Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats

Fuck yes. Not just for cheap toner refills, but for kicking the concept of "you don't own that thing you bought, we still own it and can dictate what you do with it" right in the dick.
I'm hoping John Deere is running scared. This means they really have no right to keep farmers from hacking their machines and do part swaps without paying John Deere for a technician and a brand new part.

Big Pharma is running scared too. This makes it clear that the US will not force other countries to honor our patents, ensuring that there will ALWAYS be cheap generic drugs on the market internationally.
 
It also suggests that you can root an Android phone if you want to, that you can swap out an aftermarket ECM if you want to, that you can put whatever coffee module you want into your single-serve coffee maker, that you can put a homebrewed DVD game into your Wii, and on, and on.

--Patrick
 
Still very early, and conflicting eyewitness reports abound, but something is going down in Marawi, Philippines.

CNN Philippines - Gov't forces, Maute group clash in Marawi City


CNN Philippines - AFP chief: 1 cop killed, 8 troopers wounded in Marawi clash


Maute are a Daesh-adjacent group.
A week later, the government still claims to be in complete control of the city, but some number of insurgents remain in various buildings and areas of Marawi, and there is no power. The island has been placed under martial law by Duterte.

So far there's been about a dozen dead soldiers, unknown number of dead Maute, eyewitness reports of child soldiers, and thousands have fled the city.

Here's some pictures of two AFVs, and weapons/equipment, that the Maute captured from the PA, along with some (unverified) context on what they depict.



Last time we posted the #heroesofmarawi who gave their lives for the country. Among them were 4 members of the Philippine Army's 5th Mechanized Company, who died when their V-150 and Simba 4x4 armoured vehicles were hit by RPGs and the entire section was pinned down by heavy fire from overwhelming terrorist firepower. It was only after 4 days later that Scout Rangers were able to rescue the remaining 16 mechanized troopers, at the expense of some more Rangers killed in action, and leaving the two disabled armoured vehicles behind. The Scout Rangers themselves engaged the terrorists in a 24 hour gunfight before they were able to reach the disabled armoured vehicles.

Below are photos of the damaged armoured vehicles, a V-150 and a Simba. Photos were allegedly taken by Maute terrorists and posted online for propaganda. MaxDefense decided to post the photos as it is already circulating in social media at breakneck speed, and it would be beneficial to explain what happened here instead of just seeing photos that can be made to create false stories.

Based on the photos, it is seen that the wheeled armoured vehicles got stuck and pinned down after getting RPG hits and punctured tires. The location where they were hit looked too cramped and difficult for wheeled armored vehicles to maneuver, as compared to tracked armoured vehicles that can turn 360° in its position. RPG grenadiers hiding from houses can easily hit these vehicles, and it is a miracle that the 16 mechanized troopers survived for 4 days inside these vehicles.

The armoured vehicles are thin skinned, and RPG rounds can easily disable or penetrate its armour. Lack of additional protection like RPG cages or the old school timber and sandbag armour that the Philippine Marines sometimes use in their armoured vehicles. Despite multiple RPG and heavy caliber gunfire hits, these vehicles were able to protect the surviving troops for days. Aside from that, it appears that the entire team is unfamilar of the area, and might have moved too deep into enemy territory without additional support despite the presence of dismounted infantry to protect the armoured vehicles.
 
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Wait, so despite resisting the allowance of a generic version of Epipen for years, they had been classifying it on the Medicare/aid paperwork as a generic for that same period of time to avoid the higher reimbursement rate? Do I have that right?

Because if so, that's...an impressive commitment to evil.
 
Wait, so despite resisting the allowance of a generic version of Epipen for years, they had been classifying it on the Medicare/aid paperwork as a generic for that same period of time to avoid the higher reimbursement rate? Do I have that right?

Because if so, that's...an impressive commitment to evil.
Reports suggest that you do have it right, and they have been doing so.
And it's not Evil, it's mere Greed. Not malicious, just amoral.

--Patrick
 
@DarkAudit industrial-scale power storage is NOT a thing yet. It's too expensive. Tesla/Solarcity is trying to change that, but it's still not enough to account for those times when conditions are not favorable. Hence you need to have basically the ENTIRE base-load as "conventional" generation, PLUS the wind/solar stuff. So you aren't really "adding" capacity with those things.

For those who play Space Engineers (on planets, so sun only up 50% of the time), imagine if batteries there cost about 500x as much as they do now, plus they needed platinum (relatively rare for those who don't play). Would solar panels really be as big a part of your energy strategy, or would you be going all-out nuclear ASAP? Hell, you probably already go all-out on nuclear because solar is a PITA when the sun moves. But that's the analogy: right now storage augmenting renewables is way too f'n expensive to be practical at reasonable cost levels.

So his statement isn't exactly groundbreaking from what I've seen. Or maybe I'm missing something in whatever original quote he's quoting the quote of. I'm not exactly a Twitter-ninja.
 
@DarkAudit industrial-scale power storage is NOT a thing yet. It's too expensive.
Another solution would be to link generation across time zones, but the landmasses on our planet are a bit too far apart to make that convenient. Transmission losses would probably eat any advantage to piping it in to where the Sun don't shine.

--Patrick
 
I hate this phrase so much it hurts. When these assholes start showing some tolerance, I'll be happy to show them some as well.
Sorry, didn't mean to aggravate that. It's just so stupid and unaware that it makes me laugh, especially on a fitting image, like a tyrannosaur saying it as he gets gored by a triceratops.
 
Sorry, didn't mean to aggravate that. It's just so stupid and unaware that it makes me laugh, especially on a fitting image, like a tyrannosaur saying it as he gets gored by a triceratops.
No worries man. Sorry, I'm a bit triggered by the insanity lately. There are way too many who buy into the shit that while it seems stupid I'm seeing people buy into it.
 
Another solution would be to link generation across time zones, but the landmasses on our planet are a bit too far apart to make that convenient. Transmission losses would probably eat any advantage to piping it in to where the Sun don't shine.
Think of it this way: if people aren't already doing it unless they have subsidies, there's probably a good reason why they aren't, otherwise somebody would already be succeeding in making money from it.
 
Think of it this way: if people aren't already doing it unless they have subsidies, there's probably a good reason why they aren't, otherwise somebody would already be succeeding in making money from it.
Doesn't the oil industry get subsidies? I don't actually know. That's just what I thought.
 
Doesn't the oil industry get subsidies? I don't actually know. That's just what I thought.
Oil in Canada is heavily subsidized.
Depends on who you ask. I'd say "not exactly."

Yes lots of subsidies: http://www.iisd.org/faq/unpacking-canadas-fossil-fuel-subsidies/

No not really: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Is-Canadian-Oil-Actually-Subsidized.html
From the 2nd:
Then there’s the tax breaks. These include two hallmarks of oil and gas exploration and production, the Canadian Development Expense (CDE) and the Canadian Exploration Expenses (CEE). There are the resource industry equivalents of depreciation expenses on property, plant and equipment used to reduce taxable income by every company that owns and operates capital assets to generate revenue. Machinery wears out. The hydrocarbon equivalent is depletion whereby the reservoir eventually drains. This form of tax sheltering to build cash to replace revenue generating assets as they wear out or decline to stay in business has been around forever.

Yet the OCI calls them “subsidies” for oil and gas which totaled over US$ 1 billion in 2013. That number could be right. But if they are indeed subsidies, then every business in Canada is subsidized. There are other examples such as special tax credits for oil investment in Atlantic Canada, Alberta crown royalty reductions, and deep drilling credits in B.C.
And anything around "Crown Royalties" is the same argument as the USA makes against Softwood Lumber up here: we don't charge as much for logging on crown land as USA private people do, thus the government is subsidizing the industry. The O&G royalty thing is the same.

So the answer I go with is "not really" here. The majority (according to the 1st article) is the Depreciation argument I quote, and thus, no different than any other business. The rest is probably equivalent to any other industry as well, regardless of what they're in (research deductions, etc).

But read both articles yourselves. Both are really biased, but I'd say the 2nd has more detailed numbers, and is more believable.
 
Doesn't the oil industry get subsidies? I don't actually know. That's just what I thought.
All big industry gets subsidized at times.

The town where I live got Toyota to build a factory here recently with lots of "incentives," including cheap land. Ontario still hands out millions in grants to the factory, too.

And we all know how much money got poured into the auto industry last recession in both our countries. Actually, we probably don't, because we don't really pay attention to all the dealings at the state/province or city level that happen regularly.


So yeah, our oil industry gets subsidies. I'm sure yours does, too.​
 
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Oil industry gets subsidies to keep the price of gas down because our societies can't function with fuel costs above a certain amount; there simply isn't infrastructure in place to facilitate people getting to their jobs in the US outside of the major cities like there is in Europe and Asia... but the reason we don't have a robust public transportation system in this country is because the price of gas is kept artificially low due to subsidies and because every podunk gas stop town wants stops for right-of-way, which makes travel time impossibly long.

This will eventually change as market forces make gas and diesel too expensive for everyday use, but that may be a few decades off.
 
Oil industry gets subsidies to keep the price of gas down because our societies can't function with fuel costs above a certain amount; there simply isn't infrastructure in place to facilitate people getting to their jobs in the US outside of the major cities like there is in Europe and Asia... but the reason we don't have a robust public transportation system in this country is because the price of gas is kept artificially low due to subsidies and because every podunk gas stop town wants stops for right-of-way, which makes travel time impossibly long.

This will eventually change as market forces make gas and diesel too expensive for everyday use, but that may be a few decades off.
Considering that the price of gasoline is at LEAST 25% of the cost (Petro Canada has the easiest-to-understand chart, but here's the Federal Government's numbers), I don't think you're correct about that top sentence.

The rest of it is... remarkably anti-small-town, and a lot of attitude about "why haven't they just moved into the big city already?"

As for that last sentence, do you mean things like carbon taxes, and other related things? Because those aren't market forces. Hell, if there's a rise in the electric car, that'll make these fuels CHEAPER as demand goes down, so they need to find ways to drop prices to compete.
 
Hell, if there's a rise in the electric car, that'll make these fuels CHEAPER as demand goes down, so they need to find ways to drop prices to compete.
Depends; sometimes it's easier to recover profit loss by squeezing more out of people who can't make the initial investment of getting an electric car in the first place.
 
Good article about the difference between a Carbon Tax and actual emissions reductions: Trump exposes the Paris mirage - The so-called war against climate change has always been about money
The real purpose of the Paris agreement is financial, the so- called Green Climate Fund (GCF). While the CGF is not in the Paris agreement, it’s directly related to it.

Its purpose is to transfer wealth from the developed world (us) to the developing one — starting at $100 billion annually by 2020 and rising from there — ostensibly, to help developing nations cope with climate change and develop renewable energy.

The real reason supporters of the Paris agreement are hysterical about Trump’s withdrawal is that it sends a signal to the world that America, under Trump, is not going to play the role of Sugar Daddy for the GCF, by showering it with money from American taxpayers.

Similar to the Paris deal, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s national carbon pricing scheme, and those being implemented by most provincial premiers, aren’t about the environment.

They’re about raiding taxpayers’ wallets in the name of the environment.

Trudeau knows this. Has government’s own experts have told it that to meet his emission targets, Canada would have to impose a carbon price on most goods and services so high — hundreds of dollars per megatonne of emissions — that it would provoke a massive recession.
Unless our governments were willing to return 100% of the money raised to the public in regular, dividend cheques.

Known as carbon fee and dividend, this would create a real-world (rather than a subsidized) market for low-carbon products, eliminate subsidies to the fossil fuel industry and insulate Canadians from the negative economic impact of carbon pricing.

Carbon fee and dividend is supported by everyone from the Green Party of Canada to moderate U.S. Republicans, but no government will implement it.

That’s because its sole purpose is to reduce emissions, not raise government revenues.

Small wonder our politicians aren’t interested.
I quoted probably the last half of the article, but still, all those measures are about wealth transfer (and economic control), not the environment. Always have been.
 
I guess I don't follow the logic here:

X is not a part of Y
We withdrew from Y so X will not be supported by us anymore.

???


Also, polluting is cheap. Money will always be a critical part of being environmentally conscious. Saying it is all about money is extremely disingenuous. It involves money. Of course it does! This approach is like saying, "A house costs $400,000! That's 30 years of paying mortgage that is higher than rent. And it ends up costing more than $400,000 after interest. A lot more!" Those things are all true, but what are you getting for your dollars? Possibly a pretty nice place to live (and maybe a decent investment to boot!) Don't ignore the cost, but don't ignore what you get either.
 
I guess I don't follow the logic here:

X is not a part of Y
We withdrew from Y so X will not be supported by us anymore.

???


Also, polluting is cheap. Money will always be a critical part of being environmentally conscious. Saying it is all about money is extremely disingenuous. It involves money. Of course it does! This approach is like saying, "A house costs $400,000! That's 30 years of paying mortgage that is higher than rent. And it ends up costing more than $400,000 after interest. A lot more!" Those things are all true, but what are you getting for your dollars? Possibly a pretty nice place to live (and maybe a decent investment to boot!) Don't ignore the cost, but don't ignore what you get either.
That'd be true if it was actually about the environment (debatable), but especially because Carbon Taxes in virtually every case go into General Government Revenue. It's a tax grab, and doesn't actually go to helping the environment at all. A similar case that many might be familiar with would be Tobacco taxes. All the money raised therein does not go to prevention. Or Road Taxes which are often on Gasoline, again, rarely if ever spent 100% on road maintenance.

To put it in your example terms, would you be OK paying the extra amount for... nothing? No house at the end of it? No? So why are you OK with paying a premium "environment" charge with no actual impact on the environment? The money isn't going there.

That's the main point here. And yes, the GCF is intertwined with Paris.
 
That'd be true if it was actually about the environment (debatable), but especially because Carbon Taxes in virtually every case go into General Government Revenue. It's a tax grab, and doesn't actually go to helping the environment at all. A similar case that many might be familiar with would be Tobacco taxes. All the money raised therein does not go to prevention. Or Road Taxes which are often on Gasoline, again, rarely if ever spent 100% on road maintenance.

To put it in your example terms, would you be OK paying the extra amount for... nothing? No house at the end of it? No? So why are you OK with paying a premium "environment" charge with no actual impact on the environment? The money isn't going there.

That's the main point here. And yes, the GCF is intertwined with Paris.
That's a fine argument if true. The stuff you quoted does not make that argument at all, though. It just says, "They are taking our money!!" My point is that it is necessary that money be a part of the equation. "They take our money" is an insufficient argument on its own. "We are not getting enough for our money" would be a better argument, but not one that you (initially) made, or that the article seems to make.
 
That's a fine argument if true. The stuff you quoted does not make that argument at all, though. It just says, "They are taking our money!!" My point is that it is necessary that money be a part of the equation. "They take our money" is an insufficient argument on its own. "We are not getting enough for our money" would be a better argument, but not one that you (initially) made, or that the article seems to make.
Literally the last 4 sentences/paragraphs (I didn't structure it) that I quoted are about exactly that Mind.
 
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