(OT:) We have to be the dumbest bastards on the face of the planet...

It's hard work, but someone has to do it.

Natalie

Looks like you're having your period (sorry - couldn't help it)

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Don't apologize.

That's damned funny!

Natalie

Nah. But I got a kick out of the responses!

We are the smartest, richest, most technologically advanced society on the planet, so why are we in such a mess? (I could blame this on Liberals for a few reasons. I'll get to that...)

We are beholden to a few nations for almost all our energy needs, and now the price of food is headed upwards from using it for fuel and for simply not planting enough. We friggin' PAY people NOT to grow food!

We should be selling energy (or the tecnology for energy production) to the world, not sitting here waiting for something to change. I have mentioned before a proprosed wind farm near my home, and another one off Cape Cod. Enough energy for a small city or two. Think of the oil it could save. But the NIMBYS (who were also the ones screaming the loudest to end oil pollution) don't WANT it where they can see it, so another sight is proposed, and again, no one wants it. SCREW 'EM! Put one in my back yard! I would gladly have a wind turbine if it meant it would cut my utility bill, and save that much oil for other purposes.

We have recently found two large oil deposits right here in the Good Ol' US of A, but we can't get at it, because the Few don't want us to drill for it. We can have solar power, wind power, water power but we still cling to oil. Granted some of the technologies are expensive, but delay and delay will make oil as expensive as they are now.

Last week or the week before there was a cow farm that put up a methane production plant on their porperty. They didn't go into how much it cost, but cow poop goes in, and energy, potting soil and fertilizer come out. Not only do you produce enough gas to power the farm and 120 homes as well, but you get saleable by-products to boot.

It costs $2-3 to get the oil out of the ground in Saudi Arabia. So why is it $120 a barrel? And WHY ARE WE PAYING IT?!?!

And stop the subsidies! Or, pay people TO grow certain crops. If you're going to divert food for fuel, make damn sure there's enough food first!

Maybe not. We don't lead in use of technology or technological infrastructure (Estonia may be ahead of us -- Skype?), and our high school graduates score poorly in science, and maybe 2/3 of them aren't qualified to go to college. OTOH we're the leaders in fostering the best and brightest people, and nobody comes close in venture capital.

You could, but you'd be wrong -- California has invented a lot of things, including electronic TV, hard disks, and the real integrated circuit.

The free market at work. Name the last president who tried to do something about that, and look what happened to him.

Bipartisan feel-good energy and environmental policy at work here.

We don't lead in the *USE*. Right. We lead in innovation. The Japanese are WAY ahead of us in the implementation of technology, even though most of it was developed here.

And then do all the manufacturing overseas, and see it all used elsewhere.

That's people with vision. I'm talking about the NIMBYS and the COVEs.

He tried to *control* the market. We're not talking control here, we're talking enhancing, supplanting, or replacing the market.

Well, you Liberals should stop backing morons like Pelosi and let the people who KNOW how to handle it, handle it... ;)

(er, kidding about everything in the above statement but the Pelosi part...)

"Feel good" is all over the place now that we are "celebrating" earth week. Jay Leno had the babe from Seinfeld on the other night telling us all to buy the mercury filled light bulbs to save the planet. Last night Ed Begley was telling us to use solar cells.

I installed a solar cell hot water system at my home in Florida, at the behest to my wife, six years ago. They told me I need 36 cells to do the job. It cost me $66,000 for 36 cells that do not produce hot water at a rate that will allow three people to take a shower before the NG system needs to come on line and I'm probably only around 150 miles from the equator LOL