Washington DC., Live microphones, 1 dead

QM, Pennypacker, stfu and grab a mop.

I thought The Messiah was making "shovel-ready" projects, not "mop-ready". No jobs have been created after the looting of the Treasury (for which Bush gets a portion of blame) except in Washington DC, but an increase in thieves is not counted in these staggering new Carter-level unemployment figures.

The community organizer couldn't care less about the American economy. Why? Because he believes that the evil capitalists are being punished for taking an unequal share of wealth, and this is payback. Obummer believes this, he's grown up surrounded by angry moonbat radicals who believe this, and we're now feeling the effects of the same stupid shit that failed over in Russia.

Where does wealth come from? Liberals seem to believe it is shat from unicorns' asses.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to sign for my free gift/Nobel Peace Prize from the Franklin Mint.

The first part might be Texas, but after that >> ^honkeytonk73:
Must have gone to Texas LOL


I also see Venice Beach, Hollywood, NYC and Washington DC.

When has business/activity in a city the size of Washington DC been blocked by 5000 people? It's not like a podunk town with one or two streets running through.

During the inauguration, it took a while to get from point A to point B, regardless of your mode of transportation. No hotels, except at 3x-4x the normal nightly rates.

The teabaggers didn't even overwhelm the Mall. The annual Black Family Reunion event was on the Mall, with several large tents and a stage.

Hmm - well let's see... The only estimate that I have found online was in the UK telegraph's article that said a million people were at this rally. All other articles say "no official estimate" or "tens of thousands". All I know from the news footage is that Washington DC was packed from the capitol and the crowd went out 17 full city blocks, filling up the entire street and spilling out in a lot of directions. Police reports said they were turning back people by the busload because they were 'already full'...

Now - say what you like - but those kinds of numbers are not attainable if it is nothing but a few isolated kooks. This is a broad swath of the American people which represents a true groundswell against large government.

To me it is similar to the Iraq War protests. Bush's Iraq War was not popular. The American people didn't want it. And so when they held protests, they were able to get tens to hundreds of thousands of people to show up. Why? Well - that's what happens when the MAJORITY of the American people are 'against' what Washington is doing.

It was also VERY easy to pick out kooks, freaks, lunatics, blowhards, and jackhats at the Iraq War protests. That's because the kooks want to look like they are representative of larger crowd (when actually they aren't). People like Cindy Sheehan. However, just because a few kooks have attatched themselves like leeches to a saner majority did not mean that the sentiment against the Iraq war wasn't genuine. Nor did it mean the Iraq protesters were just a bunch of lunatics.

Same thing with the 9/12 protest. Yeah, there are some oddballs in the crowd. But you don't get hundreds of thousands of protestors when it is nothing but kooks and oddballs. Obama and the Democrats ignore these protests at thier own peril - just like Bush. Bush ignored them, and his numbers plummeted because he was swimming against the majority. Obama is ignoring the majority too, and look at his numbers... If Obama wants to be "Bush2" then that's his affair...

>> ^quantumushroom:
1) USA is not a democracy.


Correct. It is a constitutional republic.


2) Torture is illegal against American citizens and uniform-wearing soldiers of other nations' armed forces.


Wrong. The Bill of Rights does not differentiate between citizens and non-citizens. It only speaks of 'persons'. It embodies certain essential rights common to all men (and women) regardless of race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, or nationality. True, it only pertains to actions taken within US borders, and against US citizens outside of the US. However, as signatories to the UN Convention against Torture, we have agreed that agents of the US shall not torture.


3) Terrorists fit neither description of #2, therefore legal protections do not apply no matter how badly the ACLU wants them to. The same legal charade was attempted by leftists during WW2, scrambling to give German saboteurs the protection of the American legal process. It failed and the Germs were rightly executed (people had way more common sense + balls back then).



Funny story about them saboteurs--you must be talking about Operation Pastoreus, which gives us the rich legacy of secret military tribunals. The thing is that we would have known NOTHING about the plan, if not for the fact that its leader, intent on betraying the Nazis from the start, turned himself in to the FBI and told them everything they needed to know (he actually had to travel from NYC to Washington, DC to do this, as the FBI Office in NYC hung up on him, thinking him a crank). For this essential service, the leader who had turned on his own people and spared countless American lives was thrown in a cell with the other seven, and sentenced to die. Hoover, director of the FBI, felt that the stroke of luck that had benefitted them in this case didn't play as well in the media as a tireless army of FBI agents, knocking down doors. The leader had been tried separately, and the military judges had been informed about his vital role in breaking the case, and STILL he was sentenced to die. It was only after the details of the case were released that his sentence was commuted. Instead of being treated as a hero, he and another German 'spy' who had turned on their Nazi masters were deported back to Germany, where they were treated as traitors.

So, you know, try another one.


4) While rich in history, most of the rest of the world is quite lame...unstable, squalid, rife with tribal hatreds going back centuries. Other governments' depths of corruption make the USA's look like a school play about tooth decay. Europe is graying and its traditions and culture dying. It would be better off mummified than Muslimfied.


"To save the village, we had to destroy the village." How well did that mentality work in Vietnam?


5) Obama is a laughingstock to America's sworn enemies and is played like a harp by all manner of sociopathic dictators around the globe. He's made America seem as weak as a legless kitten.


Yawn.



6) The USA will never get proper credit or respect for the good it does in the world (at least, not from American liberals). Part of being The Big Dog is being challenged. When China eventually takes over as Big Dog, the rest of the world will long for the good old days.


You know, this is what's so funny about 'free market' ideologues. Their belief that the free market will right all wrongs seems to falter when the market starts favoring an outcome that's much less favorable to them, whether it be the speaking of Spanish, or the growth of non-Christian faiths, or hegemony under a different overlord. Once that happens, the free market must be ignored, and nations toppled.


7) Peanut-head Eric Holder already tried to raise a legal stink about torture and was rebuked. Navy SEALS are waterboarded as part of their training and only 3 of the terrorists were waterboarded, for the purpose of gaining intel, not torture for torture's sake.


Democracies AND constitutional republics do not believe that torture is permissible, regardless of outcome. The ends do NOT justify the means.



Since torture "doesn't work" the logical alternative is to kill all terrorists/insurgents on the battlefield without mercy. Yet this approach is also poo-pooed.


How is this logical? I know--I shouldn't feed the troll here, but I've got some time on my hands.


9) Liberal logic eats its own tail. Dependent on moral relativism to exist, it cannot by its own definition ever claim a lasting moral high ground.


Capitalism eats its own tail. It begets inequities that yield monopolies, and once we have monopolies, capitalism collapses. Communism eats its own tail. In fact, every ideological concept, when taken to its purest form, contains the seeds of its own destruction. The thing about liberalism is that, unlike conservativism, it is endlessly questioning its own relevance and truthfulness. You would, of course, see this as weakness, but like steel, tempering drives out impurities and leads to a stronger material.

the simple explanation for the efficiency part of the argument, is that government jobs have salary caps that are very modest compared to any private sector jobs.

for example, my friend just got his first raise (1 year in) at his civilian research job with the coast guard in Washington DC, and we have inspected the salary chart thoroughly. at the highest level civilian position (GS-15) you make 120k in your first year, and with maxxed out seniority (i forget how many years, but >20) you can earn a maximum of 153k.

considering the recent outrage at greedy high level execs for banks, auto manufacturers, etc, this should be a good talking point for supporters of this medicare bill.

Citrohan, it's odd that you would leave out the huge number of democracies in Latin America and Africa that are not perceived as scientifically productive. Many of these democracies have far higher voting participation rates than America, and yet this has not led to any major scientific breakthroughs from these societies. We don't have to constantly judge democracies on a national scale either. We can go city by city, too. How scientifically productive are the democracies of Baltimore or Washington DC, for example?

There are probably more scientific breakthroughs coming from the non-democratic society of China than from all of the democratic societies of Africa and Latin America, too. Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were capable of far surpassing modern day Africa and Latin America's achievements in science as well. Both societies were probably far more oppressive than, say, Jamaica or Costa Rica. Scientifically speaking though, Nazi Germany and Communist Russia were far more impressive.

As for why I brought up free speech vs democracy, you said this: "It makes totally sense; a free society, where ideas and information can be easily exchanged, coupled with a healthy amount of capital from the private sector to fund research is the best environment for scientific advances."

In this one statement, you seemed to combine free speech, capitalism, and democracy into one whole body that cannot exist separately. I think this is very incorrect. Capitalism and democracy are very much at odds at each other. At best, they are checks against each other's excesses. Free speech is not necessary for either of the two, as well. This is why I don't think science and democracy make sense together. Democracy doesn't care about the truth, it cares about what's popular. Many aspects of science are highly unpopular to this day. One could argue that global environmental catastrophe is approaching quickly, and that this is well known amongst the scientific community, and has been for decades, and yet the world's democracies have done nothing and have basically led us to our doom.

And is capitalism compatible with science? I'm not sure, but I think it's more compatible with science than democracy is. At least capitalism has a kind Social Darwinism going for it, where the uneducated and lazy masses can be tossed aside with little guilt, left to die early in poverty. Scientists seem like elitists just by their nature, able to ply their trade to great economic benefit, rising to the top of the income brackets. Capitalism is very much the ideology of the elites it seems..

I like this video for the propaganda. There is a monument to the USS Maine incident, which we now know was fabricated. I don't remember many details about the Cuban revolution, but the fact that there was American intervention at that early date tells me a little about its populist leanings.

Also, this reminded me of similar tours of Washington DC. Most people in Cuba would be considered black by americans, yet you see nary a colored face in that film.

>> ^EDD:
^Morganth:
it's not just that you confused correlation with causality (when looking at violent crime vs. gun-control laws, hence rendering your own argument utterly irrelevant); .


EDD- It actually seems it's the people wishing to control guns with regulation that have confused (non-)correlation with causality. They continuously claim that more regulation of firearms will make the populace "safer", when the facts show the opposite. If gun control kept guns out of the hands of those who use them for crime, Washington DC would be the safest city in the US. It is not, by far.

Just to clarify things, the second amendment reads as follows:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

This is probably the most loosely-worded amendment, aside from the 9th, and open to a TON of interpretation.

Such as... As we already have a standing army - the very definition of a "well regulated militia" - the entire amendment is virtually rendered obsolete. Since we already have a strong military, the citizenry need not arm themselves. But then the crazies will say "But what if we need to use our firearms against our own military?" This is an INSANE place to argue from, as it seems pretty un-American to even consider firing upon your own military. We should not even give any legitimacy to such arguments.

I'll cite this PDF released by the Washington, DC MPD, specifically the graph on page 6. It shows just how frequently firearms are used in homicides, compared to other weapons. I was searching for a Pie Chart that broke down the circumstances in firearm-related deaths in DC prior to the handgun ban. It showed that over half of all deaths from firearms were suicides, homicides made up over a quarter, and "legal" shootings (where the shooter was found to be within his rights to protect his own life or the life of another) made up less than 1% of all firearm related deaths. I'm having a hard time finding this chart again, but I know it exists, and it's still out there.

Here's the transcript for posterity.

super: On Sunday, April 2, 2006, USC Vice President Ryan Holt traveled to Washington, DC to voice students' concerns to Congress. On Monday, April 2, 2006, members of the Student Senate purchased $80 worth of balloons. What you are about to see may be disturbing to people without a sense of humor.

Ryan: This is the kind of unprofessionalism that characterized student government years ago, and it's not going to happen now. If I have to there's gonna be-- okay that's it. Email to Ann, and people getting keys taken away and everything. Because this is not a joke.

[OPENS DOORS TO BALLOONS, POPS ARE HEARD]

Ryan: Okay, look, this is a waste of student activity [unintelligible]... and the people who did this are gonna pay for every single one of these! It's not a joke! It's not a joke, Alex!

Alex: Chill.

Ryan: Look at me being serious! We were off doing good work and you come to do something like this!

Alex: Okay. Alright. Geez.

Ryan: And I want to go to bed, and you've come and fucked up my office!

Alex: Calm down.

Ryan: NO ALEX! I am not going to calm down, because this is inappropriate! I am disappointed with you!

Alex: It's a joke.

Ryan: No this is not a joke. Who is going to pay for these balloons?! Out of your pocket?

Alex: We paid for them. Yes, we paid for them out of our pocket.

Ryan: Where did the air come from?

Alex: [befuddled] Wha-- the air? Over there.

Ryan: You used the air that costs money for us to do that stuff.

Alex: No.

Ryan: No, that's not appropriate, Alex.

Alex: [SIGHS]

Ryan: It's not appropriate. And this is not cleaned up [BALLOON POPS] by eight in the morning [ANOTHER POP] I'm going to come in here, take pictures, and there's gonna be hell to pay!

Its been around for a while, but my favourite is one criticising wikipedia's entry on George bush, saying that it was biased, but the IP comes from the justice department in Washington DC.

Oh, and the BBC labelling him a wanker.

Sounds like my professor lecturing me from a DVD he made while on vacation in Washington DC.

Ahh.. a message from Bilderberg attendee David Plouffe. It was rumoured that the Bilderbergers helped him to decide who Obama's VP was going to be when he attended the Bilderberg convention that was held conveniently in Washington, DC this year.

Funny.. you probably didn't even know he attended that secret meeting did you? Condi and a cast of many others were there. It's unfortunate that they are under oath to not reveal the minutes of such an important bipartisan, multi-international business-head and international leader meeting.

In fact.. it was even prohibited of being discussed on the news stations as usual. It was only reported in a few small papers and blogs with protestor coverage listed on youtube.

Think about it.. if a total media blackout can occur each year (with praise from Rockefeller *(see below) for such blackouts) on such an ominously important meeting of world leaders and business heads then what's to make you believe the media and the two remaining campaigns for president is being honest with us. In fact.. knowing this.... how can you be proud of either candidate?

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“… it would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government …”
- David Rockefeller in Baden-Baden, Germany 1991, thanking major media for keeping secret for decades the movement of the prophetic one world government.