas prices and stop us from being dependent on other countries.
We are America and we shouldnt be dependent on any other countries!
--Our gas comes from the open market. Dependency isn’t actually the problem. If America tried to become completely independent, say as Iran has been for the last few decades, our economy would completely collapse. It is our dependency, and the world’s dependency on us, that has resulted in our economic power-house status for the last 50 years. The problem is actually a lack of competition & multi-faceted interdependency in the liquid fuel markets. OPEC is an anti-free markets cartel that continues to bring in new members, and they will simply drill less if we drill more to keep prices relatively high. That is the entire point of that organization’s existence. Russia and OPEC simply control too much of the world’s oil production for us to drill our way out of this situation. We use 25% of the world’s oil yet only have 3% of the world’s oil supply. And any oil that gets drilled domestically will only show up on the world market. It does not become eminent domain. If it was made eminent domain, I can guarantee you U.S. oil companies would stop promoting this red herring.
Mccain- wants to drill!!! Yey!
--So does Obama. But that is not going to fix things.
OK SO GLOBAL WARMING IS FALSE!!! Why cant people think for themsleves instead of watching Al Gore, when about half of the scientists disagree on this *sh--*
. The earth has actually cooled one degree in the last 10 years. O and on the news yesterday they actual said the ice caps were growing not melting and it was actually the liberal media that said that. Global warming is a way to get tax payers dollars so people like Nancy Pelosi can use it for what she pleases.
--The vast majority of the world’s academically-active peer-reviewed climatologists believe the past several decades of global climate change is caused predominately by humankind. It’s important to be specific as to which field of expertise we are going to for advice on this subject. You don’t consult a zoologist, for instance, if you want to study a black hole in space. Also, the difference between now and the last ice age was actually only a few degrees. When we’re talking about global average temperatures and the increase in acidity of the world’s oceans that results, this is not a minor change by any account.
Obama believes in this and so does Mccain, thats my one negative about him but he still wants to drill, thank gosh!
3) Abortion- Obama supports it, and he voted on extreme abortion to where if if doesnt work, kill the baby when its born so umm yeah! Mccain doesnt support it. I dont feel like thats bad at all, he wants to save a life that doesnt have a say. O and Obama said why should we "Burden" our own children with having a child. Wow children are burdens, didnt know that either.
--The bill in question was a “token” bill that would have had no legal functional benefit, except as an attempt to weaken Roe v. Wade. Partial Birth Abortions are already banned in the majority of U.S. states when the fetus is considered viable, that is, it can survive outside the womb. Hospitals are also already required by law in every state to give medical assistance to any child that is dying, even one found in a dumpster as a result of a failed, illegal, partial birth abortion. To do otherwise is against the law already. Obama is a Harvard-trained constitutional lawyer who agrees with the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that there must be a health exception for the mother in all medical procedure bans. He is not “pro-abortion”. Obama supports a federal & universal Partial Birth Abortion Ban, as long as it can be phrased in a way that does not violate the U.S. Constitution. Even Sarah Palin agreed to Katie Couric that perhaps there should be a constitutional privacy concern when looking at this topic, something the governor was apparently unaware that’s exactly what the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade is.
4) Obama surrounds himself with bad people! Ayers who tried to bomb the U.S. Why isnt he in prison is my question? O rev. Wright preaching hate about the U.S. to Obama for 20 years, I have listened to his sermons, not good at all! O and all of a sudden he wants to leave the church after so many years, please... Dont forget about Acorn, and false voting thats his friends too.
--Obama served on an education board with Bill Ayers, a board started by a Republican that had two Reagan-allies on it. He did not announce any of his political campaigns in Ayers’ home and not a single news outlet has produced proof to the contrary, such as footage from this alleged news conference that was supposedly held there. Ayers himself was involved in admittedly criminal acts when Obama was 8 years old, and was acquitted because the government he attacked was engaged in grossly illegal acts, itself. That doesn’t make what he did right, but even the court system while a Republican was president had to throw it out because the government had illegally opened mail, conducted illegal medical tests on the homeless and prisoners, and had infiltrated anti-war groups to commit violence on their behalf in order to discredit them.
--If one were so inclined to make personal attacks and disregard the issues, one could point out that McCain is connected to a man who is a eugenicist who funds white-supremacist research into proving how Jews and minorities are genetically inferior to whites. If one were so inclined…
--As for ACORN, that is a non-profit voter registration organization that both Obama and McCain have had ties to in the past. It deals primarily with the registering of minorities and low income individuals. It was in fact ACORN that brought this recent fraud to the Illinois Election Commission’s attention. ACORN were not “exposed” for fraud themselves, rather ACORN were the ones defrauded by several of their paid employees who’d filled out bogus registration forms with names from Disney, the Dallas Cowboy football team, and even the deceased in order to get their paychecks from ACORN without doing the work. There is very little risk anyone using these names was ever going to attempt to vote in Illinois, rather ACORN may have given money to scamming employees accidentally. This does not fall under the category of voter fraud, but simply registration fraud. Again, it was ACORN that exposed this fraud, not Fox News, the state attorney general, or the Illinois Election Commission…though all seem to be jumping on the bandwagon to allege some conspiracy.
5) The war! Let me just say i have done a lot or reading on extreme muslim terriosts and their capablities. My fiance and brother n law were there and they said they would go back to Iraq in a heart beat. These people want to destroy us. The President of Iran has called for the destruction of us and Israel.
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General Politics
/ Re: Five Questions I'd Like the Candidates to Answ |
on: Sep 2nd, 2008, 10:21pm |
| Started by Reticuli | Post by Reticuli |
How do you know Karl Rove was not involved with planning the US attorneys ruckus if all emails and files are being held back on the subject that might implicate him and he refuses to testify before Congress?
How could you know the FISA violations were not used for spying on Americans and democrats for political purposes if the information is classified and the only people who supposedly signed off on the exemptions within Congress were senior members who the Whitehouse chose to involve in the "special briefings", rather than going through the standard procedures of approval within the pre-existing committees and FISA court?
Ok, we mostly agree on the nuke issue, though I think this should be decided by the communities that would have to live with them. Fusion research is something no one wants to talk about, which I find perplexing. Fission chain reactions do not exist in nature, yet we have those kinds of reactors. Fusion is in every star in the universe. Given the amount of money that has been spent on Iraq, it seems like a similar amount ought to be spent over the course of a decade or two to find out if fusion is viable or not. And not numerous, disparate, unfocused, grant-based programs. A Manhattan Project-like program is needed to finally pursue this, or at least show it is a dead end.
Most of the Apollo astronauts think going back to the moon is generally pointless, at least as a primary goal. And the cost of direct Mars launch vehicles being prohibitively expensive is 1980's thinking, like the $500 billion Bush-41 plan. It's also bad physics to think you need to launch from the moon or that moon technologies will be useful on Mars. For the most part, Mars technologies would be useful on the moon, but not the other way around. It's also bad economics to think it would be cost effective to build a Mars insertion vehicle either in orbit around Earth or on the surface of the moon. Very outdated concepts you're talking about. Go google Mars and Direct. Or just go to the Mars Society website.
And on the last one, I think that's incredibly narrow-minded, especially considering it is now common knowledge that Project Bluebook was a propaganda operation and whitewash designed not to come to the truth, but rather to make the public think that everything was peachy. The head of that project admitted that a significant portion of the reports they investigated appeared unexplainable and possibly extraterrestrial. Also, the U.S. AF Academy’s physics dept when asked to write a chapter on the subject concluded they were also likely of extraterrestrial origin. Both Belgium and the Philippines have also concluded the same thing after major incidents over their airspace. The subject needs to be reviewed again, and not just in a cursory manner.
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General Politics
/ On the flex-fuel mandate |
on: Sep 2nd, 2008, 9:57pm |
| Started by Reticuli | Post by Reticuli |
on Sep 2nd, 2008, 9:57pm, Nodak01 on Simhq wrote:Biofuels simply don't and can't work for everybody. Your deluding yourself if you think anyone is going to put pure alcohol in their tank during a -20 C winter, and expect to park it for an extended period. Can you say guaranteed fuel system freeze up.
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A capability mandate of flex fuel would be no different than air bags, catylactic converters, fuel injection, or FM radios required in all new cars...among other things.
Demand-side capability mandates also allow the free market to figure out which fuels are at each pump, not the federal government. Supply-side might say that all gas has to be E85. Demand-side says central control of supply is stupid (beyond reasonable environmental standards like lead) and to let consumers choose. So if you were in an area that needed fuel that wouldn't freeze in the winter, station managers that don't stock it will go out of business. Free market at work. If pure petrol is cheaper in your area, buy it. Other regions will have more ethanol, such as in Iowa.
But just like the digital tuner in your new TV, the shape of the firewire port on your computer, or the airbag in your car, standardization moves things forward when the populace cannot be expected to be sufficiently educated enough on some technical subject or interested enough to help advance a technology fast enough and in a way that is best for the country for a variety of reasons.
Capability mandates have been proven time and again to be effective in moving things forward. When TV stations, manufacturers, and consumers were not moving fast enough to keep up with the ATSC change-over deadlines, digital tuners were mandated on all new TVs and the date was shifted slightly. Problem solved. Sales are up. Prices are decreasing. Screen quality is improving. Stations are upgrading. Digital is being broadcast finally. The country is on track for the changeover.
Under an economy-of-scale in alcohol fuels in a true free market, food prices would not go up as a result with multiple fuels from many different production techniques competing on the open market internationally. What has been tracked now in food price trends is the result of increased oil prices (from OPEC quotas, decreases in cheap oil fields, and futures hedging), poor people coming out of poverty and eating more, and finally due to over fishing of the oceans that is forcing coastal peoples to eat more meat and grains instead as seafood goes up in price. The supposed correlations between ethanol and food prices right now disregard these stronger factors. What little influence it DOES have, there's no reason to think is not the result of anti-competitive practices currently in place and the fact that alcohols are not at an economy-of-scale.
Whatever any of you have to say about the current ethanol economy, remember several things. There are corn subsidies right now. There are also tariffs on imported sugar and ethanol. Beet and cane sugar are much cheaper to produce than corn syrup, yet we put high fructose corn syrup in practically everything. Granular sugar is more expensive in the U.S. than it is in most other countries. Most corn is not used for human food, but for animal feed. Most corn that is used for human food in the U.S. is used to make corn syrup, which is known to be a less healthy form of sugar, by the way. Enter the Farm Lobby.
This also is not including other ways of producing ethanol or the even more promising alcohol called methanol, which can be made from natural gas and clean coal plant technologies, amongst many other more exotic methods that are just now being explored. And unlike liquid natural gas, it doesn't require cryogenics to store or transport. It is already the dominant fuel choice in many high performance racing genres.
And when was the last time you put a high proof liquor in the freezer? Alcohols have lower freeze/melt points, which means they need less heat to stay liquid. Methanol is used in some antifreezes AS the antifreeze itself. So both your logic and your facts are wrong.
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General Politics
/ Secrecy, Unofficial Leaks, Syrian Strike, and Fear |
on: Oct 18th, 2007, 06:03am |
| Started by Reticuli | Post by Reticuli |
Unofficial leaks from unnamed sources about an attack on alleged reactors being built based on unconfirmed assistance from Iran. No one takes responsibility for the claims. No one produces any evidence to back them up. And at every opportunity there is the desire to construe more from these vapors than is even remotely rational. Must I remind everyone that the evidence for going into Iraq was nothing more than fraudulent documents on Nigerian uranium and some computer-generated speculative artistic renderings of hypothetical mobile CBRN WMDs factories? Do you not think if Israel and the US had convincing evidence Iran and Syria were building a weapons reactor they would present it, especially in light of the desire by this administration to begin a war with Iran? I was told by a Navy medic assigned to SEALs and Marine Recon -- long before all this hoopla about Iran began -- that SPECOPs were already operating in Iran and things were clearly in motion to get this policy enacted. Everything you hear, everything they do, will just be the lead-up and attempt to create public will to back up these pre-prepared administration policies.
Why do they seek to make war with such zeal? War is the ultimate mobilization of control: informational, political, and economic. In particular, the ability to reallocate a nation’s wealth through the economics of war into the hands of the war business industry and its friends is effective enough not to warrant the overt and offensive plundering of enemy nation-states. Its lack of efficiency in absolute terms, namely the wholesale wearing-out-of, destruction, replacement, rebuilding, and re-transportation of hardware, infrastructure, and personnel, is made up for by the specific efficiency in who benefits from the eventual destination of monetary profits that result. The question then becomes, why do they seek to become so hastily richer for themselves, their children, and their friends at the expense of the United States’ reputation, overall economic health especially in comparison to emerging strategic competitors, and readiness and morale of its defensive forces through such reckless, wasteful, and unconstructive uses of power? The answer may come from a fear held by some hawks and conservative political & business elites that America’s economy may be unavoidably doomed in this century, that the dollar will devalue, and the decline in domestic agriculture and manufacturing over the past few decades will exacerbate this into a loss of hegemony. Thus, what we may be seeing here is a hoarding phenomenon, where the elites are divining methods to take advantage of this latent relative prosperity before the eventual and inevitable collapse they fear is coming.
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General Politics
/ Five Questions I'd Like the Candidates to Answer.. |
on: Jul 20th, 2007, 1:56pm |
| Started by Reticuli | Post by Reticuli |
1. If Karl Rove was responsible for formulating a strategy inside the Whitehouse in order to defraud Congress into effectively giving the president sole appointment powers for U.S. attorneys to intentionally subvert the 2008 presidential elections and thus subvert the republic of the United States, what punishment do you think would be appropriate for him and are you interested in seeing an investigation of this subject carried through to its proper end?
2. Are you concerned by the possibility that the NSA, DIA, FBI, or related agencies have been used by anyone within the Bush Administration for political purposes, such as investigating, eavesdropping on, or intimidation of their political enemies?
3. What is your stance on the subject of nuclear energy, both in the production of new fission reactors and your enthusiasm to fund thermonuclear fusion energy research?
4. Do you prefer the next major manned space project go to the Moon or Mars first, and why?
5. Finally, what is your position on the subject of UFOs?
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