um. yeah. And their CEO's are still laughing all the way to their tax havens in Barbados.
Look, they're under investigation for massive fraud. Bribery in Nigerian bridge contracts. Overcharging the US for gasoline to the tune of $61 million (chump change, I know), and a few others I can't name off the top of my head.
The money's got to be going somewhere, and it's NOT going into hiring American workers here in the US. That's for damn sure. Proof=> shitty job creation numbers, plummeting incomes of Americans.
And if the war were for oil, we would have simply wiped out the whole population of Iran and started pumping, instead of rebuilding the country.
Q: How would flooding the market with massive quantities of cheap oil benefit the oil companies? A: it does not.
They benefit from the strife, because it makes speculators nervous and drives up prices. Even if oil companies pay more for oil, they simply tack on a higher margin. This is not a problem for them, because there is no vigorous competition in the oil market. OPEC+Seven Sisters=no discernable competition.
Europe's gasoline prices are high because the various governments rip off the public by taxing fuel at absurd rates.
If you had to pay $10 a gallon for gas (and face it, it's going to happen either way), where would you rather the extra 80% go?:
A: Into an oil executive's tax free account in Barbados? or B: Into government coffers, to be reinvested into the economy in the form of job programs, education, or at least infrastructure build-out like roads?
B puts the money back into the economy. A goes to what amounts to a penis-length contest of the world's wealthiest elites, starving the rest of the economy of desperately needed capital. B is adjustable where circumstances merit. A just goes up and stays up, and cannot be relaxed for crucial needs like National Defense or transportation of viatl goods like food. B encourages conservation, because being adjustable, it is predictable, and therefore a basis for long-range business plans. A encourages people to buy huge SUV's and just suffer through the periods where prices spike on high demand. Their purchasing decisions hurt everyone in this economy BUT the gas stations. In a nation of SUV's, where people are employed, and live in suburbs, demand is inelastic.
It's all about controlling the supply. Or at least constraining it.
In this regard, the insurgents blowing up pipelines in Iraq are their best friend.
If there's a major shift in power generation from oil to wind, for instance, the supply is dictated by the wind. Expect fundamentalist terror groups to start attacking wind-farms, to drive up spot prices on the electricity market.
but it is Halliburton et all who are profiting, not the average public.
Anybody who thought that we were going to steal the oil to benefit the American Public was deluding themselves.
The war is not going well. Bombings on pipelines, uncertainty in the supply and continued resistance pressure lead to higher prices
How is that "not going well"? It's going exactly as they want it to go. War profiteers benefit from endless conflict. It would SUCK for them if the enemy were crushed immediately by our superior firepower, and simply gave up and lived peacefully. If America WANTED to win this war, it would have been won. Long ago. We're fighting to prolong it. Why else do you think we sent 130,000 troops instead of 500,000. Because we couldn't GET 500,000 if we really needed to? Please. If Bush wanted a draft, and drafted 1 million American boys and girls to fight this war, it would be OVER. And the liberals would scream, but the instant success would silence them. (just as the "fake" success we have in the So Called Left Wing Media, has pretty much made the liberal screams moot). Bush has all the power he needs to get the job done unopposed, if he really wanted to. Middle America even approved of the Abu Ghraib attrocities. 57 million of them. This war is still happening because Bush and his cronies WANT it to. Because the longer the middle east is steeped in violence, the longer they stretch this limited commodity out, and the more profit per remaining barrel they get.
You'll ALL understand this the day they pump the last barrel out of the ground, I guarantee it, the fighting will stop cold. Except that which is driven by gun sales.
I've GOT to think that there's gotta be some technology that can transform how Computers use power.
Currently, my desktop system plugs into a wall outlet, transforms the 120vAC into a few various leads of low-voltage DC. At a HUGE loss.
Then I've got about a dozen peripherals, (fake examples:) cell-phone, digital camera, printer, LCD Monitor, external CDRW, external HD, iPod, PalmPilot, USB Hub, etc - each with their own brick, another transformer, spewing wattage as waste heat. All convert down to different DC voltages.
While these BRICKS are plugged in, even when the system is powered off, they still waste electricity.
What the industry REALLY REALLY needs, is some standard, efficient, external, universal transformer box, which converts wall current into a standard DC voltage, suitable for powering my CPU, monitor, and all peripherals.
A single transformer will not only simplify my power connectivity, but will also make it far more efficient. Even better if all the peripheral manufactureres could agree on a standard voltage.
Multiply that by 50 million systems, hundreds of millions of transformers, and I think there'd be some kind of net energy savings there.
Ever wonder why california has more wind turbine farms than any other area, even though they have one of the lowest wind potential west of the missippi? Because people are starting to want cleaner power, even at a cost.
Ironically, we have Sam Wyly, arch conservative, supporter of George Bush, to thank for this. He started GreenMountain Energy.
Get a grip. If we were there fighting Islamofascists, it would be called "The War On Islamofascism" - - not the "War On Teror".
If we were fighting Islamofascists, we would not be playing footsie with the madrassa-funding Saudi Royal Family. We would not be playing footsie with the Pakistani ISI, who is, in effect, harboring bin Laden.
Saddam may have talked tough about giving money to families of suicide bombers, but he was about as far from "Islamofascist" as any government in the middle east. His mouthpiece (Tariq Aziz) was a Christian. You can get your head cut off in Saudi Arabia for having a Christian Bible.
We attacked the wrong country. We're more concerned about our oil supply than right and wrong. We are WEAK because we depend on Saudi Oil. We should fix that problem FIRST, before we do anything else, so we can free ourselves from that moral conflict, before we bother with this "War on Islamofascism" stuff. Ideological wars MUST be fought with consistency. Otherwise, you end up looking exactly like Bush looks today; Like a fucking hypocrite.
Also, I think you don't have it quite right about diesel electric hybrids - but, in fact, biodiesel may just end up being our saving grace. Google the slashdot article a few months back about a new technology for producing biodiesel from algae. A few million acres in the desert flooded with water (diverted, say, for example, from the Colorado river), could supply the entire need for the US. The energy comes from the Sun, and the carbon, comes from the atmosphere, so the CO2 released by the burning of biodiesel will not release any net CO2 into the atmosphere. I don't know if that's important or not, none of us really does - but if it's even a little important, it turns out to be really, really fucking important, about the most important issue facing a post-industrial civilization. The stuff is also low-sulfur diesel fuel, so emissions control to reduce nasties like sulfur oxides, and nitrogen oxides would make such cars about the lowest emission technologies out there, besides pure electric or hydrogen. What's not to like? Oh yeah, oil cartels can't constrain the supply to manipulate prices.:(
If this were truly about "States Rights" - then the Federal Goverment of the Right would not be stepping in on; -Trying to overturn state measures on medical marijuana, etc. -Trying to interfere with state judiciaries overturning unconstitutional discriminatory laws against gay marriage. -etc.
I wouldn't mind the agenda of the Right, with regard to "States Rights" - if they weren't so damn hypocritical about it.
Direct taxation makes the federal government to powerful
Posession and control of a huge nuclear arsenal makes the federal government too powerful. That's never ever going to change. This isn't a loose confederation of states and territories anymore. Deal. Read the Federalist Papers.
What I'm saying is, he's planning to spend less than Kerry. To be quite honest, that's the main issue I voted on.
I really, really hope Bush doesn't disappoint you. However, given all the things he promised to do and then failed to deliver on, I'm not holding my breath. I call it, healthy skepticism. But I guess that's all I have left.
Oh prepositions aren't what you should be terminating sentances with. In English.
NOW we see in the latest videotape that Osama Bin Laden has changed his tune.
Sorry to be the one to draw attention to your selective memory, but Troops In Saudi was only ONE of Osama's original gripes. Support of Israeli oppression of Palestine was, in fact, another.
What a utopia that was: women were brutally oppressed and beaten, artists were executed, an ancient Buddhist statue carved into a cliff was demolished by a shoulder missile, native Afghanis lived in constant fear of irritating the Taliban authorities and resented their intrusion.
Hatred of theofascist culture of Talibanistan, is understandable. I, myself, unabashedly reject the multiculturalist calls, and hate them. But I'm not fooled for a minute that Bush has any designs on sending them all back to the 13th Century. His middle eastern alliances, and pandering to the far-right religious base in the US is evidence enough for me that he has NO intention of leaning on Islamic Fundamentalism in any meaningful or effective way. I fully agree that more agressive measures are needed in the War On Terror, but step 1 is a balls-out effort to end US dependence on foreign oil. Step 2 is a balls-out rejection of Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. (or at least a more realistic and honest approach to the regimes who funded and sheltered bin Laden).
now that we KNOW for certain that France and other countries were secretly pouring money into his regime
not to sound like a broken record, but we really need to see proof of this accusation now. The fact is, this stuff is coming from the Chalabi camp. And maybe nobody believed the supposedly politically motivated charges of his massive Petra Bank embezzling in Jordan. Maybe nobody believed in the supposedly politically motivated charges of his involvement of counterfeiting Iraqi currency after the regime change (AT US TAXPAYER EXPENSE, TO HIS PERSONAL PROFIT!), but certainly you've got to believe that the CIA wasn't fucking around when they intercepted his email, to Iranian Intelligence agents in Tehran, disclosing sensitive US NSA secrets he should not have had access to in the first place. I think that Chalabi's credibility is low, to be blunt. I think the onus of this debacle is on the man who invited Chalabi to sit behind Laura Bush at the 2003 State of the Union Address. Are we REALLY that careless about our allies? If nothing else, it really looks bad.
The people who oppose the United States are generally Socialist.
Rather an overly dramatic abuse of the term there. Acceptance of progressive taxation or worker protections, or civil rights, or even public investment in infrastructure is hardly "Socialism". Of course you follow up with the typical equating of Socialism with Communism, to further distort the statement - and then finish up by equating Socialism with Support for Terrorism.
. . . vacations are a month long,
Are you certain you're not talking about the White House?
and unemployment is a whopping 10-20%
um, that's an awful wide margin. By the way, Apples and Oranges when comparing to the US, since they measure unemployment differently than we do, since the Reagan Years.
Finally, if you think that America invaded Iraq for its own control of the oil, explain to me why, ten years after the first Gulf War, no American company controls any of the Kuwaiti oil market?
Finally, you vastly oversimplify the whole "war for oil" meme. It doesn't have a damn thing to do with "control of the oil" - well, partially, it has to do with the pricing of oil in dollars. Saddam was in the beginning stages of switching to pricing in Euros. Which would have been a disaster for the US and the UK. Still - it's about driving up speculation and prices for a certain vital commodity, which brings in much higher profits for those who deal that commodity.
When I mentioned the 100,000 dead civilians in Iraq, she still refused to believe that they were not happy that we came in, and that the only ones who didn't want us there were the "radicals".
The simple, but inconceivable (to us) calculus is; No matter what facts you present to "them" - THEY will not be swayed by people who call them stupid redneck bigots.
I know TWO programmers who moved to the US after our company bought theirs.
While they were here, there was much bitching and moaning about how fucked up our health insurance was (our company was known for having the BEST health insurance of all employers in our county!), and screwed up our politics were, and how scary our religious zealots were. Though they were both avid gun nuts, and pretty much happy to take advantage of the whole 2nd Amendment thing.
Then our company cancelled our product, and closed our site. Nobody was suprised when these two gave a hearty "F-U" to the CEO at a company meeting, and left the country later that same day.
I believe that military force is appropriate to solve this problem. Wholeheartedly.
However, the PLACE was not in the top 10 of the list of places I would have sent 138,000 US troops to, to rid the world of evil dictators who support terrorism.
The troop strength, was off by a factor of 5, from what I would have sent, to ensure success. Let's pretend that we don't give a crap about the 380 tons of HMX, or the security of any WMD that might have actually been there, or even the safety of our troops and civillian contractors, or even momentum to terrorist recruiting in the region, or even credibility to US military effectiveness. Dude, the insurgents just fucking blew up all the northern pipelines yesterday. If the spice doesn't flow, our economy grinds to a halt. If our economy grinds to a halt, we can't pay to continue the war. The complaint that we didn't have enough troops just plain doesn't float. If we don't have enough troops, if you're the President, you fucking GET them. You don't bitch and moan about liberal opposition. You get what you need to get the job done, and then you fucking DO it. Which is why I give NO credence to the "man of steely resolve" illusion that surrounds Bush.
So knock off the "you commie traitors love the terrorists and hate our troops" bs. That's a fallacious argument, and you *know* it. If I were in Iraq right now dodging car bombs and kidnappers, I would appreciate a little more realism, and a little less sunshine blowing up my ass from my leaders. Why does everone assume that the troops would rather be pissed on and told that it's raining?
Why are all these battleground states such hellholes.
Ohio? Are you fucking crazy? Here it is, November 3, and it's 75 degrees out and sunny. And I have significant equity in my tulip-bulb of a house. I shall NEVER leave California.
Saddam's secret police built up a similar but more extensive set of files on Iraqis. Essential in a police state, to keeping the lid on potential threats to his power.
When the US invaded, were these files destroyed? No. They were handed over to Ahmed Chalabi, who promptly began using them to attack non-Baathist Sunni officials that opposed his installment (with Iran's covert backing). Fortunately, he screwed up, and the US found out how much Chalabi was stabbing them in the backs, and booted him out - installing Alawi. Where are Saddam's secret files now?
Firstly, he didn't lie, at least we dont have any evidence that he lied.
There is clear and uncontrovertible evidence.
Kerry was way too f'n liberal. He wanted to nationalize healthcare in this country. Healthcare in the US is more than 15% of the economy.
Um - no. He didn't. Did you actually READ his health care plan. Did you have ANY clue as to what he really wanted? Did you have ANY fear that the Republican-Dominated House and Senate would have approved his plan anyway? Or are you just repeating what Rush Limbaugh told you to think?
His plan did not amount to a "Nationalization" of health care. Not by a long shot.
That, my friend, is hard core socialism.
You keep using that word. I don't think you think it means what it means.
That is anti-american.
How so? As long as it doesn't violate the Constitution, or the intent of our Founding Fathers, I wouldn't say that was unamerican. Not as unamerican as say, the USA PATRIOT ACT. Or proposing an amendment to ban gay marriage. Or "faith based" initiatives. All of those are not only clear violations of the Constitution, but also the basic principles under which it was drafted. The Founding Fathers fought, bled, and died for the principles of freedom, and a bunch of reactionary religious zealots are shitting all over them.
What you have done, my dear friends, is say to the American Politics: "You can lie. You can go to war. You can smuggle drugs. You can do any of the things that our high standard of moral justly finds reprehensible. And we are never going to hold you accountable as long as you handle politically petty details, such as the right to bear sub-machine guns, the way we like it."
It's not like that at all. It's not that the 50% doesn't care about being lied to. It's that they simply will not accept the truth that they've been lied to. They believe the lies, because the alternative, is to accept that they've been fooled. It's about Stubborn, Arrogant Pride.
well - if you think YOU'RE disappointed. Think about how WE feel.
The other 50% will put a big Donkey symbol on the roofs of our houses. Promise not to bomb those, okay? We tried. We tried really hard.
I just guess the other side was more terrified of gay people getting married than our side was of the elitist war-profiteering white collar criminals who are running our country now.
Here's a better question: how many terrorists have we caught thanks *solely* to the PATRIOT Act?
Most judicial estimats say zero. Some even say that we've botched several cases because of the Patriot act, and over-zealous prosecution. But officially, nobody knows. You don't have a "need to know" so if someone's been "disappeared" under these or other provisions, you and I will never hear about it.
Soap -> They didn't listen. Ballot -> Diebold Jury-> Soon to be a fond memory. Ammo -> I'm not ready to go there. Are you?
Take the tax cuts of the Reagan era -- it wasn't a week before Democrats were saying "OMG, it's not working!" But the process isn't that fast -- and in the end, the tax cuts worked.
I hope you're not endorsing Bush's tax cuts, because I think it's been soundly demonstrated that in THIS era, they DON'T work. Unless one believes that all taxation is unconstitutional, or other such ideological rot. .. In any case, I daresay we'll ALL get a great opportunity in the next 4 years to REALLY prove that Tax Cuts For The Rich During Wartime And Economic Contraction don't fucking work.
They're terrified of the Terrorists. You'd think that bin Laden being alive and shooting tape would be a *bad* thing for Bush. Considering the whole "he failed miserably to catch him" thing. But apparently, people are more afraid of bin Laden than they are of the group of elitist white collar criminals running the country.
And, they're terrified of the "liberal agenda" - gay marriage turned out to be a huge deciding issue. One that the Left utterly missed the boat on. Due to Kerry's very soft statements on the issue during the debate, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but the leftwing bloggers and pundits apparently scared the crap out of the rightwing religious base.
. . . believe it or not, Apollo 11 was also a close call. They touched down with only a couple of seconds of fuel left, after trying to maneuver past a field of boulders.
IIRC; Clinton VETOED the American Securities Litigation Reform act of 1996, which was subsequently passed on an override. This act (but mostly the pernicous Market Fundamentalist attitude that rich enterpreneurs should be above the law) was far more responsible for the stock market crash than the Dodd bill.
Oh, and when a criminal commits a crime, sure - it's the cop's fault who doesn't stop him. But when Bush's DOJ knew it had happened because Enron had filed for bankruptcy - they sat around with their thumbs up their asses for 4 weeks while Arthur Anderson shredded truckloads of vital evidence. Stopping the fraud in Enron's case maybe was Clinton's fault (Certainly nothing to do with the fraud in the California Energy crisis in the winter of 2000 - that's ALL Bush's FERC's doing), but Bush failed to go after the known criminal Lay, failed to adequately secure the evidence, which sent a strong message to all the other white collar criminals out there; "Please be more careful, we don't want you guys to get caught, if we have to cover for all of you, it'll start to look suspicious. . . "
. . . and Bush doesn't have a yes/no test but tries to pick Justices who interpret the Constitution strictly.
. . . unless they include the first amendment in that interpretation. . . (or the fourth, or pretty much any amendment except the 2nd, and of course, any Republican's favorite, the 5th).
Slashdot Mirror
They are losing money hand over fist.
um. yeah. And their CEO's are still laughing all the way to their tax havens in Barbados.
Look, they're under investigation for massive fraud. Bribery in Nigerian bridge contracts. Overcharging the US for gasoline to the tune of $61 million (chump change, I know), and a few others I can't name off the top of my head.
The money's got to be going somewhere, and it's NOT going into hiring American workers here in the US. That's for damn sure. Proof=> shitty job creation numbers, plummeting incomes of Americans.
And if the war were for oil, we would have simply wiped out the whole population of Iran and started pumping, instead of rebuilding the country.
Q: How would flooding the market with massive quantities of cheap oil benefit the oil companies?
A: it does not.
They benefit from the strife, because it makes speculators nervous and drives up prices. Even if oil companies pay more for oil, they simply tack on a higher margin. This is not a problem for them, because there is no vigorous competition in the oil market. OPEC+Seven Sisters=no discernable competition.
Europe's gasoline prices are high because the various governments rip off the public by taxing fuel at absurd rates.
If you had to pay $10 a gallon for gas (and face it, it's going to happen either way), where would you rather the extra 80% go?:
A: Into an oil executive's tax free account in Barbados?
or B: Into government coffers, to be reinvested into the economy in the form of job programs, education, or at least infrastructure build-out like roads?
B puts the money back into the economy.
A goes to what amounts to a penis-length contest of the world's wealthiest elites, starving the rest of the economy of desperately needed capital.
B is adjustable where circumstances merit.
A just goes up and stays up, and cannot be relaxed for crucial needs like National Defense or transportation of viatl goods like food.
B encourages conservation, because being adjustable, it is predictable, and therefore a basis for long-range business plans.
A encourages people to buy huge SUV's and just suffer through the periods where prices spike on high demand. Their purchasing decisions hurt everyone in this economy BUT the gas stations. In a nation of SUV's, where people are employed, and live in suburbs, demand is inelastic.
No, they DO care.
It's all about controlling the supply. Or at least constraining it.
In this regard, the insurgents blowing up pipelines in Iraq are their best friend.
If there's a major shift in power generation from oil to wind, for instance, the supply is dictated by the wind. Expect fundamentalist terror groups to start attacking wind-farms, to drive up spot prices on the electricity market.
but it is Halliburton et all who are profiting, not the average public.
Anybody who thought that we were going to steal the oil to benefit the American Public was deluding themselves.
The war is not going well. Bombings on pipelines, uncertainty in the supply and continued resistance pressure lead to higher prices
How is that "not going well"?
It's going exactly as they want it to go.
War profiteers benefit from endless conflict. It would SUCK for them if the enemy were crushed immediately by our superior firepower, and simply gave up and lived peacefully. If America WANTED to win this war, it would have been won. Long ago. We're fighting to prolong it. Why else do you think we sent 130,000 troops instead of 500,000. Because we couldn't GET 500,000 if we really needed to? Please. If Bush wanted a draft, and drafted 1 million American boys and girls to fight this war, it would be OVER. And the liberals would scream, but the instant success would silence them. (just as the "fake" success we have in the So Called Left Wing Media, has pretty much made the liberal screams moot). Bush has all the power he needs to get the job done unopposed, if he really wanted to. Middle America even approved of the Abu Ghraib attrocities. 57 million of them. This war is still happening because Bush and his cronies WANT it to. Because the longer the middle east is steeped in violence, the longer they stretch this limited commodity out, and the more profit per remaining barrel they get.
You'll ALL understand this the day they pump the last barrel out of the ground, I guarantee it, the fighting will stop cold. Except that which is driven by gun sales.
I've GOT to think that there's gotta be some technology that can transform how Computers use power.
Currently, my desktop system plugs into a wall outlet, transforms the 120vAC into a few various leads of low-voltage DC. At a HUGE loss.
Then I've got about a dozen peripherals, (fake examples:) cell-phone, digital camera, printer, LCD Monitor, external CDRW, external HD, iPod, PalmPilot, USB Hub, etc - each with their own brick, another transformer, spewing wattage as waste heat. All convert down to different DC voltages.
While these BRICKS are plugged in, even when the system is powered off, they still waste electricity.
What the industry REALLY REALLY needs, is some standard, efficient, external, universal transformer box, which converts wall current into a standard DC voltage, suitable for powering my CPU, monitor, and all peripherals.
A single transformer will not only simplify my power connectivity, but will also make it far more efficient. Even better if all the peripheral manufactureres could agree on a standard voltage.
Multiply that by 50 million systems, hundreds of millions of transformers, and I think there'd be some kind of net energy savings there.
Ever wonder why california has more wind turbine farms than any other area, even though they have one of the lowest wind potential west of the missippi? Because people are starting to want cleaner power, even at a cost.
Ironically, we have Sam Wyly, arch conservative, supporter of George Bush, to thank for this. He started GreenMountain Energy.
We're there because we're fighting Islamofascism.
:(
Get a grip. If we were there fighting Islamofascists, it would be called "The War On Islamofascism" - - not the "War On Teror".
If we were fighting Islamofascists, we would not be playing footsie with the madrassa-funding Saudi Royal Family. We would not be playing footsie with the Pakistani ISI, who is, in effect, harboring bin Laden.
Saddam may have talked tough about giving money to families of suicide bombers, but he was about as far from "Islamofascist" as any government in the middle east. His mouthpiece (Tariq Aziz) was a Christian. You can get your head cut off in Saudi Arabia for having a Christian Bible.
We attacked the wrong country. We're more concerned about our oil supply than right and wrong. We are WEAK because we depend on Saudi Oil. We should fix that problem FIRST, before we do anything else, so we can free ourselves from that moral conflict, before we bother with this "War on Islamofascism" stuff. Ideological wars MUST be fought with consistency. Otherwise, you end up looking exactly like Bush looks today; Like a fucking hypocrite.
Also, I think you don't have it quite right about diesel electric hybrids - but, in fact, biodiesel may just end up being our saving grace. Google the slashdot article a few months back about a new technology for producing biodiesel from algae. A few million acres in the desert flooded with water (diverted, say, for example, from the Colorado river), could supply the entire need for the US. The energy comes from the Sun, and the carbon, comes from the atmosphere, so the CO2 released by the burning of biodiesel will not release any net CO2 into the atmosphere. I don't know if that's important or not, none of us really does - but if it's even a little important, it turns out to be really, really fucking important, about the most important issue facing a post-industrial civilization.
The stuff is also low-sulfur diesel fuel, so emissions control to reduce nasties like sulfur oxides, and nitrogen oxides would make such cars about the lowest emission technologies out there, besides pure electric or hydrogen. What's not to like? Oh yeah, oil cartels can't constrain the supply to manipulate prices.
You can't win the "war" on drugs in Columbia.
As long as there's a market, there will be farmers producing drugs.
As long as the "Supply Siders" are in charge of the War on Drugs - this is going to be the guiding rationale.
If this were truly about "States Rights" - then the Federal Goverment of the Right would not be stepping in on;
-Trying to overturn state measures on medical marijuana, etc.
-Trying to interfere with state judiciaries overturning unconstitutional discriminatory laws against gay marriage.
-etc.
I wouldn't mind the agenda of the Right, with regard to "States Rights" - if they weren't so damn hypocritical about it.
Direct taxation makes the federal government to powerful
Posession and control of a huge nuclear arsenal makes the federal government too powerful. That's never ever going to change. This isn't a loose confederation of states and territories anymore. Deal. Read the Federalist Papers.
What I'm saying is, he's planning to spend less than Kerry. To be quite honest, that's the main issue I voted on.
I really, really hope Bush doesn't disappoint you. However, given all the things he promised to do and then failed to deliver on, I'm not holding my breath. I call it, healthy skepticism. But I guess that's all I have left.
Oh prepositions aren't what you should be terminating sentances with. In English.
NOW we see in the latest videotape that Osama Bin Laden has changed his tune.
Sorry to be the one to draw attention to your selective memory, but Troops In Saudi was only ONE of Osama's original gripes. Support of Israeli oppression of Palestine was, in fact, another.
What a utopia that was: women were brutally oppressed and beaten, artists were executed, an ancient Buddhist statue carved into a cliff was demolished by a shoulder missile, native Afghanis lived in constant fear of irritating the Taliban authorities and resented their intrusion.
Hatred of theofascist culture of Talibanistan, is understandable. I, myself, unabashedly reject the multiculturalist calls, and hate them. But I'm not fooled for a minute that Bush has any designs on sending them all back to the 13th Century. His middle eastern alliances, and pandering to the far-right religious base in the US is evidence enough for me that he has NO intention of leaning on Islamic Fundamentalism in any meaningful or effective way.
I fully agree that more agressive measures are needed in the War On Terror, but step 1 is a balls-out effort to end US dependence on foreign oil. Step 2 is a balls-out rejection of Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. (or at least a more realistic and honest approach to the regimes who funded and sheltered bin Laden).
now that we KNOW for certain that France and other countries were secretly pouring money into his regime
not to sound like a broken record, but we really need to see proof of this accusation now. The fact is, this stuff is coming from the Chalabi camp. And maybe nobody believed the supposedly politically motivated charges of his massive Petra Bank embezzling in Jordan. Maybe nobody believed in the supposedly politically motivated charges of his involvement of counterfeiting Iraqi currency after the regime change (AT US TAXPAYER EXPENSE, TO HIS PERSONAL PROFIT!), but certainly you've got to believe that the CIA wasn't fucking around when they intercepted his email, to Iranian Intelligence agents in Tehran, disclosing sensitive US NSA secrets he should not have had access to in the first place. I think that Chalabi's credibility is low, to be blunt. I think the onus of this debacle is on the man who invited Chalabi to sit behind Laura Bush at the 2003 State of the Union Address. Are we REALLY that careless about our allies? If nothing else, it really looks bad.
The people who oppose the United States are generally Socialist.
Rather an overly dramatic abuse of the term there. Acceptance of progressive taxation or worker protections, or civil rights, or even public investment in infrastructure is hardly "Socialism". Of course you follow up with the typical equating of Socialism with Communism, to further distort the statement - and then finish up by equating Socialism with Support for Terrorism.
. . . vacations are a month long,
Are you certain you're not talking about the White House?
and unemployment is a whopping 10-20%
um, that's an awful wide margin. By the way, Apples and Oranges when comparing to the US, since they measure unemployment differently than we do, since the Reagan Years.
Finally, if you think that America invaded Iraq for its own control of the oil, explain to me why, ten years after the first Gulf War, no American company controls any of the Kuwaiti oil market?
Finally, you vastly oversimplify the whole "war for oil" meme. It doesn't have a damn thing to do with "control of the oil" - well, partially, it has to do with the pricing of oil in dollars. Saddam was in the beginning stages of switching to pricing in Euros. Which would have been a disaster for the US and the UK. Still - it's about driving up speculation and prices for a certain vital commodity, which brings in much higher profits for those who deal that commodity.
When I mentioned the 100,000 dead civilians in Iraq, she still refused to believe that they were not happy that we came in, and that the only ones who didn't want us there were the "radicals".
The simple, but inconceivable (to us) calculus is;
No matter what facts you present to "them" - THEY will not be swayed by people who call them stupid redneck bigots.
Let that be the lesson of November 2, 2004.
Please.
I know TWO programmers who moved to the US after our company bought theirs.
While they were here, there was much bitching and moaning about how fucked up our health insurance was (our company was known for having the BEST health insurance of all employers in our county!), and screwed up our politics were, and how scary our religious zealots were. Though they were both avid gun nuts, and pretty much happy to take advantage of the whole 2nd Amendment thing.
Then our company cancelled our product, and closed our site. Nobody was suprised when these two gave a hearty "F-U" to the CEO at a company meeting, and left the country later that same day.
I believe that military force is appropriate to solve this problem. Wholeheartedly.
However, the PLACE was not in the top 10 of the list of places I would have sent 138,000 US troops to, to rid the world of evil dictators who support terrorism.
The troop strength, was off by a factor of 5, from what I would have sent, to ensure success. Let's pretend that we don't give a crap about the 380 tons of HMX, or the security of any WMD that might have actually been there, or even the safety of our troops and civillian contractors, or even momentum to terrorist recruiting in the region, or even credibility to US military effectiveness. Dude, the insurgents just fucking blew up all the northern pipelines yesterday. If the spice doesn't flow, our economy grinds to a halt. If our economy grinds to a halt, we can't pay to continue the war.
The complaint that we didn't have enough troops just plain doesn't float. If we don't have enough troops, if you're the President, you fucking GET them. You don't bitch and moan about liberal opposition. You get what you need to get the job done, and then you fucking DO it.
Which is why I give NO credence to the "man of steely resolve" illusion that surrounds Bush.
So knock off the "you commie traitors love the terrorists and hate our troops" bs. That's a fallacious argument, and you *know* it. If I were in Iraq right now dodging car bombs and kidnappers, I would appreciate a little more realism, and a little less sunshine blowing up my ass from my leaders. Why does everone assume that the troops would rather be pissed on and told that it's raining?
I make this argument CONSTANTLY.
They never answer.
I wonder why.
gawd.
Why are all these battleground states such hellholes.
Ohio? Are you fucking crazy?
Here it is, November 3, and it's 75 degrees out and sunny. And I have significant equity in my tulip-bulb of a house. I shall NEVER leave California.
Feel sorry for the poor Iraqis.
Saddam's secret police built up a similar but more extensive set of files on Iraqis. Essential in a police state, to keeping the lid on potential threats to his power.
When the US invaded, were these files destroyed?
No. They were handed over to Ahmed Chalabi, who promptly began using them to attack non-Baathist Sunni officials that opposed his installment (with Iran's covert backing). Fortunately, he screwed up, and the US found out how much Chalabi was stabbing them in the backs, and booted him out - installing Alawi. Where are Saddam's secret files now?
Firstly, he didn't lie, at least we dont have any evidence that he lied.
There is clear and uncontrovertible evidence.
Kerry was way too f'n liberal. He wanted to nationalize healthcare in this country. Healthcare in the US is more than 15% of the economy.
Um - no. He didn't. Did you actually READ his health care plan. Did you have ANY clue as to what he really wanted? Did you have ANY fear that the Republican-Dominated House and Senate would have approved his plan anyway? Or are you just repeating what Rush Limbaugh told you to think?
His plan did not amount to a "Nationalization" of health care. Not by a long shot.
That, my friend, is hard core socialism.
You keep using that word. I don't think you think it means what it means.
That is anti-american.
How so?
As long as it doesn't violate the Constitution, or the intent of our Founding Fathers, I wouldn't say that was unamerican. Not as unamerican as say, the USA PATRIOT ACT. Or proposing an amendment to ban gay marriage. Or "faith based" initiatives. All of those are not only clear violations of the Constitution, but also the basic principles under which it was drafted. The Founding Fathers fought, bled, and died for the principles of freedom, and a bunch of reactionary religious zealots are shitting all over them.
What you have done, my dear friends, is say to the American Politics: "You can lie. You can go to war. You can smuggle drugs. You can do any of the things that our high standard of moral justly finds reprehensible. And we are never going to hold you accountable as long as you handle politically petty details, such as the right to bear sub-machine guns, the way we like it."
It's not like that at all.
It's not that the 50% doesn't care about being lied to. It's that they simply will not accept the truth that they've been lied to. They believe the lies, because the alternative, is to accept that they've been fooled. It's about Stubborn, Arrogant Pride.
well - if you think YOU'RE disappointed. Think about how WE feel.
oh dear. no mod points for this decent gentleman. I wasted my mod points on the third-party candidate. . .
The other 50% will put a big Donkey symbol on the roofs of our houses. Promise not to bomb those, okay? We tried. We tried really hard.
I just guess the other side was more terrified of gay people getting married than our side was of the elitist war-profiteering white collar criminals who are running our country now.
Here's a better question: how many terrorists have we caught thanks *solely* to the PATRIOT Act?
.
Most judicial estimats say zero.
Some even say that we've botched several cases because of the Patriot act, and over-zealous prosecution.
But officially, nobody knows. You don't have a "need to know" so if someone's been "disappeared" under these or other provisions, you and I will never hear about it.
Soap -> They didn't listen.
Ballot -> Diebold
Jury-> Soon to be a fond memory.
Ammo -> I'm not ready to go there. Are you?
Take the tax cuts of the Reagan era -- it wasn't a week before Democrats were saying "OMG, it's not working!" But the process isn't that fast -- and in the end, the tax cuts worked.
I hope you're not endorsing Bush's tax cuts, because I think it's been soundly demonstrated that in THIS era, they DON'T work. Unless one believes that all taxation is unconstitutional, or other such ideological rot. .
In any case, I daresay we'll ALL get a great opportunity in the next 4 years to REALLY prove that Tax Cuts For The Rich During Wartime And Economic Contraction don't fucking work.
Simple.
They're terrified.
They're terrified of the Terrorists.
You'd think that bin Laden being alive and shooting tape would be a *bad* thing for Bush. Considering the whole "he failed miserably to catch him" thing. But apparently, people are more afraid of bin Laden than they are of the group of elitist white collar criminals running the country.
And, they're terrified of the "liberal agenda" - gay marriage turned out to be a huge deciding issue. One that the Left utterly missed the boat on. Due to Kerry's very soft statements on the issue during the debate, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but the leftwing bloggers and pundits apparently scared the crap out of the rightwing religious base.
. . . believe it or not, Apollo 11 was also a close call. They touched down with only a couple of seconds of fuel left, after trying to maneuver past a field of boulders.
IIRC; Clinton VETOED the American Securities Litigation Reform act of 1996, which was subsequently passed on an override. This act (but mostly the pernicous Market Fundamentalist attitude that rich enterpreneurs should be above the law) was far more responsible for the stock market crash than the Dodd bill.
Oh, and when a criminal commits a crime, sure - it's the cop's fault who doesn't stop him. But when Bush's DOJ knew it had happened because Enron had filed for bankruptcy - they sat around with their thumbs up their asses for 4 weeks while Arthur Anderson shredded truckloads of vital evidence. Stopping the fraud in Enron's case maybe was Clinton's fault (Certainly nothing to do with the fraud in the California Energy crisis in the winter of 2000 - that's ALL Bush's FERC's doing), but Bush failed to go after the known criminal Lay, failed to adequately secure the evidence, which sent a strong message to all the other white collar criminals out there; "Please be more careful, we don't want you guys to get caught, if we have to cover for all of you, it'll start to look suspicious. . . "
. . . and Bush doesn't have a yes/no test but tries to pick Justices who interpret the Constitution strictly.
. . . unless they include the first amendment in that interpretation. . . (or the fourth, or pretty much any amendment except the 2nd, and of course, any Republican's favorite, the 5th).