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Reno Republican Women Luncheon

2007-11-10T03:38:52Z

Come and hear John Tyson speak

You are cordially invited to attend the luncheon meeting of the Republican Women of Reno (Men are also welcome). Reservations are highly recommended due to limited seating.

Date: Thursday, November 8, 2007

Time: Registration starts at 11:00 a.m.
Luncheon service begins at 11:45 a.m.

Location: Best Western Airport Plaza & Convention Center
Second floor (look for the elephant)
1981 Terminal Way
Reno, Nevada 89502

Keynote Speaker: The Distinguished Nevada Legend, Mr. John Tyson of KOLO TV news and the Tyson Journal

Registration Fee: The registration fee is $16.00 per person and includes the catered lunch

Reservations: Reservations are required do to limited seating. To make reservations please call 1-866-806-5501

Dress: Dressy casual would be appropriate

Membership: Membership in the Reno Republican Women is NOT required to attend this meeting. For those interested in joining, membership applications will be available.

posted in Young Republicans - 1 reply

out of touch?

2007-06-01T02:06:45Z

seems to me most self described Republicans oppose the propossed immagration legislation. And the Busch white house and flunkies etc. seem to ignore the sentiment of many Republicans?
agriculture is a major force in USA.
when did we cross the point of no return in using poor mexicans to harvest etc.?
are we completley trapped in using such labor?
are we unwilling to deal with issue?

posted in Young Republicans - 0 replies

I need ...

2007-06-01T01:58:08Z

a bath

posted in Young Republicans - 12 replies

bagpuss

2007-05-24T23:12:09Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70kUVZWokm4

posted in Young Republicans - 10 replies

and then, of course, there's

2007-05-24T23:09:55Z

chocolate.

http://www.syslog.com/~jwilson/pics-i-like/candy-bar-jackpot.jpg

posted in Young Republicans - 9 replies

what would you make?

2007-05-24T22:33:14Z

if you had to break in you brand-spankin new fire engine red mixer? what would your first thing be???

posted in Young Republicans - 5 replies

Where did I put that?

2007-05-24T22:32:13Z

Has anyone seen my microphone?

posted in Young Republicans - 22 replies

Bananas....

2007-05-24T22:29:19Z

...and Blow?

discuss.

posted in Young Republicans - 21 replies

Pooh!

2007-05-24T22:12:09Z

Deep in the hundred acre wood where christopher robin stays, you'll see the enchanted neighborhood where christopher robin plays........

Winnie ther pooh
winnie ther pooh

.............

posted in Young Republicans - 7 replies

I just bought a mixer!

2007-05-24T21:25:35Z

it's fire engine red

posted in Young Republicans - 33 replies

Corn!

2007-05-24T20:57:52Z

Whaddya feel about corn?

Creamed corn, canned corn, corn on the cob, candy corn, grilled corn, corn chowder, or corny jokes...

posted in Young Republicans - 5 replies

Olives!

2007-05-24T20:54:23Z

Green, black, kalamata.....

posted in Young Republicans - 11 replies

Pele Juju

2007-05-24T20:10:40Z

My sister and I went to see them when I lived in SF, about 7-8 years ago. They're back: http://www.pelejuju.com/

posted in Young Republicans - 0 replies

Off to work!

2007-05-24T19:16:23Z

Be back here I estimate in a couple of hours!

Somebody get the coffee on, please?

posted in Young Republicans - 7 replies

Collins Mix

2007-05-24T19:14:00Z

Which do you like better?

Joan Collins
Jackie Collins
Judy Collins
Tom Collins
Phil Collins
Or the Collins family from Collinsport in Dark Shadows.

I used to love Judy Collins but I would forget and call her Joan Collins and my friends would laugh at me and offer me a Tom Collins. But I really liked rushing home from school to watch the Collins Family.

posted in Young Republicans - 8 replies

Weather

2007-05-24T18:56:14Z

It's about 60 degrees and sunny here. SHould get up to about 75 or so. Nice day.

What about everyone else?

posted in Young Republicans - 14 replies

Passport Pictures

2007-05-24T18:12:54Z

I went to get my passport picture taken yesterday after work. My passport expires this month and needs to be renewed. So I went to Fedex Kinkos. Put on make-up. Combed my hair, wore what I thought was a kicky headband. Smiled sweetly into the camera.

I still look like a criminal.

If the nice man behind the hand held camera asks if you'd like to use a mirror first, listen. I had a huge fly away and my smile looks like a grimace.

Oh well.

posted in Young Republicans - 11 replies

Donuts

2007-05-24T18:06:06Z

Anybody else get the donut message this morning? I hate it when Tribe offers donuts but I don't get any.

Personally, I prefer cake donuts, sometimes with chocolate. Though those split crunchy glazed ones are good, too.

posted in Young Republicans - 4 replies

Can't believe it

2007-03-24T23:59:04Z

I really can't believe this. Can you believe that Dumbass and his buddies are claiming to have "Hazy Recollections" about trying to set up more of their puppets in the US Attorneys office? (Hmmmm........."I don't recall" worked well for Ronnie so they figure that it will work for them too.) Yes the truth will come out. But of course you dipshit neocons will never listen. You don't use the brain or imagination that God gave you. Bush is the worst thing to happen to this country in over a 100 years.

posted in Young Republicans - 3 replies

liberalism is a mental disorder

2007-03-18T15:16:12Z

conservative talk radio is the cure.

posted in Young Republicans - 4 replies

Liberals

2007-03-08T03:46:37Z

Liberals don't deserve the very freedoms they spit upon!

posted in Young Republicans - 12 replies

What happened to unity? (Open to all who really give a damn)

2007-02-26T06:53:01Z

The world wars. America worked together to accomplish the mission and bring peace to the wrold. Citizens purchased war bonds, rationed gasoline, food, and metals, all to support our war effort.
We were better then. United, Determined, and Courageous. We now face division, hate, and cowardice.
For those who say Iraq didn't attack us... Neither did Germany. Look at the atrocities that occured there. Atrocities we promised the world would never happen again.
Look at Americans starting to spit on the troops. Wannabe hippys who are so opposed to war they root against our victory and call them rapist and barbarians.
What comes next? Civil War? Revolution? We seem to be getting no where by talking. Would Americans rather fight Americans than terror or facism? Something needs to be done and soon.

posted in Young Republicans - 23 replies

Hi, Republicans

2007-02-13T18:38:32Z

How's it going?

posted in Young Republicans - 1 reply

A test of loyalty

2007-01-06T02:22:03Z

what do republicans realy think of George W. Bush?

posted in Young Republicans - 5 replies

The Ford era was better than now.

2007-01-03T04:06:00Z

I was there, it was nicer, and people were kind, and the Bicentenial was just cranking up.
we had block partites with us flags everywhere, the spy who loved my was in the bond pipeline.
The six milllion dollar man kicked ass !!!.
The Gong show!!!
there was no aids, yet?
Logans run was comming to a theatre near you.....
and we still had WINTER BACK THEN.........
its been really warm on the East coast for the last 15 years in my opinion... during Winter.......

posted in Young Republicans - 0 replies

Fair weather republicans?

2006-11-22T03:49:59Z

Or soccer moms who were security moms who now wory about their kids geting drafted? There are so many wish washy moderates on the Democratic side, and the Republican side. I think I am going to barf. somebody like superman or jack webb needs to give everybody a serious talking too.
Am I the last Republican left to post anymore? Anywhere? heresabouts?

posted in Young Republicans - 3 replies

gitmo

2006-11-14T23:06:16Z

New allegations of abuse

BY LETTA TAYLER
STAFF WRITER

October 27, 2005

The Pentagon has engaged in a new form of medical abuse at Guantanamo Bay by force-feeding detainees on a hunger strike in ways that are deliberately painful and cause life-threatening vomiting and weight loss, defense lawyers say.

The gruesome allegations include complaints that doctors and guards intentionally thrust feeding tubes covered in blood and bile from one detainee's nose into another inmate's nose and denied prisoners anesthesia.

The complaints, filed in federal court, prompted a judge yesterday to order the Pentagon to give defense lawyers medical records of force-fed hunger strikers, who attorneys fear are near death.

"The allegations are deeply troubling," U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler said in her ruling from Washington, D.C. "If true ... they describe conduct of which the United States can hardly be proud."

Kessler based her decision partly on statements from hunger strikers that lawyers obtained during a visit to Guantanamo, a U.S. naval base in Cuba, the weekend of Oct. 1.

"Doctor came, he tortured us, he inserted tube the wrong way. He knew it was the wrong way ... I started throwing up blood," read one statement from Saudi hunger striker Abdul-Rahman Shalabi. "Pain unbelievable. No anesthesia, no painkillers... can't walk."

"I didn't do anything wrong to America. No reason to do this to me," said another fasting Saudi, Yousef Al Shehri.

Pentagon officials did not immediately comment. During a hearing before Kessler last week, Pentagon lawyer Terry Henry dismissed the allegations as "outrageous" and said sending medical files to lawyers would waste doctors' time and encourage prisoners to fast by granting them special privileges.

In an affidavit, Dr. John Edmondson, the Navy captain who runs Guantanamo's hospitals, said only qualified medical personnel insert the feeding tubes and "offer" inmates anesthetics. Treatment "equals or exceeds the standard of care" at U.S. hospitals, he said.

Kessler ordered the Pentagon to release the medical files weekly and to alert lawyers within 24 hours if they start force-feeding clients.

Prisoners' attorneys called her ruling an important but partial victory in an array of legal battles over the 500-plus Guantanamo detainees, all but four of whom are being held without charges. Most lack outside counsel.

"My sense is that the Defense Department is going to appeal this, endangering the lives of Guantanamo inmates as long as it can," said Bill Goodman of New York's Center for Constitutional Rights, a group defending detainees.

Kessler denied other parts of the motion, including lawyers' quest for immediate and frequent access to strikers. Lawyers must schedule visits weeks in advance and can't e-mail or telephone detainees.

Prisoners launched this hunger strike, the latest of several, on Aug. 8 to protest alleged physical abuse and detention without charges. Of 26 striking detainees, down from more than 100 last month, 23 are being force-fed, a Guantanamo spokesman said. Defense attorneys believe more than 200 inmates have participated in the strike.

Medical groups including the American Medical Association consider force-feeding of hunger strikers unethical.

As allegations mount of Pentagon abuse of terror suspects, Congress is weighing a ban on mistreatment. The White House reportedly is seeking to exempt the CIA from the legislation.

During recent visits to Guantanamo, lawyers said, ghoulish-looking detainees had lost weight from vomiting and diarrhea since being force-fed and could barely walk or speak. One was carried in on a stretcher.

During force-feedings, prisoners were "vomiting up substantial amounts of blood ... soldiers taunted them with statements like 'Look what your religion has brought you,'" Manhattan attorney Julia Tarver, who filed the motion before Kessler, said in newly declassified papers. "No anesthesia or sedative was provided."

In front of doctors including the prison hospital chief, "guards took [nasal feeding] tubes from one detainee, and with no sanitization whatsoever, reinserted them into the nose of a different detainee. ... The detainees could see the blood and stomach bile from other detainees remaining on the tubes," Tarver said.

David August, a chief surgeon at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, warned in an affidavit in a similar motion that inmates who lose weight during force-feeding "may die unless there is some alteration" in treatment.

After visiting Guantanamo this month, the International Committee of the Red Cross called the strike "serious." An AMA team visited last week, but the Pentagon wouldn't let it see the hunger strikers.

posted in Young Republicans - 2 replies

Kerry

2006-11-14T05:44:05Z

Wow, Kerry actually won something and didn't F it up. Good boy!

John Kerry elected ... jury foreman

BOSTON (AP) -- Sen. John Kerry's public profile and prosecutorial past didn't spare him from performing that most mundane of civic responsibilities - jury duty.

Kerry was not only chosen this week to sit on a jury in Suffolk Superior Court, but also was elected foreman.

The case involved two men who sued the city for injuries suffered in a 2000 car accident involving a school principal. The Kerry-led jury rejected their claim Tuesday, and his fellow jurors said the state's junior senator was a natural leader.

"I just found him to be a knowledgeable, normal person," said Cynthia Lovell, a nurse and registered Republican who says she now regrets voting for President Bush in last year's election. "He kept us focused. He wanted us all to have our own say."

Advertisement

The former Democratic presidential candidate reported for duty Monday and none of the lawyers in the case objected to putting him on the jury.

"I was a little surprised," Kerry said of being selected for jury duty.

"I enjoyed it," he said. "It was very, very interesting and very instructive."

posted in Young Republicans - 2 replies

the troops don't defend our freedoms

2006-11-14T05:39:17Z

The Troops Don’t Defend Our Freedoms
by Jacob G. Hornberger, October 21, 2005
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0510g.asp
How often do we hear the claim that American troops “defend our freedoms”? The claim is made often by U.S. officials and is echoed far and wide across the land by television commentators, newspaper columnists, public-school teachers, and many others. It’s even a common assertion that emanates on Sundays from many church pulpits.

Unfortunately, it just isn’t so. In fact, the situation is the exact opposite — the troops serve as the primary instrument by which both our freedoms and well-being are threatened.

Let’s examine the three potential threats to our freedoms and the role that the troops play in them:

1. Foreign regimes

Every competent military analyst would tell us that the threat of a foreign invasion and conquest of America is nonexistent. No nation has the military capability of invading and conquering the United States. Not China, not Russia, not Iran, not North Korea, not Syria. Not anyone. To invade the United States with sufficient forces to conquer and “pacify” the entire nation would take millions of foreign troops and tens of thousands of ships and planes to transport them across the Atlantic or Pacific ocean. No foreign nation has such resources or military capabilities and no nation will have them for the foreseeable future.

After all, think about it: the U.S. army, the most powerful military force in all of history, has not been able to fully conquer such a small country as Iraq because of the level of domestic resistance to a foreign invasion. Imagine the level of military forces that would be needed to conquer and “pacify” a country as large and well-armed as the United States.

I repeat: No foreign nation has the military capability to invade the United States, conquer our country, subjugate our people, and take away our freedoms. Therefore, the troops are not needed to protect our freedoms from this nonexistent threat.

2. Terrorists

Despite widespread fears to the contrary, there is no possibility that terrorists will conquer the United States, take over the government, and take away our freedoms. At most, they are able to kill thousands of people, with, say, suicide bombs but they lack the military forces to subjugate the entire nation or any part of it.

Equally important, while the troops claim that they are protecting us from “the terrorists,” it is the troops themselves — or, more precisely, the presidential orders they have loyally carried out — that have engendered the very terrorist threats against which the troops say they are now needed to protect us.

Think back to 1989 and the years following — when the Berlin Wall fell, East and West Germany were united, Soviet troops withdrew from Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union was dismantled. The Pentagon didn’t know what to do. Unexpectedly, its 50-year-old “official enemy” was gone. (The Soviet Union had previously been America’s “ally” that had “liberated” Eastern Europe from Nazi Germany.) With the fall of the Soviet empire (and, actually, before the fall), the obvious question arose: Why should the United States continue to have an enormous standing army and spend billions of dollars in taxpayer money to keep it in existence?

The Pentagon was in desperate search for a new mission. “We can be a big help in the war on drugs,” the Pentagon said. To prove it, U.S. military forces even shot to death 18-year-old American citizen Esequiel Hernandez in 1997, as he tended his goats along the U.S.-Mexican border. “We’ll help American businesses compete in the world.” “We’ll readjust NATO’s mission to protect Europe from non-Soviet threats.” “We’ll protect us from an unsafe world.”

Then along came the Pentagon’s old ally, Saddam Hussein, to whom the United States had even entrusted weapons of mass destruction to use against the Iranian people, and gave America’s standing army a new raison d’être. Invading Kuwait over an an oil-drilling dispute, Saddam provided the Pentagon with a new official enemy, one that would last for more than 10 continuous years.

Obeying presidential orders to attack Iraq in 1991, without the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war, the troops ended up killing tens of thousands of Iraqis. Obeying Pentagon orders to attack Iraq’s water and sewage facilities, the troops accomplished exactly what Pentagon planners had anticipated — spreading deadly infections and disease among the Iraqi people. Continuing to obey presidential orders in the years that followed, the troops enforced what was possibly the most brutal embargo in history, which ended up contributing to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, deaths that U.S. officials said were “worth it.” Obeying presidential orders, the troops enforced the illegal “no-fly zones” over Iraq, which killed even more Iraqis, including children. Obeying presidential orders, the troops established themselves on Islamic holy lands with full knowledge of the anger and resentment that that would produce among devout Muslims. Obeying presidential orders, the troops invaded and occupied Iraq without the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war, killing and maiming tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis — that is, people whose worst “crime” was to resist the unlawful invasion of their homeland by a foreign power.

All that death and destruction — both pre-9/11 and post-9/11 — have given rise to terrible anger and hatred against the United States, which inspired the pre-9/11 attacks, such as the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, the attack on the USS Cole, and the attacks on overseas U.S. embassies, the 9/11 attacks, and the terrorist threats our nation faces today.

Through it all, the Pentagon simply echoed the claims of the president — that all the death and destruction and humiliation that the U.S. government had wreaked on people in the Middle East, as well as its unconditional military and financial foreign aid to the Israeli government, had not engendered any adverse feelings in the Middle East against the United States. Instead, the president and the Pentagon claimed, the problem was that the terrorists simply hated America for its “freedom and values.”

If the American people had dismantled the nation’s standing army when the Soviet empire was dismantled, the federal government would have lacked the military means to meddle and intervene in the Middle East with unconstitutional military operations, sanctions, no-fly zones, bases, invasions, and occupations. Therefore, there never would have been the terrorists attacks against the United States and a “war on terrorism” for the troops to fight, not to mention the USA PATRIOT Act, secret search warrants and secret courts, the Padilla doctrine, and other federal infringements on our rights and freedoms.

Finally, but certainly important, despite being the most powerful standing army in the world, the U.S. troops were not even able to protect Americans from terrorist acts, as best evidenced by two terrorist attacks on the same target — the World Trade Center, first in 1993 and then again in 2001.

3. The federal government

As our Founding Fathers understood so well, the primary threat to our freedom lies with our own government. That’s in fact why we have the Constitution and the Bill of Rights — to protect us and our freedoms from federal officials. If the federal government did not constitute such an enormous threat to our freedoms, there would be no reason to have the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Yet, what is the primary means by which a government takes away the freedoms of its citizenry? Our American ancestors gave us the answer: its military forces. That is in fact why many of our Founding Fathers opposed a standing, professional military force in America — they knew not only that such a force would be used to involve the nation in costly, senseless, and destructive wars abroad but also that government officials would inevitably use the troops to ensure a compliant and obedient citizenry at home.

Consider the words of James Madison:

A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.

Here’s how Patrick Henry put it:

A standing army we shall have, also, to execute the execrable commands of tyranny; and how are you to punish them? Will you order them to be punished? Who shall obey these orders? Will your mace-bearer be a match for a disciplined regiment?

Would U.S. troops obey presidential orders to deploy against the American people and take away our freedoms?

There is no doubt about it. Of course they would, especially if the president told them that our “freedom and national security” depended on it, which he would.

As I suggested in my article, “The Troops Don’t Support the Constitution,”in the United States the loyalty of the troops is to the president as their supreme commander of chief, not to the Constitution. Recent evidence of this point, as I observed in my article, was the willingness of the troops to obey presidential orders to deploy to Iraq despite the fact that the president had failed to secure the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war.

What if the president ordered the troops to deploy across the United States and to round up “terrorists” and incarcerate them in military camps, both here and in Cuba? Again, there can be no doubt that most of the troops would willingly obey the president’s orders, especially in the middle of a “crisis” or “emergency” because they view themselves as professional soldiers whose job is to serve the president and not to question why but simply to do or die.

Another good example of the allegiance that the troops have toward the president involves the case of U.S. citizen Jose Padilla. Labeling Padilla a “terrorist,” the president ordered the troops to take him into military custody, deny him access to an attorney, and punish him without a trial and due process of law. The troops obeyed without question. Do you know any troops who have publicly protested the Padilla incarceration or who have resigned from the army in protest? How many have publicly announced, “I refuse to participate in the Padilla incarceration because I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution”?

Indeed, how many of the troops resigned in protest at the president’s orders to set up a prisoner camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, knowing that the reason he and the Pentagon chose Cuba, rather than the United States, was precisely to avoid the constraints of the Constitution?

If the troops didn’t protest with respect to Iraq or Padilla or Gitmo, what is the likelihood they would protest when their commander in chief ordered them to arrest 100 other Americans “terrorists,” or 1,000?

I repeat: The troops, from the Pentagon on down, would not disobey orders of the president to disarm and arrest American “terrorists,” especially in the midst of a “crisis” or “emergency.”

And even if some were to protest, they would be quickly shunted aside (probably punished as well) and replaced with those troops whose allegiance and loyalty to the president would be unquestioned.

Now it’s true that soldiers are supposed to disobey unlawful orders, but as a practical matter most of the troops are not going to overrule the judgment of their commander in chief as to what is legal or not. After all, how many troops involved in the torture and sex-abuse scandal refused to participate in the wrongdoing, especially since they thought that it was approved by the higher-ups? Again, how many refused orders to deploy to Iraq despite the fact that there was no constitutionally required congressional declaration of war?

Imagine that the president issues the following grave announcement on national television during prime time: “Our nation has come under another terrorist attack. Our freedoms and our national security are at stake. I have issued orders to the Joint Chiefs of Staff to immediately take into custody some 1,000 American terrorists who have been identified by the FBI as having conspired to commit this dastardly attack or who have given aid and comfort to the enemy. I have also ordered the JCS to take all necessary steps to temporarily confiscate weapons in the areas where these terrorists are believed to be hiding. These weapons will be returned to the owners once the terrorist threat has subsided. I am calling on all Americans to support the troops in these endeavors, just as you are supporting them in their fight against terrorism in Iraq. We will survive. We will prevail. God bless America.”

Now ask yourself: How many of the troops would disobey the orders of the president given those circumstances, especially if panicked and terrified Americans and the mainstream press were endorsing his martial-law orders?

The answer: Almost none would disobey. They would not consider it their job to determine the constitutionality of the president’s orders. They would leave that for the courts to decide. Their professional allegiance and loyalty to their supreme commander in chief would trump all other considerations, including their oath to “support and defend the Constitution.”

Therefore, if the federal government is the primary threat to our freedom, then so are the troops: their unswerving loyalty to their commander in chief makes them the primary instrument by which the federal government is able to destroy or infringe the rights and freedoms of the citizenry.

The solution

No one can deny that we now live in a nation in which the president wields, albeit unconstitutionally, the omnipotent power to send the entire nation into war against another nation — and that he has the means — a loyal and obedient army — to exercise that power. President Bush made his position clear prior to his invasion of Iraq, when he emphasized that while he welcomed the support of Congress in the event he decided to wage war on Iraq, he didn’t need its approval. His position was reconfirmed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who informed Congress on October 19, 2005, that the commander in chief’s position was that he did not need the consent of Congress to send the nation into another war, this time against Syria.

No one can deny that we now live in a nation in which the president claims the omnipotent power to jail and punish any American citizen whom the president labels a “terrorist,” denying him due process of law, trial by jury, and other constitutional guarantees — and that he has the means — a loyal and obedient army — to exercise that power.

Thus, as a practical matter the troops serve not as a defender of our freedoms but instead simply as a loyal and obedient personal army of the president, ready and prepared to serve him and obey his commands. It is an army that stands ready to obey the president’s orders to deploy to any country in the world for any reason he deems fit and attack, kill, and maim any “terrorist” who dares to resist the U.S. invasion of his own country. It is also an army that stands ready to obey the president’s orders to take into custody any American whom the commander in chief deems a “terrorist” and to punish him accordingly.

There is one — and only one — solution to this threat to our freedoms and well-being: for the American people to heed the warning of our Founding Fathers against standing armies before it is too late, and to do what should have been done at least 15 years ago: dismantle the U.S. military empire, close all overseas bases, and bring all the troops home, discharging them into the private sector, where they would effectively become “citizen-soldiers” — well-trained citizens prepared to rally to the defense of our nation in the unlikely event of a foreign invasion of our country. And for the American people to heed the warning of President Eisenhower against the military-industrial complex, by shutting down the Pentagon’s enormous domestic military empire, closing domestic bases, and discharging those troops into the private sector.

“Oh, my gosh, if we did all that, how would our freedoms be protected?”

Protected from what? Again, there is no threat of a foreign invasion. And again, terrorism is not a threat to our freedom. Moreover, dismantling the standing army would remove the primary means by which presidents have succeeded in engendering so much anger and hatred against our nation — anger and hatred that in turn have given rise to the threat of terrorism against our nation. And finally, the worst threat to our freedom is our own government, and by dismantling the standing army we would reduce that threat significantly.

What would happen if a foreign nation ever began constructing thousands of ships and planes and mobilizing millions of people to invade the United States? The answer to that threat was also provided by our Founding Fathers: the foreign nation in question would be met by a nation of free well-armed citizens who would be prepared and willing to rally quickly to oppose any invasion and conquest of our nation. Invading a United States filled with well-trained, free men and women would be much like invading Switzerland — like swallowing a porcupine. Don’t forget that the men and women who currently serve in the U.S. armed services wouldn’t disappear; instead they would join the rest of us as citizen-soldiers, people whose fighting skills could be depended on in the unlikely event our nation were ever threatened by invasion by a foreign power.

We should also keep in mind the tremendous economic prosperity that would result from the dismantling of America’s enormous standing army. Not only would all the taxpayer money that is being used to fund the standing army be left in the hands of the citizenry for savings and capital, but all those new people in the private sector would be producing as well, instead of living off the IRS-provided fruits of other people’s earnings. Thus, the economic effect would be doubly positive, and, while weakening the federal government, it would make our nation stronger.

What about foreign monsters, tyrants, oppressors, and conquerors? The answer to that was also provided by our Founding Fathers: Our government would no longer go abroad in search of monsters to destroy, but foreigners suffering oppression and tyranny would know that there would always be at least one nation that would accept them — the United States of America. Rather than police the world, Americans would focus on producing the freest and most prosperous society in history as a model for the world and to which those who escaped tyranny and oppression could freely come.

Of course, those Americans who would nonetheless wish to leave their families and jobs to help oppressed people overseas would still be free to do so.

We should also bear in mind the perverse results of the federal government’s military empire and overseas interventions. World War I brought World War II, which brought the Soviet communist occupation of Eastern Europe, which brought the Cold War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, along with an enormous standing army in our country. The Middle East interventions and meddling have brought us terrorism, the war on terrorism, the USA PATRIOT Act, the Padilla doctrine, military torture and sex abuse, and CIA kidnappings and “renditions” to foreign countries for the purpose of proxy torture.

By their fruits, you shall know them.

One vision — the vision of militarism and empire — will bring America more violence, death, destruction, impoverishment, and loss of freedom. The other vision — the vision of a limited-government, constitutional republic with citizen-soldiers — would put our nation back on the right road of peace, prosperity, harmony, and freedom.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email.

posted in Young Republicans - 4 replies

READ MY BLOG!

2006-10-11T19:33:36Z

America unite!

posted in Young Republicans - 0 replies

Flash Education /w love

2006-05-20T03:35:05Z

http://www.pentagonstrike.co.uk/flash.htm#Main

posted in Young Republicans - 1 reply

Urgent!!! Please help

2006-04-11T05:58:49Z

I am posting this everywhere I can, Please help us.
There are thousands of good people who could potentially lose their lives very soon.

Since the release of the information on the Sujiatun concentration camp in China, which is reported to do live organ harvesting on Falun Gong practicioners. More people have been stepping forward to reveal information. Recently, a veteran military doctor in the region of Shenyang said that the Sujiatun Concentration camp is just one of 36 such camps. Another camp in Jilin Province referred to as 672-S is said to hold over 120,000 people.

According to the Integrated Committee's announcement, transplant hospitals in China are now telling patients to "come in quickly" to get transplants. Patients are told that matching organs can be found at this time in as short as one or two days. The hospitals are also reported to say that, "it will be difficult after this batch of organs is used up."

We fear that there is going to be a mass execution to “hide the evidence” and get rid of witnesses. PLEASE HELP us, Falun Gong practitioners around the world are requesting an international investigation while there is still time.

This is the US petition, please sign it. It can save someone’s life.
http://www.fofg.org/act/act_petition.php?pid=1

you can also help by going here:
http://publicpetition.unvcc.com/UN/index.php
this is an easy, fill in the blank letter that with a click is automatically
sent to the senators and representatives of your choice
And it would also greatly help us if you would please pass this information on.

Thank you,
Joshua

You can learn more about this at:
The Epoch Times
http://www.theepochtimes.com/211,111,,1.html
Amnesty International
http://web.amnesty.org/report2004/chn-summary-eng
Falun Dafa Information Center
http://www.faluninfo.net/why/index.asp
or, you can ask me any questions you have by sending me a message.

posted in Young Republicans - 0 replies

What are your thoughts on the WTO?

2005-12-29T20:18:42Z

What is the WTO and what is it's function?

Has it worked, and who is benefiting?

Does it support or undermine democracy?

posted in Young Republicans - 1 reply

Draft Young Republicans!

2005-11-15T14:23:21Z

How many young supporters of George W. Bush do you know who have been willing to put their life on the line and serve in Iraq? How many Young Republicans? How many College Republicans? How many Young Americans for Freedom? Not too many, I think. Young neo-cons and fundies are, for the most part, spitting images of their heroes Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Wolfowitz, Perle, and Limbaugh. They are chickenhawks. Willing to sacrifice the underclass on the altar of their murderous ideology. But not willing to pick up an M-16 and put their asses at risk. A lot of the right wing trolls who lurk on Tribe are like this.

It would serve them right if Congress could pass a law conscripting every young person who supported Bush, starting with his daughters. That would shore up the military personnel problem. The problem, of course, would be that the armed forces would then be filled with wingnuts.

posted in Young Republicans - 45 replies

Republicans, prove you support the troops

2005-10-21T23:44:30Z

At least tell us you're mad about military insurance being rejected by doctors.
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2005/Jun/13/mn/mn03p.html

Tell us you're mad at the Republicans making more cuts in veterans' benefits.
http://www.house.gov/budget_democrats/news/motion_to_instruct.htm

Tell us you're mad at your own inability to help the Army fill its recruiting shortages.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46654

Where is the love???

posted in Young Republicans - 0 replies

Jokes that conservatives laugh at?

2005-09-18T03:22:52Z

I have conservative friends who I would like to reach out to by telling jokes that will make them chuckle. You know, political jokes about people conservatives love to hate. Like Hillary. Or Howard Dean. Or Michael Moore. Or George Soros, Cindy Sheehan, Ted Kennedy, Barbara Streisand, or Kanye West. (Kerry is a bit dated and moot.)

Got any? I would really be grateful.

posted in Young Republicans - 1 reply

Where's the National Guard?

2005-08-31T16:31:08Z

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/30/AR2005083002162.html

posted in Young Republicans - 0 replies

Bush cut levee funding - for Iraq

2005-08-31T16:30:46Z

Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?
'Times-Picayune' Had Repeatedly Raised Federal Spending Issues

By Will Bunch

PHILADELPHIA - Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city, the waters may still keep rising in New Orleans late on Tuesday. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until it's level with the massive lake.
New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:

"That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount. But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said."

The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late.

One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer: a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday.

The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. ... In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."

Local officials are now saying, the article reported, that had Washington heeded their warnings about the dire need for hurricane protection, including building up levees and repairing barrier islands, "the damage might not have been nearly as bad as it turned out to be."

Will Bunch (letters@editorandpublisher.com) is senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News. Much of this article also appears on his blog at that newspaper, Attytood.

© 2005 VNU eMedia Inc. / Editor and Publisher

posted in Young Republicans - 0 replies

What good has come?

2005-08-10T06:23:35Z

Can i ask for one reson...one good thing president bush has done in the last 5 years... and assuming u can find one, i can retort back more reasons than could fit on one window... now i dont want to come over as too rude, i actually mean to have an intelligent discussion with u guys, my fear though is that those who voted for him did not know the full extent of what his laws meant or how he really managed to get elected in the first place. So before you delete me, just respond so we can all better ourselves....
~peace~ build ramps not bombs

posted in Young Republicans - 1 reply

Bush is my Older Brother!!!

2005-07-19T08:45:04Z

Oooohhhhh ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehh!
Except I got the vocabulary and the concern for peoples well being!

posted in Young Republicans - 0 replies

judiciary bashing...

2005-04-13T06:34:31Z

here's my question; after Delay and Cornyn's dangerous and inflamatory statements about the "unaccountable, unelected, activist judges", which where a result of the fact that these (mostly republican-appointed) judges did not ruleaccording to conservative dogma, but rather, according to a silly and cumbersome document called the CONSTITUTION..., i have come to wondering:
before becoming house majority leader, did Tommy-boy take a poli-sci 101 class?? was he too busy hunting bugs??

DO THESE IDIOTS NOT UNDERSTAND THAT THE JUDICIARY IS supposed TO BE UNACCOUNTABLE TO THE PEOPLE AND CONGRESS..... THATS THE WAY IT WAS SET UP....

I can handle disagreement, but the outright stupidty of these people is so scary....

posted in Young Republicans - 1 reply

The self-destruction of the GOP

2005-03-30T09:27:52Z

I think it's great King George II and his court where again selected to implement their disastrous policies for another four years;
giving the GOP power will prove all of the Goldwater-era policies they have been trying to implement swince the sixties to be what they are; attempts to starve the beast and end all new-deal programs and radically redistribute wealth upward... Just like Reagan did...That prick...Of course he had the excuse of being half brain-dead, george is fully conscious while robbing the poor to make the rich richer....
Luckily for the sane and non-selfish, many of Bush his theocraitc leanings are so profoundly at odds with the libertarian rooots of the GOP, that they will likely schism between the process conservatives and the religous conservatives.
Furthermore, giving the republicans control over the entire federal government is day-by-day exposing them as the liars and hypocrits they are:
pro states rights when they are out of power, but all about having the government interfere in the live of some florida woman to score political points with the religious right when in power...
furthermore.. who the hell are the republicans gonna nominate in 2008?
The gop primary electorate is so far to the right of the general election electorate that it will be hard for them to nominate a candidate who can win
Possible candidates:
Mitch Romney; won't get the nomination; pro-choice and from much hated Massachussets..
George Pataki; pro-choice, pro gay rights
Rudy Giuliani, pro choice, pro gay rights....
Condoleezza.. yeah right, like republicans would nominate a black woman...
John McCain; repulbican party establishment will ruin him before they nominate him; thye will never allow a por-election-reform candidate to win the nomination...
That leaves Bill Frist.. who is so boring and so right wing i doubt he will win the GE...

posted in Young Republicans - 1 reply

the decline of liberalism

2005-02-18T21:27:26Z

from the Wall St Journal

The Decline in Civility In Our Liberal Community
November 2, 2004; Page A23

In regard to your Oct. 19 editorial "It's Baaaack!": As a longtime Palo Alto resident I accept that I live in a liberal stronghold. This diversity of opinion and free thinking has always been a part of Palo Alto's charms. In recent months, however, I have witnessed a frightening decline in civility on the part of the liberal community here. Bumper stickers stopped being funny years ago; lately they have turned ugly, violent and hateful. Members of my own church are openly disrespectful of our sitting president. A Palo Alto High School teacher says to his class, "Everybody who hates George Bush, raise your hand." Lawn signs supporting Republican candidates are routinely stolen overnight. It is troubling to see Democrats define themselves solely by their opposition to President George W. Bush. When did hate and intolerance become the defining characteristics of the American left wing?

John C. Crouch
Palo Alto, Calif.

posted in Young Republicans - 24 replies

k street project

2005-02-16T07:08:52Z

anyone want to tell me that this smacks of partisanship in the face of bush's preaching that he wants bipartisanship?

http://www.atr.org/kstreet/
http://www.atr.org/pdffiles/kst112502.pdf
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0307.confessore.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21972-2004Jul1.html
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/000362.html

posted in Young Republicans - 3 replies

Your voice needed...

2005-02-12T18:17:28Z

... to write content for www.battlecry-ca.com. Check out our staff list and apply today.

posted in Young Republicans - 1 reply

Is it okay for capitalists to buy from Communist countries?

2005-02-01T07:21:13Z

If you're a Laissez-faire capitalist isn't it self-contradictory to buy products made from totalitarian (pseudo-)Communist countries like China?

Why do American conservatives talk so much about patriotism and yet they characterize American workers as lazy and overpaid? The consistently hateful broadbrushing of American workers and the cheering on of foreign sweatshops couldn't possibly be anything but a direct contradiction to any sensible definition, or even re-definition, of (American-centric) patriotism.

Perhaps patriotism and capitalism, to say nothing of the fear of God, have all given way to an all-out amoral quest for convenience?

posted in Young Republicans - 1 reply

Inaguration speech

2005-01-21T18:23:41Z

Freedom for the whole world?
Sounds good on paper, but in reality?
I used to think, judge a man by his deeds, then for some time judge a man by his dreams, and now , a little of both.
I think he's doing pretty damn good considering the circumstances. At least he's trying, The iraq thing is a major move, a Dem would have probabaly just passed the problem on to the future.

posted in Young Republicans - 1 reply

I like this.....

2005-01-21T02:13:33Z

Cows, The Constitution, & The 10 Commandments

COWS
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that our government can track
a cow born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she sleeps
in the state of Washington. They also tracked her calves to their stalls. But
they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our
country. Maybe we should give them all a cow.

CONSTITUTION They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't
we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's
worked for over 200 years and we're not using it anymore.

TEN COMMANDMENTS
The real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments in a Courthouse. You
cannot post "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not commit adultery," and "Thou
shalt not bear false witness" in a building full of lawyers, judges, and
politicians. It creates a hostile work environment!!!

posted in Young Republicans - 17 replies

The Hydrogen Economy

2005-01-05T04:10:42Z

This is a really long read. I don't expect most of you have the interest to go through the whole article. I'll summarize by saying you need to be pushing your elected officials to fund hydrogen energy and fuel cell research. Don't be afraid to vote with your dollar in the market, the hydrogen energy sector is going to heat up in an attempt to move away from volitile oil markets. It is in the best interest of our national security and economy to push for the wide commercial and industrial adoption of hydrogen energy. We've got to stop funding terrorists with our trillions of oil dollars, and we need to stop spending money on wars in an attempt to sustain our oil demand.

Full text with figures:
www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/...12/p39.html

The Hydrogen Economy

If the fuel cell is to become the modern steam engine, basic research must provide breakthroughs in understanding, materials, and design to make a hydrogen−based energy system a vibrant and competitive force.

George W. Crabtree, Mildred S. Dresselhaus, and Michelle V. Buchanan
Since the industrial revolution began in the 18th century, fossil fuels in the form of coal, oil, and natural gas have powered the technology and transportation networks that drive society. But continuing to power the world from fossil fuels threatens our energy supply and puts enormous strains on the environment. The world's demand for energy is projected to double by 2050 in response to population growth and the industrialization of developing countries.1 The supply of fossil fuels is limited, with restrictive shortages of oil and gas projected to occur within our lifetimes (see the article by Paul Weisz in Physics Today, July 2004, page 47). Global oil and gas reserves are concentrated in a few regions of the world, while demand is growing everywhere; as a result, a secure supply is increasingly difficult to assure. Moreover, the use of fossil fuels puts our own health at risk through the chemical and particulate pollution it creates. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions that are associated with global warming threaten the stability of Earth's climate.

A replacement for fossil fuels will not appear overnight. Extensive R&D is required before alternative sources can supply energy in quantities and at costs competitive with fossil fuels, and making those alternative sources available commercially will itself require developing the proper economic infrastructure. Each of those steps takes time, but greater global investment in R&D will most likely hasten the pace of economic change. Although it is impossible to predict when the fossil fuel supply will fall short of demand or when global warming will become acute, the present trend of yearly increases in fossil fuel use shortens our window of opportunity for a managed transition to alternative energy sources.

Hydrogen as energy carrier
One promising alternative to fossil fuels is hydrogen2,3 (see the article by Joan Ogden, Physics Today, April 2002, page 69). Through its reaction with oxygen, hydrogen releases energy explosively in heat engines or quietly in fuel cells to produce water as its only byproduct. Hydrogen is abundant and generously distributed throughout the world without regard for national boundaries; using it to create a hydrogen economy —a future energy system based on hydrogen and electricity —only requires technology, not political access.

Although in many ways hydrogen is an attractive replacement for fossil fuels, it does not occur in nature as the fuel H2. Rather, it occurs in chemical compounds like water or hydrocarbons that must be chemically transformed to yield H2. Hydrogen, like electricity, is a carrier of energy, and like electricity, it must be produced from a natural resource. At present, most of the world's hydrogen is produced from natural gas by a process called steam reforming. However, producing hydrogen from fossil fuels would rob the hydrogen economy of much of its raison d' être: Steam reforming does not reduce the use of fossil fuels but rather shifts them from end use to an earlier production step; and it still releases carbon to the environment in the form of CO2. Thus, to achieve the benefits of the hydrogen economy, we must ultimately produce hydrogen from non−fossil resources, such as water, using a renewable energy source.

Figure 1
Figure 1 depicts the hydrogen economy as a network composed of three functional steps: production, storage, and use. There are basic technical means to achieve each of these steps, but none of them can yet compete with fossil fuels in cost, performance, or reliability. Even when using the cheapest production method —steam reforming of methane —hydrogen is still four times the cost of gasoline for the equivalent amount of energy. And production from methane does not reduce fossil fuel use or CO2 emission. Hydrogen can be stored in pressurized gas containers or as a liquid in cryogenic containers, but not in densities that would allow for practical applications —driving a car up to 500 kilometers on a single tank, for example. Hydrogen can be converted to electricity in fuel cells, but the production cost of prototype fuel cells remains high: $3000 per kilowatt of power produced for prototype fuel cells (mass production could reduce this cost by a factor of 10 or more), compared with $30 per kilowatt for gasoline engines.
The gap between the present state of the art in hydrogen production, storage, and use and that needed for a competitive hydrogen economy is too wide to bridge in incremental advances. It will take fundamental breakthroughs of the kind that come only from basic research.

Beyond reforming
The US Department of Energy estimates that by 2040 cars and light trucks powered by fuel cells will require about 150 megatons per year of hydrogen.3 The US currently produces about 9 megatons per year, almost all of it by reforming natural gas. The challenge is to find inexpensive and efficient routes to create hydrogen in sufficient quantities from non−fossil natural resources. The most promising route is splitting water, which is a natural carrier of hydrogen. It takes energy to split the water molecule and release hydrogen, but that energy is later recovered during oxidation to produce water. To eliminate fossil fuels from this cycle, the energy to split water must come from non−carbon sources, such as the electron−hole pairs excited in a semiconductor by solar radiation, the heat from a nuclear reactor or solar collector, or an electric voltage generated by renewable sources such as hydropower or wind.

The direct solar conversion of sunlight to H2 is one of the most fascinating developments in water splitting.4 Established technology splits water in two steps: conversion of solar radiation to electricity in photovoltaic cells followed by electrolysis of water in a separate cell. It is well known that the photovoltaic conversion occurs with an efficiency up to 32% when expensive single−crystal semiconductors are used in multi−junction stacks, or about 3% with much cheaper organic semiconductors; remarkably, the cost of delivered electricity is about the same in both cases. Advanced electrolyzers split water with 80% efficiency.

The two processes, however, can be combined in a single nanoscale process: Photon absorption creates a local electron−hole pair that electrochemically splits a neighboring water molecule. The efficiency of this integrated photochemical process can be much higher, in principle, than the two sequential processes; it has now reached 8−12% in the laboratory4 and has prospects for much greater gains as researchers learn to better control the nanoscale excitation and photochemistry. The technical challenge is finding robust semiconductor materials that satisfy the competing requirements of nature. The Sun's photons are primarily in the visible, a wavelength that requires semiconductors with small bandgaps —below 1.7 eV —for efficient absorption. Oxide semiconductors like titanium dioxide that are robust in aqueous environments have wide bandgaps, as high as 3.0 eV, and thus require higher−energy photons for excitation. The use of dye−sensitized photocells that accumulate energy from multiple low−energy photons to inject higher−energy electrons into the semiconductor is a promising direction for matching the solar spectrum. Alternatively, oxide semiconductors can be doped with impurities that reduce their bandgap energies to overlap better with the solar spectrum. In both cases, new strategies for nanostructured hybrid materials are needed to more efficiently use solar energy to split water.

Water can be split in thermochemical cycles operating at elevated temperatures to facilitate the reaction kinetics.5 Heat sources include solar collectors operating up to 3000 °C or nuclear reactors designed to operate between 500 °C and 900 °C (see the article by Gail Marcus and Alan Levin, Physics Today, April 2002, page 54). More than 100 types of chemical cycles have been proposed, including systems based on zinc−oxygen operating at 1500 °C, sulfur−iodine at 850 °C, calcium−bromine at 750 °C, and copper−chlorine at 550 °C. At high temperatures, thermochemical cycles must deal with the tradeoff between favorable reaction kinetics and aggressive chemical corrosion of containment vessels. Separating the reaction products at high temperature is a second challenge: Unseparated mixtures of gases recombine if allowed to cool. But identifying effective membrane materials that selectively pass hydrogen, oxygen, water, hydrogen sulfate, or hydrogen iodide, for example, at high temperature remains a problem. Dramatic improvements in catalysis could lower the operating temperature of thermochemical cycles, and thus reduce the need for high−temperature materials, without losing efficiency. Molecular−level challenges, with which researchers are fast making progress using nanoscale design, include accelerating the kinetics of reactions through catalysis, separating the products at high temperature, and directing products to the next reaction step.

Figure 2
Bio−inspired processes offer stunning opportunities to approach the hydrogen production problem anew.6 The natural world began forming its own hydrogen economy 3 billion years ago, when it developed photosynthesis to convert CO2, water, and sunlight into hydrogen and oxygen. Plants use hydrogen to manufacture the carbohydrates in their leaves and stalks, and emit oxygen to the atmosphere for animals to breathe. Single−cell organisms such as algae and many microbes produce hydrogen efficiently at ambient temperatures by molecular−level processes. These natural mechanisms for producing hydrogen involve elaborate protein structures that have only recently been partially solved. For billions of years, for instance, plants have used a catalyst based on manganese−oxygen clusters to split water efficiently at room temperature, a process that frees protons and electrons. Likewise, bacteria use iron and nickel clusters as the active elements both for combining protons and electrons into H2 and splitting H2 into protons and electrons (see figure 2). The hope is that researchers can capitalize on nature's efficient manufacturing processes by fully understanding molecular structures and functions and then imitating them using artificial materials in such applications as fuel−cell anodes and cathodes.
Storing hydrogen
Storing hydrogen in a high−energy−density form that flexibly links its production and eventual use is a key element of the hydrogen economy. Unlike electricity, which must be produced and used at the same rate, stored hydrogen can be stockpiled for much later use, or used as ballast to bridge the differing temporal cycles of energy production and consumption.

The traditional storage options are conceptually simple —cylinders of liquid and high−pressure gas. Industrial facilities and laboratories are already accustomed to handling hydrogen both ways. These options are viable for the stationary consumption of hydrogen in large plants that can accommodate large weights and volumes. Storage as liquid H2 imposes severe energy costs because up to 40% of its energy content can be lost to liquefaction.

Figure 3
For transportation use, the on−board storage of hydrogen is a far more difficult challenge. Both weight and volume are at a premium, and sufficient fuel must be stored to make it practical to drive distances comparable to gas−powered cars.3 Figure 3 illustrates the challenge by showing the gravimetric and volumetric energy densities of fuels, including the container and apparatus needed for fuel handling. For hydrogen, that added weight is a major fraction of the total. For on−vehicle use, hydrogen need store only about half of the energy that gasoline provides because the efficiency of fuel cells can be greater by a factor of two or more than that of internal combustion engines. Even so, the energy densities of the most advanced batteries and of liquid and gaseous hydrogen pale in comparison to gasoline.

Figure 4
Meeting the volume restrictions in cars or trucks, for instance, requires using hydrogen stored at densities higher than its liquid density. Figure 4 shows the volume density of hydrogen stored in several compounds and in some liquid hydrocarbons.7 All of those compounds store hydrogen at higher density than the liquid or the compressed gas at 10 000 psi ( Ž700 bar), shown as points on the right−hand vertical axis for comparison. The most effective storage media are located in the upper−right quadrant of the figure, where hydrogen is combined with light elements like lithium, nitrogen, and carbon. The materials in that part of the plot have the highest mass fraction and volume density of hydrogen. Hydrocarbons like methanol and octane are notable as high−volume−density hydrogen storage compounds as well as high−energy− density fuels, and cycles that allow the fossil fuels to release and recapture their hydrogen are already in use in stationary chemical processing plants.7
The two challenges for on−vehicle hydrogen storage and use are capacity and cycling performance under the accessible on−board conditions of 0−100 °C and 1−10 bars. To achieve high storage capacity at low weight requires strong chemical bonds between hydrogen and light−atom host materials in stable compounds, such as lithium borohydride (LiBH4). But to achieve fast cycling at accessible conditions requires weak chemical bonds, fast kinetics, and short diffusion lengths, as might be found in surface adsorption. Thus, the high−capacity and fast−recycling requirements are somewhat in conflict. Many bulk hydrogen−storage compounds, such as metallic magnesium nitrogen hydride (Mg2NH4) and ionic sodium borohydride (Na+(BH4)−), contain high volumetric hydrogen densities but require temperatures of 300 °C or more at 1 bar to release their H2. Compounds with low−temperature capture and release behavior, such as lanthanum nickel hydride (LaNi5H6), have low hydrogen−mass fractions and are thus heavy to carry.

Hydrogen absorption on surfaces is a potential route to fast cycling, but has been explored relatively little except for carbon substrates. Hydrogen can be adsorbed in molecular or atomic form on suitable surfaces, using pressure, temperature, or electrochemical potential to control its surface structure and bonding strength. A major challenge is controlling the bonding and kinetics of multiple layers of hydrogen. The first layer is bonded by van der Waals or chemical forces specific to the substrate; the second layer sees primarily the first layer and therefore bonds with very different strength. The single−layer properties of adsorbed hydrogen on carbon can be predicted rather accurately and are indicated by the solid curve in figure 4; the behavior of multiple layers is much less well understood. But experience with carbon suggests that multiple layers are needed for effective storage capacity. One route for overcoming the single−layer limitation is to adsorb hydrogen on both sides of a substrate layer, arranged with others in nanoscale stacks that allow access to both sides.

Nanostructured materials offer a host of promising routes for storing hydrogen at high capacity in compounds that have fast recycling. Large surface areas can be coated with catalysts to assist in the dissociation of gaseous H2, and the small volume of individual nanoparticles produces short diffusion paths to the material's interior. The strength of the chemical bonds with hydrogen can be weakened with additives7 such as titanium dioxide in sodium aluminum hydride (NaAlH4). The capture and release cycle is a complex process that involves molecular dissociation, diffusion, chemical bonding, and van der Waals attraction. Each of the steps can be optimized in a specific nanoscale environment that includes appropriate catalysts, defects, and impurity atoms. By integrating the steps into an interactive nanoscale architecture where hydrogen molecules or atoms are treated in one environment for dissociation, for example, and handed off to the next environment for diffusion, nanoscience engineers could simultaneously optimize all the desired properties. Another approach is to use three−dimensional solids with open structures, such as metal−organic frameworks8 in which hydrogen molecules or atoms can be adsorbed on internal surfaces. The metal atoms that form the vertices of such structures can be catalysts or dopants that facilitate the capture and release cycle. Designed nanoscale architectures offer unexplored options for effectively controlling reactivity and bonding to meet the desired storage requirements.

Realizing the promise
A major attraction of hydrogen as a fuel is its natural compatibility with fuel cells. The higher efficiency of fuel cells —currently 60% compared to 22% for gasoline or 45% for diesel internal combustion engines —would dramatically improve the efficiency of future energy use. Coupling fuel cells to electric motors, which are more than 90% efficient, converts the chemical energy of hydrogen to mechanical work without heat as an intermediary. This attractive new approach for energy conversion could replace many traditional heat engines. The broad reach of that efficiency advantage is a strong driver for deploying hydrogen fuel cells widely.

Although fuel cells are more efficient, there are also good reasons for burning hydrogen in heat engines for transportation. Jet engines and internal combustion engines can be rather easily modified to run on hydrogen instead of hydrocarbons. Internal combustion engines run as much as 25% more efficiently on hydrogen compared to gasoline and produce no carbon emissions. The US and Russia have test−flown commercial airliners with jet engines modified to burn hydrogen.9 Similarly, BMW, Ford, and Mazda are road− testing cars powered by hydrogen internal combustion engines that achieve a range of 300 kilometers, and networks of hydrogen filling stations are being implemented in some areas of the US, Europe, and Japan. Such cars and filling stations could provide an early start and a transitional bridge to hydrogen fuel−cell transportation.

The versatility of fuel cells makes them workable in nearly any application where electricity is useful. Stationary plants providing 200 kilowatts of neighborhood electrical power are practical and operating efficiently. Such plants can connect to the electrical grid to share power but are independent of the grid in case of failure. Fuel−cell power for consumer electronics like laptop computers, cell phones, digital cameras, and audio players provide more hours of operation than batteries at the same volume and weight. Although the cost per kilowatt is high for these small units, the unit cost can soon be within an acceptable consumer range. Electronics applications may be the first to widely reach the consumer market, establish public visibility, and advance the learning curve for hydrogen technology.

The large homogeneous transportation market offers enormous potential for hydrogen fuel cells to dramatically reduce fossil fuel use, lower harmful emissions, and improve energy efficiency. Fuel cells can be used not only in cars, trucks, and buses, but also can replace the diesel electric generators in locomotives and power all−electric ships.8 Europe already has a demonstration fleet of 30 fuel−cell buses running regular routes in 10 cities, and Japan is poised to offer fuel−cell cars for sale.

Figure 5
A host of fundamental performance problems remain to be solved before hydrogen in fuel cells can compete with gasoline.10 The heart of the fuel cell is the ionic conducting membrane that transmits protons or oxygen ions between electrodes while electrons go through an external load to do their electrical work, as shown in figure 5. Each of the half reactions at work in that circuit requires catalysts interacting with electrons, ions, and gases traveling in different media. Designing nanoscale architectures for these triple percolation networks that effectively coordinate the interaction of reactants with nanostructured catalysts is a major opportunity for improving fuel−cell performance. The trick is to get intimate contact of the three phases that coexist in the cell —the incoming hydrogen or incoming oxygen gas phase, an electrolytic proton−conducting phase, and a metallic phase in which electrons flow into or from the external circuit (see Physics Today, July 2001, page 22).
A primary factor limiting proton−exchange−membrane (PEM) fuel−cell performance is the slow kinetics of the oxygen reduction reaction at the cathode. Even with the best platinum−based catalysts, the sluggish reaction reduces the voltage output of the fuel cell from the ideal 1.23 V to 0.8 V or less when practical currents are drawn. This voltage reduction is known as the oxygen overpotential. The causes of the slow kinetics, and solutions for speeding up the reaction, are hidden in the complex reaction pathways and intermediate steps of the oxygen reduction reaction. It is now becoming possible to understand this reaction at the atomic level using sophisticated surface−structure and spectroscopy tools such as vibrational spectroscopies, scanning probe microscopy, x−ray diffraction and spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy.11,12 In situ electrochemical probes, operating under reaction or near reaction conditions, reveal the energetics, kinetics, and intermediates of the reaction pathway and their relation to the surface structure and composition of the reactants and catalysts. These powerful new experimental probes, combined with equally powerful and impressive computational quantum chemistry using density functional theory,13 are opening a new chapter in atomic−level understanding of the catalytic process. The role of such key features as the atomic configuration of catalysts and their supports, and the electronic structure of surface−reconstructed atoms and adsorbed intermediate species, is within reach of fundamental understanding. These emerging and incisive experimental and theoretical tools make the field of nanoscale electrocatalysis ripe for rapid and comprehensive growth. The research is highly interdisciplinary, incorporating forefront elements of chemistry, physics, and materials science.

Beyond the oxygen reduction reaction, fuel cells provide many other challenges. The dominant membrane for PEM fuel cells is perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA), a polymer built around a C−F backbone with side chains containing sulfonic acid groups (SO3−) (for example, Nafion). Beside its high cost, this membrane must incorporate mobile water molecules into its structure to enable proton conduction. That restricts its operating temperature to below the boiling point of water. At this low temperature —typically around 80 °C —expensive catalysts like platinum are required to make the electrochemical reactions sufficiently active, but even trace amounts of carbon monoxide in the hydrogen fuel stream can poison the catalysts. A higher operating temperature would expand the range of suitable catalysts and reduce their susceptibility to poisoning. Promising research directions for alternative proton−conducting membranes that operate at 100−200 °C include sulfonating C−H polymers rather than C−F polymers, and using inorganic polymer composites and acid−base polymer blends.14

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) require O2− transport membranes, which usually consist of perovskite materials containing specially designed defect structures that become sufficiently conductive only above 800 °C. The high temperature restricts the construction materials that can be used in SOFCs and limits their use to special environments like stationary power stations or perhaps large refrigerated trucks where adequate thermal insulation and safety can be ensured. Finding new materials that conduct O2− at lower temperatures would significantly expand the range of applications and reduce the cost of SOFCs.

Outlook
The hydrogen economy has enormous societal and technical appeal as a potential solution to the fundamental energy concerns of abundant supply and minimal environmental impact. The ultimate success of a hydrogen economy depends on how the market reacts: Does emerging hydrogen technology provide more value than today's fossil fuels? Although the market will ultimately drive the hydrogen economy, government plays a key role in the move from fossil−fuel to hydrogen technology. The investments in R&D are large, the outcome for specific, promising approaches is uncertain, and the payoff is often beyond the market's time horizon. Thus, early government investments in establishing goals, providing research support, and sharing risk are necessary to prime the emergence of a vibrant, market−driven hydrogen economy.

The public acceptance of hydrogen depends not only on its practical and commercial appeal, but also on its record of safety in widespread use. The special flammability, buoyancy, and permeability of hydrogen present challenges to its safe use that are different from, but not necessarily more difficult than, those of other energy carriers. Researchers are exploring a variety of issues: hydrodynamics of hydrogen−air mixtures, the combustion of hydrogen in the presence of other gases, and the embrittlement of materials by exposure to hydrogen, for example. Key to public acceptance of hydrogen is the development of safety standards and practices that are widely known and routinely used —like those for self−service gasoline stations or plug−in electrical appliances. The technical and educational components of this aspect of the hydrogen economy need careful attention.

Technical progress will come in two forms. Incremental advances of present technology provide low−risk commercial entry into the hydrogen economy. Those advances include improving the yield of natural−gas reforming to lower cost and raise efficiency; improving the strength of container materials for high−pressure storage of hydrogen gas; and tuning the design of internal combustion engines to burn hydrogen. To significantly increase the energy supply and security, and to decrease carbon emission and air pollutants, however, the hydrogen economy must go well beyond incremental advances. Hydrogen must replace fossil fuels through efficient production using solar radiation, thermochemical cycles, or bio−inspired catalysts to split water. Hydrogen must be stored and released in portable solid−state media, and fuel cells that convert hydrogen to electrical power and heat must be put into widespread use.

Achieving these technological milestones while satisfying the market discipline of competitive cost, performance, and reliability requires technical breakthroughs that come only from basic research. The interaction of hydrogen with materials encompasses many fundamental questions that can now be explored much more thoroughly than ever before using sophisticated atomic−level scanning probes, in situ structural and spectroscopic tools at x−ray, neutron, and electron scattering facilities, and powerful theory and modeling using teraflop computers. The hope is to solve mysteries that Nature has long kept hidden, such as the molecular basis of catalysis and the mechanism that allows plants to split water at room temperature using sunlight. Nanoscience provides not only new approaches to basic questions about the interaction of hydrogen with materials, but also the power to synthesize materials with custom−designed architectures. This combination of nanoscale analysis and synthesis promises to create new materials technology, such as orderly control of the electronic, ionic, and catalytic processes that regulate the three−phase percolation networks in fuel cells. Such exquisite control over materials behavior has never been so near at hand.

The international character of the hydrogen economy is sure to influence how it develops and evolves globally. Each country or region of the world has technological and political interests at stake. Cooperation among nations to leverage resources and create innovative technical and organizational approaches to the hydrogen economy is likely to significantly enhance the effectiveness of any nation that would otherwise act alone. The emphasis of the hydrogen research agenda varies with country; communication and cooperation to share research plans and results are essential.

Will the hydrogen economy succeed? Historical precedents suggest that it might. New energy sources and carriers have flourished when coupled with new energy converters. Coal became king as fuel for the steam engine to power the industrial revolution —it transformed the face of land transportation from horse and buggy to rail, and on the sea from sail to steamship.15 Oil fueled the internal combustion engine to provide automobiles and trucks that crisscross continents, and later the jet engine to conquer the skies. Electricity coupled with light bulbs and with rotary motors to power our homes and industries. Hydrogen has its own natural energy−conversion partner, the fuel cell. Together they interface intimately with the broad base of electrical technology already in place, and they can expand to propel cars, locomotives, and ships, power consumer electronics, and generate neighborhood heat and light. Bringing hydrogen and fuel cells to that level of impact is a fascinating challenge and opportunity for basic science, spanning chemistry, physics, biology, and materials.

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George Crabtree is a physicist in the materials science division at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. Mildred Dresselhaus is a professor in the department of physics and the department of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Michelle Buchanan is a chemist in the chemical sciences division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

References
1. M. I. Hoffert et al., Nature 395, 891 (1998); Energy Information Administration, International Energy Outlook 2004, rep. no. DOE/EIA−0484 (2004), available at www.eia. doe.gov/oiaf/ieo.
2. J. A. Turner, Science 285, 687 (1999) [INSPEC]; Special Report: Toward a Hydrogen Economy, Science 305, 957 (2004).
3. US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Basic Research Needs for the Hydrogen Economy, US DOE, Washington, DC (2004), available at www.sc.doe. gov/bes/hydrogen.pdf; Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee, Basic Research Needs to Assure a Secure Energy Future, US DOE, Washington, DC (2003), available at www.sc.doe.gov/bes/report...les/SEF_rpt.pdf; Committee on Alternatives and Strategies for Future Hydrogen Production and Use, The Hydrogen Economy: Opportunities, Costs, Barriers, and R&D Needs, National Research Council, National Academies Press, Washington, DC (2004), available at www.nap.edu/catalog/10922.html.
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5. C. Perkins, A. W. Weimar, Int. J. Hydrogen Energy (in press).
6. J. Alper, Science 299, 1686 (2003) [MEDLINE]; F. Gloaguen et al., Inorg. Chem. 41, 6573 (2002) [MEDLINE]; J.−Z. Wu et al., Inorg. Chem. 43, 5795 (2004) [MEDLINE]; K. N. Ferreira et al., Science 303, 1831 (2004) [MEDLINE].
7. L. Schlapbach, A. Zuttel, Nature 414, 353 (2001) [INSPEC]; W. Grochala, P. P. Edwards, Chem. Rev. 104, 1283 (2004) [MEDLINE].
8. N. L. Rosi et al., Science 300, 1127 (2003) [INSPEC].
9. P. Hoffmann, Tomorrow's Energy: Hydrogen, Fuel Cells, and the Prospects for a Cleaner Planet, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (2001).
10. J. Larminie, A. Dicks, Fuel Cell Systems Explained, 2nd ed., Wiley, Hoboken, NJ (2003).
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15. B. Freese, Coal: A Human History, Perseus, Cambridge, MA (2003).

posted in Young Republicans - 0 replies

newbie

2004-12-26T17:29:55Z

*gives a little wave* hi everyone - happy to have found this tribe.. lots of wading thru the leftist liberal crap to get here!
i'm a 34 year old single mom ... sadly in a blue state (pa) - i tried hard to change those around me . i still have my bush/cheney sticker on my car just to piss off the kerry supporters and maybe make them relive everything one more time, along with my john kerry waffle house one *sly grin* ok, i'm a tad evil! but i'm a proud evil conservative ..

happy to meet ya'll!

posted in Young Republicans - 2 replies