prole

Yea! It's possible that the US is only 3rd worst!

Funny you mention global warming, the website cut and pasted by PeePee has an entire section devoted to global warming denial/obfuscation. Good Times! Is it just me or are cc.com conservatives disproportionately reliant on think tank press releases for their critical thinking and debate skills?

This essay might warrant a read in the meantime. Not entirely on topic, but still germane. http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_2_when_islam.html Thanks for the link to the slimy City Journal, mouthpiece for the Manhattan Institute, a bankrupt group of social-Darwinians posing as intellectual movers and shakers. You may remember them for giving the world "Giuliani Time". Now they regale us with essays with words like "Mexifornia" and titles like "Don’t Knock Down New Orleans’s Projects, Just sell them off to middle-class homeowners" and "Why Cops Stop and Frisk So Many Blacks | Blame high black crime, not police racism". Fucking hilarious! Thanks for the laughs Jay!

This strategy is brilliant! I wonder why they haven't thought of it before. New US covert operations helping Sunni Muslim radicals

Even if this is true - and I think it is only partially true, and omits the contributions that advancements in productivity brought about by the dreaded marketplace (against a constant current of opposition from guilds, unions, etc) have made towards creating a world in which it's possible for a vastly expanding population produce enough to live on without constant toil (e.g. the 8 hour work-day), etc, etc, etc, etc - this does not constitute an argument for why they are necessary or beneficial today. None of the regulations that you have cited owe their continued existence to unions, so what arguments can you make for their necessity today? If all workers would be better off under unions, how can you account for the existence of people who do not wish to belong to them, much less for the fact that the percentage of people in the private labor force has been steadily declining for decades? The decline in union membership in the US is directly related to the erosion of the benefits listed above. As for their "continued existence", for most US workers they do not exist at all. As for productivity: From In US, record numbers are plunged into poverty: report

A good article The Shiite militias are another story entirely.

Two good articles on Iraq. The first on Bush's "urge to surge" , the second on the Iraqi state (or lack thereof). The "good news" for those who supported the war, Bush's likely failure to put more troops in Iraq given a Democratic congress may give you rhetorical ammo in the future. Like today's disgruntled Vietnam buffs, you too can claim that "our hands were tied by spineless politicians and weak-willed civilians that lacked the fortitude to follow through and get the job done". Obliterating any rational reflection on what actually happened will insure that "no limits are placed on future leaders' ability to conduct war". Don't get too hasty KK, your original views in favor of this war may become fashonable again in say 30 years or so.

And to you and yours, my friend.

Some lucky little future Jim Jones is gonna get this in their stocking this year! Excerpt:

Operation Definitely No Fucky-Fucky

This statement is fraught with complications! Take an avy course!

Operation Ooops, I Crapped My Pants

Yeah, nothing quite like watching people die before your eyes on TeeVee! We have officially entered the "Running Man" era of reality television. One would hope that seeing all the garbage, fixed lines and bad attitudes would steer people away, but judging by the spike in the "climbing partners" forum in the wake of the Hood accident, it appears unlikely. Hey doctors, lawyers, and former Hell's Angels Ayn Rand fans, set your sights on bouldering V12 instead!

Sickening Darwinian clusterfuck. "Get out of my way, I'm trying to summit, get out of my way I'm trying to get down, stop trying to save my life I have to get a picture for my sponsor!". Nothing to do with climbing.

Operation Gottago Operation Saddamesque Strongman

Operation One Country To The Left or Right Operation Get Hillary Elected Operation I Smell Something Burning

I like Operation Together Forward. Isn't that nice? Say it a few times. Ahhhh. Think they'll have an operational codeword for the inevitable withdrawl? How about Operation Coitus Interruptus? Operation Whoopsie? Operation Sectarian Bloodbath on American Hands? Operation Jumpstart Democracy? Operation Ethnocleanse?

Virendra, that's a really cool name. Do you have a MySpace account? PM me your number. Coffee?

Uh, no. Over the last 25+ years the Republican Party has shown itself quite bold in its strategy and execution (i.e. ramming its programs down our throats) as well as very capable of mobilizing supporters at the grassroots through a variety of outlets.

The Democrats' lockstep with the Bush Admin into the war and later debates being framed around "supporting the troops" and "patriotism" has left them very little room for manouver. Their dissent and strategic prescriptions until very recently have centered on "more troops on the ground" in opposition to Rumsfeld's minimalist approach. The Democratic Party has a nasty habit of trying to show the Americans that they can be more militaristic, fiscally conservative, etc. than Republicans rather than providing any real resistance or meaningful alternatives. Where does that leave Dems now when Bush says "You want more troops, I'll give you more troops"? Picking their asses and picking nits out of each others fur. Spineless and disorganized are characteristics that do not mix well.

Thread officially devolved into another pissing contest. Nothing to see here.

Yeah, kind of like those idiots that justify 600,000 Iraqi dead using the same arguments.

I would veture that is isn't hard to win an election when you've spent almost ten years dropping your opposition out of helicopters into the Pacific Ocean, terrorizing the population by disappearing teenagers and intellectuals, turning stadiums into concetration camps, and banning all opposition parties. Jay_B, I'd like to introduce Mr. Nixon, Kissinger, GHWB, Reagan, Thatcher, et al.

Nope.

Hmmm, Haiti or Cuba? Venezuela or Colombia? Nicaragua under the Sandinistas or Guatemala? Canada (hah!) or the US?