It's happening already.  It's not going to come back.  Over the next 20 year, we shall have to drastically alter our modes of living because cheap oil fuels the American sprawl we've come to call modern America over the past six decades.  The detached house with the two car garage on the two acre parcel is the basic middle class entitlement.  But without all our cheap oil zipping us from the garage to the office to the school to the shopping center and back, the detached home in the single-use residential zone will no longer be affordable.

I do not see any combination of "alternative" energy sources, including nukes, being able to give us the widespread suburban living we had with cheap oil.

I don't know what I'm going to do.  Most of us don't.  We must do something, but what?  How could we so radically alter the greatest waste of resources in human history, suburban sprawl, and return to walkable communities with local shopping and business and lightrail transit.  How will we ever give up the entitlement to our cars when we can no longer afford to drive them?  How do you tell a hundred million contented suburbanites they must uproot their lives and build a radically different civil infrastructure, one not seen since WWII? 

The Earth will never run out of oil; what's happening is a depletion of the light sweet crude, the easy oil around which we have build our country for sixty years.  As oil becomes deeper, cruder, and harder to extract and to refine, the price of a barrel might rise to $500.00 a barrel.

All I see in the media is denial.  It is unthinkable for corporations to think the world they thrived on shall undergo massive downsizing and "globalization" will be a slogan of the rich old days.

I'm not so arrogant as to say I have the way; follow me.  All I'm saying is the trouble ahead will reshape society, and it might do so preceded by much darkness and violence, 78 degrees F in the third week of October and gasoline climbing toward 3.00 a gallon here in Massachusetts are ill harbingers!  What are we prepared to do?

  Spend your entire workday huddled over a computer and talking on the telephone?  Have a computer and a telephone in your home, as well..?

  America...!  Telecommute..! and fill your gas tanks only once, maybe twice, a month..!

  Seriously...

 

There may be trouble ahead...
But while there's moonlight, and music (and still some cheap gas)
Let's keep our head up our..

I'm trying to convince Rice Cube that this would be so much better:

http://www.igocars.com

It's cheaper than paying what we are for the car, especially when that farkin' car is always in the shop. ::) It would also make more sense since we live in the city and only need to leave it to go grocery shopping. Other than that, public transportation or walking.

Just be glad we didn't grow with subsidy dependencies like Iran did.  They're currently suffering from high oil costs and rationing because they don't refine enough of their own oil, and they aren't used to paying normal market prices for it.

Several countries have made the mistake of subsidizing oil prices (like Venezuela), and as a result, they will eventually find themselves up a creek without a paddle when they realize just how dependent their transportation is on it.

America unfortunately faces a growing concern for this kind of thing not due to subsidies but because of resistance to public transportation projects.  I have a feeling Americans will see public transportation in a different light in the near future due to rising oil prices....

In the short run, moving towards electric cars (again) is a good solution for private transportation.

Just be glad we didn't grow with subsidy dependencies like Iran did. 

No government subsidies for oil in the U.S.A?

Well, I'll be dipped dogsh*t!
:D

Surprisingly, I have found that gas is getting cheap, atleast around here anyway.  I filled my tank the other day for $39.  Maybe 1 or 2 years ago, it would have cost me $60 to fill it

Of course now that I've said this, the price of gas will shoot through the roof :(

Ordinarily, I would take a bus to work, but where I work and with the hours I work, a) The bus doesn't always run out there, and it doesn't run on the hours after I am done work

No government subsidies for oil in the U.S.A?

Well, I'll be dipped dogsh*t!
:D



Well, I meant in terms of consumer prices for oil in the last 20 years.

Admittedly, we should end all "tax incentives" to oil companies.  It's nothing more than corporate welfare.

There may be trouble ahead...
But while there's moonlight, and music (and still some cheap gas)
Let's keep our head up our..



http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/14/sign10.gif


  Spend your entire workday huddled over a computer and talking on the telephone?  Have a computer and a telephone in your home, as well..?

  America...!  Telecommute..! and fill your gas tanks only once, maybe twice, a month..!

  Seriously...

 


Great!

And we generate the electricity how?  Mice riding tiny bicycles?
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/12/hiding.gif

And we generate the electricity how?  Mice riding tiny bicycles?
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/12/hiding.gif


  Hey, you asked... ;)

  Personally I couldn't care less about gas prices.  Not enough gas money?  Sell your wii and diamond tongue stud...

  _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

  And to Macphisto, it certainly is corporate welfare and that's the problem with supply-side economics.  I have posted this rant before.  There is no "free market" in the U.S. or in any other major industrial nation.  All we have is a new aristocracy, consisting of corporations rather than noblemen in castles.  The result is the same.  They get what they want and we get what they want us to get groove ;) on...
 

   Hey, you asked... ;)

   Personally I couldn't care less about gas prices.  Not enough gas money?  Sell your wii and diamond tongue stud...


Huh?  What's a "wii" again?  And isn't a diamond-tongued stud a smooth-talking rich guy trying to pick you up at the leather bar?
:P

Roger Ailes just started the FOX Business Network.

Mmmmm....now if I could start a business network....

On my debut broadcast, I'd have a bunch of CEOs come out and tell the truth...

"We don't have freemarkets in this country, because we don't like free markets.  We might lose money!"

And that's the truth.

In the short run, moving towards electric cars (again) is a good solution for private transportation.

Except that electric cars still need to get their energy from somewhere, and we're a long way from dependence on fossil fuels for that.

ISTR it was the Freak Brothers who came out with the "hamster on amphetamines" drive

And to Macphisto, it certainly is corporate welfare and that's the problem with supply-side economics.  I have posted this rant before.  There is no "free market" in the U.S. or in any other major industrial nation.  All we have is a new aristocracy, consisting of corporations rather than noblemen in castles.  The result is the same.  They get what they want and we get what they want us to get groove ;) on...

Basically.... Although I would argue that Norway is one of the few countries that engages in very little corporate welfare but still remains very competitive in the global market while simultaneously has a myriad of well-run social programs.  If I could speak Norwegian and afford the cost of living there, I'd move to Norway in a heartbeat.  It's virtually utopian...

Anyway, corporate welfare is one of the lesser discussed problems of the First World.  However, it is refreshing to see that many elements of the business world even protest its presence.  The CATO Institute is particularly vocal in its disdain for taxing the working class to line the pockets of the rich.  Libertarians often point out how many Republicans contradict the concept of smaller government and being against handouts when they still push political pork into bills that fund their corporate friends.

True conservatives and free market capitalists don't support corporate welfare anymore than true liberals do.

Basically.... Although I would argue that Norway is one of the few countries that engages in very little corporate welfare but still remains very competitive in the global market while simultaneously has a myriad of well-run social programs.  If I could speak Norwegian and afford the cost of living there, I'd move to Norway in a heartbeat.  It's virtually utopian...
My leftie friends are ambivalent about the Norwegians:

They guarantee healthcare, education, housing, and food money for everybody.

Duuuude, kewl!

And they like to kill whales.

Duuuude, not kewl!
:D

Anyway, corporate welfare is one of the lesser discussed problems of the First World.  However, it is refreshing to see that many elements of the business world even protest its presence.  The CATO Institute is particularly vocal in its disdain for taxing the working class to line the pockets of the rich.  Libertarians often point out how many Republicans contradict the concept of smaller government and being against handouts when they still push political pork into bills that fund their corporate friends.

True conservatives and free market capitalists don't support corporate welfare anymore than true liberals do.


Politics is the business of who gets what.  When how much money you've got is held as the one and only arbiter of who shall get what, it only follows that in politics, the interests with the most money will get the most of what's to be gotten. 

CATO rails against social welfare and "income redistribution," AND campaign finance reform (god knows we can't have that), and then they're all raising the dickens about corporate welfare.  Well, once you've issued the libertarian credo that you deserve whatever you can...LEGALLY...grab, then you ought to quit griping about the rich people lining their pockets at the taxpayers' expense.
::)

My leftie friends are ambivalent about the Norwegians:

They guarantee healthcare, education, housing, and food money for everybody.

Duuuude, kewl!

And they like to kill whales.

Duuuude, not kewl!
:D

LOL...  exactly.  They're just whales, people... 

Politics is the business of who gets what.  When how much money you've got is held as the one and only arbiter of who shall get what, it only follows that in politics, the interests with the most money will get the most of what's to be gotten. 

CATO rails against social welfare and "income redistribution," AND campaign finance reform (god knows we can't have that), and then they're all raising the dickens about corporate welfare.  Well, once you've issued the libertarian credo that you deserve whatever you can...LEGALLY...grab, then you ought to quit griping about the rich people lining their pockets at the taxpayers' expense.
::)


Very good points.  Another view I hold that keeps me from being a bonafide Libertarian is that I favor Canada's handling of campaign funds.  They have a system set up that limits all the major parties to the same maximum amount of funding, which is provided by the government -- not corporations.

In addition to this, in a parliamentary system like theirs, you don't elect the president.  The party with the most seats in parliament chooses a Prime Minister from their own ranks.  This may separate the power from the people somewhat, but it also tends to result in leaders that are more policy oriented than charisma oriented.

For example, both Stephen Harper and Bush are conservative, but Harper is considerably more intelligent and adept at policymaking.  The same thing applied to Reagan vs. Thatcher.  Reagan was much more popular during his time, but Thatcher was far more intelligent and, IMHO, much better at policy.

LOL...  exactly.  They're just whales, people... 

Very good points.  Another view I hold that keeps me from being a bonafide Libertarian is that I favor Canada's handling of campaign funds.  They have a system set up that limits all the major parties to the same maximum amount of funding, which is provided by the government -- not corporations.

In addition to this, in a parliamentary system like theirs, you don't elect the president.  The party with the most seats in parliament chooses a Prime Minister from their own ranks.  This may separate the power from the people somewhat, but it also tends to result in leaders that are more policy oriented than charisma oriented.

For example, both Stephen Harper and Bush are conservative, but Harper is considerably more intelligent and adept at policymaking.  The same thing applied to Reagan vs. Thatcher.  Reagan was much more popular during his time, but Thatcher was far more intelligent and, IMHO, much better at policy.


Agreed, agreed.  I must tell you Thatcher scared the crap out of me but Harper doesn't.  Reagan learned a lot from Thatcher, and he'd tell you so himself, that is before he went so far off the deep end he couldn't tell chocolate from vanilla (1985). 
::)

I have a hokey slogan that seems to apply to most philosophies:
"How quickly our liberators can become our jailers."

My chief complaint about libertarianism is, in its pure form, the amount of wealth and property you own shall be commensurate with the amount of liberty you can claim. 

In free market economics, we champion competition, but in competition the goal is to defeat your opponent.  That's why games have rules.  If football had no rules it would soon be played with automatic weapons.  If a corporation can use the government to keep a permanent check on their competition, they will.  Can't blame 'em.  That's what the business corporation does, it rakes in as much money as it can.  So I think it neither discourages competition nor infringes upon free enterprise for the government to set some ground rules.  You wouldn't let a guy with marked cards join your poker game, would you?

Campaign finance reform is part of this.  The Right always says money is speech.  It is not.  Money is property. It makes no sense to allow the candidate who can raise the most money to get the most press time unless you believe that the guy with the most money always has the best ideas, which the Right often does (except for George Soros, Barbara Streisand, and Bill Gates' dad). 

I have a hokey slogan that seems to apply to most philosophies:
"How quickly our liberators can become our jailers."

Very true...  "Lord of War" said something similar about revolutionaries.

My chief complaint about libertarianism is, in its pure form, the amount of wealth and property you own shall be commensurate with the amount of liberty you can claim.

True again...  Darwinism (which is what Libertarianism can often result in) can tend to favor legalistic oppression.  The thing that causes this is the same thing that allows capitalism to work: selfishness.

In free market economics, we champion competition, but in competition the goal is to defeat your opponent.  That's why games have rules.  If football had no rules it would soon be played with automatic weapons.  If a corporation can use the government to keep a permanent check on their competition, they will.  Can't blame 'em.  That's what the business corporation does, it rakes in as much money as it can.  So I think it neither discourages competition nor infringes upon free enterprise for the government to set some ground rules.  You wouldn't let a guy with marked cards join your poker game, would you?

Campaign finance reform is part of this.  The Right always says money is speech.  It is not.  Money is property. It makes no sense to allow the candidate who can raise the most money to get the most press time unless you believe that the guy with the most money always has the best ideas, which the Right often does (except for George Soros, Barbara Streisand, and Bill Gates' dad). 

True...  This is why I have more populist leanings when dealing with things like the infringement of the rights of individuals by corporations.  I believe the government's key role in domestic policy should be to protect the people from the predatory practices of big business.  I'm an ardent supporter of things like antitrust laws, for example.

Very true...  "Lord of War" said something similar about revolutionaries.

True again...  Darwinism (which is what Libertarianism can often result in) can tend to favor legalistic oppression.  The thing that causes this is the same thing that allows capitalism to work: selfishness.

True...  This is why I have more populist leanings when dealing with things like the infringement of the rights of individuals by corporations.  I believe the government's key role in domestic policy should be to protect the people from the predatory practices of big business.  I'm an ardent supporter of things like antitrust laws, for example.


I believe you mean "Social Darwinism," which is a bastardization of the concepts set forth in Darwin's theories of biological evolution.  "Social Darwinism" is intertwined with the old saying, "survival of the fittest."  Charles Darwin never said "survival of the fittest" in the first place; that was Darwin's contemporary Herbert Spencer, a philospher of the classical liberal school.  Spencer's own theories were in turn bastardized by the robber barons of the Gilded Age, and to Spencer's everlasting shame, he played along.
::)

Selfishness is not a concept to which I grant any positive attributes.  I would differentiate selfishness from individual initiative, entrepeneurship, and free enterprise all of which do permit capitalism to work. Selfishness rather is capitalism's ruin.  Selfishness is personal failure.  It is what prevents us from recognizing the needs and rights of others as well as understanding that trampling the needs and rights of others just because you can is ultimately against your own self-interest.  This pathology is not inherent in the aforementioned individual initiative, entrepeneurship, and free enterprise.  Gordon Gekko was wrong.  Greed is not good. 

You will notice also that CATO inveighs against all antitrust laws, including the breaking up of Standard Oil in 1911 for chrissakes!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/10/tophat.gif

P.S. By "needs" I mean actual needs, not neurotic "I'm not getting my needs met in this relationship" needs.
:P

I believe you mean "Social Darwinism," which is a bastardization of the concepts set forth in Darwin's theories of biological evolution.  "Social Darwinism" is intertwined with the old saying, "survival of the fittest."  Charles Darwin never said "survival of the fittest" in the first place; that was Darwin's contemporary Herbert Spencer, a philospher of the classical liberal school.  Spencer's own theories were in turn bastardized by the robber barons of the Gilded Age, and to Spencer's everlasting shame, he played along.
::)

Good points...  I didn't know about the Spencer part.

Selfishness is not a concept to which I grant any positive attributes.  I would differentiate selfishness from individual initiative, entrepeneurship, and free enterprise all of which do permit capitalism to work. Selfishness rather is capitalism's ruin.  Selfishness is personal failure.  It is what prevents us from recognizing the needs and rights of others as well as understanding that trampling the needs and rights of others just because you can is ultimately against your own self-interest.  This pathology is not inherent in the aforementioned individual initiative, entrepeneurship, and free enterprise.  Gordon Gekko was wrong.  Greed is not good. 

Good points again.  I wish more capitalists saw it that way...

You will notice also that CATO inveighs against all antitrust laws, including the breaking up of Standard Oil in 1911 for chrissakes!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/10/tophat.gif

P.S. By "needs" I mean actual needs, not neurotic "I'm not getting my needs met in this relationship" needs.
:P


CATO is definitely classist and aristocratic at its core.  The one thing I respect about them is that they are consistent in their message of minimizing government, which is far more than I can say for the Republican party....

Good points...  I didn't know about the Spencer part.

Good points again.  I wish more capitalists saw it that way...

CATO is definitely classist and aristocratic at its core.  The one thing I respect about them is that they are consistent in their message of minimizing government, which is far more than I can say for the Republican party....

CATO is still a good mouthpiece for the GOP beause the anti-imperialist agenda remains a second-tier concern.  CATO seems chiefly focused on tax cuts, privatizing publically held resources, and shredding the post-New Deal social contract.  Perhaps 75% of the people are against the Iraq War.  Has it stopped?  No.  Will it stop?  No.  The real power brokers know CATO does a good service in advocating ceding more power to them, they also know that once they have the power, they're under no obligation to listen to CATO's objections to what they do with it.

George Carlin shrugged the other night on "Countdown" when asked about the administration's doing, "Eh, that's power.  Power does what it wants.  It always has.  They're just more naked about it today:  Here's who we are and here's what we're doing with it."

It's happening already.  It's not going to come back.  Over the next 20 year, we shall have to drastically alter our modes of living because cheap oil fuels the American sprawl we've come to call modern America over the past six decades.  The detached house with the two car garage on the two acre parcel is the basic middle class entitlement.  But without all our cheap oil zipping us from the garage to the office to the school to the shopping center and back, the detached home in the single-use residential zone will no longer be affordable.

I do not see any combination of "alternative" energy sources, including nukes, being able to give us the widespread suburban living we had with cheap oil.

I don't know what I'm going to do.  Most of us don't.  We must do something, but what?  How could we so radically alter the greatest waste of resources in human history, suburban sprawl, and return to walkable communities with local shopping and business and lightrail transit.  How will we ever give up the entitlement to our cars when we can no longer afford to drive them?  How do you tell a hundred million contented suburbanites they must uproot their lives and build a radically different civil infrastructure, one not seen since WWII? 

The Earth will never run out of oil; what's happening is a depletion of the light sweet crude, the easy oil around which we have build our country for sixty years.  As oil becomes deeper, cruder, and harder to extract and to refine, the price of a barrel might rise to $500.00 a barrel.

All I see in the media is denial.  It is unthinkable for corporations to think the world they thrived on shall undergo massive downsizing and "globalization" will be a slogan of the rich old days.

I'm not so arrogant as to say I have the way; follow me.  All I'm saying is the trouble ahead will reshape society, and it might do so preceded by much darkness and violence, 78 degrees F in the third week of October and gasoline climbing toward 3.00 a gallon here in Massachusetts are ill harbingers!  What are we prepared to do?


I'm guessing the Middle Ages are coming back again.

But you can use vegetable oil in your disel engines. Henry Ford was for that idea.

George Carlin shrugged the other night on "Countdown" when asked about the administration's doing, "Eh, that's power.  Power does what it wants.  It always has.  They're just more naked about it today:  Here's who we are and here's what we're doing with it."



George Carlin would be the perfect president.  He's the coolest man still alive.

I'm guessing the Middle Ages are coming back again.

But you can use vegetable oil in your disel engines. Henry Ford was for that idea.


The documentary "The End of Suburbia" makes the point, and I agree, that no combination of alternative energy sources will duplicate the lifestyles cheap fossil fuels afford us.  I'm certainly in favor of developing alternative fuels.  It's a must.

We shall find it was much easier to build the suburbs than to retrofit them for life in the post-peak oil age.  

Return to the Middle Ages?  Of course not.  The store human knowledge has increased by many multiples in the past 200 years alone, in the past thousand years it is incalculable.  We couldn't go back to the medieval period even if we wanted to.

What imperils us is our sense of entitlement to luxuries, comforts, and convenience.  We detest sacrifice and delayed gratification.  We may grow taller and live longer than we did 100 years ago, but we are not half as hardy as our ancestors.  

The suburbs went hand-in-hand with they myth of individualism; that is, individualism in the Ayn Rand sense.  We sat isolated in our detached homes and isolated in our private cars.  We could get everything we wanted at the push of a button.  Nature no longer factored in, so we thought we had outdone it.  It was what Francis Fukuyama called "the end of history."  So we scoffed at cooperation and manual labor and neighborliness.  Well, we're going to need it, but it's going to be much harder to return to dredge it back up than it was to toss it overboard.  

There are only a few Americans prepared to work as hard as our forebears did in 1907 and do without the amenities cheap oil gave us.  I'm not among them.  Neither are the earthy-crunchy types, the bicyclers, the recyclers, and the organic gardeners who think they are.  What they perform is an elitist feint at oil-free self-reliance.  They're kidding themselves.  Furthermore, nobody can stand them, and they don't get along so hot with one another.  I live in an area teeming with them.  They might haul cloth bags to the Whole Foods market, but dammit they want their $8.99-a-pound organic blood oranges in January!  I'm trying to picture these characters whining about "getting their needs met" at 4:30 a.m. when they need to light the lantern and milk the goat!
:P

The documentary "The End of Suburbia" makes the point, and I agree, that no combination of alternative energy sources will duplicate the lifestyles cheap fossil fuels afford us.  I'm certainly in favor of developing alternative fuels.  It's a must.

I disagree.  There are many untapped energy sources all around us.  Solar energy is the most obvious one.  Electric cars are a very real possibility as well, as long as communities are willing to invest in charging stations.

We shall find it was much easier to build the suburbs than to retrofit them for life in the post-peak oil age.

I agree, but it all comes down to cooperation.  If we can't work together as a community to advance our society toward alternative energy, then quite frankly, we deserve to suffer for it....

What imperils us is our sense of entitlement to luxuries, comforts, and convenience.  We detest sacrifice and delayed gratification.  We may grow taller and live longer than we did 100 years ago, but we are not half as hardy as our ancestors.

Good points, but I think the obesity epidemic may prove to be the end of that.  Already, 75% of our society is overweight.  25% are obese.  When you consider all the health problems that come with these traits, you can imagine how much shorter our average life span will be when 90% are overweight and 50% are obese.  We've already started to see a fall as it is.  Heart disease is massive in this country.

In addition to this, as our health concerns translate to higher costs of living (along with higher costs for energy), we will slowly adapt to a much lower quality of life.  I'll bet you anything that America will be 2nd World by the time you and I are senior citizens.  The key is that I think these changes will be gradual enough for us to adapt to them.

The suburbs went hand-in-hand with they myth of individualism; that is, individualism in the Ayn Rand sense.  We sat isolated in our detached homes and isolated in our private cars.  We could get everything we wanted at the push of a button.  Nature no longer factored in, so we thought we had outdone it.  It was what Francis Fukuyama called "the end of history."  So we scoffed at cooperation and manual labor and neighborliness.  Well, we're going to need it, but it's going to be much harder to return to dredge it back up than it was to toss it overboard.

I agree.  This is where I greatly diverge from Libertarians.  I believe that government and laws should generally promote individualism, but paradoxically, community should be a voluntary choice that individuals make for the improvement of their society.  The problem is that much of our society hasn't figured out that community is an important part of living in a free society.

We're raised in an environment that stresses personal success but rarely mentions giving back to the community.  The most blatant example is rap culture.  50 Cent is all about "get rich or die trying," but beyond that, his existence is pretty hollow.  The same is true for so much of that culture.

There are only a few Americans prepared to work as hard as our forebears did in 1907 and do without the amenities cheap oil gave us.  I'm not among them.  Neither are the earthy-crunchy types, the bicyclers, the recyclers, and the organic gardeners who think they are.  What they perform is an elitist feint at oil-free self-reliance.  They're kidding themselves.  Furthermore, nobody can stand them, and they don't get along so hot with one another.  I live in an area teeming with them.  They might haul cloth bags to the Whole Foods market, but dammit they want their $8.99-a-pound organic blood oranges in January!  I'm trying to picture these characters whining about "getting their needs met" at 4:30 a.m. when they need to light the lantern and milk the goat!
:P


Very true.

Although, for what it's worth, wealth disparity is considerably lower now than it was back then.  Also, people seem less prejudiced and better educated.  We don't have racial segregation, we're more tolerant of gay people (although there still is work to be done), and -- believe it or not -- we are more educated.  There are still a lot of crappy education systems out there, but the average person in 1907 had very little education.  Also, the internet obviously allows us greater access to information than our forebears had.

The sad part is, Generation X was probably the last one to accumulate more education than their predecessors.  There has been a recent dip in education levels and quality.  Granted, more people have college degrees now than ever before, but there are a lot of people who still don't have a high school diploma or GED.  Others have a diploma, but they exited a really crappy school system.  Things like "Leave No Child Behind" have dumbed down our system, so we need to finally wake up and realize that a significant portion of our population isn't academic.  We need to restructure our system more like the Germans.  Some people will go on to become academics, while others are directed toward trades.

If we made these changes to our education system at the same time as moving toward alternative energy, we could successfully adapt our society to be more self-sufficient and able to handle a dip in the standard of living with dignity.

Good point about bigotry.  It wasn't just tolerated 100 years ago, it was expected.  It was normal.  Attitudes that are socially taboo today were perfectly normal back then.  You could literally put a sign outside your club that said "No Jews Allowed," and nobody would say boo about it.  Neighborliness as long as the neighbors look and think like us!
::)

With education, whereas there are more people graduating fom college than ever before, a college education is worth sell than it ever was.  When we revert from an "information and service" economy back to an economy requiring more manual labor (grunt work) by all, there might be more opportunites for high school dropouts.  I wouldn't recommend this as a course of action for our kids, though!

The most blatant example of get-rich-or-die is our own domestic policy.  It's FOX News, it's the Wall Street Journal.  50-Cent just has bad taste in jewelry and uses a lot of bad words.  The philosophy is quite the same.

To reiterate, I agree alternative energies have untapped potential, but I don't see them offering the same surplus abundance cheap fossil fuels afforded us.  The past 75 years might just have been a fluke.

I would think there is another factor more likely to limit our abundance of resources than moving away from oil: world demand.

As countries like China rise in standard of living, there is a greater crunch on the available resources to each of us.  Things become more expensive as more people are there to desire them.

Regardless of whether we move away from oil or not, we will feel the burden of a more populated and more consuming human population than before.  It's just that, by moving toward resources that we already have a regional abundance of (like solar energy), we can escape some of the consequences of increased demand.  Nuclear power is a greatly underused resource that Canada has proven is a cleaner way than coal to produce electrical power.

When we start making serious efforts to create a bigger nuclear power infrastructure, we will become less susceptible to the market consequences of the rising energy demands of the Third World.

I would think there is another factor more likely to limit our abundance of resources than moving away from oil: world demand.

As countries like China rise in standard of living, there is a greater crunch on the available resources to each of us.  Things become more expensive as more people are there to desire them.

Regardless of whether we move away from oil or not, we will feel the burden of a more populated and more consuming human population than before.  It's just that, by moving toward resources that we already have a regional abundance of (like solar energy), we can escape some of the consequences of increased demand.  Nuclear power is a greatly underused resource that Canada has proven is a cleaner way than coal to produce electrical power.

When we start making serious efforts to create a bigger nuclear power infrastructure, we will become less susceptible to the market consequences of the rising energy demands of the Third World.

In spite of nuclear power's tremendous drawbacks, I'll bet we will try to get more plants online.  The initial startup is a cost-benefit loser.  It takes an enormous amount of fossil fuels to get one built and going.  They also produce the deadliest biproducts known to man.  Yet nuclear is an option for generating household, municipal, and industrial electric power.  However, I don't see it doing much to satisfy our reliance on the personal passenger car.  We could use nuclear energy to charge batteries to run electric cars, but this presents a whole other set of complications.

Nuclear power has proven to keep the air much cleaner in places like Canada.  They have one of the cleanest disposal methods of any system.

I'd rather deal with the risks of nuclear waste than continue turning our atmosphere into an ashtray from coal.

It's a conundrum.. the problem with nuclear power is creating waste that will be seriously radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years (and seriously toxic forever).

There are very few places on earth that are long-term seismologically stable enough to store nuclear waste long-term (not to mention politically stable enough).

Speaking of radioactivity, I love your sig, phil...  lol

I know what you mean, but I seriously believe that sending the waste out into space may eventually become a viable disposal method.  It's prohibitively expensive at the moment, but I would bet that this will change sometime over the next century.

Nuclear power has proven to keep the air much cleaner in places like Canada.  They have one of the cleanest disposal methods of any system.


They better, 'coz when it gets unclean, you get grandchildren with three frikkin' heads!
:o

Speaking of radioactivity, I love your sig, phil...  lol

:)  I liked the joke so much, I made it my sig line...


I know what you mean, but I seriously believe that sending the waste out into space may eventually become a viable disposal method.  It's prohibitively expensive at the moment, but I would bet that this will change sometime over the next century.

It would have to be a lot safer/more reliable than space travel currently is, as well as economically viable: maybe if the space elevator ever gets off the ground...

Speaking of radioactivity, I love your sig, phil...  lol

I know what you mean, but I seriously believe that sending the waste out into space may eventually become a viable disposal method.  It's prohibitively expensive at the moment, but I would bet that this will change sometime over the next century.


Sending nuclear waste into space is never going to happen. As you say, the cost is prohibitive, but the bigger problem is if (when) said launch vehicle blows up over the Atlantic Ocean with x tons of highly radioactive waste, speading it halfway across the planet.

I'm sure one could build a cask to withstand an explosion and the subsequent thousand mile an hour+ crash into terra firma, but it would be so heavy you'd never get it off the ground.

I've been intrigued by Brazil and their fuel situtation. Ethanol is one way to go that would reduce or eliminate our need for Middle East oil supplies. It's not without its drawbacks though. The main ones I see are building the infrastructure to make it as available as gasoline and that, unlike diesels which happily purr on biodiesel with limited to no modifications, gasoline engines need extensive and expensive modifications to run on alcohol.

Ant

Sending nuclear waste into space is never going to happen. As you say, the cost is prohibitive, but the bigger problem is if (when) said launch vehicle blows up over the Atlantic Ocean with x tons of highly radioactive waste, speading it halfway across the planet.

I'm sure one could build a cask to withstand an explosion and the subsequent thousand mile an hour+ crash into terra firma, but it would be so heavy you'd never get it off the ground.

I've been intrigued by Brazil and their fuel situtation. Ethanol is one way to go that would reduce or eliminate our need for Middle East oil supplies. It's not without its drawbacks though. The main ones I see are building the infrastructure to make it as available as gasoline and that, unlike diesels which happily purr on biodiesel with limited to no modifications, gasoline engines need extensive and expensive modifications to run on alcohol.

Ant

Ant mentioned the major problems with nuclear waste spaceshot.  A minor issue is orbit.  We would have to invest in rockets powerful enough to shoot this sh*t completely out of orbit.  You wouldn't want billions of tones of atomic waste circling the planet as space junk.  The space craft we send out of orbit for scientific purposes can be fairly light.  We've never shot heavy cargo such as irradiated metals and water into outer space.  How much tonnage would each vessel carry?  How many times would we have to repeat the process?  The idea is absurd when you think about it.

Whatever we can do otherwise to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels is great, but in the long run, we're going to find we don't have limitless resources of anything.
:-\\

Whatever we can do otherwise to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels is great, but in the long run, we're going to find we don't have limitless resources of anything.
:-\\

My wife often tells me I should write a book... the one I have planned is all about getting fusion power working, and the couple of reactors that are all that's needed to supply all the world's energy needs (assuming nobody blows 'em up first, and a big enough grid to take the power away can be built).

The big problem with fusion is one of scale: the smaller you make it, the hotter it has to get to keep going.  So the bigger you can make your fusion reactor, the easier it's going to be to contain.  The book's barely science fiction, in that the mechanisms are all current science, with only one or two extra discoveries to get it working; it's more about the social/political impact than the science.

I've been intrigued by Brazil and their fuel situtation. Ethanol is one way to go that would reduce or eliminate our need for Middle East oil supplies. It's not without its drawbacks though. The main ones I see are building the infrastructure to make it as available as gasoline and that, unlike diesels which happily purr on biodiesel with limited to no modifications, gasoline engines need extensive and expensive modifications to run on alcohol.

Ant


True, Brazil made some very smart moves to become mostly energy self-sufficient.

My wife often tells me I should write a book... the one I have planned is all about getting fusion power working, and the couple of reactors that are all that's needed to supply all the world's energy needs (assuming nobody blows 'em up first, and a big enough grid to take the power away can be built).

The big problem with fusion is one of scale: the smaller you make it, the hotter it has to get to keep going.  So the bigger you can make your fusion reactor, the easier it's going to be to contain.  The book's barely science fiction, in that the mechanisms are all current science, with only one or two extra discoveries to get it working; it's more about the social/political impact than the science.

Fusion?  Might as well go all the way: Cold fusion.
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/10/sqcold.gif

They say cold fusion will never work, but they're wrong.  It can work.  I've seen it done.  I saw it done the other night just down the street from my house.  Cold fusion, what was the trick, what was the trick?  I'm trying to remember now.  Oh yeah:

5 parts gin
1 part dry vermouth
Stirred into a chilled glass and garnished with an olive.

And that's cold fusion, the savior of mankind.
8)

Ant mentioned the major problems with nuclear waste spaceshot.  A minor issue is orbit.  We would have to invest in rockets powerful enough to shoot this sh*t completely out of orbit. 


The bigger problem is that it's a waste of the energy it would entail.  For every kilowatt-hour we generate with today's reactor designs, a fast breeder reactor - 70s technology - could generate another 10-20 kilowatt-hours with the waste from today's reactor.

What we do today is take 5% of the energy out of a lump of uranium, and put the remaining 95% of "hot stuff" into the ground for 10000+ years, where it slowly breaks down and dumps its energy into the surrounding earth as heat.  An FBR would enable us to get another 80-90% out of that lump as usable energy, and put the remaining 5-10% of "extremely amazingly hot stuff" into the ground for a few hundred years before it's inert enough to be safe.

Carter (thanks again, Jimmah, as a NukeE, you of all people knew better) effectively banned FBRs in the US for bogus nonproliferation concerns; we've got enough bombs that we don't need to use FBRs for proliferation, and there are plenty of ways (NK, Inida, Pakistan by way of historical precedent) to (mis-)use conventional technology for weapons purposes.

The only good news about storing the huge piles of waste underground for 10000 years is that it'll still be there in 100-200 years, and still yield plenty of usable goodies when we come to our senses and start reusing it.  The Yucca site will be the single largest energy reserve on the planet.

Which is the long and roundabout way of saying that even if we had rockets cheap and safe enough to jettison the waste into the sun, it'd still be the most colossal waste of resources we could come possibly come up with.  Jettisoning millions of tonnes of used reactor fuel into the sun would be a waste of resources on a par with lighting the world's oil fields on fire in order to end society's dependence on fossil fuels.

The bigger problem is that it's a waste of the energy it would entail.  For every kilowatt-hour we generate with today's reactor designs, a fast breeder reactor - 70s technology - could generate another 10-20 kilowatt-hours with the waste from today's reactor.

What we do today is take 5% of the energy out of a lump of uranium, and put the remaining 95% of "hot stuff" into the ground for 10000+ years, where it slowly breaks down and dumps its energy into the surrounding earth as heat.  An FBR would enable us to get another 80-90% out of that lump as usable energy, and put the remaining 5-10% of "extremely amazingly hot stuff" into the ground for a few hundred years before it's inert enough to be safe.

Carter (thanks again, Jimmah, as a NukeE, you of all people knew better) effectively banned FBRs in the US for bogus nonproliferation concerns; we've got enough bombs that we don't need to use FBRs for proliferation, and there are plenty of ways (NK, Inida, Pakistan by way of historical precedent) to (mis-)use conventional technology for weapons purposes.

The only good news about storing the huge piles of waste underground for 10000 years is that it'll still be there in 100-200 years, and still yield plenty of usable goodies when we come to our senses and start reusing it.  The Yucca site will be the single largest energy reserve on the planet.

Which is the long and roundabout way of saying that even if we had rockets cheap and safe enough to jettison the waste into the sun, it'd still be the most colossal waste of resources we could come possibly come up with.  Jettisoning millions of tonnes of used reactor fuel into the sun would be a waste of resources on a par with lighting the world's oil fields on fire in order to end society's dependence on fossil fuels.

If Iran got an FBR, they could extract weapons grade plutonium from the reprocessing.  The Bushies keep screaming about how they don't want Iran to get the bomb.  India's got 'em, I think.  Anyway...maybe Jimmah Kawtah was on to something. 

To be sure the FBR is an attractive option if we could convert a higher percentage of fissile materials into usuable energy, but at some point down the line you've still got your hands full of hot stuff with the same conundrum of what to do with it all!

If we're gonna pump up the nukes, remember, we don't want any "small government" when it comes to regulating the industry!
:o

If Iran got an FBR, they could extract weapons grade plutonium from the reprocessing.  The Bushies keep screaming about how they don't want Iran to get the bomb.  India's got 'em, I think.  Anyway...maybe Jimmah Kawtah was on to something. 


Proliferation:  Problem is, you can just as easily get usable amounts of Pu out of most reactor types, it's basically all a function of  how quickly you cycle the fuel.  I vaguely recall the Indians pulling some of it off by fiddling around with CANDU types, whose fuel cycle starts with natural, unenriched uranium straight out of the ground.  (The rationale was that any nation could just enrich the uranium for less effort than it would take to build a heavy water plant.  Then the Canucks supplied 'em with the water.  D'oh, eh?)

Moot point for the Iranians, who will produce 5% LEU for their power reactors, which they will use for power generation.  Problem is, the amount of work it takes to go to 5% LEU is 90% of the work it takes to get 90%+ HEU. 

To illustrate the problem, consider the following three probability exercises.  You want to get from "A" or "B" to "C", but your only tool is a robot that pulls out a bead, scans its color, and throws it away if it's black, or throws it back in the bag if it's red. 

A) "You have 1000 beads, 10 of which are red, 990 of which are black." 
B) "You have 200 beads, 10 of which are red, 190 of which are black."
C) "You have 11 beads, 10 of which are red, one of which is black."

You have to draw 790 beads to get from "A" to "B", but only 190 beads to get from "B" to "C".  That is, going from 0.1% to 5% takes four times the amount of work as going from 5% to 90%.


To be sure the FBR is an attractive option if we could convert a higher percentage of fissile materials into usuable energy, but at some point down the line you've still got your hands full of hot stuff with the same conundrum of what to do with it all!

If we're gonna pump up the nukes, remember, we don't want any "small government" when it comes to regulating the industry!
:o


As for the hot stuff, that's the argument for the FBR.  Right now, we've got "warm stuff that's too hot to handle" for 10000 years.  The FBR will give you "insanely hot stuff that's too hot to handle" for 100-500 years.  More energy out, same volume of waste, but a much simpler disposal problem, because you don't have to plan for twice the length of recorded human history.  If the ancient egyptians had stashed FBR waste in the Pyramids, they'd have been tourist attractions by the time of the Greeks.

As for the small governments -- yeah, that's the problem.  If you have the tech to enrich uranium to the level required by a power reactor, you have the tech to build a uranium bomb within months.  If you have a CANDU reactor and the heavy water to moderate it, you don't need to enrich uranium, but you can futz with the fueling to get usable amounts of plutonium. 

So yeah, I know you said it in jest, but you hit the nail on the head.  Any nation that has nuclear power has the bomb.  You have to be careful about which nations you trust with it. 

So yeah, I know you said it in jest, but you hit the nail on the head.  Any nation that has nuclear power has the bomb.  You have to be careful about which nations you trust with it. 



  And gosh knows we  can be trusted with it, eh..?  ;)



If we're gonna pump up the nukes, remember, we don't want any "small government" when it comes to regulating the industry!
:o


  If I remember correctly nuclear weapons have been deployed in acts of war only twice, and that deployment was performed by the United States government against foreign civilians.  If you're suggesting that nuclear weapons are things that only governments should possess because that will make life safer for civilians, history does not back you up...

   And gosh knows we  can be trusted with it, eh..?  ;)

   If I remember correctly nuclear weapons have been deployed in acts of war only twice, and that deployment was performed by the United States government against foreign civilians.  If you're suggesting that nuclear weapons are things that only governments should possess because that will make life safer for civilians, history does not back you up...

I'm suggesting the government must strictly monitor and regulate the nuclear power industry.  I'm not talking about weapons.

I'm suggesting the government must strictly monitor and regulate the nuclear power industry.  I'm not talking about weapons.


  Oh.  That's how it came accross - dirty bombs and such...

I feel like I'm paying less for gas these days.  Of course I'm only filling my tank half-full but I am paying less at the pump

  And gosh knows we  can be trusted with it, eh..?  ;)

  If I remember correctly nuclear weapons have been deployed in acts of war only twice, and that deployment was performed by the United States government against foreign civilians.  If you're suggesting that nuclear weapons are things that only governments should possess because that will make life safer for civilians, history does not back you up...


...used twice, in the context of total war against an enemy that had demonstrated (to the tune of millions of its own casualties) that it was willing to fight to the last man, woman, and child, even long after the war was over.

...used twice, and never used since.  I loathe government as much as anyone, but even I'm not so nuts as to suggest that nukes ought to be owned by private citizens.  Nukes are one of the few areas where the fact that "government exists to perpetuate itself" benefits not just the government, but the governed.

As for history, it backs me up against rational state actors. MAD works.

When it comes to non-state actors, or irrational state actors, all bets are off.  It's still an open question as to how rational NK and Iran want to be.  I think China's got Kim on a short leash, and he's been put on notice that he did something very naughty and that he'd damn well better not do it again.  Remains to be seen whether Putin will do the same to Iran... or if he'll simply give 'em the tools to finish the job and start Cold War II.  Gonna be an interesting decade. 

MAD works.

As well as having possibly the most appropriate acronym, ever.


Gonna be an interesting decade. 

As in the Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times"

I feel like I'm paying less for gas these days.  Of course I'm only filling my tank half-full but I am paying less at the pump

Ba-da-bing, Ba-da-boom!  You oughta send that one to Jay Leno.
:P

As well as having possibly the most appropriate acronym, ever.
As in the Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times"

They said MAD works when we were growing up in the Cold War.  We asked, "What do we do if it stops working?"
They said, "Put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye!"
:o

http://www.mchenrycountyblog.com/uploaded_images/What-me-worry-715603.jpg

So I thought about that Chinese proverb while eyeballing the frightful times ahead, and I thought, "At least they won't be boring!"  That was 1988, I believe.
:-\\

Ba-da-bing, Ba-da-boom!  You oughta send that one to Jay Leno.
:P
thanks Max, but uhh,  :-[    I'm really doing this to not feel like I'm getting gouged at the pump  ;D  I'll get 25-30 bucks worth, instead of filling up and paying 40-50$ and it helps somewhat

thanks Max, but uhh,  :-[    I'm really doing this to not feel like I'm getting gouged at the pump  ;D  I'll get 25-30 bucks worth, instead of filling up and paying 40-50$ and it helps somewhat

Another way to psych yourself out is to top her off when the tank is still 3/4 full.  I did that at the worst of the post-Katrina spike.  Might do it again.
;)

Another way to psych yourself out is to top her off when the tank is still 3/4 full.  I did that at the worst of the post-Katrina spike.  Might do it again.
;)
It's more trips to the pump, but you're only shelling out about $15bucks a pop and that's Diane. she doesn't like her tank going below 1/2 & will fill up at that point whereas  I like it when the pretty fuel light comes on and pleads with me to get gas

It's more trips to the pump, but you're only shelling out about $15bucks a pop and that's Diane. she doesn't like her tank going below 1/2 & will fill up at that point whereas  I like it when the pretty fuel light comes on and pleads with me to get gas


  Or take it further still and wait until you run it empty and stall on the side of the road in north Vallejo at midnight and have to push your load to the gas station...

  That happened to someone I know... ::)

   Or take it further still and wait until you run it empty and stall on the side of the road in north Vallejo at midnight and have to push your load to the gas station...

   That happened to someone I know... ::)
no way  :o  dude, you should have called, I would have provided roadside assistance. That used to happen to me a lot when I was a younger wilder version of myself.  north Vallejo??  anywhere in Vallejo at midnight broke down or stalled out of gas is not good. how much is the cheapest gas in Crockett?

I'm gonna take this with a grain of salt, but GM says they're gonna have this vehicle in production by the end of the decade.

Take it for what it's worth, but if it's true (and if it turns out to be reliable), I may bite.

http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Volt

no way  :o   dude, you should have called, I would have provided roadside assistance. That used to happen to me a lot when I was a younger wilder version of myself.  north Vallejo??  anywhere in Vallejo at midnight broke down or stalled out of gas is not good. how much is the cheapest gas in Crockett?


  Gas here in town is around $3.20 for regular.  The night in question I was running on fumes and I knew it, but I'd always made it before..!  Thanks for the Badfinger Auto Club offer.  I'm sure it's better than AAA...

  This guy standing nearby helped me push and I offered him a twenty-spot for his trouble.  The gas station was next to Six Flags.  Then he wanted to shake me down for another twenty, then a fiver, then a couple of packs of smokes.  I really thought I was going to be mugged..!

I'm gonna take this with a grain of salt, but GM says they're gonna have this vehicle in production by the end of the decade.

Take it for what it's worth, but if it's true (and if it turns out to be reliable), I may bite.

http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Volt
the CONCEPT CHEVY VOLT is a cool looking ride and zero gasoline. I like it  8)  I'd get one but I'm sure only the rich and AL-B will be able to afford them

   Or take it further still and wait until you run it empty and stall on the side of the road in north Vallejo at midnight and have to push your load to the gas station...

   That happened to someone I know... ::)

I never actually ran out of gas.  I could write a book on my car-related f*ck ups over the years, but running dry and konking out on the road is one I did manage to avoid.  That's surprising because I'm a denial-oriented person who procrastinates on the unpleasant until it's a crisis and I absolutely must deal with it!
:-[

Well, going to the gas pump is sure unpleasant nowadays, so I tend to wait until the red light flicks on.  I could have gone to the gas station the other night, but I was like, "Nah, I'm bushed, I just wanna go home, watch the tube for a bit and hit the hay.  I don't wanna think about gas prices."  So the next morning I went and filled her up before work.  Always a good grumbling topic at the office. 

("Bushed" is right!)
:P

(( MAD ))As well as having possibly the most appropriate acronym, ever.
(( "Gonna be an interesting decade" )) As in the Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times"


An Interesting Decade:  Exactly.

MAD:  Yeah, but without which we wouldn't have that the supremely cool "MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction)" track by Sigue Sigue Sputnik, featuring samples from uncountable movies, and the immortal lyric "you never lost a war by being too strong, and you're never too strong when you've got the bomb!"

Shameful teenage confession:  From 1989, when the "Dress For Excess" album came out, to the fall of the Berlin Wall, I kept a mixtape (with that track queued up as the first thing to play).  My last moments of happiness were gonna be doing 120 miles an hour on two-lane blacktop with a mushroom cloud in the rear-view mirror.  I had the image in my mind years before I ever saw the cover art of Three-Fisted Tales of Bob.

OK, so the roads would have been clogged with panicked civilians and I'd have absorbed a fatal dose from the fallout within a couple of hours of the first blasts, but it's the thought that counted.  Maybe I'd have been lucky enough to have been on a road trip when I saw the double-flash!  (Anyone who doesn't remember the Cold War is forgiven.  Remember how you felt the first week after 9/11?  We Cold War kids felt like that all the time.  First thing we did, Russian or American, was wake up and wonder if the Americans or Russians were gonna nuke us today.)

"So bomb ahead, bomb Japan,
Bomb Afghan- and Pakistan,
Argentina and Iran!
Let's go! Go M.A.D!
Baby, let's go!  Go MAD..."
  - Sigue Sigue Sputnik, MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction), 1989.

(Your thought for the day:  It was 1989, and they called five out of six countries by name.)

An Interesting Decade:  Exactly.

MAD:  Yeah, but without which we wouldn't have that the supremely cool "MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction)" track by Sigue Sigue Sputnik, featuring samples from uncountable movies, and the immortal lyric "you never lost a war by being too strong, and you're never too strong when you've got the bomb!"

Shameful teenage confession:  From 1989, when the "Dress For Excess" album came out, to the fall of the Berlin Wall, I kept a mixtape (with that track queued up as the first thing to play).  My last moments of happiness were gonna be doing 120 miles an hour on two-lane blacktop with a mushroom cloud in the rear-view mirror.  I had the image in my mind years before I ever saw the cover art of Three-Fisted Tales of Bob.

OK, so the roads would have been clogged with panicked civilians and I'd have absorbed a fatal dose from the fallout within a couple of hours of the first blasts, but it's the thought that counted.  Maybe I'd have been lucky enough to have been on a road trip when I saw the double-flash!  (Anyone who doesn't remember the Cold War is forgiven.  Remember how you felt the first week after 9/11?  We Cold War kids felt like that all the time.  First thing we did, Russian or American, was wake up and wonder if the Americans or Russians were gonna nuke us today.)

"So bomb ahead, bomb Japan,
Bomb Afghan- and Pakistan,
Argentina and Iran!
Let's go! Go M.A.D!
Baby, let's go!  Go MAD..."
  - Sigue Sigue Sputnik, MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction), 1989.

(Your thought for the day:  It was 1989, and they called five out of six countries by name.)

Jesus H. Christ, you're quoting Sigue Sigue Sputnik.  Where's my Dep gel and my teasing comb!
::)

Now I have to quote Heaven 17:
"Let's All Make a Bomb"

And as the low aggress the high
All you can do is sit and cry
You've only got yourself to blame
Don't try to stop me it's too late
My mind's made up, this job won't wait
There's nothing left for me to say

Hey! There's no need to debate
It's time to designate your fate
Take the M out of M.A.D.
Let's all make a bomb

Take one hundred scientists or more
Place in a room and lock the door
Let them confer for half their lives
Unlock the door, go in and see
What they have made for you and me
A brand new toy to idolize

Hey! There's no need to debate
It's time to designate your fate
Take the M out of M.A.D.
Let's all make a bomb

Although the war has just begun
Ignore the sirens, let's have fun
Put on your best, go out in style
Although our future's looking black
We'll go down town and join the pack
Let's celebrate and vapourize
:D

Jesus H. Christ, you're quoting Sigue Sigue Sputnik.  Where's my Dep gel and my teasing comb! ::)


Bring on the Tom Lehrer and Weird Al Yankovic! So long, Mom, we will all go together when it's Christmas at Ground Zero!