Well Charlie, I am sure you have heard THIS before. "Fact is sometimes stranger than Fiction". And the Enron fiasco is mighty strange. Did you know that Dick Cheney has a pig's heart?

Cheney was chairman at Haliburton, not Enron. And to assume/imply/theorize that he and the government was in cahoots with Ken Lay is ridiculous. And I have read about the self contained fuel cells for residential energy. They work great, in theory. Truth is, even the guy that "invented" it doesn't use one. Did Big Oil pay him off, or simply "whack" him? You don't need to use the word "conspiracy" to make it clear you think there is one.

Allright 'gater! I know where Cheney worked. I put those sentences together as strange facts. Yes I made the second one up:D. It is NOT ridiculous to link Enron and Bush/Cheney. There are more items linking them than linked Clinton to Whitewater. And at least one boatload of Enron's money helped elect the administration. Why not a little tit for tat. Nothing new there. Some people really believe that the future of America is in the oil based economy. I think we could do better. However, I am not a scientist. Or an economist. Even they are pretty divided on the issue though. It is not a matter of opinion. One is right, one is wrong. We may not know the answer in our lifetimes. The real problem is that Money clouds the issue beyond any chance of resolution. Where are the true idealists when you need them?

More items linking Bush/Cheney to Enron than linked Clinton to Whitewater??????? Are you kidding, or just unaware of the facts surrounding Whitewater?? As for a "boatload" of Enron's money helping to elect Bush, you're well aware, I'm sure, but just not mentioning it, that a similar "boatload" went into helping Al Gore NOT get elected ... those Enron boys did a first rate job of covering all bases ... and are you even remotely aware of the source of much of Clinton and Gore's funding?? The funding for not only Bush, but any other candidate EVER before is lily-white by comparison ... and, as for money clouding the issues, it's an old, old story ... I'll agree, it sure does cloud them, but that's nothing inimical to this administration ... money's been clouding issues since the dawn of time ...

Steve, You may be right. There are probably more "links" in whitewater and enron than either of us will ever know. I was illustrating a point. Perhaps poorly. I shoot from the hip sometimes. get some interesting responses that way. Once in every generation or two, a man comes along who can not be swayed by money or power or women or fame. But who cares about humanity and making the world a better place. An idealist. Then he is promptly killed and we go about the business of politics.

So we all agree that politicians in general take money from Big Oil and other multi billion dollar moguls. I still want to know exactly HOW the Federal Government is preventing "alternative" energy sources from becoming a reality. Am I naive to believe that the Capitalists in this world will not jump onto a better mousetrap? If not in the US, then why not elsewhere? Oil is BIG because it is the best game in town. For Now.

We have thousands of "monuments" to the Energy Crisis of the 70's in the Palm Springs area and all around California! You might call them windmills and they were built by "captalists" who levereged millions of investor (suckers) dollars into a big alternative energy investment boom/bust! You have probably seen them in movies or in person, as they line the hillsides and desert spinning away! "Build it and the captalists will come"! Charlie

Politcians take money from big oil? Sure they do! From ALL sources, big and small, but preferably BIG because big, after all, equals more $$$ ... do the contributions of those big interests buy influence or leverage for them?? An academic question ... it's always been that way and it always will be ... works in many ways and at many levels ... of course, those of us who are right tend to be critical of the Dems for their practices and the well-meaning, but misguided libs tend to be critical of the Reps, but ... oh, one other thing before I go ... the idealist mentioned above, the one who cared only for humanity ... no one like that has come along in my lifetime (which isn't really all that long a period, despite the geezer references I'v been having to put up with lately) ...

The capitalist will do what ever makes him the most return for the least investment. Probably one of the rules of capitalism. And I'm one of them. The alternatives don't work. So I guess, in a capitalistic society, part of governments job is to give capitalists incentive to do what will benefit the society in the long term. By NOT doing that government perpetuates the status quo. Which may not be whats best for the long term. How's that 'gater? Last idealist as president: Jimmy Carter.

You guys are soooo smart...I love listening to you! 🙂

I will grant you that Jimmy Carter was idealistic and seems to have a genuine concern for people ... but he was also very ineffectual ... damn, don't make me think about the years preceeding him either, ok? Boy did we have some mistakes as prez, ... proof, I guess, that our system is a strong one and can survive ... and it'd have to be strong to have survived Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter in succession ... THAT lineup has to give you some idea of why I'm so happy to have the guy we've got ...

E-chick, that's only 1 cent worth. Where's the other cent?

And you smell good too!

Yassar Arafait probably stinks! Charlie

If anyone wants peace, they need to build a wall, have a buffer zone and Palestine needs a homeland. Or else this crap will go on at the same intensity as it has recently been. Dont get me wrong, if I were Israel I'd probably gank their asses hard.

I know that I sometimes come across as though I think that I know everything ... I don't, though I am fairly well informed and DO have pretty strong opinions which I am sometimes all too willing to state ... I have absolutely NO idea what the long-term Israel/Palestine solution is, but I will point to Ireland as an all too vivid illustration that partitioning will NOT work ... in the more than 80 years of Ireland having been partitioned, peace has remained as elusive as it was before ... the problems are even worse in the case of Israel and Palestine ... there could not be a wall high enough or thick enough to get the job done ...

You dont think that any sort of physical barrier would work? How could you think that? If you cant get over it, and there are armed guards that are guarding it, dont you think that it would prevent a lot of casualties? It would then allow the people guarding it, to be able to concentrate their forces in particular areas that would be more compromising.
You dont think that the violence in Ireland and England is just a little less than Israel? C'mon now. In addition to any sort of barrier, you wouldnt think that there should be a buffer zone between them? This would also make it 100 times harder to get in to the country.
You have to understand that there will never be complete peace there or anywhere, it just trims down tragic incidents a LOT. Thats all were looking for here. Peace will only come with time. And there needs to be an individual state for them in order to have that. For now, to seriuosly curtail the terrorist events, there must be more serious good old fashioned security in place. To say that putting barriers in place would do nothing, is obsurd.

I think a physical barrier with the Israeli Soldiers standing guard over the "wall" (PLay Pink Floyd's The Wall) would keep the trash, whoops Palesteinians, confined to their side of the barrier! Charlie

I will say it because I think it's true. There will be lasting peace in Israel when one side is dead. It's sadder when you realize they are racially the same people(to a large degree) and all worship the God of Abraham.