Xard

Thanks for providing perfect opening for "attack"! Individual rights can mean many things - what if rather limited set of rights of libertarians isn't the whole truth and is build on hopelessly idealistic view of human nature, just like communist one? Lack of regulation? Well yeah, individuals in market can in my view **** things just as well as goverment. We're all humans. Big words. Ever considered, even for a moment, that you might be wrong sometimes? What if market isn't the perfect, solipstic, ever itself repairing wonder machine that gets automatically ****ed up when snake - goverment - slithers into the paradise? I can be c*cky but when it comes to economics you take it to wholly new level, especially with all your "rationality" spouting when you follow switz school which doesn't actually have hard science and maths behind it! Thanks for admitting your own bigotry (I've never read Marx and barely any Chomsky btw) when it comes to your sources; the libertarian fallacy about this crisis being due to goverment has been vindicated critically in many different places here in Finland; I've read finnish economics (not of the keynesian-type btw!) admit it was failure of market many times. Some people have balls to do that due to not having their entire ideologies at stake. And it is entirely reasonable conclusion - except for the ideology of "MARKETS CAN'T BE WRONG GOVERMENT DON'T WORK HUR HUR ALL HAIL GURU". It's also funny how this whole libertarian thinking relies on notion of "perfect market condition" which is nothing more than theoretical supposition utterly removed from real life. How one can build one's worldview on la la land of perfect flow of information on utterly correct balance of supply and demand is ridiculous. Ain't gonna happen. Some english links here and here. You guys really hit low point when attacking Act from 70's as cause behind current crisis... but hey, it can't be the market! It was the goverment, some way or another! So how *exactly* is UN trying to violate your rights? Yeah, you work 12 hours a day to bring money to your family, fearing for illness of any serious sort that would immeaditly demolish your meager financial standing as you can't afford health insurances in these hard times. Then you get laid off as apparently company could make even more profits with shift to China and use of child working power (not that something as politically incorrect as last part is found from any papers!). At the same time you ready to tell news for your wife (and fearing you go all Hollis Brown on her and kids) the CEO gives himself nice, "little" raise in form of options as he is so goddamn good at keeping growth on. My my lad, you should've just worked harder! American dream is just around corner for you! curse these taxes, I don't get anything for paying them! I don't know, isn't it self-deception to build moral standings on amoral, even predatory system utilizing little green papers? wow, talk about remembering what you want. I never got around answer (or whole forums) due to various reasons that aren't exactly your (or anyone else's ) business - I never said "NO I CANNOT ANSWER YOU =( " uhh, what if you're also providing healthcare for yourself with the same payment? Libertarianism is only rational and consistent when taken to its extreme anarchistic variable and even there you end up with dilemma of freedom that "plagues" all anarchistic philosophies. So, you want moral ground for taxing, progressive taxing and social justice and rights as well as reason(s) why you can't build morals on money and "ownership" rights alone? Fine, you'll get them tomorrow after I come back from visiting some family members in pre-Christmas visit. "How noble libertarianism, in its majestic equality, that both rich and poor are equally prohibited from peeing in the privately owned streets (without paying), sleeping under the privately owned bridges (without paying), and coercing bread from its rightful owners!"

not sure what you mean about this, but you told me that if your government would not implement your form of oppression (which you clearly stated that you wanted to enforce certain behaviors) you would go somewhere else where the government would. What "certain behaviors"? Not breaking laws by, for example, commiting homicide? Paying taxes? i wasn't resurrecting a many months old topic, i was resurrecting your hypocrisy. And I was merely explaining why I never got back to debate. But with you always running in circles with these same old matters like true pure hearted libertarian should (making as much noise as possible in process) I guess it'll never end. because the UN advocates oppression within its own constitution. the UN wants a socialist world, that is, as i've stated on many occasions, evil by any standard. while the US practices it, at the very least we have a document that does not. that our government chooses not to abide by said document is something i truly detest. Ahh yes, the great evil of "socialism"! Let me guess you still believe this current economical crisis is due to "goverment meddling with business" too? "The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights and achieving world peace." Interesting. How one can see any of these aims as oppression is rather intriguing. And that mischievous working class back in the 19th century, they were surely evil lot motivated by want to oppress those pitiful well faring folks. Isn't it rather interesting libertarian nutjobbery always arises among the people with good to great income? I've never heard of poor, barely surviving black woman advocating evils of social justice. Have you? "Socialist" = oppression = evil this is still basis of your views. "Oppression" = taxes, "redistribution of wealth", social justice I'm correct again, right? Thus my verdict about this all ultimately being about morality of taxing and esp. progressive taxing is correct. Heck, I remember you demanding me to give moral backing for taxing so don't give me that "not sure what you mean about this" crap. You're free of course to point out where I went wrong with your views.

you tell me despite the jokish tone I've become increasingly open to reincarnation in past months

huh? Esbj

David Bowie - Breaking Glass You're such a wonderful person But you got problems oh-oh-oh-oh I'll never touch you

First I thought it was meh Now I've been listening it non-stop for whole day like true junkie

I recently read article on homosexuality on science magazine and basically it boils down to A) with women it's pretty much no genetics at all and instead choice and enviroment. B) with men it seems to be more "hardwired" but no one knows how However, judgin from the article and numerous controversies I think "gay gene" and such is just more reductionistic, materialist bull**** like, for example, "god gene" or "god spot" or "god circuit" or whatever one prefers as explanation of religion. Oh, and as for someone being gay once and for all as it is hard wired: too bad hard wiring doens't exist in human brain. I worry one day these anti-gay movements will tap on neuroplasticity and will twist it to use it in literally reprogramming sexuality. IF SEXUALITY DEPENDS ON BRAIN. But then we'd end up talking religiously about "souls" and stuff and that's no to srs scientist talk, yes siire When one can rewire him/herself to basically "see" with frickin tongue changing something as ambiguous and unspecific as sexuality...well, theoretically entirely possible, even very likely to succeed. The obvious supremacy of "nurture" versus "nature" in lesbianism just works as further case in point. Explanation for homosexuality: Brain? of course, partially. However, unfortunately for materialists and determinists phenomenoms such as neuroplasticity are absolutely killing the "you're born with brain that works like this and it will work like till you die" model of thinking. Thus if homosexuality is due to neurological mapping = there's no such thing as absolute homosexuality. Same applies to "male brain" and "female brain". Genes? Now how would genes achieve this? Through the brain of course and thus above reasons apply here too. Not to mention "genetic determinism" is pretty much pop media bs. Nurture scored a big one in the debate some months ago when people with similar genetics had different genes becoming active based on enviroment. One could of course make shaky case out of it as person choosing homosexuality and thus "activating" certain genes. Bus as said, there's not much hard proof behind genetics Enviroment? NO NO NO and yet yes as above points prove. But enviroment can't be the biggest deciding factor, at least when it comes to men. ----------------------------------------------- Conclusion 1: sexuality is not fixed and is ambiguous, shaping force of human psyche that apparently can't be entirely reduced to biology. Freud's libido would be so proud of itself... OR Conclusion 2: we just don't have ****ing clue OR Conclusion 3: Genetics, brain structure et al that one has with birth influences and direct towards some sort of sexuality, but we can't escape conclusion 1 entirely... Or Conclusion 4: we all reincarnate and make choice of our sexuality prebirth. Our souls then influence formation of our brain and activations of genes during pregnancy ...so yeah. Despite the theory of the weeks no one really has any idea. I'd say Conlusion 1/3 fits closest to truth.

my suggestion, actually. the UN is evil, btw, if there is a such thing as "evil." the UN caters to evil sorts such as xard: those that want to oppress and will go anywhere to get oppression forced on people if his country won't sign up for the oppression. at least, that's what xard told me in another thread. taks I thought we were debating about "immorality" of taxing before I left internet completely for couple of months. And with random_n00b it had something to do with morals overall. Resurrecting many months old topic would've been more than silly. What makes United Nations more evil than single nation? Why would UN legistilations be more immoral than those United States Of America forces on its states?

I'm encouraging myself to do encouraging things As well as getting seriously fed up with Lennon's Happy Xmas (War Is Over). And other Christmas songs.

oh and I listen a lot to same stuff. Because it's ****ing awesome Syd Barret - Here I Go

It's not as bad as the Arkansas Unmarried Couple Adoption Ban. It's only a proposition. You know, if you chaps signed up to an international human rights treaty you could avoid a lot of this by people appealing to the external court. We've been getting a lot of stuff like that through the EU. but UN is evil and hurt mah sovierintyyyy =(

Well, you've certainly managed to take the conversation somewhere..? I hope the top 20 and 50 thing was meant to be ironic. No, I'm dead serious. I'm quite... unorganized person over all, but I have this perverse thing for listing stuff. All time best movies, all time best singles, all time most influential artists, most idiotic thing I've seen this year etc. Well of course. But you're missing the point. Innovations (whether it be wah-wah pedal or subverting typical song structures) in that era were numerous and there's a lot things about which you could say "never heard anything like that before". Not so much today. When I dig something they stay on my whatever you want to call them lists. (If forced to name) there's two albums I always go back to and those are PF's Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. In anime equivalents are Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop and some other films e.g Grave of the fireflies. In literature... yeah, you get what I mean. That doesn't mean I'm not searching for new stuff either; in anime last new item that made me go "O_o" and has really good chances at ending up in that list was Haibane Renmei. well, I'll check out some of them when I'm done with my current era of focus, namely late 60's important albums (last I got was The Kinks's The Village Green Preservation Society, awesome stuff). I've also been checking out some Zappa albums but so far I've been far too scared to give listen to them. I'm not so sure. There were many important 70's acts in formation of electronic music and I'd say Kraftwerk and Brian Eno are pretty much equal in importance. Sielun Veljet - Peltirumpu

Well, I've been reading history of imperialism lately and British Empire actually was quite decent for gigantic empire. You guys did do a lot of good things too. French guys where the ****

"any other colonial power"? British were good guys in many aspects when compared to french, who could be complete ****. But I think Germany et al followed more british way than french way... who knows point taken

yeah, Gandhi sure did bad job

Well, the U.S has catastrophical record with laundry after messing the clothes. Iraq catastrophy could've been averted (or at least weakened) by more capable leaders and decisions. Easily. Anyway, I find Afghanistan to be far more interesting currently. Allies are losing war there and they can't afford to lose it. Yet with things going on like this they will, just like soviets, russians (earlier in history) and british lost. Afghanistan has been burial ground for troops of any superpower and it certainly looks like nothing has changed. And not even Obama is willing to leave Afghanistan

because japs make charity porn?

Frank Black - Calistan

Pixies - Wild Honey Pie best. cover. ever.

Stevie Wonder - Superstition

Dude, I'm never getting out of Strawbery Fields Forever. I just placed it on 9th spot when I made my Top 20 of all time (and what a pain in the ass that was. Even Top 50 proved out to be nigh-impossible...) so nyaaahh! by the way, give me one modern songwriter (for the record, Frank Black/Black Francis era dudes are too old. They're, like, all middle aged or something) that's on par with John Lennon Paul McCartey Neil Young Bob Dylan Ray Charles Paul Simon Stevie Wonder Lou Reed Syd Barret Brian Wilson Ray Davies David Bowie John Cale or give me examples of modern day guitarists that are on level with David Gilmour Jimi Hendrix Jimmy Page Brian May Robert Fripp Neil Young Eric Clapton Duane Allman Mark Knopfler B.B King Out of 80's players Marr deserves the title of being best new guitarist with a landmile bloody baby boomers but the saying "whatever you're going to do, Beatles's have already done it and quite likely better than you would" still holds largerly too. Early Beatles's is still musically on very top of songwriting qualities, especially in chord progressions and melodic twists. Latter day Beatles as serious artists are in innovation fronts impossible to top. Same goes for Velvet Underground which pioneered alt. rock, industrial, punk etc. soundscapes years before those genres existed. Heavy Metal and hard rock hasn't considerably gone beyond power chords and riffs by Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited is garage rock decades before garage rock. Lou Reed and especially Dylan revolutionized what lyrics could be about. Pink Floyd mastered "album as artform" to level not reached since. Hendrix changed the way guitar is played like no other artist has ever done. Just for starters. Songwritingwise last great innovation was the extreme dynamics (quiet/LOUD/quiet) that Pixies (Black Francis to be exact) practially made up and which has since then been ripped off (thanks Nirvana) to no end. And that happened in late 80's. What new has since then happened in songwriting? Beautiful, long, carefully constructed pieces that work as equivalents of classical symphonies in rock music? Pink Floyd already mastered that. Hard hitting riffs and banshee wails? Hello Led Zeppelin! Pushing the studio technology limits to outer space? Y halo thar Beatles and Floyd! "Back to basics" crunching garage rock? O hai 50's rock'n roll! Mixing rnb and gospel? why, hello there Ray Charles and "I got a woman"! Pulitzer price worthy poetry for lyrics? Hi mr Dylan, how's it going on Desolation Row? Utterly decadent, no taboos lyrics? sup Lou, whazzzup? The ultraconfessional, utterly uncompromising songwriter? Hi John, you really should see psychiatrist. Hey, let's tinker with all these weird electronic devises and call it electronic music or something! Kraftwerk, what's that? Is it something to eat? How about "rapping" words to some steady backbeat and call it rap or something, preferrably with socially aware lyrics? uhh, rap's been around since 70's... What about we show off our prowness with our instruments and aim at classical music level of technicality in our playing and thus "bring rock higher as art form"? Hello King Crimson and Yes... Really, the list goes on and on. When I listen to modern day band I barely ever hear something that I wouldn't find from records of 60's-70's and early 80's new wave/post-punk/alternative rock giants. I was referring to alt rock breakthrough which usurped stadion rock it's 80's status of cool and especially the breakthrough (and bastardisation, apparently) of last really new and innovative rock songwriting trick, the extreme dynamics. And that stuff became the mainstream like corporate rock (best example of all time: the horrific "we built this city" song) was in 80's. Never said there was no good stuff going on. However, care to point out one innovation in songwriting that can't be traced back to 60's reneissance of poprock songwriting, 70's guitarwork and punk or new wave/alt. rock acts such like early R.E.M. ? There was reason why Thom Yorke went on whining before release of Kid A as guitar rock being dead. My bad, I somehow managed to screw up my brain and considered Kraftwerk et al as early 80's bands while they were 70's stuff So yeah, you're right. where you live? As some music critic bored of whining about modernm music said that in certain way this year is best in year in the history of music, because A) we have all the old greats B) and new greats last year didn't have! By that logic 2009 will be even greater year... and 2010 etc. etc. Prince - Purple Rain

I can't help but view today's musical scene with same distaste I view 80's one. Overproduction is back with big B - and what's worse is that now good pop songwriters are really hard to find - musically average pop song of today loses ten to zero for, say, early Beatles song. Well that wasn't fair comparison as Beatles's whole body of work is compositionally etc. really ****ing hard to parallel... Let's say musically average pop song loses to new wave biggies such as Blondie. Or 70's Fleetwood Mac. Et cetera et cetera. How much as I dislike for example Michael Jackson I still have to admit he had knack at writing catchy melodies. Not to mention Paul McCartney's string of fluffy Wings-hits in 70's. Of course there's good stuff in modern music too - but sad truth is modern bands are still living on 60's and 70's reneissance of songwriting tricks and innovations. Last *big* thing that has happened in popular music was breakthrough of grunge and alternative rock in early 90's. I rather like 90's stuff, especially in comparison to that of 80's. Now we're back to 80's with some differences... - same soulless pop acts - same soulless rock acts - overproduction - era of music tv (for BAD, "MTV killed rock music" as someone put it) - many bad metal bands Differences: - There's no equivalent of early 80's new wave, post-punk and punk acts and their innovations and synthesises - Alternative rock is pretty much dead and there's no "college radio" culture to speak of - rap, which was back then in its full underground power, has largerly declined to **** like 50 cent - everything is ****ing autotuned - oh, and back in 80's there was innovative electronica stuff going on - heavy metal has largerly been transformed from gritty and savage to everyday elevator music (at least here in Finland) ...so if I look it like this current situation is even worse Of course there's good music going on today too in fairly large quantities, but not on the same level of visibility. If you want to find great bands today you really have to search for it; that's the main difference to 60's and 70's when the best acts also tended to be also the most popular acts. Even though it's comedy (well duh) and of course slanders *everything*, Thorpe hits the nail in here. Esp. when it comes to sense of melodies (how many modern hit songs you can remember melody to?)

I think the 80's were a pretty good decade for pop music. The Smiths were one of the best, but it would be a disservice to ignore others at the time, even from the UK. Well, I for one hate 99 % of 80's music. Bloody synthpop, overproduction and hair metal... But there were definetly a lot of good stuff going on, especially in the alternative rock (well, 80's was the era of real aternative rock anyway)... R.E.M. and Pixies are my absolute favourites Bob Dylan - Ballad of A Thin Man Live yeah... the "JUDAS" performance

The Smiths - There Is Light That Never Goes Out best british band of 80's or best british band of 80's? You decide

is that tongue or lip?