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Putt Putt,
What does the use
Found: 1 Day 6 Minutes ago
Eden Prairie News - Putt Putt,What does the use of foul language have to do with greed? If you choose to make such an assertion, then Angry Al Franken is a very greedy person.Did Cheney ever take the microphone and say this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5byqTqyOr0It isgreed, when a politician seeking an increase in "pay-grade", promises to tax those who work and hand it out to those who don't work. Obama-Biden calls this "patriotism". Jigar Aswhin Madia calls this "sacrifice."Al Franken doesn't pay his taxes....
Putt Putt,I had not read
Found: 1 Day 52 Minutes ago
Eden Prairie News - Putt Putt,I had not read your post, so I checked it out. You the man!I noticed that as usual, you're still calling everyone "bootlickers" and using some of those Angry Al expletives....
All right, let's continue.
Found: 1 Day 53 Minutes ago
Eden Prairie News - All right, let's continue. But first a shout out to Mayor Young -- you don't know it, but you sat just to my right at the first half of tonight's EPHS football game. I considered saying hi but figured you just wanted to enjoy watching the Eagles rack up yet another kick-a win. Woo hoo! (I was the one with the squirmy 4 year-old girl belting out Little Mermaid and Garth Brooks songs.)So let's look at your third question: costs.First, before I say *anything* else, I want to address the fear that obviously underlies your question. Clearly, asking the question at all implies that you are very (rightly) concerned about being fiscally responsible and not impinging on individual liberties. In the back of your mind I imagine are images of tree-hugger environmentalist-types, demanding that the federal government be used to ram costly solutions down our throats, like it or not, personal freedom be damned.Well, as much as I love the outdoors, I am no tree-hugger. I have friends and relatives who ARE (one who even got Pres. Clinton to create a national monument: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascade-Siskiyou_National_Monument) and I love 'em to death, but I've come to grips with the fact that I am not really of that pattern. Climate change to me is not an environmental issue. It is national and global security issue first, a moral issue second, and a business issue third. Also, I have a libertarian streak a mile-wide. So rest assured, I, too, am tremendously concerned with costs and would want any infringement on personal liberties to be measured with extreme care.So...cost. The honest answer is that I don't know and that is because I don't have a full solution mapped out. No individual could, really. But here are some important thoughts:- First, I reject ethanol or similar bio-fuel type solutions. I really don't think they play into the solution at all. There is no need to worry about using crops that could otherwise feed people or livestock from my corner.- Second, the solutions need to go after the biggest carbon emitters. Forcing people to use more economical light bulbs may conserve electricity, but that is only an issue if the production of the electricity causes carbon emissions. I have only praise for those who voluntarily choose to reduce, reuse, and recycle...but that is not going to get us to where we need to be. We need to be positioned so we have cheap, and extraordinarily abundant electricity for all -- with no carbon emissions.- Third, I believe that nuclear is the only current technology that offers a solution for that need. That is not to say we should not pursue wind, geotherm, solar, etc. But nuclear can get us to where we need to be NOW.- Fourth, the cost of building, securing, overseeing and maintaining nuclear facilities will be great, no doubt. But as I noted above, these should not be government projects. These should be primarily private enterprises with government participating to secure and oversee. The latter should not be underestimated. If we as a nation are truly going to become strategically dependent on nuclear, then we need to secure our nuclear facilities with the military, and we need to have STRICT and TRANSPARENT oversight to force the private power companies to adhere to design and maintenance rules and remediations. Other than that cost, however, let private investors build and profit from the facilities. The most important thing government can do here is get out of the way.- Fifth, by choosing to go nuclear, we as a people will owe a debt to the people of Nevada who will be asked to bear the burden of underground storage of the waste. We must spend whatever it takes to make Yucca Mountain a safe storage solution and we may be morally on the hook to relocate people living nearby if they feel uncomfortable living in proximity to the site. We can afford to treat these people right and we must never adopt the attitude that Nevada is just a wasteland, anyway. Having lived there for three years myself I can assure you, it is not.- Sixth, I think it is probably just a reality that regular fuel-based cars and trucks will be the norm for at least another 10-15 years. The government cannot reasonably ask individuals to ditch the investment they have made in their current cars. So, as electric and hydrogen based cars and trucks slowly become the norm (mine will be the Tesla, thank you: http://www.teslamotors.com/) and the free market cost of gasoline will help you to voluntarily "choose" to go electric or hydrogen, the government needs to sponsor a project to deal with the carbon that current cars and trucks emit. What I have in mind here are activities to sequester this carbon dioxide. One of the most interesting proposals I have seen comes from Gregory Benford, professor of physics at UC Irvine and author of some of the best sf you will ever get your hands on (http://www.gregorybenford.com/). He writes about his idea in an Amazon Short here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000CBT7PQ/qid=1132469075/...). The idea, in a nutshell, is to bury farm waste (corn stalks, etc.) in the deep ocean where the sequestered carbon will be retained for about a thousand years. He estimates that burying just the US farm waste could capture 33% of all carbon emitted today, not even factoring in a dramatic reduction in carbon emissions if we go nuclear. The two together might solve the problem through the remainder of the century.Of course, the government would have to pay to transport and bury the farm waste (who else would?). But I can easily envision opening a carbon sequestration market: let the government set the demand side of the equation (how much carbon to sequester), and let private companies compete to devise ways to meet the demand (and burying farm waste is only one of many ways to do this). The government would certainly have to pay the suppliers (with taxpayer money), but fostering competition and innovation would ensure that the government does not itself get into the carbon sequestration business and would get the best, most cost-effective solutions. The money to pay (and, again, to OVERSEE) these vendors, I believe, could come directly from spending cuts to the military budget. This IS a security expense and it is really more suited to the security environment of the 21st century.(Personally, if I were to make a go at this, I would envision creating great dirigibles to haul the farm waste. This would reduce the carbon emissions due to transportation and would make pick up and delivery much simpler. You could even color the upper surface of the dirigibles to reflect sunlight, incrementally reducing the Earth's albedo and helping that much more. But now I am drifting of into sci-fi again, aren't I?)So...cost wise, I can't give you exact costs. This isn't a formalized plan that is ready for that yet. But in general, I think a solution can be tailored so that much of the expense is born by private investors who will ultimately reap a profit, and the rest, while definitely a tax-payer bill, would not be as costly as we might think, and could come from cutting existing costs elsewhere in the budget.And as far as costs to personal freedom -- let's agree to keep that as low as possible.(P.S. I want to add one thing here: one reason that the tree-hugger socialist environmentalist image haunts our collective imagination is because there is a terrible lack of imagination in our science fiction, especially the SciFi portrayed in films (because I know no one will read real sf). The best scifi we have on TV today is probably BattleStar Galactica, and while it is admittedly a brilliant show that illuminates much about human character, it speaks nothing to the pressing science problems of our day: climate change, energy, science education, proliferation of WMDs and religious-based terrorism, pandemics, genetics research, (real) space exploration, and the interplay of science and politics, for a few. An idea I have long wanted to pursue is to produce a show similar in format to PBS Mystery! that would allow today's best sf writers to unleash scripts that DO delve into these issues. The power of real sf is the power to expand how we see our real, present world. If anybody wants to go in with me, let me know!)...
No, not "everyone" - only
Found: 1 Day 1 Hour 3 Minutes ago
Eden Prairie News - No, not "everyone" - only those that should be, and for the old-fashioned reason: they EARNED it.And actually, those are Cheney's expletives. But, thanks for reminding folks reading this, of the typical republiCon hypocrisy: When Cheney, a GOPer, drops the (cheney)bomb, it's good; when Franken, a Democrat, drops the (cheney) bomb, it's bad.That's just one more example of why GOP now stands for GreedOverPrinciples....
Putt Putt,What does the use
Found: 1 Day 1 Hour 6 Minutes ago
Eden Prairie News - Putt Putt,What does the use of foul language have to do with greed? If you choose to make such an assertion, then Angry Al Franken is a very greedy person.Did Cheney ever take the microphone and say this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5byqTqyOr0It isgreed, when a politician seeking an increase in "pay-grade", promises to tax those who work and hand it out to those who don't work. Obama-Biden calls this "patriotism". Jigar Aswhin Madia calls this "sacrifice." Al Franken doesn't pay his taxes....
Legislative panel says Palin abused power as Alaska Governor during ...
Found: 1 Day 6 Hours 33 Minutes ago
KARE 11 News - A legislative committee investigating Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has found she unlawfully abused her authority in firing the state's public safety commissioner. ...
McCain tells Minnesota supporters not to boo Obama
Found: 1 Day 6 Hours 50 Minutes ago
KARE 11 News - Related: North Korea to be removed from terror list The anger is getting raw at Republican rallies and John McCain is finally acting to tamp it down. McCain was booed by his own supporters Friday when, in an abrupt switch from ...
In Minnesota , McCain urges supporters to respect Obama
Found: 1 Day 7 Hours 53 Minutes ago
St. Paul Pioneer Press - LAKEVILLE, Minn. (AP) — The anger is getting raw at Republican rallies and John McCain is acting to tamp it down....
Troopergate report: Palin abused power, violating Alaska ethics act
Found: 1 Day 7 Hours 56 Minutes ago
The Post-Bulletin - ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A legislative investigation in Alaska has concluded that Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power in pushing for the firing of an Alaska state trooper. ...
ACORN Has Obama's Back -
Found: 1 Day 8 Hours 49 Minutes ago
Eden Prairie News - ACORN Has Obama's Back - Voter Fraud in IndianaCROWN POINT, Indiana (CNN) -- More than 2,000 voter registration forms filed in northern Indiana's Lake County by a liberal activist group this week have turned out to be bogus, election officials said Thursday.The group -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN -- already faces allegations of filing fraudulent voter registrations in Nevada and faces investigations in other states. And in Lake County, home to the long-depressed steel town of Gary, the bipartisan Elections Board has stopped processing a stack of about 5,000 applications delivered just before the October 6 registration deadline after the first 2,100 turned out to be phony."All the signatures looked exactly the same,"Ruthann Hoagland, a Republican on the board. "Everything on the card filled out looks exactly the same."The forms included registrations submitted in the names of the dead -- and in one case, the name of a fast-food restaurant, Jimmy Johns. ...A subsidiary of the group was paid $800,000 by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign to register voters for the 2008 primaries, and ACORN's political wing endorsed Obama back in February. ... http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/09/acorn.fraud.claims/?iref=hpmostpo......
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