Joe Miner

Well, I don't know what to tell you, but I'll ask my wife, she seems to be an expert...

I wish to know more about this electricity that is produced from oil.

True. Having an economy built on oil and natural gas is keeping OK going while other states are being hit pretty hard. I also have no doubt that the games will be pretty much sold out for the first few years.

5. Take care of the team while they are here, and fulfill all your contractual obligations to them. IMO, Seattle didn't remember that they wanted the Sonics until it was too late. In '95 I think, Seattle signed a 15 year lease on Key Arena for the Sonics. As part of their lease agreement there was a certain amount of upgrades and renovations that were to be done in order to keep the stadium and facilities competitive. Argue all you want about who should really be footing stadium costs, but the reality is that the city signed the lease. The city then didn't live up to their end of providing the necessary upgrades. When an out of town owner came on the scene, it was a pretty easy out to show that the city had neglected their responsibilities in the lease. If you are a city with a pro sports team, and you want to keep the team, keep the team profitable. Not only that, but be willing to pay for stadium upgrades as per your lease, and when it's time, be willing to pay for a new stadium. If a few years ago, Paul Allen had wanted to actually buy the Sonics he could have. If he loved the Sonics so much, why did he let Bennet walk in and buy them instead of doing it himself? He waited until it was too late, and perhaps, just perhaps, he just wanted the publicity of trying to be the savior instead of actually owning the Sonics. Don't neglect your team, and hopefully they won't neglect you. But in all reality in this day and age, it's still a crapshoot. I hope OKC remembers this in about 5 years, when they are asked to start ponying up some extra dough. Although they did just pass a new tax for some initial renovations to their stadium, it's only a matter of time before bigger bills start heading their way.

See, there doesn't have to be an argument for keeping it illegal. It's already illegal. You have an uphill road to climb. Not only do you need to convince them it should be legal, but you need to make them see that it's important for them to make it legal. That's why you're gonna need better arguments than the ones already out there.

So basically you're trying to convince people that marijuana should be legalized by being insulting and calling them insane for having it illegal. Brilliant!!! That's bound to work.

Seeing the joke of a system that California has on prescribing MJ for any medical uses, I'd say they're kind of shooting your cause in the foot. If CA had come up with a real prescription program that wasn't basically a free pass for those that want it to get high, then the medical argument would hold a lot more water. I have no problem with narcotics and other drugs that are used in hospitals, but would otherwise be illegal on the streets. I would have no problem for MJ if used in a similar manner. But that's not really the way it turned out in CA now is it? Other states really don't want that kind of system.

Listen genius, you're the only one bringing morals into this. For whatever reasons the people of this country have deemed marijuana to be bad, and thus made it illegal. We've (as in society as a whole) set a standard we (society as a whole) don't want people using marijuana. Here are things you can do about it. Work to convince people that you are right so that the laws are changed. Follow the current laws or face the consequences. It has nothing to do with morals. As I said earlier, if you want the laws to change, I hope you can come up with something better than the 3 common arguments that I've already listed. They already been used for decades, and not gotten you very far. If I was you, I'd come up with something better.

I love the whole "Marijuana isn't as bad as other drugs, so let's just continue with screwed up policies" argument. As if not being as bad somehow makes it ok.

Nope, try again. Actually don't, you might hurt yourself.

Wow, you are bad at reading. Perhaps the person that reads your tests to you at school can come over and read the posts on here to you so that you understand them better? Then maybe they can cross out your first 2 replies so that you have a 50/50 chance of choosing one that is correct?

How about stop voting for the people making the laws you disagree with? Start voting for people that think like you? When there are enough people that think like you that vote for a candidate that thinks like you, I'm betting the laws will change. Then we can avoid the whole dictatorship dilemma. But so far, I've not heard anyone with a very convincing argument that legalizing certain/all drugs would be a good thing. As I said earlier, arguing that this is a major fiscal liability is a joke. There is so many more large government programs that waste money, that in the big picture, this is a tiny drop in the bucket. Here are the common arguments I've heard for legalizing it: 1) Saves/makes money for the government if we tax it. 2) It's not as bad as other stuff that's legal 3) I like it, and it doesn't hurt anyone. IMO, those are 3 pretty losing arguments. Is there an argument that I've forgotten?

It's not an argument of that crime is worse, so it has no bearing on this crime. The point is, that no law enforcement prevents actions. Law enforcement only works after the crime. It's a bogus argument to say the law fails when that's not what it's supposed to do. Laws don't make you do the right things. They let you know what the wrong things to do are. The laws in this country set standards of behavior for the society. Law enforcement punishes those who fail to live up to those standards. What part of that equation makes people live up to those standards? The question is, that if we don't want people using those drugs as a standard in our society then what do we do to stop it? How about instead of lowering our standards (making drugs legal), we work on getting people to live up to those standards?

lol @ reading comprehension I didn't say it wasn't a worthy goal. I said it would do nothing to pull this country out of bankruptcy in the long run. You're pretty good at setting up strawmen and knocking then down. I mean dang, you really tore into that one.

Witty

Well crap. We haven't been able to stop murders or thefts since they were made illegal, so why keep trying? Dang, if we just got rid of all law enforcement, since that doesn't keep people from breaking laws, think of how much money we'd save. How the hell can you possibly know whether the majority of Americans want pot to be legal or illegal? You also realize you don't live in a democracy right?

Let's see smartass. So far in this thread, you're saying: The war on drugs doesn't work It's costing the country billions and increasing the size of government Some drugs should be legal Instead of legalizing all drugs, we should only go after the supplier, not the small time user I'm saying that if the intent of the people of this country is to stop drug use, how would you suggest doing it. We are already going after the suppliers, and as you've so intelligently pointed out, that's not working. So what's your amazing answer to this problem? If the war on drugs is a failure, then how is anything you've said so far gonna make things better? But instead of answering that, just use another impressively witty comment that deflects the fact that you have no idea how to actually make things better.

How is that going to do anything to stop drug use? It's already illegal to sell marijuana. And as you've pointed out, that hasn't done anything to stop people from using. If all you want to do is lower the crime rate, then yeah, change the laws and make more stuff legal. If you want to stop people from using the drugs that are currently illegal, how do you do that? If you are really interested in saving this country from bankruptcy, there are much bigger expenditures out there that would actually get the job done. The savings from eliminating the war on drugs won't do anything to help this country financially in the long run. If you're just interested in being able to smoke weed without fear of getting in trouble, keep bashing the useless war on drugs. But don't pretend that it's going to have any financial positives on this country.

Sorry as well, I should have tempered my rant better.

I don't know a lot about the design of the turbines. I'm sure it's probably possible. It's more likely that the costs of the design and materials to increase the speed limits are too high right now. I'm sure like anything else, in 10-20 years, that won't be nearly as big of a problem. At that point, the problem may be available space to build a wind farm. I'm told that we need about 10 acres per windmill. Each windmill is rated at about 1 MW. So 100 MW wind farm needs about 1000 acres. Again, the actual output is probably between 20%-30%of the rated value. So to actually get 100MW, you'd need about 4000 acres (25%). 100MW is really a drop in the bucket for a lot of utilities. For our 720,000 customers, we generate about 6100MW. So to even make a sizable dent using wind power, we're gonna need a lot of land. Then we start getting into the whole decimation of the Lesser Prairie Chicken issue, and our available space is reduced dramatically. Environmentalists need to decide. Green power or the lesser prairie chicken.

I work for a utility that sells wind power. I know how it works. We also "sold" wind power to customers at a cheaper rate when it was first introduced. Why would we do this? Several reasons: It is free fuel to us, which means we can pass that savings on to the customer, in addition to allowing us to throttle down our less efficient plants to meet demand. It also creates public awareness about our efforts to deliver cheap, clean electricity to them. It also allows us to determine customer interest as to whether we should pursue future wind generation. The electricity that went into their homes was not straight from a wind turbine. It went onto the transmission network, and was combined with the power generated from our fossil fuel plants (6100MW system load, 120 MW from wind). Many Utilities aren't even allowed to use their wind generation in their system model as base case load (6100MW). They have to be able to meet their system load with reliable power (fossil fuels usually). Wind power only allows them to turn down generation from less efficient plants, when the wind is blowing. Understand how electricity works instead of spewing ignorant trash. Some fun wind power facts: 1) High winds means more electricity right? Wrong The wind can blow too hard to generate electricity. What do I mean? Well, the wind turbines are only rated up to about 40 mph winds. At that wind speed, they have to be shut down, so they don't break. So, in addition to wind mainly blowing in the middle of the night (when electricity demand is at its lowest), it can also blow too hard to get any electricity from at all. 2) We have a 100MW wind farm. When the wind is blowing, we get 100MW free power. Wrong Last I was told, on average wind farms output power much less than their rated number. I believe in our typical experiences, actual output is around 20%. I've read of numbers as high as 30%, but I'm not sure how accurate those are. I'd feel pretty safe assuming about 20%. What does this mean? That 100 MW wind farm is really only gonna generate 20 MW of power.

This is a completely stupid statement by his spokesperson: You don't get to choose where the electricity you use comes from. Electricity from wind is not shipped directly to Al Gore's house. That's stupid. Wind power (and other things like it) allow utilities to run their least efficient power plants less when the wind is blowing. That's it. When the wind isn't blowing, those inefficient power plants are cranked right back up, because the demand still has to be met. By the way, the peak time for wind power: 2 AM. Average peak power times for utilities 2pm-7pm. By Al Gore using 19 times the electricity that an average person uses, he's not helping anything. Claiming that it's ok, because his power comes from renewable resources is complete crap. His own solar panels are providing a whopping 4% of his power which is means that his utility is still providing him with 204687 kwh/year. Which is still 18.5 times what the average customer uses in a year. If you want to actually figure out how much wind (and other renewable sources) power Al is using, you'd need to look at his usage all throughout the day, and then check his utilities power % makeup at each of those times. I guarantee you Al is using way more fossil fuel power than renewable power by a long shot. He's still also using way more fossil fuel power than the average American by a retarded amount. That's not the other side of the story, that's pure spin on Al's hypocrisy.

Ok, not solely directed at you, but I really don't think I've thrown Hardy under the bus. If anyone cares to point out to me where I did, I'll certainly apologize. Again, I don't think that saying he showed bad judgment in this situation is throwing him under the bus. In fact, I think I've gone out of my way to say I don't think he's a terrible person. If anyone finds a post where I said anything more than this was bad judgment or irresponsible behavior on his part, then by all means show it to me. I don't think that's what I've been saying, so if that's what people have been reading, then I should probably clarify my statements.

Technically that doesn't matter. Assuming he actually pulled it out.

Wow. Was it something I said? Holy cow, perhaps we all just need to take a few deep breaths. I'm not personally attacking anyone, not even Hardy (I really don't see it as a personal attack to say that your actions were irresponsible). I would be thrilled to hear that the old lady just finished off the last of her medical marijuana, and can't see her own shoes, and has no idea what she's talking about, and this whole thing is a media driven mistake. I just tend to lean towards that being more wishful thinking than likely to be true. Sorry that offends you so much.