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US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9600

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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.

In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!

NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious.
Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
Rebs
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
Pakistan10726 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-12-26 00:12:55
December 26 2017 00:04 GMT
#191981
On December 26 2017 08:53 farvacola wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 26 2017 08:44 IgnE wrote:
On December 26 2017 08:13 farvacola wrote:
To make matters worse, many of the cyclists in the wrong I've seen then get super mad at whoever honks at them or otherwise makes it known that that shit won't fly. My two and a half years living in Seattle left a strongly negative impression in that sense.


probably because people don't respect bicyclists. it's a two-way street

Yeah, I guess I should add that I'm generally appalled with the way that everyone behaves on public streets, cars, motorcycles, and bikes included. There are days when I cannot believe that everyone isn't dead on the side of the road.


DC had similar issues and do does Toronto, I neither Bike nor Drive, but on the rare occasion that I do drive for work, the fact that Many (not all) Toronto cyclists dont understand that Bikes also need to obey traffic lows blows my mind..
Danglars
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States12133 Posts
December 26 2017 00:33 GMT
#191982
On December 26 2017 03:35 Broetchenholer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 26 2017 00:45 Danglars wrote:
On December 25 2017 23:13 Scarecrow wrote:
On December 25 2017 18:20 Gorsameth wrote:
On December 25 2017 10:09 Danglars wrote:
On December 25 2017 07:45 Gorsameth wrote:
On December 25 2017 07:41 Danglars wrote:

And fuck at the turnaround. Some people are mentally acrobatic enough to criticize Republicans when it looked like a credibly-accused underage teenager molester was elected, then flip around to chuckle at Republicans losing Alabama as a party thing. Just let Trump go and have an ounce of self-consistency for the next three years, I say.

How is that mental acrobatics?

yes the Republicans are stupid for supporting a credibly-accused underage/teenager molester.
yes the Republicans are idiots for losing Alabama by supporting a credibly-accused underage/teenager molester

What part of it do you think is inconsistent?

You’re missing the post primary bit. McConnell spent millions destroying his credible conservative challenger, thinking Luther strange would win over the wacko. Voters gave him the middle finger and selected Moore. It was only after the primary that all this gets out. Then you have his name on the ballot for the Republican Party no matter what and he denies the allegations until the end. Putting this in Republican terms, it’s child molestor vs babykiller. If you can’t put that history into context of voters choices, my problem is your logic and twisted analysis. If you can’t think straight, believe whatever you want is true about the Alabama election. I’m not about to waste my time on proven ideological zealots that can’t think rationally if it’s not disagreements within the left.

Again, where is the acrobatics?

Mainly in Danglars' post.

The real problem he and xdaunt seem to have is that they're far right (especially by international standards), but want to claim the entire right for themselves. They lump pretty much all other posters in a group as leftist/libs, when the current political climate makes even center/center-right folks frustrated with Trumpers and the state of american politics. There's no left-right dichotomy here, it's a left-leaning range, and discussion isn't really possible with those 2 radicals as they think basically everyone else is irrational/trolling, and that idea is only reinforced when everyone loses their minds at the mental gymnastics that danglars-daunt rely on. Every time I visit this thread it's one of those two degrading the level of discourse and blaming pretty much everyone else because the discussion has broken down into emotional responses, attacks and frustration.

Hmm ... “they think basically everyone else is irrational/trolling, and that idea is only reinforced when everyone loses their minds.” It’s like you invented an excuse purpose-built for the consequence. Easier explanation: Thread leftists/liberals (shitposters clarification: not every single one to the individual, you know who you are) are confronted with views they think are out of the mainstream, and give the predictable “emotional responses,” as you put it, instead of engaging based on what was written and using logic not invective.

Final tally: Applicable posters still don’t get why Trump won, based on most of these explanations I hear. Posters are still pissed off he won, evidenced by some of the flights of fancy whenever he comes up. Postsrs absolutely haven’t shown a willingness to cop to mistakes and move on. Therefore, posters backwards-justify why they don’t have to change one goddamn thing about debatable political topics, and everybody is extremist except people that largely agree with them. In a debate thread. While constantly getting pissy at free speech rights, religious rights, explanations of the alt-right, and the civilizational differences. I see a bunch of kids justifying their behavior by saying it was the other guys fault (He said a bad word first!!!) and then repeatedly saying they’re ignoring these posters while never actually doing it.

The greatest country on earth just voted Trump into office a year ago, and the response in a left wing forum (American standards) is that the token conservatives are too extreme to bear discussion. So you want to close your eyes and ears and hope that situations you refuse to understand turn outcomes you want to happen?


Look, millions of flies eat shit, we should all eat shit. Just because less then half of the voters of the "greatest country" voted for a troll does not mean the positions this candidate holds are valid. It just means that there are a lot of people voting for a troll. The fact that you personally have stated over and over how stupid Trump and how bad his administration is shows how you yourself don't believe in it. We understand, there are a group of people who are too stupid to not vote for that populist and actualy believe what he is saying. That is a problem. The problem is not that Mexicans and Muslims are destroying the great USA andthat poor whites are facing racism in their own country, the problem is there are several dozen million people in the States that are too stupid to not be deplorable. And they exist in every country too. Doesn't mean you are now the only vald conservative and everybody who disagrees with you is a leftist.

Step back a whole ton. This was about ignoring people you think you can label with a negative adjective. I never said a damn thing about leftists that respond in good faith with arguments. I don’t know if you read the thread at all, but the last fifty pages are pretty instructive of what I said on that topic. You’re going off half-cocked on your own mental creation.
Great armies come from happy zealots, and happy zealots come from California!
TL+ Member
hunts
Profile Joined September 2010
United States2113 Posts
December 26 2017 00:57 GMT
#191983
On December 26 2017 08:13 farvacola wrote:
To make matters worse, many of the cyclists in the wrong I've seen then get super mad at whoever honks at them or otherwise makes it known that that shit won't fly. My two and a half years living in Seattle left a strongly negative impression in that sense.


Oh damn you live in seattle? I'm from there, though in pullman for the next year and a half. Us and GH could totally go out for drinks one day lol! And from my personal experience actual cities seem to have more of the entitled asshole type of cyclists than the suburb cities, but it could just be that one has many more people than the other so with more people there will also be more assholes.
twitch.tv/huntstv 7x legend streamer
Doodsmack
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States7224 Posts
December 26 2017 01:06 GMT
#191984
IgnE
Profile Joined November 2010
United States7681 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-12-26 02:43:03
December 26 2017 02:42 GMT
#191985
On December 26 2017 09:04 Rebs wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 26 2017 08:53 farvacola wrote:
On December 26 2017 08:44 IgnE wrote:
On December 26 2017 08:13 farvacola wrote:
To make matters worse, many of the cyclists in the wrong I've seen then get super mad at whoever honks at them or otherwise makes it known that that shit won't fly. My two and a half years living in Seattle left a strongly negative impression in that sense.


probably because people don't respect bicyclists. it's a two-way street

Yeah, I guess I should add that I'm generally appalled with the way that everyone behaves on public streets, cars, motorcycles, and bikes included. There are days when I cannot believe that everyone isn't dead on the side of the road.


DC had similar issues and do does Toronto, I neither Bike nor Drive, but on the rare occasion that I do drive for work, the fact that Many (not all) Toronto cyclists dont understand that Bikes also need to obey traffic lows blows my mind..


it makes no sense for bicyclists to follow some traffic laws. my philosophy is ride your bike as if you were invisible so that even if no one can see you, you still won't get hit. cars are FAR worse than bicyclists in my opinion, as they get pissed when they get behind a bicyclist they deem slow and often aggressively pass them only to slow down and be passed in turn at the next red light. drivers are the worst hyprocrites when it comes to this because they get pissy about "slow cyclists" and then freak out when a bicyclist breezes by them in a long line of cars stopped at a light. frankly i think drivers misperceive a lot of bicyclist behavior as "dangerous" when it is anything but, and then say stupid things about how dumb cyclists are. our streets would be a lot better if we banned cars in cities.

the one thing that some cyclists do that DOES drive me crazy is riding on sidewalks


The unrealistic sound of these propositions is indicative, not of their utopian character, but of the strength of the forces which prevent their realization.
micronesia
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
United States24670 Posts
December 26 2017 02:49 GMT
#191986
On December 26 2017 11:42 IgnE wrote:
the one thing that some cyclists do that DOES drive me crazy is riding on sidewalks

If the road is particularly dangerous, what's the alternative? Usually I find this is due to poor street design where there's nowhere safe for the bicycle rather than selfish bicyclists. On the other hand, if you do need to ride your bicycle on the sidewalk for some reason, you should probably go very slowly as if you are walking fast or jogging slowly... otherwise you are being a dick to pedestrians.
ModeratorThere are animal crackers for people and there are people crackers for animals.
{CC}StealthBlue
Profile Blog Joined January 2003
United States41117 Posts
December 26 2017 03:31 GMT
#191987
"Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules."
Danglars
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States12133 Posts
December 26 2017 03:44 GMT
#191988
Great armies come from happy zealots, and happy zealots come from California!
TL+ Member
oBlade
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States5547 Posts
December 26 2017 04:00 GMT
#191989
Yes, that's exactly what the president has said about chain migration and visa lotteries. This is ridiculous, stop spotlighting a racist has-been nobody to try to guilt by association texts and policies which you can read for yourself aren't the least bit alluding to white supremacy.

If David Duke comes out saying he loves chain migration, is blue-check Twitter going to ask Chuck Schumer to disavow? Come off it. "David Duke says aspirin 3x a day for headaches. Is the FDA comfortable their guidelines are indistinguishable from that?"

In point of fact the text is also not indistinguishable, but distinguishable, as DHS didn't say anything about "demographic foothold."
"I read it. You know how to read, you ignorant fuck?" - Andy Dufresne
a_flayer
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Netherlands2826 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-12-26 06:24:45
December 26 2017 06:24 GMT
#191990
On December 26 2017 08:51 uiCk wrote:
Not surprised about the Netherlands, since they have been at it for years.

Two words: bicycle paths.
When you came along so righteous with a new national hate, so convincing is the ardor of war and of men, it's harder to breathe than to believe you're a friend. The wars at home, the wars abroad, all soaked in blood and lies and fraud.
RvB
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
Netherlands6205 Posts
December 26 2017 08:20 GMT
#191991
On December 26 2017 15:24 a_flayer wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 26 2017 08:51 uiCk wrote:
Not surprised about the Netherlands, since they have been at it for years.

Two words: bicycle paths.

That's not all there is to it. There are a lot of written and unwritten rules. Some cyclers are batshit insane and just cycle wherever the fuck they want and dangerously too (including myself sometimes) yet somehow it almost never ends badly.
levelping
Profile Joined May 2010
Singapore759 Posts
December 26 2017 11:55 GMT
#191992
On December 26 2017 12:44 Danglars wrote:
https://twitter.com/foxnews/status/945236427251609600


Other than getting some domestic support for "yay american first", this is just going to allow China and Russia to expand their spheres of influence.
Biff The Understudy
Profile Blog Joined February 2008
France7884 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-12-26 12:21:39
December 26 2017 12:21 GMT
#191993
On December 26 2017 08:35 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Yeah. Trondheim is like, not a good city for bicycles in general. It's super hilly and between October and April the roads are frequently icy. However, the past 5 years has seen a lot of infrastructure development in the sense of adding bicycle lanes (for example we made one of the most trafficked roads a tunnel and then turned one third of the overground road into a bicycle lane), and that kind of stuff makes a huge difference. Before I didn't want to use a bicycle in the more urban areas because I'd either have to use the road or sidewalk, neither of which I'm really comfortable with), but I'm expecting to do more of it the following years.

Culture of properly riding a bike takes time to develop too though. Can't stress enough how nicely bicyclists in the Netherlands behave.

Trondheim is a bit of a bicycle nightmare to begin with, that’s for sure, but even in Oslo, people don’t bike nearly as much as they could. I would be a perfect candidate for biking to work (would take me 10 minutes really) but both the temperature and the darkness make it a very unappealing option a third of the year. I would assume that this is why Norway doesn’t really have a bicycle culture the way the Netherlands have, and without it, there is no way that cyclers and pedestrians will truly learn how to behave and respect each other. In Paris, the explosion of the cycling culture have led to people to become much better behaved and much more careful.

I feel though that there is a really big political will to make it happen in Norway, at least in the capital, but I’m quite skeptical it will ever really happen.
The fellow who is out to burn things up is the counterpart of the fool who thinks he can save the world. The world needs neither to be burned up nor to be saved. The world is, we are. Transients, if we buck it; here to stay if we accept it. ~H.Miller
Biff The Understudy
Profile Blog Joined February 2008
France7884 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-12-26 12:26:28
December 26 2017 12:25 GMT
#191994
On December 26 2017 20:55 levelping wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 26 2017 12:44 Danglars wrote:
https://twitter.com/foxnews/status/945236427251609600


Other than getting some domestic support for "yay american first", this is just going to allow China and Russia to expand their spheres of influence.

You could say that about most of Trump’s foreign policy, from North Korea, to the middle east or to clinate change discussons. The problem is that i don’t think the average voter realized how irrelevant and weak that machisto bullshit makes America look.

IF people decide to get something else than that to lead the country in the future, it will take a long time for the US to regain the kind of leadership they enjoyed until now.
The fellow who is out to burn things up is the counterpart of the fool who thinks he can save the world. The world needs neither to be burned up nor to be saved. The world is, we are. Transients, if we buck it; here to stay if we accept it. ~H.Miller
iamthedave
Profile Joined February 2011
England2814 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-12-26 12:56:16
December 26 2017 12:54 GMT
#191995
To the discussion of a few pages now: As an outsider, I think part of the issue is the American left thinks it 'won' the culture war. It's a message I hear frequently, but it's not one I ever really bought. Left wing media certainly seems to dominate in conventional circles, but the American right simply re-invented itself via talk radio, and went a bit more underground. The left largely made right wing talking points into impolite public speech, and that made it harder to actually talk to them, which happened as a result of assuming they'd 'lost' and would slowly fade out over time. Even with Trump in power and an obvious right wing surge happening, that mentality remains. The left thinks it's won the larger war even if it lost this battle, and so the conversation isn't important or even relevant anymore. It's just a matter of time.

Or so I see it, anyway, from observing a lot of these arguments back and forth over the past few hundred pages. For my own money, while I'm left leaning and disagree with a lot of what Danglars/Daunt say, I don't see anything there that's impossible to talk about or even that shocking. Maybe that bit about Africa. That was a bit of a shock.

But in the UK we never had a side 'win' the culture war. The closest was probably Thatcherite Britain and then Blair Britain, where the right and left respectively had a long time in the sun. But UK politics isn't really about 'winning'. At the heart, both sides are fighting to help lead the country, not win a war of ideology. It seems to me a lot of the time that in the US your parties want to win the Presidency so they can say 'OUR IDEOLOGY IS BEST, YAY!' and give little thought to leading/running the country, hence the scorched-earth nature of your politics, where both sides paint the other as cartoon monsters, creating the impression to any sane person that your entire government is led by corrupt, self-interested arseholes. I feel if running the country effectively was really at the heart of their intention they'd be a lot more respectful about their opponents and actually consider working with them instead of both sides strategising government shutdowns, bloc-voting to block as much legislation as possible, and so on and so forth.

All of which is absurd to me. Aren't your senators - regardless of party - meant to be working mostly for the benefit of their constituents anyway?

All the relitigation of the 2016 election misses a pretty important point: While Clinton was a bad candidate, there's no guarantee Sanders would have done much better. I think Trump would have gotten under his skin a lot easier than Clinton, and in America, where the Communist has always been the bigger bogeyman than the Fascist, Sanders has a giant target on his chest, face, and back given how much further left he is than most Democratic candidates. I'm not convinced Sanders could have beat Trump, and the DNC obviously felt the same way. As much as Sanders might have motivated more left and centre people to get to the polls (and young people, obviously), it's equally possible that the threat of a communist takeover of America - which I'm 100% sure would have been the Fox spin - would have done the same thing for the GOP.

EDIT: Not trying to pedestal the UK's political situation or discourse, mind. We have plenty of problems there as well, they're just not as pronounced, in my opinion, as the ones in the US. Brexit has certainly exposed a lot of underlying issues in both parties and our national political discourse.
I'm not bad at Starcraft; I just think winning's rude.
Excludos
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Norway8056 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-12-26 13:17:08
December 26 2017 13:14 GMT
#191996
On December 26 2017 08:35 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Yeah. Trondheim is like, not a good city for bicycles in general. It's super hilly and between October and April the roads are frequently icy. However, the past 5 years has seen a lot of infrastructure development in the sense of adding bicycle lanes (for example we made one of the most trafficked roads a tunnel and then turned one third of the overground road into a bicycle lane), and that kind of stuff makes a huge difference. Before I didn't want to use a bicycle in the more urban areas because I'd either have to use the road or sidewalk, neither of which I'm really comfortable with), but I'm expecting to do more of it the following years.

Culture of properly riding a bike takes time to develop too though. Can't stress enough how nicely bicyclists in the Netherlands behave.


The problem with closing off roads tho is that people still need to use them. Politicians here doesn't understand that just making it impossible for car owners to get around while both the bicycle lanes are rubbish and public transportation is less than useless isn't actually going to make the city prosper. The city center is practically dying.

Anyways, that was offtopic. Bike culture here is indeed rubbish, but judging from stories around the world that isn't a local phenomenon. People are egoistic and stupid, and isn't really fixable other than creating an infrastructure where stupidity isn't really possible. That's why Amsterdam has such a good bike culture: they have half the city to themselves. That's a solution close to impossible in cities where the population is a lot more stretched
Liquid`Drone
Profile Joined September 2002
Norway28647 Posts
December 26 2017 13:33 GMT
#191997
On December 26 2017 21:21 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 26 2017 08:35 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Yeah. Trondheim is like, not a good city for bicycles in general. It's super hilly and between October and April the roads are frequently icy. However, the past 5 years has seen a lot of infrastructure development in the sense of adding bicycle lanes (for example we made one of the most trafficked roads a tunnel and then turned one third of the overground road into a bicycle lane), and that kind of stuff makes a huge difference. Before I didn't want to use a bicycle in the more urban areas because I'd either have to use the road or sidewalk, neither of which I'm really comfortable with), but I'm expecting to do more of it the following years.

Culture of properly riding a bike takes time to develop too though. Can't stress enough how nicely bicyclists in the Netherlands behave.

Trondheim is a bit of a bicycle nightmare to begin with, that’s for sure, but even in Oslo, people don’t bike nearly as much as they could. I would be a perfect candidate for biking to work (would take me 10 minutes really) but both the temperature and the darkness make it a very unappealing option a third of the year. I would assume that this is why Norway doesn’t really have a bicycle culture the way the Netherlands have, and without it, there is no way that cyclers and pedestrians will truly learn how to behave and respect each other. In Paris, the explosion of the cycling culture have led to people to become much better behaved and much more careful.

I feel though that there is a really big political will to make it happen in Norway, at least in the capital, but I’m quite skeptical it will ever really happen.


climate and geography makes Norway much less bike-friendly than the pancake country and no matter the cultural shift or political will we're never gonna get to a dutch bike-density. But if you look at Oslo and Trondheim, Oslo is definitely a more bicycle-friendly city 'from a natural pov' - it's both less hilly and less icy. However, apparently, 8.6% of all travels in Trondheim are done by bike, same number is 5.4% for Oslo. And this is definitely caused by Trondheim having had more political will for enabling bicycles as a viable means of transportation than what the case has been for Oslo.
Moderator
{CC}StealthBlue
Profile Blog Joined January 2003
United States41117 Posts
December 26 2017 14:07 GMT
#191998
At least four times in the past week, the Trump administration has linked financial support for the United Nations to compliance with American demands.

First President Trump and his ambassador, Nikki R. Haley, fumed that all countries with seats on the Security Council except the United States had opposed American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and his decision to put the United States Embassy there.

Then Mr. Trump dared the General Assembly to follow the Security Council’s example. “Let them vote against us,” he said. “We will save a lot.”

When the General Assembly voted 128 to 9 against the Americans, Ms. Haley said she would take names and remember them the next time the United States was asked for financial help from members who disagreed with its stance on Jerusalem.

The vote against the United States, she said, would make a difference “on how we look at countries who disrespect us at the U.N.”

Then on Sunday, when United Nations members reached agreement on a 2018-2019 budget of $5.4 billion, Ms. Haley issued a statement emphasizing the American role in achieving more than $285 million in cuts, along with hints of more reductions to come.

“We will no longer let the generosity of the American people be taken advantage of or remain unchecked,” Ms. Haley said. In future negotiations, she said, “you can be sure we’ll continue to look at ways to increase the U.N.’s efficiency while protecting our interests.”

It was certainly not the first time Ms. Haley had hinted at using America’s financial leverage to get its way at the United Nations. When she first took the job last January, she warned that “you’re going to see a change in the way we do business.”

And Secretary General António Guterres has said that some parts of the organization must become more efficient.

But the link between American largess and political sympathies at the United Nations has been a recurring theme for Mr. Trump, who once described the 72-year-old organization created after World War II as a sad social club that had squandered its potential.

Many among Mr. Trump’s base of supporters regard the organization as suspiciously anti-American. When the $285 million budget cut was reported on Monday in Breitbart News, a media group that supports Mr. Trump, reader responses were ebullient, with some arguing that America’s entire contribution should be rescinded.

Critics of Mr. Trump’s approach to the United Nations argue that American coercion can work against the United States, by subverting respect for the agreed-upon protocol for financial contributions. They say Mr. Trump should not expect others to follow his lead just because the United States wields the biggest monetary cudgel.

“The hallmark of this administration is not paying attention to the benefits that the United States actually gets in a rule-bound system with international institutions,” Stewart Patrick, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said after the Jerusalem vote last Thursday. “This is not something we can treat in a purely transactional way.”

Under a formula tied to economic size and other measurements established under an article of the United Nations Charter, the United States is responsible for 22 percent of the United Nations operating budget, the largest contribution. It paid about $1.2 billion of the 2016-2017 budget of $5.4 billion.

The United States also is the largest single financial contributor, at 28.5 percent, to a separate budget for United Nations peacekeeping operations, which totals $6.8 billion in the 2017-2018 budget finalized in June.

Then, as now, Ms. Haley took credit for cuts to that budget, which she said had exceeded $500 million. “We’re only getting started,” she said at the time.

According to the United States Mission, the reductions in the budget reached on Sunday included across-the-board cuts in expenses for travel, consultants and other operating expenses. It also included tightened rules on compensation and new ways to maximize the use of United Nations headquarters in New York to reduce the need for expensive leased space.

Human rights groups reached on Monday reserved judgment on the new budget, saying they needed to see more details on how it might affect the United Nations’ ability to monitor abuses or respond to emergencies — major parts of its work.

They also did not necessarily disagree with Ms. Haley’s appraisal of the cuts. But some worried about the potential impact of future reductions.

“There’s nothing wrong with increasing efficiency and eliminating waste at the U.N.,” said Louis Charbonneau, the United Nations director at Human Rights Watch. “But it’s crucial that we don’t curtail the U.N.’s ability to monitor, investigate and expose human rights abuses or its ability to save the lives of men, women and children worldwide.”


Source
"Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules."
pmh
Profile Joined March 2016
1352 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-12-26 14:38:00
December 26 2017 14:30 GMT
#191999
Cyclists are very mobile,can not be compared to car or bike. You can stop within a few yards,make almost 90 degree turns in an instant and very important:the vision is way and way better then any car or motorbike. You are higher up and you have not a single death spot. If you keep your eyes open and if you have some experience with the local traffic,know where the dangerous and tricky parts are, then cyclists should never get hit by anything,nor hitting or slowing down anything themselves. In Netherlands cyclists often drive what seems to be dangerous and I can imagine it being annoying for other travelers,for some people driving with bike is dangerous indeed but if you have enough experience then it is not that dangerous at all. I never had an accident with my bike ever,while I did have 2 or 3 car accidents. Like car accident is almost impossible to avoid after a certain point because you cant slow down or turn fast. With bike have more options to escape tricky situations.
Danglars
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States12133 Posts
December 26 2017 15:41 GMT
#192000
On December 26 2017 21:54 iamthedave wrote:
To the discussion of a few pages now: As an outsider, I think part of the issue is the American left thinks it 'won' the culture war. It's a message I hear frequently, but it's not one I ever really bought. Left wing media certainly seems to dominate in conventional circles, but the American right simply re-invented itself via talk radio, and went a bit more underground. The left largely made right wing talking points into impolite public speech, and that made it harder to actually talk to them, which happened as a result of assuming they'd 'lost' and would slowly fade out over time. Even with Trump in power and an obvious right wing surge happening, that mentality remains. The left thinks it's won the larger war even if it lost this battle, and so the conversation isn't important or even relevant anymore. It's just a matter of time.

Or so I see it, anyway, from observing a lot of these arguments back and forth over the past few hundred pages. For my own money, while I'm left leaning and disagree with a lot of what Danglars/Daunt say, I don't see anything there that's impossible to talk about or even that shocking. Maybe that bit about Africa. That was a bit of a shock.

But in the UK we never had a side 'win' the culture war. The closest was probably Thatcherite Britain and then Blair Britain, where the right and left respectively had a long time in the sun. But UK politics isn't really about 'winning'. At the heart, both sides are fighting to help lead the country, not win a war of ideology. It seems to me a lot of the time that in the US your parties want to win the Presidency so they can say 'OUR IDEOLOGY IS BEST, YAY!' and give little thought to leading/running the country, hence the scorched-earth nature of your politics, where both sides paint the other as cartoon monsters, creating the impression to any sane person that your entire government is led by corrupt, self-interested arseholes. I feel if running the country effectively was really at the heart of their intention they'd be a lot more respectful about their opponents and actually consider working with them instead of both sides strategising government shutdowns, bloc-voting to block as much legislation as possible, and so on and so forth.

All of which is absurd to me. Aren't your senators - regardless of party - meant to be working mostly for the benefit of their constituents anyway?

All the relitigation of the 2016 election misses a pretty important point: While Clinton was a bad candidate, there's no guarantee Sanders would have done much better. I think Trump would have gotten under his skin a lot easier than Clinton, and in America, where the Communist has always been the bigger bogeyman than the Fascist, Sanders has a giant target on his chest, face, and back given how much further left he is than most Democratic candidates. I'm not convinced Sanders could have beat Trump, and the DNC obviously felt the same way. As much as Sanders might have motivated more left and centre people to get to the polls (and young people, obviously), it's equally possible that the threat of a communist takeover of America - which I'm 100% sure would have been the Fox spin - would have done the same thing for the GOP.

EDIT: Not trying to pedestal the UK's political situation or discourse, mind. We have plenty of problems there as well, they're just not as pronounced, in my opinion, as the ones in the US. Brexit has certainly exposed a lot of underlying issues in both parties and our national political discourse.

The British can probably understand much more than the rest of Europe given the Brexit discourse. Good post showing viewpoint diversity to the left. Stick around.
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