Politics

I'm not sure this is the best way to handle foreign policy.

I thought there should probably be a thread about this. From what I understand, 15 British naval personnel were taken prisoner in the Persian Gulf by Iran. The British claim it was in Iraqi waters, the Iranians claim it was in their waters. They're still being held, although the Iranians say they're going to release the one female sailor. I don't understand why this isn't a bigger story. It could be taken as an act of war, couldn't it? Is that what Iran wants? Luckily the Brits seem to understand how delicate the situation is, and are being firm but not evertly threatening. And it is a delicate situation. Iran can't be allowed to get away with abducting people, a…

Does anyone have any thoughts about this anouncement? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6558569.stm

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,267340,00.html Just thought this story was funny. When people overreact to this extent, it reminds me I live in America. Can you imagine how free you aren't when running for office? The land of the free, unless you're in politics, then anything you even joke about - every minute of everyday - can and will be distorted and exaggerated about you out of the original context and into some new context. I don't think I could handle the lack of candid speech - free speech - involved with becoming a politician. Well, and then I hate most politicians, so there's that too...

Should all drugs be Illegal, if not which drugs should be legal or illegal. Please explain why you think this way also. Feel free to express your position in ways I may have not covered with the question, such as you may support drugs being legal for people with medical conditions, etc...

And the only country in the world capable of doing something is US (sorry to place the burden on your shoulders once again) 70,000 have died in refugee camps http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041015/ap_on_re_af/un_darfur_2 The thing is, if Bush, Blair made a case for war on basis of Human rights violations, it would have been more legitimate than one based on sketchy, outdated intelligence exptrapolated and wildly spun. What I would Like the US to to is to present of UN resolution for a case on liberating SUDAN, on the basis of the atrocious situation right now. I think i speak for all of us here , that this move would be very welcome. and mos…

Is it me or have there been a lot of 5-4 rulings lately? http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/04/18/scotus.abortion/index.html While past Presidents have been almost criminalized for opposing this ban (e.g. Clinton) such rebuke overlooks what was lacking in the proposed legislation all along: medical exemptions. This law essentially condems any woman who would die while giving birth to a death sentence. Never mind if the baby will die as well or be born without a brain (neural tube defects can go undiscovered until the third trimester), you can't get a partial birth abortion even you will die otherwise. Oh, and Roberts made his views on abortion pretty clear with …

If you were reading closely between the lines this week then you may have noticed a very subtle but powerful shiv slipping between the ideological ribs of the Democratic party. In the wake of the Don Imus scandal, the media absolutely CEMENTED itself to the slam-fest against hip-hop music this week, with virtually no effort made to give the other side its say. Free speech advocates were as rare as unarmed bodyguards at a hip hop awards show. One of the most interesting things about it was just the sheer number of ostensibly liberal/left/free-speech organizations that immediately launched full salvos against rap. Even the National Organization of Women, which norm…

I realize it's kind of a rule of thumb that any attempt to associate political positions with personality types will almost certainly devolve into a stupid flame war. However, it's still quite tempting, given the high correlations of agreement in seemingly unrelated issues, making terms like "liberal" and "conservative" very nearly meaningful in describing the general outlooks of a great many people. Usually such terms are overused and oversimplified, but there still seems to be some truth behind them. That said, I promise I do NOT have any kind of agenda here. This is something which occured to me just now, and is still quite poorly formed in my mind. The idea here i…

In light of the wholesale attack on the gang culture hip hop music industry... Ok, so I can't help but to remember when my mom and dad shook their heads at my music - heavy metal. Lyrically speaking about death, politics, manipulation, drugs, sex and etc. And we did do drugs and sex and carried a fatalistic attitude about everything. But, without heavy metal, I still would have done the same things - music was a compliment to my attitude, it didn't shape it. And, arguably, I needed an outlet to my frustrations being a teenager and all ( Hey, it's tough when you know everything but grown-ups won't listen to you...) My position has always been that music do…

ok, i was going to winge about how little content the latest labour BBC party political broadcast has, and go off on a sarcastic tangent about democracy ideally having more (or indeed any) emphasis on what the party's actually going to be doing with the local constituencys, and why we should actually vote for labour, and less focus on what was basically an advert. I mean, "irrelevent bollox BUY COKE" might be ok for products, but i'd preffer to not have my current govournment reduced to "irrelevent bollox VOTE LABOUR". there was absolutely not ONE single mention of any policies, and instead just a highly artificial bandying-about of the labour product name to raise ma…

I just thought it would be amusing to see if I could catch anyone in a rather obvious hypocrisy, given our current discussion about whether drug use should be legalized.

Two days ago, I heard on the news that there is to be a new role for some of the many cctv cameras we have in England. Apparently if someone is seen dropping litter for example the camera will tell them not to do this. Does anyone have any views on this?

As scientists we are still trying to figure out the best way how to make Mars hospitable. Eventually we'll come up with a feasible idea, Mars will turn green and scientists will be happy (overly generalized , but then what? Who would own the territory and how would we split it? Would we share it in the first place? How does one buy land on Mars and from who? If someone wants a piece of land that is unoccupied can one just have it? What if we start a war on Mars and the strongest nation gets to own the planet? Those are just some of the things bothering me and I'd like to hear what you think, or shoot me a link if it's been discussed before.

I'd like to discuss camp Guantanamo with you folks, especially with the Americans among you. First I'd like to ask you: Are you being informed about the camp by the news or by way of other information channels? What kind of information are you receiving that way? Airmid.

And what to we have to show for it? An increase in stop-and-search and armed officers on the beat. Not that I have any magical solutions up my sleeves but I am very cynical that gun culture can be seriously tackled by introducing policemen with guns. As much of a cliché as it is, root causes need to be dealt with. I think that the media as a whole bears responsibility for growing gun culture, it's not just grime music but also news reports that trivialise deaths caused by warfare and childrens TV that simply wont approach the issue seriously (AFAIK Blue Peter has not yet acknowledged the existence of firearms in London, I might be wrong). What do you guys thin…

Ok, how much did this hurt

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/local/bal-te.bz.savings02feb02,0,7479458.story?coll=sfla-business-headlines To summarize, the US Department of Commerce released a report the other day that showed that Americans now have a negative 1% savings rate! Interestingly, as this article explains, economists are actually split over the bottom line impact of this. The general consensus seems to be that it's bad, but how bad it is is up for debate. One of the interesting things they mention is that the poor aren't the only ones doing badly when it comes to putting money aside. Apparently wealthy people are also saving poorly. Of course if you have a lot of money…

Normally I'm consevative ,but in this case one is to many I think its time to ..count our losses and get out of Iraq Ithink it was stupid to go in inthe first place if you don't have a plan to get out. sure don't see any of these congressmans and Senaters families volunteering to go and get shoot at or carbombed. How many is to many:

Interesting blog post by George Musser at Scientific American: "Please stop talking about the global warming consensus" In a nutshell, he suggests that talking about a consensus makes sense from a scientific perspective, but may be rubbing laypeople the wrong way. Given the current political climate of the country, as well as the deep-seatedness of christian conservatism, I think perhaps he has a point. We should always do our best to educate positively rather than negatively, and encourage people towards the truth.

I finally figured out, at least partly, why I get so frustrated and confused with the left concerning terrorism. The POV's taken by republicans and the administration, the Iraq war, prisoners of war, racial profiling, wire tapping - all are met with fierce opposition. But, it's not the opposition that bothers me. It's this shrugged shoulders approach to terrorism that bothers me about them. It seems obvious to me that if republicans and the administration weren't going after terrorism, that no one would. As if, declaring war on our country almost 30 years ago and following through with various bombings over the years just isn't really an issue to the left. …

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3227.html Hmm, seems awfully similar to 18 minutes of erased tape... Tony Snow was confronted on the matter today

(Note to non-US people: this thread refers to the US housing market) As a followup to this thread... So, I'm examining the present situation the US housing market is in, and I can't help but feel a tinge of the Savings and Loan Scandal which occurred under Reagan. In that case deregulation of the banking industry gave savings and loan companies many of the same powers as banks. This lead to the subsequent bankruptcy of over 500 savings and loans. The same thing is happening now thanks to deregulation of mortgage brokers. It's largely owed to the combination of mortgage brokers offering subprime loans, people willing to accept them, and the cluster**** which…

That's the Iraq withdrawl date set by the US Senate in a recently passed bill: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2044498,00.html The bill passed by a narrow 50-48 margin. It's pretty clear Bush will veto. After all, he doesn't want Congress to have any input, err, to "micromanage" the war

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&q=secret+self-help&btnG=Search Come on. Tell me again how it just makes SO much sense for scientists to be liberals. Do it. This nonsense -- all about how you can cure your own cancer and lose weight just by THINKING it -- was apparently featured on Oprah TWICE over the last week. Yeah. Liberals would NEVER do anything like Jesus Camp! Riiiiiiiiiiiight.