Come one Apologista’s get your points in towards that official stick pin*. Extra points for using “liberal media”, writing in all lower case, or using a baseless personal attack as the entire basis of your post.
Which is the likeness of an ostrich sticking his head in the sand, fashioned out of fool’s gold, with “In Rush We Trust” inscribed on the front, and a medic alert tag on the back stating “In Case on Independant Thoughts Please Place In Front of TV tuned to Fox News Channel for Reeducation”
Holy fuck! Cheney talked to the people who actually know about the practical issues involved with providing our nation with power! Curse him for a thousand years! How dare he not set our national enery policy based on what Greenpeace or Sierra Club have to say?!
Baseless personal attack (and wildly unaccuarate)-- bonus points.
Let’s see a lengthy post with five independent Cites (you should try them) about a major recent news event is trolling now? Oh wait, I added a joke about your oh so predictable response. That must be it.
:rolleyes:
ps. you forgot “liberal media” or a lament about Clinton. Getting sloppy.
Don’t be such a retard. Your first post, senseless though it was, was not trolling. Your second post was nothing but brazen trolling. Come to my OP and post! Pleeeeaaaaassse! I wrote this big OP, and damnit, you need to post! POST NOW!
“retard” how charming. I hardly need make an effort to expose your ingorance and stupidity, as your repuation here and your posts seem to do a fine job of it.
As to your use of the “T” word I will not Junior Mod that use in any way.
As this is this is the Pit, and not Great Debates making a quite accurate joke about the predicted response from the loyal opposition hardly seems to be out of the ordinary. The fact is was reflective of 90% of your posts must have been annoying though.
Brutus if you can come up with a cogent argument with regards to this matter, please surprise me and do so.
Now to more serious matters:
spooje I made the joke later in expectation of the same 3 responses I have received over and over from the far-right. It was sarcastic in nature as I was hoping to be proven wrong. Sadly I wasn’t. However, do you think it was too heavy-handed a gibe?
Personally, I detest the whole “ista” tactic. Clintonista, Bushista, apologista - just another lame way to try to categorize and insult people who argue against you.
A real shame when your OP asked some interesting questions.
elf6c, what are you trying to achieve here? This is an interesting topic to discuss, and while I do think that of course energy companies need to be consulted on energy matters, the question of how much influence they can purchase is an essential one. However, the “apologistas” and “usual suspects” jibes are really pissing me off, just like the “leftist” and “saddamite” crap. It just pre-ruins any potentially interesting thread by immediately eradicating any willingness to find middle ground. Please, stop it, I beg you. Relying on Reeder to make you look moderate or serious is not going to be a reliable tactic.
As usual, Brutus reduces a complex situation to an either/or proposition. No-one is suggesting that environmental groups be the only ones having input into the decision-making process. You conveniently left out another important group that the GAO said was omitted from the discussion–academic experts. You’ll probably start ranting on about ivory towers and such, but the fact is that there are plenty of scientists, environmentalists, engineers etc. who are informed on issues of energy policy and resource extraction, but whose paychecks are not signed by the very companies seeking to get their hand on the resources.
You also conveniently ignore the fact that, while energy companies might “actually know about the practical issues involved with providing our nation with power,” the fact that they are in the energy business means that they are likely to employ this knowledge to their own benefit wherever possible, even at the expense of the public good, There’s nothing conspiratorial or illegal about this, per se; profit maximization is simply standard business practice. But that self-interest is the very reason that governments, in formulating energy policy, should not consult exclusively with those who make their money producing and providing power.
What’s even more important in this whole scenario, in my opinion, is the need for openness and accountability, two things that Republicans often harp about, but that the current Administration seems determined to avoid at all costs on all fronts. I concede that it is logical for a government that is formulating energy policy to consult with representatives of the energy industry, but such meetings should be open or, at the very least, attended by third parties (academics, environmentalists, whatever) in order to remove the appearance of, and the opportunity for impropriety. This becomes even more crucial when the President and Vice-President both have extensive ties to the industry in question, and are soliciting advice from people and companies with whom they have worked. As the old saying goes, justice should not simply be done, it should be seen to be done.
Well, how about being the bigger man and actually taking a stab at addressing the issue, then? I agree that a couple of elf’s jibes were unnecessary, but just complaining about them doesn’t make the original problem go away.
The only thing more disheartening than seeing jibes of the “-ista” variety (and i’ve used them myself at times) is seeing how quickly posters like Brutus rush to prove that there is some truth to every generalization.
I would take a stab at it, but on the grounds that I’m highly critical of the current US administration’s energy policy I find myself not in the best position to do so.
That’s why I disagreed with the 'ista name calling. I think the OP asks valid questions, and I’d like to see someone defend these points. Starting off with name calling doesn’t encourage that though.
That’s very noble of you, but declining to participate because you are highly critical of the policy simply leaves the field open to Administration defenders. Just because you’re critical doesn’t mean you aren’t informed or intelligent.
I’m highly critical of the policy also, but i flatter myself that i can (and did) make a decent argument in support of elf’s position without coming off as irrational or obsessive. In the end, of course, others have to be the judge of that.
All right, given the serious nature of the possible influence brokering within the Bush Administration and the apparant attempts by Cheney to cover up some of what happened (especially in light of the California energy crisis which was found to be due in part to Enron et al, the power line fiasco, and the general corporate governance disaster which resulted from deregulation please consider my jibe at the Brutus and december’s of the world cheerfully withdrawn.
That being said, I do challenge them to come forth and provide an argument on the merits.
Frankly, I don’t think that meetings with industry leaders should be considered inherently improper, and subject to scrutiny by anybody other than the meeting members. As far as the decision making process goes, it is the responsibility of the gov’t officials to come up with the policy, and they have the right to consult (or not consult) anyone they wish. The only reason impropriety comes up is that anti-big business and anti-Bush people want something to scream about.
If you disagree with the policy, feel free to attack that point by point, however you like. Attacking the decision making process is just silly. You act as if Cheney would have done a big 180 on policy if he could just have heard the Sierra Club’s point of view :rolleyes:
Bush and Cheney are pro energy company, we all knew this LONG before the election, why is it a surprise that they would consult heavily with them on policy? I suppose the right thing to do would be to give equal time to the enviro-groups and just ignore what they have to say.
Pretend to listen to their arguments and make them feel good before making policy directly opposing them. Just like we should have pretended to ratify Kyoto when there was a snowball’s chance in hell of it actually being implemented.
As I stated in the end, merely attributing suspision towards Cheney solely due to some sort of inherent bias against business or Bush seems simplistic.
How would you respond to these questions:
If nothing is wrong, why the cover-up? The GAO has never sued before this, a rather frightening fact if you think about it.
Details of the quite contraversial plan for those interested (from the same link):
I just want to make sure I got this right, Cheney wants MORE oil drilling and MORE energy production. Kerry claims that this should be investigated because gas prices have gone up and our energy infrastructure is over taxed? Seems to me that Cheney’s plan would have relieved pressure on gas and energy production.
To me, it boils down to people saying “Bush and Co are scum, and they need to prove to us they aren’t” From your Foxnews link about the rejected GAO lawsuit:
What this tells me is that the legislative branch doesn’t have the right to know HOW the executive branch comes to its decisions. That would be why Bush and Co are resisting, so that the GAO doesn’t stick its nose into every single one of their policy decisions.
When a cop asks to search your trunk, you say no, not because you have something to hide, but because he doesn’t have the right to search in the first place.
