Latest Forum Topics

Elections 2012

Griper — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:48:45 +0000

This thread is to discuss the upcoming 2012 Presidential Election and other races. What do you think so far?

Discussion Group For Occupy Wall Street.

Griper — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:28:30 +0000

This is the Discussion Group For Occupy Wall Street protestors. Talk about anything related to these events in our history.

4.0 earthquake YOUNGSTOWN-WARREN URBAN AREA, OHIO

Griper — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 20:39:17 +0000

Just now... Magnitude 4.0 earthquake - YOUNGSTOWN-WARREN URBAN AREA, OHIO

Location: 41.159°N, 80.729°W
Depth: 2.2 km (1.4 miles) (poorly constrained)
Region: YOUNGSTOWN-WARREN URBAN AREA, OHIO

Kim Jong Il Threatens Santa Claus

Griper — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 14:45:06 +0000

In his boldest move yet, Kim Jong Il has threatened to shoot down Santa Claus if he drops presents inside of their border. "We will wipe out his sleigh and reindeer from the earth if he drops presents too close to our border", said Kim in a statement delivered on Christmas Eve. The rhetoric continued with Kim stating that he believed that Rudolph the red nosed reindeer actually had a nuclear bomb in his nose and that the US and South Korea were trying to destroy Korea under the guise of gifts and goodwill, "a modern day Trojan horse", Kim said. Kim further commented that he still hopes that Santa drops some gifts for the North Koreans outside of the border, as he looks forward to the jammies and Skeletor action figure that he asked for. LOL! Merry Christmas!

How do you think blacks are going to vote this November?

Krista — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 17:01:47 +0000

Do you think that Blacks will vote Democrat, Republican, or not at all?

China's abuse of Human Rights is a crime!

Barbie — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 11:02:45 +0000

Human rights violations in the People's Republic of China (PRC) remain systematic and widespread. The Chinese government continues to suppress dissenting opinions and maintains political control over the legal system, resulting in an arbitrary and sometimes abusive judicial regime. The lack of accountability of the government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) means that abuses by officials often go unchecked. This fact sheet identifies the most common types of abuses, including arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment of prisoners, severe restrictions on freedom of expression and association and violations specific to women.

On a street in downtown Shanghai, I went into a building of the 20 towers to admire the interior. Inside was a scene that would shock those who had been here five years ago. On the ground floor of the building had become a stock brokerage firm, and hundreds of Chinese citizens were furiously betting on the local bourse.
But this scene, similar to everyday life in the financial capital like New York or Tokyo, it's just a reflection of the freedoms enjoyed by individuals in China. In recent years, multinational companies have flocked to urban areas of China, the country entered the World Trade Organization, and Beijing has hired foreign specialists for packaging public relations image of the country before the Olympic Games 2008. But along with economic liberalization, human rights have deteriorated. religious revivals, labor protests and Internet chat rooms-in fact, anything the government perceives as a threat to the authority, all have unleashed a wave of often brutal repression.
On the surface, China appears to be a rapidly changing, especially foreigners who spend their time in this thriving cities like Shanghai. The home of less than one fifth of the population of China, these cities contain the majority of Starbucks in the country, mobile phone kiosks and stock exchanges. They seem full of young Chinese pushing social boundaries. "There's definitely a public image of eastern China, which could be very attractive, particularly to foreign companies, those who do not dig deeper," says Mike Jendryzcek of Human Rights Watch in Washington.
Thirteen years after the uprising in Tiananmen Square, the world's attention has shifted away from the abuses in China. Many former dissidents have returned, not to speak of his past, a 1989 of the leading protesters, Ya-Qin Zhang, who now heads the Microsoft research center in China. During the past decade, China's secret police have broken the network of dissidents who provided information to the West, and today the best source of information on human rights in China is a man, Frank Lu Siqing, who runs a watchdog of his small apartment in Hong Kong.
The current group of Chinese leaders, experts in human rights for example, is less tolerant than the previous generation led by Deng Xiaoping, and for a time, Zhao Ziyang, a reformer placed under house arrest after the slaughter of Tiananmen 1989. (Zhao continues to be imprisoned for fear it could emerge as a rallying point for reformers. ) As I Qinglian, a prominent Chinese journalist, this current generation of leaders, headed by President Jiang Zemin, reduce their political teeth m 1989, when they were surprised at how quickly joined the protest into a national movement against the government. As a result, Jiang and his followers have developed an almost irrational fear of groups seeking to create a national membership. Not surprisingly, Jiang has allowed the People's Liberation Army, China's ultimate weapon against the protests, to exert more influence in domestic affairs. Jiang has also increased the size of the paramilitary People's Armed Police.
In fact, some experts doubt that the next generation of Communist Party leaders will come to the fore. As Jiang prepares to visit U.S. in October, speculation is running high in Beijing that the president of 76 years is not yet ready to renounce his title as party leader and the military. Jiang claimed to have been its position in the party supporters who elected for another term as army chief, even as a likely successor to Hu Jintao, is being touted as Jiang's heir.
government's war on Falun Gong, a spiritual sect devoted to meditation and breathing exercises, has been well publicized. But rarely is mentioned is the fact that Beijing's security services have routinely tortured and murdered Falun Gong practitioners. The Chinese authorities have blocked the reports, hundreds of followers of Falun Gong in psychiatric hospitals and force fed drugs; imprisoned thousands more in the larger world system of labor camps, and silently executed several Falun Gong practitioners.

Details of executions in China are impressive: According to Wang Guoqi, a pathologist and former employee of a Chinese military hospital, doctors often organ harvesting from executed prisoners, none of which accepted the donation of organs. He talks to a doctor to remove a kidney from a prisoner still breathing who had survived the initial shooting. After the body was removed, the prisoner was left to die.

China has taken the battle against Falun Gong practitioners outside their borders. Beijing confident of Cambodia to deport two Falun Gong practitioners who had fled to Phnom Penh and has used its consulates in the U.S. to harass Falun Gong practitioners. A follower of Falun Gong on U.S. demands that Chinese agents have recorded their private conversations and then to the left of the recordings on the answering machine to intimidate. Beijing also may have influenced the government's position of Hong Kong and the media to Falun Gong. In April, the South China Morning Post, which takes Hong Kong's English language newspaper, suddenly dismissed its head office in Beijing, Jasper Becker, who had written several stories about Falun Gong probe. Then in August a court in Hong Kong who are the followers of Falun Gong, which is not illegal in the country, guilty of "causing a public obstruction" for protesting outside the Chinese government's main office in that country.

Beijing also has shrewdly exploited post-9/11 fears of Islamic terrorism to launch a "tough" campaign against the Muslim "separatists", groups of Uighurs living in the western province of Xinjiang, the site of violent separatist movements diffuse but in the past. However, according to Dru Gladney, an expert on Chinese Muslims at the University of Hawaii, the majority of Uighurs have become less enamored of separation, as they have seen the chaos enveloping his independent neighbors, post-Soviet Central Asia . Uighurs even advocating greater autonomy over all desire more freedom to explore and utilize the Uighur language and stop the flood of Han Chinese province. (There were about 300,000 Han in Xinjiang in 1949, today there are more than 6.4 million.)

However, the "iron fist" campaign has been unusually broad, perhaps reflecting Beijing's fear that some could be linked to Uighur activists and other ethnic minorities Tlbetans unhappy. Vocally linking its offensive to the international war against terrorism (Beijing says al-Qaeda terrorists hiding in Xinjiang), Chinese authorities have deployed 40,000 soldiers new to the province, burned books celebrated in Uighur language "political education" for 8,000 magnets. These campaigns are a disturbing reminder of the brutal Cultural Revolution "education" brainwashing sessions. Meanwhile, security forces have detained thousands of Uighurs and executed several suspected separatists. As Craig Smith, the New York Times said after seeing a man sentenced to death, Xinjiang is "the only place in the country where people are regularly put to death for political crimes."

Despite the vicious campaign against Falun Gong and the Muslim Uighurs, Beijing, probably most of the fears of rural evangelical Christian groups as evangelical surveys helped topple the governments of several pre-communist. "The number of Christians in China is growing strongly and the government knows and cares," said Joseph Kung, president of the Cardinal Kung Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Connecticut that promotes the Catholic Church in China.

In the past three years, public safety officials have targeted prominent sects such as the ray and the Church of God, and underground Catholics loyal to the Vatican. (Beijing officially atheist state sponsors of the Catholic Church does not recognize the Pope. ) Beijing has increasingly pitted against the current charismatic Christian evangelical groups, allowing some Protestant groups to worship in silence if they cooperate with security forces to root out the other sects. Moreover, a series of government's own documents issued between 1999 and 2001 (and smuggled out of the country) reveal systematic efforts to arrest and kill members of evangelical churches. (In the documents, one of the rebels 'crimes' made in the Gospel is "pray for world peace.") In fact, followers of the underground sects have told human rights groups, security forces beat them with bars and electrically shocking genitals.

Another major aim of the government crackdown has been the emerging rights of peasants and labor organizations. According to He Qinglian, at least 150 million farmers have lost their jobs during the last decade. By joining the WTO last winter, Beijing pledged to reduce subsidies to state enterprises, reforms that is likely to make at least 50 million people out of work. Already, state workers are rarely paid, and that many state enterprises have no income and assets have been stripped of their directors. In cities across northeastern China "rust belt, home to many companies that previously subsidized by the state, thousands of unemployed roam the streets, sleeping on benches, selling their bodies for sex, and begging for scraps of food. China expert manpower estimate the rate of unemployment in the rust belt more than 20 percent, and many dismissed workers will never find another job because their skills are best suited for an open economy.

Chinese farmers, who still represent over 50 percent of the population, are also in a precarious position. Most farms in China are less than two acres and will be unable to compete with foreign agribusiness giants now entering China. The per capita income of rural residents is less than $ 300, compared with per capita income of over $ 4,000 in Shanghai. At the same time, farmers actually pay higher taxes than urban Chinese as cough up both the national and local taxes "excise" collected by officials of rural areas. To make matters worse, developers often confiscate land from farmers to build houses for China's expanding cities, often paying no compensation for the property, as most farmers are not technically own their land. Even China, state news agency recently acknowledged that 12 million farmers losing land * of urbanization in the next decade, a figure probably too low by half.
Many farmers and workers have begun to express their anger in their bleak situation. The number of peasant protests and work is increasing and it is likely that some 3 million people. During the course of this protest, 78 police and government employees were killed. In 2000, the latest year for which statistics are available, labor disputes increased by 12 percent, as workers in several cities in the rust belt besieged their factory and won some of the unemployment benefits, encouraging others redundant workers to protest.

In some cases, local governments and state enterprises have tolerated protests have limited or purchased from the farmers and workers with a minimum of unemployment benefits. But if the protests continue over several days, or threaten to spread to other areas, officials show no mercy. State security agents arrested the complainant in the rust-belt province of Liaoning, which exposed corruption in state enterprises, as well as Chinese journalists who reported on peasant protests. Protest leaders were arrested and brutally tortured, their cases widely publicized as a message to other workers.

Foreign companies have been complicit in human rights repression in China. Although the international media have welcomed the Internet as a potential force of liberalization, Beijing recently reverted to Internet freedom. Many Internet cafes have been closed, chat rooms are closely monitored by a force of 40,000 agents of Internet security, and Beijing is building a control system for all Internet users. China has also used the Internet firewall to block hundreds of foreign Web sites as the BBC and practitioners of Falun Gong, the New York Times won a reprieve just when its editor made a personal appeal to Jiang Zemin. Other Chinese who helped found the firewalls have been imprisoned.

In July, Yahoo signed a voluntary commitment in writing self-censorship by Beijing. " Social stability "portals that are not committed to sign a promise to send any information that the Chinese government considers a threat to" state security "or according to Human Rights Watch, an internal note in recent America Online recommended that staff to meet potential Chinese government demands for information on political dissidents. Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch's son James, a senior manager of global media conglomerate News Corp., has made public echoed the condemnation of Beijing Falun Gong, a group called "doomsday cult."
Beijing has allowed local and foreign journalists freedom to report some problems in the country's business sector. Beijing tolerates more dynamic business publications, because the government realizes an open financial press helps to convince investors that China is becoming more transparent. However, aggressive reporting, even in the business and financial sectors, can be punished if it involves senior officials. Over the past year, many Chinese companies have used the judiciary plays in the country, which convicts about 99 percent of the defendants, and files suits for defamation win-business reporters.

Today's China is a paradox. No longer the Maoist totalitarian state that has not become liberal society many foreign observers expected. It has opened its economy rapidly, and urban Chinese have adopted many of the practices of industrialized economies with remarkable speed. Urban youth of today can dress as they like, see a number of foreign television programs, even fly to a remote province to enjoy their own "Chinese Woodstock" rock festival. But those who praise Beijing to reform its economy and allow some of its citizens to improve their living standards have overlooked an unseemly fact: China is becoming more repressive, more stifling civil society and potentially more fuel.

Even some Chinese scholars sponsored by the state have begun to predict that if workers inequality among urban residents, peasants sacked and continues to increase, and if the government does little to make room for civil society and tolerate dissent People's Republic could face a social explosion or other national protest movement similar to that of 1989. "There are hundreds of little fires burning," said David Zweig, an expert on rural China at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "Will they become a fire?"

Funny Joke I found

Griper — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:11:45 +0000

A guy breaks into a house to look for money and guns and finds a young couple in bed. He orders the guy out of bed and ties him to a chair, while tying the girl to the bed he gets on top of her, kisses her neck, then gets up and goes into the bathroom. While he's in there, the husband tells his wife: "Listen, this guy's an escaped convict, look at his clothes! He probably spent lots of time in jail and hasn't seen a woman in years. I saw how he kissed your neck. If he wants sex, don't resist, don't complain, do whatever he tells you. Satisfy him no matter how much he nauseates you. This guy is probably very dangerous. If he gets angry, he'll kill us. Be strong, honey. I love you." To which his wife responds: "He wasn't kissing my neck. He was whispering in my ear. He told me he was gay, thought you were cute, and asked me if we had any Vaseline. I told him it was in the bathroom. Be strong honey. I love you too!!"

Google loves Obama? Hoax or not?

Griper — Sat, 29 May 2010 00:59:45 +0000

So, do you thinks this was fabricated?

What do you think about the controversy surrounding Miss America?

Krista — Tue, 18 May 2010 20:54:19 +0000

There are pictures of her pole dancing, and on top of that, there are reports of her family having ties to the terrorist group Hezbollah. Do you care?

What do you think of the new immigration law in Arizona?

Krista — Wed, 05 May 2010 18:43:19 +0000

Some people say that the new immigration law in Arizona is going to involve racial profiling because it states that law enforcers have the right to ask for legal documentation of anyone that they suspect is illegal. Of course, most illegal immigrants are of hispanic backgrounds. Is this racial profiling, or do they have the right to check any hispanic person for proof of legality?

What do you think of all these proud celebrity mistresses?

Krista — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 17:24:18 +0000

When we look at the Tiger Woods and Jesse James affairs, all their mistresses are coming out like, "Yeah, I slept with him!" They seem like they have no shame at all. What do you think about that, and how would we view Tiger Woods a year from now? Will this all be behind us, or will we still hold it against him?

Can Republicans Repeal the Health Care Bill?

Krista — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:35:10 +0000

The Republicans keep saying that they are going to repeal the healthcare bill because it's unconstitutional. Do you think that they can actually do it? And if they do, what kind of reaction will the supreme court get from the public if they rule this bill unconstitutional?

With a 8% unemployment rate, why is that a recession?

Krista — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:23:37 +0000

I don't know very much about economics, but why is a 8% unemployment rate called a recession? I know some other factors play into the recession like foreclosures and stuff, but isn't a 90% employment rate enough to hold up the economy? Why shouldn't it be? There must be some fraudulent stuff happening behind the scenes. The majority of Americans are still working, yet we're in a recession. Why?

Also, I wrote an article about this. It's also about what we can do to get out of the "recession". It's called Is the economy really that bad? Here's the link: www.associatedcontent.com/article/2508719/is_the_economy_really_that_bad.html

US House Of Representatives To Vote Out of Office!

Attitude — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:48:01 +0000

Here is a list of those Republicans and some so called Democrats to vote out of office for failing to do their jobs of protecting the America People. Instead they Voted no on the Health care reform act. These are the ones that will be remembered to vote out of office when their term is up.

Bill Young R FL-10
Don Young R AK
Jerry Lewis R CA-41
James Sensenbrenner R WI-05
Tom Petri R WI-06
David Dreier R CA-26
Ralph Hall R TX-04
Hal Rogers R KY-05
Christopher Smith R NJ-04
Frank Wolf R VA-10
Dan Burton R IN-05
Joe Barton R TX-06
Howard Coble R NC-06
Elton Gallegly R CA-24
Wally Herger R CA-02
Lamar Smith R TX-21
Fred Upton R MI-06
John Duncan R TN-02
Dana Rohrabacher R CA-46
Cliff Stearns R FL-06
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen R FL-18
Ron Paul R TX-14
John Boehner R OH-08
Dave Camp R MI-04
Sam Johnson R TX-03
Spencer Bachus R AL-06
Roscoe Bartlett R MD-06
Steve Buyer R IN-04
Ken Calvert R CA-44
Michael N. Castle R DE
Nathan Deal R GA-09
Lincoln Diaz-Balart R FL-21
Bob Goodlatte R VA-06
Pete Hoekstra R MI-02
Tim Holden D PA-17
Peter King R NY-03
Jack Kingston R GA-01
John Linder R GA-07
Buck McKeon R CA-25
Donald Manzullo R IL-16
John Mica R FL-07
Ed Royce R CA-40
Vern Ehlers R MI-03
Frank Lucas R OK-03
Rodney Frelinghuysen R NJ-11
Doc Hastings R WA-04
Walter B. Jones R NC-03
Tom Latham R IA-04
Steven LaTourette R OH-14
Frank LoBiondo R NJ-02
Sue Myrick R NC-09
George Radanovich R CA-19
John Shadegg R AZ-03
Mark Souder R IN-03
Mac Thornberry R TX-13
Todd Tiahrt R KS-04
Zach Wamp R TN-03
Ed Whitfield R KY-01
Jo Ann Emerson R MO-08
Dan Lungren R CA-03
Robert Aderholt R AL-04
Roy Blunt R MO-07
Kevin Brady R TX-08
Kay Granger R TX-12
Jerry Moran R KS-01
Joe Pitts R PA-16
Pete Sessions R TX-32
John Shimkus R IL-19
Mary Bono Mack R CA-45
Judy Biggert R IL-13
Gary Miller R CA-42
Paul Ryan R WI-01
Mike Simpson R ID-02
Lee Terry R NE-02
Greg Walden R OR-02
Bob Inglis R SC-04
Brian Bilbray R CA-50
Todd Akin R MO-02
Henry Brown R SC-01
Eric Cantor R VA-07
Shelley Moore Capito R WV-02
Ander Crenshaw R FL-04
John Culberson R TX-07
Jeff Flake R AZ-06
Sam Graves R MO-06
Darrell Issa R CA-49
Timothy Johnson R IL-15
Mark Kirk R IL-10
Mike Pence R IN-06
Todd Platts R PA-19
Adam Putnam R FL-12
Denny Rehberg R MT
Mike Rogers R MI-08
Patrick Tiberi R OH-12
Bill Shuster R PA-09
Randy Forbes R VA-04
Jeff Miller R FL-01
John Boozman R AR-03
Joe Wilson R SC-02
John Sullivan R OK-01
Rodney Alexander R LA-05
Gresham Barrett R SC-03
Rob Bishop R UT-01
Marsha Blackburn R TN-07
Jo Bonner R AL-01
Ginny Brown-Waite R FL-05
Michael Burgess R TX-26
John Carter R TX-31
Tom Cole R OK-04
Mario Diaz-Balart R FL-25
Trent Franks R AZ-02
Scott Garrett R NJ-05
Jim Gerlach R PA-06
Phil Gingrey R GA-11
Jeb Hensarling R TX-05
Steve King R IA-05
John Kline R MN-02
Thaddeus McCotter R MI-11
Candice Miller R MI-10
Tim Murphy R PA-18
Devin Nunes R CA-21
Michael Turner R OH-03
Randy Neugebauer R TX-19
Charles Boustany R LA-07
Mike Conaway R TX-11
Geoff Davis R KY-04
Charlie Dent R PA-15
eff Fortenberry R NE-01
Virginia Foxx R NC-05
Louis Gohmert R TX-01
Mike McCaul R TX-10
Patrick McHenry R NC-10
Cathy McMorris R WA-05
Connie Mack IV R FL-14
Kenny Marchant R TX-24
Ted Poe R TX-02
Tom Price R GA-06
Dave Reichert R WA-08
Lynn Westmoreland R GA-03
Jean Schmidt R OH-02
John Campbell R CA-48
Michele Bachmann R MN-06
Gus Bilirakis R FL-09
Vern Buchanan R FL-13
Mary Fallin R OK-05
Gabrielle Giffords D AZ-08
Dean Heller R NV-02
Jim Jordan R OH-04
Doug Lamborn R CO-05
Kevin McCarthy R CA-22
Peter Roskam R IL-06
Adrian M. Smith R NE-03
Paul Broun R GA-10
Bob Latta R OH-05
Rob Wittman R VA-01
Steve Scalise‎ R LA-01
Steve Austria R OH-07
Joseph Cao R LA-02
Bill Cassidy R LA-06
Jason Chaffetz R UT-03
Mike Coffman R CO-06
John C. Fleming R LA-04
Parker Griffith R AL-05
Brett Guthrie R KY-02
Gregg Harper R MS-03
Duncan D. Hunter R CA-52
Lynn Jenkins R KS-02
Leonard Lance R NJ-07
Chris Lee R NY-26
Blaine Luetkemeyer R MO-09
Cynthia Lummis R WY
om McClintock R CA-04
Pete Olson R TX-22
Erik Paulsen R MN-03
Bill Posey R FL-15
Phil Roe R TN-01
Tom Rooney R FL-16
Aaron Schock R IL-18
Glenn Thompson R PA-05

The Democrats Traiters who voted against the bill: Remember to vote them out too!

John Adler (NJ)
Jason Altmire (PA)
Brian Baird (WA)
John Barrow (GA)
John Boccieri (OH)
Dan Boren (OK)
Rick Boucher (VA)
Allen Boyd (FL)
Bobby Bright (AL)
Ben Chandler (KT)
Travis Childers (MS)
Artur Davis (AL)
Lincoln Davis (TN)
Chet Edwards (TX)
Bart Gordon (TN)
Parker Griffith (AL)
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD)
Tim Holden (PA)
Larry Kissell (NC)
Suzanne Kosmas (FL)
Frank Kratovil (MD)
Dennis Kucinich (OH)
Jim Marshall (GA)
Betsy Markey (CO)
Eric Massa (NY)
Jim Matheson(UT)
Mike McIntyre (NC)
Michael McMahon (NY)
Charlie Melancon (LA)
Walt Minnick (ID)
Scott Murphy (NY)
Glenn Nye (VA)
Collin Peterson (MN)
Mike Ross (AR)
Heath Shuler (NC)
Ike Skelton (MO)
John Tanner (TN)
Gene Taylor (MS)
Harry Teague (NM)