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Longinius

Mid east

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So chased off? hah! I laugh at your nations failure to beat Canada. Which country had to repaint its house white (probably with French funded paint) after getting a British toasting?

The paint that the White House is painted with is from a German company   smile_o.gif

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Today, Israel executed another Hamas official from a safe distance:

Quote[/b] ]Mr. Taha's wife and two children were passengers in the car and were also killed. A baby bottle was among the items pulled from the burning car, The Associated Press said.

-- NY Times

Crime:  Being the small child of a Hamas official.

Punishment:  Death by burning.

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Today, Israel executed another Hamas official from a safe distance:
Quote[/b] ]Mr. Taha's wife and two children were passengers in the car and were also killed. A baby bottle was among the items pulled from the burning car, The Associated Press said.

-- NY Times

Crime:  Being the small child of a Hamas official.

Punishment:  Death by burning.

Maybe today is "Bring Your Kids to Work" day.

That makes me wonder, do the people in Hamas and other terror groups have day jobs?  Or do they just drive around with their wife and kids.

-=Die Alive=-

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some of them are worryingly professional sorts, doctors, professors, teachers and the like...

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That makes me wonder, do the people in Hamas and other terror groups have day jobs?  Or do they just drive around with their wife and kids.

-=Die Alive=-

Actually they'd be riding around on busses all day like the Israelis if the IDF hadn't destroyed them all.  Duh...  crazy_o.gif

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I find it amazing that almost every contemporary white house administration has put this issue at the front of their foriegn relations agenda. Probably in hopes that a sucessful peace plan would give the predsident unprecedented popularity in the state affairs arena. It seems that such actions are fordoomed to hurt a president's approval ratings since the advent of Radio/TV media, and the emergence of split ticket voting after the implimentation of the Australian ballot has made the U.S. presidency a slave to popular opinion.

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It seems that such actions are fordoomed to hurt a president's approval ratings since the advent of Radio/TV media, and the emergence of split ticket voting after the implimentation of the Australian ballot has made the U.S. presidency a slave to popular opinion.

What are you talking about? Our electoral system ensures that public opinion has exactly jack to do with who becomes president.

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...It seems that such actions are fordoomed to hurt a president's approval ratings since the advent of Radio/TV media, and the emergence of split ticket voting after the implimentation of the Australian ballot has made the U.S. presidency a slave to popular opinion.

Prediction:  Within 10 years someone will create a reality TV program like "Survivors" where individuals compete to devise solutions to domestic and international problems.  A winner is determined every 2 months and those winners compete once each year to determine the annual champ.  Then, once every 4 years a the annual champs compete to determine a super champ, who would then go on to be nominated in that year's presidential election.  The runner up would run as VP.  I honestly believe they'd win, too.

What could be more democratic... and American?

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...It seems that such actions are fordoomed to hurt a president's approval ratings since the advent of Radio/TV media, and the emergence of split ticket voting after the implimentation of the Australian ballot has made the U.S. presidency a slave to popular opinion.

Prediction:  Within 10 years someone will create a reality TV program like "Survivors" where individuals compete to devise solutions to domestic and international problems.  A winner is determined every 2 months and those winners compete once each year to determine the annual champ.  Then, once every 4 years a the annual champs compete to determine a super champ, who would then go on to be nominated in that year's presidential election.  The runner up would run as VP.  I honestly believe they'd win, too.

What could be more democratic... and American?

That actually sounds like a pretty good idea...

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Quote[/b] ]What are you talking about? Our electoral system ensures that public opinion has exactly jack to do with who becomes president.

Not so my man. Or at least not according to Lowi who is a leading political scientist among university scholars. The president's #1 priority is to be elected to a second term, and popular opinion has almost everything to do with that. Also, popular opinion determines who is eligible to run for office, aside from independent candidates that fun their own campaigns without major party affiliation. I suggest reading some of Lowi's work to get a grasp on how the media and popular opinion affects voting. Lowi's books are very un-biased given that the were written jointly and objectively in a functionalist manner by authors of opposing political views. Compare it to the older system in which presidental nominees were selected in a King Caucus by members of Congress, rather than the current primary system. Before the implimentation of primary elections the public had almost no say in who ran for the presidency. I like the electoral college simply because it prevents the president from being elected by popular elections with a constituency concentrated in geograpically narrow urban centers. Given that a great deal of Democrat voters are concentrated in New England, North Illinois, and Southern California. These areas easily carry the states, which still carry a great deal of electoral vote weight, but prevent a geographic misrepresentation. Article II, Section 1 does not state anything about the president being elected by popular vote. The founders did this for a reason. To place emphasis on popular election in Congress. The Legislative branch was intended to be the strongest branch of U.S. gov't. For the better part of U.S. history it was. Until FDR the president was merely a clerk of Congress with a few exceptions. Ironic that Democrat legislation giving more legitimate authority to the presidency is something that has returned to plague the Democrats in recent history. The growth of mass media and these powers vested by Congress has resulted in the Executive branch becoming the most powerful without exception since the FDR administration. Although the judicial activism of the liberal courts in the latter half of the 20th century closley rivaled this power. The only thing currently checking the rise of imperial juduciary is the fact that the courts truly have no means of enforcing their rulings without the cooperation of the other two branches.

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And yet a candidate can get about four hundred thousand more votes than his opponent and lose. I know presidents have to worry about approval ratings, but ultimately, unless you slice that up into per state ratings, national ratings don't mean a whole hell of a lot in terms of who will be elected.

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Quote[/b] ]And yet a candidate can get about four hundred thousand more votes than his opponent and lose. I know presidents have to worry about approval ratings, but ultimately, unless you slice that up into per state ratings, national ratings don't mean a whole hell of a lot in terms of who will be elected.

400,000 votes is less than 1%, and most likely within the electoral margin or error, especially given that most election commision employees are frighteningly geriatric. The guy at my voting precinct who checked my I.D. was barely concious. The candidate winning through the electoral college but not through popular vote is exceeding rare. Geographically Bush took the race easily. The only people who would have celebrated a Gore victory would have been found in Boston, NYC, Chicago, San Franciso, and LA. tounge_o.gif

Edit: I promise you Tex, popular opinion means a lot to the presidency. While else whould he hire legions of PR people and spend millions on polling firms?

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Still, don't you think that it's at least slightly appropriate that popular opinion has a large influence on who gets elected in a (mostly) democratic process?

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@ June 12 2003,19:34)]What are you talking about? Our electoral system ensures that public opinion has exactly jack to do with who becomes president.

I suppose you want to dispose of our senate as well since it is based on the very same concept. My little state of 600,000 has the exact same power in the senate as California with its population of 34 million, Texas at 20 million people, and New York at 18 million people.

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*cough*Mid East*cough*

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SARS? tounge_o.gif

Anyway, most Israelis do oppose the latest Helicopter missile attacks. poll

EDIT: I should say most Israelis appear to... (I think they do for sure)

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Interesting poll result.. it helps restore a tiny little part of my faith in human nature. The majority of Israelis do not support the extreme actions of their leader at this time according to the poll. Although im not sure if 501 participants gives a really conclusive result it helps support my faith that peace

will arrive sooner or later. Probably later.

Wasnt there an incident not too long ago where some extremists were hounded by local Palestinians for using their neighbourhood?

I dont suppose its a sign of anything wider but its nice to dream of the majority of Palestineans and Israelis ostracising the extremists. But how can they be excluded from power when they're already in power?

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Yeah, well I have heard some reports that 2/3 if not more of Palestinians are also against the extremist actions taken by Hamas and others.

That makes ~66% of people in that region wanting peace, yet the 33% is in power and somehow keeps the fire raging.

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Anyway, most Israelis do oppose the latest Helicopter missile attacks.  poll

Unfortunately, it doesn't matter what most Israelis think.

"Democrats slam Bush for criticizing strikes" -- SF Chronicle

sad_o.gif

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Yeah, well I have heard some reports that 2/3 if not more of Palestinians are also against the extremist actions taken by Hamas and others.

That makes ~66% of people in that region wanting peace, yet the 33% is in power and somehow keeps the fire raging.

Did you know that there are ~ 1 million Palestinian Arabs living within Israel as Israeli citizens?  Did you know that nearly none of the Palestinian terrorists come out of that community?  (...Which is amazing given that they wouldn't have to sneak across territorial borders to carry out attacks.)

Question:  What would have happened after the territories were captured in 1967 if the territorial Palestinians had been allowed all the freedom, rights and prosperity enjoyed by Israeli Palestinian Arabs, BUT without an independent state?

Answer:  The violence would have ended long ago.

So, why didn't Israel do that?

Theavonlady's answers:

[...]

Some reasons:

1. Who wants enemies as citizens?

2. Israeli citizenship was generally repugnant to the vehemently anti-Israeli population.

3. Israel continued seeking negotiations and attempted to find a compromise to the many problems.

4. US Pressure.

[...]

The real reason:  Allowing the Palestinian Arabs living in Israel's occupied territories to become Israeli citizens would have resulted in Israel's total population becoming majority non-Jewish.

Conclusion:  Israel wants the Palestinians' land, but without the people.  The Palestinian people know this.  That's why, after 36 years of brutal oppression, they still refuse to leave, while trying to have as many babies as possible.

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Anyway, most Israelis do oppose the latest Helicopter missile attacks.  poll

Unfortunately, it doesn't matter what most Israelis think.

"Democrats slam Bush for criticizing strikes" -- SF Chronicle

sad_o.gif

Can you say 'Jewish voters'?

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@ June 14 2003,19:18)]
Anyway, most Israelis do oppose the latest Helicopter missile attacks.  poll

Unfortunately, it doesn't matter what most Israelis think.

"Democrats slam Bush for criticizing strikes" -- SF Chronicle

sad_o.gif

Can you say 'Jewish voters'?

Can you say right-wing fundamentalist Christian voters who outnumber Jewish voters and are far more anxious to see the "Israelites" rid the Holy Land of those pesky indigenous Arabs who just happened to move in since the time of Christ?

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Except no right wing religious voters would ever in their right minds vote for a Democrat even if they put a bill through Congress that re-established the Crusades and abolished the bag limit on Palestinians.

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Democrats are criticising Bush for not being pro Israel enough?

crazy_o.gif

Well i suppose as well as appealing to Jewish voters they have to look 'hard' on foreign and security issues for voters in these post WTC times sad_o.gif

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