0
   

Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

 
 
nimh
 
  1  
Reply Fri 15 Oct, 2004 06:52 am
stoplearning wrote:
Simplicity people
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  1  
Reply Fri 15 Oct, 2004 07:00 am
As in, that much we got.

Anyway, FWIW:

Quote:
Right-wing governments 'increase suicide rates'

23:01 18 September 02

NewScientist.com news service

Right-wing governments may sap some people's will to live and result in more suicides, conclude studies in Britain and Australia.

The researchers speculate that losers are more likely to kill themselves in the individualistic, "winner-takes-all" societies favoured by right wing governments, because they are left to fend for themselves. Wide disparities in wealth also sharpen any sense of hopelessness, the researchers argue.

"If you fail under that ideology, it would accentuate your feelings of failure," says Mary Shaw, whose team at the University of Bristol analysed suicide trends in England and Wales over the past century.

Left wing governments tend to be more "inclusive" and community based, she says, decreasing the isolation felt by people down on their luck. Shaw's team calculates that over the past century, 35,000 extra suicides occurred when the Tories were in power.

"That's equivalent to one suicide for every day of the 20th Century, or two for every day that the Conservatives ruled," the team write in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Britain's Conservative Party declined to comment on the findings.

Double trouble

Shaw and her colleagues found that on average, suicide rates were 17 per cent higher when the Conservatives were in power, compared to the annual average of 103 suicides per million population when opposition parties held office.

Richard Taylor and his team in the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney found similar trends over the past century in New South Wales. When Right-wing governments were in power, men were 17 per cent more likely and women 40 per cent more likely to commit suicide.

They report that rates were highest whenever Right wing governments held power both at federal and state levels.

Both studies reached their conclusions after taking into account other factors that affect suicide rates, such as economic slumps, wartime, and even a surge of suicides among women in the 1960s when sedatives became widely available.

"You've never had it so good"

But the same trend always emerged, even at times of economic boom such as the "you've-never-had-it-so-good" years when Harold MacMillan led the UK's Tory government between 1957 and 1963.

During that time, annual suicides peaked at 137 per million population. Shaw points out that rates were almost as high in the 1930s (135 per million) when Labour's Ramsay McDonald headed a coalition, but she believes the primary reason then was the century's worst economic slump.

The lowest rate was 85 per million, during the Liberal government of David Lloyd George between 1916 and 1920. Now, under Tony Blair, it is back to the non-Conservative average of 103, down from 121 during Margaret Thatcher's first term in the early 1980s.

Shaw admits that attempts to connect the differences to ideologies are pure speculation. "But I'd be very interested to see if suicide rates are higher wherever there's a Right-wing government," she says. "I'd be particularly interested to see if the relationship holds in the US."

A study published in July 2001 found that US Republicans are almost three times more likely to have nightmares than Democrats. But a Republican spokesman told New Scientist at the time: "If we are, it's because we're left cleaning up the mess left by eight years of Bill Clinton. We sleep better now Bush is in the White House."

Journal reference: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. (vol 56, p 723, p 766)

Andy Coghlan
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  1  
Reply Fri 15 Oct, 2004 07:21 am
stoplearning wrote:
Evidence: Most socialistic(european,canada) countries have a suicide rate that is almost double that of the U.S. Are they somehow more prone to suicide, or does their society just kinda suck?

Aside from the above (which I posted purely FWIW), here's the world stats on suicide of the WHO.

For the US, it records a suicide rate of 17,6. That is roughly the same (15-20 range) as in Canada, Iceland, Ireland, China, Norway, Sweden and Uruguay.

It is distinctly less than in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Poland and Switzerland (all in the 25-35 range) and dramatically less than in countries like Hungary, Slovenia, Sri Lanka and most of the countries of the Former Soviet Union.

It is distinctly more however than in countries like Albania, Greece, Portugal, the countries of Transcaucasia and most Latin-American and Muslim countries (<10), and also more than in Spain, Italy, Malta, the UK, the Netherlands and India (10-15).

I see some regional patterns (high in Eastern Europe, low in Southern Europe), probably partly religion-influenced, but not much in the way of ideological correlation.
0 Replies
 
McGentrix
 
  1  
Reply Fri 15 Oct, 2004 07:55 am
When my mom was a little girl, her dad purchased some stock for a local oil well for her. As a stockholder, that makes her a part owner. She gets a check every year for about 12 cents. Does that qualify her as a small business?
0 Replies
 
Ethel2
 
  1  
Reply Fri 15 Oct, 2004 08:18 am
yes, McG, it does.........

btw, when my Dad died he owned 1/8th of 2/3rds of 1/20th of an oil well. I and his six other children all inherited his portion of the oil well. So I have 1/7 of 1/8 of 2/3 of 1/20. And my checks for $7.36 used to come to me in the mail too. Creating another nuisance for my income tax return preparation.........somehow those checks have stopped coming.......thank goodness. But I suppose I'm a small businessman as well.

So?
0 Replies
 
Synonymph
 
  1  
Reply Fri 15 Oct, 2004 08:36 am
Polls Show Worsening of U.S. Reputation

Associated Press

LONDON - America's reputation around the world is hurting, according to a series of coordinated polls published Friday from 10 countries, including many of the United States' closest allies.

In eight of the countries where the surveys commissioned by major newspapers were conducted, more people said their view of America had worsened in the past two to three years than improved. That question was asked in nine countries.

By big margins, those questioned said the war in Iraq did not aid the global fight against terrorism.

And in eight out of 10 nations, those polled said — often in landslide proportions — that they hoped to see Democrat John Kerry beat President Bush in next month's election. Bush won backing from a majority of respondents only in Russia and Israel.

The polls were conducted in Canada, France, Britain, Spain, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Mexico, Israel and Russia, with results to be published in the participating newspapers on Friday. Not all questions were asked in every country.

On average, 57 percent of those questioned said their opinions of America had worsened over the past two to three years, compared with 20 percent who said their view had improved. That question was asked in nine of the countries, but not in Russia.

Seventy-four percent of Japanese, 70 percent of French, 67 percent of South Koreans, 64 percent of Canadians and 60 percent of Spaniards said they had a worse opinion of America now than two to three years ago.

Only in Israel did more people say their view of the United States had improved than worsened in the past two to three years.

In that period, which began just after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the United States has led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. While much of the international community backed the invasion to oust the Taliban, Bush's decision to invade Iraq has fueled anger around the world.

However, many of those polled separated their feelings about the U.S. government from their views of the American people. Sixty-eight percent said they had a favorable opinion of Americans.

Asked whether American democracy remained a model for other nations, 52 percent of those asked said yes and 42 percent said no.

In Britain, Mexico and South Korea, more people thought the United States was no longer a model, while in Canada, Russia, Japan and Israel, majorities said it was.

Fifty-nine percent of people questioned in seven nations — including Britain, America's closest ally in Iraq — said the war there was not helping the world fight against terrorism, while 35 percent said it was, as Bush contends.

People in all 10 countries were asked who they hoped to see win the White House on Nov. 2, and the result will make Kerry wish they had a vote.

The Democrat was favored by healthy to enormous majorities in eight of the nations — 72 percent supported him, compared with 16 percent for Bush in France.

In South Korea, it was 68 percent for Kerry and 18 percent for Bush; in Canada, 60 percent to 20 percent; in Spain, 58 percent to 13 percent; in Australia 54 percent to 28 percent; and in Britain 50 percent to 22 percent.

Bush came out on top in Israel by a margin of 50 percent to 24 percent and in Russia, 52 percent to 48 percent.

The newspapers involved were La Presse in Canada, Le Monde in France, the Guardian in Britain, El Pais in Spain, Asahi Shimbun in Japan, JoongAng Ilbo in South Korea, the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age in Australia, Reforma in Mexico, Haaretz in Israel and the Moscow News in Russia.

The sample sizes in the 10 polls varied from 522 people in Israel to 1,417 in Australia. Margins of error were mostly around 3 percentage points, but varied between 2.6 and 4.38.

The polls were conducted on different dates from September through early October.
0 Replies
 
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Fri 15 Oct, 2004 08:45 am
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36161
0 Replies
 
au1929
 
  1  
Reply Fri 15 Oct, 2004 09:38 am
> Charley Reese is a columnist for the King Features Syndicate. He turns
out
> three columns a week and is known as a staunchly committed conservative. I
> guess that's why this column is causing such a stir. He apparently took a
> good hard look at Bush & Co.'s record vs. rhetoric, and came to some
> inevitable conclusions. See
> <http://www.conservativechronicle.com/columnists/reese/>
> http://www.conservativechronicle.com/columnists/reese/ if you have any
> doubts about his conservatism.
>
> Vote for a Man, Not a Puppet
>
> by Charley Reese
>
> Americans should realize that if they vote for President Bush's
reelection,
> they are really voting for the architects of war - Dick Cheney, Donald
> Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of that cabal of neoconservative
> ideologues and their corporate backers. I have sadly come to the
conclusion
> that President Bush is merely a frontman, an empty suit, who is
manipulated
> by the people in his administration. Bush has the most dangerously
> simplistic view of the world of any president in my memory.
>
> It's no wonder the president avoids press conferences like the plague.
Take
> away his cue cards and he can barely talk. Americans should be embarrassed
> that an Arab king (Abdullah of Jordan) spoke more fluently and
articulately
> in English than our own president at their joint press conference
recently.
>
> John Kerry is at least an educated man, well-read, who knows how to think
> and who knows that the world is a great deal more complex than Bush's
> comic-book world of American heroes and foreign evildoers. It's
unfortunate
> that in our poorly educated country, Kerry's very intelligence and refusal
> to adopt simplistic slogans might doom his presidential election efforts.
>
> But Thomas Jefferson said it well, as he did so often, when he observed
that
> people who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was and never
> will be. People who think of themselves as conservatives will really
display
> their stupidity, as I did in the last election, by voting for Bush.
>
>
>
> Bush is as far from being a conservative as you can get. Well, he fooled
me
> once, but he won't fool me twice. It is not at all conservative to
balloon
> government spending, to vastly increase the power of government, to show
> contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law, or to tell people that
> foreign outsourcing of American jobs is good for them, that giant fiscal
and
> trade deficits don't matter, and that people should not know what their
> government is doing. Bush is the most prone-to-classify, the most
secretive
> president in the 20th century. His administration leans dangerously toward
> the authoritarian.
>
> It's no wonder that the Justice Department has convicted a few
> Arab-Americans of supporting terrorism. What would you do if you found
> yourself arrested and a federal prosecutor whispers in your ear that
either
> you can plea-bargain this or the president will designate you an enemy
> combatant and you'll be held incommunicado for the duration?
>
> This election really is important, not only for domestic reasons, but
> because Bush's foreign policy has been a dangerous disaster. He's almost
> restarted the Cold War with Russia and the nuclear arms race. America is
not
> only hated in the Middle East, but it has few friends anywhere in the
world
> thanks to the arrogance and ineptness of the Bush administration. Don't
> forget, a scientific poll of Europeans found us, Israel, North Korea and
> Iran as the greatest threats to world peace.
>
> I will swallow a lot of petty policy differences with Kerry to get a man
in
> the White House with brains enough not to blow up the world and us with
it.
> Go to Kerry's Web site and read some of the magazine profiles on him.
You'll
> find that there is a great deal more to Kerry than the GOP attack dogs
would
> have you believe. Besides, it would be fun to have a president who plays
> hockey, windsurfs, rides motorcycles, plays the guitar, writes poetry and
> speaks French. It would be good to have a man in the White House who has
> killed people face to face. Killing people has a sobering effect on a man
> and dispels all illusions about war.
>
0 Replies
 
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Fri 15 Oct, 2004 09:59 am
Au writes
Quote:
> Charley Reese is a columnist for the King Features Syndicate. He turns
out
> three columns a week and is known as a staunchly committed conservative. I


If Charley Reese is a conservative, then I'm a ballerina dancer. You can check his columns back to infinity and will find nothing other than Bush and company bashing expressed with enough vile, bile, and contempt to make Ann Coulter look warm and fuzzy.
0 Replies
 
Ethel2
 
  1  
Reply Fri 15 Oct, 2004 10:58 am
Nothing could make Ann Coulter look warm and fuzzy. Absolutely nothing.
0 Replies
 
firstthought
 
  1  
Reply Fri 15 Oct, 2004 04:09 pm
Walter I am not sure what you are getting at with Tony Blair and John Kerry

Check on the Article:

"Groups of Bishops Using Influence To Oppose Kerry

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/12/politics/campaign/12catholics.html

Blair has always been enamoured with American Politics and Governance unfortunately all he sees is the overview. He suggested that the UK should have a Supreme Court (disregarding that Scots and English Law are different) And in the US The Supreme Court comes in a bundle package called the US Constitution which is the Law of the Land irrespective of what the judiciary may say.

ft
0 Replies
 
georgeob1
 
  1  
Reply Sat 16 Oct, 2004 12:53 am
Lola wrote:
Nothing could make Ann Coulter look warm and fuzzy. Absolutely nothing.



I'm no fan of Ann Coulter, and I do recognize that the stuff she sells is merely parody. Easy to produce too, given the many targets the self-righteous and self-important Dems so liberally provide.

I would say that Senator John Leahy at least makes Ann appear tolerable, if not fuzzy. Ted Kennedy, when he is in his high bombast mode, makes her look a bit warm too.
0 Replies
 
Ethel2
 
  1  
Reply Sat 16 Oct, 2004 07:47 am
now george, don't talk bad about Teddy........I like him. And Senator Leahy, well he's my hero too. You're such a lovely man.......why do you have such twisted ideas? Laughing
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Sat 16 Oct, 2004 09:04 am
ft

To add to our growing list of bad people doing bad things (let's refer to them henceforth as 'Banana Republicans')...
Quote:
Get-out-the-vote phones run by Democrats and the nonpartisan Manchester firefighters union were jammed on Election Day two years ago by more than 800 computer-generated hang-up calls. The calls tied up the phones for about 1 1/2 hours.

Last summer, Chuck McGee, former executive director of the state GOP, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and admitted paying $15,600 to a Virginia telemarketing company that hired another business to make the calls. GOP consultant Allen Raymond, former president of GOP Marketplace in Alexandria, Va., also pleaded guilty.

At their plea hearings in federal court, McGee and Raymond acknowledged speaking to an unidentified official with a national political organization about the jamming. Democrats have said they believe that Tobin was the official and that he might have put McGee and Raymond together.

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/10/15/tobin/index.html
0 Replies
 
georgeob1
 
  1  
Reply Sat 16 Oct, 2004 01:32 pm
Lola wrote:
now george, don't talk bad about Teddy........I like him. And Senator Leahy, well he's my hero too. You're such a lovely man.......why do you have such twisted ideas? Laughing


Leahy is an arrogant snob. I had to spend a day escorting him once on a tour during the '80s -- it was a long and disagreeable day and I let him know it (got in a bit of trouble for that.)


"twisted ideas" ?!?! Its all Bernie's influence dear. Perhaps you can straighten me out.
0 Replies
 
firstthought
 
  1  
Reply Sat 16 Oct, 2004 02:41 pm
Lola I could let you have a Medieval rack you could use on George.

ft lol I'm a sadist.
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Sat 16 Oct, 2004 06:43 pm
I don't understand sadism. I've tried.

I've tied girls up into uncomfortable positions. I've been insistent when it was unwelcome. I've burdened when anything other than burden would have lit upon that proximate heart or mind like true mercy. I've stetched limbs and patience and truth and my welcome. But I still don't understand.

Now, let me say right off that I think the Marquis got a bad rap (liberals have always had a tough time of it). Still, even so, pain and suffering continue to turn me inside out.

Does the sadist have to win? His counterpart, to lose? Probably an analyst, if one was kicking about, would climb up onto the top of a ladder or guillotine or rack or anything else handy and claim that the loser aims straight as an arrow towards that hole in the middle of nothing. And missing, strikes it dead on. Perhaps. I don't know. I don't understand sadism. Does anyone here have Carl Rove's phone number?
0 Replies
 
blatham
 
  1  
Reply Sun 17 Oct, 2004 04:44 am
Quote:
In the Oval Office in December 2002, the president met with a few ranking senators and members of the House, both Republicans and Democrats. In those days, there were high hopes that the United States-sponsored ''road map'' for the Israelis and Palestinians would be a pathway to peace, and the discussion that wintry day was, in part, about countries providing peacekeeping forces in the region. The problem, everyone agreed, was that a number of European countries, like France and Germany, had armies that were not trusted by either the Israelis or Palestinians. One congressman -- the Hungarian-born Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California and the only Holocaust survivor in Congress -- mentioned that the Scandinavian countries were viewed more positively. Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.

''I don't know why you're talking about Sweden,'' Bush said. ''They're the neutral one. They don't have an army.''

Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ''Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.'' Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.

Bush held to his view. ''No, no, it's Sweden that has no army.''

The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html?pagewanted=2
0 Replies
 
nimh
 
  1  
Reply Sun 17 Oct, 2004 06:32 am
Quote:
Report: Jeb Bush ignored felon list advice
State officials allegedly warned Florida governor of flaws


The Associated Press
Updated: 4:57 a.m. ET Oct. 17, 2004

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Florida Gov. Jeb Bush ignored advice to throw out a flawed felon voter list before it went out to county election offices despite warnings from state officials, according to a published report Saturday.

In a May 4 e-mail obtained by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Florida Department of Law Enforcement computer expert Jeff Long told his boss that a Department of State computer expert had told him "that yesterday they recommended to the Gov that they 'pull the plug"' on the voter database.

The e-mail said state election officials "weren't comfortable with the felon matching program they've got," but added, "The Gov rejected their suggestion to pull the plug, so they're 'going live' with it this weekend."

Long, who was responsible for giving elections officials his department's felon database, confirmed the contents of the e-mail Friday to the Herald-Tribune. He said he didn't remember the specifics, but that Paul Craft, the Department of State's top computer expert, had told him about the meeting with Bush.

A software program matched data on felons with voter registration rolls to create the list of 48,000 names. Secretary of State Glenda Hood junked the database in July after acknowledging that 2,500 ex-felons on the list had had their voting rights restored.

Most were Democrats, and many were black. Hispanics, who often vote Republican in Florida, were almost entirely absent from the list due to a technical error.

Governor denies allegations

Bush's spokeswoman, Jill Bratina, denied allegations that the governor ignored warnings about the list.

"It's also irrelevant because the list isn't being used," Bratina said Saturday.

Bush told the Herald-Tribune that Craft didn't call him, and he denied that any meeting took place May 3 with Craft or other election officials.
0 Replies
 
Ethel2
 
  1  
Reply Sun 17 Oct, 2004 08:21 am
georgeob wrote:
Quote:
Leahy is an arrogant snob.


Well, george, let me tell you about how arrogant Bush and his daughters are. I can tell you from my experience as well. I'll bet you they beat Leahy's arrogance by several thousand miles.

And for that matter, let's take Tom DeLay as another example of arrogance so extreme it's uncharted territory for most human beings.

So arrogance and snobbery must be disgusting to you only in the case of an official from the Democratic party.

I've never met Leahy. But I'll take your word for it. Will you take mine about Bush?

Now, let's get to straigtening you out......

Sadism...........Blatham may not understand it, but I do..........

hehehehehehehehe
0 Replies
 
 

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