The Real Danger of a Democrat in 2008

[SEVERUSMAX]

while it's fun to debate amicus mythical "free market", which solves all problems in the best possible way, VERSUS demonic statism which regiments humans into antlike colonies and kills millions of 'inconvenient persons,' reality intervenes...

James SD i think has a key issue pegged: civil liberties;
the Repugs, in the grip of their right, want authority, arbirtrary arrest, untrammeled executive; BIG, AUTHORITATIVE GOVERNMENT. (see ann coulters call to deport all middle east, arab non citizens).

Dems want a few of the Bill of Rights provisions honored, besides the Second Amendment.

----
When these issues don't wash, e.g. in Katrina territory, or presently in Arkansas, it's

Repug bungling and corruption-> misery

Actual help by a democratic gov -> some relief

The tens of thousand of mobile homes [controlled by Homeland Security] standing idle in Arkansas while thousands are homeless (from tornados) in that same state is shown every night on CNN.

Give me a civil-libertarian Democrat whose commitment to civil liberties is consistent enough to embrace the Second Amendment, has a common sense respect for the necessity of the death penalty at times, is a deficit hawk (as opposed to the free-spending ways of the far right and far left), favors a strong national defense while opposing the war in Iraq....and even if we differ on a number of other issues....he or she might well get my vote.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

But what about the Conservative Democrats, the Libertarian Republicans, the roughly 50% of the country that identifies as, and generally does vote, "Independant"ly? I'm not sure the US is actually that polarized. I've noticed online and in real life, it's the most extreme people who talk the loudest, while those in the middle either stay out of it or are ignored (Trust me, there are plenty of threads here and elsewhere where I've posted a moderate opinion and generally gotten no response as the two most extremists went at each other's throats).

Unless I made a mistake, I don't belive I mentioned either Domocrats or Republicans. I have no real faith in either party, since historically, both tend to do the same thing as far as the middle class is concerned.

I don't agree that there is no polarization in the country. All you have to do is look at any of Ami's threads to see it. But frankly, both poles are wrong. The country can't contue to exist if the Right keeps stealing from the middle. And it cannot exist if the Left takes over and installs some social system that looks out only for the middle and lower class. Both sides need each other.

I like the system we have. Each side tends to keep the other honest in the long run, even in light of the criminalty currently going on in Washington DC.

 

[Pure]

while it is possible that there is some reality to roxanne's dream of an adequate and essentially unlimited supply of uranium to meet the world power needs in the long term, that hope has been questioned on a number of fronts.

http://www.aspo-australia.org.au/References/Fleay/Nuclear_In_Out_3.pdf

The paper deals in detail with two basic issues: the energy required to mine and refine Uranium and to build and operate plants, including waste disposal; I’ve not reproduced the detailed calculations for net energy. But here is a portion dealing with the supply of uranium

Nuclear Power: Energy Inputs and Life Cycle

Brian Fleay,
Oct 2006

[start quoted excerpt]

In March 2006, Britain’s Sustainable Development Commission presented a report to Prime Minister Tony Blair on nuclear power. The report suggests uranium supplies may struggle to meet even a modest projected increase in global demand from 65,000 tonnes now to 76,000 tonnes in 2025. The report said that the annual shortfall could reach 10,000 tonnes by 2015.

The problem is partly that 40% of uranium supply comes from secondary stocks—1970s stockpiles, fuel from decommissioned weapons and tailings. These stockpiles are starting to run out and the report suggests their exhaustion will occur by 202024.

This article also reports nuclear analyst Jeff Combs as saying that the uranium price rise since 2004 should stimulate exploration, location and production of new uranium supplies, but this could take more than a decade. Combs said uranium at $US20 a kilogram in the 1990s was underpriced and did not reflect the scarcity of this mineral.

Without new supplies the UK report suggests that supplies of uranium recoverable at below $US40 per kilogram will be exhausted by 2025 and supplies recoverable at less than US$80 a kilogram by 2035. This trend implies depletion of highgrade uranium ores.
Combs asks: what might happen to the economics of nuclear power if the price of uranium were driven into the $US70 to $US130 range due to factors such as supply interruptions or higher than average extraction costs? The IAEA expects nuclear power output to increase by 13% to 40% by 2020. Nuclear power stations under construction are expected to have a life beyond 2050.

[end quoted excerpt]

 

[drksideofthemoon]

Amicus...you remind me of a top 40 radio station...you play the same tune over and over and over...get a new line. You're simply not relevant anymore...your day is done, your time is past, your generation royally screwed things up, get over it, a new day is dawning.

 

[amicus]

[QUOTE=drksideofthemoon]Amicus...you remind me of a top 40 radio station...you play the same tune over and over and over...get a new line. You're simply not relevant anymore...your day is done, your time is past, your generation royally screwed things up, get over it, a new day is dawning.[/QUOTE]


~~~

I realize you are both frightened and ignorant and can only resort to an attack on me personally as you simply don't have the ability to address an argument rationally.

My Generation, as you call it, defeated the Nazi's, fed Europe in the aftermath, defeated the Empire of Japan and fed them, in the aftermath. Went to the moon and did the 'other things' as well to quote JFK.

My Generation invented, created and made available to all, Television, mass transit, Jet airliners, the computer and defeated Communism in the process and became the single greatest power in the history of man and shares that greatness by being the nation that contributes the most of any other to the health and welfare of 3rd world, impoverished nations.

Like an old John Steinbeck story, shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations, you are the sad progeny of a proud people and I/we, are sadly disappointed to leave the world in your unworthy and incapable hands. Like a son gone bad.

Live with that.


Amicus Veritas....

 

[mckai777]

Amicus...you remind me of a top 40 radio station...you play the same tune over and over and over...get a new line. You're simply not relevant anymore...your day is done, your time is past, your generation royally screwed things up, get over it, a new day is dawning.

Now, you're just baiting him. It's good for eliciting a response, and bad taste in general.

 

[amicus]

Now, you're just baiting him. It's good for eliciting a response, and bad taste in general.

~~~

Thanks, McKai...but I can swat mosquito's myself.




amicus...

 

[mckai777]

Thanks, McKai...but I can swat mosquito's myself.

And, you took it.

 

[amicus]

[QUOTE=mckai777]And, you took it.

[/QUOTE]

~~~


sighs...here comes my late night mood I am sure....no...I did not, 'take' it, the bait, Mckai, I am not a woman who just lays there and gets fucked.


This lil pissant needs a lesson taught, I doubt if the jerk even knows a fatal blow when one is delivered, as it was, but others will.

amicus...the incorrigible....

 

[mckai777]

no...I did not, 'take' it, the bait, Mckai, I am not a woman who just lays there and gets fucked.

As a woman, I can heartily attest to the fact that there's often no more joyous an event than getting fucked good, missionary-style.

 

[amicus]

[QUOTE=mckai777]As a woman, I can heartily attest to the fact that there's often no more joyous an event than getting fucked good, missionary-style.

[/QUOTE]



~~~


Heh, this ole flaccid five...(I may change my screen name) sure perked up when you said that.

Wanna set a time and place, m'dear?

ahem...

I mean...amicus...

 

[mckai777]

Heh, this ole flaccid five...(I may change my screen name) sure perked up when you said that.

Wanna set a time and place, m'dear?

ahem...

I mean...amicus...

Heh. Happily married, thanks.

You old rogue.

 

[drksideofthemoon]

Now, you're just baiting him. It's good for eliciting a response, and bad taste in general.

I know, and I'm sorry. He's just so easy and predictable.

 

[Pure]

let's see...

ami's generation defeated the nazis and communism, brought us tv's and computers, and brought american military pre eminence.

notice the list fittingly runs dry--or culminates-- in the late eighties, with the 'don't tax, but spend' presidency of Ronald Reagan: like ami, a usually affable enough person, one possessed of a pecular moral clarity, whose brain ended up like a piece of swiss cheese.

 

[drksideofthemoon]

sighs...here comes my late night mood I am sure....no...I did not, 'take' it, the bait, Mckai, I am not a woman who just lays there and gets fucked.


This lil pissant needs a lesson taught, I doubt if the jerk even knows a fatal blow when one is delivered, as it was, but others will.

amicus...the incorrigible....

Ami, Ami, Ami, you poor besotted old fool. Were you in your cups again? It must be hell going through life as unhappy as you are.

You amuse me but, at the same time, I feel sorry for you.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

how does china get and maintain 1,000 nuclear reactors for the present population, and 25 more for each five years after that?

and how about your car, rox? little nuclear reactor in there too?

Builds them. (Or builds fewer ones that are bigger.) No reactor in my car - a battery. If traveling long distance, every couple hundred miles I pull into a "gas station" and replace it with a charged one. The one that comes out of my car gets recharged and popped into someone else's car a few hours later. And so it goes, for the next 10,000 years or so, using reprocessed fuel (currently banned in the US for political reasons but used in many other places). Unless we find something better.

 

[cumallday]

Thanks JamesSD...although I firmly believe that opposite poles are necessary so that resolution or synthesis between thesis and antithesis, can exist, I do find amazement that rational people can reach such divergent conclusions.

You have a poor understanding of dialectics. Keep reading.

 

[hmmnmm]

It really doesn't matter.
The decay of America is too deeply corroded to retrieve back to any semblance of health, in any department. It's just a matter of time.
Certain administrations may have laid the groundwork, but the moment a baby boomer sat at the Oval Office desk it was over. Both of them equally - or the three of them.
No matter who is next (none would be nice for a change) - democrat, republican, liberal, conservative, moderate - they can do nothing, because they really don't know how to do anything but groom an image, speak garble they call words of solution, all the same - promoting diversity that is really not diverse.

They are all the same and they are worthless jabbermouths with nothing better to do than to fuck up a potentially good day for most people of the world.

Whew! That felt good.

Thanks, I needed that.

Never mind me.

Please continue.

Back to the sex, please

 

[Pure]

do we ever 'run out' of anything?

hi roxanne,
it sounds like you don't believe there's a supply problem with at least one non-renewable resource. do you know how many tons of ore have to be processed for an ounce of uranium; THEN, from that ounce, through rather complex and energy intensive means, the few *tenths* of 1% of U 235--what the primary reactors need-- has to be extracted.

don't you that that for either oil or U235, there is a *finite* supply that is extractable economically and with net energy gain (where the energy found exceeds the energy expended to extract the substance)?

as for batteries, would you favor the US gov devoting some funding to research, say one tenth of what it gives the oil, and the corn-ethanol producing folks?

 

[elfin_odalisque]

In most of the world today, politics has moved on from the left-right battle we are still fighting here. The acceptance of globalization, the reduction in national government's ability to control events, and the acceptance that the difference between philosophies is now nit-picking is accepted.

The one thing that American democracy has shown the world is the segregation between judiciary, executive and legislature.

In the early skirmishes for 2008, who can really distinguish between the programs of the front runners?

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

hi roxanne,
it sounds like you don't believe there's a supply problem with at least one non-renewable resource. do you know how many tons of ore have to be processed for an ounce of uranium; THEN, from that ounce, through rather complex and energy intensive means, the few *tenths* of 1% of U 235--what the primary reactors need-- has to be extracted.

don't you that that for either oil or U235, there is a *finite* supply that is extractable economically and with net energy gain (where the energy found exceeds the energy expended to extract the substance)?

as for batteries, would you favor the US gov devoting some funding to research, say one tenth of what it gives the oil, and the corn-ethanol producing folks?

No, I don't want the USG subsidizing research. Central planners are not very good at that. Expensive fuel will provide plenty of incentive for many dispersed entrepreneurial innovators to do it, trying lots of different things. If one group comes up with a dry hole, another will hit paydirt. Let 100 flowers bloom.

Current estimates of “economically recoverable” uranium reserves apply an upper price/cost limit of $135/kg for uranium ore. This price cutoff does not sufficiently appreciate the lack of effect that ore cost has on power cost. It corresponds to a power price increase of only around 0.25 cents/kW-hr, versus today’s $40/kg ore price. Uranium sources that cost up to $500 or even $1000/kg can still be economic. Even at $1000/kg, advanced nuclear plants should be able to produce power at around 6 cents/kW-hr or less (marginal operating cost.)

The actual recoverable uranium supply is likely to be enough to many hundreds of years, even using standard reactors. With breeders, we have enough economically recoverable uranium to meet all our power needs for tens, probably hundreds of thousands of years. Plenty of time to discover fusion.

 

[amicus]

Heh. Happily married, thanks.

You old rogue.

~~~


Chuckles....guilty as charged.

But hey, a fella's gotta ask or the entire world would cease rotating.


ammmouricas....

 

[amicus]

In my initial, thread starting post, I expressed the conclusion that the left, for nearly half a century, has infringed upon the rights of individuals and corporations, by unconstitutionally restricting and banning exploration and creation of available resources of energy materials.

This was done with full public approval and participation as short sided, illegal regulations drove the energy conglomerate out of the country and into a global market, leaving the United States with an internal energy shortfall and removing the incentive for R&D.

As Ayn Rand said, somewhere, "The Chickens, (Vultures) have come home to roost.)

Not one of the simpering sycophants of the left have challenged my assertion nor even addressed the issue. It devolves, as usual, into a name calling bash, with the messenger taking the brunt of the vitriol.

You are all abject cowards lacking the internal fortitude (guts) to admit that the misguided policies of 'saving the environment', maintaining a pristine wilderness, limiting growth and expansion, ZPG, (for those who have forgotten, a Zero Population Growth index) and hundreds of other misguided snail darter and spotted owl environmental frauds that have ham-strung growth and the American economy in general.

You just don't have the courage to acknowledge that your philosophy has failed and created a looming crisis just barely over the horizon.

The results and effects of a half century of 'head in the sand' mentality may be already too late to overcome as new energy sources have a start up time of nearly a decade before they can come on line.

A reinstitution and renewal of those asinine policies by a Democrat elected in 2008, might, I suggest, drive the final nail in the coffin of American Industrial enterprise.

As has been the case numerous times, Ms. Appleby, is the lone rational voice in the wilderness of ignorance that surrounds us.

Many of you in severe weather regions of the US, have gone without electrical energy for varying amounts of time. Did you like it?

I hope so, for your policies are creating a situation wherein there simply is not sufficient electricity being generated to meet the demand. Callous Californians felt the sting of 'brown-outs' a few years ago as a result of really archaic restrictions on the energy industry. It is only a matter of time and perhaps another Katrina like catastrophic event until you are in the dark, perhaps for weeks or months.

Remember when it happens. I warned you and I told you why.


Amicusa Veritas

 

[Pure]

(you don't follow my prophet..... waaahhhh!)

[sound of snoring]

 

[drksideofthemoon]

Not one of the simpering sycophants of the left have challenged my assertion nor even addressed the issue. It devolves, as usual, into a name calling bash, with the messenger taking the brunt of the vitriol.



Amicusa Veritas

Ami...the problem is that you start the same old rant with virtually every single one of your threads. The Left is to blame for everything. The Right is perfect.

You aren't interested in intelligent discussion, you just enjoy trying to rattle everyones' cage...