Archive through May 09, 2001

The ClubHouse: General Archives: June - July Archives: Speak Out for the Future: Archive through May 09, 2001

Zeb

Tuesday, May 08, 2001 - 09:46 am Click here to edit this post
"Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is."


- Barbara Bush (Former US First Lady)

Max

Tuesday, May 08, 2001 - 09:54 am Click here to edit this post
Well, George H. W. Bush lied, too. "Read my lips! No new taxes!"

Politicians lie. Personally, I'd rather have them lie about their sex lives than my tax dollars, but that's just me.

Ocean_Islands

Tuesday, May 08, 2001 - 09:59 am Click here to edit this post
I was not addressing the honesty issue with the creation of this thread, only policy issues. George Bush's policies are hell bent on disregarding what is important to non-corporate Americans.

Our vice president made $36 million last year from energy companies. Now he says that energy conservation has no place. Is he an idiot? No, he's smart enough to know which side his bread is buttered on, but this is a cynical and destructive approach to America's heritage: our natural resources.

Twiggyish

Tuesday, May 08, 2001 - 10:05 am Click here to edit this post
Yup Max!!

Moondance

Tuesday, May 08, 2001 - 12:39 pm Click here to edit this post
Bingo Max!

Exactly OI!

Max

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 08:51 am Click here to edit this post
Scary news of the day:
Cheney urges 'fresh look' at nuclear power

Nuclear power can both solve America's energy woes and help protect the environment, Vice President Dick Cheney told CNN on Tuesday.

The answers, Cheney said, lie in increasing the supply of energy sources -- a policy that would include giving nuclear power "a fresh look."

"It is a safe technology and doesn't emit any carbon dioxide at all," the vice president said in an interview with CNN's John King. "With the gas prices rising the way they are, nuclear is looking like a good alternative."

Robert Kennedy Jr., of the Natural Resources Defense Council, rejected the idea that nuclear power could be a good idea.

"There hasn't been a nuclear plant proposed since 1973 ... and the reason for it is because it is just not economical," Kennedy said. "It still requires huge government subsidies to make it work and we still don't know what we are going to do with the waste for the next thousand years."

Cheney acknowledged that the problem of nuclear waste was "a tough one" and that the United States would need to establish a single location to dump the waste, a program he said has been very successful in Europe.

"Right now we've got waste piling up at reactors all over the country," he said. "Eventually, there ought to be a permanent repository. The French do this very successfully and very safely in an environmentally sound, sane manner. We need to be able to do the same thing."

Cheney foresees an additional 1,300 to 1,900 new power plants over the next 20 years to meet demand -- some of which could be nuclear plants -- along with a number of refineries to process oil.

"By our own choice we have not built new refineries in over 25 years," Cheney said

Promise to reduce CO2 emissions 'a mistake'
Cheney outlined a coming report from a task force he headed to help define the administration's energy policy. Although he provided few specific details, the vice president said that the increased demand for energy could be met with more coal production and exploring for oil on federal lands.

Answering critics who charge that coal use puts too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, Cheney said that new technology had lessened the emissions, and that President George W. Bush's campaign pledge to reduce such emissions was a mistake.

"It was a mistake because we aren't in a position today to ... cap emissions," he said. "But we can do a lot of work to clean up coal technology."

Cheney said that advances in technology make it possible for fuel production to increase efficiently without damaging the environment, adding that the nation has "a great track record" in that regard.

"There are lots of ways we can use technology to get better, more efficient," Cheney said, "... without saying to the American people, 'You've got to live in the dark. Don't enjoy the things that our modern society brings you.' That shouldn't be necessary."

No help with high costs
Cheney said the administration has no plans to back a reduction in the gasoline sales tax or to demand that the oil-producing nations reduce the cost of oil so that consumers could get a break on the rising costs.

Rolling blackouts went into effect in California on Monday as temperatures rise and electricity imports dwindle.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said on Monday that President George W. Bush would not "focus on political solutions to get you through the night."

"He's going to focus on long-term solutions to get you through the night and the day," Fleischer said.

Cheney insisted that states like California -- where an energy crunch and record temperatures forced rolling blackouts on Monday -- should instead do more to increase the supply.

"What's happening in California today is they've taken the route of saying all we have to do is conserve," Cheney said. "And today they've got rolling blackouts because they don't have enough electricity."
California governor wants Washington to step in
But California Gov. Gray Davis, speaking Monday just before the hour-long rolling blackouts began, said his state was doing all it could.

California Gov. Gray Davis
"We need help from Washington today to reduce the extraordinary prices for power we are paying," Davis said. "I'm taking care of the rest of it. ... But price, under the law we passed in 1996, is exclusively a matter for the federal government to resolve and they've dropped the ball big time."

As for Cheney, Davis said the vice president had "really dropped the ball" last week when he said during a speech in Toronto, Canada, that conservation was not a sound basis for an energy policy.

"We don't want to act like monks with sack cloths and ashes, but we do and we can and we should be smarter," he said.

Cheney told CNN that conservation would be an important part of the energy policy, but said that with energy consumption rising, "we can't close the gap ... unless we provide additional supplies."

Twiggyish

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 09:01 am Click here to edit this post
Max, that is truly scary.

Ocean_Islands

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 09:37 am Click here to edit this post
The talk regarding conservation is scary and perhaps illegal, if Cheney is showing preference to the energy industry.

Talk about the nuclear plants is not that scary, since the US already has many of them. We probably don't need more.

It's clear now that Bush/Cheney want the CA crisis to continue to give more power to the energy industry.

It's also true that CA has screwed up their own state by: 1) not allowing energy bills to rise according to market demands and 2) allowing the state to become over developed. If the state cannot support its people, then something is wrong. There is already something wrong with their water issues, now they have energy issues.

Max

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 09:41 am Click here to edit this post

Quote:

Talk about the nuclear plants is not that scary, since the US already has many of them. We probably don't need more.




Sorry, but it is scary to me. I live in the Northwest and the situation with nuclear waste leaking at Hanford is no laughing matter. There simply isn't a safe way to dispose of this stuff. I don't know what France is doing with theirs, and I have no idea where Cheney thinks he can find "establish a single location to dump the waste". Maybe he figures they can pawn it off on some poor, unsuspecting third-world country.

Twiggyish

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 09:43 am Click here to edit this post
Ask why the children in Port St. Lucie, Florida have a high incidence of brain tumors. If you want articles, I can provide them.

Twiggyish

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 09:45 am Click here to edit this post
In case you don't know, St. Lucie County has a nuclear power plant sitting on an island.

Ocean_Islands

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 09:50 am Click here to edit this post
I'm not saying nuclear plants are good, just that since they already exist, the threats are with us already! {so we should ALREADY be concerned}

Nuclear waste is a tremendous problem for which there is no fair solution.

Twiggyish

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 09:53 am Click here to edit this post
Right, that is why I think it is scary to build more of them. Why not look into alternative energy sources?

Twiggyish

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 09:58 am Click here to edit this post
http://www.radiation.org/floridateeth.html

Here is one article, but I have others. This is something Cheney and others will not consider. Their children are NOT at risk!

Grooch

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 10:01 am Click here to edit this post
OI, how can Cailifornia prevent from being overdeveloped? It's overdeveloped because there are too many people moving in, but you can't stop them from moving in.

Ocean_Islands

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 10:02 am Click here to edit this post
I'm not sure and I certainly don't have many answers.

However, if costs were not subsidised/manipulated by governmental controls (on energy for example), then the true cost of living in that area would be revealed, and fewer people would move there because of the cost.

Also, farmland in CA has been drastically reduced due to urban sprawl. Not only does this mean less produce for consumption and the destruction of productive farmland, but it encourages people moving to the area.

There are laws against over development that could be enacted.

Ocean_Islands

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 10:07 am Click here to edit this post
I'm sure Moondance will have some answers once she gets home and can post them!

Max

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 10:12 am Click here to edit this post
OI, I am already concerned. What concerns me further is that Cheney is advocating building MORE nuclear power plants. He's totally ignoring the fact that the ones we have NOW are problematic.

Of course, there's much more than that to be concerned about in his statements. For example:

Quote:

Although he provided few specific details, the vice president said that the increased demand for energy could be met with more coal production and exploring for oil on federal lands.


There is just so much wrong with this statement! He says that new technology has "lessened" emissions that coal plants produce. Nice phrasing for a politician, but for the environment, less poisonous emissions are still poisonous.

Now, exploring for oil in federal lands....Um, like where? The national parks? National forests? The Alaskan tundra? How much of our federally preserved lands shall we rape and pillage so that oil companies can make more money?

I don't pretend to know the answers to the so-called energy crisis, but I truly suspect that the whole thing has a lot more to do with greed and mismanagement of energy sources already available than anything else.

Grooch

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 10:15 am Click here to edit this post
The problem is, is that the overdevelopment is happening everywhere here in the US. Eastern Long Island use to be all mostly farms, but now are mainly city people's summer houses and locals can't afford to live there anymore. The same thing is happening here in southern Fl and they are developing the everglades where we get our water and developing the farms. I'm sure it's like that in most states.

The people are coming no matter what you do. But it's the government responsibility to plan for this growth. But that's the problem right there.

Bijoux

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 10:53 am Click here to edit this post
California has some of the highest property costs in the country. The prices in California are usually a shock to most people. That alone keeps many people from entering the state. California's most productive agricultural regions are the Central Valley (Sacrament and San Joaquin Valleys), Imperial Valley and the Salinas Valley. Except for the Salinas Valley, the prime agricultural regions are not where there is the greatest demand for housing. The Salinas Valley specializes in high value horticultural crops such as strawberries and lettuce - crops with no government farm programs. Even though agricultural acreage has been declining, productivity has been icreasing, so there is more production for consumers. I would say that "over-development" in and of itself isn't the main problem. I would say that the private costs of development do not always reflect the total costs to society.

Some counties in California do have laws passed that protect land from urban development. In Ventura County farmland can only be converted into urban land by a majority vote during elections.

As far as the energy crisis is California. When the legislator deregulated the power utilities, they only deregulated the wholesale energy market. Retail prices are still controlled by the PUC (Public Utilities Commission). In addition, and contrary to recommendations, public utilities were forbidden to engage in long-term contracts because it was felt that the smaller suppliers would be unable to compete with the larger utilities, thereby reducting competition. California power suppliers must buy energy on the spot market at spot market prices. When the short-term spot market prices shot up last summer, energy purchases went down. Until the deregulation policies are changed to allow utilities to purchase energy with long-term contracts at lower prices, there will always be energy shortages in California.

Ocean_Islands

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 01:35 pm Click here to edit this post
Thanks!

However, Orange county used to be an orange grove, hence the name.

Bijoux

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 01:52 pm Click here to edit this post
No problem. Orange production moved to the Central Valley. California is the leading producer of fresh market oranges (Florida leads with processed orange production) in the US. It is true that urban growth will displace land used for other purposes, including agricultural land. Guess I just don't believe that that is a bad thing in and of itself.

Moondance

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 02:13 pm Click here to edit this post
My answers...

Have an earthquake... scares most from moving here and sends some residents now to other states

Put a bumber sticker on our cars...
Welcome to sunny CA now go home and take someone with you!

Spay and neuter your pets and yourself at the same time!

On a seriuos note though OI, you brought up some good points...

Bijoux said>>>Until the deregulation policies are changed to allow utilities to purchase energy with long-term contracts at lower prices, there will always be energy shortages in California<<< Right!

Moondance

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 04:21 pm Click here to edit this post
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Zeb

Wednesday, May 09, 2001 - 04:32 pm Click here to edit this post
Gravitational Implosion is Imminent!