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bugmenot's comments:
on An Hour With Al Gore
Al Gore lost the 2000 presidential election to Republican George W. Bush. He has since campaigned worldwide to draw attention to climate change, which in 2007 led to a Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar for the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth Research Paper."
posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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on Northwest Passages: Jon Raymond
Look up Mike Rowe's (from Dirty Jobs) lecture on Ted and see if you feel the same way. I'd like to think that what makes Portland unique came from its working class. Even Raymond's writing feels blue collar. I can't imagine him finding inspiration among the so called creative class.
posted 3 years, 5 months ago
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on The "P" Word and Climate Change
A Jew talking about population control. Oh, that's rich!
The naivete and arrogance of the college educated middle class is amusing. Population growth is correlated to petroleum production. If peak oil is here, the problem is self-correcting. If not, we have a few more decades (perhaps centuries) of excessive production. In the end, it won't make much of a difference.
I wonder how many of you formulated your crackpot theories over your salmon dinner, with wine from Australia, after you drove your automobile from your office (which is located 10+ miles away from your heated and well-lit house).
You ARE the beneficiaries of this "excess of population", hypocrites.
Repent, little monkeys!
posted 3 years, 5 months ago
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on Just a Day Job
(cont'd from above;)
now i can just imagine what conservative people around tehse parts are going to say about that one, BUT READ MY LIPS "BLUEOREGONIANS" and others, A GOOD DAY LABORER, PAID, UN-PAID, UNDER-PAID WHATEVER, WILL WORK CIRCLES AROUND AND WITH MORE KNOWLEDGE THAN THE AVERAGE LABORER FROM HERE, JUST A FACT IN MY WORLD, these guys generally KICK MAJOR ASS when it comes to hard and smart work, end of story .... AND HARD WORK IS WHAT CONSTRUCTION IS.... now, should we HAVE to work that hard for less pay?? that is another question, if illegal day laborers didn't take this pay, thus "legitimizing" (meaning in a business sense, built into econ of future projects) the lower pay, then it probably would not be as hard to convince the average american what it costs these days TO ACTUALLY BUILD SOMETHING RIGHT, THE FIRST TIME....
and all of these things, are what is really having an effect on my bottom line, sure it's tough out there, but if we work harder with more humility TOWARDS ALL PEOPLE and stop cutting corners, things WILL get better, illegal day laborers or not ....
posted 3 years, 9 months ago
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on Just a Day Job
I'm curious how many people who are commenting on this have actually worked with their hands, in a trade, for money? Not just you know, "fixing my sink, or painting my house" but a real career trade. Until you have, you are not speaking from experience in this case. And while this is not a requirement in order to weigh in, it certainly knocks your opinion down a peg.... Rarely in life is there just ONE CAUSE and ONE ANSWER to hard case problems like this.... most of the responses to this issue and others like it are BASED ON THE ASSUMPTION that there is one simple truth or answer to these hard issues. YES it is true that many many day laborers are family people with an INCREDIBLE amount of knowledge and experience in several trades for what they are paid, but alas, it is also true that i have personally seen the use of day laborers not only lower the average wage of a tradesman (even journeyman level) but also lower the price that most people THINK a job is worth, which also lowers my bottom line,,,,and this is for the SAME EXACT WORK I'VE DONE FOR A DECADE.... just like YES it is true that day laborers are often willing to work for these TINY wages (and i mean tiny folks, 5 or 6 bucks an hour is BEYOND disgusting, even in little ol' LOW WAGE OREGON, and in this industry particularly due to what is asked of workers while on the jobsite) because to them, they are making 10 times that amount when it is sent back anywhere south of here in this hemisphere, BUT ALAS it is also true that i have hired these guys myself on jobs BECAUSE EVEN AT 15 BUCKS AN HOUR I CANNOT GET A SPOILED AMERICAN KID to do HALF the work a day laborer will generally do in a day, and it has almost NOTHING to do with need, and everything to do with perception, many from here think they just DESERVE HIGH PAY FOR LESS WORK, or better yet, to "work for themselves" i have literally had young pricks run off a jobsite, apparently because they were not calling the shots THE FIRST DAY?!?!? come off it people, all of these are true, on the ground, right now, you want to make some blanket statement about how simple it is to fix this by what? "building a home depot P.O.S. fence in SO CAL, AZ, NM, TX"?? boy is that laughable ....
posted 3 years, 9 months ago
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on Renewable Rates
It is hard to imagine rates _not_ going up with the current push for more
renewable energy sources, particularly wind. Certainly, as pointed out
already, the up-front equipment/construction costs of wind turbines are
substantial, however, what's rarely mentioned is that due to the
variability of wind and solar you need to increase your back up sources
and those back ups need to be easily switched on and off as needed. That
on-demand requirement shortens the list to basically natural gas (NG) and
hydro. Hydro though has become less and less on-demand since the
regulatory agencies are tasked with conflicting goals: fish needs, flood
control, and energy production. That puts more emphasis on NG
powered electrical generation which we'll need to have more of if we want
more windmills. It may be possible for a so-call "smart grid" to reduce
the amount of NG power needed as back up but that's still a ways in the
future and it too will be expensive to implement. There really is no way
around it: energy generation is expensive, whatever the source. Better
to reduce demand by phasing out old technologies like incandescent bulbs, old computers, and tank water heaters.
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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