JCviggen

Its ironic that the "idiots" in this case tend to be higher educated and living in more developed areas compared to the "real" smart people.

Many parties aren't always better. In Belgium we usually need at least 3 parties to form a majority so needless to say they each have their own program and in the end nobody ever agrees on anything.

Well the media aren't forcing the democrats or republicans to spew nonsense and misinformation at every occasion. If I see the stuff on http://www.factcheck.org/ you wonder how either candidate can keep a straight face while talking. Its downright embarassing. Why is this the norm, one could ask? Is that the best the US has to offer? When it comes to spreading BS the republicans seem to outgun the dems 2 to 1 at least by the way, but who cares really when both sides are this similar in their approach. Followers of both camps don't even bother to check anything, they're just on auto-believe.

Its pretty sad that this is the only way America has to end up with a president. Bullshit from both sides, silly accusations, irrelevant things being brought up left and right...both campaigns are not shy to send downright lies into the airwaves. Intelligence and qualification are irrelevant, just come up with populist BS and you'll be all right. You'd think there would be some basic rules to something this important but instead but it's just the world's longest shouting match. And whoever manages to look the least bad in all this becomes president, yay. Ludicrous. Its idiocy not democracy.

Nice, of course that applies no matter which candidate or party ends up pulling the strings. There are no huge differences, not even a convincing illusion of difference. Regardless of who is elected of the 2 parties the result will be staggeringly similar. The only difference is which "side" will be doing most of the bitching.

I'm not trying to dismiss you, but it's hard to take your arguments serious when you present them in this way that makes them look like a a parody of facts. It appears to me as if everything needs to be a YES or NO answer for you, but for most of the questions you just asked there needs to be a very big BUT behind every YES or NO to place it in the right context. Context is everything really. I'm off to bed though, long day and the winter time change sucks.

No, because that would imply you're doing it on purpose. What do you base that on, exactly? I could give you a whole rant about what's wrong with politics in Europe but I doubt you'd be interested in that. FYI they suck even more then the ones on your end. No offence but it appears typical of very "right" people that if you go against what they think is right, that must mean you're supportive of the opposite. In this case, that's by no means true. I haven't seen any political system yet that one can't be critical of. Do you think I like paying 40% taxes on my wages, 21% sales tax and god knows what else? Fuck that. But that doesn't mean I can't be amused by people like you treating minimal taxes like they're sent to earth by the antichrist, to take one example. People sucking polticians dcks for tax cuts when the nation has an ever faster growing debt of currently 35K per inhabitant is pretty funny. Ever considered what the world would've been like if humans from the beginning had all been like the "religious/conservative right" ? We'd all be living in caves and huts convinced the sun is orbiting our flat disc. A little apreciation for the more open minded please ;)

If you turn it around and increase taxes in the above example instead of reducing them it works a little better, but its a nice example still. Of course the problem is that a lot of money has already been spent over the years which wasn't really there in the first place. So either taxes need to increase or spending needs to be cut in a drastic way which is likely not acceptable either. The hole is there and will need to be filled somehow. Rock, hard place. The era of writing checks no-one ever cashes may be coming to an end..

:lol: Out of curiosity, are you unaware those things you mention are fictional or do you do it for entertainment?

When the press smells blood, you're in trouble. All the networks are in competition to get her to say the dumbest things I guess. Nothing that could not be expected, she's a sitting duck for any unexpected question.

I read this earlier today, I think it applies to the same topic http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/ma...the_s_word.html

That's a big negative. The only reason oil prices came down from 147/brrl was worries about the economic outlook of the world as a whole. The increases only had a very small impact, and very temporary as well. If people were buying less gas, aka slowing demand, prices would fall anyway. You don't increase production because demand is slowing, you're looking at it backwards I'm afraid.

They don't have much of a reason to do so. If it was spite instead of money they wouldn't increase supply to whatever they could manage when prices were soaring. Surely there are OPEC members that aren't invited to christmas dinners at the white house but their quotas affect the whole world their friends included. Its everybody for themself...

Let's say you have a garden full of golden eggs. Obviously a blessing but not an infinite source of income. When people are queueing around the block to buy them from you for 1000$ a pop it makes sense to make hay while the sun is shining. Because sooner or later things will have a downturn, economies are cyclical. Now why would you continue to work your ass off your ever shrinking supply of eggs at 300$ ? When you control the market, no less? Seriously I like cheap things as much as the next guy but be fsking realistic people. Everybody is screaming left and right about socialist politicians threatening their cosy lifestyles and at the same time cry murder whenever prices increase due to free market principles :rolleyes:

*fetus the differences go a bit father than just nomenclature

I think the Dems are just a lot more boring The Reps liven things up quite a bit with characters like Palin Effectively the R and D party aren't as far apart on policy as one would think. And the gap seems to be shrinking still. Both are a lot more to the right than what we have in European governments. That's not to say they are necessarily better or worse. No such thing a good politician exists, unfortunately they are necessary.

From FactCheck.org (perhaps looking things up is a better way to understand what's true and what not?) Getting paid for doing nothing, the old american dream :lol:

Well the most likely scenario is that the people running his campaign advised him strongly enough that Palin was the best way to get the hardcore base on his side. She appears to be running a completely different and uncontrolled campaign from his anyway. Palin 2012? :lol:

Nothing wrong with hunting, fishing or going to church. And overtaxation is a relative factor in a complicated economy. Hey everybody hates taxes, seriously. It's just that many of the "right wingers" I meant with "nutty" have closed their minds to anything that doesn't fall in line with their reality. Anything that doesn't comply is attacked as a threat. You can't solve anything if you have to reverse engineer your thinking process to end up at the predetermined conclusion. That's not how humanity evolved and came to be as advanced as we are. Luckily these "nutty people" I'm talking about are by no means a majority or we'd be in real trouble. At least not in the US, there's still plenty of places in the world where such people are a majority. Ironically those places are the ones that tend to be most demonized by the same "nutters" So to render all of the above on topic, there's no doubt Palin suffers from the abovementioned issues. It's not hard to guess why a reasonable guy like John McC was forced to pick her up as a running mate. You made the point yourself. Very much doubt it was his idea. If Bush hadn't run the republicans into the ground the last 8 years McCain probably wouldn't have thought he needed her and he'd be in way, way better shape. Just to be clear on this I respect everyone and their opinion. It's only natural that we go with the flow, if any of us were born in a completely different environment we'd all be different. Well 99% of us anyway. Peace.

From what I'm reading the ACORN thing is pretty much a non issue. Some douchebags may make up a bunch of bogus registrations to up their numbers, but none of those are actually going to cast a vote obviously. To get back to Palin, this was an interesting view http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14555.html I think McCain could be a very good choice for president. It's unfortunate he isn't himself anymore but rather sold out to the more nutty hardcore right wingers (cue Palin) and severely damaged his overall chances by doing so.

Well, from the link you gave : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/05/s...a_n_132098.html If there was a decent story in it, I'm sure it would be all over the less obscure media. As someone who has absolutely nothing to do with US elections I find it scientifically fascinating how people's affection for a particular political direction narrows their perceptions to merely what they want to believe.

That's because.....they moved away from socialism/communism about 17 years ago because those things you mention were a lot better then than now.

Because she's off the reservation? People who have no grasp of science, economics, or the world in general outside their daily life shouldn't be in any position of great international power. She seems pretty sincere, which is refreshing for a politician. Unfortunately when she speaks her mind there's no doubt that she doesn't have a clue about anything except making babies. Let's hope all we will remember in a year's time is the entertainment she provided to this utterly boring election BS. That said, it could be hilarious to have a president Barbie because all the funny is gone from W and McCain is hardly comedy gold.

For a change, this really isn't a politician's fault. Well, not directly anyway. If anyone with a genuinly sensible economic policy would come forward he wouldn't get any votes.

And a whole lot of www.factcheck.org after that :D