Re: OT: US Pres election
 

I vote so I can complain about who gets elected. If you don't (or if your candidate wins), then you've no right to--and I can hardly pass up a chance at righteous indignation. :p

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

That's understandable- I don't think it's avoidable or even necessarily desirable that the suffering of a stranger mean as much as the suffering of anyone you know personally. But this is an entirely different matter, sorting people by their nationality/race/culture. To many Americans (and probably similarly for other nationalities) the suffering of an American they don't know means a lot more than just a person in general they do not know... and that's something in my opinion far less excusable.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

I did some research into this a couple of weeks ago, one of the facts I picked up was that if we got our healthcare system up to the standards of the top countries in the world we would save 100,000 American lives each year. That's 33 times the death toll of 9/11, and that's PER YEAR, so just over 230 times as many people over the remainder of the Bush presidency. I'm pretty sure the Iraq war funding could have been better spent saving American lives by fixing our broken-*** healthcare system instead of using it to kill people, including plenty of innocents. I'm sure there are plenty of other things we could be doing instead, but I like this one for an example.

Also, WRT global warming, I can't see how anyone can look at this: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/tr..._data_mlo.html and not at least wonder what effect that might have on things.

Oh, and Palin installed a sheriff in Wasilla that forced women who had been raped to pay for their own forensic test kits, just in case they hadn't been traumatized enough.

Obama sure as hell isn't as shiny as a lot of his supporters make him out to be, but in this case I must say that "bad" is a whole lot better than "worse." Sure, I'd love to see pretty much the whole US political system razed to the ground and rebuilt, but unless that's gonna happen in the next month and a half I'll stick with voting for the best choice I can for now.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

I actually purchased a home based on "stated income". Both my brother and I were doing a lot of work as a private business, without documentation to prove that income. We jumped into the middle of the housing'mortgage boom with no problems, and great expectations.

2 years later, things were looking alright, and we wanted to consolidate outside debts into the mortgage, and at the same time refinance at a lower rate. We got duped into an ARM after a lot of talk that was getting us nowhere, and we were assured that our rate would likely go down slightly in 2 more years, or if it went up, that it couldn't go up enough to really matter.

2 years later, the ARM matured, and we saw a significant increase in mortgage payment. 6 months later, and they bumped it again. Total increase to our mortgage? 30%. I'm sorry, we were not irresponsible, nor were we unable to pay the mortgage that we signed. However, we were not able to pay a mortgage 30% larger than we signed - especially not as my health declined, and budgets tightened.

This was purely predatory economic behavior, and is indicative of the focal problem with free market capitalism. Those who have the money and power are largely incentivized to do -anything- in their power to maximize profits. The profit is all that matters at the end of their day, because it is a measure of the growth of their personal power.


If you don't believe that the current administration has been all about the pursuit of wealth and power, then I can only encourage to look more closely at the issues. To stop, and actually do some hunting around on the internet to see what is currently going on, and who is scratching whose back. You may find yourself extremely surprised. Oh and for the record, Bush is an absolute moron, who is likely becoming senile. He didn't dupe anyone, he very poorly and clumsily repeated lies that were fed to him by much more intelligent and cunning players in the game - he was just a puppet, or a muppet, if you will. ;)

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

When people suggest global warming doesn't exist, or even may not exist, it makes me want to cry.

There are few scientific theories so well supported by evidence, I believe. If it was in people's interests to believe it, everyone would have thirty years ago.

As a scientist who studied a lot of atmospheric chemistry in my undergrad, seriously it's a no-brainer.

The trouble with all these things is that in a world with so many facts, you can always find a few to support any argument. So the anti-GW people can put together a very convincing argument, backed up by real facts. If you're not willing to spend a lot of time on it, it's hard to distinguish it from, say, a pro-GW argument which is backed up by like a hundred times as many facts. Because they can't fit that many facts into a coherent argument.

/End of distressed rant

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Actually, I believe that evolution is even more backed up by evidence, but there are still some people who opt not to believe that. ;) Hard to fathom for me how you can accept genetics for solving crimes and making cosmetics but don't accept it when comparing genetic material of creatures, or how you don't see the strong hints during the evolution of the human fetus.

The global warming one still perplexes me. Twenty years ago, when I was a kid, it was presented to me as a fact, there were even doomsday scenarios about an unstoppable end of the world where mankind would inevitably maneuver itself into, one way or the other. Back then, you vowed to change this, you didn't want to hurt your environment after all. In the meantime, you accepted that it isn't easy to solve and tried to always look for "greener" ways to do things. Now suddenly the US begins to see the big honking unmistakeable evidence, as if they found it hiding under a rock or behind a bush twenty years later, and even get a big political campaign around it, with former vice presidents writing bestseller books about it. Duh, slow on the uptake much? Guess it was the media difference.

About the presidential election: That Bush was voted once was a mistake, that he was voted twice made me lose faith in the voters. It seems that people are influenced a lot more by the political campaigns than I'd like, in which the republicans have more success by appealing to the voters' emotions and offering simple solutions which are easy to understand and believe in, even if they might be useless. The democrats only seem to be able to convince intellectuals and do-gooders, while the republicans win by having the ordinary people on their side, the mass of the voters. As much as I'd like them to, I don't see the democrats winning the election.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Actually we're a lot better about predicting the weather than we were 20 years ago. Back then, whatever they told you in the news about tomorrow's weather, in 70% of cases they were wrong. Now the forecast for tomorrow usually is true, and the three-day forecast is going to be true most of the time, too. I expect that this is because of the increased computing power over the years, and because more measurements have been done to better predict what might or might not happen next. Weather is a chaotic process, you can't just calculate the outcome with all the imperfect inputs from measures. Still, you can make predictions based on what you have seen before.

Your statement that nothing can be forseen without failure, therefore no predictions about the future hold any meaning are too religious that I'm going to argue much more about it. Seems like you really are more interested in keeping the status quo and getting distracted while waiting for Godot.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

More revelations ahead. I'm responding to this stuff as I read it.

To be true, as stated before by others like Edi, the US isn't seen much like peacekeeping anymore, more like warmongering. Preferably in other places of the world, not just on their own territory. Hey, it worked for 50 years and kept everybody distracted, why change it?

The US has the biggest army in the world and spends the most money on it every year, yes. I just checked that and had it confirmed pretty well here: http://www.globalissues.org/article/...itary-spending

About the world's largest economy, I've been reading my newspapers on the weekend when they were analyzing the Lehman Brothers collapse, and what they wrote about the US economy was that it was based on credits, with the credit card being a consistent part of the pocket, and that the US Americans basically have been living above their financial circumstances for years and economists have been warning since a long time that a radical change of course has to happen sooner or later if this continues. So far, with the US being a big consumer like that it was a win-win for everybody because they imported a lot more than they exported, but it can't be expected to continue like this forever, the Dollar is going to decline in value.

As Edi pointed out, the US is of course an important and powerful ally. You can't simply ignore it. But the way that the US has been handling international politics under Bush has caused dismay, especially among the people. It's hard to stomach that the UN is being seen as "ineffectual and useless" by lots of US citizens instead of considering themselves a part of it, just because they think it's okay to go by whatever serves US American interests the most. "Pro-American" was once, to be true the people have now been leaning more towards "Anti-American" lately, especially because of the Iraq war which caused a lot of bad blood. We won't be parading around and burn USA flags, of course. But we're doubting that the USA really has "world peace" in mind and the trust is gone.

The US wasn't the only target for terroristic attacks. You might have overheard about those in the UK. In Germany, there were some terroristic attacks which fortunately didn't succeed and/or were prevented in time. Diplomacy isn't capitulation, no, it isn't waving guns around either.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

You could vote for whichever of the fourteen "third-party" candidates have managed to get on the ballot in your state.

I've considered myself a Republican since I was old enough to understand the concept of political parties, but the neoconservatives who've controlled the party for the last decade or so have proven themselves so incapable of governing that I don't think the second coming of Abraham Lincoln could win on the Republican ticket this year. I'm actually hoping that we Republicans suffer such an embarrassing defeat at all levels of government that it will shake most of the deadwood out of the party leadership. That will give the Democrats four to eight years to demonstrate that they're equally incompetent at running the country, hopefully leading to a similar purge on their side of the aisle.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Oh please. Do you really believe that? The Iraq war was an invasion of the country by the USA army. I don't expect the people there will forget that. What would you do if your country would have been invaded by a vastly superior military force and thrown into chaos for years to come? Would you attempt to understand the ulterior motives of the attacker? Doesn't seem so given the 9/11 reaction.

I am stumped by that everytime, too. The CNN calculated that the 9/11 attack killed 2,973 non-terrorists. That's a tragedy, for sure, but as a number it really isn't that much. Compare that to the death toll of war - among citizens, not soldiers, again. Or to the death toll from natural catastrophes. How are those three thousand lives any more valuable than other human lives? The 9/11 attack came as a shock, of course, but the reaction it caused was largely hysterical. It's not like Al Quaeda or anybody else would be able to start a real war or even fight on US American grounds then or at any time in the future. Judging by what they can do, almost everybody is safe from terrorists.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Since I can't edit my own post anymore:

Al Quaeda isn't that much of a threat, anyway. It won't be able to triumph over the Juggernaut that is the USA. It didn't even manage to make it backpedal or slow down a little, like they might have hoped by attacking its supposed "financial heart". It merely gave it a pretense to fight a war with support of its citizens, help the president in charge keep his place, pass some unpopular laws and manage to put drastic public surveillance into use.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Why, you make it sound as if we're more likely to win the lottery, get struck by lightning, die in a train wreck, or give birth to triplets - than to die in a terrorist attack! I mean, ummm, wait.....

O.o

Not to downplay what US led/hired forces have directly caused by way of loss of innocent life in Iraq, it makes me wonder how many people our presence has indirectly caused, by increased strife and sectarian violence in the nation. It has to be far more than died in 9/11. People who also were just trying to live their lives, killed by terrorists because of our military actions. Yet those numbers are not only almost invisible in the media, but when people even see them, or are made aware of the reality - they want to wave it away, and dismiss it.

I think it's important to note that most of those people did not support, nor take pride in the single noteworthy terrorist attack on human soil, much as most Americans did not support, nor take pride in our wanton invasion of a largely innocent nation. Even if we all somehow manage to agree that Saddam himself was SO vile, so despicable that he simply had to be forcibly removed - it's highly unlikely that the current state of affairs, in Iraq, or globally as relates to world view of America would have actually been any worse than they are now, had we simply evacuated from the country to let THEM pick up the pieces from the damage that Saddam caused. Right now many of them are probably wishing we had just left Saddam in power, because they would have largely been safer and more comfortable than they have been these last several years.

They often go without running water or electricity - and they conduct their daily lives with the everpresent threat of somthing just randomly exploding - how is that freedom?

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

I was faintly interested by a comment earlier by Trumanator stating that the Americans were there to elect a leader for themselves and the rest of world didn't matter. This is true. It's an American election for Americans. However, Americans should consider world opinion, because the USA's ability to express its power depends on the rest of the world.

George W. Bush has managed to alienate not just traditional enemies of the USA, but even its friends. Confidence in the USA in Europe is probably lower now than ever before. It's not just belligerence over Iraq, Iran, Georgia and so on. It's the contempt for international organisations and treaties; denial of climate change; advocating backward social practices (abstinence to stop AIDS, anti-abortion, Creationism etc.). McCain-Palin looks like much of the same to the world.

US power, in relative terms, is declining. It's not just economic and military might, but political power due the loss of international prestige and credibility as above. For instance, whilst the British supported the USA over Iraq years ago, I do not think it's people would do so now if a similar position arose. I know lots of Republicans have contempt for the rest of the world, even fairly friendly nations. But the USA's allies grease the wheels of its power by supporting them militarily, diplomatically, and in many other ways. It's possible they would not cooperate more and more in future if there is continued GWB-style leadership. That will leave the USA increasingly diminished by isolation.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Well, don't bet on it, I for one am fully expecting a Mcain victory. However, I suggest you go out and vote democratic if you would really rather Obama wins. ;)

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Yeah, I really don't get the couple of comments saying some variation on:
I don't vote or vote third party but I hope X wins.
Someone early one said voting for either was a waste, but McCain winning would prove how pathetic American voters are. Huh? How does that make sense?
If you want someone to win, vote for them.

And if you really do despise them both, look at your more local elections. You've got more influence there, since there are fewer other voters and those will often have at least as much influence on your life.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

I'm not entirely certain which treaties you're talking about, but go ahead and fill me in. I continue to stand by my opinion that the climate change issue is mostly hysteria. Calling abstinence and anti-abortionism backward social practices is just wrong though. The simple truth is that abstinence is the only 100% sure way NOT to get AIDS. Yes, condoms and such can help, but they don't always work and aren't always available. You guys are talking a lot about the cost of the Iraq war, but over 3,000 people die every day in the US because of abortions. Don't give the whole "when life begins" argument either, its simple biology, the real question is when do human beings get basic human rights.

PS- that bullsh-- about Wasilla police charging rape victims has been thoroughly debunked. There is absolutely no record of the police doing that. It is possible that the private hospital's did so, but that is the hospital's fault, not the mayor's.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Well if you were referring to me I didn't say that I hoped McCain will win, I said I think he is going to win.

I want someone to win, but I don't want that person to be either McCain or Obama, so I won't be voting for either one. The pathetic electorate will vote for them though, and one of them will win. Even though there is essentially no difference between the two of them in as far as having actual meaningful changes occur in washington.

And I agree, vote local first, which I do, but the topic of this thread is US Pres election afterall...

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

You did say McCain winning would "show how pathetic the electorate has become", which implied to me that Obama winning would not.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

We are going deep towards flame-war territory here, but I'll risk another post.
True: abstinence is the only 100% sure way NOT to get AIDS.
Surprisingly, telling people not to have sex has remarkably little effect on their sex lives. Abstinence works. Abstinence only sex education doesn't. This is seen in the US with teen pregnancy rates rising again after 8 years of gutting actual sex education and pushing abstinence. Teaching it doesn't work.
I'm not touching the abortion issue at all.

Oddly the climate change hysteria seems to be strongest among climate scientists and weakest among oil company executives. Though even they are starting to come around. The biggest problem is that the effects seem to be happening even faster than the hysterical claims predicted. The unprecedented melting of both Arctic and Antarctic ice caps is just the most blatant evidence.

As for your PS- I've seen no such debunking. If you're going to call BS, I want a link. And to something at least as reputable as the major papers that have carried the story.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Y'all know that McCain is a global warming true-believer, right? His proposals to "fight" global warming aren't as radical as Obama's proposals, but he does want to do something about it. Voting against McCain because you're a global-warmist doesn't make sense ... he agrees with global warming.

George will made a great point about global warming back in 2007:
For the record, I agree with Point #1. So I suppose you could say that I believe in global warming. However, I'm very far from convinced on the other five points, and you need to agree to all six points in order to agree with the current hysteria.

For an alternative to the hysteria, check out We Get It!

Thank you for saying that. If condoning the deaths of thousands of innocent children every day is "forward-thinking," then I'll be happy to move backward.

On the original topic: I'm voting for McCain. No pro-choice politician will ever get my vote, especially not someone whose position is as extreme as Barack Obama. The other factors -- experience, strong defense, conservatism -- are important to me, but they're side issues. I simply won't vote for abortion.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Indeed, but I made no real distinction between Obama and McCain. That statement was based on the democrats attacks on McCain as him being a pure continuation of the Bush administration.

As to global warming...

Well its out of the news now, and I'll give you one guess why (and it has nothing to do with the election).

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

You guys want a thread on abortion, fine, we can have one. The "abortion is murder" argument straight up without qualifiers is idiocy of the highest order. As Trumanator said before, it is a matter of when the fetus starts gaining human rights and when those rights are weighty enough to overshadow the mother's right to make medical decisions about her own body.

But don't expect this to stay on topic if you keep making claims without any argumentation to back it up. Failure to pay the topic detailed attention and making pithy statements as if they were fact are one of the easiest guaranteed ways to get me to take the gloves off and bring out the brass knuckles.

Normally I'd bring a flamethrower, but gratuitous arson is generally frowned upon here. ;)

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Okay Edi, I'll try and keep the heat down :wink:

@SlipperyJim- I guess I should clarify that what bothers me about GW are the calls that we have to fix it now!now!now!, forget how much economic damage it will do. Its nice to know I'm not alone against the hordes though. (no offense intended to "the hordes", just saying I'm outnumbered.)

I didn't say abstinence only education was the one and only way to do things. Contraceptives don't work though if the teenagers want kids. I'll see if I can find the article, plus the one about the bogus rape kit story...

rape kit story: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...UwZWYwNTVlMTQ= and before you impugn the source remember that the main stream media also reported the bull about Palin covering for her daughter's pregnancy.

contraceptives only work sometimes: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...FjN2I5ZDk4Zjk=

National Review is a reputable magazine. You might disagree with its politics, but the stories are grounded in fact.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

"Treaties" is sloppy wording on my account, apologies - I would refer more to breaches of international conventions, unilateral actions, refusal to sign up to international courts and so on. Had the nuclear bunker-buster funding been pushed through, that would I believe have breached non-proliferation treaties.

I wouldn't call abstinence a backward social practice per se. It was in the name preventing HIV/AIDS because it caused successful tactics that were being used to reduce infection rates to be ditched. Abstinence failed to work as was widely expected by research and expert opinion - stopping people having sex is a bit like stopping people drinking alcohol, and we know how prohibition worked out. Therefore it meant many were condemned to HIV in the name of blind ideology.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Actually, to clarify a bit - teaching abstinence is a bit like treating heroin addicts by telling them "not to do it".

I find it awfully funny when people argue that you "can" "potentially" get pregnant while using contraceptives. Well, this is entirely true. You can also be killed in a car accident while wearing a seatbelt. We wear seatbelts AND condoms not because they are 100% guarantees of anything - but because we're not going to stop driving and copulating.


Tell your own children not to have sex - see how well that works out for you. But when you interfere with other people taking saner and more effective approaches to the problem, then YOU are causing more unwanted pregnancies with your enacting of policy. If you want to see less abortions, then DO something about it - by allowing people to make meaningful steps to avoid unwanted pregnancies to begin with.

This is a prime example of why our founding fathers wanted all religious doctrine kept out of government. Religious freedom relies on no one particular faith imposing their own doctrine on the non-or-differently-believing citizens of the nation. If religious extremists keep voting along doctrine lines, and trying to force their belief systems on others, sooner or later the collective masses of those who disagree are going to start sanctioning that particularly overbearing religion. Then what? Will you all resort to terrorism when everyone else makes perfectly clear that they are tired of hearing about it.....? Hmmmm.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

I just would like to point out that Palin is also strongly opposed by Batman


Sorry, lil' joke :D Oh, wait, doesn't matter, someone is still gonna call it "liberal hatred" :rolleyes:

Really enjoying the discussion here. I see really valid points from many of you guys (I took the freedom to "thank" the most worthy, they will be useful for me in future debates probably here overseas ;) )

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

1: Heroin addicts are addicted to a chemical substance, so thats a bad analogy.
2: At no point did I say that you should never ever teach contraceptives, or if I sounded like it that wasn't my intent.
3: The "they'll do it anyway" argument is part of the problem, as all it accomplishes is to cut parents out of the equation and make them the enemy.
4: The seperation of church and state was to protect the church, not the state, and you would be hard pressed to find major elements of the constitution that weren't influenced by Judeo-Christian religion. I will also repeat, I am not a religious person, I am an agnostic.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

1) In fact, it's a perfect analogy. Our bodies and our brains secrete hormones, which are chemicals, which create urges to perform natural acts, such as engage in sexual intercourse. This further causes the release of pheremones, which are habit forming.

2) Well I'm glad that you are reasonable on this particular subject. However the majority of the people who preach abstinence are also 100% against contraception. Also, the point is that it doesn't matter what study you find that shows x% of people using contraception become pregnant. This will always be irrelevant in the face of the numbers that simply show that looking at the population as a whole, teaching the use of contraception is significantly more effective at reducing the rate of teen and unwanted pregnancies, than abstinence alone.

3) Parents are not "an" enemy, and young people "will" have sex. When adults are forbidden to have sex (read: priests, monks, etc), we find that many of them do anyways. In fact, there is a growing body of evidence that repressing sexual desires leads to perversion and illicit practices, while embracing sexual desires tends mostly to lead to great pleasure. ;)

4) This is a cyclical argument actually, and so it is quite arguable that the separation of church and state was intended to protect both. Besides, the second part of what I stated was that if religious extremists push through enough doctrine into law, then the backlash will ultimately be somewhat harsh. This implies that protecting the state from interference from the church, is the only way to insure that the church is free from interference from the state. The problem being that evangelical Christians supposedly make up ~30% of the US population. They form the backbone of the Republican party, and they use that power to put a lot of pressure on Washington. The current atmosphere in America, among the other 70% of the population ranges from "agreement on some points", to "outright disgust and derision", and the situation is degrading rapidly. It is only a matter of time before it is deemed that the government must take steps to reduce the ability of the church to affect the efficient and effective governance of the people.



And seriously - with all of the vastly more pressing issues in our country today, you would let your vote be determined by such a ridiculously miniscule social issue? As if the "to condom, or not condom" argument is just so much more important than foreign affairs, our crumbling economy, our distressed energy policy, our predatory corporate regime, or corruption of our elected officials?

That's the beauty of the current 2 party smokescreen - to get you more concerned about petty personal differences, than you are about the real problems and issues facing this nation, and this world.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Personally voting is fairly easy for me. I dont consider either party to be right ENOUGH to make too many changes. So I consider myself a "Toggle Party" member. Whoever has been making the laws for awhile, I vote the other direction. Give things a chance to balance out in the middle. :)

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Wow, that pic is astoundingly creepy.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Yeah, the pic is crazy...and definitely an awesome photoshop job :up: The funny thing is if you google Dark Knight or Batman politics you end up with some very interesting stuff from way fringe left websites about how much a product of the corporate and bourgeouis (spl?) conspiracy it is.

@JimMorrison- While I agree with you in essence regarding priests and such, I maintain that it is quite possible for parents to prevent their kids from having sex when they (the kids) aren't ready. I've managed to control myself, so has my bro, so have plenty of other kids. I'm mainly talking about high school here. Teaching contraceptives might be useful, but as the article I linked to explains, that doesn't work if the kids aren't being taught about how/when to be a parent. I will agree though that some of the insanely restrictive parents/organizations/whatevers only drive kids away.

You might be worried about the "religous right", but I think that there are fewer of them than their press and such would make you think. Despite this, I think you are starting to sound like hyperbole when you talk about how they will turn religous doctrine into law. Looking at Britain though, I am worried. When the head of the british church starts talking about instituting Sharia...you have a major assimilation problem, not to mention the effect on culture, or law and order.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Oh it's true. It always pleases me, with my designated leftist views, when I can find some sort of middle ground with someone much further towards the right. :happy: And I completely agree with your point - I feel that young people should be taught in great detail about the world, and their choices. I see no reason whatsoever not to try to stress the idea of abstinence, but I simply find it foolish not to cover all of the bases. Education is not a concept to be approached lightly - not in any way, especially when it involves people's livelihood, and lifestyle choices. To be perfectly clear, I do also believe that if sex (and post sex) education were thorough enough, more people would wait a bit longer before diving into the pool. When I was poking around, the thing that stood out was the very sharp division in pregnancy rates between teens who became sexually active before the age of 15, and those who did so at 15 or older. So in essence, delaying what is often "the inevitable" is certainly a step in the right direction. Beyond that..... well, I've said for many years that our current systems of corporate servitude and nuclear families are contributing greatly to the decline in sensibility in Americans.

Imagine when you have extended families and more communal living situations, that only a few people in the collected group need to be outstandingly sensible and wise. The point is to rely on those few to impress enough of their understanding on the others, that they become stable, well adjusted individuals. When you remove that influence by compartmentalizing all nucleic familial units (I may have just invented that term), you remove that influence from the vast majority of the population. Thus, you wind up with the same rate of extremely calm and wise people - but the average level of those same attributes declines in the population at large. Children are very fast, and very keen to pick and choose what they can from those around them - I very much feel that we need to find ways to allow more children to be influenced by more varied figures in their lives, and the benefit will compound over time.

So that said, I don't believe the Republican party knows, or does the slightest bit of good for family values. They figure if they brand "anti gay marriage", and "anti choice" as "family values", that it will win them votes. Obviously the sad comment there, is that it does.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

I understand that we're talking about kids having sex before they're ready. I don't have kids of my own, so I'm not quite fit to preach about when they'll be ready, but what I can and *will* preach about is sex vs. violence, because that's a real mess, and it's caused a great many of the problems that we're debating here, and it should be addressed.

In my lifetime I have personally witnessed a grave inbalance between what level of public sexual expression is permitted in our society, and what level of public violent expression is permitted--and it always bothers me when people start throwing around the 'abstinence' argument, because it's like arguing that people should abstain from ever eating fish because they might choke on a bone.

I'd just like to point out, after years of having sex, trying to have sex, doing without sex, thinking about sex, learning about sex, teaching others about sex, promoting sex, and generally appreciating the hell out of my body's sex drive, that sex is actually a really good thing!

Sex is not wrong, or evil, or the Devil. Sex is not your enemy. Sex will not murder your children or burn your churches to the ground, or rob you, or destroy your livelihood. Those things require violence-even if it's the violence done by STDs.

Don't pretend that I'm saying that violence is automatically wrong. Anyone capable of reading this post and understanding it knows the kinds of violence I'm talking about-and that I'm not talking about a backyard game of football where somebody twisted their ankle, or going deer hunting, or self defense, martial arts, or even certain acts of war. I'm talking about rape, torture, arson, assault, disfigurement, devastation, murder.

I'm talking about choosing to bring destruction and harm to another human being, for your own motives and agenda. And I'm talking about the fact that those things are used for purposes of popular entertainment in our society, while sex is treated like a grotesque underground addiction.

And I'm not here to talk *against* violence, I'm just saying that the balance between acceptible sex and acceptible violence is way, way, way off.

To give you an example: I bought a copy of 'Diablo 2' at Walmart. If you haven't played it, it's a fairly violent game. They refuse to sell *any* game with even simple nudity in it, let alone sex.

These three things are undeniable facts: Sex causes life. Lack of sex ensures extinction. Violence, taken to extremes, can cause death and pain and fear and horror.

Yes I know, that's an astonishing and utterly disturbing view for an American to have, especially a middle-aged, white, married American, raised Christian and living in a generally Right-winged state.

But honestly--sex is awesome! It's good clean fun, too. I've never caught or spread a disease, I've never gotten anybody pregnant, I've never raped anyone or had anyone rape me. No children were involved.

It's even good for you. It's healthy, both physically and psychologically. It helps develope emotional intimacy with someone you care about and respect. It builds confidence and self-esteem. I'm a better person for having had sex, and I'm going to continue to have sex for as long as physically possible--and recent studies show that the more sex a man has, the longer he's likely to live, so I'll probably be having sex for a long, long time.

Sex hasn't caused me to develope alchoholism, a drug dependency, a gambling problem, or a history of violence. As a home owner, a tax payer, a registered voter, and a full time employee, sex helps me deal with the stress of my busy schedule and hectic work-week. Although I enjoy sex on a regular basis, I have never woken up in a gutter after having sex. I've never skipped a meal or failed to take my daily vitamins because of sex. I've never held up a convenience store in order to pay for sex-nor have I ever paid for sex. Sex has not alienated me from my friends and family, nor has it caused me to isolate myself from the outside world.

Sex has not caused me to turn my back on spirituality, or denied me a relationship with God. I do not use sex, or lack of sex, as an excuse for my failings. I do not profess that sex is the answer to my problems, nor do I attempt to convert the chaste to my way of thinking. I have never had sex with a virgin.

I understand that the act of consentual sex has caused deaths, but I have never heard anyone complain that those deaths were a bad way to die. It is my further understanding that sex has led to far more life than death. I do not consider a life filled with sex to be bleak or empty. I do not consider sex to be disgusting or wrong. I do not consider sex to be what's wrong with the world, or what's wrong with people. Many of the best people I know and admire have had sex-and I would rather have sex with someone I knew and admired than with a stranger, or with someone I disliked or pitied. I consider sex to be a beautiful gift, wonderful entertainment, and stimulating exercise.

Sex has not interfered with my education, or prevented me from graduating highschool. My parents had sex, and I still love, cherish, and respect them. If I ever have kids, and they have sex, I will still love and cherish and respect them, I promise you. I won't tell them not to have sex, or that sex is a bad thing. I will educate any children that I have to the utmost limit of my ability, and beyond, about the world they are entering, and every single facet of it, and I will not lie to them about it, because I wouldn't want them to remain children forever, nor would I want them entering that world while operating under untruths, non-facts, or false beliefs.

I recognise that the world can be a dangerous place, and that I have made it less dangerous for myself by educating myself-I would want them to be educated, too. I would expect them to use the education I give them, and my support, to make their lives as rich and full as possible. I would want grandchildren someday, and if I never have them, I will feel the loss.

I will not blame someone, or call someone a murderer, for having an abortion. I will not do these things because I hold that being a parent is a sacred responsibility, and if someone chooses to have an abortion, it is a clear and obvious sign that that person is not ready at that time to be a parent, and therefore should not be. There may be better ways to express that than having an abortion, but there are better ways to do many things which we as a species do by violence. I would not recommend abortion to anyone, but I also would not advocate killing them in order that they not abort. I would not advocate killing a medical doctor because that doctor has performed an abortion, or many abortions, because I just don't believe an unknown factor can outweigh a lifetime of experience.

I am neither pro choice nor am I pro life. I am pro birth control, and pro education, and pro love, and pro acceptance. I don't believe that you can do any good in this world by hating someone. I also believe that the more righteous you feel about doing something you'd objectively consider to be a wrong thing, the more likely you are to, infact, be wrong.

I don't believe that I'm qualified to make choices about a woman's body, or about anyone else's body, for that matter. I don't even trust my own doctor all that far.

I do believe that violence is an answer, and sometimes it is the only answer, and that it is still the wrong answer more often than it is the right one. I also believe that sex is *much* more family-oriented than violence. Without sex, there would be no families, and without violence, there were be a lot more of them, and stronger, and better.

I think violence should be X-rated. I think you should have to go downtown in a major city, and sit in a seedy little theater in a trenchcoat and sunglasses in order to witness extreme, graphic, irresponsible forms of violence, and that you should have to be atleast 25 years of age to get in. I think when you leave that theater, you should feel dirty, and ashamed.

I've had nightmares because of violent acts which I have witnessed, or committed. I've never had a nightmare about sex. Ever.

I'm proud of having had sex with people that I loved, and I'm ashamed of having committed violence against people that I loved.

But I am not a pacifist, and I do not reject violence. I do fear it though, and respect it, and I urge you to do the same. And while I do very much respect sex, I do not fear it, and I urge you not to. It's where you came from. If you also came from violence, then I appologise for the world we live in. I do not appologise for sex, however, unless it wasn't very good...

I believe that sex should only be between two consenting sentient, reasonably educated adults-of any species, race, creed, religion, color, gender, political view, or other designation you care to come up with.

I further believe that sex between two consenting sentient, reasonably educated adults-of any species, race, creed, religion, color, gender, political view, or other designation you care to come up with-is not only right, it's awesome!

It is my most firmly held belief that abstinence makes the heart grow bitter. It is also my belief and experience that life is much better and worthier, much more sacred and right and good and precious, if you don't spend it denying yourself or others happiness, pleasure, sensuality, compassion, or acceptance.

And if everybody abstains, if nobody's having sex, the human race will cease to be.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of a single other popular piece of advice to guide young people through their difficult lives-other than abstinence-that will, if every one of those young people follows it, result in the extinction of the human race itself.

I mean, even if they all jumped off a bridge together, a few of them will probably survive the fall...

I accept that any god or gods concerning themselves with this post know whether I am right or wrong in my beliefs, but that anyone else reading it is *not* God, and thus not fit to judge me, or anyone else, while I'm still alive.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Wow, I didn't expect that kind of feeling and such out of this thread. Kudos to HoneyBadger. That said, I think we are in some agreement. I do occasionally play violent games like Diablo 2, but not very often, and I don't know if I presently own any. I do think that some violence in games is okay, but I agree that some take it entirely too far. I also dislike movies with a lot of violence, but no greater point (300). I do though like movies such as Saving Private Ryan or We Were Soldiers, as they have an actual message to tell. I'm tired of the sex argument but on the whole am with you except for abortion. I wouldn't advocate killing people over it though.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Actually, the movie '300' was about the indomitable human spirit. It was a message about overcoming great obstacles through self discipline and pride in one's self.

Granted, it attempted to bring those messages to the lowest common denominator, but hey - at least the protagonists of the film were not the senselessly violent ones, they were defending their people and way of life. ;)

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

And 300 was very sexual, too, a balance was achieved between the two, and the sex was portrayed as part of the continuation of the society, every bit as much as the violence was-and I respect that it didn't shy away from suggesting that a homosexual relationship was possible between two very strong, confident, and *masculine* male protagonists. You don't see a whole lot of heroic gay people in our media, and when you do, they're usually in drag. That's fine if a character likes to dress in drag, but not when it becomes a steriotype for all gays, everywhere.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

What Ive noticed down (or up, its all relative) here in Finland is that somehow donald duck seems to win every presidential election. Now I never voted for him nor did any of my friends but it just suprises me how many bother to cast a vote for him. They wrote an article to magasine about this weird phenomenom of the huge amounts of votes to fictional characters including superman and batman too.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Well, Donald's got a military backgound in the Navy, and a firm thumb on the issues-and he's a lot more coherant than George W. Not as Daffy though...

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

300 is not really about anything.

There's nothing in it more complex than Commando, Rocky 4, or Independence Day. Like Frank Miller's other work Sin City, 300 is essentially just a very stylishly presented fantasy targetted for the mindset of adolescent males. Although at least it's less misogynistic than Sin City.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

IMHO, totally wrong.

300 depicts the nationalist ideals. It depicts them in a very fascinating way: we all know they are dangerous, but looking at the movie we understand how they have charmed (I'd say, infected) many minds in recent times.
The Heroes of the Native Land are handsome, strong, fearless heroes, which women are beautiful and corageous.
Politicians are a) corrupted slugs or b) useless and incapable of doing anything. It requires the Dux/Fuhrer (Leonidas), the Man of Action to achieve anything.
Traitors are deformed beings.
The foreigner has wicked and sinful costumes and way of lives, the melting pot of cultures doesn't enrich him but make him just weird.
Etc...

This is what the film shows and says. I much appreciated it - I fear and dislike nationalism, but the movie depicts it very well. - Together with the great and strong visual art of gore and fighting scenes with rock music in them ;)

PS: Rocky 4 is a somewhat ****y movie, but taken has "historical document" is very interesting. It shows a low-level occidental heroic propaganda which, even being quite humorous with today's eyes, was of great effect in these times of Cold War.

Best wishes ;)

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

I think 300 has a lot to say about how we view ourselves, and that it says it with irony, and satire.

You'll note one part where the Spartans jeer the "boy-loving" Athenians, and yet they, as a society, were even more guilty than the Athenians were. If you take the whole movie like that, yes in a sense it's nationalist propaganda, but on another level, it questions that nationalism-even going so far as to make the one surviving member of the '300' lose an eye. With only one eye, he symbolizes only one outlook, one side to the story. And taken symbolically as a cyclops (which is valid, since these are Greeks), he becomes larger than life, a drunkard, and an 'eater of men'.

I realize it's somewhat of a stretch to suggest that's what's meant, but who's to say it's not what Frank Miller had in mind?

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Ok, we went far off topic, today's polls said 47% obama, 43 % "potatoes" maccain iirc ;) (10% obviously undecided or third party)

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

That is far too close. It makes half the nation appear completely insane. That is, if we gave them the benefit of the doubt 4 years ago, and didn't declare them insane for putting the Bushman back in. o.O

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Jim, you fail to see that potatoes are nutritious and delicious, full of healthy vitamins, fiber, and powerful anti-oxidants. They've been proven time and again, in a million recipes, as *the* candidate capable of carrying a meal, and our nation, through the hardest of circumstances. They're versatile and handy-a potato makes removing a broken lightbulb a snap-and they're a friend to the working-man: potatoes are the primary ingredient in vodka and fries, popular at any blue-collar sporting event. Potatoes are patriots, featuring in both "freedom fries", and the American Indian invention, potato chips. Unlike Mccain, they were born right here in America-albeit South America.

Potatoes are both earthy and worldly, a boost to both foreign relations and our domestic GNP.
Potatoes are the candidate with the most substance. While McCain may be full of fiber and calorie-rich, he's hardly delicious, and probably tough-requiring an extended cooking time to achieve tenderness and proper succulence, and Obama-delicious and chock full of anti-oxidants though he may be, is clearly too lean and stringy to satisfy all our cravings.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

I will be voting for McCain. Am I going to try to convince others to do otherwise? No. Am I going to go into a long tirade as to why? No. Am I insane? Maybe, but I am also quite sure of my opinions and views. In the past, I was a Clinton supporter (Mr, not Mrs), but the Iraq War is the primary basis for my choice in the current election.

I am one of those people that asks to be removed from the list when a poll worker calls with a survey. I have never worked to campaign for anyone and likely never will. I have very little faith in the media and even less in the internet media, and I consider polls to be a joke. From my own little speck on the world map, it looks more like a 50/50 split and I would never be so arrogant as to accuse my neighbor of being an idiot or insane because his views on this election differed from my own.

Feel free to discuss and express your own views and opinions, but please be respectful of the views and opinions of others in the process.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

I'm allergic to potatoes.



And Ballbarian, with all due respect, you are portraying what is in fact wrong with the current paradigm. You lead an insular, purposefully shortsighted (as regards politics) life. I am sure you do so to save yourself undue distress over all of the argument and confusion. However, at the end of the day, you still consider yourself qualified - and deserving of your vote, as it affects many millions, if not billions of people.

Forgive me for the implications here, but when someone expects the right to cast a vote on such enormously important issues, but intentionally reduces their exposure to the facts and realities surrounding those issues - is in some way insane.

Are we all insane? Actually, yes I believe we are, all of us, in our own individual ways. It doesn't make anyone in particular a bad person, that is a product of how we handle our insanity, and how responsible we are in gathering information, and acting upon that information. It just seems wildly irresponsible to me that anyone who is well informed about the state of the union (and the world at large) could consider GW Bush, or McCain to be in any shape or form beneficial in office.


As a student of the world, I find both parties to engage in many shameful acts, and to be gravely lacking in many attributes that are necessary for this nation to progress in meaningful ways, towards a responsible and sustainable future. However, if you placed an arbitrary center point between McCain and Obama, plotting a line would leave McCain as regressive, and Obama as progressive.

Again, the main problems are not the candidates, but the system itself. But McCain loves the system, and wants to encourage corporate feudalism. Obama at least pretends otherwise. But I do not believe either of them are what we really need to survive and flourish.

So, do I think that you are a bad person, Ballbarian? Absolutely not. But neither do I think that you should in conscience vote for president, either.

<3

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

I just watched Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric, and the idea of Palin being near power scares me. That she clearly knows nothing about foreign affairs isn't a surprise, as she's been plucked from nowhere to be VP candidate. But I was at least expecting her to be able to bull**** fluently to cover her ignorance, and she didn't even manage that.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

Hey, now! :D

What was 300 again? That movie with the excessive use of blue tint? With the slow-mo camera effect and focus whenever a spear pierces through a chest? Where they construct a wall out of human corpses from their slain enemies? That movie?

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

My concerns with McCain is that this man has over 1000 pages in his medical file that has not been released -- and we know he's had all 4 types of skin cancer, a foul temper, and half a dozen other medical ailments. If he relapses on cancer, he would be incapacitated outright and for the handful of times Palin did open her mouth, she underscores her inexperience.

The next thing is McCain's military record. Only 17 pages out of at least 630 have been released. The rest needs to be released as his fiction of turning down an admiral's promotion after 2 years as captain needs to be set straight.

His economic adviser, Phil Gramm, despite resigning still advises mccain on economic issues and his part in the current economic collapse cannot be ignored.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Gramm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_Act

As for Mccain being an enviromentalist, looka t his voting record on it. It makes Al Gore stay up at night in his swimming floating wings.

then finally, we have troubling news about Mt. McCain and that he may be getting close to eruption.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1rZBmk0DYU

While I don't care for obama's resume (and mostly lack thereof), McCain was a horrible presidential nomination.

Re: OT: US Pres election
 

You have misread my post if you believe that I am uninformed or otherwise close minded. Or perhaps it is just that I must be uninformed if my views do not coincide with yours? I wonder if I am misreading your post. Are you actually saying that I should not have a right to cast a vote because you disagree with me? Ever heard of democracy and universal suffrage Mr. Stalin?

Ok, forget the Mr. Stalin crack. I don't think you are a bad person either Jim. But I do think that you missed the point of my previous post. If I had to highlight one thought to get across the point I was trying to make, it would be:

"Feel free to discuss and express your own views and opinions, but please be respectful of the views and opinions of others in the process."

I take my right to vote very seriously and any insinuation that I do not deserve to exercise that right because of my views just flabbergasts me.