I hate it when people lie. I love it when they get called out on it.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

A) for someone who seems like a huge nerd, her website seems poorly designed and the link to share seems crappy, but it works, so there ya go

B) We can put to rest the tired meme that at least one member here uses, that is, "we cannot let *one accident* ruin our views on oil"

Well, there have been LOTS of accidents; not all so big, it's true. And that's the wedge word, should the man Rachel is taking on ever choose to defend himself; he can say, "Well, those were spills but not *big ones*" whatever the hell that means

C) Can we please have more journalists like Maddow? I mean, really now. Show me ONE THING that Beck has done that's even close to this level of journalism. Oh wait, he's a fucking clown. Nevermind that. Rephrase C)

Can we now take a serious look at using oil? I mean, for eight presidents we have been talking the talk are we ever going to walk the walk? Not so long as people keep thinking: "But we need oil"
And ya know what, maybe we do.
But we NEED to use a whole lot less, IMO.

And now, a quick poll:

[Poll #1579773]

Comments

[xforge.livejournal.com]

Have to add, fuck coal. Fuck coal until its sphincter hemorrhages. Fuck it until it is dead of massive organ failure. Coal is bullshit cockass bullshit cock. Sorry, I just really hate coal.

Also, this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor should be how we produce all power until we can cover the planet with photovoltaic cells.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

You've had a life-altering traumatic experience related to coal, EH?

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

It's time to end our love affair with the personal automobile. Even if you don't believe in the atmospheric reasons, there are compelling economic and geopolitical reasons why the proliferation of personal cars has been a profoundly antisocial force.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

Of all the things in legislature that I hate, I hate the ignorance around and defunding of public transit the very most. Every time - and I hear more about it almost every day - every time I hear about another public transit project getting its funding cut off I want to go all Bruce Campbell in our Capitol building with a couple of chainsaws.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

We have no love affair with the personal automobile. We have a necessity for the personal auto based on the fact that we have a love affair with being more rural.

We're a nation of individuals and many are individualists. The more you push them, the harder they push back.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Moving to a city and selling mine next year. We'll see how long I can survive without it...

[prisoner--24601.livejournal.com]

I think I probably speak for the entire state of Michigan, when I say that you can take our cars from us when you pry them from our cold, dead hands.

[frodomyhero.livejournal.com]

We can fuel cars with cooking oil.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

Do you think we need to drastically (ie, cut by 40%+) our consumption of oil?
Define the time period.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

you have free range on this one; go crazy

explain what time frame you would like to see/why it's reasonable, etc

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Also, dude, did you miss the option for: "eventually" ? I mean...c'mon

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

Maddow is a policy wonk, I suppose you could call her a nerd on such topics as policy and the issues she advocates (and cocktails), but she's not as far as I know a nerd when it comes to computers. I've not seen anything to suggests she knows any more than the average young person about computers. Web design for her show's site is probably taken care of by the NBC IT Department.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

I assumed MSNBC really was the one doing her website, but meh, I'm still a bit disappointed by the layout/design and how piss-poor it seemed to me; and I don't even do design, I only know it from the user-perspective, but still

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

And I don't think she has a very big budget either.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

B) We can put to rest the tired meme that at least one member here uses, that is, "we cannot let *one accident* ruin our views on oil"

No, we can't put it to rest, because nothing has changed.

Well, there have been LOTS of accidents; not all so big, it's true. And that's the wedge word, should the man Rachel is taking on ever choose to defend himself; he can say, "Well, those were spills but not *big ones*" whatever the hell that means

X amount of accidents over Y amount of drilling platforms, etc. It's called a tradeoff.

C) Can we please have more journalists like Maddow? I mean, really now. Show me ONE THING that Beck has done that's even close to this level of journalism.

We don't want more journalists like her because she's not a journalist, she's a commentator. Just like Beck is not a journalist, but a commentator. We need fewer Becks and Maddows, and more journalists.

Can we now take a serious look at using oil? I mean, for eight presidents we have been talking the talk are we ever going to walk the walk? Not so long as people keep thinking: "But we need oil"
And ya know what, maybe we do.
But we NEED to use a whole lot less, IMO.

And eventually we will use a whole lot less. But that's going to be a generation down the line, minimum, which means we need the oil NOW.

Why people can't get that through their heads, I'll never know.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

"a generation down the line"

The past 8 presidents have been talking like that.....

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

Can we please have more journalists like Maddow? I mean, really now. Show me ONE THING that Beck has done that's even close to this level of journalism

I like Maddow too, but this isn't really an example of stellar journalism, is it? Go to Wikipedia, get a list of oil spills, talk about them in front of a big map. We're not talking Woodward and Bernstein here.

ok, ok, it was a cheap shot at Beck, really

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

It's not ground-breaking investigative journalism, but it's fact-checking what people say and then reporting on just how full of BS these people are. It's more journalistic than most news programming.

Jon Stewart says that he has remained firmly in the sphere of social commentary (through comedy) and that, sadly, "news" has been moving towards him, not him towards news. Given the state of affairs, I'll take Maddow over 95% of "news" that we get from the boob-tube.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Unfortunatly Petroleum is still one of the most efficient methods of storing energy by a long shot. Now that doesn't mean that we don't use it for a whole bunch of stuff we don't really need to. (such as personal automobiles) We've already established that you can effieciently run a car, truck, or bus on things like bio-diesle and natural gas So lets do it already and save the Oil for things that are harder to do without. (like plastics and airplanes)

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Sure, that makes sense.
I'm not advocating a 100% stop of oil use. That's crazy-talk; but we can dramatically and drastically reduce our use of oil if we got the electric car, or even just a good MPG car (good being >45mpg, IMO, at least as a start)

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

There's a couple of things going on here, so bear with me.

1. Maddow: I used to be a big Maddow fan, and I think she's good at what she does. I used to like her on the radio, when she really was a great commentator. Since she came on TV? Well, I lost all respect for her when she tried to tie the tea partiers to McVeigh, claimed that second amendment protesters peacefully marching on the anniversary of Lexington/Concord were somehow honoring McVeigh (due to the coincidence of dates) and basically getting all kinds of McVeigh facts wrong (with regards to his (non)involvement in the militia movement.) If we're going to call her an investigative journalist, we need to hold her to standards of fact and bias, standards she unfortunately has failed recently, miserably. It's a shame, because I really do like her, but ever since going to MSNBC she's acted like nothing more than a wittier Olbermann clone.

2. Oil: Of course we need to get rid of oil eventually, but badlydrawnjeff has a valid point. It doesn't matter what 8 previous administrations have promised, nor how they have dragged their feet. The fact remains that if we were to stop using oil TODAY, we'd cripple our nation, and depending on the time of year, kill millions.

Now, that being said, of course we need to work on alternatives. Hell, I am fully in favor of a manhatten project of green energy. Rock on. Fund the hell out of it. In the meantime, however, while this research is going on, we really ought to let oil and coal production and usage alone; no cap and trade, no cutting back. Let's not jump out of the plane BEFORE we put on the parachute. We can put tremendous resources into researching alternatives without destroying our current industries. Then, once those alternatives are viable, and efficent enough, we can just unleash them on the market, and watch them destroy our desire for fossil fuels without destroying us.

(I know that smacks of "yay magic free market", but it's not really: the government can do a lot to spur along this development without penalizing the existing energy industry prematurely. There's a balance here that neither party is willing to find, IMO.)

As for what alternatives I'd like to see?

Well, when it comes to transportation, let's go full bore electric. To help meet the demand for more electricity, let's go fully nuclear. The only caveat is that we need to make sure we can trust the governmental regulatory agencies (some of which failed us so spectacularly when it came to Deepwater Horizon.) I'd like us to do nuclear like the French have.

Eventually, down the road? Space solar.

This still doesn't address the use of petroleum in plastics manufacturing, and unfortunately green energy will not end that use and demand. There is some promising research into alternatives, but even if we need to stick with oil as a manufacturing ingredient, it would require so much less of the stuff than we use now that we could likely remain energy independent with our own local sources. And moving away from the energy and transportation uses of fossil fuels would still make a huge impact.

But still, we've got to remember how long this will take. We're talking decades. Now, we need to get started now, of course. But we can't destroy the economy in the meantime while we wait for results.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Where did I suggest we stop using oil TODAY?

Nowhere; I suggested a drastic cut back. I realize there are NEEDS for oil; but I am proposing that our needs are considerably smaller than our wants, and we, as Americans, are far too used to getting what we want and when a politician suggests we might NOT get what we want, we throw a tantrum like some spoiled child.

Of course, sometimes a politician throws a bone to the environmental crowd, trying to get some votes from them; but it seems that for 8 presidents we have got little but hot air from them. So you'll need to realize WHY I am cynical/distrusting when people say: "oh, we'll fix it by the next generation" cause that turns into a perpetual phrase and nothing gets done

[steve-potocin.livejournal.com]

Since when did MSNBC hire the kid from the Wonder Years to comment on news items??....oh wait....

[ytterbius.livejournal.com]

Forget Nuclear. It's unneccessary.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

ok; so what do we need?

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Tapping just two percent of the jet-stream would provide far more power than any known source, including nuclear.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

This is really a stupid poll.

Any conception that we could cut our consumption of Oil by 40% in less than 50 years is just not looking at the reality of the situation.

Hell we'd burn more oil trying to covert our infrastructure to use something else than we would just waiting for it to happen naturally.

[frodomyhero.livejournal.com]

Try to think outside the box. That's what's wrong with this country, people just can't look past "the reality of the situation" enough to solve it, ah yes, an empire in decline.

[woopflying.livejournal.com]

It is unfortunate that this Gulf oil spill took place where it did revealing a breakdown in the Public Relations department of the international oil corporations, perhaps their PR success in the Niger Delta was too easy.

More oil is spilled from the delta's network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico.

Maddow a fan of limited government? Who knew?!

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

So...Rachel's complaining that the government of Nigeria isn't fixing the problem?

You know, the entity that runs oil in Nigeria....

Re: Maddow a fan of limited government? Who knew?!

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

You warp reality in a fucked up way.
Good thing I have my anti-bullshit goggles on.