Fahrenheit 9/11

The thing that frustrates me about the far left/right people is how they divide the country. Example: Michael Moore repeatedly uses the race card to fire people up. Yes it is a problem, and there are bigoted bastards out there, just not to the extent Moore likes to take it.

Another example: Bush always using religion as a crutch. When he needed the Supreme Court to end the election fiasco, they were all well and good: but when they started defending the gay marriage issue, he saw his chance to get in an uproar and suddenly the Supreme Court is acting tyrannical! He may see his evangelical ways as a lever to prop up votes in the poverty stricken Bible Belt, but is he not also losing the many votes he received from the urban, yuppie life styled homosexuals? And honestly what business does the constitution have on defining marriage? And does it really affect us if gays marry? Does that make it any less sacred than when Brittany Spears is running off and getting married in Vegas, just to have it nullified the next day?

Issues like race and moral conflicts are bad, I’m not saying they aren’t. But, they shouldn’t be exploited either. It just divides the already partisan country. Michael I know you just want to get your point across, but stick to the point, don’t let other issues distract from it. And Bush, I know you want votes, but you don’t give a damn about gays. Hell, your VP daughter’s one and you wouldn’t want to offend her would you? Or what about your daddy’s buddy Ronnie, his son’s one you don’t want to tread on him do you? Stick to lying about something you know about, like Weapons of Mass Destruction.

As far as the comments by my friend diffusionx about Bush’s intelligence, I would say he’s not a complete moron. He’s just a little immature and inexperienced; he’s always had someone there to dig him out of a hole, so he never got a chance to grow up. It’s not his fault. As far as where the brains comes from, it’s in his cabinet, and they’ve all got their own little agendas to push. That’s where the problems come in.

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Originally Posted by NightWolve

Well, not that this would change your mind or anything, but this isn't true. In keeping with his promise of 1.2 billion mentioned in his state of the union speech, funding for hydrogen research is underway.

Bush sells vision of hydrogen future
$350 million in hydrogen grants (so far)

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Thanks for the links, I stand strongly corrected.

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Originally Posted by Doc Holliday

And does it really affect us if gays marry? Does that make it any less sacred than when Brittany Spears is running off and getting married in Vegas, just to have it nullified the next day?

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She's getting married again, by the way. That's one fine role model ("But I don't want to be a role model!"). At least she got engaged this time ;)

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Originally Posted by kabuki

Bush is an evil genius, like Dr. Doom

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I am so voting for him. :lol:

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Originally Posted by g0zen

I can't truly back this up with any factual information, but from what I've seen of Bush he doesn't seem at all to me to be a free-thinker. I think every decision he makes is essentially made for him by whoever is pulling his strings (Daddy?). When I criticize Bush it's only because he's the figurehead, in reality I'm criticizing whoever the "Powers That Be" are that seem to be manipulating him.

To be fair, the same sort of manipulation could be exerted over any of our past presidents, but in Bush's case it just seems the most obvious. He's not a firebrand policy-maker like Teddy Roosevelt (a Republican that I actually admire, believe it or not).

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It's easy to believe this about political opponents. I certainly had some of these same feelings re: Clinton. But after awhile you realize that while many politicians are beholden to certain backers, many more really do believe in certain policies/actions as the right thing to do. Do I think that Clinton's ultra-liberal backers wanted him to sign "Don't Ask Don't Tell"? Yeah. But I think he signed it b/c he really thought it was the right thing to do.

I think this is one of the reasons alot of the conspiracy theories re: Iraq don't hold water w/me (omgit'sONLYaboutoil). Every bone in Bush's body was against upsetting the Mid East. He was a CLASSIC don't-rock-the-boat type. Ignore Palestine. Iran what? Paki-who? Just keep that sweet crude flowin' baby. 9/11 really did change that, for him personally. Now, one can disagree about his seeing it as an apocalyptic battle to the death w/radical Islamist suicide bombers. But we can agree he's sincere (or can we?).

Bush's grammar does not help the impression that he's helpless. And it also doesn't help that there are so many self-congratulating intellectuals propagating the idea that there MUST be somebody behind the curtain b/c GOLLY, look at those IQ scores!!111!! omglaffs!

I think you're right that he's not an intellectual or innovator. He considers himself the CEO of the Executive Branch. Sort of the MBA approach to the Presidency.

He may not have the oratorical skills of Teh_Bear but the so-called Bush Doctrine is radical and far-reaching.

I've never understood the whole "Bush is a mushmouth therefore he's retarded" argument. Steven Hawking talks through typing badly into a keyboard, he must be really stupid huh? I've known tons of well-spoken morons and tons of mush mouthed brilliant people, there's no correlation between the two any moreso than there is between social skill and intelligence.

As for the environmental issues, the same people that are against drilling in Alaska are against us having any presence in the middle east. If we're not going to rely on places like Saudi Arabia for oil, and we're not going to drill it ourselves, where are we going to get it? And don't say alternative sources of energy. I agree they're the future and must be explored, but if we stopped depending on oil on Monday we'd have The Great Depression Part 2 on Tuesday. And of course it'd be Bush's fault that the economy sucks.

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Originally Posted by SpoDaddy

As for the environmental issues, the same people that are against drilling in Alaska are against us having any presence in the middle east. If we're not going to rely on places like Saudi Arabia for oil, and we're not going to drill it ourselves, where are we going to get it? And don't say alternative sources of energy. I agree they're the future and must be explored, but if we stopped depending on oil on Monday we'd have The Great Depression Part 2 on Tuesday. And of course it'd be Bush's fault that the economy sucks.

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I don't know where you're getting your info, but even the most liberal (and by that I mean generous) estimates of the amount of oil in ANWR is infanticimal compared to the amount we ship per day from foreign nations. There is no cure to U.S. reliance on foreign oil, and destroying what few unspoiled lands this country has left won't change that. Also, your argument that the same people against drilling are against the U.S. presence in the Middle East is totally based on stereotyping, because it's definitely not an accurate statement. Numerous House and Senate REPUBLICANS voted against drilling in ANWR (including Rob Simmons, Susan Collins, and Lincoln Chafee).

I agree with g0zen on Teddy Roosevelt. He was a Republican Environmentalist before there was the word environmentalist. I voted for him a hundred years ago and despite no one in Texas voting for him, he still won.

As far as the issues Spo brought up on Oil. The answer is not finding more oil, or quitting cold turkey for that matter, but using less oil. Doing things like buying an SUV's and living in the suburbs then driving it everyday to work downtown, doesn't help. And suburbanite SUV drivers are vastly neo-republicans.

Think about it, if you drive 300 miles a week like I do, and you have an Escalade that gets 14mph compared to my 28. Your wasting 11 gallons of gas for something your not using on the weekdays and you may use on the weekend.

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Originally Posted by SpoDaddy

I've never understood the whole "Bush is a mushmouth therefore he's retarded" argument. Steven Hawking talks through typing badly into a keyboard, he must be really stupid huh? I've known tons of well-spoken morons and tons of mush mouthed brilliant people, there's no correlation between the two any moreso than there is between social skill and intelligence.

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It's not so much the mushmouth part. It's the part that nothing intelligent ever passes across his lips (at least while he is on camera). That is what, in my eyes, makes him come across as stupid.

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Originally Posted by RedCoKid

The second half was too introspective. So a mother lost her son. Cry me a river. Everyone loses loved ones eventually.

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The point was that the son died for something he himself didn't believe in, not so much the simple fact that he died.

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Originally Posted by IMDB

Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 bushwhacked the box office over the weekend, astounding analysts and even the filmmaker himself by taking in an estimated $21.6 million despite playing in only 848 theaters, many of them small-capacity art houses. By contrast, the No. 2 film ($19.6 million), White Chicks, played at 2,726 theaters, while the No. 3 film ($18.5 million), Dodgeball, played at 3,020.

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I can't comment of the quality of Fahrenheit 9/11 itself yet, as I have yet to see it (I might catch a showing later today), but this quote alone makes me happy beyond belief simply for the fact that it beat out a piece of shit movie like White Chicks while playing in less than 1/3 the theaters.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is expected to expand to twice the number of theaters by next weekend, where it has to contend with Spiderman 2.

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Originally Posted by RedCoKid

THAT is the catch. $1.2 billion in research to continue burning petroleum.

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http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenfuel/

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The best way to reduce our Nation's dependence on imported oil in the short-term—over the next 10 to 20 years—is through the increased use of gasoline hybrid-electric vehicles, which are becoming available to consumers today. The U.S. Department of Energy is also pursuing other advanced combustion technologies to achieve even greater efficiency improvements.

In the long-term, however, increases in fuel efficiency alone will not be enough. Using domestically-produced hydrogen to power transportation and other applications can significantly reduce our oil use by 2040. This timeframe considers the time needed for hydrogen fuel cell technology to replace conventional technologies in our Nation's vehicle inventory, after hydrogen fuel cell vehicles begin to reach the mass consumer market in 2020

Lowering the cost of hydrogen: Currently, hydrogen is three to four times as expensive to produce as gasoline (when produced from its most affordable source, natural gas). The President's Hydrogen Fuel Initiative seeks to lower that cost enough to make hydrogen cost-competitive with gasoline by 2010, and to advance the methods of producing hydrogen from renewable resources, nuclear energy, and coal with carbon capture and sequestration.

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That may be partly true as natural gas (does burn clean though) is so far the cheapest way to produce it. But the goal of reducing oil dependency overall and preparing to move away from it is still key, otherwise there's no point in pursuing this.