State of Union

What will it take before Congress puts aside its partisanship and starts thinking about the energy needs of the country?

Bush's speech will mean absolutely nothing until Republicans and Democrats start putting the people ahead of their own lust for power and money.

Ken

 

I'm not a big Bush fan to say the very least ,but I am willing to give him a chance. If he comes up with a real comprehensive energy plan, one that does more then just say use more ethanol, and oh yeah, in 30 years or so we will use hydrogen, I'll be willing to back it. My feeling is Bush will come up with a very mild plan that includes drilling in ANWAR as the centerpiece. Unfortunately this is a non-starter for most dems.

To be honest, if I were a senator or representative, I'd be willing to piss of my base and drill ANWAR if and ONLY if it were part of a true 21st centrury plan to significantly decrease the amount of energy we use across most sectors of the US economy. Something similar to John Kerry's Manhattan Project for energy.

I just don't think that anything substantial will come out of Bush's speech.

Peace,
Cosmo

 

I am not a fan of BS wars either, but I support our war against terror and look forward to neutralizing Iran's nuclear capabilities b4 they become real. I also am grateful Hamas won - there is now no middle ground - either you support terror/death or peace.

I would drill anywhere and everywhere possible locally as part of an overall master plan. I favor developing coal shale technology and nuclear power (like our european breatheren)

I think President Bush will however be very neutral tonight - nothing big - he is just going to let the Democrats (my home party) keep shooting themselves in the foot...

hoping they will filibuster Ailito..
hoping they continue to support the rights of terrorists over American citizens..
hoping they continue to rally against the country wiretapping terrorists phone calls.
hoping the nomicate Hilary.. (we in NY would not mind getting rid of her either)

simply amazing seeing the Democrats keep misfiring

BTW - I have not seen one nationalized health care system work. would you trust the government with your health when they cant even deliver your mail??

 

must not get into political debate, must not get into political debate, must not...
AARGH, the pain, will go back to work and ignore this post for a while :lol:

 

That is extremely naive to think the world is polarizing around you... and dangerous.

Hamas may have the destruction of Israel as its party line, but what they don't tell you is that it won because the other party, Fatah, was incredibly corrupt and could not provide the services that are necessary for the Palestinians.

Hamas, on one hand, is looking out for their people's basic necessities in infrastructure, but on the other hand, they are opposed to our allies... What do you do?

Bush's stance so far has been to call them a terrorist state, and to threaten to cut off ties. is that smart?

 

The government used to deliver the mail just fine till they made a private corporation out of the post office.

 

Whoa. Breathing. Deep breath...

Hamas is a terror organization, is it not? The EU recognizes it as such too - hence the hard line talk from even Germany yesterday.

"They may have the destruction of Israel as its party line" - what makes you think it doesn't? Just read their charter. So you would support them because they promise to provide infrastructure - and I would argue that too - what infrastructure, and why now, and how? Unless you consider dynamite belts as infrastructure, not much else they can do.

They are opposed to our allie? There is a LITTLE difference between being opposed to Israel vs. wanting to destroy it - is there not?? They can always renounce their charter, something they have refused to do as recently as yesterday. Instead they called on Israel to change its flag - what do you think about that??

This is exactly what I meant about Hamas election victory - the first time a election has promoted death and destruction over peace - offering a very black and white view of the situation there. At least Fatah, which was a terror organization that killed innocent civilians, tried to hide their views and actions whereas Hamas makes no such attempt.

Don't let your hate for President Bush (or Israel if it exists) overwhelm your other senses. He is not alone in not supporting Hamas - my hope would be that ALL other sensible parties/people would not support an organization that has murder as its central theme and existance - no matter what infrastructure improvements it might make for the Palestinians.

BTW - there were other parties to vote for besides Hamas - they (Palestinians) chose and spoke - and now they will face the consequences of their decision. If it is now STATE SPONSORED terror (or now better defined as WAR) they want, so be it. At least the world can not berate Israel for defending itself no matter how it chooses to do so.

BTW - do you think that Iran should be allowed to develop nuclear power/weapons?

 

I agree!

 

Oh boy, I can't wait to hear what he has to say! I wonder what he'll use this time to try and distract us from how badly he's screwed up everything else. 41% approval rating. His let-them-eat-cake attitude notwithstanding I'd say that this state of the union address ought to be very funny. Let's all get drunk while we watch and do an MST3K number on it.

 

"Burp .... he's got a pimple"

"No he doesn't ... burp"

"Glug glug glug ... yeah he does ... BELCH"

"Did you eat my slice of pizza? Idiot ... burp"

 

:lol: "He's lying"
"How can you tell?"
"His lips are moving"
"No, Cheney's lips are moving"
"I need to move my lips to another longneck"
"You just rent beer. And ham."

 

If Iran were serious about using their technology just for nuclear energy, that is fair. Nuclear power is an important technology for developing countries... but they have since taken a questionable stance... Russia offered to provide them with already refined fuel to give them a head start and to avoid the possibility of them developing a weapon, but they declined to accept this... seemingly pointing toward a nuclear weapon as an ulterior motive.

Remember that diplomacy is more that just stick... it's also about the carrot.

Don't try to paint me as some kind of apologist for the axis of evil. I'm just disagreeing with your assesment that this makes the world black and white. There are still complicated factors at hand here that you just say "oh.. well now it's clear who we have to blow to hell.... the palestinians..."

I hate black and white views of the world. There's always more going on than you understand, and you can't label people as good or evil so quickly based on your biased view of the world.

 

Ok, I'ts lunchtime, so I can spend some time adding my two cents.

On the Hamas situation, I'm slowly coming the view that their election may not be a complete catastophy. The two main daily papers in Israel are Ha'aretz, which tends to be a bit more liberal, and The Jerusalem Post, which tends to be a bit more conservative. JPost seems to actually be looking at the bright side of this election. The theory goes that during Fatah's leadership, Hamas was able to continue suicide bombings with impunity, since they weren't part of the government. Fatah could close one eye to Hamas' actions, and say "Golly, we can't do anything about Hamas, we just aren't powerful enough to reign in the militants". This was a win win situation for the PA. They could keep the veneer of a civilized government that wants peace, and at the same time allow Hamas to keep pressure on Israel via terrorist attacks.

Now that Hamas IS the goverment, the PA does not have that luxury anymore. If Hamas still sponsors terrorist attacks in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, that will be seen as an act of war against Israel. The US, Europe and Japan will pull all funding for the PA, and they will immediately be in an over one billion dollar hole. Any Arab nation that attempts to pick up the slack will be labled as a terrorist supporting state.

This means that Hamas, no matter what they say, will not be able to pursue any course that actively attacks Israel, leaving Israel to pursue it's own unilateral course dealing with the Palestinian state. My personal feeling is that Kadema should continue to build the wall between Israel and the territories, and continue its slow and measured withdrawl from most of the Palestinian dominated areas of the west bank, untill a reasonable partner for peace arises, in which case bilateral negotiation should continue.

Of course this entire analysis depends on Hamas actually being rational, and most religious extremist of any religion, not just Islam, tend to be a few cards short of a full deck if you know what I mean. They very well may continue attacking Israel, in which case things may spiral out of control; very dangerous for the entire world, not just the region.

That being said, I just realized this isn't really the forum for such banter.

Peace,
Cosmo

 

Agree with you on all accounts:

Israel will continue unilaterally defining and defending its borders. It will complete the "wall" and isolate itself from its neighbors. It will force the Palestinians to make do for themselves

Any act of terror by Hamas will be a declaration of war and will allow Israel to legally defend itself in whatever way it determines as best.

And, this is the wrong forum for this discussion.

 

Yeah. This should be in FHOP.

 

Since our VP has said the following I highly doubt we will see an impressive energy policy to take us away from oil.

I find this quote very telling of how important softie issues like the environment are to our leaders.