TheCurtOne

Wow. Just as a postscript. I have never seen such tragedy as the dissolution of the marriage of my best friend, ErasOmnius (E/O). Sudden and ferocious. Terrible for their children. Seeing such, I have endeavored in my life to 'be right' less, and to be kind more. He and his wife were like to people who always had to be 'right', and now because of the cataclysm of their each being 'right'. They are each now completely alone, with teenage children crying.

Now she's crying on TV.

Weep and mourn, Jack Layton has passed away.

Happy Birthday to Me...Mappy Birthday to Me...Mappy Burfday dear Curtis..... thinking I've been drinking a bit much.

No, really someone has to start making some tough decisions, from the top. Do we want everyone to have an auto? Do we want everyone to be able to afford one? Or maybe not? When we talk about the robots replacing humans, we know that robots cannot buy those same autos. So somewhere along the economic way, someone has to PLAN the economy. Not this unbridled capitalism that shifts jobs around the globe in a dizzying way, just because some corp's stock price will go up $1.50 for the week. Someone has to say stop because the current system is broke. Those poor kids out in the streets of Britain are just taking out their fury on the closest inanimate object they can come across. The circumstances might be a bit different in Greece, but the root cause remains the same. Give those young men and women decent jobs with a decent wage, and they won't have a reason to riot in the streets. The 'free traders' have left us out to dry. Our libraries are closing, our schools are closing, our rec centers are closing, yet we wonder why the youth are taking to the street, and smashing eveything to bits. They don't have enough money to go to college, and their food and housing allowances is being cut by politicians in their capital cities. That Mr Cameron was on the news saying that people will have their access to Facebook and Twitter curtailed if they are suspected of wanting to be involved in the rioting. How is he or any policeman going to be able to tell if someone is planning on using Facebook to cause a riot? Give the youths some jobs, instead of a police state.

I have to agree with Dante. This is the cause of the New Left, simply to find jobs for the common man. Good manufacturing jobs, with skilled trades. Actually building something with your hands, and getting paid a decent wage doing so. The robots have come and have displaced a good fraction of those poor teens and twenty somethings off the assembly line, and into the streets. The other part of the jobs have gone east, and are being done by people who are nothing more than slaves. I don't know the particulars of what is exactly happening in Great Britain, but it seems to be a common theme around the world. That people need decent jobs, with a decent wage, manufacturing something that there own countrymen can and will buy. We need to have unionization of factories on a world wide scale. I'd wonder and like to know what the percentage of people are who are willing to destroy with their hands, those who create things with their hands. Create things like autos, appliances, and the like. As someone who puts items onto a car chassis in an assembly line, I'd have a hard time burning a building down, or smashing a car to bits. In fact, the thought of purposely trashing a car seems inconceivable, like what's seem on TV in England, when one puts them together. It seems that these youths may have lost the appreciation of building things with their hands, something that the 'free traders' took away from them.

Damn, whose side are we on?

Did Greece have a 2004 Summer Olympics that they could not afford, doubling of the percentage of debt? Same thing with US in 2002 Salt Lake City. Italy's up the toilet, and they hosted 2006 Torino. I'm seeing a pattern here.

Yeah, I'm semi-pi$$ed that some of the news outlets called him a "Christian". Don't know where it says that Christ wanted to gun down teenagers.

Well, take care everyone. I only joined because my friend asked me too. And now he's gone, or been banned permanently. I think that in a way it's a good thing that EO has been set free from this place. He can stop crying, worrying, getting mad, at the goings on, here at the Dune 2000 debating forum. My only hope is that he doesn't go back to the place where they'll always accept anyone who agrees with them, at Brian Herbert and K Anderson's place. ha ha

Seems like all of the Saudi Arabian students that are taking classes abroad would want to try to "open" their country up once they get back home. Once someone gets the taste of the "democracy bug", it would seem that they would not want to go back into the box of a monarchical dictatorship. Although I see from this news article that the gov't is basically funding and paying for everything for their students abroad. Sounds like an interesting system of keeping everyone in line. I think from this article which is from the Organization of Islamic Conference observers and members in Kazakhstan this week, they feel that discrimination against Muslims is on the rise. Hey, the thing is, is that there are all sorts of Muslims. There are the ones who are next to you at work, then there are the ones who are doing horrible things like terrorism.

So that's it? Good God man... That's your counter argument? "Good God man...hand me the brandy and another cigar." Not a very strong counter argument. Of course the engineer or tool and die tradesman in the Nw of Europe or North America is going to have more educational opportunities than people elsewhere. But that doesn't mean that they should necessarily be paid more. If people who are continually more and better trained, earn substanially greater amounts of money than those who are not, then mass immigration will never stop. There have to be mandatory wage parameters across Europe, across North America (incl Mexico), or "things will never even up". Where the money goes, or where the wages go, so will the building of schools, pre school programs, universities and colleges, and better jobs. But if we even things out, with a better playing field, then better things will happen in disadvantaged areas. In North America, minimum wage laws need to be mandatory in Mexico, just as they are in the US, so that the cost of producing auto parts there is the same as in America and Canada. Otherwise, corporate interests will always prevail, and "ship" jobs to other countries where it is cheaper to manufacture items. In China, where factories are run with a soldier always within sight, labor is real cheap. But would you want to work there?

My whole point is, there probably needs to be greater integration in the European Union. The rights of trade union workers in Germany, Scandinavia, and Great Britain, which are high, need to become continent wide. This way, mass immigration from East to West across Europe will cease, and new EU countries can develop their middle class. Even in white collar fields like engineers, the gap is too great when one compares salaries across Europe. Hey, this issue cost the former PM of Great Britain his job last year when he couldn't or wouldn't explain himself on the issue of cross EU immigration fully. So, if trade unions were strengthened in eastern Europe, and a continent wide minimum wage were put into effect, it seems like major problems might go away. According to this study, the disparity is too great.

You asked for Van Halen? Here's the REAL Van Halen, with Sammy Hagar The personal info issue. Is that something I am doing?

I am trying to figure out of the Saudi gov't is trying to protect the birthplace of Islam, which doesn't really seem to be all that anti-Hebrew. Or if they are simply anti-Semites. Or maybe it's the Palestinian problem. The Saudi gov't isn't talking much about the whole event that they are causing. They should at least release some kind of statement. WAIT: This just in a few minutes ago: Saudi Arabia denies discriminating against Jewish passengers. After reading this, it seems that many of the parrties involved are in denial. Delta, the Saudi gov't, others.

Taking your marbles and going home? No debate? Not very much like you LKG. Oh, the first ticks of non-anonymity, your initials. Not much fun if people were to know the very basics of who you are. I'll stop there LK, because I am your friend, and I'll won't put you through it. But it's loads of fun to hide behind Erasmus & Omnius, two charcters from the Butlerian Jihyad, and to be all brave. Not too much fun if you had to be so uncompromising in your beliefs out in the open. Here's some more food for thought, LK, since you said you+Jesus=majority. Would Christ spend every day after day for a year on a scifi forum? Why don't you really take a month off, without looking, without posting?

Not answering you cell phone. Okay, here it goes. You know what my life is like down at the plant. I don't have the luxury like you do, responsible and accountable to nobody. I have to get along with people on the assembly line. Black, white, Asian, gay, lesbian, in between, everyone. If I don't bolt a seat onto the chassis, then the whole line stops, and no Mustangs get assembled. That's how life is, I put in the seat or the mirror, someone else puts in the dash, someone else the back seat, you name it. That's how it is with all people. We all have to get along, and the car gets built. If someone gets mad at me, then the line slows down, or stops, and the foreman and the computer line tech comes over And wants to know why. But you are different. You co own your own company. It's just you and your wife's family. Inherited, married into. You have the ability to have your own views here, anonymously. But do your multi million dollar clients know your views are so skewed to the right? Do they honestly? Or do they want to keep on doing business with you, who is <so and so's> son-in-law, or <so and so's> husband? If you're so righteous in these views, tell some of your clients your views. The gays and lesbian ones. Tell them. Then see what "the family", as you call them, see what they do to you, when those same clients tell your brother-in-law or mother-in-law they are insulted by your views, and are dropping your company. But until you have the guts to tell your clients your views, you should not hide behind the anonymity of this debating forum. Because no one talks like you do about these issues. No one. You got that. No one.

Anyway, we see rioting in the streets of Greece, and we know that Greece is not just some backwater country in the 3rd world. But, correct me if I am wrong, when Europe became one giant nation, don't you have to take the "good with the bad"? Or is it just a temporary federation of nation states? Can one of the countries leave if they see fit? It seems that the political leaders of the European Union see the nations with in it, as one giant organism, if not economic organism. I mean, the money is flowing, to Greece, to Portugal. Isn't it a bit late for these political parties to be springing up and saying that this eco aide should stop?

Good article Denis. Yeah Bush really set us up for the fall, didn’t he? Here’s an article from 2009 that talked about the interest on the US deficit, and how it's a coming tsunami. Not crazy about the fact that Obama extended these tax cuts for the wealthy, either. He bowed to political pressure.

I just wanted to say that this is a much different posting of what was originally posted by me yesterday. Hopefully, my subdued spirit will help me as I type. I feel somewhat attacked because I don't believe "all the way" on moral issues. Maybe it's in my mind, maybe it's not. I get attacked by EO because I try to welcome gays and lesbians into our church, but he and the pastors takes the hard stand from the Bible. I feel like I get attacked here because I won't go all the way and just accept everything that comes with gay's rights. I guess that's how it is in the mushy middle. I understand things better now. There is no reconciling EO and other people, and I probably have to choose sides. Obviously, I'm never going to talk about the issue like EO does. Who can? Who does? Who would? Not me. But that's the breaks.

Wow, that was a good post, EO. I think you summed up the Christian struggle on the Earth pretty well. I don't agree with it all 100%, but close enough by all sorts. I am sorry if anyone read my posts and they were offensive to the rules of this debate/blog/info forum, but I'm always going to stand up for a friend.

I think that these populist parties rise up when people of some nations could care less about what happens in other parts of the nation. Tea Party could care less about Latin Amercian immigrants in Texas, AZ, and California. Seems like a great deal of the ruckus in Europe is from "the parents" of the Europe Union, not wanting to "help out" or "bail out" the children. Seems like the True Finns don't want to help Portugal and Greece. Hey, if you're going to be in a giant family type EU, then you got to help out "little brother" when he stubs his toe economically.

I've gotta disagree with Obama on this one. His fine line drawing on the distincting between us just supporting NATO, and being on the forefront of NATO, sounds like a lot of horse manure. He's on the wrong side of this one, and Boehner is on the right side. What an upside down year. It looks like we may see some resolution to the question of the War Powers Act, since it was not decided in Gulf War I back in 1990. Not crazy about the Obama Adminisration trying to bring up what happened in 1999 and trying to tie it today.

EO, I think that it's important that you understand that public sector perform a valuable function to state and local employees that are just starting out. They typically start at a wage that is on the lower end of the scale, and it takes years for them to work up to a living and sustainable wage. What I do not like about the current debate about public sector jobs is that there is no fine tuning of the cuts that are being made. To me, the great complaint seems to be against retirees' benefits. Those benefits, like any other type of income, should be taxed to support the infrastructure of the government. I'll grant you, that many public sector employees retire with a windfall in the midwest, with free medical and dental for the rest of their lives. Granted, if they are retiring in their fifties, that is a long time of unsustainable benefits. Probably over thirty years. What I don't like is the hatchet job that current state administrations are taking to the public sector. Chop here, chop there, without getting into the details. So we have a poor slob who began his public sector job, taking a 10% pay cut, but we have some retiree living high on the hog, not being taxed a dime of earnings, just because seniors have a higher voting record in America. True if a senior retiree is just making it life, give it to them, give it to them. But if they have excess, that excess should be taxed. Our politicians don't have the guts to do this, but they should. But your blanket statements like "rubber-stamping" public sector workers is inaccurate, and volatile. The fact that you have a union card in your pocket right now, are you going to turn it in? Denis, the whole "enterpreneur" mentality of America is what gave us Henry Ford and the Chrysler brothers, who were geniuses. But on the flip side, the same enterpreneur mentalism gave us the mortgage meltdown, bad housing loans, and Enron. So I suppose you got to take the good with the bad. All in all, many of these start up companies need to be watched, as they remind me of Amway.

No biggee. Let's just forget about it.