Vote Obama....please.

[Jetfire]

http://www.lefigaro.fr/elections-americ ... emagne.php


McCain thinks Vladimir Putin is president of Germany. Clearly I was wrong. So was the media, historians and the whole of Russia.

Please please vote Obama (Hiliary clearly polarises neutrals and loves herself to the point of igoring a potentially better canidate). Seriously retards should be banned for running, though that would eliminate every republican canidate that this election provided so far......

[Rossum]

http://www.lefigaro.fr/elections-americ ... emagne.php


McCain thinks Vladimir Putin is president of Germany. Clearly I was wrong. So was the media, historians and the whole of Russia.

Please please vote Obama (Hiliary clearly polarises neutrals and loves herself to the point of igoring a potentially better canidate). Seriously retards should be banned for running, though that would eliminate every republican canidate that this election provided so far......

That looks more like a slip of the tongue than anything else. I'll bet McCain is pretty up on his world events. Still wouldn't vote for him, since he seems eager to continue managing our foreign policy in the Bush style.

[rattrap23]

I totaly agree, i think its time we saw a black president.

[Civ]

I don't care if the president is white, black, yellow, red, green, male, female, it, heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, atheist, agnostic, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Confucist, Taoist, some other religion/philosophy, or an alien who is purple with yellow polka dots born in the USA. Whatever, quality of character over superficial traits, creeds, or sexual preferences any day of the week.

I just want someone who can actually lead competently, can balance the budget or at least work towards it, get rid of this awful No Child Left Behind garbage, handle domestic issues fairly, and work towards fixing our standing with the world so we don't look like/act/are self-serving assholes. And honestly, I really don't care if the next president is an "ass-kicker" like I've heard so many people at my work and gym say. I mean honestly, why do we need someone that uses bullying tactics to get what we want?

[Denyer]

Eh. It's a pleasant incidental result, but I think a better reason to vote for people is because they aren't corrupt/evil bastards that smile genially and then carry on dealing in kickbacks and torture.

Such politicians are currently a rare breed.

[Civ]

Such politicians are currently a rare breed.

My questions are why and how? Why are they such a rare breed and how did it get this way, which I guess is sorta like asking the same question twice.

EDIT: I just saw this story about the Pentagon questioning a story told by Barack Obama:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23301273

[Rurudyne]

rattrap23, while I'd love an opportunity to actually vote again in a primary for Alan Keyes (especially compared to any of this bunch!) it has nothing to do with his race.

I'll probably write him in again.

[Denyer]

Pace of life, combined with media now being largely about soundbites and repetition irrespective of context. There's a parasitic reciprocal connection between those things -- as life gets more saturated, people get better at tuning things out, and only what's shouted loudest gets through on most subjects.

The people who own the means to shout loudest tend to control the flow of information for anyone who doesn't actively look for alternatives. Those who do look for alternatives get wrapped up in circle-jerks (where they're not exposed to people who have other opinions) or find that many of the alternatives are simply slightly less blatant forms of the bigger information feeds.

edit:

EDIT: I just saw this story about the Pentagon questioning a story told by Barack Obama:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23301273

Yeah, the military offices are currently particularly desperate both for recruitment and to dispel any question of troops being sent into war zones ill-equipped... it's a similar situation in this country.

In this country, though, you generally don't have situations where one party adds on unrelated partisan legislation to a 'feelgood' bill (eg, onto one for budgeting better/more equipment for troops) so that they can blackball the other party for not supporting it in its entirety.

[Smokescreen GT]

I will vote for whichever Democrat wins the nomination, whether it's Hillary or Obama. I have nothing against either one of them. Either would be better than another four years of Bush policies, which is what McCain would continue on with.

[inflatable dalek]

All politicians are bastards. The well regarded are just the ones who didn't get found out...

[Tetsuro]

Which is more retarded, thinking Putin is the president of Germany or saying you didn't study math in school, but miracles? (that's what Huckabee said)

[rattrap23]

rattrap23, while I'd love an opportunity to actually vote again in a primary for Alan Keyes (especially compared to any of this bunch!) it has nothing to do with his race.

I'v said this on another thread but his race aside i can almost assure thet it will ither be hilary or obamma (i'm liberal:devil:)i also canadian so i can't vote.

Thare was a greate joke on SNL last nite,
some people might not vote for hilary becouse they don't want to see thier president turn into an old lady,

they did't mind when it happend to ronald regan.

[Vin Ghostal]

I completely agree, Jets. Obama, while inexperienced, is definitely the best choice for real change in the US. Bush's 8 years have destroyed this country in so many ways, it's actually stunning when you think back to the state of America in the late '90s and think about how everything that was so good has gotten so bad. Granted, if Hillary manages to win, she'll still have my vote. After 8 years of conservatives destroying this nation, we can't possibly elect another one, particularly one who'd be easily our oldest president ever.

[Turbo 07]

I completely agree, Jets. Obama, while inexperienced, is definitely the best choice for real change in the US. Bush's 8 years have destroyed this country in so many ways, it's actually stunning when you think back to the state of America in the late '90s and think about how everything that was so good has gotten so bad. Granted, if Hillary manages to win, she'll still have my vote. After 8 years of conservatives destroying this nation, we can't possibly elect another one, particularly one who'd be easily our oldest president ever.

Wait, were you asleep when NAFTA and the DMCA were passed in 1994 and 1998? They were two fronts of a devastating attack on the American middle class. Aside fron destroying our manufacturing capability and countless lives that depended on it, we're basically cornered into the position of throwing everything and then some at stifling technology to prop up an imaginary IP economy.

That's why the so-called "dot bomb" and the current mortgage crisis are hitting so hard. The rest of the world is figuring out that all we do in America is tax and sue each other, producing very little if anything, while we borrow to afford what our income doesn't cover anymore. If something doesn't change, we're screwed and no amount of ridiculously invasive surveillance or shortsighted steal-and-borrow "plans" will amount it a hill of beans.

Anyway, I can't help but laugh at arguments that Obama's inexperience is automatically bad. We already know that Hillary's a crooked monster, but Obama might, at the very least, be less adept at that game. Moot point for me, though, since I'll be voting independant because I've had enough of the Capitol being a dumping a ground for more of the same worthless garbage.

[Denyer]

Out of curiosity, do people with at least passing familiarity with both systems think voting independent in the US is more or less worthwhile than voting Lib Dem in a national election in the UK?

(I have every time so far, but don't see it ever amounting to anything unless proportional representation is introduced.)

[Civ]

After 8 years of conservatives destroying this nation, we can't possibly elect another one, particularly one who'd be easily our oldest president ever.

I'd love to agree with this, I truly would but I don't know if I can, yet. I was shocked when Bush beat Kerry after 4 years of conservative politics, petrol politics, and cowboy diplomacy ravaged this nation. And while I don't think Obama is like Kerry, since he actually has a personality and seems to be fairing better with the mud-slinging, I don't want to get my hopes up. I don't want to underestimate the power of the conservative political machine and Faux...err...I mean Fox News, get my hopes up, and then have them utterly crushed.

Wait, were you asleep when NAFTA and the DMCA were passed in 1994 and 1998? They were two fronts of a devastating attack on the American middle class. Aside fron destroying our manufacturing capability and countless lives that depended on it, we're basically cornered into the position of throwing everything and then some at stifling technology to prop up an imaginary IP economy.

Now, this I found intriguing and since I'm not a political-guru, I looked these up on wikipedia for a quick reference. For NAFTA, there seems to be some rather nasty controversies, but since we're talking about American deindustrialization, this is what it said:

An increase in domestic manufacturing output and a proportionally greater domestic investment in manufacturing does not necessarily mean an increase in domestic manufacturing jobs] Furthermore from 1994 to 2007, net manufacturing employment has declined by 3,654,000, and during this period several other free trade agreements have been concluded or expanded.[29]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nafta

Now, I'm an engineer and as one, I've had to work on processes (to my chagrin) that would reduce the amount of human labor. The reasons for this was to reduce labor cost, increase efficiency, and overall quality. I'm having difficulty seeing where NAFTA figures into this in terms of the employment rate. Based on what I've seen, I'd blame the head honchos of the companies who are encouraging this but maybe I'm missing something.

As for the DMCA, I'm just utterly baffled by this and how it's an attack on the middle class. I definitely need an explanation for this.

[Denyer]

I'd say the DMCA is an attack on rational people everywhere -- technically allowing fair use whilst criminalising the exercising of that right, by taking an "everything forbidden except for a whitelist" approach.

[Civ]

Okay, I'm going to see if I understand this DMCA, since I just first heard of this roughly 30 minutes ago, so bear with me. From what I've read, it seems to be more of a hindrance than a help at stopping piracy. It looks as though it unnecessarily restricts digital information like MP3s, e-books, and other such things so that they only play/read/run on a few set systems. That is until said systems are obsolete like the original Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and others. And all of this, supposed protection, doesn't really do anything to stop the people who already know how to get around all of this to begin with.

Is that the gist, or did I oversimplify and leave things out?

[Denyer]

MP3 isn't a digitally-restricted format in that sense. It's patent-encumbered, so it's not entirely free and open, but the data isn't encrypted.

You're mostly right. For example, if someone publishes their book in one of Adobe's eBook formats, they can't later obtain software to extract that data because the application to do so will have been criminalised as a circumvention device. People are similarly denied the ability to transfer information between devices if in doing so they'd have to decode an encrypted format, or to play DVDs on certain systems, etc. It facilitates manufacturer lock-in on data to an extreme degree -- but since the wording is unusually broad, it's been applied (and people have attempted to apply it) to many cases... printer manufacturers using it to prevent third-parties from producing compatible cartridges, TV / garage door manufacturers to prevent third-party replacement controllers, etc.

People can get around things like they always could, but the circumvention itself has been criminalised -- however benign or reasonable that circumvention is, including in situations that are explicitly granted (educational fair use, for example. It's of little use an exemption being granted to, say, extract a segment of a DVD for use in an educational production if the act of writing the tool to do it has been made illegal.)

[Civ]

I think I see, so it really hinders competition and makes it more likely for a company to achieve a monopoly on a method of data storage/reading devices. So anything that uses electronic data as it's main method of operating like a TV remote control, a garage door opener, possibly a cell phone, and such can't be made by another company who uses similar or possibly totally different data to achieve the same thing. I think I'm now beginning to see how this would be an attack on the middle class since it would affect jobs. If they can't use the data, despite that it may be totally different, why create the jobs?