Hahahahah!

I wouldn't vote Weezy for president of the United States.
If he was running for Mayor, Governor, the Senate, the House, I'd certainly consider it! It would be kinda like what happened with Arnold Schwarzenegger. I don't live in California, but I hear that many people think Arnold is actually doing a great job and daring to try some revolutionary ideas that break away from the standard fuddy duddy politics that often sit a century behind the times.

So yes, I'd vote for Lil Wayne for a smaller office if I, after watching his debates, thought he would be capable of serving his office better than the competition. The man is actually quite smart, daring, and successful. He's on quite a higher level then some thug like 50 cent who can only boast about how many times he's been shot and shout, "Shorty it's yah birthday!"

Prepare for... unforeseen consequences.

Chavic just burned himself by presenting a poor argument that proves without a doubt that he is ignorant of other cultures, has never been to France, met any French people, or read any French literature.

Chavic, you make the rest of us Americans look bad. This is embarrassing.

Here's my analysis of the current energy proposals being tossed around in US politics.

The Republicans want to lift the oil drilling ban on US central States, ANWAR, and offshore territory. In the long run, this will help gas prices a little bit, but not very much. Most people assume that all of this newly opened US oil will only go to the US. That is not how the oil market works, and this oil will be dispersed all over the world. However, this would improve our trade deficit, since we would have something to sell to the rest of the world while simultaneously reducing our own oil imports. It's likely that oil will continue to get more valuable over the next two decades, so it would be good for our economy if we had a valuable liquid to sell to the rest of the world.

Additionally, John McCain and some other Republicans have expressed support of building more Nuclear Power plants. This would be a great way to cut down on domestic coal use and dirty energy. However, it's likely that we would have to import some of the Uranium from foreign countries, such as Canada. Compared to using domestically owned coal, this idea doesn't help our trade deficit. The good news is that Nuclear is extremely clean, and would be a great source of electricity if we were to switch over to electric cars. If everyone drivers an electric car, the US is going to need to pump out a lot more electricity. It doesn't make sense to use dirty coal to power a "clean" automotive technology. Nuclear is also sustainable for a long time because there is plenty of Uranium.

Nancy Pelosi and some Democrats are hell bent on stopping any attempt to lift US drilling bans. This is fine, except that she and most of the other Democrats have not proposed any sound counter proposals to our energy problem. She's making herself and the rest of the Democratic party look like a bunch of fools. The Democrats criticize an admittedly weak Republican energy proposal, but they have nothing of their own to present. The typical Democrat will say, we need to invest money in alternatives. That's fine and dandy, but it's unlikely that any giant technological breakthrough regarding alternative fuels is going to materialize in the next decade.

I should know all about the technological pace of alternative fuels, I work in a Plant Biology Research lab. The focus of the lab is to genetically modify plants so that they become better feed stocks for bio-fuels. I assume that most of you are not familiar with a researcher's environment, so let me bring you up to speed. Research takes a long time!Grad Students and Post Doc's can spend years for the sake of publishing a single finding. A finding is often as insignificant as discovering what a specific gene and alterations of it, of thousands, expresses in a plant. These are important findings that all contribute to a greater cause of understanding, but it is a slow process of putting all the pieces together. It might, over the course of decades, be possible to create the holy grail of bio-fuel feed stocks with some godless plant mutant, but it is highly improbable that this will happen over the next couple of political term cycles.

The above paragraph means that, the Democrats don't have a short term energy policy!

Both arguments juxtaposition, each party has shitty energy proposals, but all things considered over the next decade, the Republican strategy of increasing domestic drilling is the best choice.

The Democrats don't have an energy policy right now. It's likely that over the next eight years, if they are in charge, absolutely nothing will happen. The oil market will continue on it's current trend of decreasing supplies and increasing worldwide demand. So even if they piss and moan that domestic drilling will make little impact (and it will make little impact), it will still be more effective than their counter proposal of doing nothing while waiting for research to catch up.

At 7/30/08 10:36 PM, adrshepard wrote: I've looked all over Fox News and I can't find that story. Perhaps you could provide a link?

Try looking up your ass.

My opinion is that all forms of media are completely biased towards liberals. It doesn't matter what they are reporting, the underlying -and blatantly obvious-agenda is to try and brainwash people into hating the republican party.

I got sick to my stomach when I read the New York Times today. There was an article in the paper where the reporter explained that sharp reductions in the price of crude oil over the last week have improved the value of the dollar and created some momentary relief in the stability of the US economy.
How dare those liberal conspirators try and trick the good American people! What the LIBERAL reporter was really saying is that we should be sympathetic to Middle Eastern terrorists who decided to reduce the price of their oil this week because they just wanted to help out the United States economy. If these liberals have their way, everyone is going to be sympathetic to the terrorists. I swear, I can't read anything in the news that isn't just a bunch of liberal propaganda.

Fox News Update: July 30, 2008

80% of Newgrounds politics is not old enough to vote or doesn't vote because they are young adults (who are quite often complete morons and don't vote)

There is extreme conservative and liberal biases on NG politics. The majority of regulars hold a conservative political stance, and many are openly hostile towards liberal users. Many outsiders describe the situation as having shocking similarities to the mentality of small town politics; a system where a small gathering of highly unimportant people get high on their power horses. Small town political systems, such as that seen on Newgrounds, quickly fall into a rut of stagnation where outsiders who dare to supply meaningful and innovative ideas are viciously ostracized.

The Newgrounds political forum is also home to random dumb liberals who float in and post ridiculous antics about SUV's, global warming, national healthcare, and anti-Bush, McCain, and Romney. They do this over the course of a few days only run away at the last minute in the face of superior intellectual know-it-all opposition.

Fox news would like to summarize that most regulars on Newgrounds politics are extremist, insane, anti-social losers, and are not actually very representative of the Democratic or Republican party.

At 6/26/08 02:33 AM, Blackhawkdown wrote: Can't say I have, never have had much of a reason to go out to Texas for that matter. But I know this much for California, the idea that you have to choose between clean beaches and off shore drilling is a false idea. Maybe it's because currents are different out here, maybe it's because oil rigs are held to strict standards. But I know this much oil rigs can built that are exceptionally clean and don't effect the environment, and I could care less if local governments have laws making sure such standards are met. As it is though the current set of laws in place don't even allow for the building of new oil rigs off the coast of California, it's really something that needs to be changed.

This is an excellent point! Anyone who chops the debate down to a choice between clean beaches or oil is narrow minded. These operations, if managed correctly, can be very clean. The Californian government could impose restrictions and inspections on offshore oil rigs to help reassure the public that nothing bad would happen.

I also like your point about future speculation. Even if the oil isn't entering the market for 10-20 years, investors will have continued reassurance of oil's stability and abundance. Supply and demand economics are not the only factor affecting oil prices, but also what people "think" will happen.
If the majority of investors "think" oil is running low and that demand will continue to rise, they will have more confidence in it's value. The price of oil (it's value) will go up. If they have good reason to believe that the market will be stable for a couple of decades, it will discourage them from valuing oil too high.
T

I think congress and everyone else is over thinking this.

Let's assume that tomorrow, congress removes ALL bans on potential domestically owned oil sources (ANWAR, atlantic coast, pacific coast, gulf coast, montana, everything).

This does not mean that any or all of it will be tapped. That is up to the economic decisions of oil refiners. The refiners might just say, "hey, fuck it!, it's not worth the billions of dollars and decades of infrastructure we'll have to invest to get it!"

If it does turn out to be viable, then everybody wins. The oil companies will develop it, and our prices will go down, or at the very least, not reach the moon. Then, 20, 30, 50 years later, when our current situation happens again, there will be no more significant sources to discover and we can focus all of our efforts on alternatives. It's likely that 50 years from now, it will be easier to implement alternatives as a result of advanced technologies.

It should be clear from what I wrote, that there is no point for the US government to ban drilling anywhere. That is un-American and anti-free market.

At 6/17/08 10:46 PM, Cuppa-LettuceNog wrote: The vast majority of employers DON'T care about any of that, and workers are doing great.

Does your employer care about you?

You said

Stop telling businesses how to treat their employees and let the free market take over

How can you expect our "work place" to make us better individuals if an employer has no obligation to do anything for you? If business was completely allowed to run free, if all unions were abolished, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that working conditions in manufacturing would return to the same state as those of the industrial revolution.

That was the point of Unions, rules, and regulations in the work place, to prevent discrimination.

Would you like to work for an employer that doesn't care about you, care if you live another day, care if you feed your family, care if you're injured or sick?

At 6/12/08 09:11 AM, bcdemon wrote:

At 6/12/08 01:52 AM, Memorize wrote: You do realize that we can't even continuously support our current Medicade and Social Security, right?

Can you continuously support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Yes we can do this, but we can't continue to support Medicade and Social Security.

I'm a real JFK fan. I liked many of his pragmatic policies and his ideas.

For those of you that do not realize it, Obama models his style of speech and policies off those of John F Kennedy. There is quite a strong connection there. I felt that JFK was a great president, one of my favorites, so I'd love to see this continue in the footsteps of Obama. Kennedy represented a younger generation, Obama is doing the same thing.

I think that McCain is too old to lead this country. He's an old man and represents older ideals. In todays changing world, having a museum piece in office is not going to help us. We need an ambitious and young president who has the balls to go against the grain.

Too make a republican connection, many of Bush's economic policies are similar to Ronald Reagan's.
IE: Cut taxes, deficit spend, large defense budget. I think that these policies are very harmful and have lead to the devaluation of the US dollar and recent economic slowdown. So in the sense that many Reagan conservatives voted for Bush, many Kennedy liberals will likely vote for Obama.

I don't understand the Saudi conspiracy that they are buying back their own oil and reselling it. Elaborate?

The article suggested that the huge increase was because of a further weakening dollar. Some foreign currencies can now buy oil cheaper because it is worth more than the dollar. This makes it more expensive for those of us who reside in the United States. I'm interested to hear more on your hunch that Saudi's (aka: sand ni**ers) are buying back their oil.

In relation to how it effects me? I find myself turning into the biggest financial Jew of all time. I've always been a conservative spender, but holly cow, I manage to impress myself these days.

For the past two weeks, I've been seriously contemplating riding my bicycle to work, but still haven't pulled out the moxy to do it. I calculated that with my Chevy S10, it costs me $7 round trip each time I go to work. It takes twenty minutes to get from my house to the parking lot, going 50 mph most of the way, with 4 traffic lights that I may or may not hit.

It would be 30 miles round trip, meaning that, on bicycle, I will likely have to leave 1.5 hours early for work so that I can get there on time. I've been having a hard time convincing myself to get all hot and sweaty, and remove a net two hours from my day in exchange for $7 of gas savings. In addition to this, I have class after work(ending June 26th!!) three days out of the week and I also like to go to the gym and lift. If I was to continue with this routine, I would be spending some of my return trip on the bike in the dark. This is dangerous and unpleasant.

I also have to factor in that it may rain some days, in which case the bike will suck dick on unimaginable levels.

As you can see, transitioning to using a bicycle, when you live far from work like me, is a tough call to make. The $35 I would save each week would be nice though. I'm restoring a 1968 Oldsmobile Cutlass S, and let me tell you, it is an expensive hobby. I can just imagine all the things I'd like to get for it that gas money is cutting into.

Aww fuck, I should have bought gas today, I saw it for $3.84 at a Marathon right by where I work.

It'll probably be above $4.11 on Monday when I make it back that way.

I can only hope Obama can be persuaded to cease with this non sense about a carbon tax on a completely natural warming trend.

At 6/4/08 06:09 PM, Chris-V2 wrote: That's not the oil problem. America has a trillion barrels on reserve.

It's because there isn't enough refineries to process it all that the price is rising.

/Stupidity

Actually Chris,
US refineries are being underutilized this summer as a result of high gasoline prices. US demand for gasoline has fallen this summer. The high price of crude is the driving force behind high prices at the pump.

This is the first I've ever heard of China drilling for oil off the coast of Florida. You don't have a source to confirm that this is actually happening, so I'm going to reason that it is extremely unlikely. China is using a great deal of oil, but they are not drilling it on our land.

I'd like to make a couple of points.
1) In addition to the oil in ANWAR, there exist extremely large quantitie of untapped domestic US owned oil off the Pacific, Atlantic, and Gulf coasts, in addition to untaped inland sources in Montana, Utah, and the Dakotas. If congress were to allow for production of all of these sources simultaneously, starting tomorrow, we would have a steady stream of reasonably priced oil available in 10-15 years. This oil could be sold both domestically and abroad, and it's sale would pump money INTO the US economy.
I doubt that this oil will bring gas back down to the $2.00 range we all so dearly miss, but it will most certainly, adjusted for inflation, keep prices within a modestly affordable range of $4 - $9 a gallon.

2) The cap and trade system is absolutely ludacris! It is also popularly known as the carbon tax. There is no credible proof that man made CO2 is the cause of current climate trends, which I might add, have been happening naturally, in cycles, throughout the history of the Earth. We are simply in a NATURAL warming trend right now.

3)Personally, I feel that most politicians have been bullied into supporting a carbon tax because it is what most people (most people are morons) think is the right thing to do. Just imagine how bad it would look for McCain or Obama if they said they didn't support something that the media has jammed down everyone's throats as an issue that demands support for the sake of our own survival.

The carbon tax is a way for the environmental lobby to discourage fossil fuel use and further their own agenda, one that, while cleaverly disguised as helpful, seeks to push us back into the stone age. Remember, the most effective type of tax is one that is created to address a non existent problem and benefit no one.

In summary, write to your local congressman and demand their support AGAINST a carbon tax.

At 6/1/08 10:53 PM, gunner-564 wrote: i still dont now which one is worse for prez.I mean look Hilary has really hurt her campian by saying
many flamatory statments!But Mcain dons't support that vets should get money for collage.also he
dons't care about global warming he just wants to be prez. for once.

so tell me how is worse and who would you vote for if the where they only one on the voting pallet?

1) Global warming isn't real
2) McCain is the better choice of the two
3) I prefer Obama out of all three potential candidates, McCain would be my next choice.

At 5/28/08 07:38 PM, Cuppa-LettuceNog wrote:

At 5/28/08 02:15 PM, Drakim wrote:

But what if a company is hurting the public/national interest?

Like what?

Like foreign parts lacking quality because they are being produced by children making $20 a week.

Many Chinesium auto parts are crap. I should know, one of my hobbies is restoring a 1968 Cutlass S. All of my auto friends swear by USA made parts. The reality is that many of the Chinesium parts are lacking in quality control. It is not uncommon to get a foreign part that has to be shipped back because screw holes don't line up, or tolerances are so bad it can't be used without further machine shop work.

One thing that immediately comes to mind are Chinese made distributors. Half of the damn things have too much play in the bushings right out of the box and wobble around. The other half don't last a long time like the old school GM USA made HEI distributors.

An advantage of keeping a factory in the USA and paying workers more money, is that the consumer, in theory, will receive a better product, even if it has a higher sticker price. When I buy auto parts, I NEVER buy the cheapest part available, because nine times out of ten, it is shit.

At 5/24/08 12:57 AM, Cuppa-LettuceNog wrote:

At 5/23/08 10:55 PM, Korriken wrote:

outsourcing jobs to reduce layoffs? am i missing something here? usually when a job is outsourced, the person working the job gets laid off.

Yes, and because the company that outsourced is now making a lot more profit by outsourcing one job, they are able to keep from laying off another 10 jobs to keep costs down. A wealthy company is an employing company.

Well that's certainly been the case here in Michigan. All this outsourcing is making our economy boom! Hell, we've got more new jobs emerging than we have people too fill! All of our companies have become so wealthy outsourcing, they can't hire enough American workers! It's great, I love Michigan, and I love outsourcing!

There are so many flaws in this topic it's unsettling.

For starters, using vegetable oil/peanut oil/magic oil is not cheaper than gasoline in the long run. Yes it's cheaper if only a handful of people are using it, but it most certainly would not be cheaper if the entire United States was using it!

Other good news, the high price of crude oil has encouraged many oil companies to make plans for the extraction of oil from sources that were "previously" not economical. We are likely to see increased domestic oil production from more difficult to extract sources off the coast and in shale and tar sands.

At 5/17/08 11:59 PM, Memorize wrote: Average Price in Arizona where I live: $3.35
Average Price in California where I visit: $3.95

So why is it that when I travel between the two, that in the middle of nowhere, I'll find a small Dairy Queen where gas prices are: $4.55?

I have no idea. My guess would be that you misread the sign and were looking at the price of diesel, which is around that range. The dairy queen might be price gouging too, if they are in the middle of no where and have no competition within 20+ miles.

PS: In Lansing, Michigan, May 18, 2008. You cannot find a gas station with regular under $3.78. Most of the stations are listed at $3.99, and the highest at $4.06.

*Another side note, refiners such as Exxon mobile, who own some oil fields, are making loads of money off the higher price of crude. It's the independent refiners such as Valero energy that are suffering losses because they do not produce any of their own oil. They buy all of it from another source.

I'd like to add that there is nothing racist about telling a couple of ghetto trash n*****s to fuck off. They were asking for trouble to begin with. If I had more resolve, I'd probably have done the same thing in your situation.

At 5/15/08 10:54 PM, DeadSun wrote:

At 5/15/08 10:50 PM, AdamRice wrote:

At 5/15/08 10:46 PM, DeadSun wrote: Well i think the poloticians want to ban video games all together.

This is not a communist country. This is also not a nation founded on Islam. I don't think you have anything to worry about.

1st. I dont see what communism has to do with it. A dictatorship maybe.

But Jack Thomas, and others like him, seem to be out to get rid of all games, and get rid of violent games mainly.

Jack Thomas = king of the United States.

Whatever Jack wills shall be the law of the nation!

At 5/15/08 10:46 PM, DeadSun wrote: Well i think the poloticians want to ban video games all together.

This is not a communist country. This is also not a nation founded on Islam. I don't think you have anything to worry about.

I hate that kind of shit. We have all these ghetto ass trailer park townie kids in my home town that hang out in a big group every night by the speedway gas station. They are always really loud and obnoxious and I honestly don't feel very safe when I'm trying to put air in my tires or buy gas.

The local law enforcement has tried getting rid of them, but theres just too many and they aren't technically doing anything wrong. I just don't like how most of these zeros are in there twenties still don't have jobs. All they do is loiter around the sidewalks spitting every ten seconds and creating public unrest.

I also lived in an extremely ghetto dorm my first year at Michigan State. At night all of these cars would pull up infront of the dorm blaring rap music and there would be 30+ black people make LOUD noise in the lobby.

In April some guy did a couple of burn outs out front at night and about 100 black people ran outside and started rioting in front of my dorm. When the police came, they were all gone in ten seconds flat... amazing.

The real question is, why would a conservative support the Bush administration and their very liberal government spending?

Most of the anger around politicians talking about enforcing game ratings is a classic case of teenage angst. Seriously, no politician is going to make it illegal for someone 18+ years old to buy a game.

If you're not already 17, any M rated games you might have were boughten for you by your parents, older siblings, older friends, or relaxed clerks who don't care how old you are. How would it be any different if the government increases the stringency of the rating policy?

Experts say the refiners are caught in a double bind. The price of their raw material, oil, is rising because of strong global demand. At the same time, consumption of gasoline in the United States is falling as a result of slower economic growth and consumer efforts to conserve.

NYT : Oil refiners see profits sink as consumption falls

What an unexpected outcome! High crude oil prices are actually hurting refiners as well as us consumers. The price for a barrel of oil has doubled in the last year, while the wholesale price of gasoline has only increased 39%. We should be thankful for this, because if the price was directly coupled to the cost of crude, we would be seeing $6 a gallon gas right now!

The refiners are being screwed on both ends by the supply and demand market. The demand for gasoline in the US has decreased this summer, meaning refiners have to sell at a lower price. However, the demand for crude has increased, meaning refiners have to buy at a higher price.

Not to suggest that oil refiners are not still making money, they are, just less of it. Profits are down for the first quarter.

In my mind this doesn't look good for the future of gasoline prices in the United States. Even if we reduce our demand, the global usage of crude will still increase, meaning higher prices at the pump. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't!

The only good news is that high oil prices are making it economical to open up many previously untapped sources, both domestic and abroad.

What are your thoughts on this?