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US Senate Votes For Repeal of Ethanol Subsidies
T Murphy writes "Although the measure is not expected to become law, a Senate vote 73-27 in favor of repealing ethanol subsidies and tariffs means a lot for future legislation. The White House stands opposed to changes in the subsidies or tariffs, so they will likely go untouched before they expire at the end of the year. Even so, this is a strong indication that such government support for ethanol will be reduced if not eliminated. The response to the Senate vote has been mixed, from corn prices falling, to the World Bank encouraging lower food prices, to concerns over reduced funding for alternative energy, to supporters of such budget cuts."
Democrat, Republican, whatever. My political support goes for congressmen who believe in the laws of thermodynamics.
But is this really news for slashdot? It's hardly nerd news.
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
"alternative energy" subsidies aren't supposed to be permanent. If ethanol is as great as its proponents say it is, then it ought to be able to turn a profit without subsidy
If the US used every acre of cropland for biofuel feedstock production it would only be able to produce 40% of transportation fuel needs and then there'd be nothing to eat! It's impossible to make even a dent in fossil fuel usage with biofuels, and by trying we will make food more expensive for everyone and reduce the surplus that helps to feed the world's poor.
I wish it WOULD pass. I'm in Iowa, the heart of ethanol country, and I can't stand the stuff and what it's done. Artificial inflation of corn prices, artificial money, artificial companies. Whole corporations and huge plants have been built up on the promise of ethanol and just as quickly have fell into bankruptcy because the dream failed to pay off. As people have slowly come to realize that the bang-for-buck of ethanol is so much lower than gasoline, even with subsidies, plus the corrosion factors on improperly-engineered cars, it's fallen by the wayside. E-85 was supposed to be the next big thing and it barely made a fart in the market at all. All we've ended up with is farmers who thought they had a huge market for their product and suddenly....don't.
I've heard a lot of arguments for things like switchgrass ethanol and so forth and, hey, I'm all for alternatives -- if they work. But the fact remains that despite whatever "green" intentions people may have, if you can't sell it to the general public without a crutch, you're going to lose in the end. Time to let ethanol stand -- and die gracefully -- on its own.
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Thats all that needs to be said.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Senators are in the senate, Representatives are in the House of Representatives. The Senate and the House of Representatives are two houses of a bicameral legislature we call congress. All people serving in congress are congressmen.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
E-85 was supposed to be the next big thing and it barely made a fart in the market at all. All we've ended up with is farmers who thought they had a huge market for their product and suddenly....don't.
Lets see. Trillions of free money for bankers, but only tens of billions for farmers? Hardly fair. Surely if they spent trillions on the farmers they would be able to grow enough corn to fill the gas tanks.
So what's next? Where do you think are the billions or trillions in subsidies going to be spent next? Hey it's free money, everyone should be getting involved.
Deleted
Great idea for living creatures, stupid as all hell for machines. I mean, seriously... we are feeding machines with perfectly good food. Hello?
Let's leave the food for the living and stop rewarding this stupidity with the further stupidity of the government stealing the fruits of our labors to subsidize this lame-brained bullshit.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
That's right! AND it gives you worse gas milage, and in cars made before 1994-1998 (reports vary wildly) it can accelerate engine part wear. No wonder the price of food (i.e. corn, a staple of Latin America) has gone up damn near 800%. Food as fuel seems to only work with sugarcane/beet. Even then it seems wasteful.
moox. for a new generation.
There is a mandate for ethanol content in fuel. Fuel prices and grain prices are high so a subsidy does not make much sense anymore. Repealing the tariff might bring in some efficiently produced Brazilian ethanol so grain prices can fall.
Brazil actually produces energy efficient ethanol from sugar cane. It's used by more than half of Brazilian cars and it's generally cheaper than gasoline, without any subsidies.
The only reason Brazilian sugar cane ethanol can't compete with the US corn-based ethanol (which is silly and energy inefficient) is because of the huge advantage given to US producers.
This will mean cheaper ethanol for Americans and improved market conditions for Brazilian ethanol companies. Hopefully the price of ethanol here in Brazil won't rise too much, thanks to the larger demand.
I call them Representatives.
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The damned requirement for it to be in the gasoline. IT ruins gas mileage and the gas stations are NOT selling it for 5%-10% cheaper because that is what your gas mileage loss is from running E10. They sell that crap at full price because consumers are too stupid to know better. (Most people think that "premium" is a better gas! The lack of education in fuel that is used daily by the population is incredible)
I have a flex fuel car, it get's 25% less gas mileage when running on E85 but it's designed to run on the stuff. And all the stations around here selling it are price gouging it so hard that it's only 20% below the price of the E10.
This makes E85 a net loss for me to even use it. I can be with the enviro-freaks and waste 5% gas mileage by running E85 or I can run the E10 and get optimum gas mileage at the quality of fuel available and get the most Dollars per mile out of my expense. When E85 first came out it was 40% to 50% cheaper than gasoline so I was running it all the time in the flex fuel van. But in Michigan it's $3.29 a gallon while Indiana it's $2.59 a gallon (as seen this past weekend on a trip to Chicago) There is no $1.00 a gallon tax on it, IT's that Michigan only retailer of E85 is Meijer and they are price gouging it.
I'm done with Ethanol. Until they start using real sources like switchgrass that produce more of it per acre and actually try to make it a viable fuel that is not based on corn subsudies... it needs to go away...
EXCEPT: IT's a fantastic racing fuel. I have 10 friends that are in racing and all of them have modified their cars to use ethanol instead of racing gas. IT's cheaper and they are getting MORE power from it One friend has went from 12.2 on the quarter mile to 11.9 just by changing fuel. Plus they can afford to race at $3.29 a gallon instead of $6.89 a gallon.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Only if that someone is very ignorant. Congressman means either Senate or House of Representatives.
False. Congressmen refers to either. That is a fact.
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
I tried that the entropy tree in Dragon Age, but didn't like it. I'm more of an elementals mage.
The White House stands opposed to changes in the subsidies or tariffs, so they will likely go untouched before they expire at the end of the year.
That 73-27 vote is way more than the 2/3 required to override a presidential veto. Even if Obama doesn't want to do this, Congress could force it on him.
I am officially gone from
Are politicians really that stupid?
Google Wiener. Yes, the really are that stupid.
Now make the gasoline and oil incentives go away too. After all, if the free market is good for the little guy, it should be good for the big guy.
Just out of interest - what is big government? What would be small government? At what point does small government become big government? Or is there an intermediate government in between?
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
I've never been a fan of grain ethanol (except for the amount in beer), except that I've viewed it as a bridge to create a market for cellulosic ethanol. If we were driving around cars with high enough compression ratios, a lot of the efficiency shortcomings could be overcome. However, turning food into ethanol is not sustainable over the long term. I really would have hoped we'd be turning waste into ethanol by now. I'm not quite ready to give op on that, but it's time to go about it differently.
yes, and if we say we live in a democracy, we get the pikers who have to insist it's a constitutional republic
and if we say something was hacked, we get the pikers who no, the system was cracked, or socially engineered
yes, pikers, we KNOW THAT ALREADY
hey pikers: the general meaning of a word often strays from narrow definitions. don't think you are in a position to correct that. understand you are in a position to learn, for once in your life, what common usage means
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Brazil's ethanol industry
Brazil imports record amount of ethanol
"So, where's Brazil getting all of this ethanol from? The United States. According to Platts, almost all of Brazil's imports were U.S. corn-based ethanol, as prices were deemed to be the world's most competitive".
Ethenol is a great fuel, the way it is distributed and used however is it's downfall. Selling a pre-blended mix at the pump is just plain stupidity. It needs to be blended at the pump in any ratio to allow for vehicles to be sold that run 100% or close to 100% ethanol. A engine running pure alcohol can run extremely high compression ratio's greatly increasing the power and efficiency.
You would have to engineer some way to keep stupidity out of the mix by preventing people from using the wrong blend.
Got Code?
hey pikers: the general meaning of a word often strays from narrow definitions when used by morons. don't think you are in a position to correct that. understand you are in a position to learn, for once in your life, what common usage means
FTFY
And here in Minnesota we have a law that was passed a while ago and signed by now presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty that mandates 20% of motor fuel consumed be ethanol. I forget the date by which this needs to be met, but if 20% isn't reached then all fuel will have to be a minimum E20 instead of the current E10.
Time to offend someone
It's also a substantial change to what has been a cardinal fact of American politics--ethanol subsidies are untouchable because of the Iowa primaries. This is odd, and probably reflects the fact that everyone is recognizing the need to begin campaigning nationally early now. The early primaries are still important, but they're less important.
There are political nerds too. And we, as nerds, should care about some politics--because we like to see things done well, and sometimes political action makes a difference. We should be the people who correct people who think foreign aid is a huge percentage of the budget, or it does no good. (See, e.g., our anti-malarial programs.) We should be the people to counter the fear of anything nuclear. We should know stuff, and help make the world a little better. Being a nerd is about knowing stuff. And growing up on Quantum Leap or Star Trek or Heinlein or Tolkien or other nerd fare is about helping people.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
National debt = Entropy
It doesn't decrease!
...unless you have an external source of energy (and a place to radiate waste heat).
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I should have included this initially, but here is the link to the Minnesota statute that mandates 20% ethanol. Also here is the MN senate file on the bill.
Time to offend someone
Here are some facts.
1. Corn has been subsidized for decades, keeping the cost of corn below the cost of production.
2. Third world agriculture cannot compete with our subsidized grain exports. Therefore, they have no sustainable agricultural production. If we use the grain for something else, they starve. If we use the grain for something else and the prices go up, they begin growing their own grain again. Our farm subsidies have been a foot on the head of the third world. They don’t need a handout, they need us to play fair so they can have real economies themselves.
3. Alternative fuels are actively hindered by grocery manufacturers and big oil companies. They want cheap high fructose corn syrup and a continued 90% petroleum mandate. Don’t kid yourself. Follow the money.
4. Without incentives, we’ll never get off petroleum. It costs so little to produce and has existing infrastructure paid for with our tax dollars. There is the other problem of the most powerful cartel in the world, OPEC. Do you think they are happy about our efforts to wean our nation off of their product and stem the tide of petrodollars?
5. Food prices are affected 2% by the cost of grain and 92% by the cost of petroleum, according the USDA.
I’m all for getting rid of subsidies. If we get rid of ethanol subsidies, let’s level the playing field first. Get rid of petroleum subsidies and make the EPA remove the artificial 90% gasoline mandate, too. Then we can see how things really shake out.
BTW, if an engine is properly designed for ethanol, it will get better mileage than with gas. The higher vapor pressure allows higher compression than is possible with gas. In fact, oil companies have used this fact to worsen the grades of gas they sell, knowing the 10% ethanol blend will prevent consumers from complaining about knocking.
Sure, these are "all anecdotes", but I've a large enough family to find the sample size fairly representative of the population at large.
That's the real problem with ethanol. It used to be that when you have a crappy old car and it breaks down, you'd say "my crappy old car broke down."
Now, when you have a crappy old car and it breaks down, you say "my car broke down-- it's a government conspiracy!"
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
It is big government when the democrats are in charge.
It is small government (but in reality, just as big) when the republicans are in charge.
I don't know, CmdrTaco -- I think you should go in for this. This guy seems legit.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
Burning food is stupid. Greenwashing fossil fuel into biofuel is very stupid. Doing it at a loss is stupidestest.
It's a big government if it taxes or regulates you. It's a small govenment if it doesn't suffucuently tax or regulate your competitors.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
yes, and if we say we live in a democracy, we get the pikers who have to insist it's a constitutional republic
and if we say something was hacked, we get the pikers who no, the system was cracked, or socially engineered
yes, pikers, we KNOW THAT ALREADY
hey pikers: the general meaning of a word often strays from narrow definitions. don't think you are in a position to correct that. understand you are in a position to learn, for once in your life, what common usage means
Speaking of common usage: you clearly have absolutely no clue what the term piker means, either in common or uncommon usage. Pretty much makes your rant meaningless.
If Congress really wanted to fix several problems at once related to corn, they would end the sugar tariff and impose penalties on the use of HFCS.
*Corn* ethanol was always a boondoggle, brought to you by lobbyists and innumerate politicians who were unable to understand or care about the concept of EREOI. Brazil has made *sugar cane* alcohol with a reasonable EREOI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil). While nothing will replace oil, moving as much of the transportation industry to alternatives like sugar cane methanol would give us a bigger cushion against the inevitable loss of oil as a major energy source.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
I love the wonderful colour you british pikers insert into your language. ;)
The "King's English"? Sorry, the King is dead. And for my money the Queen can go fuck herself. We "colonials" will speak as we wish.
Just out of interest - what is big government? What would be small government? At what point does small government become big government? Or is there an intermediate government in between?
Big government does more than the Constitution allows.
Small government doesn't do what the Constitution requires.
Just Right government follows the Constitution and does what the Constitution says it should do and nothing more as the 10th Amendment mandates. Anything else is reserved to the states or the people.
As an example, take marijuana laws. There is nothing in the Constitution that allows for the federal government to ban a substance. Therefor, it should be up to the states to decide whether they want to allow for the production and sale of marijuana. However, once that marijuana crosses state lines, it falls under the Commerce Clause, which allows the federal government regulate it as it sees fit.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
For your information, a piker is someone who is stingy or only makes small bets. Maybe you should learn the meaning of a word before using it to avoid using the word incorrectly.
yes, and if we say we live in a democracy, we get the pikers who have to insist it's a constitutional republic
Simple answer: don't correct others if you don't know what you're talking about. Smith tried to correct goodmanj on a semantic issue, and he was wrong. Once you bring up a subject, don't get pissy that someone continues the discussion.
Big government is when the government helps someone else. Small government is when they only help you.
Well, constitutionality is a reasonable requirement, I give you that - how does following the constitution correlate with size, though?
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Just out of interest - what is big government? What would be small government? At what point does small government become big government? Or is there an intermediate government in between?
A small government would not take action except as necessary to maintain sufficient domestic peace to allow average citizens to simply go about their daily lives, and defend (defend - DEFEND) the nation from foreign invaders.
Obviously that involves some degree of social policy (for the former) and international dick-waving (for the latter), but when those necessary evils expand to eat 96% of the budget, you unambiguously have a big government.
And, of course we can have middle ground. We have 3.5 trillion (well, 2 trillion, since we don't actually have that extra 1.5 to spare) dollars of leeway between "small" and "big" in this case.
They should definitely get rid of the tariffs. It would help alcohol based fuels to become strong globally. In a wold where multiple fuel types are going to be needed to replace oil it would only benefit society as a whole. At the same time they should repeal subsidies for oil companies. But, since attacking Obama on every front is the republicans only goal neither would never happen.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
All people serving in congress are congressmen.
You know, I always thought there was something odd about some of the females that have been elected, this explains it. They're tucked and taped!
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
I think congress refers to the house or the senate. As in a member of congress.
Newer cars have suffered problems due to ethanol. In cases of engine failure where people thought to test the fuel they found much higher concentrations of ethanol than the fuel was supposed to have. And in addition to worse mileage it's also more polluting than straight gasoline.
It's not for nothing that some lawn equipment, like my lawn more, has a warning that specifically states not to use gasoline with more than 10% ethanol. And to think my state was trying to push for higher concentrations.
US farmers have been doing fairly well lately with commodity bubbles in 2008 and 2011 and a major world drought in 2010. Dont pity the Aunt-Em types. Manhattan zipcodes are a major destination of subsidy checks, since these are public records.
Again, a reasonable position. However, the people usually ranting about "big government" seem to be of the opinion that slashing social programs would be the cure-all to make it "small" again. I don't usually hear about the military from those...
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Yes, if you're pedantic, but in reality when someone on the news says "congressman" they are talking about somebody from the House, not the Senate.
I don't believe this is the case at all. Senators and Representatives are both Congressmen. Just as 'a bill in congress' could refer to a bill in either the house or the senate.
When does a small tree become a big tree? Is there an intermediate sized tree in between?
That should demonstrate the concept. Indistinct boundaries between terms don't mean the terms are meaningless.
McCain(R) opposes ethanol subsidies, Palin(R) opposes ethanol subsidies, neither oppose Big Oil subsidies.
Q: "What about ending oil subsidies? Subsidies for oil companies. Where do you stand on that?"
Palin: .. "we're only talking about four billion dollars" [a year] .. link
"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, long a mouthpiece for the interests of the oil industry, has lashed out against the Democratic effort to roll back taxpayer subsidies for the Big Five oil companies .. The $21 billion in unneeded subsidies would go to reduce the federal deficit" link
You are missing something here. It is that oil companies pay much more in taxes than they receive in subsidies. What happens is that the government taxes the crap out of oil, not just as it's produced but at the pump as well. Then it gives a small portion back to the oil companies and then tells them what to do with it. If you eliminate the oil subsidies, you are actually going to lose some control over how oil companies operate. You will also increase the base price of fuel because the government is certainly not going to cut the taxes they charge for fuel.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Mu. Great way of clearing up that the "big government" rah-rah crowd has no idea what it actually means by it, except for "government not ran by us and not funneling money into OUR pockets".
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
A congress controlled by Democrats. In particular Democrat control of the House of Representatives where all spending bill must originate. Reagan could sign or veto what these guys came up with, he could not write the legislation.
In typical Reagan worshiper fashion, you fail at history.
Throughout his two terms, Reagan asked for billions more in his budget proposals than congress eventually approved.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Well, constitutionality is a reasonable requirement, I give you that - how does following the constitution correlate with size, though?
Maybe I should have said TOO big and TOO small. Size referring to the amount of power the government is wielding (I guess large and small would be more grammatically correct). A government that does more than they are allowed to do is using a "larger" amount of power than they should be, or is too big.
Sure, a government may be "large" in how they do things; large military, strict interstate regulations, high taxes, etc, but still be within the Constitutional limits. It may also stretch the limit of what may be Constitutional. For example, a government might say that the military needs educated soldiers, so paying for and regulating state run education has military implications. A real world example of this would be health care law recently passed. Supporters claim that the Commerce Clause allows it under the Constitution. The Commerce Clause deals with interstate commerce only so unless you are buying insurance from a company out of state, this law should have no effect on you. A government may also be too small, as in a weak military, no interstate regulations and still meet their Constitutional requirements.
But in the context spoken here, a big government uses more power than they should be allowed per the Constitution.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Read the Constitution much? The Senate passed it with a supermajority. I see no reason it wouldn't pass the House (which is GOP controlled, and the GOP is trying to cut costs right now) with a supermajority as well. If it manages to pass both houses with over 66% of the vote, a veto can be overridden.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Well, that too. But i was trying to be slightly civil. Not sure why....
Hey, if a dude with a polearm walks up to me and tells me to say something, I'll do what he says!
Is 1563649 a prime number?
To be honest, I am not particularly interested in the American constitutional folklore of "state rights". Can we discuss the issue on an abstract level, not specifically tied to the US? Because, frankly, I still have no idea what you mean by "more rights than they should be allowed by the Constitution". From the examples you cite i can only glean that spending for the military is fine, but healthcare is out. So again, we are not looking at a matter of quantity, we are looking at a matter of quality.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
I would end ALL subsidies to corn farmers.
Ending subsidies to corn farmers would make corn more expensive.
This then makes foods containing corn products more expensive.
It also makes meat (chicken, pork and beef) from feedlots using corn as a feed more expensive.
It may sound counter-intuitive to make food more expensive at a time when things are so bad. But the food that will become more expensive is the food that is really bad for you.
One of the biggest contributors to the obesity crisis in the US is that you can feed a family at McDonalds or KFC for LESS than it would cost to buy a meal for that family at a supermarket. Make junk food more expensive and parents will start saying "Now that I have to pay $3-$4 for a hamburger at McDonalds instead of $1, I am going to rethink how often I buy McDonalds food for the family"
Politicians talk about their ideals but rarely follow them. By talking enough about their ideals they can divert attention from actions that completely oppose their stated ideals.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Ethanol does not produce much more useful energy than is required to produce it.
It is immoral to bind the price of food and energy any more than necessary as the practice unecessarily disadvantages the poor.
You know, if you ever mastered the Shift key, you might not feel so defensive about that. If all caps is the equivalent of shouting, no caps is the equivalent of creepy mumbling and muttering.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
That "Conservative Republicans" are extreme hypocrites.
A negotiated plan where increases in the Department of Defense were offset by cuts elsewhere in government, and a failure of congress to deliver on those cuts.
Yet, Reagan still tried to increase the size of government, just in the area where they make things go BOOM, which is OK with Republicans.
But God help them if anyone else tries to increase the size of government that, you know, actually tries to help people, or keep business in check.
Well, right now social progams cost more than all the money the government takes in (and so they must be cut, eventually, that's math not politics), but that's a recent thing, and there have always been people who saw any social spending as too much, and people who saw any military spending as too much.
But ususally "big government" means "intrusive government" - any government that tells me how much water I can use when I flush my toilet, or who I can have sex with, or otherwise steps into what should be private moments, is too damn big. Cutting funding is the bad way to deal with that, a last resort.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
whAt dO rAnDoM CapS mEan?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Small government is when the government regulates someone else. Big government is when the government regulates you.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It takes massive amounts of water, massive amounts of fertilizer (runoff), massive amounts of herbicide (runoff 2 and death to butterflies)... for the large majority of US corn, the soil is just there to prop up the plants.
And don't forget the other big use of corn: feed for cattle to fatten them up just prior to slaughter. But since cattle weren't 'Intelligently Designed' to eat corn, it makes them sick rather quickly. Here comes the last massive: massive doses of antibiotics to keep the cattle from keeling over before auction. MRSA, ahoy!!
That you should go back on your meds.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
OTOH, it is perfectly constitutional to say : We won't give you funds to aid interstate commerce if you don't do X.
So yes, it is constitutional. If you don't like it, contact your state legislators and tell them to not accept funds from the feds, and allow Marijuana.
FtR: I am for removing Marijuana in to the alcohol level status of controlled substances.
On short: Your state has made an agreement to the Feds.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
No they don't.
Also, you can raise taxes also Math.
It's not too damn big.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's also a fact that on the radio (and probably TV as well, I dunno) when they refer to someone as "Congressman So-and-So", he or she is a member of the House.
There's not really a title for representatives - technically, both senators and House members are representatives - Senators of the state, House members of the people in their district. The general rule of thumb in the media is to use the title "senator" when appropriate and "congressman" when it is not.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
So you actually think you have the right to take everyone's water for your own self serving devices? If you use too much water, then everyone else has to pay more to get and clean their water, to say nothing of the damage caused when streams and aquifers run dry. Just because a few people are so full of crap that they feel they need extra water to dispose of it all, does not mean that everyone else should readily be expected to suffer for it.
Run toward him and punch him in the gut. If he hasn't had a lot of training, once you're inside the range of the weapon he'll probably pause before he remembers to drop it and defend himself.
Once he's down, smash his visor into his face if he has one. That always pisses them off, and he'll have a hell of a time getting it off.
Most pikemen I know don't have pockets, but carry their belongings in a belt pouch. If you're lucky, he's got a knife on his belt you can grab it and cut the pouch strings off. You might also want to carry a knife yourself just for this purpose.
Don't turn and run - if you do, he's got you square in the back. I've seen it plenty of times - it's a rookie mistake.
Note that you should only attempt this at a ren faire or SCA event. Do not, under any circumstances, try it with the Swiss Guard.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
:-) I'm hip...
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
No they don't.
Yes, actually, they do. The entire "necessary" budget, including the massively bloated full current military funding level, comes out to under 1.2 trillion. We have a current yearly deficit of 1.4 trillion.
Put bluntly, Military, Social Security, Welfare (medicare + medicaid): Eliminate TWO to balance the budget.
Also, you can raise taxes
"Can" does not mean "should".
I think you missed the point GP was trying to make entirely. He's saying you can identify a big tree and you can identify a small tree, and both those descriptions have meaning even if you can't identify the exact boundary between the categories. In other words, just because you can't pinpoint the nano second a warm bath becomes a hot one doesn't mean you shouldn't take action to prevent the water from boiling with you in it.
OK, how about this idea:
Big government provides more services and draws more on the tax base than small government.
Governments like Sweden, where the government provides health care, university education, public transit, etc. are big governments. There's a good social safety net, so the poor have a decent standard of living.
Small governments only provide that which cannot be reliably provided by the private sector. A small government would limit itself to things like law enforcement, foreign affairs, defense, essential public infrastructure (roads, seaports, etc.), and various forms of standardization for trade (i.e. 1Kg is actually 1Kg, pallets must be heat treated to remove parasites, etc.). A small government is better for the rich and (arguably) middle class, because less of your money is redistributed.
It's pretty much the whole socialism vs. capitalism argument. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but in times of economic hardship (at least in the U.S.), you get a lot of people calling for small government.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
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then why were they unable to eliminate the oil subsidies "feel free to call them handouts if it makes you feel any better" a few months ago? If they had depreciation just like any other industry, then why would there be any special rules that only applied to them?
the plural of anecdote is not data.
Ok... so the way the constitution works is that there is this referee that says what is constitutional and what isn't; it's call the supreme court. If the supreme court says it's constitutional then it's constitutional as per the constitution. Therefore YOUR judgment as to what's constitutional and what's not is totally worthless AS PER THE CONSTITUTION and your whole framing of "big government" and "small government" is now also useless.
God, i truly hate the worshiping of the constitution as a religious document. The document is the set of rules that the political game is played by and they change over time, as were intended by the original writers. And while the founding fathers made some brilliant decisions in the creation of the constitution (espically for it's time), their morals and how they lived their life should not be more important than how we as a society decide we wish to live our lives today, 200 years later. (And if you don't believe that then women shouldn't be allowed to vote and blacks should still be slaves.)
d
all language nazi's will burne in heil!
...that which cannot be reliably provided by the private sector.
Like health care.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
I *do* think we can have reasonable limits on things like this (how much water a toilet uses in this case)..
There are other solutions however -- require gray water reuse (though yes, the person you're replying to would probably complain about that too), and/or charge for water appropriately, so supply/demand comes into the situation, and the guy who wants the 3 gallon/flush toilet pays a crapload (ba dum psh!) more money for his water bill.
Social security currently brings in more than it costs. It runs enough of a surplus that it lends money to the federal government. The federal government owes more to social security than it does to China. Social security will eventually need for those loans to be repaid, but for the time being it can hardly be considered a drag on the budget, and you should look elsewhere to balance the budget. Significant contributors to the increase in the deficit since 2001 have been the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, Medicare part D, a decline in revenue due to the great recession, and an increase in costs also due to the recession. Due largely to the improving economy the deficit is projected to shrink by over $600 billion from 2011 to 2012. Ending or greatly curtailing the US wars in in Iraq and Afghanistan will also help to shrink the deficit. Medicare part D was an unfunded entitlement program pushed through congress in 2003. It's basically a subsidy program for the US insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and does need to be trimmed. Not extending the Bush tax cuts would put a big dent in the deficit.
Social Security hit cashflow negative this year, but that's not really important: what they call the taxes is just the salespitch.
You seem to want to cut only the other party's programs. Watch Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain for how that will end. Everyone bleeds before this is done.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You can get most of ethanol's benefits from methanol. Engines running on methanol can run at higher compression ratios to increase performance and efficiency. In fact the cars at the Indy 500 run off of methanol. Methanol can also be synthesized from a variety of feedstocks using destructive distillation, unlike ethanol which is created by fermenting corn and then distilling the product, which is very energy intensive (the dirty little secret of many biofuel plants is that they burn coal to produce the heat to distill the ethanol out of the water). Butanol is better than ethanol because it's less miscible with water and dimethylfuran beats ethanol hands down because it's immiscible with water and has a higher energy content and boiling point. Ethanol sucks. It's nothing more than a huge handout for Iowa farmers and corrupt agribusinesses like ADM and Cargill.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
You've clearly never done the research here (or you're just trolling). The Majority of water used is used for power geenration. The Majority of the remainer for agricultural irrigation. The majority of the remainer for lanscaping irrigaton. Houshold water use just isn't important in the scheme of things - these are do-nothing feel-good (to some) measures. The toilet case is worse because it doesn't actually save water.
But that aside: yes, goddamit, the right way to parcel out a scarce resource 9or one with an excess) is to let the price float to where it clears the market. That enourages both production and consumption to move in the right direction, with no government intervention (in pricing). The solution to high commodity prices is high commodity prices.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
So when the supreme court changes its stance compared to what it held previously?
Constitutionality is not determined by the supreme court, merely how the government is going to treat things (not even then sometimes). Check out "Appeal to authority" as a logical fallacy.
The higher latent heat is a large detriment to ethanol as a fuel, not a benefit. As for stoichiometry, ditto. You need a larger volume of ethanol per volume of air (or mass for mass) to balance the equation. Higher compression does two things: improves thermal efficiency, and increases the amount of fuel you can burn per stroke (stuffing more molecules in the cylinder). The thermal efficiency boost *absolutely* does not overcome the latent heat disadvantage of the alcohol. The ability to stuff more reactive molecules in each stroke does not contribute to efficiency. Dragsters (and others) use alcohol because it cools the burn temps (at the expense of efficiency) while allowing specific power to increase. Neither of these things improves overall efficiency. Only power.
Yes, and exotic sports cars. Just because you can't afford something doesn't mean the private sector is bad at producing it. The discussion about what a human deserves or is entitled to in a just society is a different discussion.
The problem is, this is not a fact based exercise. If you have a sporting event and a ref makes a bad call, the you can watch the replay and say "yep, bad call." Here's the set of rules, this is what actually happened, the person stepped out and the ref didn't see it. However in this case you're basically arguing philosophy and as such, there are few if any hard answers. Can the government use the commerce clause to outlaw cannabis? Well that's a matter of definitions. If you define things a certain way, then no. If you define things a different way, then yes. But who makes up the definitions? You? Me? The original authors of the constitution or law? There is not a hard "truth" to be found.
So, baring some measurable truth, the founders developed a referee that makes the final call on this decision. I'm not making the appeal to authority fallacy because the definition of constitutionality *is* the supreme court. You don't get to make the decision. Talking heads on TV or radio don't get to make the decision. Only the supreme court gets to rule if something is constitutional or not. I may not always like their rulings (I truly despise some of the more recent ones) but there are no facts to be had here. We're talking philosophy and opinion and definitions.
I think The Truth is on my side, you think The Truth is on your side, but all we're really arguing here is opinions and definitions. In the end this is a totally uninteresting argument and one that is only a distraction to the real argument. The REAL argument is what government services are beneficial for us as a group to pay for and which ones aren't. I say there is benefit and efficiencies to having a public health care system and you don't. Now THAT's an interesting conversation to have. I say the method we use to pay for the government should be slated toward taxing the rich, and you don't. That's an interesting conversation to have. (These are made up examples - I'm not trying to put words in your mouth) These arguments we can bring metrics and statistics to the table to try and justify the correct amount and best method of government involvement in a particular area. That's the real meat of what we're trying to argue, what path should we take to make our lives better.
The constitutional argument is just boring and lame because in the end there is nothing to be gained by "winning" because the supreme court STILL controls the definition of what is constitutional or not. =(
d
all language nazi's will burne in heil!
Ronald Reagan grew the federal government to ginormously huge non-conservative levels, and yet is hailed as one of the "greatest Conservative Republicans" ever. What am I missing here?
Well a lot of 'conservatives' would probably disagree with the moves these days (but change their tune once told that Reagan had done it), but many of the increases under Reagan were in the areas that were in the federal government's constitutional pervue. For instance, military spending is one of the areas of the federal government that the Constitution says they should handle, so conservatives are all for it. Social programs? The Department of Education? The arts? Conservatives would say that because those aren't explicitly given to the federal government in the Constitution, those are more state or local issues and should not be handled on the federal level. I guess that's why Mitt Romney can say with a straight face that he supports Massachusetts's health care system and oppose the federal system, despite them being very similar. At least, I hope that's why he does that. Maybe I'm being too charitable.
In addition, around Reagan's time the Republican Party was taken over by the neo-Conservative movement, people who believe in those traditional conservative values except for issues of morality. Those, they believe the federal government should stick their noses into all the time, in enforcement of "traditional moral values." For some reason to them this is not hypocrisy.
To be honest, I am not particularly interested in the American constitutional folklore of "state rights". Can we discuss the issue on an abstract level, not specifically tied to the US?
That may be difficult, each country's population is going to have a much different idea of what a federal government 'should' do. Even in the US, each state population may have a different idea about what the federal government ought to do, and it is difficult to talk about something subjective like "how large/involved should the government be" without considering the frame of reference of the country's populace.
Also false. representatives are from the house, senators are from the senate, and congress is both. The news may be misrepresenting that, or you may be perceiving it incorrectly, but that is how it is.
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
It's not false. Reread my comment.
Referring to members of the House as "Congressmen" and senators as "Senators" is a rule of thumb. That's the fact I was stating. It's true.
Yes, they're all "congressmen". We get that. What you apparently don't get is the custom of referring to senators by the title "Senator", and not by the generic term "congressman", which isn't a title. Members of the House don't have titles, so they are referred to as congressmen.
Consider two men: one gets a PhD, one does not. They're both adults. While you could refer to either as "Mister", it wouldn't be appropriate for the man with the PhD, since his correct title is "Doctor". In everyday conversation, referring to the doctor as "Mister So-and-So" would probably pass, but a TV or radio show host wouldn't never knowingly do it.
As to my other point, they are all representatives, in the sense that they represent an entity as a member of a representative government. Senators represent the state government, theoretically speaking, although since the 17th amendment senators have to concern themselves more with public opinion. They're generally not referred to as representatives since that would be confusing.
If you're referring to members of congress as a whole, then congressmen is perfectly acceptable. You don't see that very often, since it's not common to refer to the members of congress as a whole, as opposed to "Congress", which refers to the organization (i.e. you wouldn't say congressmen passed a law, you'd say Congress passed a law). The rule of thumb I mentioned above is for referring to individual senators and House members.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
I read your comment. The point that you don't seem to get is that you're still wrong. You can argue it any way you like. Congressman refers to either.
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
As a society, we've already made the decision that humans deserve health care in some form.
The private sector may be good at producing health care as a product, but it has a dismal track record of efficiently delivering it to all people.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.