Followed a breadcrumb from one of the news sites on the "Red Mercury" being mentioned in alchemical texts.
Yep, it is right on target as a reference to the paint pigment "vermilion". When used in traditional carved laquerware from China; it is known as "cinnabar". Red Mercury is mercury sulfide, one of the easiest ores to get elemental mercury from.
Whomever started the disinformation campaign on the properties of "Red Mercury" should be commended. Good gag there.
Nope, not even close. It became the default OS because Bill Gates sold a bill of goods to IBM who had effed up creating an OS for their first desktop. Gates bought QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) then repackaged it as PC-DOS 1.0. And the standard of mediocrity was given a firm foundation. The Windows GUI took until version 3.1 to actually be operable. They actually got things right with the GUI with Windows XP then started effing it up. The current Win10 GUI is horrendously horrid yet better than Win8. Who wants barely legible pastel on pastel as a default.. nuts. And the whole concept of APPS instead of Application Programs seems to mean marginally readable brain damaged interface with no indication where the settings menu is to get things set to readable or usable.
Actually, driving a car with a helmet on is often against state laws as it restricts peripheral vision and restricts the ability to hear emergency vehicles.
Yes, the same helmet that is mandatory on a motorcycle is unlawful in a car... go figure.
I've never heard of a law against driving with a covered face. Laws against refusing to show your face for proper identification to authorities, yes. But, never heard of a law against driving with face covered.
I'm looking at my national ID card right now. It is called a passport. The only national ID card available to the general population.
It isn't a mandatory ID card but it trumps any other form of ID. But, presenting a passport or passport card when asked for ID rather flummoxes clerks in stores.
If Canadians actually asked to table the permit; they were asking for immediate resolution of the issue. That is one of the mental speed bumps I ran into my first project in Canada. In Canada and the UK, to "table" an issue is to bring it out on the table for immediate consideration. In the U.S. when you "table" and issue; you leave it sitting on the table for later consideration.
One of those pesky mental speed bumps I had to become accustomed to working on both sides of the border. Mental speed bumps; things like milk coming in a plastic bag and going to the tire store for kitchen utensils. (Canadian Tire Stores kinda rock, actually)
A couple actual facts, and yes, to begin, this has nothing to do with the environment. Over the past few years US crude productions has risen sharply and imports have fallen dramatically. This has caused the price of crude to fall to level where exploration cannot be supported. All the oil companies are cutting back on exploration, some are exiting all together selling their leases. Politics, for instance, had nothing to do with shell pulling out of the arctic. It was that the arctic is still very expensive, and at $40 a barrel, no one is making money.
Second, the pipeline is a conservative nightmare on many levels. Primarily it requires the US federal governement to take land from US citizens and give it to a foreign corporations. Many citizen land owners in Texas and other very conservative states have sued for their right to keep their land and not have it annexed to a foreign country, but the conservative courts have said that the landowners do not have the right.
Finally there is the simple matter of production. The US has enough crude to refine. The pipeline made some sense when oil was high as there was going to be money to be made so investing in infrastructure made sense. Now, again, with crude at 40, there is no money to be made. However there is money to be lost. Oil refining has a lot of external costs in terms of health care costs, falling property values around the refinery, and yes, environmental destruction. The Canadians know this which is why they are outsourcing refining to their hick neighbors to the south instead of building infrastructure themselves and reaping the rewards of the alleged profit that comes with it.
Transit rights for a pipeline only impact the use of the property by the owners for the time it takes to build a pipeline. It isn't like running rail through where the property is taken away.
The issue, as I've seen it working in Canada, is shipping outlets to a warm water port. It doesn't help to have a refinery nearer the source if you don't have a way to get the product to market for a chunk of the year.
What the U.S. companies get out of the deal is partial funding for extending a pipeline which will make it easier to move Permian Basin oil to market, and transport fees for getting Canadian oil and bitumen to market. That sounds like a win-win to me.
All the fed has to do is issue the equivalent of a building permit for interstate development of a pipeline. Blocking the pipeline because it doesn't create more long term jobs sounds like an excuse for thumbing the nose at oil companies. Face it, highway construction, building construction, or any other capitol project doesn't create a lot of long term jobs either.
What about the concerns that a for profit, foreign company was proposing to use eminent domain to acquire the pipeline right-of-way? I don't think that got the press it deserved and was not a precedent we wanted to set as a country.
A foreign company cannot use eminent domain. The local government would be the one using eminent domain if a key location for pipeline transit was being blocked. Negotiation of transit rights is what would be done with most landowners.
Now, in some states; the state reserves the mineral rights and subsurface development would come under eminent domain as the state exercising its mineral rights for subsurface development. What happens with a pipeline is inability to use a property for a period of time, for which the landowner is compensated, then the surface restored to same or better condition than when it was disturbed for the pipeline. It isn't like a railroad where they take over all use of the property when they put tracks through. More like compensation for transit rights as is done with long distance electrical lines.
So what you're saying is absolutely no subsidies are being used? That state and local governments will not reduce their property taxes to get the pipeline made?
Subsidies are not tax money going out. Subsidies are a relief from taxes used to encourage businesses to locate in a certain area. If any are involved; those are only at the local level because a municipality WANTS the pipeline to come through their town.. All the U.S. Government was asked to do was issue an interstate building permit. The companies putting in the pipeline are responsible for negotiation transit rights with the property owners where they want to install.
Hey, if your fields will be unusable for a season while the pipeline comes through; why not hit them up for double or triple what you would make from a year's crop and take a vacation while they work?
Who benefits most from the pipeline? TransCanada. All the pipeline does is make is easier and cheaper to ship oil from the tar sands. There will be some jobs to build the pipeline but after that only a handful to maintain it. The problem is the US will spends billions to build it. Will it increase refinery capacity? No. Will it make it easier to extract oil from the tar sands? No. Do US refineries benefit from getting more oil? No as most of the oil will be simply shipped out of the Gulf of Mexico to Europe. So the only purpose of the pipeline was so that TransCanada saves money on shipping at the expense of the US.
Then there is the possible environmental problems. Pipelines leak. If there is an incident with a train or truck, the impact is much less than a pipeline spilling millions of gallons of oil somewhere in the US when it is used.
Then there is the economic aspect of extracting oil from the tar sands. At the current gas prices, it's not economical to get oil from the tar sands. So when gas prices are low, the pipeline won't even be used. So the US is paying for a half-used pipeline.
So the US pays a lot of money so that TransCanada saves money on shipping. When it is in use, there is a greater chance of environmental impact. When it is not being used, the US paid a lot of money so TransCanada didn't save money. There was no real economic advantage to it at all.
If TransCanada wants to build the pipeline with 100% of their own money, they can do it. Don't do it with US taxpayer money.
Umm, no public funds involved at all. U.S. partners in Keystone are looking to make up their part of the costs in usage fees for transport through the pipeline, It was to be a joint U,S, Oil Company - Canadian Oil Company proposition. What does Canada get? Cheaper shipping costs and being able to ship all year and not having to stockpile product when winter weather affects shipping.
The way I see it; the U.S. administration refused a building permit because the administration's supporters didn't get enough graft on the deal. The pipeline would impact the railroad workers union and the teamsters union currently hauling oil and bitumen through neighborhoods and farms instead of sealed in a pipeline.
Roads don't create many jobs after they're built either. Ergo, by your logic, we shouldn't build roads.
Oh, and there are 40,000 miles of oil and gas pipe crossing the Ogallala aquifer already.
Here's what WILL happen. Not a single fewer barrel of oil will be produced, or consumed. America will import oil from unfriendly countries on the other side of the world, Canada will export oil to countries on the other side of the world.
Good job!
And Canada quit waiting for the administration to quit dithering several years ago. A pipeline is being built to take Canadian Crude to Vancouver, BC. That is a longer route and much more expensive as it will have to cross the continental divide. Keystone is much more sensible and safer plan (from a construction paradigm) but that has been blocked by liberal greed.
On a project last year, I had an engineer in the next hotel room from me that was working crews on the Canadian pipeline. We talked a great deal about Keystone and what was the American malfunction in taking years to make up its mind. I hadn't heard of Keystone before then except in a mention of crews waiting on hold in Kansas for permission to start work. (local paper when on a project in Kansas. Local pipeline workers were afraid to take other less lucrative short term jobs for fear of losing out on a multi year job.)
The issue it seems is that the Canadian oil fields can produce more oil than can be transported. In the winter; shipping on the St. Laurence drops to a crawl. Rail and truck are prohibitively expensive to get their oil to a warm water port. So, they need a pipeline to be able to get their oil to a warm water port.
It could have been Houston with U.S. companies getting a piece of the pie but it will now be Vancouver as the destination.... U.S. Citizen working in Canada. Not on an oil related project but hearing both sides of the Keystone argument.
I would rather we spent the money on useful construction jobs, like repairing our failing bridges (http://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2015/06/04/how-a-decaying-infrastructure-hurts-u-s-manufacturing/).
You do realize that Keystone is a private venture taking nothing out of public money tax coffers while bridge repair is totally funded by tax dollars? No relationship there. Our congressmen need to be slapped a bit for funding pie in the sky projects while our infrastructure that keeps everything going is left to rot. But, still, there is no fiscal relationship between a private construction venture and a public works project.
Do you expect your local government to pony up money so you can renovate your house?
The Keystone pipeline already goes from Canada to Oklahoma. What was proposed was to extend the pipeline from the current terminus in Oklahoma to ports in Texas. This would give Canadian oil a year round market for their crude to international markets. The U.S. companies would get transportation fees for the Canadian Crude going to market. There is no public money involved in this construction. For seven years the administration dithered on what is basically approving a building permit. Now they give a resounding "f**k you" to Canadian oil because it doesn't create enough jobs for the U.S. and doesn't make a contribution to strategic oil reserves. As to lowering gas prices; not really a factor unless we get another shut down of access to middle eastern oil.
As to the aquifer; the aquifer is much lower in the ground than a pipeline is run. A properly installed and maintained pipeline is of less risk than trains or highways for transporting hazardous material. An uninformed NIMBY faction always complains about any construction, regardless of the benefits to them or their neighbors. The studies were done, repeatedly with the executive dither, and show little to no risk.
Or, could it be oil executives tend to be GOP and the rail worker's union is DEM. Yep, it didn't include graft for the right people in the plan. I have to wonder if we still had a cabinet position for a Department of Commerce we might have had a voice of sanity in the greed fest.
Well, water isn't an individual right. If you purchase property; it may or may not include water rights. Water is something we all pay for. It may be paid via taxes for municipal water treatment and distribution or by the individual by paying to have a well and pumping system installed.
Every time I see bottled water I'm reminded of something I remember from a 9th grade civics book.
"Two earmarks of a third world failed economy are when over 80% of the capital is controlled by less than 10% of the population and the public confidence in the infrastructure is so low that bottled water is actually or perceived as necessary." - Hello 3rd World America
Actually, nuclear generating stations end up being the second cheapest. Hydroelectric is cheapest. Solar, at the current state of the art, never generates as much power as it takes to manufacture the solar cells. Wind farms are only intermittent sources for the great majority of the country and have their own high maintenance cost compared to megawatts delivered to contend with.
What is criminal is that the U.S. doesn't recycle nuclear fuel. That was required by law under the Atomic Energy Act of 1972 but Uncle Sugar has yet to deliver on MOX fuel. And that is proven technology in use in Germany, France, and soon in China.
"CO2 is fungible. If I burn one tree's worth of coal, I've changed the amount in the active carbon cycle by exactly the same amount as if I burned the tree instead. The only way this isn't true is if the tree was going to burn anyway."
Actually, not even close.
The issue is changing the total carbon loading in the planet's atmosphere. Burning a tree is just rotating through the current chemical cycle. Burning coal returns to the atmosphere carbon that was bound up and taken out of the cycle during previous epochs. This shifts the equilibrium reactions that constitute our atmosphere. If you add more of one ingredient to an equilibrium reaction; the whole reaction oscillates until it stabilizes at a new equilibrium. Assuming you don't continue to stress the reaction. Adding more stressors to an equilibrium gets the equilibrium oscillating more.
The theory behind carbon loading of the atmosphere changing the global mean temperature has been around long enough that it appears on a sophmore physics exam back in 1976. By 2000; the shift was large enough to be a measurable increase in median ocean temperature.
The Raspberry Pi option would become viable if it could be sold to your local Jaycee chapter as a study in manufacturing for a Jr. Jaycee project.
Assembly of raspberry pi units and loading a viable OS with Open Office and selling as a low cost word processing, spreadsheet, email machine would be a great study in manufacturing and sales. And, provide a cheap source for a basic use computing machine for your students.
What I heard in the original post was a need for submitting work in an electronic format and the ability to pull information off the world wide web. Free wifi at libraries and at school could fill that niche. I'm thinking of the gaggle of middle school students at my local coffee shop working on homework and annoying the adults with the giggling.
I'm going the other direction. I'm from the U.S. but frequently work contracts in Canada.
Consider getting a dual sim phone. (Yeah, the providers really don't want to mention you can have two phone numbers and two providers in one phone) One SIM is AT&T for the U.S. and the other in my phone is Virgin Mobile for Canada.
AT&T and Verizon have the greatest footprint for coverage in the U.S. T-Mobile and Sprint have better plans but rarely have signal except in urban areas or along major highways. You know where you are going and can decide if coverage is a bigger issue than cost.
I chose Virgin Mobile in Canada as they piggy back on Bell Canada that has the most extensive coverage. (Yeah, I often work out in the boondocks) You can do the same in the U.S. by picking an economy carrier that piggy backs on either Verizon or AT&T.
Link to an article at PC-World on economy carriers in the U.S. and they let you know which major network they piggy back on. http://www.pcworld.com/article/2878298/10-alternative-carriers-that-can-save-you-serious-cash-on-your-smartphone-bill.html
I use a dual SIM phone made by BLU (Bold Like Us). http://www.bluproducts.com/ They are only sold direct and not by any of the carriers. Dual SIM BLU phone with 5000mAh battery can be found on Amazon or eBay.
And the evolution of the game... first there was Wolfenstein. The first megabit download size game. In the days of 1200 bit modems; it was an overnight download. You got the play the first three levels for free. This proved the concept an a gigantic beta platform for development of the game engine. This was one of the first 3D game engines as opposed to the majority of the games out there that were 2d scrolling games. (Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, etc)
Heretic followed closely after Wolfenstein (The original, not "Shadow of the Serpent Riders". The one released on disc added more levels and cleaned up the graphics a bit) again with shareware distribution. The reason I bought that title was how impressed I was with the Wolfenstein engine that Id software had developed. I remember how I stayed up all night after finding that making it to the very last encounter of Heretic didn''t end the story but provided a code to download the first three levels of their new game in development, Doom!.
Yep, a group of spotty nerds from Texas totally raised the bar on what people expect from games. And that spelled the demise of the easy to program side scroll games that were the forte of dedicated gaming packages at the time.
Meh, bovine gastric gases are part of the natural cycle and would make no impact on the carbon dioxide loading in the atmosphere.
Returning fossil carbon to the atmosphere changes the balance back to what it was eons ago. It makes the atmosphere more insulating so the mean temperature goes up. But, before it settles out to a new equilibrium; there will be wild cycling effects on the weather while things try to achieve a new balance point.
Things that have no effect at all on global warming. Burning wood Making paper Cow farts Burning bio-diesel
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Followed a breadcrumb from one of the news sites on the "Red Mercury" being mentioned in alchemical texts.
Yep, it is right on target as a reference to the paint pigment "vermilion". When used in traditional carved laquerware from China; it is known as "cinnabar". Red Mercury is mercury sulfide, one of the easiest ores to get elemental mercury from.
Whomever started the disinformation campaign on the properties of "Red Mercury" should be commended. Good gag there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinnabar
Nope, not even close. It became the default OS because Bill Gates sold a bill of goods to IBM who had effed up creating an OS for their first desktop.
Gates bought QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) then repackaged it as PC-DOS 1.0. And the standard of mediocrity was given a firm foundation.
The Windows GUI took until version 3.1 to actually be operable.
They actually got things right with the GUI with Windows XP then started effing it up.
The current Win10 GUI is horrendously horrid yet better than Win8. Who wants barely legible pastel on pastel as a default.. nuts. And the whole concept of APPS instead of Application Programs seems to mean marginally readable brain damaged interface with no indication where the settings menu is to get things set to readable or usable.
Is dressing like a pirate considered formal, semi-formal, or casual attire in the CoFSM?
Now, let's see if I can wear my cutlass for my next DMV photo!
The difference in a cult and a religion is linked to sufficient funds to buy enough politicians to get declared a religion.
(tongue firmly in cheek)
Actually, driving a car with a helmet on is often against state laws as it restricts peripheral vision and restricts the ability to hear emergency vehicles.
Yes, the same helmet that is mandatory on a motorcycle is unlawful in a car... go figure.
I've never heard of a law against driving with a covered face. Laws against refusing to show your face for proper identification to authorities, yes. But, never heard of a law against driving with face covered.
I'm looking at my national ID card right now. It is called a passport. The only national ID card available to the general population.
It isn't a mandatory ID card but it trumps any other form of ID. But, presenting a passport or passport card when asked for ID rather flummoxes clerks in stores.
If Canadians actually asked to table the permit; they were asking for immediate resolution of the issue. That is one of the mental speed bumps I ran into my first project in Canada. In Canada and the UK, to "table" an issue is to bring it out on the table for immediate consideration. In the U.S. when you "table" and issue; you leave it sitting on the table for later consideration.
One of those pesky mental speed bumps I had to become accustomed to working on both sides of the border. Mental speed bumps; things like milk coming in a plastic bag and going to the tire store for kitchen utensils. (Canadian Tire Stores kinda rock, actually)
A couple actual facts, and yes, to begin, this has nothing to do with the environment. Over the past few years US crude productions has risen sharply and imports have fallen dramatically. This has caused the price of crude to fall to level where exploration cannot be supported. All the oil companies are cutting back on exploration, some are exiting all together selling their leases. Politics, for instance, had nothing to do with shell pulling out of the arctic. It was that the arctic is still very expensive, and at $40 a barrel, no one is making money.
Second, the pipeline is a conservative nightmare on many levels. Primarily it requires the US federal governement to take land from US citizens and give it to a foreign corporations. Many citizen land owners in Texas and other very conservative states have sued for their right to keep their land and not have it annexed to a foreign country, but the conservative courts have said that the landowners do not have the right.
Finally there is the simple matter of production. The US has enough crude to refine. The pipeline made some sense when oil was high as there was going to be money to be made so investing in infrastructure made sense. Now, again, with crude at 40, there is no money to be made. However there is money to be lost. Oil refining has a lot of external costs in terms of health care costs, falling property values around the refinery, and yes, environmental destruction. The Canadians know this which is why they are outsourcing refining to their hick neighbors to the south instead of building infrastructure themselves and reaping the rewards of the alleged profit that comes with it.
Transit rights for a pipeline only impact the use of the property by the owners for the time it takes to build a pipeline. It isn't like running rail through where the property is taken away.
The issue, as I've seen it working in Canada, is shipping outlets to a warm water port. It doesn't help to have a refinery nearer the source if you don't have a way to get the product to market for a chunk of the year.
What the U.S. companies get out of the deal is partial funding for extending a pipeline which will make it easier to move Permian Basin oil to market, and transport fees for getting Canadian oil and bitumen to market. That sounds like a win-win to me.
All the fed has to do is issue the equivalent of a building permit for interstate development of a pipeline. Blocking the pipeline because it doesn't create more long term jobs sounds like an excuse for thumbing the nose at oil companies. Face it, highway construction, building construction, or any other capitol project doesn't create a lot of long term jobs either.
What about the concerns that a for profit, foreign company was proposing to use eminent domain to acquire the pipeline right-of-way? I don't think that got the press it deserved and was not a precedent we wanted to set as a country.
A foreign company cannot use eminent domain. The local government would be the one using eminent domain if a key location for pipeline transit was being blocked. Negotiation of transit rights is what would be done with most landowners.
Now, in some states; the state reserves the mineral rights and subsurface development would come under eminent domain as the state exercising its mineral rights for subsurface development. What happens with a pipeline is inability to use a property for a period of time, for which the landowner is compensated, then the surface restored to same or better condition than when it was disturbed for the pipeline. It isn't like a railroad where they take over all use of the property when they put tracks through. More like compensation for transit rights as is done with long distance electrical lines.
So what you're saying is absolutely no subsidies are being used? That state and local governments will not reduce their property taxes to get the pipeline made?
Subsidies are not tax money going out. Subsidies are a relief from taxes used to encourage businesses to locate in a certain area. If any are involved; those are only at the local level because a municipality WANTS the pipeline to come through their town.. All the U.S. Government was asked to do was issue an interstate building permit. The companies putting in the pipeline are responsible for negotiation transit rights with the property owners where they want to install.
Hey, if your fields will be unusable for a season while the pipeline comes through; why not hit them up for double or triple what you would make from a year's crop and take a vacation while they work?
Who benefits most from the pipeline? TransCanada. All the pipeline does is make is easier and cheaper to ship oil from the tar sands. There will be some jobs to build the pipeline but after that only a handful to maintain it. The problem is the US will spends billions to build it. Will it increase refinery capacity? No. Will it make it easier to extract oil from the tar sands? No. Do US refineries benefit from getting more oil? No as most of the oil will be simply shipped out of the Gulf of Mexico to Europe. So the only purpose of the pipeline was so that TransCanada saves money on shipping at the expense of the US.
Then there is the possible environmental problems. Pipelines leak. If there is an incident with a train or truck, the impact is much less than a pipeline spilling millions of gallons of oil somewhere in the US when it is used.
Then there is the economic aspect of extracting oil from the tar sands. At the current gas prices, it's not economical to get oil from the tar sands. So when gas prices are low, the pipeline won't even be used. So the US is paying for a half-used pipeline.
So the US pays a lot of money so that TransCanada saves money on shipping. When it is in use, there is a greater chance of environmental impact. When it is not being used, the US paid a lot of money so TransCanada didn't save money. There was no real economic advantage to it at all.
If TransCanada wants to build the pipeline with 100% of their own money, they can do it. Don't do it with US taxpayer money.
Umm, no public funds involved at all. U.S. partners in Keystone are looking to make up their part of the costs in usage fees for transport through the pipeline, It was to be a joint U,S, Oil Company - Canadian Oil Company proposition. What does Canada get? Cheaper shipping costs and being able to ship all year and not having to stockpile product when winter weather affects shipping.
The way I see it; the U.S. administration refused a building permit because the administration's supporters didn't get enough graft on the deal. The pipeline would impact the railroad workers union and the teamsters union currently hauling oil and bitumen through neighborhoods and farms instead of sealed in a pipeline.
Stupid name. Keystone. Like the cops. Shuda called it Patriot Pipe.
What got shut down was Keystone XL. The Keystone pipeline already runs from Canada to Oklahoma.
And keystone, as in the top stone of an arch that holds everything together, is a quite good name.
Roads don't create many jobs after they're built either. Ergo, by your logic, we shouldn't build roads.
Oh, and there are 40,000 miles of oil and gas pipe crossing the Ogallala aquifer already.
Here's what WILL happen. Not a single fewer barrel of oil will be produced, or consumed. America will import oil from unfriendly countries on the other side of the world, Canada will export oil to countries on the other side of the world.
Good job!
And Canada quit waiting for the administration to quit dithering several years ago. A pipeline is being built to take Canadian Crude to Vancouver, BC. That is a longer route and much more expensive as it will have to cross the continental divide. Keystone is much more sensible and safer plan (from a construction paradigm) but that has been blocked by liberal greed.
On a project last year, I had an engineer in the next hotel room from me that was working crews on the Canadian pipeline. We talked a great deal about Keystone and what was the American malfunction in taking years to make up its mind. I hadn't heard of Keystone before then except in a mention of crews waiting on hold in Kansas for permission to start work. (local paper when on a project in Kansas. Local pipeline workers were afraid to take other less lucrative short term jobs for fear of losing out on a multi year job.) ... U.S. Citizen working in Canada. Not on an oil related project but hearing both sides of the Keystone argument.
The issue it seems is that the Canadian oil fields can produce more oil than can be transported. In the winter; shipping on the St. Laurence drops to a crawl. Rail and truck are prohibitively expensive to get their oil to a warm water port. So, they need a pipeline to be able to get their oil to a warm water port.
It could have been Houston with U.S. companies getting a piece of the pie but it will now be Vancouver as the destination.
I would rather we spent the money on useful construction jobs, like repairing our failing bridges (http://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2015/06/04/how-a-decaying-infrastructure-hurts-u-s-manufacturing/).
You do realize that Keystone is a private venture taking nothing out of public money tax coffers while bridge repair is totally funded by tax dollars? No relationship there. Our congressmen need to be slapped a bit for funding pie in the sky projects while our infrastructure that keeps everything going is left to rot. But, still, there is no fiscal relationship between a private construction venture and a public works project.
Do you expect your local government to pony up money so you can renovate your house?
The Keystone pipeline already goes from Canada to Oklahoma. What was proposed was to extend the pipeline from the current terminus in Oklahoma to ports in Texas. This would give Canadian oil a year round market for their crude to international markets. The U.S. companies would get transportation fees for the Canadian Crude going to market. There is no public money involved in this construction. For seven years the administration dithered on what is basically approving a building permit. Now they give a resounding "f**k you" to Canadian oil because it doesn't create enough jobs for the U.S. and doesn't make a contribution to strategic oil reserves. As to lowering gas prices; not really a factor unless we get another shut down of access to middle eastern oil.
As to the aquifer; the aquifer is much lower in the ground than a pipeline is run. A properly installed and maintained pipeline is of less risk than trains or highways for transporting hazardous material. An uninformed NIMBY faction always complains about any construction, regardless of the benefits to them or their neighbors. The studies were done, repeatedly with the executive dither, and show little to no risk.
Or, could it be oil executives tend to be GOP and the rail worker's union is DEM. Yep, it didn't include graft for the right people in the plan. I have to wonder if we still had a cabinet position for a Department of Commerce we might have had a voice of sanity in the greed fest.
I just don't care for terminally stupid as humor.
Well, water isn't an individual right. If you purchase property; it may or may not include water rights. Water is something we all pay for. It may be paid via taxes for municipal water treatment and distribution or by the individual by paying to have a well and pumping system installed.
Every time I see bottled water I'm reminded of something I remember from a 9th grade civics book.
"Two earmarks of a third world failed economy are when over 80% of the capital is controlled by less than 10% of the population and the public confidence in the infrastructure is so low that bottled water is actually or perceived as necessary." - Hello 3rd World America
Amen. So many people don't realize the U.S. never got 4G. The best the U.S. got was 3g+ which they renamed 4GLTE for 4G light.
I guess they want to call real 4G by the 5G name to make people think they can get the same speed service as Europe.
Actually, nuclear generating stations end up being the second cheapest. Hydroelectric is cheapest.
Solar, at the current state of the art, never generates as much power as it takes to manufacture the solar cells.
Wind farms are only intermittent sources for the great majority of the country and have their own high maintenance cost compared to megawatts delivered to contend with.
What is criminal is that the U.S. doesn't recycle nuclear fuel. That was required by law under the Atomic Energy Act of 1972 but Uncle Sugar has yet to deliver on MOX fuel. And that is proven technology in use in Germany, France, and soon in China.
"CO2 is fungible. If I burn one tree's worth of coal, I've changed the amount in the active carbon cycle by exactly the same amount as if I burned the tree instead. The only way this isn't true is if the tree was going to burn anyway."
Actually, not even close.
The issue is changing the total carbon loading in the planet's atmosphere. Burning a tree is just rotating through the current chemical cycle. Burning coal returns to the atmosphere carbon that was bound up and taken out of the cycle during previous epochs. This shifts the equilibrium reactions that constitute our atmosphere. If you add more of one ingredient to an equilibrium reaction; the whole reaction oscillates until it stabilizes at a new equilibrium. Assuming you don't continue to stress the reaction. Adding more stressors to an equilibrium gets the equilibrium oscillating more.
The theory behind carbon loading of the atmosphere changing the global mean temperature has been around long enough that it appears on a sophmore physics exam back in 1976. By 2000; the shift was large enough to be a measurable increase in median ocean temperature.
The Raspberry Pi option would become viable if it could be sold to your local Jaycee chapter as a study in manufacturing for a Jr. Jaycee project.
Assembly of raspberry pi units and loading a viable OS with Open Office and selling as a low cost word processing, spreadsheet, email machine would be a great study in manufacturing and sales. And, provide a cheap source for a basic use computing machine for your students.
What I heard in the original post was a need for submitting work in an electronic format and the ability to pull information off the world wide web. Free wifi at libraries and at school could fill that niche. I'm thinking of the gaggle of middle school students at my local coffee shop working on homework and annoying the adults with the giggling.
I'm going the other direction. I'm from the U.S. but frequently work contracts in Canada.
Consider getting a dual sim phone. (Yeah, the providers really don't want to mention you can have two phone numbers and two providers in one phone) One SIM is AT&T for the U.S. and the other in my phone is Virgin Mobile for Canada.
AT&T and Verizon have the greatest footprint for coverage in the U.S. T-Mobile and Sprint have better plans but rarely have signal except in urban areas or along major highways. You know where you are going and can decide if coverage is a bigger issue than cost.
I chose Virgin Mobile in Canada as they piggy back on Bell Canada that has the most extensive coverage. (Yeah, I often work out in the boondocks) You can do the same in the U.S. by picking an economy carrier that piggy backs on either Verizon or AT&T.
Link to an article at PC-World on economy carriers in the U.S. and they let you know which major network they piggy back on.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2878298/10-alternative-carriers-that-can-save-you-serious-cash-on-your-smartphone-bill.html
I use a dual SIM phone made by BLU (Bold Like Us). http://www.bluproducts.com/ They are only sold direct and not by any of the carriers. Dual SIM BLU phone with 5000mAh battery can be found on Amazon or eBay.
And the evolution of the game... first there was Wolfenstein. The first megabit download size game. In the days of 1200 bit modems; it was an overnight download. You got the play the first three levels for free. This proved the concept an a gigantic beta platform for development of the game engine. This was one of the first 3D game engines as opposed to the majority of the games out there that were 2d scrolling games. (Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, etc)
Heretic followed closely after Wolfenstein (The original, not "Shadow of the Serpent Riders". The one released on disc added more levels and cleaned up the graphics a bit) again with shareware distribution. The reason I bought that title was how impressed I was with the Wolfenstein engine that Id software had developed. I remember how I stayed up all night after finding that making it to the very last encounter of Heretic didn''t end the story but provided a code to download the first three levels of their new game in development, Doom!.
Yep, a group of spotty nerds from Texas totally raised the bar on what people expect from games. And that spelled the demise of the easy to program side scroll games that were the forte of dedicated gaming packages at the time.
Meh, bovine gastric gases are part of the natural cycle and would make no impact on the carbon dioxide loading in the atmosphere.
Returning fossil carbon to the atmosphere changes the balance back to what it was eons ago. It makes the atmosphere more insulating so the mean temperature goes up. But, before it settles out to a new equilibrium; there will be wild cycling effects on the weather while things try to achieve a new balance point.
Things that have no effect at all on global warming.
Burning wood
Making paper
Cow farts
Burning bio-diesel