SLUniverse Forums

Brenda Archer

I'm all offended because he's been making out with his baby momma during public speeches. Really, they should get a room!

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Et ses mains ourdiraient les entrailles du prêtre,
Au défaut d’un cordon pour étrangler les rois. - Denis Diderot

Richie Waves

hmmmmmm.. so tax money to help poor bad, tax money to help millionaire politicians good.


got it...

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POLAR BEARS FOR OBAMA!!!

Impending storm rise up rise up
Oh demons I shall shame you!
Look down the barrel of my gun and one by one I'll name you
Day on day my brothers leave go marching off to war
Yet we never understand for what we're fighting for

Adam Zaius

*fixed*

Bingo.

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Quote:

<Joshua> if I relied on adam to plan anything the wedding would consist of nobody knowing where to go because adam forgot to book a venue.

Joshua Nightshade

Troll.

Vengence Opus

Lift the Offshore Drilling Ban, National Review: It Would Signal That The U.S. Is Serious About Increasing Domestic Production - CBS News

Bush calls for offshore drilling, citing gasoline prices - Los Angeles Times

yup. rebel. totally.

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“If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose.” ~ Charles Bukowski

Markubis

What part of "somewhat" didn't you understand?



And whats wrong with offshore drilling anyways? I say it should have been done a long time ago. Why use other countries resources when we have our own.

Oh, right...there's a <insert insect approaching extinction> that will be threatened if they start drilling.

Lets not even consider that we are discovering new species all the time.

Surreal Farber

Charming as always.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm feeling calm and happy... especially since my LotR captain is 22K from 50, I negotiated going off on-call status on weekends and holidays, and I'm working from home today with a light workload.

You've now assumed "pissy,' 'agitated,' and 'self-satisfied' none of which are accurate. It looks to me like you're bringing your own issues into this discussion.

Just like you appear to assume that I'm defending Eboni, who I really doubt needs defending... she strikes me as very capable of doing that herself... when the point is still that I'm disagreeing with your dualistic argument.

Surreal Farber

How about we lessen our dependence on oil period. The end of affordable oil as energy will come. If we had tackled this in the 70s, we'd not only be good now, we'd be ahead of the game.

When I was a kid I had this great book by National Geographic called Animals of the world published in the 50s. I still have it although it's a bit worse for wear. A few years ago I was flipping through it again with a friend... and I was very sad to see that several of these animals had disappeared, or were only in zoos now.

My favorite from childhood was the clouded leopard... an animal which is functionally extinct now because only a few remain in zoos and the gene pool is too small.

Once a unique organism is gone, it's gone... don't you think we should consider endangering part of our ecosystem for something less than extending an already bankrupt energy policy?

Markubis

Welcome to the cycle of life. Millions of species have come and gone over the course of time. New ones appear nearly everyday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080617/sc_livescience/top10newspeciesnamed

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/09/26/newspecies_pla.html?category=animals&guid=20070926 140000&dcitc=w19-506-ak-0001

http://www.greenexpander.com/2007/10/15/20-new-species-from-the-lost-world/


I'm not condoning going out and destroying species so we can all have SUVs and pick up trucks. I'm saying that some species have run their course and are on the brink of extinction anyways..its sad, but its true...and its reality. There are also species that are trying to get a foothold in their new existence but have picked the wrong place and the wrong time...some adapt and some don't.

We can either accept this reality or we can go stand in a corner and be afraid of even walking because we may step on the up and coming new species.

I also agree with you that we should be looking into alternate forms of energy. Wind and solar are two that should have more time spent on them.
But there will always be a need for fossil fuels to some extent, and theres no need to be taking from other countries to do so.

There's a middle ground that humans need to walk on. Respect for the environment. It can still be used but used with responsibility and respect.

Surreal Farber

These are extinctions that would not come about naturally unless you consider humans crowding everything out natural. We've overpopulated our habitat and everyone's else's and eliminated most of our natural predators.

Not that I have a problem with being an apex predator.. provided we use the same brains we used to get here to restrain ourselves while we still have a habitat.

Agreed

Surreal Farber

This discussion is covering a lot of ground, so I don't think this is too far off topic. One of the critical challenges I think the US must overcome in order to have a functional democracy is the dualistic mindset. It permeates most of our culture IMO and causes problems there too.

For example... Rep/Dem, Coke/Pepsi, Wrong/Right, Black/White, etc.

A lot of people consider themselves independents, myself amongst them... but all that really means come election time is that both parties court us piecemeal. What if we really did have viable third parties. How would that change our government.

What if Obama was running as the bi-racial candidate instead of black? How would that change the discussion?

Markubis

Obama is black?



In all seriousness,
My concerns with Obama stem from his lack of experience and that's about it.


I hardly know anything about the guy. He has been in the senate for just a few years.
For someone to take on the responsibilty of an entire country with only a few years under his belt worries me.

Sure, I could re-assure myself with the "well he will have a bunch of experienced people around him" theory...but thats what Bush did...and we can see where that got us.
*cough*Rumsfeld*cough*Cheney*cough*

I know I'm painting with a broad brush with that statement...but its basically the truth and I don't feel like getting into technicalities right now while I'm at work.

Eboni Khan

Does anyone view oil as a national security issue? If there was ever another World War how would our country run? We depend far too much on foreign oil when we don't have to. Why would our enemies provide us with oil or even cheap oil? Should we explore other resources, yes, please, yes, but that doesn't give us a solution for now. We need to start drilling for the oil we have or at least be prepared. It will take years to get it all up and going and we should have been doing this decades ago. Brazil is ahead of the US. The United States is falling behind in so many ways, from energy to technology (all these dumb US companies shipping their technology overseas to have it manufactured) at this point I don't see how we are going to make a come back. We are going to end up like some 2nd rate European country, pick one.

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Beau Perkins

I think this is what the national reserve is for.

Eboni Khan

There isn't enough there. That is not a solution for a long term war of supply issue.

Dnate Mars

That is very temporary and will still destroy the economy.

Nuclear power FTW!

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Omniscience is one of those things that sounds good in theory, until you think about it for a bit and realise what a downer it must be after a while.
Like immortality. It's all well and good to want to live forever, until you realise that forever is a bloody long time. - irregular webcomic

What the...

Beau Perkins

Oh I am not saying it will be effective, I was just saying what the US's big plan is.

I know there are other emergency reserves under different names. I believe the Military has a totally seperate one. I cant recall the exact facts however.

Surreal Farber

Hell yes... and food... and potable water... and manufacturing capacity for key infrastructure components... and technology...

End up.. I'd say we're mostly there.

Beau Perkins

I just did the math. We have enough oil in the reserves to last about 90 days.

This may be Bush's plan to finally get his wish to start drilling up our shorelines.

Eboni Khan

Please don't just attach this to a "Bush is evil and eats baby seals as snacks" agenda.

There are many intelligent people that want drilling off shore.

Markubis

you forgot to carry the 8

Allana Dion

Even that resource won't last through the current generation of consumers. We are better off working on the necessary technology to end our dependency on oil.

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