MIKE Hunter's smaller car thesis??

You might find this interesting. Your library may have it:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780393062113&itm=1

We're dealing with Northern Ireland in the Middle East, but Bush has no idea
of the similarities, and how he's botching it. This is because he does not
read.

 

Those aren't sufficient reasons to approve of any president.
Character matters much more, and GW Bush has the character of a
spoiled, lazy rich kid who's never accomplished anything on his own.
A person who commands a military powerful enough to change the fate of
the world (positively or negatively) should be much better than him.

The Callifornia electric power crisis wasn't caused primarily by
shortages of capacity but by Enron manipulating the market, as court
records, including audio recordings, have shown, and planning the
ouster of Grey Davis to have him replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
That's not to say Davis had even an ounce of competence in him.

Until 9/11, GW Bush virtually ignored international affairs -- just as
he said he would, and rather than continue the existing peace process
he abandoned it and let the Israeli-Palestinian situation drift into
crisis. And when he finally did get the US back into negotiations, he
foolishly pressured the Palestinians to hold the election that gave
undeniable legitimacy to Hamas, which won about 70% of the vote.

FDR did far too little to turn around the economy. All he did was
give people hope, and it was the WWII spending that finally made the
economy recover. Neither did Reagan create an economic miracle.
Rather, he became President at the time when the OPEC cartel was
cracking (i.e., the Saudis were tired of holding back production) and
Fed chairman Paul Volcker's draconian tight money policy had been
squeezing out inflation. The recovery wasn't amazing but only
average, and Reagan's 30% supply side tax cut had to be trimmed back
to about a 25% one, which was what Jimmy Carter had initially
proposed. The GWB economic recovery also hasn't been spectacular,
with very few new jobs being created and median incomes being almost
flat, and the only reason big budget deficits have been tolerable is
because China has prevented labor inflation.

 

Those aren't sufficient reasons to approve of any president.
Character matters much more, and GW Bush has the character of a
spoiled, lazy rich kid who's never accomplished anything on his own.
A person who commands a military powerful enough to change the fate of
the world (positively or negatively) should be much better than him.

The Callifornia electric power crisis wasn't caused primarily by
shortages of capacity but by Enron manipulating the market, as court
records, including audio recordings, have shown, and planning the
ouster of Grey Davis to have him replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
That's not to say Davis had even an ounce of competence in him.

Until 9/11, GW Bush virtually ignored international affairs -- just as
he said he would, and rather than continue the existing peace process
he abandoned it and let the Israeli-Palestinian situation drift into
crisis. And when he finally did get the US back into negotiations, he
foolishly pressured the Palestinians to hold the election that gave
undeniable legitimacy to Hamas, which won about 70% of the vote.

FDR did far too little to turn around the economy. All he did was
give people hope, and it was the WWII spending that finally made the
economy recover. Neither did Reagan create an economic miracle.
Rather, he became President at the time when the OPEC cartel was
cracking (i.e., the Saudis were tired of holding back production) and
Fed chairman Paul Volcker's draconian tight money policy had been
squeezing out inflation. The recovery wasn't amazing but only
average, and Reagan's 30% supply side tax cut had to be trimmed back
to about a 25% one, which was what Jimmy Carter had initially
proposed. The GWB economic recovery also hasn't been spectacular,
with very few new jobs being created and median incomes being almost
flat, and the only reason big budget deficits have been tolerable is
because China has prevented labor inflation.

 

President George Bush was out of touch with the average American's
everyday life -- he visited a supermarket in 1984 and was amazed that
price scanners existed, and in one campaign speech he shouted for the
rights of owners of S corporations, as if there was a massive public
outcry for them. OTOH Bush did well handling Reagan's worst economic
mistakes, the deficit and the savings & loan crisis, and he knew how
to deal with the Soviets and Chinese. And the way he led the Gulf War
was simply brilliant -- organizing a true international coalition,
exhausting diplomacy before taking any military action, and going in
with enough troops to win decisively.

But the war was completely wrong for our interests, as I've
consistently maintained since 2002, and that was assuming that we'd
fight Iraq the right way, with a true international force that
included at least 500,000 Americans and the co-opting of the Iraqi
military and police early after military victory. Saddam simply had
no nuclear weapons and only insignificant amounts of chemical and
biological weapons (and no credible ways to deliver them), wasn't
cooperating with any international terrorists, and had been too well
penned-up by British and American air patrols.

The chief UN weapons inspector said nothing had been found in Iraq,
and his team had been given fairly free reign (as free as could be
expected from a huffy dictator) to check almost everything in Iraq,
and they stopped their work only because of impending US invasion.

Vladimir Putin has long been fence sitting between the US and China,
and with the Iraq war he probably thought it was better to side with
the US because he expected us to be the winner..

And what if any president allowed tens of millions of Americans to die
because he failed to go to war against Iran? IOW your scenario about
Iraq never had any credibility among people who knew even the basics
about the Middle East, and the invasion of Iraq was never a smart bet.

Saddam hated the Islamic revolution, which was probably why Iraq under
Saddam had no al Qaeda presense.

I'm sure the news broadcasts in China pay lots of attention to those
regions because the Chinese government certainly has. They've
recently been playing their economic and diplomatic hands brilliantly,
plus our actions of the past six years have made things easier for
them. Something is really wrong in the world when people in most
nations approve more of China than the US.

Then how should we handle Iran and the Islamic revolution? I don't
think that taking away Iran's most important enemy in the Middle East
was a good idea, nor was it smart to let the nations that perceived us
as being invincible in early 2002 (when we had just taken over
Afghanistan) to realize that we weren't invincible after all,
something the Iraq war has done.

 

President George Bush was out of touch with the average American's
everyday life -- he visited a supermarket in 1984 and was amazed that
price scanners existed, and in one campaign speech he shouted for the
rights of owners of S corporations, as if there was a massive public
outcry for them. OTOH Bush did well handling Reagan's worst economic
mistakes, the deficit and the savings & loan crisis, and he knew how
to deal with the Soviets and Chinese. And the way he led the Gulf War
was simply brilliant -- organizing a true international coalition,
exhausting diplomacy before taking any military action, and going in
with enough troops to win decisively.

But the war was completely wrong for our interests, as I've
consistently maintained since 2002, and that was assuming that we'd
fight Iraq the right way, with a true international force that
included at least 500,000 Americans and the co-opting of the Iraqi
military and police early after military victory. Saddam simply had
no nuclear weapons and only insignificant amounts of chemical and
biological weapons (and no credible ways to deliver them), wasn't
cooperating with any international terrorists, and had been too well
penned-up by British and American air patrols.

The chief UN weapons inspector said nothing had been found in Iraq,
and his team had been given fairly free reign (as free as could be
expected from a huffy dictator) to check almost everything in Iraq,
and they stopped their work only because of impending US invasion.

Vladimir Putin has long been fence sitting between the US and China,
and with the Iraq war he probably thought it was better to side with
the US because he expected us to be the winner..

And what if any president allowed tens of millions of Americans to die
because he failed to go to war against Iran? IOW your scenario about
Iraq never had any credibility among people who knew even the basics
about the Middle East, and the invasion of Iraq was never a smart bet.

Saddam hated the Islamic revolution, which was probably why Iraq under
Saddam had no al Qaeda presense.

I'm sure the news broadcasts in China pay lots of attention to those
regions because the Chinese government certainly has. They've
recently been playing their economic and diplomatic hands brilliantly,
plus our actions of the past six years have made things easier for
them. Something is really wrong in the world when people in most
nations approve more of China than the US.

Then how should we handle Iran and the Islamic revolution? I don't
think that taking away Iran's most important enemy in the Middle East
was a good idea, nor was it smart to let the nations that perceived us
as being invincible in early 2002 (when we had just taken over
Afghanistan) to realize that we weren't invincible after all,
something the Iraq war has done.

 

Perhaps you didn't learn physics as well as you could have or didn't
design cars properly??? I think it is stupid to make a blanket
statement like big cars are safer (for the occupants) than small cars.
If they were identical except for size than I agree but often that is
not the case.

 

Perhaps you didn't learn physics as well as you could have or didn't
design cars properly??? I think it is stupid to make a blanket
statement like big cars are safer (for the occupants) than small cars.
If they were identical except for size than I agree but often that is
not the case.

 

You are entitled to you own opinion. However I know better.

mike

 

You are entitled to you own opinion. However I know better.

mike

 

So, you're saying there is no shape or design that can make a small car as
safe as a bigger one? Is that your final answer?

 

So, you're saying there is no shape or design that can make a small car as
safe as a bigger one? Is that your final answer?

 

Actually, we knew he had at one time truly staggering amounts of chemical
weapons. No nuclear or biological weapons as far as we could tell. UNSCOM
had found the paperwork - dictatorships are remarkably dependent on
subordinates documenting just what they are doing - but little of the
material was brought forward by Saddam's regime. Richard Butler, the
chairman of UNSCOM, reported his team being held at gunpoint at one site as
trucks roared in and out. See "The Greatest Threat" by Richard Butler. The
problem wasn't that we didn't find any so much as we knew it was somewhere
and we didn't know where. The view that he didn't have large amounts of
chemical weapons is popular among politicians who never had any
responsibility for containing the threat, but is absurd in light of the UN
teams' findings.

I concede Iran is a tough nut to crack. Iraq as an institution was never a
threat - the threat was contained in the person of Saddam Hussein. Iran and
Al Qaeda are institutional threats - it really doesn't matter who is the
leader at any particular time. Al Qaeda's time is running out; since their
moment in the sun they have been smothered wherever they try to show their
power. That is bad news for them, although they could still flare up. Iran
is much tougher. The revolution is nearly 30 years old - more than a
generation - and they can legitimately claim to have stood up against the US
and prospered (relatively, anyway.) Their technological capacity must not be
underestimated. There was a simple military solution to the Hussein threat -
eliminate him and the threat is effectively quashed. Everything that
followed is housekeeping, regardless of the distortions of our perspective.
We could leave now and only the Iraqis would suffer unless Iran decides to
invade. There is no obvious solution - military, diplomatic or otherwise -
to the threat Iran poses to the world.

Saddam was a competitor to the Islamic revolution in Iran and to al Qaeda.
He never made a secret that he was competing for Arab leader, a position
also sought by Khadaffi and Hafez al-Assad. Since Iran isn't arab and since
revolutions make neighbors nervous, Saddam found wide support for what the
Arab world knows as the Gulf War. The popular American explanation for the
incursion was to seize the Shatt al-Arab, a silty and shallow waterway that
could have provided a port for Iraq. Trouble is, Iraq could have leased it
for a song if Iran actually controlled it and would not have been faced with
the hopeless task of holding the land. What's more, the disputed border ran
right through the middle of the waterway, giving Iraq no gain for their
losses. American references to this war tend to portray both sides as
stupidly fighting for unimportant borders, a view that doesn't do justice to
the canny political strategies of each.

For all that, barely a year after the bitter eight year war that ended in
Iraq slinking away from the conflict, Saddam sent the remains of his air
force to Iran rather than lose it to the Allies.

Something is wrong with us if we care. Each nation must chart its own
course, and of all the other nations of the world only Israel can understand
what it is like to be the nation that must be subjugated in order for
terrorists to be elevated to power. In the '30s the US leaned toward joining
Germany in the fight against its neighbors, not for reasons of our own
convictions but because of sympathies. This time we should get a backbone so
we don't help plunge the world into a new dark age.

I have an idea but I don't see it beginning. Iran is about a prize, and that
prize is probably indestructible. Islam is not going away and there must be
a leader to fill the vacuum. There are three generally accepted ways a
Caliph may gain power. http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/politics/khalifa.html One
way is to be named by the present Caliph, so that's out. Another is to seize
the office through force, as long as the duties of the office are
fulfilled - that's the path the contestants are seeking now. The third is by
a selection process reminiscent of the way a Pope is chosen. If we were to
encourage the election of a Caliph Iran would find the carpet pulled from
under them but would not lose face nor lose power within their own country.
That would be fine with me.

Mike

 

Actually, we knew he had at one time truly staggering amounts of chemical
weapons. No nuclear or biological weapons as far as we could tell. UNSCOM
had found the paperwork - dictatorships are remarkably dependent on
subordinates documenting just what they are doing - but little of the
material was brought forward by Saddam's regime. Richard Butler, the
chairman of UNSCOM, reported his team being held at gunpoint at one site as
trucks roared in and out. See "The Greatest Threat" by Richard Butler. The
problem wasn't that we didn't find any so much as we knew it was somewhere
and we didn't know where. The view that he didn't have large amounts of
chemical weapons is popular among politicians who never had any
responsibility for containing the threat, but is absurd in light of the UN
teams' findings.

I concede Iran is a tough nut to crack. Iraq as an institution was never a
threat - the threat was contained in the person of Saddam Hussein. Iran and
Al Qaeda are institutional threats - it really doesn't matter who is the
leader at any particular time. Al Qaeda's time is running out; since their
moment in the sun they have been smothered wherever they try to show their
power. That is bad news for them, although they could still flare up. Iran
is much tougher. The revolution is nearly 30 years old - more than a
generation - and they can legitimately claim to have stood up against the US
and prospered (relatively, anyway.) Their technological capacity must not be
underestimated. There was a simple military solution to the Hussein threat -
eliminate him and the threat is effectively quashed. Everything that
followed is housekeeping, regardless of the distortions of our perspective.
We could leave now and only the Iraqis would suffer unless Iran decides to
invade. There is no obvious solution - military, diplomatic or otherwise -
to the threat Iran poses to the world.

Saddam was a competitor to the Islamic revolution in Iran and to al Qaeda.
He never made a secret that he was competing for Arab leader, a position
also sought by Khadaffi and Hafez al-Assad. Since Iran isn't arab and since
revolutions make neighbors nervous, Saddam found wide support for what the
Arab world knows as the Gulf War. The popular American explanation for the
incursion was to seize the Shatt al-Arab, a silty and shallow waterway that
could have provided a port for Iraq. Trouble is, Iraq could have leased it
for a song if Iran actually controlled it and would not have been faced with
the hopeless task of holding the land. What's more, the disputed border ran
right through the middle of the waterway, giving Iraq no gain for their
losses. American references to this war tend to portray both sides as
stupidly fighting for unimportant borders, a view that doesn't do justice to
the canny political strategies of each.

For all that, barely a year after the bitter eight year war that ended in
Iraq slinking away from the conflict, Saddam sent the remains of his air
force to Iran rather than lose it to the Allies.

Something is wrong with us if we care. Each nation must chart its own
course, and of all the other nations of the world only Israel can understand
what it is like to be the nation that must be subjugated in order for
terrorists to be elevated to power. In the '30s the US leaned toward joining
Germany in the fight against its neighbors, not for reasons of our own
convictions but because of sympathies. This time we should get a backbone so
we don't help plunge the world into a new dark age.

I have an idea but I don't see it beginning. Iran is about a prize, and that
prize is probably indestructible. Islam is not going away and there must be
a leader to fill the vacuum. There are three generally accepted ways a
Caliph may gain power. http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/politics/khalifa.html One
way is to be named by the present Caliph, so that's out. Another is to seize
the office through force, as long as the duties of the office are
fulfilled - that's the path the contestants are seeking now. The third is by
a selection process reminiscent of the way a Pope is chosen. If we were to
encourage the election of a Caliph Iran would find the carpet pulled from
under them but would not lose face nor lose power within their own country.
That would be fine with me.

Mike

 

Did you ever wonder why California and not surrounding states? Sadly,
legislation more than a decade old was at the root of California's crisis.
California was on the bleeding edge of the deregulation experiment, and they
effectively shut themselves out of the power market. Unbelievably, Southern
California Edison and PG&E were forbidden to buy power generated in
California! In addition, long term contracts were forbidden, forcing
California utilities to buy on the far more expensive spot market. San Diego
Gas and Electric was not constrained in that way - I don't know why.
Everybody else had the entire market from which to choose for the modest
amounts they hadn't contracted, so California power producers had to compete
with everybody while California power providers had to buy from a smaller
market that was already heavily committed by contracts. Supply and demand
got the frenzy going, and some power producers and wholesalers began gaming
the market to squeeze spot buyers harder. Enron was the worst of the
gamesters, but dozens of power producers and wholesalers were investigated
(including the utility I work for, which has both production and provider
branches) and about half were faulted.

California hasn't learned a thing. Legislation signed in recent months now
prohibits the purchase of power produced by coal once present contracts
expire in 2012 and 2017. Unless things shift dramatically by then half the
power generated in the American West will be bought by everybody else at a
bargain and California will wonder why they pay so much more.

Mike

 

Did you ever wonder why California and not surrounding states? Sadly,
legislation more than a decade old was at the root of California's crisis.
California was on the bleeding edge of the deregulation experiment, and they
effectively shut themselves out of the power market. Unbelievably, Southern
California Edison and PG&E were forbidden to buy power generated in
California! In addition, long term contracts were forbidden, forcing
California utilities to buy on the far more expensive spot market. San Diego
Gas and Electric was not constrained in that way - I don't know why.
Everybody else had the entire market from which to choose for the modest
amounts they hadn't contracted, so California power producers had to compete
with everybody while California power providers had to buy from a smaller
market that was already heavily committed by contracts. Supply and demand
got the frenzy going, and some power producers and wholesalers began gaming
the market to squeeze spot buyers harder. Enron was the worst of the
gamesters, but dozens of power producers and wholesalers were investigated
(including the utility I work for, which has both production and provider
branches) and about half were faulted.

California hasn't learned a thing. Legislation signed in recent months now
prohibits the purchase of power produced by coal once present contracts
expire in 2012 and 2017. Unless things shift dramatically by then half the
power generated in the American West will be bought by everybody else at a
bargain and California will wonder why they pay so much more.

Mike

 

Either Butler was wrong, his successor's (Hans Blix's?) inspection
team was wrong when they failed to find chemical weapons, or Saddam
eliminated his chemical weapons by the time the latter came in. BTW,
I believe Butler opposed the 2003 invasion.

Al Qaeda will fail because it's so repressive that it can't gain the
support of the masses the way Ho Chi Mien did, and not having a single
national base is a big handicap, despite the powerful draw of Islam,
because tribalism and nationalism trump everything else.

I believe President George Bush thought Saddam could become another
Hitler and had to be nipped in the bud by forcing him out of Kuwait.

Not in this case because it's a sign that we failed. OTOH after 9/11
and our Afghanistan war victory, our popularity was at its height and
gave us an opportunity to accomplish a lot internationally because the
world was strongly on our side then. Unfortunately GW Bush failed to
exploit that opportunity.

Because we're bogged down in Iraq and look weak, I don't see how we
can influence in the internal workings of the Iranian government, and
we may have to wait until it collapses from its own mistakes or from
old age

 

Either Butler was wrong, his successor's (Hans Blix's?) inspection
team was wrong when they failed to find chemical weapons, or Saddam
eliminated his chemical weapons by the time the latter came in. BTW,
I believe Butler opposed the 2003 invasion.

Al Qaeda will fail because it's so repressive that it can't gain the
support of the masses the way Ho Chi Mien did, and not having a single
national base is a big handicap, despite the powerful draw of Islam,
because tribalism and nationalism trump everything else.

I believe President George Bush thought Saddam could become another
Hitler and had to be nipped in the bud by forcing him out of Kuwait.

Not in this case because it's a sign that we failed. OTOH after 9/11
and our Afghanistan war victory, our popularity was at its height and
gave us an opportunity to accomplish a lot internationally because the
world was strongly on our side then. Unfortunately GW Bush failed to
exploit that opportunity.

Because we're bogged down in Iraq and look weak, I don't see how we
can influence in the internal workings of the Iranian government, and
we may have to wait until it collapses from its own mistakes or from
old age

 

Why are you responding to this troll?
Haven't you heard of killfile?