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Well I don't see how that is relevant. It is where your mother gave birth to you and therefore you will be emotionally attached to it some way or another(vaguely speaking).
If you don't like how your country operates you try to improve it, or if it is impossible to do so leave it and try your luck elsewhere, preferably where you see the best chances to live a "good" life.
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I'm surprised no one is talking about Clint Eastwood and the invisible Obama incident! Pretty funny .
Follow invisible obama on his twitter! (Cnet News)
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On August 31 2012 14:36 Phant wrote:Show nested quote +On August 31 2012 14:29 Leporello wrote:On August 31 2012 13:31 xDaunt wrote:On August 31 2012 13:25 Roe wrote:On August 31 2012 13:20 xDaunt wrote:On August 31 2012 13:18 Adreme wrote:On August 31 2012 13:16 xDaunt wrote:On August 31 2012 13:13 Defacer wrote:On August 31 2012 13:06 xDaunt wrote: All in all, it was a good convention for Romney and the republicans. Some of the speeches were exemplary, particularly those given by Paul Ryan, Condi Rice, and Ann Romney. I think the case was made that needed to be made. Now, Romney is free to dump his $200 million war chest into the election and really start the national campaign. We will see how it goes.
I'm interested in seeing what the democrats do. I'm expecting 1) a celebration of feminism, and 2) more arguments about the failed republican policies of the past. I'm curious as to how democrats are going to present their accomplishments of the past four years. They are going to have to present something demonstrably positive rather than just tearing republicans down. Holy shit ... we actually agree! Oh wait, I actually thought Paul Ryan was meh. Rubio was strong, and a natural speaker. And Romney did as great job humanizing himself, even though he leaned on the same old talking points at the end. Rubio spoke in nice platitudes. Ryan drew blood and really hurt Obama. That is why liberals are bending over backwards to "fact check" his speech. Its kind of weird when you qutoation mark facts as though facts are evil and you shoudl be able to accuse someone of whatever you want. Fact checking implies truth seeking. That is not what the liberals are doing, so I put it in quotes. Tell me more. I'm too tired to go through it all again. There's been plenty of discussion about it in this thread already. Paul Ryan knowingly lied, even about things which he had personal experience with. It's been proven numerous times in this thread, through very legitimate sources. Deal with it. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-30/paul-ryan-s-hypocritical-attack-on-barack-obama.htmlRyan criticized Obama for ignoring his own debt commission. “They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.” That urgent report? Technically, it wasn’t a report from the debt commission. Too many of its members dissented from the report for it to be adopted as the commission’s official report. One of those dissenters was Paul Ryan. I swear, this is the face of modern conservatism that's evolved over the past few elections: misrepresenting anything and everything for the sake of winning, with the expectation that we should all just see it as good fun, like you do. And when someone acknowledges what you're doing, just accuse them of the very thing which you're guilty of, so as to make everything one dichotomy of accusations. Nothing is correct or incorrect, just Democrat and Republican. We see how much Republicans sincerely enjoy this. Taking an Obama quote out of context and parading it as your number-one slogan as the centerpiece of your convention. How many Republicans cheered at that quote, "I built that", knowing it's just a mockery of something that's been twisted and taken completely out of context? I will honestly thank god when all this fails to impress the majority of U.S. voters. It will reaffirm my faith in humanity. Reading through that article, he didn't really lie about anything. Just left out key details about his involvement with the plans mentioned, hence the title being 'Paul Ryan's hypocritical Attacks' and not 'Paul Ryan's False Attacks'. Calling him a liar and calling him a hypocrit is a huge difference.
It's called "lying by omission".
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On August 31 2012 22:32 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On August 31 2012 14:36 Phant wrote:On August 31 2012 14:29 Leporello wrote:On August 31 2012 13:31 xDaunt wrote:On August 31 2012 13:25 Roe wrote:On August 31 2012 13:20 xDaunt wrote:On August 31 2012 13:18 Adreme wrote:On August 31 2012 13:16 xDaunt wrote:On August 31 2012 13:13 Defacer wrote:On August 31 2012 13:06 xDaunt wrote: All in all, it was a good convention for Romney and the republicans. Some of the speeches were exemplary, particularly those given by Paul Ryan, Condi Rice, and Ann Romney. I think the case was made that needed to be made. Now, Romney is free to dump his $200 million war chest into the election and really start the national campaign. We will see how it goes.
I'm interested in seeing what the democrats do. I'm expecting 1) a celebration of feminism, and 2) more arguments about the failed republican policies of the past. I'm curious as to how democrats are going to present their accomplishments of the past four years. They are going to have to present something demonstrably positive rather than just tearing republicans down. Holy shit ... we actually agree! Oh wait, I actually thought Paul Ryan was meh. Rubio was strong, and a natural speaker. And Romney did as great job humanizing himself, even though he leaned on the same old talking points at the end. Rubio spoke in nice platitudes. Ryan drew blood and really hurt Obama. That is why liberals are bending over backwards to "fact check" his speech. Its kind of weird when you qutoation mark facts as though facts are evil and you shoudl be able to accuse someone of whatever you want. Fact checking implies truth seeking. That is not what the liberals are doing, so I put it in quotes. Tell me more. I'm too tired to go through it all again. There's been plenty of discussion about it in this thread already. Paul Ryan knowingly lied, even about things which he had personal experience with. It's been proven numerous times in this thread, through very legitimate sources. Deal with it. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-30/paul-ryan-s-hypocritical-attack-on-barack-obama.htmlRyan criticized Obama for ignoring his own debt commission. “They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.” That urgent report? Technically, it wasn’t a report from the debt commission. Too many of its members dissented from the report for it to be adopted as the commission’s official report. One of those dissenters was Paul Ryan. I swear, this is the face of modern conservatism that's evolved over the past few elections: misrepresenting anything and everything for the sake of winning, with the expectation that we should all just see it as good fun, like you do. And when someone acknowledges what you're doing, just accuse them of the very thing which you're guilty of, so as to make everything one dichotomy of accusations. Nothing is correct or incorrect, just Democrat and Republican. We see how much Republicans sincerely enjoy this. Taking an Obama quote out of context and parading it as your number-one slogan as the centerpiece of your convention. How many Republicans cheered at that quote, "I built that", knowing it's just a mockery of something that's been twisted and taken completely out of context? I will honestly thank god when all this fails to impress the majority of U.S. voters. It will reaffirm my faith in humanity. Reading through that article, he didn't really lie about anything. Just left out key details about his involvement with the plans mentioned, hence the title being 'Paul Ryan's hypocritical Attacks' and not 'Paul Ryan's False Attacks'. Calling him a liar and calling him a hypocrit is a huge difference. It's called "lying by omission". aka Politics
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Voting for Mitt Romney. Obama has sadly been a forgettable president.
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The Definition of Insanity Is doing the same thing over and over again … Mike Konczal does what I was planning to do, and compares the (very thin) policy discussion in Mitt Romney’s big speech with previous GOP speeches. As he shows, Romneynomics 2012 is literally identical to McCainomics 2008, Bushnomics 2004, and Bushnomics 2000. Drill, baby, drill; cut taxes on rich people (why didn’t we think of that?); and so on. I would just add to Mike’s take the historical experience. Romney says that his plan would create 12 million jobs in his first term. Leaving aside the fact that this is about what forecasters on average predict in any case, surely we should ask how the identical policies worked out in Bush’s two terms. And the answer is: zero job growth in term one (and a fall in private sector employment), one million in term two. Oh, and private sector employment lower when Bush left office than when he arrived: The poverty of new ideas is truly amazing. ![[image loading]](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/08/31/opinion/083112krugman1/083112krugman1-blog480.jpg)
Source: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/the-definition-of-insanity/
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Haha - according to this video I am inclined to say there is more depth in the choice between choosing vanilla ice cream or chocolate x-D
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Are you fucking kidding me. Get your heads out of your asses liberal noobs, the USA will be gone if Nobama goes back into office. Obviously people are not following the actions of our dear leader lately. If you want to put a brain in your head go checkout www.drudgereport.com, (unbiased news blog...more people look at this news website then any other). Now let's see projected deficit by 2016 - 20 trillion increase in job rates - no decreasing foreign dependency on oil - no Can this dependency be decreased - yes (I am in the oil industry) Does obama represent our current constitution and the political views of our founding fathers - NO (fact) Does obama want to transfer our society to a more "socialist" society...yes (fact) Has obama strengthened ties in the foreign relations department - NO ABSOLUTELY NO (Hillary Clinton is running around like a moron making everyone hate us) Did Egypt/Syria/Russia/North Korea/China lose "fear" of our military power - YES Is it true our military has been cut so drastically that it has damaged national security - YES Please tell me why anyone would want to change our found father view of how our nation should be goverened. Limited government and the Free people, NOT Obamatax, NOT Syrian invasion without congressional approval, NOT talking to the UN discussing a treaty to limit americans rights, NOT to claim you killed Bin Laden, NOT to have 30,000 drones in the sky in 10 years, get the fucking picture here people. Pay attention to current events, Egyptian war vessel disregarding US request to not pass through Hormuz, Russian and Chinese leaders telling us to fuck off and let the genocide in Syria happen, World militaries gathering in military positions, Russian Nuclear sub spotted in the GULF OF MEXICO (fact), Russian Jet spotted off the cost of California (fact). And I dont need to post sources to factual news that happens everyday, if you can't pay attention to what is going on then you shouldnt even be posting in this thread. I will say that once Mitt is in office I hope he drops the stfu hammer on Russia, China, NKorea, Syria, and Iran.
User was temp banned for this post.
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On August 31 2012 23:55 Necrophag1st wrote: Has obama strengthened ties in the foreign relations department - NO ABSOLUTELY NO (Hillary Clinton is running around like a moron making everyone hate us)
You are very uneducated about international relations. Just FYI, thought you should know.
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What do you expect from Mr Flip-Flop?
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From the Richmond Fed yesterday...one of the scariest thing's you can read about US Labor Participation.
"Where have all the workers gone?"
http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/region_focus/2012/q2-3/pdf/cover_story.pdf
If the employment situation is stuctural and not cyclical... all of the SS/Medicare estimates are absolutely blown apart. Like stepping on an anti-tank mine blown apart.
Neither party's budget estimates will come close to covering the promises made.
Right now you have a huge percentage of the population missing..20-25 million people...who had been paying their 15.3% SS/Medicare witholdings (employer + employee contributions) in 2007, 2008 and 2009 out of their paychecks each month.....and they haven't even begun to come back.
All we have been doing is treading water since 2009, and have just barely kept employment up with new population growth.
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On August 31 2012 19:09 paralleluniverse wrote:Show nested quote +On August 31 2012 10:02 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 31 2012 09:48 kwizach wrote:On August 31 2012 09:35 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 31 2012 09:30 kwizach wrote:On August 31 2012 09:15 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 31 2012 07:47 kwizach wrote:On August 31 2012 07:29 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 31 2012 06:30 kwizach wrote:On August 31 2012 06:06 JonnyBNoHo wrote: [quote]
The reason the deficit exists is the cumulative result of all tax and spend policies. That includes all taxes and all expenditures. You can't single out specific ones as the cause. Are you even reading what I'm writing?! Nobody is saying they're the only cause. They're simply being singled out and analyzed as one of the factors. Like I already said, "if your question is now why are they singled out in the graph, I guess one would have to look at the original article to see the objective and argument of the writer, but chances are that he/she wanted to point out specific policies that can/will more or less easily be stopped/overturned (and possibly see the legacy of specific Bush policies). You can't really erase social security from existence". On August 31 2012 06:06 JonnyBNoHo wrote: The reason the deficit changed from a recent low of $160B in 2007 to where it is today can only be explained by changes in the economy and changes to government tax and spend policy. I already answered this. Nobody is saying that the tax cuts and the wars are the independent variable responsible for the change. Why do you keep making that argument? "The graph isn't about the 2008 change, it's about the deficit" and the factors contributing to the deficit. On August 31 2012 06:06 JonnyBNoHo wrote: Advocating that some policies should be changed is a different argument and not the intent of the original source. The source was blaming the deficit on the wars and tax cuts. The original source points to four factors that contributed and/or are projected to contribute to the deficit: the economic downturn, the financial rescues (limited impact), and Bush-era policies of tax cuts and wars. You can read it here. On August 31 2012 06:06 JonnyBNoHo wrote: Moreover, the original article blames future deficits on tax policies the Bush administration never made. The Bush tax cuts expired at the end of 2010 - you cannot blame their extension on an administration out of office! Considering it's way harder politically to remove/fail to renew tax cuts than to enact them, I'd say it does deserve a part of the blame. Anyway, if we look at what the parties were advocating at the end of 2010, the Democrats wanted to keep the tax cuts for the poor & middle-class, while the Republicans wanted to keep them for the rich (and let's say also for the poor & middle class). Since the Republicans were the only ones that wanted to keep them for the rich, we can therefore blame them for the loss in revenue of that part of the Bush tax cuts since the end of 2010. Again, the Bush tax cuts and wars contribute to the deficit in no manner that is any different from any other tax cut or spending program that already existed. There is no cause to include them in the graph other than 'you want to.' The report answers a claim. As written in the first paragraph, "Some lawmakers, pundits, and others continue to say that President George W. Bush’s policies did not drive the projected federal deficits of the coming decade — that, instead, it was the policies of President Obama and Congress in 2009 and 2010. But, the fact remains: the economic downturn, President Bush’s tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain virtually the entire deficit over the next ten years". It is therefore specifically interested in policies, and even more specifically in the policies that have been enacted more or less recently (during the Obama and Bush administrations) and that have had a considerable impact on the deficit. Turns out that the Bush policies that were mentioned are the ones that had the biggest impact. Therefore, the report presents its data to show that without those policies, the deficit would be much lower. On August 31 2012 07:29 JonnyBNoHo wrote: Why not replace wars and Bush tax cuts with interest payments, Not a policy. agricultural subsidies, alternative energy subsidies, GM's NOL gift, the TSA, the Homeland Security Department, the PATRIOT act, Not as big an impact. and Medicare Part D? Addressed on p. 9 of the report: "In short, we did not include the costs of the prescription-drug program in this analysis because we could not estimate those net costs with the same confidence that we could estimate costs, based on CBO analyses, for other Bush-era policies — namely, the tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan". On August 31 2012 07:29 JonnyBNoHo wrote:The article is also not saying that the Bush tax cuts and wars were included for arbitrary reasons. They are arguing that the Bush tax cuts and wars are responsible for the deficit. If not for the tax cuts enacted during the presidency of George W. Bush that Congress did not pay for, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were initiated during that period, and the effects of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression (including the cost of steps necessary to combat it), we would not be facing these huge deficits in the near term. Heck just look at the title of the article: Critics Still Wrong on What’s Driving Deficits in Coming Years Economic Downturn, Financial Rescues, and Bush-Era Policies Drive the Numbers The word driving implies cause. The Bush tax cuts and the wars are among the causes of the deficit. Since the report is interested in the recent policies that had the biggest impact, they came out on top. The entire methodology the article is using is wrong. You can't arbitrarily take a portion of spending or tax cuts and declare them 100% deficit financed. You need some valid logical reason to do that. The article does not give one. The article looks at the policies enacted under the Bush and Obama administrations that have individually had the highest impact on the deficit, and they look at the impact they have had and will have. It turns out that the policies with the highest impact are the Bush tax cuts and the wars. The article proceeds to show that by adding the costs of these policies, the next in line (the recovery measures) and the economic downturn, you basically get the entire deficit. Are you contesting the numbers, or are you simply unhappy that the policies with the highest impact were enacted under Bush? If that's the problem, you should blame Bush, not the article. That's not what they did! They just took 5 line items out of a CBO report and chucked them into a graph that 'explains' the deficit. That is what they did. Or do you in mind any other individual policy enacted under Bush or Obama that had a bigger impact? ![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f9/Cause_of_change_in_U.S._debt_position_2001-2011.png/640px-Cause_of_change_in_U.S._debt_position_2001-2011.png) Ignoring changes in the economy the Bush tax cuts and wars explained about 1/3 of the change in the budget situation from 2001 to 2011. The CBPP report either ignores the other 2/3 factors or includes it in the tax cuts and wars (interest). The CBPP report is looking at the effects of the Obama and Bush administration on the deficit. It singles out the Bush tax cuts and the economic downturn and the wars, etc, because these are the policies and events of the Bush and Obama administration. And it does so to show that it's not Obama's fault that the budget got blown up, blame Bush. Now, they could have made that stacked graph in some other way, e.g. they could have broken it up in 4 stacks: 1) the cost of electricity for running government buildings, 2) the cost of unemployment benefits, 3) the cost of paying for police, 4) everything else. This would not be invalid. But this would not be an informative graph, because (a) these factors are minor, (b) these factors do not attribute blame (who should I blame for the amount of electricity the government uses?), (c) these factors are not really fixable (the government can't suddenly cease the usage of electricity). Showing the Bush tax cuts, and whatever else was on the graph is informative because: (a) these factors are not minor, (b) blame is attributable -- it's Bush's fault, (c) these factors are fixable (repeal the Bush tax cuts). It allows for the reader to conclude as follows: "The Bush tax cuts are one of the most expensive parts of the budget, if we eliminated it and ended the war, and if we had not had a global financial crisis, then the budget would almost be balanced. Thus, it's all Bush's fault, not Obama's fault." Had they produced the graph as I had suggested above, the only conclusion would be: "compared the the size of the deficit, the cost of electricity and police is virtually nothing, the cost of unemployment benefits is not relatively large, but if we ended government by cutting everything in the "everything else" category, then the budget would be in surplus." The graph in your post shows that the Bush tax cuts is the most significant contributor to the deficit. Do you dispute the fact that Bush' blew up the budget then the GFC blew it up again?
The Bush tax cuts and wars were 1/3 responsible for the change in the budget under Bush. If you are going to include the 1/3 cause you should also include the 2/3 cause as the 2/3 cause is twice as large! How can you dismiss the 2/3 cause as insignificant?
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The Bush tax cuts and wars were 1/3 responsible for the change in the budget under Bush. If you are going to include the 1/3 cause you should also include the 2/3 cause as the 2/3 cause is twice as large! How can you dismiss the 2/3 cause as insignificant?
Can't blame Bush so it's insignificant. Of course paralleluniverse has said numerous times that deficits and debt don't matter so it's all just doublethink anyway for the purpose of advancing the cause of conservative wrong and bad, progressive right and good, in all circumstances.
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Well looks we may get QE3 if the economy does not start getting better. On a side note, it is disgusting how the markets are like addicts who need their QE. Yesterday the DJI slipped below 13000 because investors did not think they would get QE3. and now that Bernanke said he will help with more easing if things dont start getting better they come rocketing back up. Curse you stupid risk-on, risk-off markets!
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/08/31/bernanke-jackson-hole-qe.html
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On August 31 2012 16:46 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On August 31 2012 11:39 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 31 2012 10:50 kwizach wrote:On August 31 2012 10:35 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 31 2012 10:24 kwizach wrote:On August 31 2012 10:18 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 31 2012 10:16 kwizach wrote:On August 31 2012 10:12 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 31 2012 10:08 kwizach wrote:On August 31 2012 10:02 JonnyBNoHo wrote:[quote] ![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f9/Cause_of_change_in_U.S._debt_position_2001-2011.png/640px-Cause_of_change_in_U.S._debt_position_2001-2011.png) Ignoring changes in the economy the Bush tax cuts and wars explained about 1/3 of the change in the budget situation from 2001 to 2011. The CBPP report either ignores the other 2/3 factors or includes it in the tax cuts and wars (interest). You realize that the only two specific policies that appear on that graph are the Bush tax cuts and the wars, right? You realize that's irrelevant, right? You realize that the reason it's not irrelevant is that it's precisely what the article is about, namely pointing out the impact of the policies of the Bush and Obama administrations that weighted and will weight the most on the deficit? So if the Bush tax cuts were passed one bit at a time we could ignore their impact on the deficit? Is there something called the "Bush tax cuts", or is that a made-up term for something fictional? Since they exist, their impact can be evaluated. That's what the article did. Their impact can certainly be evaluated. I'm pointing out that their evaluation was faulty. $1 in Bush tax cuts and war cannot be assumed to be $1 in new deficits. If you want to make that assumption it must be justified. The article does not justify it, neither do you. Their evaluation was not faulty. Nobody is saying that $1 in Bush tax cuts = $1 in deficits. The point the article makes is that the scope of their impact is sufficient to greatly reduce the deficit if they were to disappear (all other things being equal). The point of the article is to make the Bush tax cuts and wars look more responsible for the deficits than they really are. If the point of the article was to argue for the removal of the Bush tax cuts because they are bad, then the article would have bothered to explain why the tax cuts are bad. No, it is to show exactly how responsible for the deficit they really are, in response to people saying Obama's policies are responsible for the deficit. And it does just that. The numbers don't add up. You can't ignore 2/3 of the cause of the deficit under Bush's term and still have a graph that adds up to 100% of the deficit. Something is wrong!! The numbers are clearly being manipulated.
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On September 01 2012 00:30 DeepElemBlues wrote:Show nested quote +The Bush tax cuts and wars were 1/3 responsible for the change in the budget under Bush. If you are going to include the 1/3 cause you should also include the 2/3 cause as the 2/3 cause is twice as large! How can you dismiss the 2/3 cause as insignificant? Can't blame Bush so it's insignificant. Of course paralleluniverse has said numerous times that deficits and debt don't matter so it's all just doublethink anyway for the purpose of advancing the cause of conservative wrong and bad, progressive right and good, in all circumstances. Where have I said that?
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