westguy76

If I had to guess I would say 67% and that the number of people registered to vote rises to 77%

According to the Us Census.

Sixty-four percent of U.S. citizens age 18 and over voted in the 2004 presidential election, up from 60 percent in 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today. Tables from a November survey also show that of 197 million citizens, 72 percent (142 million) reported they were registered to vote. Among those registered, 89 percent (126 million) said they voted. In the 2000 election, 70 percent of citizens were registered; and among them, 86 percent voted.

Let's get everyones opinion on what percentage of US citizens will turn out to vote in the 2008 presidential election.

Just leave a number and a brief opinion on why and what you think it means for the election and the parties.

without getting into a flame war please.

Then a lot of people aren't thinking critically.

thinking critically does not equal agreeing with you on all these points, I have come to different conclusions. We could and it has been spun for months, all this. But this election is coming down to the basic idealogical differances people have because these canditates are so different.

Puma, your pumpkin man looks like a dalek!

that's a great idea.. Exxterminaate!!!

That's not just a far-right thing either. I've also heard the far-left mentioning Palin's "radical" Christian beliefs like anyone responsible is supposed to care. Once again, that should only be trivial to educated voters. What SHOULD matter is where McCain and her also stands on issues like the economy and other REAL issues.

I guess my point is that even though there may be a lot of dumb people out there, we know better and don't have to be. Also, personally, I'm not worried about his or McCain's past associations (because both have met questionable people that have nothing to do with anything). I'm worried about their CURRENT associations. Obama's lined himself up with Biden. McCain's aligned himself up with Palin. "Reverend" Wright, Bill Ayers, or the Keating 5 will not be in Obama or McCain's cabinet. People like Colin Powell, Hillary Clinton, Rudy Guliani, and Mitt Romney may be. We, the educated, should start with those associations and go from there.

You are right you don't have to go very far on HAIF to find this very example of people attacking Palin because she is a " nutjob " because of some of her beliefs. And to your last point the idea is that we have to judge them by their past associations and decisions, be they smoking Crack, or hanging out with Bill Ayers because that is how we judge their character, especially in Obama's case with his lack of experiance and relative newness in national politics.

The same is probably true of most elected officials. They dare not admit their lack of belief because some large segment of the voting population has an irrational fear of non-Christians.

But that doesn't make them Muslims.

Why? What makes you think he could be secretly following Islam?

Well, for one thing people have this fear because he went to muslim schools as a child, has a foreign name usually adopted by muslims, and usually change when christians, and there was his slip up in that interview where he talks about his muslim faith.

Look being Muslim is always going to have a negative conotation in a christian nation, especially if you are running for commander and chief of said nation. I don't think anyone has to outline the attrocities that have occured under the muslim name over the last thousands of years, oh wait I am forgetting that it is a peaceful religion and that their are extreme or radical factions. Well Obama doesn't associate with any radicals does he? Oh wait he has. I am not declaring him a muslim, I think there is a lot of misinformation out there. but I don't like his associations and his past, it does not put me at ease and I think a lot of folks feel that way.

Hmm. I thought it was simply an attempt to help those who lost their homes to a hurricane get back on their feet by providing temporary housing.

Shows how much I know.

You are quite the humanitarian, but we are talking about the possible negative impact of temporary shanty homes/trailers on the already slipping demographics of pearland.

Maybe we should throw up some trailers in the heights for a couple of years. Really, though, I was just trying to make a point that has been made before about my concerns for the west side of Pearland.

And yes I am hypothesising that this would be happening on the west side. It is where all the existing trailer parks I know of are located in the area.

It's a continuing trend in the area of poor leadership and poor decision making aimed at making a quick buck to profit those who are not vested in the areas that would be and have been affected on the west side. I feel sorry for those that ignored the trends in the area.

sweet, now if I could just afford a trip to the pub. guess I'll have to save up, no presents for the kiddies this year!

Most folks don't consider Katy Mills to be a real mall because it has more of an outlet mall feel to it. Regarding the talk of a mall in Katy for a long time...my parents moved to Katy in 1979 and there were signs up for a mall to go in on the North side of I-10 between Mason and Grand Parkway. It never happened.

Regardless of what other folks in the area think Katy Mills mall is, I guarantee you that other mall developers view it as a mall and a very big one!

I suppose you also probably do not know about the light rail line that will run through the area, connecting Second Ward and Third Ward to downtown. Just think of all the brown people! They will no doubt inundate your neighborhood with poverty, crime, and other such terrible things that are intuitively correlated with melanin.

You should sell your home immediately and move to an insulated suburban enclave (or West U or Bellaire). I'm positive that you will find many like-minded NIMBY friends there. And then you will never have to worry about the dynamism of a growing city ever again.

Wow!, Where did this come from? This was way out of line and uncalled for. Did Ducky mention race, or did I miss something?

Welcome to the HAIF board Ducky. Sorry about the locals.

They may have been ignorant about some things going on in the neighborhhod but that doesn't make them racist or even NIMBY people. Ease up

It seems to me that if the goal is to make non-productive citizens productive, we should make self-improvement part of any program. If the goal is to punish poor people for being poor, then I recommend throwing them a few crumbs...just enough to subsist...so that we may continue to complain about what a drag on society they are. I am convinced that there are many citizens who actually prefer this approach.

The thing is a lot of us out here don't want this to be goal of the federal government. I have known a lot of non-productive citizens in my life, hell I have a few in my immediate family, I am sure most of us do.

No one wants to punish the poor. There is plenty enough encouragment for people to get off their duffs and be a productive member of society for themselves, their families, and their communities. In my experiance and in my opinion if someone does not have the internals (brain, heart, sense of pride, honor, responsibility) to stand up for themselves, they sure are not going to do it for breadcrumbs or even by the encouragement and help from family members. They more often than not leach off the help they are provided be it misguided government or family members and then start the woe is me crap... I'm poor, disadvantaged, ignored, and unfortunately continue the cycle for themselves and their families.

I'm rambling but the point is "self improvement programs" are usually more succesful when they are actually Self inspired or realized and a misappropriation of federal funds IMO.

Halloween and Halloween 2 those were great and the musical score was great too. It was down hill after that for that series.

As a kid, of course, Poltregeist and I think in the sequel, although I haven't seen it for years, there is this really creepy old guy dressed like a priest that scared the .@#% out of me.

The Shining (for the reasons mentioned above)

Also, Salems Lot is a great one, very creepy.

and for a newer movie The Ring was done pretty well.

To this day, I enjoy even the worst low budget movies as long as it's horror. It's all worth the cheap thrill.

As a Willowridge grad....the same things you are experiencing in Pearland now has already happened at Willowridge....alot of folks I grew up with who went to Willowridge or grew up in South Park are now in Pearland...once those families grow up and leave, the same thing Willowridge is going through will happen in terms of a population decline...

The school may not be attractive because Fort Bend did some things that wasted alot of money by building schools too close to each other...same thing will happen in Pearland beginning with Dawson (the school of choice for the HISD border jumpers)

My how things have changed in the land of pears.

I was looking for info on when/what Disney was going to build in Sealy/Katy

really I don't recall, I was probably researching real estate in the area.

I could not put that chair in my house. It looks too much like a piece of excrement...

you need more fiber in your diet!!

I drove to Austin over the weekend, using the I10/Hwy 71 route to get there. I'm always surprised at all the red lights you have to go through when you get near Austin. Why is it that there are bypasses around Sealy, Columbus, La Grange and Smithville, then when you get to Bastrop, it's one light after another?

It's almost as if the Austin area is thumbing it's nose at people coming over from Houston, the state's largest city. Surely Hwy 71 all the way into Austin deserves freeway status!

I took 290 home and it's even worse.

I have never found myself that put off by the few lights in bastrop, I guess I have been too busy enjoying the scenery there. By the way I would HATE to see any more freeway overpasses amongst those magestic pines I think it is only 4 or 5 lights and I never catch more than two. Yes 290 is worse. There is a business loop at Bastrop as well.

I certainly wasn't talking about Palin's academic prowess -- I think she did worse than even I did.

But she has leadership experience. She's led a city. She's the elected leader of a massive state. Obama, by contrast, as the junior Senator from Illinois has been a cog in Washington, and only for a very short time. Granted, he's been a very well publicized cog, but I respect being the leader of a state more than I do being one of 100 people trying to steer the country from an office building in Washington.

Again, I don't dispute Obama's educational achievements. Compared to Palin, Obama is the clear leader on that point. But that brings me back to what I said earlier -- why are we comparing the Republican VICE PRESIDENTIAL candidate to the Democrats' PRESIDENTIAL candidate. Working with your point -- shouldn't we be comparing Obama's knowledge of and experience with constitutional law to John McCain's knowledge and experience with the same?

You are right Editor, what is happening since the nomination of Mrs. Palin is that the Obama supporters see her "perceived inexperiance" as a talking point to counteract the jabs at Obama's lack of experiance, ignoring the fact that she is not running gainst him, John Mccain is. I also believe that they are ignoring the fact that Biden is next in line behind Obama should something happen to him in office, which may be just as likely as Mccain keeling over. He does not exactly inspire change and hope even for them, where as Mccain and Palin are both all "mavericky" (for lack of a better word, haha) and cut from the same vein.

It probably represents a generational shift as well. Voters today probably don't care about someone's past drug use as compared to voters in the early 90's. It's just not that taboo a subject any more.

I'm still alive and I voted in the 90's??

And it still matters to me actually it matters more to me as I have aged.

I think drug use in a politician's youth can't be a serious scandal in the forseeable future. Too many Americans have used recreational drugs for us to expect all political candidates to abstain. As long as they are honest about it, I don't see it swaying the majority.

No one is asking you to deflect it or ignore it, the point Mark brought up is that is already being done as opposed to what has happened in the past based on the examples given.

now that is a better response, can't seem to get one from someone who votes democrat.

How can the canditates and pundits keep talking about how the Bush adminstration has run up the national deficit to record numbers and fail to mention the cause? THE WAR against terror that we were thrust into soon after the Bush administration took office. Now let me stop you if you disagree with the war in Iraq, because I know a lot of people do. Didn't we go there on principal, didn't we go their to impose UN sanctions and remove what we believed to be weapons of mass destruction, didn't we go their as a natural extention of the war on terror to protect americas people and are allies? The answer is yes before you try to spin it. So isn't national defense after being attacked on our own soil a valid excuse. Don't we all remember the first years of the war hearing the astronimical amounts of dollars that were being spent every month on bunker buster boms and troops and weapons and transport? Why did the media stop talking about this? political... I understand if the war did not go as smoothly as we could hope, we found no stockpiles, didn't get out as we wanted, etc. but Isn't the war a big chunk of the spending that Bush did? Isn't it justifiable based on our fears and defense, isn't freedom worth the price? and finally why are we blaming all this on one administration who took action with the authorization of congress and the support of the american people, and why are we crying for change? I'm a nutjob, apparently

I like to call it OJ syndrome. There are people out there who cheered when he got away with murder. I'm sure those people will be chearing when Obama gets elected.

I agree that he's wrong on probably every issue but I still think it may be better for him to get elected than McCain. If McCain gets elected it will be at least 4 more years of everyone trying to destroy the republicans by destroying the U.S. At least if Obama is elected the democrats might be on the side of the U.S. again. You can blame at least some of the economic problems we have now on democrats trying to make things worse to make the current administration look bad (Harry Reid). Hopefully stuff like that will not happen once we have a democrat president.

very well said, about the dems the last 4 years.

It is as simple as Obama is an extremely liberal senator of muslim descent who is too much of an unknown and plays everything to the vest and I believe he is decieving people and I am a nutjob, but the liberal majority who voice their opinion on this website are not nutjobs? They don't deserve any retort? because they have their opinions even if they vastly differ from mine I will not call them nutjobs. (now when they start painting canditate's face on their shoes maybe I will)

Population density and lot size. River Oaks, Southampton, Crestwood, Meyerland and Willow Meadows/Bend all still fit any reasonable definition of suburb based on population desity or lot size. An old suburb is still a suburb.

Population density and lot size are not exclusive to suburbs and are not the only definition of suburbs, just the two that you are picking.

I'm glad some folks agree that it's hard to vote on a "best suburb" when there is not really a true suburb on the list. My favorite exurb is The Woodlands followed closely by (parts of) Sugarland.

My favorite SUBURBS are: (by decending budget): River Oaks, Southampton, Crestwood, Meyerland and Willow Meadows/Bend.

What are your favorite suburbs?

I believe you made some good points about a lot of the areas in the poll being exburbs but I believe it is also at the least confusing and potentially erroneous to call the areas you list above as suburbs any longer. These areas, (River Oaks, Southampton, Crestwood, Meyerland and Willow Meadows/Bend) may have been suburbs 30 to 50 years ago but you have to give consideration to the growth of the city of Houston as it stretchs to the bounds of it's metroplex. As the city infills and development expands to these past suburbs how can we still call them as such. As industry and jobs have spread out so has the average commute this seems to me to be a natural progression of growth and I don't understand some people's unwillingness to acknowledge it and why they are so bitter about it.

To each his own.

To answer the original question NO

I don't know, except for two freak plays Sage was awesome. There's a new MMA gym right by my office, I say Sage and Schaub settle this like men, once and for all.

He fumbled the ball twice AND threw an interception on the last drive of the game all within the last 4 minutes. That is 3 colossial mistakes.