Sotu '06

[Gemini Cricket]

I forgot to mention my favorite quote of the night:

Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research -- human cloning in all its forms -- creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos.

What the...? What's he talking about? Five-assed monkeys from 'South Park'?

[mousepod]

I know it's good science, but I'll bet this old photo gives Georgie nightmares:

[mousepod]

I can't believe I missed such an obvious straight line:

prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids

[Gemini Cricket]

Why does Bush hate Mickey, Goofy, Minnie and a lab mouse with really good hearing?

[SacTown Chronic]

http://www.bushorchimp.com/

[Prudence]

The thought of patenting human embryos gave me a chuckle. That's how many years of prior art?

(Yes, I know there's probably lots of wonderful science behind this that would make it completely rational, but let me have my momentary chuckle, okay?)

[innerSpaceman]

And Anwar drilling all for enough oil to power Los Angeles for three weeks! Wow!

Did anyone miss the incremental health care bandaid proposals that will make patient worse? Health savings accounts with tax deductions that only make sense for a wealthy taxpayer and deductables ($5K for individuals, $10K for a family of 4) that only wealthy taxpayers can afford ... resulting in separate insurance pools for rich and poor, with premiums skyrocketing for all us poor shmoes stuck in the poor pool.


But enough of the healthcare crisis. Did I miss anything about the energy crisis other than the 20 year timetable for complete inaction by an administration that's a virtual arm of the oil industry? Did I miss anything about the entitlement crisis other than chiding the Congress for not swallowing whole the bogus private account system that was laughed off by 100% of everyone?

Did I miss anything about the environmental crisis or the poverty crisis or the liberty crisis? I didn't watch the whole speech. I sure caught the important parts about animal-human Dr. Moreau hybrids and gay marriage by judicial fiat. But did Bush actually take time in his S.o.t.U. to claim that warrantless searches were ok for friends of terrorists because he couldn't be bothered to make the phone call that would get him unquestioned warrants?

(I can't believe that most people seem to be buying Bush's line that the warrantless eavesdropping is necessary, when warrantful eavesdropping would have the same results. If the American people are this dumb, they have just the government they deserve. Ladies and Gentlemen, the state of the union is Hopeless.)

[SacTown Chronic]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

(I can't believe that most people seem to be buying Bush's line that the warrantless eavesdropping is necessary, when warrantful eavesdropping would have the same results. If the American people are this dumb, they have just the government they deserve. Ladies and Gentlemen, the state of the union is Hopeless.)

Originally Posted by scaeagles

I guess I'll just be included with the dumb Americans and will get what I deserve

Would you mind explaining, scaeagles, why you believe warrantless wiretapping is more effective than the 72 hours that FISA allows for obtaining retroactive wiretap warrants?

I ask because I've yet to hear any justification from the Bush administration. Oh, I've heard the usual spin, obfuscation and macho posturing coming from those cats, but not any, ya know, facts that support their position.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by SacTown Chronic

Would you mind explaining, scaeagles, why you believe warrantless wiretapping is more effective than the 72 hours that FISA allows for obtaining retroactive wiretap warrants?

Honestly, I have no answer, I really don't know. I do have a thought.

Echelon is a system that basically monitors (or monitored - I really don't know if it is still in use) massive amounts of communications, recording conversations, and looking for keywords and/or phrases, and flagging those that the software decided needed human analysis. It could take days or weeks for those flagged calls to come under analysis

Again, I don't know the specfic rules of retroactive wiretapping. If it takes days for those flagged intercepts to be analyzed, it is certainly possible that it is outside the allowed 72 hours from when the message was recorded.

I recall during the 04 debates when Kerry was critical of Bush for around 100,000 hours of unanalyzed electronic communications. Were all those hours that had yet to be anaylzed approved with wiretaps? I sincerely doubt it.

Again, a theory. I have no solid answer for you Sac.

[scaeagles]

Everyone has their issues, I suppose.

Environmental crisis? Are we talking about global warming? Even Kyoto is only supposed to have extremely minimal effects on warming. Climate change happens. Always has. I don't think man caused the ice age or the thaw thereafter. Polution? Problems with the air over big cities, certainly, but I wouldn't call it a crisis. In China, yeah polution is a crisis.

Poverty crisis? I'm sorry, but most in America have no clue as to what true poverty is, and very few suffer from true poverty.

Liberty crisis? Again, I see it differently. I find it funny that Harry Belafonte goes to Venezuela to call Bush a terrorist and compare him to Nazis, when the same language in Venezuela about Chevez would cause him to be thrown into prison.

Perhaps I am just one of the mindless sheep who sees no liberty crisis. I don't see it. But I guess we all have blind spots. I guess I'm missing the whole thing with privatization of social security. I think I could do better than the approximately 2% I can expect on my social security. So...I'm not one of the almost 100% that laughed it off. I like the idea. But I probably just don't get it. I see differing reports on the amount of oil in ANWR, so I probably just don't get that either.

I guess I'll just be included with the dumb Americans and will get what I deserve.