December 27, 2006: Nigerian gas explosion outcome [very graphic]

[GuyNamedGuy]

A suggestion to the folks running the Cellar IOTD: perhaps it would be good if, when running a stomach-churning image like this, you had a "are you sure you want to see this?" button to click first, rather than seeing a gagger image the moment you visit the IOTD. There's been a few medical-related images in recent months that left me queasy. I love the IOTD - it's a daily stop - but please, give us a chance to look the other way first, okay?

I've been saying for 20+ years that one of the best things the USA could do for the world (and make a few export $$ at it, too) is develop safe, cheap alternate energy technology for developing countries. This is a good argument WHY. It'd let us manufacture something (a novel idea in itself these days), would lower pressure on non-renewable oil, and would be waaaaaay safer than this sort of thing. Were people going to power cars with what they stole, or cook with it, or what? If it's cooking, there must be a solar or alcohol technology or SOMEthing better than, literally in this case, "cooking with gas".

And heck, I guess I'm an insensitive bastard, too. That is a hell of a pattern on the fellow's outfit. Looks like we know now where James Brown's extra stage outfits got to after he died!

[CaliforniaMama]

Originally Posted by GuyNamedGuy

A suggestion to the folks running the Cellar IOTD: perhaps it would be good if, when running a stomach-churning image like this, you had a "are you sure you want to see this?" button to click first, rather than seeing a gagger image the moment you visit the IOTD.

[very graphic] doesn't do it, eh?

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by GuyNamedGuy

...I've been saying for 20+ years that one of the best things the USA could do for the world (and make a few export $$ at it, too) is develop safe, cheap alternate energy technology for developing countries. This is a good argument WHY. It'd let us manufacture something (a novel idea in itself these days), would lower pressure on non-renewable oil, and would be waaaaaay safer than this sort of thing. Were people going to power cars with what they stole, or cook with it, or what? If it's cooking, there must be a solar or alcohol technology or SOMEthing better than, literally in this case, "cooking with gas".
...

Is this really Jimmy Carter?

I agree. It would have been nice if Dutch Reagan hadn't undone the policies Carter implemented to promote alternative fuels.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Seems to me, it would be better for the world if we did GuyNamedGuy's suggestions for ourselves.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by GuyNamedGuy

I've been saying for 20+ years that one of the best things the USA could do for the world (and make a few export $$ at it, too) is develop safe, cheap alternate energy technology for developing countries. This is a good argument WHY. It'd let us manufacture something (a novel idea in itself these days), would lower pressure on non-renewable oil, and would be waaaaaay safer than this sort of thing. Were people going to power cars with what they stole, or cook with it, or what? If it's cooking, there must be a solar or alcohol technology or SOMEthing better than, literally in this case, "cooking with gas".

You mean like these guys?

Actually, Nigeria is a very rich country. It's just that all of the money being made from natural resources seems to be concentrating in the hands of the wealthiest and most corrupt individuals.

[GuyNamedGuy]

Yes - I just bookmarked cellar.org/iotd when I originally found the site, looking for pictures of the "purple polar bear" a few years ago. So when I look at it I get the image right off the bat. Sometimes it can be a jolt. I'm using a laptop - do you have any idea how hard it is to clean barf out of a laptop keyboard?!?

Yeah, from a very quick glance, self.org has sort of the right idea. I don't know anything about them or what their agenda is. I'm older, so I lok at it from a 1970's Mother Earth News angle. But the technology exists to wean a lot of the world demand of oil. I just hope the USA can switch away in time, before the press of events forces it on us in a painful and possibly fatal way to our nation and our characteristic culture. SF writers such as Lester Del Rey and Robert Heinlein have been predicting this sort of thing since about 1940 - and 67 years later we're still sliding towards oblivion. As Heinlein himself put it, we're "Too fat, dumb and happy", like the Romans watching the Visigoths (or whoever it was that sacked the city) approach the city in 410 AD and doing nothing. We've been sitting back doing basically nothing since 1973 - 34 years now!! - while our hard-earned treasure gets shipped overseas to enrich regimes which do not like us or are actively hostile to us. Now look at the mess we're in, basically over oil. How much longer can we go on?

Heinlein makes a very very good point in his short story THE ROADS MUST ROLL (1940). Every tank, jeep, airplane and every ship except subs and aircraft carriers run on oil. If a big war breaks out, oil will be a military priority, just as it was in WW2. The difference is, most folks live in suburbs now, not in the towns themselves as most of them did in 1941. Commute distances are many times what they were in 1941. Streetcar lines, interurban trolley lines and passenger trains are basically extinct now. If we can't get gas, how do we get to work? If we can't get to work, where does our country end up?

Now, we're going to be competing with China and India, the awakening economic giants, for Middle East oil. Great - just what we need. That'll be what kicks off the next big war, I suspect about 2020 or so. Time to get out of importing oil while the getting out's good.


Setting a good example for the world is supposed to be the USA's *JOB*, for heaven's sake. Cutting CO2 emissions can't hurt anything. And we can still make some nice low and medium-tech jobs manufacturing and selling alternate energy technology, and making some export bucks would be really nice these days!

And I do like Thomas Freidman's term for countries, like Nigeria, Saudi arabia, etc. that are rich in natural resources and yet the money never ends up enriching the majority of people - "Kleptocracies".

[CaliforniaMama]

Originally Posted by GuyNamedGuy

SF writers such as Lester Del Rey and Robert Heinlein have been predicting this sort of thing since about 1940 - and 67 years later we're still sliding towards oblivion. As Heinlein himself put it, we're "Too fat, dumb and happy", like the Romans watching the Visigoths (or whoever it was that sacked the city) approach the city in 410 AD and doing nothing.

Really? And here I thought it was all about politics!

No, seriously. I have always that the major roadblock in progressive development of this sort was because of fights between corporations and politicians who struggle to maintain a balance of power. There doesn't seem to be enough incentive to tip the scale one way or the other, so no one ever seems to do anything dramatic enough to make a difference.

Maybe the laziness is on our part for not pushing more, but from what I see in the press, there is a whole lot of pushing going on from the activist realm, but still no progress.

It amazes me that no major corporation has really invested in being the first out there with some cutting edge technology. Are they looking into it at all? Or do they really just not care?

I know that some of the issues with solar is about cost effectiveness. I think of software programmers and how there are beta testers that have a go at things and work out the kinks. I wonder if the big guys can think in that small of a way to make it all worthwhile?

Or is it still because the power companies don't want to reinvent themselves?

I mean, cars and highways is becoming so old-fashioned in a way, but people don't want to give up their cars and some of us can't. Not because of miles, but because of ability. I am physically incapable of riding a bike, especially with three little kids. So, where are the radical ideas of creating a transport that really works instead of continuing to rely on the same old, same old. Obviously, no one likes mass transit. So come up with something new.

There are hundreds of thousands of brilliant minds out there. Look at the software that is created, the books that are written, the medical advances, the wonderfully creative science fiction that is written!!

So where are the brilliant ideas that are going to save us from mediocrity!!!!!

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by GuyNamedGuy

Setting a good example for the world is supposed to be the USA's *JOB*, for heaven's sake.

I don't remember seeing that in the Constitution or hearing it in school. Who determined that is our *JOB*?

Cutting CO2 emissions can't hurt anything. And we can still make some nice low and medium-tech jobs manufacturing and selling alternate energy technology, and making some export bucks would be really nice these days!

Lovely thought, but get real. How long do you think it would be before those "nice low and medium-tech jobs" were exported too? 30days?
And how many of these miracle cures would the third world buy? One, that's all they need to copy or contract a cheaper source.
The problem with the Mother Jones/Whole Earth view, is that it harkens back to a time when the capitalists cared about the country. Long gone, I'm afraid. Now it's the Buck, the whole Buck and nothing but the Buck.