Like the source that says WWII was started by the Democrats?

The Col: Of course they are. How else did for years our building firms manage to fix prices for years on many big public construction projects... It's the size of the bribes that has changed, just like the size of footballers salary has over here. It's gone to a level where the public say.. "tradition be damned".. at least here to some degree.

"I work in a business that requires sponsors,while I try and ignore it,the interests of these sponsors are not totally out of mind in reqards to issues that arise."

Of course, it's a partnership. Your giving them good advertising, but at the same time is it the type they want!

...Ok that's a basic look, but you know what I mean.

.. Our UK government has just had a £40 million lesson in bad tendering. A look good on the books won tender regarding the West Coast rail franchise was likely to expose the UK to a loss, if the companies who set up the train operating company were not setting the franchise enough capital to cover going bust.

The tendering now needs to be repeated!!

The Col: It'd be nice.. It might even bring a price cut nationally considering how much is spent in bribes.. *cough* sorry, lobbying each year.

The Col: I think 10% of all election advertising and 10% of all lobbying monies.

Rev Al versus Ann Coulter

or.. how loud and incoherent doesn't work.

The Col: We are luckier in the UK, we have rights when it comes to pure bull at election time.. American style razzle dazzle that Maggie imported only took slightly.

The Col: White teeth speak with forked tongue?

The Col: Nice when Romney says if your 45, never had insurance and get heart disease.... you are on your own.

Guess Jesus forgot to put that he healed for free in BIG BOLD LETTERS a mile high like his Father did!

I'm talking about the reputed last message of God to the universe as described by Douglas Adams.. "we apologise for the inconvenience."

God is nice like that.

As if by magic... .... ....

Like the source that says WWII was started by the Democrats?


Please.. Please explain how your scholarly sources explain that shift in written history... Art.

Art, your version of history is a myth, just like Santa.

Deal with it.

Artful Dodger: ... and the rest of the article is...

In December 2005, the scientific journal Nature published the results of a study comparing the accuracy of Wikipedia and the printed Encyclopaedia Britannica. The researchers found that the number of "factual errors, omissions or misleading statements" in each reference work was not so different — Wikipedia contained 162, and Britannica had 123. The makers of Britannica have since called on Nature to retract the study, which it claims is "completely without merit."

When visiting controversial entries, look out for edit wars. Edit wars occur when two contributors (or groups of contributors) repeatedly edit one another's work based on a particular bias. In early 2004, Wikipedia's founders organized an Arbitration Committee to settle such disputes.

Wikipedia does have some weaknesses that more traditional encyclopedias do not. For example

There is no guarantee that important subjects are included or given the treatment that they deserve.

Entries can be incomplete or in the middle of being updated at any given time.

The writers of entries often fail to cite their original sources, thus making it hard to determine the credibility of the material.

These issues should not deter you from using Wikipedia. Just weigh the limitations of Wikipedia — and, for that matter, reference works in general.

>>>>>>>

But while the academics and pundits have been discussing the possible influence of the so-called “Bradley Effect” on voters this November, there have been isolated reports of campaign volunteers encountering bigots when going door to door or making phone calls.

If that foreshadows a more overt prejudice in the campaign, the question becomes: Will the McCain campaign publicly and actively reject the “Southern Strategy” of using white racism to win elections — which allowed the Republican Party to carry the South for decades — or will it tacitly embrace it?

McCain has a unique opportunity to demonstrate what kind of candidate he really is.

http://washingtonindependent.com/10982/is-the-southern-strategy-alive-and-well

The Col: .... Aye. I'm surprised it didn't 'disappear' one night, or get donated to someone with MS.. for them it's not criminal.

An elderly couple have unwittingly grown the "biggest cannabis plant" police officers had seen after buying what they thought was a shrub from a car boot sale.

The couple, who live in Bedford, had planted the drug in their garden.

Police officers were astounded when they spotted the plant. They have collected it and a spokesperson said it would be disposed of.

The couple will face no action from the police.

The officers took to their @bedfordlpt Twitter account to express their surprise at the find, saying: "Seized today. Elderly couple bought shrub at car boot sale, tended carefully - biggest cannabis plant we had seen!!"



Poetic to the fact that it is perfectly legal to buy cannabis seeds in the UK.... just not to grow them.

... Taxable revenue must be down. VAT is VAT!!

In American politics, the Southern strategy refers to the Republican Party strategy of gaining political support or winning elections in the Southern section of the country by implicitly appealing to racism against African Americans.

Though the "Solid South" had been a longtime Democratic Party stronghold due to the Democratic Party's defense of slavery prior to the American Civil War and segregation for a century thereafter, many white Southern Democrats stopped supporting the party following the civil rights plank of the Democratic campaign in 1948 (triggering the Dixiecrats), the African-American Civil Rights Movement, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, and desegregation.

The strategy was first adopted under future Republican President Richard Nixon and Republican Senator Barry Goldwater[6] in the late 1960s. The strategy was successful in some regards. It contributed to the electoral realignment of Southern states to the Republican Party, but at the expense of losing more than 90 percent of black voters to the Democratic Party. As the twentieth century came to a close, the Republican Party began trying to appeal again to black voters, though with little success.....

.....Following Bush's re-election, Ken Mehlman, Bush's campaign manager and Chairman of the RNC, held several large meetings with African-American business, community, and religious leaders. In his speeches, he apologized for his party's use of the Southern Strategy in the past. When asked about the strategy of using race as an issue to build GOP dominance in the once-Democratic South, Mehlman replied, "Republican candidates often have prospered by ignoring black voters and even by exploiting racial tensions," and, "by the '70s and into the '80s and '90s, the Democratic Party solidified its gains in the African-American community, and we Republicans did not effectively reach out. Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong."


>>>>>> We have Republican leaders here stating you are wrong. You gonna call them liars as well?

Wow... just seen Indian boffins (that's India Indians) making a battery out of cow dung... They were using old drained batteries as the terminals, just stuck in the dung and connected to make a large cell.

... It lasts a month before refreshing is needed.

And yes.. it can be used to charge ya laptop!

The gaming hobby of a political candidate has become an issue in a state senate race in New England, US. Maine Republicans have created a webpage revealing that Democrat candidate Colleen Lachowicz plays an orc rogue in World of Warcraft (WoW). Ms Lachowicz's liking for back-stabbing and poison in WoW raise questions about her "fitness for office", they claim.

Ms Lachowicz has hit back saying the attack showed the Republicans were "out of touch".

The state senate seat known as District 25 in Maine, is currently being contested by Ms Lachowicz and incumbent Republican Tom Martin. Voting takes place on 6 November. As part of its campaign efforts, the Republican party in the state created "Colleen's World" - a website that compiles information about Ms Lachowicz's orc rogue Santiaga. An orc is a mythical human-like creature, generally described as fierce and combative.

In a statement that accompanies the webpage, Maine Republicans said playing the game led Ms Lachowicz to live a "bizarre double life" that raised questions about her ability to represent the state. The page also detailed some of the comments Ms Lachowicz has made while talking about her orc rogue, in particular it highlights her affection for Santiaga's ability to stab things and kill people without suffering a jail sentence.

"These are some very bizarre and offensive comments," said Maine Republican Party spokesman David Sorensen in a statement. "They certainly raise questions about Lachowicz's maturity and her ability to make serious decisions for the people of Senate District 25."

The site also lists many of the 400 comments she has posted to left wing political news and discussion site Daily Kos. Maine Republicans have also posted leaflets that reproduce the information on the website.

"I think it's weird that I'm being targeted for playing online games," said Ms Lachowicz in a statement. "Apparently I'm in good company since there are 183 million other Americans who also enjoy online games.

The Col: just like the "poll taxes".. .. .. ..

So what you are saying Art is that a chair has a very good chance of beating Mitt.

I can believe that!!

When the demonstrators reached Dallas City Hall, Johnson poured kerosene on the flag and set it on fire. During the burning of the flag, demonstrators shouted such phrases as, "America, the red, white, and blue, we spit on you, you stand for plunder, you will go under," and, "Reagan, Mondale, which will it be? Either one means World War III." No one was hurt, but some witnesses to the flag burning said they were extremely offended. One witness, Daniel E. Walker, received international attention when he collected the burned remains of the flag and buried them according to military protocol in his backyard.[1]

Johnson was charged with violating the Texas law that prohibits vandalizing respected objects (desecration of a venerated object). He was convicted, sentenced to one year in prison, and fined $2,000. He appealed his conviction to the Fifth Court of Appeals of Texas, but he lost this appeal. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals would then see his case. This was the highest court in Texas that would see Criminal Appeals. That court overturned his conviction, saying that the State could not punish Johnson for burning the flag because the First Amendment protects such activity as symbolic speech.

The State had said that its interests were more important than Johnson's symbolic speech rights because it wanted to preserve the flag as a symbol of national unity, and because it wanted to maintain order. The court said neither of these state interests could be used to justify Johnson's conviction.

The court said, "Recognizing that the right to differ is the centerpiece of our First Amendment freedoms, a government cannot mandate by fiat a feeling of unity in its citizens. Therefore that very same government cannot carve out a symbol of unity and prescribe a set of approved messages to be associated with that symbol . . ." The court also concluded that the flag burning in this case did not cause or threaten to cause a breach of the peace......


....The Court's decision invalidated laws in force in 48 of the 50 states. More than two decades later, the issue remains controversial; recent polls suggest that a majority of Americans still support a ban on flag-burning.[6] Congress did, however, pass a statute, the 1989 Flag Protection Act, making it a federal crime to desecrate the flag. In the case of United States v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990),[7] that law was struck down by the same five person majority of justices as in Johnson (in an opinion also written by Justice Brennan). Since then, Congress has considered the Flag Desecration Amendment several times. The amendment usually passes the House of Representatives, but has always been defeated in the Senate. The most recent attempt occurred when S.J.Res.12[8] failed by one vote on June 27, 2006.

Übergeek 바둑이: I think it's more a case of the 1% rely on an "us and them" system.. divide and conquer. For if the stupid "us and them" died and it became "us" then the US would change.

"Romney the hypocrite fear-mongers about China and makes a killing producing cheap over there."

And the Chinese are dying and fighting over the hours they are having to work. Have prices really dropped though? Or is the middle men getting a greater wad, going by Apples profits.. I'd say they are getting fat on sweat shop factories.

Texas law...

In Article 1, Section 4, the Texas Constitution states: "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being."

Ninety-one people have been arrested in seven US cities for their alleged roles in a $430m (£265m) Medicare fraud scheme, the justice department says.

A hospital president, doctors and nurses are all accused of submitting claims for treatment that was medically unnecessary or never provided. Charges against them include healthcare fraud, breaking anti-kickback statutes and money laundering, the agency said. Medicare is a popular government health programme for the over-65s.

"Today's arrests put criminals on notice that we are cracking down hard on people who want to steal from Medicare," said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

She added that 30 other healthcare providers had been suspended or had administrative action taken against them based on credible allegations of fraud.

Dozens of people either surrendered or were arrested over the last 24 hours in a case led by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, officials said. The team uses analysis of Medicare data to fight fraud.

The arrests were made in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Brooklyn, New York; Chicago, Illinois; Dallas and Houston, Texas; Los Angeles, California; and Miami, Florida. Altogether the charges cover more than $230m in home healthcare fraud, more than $100m in mental healthcare fraud and more than $49m in ambulance transport fraud.

Court documents claim that patient recruiters, Medicare patients and other participants in the scheme were given cash kickbacks in exchange for providing information about healthcare beneficiaries. Their information was used to submit bills for treatment that never took place or was not needed.

A similar operation was launched in September 2011, with another 91 people arrested and charged over a suspected $295m Medicare fraud.

Iamon lyme: wow.. you sure are complaining.

"You have the right to not say anything sensible when you have nothing sensible to say, so why would anyone complain about that?"

So apparently do you. As well as Art in his Big Brother style version of history.

Iamon lyme: Not really, it's been a long time problem with conservatives not answering.. So if you have the right not to, then others do as well.

Not unless you want unequal rights.

Artful Dodger: Are you gonna lead by example?

The Col: To coin a phrase.. If I had a dime for every question that others have not answered on this board... I'd have a lot of dimes... or 5p's.. which people generally do find anyway as they are so small... but I'd I loads

Iamon lyme: Because no-one on this board is obliged to answer any question if they choose not to.

The moderators say that is everyone's right... something like freedom or some weird concept like it!!

Why then like other people Art, couldn't you take the word out as use stars in place as others have done in the past.

..Beware.. the next solar eclipse will be the liberals fault. Especially if it happens when Glenn Beck is doing one of his concerts!!

World War One (The War to End all Wars) - Started by a Liberal Democrat (Woodrow Wilson)
More than 11 Million Dead and Millions .

World War Two - Started by a Liberal Democrat (Franklin D. Roosevelt)
62 Million Dead, Many more Millions Mamed and wounded

I kinda got taught that WWI was started by the assassination of an Arch Duke. but now I know I'm wrong because Republican history now says, blame it on the liberals.

I kinda got taught that WWII was started by Hitler. Even though some historians say it did start with the Japan/Chinese wars.but now I know I'm wrong because Republican history now says, blame it on the liberals.

I wonder now if a guy I watched on youtube had a valid point, regarding the new type of maths. Christian Maths.

How did we manage without it through history?

Wow... Thanks Art, so many wars that a nation run by Christians has been involved in.

Unless, another force is pulling the strings......  ..... ......

Artful Dodger: That's a strawman argument.

The cons are good at this (or bad if you want to be accurate). Instead of talking about the points being made, they bring in talk about the morality of religion. Ignorance runs rampant in con thinking.

Vikings: in this comment made underneath..

This graph is a very false and misleading way of looking at the improvement under President Obama, and for more reasons than the fact that the biggest gainer on the list, Reagan , had 8 years and a congress more than happy to do the deficit spending--i.e. "stimulus"-- needed to recover, and other reasons that you attempt to "yes" away. This graph disengenuously manipulates the data to Hide the "yes" fact that the Bush Era Jobs Trough Recession was losing us jobs at maximum pace when Obama took office. That massive loss momentum was then turned around under Obama, from losses of 600,000-800,000 a month to GAINS of jobs within one year. For accurate graphs that show the recovery, see the BLS charts below.

160,000 jobs added in a month this month are more than were added in 23 of 24 of Bush2's last 24 months in office from Feb07 to Jan09 (and 14 of those Bush months were jobs loss months).

Total Number Employed (nonfarm) has risen for 22 straight months now (that's 22 months of jobs gains, and 25 months gaining out of the last 29), and is up over 4million since the bottom of the Bush Era Recession Job Trough in late 2009-early2010.

Look carefully at not just the numbers but the graphs at these BLS links to get a visual clue of how Obama's record is one of recovery from one of the the worst jobs recessions in history-- he and the 2009 Congress were handed an economy losing 600,000 to 800,000 jobs a month and in one year had it reversed to gaining jobs, with the AR&R Act of 2009 (Feb09) being an important part of that recovery (and ZERO Republicans in the House voted for it... zero).

http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet?request_action=wh&graph_name=CE_cesbref1

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001?output_view=net_1mthSee Less

rod03801: Not even close to what I was saying... Not even close to what I typed AT ALL.

Do Americans now take a responsible person test to make sure they are not nuts then before getting a gun?

Respectful gun owners like those who hunt, think those who idolise guns nuts. It's a tool, to some a necessary part of their livelihood, not a toy to play politics with.

Euthanasia.. the ability to end ones life with dignity, rather than in pain and/or various horrible states.

.... we put our pets down out of respect because we think it is wrong to let animals die in pain.

I'm for Euthanasia.. why would I want to die slowly of something like cancer if there was no cure? I and/or others are to treated with less respect than a pet so someone's head doesn't hurt!

.. People saying we should have personal responsibility but continually want to say what others can do with their body.

.. secret world domination in progress, next it'll be a cybernetic implant to make sure you are obeying them!!

rod03801: We live in a global economy Rod. One of our banks that the tax payer had to bail out... if it failed.. You'd be feeling the knock on effect as the whole financial system would have collapsed worldwide.

It's called per-spec-tive. Noting that most of your countries depend on their ability to sell on a global market.

Vikings: So your are saying that thanks to the banking crash, various bank frauds and various other white collar crime our countries are screwed up?

Lets not forget, this is a problem that is world wide thanks to the financial institutions. With various banks needing help, or going bust....

.. Over here, the Iceland banks going belly up cost various authorities authorities here millions from lost investments.

.. Shall we blame it all on Obama? Isn't that getting a little cliché?

After Barack Obama told Martin’s parents “if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon”, blogs and websites surrounding key conservative figures like Glenn Beck and Dick Cheney began calling for the country to ‘wait for the facts’ and respect ‘due process’, rallying on Twitter around the #teamdueprocess hashtag. They did this by implying that Martin was a criminal.

On March 19, Beck’s website, The Blaze, speculated without much evidence that Martin could have been suspended from school for drug possession, “sexual harassment”, or “arson”. The Miami Herald spent four paragraphs listing ‘suspicious’ facts about Martin’s bags (like “women’s jewellery” and a “burglary tool”) and on the same day, The Daily Caller, co-founded by Dick Cheney, published a compilation of tweets reportedly culled from Martin’s deleted Twitter account, by an ‘undisclosed source’. The Conservative Review immediately branded the teen “a criminal thug on his way to a life in prison”.

The campaign of character assassination didn’t stop with the right wing media. On March 25, a Twitter news site run by another Fox News contributor, Michelle Malkin, posted a picture of an entirely different Trayvon Martin which had appeared one day before on the neo-nazi website Stormfront.

On March 29, a white supremacist hacker called ‘Klanklannon’ took up the work of Cheney’s Caller and leaked private messages he claimed belonged to Martin. The hacker invited people to log into Martin’s gmail account and see for themselves, having helpfully changed the password to ‘n*****************’.

Meanwhile, the conservative National Review had the nerve to fire contributing editor John Derbyshire on April 8 for looking beyond the controversy to the wider issues at stake. “Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally,” he wrote in an article for Taki’s Magazine, responding to Trayvon-inspired race debates by describing ‘the talk’ he gives to his kids. “Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks,” he went on (each point was backed up by a link to a crime or scandal which happened to involve an African-American). Avoid amusement parks if they are “swamped with blacks,” he warned; “Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.”

In the Fox-News-o-sphere’s focus on Trayvon and its implication that Zimmerman needed “protecting” from a dangerous thug is the germ of the idea that brought Nazis to Sanford. Anything in Martin’s life that was remotely ‘suspect’ (or, often, youthful) became evidence that he was a threat – better evidence, apparently, than prosecutors could ever provide.

‘Protection’ has served as a worse excuse before. In his terrifying expose of post-Katrina killings in New Orleans, AC Thompson shows how a white militia group described as “the ultimate neighbourhood watch” attacked black citizens with impunity. 32-year-old Donnell Herrington was shot in the neck by vigilantes – he claimed there was no warning – in affluent Algiers Point, which one militiaman gleefully described as “like pheasant season in South Dakota”. “I’m not a prejudiced individual,” said another, “but you just know the outlaws who are up to no good. You can see it in their eyes.”

Then, as the New Statesman notes, there was Camp Grayhound, a “facsimile of Guantanamo Bay” built in two days by prison labour where the militias brought ‘arrested’ citizens to be thrown in outdoor cages and repeatedly pepper-sprayed. One was Syrian-American Abdulrahman Zeitoun, the subject of a non-fiction book by Dave Eggers, who spent three days there for no particular reason (“you guys are al-Qa’ida,” he was told; “We’re taking our city back”). According to the Statesman, police had claimed that babies were being raped in the refugee camps and that officers should “shoot looters”. Last year the entire New Orleans Police Department was placed under judicial supervision as a threat to the public.

For the Katrina militias, as for the Sanford neo-Nazis, protecting white America meant threatening blacks; for the conservative blogosphere, protecting George Zimmerman means dirtying the name of a dead youth. This uneasy parity in logic reveals the racist undertones of a campaign to thugify Trayvon which writers have shared with white supremacists. Zimmerman will be tried by the courts, now, and not by the media – which is all the protesters ever wanted. But in the meantime, the American far right must take a serious look at the company it keeps.

Artful Dodger: America... a disgruntled ex employee shoots his boss killing 4 and 3 serious.

Gun nuts thinking they can fix a problem with a bullet, that vengeance is their right. Shocking!!

It was a suicide attack, as the guy then shot himself!!!

The Col: Especially it seems when it comes to history. An old saying regarding history is that we are here because our ancestors were victors.

... ie they killed.

N' sometimes believing they were doing Gods will.

Even now there are instances of a literal evangelical style Christian belief system that teaches that children can be 'witches' that was spread in various African countries by missionaries...

http://www.christianpost.com/news/child-deaths-on-rise-in-uk-linked-to-fundamentalist-african-churches-70946/

The recent case of a couple convicted in the witchcraft-related murder of a teen girl in London sheds light on a larger problem affecting Britain and other Western countries that has its origins in fundamentalist African churches, according to observers.

Magalie Bamu, 29, and her boyfriend Eric Bikubi, 28 were found guilty of torturing Bamu's 15-year-old sister and then allowing her to drown, in an apparent attempt to rid her of the evil spirits they believed she was possessed by, The Telegraph reported. Cases like this are becoming more common in England involving immigrants from Central Africa, where children are often accused of witchcraft, are settling in and bringing such beliefs with them.

There are apparently no less than 84 child abuse cases linked to witchcraft that have been investigated in the past 10 years in the U.K., the Metropolitan Police revealed.

Witchcraft has been present in the Central African region for centuries, but it has recently been integrated with Christianity – pastors in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria often take money from parents to perform exorcism rituals which they claim will rid their children of demonic possessions. The belief that children can be possesed by spirits has its roots in traditional African practises, but many of these churches have tried to connect those traditional beliefs with passages in the Bible that say Jesus healed people posessed by demons.

According to The Telegraph's report, there are more than 20,000 children in DR Congo who are forced to live homeless on the streets of the capital Kinshasa because they have been accused of sorcery.

Artful Dodger: ... you are trying to rewrite recorded history. While it might be true to say at a local level many democrats still were voted in, AT A NATIONAL LEVEL a switch was made due to the civil rights laws.. where the people had voted NATIONALLY for Democrats, they switched and voted for the Republicans as they then were without any real voter base and used the vacuum, by becoming aligned with the POLICIES AT A NATIONAL LEVEL the voters wanted.

The Col: It seems like a soap at times... what next is gonna come out of the closet.

It doesn't matter anyway. If the current system of total non cooperation carries on, no-one will win.

Just a little extrapolation... If all Romney is interested in is the 5-10% of swing voters.

Doesn't that mean he doesn't really give a damn about 90-95% of Americans.

btw.. if someone said stuff the 47% in the UK.. they'd be saying "bye bye" to any political career they thought they might have...

Artful Dodger: So there are no white folk calling fellow white folk traitors for voting for Obama.. not forgetting it's against God.

mckinley: Yeah I read supplies came to be the deciding factor. I have to disagree to some degree over it being just economics and not slavery as the two were intertwined.