And here we go. We're watching on NBC. Here is...Brian Williams.
9:01: Here come members of the Supreme Court. I think it'd be cooler if they all entered in one shoulder to shoulder line in slo-mo, like in "The Right Stuff." Or "Monsters Inc."
9:02: NBC commentators are talking about everything that's wrong. I wonder if Fox is talking about everything that's right.
9:03: Wow. Even Fox is talking about divisiveness. That can't be good.
9:05: NBC speculates that Bush has changed the face of the SC for at least the next twenty years. Entirely possible, and too depressing to contemplate.
9:06: Bush is said to be in a small holding room. Makes him sound like a rodeo bull. I wonder if his testicles will be tied tightly to get a better show.
9:07: And now, in advance, the Democratic response: "Pbbbbbthhhh!"
9:08: The Sergeant at arms is "Bill Livingood." Gotta love that name.
9:09: Caroline has offered her commentary in advance: The moment Bush was introduced, she farted and dropped a load in her diaper.
9:11: Four minutes of applause and counting.
9:11: And they applaud AGAIN? Just for being introduced? Bet the SC high-fived each other.
9:12: Okay, who had twenty-five words into the speech before he invoked King?
9:13: "Differences can't harden into anger." Sorry. That ship sailed in the year 2000.
9:15: Who had three minutes into the speech for 9/11?
9:16: Yes, Democracy has replaced terrorism with hope. In Israel, the hope is that the Democratically elected terrorists won't destroy them.
9:17: Oh. Bin Laden is serious about mass murder. Funny. A few years ago, he said he wasn't thinking about bin Laden much.
9:18: Terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror
9:19: Terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror terror
9:20 Yes. We liberated death camps...so we can open our own torture camps. It's like Walmart liberating neighborhoods of mom and pop stores.
9:21: If he believes in freedom, in democracy, and in Iraq...why is he against the concept of Iraqis holding an election to determine whether we should leave or not?
9:22: We have a coalition? I thought we had our troops and three guys named Nigel.
9:23: Oh, NOW he's going to listen to military commanders? The same ones who said that invading Iraq was a bad idea?
9:24: And here, before I could say that he was curtailing opinions he'd respond to to "Responsible opinion," he goes and basically admits that anyone who doesn't fit that--namely, those he doesn't like--are being ignored.
9:25: "Second guessing isn't a strategy." Considering the lack of strategy going into Iraq in the first place...
9:27: All right. Who had eighteen minutes until he singled out one soldier and his family to hold up as a symbol of his wonderful war. The wife, trapped on camera, looked like an incredibly pissed off deer in the headlights.
9:28: Welcome to the state of the terror address.
9:29: Accountable institutions? The head of a government that tries to block any bid at accountability is talking about being held accountable?
9:30: Oh...my God...he's talking about attacking Iran.
9:31: No one is talking about isolationism. People are talking about freaking invading other countries.
9:32: By all means, let's not shortchange the efforts of a compassionate America. We should...oops. More terrorism talk.
9:33: Does he understand it's possible to support the military, law enforcement...and not the President?
9:34: AND NOW WE'VE GOT A GAME. Half of them sit while the other half stands in supporting the patriot act. "We didn't know about their plans until it was too late." This is the point where Jon Stewart would cut to a clip of Condi Rice saying, "I believe the title was 'Bin laden intends to attack US"
9:35: Hillary is shaking her head thinking "You asshole."
9:35: The Master of Accountability insists that he must have an eavesdropping program that doesn't require accountability.
9:37: He has the gall to invoke FDR and JFK?
9:38: Whenever Bush speaks of "Natural disasters" I keep thinking I'm looking at the biggest one to hit the US in years.
9:39; No one is saying immigrants are bad for the economy. They're saying illegal immigrants are bad for the economy.
9:39: He's gonna try for more tax cuts.
9:40: There it is.
9:41: Symbolic, really. The Democrats are expressing distaste by sitting on their asses. When are they gonna realize they have to GET OFF THEIR ASSES TO MAKE THINGS BETTER?
9:42: Right, right. Line item veto. Notice the hypocrisy of the GOP applauding when they screamed over Clinton trying the same thing.
9:43: YES! YES! YES! THEY GOT OFF THEIR ASSES!
9:44: I have NEVER seen a president look THAT PISSED OFF during the SOTU!
9:45: No one can outproduce the American worker. Except, y'know, maybe Japan.
9:45: And China. And Korea. And...
9:46: No you're not meeting the responsibility of health care for the poor and elderly. You cut it.
9:47: Okay, that's a good point. The medical liability thing is, if nothing else, driving OBGYNs out of the baby delivery business.
9:48: "Clean safe nuclear energy." There's a contradiction in terms.
9:49: I'm all for making dependence on ME oil a thing of the past. Certainly invading them to try and take it by force isn't working.
9:51: A firm grounding in math and science? Here's a fast way to start: Make it illegal for kids to have pocket calculators with them during math tests. What the hell is up with that?
9:52: We don't need more advanced math courses. We need more remedial courses. We've got a population that can't do the most basic functions.
9:53: Yes, we've become a more hopeful nation: And yet, no matter how much we hope, Bush is still there.
9:54: BUSH is talking about personal responsbility? That's like Hannibal Lecter talking about becoming a vegetarian.
9:55: The pessimists predicted Bush would be elected and re-elected. They were right about that.
9:58: I'm sorry. I don't see where a guy who endorses torture, spying on citizens, capital punishment, and cutting off medical research that could cure Altzheimers gets to talk about being compassionate.
10:01: By all means, let's do whatever we can to eliminate AIDS. So how's that condom in schools program working out?
10:02: And now he obliquely compares himself to Lincoln and MLK. How does he find trousers that hang right with balls that big?
10:03: Interesting that of the four major political/historical figures he compared himself to, three of them were assassinated.
10:03: Fifty one minutes. Hunh. I have to think that Caroline's commentary at the beginning was the most succinct.
Posted by Peter David at January 31, 2006 08:58 PM | TrackBack | Other blogs commentingI wonder if his testicles will be tied tightly to get a better show.
You can't tie something that doesn't exist. Silly PAD.
Cindy Sheehan, arrested outside? I can't wait to hear this...
Thanks for doing this. It means I don't have to see the chimp's smirking face for another day.
State of the Union drinking game
http://www.drinkinggame.us/
Is it just me, or did the 'Axis of Evil' list just get significantly longer?
Has he had a full ovation yet, or just the Rebublicans????
Wouldn;t it be cool if the Democrats just started booing??
Oooh ohh, there's his full ovation just now!
Rich Drees: Who is the geek in the Dr Who scarf?
I was wondering that myself. We can only hope Bush introduces him, so that he can get a thorough poking at on the Daily Show tonight.
Hey, my fiance is trainig our dog (Thor) to bark at Alfred E Newman's (oops, I mean Bush's) voice.
When did the Democrats (or any Americans for that matter) claim that we should be “Isolationist”?
Compassion for a village with HIV? Well, so long as she isn't a prostitue. Those sinners get what they deserve.
I wanna know who in the audience is applauding to reaffirm the Patriot Act.
Hillary Clinton totally just smirked at this guys crap ;-)
Luigi: "I wanna know who in the audience is applauding to reaffirm the Patriot Act."
Looks like just the Repubs. I love the split shots with the Repubs going apeshit and the Dems sitting around looking bored.
I'm finding the timing of his new counterterrorist act more than slightly suspicious, given the timing of Alito's confirmation.
Cindy Sheehan wasn't arrested. She "allegedly" was trying to unfold a banner of some sorts and was "removed". Kinda funny that the one person that would point to a MASSIVE failure by this administration was now no longer a part of the equation. After all, can't have the media flashing her across the screen. Might take away from Shrub's speech.
This guy and his party make me sick.
Mrs. Clinton has had plenty of practice perfeccting her "you are so full of !@#$%^&* #@$%^&*(" look, I'm happy that she now has a job where she can fully use it.
Brian: "Cindy Sheehan wasn't arrested."
Really? I thought I heard Brian Williams use the word 'arrested.' I probably misheard it. We shall see, I guess.
Jeez, he's like a hacky comic just going for the easy applause breaks. No real content here.
You know, I didn't want to listen to Bush, but with Peter's read-a-long, it's actually quite tolerable! Even funny!
Had to stop by...hey, some of you should just skip tot he Democrats "response" (I mean, it was posted at 6 PM...how do you respond to something before it's even...oh, nevermind. This stuff is all theater for the rubes.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/31/AR2006013101246.html
Out of curiosity--does the president hand out copies to his speech to the opposition so they can actually fashion a response or do they just guess what he will say?
On the whole, I'd recommend you watch Korean horror movies next year.
Santorum, they just showed Santorum!!!!
hee hee hee
if you dont get the joke
www.spreadingsantorum.com/
Yes, pass the line item veto, so we can veto out all the crap in the Patriot Act.
In a brief moment of insanity I saw the beginning of this on Fox news. Shep Smith was thrilled to report that she had been arrested but the reporter on the scene stated that she wasn't arrested, only detained
Still rather interesting that the Republican Party did not want her there and now she isn't.
Nice to see the Dems going apeshit for a change...
Brak: "Nice to see the Dems going apeshit for a change..."
ISn't this the first time that they have shown Hilary smile! I almost stood up and cheered myself!
Jesus, guys, you think maybe we can all stop with the pep rally clapping EVERY OTHER PHRASE so that maybe Bush can get through his speech? Even Bush is starting to look a little miffed at getting cut short every fourth word!
9:11: Four minutes of applause and counting.
9:11: And they applaud AGAIN? Just for being introduced?
According to Think Progress, "Without applause, practice runs have taken about 36 minutes." requiring 24 minutes of applause to stretch it to the scheduled hour.
Yes, pass the line item veto, so we can veto out all the crap in the Patriot Act."
I don't think that that's how the 'line item veto' works.
Its there so that the President can veto just a part of a bill he doesn't like, instead of the whole bill.
PS, on something he jsut said: My fiance calls Shenanigans!! (no idea how to spell that)
If we can out produce every one, then how come all our jobs are being outsourced?
9:42: Right, right. Line item veto. Notice the hypocrisy of the GOP applauding when they screamed over Clinton trying the same thing.
Really? Wow, that really would have been hypocritical considering the Line Item Veto was one of the Contract With America planks. So, did they scream over it before or after they GAVE IT TO HIM in 1996?
The problem wasn't the GOP screaming, it was the Supreme Court declaring it unconstitutional. Not quite sure how W intends to get around that little hurdle.
"Addicted to oil?" Hey, is he trying to introduce the flying car? ...no, sounds like he's talking up technology. Nice to hear somebody talk it, though I have doubts that it'll get done.
Now, how about slapping the Big Oil companies on the wrist so we can get gas prices back down, eh?
Firm grounding in math and science? Is that why he's cut research grants? And put limits on what they can use those grants for?
I buy from Hess, personally. The 5% rebate card is better than nothing, and a lot of their oil comes from Venezuela.
David, it would be interesting to see how the Court came down on the decision. Clearly the easiest way would be for a sitting President to stack the court with his own people. What's that? Bush has done this? Great...
Brak, please tell me you've seen Kevin Smith's short"the Flying Car".
Interesting education initiatives. Does he plan on funding them this time?
I haven't seen it, Jay, but I got the Reader's Digest version. Oh, here comes the marriage debate...
9:43: YES! YES! YES! THEY GOT OFF THEIR ASSES!
What? Where? What paragraph? Please?
I'm needing blood pressure medicine just reading the text and these comments, I don't dare listen to the parade of lies....
I buy from Hess, personally.
And according to BuyBlue.org, they donate 100% to the Carpeting Party, which I guess is better than donating like all the rest of the oil companies.
I can't stomach watching this, but what did he say about calculators (and AP classes) ?
Um, isn't one of the arguments against gay marriage that it will unravel the American culture?
He mentioned O'Connor. Too bad he didn't say what he wanted to: "That damn swing-voter..."
Peter David: 9:48: "Clean safe nuclear energy." There's a contradiction in terms.
Luigi Novi: I'm not sure I agree. I think the stigma associated with it is may be mostly a matter of scare-mongering.
Peter David: 9:52: We don't need more advanced math courses. We need more remedial courses. We've got a population that can't do the most basic functions.
Luigi Novi: What we need is to totally change the education system, because it's not working as it should. It's not just a matter of remedialism. We have to implement teaching methods that are successful, and the system should be privatized.
Darrik, here's a quote from the text as printed at ThinkProgress:
Third: We need to encourage children to take more math and science, and make sure those courses are rigorous enough to compete with other nations. We have made a good start in the early grades with the No Child Left Behind Act, which is raising standards and lifting test scores across our country. Tonight I propose to train 70,000 high school teachers, to lead advanced-placement courses in math and science … bring 30,000 math and science professionals to teach in classrooms … and give early help to students who struggle with math, so they have a better chance at good, high-wage jobs. If we ensure that America’s children succeed in life, they will ensure that America succeeds in the world.
"We will encourage more young people to stay in school"
Why do I have a bad feeling that this plan will involve the draft and student deferrals?
Luigi: "What we need is to totally change the education system, because it's not working as it should."
Right f***ing on!
Instead of a waiting list for AIDs medicine, he's going to instate a do-not-give-medicine list. It will include prostitues, gays, and drug users.
WAS HE DROPPED ON HIS HEAD AS A CHILD?
that would explain alot...
Peter David: 10:02: And now he obliquely compares himself to Lincoln and MLK. How does he find trousers that hang right with balls that big?
Luigi Novi: I don't think he was "comparing" himself to them, just using them as a metaphor to explain why he should "not stop."
So incredibly short, and he still said almost nothing.
IT'S OVER!!!!!!!!!!!! the state of the union drinking game.....I got drunk quickly
Hey, did he say anything??
No one can outproduce the American worker. Except, y'know, maybe Japan.
And China. And Korea. And...
From The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Productivity.html
Now the United States faces two productivity problems. First, its productivity growth has slowed sharply since 1973, part of a puzzling worldwide productivity slow-down. Second, although U.S. productivity is still the highest in the world by a wide margin—$45,918 of GNP per worker in 1990, 25 percent ahead of Japan and 35 percent ahead of Germany—its productivity growth trailed that of other nations in most years since World War II.
Another statistic I ran across said that "they (american workers) will produce 30% of global output this year with only 5% of the world's labor force."
So yeah, I think he was on pretty safe ground there. With all the easy targets to pick why go after a statistic you aren't sure about?
And what the hell is up with Bush mentioning BOOKS near the end of this speech? BUSH mentioning BOOKS? That's like Pat Robertson mentioning porn. Hasn't Bush stated that he's not much of a reader?
Luigi Novi: What we need is to totally change the education system, because it's not working as it should. It's not just a matter of remedialism. We have to implement teaching methods that are successful, and the system should be privatized.
What we need is for politicians to say what they won't dare say. It doesn't matter what schools do; until parents start acting like parents taking an active part in their children's education. We're going to continue to slide. Privatization will not help, throwing more money at it will not help, and, God help us, more standardized testing will not help until that is widespread, and right now it most certainly is NOT.
Oh btw, during his war against terrorism speech, I kept expecting him to say: "In order to ensure the security and continuing stability, the United States will be reorganized into the first American Empire...for a safe and secure society!"
Math and science classes?! Tell me he didn't say that. The guy who thinks Intelligent Design should be taught in Biology classes wants more science taught? I don't believe it.
Master Windu, I have just learned some shocking news!
Master Windu: "Bush is a sith lord?"
JAC
I noticed that Bush referenced Reagan's "Evil Empire" bit early on in the speech. I'm surprised that they dragged that hoary old chestnut out. It's a bit worn, to my mind.
9:01: Here come members of the Supreme Court. I think it'd be cooler if they all entered in one shoulder to shoulder line in slo-mo, like in "The Right Stuff." Or "Monsters Inc."
Or like the original opening to Justice League...oh, wait, Harvey Birdman did that already...
9:09: Caroline has offered her commentary in advance: The moment Bush was introduced, she farted and dropped a load in her diaper.
10:03: Fifty one minutes. Hunh. I have to think that Caroline's commentary at the beginning was the most succinct.
Good call. That's about an hour of my life I'll never get back.
Last night I got real drunk, tonight I watched the State of the Union address. Ironically, I felt more like throwing up tonight.
Sorry, the last half of my post should've read like this:
9:09: Caroline has offered her commentary in advance: The moment Bush was introduced, she farted and dropped a load in her diaper.
10:03: Fifty one minutes. Hunh. I have to think that Caroline's commentary at the beginning was the most succinct.
Good call. That's about an hour of my life I'll never get back.
Last night I got real drunk, tonight I watched the State of the Union address. Ironically, I felt more like throwing up tonight.
Luigi is 100% right about education. And although NCLB is pretty much a clusterf***, if it's done right it would be a start. The tragedy is, the biggest obstacle to changing anything fundamental about education is the teachers' unions themselves (and, for what it's worth, I am a member of the NEA). As long as the education establishment does its level best to stand in the way of any form of progress (charter schools, vouchers, accountability), ain't nothing gonna help out.
The color commentary was a triumph!!! Must make this an annual event.
Lee: Definitely. Am I the only one who thinks it'd be interesting to see PAD's commentary on the Democratic response, too?
"Out of curiosity--does the president hand out copies to his speech to the opposition so they can actually fashion a response or do they just guess what he will say?"
My understanding is, yes, it's passed out ahead of time, to the Dems and GOP, to the press, etc.
PAD
Just got here, will try to catch up.
===================
When did the Democrats (or any Americans for that matter) claim that we should be “Isolationist”?
Back in the 1930's & early 40's, until Pearl Harbor was attacked. But not since then.
But, hey, when has truth honesty, or accuracy ever been a part of the bush administration?
================
Cindy Sheehan news here, about 2/3 down the page:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/01/31/bush.sotu/index.html?section=cnn_topstories
============
Out of curiosity--does the president hand out copies to his speech to the opposition so they can actually fashion a response or do they just guess what he will say?
With bush, it's easy to know what he's going to say. He just keeps repeating the same thing over & over. You know, "Pushing the propaganda" I think was the term bush used.
it was the Supreme Court declaring it unconstitutional. Not quite sure how W intends to get around that little hurdle
Same way he does everything else. He's just going to do what he wants because he knows that no one will even try to stop him.
9:09: Caroline has offered her commentary in advance: The moment Bush was introduced, she farted and dropped a load in her diaper
Funniest thing I heard today.
And although NCLB is pretty much a clusterf***,
That's because the only part of it that's supported is the part that gives the military full almost unrestricted access to student records.
Hey, Peter
I just wanted to thank you for this forum. It made this crappy hour of television a lot easier to handle. Well, that and I led in with "The Gilmore Girls" and that made me happy too.
GHERU
PS: you also make me happy with some of the best comic writing out there today and I can't wait to buy your how-to book...
Posted by arizonateach--As long as the education establishment does its level best to stand in the way of any form of progress (charter schools, vouchers, accountability), ain't nothing gonna help out.
Vouchers would be the final nail in the notion that education should be freely available to every child in the country. Why should you or I have to subsidize the tuition for sending a student to a school that may tell us that our children aren't eligible to go to for religious or other reasons? And that's what would happen, unless the private schools became accountable to the same regulations that they foist on the public schools.
I know of dozens of people who send their kids to private Catholic schools around here that do NOT want vouchers because they are afraid that that will mean an influx of students they will not be allowed to turn away. And when a private school cannot pick and choose its students, you'll find that the differences between their output and that of the public schools more or less on a equal footing.
Anybody watching the Dem response?
I'm liking this Kaine guy, but his eyebrows remind me of Eugene Levy.
Oh, and for what it's worth, I'm in the NEA as well, and I've been a registered Republican since I turned eighteen in 1982.
9:15: Who had three minutes into the speech for 9/11?
What took him so long?
9:27: All right. Who had eighteen minutes until he singled out one soldier and his family to hold up as a symbol of his wonderful war
Between this & the above, bush must be slowing down in his old age.
9:30: Oh...my God...he's talking about attacking Iran
Hate to break it to you, but he's been doing so for a couple of months now. Using most of the same lies he used to get us into Iraq, too.
9:38: Whenever Bush speaks of "Natural disasters" I keep thinking I'm looking at the biggest one to hit the US in years.
Having George Bush lecture the American people about their addiction to oil is like a crack dealer lecturing his customers about their dependence on opium-based narcotics.
Thanks for the play-by-play, Peter. Faced with the prospect of seeing Bush on all the major networks tonight, I did the only sensible thing: I taped Supernatural and went out for a late dinner with a friend. But thanks to Caroline, I'm pretty sure I got the gist of what President Smirky Smirkeson had to say,
Joe: "...I'm pretty sure I got the gist of what President Smirky Smirkeson had to say..."
Sorry, but I just got the image of Christopher Walken coming at Bush with a tire iron, saying something about how he hates Smirky Smirkersons. I know it's a hoax, but the whole "Walken For President" idea gets better and better the more I think about it. Maybe I need to lay off the SNL Best Of collections.
Yahoo has a fact check article up right now for Bush's propoganda speech.
This is a fun quote from Bush:
"...every year of my presidency, we have reduced the growth of non-security discretionary spending."
In laymans terms, it means everything but defense/military spending is being gutted, while we spill our blood for Iraq and guarantee that future generations are completely fucked.
9:17: Oh. Bin Laden is serious about mass murder. Funny. A few years ago, he said he wasn't thinking about bin Laden much.
I glad he mentioned Bin Laden. WE HAVE ONLY BEEN LOOKING FOR HIM FOR 4 YEARS. How is it we can find Saddam, who had more duplicates than Madrox, in a little spider hole in the middle of a desert, but we cannot find a 6'6" Arab on dialysis?
9:30: Oh...my God...he's talking about attacking Iran.
We are going to reduce the size of our reserves, who have been picking up the slack in Afghanistan and Iraq, while at the same time, we are going to pick a fight with Iran.
9:49: I'm all for making dependence on ME oil a thing of the past. Certainly invading them to try and take it by force isn't working.
Are you implying that we would invade a country to take their oil? That would never happen again.
10:01: By all means, let's do whatever we can to eliminate AIDS. So how's that condom in schools program working out?
I'm all for curing AIDS, but can we not cure things that already kill more people, you know cancer, flu, etc.. Why does AIDS get the most money and attention?
10:03: Interesting that of the four major political/historical figures he compared himself to, three of them were assassinated.
Watch out for the NSA for that comment, PAD.
Oh let's endorse a technology that won't be ready till 2020! Shrub isn't interested in reducing our dependency on oil, he just wants to deflect the argument until he can run for cover and hide in retirement. Flex engines already exist, Shrub! Polution neutral engines that run on renewable resources...
Peter thanks for the commentary, if I had had to watch this travesty of hypocrisy I would probably have put my fist thru the tv screen.
Did I hear Bush say he was against human/animal hybrids? Since when has this been going on? Is this a threat large enough to mention in a SOTU address? Did I miss something? First we fight terrorists and now we have to stare down The Island of Dr. Moreau?
WE HAVE ONLY BEEN LOOKING FOR HIM FOR 4 YEARS.
130,000 troops in Iraq
vs
25,000 troops in Afghanistan. Quotes from the Chimp in Chief saying bin Laden was "no longer important".
Yeah, we're really working our asses off trying to get bin Laden. Maybe if, you know, we'd put 150,000 troops in Afghanistan to get bin Laden first, actually caught him, then went after Saddam, Bush's desired legacy would have actually come true.
We are going to reduce the size of our reserves, who have been picking up the slack in Afghanistan and Iraq, while at the same time, we are going to pick a fight with Iran.
While Bush avoids every bit of evidence that says our forces are extended too thin. I mean, why not? He already ignored every bit of evidence & intelligence regarding Iraq. What harm will that cause us with Iran?
That would never happen again.
I suppose after we'd had our way with the Native Americans, people said we'd never put people on reservations or in camps again either. Unfortunately, the Japanese learned otherwise. And Gitmo should qualify, just the same.
Why does AIDS get the most money and attention?
I don't know about the most money, but it gets attention because it deserves attention. That, and the fact that AIDS is more or less 100% preventable, yet too many morons in this country won't let us use the methods at our disposal to increase prevention (such as condoms).
Watch out for the NSA for that comment, PAD.
Meh. We've probably all been flagged already. The government obviously doesn't have any better things to do than spy on ordinary Americans.
First we fight terrorists and now we have to stare down The Island of Dr. Moreau?
Human/animal hybrid? We've been staring at the primate example for 5 years now.
rrlane: What we need is for politicians to say what they won't dare say. It doesn't matter what schools do; until parents start acting like parents taking an active part in their children's education. We're going to continue to slide. Privatization will not help...
Luigi Novi: OF COURSE it'll help. Companies that have to compete for your dollar find newer and better ways of doing things, which is why private industry almost always does things better than government agencies, which are a monopoly, and accountable to no one.
"...every year of my presidency, we have reduced the growth of non-security discretionary spending."
In laymans terms, it means everything but defense/military spending is being gutted, while we spill our blood for Iraq and guarantee that future generations are completely fucked.
Only in Washington DC could reducing the growth of a program be something to brag about. Or be considered "gutting". Geeze, what would you call it if they actualy REDUCED the amount of money being spent?
In truth, Bush has spent money like a drunken sailor. A drunken Democratic sailor. Ted Kennedy in a sailor suit.
I watched this thing at the gym on the treadmill reading CNN's pour attempt at closed captioning. The thing was, I couldn't be sure if the occaisonal typo was the fault of the transcriber or the speaker. Sigh.
which is why private industry almost always does things better than government agencies, which are a monopoly, and accountable to no one.
*chuckle* And corporations have been accountable to who lately?
Halliburton anyone?
Let's see, here are a few points I caught that I haven't seen mentioned yet:
-Bush says that half the world's population lives in totalitarian regimes and goes on to single out places like Sirya and Burma but strangely leaves out China which has over 1.2 billion people; could this be because we're so financially indebted to them? I guess he's ready to overlook some peccadilloes so long as we're getting something from them.
-When Bush mentioned "clean, safe nuclear energy" was I the only one who immediately flashed to the West Wing debate where Alan Alda's character said the same, only to have it come back to bite him in the latest episode when a meltdown was narrowly averted? I know that West Wing is fiction, but nuclear energy has a huge risk associated to it (as evidenced by Chernobyl) and it certainly isn't clean; tons of new nuclear waste have to be dealt with each year, at great cost both financially and potentially environmentally.
-Bush claims that he wants to make Ethanol practical and competitive, but makes no mention of emulating Brazil's model, which has had a highly viable Sugar Cane Ethanol program for over 20 years. If he's serious, then why not go with what works already? I remember reading a NY Times Op-Ed by Thomas L. Friedman from August 5 2005, about the then new energy bill, that touched on this point; here's the most relevant paragraph:
"The new energy bill includes support for corn-based ethanol, but, bowing to the dictates of the U.S. corn and sugar lobbies (which oppose sugar imports), it ignores Brazilian-style sugar-based ethanol, even though it takes much less energy to make and produces more energy than corn-based ethanol. We are ready to import oil from Saudi Arabia but not sugar from Brazil."
The Times will charge you to view the full piece but I found a PDF of it at the following link: http://www.setamericafree.org/nyt080505.pdf
-And not a single word regarding the ongoing genocide in Darfur. Can't say I'm surprised but I sure am disappointed, thought it might at least warrant a throwaway line, since he claims he's so dedicated to protecting the innocents on the World.
Corgi, regarding your question as to what got the Democrats of their asses, it was their cheering to the following line: "Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security." If you ask me, that was the high point of the night.
Raphy
Craig J. Ries: *chuckle* And corporations have been accountable to who lately? Halliburton anyone?
Luigi Novi: Please read for context, Craig. Vis a vis what Peter, rrlane and myself were discussing, it's the CONSUMER we're talking about. Companies, when they have to compete for your dollar, are accountable to the consumer insofar as who buys their product. I'm not talking about accountability regarding their illegal activities. If schools are privatized, they will each compete to make themselves look more attractive than the other, which they do by finding newer, better, and/or cheaper means of accomplishing the task you want them too. The way it is now, you have to send your kid to whatever school your kid lives in, or else pay for private school with money OTHER than the taxes you're already paying to the government anyway.
Companies, when they have to compete for your dollar, are accountable to the consumer insofar as who buys their product.
Yes, and did that stop Enron, WorldCom, or Qwest from cheating consumers (buying stock is pretty equal to buying a phone line these days)?
No, it didn't.
Privitization of schools doesn't do anything but guarantee that only those with money get the best education. Some would say that's the case now, but I don't entirely agree.
Everybody should be able to have at least an equal education, and privitization wouldn't do that.
In the end, the consumer really doesn't matter, only the bottom line does.
Its there so that the President can veto just a part of a bill he doesn't like, instead of the whole bill.
Why bother when we have president who just declares that he's going to ignore the entire bill anyway?
When did the Democrats (or any Americans for that matter) claim that we should be “Isolationist”?
Back in the 1930's & early 40's, until Pearl Harbor was attacked. But not since then.
And oddly enough, it was the GOP that was the strongly isolationist party during that time period.
-Bush claims that he wants to make Ethanol practical and competitive, but makes no mention of emulating Brazil's model, which has had a highly viable Sugar Cane Ethanol program for over 20 years. If he's serious, then why not go with what works already?
----------------------------------------
That's the Flex Engine! History channel ran a very interesting special on Brazil and their reliance on Flex Engines and Sugar Ethanol about 4 months ago. Until very recently the big 3 American motors companies had pissed away the market. They refused to produce a car with a flex engine and lost the Brazil market. They finally capitulated and recently started building cars for the Brazilian market.
Follow the Money...
The big three do not want to invest in sugar fuel because it just won't generate the revenues that they want from the pie in the sky hydrogen solution. Over the next 15 years they can generate millions in research grants and government subsidies to research Hydrogen fuel cells. Sugar cane is established and sensible and there is no money in the research, plus you would be shifting a large chunk of money into farmers' pockets, away from the normal receivers. In the mean time they can along with the sisters make a fortune in oil based cars and the selling of that oil.
If the reasons thgey don't do something makes no sense, then look at the cash and where it's coming/going from.
Craig: Yes, and did that stop Enron, WorldCom, or Qwest from cheating consumers (buying stock is pretty equal to buying a phone line these days)?
Luigi Novi: One more time: We aren't talking about breaking the law. We're talking about the PRODUCT that consumers CHOOSE. When you go to the supermarket, you can buy whichever brand of soup, peanut butter, or whatever you want. Would you prefer that all such products came from the government, which would only offer one brand, and being a monopoly, give you no choice? Consumers get to choose which brand they prefer. Mentioning Enron or Worldcom ignores the fact that those companies make the news precisely because they're the exception.
When a company that makes a consumer product that is found to substandard, like say, Goodyear tires, then the customers go elsewhere, and the company suffers, which is why companies compete to make their product better. Governments are monopolies, and don't have to do this, and thus, customers can't go "elsewhere" if it's a government monopoly, which U.S. education is, except for those who can afford private schools.
Are you honestly saying that you think that government does things better than private industry?
Craig: Privitization of schools doesn't do anything but guarantee that only those with money get the best education.
Luigi Novi: EVERYONE has money. They're called taxes. And most everyone pays their taxes. With privatization, you should be able to take your money where you want, and spend it on the school of your choice. Right now, you can only do that if you're well-to-do.
Craig: In the end, the consumer really doesn't matter, only the bottom line does.
Luigi Novi: LOL! And what do you think the bottom line is made of? Money given to the company by............consumers! If the company makes a lousy product, and a competitor makes a better one or a cheaper one, then those customers will go there, and that lousy company's bottom line suffers as a result.
Ted Kennedy in a sailor suit.
Who told you, who did you tell, and do you still have the photographs?
Seriously, though... Right, wrong, left, right, up, down... No doubt about it Peter: you're definitely a solid member of the liberal Democratic party: you didn't post a single thing you liked about the speech.
I heard a few things I'd place in the "good idea, let's do it" department.. but Dems just sat there with a "That sucks. You're an idiot." look on their face. (Not a totally unfamiliar look from their everyday face that they put on.)
I'm all for sitting down if you disagree. But I think the Dems came off as more embarrasing than anything else. Then again, a leapord and it's spots are rarely seperated. I think we're seeing Dems as they truly are: mad that they lost power, are only now truly realizing just how much they've lost (i.e. Alito confirmation).
And as for Cindy Sheehan. God bless her heart. Just wanting to give her two cents, and they won't let her in the door. If only she'd dressed up for the occasion, as dress code dictates, as opposed to just wearing anti-war t-shirt.
Oh well. There's always her new best friend, that buddy of ol' U S of A, Hugo Chavez.
RLR
Leapord?
Obviously, I meant leopard. Just another reason why not to make comments at 1AM. Oh well.
Say la vee.
RLR
Can someone please clarify what caused this:
"9:44: I have NEVER seen a president look THAT PISSED OFF during the SOTU!"
If I look at full coverage of the speech to find out I think the stupidity of it all will make my brain ooze out my nose and ears.
c.s.
all i'm going to say is ...
WAY TO GO CAROLINE !!
Does comic timing run in the family ?
Robert; it's easy to remember how to spell leopard. Just rmember the sage quote from Al Gore: "A leopard never changes his stripes."
Craig, didn't watch the speech but I'll bet PAD was referring to the moment where the Democrats gave a standing ovation to his admission that his Social Security Plan went down in flames.
"Seriously, though... Right, wrong, left, right, up, down... No doubt about it Peter: you're definitely a solid member of the liberal Democratic party: you didn't post a single thing you liked about the speech."
Then you missed the 9:47 entry. I agreed with him that medical liability needs to be reformed. If he has a way of equitably resolving the problem so that good doctors aren't being driven out of practice because they can't afford the insurance, I'm happy to listen with an open mind.
"I heard a few things I'd place in the "good idea, let's do it" department.. but Dems just sat there with a "That sucks. You're an idiot." look on their face."
Isn't it possible that that's because it sucks that the leader of the free world is an idiot, and worse, that the free world knows it?
PAD
"Just rmember the sage quote from Al Gore: "A leopard never changes his stripes."
Well, if Gore did say that, one could always be charitable and say he simply misspoke and assume nothing beyond that...you know, just as I would assume that you know how to spell "remember" and not figure that you're illiterate.
But if you insist, we can always suppose that Gore was making a point. A leopard indeed never changes his stripes...because a leopard doesn't have stripes. It's just like saying Bush never changes his mind...
PAD
Posted by Luigi Novi at January 31, 2006 09:59 PM
Peter David: 9:48: "Clean safe nuclear energy." There's a contradiction in terms.
Luigi Novi: I'm not sure I agree. I think the stigma associated with it is may be mostly a matter of scare-mongering.
"Mostly" is hardly the word. Try "almost entirely".
In ractical fact, on a per-installation basis, coal-fired power plants in normal operation routinely release more radiation into the atmsophere than do nuclear plants, and the environmental dangers and costs of coal plants far exceed those of properly-designed nuclear plants.
Posted by Raphael Sutton at February 1, 2006 12:20 AM
nuclear energy has a huge risk associated to it (as evidenced by Chernobyl) and it certainly isn't clean; tons of new nuclear waste have to be dealt with each year, at great cost both financially and potentially environmentally.
Citing Chernobyl in a discussion of the safety of newly-designed and -built nuclear plants is like citing Shiloh in a discussion of tactics appropriate for current-day operations in Baghdad -- irrelevant.
Chernobyl was a design that was considered a Bad Idea even at the time it was built, but was built because the Soviet government (as was the case throughout the USSR and its satellites for far too long, leaving the former Soviet bloc with a hideous legacy of environmental horrors to clean up) ignored such considerations and did things the fast and dirty way, looking for short-term payoff and ignoring long-term consequence.
Posted by Brian P at February 1, 2006 12:51 AM
Until very recently the big 3 American motors companies had pissed away the market. They refused to produce a car with a flex engine and lost the Brazil market. They finally capitulated and recently started building cars for the Brazilian market.
As a matter of fact, for some time the Big Three have been selling flex engines in this country -- without mentioning it.
A piece i heard recently on NPS (wish i could recall when/where, though it was almost certaionly "All Things Considered") talked about the fact that thousands of US auto owners don't even know that their cars have such engines -- and, even if they did, couldn't get alternative fuels to burn in them.
The idiocy of what the president has said seems to have been covered so I will just comment on the education theme.
As a parent it is my job to make sure my daughter is prepared to live in this world and make a living after I am gone. The only reason I have her in public school is because I need her to learn social skills. I am working on keeping her mind active and teaching her things I think she is ready for.
I am wondering how long it will be until game designers and corporations get together to create games that teach real world skills. Would not be that difficult to create an online game that teaches how to repair appliances. Or any other trade skill. I am not saying you could master it online but you could get to the point where an employer could hire you and you would master it while getting paid something.
Or maybe I just need to take my meds lol. Either way I liked the commentary Peter.
Well, if Gore did say that, one could always be charitable and say he simply misspoke and assume nothing beyond that...you know, just as I would assume that you know how to spell "remember" and not figure that you're illiterate
Well of course he misspoke, No big deal, just an amusing thing. I'm not one of those who pretend that every verbal error is a sign of someone's intellectual weakness. Losing an election by 60,000 votes in the state of Ohio when one still has 10 million dollars to spend...now THAT'S stupidity.
And anyone who would assume someone is illiterate because of a spelling error would 1- be using an amazingly broad definition of the word, to the point where one could doubt that they truly understand its meaning (which could bring their own literacy into question) and 2- create a standard that they themselves might have a difficult time living up to.
>Luigi Novi: One more time: We aren't talking about breaking the law. We're talking about the PRODUCT that consumers CHOOSE. When you go to the supermarket, you can buy whichever brand of soup, peanut butter, or whatever you want
One word: Microsoft.
As for the private sector being inherently better than government, this is by no means necessarily true. Read MISFORTUNES 500 to see copious examples of screwups and blunders by the private sector.
Consider that taxpayers insist that government be accountable and that it avoids waste at all costs. Trouble is, this necessitates a bureaucracy which is in itself inherently wasteful. Spending $75 to track a $6 petty cash expenditure? But, hey, at least we know the $6 wasn't spent frivolously. Taxpayers have no one to blame but themselves for that sort of thing.
Too, I work in a computer/informatics section in the Canadian government, and, though I admit we aren't perfect, we've had a lot fewer problems with internal screwups than we have had with our dealing with private sector.
Item - Two months spent trying to get a new computer fax system (purchased from an American company) going and then, on the same day we received a 442-page 'help' manual from them - with no page numbers! - we get a call from their sales rep admitting that the main function for which we'd bought it ... doesn't work. They hope to have a patch for it sometime by the end of March. Maybe.
Item - A Montreal company had contracted to provide us with an update to their data base system. They were three months late delivering, and then the install CD had a virus on it.
Item - A wonderful program to back-up data gets bought out by a big company which does little but buy out smaller ones. The last time we tried to get through to their help desk, it took FOUR DAYS of calling morning, afternoon and evenings (the latter from home out of desperation) before I could reach a human being.
Item - Our outside telecom link was bought out by AT&T (Canada). When I needed help with a problem connection, it took most of a day just to find someone there who had their act together sufficiently as to be able to tell me who was now handling our account.
Item ...
And so on. So, don't give me that "private sector is so much better than government" nonsense. Maybe it is, sometimes, but certainly not all the time and, from our experience, not even most of the time.
Atomic power is much like an automobile.
A well-designed auto, put together with emphasis on quality control, and then driven responsibly by a careful driver, will not have the insurance companies staying up nights worrying.
A badly designed one, with shoddy assembly techniques and driven by a drunken teeny-bopper, on the other paw ...
Same thing with nuclear reactors. Chernobyl is often trotted out to show the horrors of nuclear power. Well, yes, if you use an obsolete, unsafe design, and then have people operating it who ignore safety protocols, you'll probably regret it.
Go with a newer Canadian design, which has safety features up the wazoo, and whose outer containment shell is built to withstand a fully-loaded jetliner slamming into it and is backed by an inner shell around the reactor proper, and you don't tend to have so much to worry about.
Nuclear power plants can be built and operated safely, but as someone who grow up a stone's throw away from Three Mile Island, I have serious doubts whether any American power company can be trusted to do so.
Just this past month, TMI got caught (again!) with having "inattentive" (that's nuclear industry speak for "asleep on the job") workers and security guards.
The real problem with nuclear power, though, is not so much the design and operation of a modern plant, it's the fact that we started building power plants 50 years ago and only within the past ten years started seriously building a disposal site for the waste. The delays in getting Yucca Mountain online has added billions to the cost of operating a power plant in the US.
Coal still produces over half the electricity in the country, with nuclear power hovering around 20% and the main reason isn't safety. It's the fact that coal burning powers are simply cheaper to operate.
EVERYONE has money.
Ever been poor, Luigi?
What you want to do is increase the gap between rich and poor, by making sure that the poor DO NOT have the ability to choose, because they cannot afford to choose.
If you privatize education, you're only ensuring that lower income families do not have a choice, if they can even afford ANY choice.
It'll ensure that only higher cost schools have the better education, while everybody else has to 'make do'. There will be no guarantees.
And my point about the Enrons and so forth is that there is no guarantee that privatization won't screw everybody over, because you'll have the government being pushed around by those in charge of the schools. Which is a worse situation than what we have know.
If you think the public education system is bad now, go ahead, throw more private schools and voucher bs into the equation.
Luigi Novi: One more time: We aren't talking about breaking the law. We're talking about the PRODUCT that consumers CHOOSE.
ME: Children aren't a product, and that's where most of these types of analogies break down. A business can stay profitable only if it has the option of changing its product, reducing (or increasing) its output, and/or shifting its focus to suit the needs of the consumer. In other words, you can phase out an unprofitable product, but how do you phase out a line of students that aren't performing up the standards?
Merit pay is a joke for the same reason. We are comparing apples to oranges when we try to force education into molds that work for the private sector. If my pay is based on how my students perform, then I'm going to do better or worse year to year based on the attitude not only of the students themselves but on how seriously education is taken in the households of the students.
I have nothing against private schools teachers. They went to the same universities, had the same courses and got the same grades as most public school teachers. The difference is in (ahem) the product. You have, by and large, students enrolled in private schools because, if nothing else, the parents cared enough to go the financial extra mile in order to get their kids in their. If their kids start messing up, the schools have the option of dropping them. Where do the expelled kids go?
Public schools.
If you have privatization, are you going to allow the owners of the schools to drop the students that aren't performing well? Where do they go? If you aren't going to let them drop them, then you'll be in the same situation you have with public schools.
What we need is to hold the students and parents more accountable. I think we ought to revamp the compulsory education model in this country. Education should remain a right, but it should be a right that can be lost, or at least modified.
You know the classes I have the least problems with? Summer school. You know why? Because there, I, the teacher, am the law. Summer school is not compulsory. If a kid acts up, I can boot them and there is no appeal. They fail and they have are held back and repeat the class the next school year. I've been teaching Summer School for over a decade and I can count on one hand how many students I've booted(and I'd have fingers left over). They know in Summer school the onus is on them to do the work and behave or they lose their chance at progressing and they lose the tuition they paid for the class. Personal responsibility at its finest.
Yes, you would have to create a system in which expulsion wouldn't be abused by the individual districts or schools, and yes you would have to have a system in place that deals with the students that are booted so they are still getting some form of training and aren't wandering the streets. But I think more than anything else that would be impetus to getting education on track.
You will never see that come from either side of the aisle though. That would require looking voters straight in the eye and saying "We don't have a wonder pill that will make education better with no effort. YOU need to pay attention to what your kids are doing, and YOU need to make sure they get to school and YOU need to make sure they are doing their homework, and when they act up in school, YOU need to make certain their are consquences at home that are appropriate."
No one wants to hear that; it would mean that the fault lies not in our schools but in ourselves.
And another thing on the "Business vs. Government" arguments...
The government is SUPPOSED to exist to help the citizens of the country.
Businesses exist to make a profit at the expense of everyone else, especially the consumer.
And as far as "choice" for consumers, what a load of crap. How many actual different, for example, banks are there anymore? They all keep merging or buying each other out, smae with phone companies.
And even at the grocery stores, you may see 10 different "Brands" of a product, but if you trace them all back, you see maybe 2-3 ultimate companies that own/produce those 10 brands. You have no real choice anymore....
"Luigi Novi: Companies, when they have to compete for your dollar, are accountable to the consumer insofar as who buys their product. I'm not talking about accountability regarding their illegal activities. If schools are privatized, they will each compete to make themselves look more attractive than the other, which they do by finding newer, better, and/or cheaper means of accomplishing the task you want them too. The way it is now, you have to send your kid to whatever school your kid lives in, or else pay for private school with money OTHER than the taxes you're already paying to the government anyway."
The flaw in this logic is that it assumes the best way to make money in private education is to give the best education to a child. Whereas in actual fact, the best way to make money in private education is to spend the least amount of money educating the child, while extracting the most amount of money from the parent--in other words, giving the worst education parents will tolerate while charging them the most amount of money they are willing to pay.
You're right in believing that competition will, to some extent, keep companies honest about what those minimum and maximum amounts are. A private school that spends too little to effectively educate the child will find parents removing their children from its enrollment. However, this isn't like buying cereal at the grocery store. If your child's education is messed up by the educational equivalent of the Edsel, you can't just chalk it up to "caveat emptor" and resolve to do better with your next kid. The problems created by an over-reliance on privatization and the "free market" could have a profound effect on society as we know it.
In short, this is the shaping of the minds of the next generation of doctors, scientists, lawyers, and politicians, and it is far too vital to be left in the hands of people just trying to make a buck.
but Dems just sat there with a "That sucks. You're an idiot." look on their face.
As opposed to when the Republicans had the same look during Clinton's SOTU?
And as for Cindy Sheehan. ... If only she'd dressed up for the occasion, as dress code dictates, ...
There was no dress code. She was arrested while removing her jacket. Her version of the story here:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020106Z.shtml
Sheehan wasn't the only one removed. A Republican congressman's wife was also removed for "protesting". Her 'offense' a t-shirt that said "support the troops - defending our freedoms"
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/01/Worldandnation/T_shirt_earns_exit_fr.shtml
Democracy is on the march
I watched "Overhaulin'" on TLC. I was afraid that if I watched the SOTU, I'd start screaming at the TV.
Paul
Posted by Den at February 1, 2006 09:23 AM
Just this past month, TMI got caught (again!) with having "inattentive" (that's nuclear industry speak for "asleep on the job") workers and security guards.
Consider the consequences of similar circumstances at most conventional coal plants or even at some hydro plants; i'm not sure about retro-fits at TMI, but the newer nuclear designs would probably d less damage in anything short of a total and complete disaster scenario, and likely even then.
The real problem with nuclear power, though, is not so much the design and operation of a modern plant, it's the fact that we started building power plants 50 years ago and only within the past ten years started seriously building a disposal site for the waste. The delays in getting Yucca Mountain online has added billions to the cost of operating a power plant in the US.
We shouldn't have to build such a facility.
Nature has already provided us with two much better -- shoot it into space, or fuse it in cearamacrete and drop it into a subduction zone.
Of course, the same sort of Naderite fear-mongering that has people convinced that the mere presence of a nucular power plant in the next state will cause their grandchildren to have two heads and the lack of understanding of the basics of plate tectonics among the general public make those a hard sell.
And then there's Pournelle's idea.
For all that people talk about "tons of nuclear wastes", the total volume is actually relatively low. And we have a lot of land that no-one is going to need anytime soon on this continent.
So you seal it in fused ceramacrete (or whetever the actual name for the stuff i'm thinking of is), and you pile it all up in the middle of the desert somewhere tectonically-stable, and you build fences around it at 5-mile intervals (or whatever) with progressively-sterner warning signs in eleventeen different languages, and the signs on the innermost fence say "If you pass this fence you will die."
9:25: "Second guessing isn't a strategy." Considering the lack of strategy going into Iraq in the first place...
Gonna have to disagree with you there, PAD. Although there was no specific strategy for going into Iraq, the war was an offshoot of Bush's plan for the entire war on terror, which is based on the beloved children's game, "Marco Polo."
Which is why I'm not so hard on the guy for not finding Osama... I mean, have you ever played "Marco Polo?" Finding someone while wearing a blindfold is pretty hard...
shoot it into space
Ack! Terrible idea. The Shuttle has about a 1% failure rate. Hate to see, in addition to astronauts, nuclear waste scattered over Florida.
Democracy is on the march
It's common knowledge, and common sense, that it's illegal to protest within the chamber. Some guy got the same treatment a fe years ago for a CLINTON SUCKS T-shirt.
Not to go all Dr Phil but both Sheehan and the Republican wife should get over themselves. It's not ABOUT you!`
The Washington Post reports that she was also "vocal". Don't know what that means. She denies it...but her blog on the incident is a bit confused. She says that she did not mean to make a scene but also says that she wore the shirt to get attention. I don't know...between this and her threat to run against a liberal Senator, it kind of seems like she's having a hard time staying out of the spotlight.
And in case anyone wonders, I'd have felt the same way if someone had invited Junaita Broderick or Jennifer Flowers to a Bill Clinton SOTU and they had shown up in T-shirts expressing their opinions of the president.
It's common knowledge, and common sense, that it's illegal to protest within the chamber
If they're actively protesting, i.e. shouting, jumping up & down, or otherwise drawing attention to themselves, then I agree with you. However, both women were sitting quietly doing no more than wearing t-shirts.
As for the Congressman's wife, what part of ""support the troops - defending our freedoms"
is a protest?
The Washington Post reports that she was also "vocal".
According to her statement in the above article, she was "vocal" 1) in the hallway, not the Congressional chamber, & 2) only after some twit with a badge insisted that she was protesting.
shoot it into space
Ack! Terrible idea. The Shuttle has about a 1% failure rate. Hate to see, in addition to astronauts, nuclear waste scattered over Florida.
No need to use the shuttle or astronauts. Just load the waste onto an unmanned rocket like cargo, set a course for either deep space or the sun, and launch. And hope that in a thousand years from now that it doesn't return like NY City's garbage did.
PAD,
I appreciate your willingness to not only watch the State of the Union, but also to provide a running commentary on it.
Myself, I watched _Supernatural_, followed by the two extant episodes of the _Doctor Who_ story, “The Wheel in Space.” Then I did some work on a novella and some reading.
Somehow, I think I got more out of the evening than you.
On another note, I recently came across an editorial cartoon that shows a sign painter working on a huge sign mounted atop the White House. The sign reads, “Support the Truth.” An agitated Bush is down on the lawn, waving frantically, and shouting, “that’s troops!”
This morning I taped it to the wall next to my desk, directly beneath Bush’s “They never stop thinking of ways to harm America, and neither do we” quote.
Rick
Yes we need more and more people to work in our country, but at the same time we are always doing mass lay offs.
My sister lives in Poughkeepsie, NY, 2 hours north of NYC on the river. since 9-11 houses went crazy. The problem is the mid hundson railraod bridge burned in the 70's, if you don't work retail, you work office. It already is a 300 year old city, with almost the same amount of people as 1900(see wiki) There is little construction, but there really is no factory work. The house here boyfriend bought for 200+K was bought by a lady within a year and a half for 100+K, his house is worth 300+k. That's all great, but even with a job at the post office or home depoe for 12 dollars doesn't get you that house. I don't see anyone staying in that area, that's why the Poughkeepsie has become a run down dump.
He DANCED around illegals. The problem is i can make up a social number on my computer and by LAW they can't tell me it's fake. It's TOO much trouble to report it. My wife can see 3 to 8 a day. You can only not offer them work.
The government doesn't want illegals to leave, they take to low jobs, pay in cash in the area they live and live paycheck to paycheck. If the government didn't want them all they would need to do is go to a factory with temp workers and wait for them to apply for work...
i just wish his days where done so he could write his stupid book and begone ...
Hate to see, in addition to astronauts, nuclear waste scattered over Florida.
NASA recently launched a plutonium(?) powered rocket into space.
So, it can be done, and probably very safely. I guess the question is whether blasting it into space and something happening to the rocket is any worse than burying it in the ground.
It's common knowledge, and common sense, that it's illegal to protest within the chamber.
Ahh. So this is why the Republicans want to get rid of the judicial filibuster. Damn those protestors! :)
I'd still be worried about an unmanned rocket blowing up on its way to space. Now, if the space elevator idea takes off, THAT would be a cool idea. Let's get cracking on those nano-tubes!
Using subduction might work...I'd want to study it first before we start throwing cannisters of radioactivity into the ocean, just in case the result was 200 foot tall dinosaurs with radioactive breath. Though that would be awesome.
"However, both women were sitting quietly doing no more than wearing t-shirts."
As if the Bushites wanted to risk the TV camera finding them and focusing on them. I will bet you that if Bush could have found a way to focus only on the GOP side, and never once allow a shot of the Democrats sitting on their hands, he would have done so in a heartbeat.
PAD
Having worked on the Yucca Flats project in my life as a geologist (which was a loooooonnnnggg time ago), I can say that there ain't no such thing as safety---but that there's a bigger chance of leakage from an accident to the site, than for leakage when it gets there.
Not that this will ever happen; there's too much baggage attached to anything that wreaks of "nuclear" for it to happen (see some of the more braindead criticism of deep space probes like Cassini).
Hate to see, in addition to astronauts, nuclear waste scattered over Florida.
What an asshole thing to say.
The fun thing with Sheehan & Young will be seeing how the two sides play it and how it works out in the end. Sheehan has played it up a bit but in the normal (for her) way. The Youngs are pulling strings.
From the ST. Pete Times:
** Sgt. Kimberly Schneider of the Capitol Police could not provide details about the incident but said, "She was not ejected from the gallery. She did leave on her own."
Young's husband, a Republican who chairs the House appropriations subcommittee on defense, was unaware she was removed until after the speech. He said he was furious about the incident.
"I just called for the chief of police and asked him to get his little tail over here," Rep. Young said late Tuesday. "This is not acceptable."
Beverly Young said, "Wait until the president finds out." **
"And as for Cindy Sheehan. ... If only she'd dressed up for the occasion, as dress code dictates, ...
There was no dress code. She was arrested while removing her jacket."
No, they both got removed for protesting in the chambers. The shirts were seen as an act of protest and the DC Capitol Police made the right call in both cases. It was just them asking the ladies to have followed the common sense code.
When did T-Shirts become the kind of thing you would wear when going to a State of the Union Address? It boggles the mind.
Of course, I've seen how badly people dress up when they are going to court, so I shouldn't be surprised. I remember cringing when I saw a former student walk in with his cap on backwards and a Beavis & Butthead T-Shirt. The judge gave him a hard time. Meanwhile, I was dressed in a clean shirt and slacks and people were asking me for legal advice.
Now THAT'S wierd: just now on The Simpsons, Marge says "I like T-shirts with nice sayings like 'Support Our Troops'".
Anyway, it looks like all charges against Ms Sheehan have been dropped. There is actually no specific ruling against T-Shirts. I guess the Clinton Sucks guy will get an apology as well.
It was just them asking the ladies to have followed the common sense code.
Sheehan was removed from the building, handcuffed, put into a squad car, taken to a police station, fingerprinted, questioned, & held for several hours.
'just asking someone to do something', would be the officer asking Sheehan to put her jacket back on. Arresting someone is not the same as 'asking someone to do something'.
So you seal it in fused ceramacrete (or whetever the actual name for the stuff i'm thinking of is), and you pile it all up in the middle of the desert somewhere tectonically-stable, and you build fences around it at 5-mile intervals (or whatever) with progressively-sterner warning signs in eleventeen different languages, and the signs on the innermost fence say "If you pass this fence you will die."
One example I use for my students to consider on this issue is the fact that languages change over time. The waste is going to be hot for thousands of years. Consider that 1500 years ago, various Germanic dialectics were only coming together to form Old English, which is completely unintelligible to speakers of modern English. Also, consider the fact that until the Rosetta Stone was found, no one alive knew how to read hieroglyphs. There really is no way to guarantee that 3-5000 years from now, those signs will mean anything to some future civilization.
And you'd have to define "tectonically stable". There's been no volcanic activity at Yucca Mountain for about 5000 years, but that is no guarantee that there won't be any for another 5000.
Fire it into space? It can be done, but not within any margin of error that the public would find acceptable, ie, zero chance of failure. Consider that the Cassini probe only had a few pounds of plutonium and people freaked over finding out about that. Multiple that amount by a few tons and there's no way the public will ever support it.
Subductions zones are something that could be done, but it would require a much larger investment then anyone is willing to pay.
I really think Cindy Sheehan has burned through her 15 minutes by now, but the T-shirt thing is ridiculous. I'd agree that a T-shirt isn't appropriate attire for the occassion, but haul someone out in cuffs and charge them with a crime is stupid beyond words. And yes, it was done to someone during one of Clinton's SOTU addresses and it was wrong then.
Den, actually I think the guy who got hauled off for the anti-Clinton shirt was there during the impeachment hearing not the SOTU. But your point is correct.
Sheehan isn't leaving the spotlight any time soon. She's mulling a run against Dianne Feinstein. I don't get it either.
Consider that 1500 years ago, various Germanic dialectics were only coming together to form Old English, which is completely unintelligible to speakers of modern English. Also, consider the fact that until the Rosetta Stone was found, no one alive knew how to read hieroglyphs. There really is no way to guarantee that 3-5000 years from now, those signs will mean anything to some future civilization.
Do you remember a Discovery Channel piece a few years back that addressed this very issue? They hired poets and artists and linguists to try to come up with some kind of universal symbols that would convey danger in some far flung post English speaking world. They had a tough job because what scares one group--skeletons, for example--might cause an entirely different group to go "Hey cool! Skeletons!"
I think they came up with some kind of weird barbed wire nasty sharp pointy teeth thing. Which for all we know will be the future corporate symbol for Dunkin Donuts.
But is it really likely that our civilization and language will vanish without a trace? The examples of the past may not apply--never before have common languages and symbols been able to be found on every corner of the globe. Anything that destroys Western Civilization to the point where it is forgotten would have to be so catastrophic as to defy imagination.
Then again, 10,000 years is a long time...
"Arresting someone is not the same as 'asking someone to do something'."
No kidding.
You really need to go back to "Light Sarcasm 101" and take a refresher course.
The ladies are free....
As for the speach itself:
Misstatement of the Union
http://www.factcheck.org/article376.html
A couple of updates:
Administration backs away from bush's mideast oil withdrawl:
One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally
=================
Charges vs. Sheehan dropped
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11120353/
“Neither guest should have been confronted about the expressive T-shirts,” (Capitol Police Chief Terrance) Gainer’s statement said.
Yes, languages change drastically over time and that could be a problem, but if we haven't come up with a better way to deal with reactor wastes in the next 150-200 years than piling it up behind fences in the desert, it will probably be because we have a lot worse things to worry about.
As if the Bushites wanted to risk the TV camera finding them and focusing on them. I will bet you that if Bush could have found a way to focus only on the GOP side, and never once allow a shot of the Democrats sitting on their hands, he would have done so in a heartbeat.
I'm sure any President would love to have only his supporters in the public eye.
But is it really likely that our civilization and language will vanish without a trace?
There are lots of things that could do it: nuclear holocaust, asteroid hitting the planet, bird flue mutating into an uncontrollable strain, another Bush getting elected.
It's true that technology allows for greater continuity of language and record keeping, but that will only hold up so long as there are people who understand how to build and maintain the technology. A global disaster could wipe out all of that knowledge. Think about how much classical knowledge Europe lost when the Roman Empire fell and only rediscovered it 1,000 years later.
Do you remember a Discovery Channel piece a few years back that addressed this very issue? They hired poets and artists and linguists to try to come up with some kind of universal symbols that would convey danger in some far flung post English speaking world. They had a tough job because what scares one group--skeletons, for example--might cause an entirely different group to go "Hey cool! Skeletons!"
Years ago, a well-known astronomer (Can't remember which right now) came up with a symbol that he thought should be included on one of the Voyager missions. He thought it was a perfectly obvious design to convey why kind of species launched the probe in case it was ever found by aliens. He based it around a group of astronomers. These were his peers, people with the same educational and cultural background as he had.
None of them could figure out what the symbol stood for.
Yes, languages change drastically over time and that could be a problem, but if we haven't come up with a better way to deal with reactor wastes in the next 150-200 years than piling it up behind fences in the desert, it will probably be because we have a lot worse things to worry about.
Perhaps, but for now, the only viable method is deep burial in the bedrock. Everything else is too risky or too expensive or both.
One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.
So let's recap Dubya's SOTU addresses over the years:
He didn't mean it literally when he said that Iran, Iraq, and North Korea were the "axis of evil."
He didn't mean it literally when he said that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger.
He didn't mean it literally when he said that we will drastically reduce our dependence on ME oil.
Why are they still people on this planet that don't realize the man is full of sh!t whenever he talks?
Ten bucks says Dick's office got a call from ExxonMobile before the speech was even over.
Administration backs away from bush's mideast oil withdrawl:
Well, that's a shocker.
To date, going back to Nixon, we haven't had a president yet who actually had the balls to reduce our depencency on foreign oil (and nobody's really tried in 25 years).
I read something that said only 20% of our oil comes from the Middle East? You'd think we could do something about that rather quickly, even with Venezuela's stupidity.
BTW, if you think expanding nuclear power will have a major impact on our consumption of ME oil, take at look at these statistics from the DOE:
Percentage of each source of electricity generated in the US:
Coal: 49.8%
Nuclear: 19.9%
Natural Gas: 17.9%
Hydroelectric 6.5%
Petroleum: 3.0%
Other Renewables: 2.3%
Other Gases: 0.4%
Other: 0.2%
http://www.eia.doe.gov/fuelelectric.html
Usage of petroleum products by percentage:
Transportation: 67%
Industrial: 23%
Residential/Commercial and Electricy Utility Sectors: 8%
http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/infosheets/petroleumproducts.htm
Note that 8% includes both electrical generation and home/commercial heating.
So, we already generate nearly 7 times as much of our electricity from nuclear power as we do from oil. With coal producing nearly half of our electricity, any expansion of nuclear will greatly impact coal consumption. And coal is entirely a domestic resource. We already get more than twice as much electricity from hydropower! "Other renewables", which includes wind power, already accounts for almost as much electricity as we get from oil. Petroleum is a tiny percentage of our electricity generation.
On the flip side, oil is primarily a transportation energy resource which nuclear power has no transportation application outside of the US Navy. So until nuclear powered cars become a reality, the impact any expansion in nuclear power would have on oil imports would be negligible.
I read something that said only 20% of our oil comes from the Middle East? You'd think we could do something about that rather quickly, even with Venezuela's stupidity.
Here's a chart from the Air Force:
http://www.afa.org/magazine/June2002/0602chart.pdf
Odd that the biggest percentage source in 2001 is listed as "other," but our biggest single source of imporated oil is Canada, followed by Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and then Mexico.
So overall, we get more from the Western Hemisphere then we do the ME, but they are still a significant chunk.
Odd that the biggest percentage source in 2001 is listed as "other," but our biggest single source of imporated oil is Canada, followed by Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and then Mexico.
An article I found, for Nov '05 imports, listed the same lot, but in the order of Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela.
Still, the fact remains that our government doesn't want to get rid of Middle East oil, even though that oil comes from some of the most repressive governments in the world.
Nigeria being high on the list doesn't help any either, as most of Africa needs to get their act together too.
It's not surprising that Venezuela dropped, since Chavez had announced that he was selling more to China last year.
Bush's family ties to the House of Saud is well documented, so it's not shocking that when push comes to shove, he isn't going to really do anything concrete to end our dependence on foreign oil.
Chavez may be a nutjob and a socialist, but he was elected to his job (before the military coup to oust him backfired, that is). Is it telling that Bush prefers to do business with absolute monarchs and dictators rather then an elected government?
I sat through this sad,sad, attempt at the STATE OF GEORGE BUSH'S MIND - is what it must be called, his fantasy world. The real SATE OF THE UNION could have impeached him; the biggest deficit ever, the lack of rapid response to our natural disasters and yet we run to other countries, sad,sad, I won't even get into his Supreme Court issues-puppets, Condi Rice, so faithful - is there a dental plan that can help her?? Cheney - Fat Cat, Heart Attack-bound, money-hungry monger... We will be paying $5.00 a gallon for gas before the end of 2007. I think I like Robin Williams take on what Bush should do, 1/ Bring all service men home from ALL countries - let them seal off our borders and stop the infiltration of drug, illegal aliens and criminals from entering the US - and what about those new tunnels?? 2/ Make all non-citizens either become citizens or deport them fast. 3/ No foreign student over 21 yrs old - let the potential bombers go elsewhere. 4/ Offer Saudi Arabia $10 a barrel for their oil, if they don't like it we can purchase oil from other countries, and after about a week of their wells and storqage sites filling up and sitting idle, they will compromise to unload the oil. Do you know what many Texans who are not George W. Bush supporters have named him? They call him SHRUB - the lesser of the Bush family.... WE NEED A CHANGE
I sat through this sad,sad, attempt at the STATE OF GEORGE BUSH'S MIND - is what it must be called, his fantasy world. The real STATE OF THE UNION could have impeached him; the biggest deficit ever, the lack of rapid response to our natural disasters and yet we run to other countries, sad,sad, I won't even get into his Supreme Court issues-puppets, Condi Rice, so faithful - is there a dental plan that can help her?? Cheney - Fat Cat, Heart Attack-bound, money-hungry monger... We will be paying $5.00 a gallon for gas before the end of 2007. I think I like Robin Williams take on what Bush should do, 1/ Bring all service men home from ALL countries - let them seal off our borders and stop the infiltration of drugs, illegal aliens and criminals from entering the US - and what about those new tunnels?? 2/ Make all non-citizens either become citizens or deport them fast. 3/ No foreign student over 21 yrs old - let the potential bombers go elsewhere. 4/ Offer Saudi Arabia $10 a barrel for their oil, if they don't like it we can purchase oil from other countries, and after about a week of their wells and storage sites filling up and sitting idle, they will compromise to unload the oil. Do you know what many Texans who are not George W. Bush supporters have named him? They call him SHRUB - the lesser of the Bush family.... WE NEED A CHANGE
Transportation: 67%
Industrial: 23%
Residential/Commercial and Electricy Utility Sectors: 8%
If we increasingly go to rechargeable electric vehicles for short-range travel, having greater nuclear capacity will also affect the transport sector.
As for Industrial, does this mean fuel to run the machines, or does it also count for plastics and other products for which petroleum is a key ingredient?
PAD writes:9:48: "Clean safe nuclear energy." There's a contradiction in terms.
Well, no. It's vastly safer and cleaner than any other form of power generation in widespread use.
If we increasingly go to rechargeable electric vehicles for short-range travel, having greater nuclear capacity will also affect the transport sector.
True, but until manufacturers can make them cheaper with a shorter recharge time, they aren't going to be practical for anything other than very short range travel.
As for Industrial, does this mean fuel to run the machines, or does it also count for plastics and other products for which petroleum is a key ingredient?
Mostly plastics, pesticides, lubricants, and other such products. Most assembly line machines are electrical anyway.
Sure, nuclear power is cleaner than god knows what else as long as everything and everyone works the way they're supposed to. It's that LAST part that scares the living crap out of people. And as far as the whole oil addiction that we all seem to have, here's a thought for the government. Stop flying people around to different places around the country for photo ops! THERE's a thought, huh? "I'm doing my part to reduce our oil dependence by staying in DC and, you know, doing the job you elected me to." Can you see any politicians doing that? Seriously, the difference between most politicians and most entertainers is the entertainers at least have some talent....
Posted by Den at February 2, 2006 09:52 AM
On the flip side, oil is primarily a transportation energy resource which nuclear power has no transportation application outside of the US Navy. So until nuclear powered cars become a reality, the impact any expansion in nuclear power would have on oil imports would be negligible.
Actually, once nuclear energy comes really online, then we can actually go to hydrogen-powered vehicles (whether Internal Combustion or fuel cell); with conventional-fuel p[ower sources, such "solutions" to pollution/fuel cost problems actually makes things worse in some waways as they make it better in others -- gebnerating the power to make the hydrogen to run the car, using fossil-fuel plants, will produce more pollution than burning petroleum directly, due to inefficiencies in conversion, and will concentrate it more.
Actually, if we could switch the railroads to either electric power (given nuclear plants) or could build some of the high-efficiency coal fired steam designs that have been proposed (don't laugh -- look for the engineering reports on the ACE3000 project -- a coal-fired modern steam design that at current fuel prices would cost less per ton-mile to operate than most diesel designs AND produce less pollution), it would freee up a fair amount of oil fo Other Purposes, right there.
Den, you seem to be pretty up to date on this stuff. So you're suggesting that instead of one big fix we need to look at various solutions, none of which will solve the problem all at once but in total add up to something significant? That sounds a lot more practical.
Since you brought it up earlier, what exactly is the problem with using subduction plates to dispose of waste? Is it that the containers would be destroyed in the process, releasing the waste or is it that it would take too long?
It's frustrating that we are sitting on a planet that has a virtually unlimited supply of heat in it's interior and can't figure out a way to harness it. Geothermal energy may be impossible to utilize due to purely physical constraints but if so what a shame. Wouldn't it be great to have gigantic FORBIDDEN PLANET type underground energy factories? Then again, it didn't work out so hot for the Krell.
Basically, yeah, there is never going to be one single source of energy that is going to be meet our needs. We still have about 400 years worth of coal in the ground, so even though people tend to associate it with the past, it's going to be a big part of our energy production for a long time. Fortunately, there are technologies coming into play to make it cleaner.
A lot of states are starting to look seriously at wind power, so expect the percentage of our electricity coming from that to increase in the coming decade. Biofuels are also considered "in vogue", particularly biodiesel (diesel derived from used cooking oil - yes your truck will smell like french/freedom fries!).
Ethanol, mentioned in Bush's SOTU, is currently used in many places as a fuel additive. The problem is, we use corn-derived ethanol, which actually consumes more petroleum products to grow then it displaces at the gas pump. Brazil has had a successful program since the 70s using ethanol derived from sugarcane, but our obscenely high tariffs on sugarcane has keeped it out of the USA market. The new technique touted now is deriving it from corn stalks and switch grass. As these are essentially waste products of agriculture, it's possible that this could actually reduce our petroleum consumption.
Hydropower has already been maxed out. There are only so many places where you can build a Hoover dam. Geothermal is an underutilized source of energy and we will probably see more of it used for heating homes and offices in the future.
Hydrogen is either the fuel of the future or a huge boondogle, depending on who you talk to. It burns cleaner then any of the fossil fuels and does not generate carbon dioxide. Plus, homes heated by natural gas can be easily switched to accepting hydrogen. But it does have some drawbacks, including the expense and energy required for electrolysis. Using petroleum products or natural gas to free hydrogen from water does nothing to reduce our air pollution or our consumption of fossil fuels. Using nuclear power is one option. Another possibility being looked at is setting up solar power plants in southern California, where it's sunny most of the year to produce the hydrogen. Either way, they'd need to compress it to a liquid for transport across the country, which further adds to the expense. But, if oil prices continue their upward crawl, hydrogen may become more competitive.
Once these details are worked out, the only remaining obstacle would be to convert all of the gas stations in the country to hydrogen stations.
Of course, if we can convert more of our transportation infrastructure to electricity or hydrogen, our need for imported oil would be drastically reduced.
The obstacles for subduction disposal are twofold: 1) Getting the waste to the ocean floor near the subduction zone. Currently, ocean disposal of nuclear waste is banned by international treaty; 2) Drilling deep enough in the crust. As one plate slides under another, often the a large portion of the lower plate gets scraped off and doesn't go under the upper plate. Currently, the capability to drill deep enough into the plate to avoid this is not feasible, but may be in the future. Of course, the nice thing about it, is that once the waste enters the mantle, it will take longer for it to return to the surface then it will for it to decay.
"On the flip side, oil is primarily a transportation energy resource which nuclear power has no transportation application outside of the US Navy."
Anyone else remember the Air Force experiments in nuclear-powered aircraft involving a modified B-36 back in the 50s? Not surprisingly, given up as impractical.
As for nuclear-powered cars ...
Space probes have long used radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), SNAP-3s for example, for long-term power sources. The original ones only supplied a couple of watts - albeit over a very long term, but more recent designs churn our hundreds of watts. Given the weight and space restrictions in a space probe, these should be able to fit in a conventional car. The question then becomes, how much more efficient can they be made to be, and how many would be needed to power a small electric vehicle?
OK, we won't talk about cost ... ;-)
Anyone else remember the Air Force experiments in nuclear-powered aircraft involving a modified B-36 back in the 50s? Not surprisingly, given up as impractical.
Yep. I've often wondered if the true story behind Roswell didn't involve some kind of experiment with a nuclear powered aircraft or an aircraft carrying some kind of (nonexplosive) nuclear device.
The question then becomes, how much more efficient can they be made to be, and how many would be needed to power a small electric vehicle?
Yeah, because if there's anything the public would be willing to buy, is a car with 70 pounds of plutonium (even if you told them it was non-fissionable Pu-238) under the hood.
And for more wonderful shits & giggles, I give you the latest from Rumsfeld:
Rumsfeld likens Chavez of Venezuela to Hitler
Excuse me while I go find a mirror large enough to encompass the collective ego of the White House and put it on the front lawn.
"I mean, we've got Chavez in Venezuela with a lot of oil money," Rumsfeld added.
Rumsfeld later added, "And we can't figure out how to divert into Haliburton's coffers."
I'm guessing the PNAC invasion list goes like this: Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Saudi Arabia.
BTW, remember when we were told the reconstruction of Iraq would pay for itself?
Posted by Craig J. Ries at February 3, 2006 02:57 PM
And for more wonderful shits & giggles, I give you the latest from Rumsfeld:
Rumsfeld likens Chavez of Venezuela to Hitler
I was going to roast them over that on my own blog, and then i went to Wikipedia for the exact wording of Godwin's Law...
