So who thinks Obama is going to be president for more then 5 minutes? lol. Cruel joke I know, but I mean com on! He already got a threatening message from Bin Ladden…ARE YOU SERIOUS?! :)))

What, and have Biden as president for 4 years? I think that would be worse. For all Obama’s faults and things I disagree with him on, he’s at least not a bumbling idiot. Many people may have said that about Bush, but really I think Bush is at least a grade above Biden.

I don’t think Obama is under any greater danger domestically. For the first 100 days of his presidency, perhaps, terrorist groups might try something symbolic, hoping to cause great chaos and problems with an assassination. I really don’t buy into the idea that Obama is in any real danger because he’s black, though. As I expected, being black actually helped him win the election. I just hope it really does lead to less emphasis on race, but my hopes aren’t high. I think his presidency will be bad for race relations in this country, only highlighting differences. We had a taste of that during the campaign, where his campaign and much of the media cried racism at every turn, despite the fact that race was favoring him. Fact is, most non-blacks don’t care whether someone is black, except maybe to favor them in an affirmative action/reparations (a mentality that blacks paradoxically seem to encourage, despite the fact that it is demeaning).

Arandur wrote:>What, and have Biden as president for 4 years?

That’s too vile a thought to even contemplate. Reminds me of back when we used to refer to Quayle as George Sr.’s “asassination insurance.”
I did what I usually do with Presidential inaugurations- ignored it. There’s better use for those millions of dollars spent, and I dislike the aura of psuedo royalty that accompanies it. Just hand over the nuke football and keys to the White House and shutup about it. Pretty much agree with the rest of your post, Aran. Politics is a nice break from discussing religion.

Which I am now going to do on the communion thread. That didn’t last long. :D

BTW, anyone heard from Koo? We just don’t have the same “scoundrel quotient” here without him

Good to see you back!

Yeah, I want more Koo…

I didn’t bother with the inauguration either. I’m just bracing myself for the various policies I won’t agree with. I will give Obama credit for what seem to be a couple of good new rules on lobbyists and conflicts of interest.

Heard today someone mention that he was planning to reinstate the offshore drilling ban. Don’t know if that’s true or not.

Doesn’t look good on the abortion front, either.

Most of his stimulus plan seems a waste. The infrastructure is about the only worthwhile part of it, but from what I’ve seen, that’s less than 10%.

Yeah, apparently the reinststement of the offshore drilling ban is a done deal. I think that kills ANWR, as well. Hey- why drill for your own oil when you can continue to buy it from people who hate you? It staggers the imagination. I’m OK with the lobbyist rules if they have teeth and if it’s implemented. I have doubts that anything with this bunch is going to go past the “we’re going to do this” stage.

The stimulus plan is the usual throwing money at a problem that both Parties are now guilty of. If we really want the fed to be involved in economic stimulus (and I’m leery of that) the best place to start is to institute some pretty serious tariffs, restrictions on international trade, and making our business and entrepenurial environments a little more “welcoming.”

Hey, but ain’t it great having Reich back again? Good Lord.

I would only support tariffs that are retaliatory. There are many countries that trade with us freely that turn around and put tariffs on our goods or that don’t even allow our goods. Retaliatory tariffs are entirely just and, at this point, necessary.

As for making our country more competitive, take that tariff money and reduce corporate taxes by those amounts. In other words, if Japan produces cars and ships them over, they get a tariff or penalty equivalent to how they penalize our car sales in their country. The money from that penalty then goes to reduce corporate taxes on domestic automakers.

Ultimately, I’m in favor of the Fair Tax, which would end corporate and capital gains taxes, making U.S. businesses vastly more competitive.

There is one kind of gov’t regulation I would be in favor of. We really need to end predatory lending in this country. It is what has destroyed our economy and what keeps people poor more than anything. If the Democrats really cared anything about poor people, they would look at that. I don’t have much hope, since the Dem’s answer to “help” people seems to be, “Lend them more money!” Which means, “Get them deeper into debt slavery and make sure they’ll never have or produce any real wealth, while pumping the fruits of their labor back into the financial industry that continues to rape our country and donate to our campaigns!”

Seriously, it should be illegal to: 1. Issue credit to someone such that max payments would be more than 10% of their income; 2. Charge interest higher than Prime +5% (if it’s not affordable to offer interest that low to someone, you shouldn’t be lending to them!); 3. Charge penalty fees higher than $10; 4. Lend mortgages beyond the old tried and true requirements (25% debt to income, 20% down, 25 years max term.

Fix that and you will fix our country and make enormous strides-greater than anything else that can possibly be done-to reduce poverty.

About affirmative action, it doesn’t ONLY apply to blacks it applies to any minority group meaning it may also get white people into a predominantly black school or vise-versa. I think it’s a good things because that way everyone has an opportunity to go to the school of their dreams and it also gives some schools a bit of diversity. Without affirmative action most schools would be predominantly of one race, not only because the people running the school are going to favor their race more, but also because as humans we like to stick to people like us where we feel more comfortable. That is a FACT of life :)))

Well, in addition to him being black, this is AMERICA: the most hated country in the world. We all saw the threats coming. Just because we have a new president doesn’t mean Bin Laden is dead.

A new member! Welcome!

Take a look around and start up anything you see of interest to you. There is also an introduction thread if you’d like to share a bit about you or see a bit about us.

Greetings, feeldaburn.

Gal- AA is something that is better in theory than in reality. Unfortunately, what has happened is that it’s been used to help unqualified people into schools and jobs, purely for the sake of numbers, and Federal pressure. I’ve got some personal experience with it.

So let’s get that scoundrel quotient back to normal, I say!

A late welcome to feeldaburn, sorry! Hope you find something here to catch your interest.

I didn’t do anything re the inauguration except read just a little about it in the newspaper the following day.

As far as AA goes, it has good intentions, but it seems to be a failed policy, nor does it work the way it was supposed to work.

Love and lust,
Koo