Anybody but bush in '04.
And by extension, ABC in 2004: Anybody but Bush and Cheney in 2004!
One of the nicest campaign bumper stickers I ever saw was pineapple-yellow with dark blue lettering. It had a picture of a pineapple on the left and said "Dole for Pineapple, not for President." Memorable, had a clear message, and humorous.
On topic--I suspect there are a good many Republicans out there who are reasonable enough and sufficiently conscious of the world around them to realize what their party's current situation is. Wonder if they will be demoralized.
Hmmm, how about "Bush for garden enhancement, not President"? 
Absolutely everyone must click "homepage" below and read the complete article. Then please send it to everyone you know, especially if they are conservative or think they support Bush.
Chris, Cypser
Indeed absolutely breathtaking powerful stuff by the Guardian. I wonder if the Pipelines in Afganistan are now in construction. Afterall we now effectively control most of the country's natural boarders, don't we??.
On the other hand I am more than quite a bit flummoxed by these chronic adventureous and short sighted blind runs to the slaughter house kind of foreign policy efforts.
Wouldn't it be more expensive (in dollar cost and human lives) to build these farflang pipes than to marshall the best brains in our own country(--as we did to build the A-Bomb during WW-II or the the moonshot in the sixties--)to develop alternative energy sources right here in the United States as Dr Howard Dean has been saying all along??? My understanding is that the science is already there. So what gives???
Bill, those who already have huge investments in oil do not WANT alternative energy. It doesn't matter if it's cheaper for the country; they only want to increase their personal fortunes.
And in addition to that, it is also advantageous to American corporations for the US to destroy Mideast infrastructure as frequently as possible, so companies like Halliburton can win no-bid, open-ended contracts by the men who used to run them.
Oil companies have begun, a few years ago, referring to themselves as "energy companies". They are heavily invested in the status quo, replete with heavy gov't subsidies, to the tune of on average $50 bil per year, and fully intend to milk that investment for all the profit it can produce. Nonetheless, they can read the writing on the wall, and know better than anyone that global historical oil production has already peaked, and, with ever increasing demand, procurement will become more and more expensive. So there is ever more money to be made in oil development. Meanwhile, in the last decade nearly all the photovoltaic production has been bought by oil companies. BP and Shell are major players in the growing solar power market, carefully positioning themselves to be leaders when the inevitable shift to renewable energy occurs. These aren't patriots, folks, just businessmen. They don't give a fig about national security or social health, so long as their investments are well-protected.
All the Demo candidates are paying lip service to development of renewable energy for America, and it is a very positive contribution to the national discourse that they are helping the public to connect the issue to national security, environmental improvement, public health and the economy. But I believe Howard Dean can firmly lead on this issue by making the essential connection that will give the issue political wheels: JOBS. Various studies over the last decade show that a growing renewable energy industry can be one of the greatest job creators the country has ever seen, as many as 2 million new technical positions by full implementation. It also has tremendous potential to grow our export market in technology, creating even more jobs. The Governor should have a full-time energy business and technology consultant on his campaign staff, so he can be out in front with the numbers and a plan to grow this business, as it is likely to get more play as the campaign progresses.
Like I said pretty short sighted.
I see and appreciate your points Barret in MN and Antony Segredo.
However while Halliburton and all of them money hungry boys are doing all that(accummulating fortunes) they could still open up special divisions to invest in alternative energy. There is nothing terribly wrong with that capitalist principle per se( except that they get too greedy indeed.)Bold entrepreneurship spirit is what our couintry is all about.
Above and beyond all that, I really think it's mostly lack of leadership from 1600 Pen Avenue.. What we need is one of those great men that has come our way at specical turning points in our history(Lincoln, Truman, RFK, JFK, Washington, Dr M.L.King Jr, ...) to articulate an INTELLIGENT long range VISION.
Remember the moonshot story guys???. All JFK did was to show-up on TV and say we are gonna do it within this amount of time and it is of utmost national secuty value. Then he gathered up a few smart fellows--I mean a few geeks--and voila the rest is history.
That's why we need Dr Dean down 16 hundred Pen Avenue, the next President of the Unites States.
In addition once we had put him there we will have to prop-him-up by continuing this compaing and getting all Guvernors, state reps, Attorney Generals, congress and senate races grassroot-funded the same way we are funding the good Doctor's campaign.
We will do it "Mccain-Feingold" or not. This people powered MOVEMENT ought to go on rebuilding our COMMUNITIES one grassroot-bout at a time.
That will allow us to KILL the Washington's lobby-mashine, because fewer Congressmen and women will be beholden to those lethal special interest groups. This may be my heady long shot dream but I really think we are in the mighty historic process of fundamentally transforming politics as we know it in this great country.
FIRST of course WE NEED GENUINE LEADERSHIP in the Peoples White House nd with have a clear hot here with DR DEAN's.
Bill M., the point is that all those money-hungry boys already HAVE special divisions to develop alternative energy (I'm generalizing. I'm not sure Halliburton and Bechtel do, but most of the big energy firms do). But oil is still very profitable, and for a while may become more so, therefore they don't want to market the alternatives they already own too aggressively because they want to go on with the sure thing. Meanwhile, by buying up the new energy technologies, they will be in a sweet position to have that market cornered when the time comes to roll it out.
Photovltaic solar electricity, for instance, is something that any homeowner can install on his rooftop and make some or all of his household electricity. A perfectly democratic power source. But for several years now, particularly in California in preparation for a deregulated market, utilities have been marketing programs where they come out and install the panels on your roof, and then LEASE them to you for 20 or 30 years. The homeowner ends up paying far more than the one-time purchase price of the equipment, and the utility gets to remain the "power provider".
Tencentlife, I get you.