What Happens: The Sequel!
258 Responses
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Russel no edit feature makes me look stoopid. I like to speak the good england but don't always get it rite furst thyme.
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My gut response after 9/11 was that we should have brought down the apocalypse on the whole moslem world: I'd have nuked Mecca. Medina. Qom. Riyadh. Baghdad. Teheran. Damascus. I'd have wiped the palestinians from the face of the earth, and cut through Lebanon like a radioactive chainsaw. Here at home, internment camps and mass deportations. And that's just for starters.
I guess I'll feel better when Berkeley gets nuked or something.
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i secomd the commnt from reece.
if you could add a feature to let me erase big sections of kiwiblog,
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2006/11/us_election_update.html#comments
feel free to add that one in.
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Che:
Well, I'm (slowly) learning the great wisdom of the net-saying, "don't feel the trolls no matter how great the provocation". Food for thought, ay? Of course, there's always the option of turning your eyeballs elsewhere Any blog that has comments but can introduce an 'ignore user' feature would get two thumbs up from me, though har-trigger stabs for the scroll wheel on the mouse does much the same thing.
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Just beamed in from abc news board, They're nuts, nuts I tell you. Some of the outlandish stuff I've been reading is just hysterical. Got an interesting insight into the foreign perception of us though, we're pretty much golden out there.
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don't feel the trolls no matter how great the provocation
Hooray for moderated forums.
Things are getting out of hand on DPF.. David himself is always pretty good - but some of the comments are getting outlandish.
It's just not cricket.
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For all of you out there who think that the Dems are going to be just great and that the US and the world will be safer and better off with them running the Congress, you might want to follow this link ....
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=110906D
It is hard to believe that an appointment like this could even be considered, let alone apparently probably happen (this possibility has been out there for months and has not been repudiated).
Almost all the Dem leadership and the people running all the key House and Senate committees (i.e. those who will have all the power in the Congress) are unreconstructed ultra libs, only people like that could even contemplate of something this stupid.
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So... Pelosi might appoint a previously corrupt judge - who, incidentally, was found 'not guilty' in a criminal trial - to a House Committee on Intelligence. OK, yeah, a bit dodgy despite his pardon. But he's been a Congressman since 1993, right? So this will impinge on US national security how, exactly? What do you think will happen?
Here's why I think we're all safer with the Democrats installed: there's a rather lovely 'not waiting for the Rapture to imminently occur' quality about them. I don't know about you, but it's pleasant not to have
to ponder my future as one of the irredeemable sinners in a Left Behind movie. -
And Allen concedes.
Dem's take both the House and the Senate.
The sky won't fall tomorrow.
I'll still be watching Stewart and Colbert to make sense of it all.
Jesus is probably still weeping.
But it is amusing to listen to Bush concede that he had a "thoughtful conversation" with Rumsfeld.
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Allen has conceded Virginia...
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I have no illusions about the Democrat’s new control over the Houses of Congress being some sort of universal curative, but it will offer at least one clear benefit. That being that the people of the World now know that a majority of Americans do not actually agree with the policies and actions of their President. This election result indicates that political opposition to the leadership is not just an isolated group of naturally contrarian Democrats, but in fact is representative of the entire country. That makes me, at least, feel a lot better about the US and it’s future prospects.
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Insofar as Casey goes, I'm half-inclined to agree
with my namesake about his views on abortion-
he's just as bad as his late dad on that score-
but apparently, while opposing SSM, he does
support opening adoption access to same-sex
parents, so perhaps he's not quite as dire as
all that...However, Santorum was a hypergodbot of the
worst sort. He makes even our own unlamented
Paul Adams (UFNZ) and current Gordon Copeland
(UFNZ) look like soggy kittens by comparison.Craig Y
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James,
I think I can speak for a few of us here that we don't hold out a huge amount of hope that the Dems will be the "saviours". For fucks sake, we don't want saviours, we want rational, responsible, accountable types who will step back from the brink and stop trying to dominate the entire fuckin world! Read history from a neutral perspective and admit where mucho culpability lies...
Dems, Reps, whatever.....re-evaluate your place and role and the chaos you have caused. All in the name of ahem...God - so that the fine citizens of the US may grow fatter and more self-righteous about their cultural superiority...
By the way, I lived there for 5 years and left just before 9/11 because I could no longer enjoy the fruits....they were too tainted.
It's not often I rant so clumsily but....well.....it's not like you'll take it under consideration.
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Craig Y.:
You might have a point - though the sheer genius with which homo Americanus politicius can hold sincerely believe six mutually contradictory positions on any issue before breakfast makes me sceptical.
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James:
You're entitled to your opinion but at least apply a modicum of reason.
You ignore the numurous infractions of the adminstration against your freedoms and liberties or the cronyism of your man-child president and you extrapolate that most of the Democratic leadership is stupid from the ruminations of a single news article.
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(OMG. James, if you're New Orleans you should know all about Bush appointments that have resulted in catastrophy at the direct cost of American lives. Open your eyes.)
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Danielle,
The House and Senate committees are very important, and especially ones like the Intelligence Committee, a lot of critical work is done there and of course all manner of sensitive material is reviewed. Having a corruptible fool running such a committee is a terrible idea, especially when the appointment is all about Pelosi putting personal political payback ahead of national security.The religious aspect of all this is so overstated in the international media. Atheists look at anyone who is Christian and recoil, when some of the greatest leaders in history have been Christian, and almost all of the worst tyrants and murderers have been atheists, Hilter, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hussein etc. Seems to me that if you want to get your knickers in a knot about religious nuts, you should be worried about Armidinajad in Iran.
Michael Savidge,
You wrote "... we want rational, responsible, accountable types". Thank you, my point exactly. This guy Hamilton is none of those things, and neither is anyone who would make such an appointment.Ben,
You wrote “...that being that the people of the World now know that a majority of Americans do not actually agree with the policies and actions of their President."The election did not mean what you seem to think it did.
The 2 big issues that decided the election were Congressional corruption and behavior, and Iraq.
A Repub Congressman (Foley) hitting on a teenage page or a Congressman taking a bribe or pork barreling for their home district have nothing to do with the White House or its polices.
While most Americans are not satisfied with the Administration's performance in Iraq, some people want to pull out, while a good number of others actually want to be more aggressive and are pissed off at things like Moqtada Al Sada not having received a 500 pound JDAM as an early morning "wake up" call.
60% to 70% or Americans agree with the Bush and his National Security polices, like the Patriot Act, NSA and money tracking programs, aggressive interrogation of terrorists (i.e. water boarding) and locking terrorists up in Gitmo until they get a military commission type hearing.
Also gay marriage bans passed in a bunch of states, so this election does not mean that the US is any less conservative than it was before.
As for the US and its prospects, as long as it stays on the offensive and plays this war on terror as an away game, and not a home game, it will do just fine. Its economy is amazingly strong and resilient, good growth, 4.4% unemployment and net household wealth that has increased from about $40 trillion in 2000 to about $54 trillion as of the last quarter. Yes, that is "net" and "T" as in trillion. Not bad, not bad at all. Uncle Sam is not going away anytime soon.
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But not in Arizona, interesting enough- although I gather that it is somewhat of a libertarian stronghold...
C.
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FYI, Hussein is not an atheist, but you are right that the religious element has been overplayed.
The US government spending and the deficit has ballooned under Bush. The US owes China billions in foreign currency. A lot of traditional conservatives are furious at Bush for betraying his roots in that regard.
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James,
I said a few other things as well. Please don't use my words to back up your blinkered position.
Would you like to see the US play any suit of altruistic multi-lateral role in the development of other nations and/or global security? Even if it affected the standard of living there?
Or would you prefer that the US accumulate as much wealth as possible at the expense of whoever, and keep the military strong so they can fill their boots and (try to) crush any opposition?
Actually, I think I may know.
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Hamish,
As far as giving up rights is concerned, I haven’t giving up any rights that I would not happily give up to help ensure my safety.Why don’t you apply a modicum of commonsense yourself and listen to and consider the thoughts of those that actually live in the US. A few news reports a day, a few websites a day, there is only so much you can learn from that.
As far as New Orleans is concerned, I live here you don't. To be blunt, you don't know shit from clay as far as New Orleans is concerned.
First of all Katrina was one hell of a storm that would have caused absolute chaos wherever it hit. Secondly, the most critical failures were at the City and State government levels, they either fell to pieces completely or froze like a deer in headlights.
Just one example of the kind of shit that was going on here, under US law the US Military need permission from the state Governor before they can deploy within the US. The Army were loaded up and ready to go and in the middle of the biggest disaster in her State's history, when Governor Blanco was asked for permission for the Army to deploy to New Orleans she said, " I need 24 hours to think about that" What a f%$king idiot!! If there is one person who should be hung from a tree for Katrina it is Blanco. She will get booted in 2008.
Sure FEMA screwed up. Everyone did. Katrina was so big and so bad it would have been a gigantic cluster f*&k no matter where or who or what was involved in the rescue efforts. The area declared a disaster zone was the same size as ALL of New Zealand. Mother Nature can be so big and so bad, it was just unf@#king believable. -
Michael,
Global security? The US has spent billions and billions providing a security umbrella for the whole free world for 60 years and is spending billions on a ballistic missile defense system it has said it will share with any friendly or allied Govt.Development? The US Govt and citizens provide more aid and development money than any most other countries combined. USAID spends billions and billions every year. Have you heard of the Gates foundation? Spending billions in aid and development all over the world.
What about the $15 billion Bush is spending on a huge AIDS prevention and support program for Africa?
The US is spending far more than any other country on alternative energy research
I mean, come on.
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James,
A Repub Congressman (Foley) hitting on a teenage page or a Congressman taking a bribe or pork barreling for their home district have nothing to do with the White House or its polices.
If a majority of the Republican-led Congress had not supported the White House in its more radical policies (ignoring wiretapping laws, removing habeus corpus, going after Iraq in response to attacks by Al Quada), then the above comment might have some merit.
Rather, the election result says to me that a majority of Americans identify the Republican-led Congress to be very much connected to the current White House administration and the mistakes it has made.
Matt
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James,
Indeed, the US govt has spent all that money. Some of it even in good faith.
But from my point of view (and I've always tried to be as objective as possible, unlike some) the vast majority of US spending since WWII has been to consolidate some form of global hegemony.
The global institutions so espoused by successive US administrations (IMF, World Bank, WTO etc) have done more to hurt developing nations than the much more publicised "help" such as your vaunted AIDS program.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-US at all. The US Bill of Rights is righteous baby. I'm just saying that if you want the rest of the world to give you a break....you'll have to admit to past wrongs and make REAL efforts to rectify them.
Not tokenism with one hand and corruption and deceit on the other.
We're not stupid you know.
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Development? The US Govt and citizens provide more aid and development money than any most other countries combined. USAID spends billions and billions every year. Have you heard of the Gates foundation? Spending billions in aid and development all over the world.
"[Americans] are regularly told by politicians and the media, that America is the world's most generous nation. This is one of the most conventional pieces of 'knowledgeable ignorance'. According to the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the US gave between $6 and $15 billion in foreign aid in the period between 1995 and 1999. In absolute terms, Japan gives more than the US, between $9 and $15 billion in the same period... Apart from being the least generous nation, the US is highly selective in who receives its aid. Over 50% of its aid budget is spent on middle-income countries in the Middle East, with Israel being the recipient of the largest single share"
"Why do people hate America?" by Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies, 2002. p79
"The most generous countries are also the ones that do not tend to tie aid to their own products and services. The stingiest countries also, almost spitefully and nastily, force countries to buy their own services and products with the aid they give; which reduces free trade and commerce and harms the countries economy, as well as being simply selfish and conceited. Thankfully, many countries do not tie their aid. Countries that tie less than 10% of aid include Ireland, Norway and the UK, then Belgium, Finland, Switzerland and Sweden. The USA is the worst, and ties nearly 90% of its aid to developing countries. Italy is the second worst with 70%. The two worst countries for this obnoxious practice in aid-giving are also the two countries out of the most developed countries, who give least generously!"
"Which Countries Set the Best Examples? A Comparison of Global Aid", by Vexen Crabtree, 2005
Personally I'm not sure if giving Israel (Israel got 12.5% of USA foreign aid) money, which it then (has to, quite happily no doubt) use to buy American munitions, warplanes, missiles, should really be counted as 'aid'. More, 'continuing to ongoing mess that is the Middle East'. Not exactly keeping starving orphans alive is it?
The claim that the USA puts out more aid than 'any most other countries combined': Check http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/40/3/35389786.pdf. USA $18,999 million in 2004, out of a total OECD amount of $78,568 million. That's 24%. As a per of Gross National Income USA contributes 0.16%, compared to the international average of 0.42%, and the UN target of 0.7%.
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