In a way, I sympathize with the president. His Big Brother scheme to
coerce people into investing and thus become responsible for their own
retirement income, seems like a good mix of hardnosed capitalism and
idealistic socialism enforced by Big Government.

If it were practical, I'd be all for it. But it isn't.

Wrong. The most popular system being recommended is VERY similar to that
being offered to federal employees. And that works very well!

Its big problem is it requires us to rob Peter to pay Paul. The system is,
without a doubt, looking at a shortfall some time in the future, and yet
Bush seeks to fix it by taking money out of it, handing that money over to
young investors to invest only as the government sees fit, and then
borrowing to make up the shortfall?

The objections to this boil down to there will be less pork-barrel money.
The federal budget has been subsidised since Johnson by SS money . With
less of this available the federal government will have to find another
source of money and most likely will have to pay more interest than the 3%
the Governenment pays in interest BORROWED from the SS trust fund.

Have no illusions, the goal of the Republicans is to eventually reduce the
size of government. This will have the secondary effect of reducing the
power of the democrats since they can't buy the big city votes with federal
programs.


(Is there anything more cowardly than torturing a person who has no way to
resist or fight back?)

Yes, blowing up innocent children. If a terrorist can be "persuaded" to
give up his fellow terrorist by scaring him with threats and a few brusies
so be it.

If democracy and freedom are "on the move," as Bush claims, then we should
be leading the charge, not demeaning ourselves by sponsoring or condoning
medieval regressions.

And, incidentally, if you look at a list of countries new to democracy,
ask yourself how many of those countries were aided by the U.S. and how
many by ... Russia! A bit ironic, don't you think?

Which countries? I don't know of any!


There often seems to be something seriously wrong with Bush's thinking
process. The most startling example of that was his brusk rejection, early
in his first term, of the Kyoto agreements to reduce global warming. Those
accords went into effect last week, with the world's greatest single
polluter, the United States of America, conspicuously absent.

In fairness to Bush, the U.S. Senate rejected the Kyoto pact by a 95-0
vote during the Clinton administration. The reasoning? Reducing
climate-changing emissions might be bad for business.

And the excuse: Developing countries, like China and India, are not held
to the same strict standards as the industrial giants.

China is the #1 producer of carbon dioxide and India is rapidly overtaking
the US as #2.

However flawed as it might be, the Kyoto process, approved by 140 nations,
is a start.


In the 20th century, global temperatures rose more than one degree
Fahrenheit. That doesn't seem like much, but it already has had a
significant effect. In the 21st century, temperatures are expected to rise
at least 4 degrees and perhaps as much as 10 degrees.

The output of the SUN might be responsible for the 1 degree increase as the
SUN was in a high sunspot activity from I think 1999 till 2004. Also have
you heard that the hole in the ozone has closed at the south pole. It's too
soon for the CFC ban to have had an effect, what gives here? Junk science
again?