Agreed, but waste management has not. Even if the reactor 100% reliable and would never pose a threat to the environment, the waste produced does.
Let's see...an average modern 1000 megawatt nuclear power plant produces 500 pounds of plutonium (useful material) and 30 metric tons (33 US tons) of high-grade radioactive waste per year. This material is all solid or liquid in nature, making it relatively easy to contain.
Most US electricity is generated by burning coal. A modern coal-burning power plant produces about 3000 metric tons of nitrogen oxides, 1700 metric tons of sulfur dioxide, and about 70 metric tons of sulfuric acid, along with about 1000 metric tons of "particulate matter" (ash?). This material is released directly into the atmosphere.
Which one would you rather have?
BTW, I used liberal-left pro-environmental anti-anything-that-might-possibly-pollute-at-all sites for my info here, so you can probably call those "worst-case" numbers for both nukes and coal. My father worked as a mechanical maintenance procedures developer for a nuclear plant in Louisiana for years; before that he was a senior maintenance mechanic. Nuclear plant maintenance is so anal about things that they have a torque specification for every screw, nut, and bolt in the building - probably even the bolts holding down the toilets in the restrooms. Those specs must be approved by the NRC, and every time a wrench is turned the person who does so has to file paperwork stating (under penalty of perjury) what he did and how he did it, down to the aforementioned torque values on every screw/nut/bolt, etc. etc. etc.
France has been relying on nuclear energy for decades. It pains me to say this, but maybe this is an area where we should follow the French example.
Oops, I missed something....Mr. Doss was with Company B, 1st Battalion, 307th Infantry Regiment, 77th Infantry Division....the 77th Infantry Division had a lot of Company B's...
If it means anything to you, there is at least one Congressional Medal of Honor recipient who was a Conscientious Objector, and served the military as a field medic. At some level he decided that helping his fellow soldiers live to go home was of some merit, as long as he wasn't actually pulling the trigger.
Desmond Doss, a medic and Conscientious Objector from Rising Fawn, Georgia, received the Medal of Honor on 12 October 1945 for actions on 5 May 1945 at the Maeda Escarpment, Okinawa with Company B of the 77th Infantry Division. He disregarded heavy enemy fire and lowered between 50 and 100 (Doss claimed it couldn't have been more than 50, while the men of his unit said it was 100) wounded men down the escarpment on a rope, using a tree stump as a pulley.
He was wounded twice on 21 May 1945. The first wound was received when he stepped on a grenade that had been thrown into the foxhole he shared with 3 other men. The second wound, a bullet to his arm, was received as he helped another wounded soldier to safety.
He also received a Bronze Star for actions at Leyte earlier in the war.
PFC Doss went on to donate his $100/month MoH stipend to the Civilian Defense Rescue Service of Walker County, Georgia.
BTW, I live in Walker County, Georgia and had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Doss a few years back. I had to shout into his hearing aid for him to hear me. You'll never meet a nicer man.
Those aged 35 or older, born as US citizens. Can't be a convicted felon.
Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States of America states that to be eligible for the Presidency, one must be aged 35 or older, a natural-born US citizen, and a resident of the US for at least 14 years. There is no law prohibiting a convicted felon from being serving as President. Of course, such a felony conviction might hurt one's chances at the polls...
We'd have the violence even without the video games.
Let me start this little tirade by saying that I was born in the United States and plan to live in the United States until I die. Sure, we ain't perfect, but I love my country despite its flaws. I believe in the right of the people to keep and bear arms, oppose the banning of violent movies/tv/video games (and the banning of sexual content in the same), yada yada.
We'd still be the most violent industrialized nation on the planet even if you took away all the guns, the violence on television and in the movies, the violent video games, etc. etc. etc. We love violence, as a society. We glorify and glamorize it. We aspire to be better at it.
Take away our guns, and we'd be knifing one another. Take away the knives, and we'd be battering one another with our cars. Take away the cars, and we'd be beating one another over the head with baseball bats (sort of like a cricket bat, but shaped differently and not as heavy). Take away baseball, and we'll use farming tools on one another. And so forth to infinity, until we're using fists and teeth.
I don't claim to know why we're such a violent people. Maybe it's because we're a relatively young nation yet. Maybe it's because we founded our nation by making war against what was at the time the world's most powerful military force, and expanded it by committing near-genocide against the people who lived here before us. Whatever the reason, the United States has, since its inception in 1776, been one of the most violent nations on the planet. There's no simple way to end this culture of violence.
As for the general sexual repression you speak of, I think that's slowly changing, but it'll be quite a few years yet before the last of the Puritans dies off and takes their 16th-century sexual morality with them. We did make quite a bit of progress back in the 60's with "Free Love" and "Make Love, Not War" and all that *grin*
We have AR-15's, AK-47's and FN-FAL's in private hands all over the place. Hell, a buddy of mine owns one of each, and a Galil rifle, a couple of.50BMG single-shot bolt-action rifles sighted in for 700 yards, a Carbon-15 (pistol version of the AR-15, takes the same magazines and fires the same round, but it's legally a pistol). The guy's got 2 gun safes that'd hold 2 adults each, and more guns than he can fit in them. I often wonder if, in the event of someone invading his house, he'd be killed while trying to decide which gun to shoot the intruder with *grin*
Granted, the ones owned by the public here are mostly semi-auto versions (those few that are full-auto are owned by Class-3 weapons permit holders or, more commonly, criminals - but they're still rare). But anyone with a $1200 milling machine can fix that if it came down to it.
IIRC, the Belgian FN-FAL was the standard-issue assault rifle of the IDF and the SAS up until the mid-1970's. Everybody knows what the AK-47 and AR-15 are.
As was demonstrated with catastrophic effect in Oklahoma City, any yokel with some fertilizer, diesel fuel, and a rented truck can build a very effective "improvised explosive device."
Then there's the question of the US military itself, on which more money is spent than the next 27 highest funded military forces on planet Earth combined. In a nutshell, any nation(s) attempting to conquer the US by force would be committing seppuku.
OBL's approach, however, might conceivably work if Bush continues his trend of sending $500 billion (number pulled from orifice, probably much higher in reality) in military hardware and hundreds of thousands of troops to counter a few thousand guys in the desert with AK-47's and RPG's.
Nearly 2 years ago I said that invading Iraq, while probably a good thing in principle (removing evil dictator and all that) would have very little positive effect for the US and would probably have severe negative consequences - and now it looks like I'm right. It's not the removal of Saddam that was wrong IMHO - it was the United States doing it that was wrong.
I was wrong, however, in November of 2000 when I said that no matter who won the disputes over the election that year, he'd be a one-term president. While I was (sort of, half-heartedly, just barely) pulling for Bush, I couldn't feel good about either major-party candidate, and I'm still not really sure how I feel about Bush winning this time around.
Pretty much, except they had 1/20th as many people and they didn't/don't have anywhere near as many guns per capita. Not to mention that they probably didn't have as much practice shooting at moving targets (I imagine the deer hunting in the desert isn't very good).
Of course, Bush sent plenty of moving targets over there so that the poor, deprived people of Iraq have the opportunity to advance their marksmanship skills. A move I opposed, but not for the standard reasons found here. I just failed to see how getting into a 2nd war at the same time could possibly benefit the US in the long term, given the entire region's apparent desire to NOT be "democratized".
For the record, I voted Badnarik, because I'm a conservative and Badnarik is more of a true conservative than either Bush or Kerry. A conservative wouldn't send troops off to war against a country that hasn't attacked US soil...a conservative wouldn't run up a budget deficit in the hundreds of billions of dollars...a conservative wouldn't be trying to shred the Bill of Rights...
What is it about living near water and mountains which raises awareness while being surrounded by lots of flat has the power to retard people into shucking-dung heaps?
Um, are you implying that everyone who voted Bush lives in the grassy flatlands of Oklahoma and Nebraska and Kansas?
The entire Southeastern United States is full of mountins and streams (ever heard of the Mississippi River and its tributaries...or the Appalachian Mountains...or the Ozarks...?) Every state that contains part of the Rocky Mountains (largest mountain range in the continental US - HELLO?!?!) went to Bush. Alaska (biggest wilderness area in North America, tallest mountains in the nation) went to Bush. 44% of California voted Bush. 42% of New York voted for Bush (where's the wilderness there?)
The fact of the matter is, a majority of the United States just plain don't trust John Kerry. I don't trust him either (nor do I trust Bush, but that's another story - I voted for Michael Badnarik). How can a man worth HALF A BILLION DOLLARS possibly have the least bit insight into my problems as a near-poverty-level (I make a whopping $8/hour in a manufacturing job) working Joe? Bush is of course also among the incredibly wealthy, with a net worth of around $25 million - about 1/20th as much as the Kerry-Heinz fortune. But hey, he owns a ranch and actually knows how to ride a horse and drive a car, as opposed to Kerry, who went to finishing school in Switzerland and comes across like he's never been in a car that wasn't chauffeur-driven...
Bring it on! The people of the United States have 222 million firearms - or just over 1.5 for every adult in the country. I personally own 8, and about 2000 rounds of ammunition in total. When I see a "peacekeeper" in the US, I don't plan to stop shooting till I'm dead or out of ammo. And there are 50 million or so more, just like me.
Yeah, sure, everybody in Iraq and Afghanistan is innocent. Suuuuuuure.
And no president of the US has been nor will be a dictator, so long as there is congress and a supreme court. Or, for that matter, so long as he's re-elected by both a majority of the popular vote and a majority of the electoral college.
But thanks for the entertainment - there's nothing funnier than a pissed off liberal.
If the polls close at, say, 9pm, and there's still a long line outside, those already in line are allowed to stay and vote. If the line is long enough, there will be people who vote at 11pm or later. Also, there's almost certainly a delay between getting the data at the polls in Ohio and getting it to the newsroom in Atlanta, another delay before it's shown on the TV/website, etc. etc. etc.
Sure, if that USB key isn't destroyed when you forget to take it out of your shorts pocket when you go swimming...or when your house burns down....or when you drop it in the storm drain accidentally...and can be replaced when your car is stolen, etc. etc. etc.
And of course, given one day's access to one of these things, my neighbor's 13 year old son will reverse-engineer it and mass-produce fake ones by the truckload, ensuring that the pink Power Ranger wins a seat on the school board.
Quite frankly, I don't *want* a president who seeks the approval of the rest of the world. The President of the United States doesn't work for the rest of the world. He works for *us*. Sure, a President should consider the stances of our allies when formulating foreign policy, but when it comes right down to it, that shouldn't be more than 10% of the equation. The question a President should ask himself when making a decision is, "Is this good for the people of the United States?" -- not "Is this good for the people of other nations?" or "Is the UN going to like this?"
You obviously want to disenfranchise those thousands of poor souls who have NO THUMBS! How DARE you attempt to discriminate against voters because of their disabilities!!!
I waited in line for about an hour in Rossville, Georgia (population 3,511). The line snaked out of the building, across the parking lot to the street, and down the street half a block.
My guess is that it's a polling place for significantly more than just the city limits of Rossville (I actually live just outside the city limits myself).
from voting at my local precinct, and although turnout here is usually pretty high, the line went out the building, across the parking lot, to the street, and down the street half a block. This was at 8am, 1 hour after the polls opened. I overheard at least 4 women state the reasons they were voting for Bush. So much for women leaning towards Kerry.
I also overheard some mentions of 2 proposed amendments to the state constitution (1 banning gay marriage, 1 empowering the state supreme court to answer questions of state law for federal courts - I voted no to one, and yes to the other).
For several county positions, the incumbent is running unopposed - three of them Democrats, including the Sheriff of Walker County, Georgia. Too bad, because I was sooooo wanting to vote against him. In fact, I did - I wrote in "None of the Above".
In the end, I voted for every Libertarian on the ballot, and for Republicans when there was no Libertarian running against them, and when a Democrat was running unopposed, I wrote in "None of the Above".
1. ALL election systems are flawed and open to fraud and manipulation. To compare the US system to the worst "3rd world ountries" is ignorant and ludicrous - half the people on the planet go to their local polling places to cast a vote for the ONLY candidate on the ballot, who happens to be the incumbent.
2. 2000 was not the first time in US history that a presidential election was contested to the courts. See Hayes vs. Tilden, 1876; Clay vs. Jackson vs. Adams vs. Crawford, 1824; and Jefferson vs. Burr vs. Adams vs. Pinckney, 1800. All of these were elections decided either in the courts or the House of Representatives. Yet somehow the US has managed to survive. Go figure.
What a nutty comparison. The Waco incident was a hostage situation in which (after the botched initial raid) the government tried for 50 days to negotiate with the Davidians to try to save as many people as possible. The final assault lasted maybe an hour of tear gas being injected into the buildings, at which point the Davidians set the buildings on fire and mostly burned themselves to death. Game over.
Might I suggest that you actually do a little digging and find out what really happened before you blindly spout the FBI and ATF reports that were reprinted verbatim by the media as the gospel?
I for one, while disliking the results, would accept the outcome as being legally binding according to the Constitution of the United States. But I won't be holding my breath for the Democrats to replay their line from 2000 calling for abolition of the EC in favor of the popular vote if what you describe happens.
Part of what drove me to the Republican party in the first place was the hypocrisy of the Left in America. Not that the Right doesn't have its own share of hypocrisy, but I've seen a lot more of it coming from the Left.
Actually, taking it as a given that no Libertarian will be elected to the White House or Congress in the next few elections, I'd rather have a Republican President, a 51 Democrat/49 Republican Senate, and a 217 Democrat/218 Republican House of Representatives.
Someone else already brought up the point about Supreme Court Justice(s) that the next President is likely to appoint. While Bush, if re-elected (or re-appointed, as the left-wing nuts claim happened in 2000), would likely want to appoint a rar-right nutso to the USSC, the large Democratic minority in the Senate (or the above-mentioned hypothetical Democratic majority in the Senate) would effectively keep that in check. So Bush would have to appoint moderates if he wanted to get them confirmed by the Senate.
Incidentally, back in 2000, I was rooting for Senator McCain (R-AZ) to get the nomination - I think he'd be quite a good President.
BTW, it's refreshing to see someone on/. actually make effective, logical arguments while disagreeing, and not resorting to trite sarcasm. Welcome to my "friends" list:)
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What kind of moron gets pleasure from the suffering and death of animals?
Do you like steak? Fried Chicken? Barbecued ribs? Venison stew? Rabbit stew? Guess what - all those come from the death of animals.
Of course, the real question should be why would anyone want to shoot an animal that they can't physically retrieve, dress, butcher, cook, and eat...
Oops, I screwed the pooch on my US tons to metric tons conversions for the coal plant. Maybe NASA will hire me :-P
Let's see...an average modern 1000 megawatt nuclear power plant produces 500 pounds of plutonium (useful material) and 30 metric tons (33 US tons) of high-grade radioactive waste per year. This material is all solid or liquid in nature, making it relatively easy to contain.
Most US electricity is generated by burning coal. A modern coal-burning power plant produces about 3000 metric tons of nitrogen oxides, 1700 metric tons of sulfur dioxide, and about 70 metric tons of sulfuric acid, along with about 1000 metric tons of "particulate matter" (ash?). This material is released directly into the atmosphere.
Which one would you rather have?
BTW, I used liberal-left pro-environmental anti-anything-that-might-possibly-pollute-at-all sites for my info here, so you can probably call those "worst-case" numbers for both nukes and coal. My father worked as a mechanical maintenance procedures developer for a nuclear plant in Louisiana for years; before that he was a senior maintenance mechanic. Nuclear plant maintenance is so anal about things that they have a torque specification for every screw, nut, and bolt in the building - probably even the bolts holding down the toilets in the restrooms. Those specs must be approved by the NRC, and every time a wrench is turned the person who does so has to file paperwork stating (under penalty of perjury) what he did and how he did it, down to the aforementioned torque values on every screw/nut/bolt, etc. etc. etc.
France has been relying on nuclear energy for decades. It pains me to say this, but maybe this is an area where we should follow the French example.
Oops, I missed something....Mr. Doss was with Company B, 1st Battalion, 307th Infantry Regiment, 77th Infantry Division....the 77th Infantry Division had a lot of Company B's...
Desmond Doss, a medic and Conscientious Objector from Rising Fawn, Georgia, received the Medal of Honor on 12 October 1945 for actions on 5 May 1945 at the Maeda Escarpment, Okinawa with Company B of the 77th Infantry Division. He disregarded heavy enemy fire and lowered between 50 and 100 (Doss claimed it couldn't have been more than 50, while the men of his unit said it was 100) wounded men down the escarpment on a rope, using a tree stump as a pulley.
He was wounded twice on 21 May 1945. The first wound was received when he stepped on a grenade that had been thrown into the foxhole he shared with 3 other men. The second wound, a bullet to his arm, was received as he helped another wounded soldier to safety.
He also received a Bronze Star for actions at Leyte earlier in the war.
PFC Doss went on to donate his $100/month MoH stipend to the Civilian Defense Rescue Service of Walker County, Georgia.
BTW, I live in Walker County, Georgia and had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Doss a few years back. I had to shout into his hearing aid for him to hear me. You'll never meet a nicer man.
Let me start this little tirade by saying that I was born in the United States and plan to live in the United States until I die. Sure, we ain't perfect, but I love my country despite its flaws. I believe in the right of the people to keep and bear arms, oppose the banning of violent movies/tv/video games (and the banning of sexual content in the same), yada yada.
We'd still be the most violent industrialized nation on the planet even if you took away all the guns, the violence on television and in the movies, the violent video games, etc. etc. etc. We love violence, as a society. We glorify and glamorize it. We aspire to be better at it.
Take away our guns, and we'd be knifing one another. Take away the knives, and we'd be battering one another with our cars. Take away the cars, and we'd be beating one another over the head with baseball bats (sort of like a cricket bat, but shaped differently and not as heavy). Take away baseball, and we'll use farming tools on one another. And so forth to infinity, until we're using fists and teeth.
I don't claim to know why we're such a violent people. Maybe it's because we're a relatively young nation yet. Maybe it's because we founded our nation by making war against what was at the time the world's most powerful military force, and expanded it by committing near-genocide against the people who lived here before us. Whatever the reason, the United States has, since its inception in 1776, been one of the most violent nations on the planet. There's no simple way to end this culture of violence.
As for the general sexual repression you speak of, I think that's slowly changing, but it'll be quite a few years yet before the last of the Puritans dies off and takes their 16th-century sexual morality with them. We did make quite a bit of progress back in the 60's with "Free Love" and "Make Love, Not War" and all that *grin*
Granted, the ones owned by the public here are mostly semi-auto versions (those few that are full-auto are owned by Class-3 weapons permit holders or, more commonly, criminals - but they're still rare). But anyone with a $1200 milling machine can fix that if it came down to it.
IIRC, the Belgian FN-FAL was the standard-issue assault rifle of the IDF and the SAS up until the mid-1970's. Everybody knows what the AK-47 and AR-15 are.
As was demonstrated with catastrophic effect in Oklahoma City, any yokel with some fertilizer, diesel fuel, and a rented truck can build a very effective "improvised explosive device."
Then there's the question of the US military itself, on which more money is spent than the next 27 highest funded military forces on planet Earth combined. In a nutshell, any nation(s) attempting to conquer the US by force would be committing seppuku.
OBL's approach, however, might conceivably work if Bush continues his trend of sending $500 billion (number pulled from orifice, probably much higher in reality) in military hardware and hundreds of thousands of troops to counter a few thousand guys in the desert with AK-47's and RPG's.
Nearly 2 years ago I said that invading Iraq, while probably a good thing in principle (removing evil dictator and all that) would have very little positive effect for the US and would probably have severe negative consequences - and now it looks like I'm right. It's not the removal of Saddam that was wrong IMHO - it was the United States doing it that was wrong.
I was wrong, however, in November of 2000 when I said that no matter who won the disputes over the election that year, he'd be a one-term president. While I was (sort of, half-heartedly, just barely) pulling for Bush, I couldn't feel good about either major-party candidate, and I'm still not really sure how I feel about Bush winning this time around.
Of course, Bush sent plenty of moving targets over there so that the poor, deprived people of Iraq have the opportunity to advance their marksmanship skills. A move I opposed, but not for the standard reasons found here. I just failed to see how getting into a 2nd war at the same time could possibly benefit the US in the long term, given the entire region's apparent desire to NOT be "democratized".
For the record, I voted Badnarik, because I'm a conservative and Badnarik is more of a true conservative than either Bush or Kerry. A conservative wouldn't send troops off to war against a country that hasn't attacked US soil...a conservative wouldn't run up a budget deficit in the hundreds of billions of dollars...a conservative wouldn't be trying to shred the Bill of Rights...
The entire Southeastern United States is full of mountins and streams (ever heard of the Mississippi River and its tributaries...or the Appalachian Mountains...or the Ozarks...?) Every state that contains part of the Rocky Mountains (largest mountain range in the continental US - HELLO?!?!) went to Bush. Alaska (biggest wilderness area in North America, tallest mountains in the nation) went to Bush. 44% of California voted Bush. 42% of New York voted for Bush (where's the wilderness there?)
The fact of the matter is, a majority of the United States just plain don't trust John Kerry. I don't trust him either (nor do I trust Bush, but that's another story - I voted for Michael Badnarik). How can a man worth HALF A BILLION DOLLARS possibly have the least bit insight into my problems as a near-poverty-level (I make a whopping $8/hour in a manufacturing job) working Joe? Bush is of course also among the incredibly wealthy, with a net worth of around $25 million - about 1/20th as much as the Kerry-Heinz fortune. But hey, he owns a ranch and actually knows how to ride a horse and drive a car, as opposed to Kerry, who went to finishing school in Switzerland and comes across like he's never been in a car that wasn't chauffeur-driven...
Bring it on! The people of the United States have 222 million firearms - or just over 1.5 for every adult in the country. I personally own 8, and about 2000 rounds of ammunition in total. When I see a "peacekeeper" in the US, I don't plan to stop shooting till I'm dead or out of ammo. And there are 50 million or so more, just like me.
And no president of the US has been nor will be a dictator, so long as there is congress and a supreme court. Or, for that matter, so long as he's re-elected by both a majority of the popular vote and a majority of the electoral college.
But thanks for the entertainment - there's nothing funnier than a pissed off liberal.
If the polls close at, say, 9pm, and there's still a long line outside, those already in line are allowed to stay and vote. If the line is long enough, there will be people who vote at 11pm or later. Also, there's almost certainly a delay between getting the data at the polls in Ohio and getting it to the newsroom in Atlanta, another delay before it's shown on the TV/website, etc. etc. etc.
And of course, given one day's access to one of these things, my neighbor's 13 year old son will reverse-engineer it and mass-produce fake ones by the truckload, ensuring that the pink Power Ranger wins a seat on the school board.
Quite frankly, I don't *want* a president who seeks the approval of the rest of the world. The President of the United States doesn't work for the rest of the world. He works for *us*. Sure, a President should consider the stances of our allies when formulating foreign policy, but when it comes right down to it, that shouldn't be more than 10% of the equation. The question a President should ask himself when making a decision is, "Is this good for the people of the United States?" -- not "Is this good for the people of other nations?" or "Is the UN going to like this?"
I got the "I Voted - Georgia Counts!" sticker with the picture of the Diebold machine. Want me to get a friend to scan it and put it on my website?
;-)
Why not vote at both polling places? It's a time-honored American tradition!
My guess is that it's a polling place for significantly more than just the city limits of Rossville (I actually live just outside the city limits myself).
Sure thing, should I send the email to anonymous_coward@slashdot.org?
I also overheard some mentions of 2 proposed amendments to the state constitution (1 banning gay marriage, 1 empowering the state supreme court to answer questions of state law for federal courts - I voted no to one, and yes to the other).
For several county positions, the incumbent is running unopposed - three of them Democrats, including the Sheriff of Walker County, Georgia. Too bad, because I was sooooo wanting to vote against him. In fact, I did - I wrote in "None of the Above".
In the end, I voted for every Libertarian on the ballot, and for Republicans when there was no Libertarian running against them, and when a Democrat was running unopposed, I wrote in "None of the Above".
2. 2000 was not the first time in US history that a presidential election was contested to the courts. See Hayes vs. Tilden, 1876; Clay vs. Jackson vs. Adams vs. Crawford, 1824; and Jefferson vs. Burr vs. Adams vs. Pinckney, 1800. All of these were elections decided either in the courts or the House of Representatives. Yet somehow the US has managed to survive. Go figure.
Part of what drove me to the Republican party in the first place was the hypocrisy of the Left in America. Not that the Right doesn't have its own share of hypocrisy, but I've seen a lot more of it coming from the Left.
Someone else already brought up the point about Supreme Court Justice(s) that the next President is likely to appoint. While Bush, if re-elected (or re-appointed, as the left-wing nuts claim happened in 2000), would likely want to appoint a rar-right nutso to the USSC, the large Democratic minority in the Senate (or the above-mentioned hypothetical Democratic majority in the Senate) would effectively keep that in check. So Bush would have to appoint moderates if he wanted to get them confirmed by the Senate.
Incidentally, back in 2000, I was rooting for Senator McCain (R-AZ) to get the nomination - I think he'd be quite a good President.
BTW, it's refreshing to see someone on /. actually make effective, logical arguments while disagreeing, and not resorting to trite sarcasm. Welcome to my "friends" list :)