Has Dan Simmons truly lost it or is he just pandering?
William December Starr
Barnes & Noble review, seen via Salon:
<http://tinyurl.com/3j56qwu>
<http://www.salon.com/books/fiction/index.html?story=/books/2011/07/20/flashback_don_simmons>
Fiction
Wednesday, Jul 20, 2011 20:19 ET
"Flashback": Imagining Obama's apocalyptic American future
Dan Simmons' atrocious, hyper-conservative new novel predicts an
Islamic Caliphate and a second Jewish Holocaust
By Katherine A. Powers, Barnes & Noble Review
[This article appears courtesy of The Barnes & Noble Review.]
Dan Simmons, for years familiar to fans of science fiction,
fantasy, and horror, made his way to the general reader with two
historical/horror hybrids. "The Terror," published in 2007, was
an enthralling and fantastical conjuring up of Sir John
Franklin's doomed voyage in search of a Northwest Passage.
"Drood," appearing two years later, was a creepily ingenious
extrapolation of Charles Dickens' unfinished last novel and his
vexed friendship with Wilkie Collins. Then came last year's
"Black Hills," a less satisfying story that posited an American
Indian's mystical union with the soul of General George Custer.
So much for history. With "Flashback," Simmons has, for the
moment at least, put the past behind him and turned a righteous
pen to a dystopian future. It is circa 2032, or more precisely,
the 23rd year of Jobless Recovery. The U.S. is tottering,
weighing in at only 44-1/2 states, its mass eaten away by Mexico,
its interior rotted out by floods of immigrants, by loss of faith
in a free-market economy, by national healthcare and a myriad of
other entitlement programs, by the global-warming hoax and
green-energy boondoggles, and by drugs, the most pervasive being
"flashback," which allows its users to visit their pasts in a
dream state. It's a bad, bad time, and its fatal origins lie, we
are instructed, with the Obama presidency, its spendthrift
domestic programs and pusillanimous foreign policy.
Highways are disintegrating, people live in former malls cut into
cubicles, and, adding insult to injury, right-wing talk radio has
been banned. Japanese overlords have set up "green zones" across
the land and America's once proud and powerful military is now
hired out as mercenaries to fight for Japan and India. At the
same time, a New Global Caliphate flourishes and Islam
spreads. An immense and towering mosque sits at ground zero and
annual celebrations commemorate the attacks of Sept. 11,
2001. In Los Angeles, where much of the story takes place, the
bells of Christian churches add their peels to "the cries of the
muezzin ... to show their solidarity, understanding, and
forgiveness." The Caliphate has obliterated Israel with 11
exceedingly dirty nuclear bombs, killing 6 million Jews. The
survivors of this "Second Holocaust" are now sequestered in a
former Six Flags amusement park in Denver by a U.S. government
"terrified of angering the Global Caliphate" that is waiting to
exterminate them.
With all this going on (and on), there hardly seems room for a
plot, and yet there is one, balky and encumbered by jeremiads
though it may be. Nick Bottom, Denver resident, ex-policemen, and
sometime private detective, has been addicted to flashback ever
since his wife was killed in a car crash five years ago. The
drug lets him relive their happy times, but it has ruined his
actual life and alienated his son. This is Val, who has gone to
live in Los Angeles with his maternal grandfather. But the boy,
tumid with anger and angst, is going to the bad, having joined
one of the many "flash gangs" that roam the disintegrating city,
committing violent and unspeakable acts in order to revisit the
thrill through flashback. Val's gang has something big planned,
but he himself just wants to get back to Denver to kill his dad
for not phoning him on his birthday. Plus, L.A. is erupting into
full-blown war; so Val and the old man join a convoy of big rigs
traveling west over lurid and lawless highways and meet people
with strong views, all thoroughly aired.
Meanwhile, Nick has been hired by a Catholic, multibillionaire
Japanese overlord to solve the six-year-old murder of his son, a
case Nick had failed to crack when he was on the police
force. Why call on him again? It's a mystery and a growing source
of great fishiness. Getting to the bottom of it involves
quantities of flashback, some high-tech virtual-reality
spectacles, an enormous, impassive Japanese warrior dude, a few
ninjas, two futuristic armored personnel carriers, and one 2015
Chevy Camaro with gun slits for windows and a "raging 6.2-liter
l99 V-8 engine" (delivering "603 horsepower and 518-pound-feet of
torque"). If anything can plow through polemics, this baby can,
and indeed, the battles and chases that interrupt their didactic
flow provide the book's only entertainment. In the end, the
novel's real mystery remains: How could the witty and potent
imagination that produced "The Terror" and "Drood" wither to such
smug and censorious dullness?
Lynn McGuire
> I'm guessing the former, sigh. Nice cover art though.
>
>
> <http://tinyurl.com/3j56qwu>
> <http://www.salon.com/books/fiction/index.html?story=/books/2011/07/20/flashback_don_simmons>
>
> Fiction
> Wednesday, Jul 20, 2011 20:19 ET
> "Flashback": Imagining Obama's apocalyptic American future
>
> Dan Simmons' atrocious, hyper-conservative new novel predicts an
> Islamic Caliphate and a second Jewish Holocaust
>
>
> [This article appears courtesy of The Barnes& Noble Review.]
I take that you never read his previous short story on Islam:
http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message/2006_04.htm
Lynn
DouhetSukd
>
> I take that you never read his previous short story on Islam:
> http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message/2006_04.htm
I have and I agree. He's lost it, or rather he had lost it already
and he's decided to make money from it.
Simmons has always had something against religion. From the brilliant
'Vanni Fucci is Well and Living in Hell' to the various priests in
Carrion Comfort, to the vitriolic but specious rant against the
Catholic Church in Endymion topped up with a spaced-out recreation of
the Blood of Christ story. Not to mention the Song of Kali which
launched his career - "I dream of nuclear mushroom clouds over
Calcutta. It is a good dream".
In Ilium & Olympos he outs his inner anti-Muslim some more. Muslims
are hunting Jews through time and have apparently launched some kind
of nuclear missiles from a sub in the past. Muslims are BAD PEOPLE
according to Simmons, in an inverted quasi-Mel Gibson rant.
He can be more nuanced, at times. The (secular?) Palestinian colonel
is one of the more sympathetic heroes in Hyperion and so is the Jesuit
priest.
Yet, I fear that Simmons has found at least one religion that he will
not get criticized for shitting on and he's now let loose his bowels
with a mighty roar, possibly voiding his brains and authorial talent
in the process. It's not like his books are always brilliant, witness
the lackluster Ilium and Endymion series. Flashback was actually one
of the better short stories in Lovedeath, a decidedly mediocre Simmons
effort.
When he's good, he's really good. But he can crash and burn with the
best of them as well. I'm wasn't aware of Flashback, but it fits
right in with his worldview, he's not just pandering. It's just that
he mostly remembers to take his meds before writing a book.
James Nicoll
DouhetSukd <douhe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Jul 21, 6:03 pm, Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote:
>>
>> I take that you never read his previous short story on Islam:
>> http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message/2006_04.htm
>
>I have and I agree. He's lost it, or rather he had lost it already
>and he's decided to make money from it.
>
>Simmons has always had something against religion. From the brilliant
>'Vanni Fucci is Well and Living in Hell' to the various priests in
>Carrion Comfort, to the vitriolic but specious rant against the
>Catholic Church in Endymion topped up with a spaced-out recreation of
>the Blood of Christ story. Not to mention the Song of Kali which
>launched his career - "I dream of nuclear mushroom clouds over
>Calcutta. It is a good dream".
>
>In Ilium & Olympos he outs his inner anti-Muslim some more. Muslims
>are hunting Jews through time and have apparently launched some kind
>of nuclear missiles from a sub in the past. Muslims are BAD PEOPLE
>according to Simmons, in an inverted quasi-Mel Gibson rant.
Not nuclear. Doomatronic weaponized blackhole weapons, IIRC, which
the SCARY MUSLIMS blackmailed out of the COWARDY EURABIC FRENCH.
>He can be more nuanced, at times. The (secular?) Palestinian colonel
>is one of the more sympathetic heroes in Hyperion and so is the Jesuit
>priest.
Even in the Hyperion books, the Muslims of the Future! react to crises
by rioting while the Jews embrace tradition or something (someone quoted
the passage how each planet of hats reacts to the crisis according to their
national stereotype but I cannot find it just now).
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
James Nicoll
Google Books is our friend in this:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/448wcr2
William December Starr
Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> said:
> I take that you never read his previous short story on Islam:
> http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message/2006_04.htm
Is that "The Time Traveler's Tale" or whatever he called it?
[checks the link] Ah, yes it is though I see that it doesn't have
a title; I guess that was a false memory inspired by the segment
titles in _Hyperion_, way back when.
Yes, I was aware of that (though I'd lost track of the fact that it
was from five years ago; I'd thought it more recent), it was in fact
most of the reason for my "I'm guessing the former, sigh."
-- wds
William December Starr
DouhetSukd <douhe...@gmail.com> said:
> Yet, I fear that Simmons has found at least one religion that he
> will not get criticized for shitting on and he's now let loose
> his bowels with a mighty roar, possibly voiding his brains and
> authorial talent in the process.
Now _there's_ a metaphor to be reckoned with.
-- wds
Steve Coltrin
wds...@panix.com (William December Starr) writes:
> I'm guessing the former, sigh. Nice cover art though.
>
> Barnes & Noble review, seen via Salon:
>
[bris]
Wow. It's like _Snow Crash_ had sex with _The Turner Diaries_.
--
Steve Coltrin spco...@omcl.org Google Groups killfiled here
"A group known as the League of Human Dignity helped arrange for Deuel
to be driven to a local livestock scale, where he could be weighed."
- Associated Press
Lynn McGuire
I'm guessing that he would like to sell more books and
themes along these lines are popular at the moment. So,
I'm with the latter.
Lynn
Lynn McGuire
> I'm guessing the former, sigh. Nice cover art though.
>
>
> <http://tinyurl.com/3j56qwu>
> <http://www.salon.com/books/fiction/index.html?story=/books/2011/07/20/flashback_don_simmons>
>
> Fiction
> Wednesday, Jul 20, 2011 20:19 ET
> "Flashback": Imagining Obama's apocalyptic American future
>
> Dan Simmons' atrocious, hyper-conservative new novel predicts an
> Islamic Caliphate and a second Jewish Holocaust
>
>
> [This article appears courtesy of The Barnes& Noble Review.]
From http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message.htm :
"June 2011 Message from Dan
Dear Readers, Friends, and Other Visitors:
I believe that almost every writer has at least one dystopian
novel in him or her that's clawing and scratching to get out.
Flashback, released on July 1 of 2011, has successfully clawed
itself into existence. It will be my one and only dystopian
novel. I think it will be a worthwhile and perhaps even
memorable reading experience for anyone willing to take the
ride."
-- and --
"Is Flashback A Novel Stating Dan Simmons's Political Biases?
In a word . . . no. In two words . . . hell no."
-- and --
"If Not Peddling Your Own Politics in Flashback, What?
To put it in stark terms, Flashback is the novel in which I
share the psychological and real-world reality (if not any
details of the actual experience) of the day I came home
from college early in my freshman year to discover that both
of my parents had been diagnosed with cancer and would soon
die. And it will also share the dawning perception of a
nineteen-year-old -- after my parents' slow and hard deaths
that year only six months apart, and after hospital and
funeral expenses were paid -- that my younger brother (still
in high school) and I, the remnants of what had been a
fairly happy family, were flat broke, jobless, and seemingly
without a viable future. None of my story of this is in
Flashback, per se, yet it's all there behind the book. The
emotions are there.
And some three hundred and seventy-five million Americans
experience that feeling in Flashback."
Lynn
William December Starr
Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> said:
That's fine, but I bet he could have done it without slamming
into the Muslum-hating wall at Mach seven.
-- wds
Lynn McGuire
Did you read the part of the article where he said that he
removed the Mosque at ground zero from the first revision
of the book ? And then put it back in for the shock effect.
After all, wasn't Ralph Peter's _The_War_After_Armageddon_
a best seller? BTW, my review is at
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2FKGGOAJ2TE6L/
After the events in Norway today, Muslim hating may move
to the next step. _Flashback_ may be timed just right to
ride the wave. And Dystopian books usually do when when
they are well written.
BTW, did you see the hit Simmons made to SF readers on
his May 2006 blog:
http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message/2006_05.htm
"It is not my fault that too many of those who read the
April Message—or who read at all—were weaned from, or more
likely are still tugging at, the hind tit of the dead
literary sow that is often called "sci-fi." (properly
pronounced "skiffy," to rhyme with "iffy.")"
Wow. Sci-Fi is a dead literary sow. Who would have known?
Lynn
DouhetSukd
> After the events in Norway today, Muslim hating may move
> to the next step. _Flashback_ may be timed just right to
> ride the wave.
Tssk, tssk. This may be prescient speculation, but it remains
speculation at this point. Yes, jihadists have been behind much of
this kind of crap and such people well deserve to be obliterated.
But it is rather premature to point the finger to Muslim extremists at
this point. A certain Spanish PM lost his job due to conveniently,
but incorrectly, blaming the Madrid bombs on ETA.
Norway has been in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also a strong sponsor of
the Palestinian peace process. Of course, al Quaeda has never been
particularly picky about killing people, regardless of the actual
reasons for doing so.
On balance, I would not bet against it, but I sure as hell would not
use it to give weight and validity to Simmons' position.
Also, while Simmons may claim this novel was motivated to his shock at
this parents' cancers, it by no means justifies him castigating an
entire religion, as he does in the Time Traveler and apparently this
book. Books like this only serve to instigate more hatred, and I am
someone who thought Bin Laden getting offed was the cat's pyjamas.
Simmons is too smart and too popular an author to just be chasing the
money. I still vote for deep personal prejudice.
>And Dystopian books usually do when when
> they are well written.
Which is not necessarily the case here.
Keith Soltys
wrote:
Not to mention the global warming hoax.
Keith
Bill Snyder
wrote:
This takes me to a page a promo and a link to 500+ reviews, and
I've so far not found anything especially illuminating in either
place.
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]
William December Starr
Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> said:
> William December Starr wrote:
>
>> That's fine, but I bet he could have done it without slamming
>> into the Muslum-hating wall at Mach seven.
>
> Did you read the part of the article where he said that he
> removed the Mosque at ground zero from the first revision
> of the book ? And then put it back in for the shock effect.
No, I only read what you quoted. Didn't really feel like getting
deeply into Dan Simmons' mind at the moment.
-- wds
Joe Pfeiffer
> I'm guessing the former, sigh. Nice cover art though.
<snip>
After wading through DaVinci Code, my question would be, "lost what?" I
don't think my regarding the thing as dreck is a result of my being a
practicing Catholic. I do, however, think every positive review that
one ever got were the result of its strong anti-Christian and
specifically anti-Catholic slant.
Steve Coltrin
Joe Pfeiffer <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> writes:
> wds...@panix.com (William December Starr) writes:
>
>> I'm guessing the former, sigh. Nice cover art though.
>
> <snip>
>
> After wading through DaVinci Code, my question would be, "lost what?"
Huh?
Joe Pfeiffer
> begin fnord
> Joe Pfeiffer <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> writes:
>
>> wds...@panix.com (William December Starr) writes:
>>
>>> I'm guessing the former, sigh. Nice cover art though.
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> After wading through DaVinci Code, my question would be, "lost what?"
>
> Huh?
I can only hope somebody in the world sees your response and doesn't
know what you're talking about, since that would mean my cancel caught
up to my post before it embarrassed me on every site in the world.
I saw "Dan", I saw "lost it vs. pandering", somehow I managed to post a
response before I saw "Simmons" instead of "Brown". It was less than a
minute before my cancel went out....
<Emily Litella>Never Mind</Emily Litella>
William December Starr
Joe Pfeiffer <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> said:
> Steve Coltrin <spco...@omcl.org> writes:
>> Joe Pfeiffer <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> writes:
>>
>>> After wading through DaVinci Code, my question would be, "lost
>>> what?"
>>
>> Huh?
>
> I can only hope somebody in the world sees your response and
> doesn't know what you're talking about, since that would mean my
> cancel caught up to my post before it embarrassed me on every site
> in the world.
Congratulations, you get your wish. The offending article's gone
from Panix's newsfeed, at least.
-- wds
James Nicoll
>
>After the events in Norway today, Muslim hating may move
>to the next step.
Why, you think a blond, blue-eyed right-wing white supremist
emboldened all the other blond, blue-eyed right-wing white
supremists when he massacred 80 unarmed students? Is preemptive
retaliation against all suspected blond, blue-eyed right-wing white
supremists and their possible allies called for, would you say?
On an unrelated note, what colour are your eyes? And are you or
have ever been Lutheran or known Lutherans?
mcdowella
> In article <j0cpf2$k0...@dont-email.me>, Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> >After the events in Norway today, Muslim hating may move
> >to the next step.
>
> Why, you think a blond, blue-eyed right-wing white supremist
> emboldened all the other blond, blue-eyed right-wing white
> supremists when he massacred 80 unarmed students? Is preemptive
> retaliation against all suspected blond, blue-eyed right-wing white
> supremists and their possible allies called for, would you say?
>
> On an unrelated note, what colour are your eyes? And are you or
> have ever been Lutheran or known Lutherans?
>
> defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
I have to admit that when I heard what had happened last night I noted
that it fit the pattern of an Al-Qaeda attack (multiple attacks close
together in time, large numbers of people killed with gunfire, as
opposed to the N.Irish blast/shrapnel/incendiary attacks I grew up
with). I noted that the BBC didn't comment on the attackers ethnicity,
but they have a habit of hiding gender and ethnicity in the small
print of more detailed articles. I thought that it was curious that
the attackers targetted the youth group of a political party, but
assumed that they had just decided that it was a soft target related
enough to political power to be worthwhile. So I am going to claim
that pre-judging this is not completely unreasonable, though posting
on the basis of that pre-judgement was a mistake.
FWIW my eyes are blue, but hidden behind unusually strong glasses,
which would get me a thumbs-down from the party eugenecists unless
somebody works out the environmental component of short sight - which
could incidentally help a lot of kids in the third world - it's a
scandal that so few countries are taking this seriously. As a
(Northern Irish) incomer to England, I may be the most ethnically
dubious character on my street, which is pretty boring, ethnically
speaking. I have long been thankful that strangers tend to mis-
identify my accent as Scottish.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> Steve Coltrin<spco...@omcl.org> writes:
>
>> begin fnord
>> Joe Pfeiffer<pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> writes:
>>
>>> wds...@panix.com (William December Starr) writes:
>>>
>>>> I'm guessing the former, sigh. Nice cover art though.
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>> After wading through DaVinci Code, my question would be, "lost what?"
>>
>> Huh?
>
> I can only hope somebody in the world sees your response and doesn't
> know what you're talking about, since that would mean my cancel caught
> up to my post before it embarrassed me on every site in the world.
Cancels are useless. No one pays any attention to them since that
embarrassing incident of the cancelbots. You make a huge _faux pas_,
it's on Usenet for all time.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> In article<j0cpf2$k0e$1...@dont-email.me>, Lynn McGuire<l...@winsim.com> wrote:
>>
>> After the events in Norway today, Muslim hating may move
>> to the next step.
>
> Why, you think a blond, blue-eyed right-wing white supremist
> emboldened all the other blond, blue-eyed right-wing white
> supremists when he massacred 80 unarmed students? Is preemptive
> retaliation against all suspected blond, blue-eyed right-wing white
> supremists and their possible allies called for, would you say?
>
> On an unrelated note, what colour are your eyes? And are you or
> have ever been Lutheran or known Lutherans?
>
>
>
DAMN YOU, NICOLL! I see it now! It was ME you were after, all along!
Now I need to get hair dye and brown contact lenses, and try to cover
up my mother's past Lutheran associations!
djinn
>
> >> wdst...@panix.com (William December Starr) writes:
>
> >>> I'm guessing the former, sigh. Nice cover art though.
>
> >> <snip>
>
> >> After wading through DaVinci Code, my question would be, "lost what?"
>
> > Huh?
>
> I can only hope somebody in the world sees your response and doesn't
> know what you're talking about, since that would mean my cancel caught
> up to my post before it embarrassed me on every site in the world.
>
> I saw "Dan", I saw "lost it vs. pandering", somehow I managed to post a
> response before I saw "Simmons" instead of "Brown". It was less than a
> minute before my cancel went out....
>
> <Emily Litella>Never Mind</Emily Litella>
hey, the first picture of the 'suspect' in the Oslo bombing that I
saw, he was dressed as a Freemason. So now you got a connection to Dan
Brown (Masonic plots) . you can just pretend that you made the
obvious association. In advance.
The nutters are gonna have a field day now.
David DeLaney
>Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote:
>>After the events in Norway today, Muslim hating may move to the next step.
>
>Why, you think a blond, blue-eyed right-wing white supremist
>emboldened all the other blond, blue-eyed right-wing white
>supremists when he massacred 80 unarmed students? Is preemptive
>retaliation against all suspected blond, blue-eyed right-wing white
>supremists and their possible allies called for, would you say?
>
>On an unrelated note, what colour are your eyes? And are you or
>have ever been Lutheran or known Lutherans?
Pssst! Ask him about the _casseroles_!
Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Lynn McGuire
> In article<j0cpf2$k0e$1...@dont-email.me>, Lynn McGuire<l...@winsim.com> wrote:
>>
>> After the events in Norway today, Muslim hating may move
>> to the next step.
>
> Why, you think a blond, blue-eyed right-wing white supremist
> emboldened all the other blond, blue-eyed right-wing white
> supremists when he massacred 80 unarmed students? Is preemptive
> retaliation against all suspected blond, blue-eyed right-wing white
> supremists and their possible allies called for, would you say?
>
> On an unrelated note, what colour are your eyes? And are you or
> have ever been Lutheran or known Lutherans?
When I first started seeing the news reports, the NYT was
claiming that some Global Jihad group was claiming
responsibility. I should have known that the wackos were
out.
Lynn
DouhetSukd
>
> When I first started seeing the news reports, the NYT was
> claiming that some Global Jihad group was claiming
> responsibility. I should have known that the wackos were
> out.
>
> Lynn
Right after I responded to your post, I looked at a Norwegian net news
channel in English that was quoting someone as saying that some
hitherto unknown Jihadist group had claimed responsibility. So I
thought my "lecture" had been a bit misplaced. Well, maybe it was
anyway.
Looked pretty Jihadist to me as well though.
I wonder if we'll find that he acted alone and I wonder if the bomb
wasn't mostly to gain access to the island.
Stressful news brings a lot of instant speculation on the news
channels especially now that news is getting crowd-sourced.
There was a BBC news item about the guy who planted the rumor that Bin
Laden had been "The IT Crowd" when he got killed? Wicked funny show,
for the geeky among us, btw. Not quite OBL's cup of tea, I would
expect.
But the point is that he manipulated Twitter to get a totally
unsubstantiated story that climbed its way up to some Dallas TV
outlet.
Scott Lurndal
Mart van de Wege
> On Jul 23, 10:07 am, Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> When I first started seeing the news reports, the NYT was
>> claiming that some Global Jihad group was claiming
>> responsibility. I should have known that the wackos were
>> out.
>>
>> Lynn
>
> Right after I responded to your post, I looked at a Norwegian net news
> channel in English that was quoting someone as saying that some
> hitherto unknown Jihadist group had claimed responsibility.
And yet the Norwegian police almost immediately said the bomb and the
shooting were connected, and that the shooter was a native Norwegian,
almost stereotypically Nordic.
Against that we have one anonymous idiot posting on an obscure
message board proclaiming his 'organisation' did it.
> So I thought my "lecture" had been a bit misplaced. Well, maybe it
> was anyway.
>
> Looked pretty Jihadist to me as well though.
>
Yes, as if the IRA, the ETA and the Red Brigades never used car
bombs. Or gunmen.
And as if Norway has never had any trouble with home-grown
terrorism. All those burned churches were the work of Jihadis on a
countercrusade against Christianity.
Really.
Mart
--
"We will need a longer wall when the revolution comes."
--- AJS, quoting an uncertain source.
Lynn McGuire
There are a few of us global warming is man-made deniers
hanging around here. You might want to spend a little
time at
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
http://climatedepot.com/
and see what the deniers are saying.
Lynn
Ray Blaak
> Not to mention the global warming hoax.
This one bothered me the most, even though it is the least hateful.
I read about how:
- the western economies collapsed due to the debt of social
entitlements (no awareness of financial entities raping their
economies)
- how health care reforms destroyed medicine through the law of
unintended consequences (ignore how people who pay for insurance are
still getting denied)
- how Canada is/was a theocratic government-sponsored multiculturalist
state, which caved in meekly to the global Caliphate
- how Obama betrayed the nation, beginning with his speech in Cairo
- how there now was the timid states of America
- how Japan and Texas saved the day in the fighting the global
thermonuclear war against the Caliphate
- how a bit of imperialism by Texas to reclaim some extra bits of
Mexico is ok; don't like it? get out of the kitchen!
I was a pretty strong Dan Simmons fan up to this point, mainly due to
Hyperion, but I have read and enjoyed all of his novels until now. He
is an educated man. How the hell then, can he actually believe that
global warming is a conspiracy, a hoax pulled on the public by, well,
*all* scientists? Is it possible to keep such a secret? And forget
anthropomorphic warming as such, the ice caps are melting regardless,
you can't just ignore it.
All of his stated positions actually have a certain amount of
reasonableness to them (!), in that the issues can at least be
intelligently debated. One can understand others having opposing
opinions in these matters, depending on their level of fear and
paranoia. But to pretend that the issues are simple, that there are no
nuances and subtleties to consider is beyond retarded for anyone
educated in the way of the world and people. Dan Simmon's position
seems to be if you don't agree you are some sort of loser chickenshit.
He himself raised the law of unintended consequences. Can't he imagine
that working both ways?
There were warning signs in Olypos/Ilium I guess, but the lid has been
let off in Flashback. It's too bad, since otherwise the story was a
decent yarn.
Brian M. Scott
<l...@winsim.com> wrote in <news:j0fmt8$5ur$1...@dont-email.me>
in rec.arts.sf.written:
[...]
> There are a few of us global warming is man-made deniers
> hanging around here. You might want to spend a little
> time at
> http://www.drroyspencer.com/
> http://wattsupwiththat.com/
> http://climatedepot.com/
> and see what the deniers are saying.
Waste of time for the vast majority of us. They're clearly
on the short end of the scientific consensus. This means
that their arguments haven't persuaded the majority of those
who know enough to hold a scientifically meaningful opinion,
which in turn means that they have to be taken with a shaker
of salt by the rest of us, however appealing they may sound.
It's generally quicker to look at one of the better
non-denier sites to get the denier arguments and the
counter-arguments all at once (and usually with fewer
polemical flourishes).
Brian
Ray Blaak
In particular:
> "Sci-fi" hammers dead brain cells into deeper coma. "Speculative fiction"—
> even in less than its full fictional form, even as an essay borrowing a few SF
> tropes and protocols—disturbs. Real SF palsies the steady hand that rocks
> the cradle. Real SF refuses to pander to your time-bound preconceptions:
> social, cultural, literary, political, or otherwise. Real SF doesn’t bother with
> a reader’s self-willed limitations in terms of education or information or
> political certitude or lack of mental flexibility but rips through all that dross like
> a high-velocity bullet through a 20-lb. block of rancid butter. Real SF rotates
> false verities and smug cultural consensus and disturbing ideas and upsetting
> issues under the bright laser light of speculation until facets you’ve never
> noticed stab at your eye with the sharp blades of their reflected beams.
Ok, he could be just playing games, "speculating", and that's all very
mind opening. But he does seem obsessed with the muslim problem. I
guess we'll see how it turns out.
Lynn McGuire
So if mankind IS causing global warming, what are you
willing to do about it ?
Don't forget that the USA military uses 1/4 of the
carbon fuels by the USA, worldwide. Again, what are
you willing to do ?
Lynn
Joy Beeson
wrote:
> So if mankind IS causing global warming, what are you
> willing to do about it ?
Absolutely *nothing* until you suggest something that's proven to be
at least not counterproductive.
--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
Jared
> On Sat, 23 Jul 2011 23:08:43 -0500, Lynn McGuire<l...@winsim.com>
> wrote:
>
>> So if mankind IS causing global warming, what are you
>> willing to do about it ?
>
> Absolutely *nothing* until you suggest something that's proven to be
> at least not counterproductive.
>
Large(r) hydrocarbon fuel taxes, increasing every year.
--
Jared
Michael A. Terrell
Jared wrote:
>
> On 7/24/2011 12:38 AM, Joy Beeson wrote:
> ? wrote:
> ?
> ?? So if mankind IS causing global warming, what are you
> ?? willing to do about it ?
> ?
> ? Absolutely *nothing* until you suggest something that's proven to be
> ?
>
> Large(r) hydrocarbon fuel taxes, increasing every year.
You are going to tax the US military? No wonder they call you
stupid.
--
It's easy to think outside the box, when you have a cutting torch.
DouhetSukd
Pardon me if I take those stats with a big grain of salt. I highly
doubt the US military uses anywhere that percentage. Another
occurrence of "I won't do anything because what I do does not matter
much", IMHO.
But as to your original question, it is easy to do something about
global warming. I don't fly anymore and I try to keep my driving
under 6000 miles per year. Not always successfully, my work commute
can't be reduced below 3000 miles because one location is not
accessible via public transport.
Strangely enough, people almost _always_ have a good excuse why it's
OK for them to fly for personal reasons. If the average global
warming doubter does, I don't really mind, it kind of comes with the
territory. What I find aggravating is when the holier than thou anti-
capitalist organic foodie hippie finds his own justifications.
Lest you believe I am a socialist, I happily bought a good chunk of BP
stocks as soon as it spilled in the Gulf and made some good money off
of it, with no corresponding emissions. It makes zero sense to blame
a corporation for giving consumers exactly what they want. Just like
a bunch of people expect global warming to be "fixed by the
government" but make very little effort on their own. Reality is most
of the CO2 emissions are at the consumer level and those will be the
hardest to reduce.
As long as you don't drink the green marketing koolaid and buy trendy
expensive "green" stuff (i.e. a Prius, organic food), cutting down on
your emissions is more often than not a net saving for your wallet.
Jared
>
> Jared wrote:
>>
>> On 7/24/2011 12:38 AM, Joy Beeson wrote:
>> ? On Sat, 23 Jul 2011 23:08:43 -0500, Lynn McGuire?l...@winsim.com?
>> ? wrote:
>> ?
>> ?? So if mankind IS causing global warming, what are you
>> ?? willing to do about it ?
>> ?
>> ? Absolutely *nothing* until you suggest something that's proven to be
>> ? at least not counterproductive.
>> ?
>>
>> Large(r) hydrocarbon fuel taxes, increasing every year.
>
>
> You are going to tax the US military? No wonder they call you
> stupid.
I think the feds are currently exempt from fuel taxes.
So I was not suggesting taxing the military, but it would certainly be a
good idea if we wanted to do something about global warming.
--
Jared
Jared
[...]
> Lest you believe I am a socialist, I happily bought a good chunk of BP
> stocks as soon as it spilled in the Gulf and made some good money off
> of it, with no corresponding emissions.
The best time to buy was not immediately after the spill started, but
when everyone had absolutely despaired about it being capped.
--
Jared
Robert A. Woodward
<38c7cc80-1285-4dc5...@j14g2000prn.googlegroups.com>
,
DouhetSukd <douhe...@gmail.com> wrote:
I would guess that the US military is less than 10% of the entire
USA fossil fuel usage (it doesn't use coal - coal is a big fraction
of USA carbon usage; it doesn't use very much natural gas; it
doesn't use gasoline - about 46% of all petroleum usage in the USA
is in the form of gasoline; and I really doubt that it uses even
half of all diesel and jet fuel).
--
Robert Woodward <robe...@drizzle.com>
<http://www.drizzle.com/~robertaw>
Lynn McGuire
The you would be wrong. The amount of carbon fuel usage by
the USA military is very hard to quantify (I've tried).
Don't forget that uranium processing is horribly energy
intensive and we built the TVA (a big coal user) for that
purpose. We are currently not processing very much but that
will change fairly soon as most of the minutemen ? need to
be refreshed.
Military jets and ships use a tremendous amount of JP8.
Tremendous. And the military uses gasoline, just not a lot
of it. Also don't forget that most if not all military
bases are self generating power - it is a security thing.
Most of those are natural gas but a few are JP8 <shudder>.
A few are nuclear but we won't talk about those.
Although my 25% figure may include all of government. It's
been quite a while since I calculated that and was quite
surprised.
Lynn
Scott Lurndal
First you need to show[*] that reducing hydrocarbon usage will have any
effect on the climate. Particularly given that the LWIR absorbtion spectrum
for the CO2 molecule is pretty much saturated at 390ppm.
[*] which includes showing ones work, something that many climate scientists
seem to be resistant to.
DouhetSukd
There were lots of very good times. I bought some fairly early on and
some more when there was some more panic later on and the price
tanked. The bottom line is that people were talking about $20 billion
spill & legal costs and bankruptcy. While BP has $15 billion revenue
per quarter, huge assets and a product that is unavoidable and
fungible. Easy to figure out it was a storm in a teacup.
Unfortunately for poor BP, it is foreign-owned. Thanks to righteous
laws, its American friends at Exxon (Valdez) managed to keep their $5
billion court awards tied up in court for decades before paying very
much of it. It might have cost them tons of $ in lawyers, but it kept
that money in their treasury for the duration. After all,
corporations are blameless. </sarcasm>
So, even a big award against BP would not dent them that much and we
were really talking fear rather than rationality. On balance, I would
not have felt cheated if BP _had_ gotten strung up by their testicles
and I had lost my money, as long as it could rightly be blamed for
negligence. Just because I had money in it did not mean I thought it
should avoid the blame. And in any case, a lot of the blame was lax
(self-) regulation, in place to protect the American consumers from
high gas prices.
But I most certainly did not think that not taking advantage of this
miraculous stock discount would "help the planet" in any shape or
form. Many green minded persons did, but then don't watch their
personal consumption.
My only mistake was to listen to an investor buddy of mine who advised
to sell before it had it really recovered. Still, a good haul
overall.
Last but not least, oil spills are not really that big of a problem,
relatively. Global warming is THE big problem so any oil extraction
will result in more problems, regardless of the absence of spills.
Scott Lurndal
>I was a pretty strong Dan Simmons fan up to this point, mainly due to
>Hyperion, but I have read and enjoyed all of his novels until now. He
>is an educated man. How the hell then, can he actually believe that
>global warming is a conspiracy, a hoax pulled on the public by, well,
>*all* scientists? Is it possible to keep such a secret? And forget
It is not anywhere near to _ALL_ scientists. In fact, there are probably
less than a few hundred _climate_ scientists, and there are some of them
who discount anthropogenic causes of climate change.
The precautionary priciple seems to be at play here. Many scientific
societies have made statements on climate change simply to be "safe".
Note that the climate always changes, always has, and always will. There is
no "climate status quo".
>anthropomorphic warming as such, the ice caps are melting regardless,
>you can't just ignore it.
Actually, they're not really melting. While the arctic ice cap extent
seems to be near its lowest in 30 years (we started measuring it in 1979),
the Antarctic ice cap has actually grown over the last 30 years of
measurements. Much of the melt in the arctic has been recently attributed
to wind patterns pushing the ice into warmer waters. While
Hansen's graphs show that the air temperature anomoly in the arctic is
higher than that in the temperate regions, there are _no_ actual
surface measurement devices there and his arctic temperatures are
interpolated from land-based readings in northern canada and to a
much lesser extent (due to paucity of coverage) northern russia.
Satellite measurements of temperature show less increase than the
surface temperature record (although they also cannot directly
measure temperatures above about 80 degrees latitude).
As for glacial mass balance, some are growing, more are shrinking.
As for the surface temperature record, anything prior to 1900 is
calculated from second and third order effects on tree-ring widths,
bore-hole temperatures and some sediments (varves). These are known as
proxies and none of them are 100% dependent on temperature (e.g.
the width of a tree ring correlates better to precipitation than
to temperature, and other growth factors (shade/sun/fertilization
and so forth) are also in play.
There is some doubt as to the usefulness of a "global temperature average"
or "global temperature anomoly" due to the regional nature of weather
and climate.
The surface temperature record itself is contaminated by station moves,
observer bias, time of observation, type of instrument, quality of observer,
location of station (e.g. the recent move to stations co-located with
airports - the tarmac has an effect on temperature readings). Hansen
and others attempt to adjust the temperatures for these effects, but
the adjustements are tricky and the confidence intervals get wider
the further back in time one goes. For some reason, most of the
adjustments seem to cool the past.
The longest continuous surface temperature record is the Central European Temps
(CET) which start from the mid 1600's. This record shows little to no long
term warming at all.
scott
DouhetSukd
May I ask how you calculated anything? On what basis?
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/13199
""
The US Department of Defense (DoD) is the largest oil consuming
government body in the US and in the world
“Military fuel consumption makes the Department of Defense the single
largest consumer of petroleum in the U.S” [1]
“Military fuel consumption for aircraft, ships, ground vehicles and
facilities makes the DoD the single largest consumer of petroleum in
the U.S” [2]
According to the US Defense Energy Support Center Fact Book 2004, in
Fiscal Year 2004, the US military fuel consumption increased to 144
million barrels. This is about 40 million barrels more than the
average peacetime military usage.
"""
None of this gives any direct indication as to how big a percentage
the DoD represents of US consumption. But, easy to calculate.
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/nations/2004/
puts US consumption at 20M barrels day (world use is about 80M/d IIRC
and US is the big consumer, so that sounds in the ballpark).
144/365 = .394 Mb/day.
Out of 20Mb/d, that means the military accounts for what ... 2%? And
as the biggest consumer in the US gov.
Minutemen replacements? I'd be surprised that be a big issue - these
are the oldest of the old and you've just signed some new warhead
reduction treaties with Putin's USSR, sorry, Russia.
And processing? I am sure it does use a lot of energy, but there a)
tons of plutonium that is being attempted to use in civilian reactors
and b) a lot of it is by-products of running a nuclear plant, hence
the scare about Iran.
What am I missing, besides that horrible JP8?
Lynn McGuire
> largest consumer of petroleum in the U.S� [1]
>
> �Military fuel consumption for aircraft, ships, ground vehicles and
> facilities makes the DoD the single largest consumer of petroleum in
>
> According to the US Defense Energy Support Center Fact Book 2004, in
> Fiscal Year 2004, the US military fuel consumption increased to 144
> million barrels. This is about 40 million barrels more than the
> average peacetime military usage.
> """
>
> None of this gives any direct indication as to how big a percentage
> the DoD represents of US consumption. But, easy to calculate.
>
>
> http://www.hubbertpeak.com/nations/2004/
>
> puts US consumption at 20M barrels day (world use is about 80M/d IIRC
> and US is the big consumer, so that sounds in the ballpark).
>
> 144/365 = .394 Mb/day.
>
> Out of 20Mb/d, that means the military accounts for what ... 2%? And
> as the biggest consumer in the US gov.
>
>
> Minutemen replacements? I'd be surprised that be a big issue - these
> are the oldest of the old and you've just signed some new warhead
> reduction treaties with Putin's USSR, sorry, Russia.
>
> And processing? I am sure it does use a lot of energy, but there a)
> tons of plutonium that is being attempted to use in civilian reactors
> and b) a lot of it is by-products of running a nuclear plant, hence
> the scare about Iran.
>
> What am I missing, besides that horrible JP8?
I don't trust any numbers that the USA military produces.
If I were running the place, I would regard fuel usage as
a military secret. In fact, over 10% of the DOD budget
is now "black".
Don't forget that Air Force/CIA/NSA is running it's own
space program and launches more satellites than the rest
of the USA put together. They even have a miniature space
shuttle now, the X-37B, that may or may not be man capable.
These items are incredibly energy intensive, especially
since natural gas is used to make hydrogen.
Lynn
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> Satellite measurements of temperature show less increase than the
> surface temperature record (although they also cannot directly
> measure temperatures above about 80 degrees latitude).
I presume that's only because no one's orbited any such satellites in a
circum-polar orbit?
Joseph Nebus
>It is not anywhere near to _ALL_ scientists. In fact, there are probably
>less than a few hundred _climate_ scientists, and there are some of them
>who discount anthropogenic causes of climate change.
>The precautionary priciple seems to be at play here. Many scientific
>societies have made statements on climate change simply to be "safe".
>Note that the climate always changes, always has, and always will. There is
>no "climate status quo".
``Hey, you shot me!''
``Now, now, there you go overreacting. Actually, no*body*
shot you, it was just the impersonal and perfectly natural rapid
burning of an explosive which made a bullet go into you.''
``You could've killed me!''
``Oh, we're all dying, there's no avoiding it. That's a good
thing: if it weren't for entropy there'd be no sense of time at *all*.''
``You shot me again!''
``There you go, assigning blame to people when it's just the
inevitable flow of nature taking its course. Don't you *like* nature?
Don't you *trust* its inherent wisdom?''
``I need a doctor!''
``Oh, every grad-school graduate these days thinks he's a
doctor just because he wrote four hundred impenetrable pages about some
topic nobody but his advisor even cares about. You're thinking of a
*medical* doctor, and really, what good are they? They can disagree
about the most basic diagnoses.''
``You could stop shooting me!''
``What, and interfere with the superior workings of the free
market? Anyone with the mind of an economist could tell you that's
only going to make things worse in the end. Law of Unintended
Consequences and all that.''
``Shut up and get someone not-crazy here!''
``There, folks, see his so-called respect for individual
rights? I shoot him three times and he wants to oppress me! There's
no sense talking with these extreme fanatics!''
``You shot me *again*!''
``Once more you show with your fuzzy-brained illogical thinking
a failure to understand how things happen for the public *good*.''
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael A. Terrell
How do you propose collecting taxes from the US military? They could
easily nuke the IRS.
DouhetSukd
Here's an Occam's Razor for you:
a) The Pentagon lies blatantly on its purchases, the demand side.
Maybe.
And, on the supply side, 1.5 Mb/d of oil goes missing. The Pentagon
says it isn't buying it (but they are lying), but no one knows where
it goes. No one's noticed that discrepancy either, where 10% of the
nation's oil consumption is being diverted... somewhere. Hey, it's a
black program.
or
b) You don't know what you are talking about.
Hmmmm...
Stewart Robert Hinsley
<sc...@slp53.sl.home> writes
How do you explain Venus's climate? (Because of the high albedo of the
Venusian atmosphere insolation at Venus's surface is not much more than
at the Earth's surface, and even without the albedo reducing the
insolation it wouldn't be sufficiently greater to account for Venus's
surface temperature.)
>
>[*] which includes showing ones work, something that many climate scientists
>seem to be resistant to.
You failed to show your work. That it is to demonstrate that
"saturation" of absorption on IR by CO2 acts to cap the greenhouse
effect.
It turns out to be the case that it doesn't. Assume that there's enough
CO2 to absorb all the IR in the relevant wavebands. Half of it will be
reradiated to space and half reradiated back to the ground. Now add the
same amount again of CO2. The half reradiated upwards will be absorbed,
and half (one quarter of the original) reradiated to space and half (one
quarter of the original) reradiated back to the ground. So, in a crude
approximation, doubling the CO2 levels above the saturation level adds
50% to the greenhouse forcing. This demonstrates the failure of a
one-layer model of the atmosphere. A better model is to consider
radiative fluxes and absorption in any atmosphere composed of many
optically thin layers.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley
William Hyde
>
> First you need to show[*] that reducing hydrocarbon usage will have any
> effect on the climate. Particularly given that the LWIR absorbtion spectrum
> for the CO2 molecule is pretty much saturated at 390ppm.
False in several respects. You treat the atmosphere as if it were a
thin slab, but it is far from that. Even if the atmosphere at sea
level were indeed "saturated" that would not matter, as the atmosphere
higher up would not be so, given the lower pressure. And what happens
in the mid-troposphere affects surface temperature.
"Saturation" does not imply that a photon is absorbed by the CO2 and
that's the end of the story. The photon is absorbed, perhaps
reemitted rapidly (up or down) perhaps the energy leaves the molecule
via collisonal dexcitation, and that energy is eventualy emitted
perhaps by one or more photons of longer wavelength. As 99.+ percent
of all solar energy we receive is eventually emitted to space, what
matters is how long that energy resides in the atmosphere - the longer
it stays the warmer we are. And the relevant variable for that is
the mean free path of a photon, not "saturation".
Furthermore, CO2 absorbs in many bands. Some are near "saturation"
others very far from it. Bands associated with "forbidden"
transitions, for example, are very far from saturated.
These were, perhaps, reasonable mistakes for Angstrom to make in 1901,
not so reasonable now.
> [*] which includes showing ones work, something that many climate scientists
> seem to be resistant to.
The physics behind increased tempatures due to increased CO2 levels
has been shown in hundreds of papers over the years, and in code which
is now available.
Radiative-convective code, for example, has been online for years. A
few minutes with google produced this:
http://dust.ess.uci.edu/crm/index.shtml
which might be what you are looking for. Or you can look up a few of
the literally hundreds of papers written on this topic and code your
own model. A purely radiative, grey atmosphere model can be coded in
a few of hundred lines (look up "delta-eddington approximation", as
here: http://folk.uio.no/jegill/gef4320/Joseph_etal_1976_JAS.pdf). To
look at the effect of various gases you will have to do a band
calculation, of course. Not much harder, but much more coding.
Or you might find this useful:
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/hitran//
William Hyde
Bill Snyder
wrote:
>Ray Blaak <rbl...@gmail.com> writes:
>>anthropomorphic warming as such, the ice caps are melting regardless,
>>you can't just ignore it.
>
>Actually, they're not really melting. While the arctic ice cap extent
>seems to be near its lowest in 30 years (we started measuring it in 1979),
>the Antarctic ice cap has actually grown over the last 30 years of
>measurements. Much of the melt in the arctic has been recently attributed
>to wind patterns pushing the ice into warmer waters. While
>Hansen's graphs show that the air temperature anomoly in the arctic is
>higher than that in the temperate regions, there are _no_ actual
>surface measurement devices there and his arctic temperatures are
>interpolated from land-based readings in northern canada and to a
>much lesser extent (due to paucity of coverage) northern russia.
>
>Satellite measurements of temperature show less increase than the
>surface temperature record (although they also cannot directly
>measure temperatures above about 80 degrees latitude).
>
>As for glacial mass balance, some are growing, more are shrinking.
Nonsense. It's known for a fact, and has been known for years,
that the overall trend for land-based ice is shrinking, not
growing (or staying about the same). We know that by the simple
fact that sea levels are rising rather than falling or remaining
constant. And it's pretty certain that the overall trend for
Antarctica specifically is down, too.
<http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18925424.700-gravity-reveals-shrinking-antarctic-ice.html>
<http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n12/abs/ngeo694.html>
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]
Bill Snyder
<sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>On 7/24/11 1:42 PM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>
>> Satellite measurements of temperature show less increase than the
>> surface temperature record (although they also cannot directly
>> measure temperatures above about 80 degrees latitude).
>
> I presume that's only because no one's orbited any such satellites in a
>circum-polar orbit?
All the talk about the fuzziness in temp measurement is purely a
red herring. Arctic ice is shrinking; that much is true, and
nobody attributes the overall decline to wind patterns. The
Antarctic ice cap is *not* in fact growing as claimed. See here
for the former
<http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/>
And for the latter any of numerous studies of the results from the
GRACE satellites (in near-polar orbit), which can and do measure
the actual mass of the Antarctic ice cap.
Ray Blaak
> Ray Blaak <rbl...@gmail.com> writes:
> >global warming is a conspiracy, a hoax pulled on the public by, well,
> >*all* scientists? Is it possible to keep such a secret?
>
> less than a few hundred _climate_ scientists, and there are some of them
> who discount anthropogenic causes of climate change.
> >anthropomorphic warming as such, the ice caps are melting regardless,
> >you can't just ignore it.
>
> Actually, they're not really melting.
Cool. Couldn't the author's voice have hinted at some of these points
in the drive by editorializing? As things stand, the reader gets the
idea that 100's of scientists are in on some sort of scam.
Mary Shafer
> On 7/24/2011 2:28 AM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:
> >
> > Jared wrote:
> >>
> >> On 7/24/2011 12:38 AM, Joy Beeson wrote:
> >> ? On Sat, 23 Jul 2011 23:08:43 -0500, Lynn McGuire?l...@winsim.com?
> >> ? wrote:
> >> ?
> >> ?? So if mankind IS causing global warming, what are you
> >> ?? willing to do about it ?
> >> ?
> >> ? Absolutely *nothing* until you suggest something that's proven to be
> >> ? at least not counterproductive.
> >> ?
> >>
> >> Large(r) hydrocarbon fuel taxes, increasing every year.
> >
> >
> > You are going to tax the US military? No wonder they call you
> > stupid.
>
> I think the feds are currently exempt from fuel taxes.
Not unless they've changed something. NASA Dryden has to pay Federal
excise tax when they buy JP-5 from the USAF. It's not the tax that
goes toward maintaining state roads, but it's still a tax.
On the other hand, the state of California allows people to deduct the
road taxes they paid on gasoline used for driving on Federal
reservations. To get the deduction, the driver has to maintain a log
of miles driven so. One of my former cow orkers actually did this and
got the refund.
Mary "Regularly bought JP-5."
--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer
We didn't just do weird stuff at Dryden, we wrote reports about it.
reunite....@gmail.com or mil...@qnet.com
Visit my blog at http://digitalknitter.blogspot.com/
David DeLaney
>Ray Blaak <rbl...@gmail.com> writes:
>>I was a pretty strong Dan Simmons fan up to this point, mainly due to
>>Hyperion, but I have read and enjoyed all of his novels until now. He
>>is an educated man. How the hell then, can he actually believe that
>>global warming is a conspiracy, a hoax pulled on the public by, well,
>>*all* scientists? Is it possible to keep such a secret? And forget
>
>It is not anywhere near to _ALL_ scientists.
Oh, excuse us. More than 98% of ALL scientists who have any sort of expertise
in the field at all. Better?
Yeah, sure, there are archaeologists and botanists and high-energy physicists
who think they know what they're talking about on the subject, but actually
don't, just because they're expert in their OWN field, and who emit some
amazingly bloviated bubbles of falsehood and lack of research. Counting them
as "scientists who oppose global warming" is like counting zebras as "cats
who oppose eating mice".
(It's also fairly clear from the things you've posted so far that YOU haven't
done YOUR homework anywhere near well, either, and are instead parrotting
things you've found here and there without having checked whether they stand
up to any sort of concentrated inspection. Or whether they make sense when
posted together with each other.)
Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
David DeLaney
>>> The you would be wrong. The amount of carbon fuel usage by
>>> the USA military is very hard to quantify (I've tried).
>>> Although my 25% figure may include all of government. It's
>>> been quite a while since I calculated that and was quite
>>> surprised.
>>
>> What am I missing, besides that horrible JP8?
>
>I don't trust any numbers that the USA military produces.
So you ... made up your own. I see.
Dave "you know what they say about asswamption" DeLaney
Mary Shafer
wrote:
> Military jets and ships use a tremendous amount of JP8.
> Tremendous. And the military uses gasoline, just not a lot
> of it. Also don't forget that most if not all military
> bases are self generating power - it is a security thing.
> Most of those are natural gas but a few are JP8 <shudder>.
> A few are nuclear but we won't talk about those.
Why does JP-8 make you shudder? It's the same as Jet-A, which
airliners use, or diesel, that trucks and some cars use. It's also
very similar to the oil many people use to heat their houses.
Incidentally, California only shut down its last wood-fired peaker
about fifteen years ago.
Mary "JP-7 is more like 3-in-1 oil."
Moriarty
> I'm guessing the former, sigh. Nice cover art though.
>
> Barnes & Noble review, seen via Salon:
>
> <http://tinyurl.com/3j56qwu>
> <http://www.salon.com/books/fiction/index.html?story=/books/2011/07/20...>
>
> Fiction
> Wednesday, Jul 20, 2011 20:19 ET
> "Flashback": Imagining Obama's apocalyptic American future
>
> Dan Simmons' atrocious, hyper-conservative new novel predicts an
> Islamic Caliphate and a second Jewish Holocaust
>
> By Katherine A. Powers, Barnes & Noble Review
>
> [This article appears courtesy of The Barnes & Noble Review.]
>
> Dan Simmons, for years familiar to fans of science fiction,
> fantasy, and horror, made his way to the general reader with two
> historical/horror hybrids. "The Terror," published in 2007, was
> an enthralling and fantastical conjuring up of Sir John
> Franklin's doomed voyage in search of a Northwest Passage.
> "Drood," appearing two years later, was a creepily ingenious
> extrapolation of Charles Dickens' unfinished last novel and his
> vexed friendship with Wilkie Collins. Then came last year's
> "Black Hills," a less satisfying story that posited an American
> Indian's mystical union with the soul of General George Custer.
<snips>
> How could the witty and potent
> imagination that produced "The Terror" and "Drood" wither to such
> smug and censorious dullness?
Unlike you, I'm guessing the latter. _The Terror_ was wonderful.
_Drood_ is next on my to-read list and I'm expecting good things based
on what I've heard.
But I decided a while back to avoid Simmons when he gets into preachy
"It's all the fault of the evil space-muslims" mode as he did in
_Olympos_, which was such a disappointment after _Ilium_. From the
sounds of it _Flashback_ is the same.
It's like avoiding any OSC or Tom Clancy material featuring a
homosexual as a character. You know you're going to get beaten over
the head with how eeeeeeevil they are, so why bother?
Also, Simmons is a bit hit/miss with novels that started life as short
stories. The boring _The Hollow Man_ was his last. Yawn.
_Flashback_ was a short story in the _Lovedeath_ collection. It
certainly had the Japanese overlording it over America, but I can't
remember any Muslims. That's probably a new addition.
-Moriarty
Jared
I'm not a climate scientist, and I'm not sure what link in the usual
chain of logic you feel is unproven.
Do you doubt that CO2 causes warming or do you doubt that CO2 has gone
up very steadily for decades at roughly 0.4% a year? [1]
Or do you doubt that the increase in CO2 is from burning hydrocarbons?
[1] ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/flask/event/mlo_01D0_event.co2
--
Jared
Lynn McGuire
> On 7/24/2011 12:38 AM, Joy Beeson wrote:
>> wrote:
>>
>>> So if mankind IS causing global warming, what are you
>>
>>
>
> Large(r) hydrocarbon fuel taxes, increasing every year.
As much as I hate to say it, I would like to see us
increase the federal gasoline/diesel tax by $1.00/gal.
I think that the amount of oil that we import into the
USA (mostly from our two neighbors) is a national
security issue. I totally disagree on the global
warming issue though.
I would like to see us convert all over the road trucks
to natural gas (the LNG form). Each truck burns
100,000 miles/year / 6 miles/gallon = 16,667 gallons/year
of diesel of which 75% ??? is made from imported crude
oil. We have more than enough natural gas to replace
all of diesel truck usage. And, the natural gas is
about 1/2 the price of diesel right now on a energy
basis which would be a plus for the truckers.
Lynn
Lynn McGuire
Better chart:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere
So the CO2 in the atmosphere has increased to 0.04%
(391 ppm) and is increasing at 0.0002%/year. That is
not very much in the grand scheme of things. I agree
with Jerry Pournelle in that we seem to be running an
open ended experiment with no idea of where we are going.
But, I am much more concerned about peak cheap oil than
I am about CO2 in the atmosphere.
Lynn
Lynn McGuire
> On Jul 23, 9:08 pm, Lynn McGuire<l...@winsim.com> wrote:
>> On 7/23/2011 8:20 PM, Brian M. Scott wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Sat, 23 Jul 2011 18:53:14 -0500, Lynn McGuire
>>> <l...@winsim.com> wrote in<news:j0fmt8$5ur$1...@dont-email.me>
>>> in rec.arts.sf.written:
>>
>>> [...]
>>
>>>> hanging around here. You might want to spend a little
>>>> time at
>>>> http://www.drroyspencer.com/
>>>> http://wattsupwiththat.com/
>>>> http://climatedepot.com/
>>>> and see what the deniers are saying.
>>
>>> Waste of time for the vast majority of us. They're clearly
>>> on the short end of the scientific consensus. This means
>>> that their arguments haven't persuaded the majority of those
>>> who know enough to hold a scientifically meaningful opinion,
>>> which in turn means that they have to be taken with a shaker
>>> of salt by the rest of us, however appealing they may sound.
>>> It's generally quicker to look at one of the better
>>> non-denier sites to get the denier arguments and the
>>> counter-arguments all at once (and usually with fewer
>>> polemical flourishes).
>>
>>> Brian
>>
>>
>> carbon fuels by the USA, worldwide. Again, what are
>> you willing to do ?
>>
>> Lynn
>
> Pardon me if I take those stats with a big grain of salt. I highly
> occurrence of "I won't do anything because what I do does not matter
> much", IMHO.
>
> But as to your original question, it is easy to do something about
> global warming. I don't fly anymore and I try to keep my driving
> under 6000 miles per year. Not always successfully, my work commute
> can't be reduced below 3000 miles because one location is not
> accessible via public transport.
>
> Strangely enough, people almost _always_ have a good excuse why it's
> OK for them to fly for personal reasons. If the average global
> warming doubter does, I don't really mind, it kind of comes with the
> territory. What I find aggravating is when the holier than thou anti-
> capitalist organic foodie hippie finds his own justifications.
>
> Lest you believe I am a socialist, I happily bought a good chunk of BP
> stocks as soon as it spilled in the Gulf and made some good money off
> a corporation for giving consumers exactly what they want. Just like
> a bunch of people expect global warming to be "fixed by the
> government" but make very little effort on their own. Reality is most
> of the CO2 emissions are at the consumer level and those will be the
> hardest to reduce.
>
> As long as you don't drink the green marketing koolaid and buy trendy
> expensive "green" stuff (i.e. a Prius, organic food), cutting down on
> your emissions is more often than not a net saving for your wallet.
My stats are weak, very weak. I also did not take into
account the fact that the US military has over 100
operating nuclear reactors for power (not all are on
ships/subs). I still think that the air force uses
an incredible amount of fuel for it's fighters and
bombers. And the navy has less than 50 ? 60 ? 70 ?
nuclear powered ships and subs. 400,000 bpd sounds
light, very light.
I have a friend who bought a used Prius two years ago
with 50,000 miles on it. He drives 50,000 miles per
year around Houston (he is nuts !) and now has 150,000
on it. Says it is the most economical car that he has
owned ever (he gets an average of 50+ mpg). He is
going to try to drive it two more years.
Lynn
Robert A. Woodward
"Michael A. Terrell" <mike.t...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Jared wrote:
> >
> > On 7/24/2011 2:28 AM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:
> > >
> > > Jared wrote:
> > >>
> > >> On 7/24/2011 12:38 AM, Joy Beeson wrote:
> > >> ? On Sat, 23 Jul 2011 23:08:43 -0500, Lynn McGuire?l...@winsim.com?
> > >> ? wrote:
> > >> ?
> > >> ?? So if mankind IS causing global warming, what are you
> > >> ?? willing to do about it ?
> > >> ?
> > >> ? Absolutely *nothing* until you suggest something that's proven to be
> > >> ? at least not counterproductive.
> > >> ?
> > >>
> > >> Large(r) hydrocarbon fuel taxes, increasing every year.
> > >
> > >
> > > You are going to tax the US military? No wonder they call you
> > > stupid.
> >
> > I think the feds are currently exempt from fuel taxes.
> >
> > So I was not suggesting taxing the military, but it would certainly be a
> > good idea if we wanted to do something about global warming.
>
>
> How do you propose collecting taxes from the US military? They could
> easily nuke the IRS.
The IRS collects it from Exxon Mobile, et al (the military doesn't
buy its fuel at a pump - a contract is written with a supplier who
delivers the fuel).
Robert A. Woodward
<896dbb63-a707-4b81...@d8g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
DouhetSukd <douhe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 24, 5:54�am, Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote:
<SNIP>
> >
> > >>> Don't forget that the USA military uses 1/4 of the
> > >>> carbon fuels by the USA, worldwide. �Again, what are
> > >>> you willing to do ?
> >
> > >>> Lynn
> >
> > >> Pardon me if I take those stats with a big grain of salt. �I highly
> > >> doubt the US military uses anywhere that percentage.
> >
> > > I would guess that the US military is less than 10% of the entire
> > > USA fossil fuel usage (it doesn't use coal - coal is a big fraction
> > > of USA carbon usage; it doesn't use very much natural gas; it
> > > doesn't use gasoline - about 46% of all petroleum usage in the USA
> > > is in the form of gasoline; and I really doubt that it uses even
> > > half of all diesel and jet fuel).
> >
> > The you would be wrong. �The amount of carbon fuel usage by
> > the USA military is very hard to quantify (I've tried).
> > Don't forget that uranium processing is horribly energy
> > intensive and we built the TVA (a big coal user) for that
> > purpose. �We are currently not processing very much but that
> > will change fairly soon as most of the minutemen ? need to
> > be refreshed.
> >
The TVA was a New Deal program.
> > Military jets and ships use a tremendous amount of JP8.
> > Tremendous. �And the military uses gasoline, just not a lot
> > of it. �Also don't forget that most if not all military
> > bases are self generating power - it is a security thing.
> > Most of those are natural gas but a few are JP8 <shudder>.
> > A few are nuclear but we won't talk about those.
> >
> > Although my 25% figure may include all of government. �It's
> > been quite a while since I calculated that and was quite
> > surprised.
> >
> > Lynn
>
> May I ask how you calculated anything? On what basis?
>
> http://www.energybulletin.net/node/13199
>
> ""
> The US Department of Defense (DoD) is the largest oil consuming
> government body in the US and in the world
>
Which you and I didn't doubt.
> �Military fuel consumption makes the Department of Defense the single
> largest consumer of petroleum in the U.S� [1]
>
> �Military fuel consumption for aircraft, ships, ground vehicles and
> facilities makes the DoD the single largest consumer of petroleum in
> the U.S� [2]
>
> According to the US Defense Energy Support Center Fact Book 2004, in
> Fiscal Year 2004, the US military fuel consumption increased to 144
> million barrels. This is about 40 million barrels more than the
> average peacetime military usage.
> """
>
"SHOCKING" amount
> None of this gives any direct indication as to how big a percentage
> the DoD represents of US consumption. But, easy to calculate.
>
>
> http://www.hubbertpeak.com/nations/2004/
>
> puts US consumption at 20M barrels day (world use is about 80M/d IIRC
> and US is the big consumer, so that sounds in the ballpark).
>
> 144/365 = .394 Mb/day.
>
> Out of 20Mb/d, that means the military accounts for what ... 2%? And
> as the biggest consumer in the US gov.
>
I was going to say 5% in my earlier post, but I changed it to 10%
at the last second just to be on the safe side.
>
> What am I missing, besides that horrible JP8?
He misplaced a decimal point?
Jared
>
> Jared wrote:
>>
>> On 7/24/2011 2:28 AM, Michael A. Terrell wrote:
>>>
>>> Jared wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 7/24/2011 12:38 AM, Joy Beeson wrote:
>>>> ? On Sat, 23 Jul 2011 23:08:43 -0500, Lynn McGuire?l...@winsim.com?
>>>> ? wrote:
>>>> ?
>>>> ?? So if mankind IS causing global warming, what are you
>>>> ?? willing to do about it ?
>>>> ?
>>>> ? Absolutely *nothing* until you suggest something that's proven to be
>>>> ? at least not counterproductive.
>>>> ?
>>>>
>>>> Large(r) hydrocarbon fuel taxes, increasing every year.
>>>
>>>
>>> You are going to tax the US military? No wonder they call you
>>> stupid.
>>
>> I think the feds are currently exempt from fuel taxes.
>>
>> So I was not suggesting taxing the military, but it would certainly be a
>> good idea if we wanted to do something about global warming.
>
>
> How do you propose collecting taxes from the US military? They could
> easily nuke the IRS.
Federal regulations define exemptions from the taxes. If we want to
remove the exemptions, we simply need to change the law. Nukes don't
enter into it, nor do the opinions of the military or the IRS.
Here's some stuff that sounds relevant from 26 USC 4221:
"Under regulations prescribed by the Secretary, no tax shall be
imposed under this chapter (other than under section 4121 or 4081)
on the sale by the manufacturer (or under subchapter A or C of
chapter 31 on the first retail sale) of an article -
[...]
(3) for use by the purchaser as supplies for vessels or
aircraft," [1]
If that's the part that exempts military aircraft and ships from fuel
taxes, then it should be straightforward enough to repeal.
[1] http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/26/D/32/G/4221
--
Jared
Jared
> Scott Lurndal<sc...@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
>> Ray Blaak<rbl...@gmail.com> writes:
>>> I was a pretty strong Dan Simmons fan up to this point, mainly due to
>>> Hyperion, but I have read and enjoyed all of his novels until now. He
>>> is an educated man. How the hell then, can he actually believe that
>>> global warming is a conspiracy, a hoax pulled on the public by, well,
>>> *all* scientists? Is it possible to keep such a secret? And forget
>>
>> It is not anywhere near to _ALL_ scientists.
>
> Oh, excuse us. More than 98% of ALL scientists who have any sort of expertise
> in the field at all. Better?
>
> Yeah, sure, there are archaeologists and botanists and high-energy physicists
> who think they know what they're talking about on the subject, but actually
> don't, just because they're expert in their OWN field, and who emit some
> amazingly bloviated bubbles of falsehood and lack of research. Counting them
> as "scientists who oppose global warming" is like counting zebras as "cats
> who oppose eating mice".
>
> (It's also fairly clear from the things you've posted so far that YOU haven't
> done YOUR homework anywhere near well, either, and are instead parrotting
> things you've found here and there without having checked whether they stand
> up to any sort of concentrated inspection. Or whether they make sense when
> posted together with each other.)
>
> Dave
Isn't expecting a climatologist to predict the climate years in the
future like expecting an economist to predict the economy years in the
future?
--
Jared
James Nicoll
>
>As much as I hate to say it, I would like to see us
>increase the federal gasoline/diesel tax by $1.00/gal.
>I think that the amount of oil that we import into the
>USA (mostly from our two neighbors) is a national
>security issue.
Well, no doubt China will appreciate the extra oil but Americans
are not cleared to know the US gets oil from Canada and not, say,
the United Emirates of Saudi Iraq. Look at this red light for a
moment...
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> On 7/24/2011 12:52 AM, Jared wrote:
>> On 7/24/2011 12:38 AM, Joy Beeson wrote:
>>> On Sat, 23 Jul 2011 23:08:43 -0500, Lynn McGuire<l...@winsim.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> So if mankind IS causing global warming, what are you
>>>> willing to do about it ?
>>>
>>> Absolutely *nothing* until you suggest something that's proven to be
>>> at least not counterproductive.
>>>
>>
>> Large(r) hydrocarbon fuel taxes, increasing every year.
>
> As much as I hate to say it, I would like to see us
> increase the federal gasoline/diesel tax by $1.00/gal.
> I think that the amount of oil that we import into the
> USA (mostly from our two neighbors) is a national
> security issue. I totally disagree on the global
> warming issue though.
Remember that if you just suddenly increase the cost of all gas/diesel
by another dollar atop the current prices, you'll be DROPPING the
economy in many other areas. The costs get passed on (and increased) to
everyone on every product involving gas or diesel transport, which
means, in essence, EVERYTHING (locomotives use diesel, trucks use diesel
or gasoline, personal vehicles and taxis and small trucks use gasoline).
Raising prices like that hits the people who can least afford it hardest
-- and ripples down and then eventually back up.
>
> I would like to see us convert all over the road trucks
> to natural gas (the LNG form). Each truck burns
> 100,000 miles/year / 6 miles/gallon = 16,667 gallons/year
> of diesel of which 75% ??? is made from imported crude
> oil. We have more than enough natural gas to replace
> all of diesel truck usage. And, the natural gas is
> about 1/2 the price of diesel right now on a energy
> basis which would be a plus for the truckers.
Sounds real simple when you write it in a paragraph. Actually DOING
that, not so simple. Who's going to PAY for all those retrofits? Not
going to be the individual trucker, that's for sure; most of them may be
making a decent living, but if you make all of them have to get new
trucks, or have them do an overhaul and re-build that converts them
over, you're seriously damaging their ability to make a living. Not to
mention taking every single trucker out of operation for some part of
the year that normally they'd be working is going to HAVE to have a
significant effect on the economy.
Then let's consider that if you suddenly put THAT load onto natural
gas, it'll quickly (A) become probably as expensive as diesel is right
now, and (B) cause a LOT of problems for the very large number of
consumers who USE natural gas for cooking and heating. (Which would
include me).
Your plan would thus be hitting a lot of people -- including me -- with
a DOUBLE whammy: severely increase my cost to get anywhere, and doubling
my heating bills. Suddenly I have NO disposable income for the local or
national economy, and the same is now true of many, many millions of
other people. The effect of that on the overall economy is not pretty.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> I have a friend who bought a used Prius two years ago
> with 50,000 miles on it. He drives 50,000 miles per
> year around Houston (he is nuts !) and now has 150,000
> on it. Says it is the most economical car that he has
> owned ever (he gets an average of 50+ mpg). He is
> going to try to drive it two more years.
If it's just a battery with gasoline hybrid (i.e., you have to plug it
in and recharge the batteries) it's partly smoke-and-mirrors. You're
still burning fossil fuels (mostly) to get the electricity, and you're
having to put it through two conversion cycles along the way.
While that's still more efficient than normal gasoline engine cycles,
it's putting more load on the grid, and if a large percentage of people
converted over to such vehicles, you need a large increase in generation
capacity, Which has historically been a hard thing to manage.
The designs I like are the ones where the recharging is done by a small
motor, I think a turbine of some sort, in the car. You drive off the
batteries almost all the time, and the recharging is done using the fuel
you buy for the car. It eliminates the secondary conversion losses and
puts no more strain on the grid.
Of course, these vehicles are all quite expensive right now and most of
the ones I see are SMALL. I have a family of six, so what I need is an
inexpensive VAN.
On a side note, the most fuel-efficient car I've ever driven was a 1984
VW Rabbit. Averaged 45mpg, I once hit nearly 60mpg on a long trip.
Bought it for $500.
Michael A. Terrell
You don't think nuking the IRS would make Exxon Mobile change their
minds? :)
Michael A. Terrell
You just don't get it. They are exempt, since the tax money would
have to be budgeted, then returned to the general fund
Jaimie Vandenbergh
<sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> On a side note, the most fuel-efficient car I've ever driven was a 1984
>VW Rabbit. Averaged 45mpg, I once hit nearly 60mpg on a long trip.
>Bought it for $500.
I was out on a dive trip over the weekend. 400 mile round trip on very
mixed roads (two lane dual carriageway to single-track back country
trails), in a 2009 2litre petrol VW Polo Estate with three 100kilo
blokes and 120kilos of our scuba gear.
Worked out at 72 MPG (UK), or 60MPG (US). I was impressed, because I
get about 46MPG (UK) in my 2002 Ford Focus estate on the same trip,
same loading.
Given the Ford is currently squeezing oil out of the engine under
pressure, I'm considering a new car. Should pay for itself in a couple
of years.
Cheers - Jaimie
--
"Heisenberg may have slept here"
Michael Stemper
>James Nicoll <jdni...@panix.com> wrote:
>>Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote:
>>>After the events in Norway today, Muslim hating may move to the next step.
>>
>>Why, you think a blond, blue-eyed right-wing white supremist
>>emboldened all the other blond, blue-eyed right-wing white
>>supremists when he massacred 80 unarmed students? Is preemptive
>>retaliation against all suspected blond, blue-eyed right-wing white
>>supremists and their possible allies called for, would you say?
>>
>>On an unrelated note, what colour are your eyes? And are you or
>>have ever been Lutheran or known Lutherans?
>
>Pssst! Ask him about the _casseroles_!
*Hot dish*
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
This email is to be read by its intended recipient only. Any other party
reading is required by the EULA to send me $500.00.
Brett Paul Dunbar
writes
It depends what you are predicting. AIUI most economists would feel
fairly safe predicting, for example, that US GDP in ten years will be
higher than it is now and in a hundred years it will be even higher.
That US GDP per capita will be greater than China's for the next twenty
years that the difference will be greater in nominal (exchange rate) GDP
than PPP (purchasing power parity) GDP and that the difference will
shrink substantially. There are a wide range of feedback mechanisms in
the economy that make a more detailed prediction difficult.
Climatologists predict that as long as the concentration of CO2 in the
atmosphere increases the temperature will increase the feedback
mechanisms are better understood and seem to be smaller so the
predictions have smaller error bars.
--
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm
Livejournal http://brett-dunbar.livejournal.com/
Brett Paul Dunbar
To email me, use reply-to address
Michael Stemper
>>> Pardon me if I take those stats with a big grain of salt. I highly
>>> doubt the US military uses anywhere that percentage.
>>
>> I would guess that the US military is less than 10% of the entire
>> USA fossil fuel usage (it doesn't use coal - coal is a big fraction
>> of USA carbon usage; it doesn't use very much natural gas; it
>> doesn't use gasoline - about 46% of all petroleum usage in the USA
>> is in the form of gasoline; and I really doubt that it uses even
>> half of all diesel and jet fuel).
>
>The you would be wrong. The amount of carbon fuel usage by
>the USA military is very hard to quantify (I've tried).
>Don't forget that uranium processing is horribly energy
>intensive and we built the TVA (a big coal user) for that
>purpose.
What does "TVA" stand for in this context? Normally, it stands for
"Tennessee Valley Authority", but that's obviously not the meaning
that you have in mind here.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Life's too important to take seriously.
Thomas Womack
It does mean TVA; what he means is that Oak Ridge is built where it is
because the TVA had just built a new dam there and so lots of
electricity was available.
Paducah, also in Kentucky and sixty years old, is the main uranium-
enriching facility in the US, and apparently up to a three-*gigawatt*
electrical demand. This is because it uses gaseous-diffusion at an
energy of 2400 kWh per separation work unit, whilst a modern
centrifuge (as used by Urenco in Europe) manages on 50 kWh per SWU.
France is just about to shut down its thirty-year-old gaseous-
diffusion plant and open a centrifuge one, which will do 7.5 million
SWU per year (that is, average power around fifty megawatts).
Tom
Lynn McGuire
Do you remember the Arab oil embargo of 1973 ? I was 13
years old and remember it well. My Dad was driving an 8 mpg
Buick 88. We moved to London, England for the summer and
were subjected to daily blackouts as they could not keep
their oil fired power plants on line due to shortages.
When the next worldwide oil shock hits, I predict the price
of gasoline will go to $10/gal. I do not have a clue what
will cause it and when it will happen but it will happen.
The USA does not control the price of crude oil, it is a
worldwide commodity. However, we do control the price of
natural gas in this country and it is dropping.
BTW, all large diesels built in the last 3 to 5 years have
a natural gas conversion kit that retails for about $65,000.
The price of LNG is about $1.50/gallon right now and the
trucks will get 4 mpg on it. The kit will pay itself back
in less than two years. The problem is that there is
limited distribution of LNG but that will start changing if
the Feds encourage it. Los Angeles is requiring all diesel
trucks that service the Port of LA to convert to LNG so it
may spread from that point. The kit can be installed in
less than a week.
You would not believe how much natural gas is getting ready
to flood the market in the USA from the new shale projects.
And the natural gas must be produced in order to get the
oil (or compressed and reinjected into the reservoir). The
producers are actually losing money on natural gas in order
to get the oil that they can sell at an OMG price. I
would not be surprised to see natural gas drop half price
in the next six months (sucks for me as most of my customers
are natural gas producers). Already nat gas producers in
the Rocky Mountains are selling their nat gas for one penny
just so they do not have to shut in their wells and lose
their oil production.
In 2 years, Texas will be producing 3 to 4 million barrels
of oil per day (up from the current 1 million bpd) in the
Eagle Ford shale project. I cannot predict how long this
will last though. Some people are saying 3 to 4 years,
some people are saying 100 years.
BTW, we are getting ready to build a new LNG liquefaction
plant here in Texas for exporting LNG outside the USA. It
will be one BCF/day initially but I expect it to go to
four BCF/day eventually.
Lynn
Lynn McGuire
> On Sun, 24 Jul 2011 07:54:06 -0500, Lynn McGuire<l...@winsim.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>> Military jets and ships use a tremendous amount of JP8.
>> Tremendous. And the military uses gasoline, just not a lot
>> of it. Also don't forget that most if not all military
>> bases are self generating power - it is a security thing.
>> Most of those are natural gas but a few are JP8<shudder>.
>> A few are nuclear but we won't talk about those.
>
> Why does JP-8 make you shudder? It's the same as Jet-A, which
> airliners use, or diesel, that trucks and some cars use. It's also
> very similar to the oil many people use to heat their houses.
>
> Incidentally, California only shut down its last wood-fired peaker
> about fifteen years ago.
>
> Mary "JP-7 is more like 3-in-1 oil."
How do you run a wood fired peaker ? The peaking power
plants here in Texas have to be on line in less than 30
minutes and to full load in less than 60 minutes. When
I worked at TXU, we used natural gas with diesel as a
backup.
Lynn
Lynn McGuire
I did not know that, thanks for the info. Yes, TVA was
primarily hydro but then they added coal units and then
nuclear units to meet the demand. BTW, the TVA is getting
ready to build a "new" nuclear plant using a license they
got from 1975. Bechtel is predicting that they will have
it online by 2013:
http://www.bechtel.com/watts-bar-completion.html
Lynn
Michael Stemper
>In article <j0jq8o$q34$1...@dont-email.me>, Michael Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>In article <j0h4lc$uuv$1...@dont-email.me>, Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> writes:
>>>The you would be wrong. The amount of carbon fuel usage by
>>>the USA military is very hard to quantify (I've tried).
>>>Don't forget that uranium processing is horribly energy
>>>intensive and we built the TVA (a big coal user) for that
>>>purpose.
>>
>>What does "TVA" stand for in this context? Normally, it stands for
>>"Tennessee Valley Authority", but that's obviously not the meaning
>>that you have in mind here.
>
>It does mean TVA; what he means is that Oak Ridge is built where it is
>because the TVA had just built a new dam there and so lots of
>electricity was available.
So, when he says "TVA" he means "Oak Ridge National Laboratory"?
Cuz, we didn't 'build' the "Tennessee Valley Authority" for uranium
processing. There was no such thing when the Tennessee Valley
Authority was established (not 'built').
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Economists have correctly predicted seven of the last three recessions.
Lynn McGuire
> In article<yS*qi...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>, Thomas Womack<two...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:
>> In article<j0jq8o$q34$1...@dont-email.me>, Michael Stemper<michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> In article<j0h4lc$uuv$1...@dont-email.me>, Lynn McGuire<l...@winsim.com> writes:
>
>>>> The you would be wrong. The amount of carbon fuel usage by
>>>> the USA military is very hard to quantify (I've tried).
>>>> Don't forget that uranium processing is horribly energy
>>>> intensive and we built the TVA (a big coal user) for that
>>>> purpose.
>>>
>>> What does "TVA" stand for in this context? Normally, it stands for
>>> "Tennessee Valley Authority", but that's obviously not the meaning
>>> that you have in mind here.
>>
>> It does mean TVA; what he means is that Oak Ridge is built where it is
>> because the TVA had just built a new dam there and so lots of
>> electricity was available.
>
> So, when he says "TVA" he means "Oak Ridge National Laboratory"?
>
> Cuz, we didn't 'build' the "Tennessee Valley Authority" for uranium
> processing. There was no such thing when the Tennessee Valley
> Authority was established (not 'built').
True, very true. The TVA was co-opted for that need.
Lynn
Walter Bushell
Brett Paul Dunbar <br...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> It depends what you are predicting. AIUI most economists would feel
> fairly safe predicting, for example, that US GDP in ten years will be
> higher than it is now and in a hundred years it will be even higher.
Certainly in 100 years the US may be occupied by hunter gatherers. The
future of technologically advanced civilizations is by no means assured.
--
The Chinese pretend their goods are good and we pretend our money
is good, or is it the reverse?
Walter Bushell
"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
Well the tax could be imposed in a revenue neutral way with tax cuts for
the low income types, maybe by increasing the earned income credit.
Wayne Throop
: If it's just a battery with gasoline hybrid (i.e., you have to plug it
: in and recharge the batteries) it's partly smoke-and-mirrors. You're
: still burning fossil fuels (mostly) to get the electricity, and you're
: having to put it through two conversion cycles along the way.
Partly, yes. But only partly.
You still benefit miles-per-dollar, even counting the grid power you buy,
and where your local electricity comes from can vary, and doesn't
necessarily have to be carboniferous.
Of course, whether the money saved on energy offsets the money
spent on batteries over the life of the car... unclear to me.
Probably does, but still.
And then there's whether and how much burning fuel in a large plant
offsets the losses in transmission and storage in a battery.
So. I suppose there's plenty of smoke and mirrors to go around.
But aren't there always?
Lynn McGuire
It's just a standard Prius, no plug-in. Just energy recovery
on braking. Works like a champ.
Lynn
David DeLaney
>> Your plan would thus be hitting a lot of people -- including me -- with
>> a DOUBLE whammy: severely increase my cost to get anywhere, and doubling
>> my heating bills. Suddenly I have NO disposable income for the local or
>> national economy, and the same is now true of many, many millions of
>> other people. The effect of that on the overall economy is not pretty.
>
>Well the tax could be imposed in a revenue neutral way with tax cuts for
>the low income types, maybe by increasing the earned income credit.
You have severely misunderstood American politics. Tax cuts are for the RICH
only! Cutting taxes for the poor can't create jobs! It can't cause wealth to
magnanimously trickle down, in a shower of gold, from the upper classes who
deserve all the wealth they have to the middle classes who are struggling to
increase their moral richness coefficient! All it can do is make the poor less
miserable, and we certainly can't have THAT.
Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
Brett Paul Dunbar
<pr...@panix.com> writes
>In article <G5Q+ocQh...@dimetrodon.demon.co.uk>,
> Brett Paul Dunbar <br...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> It depends what you are predicting. AIUI most economists would feel
>> fairly safe predicting, for example, that US GDP in ten years will be
>> higher than it is now and in a hundred years it will be even higher.
>
>Certainly in 100 years the US may be occupied by hunter gatherers. The
>future of technologically advanced civilizations is by no means assured.
Possible, not bloody likely though. I mean it is possible that there
will be a major episode of flood volcanism starting or a mega volcano
erupting (Long Lake for example). Climate is also vulnerable to that
kind of game changer. There is a long term trend for the economy to grow
with occasional fairly short term reversals, this is likely to continue.
William Hyde
> On Jul 24, 10:42 am, sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote:
>
> > Ray Blaak <rbl...@gmail.com> writes:
> > >How the hell then, can he actually believe that
> > >global warming is a conspiracy, a hoax pulled on the public by, well,
> > >*all* scientists? Is it possible to keep such a secret?
>
> > less than a few hundred _climate_ scientists, and there are some of them
> > who discount anthropogenic causes of climate change.
> [...]
> > >anthropomorphic warming as such, the ice caps are melting regardless,
> > >you can't just ignore it.
>
> > Actually, they're not really melting.
> > As for glacial mass balance, some are growing, more are shrinking.
>
> Cool. Couldn't the author's voice have hinted at some of these points
> in the drive by editorializing? As things stand, the reader gets the
> idea that 100's of scientists are in on some sort of scam.
As of about 2006, 95% of Alaskan glaciers were shrinking, about 2.5%
growing. As of 2010 the story is about the same (one report says 99%
but I believe that only represents low to medium elevation glaciers.
Most of the stable or growing ones are at high elevation). Other ice
fields are doing about as well.
Meantime the GRACE experiment shows Greenland losing over 200 cubic
kilometers per year (and the rate is accellerating, with losses in the
north of the ice sheet now common). Antarctica is losing slightly
less, but as of two years ago the East Antarctic ice sheet, which had
been growing and hence offsetting some of the losses elsewhere, also
began to lose mass, at an estimated rate of 55 gigatons per year.
So "some are growing, more are shrinking" is a true statement, but is
also pure spin.
As are his comments about Arctic and Antarctic sea ice. Arctic sea
ice is down millions of square kilometers, Antarctic up slightly.
There's no equivalence - and Antarctic and Arctic sea ice are very
different.
William Hyde
Michael Stemper
>In article <j0jicp$gku$1...@dont-email.me>, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>> On 7/25/11 12:41 AM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> > On 7/24/2011 12:52 AM, Jared wrote:
>> >> Large(r) hydrocarbon fuel taxes, increasing every year.
>> >
>> > As much as I hate to say it, I would like to see us
>> > increase the federal gasoline/diesel tax by $1.00/gal.
>> > I think that the amount of oil that we import into the
>> > USA (mostly from our two neighbors) is a national
>> > security issue. I totally disagree on the global
>> > warming issue though.
>>
>> Remember that if you just suddenly increase the cost of all gas/diesel
>> by another dollar atop the current prices, you'll be DROPPING the
>> economy in many other areas. The costs get passed on (and increased) to
>> everyone on every product involving gas or diesel transport, which
>> means, in essence, EVERYTHING (locomotives use diesel, trucks use diesel
>> or gasoline, personal vehicles and taxis and small trucks use gasoline).
>> Raising prices like that hits the people who can least afford it hardest
>> -- and ripples down and then eventually back up.
>>
>> Your plan would thus be hitting a lot of people -- including me -- with
>> a DOUBLE whammy: severely increase my cost to get anywhere, and doubling
>> my heating bills. Suddenly I have NO disposable income for the local or
>> national economy, and the same is now true of many, many millions of
>> other people. The effect of that on the overall economy is not pretty.
>
>Well the tax could be imposed in a revenue neutral way with tax cuts for
>the low income types, maybe by increasing the earned income credit.
John Anderson campaigned on this basis in 1980. Unsuccessfully.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
Michael Stemper
>On 7/25/11 12:58 AM, Lynn McGuire wrote:
>> I have a friend who bought a used Prius two years ago
>> with 50,000 miles on it. He drives 50,000 miles per
>> year around Houston (he is nuts !) and now has 150,000
>> on it. Says it is the most economical car that he has
>> owned ever (he gets an average of 50+ mpg). He is
>> going to try to drive it two more years.
>
> If it's just a battery with gasoline hybrid (i.e., you have to plug it
>in and recharge the batteries) it's partly smoke-and-mirrors. You're
>still burning fossil fuels (mostly) to get the electricity, and you're
>having to put it through two conversion cycles along the way.
>
> While that's still more efficient than normal gasoline engine cycles,
>it's putting more load on the grid, and if a large percentage of people
>converted over to such vehicles, you need a large increase in generation
>capacity,
Not necessarily. Most people are probably going to charge overnight,
and demand is lower then. Rate structures could be set up to encourage
this behavior, as well.
If a substantial amount of load is added to the midnight-dawn period,
utilization factors go up, meaning that few units have to be shut down
and then restarted.
It's not all a fluidized bed of roses, but it's not as bad as all that.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Always use apostrophe's and "quotation marks" properly.
Richard R. Hershberger
> In article <j0cpf2$k0...@dont-email.me>, Lynn McGuire <l...@winsim.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> >After the events in Norway today, Muslim hating may move
> >to the next step.
>
> Why, you think a blond, blue-eyed right-wing white supremist
> emboldened all the other blond, blue-eyed right-wing white
> supremists when he massacred 80 unarmed students? Is preemptive
> retaliation against all suspected blond, blue-eyed right-wing white
> supremists and their possible allies called for, would you say?
>
> On an unrelated note, what colour are your eyes? And are you or
> have ever been Lutheran or known Lutherans?
My German Lutheran church in Baltimore used to have FBI agents in
regular attendance, just to keep tabs on what was going on. But that
was almost seventy years ago. Should we put on an extra pot of
coffee, in case they come back? Or will it just be the Norski
Lutherans in Wisconsin? Come to think of it, some of those Wisconsin
Lutherans are pretty scary. Exhibit A: Michelle Bachman.
Richard R. Hershberger
Joe Pfeiffer
Of course, none of this is relevant to the Prius...
Michael Stemper
>On Jul 23, 12:16=A0am, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>> >After the events in Norway today, Muslim hating may move
>> >to the next step.
>>
>> Why, you think a blond, blue-eyed right-wing white supremist
>> emboldened all the other blond, blue-eyed right-wing white
>> supremists when he massacred 80 unarmed students? Is preemptive
>> retaliation against all suspected blond, blue-eyed right-wing white
>> supremists and their possible allies called for, would you say?
>>
>> On an unrelated note, what colour are your eyes? And are you or
>> have ever been Lutheran or known Lutherans? =A0
>
>My German Lutheran church in Baltimore used to have FBI agents in
>regular attendance, just to keep tabs on what was going on. But that
>was almost seventy years ago. Should we put on an extra pot of
>coffee, in case they come back? Or will it just be the Norski
>Lutherans in Wisconsin? Come to think of it, some of those Wisconsin
>Lutherans are pretty scary. Exhibit A: Michelle Bachman.
You seem to have confused Wisconsin with the state to its immediate west.
--
Michael F. Stemper
#include <Standard_Disclaimer>
Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding;
Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind.
Lynn McGuire
But a plug-in Prius is coming out in 2012 ...
http://www.toyota.com/upcoming-vehicles/prius-plug-in/
Lynn
trag
> From http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message.htm :
> "June 2011 Message from Dan
>
> Dear Readers, Friends, and Other Visitors:
>
> I believe that almost every writer has at least one dystopian
> novel in him or her that's clawing and scratching to get out.
> Flashback, released on July 1 of 2011, has successfully clawed
> itself into existence. It will be my one and only dystopian
> novel. I think it will be a worthwhile and perhaps even
> memorable reading experience for anyone willing to take the
> ride."
"And with this political spin, it might even get my books into Walmart
where the big bucks are...."
Lynn McGuire
Yup, my thoughts exactly since the Ralph Peters books has
been carried there. And I have seen _Drood_ at Sam's Club.
Lynn