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 pìššëd øff 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 áššhølë.”
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 áššëš. When are they gonna realize they have to GET OFF THEIR ÃSSÊS 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 ÃSSÊS!
9:44: I have NEVER seen a president look THAT PÍSSÊÐ ØFF 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 hëll 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.
• 
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 pìššëd 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. Ðámņ 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
thanks that was amusing
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 áššhølë thing to say.
I should like to see it???
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 & Bûŧŧhëád 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:
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/13767738.htm?source=rss&channel=krwashington_nation
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 Ðìçk’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