Obama Announces for President, Boosts Broadband 846
Arlen writes "As many as 17,000 people (according to police estimates) watched Senator Barack Obama officially announce his candidacy for President in Springfield, Illinois today. He mentioned several things that will interest readers of Slashdot. The Senator said he wanted to free America from 'the tyranny of oil' and went on to promote alternative energy sources such as ethanol — a popular stance in the Midwest where he announced, because of all the corn farmers. He also talked about using science and technology to help those with chronic diseases, which is likely to have been an allusion to his staunch support for stem cell research. Perhaps most of interest to readers here is the following statement halfway through Obama's speech: 'Let's invest in scientific research, and let's lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America. We can do that.' Like nearly everything in his speech, this was met with robust applause from the crowd. You can watch a video of the entire speech at Obama's website."
Re:I notice he didn't mention... (Score:5, Informative)
You mean like in Washington D.C.? [disastercenter.com]
Or maybe you mean Chicago [cityrating.com]
Both cities have what is considered to be fairly draconian gun control laws by US standards. Both have violent crime rates well in excess of the national average.
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
Bill Would Extend Online Obscenity Laws to Blogs, Mailing Lists [slashdot.org]
Because Obama is Jesus Christ 2.0 (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.slate.com/id/2159502/?nav=navoa [slate.com]
Re:Midwest (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Obama is far to the right of the American peopl (Score:3, Informative)
The editor of Zmag, Michael Albert, has been a consistent and harsh critic of Marxist-Leninism. Here he debates [zmag.org] a representative of one of the more moderate communists parties (the ISO). Most of the people published in Zmag are social democrats, anarchists, and other non-Marxist left wing radicals. Zmag is probably less communist than The Nation, and certainly less so than the countless Trotskyist party papers. Nader is seen as the most viable third party candidate in recent years and he often writes for Zmag.
Put that back where it came from. (Score:2, Informative)
Would you like to cite a source on that besides your rectum?
Gun control has never been shown, at least in any respectable study that I've ever seen, and I've been following the issue for a while, to lower the crime rate, except in theoretical situations where you can magically cut urban areas off from the outside world, or where you only look at specific categories of crime and neglect the crime reduction due to civilian gun ownership.
The usual anti-gun arguments that get trotted out in these situations are Europe/USA comparisons, and those are bogus for any number of reasons (simply: there are far too many variables besides gun control that lead to Europe having a far lower violent crime rate in general than the U.S., regardless of their gun control policies).
2nd stoopid idea on slashdot today (Score:5, Informative)
Read this: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=219742&cid=17
One ton of dry biomass = 2 barrels of oil
The USA burns about 20 million barrels of oil per day. As I incorrectly pointed out in the prior post - this is 10 million tonnes of dry biomass per day (I had a brain fart which no one picked up on and wrote 40 tonnes).
It was nicely pointed out and correctly I might add that if we were to produce the amount of ethanol required to offset the oil being burned, then we would need more than the world's production of grain.
I did a google search on "world grain production" and was impressed with the increases since the 1960's.
Since I grew up on a grain farm I have a gut feel for this. The increased production came from dwarf grains (more grain, less stalk), irrigation and fertilizer. At this point much of the north amercian farmland has been badly raped of its nutrients. As I write this a major part of the North American fertilizer industry is shut down because of a shortage of Methane. They use methane to create anhydrous ammonia.
Check here:
http://www.agrium.com/products_services/ingredien
The thing is the irrigation is not sustainable.
The dwarf grains and genetic manipulation lead to mono culture which is questionable sustainable.
The use of methane to create nitrogen fertilizers is past peak by over 5 years in North America. Its a big problem.
The short of it is that there is no way on earth we can double our grain production. We can however produce Ethanol from other than grain.
Cellulose to ethanol is a possibility with fungii like Trichoderma reeshii. But plants also contain pentosans and lignins. T. reeshii likes cellulose.
Personally I think a fungus with more potential is in the Pleurotis genus.
But that is just my guess.
The short of it is that we have a big problem - do we want to eat (grain) or do we want to drive cars.
I hope the cars lose.
As I pointed out before.... the USA would have to convert more than the whole world's supply of grain into ethanol to keep its fleet of car toys on the road.
Re:Bullshit. Same song and dance, different puppet (Score:4, Informative)
You are free to remove it from your article listing, if you like.
Re:Industrial Hemp (Score:5, Informative)
Yes...
...but the devil weed also makes the dirty mexicans and niggers rape white women!!11!one!
Yep, that's what all those racists claimed back in the day, which is why marijuana is illegal*, and why any discussion of "industrial hemp" is dead-on-arrival. Sorry, no miracle energy source for us!
*Technically, the federal government didn't outlaw the substance (as that would be unconstitutional); they just made it so that a permit was required to grow it (citing the Interstate Commerce Clause) and then refused to issue any permits. Fucking NAZIs, circumventing the Constitution!)
Yeah. Right. (Score:4, Informative)
70% of Americans want our involvement in Iraq to start decreasing. Did you miss that?
Everyone agrees that health care is poor-to-mediocre and getting worse. Something has to be done. Everyone agrees on energy independence.
Repeating lies over and over again doesn't make them true.
This is not 100% true. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ethanol NOT Superior to Oil (Score:3, Informative)
Not only has it added, but it has seriously reduced their dependance on foreign oil. Instead of getting 80% of their oil from foreign sources, they currently only get 15%. I don't have a link to this because I saw it on Modern Marvels.
I am an environmentalist, but ethanol is a BAD BAD idea.
Then, you're a stupid environmentalist. Ethanol is carbon neutral, the CO2 released by burning it is equal to the CO2 that would have been released by the decomposition or digestion of the plants that it is made from.
Because of the variance of climates in the US we can't use pure ethanol. Ethanol requires a higher ignition temp than gasoline, and in cold climates it can't be used.
Ethanol isn't a panacea, but it's something that can be used to help.
LK
Re:How? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:so the question comes down to this; (Score:2, Informative)
the vast majority of women will vote for hillary to see a woman elected president
(likely even putting their political beliefs aside)
This dumb-ass statement tells me that you are neither black nor female.
History has shown us that ~90% of black Americans vote democrat in presidential elections. So, if Obama gets the nomination, I'm sure that this will not change. It's possible that because of Bush's inroads into the black voting pool and the fact that Obama's blackness comes from Africa and not from an black American father, he may get less than the traditional 90%.
Women are as polarized about Hillary as are men.
Liberals love her, conservatives hate her and moderates (true moderates) are split about her.
LK
What the fuck? (Score:5, Informative)
No. He hasn't. What the hell are you talking about? Do you follow the Karl Rove doctrine that if you repeat a lie often enough, people think it's the truth?
HEY! (Score:3, Informative)
Shame on you.
Re:I notice he didn't mention... (Score:3, Informative)
The reason that there has been such strong resistance to the gun registry is that it includes long guns, rifles and shotguns, which play very little role in crime. Possession of handguns is very limited here. Target shooters and collectors can get licenses for them, with tight controls. Otherwise, for all practical purposes no one other than a police officer can possess a handgun.
And where do you get the idea that the gun registry has been so expensive because of the resistance to it? There's no connection, except for the fact that if there weren't such resistance more people would register and the registry would be even more overwhelmed.
Re:Because Obama is Jesus Christ 2.0 (Score:5, Informative)
For example, in 2003, Obama voted in support of SB1195, which, if passed, would have banned most of the privately held hunting shotguns, target rifles, and black powder rifles in the state. If the ban was enacted, law enforcement officials would have been authorized to forcibly enter private homes to confiscate newly banned firearms.
(copied from caosblog.com, but I verified it)
Enough to get me to vote for whoever isn't him.
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Logic 101 (Score:1, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebonics [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Ver
It's understandable... if you spend enough time around it.
Re:Remember one thing (Score:1, Informative)
LOL! I've worked for and/or very close to three US presidential administrations, and believe me, there are no "men behind curtains"...unless you're talking about the congressional leadership. Maybe spend less time on conspiracy theories and more time on really understanding the office and role of the presidency. But that might not be as entertaining.
Re:Sadly he has extremely low chances of winning (Score:5, Informative)
Sigh... Mark Twain was right, a lie really does get around the world before the truth can get its boots on.
Barack Obama is a Christian. He belongs to Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ [tucc.org]. When asked about his faith, he has said that he has "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ [suntimes.com]", which, while he doesn't describe himself as born-again or evangelical, is a standard way that evangelical Christians describe their faith. In other words, he is definitely a "Christian god-fearing male".
As to his father being a Muslim. His birth father was an atheist goatherder [snopes.com] who left the family when Obama was two years old. His stepfather, who raised him through adulthood, was a non-practicing Muslim [about.com], and his father and mother educated him in secular schools, not whacko Muslim Madrassas as some of his political opponents have been claiming.
So let's stop worrying about Obama being some kind of Muslim Manchurian Candidate, k? Because it's really far from the truth.
Re:spend spend spend (Score:2, Informative)
For example Reagan and Bush Jr. ran up unbelievable debts.
Clinton was running a surplus remember.
I wouldn't trust a republican to run a lemonade stand without him taking out a bank loan on the freehold and future profits and then running off with the cash.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Informative)
For some reason, liberals online have turned this word into some sort of insult, I guess because it has "con" in it which sounds all mean and powerful like the word "kahn." I don't know.
Well, Hillary scares us menfolk... (Score:4, Informative)
If it ends up being McCain vs Hillary, it'll be too close to call...both have shady histories that will come out. Obama looks to be pretty clean, and relatively sane, and would probably trounce whatever republican he ran against.
It is for this reason alone that the Democratic party is incapable of nominating him.
Re:Wow (Score:2, Informative)
In the late 80's, we started seeing the closing of bases, and slashing of defense budgets under Bush Sr. Remember the hubbub that right wingers had over Kerry voting to slash countless military programs(which it turned out to be Dick Cheney's, then secretary of Defense, idea) when he ran?
in the 90's, we saw a reevaluation and refocusing of where the miliary went. In short, no, Clinton didn't gut the military.
Re:i'd like you to meet someone (Score:2, Informative)
Carol Mosley Braun was a mistake. I seem to recall that she leased an apartment for more than her annual salary.
Obama has a chance because he doesn't look like a lunatic.
Re:I notice he didn't mention... (Score:3, Informative)
So, It was never lies. Unless fance, germany, Russia, and Briton were in the habbit of passing lies to us. It would be a grand scheeme too, first they give us lies, then we use those lies to goto war and finaly they expose them to be lies and vilonize us. All for what? Well, i'm not sure were the benitift of doing that is. Maybe you could tell me seeing how you have done such deep analisis of our inteligences at works and have determined that everything was lies. I'm sure we will benifit from your explainations of what these other countries have made of this conspiracy.
The fact is, our intelignece was wrong. it was wrong for several reasons but the most important one would be Saddam himself needed to make it look like he wasn't weak because he had pissed a lot of people in the region off. France russia and china were against the war because they had secrete oil deal and used the UN sanction to get them at a better rate. they hid behind the oild for food and sanction that limited the amounts of oil Iraq could sell and thee countries came in in vilation of the sanctions and got discount deals that they would loose if the US went into Iraq. And onw they have lost them, this is why they hate us right now. Of course you would hate me too if I stoped you from buying somethign below costs because i was going to do something that took your advantage away!