Yesterday

[cantdog]

Buzzwords, my ass. I'm no fuckin buzzword. I been on this case since the seventies and I'm sick of the efforts of hundreds of thousands of driven and innovative forward-looking people being dismissed as crazy talk. Buzzwords.

I know people who use no oil, who are off the grid for electricity because they make their own, all that shit. O'Neill laid out the system for colonizing low orbit and the L-points for the enormous payoff of beam solar power in the mid-seventies. There have been enormous changes in the way solar panel power systems work. Talk to people who run boats and ships. There's a network going into place for biodiesel from vegetable oils, and you can make alcohol fuel from fucking corn easy. But none of this buzzword shit is going to save your job, save your economy, and keep your grandkids from poverty if nobody gets behind this shit and shoves.

That buzzword shit fuckin wroks. And chasing more shale oil won't work. That's the goddam difference. Get educated.

 

[BigAndTall]

There's a network going into place for biodiesel from vegetable oils, and you can make alcohol fuel from fucking corn easy. But none of this buzzword shit is going to save your job, save your economy, and keep your grandkids from poverty if nobody gets behind this shit and shoves.

That buzzword shit fuckin wroks. And chasing more shale oil won't work. That's the goddam difference. Get educated.

Expect that you have to grow alot more corn on alot more land. Are you saying that more agriculture in previously unplowed land is the answer.

P.S. thank you for your insult

 

[Dar~]

My whole home town was powered by hydroelectric power. We were called the electric city because there were four dams just in our town and it was a small town.
Wind power is extremely viable.
There are cars manufactured today that are being downplayed b/c the oil industry is paying big bucks to advertsing agencies to keep it low profile, they are run completely and very efficiently off of generators under their hoods, powered by an electric battery.
Solar power is used to heat homes in many warm places, there has to be a way to harvest that.
The plain and simple fact is that Oil companies have more lobbyists than almost any other industry. They can always pay people in control off in perfectly legal ways. Until the corruption in congress stops the polution and destruction will continue.

 

[BigAndTall]

My whole home town was powered by hydroelectric power. We were called the electric city because there were four dams just in our town and it was a small town.
Wind power is extremely viable.
There are cars manufactured today that are being downplayed b/c the oil industry is paying big bucks to advertsing agencies to keep it low profile, they are run completely and very efficiently off of generators under their hoods, powered by an electric battery.
Solar power is used to heat homes in many warm places, there has to be a way to harvest that.
The plain and simple fact is that Oil companies have more lobbyists than almost any other industry. They can always pay people in control off in perfectly legal ways. Until the corruption in congress stops the polution and destruction will continue.

Ok very cool. That is what I am looking for. I guess to really get more into it, would you support more damn building and putting wind generators all over the place? I'm working on the assumption you would have to build a lot more of these to replace the demand that oil tends to cover.

 

[Dar~]

Ok very cool. That is what I am looking for. I guess to really get more into it, would you support more damn building and putting wind generators all over the place? I'm working on the assumption you would have to build a lot more of these to replace the demand that oil tends to cover.

I don't think we totally need to quit using oil, I just think we need to reduce our need to match our supply. Here in the US, not abroad.
It would be so much less expensive and so much more profittable to put up dams and wind mills and look into ways to harness and maintain solar and geothermal power than it is right now to support oil mongols. Prices for just abou teverything would decrease. Jobs would in crease and polutiona nd the destruction caused by oil would be lessened. I truly believe that earth is designed to be able to maintain itself. There are windy plains, use them for wind mill farms. there are scorching deserts use them sor solar and geothermal research and eventually power grids. There are rivers galore adn Dams don't damage them, use them for hydroelectric power. We can make it happen. The gov't just needs to stop loking at the bottom line and DO IT! Quit saying that you (collective) Are worried about the environment and actually do something about it.

 

[cantdog]

Expect that you have to grow alot more corn on alot more land. Are you saying that more agriculture in previously unplowed land is the answer.

P.S. thank you for your insult

Thanks for yours.

 

[cantdog]

Dar, people using solar power, if they can get on the electrical grid, can be net donors to it. Most electrical companies won't let you do that, but there are places where people who make a surplus hook to the grid and give it power, and get paid instead of billed. There are a lot more people who could do this than you think.

If the demand for the hardware to do this ( the buzzword is distributed systems) went up a bit, it would be absurd not to do it, because it would pay you to buy it and the hardware would be cheaper. It's not finicky homemade stuff anymore. They got stuff for boats you gotta see to believe.

Boats these days use lots of electrical power, and they don't ever have a pole to hook to. Modern solar panels are cool little modular units, flexible, waterproof, made like mats with grommets on the corners to tie them down with. They flop right onto the cabin roof and power your radio, power your LORAN, all that shit. Excess power stored in batteries. I use them at my camp, rack of batteries across the back window sill, adapters to charge the power packs for the power tools, electric trolling motor, a small electric fridge to supplement the gas fridge, but I got lots of roof space, I could do more than I do.

All this has been done without a whole lot of government help. In the eighties, even, no such easy, efficient solar-power systems existed.

Alcohol can be made from any vegetable matter. We make megatons of garbage every year. But the people who use alcohol fuel are crazies, tree-huggers. They don't have a lot of big plants turning kitchen waste into fuel, they have home stills and they supply their own needs, or at best they have co-ops and shit, because what they do is a crazy buzzword, recycling, renewable, sustainable.

Thirty solid years the L5 society and Gerard O'Neill been demonstrating with off-the-shelf parts how to make the accelerators and collectors and beam units for microwave-beam solar power. The footprint on the ground for a receiving grid for beam solar is much smaller than the areas needed for solar-power arrays from sunlight hitting the ground through the atmosphere and the weather. Collectors in orbit get it unfiltered and independent of weather. But people sat on that idea and let the space program wither and nearly die after about nineteen seventy five.
Despite the enormous spinoffs in miniaturization, ceramics, avionics, computers, plastics, and whatnot generated by the first space program considered as R&D. The only reason they got back into space now is for the military applications of it.

Military, defense, now there's a buzzword they can get behind!

Look up what Willie Nelson is doing these days. You got an internet. Biodiesel. Again, we chuck a lot of fat away. There are small scale co-ops of tree hugging crazies. Europe's admirable train systems are electric, for the most part. What would be the impact of a good sized push in distributed and renewable electricity on the grid powering all that? Are we funding mass transit,at all, nationally?

This is a big subject, and there isn't enough time for me to tell you everything on a porn site. But it's been going on for a long time, and there's a powerful lot of it. All I can tell you is to educate yourself. It's your problem, it's your kids' problem. Watch out which scientists you listen to, also. A lot of "science" is bought by corporations with an axe to grind in Congress. Remember the guys who said the ozone hole was bullshit, and had "studies" to show it to be so, scientifically. That kind of science gets funded every day.

But it has to be worth your time to think about. Too much is at stake. Work your way through it, and learn as much as you can. Fix your own house up with some of this stuff. There are off-the-grid houses right in town, where I live.

 

[Dar~]

I was just talking to my mom on the phone and ound out that they are trying to open an ethanol plant in my hometown also. Great Falls is really trying to contribute to the environmental thing.

 

[cantdog]

People have to do this. I think there's money to be made at it, especially now, and hereafter, when the availability of cheap petroleum products is fast becoming a fading memory.

During the last election, I got stubborn and tried to talk to people about all this in the context of third parties with their hands elsewhere than the pockets of the corporations. I got looked at like I had three heads. A lot. But I'm getting to be an old man. I take care of my own neck of the woods, make sure I do as little as I can manage to make things worse. Some of it is just unavoidable, but I carefully divide my waste. Vegetable waste composts, paper waste recycles, glass, plastic. My kid is aware of the magnitude of the hole we're in. We give thousands to ACLU, environmental groups, Amnesty International, even churches, in my case. My daughter won't give to churches, but I go on mission trips and build hospitals and help medical teams do clinics, and there isn't much of that done without churches. Even Physicians Without Borders is working for the glory of God, according to their website.

I subscribe money to the beam solar people. Private grants and private subscriptions are most of their funding, but it's a peaceful space program and a sustainable source of vast amounts of cheap energy, if only they'd get to doing it.

But I let people go, during the last election, and vote for the corporate parties. Because it's their funeral, their kids' future. I got my own life, and I do what I can, but if they don't care, why the fuck should I? I have an obligation to tell them, but they have to make their own beds.

I let them go, and I stopped short of telling them they were being stupid, because that isn't the point. And because they really have a right to do what they think best.

I think giving the country into the care of the corporations is going to redound badly on the country, even more than it already has. I see America being shut down hard in the coming century. We can't go on using all these resources and exploiting all these other people without reaping the whirlwind. It'll be my own grandkids, no doubt, being conquered, but my daughter sees it coming just as I do, and she will do what she can to get them to a safe place. Too bad. America was a great idea. But it's a race now between supplantation by multinational corporations, like in the cyberpunk stories, or internal revolution by the religious folks, like Revolt in 2100 or the Roundhead thing in England. Either way, the American republic, with government by the citizen, will be gone. My money is on the corps, by the way. They have the whip hand, and they can drop the Wildmons and the Falwells any time they no longer require them.

It's not too late to fix this, but it is, I think, for me. I talk but I prepare for what I might need to do if my talk affects nothing.

I'm glad to hear that people are doing some things like you're speaking of. I buy organic food, especially local organics, because how sustainable is organic food that's shipped four thousand miles? But I'm glad they're selling food without poison on it, I'm glad when sensible decisions are taken locally.

cantdog

 

[rgraham666]

I designed a cyberpunk role playing game a few years ago. I put a lot of thought into the history of the world over the next 60 years.

In the year 2060, there are slightly over 2 billion people on this planet. They think. Things aren't organised well enough to get an accurate count.

The problem was that the corps got into what was essentially a war with government. And the corps won.

Unfortunately, running a society is a great deal more difficult than running a company. Corps failed because there was no more power, no more clean water, no police to protect them, no health systems in place to make sure food is safe or to run immunisation programs.

Corps got taken over by their security (the old mercenary problem) or another corp (hostile takeover has a completely different meaning in my future).

In the meantime, the Four Horsemen partied down in the rest of the world.

Not a fun place to live. Great for a game though.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

For everyone that thinks we should not be drilling in ANWAR, what would you propose as a society we do?


I know everyone likes to say "alternative" or "renewable" but those are just buzzwords. What is something specific you would say "Mister Bush, this is a much better idea"

How bout leave something in this world that hasn't been raped all to hell and gone for the next generation? I'm not even on the alternate fuel wagon, but your talking about destroying a scenic and pristine wilderness for 3 to 6 percent of our consumption. What's next? Strip mining Yellowstone for some coal? Logging Yosemite for some lumber? Bush already unprotected millons of acers in what are supposed to be our NATIONAL FUCKING PARKS, not Haliburtons freaking private reserve.

He's a son of a bitch, he's a small minded son of a bitch, and every money grubing, whore in washington who voted for this sham is just as bad. And they have the termitity to make prostitution a crime. At least whores don't hurt anybody plying their trade. These assholes are fucking us all.

Pardon the rant, but this was it for me. I've been careful to be neutral, I've defended the conservative point of view, but no longer. This man is a walking talking pox. And he's not content to just infect the halls of power, he's spreading to destroy anything that's good and pure in this nation. It's one thing to partner with big bussiness, it's another entirely to roll over and take it up the ass from them on every freaking occasion.

 

[rgraham666]

Colleen? Have I told you you're beautiful when you're angry?

Consider it done.

 

[thebullet]

Coleen said:
I've defended the conservative point of view, but no longer.

I know you don't think much of me or of my opinions, but this has essentially been my POV from the beginning.

GWB is not a conservative! He doesn't understand the meaning of the word. Hell, he doesn't understand the meaning of a lot of words, but that's another story.

A true conservative would be defending the constitution. A true conservative would care about maintaining our wild areas, our parks, our natural wonders. A true conservative would be reluctant to become engaged in overseas adventures. A true conservative would frugally guard the purse strings of America's treasury.

Bush is a right wing radical. Or at least he is the right wing radicals' bitch.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Colleen? Have I told you you're beautiful when you're angry?

Consider it done.

I don't know Rg, that I have ever been this angry before. It's not just betrayl of all I hold dear, It's destruction. Wanton, senseless destruction of something beautiful for no reason. No reason at all. And it's not going to stop. they won't wuit until there is no such thing as a national park, or national forrest, or scenic view left. This is worse than the 19th centuray mentality of we can't use it all up, because they know that isn't true now. For a few extra bucks in the pockets of CEO's who can't spend all they have now, they are going to rape and destroy.

Destruction, for destruction's sake. I write cyberpunk occasionally, and I can't even concieve of anything this cynically brutally pointless.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I know you don't think much of me or of my opinions, but this has essentially been my POV from the beginning.

GWB is not a conservative! He doesn't understand the meaning of the word. Hell, he doesn't understand the meaning of a lot of words, but that's another story.

A true conservative would be defending the constitution. A true conservative would care about maintaining our wild areas, our parks, our natural wonders. A true conservative would be reluctant to become engaged in overseas adventures. A true conservative would frugally guard the purse strings of America's treasury.

Bush is a right wing radical. Or at least he is the right wing radicals' bitch.

I think you are so far to the left you make Walter Mondale look like Strom Thrumond.

You have insulted me and patronized me and belittled my intellignece.

That said, Bush and his cronies have proven to be every bit the cancer you predicted he would be. I do not agree with much of what you have to say, but in that, you were and are correct. I conceed that on that issue, you were absolutely corect on the emptines and souless piece of speutum he is and I was not nearly as close as you were to the character or more correctly, the lack of character in the man.

 

[rgraham666]

Unfortunately, I can Colleen.

We humans are very powerful. Unfortunately too many of us never learn that with power comes responsibility.

Not surprising in Bush's case. He's a rich man's kid and wouldn't take his own dumps if he could figure out a way to pay some one else to do it for him.

And most of his backers are the same, or serious psychopaths.

But we do what we can to oppose them. And we keep the faith. We dream of a better world and try to work towards it.

You're a good person, Colleen. Your presence, wit and wisdom enriches us all.

In many ways, who cares if we win. Better to be good.

 

[thebullet]

This whole fiasco is somewhat analogous to the McCarthy hearings of the 1950's. Those hearings weren't about discovering communists in the government and in Hollywood, they were about establishing dominance over Hollywood and the state department. Ferreting out a little 'communism' was a quick and dirty way to do it.

These latest attacks on our natural beauty is about establishing dominance over our environmental and interior policies. Ferreting out a couple of gallons of oil is just a quick and dirty way to do it.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Unfortunately, I can Colleen.

We humans are very powerful. Unfortunately too many of us never learn that with power comes responsibility.

Not surprising in Bush's case. He's a rich man's kid and wouldn't take his own dumps if he could figure out a way to pay some one else to do it for him.

And most of his backers are the same, or serious psychopaths.

But we do what we can to oppose them. And we keep the faith. We dream of a better world and try to work towards it.

You're a good person, Colleen. Your presence, wit and wisdom enriches us all.

In many ways, who cares if we win. Better to be good.

Fighting the good fight isn't enough Rg. Not when the stakes are destruction of something that can never be again.

For many years I fought for this. A republican dominated house and senate, Republican president and conservative court appointees. The price we paid for it was too high. Pandering to souless corporate suits and ignorant religious fanatics. I and conservative thinkers like me are living examples of the old adage be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.