A disgusting vat of filth that no self-respecting intelligent person would wade into.

[Penske_Account]

Every American should have health care coverage within six years, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama said Thursday as he set an ambitious goal soon after jumping into the 2008 presidential race.

Right on. And if we are going to guaranty health coverage the slippery slope says we should guaranty food and shelter as well.......Marx may notch his victoury yet.

If there are any posters here who still believe in property rights, freedom, an ownership society, opportunity and/or capitalism, now is the time to be afraid, and start contemplating the meaning of the Second Amendment.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
Are you sure it was Champagne and not her lo-rent doppelganger SparklyWine?

2. I wouldn't date the French.

[Penske_Account]

this pic of Sen. B. Hussien Obama and Mrs. Clinton listening to Commander in Chief George W. Bush delivers his annual State of the Union address on January 23, 2007......



BEND OVER AND GRAB YOUR ANKLES MUTHERFUCKER!

[Penske_Account]

Chuck Hagel fueling up to cut and run.

[Penske_Account]

Dear Peanutboy:

After watching you on the Today Show today, I am compelled to comment....

you ARE a liar!

you ARE an anti-semitic hater!

you ARE a loser!

you ARE a terrorist!

WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA? TRAITOR!

Best regards.

[Replaced_Texan]

It's hard to get worked up over bumper stickers in San Francisco when subjected to Penske photo shops for eight years.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
It's hard to get worked up over bumper stickers in San Francisco when subjected to Penske photo shops for eight years.

Yes. Kind of like the pot calling the pasta black.

[Adder]

Bush is no longer the Decider.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
It's hard to get worked up over bumper stickers in San Francisco when subjected to Penske photo shops for eight years.

Et tu, Bruta?

[Adder]

I hate it when I agree with Charles Krauthammer (although I am on the fence about number 2):

Energy Independence?
A Serious Plan Requires Taxes, ANWR and Nukes

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, January 26, 2007; A21



Is there anything more depressing than yet another promise of energy independence in yet another State of the Union address? By my count, 24 of the 34 State of the Union addresses since the oil embargo of 1973 have proposed solutions to our energy problem.

The result? In 1973 we imported 34.8 percent of our oil. Today we import 60.3 percent.

And what does this president propose? Another great technological fix. For Jimmy Carter, it was the magic of synfuels. For George Bush, it's the wonders of ethanol. Our fuel will grow on trees. Well, stalks, with even fancier higher-tech variants to come from cellulose and other (literal) rubbish.

It is very American to believe that chemists are going to discover the cure for geopolitical weakness. It is even more American to imagine that it can be done painlessly. Ethanol for everyone. Farmers get a huge cash crop. Consumers get more supply. And the country ends up more secure.

This is nonsense. As my colleague Robert J. Samuelson demonstrated this week, biofuels will barely keep up with the increase in gasoline demand over time. They are a huge government bet with goals and mandates and subsidies that will not cure our oil dependence or even make a significant dent in it.

Even worse, the happy talk displaces any discussion about here-and-now measures that would have a rapid and revolutionary effect on oil consumption and dependence. No one talks about them because they have unhidden costs. Politicians hate unhidden costs.

There are three serious things we can do now: Tax gas. Drill in the Arctic. Go nuclear.

First, tax gas. The president ostentatiously rolled out his 20-in-10 plan: reducing gasoline consumption by 20 percent in 10 years. This with Rube Goldberg regulation -- fuel-efficiency standards, artificially mandated levels of "renewable and alternative fuels in 2017" and various bribes (er, incentives) for government-favored technologies -- of the kind we have been trying for three decades.

Good grief. I can give you 20-in-2: Tax gas to $4 a gallon. With oil prices having fallen to $55 a barrel, now is the time. The effect of a gas-tax hike will be seen in less than two years, and you don't even have to go back to the 1970s and the subsequent radical reduction in consumption to see how. Just look at last summer. Gas prices spike to $3 -- with the premium going to Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chávez and assorted sheiks rather than the U.S. Treasury -- and, presto, SUV sales plunge, the Prius is cool and car ads once again begin featuring miles-per-gallon ratings.

No regulator, no fuel-efficiency standards, no presidential exhortations, no grand experiments with switch grass. Raise the price, and people change their habits. It's the essence of capitalism.

Second, immediate drilling to recover oil that is under U.S. control, namely in the Arctic and on the outer continental shelf. No one pretends that this fixes everything. But a million barrels a day from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is 5 percent of our consumption. In tight markets, that makes a crucial difference.

We will always need some oil. And the more of it that is ours, the better. It is tautological that nothing more directly reduces dependence on foreign oil than substituting domestic for foreign production. Yet ANWR is now so politically dead that the president did not even mention it in the State of the Union or in his energy address the next day.

He did bring up, to enthusiastic congressional applause, global warming. No one has a remotely good idea about how to make any difference in global warming without enlisting China and India, and without destroying the carbon-based Western economy. The obvious first step, however, is an extremely powerful source of energy that produces not an ounce of carbon dioxide: nuclear.

What about nuclear waste? Well, coal produces toxic pollutants, as does oil. Both produce carbon dioxide that we are told is going to end civilization as we know it. These wastes are widely dispersed and almost impossible to recover once they get thrown into the atmosphere.

Nukes produce waste as well, but it comes out concentrated -- very toxic and lasting nearly forever. But because it is packed into a small, manageable volume, it is more controllable. And it doesn't pollute the atmosphere. At all.

There is no free lunch. Producing energy is going to produce waste. You pick your poison, and you find a way to manage it. Want to do something about global warming? How many global warming activists are willing to say the word nuclear?

So much easier to say ethanol. That it will do farcically little is beside the point. Our debates about oil consumption, energy dependence and global warming are not meant to be serious. They are meant for show.

link

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Adder
I hate it when I agree with Charles Krauthammer (although I am on the fence about number 2):

link

Number 1 could make a huge difference, depending on the amount. But the problem is the difference is directly proportional to the amount of pain it inflicts. So maybe reduce other federal taxes by a like aggregate amount? Obviously, there are still huge distributional problems with this.

Number 2 is just a drop in the bucket, if you look at the volume of oil that would come out of ANWR.

Number 3 doesn't seem to have a lot to do with energy independence. I could be wrong about this, but I don't think that we use oil much to generate electricity, which is what nuclear is for. Moreover, I've read that we're going to see structural changes in electricity generation soon, involving a shift to production in smaller, more efficient plants, and less loss in transmission. Nuclear doesn't fit with this at all.

[Cletus Miller]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Moreover, I've read that we're going to see structural changes in electricity generation soon, involving a shift to production in smaller, more efficient plants, and less loss in transmission. Nuclear doesn't fit with this at all.

Makes sense, but what's the fuel source? Natural gas? It seems the supply of NG is at least as precarious as that of oil.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Number 1 could make a huge difference, depending on the amount. But the problem is the difference is directly proportional to the amount of pain it inflicts. So maybe reduce other federal taxes by a like aggregate amount? Obviously, there are still huge distributional problems with this.

Number 2 is just a drop in the bucket, if you look at the volume of oil that would come out of ANWR.

Number 3 doesn't seem to have a lot to do with energy independence. I could be wrong about this, but I don't think that we use oil much to generate electricity, which is what nuclear is for. Moreover, I've read that we're going to see structural changes in electricity generation soon, involving a shift to production in smaller, more efficient plants, and less loss in transmission. Nuclear doesn't fit with this at all.

3 words: nuclear powered cars. would also dramatically reduce street noise.

[Oliver_Wendell_Ramone]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
3 words: nuclear powered cars. would also dramatically reduce street noise.

A big ol' cooling tower sticking through the hood of you Nova could be even more bad-ass then the blower.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Oliver_Wendell_Ramone
A big ol' cooling tower sticking through the hood of you Nova could be even more bad-ass then the blower.

I've given a good deal more thought to my invention, and i believe some challenges are raised by implementation. Example: car bombs become dirty bombs.