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Is Islamist not shorthand for Islamic Fundamentalist?

Rather than meaning Muslim in the more general sense of following the teachings of Islam?

Dammit ninja'd by Galbraithe Monster Rain!

Hold on.

Even I have a limit.

But yeah, Islamist is usually describing an Islamic Fundamentalist.

Medium of Death wrote:Is Islamist not shorthand for Islamic Fundamentalist?

Islamist actually references anyone who believes that government should be predicated on Islam, or that Islam should be regarded as a system of governance; however you want to phrase it.

This doesn't necessarily imply Islamic fundamentalism, though in the US there is a tendency to assume that it does.

Monster Rain wrote:Even I have a limit.

No limit.

Dogma wrote:This doesn't necessarily imply Islamic fundamentalism, though in the US there is a tendency to assume that it does.

It would usually be a fair assumption though, no?

Medium of Death wrote:
It would usually be a fair assumption though, no?

If you're using "fundamentalist" to mean "Radical" then sure, but the term "fundamentalist" represents a particular way in which certain Christians interact with the Bible that really doesn't have a valid analogue in Islam because of the way the Koran is interpreted in that faith.

Really, one reason that so many people in the US have difficulty understanding Islam is the tendency to try and use Christianity as lens through which to interpret it; which is ultimately going to lead to misconceptions in the same way that trying to understand Judaism, Buddhism, or Hinduism in terms of Christianity would.

I, personally, feel the US has spent too much time and effort forcing itself on the middle east, and that we should start slashing our business there. This is probably a good start, though, it could have been a little less over a longer time.

Pakistan isn't a Middle Eastern country.

True, a habit of mine to miss-label. Everything is either the Americas, Asia, Europe, Africa, or middle east.

Albatross wrote:Dude, pensions. The US governments pension liability is the killer. It runs in to the tens of trillions, potentially.

While the number is true, it is more than a little misleading. It's a bit like those stats about a kid costing you $800,000 or whatever number they're throwing around these days. It's true, but by putting it all up front as one lump sum they represent it in a way that it's never actually going to be paid.

If they totalled the future healthcare costs of all Americans alive today, it'd exceed a hundred trillion, easily.

As Krugman wrote when explaining the long term solution to the US federal deficit; "seven words: health care, health care, health care, revenue."


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Kasrkai wrote:True, a habit of mine to miss-label. Everything is either the Americas, Asia, Europe, Africa, or middle east.

Which one am I living in?

Which one am I living in?

Do you come from a land down under?
Where women glow and men plunder?
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.

Sorry

Which one am I living in?

Europe.

sebster wrote:

Albatross wrote:Dude, pensions. The US governments pension liability is the killer. It runs in to the tens of trillions, potentially.

While the number is true, it is more than a little misleading. It's a bit like those stats about a kid costing you $800,000 or whatever number they're throwing around these days. It's true, but by putting it all up front as one lump sum they represent it in a way that it's never actually going to be paid.

It's the unfunded liabilities that are the problem, maybe I should have made that clearer. My bad.

Racking up huge debts in the near term is problematic, racking up collosal debts for the long-term is disastrous. States purposely underfunding their pension liabilities are storing up another debt crisis for the federal government, and sooner or later the situation will reach a tipping-point. What happens then is anyone's guess, as efforts to tackle the US's structural deficit seem to be in a state of paralysis.

Andrew1975 wrote:

Which one am I living in?

Do you come from a land down under?
Where women glow and men plunder?
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.

Sorry

Now I have that song in my head. Excellent!

Albatross wrote:

sebster wrote:

Albatross wrote:Dude, pensions. The US governments pension liability is the killer. It runs in to the tens of trillions, potentially.

While the number is true, it is more than a little misleading. It's a bit like those stats about a kid costing you $800,000 or whatever number they're throwing around these days. It's true, but by putting it all up front as one lump sum they represent it in a way that it's never actually going to be paid.

It's the unfunded liabilities that are the problem, maybe I should have made that clearer. My bad.

Racking up huge debts in the near term is problematic, racking up collosal debts for the long-term is disastrous. States purposely underfunding their pension liabilities are storing up another debt crisis for the federal government, and sooner or later the situation will reach a tipping-point. What happens then is anyone's guess, as efforts to tackle the US's structural deficit seem to be in a state of paralysis.

Alby's right, California, Illinois and New York are all on the path to financial destruction. New York has a severe problem of the upwardly wealthy leaving the state and the tax base shrinking. California has a major issue of huge pensions for state employees that are 85% of their last salary, and if people have been paying attention to state and municipal worker's salaries are considerably higher than the average worker out there. This is setting the the state up for a massive debt problem that they won't be able to produce or tax themselves out of. They'll wind up cutting off benefits(unlikely, especially with Moonbeam as Governor), laying off workers (very likely, with even less tax revenue afterwards and piles of legal fees accrued after Collective Bargaining with state worker unions), raise taxes (guaranteed job killer) or demand a bailout from the federal government (highly likely, thusly making our currency worth even less after it gets printed up expressly for this purpose). Illinois has a pension situation similar to California but not at such a massive scale.

There's a reason Texas is growing economically, their taxes are pretty low, their State legislation only meets every other year and state regulations are much lower than that of a California or New York.

Our Structural Debt will either go away with painful restrictions or cancellations of pensions, retirement benefits, medical payments (through medicare/medicaid). Or we can continue to print more money, lose our reserve currency status and watch our currency become Monopoly Money. It will be painful wither way, I would prefer we allow people to retrench before we have an economic collapse from monetizing debt and hoping for non-existent trust funds to magically have money in them.

There's a reason Texas is growing economically, their taxes are pretty low, their State legislation only meets every other year and state regulations are much lower than that of a California or New York.

Texas also has low comparative standards of living, wages, rates of education, and general health statistics. It's not a good example of a model to follow, especially since it has a significant federal economic stimulus coming from the military presence which directly siphons national taxes into pay within the texas economic system.

Stormrider wrote:
There's a reason Texas is growing economically, their taxes are pretty low, their State legislation only meets every other year and state regulations are much lower than that of a California or New York.

Both of which are also growing.

In fact, NY grew faster than Texas in 2009-2010.


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Stormrider wrote: Illinois has a pension situation similar to California but not at such a massive scale.

Both states also have a problem with being unable to raise taxes. California has the hard limit on property taxes, and Illinois has every part of the state south of I-55.

ShumaGorath wrote:

There's a reason Texas is growing economically, their taxes are pretty low, their State legislation only meets every other year and state regulations are much lower than that of a California or New York.

Texas also has low comparative standards of living, wages, rates of education, and general health statistics. It's not a good example of a model to follow, especially since it has a significant federal economic stimulus coming from the military presence which directly siphons national taxes into pay within the texas economic system.

ooo.... SHuma is jealous. Don't worry, when President Perry swears his oath he won't be vinidictive, unlike the Chicago community organizer's gang.

Frazzled wrote:
ooo.... SHuma is jealous. Don't worry, when President Perry swears his oath he won't be vinidictive, unlike the Chicago community organizer's gang.

He has to actually enter the Republican primary before that can happen.

dogma wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
ooo.... SHuma is jealous. Don't worry, when President Perry swears his oath he won't be vinidictive, unlike the Chicago community organizer's gang.

He has to actually enter the Republican primary before that can happen.

...and this from a political science grad student no less.

Frankly, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

biccat wrote:...and this from a political science grad student no less.

Wait, Dogma is polisci, or Fraz? Which one should I point and laugh at?

Melissia wrote:Frankly, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

biccat wrote:...and this from a political science grad student no less.

Wait, Dogma is polisci, or Fraz? Which one should I point and laugh at?

Not me. I learned numbers more gooder and that if you aint got money you aint got .

You should point and laugh at me for a whole list of other reasons.

Melissia wrote:Frankly, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

biccat wrote:...and this from a political science grad student no less.

Wait, Dogma is polisci, or Fraz? Which one should I point and laugh at?

I would try both.

Dogma gets testy and Frazz will laugh with you.

Also, to clarify, Perry doesn't need to enter the Republican primary in order to be elected President. Unlikely, but there is precedent from not too long ago.

biccat wrote:

Melissia wrote:Frankly, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

biccat wrote:...and this from a political science grad student no less.

Wait, Dogma is polisci, or Fraz? Which one should I point and laugh at?

I would try both.

Dogma gets testy and Frazz will laugh with you.

Frazzled has been laughing a lot lately while dog sitting GC's wiener dogs.
Yesterday's events: 1) The two wiener dogs get in a fight over the prime position of Grandma Frazzled's lap. Unfortunately this is while they are both sitting on said Grandma Frazzled's lap. 2) TBone attempts to go Wiener Ninja and leap from the arm of the sofa to a shelf where I had put Rusty's dog bowl for a minute. Luckily he was caught red pawed before he could implement operation Epic Fail and go splat on the floor.