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Re: FrontPage Magazine - Who "Misleads" Whom?

Aarch6 — Sat, 16 May 2009 09:37:31 -0000

One of the things that seems to be missed here and in this conversation is the fact that restricted, secret, top secret, etc. information was leaked from these briefings all the time. Turn on the radio, TV or Internet and immediately after one briefing or another, plans on troop movements during combat, locations of weapon systems and (yes) details on how or who we were "waterboarding." Often the quotes were attributed to un-named sources but also we'd see the members of Congress themselves recounting the information in it's dirtiest, just to break down the previous administration or effect an ongoing election process.

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi partially owes her current position in the U.S. House of Representatives to this very tactic. Whether or not she abused her past position then or her current position, following the 2006 election, is not included in the current debate. However, it's really about the information, isn't it?

All along, in planning, during combat and the continuing cleanup, statement after statement follows the various security briefings. Each comment to the press is treated as the "gospel" truth (even when from an unnamed source). This often leads to our troops needing to change their plans, our enemies gaining intelligence without the need for covert actions and to the deaths of our troops who walk into U.S. Congress, supported traps.

Sure, with that sort of record I can believe that the CIA would not want to tell the Congress everything or to mislead them but is that really the case here? There are minutes of meetings, outlines of those meetings, lists of attendees, names of the speakers, etc. Whether released to the public for review or studied behind closed doors, it can be verified "Who 'Misleads' Whom" and who was able to share with the public what was heard and how it led to changes in U.S. combat plans or the actions of our enemies.

I say, let that review happen, don't let Speaker Pelosi investigate herself and if indeed the CIA intentionally lied to the Congress for the purpose of manipulating their decisions, then let the perpetrators be prosecuted. However, if it comes out that any possible misleading was unintentional or was the result of the the attendees habit of sharing that information with the press, I'm sure Speaker Pelosi will apologize and step down, moving quietly into history.

- RIGHT -

Re: FrontPage Magazine - Jesus Supports "Hate Crime" Legislation?

Aarch6 — Sat, 16 May 2009 23:42:03 -0000

Simply put, Christ died for all of us and whomever accepts this and receives the FREE gift of grace he or she is given, that person is saved.

However, I have doubts that Jesus would have supported the hate crime legislation that increases punishment based on what one is thinking at the time that person commits the crime. As Jesus noted in Mat. 5:28, regarding adultery, the sin is not just when it's committed but when the perpetrator has begun to think about it. The maximum punishment is already deserved before the crime is committed. As a matter of fact, the maximum punishment is deserved for all sins for they are all separations from God. Thank God, He did something to take the place of that very, deserved punishment.

However, that's shouldn't be the focus of the clergy who're assuming to speak for Jesus on something He's already said. It's quite possible that should He come to speak for Himself, He'd be consistent with Scripture and rebuke the Christian clergy on both sides of the argument for losing their First Love (Rev. 2:4). Throughout the Gospels, His harshest words are for the clergy of His time who worked to fill their own pockets or improve their own image instead of doing God's work on Earth.

On a more secular note, if Congress does indeed feel the need to increase the punishments for certain crimes, in certain situations, then perhaps the punishments are too weak across the board. Plus, if they can determine that there was hate in one's heart when the person committed a crime (an ever moving standard), then they should demand consistency.

If a man kills a man, it's a hate crime.
If a woman kills a woman, it's a hate crime.
If a gay man kills a gay man, it's a hate crime.
If a black man kills a black man, it's a hate crime.
etc. (please feel free to mix and match)

Why should we limit it to only when a person from one unprotected group commits a crime against a person from a protected group? Plus, what group actually can qualify as deserving this special protection any longer? A transgendered person is the mayor of a city, a gay man holds the senior position on an important Congressional committee, women hold positions where they are 3rd in line to the Presidency, the Secretary of State and some of the richest people in the world, plus black men hold the position of the most powerful law enforcement agent in the country and the most powerful person in the world.

It seems that hate crimes legislation needs to be either edited to remove these groups, edited to include all groups (me as a veteran for one - there, I came out - I'm FREEEEEEEE!) or eliminated all together.

Re: FrontPage Magazine - Jesus Supports "Hate Crime" Legislation?

Aarch6 — Sun, 17 May 2009 00:04:27 -0000

Please bluelagoons, let the Bible guide you daily on your walk toward Christ's likeness. However, please do remember that if you accept one thing as sinful and thus lawful to avoid, you MUST follow all such things in the Bible to the same degree. There are over 600 Old Testament laws plus over a hundred more laws in the New Testament. You better get started soon.

Perhaps I can make two suggestions. First, look in Leviticus 18 for the clear statement that indicates homosexuality as a sin then flip to chapter 20 where it tells us how to punish such sinners (you did put them to death right?) and then move back to Lev. 19:18 where God tells us to, "love our neighbors as ourselves." Second, when next you are out in the world doing as we all as Christians are instructed to do, stop and find a gay Christian with whom to pray. Don't pray at him, pray for a healing from that particular sin just pray.

You both have accepted the free gift of grace and you both will be with Jesus for eterinty in Paradise.

Re: FrontPage Magazine - Jesus Supports "Hate Crime" Legislation?

Aarch6 — Sun, 17 May 2009 08:42:23 -0000

Thank you for your concern but I think you may have missed my point. With Irony and a list of a few obvious facts, I was trying to point out that keeping this legislation going is what is keeping the issue alive.

Taken to its likely end, it has a particular result that has always ended in the belief that one group is better than the other. Then, when that belief has saturated the society, there is slavery and death. This time it's not a few rich, white land owners who buy onto the belief that a black man can be property. It will be how a protected group reaches the point of so throughly defining itself as a victim that any crime its members commit are justified as the result of a real or perceived attack.

I believe we agree. All people should be treated equally and judged by what they do and not what they look like (or who they love). The only classifications a person should have applied to themselves is on how they've prepared themselves for life.

No one should get extra points for a crime committed against them nor to advance them beyond their abilities. Until that day, "classifying humans by race if black, by gender if women and by sexual orientation if gay," will continue.

Re: FrontPage Magazine - Barack Obama and Religion

Aarch6 — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:10:01 -0000

Perhaps his faith is without question. He's said he's a Christian so since people have died (and are still dying) or have been persecuted for making the same statement, I'm sure when he says this about himself, he knows the weight of that statment and does not make it lightly. However, if a Christian is known by his fruit, what has he shown that makes us sure that he is what he says he is? His faith is at best neutral, which makes him like the majority of Christians in the world today.

Perhaps his faith should be questioned. He's prayed as a Muslim, been educated as such, went to places where only Muslims are welcome and had others (i.e. Moamar Khadafi) state as a matter of accepted fact that he is a Muslim. Of course, he's been described as laughing while reciting Koranic passages when he was a child but is that childishness or a tool to say that he's not a Muslim? However, it's a teaching of Islam that one who leaves the faith is an apostate and deserving of death. Plus as we learned after 9/11, in regards to how Mohammed Atta was living a very un-Muslim life, it's an Islamic teaching to live as the infidels do and lie to the same as a means to hide among them. Could it be that he's only pretending to be a Christian to hide in plain site while a select few know the truth?

Of course if he had no faith at all, he could say or do anything to make points with one group or another. To a faithless person, it wouldn't matter what he did since to that person there is no God, only how far he can go while in this life.

For now I'll listen to what the Apostle Paul said in Romans 10:6 & 7, and if he says he's a Christian (thus on his way to Heaven) I'll still say that he is a Christian. It's not up to me to test his spirit. He's been given the power to lead by God (Rom. 13:1-7) and if he chooses to follow Christ to bring us all closer to Him, then we'll see his fruit clearly. If not, well . . . we'll see.

Re: FrontPage Magazine - National Geographic Stoops to Jew-Hate

Aarch6 — Wed, 20 May 2009 12:58:17 -0000

I agree. It seems that Lisa and Mark may be an amalgum of what "we" in the West are to assume it's like to be a person living under the "oppression" of Jews in Israel and thus are merely a creation of the author. Or, if inded they are real and did speak to the the NG reporter, perhaps the tone of their interview was a bit different and they'd love to get their story straight. Of course, there's one more possible reason this family was so anti-Semetic. If they live in a Muslim controlled portion of Israel (not "Palastine" that from ancient Rome), all the news they hear is from sources that allow only one side to be heard when this subject comes up.

BTW, if they lived in a Jewish controlled portion of Israel, theyed be able to hear both sides. The proof of that comes from the fact of how many Israeli Jews hate their government and all they do to keep them alive.

Re: FrontPage Magazine - What is Torture?

Aarch6 — Fri, 22 May 2009 17:29:37 -0000

What I'd like to know is, what do the Muslim oriented news sources say about this subject? When they talk about "waterboarding" do they explain what it is or do they just leave it at "torture?"

Consider the Iraqis of whom Mr. Gaubatz spoke. They know all too well what torture is. Many of them saw it, performed it or survived it. So when they hear that "America has tortured it's prisoners of war," are they thinking that 3 individuals were frightened enough to explain their plans? Or, do they think that our captured enemies were lined up and shot one by one while their families watched (or some other horror that S. Hussein did to his own people)?

Basically, our current enemies are getting all they need to recruit new terrorists or just by letting us self-destruct. How long can we go on being made to believe (as a country) that our performance of torture is common until it becomes common? A time could come that our enemies feel justified to torture us (in whatever way they can) that we'll demand that it's done to them in return.

Re: FrontPage Magazine - An American Leader Stands Up For His Country

Aarch6 — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:55:44 -0000

My worry is not that President B.H. Obama supports the United States, Israel and the war (not wars) in Afghanistan & Iraq but that he may have been saying something other than he believed to get a particular result.

Fisrt, he's a lawyer and that was part of his job description when defending a client. Second, when Glen Beck said on his show that the President has the same (stated) view on gay marriage, a fellow commentator said she knows that he really doesn't mean that. Could this be the same thing?

So, does the President believe what he's said (not just what he qualified away) or is he just trying to trip up his opponents and get support for the rest of his agenda?

Re: FrontPage Magazine - No "Racial Justice" for Whites

Aarch6 — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 22:02:34 -0000

It's really simple. Every time, since the first day of the Regan administration in January 1981, when a Republican was in charge, the left and the media put the acusation machine on full. Neary every charge turned out to be false and the rest exaggerated, but it was really part of a process. Continuously charge the President, speaker of the house or one Republican politician after another of abuse after abuse until it all seems normal. Then, when the Democrats are in charge, as if justified by the actions of their abusive colleagues across the aisle, they get away with it all.

It possibly goes back to President Nixon, who did make mistakes (not in a vacuum of course). No matter what Presidents Carter, Clinton or (now) Obama could do, it was never as bad as what the Republicans did.

Now, with the constant drum beat of the charges of bigotry and racism against the Bush (43) administration, no matter how far the Obama administration forces the pendulum, it will just be treated as balancing the scale and therefore justified. However, it's a false scale. There was no racism then but there may be now.

Equality is equality. Rev. Martin Luther King dreamt of a time when black and white children could play together and ALL men would be created equal. However, bescause of the need of the left to see through the eyes of color and race, children are sent to separate proms, sit at different tables and one young man who grew up to be President plus a young woman who WILL be the next Justice of the Supreme Court see themselves as better and more qualified because of the color of their skin or the language of their parents.

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Re: FrontPage Magazine - No "Racial Justice" for Whites

Aarch6 — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 21:24:18 -0000

Considering this case, plus other such cases that didn't make the news, plus the ACORN groups that paid repeating voters (as the young man in Cleveland who admitted to voting 72-times), plus those who lined up to vote early at election offices to see that election day would be meaningless (discouraging traditional voters), plus the quiet, lingering intimidation of racism ("Who me, a racist? Why I voted for Obama), divided by 50-states, equals more than the 2 percent that President Barack Hussein Obama had when the votes were finally summed up last November.

All in all, the Democrats that set up this election have been saying for so long that the Republicans are cheating that they act as if all they do is not the same (even though they keep failing in their accusations).

Re: FrontPage Magazine - No "Racial Justice" for Whites

Aarch6 — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 21:46:02 -0000

There's "deafening silence" because they just don't report on it.

Each time something happens with the Democrats and the left in general, we as a country are surprised because it just didn't make it to the news. Then when it comes to campaigns, as soon as the story comes out, outside the immediate players, it's the first tiem the country hears about it. That way the next generation of history books will find this portion of our country's story missing. If there's any mention at all, it will be the folks who actually questioned

Really with this case, was the story reported on the mainstream media because they were shocked that men in uniforms were "guarding" the front door of a Philadelphia polling place or that those, who supported the candidate who the men in uniform hadn't supported, were actually upset that this showed that this just wasn't fair.

What bugs me is that the left doesn't treat history as a teacher but as a balance sheet. Every time the column on the right is marked, "paid in full," the box is erased and the screams of "pay me now!" are repeated over and over. We as a country should monolithically be outraged that this sort of thing didn't end in the 60s after the riots. Rather it's become a case of nothing really has changed, only the players have.

Re: FrontPage Magazine - A Courageous, But Sad, Speech in Cairo

Aarch6 — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 05:54:31 -0000

"Well, look, there's no equivalency here."

Is it possible that after a lifetime of left-wing indoctrination and self delusion, President Obama might actually just now be seeing reality and there's a crack in that armor? I'm sure his "blackberry" was buzzing off his hip as soon as that statement made the air.

Re: FrontPage Magazine - Hate Crimes Against Freedom

Aarch6 — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:46:00 -0000

I know that on the surface of this legislation it is to increase the punishments for crimes against a selection of groups that have been identified as deserving special protection. However, it's already going the other way.

In the last couple days a radio talk show host was discussing the value of human life. A short distance from the studio where his show was produced, one man who didn't look like the other, beat the other to death with a baseball bat. The killer, who showed he had a heart full of hate by his choice of murder weapon, claimed that he responded to a racial epithet. Because of this, his sentence was reduced. The talk show host pointed out that to that court and particular local legal system, a human life was worth a sentence of 15-months.

So you see, the man who worked himself up, searched out then picked up a baseball bat, filled his heart with hate against the other man and killed a person who didn't look like the man he saw in the mirror, was A VICTIM OF A HATE CRIME. The other man deserved to die.

Right?

Re: FrontPage Magazine - Terror Averted

Aarch6 — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:13:31 -0000

"Instead, they are U.S. and Caribbean natives who converted to Islam in prison."

This probably the best argument for keeping the prisons in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay open. Once these Al Qaeda prisoners plus the actual P.O.W.s from Afghanistan and Iraq are in U.S. prison on our soil, they will be worshiped as heroes (if not gods). Perhaps they will be isolated, but how long will that last as the lawyers demand they have more rights and privileges? Perhaps some of them will have learned their lessons and are on their way out from what led them to join Al Qaeda or the fight against the U.S. but with the freedoms they'll get in U.S. prisons (general population, "prayer" meetings, lawyers, more lawyers and even more lawyers), will they continue on the path away from darkness?

The 4, would be successful terrorists from New York are going right back into the pit that forged them. Do we want their new teachers to be those who not only memorized the Koran (especially the kill all non-Muslim parts) but know every page of the Al Qaeda hand book as well?

Re: FrontPage Magazine - Terror Averted

Aarch6 — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:30:31 -0000

While Scott Roeder and James Von Brunn are abominations and should be condemned to the maximum punishment our system will allow, please don't forget that since 9/11 there have been quite a few of those "lone gunmen." Along with Abdul hakim Muhammad (oops, Carlos Bledsoe), there have been quite a few successful Muslims gunmen who have actually killed non-Muslims on U.S. soil.

Mohamed Hadayet, - http://www.factsofisrael.co...

Cho Seung-Hui - http://www.aina.org/news/20...

John Allen Muhammad - http://usgovinfo.about.com/...

etc.

These are not isolated incidents so much as they are battles in a war we didn't start but we WILL have to finish.

BTW, I especially hold Scott Roeder in contempt for choosing a gun instead of the Words of Christ to end his victim's work.

Re: FrontPage Magazine - The Trillion-Dollar Mistake

Aarch6 — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 10:07:13 -0000

The problem with this system (as with all such systems) is that a single person or group of people will be in charge. The decision of who lives and who dies will be in one department's or individual's hands. As it is with the IRS, that much power will corrupt those who are at the top. It's quite likely that these new power-elite will ensure that their pay aligns with their power. Also, their armies of administrators (think the Social Security office on steroids) will need to be funded. Again like the IRS, millions if not billions of dollars will be lost to mountains of red tape, corruption and embezzlement. Sooner or later, as administrative costs increase, the health care of the United States' citizens will decrease. A dying AIDS, cancer or Alzheimers patient will be told that their medication or treatment is just too expensive and they should have taken advantage of the Government provided, preventative care programs that were available before they got sick (regardless of how or when their illness began).

Finally making comparisons with "Public Health Care" systems in other countries is an EMPTY ARGUMENT! Countries where the whole population fits in the land mass of a single moderate, sized U.S. state or the isolated peasantry (read Brazil or China) are left to their own devices are not a good comparison to what the U.S. will end up having. The U.S. population has come to expect good care on a short schedule (whether public or privately funded). Even with the access to good hospitals and modern medicine in European countries, the wait for life sustaining care can be put off for months or even years.

How long could we live under an ever corrupting system, where we have to wait for care and where we have to travel hundreds of miles simply to see the doctor the government pays to service our particular illness or injury? We'll be right back where we are now with an segment of our population, who isn't being taken care of, demanding the government does something about the problem.

Re: FrontPage Magazine - The Trillion-Dollar Mistake

Aarch6 — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 10:25:59 -0000

Oh and one more thing.

As soon as we're no longer directly in the line of who's paying, like an executive on an expense account, is the individual on publicly funded, single payer, universal health care or whatever we choose to call it, going to choose the basic health care they need or the best and most expensive? Before it becomes a clone of the United Kingdom's, health care system, we'll have the government paying for millions of people who never could pay, getting millions of dollars of procedures that they may never have considered. Does anyone remember "OcotoMom?"

Re: An Open Letter to Obama on Health Care

Aarch6 — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:29:21 -0000

The way I see it, there are two issues:

First, a "public option" might be best viewed through the lens of "public schools." While free, basic education to every child who legally resides in the United States has solved a mountain of ills, it has become the "elephant in the living room" that no one wants to discuss nor can get rid of. Special interests and left-wing dogma have seeped in an made it more and more expensive while bringing the standards of education down. As soon as a parent uses his or her freedom of choice and takes the child out of the degenerating public schools, "the elephant in the living room" jumps to her feet and demands that the child stays and sets up a structure to ensure the child must either be "educated" to the same standards or that the child's choices (home school, private schools, charter schools, etc.) are given an environment where their foundations are constantly undermined. President B.H. Obama may be saying that nothing will be done to harm the current choices that most Americans have but how long will that last as the new bureaucracy's appetite grows and grows to need more and more money and people enrolled to survive.

Second also viewed through "public schools," look at how they are funded. For every child who is taken out of public schools, his or her parents are still responsible to pay their taxes to fund the schools they've left. Where I live in Ohio, this is done through property taxes. According to our State's Supreme Court, it's also unconstitutional ( http://www.schoolfunding.in... ) but we still fund our schools the same way. The people of this State vote with their feet and wallets, deciding to live where the schools are best. Also, the funds those schools need to survive tends to be lower per student than it is for the schools in our larger and poorer cities, at the same time offering more assets and better education. Although the funding our our health care won't be through a tax on our property, a tax to fund the "public option" will be taken from every Americans' earnings indefinitely. While the "public option," health coverage will be sold to us as being paid for by those who "choose" that method, the balance will be paid for through a tax on everyone else. The supporters of the option keep quoting an increasing 40-million plus number of folks, living in the United States (regardless of legal status) who don't have coverage (BTW, that's +/- 15%, meaning that about 85% are covered. What are they supposedly doing wrong?). A good share of those people don't have adequate income to pay for the "public option" and thus will be paid for by the rest of the taxpayers. As it is with the schools in the poorest of our communities, the cost for health care will be many times greater than it is for the balance of the country.

I also have to wonder if anything will actually change. Now a small percentage of Americans (and residents of our country) go to the Emergency Room of various hospitals to get regular care. Each time that happens, several thousand dollars are spent by taxpayers. That tends to be about 50 to 100 times more than it would cost to see a doctor in his or her office. That's 50 to 100 people who could have been treated at the corner doctor's office. If 10-people in one hospital do this in one week, that's 500 to 1,000 people who could have been treated in a private doctor's office for the same amount. If there are just 10 such hospitals in each of our 50-States which have that happen, 250,000 to 500,000 people who could have been funded for basic treatment may not have found what they needed since the money was gone. Now, if "only" $3,000 was spent for that emergency room visit, verses about $50 for an office visit, that means $1,500,000,000 was spent by the current system's taxpayers over, 25,000,000. That could have been a savings of $1,475,000,000. Over a whole year, $76,700,000,000 could have been saved. However we would be replacing one government system with another. When it comes to Medicare (for instance), many doctors have to limit the number of those patients they take on since the government currently finds ways to limit the amount of money or coverage for which they will pay. As the "public option" becomes common, will the doctors be forced to follow the same path? Also, with the refusal of the same government to limit law suits against doctors, will they just be afraid to treat anyone who comes in the front door seeing a healthy, successful doctor's practice as a potential lottery win. This will leave the current regular care, Emergency Room patient on the same path, charging the government many, many times more for basic care than it could have cost before.

As a solution, one option would be for the government to take their hands out all-together (or at least 95%) and have local communities look to the existing insurance companies and offer the same coverage that 85% of Americans currently use and encourage their clients to search out local doctors to whom they can set up a long-term relationship. This could reduce the cost to the taxpayers and re-encourage the establishment of local doctors' offices. When the families move up in their economic status, and they pay for their own insurance, they can choose to keep the same doctor or move to another doctor who's in their new company's insurance program.

Those who fall through the cracks (have pre-existing conditions and can't afford care or are here illegally), the government can step in to help. They can then ensure that they get the care they need and in the case of illegal immigrants, they can do their duty and move them into the process of citizenship, incarceration or deportation.

Re: FrontPage Magazine - Afghanistan's Rough Riders

Aarch6 — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:32:27 -0000

Finally!

Quick make the movie, show the Taliban as the bad guys and the Americans as the good guys. Avoid the the political garbage that creates moral equivalency and lets show the world that they were wrong to create a place where they could plan out attacks on our people.

Do this in the tradition of the WWII movies that made the Germans and Japanese look bad (because they were).

Re: FrontPage Magazine - What the Gates-Crowley "Teachable Moment" Really Teaches

Aarch6 — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:09:39 -0000

Hmmm. "If Obama were a Republican"

The incident would have been different. A black conservative is treated as if he or she doesn't exist, should be ridiculed or should not be listened to. Ask Hon. Clarence Thomas, Ken Blackwell, Lynn Swan, Condeleeza Rice, Alan Keyes, etc. what they think.

There would probably have been no press conference or else it simply would not have been on television. If any video was available, it would have been from a reporter's phone camera over Helen Thomas' shoulder after she made some demeaning remark about the President's manner of speech.

The issue would have not made it to the morning. The headline would have been, "The President actually has a friend."

Re: FrontPage Magazine - The Perils of Going Green

Aarch6 — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 09:55:18 -0000

Good point, the author didn't mention nuclear power. However, the article wasn't about that source. It was to point out that solar power isn't the "better mousetrap" that will take away from oil. Plus, if your note about the toxic waste produced from the production and disposal of solar cells implies we only have to learn how to better handle the stuff, how long should we wait until we use every byproduct the same way we do for oil? In the time it took from early desert dwellers to scoop up pool of crude oil to fuel their lamps, through the first oil well in Pennsylvania to the ubiquity of oils many products today; we've learned over the millennia what to do with it all. It's not just fuel but it's in the paint on your walls, the floor below your feet to the computer on which you're currently sitting. Like the Native American tradition of not wasting a single bit of a buffalo carcass, today's industries find a purpose for every component of the oil we pull out of the ground. They're even finding ways to utilize the carbon dioxide from its use as fuel to become a new generation of plastics.

We're not children putting things in our mouths. We're mature adults who've use what we're given wisely. With every new stage of development we're finding better and more efficient ways to use oil. Today's society in not addicted to oil as the president says, but we've built a secure foundation on an ever growing world of technology.

What I fear is that with the desire to push "renewable" energies, we're tearing down that sturdy, oil based structure and building a flimsy new one based on irregular sources (wind, water, sunlight and food) that could take many generations just to be functional.

By the way, while the rest of the developed world has been developing better, less waste-producing and more efficient ways of harnessing nuclear energy for power, our power plants are aging and in need of replacement. Sure we have a potential mountain of "nuclear byproducts" but Europe has found ways to recycle their spent fuel and reduce that mountain to a mole hill.

I think we agree on that there's something to be done here but unless we take an "all of the above" approach, we won't find the long term solution.

Re: FrontPage Magazine - The Perils of Going Green

Aarch6 — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 10:17:44 -0000

Exactly, it "sounds" right. However, there are quite a few problems with that. The communities that buy back your unused electricty are dwindling instead of growing and a 25 year warranty won't mean much if this fad of "free" energy disappears.

There will be fewer people who even know how to maintain that machine (whatever 15k is - I looked it up and got dozens of non-electric posts). All through the 90s I drove past a house that had a seized up, wind turbine is its back yard. The energy crisis of the late 70s and early 80s dried up and this property owner had no one to fix his behemoth.

If indeed the new owner of some "15k" sees that his unit will solve his electric problems, what will he do in a few years when the provider is out of busiess (or selling the latest widget) and there's no one to honor the warranty? That person will be stuck with a rusting, non-funtioning machine and have the balance of 20-years wondering why it's no paying for itself.

Re: FrontPage Magazine - The Perils of Going Green

Aarch6 — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:15:54 -0000

Agreed

Re: FrontPage Magazine - The Perils of Going Green

Aarch6 — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:25:45 -0000

I have no problem at all with alternative energy. I noted that we need an "all of the above" approach. This includes alternative energy. However, we have to balance the ouput with the effect. Right now it takes about the same (if not more) energy to produce ethanol from grain as it provides for fuel. Therefore, there's zero benefit. The energy it takes to heat and distill the alcohol comes from existing sources. That predominantly is from coal based electricity or coal fires. The polution doesn't go away.

Solar cells require vast amounts of energy to produce. Thats from the refinded silocon to the glass that sheilds each cell from the elements. Plus, toxic waste is produced to create each cell while the future hold the next crisis as the current cells wear out and must be separated (using energy) and a pile of toxins processed or destroyed.

All in all, they aren't simply a solution to our current problem, only a future problem we refuse to adress.

Re: FrontPage Magazine - The Perils of Going Green

Aarch6 — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:39:22 -0000

I don't doubt that not so long ago they thought the same thing about lead and asbestos. Lead was harmless, heck we were using to seal our food cans. Plus, asbestos was there to protect the children from fires.

Also, we don't need a child to eat a PV panel to be exposed its poison. As an example, for the decades up until until unleaded fuel was common, children were exposed to vast amounts of lead. Urban schools are and were right next to highways or busy streets and their homes, often apartment buildings were right under or next to busy bridges and overpasses. Lead in microsopic amounts continuously rained down. These children suffered from damage to their young, developing nervous sytems and learning ability. Their adult relatives also suffered in that the effects on an adult's nervous system appears like mental disabilities or disorders. They didn't need to chew on a single piece of lead or leaded product to have lead poisoning.

Now what's the point? We've been working for decades to resolve these problems and mistakes. We as a society have learned our lesson and are already making changes. The market and current technology have made the differences we need. We need to grow on that knowlege and build on that solid foundation. Ripping it out now only means that we will make a whole new series of mistakes. It turns us into children again, not the mature adults we've learned to be.