So let me get this straight, every President who's been assassinated was done so at the command of the Rothschilds, throughout all of our brief history?

And Imperial Russia was replaced by the CCCP by the same?

Did they also prevent us from using non-petroleum fuels, or are they the ones hoaxing us about global warming?

This is a great start for a fictional novel, or a videogame, but if this is supposed to be history, we need evidence, and proof.

Even a falsifiable hypothesis would be nice.

biodiesel is better. Heck 60-100mpg diesel is better.

Where the hell do you think the "electric" magically comes from?
Yes, dynamic breaking is good and 4-wheel direct drive DC motors with new battery technology is great for weight and maintenance.

But if everyone bought electric cars we would end up using MORE energy, MORE petroleum. Just because you think this is the best think ever.. it isn't.

Energy loss from generation to transmission to homes.. charging losses, electric motor losses, storage losses. Sure gas is converted mostly to heat, but you have less energy loss from 1 gallon of petroleum in a combustion engine, then 1 gal burned at a power plant to power an electric car.

Do you have the aluminum mines and copper mines that will be require to move all these gigawatts to people's garages to charge their "green" pieces of crap? We would have to double the electric grid to meet the need. We would need to build power plants and transformers. Rechargeable batteries are about the most harmful thing ever to the environment. Get real. Right now turbo diesel is the best bet, maybe biodiesel if we ever get a source that can scale to more than a few hundred hobbyists.

Three things she failed to mention about drilling in ANWR:

1) While the footprint for drilling there may be as "small" as 2000 acres, you still need a pipeline to get it out of there. (BP, anyone?)

2) The "average" Alaskan is in support of this? Does that mean a majority? I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, and am not surprised since every Alaskan citizen (resident for at least 1 year) receives yearly royalty checks out of the oil rent trust fund. It's also beneficial to the state as a whole since royalties from oil production generate the bulk of Alaska's state revenue (no sales or income taxes).

3) "The opening of the ANWR 1002 Area to oil and natural gas development is projected to increase domestic crude oil production starting in 2018. In the mean ANWR oil resource case, additional oil production resulting from the opening of ANWR reaches 780,000 barrels per day (124,000 m³/d) in 2027 and then declines to 710,000 barrels per day (113,000 m³/d) in 2030. ... In 2007, the United States consumed 20.68 m bbls of petroleum products per day." from a Wikipedia article.
Forgetting the fact that it will take at least 10 years to get production going, at its projected peak production in 2027, ANWR would be able to supply roughly 3.75% of current U.S. oil consumption. In other words, this is barely a drop in the bucket, and will have no significant impact on world oil prices.

>> ^videosiftbannedme:
I won't watch this. I just don't see any entertainment value in it, but I suppose maybe some medical value. Of course, that won't stop me from dropping in and whoring my opinion out for an upvote.


It's more or less a how-to video of how to get rid of a botfly. Cover it in Vaseline/petroleum jelly to suffocate it and then yank it out when it rears its ugly head!

First off, I'm not a Fox Fan, and while they didn't site the source of this 63% Natural Seepage figure, it appears to be a valid number from a National Academy of Science study called "Oil In the Sea III: Inputs and Effects". An excerpt of which can be found here:

http://www.noia.org/website/article.asp?id=129

However, from that same study:

"Recognized by geologists for decades as indicating the existence of potentially economic reserves of petroleum, these seeps release vast amounts of crude oil annually. Yet these large volumes are released at a rate low enough that the surrounding ecosystem can adapt and even thrive in their presence."

While offshore drilling technology continues to improve, and can be done somewhat "safely" when proper controls are in place (depends on your definition of safe), it is not going to solve any of the US's energy problems in the short or long term and therefore not worth the environmental risk. Here's why:

1) Even if new off shore drilling was approved, and even if companies found reserves worth tapping, it would take many years before even a drop was extracted (EPA approvals, building infrastructure etc)

2) Even with the extraction hurdles overcome, refining capacity is at roughly the same levels as in the 1980's, thus requiring additional infrastructure investments.

3) Massive economic growth in countries like India and China has caused DEMAND for oil to skyrocket while supplies have remained constant (or even declined depending on who you ask). This is the main reason oil prices continue to climb; the rest of the world wants to live like Americans too!

When you factor in that these two countries make up about 1/3 of the world's population (and are expanding quickly), the amount of NEW oil required to lower oil prices is STAGGERING.

Conclusion:

So even if Fox got the numbers right here, the REALITY is that it doesn't matter if offshore drilling is safe because it's won't help anyone in a pertinent time frame and is thus not worth risking further damage to already fragile ecosystems. The ONLY answer is 1) Conservation + 2) Innovation and for that we need to start pumping more money into R&D and stop dumping money into nation building.

Science, it works bitches!



(sorry, not sure where that came from, it started as innocent research and went terribly terribly astray!)

^
The common conclusion is that the planet is warming. That's all anyone is saying with any certainty.

As to the cause, well, take your pick.

When we discovered that the amount of lead in the atmosphere was due solely to the lead being added to petroleum in cars, the entire motor industry changed overnight.

Global warming is different. It's political. The energy industry IS the government in America.

If you truly believe that global warming is man made, then get rid of your car, change your lifestyle, and be proud of yourself for doing something that actually will make a difference.

Energy efficient homes? Go out to Cambodia, or visit a village in Peru, or stay with a tribe in the Amazon. And it'd all be wiped out tomorrow with a big fucking McDonalds in the middle of it if corporate america could get away with it.

Helium may be a problem.. demand currently outstrips supply, so prices are rising substantially. Also, helium is a byproduct of petroleum production... thus it does have some reliance of fossil fuels.

Still quite an interesting design. I wonder if a practical design can be implemented for commercial travel. If for only shorter range hops.

I'm not sure ethanol is the answer. I don't see a way of processing it without requisite CO2 byproduct. There WILL be a successor to petroleum and the sooner we get to it, the better. It should be another 10 year challenge like the moon program.
"We choose to go to alternative fuels. We choose to do this in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

Oof. I feel that some of Condi's points need to be responded to.

1) Not all "terrorists" are alike, obviously. Condi needs to get it straight that Hezbollah is not Al Qaeda. They are very different organizations with somewhat opposed goals. They shouldn't be lumped together. As Paul points out, it is highly unlikely that Iran would be helping Sunni terrorists, and Condi's answer is just some more of the vague hand waving he was complaining about.

2) Iran Nuclear Program: Iran is currently approaching a major energy crisis. Lack of maintenance and support for their oil refinement infrastructure, combined with increased energy demand, has been having serious effects on their economy. It's projected that within a decade, Iran will not be exporting any oil at all. To help combat the crisis, Iran is now requiring all of its automobile manufacturers to make hybrid cars only. It is only reasonable that they move to nuclear energy. That's not to say that they might not also work on nuclear bombs on the hush-hush as well; it's in their interests. But as things stand, they can't afford /not/ to build nuclear reactors at this time.

3) The supposed unilaterality of the opposition to Iran is not as simple as it seems. To be sure, the craziness of Ahmadinejad does tend to make non-Iranians worry, but the real worry isn't that Iran will bomb anyone. Rather, the power afforded by nuclear weapons would make Iran a far more influential country, with far more say as to how the Western countries interfere in the Middle East. To be sure, there is some truth to Condi's assertion that it's a national security matter; a rise in Iranian power could threaten our petroleum supply. In response, one must answer with the cliche, nonetheless true, that we need to reduce our dependence on petroleum period. A more far-sighted foreign policy would allow Iran to do as it wills in the region--decreasing Middle Eastern animus toward the West and especially America--and simultaneously move toward alternative energy sources in serious way. The Bush administration's lack of concern with alternative energy is well established by now.

>> ^dotdude:
How many types of engineering are you including. I had fraternity brothers majoring in variety of them:
aerospace, bio, chemical, civil, electrical, petroleum . . . those are the ones I remember.


All of them. My school has only the most modern branches of bio/info/nano engineering, but I'm totally behind including civil and chemical engineering as well. Engineers are my brothers and sisters.

How many types of engineering are you including. I had fraternity brothers majoring in variety of them:

aerospace, bio, chemical, civil, electrical, petroleum . . . those are the ones I remember.

In the 1920's the Du Pont company developed and patented fuel additives such as tetraethyl lead, as well as the sulfate and sulfite processes for manufacture of pulp paper and numerous new synthetic products such as nylon, cellophane, and other plastics. At the same time other companies were developing synthetic products from renewable biomass resources--especially hemp. The hemp decorticator promised to eliminate much of the need for wood-pulp paper, thus threatening to drastically reduce the value of the vast timberlands still owned by Hearst. Ford and other companies were already promising to make every product from cannabis carbohydrates that was currently currently being made from petroleum hydrocarbons. In response, from 1935 to 1937, Du Pont lobbied the chief counsel of the Treasury Department, Herman Oliphant, for the prohibition of cannabis, assuring him that Du Pont's synthetic petrochemicals (such as urethane) could replace hemp seed oil in the marketplace.

William Randolf Hearst hated minorities, and he used his chain of newspapers to aggravate racial tensions at every opportunity. Hearst especially hated Mexicans. Hearst papers portrayed Mexicans as lazy, degenerate, and violent, and as marijuana smokers and job stealers. The real motive behind this prejudice may well have been that Hearst had lost 800,000 acres of prime timberland to the rebel Pancho Villa, suggesting that Hearst's racism was fueled by Mexican threat to his empire.


Just another FYI:
Peter Bensinger is a former head of the DEA. He and his partner Robert DuPont (former Director of NIDA) created Bensinger, DuPont & Associates, which profits from selling drug war related consulting and testing services.

Here's a start....
Burning Man WTO

"Next year, an effigy of the worlds economy will be erected in Brussels, using the bodies of CEO's and Presidents of Petroleum and Pharmaceutical companies, and launched into the upper atmosphere, using a battery of V2 Rockets, lashed together by hippies using environmentally-copasetic recycled products."

This won't change anything, we are all still going to eventually kill ourselves, but it will help to control the population of assholes on the planet.

"no such thing as biodegradation of petroleum-based, manufactured plastic"

-but your own hypocritical hubris will have you reaching for a Mountain Dew, using a plasty hankie for yer baby's bum, or fuck all, buying anything with money.....seriously folks, it's dance naked with strangers and spend yer retirement while yer well fit time....cause no one will do anything to stop it, eh?
We need to teach an entire generation not to act like raccoons and parrots, the thieving monkeys have instructed the rest of the apes in their ways, and command them to obey their example.....

whaddrya gonna do? If everyone in Europe and the U.S> stopped using petroleum products right now....you still got over a billion plus in China, who could give a fuck worse than any American or European combined......then ya got yer countries that are 50-75 years behind in education and infrastructure.....WE'RE FUCKED!!!