Well, the elections went off in Iraq without a real hitch and everyone still thinks W is an idiot. I really can't get my head around the fact that a whole party of our government is so consumed with partisan politics that they continue to crucify our president for making real differences in the world. I don't care about the reasons for those changes, they've been beaten to death and I no longer have the will to repeat why I believe we were right to do what we did. It's done. It's literally history. But I believe that we will see life-altering change in the middle east in the next 4 years, and it will be because of George W. Bush. The really sad part, for Democrats, is that Bill Clinton could have been the catalyst for all this change if he wasn't stuck at his desk getting "Monica's". Use the link to Instapundit to see what I mean. Glenn has an article there about the policies Clinton enacted regarding Iraq, but, as usual, never followed through on.
John Kerry was on the tube this weekend talking about how he won the election before he lost the election. What a waste of flesh. I can't stand "career" politicians, no matter what letter is by their name. The term pretty much confirms they are there only to make sure they themselves get rich. At least W was a buisnessman, although there are dubious distinctions in his records, I understand, but he proved he can lead in Texas government and then jumped into the big seat. He'll be out after 2008 and will probably be a prominent figure in our country's history.
Well, my pontificating is at an end for tonight. Stay safe and pray to your God(s) for the Iraqi people.

Testing my ability to link.

Do not panic. This is only a test.

Well, I figured out how to add links, finally. I use MSNBC and Drudge daily at work for news breaks. I used to use Glenn Beck's site as well, 'till it was banned by our IT dept. Still not sure why.... I listen to Glenn every day, though as well as Rush, so you know where I'm comin' from. I like Glenn over Rush for the humor and less emphasis on REPUBLICAN matters as opposed to conservative ones. I like to get a feel for what the other side is saying as well, so that's why I read MSNBC and occasionally CNN, when I can stand it. I can't stand Olberman's blog or Alterman. Idiots. But Glen Renyolds, od InstaPundit usually has short but good posts. And the "Clicked" blog is excellent as well, kind of a summary of the days heavy blogging. They are both at the very bottom of MSNBC's website. I will see if I can link to them seperately in the future. Until next time, SuperFriends........

Doing bad in the name of good?

Now for another of my pet peeves. Enviofacists know what they want, but they have no damn idea how to actually get there. We've all been sujected to the new marvel of a clean hydrogen system. Since hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, it must be the best for us to use, right? Well, not really. See, all the hydrogen we can get to is not pure hydrogen, it's more like an ex-girlfriend: they seem great at first, but then you have to deal with all their baggage. To actually reap the benefits of a hydrogen infrastructure, we must seperate the hydrogen from whatever it is currently attached to. This is usually oxygen, from water. (H2O, remember? The H is hydrogen and the O is oxygen. Grade-school chemistry refresher over.) How do we accomplish this? A lot of electricity. So we will see a big spike in electricy cunsumption and therefore electricity generation. The catch is that the majority of our electrical plants run on conventional fuels, like coal, which means to lower pollution from car, we will increase pollution from electric plants. Big freakin waste of the billions of dollars it will cost.
There is a way to get out of the afore-mentioned viscious cycle, but envirofacists protest it even more than "war for oil." That would be the nuclear option. Nuclear plants create no pollution, per se, but there is the nasty issue of radioactive rods hanging around until, oh, maybe 37004 A.D. Which is awhile. But we have a solution for this problem. We figure we'll stick it under a mountain in Nevada 'till then. We've studied and tested said mountain over the past decade or more, ensured we have adequate transportation units that can survive being hit by a train at full speed without a breech and came up with a plan to control and govern the site for the next 10,000 years. The only thing in our way is the court system which, under heavy lobbying from the envirofacists, have deemed 10,000 years (50 times as long as the 200 year history of our country) as too short a time and we should plan for more. What?
Now, I know we need to take the accidental release of radation seriously, and as I have seen in my 6 years experience with nuclear reactors, we do. But I don't see haw anyone can seriously study a plan of more than a century. If we had started a plan in the year 1900 that would govern how all state officials must travel for the next 100 years, we'd still have to have provisions for horses and carriages. And not just in Amish country. In the next 100 years we may find a way to neutralize radiation from spent fuel, or maybe a 100 after that, but surely before 10000 years have gone by. What we really need is a serious plan to implement the technology we have for, say, that magical 100 years. Then, every decade we revisit the topic and tweak the plan to account for new understandings and technologies. We do this ad infinitum, and by God, crisis averted.
The good residents of Nevada are dead set against this plan. NIMBY in action, though I see their point. However, their actions are strangling the nuclear plants we currenly have and are a big part of why we haven't built a new nuclear reactor outside of North Korea for a decade or two. While their selfish reasoning is seen as benefiting them short-term, it is endangering residents in other states long-term. Every day the spent rods from current reactors are not sitting miles under a Nevada mountain they are sitting in decades-old storage pools and containers, waiting for something to happen to them. They are much less secure, so we as a nation are less secure. Something needs to be done.
President Bush has approved use of Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which is the only site under serious consideration due to the time and money already sunk into the site. Even if all objections to further develop the site were dropped today, it would take years to finish and start collecting spent rods. If we allow Nevada to scrap the plans for this mountain, it will take decades to find a replacement. I am by no means an authority on this subject, so I ask anyone who reads this to do your own research. I will post updates and links to relevent information at a later date to back up my claims, or alter them if my memory has served me falsely. I appreciate all rebuttals and questions, but please keep them civil.

Take a left and keep going (and going, and going.......)

God am I sick of the far left's screed. Many of the blogs I've found lately have been full of pure hatred for our president. Between the war for oil charges, to Bush lied, to the stupid non-starter of his Guard service it's enough to make me sick. I've tried to make rational responses, but usually all I'm met with is personal attacks and leftover campaign rehtoric. I have no problem with anyone who has genuine misgivings about the country and our president, but those who refuse to listen to fact, or opinions contrary to their own are giving the left a very damaging reputation. To be fair, some leftists believe what they are spewing but are open to actual debate. God love 'em, that's all I ask. With the truth and some positive stories "leaking" out of Iraq by bypassing the traditional media, I believe we can start to bring rational people to back the efforts of our troops and our government. I don't give a rats ass about what the rest of the world thinks about us, but it pains me to have the homefront divided. We will have a hard enough time fighting the terrorists in the years to come without having to fight our own brothers and sisters at the same time. Please, let us all drop the hate and party affiliations and have the long-needed frank debate this country desperately needs. Anyone with me?