Cortese's Corner - formerly Beefy's Corner, the off topic chat thread

Oh good lord!

 

After watching Weekly Wipe, I was surprised to find out that Edward Penishands is actually a thing

[video=youtube;qi9Oi9XjyUQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi9Oi9XjyUQ&feature=youtu.be[/video]

 

Having just finished my counter-terrorism coursework, I'm nice and pissed off with the United States. Where's TSS so we can start bitching about how **** they are?

 

just noticed that you've turned 10, happy belated backwards birthday

 

Finally somebody notices. I do a Benjamin Button every new year.

 

so in 10 years time, you'll be like dead?

 

See my post about NSA?

 

After you Dan. I'm sloping off up the wooden hill, but I'm taking coffee and the Galaxy S2, so I should be able to chip in.

 

I didn't but that's probably quite closely related to what I'm pissed off about.

It's contradictory to the discussion the other night but I totally understand why some citizens are scared of their government. I waslooking into the PATRIOT act and it's terrifying how much of it seems designed just to give the state more power over citizens and even other countries.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...s-text-messages-daily-untargeted-global-sweep

 

Trouble is, if you freely allow the citizens to arm themselves, in order to maintain some sort of order, you have to escalate. You're not that far away from a civil war or revolution. They haven't thought that country through properly. Amazes me how they don't manage to start WWIII all on their own. I suppose they can start the World Series though [yes, I do know why it is named so], it's just a wee joke.

 

Gotta catch those make-believe terrorists somehow! I've read somewhere that only one possible terrorist has been caught in the US as a result of all their snooping, and he was just some guy who donated a load of money to a terrorist group over in Lebanon or something.

 

Obviously the arms thing is daft, I just understand the fear of centralised government they have. Unfortunately, in regard to arms, what are they going to do now? You can't take all the guns away without creating an even more dangerous black market. It's a situation they shouldn't be in anyway, but it seems too late to fix now.

Well, exactly. Several cases have gone to the supreme courts and have been thrown out because all their snooping, bugging and tracking is too unconstitutional to base a conviction on. Never anything to do with terrorism either.

 

This is truly tremendous.

[video=youtube_share;beROUHV5jPc]http://youtu.be/beROUHV5jPc[/video]

 

As you say, there's a deep mistrust of government in the States, not unnaturally because of so many different self interests and sub-cultures, that centralised government can't represent all of them. They do need to be educated though into giving up their guns. It's a long term thing, and I'm not sure centralised government has got it in them to do it, because of two reasons, 1] it's a vote loser, and 2] it's a vote loser. [sic]. You tell your population you are going to take the guns away and you never get voted in again. So education, from the cradle to the grave is what's needed, and even them it probably won't work, but you have to try. It's a backward country, in terms of civilisation. Yet when they are united they can be the most powerful force for national achievement that is possible on the planet.

The USA is an arguable case for an experiment in Socialism. Now watch while the forum gets shut down.

 

Did you know that there is a trend out there going on, as we live and breathe, for men to sit down on toilet seats in order to pee. It's to stop the spread of infection and disease due to lack of hygiene, caused by splashing and bad aiming.

I am considering it. Trouble is, I forget.

Hey, wash those hands afterwards..!

 

As if they'd do that, though. Much easier to do cradle to the grave brainwashing to love the country. Having schoolkids salute the flag every day of their lives in order to make them more susceptible to allowing their government to get away with the stuff it does. Neither party will do it because it isn't in either party's best interests. If letting them keep their guns keeps them loyal to their country and their constitution, then as far as they're concerned it's worth it (while they go and breach every other part of the constitution in order to further their own self-interests). I mean, I love some of the sport and entertainment that come out of that country but the way it's run is rotten.

 

We're all going to end up communist eventually. Market economies can't last. Might as well start embracing that big government or you're just going to make it harder for yourselves.

 

Are we gonna have to go through a big scary crash?

 

I dunno. Maybe we should all just do what Russell Brand says (except do vote). I have a suspicion he may just be onto something by accident. Eventually we're going to have to figure out a system which doesn't run on commerce and the pursuit of money, because there is an undeniable trend of new technologies causing more and more commodities to be available for free, and more and more services to be done by fewer people or none at all.