Almost Election time....are you registered to vote?

[Sasquatch]

I agree with most of what you have said in this paragraph with the exception of the Hillary supporters.

As has been said, never underestimate stupidity. Just like there are people who would vote for or against somebody because they're black, there are people who would vote for or against somebody because they're a woman.

Palin stated the other night that Obama said he was going to raise the middle class American's taxes as well as the small business owners. That is not what he said. He did say he was going to start taxing the wealthy and the big corporate businesses and give the middle class, lower income, and small businesses a break.

Many, many small businesses gross more than $250,000 a year (before expenditures), and Obama would raise their taxes. Besides, taxing the wealthy isn't right either. This is Capitalism, not Socialism -- when people make more money, they get to keep it. It doesn't matter if you think they have enough or not.

Taxing the "rich" instead of taxing the middle class is a political ploy anyway. Gas prices are high -- do you think they'll go down if Obama gets in and makes oil companies pay even more in taxes?

Let's say they tax Wal-Mart. Of course, huge income, huge expenses. Instead of taxing the people who shop at Wal-Mart, Obama taxes Wal-Mart. What does Wal-Mart do? Raise their prices. Tell me, how does that help the average middle-class Wal-Mart shopper? They're still paying more, and their money is still going to the government, it's just not direct. They get upset at the evil corporations and not the politicians who are sucking money from them.

Personally I believe that McCain is balancing his campaign on his P.O.W. past. He has agreed with Bush 90% of the time, and last night he even said he was proud of how Bush has ran the country since 9-11 !!

The first time I ran the 300m Intermediate Hurdles in high school, I barely made it through them. I don't have much for running endurance, but I started sprinting out of the blocks. Bad idea. Out of ten hurdles, I tipped #7, ran into #8 and pushed it over, cleared #9, and tripped myself up on the last one, sending me face-down into the track. It was rubber and not asphalt, but I still ended up with pieces of rubber embedded into my hands and knees.

But I tried. I had never done it before, but I gave it my all coming out of the blocks. Sure, I screwed up. Sure, the only reason I didn't come in last was that I accidentally kicked that last hurdle into the next lane, tripping the only guy that was still behind me. But I picked myself up and finished.

My girlfriend, my girlfriend's mother, my girlfriend's sister, and two track coaches told me they were proud of me.

Are you getting the point of the story, here?

Thousands have died because of Bush declaring war in Iraq.

The President can't declare war. And Congress authorized the troops.

Obama may not have years and years of experience behind him, but he does have the American peoples best interest in mind.

Obama has accomplished exactly nothing, nada, zip, zero, zilch in his political career, except for advancing in political position. Not a damn thing. He has absolutely NOTHING of any impact on his resumé. Why do you think he has America's best interests in mind if he's only had his own interests in mind since he became a politician?

I agree, eight years is enough, it is time for a change.

One of the biggest problems with Bush is that he has increased spending and increased the size of government. The only "change" Obama would offer is an increase in the speed of the problems.

Plus, votes don't technically count. Everything is ultimately up to the electoral college. (If you remember, they have screwed us over before.)

Of course they count. Electoral votes are the ones that make the real difference, but the popular vote controls the electoral vote.

I especially wouldn't say that the Electoral vote "screwed us" out of Gore. To that, I would say, "Kudos, Electoral College!"

I have principles I need to stand for, though. I'm too proud to concede to the lack of choices presented to me.

True, that does suck. The way I figure, there are three reasons to vote for Candidate A. One, obviously, is that you like Candidate A better than Candidates B-Z. Two is that you only kinda like Candidate A, but you know that your favorite candidate, Candidate C, has a snowball's chance in hell of actually winning. (This is most people's reasoning, including mine.) And three is that you absolutely hate Candidate B -- who is the only other candidate with a chance of winning -- and that Candidate A is their only competition. (This is what happened during the last two presidential elections.)

*sigh* My biggest fear is McCain getting elected. While I think both candidates will continue to run our country bankrupt, I think McCain will do it much more quickly.

McCain won't expand government nearly as much as Obama will, and all of his tax cut proposals have been paired with spending cut proposals. That's one of the few things I like about him. Typically, Democrats are for taxing more and spending more, and Republicans are (or were, at least) for taxing less and spending less. Bush taxed less and spent more. McCain, as liberal as he is on some issues, plans to tax less and spend less.

[T.G. Oskar]

Alright, I don't have the right to vote for the Presidential Candidate for the United States, but the decision right there is crucial, VERY crucial for me. You see, where I live, the decisions of Congress rule out, but we have no representation save for a guy who can scream all he wants, and sadly has no vote over there. So we need a President that's willing to consider us part of the States, or give us the help to achieve our complete liberation from the disguised direct control the US has over us.

And I don't think McCain is the right choice.

First, I'd have to deal with the War on Iraq. That war was completely needless, and for many reasons. First, it was proven and pretty much accepted by President Bush that there was no immediate threat to the United States by their armament, even though several visits from the UN were at first accepted and then rejected. You can let the police search your house with a warrant, and maybe you can hide some stuff, but when you see the police several times looking for the same thing, right or no, you have a right to be pissed off. Second, Saddam wasn't exactly a saint, but he held the reigns of Iraq. At his command, the various factions over there were under control, with a system that would make the Russian Intelligence agencies green of envy. Yet, instead of making an intelligent decision, they showed full force and deposed him, failing to realize the immediate repercussions that made. I don't place Saddam in a good light, nor I intend to, but one thing is certain: they had to think more of "how to keep that control over the radical factions and prevent great losses" than "get Saddam and dance over his remains". Honestly, we've lost a great deal of information and artifacts of ancient Persia because of the little coup. And apparently they still aren't capable of holding the peace out there; otherwise, they'd already leave town and return home.

I know some people around here don't like what Clinton did as a president, but I always remember how he handled the Kosovo situation. It was a definite menace to the peace of Europe, but he worked with the situation. About 3-4 months later, all of the deployed units were either already home or about to return. Comparing Kosovo to Iraq and/or Afghanistan may seem a bit off, but it tells a lot about presidential decisions. The world saw Bush as a complete moron; how they'll think of McCain, who seems to support Bush's decisions?

Third, and I dunno if you share this idea, but the US has been one of the reasons oil prices soared to the points they have reached. One of the reasons seems to be the inefficient ways to prevent the fall of the dollar currency to the Euro, while another seems to stem from the decisions at Iraq, and the threats to Syria and Lebanon. There are other reasons, I'm sure of that, but there should not be doubt about the US as a main reason for the sudden price spikes. Heck, this would have been prevented if the countries of the world shifted their efforts to more effective forms of energy production. But, the world still depends on petroleum, and because of that, prices spike. And there ARE already pretty effective ways to harness and PRODUCE (note the captions in this word) the necessary fuels to produce this energy...I mean, the shuttles use a combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to lift off, right? Why then can't we shift some of that production into hydrogen fuel cell production, and slowly stop our dependence on oil? At least the car industry would see a flourish, even if it's a long-term process. Now, would I trust a man who seems to support the decisions of an oil tycoon, or the decisions of a Chicago suburb man who found a way to reach his position as candidate for presidency, proving that not all black people have to be thugs or junkies, nor fall upon ridiculous stereotypes?

At least on the area of energy, I'd rather trust the Chicago man. I can't trust a party that placed an poorly efficient president twice. One of them stolen, no matter what the Supreme Court says since they pretty much were proven wrong; the reason Bush remained was because Gore realized it was better to stop that, and refuse to defy the Supreme Court of his own country. Gutless or not, that was a wise decision, for it would have been terrible to see a good president being hunted by the Supreme Court in vendetta. And don't tell me the US wouldn't be willing to persecute a man in courts for personal vendettas: right here where I live, that's pretty much proven.

I must admit, I really wanted Hillary Clinton to win. She seemed a woman with reasonable points, plus with the support of a husband that happened to be a former president. And a good former president, as well, regardless of what he did with his personal life (and let's not talk about Bush, he has proven to be a bad president with a bad past behind him. I recall he dropped the National Guard in a shady incident, am I right?) I must admit that Obama looks to me like a Manchurian candidate, and the looks of Joe Biden do nothing to dispel that vision; yet, compared to McCain and Mrs. Palin, I think it's better to take the risk. Really, if McCain wanted to choose a female candidate of which no one save Alaskans have heard of until now, just to appease the Clinton voters, that was a bad choice. And if he really thought he could choose a MILF to get the young and inexperienced voters attention, I want what McCain smokes, 'cause it must be good. Not that I'm a smoker of any sort, just using the symbolic expression. Bible-thumper or not, she's of the ultra-conservative sort that we cannot afford to have at any position of supreme importance without a balancing act that I fear McCain can't provide. He's proven to be weak-willed despite his proud claims of being a soldier, given that he retracted from his views at Iraq after a visit there? Either what he saw was what Bush wanted to see (in which case he proves to be malleable to the interests of people, as he can't seem to request a further investigation by his own means and outside the views of his party), or he always thought of it that way (which proves that he's not the right person to balance the ultra-conservative views of Mrs. Palin, and that may place the Congress and the Executive Office in a constant state of warfare), or he genuinely made a decision to change his views after what he saw, which proves that Bush made a hasty decision and that he must make a stronger decision or face the watchful eye of Americans wanting solid responses, not conjectures or "hunches".

Now, I must admit that Honey's European view of things strikes me as deeply interesting. She seems very well informed about what happens at the United States, and compliments it with her point of view from the European front, namely the United Kingdom front (how's it now that Blair is no longer in power?)

Honestly, I've been always attracted by the main goals of the Democratic Party, and a bit sad by their perception of the media as weak, as if the voters were guided by a form of Social Darwinism where being weak but focused on guaranteeing the well-being of the common man pales at being the strong guy that leans for the rich class and their gross expenditures. Now they have a guy that has a degree of charisma unlike his predecessors, with a good vision of what he plans to do (yet not the actual look to support that), and it's sad to see the Great Old (Proud and Bastard) Party wants to chafe him as "elitist white wannabe with a sleek tongue but no actual commitment". It's bad to judge a book by it's cover.

But it's worse when McCain blew the cover and provided an abstract of his work. It doesn't attract me, were I to have the chance to vote.

[Sasquatch]

First, I'd have to deal with the War on Iraq. That war was completely needless, and for many reasons. First, it was proven and pretty much accepted by President Bush that there was no immediate threat to the United States by their armament ...

It was never a war against Iraq, it was a war against terrorism. Saddam funded, equipped, and trained terrorists. Saddam was a terrorist himself. Are you trying to say that the U.S. has never been under terrorist threat? Or that terrorists weren't a bigger threat with a leader of a country as a buddy on speed-dial?

... even though several visits from the UN were at first accepted and then rejected. You can let the police search your house with a warrant, and maybe you can hide some stuff, but when you see the police several times looking for the same thing, right or no, you have a right to be pissed off.

The UN botched Iraq through and through. And Saddam never give them complete access, even after being threatened with military action. It would be like the police searching your home, but you telling them that they can't look in your bedroom. The next time they come, they can't look in your bathroom. The next time they come, they can't look in your living room. Should they REALLY think you're not hiding anything?

Second, Saddam wasn't exactly a saint, but he held the reigns of Iraq. At his command, the various factions over there were under control, with a system that would make the Russian Intelligence agencies green of envy.

You're giving him kudos for the torture, rape, and slaughter he used to control the population? Are you serious?

Yet, instead of making an intelligent decision, they showed full force and deposed him, failing to realize the immediate repercussions that made.

I guess a year and a half of diplomacy -- after ten years of diplomacy -- was a "rush to war".

I don't place Saddam in a good light, nor I intend to, but one thing is certain: they had to think more of "how to keep that control over the radical factions and prevent great losses" than "get Saddam and dance over his remains".

Granted, the possibility of as much violence without Saddam as there was with Saddam wasn't a high priority. The priority was to take out a big friend of terrorists.

Honestly, we've lost a great deal of information and artifacts of ancient Persia because of the little coup.

We lost information and artifacts because of looters and terrorists. Would you rather some of them be lost or all of them be kept for Saddam's personal use?

And apparently they still aren't capable of holding the peace out there; otherwise, they'd already leave town and return home.

It takes time. Taking out Saddam was the easy part, the hard part is rebuilding the country so it can survive without a tyrannical dictatorship.

I know some people around here don't like what Clinton did as a president, but I always remember how he handled the Kosovo situation.

He didn't handle the Kosovo situation, NATO and the UN did. If you want something Clinton "handled", look at the Battle of Mogadishu.

The world saw Bush as a complete moron; how they'll think of McCain, who seems to support Bush's decisions?

Any clue on how much Obama has supported Bush's decisions, or how often Obama "voted with Bush"? Why should we care how "the world sees us" anyway?

Third, and I dunno if you share this idea, but the US has been one of the reasons oil prices soared to the points they have reached. One of the reasons seems to be the inefficient ways to prevent the fall of the dollar currency to the Euro ...

And you think that the recession Clinton cause and passed on, coupled with a larger recession as a result of terrorist attacks (that might not have happened if Clinton didn't gut the military and intelligence complexes) might have something to do with the bad economy?

... while another seems to stem from the decisions at Iraq, and the threats to Syria and Lebanon.

How much oil do Syria and Lebanon produce?

There are other reasons, I'm sure of that, but there should not be doubt about the US as a main reason for the sudden price spikes. Heck, this would have been prevented if the countries of the world shifted their efforts to more effective forms of energy production.

Bush has devoted more money to research "alternative energy" than all other Presidents combined, and plenty more than any other country. The problem, as of yet, is that there are no more effective forms of energy production.

But, the world still depends on petroleum, and because of that, prices spike. And there ARE already pretty effective ways to harness and PRODUCE (note the captions in this word) the necessary fuels to produce this energy...I mean, the shuttles use a combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to lift off, right?

They burn liquid hydrogen and use liquid oxygen because things need oxygen to burn. Shuttles also use huge rockets that are extremely inefficeint, not small engines.

Why then can't we shift some of that production into hydrogen fuel cell production, and slowly stop our dependence on oil?

Because it takes more energy to produce hydrogen than we can get out of it. The most common form is electrolysis through water (usually seawater, because the salt and mineral contents make it a better conductor), but, obviously, electrolysis takes electricity. Basically, it costs more than it's worth. We put more into it than we get out of it. If we can find a better way to get Hydrogen -- and find a better way to use it -- fuel cells would go mainstream. Until then, it's a nice idea, but not much more.

At least the car industry would see a flourish, even if it's a long-term process.

Exactly. I've maintained many times that private industry will lead the way. There's no need for the government to pass laws that set fuel mileage standards, because companies give people what they want. If people want cars with better mileage, car companies will make cars with better mileage, period.

Now, would I trust a man who seems to support the decisions of an oil tycoon, or the decisions of a Chicago suburb man who found a way to reach his position as candidate for presidency, proving that not all black people have to be thugs or junkies, nor fall upon ridiculous stereotypes?

First, McCain has repeatedly discussed alternative energy research, he just realizes that it will take a long while, and that drilling our own oil will relieve the country's reliance on foreign oil, create jobs and boost our own economy, and bring down fuel prices.

And second, are you honestly giving support to Obama because he's black, but not a stereotypical black? That's what it sounds like, with the idea that he "proved" that not all black people are stereotypical (like there haven't been successful black people before).

I can't trust a party that placed an poorly efficient president twice. One of them stolen, no matter what the Supreme Court says since they pretty much were proven wrong; the reason Bush remained was because Gore realized it was better to stop that, and refuse to defy the Supreme Court of his own country. Gutless or not, that was a wise decision, for it would have been terrible to see a good president being hunted by the Supreme Court in vendetta.

Holy hell, get off the idea that the election was "stolen" in any way, shape, or form. Honestly, if you actually knew what happened, you would realize how moronic this idea is. Florida was a close state, and Gore decided he wanted certain areas recounted. Not the entire state, just the heavily Democratic parts. What happens with every recount? More votes. What does that mean for areas that are highly Democratic? A few more Republican votes and a lot more Democratic votes.

The Supreme Court finally said that it was going to be a recount of the entire state or no recount at all. Gore could have had the entire state recounted. He didn't stop because he "refuse[d] to defy the Supreme Court of his own country". He stopped because he knew that recounting the entire state wouldn't give the same results as only recounting highly Democratic areas.

And a good former president, as well, regardless of what he did with his personal life

He depleted the country's defenses, ignored or empowered our enemies, caused a recession, pushed companies out of the country, abused his authority, and -- the least of the "wrong" things he did -- lied under oath. I don't care if he slept with every woman in DC, even if infidelity is illegal for the President -- hell, kudos to JFK for bagging Marilyn Monroe (and let's face it, if you were married to Hillary, you'd be looking for something else, anything else too) -- but if the guy's dishonest and untrustworthy, he's dishonest and untrustworthy. It would have blown over (no pun intended) if he'd just fessed up when he needed to. He wasn't impeaced for having an affair, he was impeached for lying under oath.

(and let's not talk about Bush, he has proven to be a bad president with a bad past behind him. I recall he dropped the National Guard in a shady incident, am I right?)

Ummm, no, you're not right. The only thing "shady" about Bush's National Guard service is the accusations of AWOL, which were completely untrue, even with the admittedly fabricated "documents".

Bible-thumper or not, she's of the ultra-conservative sort that we cannot afford to have at any position of supreme importance without a balancing act that I fear McCain can't provide.

McCain's big problem with Republican voters is that he's a RINO -- Republican In Name Only. For a Republican, he's very liberal. Palin, a conservative, helps McCain draw in the typically Republican voters who are pushed away by McCain's liberalism.

He's proven to be weak-willed despite his proud claims of being a soldier, given that he retracted from his views at Iraq after a visit there? Either what he saw was what Bush wanted to see (in which case he proves to be malleable to the interests of people, as he can't seem to request a further investigation by his own means and outside the views of his party), or he always thought of it that way (which proves that he's not the right person to balance the ultra-conservative views of Mrs. Palin, and that may place the Congress and the Executive Office in a constant state of warfare), or he genuinely made a decision to change his views after what he saw, which proves that Bush made a hasty decision and that he must make a stronger decision or face the watchful eye of Americans wanting solid responses, not conjectures or "hunches".

I'm not sure what "views" you're referring to here, but I'm gathering that if he agrees with Bush and disagrees with you, he's wrong. If he always disagreed with you, he's wrong. If he saw what was going on and then started disagreeing with you, he's wrong. So, in other words, if he disagrees with you, he's wrong. Or are you trying to say something else?

Now they have a guy that has a degree of charisma unlike his predecessors, with a good vision of what he plans to do (yet not the actual look to support that), and it's sad to see the Great Old (Proud and Bastard) Party wants to chafe him as "elitist white wannabe with a sleek tongue but no actual commitment".

Clinton had "charisma" too. Some women admit voting for Clinton because he was physically attractive. Obama might have "vision", but he has no plans, no structure, absolutely nothing to back up his claims of what he will actually do. He has done nothing in his political career except advance his political career, and everybody he started out drawing to him to make him look like the average American -- family members, friends, his pastor -- he is now pushing away.

It's bad to judge a book by it's cover.

Though that's easy to do with Obama, considering that he's written two memoirs but has an extreme lack of experience.

[T.G. Oskar]

It was never a war against Iraq, it was a war against terrorism. Saddam funded, equipped, and trained terrorists. Saddam was a terrorist himself. Are you trying to say that the U.S. has never been under terrorist threat? Or that terrorists weren't a bigger threat with a leader of a country as a buddy on speed-dial?

Only Saddam? Not the fundamentalist Islamic radicals that preach their own twisted interpretation of their religion, who may seek donations from even American allies? The "Qu'ran Thumpers"? ...Wait, those are religious loonies, unable to inflame the masses into armed and cruel terrorism in the name of Allah, providing the places and the twisted interpretations of the beliefs that most terrorists profess, brainwashed by

Also, you think that the US hasn't supported terrorists? That, when Manuel Noriega took control of El Salvador, and began his regime, the US immediately went and bravely stopped him from assuming a terrible dictatorship? (hint: he was arrested by drugs, not by war crimes) Heck, has the US been capable of stopping tyrannical dictators in it's neighboring lands? Castro and Chavez aren't the only dictators in neighboring lands; usually when the US does intervene with them, it's either too late and the damage's done, or the legal process takes so much time the guy kicks the bucket. Or gets the bucket ready to kick it.

The UN botched Iraq through and through. And Saddam never give them complete access, even after being threatened with military action. It would be like the police searching your home, but you telling them that they can't look in your bedroom. The next time they come, they can't look in your bathroom. The next time they come, they can't look in your living room. Should they REALLY think you're not hiding anything?

Yet after the US went and made a check of all installations without the restrictions of Saddam, they also found nothing. Heck, I recall hearing in TV that the government accepted there was no biological, chemical, or nuclear grade weapons in Iraq's installations. And you can't do much if you don't have the material, even if you have the knowledge. Moved to another place? Where? Iran, who probably still hated Saddam for its attempts to conquer it? Kuwait?

You're giving him kudos for the torture, rape, and slaughter he used to control the population? Are you serious?

Apparently saying he wasn't a saint counts for nothing. He held the reins of Iraq: his methods are not something I'm glad about, but seeing people post-Saddam's reign bombing US installations even though they don't have support from the Ba'ath strikes me as odd. There's a reason why I mention this, and I'll explain pretty soon.

I guess a year and a half of diplomacy -- after ten years of diplomacy -- was a "rush to war".

So they rushed off to war? Without thinking on how to handle the extremists, the Kurds, the Shiite Muslims seeking revenge for the crimes against humanity that Saddam dealt to that population (considering he was a Sunnite Muslim)? That was what I meant by "failing to realize the immediate repercussions". The Coalition Forces apparently never took to consideration that so many groups held still by Saddam's brutal actions were so hungry to retaliate, that the day he died, the country fell into chaos. Which leads right to the mentality you have of the situation...

Granted, the possibility of as much violence without Saddam as there was with Saddam wasn't a high priority. The priority was to take out a big friend of terrorists.

That's the reason why our troops don't return. Strategic failure? Maybe not, perhaps "rushing into war out of retaliation". The idea was to take out the head, without realizing what the hands were holding.

Oddly enough, what it seems is that Saddam wasn't a fan of Islamic radicals. How can a guy with disgust for Islamic radicals associate with Muslim Fundie loonies, let alone support them with funds and weapons? I duuno, why don't ask Musharraf?

And finally, I presume that if the guy was a mass murderer/genocide/torturer/so on, so on, so on, in the form of military action, you could have suggested sending the case to The Hague, instead of giving it to a hungry for revenge Iraqi government. Or, at least seek it's advice on the matter, to make it more like an official determination and not a vengeful and orchestrated act. You see, while you probably don't care about how the world sees the US, the world does care. Because that's how they'll talk and treat the US.

Actually, I know you don't care. You mentioned it a few sentences below. So you don't care that the world sees the US as willing to use imperialist tactics such as military occupation of countries to fix the mess caused by an impulse? Or that the US still tries to ignore the Kyoto Protocol and remains producing most of the greenhouse effect gases while the rest of the countries have decided to? It's bad image, and bad image will ruin any president that steps in, whether it's Obama, McCain, Paul, Bush, Clinton, or even George Washington if he were to return to life again.

We lost information and artifacts because of looters and terrorists. Would you rather some of them be lost or all of them be kept for Saddam's personal use?

I'd rather have them safe than destroyed. Because that's what happened. But of course, military has no need to preserve annals of civilization as it has done for centuries, for the winners write the history placing them as the heroes. Not like the entire US military would do that, but some military guys seem to hold to that mentality. You can't go and say "what's lost is lost", and give a pat to the high command that wanted Saddam over the stability of Iraq or the annals of old civilizations. The soldiers, yeah; they work hard to do their job. Officers, nah.

It takes time. Taking out Saddam was the easy part, the hard part is rebuilding the country so it can survive without a tyrannical dictatorship.

How much more time? It's been three years, and apparently the new Iraqi government is still at square one. And the radical preachers still roam free, protected by the radical fanatics, sowing the seeds of religious hatred and xenophobia. That wasn't handled properly, but they still have the chance to fix that. And that doesn't need a constant flux of soldiers constantly risking their lives; it requires more than that, and it requires new solutions other than mindless warfare. Having so many soldiers at Iraq and so many officers and people trying to baby-feed Iraq's government makes the US look bad, once again.

Though, once again, little you care.

He didn't handle the Kosovo situation, NATO and the UN did. If you want something Clinton "handled", look at the Battle of Mogadishu.

So, for you to admit that NATO handled the situation, you need to admit that either that its members are on equal terms with the United States Military Corps, or that the USMC is pretty much the backbone of the NATO. Which has the President as it's Commander-in-Chief. The Battle of Mogadishu is pretty much what the US Military often does (either splendid little battles or retreating after it sees that small wars don't succeed; the objectives were achieved, but it was a Pyrrhic Victory, the first Gulf War was pretty much the same, as they couldn't depose Saddam. So does Vietnam. So does Korea.)

I know, I feel you have good grasp on the knowledge of the United States' military history. I reckon your tastes incline to that point. If so, then you might agree with me on this: the US hasn't ever fought a war by itself that results in a complete victory more than a Mission Objective Success. Both World Wars have the US entering late in the battle to support the European Allied Forces with men and supplies, so you can't say exactly that the US won both wars. The main tactic of the United States is making small and fast wars to achieve mission objectives, and then retreat if the thing turns dire. This war is the obvious exception, but with the terrible corollary that the country placed itself in a situation where any step done will end in disaster, because they still haven't dealt with the main problem. And they didn't took the slight amount of time to decide how to handle the situation other than "cut the head and let the worms handle the rest".

And you think that the recession Clinton cause and passed on, coupled with a larger recession as a result of terrorist attacks (that might not have happened if Clinton didn't gut the military and intelligence complexes) might have something to do with the bad economy?

WHAT THE? RECESSION UNDER CLINTON? Erm, I believe that economy that time was growing strong, it wasn't the debacle that's going on this time. If you leave office with the budget under a surplus, that proves you're a good, if not outstanding, financial administrator. Right now, we're facing near-Depression degree recession (if we aren't at an economical depression already), and all that surplus went to waste during the first years of Bush administration, with him ending his office with a massive deficit.

Remember: surplus=good, deficit=bad. In a screwed up economy, it's better to have a surplus to provide good incentives than having a deficit and tell people your government has no way to support the economy other than a long and tired war and tax cuts that were not planned well enough.

How much oil do Syria and Lebanon produce?

Wait, weren't Syria and Lebanon "terrorist supporters"? Isn't this a war on terrorism, not a war on oil? Either you accept that the war on Iraq isn't mostly a war on terrorism than a war for control of oil resources, or you are contradicting yourself, or Syria and Lebanon produce more oil than we thought.

Bush has devoted more money to research "alternative energy" than all other Presidents combined, and plenty more than any other country. The problem, as of yet, is that there are no more effective forms of energy production.

Note that. While it hasn't said how much money has he invested (I reckon you have the data, right?), he has at least spoken about alternative fuel incentives. I'll grant you that. That still doesn't mean that the oil price increase isn't due to the actions of the US. The increases on oil prices began to intensify with the Bush Administration, far as I know. Using the resources of the US is a good idea. Offshore drilling is not. Using what's on Texas is much better, and I believe enough to sell and place upon the supply to affect the costs.

Or the problem stated by the sudden drop in the cost of the dollar against the Euro. It's pretty much stated that when it began, the Euro held great power against the dollar, but the drop isn't due mainly to the regression. It's the fear of investors that propels the drop. Close to what happened at the GD: investors scared of investing, the stock market drops, no economy growth. Couple that with the housing and real estate problem, and you have the components of the equation. You can't place all the blame at a sudden recession that the current President apparently couldn't handle. Prolonging a war, however, can be placed to blame, as well as sending threats here and there.

Notice how the image of the US upon the world IS important. Without a good image, investors will not be willing to invest on the Dow Jones, or the NASDAQ companies, and the economy will begin it's descent.

Finally...there are several ways to produce energy. There are four ways currently to produce energy that are used without much trouble: water vapor-turbine-generator systems, photovoltaic cells, voltaic battery, and fuel cell which is an improvement over the voltaic battery. From those 4, the first is the basic and most used system. So as long as you produce enough force to move the necessary amount of water to move the turbine that causes generators to produce energy by conversion of mechanical energy to electrical energy, you have a form of producing energy. As you stated, there (supposedly) are no more efficient ways of producing energy than heavy fuels such as coal, natural gas or oil (and using nuclear cores, but that's risky and dangerous). But, there are several ways to take advantage of the less-efficient ones to produce more energy. Hydroelectric dams are an example, as they take advantage of the very movement of water to produce electricity, without the need of heat. Wind energy is less efficient, but it serves as a pinch. Solar energy is quite efficient, but it's bulky and costly; that isn't an excuse to save on energy costs, since that's a long-term inversion. Geothermal energy is quite efficient, but at unpredictable cycles: it's odd that people apparently don't visualize ways to replicate that process with less efficient heat sources, since it's less heat and more pressure what produces the energy.

There are ways, efficient or not; the problem lies in that energy-wise, people are afraid of checking how energy production works. Until the time comes where we can harness energy from nuclear fission or nuclear fusion on controllable terms (long time 'til that, unless the Rapture comes first), we need to see the already present solutions to the problem (even though they look more like patches), to ease the growing problem. Heck, using the surplus to provide an incentive to sell solar panels was a good way to use that money.

They burn liquid hydrogen and use liquid oxygen because things need oxygen to burn. Shuttles also use huge rockets that are extremely inefficeint[sic], not small engines.

Actually...they take advantage of the energy released by the combustion of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen into water vapor, which releases a monstrous amount of energy (think of what was the precursor to electricity, and what produces electricity currently). And of course they're inefficient; those are rockets, which are meant to compensate for the huge size of the rockets.

But, that means there are ways to produce oxygen. I guess you wish to debate that in the next bit, so...

Because it takes more energy to produce hydrogen than we can get out of it. The most common form is electrolysis through water (usually seawater, because the salt and mineral contents make it a better conductor), but, obviously, electrolysis takes electricity. Basically, it costs more than it's worth. We put more into it than we get out of it. If we can find a better way to get Hydrogen -- and find a better way to use it -- fuel cells would go mainstream. Until then, it's a nice idea, but not much more.

Again, there's ways to produce electricity that don't depend on non-renewable sources. Forget the aesthetic; if you can harness every single bit of renewable sources of force to move turbines to produce energy, you can produce electrolysis without the need to depend on the common energy sources, and for a lesser price on the long term. Also, electrolysis is the most common way as most of the hydrogen on the world is kept on water, but there are alternatives. That people insist on one single form of action to "save costs" instead of thinking how to use multiple processes to maximize the amount of production and using possible byproducts of the singular components in a safe and effective way to reduce the impact of multiple costs goes beyond me.

I've maintained many times that private industry will lead the way. There's no need for the government to pass laws that set fuel mileage standards, because companies give people what they want. If people want cars with better mileage, car companies will make cars with better mileage, period.

Companies give people what they want, but marketing gives companies what they want. Honest. Companies prefer to invest more in marketing than research, because marketing eventually produces benefits at a shorter range of time than research. And, marketing has proven that it can influence the decisions of the population, hence why marketing and promotion companies that effectively use this tactic are being favored by various companies. If the people want cars with better mileage, the company has to do something to provide; if marketing tells you "you can have your very own gas-guzzling SUV that provides 20 miles per gallon", and you don't realize that 20 MPG isn't enough to help the environment, you'll want the 20 MPG gas guzzler instead of the slightly more expensive yet better hybrid car, which provides nearly the double in fuel efficiency.

Hence, why SUVs and pick-ups still sell despite the general consensus on saving. Because marketing knows how to influence people.

First, McCain has repeatedly discussed alternative energy research, he just realizes that it will take a long while, and that drilling our own oil will relieve the country's reliance on foreign oil, create jobs and boost our own economy, and bring down fuel prices.

Good. What else?

The technology and the ways to work around it are there, the intention to work with them isn't. The time to work with those tools isn't now, it was years ago. Something neither Dems nor Reps have apparently managed to work. With the Clinton administration, we weren't worrying about gas prices and the like, and that was a fault that blows now. Bush had his chance to work around it, and he did on his second term, because a war that consumes energy like crazy was more important than working with the energy problem, where by just telling "we don't need your oil that much, we can supply ourselves with our own. That doesn't mean we ain't gonna deal with you, because we can't work this alone."

Y'know, handling the problem by being sagacious, but not being a dickhead.

And second, are you honestly giving support to Obama because he's black, but not a stereotypical black? That's what it sounds like, with the idea that he "proved" that not all black people are stereotypical (like there haven't been successful black people before).

Much like you're giving support to McCain because he's more "liberal" than people perceive him, or because Palin is a hot MILF?

And he proved people like Carlton exist. Is Carlton a black stereotype? No, Will was. Was Mr. Banks a stereotypical black? No, Will's buddy was.

The reason why I support Obama rather than McCain is similar to the reason you have (jokes aside): because I don't like McCain, just like you don't like Obama. Even though I can't vote and you'd rather vote for Ron Paul because he's the guy you'd really want to support.

Holy hell, get off the idea that the election was "stolen" in any way, shape, or form. Honestly, if you actually knew what happened, you would realize how moronic this idea is. Florida was a close state, and Gore decided he wanted certain areas recounted. Not the entire state, just the heavily Democratic parts. What happens with every recount? More votes. What does that mean for areas that are highly Democratic? A few more Republican votes and a lot more Democratic votes.

The Supreme Court finally said that it was going to be a recount of the entire state or no recount at all. Gore could have had the entire state recounted. He didn't stop because he "refuse[d] to defy the Supreme Court of his own country". He stopped because he knew that recounting the entire state wouldn't give the same results as only recounting highly Democratic areas.

How about if they gave the results he expected? The reasons he stated was because those areas he believed were inclined to Democrats had troubles. Perhaps that isn't a good reasoning behind it, but here's a greater one.

How about the entire system used by the US seems to be the problem? I do reckon the US is too large a country and separate enough to handle a system like the Electoral College. But, how sure can you be that the Electoral College's representatives were actually working in real representation of the popular vote, and not under their own interests? You'd need a robot, or a person proven that he holds no interests to any party (and that's near impossible). Perhaps the whole of the people that work there are honest people that truly believe their solemn duty is to inform the truth, but that's far-fetched. It's more believable to say that the EC has ways to prevent such a kind of fraud, but how effective those are goes beyond me. Countries with equal or greater size use the same old system, but support a second go if the vote isn't by absolute majority. That, to me, is a better system than the actual one.

He depleted the country's defenses, ignored or empowered our enemies, caused a recession, pushed companies out of the country, abused his authority, and -- the least of the "wrong" things he did -- lied under oath. I don't care if he slept with every woman in DC, even if infidelity is illegal for the President -- hell, kudos to JFK for bagging Marilyn Monroe (and let's face it, if you were married to Hillary, you'd be looking for something else, anything else too) -- but if the guy's dishonest and untrustworthy, he's dishonest and untrustworthy. It would have blown over (no pun intended) if he'd just fessed up when he needed to. He wasn't impeaced for having an affair, he was impeached for lying under oath.

You don't need to beef up defenses if you don't act like a bully; the US often empowers its enemies without thinking (although ignorance by any President is inexcusable, and Bush had a way to react before 9/11 but no one actually told him. Were he a more serious President, he'd have asked or made sure right as he began term, instead of reading a book backwards the day of the attacks when there was evidence enough that both Presidents ignored); left a surplus that the current government failed to use in behalf of the people; outsourcing was going to happen because the US is no longer the mecca that companies seek to work with (while China is because of its dubious procedures, or the Southeastern Asian countries with their highs and lows, or India with its surprising amount of real-or-not professionals, or Central America with practices similar to the afore-mentioned countries); whomever is in political power that claims to not abuse his authority either must be a saint or lies like no one else does; and Clinton thought like a macho, instead of like a real man.

Yet he ended up with a 65% of the population supporting him, the highest number in leaving President opinion polls since FDR.

Can Bush achieve the same, when he won his first term with the popular vote actually giving the candidacy to Gore (which pretty much means Gore was supposed to win but the EC snuffed the vote, though that's a moot point since the popular vote is useless against the EC votes); giving the first step to a Big Brother style government with the Patriot Act that was made out of fear; Katrina; treatment of POWs at Guantanamo (which again gives a bad image of the US), and how he does nothing towards condemning the actions at Georgia?

Clinton had his good things and his bad things, but he didn't drew the country into a war that's still questioned for it's motive (aside from doing what his father couldn't). But I still prefer Clinton's handling of the Presidency than Bush's. It seemed that the US had more prestige at that moment than now.

Ummm, no, you're not right. The only thing "shady" about Bush's National Guard service is the accusations of AWOL, which were completely untrue, even with the admittedly fabricated "documents".

And alcoholism isn't a shady bit of the past, right? Like, when he got drunk and happy during a visit to the Olympics, showing no respect to the athletes and the event? That's some image damage, but when the alcohol problems are stains in the past, getting drunk in these days leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

McCain's big problem with Republican voters is that he's a RINO -- Republican In Name Only. For a Republican, he's very liberal. Palin, a conservative, helps McCain draw in the typically Republican voters who are pushed away by McCain's liberalism.

Or he seems to be that way. Much like Bush was seen as a Republican reformist. Unless...perhaps you vote for McCain because he's a closet Libertarian? Hey, maybe that's the reason!!

Palin doesn't help. There were other choices, but all McCain wanted was to boast that he had a chick as his VP candidate, and hastily I might add. She could have been checked beforehand.

And, if Republicans that were shunned by McCain's apparent liberalism are to be balanced by Palin, where are those who voted for McCain because he wasn't like other Republicans? They'll vote for Obama instead, because Biden looks a bit more conservative? The reason people chose McCain instead of Romney or Huckabee was because the former had that thing the Reps wanted to deal with the potential candidacy of a non-male-WASP Democrat. Clinton is pretty much a female liberal WASP (which I reckon has another name), and Obama is a male liberal BNSASP.

McCain...is a buffoon.

I'm not sure what "views" you're referring to here, but I'm gathering that if he agrees with Bush and disagrees with you, he's wrong. If he always disagreed with you, he's wrong. If he saw what was going on and then started disagreeing with you, he's wrong. So, in other words, if he disagrees with you, he's wrong. Or are you trying to say something else?

If he states that he'll abode for the return of US troops, and after visiting Iraq he gives in to Bush's policies, then he isn't consistent in his views. If he wishes to present himself as a "liberal" Republican, a different kind of Republican, yet he chooses a ultra-conservative for no other purpose than to prove to the ultra-righties that he's close to being a right-winger than a left-winger, then I don't seem to see which are his views.

Also, why don't you apply that statement, Mr. "Big Book of Facts"? If I pepper some of my thoughts with "I presume" or "I think" or IIRC (or reasonable facsimiles), then I can't presume of being absolutely right. You, on the other hand, seem to hide your presumption of righteousness with a thin veneer of objectivity, something a forum can't present.

Or that's how I perceive it. May that be it?

...Maybe not.

...Or is it...?

Clinton had "charisma" too. Some women admit voting for Clinton because he was physically attractive. Obama might have "vision", but he has no plans, no structure, absolutely nothing to back up his claims of what he will actually do. He has done nothing in his political career except advance his political career, and everybody he started out drawing to him to make him look like the average American -- family members, friends, his pastor -- he is now pushing away.

How about Gore? Or Kerry? Do they have the same amount of charisma that Bush projected, which led the people that did vote for him to do it? Gore is quite the serious man, who has seemed to flexibilize with some time. Or Kerry, who apparently lacked the enough charisma to rub off any accusations on his behalf.

Charisma isn't being physically attractive, charisma is having skill with the people. Obama has the kind of charisma that trascends physical appearance, because he has a gift when he speaks. People actually get and listen to him. That's the kind of charisma that the last two candidates lacked, for there's a minimum amount of charisma required to be a candidate. Obama just maxed his stat and placed a lot of points at Diplomacy and Perform (Oratory). Bush, on the other hand, placed a lot of points on Bluff, Perform (Comedy) and Intimidate. McCain placed points on Profession (War Hero) and the RINO feat.

AKA, Obama has skill at speaking and having people reason with him, Bush is rather hard to read but prefers to be observed as a buffoon (while being awfully serious at times), and McCain wants to be elected because he's a war hero and war heroes are cool, but Dem war heroes are not. Hence, why he is a "Republican in Name Only", though he might be a "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing"

Though that's easy to do with Obama, considering that he's written two memoirs but has an extreme lack of experience.

Yet when they read the content, people fall in love with him. The good way. McCain already seems a heavy read with his abstract, and the Palin's Notes don't seem to help.