Politics

What do you think of Al Gores plant to eleminate payroll tax in favor of a tax on Carbon Dioxide emmissions?Al Gore Pushes 'Pollution Tax'

People cry for Bin Laden's blood. He was behind 9/11, right? Well the real mastermind of 9/11 has been in US custody since March 2003, before the Iraq war. His name is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Hijacking jetliners and flying them into the World Trade Center was his idea. He pitched it to Bin Laden, who provided the financial backing, and recruited some radical Islamicists to do the deed. But where is he? For some reason, this isn't public knowledge. There hasn't been a trial. What's up? Shouldn't this guy be brought to justice? Or is that happening behind closed doors, and if so, why?

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iran's president -- hosting a visit from Iraq's prime minister and expressing support for his country's beleaguered war-torn neighbor -- says the Islamic republic supports a "united" Iraq and will help the nation "establish full security," an Iranian news agency reported. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke at a news conference with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki after private talks were held on Tuesday, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported. It is al-Maliki's first visit to Iran since he became prime minister earlier this year. "Iran will provide assistance to the Iraqi government to establish full security. We believe strengthening the I…

Has the political process become so perfected that all issues can be almost immediately drawn to a person's moral/religious beliefs? That is to say, if there is a political line being drawn between parties, is it for their policies, or the reason behind the policies? Often argumentation involves a few distinct properties. These usually filter down to breaking apart the argument to find what makes your opponent think their side of the problem is more correct. Often this drops to a basic difference in principles. Most of a persons principles are either defined or governed by what can be described as their religious nature, or moral belief structure. Do you think…

here is the text of the pope's apology: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5353774.stm "Dear Brothers and Sisters, The pastoral visit which I recently made to Bavaria was a deep spiritual experience, bringing together personal memories linked to places well known to me and pastoral initiatives towards an effective proclamation of the Gospel for today. I thank God for the interior joy which he made possible, and I am also grateful to all those who worked hard for the success of this Pastoral Visit. As is the custom, I will speak more of this during next Wednesday's general audience. At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reac…

Got a call from the "dove foundation" trying to get me to support censorship stuff...really bothered me. Are there any good foundations that have a good reputation for fighting these orgs? I find myself compelled to donate to some group that desires the exact opposite goal of these guys...not sure which ones are actually good though. Any suggestions?

In an engineering thread,

I have to admit I am enjoying this immensely. How dare they suggest St. Bill might have some responsibility? It will be interesting to learn to what extent ABC ultimately bows to the democrats. The dems problem is that it's impossible to do a story on the path to 9/11 which doesn't emphasis the multiple years of failure before Bush took office more than it does the eight months he had in office pre 9/11/01. Note how Clinton used his charitable foundation to press his demand: The entire matter has me chortling in my margarita tonight. How many times have we heard about the respected sanctified 9/11 commission report yet this film has the head…

Nicotine Levels Basically, nicotine levels have been rising over the years, especially those popular to young people. This makes them more addictive. I placed this in politics to ask the question - should the government do anything about it?

Given our recent discussions about political partisanship and polarization, I thought this might be an interesting thing to discuss. Americans will be getting a rather blatant, in-our-faces demonstration this week in how the media fuels and instigates political polarization in this country. CBS ran a 2-hour documentary tonight which it advertised as having "the only footage shot within the World Trade Center on 9/11". NBC is running a special "Dateline" Monday night about the families of United 93 victims. The president himself will be cashing in on the anniversary, with a 20-minute prime time speech tonight at 9pm Eastern. But the grand prize would have to g…

Bi-partisan that is Looking at the Queensland election this weekend, the interesting thing about Australian politics has been two trends over the last few years. One is that at the federal level the right wing parties have been becoming increasing dominant. They have been in power for ten years and now control both houses of parliament. The other is that at the state (and territory) level the left wing parties have been becoming increasing dominant. Every state and territory government is left wing. What this means is that people are voting for different parties at different elections. People presumably see through the rhetoric and are voting for what they feel is th…

This is a little essay I wrote for my school's humble literary journal which is publishing a special issue on Constitution Day next week. (As many of you know if you're working or attending a US learning institution, the government passed a special law mandating recognition of Constitution Day in all schools.) I'd appreciate any feedback. I have to turn this thing in over the weekend. You're helping me with my homework, you might say. ------------- Finding Middle Ground On this Constitution Day we will hear about all of the amazing powers of the Constitution. We’ll be told about the separation of powers and establishment of the three branches, the ch…

I came across this:http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.cavendishcaninecamp.com/images/kitty_litter_cake.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.cavendishcaninecamp.com/humor3.htm&h=246&w=330&sz=20&tbnid=-l7O44f4KzSbcM:&tbnh=89&tbnw=119&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dkitty%2Blitter%2Bcake&start=1&sa=X&oi=images&ct=image&cd=1 this morning. it got me wondering that IF you were to walk about in the streets say in town and sit on a public bench eating this, say at Noon Lunch hour. obviously there would be several complaints, some may even react by Loosing their lunch. Are you breaking any Laws? this is a perfectly legit a…

comment? especially from UK people who have been following the situation. I just heard on radio that 6 junior members of Blair's Labor government have resigned. and that a move is on within the Labor party to get rid of him pronto---force him to step down before he has a chance to organize his supporters. The next one in line would probably be Gordon Brown, chancellor of exchequer (i.e. Treasury Secretary in our US terms) Blair has already said he would not seek another turn as PM but that is in future after elections-----if I understand correctly----and many of his party want him out of there ASAP anybody want to offer corrections, clarification? e…

I stumbled onto this link Israel Since many do not have much background on Israel I thought this would be of interest.

a new World Record has been broken that I thought some of you may be interested in (it`s certainly a topic dear to my heart). as a Chili grower myself, I`ve always regarded the Habenero chili to be the king of Fire Power (closely followed by the Tiawan "Tiny Terrors") non of which now comes even Close to the Dorset Naga Chili! http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2113507,00.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/dorset/content/articles/2006/04/03/chilli_feature.shtml

I've been a self described Libertarian for years, since my views seem to line up with that particular ideology more than the others. But there are some fundamental issues I have with it and I wondered if others are the same. And, just for fun, I advise anyone to take this quickie quiz. Everyone I know that's tried this found they were more libertarian than they thought. http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html The problems I see about libertarianism, so far, is this idea of a privatized police force. I don't even see why I would have to formulate an argument to explain why that one sounds bad. Also, I'm not cool with the complete abolition of welfar…

If the goal of Radical Islam is to destroy or enslave the no Muslim world why does the Shiite Badr Brigade militia kill Sunni Muslims?

Bush wants to eliminate Republican War Crimes Act Bush Aims to Kill War Crimes ActSays it was voted in by a Republican congress. How will they blame this on the libs?

Inspired by this:

Partly intended as amusement, but certainly of political note, I thought I'd pass along a Katherine Harris update. Most of you will remember her as the Florida election official who was in charge during the 2000 Presidential Election fiasco. Anyway, she's been a House rep from the Tampa/St. Petersburg area (where Blike, the owner of this board, originates -- it's all his fault, not mine!!). But this year she's been running for the Senate. Today she won the Republican Primary. She's unlikely to win in November, however, since she faces a strong incumbent in popular moderate Democrat Bill "146 Hours in Space" Nelson.

Is Iran's president (Ahmadinejad) mentally ill? ================================================ ==> The Iranian president recalled being told about it by one of his delegation: "When you began with the words ‘in the name of Allah,' I saw a light coming, surrounding you and protecting you to the end." Ahmadinejad agreed that he sensed the same thing. "On the last day when I was speaking, one of our group told me that when I started to say 'Bismillah Muhammad,' he saw a green light come from around me, and I was placed inside this aura," he says. "I felt it myself. I felt that the atmosphere suddenly changed, and for those 27 or 28 minutes, all the leaders …

Anybody else hear about this 'documentary' detailing the future documentary about President Bush's assisination? It premiers at the Toronto film festival, Sept. 10. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-death01sep1,1,5071840.story?coll=la-headlines-entnews&track=crosspromo I'm certainly not a Bush lover, but as an American, I have to say that I'm not pleased by this movie. Especially since they are using George Bush's face digitally attached to an actors body during the 'assisination.' I may be wrong, but to me it sounds like a cheap shot by the liberal propagandists trying to pass themselves off as art.

I'd like to know what you think and how you see this. what I see is people getting excited around a nexus of issues where two or more of these overlap and interact. there is a kind of energizing triangle of topics and issues. the big issues in Science that people are most eager to address seem also issues the major religions have something to say about what is space and time made of how did life happen is there life on other planets and is there another technological culture somewhere and what's the history and future of the universe when people ask scientific questions (e.g. on a message board like here) it often seems to be because they are trying to co…

http://www.stopthewarnow.net/ It seems to me that groups like these ^, suffer from a serious lack of foresight. They would, understandably, stop conflict, but that would just mean we'd start back from the beggining. If a cease fire is drawn up, Hezbollah would be allowed to endure. Iran and Syria would see that they can get away with backing this group, and the whole mess will start all over again. I understand the desire to preserve civilian life, but calling for a cease fire today, is just condeming more people to death tommorow. Why don't they see that?