Gulf Oil Slick

[Andrew, Jr.]

Dreedgreek,

President Obama should have been giving the address at The Naval Academy and at Arlington Cemetary at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier during Memorial Day. Instead he chose to go to Chicago to celebrate with his friends. I have lost respect for him for making this decision. I honor our vets, and am very inspired by what they have done for me and my country.

I could have understood if President Obama chose to go to Gulf to spend the holiday. In my mind that would be excusable, and understandable. I really do not care what he would have done with his time in the Gulf. It would have been a good idea for him to have given comfort to those 11 who died families for starters. Then President Obama could have spoken to the fisherman who have lost their jobs. And it doesn't look like BP is going to help them with jack.

[Miss Scarlett]

Now I've got 3 oil companies that will never see my money - BP, Exxon and Citgo...

[socialjustice_fsu]

I live in Pensacola, Florida. As I type this the first oil sheen is about 7 miles off-shore. The city is somber. I can assure you that MANY local folks have stepped up to the plate and are volunteering to secure booms and beginning to set up emergency treatment facilites for the injured marine life. I never thought I would see this. Maybe I have been one of the millions that have become complacent about how we are butchering our environment. Now I am about to see the results. I have read the posts about BP, the President, and so on. Yes, there should be accountibility but at this time I am asking that you simply hold our precious coast close to your hearts. It will never be the same here again.

[Toughy]

Originally Posted by Andrew, Jr.

Dreedgreek,

President Obama should have been giving the address at The Naval Academy and at Arlington Cemetary at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier during Memorial Day. Instead he chose to go to Chicago to celebrate with his friends. I have lost respect for him for making this decision. I honor our vets, and am very inspired by what they have done for me and my country.

I could have understood if President Obama chose to go to Gulf to spend the holiday. In my mind that would be excusable, and understandable. I really do not care what he would have done with his time in the Gulf. It would have been a good idea for him to have given comfort to those 11 who died families for starters. Then President Obama could have spoken to the fisherman who have lost their jobs. And it doesn't look like BP is going to help them with jack.

Obama is not the first President to not be at the Tomb on Memorial Day. Bush jr sent Cheney a couple of time so he could go to his ranch. It's not that big of a deal to me and I am a veteran.

-----------

I keep thinking about Jimmy Carter and solar panels on the roof of the White House and Carter's call for 20% of our energy coming from non-fossil fuels (I think he actually specified solar) by the year 2000.............then Reagan was elected and the solar panels came down and Carter's energy policies were dumped.

I remember those gas station lines around the block and people getting shot and killed in those lines.

-----------edited t o add: yeah for Tesla Motors. They are going to make their electric Roadster in the now closed NUMMI plant in Fremont......batteries are being made in the bat area also...........

[Miss Scarlett]

Originally Posted by Toughy

Obama is not the first President to not be at the Tomb on Memorial Day. Bush jr sent Cheney a couple of time so he could go to his ranch. It's not that big of a deal to me and I am a veteran.

-----------

I keep thinking about Jimmy Carter and solar panels on the roof of the White House and Carter's call for 20% of our energy coming from non-fossil fuels (I think he actually specified solar) by the year 2000.............then Reagan was elected and the solar panels came down and Carter's energy policies were dumped.

I remember those gas station lines around the block and people getting shot and killed in those lines.

I think sometimes we expect way too much from our elected officials. I would be much more upset with the President if he sent someone else in his place to give the State of the Union address than for sending someone to one of the academies to deliver a commencement. I also have no problem with the Vice-President laying the wreath at Arlington, especially since his son was (or is?) active duty.

Sometimes the President just needs a break from it all for a day or two. I certainly don't want his job.

So many people laughed at President Carter but he was correct to put those solar panels on the White House. I have wondered for years why office buildings do not have rooftop panels to power their HVAC systems (at they very least). They have installed a few solar powered street lights here but not many. This hardly new technology. Just makes sense to me.

I remember those gas lines too. Isn't it strange that despite those lines and the "oil crisis" we did little to move away from fossil fuels??? Yeah, Detroit made some more fuel efficient vehicles...but they also produced those HUGE SUVs, pick-up trucks as big as a school bus and other assorted urban assault vehicles and America bought them. Why do I think this cycle will repeat yet again?

I can understand it taking some time to get this mess in the Gulf under control but this is ridiculous. I believe that rather than stopping the leak they are determined to make money from it.

I will not buy their gas. I will, however, not stop going into one of the stores to buy a drink or something. The store owners are not BP (BP actually owns very few stations in the US) and I don't want to punish the small business owner.

[MsDemeanor]

Originally Posted by Andrew, Jr.

Dreedgreek,

President Obama should have been giving the address at The Naval Academy and at Arlington Cemetary at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier during Memorial Day. Instead he chose to go to Chicago to celebrate with his friends. I have lost respect for him for making this decision. I honor our vets, and am very inspired by what they have done for me and my country.

I could have understood if President Obama chose to go to Gulf to spend the holiday. In my mind that would be excusable, and understandable. I really do not care what he would have done with his time in the Gulf. It would have been a good idea for him to have given comfort to those 11 who died families for starters. Then President Obama could have spoken to the fisherman who have lost their jobs. And it doesn't look like BP is going to help them with jack.

THIS is how you choose to evaluate a presidency? Comments like this - stupid ass dribble put forth by the Repugs and Faux Newz and then repeated by all thier little followers until people think that it's true - show so clearly what is so very wrong with this country - that too many people get caught up in nonsense shit instead of paying attention to what matters. I understand judging him on policy and stuff that matters, but to go all high and mighty over where he spent a holiday? Give me a fucking break.

[MsDemeanor]

Also, remember that on Veterans Day, after official ceremonies at Arlington, Obama cleared his schedule and spent time at the cemetery walking around the graves and talking to families. Shrub spent a Memorial Day - along with a quarter of his entire presidency - at his Texas ranch. And the almighty Reagan missed a Memorial Day at Arlington.

As for spending the weekend in the Gulf area, people clearly don't understand the impact that a Presidential entourage has on an area. Hundreds of hotel rooms locked up, roads blocked for motorcades, areas cleared for security details, etc. People would have been bitching that they couldn't get to the cemetery or missed their picnic because the freeway was shut down for an hour or cleanup crews couldn't work because the Secret Service had to cordon off areas. The righties would have been spewing froth over how he disrupted the efforts in the area for a three-day photo shoot.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by MsDemeanor

THIS is how you choose to evaluate a presidency? Comments like this - stupid ass dribble put forth by the Repugs and Faux Newz and then repeated by all thier little followers until people think that it's true - show so clearly what is so very wrong with this country - that too many people get caught up in nonsense shit instead of paying attention to what matters. I understand judging him on policy and stuff that matters, but to go all high and mighty over where he spent a holiday? Give me a fucking break.

One of the things that gets me about where our politics are now is that they are almost COMPLETELY divorced from facts. It's not just that right-wing talk show hosts or FOX news say things that are factually untrue. It's that they know that for many people it does not *matter* if things are factually true or not. Most people, on hearing "President Obama isn't going to Arlington", wouldn't even *think* to Google "how many times have Presidents been out of Washington DC on Memorial day". This might seem trivial but it's not.

What this means is that our politics are no longer at all fact-based or fact-biased. If someone says that, for instance, Reagan was POTUS from 1968 until 1988 it no longer *matters* whether or not that is even possible! Let me repeat that--it no longer matters, to a non-trivial portion of the American body politic--whether or not some statement X is true or not, or even if the statement is *plausible*. When a culture reaches that point, they have a serious problem on their hands because politics stops--or more poignantly politics becomes nothing *but* scoring political points.

Were 'Death panels' in the HCR bill? No. Did it matter? No. All that mattered is that people *said* that they were in the bill. The facts were irrelevant and it was considered perfectly acceptable to vote against the bill based upon *false* information. Does it matter that other Presidents missed Memorial Day at Arlington? No. All that matters is that people say that Obama is the *first* POTUS to miss that holiday at Arlington.

So here we are with a slate of problems on our plate, any ONE of which is difficult but taken together appear overwhelming and we have both a political class and a body politic that, it appears, are no longer interested in making decisions based upon facts and, in fact, seem to be rapidly losing the ability to distinguish between a fact and an opinion or to acknowledge that there is a non-trivial difference between the two. The Gulf oil spill is going to be yet another example of this. In six months or a year, when clean-up operations are still proceeding someone--probably at FOX--is going to make a statement along the lines of "the shrimp catching industry wasn't big along the Gulf Coast, why enviro-whackos are making this big deal about shrimp when there were no shrimp there..." and people are going to react *as if* it were true. Very few people will actually take the 30 seconds it would take to Google 'shrimp industry Gulf coast' to see if, in fact, there was ever a thriving shrimping industry in Louisiana. They will vote for some politician who takes up what is said on FOX and parrot it even though it is demonstrably untrue. That person will go to Washington or their state legislature or governor's office or what-have-you and make decisions based on something but not based on facts. And then, when the next election cycle rolls around, that person will not be punished for making non-fact based decisions and pushing non-fact based policies.

How we get out of this problem I have no idea. The people who repeat these non-factual assertions aren't stupid. Some of them are quite intelligent. It's just that as a *culture* we have lost the ability or willingness to think critically and can no longer make a useful distinction between fact and opinion.

Cheers
Aj

[MsDemeanor]

My new favorite is "there were no terrorist attacks on US soil during the Bush (43) administration".

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by MsDemeanor

My new favorite is "there were no terrorist attacks on US soil during the Bush (43) administration".

Yeah, I love that one too!

[Andrew, Jr.]

I'm Democrat. I never voted for any of the Bush's.

Sorry my remarks here are worthless pieces of shit, MsDemeanor and Dreadgeek. I am very offended when people have no respect for our vets and active duty soldiers. I have relatives who are both vets, and in Iraq. One of my nephews just joined the Army. He is headed for his first tour of duty, and left last week. I also have a problem when a sitting President cannot offer comfort to the families of those who died in the blast. And due to some bullshit of a bill from the 40's those families will not receive much if any money because of it. Obama signed up for the job, and should be held to it.

I will keep my opinions to myself.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Andrew, Jr.

I'm Democrat. I never voted for any of the Bush's.

Sorry my remarks here are worthless pieces of shit, MsDemeanor and Dreadgeek. I am very offended when people have no respect for our vets and active duty soldiers. I have relatives who are both vets, and in Iraq. One of my nephews just joined the Army. He is headed for his first tour of duty, and left last week. I also have a problem when a sitting President cannot offer comfort to the families of those who died in the blast. And due to some bullshit of a bill from the 40's those families will not receive much if any money because of it. Obama signed up for the job, and should be held to it.

I will keep my opinions to myself.

Firstly, I didn't say your remarks were worthless pieces of shit. I'm curious, though, if you held every other president to the same standard? You said that you lost all respect for Obama because he didn't go to Arlington this year. I'm curious if you have no respect for Bush the Younger, Clinton, Bush the Elder, Reagan, Carter, Ford, and Nixon based upon their performance of that act. This isn't about who you voted for, Andrew. It's not about your party affiliation. YOU (not I or MsD) said that you lost all respect for Obama based upon his not going to Arlington on Memorial Day. Now, whatever I might think about using that as a touchstone for grading a President (and I have thoughts on that matter), what I was asking about was whether or not you applied this standard in a consistent fashion. If not, then why not? If so, then why *that* standard? All I was looking for from you, Andrew, was whether or not this "what did you do on Memorial Day, Mr. President" standard was applied fairly and evenly or was this a special standard for Mr. Obama. That's it.

Look, perhaps we have different standards for Presidents. For you, perhaps their performance of symbolic and ceremonial duties (which count for something) trumps policy. For me, policy trumps everything else. I don't even care, as much, about always keeping all their campaign promises but I DO care about what kinds of policies they enact, why they enact them and how they fight for those policies. The ceremonial duties may or may not put a lump in my throat but I'm not going to lose respect for some pol because of what s/he chose to do on some holiday.

One last thing:

As far as doing this thing--and people here do this a lot and as a veteran it *REALLY* pisses me off, by the way--is trotting out their relatives who are veterans to be air cover. Look, I am a vet, as is my son, as is my sister, as was my father before us. A member of my extended family has served in every single war this nation has fought since WWI. There are, within my immediate family, two Purple Hearts and a Bronze star. I have, on my mother's side, three former Tuskegee Airmen. My father was a member of the storied 761st Tank Battalion. My sister made it a career and retired as a Major in 2005. I would have made it a career but I was cashiered for being queer. My son is a Ranger. He is *not* on his fourth deployment to Iraq because he's on his *first* deployment to Afghanistan. So it's been Iraq-Iraq-Iraq-Afghanistan. That's been the last six years of his life and you know what, he's signing up for a second hitch! Now, what have I just proved? Have I made myself more correct? Do I have an argument that judging the POTUS on what he did on his long Memorial Day weekend might not be the best standard?

We're not props and we don't give folks an argument when they don't otherwise have one. I was a soldier. I'd do it again in a heartbeat but I didn't do it so I could be trotted out on an Internet message board as a prop to bolster a flailing argument. I am glad and appreciative that you honor our veterans--but you aren't the only one and, pardon me for being obtuse but I was just enlisted--what on Earth do your relatives have to do with THIS topic? The day someone here says something horrible about a veteran *because* they are a veteran, I will absolutely stand with you but I just don't get why you felt the need to wave your service-member relatives and/or friends around on this thread.

Cheers
Aj

[AtLast]

Ummm... if my facts are correct... I remember President Obama receiving the bodies of fallen soldiers at about 4 am early in his term. I believe (if I am wrong, do tell me), that this was the first time the bodies of the fallen were greeted by a US President upon arriving home since the start of both the Iraq & Afghanistan Wars.

During both Bush admins (maybe Clinton, as well), this did not occur.

Yes, facts.... seems we in the US have no use for them any longer. Personally, I am sick of what so called news reporting has become. It isn't!

I did a personal experiment last week because I realized my BP is not as good as I need it to be (even on medication, loosing weight, eating well, etc). The economic tide of the Great recession is taking its toll on me (and everyone). So, in an attempt to be more in touch with what shoots my BP up, I started taking it pre and post watching my usual news programs. I actually watch several different ones.

Yup, my BP soared post watching! And it didn't matter what show I watched... Rachael or Anderson, Keith, or Chris or Ed. I sometimes take a look at faux news programs so I can get a feel for all the fact reporting.. not much difference in how high my BP rose compared to the other programs!

I am cutting down on all news programming! No matter what I watch, there are discrepancies with facts. The only programs that seems to agree with my BP is the News Hour, Democracy Now, NPR and BBC coverage as well.

Guess I need to stay away from talking point types...

[MsDemeanor]

Originally Posted by Andrew, Jr.

I'm Democrat. I never voted for any of the Bush's.

Sorry my remarks here are worthless pieces of shit, MsDemeanor and Dreadgeek. I am very offended when people have no respect for our vets and active duty soldiers. I have relatives who are both vets, and in Iraq. One of my nephews just joined the Army. He is headed for his first tour of duty, and left last week. I also have a problem when a sitting President cannot offer comfort to the families of those who died in the blast. And due to some bullshit of a bill from the 40's those families will not receive much if any money because of it. Obama signed up for the job, and should be held to it.

I will keep my opinions to myself.

Wow, that's quite a pity party response. The whole point of posting on a discussion board is to discuss. If you don't want people to respond to or question your opinions, then keeping them to yourself might be an appropriate course of action.

[dreadgeek]

Andrew:

I'm curious, did you lose respect for Bush the Younger because he didn't go in 2006? Did you lose respect for Bush the Elder because he didn't go in 1992? Did you lose respect for Reagan because he didn't go in 1983? I'm just curious if there is a different standard at play. In 2006, Bush the Younger didn't go because he was in Crawford, TX on vacation. In 1992, Bush the Elder didn't go because he was in Kennebunkport, ME. In 1983 Reagan didn't go because he was at a summit.

Despite what TV and/or talk radio might have you believe it is not uncommon for the POTUS to have either the Veep or another proxy lay the wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier in Arlington. I'm not saying don't use whatever metrics you wish to use, if for you what the POTUS does on Memorial Day is the deciding factor, that's the deciding factor. I trust, though, that you are applying a consistent standard without favor or bias and so pretty much have no respect for any President from the last half of the 20th century and into the first part of the 21st based solely on that criteria.

Cheers
Aj

Originally Posted by Andrew, Jr.

Dreedgreek,

President Obama should have been giving the address at The Naval Academy and at Arlington Cemetary at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier during Memorial Day. Instead he chose to go to Chicago to celebrate with his friends. I have lost respect for him for making this decision. I honor our vets, and am very inspired by what they have done for me and my country.

I could have understood if President Obama chose to go to Gulf to spend the holiday. In my mind that would be excusable, and understandable. I really do not care what he would have done with his time in the Gulf. It would have been a good idea for him to have given comfort to those 11 who died families for starters. Then President Obama could have spoken to the fisherman who have lost their jobs. And it doesn't look like BP is going to help them with jack.