Deltablade

Canadians are always dreaming up a lotta ways to ruin our lives. The metric system, for the love of God! Celsius! Neil Young!

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What's wrong with Neil Young?!?! I can understand Celsius, but Neil Young makes sweet music.

save the state and taxpayers the thousands of dollars per year that it costs to imprison someone

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Gregg,

I hate to break this down to the economic level but you started it. I'll start out by telling you that your argument is very shallow. I will also ask you the question: If the total cost of executing a prisoner, including legal fees was a figure identical to the total cost of imprisoning the offender for life, would you still support execution? See, this is what happens when a complex moral issue is broken down into pure economics...it often times can't be done.

There is no way to predict how abolishing capital punishment would affect the cost of executing a prisoner vs. imprisoning him for live.

Capital cases usually take about 3.5 times as long as non-capital ones and are much more complicated to deal with. This equates to more time spend on the trial and much more money that the taxpayers have to pay. Realize that everyone who works in the courtroom, lawyer, judge, even balifs have to get payed. It depends on who's stats you use; some sources say that execution is much cheaper than life imprisonment and others say the opposite. It also varies state to state so it is very difficult to tell which costs more...

What can capital punishment do that life imprisonment without the possiblity of parole cannot?

Why do we still institute the death penalty anyway?

That teacher has every right to display whatever the heck she wants on her car. I can see where the parents are coming from, in that they don't want their children seeing that kind of message. I wouldn't either. Especially in a school environment though, that teacher is being kind of irresponsible in the respect that she is getting payed to teach the curriculum, not her personal views on law enforcement and vigilante justice.

Hey, remember that footage of when Saddam was overrun by our military and people were out in the streets pulling down the statues of him, rejoicing. What about those people?

Its not like every person in the country is an insurgent who wants nothing to do with American occupation and would sacrifice him or herself to make a statement about their distaste for our soldiers.

We've rebuilt every country we've invaded and it would be foolish and irresponsible to pull out now. People are voting for the first time there. Government is being established.

i was gonna try and sell my vote on ebay, but never had the guts to see if they'd let me. but i did write an ad for it in my creative writing class:

(dont take it too seriously)

                                              Vote for Sale

Time for a quick Civics lesson:

Q: Which two ideas make Americans better than the other 6 billion people we share the planet with?

A: CAPITALISM and DEMOCRACY!

That’s right! Laissez-faire capitalism and semi-fair democracy have allowed America to become the Head Honcho of political superpowers. Many advertisements leading up to November will tell you to get out and register to vote, which is a good starting point. However, this is your opportunity to get involved with not just democracy, but capitalism as well. Let me get to the point: I want to sell you my vote! That’s right, the winning bidder will be able to tell me who to vote for! As an added bonus to Minnesota bidders, the winner will also get to tell me who to vote into congress as well! Still not convinced? Maybe you fall into one of the categories below:

Can’t decide who to vote for?

Now you can cover all your bases!

Do you feel you’re entitled to vote twice?

Here’s your chance to beat the system!

Do you just have too much money?

Let me help!

This would also make a great gift!

Remind the 70% of the world’s population who have never heard a dial tone why you are superior and make a bid on my vote today!

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Yeah, selling your vote is a felony. You could face 5 years in prison, just enough time to miss the next election.

Also, I find it funny that many people will concede that Bush is a complete idiot, yet also believe all that Micheal Moore garbage about Bush making secret deals with the Saudis and his involvement in conspiracies and whatnot... It just bothers me.

i wonder if the people with whom you choose to be around have any effect on your perspective of the vote? 

i definitley don't know a whole lot of people that voted for kerry, but i still know some.  all of the people i know that voted period are college graduates, or in college.  also, don't just say because colleges are in the south, that the students will automatically be brainwashed and vote for the conservative.  OU is a pretty liberal campus with many liberal professors.  on the flip side, my grandpa got his masters from USC in the swingin sixties, and voted for bush.

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Most people moderate after they leave college (read: sheltered fantasy world where nothing is real). Its just something about the real world that ruins people's idealistic natures.

I think this is very true. Then you have another 25% of the people that only voted for Bush because he is a Christian. Just like the guy in the other Thread saying he is a traditional family guy and believes in Jesus.

I don't know about you, but all of the people I know that voted for Kerry have at least a College degree and some have Masters or Doctorates.

Also, when you look at the map all you see is how the majority voted, not what the percentage is. When you consider the vote was very close to 50/50 that map is very deceiving.

and what the colors might mean (according to the Washington Post, 2004):

"(Blue Voters)most likely to be found among highly educated women, non-churchgoers, union members and the “cosmopolitans” of the New York area, New England and California.

(Red Voters) older, more likely to be married, less likely to join a union, more likely to be regular churchgoers—mostly at Protestant churches—far more likely to be “born again” Christians...

"

http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/~sara/html/mappin...4/election.html

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Uhh......John Kerry is Christian too. He's Catholic, I'm pretty sure he believes in Jesus as well.

However impressive that map looks, less people live in all those rural counties that are red. For example, look at Illinois, my state. Mostly red, but if you look at that small sliver of blue right next to Lake Michigan, yeah, that's Cook County. It determined the entire state's vote. Side note: you see that box of blue due south of Chicago, that is Champaign County, home of my school, good ole' University of Illinios, Urbana-Champagn. Surprisingly, Kerry only won 50-49 here.

The fact of the matter is, no matter what nationality, race, or religion a group of people are, there are always extremists. For whatever reason, they cannot think rationally and behave accordingly. I think right now, the general population is more worried about the threat of terror coming from a Musilm extremist because perhaps the worst trajedy/act of terror was attributed to that group. Actually, there is probably the same chance of a terrorist attack conducted by a white guy than of any other race. The bottom line is that it is nearly impossible to profile an idea in someone's head, where it is very easy to profile darker skin and a beard. That is why it is being done right now. Its easy and it makes some people feel safer.

No, you're a flaming retard, and people like you sicken me. Drill in the Arctic Refuge? That's the second dumbest solution to a made-up problem I've ever heard, right behind Shrub's little Social Security "Crisis". There's not enough oil in Alaska to make any difference in overall national production, I hate to break it to you. This isn't exactly another North Slope. Have you heard of a Hubbert curve? Oil is on it's way out, my friend. Rather than spending piles of cash to ruin the Arctic, we need to be investigating new energy production technologies. We've set the stage for a catalysmic energy crisis in the US... it's time people pulled their heads from the sand and started dealing in the facts.

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I pretty much agree with you jross. I read somewhere that drilling in Alaska at a maximum rate would only produce something like 11% of our total oil consumption. We need to furthur develop advanced energy technology to a point where we don't need to utilize foriegn oil anymore.

Fat bottomed girls, You make the rockin' world go 'round...

Here's the story:

Gov. pokes fun at Uncle Ted

By Associated Press |

Published on Tuesday, October 26, 2004

MENLO PARK -- Uncle by marriage isn't stopping California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger from poking fun at Sen. Ted Kennedy's weight.

And the movie star-turned-politician has decided that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, Kennedy's Massachusetts colleague in the Senate, is fair game too.

At a campaign appearance for a Republican candidate to the California Assembly, Schwarzenegger apologized for being a few minutes late, explaining that he had been pumpkin hunting with his children. Schwarzenegger is married to Maria Shriver, who is Kennedy's niece.

"My kids just brought home a beautiful pumpkin, but you know what? I'm going to return it because it's a Democratic pumpkin. It has the orange color of John Kerry's tan, and the roundness of Teddy Kennedy," said the Republican governor.

While Schwarzenegger is supporting President Bush and will campaign with him later this week in Ohio, he and Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, both own vacation homes in Idaho, and Schwarzenegger has said they are friends.

Later, Schwarzenegger made a few more jokes about Kennedy's weight when discussing California's $103 billion budget.

"That's a lot of money," he said. "Another way to think about it is if you take $100 bills and put them next to each other, they will go half way, truly half way around Teddy Kennedy's stomach."

As the audience guffawed, Schwarzenegger said, "I always like to make jokes about Teddy Kennedy. I think it's always fun to do that. He's one of my favorite relatives. He comes to my house and he eats away all the cake and all the desserts that we have."

I dont hate HIM, I hate the way hes gone about doing things. I think Id like to have him as a friend....just not a president. Kerry was the only alternative, therefore I voted for Kerry. Though Im hardly distraught about Bush winning, it could be much worse. And I wouldnt say he lost by a large margin... 2% is not a large margin. And 140,000 votes in one state is an even slimmer margin.

People really do hate Bush over here though. I think people would celebrate if he died. Though a lot of that is displaced anger towards a failed US foreign policy.

Some funny front pages though.

"The Sun" had a picture of W, and then in red writing "How 55,234,018 People be so STUPID?" I laughed pretty hard. Ive managed to explain to some people that some smart Americans do vote for him, because even though they might not like the everything hes done so far, theyre confident hell keep trying his hardest, and didnt trust Kerry at all. Then there are some that are sheep, and dont realise that at least 50% of whats coming out of their canidates mouth is true, and all they hear is "Ill protect you better from terrorism". They found the second explaination I provided slightly discomforting, so I then explained "a lot of Americans that have something to fear from terrorism, like New Yorkers, voted overwhelmingly against him, some people just dont realise that hes lying, or think that he lies less than the other canidate. He might, its hard to tell because of how much they both lie." It was that explaination people started to understand. Over here, the media is saying that the only reason he won is that most Americans are fanatical Christians that want Bush to wage a Holy War against Islam.... Yeah.... Ferenheight 9/11 is also excepted as Gospel....

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Yes, then you agree with me. I'm talking about those people that hate Bush so deeply that they think he is evil. You are an informed individual who understood both candidates. I'm talking about people who hate Bush. Its a pretty small minority but the media would have you believe that that percentage is much higher.

Recently, Arnold was late to some function and as an excuse, he said that he was late because he was just carving a pumpkin with his kids. He went on to explain that he wanted to return the pumpkin because it was a democratic pumpkin. His reasoning: the pumpkin was orange like John Kerry's tan and it was round like Ted Kenedy's belly. (Keep in mind Ted Kenedy is his wife's uncle!) He later went on to explain that Ted Kenedy was one of his favorite relatives: he always comes over and eats all the cakes and desserts.

i disagree, i think a large portion of kerry followers were only kerry followers to get bush out of office.  And thats potentially a large crowd, kerry did lose by a large margin, but he still had enough votes to win past elections in this country.

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I said the average American doesn't hate Bush. I don't even think the average Kerry supporter hates Bush. They had problems with the way he did things so they voted against him. Most of them didn't hate him.

Nope, killed all the criminals before they could commit murders.

Guiliani is not running though. I watched an interview with him on election day. He doesn't even want to hold any government office, or so he said.

I really want Jesse Ventura to run in 08. In a recent lecture he said he might.

I don't see why he thinks there is going to be an uprising. I would venture to guess that the average American thinks that Bush is a decent guy who they may or may not agree with but is fine nevertheless. People who hate Bush are such a minority, but you think everyone hates him beacuase that group is so vocal about it.

What idiots. Stupid celebrities. Yeah! Anarchy, dude!! Oh, shiz, our Rock the Vote didn't work....oh shiz, our album that refers to the president as an idiot didn't work. Oh shiz, the youth of America accounted for the same percentage of the total vote as last election. I'm a stupid celebrity, but I'm cool because I hate Bush. I'm part of a minority, and that's cool, so is rioting and anarchy..............

Sorry. Just had to "vent".

Running a campaign that is entirely based upon you not being the other candidate is not enough to win an election.

I was being sarcastic. I'm with you guys. I just want to see what kind of crazy ideas Moore has about what happened this time.

I really can't wait until Michael Moore's next movie. I can't wait to hear how Bush stole this election too.

Doesn't that jut piss ya off!? Kinda makes you think... "Why the hell did I just vote?"

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Yep. I just watched a speech today on C-Span by a professor of political science at I think Texas A&M and he talked about how bad the electorate system is. He had some pretty good points. He was basically saying that because we vote by state electors, some people's vote counts more than others. For example, a vote in Wyoming counts 4x what a California one does. Also, the information we use to decide the number of electors from each state is outdated. For example: in the 2000 election, we used information from the 1990 census. Also, non-citizens are counted too but they can't vote. Go figure.

Yeah, that's gotta be the worst. To know somewhere there is some uneducated hippy canceling my vote out. Although I guess it doesn't matter anyway, all of Illinois's 21 votes are going straight to Kerry regardless.