mountainhiker

Not entirely, but, you do have to agree that hamas has no "right" to continue to fire rockets into Israel. If they want peace they have to back off.

Actually I moved to a smaller house about 4 times as energy efficient as the old one, but also spend time supporting more investment in renewable energy sources, more grants for energy-efficient technologies and more tax breaks for energy-efficient technologies. Geo-thermal energy is what I am researching now because it appears that it will have a much faster ROI than some of the other technologies. The current economic environment is going to slow some things down speed others up. I suspect that obama is going to have some impact, not clear at this point what direction he will take, but am concerned that he may have a rude awakening when it comes to getting things thru the government waste land.

We went with LED lights in order to reduce consumption and minimum lights at that. Living in the mountains like we do, you hardly can justify any need for outdoor light displays, the deer and other wildlife never seem impressed! Most of my neighbors did have candles in the windows, LED of course. For some reason the people in the big cities do get obsessed with lights! <_<

You clearly have not done your research on some of the underling factors.

Yep, have to agree, environmentally-friendly technologies have to come first, then people have an alternative that we can only hope will be cheaper and make it a no-brainer for people to switch.... B)

Every time I have called it has been the call center in India, some dip-shit that calls himself "Bob" who clearly is Indian who know nothing and has no way of finding out any information unless I first provide him with it - catch 22. :info:

And your view of the constant aggression of hamas firing rockets into Israel that caused them to defend themselves? I noticed that you did not show the pictures of the victums of those attacks! Religion has less to do with this, than the fact it is pure greed and politics. Wonder why you don't have the same concern for the innocent victums of the hamas rocket fire? <_<

Not true, most US-based call centers are staffed by people that speak and understand English.

And these days the are a corporation in the same deep hole that all the other corporations are in.

Hey, As our resident communist environmentalist you should not be so hard on those of the working class, and this guy seemed to me like he has been working hard! Did take me a while to find him since he is not exactly on the "leading edge". :lol: :lol:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columni...-disproved.html Check this out! Maybe you need to be reading the news.....

From your icon it appears that you have not turned communist on us! A communist environmentalist - now there is a mental leap! The "100% caused by man" flag is getting ragged Simon. And with the current economic environment it just not likely that people are going to do a sudden shift that will harm them any further. Also with many places suffering from record breaking cold, trying to convince them it is really "warming" is a little hollow! You do have to look on the bright side, people are slowing turning things around and here in the US, geothermal energy is making huge leaps forward with land leases being grabbed up quickly. Several companies are jumping into the fray and we should see rewards quickly because of all the energy solution, geothermal has the quickest ROI of any of them. Look for this to be an area new research around the globe as they look for "hot spots" where they can quickly drill and generate renewable energy. This is "real science" that is being applied today. As real science gets applied you will see a reduction in coal burning as there is less ROI on it than things like geothermal. Running around waving the "stop burning coal" is a waste of time. <_<

Or maybe the students using some common sense! Bet if they had to sit in jail for 5 days they might suddenly develop some common sense. B)

And that is because in order to solve a problem you have to clearly define the problem and the causes. That has NEVER been done because of the shallow mined "caused by man" label. Now we are starting to hear that the whole global warming mess is 80% bull. Bad science shored up by short sighted facts. <_<

"Those workers are not there because they are cheaper than US workers, they are there because they are better than US workers" In 90% of the companies that I work with that statement is NOT TRUE, they are there because they are CHEAPER but that is not "off shoring" that is the issue. Offshoring is when the send an entire corporate function to say India, the people in India's ONLY value is CHEAP. Many offshore call centers for example have people that have a hard time understanding your language and most are reading from a script, vary from the script and they suddenly have computer problem and ask you to call back later, the ding the company twice, once for the first call and the second time if you call back.

"enormous numbers of false or fraudulent claims" - 10-4 that is part of the problem. In the US in certain areas it borders on criminal fraud. The same child being counted by multiple mothers to increase the amount of welfare. And, as you said, some people do not have an issue living on the welfare dole. Most are also involved in some form "cash only" work on the side that never gets reported. On the other side there are many that thru no fault of their own find them selves out of a job and they deserve all the help they can get. "out sourcing" is destroying many economies because it not being used to grow a business but only to reduce cost, in some cases to the point of destroying the long term life of the business. At some point, governments may have to tax outsourced jobs to force companys to retain the skill sets needed to keep a business viable.

And the reason that GM is in the shape it is in is totally due to short sighted management. Toyota is producing smaller cars that get much higher mpg in the US. The company still has not produce a viable plan the keep it from going under. They have shut down all plants for a month, doubt that it will do any good. They are in the "perfect storm" due to bad decisions and labor contracts that pay people not to work (If any of you know of a viable company that pays people not to work, let me know.) <_<

"Butt ugly" as they say, but if was reliable and got good mpg, I could live with it.....

The issue here is that you had to stick the word "PROBABLY" in there because they are guessing that it is totally caused by man. The truth is as stated "We simply do not understand enough about climatic drivers to be able to say for sure" but in the mean time a bunch of shallow minded people want to blame everything on man :lol:

Highlights how out of sync that GM is with the rest of the world and raises questions as to the possibility of them playing catch up before the run out of money.

5 seconds of hardcore processor time is a difference.....

:lol: "lies without any scientific support backing it" :lol: not lies but weather reports coming in every night on the US news and weather Biggest snow storm in 30 years hits Las Vegas You are making the same mistake you are accusing others of, you are blinding your self to the facts.

Welcome and your perspective acquired at Tufts should prove interesting. :D

:lol: :lol: Wrong far from the 5%! I too see a real issue with CEO's that receive mega-million dollar packages for failure to produce value, but, that has nothing to do with the issue. The danger with the concept of "wealth redistribution" is that it is welfare by any other name and its hard to overhaul a welfare system if you are increasing the $$ value of being unemployed. The only true way to accomplish "wealth redistribution" is to increase the salaries of those on the lower end of the chain while decreasing the salaries at the top. One of the issues is paying managers "bonuses" regardless of value produced. A real problem with the concept of "money is shared evenly" is the false assumption that all contribute evenly and I can assure that is a totally false concept in and of itself. No society can survive if all are paid the same regardless of them working or not or the false assumption that all work has the same value. <_<

But to be totally Kawaii the avatar should be a cartoon like character. Cuteness is accepted in Japan as a part of Japanese culture and national identity, Pikachu, a character from Pokémon, adorns the side of three All Nippon Airways passenger jets.