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The rest of the world can't thank you enough for keeping Obama as president. Your politics affects others countries, and I really feel like we dodge a bullet here. Not that Obama is awesome, but mainly because Romney was beyond awful and I had a hard time believing you were not able to find a better challenger.

Also, legal marijuana in Washington and Colorado, and gay marriage in Maine and Maryland? Woah! Welcome to the 21th century, I'm really impressed.  ;D

Romney would have been disastrous for the whole world, let alone internally. I was personally quite scared when Romney took an early lead, but then relieved when Obama stormed back.

Please explain or use [sarc] tags where applicable. :)

As a non-American who took a passing interest in the elections because of the hype, I had a look at 2 of the debates, and thought Romney to be generally more articulate, better prepared, more knowledgeable than Obama. As for Obama, I expected Gitmo to be closed by now, all troops removed from AfghanisNam, no threatening rhetoric or sanctions against Iran, no stealth war against Pakistan, and Bradley Manning to get away with a warning or a small fine.

But still... better the devil you know?

Yes Obama is better than Mitt Romnius Wellington III ( I think that's what Jon Stewart called him :D ) but why they didn't just vote for a third party is beyond me the only good thing I think will come out of this Democratic victory is we now get to see how bad a Democratic president will be since we've already seen how terrible a Republican president would be for 8 years.

I find it hard to believe that the two party system has survived for so long.

Who knows, perhaps 60% of your country voted for Gary Johnson, but you will never know because the controlled media has everyone convinced that it's only a tiny minority? Keep people divided and morale low. ;D

I'm Brazilian and I'm (we are) Happy with Obama as USA President too.

All the best to USA in the next 4 years.  ;D

I really believe it really makes next to no difference who of the two is President.

What really surprises me is this:



That really disturbs the cliche picture I have of a US-American.

Welcome to the 21th century, indeed.

Talk to Congress.  He issued orders to shut the place down on day 2 (Executive Order 13492), but the Republicans, who were blocking everything just because, and Democrat's own blockheads prohibited using any funds to pay for moving anyone out of the place.

There was a better challenger to Obama...that would have been Ron Paul and the rest of the world would have been even more pleased with him as he pulled all troops from all foreign countries.

At least with Obama the war in Iran will not be as large scale.

And Romney was threatening China even before he won. Just what we need, a war with a country where they WANT large scale depopulation.

Why is everyone so surprised at legalization of weed? This has been coming for a long time. Even my mother-in-law in Washington voted for legalization. The real question is "why was it ever illegal?"

Yeah yeah, to me it sounds like Congress is a convenient scapegoat to avoid getting stuff done. For all the 'cool' things that he really wants, there are executive orders.

Edit: oops, scratch that -- just read that it already was an executive order. My Bad. ::)

The original social attack against marijuana came because Mexican workers would bring their strange plant with them from south of the border and with it being common among them and uncommon among Americans it was used as a way to attack Mexicans without outwardly attacking them.

Then in the 60s hippy generation Richard Nixon was doing everything he could do to prevent those "damned hippies" from holding their protests. He kept running into 1st Amendment issues and could not stop them.

Then he realized that marijuana was very popular among hippies and was an integral part of their protests. So he attacked and outlawed marijuana in the hopes of being able to send in police to break up these hippy gatherings.

And the rest was history.

That's my understanding as well. Using drug policy to control society is not a winning bumper sticker.

If you examine it closely, every major societal control has been wrapped in racism:
Marijuana: Mexicans.
Cocaine: Blacks.
Marriage licenses: Blacks, later shifted from racism to gay-bashing.
TSA: Musims

Stop the hate, and government goes away.

Dank in 3...2...

I'm British :D

Sorry for offending you and for underestimating your intelligence :D

Obama has tried to do every thing he said he would do on election 1.
Gitmo blame the (R) because they're stopping it.
Afghanistan troops are on their way out you cant pull out of a war you will waste the past 11 years.
Iraq is done that should be enough of a start...

Iran? Really? They're trying to make a nuke.
Stealth war against Pakiastan? They're funding the taliban and AQ... Bin Ladden was found next to their largest base and they could not find his 11 foot walled fortress?
Bradley Manning commited Treason, do I think he should be locked up? No, but he knew the rules..


P.S. To everyone else

http://reflectionsofarationalrepublican.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/liberal-total-private-jobs-worldview-june-2012-data1.jpg?w=640&h=359

I agree. Grouping ourselves based upon melanin is idiotic. I see it done on both sides.

Mmm, let's put it that way.

What worries me of Iran is not that they have the nuclear bomb. It's because the rulers are religious freaks that have the nuclear bomb. Mitt Romney was backed by the biggest religious freaks of the USA. The USA have the nuclear bomb. So, getting TWO countries ruled by religious freak that control nuclear bomb was doubling my worries. At least now, I have one country less to worry.

I don't trust any religion, I know the damage it can cause. When you try to force your religious views on the law (for example gay marriage and abortion), I freak out. I consider religion as a cancer that must not spread to democratic institutions. You can live in lala-land if you want, but when you get in a position where you can affect other countries who are not living in lala-land, I think you must contain the lala-stories, especially when it's the no1 army in the world.

Without that religion part, as a left-wing and social-democrat, Obama and Romney are pretty similar(well, until Romney started taking all the positions in the world). The two of them are at the right-side of the political spectrum. USA don't have any left-wing and don't have any idea what a socialist is.

That is 100% weapons-grade bullshit right there.  In case you've forgotten, the Dims had taken both houses of Congress after the 2006 election.  They even had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.  0bama could've gotten anything he wanted for the first two years of his regime, and there's sweet fuck-all the Republicans could've done about it.  We're lucky he didn't do more damage than he did.  Now that he doesn't have a reelection to worry about, you should be afraid.

:P I'm not easily offended, I don't mind people thinking that though, makes it easier to troll them lololololol :D

I think I found the perfect picture that can explain the "rest of the world" situation towards USA election:

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/602324_10151302741592990_1627228818_n.jpg

I wonder how Ron Paul or Gary Johnson would rank on that chart...

I don't know Gary Johnson, but Ron Paul was pretty cool. He would have been easily higher than Romney, that's for sure.

Obama's administration
1) drone strikes the hell out of our alleged ally, Pakistan, killing/wounding numerous women and children, denies anyone but male combatants are hit. Pakistanis (at least one presidential candidate on down) discuss options which include scrambling air force jets to shoot down U.S. drones
2) trafficks rifles to violent Mexican drug cartels, which are used to kill/wound numerous women and children. Mexico not notified in advance, so they could immediately apprehend the possessors, instead forced to pick up the rifles at crime scenes and at cartel raids

These are the hallmarks of a war criminal, not a humanitarian, or a benevolent ruler of the world.

He should be in the dock at the Hague, along with GWB and all other living presidents.

Sad to say - probably about 1% just like they did here.

I somehow doubt Dr. Paul's "bring everybody back" stance would have been as unpopular as Romney's "let's bomb 'em more."

See this is why certain types of candidates aren't able to get any respect. It isn't about issues, it's about marketing. I'm willing to say with certainty that Ron Paul has an overseas marketing budget of zero dollars.
Maybe if the poll had mentioned his desire to end foreign aid/wars immediately on the poll...

Actually, you have one more "country" with an impressive nuclear arsenal and some of the preeminent religious freaks on the planet to worry about, Israel.  

Nuclear enrichment is as much a distraction and propagandized justification to focus aggression on Iran as the infamous and non-existent "weapons of mass destruction" were in Iraq.  This is about protecting the petrodollar standard, as it was in Iraq, Libya, etc.  

You do know that Al Qaeda is a Western creation of the Soviet/Afghan war and is currently being heavily funded through the C.1.A with a little side of Pakistani ISI and Mossad, right?  Before you call BS do a little research because arms of .gov have come right out and admitted it now.    

Do you guys actually think that the people of the U.S. actually elected Obama?  Actually believe that this two party illusion of choice is at all relevant?  Paul or Johnson didn't have a chance of being president if they lived to be a million.  Politics truly is just show business for ugly people...

A fraction of the populace even votes.  Not to mention the fact that the "votes" were processed  by SCYTL in Spain, who recently bought Tampa-based SOE, in violation of the Voting Rights Act.  Then again, what does law really mean anymore?  None other than George Soros (one of Obama's biggest financial supporters) and Goldman Sachs have admitted to having significant interest in this corporation.  Ever heard about Diebold and numerous rigged state elections?

Obama was awarded a second term months ago, at least as far back as his discussions with Medvedev over the missile defense system in Europe.  The election was mere theatre for the muppets.  

The U.S. is heading headlong into neo-marxist, statist control.  Hell, they've been discussing confiscation... I mean nationalization of the social security/pension system for a while now.  Obamacare, corporate/financial bailouts in the tens of trillions as debt placed on the backs of your children, taxpayer funded terrorist black ops as justification to "spread democracy" (read protect petrodollar hegemony), etc., etc., etc... Most in North America have no idea of how screwed they're getting or of the matrix of lies and fraud that define their ways of life.

The point is that the rest of the world thinks our politics are so hilariously terrible that they find it shocking we are able to be rational about anything (I myself am shocked).

Nail. Head.

Somebody get the man a cigar.

+1

we are going to end up like Greece.

I have read an interesting analysis (commercial) on obama, energy and economics (I can share this with you but its a commercial letter that was intended to make people sign up for commercial analytics).
Bottom line was, obama is in the right place at the right time which will most probably make him to the most popular president of the united states in history.

He came when the country was struggeling from war and economics, he will be still there when better times arrive, and heres why:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-12/u-s-to-overtake-saudi-arabia-s-oil-production-by-2020-iea-says.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-31/u-s-natural-gas-export-permits-delayed-until-late-summer.html

As i understood, the reason for the new oil discoveries is the technique called fracking "Hydraulic Fracturing", directly adapted from natural gas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing

The united states of america are on the way to become energy resilant, this means jobs, cash and a lot of power.
Of course short sighted its all fucked up, but still, the USA and europe are the most technical advanced poulations, its just nutz to question this.

So imagine, now jobs come back, a lot people get back to work and energy costs a fraction of what it costs now, for me this is a bullish economy factor, and bullish for obama.
Its not just the energy sector that will profit, its infrastrucute, manufacturing and retail too, people can spent more when energy is less expensive, companies can invest.

Additionally, the clean energy plans http://magazine.mining.com/issues/1011/Vol03-07-LithiumbatteriesCleanEnergyPlan-34-35.pdf

Of course this is just speculation, somewhat, but kind obviously that energy plays a role.

And the DOE is starting to look into LFTR technology a little more seriously, too. All in all, energy woes are most likely soon to pass.

The U.S. energy self sufficient?

Prediction:  When hell freezes over.

People think the Alberta Tar Sands in environmentally egregious, wait until you see the States producing over 20 million barrels a day that it currently uses.

So what if the U.S. surpasses Saudi Arabia's production by 2020, where is the other 8 or 10 million barrels a day going to come from?

The whole notion is asinine.

Then again, if they can take over enough oil producing nations like Iraq, maybe it's realistic.  My comments above are exclusive of imperialist occupations and military/corporate control of other sources outside the borders.

LOL!  While that goal actually shouldn't be a very hard target to hit, the mere luck of being in office when domestic oil production experiences a resurgence isn't likely to come close to that goal.  And the reports that fraking can make the US energy independent, before or after 2025, is silly cheerleading.  All the assumptions are to the unrealisticly-favorable end of the spectrum, including growth patterns in domestic demand itself.

Also, this new tech doesn't actually grant us more oil than we had, it just means that more of it is extractable.  That does not mean that all that is extractable is economicly viable, much less a net-positive energy gain.  Much like how corn based ethanol takes about as much energy to create as is extractable, there is a point at which it becomes counterproductive energy-wise to continue to extract more oil from the ground & refine it to a point that it's usable in current engine technology.  There is no doubt that more oil is extractable with fraking, but not all of that is of a quality to make that worthwhile.  The Tar sands oil is one example, it's of a particularly low quality that requires much more effort in refinement than what is commonly available from OPEC.

Furthermore, the ills that way upon the current economy have little to do with the availablity of energy, and much to do with the final stages of faulty economic theories used at national levels.  Europe will break apart again, and the cost of oil isn't going to matter a great deal on that front.  When this happens, the US will also be stressed to great levels.  The global economy is far to intergrated these days in order for the US to 'decouple' from Europe in the way that we did following WWII.  This one's going to hurt no matter what the price of oil is.

Also very limited in scope. "Energy" is not always contained in barrels of crude. A good chunk of the US's energy needs is electric, and with the trend towards plug-in and hydrogen cars, that chunk will probably get larger as time goes by. LFTR is a great way to make electric.

How is that electricity generated though, the stuff that isn't imported?  Solyndra was sure a grand slam eh?  I don't believe there's many new nuke plants being built in the States is there, I know of two?  

I submit that electric powered vehicles, let alone hydrogen powered vehicles, will not be mainstream for decades if at all.  Chevy Volt failed so spectacularly they stopped making them.  One can buy two nice compact cars for what a Nissan Leaf costs, ditto for a Mitsubishi Miev.   Or is Obama and JP Morgan going to give them away like cell phones and food stamps?  When was the last time you saw a hydrogen fuel cell-powered car driving around?  Just the infrastructure alone to service these vehicles on a national basis will take who knows how many years to build out.  Talk about limited in scope.

Oh and I agree LFTR sounds amazing and safe too but it's still just conceptual isn't it?

Further to MoonShadows great points, here's some analysis (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1WW2H95Ckw&list=UU8eFERtcxPZ-M3Cxkh7zhtQ&index=2&feature=plcp) of the issue of america's energy self-sufficiency and the IEA's projections.  Lauren Lyster isn't hard to take either.

Conventional nukes, yes. They have all kinds of problems, not least of which is "NIMBY." People don't want 3 Mile Island or Chernobyl happening in their town. (I guess they ignore Centralia) LFTR fixes or bypasses most of the issues with conventional nuke power stations. Can't have a melt down if your fuel is already melted.

Electric might surprise you how fast it catches up. Within Obama's presidency, probably not. But not long after, I think. Hydrogen, I think you're right, is a decade or two off. The fuel infrastructure just isn't there. But with cheap electric, you could make fueling stations that crack water right there at the pump. It wouldn't take long at all to get those installed all over the country.

Not entirely, no. Each of the subsystems have been tested, but the government cut funding before a full reactor was ever built. You can't use it to make a bomb, you see.

Will Energy Returned On Energy Invested have more baring on energy policy going forward or less I wonder?  The fundamentals seem inescapable but that never stopped the net-loss-energy source called Ethanol...

Coal. Interestingly enough, I don't think anyone in power is going to attempt to make the US into a net energy producer... and coal is one of obama's targets. Don't worry over the next 4 years you'll see a real economic collapse in this county.

Will there be a flood by any chance?

The State of the union is strong and will continue to strengthen.

That's why there are petitions to secede circulating in most if not all states with some garnering significant support and 50 million people aren't rioting and looting because they get free cell phones and food with the swipe of an EBT card right?

Thanks firefop, I realize half the energy supplied domestically is from coal-fired generation.  I was trying to make a point with my question that clean, green, renewable energy and roads filled with over-priced electric and fuel cell vehicles is absolutely not in the cards from what I can gather.

Here's a list of examples (http://blog.heritage.org/2012/10/18/president-obamas-taxpayer-backed-green-energy-failures/) why the utopian green clean-energy future for the U.S. is a propagandized pipe dream after throwing tens of billions in stimulus and tax credits at now struggling or bankrupt energy companies, some due in whole or in part to domestic regulation and trade tariffs imposed by their own government themselves.  Ridiculous really.  

Four years?  I give it less than two.

You sir are underestimating the mainstream medias ability to brainwash the liberal/stupid/young/senile (read general) population. They'll do what they always do, blow smoke until someone they don't like is in a position to take the fall.

So while anyone with a brain will know that's it's happening well before it becomes generally accepted or reports... internationally (for the most part) and domestically it won't "actually happen" until Obama is out of office.

Nice link  ;D

I think the thing is... we aren't incapable of doing it.. it's just that the powers that be don't really have it on the agenda at all... 'green' is just another way to sneak in silly legislation and more taxes. Cap and Trade isn't even about green, it's just another excuse to pile even more taxes on the (rapidly shrinking?) segment of the country who actually produces something of value. The saddest part about it, is I don't really think the vast majority of leftists are actually evil... they've just been 'educated' in the misapplication of logic.

Secession movements worry me in general, once that starts happening - it may well become impossible to get into any of the places that leave - Maybe I should move to texas before it happens. Meanwhile, the left is trying to get a 51st state... even more chance for voter fraud.

No such thing as a closed border. Interstate ones are so ridiculously porous that they would literally need to build a wall to keep anyone from crossing.

Yes finally, in the 21st century with... Iran? wtf.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/World-cannabis-laws.png

I'm fairly sure that if a state did try to leave, that the federal government would instantly impose all sorts of sanctions against them and probably bomb the hell out of them... The very best thing we could hope for in that scenario is the national guard on the border to keep the state contained... but that really isn't likely either.

That's a second Civil War. After the fiasco the first one was, I don't know if they'd be willing to try a second one. And "bomb the hell out of"... whom? The state legislature?

The United States should be expanding its borders, not bickering over how to crack an egg.

I'm a fan of small governments... very small governments. Single person governments. No need to "expand borders" when we should be removing them.

What is that link supposed to prove exactly? That they received tax money? Yep, they did. Do many of them fail? Yep, most start ups fail, especially those that are technology oriented and that are heavily vulnerable to political dynamics. The problem isn't the technology, nor funding, its the completely fucked corporatocracy we have which determines policy in this country.

"from 80 percent to 100 percent of Germany’s electricity will come from renewable sources by 2050... Germans are baffled that the United States has not taken the same path. Not only is the U.S. the wealthiest nation in the world, but it’s also credited with jump-starting Germany’s green movement 40 years ago."http://www.livetradingnews.com/100-renewable-energy-in-germany-93980.htm#.UKnL-OOe9gx (http://www.livetradingnews.com/100-renewable-energy-in-germany-93980.htm#.UKnL-OOe9gx)

No need to kill anyone directly. War 101 dictates that they'd simple decimate the production capacity of the rebel state. Without any way to produce anything and no ability to grow food once the oil reserves ran out... you'd have them back into the fold in a few years tops.

If you expand a border large enough, then there is no more border.

The same could be said for shrinking borders.

If everyone had their own border then that would not eliminate them, it would just multiply them.

I agree that the talk of energy independence is in about 15 years is probably over exxagerated, but you should go see the things they are doing in the Bakken and Three Forks formation up in ND and Eastern Montana.  New wells are coming online every single day.  If the geologists are correct ND has larger reserves than Saudi Arabia.  The Three forks formation was just discovered a few years back, so technically the US was "granted more oil".   Further the oil from these formations is as high quality as anything coming out of the middle east and far superior to the tar sands.  Wells in this area typically produce oil for approximately 30 years.  In fact there are wells still in operation from the last oil boom in the early 1980's.  Hydraulic fracturing is not what allowed the expansion of drilling in this area, but a technique know as horizontal drilling.  Fraccing was used in the area during the last boom too.  With the new technique, essentially the well is drilled down two miles and then is drilled two miles horizontally through the formation.  Fraccing is then used to release the oil from the shale.  

You mention that this oil may be uneconomical to recover.  This is only partially true.  While a well is expensive to drill the costs are recovered in the first few months of operation.  The cost of this oil comes from transport.  People I have spoken with peg it around $22 a barrel to ship due to lack of pipeline capacity, meaning most of the oil is shipped by rail.  As long as oil prices are high this isn't a problem.  However should the price fall it could become economical due to shipping concerns.  The proposed Keystone XL pipeline was supposed to have a load station in montana for some of this oil.  However, many people in the area speculate it was nixed due to pressure from Obama's good friend, Warren Buffet.  Berkshire Hathaway owns a 100% stake in Burlington northern Santa Fey railroad that benefits greatly from the increased rail traffic.      

 

It's called "skin," and everyone already has it. Unless you'd rather see humanity melded into one gigantic jell-o mold-like mass?

@firefop and lebing

Exactly gents, I totally agree with everything you two said (except for perhaps the "Germany using 80 - 100% 'renewable' energy by 2050" part.  Remains to be seen.  It also quotes the propaganda that the U.S. is going to be "the leading oil and gas producer by 2020" schtick).  

As for what that link is supposed to represent lebing, you said it yourself.  I know return you to the engineered destruction and neo-Marxist overthrow of the U.S. of A.

Marijuana is used quite a bit in Iran, especially in cooking.

It's also a hell of a lot cheaper than it is here (the U.S.). I think it's going for $5 a gram on average right now.

As far as smoking goes, last time I checked it is actually illegal to smoke it but it's a law that is never enforced. Opium usage is so heavy in Iran that weed is practically a baby drug.

I would add that the cost of rail transportation of oil is relatively cheap. Moving freight by rail is 3 times more fuel efficient than moving freight on the highway. Trains can move a ton of freight nearly 500 miles on a single gallon of fuel. I thing vast majority of the transportation cost for domestic oil must be in the local delivery (last 50 or 100 miles) where it's in a tank on the back of a truck.

But either way, can largely discount the cost of shipping oil, assuming that the person producing it is also the one transporting it. When you're talking about a 100000 gallons being transported on trucks, and consuming maybe 500 or 1000 gallons of that... it's simply added cost of doing business and really shouldn't affect prices at the pump.

While that is true, pipelines are even cheaper, if the volume is there.  It all has to end up at a refinery first anyway.  This is actually one of the problems with oil in the Dakotas, there are no existing pipelines and no plans for new ones.  If the claims for the volume of oil were believable to the oil companies themselves, they'd be investing in pipelines that could move that volume.  The fact that the only planned pipeline through the area isn't going to have a intake in the Dakotas should be evidence enought that the claims might not be credible.