Saryctos

lady & the tramp meets new age humor? Has the world lost touch with the classics? I bet a large majority of the people who saw that ad, and complained, didn't even make the connection.

and exactly how would you set the worth of a specific job? arbitrarily? Or by watching the market forces? If someone wants to take a job for $2.00/hour why would you artificially inflate that price? If you hang a now hiring sign out front and gradually raise the price from whatever you originally set, why is it wrong to allow someone to take the job below an arbitrary gov't set price? You're not forcing them to take the job, they can wait for the price to go up, or go find a different job...oh wait right, competition may make those jobs a bit harder to find, silly me forgetting about compedative markets. Also, if you keep forcing wages up, it retroactively drives the price of goods up as businesses re-price everything to overcome the new losses. Instead of giving in to inflation, we should be letting the market settle back down to decrease the cost of living. Then, those smaller wages won't be as small as they used to be. Because the higher minimum wage goes, the more you're screwing the un-employed by raising the cost of living, that they already can't afford. "But if people start working for less, the greedy corporations won't lower their prices, they'll just keep charging the same and screw everyone over." Prices will fall when they're not making as much as they used to.(cry strawman if you must, I just heard someone saying that in the back of my mind) Minimum wage increases are exactly the kinds of things that make the gap between the poor and the middle class grow larger. Imagine if you will, inflation as an inch worm. Right now the top end(middle class & rich) is extended, causing inflation. Wait for a bit and it'll come back, overstretched and exhausted. Then think of the tail end(poor & middle class), currently holding firm until the gap is widened, allowing the worm to move a little further up the inflation money tree. It'll keep going until it falls right back to the ground unless you keep it under control. Money can only last us so long, eventually we'll go onto the next economic stage, or keep repeating the same mistakes untill someone else does it.

The almighty dollar?

The 2004 election would have been very different due to the fact that there would be no "war effort" vote, because if we were only in was afghanistan* there would be very little anti-war sentiment due to very low casualties, no WMD talk, and no question as to terrorism links. I think congress would be a much closer race. There probably wouldn't be any defining issues, we'd be stuck on abortion and stem cells all over again, although immigration would probably taken center stage eventually. I think the economy would probably be doing better. Afghan war would still be pulling in the military contracts, oil prices would stay lower due to less threat to "instability" in oil rich areas. Stock market may not be doing as well. recruitment levels wouldn't be down nearly as much. Perhaps more funding would be shifted to the Air force after it demonstrated complete dominance in the early parts of the afghanistan* invasion.(there was a really cool special about this on The History Channel) possibillity of smaller invasions world wide to root out terrorist activities and financiers. Would probably have more public approval as well, the "weekend war" upsuts the anti-war crowd, but wouldn't hurt nearly as bad as the anti-Iraq sentiment. mood would be optimistic, a sort of "what's next"? All of those resignations probably wouldn't have happened. I think the immigration issue would have been dealt with much speedier, whether they did, or didn't do anything. I get the sense of extreme partisan seperation, and immigration was just another way to show your party "who's side you were on"

not surprised at all. Most church groups have regular charity drives, canned goods, old clothes, christmas things...the list goes on. I think it's all the air time that the extremists get that ruins the average perspective of church going, charity giving 'religious conservatives' appearing to be in the minority of religious mind sets.

Could this possibly be due to the hollywood lobby? Rich people hang out with other rich people, or people to be seen with. Hollywood, most certainly leaning to the left, would begin to see more influence as people gain more wealth and become apart of the "wealthy elite".

I agree. I believe German law is exactly that, and they know something about roadways =P

nano-bots perhaps?

If Medical costs weren't so horribly inflated by near mandatory Insurance policies, there really wouldn't even be a debate for socialized medicine.

That post was about as useless as this post.

I wish someone would use nulear force against something already, sheesh. Nothing puts people in their place like watching millions disapear over night...worked with Japan =P

Has the political process become so perfected that all issues can be almost immediately drawn to a person's moral/religious beliefs? That is to say, if there is a political line being drawn between parties, is it for their policies, or the reason behind the policies? Often argumentation involves a few distinct properties. These usually filter down to breaking apart the argument to find what makes your opponent think their side of the problem is more correct. Often this drops to a basic difference in principles. Most of a persons principles are either defined or governed by what can be described as their religious nature, or moral belief structure. Do you think politics has become almost too transperant. That people no longer see politics as for what they are, a deceptive method of packaging issues, and look straight to the belief structure of an argument to combat it. This will invariably break down into a shouting fest, as it is not simple to break down a belief structure simply with another belief structure. I believe that breaking down arguements into their basic beliefs is as far as the political realm should take us. Knowing what your arguing against is really the end of the argument. After that, you are no longer attempting to change someone's mind by trying to change their viewpoint, you are now trying to change their structure of beliefs, and this can easily be equated to some, in their mind, as to attacking their religion. By focusing more on the information, and less on the principles of political debate, we can start changing how people feel on issues based on their own inward debates, as once it has been broken down into the most basic values it should not be pushed as a politically motivated issue, as it should be pushed as a topic for inner reflecion. In closing I'd like to say that breaking down arguements into beliefs, and information, is what politics should be about, not challenging those beliefs and trying to discredit that information. Perhaps with better argumentative guidlines, religion can leave the public political forum, and return to the personal realm from where it originated, leaving politics to it's own seperate train of thought.

How was the thread in question not politically motivated? It spoke nothing about the basis for any religion, nor the beliefs there-of. It only spoke about the actions of those who claim to be of the religions involved. So say for example that pres. Bush vetos a bill based on religous bias, then no one could post about it in the politics forum because it is religous in nature? I don't want to rock the boat more than it already is, but just voicing that I too saw the post as a "dangerous precident" for closing politically motivated threads.

Alternative fuels? no fuels! the internet is the best replacement for oil. But seriously, running out of economically feasable* oil really isn't an issue on a humanitary survivability scale. If we stop having oil to go around, we just simply stop using things that require it.

The Isreali army can crush any, and for the most part all militia/armies in the region they inhabbit. They have shown this to be true in the past, and it is no less evident today. So I highly doubt that they gave into a cease fire due to lack of military strength.

Perhaps it is she who is confused. As for the fourth amendment, I see nothing there preventing a wiretap. a) unreasonable search? It's completely non-invasive in practice. b)The electronic information they gather traverses through cables not owned by the citizens, so It's not really invading their privacy. All that aside, I really cannot see where the 4th provides a right to privacy. This, being the link to when it was interpretted to mean so, I completely disagree that the discision was correct. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut This being an internal issue, I don't really see why you would refrence the laws for information gathering on foreign surveillence. Nowhere in there does it state anything relevent for what I was quoted. One could say that rights not enumerated, i.e. the 9th ammendment provides a right to privacy, but this isn't expressly written, so just saying "The US Constitution" is a bit foolish, considering that would make any form of indirect information gathered would be unconstitutional.

It's like an organized crime group extorting goods and services from one neighborhood, while providing the jobless in another neighborhood with a way to earn money by doing it for them. The group would be seen as helpful by those who beneffit from them, but it doesn't change the fact that they're doing something wrong. Another example, group of guys start selling meth, and decide they make enough money that someone else can make it for them. They hire people to take their stuff and do the processing. People who get paid when were previously jobless are darn happy, so are their families. Don't read too much into the allagies, just realize the main points within them. I do illegal things that piss off group A, and that makes group B happy, should I be held accountable for what I do to group A? Should my good deeds for group B detract from my malice to group A? Is group B somehow responsible for influincing my continual actions against group A by creating a market for my tainted goods?

How is it against free speach for the gov't to hear what you're saying? There may be some valid arguments for reasons concerning privacy, but Which laws specificly state that intercepting communications which are perceived to be private cannot be held without a warrent? I know that the communication intercepted without a warrent cannot be used in a court of law as evidence against you, but where does it say that an agency cannot maintain the use of this information for internal persuits?

well actually they complain about people complaining the war is going badly, because we think it isn't going so bad, and everyone seems to think so due to the ""liberal" media". Throw some more examples, I am realisticly interested in what Republicans are complaining about(seriously not sarcasm, I just don't really pay attention to what 'my people' are complaining about, nearly as much as what other people are complaining about).

I think one of the main reasons nothing is happening is that the Cuban people(so far as I know, not one of them) see Fidel as a heroic figure. I'd assume that as long as he's still alive some of them would want to keep things running smoothly out of respect for his actions during the revolution. It could also be perhaps that they fear if they make any noise before he's gone he'll crush them with an iron fist, similar to what Saddam did to his people after the Gulf war cease-fire. Although I can't imagine things would remain the same after he is gone. Even the idea of possible US talks just because 'he's the new guy' seems entirely plausible.

Without a doubt this will be a aggressive interview, I can't imagine otherwise. I swear to all that is holy, that if this somehow turns into a 'understand my views I'm being oppressed!" kinda BS I will simply fire CBS from my channel presets.

@Pangloss, he maeans the liberalisms of this board tend to lean towards the concensus that islam is the "religion of peace" and that anything else is just biggotry aimed at islamics. which imo is nonsense, islamofascist gov't is trying to force its way across northern africa and into spain(basically anywhere it "used to be") there is a nae for this idealogy, just can't remember it atm. also, the cold war involved MANY different countries simultaniously. for a long time first response capability meant placing nukes within an arms reach of the intended country, which meant diplomatic support from countries within non-balistic range of the intended target. wester/eastern germany was always an unintended consequence of any war that started between russia nad the west, Guam/Cuba are almost equivalent in terms of close range nukes, and europe was a constant battle for the PR departments of either gov't. so the cold war involved plenty of countries simultaniously.