Attention US/World Populace: Prepare To Run For Your Lives

[DarthTex]

He came rather close to center in the end, Tex. I'll grant you that you probably know more than me about the topic, but I honestly think you're being more than a little bit partisan on the matter.

 

I try to say as close to center as I can on most matters, though I lean strongly to the left. *Shrugs* What's done is done- I'll not argue with you over your opinions of the past.

Well, you know what they say about "old people" Tofu; we're stuck in our ways

 

Let's hear it for Rudy, he's going to run (and win)!! Yee Haw!!

[Eagle]

What?? I'm sorry Eagle, I don't know where you get your facts

Well, thank god we´ve got our own journalists in Washington DC and for that aren´t affected to any propaganda neither from the republican side nor from the democrat side. Nobody here looks that much at the privat life of a politician or if he/she had sex with anybody. If we would do that our reporters wouldn´t have much space in the newspapers for other thingies to report. Oh, did I wrote thingies?! So if possible we just take a look at the facts. And what Tofu wrote was exactly that what I was talking about.

 

As for Rob's original post: Hillary is the Anti-Christ! Doom! Doom! Doom!

Uhm, isn´t that told about George W.?

 

[Darth_Rob]

I'm not about to get into G.W. He is a good man.

 

What I am going to get into is the fact that Gulliani is our only hope. I in particular like him being chosen. NYC will be split between Liberal Clinton and their hero Rudy. Im sick and tired of being under-represented in NY state because the majority of NYC is a cesspool of moronic hippies. 2008 will be the first time I won't feel like my vote is being flushed away.

[PsychoInfiltrator]

Oh yeah? Let me tell you. You won't be laughing when she orders the bombing of Toronto, and then you retaliate with the bombing of the Baldwin residence, and the we...

 

You know, last time the US declared war, Washington was burnt to the ground.

 

And sometime beforehand, our side seized a whole state without a single casualty [on our side...].

 

And this time, our armed forces will have better-quality muskets.

[DarthTofu]

Huh... Rudy actually looks like a good candidate. Pro choice, pro-gay-rights... Heck, I'd vote for him. Obama is still my second choice, but he really does need some more time in the Senate before I'll be quite as staunch a supporter of him.

 

In all honesty I hope that he loses the nomination to Hillary, now, just so that his political career isn't lost if he wants to try for it come the next election, or the election after that.

 

I can see it now: The SWRebellion telephone calls. "Hello, Ma'am, my name is DarthTex, and I'm with the Star Wars Rebellion 'Get out and vote for Giuliani' committee. Can I convince you to vote for Guiliani? Remember, Hillary is the anti-Christ. Voting for her will bring doom upon our great nation. Also, she's not bald. You can't trust people with hair. If history has taught us anything, it's clearly and uniquivically that."

"What about Lincon and Washington?"

"Wigs. It's a little known fact."

 

 

The only downside is that he's going to be hammered for his past. Three divorses? As a Republican who's pro-gay-rights and pro-choice he's going to lose a large chunk of the Southern vote, methinks, and that could really hurt him. He might be better off doing as John Edwards did on Meet the Press. "I'm for gay civil unions, but I haven't decided on gay marriage." Pretend that you haven't made a decision to avoid losing the vote.

[Darth_Rob]

You know, last time the US declared war, Washington was burnt to the ground.

 

There have been quite a few wars declared by the US since 1812...

[PsychoInfiltrator]

I'm sorry, I meant against Canada and her allies.

[DarthTex]

I'm sorry, I meant against Canada and her allies.

Maybe the US will only declare war on Quebec; all that French blood might make them decide to surrender

 

 

[PsychoInfiltrator]

Either that or the American invaders will return home perplexed that not everyone in the world speaks their language.

[Aenivae_Ikeda]

... The USA had economical better days in the Clinton-era than now, so no worries about that...

What?? I'm sorry Eagle, I don't know where you get your facts, but you're completely wrong. The US economy has been growing yearly a good consistent 3-4% every year with "W" in office, AND unemployment has dropped to the lowest levels in quite a loooooonnng time (it got down into the 4.?% rate). I'm not sure where it's at now, but the US it quite better off with "W" than "Slick Willy" when it comes to the economy. Bush's "tax cuts" have stimulated the economy (as proven by JFK and Ronald Reagan), while reducing yearly deficits on the US national budget (getting closer to a "balanced" budget, but Congress is the purse string holders and wild spenders. The President recommends a budget, but Congress funds it).

 

The US would be much better off getting rid of the IRS and income taxes all together, and going over to a "consumption tax". The price of consumer goods would only have a maximum change of maybe +/- 1-2%. For a thorough explanation, see http://www.fairtax.org. You'll be surprised at how well this would really work.

 

As for Rob's original post: Hillary is the Anti-Christ! Doom! Doom! Doom!

 

I'm pretty sure that the unemployment rate has nothing to do with W's strategies so much as it does with the under-quality environment of Mexico, and well, I dunno, people's ambition to get out of it?

 

You said that "trickle down economics" (Reagan's economic policy of giving tax breaks to the rich based on the idea that the excess wealth would "trickle down") worked in stimulating the economy? During Reagan's presidency the gap between the richest class and the poorest class widened more than it had at any other time during American history. Not that people care because the middle class was fairly large with a much smaller lower class in those days.

 

I'd go off on Reagan but, well, alas...

 

I'd like you to explain how the yearly deficits on the national budget have gone down and approached a "balanced" state, because I am completely ignorant to this phenomenon.

 

As for Rudy... I'd vote for him if he wasn't so socially conservative. Anyways, the republicans have pretty much abandoned all of their fiscal values and standards so I don't think I could really go for them at this point. I'll probably vote for a third party. Libertarian or something. Maybe Obama though, if not just to take votes away from the others.

[turtle]

As someone outside of america I don't care who gets presidency.

 

I just ask that they straighten out America's problems, their involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan befpre even thinking about looking at another countries problems.

 

The USA is not the world police. They should not decide that other countries need their help unless another country asks for it!

 

I don't know any country that doesn't have a problem. I don't think any country ever will be one that doesn't have a problem somewhere and that America is as far as it can be from being the country with the most problems but still, they shouldn't help another unless asked.

 

I do know that the environment and the weather worldwide is changing, it's getting a little more unpredictable and much more destructive at it's worst. Someone needs to do something and the USA with being one of the most powerful countries, one of the most industrialised countries I think whomever becomes the new president should force the UN and all other countries to make a serious attempt at looking into it's environmental policies with the same insistance and determination as it is in waging war on terror and getting in getting Iran and North Korea to give up it's nuclear power It should also be the first to initiate some tough laws against the companies that cause environmentally damaging emissions of pollution. As well as tax breaks for companies that recycle and use clean energy sources such as wind, solar or geothermal energy.

 

I know that won't happen, but thats my 2 cents worth (cdn! sorry I can't afford anything else!!!)

[Darth_Rob]

So you don't think America should act as a "world police", but you want the country to "force" other countries into doing something???

 

 

But I do agree that the environment needs paying attention to, as well as outer space. Support NASA!!!

[turtle]

I don't want the US to be the 'world police' in that I don't want the US to decide which countries are 'bad' and decide to do something about it by force. I don't want the US to preach to other countries about racism or something like that or how it should govern it's people.

 

I DO want the US to lead by example when it comes to the environment. I want the US to say to the UN and to other industrialised nations something along the lines of "OK global warming is being caused by industry. We need to clamp down big time on emisions. We need to set stricter guidelines for cars, trucks, lorries, aircraft. We need to move away from oil, coal, and gas right NOW. The polar ice caps melting is the fault of HUMANS. Something needs to be done NOW so that in 25 years there is still something left of Earth as we know it at this precise second."

 

You know I read somewhere that 50 or 60 years time half of the UK will be UNDERWATER at the current rate of global warming.....and that was about 10 years ago!!!!

[DarthTex]

Good God people! Get off the "oh no, the world is doomed. We've screwed up Mother Nature" bit. Yes, outright pollution is very bad, but all this crap about the temperatures bit is like a run away stage coach. If you compare how long humans have been recording world temps over the lifetime of the planet, it's like "a blink of an eye". Then take that "blink of an eye" data and extrapolate the future temperatures of the world for the next hundred years? Doom! Doom! Doom! Give me a break! Go invent a time machine that get some good solid reasonable data to use. Hell, 30+ years ago it was the opposite, "the world if freezing". There were plans to "dust" the polar ice caps with ash so they would absorb more sunlight so they would melt! Now, it's the opposite. In another 30 years, it'll be back to freezing!

 

[Evaders99]

If the UK were seriously underwater in 50 years, don't you think people would be advertising UK land as "beachside resorts" ?

Sounds like State of Fear to me

[Darth_Rob]

My father keeps saying that he saw a report saying that in 10 years Long Island would be completely submerged. I just laughed. Actually I laugh a lot at what he thinks.

[DarthTofu]

Good God people! Get off the "oh no, the world is doomed. We've screwed up Mother Nature" bit. Yes, outright pollution is very bad, but all this crap about the temperatures bit is like a run away stage coach. If you compare how long humans have been recording world temps over the lifetime of the planet, it's like "a blink of an eye". Then take that "blink of an eye" data and extrapolate the future temperatures of the world for the next hundred years? Doom! Doom! Doom! Give me a break! Go invent a time machine that get some good solid reasonable data to use. Hell, 30+ years ago it was the opposite, "the world if freezing". There were plans to "dust" the polar ice caps with ash so they would absorb more sunlight so they would melt! Now, it's the opposite. In another 30 years, it'll be back to freezing!

 

 

Not to go giving the dessenting opinions, here, but we watched An Inconvenient Truth in my Chem class today, and as a result I got some of the data Gore is dishing out. While the movie is full of propoganda (Look, my son got hit by a car! And I cared! Therfor I'm right!) it did make some points. Apparently the samples of air taken from Antarctica in the form of frozen ice core samples can allow scientists to determine the age of that air, the composition of the air (obviously), and (I'm not sure that I believe this) the temperature at the time that air was frozen, based on some rather complex stuff that my really-wanting-to-go-to-sleep-now-because-of-Gore's-voice mind didn't bother to remember. He showed a graph stretching back something in the order of six billion years that showed CO2 levels and temperature levels. Each spike in CO2 coincided just about perfectly with a spike in temperature. The two were almost like puzzle pieces fitting together. Granted, the data is coming from a highly biased source. All sources were, as stated by Gore, friends of his.

 

On the matter, though, all I can say is this: What is the end result? If we take steps to combat what we think are the causes of global warming, what happens? We reduce CO2 emmissions and do considerably more research into alternative energy. Is this really such a bad thing, regardless of what you may think of its existance?

[PsychoInfiltrator]

Exactly, Tofu, exactly.

[DarthTofu]

Exactly, Tofu, exactly.

 

You're agreeing with me. In these parts of the web that's considered blasphemy of the first order. Just thought you should know. Tex will probably show up to shoot you for it relatively soon, assuming that nobody makes any particularly Stupid Jokes along the way.

 

(For an explanation of that panel click here )

[Darth_Rob]

It would be great if cars could run on water.

[Evaders99]

We are doing lots of research on alternative energy, alternative fuels, fuel consumption, etc. Just look at the whole movement for ethanol (which isn't particularly Earth-friendly when you consider the energy it actually requires to create it), electric-fuel hybrids, etc.

 

However, by-and-large, our economy runs on cars and oil. You don't change society in a day, unless you tell them what to drive, how to do spent their money, what to do with their consumption. Further, we progress by using such technology to innovate and come up with better and better solutions. You don't make limits on progress that you cannot handle - I read something recently that implied none of the European countries are actually on-target for the restrictions of the Kyoto Treaty.

 

I read also that 20% of methane added to the air is produced by cows. Do we tell farmers that they can only raise X number of cows? And consumers of steak that they can only have X limit of steaks?

 

You say we need to move off coal, oil, etc now - but how do we do that? Do you tell people they can't use cars? That they can't run their heaters?

 

One solution I believe is nuclear power. It is clean, efficient, and less waste than others. But environmentals are too fearful of nuclear reactions.. but nuclear power has one the safest track records. If we actually started building more nuclear reactors in the US, we can get off of coal and other power sources within a decade.

 

We can protect our environment without going through some "doom and gloom" scenario that is unproven. We can let scientists and engineers come up solutions, not use environmentalism as a political platform to stop such progress. Global warming has just become a poster child for people to blame humanity for all the world's problems. The Earth has survived higher temperatures, even through a number of global cataclysm. We don't have the long range knowledge and research to say this isn't another cycle, whether this is truly human-created warming, and to what effects this may have. Some scientists even disagree with global warming - saying that increase in "greenhouse gases" will cause a global cooling. Science can be all hype and no validity (like eugenics .. we had scientists and politicians and the world believing in it). We need to take the long term approach and do the research, work on the innovations, and not get stuck in this mentality that all we have to do is enact government regulations to simply solve the problem.

[DarthTofu]

As I've said before: Regardless of why we start looking more closely at alternative energy programs, isn't it still a good thing? I don't agree with Muslems on why they give to charities (One of the five pillars of Islam) but I do not by any means oppose this charity.

 

I'm really hoping we can get hydrogen powered cars going sometime soon. Too bad hydrogen presently costs more than gas, and biodiesal (sp?) gives you the munchies right away, making America that much fatter.

[JediHunter]

It would be great if cars could run on water.

Believe it or not, I was working on such a project my last semester in college. I looked into designing such a vehicle, which could just be pumped full of water. The problem with hydrogen fueled cars is that hydrogen is VERY explosive and such a solution to the problem of transportation of such a dangerous gas would be just what you said.. fuel cars off water, let them make it into hydrogen for their fuel cells.... problem is.. its not quite feasible. There are too many efficiency drains in the cycle. And the car would basically have to be a hybrid.. but with technological advances, it could happen someday...

 

One solution I believe is nuclear power. It is clean, efficient, and less waste than others. But environmentals are too fearful of nuclear reactions..

E... I think you are forgetting the probelm of "Nuclear Waste". The problem isnt that people are afraid of only nuclear meltdowns, they are also scared of where the waste would go and what we would do with it... our current solution of burying the waste scares too many people, and has caused too many problems.. people are afraid of becoming the perfect nuclear family... literally.. hahaha..

Edited February 12, 2007 by JediHunter

[DarthTex]

... I'm really hoping we can get hydrogen powered cars going sometime soon. Too bad hydrogen presently costs more than gas, ...

Another problem for hydrogen ... fuel storage in the vehicle ... remember the Hindenburg! The number of fatalities due to car accidents would skyrocket! Electric vehicles are the way to go; there just needs to be an infrastructure to support it, and some way to get rapid recharges or rapid battery swaps. Of course all of the increased electrical use would have to be generated by fusion power. Of course that's proving to be a bit elusive too, although it is "clean" power (there are no highly radioactive wastes).

[Mitth_raw_nuruodo]

Exactly, Tofu, exactly.

You God-forsaken, mother-flippin', mindless, brain-dead, nincompoop! YOU have now doomed us all to the depths of hell!!!

 

Anyway, what about geothermal power? I don't know if it would be feasable to use it for cars, but what sort of research has been done concerning using the earth's "power" to give us electricity?