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| Discussion: Jack *(or has been) should be (or never has been). >>By Flagg A fellow Florker has prevailed upon me to salvage the reputation of Americans( in general) on this board. This meant that my mission was to show that not ALL Americans were not complete horses' asses. While it is true that America did influence many countries into adopting democratic govt. and that at several periods social mobility here was possible, those times have past. What we have here now is a population characterized by a dogmatic ultranationalist fog. The notion that ONLY America provides opportunties to advance is utter nonsense, or that our laws set the trends in social justice is also profoundly ignorant. We have probably the largest percentage of personal bankruptcies, personal debt and quite possibly the largest prison population(not sure, but it is up there). We have very invasive background checks for employment and laws/rules/regulations covering eveything with hosts of greedy lawyers to see that either you buy your way out of prison or get ruined or go to prison. We are known for poster boy/girl success stories but in terms of education or knowledge in general we typically turn out very obtuse individuals from our colleges who are fit only for conversation in the one field they have chosen to get a certificate in. Does America value intellect?; not at all! What americans value is success in terms of money, this is no differant than the very class/caste system our founders (a few of them) sought to change. Our current president is an example of just how far our system has degenerated. Here is a man who, despite the chance to be well educated, has managed to learn absolutely nothing about THE SPIRIT of America,how to think logically OR how to speak properly(PS: this is not "proof" that anyone can become president, rather it is proof that anyone with wealth can buy the presidency). The fact of the matter is, there are many countries with a more educated public,more advanced social laws AND opportunities than we have here. Yes, we do have a wide variety of goods/services the vast majority of which are completely useless or unnecessary. There is nothing wrong with leading by example and if we have a chance to influence world conduct that is great BUT is it necessary that we be worshipped or ask submission OR impose ourselves on other nations? This logic appears to be that of those Fascist/Communist states we always rail about! Can America ever change...possibly, but it is obvious that the delusion has to come to an end first. I can only say one thing in defense of America: on balance we may take 2 steps backwards but eventually we do take 3 steps forward(historically). Right now we are stepping back while pretending to be stepping up. >>By twainmiller JJ, like I said, I've not read the convo prior to the last post before my 'statement' - so I wasn't really speaking about L2R or the US - more in general, since I've read an interesting article saying that we should actually feel sorry for those who 'chase' in a materialistic manner - since their 'rush' buying a new car (for example) only lasts as long as their neighbour shows an even bigger and newer car. They completely miss out on the important things in life. That's the article in short of course and I have to run so I lack time to make it more clear. And @ "that simple" - I believe that NOTHING is ever "that simple" ;-) >>By Lynn Twainmiller has proven something many people have long suspected. Americans have no familiarity with the concept of the paragraph. Why are you so racist against paragraphs, twainmiller? What did paragraphs ever do to harm you? >>By Just Jon a paragraph once stold my lunch >>By twainmiller Well graphology prejudices aside, Twainmiller talks sense. Welcome to the Jackboard, heated debate capital of the world. >>By Flagg "a paragraph once stole my lunch" wasnt a shepherds pie was it? I once caught some apostraphes trying to steal my car >>By BushisaManiac and Twain i will second wholeheartedly what Flagg has said >>By BushisaManiac I'm going to assume Twain did make sense, rather than try to read that post. So yes, Twain, that made perfect sense. Thank you. >>By Just Jon You could try highlighting one line at a time so it stands out from the rest. >>By Flagg Heh, if anything in that post stood out I wouldn't need to highlight, now would I? >>By Just Jon I'll put it this way we have a good board here it's awesome we can talk about anything everyone doing really great so many contributions cool I love to read all this stuff and respect these differing points of view and the other day I itched in a weird place and blamed my girlfriend but it turned out I had just gone to long without showering and Bush is wrong about so many things it really irks me that... Let's have some grammatical decency, folks. >>By Just Jon Yeah, well it annoys me too. I thought the post was worth reading though. >>By Flagg Ok. Anyone else heard of People & Planet??? Well I somehow got dragged along to a meeting on the 365 Faslane blockade that's going on (starting from yesterday). Now I'm Anit-nuclear weapons (& power in terms of the waste it produces & the fact that it is not renewable.... with just the Earth's resources). But protests???/ Hmmm.. I'm of the opinion that protests can help in many ways : but at the end of the day, it's down to the government on what they do to resolve the situation. Being in a protest is a great feeling - it's like 'democracy' at work. It gets your voice heard; you can do good things with it. But at the end of the day - it's not persuasion, not really. It's giving the government an opportunity to COMPROMISE (& only if they want to). Yes of course you can continue to protest until you get what you want - but at the end of the day, you really shouldn't have to protest to get what you want. The government are there to represent YOU & should not implicate things which the general public are greatly against. What is better - protesting every time the government goes against the public? OR Changing the system so that the government cannot implicate anything (major obviously) WITHOUT a refferendum/plebicite? I suggested this to the group meeting. The facillitator automatically assumed that I wanted to do nothing about the situation & that I believed that protesting was futile. I'm very pissed off now. He just laughed at me like I was stupid - daft yuppie. Yuppie?? Well - am I the only one who has this disgusting feeling that all these issues & Oxfam & Fairtrade have all just become fashions essentially??? It's almost fashionable to buy Fairtrade or shop in Oxfam ..... but when you ask them (& i'm hoping this isn't true for most people) you get a vague response. It's almost like they don't comprehend the economics behind Fairtrade or whatever it is........ I don'tknow. Maybe I'm just being....... hmmmph- can't think of the word. And the three leaders of the local People & Planet didn't even know the process of decommissioning. Now I personally know very little - but if you are against something - it would be wise to learn about what enacting your beliefs might cause. For all they knew - although I'm quite sure they had common sense - decommissioning could be firing the nukes off in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. But it's quite worrying that there are people who think this & that should be done - oh... but that does something bad... oh - probably should have realized that before... wooops. Anyone else share my mad opinion??? >>By Tchock * But at the end of the day.... definitely need another phrase :):) Not feeling particulary articulate..... so excuse. I hate colds. >>By Tchock Three at-the-end-of-the-days eh? Well at least you used paragraphs ;) >Well - am I the only one who has this disgusting feeling that all these issues & Oxfam & Fairtrade have all just become fashions essentially??? Chris Martin might have something to do with that. Or he might not, you know, I just like taking opportunities to slag him off. What is the process of decomissioning? Do you know how one would go about it? I'd be interested to know. Anyway, about protests... I kind of agree. They're never really effective are they? Ultimately (there's an alternative for you) politicians can do whatever they want, or almost. They'd have to do something really bad for us to start a revolution or something. And let's be honest, that's what it would take; democracy in this country is meaningless because all the parties are the same and democracy in the U.S. is meaningless because they almost certainly rigged the last two elections. Maybe democracy works in other countries...? >>By Flagg Governments: they do whatever we allow them to get away with. We can shout, we can scream, we can protest - but (almost said it!!!) it all stems back to one thing: by the time WE know about it or by the time WE protest about it - they've already done it. Obviously we can't have a plebicite on EVERY proposed governmental spending or bill - however important situations such as "Shall we spend vast amounts of YOUR money on NUKES despite the fact that around 85% of you don't want them...." should be determined by the people. Protesting either works or it doesn't work. But one thing is for sure: it represents a thing that many overlook: that we don't persuade the government by our opinions or common sense, facts, knowledge & yet more common sense - we threaten them to. And that is where we see the cracks in our so-called Democracy. We back the government into a position where they might have no alternative but to choose what the population want - is this democracy? Think not. Did women (in Britain) win the vote via the Suffragists & the Suffragettes??? No. The Suffragists WERE negotiating with the some national parties to put equal franchise in their manifestos in 1914, but all was abandoned for the pointlessly bloody war over a few fancy naval ships that Kaiser Willy didn't have. Fucking disgusting what a few posh rich kids can do isn't it? Anyway - The Suffragettes put thhe Government in a position where it was cat & mouse - neither could back down. The war stopped this - it was threatening to commence soon after the war had finished. It was a way of escape from the government as well as: a way of balancing the liberal/conservative vote because of the new rising Labour Party; the threat of COMMUNISM which had taken over Russia & NOT because "they deserved it for their war work" because look who got the vote in 1918??? No one who could be remotely working class !!!! It's a classic point though - the protesting didn't change their minds - the government weren't persuaded that equal suffrage was a great idea - the Government GAVE it to them because there was no other way out of the stale mate between them & also because it was a means to a good end for the Government. Shame that 6 years the Labour Party were voted in for the first time though isn't it? ;) Yeah - so like the government didn't represent the people whatsoever in that issue. & stuff............ All the parties ARE all the same - I agree Flagg !! Cameron - as slimy as a newt who's just been in a vat of the something very slimy - scarily, I trust Blair more than him !!!! Blair - well.... they're building a gallows outside 10 Downing Street............ I gotta twelve more months to.........& The whole darn country's waiting just to hear me yell, I got eleven more months to go...... Gordon Brown??? Hmmm..... We'll see. Rest of Labour Party? Hmmm - backbenchers usually = proper Labour !!! Shame about the Cabinet. I mean really - how many times has it been reshuffled!!!! It MUST be in the Guinness Book of Records !!! (For that matter, what's wrong with hiring select individuals who may or may not be politicians but are experts in the field of education, economics, health etc............ because lets face it - they know more about it than these ministers !!!!) Menzies Campbell (Minghis - the REAL way to say Menzies) Well.......... I can imagine him losing his glasses on his head - no offence to him personally, but if he can do that - there's not much hope is there. Not agist at all - its just well. Lib-Dems. Come on. "What do we want - we don't know - when do we want it - well, whenever it's convenient!" New Resolution !!! Right We make a bill saying that all BNP supporters are to live in the lowest points in Britain.... then we wait for the tides to rise. & THEN we tackle climate change !!!!!!!! Democracy in other countries............ Jaques Chirac - well when he gets thrown outta office (steps down I mean), he gets thrown in jail. I read a page on a book on French Politics once. But that was years ago now & I can't remember. Germany................well it didn't work out AT FIRST............ ;) Angela Merkel (sp?) well- she seems like a battle axe. Isn't she quite right wing (religious too). Hmm. I think we'd have to ask the owner of this site more about it............in fact I shall !!! Ukraine - well !!!! Russia - I don't think their habits would change that dramatically after 70 years of THAT................ (Although in fairness to Lenin - it was only after his final two strokes & his death that things really got out of hand !!! Remember...........who was it who had power over the party from 1921 secretly - who was it who was Lenin's "ambassador"............... ssssStalin !!! & Remember... WHO supported him..... Molotov, Kaganovich (its scary that he died in 1990 - but a few months before the USSR's collapse....) & Yezhov, Yagoda, Beria..........) Oh yeah those MEXICAN elections earlier this year - democracy AT IT'S (mostlikelybought) BEST. & Notice how the CIA helps out a lot of "democractically starved" countries......... the ones who vote...........left wing groups in I mean. Democracy only works if you don't have humans in charge.......... (or counting the votes... eh Florida!!!) >>By Tchock >Democracy only works if you don't have humans in charge. Once again I'm gonna seriously reccomend you read some of Iain M. Banks's Culture novels. Tchock, you are just a wellspring of information on politics. I'm interested. Do you think it's even conceivable that there's a system of government that would actually work? Or maybe democracy really *could* work, but it would be up to us to make that happen, and we're not doing enough... What happened in the Mexican elections? >>By Flagg Oh nevermind I just read about it. >>By Flagg Dear Gang, <<<once again L2R please dont reply to this I am not interested in your views anymore I find you both unpallatable and somewhat disgusting, and at the risk of being labelled rascist I find you emulate the classic stereotype of your religion down to a tee.>>> Is the above acceptable to Flagg and Tchock? Without quotimg the The challenge of storingMoron that authored this, I am a bit let down that the kids didn't take exception...... Not renewable??? Nuclear power....as in breeder reactor??? You might want to caution the Japanese and the French on the fallacy (as you may choose to believe) of Nuclear Power being clean. The challenge of storing nuclear waste is solvable....and in the meanwhile safe storage for 75,000 years is possible at this time. I am confident that nuclear plays an important role in the future. I put you on notice Maniac that I will report further intemperate racist remarks. And just because Tchock and Flagg did not recognize (or read your post) such do not get overconfident. Their silence on the matter (sadly) did not surprise me. >>By lv2read I'm sorry, I must have missed something. I don't see why we should be offended. >>By Flagg He slagged you off, that's perfectly acceptable to me. >>By Flagg I second that, Flagg !!! Right. Nuclear Power... needs.......URANIUM. As that is an element, and not something like the wind or solar energy (photons), and as there is only a limited* supply of it on this Earth - I THINK that is classified as non-renewable. lv2read, there is a slight difference to the terms Renewable & Polluting Energy Sources Non-renewable doesn't mean that it's polluting.............. Nuclear power basically is steam turning a turbine. * Uranium 235 maybe 500 times more common than gold - but it's still a finite resource. At present use, we have 50 years left of supply of Uranium 235. However if the price of Uranium is doubled - the reserves could last longer. Yes - in theory it is great to have nuclear power. But accidents do happen. I'd rather it was a wind turbine falling over than a big bang & all that comes afterwards. It costs also quite a fair bit to set up a nuclear power station & then decommission it when its shelf life runs out - there is one in Hartlepool (east coast of North England) where it is still running many years after it should have been shut down - but it is so costly to decommission.... it's still running. So that is dangerous. Also - many DEVELOPING countries (remember them???) would have to buy into this from US (not u.s) & they cannot afford it. But aside that - they just don't have the knowledge of how to run it - during my electrical engineering lectures I have seen many cases where they have no basic safety awareness - in a hydropower station the 400V system was being sprayed by some of the water spurting out of the valve in the hydro dam. We need to educate people in developing countries before anything on a grand scale can be achieved. Actually - hydro power is possibly the best solution to developing countries needs. Don't bring in the Brazillian white-elephant of a dam into this, by the way. That was merely a way of some American company making some money - with no planning put into it at all: for instance those in the immediate vancinity don't need a great deal of energy, unlike a city. Nuclear Power is all very well - but let's just put it in nature's hands & let the Sun be the only nuclear power - it's far better that way. If the Sun blows up - I guess we've got about 8 minutes to see what's happened: here we see it as it happens & we've got a whole lotta cleaning up to do. >>By Tchock If we're not all living in shanty-towns and using bottlecaps as currency. >>By Flagg L2R you can report me as often as you wish , I shall not hide under the bed or tremble at the thought of MG banning me from this site "Without quotimg the The challenge of storingMoron that authored this" er can you say that again in english please!! I said "at the risk of being labelled rascist I find you emulate the classic stereotype of your religion down to a tee" the classic stereotype of middle aged american Jewish males as portrayed in lots of American made films (rightly or wrongly), is of people whom are very interested in money and not much else. You fit that description. I realise in saying that, that I have offended you and in that I'm sorry............... but as far as worshipping money goes.......you still fit the description. I couldn't care if a person were black, yellow or brown, or what country they came from, I couldnt care whether they voted extreme right wing or extreme left wing, I couldnt care if they were homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual, I dont care if they are muslim, jewish, catholic or protestant... as long as they dont try to FORCE their views onto me!! Now this is a forum for us to give our views, and sometimes we push our own views a bit too hard (boy am I guilty of this or what!!) hence we get a bit heated, but to paraphrase tchock "at the end of the day" thats quite healthy, thats debate, thats passionate discussion.... all you seem to do, in my humble opinion is push how your views are right and ours are wrong because we disagree with you. I know that a lot of my views differ from Tchock's and Flagg's for example, sometimes we agree on things sometimes we dont, thats because we are different people from different sections of society and because our upbringinng and experiences are different. I for example have had a few heated arguments with Flagg, not once do I recall slagging him off personally or him me (have we Flagg?), you L2R fall back on implying that we all read the communist daily worker, or that we are naive and immature or uninformed or have been conned by other people because the views expressed do not meet yours implicitly, you dont seem to see that not all of us care for the US's quest for world supremecy or think that the aquisition of more and more personal wealth is the be all and end all of life, because we dont think like you then we are wrong, to be belittled and pitied by you, well forget it pal we dont need your personal type of lifestyle, we have and need our own. As for the current topic....Wind, wave and solar power (do we get enough sun in the UK?) are the way ahead, unfortunately they all cost too much in the short term, construction costs etc etc...and lets face it every governement is only interested in the short term effects that their policies have on their own terms in office >>By BushisaManiac Well, we did get kind of personal, I don't think that can be avoided. We didn't make the kind of sweeping, whole-character judgements that L2R makes though, or that he leads us to make of him. It's a shame that we can't argue without our emotions playing a big part. But then, maybe all we're arguing about is the effect that things have on our emotions. >>By Flagg God Bless America this e-mail was sent to me by a mate (J*****) who works for an American company I think its pretty self explanatory... J***** This e-mail is from my eight year old grand daughter. The United States of America home of the free land of the brave. This is the kind of stuff I worry about almost everyday. Check the precious spelling out. T.C. From: *********@aol.com [mailto:**********@aol.com] Sent: Saturday, 07 October, 2006 01:10 To: ******, Thomas Subject: Re: This message for Lindsey Hi poppy school is great!. Thursday our school had a lockdown see what happend was some classes where outside and they heard a loud ''boom'' they thout a car had been in a accident or someone had shot a gun we were at lunch and the assisant prenceabal anounced it on the speckers and some of us hid under a table and the rest of us hid behind the assisant teachers desk. And mrs.Dendy closed the blinds locked the door and covered the door we got a letter home telling what happend.The paper said it was 15 min. but it was 1 hour and then we where back to a regular day . I LOVE YOU senserley .lindsey >>By BushisaManiac BIAM, if your point is that America is violent and there are too many guns on the streets, I agree. If your point is that an eight-year-old should be able to spell "sincerely," I also agree. I should point out though, that we Yanks don't have drunken Yobs or whatever ya'll call them roaming the streets after pub closings and causing trouble, probably because they know someone might shoot them. School shootings and the fear they create are tragic, I don't see any point in using these tragedies to make a point about America vs. U.K. I think patriots are idiots and nationalism is dangerous--your country is even worse than us in a way, in that you're participating in OUR wars just so we'll keep protecting you. At least we deserve an idiot like Bush because we elected him--you Brits are our patsies and didn't have a say in the matter. My opinion of my own government is about the same as my opinion of yours. I'd like to hear about ways to make my own country better, not listen to you gloat about our tragedies and the fear they create. Your sarcastic "land of the free, home of the brave," had nothing to do with your post, unless you're suggesting we should be more "brave" and ignore what sounds like gunshots around children. As for freedom, not seeing how that ties in at all. God save your inbred Queen. >>By Just Jon Arguments without emotion?? No no no............that would be almost as pointless as an argument without facts. Of course blindly believing in what you believe & nothing or no one else IS as bad as believing in the facts but have no emotion over what they really mean. Did that make sense??? What is the point in arguing or discussing anything if you don't have a passion for it?? If you only mildly concerned about a problem - no matter what it is - you're less likely to attempt to fix it, to research into it - to make it better. But if you have passion - then you have drive, determination........... & only that way will things ever get done. However, as always, things can be taken to the extremes & the 'rules' do not apply. It's almost like Newton's Laws of Physics. That is quite scary about your friend's daughter................ although I'm hoping it's not a frequent occurence- it still happens. Maybe it's down to the fact that America has about 4 times more people than Britain - guess there's four times as more nutters.....??? But any country that allows guns to be sold in the local supermarket to pretty much anyone is sickening. & as for spelling???? Well yeah. I think more emphasis is on passing tests & not on *real education*. And then you go to the extreme again & it's people saying that teaching children the times tables is a bit much. We got an email in the other day actually - from the university, saying not to use 'text speak' when emailing your lecturers. Quite frankly it's scary that anyone over the age of 14 uses this, never mind university students in their late teens. I guess it all comes back to the same basic common denominator: common sense is a very, very rare thing indeed. >>By Tchock I call 'em as I see 'em, and L2R is right about at least one thing...certain people here appear to have "teamed up" and will coddle each other like mama birds puking pablum into their babies' mouths. Tchock, how the hell is BIAM'S friends email "scary" when it turned out to be nothing? You didn't even bother addressing my point that BIAM used fear of continued school shootings to slag America, instead you just say it's somehow frightening that...nothing happened. ACTUAL shootings are scary. A car backfiring is not scary. An otherwise-normal person gloating over Americans' reaction to perceived threats to children is scary. You agreeing with him isn't scary, it's just sad. I'll visit again when ya'll are done giving each other hand jobs. >>By Just Jon |