Schindler's latest series of long-term experiments shows that nitrogen removal completely fails to control blue-green algae blooms. He proved this by manipulating nitrogen and phosphorus levels on Lake 227 for 37 years. Nitrogen control, he found, only encouraged algae blooms.
This sounds like a great idea if it works, but surely producing concrete is a far from 'green' process. I wonder how long the concrete has to be in place to neutralise the polluting effect of manufacturing it in the first place.
But we are producing concrete anyway, so we'll still be ahead as long as this process does not produce more pollution than the pollution from standard concrete + whatever it absorbs.
Nitrates? Aren't those bad in their own right? I'm thinking along the lines of fertilizer run-off and the affect it has on algae in oceans. Could this solution create worse problems?
That is a good example, but it is an example of how a Multi-National Corp ruined a local community and has nothing to do with US Foreign policy. Also, Coca Cola did at least try to make it right by bringing in bottled water for the people there.
Also, if I may try out my spinning talent... The OP said:
Become democratic, open your markets and your economy will flourish.
The fact that they were democratic allowed the protest. You won't see that in countries like N. Korea, Burma, China, or many other non-democratic countries around the globe. They would have been simply shot and all records of the protest and slaughter erased.
Did you RTFA? The guy asked for a programming training and it was denied. He studied for himself, wrote the software by himself, and bring it to the office, to get his job done. Thus, USAF didn't paid him to write this software. It is *his* software, and he has the right to sell/rent/loan it to anyone he wants, including his employer.
The same applies for every job in the world: you can do whatever you want in your spare time, unless it competes with what the company you work for produces.
Of course I RTFA'd. How do you think I got the information that I posted. It certainly wasn't in the summary. The summary never mentions that the software was written by a service member.
Many "civilian jobs" are the same way, BTW. I used to work with an engineer who created a way double the scan heads in a flatbed scanner, allowing it to do auto-scratch-and-dust-correction in a single pass (ICE and ROC). He did the work at home. The company got the patent. That's how it works. When you as an employee invent something work related, the company owns it. (Actually, the company's owner got the patent in his name!)
Under the shop right doctrine, the employee may not dictate how the invention is used. For instance, if it was made on a particular piece of machinery, the license does not limit the employer to use of only that machine. Rather, the employer is entitled to use the idea behind the invention for alt reasonable purposes.
HERE is another article. Both articles explain both sides.
As for the SGT writing on HIS time, it doesn't matter. The USAF is not "every job in the world". This man was a member of the US Armed Forces. Anything he does at any time is property of the US Government. I know it sux, but that what you sign up for.
A couple of examples. When in Basic Training, we were given two weeks time off for Christmas. It's called Christmas Exodus. One guy in my unit got a DWI while at home. He was given an Article 15. Another guy got in a fight and had his face a bit dinged up. He was also given an Article 15. After Basic and when I was with my regular unit, my SGT got a DWI off post one weekend. He was demoted. What do all these things have in common? They were all done with the soldier was off post, on HIS time.
Moral of the stories. When you sign on the dotted line, Uncle Sam owns you for the allotted time!
Soldiers have US Army on their uniforms: US ARMY = Uncle Sam Ain't Released Me Yet
When you read it yourself, it appears backwards: YMRA SU= Yes My Retarded Ass Signed Up!
Well, US foreign policy is pretty much a rickrolling exercise.
<US> Become democratic, open your markets and your economy will flourish. <Poor_Country> That sounds great, we'll give that a shot. * US companies then enter and ravage what little wealth the locals have, expatriating funds and enslaving previously subsistent worker. <US> Haha gotcha! <Poor_Country>:(
This points out the obviousness that the US government is no longer bound by the tenets of what was called "democracy", a concept that is fundamentally at odds with the concept of "sovereignty".
In a so-called democracy, the executive is only authorized to carry out the instructions of the legislature, and is subject to the judiciary in doing so.
If the courts are saying that the executive can break the laws set by the legislature, and are only subject to courts when they, the executive, consent to it, then the power being invested in the executive is that of the old notion of King as appointed by God as supreme authority over the land, whose word is Law and not subject to question.
Given this development, things like warrantless wiretapping are not even the tip of the iceberg, they're a tiny lump of seagull shit on top of the tip of the iceberg.
If you write a piece of software for the company you work for, who owns that software? Odds are, the company you work for owns it. This guy was SGT in the US Air Force. So even though he did the work at home, as a member of the US Armed Forces, he is never "off the clock". Sergeant Mark Davenport took the software he wrote as an employee of the US Gov't, thus making that software government property, and sold it to a third party. He sold government property. He is lucky to not be in a stockade somewhere.
So, please, take your anti government tirade to a story where it is more appropriate.
Neatly ignoring those members of the Sierra club that are Americans.
Remember boys and girls, your divine right to all the oil, coal, and other hydro-carbons in the ground is *always* more important than whether your grandchildren will get to see any dumb animals outside of a zoo.
Because the wishes of Americans that disagree with Daddies priorities are unimportant - they're not real Americans anyhow.
{G} - Pug
Before I worry about my grandchildren, I need to worry about my children. Currently, we can not afford to take our child to see those "dumb animals" as our travel dollars are spent getting to and from work. If gas gets any higher, it will cut into our clothing and then food funds. It has already wiped out our "emergency" funds as well as our "get out of debt" money.
Besides, it's not like drilling for oil 200 miles off shore is going to kill those "dumb animals". We've drilled for oil all over the country and we still have plenty of "dumb animals" to go around. I recall seeing oil rigs in the middle of a corn field in northern lower Michigan where deer hunting is prime and brown bears roam freely. Of course, the corn that came out of that field was just fine as well. So please, drop the complete and utter bullshit idea that drilling for oil is somehow going to kill all wildlife in this country. At worst, an oil worker may step on a field mouse or something. So, while unfortunate for the mouse, it would have probably been eaten by that eagle living next to the oil platform anyway.
Let's see in a year's time where you sit with Obama, supposing he gets elected. Will you be so staunchly pro-President, whomever it is, or will your evident partisan attitude have you saying the same sorts of things about Obama that I'm saying about Bush today?
I'll probably treat Obama with same set of standards that I treat Bush now and I treated Clinton about 8-16 years ago. I support them sometimes and oppose them others. I supported Clinton in Bosnia, for example and thought he got a raw deal on the whole Whitewater thing. I support Bush in Iraq. After all, what did Milosovich do that Hussein didn't? Nothing. Hussein is a magnitude worse than Milosovich. So it would be hypocritical to have supported Clinton in Bosnia and not Bush in Iraq. I was in the service, so I learned to respect the uniform, no matter who wears it.
The bottom line is that I think Bush gets a raw deal. He was hated before his inauguration and it has gone downhill since. I see the irony when people say, "Bush had the whole world's sympathy after 9-11. There was nothing another country wouldn't do for us. We had their unyielding support and Bush fucked it up by invading Iraq!". Uh, if we had such strong support from them, wouldn't they have been behind us in Iraq? Or did they support is in anything THEY wanted us to do? I see people say he stole the election. Well, several independent recounts show that Bush really won so it was Al Gore that tried to steal the election. Funny how I have seen no one at all say, "OOPS! MY Bad! Sorry Mr. President."
So, you'll have to forgive me if I stick up for someone who gets a raw deal daily. You'll have to understand why I stand up and call bullshit when someone says Bush is Hitler, or corrupt, or stupid, or an evil genius or whatever. I've heard them all by people who honestly believe them. I find it is my job to tell them to put down the bong and try to open their minds and not hate someone simply because they have an R or D after their name.
And, what do you think of Obama? Do you think he is a militant black Islamic fundamentalist, and quite possibly a closeted gay? Is he preparing to wreak terroristic actions on his own country when he takes office?
No, I think Obama is a brilliant man, excellent speaker and has a genuinely good heart. He will make an excellent president one day. That day, however is not today. He is simply not ready. In twenty years, he will be. Whatever positions he has the courage to admit, he changes soon after. Not that it's a bad thing or wrong to change your mind, but don't come out and say, "That's not what I meant" when it would be more honest to say, "I wasn't properly briefed on that topic and shouldn't have opened my mouth until I was". Obama just drips with inexperience and I don't want my president to have to go through several years of On-The-Job-Training. Republicans will eat his lunch and make the whole country look like Carter is in charge again!
I, for one, can't wait for the right wing losers to fully unload with stuff like that, as its connection to reality isn't just missing, it's totally random.
And when they do, if they do, I will call bullshit and unload on them, just as I do for the left-wing "Bush=Hitler" moonbats.
That's some pretty shameful moderation: +4 insightful for leftist flamebait followed by -1 flamebait for a right wing post that is hardly more inflammatory.
See if you can let this in. The legal definition of government corruption does not require that you yourself benefit directly from actions you took while in office, in order to qualify for indictment.
It can be your family (Bush Sr., Carlyle Group), your circle of friends, coworkers, former colleagues, etc (Cheney, Halliburton.) Because after you leave office, there are many ways that the benefit can come back to you.
So if anyone that ever supported Bush does well under his administration, then it's corruption? GWB has no idea who I am. I voted for him and I'm doing better than I was 8 years ago. Must be a conspiracy!!! Wow! and I'm not even a member of The Carlyle group, Skulls and Bones, the Free Masons, the Knights of the Templar or any other organization that conspiracy theorists love to point to so much. Quick! Someone call Prison Planet! ArcherB benefited from a good economy and hard work... I mean, he did well because he's a Bush Cronie!
What does it sound like when a government that awards no-bid contracts to companies with direct, tangible connections to the most senior elected and appointed officials? In the beginning, we were told this was necessary due to time constraints; we've now seen nearly seven years of war, and war profits, billions of dollars into the hands of this administration's close friends.
Now we're seeing no-bid oil contracts in Iraq, going to good friends of this administration.
Do you need a Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos to make a determination of corruption, with visible caches of money, cronies spilling out their pockets? No.
Um, It looks like I'm the first to tell you this, but the Iraqi government is deciding which companies handle the drilling there, NOT George Bush, Cheney, Halliburton, the Free Masons or anyone else. I guess the facts don't sound as good as your conspiracy theories.
So just Congress's fault. No blame for the Executive Office, you know the people who took an entire oil producing country off the market, has pissed off our major oil suppliers, and in general driven our economy into the toilet. But no it's Congress's fault for protecting both the land, environment, and our natural resources for future generations.
The executive branch has been pushing for increased domestic oil production for 7.5 years now, and has been blocked the entire time by Democrats in Congress. So, it's hard to blame the executive branch when Democrats in congress have blocked every single energy bill the President has proposed. Bush's first 6 years in office went by with NO ENERGY POLICY because Democrats blocked every single on.
So yeah, I blame Congress. Not all of Congress, mind you, just those that hold the Sierra Club to be more important than Americans.
If I stop driving a car, the price of gas would not change at all. No one would even notice.
You would notice, now that you weren't paying for it.
I hate responding to an AC in a dead thread, but here it goes anyway.
Every single thing that can be purchased got to the store by way of a truck, train or usually both. Both trucks and trains run on petroleum products. When the price of petroleum goes up, so does the cost of transporting those products, and therefor, the final price that we all have to pay at the register.
So even if you walk to the store, your groceries don't. You pay for them to get there. The more that costs, the more the product costs. So the price of oil doesn't just hit us when we fill up our tanks, but it hits us every single time we purchase an item.
So, unless you are 100% self sufficient, you will pay for higher fuel prices, even if you don't drive a car.
You hit it on the head. He's an elitist, and he sees the average American as a resource, not entirely unlike cattle, to be kept fed and reasonably happy, so long as they can be used profitably. I guarantee you that his lies to get us into Iraq and the way he's used our military as a tool to enrich himself is no more than a reflection of this mindset.
To enrich himself? Do you have any evidence at all that GWBush has made money from Iraq? I don't know, a dollar figure, perhaps? Maybe a deposit slip or something?
Or, are you just making shit up to justify your blind, bigoted, politically motivated hatred for someone because their opinion is different than your own?
Well, you could whine and ask the government to help you, or you could just stop using so much fucking oil. Those of us who don't drive an SUV and live in an exurb in the middle of nowhere aren't crying about oil prices.
Uh, yeah, you are. Only you are calling it "Inflation". How do you think those oranges get to your market? How do you think your clothes get to the store? How do you think every single product moves around America... Yup, that's right, fuckin oil. And when the price of fuckin oil goes up, so does the price of everything else, even the shit you buy.
See, you don't have live in the exurb or drive an SUV to suffer from high oil prices. I hope you are not so ignorant as to not see that.
Since I am not responsible for the price of gasoline, absolutely nothing.
But you are. You use it, therefore you have taken your rightful place on the demand curve. Want to demand less? Drive a smaller car or drive less, just like a lot of other Americans are doing.
OK, let's not be a dumbass.
First, it's not just Americans that drive cars. Still, at best, I am 1/1,000,000,000th responsible. If I stop driving a car, the price of gas would not change at all. No one would even notice. Therefor, I am not responsible for gas prices. However, if Congress removes the moratorium on offshore drilling, then that would drop prices by what Democrats say is 3% (although, many say more, but we'll go with their number.)
Now, given that math above, you want to tell me how I am somehow more responsible for high gas prices than Congress.
But, either way, I've done my part. I drive a 4-cylinder car and my wife works from home now. It was a hell of a pay cut, but she did it. We also eliminated unnecessary trips, like taking my kids to see their grandma. It breaks that poor woman's heart, but we must protect the caribou in Alaska, right? They are so much more important than us mere humans. My family and I have done all we can, so get off our asses!
It's now Congress' turn to do their part. Instead, they went home. And here, asshats like you defend them and try to blame $4.00 gasoline in little ol' me. As if I am solely responsible for gas prices doubling in the past two years (Hey, wait a minute... Isn't that when the Democrats took control of Congress with the promise to do something about high energy prices? Yeah, it's all my fault.)
"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the Legislature is in session"
You should be thankful. Trust me, these congresscritters do a lot less damage when they are on vacation!
You make a valid point. Unfortunately, it takes an act of congress to undue the damage that congress does. In this case, we want them to remove the bans on domestic oil production that were passed in 1982. Oil was dirt cheap back then and technology was nowhere near where it is today in respect to being able to cleanly extract the oil, so it made some sense. It simply wasn't worth the risk. Now, the tech is much better than it was 26 years ago and oil is no longer cheap.
It's time for congress to undo the damage! As an old drill Sgt of mine used to say, "It's time to un-fuck it!"
And how, exactly, is congress doing more work going to fix anything? Seriously, a few more weeks of 'work' from those clowns is gonna fix the energy crisis? Do you have even half a clue as to how?
Remember, when dealing with me, the angrier you get, the happier I am.
Uh, by repealing the moratorium that is artificially limiting the supply of oil. Quick! Without looking it up, can you tell me what happens to price when supply is limited? No referring to 5th grade textbooks.
Now try to remember, we are not asking Congress to make more government. We want them to get out of the fucking way!
It's always congresses fault when the wealthy or conservatives go broke.
contrawise
When democrats, the poor, or liberals are having issues, it's due to our lack of personal responsibility.
Didn't you get the Memo? ---------- Pug
WTF does "personal responsibility" have to do with me having to pay $4.00 a gallon? Since I am not responsible for the price of gasoline, absolutely nothing.
What does have determine the price of gasoline? The laws of supply and demand. When you artificially limit supply, price goes up. Any fucking moron knows that. Maybe someday, you'll get smart enough to be called a fucking moron. Right now, calling you that would be an insult to fucking morons all over the planet.
May I suggest you read up on what the rest of learned in fifth grade economics. Pay close attention to the part about what happens when supply is lowered and/or demand goes up.
recent Department of Energy studies [show] that drilling in the outer continental shelf will have an "insignificant" impact on costs in the next two decades.
No, the part I quoted. Funny you should mention the DOE report the Democrats keep siting. Here is a quote from that very report:
Although existing moratoria on leasing in the OCS will expire in 2012, the AEO2007 reference case assumes that they will be reinstated, as they have in the past. Current restrictions are therefore assumed to prevail for the remainder of the projection period, with no exploration or development allowed in areas currently unavailable to leasing.
The whole point of the debate was to remove the moratoria. The whole point of this article was the Democrats shutting down debate and refusing a vote.
Yes you are right supply is another part of the equation. BUT going back to economics the best type of supply is the supply that can be interchanged. Oil is not that type of supply. Electricity is... We need to switch to electrical cars, NOW...
Agreed! Still, that will take a few years to develop a car that will travel more than 200 miles without a several hour recharge. Can you transport a truck load of potatoes from Idaho to Texas in an electric truck?
In the mean time, we need relief for as long as we are slaves to the pump.
An even better long term solution would be to funnel any government profits from drilling on government land into renewable energy and efficiency research. We are talking about trillions of dollars here. It would give us temporary relief and accelerate bringing alternative sources of energy to market. As it is right now, that's not even available for debate as the debate has been shut down.
Since 1982, a congressional moratorium, renewed each year as part of the funding bill for the Interior Department, has restricted oil drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and in parts of the Gulf of Mexico.
A trillion? Really? Most sources I see online put the total proven reserves under U.S. jurisdiction at 21 billion barrels total. Adding on some speculative fields, it's still nowwhere near 100 billion, let alone a trillion barrels.
A 2005 estimate set the total world resources of oil shale at 411 gigatons â" enough to yield 2.8 to 3.3 trillion barrels (520 kmÂ) of shale oil.[2][3][4][5] This exceeds the world's proven conventional oil reserves, estimated at 1.317 trillion barrels (209.4Ã--109 m3), as of 1 January 2007.[22] The largest deposits in the world occur in the United States in the Green River basin, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming; about 70% of this resource is located on federally owned or managed land.[23] Deposits in the United States constitute 62% of world resources; together, the United States, Russia and Brazil account for 86% of the world's resources in terms of shale oil content.[20] These figures are considered tentative, as several deposits have not yet been explored or analyzed.[6][2]
You'd think with gas prices topping $4 and consumers crying uncle, Congress would be moving fast to spur development of a domestic oil resource so vast - 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil shale in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming alone - it could eventually rival the oil fields of Saudi Arabia.
You said:
As for your emotion based argument on your little girl's shoes, it is fairly clear that *nothing* the U.S. could do right now would have a measurable longterm impact on gas/diesel prices in the next 5 years, let alone before your daughter outgrows her current pair of shoes.
That's what they said 5 years ago. Will you repeat the same argument 5 years from now?
Sometimes the world changes. Cheap gas was a fluke. Raging about how unfair it is won't solve anything. Find ways to use less gas. Economize on the things you can, and saving $50 (or whatever children's shoes cost nowadays) is not that hard. I just saved myself about $20/month in electric bills by buying a new $400 fridge. Pays for itself inside of two years and works better too. Sell an SUV, buy a lightly used Civic, the price of gas doesn't matter as much anymore. The world doesn't owe you cheap gas, and shooting the messenger gets you nowhere.
I already drive a four banger. And no, the world doesn't owe me shit, but CONGRESS does owe me. They owe me the common courtesy to get the F out of my way and let Capitalism take care of the problem. Or, are we not a Capitalist country any more?
Slashdot Mirror
The recent conclusion of a 37 year experiment is it's phosphorus not nitrogen that's the problem:
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=381d4ce5-89a2-4901-864e-34239419bf67
Schindler's latest series of long-term experiments shows that nitrogen removal completely fails to control blue-green algae blooms. He proved this by manipulating nitrogen and phosphorus levels on Lake 227 for 37 years. Nitrogen control, he found, only encouraged algae blooms.
That's what I was looking for... Thanx!
This sounds like a great idea if it works, but surely producing concrete is a far from 'green' process. I wonder how long the concrete has to be in place to neutralise the polluting effect of manufacturing it in the first place.
But we are producing concrete anyway, so we'll still be ahead as long as this process does not produce more pollution than the pollution from standard concrete + whatever it absorbs.
Nitrates? Aren't those bad in their own right? I'm thinking along the lines of fertilizer run-off and the affect it has on algae in oceans. Could this solution create worse problems?
There's already a mechanism for dealing with this, it's called a restraining order.
How do you get a restraining order against someone who does not exist?
http://www.indiaresource.org/campaigns/coke/2003/nowaterdrinkcoke.html Coca Cola Company has done it in India
just one example, i guess you can find more if you care to look.
That is a good example, but it is an example of how a Multi-National Corp ruined a local community and has nothing to do with US Foreign policy. Also, Coca Cola did at least try to make it right by bringing in bottled water for the people there.
Also, if I may try out my spinning talent... The OP said:
Become democratic, open your markets and your economy will flourish.
The fact that they were democratic allowed the protest. You won't see that in countries like N. Korea, Burma, China, or many other non-democratic countries around the globe. They would have been simply shot and all records of the protest and slaughter erased.
Did you RTFA? The guy asked for a programming training and it was denied. He studied for himself, wrote the software by himself, and bring it to the office, to get his job done. Thus, USAF didn't paid him to write this software. It is *his* software, and he has the right to sell/rent/loan it to anyone he wants, including his employer.
The same applies for every job in the world: you can do whatever you want in your spare time, unless it competes with what the company you work for produces.
Of course I RTFA'd. How do you think I got the information that I posted. It certainly wasn't in the summary. The summary never mentions that the software was written by a service member.
Many "civilian jobs" are the same way, BTW. I used to work with an engineer who created a way double the scan heads in a flatbed scanner, allowing it to do auto-scratch-and-dust-correction in a single pass (ICE and ROC). He did the work at home. The company got the patent. That's how it works. When you as an employee invent something work related, the company owns it. (Actually, the company's owner got the patent in his name!)
HERE is an article on it (bad grammar and all):
Under the shop right doctrine, the employee may not dictate how the invention is used. For instance, if it was made on a particular piece of machinery, the license does not limit the employer to use of only that machine. Rather, the employer is entitled to use the idea behind the invention for alt reasonable purposes.
HERE is another article. Both articles explain both sides.
As for the SGT writing on HIS time, it doesn't matter. The USAF is not "every job in the world". This man was a member of the US Armed Forces. Anything he does at any time is property of the US Government. I know it sux, but that what you sign up for.
A couple of examples. When in Basic Training, we were given two weeks time off for Christmas. It's called Christmas Exodus. One guy in my unit got a DWI while at home. He was given an Article 15. Another guy got in a fight and had his face a bit dinged up. He was also given an Article 15. After Basic and when I was with my regular unit, my SGT got a DWI off post one weekend. He was demoted. What do all these things have in common? They were all done with the soldier was off post, on HIS time.
Moral of the stories. When you sign on the dotted line, Uncle Sam owns you for the allotted time!
Soldiers have US Army on their uniforms:
US ARMY = Uncle Sam Ain't Released Me Yet
When you read it yourself, it appears backwards:
YMRA SU= Yes My Retarded Ass Signed Up!
Well, US foreign policy is pretty much a rickrolling exercise.
<US> Become democratic, open your markets and your economy will flourish. :(
<Poor_Country> That sounds great, we'll give that a shot.
* US companies then enter and ravage what little wealth the locals have, expatriating funds and enslaving previously subsistent worker.
<US> Haha gotcha!
<Poor_Country>
Examples please?
This is NOT off topic.
This points out the obviousness that the US government is no longer bound by the tenets of what was called "democracy", a concept that is fundamentally at odds with the concept of "sovereignty".
In a so-called democracy, the executive is only authorized to carry out the instructions of the legislature, and is subject to the judiciary in doing so.
If the courts are saying that the executive can break the laws set by the legislature, and are only subject to courts when they, the executive, consent to it, then the power being invested in the executive is that of the old notion of King as appointed by God as supreme authority over the land, whose word is Law and not subject to question.
Given this development, things like warrantless wiretapping are not even the tip of the iceberg, they're a tiny lump of seagull shit on top of the tip of the iceberg.
If you write a piece of software for the company you work for, who owns that software? Odds are, the company you work for owns it. This guy was SGT in the US Air Force. So even though he did the work at home, as a member of the US Armed Forces, he is never "off the clock". Sergeant Mark Davenport took the software he wrote as an employee of the US Gov't, thus making that software government property, and sold it to a third party. He sold government property. He is lucky to not be in a stockade somewhere.
So, please, take your anti government tirade to a story where it is more appropriate.
Neatly ignoring those members of the Sierra club that are Americans.
Remember boys and girls, your divine right to all the oil, coal, and other hydro-carbons in the ground is *always* more important than whether your grandchildren will get to see any dumb animals outside of a zoo.
Because the wishes of Americans that disagree with Daddies priorities are unimportant - they're not real Americans anyhow.
{G} - Pug
Before I worry about my grandchildren, I need to worry about my children. Currently, we can not afford to take our child to see those "dumb animals" as our travel dollars are spent getting to and from work. If gas gets any higher, it will cut into our clothing and then food funds. It has already wiped out our "emergency" funds as well as our "get out of debt" money.
Besides, it's not like drilling for oil 200 miles off shore is going to kill those "dumb animals". We've drilled for oil all over the country and we still have plenty of "dumb animals" to go around. I recall seeing oil rigs in the middle of a corn field in northern lower Michigan where deer hunting is prime and brown bears roam freely. Of course, the corn that came out of that field was just fine as well. So please, drop the complete and utter bullshit idea that drilling for oil is somehow going to kill all wildlife in this country. At worst, an oil worker may step on a field mouse or something. So, while unfortunate for the mouse, it would have probably been eaten by that eagle living next to the oil platform anyway.
Let's see in a year's time where you sit with Obama, supposing he gets elected. Will you be so staunchly pro-President, whomever it is, or will your evident partisan attitude have you saying the same sorts of things about Obama that I'm saying about Bush today?
I'll probably treat Obama with same set of standards that I treat Bush now and I treated Clinton about 8-16 years ago. I support them sometimes and oppose them others. I supported Clinton in Bosnia, for example and thought he got a raw deal on the whole Whitewater thing. I support Bush in Iraq. After all, what did Milosovich do that Hussein didn't? Nothing. Hussein is a magnitude worse than Milosovich. So it would be hypocritical to have supported Clinton in Bosnia and not Bush in Iraq.
I was in the service, so I learned to respect the uniform, no matter who wears it.
The bottom line is that I think Bush gets a raw deal. He was hated before his inauguration and it has gone downhill since. I see the irony when people say, "Bush had the whole world's sympathy after 9-11. There was nothing another country wouldn't do for us. We had their unyielding support and Bush fucked it up by invading Iraq!". Uh, if we had such strong support from them, wouldn't they have been behind us in Iraq? Or did they support is in anything THEY wanted us to do? I see people say he stole the election. Well, several independent recounts show that Bush really won so it was Al Gore that tried to steal the election. Funny how I have seen no one at all say, "OOPS! MY Bad! Sorry Mr. President."
So, you'll have to forgive me if I stick up for someone who gets a raw deal daily. You'll have to understand why I stand up and call bullshit when someone says Bush is Hitler, or corrupt, or stupid, or an evil genius or whatever. I've heard them all by people who honestly believe them. I find it is my job to tell them to put down the bong and try to open their minds and not hate someone simply because they have an R or D after their name.
And, what do you think of Obama? Do you think he is a militant black Islamic fundamentalist, and quite possibly a closeted gay? Is he preparing to wreak terroristic actions on his own country when he takes office?
No, I think Obama is a brilliant man, excellent speaker and has a genuinely good heart. He will make an excellent president one day. That day, however is not today. He is simply not ready. In twenty years, he will be. Whatever positions he has the courage to admit, he changes soon after. Not that it's a bad thing or wrong to change your mind, but don't come out and say, "That's not what I meant" when it would be more honest to say, "I wasn't properly briefed on that topic and shouldn't have opened my mouth until I was". Obama just drips with inexperience and I don't want my president to have to go through several years of On-The-Job-Training. Republicans will eat his lunch and make the whole country look like Carter is in charge again!
I, for one, can't wait for the right wing losers to fully unload with stuff like that, as its connection to reality isn't just missing, it's totally random.
And when they do, if they do, I will call bullshit and unload on them, just as I do for the left-wing "Bush=Hitler" moonbats.
That's some pretty shameful moderation: +4 insightful for leftist flamebait followed by -1 flamebait for a right wing post that is hardly more inflammatory.
You must be new here.
Bush=Satan (+5 Insightful)
Bush=President (-5 Flamebait)
See if you can let this in. The legal definition of government corruption does not require that you yourself benefit directly from actions you took while in office, in order to qualify for indictment.
It can be your family (Bush Sr., Carlyle Group), your circle of friends, coworkers, former colleagues, etc (Cheney, Halliburton.) Because after you leave office, there are many ways that the benefit can come back to you.
So if anyone that ever supported Bush does well under his administration, then it's corruption? GWB has no idea who I am. I voted for him and I'm doing better than I was 8 years ago. Must be a conspiracy!!! Wow! and I'm not even a member of The Carlyle group, Skulls and Bones, the Free Masons, the Knights of the Templar or any other organization that conspiracy theorists love to point to so much. Quick! Someone call Prison Planet! ArcherB benefited from a good economy and hard work... I mean, he did well because he's a Bush Cronie!
What does it sound like when a government that awards no-bid contracts to companies with direct, tangible connections to the most senior elected and appointed officials? In the beginning, we were told this was necessary due to time constraints; we've now seen nearly seven years of war, and war profits, billions of dollars into the hands of this administration's close friends.
Now we're seeing no-bid oil contracts in Iraq, going to good friends of this administration.
Do you need a Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos to make a determination of corruption, with visible caches of money, cronies spilling out their pockets? No.
Um, It looks like I'm the first to tell you this, but the Iraqi government is deciding which companies handle the drilling there, NOT George Bush, Cheney, Halliburton, the Free Masons or anyone else. I guess the facts don't sound as good as your conspiracy theories.
So just Congress's fault. No blame for the Executive Office, you know the people who took an entire oil producing country off the market, has pissed off our major oil suppliers, and in general driven our economy into the toilet. But no it's Congress's fault for protecting both the land, environment, and our natural resources for future generations.
The executive branch has been pushing for increased domestic oil production for 7.5 years now, and has been blocked the entire time by Democrats in Congress. So, it's hard to blame the executive branch when Democrats in congress have blocked every single energy bill the President has proposed. Bush's first 6 years in office went by with NO ENERGY POLICY because Democrats blocked every single on.
So yeah, I blame Congress. Not all of Congress, mind you, just those that hold the Sierra Club to be more important than Americans.
If I stop driving a car, the price of gas would not change at all. No one would even notice.
You would notice, now that you weren't paying for it.
I hate responding to an AC in a dead thread, but here it goes anyway.
Every single thing that can be purchased got to the store by way of a truck, train or usually both. Both trucks and trains run on petroleum products. When the price of petroleum goes up, so does the cost of transporting those products, and therefor, the final price that we all have to pay at the register.
So even if you walk to the store, your groceries don't. You pay for them to get there. The more that costs, the more the product costs. So the price of oil doesn't just hit us when we fill up our tanks, but it hits us every single time we purchase an item.
So, unless you are 100% self sufficient, you will pay for higher fuel prices, even if you don't drive a car.
You hit it on the head. He's an elitist, and he sees the average American as a resource, not entirely unlike cattle, to be kept fed and reasonably happy, so long as they can be used profitably. I guarantee you that his lies to get us into Iraq and the way he's used our military as a tool to enrich himself is no more than a reflection of this mindset.
To enrich himself? Do you have any evidence at all that GWBush has made money from Iraq? I don't know, a dollar figure, perhaps? Maybe a deposit slip or something?
Or, are you just making shit up to justify your blind, bigoted, politically motivated hatred for someone because their opinion is different than your own?
Well, you could whine and ask the government to help you, or you could just stop using so much fucking oil. Those of us who don't drive an SUV and live in an exurb in the middle of nowhere aren't crying about oil prices.
Uh, yeah, you are. Only you are calling it "Inflation". How do you think those oranges get to your market? How do you think your clothes get to the store? How do you think every single product moves around America... Yup, that's right, fuckin oil. And when the price of fuckin oil goes up, so does the price of everything else, even the shit you buy.
See, you don't have live in the exurb or drive an SUV to suffer from high oil prices. I hope you are not so ignorant as to not see that.
Since I am not responsible for the price of gasoline, absolutely nothing.
But you are. You use it, therefore you have taken your rightful place on the demand curve. Want to demand less? Drive a smaller car or drive less, just like a lot of other Americans are doing.
OK, let's not be a dumbass.
First, it's not just Americans that drive cars. Still, at best, I am 1/1,000,000,000th responsible. If I stop driving a car, the price of gas would not change at all. No one would even notice. Therefor, I am not responsible for gas prices. However, if Congress removes the moratorium on offshore drilling, then that would drop prices by what Democrats say is 3% (although, many say more, but we'll go with their number.)
Now, given that math above, you want to tell me how I am somehow more responsible for high gas prices than Congress.
But, either way, I've done my part. I drive a 4-cylinder car and my wife works from home now. It was a hell of a pay cut, but she did it. We also eliminated unnecessary trips, like taking my kids to see their grandma. It breaks that poor woman's heart, but we must protect the caribou in Alaska, right? They are so much more important than us mere humans. My family and I have done all we can, so get off our asses!
It's now Congress' turn to do their part. Instead, they went home. And here, asshats like you defend them and try to blame $4.00 gasoline in little ol' me. As if I am solely responsible for gas prices doubling in the past two years (Hey, wait a minute... Isn't that when the Democrats took control of Congress with the promise to do something about high energy prices? Yeah, it's all my fault.)
"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the Legislature is in session"
You should be thankful. Trust me, these congresscritters do a lot less damage when they are on vacation!
You make a valid point. Unfortunately, it takes an act of congress to undue the damage that congress does. In this case, we want them to remove the bans on domestic oil production that were passed in 1982. Oil was dirt cheap back then and technology was nowhere near where it is today in respect to being able to cleanly extract the oil, so it made some sense. It simply wasn't worth the risk. Now, the tech is much better than it was 26 years ago and oil is no longer cheap.
It's time for congress to undo the damage! As an old drill Sgt of mine used to say, "It's time to un-fuck it!"
And how, exactly, is congress doing more work going to fix anything? Seriously, a few more weeks of 'work' from those clowns is gonna fix the energy crisis? Do you have even half a clue as to how?
Remember, when dealing with me, the angrier you get, the happier I am.
Uh, by repealing the moratorium that is artificially limiting the supply of oil. Quick! Without looking it up, can you tell me what happens to price when supply is limited? No referring to 5th grade textbooks.
Now try to remember, we are not asking Congress to make more government. We want them to get out of the fucking way!
It's always congresses fault when the wealthy or conservatives go broke.
contrawise
When democrats, the poor, or liberals are having issues, it's due to our lack of personal responsibility.
Didn't you get the Memo?
---------- Pug
WTF does "personal responsibility" have to do with me having to pay $4.00 a gallon? Since I am not responsible for the price of gasoline, absolutely nothing.
What does have determine the price of gasoline? The laws of supply and demand. When you artificially limit supply, price goes up. Any fucking moron knows that. Maybe someday, you'll get smart enough to be called a fucking moron. Right now, calling you that would be an insult to fucking morons all over the planet.
May I suggest you read up on what the rest of learned in fifth grade economics. Pay close attention to the part about what happens when supply is lowered and/or demand goes up.
Come back when you've reached big boy school.
Did you mean this part of the article:
recent Department of Energy studies [show] that drilling in the outer continental shelf will have an "insignificant" impact on costs in the next two decades.
No, the part I quoted. Funny you should mention the DOE report the Democrats keep siting. Here is a quote from that very report:
Although existing moratoria on leasing in the OCS will expire in 2012, the AEO2007 reference case assumes that they will be reinstated, as they have in the past. Current restrictions are therefore assumed to prevail for the remainder of the projection period, with no exploration or development allowed in areas currently unavailable to leasing.
The whole point of the debate was to remove the moratoria. The whole point of this article was the Democrats shutting down debate and refusing a vote.
Yes you are right supply is another part of the equation. BUT going back to economics the best type of supply is the supply that can be interchanged. Oil is not that type of supply. Electricity is... We need to switch to electrical cars, NOW...
Agreed! Still, that will take a few years to develop a car that will travel more than 200 miles without a several hour recharge. Can you transport a truck load of potatoes from Idaho to Texas in an electric truck?
In the mean time, we need relief for as long as we are slaves to the pump.
An even better long term solution would be to funnel any government profits from drilling on government land into renewable energy and efficiency research. We are talking about trillions of dollars here. It would give us temporary relief and accelerate bringing alternative sources of energy to market. As it is right now, that's not even available for debate as the debate has been shut down.
Well, guess what you are wrong... My house is heated by oil...
Alright. You got me there.
What laws did they put in effect that are causing you to go broke?
Read this:
Since 1982, a congressional moratorium, renewed each year as part of the funding bill for the Interior Department, has restricted oil drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and in parts of the Gulf of Mexico.
A trillion? Really? Most sources I see online put the total proven reserves under U.S. jurisdiction at 21 billion barrels total. Adding on some speculative fields, it's still nowwhere near 100 billion, let alone a trillion barrels.
From HERE:
A 2005 estimate set the total world resources of oil shale at 411 gigatons â" enough to yield 2.8 to 3.3 trillion barrels (520 kmÂ) of shale oil.[2][3][4][5] This exceeds the world's proven conventional oil reserves, estimated at 1.317 trillion barrels (209.4Ã--109 m3), as of 1 January 2007.[22] The largest deposits in the world occur in the United States in the Green River basin, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming; about 70% of this resource is located on federally owned or managed land.[23] Deposits in the United States constitute 62% of world resources; together, the United States, Russia and Brazil account for 86% of the world's resources in terms of shale oil content.[20] These figures are considered tentative, as several deposits have not yet been explored or analyzed.[6][2]
And from HERE:
You'd think this would be oil shale's moment.
You'd think with gas prices topping $4 and consumers crying uncle, Congress would be moving fast to spur development of a domestic oil resource so vast - 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil shale in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming alone - it could eventually rival the oil fields of Saudi Arabia.
You said:
As for your emotion based argument on your little girl's shoes, it is fairly clear that *nothing* the U.S. could do right now would have a measurable longterm impact on gas/diesel prices in the next 5 years, let alone before your daughter outgrows her current pair of shoes.
That's what they said 5 years ago. Will you repeat the same argument 5 years from now?
Sometimes the world changes. Cheap gas was a fluke. Raging about how unfair it is won't solve anything. Find ways to use less gas. Economize on the things you can, and saving $50 (or whatever children's shoes cost nowadays) is not that hard. I just saved myself about $20/month in electric bills by buying a new $400 fridge. Pays for itself inside of two years and works better too. Sell an SUV, buy a lightly used Civic, the price of gas doesn't matter as much anymore. The world doesn't owe you cheap gas, and shooting the messenger gets you nowhere.
I already drive a four banger. And no, the world doesn't owe me shit, but CONGRESS does owe me. They owe me the common courtesy to get the F out of my way and let Capitalism take care of the problem. Or, are we not a Capitalist country any more?