As for Jay, I'm with what JeffR said a while back. While he used to bring interesting information to the table, his comments are no longer worth responding too, as they are based on emotion instead of fact. The FACT is that this tax cut helps everyone. Period.

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"How do you define fool?"
"I don't attempt it. I wait for demonstrations. They inevitably surpass my imagination."
- CJ Cherryh, Invader

2. You cannot spread solar collectors in various areas the country, for the simple reason that clear days are UNCOMMON. ONLY in the southwest can we insure a majority of sunny days. (I'll give you an example: PA has on average, 60 clear days a YEAR, according to the National Weather Institute)

3. Tax cuts give the companies more capital with which to build plants, hire workers to staff them, and pay the costs of complying with legions of government-mandated regulations, many of which are stupid (like those $300 ergonomic seats that the Clinton Administration wanted employers to buy all their employees - fortunately, this one was caught and dealt with by placing it in the circular file.)

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The government that seems the most unwise, oft goodness to the people best supplies. That which is meddling, touching everything, will work but ill, and disappointment bring. - The Tao Te Ching

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"I don't mind being called a liar when I'm lying, or am about to lie, or have just finished lying, but NOT WHEN I'M TELLING THE TRUTH!"--Homer Simpson.

If you're not sure, and you have little to say, repeat yourself several times. Maybe saying it over and over will make it true.

Not.

I just READ the above article (It's good to be a librarian, we keep magazines) and NREL did NOT calculate such things.

And again, it does NOT take weather into account. You would need at least TWICE that amount, spread into different locations, to insure coverage for even SLIGHT weather variations.

I was in New Mexico, which would be the ideal place for solar power, a few years back. It rained/was overcast for SEVEN STRAIGHT DAYS. I don't think you want your entire power supply to be relying on that.

Whup, it's overcast in Arizona,, better cut power to Atlanta.

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The government that seems the most unwise, oft goodness to the people best supplies. That which is meddling, touching everything, will work but ill, and disappointment bring. - The Tao Te Ching

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"Babies haven't any hair;
old men's heads are just as bare;
between the cradle and the grave
lies a haircut and a shave."

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"How do you define fool?"
"I don't attempt it. I wait for demonstrations. They inevitably surpass my imagination."
- CJ Cherryh, Invader

If you want to talk about something else...that is when apart from calling names and ignoring the question...deal with the fact that Americans have been sold the 'electric lifestyle' for 50 years. Deal with the fact that Americans are waking up to the fact that they are loosing and have lost tremendous amounts of wild space to the point that it takes reservations and a year to get into a national park...about the only 'wild' space around.

Deal with the fact that people realize that brown air sucks. Why does Los Angeles not have a pubic transportation system to speak of? It's because of the fact that way back when, when oil companies realized the profits that could be made from huge amounts of cars, they helped to remove the old Red Line. Which as I recall, now sits out in the ocean as fish habitat.

Deal with the fact that oil is not an infinite resourse and they people are starting to realize what 100 years of dependence on it has done to the environment that we all have to live in while it's drilling and processing has enriched oh so very few but at what cost. And along those lines, people realize that there are tremendous technological advances that our civilization could use if our collective voices represented in Washington had the guts to fund study and practical application in the face of the lobby efforts of others who would see profits tumble as a result.

I believe that people are getting tired of the arrogant attitude that you and the far right represent. This anyting as long as its profitable mentality. It old. The conservation notions of social darwinsm only goes so far when face with the realities of culture and civilization.

Oh, and Bush hasn't done squat for California save allowing his Texas power people to gouge. The persons who did squat on California were the Republican governor, the Republican legislature, and the overblown fat cats if the utility companys who pushed through a looser of a deregulation plan so they could see a ton of profits. They had them, business got them as parent companies like Edison reaped huge amounts of money from the utility company for a couple of years and then the bottom fell out.

Now were stuck with an oil man and a vice-oil man who have a SINGLE way of thinking. Which would roughly be "well, only more oil will get us out of this mess." And damned if their old pals don't profit along the way. I read a critique of the Oil Man in the White House's energy policy, and the argument went along the lines of America can have as much oil from foreign markets as they want for so and so for a barrel. So why drill in ANWR? So that American oil men can go make money sted of them damn foreigners.

I believe it was Sweeden that just built a hug collection of off shore windmills that will supply tons of power. Whe do we not do something along those lines? Easy. It doesn't help the Oil Lobby.

The facts of the case are thus. Deal with it.

How are we coming along with fusion? Hot or cold. Is there any hope?

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"Babies haven't any hair;
old men's heads are just as bare;
between the cradle and the grave
lies a haircut and a shave."

It's called a sector of the economy making of mass amounts of profit.

I wasn't aware that 8% anual profit constituted "mass amounts."

Oh, and Bush hasn't done squat for California

Except every (rational) thing they asked? And offering to do stuff they refused? Just what do you WANT him to do, anyway?

So why drill in ANWR? So that American oil men can go make money sted of them damn foreigners.

Or so we can stop buying from Sadaam? Ya think? Personally, I LIKE the idea of our people making money instead of foreigners, especially that "damn foreigner". You know why? JOBS. It's good for the economy. Not to mention the moral abhorence I feel towards supporting that SOB in Iraq in any way, form or manner. Oh, and all the natural gas in the ANWR. More of that than oil, by far.

Now were stuck with an oil man and a vice-oil man who have a SINGLE way of thinking. Which would roughly be "well, only more oil will get us out of this mess."

You haven't been listening to a word they said, have you? The gasoline problem can be solved with more refineries. The power problem can be solved with more plants. Oil... where?

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"How do you define fool?"
"I don't attempt it. I wait for demonstrations. They inevitably surpass my imagination."
- CJ Cherryh, Invader

The Oil Companies are behind the suppression of the existence of aliens, too, Jay.

>"they are loosing and have lost tremendous amounts of wild space to the point that it takes reservations and a year to get into a national park...about the only 'wild' space around."

Bullshit. All but the most urbanized states are FULL of wilderness. Pennsylvania alone has 27,200 square miles of forest, (that's 3/5 of the whole state) much of which is pristine. The reason it takes reservations and a year to get into a National Park is government regulations.

>"Deal with the fact that people realize that brown air sucks."

We dealt with that in Pittsburgh more than 20 years ago, without harming industry OR cutting consumption. Your other cities' methods must suck, or something.

>"it's drilling and processing has enriched oh so very few but at what cost."

Well for starters, everybody who's ever lived in an industrialized country, and everybody who hasn't who's traded with them, since the Industrial Revolution started. But let's forget about them.

>"California were the Republican governor, the Republican legislature, and the overblown fat cats if the utility companys who pushed through a looser of a deregulation plan so they could see a ton of profits. They had them, business got them as parent companies like Edison reaped huge amounts of money from the utility company for a couple of years and then the bottom fell out."

Of course, the bottom fell out because they only deregulated halfway, a point you keep conveniently forgetting, (you can't force companies to keep their rates limited if the price of energy changes, and have a workable system. It's the economy, stupid) largely thinks to your Democratic governor. And the overblown blowhards in the environmental lobby who kneecapped the populace by creating regulations so tight and expensive that even WITH profits, the companies could not afford the hassle of building new plants.

Why drill in ANWR?
1. It will bost the local economy, and the natives want that. They'd like to live in the 21st century like the rest of us. Taxes generated will allow them to better manage the wildlife (this is their words, not mine), so that the Caribou herds will grow (as they have whenever drilling happened in the past, much to the chagrin of the doomsayers. The caribou population is six times what it was when the drilling started.)

2. Because dependency on others is BAD. We shouldn't be relying on hostile nations and petty thugs (isn't that a line from Insurrection?) controlling our energy market.

3. Because the alternatives STILL don't work. This isn't Sweden, we don't have their population or their weather patterns. I AGREE that more money should be spent on developing alternatives, especially solar. But the way to do that is to make it PROFITABLE. Government doesn't do that. Government rarely does ANYTHING efficiently, except take your money. (No, I take that back. Look at that tax code, that's not efficient either.)

YOU build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door. You make solar profitable (which is NOT the same as making everything else more expensive), and Industry will beat that path for you. Which is where tax breaks for the use/development of alternative energies comes in. That's profit. (Which can be put back into R&D to make more efficient products which create more profit, etc.) Money talks. Bullshit walks.

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The government that seems the most unwise, oft goodness to the people best supplies. That which is meddling, touching everything, will work but ill, and disappointment bring. - The Tao Te Ching

[This message has been edited by First of Two (edited May 23, 2001).]

You stay off for a couple of days and just look what happens...

The west and east coasts are practically a single city for the length of the seaboard...so the urbanized American is spreading out at rather large rates. The biodiversity that exists in Pennsylvania is not the same biodiversity that used to exist in California and off it's coast... nor is it the same that exists in Alaska...nor is the same that used to exist places where big oil has been.

And PLEASE stop beating the dead horse of government regulations being the cause for everything including the Lindberg kidnapping.

Since you Fo2, talk about my ancestral homeland of Pennsylvania, you must realize that the major reason for Pittsburg cleaning up the air is the fact that the steel industry died in that region. My gradfather worked at Pullman in Butler PA and as steel died so did Pullman. Pittsburg has gone through a certain renaissance, but that in no way clears the air of Los Angeles and dear old Houston...who we are in a tight race with for the worst air in the nation.

But dare I be accused of be Americacentric, bad brown exists all over the world.

Regarding your Industrial Revolution argument...well now let's look at that. The Industrial Revolution began in the early 1700's and petroleum did not become wildly profitable until John D. Rockefeller asked why were they throwing all this other stuff away. We can burn that.

Now, human history moves through ages as evidenced by the Industrial Revolution. More recently we've entered into a Post Industrial Age and it is my argument that we are on the cusp of a post oil age. It has been usefull for that which it did, but the costs have added up as have technologies that can replace it. Clearly, there are those people still making major profits on oil who resist with everything they have in their arsenal any move away from burining formerly living things. That you can not see that is unfortunate.

Regarding ANWR, I recently heard an interview with oil industry people currently up in Alaska saying that they really have no huge desire to go into ANWR. And even more to your point about jobs jobs jobs, talked about a very interesting idea that has been floating around for a while...is a natural gas pipeline to run next to the current oil pipeline. Seeing as how there are several trillion tons of gas pumped back Prudhoe Bay waiting to be used. Heck, even the Sierrra Club was for it and it would add more jobs than you could count.

Drilling in ANWR isn't neccessary. The post oil age looms and how are we getting ready for it...drilling for every last drop despite everything.