Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Nuclear1 on January 27, 2009, 09:28:05 pm
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/26/AR2009012602035.html?hpid=topnews
Well that's different.
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YES.
The man at least understands how to end terrorism - stamp out the causes.
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It's cause he's a secret Muslim and wants America to DIEE
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I'm just glad we finally have a politician who's finally willing to reach out to the Arab world, not bash it. We've spent the last five years neglecting, even frustrating and alienating potential allies in the Arabs. It'll take some time to repair, but this is an excellent first step.
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I hope we can get Israel to STFU.
I'm personally sick of their whinging.
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The thing is, the grudge is both sides baby now, they nurture it and hold it close to their breast and will be terribly reticent to let it go. It went beyond common sense a long time ago, and many people on both sides hold it because they don't know how not to.
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Racism is as old as us.
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I'm just glad we finally have a politician who's finally willing to reach out to the Arab world, not bash it. We've spent the last five years neglecting, even frustrating and alienating potential allies in the Arabs. It'll take some time to repair, but this is an excellent first step.
To be fair the arab world does deserve quite a lot of bashing, since Saudi Arabia in particular has spent enormous amounts of time and petro dollars spreading radical islam around the world.
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To be fair the arab world does deserve quite a lot of bashing, since Saudi Arabia in particular has spent enormous amounts of time and petro dollars spreading radical islam around the world.
To be fair the western world does deserve quite a lot of bashing, since America in particular has spent enormous amounts of time and petro dollars spreading radical Christianity around the world.
What's that saying about people in glass houses? :D
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To be fair the western world does deserve quite a lot of bashing, since America in particular has spent enormous amounts of time and petro dollars spreading radical Christianity around the world.
Yes, and so it should be bashed for those things, especially the US.
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To be fair the arab world does deserve quite a lot of bashing, since Saudi Arabia in particular has spent enormous amounts of time and petro dollars spreading radical islam around the world.
To be fair the western world does deserve quite a lot of bashing, since America in particular has spent enormous amounts of time and petro dollars spreading radical Christianity around the world.
What's that saying about people in glass houses? :D
iran-contra IRA falangists bluargh
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7855444.stm
And Ahmadinejad pushes his luck as usual. It seems that to him, words will speak louder than actions, rather than letting the US prove it is trying to change, he wants it to publicly humiliate itself.
I wonder when his apology is going to come?
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To be fair the western world does deserve quite a lot of bashing, since America in particular has spent enormous amounts of time and petro dollars spreading radical Christianity around the world.
Yes, and so it should be bashed for those things, especially the US.
How about instead of bashing which gets nothing but bruises for both sides, we try doing what Obama is doing and talking it out?
As president of the USA Obama can't be going about bashing the Muslim world for what they did wrong with out first putting his own house in order.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7855444.stm
And Ahmadinejad pushes his luck as usual. It seems that to him, words will speak louder than actions, rather than letting the US prove it is trying to change, he wants it to publicly humiliate itself.
I wonder when his apology is going to come?
Ahmadinejad is a troll
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Some of it is probably political survival instinct. If Obama does a successful job at reaching out to the Muslim community and patching up the States' image a few of those leaders will find themselves without a crutch to stand on.
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Some of it is probably political survival instinct. If Obama does a successful job at reaching out to the Muslim community and patching up the States' image a few of those leaders will find themselves without a crutch to stand on.
Turkey? Egypt? Indonesia? Morocco? Bangladesh? Algeria? Tunisia? Kuwait? Jordan? UAE? West Africa? Brunei?
what muslim community are we talking about exactly
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Moral-wise I feel the western world lacks a lot as well, both in marriage and respect for a husband and when it comes to how open it is about sexual things and going around doing it with people they don't even love more so here like it is a selfish game, it seems. Why would I want to fight for a country like that?
In other words women should just be submissive and obedient to husbands.
Yes, I'm more of a person who likes the oriental ways more. I do my research and read about health and much more and love to learn like them too. A healthier, cleaner, and more friendly and a safer culture than US (where I live but I'm not patriotic for maybe at least 10 reasons). They say visiting Tokyo and Hanoi is much safer than visiting Washington DC and New York since the culture in the orient is friendlier.
Vietnam and many other parts of Asia are even more dirty than the US. While Japan and South Korea are clean, even they were not always like that, they did not become this way until they were fully developed.
Korea and Japan are both pretty much trapped in the 50's in terms of social development, economic policies, and even way of thinking. Their total inability to change is hurting them dearly, and until change to meet the times they will continue to suffer. That is the legacy of oriental cultures, and actually there's only one that is actually changing and that is China, but even so it has a long way to go.
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Marriage, Schmarriage.
I've loved the same woman for close to a decade now, don't need a piece of paper to tell me how I feel, and neither does any kind of God, and if I did have a piece of paper and a 'blessing' from some guy that I paid a fortune to for it, it wouldn't change the future one whit.
As for sexual freedom, once again, people are who they are, stop them from that and you stop them from being people, and turn them into extensions of the bureaucracy, love is a very pretty word, but it's still a word, actions define who we are, and if two people are happy having sex for fun, then good luck to them, I couldn't do it, I'm not the right kind of person, but my highly complex and involved solution is not to do it. If other people choose to do it, it is their choice, not mine.
The West is a world of choice, I choose not to fight, but I do that because I don't want to end up face down in blood and **** and dead bodies, not because I think people are having too much fun.
This whole 'respect for Husband' thing isn't about being with someone, it's about owning them, and so help me, if that came about, then I'd have something to go out and fight for.
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Thank you. I wholeheartedly agree.
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Change is good as long as you don't lose morals and traditions.
We didn't lose anything, we simply evolved.
But I also feel the man shouldn't do that either. But it seems that in western culture, the women are the ones controlling men (like many of the men do to women in these other countries but reversed)
In many cases in China, and especially in Hong Kong and Shanghai, the women really do rule the roost. They can give even the most feminist of western women a run for their money.
and not using the man
A common problem with western men is quite often after the girl gets her green card she will divorce him and run away to that country. Potential green cards are not the only reason many asian girls prefer western men, another factor is social status (which would in effect be using them), and another is to escape cultural oppression.
When I said about the orient being cleaner, I mean part of their culture is often times taking 2 or 3 showers a day and keeping the house clean, but here it isn't so clean when it comes to that (like the cowboy lifestyle for example isn't clean and many still act like that here at least and litter a lot and can't even put effort into walking to the trash can).
I once know a kid from a kind of poor family who would only bathe once a month because his parents (uneducated "city farmers", basically they live in the city but act like farmers) wanted to save money on water.
it isn't as submissive as it used to be and many women (the traditional ones who follow the traditions, especially the older generation) treat the husband better in oriental countries because they want to, not because they have to.
They do it because they were conditioned from birth to be submissive to their husbands. They do it because they know nothing else. Their culture is amazingly sexist, so it's not surprising that on the UN gender equality survey both korea and japan are towards the bottom.
The expectation is something like this: Woman graduates school, woman gets a job. Woman finds man and marries him, immediately quitting her job to stay at home. Man works obscene hours and seldom sees his own wife except when he goes home to sleep. Woman stays at home to look after kid, never going to work again. Man can do anything he wants to her, and often will cheat on her. Woman leads a long lonely life, existing only to serve her children and husband. Even today that is the typical situation even today, so it is no surprise that many girls simply avoid marriage altogether (or marry a foreigner), resulting a total birthrate crash. Compare this with nordic countries where the men are expected to help take care of the children, the birthrates there are sustainable. Their backwards culture and their unwillingness to change are literally killing them.
I have known and talked to many people from that area of the world helping them in English
I actually live in that part of the world.
Also, Japan is quite well off.
It is rich, for now. But their economy is quite rotten, resulting in the "lost decade" and general sluggishness. An old, but informative article about it (http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/nikkei.html), Another one analyzing the affects of bad management and "zombie firms" (http://ideas.repec.org/p/hst/hstdps/d05-95.html), and there are many others out there. It probably won't lose it's wealth, but it certainly isn't getting any richer. Combine that with enormous debt loads, both public and private, that make the current american fiscal irresponsibility look good.
None of the above things bode well for the future of Japan.
Their technology exceeds us in many ways and they are well educated and enjoy studying a lot. Most of the video games you buy come from there and they normally have electronics that the rest of the world never get their hands on until 2 years later. I also watched the travel channel about them having toys that have tech at least 2 years ahead of everyone else
It is true they are technologically advanced, I will give them credit for that, but how much longer can they maintain their lead? China is closing fast in this regard, and while it will take a couple more decades, sooner or later they will be equal.
sometimes they overwork to the brink of going crazy.
A relative of one of my friends works in Japan, typically they work long hours but get surprisingly little done. Why the long hours? Overtime pay of course. Plus it is expected that they workers go home after the manager (who actually does need to work long hours) goes home, resulting in long work days. It often does not matter how good their performance actually is, since in tough times the companies' layoff scheme is based on seniority, not performance. Results? Typically major inefficiencies.
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Change is good as long as you don't lose morals and traditions.
Except that some of them really do need to be lost.
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Change is good as long as you don't lose morals and traditions.
Except that some of them really do need to be lost.
Exactly. Traditional asian culture is dying, and nations that hold onto it, like japan and korea, have a bleak future.
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...not to mention the old people and at least 60% of all Singaporeans who like to speak in every other language and dialect except English.
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I've loved the same woman for close to a decade now, don't need a piece of paper to tell me how I feel, and neither does any kind of God, and if I did have a piece of paper and a 'blessing' from some guy that I paid a fortune to for it, it wouldn't change the future one whit.
It's not about the wedding or the piece of paper. It's about the legal benefits and rights that come with signing the contract.
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Which just sounds like a bad reason to marry and not what marriage should be about. It should be out of love only (both in love with each other) and not for a selfish hidden agenda. That is also another superficial thing that makes me angry and doesn't sound like love at all. It is quite low.
So it sounds like you'd agree that we should abolish marriage as a legal institution, right? I mean, why should some people get legal benefits because of an old law, whereas other people who are just as much in love don't get anything?
Nobody should get any benefits at all, like you said.
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I've loved the same woman for close to a decade now, don't need a piece of paper to tell me how I feel, and neither does any kind of God, and if I did have a piece of paper and a 'blessing' from some guy that I paid a fortune to for it, it wouldn't change the future one whit.
It's not about the wedding or the piece of paper. It's about the legal benefits and rights that come with signing the contract.
Which is a large degree of what is wrong with it in my opinion, once upon a time people got married because they wanted to be married, nowadays, it's a financial concern, and that, in and of itself is merely a way to force people to conform, simple bribery.
Say the couple were married by a non-Christian denomination, or are part of a religion that doesn't have any kind of marriage ceremony? Do those benefits still apply (I'm asking in seriousness here, since I don't know the US laws regarding it), because if not, it's just yet another way of forcing a religion down someone's throat.
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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
The US government can’t grant or deny any special benefits to someone based on his or her religious observances. Secular marriages are reasonably common - it’s only if you’re gay that you’ll have trouble. (This of last point, of course, represents a somewhat troubling intrusion of religious arguments into public policy. But that’s another argument.)
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Not being rich can minimize the chances of someone marrying you for financial reasons or using you for money and therefore it is more likely to be out of love. I wouldn't want to be rich or famous for about 6 reasons. Middle class will do perfectly.
But just being married provides financial incentives in the way of tax breaks, which advantages heterosexuals over homosexuals.
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Childless couples receive the same tax breaks, do they not?
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Childless couples receive the same tax breaks, do they not?
And unmarried people have kids too, right? Why don't they get the same kind of tax breaks? (There is a child tax credit, but it's not as big if you're a single parent.)
What about gay couples who've adopted kids? Why don't they get tax breaks for being married?
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Ahmadinejad is a troll
I actually like the guy. He has balls and let's no one dictate the politics of his country. You got to respect that.
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Ahmadinejad is a troll
I actually like the guy. He has balls and let's no one dictate the politics of his country. You got to respect that.
He's in kinda weird position: he can dictate policies... except when he can't (Supreme Council is very powerful). And then there's the parliament as well. I don't actually think he's a bad president, but his rhetorics are a bit... well, insane at time. I mean, the guy has been in odds with every single regional and global power, as well as with the parliament and the Council and Supreme Leader. Still he stays, so he must be doing at least something right. The politics of Iran are a complete mess.
But wild religious rhetorics that manage to wake up criticism in Iran itself? The notorious "wipe Israel off the map" -mistranslation junglebungle? Demands for apology? I don't know what the guy is trying to achieve, but at least it gets a response. He's a troll, but a troll ain't necessary wrong about things. Just a tad too provocative to always get what he wants.