Admonished by the UN for human rights violations, the US is now a 3rd world country.

[Hasbinbad]

Hi mainstream media! I didn't see you there. OH WAIT, YOU WEREN'T THERE AFTER ALL!!

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/18session/A-HRC-18-33-Add4_en.pdf

[Uthgaard]

This is just a report on water sanitation. All it says is most people in virginia aren't up to code, and homeless people don't have good access to clean water. I've never experienced any difficulty finding a way to tap into public water no matter matter how far from home I am. And sewage isn't required to be replaced every time the building code changes or every certain time interval, only when someone makes new construction.

Aside from this, water purification is simple and accessible to anyone. A fully effective water filter can be made from bituminous and anthracite coal, sand, plastic, garnet and gravel. Same accessible stuff that's in military water filters. Chlorine and citric acid will neutralize any microbes and the pH. Reverse osmosis is the only part that might seem a little tricky, but guess what? A $50 pool filter has the same RO element and the pump.

You can get water from anywhere. Ponds and lakes are surface representations of the water table (that's how far down you have to go to get water). If you're 25 miles from water, you can take a topographic map, find the water gradient from the difference in elevation between the nearest pools, dig about that far down. As long as it doesn't smell like sulfur, you've got a well. If it does, move about 10 yards and try again.

Simple stuff. Now no one from p99 should ever die of thirst.

This is worse than your Time magazine thing (by the way both things were on both front page covers, if you looked).

[Hasbinbad]

Yes Uthgaard, the United Nations investigated the United States of America's indigent populations so that it could write us an essay. ..for what? ..college credits?

GTFO with that nonsense dude, The UN doesn't make "reccomendations" regarding "human rights issues" for "no reason."

[Uthgaard]

The nonsense is this crap you keep posting. I'm not sure what your source is, but the theme I'm seeing is someone who thinks they think, but is too biased to do it. Critical thinking is the enemy of proving a point, and the ally of finding the true story.

Look up the answers your own questions. You might be surprised how moot your points are.

[Hasbinbad]

Like how we're just swimming in funds for infrastructure right now right? Like how discretionary spending isn't just a piggy bank for the air force, but actually is spending of our tax dollars used with discretion.. RIGHT??

When was the last time you drove on a road in the United States bro?

[Diggles]

I want to be a 2nd world country

[loopholbrook]

http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/itunes.pdf
If you look in one of the paragraphs in the middle you will see that the US is not a third world country. This link shows how completely idiotic your post is.

[Hasbinbad]

How many lists are we more than halfway down on, if not towards the bottom? Including infrastructure, education, healthcare based on mean outcomes and/or cost:outcome ratio, mental stability, i mean i can go on bro..

You know what we're #1 at? Convictions leading to jailtime for a citizen's posession of miniscule amounts of marijuana.

Come at me bro.

[Hasbinbad]

This link shows how completely idiotic your post is.
I was all ready to write you a scathing post detailing how ignorant you are..

Then I actually clicked the link.

I am sorry for having those negative thoughts about you. <3 you.

[loopholbrook]

Also, this show that the U.S. is the exact opposite of a third world country. First world countries are based off of us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

[Hasbinbad]

I might have to adjust my prejudices concerning Texas. Damn you.

[Uthgaard]

Like how we're just swimming in funds for infrastructure right now right? Like how discretionary spending isn't just a piggy bank for the air force, but actually is spending of our tax dollars used with discretion.. RIGHT??

When was the last time you drove on a road in the United States bro?

Getting to the right answer isn't about responding with what you're sure is a witty response, that really has nothing to do with the topic.

Yes Uthgaard, the United Nations investigated the United States of America's indigent populations so that it could write us an essay. ..for what? ..college credits?


Go back here, and answer your own questions. That means you need to do a little bit of research on the UN and what it does, why it does it, and at what intervals it writes routine assessments of every country, and then reconsider whether the writing of a routine assessment equals your ridiculous accusations. Hint: You'll find that by your logic, every country in the UN is third world.

[Hailto]

The UN is under the illusion that anyone in America besides hasbin cares what they have to say, that's cute.

[booter]

I also care what the UN has to say /shrug. It's sort of an important thing, what with an increasingly connected world. International cooperating is what it's about. Borders will have to go away at some point in our history (maybe not for a few centuries, but as a species we really ought to start thinking long-term).

[Hailto]

Why would we have to have a one world government at some point in our history? Where is your logic?

[Hasbinbad]

Why would we have to have a striation of governments at this point in our existence? Where is your logic?
fix't

[booter]

I'm not saying we have to, I'm just saying it's likely inevitable from an evolutionary standpoint if we are to survive. This isn't some right vs left "one world gubment" conspiracy talk. At some point, we'll likely have to all come together and stop thinking of each other as nationals and citizens and start thinking of each other as fellow humans. Do I think that will happen in my lifetime? No.

[Hasbinbad]

Getting to the right answer isn't about responding with what you're sure is a witty response, that really has nothing to do with the topic.
You are over nine hundred thousand percent wrong. It has everything to do with the topic. If you read the report, you would see that the UN calls into serious question our plan and ability to move beyond nineteenth century technology as far as clean water distribution and sanitation for our most marginalized people. This is an infrastructure problem (you know, roads and aqueducts and things?), and our inability to meet our own needs as it pertains to infrastructure while simultaneously borrowing money from yellow people to kill brown people to the total tune of trillions of dollars over time is one of my central issues with this government, and the reason why this particular subject garnered my interest in the first place.
Go back here, and answer your own questions. That means you need to do a little bit of research on the UN and what it does, why it does it, and at what intervals it writes routine assessments of every country, and then reconsider whether the writing of a routine assessment equals your ridiculous accusations. Hint: You'll find that by your logic, every country in the UN is third world.
I mean, I see your point Uth, I do know what the UN is and what it does in a very general sense. That being said, I would be surprised if you could find that the UN told a majority of "1st world countries" that they had low confidence in a plan or ability to implement a basic human right. If that is true, it makes us - AT THE VERY LEAST - "towards the bottom of all developed countries as far as the sustainability of basic human rights for their citizens."

Spin that however you want. Do your own research. I know (based on 1,000 swabs in five different communities in the bay area, part of a biological assay in my biotech program) that with our current water deployment technology, bacterial swabs of the vast majority of water outlets will yield viable colonies of E. coli, S. marcescens, S. aureus, and S. Enteriditis, among other nice little critters (the four listed were on ~90% of the 'clean' water outlets tested, with a smattering of other organisms found here and there). I know (based on hella hella documentaries and YouTube videos, and hella independent media reports / interviews) that in certain places in this country, corporations are allowed to rape nature in such a way as to make the ground water fucking flammable.

Let alone what fucking chemical impurities we allow into the "clean" water system at large.. Can you say "excreted in the urine?"

You've really got to be fucking kidding me dude. I know you're an educated person, but you're arguing the impossible. Shit is going to get worse, not better, and if we don't do something about it, the UN is going to be the least of our worries.

[Hailto]

Implying the UN doesn't have political motives and actually gives a shit about the drinking water in the ghetto, stop being so naive.

[booter]

Stop being so http://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-tinfoil.gif.

There's corruption at every level, but that doesn't have to stay the same either.

Again, it's called long-term thinking and I guess requires some understanding of history and science.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln8UwPd1z20

[Hailto]

Yeah....like totally man, pass me the bowl.

[loopholbrook]

Just going to point out that if America decided to leave the UN it would collapse. That's not an opinion, but a fact. Though our country is failing in almost every way possible, we are still more powerful than any other country in the world. If we decided that we would like France, very few countries would dare fight against us, once again not an opinion, but fact.

[Hasbinbad]

if America decided to leave the UN it would collapse. That's not an opinion, but a fact.
Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.

[fastboy21]

The report isn't really surprising nor terribly interesting (for popular news), which is why the main stream media doesn't put much time into reporting it.

The issues raised are that the US, compared to other "first rate" countries that it surpassed in infrastructure of all kinds during the 19th and 20th centuries, is now falling behind. The internal infrastructures in the US suffer from a funding gap needed to update the system and expand it at the anticipated rate of population growth. While this report focuses on water supply and sanitation, similar gaps are found in other segments of the infrastructure (bridges and road systems, for example).

Not surprisingly, the biggest gaps occur in the poorest areas of the US. Also unsurprisingly, the poorest areas of the US are also populated dis-proportionally with "minority" groups (Native Americans, African Americans, etc.).

There are serious issues in the United States regarding internal infrastructure. Nonetheless, I'd hardly call the US a "third world nation" (an antiquated term almost always used incorrectly today anyway).

[Hasbinbad]

fastboy21, that was a well thought out, eloquent critique on this issue.

I was, of course, speaking facetiously when I termed the US a third world country, but considering the wealth gap (a hallmark of underdeveloped countries) and lack of infrastructure, it's hardly facetious to say that we're headed the wrong way.

[Uthgaard]

Shit is going to get worse, not better, and if we don't do something about it, the UN is going to be the least of our worries.

This is me worried. :o I just told you how to get clean drinking in bulk water no matter what. Sure, there's shit in the water. There is in every country, industrialized or not. I depend on myself, not others. I don't really care if the water is crap. There are about 100 ways to make pure water even without a traditional water source.

This is what the UN does. It runs around writing papers on things to see where things stand. You're acting as if they singled out the US and said, human rights violators! When that's as ridiculous saying that a restaurant is racist because the health inspectors did a routine checkup.

[Kassel]

You want to see some 1st world country shame that would make you think its the 3rd world?

Google Attawapiskat

[to0p]

Hi mainstream media! I didn't see you there. OH WAIT, YOU WEREN'T THERE AFTER ALL!!

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/18session/A-HRC-18-33-Add4_en.pdf

Play everquest you idiot and keep your communist/socialist crap to yo' self foo

[Harrison]

More retarded inaccuracies or flat out bullshit lol Do you just sit around doing drugs and whine all fucking day? Must be why you're a perma student and get nothing done in life. Waste of space.

[Harrison]

Post obviously directed at HBB.

[purest]

harrison tell us more about how we can be like you and win at life by cutting deli meat for a living

[Hasbinbad]

Funny how you never debate the actual things I say, always preferring to attack me personally. Hmm, I wonder if there could be a reason for that?

Hmm..

Could it be?











Boy.. I dunno..




















































QUICK, DON'T PICTURE A 500 LB GORILLA RAGE RAPING YOUR DEAD BROTHERS CORPSE!!

[booter]

I'm an anti-intellectual.

[Hailto]

Linking a Carl Sagan video from youtube makes me an intellectual.

[Hasbinbad]

No it doesn't, but knowing enough about the works of Carl Sagan to be able to post a relevant video to a fairly obscure bit of conversation certainly speaks to his breadth.