Gas Bandit's Political Thread III

[AshburnerX]

Ethanol: Bad for you, bad for your car, bad for the environment, bad for the economy... just bad. Stop burning it and just go back to drinking it. I especially giggled at the quote from 1925 screaming how within 2 decades there would be no domestic oil left for us to use.

Why the hell would I want to drink it? It makes food and soda taste terrible and isn't as healthy for you as natural sugar (well... as healthy as SUGAR can be anyway) no matter what those bullshit ads they put on TV say.

Timothy Geithner has decided that the government should not impose caps on executive pay at companies receiving bailout funds.

Fine... but if these guys start dropping like flies, I don't want to hear any complaints from them about being unfairly persecuted by the public. John Gaunt can kiss my ass: Being a top level executive doesn't mean you should get bonuses when your cutting the pay/downsizing everyone else in the company.

Medicare is paying billions of dollars in fraudulent payments.

We really need to overhaul this system, but I really don't see much change ether way. If we privatize this sort of thing then we get companies denying aid to legitimate cases, as is standard practice in the private insurance business. If we keep it government operated, fraud is always going to be a big concern. There really aren't any easy answers for this problem.

Hey, something we can agree on! This is bullshit... we need to use accurate terms, not fucking 1984 doublespeak. Call it what it is and be done with it.

 

[zero]

Ethanol: Bad for you, bad for your car, bad for the environment, bad for the economy... just bad. Stop burning it and just go back to drinking it.

Come on Gas, it's not because you're taking a week off that that you can post random stuff here and not answer for it, so please, AT LEAST READ THE FUCKING THING BEFORE POSTING IT!

Let me give you some quotes from the article:

First, the primary job of the Environmental Protection Agency is, dare it be said, to protect our environment. Yet using ethanol actually creates more smog than using regular gas, and the EPA's own attorneys had to admit that fact in front of the justices presiding over the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 1995 (API v. EPA).

I beg you pardon?? Is he aware of how Ethanol is PRODUCED??? Does he know that every gram of emission from burnt Ethanol is captured back during its production???? It doesn't matter if Ethanol's emissions are the double, triple, quadruple of those from gasoline, as those emissions are reverted back to hydrocarbons to make more ethanol! Or is he claiming to have discovered a way to revert smoke back to oil??? rly:

Second, truly independent studies on ethanol, such as those written by Tad Patzek of Berkeley and David Pimentel of Cornell, show that ethanol is a net energy loser. Other studies suggest there is a small net energy gain from it.

A "net energy loser"??? Well, I am sorry for Berkley University and Cornell, but we have Ethanol production plants here that are powered exclusively by thermal energy from Sugar Cane. Unless he's meaning that Ethanol = Corn Ethanol, which is a very restricted view on the subject, to say the least.

Third, all fuels laced with ethanol reduce the vehicle's fuel efficiency, and the E85 blend drops gas mileage between 30% and 40%, depending on whether you use the EPA's fuel mileage standards (fueleconomy.gov) or those of the Dept. of Energy.

Oh My God, mileage with ethanol is LOWER ??? Let's not use it then!! Even better, why don't we forget this highly inefficient gasoline and switch over to aviation-grade Kerosene? Oh, wait... because it is much more expansive!!! The clown who writes the article is obviously ignorant to the fact that mileage per gallon is less important then mileage per DOLLAR (And Ethanol wins there). Of course, why would an article from BusinessWeek be concerned with the COST per mille? :eyeroll:

Fourth, forget what biofuels have done to the price of foodstuffs worldwide over the past three years; the science seems to suggest that using ethanol increases global warming emissions over the use of straight gasoline

He's back at it AGAIN??? Here bud, check this out... really revolutionary and cutting edge tech: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis...

With that statement they've gone from shilling the public to outright falsehoods, because ethanol-laced gasoline is already destroying engines across the country in ever larger numbers.

Oh, is it so? Fascinating, because we've had full-Ethanol cars here in Brazil for MORE THAN TWENTY SMURFING YEARS and yet somehow we're not seeing the country littered with destroyed car engines... Isn't it odd? :eyeroll:

What bothers me Gas, is that I know you're a smart guy (certainly much smarter than BusinessWeek editor staff), and you would never post such garbage if you just took the time to read it first...

 

[Espy]

and you would never post such garbage if you just took the time to read it first...

Unless he posts it so that people can do exactly what you did, discuss and analyze. In which case looks like he picked a good one.

 

[GasBandit]

You have to take into account that whenever any american politician or journalist is talking about ethanol fuel, they're talking about corn ethanol, not sugar cane ethanol.

 

[zero]

You have to take into account that whenever any american politician or journalist is talking about ethanol fuel, they're talking about corn ethanol, not sugar cane ethanol.

Then perhaps one of is "arguments" isn't completely bogus... (but why isn't he proposing then to lift import restrictions on sugar cane ethanol? The remaining of his article seems to be very much pro "free market", yet he remains strangely silent on this particular subject...)

Then again, EVEN if its true that there's no net energy gain with Corn Ethanol (I must confess I'm not exactly knowledgeable on Corn Ethanol production), that doesn't by any means imply that it is not economically viable. Take for instance the production of disposable batteries. There is a HUGE net energy loss on their production, and yet, nobody claims that the use of disposable batteries will make the economy collapse. The fact is, there are MANY other factors involved on a power source selection besides "net energy gain".

 

[SpecialKO]

You have to take into account that whenever any american politician or journalist is talking about ethanol fuel, they're talking about corn ethanol, not sugar cane ethanol.

Then perhaps one of is "arguments" isn't completely bogus... (but why isn't he proposing then to lift import restrictions on sugar cane ethanol? The remaining of his article seems to be very much pro "free market", yet he remains strangely silent on this particular subject...)

Then again, EVEN if its true that there's no net energy gain with Corn Ethanol (I must confess I'm not exactly knowledgeable on Corn Ethanol production), that doesn't by any means imply that it is not economically viable. Take for instance the production of disposable batteries. There is a HUGE net energy loss on their production, and yet, nobody claims that the use of disposable batteries will make the economy collapse. The fact is, there are MANY other factors involved on a power source selection besides "net energy gain".

This.

Not mention that "biofuel research" includes other things like producing fuel from pre-existing celluloid industrial waste like paper mills, lumber yards, and food processing facilities which are not mentioned in that article.

 

[Mr_Chaz]

With that statement they've gone from shilling the public to outright falsehoods, because ethanol-laced gasoline is already destroying engines across the country in ever larger numbers.

Oh, is it so? Fascinating, because we've had full-Ethanol cars here in Brazil for MORE THAN TWENTY SMURFING YEARS and yet somehow we're not seeing the country littered with destroyed car engines... Isn't it odd? :eyeroll:

That's partly the problem: engines designed for high octane petrol don't take too kindly to ethanol. Engines designed for ethanol or ethanol mixes are perfectly fine with it. So yes, it's not currently an ideal solution, but it's good enough to fill the gap while we move towards an ethanol based system rather than a petrol based system.

 

Now the Dems in congress have blocked Obama from closing Guantanamo.

 

[AshburnerX]

Now the Dems in congress have blocked Obama from closing Guantanamo.

God damn it... why did it have to be during MY lifetime that America stopped caring about it's founding tenets? I mean seriously! It's a fucking gulag, where we send people to disappear for years! How can ANY American support the idea of holding people against their will, with no chance to defend themselves in a court of law, in a place run by torturers willing to get results at any price?

 

[Iaculus]

Now the Dems in congress have blocked Obama from closing Guantanamo.

God damn it... why did it have to be during MY lifetime that America stopped caring about it's founding tenets? I mean seriously! It's a smurfing gulag, where we send people to disappear for years! How can ANY American support the idea of holding people against their will, with no chance to defend themselves in a court of law, in a place run by torturers willing to get results at any price?

They got precedent.

Remember what happened to Japanese-Americans during World War 2? Yeah.

Sadly, these things are generally older than you think. Fact is, whoever they are, Congress is still a big crowd of people, and herds get scared.

 

[AshburnerX]

They got precedent.

Remember what happened to Japanese-Americans during World War 2? Yeah.

Sadly, these things are generally older than you think. Fact is, whoever they are, Congress is still a big crowd of people, and herds get scared.

Oh, you mean the things that Congress has repeatedly apologized for, publicly acknowledged was unjustified at the time, and has actually sent restitution money to the families of anyone sent to? Those internment camps? Because I think precedent gets thrown out of the window when they guys RUNNING the camps agree that it was a stupid thing to do.

We're supposed to fucking learn from history, not repeat it.

 

[Iaculus]

They got precedent.

Remember what happened to Japanese-Americans during World War 2? Yeah.

Sadly, these things are generally older than you think. Fact is, whoever they are, Congress is still a big crowd of people, and herds get scared.

Oh, you mean the things that Congress has repeatedly apologized for, publicly acknowledged was unjustified at the time, and has actually sent restitution money to the families of anyone sent to? Those internment camps? Because I think precedent gets thrown out of the window when they guys RUNNING the camps agree that it was a stupid thing to do.

We're supposed to smurfing learn from history, not repeat it.

Hey, I was providing cynical explanation, not justification.

 

[Dieb]

that timetable could be altered based on facts on the ground - just like Obama said when campaigning

so basically he says we'll be out of there when we're finished. That's some mighty big change right there.

*smacks head against wall*

Are you really this much of an idiot? I doubt it. Surely you realize how ill-defined "when we're finished" is, in this case. Some people seem to think the only time we would be "finished" would be when Iraq is a stable, modern democracy, with equal rights for women and homosexuals and what have you. If that's how you define it, we'd have to occupy them for 100 years. If, however, you define finished more along the lines of "reduced the chance of genocidal war after we leave to a mere 25% or so", well then we could be out of there in the next few years.

When Obama says that he'll look at the facts on the ground, what he means is that if it looks incredibly likely that there will be a devistating civil war that could turn into a regional war if we leave, then we probably will stick around a few more years after his timetable. He's NOT saying we'll never leave until the neocons think we're "finished". Such a subtle difference, it's easy to see how you missed it :eyeroll:

They got precedent.

Well, while the Supreme Court original held the Japanese Internment camps to be constitutional (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_v._United_States) that case was overturned, and it is generally thought to be one of the worst decisions of the Supreme Court ever (right up there with Dread Scott and Plessy v Ferguson). Hardly something that you want to emulate, don't you think?

As for ethanol - corn ethanol isn't a good substitute for gas, but other forms (sugar cane for one, as others have pointed out) are or could be, and any libertarian worth his socks would presumably support getting rid of the tarrif on sugar cane.

 

[AshburnerX]

As for ethanol - corn ethanol isn't a good substitute for gas, but other forms (sugar cane for one, as others have pointed out) are or could be, and any libertarian worth his socks would presumably support getting rid of the tarrif on sugar cane.

More likely they would support the de-subsidization of corn.

 

:shock:

http://io9.com/5259933/germans-deny-pat ... -microchip

:shock:

 

[zero]

:shock:

http://io9.com/5259933/germans-deny-pat ... -microchip

:shock:

Shocking, sure, but this got me confused...

luckily it looks like this patent will not be approved, nor should it be

Uhn... forgive me for being excessively pragmatic, but if it isn't patented, it will fall in public domain (yeah, blueprints and everything), and as such, anyone can build the device...

...so, help me here, how is not granting the patent a good thing?

Ok, I'll mirror Gas and take a week off too before you guys start accusing me of nitpicking your articles...

 

[strawman]

:shock:

http://io9.com/5259933/germans-deny-pat ... -microchip

:shock:

That's not much better than this one:

http://www.thingamababy.com/baby/2007/0 ... t_his.html

But the patent was likely rejected as something that could not be accomplished with today's technology, not because it has bad usage.

1. A GPS receiver takes up a bit of space, even in silicon chip form, and the antenna takes up a lot of space.
2. The GPS signal would be _very_ strongly attenuated by the surrounding flesh, and thus it would rarely get a good satellite lock.
3. The transmitter/receiver to send the location or receive commands would be too large, and have the same issues as the GPS device.
4. The power requirements of each would be huge - a single AA battery might operate for an hour, nevermind the months and years it would need to operate - no micropower generator would power this sufficiently.
5. Easy to remove, and insert into a dog. Authorities have no way to know unless they inspect you daily.

Even though patent offices have long ago thrown out the rule that you must demonstrate a working model of the patent, they still don't accept patents that are provably impossible to prototype.

Edit: Linked Fox article had more news:

"The invention will probably be found to violate paragraph two of the German Patent Law — which does not allow inventions that transgress public order or good morals," German Patent and Trademark Office spokeswoman Stephanie Krüger told the English-language German-news Web site The Local.

So I suppose some patent offices do account for 'morals'...

-Adam

 

[@Li3n]

We're supposed to fucking learn from history, not repeat it.

And you obviously have learned nothing...

 

[crono1224]

God damn it... why did it have to be during MY lifetime that America stopped caring about it's founding tenets? I mean seriously! It's a smurfing gulag, where we send people to disappear for years! How can ANY American support the idea of holding people against their will, with no chance to defend themselves in a court of law, in a place run by torturers willing to get results at any price?

Didn't some of the founding fathers have slaves?

 

[Covar]

that timetable could be altered based on facts on the ground - just like Obama said when campaigning

so basically he says we'll be out of there when we're finished. That's some mighty big change right there.

*smacks head against wall*

Are you really this much of an idiot? I doubt it. Surely you realize how ill-defined "when we're finished" is, in this case. Some people seem to think the only time we would be "finished" would be when Iraq is a stable, modern democracy, with equal rights for women and homosexuals and what have you. If that's how you define it, we'd have to occupy them for 100 years. If, however, you define finished more along the lines of "reduced the chance of genocidal war after we leave to a mere 25% or so", well then we could be out of there in the next few years.

When Obama says that he'll look at the facts on the ground, what he means is that if it looks incredibly likely that there will be a devistating civil war that could turn into a regional war if we leave, then we probably will stick around a few more years after his timetable. He's NOT saying we'll never leave until the neocons think we're "finished". Such a subtle difference, it's easy to see how you missed it :eyeroll:

nope the only difference is that Obama is setting a non-binding date, but of course that date is subject to change if he feels we are not ready to get out of there. The only difference is that Bush never bothered to set a date.

Thats just as meaningful as his executive order to not allow former lobbyists to work on high level executive positions, barring of course the ones he wants to work for him.

 

[Espy]

Thats just as meaningful as his executive order to not allow former lobbyists to work on high level executive positions, barring of course the ones he wants to work for him.

Whoa, whoa, whoa... Are you saying he can't do whatever he wants? You must not have gotten the memo...

 

[Anubinomicon]

omg republicans were 100% wrong on this one :aaahhh:

 

omg republicans were 100% wrong on this one :aaahhh:

Wait wait wait! You mean this was attached to the credit card bill?!?

See, this right here is why I disagree with the way our "leaders" do things. Yes this certainly WAS a "gotcha" amendment! I wish they'd pass something that said to the effect of: "All amendments must be related in some way to the original bill."

This adding of totally unrelated bullshit legislation - put in specifically to piggyback on a more popular and less contentious bill - is why people are fed up with congress. REGARDLESS of the amendment's merits (and I tend to think it's a bad piece of legislation to allow private citizens to carry concealed weapons) it should not be allowed to piggyback on unrelated bills. If it's that bloody meritorious it should be voted on by its own strength and worth.

 

[Dieb]

nope the only difference is that Obama is setting a non-binding date, but of course that date is subject to change if he feels we are not ready to get out of there. The only difference is that Bush never bothered to set a date.

Oh boy, you just don't get it, do you? The conditions under which Obama would deem it acceptable to leave Iraq, and the conditions under which Bush or McCain would deem it acceptable to leave Iraq, are DIFFERENT. You'd have to be an idiot, or at least never listened to anything any of those politicians have said, not to get that point. But nonetheless, Obama isn't stupid; he's not going to leave Iraq under ANY conditions. He never said he would. In fact, in the campaign, he repeatedly emphasized that facts on the ground do matter.

I'm not trying to claim that there is some giant chasm between Obama and Bush on this (as I explained in a different post) but there is a real difference. To think that there is some obvious endpoint to the war in Iraq, sometime when the conditions on the ground make it obvious that we've won and can leave, and that everyone (Bush, Obama, McCain) agrees on what that point is - like you seem to think - is crazy.

 

[AshburnerX]

omg republicans were 100% wrong on this one :aaahhh:

Wait wait wait! You mean this was attached to the credit card bill?!?

See, this right here is why I disagree with the way our "leaders" do things. Yes this certainly WAS a "gotcha" amendment! I wish they'd pass something that said to the effect of: "All amendments must be related in some way to the original bill."

This adding of totally unrelated bullshit legislation - put in specifically to piggyback on a more popular and less contentious bill - is why people are fed up with congress. REGARDLESS of the amendment's merits (and I tend to think it's a bad piece of legislation to allow private citizens to carry concealed weapons) it should not be allowed to piggyback on unrelated bills. If it's that bloody meritorious it should be voted on by its own strength and worth.

I gotta agree: If your bill is so weak that it cannot pass on it's own, then it deserves to die. I'm personally for the change but that doesn't mean I think it should have passed like this.

 

[zero]

omg republicans were 100% wrong on this one :aaahhh:

Wait wait wait! You mean this was attached to the credit card bill?!?

See, this right here is why I disagree with the way our "leaders" do things. Yes this certainly WAS a "gotcha" amendment! I wish they'd pass something that said to the effect of: "All amendments must be related in some way to the original bill."

This adding of totally unrelated bullshit legislation - put in specifically to piggyback on a more popular and less contentious bill - is why people are fed up with congress. REGARDLESS of the amendment's merits (and I tend to think it's a bad piece of legislation to allow private citizens to carry concealed weapons) it should not be allowed to piggyback on unrelated bills. If it's that bloody meritorious it should be voted on by its own strength and worth.

Heh, we call that "Law Smuggling" here in Brazil... Sorry to learn you guys have the same problems with legislators over there...

 

[Espy]

ABC white house corespondant isn't terribly thrilled by the white house shutting out the press the other day during a photo-op

Sounds pretty pissy over a little photo-op. I guess if it was something important I can see getting all worked up over it but this? I dunno, it just seems like territorial pissing...

 

[Armadillo]

I'm glad SOMEONE finally said it: Obama is out-Bushing Bush.

 

[Troll]

I'm glad SOMEONE finally said it: Obama is out-Bushing Bush.

:eyeroll:

 

[Kitty Sinatra]

I'm glad SOMEONE finally said it: Obama is out-Bushing Bush.

Sexy black man compared to a doddering white fool? Hell yeah!

But no one's gonna out-Bush Bill Clinton.

 

[Armadillo]

I'm glad SOMEONE finally said it: Obama is out-Bushing Bush.

:eyeroll:

Did you click the link? She makes some damn good points, and she's really not anything resembling a conservative.

 

[Espy]

I'm glad SOMEONE finally said it: Obama is out-Bushing Bush.

:eyeroll:

Dude. He said in his speech that there are people we can't prosecute for various reasons but because they might be a risk in the future we put them in indefinite detention without trial. He went all "minority report".
I know you Hollow, I know you really don't like Bush, but when someone as far left as Maddow is saying that Obama is going even beyond what Bush did? Shouldn't that elicit more than an eyeroll? This is the kind of thing I hated Bush for but now Obama is going even further. You okay with that?

 

[Alt]

:eyeroll:

I know you Hollow

Dude. You've got your alts confused.

 

[Espy]

Dammit I do. My apologies then. I never mean to call you such a dirty word Troll. You are no Hollow. :bush:

Then wait.. who the hell is Troll? Oh my... I think I'm losing it... Someone should put me in indefinite detention ASAP.

 

[Kitty Sinatra]

:angry: