State of the Union

anyone else watching this??



Rock on...
Kevin

I wanna be with you forever, and tomorrows not too late...

"Beware the fury of a patient man" ~John Dryden

fuckk no

Watched it.

Nothing stupendous but not horrific.

Enjoyed his rhetoric about Iran and Hamas.

Very much enjoyed his comment about America's "addiction to oil," and the measures he's proposing to develop alternative energies. Not enough for me, but more than I expected.

Very very much enjoyed his insistance for reform for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and was appalled at the Liberals and their sarcastic applause at the fact that they voted not to do anything about it last year. Reform isn't going to buy them any votes now but when this country is floundering in 20-30 years because of their inaction in this regard it will fall squarely on their shoulders.

Not keen on his "marriage" spiel but it's far from a big concern for me. Not keen on his anti-stem cell spiel but it's not a number one concern for me, either.

-Mike





Go listen to my band. We're awesome.

http://www.myspace.com/rosencrantzny
weallgotwoodandnails

interesting that he said nothing about floundering Ford and GM--mainstays of the US economy. Im sure the govt will help bail them out.


(honestly..I was switching back and forth b/t the Isles game and the address)

Shallow talk from a shallow man.
Not just him, but mostly all politicians will say what they think people want to hear, and most people will take that lip service for fact, then only realize far too late that none of the talk came to be.

Propoganda 101

I just think he's doing anything to save some sort of credibility now. I just hope he doesn't try to do anything in Iran without UN backing this time. We've already pissed off most of our friends in some way or another with this war that we should have never been a part of in the first place. Oh well, if we could just get a moderate in there, not some crazy liberal like Kerry and not some psychopathic conservative like Bush. Someone down the middle would be great.



~Kevin~

McCain in '08.

-Mike





Go listen to my band. We're awesome.

http://www.myspace.com/rosencrantzny
weallgotwoodandnails

By the way, Dubya is more than credible with a huge segment of this population.

-Mike



Post Edited (02-01-06 14:00)



Go listen to my band. We're awesome.

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weallgotwoodandnails

slightly more than 50 percent of the voting public, which is about 50 percent of the actual public. On record, that makes it about 26 percent in his favor. And that's discounting voting tampering and other corruptions yet to come to light.

Your math is weak.

-Mike



Post Edited (02-01-06 15:00)



Go listen to my band. We're awesome.

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weallgotwoodandnails

I thought it was a good speech and I don't normaly agree with him. I am not American and I live in the UK so maybe my opionon differs from yours slightly.

quite possible ol chap

I too enjoyed his bit about our "addiction to oil" and how ethynol is his proposed solution, when really ethynol is no more energy efficient than gas is, the government just subsidizes the hell out of it to make it worth it. Granted, it doesn't pollute as much but it'll still be far more expensive than oil for quite some time, ruling it out as a solution. I also liked how he danced around ANWR, citing we need to become independent but only alluding as to how....way to dance around the issues Dubya



Rock on...
Kevin

I wanna be with you forever, and tomorrows not too late...

"Beware the fury of a patient man" ~John Dryden

The point isn't energy efficiency in that regard but in getting us out of the Middle East to let those people do whatever they hell they're going to do and leaving ourselves out of it since we'll not have an interest there anymore.

ANWR is a stupid issue if you ask me. If you're (not meaning you) are going to piss and moan about the U.S. being too involved in the Middle East over oil, then you HAVE to allow our country to make use of our own oil supplies, caribou be damned.

What Dubya NEEDED to say was, "OK, here's the problem. This country uses too much God damned oil and it needs to stop. We're mired in the Middle East because of it, they don't want us there and we don't want to be there anymore. Therefore we're announcing a new Manhattan Project and we're going to dedicate BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars towards developing an engine that runs on sea water/corn syrup/embryonic stem cells or whatever. The oil industry's going to take a hit, including my pals at Haliburton. It's going to be a little rough for us as we make the transition. But it has to happen or this country's going to collapse under the weight of this problem."

Didn't say it, though. He's dedicating too little to it. We don't need to be off of oil in 20 years, we need to be off of oil now. But let's be frank. Given how disgusting partisanship is in the country, to the point that these piece of **** democrats will applaud the fact that they did nothing about Social Security, it wouldn't matter whether he really shift away from oil, the Democrats would still lambast him.

-Mike





Go listen to my band. We're awesome.

http://www.myspace.com/rosencrantzny
weallgotwoodandnails

yea, i'm taking an environmental science class right now and your arguement seems to be the general concensus among the majority of people i've talked to, i gotta say that i agree that he needs to commit WAY more money to the development new technology to even make a dent.

and partisianship is disgusting in every sense of the word



Rock on...
Kevin

I wanna be with you forever, and tomorrows not too late...

"Beware the fury of a patient man" ~John Dryden

We should all just move to iceland. Those people have it figured out.



---Anyone perfect must be lying, anything easy has its cost, Anyone plain can be lovely, anyone loved can be lost, What if I lost my direction? What if I lost sense of time? What if I nursed this infection? Maybe the worst is behind---

We have to remember though that the President isn't the only person in this government. It is VERY easy to demonize one man for what's going on or what isn't going on when there are two houses of Congress that are either backing him, giving him power or are preventing him from doing things.

Given the fact that Congress has to approve his spending proposals, it hinges on them as to how much money is actually put towards anything, and with both parties more interesting and making the opposition look illegitimate, the actual needs of the country take a back seat..

-Mike





Go listen to my band. We're awesome.

http://www.myspace.com/rosencrantzny
weallgotwoodandnails

I think this whole government is out of touch with the people, eventually we will fall behind China and no longer be a super power, it's only a matter of time if we don't do something now. We need to start planning for the future and forget this me, me, me mentality.



~Kevin~

Well trying to do something before we fall behind China IS a me, me, me mentality, isn't it?

-Mike





Go listen to my band. We're awesome.

http://www.myspace.com/rosencrantzny
weallgotwoodandnails

Why do you people think it ought to be the position of government to spend my money to do scientific research? I'm fine filling up my own car for $20 dollars a week, thanks very much.

Because it is the duty of the government to protect its citizens. What happens when you're filling up for $40 a week? $60 a week?

Not to mention that oil fuels our entire industry. As transportation costs go up, so does the price of everything you buy while your salary doesn't. When companies spend more money heating their offices they spend less money on research and development.

Not to mention the fact that as we continue to rely on shady sources for oil we continue to be a target for some zany folks and their bombs.

-Mike





Go listen to my band. We're awesome.

http://www.myspace.com/rosencrantzny
weallgotwoodandnails

You're exactly right that it is the government's duty to protect its citizens, which is why I am dismally failing to understand why the solution is for Nanny to sweep in and collect money from everyone, willing or not, to support potentially fruitless research on alternative energy sources. As even the most casual of observers can attest, there's far too much frivolous spending already - and for the record, the next cost-effective energy suggestion I hear will be the first.

To be quite honest, I can afford to spend $40 or $60 a fill right now, I'd simply have to cut down on my rate of savings or on other things I don't need. The premise of my salary remaining the same while these worldwide costs inflate belies any presumption of objectivity in the discussion.

As long as the two of us - or any others, for that matter - are able to have a discussion like this, we will continue to be the target of the 'zany folks' you speak of, because it is this liberty that is the bane of their existence.

If this abstract panacean solution that thrives and festers in the minds of detractors ever became clear, it would cease being a political issue and become one of practicality. Until then, serve me another helping of the status quo.

The idea is to not increase taxation to look into an alternative fuel source but to use money that's being wasted now (see: the drug war, fiscal aid to corrupt third-world regimes, building dams on dry riverbeds) and putting it towards something that is very practical and important, which is cutting our reliance on oil not just from the Middle East but from a world that's seeing China use more and more of it every day, inflating the prices higher than they have ever been and leading to their dominance of a global marketplace that we're lagging in.

You're not just spending $40 to fill up your gas tank. You're spending that money on plastic wrap for left-overs, too, and the tires your car gets around on, and the bins you use to keep your Christmas ornaments in.

I find it impossible to believe that a country that flew to the moon nearly half a century ago can't find something else to burn, and I do believe that the thing holding it back is an oil industry that makes billions or dollars and has Washington in its pocket. I'd do the same thing if I were then, since my livelihood would reside in the thriving of my industry.

However, the livelihood of this country resides in finding something else to fuel ourselves. This world went from burning wood to burning coal to burning oil. There's no reason it can't go from burning oil to burning corn husks or hydrogen cells if the money would be put into the proper place.

And in regards to your paycheck, I am as staunch an opponent of frivolous taxation as there is. But "potentially frivolous spending" has also lead to your vaccinations, your stealth bombers and your railroads.

-Mike





Go listen to my band. We're awesome.

http://www.myspace.com/rosencrantzny
weallgotwoodandnails

I'm glad that we have been able to establish the existence of frivolous spending in government. With the savings, you've advocated topping up the alternative energy research department, which is in stark contradistinction to my nomination of returning the money to whence it came - lining all of our individual pockets.

While it is relatively high when judged against recent times, the real price of oil, not the nominal price, is certainly not the highest that it's ever been. For those that can't accept this logic, start another thread about how the price of a Hershey candy bar, a Coca-Cola, a pair of jeans, or the cost of labor is the higher than it's ever been.

While we're on the topic of dispelling myths, I challenge anyone to find a more heavily regulated industry than oil. (Wal-Mart doesn't count.) The notion that oil companies have Washington in their back pocket is immediately nullified the instant one turns down the volume on CNN and starts reading about the hoops that these companies have to jump through while attempting to conduct their own business. Government panders to special interest groups that require them to limit where, when, why, and how much drilling, refining, and exploring can be done in the oil industry. There hasn't been a new oil refinery built in this country in almost double my lifetime - and it isn't due to apathy on the part of oil companies.

For every gallon of gasoline you pump into your car at current prices, government makes approximately 4? times the profit as the companies that harvested, refined, marketed, and distributed the product to you.

There may well be another fuel lying in the subconsciousness of some brilliant mind out there. If there is, I can guarantee you that in the majestic marketplace of this country, he or she who harbors the idea will be able to exploit it for their own financial reward. Therein lies the difference between our arguments: from what I gather, you'd sooner have government taking the place of the entreprenurial spirit of the people in this context.

Given the fact that alternative fuels are known about, be it in the form of ethanol or hydrogen cells, the thing that's holding it back isn't the entrepenurial spirit of the individual but the fact that an individual just doesn't have the monetary means of refining it to the point that it's affordble. That's where the government can help.

I'm not a big government advocate in most cases, but this isn't simply a matter of coming up with cheap fuel. It's a matter of getting U.S. interests out of a region that houses people that want to kill us and will be able to rationalize it as long as we're there, and the only reason we are there is because we need fuel. Because of that we naturally wind up getting tangled up in things over there we wouldn't get involved in otherwise. If we don't have an interest in the region's resources we can let it go to hell the same we do with Africa.

-Mike





Go listen to my band. We're awesome.

http://www.myspace.com/rosencrantzny
weallgotwoodandnails

Message deleted on 2015-09-05 06:30:16 PDT

You have a king, right?

-Mike





Go listen to my band. We're awesome.

http://www.myspace.com/rosencrantzny
weallgotwoodandnails

Message deleted on 2015-09-05 06:30:16 PDT

Do they really dance?

-Mike





Go listen to my band. We're awesome.

http://www.myspace.com/rosencrantzny
weallgotwoodandnails

Message deleted on 2015-09-05 06:30:16 PDT