Fair enough, but you must grant me having pause when part of your sell job on this doc includes the following



Did he strangle a couple of puppies, too? Gimme a fucking break.

Probably.

In all seriousness what's the objection there? (Curious) Is it just too easy to bag on Cheney? Did he not influence the passing of the bill that specifically exempted gas fracking from the clean water act? Like, because it had something to do with cheney it's off limits for a serious discussion? Edumacate me (again, seriously). Because they do not have to operate under the EPA. The EPA is not allowed to inspect, and they do not have to disclose what they're shooting underground (and not taking back out), even though some of it has been tested and found to be pretty goddamn awful.

That does look badass!

Yeah it does.

In theory, the fracking is ok because it takes place well below impermeable layers of the ground that are themselves below the water table. There are relatively few spill of the actual fracking fluid and those are in fact regulated. In practice the fracking disrupts the ground so much that anything else around - badly sealed wells, old industrial waste sites, acid main drainage, etc, gets shaken lose - mobilized - and screws up the drinking water, or cracks in the system can push natural gas into layers above where it is now (those flaming faucets in all the videos). It needs to be more tightly regulated - and it will be in the next five years, I'd bet good money on it - but it's hard to argue that it's way worse than MTR mining, which is essentially all the ickiness of underground coal mining brought to places where we have to look at 'em, plus some extra ecological impacts. Fossil fuels are going to be part of the mix for at a bare minimum decades to come - just a matter of who has to live with the consequences and if and how they get compensated.

Makes sense, and is in line with my original point to Bloor, ie "it's not as rosey as it's been painted out to be." That's all.

Oh sure. As best as I can tell we don't sort out making it right for the affected folks because that would entail admitting that we are unwilling to enforce the Clean Water Act in some settings, because we need the fuel. There's no provision for 'but it's worth it sometimes' in the CWA, so it would be an instant legal shitstorm.

Phil - if I had some cash and a hankering for a bike with the following attributes:

- Around town use primarily but
- Enough power to cruise the interstate if you damned well feel like it
- Classic bike preferred, 70's or older (eliminates the awesome newer Bonnevilles, which I cannot recommend enough)

then I would be eyeballing this guy on ebay: 1975 Honda CB750



Listing

They look almost as good as the R100, they're as reliable or moreso, parts are easier to find and MUCH cheaper, and yet they are solidly a classic. Didn't find any R's from the 70's anywhere near you that weren't decked out tourers, and you do not wanna lug all that fiberglass bullshit around in the city. Trust squirrgle.

I just think it's a cheap and easy device used to rile up a liberal audience and simplify the issue. The converse would be blaming the OBAMA ADMINISTRATION (!) for over-regulating "X" and thus destroying America. I guess that sort of identity based propaganda works and that's why people use it, but I'd rather just hear the truth that "hey, this isn't being properly regulated, has potential dangers and is now being investigated by the EPA so it can be properly regulated" (which, incidentally, is what is happening)

There doesn't always have to be a boogie man. Identify a problem, find a solution, fix it, just like you or I would do in our professional lives.

On a related note, it would have been awesome if the Kennedy's had produced a documentary showing that offshore wind farms cause babies to be born with third arms growing out of their bukkholes.

This is exactly right, as I understand it. I have to make sure I don't come off as sounding like too much of a crackpot... This is exactly where I'm at. Need the fuel, hate the costs.

Agree.

Jesus, that Honda reminds me of the bikes my dad used to fuck around with when I was a wee lad.

+1

my father drives one, and loves it.

Just weighing to say that the Governor of Pennsylvania has suggested that the Penn State Board of Regents/Trustees/Dipshits appointed because they gave a lot of money to the previous Governors could close their budget loopholes by allowing fracking-style drilling in their shale deposits ON CAMPUSES.

Now, I hope he means that like large southern land grant university systems I am familiar with, they have huge swaths of land for research satellite campuses, and he thinks they should sell the mineral rights to those areas, but the way the article made it sound, homie wants a drilling operation on the Penn State equivalent of the North Campus quad, or in front of the library/law school area. Or maybe by the tracks behind Sanford.

There goes that boogie man again. In the first example, he may be an uber capitalist asshole who is willing to sacrifice some good land the system owns to sell to his friends at an extremely low cost, and probably even give them tax abatements and worker-retraining incentives to do so. In the second, he just looks like a modern day Mr. Burns writ true.