Widem

Getting somewhat (somewhat being a key word) back on topic with at least the energy portion of it.

I was completely unaware until today that ethanol had a worse MPG usage that regular gasoline.

Gas prices fall for 20th day, other fuel prices also fall - Aug. 6, 2008

So even under current conditions its more expensive to run an ethanol vehicle even though the consumer price per gallon is less.

If you want to hear me complain about something the Republicans are doing wrong here it is. Why the hell would we keep subsidizing this? Earlier I said the "consumer" price per gallon is less b/c thats just it. E85 is already highly subsidized and even with the subsidies its more expensive than gasoline. It makes no sense why this isn't completely scrapped to begin with.

Not to mention the fact E85 doesn't even get rid of oil dependance b/c well roughly 15% of it is gasoline.

Deson

Funny, of a lifetime of dealing with all the types you named off, the only ones who have ever been offended by such behavior are the quoted and nut jobs who don't know how to have fun.

And before Rinion responds, you were talking about a sex joke, not cursing or taboos. Many Mormons aren't even concerned with the behavior you named off in a any specific sense, just the broader decadence it represents.

Farm subsidies and ethanol supposedly is better for the environment. John McCain for a very long time railed against it for precisely the reasons you did.

__________________

Rinion

“I won’t go to Hell for swearing because I repent too damn fast.”

-J. Golden Kimball


Also, I don't recall saying God damn on this site often if at all. maybe I did and was absent minded about it. I do use the word fuck alot tho!

__________________
"Before one can identify anything as "gray", one has to know what is black and what is white. In the field of morality, this means that one must first identify what is good and what is evil. And when a man has ascertained that one alternative is good and the other evil, he has no justification for choosing a mixture. " Ayn Rand

Krontak

Good michelle obama roundtable event live at cnn.com live feed from Norfolk. Enjoy.

Ladred

Subsidizing ethanol has to be one of the most retarded things ever. It doesn't stop there though. The subsidies, if I remember correctly were for corn based ethanol, the worst production gaining ethanol producer out there. Sugar grown in brazil, that can be grown just as easily in Florida (i think only in Florida btw) can produce double the amount of ethanol per acre than corn, but our government won't allow us to grow it. The only 'good' ethanol is bio ethanol, but its still in the experimentation stage and won't yield any noticable results for years. When you see that sticker on your gas pump, "Gas contains ethanol additive", just think to yourself.. "By pumping this gas I've taken good corn stock from the mouths of millions of cattle!". If you ever wonder why you pay more for eggs, milk, and other staple food items, its because of ethanol. (this is a rant, I'll post some references if needed, I hate US Ethanol, its just as big of a hoax as global warming is )

__________________
φ

Krontak

Ladred. If I remember from a program I saw on Brazil a few months back, sugar cane is something like 7x more efficient in producing ethanol. 7x! That's huge. And fyi, I think around a month back, Florida negotiated the release of farmland used for sugar cane back to a National Park. eek.

On a side note, someone on fivethirtyeight.com had an interesting perspective on this election. The guy is usually pretty informative on his posts but this one seemed to be a bit more interesting, to me at least.

"What is the structural trend of the Obama-McCain race?

There were four structurally significant moments:

Entering the February peak;
Exiting the February peak;
Entering the June peak;
Exiting the June peak.

I've said this a couple of weeks back but I will repeat it now. The principle underlying this strucural process is the opposition between the mundane and the transcendent. Obama does well when the political environment is transcendent (rich in transformative potential, pregnant with meaning); Obama does poorly when the political environment is mundane (no transformative potential is sensed, no special meaning attached to politics).

The reason for this is obvious: Obama’s message of redemptive change resonates in a transcendent atmosphere but rings false in a mundane atmosphere.

When does the atmosphere in 2008 become transcendent? When the possibility of Obama’s victory becomes palpable. When he seemed to be about to clinch the nomination (February); when he actually did (June) – suddenly it was sensed that we may be about to witness the historical watershed of an African American president. And this is the elegance of Obama’s campaign: the possibility of its own success makes its own message ring true.

Why did February end? Perhaps partly because of March 4 but my impression is that this happened, in fact, a little before that – with the 3 AM ads and once again – NOT BECAUSE OF THE 3 AM ADS. Rather, the 3 AM ads were effective precisely because the historical trend was ripe for a transition from the transcendent to the mundane (political art is all about sensing the ripeness of the historical trend). Earlier February attacks fell flat and this one worked.

My tentative conclusion is absurd but worth considering:
The February and June peaks both ended after about three weeks because this is, STRUCTURALLY, IN NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES, as far as one can keep a sense of transcendence.

The mundane, by definition, is more common and more natural. Most of the time will be felt to be politics as usual. Right now we are in a phase of the race which feels most like March-May. We will probably look back on the race and say that March-May, July-August – the periods of low intensity – were Obama’s weaker moments.

This is suggestive of a rather optimistic scenario – that the nearness of the elections, in
october, will work to Obama’s advantage as the atmosphere will be as far from mundane as is possible. (Indeed, my theory acounts for the well known observation that Obama improved considerably in the weeks leading to each individual Primary).

But we shall see: historians’ predictions are typically refuted and Minerva’s owl flies at night."

Ladred

I can agree on that. I'm not a McCain nor an Obama supporter, I'm a Ron Paul supporter and will write him in (waste my vote) come election time. What I'm seeing now, more than ever that I've been alive is the real potential for a third party to make a run. The differences between the republican and democrat candidates come down to petty semantics on what I believe almost every issue, and I'm sure some will argue thats not true. Truth is that McCain has always been center of right, and now that the election cycle is moving closer to the conventions, Obama is moving closer to center. The closer each get to the center, the less glamour they have for their true constituents, conservative and liberal. I've talked to and read about all kinds of people not really wanting to elect either of the candidates. Are there enough of those folks, and electoral college members to elect a third party candidate? Well I think its getting pretty close.

__________________
φ

Illuminator

Are you speaking respectfully of these people or just trying to use their religions against them to extort guilt and gain political advantage?

Laura Bush used to jab Dubya on occasion and nobody minded, and it wasn't because of Dubya's political policies either.

__________________


Bow down before the one you serve. You're going to get what you deserve.

Widem

Just thinking about the whole sugar for ethanol thing. This could be a severe problem from a policy standpoint. I'm finding how ironic this could be i'm almost laughing out loud. I know most of the "sugar" we use in the US is HFCS, which as the name states comes from corn. The reason we use this is because cane sugar is highly taxed and corn is, as everyone knows, very much subsidized. This makes it more economical b/c of artificial barriers to make corn for sugar.

This definately deserves some more personal research, but what a corner to back ourselves into.

Illuminator

Ron Paul mentions this in his book, and says its why sodas overseas taste so much better. So really, what's the sense of subsidizing if it keeps better-tasting sugar out of our mainstream products?

__________________


Bow down before the one you serve. You're going to get what you deserve.