>> I'm a liberal, I think. >> >> I pro-choice. > > >Me too. > > >> I believe in much tighter gun control. > > >The problem is how, in practice, gun "control" really works. Liberals have >always mocked the "If guns are illegal, only criminals will own guns." >slogan of the NRA, but that is exactly what happens. Reasonable restrictions >are fine, but people need to be able to defend themselves. > >Look at Mexico. Guns are illegal in Mexico, and yet they have incredible >problems with gun violence and kidnapping. Hell, look at DC. The SC >recognized the problem, which is why they struck down the DC handgun ban.
Canada has even more restrictive gun laws than either, and a homicide rate that's less than a 10th of the US, and of those less than a quarter are firearm related. When you use either the DC or Mexican examples, lets not forget that there is still very easy access to firearms still in those places. It very easy for a DC resident for instance to go to Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia or Pennsylvania and buy a firearm. Its damned near impossible to do the same in Canada. > > >> I think we >> should help the poor and the stupid. > > >More than we do already? How do we pay for it? > > >> I think Exxon should be forced >> to pay their fucking debt to Alaska with 20 fucking years of interest. > > >Exxon has shelled out a ton of money, as they should have, and they have to >pay another $300 million, according to the SC. Yes that's four days of profits, about 10,000 per person who was genuinely hurt by the oil spill. Let me put it this way if an Exxon rep cut off your hands and feet in order to make it impossible for you do work, don't you think you'd be worth more than $10,000 - $15000 to cover you for the rest of your life? >> I think we should have some kind of nationalized health care for >> children and college students. >> > >Health care is a huge mess, not the least because of government bureaucracy >and endless red tape of insurance companies. > > >> >> I think we should do more research into alternative fuels. I do >> believe we should reduce our dependence on foreign oil and >> conservation, mass transit, and alternative fuels are excellent long >> term options. > > >Telecommuting. We need to stop driving so freaking far every day. >Alternative fuels? Better batteries and fuel cells are what I would like to >see. I think McCain's idea of a $300 million prize for a better battery is >OK, but if someone actually built such a battery, the payout in the market >would be billions, tens of billions potentially. A nice political gimmick, that would last 3 seconds after he's confirmed. He's gone back on oil drilling off the coasts, he previously promised not to drill along the east cost for instance. > >Break out the drills! The enviros have it all wrong here. Why not up CAFE standards by 25% - make a fleet average of 30 to 35 mpg in 5 years. And give the companies a real incentive to comply - a $500,000,000 fine if they don't and a 20% reduction in corporate taxes if they comply ahead of time > > >> >> We need to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil sooner than later, >> and research is a LONG term solution. > > >+1 > > >The biggest challenge with nuclear power is storing spent fuel. The irony is >that we could re-process the fuel and re-use it, eliminating virtually all >of the highly radioactive waste, but there has been a ban on re-processing >(because the resulting materials could be weaponized) since the Carter >Administration banned it by executive order. That needs to be undone. The >French re-process all of their fuel. We can learn a LOT from the French >nuclear industry. > > >> >> We see ads around here for "Clean Coal" all the time... but Duke Power >> still wants to build dirty coal plans. I don't support that. I don't >> know that much about "clean coal" but I certainly don't like the sound >> of "dirty coal". >> > >Clean coal plants are very cool from a technology perspective, but expensive >to build. The challenge is how to do away with "dirty coal" plants without a >huge increase in the cost of electricity. A combination of nuclear, natural >gas, wind, and clean coal could be the answer. > > > >> >> Drill for oil whereever we can, and build more nuke plants. >> >> I guess I'm not all liberal.... ;) >> > >Nah, it just means you are a normal person and not a "true believer". Have you ever lived downwind of an oil field? Are you willing to let your life expectancy be about 10 or 15 years less because of sulfur dioxide emissions from the wells? Or let the local environment be ruined by accidental spills? Myself I think that there should be other alternatives, like hydroelectric power, both traditional sorts (btw the last hydro dam was built in the 1970's I believe) and low flow hydro electric plants. Methanol production should also be considered, not just ethanol. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;203748912;27390454;j Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:263101 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
