Man ordered Tv and got a gun:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/0 ... ult-rifle/

Seems like all theoretical obstacles can be circumvented through pure stupidity.

Only the ones who disagree with you.


Why? You've repeatedly stated the greatness of the U.S. system, so Andrew Jackson was cleary no tyrant and was acting with support from the other branches of government. Why then punish just one party? The NSDAP quickly abolished any other democratic institutions. They were tyrants.


Yeah, the US did a lot of things to oppose Communism. This was never done in the fight for good. It was a global power struggle and the only reason the US partook in it was to protect its economic interests. If you had stayed in isolation, the Soviets would have cut you off from all ressources outside of North America by 1970.

Oh, and I was born in the Soviet occupied part of Germany, so don't expect any "gratitude" from me.


The US has foreign bases for it's own merits. The Iraq War would have been infinitely more difficult without convenient bases in Europa and the Middle East. We ain't paying you to stay here, it's been win-win for both sides: you get to have your military bases on our soil for free and we get to underspend on military budgets.

It's kind of useless to argue about who is or who is not a tyrant, but Andrew Jackson's forced migration of the Indians to Oklahoma was a direct contradiction to a US Supreme Court ruling on the matter, and Congress had nothing to do with it. It was a flagrant disregard for the rule of law, and is a disgrace to civilized and law abiding people. I am not saying he was on the same level as Hitler, but by American standards he inflicted great harm to the American Indians.

So your statement that Jackson forced migration of the Indians had the support from the other branches of the US government is a lie. I can't believe this. I have one German Marxist telling me that the US committed genocide against the American Indians, and I have another German Marxist telling me that Jackson is not responsible, when in fact he was a known Indian hater and was clearly responsible.

I do have an un-related question from m0002a or any other Americans here.

Why is it that America is the only country in the world that ranks the Olympic scoreboard by quantity of medals, rather than golds, and then silvers and bronze medals if there is a tie with gold medals.? This snippet of news just appeared on the BBC, showing that the Americans think that they are currently beating China, and that Russia is in 3rd Place... This is a very odd way of doing things that as far as I know is unique to America. Not a single one of the first 15-Teams in the rankings (at the moment of posting) agrees with what the rest of the world see. The questions are why is America the only one to get it wrong, and has America ever got this right i.e. did they change the way the ranking are measured from the correct way at some point in the past.?


Andy

You should ask the US news media. We have freedom of the press and they can do what they like. I doubt that the US media is the only ones who count medals that way, but in any case they make it very easy to see exactly how many gold, silver, and bronze each country has won--they are not hiding that from what I can see.

I think the British are overly sensitive about that because, even though their total medal count is not as high as Russia for example, Britain has won a ton of gold medals. If that were not the case, or some other country was in that same situation (more gold than Britain but less overall medals than Britain), I don't think the British media would talking about it. Do you really think that the US media likes Russia more than Britain?

But I have a question for you:

Why is it that Britain moans and groans about security planning lapses in the Olympics, and makes a huge stink about it, and then when Romney is asked about it, he just repeats what he read in the British press about the poor planning, and he gets lambasted by the British?

I must be mistaken, all of the other countries around the world dont

In the clip that I saw, they only showed the top 3, none of which are in the correct order, was it just that particular news outlet, or all of the media outlets in America.?



I don't think we are overly sensitive about the fact that America distorts the medal table (or at least one American news outlet does), just bemused especially as the news snippet was about who was going to win, China or America, that was the point when it was shown that Americans are being told that they are winning, when the rest of the world knows the truth, it shows that some use the freedom of the press to lie about all sorts of things.



I think that we are allowed to complain about our various inadequacies, the problem with what Romney said was that the problem had been sorted out before he even got off of the plane, presumably he found some old newspapers, and then he says this to an American media outlet and then compared it to his own efforts in arranging the Winter Olympics is town with a fraction of the populous to get security arranged for. Basically he did everything wrong and most likely for his own political gain, which is not quite the same as the truth.

---

I am answering my own question about how widespread the wrong way of counting Olympic medals are in American Media outlets. Lets see who can get it right, and who gets it wrong - It looks very convincing.

Fox - Disqualified
NBC - Disqualified
Reuters - Gold Medal
CBS - Unknown, the page doesn't display
Huffington Post - Disqualified
ESPN - Disqualified
New York Times - Disqualified
USA Today - Disqualified
UJNews - Disqualified


Andy

I didn't say all other countries do or don't do that, I said that there are probably others that do the same.


Most of the time they show a long list of the countries, not just the top 3 in total medal count. I noticed quite a few times in the US media that Britain had a very large number of gold medals. There have been several stories on US Television about how well Britain is doing in the medal count (especially gold). But to make amends for our sins of listing countries by total medal count instead of only gold, how about I come to Britain and lick your boots. Will that suffice?

When you say "correct order" are you saying that only gold matters? So if one country has only a single gold medal in gun shooting (no silver or bronze), and another country has 10 silver and 10 bronze medals, that the correct order is to put the country with the single gold medal first?


Americans are shown the exact medal count of gold, silver, and bronze, and total medals. They are not just being told the total. We can see that China is ahead in gold.[/quote]


He was asked by the press when he arrived and he responded based on what he read in the media. It was all over the news in the US for at least a week that government hearings were conducted in Britain about the problem. I can't even imagine what possible political gain he could get out of saying what he did, and was just repeating what the British media had already reported.

Overall, I think that even though Britain is not ahead in total gold medals, or total medals, they are way ahead in the cry-baby contest.

Did you check Pravda? Why are you only checking US sites? Also, what does "Disqualified" mean? I thought the question was what other countries do, but you have only listed various US news media (except maybe Reuters, not sure)?

From Wiki

This is the table of the medal count of the 2012 Summer Olympics, based on the medal count of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). These rankings sort by the number of gold medals, earned by a National Olympic Committee (NOC). The number of silver medals is taken into consideration next and then the number of bronze medals. If, after the above, countries are still tied, equal ranking is given and they are listed alphabetically by IOC Country Code. Although this information is provided by the IOC, the IOC itself does not recognize or endorse any ranking system.

The IOC are the people who make the Olympics "happen", and they say that there is only one way that the table should be counted - what more can I say.



I didn't say that they were only showing one number per country, just that they were being sorted by "total medal count" rather than the correct way.



accusing someone of being a "cry-baby" because I just pointed out that America is not actually winning the Olympics at this moment, very funny FYI I still expect America to come top of the table, it was only ever going to be a 2-horse race with every other country coming a long way behind.



I was only checking the American websites because I would assume that other countries media would get the medal table correct, and so far I only know of one country that does not - but now you have got me interested - I am off to look.

"Definition of disqualify
verb (disqualifies, disqualifying, disqualified)

declare (someone) ineligible for an office, activity, or competition because of an offence or infringement"

So Far I have looked at France, Germany, China, Russia and Australia - they can all publish an Olympic medal table correctly, but Canada are also bad - they cant display the medal table correctly either - or atleast CBC cant.

Oh poor Canada, they think that the are ranked 12th in the world, its a shame that they are actually 32nd Sorry Canadians, but your media outlets are lying to you.

And by the way I don't just fee sorry for the Canadians, but also for South Korea because they are actually 4th in reality, not 9th as the people of America and Canada believe.


Andy

Maybe you can't read, but it clearly says "the IOC itself does not recognize or endorse any ranking system."


According to your post above, there is no correct way. But you didn't answer my question about Pravda.


Maybe it was fixed by the time he landed, but there was no story that I saw in the American press about it being fixed.


According to information I have been looking at for the past 30 minutes (including before you posted), the US now leads China in gold 39 to 37. Obviously, this could change. But honestly, really, isn't this all a bit childish? Does it really matter who wins the Olympic Medal contest?

Yes I read that, but I also read the bit just before it that says how the medal ranking is supposed to go, but be my guest to not make any difference between Gold, Silver and Bronze, they are all worth the same BTW as I expected America is back in the lead.

Also if you really want to get down and dirty, follow the link from the IOC's website, this is where it ends up - that is the "Official 2012 Medal table".

http://www.london2012.com/medals/medal-count/



Never heard of them, I looked at "Russia Today" and "Moscow News" FYI.



That might be the case, but this man is vying to be the next American President, he needs to get better advisors that feed him up to date news.



It only matters where your country stands in the rankings if you care, you cared enough to reply, I care because national pride is at stake and the Olympics is a massively expensive event to host and I want it to be successful in terms of as much running smoothly as possible, no violence (read terrorism), all of the 10 thousand athletes going away thinking that the Britain has hosted a great Olympics (a few have already decided to stay illegally - not that I am complaining), that the sportsmen and women put their very best into their event, and that the crowds in the stadia and around the world on TV have a brilliant experience, then I hope that team GB does well - we are, but its a home Olympics with 7-years knowledge that we are hosting it - we had to do well.

And finally, this is like being a Red Sox fan and watching them progress up the league table, will they come first or second this time round.?


Andy

I think you have exposed yourself. You must be fairly young. Pravda was the official (and only) news source of the USSR for many years. Even after other media outlets were allowed in Russia, I think Pravda still had a website up until a few years ago (although not the official news source of the Russian government).


Romney gets off the plane, and the media asks him what he thinks about the security planning problems. Why would they ask him that if the problems were fixed? Well, we know why the press does those things, because they are more interested in causing someone to make a public mistake, than they are interested in the real issues facing the world these days. Most people who read newspapers or watch TV news don't really understand the problems of the world (way to complex for the average person), but they do like see a politician being tricked into making a fool of himself. It's great entertainment and sells a lot of newspapers or media advertising.


Everyone cheers for their own country, city, or university sports team to do well. But I honestly couldn't tell you when the US was the medal leader, or gold medal leader in any other summer Olympic Games (obviously not in a Winter Games). If my university sports team beats Yale University in sports, does that make my university better than Yale University. No, obviously it does not.

Probably what is needed is a weighted average scoring for Olympic country totals, so a country like Columbia, which right now has 3 silver and 4 bronze, can rank higher than a country that has a single gold medal. But I agree that simply counting total medals is not best either. I am pretty sure that when Americans see the medal counts, they look at the gold medal comparisons pretty carefully, regardless of what the country rankings are in the charts. But If the US does not agree to some modification of medal ranking based solely on total medals, I think that GB should bring this up at the UN Security Council.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Ame ... servations



Your right, m0002a, if something has past congress, then of course it was Jackson on his own. Furthermore, they used the US army to let 4000 Cherokees die and made the rest captives. So the President of the US, the congress and the US army acted against the Cherokees. Comes pretty close to the definition of the bad g-word you refuse to see fit.

Apparently you did not even read you own link carefully. Congress did authorize Jackson to negotiate treaties with the Cherokee Indians (and others) regarding voluntary relocation. Congress did not authorize Jackson and the military (the US President is always Commander in Chief of the military) to carry out the transfer "whose timing and lack of adequate supplies led to the deaths of an estimated 4,000 Cherokees."

Further, "in Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the [US Supreme] court re-established limited internal sovereignty [of Indian tribes] under the sole jurisdiction of the Federal government [as opposed to state governments such as Georgia], in a ruling that both opposed the subsequent forced relocation and set the basis for modern U.S. case law." The US Supreme Court "ruling was famously defied by Jackson."
(all quotes from the same link you posted)

I am not trying to hold Congress in the early 1800's as a model of how the American Indians should have been treated. But Congress did not do anything so egregious as what happened in the Trial of Tears, nor are they responsible for the carrying out rulings of the US Supreme Court (the executive branch, which includes the military is responsible for that under the direction to the President).

This is just embarassing.
For many posts you insisted that something like Hitler can't happen in the U.S., only to now claim Andrew Jackson was pretty much almost there.


You are either a troll, or on a very different level of logic. Either way, this is wasting my time. I wish you good luck.

That is a lie. I repeatedly said that a despot being elected and creating a dictatorship is much less likely to happen in the US than in many countries. I specifically said that if the Constitution is continually ignored due to "create interpretation", as opposed to what it actually says, some very bad things could happen.

Further, although Jackson's ignoring of the Supreme Court order regarding the relocation of American Indians is the most famous act of difiance of the the Court in US History, I don't think it ranks anywhere close to an elected leader (such as Hitler) eliminating elections and becoming a dictator. Futher, comparing the Holocaust circa 1940 with the Trial of Tears (bad planning and inadequate supplies, etc circa 1832) is obscene.

Aks those that have been killed and they will tell you that the difference between being murdered because you belong to the cherokees or being murdered because you belong to the jewish people doesn't entirely feel different.

The holocaust did add a new dimension to genocid, that's not to be denied. But argueing that it's a completely different thing falls way to short. The quality of execution does nothing to change the underlying act.

That's an article who was written a couple of days ago after the facts in Wisconsin. I thought it was worth to take a shoot and post it here. "Politically risky", sadly that's what it is.

I already told you that President Andrew Jackson did a terrible thing by ignoring the US Supreme Court order and illegally removed the Cherokees from the American South to Oklahoma in 1832. Unfortunately, about 4000 of the 15,000 on one of the migrations died due to poor planning (bad weather) and inadequate supplies, for which you may hold President Jackson ultimately responsible. But they were not executed. At least 100,000 others survived the trip on other occasions. But conditions in that part of the US in 1832 were pretty primitive. You might be surprised about how many white settlers died making the trip to the West to seek a new life.

The Cherokee were given compensation for their land plus about $5 million dollars and relocation assistance. As it turned out later, Indian Territory in Oklahoma has a lot of oil and gas, not even including that fact that the Cherokees and other Indians are allowed to operate casinos even if the states where they are located don’t allow it. But in any case, if you want to blame Andrew Jackson and call him a monster, that is OK with me.

And yes, America has done many other bad things such as slavery, etc. Do you want to compare that to the Germanic barbarian tribes who raped and plundered Europe in the Middle Ages and who sacked Rome in the 5th Century causing the fall of the Roman Empire and putting Western Civilization into the Dark Ages? Do you want to compare that to WWI (20 million dead), WWII (60 million dead), and the Holocaust (another 6 million dead)?

So when you say “the quality of execution does nothing to change the underlying act” you obviously have a very deep seeded hatred of the United States. You don’t really care about Cherokee Indians or African-Americans; you only care about your hatred of America. I personally know people with American Indian heritage, and a lot of people who are descendants of American slaves, and I don’t see the same hatred from them that you have. If you want to see some of these people, turn on your TV and watch them on the medal podium in London waving their American flags.

So it doesn't bother you to be called a "Marxist" out of the blue, Pappnaas?
Tim is being awfully generous with "a very different level of logic".

I'm not sure why y'all are looking at Jackson instead of Lincoln but, for the sake of the more reasonable people reading...

It was the German equivalent to the Congress which gave dictatorial powers to Hitler, according to the constitutional process.
As in most countries, you need more than a mere 50%+1 majority for such changes (in this case, 67%). Hitler got this super-majority because most of the "democratic" representatives of the German people voted for the dictatorship. Specifically, except for two right-wing representatives (out of more than 400) who were not present for the vote, the right-wingers and the odd centrists (liberals, left-wing Christians and so forth) voted *unanimously* for the dictatorship. Only Marxists voted against it. This could happen in any country.
Elections were not eliminated but that's a technicality. The result was the same...

It was a single US TV Channel, and he was sat down in a comfy looking room, not on the runway - before he started the interview he could have watched BBC News 24, in 15-minutes he would have know that the problem was sorted out.



I wont argue with that.



No but it does mean that on that day, in those sports your team WERE the better team - but that does not reflect on the rest of the College directly, only in those sports.



That is the most stupid thing I have read today - why would you say such a stupid thing that has no bearing on the subject at all or in any way - the only answer I can consider is that you want people to treat you as though your are stupid - you might be in luck there my friend.


Andy

I was told that British had a sense of humor. I guess not.

Anyway, you never responded to the case where Columbia (I believe that was the country) has 0 gold, 3 silver, and 4 bronze, and a couple of other countries have one gold and no other medals. Do you think (if you are so obsessed with scoring) that that the country with only one gold medal should be ranked higher than Columbia? I suppose your answer might be skewed by the current results for GB, but speaking objectively, do you really think that?

I hate to belabor this issue, but in US, neither the US Congress, nor the people directly, can vote for a dictatorship. The Constitutional Amendment process would require approval by 3/4 of the 50 state legislatures. If 3/4 of the states approved it, then it could happen, but that seems very unlikely that such an amendment to create a dictatorship would be ratified, IMO. It generally takes a few years to get an amendment ratified by 3/4 of the states (in cases when one is ratified).

I understand federalism (the local constitution being based on yours) but how do you go from a *unanimous* vote in Congress (excepting Marxists) to 1/4 of state legislatures voting the other way? Do you figure 1/4 of state legislatures in the US are controlled by Marxists? Which ones? You're being silly again.

He called me many things, but as Andy B. asked me not to crap out too much, so i did notice, but i didn't react. Besides, actually i have read Das Kapital and can tell you first hand that the theory in there isn't something to be feared. All the tries to put his theories into practice were not successful as it turned out, but that shouldn't be Marx fault. m0002a may call me what he sees fit, as long as he stays within the boundaries of forum rules.

And indeed, it's pure gold



To your surprise the settlers weren't forced to march by soldiers, but had the freedom of choice.



The winner writes history. The winner gives compensation. How much exactly is the monetary worth of a lost culture, a lost home and lost ancestors for the sake of white settlers? How much compensation to accept that civilised white men forgot about the all men are created equal thing? And called it justified by congress? And don't forget, the land given to them was thought to be worthless for the white people, so don't come cry-baby about todays worth of these lands, sounds like you're envious if you stress today worth of the lands while begging to accept that the americans back then were simply not clever enough (read: had little to no interest) to keep all of them alive on a harmless transition.

So according to your logic, everyone who thinks that a amateurishly commited crime has to be punished exactly as a perfectly executed crime hates the United States?

I have to admit, I don't understand your question, but I will make a few stabs in the dark:

• US state constitutions are not necessarily based on the federal constitution. Some are similar, and some are vastly different. There is no relationship between the two. States (and the people) are granted all rights that are not specifically granted to US Federal Government in the US Constitution (see the 10th amendment).
• The federal constitution says that for an amendment to the federal constitution to be ratified, it must be approved by 3/4 fo the 50 states by a vote of each state legislature (or by a vote by 3/4 of the states in a constitutional convention as mentioned in a post above). This has nothing to do with state constitutions.
• Are you suggesting that in the US that only Marxists would have opposed Hitler's dictatorship and 3/4 of the state legislatures would have approved an amendment to the US Constitution to that effect? If so, I respectfully have to disagree with you. Americans might succumb to some bad things and some loss of some freedoms under an outside threat, but not amending the Constitution in that drastic of a way as I think you are suggesting (IMO).

I think that Andrew Jackson committed a treasonous crime against the US Constitution by ignoring the rule of law as decided by the US Supreme Court. However, there is no evidence that Jackson intended to murder or execute anyone as part of the Indian relocation. We are talking about 1832, not 1932. Many more white settlers died trying to cross the US in that period (and later) than Indians died during their relocation. Many other American Indians were relocated without significant problems. Also, even though the Cherokee approved the treaty for the voluntary relocation, not all Cherokee relocated, and many still remain in the US southeast and still have Indian territory there.

So your thesis that the Trail of Tears was an "execution" and is equivalent to the actions of Nazi Germany is not true IMO, and your insistence to keep repeating this lie is an indication of a deep hatred of the US. But, if you want to conduct war crime trials against Andrew Jackson (posthumously) that is OK with me. Jackson deserves to be punished for his treasonous actions (or more appropriately, inaction in not enforcing the Supreme Court order as the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the US).

I certainly don't blame any German people who had nothing to do with Nazi Germany for what happened in WWII. I have been to Germany several times and enjoyed my visits and the people were very friendly and civilized. I have also worked with Germans who have come to the US. But if you keep making ridiculous comparisons between what Nazi Germany did, and what happened in the Trail of Tears, then I personally can no longer absolve you of guilt, [Mod: I am applying Godwin's Law here.].

[Mod: When you compare someone to Hilter, you lose...]

Now you've overdone it. I call the mods. This comparison is far beyond anything i am willing to tolerate.

I've been following this thread for a while, and wow. That is just crazy-talk. The difference between the Holocaust and the treatment of the American Indians by the United States is a matter of degree, speed, mobilization, and industrialization. It is actually a reasonable topic of discussion. What would Andrew Jackson and others have done if they had had the power of an industrialized state? Does the fact that it took hundreds of years make it any less worse of a crime? These are actually reasonable questions.

Nothing a person can post on a internet bulletin board can actually make them "no better than Adolf Hitler." It just isn't possible to get that far into evil territory by writing a post on the internet. I'm gonna go out on a HUGE limb here, but I think the worst that anything Pappnaas said could have done is anger some people and hurt some feelings. That is a far cry from starting the largest war the world has ever seen and killing millions of people because of their ancestry, religion, sexual orientation or politics.