FlaSoxxJim

Let me enlighten these cretins, PA... Indy Music:

QUOTE(winodj @ Apr 28, 2005 -> 08:36 PM) Pretty sure if you met me in person, you wouldn't call me a frat boy. But I was. And I wear a retro hat. Ah.... I thought you said you were wearing a frat guy... An odd fashion accessory, to be sure. My mistake. I also wear any number of retro hats, 1917, 1926 road (my favorite), 1959, 1972... My original 1983 is still servicable if a little ratty, so I haven't bought a replacement.

That looks like it will be very funny. I think up-to-the-minute the Bonds HR ball value should be posted on the NYSE, and everyone can watch it go up and down as his popularity dives and rises (maybe?) with each new steroid allegation and media blowup. But I also thought Post nasal drip was a cereal for a while, so what do I know?

QUOTE(winodj @ Apr 28, 2005 -> 04:43 PM) What the hell formula is C over Pi anyway? And the answer to that would actually be approximately 59,205.547 miles/second, as c is standard physics notation for the speed of light. That'll teach you to ask rhetorical questions around here...

QUOTE(winodj @ Apr 28, 2005 -> 04:36 PM) I wear one. A frat guy?

QUOTE(Wong & Owens @ Apr 28, 2005 -> 04:37 PM) Zero population growth. Catch the fever! And cut the vasa!

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Apr 28, 2005 -> 04:10 PM) ...and is not spewing political BS (at least on this issue... ) Why I oughta...

I apologize if I'm coming off that way. I truly do. But the issue is close to my heart. The heart and spirit of the national preserved lands system is about to be gutted not by a fair debate, but by slipping the drilling provision into a special interest-friendly energy bill that basically has to be passed despite its grevious shortcomings. 101 years of congressional promises to actually protect and preserve the lands it told the people of the United States it would protect is once again in jeopardy. The "tragedy of the commons" has to be repeated yet again to line the pockets of big oil and further enable their resistance to actually looking toward viable alternative energy strategies. Here's another look at the math from a different angle. The US consumes around 20 million barrels of oil a day (about a quarter of the world production). Now, let's be really optimistic and concede that there could be 10 billion recoverable barrels in ANWR (the pie in the sky number that has become gospel for the pro-drilling side). That's still just 500 days of US oil needs. That's less then 2 years, for an impact that can never be erased. As for the caribou numbers... pointing to a "1000% increase in numbers in the last 30 years only indicates the populations are very likely cyclical. The numbers in no way suggest that human presence is responsible for the increase, but the people that point to these numbers as an indication that animal populations are safe sure want you to believe it. Here's a bit on that from an Audobon column a while back:

QUOTE(AddisonStSox @ Apr 28, 2005 -> 03:19 PM) There has been on-site work since the early 70's. And this work has guaranteed that crude oil will not be spilled to the environment at any point during extraction and transport, or that none of the combustion byproducts will enter the biogeochemical cycles of northern Alaska?? Wow, that is some piece of work.

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Apr 28, 2005 -> 02:51 PM) Yeah, fine, but at least they're low-carb, right? You're quite the cup-is-half-full kind of guy Jackie...

Provide what, statistics on how a project not net carried out has done damage to the system? In an impossibly perfect world with zero petroleum spills, you still have the habitat fragmentation, the road traffic, the noise pollution, and the anthropogenic impacts on the area. And unfortunately, there is no such "perfect" world, and small scale petroleum spills are a regular (unreported below a defined volume threshold) occurrence. The large, headline-grabbing spills like Valdez account for less than 15% of the annual totals. Spills do occur, large and small. Unless the oil companies looking to make $billions in ANWR are willing to put clean-up money into an escrow account, opening up this federally protected area should not have even been considered. As a reference point for how much that amount should be, the initial 3-year cleanup effort after Valdez cost more than $2 billion. As far as evidence of the damage spilled crude oil can do to biological systems, how much do you want? Here's a quick sidebar piece I just finished authoring for a biotechnology website I'm developing at work: As far as the duration of spill impacts, spill emulsifications (so-called "mousse") that contaminate shorelines are very resistant to degradation. Mousse is resistant to biodegradation, the important final weathering stage, and in shallow marsh environments it can persist within sediments for years to decades.

OK, while I plow through some of that, please answer this for me so I can get in my Bush Math mindset. So, ok, there are 1,000-2,000 acres being looked at as the sum total of drilling impacts, according to the pro-drilling side. Question: How does all the drilling equipment get there? Roads perhaps? Hundreds of miles of roads perhaps? Why are the roads not considered in the impact footprint, particularly when disruption of caribu migration patterns is one of the key impacts anti-drilling folks are concerned about? Ice roads are often tossed out ther as the answer (although these still fragment habitat), but that's not going to completely mitigate the problem. Moreover, ice roads are getting harder to use and using them exclusively will cut transport of heavy machinery to only about a hundred days a year. In 1970 the ice roads would meet state rules for heavy equipment transport (tundra ground must be frozen to 12 inches deep andf covered by > 6 inches of snow) twice that many days, but since the Arctic winters are becoming shorter (any guesses why?) that time has been cut in half. Going back to 2003, Representative Markey foresaw that the ice roads weren't going to cut it Anyway, that's just one example of where the minimal impact numbers are intentionally very misleading. Those other numbers you posted are also misleading, though I've not yet cross-checked them. The bottom line is that it is going to take 10 years to extract no more than 200 days worth of the current national daily oil requirement at a today-cost of at least $30 a barrel. If the numbers you posted jibe with those figures then they are in the ballpark. If so, that is an insanely small ROI that should never justify opening up the reserve. And on its own, it probably never would. But rolling it into a big energy plan full of pork and corporate handjobs and it will be rammed through. At stake here is a lot more than just opening up ANWR. It's a foot in the door to canging the way 300+ million acres of protected land in western states are managed, making it that much easier for the public good and the good of the land to be subjugated for the good of corporate profit.

Thanks

QUOTE(Kid Gleason @ Apr 28, 2005 -> 01:04 PM) Savini did no FX for it though. I believe FX were handled by Greg Nicotero or others from KNB, or connected to them. They were also involved in Day Of The Dead, so their is still a link. You're joking!?! Savini's just a cast member and that's it? What's up with that?

Can you please cite a source for those numbers, Addy. They look like complete bunk compared to the numbers even the USGS has been throwing up. And there are a good many native peoples opposed to drilling as well, primarily those in the immediate vicinity of the impacted area. One tribe, the Gwich'in, consider the Coastal Plain so sacred to the that they will not exploit or even enter it even during a famine. Interestingly, because nearly all the Gwich'in are Episcopalian, the Episcopal Church's main office in DC has come out very strongly against ANWR drilling. This is a fact I love to throw in the face of an arch-conservative, pro-drilling, son-of-an-Episcopal-minister friend of mine, because he has no rebuttal. Quite the Pyrrhic victory though I guess, since it looks like they're going to open it up anyway.

QUOTE(RibbieRubarb @ Apr 28, 2005 -> 09:43 AM) So good in fact, they moved up the release date to a Big Summer Weekend. I am assuming this fortified city is the USA and the zombies are terrorists. Well, if Romero is true to form, the fortified city will be Pittsburgh – his home town and the location of all his zombie films. Romero is to Pittsburgh what John waters and Barry Levinson are to Baltimore. And since I see Tom Savini is involved in the new one my expectations remain very high. Should be good. As for a good non-zombie Romero offering, check out 'Martin' if you ever get a chance. It came out right before Dawn and was greatly overshadowed by it. It's about a 17-year old kid who may actually be an 80-year old vampire, and about his cousin who has told him he's going to save his soul and then kill him. sway more subtle and understated than the zombie body of work.

Haribo macht Kinder froeh!

QUOTE(RibbieRubarb @ Apr 28, 2005 -> 11:29 AM) We still need a drolling icon. To show appreciation for all the droll humor around here, no doubt?

QUOTE(DonkeyKongerko @ Apr 27, 2005 -> 05:22 PM) Seems like every season that starts well goes downhill after a series in Oakland. Fly out and move on.

f***. I forgot how much it sucks to lose a series.

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 27, 2005 -> 05:09 PM) Perfect time for A.J. to bail on the pitch and let Hunter get hit in his vagina.

Ozzie gone.

Bulls***.