FordGT90Concept said:

*Raises Glass to Ford*

dark41 said:

you could always try running some de-salinization plants but that would take energy and emit more "greenhouse" gas.

Desalinization is realistic when you have taxes from 300 million people to pay for it. Not nearly as realistic when you have 20 million people, which are spread out in 7 major cities along the coast and thousands of miles apart. It's been discussed here for years. They are now building a "portable" plant in Adelaide (population 1.5 million). Some AU cities already have these. The verdict is still out on whether they'll actually be able to afford to use it though, and these plants don't supply enough to support drinking water for everyone anyway. They're designed to supplement ground water, not replace it.

There is no simple and affordable solution as of yet. Add to the mix the drought which has been going on for the past 7 years and the future looks bleak indeed.

I'm looking at it from a doomsday standpoint. Water is essential to life and as such, markets will shift in order to accommodate the price of making fresh water available. It is not optional in a situation where there is no alternative.

A lot of droughts are caused by over population (deforestation for crop and grazing land, growing demand for water and food with limited growth in supply, etc.). Now, more than ever, are we facing a new crisis. The crisis that is Earth's limited capacity to sustain life. It will get much worse before it gets better. Wars are likely to trigger the worse and the better.

All I'm saying is that this is only the beginning.

let me put it plain and simple, if you are American you dont think global warming is real because u are a retard brainwashed but another retard named George Bush, if you are European on the other hand or anything but American you have some common sense to believe that its real. And there we have it gents, END OF DISCUSSION

P.S. and all u Americans out there, u know what? STOP BLOWING s**t UP u fuking morons, its not polite to go to other ppl's countries and blow their s**t up.

Someone needs a chill pill.

Legolas Greenleaf said:

Yeah, and its not polite to hijack airplanes and fly them into buildings, or strap bombs to your children and send them into busses full of innocent people, or blow up passenger trains, or do coordinated bombings in peoples subway systems. It also isn't polite to come into forums and start accusing people of being stupid for not agreeing with your radical socialist delusions. But someday after you've spent more time in the real world you'll realize that there isn't a polite solution to every problem.

Kind of ironic that Legolas Greenleaf has an American flag by his name.

But I do agree that Americans are brainwashed by their media to an extent. I lived in the USA for 40 years (am American, always will be) before traveling to other countries and moving to Australia. I was amazed at the different perspectives presented by other world media compared to the USA. I watch news from many countries in AU, but am only provided Foxnews and CNNBC from USA, both of which are terrible IMO and terribly slanted politically. Its easy to see why the USA is so frowned upon by other countries, as Fox seems to think the only thing going on in the world is the Presidential elections. 24/7 election coverage for 2 years is crazy. Also kind of nice to stop hearing how the USA is the best country in the world for a change, since frankly, the life style isn't that different from many other countries.

But back on topic, the reason I bring up the AU water table problem is that it's not a problem isolated to Australia. If you think the USA is overcrowded now, just wait until coasts start disappearing from other countries and see how many migrate to the USA. The drought in AU (regardless of its cause) would not be much of an issue in many states in the USA as they have an adequate water table. Not so in AU. And so far the only viable option would be to move to a country without such problems. Doomsday may be much closer than most people realise.

dark41 said:

I would say that the majority of people have been brainwashed by the media. Case in point; people that try and pin all of their personal problems on Bush, when in fact the root of the issue is their own lack of motivation sense of self responsibility. The public by and large only seems to know what the mainstream media tells them... a media that almost never covers anything in depth and fails consistently to get the opinions of experts on BOTH sides of critical and/or controversial issues.

dark41 said:

Other opionions and takes can be quite thought provoking, yes.

dark41 said:

The USA is not overcrowded it has one of the lower population densities in the developed world.


dark41 said:

Some would say its a great opportunity for an enterprising individual to find an economically sustainable solution which could be used to generate enormous personal wealth, for both themselves and anyone who is lucky enough to work for them or have a stake in said venture.

[/quote]Yeah, and its not polite to hijack airplanes and fly them into buildings, or strap bombs to your children and send them into busses full of innocent people, or blow up passenger trains, or do coordinated bombings in peoples subway systems. It also isn't polite to come into forums and start accusing people of being stupid for not agreeing with your radical socialist delusions. But someday after you've spent more time in the real world you'll realize that there isn't a polite solution to every problem.[/quote]

Guess what, you all's ONLY solution is to blow s**t up, you dont know how to do anything else. Thats why the whole world looks down on you and takes you all for peanuts.

Jim H said:
Brainwashed is not the right word. Because the media can only cover so many topics in a timeframe, people are exposed to the major issues but not the underlying issues that may have lead to it. No one is being brainwashed but they are forming a type of bias on subjects.


Legolas Greenleaf said:
The only people who make those kinds of statements are grossly uneducated on US history.

FordGT90Concept said:

I suppose you're right, brainwashed is probably not the right word.

I'm not sure what Legolas Greenleaf's point has to do with global warming, but I can understand his point to an extent.

You guys must be young. Having served in the USMC and living in and out of the USA, I think brainwashed is the perfect word. I have many more friends and relatives in the USA who agree than disagree, but we're all old and um.. experienced.

The US Military and government are experts at brainwashing and the US media plays right into it regardless of their political stance. It's a big game where all the citizens lose and rarely even understand how they were played, let alone care enough to do anything about it. You'd think the only thing going on in the world is the US presidential election from watching US news. It hardly gets a mention elsewhere, and rightly so IMO.

Consider another country doing what the USA did in Iraq and what the US's reaction to such would be. Basically we didn't like their government so we decided we'd change it to ours. Bush used the emotional state of his citizens after 9-11 to promote a war that had no basis, and you still have people silly enough to try and justify that decision. Iraq was never proven to have anything to do with 9-11, in fact the opposite was well known at the time. Iraq was never seen as a threat to the USA, WMDs or no WMDs. Even Karl Rove admits this. No one in Iraq was asking for help from the USA. Yet the USA was brainwashed by the media and the government that an invasion was the proper thing to do. Many countries go so far as to call this a war crime. Myself, I'd fall a little short of calling it that, but the USA never had any business in Iraq and I'm confident that history will show Bush Jr for the idiot he is. Ironic that Darfur is a much better example of what the USA is supposed to prevent, yet it hardly gets a mention in the US media. They only talk about what they want you to concentrate on. That, my friends, is brainwashing.

Keep in mind that while Britain and Australian governements backed the USA for invading Iraq, the general populations of both countries never did. Now they're saying "we told you so", and most of the USA has only recently become aware of the mistake. That, my friends, is brainwashing.

The USA does have a good reputation of helping countries in need, but they've taken serious steps in the past 30 years or so to ruin that reputation. Viet Nam, Somalia, and now Iraq are just a few examples of wars that had nothing to do with us, and we left good people hanging after making promises that we couldn't, or worse, never intended to keep.

The USA also have a reputation of forcing our will on countries who don't agree with our values. That one doesn't sit well with me and I'm shocked that it's tolerated by anyone in the country. We stand back and tell ourselves we're the peacekeeper when it's convenient for our beliefs, and we break every rule in the book when that's convenient. After insisting upon the Geneva convention to protect our troops, we've now said it doesn't apply to some people. That one will bite our troops in the butt some day and we'll have no one to blame but ourselves, for allowing the Bush administration to change the rules. That, my friends, is brainwashing.

Afghanistan was probably a justified invasion, since they were directly linked to 9-11. Somalia is well known to be a terrorist training ground, yet we seem to have deemed it a low priority. I'll never feel that the USA had authority/right to change anything in Iraq. Is Iraq a better place now? I'd say no. It was stable with Hussein if nothing else. The same amount of people are dying in Iraq, but now it's in the name of democracy instead of in the name of fear to keep the region stable. Worse, the Iraqi government has shown little motivation and even less ability to make happen. Whether it be tomorrow or 100 years from now, when the USA leaves there will be a fight between many forces including al Qaeda, Hamas, Iran, and the Taliban for control of Iraq, not to mention the civil religious conflicts. I don't think anyone can argue that any of these are better than Suddam.

The USA blindly backs Isreal. No country has a right to blow Isreal off the face of the earth, but Isreal has made some pretty bad mistakes over the last 20 years and never been held accountable. No wonder many countries hate Isreal and the USA for backing them. Yet the USA government ignores their mistakes and concentrates on them being a democracy. That, my friends, is brainwashing.

Ironic since the USA is no democracy. It's a socialist nation. In a democracy, the candidate with the most votes wins, not the most delegates since delegates don't represent the will of the majority of the population. Yet we preach to our kids in school that the majority wins. I guess it depends upon who's defining the "majority". The sad thing is that doesn't seem to bother many people. You have a democratic presidential candidate that was very close to winning the popular vote, if she didn't win, and she lost by over 200 delegates. She actually did better in the later primaries and fell further behind in delegates. Then her own DNC takes 4 delegates away from her, and basically sticks to not counting MI and FL since they only counted for half and were divided among the candidates. So not a true representation of what the public actually wanted, and definitely not the way I was taught math in WI. Same thing with Bush winning over Gore. Gore wins the popular vote and loses the election due to a corrupt delegate system, and quite possibly a corrupt election since it's been proven that the voting machines can be altered without anyone knowing. Yet we don't insist upon hard copies of these votes to do a fair recount? Regardless of who I wanted to win... that, my friends, is brainwashing.

I'm not crying over spilled milk. I'm just stating facts. The more I see about how the US abuses their power, and how corrupt the government is, and mainly how people just don't seem to care enough to do anything about it... the more I'm glad to be out of it looking in. But this is a bitter pill for me as I once put my life on the line for this country because I really believed we were the best due to our values and will to fight for what we know is right. Best at what? Right now the AU economy is about twice as good and I'm sure many European countries could make the same argument. The best thing for the entire world is probably to go a Euro standard rather than a USD which isn't based upon anything anymore (gee thanx Mr. Nixon). China is probably just as strong or stronger militarily. China treats their people like mushrooms. But the way I see it, the only difference between them and Americans is that the Americans don't know they're mushrooms and the Chinese do. The values that I used to think we stood for seem to change with our priorities (defined by our trusted government) at any given time. I just hope McCain brings back some of the values that once made the USA great. But then I always felt that a war veteran understands the reasons why going to war is always a last resort, much better than someone who's just played war in the reserves or only as a kid in the back yard. I respect anyone who's been in the military for their military opinion MUCH more than someone who's never enlisted. But hey, that's what makes America great. You don't have to know what you're talking about to have an opinion. Once upon a time Americans were smart enough to know what they didn't know. Anymore, it seems that's a lost art.

dark41 said:
Iraq is a republic like the USA but it is not structured in the same way because of the sectarianism climate of Iraq. It is a form of democracy shaped their needs. Why do we plant the seeds of democracy around the world? Because we can work with them. When one person is calling the shots in the form of dictatorships and the like, there is no one to question their decisions. The result is a lot of decisions made with haste that often result in war. Over the years, we learned dictatorships cannot be trusted.


dark41 said: Iraq was like building a fort in enemy territory. It is a position from which you can project your power. If wide-spread religious warfare were to break out in the Middleeast, we are now in a position to stop it. You may never understand the value of that; therefore, I can't expect you to understand why ousting Hussein is a very good long-term strategic move.

dark41 said:
It is human nature not to ask for the sake of one's pride. The role the USA has taken on throughout the last 6 decades is preserve some degree of world peace. Obviously, that means some will perish in light of saving tens to billions of others. It is impossible to help everyone; the objective is to help the majority.


dark41 said:
Actually, yes, you are being brainwashed by the media to believe what we are doing in Iraq/Afghanistan is all for not (like a solider grinder or something). Ever since the media got involved in Vietnam, any war/conflict lasting longer than a year with significant media coverage has built up a significant unfavorable opinion back on the mainland. Is that opinion, historically, a good one? No.


"Brainwashing" caused the withdrawal there (Rather reporting from the fields causing people to see war as a not-so-glamorous thing resulting in public pressure to get out)...


...and there (after the Blackhawk Down incident, Clinton pulled the plug because of public pressure)...


...and there (media is reporting on the number of casualties every night and people go OMG when more people die in every hour from gang violence)...


France asked us to pull them out of the 'Nam jam and RVN also requested assistance from Communist aggressors, Somalia was an UN foreign aid operation, and Iraq was for too many reasons to list (sold under WMD badge to Congress).


Tell me why WWIII hasn't happened yet and tell me the difference between the why WWII happened almost immediately after WWI and WWIII still hasn't happened after WWII. You don't have to look very hard in history to see multiple trends in the number of casualties. There is three major points in the past century:
1. Invention of the MG resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties because there was no effective way to counter them.
2. Invention of the fission and fusion bombs changed the landscape by making anyone with enough money capable of killing everyone.
3. In the later half of the century, USA worked to prevent nuclear proliferation and get involved in international affairs so they don't blossom into global affairs.



Eh? Geneva Convention just gives the US court system a list from which to contruct "war crimes." All that really serves is to punish those enemies that weren't KIA. In war, there are no rules except the last one that dies, wins.


They're too busy killing each other to be concerned with what happens outside of Africa. We learned that back in 1991. Any help we tried to provide would end up in the hands of people that didn't need it.


Are you an Iraqi? That opinion of yours is based on the media you are exposed to (which is almost all negative). Does that not make you "brainwashed?"



Correction, Bush does. He is a deeply religious man and that reflects in those policies.



It is a Constitutional Federal Republic--no more, no less.



That issue started back in the colonial period when long distance communication was only as fast an as accurate as a man on a horse. There was no way to collect every vote and get it to one place to be counted in a reasonable amount of time and at a reasonable cost. Therefore, townships, and later states, took a vocal vote locally and elected people to travel to the capital to speak on the behalf of the people he represented. That, in effect, was a delegate. Obviously, technology is advanced enough today that the original issue is just a minor technicality; however, technology can be compromised and as such, people don't trust it.

dark41 said:

I see this all the time and it really irritates me... Of all of my friends (mostly people in their 20's) I am the only one that cares about what is going on. None of them follow current events; none of them could tell you even the most basic information about the people currently ruling over them. But they consistently bitch and moan about the price of gas, the price of food, taxes, all the things that effect us all on a personal level that the government has at least some control over... and yet they don't care who get elected, they don't care what measures are being voted on, they have no interest in politics what so ever... people especially young people have become so apathetic and complacent that I really do worry for the future health of this country.

The only young people that I see that are politically active are folks that have spent their entire lives either in school or living sheltered lives that leave them no real understanding of how things work, or the ramifications of changes to policy. This is most evident with the "green" crowd. The same people that are constantly advocating alternative energy, and higher emissions standards, and taxes on people that drive "big" vehicles etc. This is the same crowd that wants socialized medicine, and increased taxes on the "rich" to fund more freebie give-a-way redistribution of wealth programs.

What these people fail to realize is that their lifestyles are only possible because of the very things they are trying to shutdown. You cannot run the power grid without coal power... we don't have the excess capacity with other forms of electrical generation currently in place, and throwing solar panels over a few square miles of desert is not going to cut it. This crowd never factors in things like line loss or environmental/geographical factors that make some forms of electrical generation impractical. They advocate electric cars but never seem to realize that while this is a great goal (that I am all for) we frankly lack the technology and infrastructure to practically implement this on a large scale.

They demonize "the rich" saying that they do not pay their "fair" share but the reality of the situation is that the vast majority of federal tax income comes from "the rich"... the poor pay almost nothing in taxes both as a percentage of income and in discrete terms yet "the rich"... the same people that started the businesses that employ the poor are stuck with the blame. What has happened to the days when "the rich" were looked upon as roll models? Instead of getting jealous and trying to devise a way to take money from Bill Gates maybe you should instead apply some of that energy into becoming productive and work toward making yourself the next Bill Gates.

The political powers that be through propaganda and the help of the media have managed to demonize not only "the rich" but "corporate America" as well they try and portray the companies that employ millions and produce the products that we all use as evil entities hell bent on our own demise. The entire situation is ridiculous and the sentiments held by those that agree with the political propaganda are founded in ignorance and naivety.

dark41 said:

The economy will bounce back history shows that it is cyclical. Economic downturn is a correction it is not the end of the world, we came back from the burst of the dot com bubble, the great depression, the gas rations of the carter era, and we'll come back from the correction in the housing market.

dark41 said:

They might if Obama gets elected and get his way, but for now they are way behind.

dark41 said:

McCain's service record is admirable however; a good military service record does not a good president make. He is very strong on foreign policy and defense issues (excluding the defense of the southern border), but his ideas on domestic policy will do nothing but lead us off a cliff. If anything McCain is just moving us closer to a fall from within.

Jim H said:
To add to that, economic strength is always relative. The reason the euro looks good right now is because the dollar is weak. Likewise, the only way to make the dollar strong is for everything else to be comparatively weak. Such is the way of capitalist economics.


Jim H said:
True that.


Jim H said:
There is no better candidate to lead on foreign policy than McCain. As stated, his weakness is domestic policy; however, he has been involved in such affairs through the senate for around a quarter of a century. He can't be that close to the issues and be completely clueless. I think what it boils down to is that if you had to rank McCain's attributes, everything ranks in the 8-10 range. Economics lands at 7 or so. He is strong in the subject compared to others (ehm Clinton and Obama) but compared to foreign policy (for instance) it is his weakness albeit not very weak. That's the way I see it.

Keep in mind the roles of the President:
1. Chief of State - Be inspiring.
2. Chief Executive - Manage executive branch.
3. Chief Diplomat - Foreign policy.
4. Commander-in-Chief - Control the military.
5. Chief Legislature - Work with Congress to get bills through.
6. Chief of Party - Get party members into seats.
7. Chief Guardian of the Economy - Keep the economy running smoothly.

Source: http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=4683

I'd say he's probably not the best on number 6 (crosses party lines too often to be satisfactory in the eyes of conservatives) and 7 (some lists exclude this as a role because it is more or less Congress's job). On the rest, he is next to "none."

I just figured out what's causing Global Warming!!!!
It's all the hot air being blown about here on HWA, and a multitude of other sites, pundits, channels, papers, rags, etc....
Though I've found some of the last few post in this thread to be thought provoking, not a single one was without thier own "spin" or take on the situation and thus a coloring of the interpretation of the "facts".

We all have allegences, many of which are in conflict on one level or another.
1. Family and/or Tribe.
2. Race (homo sapien sapien in my case, though there seem to be more Cro-Mags around than you would have thought).
3. Nation. This is not to be confused with the State. A nation is a loose affiliation of persons sharing the same history, theology, needs, morality, location, etc.
4. State. This is the governmental system, whether secular or religious.
5. Organization. This could be a school, craft, religious sect, or even income.

I like to think of myself as a well educated, open minded individual, but I am resplendent in the number of prejudices that I maintain on a sub-conscious level. I do make an effort to identify these prejudices, and make the attempt at least to see things from an alternative perspective. Not always successfully, but I like to think at least a majority of the time (51%). If everyone made an effort to understand the other side then compromise would be possible, as it is, it seems that everyone has too much of a vested interest in seeing things their own way, the HUMAN Way. So if we can adapt not as countries, but as individuals, then as a race, we may actually be able to start making the changes necessary for our own survival.

OK, so I just looked over at my thermometer and noticed a 3 degree uptick, so I'll stop venting my own noxious gasses for now.

BTW. Before I come off sounding too high-minded, if a whole species of Amazonian poison dart frog, or a hundred people I have nothing in common with have to die in order for my daughters to have long and happy lives, then sorry about the frogs or your kin. Like I said, Different priorities, different alligences. If my gals, the frogs and your kin can make it through...all the more to the better.

Gerritt

Gerritt said:
"Global warming" is the effect; the cause is overpopulation. The very same cause that leads to over fishing, deforestation, and pretty much every other problem (less natural disasters). There will be a point where there is too many people for the Earth to sustain it. Maybe we already crossed that number; maybe we didn't. Regardless, most of the issues we face to day is the result of the world population boom over the last half-century. If we make changes today, they'll be compounded by even more people by the time the effect should take place. This a problem that will not go away until WWIII does happen. I just hope I'm dead before it comes to that.


Gerritt said:
There is no such thing as "spinless." I know I do it but I really can't help myself. That's a topic for psychology and socialogy though.


Gerritt said:
Such is the gears of Darwinism grinding. The same traits are seen in most mammals.

FordGT90Concept said:

I would like to submit Ted Kennedy as exibit "A" under Jim's evidence that you can be a life long politician and a clueless idiot at the same time.

Ford,
Exactly.
If you look a few pages back in this particular thread, I avocated a long term reduction in the human population of this specific planet of approximately 2/3s!
I'm still feeling scorched, so if you want to take of the mantle of reduced population = better survivability and better standard of living...then you go boy!

BTW, if you are a McCain fan, then you need to look closer at what you want for the world.
BAH, I could say the same for just about anyone running for office in any country that actually permits the people to have any sayso outside of overthrow.....including Obama, Clinton, Barr, or Paul here in the US.

Gerritt