Below is my plan (If you haven't time to read it, to summarize: I go "bold").
What's your's?
1) All troops out of Iraq by St. Patrick's Day, and re-deployed to Afghanistan.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Dear Friends in Iraq:
It's been real. It's been fun. But, even you must admit: it hasn't been real fun. Thank you for letting us visit your wonderful country, depose your dictator, look for WMD's, and try to establish a US-friendly regime. We wish you all the luck in the world, and hope and pray that we'll still be friends.
2) Send ultimatum to Pakistan & Afghanistan.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Hello Afghans and Pakistanis: Thank you for your cooperation so far. OBL still resides, we're told, somewhere in the Paki/Afgha border region. Kindly deliver him in the next 96 hours. If you can not or will not, we shall find him in our own blundering way: shockNawe bombings of the entire border region, with follow-on mechanized search-and-destroy missions We apologize in advance for any broken family china. We'll leave (totally) as soon as we know he's captured or dead.
3) To our debtors/bondholders:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Hi fellas. Hang on to your US paper; it's gonna get real valuable, real soon, just like it always has. If ya wanna get wobbly-kneed now, no problem: send it back for early payment... 30 cents on the buck. Just know that, since you've reneged on your trust of us, we renege in our ability to sell our securities to you in the future. Fair, no?
4) To the US banks and Wall Street:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
"Hi Guys. You have 90 days to clean up and audit your books. On Day 91, have your accurate Balance Sheets on my desk outlining your current status. If your Balance Sheet is found inaccurate by my staff by more than 1%, I will close your business, take over your assets, and send you to jail for 20 years for fraud. No kidding. With Love..."
5) To the scientific community:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Stop whatever you're doing, and work immediately on this: Find a new way to capture, store, and release, on-demand, energy. You have a blank check for 2 years, and the world depends on you. After 2 years, if undone, we'll assume you can't get it done, and no more money will come. And you'll be bagging groceries at your local Piggly-Wiggly.
6) To America:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Hi Folks: Times are hard, you might have read or heard. Well, they're gonna get harder, before they get better. But they will get better, if we all, every one of us, give our best effort every day. I'm working with both our friends and enemies around the world to make sure they know where we stand, and what they can expect of us.
Just the usual: Honesty. Integrity. Strength. Good-will. Optimism. Hope. And determinism. I know I can count on you to show all that. If we all pull together, we can do this thing; nor only survive, but thrive on our strengths and principles. Let's walk together, strong, cheerful, confident, into a new day...
Last edited by Seamus Fermanagh; 02-11-2009 at 06:04.
Reason: cleaned up code for parallelism
How exactly is it that you didn't find your way into the Cabinet? Is Postmaster General still open?
"A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man."
Don Vito Corleone: The Godfather, Part 1.
"Then wait for them and swear to God in heaven that if they spew that bull to you or your family again you will cave there heads in with a sledgehammer"
Strike for the South
How exactly is it that you didn't find your way into the Cabinet? Is Postmaster General still open?
Maybe we should stop electing ex-generals and elect a few ex SMaj's. This is good stuff.
"The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.” -- Milton Friedman
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." -- H. L. Mencken
Thanks fellas. Really. I depressed myself with My own #47 to this thread , and figured it wasn't right to predict doom-and-gloom without offering an alternative. And hope the other great minds here might do the same.
There has to be a way out/through. With our heads together, we can figure it. I'm sure.
Alright my memo to the Prime Minister of Australia regarding the next two years...
#1 - Get our soldiers out of Afghanistan and reduce the size of our armed forces back to what they were a decade ago. The 'War on Terror' is a waste of money that is only going to get more expensive to maintain. Strongly consider spending this money on helping to re-build Afghanistan.
#2 - When bailing out any companies that need it (Likely to be parts of the auto-industry and other manufacturing sectors), include a cause that states that part of the company must be nationalised. This ensures a long-term return on investment and will provide people with great job security and more confidence in their long-term prospects.
#3 - Stop with these stupid one-off money handouts. While they are stimulating the economy it is only a very short-term stimulant. Also you are blatantly buying votes - we can see that...
#4 - Spend above money handouts on increasing the aged pension and unemployment benefits. These are the people who are going to spend every single dollar you give them on the essentials of life. This will have a knock-on effect on the economy that will help everyone.
#5 - Actually ensure that you invest in green, renewable energy. We have the capacity to build these now, but without the correct push from the government nothing is likely to get done in this economic climate. This will have both a short-term benefit (in the form of more jobs building manufacturing plants now) and a long-term benefit (helping our balance of trade and more jobs servicing and maintaining these energy-efficient power supplies).
#6 - Strongly consider bank nationalisation when all this ends - they caused the mess so let's nip any future problem in the bud.
#7 - Don't censor my internet. Seriously.
Last edited by CountArach; 02-11-2009 at 11:02.
Reason: Forgot one...
Rest in Peace TosaInu, the Org will be your legacy
Originally Posted by Leon Blum - For All Mankind
Nothing established by violence and maintained by force, nothing that degrades humanity and is based on contempt for human personality, can endure.
Your last point Kukri, sounded a lot like Obama's inauguration speech to me.
1 and 2 I find a bit...improvable, personally, 4 sounds pretty good.
5 may be a bit optimistic, could just as well tell chip manufacturers to introduce a 0.5nm process within a year, but I doubt they can pull it off, even if such a process is actually coming down the road. It's just that I guess you cannot force people to have new ideas or make certain findings, think of the folding at home project which has litterally millions and billions of complicated calculations to possibly come to a result, you cannot just force them to calculate faster, although it would perhaps be nice if you could.
1 I would change to a more gradual pulling out rather than just packing up and leaving the new Iraqi army staring at a huge gap they have to fill now. Before they have filled it some crazy warlord might do it and then you can invade again a few years down the road, won't exactly improve conditions for your kids. So, pulling out, yes, but not in a hurry but gradually while handing over control to the authorities in a way they can actually handle.
Number two sounds to me a bit like Israel's revenge attacks on Gaza, it has just been established in polls that something above 80% or so of Afghans don't want the Taliban back and now you apparently lump them in with the terrorists or force them to take up arms and catch Osama just because you think they are harboring him. So what if he is actually elsewhere or the locals are afraid and will all die trying to capture him? What would your approach achieve then? A lot of bombed innocent afghanis or a number of shot afghan civilians who tried to get Osama out of his cave. Another funny thing is that according to the BBC, more and more afghans think the troops the west has stationed there are not capable of handling the whole situation. If you know where he is and think getting him will solve all the problems, then send a lot of soldiers up there and find him yourself, that way you prove that you're actually effective and capable of stopping him. Instead of carpet bombing a whole region because you didn't get him served on a silver plate, that's like a kid sulking because it didn't get that lolly from mommy when it could have just bought the lolly itself, or something...
1) Spend our money more wisely. End the money holes in Iraq and domestically.
2) Continue to stimulate the economy with a combination of tax cuts and wise spending(see above).
3) Smooth over America's infrastructure at its weak points, including electric grids, roads, and bridges.
4) Make a concerted effort to continue our efforts at obtaining renewable energy. Primarily, expansions of solar and wind power are in order.
5) STOP agricultural subsidies, allow developing countries to start developing their own agricultural sectors by ending our ag dumping.
6) Close loopholes that allow companies to expand their "monitization" efforts into tax-free areas such as the Caman Islands.
7) Find OBL and root out Al Qaeda and related networks in Waziristan.
8) Strengthen coordination with countries like Indonesia and Turkey- we need more effort from our stable Islamic allies.
It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then, the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
> Legislate a minimum level of peacetime defence spending of 2.5% of GDP (we need to prove we are committed allies to the US)
> Legislate an annual review to determine if we are in fact at peace, and if not; how much more we need to spend (we need to prove we are committed allies to the US)
> Begin a transition to reduce the tax burden from 40+ percent of GDP to 33% of GDP (starting with stealth taxes)
> Begin a transition away from the EU and into EFTA (no need to continually spoke the wheels of the more integrationist EU nations)
> Repeal the Human Rights Act so that we can concentrate on justice (the concept of universal human rights is fine for head-hacking countries, but actually a hinderance to the UK)
> Legislate a program of 1:1 legislation introduction/repeal so as to make headway against the vast burden of new legislation created in the last ten years.
> Begin a transition from big-government to localism
> Encourage a referendum on Scotland asap (i am British and support the union, but for gods sake make up your mind and either stop whinging or eff-off)
> Scrap all plans for national citizen databases, id-cards, and dna records of people who remain un-convicted of a criminal offence.
> Allow smoking in private members clubs
> Repeal the fox-hunting ban (the only non-retarded objection to fox-hunting is that the fox is not a designated pest species)
> Be clear of iraq
> Be committed to Afghanistan
> Put pressure of Pakistan to reform
that should do for now.
Last edited by Furunculus; 02-11-2009 at 20:58.
Furunculus Maneuver: Adopt a highly logical position on a controversial subject where you cannot disagree with the merits of the proposal, only disagree with an opinion based on fundamental values. - Beskar
My Plan for My Country's Next 2 Years
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Originally Posted by Don Corleone
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