Bush didn't really mean we were going to try and reduce our dependency on Middle East oil.
Bush didn't really mean we were going to invest more in alternative energy research.
In this thread, I've got Bush apologists trying to tell me he didn't really mean that he was going to prohibit a wide range of reproductive biotechnologies.
Now look at this analysis. Bush apparently proposed to increase the numbers of math and science teachers by 70,000 over four years. But what he actually seems to have meant was retraining 70,000 existing teachers, but without saying anything about ever paying for it.
Did he say anything in that speech that was actually true? I'm beginning to suspect that if he started by saying, "My fellow Americans…," that it might be fruitful to check into the INS records and see if he actually is a citizen.
I am certain now that the media stuck the label "serial exaggerator" on the wrong man in the 2000 election.
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For the records, my sources tell me he was totally serious about that no half man/half monkey creature thing.
He's 100% against girly-men also.
No, wait, my bad, wrong politician.
Welcome to Moonside!
For the sake of equal time... did Clinton and his administration ever do so much backtracking and lying in the State of the Union?
That is bad enough, but this is worse: found on Cosmic Variance:
If Bush were serious about science, he could retract his endorsement of teaaching of Intelligent Design creationism. He could order his entire administration to stop censoring and distorting science, and stacking advisory panels with ideologues instead of legitimate scientists. He could ask his religious conservative buddies who are making it rich off tac cuts to donate their money to real science education instead of funding religious think tanks who are out to destroy science.
Think he'll do any of those things?
Heh. Reminds me of John Howard's "non-core promises".
Apparently Bush is serious about not running out of science, for what it's worth.
"I am certain now that the media stuck the label "serial exaggerator" on the wrong man in the 2000 election."
Funny you should say that, given that possibly the most infuriating black-is-white moment of the 2000 election was when Gore was accused of lying when he pointed out that Bush's budget numbers were complete bullshit.
Ginger Yellow: I almost died then. Everything done to Gore in that election was such junk...a preview of what was to come, sadly.
Is there anyone outside his natural 10% constituency of the super-rich who think Bush is doing a good job?
"I am certain now that the media stuck the label "serial exaggerator" on the wrong man in the 2000 election."
Just dawned on you?
Morris must be a LONG way off.
No real surprise here, but this one won't make the front page
What dependency on Middle East oil would that be?
We produce about half (a little less) of our own, and our principal suppliers are Canada, Mexico, Venezuela and Nigeria.
Is there anyone outside his natural 10% constituency of the super-rich who think Bush is doing a good job?
Just the other 90% of his constituency who like him 'cause he's a good Christian man who they'd like to have a beer with. When he's not busy blowdin' up them brown, non-Christian people, that is.
I would not underestimate the overlap between the fundies and the superrich. Torture Jesus long enough and he'll say anything you need to assuage your conscience. I dimly recall many years ago reading a story about an oil executive who, when confronted with the fact that oil would eventually run out and it would take millions of years to produce more, confessed that firstly the world was less than ten thousand years old and so the latter could not be true and then secondly that the former did not matter as the world was due to end in his lifetime.
Of course the ultrarich will gladly drive their teenage daughters to the abortion, but then again ordinary fundies have been known to do that too. As have prominent pro-life congresscritters.
"Is there anyone outside his natural 10% constituency of the super-rich who think Bush is doing a good job?"
I make $22k year as an intelligence analyst for the Army, and the question you should be asking is the media doing a good job. The reality you've spun for yourselves is patently ridiculous. There needs to be way to quickly declassify material, or at least, 'get the gist of it' out to the public. There are so many elements of "popular knowledge" in the liberal arena as well that you have twisted, taken as "facts", and ran ten thousand miles with them, leaving you with little moral authority to point out people's religious beliefs as lies, and attack the credibility of the President. We live more in a world of perceptions than facts. Don't think facts are so great when there are so few that can be clearly identified.. especially in politics.
Ah yes, that would be Anonymous Internet Wingnut Cliche #31: "I work in intelligence, and let me tell you that if only you were allowed to know the things that I know, you would be on your knees every night thanking the Lord that Bush is president."
I've lost count of the number of times I've seen this one.
$22K a year seems a bit low for an "intelligence analyst". OTOH, considering the quality of intelligence this administration uses, perhaps they're getting what they pay for.
Hmm, maybe they're being overcharged at that.
It's not that we don't need better math and science teachers, but in the United States the federal government doesn't have that much to do with education. If the states can't afford to pay teachers competitive salaries, our kids get stuck with a mix of dimwits and altruists.
We know we get what we pay for, but our government entices us with tax reductions, and we wake up the morning after with a deficit and nothing to show for it.
Anyone professing shock at our faith-based economics has at best not been paying attention.
@Harry: The middle east has the largest oil deposits in the world and therefore controls the oil market and the price of oil. Until our economy stops depending on large quantities of imported oil, we will be dependant on their production of it.
Actually Canada has larger deposits than anywhere else, probably (since Saudi Arabia is widely known to have been fudging their figures for years). They're just hard to extract (tar sands and oil shale).
If the price of oil goes over $150 a barrel, the Canadian sands suddenly become worth it, and Bush will of course take the credit.
"Don't think facts are so great when there are so few that can be clearly identified.. especially in politics."
Fact: Despite being warned by PDBs and allies around the world that Bin Laden wanted to strike inside US with airplanes highlighted as possible weapon, Bush does nothing. Result: 9/11.
Fact: Bush Co uses trumped-up BS to start a war in Iraq. Result: 2200 US military dead, countless ten of thousands of Iraqi dead, $200B+ spent, Iraqi civil war, no exit for US troops.
Fact: Hurricane Katrina destroys much of New Orleans (as predicted), Bush & Co stay on vacation for days afterward, flunkies drop the rescue & recovery ball ("Heckuva job, Brownie"). Result: major US city remains destroyed, hundreds of thousands are homeless.
Just a few of the many facts that can be detailed as to the incompetency of the current regime.
I think Bush has proven that the Condi-disease is contagious.
The thing is, Bush's statement about reducing Saudi imports by 75%, along with the subsequent "clarification", isn't so bad: according to the Department of Energy, the US imports about 12% of its oil from Saudi Arabia. 75% of 12% is 9%, so we could just manage to reduce oil use by 10%, we could reduce oil imports from Saudi Arabia by 75% while keeping everything else the same.
Personally, I'd start by rolling back tax breaks for SUV buyers; counting SUV emissions in the "fleet average"; and instituting a packaging tariff (you want to buy a DVD in shrinkwrap, with three stickers, inside a box, inside shrinkwrap, inside another box? Fine, but you'll have to pay for the packaging).
Or you could drill more in Alaska and off California and western Florida.
Those with a longer view might prefer to shut down all US production, drain the Islamic world of all its oil, watch it collapse and then resume life without them.
Only $22K a year? Shit, no wonder Bush convinced himself Saddam had WMD's.
(I know elementry school teacher's assistants who make more than that.)
I hate to think what you guys are telling him about Iran and Syria now.
"Bush didn't really mean we were going to invest more in alternative energy research."
I don't see why this should be done by the governmenet. It's going to be (at least if we let them act freely and keep the government away) the oil companies anyway who're going to be the first ones to come up with an economical way to produce some sort of alternative energy.
garth:
"Is there anyone outside his natural 10% constituency of the super-rich who think Bush is doing a good job?"
The economy is fine (full employment) and Saddam is gone.
The economy is fine (full employment) and Saddam is gone.
That little deficit thing doesn't bother you?
If our "intelligence analyst" is in the Army, we can work out his rank from his claimed $22k salary. Army pay depends on both pay grade and time in service, but the highest rank someone could hold and make $22k/yr on active duty would be buck sergeant. See: http://www.defenselink.mil/militarypay/pay/bp/paytables/Jan2006_Basic_P…
That should give some indication of what amazingly high-level sooper-secret stuff about the State Of the World he'a privy to and the level of specialized knowledge he brings to his "analysis".
OTOH, if he means "for the Army", i.e., a civilian employee, he could do better working at Starbucks. Perhaps the "intelligence analysts" need to organize a union.
I don't know the statistics, but I suspect that at current consumption rates, the oil from AK, CA & FL would probably be totally sucked up in just a couple years.
The USA may be God's Favoritest Country, but He sure didn't give us the oil as a reward. Based just on oil deposits, God is a Moslem.
Of course they have a solid commitment to alternative energy discoveries. That's why they announced a projected layoff of about 100 staff members at NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO) last Dec as well as steep cuts to the biomass energy, wind, solar and hydrogen fuel research programs.
http://denverpostbloghouse.com/washington/?p=380
Pretty Orwellian, eh?
At most, 39-42% of Americans think Bush is doing a great job:
http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm
What the hell is going on down there? I mean: here in the Great White North, we had a ruling party that was doing at least a medium-competent job -- yeah, they neglected the military and screwed up a few other things, but the economy is up, they balanced the budget AND started retiring the national debt WITHOUT drastically gutting social programs. Then they get hit with a kick-back scandal -- and the electorate pastes them for it. Bye-bye, jerks: come back when you've cleaned up your act. Maybe.
Meanwhile, south of the border, the Chief Loon spends like a compulsive shopper with waaay too many credit cards, starts the proverbial Land War In Asia, lies every time he opens his mouth -- and gets re-elected?
Is there a national psychosis down there, or what?
"I make $22k year as an intelligence analyst for the Army"
Which makes him a 96B20 most likely...
I make $22k year as an intelligence analyst for the Army, and the question you should be asking is the media doing a good job. The reality you've spun for yourselves is patently ridiculous.
What's that make you, an E-4, maybe an E-5?
Did it ever occur to you that, with the universe of information readily available in the open literature -- much of easily accessible through this here internet thingy -- the "intelligence analyst" title is about as awe-inspiring as, say, "university librarian"? In fact, if I harken back to my own brief experience of some national intelligence facilities (Ft. Meade, the DIA, the Nat'l Maritime Intel Center in Suitland, MD), the librarian probably knows a lot more, because h/she doesn't have to put up with all the "need to know" compartmentalization horseshit.
Finally, your post wasn't even very coherent. Are your intelligence assessments equally muddled and hard to parse?
Oooh! As long as we're cataloging Anonymous Internet Wingnut Cliches, may I add one? #47: The wingnut who declares that the reason 'liberals' and the 'Democrat Party' never win elections is because of reasons X, Y, & Z, and who then proceeds to detail just what 'the Left' has to do to start winning elections. You know, this whole patronizing routine where said wingnut demonstrates that he really does want to help Democrats and liberals, really, just follow my advice. Needless to say, the advice always entails a lot of fuzzy cliched generalities plus policy changes that would result in the Democratic party becoming basically identical to the Republicans.
Every wingnut that does this routine seems to think it's very clever and that they're the first one to think of it.
Dave in Livonia:
"Fact: Bush Co uses trumped-up BS to start a war in Iraq. Result: 2200 US military dead, countless ten of thousands of Iraqi dead, $200B+ spent, Iraqi civil war, no exit for US troops."
The war that was supported by countless Democrats too and that even Bill Clinton would have started? Wasn't it Al Gore who was more into nation building than George Bush during the campaign?
Potential success in Iraq is in every way worth the price.
"Result: major US city remains destroyed, hundreds of thousands are homeless."
Hardly Bush's fault.
Now if only I can get used to calling them "wing butts" ...
(I notice you avoided my query about whether you thought the Bush deficit was a bad thing.)
Okay, (a) The war was STARTED by Bush, not the Democrats; (b) there is no reason to think Gore would have invaded Iraq, nor DID Clinton start it; (c) America was lied to repeatedly about the reasons for the war, which is the only reason all those Democrats signed on; (d) the ultimate cost of the war is now predicted to be at least half a trillion dollars; (e) 'potential success'? A civil war with no end in sight, the country split in three, Baghdad run by Shiite clerics cozy with Iran, women's rights much worse than they were before, Christians leaving Iraq in droves, an Iraqi mortality rate still much higher than before the war, an economy in a shambles, and oil production still a fraction of what it was in the 90's, due to sabotage. Was that all worth half a trillion dollars (and counting) of other countries' money to you?
Wasn't it Al Gore who was more into nation building than George Bush during the campaign?
Probably because he knew what NOT to do.
Potential success in Iraq is in every way worth the price.
Even if there were ways to have done it more effectively, more cheaply and with less loss of life?
Don't be so glib.
George, you're confusing total consumption with replacing the small amount we get from the Middle East.
We could insulate ourselves totally from the Middle East (though not from Muslim crazies; Indonesia is a supplier) if we wanted to, and without parking even one SUV.
It just depends on your priorities.
If the professor were to think it through, he might prefer that we really were dependent on Middle East oil. Then we might have behaved more like the Europeans, who are, and kowtow to the demands of the sheikhs. (Or did until a few months ago; the scales started falling from their eyes with the London bombings; now Chirac is threatening to nuke Iran.)
Practically everything about oil is counterintuitive, but one thing we're sure of: there's plenty of it.
I was discussing Hubbert's Peak yesterday with a friend who was a major player in the early '70s in strategic oil planning. "We all believed absolutely in Hubbert," he recalled.
"There was no way oil was not going to $80, even $100 a barrel by 1980. All our investments were based on that.
"A lot of companies went broke."
OTOH, if he means "for the Army", i.e., a civilian employee,...
... he/she would be on the GS scale. As you can see from this table, a GS-4 step 1 makes $22,500 (without locality adjustments). Where I work, the file clerks are GS-4s and the secretaries are GS-5s.
So either our correspondent is lying and threw that factoid out here without checking it, or he/she is doing menial work in an intelligence office that doesn't quite rise to the level of "analyst".
George:
"(I notice you avoided my query about whether you thought the Bush deficit was a bad thing.)"
Because at the moment the budget deficit is not a problem. It can be fixed when needed. The American economy can sustain quite high deficits.
"(a) The war was STARTED by Bush, not the Democrats;"
Was it? The president can't do a thing without an approval from the Congress. How many Democrats voted against it? A few.
"(b) there is no reason to think Gore would have invaded Iraq, nor DID Clinton start it;"
Iraq was a logical continuation of the war on terror (although not linked to terrorism) and there's no doubt that Gore & Clinton would have done it almost the same way as Bush.
"America was lied to repeatedly about the reasons for the war, which is the only reason all those Democrats signed on;"
The American public should have been more aware of the nature of the facts presented by the administration - I was. Only an idiot would have supported the war because of the WMD claims.
"A civil war with no end in sight"
There will be one if you withdraw now, there could have been one if you had let Saddam go the natural way.
"the country split in three"
Should have been from the beginning.
"Baghdad run by Shiite clerics cozy with Iran"
That's not a good thing but at least they were elected.
"an Iraqi mortality rate still much higher than before the war"
At least you got rid off the sanctions which killed 90 000 a year.
"an economy in a shambles"
Improving rapidly.
"and oil production still a fraction of what it was in the 90's, due to sabotage."
A fraction? It's almost at the prewar level.
"Was that all worth half a trillion dollars (and counting) of other countries' money to you?"
Getting rid off UN sanctions and Saddam Hussein - yes.
I make $22k year as an intelligence analyst for the Army, and the question you should be asking is the media doing a good job. The reality you've spun for yourselves is patently ridiculous. There needs to be way to quickly declassify material, or at least, 'get the gist of it' out to the public.
PZ, check his IP, and send an email to the appropriate person at his agency, telling him he broke protocol by discussing something he shouldn't have.
The war that was supported by countless Democrats too and that even Bill Clinton would have started? Wasn't it Al Gore who was more into nation building than George Bush during the campaign?
That's exactly why I always call bullshit on the Democrats-will-save-the-world-from-the-GOP crowd. I've hated John Kerry since I first heard his name back in late 2002 because he's a Republican-lite shill; the one time I saw him speak on TV, I was revulsed. If I were an American, I wouldn't have voted for him - in fact, you can psychologize my belief that Roe vs. Wade will not be reversed as a rationalization of that decision.
Because at the moment the budget deficit is not a problem. It can be fixed when needed. The American economy can sustain quite high deficits.
Every economist in the world will tell you that the number one global economic problem is the American budget deficit.
Iraq was a logical continuation of the war on terror (although not linked to terrorism) and there's no doubt that Gore & Clinton would have done it almost the same way as Bush.
The war on Iraq turned Al Qaida from a fringe movement of privileged radicals into a galvanizing mass movement. Before 2003, its method of action and the composition of its members were similar to the CIA's, except that its budget was about three orders of magnitude smaller. Since 2003, the global jihadist movement it's sparked has been more like the Nazi Party of 1932, complete with grand promises and massive popular support.
There will be one if you withdraw now, there could have been one if you had let Saddam go the natural way.
If the US withdraws now, the probability of a civil war won't increase. The US will no longer be there to provide a common enemy, but there're just enough pro-Americanism among the Iraqis and schism among the anti-American Iraqis that the US presence isn't diverting terror away from Iraqi civilians. Its policing is completely ineffective anyway, so why stay?
That's not a good thing but at least they were elected.
100 bucks say they wouldn't have if the elections were free and for a real leader rather than for a subordinate of an unelected fundamentalist. Three years ago, the Iranians hated the regime; about half agreed with Bush's branding their country as part of the axis of evil. Had American foreign policy been sufficiently passive, they'd have had a color revolution by now, and by extension 60% of the population of Iraq would no longer have had a fundamentalist government to draw inspiration from. American pressure gave the regime just enough ammunition to paint the liberals as pro-American and hence evil. In every country, the conservatives tell the people that the liberals are traitors who work in tandem with the enemy's conservatives.
At least you got rid off the sanctions which killed 90 000 a year.
There was a much simpler was to get rid of them, you know. And while we're at it, that figure is overstated, and largely due to Saddam's propaganda; in 2001 the Nation stated that the real figure was 350,000 dead in total, reducing the figure to 35,000/year. Given that the occupation kills about 60,000 Iraqi civilians per year, correcting that overstatement is crucial.
"(I notice you avoided my query about whether you thought the Bush deficit was a bad thing.)"
Because at the moment the budget deficit is not a problem. It can be fixed when needed. The American economy can sustain quite high deficits.
--So, the highest deficit in US history doesn'�t change your appraisal of Bush�'s good management of the economy, because it is theoretically reversible. That kind of logic can excuse ANY kind of gross mismanagement, I hate to say.
"(a) The war was STARTED by Bush, not the Democrats;"
Was it? The president can't do a thing without an approval from the Congress. How many Democrats voted against it? A few.
--So, you�re saying that because the Democrats didn�t STOP Bush, that makes the Democrats responsible for the war. The person who INITIATED the war is somehow less responsible than the people who *couldn'�t* stop him, given that they were a minority party in Congress. What this says about your definition of culpability, I couldn�'t imagine.
"(b) there is no reason to think Gore would have invaded Iraq, nor DID Clinton start it;"
Iraq was a logical continuation of the war on terror (although not linked to terrorism) and there's no doubt that Gore & Clinton would have done it almost the same way as Bush.
--BULLSHIT. Iraq was totally unconnected to 9/11, or any other event, so how can it be an �continuation of the WOT�? (--"Iraq was a logical continuation of the war on terror (although not linked to terrorism)"... good lord.) Iraq wasn'�t threatening the world in 2001/2002 in any way that was worse than in the 1990�s, and Clinton DIDN�'T invade, so your logic that �Clinton and Gore would have done it too� makes no sense. Besides, this logic is the same as defending a criminal by saying that if circumstances had been different, other people would have committed the crime, too.
"America was lied to repeatedly about the reasons for the war, which is the only reason all those Democrats signed on;"
The American public should have been more aware of the nature of the facts presented by the administration - I was. Only an idiot would have supported the war because of the WMD claims.
--So, you�'re defending the Bush administration lying to the public and Congress by saying that it'�s the public�'s and Congress'�s fault for BELIEVING the lies. So a liar has no culpability, only the victim. Beautiful.
"A civil war with no end in sight"
There will be one if you withdraw now, there could have been one if you had let Saddam go the natural way.
--There you go with that �'could have'� argument again, that you seem to be so fond of. You seem to be very dependent in your arguments on imaginary scenarios that you try to make as concrete as the things that did happen.
--And there is one NOW, which I notice you avoid.
"Baghdad run by Shiite clerics cozy with Iran"
That's not a good thing but at least they were elected.
--The future Baghdad government is going to be very closely aligned with Tehran and very likely hostile to US interests. I'�m amazed that you seem to think this was an acceptable outcome of a multi-billion dollar operation by the US, and all the US dead and injured.
"an economy in a shambles"
Improving rapidly.
--Not rapidly, slowly, and still trashed, 3 years after the invasion.
"and oil production still a fraction of what it was in the 90's, due to sabotage."
A fraction? It's almost at the prewar level.
--Wrong. Still way below normal peacetime levels, and nowhere near paying for the war, as Bush claimed it would.
"Was that all worth half a trillion dollars (and counting) of other countries' money to you?"
Getting rid of UN sanctions and Saddam Hussein - yes.
--Well, considering that it�s not YOUR tax dollars paying for it, nor are you or your countrymen dying for it, I guess your casual attitude for it is not surprising. It�'d be interesting to see what else you�d think was worth a half a trillion dollars and 2,500+ dead foreign soldiers, or how much money and dead soldiers you would continue to excuse for this operation, since it is far from over. Would a bill of a trillion dollars and 5,000 dead US soldiers still be okay to you?
--I also notice that you didn'�t dispute what I said about women�'s and religious minorities� rights going down the tubes. Is that a trivial outcome to you?
(Sorry about my apostrophes coming out like a combination of an i-umlaut, upside down question mark, and a 'half' sign. I have NO idea why they came out that way.)