Did you watch CNN last night when they were talking about drilling in alaska?

[JazzManJim]

He's trying to post as an authority based on a videotape. I've lived in GA for three years, TX for 3, FL for 4, and MI for the rest of my life, I can honestly say that despite the fact that my family travels an obscene amount within each of our states, we have not seen ALL of any of those states. I have plenty of videotape of FL and the beaches and the springs and UF-do you see me trying to pass myself off as an authority on the wetlands there?

What he's saying is that according to what he's seen, and what he knows, the television footage isn't of the same place.

That's not unreasonable.

If you saw TV footage of someplace that was said to be a FL Wetlands, and it looked obviously incongruous to you, and you said something, I'd tend to believe you. You have good information, you know what you're looking at. I have no reason to disbelieve you.

 

[TWB]

Jim, sorry, but your logic is skewed.

If it is unethical to say that a peice of land is something it is not, then it is also unethical to say that a peice of land is not what it purports to be when you do not know if that is true.

I do not think your position is intellectually honest.

 

[sexy-girl]

the area they wish to drill is protected wherever it is or whatever it looks like its obviously protected for a reason ... so the question is do you wish to put drilling for oil over the environment an environment that has existed for billions of years


also drilling more oil will in no way actually help americans oil consumption only way they can do that is to use more economical cars and look for alternative fuels


this is all about votes and money nothing more

 

[TWB]

Mostly money.

 

[WriterDom]

They want one drilling site on the Coastal Plain about the size of an airport.

What's a Coastal Plain? It's an extensive area of level or rolling treeless country near the coast.

How big is the coastal plain? Roughly 100 miles by 30 miles.

It wasn't a right wing conspiracy to call it a coastal plain. That's what it is.

So when the leftist and the greenies run these ads of pristine mountain vistas, well, that is a little bit dishonest. Those areas are already permanently closed to development

 

[JazzManJim]

Jim, sorry, but your logic is skewed.

If it is unethical to say that a peice of land is something it is not, then it is also unethical to say that a peice of land is not what it purports to be when you do not know if that is true.

I do not think your position is intellectually honest.

I must be missing something.

He said, pretty plainly, that what he saw what not what he knew to be the ANWR. He said that wasn't it. When questioned on it, he brought up his evidence. He knows what he said is true. Based on my knowledge of him here, he is not deceptive, not a liar. He and I dont' always agree, but it's not on factual points, but on the interpretation of points.

A person I believe to be honest makes a statement based on honest information. That seems as honest as it gets.

 

[TWB]

Sorry, but I don't think that would be your position if CNN corrected or clarifies only after being called on it.


Sorry Jim.

 

[sigh]

todd, had the media showed a ice-shrouded expanse of alaskan tundra, adrift with blowing snow and crags of barren rock and lichen, would you have been happier?

the effect would have been the same...the beauty would have been more stark, but hardly lessened...the value of this place is not that it's a vacation spot, but that it ISN'T one...and if you don't get that then you'll never understand those that want it left untouched

the oil in the arctic will extend our supply for decades, but then what? pretending that there will always be oil is so short-sighted...it takes eons to produce and we use cubic kilometers of it in a heartbeat

why wait until it's gone to face the inevitable?

 

[CelestialBody]

 

[JazzManJim]

Sorry, but I don't think that would be your position if CNN corrected or clarifies only after being called on it.


Sorry Jim.

Sure it would.

Let's say that a reporter at CNN made a statement about a jazz club in New Orleans. I didn't buy it so I asked him how he knew that. He then went on to tell me that he had a good friend that lived in New Orleans for a couple of years and spent some time in that club. He also told me that his friend sent him a videotape made in and around that club.

I'd accept what he had to say. I'd have no reason not to believe him except for any mistrust I brought with me.

I tend to take a person at his word. That increases or decreases based on what they show me in successive meetings.

 

[CelestialBody]

 

[TWB]

Then what you are saying is, it is OK for CNN to use video that is not ANWR that they think is ANWR but is not really sure. THen when asked about it they can simply state that they are not sure.

I think you are stretching it. If you told me George Bush had three penises, and I started telling everyone he did, don't you think I have some responsibility to, before stating it as fact, think about whether the story is just bullshit?

I do.

 

[JazzManJim]

Gotcha, CB.

Y'all don't trust him or like him.

Fair enough.

I've not seen anything he's posted factually that I've had a problem with. I trust what he says. <shrug>

 

[TWB]

It has nothing to do with whether I trust or like him. I don't know him and have had no reason not to trust him until he posted something stating something as fact which turned out to be untrue or without credible authority.

 

[WriterDom]

If Todd happened to see a mountain, then he's right on the money with his statement. He never said it wasn't anwr. He said it wasn't near where they wanted to drill.

case closed.

 

[sigh]

If Todd happened to see a mountain, then he's right on the money with his statement. He never said it wasn't anwr. He said it wasn't near where they wanted to drill.

and i ask again...so what?

the media will choose whichever images most expose the contrast of their story, just as they chose to focus on the irrelevant during the clinton investigations...they do it to stir emotions, to gain viewership and make money...i don't trust CNN to show me exactly what is happening any more than i trust rush limbaugh to tell me anything akin to the truth...i filter all such media nonsense through the natural skepticism of my intelligence

the point is, the people who care about this place don't care whose vision of beauty it matches (or doesn't match)...they only care that it could be destroyed forever for the sake of a few decades of oil profits

 

[Todd-'o'-Vision]

Well it looks like someone did call CNN on the footage and they issued an apology for showing footage they new was not ANWR.

Of course it wasn't aural like the claim it was ANWR it was textual which lasted about 4 seconds as it flew across the screen on the little news ticker.

 

[paphian]

If the footage is of an area that would be not be subject to drilling, then it's unethical at best, and deliberate propaganda at worst. It's tantamount to showing a picture of you, while claiming it's "representative" of me. After all we might be both human, and both male, but what if it was a picture on a wanted poster? Extreme? Maybe. But it illustrates the point quite well.

As to the whole environmental mess... (warning to those PC on the board... read no further, this will piss you off.)

Are you personally willing to give up your car to help save oil? If you haven't yet, where's the courage of your convictions? Or is it that you just don't want to ride the bus with that sort of people? And don't go lecturing me on electric vehicles... how do you think they generate the electricity those vehicles use? (Hint: It's NOT solar)

Are you personally willing to give up virtually all plastics, all brightly colored dyes, synthetic rubber, lightweight eyeglass lenses? Aluminum containers? Glass containers? What do you think will happen to all those wonderful forests with no oil, coal or nuclear generated electricity? (Hint: Where are the fabled Cedars of Lebanon?)

What about your right (under the law) to have equal access to public lands? Usually the next step after "protecting" some place is the same group that accomplished that, under the guise of saving it for recreational purposes, attempting to close it to all uses, except those that, in their infinite wisdom, they've defined as "permissable." (Hint: Guess which group usually gets permission.) Are you disabled or elderly? How are you gonna see these places? Walk? And just what the heck are they good for if no one can go there and we get nothing out of them? In that case, what are we "saving" them for?

Do you use the electric power grid? If not, what are you running that computer on?

Strident environmentalism gives me serious heartburn. It's not that I don't think that there should be protection and wise use of resources of any kind. It's that those usually agitating most for the most stringest protections are (a) those least affected by it and (b) informed only on the side of the issue that gives them the most warm fuzzies. It's why we rush to protect baby seals and not some ugly, carrion eating, annoying fly.

Hell, most Americans (and I am an American) think meat and vegetables come from grocery stores and other products they've "just gotta have" somehow miraculously appear out of thin air, requiring only a few dollars to purchase. Global warming? Gimme a break. Ask a geologist just how warm the earth has been many times in the past, all on it's own (not to mention how friggin' cold).

The "environmentally friendly alternative," folks, was the norm starting before the stone age, and in all times up until about 200 years ago. It's arguably true that only starting in the latter half of the 20th century has it been otherwise, and even then only in the "developed nations". Do you really want to go back to "nasty, brutish, and short?" How many of you think you'd even have stayed alive beyond infancy or childhood? I know I wouldn't have, because the appendicitis I had when I was a young teen would have killed me.

Today's "environmentalism" requires serious--and here's a news flash--high impact--technological underpinnings. Our entire lives require these things. From coal, to oil, to nuclear, to mining to logging. I defy you to come up with a viable alternative, short of living from sunrise to sunset each day, naked and shivering or sweating, eeking out an existence based on subsistence farming. To think otherwise is to have serious tunnel-vision.

 

[sigh]

paphian, i'm not a strident environmentalist at all...far from it...i'm an environmental realist

we ARE going to run out of oil...we have to...we use it infinitely more quickly that it can be made...to think that we can have our cars and plastics and brightly colored whatevers forever is the short-sided view

we started from scratch and put a man on the moon in eight years...do you truly believe that with the same sort of commitment we couldn't do the same with finding an alternate to oil? and if you do believe that then you're comdemning our progeny to a return to the pre-industrial, naked/shivering/sustenance farming era you scorn so readily, because the oil supply will end eventually

we MUST find alternatives...we have no choice...

 

[JazzManJim]

we MUST find alternatives...we have no choice...

We have them. We've just been buffaloed into not using them.

Perhaps when things get really dire, we'll realize that we've been snowed.

I, personally, am in favor of the private efforts to get into space. Therein lies a niftly source of power involving microwaves and ground stations. Cheap, clean, lots of power. It just requires us letting private individuals and companies into space.

 

[CelestialBody]

 

[sigh]

We have them. We've just been buffaloed into not using them.

Perhaps when things get really dire, we'll realize that we've been snowed.

I, personally, am in favor of the private efforts to get into space. Therein lies a niftly source of power involving microwaves and ground stations. Cheap, clean, lots of power. It just requires us letting private individuals and companies into space.

i agree wholeheartedly...perhaps we needed the government to take the initial risk of going to space because it was beyond the scope of the investors of the time, but space will soon be the provence of private enterprise...i for one can't wait for a space sling to the far east...what a ride that'll be

 

[JazzManJim]

i agree wholeheartedly...perhaps we needed the government to take the initial risk of going to space because it was beyond the scope of the investors of the time, but space will soon be the provence of private enterprise...i for one can't wait for a space sling to the far east...what a ride that'll be

It'll happen only when the Federal Government releases its monopoly on man-rated spacecraft in the United States. Right now, the cost for a private enterprise to put a man into space, riding on the shuttle, would be approximately a billion dollars.

There are at least three private companies out there that have working prototypes ready for final testing and manned launches.

There is at least two private groups pushing hard for those restrictions to be lifted. Perhaps the largest one is called The Artemis Society, International. It's worth checking out. They're doing interesting stuff.

 

[paphian]

paphian, i'm not a strident environmentalist at all...far from it...i'm an environmental realist

we ARE going to run out of oil...we have to...we use it infinitely more quickly that it can be made...to think that we can have our cars and plastics and brightly colored whatevers forever is the short-sided view

we started from scratch and put a man on the moon in eight years...do you truly believe that with the same sort of commitment we couldn't do the same with finding an alternate to oil? and if you do believe that then you're comdemning our progeny to a return to the pre-industrial, naked/shivering/sustenance farming era you scorn so readily, because the oil supply will end eventually

we MUST find alternatives...we have no choice...

My response wasn't aimed directly at you, sigh.

As to running out of oil--you are absolutely and positively 100% correct. I've no doubt of that. The problem isn't running out of oil.

The problem, in my not at all humble opinion, is in the response to "environmental issues" that many environmental organizations would have us believe is the "only enlightened response." Blocking, protesting and preventing alternatives because they don't fit a narrow, so-called environmental agenda is not the answer. That almost guarantees we end up with the scenario I described.

Need hydrocarbons? All we can use and more are there for the taking with no environmental impact, to speak of. JazzmanJim has it rght... it's in space.

Unfortunately, there are lots of reasons why space-based microwave (as JMJ suggests) won't work. But the outer planets do have all the hydrocarbons we'll need for the forseeable future. What we lack is the will.

Read Bob Zubrin's Entering Space. Not only ideas, but hard numbers to explain how we can get the resources we need. While you may not agree with his ideas about why we need to do so, one can't fault the means. It's doable, and it's doable now.

Every environment has a carrying capacity and we're definitely straining that here on earth. Nearly any means of expanding the carrying capacity here is only a stop-gap measure. We really don't have a choice but to become a space-faring civilization. The question is, how long will we let the so-called "green" groups, who more and more have an agenda based on a continuation of their own power and their own wealth, dictate the means?

Theirs is an agenda for disaster. When one looks further into just what their agenda is, it isn't hard to determine that the approach they esposue is that humanity is a "cancer" that needs to be cut out. They'd be quite happy to see the world's population reduced significantly (and some don't care much about the means), so long as they get to be the part of the chosen survivors.

There is no reason that humanity--as a whole--can't survive and thrive given the resources available just in our own solar system. It's possible to give ol' earth some breathing room, increase the general wealth of all people, and provide the sort of increase in available space for people and animals and plant life that would exceed anyone's wildest dreams.

I think it's high time we quit pissing and moaning about how to accomplish supporting more people, with decreasing resources and without further damaging the planet, and made the leap. If you want to be truly green, support a vigorous, expansionist manned space program on whatever front it can be accomplished.

 

[JazzManJim]

Need hydrocarbons? All we can use and more are there for the taking with no environmental impact, to speak of. JazzmanJim has it rght... it's in space.

Unfortunately, there are lots of reasons why space-based microwave (as JMJ suggests) won't work. But the outer planets do have all the hydrocarbons we'll need for the forseeable future. What we lack is the will.

I'm only going to disagree on two small points. First is that microwave transmission is a very workable plan which requires us to commit to it to work. It will take some effort, but can pay off splendidly for the effort.

I'm all for the hydrocarbon-scooping plans, too. They're a longer-term solution that works hand-in-hand with a near-earth orbital solution. Together, they answer every single energy question we have. Add to that the nuclear power option, and energy worries are handled. Just like that. Going into space is the answer to that.

It also answers one more problem: potential overcrowding. In time, we're going to need to branch out. Either we do so underwater, or we do so in space. Essentially, the problems inherent in both of those places don't differ much from each other. Neither of them are going to be possible until we get our butts into space.

The only other place I disagree is what's stopping us. It's not our lack of will. I think we'd have plenty of will. Right now, it's our obstructionist government that holds the monopoly and won't let it go. Once that's gone, spaceflight will happen. Successful missions breed more confidence.