George Bush: Losing Core support?

[Toxick]

Originally posted by dems4me
Sadly, John Glen stated yesterday that 820,000,000 won't even be enough to start the paper work on such a huge endeavor.

That's some pretty expensive paperwork.

Originally posted by dems4me
I think the space rhetoric that W is throwing around is political posturing.

It's election year. Everything he says and does is political posturing. Conversely everything that any of the democrats say is also political posturing.

Because, believe it or not, they are all liars, cheats, pigs and greedy scumbags as well. They just have a different market base.

Originally posted by dems4me
Red rocks are kind of pretty, but for that amount of money I don't feel its worth it and I doubt the following administrations in the future will keep throwing money into this.

It worked for JFK.

Originally posted by dems4me
We have not soo much as sent a probe back to the moon in 30 years. What's the point with mars?

The current big deal with Mars is that Nasa has finally had a success with Mars, and there's already hype surrounding Mars. However, Bush's initiative includes the moon as a first stop. The moon is a priority.

Originally posted by dems4me
I feel the money should be allocated here at home.

Well there's a whole mess of crap that my tax money is spent on that I don't like. So them's the breaks. The way I see it is this - and I realize that it sounds like some Science Fiction mumbo-jumbo, but Space is the last unexplored frontier, and it should be explored. When this planet is overpopulated, it would be nice if we had somewhere to go. If the sun decides to blast supernova it would be nice if we had somewhere to go. If the Ozone really does disappear, and melt our polar ice caps turning earth into Waterworld, it would be nice if we had somewhere to go.

Granted these things are not likely to happen anytime soon - but they will happen (except for the ozone thing). Why should we wait until they're imminent?

Personally, I'd like to see space travel privatized. I'll guarantee that if American Airlines or TWA or someone who stands to make a buck by flying customers to the friggin moon on vacation, we'd get faster, cheaper and superior space travel quick fast and in a Hurry.

Originally posted by dems4me
Then again, I'm always the one at odds with everyone when it comes to politics.

Yeah, well. You've said some things I agree with.

Just not in this thread

 

[Otter]

Originally posted by dems4me
Sadly, John Glen stated yesterday that 820,000,000 won't even be enough to start the paper work on such a huge endeavor.

Where is that statement??? I have seen no statements by Glenn that come remotely close to saying that.

 

[dems4me]

Otter - he was interviewed on WTOP and interviewed on MSNBC last night. I can try to find the exact transcript if you like though.

Arch - I don't understand your post -- a few people in this thread were unaware of the African goverments involvement (or lack thereof (i.e. ignorance)) which exacerbated their epidemic. Their leader was stating that HIV does not cause AIDS, etc...

 

[vraiblonde]

Originally posted by dems4me
a few people in this thread were unaware of the African goverments involvement (or lack thereof (i.e. ignorance)) which exacerbated their epidemic.

Who was unaware of this? My question was what we, the United States of America, are supposed to do about a health epidemic that affects a continent made up of sovreign nations, who didn't ask for our help and, when we tried to give it anyway, told us to get out and mind our own business?

If you answered that question, I missed it.

 

[Sharon]

Did Africa reject the 15 billion Bush wanted to give them?

 

[vraiblonde]

Originally posted by Sharon
Did Africa reject the 15 billion Bush wanted to give them?

I doubt it - they aren't going to spend it on AIDS stuff anyway. I was talking about the great condom drop from a few years ago and how other countries are constantly trying to send relief workers over to Africa, only to have the government kick them back out.

 

[SurfaceTension]

Originally posted by Toxick
The current big deal with Mars is that Nasa has finally had a success with Mars, and there's already hype surrounding Mars. However, Bush's initiative includes the moon as a first stop. The moon is a priority.

I seem to recall that China is suddenly going balls-to-the-wall on their space program, including a moon shot. We may have a new Space Race, thus far not formally declared.

 

[Toxick]

Originally posted by SurfaceTension
I seem to recall that China is suddenly going balls-to-the-wall on their space program, including a moon shot. We may have a new Space Race, thus far not formally declared.

Absolutely. There's no doubt that the reason Bush is even remotely interested in space is because of China. After all, there's no oil in space

 

[SurfaceTension]

Originally posted by Toxick
Absolutely. There's no doubt that the reason Bush is even remotely interested in space is because of China. After all, there's no oil in space

With, obviously, Halliburton driving the policy, banking on the moonbase construction contracts.

 

[tlatchaw]

What's all this fuss about George W Bush losing Gore's support? I thought he never had that since all the hanging chad stuff took place.

Oh wait. . . sorry.

 

[Hessian]

I just read about a warm letter of congratulations that GWB sent to a church out in California....A GAY CHURCH! (they even posted it on their web site,...it is not a fraud or Urban Legend.)

Yet another reason to look for a new place to put my vote.

 

[Bruzilla]

"Grasping from your email, you would rather spend tax-payers dollars on going to mars than fixing healthcare and reducing your deductible. You support both ways -- do you want the tax money spent on mars in your pocket or for research?" To be honest, I couldn't really care less if we ever explore Mars or not. My point is I would rather see my tax dollars spent on exploring Mars than see them get flushed down the public sewers of unproductive programs.

"Take Dean's healthcare record in vermont for example, 99% of the children for that state has healthcare and get this -- you will say its a small state -- then how do you account for Vermont making it to 26th on the scale of the states that produce the most revenue?" First, there is no "Dean's Healthcare" okay? Most all of the money that Dean got for the Vermont Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) are federal tax dollars from the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), not Vermont tax dollars, so the size of the state or the income generated therein had little to do with the program or its funding. Just for the record, every state (and Puerto Rico) now has an approved CHIP plan in place with the Feds and is drawing money. Also, just as a by-the-way, the cost of the first five years of this program are budgeted at $24,000,000,000.00 (that's billions by the way.)

And while Vermont may be 26th on the scale of revenue generators, they are about 45 on the scale of population... so there aren't a lot of kids to insure. To put that into perspective, Pennsylvania (not a very populous state) has about 83,000 kids enrolled in a SCHIP program. Utah, a sparsely populated state, has about 14,000. Vermont has about 3,000. So you see... size does matter. There are about 160,000 kids under the age of 18 living in Vermont based on the latest 2002 numbers... so if 69,000 kids are on Medicaid (those are Medicaid's numbers), 3,000 are on the CHIP, and Medicaid estimates about 5,000 are still uninsured for one reason or another, that makes about 72,000 kids who are receiving mostly federal dollars for their health insurance and about 83,000 who are covered by their parents and their employers. So you see why I cringe when I hear politicians wanting to raise taxes so "everyone"can be insured. They aren't going to raise my taxes and also pay for my insurance... I still have to pay both the higher taxes and the premiums. Oh... and these numbers show that the correct number of insured children is actually about 96.8%... not a big delta but accuracy is important.

Looking at these numbers, I would not be so quick to be tossing laurels of victory at Howard Dean's feet. He had to deal with a very small child population AND used mostly federal tax dollars and people's salaries to achieve his "No Child Left Behind At The Doctor's Office" program. With that small a population to cover using "Dean's Healthcare" he could afford to cover a large section of the under 18 population using CHIP and Medicaid. Other states, with much larger populations, can't.

 

[Hessian]

Budget complaints:

Conservatives are pulling up stakes:
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040115-112447-9758r.htm