[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Captain,Simmonds [/i]
[B]Thats plane Stupid.....
That reminds like of a US Licance plate I saw today...
Its said
"Live Free, Or die"
Does'nt that tell you what Americans are all about.
[/B][/QUOTE]
Never been to america eh?
that is the State motto of New Hampshire, it means that we americans would rather live free. Remember the saying "Give me liberty of give me death!"? its the same thing.
Since I live on the other side of the continent, I'd have to agree.
By the way, in all the hubbub, it seems people have forgotten about Freedom Dressing for salads.
This actually raises an interesting point about language, if it holds.
When people curse, will they begin saying "Pardon my freedom,"?
Will the episode of [i]The Simpsons[/i] where Moe makes fun of Homer for calling his garage a garage be redubed so Moe says, "Oh, a [i]garage[/i]. Oo la la, Mister Freedom Man,"?
Will berets become known as "Those floppy Freedom hats,"?
Will croissants be considered "Freedom food,"? How about frog legs and escargot?
And so on.... :D
Biggles<font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Tyvar [/i]
[B]...
Canada, and New Zeland were part of the English empire till the last half of the 20th century, so they only have about 50 years of independent foreign policy amongst them, Although I do believe New Zeland has been involved in some "policing" of the Solomons and other territories,
...[/B][/QUOTE]
NZ is responsible for the protection of all the south pacific nations (eg Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, etc) who are too small to have their own airforce and navy. We are occasionally called on to provide expert police assistance as those nations are similarly too small to require things like a full time murder detective.
As for East Timor: The NZ role there was peace keeping under the UN.
The bit that concerns me isn't the renaming of the food, it's the paragraph buried about halfway down which talks about the legislation which blocks commercial links to french companies.
"Rep. Jim Saxton, R-New Jersey, has introduced legislation in the House that would block any French company from receiving U.S. government aid or financing in any reconstruction of Iraq. Another measure discourages American tourists, businesses and the government from participating in the 2003 Paris Air show. "
The implication is: vote our way or we punish you.
Not very democratic.
Biggles<font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
Not particularly friendly to international relations either.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by AnlaShok [/i]
[B]Just more to keep us distracted from the way Dubya & Co. are flushing the economy down the toilet. [/B][/QUOTE]
Ah yes, something that was coming for, lets see.. ten years? And this is Bush's fault? The economy would have took a dump whether Bush, Gore, Nadir, your mother, or aliens from mars took over. It was bound to happen. Perhaps the economy has been hurt harder because we have Bush in office, but the economy would have gone in the shitter either way. 9-11 fucked our economy pretty well (combined with the tech bust and Enron/Worldcom fiasco)
OF course, you could say if Clinton had taken care of Bin Laden in the 90s, none of this would have happened. Or if we had taken out Sadamm in the first Gulf War. But such is life. Bush probably should have evicted Sadamm. Clinton definately should have taken care of terrorism (how many dead people must you have before you do something?). Just add these to the shoulda woulda coulda pile. This is why we are going into Iraq (to tie in another irrelevant topic). This time we want to do the right thing [b]BEFORE[/b] thousands have to die. We don't want another Bosnia, another 9-11, another gassing of the Kurds, another Somalia, another Rwanda, et all. Some say we havent acted enough in the past. Others say too much. Well, I for one dont want to hear about another terrorist attack. Or another gassing of 4000 innocent civilians. We must start somewhere- and Iraq is as good a place as any.
The Failure of the UN: The UN has failed in all of the above situations (well, excluding the US centric ones such as 9-11). The unfortunate thing about the UN is that it is unwilling to take a stand and do its job. I really believe that the French have done more harm to the chances of peace by saying they will veto [b]ANY[/b] ultimatum to Iraq than we ever could have done. Now the US is forced to go in alone. And you wait- in a couple months we will be discussing how bad the situation was in Iraq (how many bad things were going on, how many weapons of mass distruction he had, ect).
THE ABOVE ARE ALL MY OPINIONS AND MINE ALONE! DO NOT FLAME ME, AS I DID NOT FLAME YOU! :)
The dot-com bubble was going to bust, that is true. However, the tax cuts Shrub and his keepers enacted served to take money out of social programs and into the pockets of those who will buy more BMWs, Mercedes Benzes and Lexxuses. Maybe they'll buy another vacation house in Europe or take a few more cruises.
How does that help the economy?
Now we have higher unemployment and less help for those out of work. Our school districts are going broke and we're into tremendous deficits.
To top it all off, we're now paying for a war the majority of our citizens don't want.
yes, we probably would have had a recession, but it would have been a lot shorter and less painful if Shrub was more interested in helping americans than his campaign contributors.
WOA!!! Wait just a minute... If you talk with any Economist who has studied the tax cuts (including me) he will probably tell you that in fact the first round of tax cuts were a great idea and surprisingly well timed. They along with the cuts in interest rates did a great job of keeping us from hitting what would have been an ugly bottom. The tax cuts did give a very large proportional break to the lower class right away. The tax cut also DID give a proportionally small break to the rich over a longer period of time. That is because if a lower income person gets more money they spend it right away, which is what the economy needed, on the other hand for a wealthy person the only way they increase spending is if they know their relative income will go up and stay up. We needed BOTH lower and upper income people spending more because of the different products they would buy which would help to support the entire economy rather than just certain sectors. The tax cut was PERFECT and as fair as it gets in a capitalist system where the poor don't just get handouts.
In times of poor growth you WANT to go into deficit spending to get the economy growing again. In times of booming growth you HAVE to pay off the debt. This is something many politicians have yet to grasp.
The school districts being broke is the fault of the states NOT the federal government. That is a whole different matter. As far as unemployment: relative to Europe and previous periods of economic stagnation it's not that bad. It's not only/simply President Bush's fault, the world economy is not growing all that fast, and everyone knows if the economy of other nations go down the US economy goes down with them.
The reason social program spending isn't going up is because we are not a socialist nation. To much socialistic policy is half the problem with the European economy right now. Germany is in horrible debt because they kept the unemployment benefits to high and extended out for to long even during economic growth. No one was responsible enough to say "We should cut it back so we have the money for unemployment benefits when we really need it." I think Bush knows demand side tax cuts rather than increased social spending relieves risk that politicians will not be willing to cut back the benefits when they are not really needed, other than by freeloaders.
Your polling info is old.
[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52020-2003Mar19.html[/url]
Re: Your recession comment:
The problem with that is it is not simply the President who effects economic policy. That's not looking deep into it enough. You have to look at who was in the FED, who was in congress, who was on the budget committees, what shocks the economy had received like natural disasters, among dozens of other large variables and millions of small ones. IF there were a true correlation between political party and economic success the party would be flaunting it in our faces non-stop. In truth it's up in the air who is to blame or who can take credit for what. There have been dozens of econometric style studies on the matter by people on both sides desperate to take credit or pin problems on the other guy. None of the studies have ever come up with a statistically significant correlation. Republicans and Democrats have resided over an equal number of growth periods, slow growth, recession periods. "The way you see it" is certainly biased.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by JackN [/i]
[B]It also reminded me of that bloke from Space Battles who kept calling all of us on FO a bunch of whining weinies...
Comments
[B]Thats plane Stupid.....
That reminds like of a US Licance plate I saw today...
Its said
"Live Free, Or die"
Does'nt that tell you what Americans are all about.
[/B][/QUOTE]
Never been to america eh?
that is the State motto of New Hampshire, it means that we americans would rather live free. Remember the saying "Give me liberty of give me death!"? its the same thing.
:(
Oh well...
Guess you have to live here to get it...
By the way, in all the hubbub, it seems people have forgotten about Freedom Dressing for salads.
This actually raises an interesting point about language, if it holds.
When people curse, will they begin saying "Pardon my freedom,"?
Will the episode of [i]The Simpsons[/i] where Moe makes fun of Homer for calling his garage a garage be redubed so Moe says, "Oh, a [i]garage[/i]. Oo la la, Mister Freedom Man,"?
Will berets become known as "Those floppy Freedom hats,"?
Will croissants be considered "Freedom food,"? How about frog legs and escargot?
And so on.... :D
[B]...
Canada, and New Zeland were part of the English empire till the last half of the 20th century, so they only have about 50 years of independent foreign policy amongst them, Although I do believe New Zeland has been involved in some "policing" of the Solomons and other territories,
...[/B][/QUOTE]
NZ is responsible for the protection of all the south pacific nations (eg Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, etc) who are too small to have their own airforce and navy. We are occasionally called on to provide expert police assistance as those nations are similarly too small to require things like a full time murder detective.
As for East Timor: The NZ role there was peace keeping under the UN.
And Theres a very BIG Differnce between US style world Policing(Being a Bully) and Peacekeeping Under the UN.
Does'nt NZ have four frigates in its navy???
right now some IDIOT is trying to get all of the US sodiers that died on DDay back to the US, so they arn't buried on French soil....
Now THAT is insane.
[B]ohh...now THIS takes the cake...
right now some IDIOT is trying to get all of the US sodiers that died on DDay back to the US, so they arn't buried on French soil....
Now THAT is insane. [/B][/QUOTE]
why dont we just annex normandy if we wanna do that ;)
more effective Id think..
"Rep. Jim Saxton, R-New Jersey, has introduced legislation in the House that would block any French company from receiving U.S. government aid or financing in any reconstruction of Iraq. Another measure discourages American tourists, businesses and the government from participating in the 2003 Paris Air show. "
The implication is: vote our way or we punish you.
Not very democratic.
This reminds me of that Rep. Who started calling canada, Soviet Canuckistan. And a few other things.
[B]Tyvar: Your choice of solutions interests me. Tell me more.... [/B][/QUOTE]
LoL, well I figure we round up several troops of boy scouts you see.. ;)
[B]IT also reminds me of the Canadian politician who said all Americans are bastards. [/B][/QUOTE]
You people Actually Herd that........
Some people said that she was prity kind in her words.
Yes, I found it to be Prity funny, when that MP said that.
It got her on Mike Bullard.
:)
Whatever...
[B]Just more to keep us distracted from the way Dubya & Co. are flushing the economy down the toilet. [/B][/QUOTE]
Ah yes, something that was coming for, lets see.. ten years? And this is Bush's fault? The economy would have took a dump whether Bush, Gore, Nadir, your mother, or aliens from mars took over. It was bound to happen. Perhaps the economy has been hurt harder because we have Bush in office, but the economy would have gone in the shitter either way. 9-11 fucked our economy pretty well (combined with the tech bust and Enron/Worldcom fiasco)
OF course, you could say if Clinton had taken care of Bin Laden in the 90s, none of this would have happened. Or if we had taken out Sadamm in the first Gulf War. But such is life. Bush probably should have evicted Sadamm. Clinton definately should have taken care of terrorism (how many dead people must you have before you do something?). Just add these to the shoulda woulda coulda pile. This is why we are going into Iraq (to tie in another irrelevant topic). This time we want to do the right thing [b]BEFORE[/b] thousands have to die. We don't want another Bosnia, another 9-11, another gassing of the Kurds, another Somalia, another Rwanda, et all. Some say we havent acted enough in the past. Others say too much. Well, I for one dont want to hear about another terrorist attack. Or another gassing of 4000 innocent civilians. We must start somewhere- and Iraq is as good a place as any.
The Failure of the UN: The UN has failed in all of the above situations (well, excluding the US centric ones such as 9-11). The unfortunate thing about the UN is that it is unwilling to take a stand and do its job. I really believe that the French have done more harm to the chances of peace by saying they will veto [b]ANY[/b] ultimatum to Iraq than we ever could have done. Now the US is forced to go in alone. And you wait- in a couple months we will be discussing how bad the situation was in Iraq (how many bad things were going on, how many weapons of mass distruction he had, ect).
THE ABOVE ARE ALL MY OPINIONS AND MINE ALONE! DO NOT FLAME ME, AS I DID NOT FLAME YOU! :)
How does that help the economy?
Now we have higher unemployment and less help for those out of work. Our school districts are going broke and we're into tremendous deficits.
To top it all off, we're now paying for a war the majority of our citizens don't want.
yes, we probably would have had a recession, but it would have been a lot shorter and less painful if Shrub was more interested in helping americans than his campaign contributors.
In times of poor growth you WANT to go into deficit spending to get the economy growing again. In times of booming growth you HAVE to pay off the debt. This is something many politicians have yet to grasp.
The school districts being broke is the fault of the states NOT the federal government. That is a whole different matter. As far as unemployment: relative to Europe and previous periods of economic stagnation it's not that bad. It's not only/simply President Bush's fault, the world economy is not growing all that fast, and everyone knows if the economy of other nations go down the US economy goes down with them.
The reason social program spending isn't going up is because we are not a socialist nation. To much socialistic policy is half the problem with the European economy right now. Germany is in horrible debt because they kept the unemployment benefits to high and extended out for to long even during economic growth. No one was responsible enough to say "We should cut it back so we have the money for unemployment benefits when we really need it." I think Bush knows demand side tax cuts rather than increased social spending relieves risk that politicians will not be willing to cut back the benefits when they are not really needed, other than by freeloaders.
[B]To top it all off, we're now paying for a war the majority of our citizens don't want.
[/B][/QUOTE]
Oh really, the same war that 2/3s of Americans support?
The real numbers are as follows:
78% in favor of military action against Hussein if we get a UN mandate.
54% in favor if we go dispite a no vote in the UN.
47% in favor if we don't even ask the UN for a vote.
All these numbers are on the Gallup site.
We didn't even ask, because we knew we'd lose any such vote.
I'm not going to debate economics with you. What I see is that every time we elect a Republican (or get one appointed) we go into another recession.
Your polling info is old.
[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52020-2003Mar19.html[/url]
Re: Your recession comment:
The problem with that is it is not simply the President who effects economic policy. That's not looking deep into it enough. You have to look at who was in the FED, who was in congress, who was on the budget committees, what shocks the economy had received like natural disasters, among dozens of other large variables and millions of small ones. IF there were a true correlation between political party and economic success the party would be flaunting it in our faces non-stop. In truth it's up in the air who is to blame or who can take credit for what. There have been dozens of econometric style studies on the matter by people on both sides desperate to take credit or pin problems on the other guy. None of the studies have ever come up with a statistically significant correlation. Republicans and Democrats have resided over an equal number of growth periods, slow growth, recession periods. "The way you see it" is certainly biased.
[B]It also reminded me of that bloke from Space Battles who kept calling all of us on FO a bunch of whining weinies...
:)
Whatever... [/B][/QUOTE]
I got to see this Post