Even as California implodes, the Nanny state continues

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**Ahtman**

I think Polonius has earned this. Here you go...

**George Spiggott**

I've never had a problem with legislation forcing manufacturers to produce 'greener' products. It happened here recently with light-bulbs. I wish someone would do it with packaging because blaming the consumer for the amount of waste they produce is slowed.

**Polonius**

Btw, Texas uses the same language in it's constitution. "The legislative power of this State shall be vested in a Senate and House of Representatives, which together shall be styled "The Legislature of the State of Texas.""

What states have more limited legislatures? I'm genuinely curious.

**Ahtman**

Polonius wrote:Btw, Texas uses the same language in it's constitution. "The legislative power of this State shall be vested in a Senate and House of Representatives, which together shall be styled "The Legislature of the State of Texas.""

What states have more limited legislatures? I'm genuinely curious.

Now I feel bad for only giving you one cookie when you clearly deserve more. Can you ever forgive me?

**Orkeosaurus**

George Spiggott wrote:blaming the consumer for the amount of waste they produce is slowed.

Why?

Aren't they the ones who want the product that's covered in packaging? They purchased the packaging when they purchased what was inside it. They knew this was the case.

**Polonius**

Ahtman wrote:
Polonius wrote:Btw, Texas uses the same language in it's constitution. "The legislative power of this State shall be vested in a Senate and House of Representatives, which together shall be styled "The Legislature of the State of Texas.""

What states have more limited legislatures? I'm genuinely curious.

Now I feel bad for only giving you one cookie when you clearly deserve more. Can you ever forgive me?

I have plenty of cookies. Don't forget, I just took constitutional law a little over a year ago, so I remember this stuff.

And the amount of legal material online for free these days is actually pretty amazing.

**dietrich**

Polonius wrote:And the amount of legal material online for free these days is actually pretty amazing.

Let me know when it's 1% the amount of free porn on the internets.

**Polonius**

dietrich wrote:
Polonius wrote:And the amount of legal material online for free these days is actually pretty amazing.

Let me know when it's 1% the amount of free porn on the internets.

If the building codes of Tulsa, Oklahoma don't get your juices flowing, I don't know what will.

**Frazzled**

Ahtman wrote:I think Polonius has earned this. Here you go...

Pah, as a reward for wrestling Frazzled to the mat so easily, this is more appropriate:

**Orkeosaurus**

Now it's "get a free vegetable".

Cookies are a "sometimes" food.

And now we're back to the people making California implode on itself.

**dietrich**

Polonius wrote:
dietrich wrote:
Polonius wrote:And the amount of legal material online for free these days is actually pretty amazing.

Let me know when it's 1% the amount of free porn on the internets.

If the building codes of Tulsa, Oklahoma don't get your juices flowing, I don't know what will.

That's not half as exciting as the building codes of Cincinnati...........

**Frazzled**

Polonius wrote:Btw, Texas uses the same language in it's constitution. "The legislative power of this State shall be vested in a Senate and House of Representatives, which together shall be styled "The Legislature of the State of Texas.""

What states have more limited legislatures? I'm genuinely curious.

Thats the power, but its limited by a slew of follow on amendments and actual practice/court rulings. Texas state gov is nowhere near as powerful an entity. State Railroad Commission, which ironically controls the O&G industry and related land uses, is a massive exception of course.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Whats a building code?

**Orkeosaurus**

Frazzled wrote:State Railroad Commission, which ironically controls the O&G industry

Orcs and Goblins?

**Frazzled**

Orkeosaurus wrote:
Frazzled wrote:State Railroad Commission, which ironically controls the O&G industry

Orcs and Goblins?

Oil and Gas but Orcs and Goblins is pretty appropriate, or was anyway.

**dietrich**

Frazzled wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post:
Whats a building code?

It's a secret, like DaVinci's Code. Or the hidden messages in National Treasure.

**Ahtman**

Orkeosaurus wrote:Now it's "get a free vegetable".

Cookies are a "sometimes" food.

**Frazzled**

Ahtman wrote:
Orkeosaurus wrote:Now it's "get a free vegetable".

Cookies are a "sometimes" food.

They may be sometimes food, but they are always awesome!

**warpcrafter**

Frazzled wrote:
warpcrafter wrote:
dietrich wrote:I love how the Left conveniently ignores what it wants to. Coal burning is bad. But, wind power is good. How do you build wind turbines? Oh, yeah, in factories that use a lot of electricity from coal burning plants.

Why isn't American ethanol that worthwhile? Because we make it from corn, which is really about a 1:1 efficiency. In other words, for every gallon of ethanol that is put into a private car for going somewhere, it took about a gallon of petroleum products to produce it. How's that worthwhile?

And never mind that to build big batteries, like for electric cars, you have to mine lots and lots of rare metals, including nickel. Nickel mines are pretty notoriously barren wastelands due to pollution. Someone did a paper (with somewhat dubious math) that showed how an electric car is more damaging to the environment than a Humvee.

This is another attempt by the Left to make us all "better people." Tell Barbara Streisand, Leonardo DiCaprio, and all these other Hollywood leftwing "I know what's better for you" types to turn off the freakin' AC in their huge mansions, or better yet, just remove the AC units all together, and it would probably save more energy than big-screen TVs around the world use.

Actually, alcohol has less octane than gasoline, so you would need to burn more. Yes, for the time being we would need to burn gas/coal to manufacture the wind turbines and solar panels, but look at it this way. The faster we blow through all the fossil fuels, the sooner we can get around to using wind and solar all the time. Wind and solar are not going to catch on until other resources run out anyway.

No engineer who take a math class over 2+2 is going to rely on wind for anything other than an immaterial amount of energy. Without reliability, anything more is not sane.
Sun, geothermal, and tidewater are much better.

The wind is always blowing somewhere, and the sun is always shining somewhere. The trick is to have so many wind turbines and so many solar cells and such a well-interconnected power grid that the power which is generated is available everywhere, and also some means to store any unneeded power just in case of disasters. Solar cells are getting cheaper and easier to manufacture all time, as are batteries. The initial outlay will be significant, but the power sources they harvest are infinite.

**Frazzled**

warpcrafter wrote:

The wind is always blowing somewhere, and the sun is always shining somewhere. The trick is to have so many wind turbines and so many solar cells and such a well-interconnected power grid that the power which is generated is available everywhere, and also some means to store any unneeded power just in case of disasters. Solar cells are getting cheaper and easier to manufacture all time, as are batteries. The initial outlay will be significant, but the power sources they harvest are infinite.

Thats not feasible from an engineering standpoint.

**dietrich**

With the amount of hot-air generated on YMDC, can yakface could put a wind turbine there to power the server, his home, his business, and about half of California if my estimatation is correct.

Anyway, CA is in big trouble. They're going to issue IOU's. When the mortgage company, grocery store, Honda, and the utilities will start accepting them, they might mean something.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Californias-cash-crunch-IOUs-cnnm-2363718367.html?x=0&.v=1

**Kilkrazy**

The advantage of geothermal and tide power are they are very predictable. You don't have to build lots of overcapacity for the days when the tide doesn't flow in your area.

Modern power installations are major infrastructure which means (a) major capital investment and (b) major engineering safety concerns as Dietrich pointed out. Thanks to (a), it's best to match built capacity to required capacity rather than overbuild.

Solar and wind IMO have a bigger role in micro-power installations. I mean something like a combined solar and wind turbine which you would get fitted on your roof like a satellite dish. It wouldn't work all the time, but it would be free power when it did.

**Frazzled**

Kilkrazy wrote:The advantage of geothermal and tide power are they are very predictable. You don't have to build lots of overcapacity for the days when the tide doesn't flow in your area.

Modern power installations are major infrastructure which means (a) major capital investment and (b) major engineering safety concerns as Dietrich pointed out. Thanks to (a), it's best to match built capacity to required capacity rather than overbuild.

Solar and wind IMO have a bigger role in micro-power installations. I mean something like a combined solar and wind turbine which you would get fitted on your roof like a satellite dish. It wouldn't work all the time, but it would be free power when it did.

yep. Speaking of which, Solar Shingles, brought to you by the evil corporation:
http://news.dow.com/dow_news/corporate/2009/20091005b.htm

**Kilkrazy**

Cool!

**George Spiggott**

Orkeosaurus wrote:
George Spiggott wrote:blaming the consumer for the amount of waste they produce is slowed.
Why?

Aren't they the ones who want the product that's covered in packaging? They purchased the packaging when they purchased what was inside it. They knew this was the case.

No they don't have much choice in the matter. Not buying day to day goods (food) isn't the solution. Handing out less packaging in the first place is.

**Kilkrazy**

Depends what you choose to buy.

I buy a lot of pre-packaged meals because I'm living alone and they are convenient. There is always a lot of plastic and cardboard in my recycling bins.

If I buy non-packaged ingredients I can buy fruit, veg, meat, fish, bread and so on with minimal packaging. It's there, you just have to pick it.

My sin is I tend to buy too much and half of it goes to waste.

Some things are difficult to cook for one -- paellas and stews, for example.

**warpcrafter**

Frazzled wrote:
warpcrafter wrote:

The wind is always blowing somewhere, and the sun is always shining somewhere. The trick is to have so many wind turbines and so many solar cells and such a well-interconnected power grid that the power which is generated is available everywhere, and also some means to store any unneeded power just in case of disasters. Solar cells are getting cheaper and easier to manufacture all time, as are batteries. The initial outlay will be significant, but the power sources they harvest are infinite.

Thats not feasible from an engineering standpoint.

Are you really gonna make me be the optimist in this conversation? Or do you relish the thought of a new dark age descending upon the Human race once the fossil fuels run out? I now officially have a migraine.

**Frazzled**

warpcrafter wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
warpcrafter wrote:

The wind is always blowing somewhere, and the sun is always shining somewhere. The trick is to have so many wind turbines and so many solar cells and such a well-interconnected power grid that the power which is generated is available everywhere, and also some means to store any unneeded power just in case of disasters. Solar cells are getting cheaper and easier to manufacture all time, as are batteries. The initial outlay will be significant, but the power sources they harvest are infinite.

Thats not feasible from an engineering standpoint.

Are you really gonna make me be the optimist in this conversation? Or do you relish the thought of a new dark age descending upon the Human race once the fossil fuels run out? I now officially have a migraine.

Perish the thought. I did note solar, geo, and tidal. Plus there's that fusion thing. Wind is nice but its just not there.

**Kilkrazy**

Apparently 40% of all Europe's wind blows over the British Isles.

That's because we eat such a lot of baked beans.

**Orkeosaurus**

Kilkrazy wrote:Depends what you choose to buy.

I buy a lot of pre-packaged meals because I'm living alone and they are convenient. There is always a lot of plastic and cardboard in my recycling bins.

If I buy non-packaged ingredients I can buy fruit, veg, meat, fish, bread and so on with minimal packaging. It's there, you just have to pick it.

My sin is I tend to buy too much and half of it goes to waste.

Some things are difficult to cook for one -- paellas and stews, for example.

Exactly. You're not going to have no packaging in either case. The issue is specifically "excessive" packaging, and there's a lot of variation between different products in that regard. (Because, already, there are many people who look for less packaging when buying a product.)

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, no love for Fission?

**Frazzled**

Orkeosaurus wrote:
Kilkrazy wrote:Depends what you choose to buy.

I buy a lot of pre-packaged meals because I'm living alone and they are convenient. There is always a lot of plastic and cardboard in my recycling bins.

If I buy non-packaged ingredients I can buy fruit, veg, meat, fish, bread and so on with minimal packaging. It's there, you just have to pick it.

My sin is I tend to buy too much and half of it goes to waste.

Some things are difficult to cook for one -- paellas and stews, for example.
Exactly. You're not going to have no packaging in either case. The issue is specifically "excessive" packaging, and there's a lot of variation between different products in that regard. (Because, already, there are many people who look for less packaging when buying a product.)

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, no love for Fission?

NIMBY treehuggers have eliminated new fission in the US. At least until gas returns to $4 a gallon, which who knows-next year?