Bush has done himself few favours recently according to this article

Hi, Ed.

I know your disdain for polls, but their accuracy has been quite good over time. The fact that Bush's job-approval rating is now below 50% indicates that there may be something to this article, wouldn't you think?
-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!

Bush hasn't really begun to campaign. He has been unusually flat in the few appearances (MTP, SOTU) that offered him an opportunity to get his message out. This WMD issue hasn't helped him especially with the liberal "mainstream" complicity in the Bush lied LIE while never calling the Dems to account for their own assertions regarding WMD and intelligence.

Once the nominee emerges, if it's Kerry as it looks to be, there is a record there he has to answer for. Someone posted George Will's questions for Kerry. Hopefully the public is not stupid enough to fall for his recent letter to Bush and this nonsense that Republicans who didn't serve in Vietnam have something against Democrats who did. Sheesh, HE is the one running as a hero, well then he should realize that if he wants voters to consider his service, they should also consider his testimony and protests against the war as well as his voting record and articulation of philosophy. I'm sorry, but it's not dirty politics to ask him to stand on his record!

Evie

Hi, Evie.

I have real disdain for those who claim to have supported the War but took steps to evade serving in it. I know the conservatives will disagree, but I such folks below both those who favored the war and fought and those who opposed it and did not, because those two groups were true to their principles, while Bush, Quayle et al. simply showed their willingness to fight to the last drop of someone else's blood. And while Bush may or may not have nominally fulfilled his obligation, his whole "service record" reeks of special handling and privilege. I know this was explored last time, but not in this depth, and not in the light of his sending American troops to fight and die in a weakly justified war.

-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!

.

seem to be showing Bush still leading Kerry and Bush hasn't even begun running a campaign yet.

Regarding the article I have already stated what I see in it and its purpose. Look at the carefully edited wording and even you should see the hatchet job tried with innocuous statements from a tiny minority of professed Republicans. Same happens EVERY TIME someone runs for re-election--some former supporters drop their support and some former non-supporters have become supporters. Nothing new or unusual even in the fact that a liberal media has tried to make it appear so.

Hi, Ed.

>>seem to be showing Bush still leading Kerry and Bush hasn't even begun running a campaign yet.<<
Oh? Which polls are those? The last I saw (around mid-week) showed Bush down double digits to both Kerry and Edwards.

-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!

and how they ALWAYS tend to reflect any bias of the polling organization you might want to look here

http://www.pollingreport.com/wh04gen.htm

Where you won't be seeing any "down double digits to both Kerry and Edwards" in ANY of the polls.

Newsweek and other Liberal media polls favor Kerry while Fox and other Conservative media show the advantage is Bush's.

Hi Ed,
It's the same over here with our newspapers. They all seem to have a bias to either party. The only paper that purports to be none biased is the "Independant". Have you any newspapers in the U.S that appears to have no bias and deals with the facts?
I can only see things as an outsider, living in the U.K, and I really cannot see Kerry as a President.
The guy doesn't strike me as very honest, well judging from what I have heard so far, and if someone was to ask me who I thought was the most trustful person, sorry Dave, I am sure Bush qualifies. Yes Dave! Bush may have made a few mistakes, or taken a couple of untimely actions, but that doesn't give anybody the right to call him dishonest.
Dave, when you have the responsibility of a huge country, you have to make some decisions based on what is known, and in the case of the terrorists Bush didn't have months or years, which is the sort of time frame the U.N would have caused. So when you think Kerry would have made a better decision, think again!

We really don't have many media outlets that don't demonstrate an bias by making news rather than reporting it although USA Today might come close to being a little less biased in any direction.

If you go back and re-read the article you can see where the author or editor carefully selected the wording to make the case appear as bad for Bush as possible (this influences those like DaveK who have an abiding trust in the opinions of their favored media regardless of the number of times the reporting is proven inaccurate). Their polls are of the same nature, biased to get the results desired and again used to influence those who blindly accept them without questioning methodology or even timing.

Like Clinton, Kerry's whole life has been orchestrated toward his "legacy" and he wavers on issues in whatever direction he perceives the wind to be blowing. He lacks both honesty and integrity and has very little support from veterans.

Edward, did you catch the Kerry story on the Sunday NBC evening News? Not only did they bring up Kerry's anti-war activities and show pictures, but they mentioned a new name, "Hanoi John".
What's Dave K. going to do? Saying "FauxNews" or something like Rush Limbagh won't do in this case, it was NBC News.
Rememember in the last election when I mentioned the news media acting like sharks? If they smell "blood in the water", politics be damned, they'll go into a "feeding frenzy" and try to get a bite themselves.
BTW, Bush released his service and medical records. When will Kerry do the same? I'd like to see the severity of those wounds that allowed him to leave his men and go back to the states an an aide. Heck, I'd like to see Kerry tell us how he would solve the "job situation" that tries to use to hammer Bush. O.K. Kerry, you don't like Bush and want to be President instead, so if you were what would you do to solve it?

I agree Evie, sounds a bit unrealistic to me.
A favourable upturn in employment would certainly help to dispose of that sort of twaddle.

He doesn't seem to care about Oil pollution in that natural habitat. Evie please help me out, cannot remember off hand where it was, but Kerry doesn't care a fig that extracting oil will ruin the place.
So Kerry isn't very environment friendly either

Hi, Steve.

You'll note that's a second-hand listing of his position by a guy who is trying to force him into that position, and who backed Bush last time. IOW, unless I see a Kerry position paper to that effect, I won't believe it.

-- Dave K, Speakeasy Moderator
click here to email semods4@yahoo.com

The opinions expressed above are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of CNET!

... it is clear that some negtiating went on to garner the endorsement. Rank and file union workers aren't so stupid that they will support Kerry if he is not out there campaigning on that which their leaders promise them he supports. So he will have to come out and support drilling in ANWR and be shown a hypocrite, or admit he has no intention of drilling and be shown deceitful in his vote garnering methods.

Evie

I think you are referring to Kerry's promise to Hoffa (Teamsters) that he would be pumping oil all over the place. What bugs me is that if Ken Lay had said the same in an interview in 2000 there would be so much crap about Bush being a Big Oil man Texas Cowboy we would have never heard the end of it. But surely that would have hired and created the same energy jobs as Kerry is promising Hoffa for his endorsement and campaign cash/support. How come a union isn't a special interest? If there IS an environmental issue with ANWR, it's hypocritical at a minimum to ignore them if one can get some union votes.

I happen to support drilling in ANWR as one means to reverse our increasing reliance on foreign supplies of oil. Like it or not, the health of our economy hinges on the readily available supply of low cost energy. What bothers me is the Dems complaining about manufacturing jobs leaving the country, well their environmental policies have contributed to that. There has to be a reasonable compromise, but any time Bush even wants to review a detrimental regulation he is assailed as wanting to pollute the air and poison our children.

I don't know how it is in the UK, but the whole jobs issue has changed dramatically in this country during my lifetime. My FIL has a hard time understanding what my husband and I have gone through because he went to school, got a degree, and worked for the same company for 35+ years doing the job his degree trained him for with little chance of getting laid off, and retired with a golden parachute to boot.

It's just not like that anymore. I could feasibly still work for my first employer, but that's a pretty rare scenario these days. My hubby's childhood friend followed my FIL's same path but was laid off from that company when the defense industry cuts took their toll. He is still employed as an engineer, but commutes 1-1/2 hours each day and works in a different field. Dave, if you want to talk manufacturing jobs, skilled trades, let's talk what happened here in SE CT with the defense cuts. You used to be able to make a nice living as a pipe welder but no more. Now, most of those have either moved to where welding jobs still exist, or retrained for other jobs (dealer at the casino for example). I would think that someone interested in training for a position with some security for longevity might consider going back to school for tourism management as the Indian hotels employ a ton of people in this capacity. I guess people need to come to grips with the reality that they must evolve their skills to fit the far more fluid needs in today's world. We can try isolationism/protectionism or we can try to adapt to the realities of free trade. I don't have any handy links, but many economic reports I have seen highlight jobs that overseas markets have created here in the US. Any time only one side of that equation is stressed and the other ignored, I find the report suspect.

The jobs picture is far more varied than a national unemployment rate would indicate. Which is why Dem or Republican, it has always befuddled me that the President is blamed and/or credited so much for jobs when he can do very little about it. On one of the Sunday shows this morning a Kerry spokesperson was asked about this offshoring thing because Kerry's team has jumped all over a Presidental advisor's comments that it can have benefits. Well the host asked him what Kerry would do differently to stop this and the guy hemmed and hawed before finally admitting that (a) he had no clue what Kerry would do and (b) that there was probably little he could do.

The economy is actually quite good in lots of places in the US.

My parents, my inlaws and most of my friends parents growing up came from very modest means. In the case of my FIL he came to this country (the rest went to Canada) not speaking a word of English and with little more than the shirt on his back. He managed to do pretty OK for himself and it wasn't through luck, it was through hard work and determination. So I reject Dave's contention that nowadays the poor just can't do the same thing. There is NOTHING stopping them from staying in school, keeping their legs shut or pants zipped until they are ready to have kids in a married relationship and live within their means. It may take a bit more imagination and reinventing of oneself in today's world, but heck, if Madonna can become a childrens' book author anything's possible!

Evie

nor would it interfere with caribou migrations, so Kerry nor Bush are guilty of "irresponsible" endangerment of the environment by supoporting drilling.

Kerry though belongs to a party that has demonized those who want to drill (and it is offset drilling so the whole countryside is not peppered with pumps) so he will have to either fight his own party as the soft money ads by special interests begin or his party will have to switch and support what Bush and Republicans have been for all along. Either way Bush gets a leg up on Kerry's spending of his own campaign funds.

I wondered how it might affect the area if all that came out of the drill holes was pumped away. The initial strike will release a bit of oil, but once the pipe is installed all the crude will finish up in a large collection point of some description.
I bet Bush could get something underway on this oil extraction and swipe the carpet from under Kerry's feet.

... and the environmental fanatics have managed thusfar to prevent any progress in ANWR. Bush even courted Hoffa's support for drilling as it would put many of his union members to work, but union affiliations with the Democratic party seem to run deeper. It doesn't matter what position Kerry takes, they'll generally support him, but it puzzles me how they can even fool themselves that Kerry will help manufacturing jobs. For those jobs to thrive, there must be healthy companies operating in a business friendly environment.

Evie

and see how quickly they cave in to the pressure of being blamed for the lack of jobs in the area.
It may sound a touch dirty, but not nearly as filthy as their one-sided approach to President Bush.

Hi Blake,
Would I be right in assuming that Alaska was mainly a large area of Ice. There wouldn't be many plants or animals there, apart from a polar bear, or two.
I haven't seen many package holidays to Alaska, so I must be right in thinking the average human being wouldn't find the place very hospitable.
The need for roads could be eliminated by very long pipe lines as in Russia. The machinery could be carried out there in gigantic hovercrafts. So as I see it there won't be any need for extra roads.
I wouldn't know how much the ice and snow shifts in the area, so there may be a problem with the pipe line, but there is no reason why giant hovercrafts couldn't be used to transport the oil to the refinery.
The technology of the hovercraft can be used in so many difficult situations that I am surprised that the first thing people think about are road ways.
Yes! alternative forms of power will have to be found before long. Crude oil will eventually dry up, and peoples' gas tanks too if alternatives aren't found. The hydrogen engine is excellent.
Spillage of oil - perhaps Blake, but then we have been drilling in the North Sea and the only spillage that we have is when some stupid sea captain loses control of an oil tanker, so sorry, don't buy that, our North Sea isn't polluted with oil ???

link in part 1

Most permafrost south of the Yukon River is within two degrees Celsius of thawing. If a warming trend that began in the winter of 1976-1977 continues, the permafrost will melt. While getting the ice out of the soil may seem like a welcome relief to those who build roads, houses, bridges and pipelines, it will be a bad thing for the thousands of people who now live on houses above permafrost and use roads, bridges and pipelines built over permafrost.
Air temperatures in Fairbanks have increased 1.5 degrees Celsius in the last 20 years. During the same period, Bettles warmed by 1.4 degrees and Gulkana by 1.3 degrees. If the increase is consistent for the next 20 years, Alaskans are going to notice a dramatic difference in the world around us. Roads will slump, floors will slant, huge sinkholes will appear in forests, swallowing trees and creating new lakes.
"The transition period will create whole new ecosystems," Romanovsky said. "It's a disaster for us, but not for nature." And who's to blame for melting permafrost? Is it the species building the houses, roads and pipelines? That's the big question--are humans causing global warming, or is the warming we've seen in Alaska since the 1970s a natural variation, one that could quickly reverse itself and preserve all this permafrost? All we know now is that one of Alaska's most visible signs of climate change is thawing right under our feet.

The vast majority of Western Cattlemen still support Bush because they are aware of what they lost and almost lost under the last Democrit and don't want to risk further erosions of their land use or avaliability of BLM or Forest lands on which to summer their herds.

Who do you think miners and loggers will be voting for?