Pangloss

That one's pretty ridiculous, I agree.

Naw, they've followed them down lock-step. Just my two bits, of course.

What "right" is it that you think I was recommending?

I'll bet...

Yah I guess not, but it seems to be how things worked out. The moment they stopped being able to cover those losses, the government stepped in.

Well I certainly agree with bascule about the state of US politics. It has to be noted, however, that Obama sounds a bit hypocritical, having participated in the same sorts of attacks himself. "John McCain wants us to stay 100 years in Iraq", for example. Democrats already HAVE sunk to the level of Republicans -- for the past eight years they've been behaving exactly like Republicans did during the preceding eight years. Blocking things pointlessly, pounding the podium about Bush, etc etc etc. And no sooner does Obama get nominated then he stops being the independent, outside thinker that he was during the early primaries and starts being the inside-the-beltway participant that's earned Congress an even lower approval rating than the president. Is it any wonder, then, that he's tied with McCain in the polls and can't seem to put this thing away?

If they wanted to join us, why not?

Agreed. I know there are humanitarian organizations at work there, and I believe there are also advisory groups trying to help with the governance side of things. I don't really know the extent of it, though.

I have to admit I'm a little twitchy when it comes to anything involving Cynthia McKinney. Whether it's accusing the Bush administration of being behind 9/11 or the New Orleans levy collapses, refusing to abide by reasonable security measures and attacking Capital Hill police, or just being the very embodiment of all that has gone wrong with black leadership in this country since the King assassination, she really rubs me the wrong way. But in the interest of fairness, she's not comparable to Hitler, and I should not have said that. (Not that you were asking, but I wanted to say something anyway.) Mod note: Closing thread because I agree with iNow, you guys are just being silly now and I think it's a good time to cut it off so we can move on.

Well, and his policies, but yes, definitely. I wonder if Obama's invade-Pakistan statement was even widely reported in Europe.

So you'd allow corporations, just so long as they aren't evil. Cool. Is that something you discover by reading a company's charter, or is it more along the lines of a tea leaves and cast-bones sort of thing?

Um, dude, it was a joint press conference -- he made the association deliberately. Then he actually stood there and told people that the differences between the smaller parties were trivial and that we should come together and vote for them in order to reject the major parties. I actually agree with that basic reasoning' date=' but he couldn't have done a worse job undermining his point if he'd resurrected Adolf Hitler and put HIM on the podium. Voting for Cynthia McKinney wouldn't be selecting an alternative. It would be choosing an even GREATER evil. Paul deliberately associated himself with the kind of crackpots who post in our Pseudoscience and Speculations board on 9/11 conspiracies, etc.

Not while he denounces the current candidates while standing next to Cynthia McKinney, of all people. That'd be like voting for Saruman because he found a really cool black orb.

These have come up in discussion here a few times, and I believe there are quite a few PHEVs in the works. The Wikipedia has a full article on them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_hybrid

Well doing nothing but throw money a them hasn't gotten us anywhere, so I guess what I'm suggesting is more involvement. Right now they have a democratic process in place that just got hit at a bad time, but if it fails then maybe we should take more dramatic steps. I still don't think democratic annexation is all that bad an idea. It's worked out great for Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. They're not completely problem-free (who ever is?), but they're happy and prosperous in general -- more so than many of their neighbors.

Well actually that's a really good question, but the funny thing is, we know exactly why New Orleans isn't safe from hurricanes, at least in terms of science, engineering, and emergency preparedness. The problem is that recognizing those factors is difficult because it keeps getting buried beneath a mound of political garbage from both parties -- national Republicans trying to keep well-deserved emergency response blame off their backs, and local Democrats and Republicans trying to keep well-deserved preparedness blame off theirs. Katrina's eye passed right over my house as a Cat 1 and did no damage. A month later the eye of a storm of similar size and intensity to what Katrina was when it hit New Orleans (a light Cat-3) passed right over my house, dislodging a grand total of three roof tiles. The other gulf coast states lack building codes that have been on the books for decades. Florida was embarrassed by Andrew in 1992 and fixed all that; Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama did nothing. (I believe Texas is a little better in this regard, but I'm hazy on that point.) Over the weekend we replaced our garage door with one that will withstand 140 mph winds. It replaced a 20-year-old door that was able to withstand 125 mph winds. No such doors exist in the entire state of Louisiana. No, not the new kind. The old kind. Of course the real problem with New Orleans was the post-storm flooding, not the building codes, but that doesn't let Mississippi off the hook. It's no mistake that although Florida was pummeled by eight storms in 2005, damage wasn't really all that severe. The state showed a budget surplus that year. Preparedness is king. It costs money to be prepared, sure, but it saves in the long run. I suppose if we start talking about establishing and supporting similar building codes in Caribbean states people would ask why they should pay for others to live in dangerous areas, and that would be a reasonable question. But I think if we were to focus on the investment angle, to realize the long-term return of secure, stable markets and labor sources, the results would make sense.

Couldn't we make them just a wee-bity state though? Please?

Apologies for the size, but I just couldn't resist the political angle in the last frame. http://www.thepaincomics.com/weekly080709.htm

Well seriously, GW concerns are pretty long-term -- most of those islands are actually quite mountainous. I'm not sure if this link will come through, but take a look at this Google Maps terrain breakdown of Hispaniola: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=18.907471,-71.191406&spn=5.218506,8.107910&t=k&hl=en (That's an amazing piece of land, isn't it? What a fascinating place that must be.) Anyway, yes we give them aid, but that aid goes to helping people currently hurting. It doesn't do anything about the long-term stability or governance or infrastructure -- the stuff that keeps getting them into trouble. No building codes, no evacuation plans, no emergecy/rescue capabilities, etc etc etc. I could go on and on. I admit my "modest proposal" was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it bugs me that these people are so close to American shores and yet so far from the kind of world that we take for granted. For a TINY FRACTION of what we're spending in Iraq -- I'll take what we spend there in a WEEK -- we could make HUGE improvements in their infrastructure. Wouldn't that be an investment? A stable, prosperous, democratic Haiti would be a consumer for our goods, our entertainment, our games, our tourists. Not to mention winning over a few hearts and minds, which we're sorely lacking on the international stage at the moment. Why don't we spend money like that? Why is that such a tough sell in America? I'm probably preaching the choir here, I know, but I don't get it.

Well I see it as a combination of moderate intervention and letting it runs its course. That's what modern governmental economic control is all about, really.

Rofl!

Well we've been giving these countries international aid for decades. How's that working out so far?

It does, doesn't it? (Oh, I fixed the quote tags in a couple posts above.)

1.21 gigawatts????