Disqus - Latest Comments for mclaren

Re: Torture and the Law

mclaren — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:44:18 -0000

When al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, AQI, the Abu Sayyef, etc., sign onto the Geneva articles, let me know. Until then, these un-uniformed, undeclared soldiers and slaughterers of innocent women and children can count on a lot more compassionate treatment than they give. Ask Danny Pearl about whether he would prefer the most extreme American interrogation or the typical Khalid Sheik Mohammed treatment.

3 times waterboarding was approved and used. If it saved the life of the Obama family, would you support it, or allow the Obamas to be killed by al Qaeda?

Re: Big Oil Defends Profits

mclaren — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:13:26 -0000

Thank you Pepper2000, you have momentarily restored my hope for economic literacy in the U.S.

One point: Saying that drilling in ANWR won't help the supply issues is like saying adding another drinking fountain in an office building won't supply more water to thirsty people. It's part of the puzzle. If you add all the untapped reserves we currently know about, foreign dependence could be, if not eliminated, hugely reduced. The new reserve under N. Dakota, Montana, and Co. is predicted at something larger than the largest in Saudi Arabia. We aren't allowed to drill or build more refineries because congress has meddled in the business. OPEC controls the bulk of reserves, and it sets the price. Oil companies buy much of the oil on the open market -- they pay the price you see on the business page of the newspaper, same as butchers pay for pork and beef. The government makes a lot more money per gallon than Mobil Exxon ever has. And the government doesn't have to explore, find, drill, ship, refine or deliver the gas to your pump. They stick a .45 in our guts when we fill up, and we pay up.

As for fuel cells, it takes more energy to create the hydrogen, to capture the electricity on a platinum collector(it takes alot of energy to mine for and process platinum for industrial use, not mentioning the price) to manufacture the batteries, to store the hydrogen, etc. than to drill for oil. If it was such a great idea, Exxon/Mobil would already lead the planet in fuel cell production and hydrogen distribution.

As for down-markets for oil, from the mid-80s to 2000, the market was so down that nobody bothered to drill for it. Imagine gold was going for $1 per ounce. How many people would be breaking their backs to find it, and if they did, would it be worth their time?

Re: Big Oil Defends Profits

mclaren — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:14:47 -0000

Avianca:

Apparently those cavities are refilled with sludge, water and a host of other by-products that are removed in the process.

Re: Gender Betrayal

mclaren — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:46:25 -0000

Kittycat, since when does the president, whether male or female, provide for you or anybody else? Hillary "offers" you health insurance. Yeah, she bravely wants to hit up your neighbor to pay for your health insurance. Or worse, she wants to hit you up to pay for your neighbor's. The war costs pennies compared to what we spend on follies which the government has no right. Maggie Thatcher she ain't. If she was, she'd already have won.

Re: Shooting Down Missile Defense

mclaren — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 10:39:51 -0000

So, what's the institutional momentum for missile defense in Russia?

Russia or the Soviets, had a missile defense around Moscow for decades.

Also, I'm surprised to hear that a decoy can't be determined especially since the program just completed a successful test doing just that.

But since when did Democrats worry about spending money -- except when it came in the form of national defense? Let's see the Dems hold hearings on how we can scrape together that $12 billion from completely unconstitutional expenditures, and direct it towards the specific responsibility of the US gov't. as opposed to those like buying prescription medicine. $436 billion for Medicare last year? Why that's 360 times what we spend on security for mass transit, ports and national monuments.

Re: Torture and the Law

mclaren — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:22:49 -0000

Well well, sunnyjim, I know a little about the Geneva Conventions myself, and I've forgotten a whole lot more about American History than you have ever learned -- obviously. I could attempt to educate you and the other horribly misguided, "March to the Gas Chambers With Dignity" types on this and other boards, but what's the point?

You are blinded by Bush Derangement Syndrome and no amount of clear, concise proof or evidence that collides with your world view will help alleviate your "tortured" conclusions and those of the other angry "hot-button issue" types to which you cling.

Is it possible that the Khalid Sheik Mohammeds of the world aren't built like your father or other gentlemen of Western-World fame? Is it possible that those who know how to extract information don't start with water-boarding, but with techniques that more resemble Cpl. Hanns Scharff of WWII Luftwaffe fame?

What I know hasn't occurred to you is that 3,000 American lives are worth immeasurably more than the life or opinion of 1 jihadist. You don't get that, and you and your ilk never will. You are incapable of making a moral judgment. You are incapable of judging for in that, you might have to live up to said judgment. The neo-liberal will not or can not take a moral stand against anything other than his or her country, because everything is morally relative. It is an illness, and I know, because I once suffered greatly under it.

Wake up. We are better than jihadists. Not because we would treat them better, but because we would at least give them a chance, unlike what they would do for you and your father or mother or child.

The fact is that waterboarding -- not torture -- worked to save lives. Please go on record that you would rather watch innocent children die than have your "image" damaged in some Marxist cafe' in Paris.

Re: Fast and Loose With the Facts

mclaren — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:52:35 -0000

I think it was quite obvious that Stalin had no significant ties to Hitler. FDR built an entire illegal and immoral war where over 500,000 Americans and untold millions died on the lie that somehow a Stalin-Hitler Pact was dangerous to the United States. With this, he backed up his already-illegal war-for-oil against the Japanese -- all with the flag-waving help of a few American journalists.

And that damned George Washington. His fascist little Culper Ring of spies so damagaed the image of the Colonies that it would be centuries before we could crawl out from under the sludge of shame, only to be thrown back under after Al Gore was cheated out of his rightfully won election. Not in my name, G.W!!!!

HALLIBURTON!!!!

Re: Ԫ

mclaren — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:01:43 -0000

Ah yes. So here we are in America in 2008. Contracts mean nothing, unless they mean something. And the individual has no responsibility, until congress wants them to testify and then they have righteous anger. And congress wants to "do something" wich invariably means doing something bad. And them it comes to "health care" which some Americans in 2008 believe is a right, not a choice. With the level of economic illiteracy in this country, I'm almost surprised I haven't heard that "housing" or "food" or "cars" are rights.

Re: The End of Cheap Food?

mclaren — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 04:41:52 -0000

Yet another exhibit of government meddling in the market leading to obvious (for some of us) consequences. Sit up and bookmark this. Refer to it often the next time you hear anybody in the gov't. telling you that it has a "solution" to a "problem."

The gov't. meddled in energy production, then tried to fix their fix with another wrong-headed fix. I wonder what the fix to the fix to the fix will be? Certainly anything but letting the market determine a solution.

Re: Report: Bush SCHIP Rules Illegal

mclaren — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 04:53:36 -0000

Well let's just cover every kid, including Bill Gates's and Tiger Woods's. There's an old saying, and it's old because it holds true: Beggars can't be choosers.

Re: From the Department of Hypocrisy…

mclaren — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 04:55:47 -0000

The difference is that Zimbabwe doesn't have Iranian nucs pointed at them, and Pakistan and S.A. do or will very soon.

Re: The End of Cheap Food?

mclaren — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 09:37:06 -0000

The gov't. is more than responsible for what is going on in the loan market. The do-gooders told the banks and mortgage firms that if they didn't start making loans to those who had no business getting them, that they would be dragged before congress and called racists. So, they gave out the bad loans -- at the direction of those coveted "regulators." So, you're solution is....MORE GOV'T MEDDLING!

Oddly enough, the Hillary '08 web page had a link to her proud proclamations of how she and Billy helped the financially inept get home mortgages. After this whole mess broke, she pulled it from her page. But, she's the first to point fingers. She was shocked, SHOCKED to see foreclosures go through the roof!

Capitalism doesn't need to be kept in line, corrupt people have to be kept in line. We have laws for the corrupt, but when liberals get their hands on the markets, it spells disaster every time, because they truly believe that "capitalism has to be kept in line."

Re: Shooting Down Missile Defense

mclaren — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 09:42:21 -0000

I recall the early days of the US Space program. There have been more successes in the SDI program in its time than all the blown tests in the space program. Did we roll up the carpets and turn out the lights?

Do you have any solid evidence of your skepticism, or just wishful thinking that we will be incinerated?

Perhaps you are a believer in "guilt by association" I don't know.

Re: When Elite Get Tough

mclaren — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 09:55:19 -0000

He's clearly elitist, not that it is completely bad -- unless you are running for the presidency. Most of the coastal left is elitist, but doesn't admit it. Like the addict that can't see the addiction or will never admit it, the neo-liberal is oblivious to his own condition, and as such holds contempt for those who are different than they. Barack wasn't trying to be insulting to middle America, because he doesn't think what he said is bad. He believes it, as do most neo-liberals. But when the bitter, angry, unhinged left cling to things they believe in, it isn't guns or God -- it is gun control, it is class-warfare, it is nutty-environmentalism, it is increased gov't. regulation, it is irrational unilateral pacifism, it is unconstitutional separation of church and state, it is pro-abortion politics, it is condescending racism and classic Saul Alinsky theory, and on and on.

Barack is most certainly elitist. But he ought to embrace it rather than run from it. At least he'd hold his base.

Re: Screaming at the TV

mclaren — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:01:28 -0000

I'd say it makes it worse. He wanted to do more, and those who think like he does finished the job for him.

As for the debate, neo-liberals don't like it when the media treat Dems as if they were Republicans, do you? That's why Dems are surprised and angry when they get normal questions, and Repubs fully expect below-the-belt crap all the time. When you are treated like a little baby by the media for so long, and then you suddenly get an upper-cut, the Dems don't know how to deal with it. This is hilarious to conservatives.

Re: A Bitter Race Ahead?

mclaren — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:04:39 -0000

I think the best the GOP can do is just let Barack talk and talk. The more the teleprompter goes on the blink, the more his chances go into the toilet.

Re: Where Your Tax Dollars Go

mclaren — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:08:55 -0000

He also wants to make the tax cuts for everybody who pay taxes permanent. I thought wealthy people were Americans too. I guess not, screw 'em. After all, they only pay the bulk of the budget.

Re: When Is the Right Time to Act on Global Warming?

mclaren — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:14:27 -0000

To answer the question: Never. The planet has been cooling and warming since day 1. I'm sitting right where a 1 mile-thick sheet of ice was about 10,000 years ago. What melted it, mastodons riding around in Escalades? The fact is, warming occurs first, THEN CO2 levels increase, not the other way around.