fyatuk

Anyone else think it odd for the Arab League leader to be calling the US an "honest broker"?

so this just means that whenever the democrats regain the texas congress its redrawn. and they will enact revenge. what fun. And then the Republicans will be hiding out in OK to prevent a quorom?

The bold part of the article I find to be the biggest problem. I don't think it's fair at all to let either party redraw the district boundaries any time they want to. That can easily get out of control. It's also going to confuse the hell out of some people. I agree with you. I think this particular Texas redraw, no matter how much I disagree with it, should be considered an exception in that the Courts drew the boundaries initially due to disputes between the two parties (aka, it wasn't done in the normal manner). Personally I think there should be an external, non-partisan, suvery group that draws the boundaries. They'd be more fair.

20 right. #19 isn't that hard, the correct answer is the most obvious choice.

If they crack down on automobile emissions you can expect gas prices to go up. It depends on how they do it. If they demand fuel additives as a way of combatting emissions, then yes, fuel prices will go up in most places. If the demand stronger built in controls (they'd have to grandfather existing cars and give a year or two advance notice), then the price of cars and vehicle inspections or registrations will go up, but gas won't.

Ick! I'm sure everything will get solved. Does this mean news on the Marlins is going to get a large placement in my newspaper again? I was getting sick of those articles BEFORE the "offer" was retracted...

Meh, if they can prove it's beneficial to us in the long-run, or the current rate it's harmful I'm all for it. But they have the burden of proof on their shoulders. Well, they not only have to prove that carbon dioxide is a harmful agent (which since global warming still hasn't been proven to be caused by man could be tough), they have to prove that that is enough to qualify it as a pollutant, and that the EPA is legally obligated to regulate it. My guess is that the states will lose the case because of the fact that man-made, CO2 based global warming has not been conclusively proven. I'll laugh if all these people end up doing is challenging the constitutionality of the EPA to exist (watch the judges decide regulating pollutants isn't enough to qualify as the "general welfare" therefore the agency violates the 10th amendmnet ). And of course what's really funny is in the past few years the US has done a better job of handling CO2 emissions than most Kyoto countries.

How do you feel about political leaders turning to psuedo-science for advice? As long as they don't blindly follow the advice, I have no problem with it. Same thing with religion. As long as they don't blindly follow, i don't care. Everybody needs advice sometimes, and everyone has the capability of giving good advice. Heck, most of the time, psychics and such don't really give advice but help you realize what you want to do. Works very similar to prayer. Either way, at least is isn't as bad as Caligula.

I don't think anyone would argue with a conditions based timetable, or a date based timetable as long as certain minimum conditions are set for each rollback of troops. I imagine it will probably be a slow withdrawal that will take years. I can't say I really disagree with making the distinction between resistance and terrorism and granting amnesty for the resistance. It's actually a good idea for the Iraqi government. It makes a statement that the government cares for all Iraqis, but not the terrorists who want nothing but death. It may leave a sour taste in the mouths of Americans, but it's probably the right thing to do, as long as all parties cede their militias by either giving up arms or absorbing them into the military/police. As for the release of security prisoners. If you grant legitimacy and amnesty to the resistance, you'd have to release anyone who was rounded up in connection with the resistance, and at this point, with some of the mass roundups and such, it would be difficult to figure out who is resistance and who is a terrorist. The records are probably not good. They shouldn't release any non-iraqi's though. I don't think non-iraqis have a legitamate claim to being resistance. And they aren't going to release people convicted of terrorist acts, once they define terrorism. Overall it looks like a decent plan, and at the very least the Iraqi government has taken the lead in accomplishing something instead of having to be pushed by the US and coalition.

Why do the oil companies have to be MADE into doing research? Why not allow capitalism to work and allow the market to force them into research. Nuclear power really is the way to go, biggest problem is fallouts and terrorist attacks. But from an energy standpoint it is by far the best, b/c its clean, not overly hazardous to the environment and will reduce foreign oil dependancy. Ethanol and wind power and such are good, but cant produce energy at the rate and amount we need in this country problem with nuclear power is the tons and tons of radioactive water that needs to be stored for thousands of years. But it is certainly the best choice for electricity production under current technology levels, of course supplemented with solar, wind, and hydro power. Not to terribly relevant to a discussion on oil though, since oil isn't used to produce electricity (natural gas is, but we're not really in a natural gas crunch yet). Ethanol is currently the most viable solution for one of (if not the) biggest use for oil, gasoline. It's also more of a stop gap, since there is likely no way to ever completely fulfill our gas needs with ethanol. But it is quite effective and an easy switch over until better fuel cells are developed. Of course, eventually we will need to develop enough power through completely renewable energy sources since there's only so much usable uranium in the world (granted, centuries of it even with greatly increasing needs). Oil companies won't put in any real research into alternative fuel methods until the last few years of oil supply (scheduled to be a few decades from now). They'll spend their money researching ways to get to oil they haven't before. It'd be nice if they did, but you are right in that we shouldn't force them to. Offering tax incentives for them contributing to alternate fuels research would be a nice thing though.

nucular nucular nucular... In all seriousness, remove the import tariff for ethanol might make a lot of sense. Brazil has gotten ethanol production down pat, and if it had a trade partner willing to invest some research time and share information, ethanol could become a really good possibility. Of course that'd probably mean cutting down more rain forest to make room for sugar cane fields, so that might not be good...

does this mean they actually will finish 35 and make it less congested? :lol It'd be nice, wouldn't it! Might also lessen traffic if the get around to doing I-69. Don't hold your breath on any of it Has 35 ever been not under construction?

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=15497 Big deal. They might not be advertising any plans, but these kinds of plans have been in the works for a long time. I-35 is called the Pan-Am Expressway for a reason. It was always meant to be a major throughfare from the Panama Canal up through Canada, and lately South America has made plans and efforts to extend it all the way to its southern tip. The TTC that often gets talked about in conjunction with a "NAFTA superhighway" has been in the works since the early to mid 80's, long before NAFTA, and even Bush in politics. Also at the moment, the section of I-35 from SA to Austin is the busiest and most dangerous stretch of interstate highway in the nation, so plans to either greatly expand or build a through traffic bypass are greatly needed. Heck, with the way NAFTA is worded, it was obvious from the beginning that I-35 was going to play a central role in ground shipments between the 3 countries (special priviledges were given to cities along I-35, including some pretty good ones to SA which have greatly benefitted our economy). People are trying to portray this as Bush abdicating US sovereignty to the NAFTA coalition, when it reality improving the central corridor is a necessary action. Now it probably wouldn't be necessary without NAFTA, true, but for the most part these plans have been hovering around for a couple decades.

I guess we should just throw out the Constitution, it's being made irrelevant by this government and the court. "A 'Bill of Rights'? How quaint!" -AG Alberto Gonzalez :plain Do you really think that police not knocking, announcing themselves, and waiting a few seconds constitutes an "unreasonable search"? When there's obviously significant evidence, which is required to obtain the warrant in the first place? As long as the warrant has been legally and truthfully obtained, the constitutional issues involving it have been fulfilled. And locality, state, or the federal government COULD restrict it further to make the knock/announce/wait thing legally required (if they did that, I'd like to see an exception rider that could be added to the warrant if there is a significant chance either evidence could be destroyed or someone at the location might be a violence risk).

Not going to cheer that he died a painful death but I guess it's poetic justice. He'll get his from whatever name he wants to call Satan anyways, no need to worry about how he was transferred over. I thought it was clear he always referred to Satan as "America". Or wait, I might have that backwards I personally would rather he had been saved and kept alive. Had to be some valuable info in that head of his...