Like there is any better state than Texas? We kick every others state’s butt. We are the biggest(other than Alaska), baddest state in the Union. We really should be are own country.
As far as what Bush’s daughters do. Who cares what they do or what they did. They didn’t run for office leave their lives alone. It is none of your business.
Ya’ll demos are just mad because he is getting things done not playing in Oral oh I mean Oval office like ya’lls last loser ya’ll stuck in there did.
Well maybe someone can clear a couple of things up for me,
I guess Bush must have some popular policies but,
Is it true that the Bush administration is just about to award oil exploration licenses on native American reserve land on what they consider one of their holiest sites(I think they are the Hope indians)?
…and that even if they did discover that the oil believed to be down there was economically recoverable it would only be enough to supply the energy needs of the US for a couple of days but that it would severely damge the environment in that region.
Is it true that contrary to most of the rest of the world the Bush administration is about to finance a space-borne anti-misslie system ?
It it true that contrary to just about everyone in the world, the US is about to scupper the recommendations of the findings of the Inernational Biological Weapons Consultancy group which, among other things - has recommended that the expertise and material that can be used to construct biological weapons be very carefully monitored and denied as a matter of course to certain nations ?
Is it also true that the Bush administration is or has granted logging licences in areas that were supposed to be protected ?
Those are all stories that have been reported in UK press and if they were as true as is made out I would hardly believe the US public would stand for it, unless there were outstanding reasons.
So what are the real stories ?
Billy, Billy, Billy. Tone down the Redneck Rhetoric, huh? What else is great about Texas, all your dads can beat up all our dads?
[sub]Actually, I agree with you on that[/sub]
Back to bid’ness. This sentence has me convinced. You should be your own country - you already seem to have your own language.
And just what is Dubya getting done, anyhow? The Chinese crisis? All he had to do was not slur them and that would have played out. Tax cuts? We’ll see what that gets us down the road (does Trickle Down Economics ring any bells?)Solving the energy crisis? I’ll let you know how I feel about that when my frickin’ power comes back on.
Endless Yee-Ha-ing doesn’t make you a political pundit, Bill.
Excellent questions, Casdave, and good instincts partially trusting what gets printed in the press. Here’s some answers.
Yes. But here’s the thing. One indian tribe or another considers pretty much all of the American West to be “holy burial grounds.” Many Americans are unwilling to sacrifice all development because some person may or may not have died on a certain spot 100, 1000 or 10000 years ago.
Sort of, and no. I don’t recall the exact amount of oil (I could look it up if you wanted). It’s not exactly trivial, but it ain’t exactly the mideast! As for the environment, “severely” is of course a matter of debate. There would have to be a pipeline system installed, and of course the drilling pads. But folks are a lot better at that than they used to be, and the actual “footprint” of an oilfield is less obtrusive than it was just a few years ago.
Not sure, yet. He does have a fetish for this thing, and a lot of the old Ford hands in his administration have the fetish, too. But right now, what he seems to be doing is trying to convince other countries that it’s a good idea. Whether he’d actually unilaterally build the thing is still up in the air, IMHO. Personally, I don’t think he can find the money without at least a couple of other major powers sharing in the project.
Probably not. Right now, they’re making noises about it, but the concern is that the monitoring is not tough enough rather than it is too tough. My guess is that the administration will sign the thing in exchange for an extracted promise to revist the compliance issue in, say, 18 months.
Sort of. Clinton named a bunch places “protected” on his last day in office – sort of an “FU” to the incoming administration, to throw the Bushies off balance and make them look bad. It worked. Bush and his folks are slowly (really, painfully, annoyingly slowly going through Clinton’s last-day acts and seeing what stays and what goes. Some of the forests might be what goes.
casdave, I think I have heard each of those stories in the news, however, before you condemn the current administration, you can find more info on those items. (As you mentioned, “outstanding reasons” do exist).
For instance, I remember that the Logging story involved areas of the country that were ‘protected’ by Clinton in his last day in office by Executive Order, and the story also was that he knew much of it would not stand. Bush overturned this in his first few weeks, bacause much of what Clinton did was unreasonable for industry (Green Bellied Grass Muncher notwithstanding).
On the Oil exploration, it is not as clear. The ANWR area includes thousands of acres, and drilling would only involve a few % of that. However, the real interesting part is that there is also a wealth of natural gas there, badly needed for clean power generation, but not available because there is no pipeline to get it anywhere. That is potencially a more important aspect of ANWR than the oil (with is actually more than you say, more like 2.5% of US consumption for 20 years).
If the US were against the monitoring of Bio Weapons development, I’d be disappointed and surprised - in the past our government has favored this type of agreement.
Anyway, I’m not trying to defend Bush and his ethical qualifications, just be careful about stories in the press - if you want to know alll the facts you must almost always go a bit further than your average rag.
Which is, by my math (and I’m an English major, so I could be wrong, but I went 12 months x 20 years x .025), a grand total of 6 months worth of the US’s oil use. Gee, let’s trash Alaska for 6 months of oil.
Spread it out how you want…it could be 1.25% for 40 years if you want it to look better, but it sure looks like a negligible amount when you break it down.
Doh! You got me there!
But seriously, I do think that using someone else’s identification to commit a crime is unethical, even if UncleBeer himself did it once. Call me a wacky idealist if you’d like, but that’s how I feel.
I’m really not too worked up about this issue (even though I haven’t been guilty of underage drinking since 1983, so it’s worn off by now), but I happened to read the sad story of Jenna’s latest adventure right before seeing this thread, so I couldn’t help it. And she has incredibly bad taste in Mexican food.
Sure it is. So’s jaywalking and speeding. It may be unethical, but it’s also laughably trivial. I mean, c’mon… she was a kid, doing what kids do. It’s not like she committed perjury about it. 
Sure, it was pretty stupid of her to go out and party with the big stink made about her last string of escapades, but Jeezum Crow… whatever happened to criticizing someone for substantial reasons?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by SPOOFE *
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Like, say, getting your Secret Service agents to spring your boyfriend from jail? Which, if Chelsea Clinton had ever done it, the Republicans would still be sputtering about?
Thanks for the the input Manny and tradesilicon (one day perhaps I will work out why you use that name Mr Silicon)
Bush is portrayed as being a hapless, nice-but-dim, personality backed up by the real power brokers who just needed a figurehead, well in the UK press anyway.
This is not just in the downmarket press as you might expect but also in the broadsheets too. Add to this that much of our tv media hint but never directly say something similar and at least it gives me an idea of just how effective a propaganda tool the media has the potential to be, it brings it much more sharply into focus.
It may be because over here, at the moment, we are in a more socialist frame of mind generally speaking which is a reaction to the previous rightist administration, but such things tend to be cyclical.
Some of us over here would be willing to argue the “nice” part.
Originally posted by Jack Batty
First, I don’t know if you can say in the pit but what the heck, Hi Jack how ya been? Now on to the response…I am not a quote “red neck”(matter of fact don’t like rednecks) I do, however have a red neck from running out of sunblock on Memorial Day weekend and it hurts. :eek:
What is so great about Texas. It has everything but snow(and that stuff gets old after a while). It has some decent beaches, bad ass lakes(probably some of the best imho), the hill country, a border so you can get presciption drugs without paying $50 to some doctor, people are friendly, 4 major cities for some of the best eating and culture around, the prettiest women…should I go on? Oh yea, and our dads can whoop ass on your dads too.
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Back to bid’ness.
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Hey, are you starting to talk like me?
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This sentence has me convinced. You should be your own country - you already seem to have your own language.
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Think I should copy right it?
The Chinese are always going to be a problem. They are our number 1 enemy and we should never forget it. One day we should really stop buying stuff from them and buy from our own.
Trickle down economics did work. You don’t think slick willy was the reason for our booming economy do ya?
If you didn’t have so many stupid lame avacado eating yoga sitting tree huggers in your state(I guess you live in Cali), you wouldn’t be in the dark in the first place.
True. My infinite common sense wisdom does. 
Bill, don’t ever change! You make me chuckle like a stoner!
I wasn’t really accusing you of being a redneck, but crowing about how “bad-ass” Texas is, is a really rednecky thing to do. Anyway …
First thing I must point out is that land mass isn’t what’s important. Canada is like the second largest country on the planet, in area. Is anybody afraid of Canada? Hell no. It’s population that matters.
Now let’s see, what state in the union has the greatest population. Oh yeah, it’s California! We’ve got everything you described Texas as having except better. We even have snow, because skiing without it kind of sucks.
Bite your tongue. I shall not be without my precious Pork Sno-Balls. Besides everybody knows its them damn Rooskies what am our enemies.
Yeah Bill. Ronnie and Georgie put Trickle Down Economics into play. Then as the country sank into debt, the rich got richer and the poor got fucked in the ass, it was all just part of the process. It took an overlap into Bill Clinton’s presidency for the effects to kick in. It seems all so clear now. :rolleyes:
I don’t do yoga, I don’t eat avocados, I don’t hug trees. But I don’t see what that has to do with energy consumption in the first place. Do yoga practicioners use electric Lotus Position Manipulatrs. Do avacodos need to be plugged into the wall in order to be eaten. Are trees powered by PG&E?
You’re going to have to use your “infinite common sense wisdom” to explain to me what the H - E - double Hockey Sticks you’re a-talking about, hombre.
Stofky, no one here (as far as I can tell) has suggested trashing Alaska. In fact, manhattan mentioned in his post that drilling is much more efficient today, and the footprint is small. Of course there is always the possibility of a problem, but they do try to keep things clean.
Oh, and I noticed that you tatally skipped over my commnets about the natural gas - nice clean energy, but you are not for that? Got an alternative? I’m ready to listen.
BTW, I got those numbers from a report by an environmentalist group, and I believe they were presented that way because that is the rate at which the oil can be taken out.
casdave, I got my username from the crazy idea that I was going to trade shares of stock from high tech companies, many of which were in the silicon valley, therefore tradesilicon. That did not work to well, but the name is still good since I work in Silicon Valley, and I am involved with computers, so I deal with silicon by trade.
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Bush is portrayed as being a hapless, nice-but-dim, personality backed up by the real power brokers who just eeded a figurehead, well in the UK press anyway.
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We have had plenty of that here as well, especially during the campaign. Bush has been portrayed as everything from a dumbass to a puppet, and a right-wing-Christian Fundamentalist-nutcake. To me, he seems more of a hands-off manager, who runs things by bringing in some bright people and giving them authority to do the job. I think he has some very strong ideas on some subjects(and will override his staff at times), and let’s others fill him in where he is not so experienced.
I find it much better than a know-it-all like Clinton, who would never miss a photo op, and never fail to take credit for everything from feeding the hungry to making the sun shine brighter. Clinton may have been ?smarter? ?more informed? on some topics, but I don’t see a problem with the way Bush does things if he keeps the right staff and attitude. I hate the idea of “settling”, but given the choice we had I settled for Bush, and I’ll settle for another one like him if it comes to that.
Hell no nobody is scarred of Canada(we all know this from that John Candy movie. But Texas has both population and size.
Yes, Cali is a nice state but better than Texas eh I don’t think so. Matter of fact, if it wasn’t for Texas, I would probably live there as a second choice. I do think our women on average are better here. And we don’t have earthquakes or the traffic congestion(I know it is bad but not as bad as ya’lls, or the smog ya’ll have. But yes you do have a nice state that I like. But we definetely have better utility companies than ya’ll do. Heck, we even sell ya’ll power at a nice mark up I might add.
Ruskies are wimps we should have defeated that country back in WWII like Patton suggested. The chinese on the other hand would be a little harder to defeat.
What you said is exactly true except the rolleyes smiley. Clinton didn’t do nothing to stimulate the economy if he did, please enlighten me with what he did. Yes trickle down took a while to trickle down but it did.
I guess my attempt to make fun of enviromentalists fell flat huh. Anyway, what I am saying is the reason ya’ll don’t have power is because your state listens to those enviromental wackos instead of building additional power plants to keep up with the demand of your growing populace.
Eviromentalists = Whacos
Sure it did, it trickled right back up to the rich guys’ pockets. Now, Clinton did not do much either, it was technology that allowed massive industry and commercial growth that sparked the big economic boom. Trickle down has never worked, just look at the Hoover administration, they did the same thing (though they called it a different name), and it didn’t fix squat. (notice how i am not blaming the Depression on Hoover, so don’t misinterpet it.)
trickle down works like this: Rich companies get tax breaks, they reward their CEO and his cronies with million dollar bonuses, the CEO and his cronies buy stuff from china, china’s economy improves.
Companies us the extra revenue to relocate overseas to save cost. Joe Bluecollar loses his job. Mr. CEO gets more bonuses from money saved by paying workers $0.02 and hour.
Joe Bluecollar then becomes and alcoholic, and robs a bank, killing the CEO during the robbery. (Well, maybe not, but that would be cool…)
oh, yeah, and i agree that texas women are hot! 
Economic. Stimulus. Package.