[General Battuta]

Seriously.

[Nuclear1]

Yeah, the neocons destroyed the GOP.  It used to be a party of conservatism up through the 60s and 70s but given what Reagan did to bring the fundies into the fold and what Bush did to evoke the Reagan era and turn the party into a gathering of warmongering fascist hypocrites will do lasting damage to the party for a while.  And with it's current leadership (or lack thereof) combined with a strong indication of Palin '12 may very well destroy it.

[Thaeris]

...Palin...

<Thaeris shudders in distaste>

[Locutus of Borg]

She would never become president. If she was even running, I'm sure somebody would find a way to stop her from leading this country into "LET'S NUKE ALL THE COUNTRIES I CAN SEE FORM MY HOUSE!!!"

[Thaeris]

I'm sure she's... a good person... but she strikes me as ragingly stupid.

Most candidates I've observed over the past few years have been, in retrospect, jokes in more ways than one. Sure, that's a human flaw which affects all, but I've seen no person that seems to be truly competant running for office in spite of that fact. That of course is the nature of the two party system... 

[Locutus of Borg]

Whig 2012?

[redsniper]

We should resurrect George Washington.

[Sarafan]

This is one of the reasons why the world doesnt like you americans, here we are in a thread which the subject is where the biggest sports events of the entire world is going to take place and the only thing you all do is go yammering about yourselves.

Ok, I'm joking.

Seriously now, its great that the Olympics is coming here but as a citizen of Brazil you can all mark my words when I tell you that the effort that will have to be done to make Rio de Janeiro a proper place for the Olympics will be a herculean task, a HERCULEAN task. Why? Because the city is a polluted piece of s***,  its falling apart in terms of infrastructure, transport and ABOVE ALL in terms of security because more people die in Rio than in Iraq daily and it'll take more than 7 years to fix most of these.

[Liberator]

Tell it to China, Bejing was at least as filthy as Rio and they seemed to get it cleared up.  At least at the places we saw in the video feeds.  Course they have that communist bootheel they probably used to get things done.

[General Battuta]

Beijing's crime rate is nothing like Rio's, unfortunately.

[Kosh]

One of the things that really strikes me about this in particular and the Obstructionist Party in general is that we, the country, can't afford for Obama to fail. It's not an acceptable option for him to spend four years or eight years being a dud, it'll wreck everything.

Absolutly. Too much has gone wrong in the last 8 years, and we most definately can't have 4 or 8 more years of failure.

The problem is, the fringe elements are setting the policy. They're leading the party. They are the party now. You can't be both reasonable and Republican anymore, something I saw coming when Bush got reelected. That's not how the Republican party works anymore.

To be honest the seeds were sown all the way back in the Clinton era, and had been taking root through the Bush administration.

And with it's current leadership (or lack thereof) combined with a strong indication of Palin '12 may very well destroy it.

No matter how things go with Obama, if she or anyone else like her gets the reins it REALLY will be the end of everything.

Tell it to China, Bejing was at least as filthy as Rio and they seemed to get it cleared up.  At least at the places we saw in the video feeds.  Course they have that communist bootheel they probably used to get things done.

Beijing also didn't have sprawling slums, or gangs armed with machine guns & rocket launchers. I remember a few years ago there was a discussion here about a news story where the Brazillian army went into the slums (or maybe it was the slums of Sao Paulo, I forget). Beijing cleared up the air by stopping all construction, banning half the cars on the motorways (even numbered plates on one day, odd numbered on the other), and also encouraging the more polluting industries to get out of the city. Can't any city do this?

its falling apart in terms of infrastructure, transport

If that's the case then I'm not so sure Rio can have its infrastructure good enough in time. It took nearly 30 years of development and investment to get Beijing where it is today, although there was a lot more work that needed to be done.