"These so-called water wars will not be about water. They will be about energy and efficient purification technologies. If the water resource is already clean, you've got a huge head start. However, if need be, you can desalinate the oceans to drinking water quality. The difference? The electricity and maintenance bill for the latter is far greater.

"We know how to purify the water we need. We need to have energy resources to sustain this effort with today's technologies. We can either make the process more efficient (new RO membranes technologies are constantly being developed), or find a less expensive energy supplies, such as Nuclear powered electrical plants.

"This is really not about water. It's about energy. And that's an old, but sore subject..."

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Dave Schneider [dschneider@arjaynet.com] blames the Drug Bill on government interference in the process:

"Was the lobbying involved in the Medicare prescription bill disgusting? Absolutely! But to blame the insurance or drug industry for this is ridiculous. The opportunity for such corrupt acts is created by the presence of government in the health care industry. If every individual had the ability to make his own health care decisions and the responsibility to pay for them, there would be no government officials with the influence to peddle. Lobbying and corruption are the inevitable result of the concentration of power in a very small number of hands.

"The answer to any form of political corruption, whether it's the health care issue, campaign financing, election fraud, contract bid rigging or anything else is to remove the power from the corruptible officials and distribute that power to smaller groups and individuals."

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David Cutter [dave@villageebike.com] thinks that the constitution is being subverted by fanning the fears of terrorist attacks:

"Jim, I found particular interest in the little snippet you shared about why it is indeed patriotic to want to stimulate change in a floundering world.

"Once upon a time, America had a strong president who reassured the American people that, 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself.' Now we have a weak president who tells us that we must be fearful of all things all the time, using fear as a political pump to inflate his own ego and power. They even color codes fear for us, always keeping the colors flame-hot. He uses the scorching rhetoric of fear to scare Congress into rubber-stamping blatant subversion of our constitutional liberties.

"Fanning the fears of terrorist attacks, Bush stampeded Congress to rush through a law which lets the executive branch of government eavesdrop on private phone calls and emails without bothering to get search warrants. Congress ceded this extraordinary reach even though there's a perfectly-functioning, quick-responding court in place to authorize surveillance of legitimate terrorist suspects - and to do it constitutionally. Bush's law is not about protecting Americans from terrorists. It's arrogant nonsense for this administration to assert that they're above the law - but it's shameful cowardice for our congressional leadership to go along.

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