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Obama Administration Tests the Waters With Ocean Power Startups
Stirfry192 sends this excerpt from an article discussing the Obama Administration's funding of renewable energy projects that are experimenting with hydrokinetics:
"Currently, the Department of Energy has a mandate to spend $50 million a year on backing such research. For its part, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved 72 permits for pilot projects over the past two years , according to its records. Ocean Renewable Energy Power Company, LLC , which has plans to build the largest ocean-based system in the U.S., is one of the companies that has won such funding. ... Virtually all hydrokinetic turbines resemble giant manual lawnmowers, a design patented by Alexander Gorlov of Northeastern University in 2001. [CEO Chris Sauer] calls what his company uses an 'advance cross-flow' model, and he says each of his 150 kilowatt units could power 50 to 75 homes. ... The company plans to install one of its 150 kilowatt turbines this year, and four next year, anchoring them near the floor of the bay, and progressively build out to 3.2 megawatts by 2014. The system would tie into Bangor Hydro Electric Co. grid."
My cyber-warfare-enabled endangered snails will bring this project to its knees! or something about not doing it on porpoise just for the halibut. Never mind.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
You're right, those things might actually happen!
Oh, so they're doing research to the tune of 50 mil before they try anything big. Problem solved.
Humans are terrible replicators of Godly things.
One word: biofouling.
Fission is not something the free market will invest in. They never have. So far it has taken government backed loans and government provided insurance just to get the plants we have. I think it is a great source of power, but he free market seem to disagree.
They only carry $375 Million in insurance on the plants and the Price-Anderson act covers over that. This act is so anti-free market that it moves civil suits to federal jurisdiction and no claimant can get punitive damages.
Over the past 30 years if there is one thing that I've seen dry up is privately funded research. It simply no longer exists..
Uh, what?
I've been working in R&D in most of the companies that I've worked for in the last twenty years. So I'm somewhat surprised to discover that I've just been imagining it.
As for this particular 'research', if the 'researcher' could make a good business case for it working and making financial sense then plenty of people would be eager to throw money at them. When they have to go to the government for taxpayers money that's pretty good evidence that there is no such case that makes any sense.
As for this particular 'research', if the 'researcher' could make a good business case for it working and making financial sense then plenty of people would be eager to throw money at them. When they have to go to the government for taxpayers money that's pretty good evidence that there is no such case that makes any sense.
Exactly. Real Research does not come with a guarantee of a payoff. You may have worked in R&D devisions, but they do not do Bell Labs, Xerox PARC levels of research. These days only short term payoff kinds of research are done privately. Thanks for proving the GPs point for him.
Hey check our wallet dumbass!
We can play the horses later.
Lets fund all the experimental crap we've been playing with already and pouring my damned money into, it's further ahead and a safer bet(just in case you're too thick to put that together all by yourself).
Obama isn't so left or right as he is an attention whore.( Wants re-elected and it sounds like you're ready to unzip him and say ahhhhh)
You seem to be an "intellectual" maybe you can put two plus two together for the rest of it. Should taste better than your toecheese.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
So if they build a bunch of these will it cause any issues with tides, speed of rotation of the earth or anything?
Where a big-wig senator thinks it'll interfere with his view of the sea or his enjoyment of sailing his yacht.
Oh yeah, he's dead -- full spead ahead!
>$350,000 per household
Citation needed or shut the fuck up.
citation
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Clearly he was wrong, and a troll, therefore he represents Republicans-- is that how it works?
Very clever jab, well done.
For the last couple decades while all these vastly faster and more efficient processors just magically sprung from Obama's immaculate ass?
There's plenty of research being done.
Any private company doing this will get railroaded by the "environmentalists." And by that in quotes I mean those people who are against progress at all costs, BANANA, and not necessarily for the environment. You know, the people that caused Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore to leave the organization.
At least with the backing of FedGov they might have a chance to get something done instead of having their project put on hold in the courts until it dies.
Exactly. Real Research does not come with a guarantee of a payoff. You may have worked in R&D devisions, but they do not do Bell Labs, Xerox PARC levels of research. These days only short term payoff kinds of research are done privately. Thanks for proving the GPs point for him.
Bell Labs doesn't do Bell Labs levels of research anymore. :(
There are still some companies investing in basic research, but even they have shifted most of it over to application-driven research with clearer near-term benefit.
The enemies of Democracy are
It's... an... experiment. To see if it's feasible.
At least someone gets it.
Also, how come the naysayers always want to put all the country's future energy eggs into one basket?
- Fusion is great, assuming it can be built.
- Fission is proven, and the newest designs significantly reduce many of the problems with the older designs. But it still has political problems.
- Hydroelectric is renewable, and fairly clean, assuming proper planning and site preparation is done.
- Biofuels (especially if sourced from by-products and waste) also work well to replace fossil fuels in many applications.
- Solar and wind are coming along in efficiency, but could be much better with improvements in energy storage. (the wind and sun aren't always present 24/7)
Why build only one?
Diversification. It works.
It's always good to have a "plan B" (and "C") for when something unforeseen happens.
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
that is less than a fraction of the Constellation program and it might produce results that benifits mankind here on earth for generations, and not some future man in year 3000 on Uranus
To be fair, most people that would make stupid Obama name jokes tend to be Republican.
Nobody cares what the CAPTCHA for your post was.
there is only one way to answer a question no one has asked... but this one has been asked and has been successful in most cases. The easy way is a large float connected to a crank-arm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_power
The poster must think Obama's a communist. For the new definition of communism that is. Anyone who isn't in favor of privatizing everything has at least communist leanings.
Re: $375 Million and the Price-Anderson act. So far the Fukushima disaster has cost the Japanese over $240 Billion. If something even close were to happen to a US reactor we the people are on the hook for any costs over $375 Million. No nuclear power plants will be built if it's left only to the free market.
There's an odd little paradox I've thought about. Why is it that California, a bastion of environmentalism, large bulging government, and tons of regulation, has such a relatively robust economy compared to most other US states? Cheap labor? No, there's lots of migrant workers in the US. Perhaps it's ready access to electricity and oil? No, California is pretty notorious for having higher electricity and gas prices.
Maybe, then, it has something to do with recycling. Consider Japan which has virtually no natural resources to rely upon, including oil, which also has a robust economy and electricity availability troubles. To that end, recycling is a major economic consideration precisely because recycling is less energy intensive, especially for things like aluminum production. And as much as it has been noted that energy efficient standards, which California strongly pushes, can have the paradoxical effect of increasing energy consumption, it also tends to translates into completing more effective work--imagine the person who can complete one task with a gallon of gas in a 30MPG car vs the person who completes two tasks with one and a half gallons of gas in a 50MPG car.
Of course, in Japan recycling is a government pushed civic duty. And in California, it's a socially pushed norm invoked by environmentalist. Meanwhile, in a large part of the US, recycling is at best haphazardly followed and usually only the more economically advantageous parts, like aluminum can collection.
With the mindset of individualism and even anti-environmentalism and anti-government sentiment, I can certainly see why if mass recycling is a part of the short-term energy solution in the US there's been relatively little push by Democrats for a recycling program, even if they could sell it on the idea of patriotism. But, top down, government funded renewable energy platforms aren't a real solution either, if nothing else because there isn't a joint, bi-partisan support for such projects so their effectiveness is at best short-term and at worst they're not effective at all. Meanwhile, pushing for more recycling is virtually free in comparison. It's ironic to me that conservatives aren't pushing for conserving oil, conserving energy, or any part of recycling as a part of saving money, by increasing the supply of paper, plastic, aluminum, etc to decrease the price. But, then, Republicans are hardly conservative; they're the "you don't have to make sacrifices or put any effort into anything to solve problems--even though inherently we're for cutting government programs on the basis that private/charitable/social organizations will take over--and oh, by the way, we can always cut your taxes" party.
I guess that ends my rant.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Fusion?
I had a random idea several months ago that I think might work but would be impractical in the "We need metric shit-tons of energy *NAOW!*" climate we live in.
Basically, the main problems with current fusion systems are the following:
Concentrating the plasma tight enough to release over unity energy directly often causes pinching of the magnetic confinement feild, cutting off plasma flow, and killing the fusion reaction. (A little like turning the gas up too high on a cutting torch blows the flame out, only in this case the confinement snaps the plasma stream, making it stop conducting electricity, causing the plasma to disperse violently, such as in Z-Pinch type devices.)
Instances where the magnetic confinement field does not pinch off the plasma flow often are extremely expensive to operate under, requiring lots of power to contain/maintain the fusion. (Currently more than is usefully generated by the reaction-- Such as in Tokamak style fusors.)
Low energy confinement fusion favors production of neutrons which are useless for power generation, and difficult to shield. (Such as found in Farnsworth type fusors.)
It was the last one that gave me the idea:
Carbon 14 is a neutron bombardment synthesized isotope of carbon, created from nitrogen atoms. It is also beta-voltaic. It decays back into nitrogen after emitting a high energy electron, and a (Tau?) neutrino. When assembled into nanostructures, it is also highly conductive in and of itself, just like carbon 12.
Because of these properties of carbon 14, I had the strange idea that if you surrounded a farnsworth type fusor (The easiest to construct of the 3 types above.) with a large metal spherical capsule, filled with carbon aerogel and liquid nitrogen (which does not need to be refrigerated or circulated once installed. The vessel is meant to be pressurized to maintain fluidity of the contents.) you could effectively use this shell as a neutron conversion catalyst to convert neutron emissions into high energy electron emissions, gather them up, and channel them for power generation.
The carbon aeogel inside the vessel does not need to be C14. It can be ordinary C12 and work just fine. It functions as the cathode matrix for the beta-voltaic emissions of the C14 that gets developed inside the converter. Since it is ALREADY a highly porous nanostructural carbon material, it conducts electricity fairly well, and can be totally immersed in the liquid nitrogen reactant.
As the neutrons from the farnsworth fusor pass through the catalyst, they get absorbed by the nitrogen atoms, turning them into C14 atoms. These atoms would be energetic, and would tend to "cling" to the existing carbon nano-structures of the aerogel. As they decay, the turn back into nitrogen, and detach.
After a sufficient incubation period, the device should be capable of turning an otherwise "Hobby novelty only" farnsworth into a useful power generating device.
Problems:
Size. The catalyst chamber would need to be very large to have reasonably good statistical rate of neutron capture, even with highly pressurized nitrogen inside.
Cost. Carbon aerogel is expensive... (Liquid nitrogen is fairly cheap. Cheaper than beer.)
Time. It would take a considerable charging period before useful power output would be detected from the catalyst system.
Pros:
C14 has an obscenely long half-life. The catalyst layer would continue to produce electrical energy for extended periods of time, even with the fusion reaction totally shut off. (Arguably thousands of years.....)
Production of carbon isotopes intrinsically within the catalyst layer would actively regenerate damage to the nanostructures of the cathode, which normally plagues betavoltaic devices.
The high energy nature would help to ensure tight ring structures like fullerene cages and the like.
Unknowns:
Ideal hardness and energy level of harvested neutronic emissions for ideal C14 creation in the cataylst. Reason: Fucking paywalls.
Ideal thickness of catalyst layer for optimal absorbtion. Reason: Fucking paywalls.
Fission is not something the free market will invest in because the fact that were still running 40yr old reactor designs, restricted from fuel reprocessing, and stuck using expensive and rare U235, in addition to all the bureaucracy needed to install a new plant, means that by the time you get the thing built, it will be several decades before you recoup its cost, at which time it's nearing its end of life and will need to be replaced.
Well if you had been on the 13th, coherent enough to read...
http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/07/13/2014244/The-Cost-Of-Broadband-In-Every-Rural-Home
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
STFU and take four Advil ,whiner.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
3.2 megawatts in 2 years? Great job, guys. In 200 years you might be able to replace a coal plant.
I wanted to throw out some puns to counter the one in the title, but I got nothing.
You might even say that I...
Yeah I got nothing.
Yes, I was too lazy to take the time look it up. I'd be interested is someone proved me wrong.
Nonsense. One should always be investing, even when in debt. If I'm broke, you can bet your ass that I'll borrow money to travel to job interviews. Austerity makes for good sound bites, but in practice it's a disaster.
Call it investing in the future. Not all investments work out but you never know unless you try.
I am not a scientist but why do you not have any replies? Seems like people on this site would rather spout political retardation than argue or dicuss anything positive and related to the topic. Does anyone smart have any replies to this?...this is very interesting...
Point-of-use energy energy generation offers the American people the opportunity for independence from the energy monopolies and the private taxes that they levy (they call those private taxes "profit"). Important, in an era of artificially suppressed wages. Additionally, point-of-use energy offers the opportunity to defund the nastiest of our politicians...a good thing, in a democracy. So support it!.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
has cost the Japanese over $240 Billion
No. Just... no.
That's an estimate by some 'think tank' of the 'possible' total costs for the next decade. So even if it were true, it's just $25B/yr, or about 1/4 the annual cost of the war in Iraq.
It can't possibly be the total cost so far -- there's literally no way to buy stuff that is that expensive and make use of it in a constructive way in such a short period of time.
To put it another way, all money spent eventually becomes labor. Raw materials are priced essentially by the labor required to obtain them, as is energy. Even if the money was spent on quite expensive people, such as nuclear technicians, at an annual salary of say $300K, your quote of $240B spent would be the equivalent of 2.27 million such professional people working full time over the 134 days since the accident.
What could 2.27 million people possibly be doing? It would be impossible to fit even 1% of them onto the area of the plant! The materials and technologies used for the cleanup are quite ordinary and cheap, and can be applied using simple techniques. Think soap and water!
More realistic estimates from reputable sources are around $10B over a decade. That sounds about right for a large and complex engineering project like a nuclear cleanup involving hundreds of specialist technicians.
To put it another way, there are 442 nuclear reactors around the world used to generate power, and 2 have had a major disasters costing about a billion dollars per year. That works out to something like $2B/yr / 442 reactors = $4.5M/yr/reactor. That's a negligible overhead, and easily handled by private insurance.
I think you're right, the $240 billion is probably and estimate of the total cost and may be on the high side depending on a lot of factors. But you can't tell me that the total cost of Fukushima is not going to be higher than the $375 million limit of private liability in the Price-Anderson Act and no doubt several multiples of that.
No private insurance company is willing to take on the potential liability of a nuclear plant without government guarantees to back them up.
Actually, estimated at $70 billion to $240 billion for the next 10 years.
Hmmm, so $7 to $24 billion a year.
Lets see. Fossil fuels fine particle pollution kills over 13,000 people a year in the US, mostly from coal. So if a human life is worth $540,000 to $1,850,000, we've matched that in the human cost alone for power plants operating normally in the US.
But it looks like the value of a human life comes in at $5 million in the US, on the low end. So normally operating non-nuclear plants in the US are costing us $650 billion in the human cost alone for the next 10 years.
For a free market, it seems like no coal power plants would be built. Even considering the difference in how much total power comes from coal vs nuclear, coal seems much, much more expensive.
Maybe, but throwing around numbers that are 25x higher than a realistic estimate and pretending that it is being spent at 30x of the actual rate makes it sound like a nuclear accident would instantly bankrupt even a large insurer, when in reality it would do no such thing.
Many insurance companies could handle $1B/yr, and there's nothing wrong with governments providing extra protection, like they do with banks.
And anyway, who cares how nuclear power is insured? You either pay for it directly through the cost of insurance that's factored into the electricity bill, or indirectly via your taxes. Either way, the cost is roughly the same, and not very large.
I find in unconscionable that we are doing this with a deficit as large as ours. Exploring such things when you're in the black is one thing; there will be no return on these funds.
Are you trolling? Basic research should always continue. We won't be able to solve our problems until we learn how, and the way to do that is ... research. One cannot reasonably expect all lines of research to pay off: most don't. But the ones that do produce great rewards, and history has demonstrated, very clearly, that in the long run we've always been better off making an investment in knowledge. To not do so is shooting ourselves squarely in the foot, and selling ourselves short into the bargain.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Disclaimer: IANANS
Is this what you mean?
1: Fusor in centre radiates neutrons.
2: Neutrons convert N14 to C14 in capsule.
3: The concentration of C14 eventually becomes high enough that it's decay releases useful amounts of energy.
4: The C14 decays back into N14, releasing electrons (-) and (wikipedia) electron antineutrinos. The N14 is short 1 electron (initially, on average) and thus acts as a cathode.
5. The released electrons are captured in an anode.
6: The cathode and anode are used to drive a transforming system that then powers the grid.
Questions:
1: Where is the anode (step 5)? Is this perhaps an outer shell?
Initial thoughts.
1: Won't the vast majority of electrons get re-absorbed by the cathode (any emissions not from the outermost part of the gel or not emitted in the right direction), such that the major ultimate power output of the decay process is thermal.
2: Won't the electrons that do get emitted lose their energy (thermal loss) ploughing through the liquid nitrogen?
3: Any electrons that do strike the anode will still have some kinetic energy which will again be converted to thermal.
4: You have to have enough separation, or low enough voltage, to prevent a short back through your liquid nitrogen.
To me it seems this would produce thermal energy many orders of magnitude higher than direct electrical energy.
However, some version of this electron capture idea might be viable in another form (perhaps create heaps of C14 then reprocess it as ultra-thin shaped sheets with magnetic fields to attempt to focus the emissions with little excess kinetic energy).
Once again, IANANS.
You agree with me.
And what's wrong with letting the free market do the R&D?
The free market is preoccupied with next quarter's returns. There is no next quarter return with basic scientific research. Or next year. Or next 5 years.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
I find in unconscionable that we are doing this with a deficit as large as ours. Exploring such things when you're in the black is one thing; there will be no return on these funds.
On the contrary, exploring alternatives to the status quo that put us in the Red is exactly the right approach to finding solutions to strip ourselves of the last century's oligopolies.
using intellectual as a sneer
Typical of the Teabagger know-nothing contingent.
GP wasn't using intellectual as a sneer, he was using "intellectual" as sneer. The quotes imply a false self aggrandizement that "intellectuals" do, but intellectuals do not.
You have unfortunately totally underestimated the lack of effectiveness of a fusor. Sure you can detect neutrons from them, thats because the type of instruments used count single neutrons. While 14 grams of Nitrogen contains 6x10^23 atoms. The best fusors get about 10^10 neutrons per second (most get much much less), this will take 1.9 million years to produce enough neutrons to transmutate just 14grams of nitrogen. I don't recall the reaction, but I don't thing 14N does transmutate to 14C with the addition of a neutron. The numbers don't add up.
Lets see what it will take to get a strong enough neutron source. Lets say we want that 14g of 13C in 1 week. So we need 992x10^15 neutrons per second. At 2.45MeV (DD neutrons) per neutron that is 389kW of power in the neutrons alone. The total power burn of DD would be about twice that --In other words you need the order of 1MW of fusion power (DT would need less total power, but more would be in the neutrons).
If you want to transmute any significant quantity of something from a neutron source, its also a power source in its own right.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
- Hydroelectric is renewable, and fairly clean, assuming proper planning and site preparation is done.
All correct except this. Hydro is neither renewable (dams fill in over time) nor clean (it's a gigantic mess, ecologically) and nobody should be building dams of any size. Fish ladders don't work. The bigger the dam project, the bigger the fail.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'll celebrate intellect. When it shows up.
You're the kind of idiot who "Must have money because they haven't taken my credit card away".
I'll repeat it using smaller words for you.We need to continue to fund the half funded projects we already have rather than let them languish while we try your boyfriends new "tech du jour". If we improve and expand what we have quickly enough with technologies already under construction, then there is no need to take two steps back and wait longer for Repubmocrat boy to bureaucratize more technology into existence.
He is only doing and saying these things because he knows you are no smarter than a child who believes everything he is told.
Give up some pennies for the Wind farms, Solar tech and Gosh!, even battery technology needs to come first before 10,000 other bright ideas or none of them do any fucking good. Try thinking shit through a bit more or go ask your dad before criticizing me.
Microcephalic Buttsucker.
Go be the pivot boy at the Repubmocrat circle jerk.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
what market, you would be taking an idea to a monoploy who has no interest
this is not tivo your talking about, its a major utility
Dunno about name jokes, but often enough Jon Stewart mocks Obama, and Ive never heard him being accused of being a Republican.
Ignorant of what? And no, economics was not taught at my high school, I know practically nothing about it other than the random incoherent soundbites that I pick up at places like this. Apparently the free market isn't preoccupied by next quarter's returns, as evidenced by the histrionic overreactions provoked by me asserting that it was.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
The markets must be forward looking, or 30 year bonds would not sell.
That's a far more civil conversation.
Thankyou for pointing out an obvious hole in my understanding. I'm glad to have learned some basic economics.
I'm not an idiot, and I'm sure in real life you aren't so aggressive and rude.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
You're right. That was mean. I apologize.
No private insurance company is willing to take on the potential liability of a nuclear plant without government guarantees to back them up.
Seems like post Fukushima many governments are willing to take on the potential liability of a nuclear plant either.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
It's not like we aren't trying to develop new designs, it is just that so far no-one has come up with a workable one that is better than what we have. Despite the basic technology being 40 years old it has the advantage of being well tested and well understood, and therefore safe. Any time you introduce something new you have to prove that it is safe to operate, which for nuclear takes a long time and a lot of money. Even then things go wrong, fly-by-wire systems in passenger aircraft being a good example.
According to Wikipedia there is research going on into Thorium and existing CANDU reactors can use it. The bottom line though is that it won't make commercial sense until government funding provides the necessary research to make it cheap. In the mean time the focus is shifting to renewables like solar thermal collectors which are inherently safe and an easy sell to both governments and the public.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Tell me, what for-profit company was in charge of the deadliest commercial nuclear power plant, ever?
Oh yeah, it wasn't a company, it was a government.
"Don't forget that the UK is part of the EU and we already buy a lot of energy from other countries"
Yes, France, which means nuclear.
"I don't know why people are so down on this. "
The tech does look interesting. That's why I wouldn't like to see it get derailed in court by environmentalists.
Ever heard of the laser printer?
It's mainly because of the GUI and such that PARC is thought of as some pure research organization. But even with the Alto Xerox tried to commercialize, in the form of the Xerox Star. They just failed.
A few times a month I hear of the esoteric stuff coming out of IBM -- stuff that won't hit the shelves for another decade, if at all.
Like I said, plenty of private research being done.
IBM has been working on that, with carbon IIRC.
Private research is alive and well.
The claim was that NO long-term or theoretical research comes out of private funding. That is simply not true.
Along with the need for the fish ladders is the problem of the vegetation that gets submerged by the lake formed by the dam. As the vegetation decomposes, it causes problems with the water in the lake killing many forms of life in the lake.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Your grammar on that sentence was terrible. I believe you are trying to say that not many governments are willing to, but that is not what you said. Yes, some governments who don't have to worry about tsunamis and huge earthquakes got scared and decided to move away from nuclear. At the time it mostly sounded like politicians pandering for votes more than any actual good reason. Many governments have said that they are not stopping using nuclear, and they are right to say it.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Or perhaps Clinton canceled the funding and Bush Jr. brought it back? But of course, the US government is a megalithic being that always acts on things the same way throughout many presidencies.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Jon Stewart tends to do it in ways that are critical of what Obama is doing rather than simple, unrelated non sequiturs. Republicans just go right for the insults without saying really why. It's not because they're republican, but rather, they're republican and he's a democrat and is simply insulted by most republicans of it rather than because of his policies. If it were 2004, it'd be the same thing in reverse, although maybe a bit more colorful and, in my opinion, more justified... but that's less party politics and more what Bush himself did.
It's politics - especially American politics; one side uses dumb insults for the opposite side regardless on what they're doings imply because hey aren't wearing the same color. The same side tends to be a bit more constructive in their criticism for their own, although there seems to be a LOT more fragmentation among the Republicans than the Democrats these days... not to say there haven't been plenty of Democrats throwing Obama under the bus, but it seems MUCH worse on the other side as far as keeping their shit together.
For the record, if it must be said, I am no fan of Obama. I think it's ineffective as a president. I don't think he's anymore a liar than the next politician. I believe he's been overwhelmed by the reality of the situation in Washington and has been forced to compromised because, as witnessed, his colleagues are willing to act like children just for the sheer fact they don't like the side of the aisle he's on... but that shouldn't come as a surprise to him. So much for willing to kick some asses, Obama=(
It's not really a rag on republicans, though (I don't really side with a party. I side with whoever I think would do the best job at the time.) It's more of an acknowledgment of 'if someone is making a dumb insult, it's probably the guy wearing the different colors.' That's how a good chunk of Americans treat politics - like it's football... and with even less respect for the other side sometimes.
Nobody cares what the CAPTCHA for your post was.