Dec 11, 2007 08:41PM GMT
Question
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Politics - Other
Which political issue is the most important to you and why?
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Answered Global Warming / Environment
Global environmental chaos will exascerbate all other issues for my grandchildren. Energy independence must come with energy sources that don't continue to put carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the air. If this is accomplished, the petroleum wars will be over and devastation from severe weather will begin to diminish. -
Answered Health Care
It is unacceptable to be the only developed country that does not guarentee heathcare as a right of citizenship.
It is unacceptable that the detainees in Guatanamo Bay are guarenteed healthcare with doctors always close by, while many of the 911 rescue workers struggle to be able to afford the inhalers they need to breath since working in the debris. It is unacceptable, that in the richest country in the worls, the United States, a man can live 50 years, without being able to talk because he could not afford the simple operation that would have fixed his cleft palate. -
Answered Economy & Jobs
i think the economy has got to change. jobs have got to improve. how long has it been since we got a raise in minimum wage!!!! lets face it, today's take home pay does not match the rising economy! cost has got to go down we are going to come to a standstill in most things. we can't keep putting our families on hold! -
Answered Civil Liberties
The Arctic ice that is supposedly melting, stranding those cuddly looking polar bears, just might be affected by a wave of volcanic eruptions on the ocean floor under the Arctic ice cap. Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday. The eruptions - as big as the one that buried Pompei - took place in 1999 along the Gakkel Ridge, an underwater mountain chain snaking 1,100 miles from the northern tip of Greenland to Siberia. Scientists suspected even at the time that a simultaneous series of earthquakes were linked to these volcanic spasms.
But when a team led of scientists led by Robert Sohn of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts finally got a first-ever glimpse of the ocean floor 13,000 feet beneath the Arctic pack ice, they were astonished. What they saw was unmistakable evidence of explosive eruptions rather than the gradual secretion of lava bubbling up from Earth's mantle onto the ocean floo revious research had concluded that this kind of so-called pyroclastic eruption could not happen at such depths due to the crushing pressure of the water.
"On land, explosive volcanic eruptions are nothing exceptional, although they present a major threat," said Vera Schlindwein, a geologist with Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Sea and Polar Research, which took part in the study. But the new findings...The Arctic ice that is supposedly melting, stranding those cuddly looking polar bears, just might be affected by a wave of volcanic eruptions on the ocean floor under the Arctic ice cap. Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday. The eruptions - as big as the one that buried Pompei - took place in 1999 along the Gakkel Ridge, an underwater mountain chain snaking 1,100 miles from the northern tip of Greenland to Siberia. Scientists suspected even at the time that a simultaneous series of earthquakes were linked to these volcanic spasms.
But when a team led of scientists led by Robert Sohn of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts finally got a first-ever glimpse of the ocean floor 13,000 feet beneath the Arctic pack ice, they were astonished. What they saw was unmistakable evidence of explosive eruptions rather than the gradual secretion of lava bubbling up from Earth's mantle onto the ocean floo revious research had concluded that this kind of so-called pyroclastic eruption could not happen at such depths due to the crushing pressure of the water.
"On land, explosive volcanic eruptions are nothing exceptional, although they present a major threat," said Vera Schlindwein, a geologist with Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Sea and Polar Research, which took part in the study. But the new findings, published in Nature, showed that "large-scale pyroclastic activity is possible along even the deepest portions of the global mid-ocean ridge volcanic system." The mid-ocean ridge runs 52,000 miles beneath all the world's major seas except the Southern Ocean, and marks the boundary between many of the tectonic plates that make up the surface of the Earth.
But along most of the mid-ocean ridge -- including the Gakkal Ridge -- the plates are pulling apart, allowing molten magna and gases trapped beneath the crust to escape. Sohn and his colleagues gathered their data in July last year aboard the ice breaker Oden, using state-of-the-art instruments including a mutlibeam echo sounder, two autonomous underwater vehicles and a sub-ice camera designed for the mission.
Both sonar and visual images showed an ocean valley filled with flat-topped volcanos up to 1.2 miles wide and several hundred meters high.(less) -
Answered Global Warming / Environment
There are a lot of really important issues right now. However, of all of them, the environment is the most pressing in the long term. I was a child during the green times of the early 90s, and it, and the apathy that followed it, affected me deeply. I've watched the States, and some parts of the States in particular, continue on in an oblivious state of indifference to the problems of our world and our country, and I have for a long time wished for there to be a leader to do something about it. I think you're one such leader, but so is, potentially, everyone else reading this. There are too many problems in need of a solution for me to do more than fill a page with them, but if one cares--and one has to, for one's own health and future well-being if for no one and nothing else's--than one has to try and be the answers they're looking for. -
Answered Global Warming / Environment
First & Foremost that everyone study and honor the US Constitution, from my observations, all of the pressing issues are interconnected and the perpetual Dem v Pub political party strangel-hold obfuscates timely course corrections , of course if we don't achieve responsible stewardship of the Planet, everything else is doomed to failure. -
Answered Energy Independence
Senator Boxer,
All of the issues you ask of are important to us. It really depends on our personal state as to which one of those in most important individually. For instance, I choose energy independence because right now, the cost of gas is really making things hard for me. Please tell your constituents on Capital Hill to authorize drilling in ANWR. This will provide a temporary relief until Congress can come up with meaningful solutions to alternate energies. It will give us the time needed to smartly choose the correct path towards energy independence.
However, in any single time, I could easily have chosen any other answer.
There's a lot of work to be done. I don't envy what you do. Use the constitution as your guide and you will not falter. Thanks for asking us! -
Answered Iraq
I chose Iraq b/c we need to stay not only to ensure the safety of the Iraqi people, but also our own domestic safety. Even President Clinton said Saddam Hussein was a threat to our national security. The man committed genocide on own people, attempted to assassinate our president, and predicted a major terrorist attack on the US "in the near future" in 1998 (coincidence? & FYI British Special Forces found documents in Baghdad in 2003 regarding meeting between Hussein & bin Laden). Now it is our obligation to help the citizens and their new govt, not to mention prevent terrorist from getting a stronghold on Iraq. Our non-reactionary (especially not preventative terrorist policy in the 90s didn't prevent exactly discourage future threats.
The economy is important, but politically presidents don't actually have much if any influence over it. Only 4% of our GDP is "discretionary" govt spending, of which the president doesn't have much control over. We need to eliminate wasteful spending by cutting the 1/5 of govt programs that are classified as ineffective. -
Answered Iraq
We need get out of Iraq and everywhere else that we have been meddling. We owe Iraq and others reparations for uncalled for attacks on their homelands. The UN should determine when a situation in a sovereign nation calls for international help. We should send troops only when both the UN and the people of the United States agree; we must never act alone. Until we deal with this uncalled for aggressiveness, none of the other pressing issues can be effectively addressed. -
Answered Civil Liberties
It was actually hard for me to decide...so many important issues , today. But, if our civil liberties keep being stripped away, we all will just be pawns & it won't matter what we think about these other issues...This administration is providing the highway to our failing economy with this illegal occupation in Iraq. China has us by the balls, and Bin Laden is on the loose. The rest of the world is disgusted with us, more jobs are being outsourced everyday, & our patrotism is questioned if we don't support this war. Sometimes, I wonder if there will be a knock at the door after I do political blogging, and the person knocking will flash a badge and arrest me. How un-American is that? Civil liberties are the basis for the fredom in this country...if they are completely stripped, we might as well live in China. -
Answered Iraq
I have sent a son, daughter, and three grandsons to Iraq. One of these boys is now in a wheelchair for life. Mr. Bush and that fat draft dodging pig down the hall deserve a firing squad. I will buy the bullets. Please support OBAMA in the race for a nominee for the Dems this year. -
Answered Iraq
I chose Iraq, not only for the primary reason of getting our troops out of a difficult situation that they should never have been thrown in to but by pulling out of Iraq, we could start to decrease the spending and ideally put that money towards improving economic growth, health care, education, the envioronment, etc... We're sinking tons of money in to Iraq, I just think that it's money that could be used in a better way elsewhere.
Answered Civil Liberties
I depend on the government for certain things, and I fear the government from encroaching on my rights. Every time we give the government power to protect us or give us something, the government has to take something to accomplish this. Either it takes our money or our rights.If we want to stop hate speech, we outlaw some forms of speech. If we want the gov't to provide healthcare, we need to pay the tax and may lose the option for private healthcare motivated by profit.