I thought Clinton was the last President to get life-long SS protection. Didn't they change the law a few years back?

You may be right, I think I missed that one. I did a little searching and it seems that the protection now only runs for 10 years. However, I also encountered items suggesting that Bush would be the most expensive president to protect in this manner because he's made so many enemies.

Why are we so stupid?

Perhaps because Americans spend WAY too much time watching television.

If oil is continuously created deep in the Earth then we have no need to drill new oil wells. All we have to do is re-check all of the old oil wells that were abandoned when they stopped producing. They should have filled up again by now. All we have to do is start pumping again.

That's what happened in Iran after the Shah was deposed. All those people celebrating that Iran finally had democracy and then the masses gave official power to the extremists.

Let's not forget that Pakistan is where Osama has set up his new shop. Let's also not forget that Pakistan has nuclear weapons.

... so that the Bush administration will be the one that writes the leases. That'll give Bush one more chance to fulfill his administration's overriding policy goal of increasing oil company profits at the expense of everyone else.

One question I never see asked or addressed by these oil disciples is, what is the environmental impact of this new oil you want to search for?

The oil disciples are probably not the best people to ask. Their stock answers are (1) There is no impact, and (2) Any impact we observe is caused by something else and would have happened anyway, so we might as well continue the way we have been.

Clearly the only workable solution is to do nothing.

Nonsense. There are lots of things we can be doing, the most immediately beneficial of which involve cutting back on energy use.

I've observed the following silly behaviour many times in my own neighborhood. Joe Suburbia has every conceivable labor-saving gadget: Riding lawnmower, snowblower, leaf blower, power washer, etc etc etc. Practically all of them burn gasoline. After using these gadgets, Joe jumps in a car and burns more gasoline to go to the gym so he can stay in shape.

I'll bet Joe could stay in shape just fine without burning so much gasoline.

Since ignorance of what is technologically feasible exists even among the well educated, if unlimited drilling were to be permitted the market speculators would sell out their futures contracts because they would expect a supply that would lower prices.

I'm pretty sure that people who speculate in oil futures take pains to watch what is going on. They probably know that there is a large lead time between start of exploration and significant production. They probably also know that even the most optimistic estimates of our production increase will be only a tiny fraction of global demand.

If I were an oil speculator, I certainly wouldn't take a loss dumping current positions just because congress opened up the coastal areas and/or the wildlife refuge. I wouldn't even change my trading unless I saw evidence that the new drilling was producing vastly more oil than expected. Maybe someday the new wells would put a dent in prices, but there's also a good chance that new demand would more than outrun new production.

If we want to bring the price of oil down in a hurry, I suggest we stop sending so much money to China and India. The main reason oil is so expensive is that we keep giving them the money that they use to bid against us.

Torture is of little or no use for obtaining intelligence, but it's a great way to extract confessions for political purposes.

Why can't you understand that PUMAs are democrats?????

Perhaps because you act like you want McCain to win?

Consider this: What if Hillary had won the nomination, Obama's supporters pulled the PUMA stunt, and McCain won the general election. What would you have to say about the Obama-supporting PUMA's?

IMO, the PUMA's are another one of Karl Rove's inventions.

That sounds like the kind of email Karl Rove would send so his goons could bash Obama for it.

... a bunch of shills who were hired by Karl Rove to post inflammatory messages on various forums to try to drive a wedge between the Hillary fans and the Obama fans. There are not enough of them to begin to retire Hillary's debt, and they wouldn't do it anyway because they're not really supporting Hillary. They want McCain to win.

PUMA can't possibly put Hillary in the White House. If by some miracle they managed to get her the nomination, Obama's supporters could turn around and pull the PUMA stunt themselves, which would guarantee an McCain win.

Joe Biden could fuck up a train wreck.

Yes. That's why he's the ideal guy to run against McCain.

Democratic candidate and party will pay the ultimate price because of that slight.

I see far more people saying this in anonymous public forums than I do in real life. I realize that you're trying to keep this alive in the hopes of improving McCain's position, but I don't think you're an adequate prosthesis for the notoriously short American attention span.

Half a trillion dollars!

That's what it took to maintain an illusion of prosperity while Wall Street was sending jobs overseas. The bummer is they're gonna have to do it again to try to keep this place from collapsing.

... can be summarized in one sentence: "Your shit stinks, but ours doesn't".

Perhaps next the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, which sets the rules of the game everywhere but in the U.S. and Mexico, will require all players to speak fluent Scottish Gaelic.