http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/international/middleeast/14armor.html

Us troops still without proper body armor in Iraq?  Yep.

Impeach the bushco inc. administration.  This is way worse than a "lewinsky" in the oval office.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/12/national/12water.html

Now that composting toilets are legal here in Wisconsin, will water short exurbs like Waukesha use them?  Or will they instead slant drill the great lakes dry?

Will technology that mixes compressed air with water to clean clothes, people, and dishes be adopted in time?  It can save over half the water normally used for those purposes, and use less soap doing it.  Making waste water treatment and recycling a lot easier.

Here it might happen, and show the way out of the global water crisis.  Wisconsin manufacrurers need to get on this immediately, if not sooner!  Revive old bucky Fuller patents and just do it!

And Wisconsin government better get out in front of this effort.  Show the rest of the US how it's done Wisconsin!

War            Tonnage           Length Tonnage/Month
WW II           2,150,000       45 months               47,777.78
Korea           454,000         37 months               12,270.27
Vietnam/SEA     6,162,000       140 months              44,014.29
Gulf War        60,624          1.5 months              40,416.00

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/desert_storm.htm

I haven't found stats for Iraq yet.

Well preliminary estimates are in and food turns out to be 1/10nth the price of bombs.

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/weapons/l/aabombs3.htm

Bombs come in at 10 dollars per pound or much much much more!

Flour, corn meal, milk powder, soy protien in bulk of course.  What a government surplus program would buy them for comes in around 1 dollar per pound.  So figuring one pound per day per person as a basic ration.

The 20,000 pounds of food dropped equivalent in cost  to only one 2000 pound bomb would keep 500 people going for 40 days!!

Anyone know how many tons of bombs were dropped on Iraq so far?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1726745,00.html

But they were there in the 80's, and this genetic tracking of the anthrax Saddam had before Gulf War 1 proves where they came from.  DNA evidence proves it.

Biological warfare experiments by the US using anthrax taken from the UK bio-weapons effort

The Reagan/Bush administration is the source of Saddam's anthrax, positive genetic proof exists.

Has the statute of limitations run out on this criminal activity by the Reagan regime?  I doubt it.  So why aren't these Reagan officials being investigated for indictment?  Does anyone remember Rummi meeting with Saddam?  Pictures were taken and are still around of that meeting in the 80s.

I guess it does not "rise to the level" eyyh bushco inc sheople?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/09/automobiles/09mini.html?hp&ex=1123646400&en=39dec4f0be9f3532&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Are there any more moronic, imbecilic executives in corporate boardrooms anywhere than these guys who made the fellow that lead the GM effort in china to produce these 43 mpg $5000 minivans...RESIGN??!!!

Instead he should have been made CEO!! 

GM stockholders, workers, public pension funds, mutual funds should ALL call for the removal of these idiots who have moved GM bonds to junk status.

This level of corruption and incompetence is truly astounding.  The solution to the oil crisis is here now and GM won't let it be sold here?  Is there any doubt that big oil runs the US automakers now?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/06/opinion/06tierney.html?ex=1280980800&en=ece16163d5ad8440&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

amazingdrx - 8:18 AM ET August 8, 2005 (#2874 of 2874)

This column deserves as much critical thought as...

This anecdote: "Once the Arctic ice is gone, oil tankers will have a shorter path to travel. And that will save oil!!"

These neos (conservative, liberal, and libertarian)are intellectual throwbacks to sophism, and that is painting their nonsense in it's best light.

In the second half of the 5th century B.C., and especially at Athens, "sophist" came to be applied to a group of thinkers who employed debate and rhetoric to teach and disseminate their ideas and offered to teach these skills to others. Due to the importance of such skills in the litigious social life of Athens, acclaimed teachers of such skills often commanded very high fees. The practice of taking fees, coupled with the willingness of many practitioners to use their rhetorical skills to pursue unjust lawsuits, eventually led to a decline in respect for practitioners of this form of teaching and the ideas and writings associated with it.

http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Sophist

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/8/7/121734/2911

Call and response from the moveon forum....answered this question without the faux Menckenisms of beltway big shot think tankery.

The call for theocratic "edjeeekashun"...

http://www.actionforum.com/forum/scores.html?&comment_id=254677

And the response..

119. Your mode of reasoning Cynthia.

Survival of the fittest? Your flawed powers of logic make for an evolutionary dead end.

American workers educated in southern christian academies are finding that out about now.   New Japanese auto factories are going to Canada for highly skilled workers and low cost production to compete with China, instead of previous locations in the southern US.

Faith based education tends to create a mind set opposed to science and technolgy. Inovation thrives where reason and the scientific method are the core of public education.  Withdrawal of government support for public education in favor of religious private schools in those regions is to blame.

The US cannot compete on a global economic and (thus) a military stage with China, India, Japan...and on and on..

..with faithbased christian acdemy education. Public education relying on the finest current scientific knowledge base is necessary. Without it we the people are economic toast, and the US is a soon to be has been super power like the UK is now.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/7/18/1459/58709#51

Mountain wildreness siting may not be best?

I would favor installations on marginal farmland on the northern great plains to mountain wilderness habitat. 

A portion of the revenue from the machine could fund bio-remediation of problems leftover from farming (grazing cattle and monocrop chemical agriculture are incredibly destructive),as well as the compaction of soil, erosion, and habitat disruption caused by the wind installation itself.

And unlike other sources of energy like nuclear, coal, and oil, the temporary disruption  from wind power  would not turn into the  permanent devestation of toxic and radioactive contamination of groundwater, air, lakes, and rivers.

Sound deadening technolgy, both passive and active (systems that cancel noise by emitting sound waves that cancel out the noise) ought to be reseached and considered for  every wind installation.  Any objectionable level  of  noise pollution is totally unecessary to efficient wind power conversion.

And think of inexpensive wind power used to power cleanup of radioactive and other toxic waste, pumps and filters running for decades if necessary.  Wind power would make that financially  possible.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/8/3/53622/56643

I am researching a comparison of the cost of dropping bombs versus dropping food.  Malthus and Fuller both pointed out that shortage is what makes the four horsemen ride.

Here's a corollary question, would dropping food laced with birth control compounds be ethical or even technically possible?  I know this is done with pidgeons.  Where women and children are chattel I fear this comparison is disgustingly apt.

Would it be seen as demeaning by progressives and evildoing by fundamentalists were it applied to human overpopulation?

It seems to me that massive quantities of food air dropped, without invasion, occupation, and nation building might save a region from disastrous genocide and disease temporarily.

And birth control might save it permanently.  Hopefully voluntarily used by women who have reclaimed their reproductive rights from oppressive patriarchal theocracies.

Maybe the concept of war of intervention itself ought to be re-thought.  Wasn't that what President  John F. Kennedy was trying to do with the peace corps?

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/8/4/145751/7934

Microcap companies like this will most likely lead the way to the future, while the big old monstrous oil monopoly corporations, like Exxon  are dragged into the future kicking and screaming, collecting every last dime for every last drop of oil they can find

This system does not even use the new Toshiba quick charge lithium battery, which should make it perform much better, on charging, range,low temperature tolerance, and battery life.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8358264/site/newsweek/#storyContinued

Will's piece is yet another collection of unrelated misinformation used to pander to fundamentalism while appearing to embrace reason. His schlock in trade.

Creationism is tautological because it is not "falsifiable"?  It is like a mathematical theorem  a=a, that is true by the nature of the terms used and the rules of logic and therefore contains no useful scientific information?

Sorry George, creationism does not rise even to this low level of rationality.  It is also internally inconsistent.  Like stating a= not a.

Will is misusing a classic philosophical distinction between the nature of truth, analytic (tautological) truth and synthetic (emprical, scientific) truth to give more credit to creationism than it deserves.  Religion is not mathematical in it's use of logic.

(Pythagoras believed that mathematics was THE religion and formed a cult base upon it, but that is just the reverse.)

Just because someone is considered a "prominent" politically correct wing nut celebrity like Will, does not mean he is immune to the rules of logic.

It is (alleged) thinking like this that brought us the sorry spectacle of former POW, war hero Sen. John McCain being lectured by Bill O'Really (sic, very sick)on the efficacy  and legality of torture. (Featured on "The Daily show", does anyone actually watch O'Really after the falaffel/loufa incident?)

And George, social darwinism is not Darwinism at all.  It is disinformation that ought to be exposed by progressives everywhere, everytime as not only ridiculous, but also racist and fascist.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=6975

If Bechtel's contract in Iraq is extended to include "distribution of water," just as Halliburton's was for oil, the people of Iraq have much to fear. Bechtel is one of the top-ten water privatization firms in the world. After privatizing the water system in Cochabamba, Bolivia, a subsidiary of Bechtel made water so expensive that many were forced to do without. The government met public protests with deadly police force. Bechtel waited. Finally, the Bolivian government canceled Bechtel's contract. The company responded with a $25 million lawsuit for lost profits.

Of course the solution to every problem resides in privitization and "free" market solutions for the neo-poltocos (be they neo..liberal, conservative, or libertarian).

Government of, by, and for we the people can do nothing right. So turn over control of earth, air, fire, and water to beneficent corporate monopoly power.

That is their idea of "free" markets.  Upin which they base their arguments to destroy democracy and replace it with a corportate dictatorship of the proletariat.

A happy, happy, joy, joy state where corporate "citizens" lend their extra special rights to provide a protective shield over citizens who have had their rights taken away from them in order to facilitate  absolute corporate power.

But they only protect those who remain loyal serfs in the corporate feudal system.  The troublemakers who fight back are met with "deadly force".

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/8/2/131352/9621

I think it is an attempt at humor ice?

As with all this kind of humor relying on flawed facts, the fundamental(ist?) fallacies kill the joke.

Not funny, just pathetic.  Like Dennis Miller has become, for instance.  Or "South Park".

Wing nut political correctness is no laughing matter it would seem?  The deaths caused by continuous energy war always loom in the background of their alleged satire.

Oh saw a great feature on your hydrogen efforts on PBS here last night.  And the Oshinksy's metal hydride hydrogen storage system.  It looks very promising!!

I still REALLY like those Toshiba quick charge batteries though as an alternative.  They would charge up with your abundant geothermal electric power too.  But maybe for your fishing fleet hydrogen would be better.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/7/22/16354/4347

I am proposing that research dollars be devoted to this effort shifting from  chemically based agriculture.

I am arguing that organic production of food could match the productivity of chemically based agriculture using these technological advantages and that would raise the supply of organic food and lower it's cost to consumers.

That competition in the cost arena would in turn eliminate the "elite" label that some place upon it.  Although I do not feel this eliteism critique is realistic.  I think it is just another way to denigrate organic agriculture for political purposes.

Publicly supported universties and university extension programs ought to work with engineering and computer research deparments to get this done.

Continuing on the course of stronger and stronger chemical pestices, herbicides, and fertilizers, genetically altered organisms, and mono-culture is self defeating.

It destroys natural organisms in the soil that rebuild it, kills the predators of harmful insects, and actually makes the weeds and insects targeted by the chemicals ever stronger by this inatural form of natural selection.  Roaches shall inherit the earth!

Labor saving, productivity enhancing, robot garden equipment, wind and solar electric powered that is guided by expert human gardeners can make organic food production surpass chemical agriculture. 

Think how great it will be to eat fantastically tasting and healthy food everyday that people can afford.  The percentage of vegetarians would rise exponentially, obesity and heart disease would decrease.

I would live on tomatos myself, if I could get really good ones all the time.

I think cancer rates would also fall rapidly.