Phi for All

No, I can't. We need a quick and easy (Internet) way to be in the pols faces every day like the PACs and lobbyists are. I still believe the money provided by lobbyists for pet projects would be offset by the need to stay in office if the voters were more vocal. Sounds great. Sounds like progress.

In restaurants, pointing to a menu item usually works. I would ask for a new waiter if he still didn't understand me. If none of them understood me, I would go to a different restaurant. There are lots of them. Again, I try to go around obstacles, I don't stand there and rant at them. It would be nice if everyone spoke the same language, but they don't and I can live with that. You sound like you're ready to pass legislation. There is a consequence already built in. They aren't able to get their point across to as many people. Isn't that enough or do you want jail time? Should we make them wear something so everybody knows to stay away from them? A yellow frowny face or a pink star or something?

Oh, right. Well, let's stick with what we've got. It's working so well. Forget I said anything.

Doesn't this make you sick? If the 5 presidents acted more like a cabinet, it wouldn't need to make government bigger. You're right though, we could NOT afford 5 times the staff. Amen to that.

Of course there would have to be ways to categorize things, and in gray areas they can put two or more on the same problem. You still may get someone working on one area that doesn't represent your views in that area, but the odds that all five will be people you dislike are pretty small. And wouldn't it be better to get 3 out of 5 or even 1 or 2 than none? As it stands now, HALF the people are unhappy. This can't go on, considering that we don't turn on the politicians, we turn on each other. Again, I only propose this if the elections are going to be split down the middle from now on. This kind of thing doesn't happen very often in history but it's happened twice in a row now.

What if a Spanish-speaking person decides to move to the US or the UK to start a business dealing with other people who might feel more comfortable speaking Spanish? He might never need to learn English himself since he can hire bilinguals if he needs them and still run a profitable business and contribute to society. 5614, things would be easier if everyone spoke the same language, I agree. People should learn the language of the place they're living in. But requiring it is not necessary, they shouldn't have to, as long as a person is not a burden to society. If you could tell me that a person who couldn't speak English kept you from being able to do something important like getting a loan or renting an apartment that would be different. You've been talking about people you overheard talking. Were they even talking to you? Does it really put you out that much? Are you so shallow that asking someone to repeat a sentence is such a hardship? In most cases, if someone doesn't speak your language, you're not going to have to deal with them beyond a civil "hello" anyway. Why are you so worried about it? Show a little tolerance. Start making requirements about language and where is it going to stop? Should we start requiring them to wear clothes in colors you approve? Should we ammend the Constitution? Should we make the ugly ones go back home?

Thanks for the opportunity to step out of the partisan politics inferno, jordan. I actually dislike both party platforms because neither represents me accurately. I think the biggest shame about politics is that there are only seemingly two choices. Do you really think even the people in this forum are split into just two camps? You're right about priorities. Do you think there should be just two sets of priorities? I have been a part of the business world for a number of years now. I sell on a commission-only basis where if I don't work my ass off, I don't eat. I love free enterprise and capitalism, because it gives me a chance to earn more by working harder. I'd hate a job where I made a set amount of money for working a set amount of hours. But this kind of capitalism only works when there is competition from a lot of different players. The larger the corporations grow, the more they stifle this competition. You'd think with technology and emerging workforces making businesses cheaper to run that inflation would slow, wouldn't you? Unfortunately, when the businesses get larger by buying competitors, prices go up because they have to cover the profit lost during the sale. And when a company gets big enough, they can pretty much set their own standards and practices, as well as warp the profit margins so top management makes eight figure incomes. Workers are cowed into submission and stop demanding fair treatment in the workplace for fear of being laid off. Two political parties means fewer people to pay off. You can bet the biggest corporations are hedging their bets and are financing BOTH campaigns this year, especially when the outcome may be close again. The more we argue between the two major parties, the better both the mega-corporations and the politicians like it. They know that there really is no way to be fairly represented by only two parties, and that we are going to settle into opposing camps and bicker. While they make out no matter what the outcome. It stinks. They ought to break the office of President of the United States into 5 positions, all equal, with no Vice-Presidents. Each could represent a demographic or territorial area as well as an area of expertise, that way we could have someone who was strong on Foreign Policy, someone else who understood Economy, or Social issues, Defense, etc. You'd get to vote for the 5 people you thought would most fairly represent you and do the best job in certin areas. If the elections are really going to start getting this close all the time, we are not going to survive it. We will tear ourselves apart at a time when we need the most unity. I love this country and I hate to see it go to the dogs.

If that's what you read in my words, you're just wasting everyone's time here. Your generalizations show your ignorance.

Once again, you show how little comprehension is retained in your tenuous grasp. The presence of his next of kin (NOK) was "NOT MEDICALLY WARRANTED". Meaning it was not a mentally incapacitating wound which would have medically waranted bringing in family for medical decisions. *sigh*

Thanks for not investigating the link. It's not a site, it's the PDF copies of his military records concerning his injuries. No propoganda, no bias, just a copy of the records. You show your ignorance more with every post. I find it very sad. You must be too busy looking through the assault rifle catalogs to check out the records.

from his memoir, "A World Transformed" by George Bush Sr. (1998) And now U.S. central command chief Gen. John Abizaid that there are more areas in Iraq under rebel control today than there were last year. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=655&e=3&u=/oneworld/20040910/wl_oneworld/6573937651094806675 An analogy to help put this in perspective: A man, let's call him W, decides to drive on the other side of the highway to get where he's going. The other people riding with him tell him it's not a good idea and give him many good reasons not to. W's own father wrote a book and included a part about why it would be foolish. He ignores all of them and finds a way to cross the median to the other side. Immediately he's met with hostile resistance in the form on oncoming traffic. His car suffers many dings and dents, but it's the biggest, heaviest vehicle on the road and he manages to bull his way through for quite a while. The police try to tell him he is exceeding his authority and causing major damage that may not be capable of being repaired. W goes ahead and keeps driving, telling the others in his vehicle that since they've come this far and sustained this much damage already, it would be dumb to turn back now and they should stay the course. So ask yourself this: Should W cross back to his own side of the highway since all the bad things his passengers predicted are now happening? Should he continue to try and bull his way forward even though the traffic ahead seems to be getting heavier and the risks even greater? Should the passengers continue to let W drive, since he's clearly shown that he doesn't listen to reason and is completely unconcerned with their safety and welfare?

It's easy to see how closed your mind is on the subject. I found the Navy records pretty easily. http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/jkmilservice/Spot_Kerry.pdf How wounded do you have to be to get a medal? If the shrapnel's in your ass does it mean you're a coward because your leg wasn't blown off? When you could have notified your next of kin and gotten a rotation stateside but didn't, does that sound like it was BS? If I was milking a minor wound for attention, I'd have put in for that. Sounds like the dedication of an American soldier to me. Your hatred is misplaced here.

Sorry I didn't do it to begin with. I gotta stop having these multiple tabs open in Firefox! Too easy to forget what you're doing. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/09/politics/main628437.shtml http://www.keepmedia.com/pubs/USATODAY/2004/09/09/575814?extID=10032&oliID=213 http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=George_W._Bush's_military_service

This is the subject of a whole thread. While I think that media and heresay exaggerates this problem in many countries with some form of welfare, when the system is set up improperly in the first place it will be abused. I propose a system of Minimum Subsistance. Take care of people's basic needs like food, shelter, medical care and even clothing. Make it stark and basic, something to fall back on in hard times, but not something you'd want to stay on. Severely restrict choices. One step below prison (since you get to watch cable and lift weights and have someone else cook for you in prison). Regulated groceries, no frills, no snacks. We won't throw you out in the cold, but we're not going to make this a preferable alternative. Part of MinSub would also be working mandatory street cleanup, washing off grafitti, taking care of the Broken Window approach. Forget all this crap about maintaining their dignity; if you can't find work, you won't be homeless, sick or hungry, the rest is up to you. I could go on and on. Like I said, welfare reform is a whole other thread. Like everyone doing new things, there is a learning curve, and Indian call centers have the additional barrier of accented languages. Remember also that it is not simply the arbitrage of money that attracts businesses to economical offshore workforces, it's technology as well. Having someone thousands of miles away handle your tech questions is only made possible by expanding communication nets. Air travel made other people and places accessible within the last hundred years and telecommunications is going to unite the world even quicker. The Indian middle class is now as big as the entire United States, and they have a huge purchasing power. They hunger for goods (and services) provided by the US and the UK. Take away their right to earn money at call center jobs and you take away much of the need for your countries goods and services. If we take our foot off the necks of emerging nations, pretty soon the differences in economy will be irrelevant and things will change again. Not much of a flame, more of a singe, really.

Michelle's dad "agreed with that too", meaning her friend's statement. Further destroy the economy, good choice of words, higher high income taxes, bad choice of words. Do you still believe in the insanity of trickle-down economics? If you mean' date=' he'll keep our membership open and won't try to invade sovereign nations based on sketchy evidence to further his own agenda, then yes, he probably will. I for one am interested in getting back on a better footing with my fellow humans around the globe. Aren't you? My taxes were fine under Clinton, especially when the market offsets were working in my favor. Having a robust economy is worth a little more in taxes. Bush wouldn't have to rebuild the economy if he hadn't destroyed it (your words) in the first place. And whose freedom is he spreading? His? Yours? We have no business spreading our brand of anything to cultures that aren't interested in it. Do you think everybody in the Middle East dreams of living like an American? You are naive and nationalistic if you do. Apparently it is for you. I feel sorry for those people around the world who will be destroyed by your point of view.

A young man truly in love with his fiance decided to have her name tattooed on his penis. Her name was Wendy, and the tattoo was done while his penis was erect. When it was flaccid all you could see was W Y. Shortly after the couple was married they were honeymooning in Jamaica the man was in a bathroom, and standing next to him was a Jamaican man who also had W Y tattooed on his penis. The American saw it and said, "Oh is your girl named Wendy, too?" The Jamaican replied, "No, mine says 'Welcome to Jamaica, mon, have a nice day'."

Then push her down a hill. Women swim too well. It's a buoyancy issue. Is your dad in the oil business in OK, by any chance? It doesn't matter, really. For any opinion you hear, you must realize it is not shared universally. It is important to listen to as many different views as possible before making up your mind on anything. One person can make his or her position sound very logical. But so can the other side. You owe it to yourself to hear all sides. You live in a country that has freedom of speech. Take advantage.

Take your friend aside, gently explain to him that while you appreciate his point of view, you prefer to listen to all sides of an issue before forming your own opinion. Then push your friend in the river. j/k

One of the things I've always held against McNamara was going against Sen. Symington's recommendation to unify the military under a single Chief of Staff, abolishing the JCS. I've always felt it was stupid to have 3 different branches of the military spending taxpayer dollars to go after every buck allocated to defense. It's triple the paperwork, triple the staff and I'm just not sure it's necessary to compartmentalize our own forces to such an extent. I know McNamara did it for the same reasons any good businessman would have in taking over in a time of tension. You don't want to change things too radically just before things get hot. But I've often wondered how much more effective our forces would be if we had soldiers who knew about ships and soldiers who knew about tanks and soldiers who knew how to fly planes, and they were all United States Defenders, instead of having internal rivalries and lack of fiscal cohesion between Navy, Army and Air Force. Does anybody know if Kerry is planning any radical overhauls of the military in this respect?

I took a look at Nature Geeks. Very impressive undertaking. I wish you well at your website, you've done a great job! Since you are a proponent of environmental issues, how do you feel about the Bush administration's policy on drilling in the Arctic Refuge? And doctoring reports on its impact in Alaska? And threatening Fish and Wildlife employees with suspension or worse for voicing their opinions on its devastating effects to these fragile habitats? How do you feel about cutting the budget for things like prevention of toxic chemicals in the environment? My favorite is limiting public access to information on how safe our drinking water is for reasons of national security. Oh, terrorism just provides so many benefits to polluters and warmongers! I for one would like to see our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels as energy sources decreased as quickly as possible. Kerry proposes more research into renewable energy and areas that give us hope instead of swindling, sorry, dwindling deadlines.

A man and his blonde wife are so down on their luck that the husband finally tells her, "Sweetie, I had hoped it wouldn't come to this, but you're going to have to become a prostitute and have sex with other men for money or we'll lose the house, the car, EVERYTHING!" She reluctantly agrees and goes out looking for customers. At dawn the next morning the blonde comes home and the husband asks how she did. "Pretty good for my first night," she says. "I made $420 and fifty cents." "Fifty cents?" says the guy. "Who gave you fifty cents?" The blonde says, "Well, everybody!"

Communication is certainly important as the world gets smaller and the borders are easier to cross. I think the most important lesson to be learned is tolerance. We have got to stop viewing everybody else as doing things the wrong way. It's just their way and if it's an obstacle to you, then go around it. Don't just stand there calling them names. If it makes you feel superior to say someone should learn your language when you don't bother to learn theirs, you've got a problem. We english-only speakers need to remember that multi-linguals have done more work than we have, even if their english isn't perfect. And if someone moves here and hasn't learned the language, they must be doing something right if they are prospering. I never see any non-English speaking bums in my part of the country. Let's cut everybody some slack here and be more tolerant.

The only flame I'll give you on this, Dave, is that most of your tech support lines originate in foreign countries, so if the guy on the other end of the phone speaks English with an Indian accent, it's probably because he's working the night shift in Calcutta. If you're talking to people in the streets who don't speak your language very well, then I applaud you. Most folks don't want to be bothered with strangers these days, especially foreigners. If you are striking up conversations, there are many universal ways to make yourself understood without precise language. It can be fun to get your point across to a fellow human even if you can't understand their words. Remember Steve Martin's immortal line: Some people have a way with words, others... not have way. I also doubt most who move to a foreign country are seeking asylum. You should be glad they feel safer or more prosperous in your country. Shows you that the grass is greener on your side for once. *Edit* I was going to vote "Other" and then explain why until I saw the posts by yourdadonapogos. Obviously, the answer is "YES!!!!!"

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could list twenty lies that Bush and his cabinet have used to mislead this country into deficit, decline and war, and that you would find some justification for each one, and blow them off like they're unimportant. THIS is what galls so many of us here, that some of you, our fellow Science Forums members, really smart folks all of you, think that Bush is a good president. You read threads from people all over the world about a variety of weighty subjects, but just because Bush talks like a junior high dropout you seem to think it's OK for him to not read a whole memo about national security. PLEASE don't talk to me about intelligent ways to say things!