Jerry LeRow

What a surprise. Did TEst receive another alliance bank?

Nation Name: Next Washington Nation Link: http://politicsandwar.com/nation/id=98

Well... perfect snack for the GOP/TP.

Progressivism 80 Socialism 37.5 Tenderness 40.625 Your test scores indicate that you are an open-minded progressive; this is the political profile one might associate with a journalist. It appears that you are skeptical towards religion, and have a generally optimistic attitude towards humanity in general. Your attitudes towards economics appear capitalist, and combined with your social attitudes this creates the picture of someone who would generally be described as a liberal. To round out the picture you appear to be, political preference aside, a considerate realistic egalitarian with several strong convictions. This concludes our analysis; we hope you found your results accurate, useful, and interestin

Nigeria

And your daily revenue is...?

Gun murder rates aren't simply derived from guns/1,000 persons or similar rates. Again, look at the process, why do people murder, what's their life before, what are their chances in the future, how will the police deal with them... some countries care about their people, like most european countries, in other countries, like america, people have to be far more self-reliant and the government doesn't meddle much in their life. May be an advantage sometimes, but in this case, fewer observation of people, fewer services to people,..., some people use guns to correct their state of life in which they wouldn't be if they'd be born in another nation. And that's, from what I often read, the National Guard. The problem with this is that the national guard's commander (governor) can be "overstepped" by the president, e.g. in arkansas under Eisenhower, where he withdrew the command of the democratic governor and gave orders to the national guard.

Laws and regulations won't help much imo. The real bad guys will always get their weapons, whether it's the lone criminal who buys a gun on the black market or entire groups / countries who get supplied by guys like the lord of war. What would help imo is pretty simple: Gov buys the guns from the people and destroys them. As a side-effect, the criminals selling guns will have less supply of guns, the prices will increase as the demand will stay the same. Eventually prices (on the black market) will skyrocket and guns will become too expensive for criminals. Some laws that might help: Background checks, store the gun and ammo in different places & locked away, <-- this getting controlled by the police, no public carrying of guns and harsher penalties. What is important is imo to think of the reason why a person gets a gun and eventually harms someone with it is to think of the person's life as a process, not just the actual "omg he's got a gun he's a bad guy"-impression. For some persons that's the last resort, they don't wanna use a gun but have probably a family and no other option to get money. And some people are just sick, but I wouldn't focus too much on them. To the 2nd amendment: It allows private gun ownership, imo to defend private property and defend yourself against threats to your private life. If there are public threats you have the most powerful public army, under the command of the president, and you also have statewide public militias, the national guard, commanded by the governor. Most people imo can't separate private and public.

Salzburg

Well, Senate votes to keep A-10 Warthogs alive (I'd say retire them) and has less money for e.g. JSF F-35. So yes, it's partially getting outdated. Military spending doesn't need to affect world reputation and power imo. China has a far lower military budget, but is making friends not only by selling some weapons (e.g. DF*3 to Saudi Arabia), but also by funding countless projects that enhance the quality of life, e.g. in Africa (a China bank is second-largest funder of such projects after the World Bank). In general, your military will be useless if you make enemies all around the world. I'm from europe, the vast majority of us hates you guys (I still like you, 'cause I don't forget what you've done for us in the last century) due to spying, TTIP/TTIS, NATO-expansion and making Russia aggressive, financial crisis,... What I see now, especially in Germany, is that the leaders now use every incident (-> spying) for their own advantage, they shout it out to their people and the media and even expel CIA officers. Normally, such incidents were clarified in private room far away from the public, but this is obviously a very tempting tool to increase their own popularity at home. The main mistake you americans make is that you, imo, overestimate yourself and underestimate others. You probably never thought breaking your promise to Russia, namely not expanding NATO into the east, would cause such a backlash from Russia and that Russia is so influential. For heaven's sake, yesterday I read in the St. Petersburg Times that Putin keeps the door for negotiations still open, is there any sane Senator who could grab the chance and normalize the relations with Russia again? Russia isn't that bad, compared to India or China, but you're about to lose Russia to China, India and Iran who will be the major powers in Asia. Speaking of Asia; get out of there. Yes, make some friends, but forget regions like Arabia. I mean the Saudis get everything and sell everything, from everywhere to everywhere, they're not loyal to you. Maybe Qatar, it's often seen as the Geneva of the middle east, but forget about the rest. Instead, put some pressure on Ban Ki-Moon to allow a vote over Taiwan and help this small country. Rather than Asia, go to Africa. China has been there for a long time, and you're about to lose it to China. Also the former colonial powers, headed by France, are re-discovering their interest and obligations in this continent (Mali, Lybia,... or Desertec), so not much is left for you. Summing up, it's always easy to gain influence by buying more weapons and having a military empire (which you have atm). I can understand no one in Congress wants USA to lose it's #1 spot, and therefore I understand your FP is mostly realistic. But be friendlier to other nations, help them, and yes, move some billions of the defense budget into foreign aid funds. You'll make far more friends and far more sustainable friendships if you help African countries to build schools, hospitals, infrastructure, energy supply,...., whatever. You also have to realize you did a lot of damage, often covered and unnoticed by the world, to many countries, and you gotta overtake responsibility for that. An isolationist way how it's proclaimed by Rand Paul would be a disaster for America.

I never thought a GPA member could reach a pollution index of 998 Shame on you Don't take pills. Go out catch some air, bets medicine.

The NS didn't use it, they abused it. As emperor666 says, the words have been used for centuries by many large, noble empires. Same with the symbols, but also the companies that helped them (e.g. Hugo Boss - uniforms, Mercedes - cars, Porsche - tanks,...); those things will endure, as long as we don't use them the same way the NS used them it's ok. But yes, there are some idiots in here who think that regime was something funny...

Can someone ban this guy? Nothing funny about one of the most cruel nazi criminals.

Happy Independence Day!

Take a look at the RTS, the russian stock index: http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/RTSI$:IND Minus 11.4% on one day... looks like good ol' western capitalism might be far more destructive than any military.

Putin is in office since 2000... Obama was Senator for 2-3 years before becoming president. Though I don't think Obama would let is escalate, he'd simply draw a line and then get silent. But NATO could intervene... Germany wants to become more active again, they've now got lots of high-tech material, including new Leopards and Eurofighters...

The question is: If the majority of crimea citizens want to be part of Russia and don't like Ukraine, is it an invasion or more a salvation? Yes, no country will dare to fight the russians back from the peninsula, the only one capable of doing so, USA, won't intervene either... I mean Obama's threat was "Stop it or I'll not come to the G8 this summer [where Putin doesn't even want him]". I don't see Russian as a superpower comparable to USA. They have a GDP far smaller than UK, America and the Saudis have more resources then them, the only justification for calling it a superpower is its military. Though I suppose many of the machines are still from sowjet times, especially the tanks. Russia is socially very instable and when it comes to money, referring to their GDP/capita of 14,000$, a poor country. Also Russia has a very large, effective navy, but can't compete with America's navy. In the end, the only true superpower is always the one that rules the seven seas, that's a historical proven fact (UK, Roman Empire, Spain,...) I think the west should wait until the referendum is over, and if the majority of crimeans want to be a part of Russia again (and that's the status quo), the ukraine shouldn't stop them. If the Ukraine would be stupid enough not to let the crimeans decide themselves, Mother Russia will intervene with a fairly just cause. Also I have to agree with Wisdomtree, USA isn't as strong anymore as it was 1, 2 decades ago. The high debt doesn't really matter, what matters is the federal europeanisation, letting unfunded liabilities rise and freedom sink. Texas is really the America in the USA, a roaring economy, far lower unemployment rate, poverty rate than eg California, lots of immigration, freedom (yes, that's debatable), lots of land and, at least in my eyes, sort of a trickle-up-politics.

If you want to boycott it, feel free to do so. My opinion on it: rather childish. Lambda called me e.g. a moron, and although I ignore other people's personal opinion about me (not about my ideas, comments,...) and think she can say whatever she wants, there are those tricky forum rules that you accepted when you registered, which in this case say calling someone a moron is not welcomed. Altogether, this escalated quickly.

This is a debate forum. Your input is welcomed, but expect arguments against it. The problem is that desalination is by far the most expensive method. Not NWO

Last time I checked there is an entire galaxy waiting to be plundered and conquered so long as we have the will and technology to do so (most certainly before 100 years.) Plus have any of these sensationalist predictions of the "Apocalypse is nigh" actually had any merit? Or are just democratic propaganda to slow our march of progress and to crack down on debate of the issue. I welcome her opinion, nevertheless she should follow the forum rules and don't use such language.

Ok for some reason I can't quote !?! I'm refering to Lambdadelta's post #18: there's no conscensus if there are multiple opinions and explanation (as conscensus means one opinion they can all agree on) And behave if you want to discuss with me, otherwise I'll report you. It's funny to argue with you, but we can do that with normal language too. Now I'm referring to Grillick, post #19: I know this site doesn't actually match 100%, it was more an example of unbiased sites, as it contains solid pros & cons and was the best I could find that fast. Now Lambdadelta again, post #23: Believe it or not: we are going to die all. Because a human can't live forever, I assume most of us will die at ~90-100 years ;P And actually there are planet Bs, NASA finds some adequate exoplanets several times , although I have to say they're really far away. So, yes, as long as we can't reach them, there are no planet Bs, right.

Speaking for me, I don't deny that greenhouse gases have external effects, I just don't believe in the scale and size of those effects. And on what rational basis do you say so? Where is your scientific evidence for this belief? Again, the scientific consensus is clear. If you do not have such evidence for your belief, your position is akin to shoving your head in the sand - the very attitude that dooms us to self-destruction. I ignore such obviously totally biased sites like the one you cite so much, you can't even measure my level of ignorance. http://climatechange.procon.org/#arguments --> what about this one? Rational, unbiased, check it out. And I have to say I don't count whenever I read about this topic, but I read about if from different sources, different countries, different types of media... so I can't cite everything I say ;P

It's been done to death in the scientific literature so many times I don't even need to point to specific studies any more. The scientific consensus is in. You can choose to disagree with it, but that makes you wrong. Prove it doesn't exist. Speaking for me, I don't deny that greenhouse gases have external effects, I just don't believe in the scale and size of those effects.

You're a moron and people like you are the reason we're in the !@#$ in the first place and will continue to be so. Just because you don't understand it does not mean it's not real. 1) don't be so agressive 2) well, I think I do understand it... e.g. I wrote a thesis for my a-levels about alternative energies, did lots of research, and dealt with the topic for a long period and if you people are the majority, go ahead, run for office and change the world... Schwarzenegger did a good job on the issue, although I have to agree with his opponents who say he only chose that theme because it's damn popular and easy and far nicer to handle than e.g. economy...

Global warming... I have no problem agreeing that man-made emissions have some external effects, but I have a problem with "scientists" making 100 years + forecasts when they even can't predict tomorrows weather right. The climate is one of the most complex things in this universe, it's almost unpredictable... why do you think the world's strongest computers are all used for climate models? http://americanlivewire.com/2014-01-13-even-scientists-doubting-global-warming-354688/ http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/NOAA_NASA_2013_Global_Temperatures_Joint_Briefing.pdf Those were the best non-german news I could find that fast, look through them. In my eyes, as I said, those emissions have some effect, but surely not that they can change the entire world. The world is far too complex to be that heavily influenced by a few gases. And yes, I'm one of those who wanna buy an SUV although they don't need them [because I'm a rationalist and I know that with the right numbers used for statistics and the right measurements, measurers and circumstances everything can be proven, that's why there are so many persons like you.... but I like you guys too, all such great disicussions would be boring without opponents ]