Phi for All

Is it a story about him standing at the gates of hell, shaking bin-Laden's decapitated head as drops of blood fall on the dustbowl that was once the United States of America? I also don't feel it. What I'm feeling is disgust that I feel obligated to vote Obama-Biden so McCain-? doesn't happen. While I think Romney is more savvy than McCain about the economy, I feel the economy needs a break from guys like Romney. Massachusetts has suffered a great deal economically under Romney. Pawlenty might be a better choice to offset McCain's age. And Pawlenty could probably teach McCain how to send an email.

You're going to hate the next couple of months then. The economy seems to be number one on people's minds but half the people are ignoring recent reports that show the majority of people do economically better under a Democratic president throughout a four-year term. So the best strategy for the Dems is to equate McCain with Bush, imo. The voting record shows McCain voted with Bush 95% of the time in 2007, and 100% so far this year so count on Dems to bash the Bush while showing the similarities between him and McCain. If you're going on the attack, popularity polls show it's the best strategy. Playing up his age can backfire and McCain's just too damn good at the slow-pitch. His three-word sound bytes are just enough for Average Joe to wrap his mind around. Obama is too thoughtful and sometimes his reflective pauses make him seem indecisive. To me, McCain's instant answers (like which Supreme Court justices he'd replace) make him seem trigger-happy but for some it just shows that he knows what he wants and has this all thought out.

I hope for the Democrats sake that, when their supporters attempt to do the same thing to the Republicans, they have a better response than, "I'm not going to tell you the name of the congressional investigator responsible for the 17-page report that forms the basis of my whole attack on the candidate". Sounds like some of the unsubstantiated crackpot claims we get at SFN. Although, I could almost believe that it was staged *for* the Democrats, the arguments were so lame. And of course, you end with a very eloquent young black female delegate being almost shouted out by the brassy bitch who'd already had her say. Obama gets the nomination for Democratic candidate, and the nominees for best supporting actresses are....

I remember looking that up after someone said it was for the year prohibition was ended in the US. IIRC, no one knows for sure, not even the Rolling Rock folks (after putting it on their bottles for almost 70 years). It's one of those marketing things that fuel controversy without having a real answer. The more people speculate, the more curious people become about trying Rolling Rock.

I doubt very seriously if these doofi would have been any kind of threat to Obama. One was driving erratically on a suspended license in a rental truck he had no papers for, another jumped out of a six story window when police raided his hotel room (the genius, a white supremacist named *Adolph*, broke his ankle in the jump to the roof of an adjacent building, but still had enough meth in him to encourage him to jump off *that* roof too). Does a political candidate get sympathy votes from an assassination attempt by idiots? Bad as in bad, or bad as in good? I get the fact that DJBruce meant "boost" when he said "bust" but using "bad" for "good" is just bad, imo. Bad bad, not good bad.

No problem. I guess "bust" has done a 180 just like "fat" and "bad". I can't keep up. We're groovy now, though.

What do you mean, a "bust" for Obama? A setback? An arrest? A bummer? Or something that will cost him the presidency?

It's pretty obvious how frustrated you're becoming when you say things like this (shitty, just a very shitty thing to say to someone about their career, besides being an ad hominem attack). It's also obvious from your "basic logic" that you've reached the end of your rope trying to tie up this argument. As I stated at the end of post #35, you don't need to improve the area of collection on a solar panel if you can either improve how the sun is focused on it or use phosphorescent paint to enhance absorption. Area is only one way to do it. And that's really been my point all along, C.P.L. Luke. You keep throwing out *current* stats on solar and how it fails against established infrastructures, but you can't deny that if more R&D is put into solar, if more demand is created to drive the market towards alternatives like solar and wind, costs will come down and innovation will thrive. That's the way technology happens, it starts out big and linear and expensive and then new ideas and market pressures encourage refinements and improvements that make the technology more efficient and cheaper to help increase demand and profits. This is what you're arguing against, and your condescension and fallacious logic are not helping your case. No more current stats, please, that's not the argument and I think you know it. Solar is expensive now but it will come down in price when more research is done to improve it and more demand helps urge manufacturers to supply us with it.

OK. I mentioned it because everything I ever quoted or spoke about in this thread was NiMH related. Lithium ion should make you feel better about the near future of EVs. From the Wiki entry I posted in the last post: From the Wiki entry I posted in the last post: I drive them until their resale value starts to creep below my needs, then I sell them privately (unless the dealer will give me more) and buy a brand new one outright. I'm sure the battery will be just as much a factor on EVs trade-ins as an engine would be for IC cars. Again though, you're using current costs for trade-in on a vehicle I haven't begun to drive yet, and you're also assuming the battery will be as expensive as it is now when I do trade-in. I think it's silly to base your arguments on what the costs are before auto-makers decide to produce them in mass. Henry Ford taught us how mass production brings the price down, and if Toyota can sell or lease 328 EVs at $42,000 a pop, you know the prices will be better when they make 328,000 of them. And why would you balk at buying a vehicle that got 4 times the mileage your IC car gets? And don't forget that you may be able to charge it off-grid if big evil solar gets its way and you start generating your own electricity. I think emerging technologies are the ones who need the subsidies and the only ones who should get them. They need them to overcome the entrenched markets whose infrastructures are already established. We should take the $2B we give to the $10B US sugar industry (which somehow manages to make our sugar cost twice as much as anywhere else in the world), or the billions we give to coal and oil that makes their numbers artificially low and give it to solar, wind and other alternatives. And I don't know why you don't think solar and wind are going to be using those subsidies for R&D to bring their cost to the consumer down. The more they do, the more market share they get. But I would support an initiative that took ALL the money we currently give in subsidies to ALL markets and spent it improving education in the US. I get the feeling that the poorly educated masses are part of what's gotten us into our current bind in the first place. You're thinking too linear. There are already patents out there using phosphorescent paint to enhance absorption, and other devices to help focus the sun's energy to make silicon, selenium and cadmium more effective using smaller arrays and less material. Your doubts, high as they may be, are beginning to seem more and more misplaced. You sound like someone with something to lose if solar technology takes off.

It's hard to know. The EV-1s were all crushed (not sold, for some reason) when GM discontinued the program. Toyota sold some of the RAV4s (they only made less than 400 - so much for Lutz's claim of billions in retooling being required) and they're still on the road today, but the batteries are rare and so the price is skewed. The brushless electric motors are simplicity itself compared to IC, and much more efficient (remember that an electric motor consumes no energy while idling in heavy traffic). Well, even you are not saying we should abandon solar, so lets just take *current* costs off the table, in the interest of not repeating ourselves ad infinauseam, OK? Good point. The costs of mining the silicon should be factored in. But once the converter mechanism is in place, there is no distribution hassle like oil and coal. That's cool, but it still pollutes. It's my hope that, if we can stop coal subsidies, the market will force them to research ways to make it burn cleaner (I don't like the current "clean coal" myth). Sorry, C.P.L. Luke, I just feel you're wrong here. Look at what Toyota did with the RAV4. They took a popular model and just made some tweaks to make it an EV. We just don't know whether relaxing the emissions requirement or Chevron's suing them to stop using their NiMH batteries was to blame for the halt in production, but the demand was there. No, *you* have been talking about lithium ion, *I* have been talking about nickel metal hedrite. The entire RAV4 sold for less than $30,000 after rebates from the IRS and ZIP-grants. I think your numbers are wrong. I've never had a car that lasted me 200,000 miles. That'd be nice, actually. Well, I think it's safe to say that the large format NiMH batteries are different from AA technology. I'm trying to pare down on the arguments, so guessing isn't really helping. I hope it *is* different today. But just a few years ago it wasn't: So Cobasys got around the anti-trust laws by simply not making a battery they were capable of making to satisfy the EV market. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV

Thanks very much for that. I am less disappointed with GM after having seen this. I agree with what ParanoiA says here: I've always suspected a closed-door relationship between big oil and big auto (mutual interests, not conspiracies) that has kept advancements from being implemented, and now that oil is becoming less attractive as a fuel source for automotive use I hope designers like Lutz can truly be free to "leap forward". Anyone with a staff of legal talent equal to Chevron, you mean. Perhaps that's why the patent was transferred to Cobasys, a subsidiary of Chevron that does nothing else. I may not have mentioned in this thread that Cobasys is selling only to hybrid manufacturers, so they most likely would be able to show damages. Oh, wait, I *did* mention this earlier in the thread, didn't I. And I think you're failing to understand how much of the electrical grid infrastructure is already in place, waiting to be augmented by solar and wind technologies. And you don't have to drill for the sun and wind. And you don't have to buy it from foreign countries. And you don't have to ship it or truck it in from places where it exists. Again, you are pulling from only one side of the equation. Please watch iNow's link to what GM's designers are up to. You are the one who first mentioned the Chevy Volt. Lutz has some visions you may not be aware of. This sentence doesn't make any sense to me, but I think I understand what you mean. Again though, I feel you are pulling from only one side of the equation. Jobs lost in the old market are usually made up for by jobs gained in the new market. And no one is arguing that costs in the next few years are going to be comparable to what costs will be ten or twenty years from now, so that is a strawman argument. You gave one of the best examples of demand driving the price down: computers. Why would you think that demand for EVs and solar technology wouldn't spur innovation and mass production that would bring down costs? And why does solar have to beat coal right away? Won't coal go up in price as we use it up, the way oil has? For one, we can't switch to solar tomorrow and it's insulting that you say it that way. And I think you underestimate free market inspiration by leaping to the conclusion that going solar will "eliminate other green initiatives". That's just hand waving and has no basis in reality. It may be in this Wikipedia entry. If it's not, I will try to find it elsewhere. Sorry, running a bit behind for what looks to be a fun weekend.

CPL.Luke, most of your arguments are about how expensive it will be to convert. By that standard, we should never have given up horses, we should never have bought personal computers and we should definitely stay away from alternative energy sources, particularly solar. This is precisely the thinking GM and other auto manufacturers have displayed year after year, tweaking their vehicles just enough every year to entice people to sell their old ones and buy the latest model. Innovation costs profits and they just don't want to do it until the market forces them to. A few years ago, Dyson came out with a bagless vacuum cleaner, something that could have been done a long time ago to save consumers over $500,000,000 a year. Since Dyson screwed up everything by going to market with his innovations, now every vacuum cleaner company has been forced to retool and remarket. Are they going bankrupt? No. Are consumers happier that they get to save half a billion dollars? I know I am. Sure, infrastructures are hard to replace. Sure, it impacts manufacturers more than it does consumers. But that doesn't mean it won't be good in the long run, and that we shouldn't try as hard as possible. So, you don't see the merit in having an EV with enough range to get you to work on a daily basis that costs less to run than your IC car, and merely renting an IC car for your once a year trip?! Interesting. I do that kind of thing all the time. I bought my home but when I go on trips I rent a hotel room. I bought my kitchen appliances but occasionally I rent space at a restaurant or banquet hall to throw a party. It's really quite cost-effective, and it saves my sanity because I hate buying things I only use occasionally.

Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but wouldn't it be better to own an electric vehicle you could charge from home (maybe off your own photovoltaic system) to use for daily commutes (US average 16 miles), and then just *rent* a gas-powered vehicle once a year for your vacation? Remember that Chevron owns the patent for the best battery out there, and they aren't selling to anyone who is making EVs. They are protecting their market by suppressing the technology. Cost analysis aside, the batteries just aren't being sold for this purpose. The technology is there, has been since the late 90s. I respect the rights of a company to patent technology, but sitting on it to protect an existing market forces us to pay their price. We don't allow monopolies for this very reason, but companies that can afford it are using the patent office in ways it was never intended. And with the new patent laws, companies like Chevron can even extend those patents simply by using what they have the most of: money. Why? Are quantum computers expected to be that much more expensive? Is the cost of running your old computer going to triple or quadruple within its lifetime? Is quantum computing going to help clean up our environment? Unless someone with a vested interest in the old computer technology sits on the patent for quantum computers. OK, this has crossed the line from analogy to red herring. Cars don't follow Moore's Law at all. If they did we'd be flying in them right now. I waited for this to seem relevant and I'm disappointed. I'm telling you that the battery technology to put out at least a two-seater EV with a range of over 100 miles exists today. It's being used for hybrids only. As far as cost goes, I think you'd have to convince me that GM couldn't sell half a million units before the end of the year if the range was right and they actually marketed it the way they do their IC vehicles. The commercials for the EV-1 were pathetic.

As part of a search for information, I think it's a viable source. I just don't use it as my *only* source of information. A bit of checking around reveals whether the entry you're interested in has credible info or not. Just make sure your other sources aren't just repeating what Wikipedia said.

That link is busted. I couldn't find the Yahoo story amongst all the traffic about McCain's new 5 point lead (apparently because he'll be such a strong manager of the economy ).

That is, in part, due to the fact that you automatically lose your driver's license if caught drink driving in Germany, and it costs approximately US$1400 and retesting to get it back. I should have said that the university presidents should be pushing for a law allowing on-campus lounges where 18 year olds can drink, rather than trying to get the states to pass a law that affects all 18 year olds.

I don't agree that the difference between 18 and 21 is minuscule. In fact, age has relatively little to do with maturity when it comes to substance abuse. I agree with Pangloss that if you want to curb illegal drinking, you go to the source and make it financially unfeasible to sell it to those who aren't supposed to have it. But that still leaves the problem of how old is not old enough. I think the responsible thing for these university presidents to do is to provide places on campus where an 18 year old can go to get liquor at the prices charged by liquor stores, but supervised the way a bar would be to encourage responsible drinking. Alcohol doesn't leave the premise and if you abuse the atmosphere of the campus "lounge" you lose the privilege temporarily, or permanently with repeated abuse. Nothing is going to be 100% effective but this seems like a good compromise. And it alleviates the problem for the university without creating a problem for the non-students in the affected state.

Liposuction is done in about 10 lb increments, each requiring at least a day in between. Would you lose your added muscle after 20 days of surgical procedures, laying around recuperating? I think I'd lose my will to live long before I lost the 200 lbs.

Absolutely, but only if they lose the 200 lbs instantaneously.

I think McCain *will* be different than Bush, no doubt in my mind. His experience is richer than Bush's and I think he is overall a better politician, even though he shares many neo-conservative beliefs, and I think he's just as clueless as Bush about the economy. McCain's ass puckers when you mention the economy, you can literally see his butt cheeks clench. But mainly he shares a failure to understand too many key issues like diplomacy with an enemy. Telling the Shiites and the Sunnis to "stop the bullshit" tells me he's just another cowboy with too much power and a phrase book full of three-word sound bytes. His work ethic is similar to Bush's too. He's just not around when some really important issues get voted on. I do admit to one prejudice though. I think anyone who has been in Washington long enough owes too many favors to be the kind of effective leader we need in these times. That's one of the reasons Obama appeals to me. And I feel he has a better grasp of diplomacy at a time when we need to be more world conscious. At least I can feel that Obama won't be driven to "win in Iraq" at the cost of a depleted US; after all, he wasn't a member of the Senate Armed Forces committee that was calling for Sadaam Hussein's removal back in 1997. Since that time, McCain has called it wrong on virtually every count except the effectiveness of last year's surge. I'm just not willing to destroy evil by following it to the gates of hell anymore.

I knew a guy whose grandpa worked as an editor in Hollywood in the late 50's for the show Wanted: Dead or Alive with Steve McQueen. He had some outtakes from the cutting room floor and in one set his grandad had put together, McQueen was supposed to shoot this guy point blank in a gunfight with that awesome little sawed-off 30-30 of his. The director didn't like the first take because he felt the guy should fly backwards under the impact, so they rigged a harness with a wire through the wall behind the guy. After several takes where the handler couldn't get the timing right, they decided to put a couple more people handling the wire behind the wall. In the last outtake, McQueen shoots the guy and he is lifted off his feet to crash into the set wall ten feet behind him, punching a hole and revealing three laborers holding onto a length of wire and wooden handles. One wall broken, one actor's pride broken, but no laws broken. And one bounty collected by the oh-so-cool Josh Randall.

The convenience of having transportation you could feed yourself from crops you grow at home, as opposed to finding a place that sold petrol in the early 1900s. The convenience of being able to ride almost anywhere instead of having to find a "road" that wasn't full of ruts that trapped those skinny little tires. The convenience of having a transportation mode with an even temperament that only needed rest instead of costly parts and repair. And the convenience of having a relatively quiet ride that produced fertilizer instead of noxious fumes. All of these were concerns back then, and objections which were voiced by by the majority at some point or other. It seems you are misinformed about my "thing". I mentioned nothing about Social Security, nothing about receiving the same pay for life, and nothing about them having paid zilch into the system. Read further down in your own article to find that the pensions for some members of Congress are three times what an average person can expect, despite the fact that they don't even have to work half as long. You're moving the goalposts. Did anybody else think I was talking about anything besides daily work commutes? And you accuse me of strawmanning?! Again a strawman. Please show where I wanted a policy mandate. You are messing with only one side of the equation. If it takes five hours to charge a NiMH battery designed for a consumer vehicle using a home outlet, what makes you think a commercial trucking company would use the same source? You're also assuming there would be no provisions to recharge a commercial vehicle while it's driver was sleeping or taking a meal break. I find your argument specious. New technology is ALWAYS more expensive before the market demand pressure kicks in. You sound just like Ford when Volkswagen threatened the market with sub-compacts. They claimed it would bankrupt them to retool. When Datsun and Toyota entered the market, Ford retooled and produced the Pinto in less than two years, and wow, they didn't go bankrupt. *sigh* Creating demand by actually using the technology is the only thing that is going to encourage research and development to bring the price down, short of a policy mandate. I'm a free market kind of guy and that just doesn't appeal to me. But using the argument that it's too costly *now* is just really bad, imo. Personal computers were really costly when they first came out. We really should have stuck with mainframes and let the people who really know about such things have all the control.

Close observation would be my recommendation, but I'm certainly no expert. If you haven't already done so, you might want to check online for forums specific to herpetology. Those people will have practical experience with mixing amphibians and reptiles in the same tank.

I haven't found anything that says they are. I'd test it carefully, since it's not for absolute certain it *is* a Hyla squirrela. Are your turtles big enough to eat frogs?

Slippery Slope fallacy. And not all frogs sold in pet stores are bred in captivity. Where else are they obtained? From the wild.