Anybody watch the 60 minutes interview with Al Gore???

miamimike says on Apr 1, 2008, 07:08:

Yes I did, thought it was pretty interesting!

"Wait a minute. What did you just say? You're predicting $4-a-gallon gas? ... That's interesting. I hadn't heard that." -- Feb. 28, 2008 --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C.,

Lcacique says on Apr 1, 2008, 08:43:

esanch36, do you work for Occidental? Just curious...

Hoy se nota en la floresta un ambiente de alegría. ¡Y el rumor de ranchería es mas dulce y sabe a fiesta!

LDW says on Apr 1, 2008, 10:14:

Lesley didn't ask greenboy Al about his own annual power bill?

What a surprise!!!

esanch36 says on Apr 1, 2008, 11:23:

I work for the greedy oil companies that want to rule the world....why do you ask

All right, I'll ask: How come it took three seconds to euthanize Eight Belles, but the Womens NBA is starting Year 12???

Lcacique says on Apr 1, 2008, 13:33:

What's so bad about attempting to move away from oil as an energy source?

Hoy se nota en la floresta un ambiente de alegría. ¡Y el rumor de ranchería es mas dulce y sabe a fiesta!

MaFe says on Apr 1, 2008, 13:50:

LC I don't think it's so bad at all....

"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire. "-Aristotle

esanch36 says on Apr 1, 2008, 13:51:

yeah but at what cost????? Renewable energy is not effecient yet and will cost consumers a shit load more. Plus back that with government subsidies and that will make it even worse. Im all for new energy source but only if they save me money. And can previde benifits to me as a consumer.

All right, I'll ask: How come it took three seconds to euthanize Eight Belles, but the Womens NBA is starting Year 12???

esanch36 says on Apr 1, 2008, 13:52:

Also what pisses me off is that Big Al isnt giving us all the facts when he opens his big mouth

All right, I'll ask: How come it took three seconds to euthanize Eight Belles, but the Womens NBA is starting Year 12???

MaFe says on Apr 1, 2008, 13:53:

Does anyone remember when he claimed to be the one who invented the internet? ja!

"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire. "-Aristotle

travelingirl says on Apr 1, 2008, 15:15:

Haha, that was funny, MaFe.
I still laugh when I think of the way he said "lockbox" during the presidential debate several years ago. I think SNL even did a skit on it.

Around her hair she wore a yellow ribbon...

Lcacique says on Apr 1, 2008, 16:04:

esanch36: Key word is "YET." Oil is only going to go up and up in price not only due to our standing in the world, but also due to the fact that it is a scarce/nonrenewable resource and other countries are demanding more of it (i.e. China). New deposits are found, but many are increasingly difficult to reach (more money to extract them). And the government wholeheartedly admits that it is the source of conflict which is an economic cost as well as a cost on several other levels which are more difficult to measure. While you seem to disagree that global warming is a reality, oil is a pollutant and their are untold costs associated with that as well.

So, we are not there yet. All the more reason that the government should be spending more money on research and development as well as education in the field of science and engineering. If not, the US will miss out on a golden opportunity to be in the forefront of such a venture.

I doubt you have an issue with the government subsidies for agriculture in the US...

Hoy se nota en la floresta un ambiente de alegría. ¡Y el rumor de ranchería es mas dulce y sabe a fiesta!

Man Tequila says on Apr 1, 2008, 20:06:

I often disagree with esanch36 and his views on global warming. ExxonMobil made profits of $40 billion in 2007, the highest any company has ever made. The California electricirty market is hardly the only example of energy companies gouging the consumer.

But I do agree that ethanol subsidies are out of control and that much more efficient renewable energy forms already exist, and with further research could be made much more efficient. Big Al is a hypocrite but the oil companies are not without this quality. As a consumer, I consider cleaner air to be an important benefit.

The oil companies may offer money to scientists to criticize global warming, in the same way cigarette companies trumpeted how doctors enjoyed smoking Camels fifty years ago. This approach includes tarring Al Gore, who never claimed he invented the Internet but did in fact recieve much praise and an award from the people who did. Folks interested in the story and not political posturing can find the truth here: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

Aunque no me creas/ si me lo propongo/ lograre olvidarte/ porque a fin de cuentas/ no soy tan cobarde./ Y termino todo una de estas tardes/ no sera dificil buscar algún sitio donde refugiarme/ donde nunca mas vuelvas a encontrarme. (Polo Montañez)

esanch36 says on Apr 2, 2008, 06:51:

Ohhhhh Lacique but i doooo disagree with subsidies for argo. Its a well known fact that most of the money goes to only Big Argo companies and only to certain types of food. Anyway these subsidies stifle competition and dont weed out the bad farmers. Everybody knows that our Agro industry is messed up. All you have to do is look at New Zeeland as a case study to see what happens when subsidies get lifted.

All right, I'll ask: How come it took three seconds to euthanize Eight Belles, but the Womens NBA is starting Year 12???

esanch36 says on Apr 2, 2008, 06:54:

Posted MARCH 20, 2003: What would the world look like without agricultural subsidies? What would the United States look like? If a crystal ball exists for those questions, its name is New Zealand, one of the first and still one of the few modern countries to have completely dismantled its system of agricultural price supports and other forms of economic protection for farmers.

Brace yourself: this is free-market faith to make Adam Smith proud. But the New Zealand experience is pretty persuasive. Well into its second decade of subsidy-free farming, New Zealand enjoys a worldwide reputation for its high-quality, efficient and innovative agricultural systems.

New Zealand agriculture is profitable without subsidies, and that means more people staying in the business. Alone among developed countries of the world, New Zealand has virtually the same percentage of its population employed in agriculture today as it did 30 years ago, and the same number of people living in rural areas as it did in 1920. Although the transition to an unsubsidized farm economy wasn’t easy, memories of the adjustment period are fading fast and today there are few critics to be found of the country’s bold move.


“New Zealand agriculture is profitable without subsidies, and that means more people staying in the business: Alone among developed countries of the world, New Zealand has virtually the same percentage of its population employed in agriculture today as it did 30 years ago, and the same number of people living in rural areas as it did in 1920.�

A mini-history of Kiwi agriculture
So how did they do it? Where did the political will power come from, and what was the fallout like? Here’s a mini-history of New Zealand agriculture. Prior to European settlement, the indigenous Maori cultivated kumara (Polynesian sweet potato), taro and gourds in addition to fishing and hunting native birds for food. Officially claimed by the British Crown in 1840, in the nineteenth century and for much of the twentieth, New Zealand became Great Britain’s agricultural hinterland, supplying first grain and wool, and then—after the development of refrigerated shipping in the 1880s—meat and dairy products to Britain and other parts of the British Empire.

As late as 1964, New Zealand sent 61% of its total meat exports (lamb, mutton, beef and veal), 94% of its butter, and 87% of its cheese to the UK. Disruptions of this pattern during the First and Second World Wars, however, encouraged New Zealand to adopt increasingly protectionist policies, placing tariffs on imported industrial goods and establishing Producer Marketing Boards for the major commodity groups from the 1920s, designed to represent farmers’ interests and to act as single sellers in the global marketplace.

Like the US, New Zealand suffered a major economic depression in the 1930s and enjoyed a boom period in the 1950s, as post-war consumption levels rose and war-time technologies found new agricultural applications like fertilizer and pesticide production and improvements in transport. (On New Zealand’s rugged landscapes aerial topdressing of pasturelands was widely adopted, and helped boost productivity.)

Several factors threatened the comfortable prosperity of NZ agriculture in the 1970s. The independence of the Pacific Island of Nauru in 1968 spelled the end of New Zealand’s supply of cheap phosphate rock, mined there and on other so-called ‘phosphate islands’ since the early part of the century. Four years later, in 1972, Britain’s decision to join the European Economic Community (now the European Union) signaled a major realignment of global trading relationships, in which New Zealand’s position as a Commonwealth country would no longer guarantee special consideration for its agricultural products. Finally, and again as in the US, rising world oil prices triggered a period of escalating inflation, making it increasingly difficult for farmers to secure good prices on the international market.

Governmental policy at this time exacerbated the situation by seeking to boost agricultural production based on the hope of greater returns—farmers were offered subsidies to purchase more fertilizers, and tax breaks for increasing herd sizes—further depressing commodity prices through oversupply. In part because of the recognized importance of agriculture within the national economy, farmers were also offered price supports, low-interest loans, disaster relief, weed-eradication subsidies and special training programs to get them through the hard times. As the laundry list of farm support programs grew, it became an increasingly impossible burden for this small national economy to bear, threatening to further undermine the stability of the whole system.

All right, I'll ask: How come it took three seconds to euthanize Eight Belles, but the Womens NBA is starting Year 12???

esanch36 says on Apr 2, 2008, 06:56:

Why New Zealanders don’t like subsidies
According to the Kiwi outlook, the ill effects of subsidies include:

Resentment among farmers, some of who will inevitably feel that subsidies are applied unfairly.
Resentment among non-farmers, who pay for the system once in the form of taxes and a second time in the form of higher food prices.
The encouragement of overproduction, which then drives down prices and requires more subsidization of farmers’ incomes.
The related encouragement to farm marginal lands, with resulting environmental degradation.
The fact that most subsidy money passes quickly from farmers to farm suppliers, processors, and other related sectors, again negating the intended effect of supporting farmers.
Additional market distortions, such as the inflation of land values based on production incentives or cheap loans.
Various bureaucratic insanities, such as paying farmers to install conservation measures like hedgerows and wetlands—after having paid them to rip them out a generation ago, while those farmers who have maintained such landscape and wildlife features all along get nothing.
Removing subsidies, on the other hand, forces farmers and farm-related industries to become more efficient, to diversify, to follow and anticipate the market. It gives farmers more independence, and gains them more respect. It leaves more government money to pay for other types of social services, like education and health care.

All right, I'll ask: How come it took three seconds to euthanize Eight Belles, but the Womens NBA is starting Year 12???

Man Tequila says on Apr 2, 2008, 08:30:

Well, I agree with you on the agricultural subsidies.

Aunque no me creas/ si me lo propongo/ lograre olvidarte/ porque a fin de cuentas/ no soy tan cobarde./ Y termino todo una de estas tardes/ no sera dificil buscar algún sitio donde refugiarme/ donde nunca mas vuelvas a encontrarme. (Polo Montañez)