What do you think of the President's speech?

[opulyst]

I was wondering what everybody thought of the President's speech last night? I am a little worried that this might be premature, and of course I am always worried at how much the economy of America has to do with this.

[Niagara_Paul]

I just read this comment on cbc.ca

<<Britain proposed Friday that the United Nations set a deadline of March 17 for Iraq to disarm or face the prospect of war. The resolution amends an earlier proposal by establishing a date for war. >>

One hopes that before that date becomes a reality, cooler heads will prevail. I mean, why doesn't Iraq comply with the UN resolutions and spare themselves a great deal of misery.

[rhino]

Me personally,I think Bush is nothing but a war monger. Just like his father. They are both full of crap and long winded.
Bring back the Democrats!

[JTMoney]

Please, its not about Republican or Democrat. The Democrats are just as bad. Clinton was pretty quick with the gun as well, if memory serves: Somalia ("Black Hawk Down", anyone?), Yugoslavia, etc.

Its just ego, and idiocy. A war is the last thing we should be doing....we have way too many problems right here at home that need solving, especially if there is 60 or 80 billion dollars to work with. 47% of the adults in the city of Detroit are illiterate. And our top priority is going after some psycho on the other side of the world? Give me a break.

Simple method for stopping all terrorism: make a list of the countries that actively support terrorists (of any color or creed). We know who they are, and so does everyone else. Put those names in a bowl. The next time a terrorist attack occurs on American soil, we reach in, pick a country at random, and demand $1 billion in gold or we bomb the capital city to ashes. Televise the whole thing on satellite, for everyone. No questions, no debates, no UN, no finger pointing, no assessing blame, no investigation, no inspectors, nothing. Just get medieval. If it happens again, we pick another name. Eventually they'll get the idea.

You won't find a more devoted patriot than me, but America has to stop butting into other people's business, and take care of our own needs. With the money spent on the war, our ingenuity, inventiveness, and determination, I'll bet we could go a long way towards solving all sorts of problems, like revamping our health care system, getting a clean source of renewable energy, inventing solar panels and collectors that are at least 80% efficient instead of 8%, getting at least 75% of adults a college education at a cost that doesn't bankrupt them, etc.

JT$

PS: feed the homeless to the hungry. Soylent Green forever!!!! :devil:

[rhino]

JT
I agree with the whole name in the hat and everything. But instead of putting it on satellite, put it on Pay Per View, that way we can re-coup some of our military loses.
Soylent Green, now that's nasty, but i like it!

[JTMoney]

PPV would work. Get Don King to promote.

JT$

[RommelS]

Ok new missles found with configured warhead designed to carry biological weapon.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/883129.asp

[JTMoney]

On a scarier note, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with a serious track record attended the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) summit in Davos, Switzerland. She wasn't paying attention, and when she got back home she took some time to dash off a breathless "look what I did" message to some friends. Those friends forwarded the email to others (I wouldn't want her friends), and so on, until the email got out. It's causing quite a ruckus, and the things she mentions in the message are scary indeed. Well worth the read if you have some time.

http://www.rc3.org/cgi-bin/less.pl?arg=4951

There is even a link there to an annotated version of the email done by a very sarcastic Bruce Sterling (who, for those of you unfamiliar, is the author of such tech/SF fiction titles as "The Artificial Kid", "Heavy Weather" (about geeks who hack weather instead of computers) and "Schismatrix", among others).

JT$

[whatsurpointnow]

you know, Sadam is the prodigal son of regan and bush. Prior to his invasion of kuwait, we gave him in excess of $40 billion dollars in money and technology transfers! AFTER he invaded kuwait, the state dept. was caught with their pants down and a sh@t eating grin on their face as they realized the balistic computers they were STILL trying to ship to Iraq might be used against US troops.
Frontline did a great piece on this back about 10 years ago. I love the references to a William Bull, one of the worlds great balistics experts. WB had top secret security clearence and designed the long range mortars sadam had in the first war. He died suddenly of lead poisening in his apartment in bahgdad of all places. Mossad was supposed to have done the job.

My point is this. Our elected govt. has spent well over 250 billion dollars funding and fighting sadam or bribing surrounding countries to let us go over their airspace or use their millitary facillities. Osama is a direct result of Iraq (remember, he wanted to liberate kuwait with his own troops)! We stand to spend another 250 billion dollars to go in and kill his army, maim his civillians and subdue the populace. God alone knows how much more it will cost to rebuild his economy. Lets put a conservative number of $100 billion.

What if we had spent that money on alternative energy sources, conservation programs, efficiency upgrades and a substantial restructure of our transportation infrastructure; supose we were now free or nearly free of imported oil?

Solar, geothermal, hydrogen, wind and fusion get by on substantially less than 100 million a year in federal research and tax incentives! The industrial lobbies are so strong that we cant even enforce the EPA regs passed in the 1970's. Basically our political process has been perverted by money.

Bush isn't neccesarily a war monger, he is just doing the bidding of his masters. I wish he were stupid, then you could say he had an excuse. I just think he is evil. Him and his whole illegal crew!
Get out and vote at the next election. vote for whoever you want, but lets stop letting pac money drive our politics.

[Niagara_Paul]

Glad no one cans a whit about what I have to say. What I thought was interesting and a bit concerning was the passage about global stagflation lasting for 5 to 10 years.

I suppose we can now witness the negative side to globalization, with all markets being so interconnected when one of the larger partners goes down it has a wide impact and effect.

I wonder which of her 'friends' leaked the letter.

I've never read her stuff before, probably won't in the future either.