That's funny. Swop's post goes to show you how folks with different philosophies see what they want to see. Ronnie, I read nothing disrespectful at all in his post. He just wanted to share some of the reasons that he holds his beliefs with you. I read nothing that said you couldn't suggest a book or a writing that you appreciated back to him. Free exchange of philosophies and ideas? Not likely.

Swop, I liked your post.

Time to turn down the sensitivity dial man.

I think its safe to say guys that we all agree and disagree on the various points made here. It's not easy to look at the country you've lived in for all or most of your life without finding something to be upset about. At the end of the day we like our luxuries and our freedom to berate the president and his policies without being lined up against a wall and shot for it. For me sometimes i lose my objectivity bc of the old saying "history repeats itself". Too often nowadays i see politicians trying to push legislation through for things like random firearm safety inspections. If you havent heard of this, politicians in colorado and massachussetts have attempted to pass legislation allowing police officers to enter the homes of registered law abiding firearms owners to make sure they're properly securing and storing their firearms. Thankfully, both times it has been suggested, it has been met with such a fierce backlash from everyday americans that the issue was dropped, most notably because of threats of standoffs and firefights should any officer of the law attemptto enter a gun owner's residence. While these small victories have shown that there is indeed a line drawn in the sand, i cant help but feel discouraged by my country. We outsource major mass production and customer service jobs to other countries, our politicians continually infringe upon our rights without addressing any of the bigger issues we have as a nation, and unfortunately, america is headed down a long and ugly road towards tearing herself apart. This can only lead to a handful of outcomes in my opinion. One of them being a civil war, another outcome could be poverty on the level of the great depression, another call it the perfect storm scenario if you will, could under ther right circumstances, trigger WW3. Something for everyone to chew on considering that the american economy drives the world economy. Just sayin.

We always have these pissing matches about American politics, yet half the input is usually supplied by Brits and Aussies. I've come to terms with that... That used to bother me. But, don't ya'll have some problems in your countries that we can all piss each other off about? It might be a fun change!

Yea! What he said! Stinking redcoat monarchy loving island dwellers who dont have a good automotive industry inside their own borders anymore! Lol, hows that for a start?

Jacklpe wrote:

Flyingmuck wrote: Wow! You guys amaze me!! 5 pages all about a gold brocade curtain!........can you do a bath towel next...please.

I'll bet that wimp even uses pink towels. I mean... What kind of a President would use a pink towel? Crap! We are never going to get any respect anymore if people around the world know that. This guy is ruining America with his stupid pink towel. I used to be proud of my country, but it is just a joke now.

How's that Muck?

Oooh! A nice big pink soft one!!! You can rub all over and over and over, then a good brisk rub down with some lotion.

Hey HD, I must correct you. Britain has a thriving automotive industry. Our Toyota and Nissan plants are doing very well! Lol

[WS]HD wrote: Yea! What he said! Stinking redcoat monarchy loving island dwellers who dont have a good automotive industry inside their own borders anymore! Lol, hows that for a start?

Oi ! If it wasn't for this redcoats and monarchy loving island you wouldn't be there unless you were French or Spanish and yes we have our problems, they happen to be much the same as yours, but with the added problems being a member of the EU brings and in case you haven't noticed America is no longer the driving force of the world economy and hasn't been for quite some time now. You guys are no different to the rest of us, no better, no worse

Insult my Government, insult my people, but never never insult my Monarch or my Military.

And read what Ronnie has written

Ronnie Biggs wrote: Hey HD, I must correct you. Britain has a thriving automotive industry. Our Toyota and Nissan plants are doing very well! Lol

But if you want the 4wd Avensis, you have to get it from Japan, and you get the steering wheel on the wrong side

Yes, America. Your bright sun is setting. Aussie kids are busy learning Mandarin, Hindi and Indonesian for a reason!
Stick that in your KFC family bucket and smoke it.

I'm always jealous of how Australia seems to get the best 4wd trucks. For instance, all of those diesel Toyotas you guys have. Our stupid EPA keeps us from the good stuff.

Hey hey hey don't badmouth our Environmental Protection Agency! They are... I mean they keep...

What the hell do they do again? I know it's good, cuz it costs so much!

Ronnie Biggs wrote: Yes, America. Your bright sun is setting. Aussie kids are busy learning Mandarin, Hindi and Indonesian for a reason!
Stick that in your KFC family bucket and smoke it.

Ok Ronnie keep it down this is about why we hate Obama or something like that not why we don't like you.... Awww I mean learning mandarin

Yea bell, but those are japanese cars. What happened to all the british car companies that you guys used to have? Oh yea either shutdown or moved overseas. Not trying to be mean, i love cars, in fact my favorite show is top gear uk. Just sayin, other than a couple supercar manufacturers your own automotive industry seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur in favor of license built foreign cars. Not that the same thing isnt happening in the us, but ford, gm, dodge and chrysler all still have plants here

One of my wish-I-had-it cars is a Morgan 4/4, in an older vintage. Then there are the new Lotuses, wow! On the way out of my town, you hit a section (not my neighborhood!) where you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Bentley coupe. Also not to my taste are Land Rovers, but they sell like crazy around here. Sure, not British owned, but still, the brand is mostly left intact. I would say that British cars are still keeping my attention, half a world away.
Manfred

If you want a good American built vehicle I recommend a Toyota ! Probably more American than Ford these days and far more reliable .

Well Hyper one of our car manufacturer (SAAB) whent bankrupt because of capitalism (GM) but if everything goes as planned the will reopen that factory again. Volvo cars, Volvo trucks (yes it is 2 different companys with different owners. They used to be one but cars was sold and separated from trucks) and Scania trucks is still making cars and trucks. I should know because my work is to weld the inside of the Volvo truck cabs
Ohh I almost forgot one
We also have the supercar Koenigsegg

Top American exports:

Stupidity
Lead to anyone who doesn't sell oil on the dollar
"Capitalism"
Debt
Sports
Ideas on how to make socialism more expensive/inefficient

Reasons-
No kids these days want to learn. The smart kids get bullied while the dumb kid gets popular because he can dunk. But I'm sure the fact that parents these days suck and the media does more parenting than them has nothing to do with it.

Just to clear things up swop, I didnt say that he bible or Quran was full of hate, just that people take it that way. Almost everything in the Old Testament is in the Quran, just sometimes with different wording: Abraham, noah, Adam, eve

Yea a car that's so ridiculously expensive that only a handful of them will ever be sold around the world. I'd rather get something reasonably priced that i can tool and tweak and modify to make it perform like a koenigsegg than dump a half a million or quarter million quid or however much that price tag is on a supercar. Ps bell my stepdad has a 53 mg b in the garage hoping to get my hands on it for a restoration in the next few years

[DD]Big C wrote: Top American exports:

Stupidity
Lead to anyone who doesn't sell oil on the dollar
"Capitalism"
Debt
Sports
Ideas on how to make socialism more expensive/inefficient

Reasons-
No kids these days want to learn. The smart kids get bullied while the dumb kid gets popular because he can dunk. But I'm sure the fact that parents these days suck and the media does more parenting than them has nothing to do with it.

Just to clear things up swop, I didnt say that he bible or Quran was full of hate, just that people take it that way. Almost everything in the Old Testament is in the Quran, just sometimes with different wording: Abraham, noah, Adam, eve

Big C, don't lump all Americans in to the same pot as the few, I'm sure your getting your impression of us from the Nut farm we call HollyWood. That's the wrong place to start, True we have many people here that truly are that stupid and even more that let the TV do the baby setting, but as a whole we are not much different from you, we all get up in the morning and go to work to better our lives we all play when we can and where we can and we all want to be rich and powerful in our own way, that doesn't make us bad, it only makes us human. And we all bleed red.....

Dave, Big C is from the exotic country of Virginia. He's just not too proud of where he's from today I guess.

Hey Dave, Lost connection in the game. After that My settings were all screwed up....

Anyway's had no choice..... Figured I'd throw that in on this thread...


Edit: To keep my post in tune....... I CAN'T WAIT TILL WE GET A PRESIDENT THAT DRESSES IN DRAG.... That'll be sweeeeet
I go bye bye now......

Thnx Dent I've been in 3 really good games tonight myself and lost connection, 2 of them I was working on 100+ kills....

I'd like to hear a real answer here from a Christian conservative. I'm asking in all sincerity.

How does a Christian reconcile with fiscal conservatism? I understand the social conservative Christian point of view. I don't necessarily agree with it but I understand why some do, sort of, but that is not my question here.

If you read Jesus's words from the sermon on the mount as told by Matthew (the darling saint of liberalism) or John, who seems just a step to the right of Mathew, you should hear Christ warn that between God and wealth, you cannot serve two masters. And that regarding government you should "judge a tree by the fruit that it bears".

Also, there are the later stories of the early church of Saint Peter where the church was a commune where God actually put to death someone who was accused of hoarding wealth.

I understand that these may be a serious challenge to someone's beliefs and politics. I've asked this of my very religious Christian parents and several members of the cleargy and have never received an answer which made logical sense. This issue was largely responsible for me beginning to doubt the beliefs I was brought up with.

I am not an atheist. I do believe there is some force, some being who has an understanding greater than our own who we may join when we leave this life but I have not seen an organized Christian religion which actually urge their congregation to follow "the word of Christ" as presented by the gospels which they claim to follow.

Too much for this thread? Just ignore it. If on the other hand you have a reasoned explanation, please share. I'm listening.

Manfred wrote: I personally do not interpret the Bible that way.

But it's incontrovertible that Christians in the past have interpreted passages to this meaning. The Old Testament books do it mainly through stories of what God has done, although Deuteronomy has some rather tough passages that can be interpreted as Quran-like in their order of proactive intolerance. I had mentioned this for both Bible and Quran to neutralize the argument that I'm biased in favor of the Bible.

My only bias here is against anyone who kills offensively in the name of religion. Religious freedom does NOT include anyone's right to harm me or my family and friends, just because we are disbelievers or live a certain way. My government has lost much of that perspective, with its apologetic stance. Just as I don't blame non-Christians for eyeing post-Crusade Christians with some skepticism, I think it's fully reasonable to wonder aloud about Quran followers in this day and age where it's so difficult to discern between peaceful Muslims and those of extremist ideology. Basically, I have to judge each individual to his or her own merit. Until a group truly separates.from extremists and actively disavows them, I don't have a general group to embrace.

EDIT: Super vid! Not everyone viewing might agree 100%, but I guarantee that you will learn something you didn't know if you watch it, and Part 2 as well.

I do agree that nobody should be punished for practicing a different religion or none at all but let me just point this out. The Crusades were done mostly in defense. Saracens were conquering Spain and killing innocents. All the kingdoms realized that if they didn't ally and stop them from entering Europe they would be taken out one by one by the Saracens. Even though the Kingdom of Jerusalem, other city states, or some knightly orders didn't survive it kept Europe together. Some of these Christian orders do still exist today such as the Order of Saint Lazarus who provides medical care for people. I just wanted to point out though that even thousands of innocents,European and Saracen, were killed, that the Crusades were not completely wasted. Without it the world would be so different and not for the better.

Ok so us brits and the aussies blah blah car industry blah....my choice of car if money allows ....monao vxr (vauxhall for uk and holden for aussie) that thing breathes fire!!!! Anyway who gives a rats about that....we own rolls royce (the real rolls royce) no not a pincey 4 door but the aircraft engine maker (now who makes the most airliner engines????) Im still pissed about concorde....the best flight safety record yet it gets killed....however the 747 (noahs ark) is still happy to be flying? Thats the difference....our industry rules are so stringent that only the best will suffice (us brits and the aussies may not have the biggest automotive sector but then we can monitir it better) oh and I think most who have driven u.s. and u.k. cars will see that u.s. cars are big gas guzzling heavyweights, where ours are smaller (due to petrol pices no doubt) but that the steering wheel is actually not an ornament....it makes the car go around corners lol
The whole point of this was to show how idiotic people can be....this is not my view (I want a corvette c3 so it cant be) but if you look you can see how easy it is to offend (the concorde part is true though)

McFate wrote: I'd like to hear a real answer here from a Christian conservative. I'm asking in all sincerity.

I don’t know if I fully understood your question and I don’t know if I’m that conservative either but I can give it a try.

First the sermon on mouth. To make it simple, it says what it says. You cannot have two masters. If you serving money, you are not serving God. This doesn’t mean you should not have money or wealth.
1. Thimothy says: “If anyone does not take care of his own relatives, especially his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” Now, how can you do this without money?

So, money is good but we should remember that money is meant to be used. “He died for all people, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for the one who died and rose for them.” If someone thinks that he/she can come to Christ and leave wallet home, he/she is fooling his/her self.

“Judge a tree by the fruit that it bears” has not much to do with government. It is directed against those who look, smell and try to behave like christians, but they are not. So the fruit that you are looking for might be, for example general behavior. Is the person loving/friendly or quarrelsome. Is he/she doing his/her best to help neighbor or is he/she standing on roadside with a sign “God hates fags”. How person uses money is not very good “fruit” because there is no way to know how much someone makes money and how much is then spended unselfish. And even if we know, it might not be our business...

Then the place on Acts you pointed. “Peter asked, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart so that you should lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back some of the money you got for the land? As long as it remained unsold, wasn't it your own? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? So how could you have conceived such a thing in your heart? You did not lie to men but to God!”

Ananias was not accused on hoarding wealth. He was accused on lying to God. He had right to keep his farm or some, or even all of the money he got from it. Instead he tried to display himself to church as something else that what he was and got killed by God for that.

So why were believers selling their farms and houses and sharing the money they got? They were expecting that Christ will come back in few weeks. Or maybe after a couple of years. They were not expecting they have to wait over 2000 years (or more). So they wanted to use all their properties to make the Gospel reach the other side of the world before Christ comes back. And as we can see on the Bible later, they got in to smallish financial crisis because of that and then churches in area that we today know as Turkey had to collect extra offering to help them out. So everything you read from the Bible is not meant to be understood as example of good life.

I hope I understood your question right and I could answer somehow.

Edit. It seems I partly missed your question. There’s not really much I can say about other counties taxing systems. But Bible tells christians to share their wealth to others and for Gods Kingdom. There’s no question about that. However Bible does not support the idea of forcing someone share ones wealth to others.

Only place I can now think of where Jesus talks about taxes, he says "So give back to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." That could be understood (and how I have understood it) so that christians should pay all the taxes government expects them to pay. And if there are enough christians in government, they can set taxes as high or as low they want. That’s how democracy works.

crop [krop] verb

Photography . to cut off or mask the unwanted parts (of a print or negative) in order to draw attention away from those parts or to shift the focus of attention to retained elements in the photograph.

"The bright-yellow curtains in the East Room, a reception room on the second (or "State") floor of the White House -- a brocade pattern featuring birds, medallions, flowers, olive branches, and winged angels -- have been there since Jacqueline Kennedy redecorated the room 50 years ago. (Both Nancy Reagan and Laura Bush redesigned the curtains during their husbands' administrations, but used the same fabric.) Through the course of the subsequent half century the curtains have served as backdrop for press conferences and other Presidential addresses and state functions, both with and without flags flanking the central podium."

gullible [guhl-uh-buhl] adjective

Easily deceived, taken in or tricked. Naive, simple.



The banjos...

Can you close this thread now and move on.

Heff006 wrote: Can you close this thread now and move on.

Absolutely not. But you can elect to move on by not reading it.

Subtlety : a quiet reminder of something more dramatic or one of which those of lesser wit will not notice....banjos? Maybe....il look it up on WigipediA.

I can hear strings?