Got what he f*ing deserved!

[Dru]

What a load of bullshit. Logging camp truck with 20,000 km on them are ready for the junkyard no matter which shitty Detroit company makes them.

 

Got his F*cking pagetop

[Fairweather]

And - if this hatred of SUV's was the least bit rational, those most consumed by it would also presumably be equally engaged in the villification of folks driving luxury sedans, sports cars, conversion vans, etc - virtually all of which are sporting V8's with 250+ horsepower and fuel efficiencies that are just as dismal as your average SUV.

 

My vehicle has a 2 liter engine that puts out 210 horsepower and gets 34mpg hwy. But the name-plate would probably earn me the disdain you speak of, JayB.

[JayB]

How has JayB not won a nobel prize yet? He is clearly the authority on everything from middle east conflicts to the latest in civilian power development. AMAZING! JayB for president.

 

Doesn't take much with this crowd, does it?

 

This sort of reminds me of the response I get when I decide to forgo indulging the polite fictions that surround popular notions about what determines weight loss or weight gain, and assert that the law of conservation of energy applies to humans as well, and that an increase in one's mass is the result of consuming more calories than one expends on a persistent basis. Period.

 

The usual result is flat out anger, denial, a plethora of anecdotes concerning overweight friends that - literally - only ate a carrot and a stick of celery a day while working in a slave labor colony in the middle of the Sahara for 10 years - and still put on hundreds of pounds of weight. Or the conspiracy theories involving the fast food industry, their cohorts in the advertising business, the agribusiness folks and their lobbyists in DC - everything but a willingness to put the responsibility where it lies and a acknowledge disagreeable reality.

 

I don't think it's a coincidence that the same people who believe that fast-food marketing is the ultimate cause of obesity, also tend to be the one's that believe in all manner of conspiracies - such those concerning the reasons why we generate most of our power from fossil fuels - and vice versa.

[Cobra_Commander]

Do not get me wrong, nuclear power is the least evil of options (and obviously I know evil). The French think so. And boy, we love the French! Somehow they are not all fat slobs either.

[specialed]

What a load of bullshit. Logging camp truck with 20,000 km on them are ready for the junkyard no matter which shitty Detroit company makes them.

 

Got his F*cking pagetop

 

Whatever. Your Lesbaru probably highcenters in like two inches of snow.

[olyclimber]

How has JayB not won a nobel prize yet? He is clearly the authority on everything from middle east conflicts to the latest in civilian power development. AMAZING! JayB for president.

 

Doesn't take much with this crowd, does it?

 

This sort of reminds me of the response I get when I decide to forgo indulging the polite fictions that surround popular notions about what determines weight loss or weight gain, and assert that the law of conservation of energy applies to humans as well, and that an increase in one's mass is the result of consuming more calories than one expends on a persistent basis. Period.

 

The usual result is flat out anger, denial, a plethora of anecdotes concerning overweight friends that - literally - only ate a carrot and a stick of celery a day while working in a slave labor colony in the middle of the Sahara for 10 years - and still put on hundreds of pounds of weight. Or the conspiracy theories involving the fast food industry, their cohorts in the advertising business, the agribusiness folks and their lobbyists in DC - everything but a willingness to put the responsibility where it lies and a acknowledge disagreeable reality.

 

I don't think it's a coincidence that the same people who believe that fast-food marketing is the ultimate cause of obesity, also tend to be the one's that believe in all manner of conspiracies - such those concerning the reasons why we generate most of our power from fossil fuels - and vice versa.

 

It is interesting that we (we as a in the United States) tend to blame the "other" for our stupid mistakes. This doesn't seem to be a problem with other countries (at least for the "fatty" problem you mention. Why do you think that is? What is fucked up with our culture that results in this problem? It obviously isn't endemic to a political bent (conservative or liberal)....they're all fatties.

 

BTW, you've got my vote for the prize!

[iain]

No joke, I scraped the underbody of a legacy on a speed bump. Subaru also apparently does not believe you should listen to music and use a cup holder at the same time. One or the other dammit, but NOT BOTH. EVER.

[Dru]

What a load of bullshit. Logging camp truck with 20,000 km on them are ready for the junkyard no matter which shitty Detroit company makes them.

 

Got his F*cking pagetop

 

Whatever. Your Lesbaru probably highcenters in like two inches of snow.

 

 

 

My Lesbaru drives past all the spun out Fords in the ditch on Highway 1 when it snows

[specialed]

 

With all the technology in this world, you'd think someone could design some decent fucking cup holders for an automobile.

 

Driving with a can of beer between your legs gets old quick. And your balls get cold.

[Fairweather]

 

Driving with a can of beer between your legs gets old quick. And your balls get cold.

 

This is not a concern for Dru. The Canadian government does not allow males to possess testicles.

[willstrickland]

Ever time you convert energy from one form to another there's going to be waste, and in most cases that waste will impact the environment where the conversion is taking place. Where there's no appreciable waste product, there's usually another impact - as is the case with dams, windpower, and photovoltaics - the production of which (photovoltaics) produces a considerable amount of toxic waste. Pick your poison.

 

The fact of the matter is that if you want reliable, CO2 emission free, megawatt-level power generation the only option is nuclear power.

 

Hey there smart guy, did you even click through the link? Apparently not. So here it is again:

 

http://www.enviromission.com.au/index1.htm

 

Solar Tower involves no voltaic cells. 200MW . No fuel inputs. No emissions. No external moving parts to kill birds. No altering rivers. One person to operate. No moving parts aside from the turbines. Night generation available through thermal mass.

 

Pilot will be constructed in Australia. Prototype has already been tested.

 

Initial cost is significant, yet there are virtually no on-going costs once built. New nuke plants involves tremendous costs in security, construction, regulatory approvals, waste handling, etc.

[j_b]

cool link. a similar smaller tower (~200m tall) was operational during most of the 90's in spain: http://www.wcsscience.com/enviromission/page2.html

 

of course JayB doesn't mention that nuclear became economically feasible only after decades of research and investment by nations. why should it be different for alternative technologies? moreover, burning oil isn't cheap if all costs (military, environment, health, etc ...) are figured in.

[spicoli11]

Yup....I dun un named my ford SUV "BIG RED"....

[j_b]

Or the conspiracy theories involving the fast food industry, their cohorts in the advertising business, the agribusiness folks and their lobbyists in DC - everything but a willingness to put the responsibility where it lies and a acknowledge disagreeable reality.

 

why don't you tell those overweight 10 year olds who eat lunch out of a dispensing machine where the responsibility lies.

 

I don't think it's a coincidence that the same people who believe that fast-food marketing is the ultimate cause of obesity, also tend to be the one's that believe in all manner of conspiracies - such those concerning the reasons why we generate most of our power from fossil fuels - and vice versa.

 

gee whiz. don't tell me you just figured out that making money in the short term was the common element to both schemes. what a "conspiracy"! what a scoop!

[JayB]

Ever time you convert energy from one form to another there's going to be waste, and in most cases that waste will impact the environment where the conversion is taking place. Where there's no appreciable waste product, there's usually another impact - as is the case with dams, windpower, and photovoltaics - the production of which (photovoltaics) produces a considerable amount of toxic waste. Pick your poison.

 

The fact of the matter is that if you want reliable, CO2 emission free, megawatt-level power generation the only option is nuclear power.

 

Hey there smart guy, did you even click through the link? Apparently not. So here it is again:

 

http://www.enviromission.com.au/index1.htm

 

Solar Tower involves no voltaic cells. 200MW . No fuel inputs. No emissions. No external moving parts to kill birds. No altering rivers. One person to operate. No moving parts aside from the turbines. Night generation available through thermal mass.

 

Pilot will be constructed in Australia. Prototype has already been tested.

 

Initial cost is significant, yet there are virtually no on-going costs once built. New nuke plants involves tremendous costs in security, construction, regulatory approvals, waste handling, etc.

 

 

I think it's a neat idea - but I think it's much more plausible that the higher costs associated with generating power in such a manner have had more to do with limiting the adoption than a conspiratorial behavior amongst energy companies. Whatever you think of corporations, they have never shown a great reluctance to reap an easy profit, and the fact that no significant private money has gone into funding these things with an eye to running them on a for profit basis at some point in the future is telling.

 

This notion that corporations that profit from existing technologies are both hell-bent and capable of stifling any and all innovations that threaten their profitability, if true, would have resulted in the erradication of all technological progress long ago. Candlemakers would have snuffed out the lightbulb, buggymakers would have shut down the automobile manufacturers, ship-owners would have shut down the railways, water-mill owners would have killed-off the steam engine, typewriter manufactures would have killed off the pc, slide rule manufacturers would have done away with t he calculator, broom manufacturers would have offed the vacuum cleaner, etc. If the advantages and profits associated with a new technology are both real, and significant, the odds of any competitor with a rival technology being able to stifle their adoption and the public's knowledge of their existence - both crucial elements of any good corporate conspiracy - are virtually nil. There have been cases where the risks and costs associated with developing a new technology are so high relative to the potential returns that no corporation or consortium thereof has been willing to make a significant investment in them - as was the case with space travel - but my hunch is that they do not make up a significant percentage of all innovations.

 

I think it looks interesting and would be quite happy to see the money that currently goes to, say, farm subsidies plowed into this sort of thing instead, but I'm just not buying the wild-eyed, beard-and-foggy-glasses-on-the-street-corner "The technology is OUT THERE - RIGHT NOW, man - but the corporations don't want you to know about it..." rationale for the limited deployment of this or any other alternative energy technology.

[AlpineK]

This notion that corporations that profit from existing technologies are both hell-bent and capable of stifling any and all innovations that threaten their profitability, if true, would have resulted in the erradication of all technological progress long ago. Candlemakers would have snuffed out the lightbulb,...

 

I mostly agree with what you're saying however sometimes countries/corporations can move backwards or remain static. In the book Guns, Germs, and Steel the author gives the example of China, I forget the date, but they had a very advanced navy/merchant fleet, but after a bunch of ships sunk in a typhoon the government discouraged improvements in sea travel and many other technologies. China lost its big lead in technology over Europe and eventually Europeans viewed them as backwards.

 

I personally believe that the government needs to put money into alternative energy projects in much the same way as they did during the space race. The space race led to all the fancy pants computers we have today.

[minx]

i think alternative fuels/energy sources are mandatory. however, it would help to develop better public transportation networks in a number of large metropolitan areas. europe seems to be far ahead of us on this one.

 

it would take me 3 hours to get from my house to work using public transit. if I drive ~2/3 of the way (25miles) and then catch a bus, the remaining 1/3 takes 40 minutes. it takes 15 minutes w/the car. it's not time effective for me to use public transportation. if we had a more complete network, i probably would.

[Off_White]

Driving with a can of beer between your legs gets old quick. And your balls get cold.

 

Worse yet, your beer gets warm

[rbw1966]

The Canadian government does not allow males to possess testicles.

 

Which of course you have verified through intense independent research and large random sampling.

 

You need a vacation.

[Dru]

well it's a commonly known fact that the average Canadian has one testicle and one ovary

[willstrickland]

Jay, yeah markets will eventually force the issue when oil breaks through some level or XOM, CVX etc realize their reserves are dwindling much faster than they can replace them (and demand is growing rapidly) so they'd better have a vision for a post-oil energy world.

 

My argument centers around state investment in the alternatives now, mainly because the oil market can be very volatile. By the time the markets force a change to other sources, we will be up shit creek because of the ramping time to get alternatives on-line.

 

Of course that would also cut into private sector revenue in some ways (and boost it in others such as construction contractors), and smacks of socialism to some (state owned energy production?).

 

My fear is that an oil crisis can materialize very quickly, much more quickly than we can counter. If the market incentive does not yet exist (and I agree, it doesn't...yet), the govt needs to prepare anyway so the ramping time isn't occuring during an energy crisis (we would prosper relative to countries not prepared, or at least lessen the economic blow).

[rbw1966]

While I agree with a lot of what JayB says, I think he ignores the fact that the market is never truly free and the government had a lot of involvement in creating the infrastructure which makes things like electricity available to everyone. Or how corporate manipulation increased auto dependence.

[archenemy]

Read this and you will see exactly how corp manipulation got us where we are:

http://www.culturechange.org/issue10/taken-for-a-ride.htm

[j_b]

[JayB]ignores the fact that the market is never truly free and the government had a lot of involvement in creating the infrastructure which makes things like electricity available to everyone. Or how corporate manipulation increased auto dependence.

 

no shit! JayB is trying to rewrite history. according to him private financing would have enabled the building of railroads, highways, nuclear power, etc ... i.e. constructing a light bulb is cheap compared to electrification or dam building (without which the lightbulb has little use and the economies of scale necessary to make a killing are just not existent), the cost of car manufacturing is nothing compared to road building all over the nation (which is why cars were a marginal phenomemon before public funds paid for highways), and on and on ...

 

as for the role of various lobbies to prevent public funding of alternative technologies from which they wouldn't profit, it is well documented (just google for 'highway lobby' w.r.t. to public transit for example).

[JoshK]

Aspergers huh? That is interesting. I know a lot about it owing to the fact that I have somebody close to me in my life that has it. If he, indeed, is truthfully afflicted then the thing you guys all certainly think is a bullshit excuse may well be more valid than you think.

 

In any event, the guy should definitely be spending some time in jail but i think the part about the judge uping the punishment for him "influencing consumers" or whatever is pretty suspect. I could see that being slapped down by an appeals court.

 

The whole thing is sad tho. These people just end up looking even stupider than somebody who is dumb enough to buy a hummer2.