No, jpike, having high ideals will not protect us from terrorist attacks. But why do you think "being protected from terrorist attacks" is our only or even our primary goal in the "war on terror"?

I think even George W Bush himself would agree that the primary goal of the "war on terror" is to put an end to terrorism -- stopping any particular attack is important too, but in the long run it is the use of terror as a political tool, itself, that must be discredited, or the "war" can never be "won".

By adopting torture, the US was implicitly advocating terrorism as a useful tool (torture being a form of terrorism, applied to individuals). By adopting torture, the US allowed the terrorists to make their case that their actions were necessary to fight a foe that was just as morally debased as they are. By adopting torture, the US blurred the line between "the good guys" and "the bad guys" in the eyes of the rest of the world... and it is those people who will decide whether to support terrorism, or not, in upcoming decades.

W's problem was that he thought only of tactics, and never of strategy. He was playing checkers while bin Laden played chess. Hopefully Obama will do better in that regard.

-Jeremy

... is a self-fulfilling prophecy. After all, why would an honest person even go into politics if everyone is going to treat him like a criminal just for doing so?

> Knowing that his replacement may make for a filibuster proof Senate, wouldn't Judd Gregg

> refuse such an appointment? Wouldn't any Republican refuse?

Well, Kent Williams might not refuse...

http://crooksandliars.com/silentpatriot/tennessee-republicans-practically-ri

The more angry and scared your supporters are, the more money they will send to support you.

This controversy is being manufactured solely to shake down the religious right for cash.

There are many methods of generating electricity from sunlight that don't require photovoltaics. Perhaps we should make more use of them, at least until the photovoltaic materials production process has become cheaper and cleaner.

Obama is doing something to turn the nation around. You nay sayers aren't doing a thing to help anything.

Keep spouting off if you must, but realize that your knee-jerk negativism is pointless masturbation and won't affect anything one way or the other.

Let's accept for the sake of argument that renewable energy systems will take a long time to "ramp up".

Is there any evidence that deploying nuclear energy can be done more quickly?

From what I've seen, bringing a nuclear plant on line takes decades and costs billions of dollars. ... just like large-scale renewable power plants would. So if either solution is going to take a long time and cost a lot of money, why not choose the one we like better?

(actually, we'll probably end up doing some of both)

-Jeremy

1. Marijuana shall henceforth have the same legal status as tobacco, in all respects.

(of course the tobacco industry would fight that tooth and nail; they know their inferior product could never compete with legal marijuana)

makes you fat.

She's got that strange disease that causes her head to constantly tilt to one side.

... about the iPhone touch screen is that it allows the phone to have very few moving parts. That makes it much less likely to break or have mechanical issues, compared to, say, a clamshell phone with 80 mechanical keys on it.

I agree that the on-screen typing can be annoying. It does get a little bit better with practice, but not a lot better.

What's the best way to remind Obama of his own words on this subject? Either he's forgotten, he's not paying enough attention over his DOJ, or he was lying. I'd prefer to think it's one of the first two...

There is a link between gay marriage and mass murder. Here's how it works:

1) Gay marriage get legalized

2) Right-wing churches stoke outrage about it, claim society will implode if gay marriage continues

3) Borderline gun nut goes over the edge, decides it's up to him to "save America" the only way he knows how

4) Dozens dead

It does the singer a grievous injustice.

Raping your children might "work" too, that doesn't mean it's acceptable.

If there had been lots of workers out there on a Saturday, wind power would have been criticized for being too unreliable, with the windmills breaking down all the time.

For the record, I think the jobs would be in the manufacture and deployment of the windmills (and rooftop solar panels, etc), and hopefully not so much in their long term maintenance (as they need to be very low maintenance in order to be worth building).

How many other elections will be effectively annulled by the loser's use of legal mechanisms to keep the winner out of office for as long as possible?

It's a denial-of-service attack on democracy.

So, Mr. Gibson's religious beliefs turn out to be a bit silly and impractical? That's really not so different from anyone else. Hell, even atheists often turn out to have some silly and impractical beliefs (for example, many of them believe they can prove the non-existence of God!).

The real problem is the practice of belief, itself. 'Belief' is what people do when they don't want to try to figure things out for themselves. Instead, they pick the first ready-made set of answers that appeals to them, and hope for the best, because that's the easiest path. Sometimes their adopted set of canned answers leads them to make beneficial decisions, and sometimes it doesn't, but decisions based on 'belief' cannot be called rational decisions, because the believer isn't actually deciding anything for himself. He's just doing what someone else told him to do.

(yes, I'm feeling cynical today)