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Americans... what are your views on.... (pg. 2)
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| Tranz |
| I think it's time for a change. Mr. Bush have proved that he is an idiot. He's embarassing. I dont follow politics that much... but I'm willing to give this guy Kerry a chance. I dont blame Bush for all the stuff that's happened, because Clinton left alot of unfinished business, but it's only gotten worse. |
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| DigiNut |
What is with Europe and its weird inferiority complex? I live in Canada and I feel no need to bash the USA and/or George Bush all the time.
How about instead of whining about USA politics, you take just a cursory look at your beloved European Union - perhaps you'll notice how it has "destabilized" the entire European continent in far more ways than Bush has "destabilized" the middle east.
Yeah, Bush isn't the greatest president ever. But honestly, let Americans handle that - you stick to your own problems.
I find it ironic how Europeans are so quick to accuse the USA of "meddling" in world affairs, and yet those same people have no reservations whatsoever when it comes to "meddling" in American politics. Tell me honestly, what is the difference? Is it just anti-Americanism taking the new form of anti-Bushism? The USA is a democracy, and people voted for Bush long before his "propaganda machine" ever existed. |
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| Boomer187 |
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
He's average, and so is Kerry. I don't see any real benefit to electing Kerry instead of Bush (no, I don't mindlessly agree with the "anyone but Bush" argument) so Bush will get my vote. Democrats and Republicans are the same thing in modern politics, so it really doesn't matter which one is in "power." He has done a good job with national security since 9/11 and that's really the only thing I care about, although the constitutionality of his actions seem a little questionable at times. I also think changing course in the middle of the Iraq situation, no matter if you agree or disagree with us being there would be a grave mistake. Also, presidents do not have the kind of control over the economy to "create millions of jobs," as some would have us think (including some presidents and candidates) so, I don't find the natural depression of the current economic cycle to be his fault.
I think this was dealt with in the political discussion forum before. |
you don't care about all this conservative influence on radio and tv which will create a lot of censorship. I mean now stern is off clearchannel, and tons of other media shows are being overly cautious as to not break any rules they think might be out there. |
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| DaveSZ |
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
He's average, and so is Kerry. I don't see any real benefit to electing Kerry instead of Bush (no, I don't mindlessly agree with the "anyone but Bush" argument) so Bush will get my vote. Democrats and Republicans are the same thing in modern politics, so it really doesn't matter which one is in "power." He has done a good job with national security since 9/11 and that's really the only thing I care about, although the constitutionality of his actions seem a little questionable at times. I also think changing course in the middle of the Iraq situation, no matter if you agree or disagree with us being there would be a grave mistake. Also, presidents do not have the kind of control over the economy to "create millions of jobs," as some would have us think (including some presidents and candidates) so, I don't find the natural depression of the current economic cycle to be his fault.
I think this was dealt with in the political discussion forum before. |
Since you work in the health field, and are committed to people's health, I'd like to see you please defend this:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2496556
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April 9, 2004, 8:32PM
FDA held back results of child suicide study
Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON -- Ten months ago, when concerns arose about a possible link between children taking antidepressant drugs and suicide attempts, senior officials at the Food and Drug Administration ordered their leading expert to head up an examination of the evidence.
When the government scientist filed his report last winter, however, his bosses decided to keep it secret -- even though it found that children who took the drugs were twice as likely to be involved in serious suicide-related behavior as those who did not.
Instead of revealing the findings, senior FDA officials ordered more studies, which are not expected to be completed until summer. They also squelched plans to have the author, Dr. Andrew Mosholder, present his conclusions to an FDA advisory committee when it took up the issue in February.
And in March, when the agency issued a warning about the possibility of problems for young patients taking the drugs, FDA officials said no conclusive scientific evidence existed on the link between antidepressants and potentially suicidal behavior by children. Officials said they based their action on anecdotal complaints from physicians and families that had been presented to the advisory committee.
They gave no hint that their own chief expert on the subject had examined the results of more than two dozen clinical trials conducted by antidepressant manufacturers and had found an unusually high correlation between their use by young patients and potentially suicidal behavior.
The report still has not been made public, but news of Mosholder's conclusions first surfaced in a recent CBS News report. His findings were detailed in an internal FDA document obtained by the Los Angeles Times and authenticated by government officials.
In justifying their decision to hold back Mosholder's report, his superiors questioned the reliability of the data on which he based his conclusions. They suggested the drug companies, which manufacture the antidepressant drugs and conducted the clinical trials in order to market them, might have been too quick to count some behavior as potentially related to suicide -- that is, too quick to raise questions about their products.
Among the kinds of actions these officials said should not necessarily have been counted as potentially suicide-related were instances of children who deliberately cut themselves.
Some FDA officials defended the decision to sit on the report and seek more analysis of the data, but some psychiatrists and congressional leaders who are following FDA's handling of the issue were angered that the agency had kept Mosholder silent.
"Evidence that they're suppressing a report like this is an outrage, given the public health and safety issues at stake," said Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, a Harvard psychiatrist who wrote a book on the problems with the drugs known as serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which alter brain chemistry to manage depression. "They've been claiming that there's no evidence. Here's the evidence."
Senate and House committees have ordered the FDA to hand over documents -- such as the ones obtained by the Times -- that might illuminate what the agency knew about the possible link between the drugs and suicidal behavior. They specifically asked for any of Mosholder's reports, e-mails, correspondence or notes on pediatric or adolescent antidepressant trials.
These members of Congress are concerned that the FDA may be keeping information from Americans that would help them better assess the possible risks of taking antidepressants or giving them to children.
"It would have been very wrong for the FDA to withhold any information it had about unintended consequences that might result from the use of antidepressants, especially for children and adolescents," Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement.
"The public deserves to know of every possible risk so that family members can closely monitor any changes in behavior," he said.
Suicide is the third leading cause of death in teenagers ages 15 to 19. From 1980 to 1997, the rate of suicide among this group increased by 11 percent. Suicide is rare but growing among younger children. The suicide rate for those 10 to 14 years old increased by 109 percent between 1980 and 1997, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Since peaking in the late 1990s, suicide rates appear to be declining among teenagers but remain a serious problem. Experts say depression is the leading factor in suicide.
Depression affects one in every 33 children and one in every eight adolescents, according to the National Mental Health Association. Although only one antidepressant, Prozac, is explicitly approved by the FDA for children, doctors routinely prescribe others to their young patients, and the use of these drugs by children has been steadily rising.
The antidepressant drugs -- Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Luvox, Celexa, Lexapro, Effexor, Wellbutrin, Serzone and Remeron -- are taken by 30 million Americans, according to some estimates. The first seven are serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and their sales in 2003 exceeded those of any other drug class except the group of painkillers that includes codeine.
An estimated 7 percent of the Americans taking the medications are children. Drug use is tracked by the number of prescriptions written. A total of 2.7 million antidepressant prescriptions were dispensed for children younger than 12, and 8.1 million were written for adolescents in 2002, according to FDA, although some individuals received more than one prescription a year.
In studying reports from 28 clinical trials, most of them unpublished and thus not open to public inspection, Mosholder concluded that the data showed a "statistically significant" risk of serious suicidal events among children taking the drugs. And he stressed that what he acknowledged were limitations in the data he was analyzing would not change his conclusion.
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About 95 million of the Bush Cheney campaign funds come from pharma companies, oil companies, HMOs, mining companies, utility companies, and other powerful interests.
Take gutting the Clean Air Act for example, and we begin to see the trend:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/07/p...pagewanted=1&th
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White House Downplayed the Risks of Mercury in Proposed Rules, Scientists Say
By JENNIFER 8. LEE
Published: April 7, 2004
WASHINGTON, April 5 — While working with Environmental Protection Agency officials to write regulations for coal-fired power plants over several recent months, White House staff members played down the toxic effects of mercury, hundreds of pages of documents and e-mail messages show.
The staff members deleted or modified information on mercury that employees of the environmental agency say was drawn largely from a 2000 report by the National Academy of Sciences that Congress had commissioned to settle the scientific debate about the risks of mercury.
In interviews, 6 of 10 members of the academy's panel on mercury said the changes did not introduce inaccuracies. They said that many of the revisions sharpened the scientific points being made and that justification could be made for or against other changes. Most changes were made by the White House's Office of Management and Budget, which employs economists and scientists to review regulations.
But scientists on the academy panel and others outside it as well as environmentalists and politicians expressed concern in recent interviews that a host of subtle changes by White House staff members resulted in proposed rules that played down the health risks associated with mercury from coal-fired power plants. The proposal largely tracks suggestions from the energy industry.
While the panel members said the changes did not introduce outright errors, they said they were concerned because the White House almost uniformly minimized the health risks in instances where there could be disagreement.
"What they are saying is not scientifically invalid on its face," said Alan Stern, a New Jersey toxicologist who served on the panel. "Partially they edited for clarity and relevance from a scientific standpoint. But there appears to be an emphasis on wordsmithing that is not necessarily dictated by the science."
Last Thursday attorneys general from 10 states and 45 senators asked the E.P.A. to scrap the proposed rules, saying they were not strict enough.
They also asked Michael O. Leavitt, the agency's administrator, to extend the comment period for the rules, which now ends April 30. Under a court-ordered agreement, the rules are to be in final form by Dec. 15.
In some cases, White House staff members suggested phrasing that minimized the links between power plants and elevated levels of mercury in fish, the primary source from which Americans accumulate mercury in their bodies, in a form known as methylmercury.
The academy has found that exposure to elevated levels of mercury can damage the brains of children and fetuses.
In another instance, a draft passage originally read, "Recent published studies have shown an association between methylmercury exposure and an increased risk of heart attacks and coronary disease in adult men."
It was changed to "it has been hypothesized that there is an association between methylmercury exposure and an increased risk of coronary disease; however this warrants further study as the new studies currently available present conflicting results."
The change understates known science, some academy panel members said in interviews.
The proposed regulations are available on the E.P.A. Web site (epa.gov/). The proposed rules would limit mercury emissions by an estimated 70 percent over decades and would also allow power plants to buy and sell among themselves the rights to create mercury pollution.
Mr. Leavitt is reconsidering elements of the rules.
Small amounts of mercury occur naturally in the environment. In December 2000, however, the environmental agency concluded that mercury from power plants should be classified as a hazardous air pollutant to be strictly regulated under the Clean Air Act. In December 2003, the Bush administration reversed that finding.
The proposed regulations for power plants — the single-largest source of mercury emissions in the United States — are the culmination of 14 years of lawsuits, scientific review and government reports.
Coal and utility groups lobbied intensively to help shape the regulations, which will cost billions of dollars. Paragraphs in the proposed rules are inserted nearly verbatim from memorandums from the firm of Latham & Watkins, where two top political officials in the E.P.A.'s office overseeing air regulations, Bill Wehrum and Jeffrey Holmstead, once worked.
White House officials and E.P.A. political appointees say the changes in the draft rules reflect the typical back and forth of developing regulations among agencies, and environmental agency officials had the option of rejecting the suggestions, which in some cases they did.
"This is a standard collaborative process that involved experts across the government to create a solid product," said Dana Perino, the spokeswoman from the Council on Environmental Quality, which coordinates federal environmental efforts.
But some critics are not convinced. "This is a pattern of undermining and disregarding science on political considerations," said Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, citing a recent letter by the Union of Concerned Scientists, signed by 60 scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, which criticized the administration's handling of science issues.
Others feel the White House's Office of Management and Budget is overstepping its bounds. "O.M.B.'s role is supposed to be to review the economics of rules — which they did very poorly here — not to fly speck the science and minimize health threats," said Lisa Heinzerling, a professor at Georgetown University who is a co-author of the book "Priceless," on cost-benefit analysis.
Throughout an E.P.A. draft of the proposed regulations circulated in November, a White House staff member crossed out the word "confirmed" from the phrase describing mercury as a "confirmed public health risk." In some instances, sentences in the final proposals were changed to mercury "warrants regulation."
Mr. Wehrum, the chief counsel of E.P.A.'s air regulation office, said that the handwritten changes were prompted by his agency's desire to use more precise legal language from the Clean Air Act.
Some members of the National Academy said that sections of the regulations on health effects could have been made more clear, but that the science was strong enough not to delete them entirely.
An official with the Office of Management and Budget who emphasized that neurologic risks to children were the most important concern, said language on other health effects was deleted or softened for a number of reasons. In some cases the draft had overstated the known science, while in others, like cerebral palsy, the effects were not relevant to mercury exposure in fish or power plants.
Even taking into account studies that have been published since their report in 2000, some panel members said the language was made too soft in several cases.
"There is increasing evidence of an association between mercury exposure and cardiovascular effects," said Thomas Burke, an epidemiologist from Johns Hopkins University and a member of the panel. "I would call it stronger than a hypothesis."
In another case, a toxicologist with the Office of Management and Budget recommended changes to a sentence saying children exposed to mercury in the womb "are at increased risk of poor performance on neurobehavioral tests." The final sentence that was published said children "may be at increased risk." That pattern was repeated a number of times throughout regulations where "are" or "can" was changed to "may." The official said that the softened language reflected the fact that low levels of mercury exposure below the safe dose were not known to be risky, even to children.
Other scientists interpret the edit differently. Joseph L. Jacobson, a professor of psychology at Wayne State University, who served on the academy panel, said, " `May be' suggests an effort to discount the fact that we have consistent evidence across more than one study."
While it is standard for the White House to review federal agency testimony and reports, E.P.A. staff members say the Bush administration also minimized the amount of mercury that comes from power plants. Over agency staff objections, the White House on several occasions in the past year added the statement that coal burning produces "roughly one percent of mercury in the global pool."
According to the E.P.A. staff, the 1 percent figure was added to an agency report on children's health; Senate testimony by Christie Whitman, who was the E.P.A. administrator; and Senate testimony of Mr. Holmstead, who is the assistant agency administrator for air.
While that figure is cited in the E.P.A.'s 1997 report to Congress, agency staff members and independent scientists say it is misleading because much of the mercury that ends up in the nation's water and soil comes from nearby sources.
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This is simply outrageous - crony capitalism at its finest (and most harmful to the public). |
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| blazed it |
I don't like how Bush is trying to force his born again christian right wing morals on me.
Oh that and i'm not rich, so all those "tax cuts" that is supposed to be turbo charging the economy right now and putting money in my pockets so i can spend it and boost the economy is not happening. It's actually done more to hurt my family's business than help it.
F*CK YOU Dubya. yuo piece of . |
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| Perfect_Cheezit |
Everyone who hates him (probably 99% of TAs) hates him a load. There's a disconnect between the government and the common person; they simply don't care that our economy is in the right now. And yes, our economy is in the right now, and there isn't much that anyone is doing to alleviate it. They correlate the profit margins of major corporations that are outsourcing jobs to the health of the economy, which isn't ing working to be honest.
Time for a change. |
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| DaveSZ |
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...ntaintop_mining
| quote: |
Bush Mining Regulatory Change Is Denounced
Tue Mar 30, 7:09 PM ET Add White House - AP to My Yahoo!
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Tales of floods and flattened peaks and of homes swept away or devalued in central Appalachia were laid out Tuesday by opponents to the Bush administration's plan to ease a buffer-zone regulation protecting streams from coal mining operations.
Testifying at an Interior Department hearing on the proposal, Mary Miller of Sylvester, W.Va., said the value of her home had dropped from $144,000 to below $12,000. Residents in her coalfield town won economic damages last month suing a mining company over coal dust covering their homes, vehicles and other property.
"I'm out here now trying to save my home," said Miller. "I don't have much left anyway. I don't have many years left. But I'm thinking about the water shortage for my children."
The department in January proposed easing a 1983 rule that set limits on coal mining near streams. Current policy says land within 100 feet of a stream cannot be disturbed by mining unless a company can prove it will not affect the water's quality and quantity.
The new rule would require coal operators to minimize only "to the extent possible" any damage to streams, fish and wildlife by "using the best technology currently available."
In a small auditorium at the department's headquarters, nearly all of the more than two dozen speakers opposed the plan. A lawyer for the National Mining Association was the only one to praise it.
"Our preference is that the rule be deleted entirely," said Bradford Frisby, the trade group's associate general counsel. "There are other regulations that protect streams."
His group has described the current buffer zone rule as confusing and going beyond the intent of Congress when it passed a 1977 law on environmental impacts of coal mining.
Citizens, environmentalists, religious leaders and public health advocates turned out to demand that the department drop its proposal and instead more vigorously enforce current law. Four other hearings on the issue were held Tuesday in Charleston, W.Va.; Greentree, Pa.; Hazard, Ky., and Harriman, Tenn.
Some of the testimony reflected the double-edged sword that mining has been in rural communities for years, providing jobs and coal for fuel but also stream pollution, scarred land and erosion-caused floods.
"We're not Luddites. We know coal is important to the economy. But there is a right way and a wrong way to do things," said Melody Flowers, a Harvard University graduate student who recalled growing up in Barboursville, W.Va. She said she was saddened to see new scars on the landscape during trips to visit her brother, Cole, a West Virginia state trooper.
"We're the 'Mountain State' — we're not the 'Reclaimed Strip Mine State Where You Can Build an Air Park or a Mall State,'" she said.
Kristen Hite, a Georgetown University law school student, said she feared losing beloved parks near Kingsport, Tenn., where she grew up and spent every summer of her life.
"My fondest memories are there. If anything were to happen to that, I would be seriously devastated," she said, describing the federal plan as "absolutely unacceptable."
Department officials have said the current policy is impossible to comply with during "mountaintop mining," which involves shearing off the tops of ridges to expose a coal seam. Dirt and rock are pushed below, often in stream beds, a practice known as valley fill.
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And this:
(Gutting the Endangered Species Act)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A10660-2003Oct10?language=printer
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U.S. May Expand Access To Endangered Species
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 11, 2003; Page A01
The Bush administration is proposing far-reaching changes to conservation policies that would allow hunters, circuses and the pet industry to kill, capture and import animals on the brink of extinction in other countries.
Giving Americans access to endangered animals, officials said, would feed the gigantic U.S. demand for live animals, skins, parts and trophies, and generate profits that would allow poor nations to pay for conservation of the remaining animals and their habitat.
This and other proposals that pursue conservation through trade would, for example, open the door for American trophy hunters to kill the endangered straight-horned markhor in Pakistan; license the pet industry to import the blue fronted Amazon parrot from Argentina; permit the capture of endangered Asian elephants for U.S. circuses and zoos; and partially resume the trade in African ivory. No U.S. endangered species would be affected.
Conservationists think it's a bad idea. "It's a very dangerous precedent to decide that wildlife exploitation is in the best interest of wildlife," said Adam Roberts, a senior research associate at the nonprofit Animal Welfare Institute, an advocacy group for endangered species.
Killing or capturing even a few animals is hardly the best way to protect endangered species, conservationists say. Many charge that the policies cater to individuals and businesses that profit from animal exploitation.
The latest proposal involves an interpretation of the Endangered Species Act that deviates radically from the course followed by Republican and Democratic administrations since President Richard M. Nixon signed the act in 1973. The law established broad protection for endangered species, most of which are not native to America, and effectively prohibited trade in them.
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| CGRumler |
| Well, I'll give George W. Bush credit for one thing.....he's the pun of some very hilarious Saturday Night Live skits. :haha: |
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| Electronicmaji |
[/quote]Sure...they've just ripped apart a country, caused a bloodbath, angered millions of muslims and de-stabalsed the entire middle east..... but at least they got Saddam.[/quote]
like the middle east wasnt already like that :rolleyes: |
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| Tranceporter99 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Diehard_clubber
George Bush?
I'm not trying to start a huge argument here, i'm just curious how according to the polls we hear about back here, about half the country still back him.
Is his propaganda machine really that powerful over there? |
hes awesome, he has gotten the bad rap for 9/11 and all this commission. I want to know how Bush and his administartion is responsable for something that they had 7 months to correct while clinton and his people had 8[the 9/11 attacks supposadly had been in the works for 10 years]. and its not a propaganda machine, that would be kerry |
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| Tranceporter99 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Boomer187
one "good" thing is all you can think of....actually that is impressive, I usually can never name off anything he did good. |
305,000 new jobs |
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