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 SilverMK2 wrote:
Looks like the only other country where Romney is more popular than Obama is Pakistan... wonder what that says about things

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20008687

One of the things it says is that most people in those countries have no idea who the opposing presidential candidate is. And why should they? It's not like it makes a blind bit of difference who wins. The whole thing is a sham. To use appropriately American marketing psychobabble, it's not democracy, it's a 'Democracy Experience ©'. It's not as if people are actually getting to choose between anything meaningful. It's an unseemly personality contest that wastes billions of dollars that could be better used feeding, clothing and providing essential medical care to literally millions of people living in abject poverty across the nation. I honestly don't care who wins, and neither should anyone else. It's basically just the political version of 'American Idol'.

...Except that medical care you speak of is one of the core divisive issues this time around.

 azazel the cat wrote:
...Except that medical care you speak of is one of the core divisive issues this time around.

Yup... 'cuz we're strange like that.

 Seaward wrote:
We've used air strikes against people for a lot less than attacking our diplomatic outposts. You're welcome to think it's stupid, I suppose, but if you can't come up with arguments more cohesive than, "It's stupid! You're stupid! Everything's stupid!" I'm not sure what the point in discussing any of this with you is.

That's kind of the issue here. I basically cannot believe that anyone can't see what is utterly ridiculous about bombing a crowd outside a consulate, while you're pretending it's a sensible course of action.

And I could spend a long time in yet another teeth pulling exercise with you, explaining in detail everything that's stupid with the idea, but then we just got through a thread in which you spouted theories about the likely actor in a piece of low level political violence, while having absolutely no knowledge of the recent acts of low level political violence in the US... and when informed of those acts you still couldn't realise how simplistic your ideas were.

So really, what's the point? You like thinking what you think, and reality ain't gonna stop that happening.

I think they're all as concerned with politics as the other, yeah. I'm pretty sure you wanted to use a different adjective.

No, my wording is fine. Everyone knows what is meant when the middle east is referred to as highly political. You can play an inane pedant game if you want, and maybe even pretend it means you're winning. Meanwhile, I just

I think it's more realist vs. idealist, actually.

No, it isn't. Realist is recognising international law has an impact, but that impact is limited by the tendency of all nations to push the boundary.

Making claims that international law has no impact because nations just do whatever they can get away with, on the other hand, is the kind of thing that sounds like realism to over excited teenagers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
Those polls:



(text: "The choices we make Tuesday could have MASSIVE and PERMANENT effects on the charts on Nate Silver's blog!")

Awesome.

 sebster wrote:
That's kind of the issue here. I basically cannot believe that anyone can't see what is utterly ridiculous about bombing a crowd outside a consulate, while you're pretending it's a sensible course of action.

No, I'm not. You seem to be operating on incorrect information. There was no riotous protest outside of the consulate at the time of the attack.

So really, what's the point? You like thinking what you think, and reality ain't gonna stop that happening.

Is this like when the Australian insurance manager or whatever was attempting to tell me about the US Navy? I know what I'm talking about from experience, you read about it sometime?

No, my wording is fine. Everyone knows what is meant when the middle east is referred to as highly political. You can play an inane pedant game if you want, and maybe even pretend it means you're winning. Meanwhile, I just

You just, indeed.

No, it isn't. Realist is recognising international law has an impact, but that impact is limited by the tendency of all nations to push the boundary.

Making claims that international law has no impact because nations just do whatever they can get away with, on the other hand, is the kind of thing that sounds like realism to over excited teenagers.

The claim was that international law is irrelevant without the strength to enforce it. You have yet to counter that assertion with anything more than an unnecessarily wordy, "Nuh uh!" Until you do, I'll assume that, as usual, you have no actual argument to make.

I'd like to commend the OP for the thread title. A lot of people see the predictions that Nate Silver is making, showing 82% odds or whatever, and consider that a lock, but thinking of it as a die is much more accurate and a good way of remembering Romney still has a shot, just as surely as Terminators can fail armor saves.