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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
 Posted - 11/04/2004 : 14:17:26 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
You forgot one thing:
It's a bad day for the rest of the world.
Indeed... I've had nightmares about Bush winning, and to see it come true gives me the creeps.
USA's policy of preemptive strike is bad to begin with, and with looneys like Bush and Cheney the insecurity of the world is increasing.
If I was a leader of a nation, I'd also adopt a doctrine of pre-eptive strike and start by smuggling in a few nukes into Washington, to have just-in-case. I hear Soviet missile warheads are cheap on the black market...
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2004 : 14:26:24 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Siberia
This is a great day to pack my things and go off to Sweden, before the whole "YOU'RE SMUGGLING MASS DESTRUCTION WEAPONS FOR TERRORISTS!!!!" reaches us.
After the latest speach by Usama Bin Laden, I'm not sure Sweden is safe. After all, if Bin Laden thinks Sweden is a good country, that must of course mean that the Swedish government has a secret pact with Al-Qaida.
I'm counting my seconds before the invasion, and the subsequent shipping off to the illegal prison camp on Guantanamo base.
The Swedish detainee that came home from Guantanamo this summer reported being tortured, and now it's leaking out that the state departement suspected this when they were visiting the base. |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2004 : 14:34:18 [Permalink]
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quote:
Polls rarely give you the option of saying that a grouping of issues are your primary motivators. They try to boil it down to a single word or phrase. I think your characterization of Christian Fundie supporters is unfair.
If you are a "moral" person, today, among the evangelical base, then you are anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion, anti-embryonic stemcell research, anti-atheist, ect....
And I want you to name one of the major contributors of the writing of our second constitution who was christian.
Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Adams, Allen, ..... it's a long list. None of the recognizable names were, in any way, christian.
There is even an atheist among the group of thinking people from the time, who's words can still stir the blood. He wasn't directly involved in the drafting of the second constitution, but he played a pivotal role in the revolution. Thomas Paine.
Now, having said that, there were some christians involved but they were not major players. And yes, christianity in the 1700's in the US doesn't even resemble the fundie YEC rapture-ready bullshit we now have.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Rubicon95
Skeptic Friend
USA
220 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2004 : 14:36:00 [Permalink]
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Big Papa Smurf.
The Federal Constitution is supposed to limit the gov't not the people. This might be a strictly state's rights issue, Amendment 10.
What is really weird is that I could go and get an FID with no proof or test that I was not homicidal BUT!!!! I had to get a medical test to prove I had no STD's before getting my marriage license. Well that's in MA.
Personally, I don't know why I had to apply for a marriage license without a learner's permit. |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2004 : 14:41:29 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by filthy
I too, am wondering how difficult it is to learn the language and aquire a taste for the Swedish version of lutifisk.
The language seems to be fairly easy to learn, the basics anyway. And when you hit the wall, English works rather well, as people under 35-40 studies at least 6 years in school as a second language.
About the lutfisk, there I can't help you. Speaking for myself, I can't stand it. I have problems being in the same room as a dish of lutfisk. If you like runny egg the likely-hood increases that you might like lutfisk too.
Then there's surströmming. A completely different ballgame.
If I was caught in the US customs with a can of surströmming, and they opened it, I'm be shipped off to Guantanamo base in a heart beat for smuggling bio-hazard material. It smells so bad, if you don't open the can in exactly the right way, the whole neighbourhood will know you opened it. The house will smell of fermented fish for weeks.
quote:
Chip and I think alike. There is indeed a possibility of a Bush 'Watergate.' There is also the possibility that, with a Republican Congress, it will be buried before it can come to anything. It depends upon whether some of those congress types manage to develop a conscience. We shall see in due course.
I'd say it already happened. Say after me: "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction!" |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Rubicon95
Skeptic Friend
USA
220 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2004 : 15:02:35 [Permalink]
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[quote
If you are a "moral" person, today, among the evangelical base, then you are anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion, anti-embryonic stemcell research, anti-atheist, ect....
[/quote]
Moral... All depends if you are an absolutist or relativist
Thought Paine was a Deist. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2004 : 16:20:30 [Permalink]
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Speaking of Tom Paine, here's something from the blog:
quote:
Kerry won. Here are the facts.
I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.
Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. At 1:05 a.m. Wednesday morning, CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. The exit polls were later combined with—and therefore contaminated by—the tabulated results, ultimately becoming a mirror of the apparent actual vote. [To read about the skewing of exit polls to conform to official results, click here .] Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.
So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.
Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]
Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.
The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php
An interesting and slightly chilling read. I wonder if we'll ever have a free election again.
Thanks for the culinary advice, Doc. I'll keep it in mind in case I ever get the chance to try these delicaties. My favorite treat is limburger cheese on a soda cracker with a red onion on the side to eat like an apple.
Which might be part of the reason I get plenty of room in crowds. 
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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ktesibios
SFN Regular
USA
505 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2004 : 17:54:35 [Permalink]
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If I'm not mistaken, the particular complex of religious beliefs which we describe today with the handy rubric of "fundamentalism" originated in the 19th century.
Therefore, when creationists and political preachers claim or try to imply that the Founders were adherents of the belief system which the religious right peddles, they are at best guilty of anachronism and at worst, guilty of outright lying. We have far too many examples of the value the Founders placed on religious tolerance and freedom and of the contempt with which xtian wingers view applying those concepts to beliefs unlike their own to entertain the notion that the two are in any way congruent.
I quite understand Dude's anger. The way I feel right now, I think that I should find it difficult to display kindness, compassion or perhaps even courtesy to anyone with a Jeebus fish or a Bush bumper sticker. Fortunately, where I live I'm unlikely to be led into that kind of temptation before my reason and self-control regain their full strength.
When you consider the kind of demonization that's been flung around by prominent xtian wingers- of gays, of atheists, of feminists, of science and reason- for the last couple of decades, it's very hard to resist flinging it back in kind.
Still, we need to remember that if skepticism has an essence, it's the struggle to base our thinking on evidence and reason rather than on emotion and reaction. I'm having a bit of a fight with this right now, but I expect ultimately to win.
TIDBIT FOR DR MABUSE: According to Mark Kurlansky's book Salt: A World History, when someone tried to import surströmming into the USA, the shipment was rejected by Customs on the grounds that the product was rotten.
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"The Republican agenda is to turn the United States into a third-world shithole." -P.Z.Myers |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2004 : 17:57:44 [Permalink]
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| Yes, reason over emotion. Then they'll see we're better than those stupid BASTARDS!!! |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2004 : 21:06:17 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Rubicon95
The implication of those voting for Bush, and pro-conservative as "Stupid Rednecks" is a gross underestimation. Perhaps the GOP/Karl Rove was banking on the backlash. It worked. Over the next 4 years look to the GOP to be more friendly and "rational". They won't appoint any SJC who will remove Roe V Wade. Too partisan to do that. They are going to solidify their positions and demonize the Democrats and liberals.
I dunno, Rubicon. As noted in another thread, a rumor has been floating for weeks that Ashcroft won't stay on as AG in hopes that he'll get the nod for a Supreme Court position. And let's fact it, Ashcroft is as fundie-whacko as it gets.
But you're right about the whole 'solidarity' thing regarding conservatives. They seem to delight in low culture. But I'd wager that part of is was a concerted effort put forward by the RNC elites. Repeated enough times in a perjorative context and pretty soon even center-right people start to think that anyone Democrat is some cheese-eating, French-speaking, opera-watching, wuss. The only alternative, then, becomes the Republican!
quote:
The Democrats should have
1.) Redefined the "War on Terrorism" to focus on Islamic Facism. That is what this "war on terror" is about (that and perhaps oil). We not going after the IRA, ULF, KKK, FARC, Red Brigades, ETA.
2.) Focussed on bringing back Pay-As-You-Go and bringing up the Deficit.
3.) Stop this whole "I promise to give you jobs" slogan. The President can't do that and it just plays to emotions
Maybe:
1) I don't know-- already, the Bush spin-machine had control of both a) the direction of the "war on terror" debate, and b) anything Kerry said. Kerry's ideas about using more law enforcement to deal with terrorists-- a perfectly valid on, if you ask me-- was taken over and destroyed (with no discussion) by Cheney. And the RNC was spinning madly to turn any Kerry comment into yet another flip-flop. By the end, Kerry was speaking so cautiously that it was hard to get a concrete message across.
2) I don't follow-- what does this refer to?
3) True that the President doesn't "make" jobs. But his budget proposals and tax policy can help foster an environment that will. Still, it's hard to fight against natural business cycles.
quote:
For the board, as a fundie Christian, I am apalled at politicians who use the faith for political gain. You know...the ones who cry out about the attack on the sanctity of marriage, yet have gone through 2 divorces and 3 affairs. The ones who claim the sanctity life begins at conception but do nothing for the orphan, the working mother, the poor shmoe in Iraq. It's just hypocrisy.
Well, my guess is that the right's use of the fundamentalist Christian platform was a way to co-opt more voters. If your real goals are things like limiting government, eliminating social programs, and lowering taxes on wealth that only the richest people have, you aren't going to get many supporters. But if you take up social issues-- homosexuality, sex-and-drugs, abortion, God, and so on, you're likely to get lots of people. Once they're listening, just disguise or distort your actual positions in more social terms (think: "death tax" and "Godless schools" and so on) and you've got voters for life.
For awhile, I appreciated the Dems for trying to keep the debate about issues. But now it's clear now that with a guy so far-right (and fucking stupid) as our President Bush in power, even more center-oriented people need to start thinking about running for office not as political campaigns (where ideas are presented and debated) but as ad campaigns, where vague and amorphous issues like "character" and "values" are pushed over substance. |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 11/05/2004 : 07:16:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Cuneiformist
quote:
Originally posted by Rubicon95
The implication of those voting for Bush, and pro-conservative as "Stupid Rednecks" is a gross underestimation. Perhaps the GOP/Karl Rove was banking on the backlash. It worked. Over the next 4 years look to the GOP to be more friendly and "rational". They won't appoint any SJC who will remove Roe V Wade. Too partisan to do that. They are going to solidify their positions and demonize the Democrats and liberals.
I dunno, Rubicon. As noted in another thread, a rumor has been floating for weeks that Ashcroft won't stay on as AG in hopes that he'll get the nod for a Supreme Court position. And let's fact it, Ashcroft is as fundie-whacko as it gets.
But you're right about the whole 'solidarity' thing regarding conservatives. They seem to delight in low culture. But I'd wager that part of is was a concerted effort put forward by the RNC elites. Repeated enough times in a perjorative context and pretty soon even center-right people start to think that anyone Democrat is some cheese-eating, French-speaking, opera-watching, wuss. The only alternative, then, becomes the Republican!
Moderate Republicans have just fired a shot over Bush's bow.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6405485/
quote:
quote:
The Democrats should have
2.) Focussed on bringing back Pay-As-You-Go and bringing up the Deficit.
2) I don't follow-- what does this refer to?
Kerry did focus on Pay-as-you-go and the soaring deficit, but it was during the Swift Boat Veterans for Goddamn Lies flap that Kerry waited too long to address.
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Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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Rubicon95
Skeptic Friend
USA
220 Posts |
Posted - 11/05/2004 : 07:51:49 [Permalink]
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Pay-As-You-Go was the fiscal policy of the congress during the Clinton years. If you don't have the money, you don't do the program. That's is why we had a surplus. Now,well we don't have the money or even the projected money but we are spending credit like a impulse buyer with a charge card. Banking on that someday we'll pay it off or get bailed out.
Bush may have the "political capital", but the legislature still creates the laws and approves the budget. They are the ones who need the support and pressure to keep the Republic afloat.
Ashcroft as an SJC?? That's just...interesting. I'd rather have a sitting judge elevated or someone who was well versed in Constitutional law who had practical experience. I don't know if Ashcroft wrote any legal briefs.
Sadly, Political campaigns is going to be ad campaigns. Most Americans have an attention span of a goldfish. And the Dems-GOP know it. Character will always be and should be an issue in election. Don't know if you recall Lydon LaRouche. He was a presidential candidate in the 80's (independent-no party affiliation). He had great ideas on the economy and technology but he was megalomaniac.
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 11/05/2004 : 12:21:53 [Permalink]
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As usual and no less than expected, the Rude Pundit says it best:
quote:
Acceptance means we accept that we lost. It does not mean (despite all the fucking letters the Rude Pundit received) that we accept George Bush as our leader and knuckle under. It means we stop falling back on such pussy liberal statements like "In the days ahead, we must find common cause, we must join in common effort, without remorse or recrimination, without anger or rancor." That means you forgive the tactics of your enemy. When Bush said, in his "look-at-me-Daddy-I-won" speech, "And when we come together and work together, there is no limit to the greatness of America," all he was saying was it's my way or the highway. That's what his press conference yesterday demonstrated. Ass, gas, or grass, motherfuckers, no one rides for free. And the sooner the non-right (because, let's face it, centrism lost on Tuesday) learns that lesson, the sooner we begin our crawl back to power.
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 11/05/2004 : 13:09:45 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Rubicon95
Pay-As-You-Go was the fiscal policy of the congress during the Clinton years. If you don't have the money, you don't do the program. That's is why we had a surplus. Now,well we don't have the money or even the projected money but we are spending credit like a impulse buyer with a charge card. Banking on that someday we'll pay it off or get bailed out.
I see. Well, that makes sense sometimes. But I'm not quote the deficit-hawk, I don't think.
quote:
Ashcroft as an SJC?? That's just...interesting. I'd rather have a sitting judge elevated or someone who was well versed in Constitutional law who had practical experience. I don't know if Ashcroft wrote any legal briefs.
Right. And perhaps these rumors were just the sort of wild remarks (like "now we're going to invade Syria") expressed in fits of anger that, while perhaps an actual Bush fantasy, aren't realistic or even possible.
quote:
Sadly, Political campaigns is going to be ad campaigns. Most Americans have an attention span of a goldfish. And the Dems-GOP know it. Character will always be and should be an issue in election.
Yes-- sadly there does have to be more Madison Avenue packaging of a candidate now. Sound bites, not in-depth discussion, rules today's political discourse.
Yeah, character matters. But can the Republicans clearly claim to have better "character" in Bush than the Dems can in Kerry? I mean, that moral-clarity-straight-shootin'-god-fearin' bull shit is only so much PR, and has little basis in reality (except, perhaps, the god-fearin' part).
And honestly, almost anyone with a really detrimental character trait is going to be filtered out of the political pool. Murderers, bank robbers, extortionists, and arsonists rarely make it to public office. There are exceptions, but they aren't common.
On a curious but related note, atheists also don't make it because of perceived character flaws, demonstrating that "character" as an issue is usually too vague to be of real value in a campaign.
quote:
Don't know if you recall Lydon LaRouche. He was a presidential candidate in the 80's (independent-no party affiliation). He had great ideas on the economy and technology but he was megalomaniac.
LaRouch?!Are you serious? Perhaps I only discovered him after he'd gone insane or something. His cronies used to canvas the campus where I was an undergrad back in 1992. They'd have fliers and books and everything. I'd try and read them, but almost nothing he said made any sense. But again, perhaps I came late to the Larouche party train.
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