Are you watching the House of Rep. Hearing on Bush's imperial presidency?
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I don’t think Bush has been the best president we ever had but I think he has been dealt with unfairly by the media. I truly believe that if it weren’t for the bias of the major news media companies out there today we would have a completely different view of Bush and what he has accomplished. I truly believe that if Clinton had made the exact same actions Bush has during his presidency we would be hearing all about how great it is that “the president” has taken out a major tyrant, wiped out Al Quaeda in Iraq, and seen us through a fight against a threat that we never saw coming. But no! The media hates Bush because he is a poor communicator and doesn’t think that the world is coming to an end in the next 10 years due to man made global warming.
Do you really care if anyone’s watching it or are you just gearing up for another tirade…..? I really am not trying to be bitchy (it just comes naturally, I guess)—but there are better forums than this one, I think, for those kinds of discussion.
@dangdang, as far as I understand Al Qaeda has nothing to do with Iraq.
how long can I hold my tongue?
@nik
I could go to a forum where everyone is talking about the hearings, talking about the same things. Or u can go to fluther, where people might not know it is even happening, and raise awareness and hear what all different people think.
I’m not too sure why you respond to me as you do. Are my views really that threatening to you? You have every right to pass right by my questions or response do you not?
@dangdang
Did you happen to notice on that page, that we were in Iraq before Al Qaeda was?
I am going to assume that the wikipedia entry is true. Even so, Al Qaeda helping the “insurgency” has nothing to do with the United States entering Iraq…
Excerpt from a CRS report for Congress (PDF FILE)
“Some similar questions are being raised about the pre-war U.S. assessments of
Iraq-Al Qaeda linkages. The Iraq Survey Group, which is collecting captured
Saddam regime files and interrogating captive members of the former regime, has not
released formal results of its investigation of pre-war Iraq-Al Qaeda links. However,
some Administration officials, including Secretary of State Powell, have recently
expressed some uncertainty over whether Iraq-Al Qaeda linkages were as close as the
Administration had characterized them before the war”
@dabg “I think he has been dealt with unfairly by the media”....
How should the media treat the worst President in history?
@ Kevbo, you don’t have to hold your tongue
What’s the gist of the hearing?
@dangdang: You’re right. President Bush “doesn’t think that the world is coming to an end in the next 10 years due to man made global warming.”
He thinks it’s coming to an end because of the rapture.
Idiot!
Ladies and gentlemen, we have spotted one of the rare and elusive 20%. Note the exhilarating excuse-making practices and Clinton comparisons typical of this fascinating breed.
Shhhh – let’s listen carefully now for the distinctive “fighting for our freedoms” call!
@PupnTaco 20%! That many? Wow, I thought it was less then that. :)
@breedmitch So that fact that he is a believing Christian makes him an idiot? I feel much better about Bush’s beliefs then I do Ahmadinajab that rants about how he is going to wipe Israel off the map (while continuing to develop nuclear weapons) and any day now the hiding Imam is going to come back and the world will come under Islamic rule. And if you are still one of the majority of American’s that still believes Al Gore’s lies about man made global warming check out this site http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/. Especially the recent article “No Smoking Hot Spot” put out by a leading scientist for the government of Australia on climate change.
Bush, Ahmadinajab: both religous extremists.
As to the site you mention, it purports to be free from any political agenda, but its president is Robert Ferguson. You really can’t get any more republican than that! Anybody smell a whiff of Texas oil money?
@dangdang, G. Bush and Ahmadinejad follow the same God
On Global Warming.. (seems we are going all over the place here)
The way I look at global warming: There are two camps – those that say it’s true, and those that say it’s false. I like to think of “what ifs”.
What if climate change is false? We’ll have spent money and effort to convert to renewable resources and other forms of energy. We will have lower emission of green house gases. The air over cities will be cleaner, we won’t be breathing in as many heavy-metal-laden fumes from the plethora of cars clogging the streets. We won’t have as many mountain ranges being demolished. People will be trying to incorporate more walking and bicycles, leading to a more active life style. I could go on. If it is false will we have done all of that in vain? No. Will it hurt the economy? No.
If climate change is true? We’ll have done all of the above, and still face huge problems. The worst case scenario is mass extinction. Am I going over board? No. We should be looking at worst case scenario because if it get’s to that point we are all dead, no future… no precious “economy” to even worry about. If you look at mass extinctions that have occurred before (the dinosaurs are only 1 example), there have been 5 in earths history, up 90% of life disappears. This happens in short because food chains collapse.
What will happen in our climate changed world? As it stands, the oceans are becoming more and more acidic This leads to the death of coral reefs, and shelled creatures. As those ecosystems go the oceans food chain goes.
My point is, regardless if it’s true or not, how much are you willing to risk?
The following is a presentation by Al Gore at TED. It’s really worth watching regardless of your views on the topic.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/al_gore_s_new_thinking_on_the_climate_crisis.html
That’s just it. I don’t deny the fact that climate changes. No one does. That is why so many people take such extreme points of view on this issue. The question is NOT “Does the climate change?” The question is “How much impact do humans have on that change?” I believe that we need to be good stewards of the earth. I need to recycle more, turn of the lights when I leave the room, and conserve energy. But that’s not what Al Gore is saying. Just this week he came out to say that we only have 10 years left before utter destruction. Well, if that is the case, there is no hope. If the situation is truly as bad as he try’s to make it out to be then we doomed. Here is the question we need answered, “How much will reducing carbon emitions change the temperature of the planet,” and at what expense would that come to our economy. We need to get away from the dogmatic point of view that we already know all there is to know about climate change and we are doomed. To the realization that science is never finalized. Seriously read “No Smoking Hot Spot” it is not put out by some oil company. It was an article printed in a major Australian newspaper by a forever climate alarmist that worked for the Australian government monitoring the effect of carbon emitions on global warming. Seriously read it. Don’t just comment without reading it. http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/commentaries/Dave_Evens-No_smoking_hot_spot.pdf
Good article, and I see the points he is making. There is no proof that carbon emissions are causing global warming. True. Reality points to water-vapour being the main greenhouse gas to increase warming. Water in the atmosphere traps more heat than carbon.
But that doesn’t mean we should go on with our coal plants, and oil drilling; the fact is that the oceans have absorbed most the carbon released into the atmosphere over the last 100 years. They are becoming more acidic. You add more acidic water, over fishing, and nitrogen & phosphorous pollution you end up with dead oceans. Dead oceans lead to food chain failure. We can live for so long off of Monsanto burgers once the food chain is gone.
One thing that makes the debate hard is that how can we really separate fact from fiction? That’s why I try to look at motivation. What is motivating the person to write their paper, or make their presentation?
When a person starts talking about “damage to the economy” I lose most of my will to read/listen any further. The economy is a human generated system that is supposed to serve us; not the other way around.
Thanks for at least acknowledging the fact you can see his points. That shows you are not one of those mindless alarmists that take Al Gore for his word. As you said you feel that way when you hear someone mention the economy when I hear someone talking about getting rid of oil drilling and coal plants (especially when they oppose nuclear which is the way we need to be going) I hear someone saying they want to get rid of our way of life and go back to living in little villages and reverting back to before the industrial age. We need to find ways to reduce our impact on the earth. It is all a matter of degree. I remember seeing diagram that show the effect reducing our carbon emitions would have on slowing global warming over the next 50 years and it was a tiny fraction of a degree. And then the trillions upon trillions of dollars it would take to get us there. That is what I mean by the impact it would have on the economy for almost no benefit. How about nuclear power? Today more then 80% of France is powered by nuclear power. It is now the safest, most efficient, and most promising form of power for the future. Now just if we could figure out nuclear fusion! :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion
I agree with you about people wanting to go back the stone age. It seems some people have an idyllic view of the past. Peace, harmony, Edenesque Gardens, noble savage, heroes, saints, etc. When in fact there was death, war, famine, tyrants…yadda yadda – all the same stuff.
I understand what you are saying, spending trillions of dollars to get us nowhere isn’t a good idea. But I’m trying to point a more holistic view on climate change. I think both sides need to get off the “do carbon emission cause climate change” mantra and realise a few main points:
a. We can’t live without clean air
b. We can’t live without clean water
What we need to change is everything that effects both a and b.
I think we (as a species) have a good vision in mind… peace, harmony, etc – we just don’t know how to get there. Perhaps fusion power is the key :p
I can agree to those premises. Now what do you propose on an individual, national, and global level to move towards those goals (of clean air and water)? I’ll tell you one thing that won’t do it, that is wind and solar power. To produce the power needed to run a city like Phoenix, AZ you would have to cover the entire state of AZ in solar panels (do you see the problem here?) A really neat idea I saw recently blew me away. Take a look at this concept: http://www.valcent.net/i/misc/Vertigro/index.html. What do you think?
That is quite cool! Really interesting concept. It will be interesting to see how it comes along over the next couple years.
That’s a good point about solar power generation. But to counter that – you are basing that model on centralised power generation. I’ve been reading about some ideas by George Monbiot. The idea is to take power generation down to the local level. There are huge expanses of roof tops and open spaces within cities.
You can create much of the hot water and electricity for a home using the home itself. You also have perhaps smaller regional methods. Such as larger solar farms, wind farms, or perhaps even those algae farms you point out. You gain efficiency by shortening the distances of transmission.
Lot’s to think about, lot’s to do.
You ask what I propose about goals of clean air and water. Well, first everyone needs to recognise a problem exists. There is a huge disconnect from reality it seems… (i’m making a generalisation) people don’t really think about it at until they run into the problem where their water is too polluted to drink or air too polluted to breath it’s too late.
For example: you have an entire system where governments, manufacturers, distributors, farmers, factories, and consumers use toxic-and potentially fatal-chemicals throughout their lives. Products, with out a doubt, cause environmental degradation, reproduction problems, birth defects, mental illness, and so on. The first step is getting out of that fantasy world and into the real one… after that we can figure out some ways to fix the problem.
And again, that Algae thing looks cool.
Q in Iraq didn’t exist before we invaded. So, I don’t think we can really take any claim for that one. They are more an example of you break it, you pay for it.
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