ahegeman

Well spoken, Eric. Of course, the EU will also be banning the Hammer & Sickle, right? Naziism was small potatoes compared to the evil of Communism. Too bad that Communist chic is alive and well. Being half Cuban, I certainly appreciated all the ignorant fuckwits walking around in college with Che shirts on. When will people ever learn? --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

Some of those ways are right and some of those ways are wrong. And you will find that group far in the minority. If its so easy to argue numbers, then by all means give me an alternate interpretation of the numbers I gave you. I look forward to being educated. If skydiving is safer than your driving, please let me know if you ever drive through Fort Worth so I can barricade myself in my house. You ain't seen nuthin' yet. I was being gentle. --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

deleted after imagining my boss reading this post

Absolutely. In summary at the close of the debate, we have resolved Insurance=good medical bills=bad commies=bad boobies=good Now, back to your regularly scheduled posting. --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

I'm sure there are plenty of old threads in SC we can resurrect to debate this without getting Val's post moved. --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

If you don't want to argue about interpreting statistics, then don't make patently wrong observations claiming statistics back you up, such as "Statistically, skydiving is safer than driving down the street", especially to newbies trying to make an honest assessment of risk before they put their life on the line. Here's a link to a post I made last year comparing the fatality rates of cars vs. skydiving based on 2003 NHTSA stats. In short, a skydive is as likely to kill you as 676 miles in a car. That's a long "drive down the street" to equal the danger of one skydive. --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

Not real. --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

Isn't that how it always is? --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

No doubt. Its perfect for ending a party with. If that won't clear people out, nothing will. --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

I like techno quite a bit, but the downside is that sometimes it makes people to things like this. Anybody know what that song is and who its by, anyway? --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

I was just about to say that. But whatever you do, don't try to improvise with pantyhose. You can't untie that stuff, and your partner will freak out when you say, "back in a sec, gotta go get a knife." --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

You live in CA, the state with the most generous assistance to homeowners for installing home power systems. By how much did the taxpayers of CA subsidize the cost of your toy? $10K? $20K? Where did I say I had a right to cheap power? No meddling, let the market figure it out. We agree! If green power is better, I can go there. Wonderful. If only it were actually a free market. --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

All of these projects lean heavily on government subsidies, either directly or in the form of significantly accelerated depreciation tax breaks. Also, a dozen states have laws requiring power companies to generate a percentage of their power through renewable means. That these companies are abiding by these laws and taking advantage of government assistance proves nothing about the real viability of wind power. A 310 MW wind project going into Iowa using 207 GE turbines required 20,000 acres. A typical power plant's output of 1.5GW would require over 150 square miles of land at that rate. And that even assumes the turbines are always running at max output. I partially agree with you here. But think about how many birds 150 square miles of wind turbines would take out. But yeah, probably much less than power lines. At the North American Falconers Association field meet last year in Kansas 13 falconers out of just a couple hundred lost their birds to power lines in one weekend. Imagine how many wild ones are lost in a year. Edited to add: The Sierra Club calls wind turbines the "cuisinarts of the air". --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

I gotta admit though, I thought "BS" when I first read it. I'm surprised it turned out to be for real. In my fair city, of all places, too. --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

http://www.nbc5i.com/news/4071942/detail.html

It would not be economically feasable. As far as I know, there is no large, or even moderate, scale power plant running on wind or sun without significant government subsidies. The amount of money the association would spend putting up the turbines would not justify the savings. Cell towers don't have huge blades swinging at high speed on them. Same economic problem as before. Plus, wind turbines aren't all they're cracked up to be environmentally speaking. They require huge amounts of land. Remember little Icarus? Those blades are murder on birds, especially raptors coming to feed on the carcasses of birds that have been thwacked already. The electricity rates are so high because of the government regulation I was referring to earlier. Don't get me wrong folks, I'm all for greener power, and I don't like the environmental damage of some power sources more than anyone else. I'm just realistic about our situation right now. Green power technology will improve with time and overtake conventional power sources on its own without having to be forced, especially in a functioning market, and that will be a good thing. Given the proximity of my job to the power generation industry, that's all I'm gonna say about it. --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

Only complaint I hear about them is the batteries wearing out pretty quickly, as in within a couple of years. No personal experience, though. --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

I don't need a lesson on how to lower my utility bills or how I could use alternative power. The fact is that many people simply have no choice but to use power from the grid, to claim otherwise is just silly. Not only do we have a right to use power from utilities, we have a right to enter into that agreement with the utility without being forced to pay artificially high rates due to silly government regulations. There is nothing wrong, nor particularly illiberal, with attempting to minimize government interference in a business transaction between two entities. While we're on the subject Bill, how much did your home power system cost? How much did it lower your electric bills by? How long can it be expected to last? What sort of maintenance is required? --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

That's great that you've taken advantage of that opportunity, but I'm guessing my homeowner's association wouldn't be big fans (no pun intended) if I tried to put up a wind turbine in my backyard. And I'm not really in a position to be putting up any dams. The point I'm trying to get at is most people (60K Californians? That's what, like 0.2% of the population?) don't have the option of alternative power. So why rag on them (Bill, not Kris) for having to depend on utilities hamstrung by silly government regulations? --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

...you're shooting clays and you reach for your ass when someone yells "PULL"! --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

He's famous for being a whiny turd. How good is that? --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

Ugh. Actually, its Wil, with one "l". But I take no pride in correcting you on that. Actually, I'm sorta ashamed that I did. Edited to add: I take that back. I'm REALLY ashamed that I corrected you. --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

The most conflicted man on earth. A gay, HIV-positive, Catholic conservative. Probably the most well-known weblogger. edited to add: He would probably tell you he's not conflicted, that there is no inherent conflict between being Catholic, gay, and conservative. Of course he's wrong, but he SHOULD be right. edited again to add: But WTF do I know? I'm not Catholic, gay, or conservative. Maybe I should just shut up now. edited yet once again to add: Here's his blog: http://andrewsullivan.com/index.php. OK, I'm drukn. No more posting for me. --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

Cool. Is there a stance called the Dancing Queen? --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry

Good for you. That hardly solves THE problem, though. You could afford a solar power system, and have the expertise to do it. How 'bout everybody else? That's not deregulation. That's just a different kind of regulation. Sure, CA was victimized by a cartel. And CA has no one else to blame for putting themselves in that situation but themseles. Cartels like that can generally only exist in highly regulated environments which CA gleefully provided. Of course things are going to get screwed up trying to unwind it. Are there any actual conservatives in CA with any influence? "Out of touch elitist" because you expect your solution to somehow have any meaning to someone not in your cushy situation. Generally when you find conservatives expecting money from the government its to compensate for a screwed up situation government meddling caused in the first place. I think you'll find that much of what is called "corporate welfare" will fall into this category. Now who's confusing philosophy with party? Pete Wilson was no conservative. But to be technical, he didn't create the problem, it was already there, brewing. As I said before, trying to unwind a choking regulatory regime will cause many problems. Consider it the price for decades of stupidity by the CA government. --------------------------------------------------------------- There is a fine line between 'hobby' and 'mental illness'. --Dave Barry