I think tsvisser's post would be the most fruitful.

tsvisser, The cameras and logged IP addresses to this website would have us all busted. Nothing wrong with new ideas though. :)

Avdude, How much Gas do I have to buy to get that price?

What if Cars ran on Pepto-Bismol???? Oh My....


[Link: mccmedia.com]

I agree with the comments on health care. Infinitely more important to small businesses (and all businesses for that matter) than gas prices. Not that both can't be important.

1) gas taxes here in Texas are 39.1 cents a gallon... a friend of mine owns a gas station. He only makes 7 cents per gallon. At $1.57, he's paying $1.22 a gallon from an independant supplier. If he sells 10,000 gallons a day, he makes $700. There's not much profit in being an independant supplier anymore.

2) The US is at it's refining capacity right now, so we have to import refined gasoline. It's more expensive to import refined gas than it is to import crude oil, then refine it.

3) We can all blame Venezuela and their communist leadership. The disruptions in their oil industry due to striking workers are directly screwing us over here.

4) Saudi Arabia is at their drilling capacity now, and attempts to pump more have failed.

We could always invade oh sorry liberate an oil rich country with some sort of flimsy excuse you know like they have big nasty weapons or something. We would have to make sure we told everyone its not about the oil but must make sure we get a friendly new government that would over supply the market compared to the demand .T
his would force Venezuela and others to lower its price and the government could still get all that tax off gas and keep the public happy with lower gas prices

Just an idea ; )

So when somebody comes and murders over three thousand of the people you have an emotional, and civic duty to protect and provide for, and the nations responsible dodge questioning, report lies, and continue to murder and threaten on a massive scale... You should just turn the other way?

What we did was based on intelligence that was falsely reported by the poeple who have earned our attack.

They definitely whipped the dodge ball at us when there was no game. We rightfully threw it back and smashed them.

_________________

If somebody came to where you were boss and killed your people... Don't you think you'd take exacting revenge, and do whatever is necessary to make sure it has a lesser chance of happening in the future?

To say that it was all about the oil is ignorant and arrogant. You would make a poor leader. Fortunately, if you're so delusional, you could never be elected anyhow. Whether or not you support the president, you have to remember the fundamental reason we go to war.

It's so that fighting NEVER occurs on our soil. Sept. 11 was a wake up call. I will forever morn the loss of those familles. I can't imagine any lesser response than what we did. Our men join the troops and go to war for reasons they may or may not support 100%, but they do voluntarily join the forces. It's not about complete security, and their duty is to back the decisions of the commander in chief. It's the publics job to influence those decisions.

If you don't like what's been done, then maybe you don't do enough up front. Maybe you just like to complain about what has happened, and you don't do ANYTHING to make changes for your ideals.

If all your going to do is complain and point fingers for what happened, and you did nothing ahead of the "War on Terror." Then your opinion means nothing.
What have you done, who have you written to? What facts did you get to make your claims?

Pretty weak stuff. Sitting there at your computer. Living in safety. Do you fear a bomb going off in your town square each day? Damn right you don't, because we posses and use the most powerful military ever.

If the mayor in the town next to you were to start killing and terrorizing the men women and children of his town, and occasionally threw grenades in all directions... Sometimes landing in your town killing your family. How would you want your mayor and towns people to react?

These are truly crimes against humanity. You want to sit and say we only went there for oil that we already have access to both there and around the world? That's a messed up view. Next time somebody gets killed on our soil and we are about to go to war, why don't you go meet the victims family and tell them it's all a lie and nothing happened. Tell them the president knew before that they were coming to kill and that we let it happen for oil.

What happened was unprecedented, and could have never been predicted, nor any such treat taken more seriously. To think otherwise is beyond logic.

________________

More on the gas war later.

But if you want to roll over and allow people to charge whatever they feel for your products and services. Feel free to. I'll keep shopping in a manner that has my interests, at heart. Not the interests of an out of control industry whose main objective is to soak every penny they think they can get out of you before you die.

You can buy bottled water that's .59 a gallon or you can pay $10, but you can make that decision. Don't even begin to try applying that crap here.

Only one small problem. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. But it sure did feel good to kick some ass, and get even for 9/11, didn't it? sarcasm.

Fact: Not only is there NO evidence Iraq was connected to 9/11, but because Saddam was basically a secular tyrant, evidence suggests there was little support for the fundamentalist terrorists coming from Iraq and that in fact there are/were many other countries much more active in supporting international terrorists (Syria for example).

p.s. It IS true Saddam was extremely supportive of Palestinian terrorists targeting Israel. He helped to take care of the families of suicide bombers in Israel.

p.p.s. At least Afghanistan WAS a HUGE threat to us. 1 out of 2 aint bad. Besides, the more countries we attack the better the odds are we'll get the terrorists. sarcasm.


This message was edited by QQQ on 03/06/04 16:52.

Only one small problem? you forgot to say that most of the atrocities (or he was at his worst) when Iraq was considered an ally


that was just an excuse built on garbage, and why most of the world did not buy it. If there was any real intelligence reports they would have been shown at the time.

As for it helping the war on terror I disagree, since people get annoyed when you blow up their yard and then they feel like revenge. So it is more likely to increase terrorism then defeat it

In anticipation of someone making the following statement:

"Are you saying the world isn't better off without Saddam?".

No, Saddam was a VERY bad guy, just like tons of other dictators around the world that routinely murder their own people. We just don't usually go to war with them.

But the most important factor by far is lives lost. Currently over 500 US soldiers and counting (no known count on Iraqi's but probably in the 10s of thousands). So when you ask if the world isn't better off without Saddam, I ask you if it was worth losing the lives of 500+ US soldiers. *For me*, the answer is NO.

Ask me that question about Afghanistan and I would give you a completely different answer.

What about Afghanistan? The US had plenty of time to answer terrorist threats to the World Trade Center and military craft around the world. President Clinton decided not to sacrifice US lives for such "minor" incidences. Had swift consistent action been taken at those points it's very likely that 3,000+ lives might have been saved on 9/11. Will the 500 lives now lost in Iraq save thousands of future lives? The answer is almost certainly. History is very clear in that the longer you wait to take action, the bigger mess you will have. (ie WWII)

P.S. I am amazed at the number of people who claim to have more information than Bush did post 9/11. Other counties may have more "links" to terrorists, but Iraq has actively invaded our allies. They used gas, which, if you don't realize is a WMD even if it is not nuclear. Everyone in the Clinton administration acknowleged that Iraq had WMD's, there was NEVER any disagreement about this until now. The question you have to ask is "where are they now, and what are they planning to do with them".

Thon:

My statement about Afghanistan was simply to illustrate that I’m not some “left wing liberal” that is “always against war”. There were many Democrats AND Republican’s that support a strong defense that thought this (Iraq) war was without reason. Unfortunately, our congress is currently so spineless that in the wake of 9/11, they were afraid to do anything that appeared to be weak on defense.

Did you know that Libya just acknowledged having 44,000 pounds of mustard gas?
[Link: cnn.com]

And that unlike Iraq they HAVE overtly supported (in the past) direct acts of terrorism against the west (Pan Am Flight 103)?

Why didn't we invade Libya?

Yes, 10 years ago. And we went to war with them with international support and then decided not to go to Baghdad and get Saddam (an error in my opinion). And they were an infinitely greater threat to us at that time than now.

Do you read the news or just continue to believe what you want regardless of the evidence? The question everyone is asking is why was our intelligence so bad and why did the administration choose to see only one side of that evidence when it was actually quite ambivalent. Do you honestly believe when we have captured something like 46 of the top 50 Iraqis we wouldn’t have gotten the information out of them if they knew where WMD were? Even the head of the arms search has left the country and stated he doesn’t believe there is any WMD there.

Even if there was, it probably wouldn’t change my position unless I believed Iraq was an imminent threat to the US. There is no evidence that was the case.

I won't comment on this anymore as even people that are friends tend to get heated when disucssing these things and this isn't the place for it anyhow.

This message was edited by QQQ on 03/07/04 00:10.