Boston is still Retarded

[raptor10]

The rhetoric from both sides contains convenient fallacies that don't represent the true reality of our situation.

Brett

Thats a great point. The rhetoric of hate from the leaders may mask their true political motivations, but my worry is that as as the model of terrorist cells goes smaller and more anarchically distributed that the intensity of belief will be stronger and the intent will equal the rhetoric, although I am sure that that is not the case with the leadership today.

 

[Brett327]

Thats a great point. The rhetoric of hate from the leaders may mask their true political motivations, but my worry is that as as the model of terrorist cells goes smaller and more anarchically distributed that the intensity of belief will be stronger and the intent will equal the rhetoric, although I am sure that that is not the case with the leadership today.

Don't forget - the rhetoric goes both ways. "They hate our freedom." Who the fvck came up with that line? What they hate is our support (tacit or otherwise) of secular, autocratic regimes in the Middle East. Maybe that's too esoteric for the general public to appreciate, but I think we ought to start talking about the real reasons they hate us. I'm not saying their rationale or means are justified, but our hands aren't as squeaky clean as many politicians would have us believe. Until we're ready to deal with that reality in a public manner, there won't ever be an easy solution to this mess we're in.

Brett

 

[raptor10]

What they hate is our support (tacit or otherwise) of secular, autocratic regimes in the Middle East.

Brett

 

[Fly Navy]

As a native of Massachusetts, this title should be "Bahston is still Retahded"

 

[Brett327]

I was thinking more along the lines of Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi (this one's key), Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE, Pakistan, Etc.

Brett

 

[raptor10]

The Saudi Connection
How billions in oil money spawned a global terror network

By David E. Kaplan
Posted 12/7/03

 

[Brett327]

As much as I tend to despise the whole alternative energy crowd - hippy fvcks that they are - there is, admittedly, a long term national security reason to wean ourselves from oil. Easy to say this now, but we should have seen this coming in '73. I know we can't exactly waive a magic wand and decree a viable alternative energy solution, but we could probably have arranged our priorities a bit differently in hindsight. In the grand scheme, I'm confident that our technology will prevail at some point, but nothing would make me happier than to tell the Saudis (and the rest of the OPEC to go fvck themselves. Best move we could make at that point would be to share our technology with everybody to put those guys out of business. They want to live in the 8th century, be my guest.

Brett

 

[MasterBates]

As much as I tend to despise the whole alternative energy crowd - hippy fvcks that they are - there is, admittedly, a long term national security reason to wean ourselves from oil. Easy to say this now, but we should have seen this coming in '73. I know we can't exactly waive a magic wand and decree a viable alternative energy solution, but we could probably have arranged our priorities a bit differently in hindsight. In the grand scheme, I'm confident that our technology will prevail at some point, but nothing would make me happier than to tell the Saudis (and the rest of the OPEC to go fvck themselves. Best move we could make at that point would be to share our technology with everybody to put those guys out of business. They want to live in the 8th century, be my guest.

Brett

In all honesty, without oil, they pretty much would be in the 8th century in a lot of OPEC nations.. Yes, they have banking, and resorts, but without the oil money, they would be the backwaters of some empire, as they have been for much of the last Millenia.

As to alternative energy. The problem is that each proponent of some tech usually believes with a fanatical twist that their system is the solution for all energy troubles.

BioDiesel can cut back on out PetroDiesel needs. But due to its cold temp properties, it will not totally eliminate PetroDiesel.

Ethanol, can supplement gasoline, but will not totally replace, mostly for cold start reasons.

Methanol is the same, but to a greater extent.

Hydrogen is a VERY inefficent method of making fuel, unless you are just trying to make a portable system that is backed up by Hydro or Nuclear to generate the Hydrogen.. Because other than Hydrolosis, guess where most H2 comes from? Petroleum and Natural Gas...

 

[Brett327]

In all honesty, without oil, they pretty much would be in the 8th century in a lot of OPEC nations.. Yes, they have banking, and resorts, but without the oil money, they would be the backwaters of some empire, as they have been for much of the last Millenia.

As to alternative energy. The problem is that each proponent of some tech usually believes with a fanatical twist that their system is the solution for all energy troubles.

BioDiesel can cut back on out PetroDiesel needs. But due to its cold temp properties, it will not totally eliminate PetroDiesel.

Ethanol, can supplement gasoline, but will not totally replace, mostly for cold start reasons.

Methanol is the same, but to a greater extent.

Hydrogen is a VERY inefficent method of making fuel, unless you are just trying to make a portable system that is backed up by Hydro or Nuclear to generate the Hydrogen.. Because other than Hydrolosis, guess where most H2 comes from? Petroleum and Natural Gas...

I'm talking beyond hydrocarbon based energy and even most theoretical sources of hydrogen aren't that viable. It has to encompass both our need to generate electricity as well as the transportation and military sectors to be genuinely effective.

Brett

 

[Lawman]

You guys neglected one of the biggest ironys of the Alternative energy arguement. The people screaming for it the loudest would rather stick their fingers in their ears and stamp their feet screaming about the problem then fact facts that the solutions to it are Nuclear and IGCC Coal in the immediate future. We could even get off a lot of the Middle East Oil if we would take some innitiative, grow some balls, and tell the EPA to suck an egg while we drill for the stuff laying off our own coast. The hackisack Save-the-whales crowd needs to face it that there is no way to provide the energy needs of the all the Starbucks much less our Nations power requirements with Hydroelectric, Geothermal, Solar, and Wind power. The technology just isnt there to get a high enough Watt return on the energy expended to get it.

 

[Brett327]

You guys neglected one of the biggest ironys of the Alternative energy arguement. The people screaming for it the loudest would rather stick their fingers in their ears and stamp their feet screaming about the problem then fact facts that the solutions to it are Nuclear and IGCC Coal in the immediate future. We could even get off a lot of the Middle East Oil if we would take some innitiative, grow some balls, and tell the EPA to suck an egg while we drill for the stuff laying off our own coast. The hackisack Save-the-whales crowd needs to face it that there is no way to provide the energy needs of the all the Starbucks much less our Nations power requirements with Hydroelectric, Geothermal, Solar, and Wind power. The technology just isnt there to get a high enough Watt return on the energy expended to get it.

Speaking of hydroelectric ( one of the primary power sources in the Pac NW), after the big push towards renewable sources of energy in the earth first crowd is now saying that the dams impede the God damned salmon as they return to spawn. Jesus fvcking Christ! These people won't be satisfied until the US reverts to its pre-colonial state.

FWIW, I'm down with a return to nuke power for our domestic electricity needs. After all this time, turns out it's the environmentally friendly solution.

Brett

 

[MasterBates]

Yeah, and if the French can do it and not fvck it up, how hard can this nuclear thing be?

 

[Lawman]

Speaking of hydroelectric ( one of the primary power sources in the Pac NW), after the big push towards renewable sources of energy in the earth first crowd is now saying that the dams impede the God damned salmon as they return to spawn. Jesus fvcking Christ! These people won't be satisfied until the US reverts to its pre-colonial state.

FWIW, I'm down with a return to nuke power for our domestic electricity needs. After all this time, turns out it's the environmentally friendly solution.

Brett

Ill give that the idea of a Chernobyl again makes me all sorts of uncomfortable. I just downloaded a BBC documentary that was made last year that had a lot of stuff you never heard about.... good god thats friggen scary as all hell. But I dont see our operational tempo and QC measures being as abismal as that of Soviet Russia in the midst of an Economic crises.

Dams though, have long been acknowledged by many major enviromentalists as being one of the most destructive and intrusive elements that we do to the Enviroment. But again its a question of what are we more concerned with conservation or our own well being. There is a line I feel we need to walk but some people really would rather support the idea of saving a few fish for the Bears to eat rather then providing a cheap enough power source that lower income bracket familys can heat their homes in the winter without going into debt so far you sell your ass under an overpass.

Wanna see some truly crazy enviromentalist peoples idea of what would be an ideal America? Google "Wildlands Project." For the impatient its basically a group of international whack jobs that are advocating the idea of turning 75-100% of the North American Continent into a nature preserve either limiting to a crawl or completely removing human interfearance from the continent. Oh and Ted Turner is a huge supporter of this group (like millions of dollars). Go Planet :icon_roll

 

[raptor10]

In addition to nuke power, I've been a big fan of OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion) its your one stop shop for large scale production of electricity, hydrogen, ammonia, and methanol, and desalinated water.

 

[Brett327]

Yeah, and if the French can do it and not fvck it up, how hard can this nuclear thing be?

It's funny/curious how single events in history (like poor design/operator error at TMI unit 2) can change the entire course of future events WRT nuke power in the US. Interesting point, I was living in France when TMI went down and it was, to say the least, a media circus over there, but the validity of the French power grid never came into question. The genius of the French approach (attributable largely to 70s president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing), as opposed to the US, was to standardize their reactor design.

Brett