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Obama Announces for President, Boosts Broadband
Arlen writes "As many as 17,000 people (according to police estimates) watched Senator Barack Obama officially announce his candidacy for President in Springfield, Illinois today. He mentioned several things that will interest readers of Slashdot. The Senator said he wanted to free America from 'the tyranny of oil' and went on to promote alternative energy sources such as ethanol — a popular stance in the Midwest where he announced, because of all the corn farmers. He also talked about using science and technology to help those with chronic diseases, which is likely to have been an allusion to his staunch support for stem cell research. Perhaps most of interest to readers here is the following statement halfway through Obama's speech: 'Let's invest in scientific research, and let's lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America. We can do that.' Like nearly everything in his speech, this was met with robust applause from the crowd. You can watch a video of the entire speech at Obama's website."
besides, in large urban centers and suburban areas Gun Control LOWERS crime rates, not increases them.
You mean like in Washington D.C.?
Or maybe you mean Chicago
Both cities have what is considered to be fairly draconian gun control laws by US standards. Both have violent crime rates well in excess of the national average.
Bill Would Extend Online Obscenity Laws to Blogs, Mailing Lists
Slate currently has an "Obama Messiah Watch" column that chronicles the media's excessive praise of the would-be-president.
http://www.slate.com/id/2159502/?nav=navoa
The negative side of ethanol is that the net positive side is very small to non-existant. It takes a lot of nearly as much oil to produce the ethanol from corn as the ethanol saves. The best figured I've seen is it takes 1 barrel of oil to produce the ethanol equivalent of 1.2 barrels of oil. And then you have to take into account the other side effects of corn production, the pesticides, the fertilizer run-off, the phosphate use, etc. Ethanol from corn is more of a government gift to to corn farmers than it is an effective means of reducing dependence on foreign oil or CO2 emissions. It would be far more cost effective to spend the money in a way that reduces energy use, like replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact-flourescent or funding ways of making cities less car dependent.
Freeing America from oil via ethanol.
8 41462
t s_for_growth/nitrogen/anhydrous_ammonia.jsp
Read this: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=219742&cid=17
One ton of dry biomass = 2 barrels of oil
The USA burns about 20 million barrels of oil per day. As I incorrectly pointed out in the prior post - this is 10 million tonnes of dry biomass per day (I had a brain fart which no one picked up on and wrote 40 tonnes).
It was nicely pointed out and correctly I might add that if we were to produce the amount of ethanol required to offset the oil being burned, then we would need more than the world's production of grain.
I did a google search on "world grain production" and was impressed with the increases since the 1960's.
Since I grew up on a grain farm I have a gut feel for this. The increased production came from dwarf grains (more grain, less stalk), irrigation and fertilizer. At this point much of the north amercian farmland has been badly raped of its nutrients. As I write this a major part of the North American fertilizer industry is shut down because of a shortage of Methane. They use methane to create anhydrous ammonia.
Check here:
http://www.agrium.com/products_services/ingredien
The thing is the irrigation is not sustainable.
The dwarf grains and genetic manipulation lead to mono culture which is questionable sustainable.
The use of methane to create nitrogen fertilizers is past peak by over 5 years in North America. Its a big problem.
The short of it is that there is no way on earth we can double our grain production. We can however produce Ethanol from other than grain.
Cellulose to ethanol is a possibility with fungii like Trichoderma reeshii. But plants also contain pentosans and lignins. T. reeshii likes cellulose.
Personally I think a fungus with more potential is in the Pleurotis genus.
But that is just my guess.
The short of it is that we have a big problem - do we want to eat (grain) or do we want to drive cars.
I hope the cars lose.
As I pointed out before.... the USA would have to convert more than the whole world's supply of grain into ethanol to keep its fleet of car toys on the road.
You are free to remove it from your article listing, if you like.
Yes...
...but the devil weed also makes the dirty mexicans and niggers rape white women!!11!one!
Yep, that's what all those racists claimed back in the day, which is why marijuana is illegal*, and why any discussion of "industrial hemp" is dead-on-arrival. Sorry, no miracle energy source for us!
*Technically, the federal government didn't outlaw the substance (as that would be unconstitutional); they just made it so that a permit was required to grow it (citing the Interstate Commerce Clause) and then refused to issue any permits. Fucking NAZIs, circumventing the Constitution!)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
This is just totally out of the mainstream.
70% of Americans want our involvement in Iraq to start decreasing. Did you miss that?
Everyone agrees that health care is poor-to-mediocre and getting worse. Something has to be done. Everyone agrees on energy independence.
Repeating lies over and over again doesn't make them true.
+++ATH0
The inefficiency is only true for gas engines converted to run on booze. When you design an engine that cannot run on gasoline but runs well on alcohol, you design it to use much, MUCH higher compression ratios that would be impossible to use in a gas engine, and efficiency actually surpasses that of gasoline.
+++ATH0
Yes, it is added in places like Brazil, but that's because they derive it from sugar and not corn like the US would have to.
Not only has it added, but it has seriously reduced their dependance on foreign oil. Instead of getting 80% of their oil from foreign sources, they currently only get 15%. I don't have a link to this because I saw it on Modern Marvels.
I am an environmentalist, but ethanol is a BAD BAD idea.
Then, you're a stupid environmentalist. Ethanol is carbon neutral, the CO2 released by burning it is equal to the CO2 that would have been released by the decomposition or digestion of the plants that it is made from.
Because of the variance of climates in the US we can't use pure ethanol. Ethanol requires a higher ignition temp than gasoline, and in cold climates it can't be used.
Ethanol isn't a panacea, but it's something that can be used to help.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Hussein Obama has said publicly that he believes in the Wahhabbi doctrine that denies the rights of non-Muslims.
No. He hasn't. What the hell are you talking about? Do you follow the Karl Rove doctrine that if you repeat a lie often enough, people think it's the truth?
+++ATH0
He has special alternate versions of his videos so that Firefox and Apple users can access them ... that is enough to get a mention on Slashdot if you ask me.
siener's youtube channel
Sigh... Mark Twain was right, a lie really does get around the world before the truth can get its boots on.
Barack Obama is a Christian. He belongs to Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. When asked about his faith, he has said that he has "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ", which, while he doesn't describe himself as born-again or evangelical, is a standard way that evangelical Christians describe their faith. In other words, he is definitely a "Christian god-fearing male".
As to his father being a Muslim. His birth father was an atheist goatherder who left the family when Obama was two years old. His stepfather, who raised him through adulthood, was a non-practicing Muslim, and his father and mother educated him in secular schools, not whacko Muslim Madrassas as some of his political opponents have been claiming.
So let's stop worrying about Obama being some kind of Muslim Manchurian Candidate, k? Because it's really far from the truth.
Read my blog.
and McCain is a crook. Remember the Keating Five? IMHO, he should have gone to prison for that...but it works out karmically because of his POW time. He talks a good game, but he's a slimy criminal backstabber just like most any other suckup politico. He's been alternately sucking up to/backstabbing Mr. Bush throughout his presidency.
If it ends up being McCain vs Hillary, it'll be too close to call...both have shady histories that will come out. Obama looks to be pretty clean, and relatively sane, and would probably trounce whatever republican he ran against.
It is for this reason alone that the Democratic party is incapable of nominating him.