I lean towards damned if you do. If you're going to do the time, you might as well do the crime.
Fudgesicle.
Arctic or Antarctic?
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I lean towards damned if you do. If you're going to do the time, you might as well do the crime.
Fudgesicle.
Arctic or Antarctic?
But damned if you don't can plead innocence. And I really hate orange creamsicles for the record, and I hate anything "orange" flavored in general.
Arctic because of my Canadian heritage and nationality.
Pick one hemisphere
Northeast
Northwest
Southeast
Southwest
Which quarter of the Earth reigns supreme and why?
East or west, home's the best.
Black ants or red ants?
Red. If i say i don't like black ants i be accused of racism and would have to get on all the major networks and apologise to all people.
Playing card games? (online counts)
I don't play card games as much as I used to but I still enjoy it.
Crosswords or Word Searches
Excuse me, Tony, but the Lakota Sioux are on the phone for you, and they sound kind of pissed.Quote:
Originally Posted by tonywalt
I don't like either one. Crossword puzzles I guess are more fun, so okay, I'll choose that, but honestly, I'd rather be reading.
Religious music or military music? (I chose crossword puzzles, so no fair saying neither).
It depends on the Religion, I listen to Pagan music, I am not really sure what Millitary music is. So if I can listen to music from the religion of my choice than Religious. If it has to be Gospel/ Christian music, well I don't mind the chanting monks, they sound kind of Gothic and haunting. So I will say Religious.
Wood floors or Carpet
Wood floors, with throw rugs
Ranch house or tudor?
Tudor till you start having kids. Then four door. Ba-DUM!
Okay, would you rather hear a recital of hymns by a local church choir or go to a performance by the United States Marine Band, featuring "The Halls of Montezuma" and other patriotic favorites? (Is that clearer?)
I like both so for me it would depend on the timing---local church choir at Christmas or easter, marine corps band on independence day.
chick flick on a date or action movie with guys?
(or is the best choice "action movie on a date?")
(where on earth did that little "thumbs up" come from??)
Of course action movie either with the guys or on a date
Sports Bar or Cafe
Cafe
Goobers or Raisonettes?
goobers.
gummy bears or jelly beans?
Gummy bears. It's fun to bite them into pieces and then reassemble them as rainbow colored ones. My favorite is to turn the green one, the clear one, and the orange one into a little bear-shaped Irish flag. Anyway, Gummy bears.
Public school or private school?
hard to answer this one...
I think there should be public schools, I also think parents should be given vouchers for private schools. private and parochial schools where I live are on their death beds. heck---most of the elementary schools are gone too.
red licorice or black licorice?
All licorice is gross.
Free trade or protectionism?
I actually lean towards protectionism but it's not something I've looked into much, if you have any resource/recommended reading which compares the two I would be happy to take a look. I know I usually support free trade/markets but I dislike globalism and I actually think Smith's invisible hand works a little... too well. People will buy the cheapest goods pretty much to the exclusion of any moral considerations. I mean I like to think that I myself, as well as the people I know would not purposefully enslave a bunch of children and have them work twelve hours in grueling conditions, or expect adult workers to produce in conditions so bad they are actually killing themselves but that's what happens, invisibly anyway.
I think for example when Norway refuses to let McDonald's into their country that's a pretty good thing. *edit* apparently this is not actually a fact or anything, haha, someone told me Norway had banned McDonald's but that doesn't seem to be true, whoops.
Same question and reasons please.
I'm a quasi-protectionist, too, for two reasons:
1. In my life I have observed low wage workers from my country get utterly screwed when the jobs went to the barefoot Indonesian children. It has had a demonstrably bad effect on living conditions here. I was truly unprepared for some of what I saw when I toured the American Southwest a few years ago.
2. I don't really have time for an essay, but globalism is an empire in all but responsibility, if that makes any sense. But it is harder to reign in than any earlier empire. Reaction has already begun with militant Islam. When things get really bad---when Europe enters a phase of violent conflict between liberalism and nativism, we're going to have a proper nightmare on our hands.
EDIT: Oh sorry. Same question, anyone else.
I would be interested in hearing Bounty's view on it as I think he tends toward free market solutions.
Me, too. Also DM's because she's a free thinking intellectual.
So you get the curmudgeon instead! I'm all for protectionism. Here in Southwest VA, a lot of people were employed in the garment mills. All of them went overseas. That was a lot of people out of jobs. A huge multi-million dollar factory was located in China by a Virginia business mogul who had plenty of people out of work in his own state. Then he tried to run for office, explaining he wanted to locate in VA but it never materialized. Translated: "The labor was cheaper in China, and the US doesn't add tariffs to companies who got overseas and then import back to the US to sale the product for 100X what it cost to make."
And by all means, the question continues!
Strong protectionist camp on litnet! Actually I forgot Dark Muse mentioned she was a libertarian in a comment on Peter's blog so maybe she'll break the streak.
I am really torn between the two really. There are things that appeal to me on both sides and things that make me uncmftrabke on both sides. There is a part of me that would lean towards free trade. Yet on the other hand I have moral qualms with a lot of the practices of big corporations and most the intersting and unique things can be found in the local shops. I usually always prefer to shop in local shops and eat local when I travel opposed to patronizing chains and franchises. I respect countries and states protecting thier local business.
My knee jerk response to the question was to say free trade, but well I am not an expert in the issues so when I looked into it a little I started to lean a bit more towards protectionism.
Bounty (or anyone else)?
oh, ya'll are full of it.
Each and everyone of us wear clothes, eat food, own products that were manufactured and produced by folks working for pay and under conditions we wouldn't dream of doing ourselves. Hypocrites, we're all hypocrites!
Neither Free Trade, or Protectionist policies work very well... the real problem is with these huge multinational corporations and how they lobby governments for special treatment.
But that's exactly what I said isn't it? That people will tacitly accept very unsavoury business practices if they don't ever have to engage with that element directly. That's why I cast my ballot for protectionism instead of unbridled capitalism. I am usually in favour of capitalist/free market solutions because I think the principles tend to line up with human nature anyway and that in turn leads to lead to less fuss and complications, sort of an occam's principle of economics anyway; you would have to be both heartless and insane, though, to not notice that what human beings naturally want to do is not necessarily what is going to be best for even their own communities.Quote:
Originally Posted by Iain Sparrow
Likewise my comment about empire.
But hey, who knew Iain read us? :)
Bounty, answer the damned question already (and leave one of your own) before this degenerates.
And I mostly agree with you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Clopin
Where the rubber meets the road, the actual people in foreign lands who produce the goods we buy... if we had to spend just one week trading lives with them; I would hope that most of us would change the way we think about globalization. It's all very remote. That is of course the nice part of me, the person who feels empathy and would want the wealthy to be less wealthy, and the poor to be less poor. Personally, I believe billionaires are obscene... but I also think that some poor people deserve to be poor. I live in a big metropolitan city with plenty of folks living at or below the poverty level... and I don't care, really, I don't care. Some are mentally ill, whether by birth or self-inflicted, some are impoverished in every way a person can be impoverished; of spirit, of conscience, of shame. Screw'em. And that's the other part of me, the one that lives in a Darwinian universe. Unfortunately we're all interconnected, and a large percentage of the population living in poverty does nobody any good.
Interesting topic, Iain. Let's start a separate thread about it.
Onion rings or French fries?
Keep in mind it isn't the sweatshops that are causing misery, if they all closed down the people working in them wouldn't all of a sudden find well paying jobs somewhere.
Onion rings because I very rarely have them and I like them quite a bit.
Concerning calamari, breaded and deep fried or soft and rubbery?
Deep fried and salty.
Red or white sauce on pasta?
Well I think cream/cheese sauces taste better, but i'm usually pretty health conscious and a red sauce has an amazing flavour to health ratio, buuuuut okay, white sauces because I do prefer them when it comes down to it.
Steak, very rare or very well done (no picking medium rare)
Very rare. Very well done tastes like nothing (or worse).
Dating (etc.) someone who is 20 pounds overweight or 20 pounds underweight?
What's your jumping off point? Well whatever, I pick overweight. I find scrawniness in women pretty unappealing (like i'm one to talk, oh well) and depending on the girl some extra weight is often a good thing.
Dating someone with a miserably ugly face but beautiful body or the other way around?
Body over face, but to be honest, if you turn the lights out and cuddle, it doesn't matter that much. You may be picky, but nature just wants to get the job done.
Happy and slightly dumb lover or brilliant but depressed? (Both are beautiful).
Brilliant and depressed every day all day, though I might feel inadequate next to a really brilliant girl. If she liked me for who i am and wasn't bored with me or something it would be nice.
Same question only applied to yourself, as in would you rather be beautiful and dumb or brilliant and depressed?
There goes a happy idiot,
He doesn't give a damn.
I wish I were an idiot,
But then perhaps I am.
--traditional
French dressing or Russian dressing?
I think I've only had both from like... Kraft bottles, so I can't say for sure, I believe the French as a people make better salads and dressings than the Russians though, so lets just say French.
Would you rather humans had fully prehensile tales or a dogs sense of smell?
Definitely the tails. I'd hate to have to sniff butts to figure out who my friends are.
Would you rather humans reproduced asexually, and there was no aggression, or competition, or war; or that sex remained fun and humans remained about the same?