WatchNearly one in seven people believe that the world will come to an end in their lifetime and one in 10 think the Mayan Calendar signifies that it could happen sometime this year, a new poll found.
IPSOS Global Public Affairs conducted the poll on behalf of Reuters and surveyed 16,262 adults in 21 countries.
Across those countries, the United States and Turkey rank the highest, with 22% believing the world will come to an end.
France was the most optimistic country surveyed, with only 6% of people saying they believed the world will end.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/10-world-ending-2012-poll-article-1.1071291
I guess France has the fewest idiots.
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rootvg says
I grew up in the South thank you very much age 3-41, in rural North Georgia "Deliverance Country" all the way to Georgia Tech. What I've seen play out is a RIGHTWARD shift driven by AM radio & Fox News brainwashing. And it hasn't seemed to matter the educational level very much at least in my very large extended family. You may say "well that's your opinion & anecdotes", but YOU are the one apparently trying to speak for the Southern Experience here and I reject your attempt to claim that role.
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rootvg says
Total bullshit unless you're going to assert that every first world nation is dominated by mindfucked liberals. What you consider liberal socialism is the standard everywhere except in the USA.
In case you hadn't noticed, the United States of America is the most fucked up first world nation on earth BY FAR and this fact can be objectively proven. We are the laughing stock of the entire world and have been since a bunch of retarded Republicans decided to try to impeach the president for getting a blowjob.
- Horrible wealth disparity
- A per capita prison population so large it makes Cuba and China look like bastions of freedom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
- Between double and ten times the health care costs of any other country.
- Huge homeless populations complete with shanty towns.
- A violent crime rate that exceeds every other first world nation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
- One of the highest HIV rates in the first world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_HIV/AIDS_adult_prevalence_rate
- Low life expectancy, about equal to Cuba
- Easily the most dysfunctional government in the first world incapable of even passing a budget or confirming cabinet positions.
- We are the ONLY country where a large number of citizens deny evolution as a fact of biology. American evangelicals are seen as superstitious ignorant morons by nearly everyone outside our border.
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Well woah hold on just one damn minute here. Just because a large percentage of the population has a degree in Liberal arts, and has a doctor degree in Lesbian Siberian Circus Clowns, doesn't make them "Smarter".
When the zombie apocalypse comes, those two toothed Mississippi catfish noodlers are be at a premium.
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CaptainShuddup says
Right.......so your position is that areas with large numbers of advanced technical degrees which require outstanding achievement and high intelligence are overwhelmingly conservative? Silicon Valley for example?
Funny how the real world is exactly the opposite of what you think it is. (again)
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22% of Americans are morons. Here's further proof:
Bush's Final Approval Rating: 22 Percent
"President Bush will leave office as one of the most unpopular departing presidents in history, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll showing Mr. Bush's final approval rating at 22 percent."
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500160_162-4728399.html
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iwog says
I don't know any engineers crying to be taxed more.
I think it breaks down like this, the Liberal endocrine has co opted anyone with a brain into the collective "Liberal"(We're smart They're dumb) camp. Of course even the Independents, let alone the republicans, aren't going to step up and set the record straight. Doing so in this political environment, can get you fired, Just posting a anti Liberal rant on your private Facebook account is grounds for dismissal.
Aye Comrade Iwog?
All I can do is remain relevant than you assholes, I'll speak my mind, but companies find it hard to replace me.
Illegitimi non carborundum!
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CaptainShuddup says
Nice avoidance of my total decimation of your "point". As we both know, the more highly educated (real education) the community, the more it votes Democrat.
You have just demonstrated one of my main beliefs, that the dialog between the right and the left is NEVER about ideology and ALWAYS about the left convincing the right what is real and what is fiction.
YOUR ARGUMENT was fiction. YOUR BELIEF was bullshit. Yet even dragging real life examples into the conversation is pointless because you don't want to examine reality, you'd rather cling to your fantasy. Next week you'll type the same stupid thing: That liberals with education have useless liberal arts knowledge and aren't really educated.
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iwog says
That's just proof Democrats are bleeding this country dry. They sit in their gated communities with the "Good Schools" demand higher taxes, to give them selves raises in their cush government jobs, so they can afford it, and their kids go to the fine schools. While they laugh from behind their gates and point fingers at the fat uneducated idiots, in the Bad Schools that don't get jack shit.
You should feel proud Iwog.
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CaptainShuddup says
Among the Patriotic Millionaires arguing for the Buffett Rule, there's a dozen or so current and former Google software people. But I guess you think they are all nimrods who studied underwater basketweaving to get where they are....
WHATEVAH!
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CaptainShuddup says
You're fat, huh?
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CaptainShuddup says
First you post your conclusion that Democrats are bleeding this country dry, then you support EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE CONCLUSION by admitting that they support higher taxes for the rich.
Are you fucking serious? Give them selves raises in their cush government jobs??? How many people in Lafayette do you think have a cush government job? 0%?????
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rowemoore says
NO I used to be Cool, but now I'm Phat.
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finehoe says
QED. End this thread; there's nothing more to say
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iwog says
I'm as conservative as anyone you're likely to meet but the really BIG problems are that most Americans (1) don't know even know what kind of country they want, (2) don't understand how much money is being truly stolen and (3) increasingly don't have anything in common with so many of the people they work with and live with on a daily basis. It's especially that way in the high growth areas. Yeah, my parents have been married almost fifty years and know most everyone in their town but that isn't case for a lot of us.
You're not gonna make Texas work in California. Conversely, you're not gonna make most of California work in Texas. We don't live in the United States of California or Texas. The true center (or center right) is somewhere around Ohio/Pennsylvania/Kentucky/Tennessee.
I'll also say that I think our taxes are going up (no way around it, Bush and Obama spent like drunken sailors over the past ten years) but we need a complete and true line by line analysis of the budget. We haven't even had a budget in three years...and that's because we put someone in the White House who didn't have a fucking clue and now his whole goddamn party is gonna pay for it. How did that happen? We made a very important decision based on emotion. I'll bet we don't end up doing that again, or at least not for a very long time.
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rootvg says
There's only one thing that matters to the future of this country right now. One! Not surprisingly, it's the exact same thing that led to the American revolution in 1775.
Generational wealth and an entrenched aristocracy is the ONLY thing that can turn the United States of America into a 3rd world hell hole. Debt can't do it. Welfare can't do it. Illegal aliens can't do it. Gays can't do it. Abortion can't do it. A liberal nanny state can't do it. They are all distractions to keep people sending all the nation's wealth into the hands of billionaires who don't need it.
A Southern blue collar worker will scream all day long about the government taxing him for social programs. At the same time, this very same Southern blue collar worker will gladly hand over the majority of his productivity to a greedy capitalist who spends the money every winter buying hookers in Thailand.
This is not a fucking exaggeration, this is reality! At the end of the day you either bend over for the government for the people and by the people or you bend over for a rich asshole who is going to leave you for dead when you can no longer make him any money.
There isn't any grey area. Pick one! Any whimper of protest that this isn't the way things really work is pure denial.
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Dan8267 says
You left off, "black, gay, and underage".
Education breeds liberalism, it's true. Not by indoctrination, but by encouraging the pursuit of knowledge and empiricism, over "tradition" and "beliefs".
We liberals will STUDY tradition, cultures and beliefs, but in an open-minded, objective way.
I think I speak for all liberals here when I say that if lowering corporate taxes would end this recession tomorrow, we'd (reluctantly) agree to those terms.
But we know it's pure fantasy, has no historical frame, and that those who believe it have allowed themselves to be puppets with the corporate hand up their collective asses.
And when I went to college in Europe, nearly everyone there knew more about American politics than Americans did. The Americans don't know their own system of Government, and can't find Canada on a map.
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If you're gonna bitch about generational wealth, the area in which we live is a good place to do that because we have our share of it.
OK, I'll play along. You want to redistribute wealth. In California, you might actually be able to do it because there's so much money here and a lot of it is held among people whose politics are friendly to the idea. In Texas? Forget it. In Florida? No way. In New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maryland? Not a problem. As I said, those are friendly areas.
Problem is, add up the Electoral votes and all of a sudden it doesn't work. If it did, Obama would have had his budgets sail through Congress for each of the three years he's been there. Obamacare wouldn't have been challenged and there would be no need to sweat out what the Court is gonna rule because we'd be headed in the same direction. Welcome to the United States of Canada...but that isn't where we live.
If you're looking to overturn the free market system and private property rights, all I can say is good luck. You'll need it.
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rootvg says
You're right but what you see today is NOTHING compared to how things will be if Republicans take power and pass the Ryan budget. We're headed for a cliff and there's no return possible short of armed revolt.
rootvg says
Why would you jump to this extreme? Why would you attribute such views to me, A capitalist who exploits workers??? Who owns private property???
What is your problem with the United States of the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s? It was almost impossible to become a billionaire and everyone enjoyed a high standard of living. We still had rich people, we still exploited workers, we still owned private property, but instead of a few people enjoying prosperity, EVERYONE had a high standard of living. Why do you hate the most prosperous period in our country so much?
There's nothing wrong with the free market system as long as there's a progressive tax schedule in place to prevent extreme concentrations of wealth. Republicans have decimated that system and seek to do further damage. That's the biggest danger there is. Everything else is mindless fluff by comparison.
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There are number of problems with your argument. First, we didn't have global economics and finance and the internet in years gone by. The general pace of life for everyone (regardless of income) was slower. I came from Ohio, remember? Even there, things are much faster than they used to be even if the place is far less affluent.
What I'm reading from your post is that you want to go back to the way it was before the eighties. Incredibly enough, I agree with you one hundred percent.
(Geez, someone make sure this is backed up. It may never happen again!)
You can't get us there. No one can. You can't go home again. My wife and I have tried, at least twice.
The quickest way I can think of to do what you want to do would be with tariffs. Here again, there's a problem. You can't start a trade war with people to whom you owe trillions of dollars. You're not a dumb guy. I would expect you to know that.
You want to slow us down economically in the name of fairness but if you couldn't get it done with this President and this Congress you sure as hell aren't gonna get it done with whatever the next Congress eventually turns out to be.
You're not gonna get that genie back in the bottle. Barbara Eden doesn't fit in there anymore and Larry's gone off set to have another drink. Forget it!
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Dan8267 says
I'm surprised you're giving it that much thought, but maybe you're joking more than a bit. I don't find it ironic. If you want to believe in magic, then youi get to make up the rules. I think the tradition of prophecy( as I understand it primarily from reading, studying The Bible as a child generally suggests that prophets see a lmited number of future events. So that would allow them to see the end of the world, but not their own! What a cruel, cruel god!
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Well actually Malcolm Gladwell debunked a tad of this awhile ago.
http://www.gladwell.com/outliers/outliers_excerpt3.html
Of course other countries can be better than the USA at math. The English languages phonetically takes longer to say numbers past the number ten.
He also correctly stated that in Asia they don't have the same seasonal farming patters that the USA has..why does that matter? Because that's how we ended up getting summer and winter vacations!
Think about this for a moment. A week off in december, february and april and nearly eight weeks off for the summer. So that means that each year it is nearly three months off. Three months off from say the age of 6 to age of 18 is 36 months total. In other words by the calendar alone students in Asia are in class for three years more than those in the USA even at the same age.
Lastly he also noted that in one test making this claim that the subject tested were not even taught in the USA at that level so of course other countries did better! iwog says
Everyone? First off that era was largely a bubble due to the fact that we had the baby boomer generation gradually age and buy more things. When tens of millions of people buy things at the same time it creates a boom. It wasn't a surprise that muscle cars skyrocketed in the mid to late 60's. Um..civil rights much? We have higher standards of living now from technologies alone. There are countless people today that are alive due to procedures, medicines and treatments we did not have back then. We have wider varieties of foods, faster and much cheaper means of communication etc. You also claim that there's a low life expectancy in the USA but the differences between it and many countries in Europe are not statistically significant.CL says
OK but in a sense the left does believe in indoctrination. Otherwise why would local and state governments be closed shops? Why are most government contracts no bid contracts? Why does the left still support the war on drugs? If it is "My Body my choice" for an abortion argument why can't it apply to everything? Why did the left simply play follow the leader and get us into afghanistan and iraq? Why does even Elizabeth Warren think Iran is a threat to the USA? Democrat world war 1 (wilson), democrat world war two (fdr), democrat korea (truman), democrat vietnam (johnson). The track record is pretty bad.
People can slam the right all they want but the left doesn't really have any real new ideas.
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rootvg says
This is totally irrelevant to my argument. Wealth disparity killed the economy of Rome, France, and the United States in 1929. Technology doesn't change the equation one iota. Human misery is measured in lack of food, clothing, shelter, and opportunity for advancement. NOT ACCESS TO THE INTERNET! All the same issues that matter in 2012 mattered in 2000 b.c.
rootvg says
Fairness has nothing to do with it. Capitalism is unfair. That's why it works. People are motivated by beating other people at the game thus any successful society MUST incorporate a certain amount of wealth disparity.
My problem is uncontrolled wealth concentration KILLS nations. It ALWAYS results in bloody conflict and revolution and usually communism as well. It's fine to design an economy around class differences, but it's LITERAL DEATH to let it snowball out of control. You need to accept this reality and stop fighting it. It's truth. It's the way things work. Fairness is such a tiny inconsequential part of the argument that I always ignore it. It simply does not matter in the context of depression and economic collapse.
rootvg says
I guarantee we'll get there. The only question is how many people die in the process. We're LONG past due for a "revolution at the ballot box" like what happened in 1933. The reason for this is the mind numbing amount of bullshit being published by the right wing press. Half of America is about to vote rich aristocrats complete and total freedom from federal taxes. It's a fucking deadly and insane abomination but they are doing it anyway. For a blue collar worker, it's like sticking your head in a wood chipper.
Hitler wasn't possible without propaganda. A billionaire paying a 0% tax bill isn't possible without propaganda. Same thing.
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mdovell says
They bought things because they could. There was a huge shift in wealth concentration during World War II which enabled consumers to spend. Rich people gave up wealth in the form of debt and inflation, which in turn fueled an economic boom.
It's a zero sum game. The reason we're suffering today is almost all the cash is at the top. If there's no process to return it to the masses, the economy grinds to a halt. It's the end of the Monopoly game.
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mdovell says
Dixie Democrats prior to the 1970s are the Southern Republicans of today.
Ignoring this reality is disingenuous. Furthermore we've got 30 years of Republican military adventurism starting with Reagan's invasion (without permission) of a British Commonwealth nation and ending with Iraq. It's crystal clear which party causes all the wars in modern times. It's not the Democrats.
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mdovell says
I think you're conflating "left" with "some democrats in leadership positions".
Of course you know that simply having a "D" by your name makes you no liberal.
The Left has opposed the middle eastern excusrions. The left has always been against the war on drugs.
Most of the other wars you mentioned were begun prior to the President you mentioned, but also I think that plays into the convenient plan to discredit party.
What many do is prey upon the public's lack of knowledge of history, number 1. Was WWII FDR's war? Was Viet Nam really LBJ's? (I know he escalated, but to lay it entirely upon him is false).
And do you notice how these truisms never seem to mention if the Congress was controlled by the same party? Or if Congress still retained their power regarding war at the time?
History without context is like the old adage, "figures lie, and liars figure".
Look at Congress today. Look at Economics. In most cases, the left is standing, slack-jawed and aghast at how removed from reality the right has become. Many Republican stalwarts are feeling the same way. David Stockman, anybody?
Point there, is that I don't think that the left lets their elected officials simply completely lie. I think the Right WANTS to believe in their party much more than the left wants to believe in the Dems.
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rootvg says
What do you mean? I'm amazed that statements like this are so meaningful to people. What are liberals and conservatives, but ways to make a binary situation out of a more complex situation? This way of thinking traps people into a language that suggests there are always two groups to which we belong for every situation. It ain't like that.
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FunTime says
But isn't a complex situation real just a series of binary situations?
Maybe?
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CaptainShuddup says
I don't have to know how many cogwheels a Hammond tone-wheel console organ has in order to be a good citizen and vote intelligently. I do need to know how the fuck my government works including how many branches it has and what their responsibilities are.
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iwog says
I'll help. Do we need to build a physical one or will a virtual one, say a mobile app, do?
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CaptainShuddup says
The Liberal Endocrine
You can tell it's liberal because the naughty parts are showing.
The Endocrine System
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CaptainShuddup says
If our country was a democracy, we wouldn't vote for politicians at all. Our country is a republic.
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Dan8267 says
You mean to vote in accordance to the Liberal endocrine.
Vote intelligently, see that's the problem right there. Sit down and brace your self, you may want to even put a pencil in your mouth.
The other 50%, thinks you're fucking stupid too. Hell your still eating Obama's shit sandwich.
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CL says
I also said "snorting cock" instead of "snorting coke". I guess that was a Freudian slip on my part. I'm surprised no one caught it.
Then again, snorting cock off a hooker's ass could also make for a good Friday night.
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Dan8267 says
Pant pant.... oh yeah.... hormones running like a faucet.... I'm so turned on right now. Naked brains really does it for me.
I'll be right back.
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Man, I take one day off from patrick.net and this thread turns into a left vs. right Thunderdome match. I should have titled it "22% of patrick.net users are morons".
Seriously though, it is a false dichotomy to say that either we have to have be ruled by a lawless corporate aristocracy with unbridled greed or we have to all turn into Communists. There are other alternatives.
Take a look at the following chart from Professor G. William Domhoff, UC Santa Cruz.
There is no way in hell that the top 1% of Americans are producing 43% of the GDP. No matter how much you believe in individualism, self-reliance, and free markets, you cannot honestly say that 1% are responsible for 43% of wealth production. That's bullshit by any standards.
Perhaps the top 1% of producers could be responsible for 10% of the GDP, being 10 times as productive as the average person, but not 43%. I'd go further and stating that the top 1% producers are not even near the top 1% income recipients. In fact, the top 0.1% income recipients are probably the less productive members of society, producing nothing in the best case scenario and actually destroying wealth in most other scenarios.
The parasites at the top of the income bracket are more responsible for the lowering of the quality of life in America than the parasites at the bottom of the income bracket. The Mitt Romneys and Goldman Sachs executives cost us far more than the bums on welfare. The fat cat parasites with insatiable appetites eat more wealth than all the bums put together.
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Vicente says
Re: Your Brains
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CaptainShuddup says
Wow, you've got a lot of nerve. I've explained exactly why I'm voting for a Democrat. I've explained my logic and my support. I've shown why I'm voting intelligently.
You've run away EVERY FUCKING TIME when asked for specifics about your political views, why you support/don't support a candidate, and why you favor the Republican party. You can't even name a single reason why Romney would be better than Obama although you've been asked repeatedly.
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CaptainShuddup says
1. It's doctrine, not endocrine.
2. I didn't vote for Obama, nor have I supported him. In fact, if you read any of my Obama related posts, you would know I hold him in as poor esteem as I hold Bush.
3. 50% of this country are not conservatives. It's more like 33%.
4. I'm not a leftist. I'm a liberal. I believe in liberty, civil rights, and equality under law.
5. Yes, knowing what the branches of government are and what they do is important to anyone voting.
6. Yes, you are stupid if you are an adult American who doesn't know the branches of government.
7. If knowing the branches of government makes you a liberal, then being conservative must make you a dumb ass. It's a contrapositive thing.
8. There is no reason to believe that knowing the three branches of government would make a person vote in favor of the left, unless the right requires utter ignorance to support it.
Finally, in case you do not know, the three branches of the government and their respective responsibilities are:
1. The Legislative - passes laws
2. The Executives - carries out laws and commands the military
3. The Judicial - interprets laws and declares laws Unconstitutional
Not very hard.
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OK Perhaps there's some merit to this argument...
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Dan8267 says
I saw that. I figured you used the wrong verb! :)