You have to tear the ballot's eighth spatial axis to find the dark pit of Vote where a million voices from nothing chant Phn'glui mglw'nafh Chthulhu R'lyeh wagn'nagl fhtagn and if you do not turn your body to the shape of a check (which will be easy, because you have no bones here) you will suffer the thousand inhuman agonies of the cravenly Votespawn who inhabit this dark place, wasting their outraged despair at a lack of a public option in healthcare in the form of unspeakable lashes of hatred made flesh upon your meager meat body, for what will feel as though a million years yet condensed into the Patriotic American rhythm of each of your shallow and forever dying ebbing breaths.

or you could vote for the turd sandwich ironically.

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Bleedcomics Staff Writer/Editor, , and Keeper of the Jar Brain of Secret President. RIP Ku Ku Ku \(-^.^-)/ U Wuz A REAL N***A!!!!!!!
"We're quite aware of this. BR is no happy rainbow face man. He is simply our neighborhood best fucking poster." ~ Warbear
Puff Most Epic.

Goddamn hipsters in my politics.

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Escape will make me God.

That is reasonable. But if you have a choice between things staying the same or getting worse, it does make one wonder why take part in any of it at all.

I have heard much of american politics, particularly their party system. You basically have two (and a couple of others), and I believe that's more than enough. The problem with the system present here is that there are too many parties in activity. Too much "People Power" one might say.

The old adage goes "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it". And I fear the worst in the days to come. For the smartest people I know are cowards who would flee than fight.
I have ruminated many a day with the thought of taking the current state of our so-called politics and have it shot into space, perhaps starting over. But with the current state of the economy and foreign debt, that may not be the best outcome.


I doubt children will take anything from it other than a number on a piece of paper. I myself have always been a fan of the socratic approach.


"Tolerable" is a rhema.

Diarrhema.

Heh, a reset? You might be on to something. So, how do we get it?

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One time when I was high, I thought I was in an ambulance dying. Turns out I was just eating sherbert.
-stufflikehearts-

I dunno.. mass homicide, political assassination, revolutionary coups. Anything that might bend the rules of the game.
Or maybe at least some particular event that would shake the foundations of the current defunct system. I'm not really a fan terrorism and neither am I encouraging it, but in our case maybe the best I can hope for is some sort of thingy that most people would have their knickers in a twist.

EDIT: A bit radical and unrealistic, I know. But these are just speculations of mine. Others may have a more definite idea. I'm not really one to talk. Still.. these things wear down one's optimism.

wait for all the old people to die imho.

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Bleedcomics Staff Writer/Editor, , and Keeper of the Jar Brain of Secret President. RIP Ku Ku Ku \(-^.^-)/ U Wuz A REAL N***A!!!!!!!
"We're quite aware of this. BR is no happy rainbow face man. He is simply our neighborhood best fucking poster." ~ Warbear
Puff Most Epic.

bump.

Hi. I'm back. Well, I'm in Malaysia, which is a kind of returning. At least when I load a page, it loads in less than five seconds.

I'm on battery power right now (in my infinite wisdom I left my adapter back at the boat), which I will have to remedy before doing any good research. It won't take me too long to get the adapter itself, but I don't wan't to just fritter away my day, being in a new foreign country after all. I do want to explore.

So please wait a little longer for me, yes? kthxbai

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Wait, why don't we believe in humanity and just ask everyone nicely?

I am laughing rather hard right now behind this screen, but seriously, why can't people ever be counted to make "humanitarian" sound like a good thing to me?

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One time when I was high, I thought I was in an ambulance dying. Turns out I was just eating sherbert.
-stufflikehearts-

because if we ask everyone to give equally then some people might not and i can't stand the idea that someone might not be as good as me so i have to be bad and make sure i take everything i can instead of giving in response to that bad that i think will happen, icha.

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Bleedcomics Staff Writer/Editor, , and Keeper of the Jar Brain of Secret President. RIP Ku Ku Ku \(-^.^-)/ U Wuz A REAL N***A!!!!!!!
"We're quite aware of this. BR is no happy rainbow face man. He is simply our neighborhood best fucking poster." ~ Warbear
Puff Most Epic.

Sure, ONE man.

How about thousands or millions of men? The list of people who George Soros funds directly or even indirectly is staggering. To start, he donates money to something like 500 organizations. He owns the Open Society Institute (which operates in 70 countries around the world); he has donated money to the founding members of the Weather Underground (rage riots, anyone?); to ACORN (a working-class advocacy group cited as having its workers commit voter fraud); to the Tides Foundation (who, as we know, wrote the original, wasteful $700 billion stimulus package bill); he donated $1.8 million dollars to NPR so they could hire more than 100 new journalists (which led in part to Juan Williams being fired, I might add); he funded private and public groups in an attempt to get George Bush out of office in the 2004 election (which, even if you didn't like George Bush, this is still a very questionable act); he's also donated millions upon millions of dollars towards getting FoxNews off the air.

Sidestepping for a second, I know some people don't like FoxNews. You might say, "Well, getting FN off the air is a good thing." But what if he had tried to get another news organization off the air? What if he was targeting an organization that you liked? If George Soros says "this news organization is interfering with my agenda" and writes a HUGE check to get it taken down, would you still have no issue with that? It doesn't even matter if you like or dislike FoxNews. Donating money to stifle free speech is not only underhanded, it's evil. And I don't use the word "evil" a lot.

Now, back to the Soros Fund. How much of his charitable giving do you think is purely humanitarian aid? For example: I am not what I would call independently wealthy, but I donate a couple thousand dollars a year to certain charities. When I decide to donate, I think to myself, "What would be the best organization to invest my money in? How does it directly affect me or my family?" And because my mother has Multiple Sclerosis, I think to myself, "I want an organization dedicated towards research to cure MS." Essentially this is the same way that someone with "gallons" of liquid assets donates their money; they invest in people or organizations that match their interests.

Now, I'm not saying that just because ACORN does disingenuous things that Soros is in favor of those things (although it boggles me as to why he continues donating to them if that's the case). What I am saying is that Soros' influence is tremendous and that to consider him "only one man" is to completely underestimate him. He's more than just a wealthy businessman. He may be the biggest political fat cat of all time.


But why is that good? And if insider trading weren't illegal, then what would stop someone from artificially inflating the price of his own stock to a certain point, selling his own stock, and then let his stock drop back down abruptly, then remove all evidence of fraud? The idea behind insider trading is that you use advance knowledge to gain an advantage over those who don't have that knowledge and then profit off of it while others lose money. So how is that anything less than wrong?

What's not immoral about profiting off the destruction of a country's economy? People lost jobs; food prices skyrocketed; the government was damaged in the amount of 3.3 billion Pounds because of this. George Soros got richer. You don't see any problem with that?

I'm sorry, but I fail to see the correlation between being right and being biased. Could you perhaps give an example?

I was joking here. It was me being obsequious. Or possibly "schizophrenic."

So they're popular? Which means that although the claim is that it's biased, it still gets the top ratings? What am I to infer about the other news stations?

Truly sorry, but I don't think I'll be able to. It was a mid-evening show between (I think) Glenn Beck and Bill O'reilly, though because of the time difference mid-morning here is early-evening there, and I'm not sure what time it was exactly that I saw this. It was a round-table discussion with one host and three or four other people. The host was a blond woman, I remember that much. I just remember the host telling a Conservative to let the Liberal get his whole point out or something along those lines.

I kinda explained it above. Wouldn't you say it takes a cold heart to profit off the misery of thousands of people? He did the same thing in Thailand, and they consider him an Economic War Criminal.



That's all for now; I want to take a walk around Malaysia. If I'm lucky I'll have some good pictures for my Facebook later.

=RD out=

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Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag.

Don't care enough to read about that. George Soros will probably die next year either way.

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Escape will make me God.

lol. i am on the edge of my seat waiting for Valhallen's reply.

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Bleedcomics Staff Writer/Editor, , and Keeper of the Jar Brain of Secret President. RIP Ku Ku Ku \(-^.^-)/ U Wuz A REAL N***A!!!!!!!
"We're quite aware of this. BR is no happy rainbow face man. He is simply our neighborhood best fucking poster." ~ Warbear
Puff Most Epic.

Now we're getting somewhere. So, why must any intelligent person assume that people are bastard coated with bastard filling?

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One time when I was high, I thought I was in an ambulance dying. Turns out I was just eating sherbert.
-stufflikehearts-

I dunno, I feel like we've been giving him an ego boost.

who valhallen? he deserves it <^> O_O <^> he drinks 100% pure science with his toast for breakfast

icha: because this one time some person proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that i should never trust them and i should never trust anyone else because if you trust you will suffer!!!!!

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Bleedcomics Staff Writer/Editor, , and Keeper of the Jar Brain of Secret President. RIP Ku Ku Ku \(-^.^-)/ U Wuz A REAL N***A!!!!!!!
"We're quite aware of this. BR is no happy rainbow face man. He is simply our neighborhood best fucking poster." ~ Warbear
Puff Most Epic.

BR has trust issues obviously.

Human nature, however, is the driving force for capitalism, and is exactly why communism will always fail. It requires too much selflessness. No natural species could use that and not be tempted to power grab like any historical communism.

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Escape will make me God.

Alright, if you said it was common sense or something I'd ask if it was because people were actually bastards or you only think it is (can be one and the same or seperate). Then if it were not the case, I was gonna ask what makes it seem as such, but since this is the other case, well...idk.

Anyway, capitalism isn't flawless either, because it relies on the general public being intelligent (vigilant consumers and whatnot that know when they're getting screwed over)

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One time when I was high, I thought I was in an ambulance dying. Turns out I was just eating sherbert.
-stufflikehearts-

No it doesn't.

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Escape will make me God.

Topic 13: George Soros: Spooky rich dude or evil conspiratorial rich dude? 1/30-2/6

Tally ho!

For the following, consider that in 2010, the world GDP was ~$62 trillion, and the US GDP was ~$14.5 trillion.

Compare this to the organizations actually controlled by Rupert Murdoch, worth ~$56 billion. Billionaires tend to have their fingers in a lot of pies. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are (or are not) using them to advance particular political agendas.

And spends about half a billion dollars per year, on many things besides political advocacy. What does it do advance Soros's supposed agenda?

And how did Soros personally contribute to that? Make the connection. Who did Soros give money to, who was responsible for the Days of Rage, and what influence did Soros have?

Note that that was voter REGISTRATION fraud, not actual VOTING fraud. The idea is that some people who were supposed go around trying to get people to register submitted fake registrations to get money from their employer, ACORN, without actually registering people. How does this implicate the management of ACORN in political shenanigans, let alone Soros?

How do we know that, and what influence did Soros have in that or other Tides Foundation activities?

How is that supposed to support you point, and how is Soros supposed to have contributed to Williams being fired?

Questionable how? It's not like millions of other people didn't also want Bush out of office and funded groups to that end. This indicates that Soros wants to take part in the political system, not overthrow it.

Citation? I see that Soros gave a single million to Media Matters, but that's rather different from what you're accusing.

And regarding the sidestep, what do you think of this? FOX doesn't seem to like NPR very much (perhaps it interferes with its agenda?), and used its media presence to advocate for the removal of funding for NPR. If you think that donating money to Media Matters is an evil stifling of free speech, what do you think about Fox News using its "news" broadcasts to advocate for the removal of funding for NPR?

Looks like 9 posts in the last month and a half, of which 5 were claims that others called something evil. I'll grant that you don't often call non-fictional things evil yourself.

You might not be saying it, but you're implying it. So why not say it if that's what you mean?

You've just been saying that Soros influences various organizations to do things. If Soros is responsible, he's doing it as "only one man" and if the other organizations are doing what they do on their own, you shouldn't be giving credit to Soros for what they do. So, which is it? You seem to want it both ways by being vague about Soros's relationships with various organizations and their activities. That's a false dichotomy, but can your argument resolve it?

Do you want me to critique that, or do you want to make points yourself?

I didn't say it was good. You had given Martha Stewart as an example of someone you could vilify because you "know them to be sinister or whatever." And it's supposedly devious. Anyway, as the link I gave said, there are certain advantages to insider trading, in that it can bring inside knowledge to the market sooner than otherwise, and anti-insider trading laws prevent consenting people from trading something that the seller legally owns. The problems come from the systemic incentives that arise for subverting efficient market operation, like what you said. However, Martha Stewart didn't do something like that. Rather, she sold her stock in a pharmaceutical company whose new drug had been rejected, before that announcement was made public. Like I said, eminently rational and obvious if not for the regulations preventing it. Hence not sinister, devious, or in the same league as murder or conspiracy to overthrow a government.

Rather, that's the idea behind stock trading in general. You realize that real traders do not have perfect information and infinitely powerful number crunchers, right?

The UK is the 6th largest national economy at ~$2.3 trillion; it was hardly destroyed. As I explained earlier, the Pound fell because of the economic situation - Soros just profited off of it. It's kind of like a guy who cashes his child's college fund and throws the money in the street. It's not good for the guy or his kid, but you might as well pick it up before it blows away. Are you suggesting that the UK wouldn't have had economic troubles if Soros hadn't taken advantage of bad policy? And no, I don't have a particular problem with that. Free market and such. Is your remaining criticism of Soros here that he was cold hearted?

I'd like to hear your explanation for why you think that that's justified. You might find this interesting. I agree with Soros's statement there that "the responsibility doesn't belong to speculators but to the authorities. The authorities should decide how markets should function."

Sure. A stopped clock is right twice a day, as the saying goes. The clock is biased, as it always displays a particular time regardless of what time it actually is. However, while that does make it an unreliable source of information about the time, it doesn't prevent it from occasionally being right.

In the context of media, suppose that Media Organization X wants to advocate Political Position Y. Organization X could do that with bias of omission, where they don't report on negative aspects of Position Y and don't report on positive aspects of alternatives, never actually lying about particular details, but still presenting a warped view of reality to their consumers. Position Y may indeed have the positive attributes as reported, so Organization X is right about that, but the bias remains.

Stronger than that is a bias of commission, where Organization X makes false or unjustified statements that favor Position Y and disfavor alternatives. This is more blatant and easier to identify as bias than omission because fact checking shows what's wrong with it.

When Beck says that Soros talked about a "New World Order" and an "orderly decline of the Dollar" he is displaying a bias of omission, as while Soros has talked about those things, the context and Soros's actual meaning is omitted. Beck then displays bias of commission when he says that Soros's aforementioned statements mean that Soros wants to overthrow the United States etc., because the omitted context shows that that's clearly not what Soros was talking about. Beck's claim that stem cell research is eugenics (which you defended in the other thread, which petered out) also displays bias of commission.

I would expect you to infer that they are less popular. My point here was that Beck, Hannity, and O'Reilly, the ones most known for vilifying people they disagree with, are also the most popular. I was implying that, if you're going to make a point about what you see going on, you should check that it is representative of the whole.

Let's grant that. What that means is that at least sometimes, an effort is made to be fair and balanced. It does not mean that there is not significant bias. Now, why was the Conservative permitted to talk over the Liberal, and did the Liberal eventually get his whole point out?

So, to check on where we are, what do you think Soros is up to, given the discussion so far?



People often act in self interest, so the idea is to establish a system in which self interest overlaps with group interest, so that trusting strangers to act out of kindness is not generally needed.

Fox News... biased? Oh my, when did that happen...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqcyz3UDvGw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGqPxn7njqM

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This post is intended for information only. Please do not reply to this message as responses cannot be read or acknowledged due to the stupidity of the user.

Fits the last title better.

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neo D: i don't like fox news but that is a pretty poopy attack poster.

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Bleedcomics Staff Writer/Editor, , and Keeper of the Jar Brain of Secret President. RIP Ku Ku Ku \(-^.^-)/ U Wuz A REAL N***A!!!!!!!
"We're quite aware of this. BR is no happy rainbow face man. He is simply our neighborhood best fucking poster." ~ Warbear
Puff Most Epic.

Eh, I thought is was funny.

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